The old advice we often received from self-help gurus of “fake it till you make it” (especially if you are running a big product launch formula style promotion), where you’re pretend to be an expert even if they aren’t one CAN work in some situations. The problem is that once you get exposed as a fake and a fraud in your market, there’s usually no way to come back from that.

So here’s what: you need to do to become a REAL expert so you can legitimately position yourself as the ‘go-to’ person in your market.

While some people refer to the 10,000 hour rule that says it takes 10,000 hours to become a true expert, depending on how narrow your niche market is (and the narrower the better, at least at the start, you CAN become a recognised expert much more quickly if you want too.

You can’t do it by just reading a few articles or watching a few Youtube videos, but you can go a long way to expert status by following these steps…

Step 1: Study Everything You Can Get Your Hands, Your Eyes And Your Ears On

The key here is to jump straight to the source and consume in-depth and unbiased information.

Say you want to become a copywriting expert. There’s plenty of copywriting information available for free online, or inexpensively in books, but most (but not all) of it just rehashed and repackaged from the original (and more recent) masters of direct response marketing.

So the secret to forming a good foundation is to go back to the original sources and learn directly from them. These sources include older masters like Robert Cialdini and David Ogilvy, and more precent examples such as Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Clayton Makepeace and Gary Bencivenga.

Then once you have an understanding of the core fundamentals, stay on top of new and developing information based on the work of these masters.

Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula takes what he’s learned from many of these experts and codifies it into a step-by-step blueprint for launching or relaunching any product or service quickly and profitably.

If you don’t have the time or money to incrementally grow your business over months or years, and you’d like to start earning more and making a bigger impact now, check out Jeff’s Free Product launch Masterclass here.

Step 2: Experiment To See What Works In The Niche

Once you’ve absorbed as much source information as you possibly can, jump in and start testing the strategies you’ve learned yourself.

For example, using our copywriting market, start testing headlines, copy leads, different calls to action, your offer (as Jeff says, you’ll want to come up with a ‘crushing offer’), your order page (order page abandonment can be up to 90%!), your optin page and email sequence, and the rest of your funnel to see for yourself what really works.

In other words, don’t take anyone else’s word that something works. If you’re trying to position yourself as an expert for your product launch, it makes sense to find out what works for yourself before you start teaching it to others.

Teaching stuff that doesn’t work is a sure way to have a very short career as one expert. The internet is littered with scammers and marketers who over promised and under delivered. You don’t want to join them.

When you’ve proven things to your satisfaction, recruit a small group of people (you could call them ‘beta-testers’ or founding members) to help you by testing your ideas in their own markets (even if you give your product away or at a large discount).

This process also gives you real case studies and proof that your ideas work. Then you can honestly show how you’ve helped people solve real problems, giving you proof and social proof, which are two of the most powerful Product Launch Formula mental triggers.

This is so powerful because you’ll be able to share real results, examples and case studies from real world experience, and people can see that you’re not just theories and untested ideas.

Step 3: Develop Your Own Teaching And Delivery Style

Once you start experimenting and testing some of the ideas you’ve learned, you’ll want to start putting your own personal spin on these old methods. In other words, develop your own style when it comes to completing tasks and achieving goals in your niche.

Todd Brown talks about two critical features most new products and services need these days in an over-saturated and over-marketed to world.

These are what he calls The Big Idea, and The Unique Mechanism. I don’t have space to discuss these here, but check out Todd’s work on them and work out how you can incorporate both of them in your product launch, because combined they will make a huge difference to your results (in a good way) 🙂

Step 4: Condense Any Complex Concepts To Simple Steps Or Processes

By the time you’ve completed your studies and proven your ideas, you’ll be well on your way to becoming an expert in your market. Unfortunately, the problem for many true experts is they teach at such a high level, their students fail to benefit because they don’t understand the basics enough to grasp the higher level topics.

So one of the keys to truly becoming an expert who creates lasting change is your ability to simplify a complex concept to its most basic and simple parts – and then teach it to other people in an easy-to-understand way.

A lot of people get overwhelmed with information in a niche, especially when they are new to it. One of your jobs is to be able to show people what’s important and what to focus on, what to ignore, and what steps to take to achieve the results they are after. If you can succeed at this,  you’ll start to be seen as an expert in the eyes of your potential clients and customers.

And finally…

Step 5: Keep Yourself In The Loop

With change coming at us at such a rapid rate these days, it’s rare that you can learn something once and consider yourself an expert for life. You’ll need to continue learning and growing in your expertise so you can stay relevant. Thing are going to continue to change in every market, so you’ll need to change to capitalise on them.

To Sum Up…

You can’t expect to become an expert overnight, you won’t become one simply by reading, listening to podcasts or watching a few Youtube videos, and you certainly don’t stay one if you don’t stay current. But focusing down to a small but profitable area instead of trying to be all things to all people, and then using the 5 steps we’ve discussed in this article, can help you become a true expert in your field in much less than the legendary ‘10,000 hour rule’ demands.

And to learn more about becoming and positioning yourself as one expert before, during and after you use Product Launch Formula to launch or re-launch your product or service, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

Talk soon,

Rocky

P.S. Being able to create a Perfect Product is a great start, but you also need a way to generate sales in a consistent way. Running a Product launch is a proven way to not only build your list, but generate Social Proof and make a large number of sales quickly. To learn how to launch your product successfully, check out Jeff Walker’s free Product Launch Masterclass here.

PLUS: When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you to grow your business using product launches:

1. How To Build A Profitable Launch List.
Building an email list is critical if you plan on doing a launch for your product, service or business. List Warrior will show you a proven way to use free software to build a responsive list of prospects who are ready to buy from you during your launch. Click Here.

2. How To Create The Perfect Product 
Creating a product that is perfect for your audience does not need to be difficult. How To Create The Perfect Product shows you how to build high value products your audience will love one after the other. Click Here.

3. How To Attract Buyers To Join Your Launch List So They Can Purchase Your Perfect Product.
Once you have created your Product Launch List and your Perfect Product is ready to go, you need to attract people into your world so they can buy from you. One Minute Free Traffic gives you a proven way to attract buyers with ‘Automated Traffic Machines’ so you can send those people to your optin page, your sales page, your Facebook Group or anywhere else you choose.    To learn more Click Here.

And don’t forget to check this out 🙂

How to Earn $20 in 20 Minutes With Any Topic, Niche or Hobby

Disclaimer: If you purchase PLF through my affiliate link I may receive a referral fee from Jeff Walker, however you will pay no more to purchase the program through me than if you went directly to the Product Launch Formula website. If you would like my personal help as you create your first launch using the PLF process, check out my PLF Bonus offer here.