The Ultimate Business Card

If you are a sales professional or work in a business where you rely on people to choose you over others to perform a service, then you know how important it is to establish yourself as an expert in your field. When consumers or companies are looking to part with their hard-earned and increasingly more scarce dollars, you have to be the one to show them how choosing you is a better investment than by choosing your competition. This post will show you how to create the ultimate business card that will cause you to stand apart from your competition. And if you are an author, you already have this business card. To you, it's my hope that this post will show you ways to effectively use it to find more readers for your book.

If you are a chiropractor, then you need to be able to set yourself apart from other chiropractors practicing in your area. If you are a mortgage loan officer, then you need to be able to communicate to home buyers why coming to you will be in their best interest. In fact, you can look at any profession and the same holds true. You are competing with others for their business.

One of the strongest characteristics you can develop to draw people to you is to instill in them your credentials as an expert in your field. No, strike that--not just any expert, but THE expert that stands heads and shoulders above all the experts doing what you do. Consider these factors for communicating expertise:

1. Experience- You can look at your experience, but so can your competition. In reality, there comes a point when having more years experience pays little dividends. What's the difference between twenty years as a trial lawyer and thirty years as a trial lawyer? I'd say it's a lot more to the thirty year veteran than it is for the potential client seeking a trial lawyer.
   
   
2. Celebrity- For good or bad, celebrity status confers an aura of expertise like very little else. Who are the greatest writers in the world? The most famous ones, right? Now, we know that's not the case. Some of the best writers may not have the same exposure and following as the perennial NY Times best sellers, but try to argue that with the millions of readers and the professionals making a living off of the book sales from the best selling writers. Do celebrity mothers know more about child rearing than many family psychologists? In the eyes of the millions of people who buy their child rearing book, yes. And arguing the point is of little consequences in the long run... the celebrity author will still sell more books than most capable, educated professionals in the field of child rearing.
   
   
3. Validating Credentials- Another factor for communicating expertise is having credentials tell the world that you are an expert. That's what BA/BS, MA, MD, and PhDs do. That framed certificate hanging on your wall shouts of your expertise. The problem is, that if most of your competition has the same credentials, then there is little that separates you from them in the eyes of the prospective client.
   

There are many other factors that communicate expertise, but these are three of the biggest. As you survey your competitive landscape, one marketing tool that can help you stand out from your competition is by becoming a published author. Having a book with your name, photo, and bio on the cover can propel you into the stratosphere of expertise status compared to your competition. Think about it... if you need an investment specialist, would you rather have one with the cutest commercials or the one who wrote the book on investing? That's why I say that authoring a book gives you the ultimate business card. For the non-authors who are out there, I can hear the groans now. "Me? Write a book? You gotta' be kidding! I could never do that!" Well, the truth is, "Yes you can." With the right coach, you will see that you already possess the knowledge to make this a reality quicker than you may believe possible. I know. I have informally helped professionals do just that. The purpose of this post is not to sell you anything, but rather to help you see that you can roll up your experience into a book that instills the instant celebrity status that comes with being an author. Your book can be the most vocal credential you have in your marketing arsenal.

If you are an author, then you can use the power of your ultimate business card, your book, to find those marketing opportunities to expand your influence through speaking engagements, guest writing assignments, and providing "how-to" advice to the millions out there who are craving help and information that a publish author can deliver. As an author, you are in a relatively small percentage of humans who have done what the vast majority think they could never do. Handled wisely, you have some amazing marketing capital already in your possession. Don't be afraid to use it.

Tony Eldridge