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Thought Leadership for Long Term Sales | William Leahy and Morten Fløe Knudsen
Using thought leadership to support the sales pipe for the long term.
An interview with William Leahy and Morten Fløe Knudsen about using thought leadership to remain in the mind of client and consumers within an industry that is focused on long buying cycles.
Today, we have two guests from FLSmidth, a company that provides global cement and mining industries with factories, machinery, services, and know how. William Leahy is a Senior Marketing Manager of Content, Thought Leadership and Positioning as well as overseeing thought leadership for the mining industry. Morten Fløe Knudsen leads Thought Leadership Communication for the cement industry.
Together William and Morten explain how they use thought leadership to carry on conversations with their audience to make their brand known as the go-to people for an industry with longer buying cycles. They share how FLSmidth is focused on sustainability, knowledge sharing, and how digitization plays a big role in making scarce resources go further than ever before. They explain how digitization has created solutions in the mining business during Covid-19.
In this episode, William and Morten give invaluable advice for any thought leader who works in an industry with a sales cycle that measures in years, not months or weeks.
Three Key Takeaways from the Interview:
- How thought leadership can be used to influence long sales cycles and keep you relevant.
- Why digitization is playing a big part of their thought leadership.
- What audience and issues thought leaders need to keep in mind when dealing with long sales cycles.
Do you need help figuring out how to increase your thought leadership long term sales opportunities? Thought Leadership Leverage can assist you to grow your exposure to target groups and other markets.
Join the Organizational Thought Leadership Newsletter to learn more about expanding thought leadership within your organization! This monthly newsletter is full of practical information, advice, and ideas to help you reach your organization’s thought leadership goals.
Transcript
Bill Sherman Hello and welcome. You’re listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. I’m your host, Bill Sherman. And today we focus on one of my passions organizational thought leadership. The people who create, curate and deploy thought leadership on behalf of their organizations. With me today are two guests from the Danish engineering firm LaFleur Smith. That firm provides global cement and mining industries with factories, machinery, services and know how. William Leahy is the senior marketing manager of Content, Thought, Leadership and Positioning and also oversees thought leadership for the mining industry. Also, Morten Fle Knudsen oversees their thought leadership program for the cement industry. Gentlemen, welcome.
William Leahy Thank you very much, Bill.
Bill Sherman So let’s start with a question and William, all direct this one to you. How does FLSmidth use thought leadership? What are you trying to achieve with it?
William Leahy Well, I mean, I guess we started our thought leadership program, but 2 to 3 years ago. And the idea was to use thought leadership as another touch point to carry on conversations with our customers. So it has a very, I’d say, specific purpose for us. I mean, thought leadership in general, it builds brand credibility and that’s something that’s super important for us. But for myself and Morten, a lot of it is about the perception of the Feel Smith brand within the industry. And so we work with some big themes like productivity, sustainability and digitalization. So what we’re trying to do with thought leadership is to get our brand and experts known as the go to people for those within the mining and the cement industries. So really it’s just creating us as an expert in the holistic thinker that looks at the big trends, the industry trends, and then sees solutions from the customer perspective.
Bill Sherman So Morton, you’re working with the target audience in the cement industry. Who are you trying to reach with your thought leadership? Can you give me a sense of the profile or who these people are that you’re directly trying to reach?
Morten Fløe Knudsen Yeah, we are targeting the decision makers and owners of cement plants worldwide. We have William was explaining we have different tools in our marketing and communication toolbox. We do product marketing directed at the plant managers that deals with everyday operation. The thought leadership comes in when we are targeting the owners of the of the cement plants around the world that deals with more high level issues compared to the daily operations. So our target audience decision makers.
Bill Sherman So on the decision makers, whether they’re plant managers or the owners of the plant, I’m assuming that’s a relatively small number of people you might or might not be able to make a list of them by name. I mean, give me a sense of the population on that. That’s very targeted. You know exactly who you are you’re trying to reach.
