Are you an influencer? Do you think you can share a message that brings positive change online? That's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to answer the question: can anyone become an online influencer and get paid? On today's Resilient Faith Online Show, episode number three. Welcome. I'm Marissa Shatterick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm a digital strategist and certified copywriter, but more importantly, a woman of faith. In this podcast, you'll find a biblical perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we let our faith shape our work to create positive change online. To connect with our private Facebook group of faith-based online entrepreneurs, go to MarissaShepherd.com forward slash faith. Hello. Hello, welcome back. So glad to be here again and thank you for joining in. I really appreciate it. I am humbled and honored to show up here on this podcast, Resilient Faith Online. Well, so far we've talked a little bit about faith, and in episode two, we talked a little bit about resilience. And today we're going to talk about becoming an online influencer. And I'm going to propose to you that you are already an influencer. Yes, sir, you are already an influencer. And even though you may be raising your eyebrow going, what? I'm going to propose that you are. And we see this a lot. We see this between friends and we see this between spouses. Wives have a knack to influence their husbands. Oh, yes, they do. You know, if you're a wife, you know that. You know it to be true. And I'm sure the men are nodding their head. Oh, yes. And I had a situation way back. I talked about my husband and how we've been married almost 35 years now, but seven years into our marriage, I uh wanted to be the good wife, right? And we were moving to Reading, California. We were living in a small town, and my husband got this job. He was in radio and he was going to be doing radio sales. And we were excited about moving to Reading because it was going to be a bigger city, even though Reading's not that big. And he went on ahead because we needed, we were in the process of selling our house and we had two kids. And so we were going to follow shortly after. And I was helping him pack. And because he is so fair complexed, I mean he's got very fair skin, uh, he sunburns very easily. And I didn't want him to burn because I knew he would be going on client calls and going back and forth in and out of the car so he wouldn't be thinking about sunscreen. And I made him promise, I influenced him. Honey, please wear the sunscreen before you go out on your calls. So he agreed and he said, I will, I promise. And I influenced him to do that. Well, that first day on the job, he called me at the end of the day and he said, Honey, do you know what you did? And I said, What do you mean? And he goes, You know that sunscreen you gave me? And I go, Yeah, did you put it on? And he goes, Oh yeah, I put it on all right. And I go, and he said, You gave me self-tanning lotion. Oh my gosh, the poor guy had orange streaks all over his face, and he was going around all over the place with these streaks, and he didn't realize until around noon when he used the restroom that he had these orange streaks on his face. And I was just mortified. I thought, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. So there are situations where we don't want to influence in a negative way, but we are influencers. We see it all the time. But here's the problem: we struggle with imposter syndrome. We think that influencer, we've conjured something up in our head and what they're supposed to be, and we don't consider ourselves influencers and we struggle with imposter syndrome. The other thing is we're afraid that nobody's gonna listen to us. If I'm an influencer, if I got something to say, what if nobody listens? You know, what will happen then? Or you maybe you're starting out new, maybe you're a new coach and you don't have the backup, you don't have the testimonials, you don't have the stories, the transformation of people that you helped. And so you don't feel like you're a true influencer. But know that you are. You're already an influencer, whether you realize it or not. And if we think back from when we were very young, trying to influence our parents to get us some toy at the toy store, right? We started very, very young, so we know how to do this, right? As we got older, have you ever dated and used your persuasion to get that second date? Guys do it, but gals do it too. Have you ever convinced your spouse to see your point of view? Hopefully, not to end up in a negative way, like in my situation. Have you ever raised kids and tried to persuade them? And even after they grow up, you try to influence and persuade them in a certain direction, right? Am I talking to helicopter moms? No. I mean really trying to influence them with values and with things that are going to shape and mold them, right? Have you ever offered your opinion in a conversation, in a group conversation? Have you presented the pros and cons of a choice, right? When you're trying to make a choice? Have you gone on a job interview and showed them how you would add value to the company? Or have you even led a Bible study? This is all opportunities to influence. So we've done it from way back when we were little kids, trying to get that toy at the toy store till today. We've been doing it and we're good at it, right? So where is the problem then? So the problem is in the struggles that we have up in our head, right? So when we think of that, we don't feel like an influencer and we're struggling with imposter syndrome, just stop for a minute and look at the past and think of people that have influenced your life. And chances are they weren't necessarily people of stature or maybe people that maybe had a degree or people of great influence, like we would think popularity or prestige or anything. They were probably everyday people that deposited something into your heart that resonated with you and planted a seed that maybe was a pivotal point for you in your life, right? So think of the past. Was it a teacher? Was it a coach? Was it uh maybe an aunt or an uncle, a cousin? Who was it that influenced you with something, right? And if you remember my story, I was in remedial English forever. And in one of those high school classes I was in, they had us write a paper for Christmas on what we thought about Christmas. And I was in the middle of my family, it was just breaking up. My parents were getting a divorce, my sister had already moved out of the house. We were not going to celebrate Christmas. There was not going to be any Christmas tree, no presents, nothing. My dad was moving out. I was going to have to make a choice between my mom and my dad. It was not a good season at all. And the last thing I wanted to do was write a paper about how fun Christmas is, right? And so I wrote this paper on how terrible Christmas was because it makes the sad sadder, it makes the lonely lonelier. And