As a business owner you probably receive a lot of social media advice. One of the things you may have heard is that you need to be a thought leader in your industry to be successful. But is that really necessary? What if you’re uncomfortable with the idea? Does that mean your business won’t be successful in today’s digital marketing world?
Reasons to Be a Thought Leader
First, it’s not critical to be a thought leader to sell inventory. If you have a good product or service, one that’s needed, and one that is of good value, people will buy from you…once they find you. Being a thought leader and a resource for potential customers is how people hear your message above the noise.
Take, for instance, a farmer’s market. There are stalls and stalls of vendors. Many have very similar products with similar prices. Other than physical proximity, or possibly being offered a sample, what causes you to buy from one vendor over another?
Imagine you’re eyeing eggplant. But you’re just not all that sure about whether you want to buy one or not. Frozen meals are so much easier but you hate the guilt of serving your family something processed. But who has time from scratch dinner every night? Will you use the eggplant before it goes bad?
The vendor notices your hesitation (or browsing) and asks if you like eggplant Parmesan? You admit you do but hate preparing it — all the pounding and the pressing. The farmer pulls out a hand-written recipe card and tells you of his grandmother who had nine children and worked from sun up to sun down on the family farm. She had a quick and easy way to prepare it that yielded mouth-watering parm every time. She even won the state fair blue ribbon for her recipe.
Do you buy from him or the person who says, “two dollars” when he sees you hovering? You buy from the person who solved your problem. You buy from the farmer who knew you were short on time but wanted to prepare something healthy for your family.
That’s where thought leadership pays off. That farmer isn’t a rocket scientist. He just knows his product and his audience. He shares his knowledge and gains customers from it. Thought leadership needn’t be about trying out for TED talks.
But why would you want to buy from anyone who was less than an expert in what they sold?
