New Year, New Goals. It’s Time to Plan Your Thought Leadership Strategy
The coming of the New Year always implies a change in one’s goals. If you think it’s high time to change something in your business, then it’s high time to plan your thought leadership strategy.
The Christmas holiday break is the perfect time to learn something new and reinvent your efforts to become a true thought leader who influences your market. Here are a few things to consider during your musings.
Know your target market
Everyone would love to influence half the world, but we need to be realistic. Plus, a much better and far more successful thing that you can do is focus on your specific niche market.
Now, we’re not talking about a specific industry; we’re talking about going much further than that. You need to find your niche market that will be the one for whom you can offer the most expertise, fo the most value, and with whom you want to work.
You can have more than one niche market, but the key is positioning yourself correctly for each one.
Know what their pains and problems are
Once you know what your niche is, the next step is learning whatever you can about them, most specifically – what troubles them and what their problems are.
That way you’ll know exactly where to strike, in the absence of a better metaphor. This way you’ll know what they need, and then you can offer the solution. Providing the exact answer to your niche market needs is what will turn you into a real thought leader.
Know the trends and the ins and outs of the business
Helping your clients does not only involve knowing what their pains are, and then curing those pains with your expertise. It also means that your expertise needs to be precisely that – an expertise. That implies you know much more about their business and situation (and are able to resolve issues), far more than your competitors are able to.
It will require a lot of effort, but it will be worth it as you can provide a more detailed and better service than anyone else.
Know how to stay active
The next thing is being proactive and consistent with that activity. You need to be out there, your social media has to be dynamic, and you need to be proactively engaged exactly where your existing and potential clients are.
By staying active on these mediums, at events and in publications, you can raise your profile and gain recognition for what you want to be known for – in the eyes of your clients and those whom you wish to attract. Remember that activity on social media is a crucial area in any successful thought leadership strategy.
Know how to be thoughtful
We wanted to end on this because being considerate means a lot of things. It means caring for what you do and how you do it. It means ensuring that you’re providing value. It implies no carelessness. It means being mindful.
You should know that the central part of being a thought leader is giving something valuable while expecting to receive nothing in return – and that’s what being thoughtful means in the end.
It will improve your reputation and show people how generous you are, but it will also, inevitably, bring more success to you and your firm.