Thought Leadership outcomes/benefits table www.thoughtleadershipstrategy.net/

External

Clients/’customers and other targeted stakeholders:

1. ·         Illustrates your deep expertise and knowledge
2. ·         Enables you to deliver insights to your clients’ businesses which in turn can help drive their growth
3. ·         Positions you as a trusted advisor
4. ·         Results in increased credibility
5. ·         Increases your relevance
6. ·         Aligns your interests with your clients’ issues and interests
7. ·         You become one of their most valuable suppliers
8. ·         Deliver useable, quality content across the organisation
9. ·         Creates the perception that you are interesting and innovative
10. ·         Drives goodwill
11. ·         Differentiates you from your competitors
12. ·         Positions you as an influencer in their lives
13. ·         Underpins and supports your sales process with your clients
14. ·         Creates less resistance to price
15. ·         Helps vindicate their purchasing decision   
16. ·         Clients perceive that you care and as a result they feel important
17. ·         Positions you as being proactive in your sector
18. ·         Positions you as innovative
19. ·         Builds closer relationships across all spectrums of client contact resulting in better engagement
20. ·         Provides a great platform for discussion above and beyond your products or services 
21. ·         Increases positive word of mouth
22. ·         Results in brand evangelists from within your customer ranks
23. ·         Positions you as an employer of choice in the market
24. ·         Increases brand loyalty

1. Internal

Staff

1. ·         Positions your people as the experts and ‘go to’ people in their field
2. ·         Delivers a sense that this is a forward thinking, innovative place to work
3. ·         Creates pride in the brand 
4. ·         Promotes relevant, topical discussions without the need for ‘hard sell’
5. ·         Creates ambassadors from within for your brand
6. ·         Is a powerful motivator, mobilising management and staff alike
7. ·         Enables staff to see where the market is going, what the issues are and positions them at the forefront
8. ·         Delivers organisational confidence
9. ·         Focuses staff on the big picture and what matters to clients/ customers

 The brand

1. ·         Moves your brand from product and sales leadership to market leadership
2. ·         Delivers long-term, sustainable advantage over competitors because it has a longer life-span than product or sales leadership
3. ·         Puts the business out front in terms of sector leadership
4. ·         Delivers a broader client value spectrum to the brand
5. ·         Increases relevance to clients/customers and therefore increases the value of the brand
6. ·         Positions the people who represent the brand as trusted advisors
7. ·         Gives the brand’s added authenticity
8. ·         Positions the brand and thus the business and its people ahead of the curve
9. ·         Displays a focus by the brand on the big picture 
10. ·         Creates a commitment to a grander goal than sales generation
11. ·         Recognition by the media that the brand is the leader in its field
12. ·         Creates openings or invites for brand representatives to speak at conferences and seminars
13. ·         Delivers great content for marketing collateral, your website, press releases, presentations, etc
14. ·         Results in higher search engine rankings
15. ·         The brand and its people are viewed as authorities in their field
16. ·         Increases your brand’s share of mind with your target audiences
17. ·         Acts as a good reputation shield in a crisis or when an issue flares
18. ·         Builds goodwill 
19. ·         Further solidifies your ‘social license’ to operate
20. ·         Adds long-term sustainability to your brand’s marketing campaigns whether it be advertising, PR, social media, etc

 Sales

1. ·         Helps you develop a greater understanding of your clients likes, needs, fears and wants
2. ·         Positions the business top of mind with prospects
3. ·         Differentiates your products and services from the competition
4. ·         Shortens the sales cycle because buyers have invested psychologically into your service/product before they buy
5. ·         Underpins and supports your sales process with your clients
6. ·         Creates less resistance to price
7. ·         Vindicates their purchasing decision 
8. ·         Delivers a conversation platform for the sales team to use beyond the product or service you offer
9. ·         Helps initiate conversations with existing and potential clients/customers
10. ·         Underpins increased sales conversion   
11. ·         Differentiates you from the competition
12. ·         Mobilises your clients to think and act

 Innovation

1. ·         Promotes innovation internally because of the insights thought leadership delivers
2. ·         Empowers people to think, examine the changes and how to stay ahead of the curve
3. ·         Imbues a culture of questioning and looking ahead at how best to address the clients’ needs
4. ·         Creates an outward looking culture – focusing on client issues and trends rather than your own
5. ·         Promotes and rewards breakthrough thinking

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