Should Your Business Be the Expert Or the Friend?

Our online community, the Business Oasis, has been rife with some great debates recently. One centered on whether, when you write articles or blog posts, you should talk to your readers as a friend and peer, or as an “expert” speaking down from on high.

You can be a friend to people and share the vulnerability of your journey, and people tend to like this, it helps to create connections.

And yet, if you’re the expert, your readers might actually believe they can get the help that you offer and be willing to hire you. Which would be nice, seeing as how you’re running a business and all.

The obvious answer is to do both, and you can stop reading right here if you like, because you’ve got the punch line already. Yet if you’ll stick with me, I’d like to explore it a little more deeply.

The Divine Quality of Lordship

Whoa, talk about Old Testament. Please forgive the English translation, but in Sufism the Divine Quality “Ar-Rabb” is often translated as “Lordship.” The Qur’an talks about it like this: “The One sees a black ant on a black rock at midnight, and knows what it needs, and gives it what it needs.”

Your readers and clients need help! Maybe not every single one of them every single time you write. But the reason you’re in business, and a big part of the reason they want to read you, is because you have help you can offer them for some problem they are facing.

Tell them how best to support their immune system during flu season, or how to get a return call from a cold-call voicemail, or how to manage that awkward, difficult employee or how to talk to their spouse about household chores without creating an argument.

Whew! Thank goodness you helped them. Only, did you just get too big for your britches? Or for theirs? (Get outta their britches!)

The Heart Likes to Be Small

I don’t mean your heart likes to limit love, but the spiritual heart that yearns to be in service is essentially humble, and doesn’t like to grandstand. This may be part of the legitimate reason you resist being an expert. It’s okay to nourish that humility, but not by risking the welfare of your readers.

On the scene of an accident where someone is lying in the road, you’ll find the paramedic crouching, knees bent, close to the ground, holding out a helping hand. But they’re still on the balls of his or her feet, still in the center of his or her gravity.

Unfortunately, many people do just the opposite with their vulnerability, they collapse. Collapsing is when you let go of that sense of core strength and wisdom that is the wellspring of your expertise. Instead of reaching out a helping hand, you lie down next to the accident victim.

Are the only choices “expert” or “collapse”? Or can you find the sweet spot in the middle?

Keys to the Vulnerable Expert

• Don’t Use Expertise To Keep Your Distance.

When someone is hurting, it’s easy to go into “expert” mode to try to fix them, because *you* are uncomfortable with their struggle. It’s never fun to watch a client struggle to get a business going when their home is at risk of foreclosure, or to struggle with illness when their life is on the line.

If you can find a place in your heart that is okay with their struggle, that knows just like the struggles you’ve faced in your life, they will access resources allowing them to see their way through, even if their house does go into foreclosure. It’s hard for us to guess where the blessings are, because they don’t always look like blessings.

When you find that acceptance in your heart for their situation, then you won’t be using your expert status to create distance from their pain. And they will trust you more.

• Don’t Tell Your Struggles In an Effort To Create Intimacy

When someone is hurting, there’s a tendency to tell your own similar story to create closeness with them.

“You know, I’ve struggled with being an expert, too. One time I got on my high horse and talked at people in the audience for an hour straight, and at the end they all walked out. No one even asked for my business card or anything.”

When the client’s pain triggers your own pain, you may be tempted to tell a story to unconsciously ask for witnessing, love or support. Your poor client, who is already overwhelmed and hurting, hasn’t received any true empathy and will probably glaze over and go away.

Instead, tell stories that you have some sense of completion about, so you can give them as examples in learning. And even then, use some empathetic statements in your writing prior to the story.

• Always Ask “How Does This Help?”

While writing, after you’ve given some bit of advice, or shared a story or vulnerability of your own, take a moment to re-read it. Ask in your heart: “How does this help the reader? Is there any way in which I’m trying to take instead of give through this writing?”

Notice your heart’s response. If you’re needing something–approval, understanding, acceptance–see if you can access that through your own heart. Once you do, notice if you have an urge to change what you wrote.

The story I told above about being an expert? What if it went like this: “I got on my high horse and talked to people for an hour straight. At the end, everyone left without asking for my card–and who could blame them? Since then, I’ve always taken care to empathize and connect with my audience in addition to giving my expertise, and it always pays off with valuable connections.”

Don’t abandon your expert status–your clients need it! And be willing to be vulnerable in a way that serves the reader and doesn’t take from them. Your heart will guide you, and your readers will follow your heart.