Your Competitive Advantage
Who is your competition, and how do you compare? Considering that most cases requiring an expert witness involve at least two experts and our society shows no signs of becoming less litigious, competition should not be your primary concern in building an expert practice.
You will learn valuable lessons, however, from analyzing the practices of two or three experts in your field. Study their professional qualifications, appearance, communication skills, and reputation among their peers, and note how they market themselves and the fees they charge.
After objectively assessing your own strengths and weaknesses, determine your competitive advantage. Is your education or professional experience superior? If you are not a novice, have you handled a greater number of cases, or bigger or more successful cases, or have you worked with prestigious law firms? Do you present yourself more professionally or appear more credible? Are there exclusive dimensions to your expertise? What comprises your personal uniqueness and, therefore, your competitive edge?
A competitive advantage can be merely a perceived advantage. You can use this to your benefit. A large engineering firm may have many different specialties of engineers, along with its own testing facilities. Alternately, a sole practitioner engineer can promote himself as being more responsive to the attorney, more personally involved in each case, and possibly less costly. Learn to articulate your competitive advantage in a professional manner.
— Excerpted from The Expert Witness Marketing Book
by Rosalie Hamilton
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rosalie Hamilton
Rosalie Hamilton, leading authority on expert witness marketing and founder of Expert Communications, provides customized marketing plans and consulting and coaching to individual experts and firms.
Copyright Expert Communications
Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this publication, it is not intended to provide legal advice as individual situations will differ and should be discussed with an expert and/or lawyer.For specific technical or legal advice on the information provided and related topics, please contact the author.
