How can you establish your expertise?

There are many different components to building a robust customer base, but there’s one aspect that is often overlooked: establishing your expertise.

You might understand that you’re an expert in your field, but unless you show this to everyone else, then no-one else is going to understand it. This is an important step along the path of establishing trust with your customers, too, so it’s important that you put time into it. But how can you do it? We take a look at a few ways to establish your expertise below.

Know your stuff

To begin with, make sure you really do know your stuff! You can fool people into believing you know more than you do once, but you’ll never develop a customer-base, since no-one will come back to you. So it’s always a good idea to start a business in a field in which you already know a lot; it’ll be the foundation upon which you can develop even knowledge, which you’ll naturally acquire through the course of growing your business. It’s also worth keeping in mind that any staff you’ll hire will need to be well-educated on the topic too, so make sure that you’re training them well. 

Share your knowledge

The internet is a fantastic tool for you to share your knowledge with the world! All the stuff that’s in your mind, all the knowledge that you’ve acquired over the years, can be used as part of your company’s marketing campaign. For example, you can write blogs, release ebooks, make videos, or host your own podcast or radio show. If the latter interests you, then check out Radio.co, which offers a SHOUTcast Alternative. This methods, especially the longer-form ones (like an ebook or radio show), will allow you to go deep into detail, too. 

Commentating

The above methods will be best suited to the people who already know a thing or two about your business and your industry, but there is a way to meet a more general audience: social media. If you’re commentating on your industry/products, then you’ll quickly gain a reputation as someone who’s worth listening to. It’s good to divide your social media channels into your company channels and your personal channels — it’ll be the latter where you’ll want to comment. This will also help solidify your personal branding, too. 

Push the game forward

It’s easy to talk a big game, sure, but what about actually putting what you’re saying into practice? Whatever industry you’re in, you’ll want to prove that you’re not all talk by in some way pushing the game forward. An expert wouldn’t just do what everyone else had already done beforehand! 

High quality products and services

Finally, remember that there’s no substitute for high-quality products and services. Ultimately, while you can form the idea that you know what you’re talking about, the proof will be in how happy people are with your company. Make sure that you’re excelling in what you’re providing, and it’ll be much easier to be accepted as an expert.