49 Ways to Expand Your Influence

Posted on Aug 17, 2011 in Blog | 2 comments

1. Follow great people on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.
2. Stop talking about yourself all the time.
3. Be irreverent. Grill up a few sacred cows.
4. Support your online connections with face time in real life.
5. Predict the future. It’s risky, but compelling to everyone around.
6. Outsource the stuff you hate doing.
7. Be prolific. Whatever you do, do a metric ton of it.
8. Make people chortle.
9. Connect people who have a need with those who can help, even if it isn’t you.
10. Be the first to break hot news.
11. Become master of a single, important thing. One niche, one market, one product.
12. Listen before you speak.
13. Collect, create, and ask phenomenal questions.
14. Be a nerd, geek, or dork. Less cool, more interesting.
15. Be patient. Building influence takes time. (And it’s worth it.)
16. Give as much as you can. Be generous.
17. Embrace the bizarre. Volcano surfing? Mini-giraffes? Be strangely interesting.
18. Ditch the idea that business is a zero-sum game. There’s room for many.
19. Copy your heroes.
20. Be consistent. Do what you say you will do.
21. Learn your own story. Practice telling it. Let it be a great story.
22. Make friends with early adopters.
23. Don’t let yourself be constantly distracted by the fascinating irrelevant stuff.
24. Remember that people are more important than product.
25. Make other people wildly successful.
26. Dare to be wrong.
27. Dare to let others see you being wrong.
28. Surprise people. Don’t always be/say/do what they expect.
29. Learn the carnival-guesser’s art. Learn to read other people.
30. Name the elephant in the room. Say what no one else will say.
31. Build other people up.
32. Develop thick skin. Don’t let naysayers bother you.
33. Set goals and meet them.
34. Use fewer words.
35. Keep your content rooted in your passions.
36. Comment insightfully on other people’s blogs.
37. Be controversial.
38. Take the underdog’s side.
39. Recruit smart people.
40. Take regular breaks from work.
41. Read stuff you normally never read.
42. Invite critique.
43. Soothe other people’s pain.
44. Try satire.
45. Publicize your failures.
46. Be authentic.
47. Know when to fold ‘em.
48. Trade on pop culture.
49. Write informally.
50. Have a pitch.
51. Make your pitch.
52. Deliver more than people expect.