If you want to be a successful entrepreneur you need to be an influencer – period. By Sandra Stepan “YOU THINK TOO HIGHLY OF YOURSELF AND I THINK YOU JUST LIKE THE WORD ‘INFLUENCER’ A LOT”… … IS WHAT SOMEONE I SAW AS A FRIEND ONCE SAID TO ME.
M
y partner and I were on vacation in Belize with another couple that I considered close friends. One morning I was working very angrily, sharing a situation where someone was trying to steal our business name when my “friend” said to me “you just think what you do is so important; you think so
highly of yourself and I think you just like the word ‘influencer’ a lot”. I was shocked to hear that, especially since he was in the same line of business as us and especially since my partner propelled his marketing career just a short three years earlier. I’ll be honest, as much as I try not to base my self-worth on other people’s opinions, I felt awful. Suddenly this person I considered a close friend opened up about how much of a fake person he thought I was. In his eyes I was giving into the ideology of “influencers”, thinking my opinions matter on social media (how dare I). It got me thinking: is that the truth? Is that what I am doing with my career: posing as someone important, thinking I am an influencer when in fact my opinions don’t really matter? 5 years ago Sandra would have said “maybe”, but recently Sandra came to the conclusion that I am in fact an influencer. I’m not talking about having a six figure following on Instagram and signing cosmetic deals left and right – although, how awesome would that be (hello free cosmetics!) No, I realized I am an influencer in the more traditional sense: a person who has the capacity to have an effect on
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the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself (definition taken straight from the Oxford dictionary). And I realized that I have to be an influencer if I want to be a successful business owner – which, by my own and my network’s measure, I am. You see, having influence is not about posing and posting. It’s not about your followers. It’s not about the media at all. It’s about having influence: with your team, your business partners, and with yourself. And you need to have influence in those areas if you want to be a successful business owner.
