We have a book launch coming up, and it has me thinking about something I have experienced through my own podcast: people can recognise your expertise long before you see yourself the way they do.
I am one of the 17 contributors to Vandana Puranik’s Seen. Found. Recognized. Remembered. Chosen., which launches on 15 October. My chapter explores how podcasting can create visibility that generates leads. It is a subject I care about because I have seen what can happen when people want to be in your world, including people you have looked up to for years.
So how do you become known for your expertise? You give people ways to experience it. Publishing a book, hosting your own platform and contributing to other people’s platforms can all help people understand what you know and why your perspective is valuable.
These are some of the pillars of what I call perceived thought leadership. There are deliberate actions you can take to help people recognise the expertise you already have. Two in particular have been powerful in my experience.
Why doesn’t expertise automatically make you known?
People need a way to discover what you know. Your clients might experience your expertise every day, but someone who has never worked with you needs something they can read, listen to or watch.
Imagine a consultant who is brilliant at helping businesses retain their customers. Their clients know that. A business owner looking for help may have no idea they exist, or what makes their approach worth considering.
A useful chapter about customer retention gives that person something to assess. A podcast conversation lets them hear how the consultant thinks. An event gives them an opportunity to experience the consultant bringing people and ideas together.
Each creates a way for someone to connect the person with the expertise.
That connection matters. If you want to become known for something, make it clear what that something is. Think about the problem you help people solve, then give them useful examples of how you approach it.
Why can becoming a published author change how people see you?
Of all the pillars of perceived thought leadership, being a published author is the most prominent in my experience. The change in perception can be tangible. It is something I encourage you to ask authors about when you meet them.
A book gives your thinking a place to live. Someone can spend time with your ideas, understand your approach and decide whether it speaks to the problem they are facing.
It also gives people a clear way to introduce you. You are the person who wrote about that subject. Your name becomes attached to a body of work they can point to and share.
The work itself needs to be useful. Give your reader an explanation, a perspective or a practical approach that helps them. That is where you have the opportunity to demonstrate the expertise behind the author title.
If you are thinking about writing, start with one question: what do you know that could help someone else?
Choose a specific reader and a problem you understand well. Then consider the right format for sharing it. You might have enough material for your own book. You might have one strong contribution that belongs in a collaborative book with other experts.
That is what I am doing as a contributor to Vandana Puranik’s Seen. Found. Recognized. Remembered. Chosen. There are 17 authors in the anthology, bringing their perspectives to a subject that matters deeply to me: how people become visible and what that visibility makes possible.
How does having your own platform build authority?
Your own platform gives people an ongoing opportunity to experience your thinking. It might be a podcast, an event, a radio show or a television show. You create the space and invite people into it.
For me, podcasting has been a powerful expression of this pillar. Through Chasing the Insights, I get to bring people into conversations about their expertise and explore ideas that can help the people listening.
When you host a platform, your contribution includes the questions you ask, the subjects you explore and the connections you help your audience make. Those choices give people a way to understand your perspective over time.
If you are considering a platform of your own, think about the conversations you would like to make possible. Who would benefit from them? What do you understand well enough to ask useful questions about? Which format could you keep showing up for?
A clear purpose will help you choose guests and subjects that belong together. Your audience can then build an understanding of what they come to you for.
What changes when experts you admire want to join you?
We have had some very recognisable guests on Chasing the Insights, including Ken Honda and John Lee Dumas. Being able to have conversations with people like that is a privilege.
There is another part of the experience that still surprises me: hearing from established experts who are already listening and want to come on the show. Some of the people who have reached out are people I have looked up to for a long time. There are others coming whose names I cannot share just yet.
I can perceive them as being far above me, while they see me as someone whose world they want to be part of. Their perception is being shaped by the work they have encountered through the show.
That is a useful thing to remember when you are building your own platform. The conversations you create can reach people you admire, too.
What role do the halo effect and perceived authority play?
People use impressions and signals when deciding whose expertise to trust. The halo effect describes how an overall impression can influence judgements of particular qualities. A research review on halo effects in marketing explores this influence and the challenges of identifying it precisely.
My view is that a platform can provide some of those signals. When someone encounters you in a thoughtful conversation with an expert they recognise, that setting can give them a reason to pay attention to you as well.
Authority bias is another useful idea here: people can give greater weight to someone they perceive as an authority. Authorship and hosting can contribute to that perception. The research on general impressions does not, by itself, establish that interviewing a famous guest makes a host more credible.
The opportunity is to use that attention well. Ask good questions, contribute something useful and let people experience the substance behind the impression. A guest’s presence gives you a conversation to build on; your contribution gives the listener something to remember you for.
What can appearing on other people’s platforms add?
Appearing on another person’s podcast or at their event gives an established audience a chance to experience your expertise. The host creates the setting and introduces you; you bring a contribution that serves the people listening.
I see this as another pillar of perceived thought leadership. You are entering a space someone else has built, with the familiarity and trust their audience already has in that space.
Give the host a clear reason to invite you. A specific subject you can explain well is much easier to understand than a broad promise to talk about business or success. Think about what their audience wants to know and what you can help them see more clearly.
You can start by finding one relevant platform and developing one useful conversation you could contribute to it. That gives your expertise a practical route to a new audience.
How can being known lead to business opportunities?
Being recognised for your expertise gives people a reason to think of you when they need help. A podcast can also create relationships with people who want to do business with you and want to be in your world.
That is the focus of my chapter in Seen. Found. Recognized. Remembered. Chosen. I explore how to create visibility that generates leads, using podcasting to build authority and develop business opportunities.
There is a point where some of that opportunity can begin happening in the background. The work you have put into the platform keeps introducing people to your thinking and giving them reasons to connect with you. In the chapter, I get into the practical approach behind that and how a podcast can help generate a steady stream of leads.
For this article, I want to leave you with somewhere to begin. Choose a problem you know how to help people solve. Then choose a way to let them experience that knowledge, whether through a published chapter, a platform you host or a useful contribution to someone else’s conversation.
Join us for the book launch
I would love you to come and celebrate the launch of Seen. Found. Recognized. Remembered. Chosen. with us on 15 October 2026 at 6 pm EST, on Zoom.
You will hear from contributors, discover some of the ideas behind the book and have the chance to win prizes. It is an opportunity to explore how becoming seen, found, recognised, remembered and chosen might look in your own work.
Register here to join us for the launch.
*Vince Warnock is the host of Chasing the Insights, founder of ATG Publishing and a contributor to Seen. Found. Recognized. Remembered. Chosen.
