Establishing Yourself As an Expert

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TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Next stop, let’s talk about establishing yourself as an expert. First off, let me just clear that up. What do you mean when you say you need to establish yourself as an expert?

Fred: Well, what I mean is in order for people to feel comfortable signing up, giving you money to attend one of your seminars or other events, they have to feel that you’re an expert. Now again this is a question of level of expertise. But it’s a lot easier for someone like say, Tony Robbins, to get people to show up at, you know, personal development seminars because he has established himself as one of the experts in that field by virtue of his notoriety and a lot of other things that we can talk about. So, establishing expertise is crucial to long term success in the seminar business.

Avish: Okay, got it. So, what do you mean by an expert? When I think of an expert sometimes or before I got your stuff, when I would think of expert, I would think of someone with a PhD or a medical degree or maybe someone who sold a bunch of bestsellers. So what exactly does it mean to be an expert?

Fred: Well, you know these days there’s a lot of components. But really I’m proud of the fact that I’m now, you know. And this is really some new information that I wouldn’t have talked about on many previous programs in this field. When I think of an expert these days, I think that if anybody listening to this program you included a vision, think about it. If somebody goes into Google and put some of the terms “information marketing” and click “go”, I come up number one. To me that is one of the ultimate determinants of expertise in the topic area. Because you know Google has basically given me their vote as the top expert in the field of Information Marketing. So I think to establish expertise in a field, getting yourself positioned in the top tiers in Google is crucial.

Avish: Okay, got it. Are there other ways? Let’s talk about how else. Well, I know that Search Engine Optimization is way out of the entire scope. So what are some of the ways that we can either get that Google positioning or establish ourselves as an expert?

Fred: Well, there’s really to over simplify it and again there are other programs on Search Engine Optimization that people can look at, and we can give them various tools to get to on that. But the basic thing is this, to set up a great authority website, to blog on a regular basis, to fill your website with great content.

And the other component is make sure you’ve got lots of inbound links coming into you about that particular topic. So, you know lots of great information audio, video, et cetera, posting on a regular basis and lots of people voting and saying that your website is good by having people who linked to you saying “Hey go to Fred’s site or Avish’s site it’s got really good stuff.”

Avish: Okay, so do you exact how the techniques could be a two or three day seminar and interview itself?

Fred: Yup.

Avish: But what you’re saying is it worth putting in the effort to get high ranking on your topic and your goal for the expertise?

Fred: A hundred percent.

Avish: Okay, so let’s say someone’s working on that. Is that all they should be doing or are there other ways they should be establishing their expertise?

Fred: No, I think there certainly more. I mean, one of the things is if your operating within an industry that has a trade publication, you know you should be writing articles for the trade publication. You should be speaking a trade show events in that industry. You should become as highly visible as you possibly can, using say press releases and other things to get out there and appearing in other venues other than you know within the trade publications and appearing at their events.

And certainly another thing you want to do is to get a book written on that particular topic. So we’ve covered a few of them there. But one is industry trade publication writing for them, speaking in industry events, getting coverage in the general press whether it’s you know New York Times or Wall Street Journal, those kinds of things. And also, writing a book. All of those elements will be crucial to establishing yourself as an expert.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to do all of that before you start creating and producing your seminars and other kinds of events. But it does mean that it will be a lot easier to get butts in seats once you have that expertise and you have it in spades.

Avish: Okay, I’d like to dig deeper on a couple of those, some of those — you know when you say it like that they sound very quick and easy, but I think it might be overwhelming to people. So, obviously if you have a book you know you then literally written the book on the topic. But one reason that creates you as an expert is because it seems so difficult to do. So, to the late person just listening to this program you know how complicated, difficult is it to write a book and get it out there?

Fred: Well, there are lots of steps involved and for people who are interested in learning more about that, if they go to my fredgleeck.com/ebooks, one of the books that I give away there is the book on publishing that gives you all of the tips and techniques on how to do that process. So I would direct them to that because again that is in itself another you know one or two day seminar on publishing and putting together writing, publishing and producing your book. Yes, it is a very important and essential ingredient but for more information on that, that’s where they should go.

Avish: Okay. Do you have any additional tips on generating publicity, because obviously people see you all over the place and then you’re used to getting coverage you look like an expert. Are there ways, simple ideas that you have about doing that?
Fred: You know again I don’t mean to keep referring people to other places to get this information but again the topic of press and publicity is a very, very you know detailed process. We have, one of our partners, Burke Allen, who runs publicityseminar.com can give people a lot more information on this topic. And we actually put together a multi-step program.

But I don’t mean to sound like I’m selling people additional stuff. It’s certainly possible for anybody to go to Google and put in there “getting free publicity” or “generating free publicity.” And looking at all, there are tons of different ways to do this. One of the many ways is obviously to create and issue press releases. You can take a look at resource something like prweb.com that will help you on that. And those are the things that you’re going to want to do. But again it’s much outside the scope of this particular program to be given an entire presentation on publicity. And I don’t mean to be skirting the issue here but I just think it’s too big a topic.

Avish: Got it. Okay, any other tips or ideas about establishing yourself as an expert?

Fred: Well if you think about it, I do think that the one thing you haven’t asked me further questions on, is the idea of speaking, getting a gig at the industry trade publication or speaking at industry events. That’s a little bit — I can give you a little bit more specifics on that.

The best way to do it is, now it’s easier if you already have the book out. If you contact the editor of the trade publication that you like to write for, and you were to say to them “Hey I just release a book on blah, blah, blah… I’d like to write articles for you concerning marketing of blah…” whatever it is, whatever your topic is for that industry. It’s going to be easier to get yourself either a one time or a regular writing gig in trade publications doing that. Also, if you have established some other expertise like the book and things like that, it’s going to be easier for you to be picked up as a speaker.

What you going to want to do is to contact some of the organizers of the trade publications in your field, of the trade events I should say, the trade events that have regular meetings and see when is the next time that they’re doing one. And ask them how you can get, put your name into the hopper for being one of the speakers of that event. S o that’s one of the things you can do to establish expertise that is relatively simple and straight forward if you’re listening to the program.

Avish: Okay. And submitting articles to a trade publication and speaking at some of those trade events?

Fred: Yup.

Avish: Okay, sounds great Fred.

Fred: Perfect.