Brendon Burchard

Becoming a Full-Time Influencer

When you start making the decision of whether you should be an influencer or not, you need to ask yourself an important question: Who exactly am I influencing? 

Brendan suggested that the one thing that you shouldn’t question yourself on is if you’re too introverted or extroverted for the role. You have to make it about wanting to be a person of influence in a world where you bring positive changes. It’s about the heart and soul of wanting to become an influencer, wanting to create a positive change, and becoming a role model that’s most important — not whether you think you’re introverted or extroverted. It’s about developing that role model mindset.

“But no one seeks to become an influencer — unless in some way they have the role model mindset … that says, ‘You know what I want to do good and have other people see that and maybe inspire them. You know, I want to lead my life in a way that’s an example for other people.’ And as soon as you decide to adopt the role model mindset, where you say, ‘I want to be an example for other people,’ it requires you to do the hard stuff to work out stuff. You don’t want to do it. … But to be a role model, you have to demonstrate integrity and discipline and service. And most people don’t, they won’t challenge [themselves] that much.” – Brendon Burchard

As a full-time influencer, Brendon wants to create positive change and become a role model for people. He also wants to inspire and empower people to achieve their goals. While many people who want to be full-time influencers will think of the same things, it’s still hard to navigate the various methods and platforms you can use to offer your service.

“Influencers sit on top of more publishing platforms than we used to have access to. But at the end of the day, we’re still publishing content. We’re still promoting and pushing work out into the world. But people go, ‘How do you make money?’ The problem is most influencers coming up today. [They] think they’re going to earn money just by doing brand deals. … But they don’t understand the model. … If you’re trying to figure out the influencer space and you want to know all 12 major ways to monetize your voice — your content and your message [and]  your brand — you should learn that as a menu before you pick one.”– Brendon Burchard

One of the things that many influencers don’t realize is that randomness will end their online careers. They’re excited about posting everything every hour and talking about just anything and everything to their audience, but they do it without deciding on a cohesive message that will allow their audience to relate to them on a personal level. Influencers need to speak with intention so that their audience can understand their message.

Brendon also pointed out that influencers also don’t need to be perfect — especially when they start out. They will have mistakes to learn and they’ll grow through it. Their message simply needs to be congruent and consistent.

How to Create Your Own Message as an Influencer 

When I asked him about crafting your own message as an influencer, Brendon suggested that before influencers think about being consistent and intentional with their message, they need to think about what their message is first. They need to ask themselves what being a role model means to them, how their message would translate into another person’s life, or what they would say to help or inspire them. 

“I think a lot of people have to go and dig down deep into their experiences … and say, ‘What were some of the gifts of the lessons that I learned?’ So some of the awful things that happened to us or the challenging things — those struggles — there’s a story there. And that story can reveal some lessons or things that you might be a role model to for people. And it doesn’t have to be so finite … because you’ll keep evolving. You’ll keep learning, but there’s hints there, and you can go dig into your past to find those hints.” – Brendon Burchard

When thinking about what your unique message is, follow Brendon’s advice and think about your life experiences. What have your struggles taught you? How can you pass these lessons to your audience? 

Brendon also added that he often asks people to come up with the three words that describe the best of who they are. These inspirational words can also be words that best describe them when they’re with other people and how they treat them. After thinking of these three words which define your best qualities, Brendon said that you should write those words in your alarm clock description. 

By reflecting on your life experiences and focusing on your three best qualities, you’re one step closer to crafting an impactful message for your followers. 

Figuring out Your Market

It’s a known fact that no matter what your content is about, people from all walks of life will be able to discover it. Once you’ve got your audiences tuning in, you’ll be able to check the analytics for the number of people coming in, which country they’re from, what gender they are, and what ages they are, among many other details.

“That’s the old world of marketing — you had to speak to one specific person. … The reason that came up so popular in marketing back in the day was only for one reason, because in the 20s, sort of the golden age of marketing and advertising, you only had so much budget to run a certain ad on one platform. So you really had to get super niche and narrow.” – Brendon Burchard

These days, if an influencer wants to get the word out, reach a couple of billion people, and create broader conversations, they will need to get to know their market and understand the aspirations of the people they want to serve. Even though they are serving tons and tons of people, they need to get clear on who their audience is and what their needs are. Not knowing  your market can easily pull your audiences away from your content, so get clear on who your market is and tailor your content to their needs.

