Positioning Yourself as an Expert
On day 3 we talked about the “dig deep/focus” aspect of being recognized as the expert in your field. Today I want to share the 7 keys to positioning yourself as the expert in your field. There are many more than 7, but these are the 7 that I feel are the most important. If you are the leader of a very large corporation, in years past, you may have successfully hidden behind aids and assistants who have been the front people for you. Perhaps you don’t particularly enjoy public speaking or being the one “center stage.” In today’s world, that position will no longer hold. If you are a leader today, you are expected to show leadership dimensions, both privately and publicly. We know the President of the United States is supposed to be the most powerful leader of the free world, but when he opens his mouth, does his knowledge, wisdom, expertise, experience, boldness, compassion, etc. support that role? I have seen many presidents in my years; some I would answer this question with yes, without hesitation. Others, I am not so sure. Employees want to have hope, feel secure, and be proud of with whom they spend at least 40 hours of their week. When you stand up to speak before your organization, association, membership, are you confident that those listening to you are confident of you and the direction you are taking them. Even if you have a board of directors that determine policy and direction, YOU are still the face and voice of that direction.
7 Keys to positioning yourself as the expert:
1. Your Name! Get your name in as many places as possible. “John Smith, CEO of Great Innovations” With the advent of social media, this is a very simple task to accomplish. In one month you can have your name all over the web in an extremely positive light. Of course, you will need to monitor, or have someone monitor for you, you presence on the web, but this is not a choice for successful leaders today. You either have a demonstrative presence on the web today or you are behind the times. I will repeat, social media is not going away; it is a fundamental shift in the way we do business. The power is no longer in the hands of the seller; it is now in the hands of the buyer.
2. The (limited) public storying of your own personal journey. In the age of industrialization, leaders were these phantom folks that no one knew anything about. In the age of technology, the masses demand “real” people. They want to hear pieces of your story. They want to know how you built your business. They want to know your struggles. They want to know how you deal with each day. This is more than evident in reality TV. People crave it. If you sculpt what you wan the public to know, then the public won’t sculpt it for you, which can be very traumatic. This is all intricate footwork, but the bottom line is you can just sit still.
3. Media Performances. Be available for media performances. The masses eat it up! Let them know you have time for them, you care, you are daily seeking their best interest, you are one of them. You see, what the whole world wants is to believe they can achieve status too. When you, as a leader, present yourself as “one of them” with the confirmation that you have made a great success in life, that gives them the belief that they can do it too. Truly, when you cut away all the fluff, this is what people really want…hope. When you learn to infuse hope into the hopeless, you have discovered one of the greatest powers of mankind.
4. Philosophy. Have you ever read someone’s mission statement and it sounded like something from an operator’s manual for a car…no life? If your mission statement sounds like this, revise it, today! Your philosophy MUST present you as a vibrant, live, forward thinker…with a different way of viewing the world which makes you the expert. This is not something that just rolls off your tongue; this takes time to put to pen and paper. Then, more time to commit to your mental make-up, then more time to be able to roll off your tongue in a unique, breathtaking way!
5. Praise/Testimonials. Being a business person, you already know the undeniable power of testimonials. If you are not using these to their fullest potential, you are cheating yourself. Your testimonials should be EVERYWHERE…on your large envelopes you send out, on the bottom of every email that leaves your company, on ALL your web presence (websites, blogs, ads, fan pages, etc.), on every piece of advertisement, and much more. You can have a huge printed ad and people will scan the ad and go on; if you have a testimonial on it, they will read every word.
6. Partnerships. This is truly the wave of future business, more than ever before. I am not talking Inc. partnerships; I am talking more JV partnerships…special projects, special endeavors, even special volunteer partnerships. These garner tremendous positive advertisement. Take thought who you partner with to be sure that they share somewhat the same vision as you and your direction.
7. LinkedIn. My seventh key is one aspect of social media. The reason I choose this piece of social media as a key to positioning yourself as an expert is because of the power that is generated through LinkedIn. LinkedIn IS the #1 most important piece of social media to the business professional. If you know nothing else about social media, you need to know how to develop and update your LinkedIn profile. Let me give you an example. Today I have 1,328 contacts in my profile. I have the capability to reach, to the third generation, more than 7,381,300 people! Is this power or what? About three months after building my profile, I received an email from Standard and Poors in New York asking me if I would be a consultant for their then Vista Research, Inc. (It has since changed names.) The ONLY thing they knew me by was my LinkedIn profile and the associated links on it. Someone should be able to go to your LinkedIn Profile and know almost everything they need to know about you in order to make a preliminary decision if they want to work with you or not. It’s not hard; it just takes a little time and some instruction on the fundamentals.
~Rita
