There are many ways to build your small business, and till recently, the conventional ways alone are no longer adequate. You can utilise many other methods to build your business, methods that most business owners have not fully exploited. One of such ways is Thought Leadership.
Thought leadership can be an effective marketing tool. It involves creating and pushing out specific content to a targeted audience on a particular theme or topic over a certain period to establish yourself as an authority on the said topic.
You do this by showing a special depth of understanding of the topic and if possible, a level of experience in the niche or industry. Contrary to what most people think, thought leadership is easier than most make it seem. All you have to do is find a way to package your experiences and knowledge gained over the years and present them to your audience in simpler ways.
There are several ways you can use thought leadership to scale your business. Here are a few ways you can do this.
1. Focus:
Being a thought leader means you are an authority on a particular field or school of thought. When your name is mentioned, what comes to mind is that particular field. This is a result of focus. You need to ensure that you are not pushing out content that is contrary to your field.
For example, a thought leader in the business world should put out more business-related content. While commenting on trending topics is acceptable once in a while, make sure you focus on your field. The more focused you are, the more profound your thought leadership becomes.
2. Channel the Energy:
There are thought leaders who find it difficult to channel their authority to achieve their desired end. As a business owner in Africa, know that there is a wide knowledge gap in the continent. One of the ways to use thought leadership to your business’s advantage is by channelling the energy and attention you get from your audience to your business.
Let them know that you have a business. As you give them free content on social media, in the newspapers, and even on TV, always channel the attention and exposure you get back to your business. Always remember that the goal is to increase and expand your business so no attention should be wasted. When the energy is going to the wrong place, redirect it to where you want it to be.
3. Build a Community:
One of the many ways you can use thought leadership to scale your business is by building a community around your content and your business. When people know you for a particular topic, they begin to attach your name to such a topic. This creates a kind of magnet that draws people who are interested in that topic to you.
Rather than make yourself ‘big’ and inaccessible, you can create a community from those who follow you and your content. This community can either be online or offline. These people will be your first and regular customers whenever you have a product to sell. They will also be the ones to advertise your products for you, and they will do it for free.
They already feel like a part of the business of the enterprise. This is why building communities are very important. Use your thought leadership to get the followers, create a community for them and then sell to this community.
4. Educate:
Most business owners lose the long-term benefits of thought leadership because they shift their focus from educating people about their niche and focus more on selling products. This is a wrong approach to maximising thought leadership for business expansion.
Although the end goal of everything is to maximise profit, this is not done directly. Remember that those who are following you due to your thought leadership are doing so because of your content and knowledge sharing and not your business advert. So you must maintain that image and position.
Converting your audience and followers to your customers becomes very easy if you build your audience’s confidence. Do not come off as a hungry business owner who just wants to collect their money. Instead, present yourself as someone who is vast in your business and your niche and is always ready to give quality content and share knowledge.
When you do this repeatedly over time, you build trust in your audience and once they trust you as the business owner, getting them to trust your products becomes much easier.
Thought leadership can be an effective tool to drive sales to your business and build your customer base and one that can help you significantly scale your business if you pay the required attention to it.