Record Associates
Viewpoints generate rapport and discussion
3rd December 2009
Contents
Ways we can help
Issues discovery
Building rapport

Is thought leadership misunderstood?

Perhaps the term is misleading but thought leadership undoubtedly gets buyers thinking.  It has the power to engage people on areas that are important to them and their organisations. Buyers want an external viewpoint to provide ideas and solutions, or sometimes just to validate their thinking. Thought leadership is deemed as highly valuable by them.

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This year's recession has been characterised by buyers avoiding risk associated with changing advisers.  According to research by the Blaire Group, 3840 'sales discussions' using a product-benefit based approach failed to attract the attention of senior and middle ranked buyers and had virtually zero effect in generating new clients.  The implications are inevitable - wasted time, lost opportunity and de-motivated staff.
 
This newsletter looks at an approach which maximises return from your investment(s) in business development.  It avoids client's current risk aversion, attracts buyers to want to talk with you and increases the probability of turning discussion into new business.
Discovering high impact issues
 
Your task is to find issues that different client groups are very interested in - "hooks".  By choosing a characteristic common to client groups, such as industry sector, size, maturity or nature of their client base, you can start to model the commercial, regulatory and competitive issues impacting on them.  
 
Well recognised tools, like PEST, Porter or mind mapping, applied to each chosen group will uncover business issues you can use as the basis for business development campaigns. Why not suggest a meeting in January to re-look at the issues your clients will be facing in 2010? This discussion will generate your hooks; now you have to catch buyer's attention.
Package issues into a 'viewpoint' series
 
The key is to provoke the thinking of buyers around issues which impact on their competitive advantage.  Providing original opinion or thinking (sometimes called 'thought leadership') will trump all other types of marketing as it is 100% client centric.  It doesn't have to be overly detailed too.  A single missive on a hot topic is unlikely to persuade readers that you have something valuable to say and discuss (even if you manage to get 100% of recipients to read it). 
 
Three short and insightful viewpoints will grab the attention you want - ensure they cross-reference each other so that recipients don't need to have read all three.  Stick them on your website, send them to the trade press and punt them round a few conference organisers.  You can get huge mileage and interest from a few well crafted views on issues that are important to clients and prospects.
Building rapport
 
Building rapport comes in three stages: awareness, interest and engagement.  You've already achieved awareness by sending the viewpoints to your client and prospect base.  You'll have to trust that they have done the job of raising interest.   Your main challenge will be to motivate people in your firm to turn these written viewpoints into face-to-face discussion.

If you don't have the backup of new business performance targets you will need to provide guidance, a framework and coaching to make the process of "making calls" easy and undaunting.  Why not run a demonstration and practice session?  Think through all the scenarios that could happen - getting through to a PA, your viewpoints not being read or difficult people to engage with.
 
A viewpoint campaign is not about selling; it's about helping clients and targets in their thinking so they are happy to meet you in person.  The number of appointments you make should be your measure of success.