Reinventing Your Reputation, Getting Big Name Endorsements and Building Authority That Pays Off with Maria Ross

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Maria Ross has written four books, hosted a podcast for six years, built a successful consulting business and landed a Forbes column. But one of the more interesting things about her career is that she had to convince people to stop thinking of her as the expert they'd known for years.

Ross started out in brand strategy, wrote a book about branding and built a reputation in that world before realizing she wanted to devote her career to something else entirely: empathy. Her book The Empathy Edge helped establish her in the leadership space, but she quickly discovered that publishing a book doesn't magically make the world recognize you as an authority on a new subject. You have to do the work of changing people's minds about who you are.

Today, Ross is the founder of Red Slice, author of The Empathy Edge and The Empathy Dilemma and host of The Empathy Edge podcast. We talk about how she used books, podcasting, PR and speaking to make that professional pivot, why she believes book marketing should start at least six months before publication and what actually happens when you ask someone like Seth Godin to endorse your book.

Yes, she got the endorsement. And no, she didn't have some magical connection. She simply sent a short, thoughtful email with a very clear request.

We also get into the difference between building a reputation and generating leads, why having a podcast can be valuable even if it doesn't directly produce clients and how Ross turned a single contributed article opportunity into an ongoing Forbes column.

One of my favorite parts of the conversation is her explanation of why authority building doesn't have a neat, measurable return on investment. Your book, podcast, articles and social media create what she calls the "air cover" that makes people more receptive when you eventually approach them directly. In other words, the work you're doing to become known matters even when you can't point to a specific sale and say exactly where it came