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24 Apr 2012
The Adventure Project is a not for profit which had one chance to get a $25,000 matching grant to help bring clean water and jobs to India. What I love about Becky Straw and Jody Landers’ story are the simple lessons they provide for anyone wanting to be a successful thought leader.Did they achieve their objective – you’ll have to read on to see…
But what they did provide for me are four telling tips for people wanting to be thought leaders.
Provide your audience with a great solution
Apparently over 30% of the wells in India and Africa are broken. Most wells break within the first two years, and there are no mechanics or spare parts to fix them. It was this problem that drove The Adventure Project to come up with the following solution:
“We created a partnership with Water for People, with a goal of helping them to hire and train 186 well mechanics in rural India. Once those mechanics are trained and working, they can sustainably provide clean water for 930,000 people.”
Thought leadership thrives on simple messages
In order to address this solution, Becky and Jody came up with a simple, singular and powerful message for their fund raising efforts:
“It only takes $550 dollars for you to help one person to become a well mechanic in India. That person will receive the tools and training to maintain 50 wells, ensuring clean, sustainable water for 5,000 people.
“Obviously, there’s a lot more to this business model, but we didn’t want to bog down the reader with everything but the kitchen sink. We wanted individuals to feel empowered by a simple solution and understand the basic facts.”
Thought leaders know their audience
Did Becky and Jody know their audience?
Damn right they did:
With only 1,600 email subscribers and 2,000 donors they had to reach people personally. They knew that their best responses come from emailing people directly and while this is time consuming, it was worth it. The night before World Water Day they enlisted 200 people who agreed to blog or share their message online.
These 200 people were the key drivers behind the campaign’s reach and were responsible for $14,000 in donations through their personal fundraising pages.
What I like about Jody and Becky’s approach with their audience is that they made it personal. No spray and pray here.
Thought leaders provide the tools to share
Becky and Jody created an assets page that included banner ads, facts about the issue, sample tweets, and even a button to a Pinterest board full of water images.
The goal was to make it easy for their supporters to grab and share the message. On World Water Day they had three interns thank donors via email, while attaching a Facebook cover image. This was to make donors feel appreciated and part of our team.
The end result
So did Becky and Jody get there?
You bet – by 11 p.m. they crossed the $25,000 mark which triggered a matching grant from TPRF. Over 500 individuals contributed.
The $50,000 they raised will create 100 jobs for future well mechanics, bringing sustainable water to nearly half a million people in rural India.
Great work and some wonderful lessons for aspiring thought leaders.
Hi, I’m a director at Sydney-based, Cannings Corporate Communications. Please check out my book: Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership, follow me on twitter @thoughtstrategy or join me on LinkedIn.
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11 Apr 2012
Philosophers fit at one level of thought leadership but what are the others?
Intuitively one senses that there are different levels of thought leadership. After all how do you compare Mahatma Gandhi,
Steve Jobs, Khalil Gibran or the IBM Smarter Planet campaign on the same level when it comes to thought leadership?While there will most certainly be similar characteristics they are fundamentally different.
It was a response from Dr Liz Alexander to one of my recent posts that really got me thinking about this. She has been playing
around with a three-tier concept of thought leadership which she’s very kindly allowed me to share here. However, I have added one of my own and I’d be interested in your thoughts:1. The Philosophers — Liz says that these are the meta-thinkers and in her mind, the really true thought leaders. In the environment that Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book The Black Swan, refers to as “Extremistan” (the place we live in today and will always do so as life becomes more complex and faster paced) they are better placed than most since they tend to occupy academia (like Clayton Christensen or the co-authors of Blue Ocean Strategy) or the highest realms of corporate leadership. In
Extremistan, so Taleb points out, “it takes a long time to know what’s going on” and “it’s hard to predict things from past information.” You need time, patience, the right environment, and a fixation on “why” questions to successfully navigate this terrain.Their focus is on change at a societal level. Not for them the superficial questions of “how are we going to be more
innovative or more productive?”2. The Problem-Solvers - Liz describes them as consultants and in-house thinkers who operate at a secondary level of thought leadership. Their focus is less high-brow than the philosophers but they are still concerned with change (hence they still deserve the “leadership” status)…only their issues are at an industry level. They’re the ones asking the “what?” questions.
3. The Practitioners – According to Liz these are the wannabe thought leaders. She maintains they operate more like “thought managers”. She questions the quality of their thinking. Why? Because she maintains they are merely content marketers, curators or those masquerading as “leaders”.
They ask “how” questions and are less likely to hit upon anything monumental because of their focus on incrementally improving what we already know.
But I have another to add:
4. The Innovators – these are people or groups who truly are innovative with their thoughts and their actions. Think of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo, Da Vinci and the list goes on.
They not only think and solve problems but they literally reframe our very being, the way we think, communicate and work. They lead the market. They go beyond the problem solvers, who typically operate at the level of addressing issues and challenges
faced by their market.Innovators break the mould and create totally new discussions and paradigms e.g. they are the ones who invent the car when everyone else is thinking about faster horses.
Liz says that what differentiates these three groups (now four with my Innovators) is not just the goals they have and the questions they ask but the qualitative difference in their thought processes.
I look forward to Liz’ further thinking on this which will be published in the book she is currently writing.
Craig Badings is a director at Sydney-based, Cannings Corporate Communications. He is the author of “Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership” and the blog www.thoughtleadershipstrategy.net/ You can follow him on twitter @thoughtstrategy or join him on LinkedIn.
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30 Mar 2012
Springsteen has some valuable lessons for thought leaders
I remember first seeing Bruce Springsteen perform at the Amnesty International Human Rights Concert in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1988. The concert co-starred Peter Gabriel, Sting, Tracy Chapman and Youssou N’Dour. What a concert what a night.
Now 24 years later Springsteen is still relevant and has just released Wrecking Ball. What relevance does this all have to thought leadership?
Well Andy Beaupre writes a refreshingly different blog http://www.brodeur.com/blog/. His latest post entitled “8 Lessons from Bruce Springsteen on staying relevant’ has some gems for aspiring thought leaders.
I’ve summed them up in four points key points. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, all thought leaders could take a leaf out of ‘The Bosses’ book.
- He has a novel point of view that aligns closely with his values.
- He shares and engages with his community and gets under the skin of his audience regarding their issues and life’s challenges.
- It’s about us not him – this is all important for thought leaders. It’s not about your product or services rather it’s about your audience’s issues and delivering insights that address these.
- He’s innovative and he stays relevant to his market.
Keep on rocking Bruce and thanks Andre for a wonderfully revealing post.
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23 Dec 2011
The overwhelming sense from these experts is that content curation alone does not lead to thought leadership
I asked 12 people who I consider to be leading global commentators on thought leadership as well as a couple who have produced some amazing thought leadership programs in-house over the years to comment on four critical thought leadership questions for 2012.
Inspired by their answers I couldn’t help chipping in with my own thoughts.
As a result of the overwhelmingly positive response, I have split the interviews into four different posts – one post per question.
In the New Year I will make available an e book containing all the answers.
Interviewees include: Bob Buday, Erica Klein, David Meerman Scott, Jeff Ernst, Rob Leavitt, Britton Manasco, Dana van den Heuvel, Matt Church, Fiona Czerniawska, Dale Bryce, Elizabeth Sosnow, Marte Semb Aaasmundsen and me.
This is the last post in the series and it covers their answers to question four:
Question four: Can content curation alone turn an individual or company
into a thought leader?Bob Buday, president of Bloom Group LLC, a firm that helps professional services and other B2B companies gain market leadership through thought leadership (http://www.bloomgroup.com)
“No – especially if all you do is collect articles. There are tons of automated ways to do it without a human intermediary – Twitter feeds, Google alerts, etc.
“At the very least, content curators need to provide more value to readers than simply identifying and collecting content on a topic. They need to explain why some piece of content is worth someone’s time – what new light it sheds.
“Yet still, even if you add that kind of value – providing commentary on interesting content – playing the role of content curator doesn’t go far enough to demonstrate that you are a leading expert on a topic.
“All to say there are no short cuts in becoming a thought leader.”
Erica Klein, Thought Leadership Writer and Strategist Specializing in Financial and Technology Companies(http://www.ThoughtLeadershipWriter.com)
“This may be totally self-serving on my part, but I think aggregating content marks a company as a “me too” provider and not a distinctive brand able to offer prospects and customers real, quantifiable value.
“True thought leadership can do so much more for a company than round up content at the OK Corral!”
Matt Church, founder of the Global Thought Leaders Movement and creator of the Million Dollar Expert Program. He is the author of 5 books including Thought Leaders and his latest Sell Your Thoughts (http://www.mattchurch.com)
“In the next 36 months maybe. But after that those who synthesise, aggregate and curate Thought Leadership will lose position. It’s about extending the conversations or contradicting them. This means you have to go beyond ‘here is a good idea’ and start to say ‘here is what I think about X idea’.
“It’s about contribution and contradiction as ways of extending an idea. A reader reads a book and goes ‘cool’, a curator reads an idea and goes ‘how can I share that?’ a Thought Leader reads an idea and goes ‘What do I think about that?’
Elizabeth Sosnow, managing director of Bliss PR a business-to-business strategic public relations and marketing communications firm based in New York City (http://www.blisspr.com)
“I love this question – it’s one I’ve debated myself. I think the short answer is “yes,” but the long answer is “no.”
“In the short term, curation is a way to signal to your audience that you understand industry trends and “what’s ahead.” However, longer term, curation signals a “me, too” marketing posture.
“True thought leadership requires differentiation to succeed, so curation just isn’t enough.”
Jeff Ernst, is the Principal Analyst, serving CMO and Marketing Leadership Professionals at Forrester Research and is probably best described as a thought leader in B2B marketing and sales strategy(http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jeff_ernst)
“No, content curation alone is not enough to be a true thought leader.
“For people to trust you to curate or filter content for them, they need to already view you as an authority and trust that you are able to filter through the noise to deliver the content that is most useful to them.
“At minimum, as you curate content, you need to be providing your perspectives on the content you are delivering. But ideally, you need a steady stream of your own fresh ideas and perspectives, while using content curation to supplement that.”
David Meerman Scott is one of the pre-eminent thought leaders on PR and marketing. He is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and author of the #1 bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR (which has been published in 26 languages) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Real-Time Marketing & PR. He recently launched his new online book: “Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage”. (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/)
“No. While content that is interesting will be passed on, I am a perfect example as I tweet interesting content, however, some
component of original content is important.“Content simply created by others is not nearly as valuable.”
Dale Bryce is the group manager marketing for Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global strategic consulting, engineering and project delivery firm. He has been instrumental in their successful ‘client first’ thought leadership approach (http://www.skmconsulting.com/Home/)
“Content curation is an essential ingredient in the overall mix that is thought leadership.
