The most important ingredient to becoming the 'obvious expert'

Some of you are the obvious expert, and some of you want to and should be the obvious expert in your market...and when you are, it makes all the difference.

Last week I shared with you my ‘business mantra’ I like to remind myself of to ensure healthy business growth.

Let’s refresh, and in all honesty, I left one out, specific knowledge, which I want to share with you today.

Business is a game of who communicates best, solves problems, adds value, maintains specific knowledge, and acts now, wins!

It literally is that simple.

If you break your business down to these 5 components…you cannot go wrong.

Last week I covered two areas; problem solving and adding value. The problem solver is a no-brainer, it’s something that we have been trained very well on as pharmacists. Problem solving is the most basic thing you can do to de-commoditize yourself in your practice.

But we can do more, right?

Then I talked about continuously adding value, this is what turns a one-time sale into a business as you build Total Customer Value. Here the post here if you missed it. Click Here

Today I want to talk about specific knowledge.

We sit in a very unique position. As we have transferred from the industrial age to the information age, a lot of technologies and products have gone obsolete by “industry and economic disrupters.”

Think about it.

When was the last time you bought a music CD? I bet you have mostly been downloading from iTunes or listening to Pandora or the like.

How about getting photo’s developed…reading books…the list goes on.

Fortunately, you cannot digitize medicine or nutrition…yet! (3-D printers offer some very interesting disruption possibilities in the future.)

But even if that happens…what is the one thing that can hold resilient, the one thing that is driving new economies of information…Specific Knowledge!

And people are coming to you for this everyday…so why not expand upon it.

We are positioned to be the ultimate purveyors of specific knowledge…it’s up to each and every one of us to consummately learn and implement.

Think about the specific knowledge that we practice every day- stuff that millions of people are searching Google for solutions for:

·       Low energy

·       High stress

·       Thyroid help

·       Hot flashes

·       Cancer

·       Alternatives to statin drugs and other prescriptions

·       Etc., Etc., Etc.

Then think about going beyond the walls of your pharmacy.

We live in a time when new ideas and movements and concepts change the world almost daily, whether is a new messaging app, a discovery in quantum physics, or the best marketed healthy and fast food restaurant chain.

If there is anything that characterizes our modern day world it’s the massive, constantly accumulating flow of information.

“Money is what fueled the industrial society. But in the informational society, the fuel, the power, is knowledge. One has now come to see a new class structure divided by those who have information and those who must function out of ignorance. This new class has its power not from money, not from land, but from knowledge.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

Now, take a few minutes and write down all the areas you lead with specific knowledge…the most common areas of your practice.

Then take a few minutes and write down where you would like to expand; maybe its becoming the expert on hormones, the leader in diabetes education, or the guru of sports nutrition in your market.

Stay tuned, I’ll be back next week to talk about…how to communicate the best!