Believe it or not, you can gain credibility by innovating within your field. You can come up with a new way to do something or a new framework to help people categorize their ideas. You can question common wisdom.
It’s important because it’s a way to show you’ve gone beyond the basics. You’re not just repeating what you’ve learned. You’ve thought about the material. You deserve respect.
I expand on this a lot in my course on positioning yourself as an expert. The course helps you develop your credibility — so your audience will listen to you respectfully when you tell them something new. What story do you tell to be recognized as an expert? That’s covered in Module 2 of the course
But marketing yourself as an innovator calls for special skills.
When you market yourself as an Innovator archetype, you’re promising, “I have developed a unique solution to your problems…but you must come to me to get it.”
You tell stories about people using your innovation, not stories about you. You don’t talk about yourself and your background unless it’s directly relevant to your innovation.
So how can you be an innovator and market yourself as another archetype? I discuss this topic in detail, with examples, in Podcast #145 of the Strategic Storytelling podcast. Click here to listen on your favorite platform.