8 Ways to show you're an Expert at what you do
plus 3 ones that help with everything else
A famous joke says “an expert knows more and more about less and less until he or she knows everything about nothing."
Expertise, and even more so at its upper levels, can be so concentrated as to be almost undetectable to the beginner or outsider. The buyer of your expertise is often a beginner. So you must make it visible.
Making your expertise easier to see
Conveying expertise exists on a spectrum between signaling and demonstrating:
Signaling has reach and speed. It tells a story.
Demonstrating has depth and context. It answers questions.
4 ways of signaling expertise
Time & "flight-hours” on the job
Credentials & past experiences
Social proof from clients & colleagues
Memberships & Associations
4 ways of demonstrating expertise
Exploring & addressing challenges in real time, even with little preparation
Having clear explanations of advanced concepts
Guiding others through the application of methods and tools
Using relevant examples that allow lay people to contextualize new ideas
As you've noticed, the first list is about “stuff you have” and the second is about “things you do”.
3 other skills that help with everything
Besides signaling and demonstrating, there is another group of skills that multiplies the Expert's impact. They do not exist so much on the same spectrum as before. They are their own layer.
Effective communication
Coaching & Mentoring
Facilitation
The above list is ordered from the most standalone ability (the deceptively profound “effective communication”) to the highly contextual and dialectic competence of facilitating other's in the pursuit of their own objectives.
Being able to do these things well is worth the investment. But they need their own posts, so I'll expand them on another time.
What now?
Established experts have all the resources to tell their story. This section is not for them.
On the other hand, if you're an Expert still working to be seen as such (perhaps because you've changed careers or have less legible skills) you need an approach that is more about demonstrating than signaling.
If you know a lot about something, but it isn't obvious from the outside, this is what I would do. I say this because it actually is what I'm doing:
Spend time understanding how the parts fit. How can the skills you accumulated be combined into something someone needs? Disclaimer: I run a recurring workshop on this. We can talk about it.
Learn about who you're serving and what pains them. Experts tend to see the world from the lens of their own expertise. This is a limiting view. Others need what you have, but they don't frame it the same way you do, so they don't know you can help.
Talk about how you apply your expertise to problems of the market you're serving. And when I say talk, I mean “write publicly, do email outreach, join on podcasts, participate in like-minded groups”, etc. Create opportunities for people to see how you think.
Does this match your own experience? Have you struggled with displaying your expertise in a way others can connect with?
I'm always looking to better understand the challenges of niche Experts, so I'd love your input.