Key Person of Influence
A (long) summary of Daniel Priestley’s book on personal brand and entrepreneurship
Who is Daniel Priestley anyway?
A serial entrepreneur, Priestley is the founder of Dent Global, an accelerator which specialises in scaling traditional service businesses with 6–7 figure revenues, by helping founders differentiate their brand.
I don’t have time to read it, what are the main points?
- A Key Person of Influence is one of the ‘top 10 percent’ of their industry. These leaders make more money with less effort, get more recognition, have more enjoyment at work, and attract more opportunities that are a good fit for them, than the other 90%.
- Priestley claims those who follow his KPI Method can be Key People of Influence in their industry within 12 months.
- There is a catch — the first step is tightly defining what constitutes your ‘industry’, identifying a highly specific micro niche you can dominate.
- Crafting a pitch for that micro-niche is foundation, telling the story of ‘why’ you are passionate about it, that is authoritative, is clear about the value offered, and can be delivered both in short form in social situations, or as a formal presentation.
- Publishing content — thought leadership, podcasts, articles in publications and other intellectual property — then raises profile, establishing credibility and building a deep connection with customers in that micro niche.
- Creating a business model based around an ecosystem of differentiated products (and services) allows your skill-set and IP to become assets. This system of products can be sold instead of your time, allowing scalability.
- Finally, establishing a network of meaningful ‘win-win’ partnerships which leverage other KPIs with different strengths — targeting similar people — allow this impact to be multiplied dramatically.
These steps need to be completed in order — if the right micro-niche and pitch aren’t in place, the rest will be weakened or wasted.
⬇️ If you’d like to know more, the rest of this article drills into these five points in detail. ️⬇️
Doesn’t focusing on a micro-niche limit my growth?
Ultimately, in a contest between a generalist and a specialist, the latter will usually win. There are few prizes to be gained by being mid-ranked in lots of different contests. By moving ‘from a shotgun to a rifle’, you start to focus on contests where you are in a good position to win, improve and tailor your offering to improve your chances there, and gain traction as a result.
This micro-niche is very specific — being a food photographer is not a micro niche sufficient, but being a cocktail photographer in East London would be. It may be focused on an unmet need, or a common frustration for a specific group. It may be based on your best client case study to date. Ultimately though, this micro-niche must be one that you have genuine concern toward and deep interest in, to the point that you will feel comfortable with saying ‘no’ to other opportunities.
What does a pitch look like?
According to Priestley, a perfect pitch:
- Oozes credibility, using evidence
- Articulates a key problem for your micro-niche, in a way that conveys the reason behind your passion for it
- Demonstrates a solution, with proof and insight
- Articulates a payoff in some combination of money, time, or quality of life
- Makes a specific ask of the listener
- Leaves the audience uplifted with a positive end e.g. a personal story
- Elicits a reaction
- Comes in two formats — a social pitch, then a presentation pitch for more formal contexts, and
- Informs all the other steps; content, products, partnerships.
Why would I publish my ideas — isn’t that giving them away?
In a world where vast amounts of information is freely available, with customers who are drowning in options and time poor, implementation — not the idea — is increasingly where the value is delivered and the money is made. As Priestley says, nobody stops going to a great chef’s restaurant because they shared their secrets in their cookbook.
As you author content about your micro niche, your profile and perceived authority in that area grows. In turn, this pays dividends at every stage of your sales cycle:
- Social media allows your content to be targeted at members of your specific micro-niche; as they consume it, inbound leads and enquiries are generated.
- These inquiries are more likely to convert into sales when there is credible and compelling content to build deep connection with those who have spent the time to find you.
- As the content continues to engage existing customers, their frequency of purchase / average spend increases on an ongoing basis.
This profile-building content — IP which can be developed further in your products — both allows people to find out more, and to easily pass information about you on to others.
Does ‘publishing’ mean I have to write a book?
The published content can take many forms, including:
- Blogs (which could be a book later)
- YouTube channels
- Slideshares
- Podcasts
- LinkedIn posts
- Reports, and
- Articles published in credible publications (write a few so you can take multiple ones at once)
However, Priestley does emphasise writing a book as the ultimate authoritative content. A 30–50,000 word commitment, 3–5 hours spent just mapping out each chapter, testing potential titles to see the reaction and so on may sound steep. However, this is an opportunity to present methods, case studies, stories, and insights in a way that demonstrates you’ve thought your micro-niche through, while positioning you as a thought leader or at least having access to experts, while the process in and of itself forces you to refine your ideas.