“Great content needs to be relevant of course but it should act as a social lubricant for engagement with an audience. Ideally content is just the conversation starter; a catalyst to a real dialogue about how people might react and respond to the idea just placed on the metaphorical table. And from that first conversation, big things can come….!”
Marte Semb Aasmundsen, graduated this month with her MSc Strategic Public Relations and Communications
Management at The University of Stirling in the UK. Her thesis was on thought leadership.“No, I don’t think so.
“I think content curation may perhaps be a reason why critics are inveighing against thought leadership in the first place.
“Of course it is a useful way of identifying and re-branding an issue. But I think the trend will be to move towards more sophisticated thought leadership initiatives. For that to happen, a thought leader must be authentic.
“Authenticity, transparency and trust are values that will become even more important in the coming years.”
Britton Manasco is the founder of Manasco Marketing Partners which specializes in creating thought leadership marketing and sales enablement solutions. Britton produces a thought leadership strategy blog Illuminating the Future and the executive journal, Elevation Quarterly. (http://www.brittonmanasco.com/)
“Yes, but only if they are a skilled curator.
“Among other things, I have billed myself as a “connoisseur of contrarians.” I seek out unexpected perspectives and provocative points of view. By tapping into their contrarian insights of others, I’m able to generate content for my clients that truly resonates with their customers.
“I’m thrilled that I can get paid to do it.”
Rob Leavitt is a B2B marketing strategist, specializing in issues-based marketing. He is currently Director of Thought Leadership at PTC, a $1 billion enterprise software firm. (http://www.reputationtorevenue.com/)
“Definitely not.
“Curation is useful both internally (for education and customer/competitive/market perspective) and externally (to build interest, traffic, and credibility) but it is no substitute for your own content and conversation that provide strong and different points of view.
“I’m all for curation initiatives but strictly as a complement to your own more substantial research, publications, and presentations. Done well (which itself requires a great deal of work), curation can help you become a useful and valued resource for information and ideas, but if they are not your own ideas you are still not a thought leader.”
Dana VanDen Heuvel is a marketing consultant, author and speaker. He is a recognized expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS, Internet communities and interactive marketing trends and best practices as well as thought leadership (http://www.marketingsavant.com/)
“No, it can’t.
“I’ve seen a lot of back and forth on Twitter this year about this, but at the end of the day, curation is helpful and even essential.
“I often tell my clients that the best leaders don’t always have the answers, but they know where to get them, which is how the thought leader should approach curation. Know where to get good content, know who to trust and know what your audience values but never think for a second that curation = thought leadership.
“The Bloom Group has articulated, what I believe, to be one of the staples in thought leadership discipline with their “seven fundamentals of a thought leadership point of view”, which every would-be thought leader should use to check their work. Moreover, “novelty”, that is, saying something new about an issue and “validity”, having proof, are two of the most critical points of a thought leadership position.
“Curation satisfies neither of those.”
Craig Badings – author of this blog and the book “Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership”, and a consultant at Sydney-based Cannings Corporate Communications.
“Find me one recognised thought leader who has attained their position as a result of curating content only.
“If you can I will be convinced that content curation can create thought leaders.
“The very nature of the term ’thought leadership’ implies original, creative or innovative thought. In contrast, curating content implies that you are not the original generator of that content and therefore cannot claim to be a thought leader off the back of it.
“That said, I believe that curated content can play a very important role in supporting and informing a thought leadership content program. Furthermore, if the person curating the content arrives at new ideas or insights as a result of that content then it could be construed as thought leadership.”
Please download my free e book top right of this page. Follow me on twitter @thoughtstrategy and join me on LinkedIn.
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22 Dec 2011
Thought leadership can deliver great outcomes
I asked 12 people who I consider to be leading global commentators on thought leadership as well as a couple who have produced some amazing thought leadership programs in-house over the years to comment on four critical thought leadership questions for 2012.
Inspired by their answers I couldn’t help chipping in with my own thoughts.
As a result of the overwhelmingly positive response, I have split the interviews into four different posts – one post per question.
In the New Year I will make available an e book containing all the answers.
Interviewees include: Bob Buday, Erica Klein, David Meerman Scott, Jeff Ernst, Rob Leavitt, Britton Manasco, Dana van den Heuvel, Matt Church, Fiona Czerniawska, Dale Bryce, Elizabeth Sosnow, Marte Semb Aaasmundsen and me.
This post covers their answers to question three:
Question three: What are the top three outcomes of a thought leadership
campaign?Bob Buday, president of Bloom Group LLC, a firm that helps professional services and other B2B companies gain market leadership through thought leadership (http://www.bloomgroup.com)
“One, increased awareness by your target audience that your firm possesses some expertise and a higher number of inquiries about it .
“Two, higher and faster close rates because of the ability to far better demonstrate to a prospect that you indeed do have the expertise you claim to have.
“Three, higher fees because of the ability to differentiate your expertise, and thus higher and more profitable revenue from your work.”
Erica Klein, Thought Leadership Writer and Strategist Specializing in Financial and Technology Companies(http://www.ThoughtLeadershipWriter.com)
“For my financial and technology clients, the most sought-after outcomes are:
“One, generating revenue from both new prospects and existing customers.
“Two, building reputation and brand as insightful, innovative thinkers, and lest we forget, three, establishing
the boss as a thought leader!”Matt Church, founder of the Global Thought Leaders Movement and creator of the Million Dollar Expert Program. He is the author of 5 books including Thought Leaders and his latest Sell Your Thoughts http://www.mattchurch.com)
“One, talent retention, attraction and development.
