Bringing Home the Bacon: Cultivating Thought Leaders to Break Down Trust Barriers with Prospects

 I’ve talked before about the importance of cultivating thought leaders (and other types of enthusiastic cheerleaders) when it comes to establishing public trust in your brand. Why? Simply put, it’s because public trust is at a premium. When people are feeling anxiety in every arena of their lives — spending time and energy separating fact from “fake news” —  businesses aren’t immune from the epidemic of trust issues. In 2017, the Edelman Trust Barometer reported that 60% of people would put trust in “a person like themselves.” That means it’s just good business sense for companies to invest more in putting smart, relatable people out in the market to build public trust. For referral-based businesses, that trust  can mean the difference between bringing home the bacon — and finding you’ve got nothing to fry up in the pan.

Identifying Thought Leaders in Your Organization

You’ll want to choose a few people from the front lines — the doers — to ensure that you’re offering up tactical perspectives that help people connect. They’re there to display expertise and transparency, illustrating the quality of the work at all levels. You’ll also want to set up your mid-level managers to help talk about challenges that your customer is facing, and about the value propositions of their product or service. Finally, you do want the CEO out in the market (they just shouldn’t be the ONLY person out there talking), because they have an opportunity to publicly set company vision. I think of Satya Nadella, and Arianna Huffington as examples — they set strategic direction and vision for their companies, which in turn opened the door for other people in their company to talk to those points.

Whatever their areas of expertise or status in the company, thought leaders are connected by three three important traits. Thought leaders must be:

• Articulate (able to speak coherently and at appropriate length about their topic)
• Intelligent (able to think critically, make connections, and offer value on the topic; they also must possess intellectual curiosity to continue learning more)
• Willing (have the inclination to make themselves into semi-public figures, to speak in front of crowds, and to DO THE WORK. Hard work is hard and requires effort.)

When you’re looking for thought leaders, it’s important to remember not to settle for candidates who exhibit only one or two of these traits. There are plenty of articulate, intelligent people out there... But not everyone is cut out for standing up and engaging with the public, and that lack of willingness is something that can’t be coerced.

The other traits your thought leaders are going to need are enthusiasm (for participating in the company culture and offering their own ideas to share); grit (they’re going to have to take criticism and face feedback about everything from their topics to their  headshots and career paths); resilience (it’s possible that even after they fine tune their pitch, that they’ll get turned down the first few times, and they can’t be deterred by a few setbacks); and grace. Grace is deeply important when someone ends up in the public eye, because people will challenge your thought leaders (whether in person, on Twitter, or both) and they need to be able to hand it in a way that won’t drive them (or your CEO) crazy.

Sound like a lot? Maybe it is… but the bottom line here is that not everyone is the right person for this type of work. Choose carefully, have multiple layers of vetting, and be OK with the fact that not everyone is ready to be (or needs to be) a thought leader.

Supporting your Thought Leaders

So, you’ve identified your thought leaders. You may be wondering: what do they need to get the pan hot and the sizzle going? You can help your thought leaders succeed with cultural and foundational support.

Cultural support means buy-in from leadership, management, and the business as a whole.

It’s all fine and good for leaders to say “YES! I want our company to have thought leaders!” but it’s an entirely different thing to have them put their money where their mouth is. Leaders need to understand that thought leadership programs are a long game — they can take a year or more to become profitable — so they must make room in the budgets for time to spend doing nurturing these programs. They also need to encourage managers to support employees in their thought leadership efforts. ​

​Managers might not understand why thought leadership is critical to the overall business strategy. They might get frustrated by the time it takes to groom an employee’s public-facing persona. Managers need to understand that when their employees succeed, they succeed. Putting trust in a budding thought leader engenders employee loyalty with every growth opportunity, and managers should be reassured by leadership that it won’t reflect badly on their numbers if their employee participate.

When it comes to company-wide  support for the thought leadership program, it’s important to make sure that everyone understands the potential benefits. It’s a good idea to showcase how how your competitors are using thought leadership to help build business, as well as the opportunities you have to establish thought leaders for your company, to get buy-in for the program at all levels. This should be done publicly, at all-staffs meetings, to  get the whole company in the know about your projects. Then, conversations about the thought leadership program can continue on a team-by-team basis to help people understand the importance, and any hesitations can be addressed on a person-by-person basis. Connecting with people who are change avoidant is going to be your best strategy, to make sure their concerns are addressed in a way that does not make them feel singled out or cornered.

