The Trusted Authority. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
The truth is that anyone can become the trusted authority in their market. You don’t have to be the best, you don’t have to have the most knowledge, you don’t need any fancy initials after your last name.
Becoming the Trusted Authority is all about marketing. It’s all about positioning, and with a little bit of effort, anyone can do it.
Why on earth would you want to become the Trusted Authority in your market? That’s a great question and I can give you a number of reasons why you should work smart to become the Trusted Authority in your market.
Here’s just a few:
You Don’t Have To Compete On Price
One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is they think they need to be priced lower than their competitors in order to get the business. This is a fallacy and a big source of headaches for people.
When you try to compete on price alone you attract what I call the 'Wal-Mart shoppers'. They don’t care about anything but the cheapest price. Service, selection and quality all become secondary issues when you’re competing on price alone. The other problem with these Wal-Mart shoppers is their blatant lack of loyalty. As soon as they find your product or service somewhere else for a little bit cheaper, they’re gone.
The truth is, people don’t expect to deal with the best and pay the least. We’re not programmed that way. If we know we’re dealing with the best in the industry, we know that we’re going to pay a price that is reflective of that.
You Don’t Have To Struggle To Get People To Listen To You
Talk shows, radio shows, even journalists and news anchors are always seeking out experts to comment on the stories they’re talking about. Why is that?
It’s because people listen to what the experts have to say. Just like people listen to what the Trusted Authority has to say. The opinions and advice of these experts has a lot of influence on other people’s beliefs, thoughts, opinions and best of all, buying decisions.
The Market Places Trust In You
Normally, we tend to have a certain level of trust for people, until they do something to lose it. Not everyone is so trusting but generally speaking, unless someone's done something to lose our trust, we do trust them to a certain extent.
Unfortunately when it comes to consumerism, the default relationship between business and consumer is one of distrust. For a business, they have to earn our trust.
But that's different if you're the undisputed authority in your market. People already have a level of trust for the experts. You still have to work hard to keep that trust, but it comes with the position to a certain extent.
People Are Eager To Do Business With You
Generally speaking, people don’t like to deal with generalists. There’s an assumption that a generalist knows a little bit about a lot of things and a specialist knows a lot about a few things. If we want something done right, we seek out the specialist.
You’re The Obvious Choice
This one kind of follows up to the previous point. If you’re the Trusted Authority in your market, people expect that their needs are going to be better met doing business with you than with someone else in the market.
We believe the expert or the specialist will better handle our concerns and solve our problems than a generalist will. Again, it’s kind of human nature.
These are five of the top reasons why you would want to become the Trusted Authority in your market. The reality is that there are all kinds of benefits to being the authority. These are just the top ones.
In order to start positioning yourself that way, you need to focus on creating good quality content and posting it to your blog or website. Then turn your focus over to developing a presence using social media and pull people in to your articles and information on your website from the various social networks.
What are your thoughts? Please share your comment in the box below.
Photo credits: Gavel
