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The first step to building authority

Authority-led business owners are tuned into the macro shift of the past decade that has de-institutionalised expertise.

The internet quietly removed the gatekeepers.

Today, no longer do you need:

• A publisher to choose your words
• A newsroom to share updates
• A university platform to gain a degree
• A large firm behind your name to make good money

You have a direct line to your audience from your laptop, which in reality, is extraordinary.

Except, of course, when everyone can publish, no one is automatically trusted.

Authority today gets deliberately constructed by individuals who decide that they want it, as much as it is bestowed by institutions.

For experienced coaches and consultants, this creates a strange tension.

You do have depth, results and years of client insights at your fingertips. But your thinking doesn’t automatically translate to the online arena.

The trust you’ve built lives inside client documents, workshop decks and the odd post that did well but never quite laddered up to anything bigger. So people only get to see parts of your expertise, and rarely the whole.

It’s complex. And when it’s complex, it’s hard for it to be coherent.

In a world where expertise is decentralised, coherence is what cuts through the noise.

Coherence happens when your ideas click in other people’s minds, not just in your own.

It lies in having a clear idea that ties your work together. So rarely do you need more content. You need a through-line that holds your Body of Work together.

Because when you’re clear on that one big idea that connects everything:

• Naming your Substack becomes obvious.

• Your group programme sharpens because people share the sentiment they’re buying into.

• Clients connect the dots between your past career and what you do now even if its’s not a straight line through.

• Sales conversations shorten

And something else happens: people start repeating your ideas back to you.

When an idea is coherent, it travels without you, becomes language others can use and becomes shorthand in referrals.

My clients are seeing this. I’m seeing this.

We get to directly impact our own client creation, outside of the algorithms.

A founder I work with, described a recent deal as “the best sales call possible.”

No longer was he scrambling to explain his work and story. No convincing was needed. He’d worked on his One Big Idea and his Authority Story, so the energy flowed from that level of conviction he had, and led to a huge deal.

This matters because while the internet promised democracy and a “direct line to your audience”…

In reality, platforms became dictators.

They chant:

“Don’t include that link.”
“Don’t take time off, stay consistent”
“Don’t use that word, it’s censored”

How can we expect to build something sustainable on platforms that constantly shift, reward and punish attention?

Even if you do gain attention, shares and likes alone rarely produce a meaningful and sustainable income stream. It’s clients that give us that.

Authority-led businesses solve real problems. They are led by practitioners doing the work and then creating content to articulate and attract around that work. So the true measure of authority isn’t followers but the number of clients and peers who regularly refer business to you.

And referrals become simpler when positioning is clear and your idea sticks.

If you’re ready to move beyond the fleeting nature of content creation and build something that endures (and produces real results along the way), it’s time to hone your Authority Foundations.

Successful authority-led businesses share these foundations:

• Own a clear area of expertise
• Have a compelling idea that sticks
• Stay in their lane and deepen it over years, not months

Depth of insight about client’s problems is great, but you need the added layer of communicating that depth of insight in a way that moves others to hire you, yes, but also to care, to repeat, to refer.

The most effective way I’ve seen this happen with clients is through developing their One Big Idea; an OBI.

That’s the cornerstone of your authority platform and the lens through which all your work is viewed. It’s what my client Alan described as “a spearhead for the work I do.” He went on to have their biggest quarter in business yet, as a result of this clarification.

The OBI is an expression of your myriad ideas, distilled. Many authority-led business owners worry this is like “dumbing down” your thinking. It isn’t.

As Patrick Wyman put it, “We’re not dealing with a crisis of expertise itself as much as a crisis of explanation.”

In the early days, your OBI might sit on your LinkedIn.

But in later years… becomes your book. Your TED talk. Your movement.

But it’s incredibly hard to think your way into this clarity alone. From inside your own head, everything feels nuanced, too obvious or already clear.

Shaping an idea so that it clicks instantly for someone else is a different skill.

That’s a skill of translation I’ve been doing for years, and tomorrow I’m running a free live session: Build One Idea That Attracts Better Clients.

In 45 minutes, I’ll guide you to:

• Define your One Big Idea; that’s the organising principle your work already revolves around
• Identify the red thread across your services, content and results
• Outline the long-form Hero Piece of writing that can do this kind of heavy lifting for you

If your expertise feels stronger than your positioning currently communicates… I’d love to invite you to join us here.

Even if you feel you’ve done this work before, this will help you pressure-test how well your idea is actually working for you.

Shall we together build something that lasts?

Ellen