We're big fans of self-affirmation here at MarketingProfs, and so is Marketing Smarts podcast guest Adrian Moreno, who advises on Episode 556 that the only thing getting in the way of others seeing you as an expert is... well, yourself.

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"Nobody is going to call you the best until you say you're the best," he says. "Nobody is going to call you a writer until you say you're a writer. It doesn't matter where they sit.... If they know that they have an expertise that is extremely valuable, they can drive revenue for organizations, they can change culture in organizations.... It is your obligation to see yourself as an expert at that point."

What being the go-to expert means is that when looking for the solution to a problem, the name automatically associated with it should be yours. But how do you even get there?

Friends in high places, Adrian says: "If you can find some way to become friends with everybody that your potential customers already see as an authority...[then] being endorsed by that person is the next step."

And for the insecure who may feel quirky or weird or "not good enough," that's where magnetism actually comes from, he insists.

"What makes you more magnetic than anything...is finding the parts of yourself that you feel like are weird, that you feel ashamed about, that you don't want to talk about, and talking about them," he says. "All stories are interesting, but not all stories are told. The moment you tell your story, you automatically become interesting."

Now that's wisdom.

Listen to the entire show from the link above, or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode.

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"Marketing Smarts" theme music composed by Juanito Pascual of Signature Tones.

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Full Transcript: How to Become the Go-To Expert in Your Niche

George B. Thomas: I'm excited because today we're talking with Adrian Moreno. More importantly, we're talking about how to become the go-to expert in your niche. We talk to Adrian about what keeps them up at night, what the heck do we even mean by go-to expert, hurdles, success, tips, tricks, and everything that you need to know along the way.

Adrian Moreno began his career in the health and fitness space while also gaining unparalleled experience with hypnosis and NLP, establishing himself as a respected transformation specialist through the power of hypnosis. Going against what his mentors taught, Adrian spent his marketing efforts pitching and getting booked on top podcasts and grew that hypnotherapy company to a quarter of a million dollars in only 12 months.

Now he spends his time teaching other coaches, course creators, and content creators how to do the same thing. If he isn't doing that, you can find him writing, reading, or watching The Office. Let's go ahead and get into this dope conversation about how to become the go-to expert in your niche with Adrian Moreno. Let's get into the good stuff…

I'm super excited. Do you know Adrian Moreno? You will after this episode. Today we're going to be talking about how to become the go-to expert in your niche.

Adrian, how are you doing today?

Adrian Moreno: I'm doing phenomenal. I just got done doing my 30-minute walk this morning, so I feel really good right now.

George: There you go. You have to keep at the healthy hustle, Marketing Smarts listeners. Obviously, you had a good night's sleep, maybe, but I always like to start the podcast with a question that goes in that direction. It could be a dream, it could be a nightmare, but what keeps you up at night around the conversation of humans trying to become the go-to expert in their niche?

Adrian: The fact that so many people think that it takes money to become known in your industry, that it takes a lot of income or a big track record. "Oh, I have to have all this credibility, or this long track record to show that I am this expert that everybody should be working with." In reality, it can happen without those things.

I would say that's it. I'm seeing a lot of people fork out lots of money on different PR agencies and firms to be out there more, and it's unnecessary in today's world. I would say that's it, a lot of people thinking that they have to buy their way to the top when they don't have to.

George: We'll get into that how you can do it without all the money and all the things that are keeping you up at night. It sounds like it might be a little bit of a nightmare, to be honest with you.

One of the things that I also like to do is I like to level-set. When you say become a go-to expert and when I say become a go-to expert, and when somebody in the audience thinks about becoming a go-to expert, all three of us, or five bazillion of us if we count all of the listeners, could have a completely different thought of what the heck we mean. When we say become the go-to expert, what the heck do we even mean when we're saying this?

Adrian: Put it this way. Back when Nike was starting to really take over and they started to outsell out Tigers, Pumas, Adidas, it got to a point where Olympians, every single time it came to getting their running shoes, their first thought was no longer Adidas, for the very first time. I believe it was 1983. Phil Knight wrote about this on his personal blog, and he talked about the very first time every single Olympian asked for a Nike to do their running. That is what I mean.

What I mean by that is the moment of a certain solution, a name automatically becomes associated with it. That should be your name. The moment somebody thinks, "I want to start getting on podcasts," or, "I want to start being more known in my industry," my name should be the immediate associated name with that. You plant yourself subconsciously and then water it every day, and then when they're ready for that solution, it sprouts and it's immediate.

