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Expertise

Written by: Sam Allman

Article Overview: As consultant and trainer I always teach the value of being an expert. There’s no doubt that as an expert it’s just as important to be an expert in not just product knowledge, but in your subject matter as well. This knowledge helps your confident in front of a customer or audience. It also gives you the ability to ask excellent and relevant questions. You can quote famous people and books to position yourself as an expert, but you can’t fake expertise very long.

Expertise

If you study a specific subject for a year, you become an expert in that subject. You can’t fake depth. Each of us needs to develop depth and dimension for what we teach. We need to practice what we preach. I struggle with this all the time. My wife tells me all the time that I need to go to my own seminars. My challenge to you is to become a living embodiment of the quest for knowledge. Become a learning machine!

Knowledge is power because it gives you choices. At Allman Consulting and Training our goal is to inspire our clients and students to set and to achieve s-t-r-e-t-c-h goals, individually and collectively. It’s what keeps us going. My personal mission is to help others find happiness and fulfillment through continuous learning and self-improvement. I believe that the purpose of mankind’s existence is happiness. Allman Consulting and Training has become an expression of my personal mission.

We believe that, because we seek to teach only the truth. We likely fall short at times, but we earnestly strain and strive to learn and teach correct and timeless principles. (Week after week, we search and research, probe and listen, and ponder the conclusions of this earth’s sages.) After much study and solemn thinking, we have concluded that some principles are absolute. We agree with the many philosophers, statesmen, and prophets who have propounded natural, God-given laws. We believe that these principles, properly applied, bring happiness, peace, and progress to people in all cultures and ages. We aim to teach those correct principles to our clients, as best we understand them.

Not that life becomes easy when we know the correct principles. We’d all be sloths, if life were easy. The surest growth occurs when complexities and difficulties challenge us. Just as muscles won’t grow on a couch potato, so also character, competence, and confidence won’t develop in a simpleton. Only trials, challenges, and struggles bring out the best in us.

These trials and struggles make the correct application of correct principles most difficult. Knowing (1) when to apply (2) which principles (3) in which situation and (4) to which degree are the arts and skills we seek to teach. Few people achieve the highest degrees of those arts and skills. Therefore, proper understanding and application remain goals for which we all rightly strive – throughout our entire lives.

From our USP ay Allman Consulting, we expect ourselves, each of you, to:

1. Learn Truth
We seek continual learning of truth, wherever it lies, that we may enlighten our minds, enlarge our souls, deepen our purpose, and perfect our characters.

2. Live Truth
We strive to apply truth properly. We think and act with integrity, caring, respect, and fairness. We relish diversity. We strive to be healthful in body, mind, and spirit. We serve our families, to optimize their progress.

3. Teach Truth
We teach truth to others, to maximize their learning and growth. From chaos, complexity, and contradiction, we seek to draw order, simplicity, and truth.

4. Be an Influence for Good
We reach out to and partner with clients, in order that we may promote their initiative, hardiness, hope, personal growth, and individual solutions. We constantly strive to promote morality.

5. Grow the Company
We seek company growth and profit, for the purpose of achieving our mission. We drive change, and adapt to change, without compromising our values.

6. Enjoy the Journey
We enjoy the process as well as the result, the journey as well as the destination.

The above is only done from learning. Seek wisdom, seek knowledge, seek understanding, seek depth, seek dimension, and seek to become an expert. “If you were put on trial as an expert, would there be any evidence to convict you?”

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Article Tags: competence, complexities, continuous learning, correct principles, couch potato, embodiment, happiness, knowledge is power, mankind, muscles, personal mission, philosophers, prophets, research probe, sages, search and research, self improvement, simpleton, statesmen, timeless principles



Related Forum Posts
More profile options - [quote="Evan":11og2qr1]Hello everyone - I wanted to drop another reminder about the profile options - you can now add your favorite entrepreneur and favorite business book which I'm glad to see people doing! Any other suggestions for new fields to add so we can learn more about our fellow community members? How about favorite business quote?[/quote:11og2qr1] Hi Evan, To build on Aaron's comments, you could add a field called "Area of Expertise" so that people will know what value a particular member can bring to the table. Another form of "social glue" would be to display a user's interests because people like to do business with and talk to people they like above all else.
Seeking Angels: Australian FMCG retail and distribution - GroCo.com.au is our online grocery endeavour aimed at plugging the gap between the existing A$900M and potential A$2.2B Australian domestic market size in the online grocery market. The A$71.9B domestic fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) retail industry is currently 70% dominated by only 2 players: Woolworths and Coles. GroCo will establish its online grocery retail store, market and deliver to a fixed area within Melbourne to start. Warehousing as well as cold-chain and ambient logistics will be managed in-house. Staged expansion that follows will see the business operating across the entire Melbourne within 1.5 years, and nationally by 2015Q1. Forecasted turnover is A$858M per annum by fiscal year (FY) 2015 with a net profit margin of 3.1% after tax, and A$1,689M by FY2020 with a net profit margin of 4.9%. Five year net present value (NPV) based on cash flow less 30% corporate tax is A$19.3M, and for ten years is A$283.6M. Compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) in five years is 31.0%, per annum and for ten years is 124.3% per annum. Return on investment (ROI) for five years is 3.9x and for ten years is 56.7x. GroCo can be successful in the online grocery market space as it will address several pertinent issues such as price-points, limited stock range, unsatisfactory logistics, supplier ire of retail monopoly, and existing web store usability problems. This business can be successful also because it starts on a clean slate without any conflict of interests as do the major players with retail property investment interests. The business can be built in the short-term by emulating the range and price points set out by existing retailers. However, long-term success and differentiation strategy that needs to be implemented include developing alternative income streams, range diversification and expansion, driving ultra-small package distribution efficiencies, and creative discounting. GroCo has in the last 6 months established the commitment of circa 100 local and international suppliers to support our business model and to trade directly. The business can thus start-up and start trading within 2 months of securing funding. Market assessment, business feasibility and financial projections over 10-years are also complete. 7 key persons are willing to forego their comfortable senior professional careers to join GroCo upon startup. Expertise of these men and women include general management, financial operation and management, purchasing, importing, trading, information technology (IT) as well as marketing. GroCo is seeking A$2M in startup funding in return for a 40% equity stake in the company, neg. Participation from the investor is optional. The investor may opt to divest or remain with the business after a five year period. Funds will be put towards hiring, infrastructure, marketing and inventory. Full business plans and financial projections available subject to signed confidentiality undertaking. Contacts: Vincent Tan (vincent@kossel.com.au and +61 449 950 795)


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