Positioning yourself as an expert is a great way to build rapport with prospective customers. It proves you know your stuff (at least, in your industry).

And when potential customers see that you understand their problems — and have solutions — they’re much more likely to buy your product or service.

Most SMBs provide solutions and products that customers in their industry need. But how exactly do you position yourself as an industry expert?

Let’s find out.

1. Understand your audience and their challenges.

Before selling your first product or service, you need to understand your audience first. But here's what you need to focus on: their problems.

Truth bomb: most customers, readers, and listeners care more about their challenges than who you actually are. AKA, your credentials and expertise. And that means if you want to grab their attention, you need to understand what they’re going through first. 

To do that, start by creating a target audience profile. 

Creating a target audience profile

A target audience profile describes the type of person who needs your expertise. It includes key personal details like age, gender, or location. 

It can also describe the person’s background or everyday experiences. But most importantly, it helps identify their challenges or problems. 

That way, you can speak directly to your audience and connect with them on relevant issues. Then, you can position yourself as an expert by offering solutions.  

Here are a few questions to help define your target audience:

• Who exactly are you speaking to (gender, age, background, etc.)? 
• What common obstacles do they face? 
• What solutions do they need?

By knowing the answers to these questions, you can more accurately paint a picture of who you’re speaking to (whether in blogs, contributing articles, webinars, or podcasts). And because you’re focused on topics that matter to your audience, you’re much more likely to engage them. 

Example target audience profile

Let's say your business services the restaurant industry. But more specifically, restaurant owners. According to statistics, they’re typically males (52.4%). And the average age of a restaurant owner is 38 years old. 

When you look at their everyday problems, you might consider the recent labor shortage or high employee turnover. You could also assume they’re struggling to meet changing CDC rules for COVID. Or the increasing prices of goods due to inflation and supply-chain issues. 

Now it’s time to offer them solutions. For example, maybe you have a process for attracting and keeping talent. You could also provide a plan that addresses changing safety precautions. Or, you could offer a formula for adjusting food prices as supply costs fluctuate. 

To position yourself as an expert, you have to establish authority. And the best way to do that is to understand your target audience, their problems, and how exactly to solve them. 

2. Offer free content that gives results.

Your website is usually the first point of interaction with prospective customers. It’s an excellent opportunity to build trust and rapport with your visitors by providing free, valuable information on your website. AKA, content that solves common problems and offers expert insight. 

Trainual is a perfect example of this. They provide their customers (small business leaders) with tons of free content that benefits their business — from in-depth articles and podcasts to webinars and free templates for your business playbook. Trainual calls this part of their website the “Learn” section (instead of a blog). Which is a great way to highlight the helpful information that lives there. 

Plus, regularly publishing evergreen content — or, copy that stays relevant to readers for years to come — helps boost your website's ranking in search results. They've evergreen because the topics are typically timeless and not associated with recent events or news. 

As a result, evergreen content stays “fresh” for new readers. And because its search traffic grows over time, it continues to bring in more visitors (AKA prospective buyers) who have the potential to build a relationship with you and your brand.

Let's say you sell a stock trading course. You might considering writing a fundamental guide on trading basics as evergreen content because the information is useful far beyond the publishing date. 

You could also write about something that happened in the news or at an event. Like, “Why AMC Stock Jumped 40%” or “How Record-Breaking Days Affect Your Trades.” 

While this timely content might lose relevance and traffic within a few weeks, it still sets you up as a thought leader in the industry. And readers will come back to you looking for more.

The length of content also matters. A blog post should contain at least 300 words in order to rank well in the search engines. But long posts (1000 words or more) will rank more easily than short posts. And according to Hubspot, articles longer than 2,250 words gain more organic traffic than shorter posts.

But that doesn’t mean you should make every blog post that long. After all, some pieces of content (like list posts or case studies) don’t have much detail, making it challenging to write a lengthy feature. So you’ll want to use discretion when deciding the length of each post.

How to craft content and evergreen examples

When it comes to crafting any piece of content, you can follow a pretty basic formula:

1. State the problem. Use research and stats to show the problem exists.
   
   
2. Offer a solution. Provide a solution that gives results.
   
   
3. Create a demand. Offer a bonus for signing up today (free trial, video, white paper, etc.).

Of course, you can go outside this format and still create valuable content. But if you're facing writer's block, it's a great starting point — especially when your Google or Word doc has been sitting blank for a while.

Here are some examples of evergreen content:

List posts

Sometimes referred to as listicles, a list post is an article written in a list format. Whether it’s “10 Ways To Make Money Trading Stocks” or “5 Tips for Making the Entrepreneurial Leap,” it’s the easiest type of evergreen content to write. 