That's what I mean when I say the go-to expert.

George: We're planting a plant and we're watering it every day. I love that metaphor, analogy, or whatever you want to call it. Our title literally says how to become the go-to expert in your niche, we covered that. Why is it so important to find and pay attention to a niche that becomes your niche?

Adrian: Why is it important? Whenever people say niche down and they're like, "I feel like I'm going to lose out on opportunities." I heard this one metaphor, I have no idea who said it, but I just remember I heard it.

If you were on a boat and you were fishing, you had to get fish for some food, and you had a net, and there were a bunch of big holes in the net because you don't want to niche down super tight, so you have all these big holes in the net. If you throw that out into the ocean, you're going to get some fish, but a lot are going to go through those holes. If you tighten those holes and get really tight on that niche, when you throw that net into the ocean, it has smaller holes, so you're going to pull in a lot more fish.

Whenever you know what your niche is and you know how to communicate to your people, the best thing about a niche is knowing where they're at. The beauty of the world today is the Internet. There are places where your ideal customers are gathering. They're all hanging out in one place. It's not like back then when you paid for a TV ad and hopefully you got in front of the right people. Nowadays, audiences are hanging out together.

If you know what your niche is and you're actually going to be able to find that audience, and do the rest of what we're going to talk about today, it makes communicating easier, it makes selling easier. You can charge a lot more money when you're very niched. Like Alex Hormozi says, don't get niche slapped.

George: Oh, dang. We might lose our PG rating if we keep going in this direction. I'd like to break this down into elements. You started to talk about communication. I heard a little vibe of community flavor almost coming out in that last little section. What are some key elements to becoming that go-to expert that B2B marketers should be paying attention to? How do experts act, who do they show up? Maybe it's a different direction, but the elements that go into this.

Adrian: Number one, I like to say market like Jesus. In other words, be very bold in what you say, be very strong and consistent in what you say, and not afraid of what other people think. We have Gary Vaynerchuck, we have Dave Ramsey, we have Grant Cardone, every single of them have people who can't stand them, but also every single one of them have people that will go to bat for them. It's because they're magnetic, because of the way that they carry themselves in their truth and what they say.

Whenever you have that kind of energy about your word and your message, it stands out tremendously, especially in a world where you can get canceled for calling a group of people guys. In this world where there is more and more of this, you have to be careful. What I've seen is becoming a respectable individual as somebody who is not liked, but somebody who is respected for the way that they carry themselves. You can respect somebody that you don't like 1,000%.

Another thing about how you actually become this person is finding who your people already see as an authority. If you can find some way to become friends with everybody that your potential customers see as an authority, if they already see them as an authority and you can become friends with that individual, being endorsed by that person is the next step.

The moment that you get endorsed by somebody that the crowd or the audience sees as an authority, you automatically gain that authority or that respect. Just like if your doctor said you have a heart problem, you have to go to this doctor, you're not going to shop around, you're not going to check prices, you're going to be quiet, you're going to give them the credit card, and you're going to say, "Take care of me."

Something happens when you get endorsed by somebody that's already an authority figure. That's really the shortcut to becoming the go-to person in a very specific niche, finding all of those people that are hanging out in that niche that are authorities and just befriending them. Eventually, you'll see that every single one is an opportunity to be endorsed by them. I believe there's nothing more powerful in marketing than an endorsement from a trusted friend.

Did that answer your question?

George: Oh, it absolutely answers the question, and there are so many good pieces that I think the listeners could pull out of there. First of all, I think it's the first reference to Jesus in any Marketing Smarts Podcast that we've ever had. The fact that it was Jesus, Gary V, and Grant Cardone in the same paragraph of humans, nonhumans, and potential people who were humans and then became not-humans and Gods, there's a whole lot there.

What I really love is the fact that you said this; polarizing, people will hate them or go to bat for them. Polarizing, where my brain goes in a positive way is based on, in your words, the truth, or your truth. You even added in there becoming a magnet. There is something about being able to attract the people who are supposed to be around you that, I agree, in this conversation of becoming that go-to expert and niching your way down, that magnet mentality is a massive thread that the listeners could pull on as they move forward.

Adrian: One thing on the magnet piece. One of the things that I've realized in this thought leader go-to expert in this space is what makes you more magnetic than anything, and this is like how you said, how experts can carry themselves, is finding the parts of yourself that you feel like are weird, that you feel ashamed about, that you don't want to talk about, and talking about them.