“Two, business growth through positioning activities in the marketplace.
“Three, innovation around process and professional subject matter expertise.”
Elizabeth Sosnow, managing director of Bliss PR a business-to-business strategic public relations and marketing communications firm based in New York City (http://www.blisspr.com)
“One, new or deepened relationships with prospects or customers.
“Two, better defined competitive positioning.
“Three, holistic “glue” that integrates previously siloed marketing programs.”
Jeff Ernst, is the Principal Analyst, serving CMO and Marketing Leadership Professionals at Forrester Research and is probably best described as a thought leader in B2B marketing and sales strategy (http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jeff_ernst)
“When you go from thinking of thought leadership as a campaign to thinking of it as a cornerstone of your go-to-market strategy, you can expect to have these outcomes:
- Customers, prospects, influencers, and competitors admire your company as having ground-breaking ideas and incredibly
insightful POVs on the critical issues your buyers face. - People who engage with your thought leadership ideas are so inspired they immediately share them with colleagues within their company and within their professional and social networks.
- Prospective customers knock on your door, already philosophically aligned with your company’s approach to solving their problems, ready to engage with your sales executives.”
David Meerman Scott is one of the pre-eminent thought leaders on PR and marketing. He is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and author of the #1 bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR (which has been published in 26 languages) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Real-Time Marketing & PR. He recently launched his new online book: “Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage”. (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/)
“First, content will be shared if it is valuable. People will share it on twitter, Facebook, blogs and the like with the result your content will reach far more people.
“Second, people will subscribe to your content either whether that is via e mail, RSS feeds, etc. They’ll want more if you do a good job.
“Finally, it will brand your organisation as one worthy with which to do business. People will seek you out if you’re smart about providing content that educates and helps them solve their problems.”
Dale Bryce is the group manager marketing for Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global strategic consulting, engineering and project delivery firm. He has been instrumental in their successful ‘client first’ thought leadership approach (http://www.skmconsulting.com/Home/)
“Client engagement, reputation building and winning the work you want to win.”
Marte Semb Aasmundsen, graduated this month with her MSc Strategic Public Relations and Communications
Management at The University of Stirling in the UK. Her thesis was on thought leadership.“Building expertise and reputation internally and externally. Changing industry standards and perhaps even drive paradigm shifts, and gaining influence and becoming industry leaders.
“And I must add a fourth point; stakeholder engagement. Thought leadership encourages two-way communication and is therefore a great way to include stakeholders in the decision-making process.”
Britton Manasco is the founder of Manasco Marketing Partners which specializes in creating thought leadership marketing and sales enablement solutions. Britton produces a thought leadership strategy blog Illuminating the Future and the executive journal, Elevation Quarterly. (http://www.brittonmanasco.com/)
“That would be: customer awareness (as measured by marketing qualified leads); customer engagement (as measured by sales qualified leads); and customer commitment (as measured by closed deals).
“SiriusDecisions has done a good job of articulating the relevant metrics.”
Rob Leavitt is a B2B marketing strategist, specializing in issues-based marketing. He is currently Director of Thought Leadership at PTC, a $1 billion enterprise software firm. (http://www.reputationtorevenue.com/)
“Increased credibility with customers and market influencers (analysts, bloggers, media, etc.) that the company is an important voice on the issue; new relationships and opportunities with customers focused on forward thinking solutions; and increased internal support for a thought leadership-oriented approach to the market.”
Fiona Czerniawska is one of the foremost global authorities on thought leadership, particularly in the management consultancy space. She is the co-founder of Source, a company specialising in researching the consulting industry (http://www.sourceforconsulting.com)
“A client who, having read your article, acts on something in it. This may be quite a small, apparently insignificant action (forwarding an email to a colleague) but all of our research indicates that any action increases the chance that the ideas in the article and the firm associated with them will be remembered.
“A partner/consultant making a trip to see a client. We tend to think that the outcomes of TL should be external, but there are huge benefits to articles/reports etc, which galvanize account managers and partners to visit their clients, taking the material with them and explaining to their client in person why it’s relevant to them.
“The ability to own an issue. Thought leadership should be good enough to ensure that, on a particular issue, your firm will always be on the shortlist because you’re seen as the pre-eminent experts in that field.”
Dana VanDen Heuvel is a marketing consultant, author and speaker. He is a recognized expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS, Internet communities and interactive marketing trends and best practices as well as thought leadership (http://www.marketingsavant.com/)
“I like to refer back to my original “thought leadership marketing equation” and state that Share of Voice, Share of Mind and Share of Market are the key outcomes of any thought leadership campaign, but I have a few others that I believe are critical.
- “Marketplace momentum. Thought leadership is cumulative where an advertising or promotions-centered approach is diminishing. Pursuing the road of the thought leader, over time, builds tremendous momentum that can continue to propel an organization’s message long after the original piece of content was published.
- “Quicker cycle times. In our experience thought leadership actually helps the customer decide (as opposed to helps the organization sell) who is best for them based on the advance knowledge they can obtain about an organization and how they think, act and work via their content.
- “Category of One companies. I’m a fan of Joe Calloway’s book “Becoming a Category of One” and I believe that the thought
leadership approach allows an organization to tell a customer-centric story in a way that positions that organization as the only one telling that story and give that organization an opportunity to be seen as truly unique.”
Craig Badings – author of this blog and the book “Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership”, and a consultant at Sydney-based Cannings Corporate Communications.
“For me the most powerful is the emotional connection you forge with your client.