Morten Fløe Knudsen Yeah. For cement, it is quite a small, small group of people. And you’re right, we basically know most of them by name. There are around 4000 cement plants in the world, and we built half of them outside of China. So it is it is it is a tight, small community. And that’s also why I thought leadership is so important.
Bill Sherman So with that, I’m also assuming that of those 4000 plants, those decision makers, to either build a new plant or upgrade their limited opportunities, you know that any owner of a cement industry factory is going to say, let’s build a new plant, Right. So are you using thought leadership to stay connected with them? And if so, how?
Morten Fløe Knudsen Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The buying cycle in the cement industry is very long. We have cement plants operating for 40, 50 years. We still have the occasional product within the entire process that needs replacement throughout those years. But it is a longer buying cycle compared to a lot of other industries and therefore we need to stay relevant. We need to stay connected with this audience throughout the lifetime off of a cement plant. And that’s why. And then all with leadership comes in as a supplement to our to our traditional marketing communication.
Bill Sherman So, William, let me ask you a quick. And you’re focused on the mining industry. And you mentioned something just a couple of minutes ago about sustainability. Right. And that being a important message for you in terms of thought leadership, how are you communicating that message and within the mining community? And how does that all leadership work?
William Leahy Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely sustainability is a huge trend within the mining industry and it’s a growing trend. So as a company, we need to be out there sort of leading the conversation on that one. For me, you know, it’s about knowledge sharing what’s happening, you know, globally in terms of some of the key issues regarding sustainability in mining. So a lot of it could be around water usage, water recycling, those kind of issues. Also, companies getting social license to operate if resources are scarce in certain regions. So we need to talk about what’s out there, what’s happening globally. So a lot of it is a little bit about transporting. Some of it is about new approaches to water management, say, for instance. So we try and educate to share our knowledge as well and best practices. You know, sometimes it can be just a new way of thinking about water use within mining, a new way of looking at the mining processes. It could be, you know, digital as an enabler for sustainability within mining. So sometimes a couple of my big sort of topics come together and there is like this big overlap and that is actually when it kind of gets interesting, that’s when the details start to come out, right?
Bill Sherman Can you give an example of that, William?
William Leahy Yeah, I mean, a very, very simple basis. I mean, digitalization makes equipment throughout the mining flow sheet more efficient. I mean, that’s the theory behind that, right? When you implement something digital, it analyzes the data, It figures out, you know, what is actually inefficient. So your resource use becomes more efficient, your water use becomes more efficient, your energy use becomes more efficient. And when that happens, you’re using less water, you’re using less energy, you’re creating less waste. It’s a very, very simple example. And so that’s how digital really enables sustainability in mining.
Bill Sherman What modalities are you using? Martin Are you using digital to reach your target audience? Is it print or are you working through your sales team? How do you get your message out there?
Morten Fle Knudsen Well, we try to play on all the different channels available to us. The way we most effectively reach our audience right now is digitally via social media and industry media. So we yeah, so that’s our channel of distribution, if you will, cement and both cement and mining are traditionally very conservative industries. And so we have to basically stick to pretty known channels. We are right now looking very much into adding video to get the message out. It’s all part of that ultimate goal of thought leadership, where you add a face to your message that’s hopefully going to help when we add video to the mix. And just to follow up on William’s comment, there’s no doubt that both cement and mining have a tremendous footprint on society where wherever they operate. And that gives us immediately the agenda to get our message out because we touch we have so many touchpoints in the communities that that our customers operate in.
Bill Sherman Thank you. And with that, I want to ask a follow up question. So you said getting the message out there and you said starting to integrate video and using traditional print. Do you have a hunger for thought leadership or people coming to you looking for information, say, on cement? Or are you having to get that information into their hands and say, here’s something we haven’t talked about? Right. So I’m curious from both of you, what’s the experience for cement or mining? How do you get thought leadership out there? Is there a pull or a push?
