No matter what type of business you run, being recognized as an expert in your field comes with a whole host of advantages. It can open up the door to a new business opportunity, as well as reassure your customers that you know what you are doing. It can encourage media organizations to seek you out to make comments and earns you respect amongst your peers. Take a look at some of the different ways that you can establish yourself as an expert.
Read Widely
Although there are a host of media formats out there these days, reading still provides the best way of taking in information. As well as traditional formats like books and magazines, you should also look to take advantage of the new media including blogs and social media. When you are trying to mark yourself out as an expert, it makes sense that you specialize your reading. So, if you are involved in a food business, you could look into agricultural market research. This doesn’t mean that you should close yourself off from other interesting reading, but it makes sense to steer it in a particular direction.
Write News Articles and Blogs
Once you have built up a decent knowledge base, you need to start sharing it with customers to demonstrate your expertise to a wide audience. As well as specialized industry titles and blogs, you could also look to write the type of ‘overview’ articles which are meant for more general consumption. Whenever you submit an article, you need to ensure that your contact information is clearly displayed and you should also make it clear that you are available for comment.
Start Speaking
Public speaking is still a great source of fear for plenty of people, but one of the best ways of sharing your expertise is still through this spoken format. To land yourself the right sort of opportunities, you need to attend networking events and develop your reputation. You are likely to want to start off small. Ideally, if you film your speaking opportunities, you will be able to share them through your social media accounts and online channels to further demonstrate your own expertise.
Put Yourself Forward for Interview
All sorts of blogs, podcasts, radio shows, webinars etc are always looking for people with unique insights and perspectives to interview. You can put yourself forward by contacting the writers, hosts or organizers directly. Once you land a couple of good gigs, the hope is that these will start to snowball and you will gain more opportunities in the future.
Establishing yourself as an expert in any field is always going to take a great deal of time and effort, but it will all be ultimately worthwhile when you start to enjoy new job offers and business opportunities. Remember that you need to keep your knowledge fresh so that it remains valuable and you stay firmly in-demand.
