The Highly Paid Expert: Turn Your Passion, Skills, and Talents Into A Lucrative Career by Becoming The Go-To Authority in Your Industry

The Highly Paid Expert: Turn Your Passion, Skills, and Talents Into A Lucrative Career by Becoming The Go-To Authority in Your Industry

by Debbie Allen
The Highly Paid Expert: Turn Your Passion, Skills, and Talents Into A Lucrative Career by Becoming The Go-To Authority in Your Industry

The Highly Paid Expert: Turn Your Passion, Skills, and Talents Into A Lucrative Career by Becoming The Go-To Authority in Your Industry

by Debbie Allen

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Overview

Today, no matter what industry you’re in, it’s becoming more and more difficult to stand out from the competition and get the sale when prospects aren’t as loyal as they used to be. How do you get prospects’ attention when they are often swayed by price rather than quality? The key is to become recognized as the go-to expert in your industry, someone whom others actively seek out for top-notch information.By becoming a highly paid expert, you will: Gain a huge edge over the competition. Attract more quality clients who will pay you top dollar for your advice.Open more doors to bigger opportunities.Develop multiple streams of income sharing your knowledge with others.Dominate your industry!The expert industry has been shrouded in myth and mystery for far too long. The Highly Paid Expert finally reveals exactly how you can make a difference sharing your knowledge and get paid top dollar while doing so.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781601634429
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
Publication date: 06/23/2023
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 289
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Debbie Allen, The Expert of Experts, has been a business and marketing strategist for the past 20 years. She is a best-selling author and award-winning entrepreneur. Her expertise has been featured in numerous motivational movies, including The Opus and The Compass, and regularly featured in Entrepreneur magazine. Debbie has built and sold numerous million-dollar companies. She mentors clients from around the world on how to become highly paid experts. Debbie is based in Phoenix, Arizona. To learn more about her expertise go to www.debbieallen.com.
Debbie Allen, the Expert of Experts, has been a business and marketing strategist for the past twenty years. She is a bestselling author and award-winning entrepreneur. Her expertise has been featured in numerous motivational movies, including The Opus and The Compass, and regularly featured in Entrepreneur magazine. Debbie has built and sold numerous million-dollar companies. She mentors clients from around the world on how to become highly paid experts. Debbie is based in Phoenix, Arizona. To learn more about her expertise, go to www.debbieallen.com.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

TURN YOUR PASSION, SKILLS, AND TALENT INTO BIG MONEY

You've probably heard the saying, "Do what you love, and the money will follow." Is this actually true? If you follow your passion and pursue what you love doing for a living, will the monetary rewards really follow? What I've discovered is that, although it certainly helps, you'll need more than "doing what you love" to grow a lucrative career in the expert business. Having passion will give you the drive and determination you'll need when the road gets rocky, and skills and talent are required to make a name for yourself as an expert. However, passion, skills, and talent alone won't pay the bills. You also need good business sense and an entrepreneurial mindset to make it to the top of the expert business. Not only are you going to need to stand out, but you'll also need to think outside the box and have a business strategy that moves you to the top.

We all have a life journey, a story, a message, or a skill that will inspire others. What matters most is how we share our message. In business, you must share your powerful message through an innovative brand that quickly sets you apart from the competition. In this critical first step, you will discover how to turn your passion, skills, and talent into becoming a well-known and highly paid expert.

My passion for becoming an expert came from the many wonderful mentors who shaped my life and my career. I launched myself into the expert business to give back. Remember, I had no formal training, only passion when I started out. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a business for experts, and at that time if you called yourself an expert, people felt you were making an exaggerated claim or had a big ego.

Turn Your Passion Into Profits

To turn your passion into a profitable business, you must fulfill a purpose that others need or want. You must find a way to impact others with your knowledge, experience, and/or skills. It isn't enough to have talent; you must master your craft. Allow your passion to fuel your desire to be the best at what you know by blazing your own trail. Success comes to those who are willing to stay the course despite adversities, challenges, and distractions.

Experts don't give up no matter what mistakes or challenges they need to overcome. In fact, they use their own mistakes as lessons they can teach others to help shorten their learning curve. Experts learn how to achieve their goals, and the goals of others, through perseverance and excellence.

Answer these three important questions to see what drives you:

1. What are you most passionate about that you want to share with others?

2. How will your skills allow you to solve others' problems?

3. How can your talents guide others toward a better personal or professional life?

When your head and your heart are aligned, you make genuine strides in your success.

"Do what you love and the money will follow" is a true statement if you are willing to be patient and persist toward achieving your goals. You must be ready to step up and claim your expertise, and commit to becoming the best that you can be. Never give up on your passion, your dreams, and your pursuit of making a difference. Your message and experiences will make a difference in the lives of others, and making big money will also make a huge difference in your own life. Money gives you the ability to pursue more goals and to give back even more. When you learn to fulfill your dream of living a financially free lifestyle doing what you love every day, you never have to work another day, because doing your work is what you love doing.

Create a Better Business Model

Once I discovered that my passion could make me good money as a speaker, I began to pursue the goal of becoming one of the top marketing speakers in the world. A lofty goal, right? But within a few years, I had achieved this goal and was also honored as one of the top 3 percent of professional women speakers worldwide. Sounds great, but I couldn't help but think, What's next? (entrepreneurial thinking here). My business was good, but I realized there must be another way to build an even more lucrative career. I knew there had to be a better business model. At the time, my speaking and consulting business took nearly 100 percent of my personal time. I was so focused on reaching my goals that I didn't stop to think about how dramatically my business income would be affected if something happened to me. This could happen to you too, which is why it's so important to create a business that can run without you if you couldn't be there. Let me ask you this: If you couldn't personally work in your business for a few months, would your income be affected? If you answer yes, you should consider a new way of looking at your overall business model. You don't want to set up a business such that your income is only generated if you are there to run it. You'll need to create what I call your "Personal Life Insurance Policy." It's not actually a written policy, it's simply a business model that allows you to have income flowing into your business without your personal involvement day to day. You need some streams of income that don't require you to be there. This is the way to "insure" that your passion and business remain alive and well for many years to come.

Let me address this in another way. It can be risky if you are always having to chase down new business. This business model can set you up for disaster too. Let me ask you: What if something stopped you from being there to pursue clients? What if you had a health issue or family problems? What would happen then? Now I don't want to be all gloom-and-doom here, but the reality is, life happens! And sometimes life gets in the way of doing business. When this happens, it can be a real game-changer. That's why it's so important to generate additional streams of income that don't require your personal time. There are many ways to pursue your passion without being involved every step of the way. Passions turn to profits when clients and income streams flow easily and consistently to you. Your expert streams of income can come from speaking, coaching, consulting, writing, events, developing products, and more — all of these are based around doing what you love to do.

Having a Passion Means Having Choices

As a highly paid expert, you have the opportunity to say yes to things that fill your heart and your pocketbook, and you can also say no to those things that no longer serve you. For example, I walked away and said no to a very lucrative world tour with a business partner because it no longer served my needs and my passion. Once I walked away, I was able to focus on other efforts and other opportunities that were placed at my doorstep. It was a great experience to travel the world and speak in 28 different countries during this time, but the glamour and excitement of international travel began to wear off due to the grueling travel schedule and on-the-go lifestyle. I've always said, "If it's not fun, I'm not going to do it anymore!" This is spoken like a true entrepreneur: entrepreneurs love to create, achieve, and then move on to the next goal or project. Not knowing how to do something has never stopped me or held me back from pursuing my passions. In fact, every business I've ever started, I had little or no experience in. Now, I don't suggest that's a good business model, because it's not. But what I am saying is that if I can do it without a good business plan, you can certainly do it with a proven model and a path to follow.

As an expert, your goal should always be to do business the way it fits your lifestyle. If it doesn't, make a change. This one strategy alone was a real income- and life- changer for my business. For example, I went from making an $8,500 pay day as a paid professional speaker to making six figures a day selling my own products from the stage. Nothing changed except for the way I shared my message. By making more income, I was able to speak and travel less.

