Thought leadership has become an important aspect of growing a company. Many businesses are seeking methods to boost their thought leadership by using effective digital marketing techniques. In today’s episode, we’re talking about being an authority. How to use your thought leadership to build your business.
Quote:
“Not everyone can think the way you think, has the experience that you have, and can work with the client the way that you can..”
Topics and Timestamps:
- Experienced customers of Ashleigh (00:36.4- 00:52.7)
- Basics equal to expertise (00:53.2- 02:19.1)
- Selling the thinking (02:19.3- 03:00.5)
- Analogy beyond teaching someone to fish (03:00.8- 03:43.7)
- Experience as an advantage (03:44.1-04:14.2)
- Characteristics of high-valued thinking (04:14.5- 04:44.1)
- Uniqueness as an Edge (04:44.5- 05:15.8)
- Different ways to excel in content creation (05:31.9- 06:30.8)
- Doing things consistently that flows from you easily (06:33.5- 07:10.8)
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Transcription
005 | Be An Authority! How to Use Your Thought Leadership To Build Your Business
Are you ready to take your digital marketing to the next level, using tried and true methods and emerging trends? It’s Ashleigh and you’re listening to the Digitally Grounded podcast. We’ll talk about all things digital marketing from sales funnels and flywheels, social media, email marketing, and more. So if you’re ready to take your marketing to the next level, keep listening.
Hey, it’s Ashleigh. In today’s episode, we’re talking about being an authority. How to use your thought leadership to build your business. The majority of people that I work with are service providers in their business and they are experts in their field. They typically have 7 to 10 years of experience at least and that helps them to really be able to serve their clients in unique ways.
I will say though, sometimes it’s hard for them to kind of discover what they should be sharing out on email on social media in the form of content marketing on their blog posts. They’re not sure what to talk about because sometimes, they are serving their clients at such a high level that the basics are things that they will kind of say well you know I think everybody knows this part or you can find this information anywhere and I have to go back and say well no actually let’s start with the basics and build off of that because there are so many people out there that hire you because they know that you are an expert in this field and you can do things with confidence with expertise with professionalism but they need to know the basics and then the other thing to consider is the fact that as you start to build this digital presence and start to give a digital experience to people, they’re going to be discovering you and maybe they’ve never met you locally or virtually or maybe they’ve never heard of your business and your unique approach before so having a content marketing plan that centers around your thought leadership and centers around your thinking, your strategy and expertise is really going to help them know you, like you and trust you enough to wanna do business with you.
So, I’m telling you as a service provider to sell your thinking and what do I mean by that? So your thinking- your strategy, your thinking- your experiences, the highest value thing because you can have the foresight to look at a situation or to help a client or a customer or something like that. You’ll be able to see 10 steps ahead because you’ve done it so many different times because you’re staying abreast of the latest trends within your industry because you’re incorporating past, present, and future to really serve your clients and build your business to the best of its possibility or ability.
So what I like to think of it as is, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the saying, but I think many people are. It’s “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach a man a fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.” And there are so many more levels to that so let’s unpack it for a minute. If I am the fishermen and I’m teaching someone to fish, there are so many levels to what are the best conditions sufficient, what’s going to be a great area to go fishing, you know you’re not going to stand at the water’s edge with your feet. You know, an inch into the water and expect to catch fish that way. You have to go farther out from the coastline.
I know that my stepfather when he fishes, he says man if it’s raining it’s gonna be better fishing so there are different things to think about, it’s more than just giving a fish or teaching okay well you know, here’s the line, you cast a line, you wait the fish comes and then you pull it out and boom you’re done. There’s more to it than that. There is a certain new one that happens as you start to have experience and then you’re, you do better at catching fish even in conditions that may not be ideal.
So that’s what I mean going back to selling your thinking because you’re providing something that is such high value because you’ve put in the work, you know what you’re talking about, you’ve been able to test it over and over again, you’ve been able to get results for your clients over and over again. And you’re always refining and always trying to make it better you know and so sell that thinking because that’s what’s really important.
Once you have that overarching thinking and you have that process, document that process, and then the deliverables within the overall structure or strategy or process, those really could be outsourced, right? Anyone could do a task if it’s documented well. Step one, step 2, step 3, step 4 are all outlined properly but not everyone can think the way you think, has the experience that you have, and can work with the client the way that you can.
Those are things that you really need to think about but then there’s a whole other side to it right? So once you figure out what you wanna focus on in terms of selling your thinking, you have to think about the next step which is, what’s the best way for you to create content?
Everyone has a different way that they will excel at creating content. For me, I really like podcasts and I am starting to get into doing YouTube. I think that they’re one and the same because I’m very much a get in front of the camera or get in front of the mic and sort of have my outline and go off the cuff with a couple of bullet points and be able to talk eloquently about a subject because I’ve talked about it, I don’t know, thousands of times and it just comes naturally for me but for other people, maybe writing is their strong suit and they’d rather sit down with a free distraction, free you know workspace, and write a blog post or in E-book or a manifesto or case study. So you have to think about what’s going to work best for you. Look at all the areas that are within your unique perspective or your unique zone of genius and then think about what you might enjoy doing, what’s going to be the easiest for you to do on a consistent basis.
The next few episodes in this podcast are going to touch on content marketing but I wanted to use this one as a foundational thing to get the wheels turning and really get you thinking about how you can create something that’s based on thinking that will something that will come easy for you and something you can do consistently and then be able to build organic reach. Think about that, think about the things that you enjoy doing whether it’s writing, video, audio, maybe it’s something else, you know maybe it’s speaking. But whatever it is, choose the one that is going to flow from you easily.
And then when we get into the next episode, we’ll go into the basics of funnel building and the content marketing plan so stay tuned and I’ll see you in the next one!
The Digitally Grounded podcast is written and produced by me, Ashleigh Lindsay, our editor is Jessica Marshall, and our music is ‘Summer Hip Hop Upbeat’ by Lightbeats. Thanks for listening!
