Build status, power, credibility and likeness through content

1. The four, and what they add up to

The four, in the order given: status, power, credibility and likeness.

All four increase a person's influence. Hold every one of them and you are extremely influential. Hold one of them and you still carry more influence than somebody who holds none.

2. Status: you hold something scarce

Status means a scarce resource is under your control: other people want something that you have.

The first example is an heir living on inherited money from a trust fund. That person would have more influence than someone with no money, and that is plainly true.

In your content, status comes from showing that you have what people want. The example given is a big building. A lot of entrepreneurs would like one, so letting people see that you have one earns you status.

3. Power: say-do correspondence

Now set the heir beside a second person who also has money and who, on top of that, tipped you off on a stock four or five times running, with every tip working out. Faced with the two of them, you would certainly believe whichever of the two had more. That second person has shown a further element of influence: power.

Power is say-do correspondence. It builds like this:

• You tell someone what to do.
• They do it, and it goes well for them.
• Next time you ask something of them, they are more likely to comply.
• Should that request also turn out well, they grow more likely still to keep complying.

3.1 Why parents keep it

Parents keep much of their power over you for one reason: while you were growing up, they issued you many thousands of instructions, and those instructions worked out. You might hate them, might love them or might feel nothing much about them either way; it makes no difference. What gives them influence over you is how many rounds of reinforcement you went through together.

3.2 One clip, one result

Another example is a short clip from a health podcast. One viewer does not follow that podcast; the clip simply turned up in the viewer's feed, and its subject was getting rid of hiccups. Hiccups are not something the viewer really struggles with: probably once this year. When they came, the viewer remembered the clip, seen roughly a month before, did what it said, and the hiccups went away. The viewer is now more likely to listen to the little tips from that podcast in future. The person in the clip gained power over the viewer: that person gave an instruction, the viewer followed it, and something good happened.

3.3 Showing power in content

If you are asking where content comes into this, picture how you would show it there. In one example, an owner told people to send some emails, and to send them a particular way. If they do it that way and something good comes of it, they are more likely to go along with the next thing that owner asks.

This part opens by naming credibility as the third of the four. See section 7.

3.4 Why build in so many steps

One owner who makes content gives this reason for putting so many steps into it: the owner's outcomes and the audience's are aligned, and it works for both sides if they get good results: they make more, then the owner makes more, and everyone makes more. That is why so much effort goes into building in what to actually do rather than what sounds nice. The question behind it: "What do we do to make the thing we want actually happen?" A second view on teaching the steps is in section 7.

4. Credibility: proof

Credibility is proof. It means you have things that happened, and they show that what you are saying is true. This is where awards and medals come in, and figures from one owner's own record: what a company sold for, revenue, a sum spent, a count of emails sent.

For one of those figures, a screenshot would have been better than just stating it.

5. Likeness

Likeness is given as likeness in how you look, likeness in your values, and similarity to the avatar.

In one example, at an event, a man came over and asked one owner for a photo. The man worked in a trade, and it came out in that exchange that the owner had a devoted following in that trade's niche. The owner found that very funny. The owner's own read, as a guess: the owner probably looks like a lot of the people in that trade, so a strong following among them is entirely believable.

6. The four in your content

When you make content, these four are what you are trying to achieve, in the same order:

• Status: show that you have the things people want.
• Power: give people instructions for getting the good things they want.
• Credibility: prove it through third parties, so that people can see the effectiveness you have claimed.
• Likeness: you being you will draw more people who are like you. Do not be surprised when it does.

Tied to that last point is a double negative: one would not say not to try to be like other people, and that is called obviously the wrong way to go about it. See section 7.

A side note: if you want a more diverse customer base, have more people. Where the extra people go: Not established on this page.

7. What this page does not decide for you

• Which part is credibility. Credibility is introduced as the third of the four twice. The first time, what follows is giving people instructions in content that work when they follow them, which is what power was just said to be (section 3.3). The second time, what follows is proof (section 4). One reading: the first time is a slip, and that part belongs to power. The other: showing in content that your instructions work is itself part of credibility. This page does not settle which reading is right.
• The double negative about being like other people (section 6). It can mean that trying to be like other people is not the right way, or that telling you never to try is not the right way. This page does not settle which reading is right.
• Teach the steps, or how things work (section 3.4). This page builds into content what to actually do. A second view, for the teaching inside selling: keep it declarative, about how things work, not procedural, about exactly how to do them, because most of an audience will not act today. Teaching about a thing changes what they believe, and they act on it later, when the right moment comes. SOP 277, section 9, flags the same question. This page does not settle which reading is right.

8. The four at a glance

The four	What it is	What your content does with it
Status	A scarce resource under your control: something people want	Shows that you have the things people want
Power	Say-do correspondence: instructions followed, a good result, more likely to comply next time	Gives instructions for getting the good things people want
Credibility	Proof: things that happened that show what you say is true	Proves it through third parties, so people can see your effectiveness
Likeness	Likeness in looks and in values, and similarity to the avatar	You being you, which draws more people like you

9. Where this sits

• Status in another sense, as something the people around a buyer hand out or hold back, used to angle one benefit several ways in an ad: SOP 39, section 4.
• Influence as one of the measures of a brand, the chance that seeing it changes what someone does: SOP 92 — Measure brand as reach, influence and direction, section 3.
• Why other people's word counts for more than your own, and what customers experience for themselves counts most: SOP 95.
• Backing proof with a trusted third party is SOP 109, section 3.11; showing people who look like your customers is its section 3.6. Turning your data into claims: SOP 110 — Claim your proof from the data.
• Likeness used in a different way, as putting a label on screen in an ad instead of saying it: SOP 33 — Call out without words, section 3.
• Producing more content, and better content: SOP 214 — Make more and better organic content. Adding the ask to each platform: SOP 215 — Put calls to action on every platform.

10. What this page does not cover

Making content and calls to action are not covered on this page.