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Ask the Pro:
How to Become a Thoughtleader in Your Industry!
A Q&A with Ken Lizotte
Reprinted with permission from The Voice of Leadership, published by Bates Communications, http://www.bates-communications.com/
This month we sat down with Ken Lizotte CMC, Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc. located in Concord, MA, which transforms business experts and companies into “thoughtleaders.” His new book, The Expert's Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn To Every Time will be published by McGraw-Hill in January 2008.
1. How do you define a “thoughtleader” and do you believe anyone can become one?
For starters, I make it into one word because becoming a "thoughtleader" should be a focused and singular endeavor, and the action form of that — "thoughtleading" — should be followed as a marketing or business development lifestyle every day, every week, every month, every year.
The form that this takes will be manifested in the five "pillars" of thoughtleading — publishing books and/or articles, speaking before groups, creatively leveraging the Internet, vigorously utilizing the media, and repeatedly conducting original research. Although many professionals mistakenly believe that thoughtleading is the province only of "business superstars" such as a Jack Welch, Bill Gates or someone like the late Peter Drucker, in fact everyone in business is capable of becoming a thoughtleader if they simply bother to apply the five pillars.
2. Can you briefly elaborate on the five pillars of thoughtleading?
Publishing is the big one, that's the one that gives you the greatest credibility and overall visibility. If you begin writing and publishing articles, and move on later to books, you will soon outdistance your competitors by many miles. Publishing your ideas makes you someone special. The third-party endorsement of a journal devoting space to your thoughts or a publisher putting your ideas between two covers of a book can be very powerful. You will notice a genuine difference in people's attitudes toward you once they know that you write and publish.
After that, the other four pillars unfold naturally: Publishing credentials (especially a book) help you get speaking gigs, as well as media and heightened Internet visibility. If you add research projects from time to time, you freshen your ideas and materials, feeding directly into new articles, books, speaking topics etc. Working together, the five pillars will insure that you stand out from the competition.
3. In your new book, you assert that “experts with an edge” make the most money. In your experience, why have you found this to be true?
By becoming a thoughtleader, you give yourself what I call an "expert's edge." Before that, you were a “mere” expert, like millions of other practitioners out there who do great work for their clients. But once you become a bona fide thoughtleader, your expert status rises with this incomparable "edge." You're now the go-to authority, no longer just another run-of-the-mill expert. You can charge more for that, you can command a premium. And the data supports this: my book details studies that show definitively that thoughtleaders indeed make more money than their closest competitors.
4. Do you believe it is possible to become an “expert with an edge” if you haven’t yet published a book?
Yes, you can do it with articles too, but it is necessary that you continuously publish, not just write one or two articles here and there. Get the word out about yourself by publishing again and again and again. Ultimately, however, you absolutely must plan to write and publish a book. Book authorship is the pinnacle of Thoughtleading Mountain. Articles help you move in the right direction but one day you'll want to start climbing higher and a book will get you there.
5. What would be your advice to someone who wishes to become regarded as a thoughtleader, i.e., what’s the first step?
Brainstorm with yourself and your staff and/or your partners a list of 5-10 article ideas based on your business’s value proposition. Then pitch these ideas to editors of publications that are read by your target market. If you feel ready for the challenge, you might then boil these down into a focus for your first book. No matter how you begin, however, publishing your ideas is the first step. After that, everything else related to thoughtleading as a business strategy begins falling nicely into place.Read other Thought Blogs