So, you want to be an influencer? Being an influencer can be a huge asset to you. It can help you market your business, kick off your social media career, and become a trusted speaker in your field. I think it’s amazing that so many people want to become influencers! 

But there is a secret to being an influencer that people aren’t talking about – you have to be influential to be a successful influencer. 

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about how to be an influential person and how to use that influence for yourself. We’re going over everything from how to be comfortable being seen to how to be a magnetic person. Being an influencer can be a whole career, which is why I’m going to share what I learned from becoming a successful influencer myself. 

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How to work with Erika:

Join the waitlist for Courage Driven Latina here.

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Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST.

Episode Transcript

Erika: Hello friends! Welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution podcast. This week, we are going to talk all about influence. I’ve seen videos of kids talking about when they want to grow up, they want to be an influencer. And it’s such a normal thing. Now that kids are openly saying what it is that they desire, right?

Because kids don’t hold back. Kids don’t have that idea of like, Oh my gosh, are people going to judge me? What are they going to think of me? They are very honest because as we are younger, we’re very in touch with our intuition. We’re very in touch with our higher self and our calling. And we typically know what our purpose is as kids.

But as we get older, we begin to learn what we should do. We begin to, Unlearn listening to our intuition. We start using our logical mind a lot more. And that’s why an adult won’t easily tell you what their dreams are, you know, if they are unfulfilled dreams, because there’s shame around maybe even having the dreams or shame around not reaching them.

But with kids, they are just super, super honest. And, you know, there’s a lot of people that I’ve spoken to about. wanting to be an influencer as an adult, but they almost tell me in secret. And today I want to talk all about the truth behind building influence and the truth behind being an influencer. But before we go there, I do want to let you know that on October 21st, that’s a Monday at five o’clock Pacific time, I am hosting a brand new webinar.

The magnetic method, how to build influence and manifest opportunities without hustling. I’m so excited. You could register by going to the Erica Cruz. That is Erica with a K forward slash magnetic, and you can register there, or you can go down below in the show notes and you will hear more about this webinar halfway through the podcast episode, but I am so excited about it.

And because this webinar has to do with influence, I figured I could. Record a podcast episode to give you all a little bit more context on what I mean by being influential And this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to like go be A influencer that promotes skinny tea Do you remember that in like 2020 2021?

Weren’t all those influencers were promoting like the skinny tea or the little gummies that helped hair growth? That is not what I mean by influence and that’s why I wanted to record this episode so Whether you have always had this secret desire of like, damn, I do want to have influence, but I’m scared that I might be canceled or I’m scared that people might judge me.

I want to validate that fear because the truth is we all care, right? We come from a society and not long ago when we lived in tribes, not us, right? But our like ancestors or when our grandparents, grandparents, grandparents, grandparents lived in tribes. If you were removed from the tribe, that meant death.

 So being liked wasn’t a nice to have. It was literally a survival mechanism. So it makes so much sense. I first just want to validate that. But regardless of, you know, I mean, if you’re listening to this episode, I think there is a desire there to have some influence.

And here’s what I want you to know. I want you to know that everyone has influence, whether it’s online, offline, in person, in your friend group, with your family, everybody already has influence. Influence. You don’t need to wait for a certain amount of followers or a blue checkmark or anybody else’s approval when it’s something that you inherently already have.

So what I want to talk to you about. Is while everybody has influence, what actually matters is being intentional about how you use it. How is it that you are influencing the people around you?

As mentioned, you know, influencing isn’t just about, or being influential isn’t just about followers or likes or any external validation. It’s really about how it is that you make people feel and the energy that you put out into the world.

If you are a parent, you have influence over your children. If you are a partner, you have influence over your partner. If you are a child of immigrants, you have a lot of influence over your parents. If you are a mentor, right? At school or an educator or a coach, or you have a lot of influence already. So when people come to me and they’re like, Oh my gosh, I want.

