Are You a Jack of All Trades or Master of One? | Authority Positioning By Staying In Your Lane Of Expertise

Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, Authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.

Hey guys, Mike Saunders, the Authority positioning coach, bringing you another segment of the Art of Authority. Hey, listen, I just recently had a new piece published on Forbes and I thought I would talk through it because it really does have a really powerful message in it. Of course I would say that it's my piece, but it's called authority positioning by staying in your lane of expertise. And kind of the subtitle is, would you rather be perceived as a jack of all trades or a master of one? So I think that's so many times we hear that. And I found myself in my own practice years ago falling into just doing anything for anybody at any time regarding marketing. You know, oh, you need text message marketing, I'll do it. And then I scrambled to find a text message marketing platform and set it up. And it was just really running around in circles because I would get just a small smattering of clients that needed that before I'd find some other shiny object and try to deliver that to that new small group of clients. Until I discovered that I need to focus and I selected authority positioning as my area of expertise. And you need to really keep this in mind because, you know, what I found was authority positioning is really a wonderful way to bring brand recognition to yourself. It really shows off your expertise to a couple different people. Number one, your current customers and number two, your target audience that you'd like to convert. And when you share your industry, know how with the public or with your target audience, it helps them realize and recognize the value of your services. Now why would that be? Because normally you would think, well, the value of my service is on my website, on my sales page, or on my flyer that I hand out. But that's a, that's a sales piece and they know that, right? You, you know as well as I do that when we see sales pieces with the big headlines and the buy now and the deadline and the coupon and the, you know, scarcity, that does work. Statistically, we know that works. But we want to rise above that. We want to distance ourselves from our competition that is doing that approach in marketing. And we want to take that 30,000 foot view, that blue ocean strategy, and we want to be the person that is becoming that educator and advocate for the success of our cl. And when we can do that, we're using authority positioning. But here's something really interesting that I said in the article. Not everything you know counts as authority positioning, because for authority positioning to work, people need only one or two subjects to consider you as a leading authority. And if you try to represent too many skills, your true ability and the respect it should earn will get lost in the noise. Let me say that again because it's super important for authority positioning to work. People need only one or two subjects so that they consider you as the leading authority. Because if you try to represent too many skills, your true ability and the respect it should earn will get lost in the noise. So again, would you rather be perceived as a jack of all trades or a master of one? And when it comes to digital marketing, as an example, getting views is not enough. You know, if you put your service or your product out there on, you know, online social media and in the digital world, right, getting views is not enough. You know, the impressions, the views, watching the video on YouTube, it's not enough. Your marketing efforts do not stop when someone reads the article or watches the video that you post. This is only the beginning. And if that person, that viewer, clicks away to another site, you've not gained anything. And that's a huge piece. So many people are looking at these metrics, and I've heard it called vanity metrics. Ooh, look at how many views my YouTube video got. So what? The rubber meets the road. When you start engaging with people, when you start getting people to understand what you have in mind for them as their advocate in their success, solving their problems, problem. Because really, when it comes down to it, they don't care about you, your background, your success, your achievements, your family. They don't care about any of that. And I know that there's times that they do. But the point I'm making here is guess what? They do care about themselves and solving the problem that they're going through right now, whatever that is. And you better be dialed into that problem so that you can present your solution as the viable, wonderful choice for solving that problem so that they clearly understand that. And when it's just like in a whole litany of bullet points, like, oh, when our Firm specializes in 19 bullet points, it's going to get lost in the noise. You see where I'm going with this? So this authority positioning allows you to put your content to work and engage your target audience because it offers them useful information and accurate information. So they'd be like, think of this. What are some unique aspects of your product or service that you can go deeper on to educate them about. Okay, so let's think about just something about. Think of your, your main product or service. What is something unique? Now think hard because you may not think something is unique about it. And guess how you can determine what is unique about your product or service. Ask, send, send a quick email to a few of your clients. Hey, just a quick question here. Help me out. Why did you choo myself and this product or service? You know, what was it that when you, right when you made that decision, what, what was it that made you choose this? And listen to what they have to say. And I'll bet that you'll find one or two points that you go, you know what, that's, that's interesting. I know about that, but that's neat. I'm hearing this recurring theme. So when you can go deeper on some unique aspect of your product or service that shows that to your target audience that you have that industry knowledge in a really unique way. Because you can now talk through that. Your articles, your videos, maybe if you have a podcast or maybe you don't have a podcast, which you should by the way. And maybe you're just looking to get on podcast shows now you can make sure you weave that into your interview. Okay? So knowledge is wonderful. Sharing it with your customers and leads is even better. So remember to keep your authority positioning efforts precisely and to the point. Don't jump from topic to topic. You know, be that authority in your field, but keep that recurring theme going and you know, with respect to keeping things simple and clear. The more you can make your point easy to understand while at the same time giving the audience a chance to implement it, the more your message is understood. Let me give the perfect example. How would you explain your product or service in a 10 second, you know, sound bite or elevator speech or unique selling proposition, whatever you want to call it, right? So 10 seconds, boom. How would you explain your product or service if you stood up in front of a leads group at your local, you know, networking club? Think about, and hopefully right now your mind is going into, you know, present, present mode. What would you say? Now think of that statement and think of your 10 year old daughter, niece, nephew, some relative that comes to you and says, hey, what do you do it for? Your job? How would you explain your job to them? Would it be using those same words? And I think that if you were to write down how you would explain your product or service to that leads group and then think about how you would explain it to your 10 year old relative, I think it would be different because I think that you would be able to or you would find yourself compelled to making things a little bit more simple and concise and clear and maybe explaining something in a different way without using jargon, without using the cliche words that we hear all the time in business. Right. So should you present your business every single time like you would present it to a 10 year old? I'm not saying that. But guess what, maybe it should be a little bit in the middle. Maybe you should write down that, that little unique selling proposition phrase as you would deliver it to your networking group and then write down the version for the 10 year old and then take elements of each and make, make the the middle ground. And if you would do that exercise, I think you will find your messaging clear up. So I think that's a really, really big thing to keep in mind. And you know, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna close with that because I like to make sure that I am keeping my messages and my helpful hints and tips for you easily relatable and implementable. So that last exercise that I just mentioned, please do it. And I really would encourage you to post it up on Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter and tag me on, on that post I want to hear what you said, tag me on that and say wow, you know, hopefully you're gonna say that, but I wrote down my, you know, elevator speech, my 10 second unique selling proposition as I as it relates to presenting it to a networking group. And then I wrote it down as if I was giving it to a 10 year old relative. I found the difference and I made the middle ground. And here's what I do for my target audience and my Tag me in that. I would love to see it. And until next time, remember, building your authority is your number one priority. Make it a great day.

You've been listening to the Art of Authority podcast. Are you interested in building your authority positioning as the number one strategy to grow your business, brand and influence? Book your authority audit today. The seven point audit of your current authority position will uncover opportunities and show you how to be seen as a leading expert and authority your industry looks to. For advice, visit www.awarenesspositioningcoach.com.