The Authority Lab

What a day. Every day feels like that now, all of a sudden. What a day, what a week, what a month.

What a year 2020 is turning out to be. For everyone in every corner of the world. Every business. My business, too.

Did you have big plans for 2020? Mine were huge. Can I tell you about them? I’d like to remember them one last time, before I move on.

Thank you. Okay.

My 2020 marketing plans, by Deb Gabor.

My planning all started with my new platform, The Authority Lab. The Authority Lab is a way for individual thought leaders to build their brand and monetize their expertise with our expertise. It’s an idea I got after I wrote my books Branding is Sex and Irrational Loyalty, and while I was exploring the world of online courses, subscription models, community building, and selling other information products online.

I discovered in my research on authority marketing that there just wasn’t a specialized agency providing the kind of guidance and expert strategy that personal brands need to achieve their goals. So, I put my team at Sol Marketing to work, and we created a totally bespoke platform that provided guidance for every deliverable a personal brand might want to deliver.

We've got workshops, information products at various price levels, marketing campaigns, email nurture sequences, content marketing, etc. that we built with a combination of our branding know-how and brute force. I mean, we threw ourselves at this and we’ve got a hell of a program, fully customized. None of it is the lazy, mass-produced, branding-by-template garbage that other agencies provide.

Alongside The Authority Lab, I’ve been writing a new book about the intersection between AI and marketing. I was planning to debut some of the ideas I’d been exploring at a speaker panel for SXSW. I was also planning to shake some hands and introduce The Authority Lab to the world.

And of course, that’s when 2020 asserted itself. The cancellation of SXSW was the first domino to fall in the demise of my authority marketing plan for the year. Then, in rapid fashion, every single other event was canceled.

We were all hit. It’s been devastating. I fill the top of my funnel through the connections I make at these events, and now they’re gone. Along with my plan for the year.

So, goodbye to my old 2020 marketing plan. You would have been great.

What’s next?

For my brand, as well as every other brand, it’s time to adapt. We have to face what’s in front of us, and bridge the gap between the old reality and the new one. We have to reach out and help each other find new ways to survive in the world.

Brands are like people, and they must do their part. Thought leaders with a message that will help others need to reach as many people as possible - and find a way to pay the bills.

I’m glad to say that I have a platform for that. The Authority Lab has already been designed from the ground up to help thought leaders reach their audience. The difference now is, we’re empowering those thought leaders who are specifically focused on helping people thrive in this new world. 

So, I’m pleased to debut my new 2020 marketing plan. My plan is to be sure everyone has the opportunity to recover what they’ve lost. I will help experts and authorities and thought leaders around the world make the connections they need to help everyone survive and prosper in the years to come.

What a year it’s going to be.