6 Things that Tell Me That I Can Trust a Search Expert – And Tips on Becoming A More Trustworthy Expert

As promised in my recent lunatic rant about integrity, here’s how I decide to trust a search expert. (And there ARE some search experts I trust, if you missed it.) The ability to pass this scrutiny is what the experts I trust have in common.

I’ve put in several asides, in blue, to help show you how you can apply these tips to your business to Become a trusted expert.

So here’s my criteria. Yours may vary, and please share them here or click the retweet button, then @ me on Twitter and we can continue the conversation there.

1- If I Search for them in Google and Yahoo, I can research them, and find mostly happy clients and/or customers.

I never expect to find 100% happy clients and customers. Things happen. Expectations are sometimes mis-managed. Projects gets stalled. Sometimes consultants get fired -sometimes we have to fire our clients.

However, I do expect to find around 95% of the conversation around a person I would entrust with the growth of my business to be positive. How do you achieve this? You keep the great content coming, and make sure it gets noticed, pushed, and acted on by the right people.

2- The techniques they would use on me are the ones they use on their own sites.

So how do you tell if they drink their own Kool Aid? Look at their traffic. See how long they’ve been around. Ask yourself if the techniques they use to drive clients and customers to their sites are at least indirectly responsible for leading you to them.

Were you referred by a friend amazed by their search results?

Were you Googling something and found an article they wrote as number one?

How does their site rank for their keyword?

Big thing to look out for – Jack of All Trades is Master of None. If a person who has mostly been teaching you how to make money online suddenly claims to be a traffic expert, be wary. Find out exactly how much of what they know they are using to promote their own sites.

And make sure they’re teaching you ALL of what they’re doing. Many people will show you incredible statistics where millions of visitors came to their sites…. then teach you the techniques that brought only 1% of their traffic, failing also to mention that they bought the vast majority of it, or paid someone else to generate it.

If you want to get treated for a brain disorder, you go to a neurosurgeon. If you want a doctor for your kids dog you go to a veterinarian. Only the desperate and the fools go to dentists for heart surgery.

This one is easy. Few people do it. Do what you tell others to do. Display the proof that you do on your site.

3- The way they accept payment has a built-in guarantee if I’m not satisfied with their services. I’m not saying I don’t trust people with merchant accounts. I’m saying it encourages me if they also use Clickbank, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, Amazon, or any other system where, if I have a problem with my order, I can bypass them to get a refund if I can demonstrate that I have cause.

Every service I’ve ever used to accept payment takes the entire refund process out of my hands – not only has my company never refused a refund, the power to do so is out of my hands. You might look at doing this so, in order that regular customers who know about those services will see that you’re not afraid to make strong guarantees.

And sure, you would think that leaves us open to fraud – BUT a person can’t get critical updates, or support if they are no longer a customer. The way my company markets (without the pie-in-the-sky promises that attract the kind of loser who would de-fraud someone) keeps that kind of thing to a minimum.

So if you do this, bundle something with their orders that gets cancelled if they refund. These could be unannounced bonuses, free support, etc. As long as what you’re offering is ethical and directly related to the product, people will be pleased and refunds will go Way down.

4- I Can Test A Bit of Their Knowledge For Free.

I am subscribed to a lot of other experts newsletters in neighboring fields. I like to be able to refer any business I can’t take to the best people I can find. One of the main things I use to determine whether someone qualifies as the “best” is whether they’ve shared any knowledge in public.

When you post some of your minor secrets to your blog or as an article, it displays a sense of confidence that is irresistible. I know your stuff works, I proved it to myself. How can I NOT buy from you when my own logic tells me it’s the best thing to do?

This is why article marketing is so powerful. If you solve a small how-to in an article, and your prospect tries it, when it works, you have the most powerful salesman ever – a person’s own experience.

Few people ever want to admit they are wrong about something. Once they see your techniques work with their own eyes it will be impossible to prove to them otherwise.

5- They are thought leaders

In addition to this, the people I trust not only give me testable, actionable proof in public, they innovate. They invent things. They come up with techniques. Other people seek them out to share their brain store because it is unique. They see things differently. They are pioneers.

Being a thought leader sounds more daunting than it actually is. Start small. Do one webinar a year. Have a free teleconference. Get on the staff of a publication that you have to earn placement on by reputation. Be a guest blogger on a reputable site. Do an Editorial in an offline resource. Contribute to your industry, little by little.

It doesn’t have to be a profound, ground-breaking discovery every time. Just keep a diary of things you share with your peers to which they say “Really? I didn’t know that.”

Then leverage that knowledge for further exposure.

6- They’re Reachable. Perhaps not easily, but I can get to them if I need to do it.

By that I mean that I can reach someone via email, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. for pre-sales questions or support. I also find social profiles I can use to get in touch with them if… okay, when, email fails me. Maybe even a phone number!

Now, notice, this person is not always the expert themselves. I have been one of those people who one day can’t seem to BUY a new customer, and then suddenly have clients coming out of the woodwork. If you are in rapid growth or become popular, it’s very difficult to stay on top of all the email and phone calls you can get.

And there’s no way to tell people who have a question, from people who want to hire you, or from people who have every intention of simply wasting your time.

I know. If you’re a consultant you’ve grown to hate the phone. But remember, the inquiry line doesn’t have to run to your desk. Get a Skype number for a year and have it forwarded to a college student, intern, family member, virtual assistant or receptionist. People will be shocked and pleased when they find a number, and an actual person answers.

We’re going to be putting this into effect later this year.

Trust is a much more important element than any other thing you do in business. If people trust you, you can have ugly sales pages, a crappy blog, even mediocre customer service.

Of course you Must improve those things if you hope to survive in the long run. But in the short run, if people can trust you, and you prove that you are worth being trusted, they’ll want to do business with you despite your short comings.