“If, as a result of your thought leadership campaign, your clients or your target audience get a sense that you really get them and the issues they face and that you are helping them overcome these it leads to the second outcome – differentiation.
“Your thought leadership needs to differentiate your brand from the competition.
“Finally it should position you as the ‘go to’ expert in your field and with this comes that all important brand quality – trust.
“I have created a list of 70+ thought leadership benefits here if you want to take a look.”
Please download my free e book top right of this page. Follow me on twitter @thoughtstrategy and join me on LinkedIn.
- Customers, prospects, influencers, and competitors admire your company as having ground-breaking ideas and incredibly
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21 Dec 2011
Experts share the challenges faced by thought leadership
I asked 12 people who I consider to be leading global commentators on thought leadership as well as some who have produced some amazing thought leadership programs in-house over the years to comment on four critical thought leadership questions for 2012.
Inspired by their answers I couldn’t help chipping in with my own thoughts.
As a result of the overwhelmingly positive response, I have split the interviews into four different posts – one post per question.
In the New Year I will make available an e book containing all the answers.
Interviewees include: Bob Buday, Erica Klein, David Meerman Scott, Jeff Ernst, Rob Leavitt, Britton Manasco, Dana van den Heuvel, Matt Church, Fiona Czerniawska, Dale Bryce, Elizabeth Sosnow, Marte Semb Aaasmundsen and me.
This post covers their answers to question two:
Question two: From your experience, what are the biggest challenges in
getting a thought leadership program off the ground?Bob Buday, president of Bloom Group LLC, a firm that helps professional services and other B2B companies gain market leadership through thought leadership (http://www.bloomgroup.com)
“It’s easy to get a thought leadership program off the ground. Many firms start by outsourcing a white paper to a third party like my firm and then do little else. In my experience, this rarely works because the expectations are so high (“We expect the white paper to generate hundreds of leads quickly”) and the understanding of what it takes to have an effective thought leadership program so low.
“These firms typically have little appetite for creating a thought leadership machine because that takes budget and time. Even more important, they don’t realize how much time that their internal experts will need to spend on the program – in writing, developing their ideas, presenting them publically, and in working with others to capture their ideas.
“So I’ll change the question slightly and then answer it: The biggest challenge to getting a highly effective thought leadership program off the ground (“effective” defined as generating leads and revenue) is a recognition by those who are funding the program that they will need to commit sufficient time (no quick miracle results) and resources (yes, budget, and as important people’s time to participate in it) to the endeavor.
“If they don’t, there will be initial excitement and eventual disinterest as they find “that thought leadership white paper didn’t do much.”
Erica Klein, Thought Leadership Writer and Strategist Specializing in Financial and Technology Companies(http://www.ThoughtLeadershipWriter.com)
“As a thought leadership writer and consultant, I develop a detailed Project Brief for my clients upfront, something they generally don’t have enough time to do themselves, but which can serve as a solid foundation for every step of the process.
“The single greatest obstacle in launching a thought leadership initiative is not having a detailed document that clearly articulates the desired results, expected budget range, the list of key approvers and important influencers, content and graphics development stages, and realistic timeframes.
“Many a terrific thought leadership program has foundered on the rocks of project management and time management.”
Matt Church, founder of the Global Thought Leaders Movement and creator of the Million Dollar Expert Program. He is the author of 5 books including Thought Leaders and his latest Sell Your Thoughts http://www.mattchurch.com)
“Mediocrity!
“A thought leadership program is not for the faint of heart, it’s not a short-term trend or cool idea. It’s about focussing on your best and brightest and communicating their uniqueness to the internal and external audiences. “
Elizabeth Sosnow, managing director of Bliss PR a business-to-business strategic public elations and marketing communications firm based in New York City (http://www.blisspr.com)
“Thought leadership projects almost always falter without a differentiated, actionable idea. It’s pretty simple. If you spend the
time to get your ideas in order, the rest of program falls neatly into place.“Another frequent challenge – finding the right thought leader.
“A good program requires an articulate thinker who understands how to inspire their audience segment. Ideally, that thought
leader actually becomes the embodiment of the idea.”Jeff Ernst, is the Principal Analyst, serving CMO and Marketing Leadership Professionals at Forrester Research and is probably best described as a thought leader in B2B marketing and sales strategy (http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jeff_ernst)
“The biggest challenge my clients face is getting the commitment from senior management to make thought leadership a top priority and to allocate time from the subject matter experts in the company who are needed to define the thought leadership platform and develop the idea hierarchy.”
David Meerman Scott is one of the pre-eminent thought leaders on PR and marketing. He is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and author of the #1 bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR (which has been published in 26 languages) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Real-Time Marketing & PR. He recently launched his new online book: “Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage”. (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/)
“Typically marketing people spend their time talking about products and services. The average marketing person is very good at
doing things like brochures and advertising but they have great difficulty in providing thought leadership-type content that has nothing to do with their products or services.“In fact most of them are terrible at not talking about their products and services. Even a lot of the thought leadership campaigns out there currently contain too many product and service mentions.”
Dale Bryce is the group manager marketing for Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global strategic consulting, engineering and project delivery firm. He has been instrumental in their successful ‘client first’ thought leadership approach (http://www.skmconsulting.com/Home/)
“The challenge in professional services is often to get the gurus to see the big picture. Ironic isn’t it?
“Why?” is always a great first question to ask, or to answer.
“It is a delight working with such brilliant people, in my case engineering and before that the law, but even brilliant people need context. And that context usually needs to come from a deeper understanding of clients and their business – their commercial and technical issues and personal needs too.
