How to Leverage Your Body of Work to Scale Your Expertise

​Welcome to the Scalable Expert, the podcast where we unlock the secrets to building a business that grows with you, not around you. I'm your host, Tara Bryan, business strategist, mentor, and creator of the Infinite Scale Method. If you're a coach, consultant, or service provider who's maxed out with one on one work, overwhelmed by the grind, and ready to scale your expertise into a business that works for you, then you're in the right place. Each week, I'll share actionable tips, inspiring success stories, and proven strategies. to help you reclaim your time, grow your income and create a business that delivers results without sacrificing quality. Let's dive in and make your business infinitely scalable. Hey everybody, welcome to this week's podcast episode. I am thrilled that you're here. In this episode, I want to talk about your expertise. I want to talk about owning your expertise, your body of work, and how you show up with whatever it is that you are passionate about, whatever it is that you have mastered in terms of your expertise or your craft, I want to talk about that today. An opportunity that's in front of you to be able to package that and monetize that into a scalable online business. Because I was just at a networking event and one of my favorite things is to hear about all of the experience and passion and expertise that people have because it's always so different. Even if you have a whole room full of people who say they do the same thing, right? Say they're all business coaches, right? What happens is everyone has a different sort of lens that they're looking through. Everyone has a different set of tools or expertise that they're bringing to the table that is totally different than the person next to them, even if they're saying that they have the same role. Consider if you have a traditional JOB somewhere out there and there are 10 of you in your department that are all under the same job description. You all approach your work just a little bit differently. That is the way that you see the world, the way that you have developed your expertise? So there's the thing that you do the actual work, and then there's the way that you do it. Everybody has a unique way that they do it. One of the things that is the best gift that you can give yourself is to package or really identify how is it that you help the person that you are working with or working for or you're getting results. Like how do you do that? What is the approach that you take that's just a little bit unique from someone else who's doing something similar? What is it that makes you the expert that gives you that edge of how do you do the thing that you do. That becomes your body of work. And I'm going to tell you that, this concept of owning your expertise has been around forever. Back decades ago it was the gig economy or become a free agent, go out on your own and do work for hire, take your expertise and monetize it and actually do projects or do work or be an extra pair of hands or whatever else it is that has been out there. Historically, that is the approach that people took as they evolved from an employee to a solopreneur to a business owner is you went out, you developed your expertise in your job. You went out on your own. You did more of what you were an expert in for other people, for other companies work for hire, all the different things. And then, at some point in your evolution, you probably thought, okay, great, now I want to do this at a bigger scale. How do I do that? What does that look like? And if you're someone like me, you started an agency where then you got a team and you grew a large business based on the volume of work that was coming in. But really at the end of the day, it all revolved around what my expertise is when I started the business, right? Otherwise I would be in something totally different than what I ended up in because it followed my expertise. But when you look at your body of work now, there's so many more opportunities for how do you package it and scale it into something that lives beyond you, that is your legacy, that allows you to make more income, impact, and have freedom of schedule, right? So the problem with freelancing or even an agency is all the work that you're doing is tied to time. You're doing the work and it takes time to be able to do the work, do that implementation piece. And the beauty of, actually defining and growing your body of work is that it can live beyond your time. So you're looking at then creating packaged versions of what you do and how you do it so that you can help people in different ways. You could write a book. You could create a workbook or a playbook. You could create a course or a program. You could do group coaching. You can do masterminds, you could do workshops, you could do, whatever it is in a box, right? There's so many ways that if you could package your expertise, if you could really define how it is that you show up to help people step by step, what's your unique view within what you're doing, then you have the ability to start to grow that based on the foundation of your expertise. So there's a huge opportunity. And I'm going to tell you even the jobs now that used to be oh, you get a government job or you get a hospital job or you get a teaching job and you are set, like you don't need to do anything else, right? If you are noticing, those jobs are not secure anymore. And so while a lot of us figured out how to monetize our body of work because we were in jobs that were a little bit less secure if you will now there's so many more, and I would say most employees are in a position where they have to be thinking about how do they monetize their own expertise. How do you own your expertise? And then you rent it out to your company. You rent it out to other people. Turn it into a legacy product or a legacy program or something that lives beyond you that allows you to grow. You have the opportunity, if you were to think about, again, your expertise, how you show up, how you help people, even if you're doing it right now in a job, to really look at that and say, how can I help solve more people's problems out in the world. And when you look at that, it gives you the opportunity to start looking at your body of work. Why are you here? What's your purpose? What's your specialty and your expertise and the unique way that you show up? Match that with people who have a need out there in the market. And that is when you know that you can start monetizing your expertise. We have a system for how to get people to be able to own their expertise, start to package it, help and sell it to other people so that they can start getting in the game, and then grow and scale it over time. Imagine if you had another way that you were able to give people the opportunity to work with you, to learn from you, to be able to get your expertise, and really flourish from your view that you take out in the market, out in the world, so that you can help more people, again, and be able to disconnect your time from your income to give you a little bit more freedom, and an opportunity for other things that are out there. Because I'm telling you, my friends, if you are looking at the news, now is the perfect opportunity to start exploring other means of income outside of your job. Outside of the thing that you're doing. So