Barriers To Being A Thought Leader

The road to being a thought leader can be a rough one, and one of the key issues here is the basic principle of return on investment. With something like a basic email marketing campaign, your end game is going to be pretty clear. You send out a set of emails that have a link to your landing page or e-commerce page, and you can chart your conversions to see how well you are doing. However, thought leadership is more of a long-term gain. You may need to put in months of effort before you can reach the point that you can say that your efforts are bearing fruit. This means putting in a lot of time and money upfront before reaping your investment.

Your second biggest issue when it comes to being a thought leader is competition in the niche. There are a lot of people who see the benefits of thought leadership, and you need to find a way for your content to stand apart. This can be done by either having a unique viewpoint or using different channels that competition hasn’t touched yet.

The Keys To Becoming An Effective Thought Leader

So what does all this mean in terms of being an effective thought leader? It means that there are three main elements that are going to go into thought leadership.

Patience

Thought leadership marketing is not the type of marketing that should be used for a person desperate to get their business off the ground. It takes time to establish trust, so you may want to focus on other methods while you try to grow.

Charisma

Note that it’s not necessarily about being the greatest public speaker on earth. However, as some point, a leader needs to infuse their own personality into their content in order to stand apart. Otherwise, they are more of a reference source than a thought leader.

Altruism

Remember, a good thought leader should be about helping people to an extent. A key goal should be elevating people in your niche with your knowledge.

Ultimately, being a thought leader is a combination of being able to put the work in to become an authority, but also having the intelligence and expertise to know how to apply that work. After all, all the force you put into opening a door doesn’t mean anything if you’re trying to open it the wrong way. Our full guide on How To Become A Thought Leader covers all of these different questions and other insight that will help you reach your thought leadership goals.