Influencer. I want to be an influencer. Typically what they are saying to me is I want to land a brand deal, land speaking engagements, and that is what’s going to make me be an influencer. When I have the brand deal, when I have the speaking engagement, when I have X amount of followers, but I would like to invite you to stop waiting for external validation so that you can feel influential.

Because again, you’re inherently already. Influential and influence actually comes from within a lot. What a big mistake I see people make is they’re like, Oh yeah, I need to hurry up and get the brand deals or I need to hurry up and get the followers because that is how I’m going to have influence. And that’s how I’m going to be influential.

But in order for you to land the brand deals or land a speaking engagement, I hate to break it to you. You already have to be influential. I mean, think about, I don’t know, a big brand like Nike. Do you think Nike is just going to pick a random person online or on the street and be like, Hey, we want you to do, you know, be in a commercial, or we want you to go do a brand deal for us, or we want to interview you on a panel.

No, it doesn’t work that way. If we look at my journey, my first brand deal didn’t come until I had a quite amount of followers, but I had been showing up consistently online for a year. So in other words, I built my own influence and then brands came to me. So let me Make this point again. People are waiting to land brand deals or waiting for outside validation to say that they have influence But they have the power to create their own influence, right? They already have influence but you have the power to be intentional with the influence you get to Decide what kind of influence you have you get to tell your own story especially nowadays when we have Social media.

Nowadays, when I have this podcast where I can talk to you and then we have TikTok and we have Instagram, right? There’s so many ways of doing it. And for those people who are like, I actually don’t really want to show up online. You can do it offline too. You can go to all of your local events. You could go to all of the Latina conferences, all the women of color conferences, all of the women in tech conferences.

You could always be there. And that in itself is helping you build influence. Because you’re making yourself visible and a key part in building influence is allowing yourself to be seen, which I know is very hard for us as women, especially if you come from the Latina culture when we’ve been told, which pretty much translates to you look prettier when you’re quiet.

I actually heard somebody say this at the summit of greatness conference that I was at in L. A. Um, they said, I was like, Oh, that’s literally the English translation of what we’ve been taught in Latina culture. And he said something like women should be, uh, seen, but not heard or something like that. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that is the English equivalent that I never heard before.

But in order for you to build influence, it means you have to be, and in order for you to build intentional influence and have a movement and create impact, you have to be visible or not. To some extent, and you get to decide what that visibility is. I have people in my mastermind who don’t show up on social media and they’re still landing opportunities because they’re allowing themselves to be in person for certain things.

And we’re not in the pandemic anymore, right? That time is now gone. We’re, Zoom was the only way that you could connect with people or online was the only way that you can connect with people. Personally, I find a little bit of balance. Like I do 80%, maybe 90 percent online and like 10 percent in person.

I’ve been making an effort to attend in person events a little bit more and having human connection. And from that human connection, I’ve already I have gotten people on the podcast. I have landed clients. I’ve landed speaking opportunities. I mean, it is amazing. And a lot of times the connection starts online and then it goes offline.

So let me reel back in because I said I was going to, I was going to make a point and then I went on a whole. I went on a whole tangent here. So a lot of people are waiting for this outside validation to say that they have influence. But what I want you to know is that you have the power to create your own influence and create the intentional influence that you want.

You have the power now more than ever to tell the story that you want to tell about yourself and to tell the story of what you stand for. Again, doing this online or offline, it is totally up to you. to you. But the beautiful thing is whenever you do this, whenever you are showing up consistently, either online or offline, and you’re clear about, you know, what it is that you stand for, that’s when you get the outside validation.

And honestly, you don’t even need it anymore, right? But that’s when speaking engagements come. That is when brand deals come. That is when clients come. That’s when people are in your inbox. And why is that? Because you’ve allowed yourself to be visible. About the intentional influence that you are looking to make and if you feel conflicted because you’re like, oh, I do want to have influence, but I don’t want to be one of those people who’s judged online I really encourage you to rethink the way you’re thinking about influence, right? Because um if we think about Some of the biggest figures through history that have made positive movements, right?

