A statistic showed that it takes 7 to 10 times for someone to see your message. But with the instant messages, texts, and all these stuff coming at us today, that number has actually increased to 20 to 30 times. Today, Susie Carder chats with authority booster Mike Saunders about how you can stay visible to your audience and be seen as an expert and an authority. Mike is a speaker, bestselling author of four books, and a successful business coach that holds an MBA in marketing. He’s helped many clients get seen, get heard, and get paid. Learn more about authority positioning. Don’t miss this episode with Mike and Susie.

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Positioning Yourself As An Authority With Mike Saunders

In this episode, I have one of my favorite people, Mike Saunders. He is the Authority Booster. He’s a speaker, bestselling author of four books, and a successful business coach that holds an MBA in Marketing. Mike is also an Adjunct Marketing Professor at several universities and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council.

He has interviewed hundreds of industry experts on his podcast and is always striving to learn from other thought leaders. Mike is the most passionate about seeing his family grow up with high spiritual values and providing them with opportunities to succeed in life. He’s heavily involved in his church and is focused on teaching others the benefits of giving and serving. He’s helped many of our clients get seen, get heard, and get paid. Please welcome our guest, Mike Saunders.

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Mike, I’m so excited that you’re here. Thank you. We’ve done the official bio, but I want to know because most people don’t share their bad-ass stories. What makes you, what’s your secret sauce, and what’s your jam? This is a time where you get to share about yourself but in the way of humblebrag. We, as experts, don’t like to do that, but I want them to know because you’re up to some big things in the world and you’ve done some big things. We’re seasoned. Share with everyone what’s that magic, why should we pay attention and why should we listen?

As you said, there’s so much noise in the world, and have you ever heard of this statistic? It takes 7 to 10 times for someone to see your message. I’ve heard that for many years. It’s accurate in theory but I feel like now, with an instant message this, texts that, give me and all of this stuff coming at. It takes 2 or 3 times to count as one. That 7 to 10 is 20 to 30 times.

A, don’t give up on following up or being visible to your audience but what I would say, my secret sauce and the thing that makes me different is I got my MBA in marketing many years ago. I started my marketing firm then and I thought, “I will do marketing.” Anything you need, fill in the blanks, SEO, whatever, and it was not ringing true.

As you know, if you try to be all things to all people, you are no things to no one. Many years ago, I refocused and focused on one thing, which is shining the spotlight on entrepreneurs, business owners, thought leaders, and speakers to have them be seen as those experts in that authority. I do three specific things, podcasting, publishing, and publicity.

I don’t get into the weeds of anything else. I think that too many times, people feel like, “Then I can.” When I then drill that down into what worked for me like, “I wrote a book. I launched a podcast,” and I’ve got five books now, I’ve done 700 episodes of my podcast, I’m a Forbes Coaches Council member, and I’ve published seventeen articles on Forbes.

Now, when I can hang my hat on those things and say, “Mr. or Mrs. Entrepreneur, business owner, thought leader, and speaker, let’s talk. Check out my Google resume.” My, what I call and I’ve got a federal trademark on the phrase, Authority Positioning Portfolio like a graphic designer, website designer, and financial planner portfolio of everything in here. While your, our Authority Positioning Portfolio, what do you want people to see about you in a medium on a platform that is relevant and would position you as a thought leader?

When I started building that for me, I didn’t even know what it was at that point. I knew I needed to do good things. I’m like, “If I could package it up like this and tell other people how to do it.” My approach is different than other people and I don’t go, “I’m going to put you into a twelve-week mastermind program. You’re going to get a user name and password. You’re going to consume all this content, then you can know how to go out and do it.” There’s nothing wrong with that but I took the approach of, “I’m going to teach you why this is important in a quick little one session or video or whatever. I’m doing it for you. I’m handing it to you, so it’s fast, it’s easy and it’s super affordable.” That’s what sets me apart.

The three are simple. Two is I agree. I don’t need any more education. I need people to do this thing. Help me do it. Let’s talk about what is Authority Positioning and how does it relate to authority selling because people are hoping to find you, but they’re not going to find you. Talk about when you say authority positioning. What does that mean and how does it relate to selling?

