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.

Evaluation

Okay...you have determined that you are committed to thought leadership. So what's next?

We suggest evaluation is the next step. In this step, you are trying to determine if you are a leader or just have thought. Everyone has an opinion but that doesn't make them a thought leader. You may be an expert but not a thought leader - yes, there is a difference (referenced in earlier post). You may have great insight but no interest in sharing it with others (competitors), or you're just not ever going to write or speak in public. You may have such advanced thought that no one is ready to listen. Here are some questions to examine in the evaluation stage of thought-leadership preparation:

• What makes you a leader? In what subject(s)?
• What makes your thoughts provoking/different?
• Are you published?
• Are you a speaker?
• Do your peers listen to you?
• If you were a teacher, what would you teach the world (your audience) to do better?
• What do you like to do best?
• Have you been honored in this topic?

The evaluation step is so important to the success of a thought-leadership campaign that we suggest you go through it with an outside source - a pr consultant, a business coach, a trusted business peer. Because you are either likely to be too critical of your abilities or not entirely realistic to the value that you have to offer. An outside, honest point a view will help make this process a success.

Commitment

So you think thought leadership is right for your company or for your organization leadership? Now what do you do?

Well let's see just how committed you are and can be to the process. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
• How much time and budget do you have to spend on thought leadership?
• What are your goals around thought leadership?
• What will constitute success?
• Who will manage and organize the process?

Evaluating commitment is key to preparing yourself for thought leadership. If you don't have the time and can't make time to write or speak or blog, then how much commitment do you have to this type of campaign. If you don't have budget or resources to travel for speaking engagements or have white papers written, then how much of a commitment can you make to thought leadership? And you must have goals to measure success. Does thought leadership need to elevate your presence in the industry? Is the process meant to generate leads? Is thought leadership a brand exercise?

Though simple questions, establishing your commitment level and goals will determine your success probability from the beginning before you waste time or money on developing a thought leadership campaign.

Thought Leadership

Are you a thought leader or an expert?

Some would say that the two are interchangeable. Many experts are thought leaders but thought leaders aren't always experts. A formal definition of thought leadership is helpful to start: A person, company or organization that is recognized among their peers, customers and constituents for innovative ideas, industry leadership and insight.

Thought leadership should drive agendas, engagement, business success and brand initiatives as a public relations strategy. Thought leaders take a stand, shape opinion and provide a voice above the crowd with a unique point of view.

In developing thought-leadership campaigns for our clients, we have developed a 5-step process to prepare yourself for thought leadership.
1. Commitment
2. Evaluation
3. Develop your Fame
4. What's new about You
5. Delivery focus

In most cases, we find that clients want to start with Step 5...Where can I speak? When can I start a blog? As with all communications strategies, thought leadership requires planning to be successful.

Are you a thought leader?

So, you think you are a thought leader. You think your company or management team should be recognized for this leadership.

Thought leadership is most certainly a way of getting recognized but which really comes first, the leadership or the thought? Are you really a thought leader? If not, what do you need to do to become one. Over the next few blog posts, I will focus on 5 steps you should take to prepare yourself for thought leadership.