'The Authority Economy’ - Master the lessons from the titans who’ve turned their expertise into 7 & 8 figure empires
Move over creator economy, I’m calling it: 2024 is all about the Authority Economy.
Why? Because creating itself isn’t enough to stand out.
Since early 2020-2021 days, more people have joined the masses to share their interests and beliefs freely online. Mom-fluencers, 20 year old relationship experts, passive income pros teaching you how to create your own passive income products… about passive income.
It’s a lot.
What you need to know today is different. Whilst anyone can have their five minutes of fame, if you want to build a 7-figure legacy like the titans you’re about to learn more about, you need more than a good idea or a ‘hot take’.
You need Authority.
In the past four years I have lost count of the number of times my clients have mentioned the names of some of the people you are about to learn about today. The people that I coach, and myself included, often aspire to have what they have.
Why?
Because these pros are trading their most interesting ideas and beliefs in exchange for income. They get to be creative, authentic, have interesting conversations on a daily basis and become wildly successful in the process.
Whether you want to be a famous household name or not isn’t really the point: there are many ways that running this kind of business can look.
As I take you through examples of these ‘titans’ I will draw out the important lessons for you if you too want to have an impact and glab your own slice of the Authority Economy pie. There’s a lot of noise out there but there is still room for new entrants in the market. The online land grab just requires a different (and better) approach.
Keep reading to find out what that is.
Who are the Authority titans?
I call them ‘titans’ precisely due to the huge scale they have achieved by leveraging assets such as media (newsletters, podcasts, videos), Intellectual Property (books, courses, products) and tapping into other people’s audiences (e.g TED talks, appearing on talk and radio shows and press)
The business models of titans who have leveraged their Authority can vary:
Products/marketplaces (Gwenth’s Goop)
In person events (Tony Robbins, Unleash the Power Within)
Podcasts and entertainment (Joe Rogan’s $200m Spotify deal)
Books and TV shows (Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck comes to Netflix)... and more.
It’s not hard to spot the titans, either.
These titans are the ones on the other titans’ podcasts and social media feeds. They make guest appearances on each other’s platforms seem as routine to them as brushing our teeth is for us. They are featured in the latest ‘Masterclass’ course. They are on non-fiction book bestseller lists for months, if not years, in a row. The question of ‘who is at the top of this game’ is easy to answer.
They are in what we might call the ‘Inner Ring’.
In 1944, C.S. Lewis gave a lecture at King’s College, explaining to students that in any social construct there is what we call a group of insiders who are on top, have the best ideas and hold the most sway. Source. Lewis explained that we are always chasing the position of the Inner Ring, and today more than ever social media has given us an exclusive front seat to the show to observe it. We know who made the grade … and who did not.
These six titans I show you below represent a tiny fraction of the people who have built scalable (and profitable) businesses out of what they know.
If you want to learn about the business model and approaches of Ramit Sethi, Marie Forleo, Andrew Huberman, Esther Perel, Jay Shetty and James Clear… keep reading to learn how they built their businesses and their journey before stardom.
I spent a couple of hours creating these factsheets using publicly available information - please note that the data provided has NOT been fact checked beyond my own preliminary research based on publicly accessible information.
I really enjoyed putting this data together in one place but crucially I have loved observing, reading, watching and learning from these Authorities for a good part of the last decade.
The Ask, my own Authority-led business, was born out of the inspiration I took from other online educational businesses built by coaches who had personally helped me (albeit from afar).
What can we learn from these Authority titans?
The first lesson is on how to get noticed.
Despite the massive scale and fame our titans have amassed, those who seek scale and fame as the primary goal rarely end up with anything valuable to share.
All of these six (as well as other titans who come top of mind for me like Alex Hormozzi, Steven Bartlett, Brene Brown, Mel Robbins, Seth Godin) didn’t arrive at the ‘top’ following a pursuit of fame.
They got there by pursuing their craft.
Each and every one of them began their Authority timeline acquiring knowledge. Their early days were spent learning, and then applying what they learnt in practice. Esther Perel had a humble private therapy practice for almost three decades before becoming a household name. Jay Shetty literally went into the depths of solitude where no one was watching him, to first build his meditation practice. Andrew Huberman wasn’t content with a masters degree, but completed a PhD and then years of postgraduate studies in his field before launching a public platform to share his learnings.
You get the picture.
