Building Expertise: Selling Your Ideas,
Your Vision, Even Yourself
By Barry Maher
Obviously,
the greater your credibility, the more effective you'll be when it comes to
selling your ideas or your vision. If someone doesn't respect you, they aren't
going to respect any argument you present to make your case. Which means you
better respect yourself as well.
That doesn't mean arrogance, it means self assurance. If you've got
pertinent experience and/or expertise and the people you're dealing with aren't
familiar with it, you might recap it in a non-bragging, non-threatening way.
Even if they are familiar with your expertise, a diplomatic reminder never
hurts.
Tactic:
Continually
strive to build and increase your credibility. The more credibility you have,
the more impact every one of your ideas and proposals will have—automatically.
Look for ways to build up your expertise both in general and on specific important topics.
Read every industry publication
you can get your hands on. You'll be amazed at how much better informed you'll
be than your peers, even your bosses. You might even cut out and forward
clippings or website links to selected individuals with a tactful, "Just in case
you missed this" note.
In one large corporation, the credit manager at one branch is so
strong in his field that no one in the entire company will challenge anything he
has to say about credit procedures. He's also generous with that expertise so
he's become an indispensable resource: more than a resource really, a standard.
If Larry says it's so, it is so—throughout the company.
Larry's a nice guy. But he's a nice guy who usually gets what he
wants when credit issues are involved, simply because no one can contest him.
Tactic:
If you're
recognized as an authority, sometimes you can even control the criteria on which
a decision is going to be based.
Anne O'Halloran advocated a system for new product development that
would get products to market faster than the system the vice president of
operations wanted, though it also cost significantly more. Unfortunately for
the operations department, Ann's expertise in development and implementation helped convince
the powers-that-be that in this area speed was far more important than cost.
You already have experience and you already have expertise: about
yourself, your vision and probably about whatever it is you might be proposing.
There are any number of ways of increasing the weight of your expertise.
Like Larry, you can become an in-house resource. You can gain
influence within a professional organization. You can write articles. You can
talk with newspaper, magazine, newsletter, journal and website editors and set
yourself up as a source for stories related to your area of expertise. This
works particularly well after you've had an article or two published to heighten
your credibility. You can address local, regional or even national groups on
issues important to your industry.
The more of an expert you become, the more ways there are to
demonstrate your expertise.
You may need to be careful about this type of self promotion. If
you're working for yourself, it can be an effective, low cost way to gain a
great deal of visibility. In the corporate world, some companies will love it.
They'll write you up in their house organ and make you a local star. Others,
however, may be wary of a voice coming from inside the company they don't
control. And if they see you as a loose cannon, they’ll start looking for ways
to tie you down.
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© Copyright 2008 Barry Maher, Barry Maher
& Associates, Las Vegas, Nevada
