How to Develop a Disruptive Thought Leadership POV
đź’ˇThought leadershipđź’ˇ is core to many comms programs.
Here are three steps to develop a disruptive point of view.
First, here's how we define thought leadership: it is an exchange of ideas between you and a specific audience that disrupts established thinking and delivers a novel approach to a problem or opportunity.
1. Pick a specific audience and find their purpose
Focus on one audience and what they want to achieve. A generic persona isn't enough. Dig deeper on the individual, find their purpose, and identify what they believe is holding them back.
Know their job to be done (as Clayton Christensen would say). Then build your POV around it, specifically for them. Don't try to make your POV all things to all people. You'll end up with one-size-fits-none.
2. Identify the unrealized gap and push back on conventional thinking
Once you know what your audience cares about most, highlight what they don't realize about the problem. Find the gap in their thinking and challenge what they believe (we come from The Challenger Sale school of thinking).
Teach your audience something new about an issue or show a problem or opportunity they don't know they have. Your insight should be novel and unique to disrupt the path they were on.
3. Highlight the value to the individual and describe a new future
Show your audience what's possible and what will be different for them. The future you describe should be rooted in the value to the individual.
There are a lot of factors (rational and emotional) involved when someone considers a vendor, product, or service. So show them how their life will be different, professionally and personally.
We’ve used this 3-step approach many times to build trust early with audiences, get them to buy into a new idea to solve their problem, and disrupt the planning/buying process to open a door for sales.
As we work with new clients, thought leadership is key to fueling content creation and paid, earned, shared, or owned media opportunities.