Guides 

Guides or how-to posts can help readers address common problems they face. Typically, this type of content is long-form and covers a lot of detail in one post. Some examples might include “How To Franchise Your Restaurant” or “Employee Training: an A to Z Guide.”

Interviews

Interviews are a smart way to collaborate with other industry experts or team up and listen to someone from your target audience. Either way, they're a great way to show your industry insight. And when your interviewee shares your content, you also get access to a whole new audience of prospective readers. 

3. Look for opportunities to share your expertise.

Once you have a stockpile of valuable content, it’s time to publish it on as many platforms as possible. First stop: your website. But there are a ton of other options for your content.

You can participate in an industry-specific trade organization that aligns with your audience. First, sign up and attend any relevant events. Then, after building a small network, ask to be a guest speaker or write articles for their publication. 

There are also hundreds of online publications that'll accept your article. Forbes, WIRED, or Medium are some of the more popular ones. Just make sure your piece is unique, research-backed, and follows the publication’s guidelines. 

You can also answer industry-related questions on Quora, a website where people can ask questions on any topic and receive answers from others. 

Another possibility: consider collaborating with other experts or industry influencers. That way, you both get access to a new audience while potentially learning something new from a fellow expert. For instance, you can host a podcast together, run a live webinar, or create an online course. You can also opt to put on a virtual conference or simply post a guest blog on their website. The options for collaboration are there.

Finally, you should reach out to your community through local press outlets. Start by finding out who your local reporters are and what beat they cover. Then, pitch yourself in a news story when it’s relevant. For example, if you sell stress management services, you might pitch a story on ways to stay grounded during the holiday season. Remember: make it a news story first (and a sales pitch last). But don’t worry — your mere presence on local media will likely boost sales.

4. Ask for testimonials or case studies.

Once you’ve served a handful of clients or customers, getting a testimonial or writing up a case study is the easiest way to position yourself as an expert. And all you have to do is reach out and ask for one. 

Showcase your testimonials wherever customers find you — whether it’s on the homepage of your website or in the bio section of your social media channels. And if you put them in several spots, be sure to use unique testimonials for each one (unless that’s not possible).

When you receive a testimonial, you’ll want to make it web-ready before you publish it. That means cleaning it up and making it concise. 

For instance, let’s say you got received this testimonial for your stock trading course:

“This course changed the way I traded stocks, and it changed it for the better. I learned so many key concepts about trading, how to trade more profitably, and unique insights I’ve never heard before. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to be the best stock trader.”

To make it web-ready, pull out the most important details. Then, eliminate any unnecessary or repetitive language. Finally, make it easy to read quickly:

“This course changed the way I trade stocks. I learned key concepts, how to trade more profitably, and received unique insights I’d never heard before.”

Just be sure you don’t change the subject or bulk of the testimonial. Otherwise, you’ll need to get a sign off from the client (for the changes) before you publish it.

In addition to testimonials, you can also write up case studies for your website. Case studies share your customers’ stories, experiences, and results. They typically provide a quick background on the problem customers faced before finding your product. Then, they offer industry insight into specific solutions and provide corresponding results. 

5. Be yourself and believe in your message.

The most important way to position yourself as an expert is to be yourself. That might sounds cliche (it is), but nevertheless true. It’s easy to compare your work to others and feel like you have to say something new. Especially when you want to be considered an expert. 

But the truth is, all you have to do is share what you know. Be yourself and share your expertise authentically. Incorporate your experiences into your content. Infuse your voice into everything you make. And be sincere with helping your audience thrive. 

Naturally, people will become interested in what you’re saying (because they likely can relate). They’ll come back again and again for your advice. And, as a result, they'll become your raving fans and (hopefully) loyal customers.

Even if you aren't the most outstanding expert in your field, you can be the most accessible. And that starts with making challenging concepts easy to understand. 

So, whatever you communicate with your audience, share it like you’re talking to a friend. Use words you’d typically bring up in conversation and avoid any jargon (or at least explain it whenever you use it). 

Also, keep sentences short and paragraphs brief. But most importantly, write as you speak (AKA authentically) and give plenty of examples. 

Finally, have some enthusiasm behind your message. Because if you don’t believe in yourself and your offerings, no one else will. If you aren't excited about what you have to share, try to find something else that does light that fire. Otherwise, you'll struggle to build rapport with your audience. 

But that also doesn’t mean you have to come from an all-knowing position. It’s more about your sincere desire to help people by continually looking for ways to serve them. Because when you operate as an expert with confidence, people are more likely to listen. And when you operate with empathy, they’re more likely to connect. 

It all comes down to one thing: You have to show up to be an expert. True experts rarely play it safe. Try new things with courage and boldness to gain respect from peers. And it all begins by putting your expertise out there.