Another reason I wanted to get away from the nonstop international travel was to make space to fit someone special into my life. It's pretty hard to meet someone when you have to tell them, "Hey, nice meeting you; I'll see you in a few months when I get back." Most people aren't going to wait around. When I walked away from the world tour, I left space in my life for change and new opportunities to fill that space. I wanted to work closer to my home in Phoenix, Arizona. And once I made that commitment, I set out to change my business model and marketing plan as well. Within a few months, I had met the love of my life, and that sparked a new passion. Now I have a wonderful relationship, and I'm able to make even more money, travel less, and have more time for family and friends.

Being an expert is one of the greatest careers I could have ever imagined. I love making a difference in the lives of others, making a great income, and doing it all my own way. I truly believe that you can manifest anything you want if you focus on it and have a successful plan to follow. Yes, you really can have it all! And not only can you have it all — you can have it all on your own terms!

CHAPTER 2

MASTER YOUR MINDSET

Fear is the biggest obstacle to pursuing your dreams. It can stop you in your tracks. Sometimes fear masquerades as excuses that stop your progress. Many people insist it is a lack of money or time or resources, but often it is a fear of failure, rejection, or even of success that holds people back from playing a bigger game in business and in life. Just imagine how much they are missing by allowing an emotion to control their life. You must be willing to step up to turn that passion of yours into a lucrative expert career.

Too many people fail to follow through with their dreams and aspirations in life, mostly because fear holds them back from taking the next step. Why would we allow fear to control us? Mostly because we look at it with shortsightedness: we don't want to be embarrassed, look foolish, be wrong, or make a mistake. What we fear most is fear of the unknown. Yet everything new and exciting is unknown to us at first, and we are destined to fail to some degree; that is only natural.

If you are not scaring yourself, you are playing it too close to your comfort zone.

Fear can also be your friend, and offer you excitement and empowerment. Therefore, if we could think of fear as more of a rush of adrenalin, it could actually catapult us forward and help us accelerate toward lofty goals.

Even successful, confident people are afraid of making changes and trying new things; the difference between successful people and those who are not is that they act in spite of that fear. They feel the fear and move past it. This allows them to feel more confident in return.

Is fear holding you back from achieving your dreams and goals as a highly paid expert? Here are five ways to easily control fear:

1. Acknowledge your feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions can be changed by the words you speak to yourself, so speak kind words of encouragement. Tell yourself thatmoving past your fear will reward you with more confidence, knowledge, and personal growth. You are worth it!

2. Don't waste energy focusing on failure. Failure is simply a lesson in disguise. With everything new we do, we will experience some level of failure that is necessary to learn and grow both personally and professionally.

3. Share your fears and ask for support. When you share your fears with someone, make sure that person is someone who will help you stretch and move outside of your comfort zone. If you share your fears with someone who is also fearful, it can continue to hold you back. Find a support system or a positive mentor whose confidence and success you admire.

4. Uncover inspiration from books, music, and events. We all have days when our energy and thoughts are low. Often by taking time to yourself, reading uplifting words, listening to inspiring music, or attending energizing events, you can shift your mood and move to a more positive state of mind.

5. Feel the fear and act anyway. The feelings of fear can be worse for us than actually doing the thing we fear. Most of our comfort zones are not all that comfortable anyway — it certainly doesn't feel comfortable when we are stuck. Move outside of it, take a risk, enjoy life to the fullest, and live a life of passion and new experiences. You must stretch yourself from time to time to keep moving forward.

A Positive Attitude Can Directly Affect Your Success

Your mood reflects onto your personal and business life, and then onto your customers. If you are in a negative mood, it will sweep through your business like wildfire. Experts can't afford to allow negativity to affect their life. Staying positive and enthusiastic is essential to your success. A positive attitude along with contagious enthusiasm will support your groundwork. This groundwork will help to keep the passion burning for your business.

Enthusiasm is contagious — and so is negative energy. In fact, it is even easier for us to pick up negative vibes and reflect them internally in our daily lives. Watch out for negative energy and stay away from negative clients and partners in your business. Being positive will continue to promote your self-esteem and self-belief, and help you avoid negative feelings when times get tough.

