How to Build Credibility

Building credibility in the offline world is extremely important. You want to be known as the person to go to when someone is looking for your particular service (or maybe any service).

Where do you start? You don’t have any clients and you feel that you need clients in order to get clients?
Well, there are a few things that you can do that will help you along.  I’ll list a few easy ways to do this:

1. Write a Professional Article: A great way to build some credibility that doesn’t take very long is to write an article about something within your field that you are knowledgeable about and get it published on Ezine.  Being able to say that you have a “published article” on the world’s largest article directory sounds good to people who don’t have a clue about article directories.   
2. Build Client Base: Building your client base will be the easiest way to not only build credibility, but to build your confidence. Don’t be afraid to give away a service to a company so that you can then list them as a client on your website.  I have a “Clients” page on my website so that prospects won’t even have to ask me who I’ve worked with and trust me they will.  I’m not talking about giving away a website or something that will take you a lot to do. Maybe you could offer them optimization for their maps location or even create a simple slide show type video for their business without charge to start your “Client List”.  
3. Speaking Event: There are all kinds of small networking events that are going on all the time.  Ask the organizer of one of these events if you can be a guest speaker at their event.  Say that you got your start online and now you are looking to take your business offline to help small businesses.  
4. Looking the Part: Looking the part just means dressing professionally, acting professional and having the tools that make people perceive you as being a professional.   

I have personally done each one of those and they all worked out very well for me and my company.  Now, I have a fairly large client base and don’t have to worry about this problem, but I remember that it was something that I thought a lot about when I just started building my own company.