How to Become a True Expert As a Personal Brand

As a personal brand becoming an expert is what makes you stand out from the crowd. This is because people are drawn to people who have the knowledge and exude a sense of confidence. I am writing this because there have been too many people I have spoken to that don’t feel confident as an expert in their field. Although it may feel like the case for these people, it’s usually a confidence thing. You only need to be 1 step ahead of your audience to be considered an expert. In this article, I will explain how to do this effectively.

Gather your Knowledge

You can only develop expertise in two places:

1. Personal Experiences
2. Other people

Personal Experiences

Think about your specific niche field and gather all the credentials that make you an expert in your specific field. I akin this to writing a LinkedIn profile and highlighting all your experiences. This is useful because it forces you to highlight what you’re good at because this will be key when highlighting your expertise to different people. In addition, ask your friends, family and associates what they think your specific skills are and why. It’s good to ask as many people as possible to pick up any general themes that pop. This usually helps you generate more ideas that put you in a position of assurance.

Other people

Gaining experience from other people is also another to improve your expertise. This primarily is done via observation or consuming their material. A prime example of this may be via mentorship. Based on how a mentor conducts themselves, you could learn a whole lot of skills that ends up being very useful. Another way is through events. Going to events and learning information on specific niche topics can accelerate your knowledge base. It is also a great opportunity to meet other people and so some more learning. And finally books and online content is a great way to develop knowledge in a specific niche field.

Share Your Knowledge

Once you have spent some consolidated time gathering your experience and learning as much information as possible. You should start to think about organising your knowledge and information into content that you can eloquently express in a structured way. At the same time, it is important to make sure you express this information without losing an ounce of your character. There are two main ways to share your knowledge as a personal brand

1. Speaking
2. Signature Content

Speak to your heart’s content

The best strategy you can adopt as a personal brand is producing videos on a weekly basis. These videos can be shot on a professional DSLR camera, with lights, and sound equipment, or could quite simply be done on your Samsung S9 or iPhone X. The point I want to edify is that it is important to shoot as many videos as possible. Before you get into the habit of doing this, I would advise the following:

1. Brainstorm a list of keywords that are related to your niche area. Think of as many keywords and phrases as possible. For example, if you were in the weight management niche keywords may include: How to lose weight, Meal plans, low carb diet, high protein diet, fat burn exercises etc.
2. Once you have brainstormed these words, look on the Google’s search engine and type in these keywords, and see what pops up as suggested short tail and long tail keyword phrases. For example when I type in “Weight Management” in Google, suggested phrases come up as: weight management program, weight management tips, weight management psychology, weight management supplements etc.
3. You can also check what related items pop up at the bottom of the Google search page to get more ideas. Collect these ideas onto your brainstorming map or ideally on an excel spreadsheet
4. Download the “Keywords Everywhere” chrome extension and use it to help you find more related keywords for your niche. Once you type in a keyword in Google’s search box, it will also show you the volume of that word (traffic), its cost per click (CPC) and how competitive it is.  You’re looking for a ratio that has high traffic and low in competition, however, be mindful this is specific for paid traffic and not organic traffic
5. Go onto Amazon, Facebook and other online platforms and look at what your competitors are producing in terms of books, videos and courses, and get an idea on the ideas that they are spreading to their audience
6. From this create a framework that supports what you know as an expert. Write out 6 – 12 core topics, and break up those core topics in sub-topics that go over your knowledge as an expert. Sections of this framework will be the basis for your videos, talks, books, events and courses.
7. Once you have this information, write out a list of topics you could write about or film. You may want to develop a content calendar or keep a list of ideas that inspire you to produce content

What your video should be about

Now that you know what it takes to produce evidence-based and super targeted content ideas, it’s time to start shooting videos! You want your videos to be focused on the following:

• How to’s
• Comparisons
• Versus
• Top 10s
• Reviews
• Opinions
• Documenting your lifestyle
• Documenting your Journey (Business endeavours)

Some advice

The main things to remember with video is that is the following:

• It’s ok if you don’t get the video right the first time, just re-do it. You’ll eventually get the hang of it and it’ll get to a point where you can do videos in one take
• Your videos don’t have to be perfect. You can do basic editing on your video to cut out any bits that you don’t want. However, it’s less of a headache if you do it in one take
• Always remember to do the following; it helps to position you as the expert nicely:
  • Start with a question or quote
  • Introduce yourself and who you are
• At the beginning of the video relate to your audience by highlight the specific problem they have, or acknowledging some piece of information that they can emotionally connect to
• Deliver content that will educate, empower or elevate them to take action in some way

Develop Signature content

Developing signature content is another way of saying produce content as long. Signature content is a great way of validating whether your audience is actually interested in your niche topics or not. One way I have done this in the past and currently, my business is produced along a video that really educates my audience and specific topic. An example of this was when I did a video on how to start a business as a personal brand, this got a lot of attention and was liked by many people shared by many people and watch family people Facebook. Signature content is fantastic if you have a final that aims to collect email information and noted that like know and trust factor for your specific prospects believe is. Developing longer than usual videos is a great strategy for inviting people and to specific offer that you may want to show them later on.

Video online

Video can be used for organic and paid means. I would develop a strategy to produce 2 to 5 videos a week on YouTube and/or Facebook and/or LinkedIn (dependent upon your niche), to get people familiar with you as an expert that solves specific problems in your niche. I would also develop a strategy where you produce signature content in the form of Facebook video Ads. These can build segmented audiences over time (by how long they have watched your video) using Facebook’s pixel. In addition, you can target these people with another Ad and offer them something for free in exchange for their email information. The reason we capture emails is that we want to be able to nurture a relationship with them and find out if they would like to receive an offer that will help them solve their key niche specific problem.

Develop a Book

There’s nothing quite like having your own book and saying to the world that you’re an author. The first time but I told my network that I was a self-published author, I could truly see the excitement and respect in their eyes. Based on their body language and what they were saying, they began to position me truly as an expert. Taking their reactions for granted I tested this out with people I didn’t know at networking events. I soon realised that they gave similar responses. Books are great for introducing yourself and networking with people. In my eyes, it is one of the greatest business cards you could have. It’s a great way of showing people your expertise. I started to tell people I was a self-published author, which created intrigue and more conversations which led to me getting speaking engagements, potential business with clients. If you’re looking to become a self-published author, check out this article here.

Organise your Ideas

The final thing I want to say about becoming an expert as a personal brand, is that you need to be very good at organising your ideas. The difference between you making money and not making money is partly based on how you structure and organise your framework of content for your audience. This framework and structure, that was highlighted above, is how you can start to produce digital assets such as books, courses, and membership sites. This same framework can also be used for your public speaking, coaching and consulting services.

As you can see developing expertise can be built over time in a systematic manner. If you focus on gaining knowledge and improving your understanding with your niche area, you can then start to answer people’s key specific problems with confidence and gusto! Once you evidence your knowledge by producing videos and content online, people start to be attracted by you as a personal brand. From there you can start to do more speaking engagements, shaping a sense of thought leadership within your industry. It also means you can start to generate ideas on what products and services you would like to offer as a business owner. The more you document evidence of your expertise through your journey and content production, the more opportunities you’ll get. It’s about consistency and commitment to the cause and making sure you provide as much value as possible. If you want advice on how to develop your personal brand, read this article on how to do it step-by-step.