“Dont lose sight of the mountain you are already sat on” – by Scholar Jack Foley

Have you seen the Wolf of Wall Street? One scene that stuck in my mind was the films epilogue, when Jordan Belfort is beginning his career as a motivational speaker, despite having just been released from a long stint in prison. How did he manage this? Because you can’t keep a man like Belfort from being successful. When Daniel Priestley – an Ozzie who, naturally, lives in Shepherds Bush – started presenting to us, a group of Marketing Academy students, last week, he reminded me of this scene. Not because he too had been convicted of mass fraud, but because, like Belfort, the audience was hanging off his every word.  Thinking about it, those Jordan Belfort motivational talks did start in in Australia… maybe he was there?

Daniel’s journey is an impressive one. From earning thousands of dollars a night in the Australian night club scene by the age of seventeen, to founding his own business and building it up into an internationally renowned company: Entrevo. Entrevo helps entrepreneurs and leaders to stand out and ‘scale up’, by teaching them what it takes to be a Key Person of Influence in a rapidly changing digital environment. Being an entrepreneur, naturally, he is also involved in various start-ups and business ventures around the world, as well as having the time to write a number of books. All of these activities have helped him to further enhance his status as a Key Person of Influence, as you will hopefully understand by the end of this post.

What was the key message?

Every industry revolves around Key People of Influence. Their names come up more frequently in conversations, they attract opportunity – can you think of a successful entrepreneur who has only been involved in one venture? – they make more money and as a result they can do more good in the world.

One of the most interesting points from Daniel’s research is that the top 10% of earners in almost every industry have grown their incomes by 300%, while the salaries of the majority of the remaining 90% have stayed static or declined. Once people reach that magic 10% they can begin to further establish themselves as a Key Person of Influence: they’re invited to more meetings, their voice gets heard and they have more input. The more input that person has, the more valuable they are perceived to be and the more they become known as a Key Person of Influence. It’s all about the personal brand.

So, how do you become a Key Person of Influence (apart from reading his book, Key Person of Influence)? Well according to Daniel, there are five key skills you need:

•PITCH: Every key person of influence needs to be able to powerfully answer the question “what do you do?”
•PUBLISH: Write, publish, distribute. Find a point of interest or somewhere you can add value and be an opinion leader, then tell people about it.
•PRODUCT: Turn your ideas in to valuable products that people love to buy. There are only two types of products you should work on: products for fame and products that offer remarkable value.
•PROFILE: Get web famous. To be a key person of influence you need to be Googleable.
•PARTNER: Find your partner. Someone woke up this morning with the missing piece of the puzzle that you are looking for. When you look at most Key People of Influence you will observe that the majority of them have a business partner who compliments their strengths as well as their shortcomings.

Simple really.

His final point though is a poignant one. Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of the mountain of value that you are already sat on. Don’t go out tomorrow and completely reinvent yourself. The knowledge you already have is already extremely valuable – you just need to work out how to enhance yourself. As Daniel said, don’t be the mountaineer who is always looking out on to the horizon at the next mountain they want to climb, without being able to see the beauty of the mountain they are already sat on top of.

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