How to Choose Good Experts

One of the time-honored ways of saving time is to learn from experience—someone else’s. We turn to experts to learn what to do.

Why Use Experts?

We love with the idea of experts. We love to believe there’s someone out there who has everything we want in life. Not only do they have everything, but they know exactly which steps will bring us to same land of Milk and Honey they live in.

There are only two problems. First, milk and honey just isn’t the delectable taste treat you might think. And second, experts aren’t even starting from the same place you are. They aren’t going where you’re going. They don’t like what you like, and what they did may not work in your world.

Not only that, they’re telling you what they think worked. Maybe they did everything wrong and succeeded in spite of themselves. So-called financial Maestro Alan Greenspan just said maybe he was wrong for, oh, say, 35 years. Oops! His little mistake is costing us trillions and global financial collapse. Experts aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Realize Experts Aren’t Always Right

In school,  if we did the same things the teachers did, we would get the same answers. That works when you’re learning basic skills, but not for bigger questions.

In school, there were right answers. And if we did the same things the teachers did, we would get the same answers. That works when you’re learning basic skills. But for bigger questions, the answers change, the paths change, and most life/self-help experts aren’t necessarily authorities on anyone’s situation but their own. And sometimes, not even that.

(I am, of course, an exception to that. Everything I say is perfect, applies perfectly to your situation, and will lead you to the land of lasagna and Oreo ice cream cake, both of which are much tastier than milk and honey.)

What Should You Look For in an Expert?

When you turn to an expert, you might think you should be looking at the quality of their work. Your expert painter should produce great paintings. Your expert marketer should be worth a gazillion dollars, and your expert musician should know there’s no such thing as a W-clef.

When you turn to an expert to have them teach you, however, what you care about is whether they’re an expert teacher, not whether they’re an expert at what they’re teaching. People love to blast experts who don’t follow their own advice. I don’t think that’s valid. Top coaches don’t perform as top players. We want top coaches to bring out the best in any player we give them. It’s the same for advice-givers. Their product isn’t their own excellence, it’s yours.

When you decide to learn from an expert, students are their product. Meet people they have taught, who started from the same place as you. Find out if those students have mastered the skills the expert teaches. If so, that’s a strong hint that your expert can transmit skills.

Sometimes Experts are Not Really Experts

Even if you’re careful, some not-so-experts will slip by your screen. They have great results on paper, but not necessarily due to anything they did.

Jordan worked at a software company that went public. He thought his great judgment was why the company was worth a few hundred million dollars. Er, no. As far as I could tell, the billion-dollar opportunity was so strong that even Jordan’s unfailingly awful advice couldn’t tank it completely.

Being rich, he was invited into deals on the strength of his success with that first company. When entrepreneurs took his advice, their companies promptly went bankrupt. Rather than looking at his personal success, they should have looked at the success rate of people who listened to his advice.

Make Sure Experts Know Why They’re Good

Some experts may be good at what they do, but they don’t actually know why they’re any good. I attended a conference on building Internet businesses. Several speakers gave their formula for how anyone (they claimed) could build a successful Internet-based business. Their formula was based on their own experience.

The only problem is that they assumed their advice would work for anyone. I noticed every “expert” had the same product and customers: they were selling sales training to small business owners or salespeople. Salespeople have the highest training budget and will spend it on anything that helps them sell more.

People selling to teachers, or teenagers, or artists wouldn’t be able to make the same formula work. Even though the experts were sincere and had produced genuine results, they didn’t realize their choice of market was a key part of their Internet business-building abilities.

How to Choose Good Experts

My favorite experts change my thinking. My favorite voice teacher is Jacque, MissMonk on Myspace. She was trained in martial arts, vocal therapy, yoga, Chi Gong, and Tae Kwondo. My old voice teachers taught me what they’d learned about voice physiology. Jacque reads Gray’s Anatomy for fun, and understands body mechanics, muscle connection, and how it all works together to create sound. She pulls out martial arts exercises that triple my volume, increase my range, and make me sound awesome! How I think of singing and voice is now totally different. We still work together via Skype, and she’s still better than any in-person teacher I’ve had. She finds ways to change my thinking. I have to be willing to hang upside down in weird yoga postures on occasion, but what it does to my voice is pure magic.

When you’re choosing your experts, choose the ones who create magic for you. Judge their teaching by their other students, watch carefully to make sure they know what makes them great, and find the expert who can change your thinking in the way that liberates you totally.

This is Stever Robbins. Email questions to getitdone@quickanddirtytips.com or leave voicemail at 866-WRK-LESS.

Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!

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