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How To Be An Influencer in Any Market
Let’s get one thing straight:
Markets change. People change. Circumstances change. If you're in the tool and fastener business, you know this better than most.
You've watched pricing fluctuate, suppliers vanish, and once-loyal customers chase cheaper options. You’ve seen demand spike and stall with no clear pattern. Your team hustles one quarter and stalls the next. And you are left asking: what’s actually working anymore?
Let me offer a better question:
Who is actually working? Because in unpredictable markets, the most valuable asset is not a product line, a promotion, or even a plan. It is a person. A leader. An influencer.
Influence Is not Popularity—It’s Certainty
Being an influencer has nothing to do with being liked. It has everything to do with being trusted when it matters most.
Real influence does not show up when things are easy. It emerges in volatility. When decisions are murky, margins are tight, and people are looking for someone to follow.
Not someone who has all the answers.
Someone who is not panicked by the questions.
Most people think influence means being the loudest voice in the room. It does not. Loud is different from clear. In fact, the more noise there is, the more power clarity holds.
Two Things That Make You Influential
Let me preview just a sliver of what we’re going to unpack together this fall.
First: Influence starts with clarity.
You must be clearer than the conditions around you. Confused leaders do not create confidence, they create doubt.
Clarity looks like this: clear direction, expectations that can’t be misinterpreted, and the courage to say what’s true even when it’s uncomfortable. If your team or your customers are constantly asking what is going on or what comes next, that’s a clarity problem.
Want to be an influencer in your company, in your market, with your people? Start by removing ambiguity. Say what is true. Say what is next. And say it like you mean it.
Second: Influence requires consistency.
It is not what you say that makes the difference. It is what you repeat.
Influencers don’t show up big once—they show up steadily, especially when others flinch.
Most People are Too Distracted
Here’s what most leaders are doing right now:
- Reacting to market speculation instead of driving strategy
- Chasing tools, trends, or competitors instead of anchoring in principles
- Waiting for clarity instead of creating it
Influence doesn’t come from reacting. It comes from deciding.
One of the things I teach leaders is a framework called CARE: Clarity, Accountability, Resources, and Execution. It’s how you stop the swirl and start leading. In chaotic markets, those four things become non-negotiable. When people are distracted, you bring them back to focus. When they’re discouraged, you bring them back to purpose.
You Don’t Need a Bigger Brand, You Need Better Focus
Forget trying to be “the biggest.”
In any market—especially this one—the person who wins is the person who has solutions and can execute flawlessly
Not because they’re flashy. Because they’re reliable, real, and ready.
That’s what we’re going to talk about when we’re together. Not hype. Not fluff.
Just the real work of influence: how to show up when others fade out, and how to lead in a way people remember.
If someone had to describe your influence in one sentence today—what would they say?
And more importantly, would you be proud of the answer?
I’ll see you in November.
Author, speaker and coach Mike Staver will take often complex leadership principles and make them useful in “How to be an Influencer” on Sunday, Nov. 9 from 8:30-10:30 a.m. and again from 10:30 a.m.-Noon.
Mike Staver is a leadership coach and keynote speaker who helps leaders build clarity, courage, and consistency, especially in high-pressure industries. Learn more at www.mikestaver.com.
CONTRACTOR SUPPLY MAGAZINE
The October/November 2025 issue of Contractor Supply magazine is here!
Our cover story, The Power of Fusion, California Service Tool demonstrates how it has found a way to fuse together its relationships with customers and vendors.
Learn the story of 2026 STAFDA President Matt Kitchens and get the full line up for the 2025 STAFDA Convention and Trade Show Section and also in this issue are Industry Updates.
This digital edition, sponsored by BECK AMERICA Inc., is fully searchable and contains live links to every advertiser and new product listing. Click away!
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