The Power of Expertise

Not so long ago business success was a matter or a few simple factors: a quality product or service and good marketing. Execution was also straightforward. You put together a list of actions, created a budget and turned the crank. The results were more or less predictable. Companies with big budgets and compelling messages usually ended up with the biggest market share.

That was not so long ago. Today is different. The currency of success is expertise. What you know is just as important as the quality of your service or product. The internet, search engine optimization and social media have radically changed the way products and services are bought and sold. Consumers have the opportunity to learn as much as they wish to learn about you before they are influenced by your ads, slick brochures or push email campaigns.

That’s not to say the vendors are completely at the mercy of consumers. In this new world, prospects are much more likely to consume information that you’ve created about your product or service if you are sharing it freely. In the new economy vendors that position themselves as experts are the ones that prospects trust the most. And in the end, trust is one of the greatest influences in a buying decision.

The other game-changing dynamic of the new economy is that the playing field has been leveled with regard to size and budget. In the days when good product and large budgets were key indicators of success, small businesses found competition overwhelming regardless of the quality of their offering. Today anyone worthy of an audience can be heard.
How times have changed! What can your business do to harness the power of expertise to market your product or service?

Share Freely
In today’s internet economy, sharing information is one of the most powerful marketing tactics you can use. Helping prospects understand something in your field of knowledge shows them that you know what you’re talking about. It also helps a prospective buyer or subscriber get to know your company, how it thinks and what it stands for. Prospects have the opportunity to get to know you and decide whether they like you and trust you in a very non-threatening, self-paced environment… which is precisely how most of us like to make decisions.

And you don’t have to only share only information that you create. As a marketer, when you read an article, tweet or watch a video that is relevant to your industry, share it! Sharing relevant information is the key. Be a giver.
Write articles, blog, create videos. These are the new elements of the inbound marketing mix. Find a mix that works for your business. One that share information where your prospects want to find it and in a form they want to consume it. Your goal is to gain exposure and position your company as the expert in your field.

Don’t Worry (about loosing control)
Whenever the suggestion of giving something away for free comes up, someone always asks about the associated dangers – especially if you are in the information business. Think about it and you’ll realize there really is no danger. You can’t possibly (or should we say you would never) give away so much information that everyone will determine they don’t need you.
There will always be those prospects who, in spite of being given all the right information about your value, won’t chose your product or service – sometimes they are those prospects who really can learn enough from you to do it themselves. Here’s the interesting thing about that– they weren’t ever going to be good customers anyway! They don’t need you. You want to be relevant and exposed to the people who do need you.

Furthermore, there is no risk in sharing other vendor’s information. Doing so demonstrates to your prospects that you are sure of your own expertise and ability, and in the quality of your product or service. Think about the strategy of online insurance provider Progressive. Their ads proudly proclaim that they post the rates of their competitors. A prospect instantly sees this behavior as a demonstration of confidence that Progressive has a valuable service. Prospects love confidence. They eschew arrogance, however, so don’t get cocky!

If sharing information truly causes you to worry that you’ll lose control, worry instead that your competition has more exposure than you do! You never really had control and being perceived as having less expertise than your competitor is the real risk you take when you chose not to share information on a regular basis.

Build a Community
Find experts in other fields that are complementary to yours. Invite those experts to share their information with your prospects (you control when and how). Build a community of experts so your prospects see you as a go-to resource whenever they need information – even on matters only tangentially related to your core area of expertise.

In the market for information, Wikipedia is a great example of this practice. The online encyclopedia is a compilation of information from contributors with expertise in every field mankind has studied. It is the go-to resource on the Internet for general information and it built that reputation not because some smart people cloistered themselves away, toiling for years to produce tombs like the Encyclopedia Britannica, but because Wikipedia provided a platform for people with expertise to share that expertise with others.

Another good example is Amazon.com. Amazon sells just about anything. But one of the reasons that people think about Amazon when they are looking for a product online is because Amazon shares its reviews. A search on information for a product will almost always have an Amazon review in the top few results. When a consumer uses Amazon to get information about a buying decision, even if they end up not buying everything at Amazon all the time, Amazon will be one of the first places they go when they have the urge to splurge and as a result Amazon will have a better chance of making a sale than a vendor who is not sharing information.

In the new economy where size doesn’t matter, the currency is expertise. The easiest way to establish expertise is to share information related to your product or service. Sharing provides exposure and demonstrates to prospects that you know what you’re talking about. When a prospect is ready to make a buying decision (and remember, people buy for their reasons and on their time table, not yours) having decided that you are an expert will go a long way to making you the go-to supplier of the solution to the problem the prospect is trying to solve. So your risk is that you’re not sharing enough, in the right format and in the right places. Is that a risk worth taking?

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