5 Tips To Position Yourself As An Expert

Posted by Merlyn Sanchez on June 3rd, 2010

Yesterday I wrote about adding value by sharing your knowledge and expertise. Today, I’m going to piggyback on that and share you a few ways you can position yourself as an expert.

1. Narrow your area of expertise – This is where the saying “Jack of All Trades and Master of None” comes in. Find one area where you really excel and use that as your leverage point. You can always partner with experts in complementary areas and offer your audience additional specialized information.

2. Earn trust and reputation – A good reputation is extremely important to be considered an expert. No one is going to listen to someone they don’t trust. Make sure to build a positive reputation with your clients by over-delivering and maintaining open lines of communication. Respect others, act with integrity and practice the golden rule. Obvious but you’d be surprised how many professionals and corporations don’t do this.

3. Handle Criticism Like A Professional – Criticism and negative feedback comes with the territory. Don’t get defense, just take a deep breath and LISTEN. This can be a real opportunity to convert a disgruntled customer into a raving. Is the criticism or complaint valid? If so, this is a great opportunity to make changes that can avoid future problems. If not, take the complaint with a grain of salt and move. But don’t take it personally and make matters worse by engaging in a dispute that can have nasty ramifications.

4. Be visible – You need to be visible by actively participating in your industry, niche or field. Attend networking and industry events, conferences and other opportunities to meet the people who can benefit from your knowledge. Start speaking for groups and offer workshops or seminars. These are excellent ways to become well-known.

5. Become an Infopreneur – There are numerous ways to package and share your information and the benefits are two-fold. First, you increase your audience by shifting the way you reach them from one-to-one to one-many. Secondly, you’ll create additional income streams. Write a book, build a membership site, offer an online or offline course, start blogging, or launch a multi-media information product.