In today’s crowded market place, you cannot prosper without providing expertise to your customers. You must have some form of proficiency. Why?
q Because today’s customers have so many buying options, they want to buy from an expert.
q Because your expertise will separate you from your competitors.
q Because customers pay more for expert products and services. Who gets more, a heart surgeon or a general practice doctor?
How Do You Develop The Expertise You Need?
Here are six tips you can use to develop your expertise.
1. Be Different
Being different starts with focusing on one element that separates you from other businesses that offer what you offer. You can focus on a special group of people—you choose to work only with the elderly. You can focus on a product difference—your product is faster and more convenient. You can focus on a business process—you have the best guarantee in the industry. Focus on one element that is important to your customers.
2. Go Deep Not Wide
Specialize. If it’s a product feature, be the best at providing that product feature. If it’s a target population, learn everything about the target group. If it’s a business process, specialize and be the best.
You must go deep. Wide will not work in today’s crowded market. Here’s an example from my own small business. I started with a small business marketing focus. I‘ve now shifted to focusing on the critical area of the small business pricing trap. I help small business owners overcome their pricing fears to use higher prices to get better customers.
With this shift, I had to leave some things behind. I also embraced new things. Deep is the only way to go in today’s crowded market place.
3. Go to the Edge
You must go to the edge. Sounds scary, but if you stay in the middle of the road, you’ll be run over. Your goal is to take your business to the edge. Push on it; take it further than others take their businesses. When you do this, customers notice you and are attracted to you. Whatever the difference you have as your focal point, take it to the edge.
4. Be Enthusiastic
Any sales book will tell you that customers love buying from enthusiastic sales people. You will be more successful if you chose a business or product difference for which you have enthusiasm and passion. Do you really believe in what you are doing? Does it inspire you to go the extra mile? Your passion and enthusiasm will sustain you when you meet the bumps in the road.
5. Get Organized
It has been said that an expert is someone who is better organized than others. Organize your materials and business. Read, write materials, and get testimonials about your expertise. Then watch how many people judge you to be an expert in your field.
6. Start Promoting
Promote your expertise. If you promoted your business in the past, promote your expertise now. Make this the focal point of your marketing efforts. Sing your praises. Use your promotional skills to focus on your “expertise” as the new marketing efforts to attract different customers to your business.
It’s Not Difficult to Enhance Your Expertise
Traditional styles of learning require you to go back to school to become an expert. Today you can use amazon.com to search and get the five leading books on your subject. You can use Google to identify the key articles that will give you a wealth of knowledge. Dig into your industry statistics. You can go to seminars and take home study courses to acquire a tremendous amount of information. Immerse yourself and in a short period of time, you can be an expert.
Conclusion
In today’s crowded market place, you cannot prosper without having expertise. Take the steps now to bring an “expert” quality to your business. Shifting your business to focus on your expertise is not a difference transition. It’s exciting and profitable.
If you want to learn more details about creating your own expertise, send me an email and I’ll send you a free report that provides in-depth information on how you can turn an ordinary business into an extraordinary business.
Bringing Your Expertise to the Market Place
I hope that I have made the case why you need to become and expert and bring that expertise to the market place. In today’s crowded markets, it’s the only way to prosper. Let me now show you how you can become an expert and bring that expertise to your customers.
I will share a five step formula.
1. Commitment to Becoming an Expert
2. The Viability of Your Expertise in the Market Place
3. Enhancing your Expertise
4. Establishing the Credibility of Your Expertise
5. Promoting your Expertise
To make it easy to understand this process of becoming and expert and bring your expertise to your customers, you can follow the success story of Mary who completed this formula in her own business. Mary was a mortgage broker who became frustrated with mortgage business when the bottom fell out with the real estate business. Mary realized that she must become an expert if she was going to succeed in today’s depressed real estate market.
As I illustrate each step in the formula, I will also share how and what Mary did with each of these steps in her own business. Let’s begin.
Commitment to Becoming An Expert
Make a decision; make a commitment to becoming an expert. Everything starts and begins to happen when you make a decision and commitment about the expertise you want to bring to the market place.
You may have been working as a generalist in your business area. Now you must choose what specific area, subset, or niche you want to specialize with a form of expertise. You can focus on a specific target population. You can focus on a selective products or services. You can focus on a process within your business.
