31: How to Become a Thought Leader

In today’s episode, I break down the ingredients of a thought leader and how to become one.

I like Thought Leadership Lab’s definition of a thought leader, “Thought leaders are the informed opinion leaders and the go-to people in their field of expertise. They become the trusted sources who move and inspire people with innovative ideas; turn ideas into reality and know and show how to replicate their success.”

How to create content that shows you’re a thought leader.

Today’s episode details how to get started or strengthen your role as a thought leader by walking you through how to clearly define key aspects of your brand: your mission, message, and buyer personas. If you want help creating strong ideal buyer personas, grab my free download, Create Your Buyer Persona.

Earlier, I defined exactly what a thought leader is and what types of content their audiences want from them. Now, you use the pieces you just defined about how you can give your audience exactly what they want in each of those areas.

So, if you feel like you’re a thought leader, or that you have the ability to become one, tune into today’s episode for a deep dive into who a thought leader is, how it benefits you to become one, and what you need to do to start showing up as a thought leader now.

Links in the episode & ways to reach Christie

www.christiebilbrey.com
[email protected]
Download the free guide: Create Your Buyer Persona
Instagram: https://instagram.com/christiebilbrey
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiebilbrey/

Episode Transcript

00:00:51:11 - 00:01:16:20
Speaker 1
Hello. Hello. Thank you for listening today. I am so excited to get started on a new series that's going to be all about thought leadership. And today I am just going to be breaking down, kind of doing a high level overview, almost like a master class in this area of what exactly is a thought leader. Every thought leader, no matter what their area is, this is who they are.

00:01:16:20 - 00:01:38:17
Speaker 1
Just dissecting that what does that look like? And then how do you create messaging that conveys that you're a thought leader? So that's today. And then the rest of the series is going to be focused on bringing in experts who are known for a specific platform, and they are going to talk about how to convey that you are a thought leader on that platform.

00:01:38:22 - 00:02:04:00
Speaker 1
And my hope for you that your takeaway would be today just kind of make some notes about how can I really convey that I am a thought leader, what does that mean? What do I need to change or make sure I'm including and then going through the rest of the series, really listening to what you're learning about these different platforms so that you can take that and say, OK, which of these make the most sense for my marketing plan?

00:02:04:05 - 00:02:36:12
Speaker 1
Which ones do I want to start pursuing on a more consistent basis? So I hope you tune in for all of it. Tell your friends. I think it's going to be really awesome. I'm really looking forward to it. Well, let's get into today. We have a lot to cover today. I really like this definition of a thought leader that I found in the thought leadership lab, and it says that thought leaders are the informed opinion leaders and the go to people in their field of expertise.

00:02:36:21 - 00:03:17:09
Speaker 1
They become the trusted sources who move and inspire people with innovative ideas, and they turn ideas into reality. And know and show how to replicate their success. That seemed like it makes sense to you. For me, this is how I think about it. I think that we go to thought leaders to make sense of what's going on. If we feel like there's chaos or confusion or uncertainty in a certain area, we can go to thought leaders to kind of simplify it and break it down for us and and help us to see, OK, it's not as difficult as I was making this here's exactly what it is.

00:03:17:09 - 00:03:41:22
Speaker 1
And then they also tell you what to do about it. And not only that, but they also predict the future. So they will tell you, here's what's going on now, but here's what I see coming and here's how to prepare for that. So when you look back, kind of big picture, they are providing an audience with peace, with reassurance that even if something is scary, maybe it's not.

00:03:41:22 - 00:04:00:19
Speaker 1
Maybe it's just something that I have to deal with this I don't know how to deal with that. Or it may be, oh, my gosh, there's this huge new change, what the heck is going on? But either way, they know this is the person who's going to explain it to me. I will be able to do something about it, and they're going to help me prepare for the future in this area.

00:04:00:24 - 00:04:23:03
Speaker 1
So they're, you know, they're giving some sort of peace and they're giving hope and inspiration. So let's break down. How do they do that? How are you going to do that and really transform your brand as a thought leader so that you become the go to person that people seek in your area? OK, so what do I want to cover next?

