Dorie Clark joins Morra: Own Your Niche And Stand Out!

What if ChatGPT is coming from my job? That's a question I hear a lot recently, and it’s a really anxiety provoking question. I think underlying this question for a lot of us is a worry: am I special enough? Will I stand out enough so a piece of algorithm can’t take my job? How can I get people to value me?

We can’t control the future of AI or what our company chooses to do with it. But we can take steps to protect our future selves. I wanted to ask someone who helps business leaders of all kinds navigate these issues. Dorie Clark is a gloabl top coach, marketing specialist, and professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, as well as author of the book, the Long Game, How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a short-term world. Dorie thinks a lot about how to stand out from the crowd, and how to help people decide what they really want out of work. She and I had a lot of fun diving into marketing and branding. It took me back to my days running my company Women Online, where I counseled clients on how to stand out- and echoes of a lot of the themes in my first book Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There (When You'd Rather Stay Home). If you're trying to figure out how to be yourself at work and get valued for it...dive in below. 

Morra: Dorie, your last book was about longer term visioning, career planning, and not being reactive to, or trapped by external factors when it comes to your career. Acknowledging that often we have little control over external factors, I think that this is really instructive for people who have anxiety, right? Because a lot of us who have anxiety, we're either trapped by what we see as people's expectations of us, or standards that we feel we have to meet to be loved and accepted, or by a fear of the future and bad things happening, right? So we're pedaling really fast in hopes that we can stave off both a scary future or people rejecting us or bad things. If we’re anxious right now about how to protect ourselves and really own our lane in this world where people are being told they can be replaced with machines…what’s your advice?

Dorie: The drum that I've been beating for a long time is around the importance of becoming a recognized expert in your field. Because there is always gonna be a market for the people who are recognized as the best. There's gonna be a flight to quality. Now, people might say, but not everyone can be a recognized expert. And that's true. This does not solve everyone's problem, for sure. It doesn't solve society's problem, but it may solve your problem because most people are not willing to do the work required to be a recognized expert in their field. And if you are, and if you start now and put in the effort to get your ideas shared, to grow your platform and grow your influence, then it means that you are carving out a path for yourself, regardless of the external circumstances that enables you to protect yourself.

Morra:  I have so much to say about this, I couldn't agree more. I have been sort of banging on for years about the importance of trying to own your niche. And I think that in the coming world, the more specific you can be about what you're good at, what you talk about, what you stand for, the better, right? Yes. Because this is not gonna be a world for generalists. If you're listening out there and this is sparking in you  try to get very specific. I am so anxious, as you know, I honestly think the reason that I am a recognized expert is partially because of my anxiety. And of course this is part of being an anxious achiever. It's like I never stop. I mean, I get your newsletters and I'm like, okay, Dorie takes it a notch above me; your productivity is unbelievable. But I think a lot of listeners out there can relate to the fact of doing the work because we're nervous, and that's not always a bad thing, right? I don't want people to be consumed with “AI is coming from my job. I can't sleep ever again.” I think it's interesting and I think that it's one of the most valuable things you talk about. So let's go there, even though it's not strictly about workplace mental health. Like say someone wants to be a recognized expert, how do they start?

Dorie: I run a course in community focused on it, and there's really three key components,  it's about content creation, network and social proof. And the reason that these are the important things for people to focus on. I believe content creation is basically about how you make yourself discoverable to other people.  If you're gonna be recognized for your expertise, the people who know you and work with you may think you are the best, but there's always gonna be a lot more people who don't know you and haven't worked with you than those who have. So how do you create content that enables those strangers to discover you and say, wow, she's really great. And it could be writing, it could be doing a podcast like this, it could be speaking, it could be videos, there's a lot of different variations, but somehow you have to create content. That's number one. 

Morra: How much content? Because here's where the anxiety comes in... social media never stops.  How do you create boundaries and limits around that?

Dorie: What I advise people, first of all is just understand everybody is running their own race. You're going at your own pace.If you're starting from zero, do an hour a week, just create a habit. Becoming a recognized expert and investing in your long-term career development is not dissimilar from financial investing. $10 or $20 per week matters a lot more over time. What can you do in an hour per week? Is it one blog post or article? Is it one podcast episode? Just find the thing that's attainable and then just keep doing that. And you can build over time. If you start to see momentum or if your circumstances change and you have a little bit more time to spare.

