Illuminating the Future:

Want to Build Trust? Want to be a Market Leader? Be a Thought Leader

Why is thought leadership increasingly critical to the success of professional services firms? Why do market leaders also tend to be thought leaders? 

As a growing number of firms across the professional services spectrum have discovered, thought leadership can strengthen your market positioning, enhance your perceived value to clients and generate more business overall. 

Indeed, professionals can distinguish or differentiate themselves in a crowded field by becoming thought leaders. In their new book Professional Services Marketing, Mike Schultz and John Doerr contend that thought leaders can expect “greater recognition, demand and reach in the market.”

Thought leadership can be defined as the presentation of insightful, provocative and compelling perspectives that frame the way people think about key issues and even guide them to smarter decisions.

The reason that thought leadership is now so important to the performance of professional services firms can be traced to several factors.

The first factor is trust and authority. Considering the turbulent state of the economy and trepidation of today’s buyers, the premium on trust is higher than ever. In fact, research on “loss aversion” suggests the threat of losses looms far larger than the benefit of corresponding gains. As a result, prospects are unlikely to become clients unless a high level of trust has been established, particularly in this economy.  By presenting compelling perspectives and backing them up with convincing evidence, thought leaders become trusted authorities and earn the confidence of their prospective clients and other market influencers.   

The next factor is the changing dynamics of client buying decisions. In the past, buyers might have been more open to the unsolicited pitches of professional service firms. The seller once had a great deal of information that was not available to the buyer – and a seller’s offer might initiate a buying process. But now buyers are increasingly relying on the Internet to conduct their own research and facilitate their own decisions.  Firms that fail to provide relevant content on the Internet and in other forums are unlikely to be found much less respected. Even firms engaged in active outreach and business development efforts need to be able to point to resources that establish credibility.  

The final factor is competitive pressures. If one’s competitors are out to establish themselves as thought leaders, then you are vulnerable to being left behind if you don’t engage in similar pursuits. This is exactly what’s happening now. Firms are increasingly investing in content-rich marketing efforts that involve white papers, articles, case studies, presentations, published research, public relations and social media outreach.  The more firms engage in thought leadership initiatives, the more the market expects such efforts and evaluates its suppliers and service providers based on them.

Let’s take a look at a few firms – specialists in consulting, accounting and law – that are actively capitalizing on the power of thought leadership. By producing rich content and promoting it in various media and channels, they have become trusted authorities in their fields. They demonstrate why firms should be investing in thought leadership now.   

When Content & Communications Collide

Do you have what it takes to generate demand in our exceedingly loud, attention-starved era?

You may be very good at creating marketing content for lead gen purposes. You might have a "resources" section on your web site loaded with white papers, case studies, newsletters and podcasts. Or you may have talented public relations people who have a knack for getting you media placements.

But do you have both? I doubt it. Few do.

There are plenty of writers out there. Copywriters are a commodity. There are also plenty of PR professionals out there. They're a commodity, too.

What's missing is a convergence of the two: Skilled firms and professionals who can both generate rich marketing content and then capitalize on it by getting key influencers -- such as media and analysts -- to retell their tales.

You may have access to writers and other "content producers" now. They aren't hard to find. The best of them can identify the foundations of a great story when they hear it, refine it and make it extremely vivid. Trouble is, they usually don't have a clue about marketing or sales or the customer's decision-making process. They don't understand PR (or AR). Internal product marketers and marketing managers may or may not understand these things, but they usually don't have the skill or time to write compelling content. They have other pressing responsibilities.

PR people, meanwhile, don't have a story to tell without rich content.They tend to merely repeat the dull narratives they are told by their clients, desperately hoping editors and analysts will find these stories interesting enough to act on. Too often, they end up like sales people with a lousy product (in this case, dull, unimaginative stories). What PR people need to truly excel is rich, compelling and insightful content that grabs the attention of prospects and the interest of industry influencers.

The future belongs to forward-looking executives who know that market leadership revolves around thought leadership. Indeed, they will understand that true thought leadership lies at the intersection of content and communications, disciplined research and dynamic engagement, story making and influencer relations. Look for these connections -- these intersections -- if you are looking to elevate your company and drive profitable growth.

