Sometimes I ask myself a simple question: when did we wake up and discover that half of the people we know had suddenly become experts?<\/p>\n
You open LinkedIn and find an expert in leadership, a business consultant, a marketing specialist, a growth strategist, and an AI expert. Sometimes, you find all these titles on the profile of the same person. Then you move to Instagram and see dozens of accounts teaching you how to become rich, manage your team, build a company, grow your business, and achieve financial freedom.<\/p>\n
The strange part is that some of these people graduated only two years ago. Some never managed a team, built a company, or took responsibility for a serious business decision.<\/p>\n
I know some of them personally. I know where they worked, what kind of tasks they had, and how much real experience they built. In some cases, the distance between the person they present online and the person they are professionally is not a small difference. It is a complete gap.<\/p>\n
Someone who never managed anyone except himself is now teaching people about leadership and team management. Someone who never built a successful company is selling business owners the secrets of success that \u201cuniversities will never teach you.\u201d Another person entered digital marketing a few months ago, then one morning added the word \u201cExpert\u201d to his profile, as if expertise was a new software update that only required clicking the save button.<\/p>\n
This does not mean a person needs twenty years of experience before speaking publicly. It also does not mean young people cannot have real knowledge. Some people at twenty-five understand their field better than others who spent twenty years repeating the same year of experience.<\/p>\n
Sharing knowledge is not the problem. Building a personal brand is not the problem. Selling courses and consulting services is also not the problem.<\/p>\n
The problem starts when the image a person sells is much bigger than the experience they can prove. It starts when promoting expertise becomes a replacement for building it.<\/p>\n
In the past, the title of \u201cexpert\u201d usually came at the end of the journey. You worked for years, learned, made mistakes, and accepted the consequences of those mistakes. You faced situations where motivational quotes and ready-made theories were useless. Sometimes you failed, and sometimes you succeeded. Slowly, you understood that every answer has exceptions and that something that worked in one company could completely fail in another.<\/p>\n
After years of this journey, people might start treating you as an expert, even when you never introduced yourself with that title.<\/p>\n
Other people gave you the title because they saw the result of your experience. Today, many people give the title to themselves and then ask the market to believe it.<\/p>\n
All you may need is a $99 online course, a professional photo in a nice suit, and a profile description with words such as Strategy, Growth, Leadership, and Innovation. After that, you can start giving people lessons as if you just returned from managing an international business empire.<\/p>\n
Even creating content is no longer a problem. You can follow a foreign expert, copy his ideas, translate them into Arabic, and publish them as lessons from your own experience. To make the content look deeper, you add a few sentences that sound meaningful but can be used in almost any situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not follow the road. Create your own road.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInnovation is not about creating something new. It is about seeing the old in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n
These sentences look beautiful at first. But they are similar to the messages you find inside fortune cookies. You can use them when speaking about business, relationships, sport, personal development, or even how to prepare harira.<\/p>\n
I am not one of those people who believe social media is completely bad. These platforms broke the control of traditional institutions and gave a voice to talented people who might never have received a chance from newspapers, universities, or television channels.<\/p>\n
Many real experts reached us because social media allowed them to speak directly to the public without waiting for permission from anyone.<\/p>\n
But these platforms also gave the same opportunity to people who had nothing except confidence and the ability to present themselves well. This is where the confusion started.<\/p>\n
Social media algorithms do not know who is a real expert and who is pretending. They cannot measure the depth of someone\u2019s experience or the accuracy of their knowledge. They only measure engagement, watch time, shares, comments, and clicks.<\/p>\n
Because of this, social media does not always reward the person who knows the most. It often rewards the person who knows how to attract attention.<\/p>\n
A real expert may tell you that the answer depends on the market, the budget, the product, the team, and the timing. He may ask for more information before giving an opinion. Sometimes, he may simply tell you that he does not know or that his experience is not enough to judge the situation.<\/p>\n
A fake expert does not need any information. He already has one answer for everyone, one strategy that will double your sales, five steps that will change your life, and one secret that other experts are hiding from you.<\/p>\n
In front of a camera, the second person often looks more convincing. Not because he knows more, but because he doubts less.<\/p>\n
This is one of the biggest contradictions in today\u2019s expertise market. The more someone understands how complicated reality is, the more careful he becomes with his answers. The less experience someone has, the easier it becomes for him to present his opinion as a universal truth.<\/p>\n