When I mentioned that I got my MBA, I also started teaching Marketing for four different universities many years ago. I teach online and one of the tenets of Marketing is the four P’s. One of them is positioning and part of it is where you’re seeing. Where is this product seen? It’s in the East Coast, the West Coast, whatever but part of the definition of positioning is your brand’s perception in the mind of your target audience. Here’s a pop quiz. When you think of Craigslist, on a scale of 1 to 10, what’s their website look like? Negative one but they’re not going for design. When you think of cars, now we’ll date ourselves. I’ll mention a car and it’s not even in countryside production mode but do you remember Yugo?

Yes. The tires were as big as your head.

When you park, you can tuck it under your arm. When you think of Yugo or how about this, Pinto. They were famous for back in the ‘80s, the exploding gas. You don’t think of safety and security but guess what? When you think of BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, all these higher-end ones, I can almost hear in my head the door shutting and it’s nice and soft. That’s positioning in the mind of their target audience. As a speaker, entrepreneur, and coach consultant, when you are positioned in front of your target audience as all these different things, trusted advisor and authority expert but not so far out of reach that they’re like, “I can’t pay $10 billion or trillion to hire you.” You’ve got to be relevant as well.

For instance, hypothetically, if I’d shown up in a three-piece suit and my Rolex watch, sometimes, we can position ourselves so far out of reach of our target audience that the unsaid messaging isn’t relating. When you can be positioned so that people go, “I’m going to listen to them.” It gives you more at-bats. I think for a lot of people, if we were to go “poof” everyone now on the call, “Give me a thumbs up or a head nod.” If everyone would be agreeing to this, we don’t like to sell, but when people can be introduced to your brand by seeing your thought leadership out there.

When I say out there, it might mean on social media. It might be that you send them an email because they’re on your list. It might mean that you posted on your social media. It doesn’t necessarily mean, and you touched on this, when I do X, podcast, publishing or publicity, then people will come to me in goes, “Maybe not,” you have to do something with it.

Those are things that I call that Authority Positioning. It’s the asset that builds the Authority Positioning Portfolio where authority positioning leads to selling is when you built that portfolio enough and I can do a portfolio a nice package, done for you, affordable, easy, fast and all that but you don’t check that box off. It’s not done.

That just gets you going. That’s running alongside you and with the training wheels off the first time going, “I let go. Good job. You’re wobbly but you’re going.” Now, you got to do it again. You got to keep on going because how many times have you seen the person who has a Facebook page and the last post was a year and a half ago?

You have to be positioned, seen as a thought leader, have good content, teach and educate on solutions to your target audience’s problem, but then you need to use it in your outreach to draw people to you and to “close the sale.” What I would say is to think of it as getting the at-bat, getting the phone call, getting the strategy session, or discovery call. What are we going to think of it as and pre-framing your thought leadership ahead of that call so that you can get on and go, “You probably seen a bunch about me from what I sent you? How can I help? What are you struggling with?”

I love Authority Positioning Portfolio. I’m like, “What is it? What’s in it? What do we do with it?” I’m thinking, I have a digital media kit and I’m like, “Where is that?” I don’t use it but I have it because someone told me I needed it, which is what happens with entrepreneurs. We keep going shiny, sparkly. What do I need? Share with us what it is.

That’s an interesting point. I called this a 30 positioning portfolio, the mental word of a collection of all of your things like I mentioned. Here’s a good example and we’re not doing full-on screen-share because we can’t go live to show this but I will answer your question by saying I’m not a paper person. Like on my desk, I don’t have papers and reams and notebooks. I’m digital. Don’t send me any piece of paper. If you do, I’m going to scan it, it goes to my computer, and I’m throwing it away. It is not a fold-out thing but it’s the mental limit that people go, “Look at my dress. Look at my painting or my website.”

You have to be positioned, seen, and thought of as that thought leader to draw people to you and close the sale.

You need to have somewhere where your authority positioning assets are held. It’s not your website because you’re enamored with your website. It looks wonderful but it’s like squirrel because it gets people distracted. Here’s a great book to read, Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. It’s not on the website design. It is on positioning your brand as the guide, not the hero.