So like Martin Luther King Jr. Perfect example of somebody who was super visible, had a lot of influence, created, I mean, literally like gave up his life for the movement that he was after, created so much change. Mother Teresa, also super visible. Um, how to influence if social media didn’t exist right during these times. 

If you’re a female entrepreneur or creator, and that includes aspiring ones as well, listen up. Are you determined to be successful, but are you totally over the hustle? And are you ready to step into a space where you can attract clients and opportunities with ease? If you’re nodding your head yes right now, then you are invited to my free live webinar, the magnetic method, how to build influence and manifest opportunities without hustling.

This is happening on Monday, October 21st at five o’clock Pacific time. That is 5 p. m. I am not having you all wake up at 5 a. m. I should definitely clarify during this webinar, I will be sharing the exact method that has helped me. And my clients attract hundreds of clients and tons of amazing opportunities, all without chasing, pitching, or grinding.

To give you an idea, one client made over 150, 000 in sales in just four months using this method. Another one manifested a pregnancy. And set up her business so that it could be maternity leave proof. She literally set up her business so she could get pregnant, have the baby, take time away from her business and come back to her business and not let anything fall apart.

One client doubled her follower count and another one landed 13 speaking engagements. These are just a few examples of what is possible. So here’s what you’re going to learn during the webinar. You’re going to learn how to manifest your biggest life and business goals without falling into the common traps that people tend to fall into, you’re going to learn how to build intentional influence that naturally pulls the right clients and opportunities towards you.

You’re also going to learn how to take aligned, inspired action that feels good, not exhausting. The type of action that gives you more energy instead of depleting you of it. 

This is for you.

If you’ve been stuck in that belief that success requires constant hard work and you’re ready to shift out of survival mode, you want to attract ideal clients and opportunities without having to slide into people’s DMS or feel salesy, or you’ve been trying everything, but you aren’t seeing results and now you’re ready to take intentional action that actually works.

That’s success. Lastly, this is for you. If you’ve been doubting your big goals are even possible, you know, it would be nice to have them. You know, it would impact the world. You know that it would make the world a better place, but you’re doubting if you can actually do it. Let me let you all in on something.

Okay? The universe has rules just like you. If we drop a soda in thin air, we know that gravity is going to pull that down to the ground. We know that the soda is not going to float. Just like there are rules in physics, there are also rules in the universe.

learning the magnetic method. And learning about manifestation is like learning the rules of the universe. And when you learn the rules, you can have anything you want in your business and in your life. But one of the rules is that it always has to be for the greater good.

so if we think about the universe being a game, learning magnetic method and learning about manifestation is like learning how to play the game.

When you master manifestation, and being magnetic. You can have anything you want in your life and business.

register now by going to theericacruz. com. That’s Erica with a K, forward slash magnetic. Again, that’s theericacruz. com forward slash magnetic, or you can just use the link down below in the show notes. I cannot wait to see you there. Again, this is happening on Monday, October 21st at five o’clock Pacific time.

Again, 5 p. m. Pacific time. Register by going to the link down below in the show notes. I can’t wait to see you. 

So if you’re feeling conflicted, I want you to think about people in history or even Frida Kahlo, right? Frida Kahlo is a great example. She was somebody who built her own influence by creating her artwork and not only creating her artwork, but allowing her artwork to be visible. I don’t know how much of the story is accurate with like Frida and Diego.

But apparently, you know, if you watch the movie or if you’ve read anything about her, she showed up to where Diego was working and showed her pieces to him. And I know that I’ve talked about, you know, not pitching yourself and not chasing. And here’s the difference between pitching yourself and chasing versus putting yourself out there.

The difference is having street credit. And when I’m telling you that you have the power to build your own influence, you and tell your own story. What I’m saying is you’re allowing yourself to give yourself street credit. And that’s what Frida did. It wasn’t like Frida walked up to where Diego was, doing his paintings and said, Hey, I love painting.

