have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?
In our industry: The Wisdom Economy it can explain majority of the
problems that give people a bad taste.
It can be explained inside of this graph…
Specifically:
Incompetent people tend to: Overestimate their own skill levels.
Fail to recognize the genuine skill and expertise of other people.
Fail to recognize their own mistakes and lack of skill.
What’s the problem with this?
Yesterday, I saw a Facebook Ad for someone who was teaching Facebook
Ads…
There’s no problem with this.
The problem is…
Less than a year ago, this person came to me and I denied working with
them simply because of their mindset as I couldn’t get them to use a
funnel or paid advertising.
I refunded them.
As I saw their ad, I didn’t even know how to react.
9 months ago… they didn’t have a funnel.
they didn’t ever use online ads.
nothing
Now, I don’t have a problem with someone else coaching something that
they’ve learnt.
However, there is a major difference between coaching and mentoring.
Which is where Mr. / Ms. Dunning-Kruger comes in…
It doesn’t matter if it’s for your marketing…
a mindset coach…
or anything in-between.
Dunning-Kruger is the lack of self-awareness that occurs when someone
doesn’t realize that they aren’t an expert.
What you’ll find, even more, is that true experts have imposter syndrome.
When people have Dunning-Kruger activated, they will be extremely optimistic, backed with very little result of that confidence.
Now… the truth is: I’ve 100% seen this inside of my own life.
When I was 19, I had this.
It’s what made me lose all my money and go a million in debt.
I thought I couldn’t fail and I didn’t have the self-awareness to
realize that just because I was good at “X” I wasn’t at “Y”.
Here’s the problem…
People believe that coaches, consultants, etc. are out of integrity in
this industry.
Having seen these people who aren’t aware of what they don’t know,
this isn’t generally true.
The bigger problem is…
They don’t know the difference.
So… the question is?
How do you hire someone who is actually in their zone of genius?
True experts and those who great at what they do?
They are optimistic and risk-adverse.
They know what makes sense and what doesn’t.
They say no more than they say yes.
They know exactly what will work and where they can help.
And…
How do you ensure that you aren’t buying into your own story and
activating this little human condition?
In pursuit of being “different” in your marketing, generally
exaggerating what you can do may work in the short-term and burn your
reputation and credibility, plus give you a massive level of stress.
It’s better to be authentic and relevant than promise the world and
deliver an astroid.
And…
If your going to teach things you’ve just learnt (which is totally
okay!), simply be upfront with that.
There’s lots of people that need to hear it from you, simply because
it’s coming from you.
You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone.
Heck, not proving, is the “yummy” marketing that you’re going for 🙂
- Scott
