What to Do if You Don’t Have Time for Thought Leadership

In a recent poll I did on LinkedIn, I asked executives:

“What's your biggest stress point in creating and distributing thought leadership content today?”

The primary barriers?

1. I don’t have enough time
2. My writing needs work

As an experienced executive, you might find yourself in this same boat — wanting to share your insights with the world. Not only is this helpful and educating for many, but it also positions you as an opinion leader in your field — it’s a clear win-win.

This is where executive ghostwriting comes in.

Ghostwriting may have a slight stigma, because it’s true — it’s not written by your own hand; it’s written by a professional writer. And some people leave it all up to the writer and simply sign their name to it. This carries risks — as a good ghostwriter must possess a series of skills which should be known:

• Must have an excellent grasp of grammar and punctuation — a lack of this results in a lack of professionalism.
• The ability to tell a story in an engaging and digestible way — otherwise the content comes off as boring or it progresses illogically.
• What you find disinteresting should be interesting to them. You may manage in a specific way and assume everyone does. But a good ghostwriter will hunt down the unique traits and qualities of your executive style.
• Knowledge of your industry — because if they don’t have any familiarity with your field, their writing will reflect that, which in turn which reflects poorly on you.

Most importantly, a ghostwriter needs to be able to mirror you — especially from a tone of voice and stylistic perspective.

Do the [quick] math

Just 30-60 minutes of your time with a ghostwriter can equal 10-20 hours of thought leadership a month — and over the course of a year, this is the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars in marketing and personal branding.

There are plenty of places to find yourself a ghostwriter, like Fiverr, Writer Access, and Constant Content, to name just a few. The main thing to make sure of is that whoever you choose to work with meets the above criteria. Ensure that they take the time to get to know your tone, voice, and ethos. Give them your insights in a raw format (notes, bullet points, and so on), and then let them turn that into an insightful, compelling, and actionable article for you. This method reduces your time investment down to just sharing your insights and reviewing the completed article, you don’t have to worry about your own level of writing skill, and your thought leadership content will still be yours.

Or, my personal favorite: record yourself talking on a topic, have them transcribe it, and wrap it around a nice supporting narrative. 

You can become an established opinion leader and executive influencer in your field, even if you’re incredibly busy. Ghostwriting is one vehicle that can help you do that. Executive Leadership Branding is another.

How is your journey as a thought leadership author going? Is time a barrier for you? Let me know in the comments below what's working (or not working) for you!

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Tom Popomaronis is Executive Vice President of Innovation at Massive Alliance, a global service agency providing internet monitoring, data & security threat surveillance, and reputation management. Tom co-founded Massive's Executive Leadership Branding service, which is a pioneering program that empowers executives to become a leading authority in their industry. Tom is a leadership columnist at CNBC Make It & Entrepreneur Magazine has published over 500 articles with Inc. Magazine & Forbes.