Revealing Your Inner Expert

Additional credibility can be gained by joining at least two or three trade organizations with official sounding names in your subject are. For example, TIA (Travel Association of America) or ACP (Association of Contingency Planners). This can usually be done online, in a few minutes, for a reasonable fee, with a credit card.

Teaching and training enhances credibility. Offer to give a free lecture or half-day seminar at the closest well-known college or university using posters to advertise. Do the same at local offices of a few well-known companies. Tell them that you have given seminars at such-and-such college and are a member of the organizations you have registered with. Emphasize you are trying to achieve additional speaking experience outside of the academics and are NOT selling product or services. You may wish to video record these lectures for future use.

Publishing greatly supports expert status and enhances credibility. You have two options, either write for publication as an expert OR be quoted as an expert. Ue a tool like THE WRITERS MARKET to write and submit a few articles for trade magazines related to your niche citing what you have done, learned or accomplished. Register with ProfNet, a service that journalists use to quote experts for articles. Done properly you can be featured in media ranging from local publications to CNN and The Wall Street Journal.

We are NOT suggesting that you pretend to be something you are not. We simply recommend that you use your collective resources and create yourself as a brand that demonstrates your ability to deliver. Craft an image for yourself that presents the truth in its best fashion. To be most successful, you cannot hide yourself under a bushel basket. You must learn to reveal your inner expert.