April 25, 2018

The Marketing Expertise Paradox

When you are in the business of selling your expertise, there’s an inherent paradox when it comes to marketing your services.

By definition, you know WAY more about your speciality than your clients do. Your clients don’t have your knowledge, understanding, and perspective - if they did, they wouldn’t need to hire you.

So...

How do you market yourself to people who don’t really even understand what you do?

How do you help them recognize that you have a valuable solution for them? Something for which they would happily pay you handsomely?

Here’s how you DON’T do it:

You don’t try to educate them about how you do what you do. You don’t try to explain to them how complex the problem domain is. You don’t try to impress upon them how hard you’re going to have to work to solve their problem. You don’t try to impress them with your patented proprietary process.

Here’s how you DO do it:

You get really good at listening to your client’s specific hopes, dreams, pains, and fears. You get really good at articulating the benefits of your products and services in your client’s own terms. You get really good at using stories and metaphors and anecdotes that resonate with your clients.

So...

Having a hard time marketing your expertise? Practice your listening skills and then use what you hear to improve your communication skills.

Yours,

—J

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