Creating a fake expert does not require much effort. It mainly requires understanding what the audience wants to hear.<\/p>\n
The first step is choosing a big title that is difficult to measure. Do not say you work in marketing or manage advertising campaigns. Say you are a Growth Strategist. Do not say you give advice to business owners. Say you are a Business Mentor.<\/p>\n
The less clear the title is, the better. A vague title allows people to imagine whatever they want.<\/p>\n
After the title comes the success story. The story must be inspiring enough to attract attention and vague enough to avoid verification.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a normal employee. Then I discovered a method that changed my life. Today, I make seven figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which currency? What kind of business? How much did it cost to generate that revenue? How many years did it take? What failed before it worked? Is the result even real?<\/p>\n
These details are not included because details are dangerous. They can turn a beautiful story into something people can check.<\/p>\n
Then come the numbers. Numbers make any statement look scientific, even when they are floating in the air.<\/p>\n
\u201c93% of successful companies use this strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis method can increase your sales by 300%.\u201d<\/p>\n
You search for the source and find nothing. You ask about the study, the sample, or the market where the research was conducted, but you receive no clear answer. Sometimes, asking for a source is treated as negativity or resistance to success.<\/p>\n
In the Arab world, we have another very effective method: using as many English business terms as possible in the same sentence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to work on Growth Hacking, improve the Customer Journey, and create an Omnichannel Strategy to increase the Conversion Rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sentence may be correct. It may also be only a collection of fashionable words. But many people assume that something they do not understand must be deep.<\/p>\n
This is one of the strongest weapons of the fake expert. He does not explain the idea simply, because once you understand it, you may discover that the idea is very normal.<\/p>\n
A real expert can usually explain a difficult idea in simple language. A fake expert needs to make a simple idea look complicated to protect the image around him.<\/p>\n
The recipe is not complete without connecting your name to famous people and companies. A person may attend a conference where a global expert was speaking, and a few months later, the story becomes: \u201cI trained under this international expert.\u201d<\/p>\n
Someone may complete one small task for a famous company, then present himself as the person who helped build its strategy. The details disappear, but the famous name remains next to his name, working like a quality certificate that real experience never gave him.<\/p>\n
People pretending to have expertise is not something new. The more important question is why they always find an audience ready to believe them.<\/p>\n
In my opinion, the answer is not that people are stupid. People are tired.<\/p>\n
When someone lives in a difficult professional and economic reality, and the road in front of him requires years of learning, work, patience, and failure, he becomes ready to listen to anyone who promises a shorter road.<\/p>\n
A fake expert is not only selling knowledge. He is selling the idea that you can avoid paying the real price of experience.<\/p>\n
He tells you that you can skip the difficult years if you buy his method. He says the problem is not the market, limited resources, competition, or timing. The only problem is that you did not know the \u201csecret.\u201d<\/p>\n
This promise is comfortable because it gives us a simple explanation for a complicated world. It saves us from accepting that some things really need time, patience, and direct contact with reality.<\/p>\n
We also sometimes confuse confidence with competence. A person who speaks loudly, never hesitates, and has an answer for every question may look more knowledgeable than someone who stops, thinks, and says, \u201cI do not have enough information.\u201d<\/p>\n
But my experience taught me that people with the most experience are often the most careful with their opinions. They have already seen how one small detail can change the complete result.<\/p>\n
The new expert is also not selling information only. He is selling identity and belonging. He creates a private community, gives his followers a special name, and makes them feel they are part of the small group that finally understands the game while everyone else is still sleeping.<\/p>\n
After some time, criticising the expert is no longer seen as criticism of one person. It becomes an attack on the identity of the whole group. This is why you sometimes see people defending a coach or consultant they never met as if they were defending a member of their own family.<\/p>\n
At first, the situation may look funny. Someone makes his CV look bigger, copies online content, and sells a course to people willing to pay for it. We can say the market is free, that everyone is responsible for their own decisions, and end the discussion there.<\/p>\n
But the real cost of this phenomenon is much bigger than the price of a bad course.<\/p>\n
When everyone claims to be an expert, expertise itself loses value. It becomes harder for companies and individuals to separate someone who spent years building real knowledge from someone who spent weeks building an image.<\/p>\n