I think you should give me a shot. But like, she hadn’t even started painting. No, she had her collection. She had her collection and she carried it over and showed them, this is my work. What do you think? That is not energy. That is. Shooting your shot, right? It’s like, I think of my client, Daisy, who has landed over 13 speaking engagements over the last four months of being in my mastermind.

And she is a poet and she wrote a book and she has intellectual property. She’s not somebody who’s like wishful thinking. She already has influence. And she already has street credibility, which is the term we use inside the mastermind. She has street credit. So when she emails out to a community college or to, um, a company or a nonprofit about doing spoken word or about hosting a workshop or about having a speaking engagement there, it’s not chasey energy because she has a lot to show for.

She has street credit from the book that she created, but she also has testimonials from her previous speaking engagements. And, you know, that is the difference. That is the difference between being chasey. Chasey is whenever you’re waiting for the outside validation to say, okay, now I can do this. And what I’m telling you is we need to reverse the formula.

You get to decide what you want to do, what you want to be a thought leader in, what you want to build influence in and start doing that. And once you start doing that, opportunities will come because you will be. magnetic by your influence, or whenever you do approach people, you already have street credit.

And it’s not like you’re approaching people, asking them to take a bet on you, and you have nothing to show for.

I love food examples. So let’s use a food example. Let’s imagine that you’re going to have a birthday for one of your kids, or maybe like one of your parents, right? You’re planning a birthday party. And somebody says to you, Oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to like start a catering business. And you’re like, okay, great.

Yeah. Like what, how many, how many catering events have you done? And they’re like, Oh, none. I’ve actually never started cooking before because I was waiting to like get an opportunity so I could start cooking. You would not hire that person, right? So if we think about this in the context of you, whether you are an entrepreneur or a content creator or aspiring to be one of those things, it’s important for you to start doing the work of what it is that you want to do and start building your own influence because it is in your control.

It is so in your control. Stop waiting for somebody else to tell you, yes, you can do this. You get to build your own influence and you get to decide what type of influence you have. There’s a lot of influencers online that are educators, a lot of influencers online that have been advocates for the LGBTQ community.

There have been, I mean, there’s people I follow on TikTok from all different walks of life that have expanded my own knowledge and they’ve influenced me in such a beautiful way because they’ve expanded my knowledge. They have ensured that I don’t make assumptions about certain groups. And you, what if you get to be that person for the movement that you care about, for the mission that you care about?

Okay. So now let’s talk about how to start building your influence and how you can start today. So you actually don’t need a huge platform because how the heck would you even have a huge platform unless you had already built influence, right? Like again, It’s almost like whenever you’re waiting for, I’ve used this example for Courage Driven Latina before, a lot of times people are waiting for certain things to happen so that they can feel confident, but you must feel confident for certain things to happen, right?

So it’s the same thing with influence. So you don’t need a huge platform to start. You probably shouldn’t have one. If you haven’t started yet, you really just have to start with the audience you already have, whether again, it’s in person or whether it’s online and with who you are authentically. And here’s how you’re going to figure out what it is that you want to build influence on.

What do you stand for? Like, what is something that maybe you’ve gone through? And these can be journal prompts that you can reflect on, but what is like a difficult thing that you’ve gone through that you’ve gotten to the other side of that you can help other people So for me, some of the things that I have Gone through is I’ve called off an engagement.

I’ve left a tech job. I’ve started a business I’ve built an audience on social media and the things that I help people with is inside of courage driven latina I help them take action on something that scares them. I help them take action on a courage project Where did that come from? That came from building the courage to leave a tech job that was no longer fulfilling.

That came from the courage of building a business. That came from the courage of leaving a relationship. So I’ve had to practice courage and be brave. And it was scary, right? It doesn’t mean I’m perfect. Like I still get scared nowadays, but what I’m really helping people do inside of Courage Driven Latina is overcoming their fears and taking action.

