Grant Leboff: One of the things that you talk about in your books, I think, is really important is about becoming the expert. How do you see people being able to achieve that goal?
Phil M Jones: If you want to be seen as an expert, you do the things that experts do. When you look at other people who you judge as experts, there are behavioural traits, there are physical things that you witness in them that make you feel like they’re an expert. Firstly an expert is rarely a generalist unless they’re an expert of being a generalist. Although you can do a thousand things, and I’m sure that you can do most of them really, really well, you need to find where that tip of the arrow is, the point that you are better at than anybody else.
I put it this simply is… if you wanted to open a tin of beans, what utensil would you reach for in the kitchen to be able to open it? You’d want a tin opener, not a Swiss army knife or one of the other many implements that could get that tin of beans open if it was to have a got at it. You want the thing that does it best, so decide where you can be the thing that does the thing other people want best and then expand on that expertise.
Then look at the things that you can do to amplify that belief within your consumers. What do experts do? Well, they stand on stage and speak about it. They provide expertise to the open world where they are open and happy to share their opinion. That’s really all expertise is in my mind. It’s an educated opinion that somebody’s prepared to stand up against. They say, “No, I think this is right.” You and I know that right is subjective anyway. It’s okay to be able to stand-up and do that. They write about it. They write books. They write blogs.
What else do experts do? Well, they are prepared to stand up and be counted. When something is open to debate, they’re okay to put their two pennies worth in and think that it’s okay to have a strong opinion on that fact or matter, so be in that space. If you want to then see how you can use your expertise to then grow your business, is find areas where that you can go fishing in where your expertises are valued.
One of the hugest mistakes I’ve seen many people make in business is the groups they join are full of people just like them. Instead of joining the group of people who are just like you, where is there a group of people who see value in your expertise. Now you’re involved in digital marketing and involved in helping people grow their presence online, and understand how that then plugs into the customer base.
Instead of you joining other communities for the marketers, play with some other communities that maybe know nothing about the thing that you like where you can be put on the pedestal and be held as that registered experts.
Grant Leboff: What’s interesting about that is to what extent do you think people get in their own way. I think the way you talked about the tip of the arrow is really important, but I meet a lot of people that are almost terrified to be too specific. They think somehow they are going to exclude lots of other opportunities rather than create opportunities in themselves. To what extent do you see that happening and how do you persuade people that actually the do need to nail it, or be very specific on what they’re experts at?
Phil M Jones: Expertise creates opportunity. It doesn’t minimize it. I think if anybody’s looking to be an expert, try and put yourself in a marketplace of one. You want to be that guy or that girl because then you can start to build reputation. I ask rooms full of people in my conferences, who’d like themselves or their business to be described as remarkable and every single hand shoots up in the air.
I then say, “What does the word remarkable mean?” People give me a blank face. Remarkable simply means worthy of remark. It means people are talking about you. If you’re that guy or that girl, you can get people talking about your and start to build upon that level of expertise. I think if we look at the UK marketplace and reach for some examples of where people have done this super well, it’s like Martin Lewis. [Martin Lewis is a popular broadcaster and journalist in the UK who specialises in saving money]
Martin Lewis knows a lot about a lot. But when he positioned himself as the guy that could help people with everything money related, then boom, things take off. What can then happen is the media can get in touch with you as the expert. Then what can happen is you could be invited to speak onstage as the expert for that. Even though you could talk about a hundred other things, people want an expert. They don’t want somebody who’s just good at a lot of stuff.
Grant Leboff: If someone’s sitting in their office right now thinking, “Okay, I’m too general, I need to get more specific.” What are, perhaps, those first one or two bits of advice going on that journey, because it is a journey to get to there, where would they start if they’re sitting watching this now?
Phil M Jones: If you’re going to take an expert route, you got to be okay that this is going to sit with you for a while. It can’t be just something you’re good at or you think it’s going to make money in the short-term. You’ve got to be able to embody this and let it run all the way through you. The first question I’d probably ask yourself was a question that was asked of me in a book that I read, that was about speaking.
The question in the book that I read was the question, what makes your heart sing? Not what are you good at or what do you quite like doing, what makes your heart sing? What’s the part of all the things that you do that makes you just stand up a little bit taller, sit a little bit prouder. You know what you really feel inside? I got this. That part of the things that you’re good at, where you feel most comfortable, most confident regardless of how small it is.
What’s that one thing and then go deep and narrow on that thing to a point where you hit rock bottom of every part of expertise that you could have around that single piece. Even in the most simplistic of forms, if you’re an accountant listening to this right now, forget all the generalisms you have. If you could become an expert in a certain country’s taxation system for corporation tax and run that right through to the core of it in every possible way, you’ve got a chance of becoming that guy regardless of all the other things you do.
Just try to get the bit that makes you super excited and then study it, get good at talking about it to a point where you are seen as that guy or that girl.
There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.
