Do you struggle with “Imposter Syndrome?” Are you wondering how to become an expert? Or do you think becoming an expert in your niche is essentially impossible? This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, we work through what it means to be an expert, and how you can help people even when you don’t feel like one.
It turns out that expertise is relative, and that you can help people that don’t know the things that you know – even if you don’t think that you know much. I give some concrete examples — including something that came up in conversation with my buddy Cliff. That example shows exactly how to turn a tiny amount of expertise into thousands of dollars.
There are some clear steps that you can take to become an expert, and they are revealed in the episode as well.
Last week, I discussed some simple SEO tips for your content — if you missed that you will want to go get the free cheat sheet. It’s something you should keep by your side when writing content for the web.
Next week we’ll be talking about my podcast workflow. I’ll discuss tools and tips that you can use in your business to be more efficient (including some cool automation).
Show Notes — Use These Notes To Become An Expert
So, you have decided that you want to build an internet business and you like the idea of helping people. The question now is..how do you mean to become an expert? Here is my set of tips for you:
- Understand exactly what it is that you want to become an expert in. It’s hard to become an expert and you have to invest time, so you have to be sure that the field you have chosen is something that you really like. If you are an accountant because you have experience in accounting but hate the thought of being one, being an expert in accounting may not be a very good choice. On the other hand, even if you don’t know a thing about playing a guitar, but you want to teach people about playing one, it’ll be easy to talk to folks about your journey towards becoming a guitar player.
- Niche down. What will you focus on? Bass, Acoustic, electric? Strumming, plucking? Blues, country, rock and roll? If you are trying to become an expert, the more you niche down, the better off you will be because the scope of your material that you need to claim expertise in, gets smaller. For a marketing standpoint, this is also valuable because you specifically address a very narrow segment.
- Dig in. You cannot just fake it until you make it. You have to study and practice. Be completely transparent as there is no reason at all to pretend to know more than you do. Expertise is relative, people are going to self-select. Study your craft, find mentors, follow people and practice what you preach.
- Make a helpful noise. Get out there and start sharing what you learned. Advocate for your customers by creating content. You can do this by publishing articles, creating a blog post, appearing in podcasts, speaking in front of people, etc. all the while collecting experiences and more knowledge which may get you that label to finally be able to write a book. It will also trigger trust in people and will be associated with other experts.
Remove whatever limitation is hindering you, crush your self-doubt and go help people!
Expert Links Mentioned In This Episode
- Search Engine Land on reacting to Google
- John Lee Dumas on Imposter Syndrome
- Malcolm Gladwell Outliers
- The MDX4600 Tutorial From Cliff Ravenscraft
- Recent TCRS episode played in the show
- Episode 106 – Copyright Law
- Yaro Article on Becoming An Expert
- Forbes Article on Becoming An Expert
- Inc Article on Becoming An Expert
- Late Night Affiliate – Get notified when the new course is live
- LNIM Episode 109 – 14 Critical SEO Tips For Bloggers in 2016
The Late Night Become An Expert Checklist
In the episode, I mention a checklist that you can use each to help you become a legitimate expert in your niche. This checklist covers the process that I mention in the episode and has some brief explanation to go along with each item. Click the link below to download the checklist. It's yours to keep for free and to share as you see fit.
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I'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. Better yet, I’d love to answer your question about Internet marketing on the show. Just drop me a line here on the blog or on the digital recorder at 214-444-8655. Don’t worry, there are no stupid questions. Unless you tell me not to, when you ask a question or leave a comment might even use it on the show.
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Dream of being an expert in your niche? Here's how. https://t.co/vbHDJNSjkq pic.twitter.com/mOCnAVa6ul
— Mark Mason (@LateNightIM) October 21, 2016
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Transcript — How To Become An Expert
I hope everybody is having an absolutely fantastic week. Things are rocking and rolling with the new Late Night Affiliate course. I’ve been working with Amy Porterfield, who a lot of you know, through one of her courses, Courses that Convert. I have been really busting it on the new course and I’ve been doing some things that Amy recommended, including talking to people who are potential candidates for taking the course, who have an interest in the topic, and getting their feedback on my plans for the course.
For those of you that I’ve been talking on the phone with about the course, I really do appreciate it. If you’re interested in being notified about what’s going on with the course you can head over to LateNightAffiliate.com and there’s a squeeze page over there. I’ll notify you about what’s going on.
Last week in Episode 109 we talked about SEO. I saw this awesome article on Search Engine Land and the title of the article was 3 Things to Do After a Major Google Algorithm Update. I thought, “Goodie, here’s something awesome. I’m going to be able to really learn something from this.” Number one is don’t panic, number two is wait to react, and number three is read credible sources and make adjustments where necessary. Okay, that’s great. I didn’t learn too much from that except to say that the lat part where you wait and see what’s happening. Don’t panic, don’t have a kneejerk reaction; that’s generally good advice for life, so I guess you can use that.
I’m going to go with item number four, and that is download my SEO guide from last week that you can find in Episode 109 and just don’t worry about SEO. Do the stuff that I recommend there, it’s all white hat aboveboard, create killer content and everything is going to be all right.
With that, we’ll get to the main topic for this week.