In the book Mastery, author Robert Greene describes this process as one’s ‘Life Task’:
"In the end, the money and success that truly last come not to those who focus on such things as goals, but rather to those who focus on mastery and fulfilling their Life's Task.”
With a focus on your craft, fame and money become a potential byproduct. But if you seek fame first, you’ll never get deep enough into your craft to surface meaningful insights worth sharing. The titans lived and breathed their Authority before getting airtime for their ideas.
“If you want to be in the Inner Ring, you’ve already lost” writes Ali Montag in The Inner Ring of The Internet as she too explains that incentives matter. C.S. Lewis knew this to be true of his students in 1944 and in the age of online media where anyone can freely share their ideas and take a microphone, this is even more true.
Chasing fame leads to mediocrity.
The next lesson?
So depth of insights are how you get noticed. But how do you get paid?
There’s no shortage of literature encouraging us to share our ideas and personality online to get followers and in turn, the big bucks. See this list compiled by The Generalist:
As the creator/information economy gained steam, so did advice about how to tap into and benefit from it. My own writing is no exception to this (!).
But the advice I often wince at is advice that is flippant about what it takes to reach the top and collect your winnings.
Case in point: this video sharing three $1m+ businesses built from info products. The advice is that selling digital products based on your expertise is super profitable because the margins are so low. They use Sam Parr’s story to illustrate this. Parr built The Hustle newsletter from his kitchen with just $12 and then grew it to 8-figures in revenue, nearly 3 million readers a day and sold it to HubSpot for 8 figures. In the video Parr says he believes his experience is ‘entirely replicable’ for others, too.
The framework:
Just write a newsletter and be a millionaire - duh!
Whilst I don’t discredit what Sam Parr has done (super impressive) nor do I want to deter you from similar ambition - I just don’t think trying to replicate his plan is the right move for everyone
Why not?
The Hustle was Sam’s fifth business. He is clearly a ‘hustler’ and also, he was bang on time when it came to creating a newsletter — the hype around the creator economy, information and online activity during the early 2020s was real. We were spending more time than ever on the internet.
If you don’t have a big network of influential people, an online following or killer copywriting skills then don’t bet on building a content business to make you rich.
I argue that those serious about building a sustainable income stream - and a life they love in the process - should use their Authority to design a high-ticket service. That’s because a service is something you can get going with, and get paid to deliver, right away, and keep increasing your fees as you go.
Not only this but you’ll also learn those all important (and share-worthy) insights from the mouths of the customers you serve and the problems you solve first hand. Whilst this might be manual labour at first, over time you can productise what you offer and build digital products and media around it.
One of the OGs of making money from information himself, Brian Clark, even deters people from trying to make money from information alone and created this handy illustration of the same point:
This was taken from Brian Clark’s ‘Unemployable’ teachings and podcast episodes.
You can see our titans followed this journey, and I teach you how to start this process successfully in my 5-step guide to a profitable one person business, if you are building in the client services space this one’s for you.
It’s not difficult to get followers online. But is difficult to create true value for and get paid by those followers– that is the revenue you should be chasing if you want to be an Authority in the market.
You can grow your business and therefore your net worth by being savvy and charging more than you spend, and reinvesting your earnings into assets like the stock market, property and other investments. I repeat, followers alone won’t get you rich.
We’ve looked at our titans, and the two biggest lessons you need to remember but if you want even more specific dos and don’ts on this path…. keep reading for more lessons you can apply today.
PS if you’re enjoying this post, you’'ll love Authority Club
it’s coming soon for those on THIS WAITLIST
How you too can become an Authority titan
When we look at the titans, it’s easy to feel discouraged.
There are so many people who have already claimed many of the core ‘topics’ that people want to learn about: health, business, relationships, psychology, fitness, philosophy… There are established Authorities for everything. Not only this, but those at the top have more money to throw into building their kingdoms further. As Nathan Baschez writes in the seminal post ‘Content is King’ they have a scale economy; meaning that the bigger you get in the content world the more you can invest in creating better content. That in turn, generates more cash to reinvest – a self-fulling feedback loop.
If you take a look at the educational platform Masterclass you’ll find James Clear, Jay Shetty, Esther Perel all on there. Ramit Sethi and Marie Forleo already have their own TV shows and I’m sure Huberman could show up any day now.
In fact, in yet another Every post (I’m a big fan of the publication if you can’t tell), Adam Keesling explains that Masterclass isn’t really selling education, it is selling celebrity status. What makes these Authorities so valuable is the scarcity of the experiences they have had. Not many people have the depth of insight they have, the awards etc. He writes “The credibility of being someone at the top of your field takes a lot of work. It’s hard — dare I say impossible — to game that kind of system”.
