Back when Greg Louganis was a gold medal diver, the Chinese studied video footage of him to model his approach to the dive, his form, how he hit the board, how he entered the water. All things relevant to diving.
They discovered there is a sweet spot on the board, which if you hit it right will give you the greatest height, the greatest leverage to deliver a perfect dive.
There is a similar sweet spot in business. It’s being regarded as the expert, the maven, the dominant authority and trusted advisor.
Hit this sweet spot and everything you do in business becomes ten times easier and delivers ten times the return for your efforts.
In the past this was viewed as a nice position to be in. Today it’s become essential because buyer behaviour has changed.
Let me put this in perspective. Give you some background to explain the change.
One of the original attractions of the internet to many opportunity seekers was the ability to hide behind a web-site and some how, magically rake in significant money.
That couldn’t last. One it went against human nature because human beings want to speak with another human being, especially when something goes wrong. And two, the internet is a direct response mechanism, so as more competition came online, the costs of getting traffic started to rise to the point where 1% response or less was no longer profitable.
More importantly though, as information has increased to the point of overwhelm, the amount of attention we give to anything has decreased massively.
Herbert Simon coined the idea of attention economics back in the 1960’s
“…in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it”
The amount of time we have available has decreased. Everyone is just too busy, too stressed. There was a British government study a few years back showing that the average working parent now spends twice as much time dealing with email as they do with their children.
All this means is when we do have a problem we want a solution and we want it now. No-one wants to have to do the research themselves. No one wants to have to make a decision or choose from a ridiculous number of choices.
Your clients, your prospects, your buyers, want someone to make the decision for them. And the person they will trust to do this is the expert.
In fact in social psychology which studies what and how humans are influenced, the authority figure is one of the core six big influencers.
Simple example. If you have a health issue, who do you turn to?
A doctor? Why?
Because you perceive your doctor as the expert on dealing with disease, and ill health problems. They tell you what’s wrong, they offer you the solution, perhaps tablets, or some form of drug and you take it. It’s rare a doctor gets questioned by their patients. And the more threatening the disease the less their expertise is questioned.
So in a social networking world, how do you become the expert?
Answer: Focus on building your credibility.
Credibility is believeablility. Your prospects or markets confidence in you AND your ability to solve their problems.
ok, so how can you do this?
The Testimonial
You may have seen, or have already a testimonial for your product or service. A testimonial from an existing client can be very powerful.
Even more powerful is a testimonial from someone who is worse off or considered less able than your desired clients.
Robert Allen, did this back in the 1980’s when he took someone queuing for social security and showed them how to make money from proeprty investing. His ideal client base looked at this and thought, if that person can do this, then surely I with a college degree, a professional career and money in the bank can do it.
It’s a contrast frame. People compare themselves to others. If they think someone less capable than themsleves can get the result they want, then their belief they can get the result massively increases.
And their belief you can help them get it increases even more. Incredibly effective then and still is now.
Building on this theme is a personal endorsements of you.
So instead of a testimonial for your product, it’s a testimonial about you. This can be a media piece, an interview with you or even better a celebrity endorsement. If Brian Tracey or Tony Robbins recorded a short video about how great you are, what impact do you think that would have on your credibility?
Now getting Brian Tracey or Tony Robbins to shoot a video for you may not happen this week, but what is possible is you interviewing the existing experts in your niche or related niches.
This is credibility by association.
Who you hang out with. Who you run with. You can interview book authors because being published gives them credibility and you interviewing them gives you credibility.
You can also demonstrate your knowledge
What information does your ideal client need to achieve their goals or solve their problems? Blog about it. Give them tangible, practical, actionable information.
Something I’ve learned from spending several years studying the top internet marketing “gurus” is giving away profound knowledge doesn’t harm sales, it enhances them.
Billy May, an amazing pitchman, who died last year sadly, used extraordinary demonstrations to buld credibility.
A knife that cuts through tin cans. A flannel that absorbs buckets of water. A material which absorbs shock impact. He actually wrapped this around his hand and smashed it repeatedly with a hammer. He hand came out unharmed. Now, that’s a demonstration.
A friend of mine demostrates how powerful her presentation skills program is by getting someone out of the audience and having them deliver a 30 second beofre and after presentation. The audience sees the immediate difference from a few minutes of coaching. Instant credibility.
There are many more ways and means of establishing and reinforcing your credibility to position you as the expert.
A couple of questions to end with
Which ones are you using?
Which ones are you going to add?
And which ones have I missed that you’d like to share with the other readers of this post?
