The Surprising Expertise Accelerator that Powers Your Business
This works to enhance existing expertise, or to develop new expertise in any topic of your choice.
At midlife, you’re likely sitting on a goldmine of expertise.
And this expertise can empower you to start a location-independent business that allows you to live and work anywhere in the world. In turn, this business will also enable you to enhance and expand your expertise.
On the other hand, given the shift in values and priorities that most people experience after hitting age 50, maybe you want to pivot instead. Perhaps you want to become an expert in an entirely different domain as the basis of your business.
What if I told you that the key to doing either one is the same?
Plus, here’s the encouraging thing: Rather than delaying you, the act of starting and growing your business both enhances your existing expertise and helps you develop new expertise.
It’s true. And it’s all backed up by solid principles of learning psychology.
Teaching Sells
Whenever I tell people that marketing is more important than credentials when it comes to an expertise-based business, I see some people get visibly allergic to the idea.
After all, it should be the most qualified person who wins, not the best marketer, right?
I get it. But that’s not how humans work. The odds are good that a less-qualified and less-intelligent person will win the business if a prospect connects with them more on an emotional level.
Before we get into that worthy topic, though, we need to clarify what type of marketing I’m talking about. In short, it’s what I’m doing right now, which is educating you.
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was a pioneer in what became known as content marketing. That term basically means attracting an audience by freely sharing digital educational content that helps people navigate a problem or fulfill a desire.
Once that audience knows, likes, and most importantly trusts you, you can sell related products, services, communities, and events. This works for all sorts of businesses, but especially for expertise-based ventures.
In other words, you market by teaching. And while the word “guru” literally means teacher, I would encourage you instead to think of yourself as a mentor or guide to your prospects.
Okay, so how does this form of marketing enhance or create expertise? That’s where learning psychology comes in.
Teach to Truly Learn
By the time we’re at midlife, we’ve got a healthy amount of career expertise under our belts. And yet you can never stop seeking that edge that comes with a greater depth of subject matter proficiency.
For some, though, the urge to venture into a completely new area at midlife is strong. Are we able to develop new areas of expertise and make a substantial pivot?
I’ve often said that all it takes to become an expert relative to the general population is to read two or three books on a topic. And that’s technically true, assuming you retain and internalize the information contained in the books and build from there.
The problem is, we know now that “book learning” is not the best way to solidify information in your brain. The idea of poring over the material until you know it cold is simply not that effective.
Studies show it’s not only time consuming, but repeatedly reviewing material also doesn’t result in durable retention of the information. Even worse, you’re left with the illusion that you have mastery of the topic when you really don’t.
What cements your mastery of a topic is the act of retrieval.
Here’s an explanation from the book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown:
The act of retrieving learning from memory has two profound benefits. One, it tells you what you know and don’t know, and therefore where to focus further study to improve the areas where you’re weak. Two, recalling what you have learned causes your brain to reconsolidate the memory, which strengthens its connections to what you already know and makes it easier for you to recall in the future.
So, for example, we generally think of quizzes and tests as an evaluation of how much retention has already occurred. In reality, a single quiz after reading a book or hearing a lecture results in greater retention than re-reading the book or reviewing notes from the lecture.
Being tested on a topic helps you learn the topic better.
Beyond testing, there’s an even more powerful retrieval mechanism, which is known as elaboration, or the protégé effect. This is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know.
There are three main ways in which you can use the protégé effect to facilitate your learning:
Learn the material as if you’re going to teach it to other people.
Pretend you’re teaching the material to other people.
Actually teach the material to other people.
The last one is the most interesting for solo professionals and entrepreneurs starting location-independent businesses. Because that brings us back to the fact that teaching people what you know is a highly effective form of digital marketing that puts you in the role of mentor.
Teach and Grow Rich
Over the last 27 years, I’ve done this over and over. In the areas of law, real estate, copywriting, content marketing, digital entrepreneurship, the longevity economy… and now here at Further, navigating the new realities of a world where traditional retirement no longer makes sense.