How to drive performance by harnessing the Thought Leadership inside your business

Traditional sales & marketing approaches are failing. The most influential people in business today are those who can communicate their solutions with energy, clarity and conviction. They are thought leaders.

Becoming a thought leading business is a great way to:

• drive growth• boost sales• get closer to customers• encourage innovation • and get the best from your people

It’s about evolving from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ strategies. Your clients become attracted to what you know and your reputation for solving their problems

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We believe there are 3 mega trends driving this change

1. Marketing has changed forever

Traditional ‘Push’ sales and broadcast advertising are increasingly ineffective. The Economist Intelligence Unit found that leading businesses are turning to ‘thought leadership marketing’ as the most effective B2B activity.

The following top-ranking activities offer more (and cost much less):

• conference presentations • business press articles • invitations to webinars/workshops• content creation/sharing via blogs & white papers

2. Warp speed change is the new normal

Over 3,000 new books are published every day!We live in a time of exponential change and too much information. What we know is often out of date within months or weeks!

Thought leadership is the process of taking information and making it relevant and digestible.

Clients value the people and businesses that can make sense from the chaos.

Establishing your thought leadership ensures that’s YOU (and not your competitor!)

3. Innovation and mega-productivity is driving competition

Today’s successful organisations must turn their experts into adaptable thinkers who thrive in this new business environment.

They need to express their ideas as original content and distribute it across multiple channels such as:

blogs, briefings, speeches, webinars, white papers, panels & workshops

building yourThought Leadership Advantage

5 ideas to get you

started

1. Have a clear point of view

You need to ‘own’ a niche. Don’t write about well-worn industry issues (boring!) Dare to be bold!

Invest in your key people to establish a position of thought leadership across each of your go-to-market channels.

It’s a great way to build sector-specific advantage whilst simultaneously enhancing your overall brand reputation.

2. Create great content and share it often

Your business thought leadership needs to be captured in great content and communicated frequently.

Aim to deliver a monthly newsletter, weekly blogs, a quarterly white paper and regular workshops and presentations to your customers and market.

3. Get ready for Criticism

Thought leadership is about moving the conversation on, challenging sacred cows and proposing new solutions.

It should ruffle feathers (in a good way!)

Have fun throwing some rocks (and be prepared to take a few hits!)

4. Extend the thinking in your field

Initially, it’s easy for your people to feel inadequate or overwhelmed. But, if they are good at what they do, they will have many valuable and unique insights.

We just need to uncover these and connect them to your customers. With some thinking and application, you can work this up into a unique commercial angle that your clients will value and buy.

5. Communicate in full-spectrum

Thought leaders must be excellent communicators. Once you have captured your thinking, you need to connect it with everyone in the market. The key to creating great messages is to structure them so that they dance across the full-spectrum of people’s preferences and learning styles.

This means covering left-brain logic through to right-brain creativity and moving from specific examples up to ‘big picture’ contextual ideas.

full-spectrum thinking

A snapshot of the five components of an idea is outlined below:

Integrating this understanding into the way you create and connect thinking in your business is TRANSFORMATIONAL.

Want to know more?To find out more about developing the commercial power of thought leadership in your business, contact Thought Leaders Partner, Mark Hodgson

mark@markhodgson.co.uk

About Thought LeadersAt its heart, Thought Leaders is a leadership development business for experts. We help companies, large and small, to enhance their performance through the effective positioning of their people and their organisation as thought leaders. Our Partners and Mentors have been involved in all aspects of training and development with numerous organisations throughout Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.

We are a recognised authority in helping organisations to grow by adopting a thought leadership strategy and have created a global first in developing a curriculum to deliver on this. Our collaborative framework means we have access to an extraordinary breadth and depth of talent - united by a common methodology and values system.

We are experts in the design, delivery and project management of national and international learning & development programs and collectively have successfully delivered over 2,400 different workshop/coaching days in over 400 locations