When you believe in your strengths and abilities, you begin to free up your mind, and you move away from fear and doubt. Everything becomes clearer. Your positive memories, energies, and potentials begin to act immediately to change your capabilities in the present, and you begin to master your mindset again. The expert's mindset takes on many forms. Here are just a few.

* The Disciplined Mind: Mental discipline is the ability to keep your thoughts focused on goal-directed activity to the exclusion of all else. With high levels of mental discipline, you reach your goals faster.

* The Systemized Mind: A systemized mind looks at procedures and discovers what needs to be done to make the business work more effectively. With systems in place, you have the ability to see the big picture. Systems allow you to duplicate your success for others.

* The Creative Mind: The creative mind thinks outside of the box. With creativity, you can discover many unique ways to stand out and move your career ahead.

* The Resilient Mind: A resilient mind is open and flexible. With an open mind, you let go of uncertainties and become receptive to innovative ideas.

* The Ethical Mind: An ethical mindset and moral code of conduct is critical to developing lasting relationships. By treating others with respect and fairness, you will develop a respected business reputation.

* The Responsible Mind: Responsibility holds people accountable. When you are responsible, others will count on you to be dependable, trustworthy, and conscientious.

* The Risk-Taker Mind: The ability to deal and cope with uncertainty is an important skill set for any expert. Risks come with the acceptance that you will make some mistakes as your business develops. Highly paid experts understand that there is no cookie-cutter model to follow; because experts grow innovative companies, there will always be a certain amount of risk involved. Developing new systems, new products, new presentations, and new events all involve some level of risk. As an expert, you must be open and flexible to taking calculated risks.

CHAPTER 3

EXPERTS INVEST IN OTHER EXPERTS

As an expert, you have the responsibility to continually learn in order to expand your expertise. This is how you support others. Experts are always improving and learning more about their topic of expertise. They continue to grow their expertise by expanding both personally and professionally. They also continually invest in other experts and mentors to minimize their learning curve. If you are not investing in other experts to grow yourself both personally and professionally, how do you expect others to invest in you? This is important, because before you invest heavily in someone else, how can you expect someone to invest heavily in you?

You Can't Grow Your Expert Business Alone

You need ongoing support to keep expanding your expertise, your confidence, and your skills. There is no way I would ever be where I am today without the support of other experts. I have hired experts to assist me in many aspects of my business. What I learn from them is quickly implemented into my own expert business so that it continues to grow. Again, you can't teach what you have not personally experienced, and you can't ask others to invest in you as an expert until you have personally invested in yourself. Until you make a big investment in an expert yourself, you'll probably continue to undervalue your own services and programs, and undervaluing your services will kill your income!

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "The Highly Paid Expert"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Debbie Allen.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Preface 13

Introduction: Pulling Back the Curtain 17

Chapter 1 Turn Your Passion, Skills, and Talent Into Big Money 27

Chapter 2 Master Your Mindset 35

Chapter 3 Experts Invest in Other Experts 43

Chapter 4 Build a Solid Brand Foundation 53

Chapter 5 Stand Out to Grow 69

Chapter 6 Create Your Expert Calling Card 77

Chapter 7 You Are the Brand 85

Chapter 8 Stay on Target 97

Chapter 9 Stake Your Claim With Online Domination 105

Chapter 10 Build Your Expert Website 115

Chapter 11 Develop a Social Media Strategy 127

Chapter 12 Create Online Domination With Video Marketing 139

Chapter 13 Big-Money Coaching 149

Chapter 14 Highly Paid Consulting 161

Chapter 15 Offer Solutions to Problems 173

Chapter 16 Grow Your Expert Community 179

Chapter 17 Build a Highly Paid Speaker Platform 187

Chapter 18 Sell High-End Products Online 203

Chapter 19 Generate Cash Flow Fast With VIP Days 213

Chapter 20 Sell Your Expertise at Multi-Speaker Events 219

Chapter 21 Start Your Own Big-Money Events 229

Chapter 22 Generate Multiple Streams of Expert Income 241

Chapter 23 Get Your "Ask" in Gear 251

Chapter 24 Become the Authority by Writing a Book 255

Chapter 25 Develop a Steady Stream of Referrals 269

Conclusion 279

Index 281

About the Author 287

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