William Leahy Yeah, I mean, it’s a little bit of both. So it’s not a really simple answer. But, you know, sometimes good topics fall into your lap and you end up just highlighting a very convenient truth. I mean, one of the last pieces of thought leadership that I worked on before this, before the show was an article for our group CEO, and it was about how the Covid 19 crisis has really allowed digitalization to shine in mining. So there’s been this general perception that, you know, digital was overhyped. It came in to mining like it came into other industries with this promise that it was going to disrupt everything. It’s going to like be a whole new era, a whole new way of working. And it really didn’t it didn’t deliver I mean, it didn’t keep pace, I suppose, is a more accurate way of putting it with the promises. And so people were looking around and wondering like, well, digital, is it really all that? And then with the onset of Covid 19, where people cannot be on online sites, you have the opportunity to do remote maintenance, remote monitoring. We managed to, you know, start a kiln, which is a piece of equipment remotely basically by using CCTV on that site. And so we had our CEO, you know, talk about this because now is the time where, you know, digital is actually proving its value. And so when you when you find these very convenient truths, you’ve got to take it out there and highlight that to the industry. This is maybe not something that, you know, they’re going to hit upon themselves, that they’ll see that these solutions are working. But then to actually title together and go, Hey, we said digital was going to do this for you. Here’s the example right here in front of your eyes.
Bill Sherman And that’s something that I’ve seen across industries with Covid 19, is the things that thought leadership has been talking about in the industry of this can come, this will be coming. All of a sudden, the pandemic crisis has accelerated that rate for many of those trends much faster where it became and became a necessity. And like you said, lighting up a kiln remotely. It’s we’ve got to do this rather than wouldn’t it be cool if we did this right?
William Leahy Exactly.
Morten Fløe Knudsen Martin Yeah. And we can even take it a step further at this stage where in some places, Covid 19 is starting to subtract. We now in Europe are talking about a green recovery where a lot of the packages that governments are sending out into society for us, for the economy to recover, you know, that has a as a greener footprint. And that’s definitely a place where we need to have a voice because this industry obviously has a huge CO2 emission. So we’re very keen on being a voice and being heard as part of that movement of green recovery.
Bill Sherman And that gives you the opportunity for things that the organization cares about, like the value of sustainability, that you can follow the zeitgeisty of the moment and the trend of the moment and say, hey, we have something to add to this conversation that will be relevant to you as our target audience.
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Bill Sherman So let me you both sit in the marketing function, correct? Yes. Okay. So give me a sense of how you interface with folks who are on the product side, the product development side or sales. Where are your touch points interactions? And do people understand what thought leadership’s role is in the organization? William.
William Leahy Yeah, I think I can take this one first. I mean, within mining, I guess a lot of the thought leadership that we try and produce is a little bit product agnostic. I mean, it’s not a direct sales channel. It’s more talking to customers about these trends and it’s really kind of in there for the long term. I mean, Morten touched upon it earlier. It’s a long sales cycle. And so in some ways, thought leadership is very well suited for an industry like mining where you can have a conversation over, you know, a 3 or 4 year period. I mean, people aren’t rushing out every day to buy, you know, new flotation cells. These are pieces of equipment that are, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars sometimes. And so it’s kind of important to kind of keep it a little bit product agnostic when it comes to some areas such as, you know, water scarcity within mining. You know, we talk about that from a from a big picture. So we talk about the trends in terms of global water scarcity, what areas, what regions are being hit. Then we look at how the industry of mining is using water, how much, you know, new water needs to be used to extract minerals as the or great declines. And then you look at the solutions. You look at the new way of thinking about this. You know what? If you know desalination of water is the answer. Now, we don’t offer desalination, but of course we need to look into it and we say, okay, this is one of the solutions that that you as a customer with these challenges need to look at. You know, here are the pros, here are the cons. Then we ourselves, you know, we have these huge filters that squeeze the water out of tailings and create dry stacked tailings. And of course, you know, we’re not going to be completely product agnostic just because we offer, you know, this this solution. So we will also talk about the pros and cons of that and how, you know, maybe to make that work best and what regions and what kind of mining conditions are best suited for each approach. So from time to time, I guess I kind of meander in to the product space. But in general I kind of keep it more high level, a little bit away from the products.
