Day 29: Develop Your Thought Leaders

Today's topic is thought leadership. I guess we should start by answering the obvious question - what exactly is a thought leader? A thought leader is a company or person that actively participates in and and discusses ideas that are relevant to their industry or marketplace. By talking about a topic with authority, you can become recognized as the leader in that field.

Thought leadership is an important marketing and branding strategy for a small growing business because it gives the company credibility, establishes their expertise and can lead to an increase in sales by positioning them as the 'expert choice'. There are lots of ways to establish thought leadership. Writing articles in trade publications, speaking at local or industry events, or being interviewed by a certain local radio show (had to throw that in) are all great ways to develop a strong internal thought practice.

One question you might ask is who should do this? A lot of companies shy away from developing though leadership among their employee out of fear that once those employees are established leaders they may jump ship for greener pastures. The truth is many time employees make the best thought leaders because they are closer to the work, have the passion to share their knowledge and most importantly it offers the opportunity for them to grow.

What are some of the things that you can do to build thought leadership?

For today's lesson we offer some tips on how you can develop your thought leaders:

Have a plan

Just like you can't make employees go forth and be creative you can't just declare 'hey go write some blog posts!'. Developing a thought leadership practice takes time. That includes time for those responsible to develop new content ideas. Remember this is something you want to benefit your company. Take some time to look at your company from an external perspective. Once you know what you want to focus on, come up with a fun and enjoyable way to execute it. One of the quickest ways to cause this plan to stall is to force people to do something they don't want to do or aren't particularly skilled at doing.

Have internal training

Once you decide that you want to create a thought leadership practice you need to develop a training plan. Your training plan should offer any employee who wants to blog, podcast, write or speak the opportunity to practice those skills on a regular basis. One key thing to remember when building your training program is to try to have employees doing something that they can naturally do well. Trying to turn someone who hates writing into a blogger will only turn that activity into a chore and produce lackluster results.

Focus On Their Passions

One of the best things you can do to make sure you focus on developing thought leaders who will naturally like what needs to be done. The natural inclination is to pick a manager or the people who have been anointed as the 'up and coming' leaders. What happens if that manager doesn't like speaking or refuses to write? We recommend finding the person who would really be passionate about it - even if they aren't a manager or a rising star. That person will likely produce better results because they are doing something they love.

Comments and Opinions