5 Approaches to Corporate Thought Leadership

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.