How can Thought Leadership help start-up consulting firms address unique challenges?

Thought Leadership is about authentic and purposeful knowledge sharing, not sales. It's a path to build trust, stand out, and attract clients as a byproduct. Valuable content empowers people and builds connections, inspiring trust and referrals, which ultimately will help you growing whatever business you are involved with.

The very best thought leadership brings a fresh perspective to a common problem or complex subject in a way that resonates with the audience. This can be done in a variety of ways, including simplifying a complex topic, demystifying something new and not broadly understood, or outlining a new metaphor that helps people understand something in a deeper way. Giving people information that creates new insights demonstrates not just your expertise, but also your value. Providing this valuable insight is one of the very best ways to achieve trusted advisor status with clients and potential clients.

Imagine you're at a party. People trust the person with great insights (thought leader). Similarly, start-ups need to be seen as experts. It builds trust and attracts clients. It's like being the life of the entrepreneurial party!

There are a plethora of potential consultants out there, and many long-established firms with excellent (and well-deserved) reputations. As your practice grows from existing contacts who know your skills and experience to the point where you are bringing on brand new clients, finding ways to demonstrate your unique skills is difficult. Obviously your personnel and marketing budgets cannot compete with market leaders, but you can gain instant credibility by building content that demonstrate a deep, different, or nuanced understanding of topics that your clients are struggling to understand or deal with.

Put yourself in your clients' shoes. What challenges are keeping them awake at night? What problems are you solving or what questions are you answering for existing clients? Thinking about what you are learning in existing projects or how you understand a particular challenge faced by your clients can provide a list of good topics for content. Once you select a topic, you can think about how best to share insights with an audience. A few of my favorites are through sharing an anecdote or story, presenting a metaphor, or providing a breakdown or walk-through.

It's like cooking a gourmet meal. Start with a unique recipe (original ideas), use quality ingredients (research), and season with engaging storytelling. Serve it regularly (consistent posting) for a delicious thought leadership feast! In short, be ORIGINAL!

Look at what the market-at-large, your competitors, your clients, and your staff are saying. You can create TL content by: 1. saying it differently. New angles are always welcome. 2. looking into new things. New topics are always welcome. 3. connecting the dots. Nothing more scintillating than someone making connections where no relation has been discovered before. 4. TOOLING FELLOW THINKERS. If conceptual frameworks haven't yet been laid out and you create an instrument for HOW to talk about what everyone is talking about, that'll be a lingua franca.

Balance is key! Don't oversell, be authentic. Avoid jargon, keep it simple. And don't ghost - consistent content is vital, like showing up to perform on the tightrope regularly.

It's like using rocket fuel. Share valuable insights (thought leadership) through blogs, webinars, and social media. Engage with your audience, build trust, and watch your start-up soar to new heights!

The best advertisement is a happy client -- the second-best is a happy consumer of your content who shares it to their own network. To increase "shareability", create bite-sized insights or teaser headlines that make people want to read more. Another key to leveraging these materials for growth is to monitor the comments on your content -- interact with those interested enough that they contribute to the conversation. These are sometimes people who feel the challenge you're addressing most acutely. It never hurts to share a way to contact you at the end of your pieces, e.g., "For more info, reach out to Keith at ...".

Don't think of TL solely as a a tool for YOUR growth; rather, a stake in the ground for the advancement of your market—PARTICULARLY if you're working with disruptive solutions. Cultivating TL content and starting intelligence libraries everyone can pitch into (including your competition) is a must, and the only way to ensure you, too, have shouldered the design and success of your category.

The exercise of becoming (and continuing to be) a thought leader is also an excellent tool for maintaining an authentic and productive intellectual curiosity. A continuous learning agenda is key to any leader’s success!

Don't forget about leveraging different types and lengths of content to reach different audiences. Very often a long-form piece has short snippets that can be extracted for use in other platforms or situations. Consider using a submission calendar to maintain regular posts. And if you have multiple consultants, spread the content-generation work across the team. Collaborative pieces can be less work for each person, or you can rotate across people. And don't forget to share across your organization for re-sharing across their own networks. Keep learning, teaching, and sharing.