Put Your Expertise Out There - Create a System (Yes, You Have One)

If you're an entrepreneur or online business owner, especially with a service-based product, then what you're selling is you and your system.

You may be thinking, "I don't have a system... I just do what I do."

Well, see, that "just do what you do" IS a big part of your system.

The trick is to verbalize that system - to put into concrete form (and maybe even create a product out of it, if that floats your boat... more on that below).

"Why do I want to do that?" you might be asking...

Well, for one, your credibility factor goes up when you have a system... "Using my 5-step process to help you break through your blah blah blah... "

For another, in order to maximize your reach and extend your services, what if you could take your system and put it into a product that you could sell? A home study system. A self-help product. A book. An eBook. An audio course. It's a low-cost way for someone to get a sense of who you and how you work... and then they might want to work with you on a deeper basis.

That's how my Writing From Your Soul system came about. I found that when I was coaching people on their writing projects and challenges that I was going through the same steps with each of them. Of course, every person and every project is different, but I still go through a particular set of steps, as intuitive as they may be, with each. It's the answers to my steps that are the more customized part of what I do, and I bet that's true for you as well.

So, how do you take what seems to be an intuitive system and make it more concrete?

1. Pay attention to your interactions with your clients and customers. Document your coaching/consulting sessions. Look for patterns.

2. Work backwards. Take that documentation in #1 and deconstruct what you did. What steps did you take your clients through? Even if it's a mindset shifting process, it's still a process.

3. Listen to yourself as you work with your folks. Do you find yourself saying the same things over and over? (These same "over and over" words are actually part of your system.)

4. What tools or exercises do you use or that you have created? those are pieces of your system.

5. Do you have your clients go through a series of steps? Those steps are your process, you lucky, linear-thinking you!

6. You don't have to create your system today. Just get started. Play around with the various steps. Start documenting them. And then see what feels right.

People get stuck here because they keep trying to figure out the system before they get started.

There's the old line: "How do you get 500,000 ping pong balls out of a room?"

I don't know, but you just start.

However you decide to remove ping pong balls *is* a system, and as you do, a better-and-better way to remove ping pong balls will reveal itself.

Here's the thing: people are coming to you because you can help them. Many of them probably have the same issues as each other, hence, why you find yourself using the same tools and phrases and questions and steps. And it's your process (as well as you - your process is PART of you) that people want, even if they don't realize it.