Experts Say … Be An Expert

Businessman first place

Watch the news and observe the so-called “experts” on the economy or the latest tabloid trial. When you’re the expert, people pay attention to you more and take you up on your words. But what makes them more authoritative on a topic than anyone else?

Experience helps and knowledge helps, but the real difference is a keen eye for details. And if you happen to be passionate about the topic, it’s a lock.

It’s no different in business. What does an expert get in a sales situation? You get credibility before you even get started selling anything. People come to you and you can charge more money. And your ability to position yourself as an expert is far less complicated than you might think.

You start off with information that’s of interest.  ‘Did you know that today, you’re spending three times more money in advertising to try and get the same result that you would have gotten  ten years ago?’

I might be selling marketing programs to make you more effective, but I gave you factual information. That’s real data, and it’s power like you can’t believe. What business owner wouldn’t want to stick around and hear free information about that (You are giving that info away for free!)? And you’re positioning yourself as an expert on how you can help them fix common marketing problems.

Before you sell anything, you set up criteria on what would be important to your audience, something that they couldn’t logically say no to. It should be full of interesting and good data that is of value to your prospects, things that would make them say, ‘Holy Crap!’ or, ‘I didn’t know that.’ ‘Hmm that’s interesting!’

Of course, you can’t just say you’re an expert; you actually have to know what you’re talking about, so it requires research. You can outsource it or have an assistant gather it, but you still have to take the time to read it, understand it, and know it. If you can articulate it thoroughly, understandably, and passionately, guess what? As far as anybody knows, you’re an expert in that! Time and experience strengthens that.

If done properly and with integrity, it can be powerful, but in general so called “experts” are also overrated. In his book “Expert Political Judgment—How Good is It?” Philip Tetlock collected over 80,000 forecasts over a 20-year study of almost 300 political experts whom he asked a range of questions: would there be a non-violent end to apartheid in South Africa?  Would the U.S. go to war in the Persian Gulf?  The experts were bad at predicting, nor did specializing in a field improve their answers. Journalists and average people did about as well as the experts when it came to predicting the future.

That doesn’t negate the impact of positioning yourself as an expert. It just means you can be as much of an expert as anybody else. It’s about presenting facts passionately and undeniably. In business, market data or market trends are just as, if not more important, than knowledge in a particular area.

Any success we’ve found in business or in a career was because for whatever level we are at, we present ourselves as a specialist of sorts. How have you been able to position yourself as an expert or higher-quality professional? What impact did that have on your trajectory? The Millionaire Mind community wants to hear from you!!!