When people go to your website, they’re going, “So what?” You want to speak to them, not like, “We’ve got 25 years’ experience.” To answer your question is, you’ve got to have this one place that you would send people. I’ve got what’s called a 360 site. Go to MikeSaunders360.com. It is what I call my Authority Positioning Portfolio because it’s not all my blog posts and all my pop-up.

On my 360 site is an intro video. It’s one page. No tabs. An intro video, my Forbes articles, reviews, it’s all the things that I want you to see that would polish up my brand all in one place. Do you want to connect on LinkedIn? There it is right there. You want to text or send me a message, everything all in one spot.

That is the way I do it. You can set up a Trello board, for that matter. Set up a free Trillo board and go, “Here are my articles.” Put them in there but you need to have a place where you’re pointing people to and even if it’s as simple as an email. Think about this, Susie. The last client you brought on board for your coaching program, many times, people are not going to whip out their credit card online and buy. I know you have products that do that but for a higher-end thing, they’re going to talk to you first.

You’re going to send a meeting for a week or two out and you’re going to send them a reminder. What if the meeting was scheduled one week out and you sent the reminder that says, “I’m looking forward to connecting with you to see how we can serve you whatever you would say. By the way, before we connect, I wanted you to see if you can take a look at this and listen to this podcast interview I was interviewed on?” Now, Susie Carder, you’re all over the place. You would be more strategic in what you’re going to send them but many people were like, “I can’t even spell the word podcast interview, book or media.”

You don’t have anything to point people to. If you could preface that meeting with, “Before we connect up, here’s this interview I was interviewed on where I talk about my approach to business and how I serve my clients. Take a listen. It’s about twenty minutes. Also, I was mentioned in the media here.” Before the meeting, they’re going to do that. Do they listen to every second and every syllable of that podcast interview? No. We know that and we don’t care but they’re going to listen to some of it. They’re going to skip through it.

The fact that you were there, that sets the right tone for the call, meeting, in-person, virtual, whatever you want to think of it as and to go, “What questions did some of the things you looked at bring up for you?” Of course, you’re not going to jump in with only that but it’s the positioning in their mind and it’s a place you can send them to. It might be a link or might be an email to go, “I was interviewed on.”

How does it integrate with our customer journey then?

That now, in my opinion, I call that my ninja approach because the buyer’s journey is a thing. It’s an academic in marketing. It’s called the customer. A lot of people call it differently but the buyer’s journey, the customer journey. Think about when you bought a larger item thing like a car or whatever you want to think of it as. Didn’t you research something? Didn’t you compare this car to that car?

We all go through a journey. Whatever you are selling, coaching service, product, whatever. If you’re selling something, what are the 3 to 5 questions that go through your target audience’s mind that are way deeper than the FAQs? How does that deeper? The ones that make them go, “I hadn’t thought of that question. That’s a good point.”

How do you determine what these are? You call up your last ten clients and go, “How’s it going? I want to check in with you. Can I ask you a quick favor? Before you were working with me and stuff, I know you love what we’re doing here, what were you struggling with that finally made you go? That’s a good point.” Sometimes, it’s going to research on your part, and you’re going to come up with those 3 to 5 questions that they go, “I knew all of this and this, but when you mentioned that and when your service provided this,” now, you’re taking notes, researching and iterating.

When you have those questions, please don’t put them in an FAQ on your website. Nobody cares about that yawn. In fact, there is an EBS strategist from the ‘60s named Marshall McLuhan. He’s from Kennedy, who wrote a book called The Medium is the Massage. It’s a strange book but distilled down into it. The thought that I bring out of that book is where your content is seen as important, if not more important than the actual content. You could have the 3 to 5 things, you could polish that up and put it into a four-page PDF case study or download it, and you can send it to all kinds of people, like email, blog posts, social media, and they ignore it.

If you were to reach out to your contacts and go, “I was interviewed on this podcast talking specifically about,” and you name the one like a Zinger. I find myself calling them zingers but something where it’s like a-ha. One of those a-ha light bulb things. What if that whole 20 minutes interview was on that one thing? Not all over the place. Not, “We also do one thing.” What are the benefits? What are the pros and cons? What are the misconceptions? What if I don’t do it? What if I do all of that?