00:04:23:11 - 00:04:46:21
Speaker 1
The if you want to. Oh, right. So if you want to just begin demonstrating that you are a thought leader in your area, you need to demonstrate that over and over again because that's how you're going to say, hey, I'm a thought leader. The things that we're about to discuss, you are just going to start demonstrating these in your content over and over again.

00:04:47:05 - 00:05:14:07
Speaker 1
So before we really dive in, I mentioned that you're kind of making this your brand, right? Like how do I turn my brand into that of a thought leader? And I really like set Gordon's definition of a brand, which is that a brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that taken together account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another.

00:05:14:16 - 00:05:40:07
Speaker 1
In this case, to make a decision about which thought leader that they are going to choose to seek in an area and, you know, really you are their educator and their advisor when it comes to this. So to to get that started, how do you do that? How do you accomplish that? You need to get really, really clear on your brand and a few things specifically.

00:05:40:17 - 00:06:06:10
Speaker 1
I would start with knowing and writing out very specifically. What is the mission of your brand? For instance, for me my mission is that I do not want anyone to have to close their doors of their business simply because they are unsure how to connect with and convey their value to their audience. Nothing to do with their talent.

00:06:06:16 - 00:06:27:21
Speaker 1
It's just they aren't, for whatever reason, able to make that connection so that people are converting and becoming customers to the extent they need to stay in business. So that is my mission, that is near and dear to my heart because that was my story. And early on my first year, I almost shut my doors because I was like this.

00:06:27:22 - 00:06:48:09
Speaker 1
There's something that isn't working. But I decided last minute, OK, I'm going to give this one more shot. Totally turned it into my quest and figured it out and I started sharing what I was learning with other people. So that's that's my mission. And that's a little bit of my story. Why? That's my mission. We'll get into more about why that matters later.

00:06:48:15 - 00:07:20:09
Speaker 1
Next is your message. So I'm not I'm not thinking real deep on this. I'm thinking really just what are the main keywords that you want? To me, make sure that you are known for. And for me, I feel like my greatest strengths and gift things are marketing strategy and messaging. So I want everything that I talk about to and everything that I offer to reinforce that I am the go to person for marketing strategy and messaging.

00:07:20:19 - 00:07:51:11
Speaker 1
And that is evident in the DIY courses that I create in the Done for you services that my agency offers and that's true on this podcast. You know, in this podcast we talk about the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell others to all comes back to strategy and messaging. OK, so that first big piece is identifying your mission and the message just the real basics about the message here.

00:07:51:11 - 00:08:15:12
Speaker 1
Just what are the main things you want to make sure that you are known for? So next, you want to make sure that you really understand your ideal buyer because if you're making assumptions, you're not going to convert nearly as well from people who are just listening to you. Maybe they like you, but converting them into buyers, you really need to understand them.

00:08:15:18 - 00:08:41:16
Speaker 1
And if you haven't mapped out your ideal buyer or some people call them your brand personas, I will link in the show notes to a freebie that I have that walks you through step by step how to map that out because that is huge and becoming successful and not feeling like you're spinning your wheels with your content. But the gist of it, the essentials are knowing a few key things about your audience.

00:08:41:16 - 00:09:10:05
Speaker 1
What do they do? What do they like inside and outside of work? What are their goals? What are their struggles how do they live? Some of their lifestyle stuff. Those are some of the key things. Anyway, I walk you through all of that, so if you need that, make sure to download that but that is what you really want to know about your audience because you want every single thing that you're doing, everything that you're saying to resonate with your specific audience, you don't want to talk to everyone.

00:09:10:05 - 00:09:39:22
Speaker 1
You want to just focus on your audience and what they care about. OK, so we've covered mission very quickly, messaging and audience. So those pieces, once you understand those have those really clearly mapped out, you're not making assumptions about your audience. If you do, if you feel like, well, I think this is what their answers would be to these questions, go have conversations with people who are you know, ideal for you.

