How Does Your Objective Shape Your Pathway?
Why staying engaged, building influence, and earning income require different approaches
In my last article, Which Area of Expertise Should You Build Authority Around?, we tackled the challenge of identifying your area of expertise—what you want to be known for. Whether your expertise spans multiple domains, feels too ordinary to recognize, or looks scattered across different roles, we identified the first steps to find your focus.
Once you’ve identified your area of expertise, the next question shapes how you’ll pursue building authority: what do you want to achieve, and what’s the right pathway to follow?
Most professionals’ objectives fall into one of three general categories: staying meaningfully engaged after your primary career wraps up, building influence in your field, or earning income from your expertise. You don’t need perfect clarity yet—just a general sense of which category resonates.
Your objective shapes the pathways you pursue and how far you take them. Let’s explore this concept through an example: a professional with expertise in managing remote teams.
The Same Expertise, Different Pathways
Over the last decade, you’ve honed an expertise in building high-performing remote teams: refining the technology used to support remote work, addressing cultural differences, maintaining team cohesion across continents. Now you want to build authority from this expertise, but your path will vary based on your objective.
We’ll start with the pathway that serves both staying engaged and building influence, then explore how the approach shifts when your goal is earning income.
Staying Engaged or Building Influence
These two objectives share a similar pathway through the first two stages, though your approach differs based on whether you’re staying engaged (more flexible) or pursuing influence (more systematic).
Stage 1: Building Expertise-Based Relationships (Share your knowledge)
The goal of this stage is establishing credibility through written content.
If your focus is staying engaged, you write when you have something to say, contributing occasional articles to online platforms like Substack where your professional community gathers and, just as importantly, interacts. If your focus is building influence, you might pursue contributor articles in more prestigious third-party platforms that establish your credibility more broadly. As your articles accumulate, they could become the foundation for a book that documents your expertise comprehensively (an output more aligned with seeking influence than engagement).
Stage 2: Building Personality-Based Relationships (Share your voice)
The goal of this stage is building connections through conversational content, which adds personality and human dimension to your expertise.
If your object is to stay engaged professionally, you’re selective about pursuing podcast guest placement or accepting invitations, focusing on those where the format feels more conversational than “presentational.” You might find you enjoy these conversations enough to pursue them regularly, or occasional appearances might satisfy your desire to stay connected.
If you’re building influence, this stage becomes central. You pursue podcast invitations strategically, focusing on programs with the greatest reach to amplify your ideas to the largest possible audiences. The conversations themselves become platforms for influence. You might even launch your own podcast where you share your expertise in a solo format or interview other experts in order to add network-building to the benefits.
Regardless of which objective drives you, this stage lets you refine and showcase your personal presence—how you communicate, how you engage with ideas, how you handle challenging questions, how you connect with others.
Stage 3: Building Authority-Based Relationships (Share your mastery)
The goal of this stage is positioning as an authority through direct engagement: speaking and consulting. Professionals often move to Stage 3 as a way of earning income, so if this is not your goal, your involvement in this stage might be limited or highly selective—for example, mentoring individuals, advising a nonprofit, speaking at your alma mater—based on personal interest rather than strategic positioning.
Shifting to an Income Focus
The pathway differs if your objective is earning income. While staying engaged and building influence can stop at Stages 1 or 2, generating substantial income typically requires progressing to Stage 3, where consulting and speaking engagements create direct revenue opportunities. But reaching that stage successfully means building the right foundation in Stages 1 and 2.
Stage 1: Building Expertise-Based Relationships (Share your knowledge)
The goal remains establishing credibility through written content, but here the priority is building that credibility with people who hire speakers and consultants: event organizers, executives, or organizational development professionals.
You write articles for business publications where decision-makers in your target market consume content. These might be prestigious outlets or niche publications—what matters is reaching the audience that will eventually become your clients.
As you develop articles, consider how they might later contribute to a book. When you’re positioning yourself for consulting or corporate training, a book serves not just as a credential but as a calling card that opens doors to speaking and consulting opportunities. It provides the proof that potential clients and speakers’ bureaus look for when evaluating expertise.
Stage 2: Building Personality-Based Relationships (Share your voice)
The goal is building connections through conversational content—and this stage becomes crucial for exposing and refining your personal presence before engaging with paying clients.
You pursue podcast appearances on shows your potential clients listen to. You’re not trying to reach the largest audience; you’re trying to reach the right audience.
These conversations let you practice articulating your expertise in real time, handling questions, adapting your communication to different hosts and formats. You’re creating personal connection; clients and organizations want to work with people they feel they know and trust, not just credentials on paper.
Stage 3: Building Authority-Based Relationships (Share your mastery)
The goal is positioning as an authority through direct engagement—and for income-focused professionals, this is where you concentrate your energy.
Direct engagement—consulting and speaking—offers the highest income potential. Your written content and conversational presence create the visibility that generates consulting inquiries and speaking invitations.
You pursue the highest-paying engagements, perhaps working with speakers’ bureaus or placement agencies for whom your established background from Stages 1 and 2 makes you an attractive client. Everything in Stages 1 and 2 builds toward this stage because direct engagement is where income potential increases significantly.
What Changes Based on Your Objective
The channels you prioritize:
Staying engaged / building influence > platforms for sharing ideas and staying connected
Income > channels that reach decision-makers who select speakers and hire consultants
Your approach to each stage:
Staying engaged > Flexible engagement in Stages 1 and 2
Building influence > Systematic effort through Stages 1 and 2
Income > Building through all three stages with Stage 3 as the focus
What success looks like:
Staying engaged > Personal satisfaction and connection
Building influence > Reach and recognition
Income > Consulting and speaking engagement fees
The expertise is identical. The framework is the same. But your objective determines your specific pathway.
Your Starting Point
You’re not locked into the objective you choose at the beginning of your journey from expertise to authority; it can evolve as you progress. Many professionals start with staying engaged and discover they enjoy it enough to build a consulting practice, or they aim for income but find that influence alone feels rewarding.
But having general direction now helps you make better choices about where to start.
So here’s your action step: Write down two things:
My area of expertise: ___________
My primary objective: ___________ (Staying engaged / Building influence / Earning income)
That’s your foundation. You can refine both as you learn more. But this clarity—even rough clarity—shapes every decision that follows.
In the next article, we’ll tackle the third essential question: once you know your expertise and objective, who actually needs to hear from you? How do you identify your audience?
Matty Dalrymple’s workshops and consulting services guide professionals in building their presence From Expertise to Authority. Learn more at https://www.theindyauthor.com/authority.