Here’s a Better Strategy to Share Your Big Idea

Most marketers know that one of the best ways to attract opportunity is to regularly share expertise through thought leadership. But as you’re creating content and sending your insights into the marketplace, it can be tough to know whether they are making an impact for your business. That’s why it’s important to never lose sight of thought leadership’s true end goal: generating sales. And the best way to cash in is to create a thought leadership roadmap that’s parallel to your customers’ purchase journey. Focusing Thought Leadership Strategy Where It Counts: The Customer Journey Thought leadership more than a set of whitepapers. It’s an elevated strategy where you answer your customers’ most pressing questions in a consistent way, and at a deep level of practical expertise, to become an authority. For thought leadership to drives sales effectively, it cannot be simply random acts of content. Instead, thought leadership must guide the customer journey. It then becomes a powerful way to meet customer and prospects at their most impactful inflection points and provide them with the most relevant answers – step by step, decision by decision. Thought leadership that successfully sets the scene, establishes the stakes and guides customers toward a decision has been shown to yield more and faster sales, as well as larger deals. Plot Your Progression Following a clear plot progression is vitally important in achieving your end goal of increased sales. To help you develop a journey framework, we’ve separated into categories below the different purposes a thought leadership piece might achieve. Just like any good sales approach, thought leadership must create a vision of better future, contrast that with the present state – and map the journey in between. These categories aren’t necessarily siloed, of course, and one initiative might aim to achieve any or all of these purposes. Picture of the Future People are thirsty for innovation: the next big thing, the newest upgrade, the upcoming disruptor. At its most strategic level, thought leadership (and sales) is about being visionary. So give them what they want. Create a future end point for your customers — a clear vision of a tangible payoff that will make their lives better. This future shouldn’t be too distant or esoteric; we want it to address consumers’ current and near-future pains and opportunities. And it should provide a compelling answer to the question of why: Why should customers want to reach this future? Why is it worth changing current habits? Map the Journey from Now to Next Another goal of thought leadership (and sales again) is to show your audience the chasm that exists between today’s experiences and tomorrow’s potential. Chart the process for moving from present to future, drawing on your deep expertise to act as the trusted mentor who can provide structured guidance and help steer clear of pitfalls. Roadmap and strategy recommendations show your consumers that you recognize and understand the difficulties they may encounter along the way. And by showing them what it takes to get from present reality to envisioned future, you’re earning their respect and their interest in your solutions. Force a Decision Breaking the spell of inertia and forcing a decision can be a sales executive’s and marketer’s biggest challenge — especially when dealing with customers’ often byzantine decision-making apparatuses. So make the matter urgent by identifying the factors that may be delaying action and addressing them head-on. As you’re working to force a decision, metrics can be your best friend: an ROI report, a revenue projection, a cost-benefit analysis. These data points can help convince even the most reticent of decision-makers to sit up and take notice. And when viewed as a whole, with the potential upcoming difficulties you’ve projected, the future you’ve drawn and the road map you’ve charted, your thought leadership should spur your audience to action. When you unite thought leadership to a purchase journey strategy, you establish your company as a trustworthy leader, and sales prospects will be more inclined to use your strategic thinking to guide their decision-making process. Looking Inward for Thought Leaders Once you’ve mapped out your thought leadership framework, your task is to produce the distinct insights and develop compelling content. Luckily, your most valuable research and discovery resources are already under your company’s own (metaphorical) roof. A vital part of successful thought leadership is the ability to draw forth and illuminate the knowledge and expertise that your business taps into every day — that of your internal team members. These individuals have already embarked on and completed your customers’ journey, simply by dint of having created your solutions. Up and down your product development chain, your teams performed the painstaking work of: Along the way, there were countless hours of intense arguments, several confusion-clearing meetings and who-knows-how-many “Have you considered …” emails. There were detailed discussions about a solution’s logic and positioning, its payoff to consumers and its path (and potential barriers) to success. Because these are your genuine, original thought leaders, and they’re the most valuable source of research and knowledge that you could possibly ask for. This internal journey created knowledge and experience that would be impossible to replicate, and it can and should be tapped as you recreate the journey for your external consumers. Retracing your solution’s steps through the organization is both rigorous and rewarding. You’ll need to get technical with your inventors and delve into the weeds with your engineers. From this deep work, though, will spring forth a truly effective, and truly sales-enabling, thought leadership strategy and message. Establishing Expertise, Creating Opportunity By focusing on your customers’ growth journey, you ensure that you’re making yourself visible to consumers at the moments when they most need your expertise. By tapping into your teams’ deep experiential knowledge, you’ll create a foundation of true proficiency, and you’ll be able to position your thought leadership as the external authority to which consumers and potential partners look when they need guidance they can trust. And by following this process, you will set up your…