“We have been running a Client Insights program for a while now. Our clients are clearly telling us they want us to stay in touch, “not just take the order”. They want someone to bring forward valuable ideas. And, they actually want unsolicited proposals that solve their problems.
“So, in terms of thought leadership, especially in professional services, time needs to be spent on the “Why?”, before we launch into the “What?”. And that can be a challenge.
“Subject matter expertise is a given in thought leadership. The key is connecting the dots, for clients and our thought leaders too.”
Marte Semb Aasmundsen, graduated this month with her MSc Strategic Public Relations and Communications Management at The University of Stirling in the UK. Her thesis was on thought leadership.
“It is absolutely necessary to get backing from the board. Also, companies must understand that true thought leadership takes time to build, and needs a great deal of work and resources.
“It must be well researched and align with the perceptions and values of a brand and their stakeholders.”
Britton Manasco is the founder of Manasco Marketing Partners which specializes in creating thought leadership marketing and sales enablement solutions. Britton produces a thought leadership strategy blog Illuminating the Future and the executive journal, Elevation Quarterly. (http://www.brittonmanasco.com/)
“If I switch to the marketing perspective (as opposed to sales), I’d say that the biggest challenge is the creation of relevant, compelling and insightful content.
“It’s best if you are strong at drawing on outside and independent perspectives – whether they come from market influencers or buyers/practitioners. It takes rigor, discipline and a defined program to generate content that works in an ongoing fashion.
“You’ll probably want to hire empathic and proven content creators – people who can produce interesting content in many formats and for many buyers.”
Rob Leavitt is a B2B marketing strategist, specializing in issues-based marketing. He is currently Director of Thought Leadership at PTC, a $1 billion enterprise software firm. (http://www.reputationtorevenue.com/)
“I’m actually doing this myself these days so the question is far from academic!
“Three of the biggest challenges I’m facing right now are turning general interest across the organization into a focused program with agreed priorities, processes, and production; balancing the desire for ramping up content production with the need to build serious, deep, and credible points of view on key customer issues; and building a strong enough network of relationships with
customers and sales people to make sure the program is truly focused on what is most useful with those two key groups.”Fiona Czerniawska is one of the foremost global authorities on thought leadership, particularly in the management consultancy space. She is the co-founder of Source, a company specialising in researching the consulting industry (http://www.sourceforconsulting.com)
“Where to start? The best thought leadership comes down to picking topical issues, researching them thoroughly to a point where you have something new to say, and then writing the results up in an appealing and engaging manner.
“The first of these (picking topical issues) depends on having a) a clear view of what your clients are interested in – ideally more than a vague sense, but something itself grounded in research – and b) a culture / decision-making process which makes it possible to make decisions. Many firms end up producing thought leadership on too many areas because they’re afraid to choose.
“The second (thorough research and new insights) comes down to what I term the ‘second day in the room’ syndrome: lots of firms are prepared to get their experts together for a day, but the firms that stand out in thought leadership terms are those who make them go back in for a second day – and that’s symptomatic of a commitment to research and investment.
“The third and final point (appeal and engagement) depends on recognition that there’s a lot of (too much!) thought leadership out there and you have to be brave if you’re going to stand out.
“So taking risks is a necessary part of doing thought leadership well.”
Dana VanDen Heuvel is a marketing consultant, author and speaker. He is a recognized expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS, Internet communities and interactive marketing trends and best practices as well as thought leadership (http://www.marketingsavant.com/)
“I have seen a few hurdles that typically keep an organization from thought leadership success:
“First, the confidence conundrum. In order to be a thought leader, an organization’s leadership must have the confidence that they can pull off the thought leader posture in the marketplace. If anyone on the leadership team feels that the organization is under-qualified, then the idea of thought leadership will smolder, so to speak, but never really catch fire within the organization. Moreover, if thought leadership can’t be sustained as an idea in the organization, it will never resonate with the
market.“Second, I’m not a publisher” mentality. In order to be a successful thought leader, organizations need to both think and publish. Yes, there’s more to it, but good strong content is as the core of a thought leadership program. I hear from countless organizations who would like to ascend to the “expert in their industry”, thought leader or “trusted advisor” status who just can’t get it together when it comes to creating content.
“Third, differentiation in the marketplace. Taking a position as a thought leader requires that you have true differentiation not only of products but more importantly of ideas. Organizations need to be “original thinkers” in order to manifest thought leadership. While I always believe that any business that’s been around for even a few years has found its differentiation, knowing that you’re different and being able to articulate that in a thought leadership position to the market remains a challenge.”
Craig Badings – author of this blog and the book “Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership”, and a consultant at Sydney-based Cannings Corporate Communications.
“Three things: if it’s not centred on your client issues and challenges it will fail or at best limp along; a lack of resources to properly plan, leverage and maintain your thought leadership point of view; and a lack of commitment from senior management.”
Please download my free e book top right of this page. Follow me on twitter @thoughtstrategy and join me on LinkedIn.
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21 Apr 2011
Thought leadership creates an emotional connection
“What return on investment can I expect?”
This is typically the first question I receive when speaking to companies about their thought leadership program. While I can talk passionately about this and rattle off numerous benefits, there is one sentence I read the other day which I think absolutely captures it. It is from well-known blogger Gary Vaynerchuk , who said: “You will not catch up with money, because the people who have the emotional relationship will stay ahead.”
In this one sentence, Gary sums up the very essence of why thought leadership or valuable content is so important to a company’s marketing efforts.
It’s about the emotional connection!