A company may hire a consultant because he knows how to look successful on LinkedIn. Months later, the company discovers that it paid for a beautiful presentation and impressive words with no real connection to its problems.<\/p>\n
For me, the biggest damage is the message young people receive when they see these models becoming successful. Instead of learning that they need to build knowledge, skills, or experience, they start believing the most important thing is learning how to look successful.<\/p>\n
They care about the title before the work, the visual identity before having something useful to say, and the number of followers before asking whether their content deserves to be followed.<\/p>\n
We change the natural order of things. Instead of the image becoming a result of value, the image becomes a way to hide the absence of value. Instead of the personal brand becoming a reflection of a real journey, it becomes decoration covering the emptiness behind it.<\/p>\n
The victims of this market do not only lose money. After buying many courses, following promises that do not work, and discovering that the results were exaggerated, people may lose trust in all forms of education and consulting.<\/p>\n
At that moment, the fake expert also harms the real experts because the public starts doubting everyone.<\/p>\n
There is no perfect formula. Someone may have real experience but be bad at presenting it. Another person may be a great speaker with very limited knowledge.<\/p>\n
Still, there are some simple questions that can help us see the picture more clearly.<\/p>\n
The first question is: what did this person actually achieve?<\/p>\n
Do not focus on what is written in his profile, the number of followers, or the logos of famous companies on his website. Ask what he did exactly, what his responsibility was, and what results he can explain without hiding behind general statements.<\/p>\n
A real expert can usually speak about details. He can tell you what he tried, what did not work, and what he would do differently if he had another chance.<\/p>\n
Someone without real experience usually stays at the level of slogans because moving into details may show that the story is less impressive than it looks.<\/p>\n
Also, pay attention to how the person talks about failure. Anyone who truly worked must have made mistakes, taken bad decisions, and understood some lessons too late.<\/p>\n
A professional journey with only victories is not a real journey. It is an advertisement.<\/p>\n
When someone tries to convince you that he was always the smartest person in the room, that all his projects succeeded, and that everyone who worked with him achieved exceptional results, you have the right to ask where he hid the rest of the story.<\/p>\n
Look at the limits of his expertise as well. Real expertise is usually specific, even when the person has wide general knowledge.<\/p>\n
Someone who talks today as a marketing expert, tomorrow as a leadership expert, then gives final opinions about economics, relationships, artificial intelligence, and raising children is probably not selling knowledge. He is selling his personality.<\/p>\n
The most important question is what remains after you listen to him. Do you understand the problem better? Did you receive an idea you can actually use? Or did you only feel motivated for five minutes and leave with nothing clear?<\/p>\n
A real expert does not only make you impressed by him. He helps you see the subject more clearly.<\/p>\n
A fake expert needs you to stay impressed because the moment you truly understand the subject may be the moment his power over you ends.<\/p>\n
I believe in the importance of personal branding. In fact, I think experienced people who refuse to speak about their work often leave the space open for less competent people who are simply more comfortable talking.<\/p>\n
Good work needs someone to tell its story. Knowledge needs a voice to reach people. There is no special value in being excellent and invisible when you can share what you learned and help others.<\/p>\n
The problem is not the image itself. The problem is the relationship between the image and the substance behind it.<\/p>\n
When what you show is a natural extension of what you lived and achieved, communication becomes part of the value. But when you spend more time creating the image of an expert than building the experience itself, the trick begins.<\/p>\n
Expertise is not only the number of years someone worked. It is not certificates, followers, or the ability to use big words.<\/p>\n
It is the result of long contact with reality, taking responsibility for decisions, and learning the difference between what sounds correct in books and what actually works when real people, budgets, pressure, and interests enter the situation.<\/p>\n
While writing this article, I cannot ignore the contradiction in the whole subject. Did I also become an expert in exposing fake experts? Is writing a long article about this phenomenon enough for me to add this title next to my name?<\/p>\n
I do not think so.<\/p>\n
I am only someone who spent years working in media, content, team management, and companies. During this journey, I saw many people whose image was much bigger than their experience. I also met real experts who never needed to remind people of their expertise in every sentence.<\/p>\n
This is not a scientific study or a final judgement about anyone. These are only some observations I collected along the road.<\/p>\n
In the end, the judgement belongs to the reader: does this article carry the signs of real experience, or did I also learn how to look like an expert while explaining the danger of fake experts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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