As an expert, you will be most remembered by the problems you solve for your clients.You help others solve their problems with your expertise. You deal with problems that might otherwise seem huge, overwhelming or excessively complex to others. Don’t take your knowledge and expertise for granted. Your way of looking at things and your way of thinking is unique to your client, and it is based upon your own experiences, failures and successes. That’s what your clients pay for. You offer them a short-cut to problem solving. You help by moving them away from obstacles that are stunting their growth and you guide them in the right direction for expansion.  

When you discover how to best solve your clients’ problems, you begin to develop more value as an expert. Find a way to offer your expert value in an innovative way; this is called value innovation. It requires a unique way of looking at the obstacles and challenges your clients face. For example, discover your own unique way of offering strategic logic along with good common sense and personal experiences to help solve problems for others.

Experts help to make problems go away

Courtesy of Flickr user Tom Markham

Good problem solving skills are fundamentally important if you’re going to be successful as an expert. Problems are something we all want to get rid of; they are costly, time-consuming and stressful. Problems force us to think about an uncertain future and some seem to never go away.

That’s why, when faced with problems, your clients want to eliminate them as quickly as possible. They want to find the easiest and most obvious solution, and that solution should be to work with you!

To be an effective problem-solver, you need to be systematic and logical at the same time. When you solve problems you help others make more effective decisions that can improve their personal or professional lives. And as you increase your problem solving skills, you also increase your own confidence and value as an expert.