How powerful is that – we all know what happens when we have an emotionally rewarding experience with a brand. Not only do we consciously say to ourselves: “These guys really get me/make me feel special…” but we tell other people about our experience – we become brand ambassadors.
Thought leadership is the extra mile
We hear ad nauseum about going the extra mile for the client, adding that magical quality ‘value’, and the need to differentiate ourselves. Well I’ve got news for you – the right thought leadership content aimed at the right audience and preferably information that addresses that audiences’ major business issues and challenges delivers all three in spades.
What better way to engage with your clients, imbue loyalty and position yourself and your company as the ‘go to’ expert in your field.
I have a list of 70+ thought leadership benefits in an earlier post but the stand out return is the emotional connection it creates.
It’s amazing how much easier the sale is once an emotional connection has been established.
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5 Apr 2011
The nine fundamentals to thought leadership
Here are the nine fundamentals to being a thought leader:
1.) Research your target audience – identify the challenges and issues they face in their daily lives/businesses. This is the most important clue and driver of your thought leadership direction.
2.) What do you want to be famous for? – Identify what area you want to own in your sector or industry. Focus on where your areas of expertise lie and analyse how you can you build an even deeper understanding backed by empirical data and always remember to focus it on your clients’ needs.
3.) Scan your competitors – are they doing anything in that space? If they are, don’t bother competing rather find a new space you can own.
4.) Deep dive – once you’ve identified the space you want to own it is important to go really deep into that area with evidence based research – opinions and using other people’s content certainly won’t cut it if you truly want to position yourself as a thought leader.
5.) Set objectives and kpis for your campaign – it needs to support and underpin some solid business objectives and it needs to be measured so that improvements can b made and it can be recalibrated along the way.
6.) Say something new – if you don’t your so-called thought leadership point of view will realistically only amount to another piece of content and there is a lot of content out there. This is about differentiating yourself from your competitors and positioning yourselves as the trusted advisors or ‘go to’ experts in your field.
7.) Thought leadership champions – Identify and involve your thought leadership champions from the beginning – someone has to own this and act as your spokesperson and preferably someone senior so that you gain the business traction and senior backing you need in order for it to be a success.
8.) Leverage and packaging – cleverly package your content across every touch point of your target audience and prospects. There is a lot written about content management, content marketing, content curation. Call it what you will, the point is read the material it will give you some good ideas on how to leverage your content and take it to market.
9.) Make it part of your culture – there are many well known brands out there such as McKinsey, Deloitte, Booz & Company who have thought leadership ingrained in their culture. They manage it as an important part of their business and the ROI on their thought leadership campaigns have been fantastic as a result.
Let me know if you have any other fundamental steps you think I should add.
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17 Mar 2011
Fiona Czerniawska shares her insights on thought leadership
For this interview on thought leadership, I had the privilege of interviewing Fiona Czerniawska, one of the foremost global authorities on thought leadership, particularly in the management consultancy space. There are few people who understand as much about thought leadership as Fiona. She is the co-founder of Source, a company specialising in researching the consulting industry www.sourceforconsulting.com . She has authored numerous management reports, books and articles.
I would urge you to visit her site and join up to her thought leadership newsletter White Space http://www.sourceforconsulting.com/whitespace/ . White Space is a subscriber-based web service which provides detailed analysis of the thought leadership of around 30 leading global consulting firms.She is also the Director of the Management Consultancies Association’s Think Tank, she is a Programme Director for the Centre of Management Development at London Business School, and also lectures at Kingston Business School in London and Haarlem School of Advanced Management Studies in Holland.
Trends in thought leadership
1. Fiona your firm White Space does an exhaustive annual analysis of the thought leadership material of around 30 leading global consulting firms. What trends have you seen emerging in this field from the leaders in the thought leadership space?
The overall quality of thought leadership in 2010 slipped a bit – at least in our opinion. We think there were two main reasons for this. The first is that many firms cut their thought leadership and research budgets during the recession and the cracks this opened up really began to show in the latter half of the year. Thankfully that particular trend seems to being reversed. The second reason is to do with the way in which people are publishing their material: we’ll all have noticed a plethora of new formats, including Twitter, videos, podcasts and design-your-own graphs. But these share a common challenge which is that you have less space to say things and I think consulting firms are struggling with the transition from back-breaking flagship reports to a pithier, more opinionated style. A five-minute video shouldn’t be a balding man in a grey suit reading the executive summary, but someone saying something memorable and thought-provoking, as well as fast. This type of thought leadership should be like the tip of an iceberg, with the underlying research below the waterline, but it often becomes an excuse for not doing the research in the first place – and that shows.
Content and thought leadership
2. There’s a lot written these days about marketing content but what’s your view that content alone doesn’t make you a thought leader?
I’d agree, but with some caveats. I honestly don’t think you can beat good content: that’s easy to forget because so much of the content we do see isn’t that good. If you look back at the block-buster management ideas of the past, they were all based on serious research, not a sudden brainwave or luck. I don’t believe in eureka moments except those that emerge from deeper-than-deep content. That being said, I do think that innovation in thought leadership will come from the way this content is assembled and disseminated. I’m watching McKinsey’s What Matters micro-site with interest and I know that other firms are looking at this issue too.
Thought leadership quantity vs quality
3. You talk about four factors likely to attract a client’s attention as appeal, differentiation, practical application and quality of thinking but do you think the volume of thought leadership these firms produce these days means they are having to be more creative with the way it is packaged?