I went on writing this paper, kind of in a way to sass the teacher, because I really didn't want to write the paper, but I did it anyway because I needed the grade. And when we came back to class and she had graded all the papers, she uh got up from her desk, she grabbed the stack of papers, she walked around the desk, she got in front of it, she leaned against and kind of sat diagonal on the on the desk. And uh she said everyone did really well with the papers, but there was one that really stood out. There was one that really had emotion and had a perspective that brought light to something that we don't think about all the time, and she started reading my paper. I was mortified. I was mortified. But as she read it, and I I had my head down because I knew my face was turning red, she said that it was so well written that she really enjoyed the paper and thanked the author of the paper. And that all those years of remedial English, for some reason, that moment I felt like, wow, I can write, you know, and that deposited something in my heart. So who in your past? It was probably someone around your circle of influence that said something that influenced you in a positive way. So when you think of yourself influencing someone in a positive way, don't make it complicated. It could be something simple, a simple way that you encourage someone, that you bring someone from a point of despair to a point of hope. And you can influence people. Now, when you think of influencing getting over imposter syndrome, think of the present. Who are you presently influencing? Are you influencing maybe your adult kids? Are you influencing young children in your home? Are you influencing your grandkids? Who are you influencing? Are you leading a Bible study and you're influencing young women or a men's group and you're influencing men? You know, who are you presently influencing? And chances are you are influencing someone. Are you helping your spouse achieve their goals and influencing them in a positive way? I bet that you are presently already influencing people in a good way. So now that we've looked at the past and you looked at the present, think of the future and ask yourself, who do you want to influence in the future? Who are they? Are they men? Are they women? Are they are they writers? Are they speakers? Are they coaches? Who are they? And really visualize who those people are and how you're going to show up and how you're going to help them. And you begin to remove imposter syndrome by just thinking of the past, those everyday people that influenced your life, thinking of the present, who you're influencing right now, and then thinking of the future, who you want to influence. Now, the fear that no one will listen, I would suggest you listen first. You listen and discover what people need by listening into the conversations. And you can do this by joining Facebook groups, there's tons of them, and see what people are posting. Maybe even uh in your own local groups that you're in, you could you could listen more and be more attentive to see what the pain points are that people are struggling with and listen first and discover what people need. So when you do show up and you have something to say that addresses those pain points, guess what? They're gonna listen because that's exactly what they need. And if you don't have social proof or testimonials, you could start with a beta launch, you know, a test project, a beta launch where you invite people to be part of something and in exchange, if they got value out of it, they can give you some type of endorsement or testimonial. You can ask peers in whatever uh field or business that you're in or your past experience, and you can invite them to a coaching program or some type of product or service or something that you provide, and you can either do it at a low cost or you could do it for free in exchange for those testimonials or endorsements that you need. And then you can always go to the friends and family program where you ask friends and family if they know of someone that could use your services and you start building that way. And as far as the logistics goes, you know, how to start a business and you know, do you need a business license and the LLC and all that stuff? You can just go online. You can go to the U.S. Small Business Administration for um free services that they have, and you can go there and you can check out that. And you can also go to SCORE, that's an acronym, S-C-O-R-E. It's uh stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives, and there's over 11,000 volunteers that help businesses get off the ground. So the information is there, and I don't see that as the biggest issue when someone's considering to become an influencer online and start something online, or maybe scale what they're doing because they don't see themselves maybe as a coach. If you have expertise and you can help people and mentor them and coach them, you can coach people. So the biggest challenge isn't so much in the logistics, but in the belief that you can do this, that you can influence people in a positive way and you can earn revenue. The revenue is just a way, an opportunity to serve at a deeper level. But what the problem is, is that we get hung up on the fear. And I don't have a life verse. I wish I did. I I envy people that have a life verse. I don't have one, but I do have a phrase that I see in the Bible a lot from old New Testament. I see it over and over again, and it's a constant reminder for me, and that is do not fear. Do not fear. You see it across the board in the Bible. I've come to realize that courage is faith in action because faith is never passive, never passive. And fear, fear is not of God, and fear can be spiritually blinding. And fear also needs permission to exist. Fear erodes faith in God, where we make God small or we humanize God rather than see him for who he is, supreme over everything. Fear requires constant attention to survive. If you don't give it attention, it's gonna go away. So fear requires constant attention to survive. And fear minimizes your potential. It says to you, no, you're not an influencer. You can't do that. You can't coach people, you can't help people. That's what fear does. But you can. Don't let fear minimize your potential. And fear is not who you are in Christ. So I hope that was an encouragement to you. Thank you so much for joining me. And we're gonna continue with all of the things that can trip us up, the internal challenges and the external challenges, as we continue with this podcast, Resilient Faith Online. Until then, stay resilient to create positive change online. If you found this podcast helpful, then subscribe from wherever you're listening today so you never miss an episode. Every subscription, review, or rating means so much to me. So keep them coming and share this with a friend. For more free content, go to marissashadrick.com and remember keep cultivating resilient faith online to create positive change in the world.