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Stress-free Consulting Proposals with Reuben Swartz

Proposals are an essential part of winning business, but writing a consulting proposal is often a hugely time-consuming and frustrating process. In this episode, Reuben Swartz and Alastair McDermott discuss how to create a stress-free consulting proposal, what elements are essential in the proposal document, and why presenting the proposal

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Write a Book in 30 Days with Steve Gordon

Books have long been associated with authority and thought leadership. “He wrote the book on it”, “She wrote the book on it” – that’s how we describe a true expert in a field. “Consultant, author and speaker” is the byline for many thought leaders, and even the word “author” is

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Bonus Episode: Becoming a Recognized Authority

Bonus Episode: Becoming a Recognized Authority – Alastair McDermott with Tamara Howard To celebrate reaching 70 episodes, I have a special bonus episode for you! I was recently on Tamara Howard’s podcast The Better Way to Strategic Marketing where we had a conversation about authority and specialization. Tamara is a super

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How to Be a Key Person of Influence with Chris Do

A key person of influence is someone who is able to separate themselves from the market, to command the lion’s share of attention, and is able to charge a price premium. They are one of the few names mentioned whenever it’s connected to a particular subject. In this episode, Chris

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Sell Expertise, Not Your Hands with Kevin C. Whelan

We often start out working on execution, implementing projects for clients after they’ve decided on strategy. Our former guest David C. Baker talks about this as “working with your hands”. But we can have more impact, be more profitable, and enjoy our work more if we can shift back a

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How to Establish Credibility

What do recognized authorities do to establish visibility & credibility? As someone very interested in authority building, I look closely at what platforms they’re on, how they show up, and what they talk about – and how to replicate it. There are patterns. ⭐ Publishing credibility establishing content on several

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Specialization Case Study – ReeJade Richmond

Even just contemplating niching down your business can feel absolutely terrifying. That’s why I think it’s so important to hear from people who have done it successfully, and learn about the massive rewards that they are seeing. In this bonus episode, ReeJade Richmond and Alastair McDermott discuss how ReeJade niched down

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Building Your Podcast Funnel with Jonathan Baillie Strong

Podcasting is a hot topic, and you heard before on this show and others why you should consider both guesting on podcasts, and even starting your own podcast. But where to start? In this episode, Jonathan Baillie Strong and Alastair McDermott discuss how to approach podcasting as an authority building

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Practical Steps to Build Your Authority

In previous articles I talked about why you should build authority, and I broke down the Journey to Authority into its separate stages. Here I want to talk about what it takes to move from each stage to the next. Practical Action Steps to Build Authority These are the practical action steps

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The Downside of Remaining Generalist

One thing I talk about is the huge value of niching down to a focused specialization.  Yet I know most people won’t do it, because it’s terrifying to niche down. I’ve been there. Our brains create all sorts of logical reasons why it’s not a good idea. Fight or flight:

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Authority is Not Required to be Successful

Becoming an authority in your field is not a requirement to have a successful consulting business. In fact, based on my research, I’d estimate that 90%+ of independent consultants choose not to build their authority. You can remain an “invisible expert”, unknown to all but your referral network, and have

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Building Your Audience with Dan Sanchez

Effective marketing is difficult to get right, and independents like us have a lot to juggle when marketing ourselves. Hubspot says that the biggest determinant of effective marketing is your audience. If we’re not properly targeting our ideal clients, we might as well not be marketing at all.” In this

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The Journey to Authority

In the last article, I talked about why experts like us might want to build authority, and what other options we have. Here’s what I’ve learned about the Journey to Authority over the past few years*. The Journey to Authority The Novice On the road to authority, everyone starts out

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Why Build Authority?

Have you ever looked at a leading authority and thought about how they got there? Or maybe you’ve read their best-selling book, listened to their Top 1% podcast, or watched their amazingly edited videos, and felt disheartened, because you feel a long way from being able to do that. Here’s

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Confessions of a Million Dollar Consultant with Alan Weiss

Growing a consulting business to seven figures seems an impossible goal for many independent consultants, but it is possible, and my guest today is the Million Dollar Consultant himself, Dr. Alan Weiss. Alan is a polarizing character, probably the most polarizing figure in the consulting industry. During this conversation I

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The Compound Effect of Content with A. Lee Judge

Everyone is talking about how we should create more content. Write more blog posts, write more LinkedIn articles, start a podcast, do more video on social. But when we actually start creating this content it seems to be hugely time consuming for very little return on our efforts. In this

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