How to Guarantee Success by Becoming an Expert

One of the best ways to succeed and guarantee long term success as an entrepreneur is to become a subject matter expert or thought leader. This is because selling is now about educating the prospect and customer. Here to show you how you can become an expert is Dorie Clark who helps individuals and companies get their best ideas heard in a crowded, noisy world.

Click here to listen to Dorie’s segment on The Small Business Radio Show

 

00:04 Speaker 1: Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It’s exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable. Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host Barry Moltz.

00:16 Barry Moltz: Well, thanks for joining me for this week’s radio show. Remember, this is your final word in small business. For those keeping track, this is now amazingly show number 576. This episode is provided by Nextiva, the all-in-one communications platform for your small business. It’s also sponsored by LinkedIn, the place to generate leads, drive traffic, and build your brand awareness. For a free $100-credit to launch your campaign, go to www.linkedin.com/spr. We’re also sponsored by vCita, all you need to run your business in one software. Try for free at www.vcita.com, that’s vcita.com and use barry10 for an exclusive discount. Well, the best way to succeed today and guarantee long-term success is to become a subject matter expert. This is because selling is now educating the prospect and customer. Here to show you how to become an expert is Dorie Clark, who helps individuals and companies get their best ideas heard in a crowded, noisy world.

01:23 BM: She has been named one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. She’s the author of Entrepreneurial You, which was named one of Forbes top five business books of the year, as well as Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the number one leadership book of the year by Inc Magazine. She’s a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a producer of multiple Grammy-winning jazz albums and a Broadway investor. Dorie, welcome back to the show for the fourth time.

01:50 Dorie Clark: Barry Moltz, I am so happy to be speaking with you.

01:52 BM: It’s been 125 shows like two years. Where’ve you been?

[laughter]

01:57 BM: You been busy.

01:57 DC: I guess, I’ve been producing jazz records, man. [laughter]

02:03 BM: And you’re the first person that’s ever been on that’s been a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and basically an angel investor for Broadway.

02:13 DC: Well, thank you. I like to keep it real. [chuckle]

02:16 BM: You definitely do. So why is it so important for people to become thought leaders in their field and why should people think that they can do it?

02:27 DC: Well, ultimately, the push that we’re seeing so much in every aspect of the business world is that with more and more competition, everything is pushing our businesses in the direction of being a commodity, of being just another whatever you do, just another graphic designer, just another firm that offers X, Y, and Z, just another consultant. And if we want to make sure that we are protecting ourselves, if we are going to be investing so that we can actually build the careers that we want so that we have the customers that we want and they’re willing to pay premium prices, we have to do something to make sure that we are distinguishing ourselves and giving them a reason why they feel good, why they feel eager to pay premium prices to work with us. And the only way we can do that is if we establish ourselves as experts.

03:24 BM: Because, Dorie, no one wants to buy our stuff anymore, right? [chuckle] I mean, if it’s a commodity, they don’t wanna just buy your service, they wanna have some kind of authentic, unique experience along the way. That’s really what they’re buying, aren’t they?

03:39 DC: Absolutely, it’s about buying a unique experience, it’s also about buying peace of mind in many ways. Because since there are so many options, we all know this, I mean, even if you just try to buy a television or something, there’s hundreds of options. It’s very overwhelming, and it becomes even more high stakes if you’re buying something that’s expensive or really mission-critical. And so you don’t, in that circumstance, necessarily want the cheapest option. You’ll take the cheapest option if that’s reasonable, but what you want is the option that makes you feel most at peace that it’s not gonna break, it’s not gonna be messed up. You want peace of mind. And so if you are establishing yourself as a recognized expert, as the trusted source, people are far more willing to say, “Okay, I know that what he recommends, what she recommends is going to work. Let’s do that.” And they are willing to pay a premium for that sense of security for what matters most in their business.

04:46 BM: So Dorie, where do you start becoming an expert? Because you know that old joke of, “What’s an expert? Someone with a PowerPoint presentation 50 miles from home,” right? [chuckle] How do you start to become an expert in your field? Do you just tell people what you think?

[chuckle]

05:03 DC: Oops, certainly, that’s a part of it, but you are correct that there’s more to it. I’ve spent the past decade really studying this question of how do you get your ideas known and heard and respected by people? And what I have discovered is that there are three key components, three levers that we need to be focusing on, Barry, I call this the Recognized Expert Methodology. And the three things are… I can explain each of these, but it’s content creation, social proof, and your network. And basically what this means, content creation means you have to share your ideas because guess what? If you don’t share them, people won’t know what they are. Social proof basically means what is your credibility, what are the reasons why people should listen to you or trust you? And it could be things like affiliations with other brands. Maybe you have a blue chip list of clients. Maybe you have people providing really great testimonials for you. Maybe you write for publications that people have heard of and trust.