These four factors relate to the quality of a firm’s output and that’s independent of quality (although, almost inevitably, a firm that decides to increase the quantity of its material takes a hit on quality). It’s tempting to say that quantity should never matter but it does: if you produce one piece of thought leadership on, say, strategy in the banking sector, but your competitor produces 20, then there’s a fair chance that you’ll get shouted down, however great your piece is. Quantity also sends a not-so-subliminal message to clients about how much a firm specialises in a particular area. However, I think firms could indeed be more creative about the way they package their content. In particular, I’d like to seem more “bundling” (putting related articles, in a mix of different formats, together in the same place); better recommendations (suggesting articles I might find of interest); and, please, please, please, better search engines. It’s incredibly frustrating to put a keyword in but not be able to sort the results by date or filter them.
Thought leadership as a term
4. The term thought leadership is bandied about quite loosely do you think the term itself is dated and if so are there better terms to encapsulate thought leadership?
Like all jargon (the first book I wrote was on business language… ), “thought leadership” has its uses. People – at least consultants – know what it refers to means and broadly understand what’s involved even if they might quibble about its exact meaning. The trouble is that it’s an inherently arrogant term that set itself up for a fall: it’s an old joke that most thought leadership is really thought “followship.” And of course the even bigger problem is that no one, certainly not us, has a better term.
Thought leadership – a growing discipline
5. Are you seeing signs that thought leadership is becoming a discipline in its own right? Are there any examples of it being split in terms of resourcing and manpower from the traditional marketing and corporate communication roles?
We’re certainly seeing this more – and I think that’s the right thing to do. If you ask clients what influences their choice of consulting firm, they almost always cite personal recommendations, case studies and thought leadership, but these components have an impact in different ways and at different times. A personal recommendation is very much about which firm to use for a specific piece of work, but case studies and thought leadership are important at an earlier stage in the thinking process. Long before they reach the point when they decide to hire a consulting firm, clients need evidence that it makes sense to invest time and effort in an idea or problem they’ve been mulling over – and case studies and thought leadership can provide this. In other words, done well the latter help stimulate demand for consulting in general even if they don’t convert into a sale for a specific firm. That’s why it makes sense to view these functions separately – but of course you can go too far in the opposite direction and it’s important for marketing, corporate comms and thought leadership to plan and act in unison.
The client’s view on thought leadership
6. What are clients of the firms you analyse saying about the thought leadership material they receive?
They have mixed reactions, depending on the subject-matter and their position. Overall, clients dismiss most thought leadership simply because it’s not relevant to them. There’s a lesson in this about ensuring all material is focused on as tight a group of clients as possible, otherwise – a bit like infections treated with antibiotics – they become resistant! Where it is relevant, views are much more positive: indeed, it’s quite clear that producing good thought leadership is, in many senior managers’ eye, a fundamental characteristic of a certain type of established, high-class consulting.
Thought leadership case study
7. What’s the best thought leadership campaign you’ve seen and why?
The BBC’s A History of the World in 100 Objects. Not exactly a conventional programme, but it gives us a clear sense and standard about what can be achieved when you mix great content with an intelligent use of new media. It should be required listening for all marketing departments.
The future of thought leadership
8. What is your view on where thought leadership is heading over the next five years?
I like to think that it will become a serious battleground for really good ideas. I may be laughed at for this on the quite reasonable grounds that (a) clients value small-scale insights more than grandiose conceptual models and (b) the extent to which thought leadership is – or can be – a crucible for innovation is questionable. But I do get frustrated by the lack of ambitious in much thought leadership. There are some big and interesting questions about business that never seem to get debated – and it would be good to think that some of these will start to be discussed. The prerequisites to this, and I suspect to upping the overall quality of thought leadership, are investment and collaboration. I can’t believe we won’t see more money going into thought leadership in the future, as it’s clear that it is one of the few marketing activities which can differentiate a firm. And I also think consulting firms will realise that they have to work with people (clients and other consultants) outside the boundaries of their firms for inspiration.
If you have any comments on Fiona’s points of view I’d love to hear from you – also don’t forget to sign up for Fiona’s newsletter here http://www.sourceforconsulting.com/whitespace/
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11 Mar 2011
Einstein offers great insights for thought leaders
In a guest post on Problogger,
http://tiny.cc/mfjhz Graham Phoenix of Male eXperience talks about rogue bloggers and there are some delightful insights and some inherent tips for thought leaders.
In particular, Albert Einstein’s quote stands out like a beacon for any person or business wanting to be a thought leader: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”
—Albert Einstein.Thought leaders don’ play it safe
Merely playing safe is not going to help you as a thought leader and is a sure-fire path to mediocrity and obscurity. To this end Corbett Barr, from Think Traffic in Graham’s post had this to say: “I’m saying you have to look fear in the eye, realize that fear is hiding some of your richest potential material, punch fear in the face and take whatever it was hiding from you and put that in your writing.”
The same applies to you if you want to be a thought leader. It is indeed a tough challenge for many corporations but there are also many who get it right – think Virgin, IBM, Deloitte, Booze & Company and Apple to mention a few.
What should your thought leadership be doing?
Your thought leadership position should:
· Challenge and raise questions in your field of expertise around new thinking and new ways of doing things
· Stretch your clients to think “What if?”
· Frame the debate and create conversations
· Provide new insights to a particular topic area/sector/area of expertise, and most importantly;
· Hone in on the challenges and issues your clients or your targets face now and into the future.
By doing this you will be taking a leaf out of Einstein’s book and choosing to express your opinions courageously and honestly.
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