How to drive performance by commercialising the Thought Leadership in your business.

1. How to drive performance by
commercialising the Thought Leadership
in your business

2. Developing the
Thought Leadership in
your organisation is a
super smart
commercial strategy
Learn why – and how to
get started

3. Becoming a
recognized thinker in
your field is one of
the most effective
business strategies
going

4. Traditional sales & marketing
approaches are failing
Crafting a strong thought
leadership position for your
business is a great way to:
•Boost sales
•Create closer customer connections
•Get the best from your people

5. It’s about evolving from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ strategies as
clients become attracted to what you know and your
reputation for creating solutions to their challenges
Text

6. 3 Mega Trends are
driving this change

7. 1. Marketing has
changed forever

8. ‘Push’ sales and broadcast advertising
are increasingly ineffective
The Economist Intelligence Unit found
that leading businesses are turning to
‘thought leadership marketing’ as the
most effective B2B activity

9. Top ranking activities such as:
•presentations at a conference
•articles in business press
•invitations to webinars/workshops
•white paper publishing
offer more (and cost less)

10. 2. Warp speed Change
is the new normal

11. Over 3,000 new books are
published every day!
We live in a time of
exponential change. What
we know is often out of
date within months or
weeks!

12. Thought leadership
is the process of
taking information
and giving it
meaning and
relevance

13. Clients’ value the people and
businesses that can make
sense from the chaos
Establishing your thought
leadership ensures that’s
YOU (and not your
competitor!)

14. 3. Innovation
and mega-
productivity
is driving
competition

15. Today’s successful
organisations must
create a production
line of adaptable
thinkers who thrive in
this new business
environment

16. Thought leaders must be change-
makers. Leaders who help us
understand what’s really going on
and what we need to do
They need to express their
thinking through original content
across multiple channels – blogs,
briefings, speeches, webinars,
white papers, panels & workshops

17. The Thought Leadership
Blueprint -
5. things to get started

18. 1. Step out of broad
categories

19. You need to ‘own’ a niche
Don’t write about general
industry issues (boring!)
Get specific, be innovative

20. Invest in your key people so that
you establish a position of
thought leadership across each of
your go-to-market channels
It’s a great way to build sector-
specific advantage whilst
simultaneously enhancing your
over-arching brand reputation

21. 2. Develop a
fitness for
broadcasting
regularly

22. Thought leadership needs to be
actively created and
communicated frequently
Aim to deliver a weekly
newsletter, daily micro-blogs (e.g.
tweets), a quarterly white paper
and a book every year – all
reinforcing and building on your
message!

23. 3. Get Ready for
Criticism

24. Thought leadership is about
moving the conversation on,
challenging sacred cows and
proposing new solutions
It should ruffle feathers (in a
good way!)
Have some fun throwing rocks
(and be prepared to take a few
hits!)

25. 4. Extend the
thinking in your
field

26. It’s easy to be overwhelmed when
starting out
BELIEVE! You’ll have your own
‘unique take’ – based on your
expertise, experience and
enthusiasm
With some thinking, tools (and hard
work), you can work this up into a
unique commercial angle that your
clients will value and buy

27. Start with a literary review!
Buy the 5 best selling books in your
field. Think how you can either add to
the thinking (‘yes, and’) or, where you
disagree, contradict (‘yes, but’)
This simple approach positions you as
a well-read expert and creates the
perfect platform for you to develop
your own original thought leadership

28. 5. Think in full spectrum

29. The key to creating great messages
is to structure them so that they
dance across the full spectrum of
preferences and learning styles
This means covering left brain logic
through to right brain creativity
and moving from specific examples
up to high order contextual ideas

30. full spectrum thinking

31. A snapshot of the five components of
an idea is outlined below
Integrating this understanding into
your thought leadership is
TRANSFORMATIONAL.

32. Want more?
To find out how you can develop the
commercial power of thought leadership
in your business, contact Mark Hodgson,
Thought Leaders Global Partner
markhodgson@thoughtleadersglobal.com

33. About Thought Leaders
At its heart, Thought Leaders is a leadership development business for experts.
We help companies, large and small, to enhance their performance through
the effective positioning of their people and their organisation as thought
leaders. Our Partners and Mentors have been involved in all aspects of training
and development with numerous organisations throughout Australia, New
Zealand, Asia, the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.
We are a recognised authority in helping organisations to grow by adopting a
thought leadership strategy and have created a global first in developing a
curriculum to deliver on this. Our collaborative framework means we have
access to an extraordinary breadth and depth of talent - united by a common
methodology and values system.
We are experts in the design, delivery and project management of national and
international learning & development programs and collectively have
successfully delivered over 2,400 different workshop/coaching days in over 400
locations