How to Become a Category of One – Lessons from David Newman
This week I had a brilliant conversation with David Newman about his new book Market Eminence: 22 Strategies to Build a Bold Personal Brand, Become a Business Celebrity, and Drive Unstoppable Growth .
If you haven’t come across David’s work before, he’s a CSP, a popular keynote speaker, and the host of the globally ranked top 1% podcast The Selling Show. His focus is on helping founders, mid-market CEOs, and professional services firms “play bigger, grow faster, and become a category of one” .
Our chat centred around a problem most speakers wrestle with:
Obscurity.
Not invisibility, but obscurity.
As David says, invisibility means no one can see you.
Obscurity means the right people can’t see you .
And that problem is costing you. He calls it the obscurity tax.
Are you paying the “obscurity tax”?
David says you’ll know you’re paying it if any of these feel familiar:
- Your clients love you, but outside your existing circle no one knows you
- You feel interchangeable with other speakers who “look like they do what you do”
- You’re facing constant downward price pressure
- You see your competitors—who you know aren’t as good—getting picked over you again and again, at three times your fee
- You keep asking, “Why wasn’t that gig mine?”
The pain builds until you reach a point where you want to do something about it.
And that’s exactly what Market Eminence is about.
What the market REALLY rewards
One of my favourite parts of our conversation was when David explained that the market does not reward actual expertise.
It rewards perceived expertise .
Unfair?
Yes.
True?
Absolutely.
To solve obscurity, David says you need three elements working together:
- Visibility
Speakers are not bought sight unseen. You must be seen by the right people, in the right venues.
- Respect (Relevance)
When bookers land on your site or your materials, they should immediately feel, “You get me.”
- Brand Preference
This is where you stop being “an option” and become “the only safe choice”.
As David put it, you want to reach a point where booking anyone else feels “risky, dangerous, and dumb” for the buyer .
Why you must stop using a “borrowed voice”
One concept I absolutely loved was his idea of the borrowed voice.
Speakers often try to sound like other speakers.
They look at 10 websites they admire and copy them.
They ask videographers to make their demo “look like these three speakers”.
They model their proposal on someone else’s proposal.
All with the hope of sounding smart and being liked by everyone .
But this makes you interchangeable.
It hides the very thing that would make you more bookable: you.
David urges speakers to “fly your freak flag” and double down on what makes you different—your battle scars, war stories, beliefs, perspective, and lived expertise.
AI can’t do this for you.
Only you can .
Your language must pass the “black marker test”
Your language should be so distinctive that if someone blacked out your logo and your name, people would still know it was you.
Your keynote.
Your website.
Your proposal.
Even your contract.
David calls these your you-isms—signature phrases and ideas that clients quote back to you. They should show up everywhere, not just on your homepage .
If no one dislikes you, no one loves you
David said:
“If no one hates you, no one loves you” .
It sounds strong, but the point isn’t about being provocative for the sake of it.
It’s about being willing to repel the wrong people so you can attract the right ones.
He reassures his clients by having them write a list of nightmare clients, bad-fit partners, and awful employees.
Then he says:
“You’re only repelling these people. How do you feel now?”
Most people suddenly relax.
Because repelling the wrong people creates space for the very best people to be strongly magnetised to you.
I should have had this advice when I was dating …
What kind of content should speakers create now?
David believes the era of “how to do” content is over.
AI has won that game - instant, perfect, free.
If you want market eminence, your content needs to shift to:
- How to think
Insight over information.
Share the deeper lessons, stories, and frameworks you’ve learned through experience.
- What to believe (and what not to believe)
Challenge assumptions.
Offer belief-shifting ideas.
- Where to focus next
Be the early warning system.
Spot trends, patterns, and risks.
Help clients avoid being blindsided .
These three alone can transform your thought leadership.
When is it time to reinvent?
David and I spoke about reinvention too.
Indicators include:
- You're bored with your own material
• Your calendar isn’t as full as you want
• The market has moved, and you haven't
• Your pipeline feels stale
• Bookers stop enquiring at the same rate
Reinvention doesn’t necessarily mean starting again, it often means redeploying your expertise into an adjacent, more relevant topic like Jay Baer did when he moved towards Human.Kind and customer experience in the age of AI.
Visibility, credibility, shareability
David closed by sharing the three vehicles that support market eminence:
- Speaking (raises visibility)
- Publishing (raises credibility)
- Podcasting/Guesting (raises shareability)
You don’t need to do all three at once, but over time, they work together to amplify your position in the market.
Final thought
Market eminence is not about pretending to be someone you’re not.
It’s about uncovering who you already are and then having the courage to show it.
The moment you stop trying to fit in is the moment you start becoming a category of one.
Want to listen to the full chat – go to https://speakingbusiness.libsyn.com/market-eminence-standing-out-staying-relevant-and-getting-hired-with-david-newman
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