In my experience, the best way to build a personal brand as the #1 expert in your market is to teach the subject you want to be an expert in. For example, I started my career in the mortgage industry teaching continuing education classes to financial planners. I didn’t know everything there was to know about financial planning, but I sure knew a lot about mortgages and how to navigate the housing market.
The more learned, the more I taught, and the more I taught, the more I learned. I became an expert in the housing market at a very young age and taught my first continuing education class when I was 23 years old.
I've found that the best way to learn something is to teach it. That’s because when you teach something you’re forced to really think through the issue, clarify the main point, and present it in a way that’s super simple and easy to understand.
This approach forces you to really study the subject inside and out, think through all the nuances, and figure out a way to clarify it for your target audience. So, if you want to be an expert in anything, I suggest that you start studying that subject with the intention of creating a little course or article about it. This way, you uncover and simplify the main points for yourself and for your target audience.
So, here's my ridiculous question of the day:
What is the subject that you want to be known for and how can you start taking the approach outlined above?
