As an expert, your most powerful marketing tool is not your business card. It's not your glossy brochure. It's not your Web site. It's not your client testimonials. It's not any of your collateral material.

As an expert, your most powerful marketing tool is your expertise. It's your knowledge, your ideas, your intellectual property - and the way you apply it to your clients' lives and businesses to make a difference.

So the next time you're doing any marketing, think about how you can demonstrate your expertise, not just advertise your products and services.

For example:

1. At a networking function, instead of just exchanging business cards, offer to send a special report to the people you meet.
2. At networking functions, offer to enrol people you meet in your e-mail newsletter.
3. When you create a new program, training course, or other presentation, first write an article about the problem that it solves.
4. To keep in touch with clients, send a tip sheet of ways to improve (in some way related to your area of expertise).
5. Write a book on your topic area, and use that instead of brochures and flyers.
6. Record some of your ideas, and create an audio CD that you send to your best clients as a gift.
7. Get a video recording of one of your presentations, find five minutes of high-content material, and create a video clip on your Web site.
8. Give your top clients a complimentary half-hour telephone consultation with you.
9. Instead of advertising in an industry magazine, write a regular column for that magazine.
10. Find a colleague who deals with the same market that you do, and write an article for her e-mail newsletter (and vice versa).
11. Conduct an information seminar to educate people about your area of expertise.
12. Make your Web site a resource centre, not a promotional brochure.

Get the idea?

As an expert, you can do much more than just advertising. OK, you might still choose to print business cards. But use them only to give people your contact details. Do your real "marketing" by demonstrating your expertise