EXPERT OR AUTHORITY?

I have some questions for you:

Do you consider yourself to be an expert? If so, how did you become an expert? How long did it take you and what did it cost you? Not just in actual dollars, but how much did it cost you in time and effort on your way to becoming an expert? How would you define your expertise? How narrow or broad is it? And what has being an expert done for you in your life and business? 

The last question I’ll ask you is this: If you consider yourself an expert, do you also consider yourself an authority, and do you know the difference?

Expert or authority? That’s the question we’re pondering in this week’s episode is whether or not you should be an expert or an authority and what the differences are. I’ll save you the time and hassle if you don’t want to listen all the way through the show and give you the answer right now. 

The answer to this question is that you should be an authority, plain and simple. I’ll go a step further, actually, and say that I believe you NEED to become an authority if you want to make more money, have more success, and more freedom to choose what you do with your time, life, and energy. 

There you go! Was that helpful for you? Of course not, because you need to know a little more about what the differences are, why they matter, and how to achieve authority status over simply expert status. 

So, let’s start out by first talking about the initial set of questions I asked, which was all about you being an expert. How do we define what an expert is and how do we know expertise when we see it?

Quite simply, an expert is typically someone who has acquired an extensive body of knowledge and experience in a particular field, industry, or area of study. They’re typically some of the most informed folks on their area of expertise and they typically, although not always, have some additional credentials, degrees, and/or designations that the non-expert has. They’ve poured extensive time, energy, and usually financial resources into becoming an expert, which is why it’s impossible to become an expert overnight. Experience is usually one of the factors that allows one to call themselves, or be called by others, an expert, and experience takes time.

As many of you know, I’ve always said, and I still stand by this thinking, that you don’t really get to call yourself an expert. You can say that you have acquired some expertise in a particular area, but to be called an expert, it’s typically best to let others do that for you based on your knowledge, your experience, and your work. It’s far more powerful and meaningful when somebody else recognizes your expertise than when you call yourself an expert, even when it might be deserved.

One small, but not insignificant, quality that I believe experts need to have to qualify for expert status, is their ability to communicate and articulate their knowledge in whatever field or area they have expertise in. 

If you can’t communicate or articulate to others the knowledge and experience you’ve invested your time, life, and resources in gaining, you’re not an expert no matter how loudly or angrily you exclaim your status. In fact, I’ll go so far as to state that I believe the ability to communicate well and articulate your knowledge to others to be more important than the degrees, credentials, and designations. We all know true experts in the appraisal field that have zero additional credentials or designations beyond their level of licensing granted by the State. 

Conversely, we probably also all know somebody with almost every credential offered by the various organizations that are not great representatives of the credentials and degrees because they suck at communication. Quite often, in fact, these people fall into what is often called the ‘expert’ or ‘expertise trap’, which is where the so-called expert essentially stops growing and learning because they believe they’ve already arrived.

The expertise trap is characterized by a very black and white view of the world, of your industry, and of right and wrong. There is no place for middle ground when you’re stuck in the expertise trap because that would entail an uncomfortable admission that maybe you don’t know everything. “If you don’t know everything, how could you possibly be an expert”; is what your mind says when it encounters a challenge to your expertise.

There’s a saying I heard once while traveling through the south: ‘you can’t read the label while you’re sitting in the jar’. It’s the goldfish concept. The goldfish has no concept of itself or life outside the fishbowl. If you’re so smart and experienced that you can never see any middle ground in the areas or field you’re an expert in, you’re sitting in the jar!

By the way, I’m not knocking the pursuit of expertise or additional credentials and degrees. Education is education. However, something I consider to possibly be more important than expertise is what we’ll call authority.

What is authority in this context? An authority is somebody who likely has expertise, but also influence. An expert has knowledge and experience, but maybe zero influence. An expert must continue working in their field of expertise, while an authority can start to expand beyond their field of expertise and into other areas and fields because of their influence. 

An expert likely has to continue to chase down new clients and customers, or continuously gain more expertise to remain relevant if they work for somebody else. An authority, while not necessarily an expert, is the go-to person in their field and has clients and customers lined up outside their door wanting to do business with them. An authority will almost always reach more people, have a greater impact on people, be seen as trusted advisor, and quite simply be able to generate more income from their influence and authority status than the expert.

As an authority, at some point your expertise doesn’t matter all that much, while, if you’re an expert, that’s all that matters! Expertise is largely stored up information from the past, coupled with some kind of experience (maybe theoretical, maybe real world), which means experts tend to not think about or focus on the future. All of the steps on the path that have led to their expertise have occurred in the past. That’s not to say that experts aren’t always updating their knowledge and experience, it’s just that the vast majority or what makes them an expert is from the past. Everything that makes them an expert is based on the past, with no guarantees of remaining an expert in the future as things change. What this means is that many experts lack vision, they lack the ability to think outside the box of their expertise and are rarely risk takers. 

One of the interesting aspects of this expertise conundrum is something called the Shirky Principle. The Shirky Principle says, in essence, that the expert has a vested interest in seeing things remain the same so as to remain an expert in that domain. It might all be subconscious on the part of the expert, but it’s a natural part of arriving somewhere after a long arduous journey of gathering credentials, degrees, and experience. 

