First, “expert” in the context of selling product means that you know more about the topic than the purchaser. No more. It is not necessary to be the best—just better than a small target number of your prospective customers. Let’s suppose that your current dreamline—to compete in the 1,150-mile Iditarod dogsledding race in Alaska—requires $5,000 to realize. If there are 15,000 readers and even 50 (0.33%) can be convinced of your superior expertise in skill X and spend $100 for a program that teaches it, that is $5,000. Bring on the Huskies. Those 50 customers are what I call the “minimal customer base”—the minimum number of customers you need to convince of your expertise to fulfill a given dreamline.
Second, expert status can be created in less than four weeks if you understand basic credibility indicators. It’s important to learn how the PR pros phrase resume points and position their clients. See the boxed text later in this chapter to learn how.
The degree to which you personally need expert status also depends on how you obtain your content. There are three main options.
Create the content yourself, often via paraphrasing and combining points from several books on a topic.
Repurpose content that is in the public domain and not subject to copyright protection, such as government documents and material that predates modern copyright law.
License content or compensate an expert to help create content. Fees can be one-time and paid up front or royalty-based (5–10% of net revenue, for example).
If you choose option 1 or 2, you need expert status within a limited market.
Let’s assume you are a real estate broker and have determined that, like yourself, most brokers want a simple but good website to promote themselves and their businesses. If you read and understand the three top- selling books on home-page design, you will know more about that topic than 80% of the readership of a magazine for real estate brokers. If you can summarize the content and make recommendations specific to the needs of the real estate market, a 0.5–1.5% response from an ad you place in the magazine is not unreasonable to expect.
Use the following questions to brainstorm potential how-to or informational products that can be sold to your markets using your expertise or borrowed expertise. Aim for a combination of formats that will lend itself to $50– 200 pricing, such as a combination of two CDs (30–90 minutes each), a 40-page transcription of the CDs, and a 10 -page quickstart guide. Digital delivery is perfectly acceptable—in some cases, ideal—if you can create a high enough perceived value.
1. How can you tailor a general skill for your market—what I call “niching down”—or add to what is being sold successfully in your target magazines? Think narrow and deep rather than broad.
2. What skills are you interested in that you—and others in your markets—would pay to learn? Become an expert in this skill for yourself and then create a product to teach the same. If you need help or want to speed up the process, consider the next question.
3. What experts could you interview and record to create a sellable audio CD? These people do not need to be the best, but just better than most. Offer them a digital master copy of the interview to do with or sell as they like (this is often enough) and/or offer them a small up-front or ongoing royalty payment. Use Skype.com with HotRecorder (more on these and related tools in Tools and Tricks) to record these conversations directly to your PC and send the mp3 file to an online transcription service.
4. Do you have a failure-to-success story that could be turned into a how-to product for others? Consider problems you’ve overcome in the past, both professional and personal.
The Expert Builder: How to Become a Top Expert in 4 Weeks
It’s time to obliterate the cult of the expert. Let the PR world scorn me. First and foremost, there is a difference between
It is possible to know all there is to know about a subject—medicine, for example—but if you don’t have M.D. at the end of your name, few will listen. The M.D. is what I term a “credibility indicator.” The so-called expert with the most credibility indicators, whether acronyms or affiliations, is often the most successful in the marketplace, even if other candidates have more in-depth knowledge. This is a matter of superior positioning, not deception.
How, then, do we go about acquiring credibility indicators in the least time possible? Emulating the client- grooming techniques of some of the best PR firms in New York City and Los Angeles isn’t a bad place to start.
It took a friend of mine just three weeks to become a “top relationship expert who, as featured in
She followed a few simple steps that created a credibility snowball effect. Here’s how you can do the same.
1. Join two or three related trade organizations with official-sounding names. In her case, she chose the Association for Conflict Resolution (www.acrnet.org) and The International Foundation for Gender Education (www.ifge.org). This can be done online in five minutes with a credit card.
2. Read the three top-selling books on your topic (search historical
3. Give one free one-to-three-hour seminar at the closest well-known university, using posters to advertise. Then do the same at branches of two well-known big companies (AT&T, IBM, etc.) located in the same area. Tell the company that you have given seminars at University X or X College and are a member of those groups from step 1. Emphasize that you are offering it to them for free to get additional speaking experience outside of academics and will not be selling products or services. Record the seminars from two angles for later potential use as a CD/DVD product.
4. Optional: Offer to write one or two articles for trade magazines related to your topics, citing what you have accomplished in steps 1 and 3 for credibility. If they decline, offer to interview a known expert and write the article—it still gets your name listed as a contributor.
5. Join ProfNet, which is a service that journalists use to find experts to quote for articles. Getting PR is simple if you stop shouting and start listening. Use steps 1, 3, and 4 to demonstrate credibility and online research to respond to journalist queries. Done properly, this will get you featured in media ranging from small local publications to the
Becoming a recognized expert isn’t difficult, so I want to remove that barrier now.
I am not recommending pretending to be something you’re not. I can’t! “Expert” is nebulous media-speak and so overused as to be indefinable. In modern PR terms, proof of expertise in most fields is shown with group affiliations, client lists, writing credentials, and media mentions, not
Presenting the truth in the best light, but not fabricating it, is the name of the game.
See you on CNN.
Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS
For this hands-on chapter, the Q&A is simple. In fact, it’s more like a Q.
The question is, “Did you read the chapter and follow the directions?” If not, do it! Instead of the usual Q&A, the end of this chapter and the following two will feature more extensive resources for taking the action steps described in detail in the text.
COMFORT CHALLENGE
Find Yoda (3 Days)
Call at least one potential superstar mentor per day for three days. E-mail only after attempting a phone call. I recommend calling before 8:30 A.M. or after 6:00 P.M. to reduce run-ins with secretaries and other gatekeepers. Have a single question in mind, one that you have researched but have been unable to answer yourself. Shoot for “A” players—CEOs, ultrasuccessful entrepreneurs, famous authors, etc.—and don’t aim low to make it less frightening. Use www.contactanycelebrity.com if need be, and base your script on the following.
Unknown answerer: This is Acme Inc. [or “the office of Mentor X”].
