Entrepreneur To Key Person Of Influence With Daniel Priestley [Episode 34]

Customers buy from people and brands that they like, know and trust.

Being a key person of influence is something that we all strive for and keep pushing towards, but what does that really mean? And more importantly, how do we get there?

This week we caught up with entrepreneur and best-selling author Daniel Priestley to find out his take on it all… 

• Pitching – I was very lucky to be trained by a mentor who taught me skills in pitching. Most entrepreneurs can be uncomfortable when they’re put into a pitching situation and they don’t have a framework for that.
• Creating a product ecosystem – Developing a strong set of products, not just one product. I really encourage people to have four products.
• Strategic partnerships – Putting together strategic partnerships in business and this includes putting together a really strong team.

• In every industry there are a small group of people who are known, likes and trusted. Their names come up in conversation and they’recalled the key people of influence in their industry.
• When I had an events business promoting these people, the big thing that I noticed was just how many opportunities get thrown at these people.
• I remember wondering how would a normal person compete with these key people of influence? And then I realised, you have to become one.
• If you can become a key person of influence in your niche, then you’ll start getting these inbound opportunities and being included in the important conversations.

There are two things that you need in business.

• Functional skills – these are the skills that you need to actually do the thing you need to do. For example, if you’re a photographer then you’d need to know how to set up lighting and use a camera.
• Vital skills – These are the skills of being the irreplaceable lifeforce in the business.

Included in these are the five main skills (The 5 P’s) I think you need:

• Pitching – pitching the vision
• Publishing – publishing content
• Products – choosing great products
• Profile – raising your profile
• Partnerships – doing partnerships with the right people

• So, you start out in business chasing opportunities. You’re chasing customers, people, partners, buyers and sometimes it’s a struggle even to get people to answer your call.
• Then suddenly it all tips, especially if you become a key person of influence, and you get people chasing you.
• When this happens, you have to become world class at curating and figuring out which ones are the right opportunities for you.
• This can be really hard because in the world that we currently live in there are so many opportunities. It’s literally non-stop and you need to get really good at politely declining offers.
• I have my own criteria of what I think will work for me and what won’t, and I also get a feeling about these things and so do my team. I have an amazing team of people and these things hit them first and everything gets so much easier when you have a team who understand what's right and wrong.

• Get famous through the success of your clients. Don’t try and be in the spotlight yourself, instead put the spotlight onto something that you care about and ideally your client.
• Really people want to see what your clients have achieved and what’s transferable.
• People buy what others are buying and not what others are selling. If you’re out there sell, sell, sell all the time then essentially, you’re communicating the exact opposite of what people want to buy.
• You need to figure out how to position yourself as someone who is highlighting what’s already happening, what’s moving.
• People buy to solve problems. When you’re selling any product, you need to understand what problems it solves and what are the deeper problems that it solves.
• People buy what they want, not what they need. You’ll go broke telling people what they need so you need to position it in the language of what they already want.

A book that you would recommend…
The book that changes your life the most is not one you read, it’s one you write yourself.

What is your top success habit?
Sales.

Who do you look up to?
People who have been able to successfully balance family with their ambitions and their goals, and people who are able to maintain some form of fitness and wellness through the whole process.

What are your favourite apps right now?
I love Evernote for smashing ideas into and I love Slack for communicating with my team.

Here’s the big one…who do you like more, Rob or Kennedy?
I would merge the two of you!

Finally, where can folks go to find out more about you?
You can find any of my books over on Amazon and you can also get the Key Person of Influence Score Card which you can find right here.

You can also connect with Daniel on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.