Do you remember sitting exams when you were younger?

I know, I know, sorry for bringing up what might well be painful memories.

I hated exams myself.

I'm a brilliant procrastinator and I used to leave everything to the last minute then stay up all night “cramming” and hoping I'd still be vaguely sentient in the exam the next day.

A far better strategy is to prepare well in advance.

And your most effective weapon when it comes to getting things to stick in your brain is repetition (or more accurately, spaced repetition).

Going over the same material again and again (though ideally in different ways) means you remember it.

The same is true when we want to memorise a phone number or anything else important. We repeat it to ourselves until it gets lodged in our brain. 

We all know this simple strategy when it comes to remembering things ourselves. But when we want someone to remember us, we usually ignore it.

Our natural inclination is to try to make a great impression, and then just assume they'll remember us or what we said forever.

That's just not how things work.

If you want people to see you as an authority, you can't just get your ideas across to them once. You need to communicate on a regular basis.

Repetition leads to remembering.

Part of the secret of all great authorities is simply that they keep on communicating with us on a regular basis. And it's something you need to do if you want to be seen as an authority yourself.

Your platform of choice might be email, like I often use. Or it might be video or a podcast.

Whatever it is, there's a close correlation between how often people are exposed to your ideas and how well they remember them.

And if they don’t remember you or your ideas, there's no way they'll see you as an authority.