Recognized Expert Status by Scott A. Gardner
Add a tool to your marketing that can leverage your efforts to exponential heights. This book introduces Recognized Expert Status, and the benefits it can bring you.
Inside you’ll learn about:
* Expert Proof Materials and why you need them
* Why you need an effective public relations plan
* The 5 main RecEx Principles
* The 7 action items for kickstarting your RecEx Status
* And more!
Excerpt:
"Once you've defined your target market, you'll use your marketing efforts to put yourself in front of them. Many people, however, don't fit into neat categories. They often don't do what others expect them to do, don't consume the same media others with the same interests do. You want to put yourself and your business in places where you'll be “tripped over” by people – places they don't expect to find you. This will help you find and connect with the market outliers.
The field of public relations now includes outlets like social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc,), blogs, as well as traditional and new news media. There are companies large and small that will help put you and your company in front of the public. I won't say you don't need one of these experts to help you. You may. Regardless, you need to understand a bit about the process.
There are many ways to get your message tripped over, many ways to get yourself found. The most basic is the media release. This is a news item sent out to targeted outlets. Many people will tell you that “news is not PR,” and they're right. A news item details an important current happening. It doesn't cover persistent conditions of your business. It covers one current happening, sometimes topically and other times in depth, depending on the medium.
You can also write articles about your niche, and even opinion pieces that reach beyond your target market. You can participate in interviews that are recorded in text, audio, or on video and broadcast in various media. If you can, make sure that digital copies of these are archived on the Internet so that people doing searches can stumble across them.
You can make guest posts on other peoples' blogs, and contribute to discussions happening in various social media.
As with your other marketing efforts, the object of public relations is to promote you and your business in the best light. In this case you're moving beyond your industry and target market to place yourself in front of the general public.
You want to earn recognition from the media and other institutions as an expert in your field. This will help you earn RecEx Status from others.
Public relations is key to acquiring RecEx Status. I'll say it again: if you have expertise and no one knows it, are you really an expert?
All the effort you are putting in on PR is to bring you and your business to top-of-mind so that people will recognize you for your expertise, and recommend you to others..."
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About Scott A. Gardner
Scott Gardner is the founder of boutique firm Agile' Marketing Services, LLC. They specialize in working with their clients to become Recognized Experts, and using that status to leverage the clients' marketing efforts. Scott has worked with clients large and small, local and international in focus. Currently, Agile' is working with clients as diverse as local restaurants, a mystery novelist, and an international group serving the nuclear power plant industry.
Scott is also a 3rd degree black belt in traditional Okinawan Goju-ryu karate-do, awarded to him through Seibukai International based in Okinawa City, Okinawa, Japan. He teaches and trains at Central New York Karate in East Syracuse, NY.
His training in karate has reinforced Scott's belief in "the basics." He works with his clients on executing all the small, important steps in order to build a solid foundation for future success.
Author Interview
What is a Recognized Expert?
When people go looking for a product or service, they're often confronted with lists of people or companies that may or may not provide the solutions they're looking for. They're then faced with somehow deciding which of these providers is the correct choice. What do many people do? They ask their friends and family for recommendations. Most of the time, the mere recommendation is the only research we do to find a solution provider.
So how does a business person get to be the solution provider being recommended? By having the qualifications - the experience, certifications and testimonials - that set them apart from the competition. They can publicly prove their expertise in a number of ways. People see these proof materials, and recognize them for the experts that they are. They are granted Recognized Expert Status by the public.
How does building that status help a business person?
In running a business, we spend a lot of our resources - time, money and materials - drumming up new business. We go looking for a pool of prospects, spend time qualifying them, and then try to convince them to do business with us. RecEx Status helps to turn this process on it's head. When your expertise goes out before you, and you have an entire staff of what are essentially unpaid salespeople promoting you, your products or your services, you can shift those extra resources to developing a higher quality solution for your clients. This is the start of an upward spiral. The better of a solution you provide, the more people will recommend you.
What is a position, and why is it important?
Let's take fast food as an example. You're driving, you're hungry, and there are a ton of options. Do you want to drive through some place? Pull up and be waited on? Get out of your car and go in? A given fast food restaurant can set themselves apart with the way they service drivers. Does a place specialize in burgers, or maybe chicken? That's another way they can move away from the competition.
Think about strictly burger joints. There's the place with flame broiled patties, the place with square patties, the place with the free toppings bar, the place with the clown. Each of these is a differentiation, a position in the mind of the pool of consumers.
You want to have a set of perceived qualities that sets you apart from any competition in the minds of your clients and prospects. You want to build a position that says, "When you come to us for a solution, this is what you can expect."
What are Expert Proof Materials?
EPM are the products you create that establish your expertise in a given subject. Say you clean rugs for a living. Your EPM might include a booklet you've written on the value of properly maintaining high-end rugs and carpets, along with certification in proper cleaning techniques by the manufacturer of high-end carpets. It might also include blog posts on your web site, along with video testimonials from satisfied customers.
In short, it's anything you can produce that demonstrates your qualifications to be called an expert on a given topic.
Why is Public Relations important?
You can be the world's most qualified person at something, but if no one knows about it, then are you really an expert?
The field of Public Relations helps you establish a dialog with your clients, prospective clients and the public in general. This is different from advertising! An advertisement says, "I am this, we can do X for you." We all know that anyone can buy an ad, and you can claim almost anything in an ad. But news stories about one of your accomplishments, or a op-ed where you put forth an opinion, or a series of blog posts. . . these connect you with your audience the way an advertisement never will.
The public can learn more about you and your services this way as well. It will help people "trip over" you, finding solutions for problems they might not even have known they had.
Can you explain some of the Recognized Expert principles?
They say "Familiarity breeds contempt." What this means in our context is, if anyone can get hold of you at any time, they won't value you very highly. So as a Recognized Expert, we suggest you establish restricted access. Hire a receptionist to screen your calls, and perhaps limit the times and days when you speak with clients and prospects. This restricted access leads directly to exclusivity. Perhaps your staff deals with 90% of your prospects and clients, and only the remaining 10% have access to you. When you give a talk or presentation, you're not on for the entire program, but are featured as a special guest. You're able to charge big money for one-on-one consultations.
When people do research on you, they run across certifications you hold. These might be diplomas from colleges, or certification in higher training from trade groups. They might even be licenses to practice issued by the government.
Once they meet with you, they should be able to look around and see the trappings of your profession. If you're a doctor, you're probably wearing a white coat and have appropriate medical equipment nearby. If you're a lawyer, you have law books. If you're a travel expert, you've got exotic souvenirs in your office. People can see that you're an expert because you look like one.
Why did you write this book?
Recognized Expert Status was written as a response to the questions I got from prospects and friends. It's a brief explanation of what we help our clients become, and why. Agile' is a boutique agency; that is, we work with a few clients at a time, and provide each one with top flight services. So realistically, we can't work with everyone who comes to us.
This book is a way of providing them with quality tools so that they can begin the process of developing RecEx Status themselves. It's meant to be both an introduction to the Status, and a springboard to developing it. It's short enough to work through quickly, and we back it up with a companion web site - www.ProfitAsAnExpert.com - that offers more in-depth education and training.
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