06:03 DC: And then finally, your network because the truth is, you might be incredibly smart, incredibly knowledgeable, but if the other people who are leading lights in your field have never heard of you, you’re not gonna get very far. You need to have credibility and a network that supports you, that talks you up and says, “Oh, yeah, Barry, he’s great. You should definitely hire Barry.”

06:27 BM: So how do you figure out what, I guess, your unique expertise is and does it have to be unique? Or by definition, Dorie, everyone’s expertise is unique because there’s only one of them.

06:41 DC: Yeah, that is largely true, in the sense that there are a lot of people who made traffic in similar ideas. Oh, well, you’re a leadership speaker or you’re a small business consultant. But we are all uniquely shaped by our own experiences, and it gives a certain flavor to it, and some people are gonna relate better to that than to others. But what I actually often say to people who are starting out and want to become a recognized expert, many folks tend to get paralyzed at the outset because they say, “Well, I don’t know what I can be an expert in,” or, “I don’t know what my unique idea is.” And the truth is it is fine when you start out not to know. All you need to do is have a sense of what your general area is, something broad. It could be leadership, it could be improving the businesses of HVAC contractors, whatever it is. But you start there and you might feel like your ideas are basic and generic, whatever, but as long as you are contributing something useful to the discourse, you write the article, that helps…

07:51 DC: It’s almost like throwing darts at a dart board. You’re not gonna hit the bullseye initially, but as you start to have more data points, you get a circle around where the bullseye is and you begin to figure it out. You can even start, for instance, you’re creating content, by interviewing other people in the field, that you respect. That is a way both to network with them and for you to start learning more about their ideas and thinking which enables you to say, “Oh, that’s really interesting. I agree with this part, I disagree with that part,” and it helps you formulate your own unique ideas.

08:25 BM: It’s interesting, Dorie, because I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I sold my last business 20 years ago. My wife said, “No more businesses. You’ve taken us through much up and down.” And it really took me 10 years. I knew I wanted to work in small business, but it took me 10 years to become the Unstuck Guy, the guy that helps small business owners when they’re stuck in their business to move forward. So it does take some time just like I think it takes time to figure out what you wanna do for a living. Not all of us know that we wanna be a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant, or something like that. Then there are people like you and I that we’re not one of those.

09:00 DC: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I think, early on, in fact, when you’re starting to develop your ideas and sort of find your voice, and this is certainly true with careers as well, it often pays to know more of what you don’t wanna do, rather than what you do wanna do. As long as you have sort of a general direction where, “I’m curious about this thing,” you can start exploring it. And you write about it, you do interviews about it, you spend more time working in it. And if you don’t put too much pressure on yourself to say, “Oh, I have to have the brilliant, perfect idea,” that time that you spend in exploration mode, actually, is what enables you to develop your expertise that later you can leverage and truly is unique.

09:49 BM: But somewhere along the line, don’t you have… People have to understand who you are. So for example, the first line to your bio is Dorie Clark helps individuals and companies get their best ideas heard in a crowded, noisy world. Don’t you have to have one of those where you say, “Oh, yeah, Dorie is the one that,” and whatever that is, that’s what you’re known for.

10:09 DC: That’s took me years to come up with.

10:11 BM: I know, I understand. [chuckle]

10:12 DC: Honestly. [chuckle] Yeah, so it would be nice if from day one people had…

[overlapping conversation]

10:16 BM: Right, it took me 10 years to come up with the Unstuck Guy, so I get that.

10:21 DC: Yeah, I think in the beginning, as long as you can say, “Dorie Clark does marketing strategy,” you know what? That’s pretty darn non-specific, but if that’s what you have to start with and frankly, that’s what I had to start with, it at least gets you going. I think people hold themselves up, they create internal mental barriers, because they say, “Oh, well, I haven’t come up with my Brené Brown idea, I haven’t come up with my Adam Grant idea.” And it’s like you know what? That didn’t happen overnight either. Brené Brown was nearly 30 when she got her college degree like it took her a while to become Brené Brown too.

11:00 BM: It’s so interesting to me because over the weekend I was talking with Mike Michalowicz and it took him till his fifth book to come up with Profit First. And he tried the same idea to trade the same structure with coaches and things like that with earlier books but it never took. But finally, when he got to Profit First, then it really took. So again, I always say that overnight success usually takes seven to 10 years.

11:23 DC: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And that’s actually why persistence matters so much in this, because there’s a lot of people who really are smart, who have promising ideas, but they’re giving up too quickly. There’s a huge amount of attrition along the path.