I remember I made a blog post on how I enjoy smoking weed, and how I thought it was okay to be an entrepreneur and do that. The amount of people who got mad was there, but the amount of people who shared that article and the amount of followers I got because of that article, and new conversations that turned into new deals because of that article was insane.

When you find the parts of yourself and you amplify those parts of yourself that you feel like people may be turned off to, you will find that you become extremely magnetic. It's something about your personality that when you focus on it, it's interesting, but I teach that to everybody that I work with, and it's the form of find the things that you are scared of and talk about them, and you'll find that you become very attractive, your personality attracts very specific people.

George: Absolutely. I'm super curious if Snoop Dogg or Willie Nelson were in your comments section of that article. Maybe it was Martha Stewart. I don't know, but I'm sure that you had some people commenting in there.

I want to swing back around because I have a really big fear. I would call it actually a really massive fear. So, I'm going to ask a little bit of a side question before we get into the rest of what I want to talk about today. This podcast is for B2B marketers. My fear is that they might be sitting there thinking, "I'm learning this so that I can be in the room for somebody that is in the C-suite," instead of listening to this podcast and saying, "How do I become that person in the organization even if I'm not part of the C-suite."

Is the expert the B2B marketer listening to this or is it the C-suite expert? Unpack a little bit of that for me.

Adrian: The expert is whoever calls themselves the expert. What I mean by that is nobody is going to call you the best until you say you're the best. Nobody is going to call you a writer until you say you're a writer. It doesn't matter where they sit, the reality is if they know that they have an expertise that is extremely valuable, they can drive revenue for organizations, they can change culture in organizations, and they know that they have something that is truly valuable, it is your obligation to see yourself as an expert at that point and to carry yourself as an expert at that point.

I wouldn't say it's this one or that one. Whatever one has the ability to call themselves the expert and own that part of themselves, because once you see yourself as something, you start acting like it. I didn't become great at marketing until I started thinking you are the most savage marketer that you know. Then you start becoming a good marketer. It's a little esoteric of an answer, but I think it's the kind of answer that the audience needs to hear, as opposed to breaking it down in any other way.

George: I like the answer because I think if you break this down to its simplest form, it's beat the street, do the work, but the lever that we're pulling here is you have to believe. You have to believe that the work that you put in has created you to become this thing. When you have the work, the foundation, and the belief in yourself that you're that thing, it doesn't matter who you are. So, B2B marketer listening to this that thinks they can't be an expert in their niche, yes, you can.

Adrian: You're already one.

George: You're already one, yes. And if not, you're on your way. Trust us. Adrian, is there a common myth about becoming a go-to expert in a niche area that you want to debunk here on the Marketing Smarts Podcast, something that you're like I call BS?

Adrian: The fact that you have to have a lot of credibility and a track record behind you. One of my main things in helping people become a go-to expert is, as you know, getting people booked on podcasts that are in their niche. One of the most common things I hear is, "I'm an expert, but if you look at my name, you're not going to find anything. Who is going to want me on their show? There's nothing there." That's one.

When it comes to debunking that, Claude Hopkins, a legendary advertiser, was assigned to grow Schlitz Beer Company and create an advertising campaign for them in the early 1900s. Schlitz Beer Company brought in Claude Hopkins to walk around the plant. A lot of people have heard this story. He walks around the entire beer plant to see how it's made. He tells them, "This is the most sophisticated process I've ever seen. Why are you not talking about this in your marketing?"

They go, "Well, everybody makes beer like this. Every beer company does this. There is nothing special about this." In other words, there is nothing special about me. Claude Hopkins says, "Everybody may do it, but nobody is telling the story. If you can be the first one to tell the story, watch what happens." Within only six months, they became the dominant selling beer in the US market. I'm pretty sure they're not number one today, but back then they were able to take over the US with that marketing campaign.

The reason I say that is because it highlights a lesson. The lesson is that all stories are interesting, but not all stories are told. The moment you tell your story, you automatically become interesting. I don't care who you are. George B. Thomas had no idea who I was when I pitched him, and you can Google me and you won't find a ton of stuff, but I pitched him with a story that he probably was like because of the way that I pitched him and the way that I appealed to him through my story, you become credible in somebody's mind, you become interesting in their mind. It's not a matter of what you've done, it's a matter of are you talking about what you've done.

