I had the pleasure and honor of speaking for the THIRD time for the Conference for Women suite of conferences (they don’t ask you back unless you’re wow’ing the crowd!). I’ve now spoken at all three: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and now Texas, the later is where I was this past week, where I spoke four times.

My last three presentations were actually me leading roundtable of up to 15 people. The topic of the roundtable was the title of my upcoming  book, “Who Gives a Tweet?” I spoke with them about tactics and strategies that can help them get the most out of Twitter. I answered their questions and addressed their concerns about what role Twitter should have in their lives and in their businesses. It really was amazing. Here’s a picture of yours truly leading one of those roundtables:

But, during my first presentation, I spoke to a room of 300 women (5,000+ attended the conference), about what influence REALLY is, why it’s important to expand your influence and four steps to actually start doing so. I shared these four tips with that group of 300 women and so I’m going to share them with you here:

• Mind State + Commitment – The first order of business is to get your mind state in alignment and then make being more influential a priority. That means eliminating distractions, removing negative influences from your orbit, drilling down to focus and make all your decisions with the goal of becoming more influential in mind. Every time there is a decision to be made, ask yourself: “is doing this going to expand my influence to support my goals”?
• Tool Selection – Very successful influencers leverage one or two influence-building tools – they don’t try to do everything. For example, I speak and write a lot…other people might leverage Facebook and direct mail or email and Twitter. The point is, pick one or two things and do those really, really well. Stop trying to do it all. You’re making yourself frustrated. And, that doesn’t serve anyone and it certainly doesn’t make you any more influential.
• Influencer Engagement – In order to be influential, you have to know who to influence. This is what got me on CBS This Morning with Gayle King. Figure out who are the people who are ALREADY trust agents with the people you want to work with — who already has their trust? And, once you know that, you can start to figure out how to genuinely reach them so they trust you and either directly or indirectly endorse you and your work.
• Growth – You need to figure out EARLY ON how you’re going to support your growth – even if you can’t see the growth potential now.  If you don’t plan for growth, how can you actually grow? I can say for sure that my business did NOT grow until I had two things: accountability and the support of other entrepreneurs like me through a mastermind group. I’ve heard many, many other successful entrepreneurs say the same thing. Find a coach or join a mastermind group of like-minded people…it’s the fastest path to where you want to be.