Morra: I tell people if you wanna be a sort of professional expert, start with LinkedIn.  Become a creator on LinkedIn and post once a week.

Dorie: Absolutely, that's a fantastic starting point. Just at a really basic level, again, to the point of discoverability, what you're trying to do in the beginning at least. I mean, sometimes people are like, how do I get the world to discover me? And the truth is, in the beginning, you're gonna see a lot more growth, not from having the world to discover you. You're gonna have a lot more growth from having the people who already know you, but are more distant connections. Be reminded of you, “oh, Morra, I haven't thought about her in a while. She'd be perfect for this.” Like, that's what you need. And by doing posts or sharing it puts you in people's feeds and it makes it more likely that they'll be like, “oh, right her, let's call her. “

Dorie: Point 2  is about your network and everybody in terms of the recognized expert realm of things has their kind of things that they're good at or gravitate to. Some of the things that they're uncomfortable with so for some people,  they love networking. They could do it all day long. They love people, they love it. Other people, especially if they're introverts, especially if they, you know, hide in bathrooms. So ultimately you can have the best ideas in the world, but if people aren't aware of them and you don't have other people amplifying them on your behalf, it's limited, right? There's only so many people that you know directly that you can share things with. You need amplification. And so taking the time to cultivate a network is really important.

A lot of people hate networking events. You don’t have to go to a networking event, all it means is you have to find a way to connect with people, find your own way, like actually podcasts. I often tell people podcasts, or a LinkedIn live series or write a blog or something, that can be fantastic. You know, my good friend Jenny Blake likes to say that podcasting is her networking strategy because she's a big introvert, and this is like a forcing function that enables her several times a week. She's having these kinds of networking calls with interesting people, but she just happens to record them. That's a great strategy.

Morra: Blogging was my entire career networking strategy. When you create content, you have the excuse to basically call up anybody, including someone you may want to be your client or your future boss, and have them talk about themselves, which spoiler alert, is what people like to do their best.

Dorie: They certainly do, exactly right. And I love the phrase that you used, which I often do as well, which is that “it gives you an excuse”. Because sometimes I think we have kind of a weird understanding in our heads of like, oh, but people will think it's so weird if I call them up or, they won't want to talk. Oftentimes they do anyway, but it helps empower us and make us feel more comfortable if we have that excuse to say, well, I'd love to talk to you and I have this podcast. Will you be on this podcast? Or whatever it is.

Number three is social proof. It’s a psychology term. And essentially it's about how do you telegraph your credibility to other people? Because we all know that people are so busy, they're so frenzied, they're so harried, they're really not going to take the time, even if they wish they could, they're not gonna take the time to sort of vet you in depth. If they are not familiar with you, they're just gonna tune out. And so we need to find ways of very quickly signaling and telegraphing to people that we are credible and that, you know, we're worth listening to or engaging with. There's a lot of different ways to do this, but oftentimes it's about affiliations that we have that are with entities that are already trusted.

So your book, Morra, came out from HBR Press, people have heard of that. They say, oh, that sounds great. She must be pretty credible. Your show's on the LinkedIn network. They say, oh, I've heard of LinkedIn. Oh wow, they picked up her podcast. She must be worth listening to.  Stuff doesn't just fall in your lap. You go get it, you seek it out, and you have much more agency than you might imagine to be thoughtful about cultivating connections and finding strategic ways to affiliate with brands or entities. It could be that you have a blue chip client that people have heard of. It could be that you guest lecture, but you can seek that out strategically, and it dramatically helps with your perceived credibility.

Morra: Social proofing is also something you can do with normal people. The whole theory behind influencer marketing is that people like and trust this person on social media, even if they may not know them. And so they have social capital, if they carry a message it has weight.  The thing that I loved most about my long career first in what was called mommy blogging, and then what was called working with influencers, was that people who traditionally were not in the halls of power, through their own content creation and this  often, like, just sheer fricking will, became the kinds of people who get invited to the White House. 

