How to position yourself as an expert in your field
Today, let’s talk about positioning yourself as an expert in your field. A lot of newer business owners or freelancers who are trying to grow and scale their businesses really struggle with this idea of positioning yourself as the expert and communicating your knowledge and your expertise. It is so, so important, especially if you’re in a client based business or if you are the face of your business and creating all types of content to help others. It’s so important to really step into this professional and expert space. Here’s why I think this is so crucial to your business and I’ll fill you in on the behind the scenes as to what I’ve found this to be in MY business.
When I get on a discovery call with a potential client I come to that from a place of I want to share the information that I feel is going to be the most helpful and the most relevant for them based on my experiences and based what I’ve on what I know to be true, right? I want them to feel confident that I come to them from a place of experience. I want to help you to get the best information that is available right now. That doesn’t mean I’m coming to them and saying I have all the answers, or I know exactly what’s right. Anyone else who’s told you any different is wrong or is lying to you. I know everything there is to know about this. That’s not what positioning yourself as an expert means.
Because you’ve now shifted from oh, they’re just telling me whatever I want to hear, or they’re kind of bullying me and showing me that I know I don’t know enough to do this or I need to pay them to do this for me because they know everything. Instead you’re shifting into a mindset of: this is where I spend my time. This is where I have built and continue to build to build knowledge and experience, right. There’s always more to learn. And there’s always ways that we can improve. That humanizes you and that being a human and recognizing that there’s another human on the other side of that Zoom call. Or the other side of that phone call really builds trust so so quickly, right? So I often tell prospective clients, you can always come to me if you have a question about something. For example, they tell me, “oh, I saw this online, should we do something like that?”
If you have an idea or anything like that, you can always come to me with those things. And I’m either going to tell you, yes, 100% We can do that great idea. Here’s what this would probably look like for you. Or I’m going to tell you. I’m not sure let me sit with that a little bit. Let me look into it a little bit more and I’ll get back to you and I’ll let you know. Or I’m going to tell you no, we should not do that thing. And here’s why. Right?
Just that and that feeling means that you are not only positioning yourself as someone who spends time in this space, who knows more than they know, but also someone who is aware that you don’t know everything and you’re always wanting to learn more and improve. So you’re bringing them along with you as you grow as you improve. Right and that forms a little bit more of a partnership, relationship dynamic versus a I’m doing this, this is what I do. You don’t do this and kind of an adversarial relationship there, right? So you gain more of this partnership together, which oftentimes not only leads to a better working relationship, but also longer term clients that are going to continue to come back to you and refer you to other people. Right. So if you are struggling, if you’re someone who has not done you know what you’re doing in your business for very long or you’ve mostly just freelance in the past and you’re trying to go after bigger clients or bigger sales or what have you and you’re really struggling with this concept of positioning yourself as an expert. I really encourage you to do a little bit of this mindset reframe here and think to yourself like I am coming at this conversation or at this call or at this meeting.
As someone who spends a lot of time in this space, more time than this potential client spends, right because they’re probably the business owner or a department head and they’re not spending all of their time thinking about social media marketing, whereas you are spending a lot of your time thinking about social media marketing, so it’s only going to be natural that you probably know a little bit more than they do. So coming from a point of, do I know everything? No, of course not. Nobody does, right? Nobody knows how technology is going to transform from one day to the next or how social media is going to change, right? What is going to happen with the next Instagram update. Nobody knows that in the future. But if you are approaching these conversations as: I’ve done a lot of research on this, I’ve done a lot of reading on this, orI have done this I continue to do this and improve upon this, THAT is the best way to position yourself as an expert in your field with the expertise.
But also recognizing that you don’t know everything and that’s completely okay because you’re going to go out and try to continue to learn more. And this is such a key mindset shift for so many people because now you’re approaching these conversations you’re approaching this this thought of you know, being a knowledge expert, from a place of service from a place of education from a place of helping others and from a place of value. And that is such a huge shift that makes us feel a lot better for a lot of people if you’re struggling with this, right? So you can 100% come at it like I know my stuff, right? I know what I’m talking about here. I’m great at what I do. 100% right, the more comfortable you get, you might start to feel like no, I really know what I’m talking about here and it might get a little bit more comfortable, right with time and with practice.
But if you’re always coming from that place of I spend my time here, so I know a fair bit and I’m always trying to learn more and I’m always trying to improve for myself for my business for my clients. This is going to be a huge shift for you in your discovery calls in your conversations with potential clients. In your marketing, content, all of these things, it’s going to make such a big difference for you. So I really encourage you to sit down and think about how can I communicate this? How can I have this conversation coming from this place and you can even do some practice discovery calls with friends or family right? You can think through how that conversation might go, but really come at it from this place. And I guarantee discovery calls are going to start to feel a little bit more comfortable. And you’re going to probably end up closing more sales in this way. Because people are going to trust you faster, and trust that you are going to do the best that you can to help them to solve their problem, right. And that’s all that anybody can ask for. Really, right any reasonable person can ask for. So I really encourage you go through this little bit of a mindset shift here and let me know how it goes and if you have any questions around any of this, you can always shoot me a DM on Instagram on Sam DiNicola or you can reach out to me at SamDinicolaDigital.com and I would be so very very happy to answer any of your questions around this.
And if you haven’t already, make sure you go ahead and leave a review for the podcast no fluff, small business simplified every single month. A reviewer wins a free coaching call with me. And it’s the best most effective, easiest free way to get my eyes on your business and we can walk through some of these questions that you have around how can you be a knowledge expert? How can you position yourself in that way and feel comfortable in those conversations? That’s definitely something we can talk through in that free coaching call so make sure you leave a review and I will see you next time on No Fluff Small Business Simplified.
