Why and how to become a member of an Expert Network – short guide

The modern world offers access to thousands of individuals who possess the necessary skills required by certain companies to meet their needs. Previously, these experts have been somewhat overlooked and have failed to get the attention they really deserved.

On the other side of the fence, companies constantly face fresh challenges when coming up with products or services in order to continue their growth. These companies lack specific experts and their in-house teams often do not possess the knowledge necessary to achieve goals and tackle expansion issues.

Who are the experts?

An expert is an individual able to deliver valuable ideas or bring specialized knowledge to the table in order to deal with specific challenges.

Some expert networks select and recruit consultants by applying carefully defined criteria. However, in the real world being an expert doesn’t mean having a PhD in a certain field. It means that the person has exhaustive professional experience in a particular industry or sector and can share this with people and companies.

Why become an expert?

People sign up to expert networks for a variety of reasons:

Reward

Although participation in an expert network consultancy is usually compensated, the reward for the work is not sufficient enough to think about leaving a full-time main job.

While there is also the opportunity to register with several expert networks, in reality, it is more effective to concentrate efforts on only one expert network such as RightAngle.com. This is because being an expert means having a unique identity.

Goals

Many professors, medics, engineers, developers, and other experts are willing to share their knowledge to help others to learn. In order to get to where they currently are, these people have spent years making mistakes and gathering knowledge.

Experience

When you share your skills and knowledge with various people you become a mentor, benefit from an enriching experience, and get rewarded for doing what you like as an additional bonus.

Each expert sets their own consultation rates and can provide 
consultation services in their free time.

Extended community of like-minded professionals

Via blogs and newsletters, experts can benefit from new data, opinions, and ideas provided by fellow experts. Apart from offering consultancy services, some experts also see the advantages of using the services offered by members of an expert network and consequently become clients too.

How to become a member of an Expert Network

Make yourself visible

Register on professional networking sites (LinkedIn, for example) and make sure to complete and/or update all the necessary information data including a detailed keyword-rich description of previous projects and work experience.

You may also consider:

Describing the types of programs and tools that were used and instruments applied
Stating the industries areas and the employers you have worked with
Offering detailed descriptions of your experience(s)
Clearly stating what each of your roles involved

At the same time, an expert should be careful not to provide any confidential information.

Join an expert network

After completing your profile in a way for it to be informative and exhaustive attractive enough, it’s then time to submit your profile to an expert network of your choice.

The main goal of this activity is to appear in relevant search results as close to the top of the list as possible and swiftly prove to a research associate that you are an exact match for their required project specifications.

Consider the following:

The expert network profile may differ from a resume and the profile that appears on professional networking sites.
Usually, associates take just 10 seconds to look through an expert’s profile which is why it’s crucial to include relevant information that helps them make it simple for them to spot exactly what they need.
Associates introduce just a few keywords in the search field to find the right expert. Consider creating organized lists to clearly specify all the things that you are qualified to speak about.

An example of how to generate a thorough keyword list:

I am an expert on automotive marketing, automotive product development, and automotive pricing.
I have seven years of experience as a marketing manager for [state the name of the company or brand].
I compete directly with [state your company’s competitors].
I am a customer of [state a number of companies] and manage the X-million-dollar cross-media marketing of [state a brand].

Select appropriate compensation

Each project will merit its own compensation depending on a number of factors including the level of expertise and how urgent it is for the project to be implemented.

Some experts may charge from US$100 to US$500 for a one-hour phone call, others just enjoy the conversation and don’t charge anything at all. However, there are some experts who may charge over US$1,000 per conversation.

In today’s world, various companies and individuals may require help from experts from even the narrowest fields so don’t think that if the industry you are involved in is very niche no one will need advice. As long as someone possesses certain information, there will always be someone else with a demand for it.