Morten Fløe Knudsen Martin Yeah. So Leadership Summit is part of the marketing toolbox. So we have like we have the product marketing colleagues that are trying to make the sale today. We are in the long game. We are here to make sure that we sell two, three, 4 or 5 years down the line. So that’s how we see the mix. But I also have to admit that the cement industry is very high involvement. Like it’s big numbers when some of our customers when they upgrade. So there is a there’s a huge level of involvement compared to other industries where there might be a little bit less involvement around the actual purchase and that and therefore we need to stay a little bit closer to what you usually see other thought leaders do where products are completely out of the picture and you stay on the broader topics, both for cement and mining, you have to be relatively close to the product actually.
Bill Sherman Well, and I think you call out one of the distinctions and one of the reasons that I think they’ll. Smith is a fantastic example of using thought leadership. So thought leadership can be used to fill today’s sales pipeline. You know generate sales for this month or this quarter. But like both of you said, you’re not focused on thought leadership for filling the pipeline today. You’re looking over the horizon 3 to 4 years, possibly longer, because these are durable equipment. These factories, as you said, Martin, will last 30, 40, 50 years. And they’re big ticket with long sales cycles. And so this gives you an opportunity through thought leadership to stay engaged with buyers at a time when they’re not ready to make a buying decision. And if you said a salesperson, you said, hey, are you ready to build? They look at you go, But you asked me that last month. The answer’s still no. So thought leadership serves as a very effective tool for influencing. And you’ve used some examples on, like, water usage, for example, how you can influence how people think the choices they make so that when they do come to a buying decision, they’re already thinking in the way that you want them to be thinking. And I think that’s a great example of it. But I want to push a little bit further on this. So if you’re it’s easy when you’re using thought leadership type to sales, you can tie it to how many opportunities did we create, how much revenue was generated? How do you measure success for thought leadership in this environment? How are you keeping track of the wins? And how are you sharing those wins with your team and the organization as a whole? What metrics do you follow?
Morten Fløe Knudsen And that’s a that’s a very good question. I don’t think we have really found the metrics that would help guide us, but I would rather say we have we set maybe big audacious goals and step that we that we aim for. And it’s no secret that that my little goal is to make sure or to hopefully one day have one of our senior executives go to the balls and tell the entire world how we can build cement plants in the near future that that have zero emissions, zero CO2 emissions, zero dust and zero waste. And that’s a powerful message. And that will be, you know, that deserves a speaking opportunity in divorce because the cement industry accounts for 7% of the world’s CO2 emissions. And if we have an opinion or if we have ideas on how to move the industry in the right direction, I want to get my CEO on that stage.
Bill Sherman Thank you, Morton, on that. And I think that’s a one way of is communicating the message. When you solve tough problems, what are you. Do you have anything else to add? How you guys are measuring on success? Yeah.
William Leahy I mean, again, you know, it is a long sales cycle and what we’re trying to achieve, you know, with something like sustainability, for instance, is if regulations start to hit the industry in a certain region that they will recognize for Smith is one of the brands that has been talking about sustainability for a long time. So we’re already experts. We’re well-placed with that in that industry and we’re one of the companies that they’ll invite to the table to pitch for the contract. It’s really kind of pitching in the mining industry. They tend to have like maybe 3 or 4 different. Phone companies to pitch. So we really need to be sort of top of mind of the customer when it comes to stuff like sustainability or even digitalization. I mean, in terms of the residents of our content, I guess we can touch a little bit in terms of what kind of amount of column inches we might get in magazines if we’re a respected voice of if, if I’m getting calls from editors of International mining magazine or mining magazine or in AMG looking to speak to my guys or seeking out our expertise in a certain area. I mean, I think that’s it’s kind of a soft way of looking at it. But I mean, we can also track the share of voice in the industry as well in terms of these column inches. But Morton said about speeches at high profile conferences, I mean, they become much, much easier to get if you’re out there having the conversations that are most important to the industry. If you’re talking digitalization, if you’re, I guess, confident enough to say, hey, you know, digital, maybe it didn’t deliver as quickly as possible, but are we at a turning point as to ask the questions of the industry? Join that conversation. So in those ways, I think you can you can see sort of the effect of thought leadership on the bottom line. I think thought leadership with a lot of content, a lot of online content, it comes down to, you know, clicks, engagements and that kind of stuff on a daily basis, the sort of hygiene statistics. But in terms of actually it culminating in an order, that’s a lot trickier to do. I mean, this is one touchpoint of many on the customer journey.