You use that in your outreach. You’re drawing people into the buyer’s journey by educating them, using authority positioning assets, and you did what? You talked because if I told you to write a five-page report on that one Zinger, you’d get writer’s block because there’s a disconnect between your head and your hands. Writing or type, whatever, but if I interviewed you and drew it out of you, you could talk until the cows come home. Now, you’ve got this vibrant, warm interview on a podcast that you’re using in your business development.

It’s simple, tangible things. There are many experts at circle talk or its theory but this is down and dirty, and it works. I’ve used Mike’s content planning and use my Excel, and It works. I always tell our students, “You have to be an author and a bestselling author. It has to be a real book and real content.” One of your pillars is publishing.

Let’s talk about becoming a bestselling author and how do you help us, as entrepreneurs, without writing a word because you know something about the celebrity blueprint. Let’s talk about that a little bit because most of our students, fans, and consumers know they need to write a book. It took me and my very first book seven years because my fear stopped me more than the content. The content was everything like, “Is there anybody who likes it?” I didn’t know what to do with it. I’m like, “I wrote a book, now what?”

It goes into, as you mentioned, the blueprint. What is your overall long-term plan in blueprint? If you’re selling pencils, obviously, no one on this show is going to be selling pencils but if you’re selling a commodity like that, you don’t need a book to sell you a service. You don’t need a book to earn royalties and commissions from Amazon, even though you will, you need a book that will sell you. You need that book for one of those authority positioning assets like what we talked about in the interview, “That was easy, now what?”

The next step could be, what if you compiled? Let’s think about in-steps here. The value of taking one step and then walk before you run. If you want to ratchet up your authority and make an impact to getting a speaking gig, podcast interviews, close clients because they’re like, “Wow.” For instance, I talked with someone that is an HVAC dealer, writing a book.

What if your air conditioner broke and you start interviewing HVAC dealers and one of them comes with their card, one of them comes with greasy shoes and another one hands you the book that they wrote on how to winterize your home or whatever. Whom are you going to pick or who are you going to at least choose to learn more from?

Where I’m coming from is if you have a product or service that you want to stand out on your target audience and you don’t want to write the book because you don’t want to take six months and you don’t want to pay $30,000, $40,000, or $50,000 and up because you start doing some research out there. It’s shocking.

If you’re briefing to the point and you’re clear, that enhances your authority in the mind of your prospect.

I mentioned to you that I had got a federal trademark on the phrase, Authority Positioning Portfolio. Now, I’ll have number two coming through on a phrase that I trademarked called The Brevity Book. Where I’m coming from is, I saw the stat that 68% of all books are never read. If you buy a book, if you buy a hundred books, 68% of them, you’re never going to read, even if you bought them sequentially. You’re like, “That looks good but I’m not going to read that.” It could be because it’s not necessarily. Are you familiar with Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss? I was at a bookstore. I picked that up and I think I needed a crane to pick that up. There are 700 or 900 pages. It’s not because of that. It’s people go, “Two hundred and forty-seven. I don’t know.”

I have one of my nightstands, Sharon Lechter’s, new book, Exit Rich. I love the concept of it. I haven’t been to my echo at night.

Here’s a test for you, Susie. How many times have you read a book and a business book? For me, when I read for pleasure, it’s a business book. I don’t read fiction. For me, it’s like, “I want to read that topic there.” I get to the end of the book and I’m like, “You could have said that in nineteen pages.” Those two facts alone. The 68% of books in that red and the fact that there’s so much fluff don’t waste my time. My approach to sales calls is not this whole hour and a half long, “Tell me about, let me create the gap. Where do you want to be? Where are you going to?” I’m like, “Here’s the deal. You saw some stuff about me.”

What are you struggling with? Why don’t you tell me what I can do? If there’s a fit, cool. Let’s talk. If not, piece out or we’ll keep in touch because of that, books don’t need to be 200 pages. They don’t need to be 100 pages. I say they need to be between 50 and 70 pages. Now all of a sudden, you’ve got something. I held up this book. I’ve gotten different books. Here’s the example that I will use, my latest book on Amazon called brevity + clarity = AUTHORITY. That’s where the concept I started building out Brevity Book because if you’re briefing to the point and you’re clear, that enhances your authority in the mind of your prospect.

