Searching For New Business? Try Thoughtleading!

Entrepreneurs today are at the ends of their ropes. So much ruthless competition, so many sudden new technologies to learn, so much swift, bewildering change in the marketplace. Where’s the time to deal with all of it, especially while serving current customers and searching for new ones?

And when new customers can be found, the question becomes how to keep them. The merest hint of a better deal down the street and off they go! It’s a continual game of boom-and-bust, lost opportunities, back-to-the-drawing-board.

Yet a magic bullet does exist: it’s called “thoughtleading.”
Though all companies and entrepreneurs are expert in what they do, most are essentially a best-kept secret. They do fabulous work for their clients, they move from project to project without much fanfare and they go searching for new business only when they need to, usually under a low profile. Few exploit their expertise and special knowledge to superior competitive advantage.

Those few who do rise above the playing field to assume higher positions are a separate breed and are above even their closest competition. No longer mere “specialists,” “practitioners,” “professionals” or even vanilla-plain “experts,” they become known as their target market’s “thoughtleaders.” Once this dynamic kicks into gear, the formerly frustrated entrepreneurs cease wondering where their next professional meal ticket will be coming from. They now, instead, steadily attract new customers from an ever-expanding base of prospects that searches for them rather than the other way around.

As I introduce it here, does this concept of thoughtleading ring a bell? If not, join the crowd. You may have heard the term used here or there to describe some celebrity business author or speaker but you probably never thought about it in any serious way as a business strategy which you too could adopt. Yet transforming yourself and your business into thoughtleaders is not only possible but sensible, especially given the state of today’s business markets. You simply need to know how to make it happen.

What’s the overall payoff for adopting a thoughtleading business development strategy? In addition to the huge dividends reaped from a constant stream of customers, you’ll acquire most of them with little or no competition scuffling around your feet. You’ll grab larger and larger shares of your market as your business grows steadily stronger. Your referrals will increase, your income will increase; your customer loyalty will solidify. What’s not to love?

And unless your competitors also embrace thoughtleading as a strategy (and trust me most of them will not), no alternative approach on their end will help them catch up to you. The gap will get wider and wider as you literally separate yourself from the competitive pack.

What specific thoughtleading actions do you need to employ? Five basic thoughtleading “pillars” will make up the core of your endeavors. The first, and by far the most important, is writing and publishing, To build your thoughtleading muscle, you’ll want to get your ideas out there in the marketplace via published articles in journals and business magazines and (if and when you’re ready) a published book as well. Nothing shouts “credibility” louder than publishing your ideas. Though at first this notion may seem daunting, understand this: editors at business publications and book publishing houses are always in search of new article or book ideas to keep themselves in business. They are literally waiting for your call or email! So don’t let them down, develop some ideas you could write about, ideas that illustrate the great work you’ve been doing for your clients for years, then fire off a few proposals to these waiting editors. They, and you, will be glad you did.

What about the other four pillars? Once you've gotten yourself published, you'll have the laid the ground work for putting your thoughtleading strategy together in an integrated way. That means you’ll embark on the following thoughtleading actions:

• You’ll speak before professional groups and companies
• You’ll conduct customer surveys or original research projects
• You’ll creatively leverage email and the Internet
• You’ll vigorously take advantage of the media

By engaging in such actions, your business star will grow. The hand of each pillar washes the other, as your published articles or books support your credibility as a speaker, your research projects supply fodder for your publishing and speaking, your email/Internet tactics spread the word to your customers, prospects and colleagues and your participation in the media gets the word to the larger business world. As you get better at it, it’ll all become seamless as well, writing a new article while waiting to board a plane, taking a call from the media on your cell phone as you drive to a client meeting, speaking at a professional event at which you otherwise might’ve spent the same amount of time sitting in its audience.

Those who choose thoughtleading jettison old-world business development activities (cold-calling, networking, advertising, waiting by the phone) in favor of more exciting and uplifting marketing modes. And your clients and customers will get the picture too, choosing to stay with you (not bolt down the street) because they now appreciate how very excellent you and your firm really are. They’ll want more of what you have to offer and they’ll be willing to pay handsomely for it too, more handsomely in fact than they ever paid you before. That’s a business development plan impossible to beat!

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission from the author, Ken Lizotte).