Want More Business? Prove You’re an Expert

Your audience wants to trust you

We all want more business whether we write books, publish digitals, do the side hustle, or make illustrations. One good way to grow a successful micro business is to clearly prove you’re an expert. If people trust that you know your stuff, they will buy that stuff again and again. How do you become an expert? Position yourself in front of a lot of people with facts, opinions, and news about your platform, topic, or product. Expertise, being an expert, revolves around other people’s perceptions. If you talk like an expert, you look like an expert.

Wait, do you really have to know stuff, or can you fake it?

We’re not saying you can develop an expert platform with no knowledge of your area, topic, or platform. For example, if I’m an expert in freelance writing, which I am, I must have a base of information and experience in freelance writing. I do. I’ve made my living as a freelancer for decades.

Now, suppose you want to become a prolific writer/spokesperson/expert on a topic. Here’s a roadmap for you.

Believe you can become an expert

Decide what you want. Do you want to be a media personality? Want to write books and publish them or get them published? Be a web guru? Do highly paid public speaking? Make a killing in e-commerce?

Make a clear decision about where you want to begin this trip and take a step toward that goal every single day. Baby steps.

Spend quality time with yourself. Get inside your head. Decide what you’re passionate about. What do you love that you’re good at? Do others come to you for advice about something? What topic that lights you up appears most often on your bookshelf? Choose a project you can commit to 100%. If you’re going to prove you’re an expert, you’re going to have to enjoy what you do.

Is it going to be self-publishing? Freelancing? Making downloadables? Do you have knowledge and passion? Good. Move to the next step.

Become an expert

Organize your thinking. Narrow your focus so you can absorb tons of accurate information on that subject. The age-old journalism questions – who, what, where, when, and how – are a good jumping-off point. If you can’t answer those questions, you’re not ready.

Once you have the wide area you want to be a leader in, narrow your thinking to a niche others have missed. Maybe self-publishing books for new moms. Start reading and talking to educators, friends, neighbors, parents, and others who might read or buy such books. Figure out what problems they want to solve and what questions they need answers to. What keeps them up at night?

Like a hungry ant eater, slurp up bytes of information from reliable sources. Test yourself. Take an online course. Avoid pop culture experts like the plague unless pop culture is your topic! If you research something at a site like Wikipedia, double-check to ensure the information you’re taking in is reliable. Check your facts and never put your name to facts you don’t know to be true.

Take time to be thorough – it’s worth it. Don’t let this step knock you off your path. Learn the past, present, and future of your niche. Study what advantages you can give people who follow you.

Want more business? Take time to do it right

Organize your approach. Outline what you know. Write one or two pieces on subjects within your platform. Make them polished, specific, and fascinating. Develop a blog if that appeals to you. You’ll learn while you’re blogging. Make business cards. Create a simple letterhead design to run off as needed. Structure time to promote yourself and your topic. Brand yourself and be sure everything has a professional face.

While you’re building, keep designing products, or writing content, or working on a book. Build an inventory of value-added materials you can sell, post, or give away to underline your expertise. Study your competition.

Big step – promote yourself

It needn’t cost a dime to prove you’re an expert and promote yourself. You might get paid to do it. For example, as I was building a new website, I let it be known on social media that I had created websites for myself and for others. I posted about my challenges and solutions. Soon, people were messaging me to ask if I would want to build sites.

And that’s the next thing on the to-do list. Create a simple but professional website. There are several user-friendly ways to accomplish that, and OnText has great how-to articles.

Join forums and online communities that relate to your topic Answer people’s questions generously and cordially, without one word of self-promotion. Sign your name to your answers and add your URL. Have a look at Quora or Reddit to get the idea. For more choices, search the web for “Where can I answer people’s questions.”

Figure out how to use as many social media platforms as you can and build a following. It all adds up. Note that Facebook groups are a fantastic way to promote yourself if you’re careful. Join a group. Get to know the tone before you even consider promoting your product. Let people see who you are. You can post friendly, funny, helpful, or interesting comments related to your passion for a while. That helps prove you’re an expert. Develop a presence and then share your product or project. You wouldn’t walk into a party and scream, “Hey, you guys, I sell kids’ books.”

Prove you’re an expert

Gather your newly created portfolio, clip file, resume, and downloadable. Put yourself in front of the audience, editor, producer, or publisher you want to impress. Make no mistakes. Present only your highest quality work. Never show anyone anything that isn’t perfect.

Three things to recognize when you are preparing to be an expert:

Expert success won’t happen overnight.
Being a paid expert is 70% marketing yourself and about 30% actual product creation. Always.
Marketing and promoting never mean spamming. You are obligated to put your product – your expertise – in front of the right people in the right way.

You can’t fake the way you promote your dream, and you can’t prove you’re an expert if you’re not. Reach out an open, friendly, helping hand to people seeking answers, and they will respond in kind. If you know your stuff, you’ll inspire trust, and your business will grow. If you come on like a ton of bricks, bloviating and exaggerating, you’ll annoy people and fail. Simple.