Thought leadership IS business development, or at least it can be

In a down economy, investments in thought leadership -- developing and demonstrating unique insights on critical market issues -- tend to fall by the wayside. The focus on the marketing side shifts more heavily toward short-term lead generation and direct sales support. Conventional wisdom suggests that thought leadership and other reputation-building investments generate only a longer term payoff in business development.

Done right, however, thought leadership can actually be one of the most powerful business development initiatives that a B2B company has at its disposal. This is not just a plea for understanding that publishing compelling thought leadership content can inspire incoming leads from prospects that sales folks don't even have on their radar -- although that should indeed happen.

Rather, the very process of developing thought leadership can itself generate new opportunities. Here's how:

First, true thought leadership emerges only from deep collaboration with clients and prospects. Developing a unique and compelling point of view on an important market issue can only come from serious research in the marketplace, from studying and learning from clients in the field and then analyzing findings to discover new and emerging patterns that individual clients themselves often don't see.

Second, engaging your clients in a serious, non-sales discussion about trends in the market, challenges in the business, and priority initiatives to address those challenges is actually the best way to gain insight into what's working, what's not, and what's new.

Consider, then, a simple project designed to create a new point of view and new thought leadership content on, for example, strengthening customer loyalty in the management consulting industry. A typical research approach could include:

• Conducting an online survey with several hundred existing customers and prospects
• Conducting deeper telephone or face-to-face interviews with several dozen of those same customers and prospects
• Convening one or several roundtable discussions with one or more small groups of customers and prospects

Having conducted such research, you're now in good shape to begin your analysis and put together a new point of view based on real insight from the field. The normal course would then be to produce a report, issue a press release, arrange some events and speaking engagements, perhaps highlight the new ideas on your blogs, produce a few podcasts, etc.

All well and good, but now consider the business development opportunity along the way: 

• The research project provides a great, non-sales reason to talk with some of your best clients and prospects
• The conversations provide deep insight into their current thinking and priorities
• The study findings provide a perfect reason to organize a follow-on conversation to review the results

As a result, these conversations can be some of the most productive business development conversations you can have. Precisely because you are not trying to sell anything, but rather to share ideas and collaborate in defining useful new directions, you're providing real value and building trust -- which is the essential condition for any successful discussion of an actual solution you might provide. Seen in this light, thought leadership is not a precursor or alternative to business development, it is part and parcel of an integrated approach to generate high quality opportunities with some of your most important clients and prospects.

Do you agree?  

Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman