Eminence Building 101 Via Google

by Donna K. Weninger, FSA, MAAA

This article is reprinted from the July 2007 issue of The Stepping Stone, newsletter of the SOA's Management and Personal Development Section.

Recently, it seems the hot topic is eminence building. You can’t go a day without hearing about the topic either via newspaper articles, talk shows or e-mails from business coaches. We’ve heard the concept and theory behind eminence building, but perhaps a few simple and practical pointers will be even more inspiring.

In today’s Internet-based environment, building your personal and business brand depends upon being able to be “Googled.” A strong presence in leading Internet search engines means that prospective and current clients looking for experts in their topic of interest can easily find references to leading thinkers and doers in that field.

Three different types of eminence building activities that will result in more Google hits include writing, speaking and press quotes.

Writing
In today’s world, there seem to be more trade journals than one can keep track of or possibly read. This may be a negative if unread copies are cluttering your desk. However, the large number of trade journals can be a positive if you are trying to get published. Editors need to fill up the pages of their journals month after month and are always looking for volunteer writers. Certainly, an editor isn’t going to turn down a high quality article. It’s important to keep in mind that most trade journal articles aren’t excessively long or extremely technical—often articles are between 250 and 1200 words.

A few pointers include:
• Understand the editorial content of the specific trade journal.
• Review the journal’s editorial calendar.
• Make sure you understand the journal’s audience.
• Develop a central theme for your article.
• Create a sound byte or tag line that fits your central theme.
• Get to know the writers at the journal by calling them and sharing information and providing article ideas.

Speaking
In general, public speaking is more difficult than writing an article for a couple of reasons. First, it has been noted repeatedly that public speaking ranks as many people’s number one fear. Second, most speaking engagements require that you have some pre-established eminence that has been built through writing and other industry activities.

One easy way to get started on building your personal eminence via speaking is to present at internal meetings or trainings. An additional tactic would be to ask senior members of your team if they are aware of any upcoming conferences needing speakers. But, before you get involved with any speaking efforts, you must learn to be a good speaker and practice speaking in front of a crowd.

Press Quotes
At first, getting your name quoted in the press may sound nearly impossible, but here is a very simple approach: 
• Make a list of selected reporters.
• Call the reporters and introduce yourself.
• Offer to talk to them about your area of expertise.
• Tell them a few things that you think are cutting edge.
• Tell them to feel free to reach out to you at any time.
• Occasionally, follow-up with them to say hello or e-mail them interesting thought-ware you’ve created.

You are doing them a favor and not asking anything in return. Perfect! It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that eventually they’ll call you to be interviewed in one of their articles. One more Google hit for your name!

Another approach is to call a reporter and say, “I saw your article on XYZ. Did you think about ABC? It might be a good follow-up article and I can help.” Of course they’ll thank you for giving them the next story idea and naturally, they’ll want your assistance.

When it comes to eminence building via any of these activities, remember this: you must have something unique and insightful to say. This requires that you spend time thinking of innovative ideas so that you can provide a unique perspective on standard industry topics. You must bring something new to the table since there will always be someone who can do the basics.

One final pointer is to think about what audience you are trying to reach and what your personal brand looks like. Each magazine, conference and reporter has a certain audience and you should try to match your career objectives to the eminence you build. Eminence building takes time and getting Google references can take years. You want to be sure that the memorialization of your efforts in cyberspace reflect the direction in which you want to take your personal brand.