Look Like a God, Part 2 – 28 Ways to Build Credibility

Following on from Part 1 yesterday, where we discussed how writing a book is great for credibility, here’s 28 other ways to build credibility.

Remember people buy off those they trust. You will never get a sale without it. Credibility leads to trust, respect and recognition. Adapting a mixture of the below will work towards you looking more credible, looking and sounding like an expert, and becoming an authority figure in your industry.

Some of these ideas you can achieve quite quickly, others are more longer term goals that you should be aiming to reach with a ‘little and often’ approach.

1. Write a book: As we said yesterday, when you have a book people automatically just look up to you like a god! It’s ridiculous, even if the book is rubbish. Just the title ‘author’ screams credibility. You must know your stuff if you have a book right? So, can you write a book about your field of expertise, if so get started right away.

2. Demonstrate your ability or knowledge with a freebie: Don’t just tell people how good you are, show them! Everyone can give away a taster of what they do in some way.

3. Social proof: A high following ratio on social media channels can be really impressive and shows that people look up to you.

4. High profile testimonials: Testimonials from organisations with credibility themselves can be really impressive. Which organisations do people trust that you have worked with? Try to get a testimonial off them, maybe even offer them something in return for a testimonial.

5. Non-biased testimonials on third party sites: Reviews on sites, that are not yours are rally important. Google search for reviews on your business and comment back or put things right with anyone saying bad things. Encourage customers to leave positive reviews.

6. Professional photography: Nothing says amateur like a rubbish profile photo. It isn’t too expensive to get some head shots done, and they are well worth it.

7. Beautifully designed – You can’t help but look good if everything you have is beautifully designed. A good logo/brand is crucial. Why not also try some extra thick business cards to really make an impression.

8. Facts and figures: e.g. ‘This process has proven to increase your profits by 25% in under 6 months’

9. Professional speaking: What are you best at? Write a speech for it, really put the effort in to it and make it special. Keep improving it each time you do it, and really give some true value that people can work on. You only need one really good talk on a certain specific topic, and you can tour around doing it.

10. Award winners: Again ‘Award Winning Company’ sounds amazing, that’s almost all you have to say. Get good at what you do, learn from industry experts, and find some local awards you can enter.

11. PR: Write a press release for every bit of news you can. Seeing you in the press sparks recognition of brilliance or interest. If you are interesting, others will be interested in you. Any press or features, put ‘as seen in…’ on your promotional materials and website.

12. A slot in the paper, or radio station: Even if they don’t listen or read it, it again makes you sound like know what you’re doing.

13. Your links to other organisations: e.g. ties with Universities

14. Working with charities: Not only does this cement the fact that you are a nice genuine person, but also makes you look more successful. So much so that you can afford to give away time or money to charity.

15. The way you dress: Match your brand with your positioning, are you professional suited and booted or are you a friendly smart/casual?

16. Good Health: It’s extremely important to look after yourself and it SHoULD be a business priority. Get a god nights sleep and look after yourself. For more on this see, 5 Expert Tips on Positioning.

17. A higher price tag: Think about it, if you’re paying an expert to do something for you, then you expect a higher price. Price is an important buying factor that is often overlooked in marketing. So honestly ask yourself if your prices reflect the quality of your work.

18. Your premises: A really nice office or shop really sets the tone on your status and how much they need to respect you.

19. Not dropping your cost: An experts believes that they get worth the amount they charge and are in demand enough to not need to drop prices when asked. This can be really hard in practise, but trust us you get respect. With respect comes better clients in the long run.

20. Organised and punctual: If you are not then it seems like you are under pressure and can’t cope.

21. Be members of trusted organisations: It always looks impressive if you are part of a community/club/organisation related to your field. Not only that but it makes you seem actively engaged in the field. Get these logos on your website to build trust.

22. Your experience: Obviously you can’t change this, but you can big it up a little!

23. Guarantees: It’s extremely powerful if you can guarantee a result. Perhaps start to measure your results, can you offer a guaranteed result? Even just an average result?

24. Knowledgeable: This is more than just knowing what are doing and about your industry, but also keeping on top of what’s new. Are you the one to tell everyone about the latest thing? If not, maybe you should be, it makes you look up to date and current.

25. Guest posts: If you are on other industry websites as features, then people start to get used to seeing you around, oh they’re here, there and everywhere. It creates a good buzz around your name.

26. Collaboration: You can use the extension of someone else’s credibility to boost your own credibility. The trust they have from their audience is passed on to you if they introduce you as a highly regarded person. By collaborating on work and new offerings, you look bigger than you are, and achieve bigger, more impressive projects that you can shout about. Who can you collaborate with?

27. Language: Do you talk like an expert? Do you know the lingo? What about your body language, do you appear confident or nervous? Let your confidence in your ability or product shine through any nervousness you may have about yourself. An expert is confident about what they have to offer.

28. Niche: You can’t be an expert at everything, so don’t be a jack of all trades, and focus on one core area.

What it really boils down to is confidence.
The perception for customers is that if your offering is really amazing… you should be confident about it, and you should achieve all or some of the points above. Therefore acting more confident in yourself and your offering, and working towards achieving this expert status, actually gives the potential customers the real belief that your offering really is amazing too.

Think about that for a moment. How confident in your product or service are you? Does this show through to your customers??

ACTION: Look at each point made and assess whether you have achieved any of them. If so, pat yourself on the back well done!

ACTION: Choose three of these points to work on this month.

ACTION: Choose one of the longer end game points as a long term project, start to do your research and plan the future path you will take to achieve it.

Hope you enjoyed this and let us know how you get on!