I have to acknowledge my total privilege also playing a role here. It's been a factor. Okay. I'm not gonna deny that. But the great thing about social media is that it has really made the barriers to entry to influence and being a recognized expert, I think a lot lower.

Dorie: Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And I mean, you know, every new situation has its own barriers and obstacles. The obstacle now, of course, is like,  anyone can do it, which means there's a huge amount of noise to surmount.It's harder. And I guess it's a question of which devil do you want? Do you want the devil of the small elite group, or do you want to have the problem where it's just this freewheeling kind of souk, and you're wandering around and like everybody's hawking their wares and you have an equal ability to get your wares noticed, but it's chaotic. You have to rely on your wits to be able to break through. That's hard, and that can be intimidating. I actually like it better as a circumstance for us, because it is, I think, fairer. It's not just a powerful few that are tapping their buddies from Skull and Bones or whatever. It's an opportunity for people to really show the world what they have, if they're willing to be persistent, and if they're willing to keep plowing forward.

Morra: I'll close this part out just saying that I get rejected in a painful way every single day. And as a really anxious person with a lot of social anxiety, if you had asked me 10 years ago, could you live a life where something you cared about got basically put in the trash every single day, would you be able to handle that? I would've said absolutely not. I'd be a puddle on the floor, but you build resiliency, and when you really care and you're convinced, the rejection, it's still smart sometimes, right? But it's like, part of the deal.  Does that resonate for you?

Dorie: I think it has to, right? I mean, we all face obstacles and rejections and things like that. What I have noticed as a pattern is that for the people who are less successful, it's often that they experience some kind of rejection at a certain point. They didn't get an opportunity,  the editor said no, or the agent turned them down, or whatever it is the client rejected their proposal.

They sort of take this view where it's almost like the universe has decided, right?... “I guess I'm just not cut out for this.” I really push back on this heartedly. What they're not seeing is that the same nays are befalling other people, but the other people who are successful are just pushing through 10 times or 20 times until they're able to get it.  I think understanding that is so liberating. Almost everybody has these gatekeepers, some of whom are incredibly unqualified, frankly, telling them, no, no, you're not good enough. And it's like, no, you need to just keep plowing. If they don't let you in the door, you climb in the freaking window. That's what you do and that's how you get successful.

Morra: Do you still get rejected or ghosted?

Dorie: Oh, yeah. 

Morra: If someone's listening and they're really feeling like their authenticity, who they truly are is so important and such a piece of them, but also scary and doesn't feel acceptable at work, what in your conversation and this conversation in your work can inspire them to think about how to turn that into their niche, their superpower, their recognized expert thing?

Dorie: You know, for a lot of people, whatever your thing is that you worry is different or out of the mainstream, there's a lot of trepidation around it, around sharing that and how you'll be viewed or how you'll be judged. I like to think about a really wonderful client of mine, a colleague and friend of mine named Richard bis Strong, and Richard was somebody I got to know about a decade ago. He first started reading my book when he was in jail. So talk about a thing that someone might worry about, how the perceptions are, he had gone to prison for bribery, like corporate bribery.  Working in a kind of high level job where that was a thing that people did. Although they were not supposed to do it, he got caught for it.

He read Reinventing You, my first book, when he was in prison, and he reached out to me and we got to be friends. He's a really terrific guy, one of the things that he realized and discovered through reading, Reinventing You, I mean, he was of course thinking, my God, how am I gonna earn a living? He realized that he needed to take the bull by the horns in terms of his branding. If he just kept hiding it somehow, or not talking about it, you live your life constantly feeling like, oh my God, people will find out. What will they think when they find out? And it becomes so psychologically toxic. What he decided to do, is whatever your thing is that you think is a weakness, lean into it.

Because people will see that, and it can become a strength, and people often really admire it. In Richard's case, he has been able to literally create a business for himself called Frontline Anti-Bribery. He is an ethics and compliance consultant for corporations, he goes around and speaks and does trainings around ethics from the perspective of someone who has been in the shoes of the executives. He is saying, “Hey, you know, I faced these ethical temptations. I did the wrong thing. Let me show you how you can resist that and do the right thing.” He's built an incredibly successful business for himself, not by hiding his background, but by going all in with it and making it a point of distinction and differentiation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to our whole interview here.