A Thought Leadership Plan That Works For You

About John Doerr

Current Position:	John Doerr is Co-Founder and Principal of Wellesley Hills Group (Framingham, MA), a firm that delivers consulting and training around marketing and selling professional services.
In The Public Eye:	John Doerr has spoken to audiences in a range of professional service areas, within the U.S. and abroad. He has also served as Chairman of Management Centre Turkey's annual Human Resources Conference in Istanbul for several years in a row.
Also Known For:	Prior to founding Wellesley Hills Group, John was Senior Vice President of Linkage, Inc., President of Management Centre Europe in Brussels, Belgium, Senior Vice President of the American Management Association, and President of AMACOM Publishing, with substantial responsibility in executive management, product development, sales, marketing, and training over the years.
Websites:	http://www.whillsgroup.com http://www.raintoday.com

RainToday: What have you noticed as the "effects" of becoming a thought leader?

John Doerr: First of all, it doesn't happen overnight. You just have to take it one step at a time, and keep on doing it.

I talk to a lot of people (some of them our clients), and say, "Well, you really should write some articles and do this," and they say, "Ugh, I've done it before, and it has no effect." We're not talking writing an article one time. We're talking about writing constantly.

If you look back in the 4 years that Wellesley Hills Group has been in business, we have upwards of 100 articles or more that have been published and written about, and the number of speeches grows each year. So, did any individual one do it all for us? No, it's a cumulative effect.

I felt a difference when our articles started being picked up by publications other than our own: when an Indian professional association sent us a copy of something they'd published of ours; when we got calls from trade magazines who wanted an interview. Speaking under someone else's banner, publishing under someone else's banner. Everyone has their own newsletters. So having others publish your work makes a difference. Of course, everything is geared toward the fact you have to be thoughtful, and intelligent in what you have to say.

It's also about recognition. About a year ago, I did a talk for an organization in Connecticut. I was speaking to fifty or sixty turnaround management consultants, all of whom have heard a lot, and done a lot in their profession. I went in thinking that our firm didn't have a specific presence in Connecticut, per se, though nationally, people get our stuff.

Before the program, in the cocktail hour, I met with the president of the organization. Someone approached us, and she said she really wanted to meet me. She had heard about me from someplace. I thought, "Okay, this is one person." But as I went through these groups of people, others kept giving me great feedback about what our firm's doing. "Here's my card… Put me on your newsletter…" This happened from group to group. It was like people had planted them there! I felt a difference then… it's when people who you don't know, know you.

Also, in the beginning, our client profile was naturally local to the New England area. Most were referral-based, and people we had known in the past. I knocked on their doors. But that's changed in some important ways since those early days.

Case in point: I got a call from London Business School about a year ago. They wanted me to come over and do some work on selling professional services. So, like any good marketing person, I said, "Well, where did you hear about us?" They'd read an article online, and then they went to our website and read more articles, and they started to say, "Wow, this person knows about the things that we want talked about in our school."

You could ask, "Aren't there people in the UK and Europe who could do this?" And there are… but for them, I was the thought leader in this particular area. So, the effect has been that our business attracts more high-profile clients, and the fees are easier to get, because we have a cachet.

Now, people call from London, Singapore, California, and Canada. I don't even know how they've heard about me sometimes. When I ask, "How did you hear about us?", the answer is, "I heard you speak," or "I read something you wrote." We're working with bigger firms, with smoother access to higher levels within organizations. It's all about credibility. But again, it's been something that's happened over time… and you have to have something important to say, and to offer.

RainToday: What would you recommend to professionals who are considering the attempt of thought leadership to grow their business and career, or maybe even to become their career?

John Doerr: Find what you're truly passionate about, what you really want to know more about, what you really have something to say about, and then pick that path and run with it. You cannot tiptoe around this. You cannot just say, "Let's try it and see what happens." If you have something worthwhile to say, if you are passionate about it, if you want to be serious about it, whatever the subject matter is, and you really want to do something about it, then go ahead and do it. Pick it and go for it, because you're going to have to do it for years upon years. Success is fleeting… so be prepared for the long haul, knowing that if you do it well, and you have something to offer, and you keep on working at it, you'll look back someday and you'll say, "This is great."

Here's another thing. You know, we talk about thought leadership and we think of Tom Peters, Jack Welch, Ken Blanchard, any number of people who have just taken the world by storm, and everybody knows about them in the business world.

But it's all about thought leadership within your target market. I'll give you an example. There was an accountant we worked with who needed to grow his business, and move forward with creating new clients. In working with condo associations, we discovered that there was a whole little world where he could be the thought leader. So he spoke all the time, and wrote about the differences in condo association accounting and reporting. Over time, he became known as "The Condo King". Condo associations of the world would call him, because anything that was written would have his name on it. He'd constantly get new speaking engagements and business. It became a very nice, successful business for him.

We don't usually think of something like that as thought leadership… so, this is for professionals out there who think they can't be big capital "T" thought leaders: pick your niche. And it can be really specialized. The Condo King, over time, looked back and said, "People call me all the time," but he started out by saying, "This is the niche where I can make a difference, and this is interesting to me."

One more point. Lawyers and accountants really have to stay on top of new accounting principles and legal precedents. Those who are in other fields should treat it the same way, staying on top of all the new developments in their fields. Thought leadership is taking it to the next step, because you're out there articulating and writing and speaking all that you're learning, but the key part is the learning. Translate that learning into things that you are passionate about, and that you can articulate to the world. Despite needing to make a decision to really build your recognition in your market, thought leadership is an outcome that's not necessarily a goal. If you say, "I want to be a thought leader", there's something contrived about it. The goal should be, "I want to be the best that I can be in my field," and then you may find you're a thought leader.

Read more of John's interview, as well as RainToday's research report, How To Become A Thought Leader.

Join John on October 5 or 10, 2006 for the live webinar, How To Lead Masterful Sales Conversations.