Episode 158. 3 Problems Solopreneurs Face When Building Thought Leadership (And How to Solve This)

As you build your thought leadership strategy, you will be faced with practical and mindset-related challenges. This episode will discuss some of these potential obstacles and offer tips on how to move through them.

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Challenges that Might Come Up as You Implement on Your Thought Leadership Strategy

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Today, I want to discuss with you a paper I recently read, which discussed some of the problems that arise when it comes to the topic of thought leadership. The paper specifically discussed the issues that come up among knowledge-intensive firms from various sectors , such as law, management consultancy, accounting, finance and so on.

They looked at thought leadership at 3 different levels. Including the individual/micro level, the organizational/meso level, and the industry/macro level.

The paper is by Harvey and colleagues, and it was published in 2021 in the Journal of Knowledge Management. The title of the paper is: The tensions of defining and developing thought leadership within knowledge-intensive firms.

The part of this paper that was of particular interest to me is the issues they identified at the individual level.

For the podcast episode, I want to highlight three individual level issues that were discussed in the paper, and I want to also share my own perspectives on how this applies for us as solopreneurs and what we can do about it in our own businesses or brands as emergent thought leaders.

We will specifically look at three issues:

1) Thought leadership vs thought followership

2) Using client scenarios to develop your thought leadership versus maintaining client confidentiality

3) Are you really a thought leader if you have to call yourself a thought leader?

Thought leadership vs thought followership

Let me start by reading out a snippet of the paper: 

“Our respondents’ observations are echoed in a survey of legal marketers where 94% complain that partners drive them to produce similar content to competitors, and four in five complain that their firm is a hostile environment for new ideas. Even when generated, 83% of accountancy marketers say they struggle to stop ideas being diluted and three-quarters of chief marketing officers (CMOs) complain that their firm is too concerned about being seen to be negative or critical to say anything meaningful (Manbitesdog, 2014). 

How the two paradoxes of exploration and exploitation are balanced and managed within organizations (Knight and Harvey, 2015) regarding their thought leadership is problematic and has led to some individuals becoming trapped in a cycle of thought followership, copying competitors and releasing content that is already tried, tested and tired. This raises our first tension.”

Based on this, the paper identified that one of the first issues or tensions, as they called it in the paper, at the individual level, is: “How can individuals balance the risk of thought leadership with the safety of thought followership so they do not damage their reputation among salient stakeholders?”

In the context for us as solopreneurs, one of the primary issues we face when it comes to building thought leadership is, how do we come up with our own unique thought leadership, rather than simply following or repeating or regurgitating what others in our niche/industry are saying?

A similar followup challenge that we solopreneurs face, is, on one hand, there’s a lot of uncertainty or risk involved in being a thought leader. Whereas on the other hand, following the status quo or trends is a much safer option. So how do we navigate this? 

First, I want to acknowledge we are constantly borrowing ideas and thoughts, more often than not, unknowingly.

In my personal opinion, I don’t believe that thought leadership requires us to generate ideas that are purely original or to come up with the most novel ideas.

The reason is because I personally don’t believe that our thoughts or message has to be totally innovative, or be something completely groundbreaking in order to make an impact or instill change in this world.

Instead, I see thought leadership as sharing what’s on your mind to make things better. 

Thought leaders, in my eyes, are people who take the initiative to share their thoughts in order to turn their vision into a reality. Whether it be to turn a business idea into reality, to improve specific circumstances, or instigate a positive change they wish to see in this world. 

Thought leaders share what’s already in their heads because they know it can be helpful to someone else. 

This is precisely how I define leadership. It is using the thoughts already inside your head, and using it to do something good in this world. It is leading with your thoughts to create change and impact for others.

It is being willing to go first and share what you believe in, what you know, sharing your lessons and insights, etc. Not because you want to gain popularity or garner respect, but because it matters to you to share it. 

That said, what often happens for solopreneurs is that they lose their own voice and they lack trust in their own ideas, stories, or perspectives.

Instead, they start to fall into “thought followership” because they simply don’t trust that they themselves have anything of value to share. So they simply default to doing or saying what others are doing, especially those who are clearly leading the pack.

Thought followers don’t question why things are the way they are. They don’t question the default way of doing things or the default way of thinking about things. Because they’re simply following the status quo, they don’t create change in the world. 

One thing I think all of us can be a better practitioner of, is to ask why things are the way they are. Question the default. Don’t just blindly follow the status quo.

Because once we start to see that, “Oh wait, this default way of doing things doesn’t actually make sense. It doesn’t actually have to be this way.”

Only then can you start to open your mind to more possibilities and start to generate your own viewpoints or ideas, start seeing alternative options and so on.

In a nutshell, when you can break free from thought followership, that’s when you can start to really stretch your creativity, increase your confidence and belief in what you have to say, and have the freedom to explore better ways of doing things or thinking about things, and hence impact the world.  

I actually want to share a fun client example here. One of our current clients inside The Thought Leader Club is now officially booked out through to the end of Q1 2024. And it’s only half way through January as of recording this. How did this happen?

