Your Team is Full of Experts, But Are They the Voices Your Industry Listens To?

Your team is full of industry experts but when people think of experts in your field, do they think of your company?

I was having this conversation with a B2B firm about the importance of employee & founder-led thought leadership.

At a time where consumers and businesses are being more sceptical about where and how they spend their money, now isn’t the time for “quiet work speaks for itself.”

When the stats show that 77% of consumers are more likely to engage with content from people with subject-matter expertise and 68% say they value technical insight and firsthand experience over personal anecdotes, the best approach is for marketing teams to work collaboratively with technical operators, according to Sprout Social, Inc.

I work with CEOs, senior executives, and their corporate teams to help them position themselves as thought leaders on & offline.

Through Influence Capital I’ve supported leaders across law, finance, media and tech.

From personal brand and sales communication workshops for their junior to mid career teams to executive ghostwriting, media prep and brand strategy for decision makers.

What I’m seeing is a shift in how markets build trust and it’s creating massive opportunity for companies smart enough to recognise it.

The future?

The ones that will dominate the next decade aren’t those with the biggest marketing budgets, they’re the ones whose internals become the voices their industries listen to.

Not only will this help with inbound leads because prospects trust expertise over generic sales pitches, but it also shortens your sales cycle because when you do pitch, you’re already seen as the industry leader rather than just another vendor.

It also improves talent acquisition because top performers want to work for companies where they can build their own professional reputation.

Buyers who view a “vendor” as a thought leader are 2.5x more likely to move quickly through the buying process, according to Gartner

Plus…everyone’s doing “authentic” content now. Every LinkedIn post follows the same template: personal struggle, life lesson learnt, inspirational call to action.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that but if you haven’t noticed some consumers are being weary.

“Is this real?” “Where’s the evidence?”

But your technical leaders, however, cannot fake years of domain expertise. They cannot manufacture the institutional knowledge that comes from solving real problems with consequences.

The question every CEO should be asking: When prospects need expert insight in our field, do they think of our people first?

Jon Gray is a perfect example of this

But you don’t have to be the CEO or a massive firm to follow suit. In fact, I would encourage you if you’re a smaller to mid-size firm to get involved because you have advantages that larger companies don’t, your experts can move faster, be more agile in their messaging, and build more personal relationships with their audience without layers of corporate approval slowing them down.