Becoming a thought leader in their market space is something many companies are setting out to achieve. And, for good reason. Today's B2B buyers turn to search engines and the Internet to gather information about solving their problems. If you're not found - and considered valuable - you're not in the running.
Prospects want thoughtful ideas and strategic insights geared just for them. They're looking for validation that solving the problem will pay off. They want help building a business case and the ammunition to convince others to take a step on the wild side, instead of sitting firmly in status quo. They're also looking to validate expertise in order to minimize risk. Hence, thought leadership.
Did you catch the critical point?
Geared just for them.
Thought leadership is not one-size-fits-all. It still has to be designed for the intended audience to be useful.
Examples of when thought leadership, well, isn't:
- For some reason, I've seen companies think they can return to product pumping and chest thumping under the auspices of thought leadership. Umm...no.
- When your prospects just want something that works and you go all high-level on them with ideas they can never bring to life because of culture, size or market relevance.
- If you go too far and talk down to them.
- Too much stick and not enough carrot.
- Applying every principle you discuss to your product's features when you promised insights about the ramifications of the problem, itself.
- Promising a white paper and delivering one page of insight tacked onto the front of your solution brief.
- Referencing outdated sources to justify your take on a cutting-edge problem. The world is moving faster than that.
