simondelliott

Thoughts on thought leadership

Thought leadership is good because …

1. The “thoughts” that are published are valuable to your company, as they will make you Faster, more efficient or introduce new products
2. The “thoughts” that are published are valuable to other companies, who will see benefits in deploying your thoughts, you will therefore have their respect.
3. The “thoughts” that are published are valuable to individuals as it increases their profile and therefore sense of self worth

Thought leadership is about

1. Having good thoughts
2. Having good publishing
3. Having an effective publishing feedback loop

If you want to get into thought leadership

1. You must create a distribution channel
2. You must create an editorial team that is empowered to publish
3. You must create a community of thought leaders

If  you want to beat your competitors

1. You must accept that this will not happen over night it will take at least a year
2. You must find a way to allow the editorial team to freedom to make technical changes to their site and to have skills and resource available (i.e. you must beat their media organisation)
3. You must encourage controversial views and livley debate under your brand (thought leaders ideas are not the same as every one else’s, so dont over govern them).

If you achieve this

1. You will notice the diference in sales and marketing, leads will come from diferent directions
2. You will have better staff retention
3. New opportunities will be presented to you far further down the sales process,

A good management strategy is … there go my people, I must follow them. Your organisation probably already has some great thought leaders, you can nurture their media and editorial talents and help them to better publicise their thoughts.