Expert Status Interview – Peter Johnson interviews Alun
This is an extract from an interview with Peter Johnson, where Peter asks me about how to Achieve Expert Status.
Peter: Hi, it’s Peter Johnson here and I’m looking forward to interviewing Alun Richards. Alun is actually going to talk to us in some depth about how to grow your expert status in 90 days. Now, I find that incredible – expert status in 90 days!
Please Alun, just give an overall outline as to what this is all about?
Alun: Okay. Well, Peter, the way I see it, if you are working in professional services, if you are delivering professional services, whether you are a coach, whether you are a consultant, whether you are a therapist, whether you are a trainer, whether you are NLP practitioner – you are delivering personal professional services. And you need a way to attract customers to you if you are doing that.
Being perceived as an expert means that people are actually coming to you, rather than you having to go to the people. So, it’s in your interest to be portrayed as an expert within a particular field and then you’ll get people coming to you.
Peter: So, that is why we should be an expert.
Alun: Absolutely.
Peter: Now, you talk about 90 days. Now, we obviously got a journey to go through here. Could you outline some of the key steps in connection with that?
Alun: Absolutely. Now, one thing I will say before we start. It’s now possible to do that, I believe, within 90 days because you can leverage a number of the technologies that are available now, that weren’t simply available 10, 12 years ago.
So, you can leverage the internet, you can leverage personal data recording devices, one of which we are using now that, you know, simply did not exist a number of years ago. And these are increasingly affordable and accessible to everybody out there. So, I’m going to take people through what they can do in various different areas.
Peter: That would be very useful. Great. So what is an expert?
Alun: Well, an expert is somebody who has got skills, knowledge, and experience within a specific narrow field. And I am saying narrow field because, let’s be honest, unless you are Leonardo da Vinci, you haven’t really seriously got expertise in more than one or two or maximum three fields.
You know, Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter. He was a scientist. He was a researcher. You know, Renaissance, the archetype of Renaissance man. Typically, people aren’t like that anymore, but you can have specific in-depth knowledge in a narrow area and if you have that, you can be highly sought after by your clients.
Peter: That is great. So, you maintain it’s necessary to be an expert and have a niche particularly. First, explain what a niche is, a real niche, and why is it important to be an expert in this field?
Alun: Well, a niche is simply a small part of a much larger market. So, for example, a mass market might be a market for people who buy washing liquid or washing powder for their clothes. That will be a typical mass market product. Now, when you are talking about a niche, you are talking about a very, very narrow area.
For example, if I tell you what my niche is – I provide services to coaches to improve their marketing. So, it’s specifically for coaches although, a lot of this stuff works for other professional service providers as well; but I concentrate on coaches who want to find their own niche, funnily enough, and then leverage that by understanding what marketing can give them and allow them to bring in more business. So, that’s my niche.
And when anybody specialises in a niche like that, you can quickly get formal credibility and authority because of what you know and what you are able to deliver to your target market.
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