Have you ever spent hours agonizing over messaging — the word choice, the flow, the details — only to have your story come out sounding flat? If your messaging feels stale, overworked, or just plain “meh,” chances are you’ve boxed in your story. This is what we call it when you become locked (often, unknowingly) into a certain channel of thinking and just can’t get out. It’s like wearing messaging blinders: When your vision is limited, it can be tough to tell stories happening outside your line of sight. As a result, you prevent your story from truly flourishing. Boxing in your story can — and probably will — happen to even the most experienced communicators, marketing teams, and copywriters. It’s a common problem that can be easily fixed by reframing your thinking and asking tough questions. Let’s walk through the three most common ways people box in their own stories to discover how you can make sure your story flourishes. Have I Boxed In My Story? Before we discuss how to unbox your story, let’s talk about what a “boxed in” story even looks, sounds, and feels like. Here are a few symptoms of a narrative that has been boxed in: On the other end of the spectrum, stories that are truly allowed to thrive are engaging, clear, and compelling to both internal and external audiences. Good stories are also sticky, or memorable. It’s important to note that a boxed-in story isn’t a reflection of the quality of an idea, product, or service. Even the most innovative, novel ideas can be boxed in by misguided messaging, and even the most “boring” products can be brought to life through the right narrative. So how do people box in their stories? Here’s what we see most often: Obsessed with the “How” But Forgetting the “Why” One of the most common ways people box in their story is by putting too much emphasis on the “how” of the story instead of the “why.” This problem is especially prevalent when it comes to messaging for products or services. In these cases, the message gets lost in the details about how exactly an idea works and how customers will use it. These stories are often filled with technical language and industry jargon. This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. Before your audience learns how to use your product, they need to know why they should use your product, or why your solution is better than what they already have. You can save the details of “how” for collateral down the funnel or — even better — for a sales meeting. Ignores the Customer Point of View The second way we see people box in their stories is similar to the first, as both are the result of stepping only halfway into your customer’s shoes. Often, messaging doesn’t resonate because it focuses too much on your own company rather than specific customer pain points. We see this in both brand-level and product messaging. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your company mission and how your products and services will revolutionize your customers’ lives. However, this “me me me” messaging fails to bridge the gap for customers between their problems and your product. Half-Baked Creating a strong message that resonates with customers is a lot of work. It can take hours of research, several drafts, competitive audits, soul searching, and more. As a result, we often find that stale mission and vision stories are the result of half-baked messaging. In other words, all the grunt work needed to craft a finely tuned message — the personas, value proposition, differentiators — have not been fully thought through. Really, we find that half-baked messaging is the root of most narrative and story conundrums — when you don’t have a strong foundation, it’s easier to focus on the “how” or on your company itself. Going All-In with Your Story To create a truly engaging, sticky story, you need to go all-in with your messaging. That means digging into the core of your idea, product, or service; building a thoughtful narrative around your buyer’s vision (or your customers unconsidered needs); and bringing that story to life. At Everhouse, we package all this work into a process we call “Finding the X-Factor.” It’s a narrative, staged approach to reveal your message and let it sing. Here’s how you can craft your message using our method: The Origin Story This is where you dig into the foundation of your idea, product, or service. What is the underlying problem your product was meant to solve? Why does your product matter? Often, it’s best to go back to the inventor, engineer, or original idea-haver to get the most accurate answers to these questions. For example, maybe your company is selling lab-grown meat to restaurants. Look beyond what your innovation is (lab-grown meat) and identify the Innovators Intent. Maybe this product was created with the intention of making high quality, environmentally friendly foods more accessible to a greater breadth of restaurants. The Hero Once you’ve built a strong foundation in “The Origin Story,” it’s time to look at “The Hero” — aka your customers. It can be tempting to glance at personas and quickly rattle off a list of pain points and customer concerns. However, you need to take your thinking one step further. This is key to creating a sticky story. Your goal is to look beyond known pain points and uncover something that your customer has not considered. Ask these three questions: Again, it’s essential to work through these questions. You need to find where your true differentiation lies because that’s where the heart of your truly unique narrative lives, too. If you rely on the superficial pain points only, you can expect your narrative to feel superficial as well. Take our lab-grown meat example. The obvious benefits are that it’s environmentally friendly, cruelty free, etc. But is that enough to convince a busy, budget-tight restaurant…