Bill Sherman So. Martin Is there anything you want to build on that?
Morten Fløe Knudsen No. Yeah, you can just, you can take it a level down, another level down and say a criteria of success to me would be to get feedback from our sales guys saying this really helps me keep the conversation going. Like we talked about it earlier. That is a success to me. When the sales guys take this on and experience how this opens doors to them or it keeps the conversation going, or you will see customers reach out to them to to get their opinion, their perspective on issues that they deal with apart from the daily operation. I think that’s another criteria for success as well.
Bill Sherman Well, and to build on that, Martin, I think even when sales is in trying to win a sale today, they’re often some of the folks who are closest to the customer and having conversations. So the more that you can equip them with thought leadership and help them evoke the customer’s curiosity and get them thinking, the more you’re communicating a consistent thought leadership message, whether you’re up on a podium at a conference, whether you’re putting an article in a trade magazine, or if it’s a one on one conversation over lunch, that you’re communicating a consistent message that’s creating a vision for the future, one that either creates opportunity or gets them concerned about a risk that they’re going to need to respond to. And that’s sort of holistic messaging for thought. Leadership is something that I don’t think we spend as much time integrating across the various functional areas so that the firm speaks with one thought leadership voice. So I think you make a great point. Martin So we’re coming towards the end of the podcast, and I want to give each of you the opportunity to offer maybe a tip or a piece of advice to a fellow thought leadership practitioner. So the listeners for this podcast are folks who are doing thought leadership and roles similar to yourself. If you have learned something that you’d like to share, is there something that you give is based on working in the long term sales cycle and using thought leadership in manufacturing, cement and mining? William, I’ll turn to you. Do you have cup of tea?
William Leahy Yeah. I mean, I think you got to see thought leadership as a part of marketing, as a key communications tool. And it can be broken down into some very simple factors. I mean, thought leadership is really about aligning some of the business objectives and making sure that you’re communicating the right thing on behalf of your company. What any good marketer will tell you is the first thing you got to do is you’ve got to know your audience. So you’ve got to make the message that your business wants to be associated with resonate with that particular audience. So now the decision makers in these companies that you’re trying to reach in mining, it’s the CEOs, it’s the owners, it’s procurement, and it’s even the day to day engineer. So if you can make your message resonate with those people, you will get the right outcome. And if you keep your eye on that, I think it’s going to be a successful project.
Bill Sherman Thank you. William Morton.
Morten Fløe Knudsen Yeah, I would say because this is a this is the long game part of communication and marketing. I would say doing a little bit of homework will get you get you to keep momentum as you go along. So make sure that you create a good framework that helps you guide the conversation year after year so that you keep going back to the same core message. Otherwise, in especially in organizations like ours, conversations would tend to go off into different directions. But if you’re able to always track back to what is the core idea that you that you stand for, what is the one thing that you want to be known for? What is the thing in the industry that you care about and take ownership of that will help you build a trust, built the credibility and eventually get you that podium at the vault.
Bill Sherman So, Martin, I think that’s a great point, that thought leadership should connect to the organization’s values. Technology may change year to year. Buyers interests may change. But if your values are clear and there are things that the organization cares about, then your thought leadership can use that as a North Star. Morten and William, I want to thank you very much for joining us today on the podcast.
William Leahy Cheers, Bill.
Morten Fløe Knudsen Thank you.
Bill Sherman If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please join our LinkedIn group. Organizational Thought Leadership. It’s a professional community where thought leadership practitioners talk shop about our field. So if you’re someone who creates curates or deploys thought leadership for your organization, then please join the conversation in the organizational thought Leadership LinkedIn.
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