Expert vs. Generalist

In this blog I will talk about why you need to become an expert and why you don't want to be a generalist. I will also provide you with an analogy to explain the difference. If you want customers to chase you, and if you want to make more money, listen to this audio track. I've also included a transcript of the audio further down for your convenience. 

Hi, it’s Chris Lynton here from Tribefit.co and today I wanted to talk to you about why being an expert in your market is the key to being successful. First of all, I want to start off with a very easy-to-understand analogy. The analogy of a GP, or General Practitioner (Doctor) versus a brain surgeon.

GP’s at the moment, I’m sure if you’ve been to the doctor anytime recently, GP’s are exhausted. They get paid very little money. It’s almost like a meat factory when you go to a medical centre now in terms of the GP’s that are in there. They get paid very little money. They work very long hours. You know, many of them you’ll speak to they hate their job and they got into becoming a doctor because they wanted to help people’s lives. Also, they thought, being a doctor was very prestigious and they assumed they’d be quite affluent as a result. But what it’s shown you is in a saturated market, when things start to become more and more developed, the generalist gets paid less and will become a meat market and end up hating their job, hating their life. So the GP vs. the brain surgeon.

The brain surgeon is once again a doctor, but someone who specialised in a specific, specific area. As a result, the Brain Surgeon gets paid truckloads more than the GP. The brain surgeon works a lot less than the GP and a brain surgeon only needs to know specifics about one specific topic. Know everything and going deep into brain surgery vs. a GP all day, every day has to be learning about anything and everything and almost being a generalist rather than an expert in any field. GP’s – dime a dozen. Brain surgeons, good brain surgeons, very, very successful people and hands down people will pay more any day for an expert than a generalist.

You also need to sell less as customers will hunt you down. If you’re a generalist, all day, every day, you’re going to hunt people down. If you’re a specialist and an expert, you don’t need to sell people. Customers will find you. They’ll search you. They’ll hear about you from friends. There will be more referrals. So in essence, you don’t need to sell as much because they’ll be coming to you and almost selling themselves as to why you should take them on, which is a massive key and another reason why people will more than happily pay you more.

Here’s an example, I, not so recently about a year ago, had foot surgery because I dislocated a bone in my foot playing rugby league. I spoke to a friend. They recommended Sydney’s best foot surgeon because this certain surgery if got wrong it could actually affect you for the rest of your life in terms of the running, walking, etcetera, etcetera. I was more than happy to wait longer. More than happy to travel further. More than happy to pay more to have this one specialist doctor be my surgeon vs. going to a public hospital being cheaper, faster, easier, less travel, etcetera, etcetera.

So, I hunted him down through a referral. He was well-known in the sports space for working on this injury and getting people back on their feet and active and as a result, I hunted him down. Happy to pay him more, etcetera, etcetera. All perfect examples.

 Fitness, relating that back to fitness. Fitness is a crowded space. Everybody is a personal trainer, everybody thinks they know something about training or exercise because you can just go on the Net and Google and there’s stuff on TV every day. There’s magazines, etcetera, etcetera. Everybody thinks they know about fitness. It’s an extremely crowded space. You need to stand out!! You need to be known for something specific and you need to be an expert at something specific and really, really own it!

What we talk about is finding your mountain and being the king of your mountain. If you’re the king of any mountain, people will come to you. People will pay you more. People will respect you more, respect your time more and you’ll be much more successful than any of the generalist that don’t own any specific area.

So what do you need to do? Become an expert. The key to being successful. You need to sit down. Hopefully, you’ve taken some learnings from this. I was just sitting down today. Spend 10-20 minutes. Write down what specifically you know more about than the average fitness expert, personal trainer, etcetera, etcetera. Who have you helped the most and what are you more known for? Specialise in that. Learn more about that. Tell people about that and start to become an expert in a specific area, whatever it might be.

You’ll be more successful, you’ll have to sell less, you’ll have to chase less people because they’ll be chasing you and you’ll have a much better life, much funner life and you’ll be able to help people get bigger results because you’re not being a generalist.

Hope you took something from today. Enjoy! Have a great day and like I said, make sure you get that pen and pad out and write down your goals, your skills and pick an area that you can be an expert. A specific expert vs. a generalist. Cheers!