What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
For me, it’s something my grandpa told me years ago.
One day when I was maybe 9 or 10, we were sitting in his office and he decided to bequeath this bit of advice to me.
“Be careful about knowing a little bit about something. It’s better to know nothing than to know a little bit.”
Eventually I would get a fancy college degree and understand this as the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Expressed simply:
You don’t know what you don’t know.
And when you’re new to a topic, you don’t realize just how much you don’t know.
Ever talked with a prospect or client who thought they knew more than you?
Yeah… that’s Dunning-Kruger.
When you start learning about a topic every bit of information feels more substantial than it is.
As you progress in any topic, you start to see how wide and complex it is.
It’s why experts tend to hedge their language a bit more. Because they recognize how large a topic it is and the possibility that they’re missing something important.
Newbies, on the other hand, rarely have such hesitation. That’s why there are so many 22-year old marketing “experts” out there who took one funnel building course and think they’ve mastered the universe.
(…or why some people who know a little bit about business start picking stocks on their own to make money)
They don’t yet understand how much of the puzzle they’re missing.
So why am I talking about this?
Well first, it’s a good lesson to keep in mind as an entrepreneur. Something might seem simple, but often that’s because you’re new to the topic.
That’s why it’s important to lean on people farther along the road.
The other reason I’m telling you about this is because it’s one of the big reasons why I don’t recommend you do a “teaching only” webinar — especially to people who don’t know you and who you haven’t had a chance to help before.
The reasoning here is that your audience is at risk of falling prey to Dunning-Kruger.
You’re an expert in your topic. So you understand how big your field is and how much there is to understand.
But they’re still a beginner.
So if all you do is teach and try to “provide value”, you risk them walking away with a tiny sliver of the knowledge pie but believing they “know enough”.
The problem is — like I said before — they don’t know what they don’t know.
And although they’ll walk away with some (false) confidence, they’re not getting the help they truly need. Because they don’t understand how much they need it.
Your job is to prove to them how dangerous it is to go alone without all the right information and support (aka the reason you’re in business)
So instead, make sure you’re not just giving info for info’s sake in your webinars.
Educate them on the obstacles that would prevent them from making real progress.
Help them shift their beliefs. What are the “aha” moments you’ve had over the years — and how can you get them there much sooner?
That might be around common (but misleading) wisdom. That might be around false myths in your industry. That might be around getting help from someone like you.
Help them see the bigger picture and understand what they really need.
Because remember the goal at the end of the day:
It’s NOT to teach them a tiny bit and cross your fingers it works out.
It’s to help them get where they really want to go.
Which often requires reframing their perspective and understanding of their situation, more than just providing a shallow “how to”.
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