Comments on: Do You Have the ‘Four As’ To Be a Thought Leader?

By: Rick Short

Rick Short — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:46:14 +0000

Typical Dana:
-on target
-useful and useable
-valuable
-poignant
Thanks, man. I’m always learning from you.

By: Vicki Rellas

Vicki Rellas — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:55:47 +0000

The one factor I see as critical in sustaining thought leadership is the ability to deliver results. You touch on this a bit in your last “A”. A constant of successful tactical and strategic results driven by thought leadership ends up being the most important factor when being evaluated by clients and peers.
Many thought leaders don’t know how to go out and execute and eventually challenges their thought leadership role.

By: Loren McDonald

Loren McDonald — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:18:02 +0000

Great post Dana! Couple of things to add/reiterate:
- I think true thought leaders also have to be risk takers. In that to truly move industry conversations and client practices forward, you typically must question long-held industry beliefs. This sometimes means you upset people, even your company’s own clients, but if you aren’t pushing, prodding, questioning and forcing companies/people to rethink what they are doing – then you are not a thought leader but a thought supporter. And sometimes you even end up being wrong.
- Secondly, a thought leader can’t always be first – particularly in the social world we live in. So part of your role today is to be a thought “catalyst” (my term – self promotion here) and to share ideas first offered by others, including competitors.
Anyway, excellent and well thought out post!
Loren McDonald

By: blog tools online

blog tools online — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:19:56 +0000

I have no words .. except-
WOW!
Fascinating explanation..

By: Dana VanDen Heuvel [From MarketingSavant.com]

Dana VanDen Heuvel [From MarketingSavant.com] — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:35:22 +0000

Jeremy,
That’s a great addition to the discussion – attitude + perseverance is essential to being a thought leader. It’s one of the reasons why you see ‘best practices’ staying as such, because no one implements them…
In fact, there’s a quote I read just yesterday on this. It comes from a session at a National Speakers Association event (I’m an NSA member and it was from Speaker magazine) which went like this:
(Answer to the question “Why do you so willingly share such personal details about your business success with your competition.”)
“I’m sharing all of this with you freely because I know that no one in this room will do even 10 percent of what I’m sharing with you, despite your best intentions.”
(at which point, everyone chuckled at the blatant truth in his reply).
It’s just that. Thought leaders have a different attitude, mindset and way of approaching the market than non thought leaders. It’s actually ironical when you think about it – other thought leaders would NOT steal your info, or they wouldn’t attain status as a thought leader, and those that aren’t thought leaders rarely have the chutzpa, drive and stamina to pursue the thought leader’s path, so while they’ll snatch an idea or two, that’s the most they’ll get – you still own the system, process and high ideals that you’ve put out there, and you’ll continue to attract business because of it!

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:16:48 +0000

Great post and inspired me, particularly in category #2. One build might be the idea of “no fear of having your ideas stolen.”
Say, for example, you write a whitepaper (and per first comment, that’s not the end of the road) and you share it with someone in the industry who has a bigger platform (more readers/followers) whatever. It’s natural to have a fear of being co-opted.
My hunch (and I’d be curious on your thoughts) is that thought leaders persevere and just keep doing it. Since the ideas were their own to begin with, they know that others just can’t execute and evolve it in the same way.
So, now I am going to share my big ideas with everyone
Hint: it’s called Community Driven Marketing (damn! I couldn’t resist my urge to sell. Guess I don’t have what it takes. Bummer..)
Keep up the good work.

By: Chet Geschickter

Chet Geschickter — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:06:17 +0000

Bullseye! This is a topic near and dear to my heart – thank you.
From time to time I advise clients on this and I also act in this capacity for my employer as well. Two parts that bear elaboration:
1. Evergreen – you have to be ready, willing and able to explore and research new areas and topics. This is key. Thought leadership is the R in R&D. The first step toward intangible asset creation. So long as it is on-target with your company’s value proposition and relevant to client or customer needs and novel to your organization – you are on track. I’m not a big believer in recycling what your organization already knows and does. My belief is thought leadership is an opportunity to add value to your business and to clients. If there’s green field – why not plant it – as opposed to dumping fertilizer on the same well-tilled ground? I was once pulled into a client situation where the organization had produced a survey report they were very proud of. Aspirations were high – they wanted to sell it as a one-off. My advice? Give it away and use the inputs to explore and cultivate new topics – then give that away, and so on. The goal? Add value and strike out in new directions. Solve new problems, create new services, and make money in new and interesting and differentiated ways.
2. Helpful – helping someone is different from providing a good or service. This is where a lot of organizations get hung up. They worry about giving away the “secret sauce.” Two points here: 1. if you follow the recipe above, you are striking out in new culinary directions – not giving away the recipes for creating the tasty dishes you are serving up to your patrons. Translation – you have nothing to lose. 2. Value is created when you understand the specific context and challenges of the people you are serving. This is different from sharing helpful paradigms, ways of framing things, data points and observations, etc. You’d be surprised how often people will come to you and say things like “we really like your thinking on X, but our situation is A and we don’t see a way to get to Y (the outcome of doing X). Can you help us?
Summary – thought leadership is for creating new value, not recycling old stuff.
Thanks again for the post.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:46:54 +0000

Hi Dana, under “Attitude” and your bullets, desire to educate and willingness to share value, I find that thought leaders need to be willing to publically present their ideas. It’s not enough to write a whitepaper and call it a day. A good marketer will find other avenues for a thought leader to get their message out (speaking slots, podcasts, webinars etc), however the thought leader must be willing to continuously promote their ideas through such venues.
I bring this up, because it is a crucial part of being a thought leader and not everyone has the stomach for public speaking and/or the fortitude for continued promotion. It’s also tough because in many Professional Services firms, thought leaders have utilization goals that need to be balanced with these promotional efforts.