June 8, 2021

5 Approaches to Corporate Thought Leadership

In this episode, Dan gives an update in his deep dive into Thought Leadership by sharing the different approaches companies are taking. 

So far, he's encountered these thought leadership marketing types:

  1. Anonymous Thought Leadership
  2. The Thought Leader Founder or CEO
  3. The SME Thought Leader
  4. The Thought Leader Group
  5. Collective Thought Leadership
Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:00.240 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.140 --> 00:00:09.200 hello and welcome back to BTB growth. My name is dan Sanchez, my friends call 3 00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:12.890 me dan says and I am back with some more information about thought 4 00:00:12.890 --> 00:00:16.660 leadership. Of course, I'm continuing the journey into the deep dive into 5 00:00:16.660 --> 00:00:20.430 thought leadership marketing this month, but I'm doing a check in. I've done a 6 00:00:20.430 --> 00:00:24.760 number of episodes now. I've talked to a number of different practitioners, 7 00:00:24.940 --> 00:00:29.300 thought leaders on thought leadership, a few authors now and I've done a even 8 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:32.930 a few solo episodes and book reviews and different things like that. And 9 00:00:32.940 --> 00:00:36.530 after doing a number of interviews, I've discovered some new things, some 10 00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:40.110 things that I've learned even after like having read a bunch of books after 11 00:00:40.110 --> 00:00:42.580 talking to a bunch of different practitioners. I'm like, oh my gosh, 12 00:00:42.580 --> 00:00:47.720 there are so many approaches to thought leadership. So in today's episode, I 13 00:00:47.720 --> 00:00:51.500 wanted to highlight five different approaches I've seen to corporate 14 00:00:51.510 --> 00:00:55.740 thought leadership. This more has to do with like positioning a company as a 15 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:59.740 thought leader, but five different approaches on how to do it. So let's 16 00:00:59.750 --> 00:01:03.700 jump right into the five approaches I've seen thus far. And there might be 17 00:01:03.700 --> 00:01:06.810 more, but these are the five that I've seen. So the first one is what I'm 18 00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:10.420 going to call the anonymous thought leadership, right? It's company that's 19 00:01:10.420 --> 00:01:14.630 putting out a ton of thought leadership content. And the authors of that 20 00:01:14.630 --> 00:01:18.610 content are relatively obscure, maybe not even known, like it might just be 21 00:01:18.610 --> 00:01:22.760 published by the company and there is no byline attached to it. Or there's a 22 00:01:22.760 --> 00:01:27.560 multitude of people and their names are really small, if you can find them at 23 00:01:27.570 --> 00:01:31.090 all. But it's a company that's pushing out a lot of thoughts and ideas and 24 00:01:31.090 --> 00:01:36.160 they're not really tying it to any one individual or individuals. Any groups, 25 00:01:36.170 --> 00:01:39.930 they're just pushing it out. There is the company. And uh that's good. But 26 00:01:39.930 --> 00:01:42.460 it's definitely, it's a different kind of approach where you're trying to 27 00:01:42.460 --> 00:01:45.560 position the company as a thought leader and none of the people within it. 28 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:48.970 Um, so that's the first approach that I've seen. The thought leadership. The 29 00:01:48.970 --> 00:01:54.290 second approach is the thought leader as the founder and or Ceo right? This 30 00:01:54.290 --> 00:01:59.230 is like classic be like BBC startup, right? Where the founder is the leading 31 00:01:59.230 --> 00:02:03.230 person and maybe it's the more technical of the two founders or 32 00:02:03.230 --> 00:02:07.350 something. But essentially as the face of the company, they have the origin 33 00:02:07.350 --> 00:02:11.220 story, they have the thing that they figured out maybe there, the head of 34 00:02:11.220 --> 00:02:16.110 the agency with the new methodology, their pioneering, but they are the 35 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:19.740 courageous founder and they are the thought leader leading the way with 36 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:23.160 their new methodology, their new technology, their new point of view or 37 00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:26.610 whatever it is they're bringing, but it's very much focused on a single 38 00:02:26.620 --> 00:02:31.940 individual. So that's the thought leader founder or Ceo. The third one is 39 00:02:31.950 --> 00:02:35.520 what I'm calling the sme Thought Leader, the subject matter expert, Thought 40 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.630 leader. And a lot of companies like the Ceo of the founder probably isn't the 41 00:02:38.630 --> 00:02:42.900 technical genius behind what makes the company good, Right? So it might be a 42 00:02:42.910 --> 00:02:46.670 lot of different internal subject matter experts and this company can 43 00:02:46.670 --> 00:02:50.240 either have one person that's the kind of the main person or a group of them, 44 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:55.330 but it's usually a smaller group and they're usually experts in the field 45 00:02:55.340 --> 00:02:58.390 and are now being positioned as thought leaders because they're bringing some 46 00:02:58.390 --> 00:03:04.110 unique ideas to the table. Um Usually Hively assisted by a content marketing 47 00:03:04.110 --> 00:03:08.110 team that can take their expertise and then turn it into thought leadership 48 00:03:08.110 --> 00:03:11.870 material for the company, but their names are more closely associated with 49 00:03:11.870 --> 00:03:14.900 it so that people so that there's some credibility in the thought leadership, 50 00:03:14.900 --> 00:03:18.000 you know, where it's coming from, you know, who's who the source of the 51 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.420 