Strategy Consultants Set the Pace

One of the most important aspects of thought leadership is its power to build credibility among prospective clients. The companies that arguably have taken this idea farthest –- leveraging the full potential of thought leadership marketing and continuing to advance the state of the art -– can be found in the strategy consulting business.

While management consulting has certainly grown over the past few decades as powerhouses such as Accenture, IBM and BearingPoint have gained ground, it is the strategy consultants that have explicitly relied on provocative and well-researched articles, white papers and studies to generate market opportunities. Among the top players in this upper strata of the advice market: McKinsey & Co.; Bain; Booz-Allen; and Boston Consulting Group.

Few of these strategy firms rely on conventional advertising to get the word out. The steep premiums they charge are, in one sense, justified by their ability to remain at the forefront of managerial thought – and demonstrate this leading edge thinking through their various marketing vehicles. Indeed, they have something to teach us all about how to build expertise, communicate it and strengthen our credibility in the marketplace.

Take McKinsey. Consistently cited as the most prestigious and influential consulting firm in the world, McKinsey recognized the wider potential of investing in thought leadership back in the 1970s and 1980s. It would produce top research on management topics and then, present it as scholarly articles in the Harvard Business Review or thought-provoking editorials in the Wall Street Journal. Other research was presented to clients and prospects as well-researched white papers or articles in its own, widely read periodical, the McKinsey Quarterly.

Paul Friga, co-author of the book The McKinsey Mind, explains that such work served two purposes. It helped business people better understand and articulate key business problems and it let them know that McKinsey had expertise in these areas of concern. This represents a powerful alternative to traditional marketing. “It’s the general principle of demonstrated competency rather than claimed competency,” says Friga. “Advertisements make claims [about expertise]. Of course, they might claim it by getting testimony or showing the results of people that have been surveyed. But there’s probably nothing better than actually showing you.”

Such efforts have enabled the company to maintain something people refer to as the “McKinsey Mystique.” In fact, the firm’s unwillingness to be interviewed for this article (or any article, generally, that discusses how it operates) speaks to the stealth approach the company takes in building influence and credibility.

One former McKinsey consultant (who now runs his own strategy boutique) explains how McKinsey has relied on highly valued pro bono work to build relationships with and demonstrate its expertise to key decision-makers and power brokers. Part of the company’s marketing strategy is to conduct strategy projects for city governments, industry associations and fine arts organizations (such as the symphony, ballets, etc.) – where influential board members have an opportunity to see the company in action. “It not only serves a community, it opens the doors of corporate chieftains and other influential people,” he says.

While McKinsey’s success in positioning itself in leading journals demonstrates the power of combining strong writing with strong research, the success of its pro bono work suggests that it might be worthwhile for companies in other industries to consider similar activities. For instance, one might produce or finance valuable research, articles or white papers on behalf of relevant industry associations and trade groups.

However, other strategy consultants believe the demands of successful thought leadership marketing are about to rise to a new level. Bill Matassoni, a partner with Boston Consulting Group who was formerly in charge of externally communicating McKinsey’s thought leadership, believes we now must begin to engage in what he calls “issue ownership.” From his perspective, it’s not enough to merely communicate one’s perspectives and apparent expertise in a particular topic area. The challenge now is to build a rich and deep “field capability” based on real-world client experiences and then, demonstrate it through one’s communication activities.

The greatest challenge of issue ownership, he explains, lies in rapidly developing a team of experts that have the experience and credibility to work with clients in a new field of endeavor. In essence, white papers, articles and research become a vehicle for connecting the firm’s group of deep specialists with prospective and existing clients.

It is no longer adequate to have a single expert (that monopolizes all insight) or to have superficial opinions on a subject area. “If you claim to have special insight on something, you can’t just write about it,” Matassoni says. “You have to have 5 or 6 client engagements under your belt…If you don’t have the field capability to go along with the thought leadership or issue ownership, it’s not a complete marketing effort and it won’t work. You will be too thin on the ground. You really have to be building people.”

***An earlier version of this article first appeared in WhitePaperSource Newsletter.