In today’s competitive job market, it’s always good to find ways to diversify your professional offering and your streams of income. What better —and smarter—way to do that than to use the knowledge you already have and market yourself as an industry expert? Doing so can lead to consulting gigs, speaking engagements, book deals and other money-making opportunities. Here’s how to establish yourself as an expert and start raking in the dough:
1. Pick a niche. The topic needs to be narrow enough that you don’t have a lot of competitors, but it also needs to be wide enough that it’s relevant to a fair number of people in the industry.
First, look at your experiences and see what they all have in common. I’ve worked in digital media, traditional marketing and PR for a variety of fashion, beauty and lifestyle companies, but I didn’t want to be a marketing or social media expert because there are so many people established as experts in those fields already. I thought a bit harder and realized the thing that tied them all together was luxury. However, that was too broad as well. I then attached a geographical location to it, China, and narrowed it down again to e-commerce. I therefore established myself as as an expert in luxury e-commerce in China.
If you don’t have that much experience, simply consider the one topic that you just can’t get enough of. Read everything about it and then try to narrow it down from there.
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