Don’t be a writer, a speaker or a practitioner: Be an expert.

Why creating your own expert niche is now more important than ever.

If you have ever wondered why someone who knows less than you do about a subject is on the radio while you are on the sofa listening, or is giving a live talk, while you are in the audience, it’s because they have learned to think like experts think. When you look around you will begin to notice that the majority of non-fiction books that make the bestseller lists are written by people who are experts first and writers second. Creating your own expert niche can open the doors to a fantastically fulfilling and lucrative life.

Your first reaction to the thought of being an expert may be I am not one of them! and you may have myths around what experts are. You may believe they are the ones with the most credentials, who wrote the most books, and are the most successful in their area. This isn’t true, but there some fundamental ways of thinking that all experts share, and that they all do. Whether you are a coach, photographer, writer, inventor or entrepreneurs you can learn to think like an expert and position yourself in a way that makes you more memorable. Here are five characteristics all experts share: 

1. Experts know their subject – seems obvious, but it is the starting point. You must know enough about your subject to be able to impart useful experience and insights to other people. Quite simply you must know more than some people. But knowledge alone does not make you an expert.
2. Experts have a passion for their subject – you must love the subject area you are thinking about, because you’ll need to if you are immersed in it day and day out for years. Experts also have a passion for their continued learning; otherwise they’d soon get bored.
3. Experts have a passion sharing what they know – as well as loving your subject you will also need to love contributing to the lives of others. In addition, you’ll need to know how to structure your knowledge into bite size chucks so that you can share it. Experts don’t just share a stream of consciousness, but engage with their audience where they are, and then take them to the next step, and then the next.
4. Experts know how to reach the people who want to know what they know – experts learn how to get themselves into the media, how to reach or create audiences for their work.
5. Experts are willing to sell what they know – experts know that their knowledge and expertise has value to people, and they know long it has taken them to collect their knowledge. So experts are willing to receive money in return for what they know.  If you look around at any successful expert, you will see them doing these things.

If you are excited to know how you can unleash your expertise, remember, while there are always people that do know more than you, your job is to learn from them, and concentrate your efforts on the millions of people who don’t know as much as you. So here are three ways you can start thinking of yourself an as expert: 

1.   Simply begin to recognise what you know – it sounds so simple but one of the greatest blocks to thinking like an expert is to say to yourself, “Surely everyone knows that.” You know tons of things most people don’t know. Your life is rich with learning’s and experiences.

2.   Notice what do you find yourself being asked for advice on –what do people for your help with, or you find yourself constantly willing and able to give advice on?

3.    Start packaging your knowledge – a fundamental tool of experts is the tip sheet. Tips sheets are a simply and powerful way of structuring your ideas. Here are some typical ways you’d see tip sheets: Six ways of dealing with unruly children; eight ways to lose weight for summer; four ways to heal yourself; ten tips for making money doing what you love.

4.   Start creating deliverable products around your expert niche whether it is a tip sheet, e book, book, CD, DVD, talk, workshop or on line learning programme, there are countless ways of sharing your expertise with people, and earning money from it.  Establishing yourself as an expert is more important than ever with the explosion of the Internet. People often ask how they can ever get paid for information and ideas when there is so much available for free. The answer is this: people will only buy your ideas and information if they perceive you as an expert in your niche. Experts do often give away some of their ideas and information for free, knowing that when they are perceived as an expert and an authority, then people will see them as the supplier of choice when they need more depth.