One of the second big myths that I'm running into a lot is, "I don't have the income to hire a PR firm or something to start being everywhere, start being on TV shows, start being on podcasts, and all of that stuff." The reality is in 2023, there are endless softwares that help you get booked on podcasts, there are endless softwares that help you find direct contact info to all of these big TV hosts. Believe it or not, there are softwares to get you the decision-maker emails of the biggest news stations that you think you couldn't get into. That's one thing.

On top of that is when you know how to pitch yourself, or even train somebody to pitch for you, when you know how to do that... I got booked on over 80 shows in 14 months and I didn't spend a dollar on PR. It's a matter of just forcefully putting yourself out there into the world by finding the tools that already exist and then learning how to stand out amongst the crowd that are using those tools, because now that there's a lot of softwares out, there's a whole bunch of people sending really crappy pitches. Just learning how to stand out amongst those pitches on all of these softwares is going to help you get in front of the right people.

Those are the two things that I've seen stop the most people from stepping into the public eye and really being seen by people to be that's the go-to person in this niche. Those are the two big ones that I see.

George: There's so much good there. By the way, as the host of the Marketing Smarts Podcast, I get hundreds of pitches a month. What's interesting is when you pitched, and I want the listeners to know this, you pitched via video.

Here's a little backstory. The listeners don't know this, but they're about to learn it. I actually hired my daughter to go through all of the pitches that I get, and she works through if she thinks it's a topic that I want to do an interview on or not. You were the only person that she has ever come to me with a pitch and said, "Dad, I think you're going to like this guy. He's a lot like you." That's why you got your foot in the door, because it was story, it was video, we could hear the hero's journey of the aggressive downturn, the shot up. There was just something special. It was a dope story.

I'll tell you what else is a dope story, that last section is a rewind place in the podcast. Words like all stories are interesting, but not all stories are told. Boom. Oh my gosh, I got goosebumps. Then it's not about what you've done, it's about talking about what you've done. Ladies and gentlemen, if you just take those two things and think about how you can apply them to your marketing moving forward. Then I was like bases are loaded, Adrian is trying to hit a homerun, you said forcefully enter the world and then stand out. I feel like I need to give the listeners a light moment of silence just to think about that.

Let's get into the nitty-gritty, the tactical. Are there any tips, tricks, templates, hacks, frameworks that B2B marketers can use when trying to become the go-to expert or use once they achieve that expert status? What are your thoughts?

Adrian: For sure. First things first, the concept of Dream 100. I remember I got 40 high-ticket clients in one day from one talk. The reason why I got 40 high-ticket clients is because I spoke to a room of 60 ideal clients. The reason why 40 of them wanted to work with me after the fact was because the individual that endorsed me was somebody that they saw as a very high authority in their mind. They paid this guy hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with him, and now he's saying, "You all should listen to this," 20-something-year-old kid at the time. Before you knew it, I had a roster full of clients after that, and I had a good little wait list for a while after that, and that's because I got endorsed by somebody that my clients see as an authority and respect.

What is your bucket that you focus on? Is it health, wealth, or relationships? Chances are it's wealth if we're talking B2B marketers. That's the big bucket. Now what's the subcategory to that? List-buying, or list-building, let's just say that's what it is. Start looking for the biggest influencers in the marketing space that have mentioned list-building. Start looking for the biggest influencers in your space that people are already listening to. Again, you want to find where they're already gathering.

The easiest way to find where your people are gathering is to find out who they're listening to. You can use BuzzSumo, I believe. It's a pretty cool platform that helps you pick certain niches and see who the influencers are. Making a list of all of the influencers that your people listen to is going to make the next step a lot easier.

The next step is looking up all of the podcasts that those people have been on. When you look at the podcasts that those influencers have been on, you start seeing shows that your listeners are listening to. Your ideal customers are listening to these podcasts because they're interested in these influencers. You want to start making a spreadsheet of all of these shows. Using Hunter.io, scrape their emails. Make sure you always get a host's direct email. I just use Hunter.io for that.

Then it comes down to sending the pitch. How do you pitch yourself? If we're focused on becoming a go-to expert by being booked on podcasts, now how do you send a pitch that makes you stand out? Number one, do it through a video. Nobody in the universe is sending videos right now, I promise. I've been a podcaster for six or seven years, I ran a top show for a long time, so many pitches that I've gotten, and none of them are video. Listen to what George literally just told you. Turning the video on and telling a story instead of writing a pitch will make you stand out light years ahead of other people.

