Download Attaining thought leadership and making it income

Attaining thought leadership and making it income-generation tool
The second meeting of the MPF Communications Panel was held at Eversheds on 2 March 2007.
The Bloom Group’s Robert Buday, who has 20 years experience in professional services and the
development and marketing of thought leadership, explored the best ways to capture the thoughts
or intellectual capital (IC) of a professional firm’s experts.
Robert revealed the results of a new study his firm conducted on the IC development and
marketing practices of more than 300 North American and European consulting, law, accounting,
IT services, training and other professional services firms. The study addressed the role of
thought leadership in professional services marketing; how professional firms regard the quality of
the intellectual capital that they market; the most effective ways to develop and capture that
intellectual capital; and the most effective ways to market it.
The Bloom Group created an online survey with 28 questions. The data was sliced and diced into
US v Europe, marketing vs non-marketing respondents, size and type of professional firm and “IC
leaders” vs “IC laggards.” (Definition: IC leaders were survey respondents who said the quality of
the IC their firms market was far superior to that of their competitors. IC laggards said the quality
of their IC was inferior or far inferior to the competitions.’)
The key findings of the study were as follows:

the key to building new business in professional services is compelling intellectual capital
– strong ideas from firm experts that can be promoted through articles, speeches, books
and other educationally oriented marketing activities.

the executives surveyed (both marketing and non-marketing managers) said strong
intellectual capital trumped other factors considered crucial to marketing effectiveness:
having a strong brand and marketing image, a solid sales force, a sound marketing
strategy and even a big marketing budget.

“IC leaders” spend more of their resources in developing ideas and less in marketing. “IC
laggards” the opposite.

Firm marketing events/seminars and speaking at outside conferences are the most
effective way of marketing intellectual capital, as the spoken word is regarded as being
very powerful. Advertising and sales brochures were seen as the least effective ways of
marketing IC.

“High-bandwidth, low-bias vs low-bandwidth, high-bias marketing channels”. Highbandwidth, low-bias marketing activities include articles, books, and conference
presentations. They allow a professional firm to impart a great deal of information on a
given business issue, and in an educational (not promotional) way. A Harvard Business
Review article written by a professional firm is the epitome of a high-bandwidth, low-bias
marketing activity. Low-bandwidth, high-bias marketing channels include advertisements,
trade show booths, and telemarketing. Such channels don’t allow a professional firm to
show the depth of its expertise on any issue. In addition, they appear to the target
audience to be blatantly promotional – i.e., prospects know that an advertisement is trying
to sell them something.

Bylined articles in third-party publications were more effective than articles in a
professional firm’s own publications. Robert said the reason is that far many ore people
typically read such third-party publications. In addition, a third-party publication is
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considered to have tougher publishing standards – and thus greater authority -- than any
professional firm publication.

PR is often more used as a way to get professionals quoted rather than for submitting
articles. Professional services PR people should focus on both.

the majority of firms in Europe and the USA said their IC is of average effectiveness in
creating leads and awareness.

Even law firm clients believe that thought leadership is important. A recent European
survey found that “individual lawyer expertise” was the deciding factor in choosing a legal
advisor.
In addition to the findings, Robert stated the following points with regard to thought leadership in
professional services:

many professional firms admit that the intellectual capital they market is anything but
compelling. Marketers often blame firm experts for lacking novel and compelling ideas,
whilst firm practice leaders often blame marketers for failing to capture their wisdom.

publishing in outside journals is very important (those which target groups read) as this
provides good leads and awareness. (A good example given was the Harvard Business
Review as it is regarded as a leading publication with high readership).

it is worth making your firm’s professionals -- whether lawyers, accountants, consultants,
financial advisors or others -- being seen as the thought leaders in their own domain. If
successful, the press will approach them because they perceive them as being at the top
of their field in their areas and should be quoted.

in addition to marketers, the firm’s professionals need to get involved in the process of
developing IC. This process should be viewed as an R&D process that requires
specialized skills organized in a department that works closing with marketing but does not
report to marketing. The reason is that IC R&D must serve two roles: providing content to
marketing, and providing content to a professional firm’s practice/service development.
When IC R&D reports to marketing, the firm’s professionals will view its output strictly as
marketing content. When marketing reports to IC R&D, marketing becomes a slave to
only promote the R&D function. Marketing and R&D both must report to the same
executive, preferably the firm’s managing director.

IC R&D, done well, generates new services, new approaches to doing work for existing
services, and ultimately new clients (if marketed well). Professional firms typically spend
very little on IC R&D and far more on marketing. They need to spend at least on IC R&D
as they do on marketing to get solid results.
The second speaker was David Champion, European editor of Harvard Business Review (HBR),
the world’s leading management journal. Many of the most influential management ideas were
introduced to the world (or made famous) through HBR articles: e.g., marketing guru Ted Levitt’s
“Marketing Myopia”; strategy professor Michael Porter’s “How Competitive Forces Shape
Strategy,”; emotional intelligence pioneer Daniel Goleman’s “What Makes a Leader,” to name just
a few.
David explained the editorial mission of HBR, the influential concepts that it has published over
the years, and how to get published in the magazine.
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HBR’s editorial mission can be explained in one phrase: “improving the practice of management.”
The publication strives to change the way managers of organizations around the world make
decisions and the way the work of organizations is conducted. Thirdly, David said, HBR is
chartered to help executives better understand the world in which they work.
The publications readers can be categorized in three groups:

Business strategists: Managers who use HBR articles to drive their companies’ strategy.

Idea enthusiasts: managers who want to be on the leading edge of new management
concepts.

Practitioners: managers seeking a “concise, step-by-step guide on how to implement
management techniques.”
David explained the editorial sections or features of the publication: a section of shorter articles
upfront called “Forethought”; fictional case studies illustrating a managerial dilemma, and articles
from experts providing advice on how to resolve the dilemma; features (articles written by
academics, consultants, executives and others on some business issue); and departments.
As a publication for managers of organizations, HBR focuses on topics of widespread appeal to
those managers. David categorized those topics into three categories of descending priority:
Priority I Topics: leadership, managing people, organizational issues, change management,
strategy.
Priority II Topics: innovation, negotiation and decision making; customers and marketing; manage
people (compensation, HR, diversity); operations; finance and control, managing technology;
“strategy II” (i.e., globalization).
Priority III: entrepreneurship, political economy (ethics and society, governance, government and
law, environmental and corporate social responsibility); “big picture” (demographics); non-profit
management.
When trying to get published in the HBR, it is worth remembering that the article should not be
about something which people already know about (the ideas should be new and surprising -aha! -- and useful to a wide readership). Article submissions also shouldn’t provide what David
referred to as a “black box” – an approach or formula for solving some managerial issue that the
authors say is too complex to explain. Authority is another criteria HBR editors use to judge
submissions: Are the authors established in their field and, thus, seen as credible on the topic?
The speakers demonstrated that if used effectively and to its full potential, professional service
firms can market and capitalise on the thought leadership. Thought leadership has proven to
generate substantial income and market eminence for many professional firms.
Elizabeth Hibbard
Simmons & Simmons
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