This essay is based on a recent live workshop I did in partnership with the great folks at Ro.am, the virtual office for ultra-productive teams.
On August 7th, 2018, I got fired.
It felt like a punch to the gut.
The kind that knocks the wind out of you and leaves you standing there, dumbfounded, wondering what the hell just happened.
Two weeks later, I had a new job.
A job that paid me $100,000 more a year, with a bigger title and a bigger opportunity.
How?
It wasn’t because I was the smartest guy in the room. It wasn’t because I had some secret insurance knowledge nobody else possessed.
It’s because I had spent years, often in a “haphazard and inconsistent” way, building something far more valuable than expertise.
I had built authority.
And that authority made me antifragile.
It was a career insurance policy that paid out when I needed it most.
The Age of Expertise is Dead
If you’re still marketing yourself as an “expert,” you are losing. I promise you this.
For fifteen years, I’ve been saying that we are no longer the gatekeepers of insurance information.
That battle is over. AI finished the job.
Today, your expertise is a commodity. It’s the table stakes.
Your clients and prospects simply expect you to know your shit.
They don’t give you extra credit for it.
There was a day when having a CIC or a CPCU was a clear differentiator.
Today? No one gives a crap.
I’m not saying the designations aren’t valuable for your own development—they are.
But your customers don’t care.
They don’t refer to you by saying, “Oh, John knows the liability clause of a Hartford BOP better than anybody.”
They say, “Hey, you can trust this guy. He takes care of his clients.”
They refer your authority, not your expertise.
If you’re still competing on price, speed, and expertise, you’re in a race to the bottom.
AI has made all three of those things commodities. The only truly defensible position you have left is your brand.
…and the core of that brand is your authority.
So, how do you build it?
You start by understanding the physics of authority.
The 4 Frameworks for Building an Authority Brand
This is the work. This is how you go from being just another expert to being the only choice in your market.
1) The Gravity Model
Think of your authority like a solar system.
The denser an object, the more gravity it has. To build gravity, you must build density around a single, specific topic.
Don’t be an authority on “commercial insurance.”
That’s a galaxy.
Be an authority on “workers’ compensation for plumbing contractors in the state of New York.”
That’s a sun.
Every piece of content you create—every blog post, every video, every LinkedIn comment—adds to the density of your solar system.
You’re not just regurgitating facts; you’re sharing your unique positioning, your experience, your take on the topic.
As you create a deeper and denser content stack, you create an undeniable gravitational pull that attracts the exact people you want to work with.
2) The Specialist Moat
This is how you define your category of one.
The formula is simple:
Your Industry + Your Unique Perspective + Your Specific Audience = A Category of One
Here’s what it looks like in practice:
“I help construction companies in Texas (audience) navigate complex liability (industry) by treating insurance like a competitive advantage, not a cost center (unique perspective).”
That unique perspective is your flag in the ground.
It’s what separates you from every other producer who’s just selling a policy.
It’s the foundation of your authority.
3) The Expert Positioning Pyramid
To become an authority, you need more than just a perspective; you need assets that prove it.
This is your pyramid:
Proprietary Assets:
These are your tools. A simple calculator, a spreadsheet, an assessment (I love ScoreApp for this), a checklist. At Rogue Risk, we had a process for turning insurance into a competitive advantage. What’s your thing?
Proof:
This is evidence that your assets work. Testimonials, case studies, your own stories. When I first started, I borrowed my father-in-law’s stories until I had my own. The message is more important than the ownership of the story.
Frameworks:
Give your process a name. This turns your service into intellectual property. I teach my coaching clients a framework called PEAK (Presence, Energy, Awareness, Calibration). It’s a tangible system they can use. What’s your named process?
Content Marketing:
This is the engine that drives it all. You must consistently create content that markets your frameworks, proof, and assets.
4) The AI-Powered Authority Workflow
This is the flywheel that makes content creation sustainable and effective in the age of AI.
1) Research
Use AI tools to go deeper than you ever could before. Ask a tool like Manus AI or Perplexity to find every piece of case law on a specific topic. You’ll uncover gold.
2) Develop a Take
Based on your research, what’s your unique angle? My take for the webinar was simple: authority beats expertise every day.
3) Validate
Use social media to test your takes. Float the idea in a LinkedIn post or a tweet. See if it resonates. If it does, you’ve got a winner.
4) Publish
Turn your validated take into a substantial, longer-form piece of content—a video, a newsletter, a webinar.
5) Iterate & Distribute
Listen to the feedback from your published piece, make any final tweaks, and then press into your winners. Turn that one idea into a three-month newsletter series, a six-episode micro-podcast, or an in-person workshop.
This is how you build an unshakeable brand.
Stop Being an Expert. Become an Authority.
My career could have been over multiple times if I hadn’t built a personal brand that came with a certain level of authority.
That authority is what allowed me to transition from a local agency to a national media company, to get carrier appointments before I’d sold a single policy, and to turn getting fired into a six-figure raise.
To be honest with you, probably every one of you on this call is better at insurance than I am. But I’m better at becoming an authority.
And at the end of the day, all that really matters is that your prospects believe you know what you’re doing.
That belief is called authority.
…and it’s the most valuable asset you can build.
This is the way.
Hanley
Whenever you’re ready, there are two ways I can help you:
Finding Peak Insider
If you’re ready to stop being just an expert and start becoming an authority, become a Finding Peak Insider. You get access to all my prompt guides, frameworks, and a community of leaders building their own authority brands.
1:1 Authority Coaching
I am taking on a limited number of one-on-one coaching clients who are serious about creating their own authoritative brand. If that’s you, email me at ryan@findingpeak.com with the subject line “Authority” and tell me about your business.