Right now, we live in a world where you can type a couple of words into a box and you get a Picasso-like image. We live in the age of AI. Human connection will be the most valuable thing you can imagine. If you send somebody a video, and don't use one of those AIs to make the video, send a real video pitch and make sure that you highlight your hero's journey. Always hit the epiphany moment.

I'll give an example of my pitch, if that's okay with you, so that they can actually get a template.

George: Absolutely.

Adrian: Cool. Here we go. If you want a template, here you go.

"Hey, George. What's going on? I came across your Marketing Smarts Podcast. I was listening to your episode with _____, and you all talked about _____. I really like that because _____. I also looked at the rest of your episode topics, not because I listened to every episode, but I just wanted to get a good feel of the kinds of things that you've been jamming on. Honestly, I feel like there is a nice potential opportunity for me to be able to go in and serve your audience in a really unique way. I know you don't know who I am. A couple of years ago, I had to make a phone call to my mom and ask her if I could move back into the house because I had just lost everything. You see, I made half a million dollars in my fitness business, but when I transitioned that company to a hypnotherapy business, I went six months without getting a client. All of my DMs, all of my social media posts, everything just stopped working and I felt like I was going to lose everything. Then one day, one of my friends invited me to go speak to her group of clients. I spoke to her clients. Three out of nine of them became clients of mine. That's when I had the epiphany of a lifetime, the best way to market is instead of marketing directly to your customer, market to the people and the organizations that have your customer and then be endorsed by them. With that, I was able to get booked on 52 podcasts in 2022 and generate $213,000 in sales through those bookings. I did that with a three-step framework that I would love to break down for your audience, because I feel like it's very relevant and very valuable to everything that you're doing. If you would like to collaborate and create this wow moment, let me know what the next best steps are."

Boom. It takes less than three minutes. That kind of pitch, you emotionally pull somebody in. It's hypnotic in nature. By the way, fun fact, I'm a hypnotist, too. My shirt says, "Trust me, I'm a hypnotist." That makes me a danger as a marketer.

The point of putting a pitch out there, whether it's a TV show or something, let's just focus on podcasts, when you're putting a pitch out there, the key is if you want them to do something, you have to get them emotional. The key to getting people emotional, from a hypnotist, is to install an image in their mind. If you have a picture in your mind, emotions will follow. Right now, picture your spouse, or your kids, or your dog. Close your eyes and picture them, you'll feel fuzzy and warm after because feelings follow pictures.

You want to tell a story. That's why I didn't say, "Hey, George. My name is Adrian, and I do this." No. It was, "Hey, George. My name is Adrian. You don't know me, but one day I had to call my mom and ask her if I could move back in." Now, I also opened a loop in your brain. When you have a loop that gets opened in your brain, it needs to come to its conclusion. So, now you need to watch the rest of the video to find out what happened. It pulls somebody in.

The framework of the video is to connect up front, say the name of the show, refer to a real episode. Don't just say, "I like your interview style." Refer to an episode, connect with them. That's the connect phase. After the connect phase, you introduce yourself through a story. That story should be tied to why you do what you do. It's that origin story behind why you do.

Then, please, for the love of God, do not forget to ask. A lot of people don't ask. At the end, make your ask. "If you would like to collaborate and create this wow moment, let me know what the next best steps are." Then start sending your pitches out.

Real quick, before I go over the very last thing, are there any questions or anything that you want to pull out of what I just said?

George: In your pitch, you mentioned a three-part framework. I'm guessing connect is one of them. Introduce yourself is probably one of those parts. Is ask the third part? Get into that framework.

Adrian: Okay. That's actually the framework of the pitch. The three-part framework to turning interviews into evergreen marketing funnels, the first part of that framework is to make your Dream 100 list, that is to build the list full of ideal podcasts that your people are listening to. You build the list, that's step one.

Step two is creating your power story. That's your power pitch. That's the story behind why you do what you do. Again, there is no such thing as a boring story. Human beings are just story fanatics because of the way that we're wired. I don't care how boring you think your story is, start telling it.