whether it's the fact that the government is completely upending every job that's there both from, teachers and government workers, and I don't know, someone else tomorrow where you have to really be thinking about how to take control over your body of work, over your expertise, and build something that is sustainable regardless of who it is that is giving you a paycheck, right? Or maybe it's AI that's coming and breathing down your neck because your job is going to change or shift because of the opportunities that are out there with AI. Your job that you're doing today may be significantly different as we move forward because there's another tool or a template that somebody can use to shortcut their process. Because remember, people pay for the fast track to success, the fast track to solve the problems that they have. If AI is the fast track, great, that's where people are going to go. I would argue that there always is that cognitive oversight over tools like that. But are you putting yourself in a position to own your expertise? To really start to look at what it is that you do, how you do it differently than somebody next to you, and then how can you take that expertise and use it to solve bigger problems out in the world for other people? There's never been a better time in the history of the world to be able to start moving in this direction. And I would argue again, like it doesn't matter. You don't need to go out a hundred percent on your own and start a business in order to start monetizing and defining your expertise. But if you want to turn it into a legit business that allows you to play in the business space to create an online business, go for it, right? That is what we help people do, regardless if it's, you're starting as your side hustle, or it's going to end up being your full time gig, because eventually once you own your expertise, you get known for that in the marketplace. And then people seek you out because you are the person that can help them solve their problem faster than anyone else. So I challenge you. As you look at all the instability that's going out right now, how do you start to own your expertise? I'm going to let you know that there are a couple of steps to be able to do that. First, like I said earlier, start looking around. How is it that you do things that's just slightly different than the person next to you, right? So you probably have, and you learned how to do the thing that you do. Like now you can probably do it automatically. And that's why honestly, it's so easy for you now, you don't think about it as being unique. That's a great sign that's your expertise. And so you've learned how to do it, you've learned the tips and tricks, you've learned all the obstacles and all the things that are going on around the process to be able to do that, right? If you don't have confidence in that go watch somebody who's brand new trying to do what you do. And then pay attention to, oh, how would you do that? What's the next step? What are the different things? That will give you some insight into what's your step by step path or methodology that you use to go through the process. Number two, why and how do you think a little bit differently about it? When you think about somebody else who's in the same position, what I love to do is push against their beliefs and the way that they do it, and be like, no, I wouldn't do it that way. Or, oh yeah, I would totally do it that way. That's the right way to do it. And that starts to give you some insight into how you uniquely think. About how to do that work, and then there's this superstar component to it right where it's like I do that so much better than anyone else that I know. So really identify that what is your superstar quality around what you do in your within your expertise. All of those things will start to give you insights into. what it is that you do, what you're an expert in, and why you're an expert at it. There's some special sauce that you're bringing to the table that is different than other people. Start to really wrap your head around that. And then document what those steps are and what I always recommend to people that people do is they create like a horizontal line with some boxes in it. And if you know me, I love boxes super simple. Don't overcomplicate it. Don't try and do icons or all those different things. Just do a bunch of boxes and be like, okay so what is the step by step sequence that I use to go from the starting point to the finish line? What are those things start to put those those on a horizontal timeline. Sometimes, and I recommend this too, like you can grab a ton of post it notes and start to put all those things together. If you can't figure out what the sequence is yet, then brainstorm all of the things that you do, put them in post it notes, throw them up on the wall. And then start to sift through and go, oh, interesting. There is a bigger picture here of the bigger buckets or the bigger steps or phases or however you want to think about it. And put that on a horizontal timeline. Then you can start saying, oh, interesting. So I consistently help people go from the starting point to the finish line in these steps. And oh, there's seven of them. Isn't that interesting? 80 percent of the time I'm doing this for every single person that I'm helping, every single team member, whoever it is that you are, ultimately at the end of the day, serving. What problem you are solving to go from the starting point to the finish line. Look at that and then really go, oh, interesting. So this is how I do it. And then I want you to sprinkle in all of the unique characteristics or things that you do that make it unique and special. What are those things that happen along that sequence that are things that you do better than anyone else? And if you don't know what that is, again, go back to what I said before. and really start to uncover that. Then that starts to become your proprietary framework. The unique way that you help go from the starting line to the finish line for every single project you're working on, every single process you're creating, every single person you're helping doesn't really matter, right? Like whatever it is that you do. Then that starts to be something that you can package. You can create a consistent approach with anyone that you're serving. You can create different assets around it. You can do all sorts of different things. But that's the starting point that allows you to start to package your expertise into your body of work where you can go and infinitely deliver it in multiple different ways. But it all starts by determining like, what am I an expert in? And then how do I turn that expertise into something that is a sequence from the starting point to the finish line. So I challenge you to go and do that. As soon as this podcast is over stop where you are, maybe you're in the car, pull over, start to map that out a little bit and see, how by getting this organized, you can start to package your expertise. And if you do this activity, I would love for you to reach out and let me know. You can send it to me, I'll give you feedback, we can talk about it. Go ahead out to our site and schedule that 15 minute phone call, if that is something that you're interested in walking through once you've done this activity. Alright, take care. 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