Of course, the Shirky Principle can be a very conscious effort to keep things the same as well. Think defense contractors being motivated to have the world in constant conflict. Think cell phone and laptop makers being motivated to have their hardware slow down and become obsolete over time so that you always have to update and upgrade. Think managers and employees of an organization making sure they never truly solve the problem lest they work themselves out of a job. Think personal trainer never wanting you to really get in shape, or a therapist never really wanting you to solve your internal issues lest you leave them as a client.

Yes, friends, it’s a real thing! Part of the trap of expertise is that some part of the expert hopes things never really change that much or they’ll have to keep gaining new information and experience to remain an expert. Experts tend to crave certainty, yet certainty is not compatible with risk taking, nor with taking your life and business to the highest levels. 

So, what’s the antidote to this expert trap? Friends, it’s to become an authority instead. An authority is visible, recognized, revered, remembered, respected, and authentic. An authority doesn’t feel the need to have answers to every question or problem because the authority is known for finding the answers, instead of always having them.

Do you need to be an expert before becoming an authority? Well, most people who understand this topic of expertise will tell you, yes! you have to be an expert first before becoming an authority. But, I say, no!, you do not have to become an expert first before becoming an authority in an area or field.

I believe you have to have a really good understanding of your area and field of knowledge and, more importantly, you have to have the kind of vocabulary and articulation skills that allow you to communicate your knowledge and information to the masses in a way that makes the information digestible and useful to your clients and customers. To be an authority, you don’t necessarily need to be able to explain physics to 5^th graders, but the person who can would certainly be considered an authority, even if they’re not an expert in physics. 

So that I end this episode with some emphasis on why I believe it’s so important to become an authority in your field or industry, let’s do some easy comparisons so that you get the picture on the differences between an expert and an authority. Before we do, let me just say again, I am not telling you not to gain expertise, additional or advanced credentials and degrees, and lots of experience and knowledge. What I am saying is that, should you find yourself in the conundrum of expertise and wanting to move out of it and into higher levels of income and opportunity, becoming an authority is the direction and focus one should be aiming for.

So, what are some of the differences between an expert and an authority? Experts aren’t always clear on how to frame their expertise outside of their field or industry. In essence, an expert appraiser doesn’t know how to express to people outside her industry why and how her knowledge and experience can be valuable to them as well. Authorities are super clear! They know who they are, who their ideal clients and customers are, who they serve and who they don’t serve, why they do what they do, and the ultimate value they deliver, and they know how to articulate that value to a wide variety of people and domains.

Experts, of course, have very deep knowledge and experience in their industry and may actually influence their client’s actions. However, an authority’s influence expands beyond their narrow client base to a larger community of key persons of influence within their field, other related fields, and even the media.

Experts are typically always having to continue searching for new customers and clients to express their expertise to. The authority isn’t constantly on the hunt for potential clients, because clients tend to be seeking them out instead.

Experts aren’t always interested in connecting or communicating outside of what is essential for their normal daily work. Authorities, on the other hand, are focused on their bigger mission and on serving the tribe, and they know that communicating with and engaging people is part of that bigger mission. Keep in mind, without other people, neither the expert nor the authority has any real purpose. Having influence with a wide variety of people is a hallmark of the authority.

While an expert may write blogs, make some videos, host or guest on a podcast, and/or do some public speaking to help them attract clients, authorities make content a priority knowing that their expertise only influences a relative few, while their authority helps them expand that to a much wider circle of influence.

Experts tend to be comfortable in their little area of expertise. They may not reach outside of their comfort zone to become known and visible beyond their narrow client base. Authorities, however, know the value of positioning and that they must position themselves amongst a wider demographic. That’s why content is so important and valuable to an authority. It helps them become known and have influence beyond their narrow industry.

Experts naturally build businesses that depend on their influence within the narrow realm of their day-to-day experience. Authorities create the freedom to build a business (or businesses) that best matches their unique abilities.

Experts typically have only themselves to rely on for income since expertise is, by its very nature, all about that one individual. The expertise is contained within them, and their income relies on them constantly deploying that expertise. Authorities have the ability to transfer authority and influence onto others that work for them.

The bottom line, friends, is that if you want to start to divorce your time from your income, create a more sustainable future, blast wide open the opportunity for more income and more influence, I would urge you to really study up on these differences between being an expert and being an authority and decide which path you feel is right for you.

If you want help in figuring out which path is for you, or how to become an authority, just reach out and let’s jump on a call. It costs you nothing. If you want to go deeper on this topic, if you want to see the video skill session version of this episode that I did for the Appraiser Increase Academy, just go to www.coachblaine.com/freemonth and give the Increase Academy a try free for a full 30 days. You’ll be surrounded by a pretty significant group of other appraisers, almost all of whom are working on being authorities, not just experts. www.coachblaine.com/freemonth to try it out completely risk free for a whole month.

Until I see you over in the Increase Academy or until next week, I’m out…