The third step of the framework is what I call becoming a power guest. I've been doing this the whole time. Just about every single question you've asked me, I don't know if you noticed this, but I've answered back with a story every time. Every single question posed to you, if you answer it in a story, I like to say you're forcing people to want to follow you because you're so entertaining, because the stories that you tell actually connect with people. So, you want to find stories that highlight the epiphanies that your clients need to have or highlight the beliefs that your prospect needs to have to become a client.

For me, one of the beliefs my prospect needs to have is the best way to market is to be endorsed by other people to other audiences. If I can get them to believe that, I can sell them my course. The story I told here was I talked to my mentor Michael Chu, his group of 60 clients, and I got 40 clients. Like I told in the pitch story, my friend invited me to a Zoom call, and I got three clients after six months of a dry spell, and that's when I realized the best way to do this is just to be in front of other audiences. In the Claude Hopkins story, they need to believe that their story can be interesting.

You want to find stories that highlight the beliefs that your audience needs to have to become a client, and tell those stories throughout the entire interview. What you're doing is you're indoctrinating them into a way of thinking, into a way of believing. When they are thinking like you, the likelihood of them buying from you is a lot higher. That's the third step of the framework.

Now, there is a fourth step that I've kind of added recently. That is executing the follow up funnel. You need to have a very dialed-in follow up funnel. For example, on these podcasts, most people ask, "Where can the audience follow you if they want to learn more about you?" What most guests do is they list out every which way that they can follow you, "I have a website here, I have this here, I have this here." What that does is create a problem of too many options. Human beings don't like options. We think we do, but when they're presented to us, we lose our ability to be decisive.

So, just give them one place to go. For me, that's always one link that's going to grab an email and some contact info so that I can work the follow up after. I make a little bit over $1,000 a day right now through email, just through people getting onto my email list and then me doing emails to get them to buy my stuff. That's my sales process, enter my list, then buy a digital product from the emails that you're going to read. A very simple sales process. You have to know what your sales process is, which I'm sure that you do if you're listening to this podcast. You need to make sure that it's dialed in.

Whenever you're doing these interviews and you're being seen on stages, you need to make sure that you're sending them to one place that gathers contact info. Don't just send them to your main website that has 30 different buttons for them to push. I send them to one site where you have one option, you push this button and give me your info or you close this page. You need to send them to a page where they don't have options, there's only one thing for them to do. Get their contact info, however you like to follow up with them, and make sure you have a sales system to follow up with every single person that touches your list. Every single person that touches my list, gets followed up by me, whether it's automatic or not. But you need to make sure that you have that in place to make sure that you're not just getting on a bunch of shows and doing a bunch of talks, but to also make sure that you're turning these into profit engines and you're making money from these things.

That's the four-step framework to this whole thing in terms of finding shows, getting booked on them, and turning them into evergreen marketing funnels that fill up your programs, your roster, whatever it is that you're doing.

George: So good. What are the hurdles that are going to get in people's way?

Adrian: Themselves, to be honest. It's just the whole, "I feel like my story is not that good," and insecurities. The reality is that's the only thing that ever gets in our way.

Now you know what to do, but if you don't do it, it's literally because there is something going on internally. As somebody who comes from really deeply emotional background in hypnotherapy and all of that, a lot of people say, "Drop the doubt," and all of that, I just say ignore it. It's not a matter of dropping the doubt. It's like you're going to sit next to me and I'm going to do the damn thing anyway.

Another thing is people say have faith. Act like you have faith. You don't have to have faith, but act like you do. Whenever you're pitching people, act like they're going to say yes. Every pitch I send, I assume it's going to be a yes. That level of assumption shows in my pitches, too. It's a strong pitch.

Right now, if you're thinking it's not going to work for you, it's because you're assuming something. I want you to get this. Everything in your mind that you think is true is an assumption, and you can assume anything else. In the same exact way that you assume you're going to use the restroom when you go to the restroom, assume that your story is going to be interesting, assume that people are going to receive it enthusiastically, assume that you are going to be the kind of guest that forces people to want to follow you. Just have that level of deep assumption about yourself and about your expertise, and that will take you further than any podcast will ever take you.

George: A mindset of positive intent. If you can add a cup, a gallon, or as much as possible to your life of that, you will be in a great place. So, what does success look like, how do we know we have go-to expert in our niche status or have reached the nirvana of being a go-to expert?

Adrian: First of is if you're being chased, you're no longer chasing people. The only pitching I do is just to podcasts. I don't pitch people to buy my stuff anymore. You Google my name, I'm starting to become known, I've done a lot of things, so every single day I'm having 50, 60, 70 people join my email list and buying from me. People want to buy from you, they pay you more expensively, and they don't throw objections your way.

