So what elements make up a sound Authenticity Strategy?
The quickest answer to this question is ‘this whole book.’ It’s filled with ideas, frameworks, suggestions and processes that can help you, but let’s just focus on three important aspects of any well-founded authenticity strategy.
I. The varnished truth.
Do you have one of those friends who always ‘tells the truth’ regardless of its fallout? The ‘keeping it real’ jerk who may in fact be telling the 100% truth, but evidently does not have a tactful bone in their body? We all do. They’re the ones who make Thanksgiving some dang awkward, and typically end conversations that led to people crying and leaving the room with “What’d I say?”
The unvarnished truth, while worshipped by some, is not always conducive to a happy well-regulated society or satisfying long-term relationship. That’s why one must have the ability to recognize the truth, and know how and when to shape it strategically. This last phrase is not a euphemism for lie, but a call to civility—especially in business situations.
Depending where you live and work, it’s likely that a full 50% of the people you work with or serve are not on the same page with you and your opinions about politics, religion, and even football teams. Knowing when, where and how to serve the T is an art form that many of us haven’t quite mastered, but need to. I know I’m still working on it.
II. Give your hottest takes cool consideration.
This idea is much like the one above regarding how, when, where and what you share about the or your truth. Hot takes are the flash triggers of discourse. They happen when something is immediately amazing, annoying, outrageous or the topic has great universal appeal. And hot takes are frequently wrong, or at least wrong-headed.
Example: You see a clickbait headline that says murder hornets have been discovered in the United States. This actually happened a couple of days ago at the time of this writing. OMG! MURDER HORNETS!!!! IN THE MIDDLE OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR BUNKERS!!!!!!!
Or don’t. Fact is, the majority of those clickbait headlines are created with the goal of driving you to some kind of primary emotional state (e.g., happy, sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted). A strategically authentic person can still have a take about any appropriate subject, but the strategy part is all about limiting the topic upon which you make those hot takes.
Here’s how that works. Let’s say you’re an athletic trainer who really wants to build credibility within your specific niche. First, what’s your niche, the hyper-focused area in which you want to specialize. Could be weight loss, endurance performance, weight-training, flexibility, cardio-vascular optimization, stress handling and relief…the list goes on and on.
If you’re a endurance performance specialist, should you have a hot take on every new fad diet that pops up? No, because new diets pop up practically every day, and you’re bandwidth would be taken up by responding to something that does not matter to your core business or your core customers. But if that diet starts showing up in your neck of the woods media-wise, that’s the perfect time to demonstrate your expertise—but not with a hot take, but a carefully, cooly considered response focused on providing relevant, valuable information.
Every journalist knows that the first report of any significant event is often partially or even completely wrong. A smart Strategically Authentic person avoids that trap, and fights back with the real truth. If being first means being wrong, coming in second is the smarter place to be.
III. Knowing who you are. So you can be it.
You just knew I was going to bring up this dual concept phrase pair again. It is the DNA of NonFiction Branding after all.
…and there’s much more to come.
BOOKWARD BOUND / Daily Build is just what it says: the writing I did today in order to get my book a little bit closer to its publication. It is presented here exactly as written and complete with all the misspellings and grammatical errors you’d expect of a rough draft. Don’t worry, it’ll be edited later. The above was written during a livestream video of BOOKWARD BOUND that you can find on my YouTube channel any time you’d like. – DP Knudten
@2020 DP Knudten LLC – all rights reserved.