Nothing will happen until you make a decision and commitment to become an expert and bring that expertise to the market place. Let’s look at some characteristics that should be part of your decision.
Characteristic of Becoming an Expert
Contribution
You must believe that by sharing your new expertise you can make a real difference in the lives of your customers. Your expertise is your contribution to them.
Passion and Enthusiasm
You should love sharing your expertise with your customers. By having passion and enthusiasm, you will be able to overcome the daily bumps in the road. Your customers will also feel your enthusiasm for the expertise you bring.
Go The Extra Mile
Are there ways you can use your expertise to go beyond what others in your industry already do? Identify two or three different ways you can use your expertise to go the extra mile.
Overcome your fears
You biggest fear will be leaving customers behind when you move forward with your new expertise. You will need to say “No” to some customers. You will say “Yes” to some new customers.
Go To the Edge
If you want to be different from your competition, go to the edge. As you develop your expertise, push it as far as possible in finding benefits for the customer.
Your Transition
You have several options as you move from a generalist to becoming an expert. You can make a cold turkey move--stop everything you are doing right now and start new with your expertise. There are advantages and disadvantages of doing cold turkey changes.
Or, you can use the second option of a gradual transition from generalist to becoming an expert. During this time you will gradually leave behind some things you are now doing and embrace new expertise items. During this process, you can divide your marketing efforts between the old and the new.
Most people select the second option because it allows them the time they need to make the changes. You have a choice!
Mary decided that she wanted to change from a mortgage generalist to specialize in first time home buyers with her mortgage business. She had recently become a first time home buyer. She loves working with first time buyers and helping them realizes the American dream of owning their own home. She finds this group of people to be more loyal than other mortgage customers. She still has some fear about leaving behind some customers who do not fit into the first-time home buyer category of customers.
She decided to take three months to make the transition from being a generalist in the mortgage business to a specialist with first time home buyers. This would give her the time to enhance her expertise and promote it with the appropriate people.
2. The Viability of Your Expertise
Beyond your preferences and personal commitment to becoming an expert in the market place, you must ask some business questions about your new target group. What type of viability is there for your market expertise? You will become an expert in solving a specific set of problems for a specific group of customers. If there are only a limited number of these customers, this may not be enough to support your business. If the customers with the particular problem you are solving have no money, you’ll have a business problem.
To determine the strength for the expertise you want to bring to the market, ask the following questions about the potential groups of customers who have the specific problems you have identified as part of your niche or expertise.
1 Do they really want to solve this
problem?
problem?
2 Are they willing to spend money to solve this problem?
3 Are there enough people with this problem so you can make a profit?
4 Will it be easy to contact the group of people about the problem?
Answers to these questions will give you better perspective on the viability of the expertise you want to bring to your customers.
Mary, our mortgage broker reviewed some of her industry statistics to determine the viability of her new expertise. She found the following facts:
ü Owing a home continues to be part of the American dream for most families
ü The population trends continue to show a large number of young adults in the primary home owning age group.
ü Mortgage companies and lending institutions have become increasingly creative in freeing up lending monies for first time home buyers.
ü With the complexity of rates and funding options, it is even more important for first time home buying prospects to find mortgage people who know the ins and outs of the business.
Armed with this review of her new market niche, Mary felt first time home buyers were a viable and fruitful market for her to pursue with expertise.
3. Enhancing your Expertise
Many small business owners think developing their expertise means academic expertise or other extensive training, education or degrees. This is a mistake. There are simple and easy ways to enhance the expertise you have decided to bring to the market place.
Every niche will have its own form of expertise. Customers are looking for people and businesses that have an expertise about their problems, their solutions, and the alternatives they have to solve their problems. This is the type of expertise you want to bring to the market place. I call this practical business expertise.
Your Industry
Start with your industry. What information is available from your industry about your selected area of expertise? Who in you industry has been focusing on this area? Find as much information as possible. Your industry’s association or professional group has already assembled useful information you can use, tap into it.
Do a Google Search
Do a Google search on your area of expertise. Type in “Articles about (your area of expertise)” You will get a large number of articles on your subject. Immerse yourself in reading them. You will begin to identify trends and key areas about your expertise. You can then pursue other Google searches to refine the information you are finding. In a short time you can begin building a knowledge base and making yourself an expert.
