Letter
from Lhasa, number 362. The Highly Paid Expert
by
Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
Allen, D., The Highly Paid Expert. Turn Your Passion,
Skills, and Talents Into a Lucrative Career by Becoming the Go-To Authority in
Your Industry, Career Press, Pompton Plains, N.J.,
USA, 2014.
(Allen 2014).
Debbie Allen
First, you have to
define in what you really are an expert, a small and well defined niche, and you
must be a real expert or anyway to build yourself as a real expert. The choice,
the proposed ‘product’, needs to be consumer-oriented. It would be useless to
propose something the consumers one can reach do not need.
The author calls this
step the developing of your USP, your Unique Selling Proposition. You must be
expert in something you have personally experienced.
Done that, you simply
have to act despite fear. And act for success. You need various tools as a dot-com
website, a good brand, an effective logo.
One needs to progress,
to build oneself, from the starting level to a recognised expert, what means,
from a commercial point of view, to progress from the level where nearly any
client cannot afford the service to a level where clients are anxious to pay
high fees.
The author prospects a
progression from novice, to skilled, to specialist, to authority, to highly
paid expert. It actually is more a problem of how one be recognized than of
what one really be.
One may be a real
super-specialist since when one starts to offer oneself on this kind of market.
On the other side, an ‘authority’ may simply be something capable to appear, be
reputed and be paid as such. Finally, everything is build by interaction
between sellers and buyers.
You need to be. But you
need also to appear, to seem what you are. An aspect of this is “shameless
self-promotion”.
One needs to target
one’s own ideal client and market absolutely avoiding trying to be everything
and targeting everyone.
“Here are six steps to
keep you on target in your business
“♦ Step 1: Always be marketing. [...]
“♦ Step 2: Get serious about your business. [...]
“♦ Step 3: Develop systems that save you time. [...]
“♦ Step 4: Get productive. [...]
“♦ Step 5: Stay focused on your goals. [...]
“♦ Step 6: Ask for help so you can stay on target. [...]”
(Allen 2014, p. 55/56).
From a marketing point
of view, if somebody types your name or the name of your brand [think of your
brand as your alias] in a search engine, it has to appear in the first
positions or at least in the first page.
Your website has to be
consistent with the message you launch, to be focused and easily understandable
without any technical complication or complexity. If you offer different
services, create different websites. A real website of a real specialist, so
progressing every day, is necessarily a work in progress, not something
artificially created, or made to create, once forever. Your need constantly
work on yourself, as well on your website so really reflecting you and your
skills, specifically the skills you offer. Your professional website is not
about yourself but about what you offer to your ideal client.
Two-minute videos are
powerful marketing devices. YouTube is a proper place for showing them.
Consulting and coaching
are bordering fields although clearly different. While consulting provides
advice, coaching helps the client to find the answer by him/herself and so
creating his/her problem solving attitude. Coaching is more formative while
consulting is more informative.
“Four Steps to Building Your Consulting Business
“Step 1: Solve problems.
Become a problem-solver for your clients.
“Step 2: Offer a
promise. Create programs that can best serve your clients’ needs.
“Step 3: Show proof. Use
testimonials and case studies that state your clients’ results.
“Step 4: Create a
proposal. Set up your program and service offerings in detail.”
(Allen 2014, p. 91).
For solving other people
problems, you need to be a problem solver:
“Five Steps to Improving Your
“Problem-Solving Skills
“♦ Step 1: Define each problem in detail before trying to solve it.
Take time to understand the problem, understand the criteria for a good
decision, and generate some good options.
“♦ Step 2: Offer one or two firmly suggested solutions. Offering too
many suggestions will only confuse your client and allow him to become
indecisive.
“♦ Step 3: Prioritize your client’s action steps to help avoid him or
her feeling overwhelmed. If your client agrees to take action, ask him to
relax and focus on moving forward.
“♦ Step 4: Implement a step-by-step plan of action. When you
approach problems systematically, you cover the essentials each time—and your
decisions are well-thought-out, well-planned, and well-executed.
“♦ Step 5: Look for more ways to improve upon the problem-solving idea
to avoid future problems. Continue to perfect your problem-solving skills
and use them for continuous improvement initiatives to serve your clients’
needs.”
(Allen 2014, p. 98).
“After identifying a
potential problem, you need information:
“♦ What factors
contribute to the problem?
“♦ Who is involved with
it?
“♦ What solutions have
been tried before?
“♦ What do others think
about the problem?”
(Allen 2014, p. 99).
Create your online
community. There are specific techniques for making that and in a fruitful way.
Also if the author prefers traditional speeches and conferences, may be useful
to sell high-end products online by teleseminars and webinars. The author gives
her advice about that in chapter 18.
Paid events, but also
unpaid ones in exchange of something else as for instance selling your books
and materials, publish speech, both tightly professional and motivational, are
another way of selling your skills and making them fruitful. Of course, if you
want to create dependence, for instance for selling you and your company as
consultants, you have to show that you can solve the problems of the audience
but without telling the whole story, because if they learn how to solve their
problems by themselves, they will not hire you as a consultant. This is, of
course, the point of view of the author.
If you are hired for
teaching how to solve their problems about a specific field you are skilful in,
you have of course to teach that, in my opinion. People have different learning
attitudes relatively to a problem-solving attitude, so there is always people
equally needing some additional professional help, consequently the assistance
of a consultant. The point is eventually how to make the most people aware of
that.
Company and managers
having serious organizational problems are not aware of that. If they are
instinctively aware, they refuse to rationalize their instinctive awareness. They
frequently live as a personal defeat to ask for a consultant’s help and so they
deny having serious problems while their company collapses or remains very far
from its full potentialities.
The author underlines
that you are an expert and not a trainer, so you have to remain such and to
sell you as an expert. Your public speaking and your presentation have this
goal and they need to be built in this perspective. For the author, an expert
needs to become a very good salesperson. A salesperson does not need to be
aggressive. One only needs to well show the advantages of been hired as an
expert for the help one can provide, so increasing the incomes of those needing
one’s advice. Of course, professional help from an expert has to be very well
remunerated.
Don’t work for free and
don’t ask for modest sums. Your clients would think your service be not valuable.
Since the most people
are visual learners, one gains more from a visual presentation than from
speaking. Your PowerPoint or Keynote presentation must be perfect from the
point of view of selling.
Creating events, or
participating to them at the starting of your consulting career, permits to
sell one’s own services to qualified audiences. This is a key element for a
profitable career as an expert.
If one wants to earn
real money, one needs to diversify one’s own revenue sources:
“5 Ways to Grow Multiple Streams of Income
“1. Manifest and multiply only your most ideal clients. [...]
“2. Develop joint venture affiliates who can sell your products. [...]
“3. Generate big-income days. [...]
“4. Create high-level coaching or consulting programs. [...]
“5. Develop a license or franchise business model with your expertise.
[...]”
(Allen 2014, p. 138).
One of the basis of
business is asking, asking with the belief and expectation to receive. “The power is in the asking and in the expectation
that you will receive it.” (Allen 2014, p. 144).
The penultimate advice
of the author is: “Become the authority by writing a book.” More is general, it
is useful to write and publish. The author explains why she specifically
suggests writing books as a further door-opening opportunity relatively to a
highly paid expert business.
The last advice is:
“Develop a steady stream of referrals.”
Good luck and a lot of
money!
Allen, D., The Highly Paid Expert. Turn Your Passion,
Skills, and Talents Into a Lucrative Career by Becoming the Go-To Authority in
Your Industry, Career Press, Pompton Plains, N.J.,
USA, 2014.
