You have too much to offer

And that's a problem.

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

Something was wrong with me. 

When I first started my solo business, two forces were fighting inside of me. 

I wanted to help people, but didn’t want to be challenged by solopreneurs who were clearly behind me in terms of results. Why wouldn’t they just listen?

I wanted to learn but kept rolling my eyes at ideas I’d heard, even though I hadn’t tried most of these ideas.

One day, a coach I worked with introduced me to the concept of Expert Blindness — and I finally understood. 

Do any of these sound familiar? 

• You struggle to figure out what is it exactly that your audience wants. 

• You feel like your ideal clients simply don’t understand the value you offer.

• You find it difficult to come up with good ideas consistently—because you need the perfect ideas.

• The content into which you put the least effort does best. Go figure!

• You get angry at silly comments (even though you really try to ignore them).

If so, then I have news for you. You may have fallen victim to Expert Blindness, too. 

Expert blindness happens when we develop a bias as a result of our intimate and extensive knowledge of a particular subject. We see ourselves as experts and anything outside of our expertise seems silly or irrelevant. 

Expert blindness is dangerous. It keeps you away from your audience (who aren’t experts) and slows down your progress. The horrible thing is, it affects even beginners — because even beginners have gained some expertise. 

Once I overcame expert blindness (or at least started to work on it), I started: 

• Getting more engagement on my content 

• Making more sales 

• Always having a lot of relevant ideas 

• Having way more fun doing my business. 

Ready to figure out if you suffer from expert blindness and how to deal with it? Let’s go. 

Secret to Success: Don’t let your expertise hold you back 

In this newsletter: 

• What is expert blindness and how it affects you

• 5 warning signs you’ve fallen into the expert trap. For paid subscribers only. 

• How to eliminate expert blindness and open your eyes to opportunities. For paid subscribers only. 

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What is expert blindness and how it affects you

A decade of research shows that expertise can hold you back in two important ways. 

1. Overconfidence: This happens when someone is so skilled in one area that they assume they’re proficient in everything else too.

2. Lack of curiosity: Deep knowledge and experience can make entrepreneurs closed off to new ideas, preventing them from understanding their audience’s needs or learning from others.

Consider the case of Matthew Broderick, who led the Homeland Security Operations Center when Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans. A brigadier general with 30 years of experience, he seemed like the perfect person to oversee the response to the storm. “Been there, done that,” he said when describing his qualifications for the role.

Yet Broderick didn’t trigger key elements of the rescue-and-relief efforts until more than a day after Katrina hit. He underestimated the extent of the catastrophe, owing in part to his expert mindset, which prevented him from seeing that adept as he was at handling crises in military contexts, he had little experience with natural disasters in the civilian realm.

In an expert blindness study, experts and regular car shoppers watched TV ads while wearing sensors to track their reactions. Most ads got similar reactions from both groups, but when Honda ads came on, something interesting happened.

The experts, who were Honda dealers, paid a lot of attention to the car details and lease deals. They got emotionally engaged with these aspects. But the regular shoppers? They cared more about the story in the ad.

This confusion may make your e-mails, articles, ads and even products/services irrelevant.

While I talked with Chris Davidson from

Over 40 Freakin Awesome

, he shared how, as a fitness coach, he was trying to communicate the overall idea of a healthy life, while many of his students wanted to know specific exercises and meal programs.

And have you ever written a piece of content in a hurry, just something simple, and then it got tons of attention? That’s because, in your rushed moments, you remove your expert goggles and you write what your audience actually wants.

You just have too much to offer. You need to break it down a little.

It’s amazing how much easier your business can be once you deal with expert blindness. And don’t you want to make your business both easier and more successful? 

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5 warning signs you’ve fallen into the expert trap

Okay, so expert blindness is bad, but do all experts have it? And more importantly, do you? 

Here are a few warning signs to watch for: