Before we jump into the details of trust, vision, and delivery, let’s cover a few essential concepts about SMEs. The ideas and definitions needed for discussing our subject are not all self-evident.

A dictionary will tell you that an expert is someone who has more than average knowledge of a subject, or someone who can provide superior results. What the dictionary does not tell you, however, is that people often disagree about who is an expert and who is not. The word is vague, to be sure. There is no single diploma or degree, no standardized test, no clearly defined finish line that says you’re an expert.

In some domains, it is easy to identify the experts. Objective criteria allow observers to measure degrees of proficiency. A chess master, for example, can consistently beat those who have less skill. Professional golfers and tennis players can outperform challengers. Medical specialists are more likely than junior practitioners to diagnose a disease correctly.

In other domains, identifying an expert is a highly subjective process and almost impossible to measure. Experts on foreign policy, law, accounting, finance, and many other fields will provide differing and often contradictory definitions. Wall Street is filled with experts who attempt to pick high-performing stocks, yet they fail nearly as often as they succeed. When objective criteria are not available, a person becomes broadly accepted as an expert when a sufficiently large number of people grant the title or when the person has practiced or studied in a field for a sufficient period of time.

Some people, of course, are universally recognized experts. The late Clyde Tombaugh is the astronomer who discovered Pluto. Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine. Stephanie Kwolek invented bulletproof Kevlar. Muhammad Ali was an expert fighter, and Whitney Houston an expert singer. Few people would dispute that they were experts in their fields.

Unlike such superstars, however, most experts are not renowned. Most quietly serve their companies, customers, communities, and families. They don’t seek public notoriety, yet they are experts in the truest sense. They are no less important and no less valuable to their constituents.

Herein is one of the most powerful qualities of an expert: You are not an expert because you think you are; you are an expert because someone else thinks you are. And when just one person thinks you are an expert, it means you are, to that person, an expert.

But being an expert in the eyes of one person does not make you an expert in the eyes of many, and being an expert in the eyes of many does not make you an expert in the eyes of all. You must earn the distinction repeatedly, with every person you meet, with every interaction.

The title of “expert” is a subjective concept; it is a belief that the expert is a source of superior performance or knowledge. It is the idea that you have power and value, that you are different, that your recommendations are worthy of consideration, that your opinion counts. Being an expert to the right person, the one person who needs you, can be more important and more lifechanging than being an expert to many people.