You are an expert.

Now, how do you sell your expertise?

Monetize your specialty and create a sustainable business to share your talents and help improve the quality of your life and the lives of those in your community.

You do this by creating brand with a platform for your business. It will enable you to stand out from the crowd and become #1 in your field. Here are the four primary ingredients to create your platform. After you have a platform, then you will want to set up a marketing strategy and grow your business. With customer acquisition and increase sales revenue, you will then have the opportunity to manage your business for a profit and scale it upwards to your heart’s desire.

A Platform To Sell Your Expertise

Create a platform using these four ingredients and build a business based upon your expertise.

Booklet

This could be a small booklet or an e-book. Create content relating to your expertise that you can use as a bonus hand-out during guest appearances and small speaking engagements. You can also use the material in an e-book PDF file which you can offer as a free download on your website to encourage newsletter or email list sign-ups.

Make sure the content is valuable information and includes usable tips that can benefit your target audience. You don’t need to provide all the “how-to’s” and you should focus on the “what’s and why’s” of your subject that will encourage your readers to want more information or services from you.

A small booklet can be more effective than a full-color brochure and may even cost less to produce. It also establishes your “authority” on the subject matter. You are now officially an author and an expert on whatever your expertise is demonstrated in your booklet. Get booked to speak in front of as many groups as you can and leave behind your booklet with each audience member. You should include some sort of “call to action” on the last page of your booklet that will lead to further engagement with your prospective clients or referral associates.

Book

Ultimately you will want to self-publish your book to establish yourself as the primary authority on your expertise. If you do it right, someday a major publisher may offer to re-publish your book on a royalty arrangement.

In my humble opinion, the tools for self-publishing are so readily available today that you should be your own publisher. You can make good money in back-room sales and other sales methods by controlling your print and distribution costs. Evaluate the cost and ROI of self-publishing if you are primarily using your book as a lead-generating tool.

If you don’t know where to start and want to learn all the how-to’s of self-publishing, I would like to suggest my book publishing coach, Patrick Snow. He offers various affordable programs for the do-it-yourself-ers. One friend of mine, took his training and went from start to finished book release in 90 days. He then had a high quality, authoritative book to use in generating paid speaking engagements and new clients.

Product

A product or service offering is your primary credential for your expertise. All of your book promotion efforts will lead new clients to to you by creating great “word of mouth” buzz.

My product offering is primarily education and training which I offer through workshops and webinars. I’ve observed many people take my “how-to” classes and then decide they want me to “do it for them”. Naturally, I offer that additional service either from me or outsourced to previous students of mine.

Products and services are the mainstay of your business, while your booklet, book, and blog are marketing tools to drive traffic to your business.

Blog

Blogging is one of the easiest and best ways to market your subject and yourself in the New Media Reality. Over time you will attract followers that relate to your subject or niche. They will become fans and members of your mailing list. Even if they never become a client, they will become a referral associate telling others about you and your services.

One of the best fans of your Blog will be the search engines like Google. If you make regular postings, Google will “crawl and index” your blog daily so people will be able to find you through Internet searches. This effort will bring you very targeted traffic and new connections if you learn how to write to both live and digital readers.

There are, of course, other ingredients that can support your business platform. Join me on my Weekly Sales Call for more discussion and ideas.