Losing faith in experts? Trust experience instead…

When you’re looking for business advice, are you unsure who to trust? Five minutes after you ask for advice to fix any issue, an excitable queue of experts immediately wants to connect on LinkedIn. Each one is ready to pitch you their thoughtful, theoretical solution to your challenge.

But will a theoretical solution provide you with the excellent results that you deserve? An excellent understanding of business theory is a must for any strategic adviser. But surely, the more important skill involves successfully applying that theory in real life?

If I spend years studying how a toaster works, but then forget to plug my toaster into the wall socket, I’ll be left with some rather cold bread. Real life experience is essential for problem-solving. This experience shows experts how their ideas will pan out in the real world.

Without this experience, an expert has no idea of the results they’ll actually achieve. This gives their prospective clients no idea of the value that they can expect to receive from taking their advice.

Let’s explore benefits of trusting experience over expertise when addressing commercial challenges in more detail.

Communicate crucial information to colleagues in their language

Does your marketing team need to know what your social media goals are for the next month? Yes.

Do they need to know about the impact of global inflationary pressures on your supply chain? No.

Speaking from experience allows you to tailor communications for different departments. Speaking your colleagues’ language makes your point in a way that they will immediately understand. General theories may seem irrelevant and leave people confused.

An experience-based approach helps your business to take practical steps forward while avoiding time-consuming and potentially frustrating misunderstandings.

Enjoy waffle-free consultancy

Are you sick of watching the clock in meetings, while yet another invoice lands in your inbox and your challenges remain unresolved?

Working with a consultant who has gone through everything that you’re going through makes a world of difference to your business. Their advice is proven because they’ve followed it themselves. As a result, they’ve moved from a successful commercial career to a successful consultancy career.

Far too many people who have never run a business have strong opinions about how you should run your business. Experience differs from expertise here because experience shows you an effective way forward. Expertise just generates expensive and (probably) confusing waffle if you can’t apply it to the situation that you’re in.

Implement Agile Solutions

Times change. So do the responses that will keep your business one step ahead of your competition. Experience-based solutions are easy to adjust if circumstances change. They are designed around your business rather than chapter 18 of an eminent textbook.

While expertise in any area is a crucial pillar of providing any advice, it’s experience that turns bold ideas into brilliant results. Theory alone will only take you so far.