5 Things I’d Never Do If I Wanted My Expertise to Be Taken Seriously

30 Aug

You can have twenty years of experience and still communicate it like you have two.

I see versions of this surprisingly often.

The expertise is there. The results are there. Clients know how good the person is.

But when they have to explain that value to somebody who doesn’t already know them, everything becomes smaller and more cautious.

If I wanted my expertise to be taken seriously, these are five things I wouldn’t do.

1. Try to be known for everything

Established businesses tend to accumulate things.

Services. Audiences. Offers. Workshops. Old areas of expertise that still bring in occasional work.

There is often a perfectly good historical reason for every one of them.

But your potential client doesn’t have that history.

They need to work out what you’re particularly good at now.

Being capable of doing ten things doesn’t mean all ten should have equal prominence in your brand.

The more things you ask someone to remember about you, the less likely they are to remember the thing you most want to be known for.

Expertise becomes much easier to recognise when it has a clear centre of gravity.

2. Describe your expertise using words anybody could use

Experienced.
Professional.
Trusted.
High-quality.

None of these things is bad. But they’re claims, and your competitors can make exactly the same ones.

If you’ve spent years becoming exceptionally good at something, there should be better evidence of that expertise than the word experienced.

What have you learned?
What do you notice that someone less experienced doesn’t?
What do you believe about the work?
What do clients come to you for specifically?
What can you diagnose quickly because you’ve seen the problem fifty times before?

That’s where your authority lives.

3. Keep leading with what you do

This one is surprisingly easy to miss.

Your service matters. People obviously need to know what they can buy.

But as your experience grows, the service itself is often no longer the most valuable thing you’re selling.

You’re also selling judgement.

Perspective.

A methodology.

The ability to distinguish the real problem from the obvious one.

If you only communicate the deliverable, you make it very easy for somebody to compare you with everyone else who sells the same deliverable.

Your expertise is often the reason they should choose you.

Make sure they can see it.

4. Keep presenting the business you started

Perhaps you began by taking almost every suitable piece of work.

Most businesses do.

Over time, you discover where you’re strongest, which work gets the best results, which clients value what you do and where you want the business to go.

Your brand needs to evolve with that knowledge.

Otherwise today’s potential clients are judging today’s expertise through yesterday’s positioning.

A good brand doesn’t simply document the business you’ve built.

It helps position the one you’re building next.

5. Assume good work will speak for itself

Good work matters enormously.

But good work doesn’t literally speak.

People speak about it. Testimonials demonstrate it. Case studies provide evidence of it. Your content reveals your thinking. Your positioning gives it context.

Particularly online, people who don’t already know you need enough information to understand why your experience matters to them.

You don’t need to become louder.

You do need to become clearer.

Taking your expertise seriously isn’t about looking important

None of this is about manufacturing authority you haven’t earned.

It’s almost the opposite.

It’s about making sure the value already inside the business is visible from the outside.

If you have spent years becoming very good at what you do, your brand shouldn’t make people work hard to discover it.