5 Powerful Tools for Turning Subject Matter Experts into Rainmaking Thought Leaders

Thoughts on Monetizing Thoughts

I’m going to make an assumption that the partners or professionals at your accounting, consulting or professional services firm are subject matter experts who have the knowledge, experience and expertise to step up to the plate and contribute to your firm’s content marketing program.

But how do you go from being a subject matter expert to a thought leader?                                                                 

Let’s start with a definition of thought leadership. I saw one on the Forbes website that I thought was right on the button.

Part One

A thought leader is an individual or firm that prospects, clients, referral sources, intermediaries and even competitors recognize as one of the foremost authorities in selected areas of specialization, resulting in its being the go-to individual or organization for said expertise.

Part 2

A thought leader is an individual or firm that significantly profits from being recognized as such.

Source: Russ Alan Prince & Bruce Rogers, ”What is a Thought Leader”, www..forbes.com

So let’s use this definition to explore the path from subject matter expert to a rainmaking thought leader. Here are five powerful tools you’ll need for the transformation:

1. Trade associations: Join all relevant trade associations and become an active participant in their governance and education programs. In fact, take (or make) every opportunity you can to present. One word about relevancy – fish where the fish are. In other words, join and play a part in those associations that your prospects belong to, not just one whose members are similar to you.
2. LinkedIn: Leverage your LinkedIn account, join relevant groups (see above for a definition of relevancy)and either start or participate in the conversations that are occurring
3. Blog. Blog. Blog. - On your web site, and even more importantly, as a guest blogger on other relevant web sites.
4. Bios: Get your online bio in shape and optimized. 

Let’s get to the last part of the definition, which in effect states that you’re not a thought leader unless you can monetize your thoughts. Some of this is going to occur as a function of the credibility you’ve built through the points presented above. You’ll get a phone call from someone who will say, “I saw your presentation at so forth and so on, where you talked about this and that, and we’d like you to help us with …”

Is that awesome or what? In fact, that’ is the absolute very best, number one with a bullet, it doesn’t get any better than that inbound marketing success story.

1. Lead Generation: But here’s another way to monetize thought leadership – using subject matter expertise to create content like white papers that can be used as the centerpiece of a lead generation campaign.

At its simplest level, a lead generation campaign consists of an offer; media tools to promote the offer; forms, processes and technology to capture information from people who want your offer; and a sales strategy to convert those people into a client. With the proper processes, infrastructure and technology using SMEs for lead generation is one of the strongest ways that a firm can turn reluctant rainmakers into business development stars.  

Lead generation campaigns need to be centered around a compelling pain point or issue faced by your prospects, and that’s where subject matter expertise and thought leadership come in. Items like recent law or regulatory change requiring compliance; business, financial, or operational “thorns” that are impacting top or bottom line performance; or micro or macro-economic trends that are keeping prospects or clients up – and a lot more – are all representative of the stuff that lead generation campaigns are made of. 

Offers need to be packaged into a device, like a white paper, seminar, e-book, report, etc. Each type of device you might consider comes with its own unique set of requirements, like getting the SME to pull those lofty thoughts out of their head and into a device, and each will have indirect/resource and possibly direct costs.

Thought leadership and content marketing is going to be one of the key battlegrounds for new client acquisition as more and more CPA, consulting and professional services firms realize that the traditional way they’ve been depending the marketing budget just isn’t as effective as it used to be. 

Who would have ever thought that the tax partner who feels more comfortable with his or her head buried in tax code than schmoozing with a prospect could be in line to be the firm’s next new business superstar? They’re only a lofty thought or two away from making this happen!