information is. It's it's it's a little bit more credible. Um So lots of 52 00:03:22.420 --> 00:03:25.730 companies are using this all over. I did two interviews where the sme 53 00:03:25.730 --> 00:03:31.360 thought leader was a big part of the organization. The fourth method is what 54 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.750 I'm calling the Thought Leader group. There's quite a few companies that have 55 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:40.090 a almost a a group of different people within the company that they've like 56 00:03:40.090 --> 00:03:43.360 classified as thought leaders. They don't always call them thought leaders, 57 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:47.200 But they are thought leaders are the people that are essentially faces of 58 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:52.410 the company or the brand their chosen from, within the company, they're 59 00:03:52.410 --> 00:03:56.930 groomed and polished and put out in front. Um and there's usually a good 60 00:03:56.930 --> 00:04:00.730 sized group, anywhere from 34 all the way up to. The largest one I've seen is 61 00:04:00.730 --> 00:04:04.390 like 23 people. Um If you think of like Dave Ramsey, he's got a number of 62 00:04:04.390 --> 00:04:07.000 different personalities, he's calls them, but they're, you know, they're 63 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:10.360 thought leaders, they're pushing forward a very specific message and 64 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:14.040 methodology. They're experts in their space and their in front of the 65 00:04:14.040 --> 00:04:17.920 microphone and the camera and writing a lot of content. So that is the thought 66 00:04:17.920 --> 00:04:22.079 leader group, but it's a specific group you've called out in a groomed and have 67 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:25.720 specific things, you hold them accountable to and have expectations of 68 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:29.280 them and they may or may not be full time thought leaders within the company, 69 00:04:29.290 --> 00:04:32.570 they might be actually external contractors, but they're associated 70 00:04:32.570 --> 00:04:35.370 with the group or they might even be like have a different role within the 71 00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:38.270 company, like they're the CFO, but they have this thought leadership expertise 72 00:04:38.270 --> 00:04:43.260 that they're producing that tends to work with the buyers. So that is the 73 00:04:43.260 --> 00:04:48.130 fourth method here that I've seen, and the last one I'm calling collective 74 00:04:48.140 --> 00:04:51.840 thought leadership. I'm actually doing with an interview even later today with 75 00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:55.380 James Carberry, who's kind of come up with this term collective thought 76 00:04:55.380 --> 00:04:58.880 leadership, and that's the one we're actually using here, Sweet Fish Media 77 00:04:58.880 --> 00:05:01.640 or want to use that Sweet Fish Media. I think we're still in the process of 78 00:05:01.640 --> 00:05:05.250 kind of flushing out what this looks like. Um But it's more than just a 79 00:05:05.250 --> 00:05:08.800 group of people. It's actually trying to make everybody a thought leader, 80 00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:12.510 which some people say I've been told this is impossible to do, but I'm like, 81 00:05:12.510 --> 00:05:16.710 I think everybody has it in them, it kind of depends on their, you know, 82 00:05:16.710 --> 00:05:20.080 their hunger and their ambition, but everybody has it in them to do some 83 00:05:20.090 --> 00:05:24.560 type of thought leadership thing and can be at least begin walking down this 84 00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:28.530 path. You might call them more of a trying to activate your employees as 85 00:05:28.530 --> 00:05:31.790 brand evangelists. But I actually think there is a there is something to be 86 00:05:31.790 --> 00:05:36.860 said for activating company wide employees to be thought leaders for the 87 00:05:36.860 --> 00:05:40.710 brand big and small. So of course some of them will have a bigger authority, 88 00:05:40.710 --> 00:05:44.850 more expertise and be a bigger pie, a spokesperson for the platform, some 89 00:05:44.850 --> 00:05:48.850 will be less. And that is okay. But that is the fifth methodology I've seen 90 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:53.190 for doing corporate thought leadership marketing where you're trying to 91 00:05:53.190 --> 00:05:57.040 position the company as a thought leader. Some at the very end of the 92 00:05:57.040 --> 00:06:00.900 spectrum, we started off with number one being the least personable and the 93 00:06:00.900 --> 00:06:04.740 fifth one being the most personable because there's more people. Right? So 94 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:07.410 those are just some interesting learnings that go throughout this deep 95 00:06:07.410 --> 00:06:11.920 dive. I'll be giving updates on this if I find 1/6 or seventh version of this. 96 00:06:11.930 --> 00:06:17.190 But so far those are the five different methodologies I've seen or approaches 97 00:06:17.190 --> 00:06:21.350 I've seen to thought leadership um within B two B companies, 98 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:29.090 one of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 99 00:06:29.090 --> 00:06:33.780 mouth works. It works really, really well actually. So if you love this show, 100 00:06:33.780 --> 00:06:37.680 it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it. And if 101 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:42.010 you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend meta. 102 00:06:42.020 --> 00:06:45.660 I know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based networking, how to 103 00:06:45.670 --> 00:06:49.100 instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is 104 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:54.960 40749033 to 8. Happy texting.