In the course of your Google search, you learn about the leading experts on your subject. Who’s writing the articles? Who’s getting quoted? What are the key areas of concerns that surface in the article search? What books are people talking about?
Use the Google System To Check Websites
Check out the business websites in your area of expertise. When you are reviewing the Google articles you will see business websites on the right side of your search pages. These are businesses in your same area or niche. You want to click on their sites and begin to learn from them what they are offering.
The purpose of these website searches is to learn from others so you can further refine your own expertise for the market place. Becoming a copy cat of others would defeat your purpose in bringing a form of expertise to the market place. Learn from others and bring your own difference.
Don’t be discouraged if you find others already doing what you want to do with your expertise. Competition is a sign that there is business to be had in this area. If there is no one offering any products or services to your specific category of people you want to serve with your expertise, it could be a sign that your buyers are not looking for what you are selling
Book Search
Go to Amazon.com and type in key words from your selected niche into the “Book Search” area. Amazon provides you with a list of the popular books and authors on your subject area.
Many of the popular books will have reviews and comments about the book. Read these reviews. Some are written by national experts in the field. This will give you another snap shot into whether the book is good and how it relates to the key issues of your subject area. Buy and read the top five books in the subject area.
Contact the Experts
If you have identified key people, authors, leaders in the field you have chosen for your expertise, don’t be afraid to contact them. Ask your questions, show you enthusiasm. Most businesses rarely take advantage of the experts in their industries. Experts love to talk about the expertise.
Think how powerful it would be to have a conversation with one of the experts in your niche and then share this information as part of your promotional materials—“in my conversation with XZY, the leading expert in the country, here is what they suggest…”
Your Customer
Don’t overlook the most valuable information from your customers and prospects. Ultimately they are the experts on your niche area. It is their reason for buying products and services that is the most important information you need to know to enhance your expertise.
If you are already working with some customers in your niche, prepare a set of questions for them. Who are they? What are their demographics? What problems do they want solved? Where do they look for solutions to these problems? What are their psychographics (why they buy and what motivates them)? How do they hear about your type of business? What was their motivation for buying?
You can add to this information by selectively interviewing a number of people in your target niche. This is critical information. You will want to create a profile of the best customers that want your expertise. This first hand information is extremely valuable.
If you don’t have time to do this, there are businesses that will do this work for you and provide you with essential first hand customer information.
Mary interviewed several of her former first time home buyers to get better information about how and why they selected their mortgage broker. From the many different lending options in the mortgage business, she selected those options best suited to first time home buyers. She studied these options and talked with more experienced mortgage brokers about how they used these options.
She did a Google Search. Google listed over 15,000 thousand articles on the subject. They also had dozens of website that specialize in first time home buying. She spent several hours reviewing these sources and taking notes. She also went to Amazon.com and found dozens of books with instructions for first time home buyers. She purchased and read several of these books to add to her knowledge base.
4. Establishing the Credibility of Your Expertise
You must establish credibility about your expert status. You do this in a number of ways. The fundamental question for all buyers is, “Can the business owner deliver on what they promise—your credibility.
Outside Authorization
Credentials
We are familiar with the outside form of credibility. These are the tests you pass; the degree you receive; the certification provided by some outside authority.
Awards
Another form of credibility are the awards you have been given. You were the top sales person in your company. Your company was voted small business of the year. Your product won an award for outstanding quality. Customers perceive that if you received these types of awards for your efforts, you are more credible.
Alliance with Other Businesses
By linking yourself with other businesses that already have credibility with customers, you ride their coat tails. You see this often in political elections. Ride the coat tails of other businesses.
Testimonials
Get some testimonials from customers who have received your expertise. If you don’t have your own testimonials, gather industry testimonials from others who have received the same type of expertise. Customers expect you to say good things about your business. When they hear from others how you have used your expertise, they are more likely to buy that same expertise from you.
There are things you can to do to build up credibility for your expert status.
Unique Selling Proposition
A clear, unique selling proposition makes you more credible. Being clear and distinct from your competitors gives the customer less to compare with makes you more credibility than being a copy cat business.
