You Can Be Tremendously Successful Without Joining The Thought Leadership Race
You Can Be Tremendously Successful Without Joining The Thought Leadership Race
You don't need to join the ferocious battle for attention to build a thriving consultancy practice. In fact - it's probably better you don't. Optimise for trust, not for attention.
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Is It A Publish Or Perish World For Consultants?
Has the battle for attention ever felt this ferocious?
It feels like everyone is trying to build their reputation by publishing thought leadership content on social media platforms. Each post soon forms part of a torrent which gushes through our social streams every hour.
Not only does there seem to be more content than ever, but it’s increasingly better optimised to attract our attention. Once somebody discovers a successful tactic, it’s copied into every other field. That’s why you see so many posts like:
“95% of [professionals] make this mistake….”
“I’ve been working in [industry] for [xx] years, here’s what most people are doing wrong…”
“Here’s a definitive framework to [x]”
A successful tactic is copied until the saturation point where the audience identifies the tactic as an emblem of low-value content (remember listicles?).
It can feel exhausting to join this battle and dangerous to avoid it. What’s the right path forward if you want to attract attention to your consultancy offering?
Don’t Join The Race For Attention
The battle for attention is dangerous not because you might lose, but because you might win.
Winning is dangerous. The things which attract the most attention are rarely the things which attract the most clients. You spend huge amounts of your time (and emotional energy) trying to climb the wrong mountain.
There’s nothing more soul-destroying than trying to guess what will be popular and writing about it.
There are plenty of client acquisition strategies that don’t involve you relentlessly publishing thought leadership articles (forgive the irony).
If you want to play that game, then by all means do - and play to win.
But remember one simple fact:
The vast majority of people who buy B2B consultancy services aren’t active on these social platforms.
This doesn’t mean having an audience doesn’t help - it certainly does. You can’t build a successful consultancy practice if no one knows you exist. But there’s a law of diminishing returns here. Beyond a relatively low level of awareness, you don’t need more attention, you need more trust.
Far too often I see consultants without any testimonials or case studies on their websites publishing thought leadership content to attract more attention. That time is almost always better invested in proving what you’ve done.
And the actions you take to optimise for attention are very different from those you take to optimise for trust.
(This is different for B2C mind)
Attention Is Not The Same Of Trust
Proof of work always tops thought leadership
I want you to imagine two articles.
The first one is by a consultant who shares their new framework for SEO in 2024. It incorporates all the latest updates, is well-designed, and you learn a lot from it.
The second article is by a consultant who shares the before and after results with a recent client. It outlines exactly what they did, when they did it, and the results.
Which consultant would you be more likely to hire?
For the majority of us, the answer is the second one. They’re not writing content which sounds clever and might work - they’re writing precisely what they did and the results.
(This example is a true story by the way. I previously hired an SEO consultant because he shared actual client results rather than thought leadership content.)
How Do You Optimise For Trust?
Often by doing the opposite of optimising for attention
Trust is essentially someone’s degree of confidence in what you will do in the future. It’s a pretty simple formula in our context to understand.
Trust = ability + consistency + good intentions over time.
We can break each of these down.
Ability = your skills and expertise. Prospects need to know you are good at what you do. If you don’t have this, then you need to study and read to acquire it.
Consistency = your track record of doing it over time. Can you prove what you’ve done? Have you been doing it consistently? Do you have a large body of work? Have you behaved the same way over time?
Good intentions = your honesty and integrity. Do you make promises and keep them? Do you sound like someone who wants to do the right thing by them? Do you sound like someone we would trust?
You have to be intentional about earning trust - not leave it to chance. People won’t trust you just because you’re a nice person sharing good content. They will trust you if you make specific decisions and follow through with them.
You gain trust when you select a community to help and put down roots - not show up in a different community each month. Simply being a positive, helpful, community member will put you ahead of the attention swindlers.
You gain trust when you have a consistent, unique, message and proof that the message is correct. If you sound like everyone else, why should you be trusted?
You gain trust when you have direct, personal contact with people in the community and help them even when it does not benefit you.
You gain trust when you are consistent in how and when you communicate. Spasms of posts followed by lengthy silences don’t breed confidence in your future behaviour.
You gain trust by not resorting to clickbait headlines, making false promises, or using hyperbole. Don’t sound like the folks that people don’t trust.
You gain trust when you work forward from a place of honest belief, not trying to guess what the audience will find most popular. Do you want to be the person who follows the crowd or puts down a market of what they believe in?
You gain trust when you guide people who aren’t the right fit for you to others who can help them. When you put the interests of others before your own, you gain trust.
You gain trust over time. That time is a barrier which separates you from the fly-by-night folks who will show up tomorrow. But you need to lean into the process and not try to short-cut it.
Earn The Trust Of People Who Want To Hear From You
…then bring them into an increasingly tighter orbit with you and each other.
The more you can build a small group of trusted peers around you, the better your results will be And if you can connect them too - even better.
It’s still a permission-marketing world out there. You need to earn the trust of people who want to hear from you.
We can think about trust across five levels.
Stranger. No connection to you. Will probably ignore messages. These are the folks you aim to win over when you optimise for any type of engagement metric.
Follower. This is someone who follows you on some platform. They’re aware you exist and consume your content. But they probably haven’t engaged directly with you.
Acquaintance. This is someone who has engaged directly with you - Has engaged directly with you. Someone you can contact personally and be confident to receive a response.
Collaborator/peer. This is someone you have collaborated with at some point and would feel comfortable for asking and responding to requests for favours.
Friend. This is someone you proactively look out for and try to support - and vice-versa.
A common mistake is to spend too much time trying to build the bottom of the pyramid (i.e. increasing familiarity with you), instead of optimising for the top of the pyramid). Yet the payoff (beyond a relatively low level of familiarity) is a lot higher when you optimise for the top instead of the bottom.
If you want to build trust you don’t just need a lot of people to have heard of you, you need to be out there making connections, proving what you’ve done, supporting the community and being involved.
You Can Be Tremendously Successful Without Joining The Thought Leadership Race
Yes, you need a little familiarity - but optimising for trust is king.
I know a consultant who does extraordinarily well without publishing anything on their social media accounts. He has 15 years working at a large organisation, spoke at a few events before becoming a consultant to build his profile, and now successfully attracts many clients without trying to battle for attention.
What’s his secret? Who knows? But my best guess is a website which clearly shows what he’s achieved, an incredible reputation amongst his peers at the top of the industry, and a powerful ability to convert interest into clients.
I suspect he’s doing a lot of networking through peers that most people aren’t even aware of.
He knows the hundred or so people he has to earn the trust of and how to earn their trust. Turns out it’s not through social media content.
I believe the ultimate goal of your marketing efforts is to find the specific people within specific organisations you want to help and gradually work to earn their trust. This means taking time to show up to places they will be, speak to them, find ways to help them even if it’s of no benefit to you, etc…
Connect these folk with you and then connect them with each other.
You only need to earn the trust of 50 to 100 senior B2B professionals to have a thriving consultancy practice
Summary
You don’t need to join the battle for attention - it’s exhausting and the steps it might take to win are counter-productive.
Figure out whose trust you need to earn (who are the 50 to 100 key decision makers at the organisations you want to work with?)
Some familiarity is good, but trust is far more important. You don’t need widespread recognition.
Behave like the kind of person people will trust. Avoid hyperbole, trend-hopping, or adopting different messages at different times.
Focus more on improving your skills and sharing proof of work. If you don’t have both, then more attention isn’t going to help you.
Be a proactive and supportive member of the community. Host events, invite peers, and directly arrange to meet people when you’re in their city.
Thanks for reading.