Most experts are good at many things. That’s exactly why nobody remembers them for one.
I am talking about good, competent experts who really know their craft. While they are amazing at what they do, they struggle to communicate and resonate.
It’s obvious that experts and soloists have accumulated diverse expertise over the years. “Clients call me when they need anything done” is what they say. The referrals they get usually come from their past work.
You might publish your expertise on different platforms like LinkedIn or talk about it in sales calls, but everybody else is doing that too. And so clients see you, but don’t resonate with your expertise and don’t remember you for anything specific. The prospects don’t know which bucket to put you in. The threat of becoming a commodity is real.
Just ask the people who keep sharing tips, tricks, and how-to content on YouTube, LinkedIn, emails, and so on. It’s not uncommon to keep producing content around our expertise without gaining any traction.
Or imagine a sales conversation where the prospect asks you, “What do you do?” and you answer, “Whatever you need.” You become just another DevOps guy or another conversion copywriter or another data scientist.
Pretty soon, you are on a ship that has set its course for… nowhere specific. Your business is floating directionless into the vast, deep ocean.
A Big Idea is the solution to these problems.
What is a Big Idea?
A Big Idea is the hidden perspective that flows through your expertise. It’s a single idea around which your business revolves. It’s the one thing that you can stand on. The one thing you can commit to. And the one thing you can become known for.
An excellent example is Jonathan Stark’s “Hourly Billing is Nuts” and Blair Enns’s “Win Without Pitching.” Jonathan and Blair are not competing on their expertise, they are merely sharing their Big Idea that pulls the right people in.
What happens when you commit to the Big Idea?
The first thing we experience is the unburdening. The clarity. The moment we understand the single thread in our expertise, we can ignore everything else and commit to a direction. We know exactly what we want to say and the direction we want to commit to. It might not happen immediately, as you work through different drafts, but eventually your business gets a direction.
You get solid ground to stand on, and you can talk about your business without the cringe. You are no longer a software developer. You are ‘the’ consultant who believes X.
All the downstream decision-making gets easier, bringing a natural coherence to the brand. Eventually, we build a body of work around it, making our Big Idea stronger, clearer, and more defensible.
And then there is the long-term effect
The clients can’t remember all your expertise. But they can remember and repeat one idea. The Big Idea. It gives people something they can repeat when you are not in the room. It also gives a concept to talk about in your conversations. As you put your idea out there, people are pulled towards it.
Not the whole world. But a small audience. Not everyone, but someone who aligns with your worldview.
Take my client Florian, for example. Many experts help consulting firms. But Florian is known for his Big Idea, which is “Stop capacity selling, start value selling.” This idea pulls the right prospects and gives his business a direction.
To summarize
Our expertise is no longer a differentiator. It doesn’t convey anything meaningful as we struggle to resonate and become interchangeable commodities. The way out of this is to find a perspective that is already hidden in your expertise. The Big Idea helps you become known for a single idea and gives a direction to your business.