I helped them go being paralyzed in fear to taking action on a courage project. And then in Magnetic Mastermind, I help people who are already taking action become magnetic. So specifically that is for entrepreneurs and for content creators who are looking to attract opportunities, whether they are clients, a network, speaking engagements, podcast interviews, Instagram lives, like any opportunity.

or business, any, any type of business opportunity. And that has come from my own path. It’s come from my own path of hustling a bunch and burning out and then learning about the law of attraction and learning about manifestation and leveraging my influence. So your pain a lot of times will become your purpose.

So again, that question more clearly defined is what difficult thing in your life have you overcome that you would like to help other people with? That is a great place to build influence. So some of my clients, I have a client who is a self love coach. I have another client who is a sex coach. I have another client who is a boundary coach and most of these have had to overcome some adversity in that space.

And then they became the coach to help others. How beautiful is that? So yeah, reflect on that because remember that the best person for you to help and build influence for is the person that you were just a few years ago. Like you typically are your own ideal client. So whether again, you want to build a business or create content, your target audience is probably going to be who you once were.

And the, the version of you who needed the version of you now, and it’s like, of course you, the version of you now can’t go back and help the younger version of you, but you can go help a bunch of other people with what you’ve learned. Another way to start building influence is once you define like what it is that you want to stand for.

And honestly, here’s what where people get stuck. I do this. I talk to people. about this a lot inside of Courage Driven Latina and it’s that they have a lot of interests. Try to find the overall theme, right? Try to fight, find the overall theme. And if things are completely separate, just freaking pick one.

Just get started with one. I know it sounds easier said than done, but pick one. You can literally do everything you want, but you can’t do everything you want at the same time. So just pick one. You do have to define your message, especially when you’re just starting out. The next thing so that you can start building your influence is to show up consistently.

So share your message consistently, whether again, this is online or offline. Through creating content or real life conversations at conferences, but whatever you do, do it consistently and what I will tell you, like, this is different than hustling because hustling is out operating from a place of lack and usually when we’re hustling, it’s aligned with something that we don’t really care for.

It’s coming from the ego, but. When you’re taking a line to action and if you have something that you stand for, you’re not going to burn out because you can talk about this all day, every day. Just like I can talk about what I talk about on this podcast all day, every day, because this is my message and I love it, right?

I love talking about courage. I love talking about magnetism and insight of like, if I was to break that into two different sections, courage, the topics I talk about under courage are fear, overcoming the fear of failure, overcoming the fear of what people might think about you. Um, finding clarity on the one thing that you want to do and then allowing yourself to take action.

And then under magnetism, the things that I’ll talk about are law of attraction, spirituality, manifestation, um, overall being magnetic and then kind of like business y things. And these are things I love because these are things that have, again, I’ve overcome. So you won’t burn out when you’re talking about the things or taking action towards the things that.

actually feel mission oriented for you. Okay. So to quickly recap how you can start building influence, define your message. Remember, just make a damn decision, show up consistently, whether it’s online, offline. In person next would be engage with your audience if you’re doing it online or engage with, you know, the people around you.

And how does that work? Well, like engaging conversation, whether that is responding to people’s comments. If somebody sends you a DM right back, like get curious, maybe join Facebook groups, like really get involved in the thing. That is your thing that you stand for. Yeah. And you can really build this influence in this thought leadership whenever you are sharing your expertise and offering value.

And the way that you offer value and share your expertise is through telling the, the, your story, like your story is so much value in itself, but also giving people the lessons that you’ve learned, sharing, you know, Oh, I wish I would have known this. That is really what. allows you to be this trusted advisor in your space and in your niche.

And whenever you’ve allowed yourself to build influence, then that influence is key to manifesting the opportunities that you want. Because remember, manifestation isn’t just about wishful thinking. It’s also about taking aligned action and being clear about what you want. So influence is literally one of the fastest ways to attract opportunities, clients, communities.

without having to pitch yourself or without having to go into hustle mode.

