Thought Leadership Concepts

Here are my key take-aways from attending the Thought Leadership Symposium, hosted and facilitated by Alan Weiss with his guest presenter, David Maister:

• Thought leadership, for me, means being sought after by clients and the media to help improve my clients’ businesses and live. It also means high degree of self-worth.
• It’s not about credentials and education but how smart you leverage your applied intelligence.
• Stop worrying about what people think. Instead, lead them and tell them: “here is what you need!”
• When writing a book, the most important part of that book is the conclusion.
• Develop a vast amount of intellectual property that is manifested in a variety of formats such as: books, booklets, audio and video, workshops, seminars and such.
• You have to create the environment that others see you as a thought leader.
• A firm can be associated with the thought leadership of a concept such as: McKinsey in leadership.
• You may build the future credibility as part of your organization. For example: “Here are The Chad Barr Group strategic Internet growth ideas.”
• When examining my Internet Strategic Profile process visuals, I rank thought leaders between distinct and breakthrough.
• Create a library of great ideas. Move on some quickly while letting others age and ignore the rest.
• Help my clients establish their web dominance.

Summary of David Maister Presentation:

• Trade organizations are very powerful. Publish there.
• The regularity of your articles is the real power.
• The biggest issue with thought leadership is the discipline of it. Find someone you trust that will hold you accountable.
• We all know what we need to do and we just don’t do it!
• The key is to get your clients to rave about you and refer you to others. Otherwise, you have a quality problem and not a marketing problem!
• Take your articles and convert them to books and eBooks.
• Being a thought leader does not mean that you originated the idea but that they want to talk with you about it.
• Develop a powerful questionnaire (assessment) that helps diagnose your clients. In order to get the answers, they have to enter their name and email information.
• Consider doing a pro-bono speech if they give you the email list of the participants.
• Most of your business should be your existing clients. Everything else is gravy.
• Don’t make a promise for something you are not going to do, or scale back your goal.
• Turn down work you don’t need or should not do.

Final points:

• Meet your deadlines and hit the mark!
• Show up at the right time and the right place.
• Remove these items that hold you back or that are clogging your life.
• Take some prudent risk.
• Take action. Move!

In order to be a thought leader remember this:

• It’s all about resolve!
• Decipher what you are going to do and do it!
• You gotta want it!