The Case For Why You Need to Keep Positioning Yourself as an Expert.
This is the second time in my life it’s happened. A stranger asked for my autograph as I stood on the street. I was positioning myself as an expert without even realizing I was doing it.
I’m not a celebrity or a known personality. So why did these passers-by ask for my autograph?
I was a perfect September day and the passers-by were just following their instinct and conditioning.
You see, I was with my client Marya who was about to be featured on NBC to talk about her new book Career X, that we had recently published for her. We thought it would be fun to hire a video crew to document our experience leading up to being on NBC, and both she and I could use the video in our marketing.
So, the passers-by didn’t recognize us or mistake us for celebrities. They just assumed that we were celebrities based on our positioning -the video crew following us signaled to them and made them believe without a doubt that we were celebrities and they were just too bashful to even ask who we were.
They were attracted to us as celebrities – whoever we were.
So why am I telling you this?
As an entrepreneur or author, you should always be positioning yourself as the expert so that you stand out in your niche. It helps do the following:
- Solidifies your expert positioning
- Presells prospects on working with you
- Creates an enhanced desire to work with you
- It sets the expectation that as an expert, they can expect to pay premium pricing to work with you
Even if you are higher priced than your competitors or the highest price in your market, positioning yourself as an expert reduces price resistance and negotiation.
Take a lesson on expert positioning from celebrities like Richard Branson
Here is another example of expert positioning from a true, internationally recognized celebrity – Richard Branson – one of my business heroes.
Doing lead generation on LinkedIn, I noticed something in conversations with my new connections. Following some back-and-forth messages and a few phone conversations, if I believe that a connection might be a fit for my services, I will ask if they’ve ever thought of writing a book. On numerous occasions, I have gotten a sharp response back saying, “I’m already an author.” In one instance, the response was “I’ve written ten books and they are translated in multiple languages.”
I’m human and sometimes I make mistakes, so feeling I had possibly goofed and missed it on their LinkedIn profile when I initially reviewed it, I went back and checked. Nowhere on their LinkedIn profile is there a mention of their book. This always surprises me. For most people, writing a book is something that they’re immensely proud of. It’s a big achievement. And it’s a great expert position piece. So why isn’t it on their profile?
Branson and Gary V recognize the importance of positioning, continually. They both showcase their books in their profile graphic and title description.
Richard Branson takes his positioning even further by including endorsements for his book from other recognizable names – Sheryl Sandberg and Bill Gates. He shows that positioning is an ongoing process, even after you reach celebrity status.
Dan Kennedy, legendary marketer and author stated it well when he said:
“The simple truth is, if you aren’t deliberately, systematically, methodically – or rapidly and dramatically – establishing yourself as a celebrity, at least to your clientele and target market, you’re asleep at the wheel, ignoring what is fuelling the entire economy around you and neglecting development of a measurably valuable asset.”
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