Episode 113: Full Cleaned Transcript
Guest: Erica Holthausen, Authority Development Strategist
Host: AJ Riedel
What Is an Authority Development Strategist?
AJ: I love your title—Authority Development Strategist. I want to ask you about that. I think it's brilliant that you have your title and description right there on a Zoom call.
Erica: I struggled for a long time with what to call myself. I was doing a talk with a friend, and she had an introduction written for me. I don't remember what she said, but it was like, Erica is this or that, and I thought, I'm not sure what I am, but I'm not that. So I played with ideas until I came up with Authority Development Strategist. I love a good truth-in-advertising title. It's both truth in advertising and curiosity-inducing, so people say, what is that? What does that mean? And then I get to tell them.
AJ: You could call yourself a writing coach or a marketing coach, and people's eyes would kind of glaze over. But you've left it wide open where people lean in and ask, tell me more, what is that? Rather than their eyes glazing over.
Erica: Exactly. When I first started my business, a lot of people thought I was either a ghostwriter or a PR person. I was like, neither of those is true, though I've done ghostwriting in the past. So it was like, okay, how do I come up with something that actually works and says what I do? It took quite a while. I didn't have this for the first several years of my business. This is about a year old now.
AJ: So what is an authority development strategist?
Erica: I very firmly believe that high-level consulting engagements are won through authority, not volume. A big part of what I do involves working with folks who came out of content marketing, like me. A lot of content marketing advice has been adopted by solo professionals because that's the information out there, but it really doesn't serve solo professionals. That's about being in all the places, having all the things, writing three 2,000-word articles every single week using at least six hours to write those. That advice is terrible for independent consultants. Who has the time?
Erica: The idea is that you write things and that will help you attract your right audience. While that attraction thing does work on occasion, more often than not, we end up feeling like we're shouting into the void. We're posting to LinkedIn every day, writing all these articles, doing this and doing that. It can become very easy to hide in the content creation and not actually have conversations with people that are going to lead to business. My first business went under because I did this.
Why Consultants Hide in Content Creation
AJ: That really resonates with me. I see that so often. You hide in the content creation, you feel like you're actually doing something. But what you're really doing is hiding from what you need to be doing—having conversations.
Erica: Conversations are scarier. Since I believe that these engagements are won through authority, not volume, that's where the authority development comes in. We're not building authority just to be an authoritative expert. Who cares? We're doing this to accomplish real business goals. So it's figuring out, okay, what does this mean for you? Which will mean different things for different folks. Who is your audience? What are your business goals? What is going to actually help bridge that gap between a first conversation with a prospective client and a closed deal? And how do we actually use your authority that way?
Erica: For me, my area of expertise is writing. So it's writing articles and how you build your authority through those articles, but also how you use those articles as business development tools to nurture relationships and bridge that gap between a first conversation and a signed contract.
Articles as Business Development Assets
AJ: What particularly struck me when we talked initially was that it's great to get an article published in a magazine or on a blog. But we think of it as kind of one and done. We're like, content for this week, done, published, check, done. Your stance is that what we write and what we get published is an asset.
Erica: If you're not using it as an asset, you're checking a box and you're wasting your time. What I mean by an asset is not every article you write is going to be a home run. I've written a lot of articles over my career. Most have been good. But you know the ones that are really good—this one showcases how I think, it might take a slightly controversial stand, it might be super clear, and you know it's going to resonate. Those are the pieces you use as tools in your business development.
Erica: If you have an initial conversation with somebody, and they're sharing what they're currently struggling with at their company, and you've written an article on that very issue, send them that article. What I see happen all the time is people get an article published somewhere like Harvard Business Review. They shout about it once on LinkedIn, and then it gathers dust in some sketchy corner of the internet, never to be heard from again.
Erica: There's this expectation, and certain PR companies are to blame for this, that oh, you get published in Harvard Business Review and the hordes of humans are going to come knocking down your door. They're not. On rare occasion, that happens, but we hear about that happening and cling to it as if that's the expectation. That's not the expectation. You now have an incredible asset, but you have to use that asset, otherwise it's just going to dwindle.
How to Leverage Published Articles Over Time
AJ: So, you get that published in the digital version. How do you turn it into an asset?
Erica: This works for publications that aren't so esteemed too—your own website and blog are assets. Take a look at all the articles you've written. Find the five to ten pieces that rise to that level—the really good articles. Make sure those are kept up to date. Make sure that wherever possible, they hyperlink to one another so you can build a web of authority that ties them together, both for humans and for search engines. With generative engine optimization being very different from search engine optimization, this helps make it clear that you have both breadth and depth of knowledge.