First: He has spent the past few years sharpening his skills and honing his craft. For context, he creates thoughtful long-form, journalistic-style content for B2B digital analytics, martech, e-commerce and fintech companies that take their content seriously. He currently has a track record of delivering superb work for his clients.

Second: He also has a growing body of work which not only communicates his story and perspectives on his industry. But his content also clearly reflects the depth and caliber of his thinking as well as what he brings to the table. Meaning: His voice clearly shines through in his content, and people can tell.

But this wasn’t always the case for him. Before he joined The Thought Leader Club, this client struggled with constantly questioning whether his content was too surface-level and didn’t have enough substance. He also struggled with his content looking and sounding like everyone else’s. In other words, he struggled with thought followership.

One of the first things we coached on inside TLC include:

  • Honing in on the depth and caliber of his content  – This includes creating an evaluation system to know whether his content meets his own standard of depth and caliber 
  • Developing his unique voice – This looks like developing an acute understanding of what HIS unique voice is and also creating an evaluation system to know whether he was speaking in his own voice or from someone else’s

In just a short span of two months, his audience KNOWS it’s a piece of content from him because his voice shines through. If anything, others are now probably looking to him for content inspiration . Our client has now really started to take on the role of a thought leader in his space. 

This is exactly what we do inside The Thought Leader Club. TLC is where you’ll get the coaching, community, and tools/resources to support you in building your thought leadership and setting you up for your 1-3 year goals in life, career, and business.

And the best part is, not only are we highly prolific and consistent at building our body of work and continuing to uplevel our business/career as a result, but we also do this on just 0-2 hours a day. Yes, this is a major flex. 

The TLC is THE room to:

  • Start putting in the reps to create your thought leader career and become highly prolific and consistent at building thought leadership
  • Build a body of work that lets you become known for your unique thought leadership, your story, and how amazing you are at what you do
  • And ultimately set yourself up for making your 1-3 year dreams a reality.

Your next step is to book a discovery call with me for us to have a conversation about:

1) What are your dreams in the next 1-3 years

2) The coaching, skills, and actions you need to make these dreams happen, and

3) How coaching together will support and guide you with all the above.

You can schedule a discovery call by first filling out a short application form on the sales page for The Thought Leader Club. After you submit the form, you’ll get a link to book a discovery call

With that, let’s transition into the second issue that solopreneurs tend to face.

Using client scenarios to develop your thought leadership versus maintaining client confidentiality

The second individual level issue raised by the paper I was reading is centered around the fact that oftentimes, for knowledge firms, the process of developing thought leadership will oftentimes involve clients or client information. 

However, of course, in most cases, because of confidentiality reasons, thought leaders and their firms cannot exactly share a lot of details. And as a result, restrict their capacity to share certain thought leadership ideas.

This is why the paper cites the following as an individual level tension for thought leadership, which is: “How do individuals balance using the thought leadership derived from client engagement, with the restrictions of client confidentiality and intellectual property?” 

As a solopreneur, I believe that this challenge can easily be solved by the creativity of your execution. There are ways you can elaborate on the ideas or perspectives you’ve gathered because of client interactions, without divulging details that are confidential or private.

For example, a common scenario for solopreneurs is that they want to describe a client’s win, or before and after working with them, but there may be certain details that you don’t want to openly share out of the privacy and respect for your client. If so, the question for you to think about is: how can you go about sharing your work without infringing on your client’s confidentiality?

One effective way to do this is to learn how to tell a story and FOCUS on the overarching lessons and takeaways, rather than the specific information or details that might be identifiable.

Specifically, tell the story in a way where it can be generalized across multiple clients.

For example, for the client example I shared earlier, if I were to recount this client win without any identifiable information, I could have:

1) omitted the part where I shared about the industry the client is in or details about the services my client offers, and

2) put the emphasis on, when my clients in general focus on building their body of work, honing in on the depth and caliber of their content, and developing their unique voice, they are able to clear shifts in their own business results and revenue.

I can dive more into how my process that I teach inside TLC is conducive to my clients’ results, rather than focusing on the unique circumstances of this specific client.

But also, you can alway double check with your client if they’re open to you sharing certain details. Whenever you’re unsure, just check in with your client.

For example, for the earliest client example, I messaged my client privately before using this brief example. 

So yes, you will need to learn how to communicate in a way that garners trust and credibility, instead of losing that trust and credibility from both existing paying clients or from your audience who is considering working with you.

This is a skill that 100% can be developed, and it’s also something we work on inside TLC. 

Now, let’s move to the third and final issue that often arises when it comes to thought leadership on an individual level.

Are you really a thought leader if you have to call yourself a thought leader?

“However, not everyone can be a thought leader because if everyone is challenging the status quo, there is no status quo to challenge. Yet, a survey of CMOs found that 82% of clients expected that firms will be thought leaders and produce insightful content (Manbitesdog, 2014). Respondents noted that this has created a demand among partners to constantly produce thought leadership content to convince different stakeholders that they can support their expertise claims. 