Intentional influence is one of those pillars. Inside of the magnetic method. So whether you’re building influence online or offline, it has to be this intentional influence that has like a purpose driven mission behind it. And that’s what allows you to manifest and to be magnetic.

I think the last thing I’ll say to you all is you’re like, yeah, Erica, must be easy for you. You already have 200, 000 followers on TikTok and like 24k on Instagram, and you already have had a business for four years. It’s so easy for you to tell us all this. I hear you, but let me tell you something friends.

I also started with zero followers, and so did everyone that you follow. People who, even people who don’t really have a social presence, but have been speaking on stages, at one point, they had zero experience in their field. Allow yourself. To take steps when you begin to build influence, maybe the first invitation that you’ll get won’t be a TV feature, but maybe it’s an Instagram live interview.

Maybe it’s a podcast interview. Maybe it is to do a guest blog for somebody. And I also want to remind you that showing up. Okay, now I’m going on another tangent. Let me finish this thought and we’ll go back to the other one. So. It might feel, I think in this society, we just want instant success. We can walk over to a microwave and heat up our coffee in less than a minute, right?

We can Google something or just talk to Siri or to Alexa and ask the question that we want. And we’re going to get an immediate response. And I think we’ve developed this like, Oh my gosh, everything needs to be instant. And my results need to be instant or why even try and we need to let go of that.

because things don’t happen instantly. Can you imagine if you literally didn’t have any type of influence, like intentional influence yet because you were still figuring out what you wanted to do and then tomorrow one of, I don’t know, maybe like somebody from live TV was like, Hey, come do this thing on, on self love and on all the things you’ve been talking about online over the last week.

Would you feel ready for that? That probably would not be your best interview as compared to if you got that interview a year after talking about a specific topic and had a lot of conversations about it and had data and had a lot more confidence around it, right? So sometimes we’re mad that we’re not getting the opportunities that we honestly aren’t ready for.

And I’m not telling you, Oh my gosh, be realistic or anything like that. What I’m saying is be patient, be patient and be grateful for the opportunities that do come to you. Because. You’re not going to immediately get all of the opportunities that you’re going to get. I mean, if I look at some of the opportunities that I’ve gotten over the last six months, if I would have gotten that in the first six months of starting, I would have freaked the F out and it wouldn’t have gone as good as it did.

So it’s almost like if somebody handed me a 10 million business tomorrow, Yeah, my goal is to run a 10 million business one day, but I’m not ready for that. I don’t have the knowledge yet. So sometimes our delayed success is literally teaching us the lessons that we need on the way. So the Instagram lives, the podcast interviews, those are prepping you to speak on stages.

If that’s something that you want to do, or if your influence is, you know, something different. If you don’t actually want to speak, if you just want to, um, create. Content, let’s say your first videos that aren’t that great are teaching you how to create better and better videos for the future. So what I’m saying is allow your growth to happen at the pace it needs to happen.

And don’t allow that comparison of like, Oh, but you know, this person I follow already has 200 podcast episodes. Well, at one point they had zero. At one point they didn’t even have a podcast. It’s okay to start. Just the fact that you’re listening to this podcast, podcast episode is huge. It’s huge because so many people get in their own way.

Do you know how many people have the desire to build an influence and they won’t like even look into it? They just immediately dismiss it. Allow yourself to be a beginner. It is totally okay. And then the other thing I was going to mention is that as we think about showing up, I want you to know that there’s a lot of ways of showing up.

You can show up on social media, you can show up at conferences, you can literally be a writer and you don’t even have to like show your face. face. You can just do a podcast and not do video. You can just do audio. I mean, there’s so many ways of showing up and building influence. So I encourage you to broaden your horizons.

Think about how you are already an influential person and you get to create intentional influence. And when you do create influence, when you become visible, that is when you manifest opportunities when you become magnetic. And that’s part of the magnetic method, which again, I’m going to be talking about.

on Monday, October 21st at five o’clock p. m. pacific time, and I can’t wait to see you there. So register with the link down below and we will see you next week.