Leaders today have a particularly tough job articulating a vision statement for their company. Think of everything a vision needs to convey and accomplish: A Good Company Vision is a Guide Through Times of Change Now think of how difficult it is to boil down today’s complex businesses idea. Today, we’re reimagining every aspect of life with and introducing an explosion on new ideas across energy, entertainment, retail, medicine, even space travel. In this environment, the market demands that you have a clear and compelling a vision – conveying precisely what better future you are building and why it matters. So, leaders are constantly reformulating and re-explaining where their company vision. Without a clear and compelling vision, it’s easy to lose sight of where your company is going. You can easily miss the mark on emerging opportunities or being perceived as just a cog in the system, another me-too company marching forward simply to make money. 4 Common Mistakes of Ineffective Vision Statements with Examples We believe a vision statement should reflect the ultimate impact your company should have on the world. However, even the biggest companies sometimes end up with ineffective vision statements (even if they do sound cool) because they don’t create a view of the world that is easy to grasp. Vision statements that are not crafted carefully end up being only partially useful, totally ignorable or outright misguiding. Consider the four most common traps we find companies fall into when creating their vision statements: These aren’t the only companies that have fallen into the pitfalls of a weak vision statement and they certainly won’t be the last. Your Company Vision Should Describe a Better Place To create a vision statement with the power to guide your company, you have to use a little imagination. Instead of thinking about a traditional vision statement, with its glut of uninspiring examples and myriad competing definitions, shift your perspective a bit. Try describing a vision of a world that doesn’t yet exist and that you are committed to help build. Your company vision should describe a better place — and we mean that literally. Your vision should always be a “where” statement that paints a picture of what you want the world to look like because your product or company exists. What Cause Do You Stand For? Because vision statements have become so watered down and self-focused, Simon Sinek in his new book, The Infinite Game, recommends a new way to approach creating a vision statement, which he calls advancing a Just Cause. Here is how Sinek explains it himself: “A Just Cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist; a future state so appealing that people are willing to make sacrifices in order to help advance toward that vision…. It defines where we are going. It describes the world we hope to live in and will commit to help build.” Sinek adds: “For a Just Cause to serve as an effective invitation, the words must paint a specific and tangible picture of the kind of impact we will make or what exactly a better world would look like. Only when we can imagine in our mind’s eye the exact version of the world and organization or leader hopes to advance toward will we know to which organization or to which leader we want to commit our energies and ourselves.” This approach hits on all three of our necessary components of a strong vision: It provides direction by focusing your company squarely on the future. You’re defining a strategic direction by identifying a future world that your business will help create. If you cast your vision too narrowly, you can accidentally focus on your solution capabilities, missing the chance to define a bigger picture opportunity. It builds motivation by focusing your company on the right audiences. You’re focusing on a future that’s desirable enough to inspire hard work and sacrifice in pursuit of its attainment. This will attract and motivate employees who believe in your vision, and it will help you consistently focus on the right audiences: those whom you’re fighting for. It promotes broad alignment that strengthens your leadership role. A vision statement should look beyond one company, or even one industry. It sees opportunity as ever-expanding, and competitors as worthy rivals. A Just Cause frees up your company to create plans and strategies toward your future, focused on an existential purpose that’s understood and envisioned, and that is ever-more inclusive. Creating a vision statement that speaks to the core of your business is tough but important. When crafted properly, a vision will act as the north star that guides your business through change, turbulence and opportunity. It’s a common purpose for your customers, employees and strategy to rally around. And it will help station you above the white noise of the business world and make your business more human. Your vision statement may only be a few small words, but those words have the power to set your company apart from the rest.