Now you’ve gone, “I’ve got the 3 to 5 zingers. I’m going to start drawing people through the buyer’s journey. I got interviewed on a podcast about these. I’m using those things good. Now what?” If I could reach out to my strategic alliances, my target audience and go, “My first book came out on the topic of.” Now there are 3 to 5 Zingers or the 3 to 5 chapters in the book because, “By the way, those twenty-minute interviews we did on my podcasts, we did twenty minutes on that one topic, so we’ve got 60, 80, or 90 minutes of interviews. I’ll take care of that from here. I’ll transcribe that and I’ll spruce it up.” Here’s your book. “How about this for a cover? We’ve talked about the cover. Why don’t we get it up on Amazon in your account?”

Now let’s pause here. Too many times, you hear nightmare stories about someone that goes, “I got so involved in this book project. Afterward, I couldn’t even access my own book. I can’t change the pricing.” When I work with a client, it is in your Amazon account. I build it in your account. I run the bestseller campaign and I’ve got a computer software algorithm that helps me pick keywords and categories for the book to hit a bestseller on a certain day, certain time, and you are a bestselling author. Any royalties that come in, they’re going to you because it’s your Amazon account.

All of a sudden, you’re an Amazon Bestselling author. Here’s this press release media that announces that, “Here’s your book. You can order copies one or two at a time.” You’ve never written a word. All you did was speak about what you know clearly and concisely with brevity about the solution to the problem you solve for your target audience.

Most of the time, getting started is what you need. I want to edify that. I closed a client that was $100,000 client based on the book. She’d been in the community forever. She bought some low-hanging fruit. She’s like, “Susie, I’m reading the book. I get it now. I’m ready.” In my head, I was going, “She can’t afford this pricing.” I did the stair-step questions and went through my process. She said, “Susie, I said I’m ready. Take my credit card.” You never know.

Let’s think about something. There’s no answer to this because we don’t know, but if you could hit rewind before she bought your book and started reading it. Instead of having the book, you had sent her 3 or 4 PDFs. Anybody could do that or, “Here are some blog posts you have to read.” She’s like, “Whatever.”

It’s in your hands and I don’t care if it’s 200, 400 or 60 pages. In fact, I’ve joked about this. Remember back in the City Slickers, Curly said the one thing. If I said to most people, “What is the one thing you do to solve your client’s problems?” We drill it down into two paragraphs. Here’s an example of what I’m saying. “This is a book. Look at what’s written on the pages.”

It looks like nothing on the video but I’m sure there’s something on there.

They’re blank. It’s making a different point, but I’ve often said this, “I want to do a book with a nice cover that is this thick with all these blank pages but the very first page has the two paragraphs of here’s the deal, do this, learn this.” In football, it’s the blocking and tackling. They get all the fanciness. Do this over and over and then you can get fancy. The book elevates your brand. It fast tracks your authority.

When I say do it without writing the word, it’s because I baby steps you into the process by going, “Let’s pick 3 to 5 Zingers, draw people through the buyer’s journey. Let’s do interviews on each one. Let’s do a press release around that. There’s this package right here. If you want, we’ll upgrade it up to the book package.” All of a sudden, you’ve got podcast interviews, book press, and media releases. I teach you how to use all of that in your prospecting and your strategic alliances to grow your business and get new clients.

Let’s shift a little bit. Let’s go a little personal. There are so many people and you’ve seen clients going through it. They’re waiting for this pandemic to get over. There’s no waiting. This is the new reality of business. I’ve been with you through this whole process and you move, shake or make it happen. Same with me, pivot, move it, shake it, and make it happen. The study was 60% of small businesses went out of business because of this pandemic. Our businesses have grown. What’s been your secret sauce of staying in action and growing?

I always tie it to learnings in other books. Here’s another book, I’ve mentioned Building a StoryBrand. How about Bob Burg of The Go-Giver by Bob Burg. You need to buy that one, now. Read it. It’ll take you 45 minutes to read the whole book. The whole gist is, don’t be a go-getter. “She’s a real go-getter.” Be a go-giver, serve, provide value, give results in advance.