11:42 BM: So, one of your levers is content creation, Dorie, and I think a lot people get stuck there because either they don’t know what to say or they’re not consistent coming up with new information every single week. I mean, I love when I get your email every single week and you have some really good advice in there and kind of some next steps. What should people do if they’re stuck in that area, they just don’t know how to create new content on a regular basis?

12:08 DC: I think the key is making it easy for themselves. As I was alluding to before, one of the best things that you can do, if you say, “Well, I don’t know what to say,” well, then, guess what? Interview someone else, because you can just take their ideas and package them up and make them look good, and they will be grateful to you, and your audience will be grateful to you. So that’s a really easy way up. I think these days, as well, consistency really does matter and it doesn’t have to be elaborate. It’s not saying that you have to write 1000 words of polished prose every single week. It’s easier than ever. You can use a lot of tools, for instance, to do a two-minute video that you could post to LinkedIn or to Facebook, or something like that, and share some of your ideas and tips. And certainly, I do believe that there’s an advantage in long-form content, from an SEO perspective, because it lasts longer, because there’s less competition, because it is a little bit harder. But if you find it hard for you to do, do something. Don’t say, “Oh, I can’t exercise at all unless I have time to take a 10-mile run.” You know what? 20 minutes at the gym is better than zero minutes at the gym.

13:26 BM: So let’s say you build up this whole following as an expert, I think a lot of folks are really worried about how do they protect their reputation as that expert?

13:39 DC: Yeah, so I think in terms of protecting your reputation, and you can tell me which aspect do you mean about this, Barry, if there’s a particular thing in terms of other people… If you’re talking about other people’s stealing IP or if it’s people attacking you or something like that, we’ll go in that direction.

13:58 BM: I think all of the above, right? ‘Cause that happened. I mean, those of us that are out there in the market, people are gonna attack us or co-opt our ideas, right? I think we see it all the time. So how do you protect yourself?

14:12 DC: Yeah, so one mantra that I have is that the best way to protect your intellectual property is actually, it’s not copywriting, getting a copywriter to trademark or something like that. And certainly, one can do that. But truly, the best way to protect yourself is to make your idea so ubiquitous that other people look like laughing stocks if they try to steal them. So if I said to you, “Barry, I wanna come on your show and talk to you about my new book. It’s about women’s empowerment and it’s called Lean In.”

14:47 BM: Right, exactly.

14:49 DC: You’re not gonna say, “Oh, great, Dorie.” You’re gonna say, “Dorie, didn’t Sheryl Sandberg write that book?” And the person looks like a moron. So the best antidote is not keeping your ideas secret, it’s getting your ideas out there so that everybody’s heard of them. I think that’s the most important thing. When it comes to the sort of the haters or the people online that might be critical, it is true, it does happen sometimes. But also I think Tim Riley, I believe, was the source of this quote which I love. It’s that, “The real enemy isn’t people attacking you, the real enemy is obscurity.” And I think it’s a far more likely fate in the beginning that people aren’t gonna be paying attention at all. And so even if it’s disheartening, the fact that people might start to take notice and a certain percentage of them become haters, that actually is an indication that people think that you are worth listening to. And so it is frustrating, it’s upsetting but the truth is, it’s one in 100, it’s one in 1000 people that are negative, the vast majority of people are going to be writing you nice notes and saying, “Oh my gosh, Barry. This is such helpful information. Thank you.”

16:04 BM: Listen, Dorie, I totally agree. I mean, I really like… Of course, I like when people send me love notes, right, that they really like what I’m doing. But I don’t mind when people send me hate notes, too, because first of all, they don’t know me well enough to hate me, right? [chuckle] And the other thing is the reason they hate me is because I hit something inside of them. I uncovered something inside of them that they have to face themselves so they’re striking out on me. The worst thing as you say, Dorie, is for them to feel milquetoast about you. You want people to have strong feelings one way or the other.

16:34 DC: Yeah, absolutely and it really is important to keep in mind that when somebody is writing some nasty note, it is not in any way a reflection of us or our worth or anything we did. They’re punching at the air, they’re punching at ghosts because they’ve got some bizarre narrative going on in their head that somehow you might be a focal point for. But a normal person who actually is busy and is doing important things, I promise you is not taking the time to write a hate note because of somebody’s blog post. Successful people are too busy for that.

17:16 BM: Absolutely, well, Dorie, thanks again for being on the show. You can reach Dorie Clark at www.dorieclark.com, dorieclark.com and I highly recommend you that you get in her newsletter list ’cause every week I learn something from your email. So Dorie, thank you so much.

17:35 DC: Thanks, Barry, great talking with you.

17:37 BM: This is AM 820 WCPT in Chicago. We’ll be right back.

 

Click here to listen to Dorie’s segment on The Small Business Radio Show