Sharing your expertise: a key marketing tool.

Do you work for an organization that hasn't the vaguest idea of what it's doing? Do your senior managers and specialists wing it every day and just try to stay afloat? How about you? Do you hope your customers and prospects will never seek out your informed recommendations? I didn't think so.

You are where you are because you know something most of us don't. You understand your business so well that people will pay you based on that knowledge and experience. If you're like most readers, you work in or run a successful enterprise. You have confidence that your people can compete with the best in the business and will often come out on top.

Perhaps you have intellectual resources within the walls of your company for which your industry's trade journal editors are starving. Your own organization may have a few experts in-house who offer a wealth of knowledge for which the firm may become better known--by its target audience. If this knowledge is being reserved for only a few select clients and associates, then you are holding back a weapon of mass instruction--a potent arrow in your business development quiver.

Some executives are afraid to give secrets away or to divulge proprietary business methodologies should there happen to be competitors in the audience. Perhaps others think they'll give away the keys to their shop. The theory is that giving valuable information away free dilutes the firm's value proposition in the market.

Quite the opposite is tree. By giving value first, you are perceived as the go-to-guy for your particular wares. Prospective customers get a head start on mentally owning the product or service that is unique to you. Therefore, the more audiences you can reach with information valuable and relevant to them, the greater will be the calls coming in from people who aren't just kicking tires.

Passion shows through

There is nothing sweeter to a businessperson than a stranger on the other end of the phone who has already decided with whom he wants to do business--you, the expert whose speech he recently heard or whose articles he's been reading.

If you're unsure of your communication skills, consider this: Writing about something you're great at or love to do is going to be interesting and insightful to most who will read it. When you really love what you're doing, passion will show in your presentation. Your enthusiasm will flow naturally and resonate with your audience. However, let me caution you with rule No. 1 in public speaking: own your material inside and out.

If public relations, sales or marketing is in your job description, don't forget to tap your own brain or the industry experts down the hall to help make your case for new business. The best sales pitch may not be a pitch at all. It may instead be wise counsel freely given in a public forum. This idea worked out pretty well for someone about 2,000 years ago didn't it?

Chuck Sink executive vice president of Big Hit Media LLC, an interactive communications company in Barrington, also writes a blog at NHBR Network (nhbrnetwork.com) For more information, visit bighitmedia.com or e-mail [e-mail].