When someone sees you as like the Jerry Lewis, The Bellboy, black and white movie, where he takes your bags up to the room, puts them down and does that but if you can give, serve and provide value and there’s a lot of ways you can do that time, attention downloads. “You need to learn this. Are you interested in this? I’ve got this.” In fact, there’s another thing there you can do that doesn’t even benefit me but you’re teaching and educating.

I would say my approach of doing what’s best for the other person, the golden rule, giving them serving value and finding strategic alliance opportunities and going, “Did you think about this? Did you think about that?” Staying hungry and staying aware. If you curl up in a ball and go, “Whatever.” You mentioned pandemic. A few years ago, there was this little thing called the economic crisis, 9-11 and a few years from now, there’s going to be this thing called to fill in the blank something.

Get over it. Stuff is going to happen, move on, and blow what you plan. All these things that we know but you got to stay in motion and watch for the opportunity and give and serve and be enthusiastically passionate about the solutions you provide for your target audience. I guess that’s off the cuff. That’s what I would say.

I think that’s what’s important, is to go, “What have I been doing?” I put my head down. I’m not getting distracted. I’m going head down, do what I do. Keep doing what you’re doing. You shifted to online. People are still hiding behind their computers trying to build a business. You can’t hide. You got to get yourself out there. That’s why it’s important that my clients meet you because I need them positioned as the authority. It does make a big difference. When you’ve seen as an authority, who deems you as an authority? You do, your expertise.

For starters, you do because if you don’t believe you are an authority or what you offer is valuable, then you’re going to be like, “Susie, I have these widgets but I guess you probably wouldn’t want,” but you’re like, “No, seriously. Get this now.”

Stay hungry and aware. You have to stay in motion, watch for the opportunity to give and serve, and be enthusiastically passionate about the solutions you provide for your target audience.

We’re building 7 to 8-figure businesses. What I love about this show is the guests that I bring on are real business people building 7 to 8-figure businesses. What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing now, whether it’s a role or a project that you’re tackling for the end of 2021 and 2022? What’s the biggest challenge that you’re facing and growing?

I’m building a vertical in my business of offering the same thing, Authority Positioning, and all the things we’ve talked about but for a specific vertical. My challenge is I’m cutting through all the noise. The vertical is financial services. Here are all these people going, “I get hit up every other second with.” I’ve got to cut through the clutter and I’ve got to borrow trust from people they already trust.

A great example, like a live case study, I started doing this outreach and it’s like crickets. I’m like, “Let me try something here.” I started reaching out to these people going, “I sent you a LinkedIn connection and I noticed on your profile. I thought you’d be a great guest on my podcast. Do you want to come to do a 20-minute phone interview sometime?” They’re going, “Yes.”

Now, I’m interviewing. Bob Burg, The Go-Giver, I’m giving value, giving my time, giving them an opportunity for visibility because I literally emailed one of these people I brought on. I was like, “It was a great interview. Here’s the link to that. By the way, I Googled your name. Check out what this shows.” I Googled this person’s name and I went arrow.

There were three spots on page one of Google where their podcast interview that we did. I’m giving value and serving. My challenge is to continue staying focused, being clear, and cutting through the noise so that they don’t see me as some other person going, “You want to sell something.” “No, I’m giving a value here.”

My ninja approach to that is finding the people that already have the KLT factor with them. Pop quiz, do you know what the KLT factor is? The know, like, and trust. Who do they look up to that already have the know, like, and trust? If I then go to some of these live or virtual, it doesn’t matter, go to some of these seminars that your target audience goes to and look at the last year and the year before keynote speaker and maybe a panel of experts and look them up on LinkedIn and go, “I look at your interview. I’d love to.” Now all of a sudden, your target audience that went to that workshop or big seminar saw them on the stage and they saw you interviewing this person. You’re seen at the same level.

