On Selling Your Expertise Online As A Service Professional

I’ll start this post with a question…

How good are you at what you do?

If you feel you’re better than everyone else in your field, then don’t bother reading this. Such people end up being so arrogant, that readers get tired of them.

But if you feel you still have a lot to learn, then you have no idea just how great you could become.

Everyone is good at something. You have the ability to do something better than the other guy.

The reality is, to be successful, don’t start out thinking you’re the best. Instead, start with the mind that you have a lot to learn, regardless of how good you already are.

 

The Truth About Selling Online

According to this post, we have over 164 million blogs online. And the purpose of blogs is to simply tell the world about what you know in as many posts as possible. Now here’s my psychological breakdown of some of those 164 million bloggers…

Some of them are beginners and blog as beginners.

Some of them are beginners and blog as gurus (so-called experts) who seem to know everything.

Some of them are actually experts at what they do, their readers know them as experts, but they like to call themselves beginners.

The category liable to fail is the second category. And unfortunately, most people think that in order to make people believe in what you do and what you say, you have to be category 2.

In other words, you have to form, cover your lack of experience and lie.

Wrong!

It’s all about being authentic in your message.

When Danny Iny first started Firepole Marketing, he had no idea about how to build an audience business that thrived on engagement. In fact, he had failed in business before and was in debt.

But he started blogging anyway, not as an expert. Instead, he wrote as someone who believed in the essence of building an audience based business.

To even prove how new he was to the concept, he got experts on the topic of engagement to contribute to his book, “Engagement From Scratch”.

And that was when the perception of him being an expert in his field began.

A little over 2 years later, he has built an audience based business that allowed him cross the one million dollar mark.

How sweet!

 

It’s Really Not About How Much You Know…

…but how you present your knowledge.

If you’re just starting out as a graphics designer, and want to get clients online, you don’t have to create the best designs online. You’ll be better off showing people how to do the designs you know, no matter how simple they may be.

As a newbie editor who wants to convert online leads to clients that need editing services, you don’t have to pose as a professor in English language. Talking about the little you know on editing will put you in front of people looking to hire you.

It’s all about presentation.

Just because you’re a newbie doesn’t mean you should sound inferior when presenting your knowledge and talking about what you can do.

It also doesn’t mean that you should appear unprofessional by using a poorly designed blog or a ‘.wordpress’ domain name.

You have to “dress” your online business the way you want to be addressed.

If you want to be perceived as someone who really doesn’t know anything about what he does, when as a matter of fact you do, then go ahead using all the low quality tools and resources you can find.

However, if you want to be perceived as a professional, then you could invest in a professionally designed blog and a solid lead generation plan, or you could look for free resources that rock as well.

Whichever one it is, ensure your presentation is on point.

 

On A Final Note

This post is more of a charge than a tutorial or guide. And it was written for all those skilled people who want to start out online and build a solid business, but feel they don’t know how or don’t have what it takes.

The shocking truth is I’m not an expert at lead generation either. But I know more about it than you do. That’s why I can write this post and it is the same reason you’re reading it :).

So, I’ll leave you with two words; “Get started”.

If you have any questions about building a service business online and generating leads to it, feel free to leave a comment below. I’d be thrilled to know what you think.

Original image credit: genouest.org