2 STEPS TO BECOMING AN EXPERT – IN ANYTHING

2 STEPS TO BECOMING AN EXPERT – IN ANYTHING

Want to be a leader others want to follow?   Then become THE recognized expert in your field and watch your star rise.  Here’s a simple two-step program for becoming an expert in any topic you choose:

1st Step: Develop Your Expertise Continually

In the 2nd step we’ll look at how to get recognition as an expert but first you must choose a topic you want to have recognized as your area of expertise.
Then you have to build some expertise that’s worth recognizing. How do you do that?

Read! It’s that simple – if you wish to build expert power you need to read much more than anyone else on your chosen topic.
Focus upon the newest books that specifically address the latest developments in your field and create a greater expertise gap distance between you and your peers.
Most people learn about new developments third or fourth hand. To become an expert learn first hand. And learn first.
Step 1: make it a goal to read just of these books per week and your expertise will grow exponentially. This first step is just a matter of dedication and persistence.
But you become a recognized expert by following the second step in this program.

2nd Step: Build Your Expert Reputation – Share Your Knowledge

It’s not enough to be an expert – you must also let people know that you have this expertise. This is no time to be modest.
Write at least one article on the best application of whatever you learn from your reading each month – save others from having to read those four or five books and you become their expert – welcome to expert status.
Are you thinking ‘I’m not much of a writer’ or ‘I don’t have time to write an article a month’? No problem. There are thousands of freelance writers, experts in every conceivable field, available on sites like www.elance.com or www.guru.com – and the costs are extremely competitive. You scope out the messages and let them do the writing for you.

Publicize Your Expertise

Take your article and do one or all of the following:

1. Create your own blog and publish your article online - this exposes your work to an enormous potential audience.  Don’t have time? Again, look to Elance and Guru for freelance help – farm out anything you can’t directly handle yourself. It’s still your ideas and thoughts that will drive the blog – and it’s your reputation that will be enhanced by it.
2. Submit your article to any industry/professional publications that cover your field. Editors are always on the lookout for fresh material for their magazines and online resource sites. Feed them.
3. Submit your article to as many of the online article sites as possible. There are hundreds of article sites that provide articles to all sorts of paper based and e-publications, newsletters, web masters etc. Google ‘free article sites’ and you’ll get all you can handle.
4. Turn your article into a presentation / briefing. Make it 20 minutes to 1 hour. Offer this briefing to your direct reports and colleagues, to the organizations and professional bodies who represent your business or profession, and to professional associations representing your target clients.  Aim for a minimum of one briefing per month. Do it as a webinar instead of a seminar and not only is it easier but you can also record it for posting on your blog.

Payback Time

Look forwards a year into your two-step program and see what you will have achieved:

• You’ve read 50 books: your knowledge of your chosen subject will be way above the majority of people you encounter – and on a par with the rest.
• You’ll have written 12 articles – and you will have developed a reputation as an authority for your thousands of blog visitors.
• You’ll have delivered at least a dozen briefings and raised your profile inside and outside your organization.
• You’ll be getting emails and calls from journalists looking to pick your brains on your expert topic – and quoting you in their pieces
• Between the content of your blog and your articles you may well also find you have the foundation of a book – another expert reputation builder

Finally, if you really cannot carve out sufficient time for the whole program then simply halve the workload. You’ll still be ahead of the majority of people around you in terms of your specialist knowledge, and in the rise of your expert reputation.
This is a career and life-changing program – plan it like any other work project: set goals and establish milestones to keep yourself on track.
In a few months you could be emerging as THE expert in your chosen field.

Question: How would you go about building
 and maintaining an expert reputation?

Use the ‘Comments’ feature below to share your expertise

Published by: © Deiric McCann2012

http://blog.deiricmccann.com/2011/03/2-steps-to-becoming-an-expert/