My name is Christian Dillstrom and I have been a global business influencer for the last few years. From time to time I am asked – what does a business influencer do? What can a business influencer do for our business?
What makes a business influencer?
For me a business influencer is a person who can influence the decision-making process of a wanted target company. He does not make the decisions – he influences the decision makers so that they can reach the desired decision.
Marketing and salespeople distribute information important for them, but they can only hope that the wanted decision maker will read it.
A business influencer either has a relationship with a wanted decision maker or he will form one to make sure that information important for his client is consumed by the wanted decision maker and introduced to the client.
Are there different kinds of business influencing?
Absolutely. Some decision makers can be influenced remotely, while others require one or more personal meetings. It all depends on the client and the offering.
If the client is known and the offering is easy to understand and accept, and the proposed deal is relatively small in value, remote influencing will be enough.
The further away the situation is from the description in the previous paragraph, the more personal the business influencing must be. At the same time, so are the rewards of business influencing for the client.
What kind of industries can benefit from the services of a business influencer?
Any industry where the dream client’s decision maker makes sizable purchases. There is no point in utilizing a business influencer for low value, single purchases.
Small value, single purchase influencing is what consumer influencers like Kardashiands do – they only do it for tens of thousands of consumers at a time to achieve high overall sales.
What size of business can benefit from the services of a business influencer?
The size of the business does not matter – in fact, startups and small businesses should use business influencers as they could speed up their growth very quickly.
For example, I receive 10-20 calls a day from startups and small businesses needing my business influencer services.
Does a business influencer just create relationships with decision makers?
There are of course many approaches to business influencing, but for example, my approach starts with defining the client’s offering, selecting the dream clients for the offering, and making sure that messaging conveys the offering properly to those selected dream clients.
An initial consultation is always a part of my services as I want to be certain that my client will close the deal and my own reputation will remain intact. If a decision maker I have connected with does not make a deal with a client I have personally endorsed, I will also be branded a failure.
Is business influencing a new thing?
It is not. Business influencing is an old trade that most businesspeople have forgotten.
Nowadays businesses put their efforts into creating nice marketing and sales materials and blasting those to anyone who could buy their offering.
They do not put as much effort into making sure that their offering is endorsed so that the correct decision makers will properly consume it. Building a trustful relationship is the key to a high sales conversion on sizable deals.
Can anyone become a business influencer?
Yes, as you only must be able to influence business decision makers. There are many ways to reach that position. For example, I myself achieved my business influencing effectiveness via blogging. Since the beginning of 2015, tens of millions of businesspeople around the world have been reading my texts about growth hacking and business every month.
That built name recognition for me and associated my name with methods of increasing the sales of businesses. As a result, very few business decision makers today will not respond to my messages and requests to have a phone call or a meeting with me.
Is it expensive to use a business influencer?
Business influencers are the fastest way to increase the sales of businesses on a large scale. That itself explains that business influencers will bring in much more sales than their services cost.
Some business influencers will charge for their services on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Some will charge a fixed fee per project.
There is also a group of business influencers that will charge a commission for sales and costs that have occurred. I do both time- and commission-based deals.