Why Leverage Matters for Vision
Who Are You Trying to Reach?
Content that works for everyone doesn’t work for anyone. You can throw dozens of lines in the water, and you might catch a few fish, but when you know the prey, habitat, hunting preferences, and migration patterns of your catch, you’re far more likely to hook that trophy smallmouth.
A thought leader’s audience is like that lake, if you want to hook something worth while, you have to be specific. Specificity frees your time spent hooking minnows, tin cans, and bottom feeders, and applies those efforts toward reaching your target market. When you identify a specific market your sales and marketing efforts become more effective and you’re free to develop products and services that will truly create an impact in that community.
Finding your target market starts by asking one question:
What will change in my audience after exposure to my content?
By identifying what beliefs, actions, or behaviors are most likely to change, you can then determine the potential audience that has the most to gain from your vision.
What Do You Want Them to Learn?
In order to generate the greatest impact, effective content addresses three areas:
Mindsets (beliefs, values, philosophies)
Skillsets
Tools
Corporate training frequently bombards learners with Skill Sets and Tools, but is constantly ineffective because it fails to address that first point. You can train a dog, but people need to be engaged. We need to learn, to be taught; we want to taste, to touch, to feel. We need to experience. Your content can introduce efficient Skill Sets and great Tools, but all that will fall flat unless people can engage with the Mindsets of your content.
When your Mindsets engage emotionally with your audience, your audience is more likely to embrace the Skill Sets and Tools that follow. This facilitates that desired change in behavior and further increases productivity.
Take advantage of, our Model Development service to further develop your Mindsets.
What's in It for Them?
Ah ha! moments are hard to come by, but as a thought leader there’s no greater feeling than when someone has a break though thanks to your content. Lookout for moments of truth in audiences, readers, and clients and encourage them to share stories of your product delivering on its promise. Attaching a human story of positive, powerful, and profitable impact legitimizes your vision better than any catch phrase.
What's in It for Their Company?
Companies look for three distinct types of products and services:
Intellectual Property Buckets
IP Buckets are products and services that enhance perennial business skills. If your vision can help someone improve in a core business aptitude like negotiation or listening skills, there will always be time slots available for you to speak.
Competency Models
Every company has its list of employee competencies like leadership and sales, and showing corporate buyers how your content enhances those necessities creates a never-ending opportunity.
Real Time Business Situations
Things happen; companies merge with and are acquired by other companies, markets shift, and businesses have to adapt. Organizations are always willing to utilize a product that can help them ride the waves of change in a way that is cheaper, faster, and better.
What is Your Sustainable Competitive Advantage?
Every truly memorable teacher, speaker, employer, and thought leader share a key foundation: they enlighten, guide, and inspire those around them. Regardless of the style of your content, without an emotional connection your message will fall flat. Passion inspires reaction.
This is your vision, your message, let that excitement breathe into your content and your audience will notice. Filling clients with insight, guidance, and inspiration can be as easy as using the right word at the right time or bringing a specific anecdote to life. Something as simple as why you do what you do can open that door and spark enthusiasm in your audience.