“My market was an aspiration to go to the next level. And I always focused on that. It’s what made for me with our brands. Like, how did [I] do all those seven-figure launches — 28 of them? I spoke to that aspiration specifically. So people knew this is for [them].” – Brendon Burchard

While having a clear idea of what your audience wants, who they are, and what messages you want to impart with them are essential,  influencers must also learn to develop a method to attract them.

Developing Your Influencer Method

Brendon believes that all the great artists, such as Picasso, Van Gogh, and Beethoven, had a method. He also believes that influencers also need to think about the method they want to use when they want to create artistic content like videos and podcasts. When influencers bring more intention and art into the method they’re doing, their content becomes more authentic and intentional. 

“When I wrote The Motivation Manifesto, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to write a book that’s never been written before in its tone.’ … It was [like] an art project. If what you are doing as an influencer doesn’t feel like an art project, you’re just simply doing it wrong, and you’re going to burn out, and you’re gonna quit.” – Brendon Burchard

Influencers who put more intentions in their methods win — it’s as simple as that. Among the most notable influencers who succeed at using this kind of intentional method are Jay Shetty and Rachel Hollis. Jay Shetty is very particular and detailed about things like when the video will be posted, their lengths, and the different transitions of music in the videos he creates. As for Rachel, she writes everything down first before she gets started, she verbalizes her personal experiences in a very thoughtful way, and she always uses the words they use to describe the feelings that they have. Through the way they speak, it’s very apparent that they’re being very genuine, even with the most difficult topics that they need to talk about.

“And a lot of the messages that actually do help people are acknowledging things … [that] I didn’t want to tell people — that the beginning of my career went bankrupt. I told them how much I struggled. It was hard. And I had to get out of my own way and all these other things, but I didn’t want to use the word ‘bankrupt.’  [But I changed my mind and] describe[d] what had happened [to me] and [was] not … afraid of it.” – Brendon Burchard

Influencers can choose to change their methods, too! They need to be able to ask themselves about what they want to convery and how they should do it to appear unique and different to everyone else in the market. While finding your own voice can be tough at first, that voice needs to change from time to time when the method you’ve used to develop it isn’t quite working for your audience.

Why You Need to Listen to This Brendon Burchard Episode Right Now…

Becoming a full-time influencer means you have to be constantly evolving to the needs of your audience. A lesser influencer can easily decide to live off easy money, easy access, and stay in that bubble for a couple of years, but these days, greater influencers need to constantly reinvent themselves and their methods to reach greater heights.

Brendon Buchard is the perfect example of a successful influencer who is leading with purpose and impact. He has so much wisdom to share about influencing and leadership, so definitely check out his website for more resources. 

Also, stay tuned for Part Two of our conversation! We’ll talk more about how to become a full-time influencer, and he’ll share his definition of greatness.

If you enjoyed this interview, be sure to let us know! You can tag Brendon, @brendonburchard, and me, @lewishowes, on Instagram with a screenshot of the episode and your greatest takeaways! 

Remember friends, influencing is about creating a role model mindset, having a positive message to share, thinking about your audience’s feelings and needs, creating your own method, and constantly evolving not just to keep your audience hooked and engaged, but to create a positive impact in someone else’s life. 

You are capable of making a huge difference! 

To Greatness,

Some Questions I Ask:

• Who should be thinking about becoming an influencer? (17:00)
• How do you find your message if you’re trying to become an influencer? (21:00)
• What is a “market?” (29:00)
• What is your method and has it changed over the past 10 years? (43:00)

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you need to build a business, not just a platform (3:00)
• How our past can hold us back from big dreams (10:00)
• About the “role model” mindset (19:00)
• Why you should come up with three words that define who you are (24:00)
• The importance of having a “method” (35:00)
• The power of vulnerability (39:00)
• Plus much more…

Show Notes:

• Learn more about Brendon’s event, INFLUENCER
• Listen to Brendon’s first interview with The School of Greatness
• Listen to Jay Shetty’s Podcast “On Purpose”
• Read Brendon’s Book High Performance Habits
• Follow Rachel Hollis
• Learn more about Experts Academy