Develop Your Fame

To this point, you have determined that you are committed to thought leadership for yourself or your company and you have done a thorough evaluation of your potential for success as a thought leader. To continue our series for preparing yourself for thought leadership, we come to step 3 - develop your fame.

Think of this as building your resume for thought leadership. Do you have the credentials and experience to be recognized as a thought leader or are you just another vendor who wants to speak at the breakfast. Here are essentials for developing your resume.

• What are your credentials for leadership on this topic?
• Who recognizes you as a leader?
• Are you already published?
• Where have you already spoken?
• What kind of training do you need?
• What kinds of tools do you need?

So, is your thought leadership resume full? Are you a regular writer and have spoken at the convention of your peers for each of the last three years? Or is your resume blank? If your resume is blank, this was probably identified in your evaluation stage. Now you need to get to work. Building this resume is what makes the difference between introducing the speaker and being the speaker.