Learn to lead like Tim Sykes.
Credit: Tim Sykes
I’ve made millions trading stocks, but have made millions more by teaching others how to trade stocks. It’s a beautiful thing to pass down your expertise, but in today’s cluttered world how can you prove yourself and gain customers/influence?
Here are three tips for proving your expertise:
1. Don’t say “I don’t know”: Most people are confused about one thing or another and they’re not looking for someone like them; they want someone with definitive answers. Now I don’t want you to lie about knowing something when you truly don’t know, but if you want to be taken seriously and have clout, simply point the confused person in the direction of what you actually do know.
Nobody knows everything, but most of us are experts at certain topics so it’s your job to show that. Make sure others know about your experience and knowledge by shifting every situation and every conversation to what you know and what suits you best.
For example, I’ve made millions by trading penny stocks so while the majority of finance is geared towards larger companies; I only teach and talk about what I know, even if it is a smaller niche.
2. Social proof: Just because you think you’re great and talented at something does not mean anyone else will – you have to prove it in a very public fashion. Thanks to the internet, anyone in the world, no matter your background, education or net worth has the ability to prove themselves every day using social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and via blogging, chatrooms and forums.
If you want credibility then don’t be afraid to speak your mind, and remember to do it convincingly and spread it as much as you can to anyone who you think will listen.
On the internet there are many people who claim to be stock market geniuses. I’ve differentiated myself from the crowd by verifying my track record and earnings and continually make enough real-time calls so people know my success is not just in the past.
3. Testimonials: The value of your expertise is only as good as what your customers and others in your field say about their experience with you. Thanks to websites like Yelp, Tripadvisor and Investimonials (a financial product review website I own), people and businesses are being graded publicly by customers like never before.
If you are going to claim your product, service or expertise is useful and worthwhile, you had better be able to back it up!
Because I wholeheartedly believe in what I teach my students and because I know how hard I work to provide such a quality product, I not only welcome customer testimonials, I encourage them. Even constructive criticism helps you mold your expertise into something more useful.
Be very wary of experts and businesses that claim great achievements, but don’t have the references and customer testimonials to back up their claims!
My picks of the week:
1. My new Mophie mobile phone charger now has memory built into it so I can store more videos and photos – great improvement!
2. Rory McIlroy and his ex Caroline Wozniacki both won their tournaments over the weekend – perhaps they’re more focused now that they’re single.
3. I saw the new “Planet of the Apes” movie and was impressed by how real it seemed and how well done the movie is.
Up and down:
Up: Facebook is testing a “buy” button to compete against Amazon – this is a win for consumers as it’ll be even easier to buy everything you want with one click.
Down: War in the Middle East is not good – no matter who is at fault, violence never solves anything and this conflict hurts us all.
Timothy Sykes is a millionaire stock trader and entrepreneur. Visit his site at TimothySykes.com.