For me, for some context, your average hypnotherapist charges maybe $60 to $120 a session. If you wanted to do three sessions with them, you're maybe looking at about $500 on the high end. I charge $5,000 for three sessions. People were not giving me any objections. They were like, "Okay, I expect you to be expensive," paying me in full, and being wonderful clients. You're attracting those kind of people who don't see your invoice and say, "Oh God, please, I hope this works." You're attracting the kind of people who say, "Paid, done, thanks." You're getting those kind of people, but you're becoming the kind of person who is being chased.

Then when it comes to the success side of things, the other day, I didn't get a chance to go to my nephew's graduation because I wasn't in town, so the other day I took my nephew to go see Super Mario Bros in the middle of the day. I probably made $500 while we were sitting there watching the movie. To me, that's success, the ability to take my nephew where I want to take him, when I want to take him, the ability to go hang out with friends when I want to be able to do that.

For me, success is not a certain number in my account. It's the ability to do what I want with who I want when I want, however I want to do it. That's what it means to me personally. I don't care about having a certain amount of money. It's just, do I have the freedom to live how I want to live. One of the things I value more than anything is time and family. When my grandma passed away, it was the hardest thing I've ever experienced, and the biggest pain was that I told her I was busy every time she asked me to hang out.

When I reflected on that, I realized that I had to change the way that I did business. I was like I'm not going to be working 60 to 80 to 100 hours a week just so that I can be rich and make money. I'm going to set up a business where I don't have to do that, and I can see my other grandma who is still alive, and I can do these things. I just don't want to feel that again, so for me, success is the ability to create a life where I don't have to feel that.

George: That was so good. Here's the thing. You've been on a journey. We're all on a journey. Along the way, we learn things, we gain what we like to call wisdom. What are the words of wisdom that you would want to share with the Marketing Smarts listeners about becoming a go-to expert in their niche?

Adrian: The world belongs to the people who ask for what they want. Experts ask for what they want by forcefully putting themselves out there into the world, by forcefully asking for opportunities. You didn't come to me. I asked for this opportunity. That's because the world belongs to me. With that kind of belief system, understanding that as a marketer the world belongs to the people who ask for what they want is very important.

One more thing about becoming a go-to expert, a nugget of wisdom. Remember that anticipating a kiss is more desirable than the actual kiss itself. What I mean by that is most people try to become the greatest experts by teaching the world everything they want to know and by giving all of the value, everything they want to know, but when you do that, you kill desire, you kill people's energy and interest in wanting to continue to follow you.

If you don't know what I mean, next time you go to your partner, don't kiss them, just hang out inches away from their lips and see the intensity of that experience as opposed to the actual kiss itself. As a go-to expert, dangle what people want in front of them. Don't be so quick to give all of the answers immediately in all of your content.

Every piece of marketing content that you do should be a vehicle. They're jumping in a vehicle and you're taking them to a destination. If they get in the vehicle and they're at the destination already, I know people are like, "You want to take them to their destination, that's great," but in terms of marketing, you want it to be a vehicle, you want it to be something that they're anticipating the entire time.

Do what you want with that. That little piece of knowledge right there made me a really interesting marketer for people to follow and it made my conversions increase, and all of that. I gave a lot of value here, but if you follow my content, I do give value, but I dangle it in front of people, I don't give it directly to them. It's an interesting way to do it, but it makes you more appealing.

George: Marketing Smarts listeners, did you take lots of notes? I have to ask, what is your one thing, your number one execution opportunity after this podcast episode? Make sure you reach out and let us know in my inbox or on Twitter using the hashtag #MPB2B.

I also have to ask are you a free member of the MarketingProfs community yet? If not, head over to Mprofs.com/mptoday. You won't regret the additional B2B marketing education that you'll be adding to your life.

We'd like it if you could leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app, but we'd love it if you would share this episode with a coworker or friend. Until we meet in the next episode of the Marketing Smarts Podcast where we talk with Jill Roberson about the shift from digital transformation to digital evolution, I hope you do just a couple of things. One, reach out and let us know what conversation you'd like to listen in on next. Two, focus on getting 1% better at your craft each and every day. Finally, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble B2B marketing human. We'll see you in the next episode of the Marketing Smarts Podcast.

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Published on July 27, 2023