Are you good at what you do or are you great? Are you an expert in your profession? Are you in the top 100 in your field or the top 5 or 10?
Becoming an expert in what you do is important because it separates you from the pack. One of the ways that I became an expert is by reading tons and tons of books.
One of my favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell claims it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. That's around ten hours a day for one thousand days.
The point is simply that natural ability requires a huge investment time in order to be made. You have to become so good they can't ignore you. Malcolm emphasizes how you are using those two thousand hours is equally as important. He says you need to push yourself to the very limits of your first skill set to really, really expand into expertise.
How To Qualify As An Expert
We created a standard continuing education and even your hard won education and training, they don't qualify you as an expert.
Personally, I'm comfortable defining myself as an expert, especially in my real estate business. I worked in real estate for 19 years. I've sold over two thousand homes averaging 100 homes a year.
And even though I had all the experience, I still take a minimum of three to five, webinar classes a week. Some of the classes actually about the real estate business or the economy.
Others are about technology, marketing, social media, and digital marketing. This is so I can stay on the cutting edge of marketing.
You Have To Push Yourself
I push myself to take classes and read about the value, what I can offer for my clients. I was heading over to another out of town training about that, and my dad said to me, “Why do you do all these trainings, Krista? You're already in the top one percent nationally”. And I said, Dad, the whole reason why I'm in the top one percent nationally is that I'm doing all of these trainings.
I don't know if he got it, but the point is that you can never stop learning.
The second you stop learning is actually the second you lose your claim to be an authority and an expert in your field.
The world changes rapidly these days and you need to keep up with those changes to be an expert. This applies to any business, career, or profession that you can actually name. You can be the nicest person in the entire world, but the person your community will flock to is the one who has the expertise and who they see as the authority for your skill.
We all want to work with people that we like. But when it comes down to it, we want to work with dentists or a surgeon or even a manicurist based on their expertise, not just upon their personality, right?
Share Valuable Information
You have to become an expert to have valuable information to share with your clients and your thinking. Once you actually stop learning and educating yourself, you stop growing. Because I was an educator in the past, learning is my nature, so I love it.
But it doesn't mean it's actually easy for everyone. Right? For your or me.
I actually have a learning disability. I use tricks and acts, actually make it easier for me, so I'll enjoy it more. It's not easy for you. That's okay. Figure out a way to actually make it work.
Use audiobooks or download books. Listen to educational businesses, marketing books when you're getting ready for work in the morning. When you are making dinner listen to a podcast… at least that's what I do.
Don't Waste Time
I try not to waste any spare minute, even when I'm actually standing in line and waiting. And it helps me actually immensely. Every single business and profession has thousands, a thousand great resources for learning what is actually happening in their field or industry. Find yours.
That said, it's not enough to be an expert. You actually have to let everyone know that you're an expert. It's actually becoming the authority in your community so people know who you are.
The way you do that is by using your expertise to educate, enlighten, and give value and to people through engagement marketing.
Remember, since I've read so many books that have helped my career, I figured I would write some myself to actually help others. To learn about these topics and my books just visit www.KristaMashore.com/Books!