When you reach out to your target audience and you’d go, “I’ve interviewed so-and-so. I thought you’d like to see that.” They’re like, “Wow.” If I ever were to interview Tony Robbins, it’d be an achievement. You’d want to promote that. You might think that Saunders is up there. How can you do that in your target audiences pond pool? Obviously, the Gary Vee’s of the world and Tony Robbins, that’s ultra-elite, but your target audience looks up to somebody. They go to some industry or something. Where do they go and who did that seminar promoter bring in to keynote or do the panel? Go connect with them.

Even if you don’t have a podcast that can interview them, which I can help with that, too, but even if it’s just, connect with them on LinkedIn. “I was at this. I saw you spoke. I love to connect on LinkedIn,” then start watching for when they post something up, like it and make a relevant comment like, “What a great article that is because I learned.” Now, you’re getting visible with them. Those kinds of things I feel are important. That’s my outlook for the next 6 to 12 months. It’s to drill in deep but continue being relevant, standing out, and serving.

You’re dropping diamonds. What do you want to be remembered for when it’s all said and done?

I would say Mike Saunders was a follower of Jesus, a man of integrity, raised a family that taught them how to think for their own, make a difference in the world, give and serve, not be selfish and not feel entitled. He was able to make a difference in that little pebble in the pond like, “Here comes these ripples,” and they go on and on. Being able to see my kids growing up making great decisions and getting good opportunities because they’ve applied some of these things is super rewarding even now, and I’m still around.

You have a prize for us and we love prizes. Share with us what your prize is that you’re giving us, so we know how to best take advantage of that. What’s in it? What are they’re going to get?

I’d like to give you a copy of my bestselling book, Authority Selling. You can get that at AuthoritySellingBook.com and you can fill out the form and pay the shipping $7 and I’ll drop a copy in the mail to you. You can get a copy of that and learn many of the things we’ve talked about here. There’s a lot more in the book that I didn’t go into here but there’s a lot of free do-it-yourself things, but it’s the whole methodology and research behind what authority positioning is and how it relates to growing your business.

How do we get ahold of you because I know our clients are going to want to start working on their authority as a system, not as a one-off, because authority is about systematically creating it? The minute I realized that it’s all strategy, it doesn’t just happen. You don’t get noticed. You’re not an overnight success. It’s strategy. How do we stay in touch with you, either on social or website?

I will make one point, which is this authority positioning, authority marketing is not a do-this-instead-of. It is to keep doing what you’re doing if it’s working. If it’s working at this level, Authority Positioning will help you amplify what it’s already working. Everything that we’re talking about here, like when you’re seen as Authority, will make your email campaigns or Facebook ads work better.

It’s not a, “You’re doing all these things wrong, so now do this.” It’s an amplification. The best way I’ve mentioned before is MikeSaunders360.com. That’s my Authority Positioning Portfolio landing page. You can read my Forbes articles, listen to podcast episodes, reach out, connect with me on social and my main website is AuthorityPositioningCoach.com.

Mike, thank you so much for being here and a go-giver because you are that in my life. You were always giving and serving. I appreciate that. Make sure you follow Mike and share this show because you know you have clients or students in your own tribal community that needs to know Mike and leverage this.

You’re in business for yourself, not by yourself. We’re bringing a team of experts that can help you. I’m bringing my bad-ass friends to help you grow your business so that you too can build that 7 to 8-figure business. Thank you for being here. Mike, again, thank you for always being service for always contributing to me and being our ride or die. I appreciate you.

You’re welcome.

Important Links

• Mike Saunders
• Building a StoryBrand
• MikeSaunders360.com
• The Medium is the Massage
• Tools of Titans
• Exit Rich
• brevity + clarity = AUTHORITY
• The Go-Giver
• AuthoritySellingBook.com
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/mikesaundersmba/

About Mike Saunders

Mike Saunders is a speaker, bestselling author of four books, and a successful business coach who holds an MBA in Marketing.
Mike is also an Adjunct Marketing Professor at several Universities and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council.
He has interviewed hundreds of industry experts on his podcast and is always striving to learn from other thought leaders.
Mike is most passionate about seeing his family grow up with high spiritual values and providing them opportunities to succeed in life.
He is heavily involved in his local church and is focused on teaching others the benefits of giving and serving.
Learn More: https://www.AuthorityPositioningCoach.com