However, while partners are creating more thought leadership content, it is often not perceived by stakeholders (e.g. clients) as high quality or relevant to the KBO’s claims around knowledge expertise (Harvey et al., 2017). A partner from a creative services agency said: “Thought leadership has become commoditized. If you have to say you are a thought leader you probably aren’t”. Our respondents observed that this was a difficult task, as reflected in 81% of marketing leaders confessing that their firm struggles to generate any genuinely new insights or points of view and more than a third (39%) of CMOs acknowledge that their firm prioritizes quantity over quality (Manbitesdog, 2014). Indeed, many CMOs admit that 62% of their own so-called thought leadership is in fact thought followership or the commercialisation of specialization.”

Based on this, the paper identified that the third and final individual level tensions for thought leaders is, “If thought leadership is supposed to be rare, how can it become common for individuals to consistently produce?”

First, yes, I do think it is very, very easy to just call yourself a thought leader.

But what’s actually a lot more difficult to do, but very, very, very important for thought leaders, is to have a substantial body of work that showcases your story, your expertise, your lived experiences, how you view the world, how you think, and how good you are at what you do.

Because honestly, anyone can call themselves a thought leader. But many fewer people are willing to put in the reps, over and over, to build an actual body of work that not only contains value for their audience, but also showcases the depth and caliber of how they think.

Building a body of work is also how I personally went from disappointing my parents when I first quit law school to having their full support when I quit my PhD later on.

The reason is twofold. First, over the years, they saw me keep my word to myself, work hard, and never complain about my situation or results. They saw me get my hands dirty to make my own money and support myself financially through different part time and full time jobs, and starting my own business. 

Second, they saw me building a body of work. Their initial concern was that by quitting law school, I’d have “nothing to show for”. In their eyes, getting a degree and then finding another career path was better than having no degree at all. Their concern is valid and makes sense.

So, I spent the past few years since late 2018/early 2019 building a body of work to share what I already know, honing new skills (both tactical skills and soft skills), and developing my own perspectives and viewpoints on topics that matter to me.

Because of this, since quitting law school, I’ve built a full-time income through my coaching business.

I’ve also been featured on TODAY Online, spoken on the CNA 938 radio, and have held workshops for the University of Toronto – Victoria College, the Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Center, and the Asian Wander Women.

In 2023, my podcast (The Side Hustle Club; now known as The Thought Leader Club), was the recipient of the 2023 Golden Crane Award (from the Asian American Podcasters Association).

All of this was possible because I started to build a body of work online.

That is why, today, they trust me to make my own decisions. This is in stark contrast to just a few years ago, when they saw me as a quitter, someone who half-asses things, and someone who was wasting opportunities and resources.

Their views on me have shifted completely not only because I made a decision and took full responsibility for it, but also because they can *see* what I’ve been building.

Fast forward to when I decided to quit my PhD for personal reasons and to pursue entrepreneurship full time, they fully backed this decision. 

This is why I deeply believe that learning to become prolific and consistent at building your body of work on just 0-2 hours is a skill that I believe all of us should have in 2024.

The thing is, you already KNOW that content is non-negotiable to your 1-3 year dreams. This is the most powerful tool and asset for the lifestyle, business, and career you’re building towards.

You also see your peers leveraging social media and content creation to advance their business and/or career. You know that in order to not lag behind, it is time to get your head and heart in the content game as well.

Most importantly, you have a deep, innate desire to be recognized and to be known for something. Last but not least, you genuinely enjoy being a consumer AND a creator of content.

This is exactly what I help you do inside my signature program, The Thought Leader Club. 

Building a body of work and becoming known for something is an ongoing journey, and there’s no better time than now to start.

Building thought leadership is a journey

As we start to wrap up for today, I want to share one final thought about thought leadership for solopreneurs. It’s something I will continue to reiterate over and over again because I really believe in the significance of this message.

Ultimately, building thought leadership is a journey. It’s not a 4 month or 6 month thing or even a one year thing. It’s an actual journey that continues on and on until you fully see yourself as a thought leader.

So I hope that you will say yes to your journey and say yes to committing to that journey, today. Start putting in the reps to build your body of work, today and start setting yourself up for your 1-3 years so that they become inevitable.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.

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Additional Resources

THE AUDIT: BUILD A DIFFERENTIATED & TIMELESS BODY OF WORK

– Audit 9 different parts of your body of work

– Identify the specific areas you can improve on right away to set your business apart from the rest

– Book a free 60-minute AUDIT CALL with Cheryl to create an actionable plan together

Get the free audit: https://cheryllau.com/audit 

Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy

Episode 161. When You Don’t Feel Qualified in Your Business: 3 Mindset Shifts to Rebuild Confidence

Episode 157. Thought Leadership is NOT Just for the Top 1%: The Mindset & Identity You Need to Build Your Personal Brand & Business

Episode 144. The Audacity to Believe and Sparkle: The First Step to Becoming a Successful Content Creator

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