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Economist on thought leadership - hypocritical or valid point?

Guest post by: Craig Badings

Article Overview: The Economist penned an article on thought leadership recently. This writer thinks they've got it wrong.

Economist on thought leadership - hypocritical or valid point?

The Economist ran an article on 17 September entitled Free thinking - Why expensive consultancy firms are giving away more research. The journalist who penned the article questions why consulting firms provide what they 'annoyingly call thought leadership' and also whether it is worth it.

Nothing wrong with questioning its worth but what the author neglected to do is ask even one client what they think of the thought leadership material provided to them by their consulting firm.

The first irony in the article is that the author inadvertently stumbles upon the very essence of thought leadership albeit in a negative sense: "Their reports (and increasingly their webinars and podcsts) are an excuse to contact potential clients and a way of boasting about the brainpower they can apply to problems."

Bingo. Your thought leadership material should be getting you in front of your clients and prospects. Importantly it also enables you and your team to hold discussions with your prospect on issues of importance to them while sharing your insights about their sector or industry. If this boasts your brainpower fantastic - through these insights, you want your prospects to realise that you have a deep understanding of their challenges and are therefore in a position to help solve them.

If these are the sorts of opportunities and conversations thought leadership delivers isn't this far less 'annoying' than trying to 'sell' a product or your service?

The second irony is that The Economist has a number of its own thought leadership platforms i.e. The Economist Intelligence Unit. The Economist Debates and The Economist Conferences and there may be more but I'm not aware of them.

Maybe they don't overtly call any of these thought leadership and maybe the author has a point because the loose use of the word thought leadership is annoying because a lot of it doesn't come close. But where I do take the author to task is on measurement.

A true leadership campaign']);"> thought leadership campaign should have very firm business metrics in place. Among others these could include:

• The number of prospect meetings
• The number of returning clients
• The number of appointments and incoming, qualified leads and the conversion rate
• The number of attendees at thought leadership seminars and the resultant follow up and conversion
• Delivery of key messages through identified and targeted media
• Effective leverage of content across all client and prospective client touch points
• Research, preferably benchmarked annually of your brand against others in the market place
• Research internally of what the thought leadership material delivers to your sales and marketing team as well as the consultants, engineers, accountants, etc in the business

Contrary to what this author is saying, thought leadership is growing apace, particularly in the business space where companies are realising the power of being able to share deep insights with their customers in a way that adds value to their customers lives and business decision making processes.

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Article Tags: The Economist, thought leadership



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