So, should you bother?
It’s true that there are some behemoths in place here.
But whilst the ‘main’ topics have their fair share of takers… these main topics have yet to be mastered in the lives of the people who learn from them. I don’t know about you, but I am always on the quest for self-improvement. If you can teach me something new about my mind or body, about love, or about what it takes to succeed in business…I am ALL ears. If that information is then applied to my UNIQUE situation, and I am HELPED to implement a change and get a result I want? That’s a game changer.
Information is everywhere sure, but there are still wide open spaces for you to deliver a true transformation. Read: create a service that solves a problem for customers.
So anywhere where problems still need solving you can still be an Authority.
But you must do so in a way that stands out and is authentic. A new way of communicating ideas, with your unique stamp. Your own personality, style and approach must come out. You won’t be right for, or liked by, everyone but you don’t need to be because the mechanics of the market have changed.
Chris Anderson explained this in "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More." No longer do we have access to just a few TV major channels, radio stations or newspapers. There are literally thousands to choose from. Culture and economy has shifted from a small number of mainstream hits (the head of the demand curve) to a vast number of niches (the tail).
So whilst our titans are at the Head, there is enough space in the world wide web for for the rest of us in the Long Tail. Thanks to the power of the internet.
You can be niche, and different, and still have a really profitable business, provided that you stand out and be yourself. Not gunning for fame. It’s doubling down on your own greatness and specific curiosities. Your Unique Contribution as I call it.
Don’t water down what you believe, be vague, or try to cover lots of topics. You must go deeper into your curiosities and be more specific about who you are helping. This is what will make your offer scarce, compelling, and worthy of attention. Marketing guru Seth Godin talks about the idea of tribes—groups of people connected by a shared interest or passion. In a Long Tail scenario, tribes can form around various niches, and businesses can thrive by connecting with these tribes.
And what if your dream is to be at the Head? To become a titan?
The process is the same as I’ve shared so far, but importantly, you must start now. You start now because to become a titan takes time. Years, if not decades of reps under your belt. You need the reps under your belt which both a volume game but also about getting a ‘hit’….
Volume: Creating a large body of work
Hits: Part of your body of work going viral or becoming a big hitter
If you take the head and long tail analogy again, every creator whether an author, singer, actor, has their own head and long tails. Creatives rarely know what their fans will love the most but they trust the creative process, put their heads down and do the work to find them. Taylor, Beyonce, The Beatles… they all have some knock out tracks that get played 5, 10, 100x more than their others combined.
Yet without writing the other tracks or suffering through some flops, they would never have reached their peak
“The only way to get into the digital Inner Ring is to try… Let everyone in to have a look around, then change and iterate your work with their feedback. Let popularity be your guide” - Ali Montag
In a very meta way, I guess I hope this very post could be one of my ‘big hits’. If you like it, please share it, and it might just become one.
The internet has created a meritocracy where you don’t need to be tapped on the shoulder and invited inside thanks to your lineage or existing credentials to get started. The gatekeepers don’t exist - so get shipping, as they say.
In The Great Online Game, which talks to this idea Packy McCormick describes it like this:
“The Great Online Game is free to play, and it starts simply: by realizing that you’re playing a game. Every tweet is a free lottery ticket. That’s a big unlock. Financial and social capital are no longer tied so tightly to where you went, who you know, or what your boss thinks of you”. - Packy McCormick
To conclude
From where I stand, you have to start acting like an Authority before you become one.
At first, there is a gap between the version of yourself you are now and the one you want to be someday. But that gap only gets closed by taking action: writing the piece, sharing the idea, solving the problem. Authority then compounds as your experiences grow and you iterate what you believe and form stronger insights in the process.
You create your own Authority.
Like this guy:
As a newcomer in this space competing with the titans, the ONLY way you can compete is by being yourself.
Pay homage to your muses, yes, but lean into what makes you unique and deliver upon this promise.
You can carve a market of one.
You can still become an Authority titan.
If you want to learn how to package your Authority into a one person business that gets you noticed and gets you paid, you are in luck. Authority Club is coming. This is 3 months of group coaching & mentoring built around Ellen’s tried and tested methods for growing your Authority. A home for your ideas, expertise and creativity to flourish, alongside a group of interesting people.
