When we are experts in an area, we forget what it is like not to know. A good friend of ours was telling us of a short consultancy he recently did. “It consisted of me going to the internet and choosing the rain water tanks from a website, putting it into a report and giving it to them. The things people will pay for!”
We laughed about it, but then I realised I had been looked for the same type of consultancy. Just not for rain water tanks, for windows and doors. There are hundreds, if not thousands of options for windows and doors for our house project. And we can classify them by styles and price. However, when we look at a group of brands with similar prices and styles, I have no idea what the actual difference is. Nor how to choose. I need an expert.
Good experts will spend a short amount of time talking to you to understand the criteria you are using to decide. This could be things like size, price range, colour, style. But also things like purpose, location, and any things to stay away from. They’ll take that, add their, usually, more technical criteria – U-value, flow rate, etc. Then they review options and give you a recommendation. And quite frankly, they’ve likely done this hundreds of times before so they’ll probably have 2 or 3 go to recommendations lined up before you contact them.
You’re paying them for their knowledge, but also your peace of mind, confidence and your deniability (they told me to do it). You’re also paying them to find a way through, not the way through, but a way through. A way through the myriad of choices and they do this by giving you a criteria to make the choice with.
We use experts in all areas of life. When choosing water tanks, windows, doors, cars, but also who’s chocolate birthday cake recipe to use. Some we pay for, some we don’t. But you are never considered an expert unless people trust you. If you want to be an expert, perhaps that’s the place to start.
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