Being Organized
Sounds silly? People perceive those individuals and businesses that are organized to have more credibility than those who are unorganized. Think of a sales person who called on your business and was totally disorganized in their presentation to you. Did you think as kindly of this individual as another sales person who was well organized and classy in their presentation?
Write Articles
A great way to add credibility to your new expertise is to write and publish articles. People grant status to those who are in print. It is an easy task to get articles published on the web—it gives you almost instant credibility. Those same articles can be used off line with local press.
Guarantees
Most small businesses are afraid of giving guarantees. They fear customers will abuse their offers. Add a guarantee to your offering and you improve your credibility with your customers.
Public Presentations
Hold a seminar, chair a meeting group—stand up in front of a group of people. Those who put on seminars and do this form of public speaking are considered to have expert status. People give you more credibility.
Mary did several things to improve her credibility. She took a special class offered by her mortgage association on first time home buyer lending options. She received a certification from doing this class. She joined a well respected real estate company in her area.
She developed a Consumer’s Guide to First Time Home Buyers. She gave this guide to prospects as well as real estate agents and used it as a brochure for her business. She taught a two hour class adult education class on first time home buyer at her local community college.
She developed a five step process that simplified all the paper work involved in first time lending. She also guaranteed her customers that she would return all phone calls within 8 hours or she would buy them a dinner. In short, she put to good use the knowledge she had accumulated about first time home buyers.
5. Promoting your Expertise
In your current business you have already been using marketing efforts with your existing business. By becoming an expert, enhancing your expertise, building your credibility about your expertise, you now must promote your expertise.
Think of this as a new business, in fact it is a new business. This will help inject new energy into your promotional efforts. You can use a variety of efforts to promote your status as an expert and your new expertise.
Personal Network—Your Base of 250 People
Contact your base of 250 people. They say each of us has a base of 250 people we know. These are friends, relatives, business contacts, social contacts, etc. You now have a “good excuse” to contact them with the news of your new efforts. Then keep in contact with them. Remember the key ingredient in buying—we buy from people we know like and trust. These people already know you, now you need to share with them details about your new expertise.
Redo Your Promotional Tools
Redo your promotional tools. This would include your yellow page ad, business card, your elevator speech, your stationary, your logo. Make all of these express the expertise you are bringing to the market place.
PR
This is an excellent time for PR articles to the local press. Remember their purpose is to attract more readers. Give them information that will help with their purposes. You have a new product a new expertise, how will their readers benefit from this expertise. Show how this can benefit the readers and they will give you the PR.
Business Networking
You have networking skills you have used in the past to promote your generalized business. Now focus those skills on a tighter network of people. Instead of networking in general, network with others who specially deal with your customers or who can provide support to your business.
Identify who you want to network with and go get them. You now have an expertise that you can offer and make your networking that much more effective. Make a plan of who you want to network with, what contributions you can make to them.
Boast about your expertise
If you don’t tell the world about the expertise you bring to the market place, who will? Self proclaim your expert status. It is what customers want. You are not a board of certification. You are now a business that is marketing and promoting a special skill or expertise. Promote it. Even if all the pieces are not 100% in place, they will come together as you grow in your expertise.
Mary, our mortgage broker did some of the following things to promote her new expertise. She created a friends, relatives, business networking letter to announce her new emphasis on first time home buyers. She told them what she could do to help others and how others could help her. She promised to stay in touch with them.
Mary formed her own networking group. This was made up of a real estate agent, a lawyer, financial advisors and several other people. They meet every two weeks to help promote each other’s business and share a common data base of customers.
She wrote an article for her local newspaper on the five things a new home buyer should watch for when they begin the home buying process. (This was just another version of the materials she used in her community-ed class and her Consumer’s Guide brochure) The editor found this to be a helpful piece of information he could use in his business section. Mary had a bio about herself at the end of the article.
She changed her business cards and business logo to reflect her abilities to help first time home buyers. She has changed her elevator speech to reflect her ability to help first time home buyers.
She now has a newsletter she sends to all of her customers with helpful hints about home ownership.
Conclusion
As you can see from Mary’s story and the five step formula, making a transition from being a generalist in your business to becoming an expert is not difficult. If you focus on what the customer needs and wants as your goal, it’s easy to develop the expertise in the market place that will allow you to prosper. Those who have developed expertise don’t fear the crowded market place.
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