How can you use thought leadership to grow your consulting business?

Thought leadership is a tricky area, and it evokes a range of reactions. I've narrowed it down to this: You're a thought leader when other people repeat (and cite) your ideas. While you might set out to be a thought leader, you don't get to claim it. Thought leadership comes from delivering value and helping people clarify their own thinking and actions.

A very tricky yet powerful label and most of the times what you get under the header of 'Thought Leadership' is nothing but an analysis of your understanding of a particular subject or framework. How do you differentiate a Thought Leader from a Practitioner ? Is your framework/ proposition Orignal or are you just paraphrasing a set of frameworks as your own? How futuristic or predictive are your concepts ? Working with one of the Big 4s in the initial part of my career made me realise that Thought Leadership is a function of ' Connected Thinking ' / Research / Ability to design , implement & measure models and most importantly ability to manage Knowledge Repositories Like I said a very powerful label if implemented Right..

It’s a solid definition. Call out would be discerning the true thought leaders, which should come with a decent amount of non-commercial oriented sharing of leading thoughts and content, from those largely driven by commercial motive. Though nothing is wrong with the latter, it may inevitably skew the views in the content and diminish the meaning of being a thought leader instead of a marketing leader.

To me thought leadership is driving new ideas and actions. It is positing different takes on situations and others are reacting. You cannot be a thought leader without causing action or thought amongst others. It takes time, credibility, and charisma.

Thought leadership is particularly important for growing your consulting business. Publishing a thought leadership article can get your name in front of business leaders facing problems you can help solve. Seeing the value you've created for another client builds trust. Over time, potential clients will proactively reach out to you for advice.

I was in a meeting today and someone shared something that embodies this to me, "it is having a mindset of abundance and sharing with others." Servant leadership is sharing and coaching and growth to all parties is achieved. It is collaboration instead of I am an authority and my way is best.

Thought leadership content needs to be your own take on an idea or thought. It is not just reiterating others thoughts. It needs to be less like a Wiki article and more a persuasive piece with strong factual backup. Also master the space you are in, don't try to be everything to everybody.

You can create high-impact thought leadership content for your consulting business by: - Focusing on the topics in which you excel and where you want to grow your business. Content pieces on topics where you have distinctive insight will be strongest and will help you retain clients on projects where you can add significant value. - Focusing on quality, not quantity. - Keeping content pieces tight yet deep. Avoid going too long or busy executives won't stay engaged. But include enough depth that they'll understand how your ideas can help their business. - Including a framework, best practices, or a case study with quantified impact as well as qualitative benefits. - Getting your article visibility in LinkedIn and relevant media outlets.

Thought leadership content is really all about sharing your own perspective. You're extending your personality to these pieces. Obviously, being real and authentic is super important in thought leadership. Imagine all the experience and knowledge you've gathered in your field over the years. Now, you're sharing all these insights and nuggets of wisdom you've picked up along the way, and it's a great way to earn your audience's trust and confidence in what you do or in your brand. So, how much value you're adding for your readers is super important. The more you focus on giving them something useful and insightful, the better your content will be. It's all about helping them out and sharing what you know.

The ROI of thought leadership is tricky to measure. Consulting engagements take a long time to close, so it's challenging to trace the sale of an engagement back to a particular article, especially if thought leadership was just one of several things that sealed the deal (long-term relationship development, a compelling pitch, an all-star team, etc.) There are 3 reasons consulting thought leadership is valuable even if it can't be measured: - Insightful articles keep your firm top of mind with business leaders. - Thought leadership helps business leaders crystalize their thinking on problems affecting their businesses. - Case studies help potential clients size the impact of undertaking an engagement, making it more likely to happen.

It’s easy to mistake great thought leadership as the result of lots of deep thinking (it’s in the name, after all). Your favorite voices don’t “think up” ideas. Instead, they're obsessed with noticing. Big ideas hide in what you do every day... → During so-called coincidences → In flashes of ideas that feel vaguely true Being a wellspring of ideas hinges on your ability to catch what others allow to drift by. It's supremely unscientific. It boils down to trusting the prickles at the back of your neck and PAUSING: Jot down your thoughts with the intention of returning to them later. Only then do you have something to analyze, test, and approximate meaning that you share as a thought leader.