HOW WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY

Far too much Thought Leadership Marketing is undertaken with a scattergun approach and without any underlying Core Concept or Strategy. Too, it is almost always seen as a distinct entity and so undertaken separately to conventional PR features, and in-house blogs. This creates a lack of consistency in a Company's Stance and Voice (and therefore brand) as they appear across their longform materials. This also usually means an endless stream of different writers, consultants & agencies with no mutual interaction and slim-to-no contact with the Company's Key Innovators.

1.

We see ALL your Longform materials as Thought Leadership marketing and as interconnected. This means online and offline, conventional PR features as well as White Papers or Books, and even your in-depth Blog posts. A Core Concept, Strategy and Consistent Voice make for a Consistent Stance (and brand).

2.

3.

We are intrigued by the uniquely win-win nature of Thought Leadership as a marketing approach in that it is serious, in-depth material that stands alone and can help companies act as 'think tanks', even advocates, whilst ALSO acting as impactful Marketing. We think thoughtful, ethical, sustainable and innovative companies are especially well-suited to 'doing' Thought Leadership.

We are Boutique and Bespoke. Materials such as White Papers produced by most corporate Thought Leadership agencies are worthy but generic and all too often take the same position on a topic, which is hardly leading thought. They are also rather 'hands-off'. At SLETL we have in-depth conceptual discussions with the CEO/Key Director/Head of Research to unearth novel and authentic insights completely original to your company. We also capture your unique Voice over a generic corporate style.

When there's no Thought Leadership Strategy: scattergun efforts & wasted IP

When you Work with Us: Strategic, Streamlined & Underpinned with Core Concept & a consistent Voice

Book a Complimentary 40 Min Consultation

Browse our Packages & Services

The way most companies are structured and go about commissioning Thought Leadership creates massive disconnect / is scattered and huge amounts of Tacit Knowledge are also leaking out of the company on a daily basis.

Look below at both the way knowledge remains ‘trapped’ in the minds of both the CEO but also individual professions (engineers, say) without ever being articulated. Then look at how Marketing Activities are normally structured and Thought Leadership ‘deliverables’ commissioned - and look how far away the CEO / Key Director is from the person or people who (eventually) write the Thought Leadership that is supposed to reflect the Company’s Finest Thinking!

When you work with me it looks instead like this:

What do I mean by the CEO and / or Company Core Concept?

In my experience, most companies have at least one unique way of doing things that they, themselves, haven’t perceived as a Selling Point or unique message in any overtly articulated way. As such, they sometimes struggle to say something original in Thought Leadership when the originality of the company is staring them in the face.

The best example I can give of this, because I’ve come across it twice in different ways, is where companies were sitting on highly unique approaches to sustainability which they never recognised as such because it had never been articulated or written down. They didn’t need to ‘invent’ a stance on ESG because they already had a very unique approach to it – but without an external eye who is also a wordsmith – this would have been lost and their ESG materials would have wound up as yet more generic greenwash disconnected from anything the Company actually did.

Similarly, many CEOs (or Key directors, or Fund Managers) are highly original thinkers but are not necessarily writers or wordsmiths and so, again, beyond conversations with the Head of R&D, many original insights remain trapped within the mind of the CEO! I have a particular way of teasing out these insights as well as hitting on the especial way in which individual Business Leaders frame their thinking, the words they use, the metaphors they choose and so on.

All of these hidden Insights are Gold Dust for Thought Leadership. How much dry Thought Leadership have you read, for example, on ESG? Doesn’t it almost always read the same? Doesn’t it almost always conclude the same things? And even where Reports have Unusual Conclusions, don’t they almost always read the same and use the same generic Corporate Style that makes one company’s Report almost interchangeable from another. Where are the original angles?

So ‘Core Concept’ is about teasing out that Fundamental Idea, Concept, Metaphor or Way or Unique w Modus Operandi that ought to lie at the very heart of all that company’s Thought Leadership endeavours (or at the heart of the CEO’s book). (Of course there can be more than one Core Concept in different areas – for example a Company might have a Core Concept in relation to Sustainability and another Core Concept in relation to, say, ********* - but ideally these all still tend to boil down to one Key Thing that makes them different.

How is this different to a USP, I hear you ask? A USP is about the Service or Products or Way of Doing business. And whilst these are connected, Core Concept is rather more like a Unique Thought or Unique Concept or Unique Worldview. It comes closer to an Ethos, I suppose – although one that can be elaborated engagingly and usefully in Long Form materials. As such its different than a Vision statement or a Strapline because its deeper.

aragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.