Functional Support for Thought Leaders

Functional requirements are the tactical elements your people need to survive the splattering bacon grease of people’s public opinion. Think of this as a standard support kit for your thought leaders — one that needs to contain:

Professional headshots. That means no family photos, no “in da club” pictures, no kitty cats, and certainly no crazy-eyed pictures. I highly recommend—nay, demand—professional headshots. Done by a professional photographer, professionally. Because professionals know things about lighting and placement and other things professionals know. Are you noticing a theme?  Is the word “professional” ringing in your ears? Good.

Ready-to-go professional biography: This might sound intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Your thought leader’s professional bio should outline:

• Larger-than-the-job career goal: a lofty aim that is greater than the description of the job they’re doing now. Samples of this could be “Thoughty McLeaderson is dedicated to improving efficient delivery of content marketing” or “Innovative Van Groundbreaker is inspired by crafting incredible customer experiences.” These statements should be in the third person, so they don’t have to be re-written by anyone who needs to talk or write about the thought leader.
• Description of what they do now: mention their current company, role, and a few words sharing what type of work they do.

• A mention of how they got to where they are now: what was their path to success? This is a great place to talk about prior workplaces, training, experience and educational backgrounds.
• A little humanizing (non-work related) detail about themselves: for example, my bio says “she loves pug dogs, weird shoes and hiking with her family in the Pacific Northwest.” It gives people a way to connect with the thought leader’s humanity before they ever hear them speak. ​

Marketing Support. Thought leaders might be experts, but they’re not necessarily marketers. You’ll want to treat this as seriously as you treat marketing your products and services. A marketing team will help turn your thought leader into a powerful figure with a coherent message, by assisting in the following areas:

• Identifying appropriate topics to speak and write about, and helping craft abstracts that boil down the universal truths of those topics to about 150 words.
• Figuring out how those topics fit in your organization’s market, as well as how to adjust them to help them stand out amongst competitors.​
• Producing! Start with blogging — your new thought leaders must have something to show for their topics. A marketing team can help them rotate through different elements of their abstract topics to show depth and breadth of content. After the first couple of articles, your thought leaders may be able to get published on a website that isn’t owned by your company. Hooray for exposure!
• More producing! Video isn’t optional anymore. They don’t need to go crazy, but the thought leaders should make a quick 30-second intro video for each blog article and use it spread around on social media. It’s also a good sample video to give to conferences who want to see how articulate you speak when filmed.
• Engaging on social media: your thought leaders need to participate to be seen. Twitter still has an engaging community (industry-dependent), LinkedIn is a great way to share your news, and thought leaders can encourage friends and family to spread the word on Facebook and Instagram.

Bottom line: giving your internal thought leaders the tools to do the job right will mean faster ROI.

Continuing to Bring Home the Bacon

Once you’ve got your thought leadership program off the ground, you can keep the virtuous cycle going with a few careful considerations:

• Nurture a culture of engagement by recognizing and celebrating thought leaders’ achievements and accomplishments (especially at the C-suite level). Encourage the positive spiral of success. Make thought leadership something to aspire to, not more (or thankless) work.
• Draw connections between sales moments and the thought leadership program. Show a sample attribution path that includes speaking engagements, articles, tweetchats, and other ways they positively impact the bottom line.​

• Be aware of bias: some people still struggle with being “seen” in the workplace, based on gender, skin color, and perceived sexual preference bias. These folks might have everything they need, but be sensitive and aware of barriers that might be holding them back. Strive to ensure they have the same opportunities as other people in your organization.
• Beware culture-based change-aversion: some managers — especially in charge of billable employees — may still be worried about the bottom line before everything else, withdrawing support and undermining the message that they truly support an employee’s thought leadership efforts. To them I say: stay strong, stay the course, and play the long game. In a perfect world, you’ll want to invest three years in a new thought leader. You’ll have plenty of small wins if you do the foundational work, but the big ones, like speaking at a conference can take a year or two to manifest.
• Finally, start looking for thought leaders during the hiring process! Don’t be afraid to ask questions that help you understand who has the experience and/or willingness to be in front of a crowd. It’s an amazing way to get an inside track on the people who might be a perfect fit for the company in more ways than just a cultural and skill fit… they might be your next evangelist!

What's Next?

Are you interested in developing someone (maybe yourself!) as a thought leader? Check out our Personal Branding services to see how we can help you make the leap!