What if I Don’t Believe People Will Value My Expertise?

A lot of people hesitate to put themselves out there online because they don’t believe they have anything worthwhile to say.

And that’s a doubt that every good creative person, including me, has:

• “Who am I to be seen as an authority?”

• “Don’t people already know this?

• “I don’t want to come off like an arrogant know-it-all”

But here’s what we need to realize — we aren’t the best judge of what’s valuable to others.

Consider: if someone pays you and they’re happy with what you did for them, then your expertise already has value. Whether or not you can see or feel it, you’re solving real problems for people.

But the people whose problems you solve don’t live in your head like you do — most of what you know feels obvious because you’ve spent years thinking about and practicing it. But what’s second-nature to you is brand new information to them.

To break through this mental block, ask yourself:

• What are the most common questions my clients ask me?

• What mistakes do I see people making all the time?

• What’s one thing I wish my clients knew before working with me?

The answers you come up with will become the substance of the content you put out — content that’s actually meaningful, that rises above the noise in your audiences’ feeds. You aren’t deceiving people into thinking you’re this Great Expert; you’re just being helpful.

And when people see you consistently providing solutions — especially when they didn’t even know they needed them — they’ll remember you as someone they can trust with their problems when they inevitably arise.
The biggest mistake you can make is staying silent because you believe that what you have to say doesn’t matter. If you’re solving real problems — even just having solved one — you do have something valuable to share.