00:09:39:22 - 00:10:03:21
Speaker 1
You know what? Whatever that looks like for your for your business, have conversations not intended to pitch them, but really just intended to learn, learn, you know, how they think, what their answers are to those questions. So make sure that if you haven't done that, you can do that in a variety of ways. We could talk about that on another another episode.

00:10:04:06 - 00:10:32:16
Speaker 1
So now that you have those pieces all together, what do you do with them? How does that translate into content that you create? And that's going to be the second half of what we're going to talk about. So once you have those pieces, then you need to start thinking about a couple of things. You need to think about what are the experiences that you have had that show that you can relate to this very specific audience.

00:10:32:24 - 00:10:54:22
Speaker 1
So think throughout your life, this doesn't just have to be in your business. This can be life, you know, pivotal moments. Who's really influenced you? And this could be good or bad like you, you're going to figure out how you relate to people, and you're also going to identify the experiences of how your credibility was formed because they need to relate to you emotionally.

00:10:55:02 - 00:11:18:09
Speaker 1
They also need to see that you're in authority they can trust. But and I'm going to go off on a very brief tangent here because brand story is my passion. But your resume is not your story. Your resume is a few bullet points of something that you did when you were working somewhere at some specific point in time.

00:11:18:21 - 00:11:43:20
Speaker 1
The story is, oh my gosh, when I was here, this is what happened. This was crazy. Or we had no idea or I didn't know how I was going to get through this or, you know, whatever it is. There was some kind of challenge or struggle or something unexpected that came up and caused you to act. You had to do something or you and your team had to do something.

00:11:44:03 - 00:12:04:02
Speaker 1
And there was some result. Good or bad. Not all stories meet happy endings, but what was the result? So you need to share those things. And then finally, what did you learn from it? There are some people who are thought leaders and they were known for something, but maybe something went wrong. But because that happened, they have a message.

00:12:04:08 - 00:12:29:15
Speaker 1
And what does that tell their audience? That says, you can trust what I'm telling you because there's a reason I learned something deep and you don't want to miss this. So if you care about this area, I am the person that you want to go to. That's essentially what your stories convey. So you want to think about those stories, those experiences, and then you also want to think about what you probably already were thinking.

00:12:29:15 - 00:12:48:09
Speaker 1
This is why I go to a thought leader. You want to know what are the trends in my area? What is going on? What do I need to make sure I'm sharing with my audience so that they can understand this and it's something they feel like they can tackle and do something about. So you need to share that.

00:12:48:13 - 00:13:14:15
Speaker 1
You need to share what they need to be doing, and then you need to share what they can expect down the road in the future. What is coming that they need to be prepared for and how do they prepare. And I will just say, as a lover of PR, this is gold, OK? You will definitely get media opportunities if you can really simplify, here's what's going on, here's why it matters, here's what you need to do about it.

00:13:14:21 - 00:13:44:00
Speaker 1
Oh, and by the way, here's this prediction about what's coming, especially toward late in the year all outlets love. What are your predictions? What can we expect next year? Or if something new, something big changes in your area, what can we expect? What's this going to cause and what do we do about it? So those are the types of stories that a thought leader needs to be prepared to answer and continually share in their content.

00:13:44:00 - 00:14:06:06
Speaker 1
So if you're relating, you're telling people, Here's why I relate to you, because these things I went through, these things they don't have to be sob stories. They can be funny stories. They can just be interesting. Whatever. You need to tell them how your credibility was formed so that they know why they should trust your opinion, because they're seeking it for your opinion.

00:14:06:12 - 00:14:36:24
Speaker 1
And then you need to share your tips, consistently.

So that's a really high-level overview on how to show your audience why they should consider you a thought leader and trust what you have to say. We're going to discuss how to convey thought leadership on a variety of platforms throughout the rest of this series. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and that you check out the rest of the series.