Erica: Then it's looking for opportunities to share those pieces. If you're at a networking event and somebody talks about something and asks a question, and you've written an article about that, tell them. If you do a roundtable discussion, a free Q&A, or speak at a conference, those articles can become resources you share with attendees. Even posting something on LinkedIn or commenting on LinkedIn—if there's a conversation happening about something you've written an article about, look for an opportunity to say, actually, I wrote about this. Have the conversation on the platform, and in addition, you can link and say, if you're interested, I've written in depth about this.
Your Perspective Is Your Differentiator
AJ: You have a philosophy: Your perspective is your differentiator. Explain the philosophy behind that.
Erica: Differentiation is often misunderstood. It's not just about being different. Being different is easy. There have been times when people have worn outrageous outfits to conferences to get attention, and that was their differentiator. That's sure, that makes you different, but I don't care. That's not different in a way that says to me, as the prospective client, I want to work with you. We've also seen people who say, oh, we have a combined 500 years of experience. I don't care. Those baseline qualifications are expected. If I'm hiring you as a consultant, I expect you have the skills to do the work. That's baseline, not a differentiator.
Erica: What really differentiates you from your peers is how you approach the work. Especially in leadership development, a very crowded market, you differentiate by showing, here is how I approach it, this is my worldview, this is where I'm willing to say the hard things or things others don't say. This is where I'm willing to disagree with my industry because I think they're oversimplifying or overcomplicating something. When you share your perspective, that gives the reader or listener an opportunity to really evaluate, oh, this person's approach resonates with me. This is somebody I trust to guide me through this hot mess that I find myself in.
Erica: That's what I mean when I say your perspective is your differentiator, because so much of the other stuff is window dressing. I've had people say, well, nobody does what I do. Cool, let's assume that's true. For the sake of argument, it's not, but let's assume it's true. That doesn't tell me why I should work with you. That doesn't tell me why I should work with you instead of the other person's approach that solves the same problem.
The Forest Framework: Building a Cohesive Body of Work
AJ: So for a self-employed consultant who has decided they want to use writing as a way of getting visibility, where do they start?
Erica: Start with your business goals. Knowing what your business goals are helps determine what platform you're going to write for. Are you going to have a newsletter? A blog? A Substack? Write for a high-visibility publication? What are your actual business goals for this writing? And how are you going to use that writing to help you achieve those business goals? Then it's also evaluating what is your capacity. There's a lot of noise out there about what you should be doing. Just because it works for one person doesn't mean it works for you. Really evaluate what are my goals for this? What am I intending to do? And what is my capacity for this? We need a lot less than we think we do.
Erica: If your business model is such that you're working with fewer than twenty new clients in a year, you don't need to be in all the places doing all of the things all the time. You don't need an email newsletter, which makes some people bananas, but it's true. So figuring out, okay, what's my business model? What are my actual business goals? What's my capacity? What is going to serve me best?
Erica: Once you've figured out the business goals and the platform, it becomes, alright, what the heck are you going to write about? That's about figuring out what do you stand for? What is your thing? What do you want to be known for? What do you want people to say about you when you're not even in the room? So you can start to develop a cohesive body of work.
Erica: I equate it to a forest. You have the canopy of a forest—that's your big idea, that's the reputation you're building, that's the thing you want to be known for. The canopy is created by the mother trees, the oldest and largest trees in a forest. Those are the themes that you talk about. Under that are the smaller trees and shrubs—those are the topics that fall under each theme. And then there's the underground fungal network, the mycorrhizal network, and that's you. That's your experience-based expertise. That ties the whole thing together.
Erica: Knowing what it is that you're going to write about and knowing how every single thing you write about, talk about, present, offer is building towards that same reputation. That's the next step of figuring out what you're going to write that's actually going to help you build authority in that specific area.
Writing Across Different Business Stages
AJ: You work with consultants ranging from newer to more established. How does the writing conversation change depending on where they are?
Erica: It's a combination of where they are and what their goals are. Newer consultants get a lot of their engagements through existing relationships. At some point, that drops. I think it can feel like a cliff. When you hit that cliff, that changes things. In that sweet time when you've got stuff coming in, it's easy for people to say, oh, I don't need to do any of this. But that's also when you're really developing your perspective as a consultant. That's when you're starting to do the work that really differentiates you, so that you're not relying on the training from a program or the way your previous company did things. You're really developing your own way of doing things.
Erica: For folks at the newer end, yes, please, for the love of God, write. Write to figure out all of these things. Write to start building your body of work. Write to give people something to interact with that doesn't require them to interact with you, that they can evaluate your work on. For those folks, I often recommend having a blog. But that doesn't mean you have to write blog posts. A blog post is 500 words of fluff that isn't going to do anything for you. We have plenty of noise. The idea of the content treadmill, that you have to do all the things and create all the stuff all the time, is the number one reason I think so many people are turning to AI to create content because they think they have to stay up to speed and compete by keeping cranking it out. That's a recipe for disaster and absolute exhaustion.
Erica: My argument is always: Write less, better. Write one article a month and make it really good. What changes over time is sometimes you write your way into things. Sometimes it's like, oh, I'm not quite sure what is my thing I want to be known for. Sometimes you write your way into it, and it's like, there she is, cool.
Erica: For more established consultants who have hit that cliff, some will keep doing this and find new ways to connect with their right audiences. But for consultants who have worked their way into a whole lot of the wrong kind of work, those are the folks who really have to change how they're perceived in the market. Those are one group where it can be great to start writing for high-visibility publications. Harvard Business Review gets all the sex appeal, but association publications and trade journals are often overlooked and pack a much more powerful punch.
The Community Model and Scaling with Capacity
AJ: You've shifted from one-on-one writing coaching to building a community. Tell us more about that.
Erica: I was the person who was never going to have a community, ever. So much for that. When I started my business, everything I was doing was working with folks who were ready to write for high-visibility publications. About a year and a half or two years ago, a colleague said, you do all these workshops for people writing for high-visibility publications, have you ever thought of doing that for people writing for their blog? It had never even occurred to me, which is crazy now that I think of it.
Erica: I was like, okay, I'm going to try this as an experiment. I recruited five folks and said, for three months, I'm going to do this series of workshops. I fully anticipated shutting it down at the end of three months because I don't want a community. But we'll see how it goes. At the end of three months, my friend who started the whole thing was like, yeah, I actually don't love writing in community, and I was like, I love it!
Erica: So it became a core part of my business and the work that I do. I now have this community, and the goal basically is to write and have edited one article every month, whether you're writing for your own platform like a newsletter or your website, or writing for a high-visibility platform. It's getting the writing done. That's been something I didn't really expect to do, and I still love it. We have a peer editing workshop every month. I haven't worked with editors since I stopped being a freelance writer. So I now have people editing my stuff too, which I love because I really need that external perspective. I tend to think I'm right about all of the things, so having two editors take a look and say, oh, this was confusing, and when both editors say this is confusing, that's an Erica problem.
AJ: You intentionally cap your one-on-one clients at five.
Erica: I intentionally capped everything. A big part of that is capacity for myself. One of the reasons I didn't want a community at first was because I had been part of communities where you were just a number. I don't want that. I really like being invested in the folks I'm working with. My community is capped at seventy-five people, it'll never be more than that. My one-on-one consultants and projects are much more intensive. I'm doing a deep dive into the strategy. I really need to understand their business forwards and backwards. I have two clients I've been with for three or four years now.
Erica: I keep it to that number so that I can be of service the way I want to be of service.
AI, Generative Engines, and the Future of Human Writing
AJ: Where do you see your business in the next three to five years?
Erica: AI has upturned everything in interesting ways, and to my absolute astonishment, some of those ways are actually good, especially for independent consultants who are going to do less better. Content marketing grew up around SEO. SEO can look at one page on the internet. It had to have all the right keywords, the right this, the right that. It was never really about quality, it was about the right words and enough popularity.
Erica: Generative engine optimization searches the internet very differently. It's no longer looking at just one page; it's looking at your entire digital landscape. It has the ability to do a lot more nuance. It's looking for stuff that is not AI-generated. AI can give you a summary of what's out there in the world. AI cannot make new and interesting connections between dots. AI doesn't get into messy human stuff. AI doesn't go against the grain. It's not going to say something counterintuitive to what the quote best practices are out there. That's what humans do. We make new connections, we get into the messy human stuff. We can say, here's what the industry says, and I disagree, and here's why.
Erica: That type of writing, that type of perspective sharing, is going to become more and more valuable. It's going to let us stand out. There's been a lot of noise on the internet for a very long time. People are hitting capacity with the noise and the junk and the fluff. More and more of us have a very finely tuned BS meter. It's allowing us to do less better and to actually have that found.
Erica: What we want to be able to do is, if somebody goes to generative AI to validate us, to say, hmm, who is this person, we want it to have the correct information and show what we want it to show. We want to control that messaging as much as we possibly can. So one of the things that I have folks do is run a couple of queries on their AI of choice along the lines of, like, I was just referred to AJ Riedel. What is her reputation when it comes to helping consultants in the one to five year stage? See what it says. It's a great mirror that reflects back to us what is the messaging that it sees out there.
How to Connect with Erica
AJ: Most important question, how can listeners or viewers connect with you if they want to learn more about you and working with you?
Erica: My website is CatchlineCommunications.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. That is my one and only social media platform, and I am the only Erica Holthausen, so I'm quite easy to find there. I'm always open to get-acquainted phone calls so we can get to know each other a little bit better. I do have a free Q&A, it's a mini-training and Q&A that I do every month called The Authority Lab. I have a mini topic we talk about, and then I open the floor to questions. It allows you to get questions answered and get a sense of who I am and whether I am your people or not, because I'm a strong cup of tea, and not for everybody.