While it needs to answer one significant question for the reader, the format can range from a book of rapid tips, a photo book (designed to sit on coffee tables not bookcases), a book of interviews, or even a creative fictional piece.
Won’t I lose flexibility if I sell defined products instead of whatever my customers ask for?
Because deriving your revenue from products means you no longer rely on being paid based on your time, your personal flexibility is dramatically increased.
Your skills and knowledge are now longer inextricably linked to you; they become intellectual property within an asset. And if it can be accessed easily, in a repeatable and desirable way, there is the potential for it to scale in a way that your time cannot.
Equally, having a defined set of offerings tailored to your micro-niche gives the opportunity to focus on delivering scale rather than being distracted with customisation requests from those outside that niche.
Is one product enough?
Products and services don’t make money, an ecosystem of them — and the business model that links them — does.
The first aim of a product set is maximising the spread of your message across the micro-niche. Products like this are highly scalable (almost certainly digital), designed for building rapport and relationships at high volume for relatively little cost. This relationship is created with a ‘gift’ (e.g. podcast, reports, training materials, webinars, a workbook, ‘peek behind the curtain’ content to show your methods) to share your ideas, educating them about why they should do business with you, with no cost or strings attached. A ‘product for prospects’ (a book, a diagnostic, a strategy workshop — the kind of thing that can be sold at the end of a speaking engagement) then gains a small outlay from the customer, building commitment from them, and setting the scene for a powerful sales conversation.
The second aim is increasing your profitable income from these customer relationships that have been built, with high value products. Core products provide a full and remarkable solution to a real problem for those in your micro-niche, in a repeatable way, at a healthy profit. Those who have bought and benefited from core products can then be sold Products for Clients which — while being totally different — are the next logical step to having used the core product e.g. Apple’s iCloud for customers of iPhone, iMac etc. A final twist on these products might include making a product for your competitors, multiplying your income opportunities by selling your secrets to counterparts in other markets.
What I do can’t be made into a product, can it?
Clearly, some businesses lend themselves to product creation more than others. However, if products are packaged up ideas, then every business can have them. Services — with a name, a defined set of components (either standard or bespoke), a consistent method that can be trained, and wrapped with the right sales collateral — are products.
Who should I partner with?
Great partnerships are all about creating a ‘multiplier effect’, where KPIs connect with each other in meaningful ways. Priestley puts an emphasis on networking not for clients but for partners, looking for those serving similar clients to you, while offering different things or having different strengths to you. These are people who have a list of potential clients, who could co-produce something you, who have products attractive to your contact list, or could open doors for you.
As well as differing focuses but similar target customers, partnership requires the right attitude to one another, with both KPIs and their teams caring about the others’ needs and success, celebrating their wins with them, rather than negotiating for unfair advantage over the other party. As this network of partners builds, spotting great opportunities for other people in that network becomes a key activity.
What needs to be done to get the partnership up and running?
When negotiating the deal, Priestley recommends going in with a fair deal in mind, meeting on neutral ground, bringing a gift to show you’re already thinking about their interests, building rapport before doing business and allowing 15 minutes afterward to follow through on any comments you made.
The partnership which is agreed might take any one of many different forms, including affiliate partnerships — promotion in return for commission — and various product collaborations (either bundling existing products together, or jointly creating something entirely new).
Whatever is decided, it is written down in a way that allows scalable systems to be put in place around them to tracking time, referral, sales, and so on.
Any other pearls of wisdom in there?
Plenty, including:
- When people respond to a pitch with ‘it won’t work because of X’, embrace it — say next time ‘one of the reasons this is difficult is because of X, and here’s how we solved that’.
- ‘Setting aside 5–15% of your revenue for research, training and development is cheaper than falling behind or making costly mistakes’
- ‘Phrase the requests you make of people with the opportunity built in — you’re not begging for help!’
- ‘Resources show up after being resourceful, not before’
- When people are dragging their feet in a partnership negotiation- ‘Any deal taking longer than 15–20 minutes to agree might not be worth doing!’
Worth a read?
The KPI method is an inspiring book in a way that seems genuinely achievable. One potential gap in the method is that doesn’t address whether a micro niche is an attractive one — clearly not all micro niches are created equal! That aside, as a starting point on personal branding, it’s thoroughly helpful.
