How To Share What You Know Without Pretending To Be An Expert

When it comes to offering knowledge and expertise online, many of us starting out in this space get a sense of uneasiness and question what makes us qualified in the first place to teach and train others in a particular area of expertise.

This is something that I struggled with for some time as I have a segment of people who I want to serve, but I’ve always got stuck with that dreaded yet familiar thought “how do I help them, when I don’t have things figured out myself?” Not to mention that I never even dared to pretend to be an authority on any subject.

However, this all changed overnight when I discovered different views to look at this internal problem.

Contents

Mindset

To get over that hurdle and get past it as quickly as possible, I discovered that it’s important to adopt the following mindset:

This changes everything. Because now you don’t have to figure out how to position yourself as an authority on the topic anymore and you’re not comparing yourself to others either.

You’re simply someone who loves a certain subject enough to want to share everything you discover about it with the world. And that makes things seem much lighter. Authenticity is very important and it’s at the center of our uniqueness.

There’s another level to this.

Whether you’re a business coach, a motivational speaker, an artist, or any kind of expert or creative, you need to shift focus to your process:

Process

You’re only highlighting your experience, and bringing forth how you do things into the spotlight which is ultimately what differentiates you from everyone else.

For example, if you were a fiction writer, you might post on how you would lay out your ideas and structure your acts. You can share the routine you use to get your creativity juices flowing and avoid writer’s block. And this routine may be different from any other writer.

This makes it easier to post content consistently because you are just documenting what you are doing. You’re not trying to be a guru or pretend to know more than you actually do or more than anyone else in fact.

But don’t stop here. There is another mindset piece and it has to do with bringing forth your unique experience to the mix.

Experience

Your joy and enthusiasm, when sharing, comes from the trial and error. From the discovery process. Remember the feeling you had after each A-HA moment. When you did something wrong first and then you discovered what mistake you did wrong and how to correct it.

You can help others avoid those pitfalls.

Ideas

Everybody’s Ideas seem obvious to them. We’re bad judges of our own creations. So maybe what’s obvious to you is amazing to someone else. Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share?

Originality

The marketplace is saturated with information products merely rephrasing what most of the industry leaders say. A little originality goes a long way in promoting your info products, and it’s very easy to come by.

It’s nearly impossible to go through any learning curve and not wish you had known something right from the start or discovered a slightly better way of doing something. These original ideas (your early discoveries) become your unique solution or hook.

Focus on helping people with what they should learn first.

Recency

People who are at an emotional turning point in their lives are suddenly looking for information on a particular subject that they know nothing about and they are looking for someone who can just guide them in the right direction. For example, when they have just had a baby, just gotten married, just lost a loved one, just gotten a raise, just filed for bankruptcy, just purchased a new car, or just lost a job.

These people are looking for someone who is just two steps ahead of them. Show up for these people.

Curation

The internet already contains more information than anyone can consume. People often need help deciding where to begin, which ideas belong together, what can be ignored and what should come next.

You can help by selecting useful ideas, arranging them in a sensible order and explaining how they connect. Your contribution comes from the choices you make, the context you provide and the sequence you recommend.

A well organized guide can save someone hours of searching and help them avoid collecting disconnected advice from dozens of sources.

Specificity

You do not need to teach an entire subject. You can help one type of person with one stage of one problem.

A broad topic such as marketing may feel intimidating. Helping first time consultants find their first three clients is more focused. Teaching productivity may feel enormous. Showing new founders how you plan your week while keeping a full time job gives people a defined situation they can recognize.

Specificity also allows readers to decide quickly whether your experience applies to them. The closer your example is to their situation, the easier it becomes for them to use what you share.

Evidence

Your credibility grows when readers can follow the path behind your conclusion. Share the original assumption, the action you took, the result you observed and the adjustment you made afterward.

Examples, numbers, screenshots, before and after comparisons and direct observations give people something they can examine. They also protect you from presenting an opinion as a universal rule.

You can say, “Here is what happened when I tried this,” and allow readers to decide how the lesson applies to their own circumstances.

Proximity

Someone who mastered a topic many years ago may perform basic steps automatically. They can forget which terms were confusing, which decisions felt intimidating and which early mistakes consumed the most time.

When you have recently completed a stage, those details remain easy to remember. You can explain the small steps because you still recall needing them yourself.

Being two steps ahead can make you a useful guide for someone taking their first step. Your role may later evolve as your knowledge expands and your audience progresses with you.

Responsibility

You can share what you have learned without exaggerating your credentials or presenting every conclusion as permanent. Tell readers when something comes from personal experience, an experiment, research or a method you are still testing.

Be direct about uncertainty. Correct previous advice when new experience changes your view. Refer people to qualified professionals when a subject involves health, law, finance, safety or another area where poor guidance could cause serious harm.

Honesty about your limits helps people understand how to use your work. It also gives you room to continue learning in public without pretending that your education has ended.

Conclusion

Ultimately this approach will resonate with others who would eventually start to follow how you do things and be interested in what you are doing.

Combining the passion and authenticity that you have for a certain subject with your unique processes, and the unique experience that you accumulated from continuous trial and error as you were figuring things out will highlight to your community in real-time your path to mastery, which is exactly what your audience needs from you and what will turn them into true fans.