To build your profile and grow your legal practice, learn how to be a thought leader. This slideshow explains what thought leadership is, what it isn't, outlines the skills required, and offers a 4-step process for getting started.
7. Why Thought Leadership?
• Build your client base.
• Position yourself as an expert
• Innovate in your service offerings.
• Achieve greater career fulfilment
10. Thought Leadership Defined
• The term was first coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman,
editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy+Business
11. Thought Leadership Defined
• The term was first coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman,
editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy+Business
• Thought leaders are recognised by peers, customers and
industry experts as deeply understanding the business
they are in, the needs of their customers, and the broader
marketplace in which they operate
12. Thought Leadership Defined
• The term was first coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman,
editor-in-chief of the magazine, Strategy+Business
• Thought leaders are recognised by peers, customers and
industry experts as deeply understanding the business
they are in, the needs of their customers, and the broader
marketplace in which they operate
• Thought leaders have a distinctively original idea,
a unique point of view or an insight
13. “Thought leadership centers on earning trust and
credibility. Thought leaders get noticed by offering
something different—information, insights, and ideas, for
instance.
Thought leadership positions you and your company as
an industry authority and resource and trusted advisor
by establishing your reputation as a generous contributor
to your industry.”
14. In professional services
• A thought leader is a subject-matter expert
who has unique insights or perspectives to
share in his or her area of expertise.
• Their ideas are packaged in an accessible and
attractive format, and may change the way
people think, and sometimes even the future
direction of an industry or community.
35. 4 steps to thought
leadership
• Have a strategy
• Find something interesting to say
• Say it in an interesting way
• Leverage your work
36. Your Thought Leadership Plan
Leverage your efforts
Get your work in front of
more people
Say it in an interesting way
Expand with models,
metaphors and content
Find something interesting to
say
Create your content
Have a strategy
How do you want to be
positioned?
37. • “To combat fungibility in a
commoditized market, law firms
must move from being repositories
of existing legal knowledge that are
able to answer today’s legal
questions to dynamic institutions
focused on what tomorrow’s
pressing legal issues will be.” -
Bridge Consulting International LLP (2009)
38. • “Firms that excel in the
development of innovative service
offerings are better positioned to
differentiate themselves in the
market for new clients as well as to
strengthen and expand existing
client relationships through
improved responsiveness to
emerging needs.” - Bridge Consulting
International LLP (2009)
39. Take control of
your career
Do more of the work you enjoy most
Location determines the value of real estate - harbour glimpse\nDoesn’t have to be the best, biggest house\nLocation makes it unique\nBUT real estate can’t be shifted\n\n
You CAN shift the position that you occupy in the minds of your target market\nMental real estate - what would make someone choose you?\nGet yourself into their selection set - be considered in the window of opportunity\n\n
The world is much more competitive. Other firms are out to get your clients.\nThe economy increases competition\nIncreasingly seen as commodity services\nHow can small firms compete with larger ones? Be cheaper or different?\n\n
The opportunity to build your profile and grow your practice through TL\n
What it is, what it isn’t\nWhy you would want to do it\nHow to get started with it\n
The difference between being an expert and being perceived as one.\nThe risk of being low-profile - overlooked\nAddress clients’ changing needs\n\n\n
The exponential power of positioning\nCuts years off the process\nIt all works together - drives and supports word of mouth\nDifference between advertising and value-based marketing\n
Now a generic term.\nThought Leaders is Australian, based in Sydney\nCurriculum to teach the skills\n\n
Now a generic term.\nThought Leaders is Australian, based in Sydney\nCurriculum to teach the skills\n\n
Now a generic term.\nThought Leaders is Australian, based in Sydney\nCurriculum to teach the skills\n\n
\nFor lawyers, this is how to build profile and your client base.\n
Change the way people think\nChallenge the status quo and be a catalyst for change\nHow they publish their thinking\n
These are the people that firms would like to clone.\nTacit knowledge - they are not aware of what they are really doing.\n“You’ve either got it or you haven’t” - can learn the skills\n
Reporting on a whole new Act\nAndrew Bolt, Philip Adams\nOpinions on everything makes you a “W”\n\n
Incorporates all these things.\nHow does it help you to market yourself and your firm?\n
The window of opportunity - be positioned\nGet into their selection set\nReferrals - check you out online\nConfidence to refer you\n
Can observe you anonymously\nFollow you until there is a window of opportunity\nSelection set\n\n
Potential purchasers can assess you in terms of both technical skill and personality.\nThey can do so anonymously.\nConversations with clients - Bernard Salt\n
People are busier and swamped with information and messages - cut through.\nPeople don’t have time to deal with complicated material.\nBusiness books are short and punchy\n
Email - click and delete.\nPlenty of lawyers are writing and presenting = doesn’t make them thought leaders\nHow does TL take this to the next level?\n\n\n
TL helps you get attention from the right people\n\n
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You are much more than your legal knowledge.\nYour unique background makes you unique - successes and failures.\nDon’t be bland. Work in your strengths.\nPeople often cannot see their own.\nBe proud of who you are.\n
Mine and catalogue your knowledge and experience.\nDeclarations and distinctions - show Ideas book\nModels and metaphors\nStuff to illustrate.\nMany different perspectives on the one topic.\n
Join the dots; recognize trends.\nConnect what our clients do to what we do.\nBetter conversations with clients.\nLook at how you can help them deal with what’s coming.\n
What do you do? \n“I’m a lawyer” - a conversation stopper.\nNine ways of answering the question.\n
Tell, show or ask; Lawyers usually just tell.\nGet people engaged in their thinking.\nSpeaking, writing, training, mentoring, coaching, facilitating.\n
What you say can be misinterpreted by people. Mindsets. \nUnderstand the different ways people learn and process information.\nGet more of the people, more of the time.\nNine different ways for engaging people.\nVAK, numeric, linguistic etc. Speak their language.\n
Selling your idea.\nSelling your services - not just in a bid situation.\nPersonal selling - YOU have to sell you.\n
Blocks to execution.\nDon’t know what to do\nDon’t know how to do it\nSomeone or something is standing in the way.\n
Why they need you and your services\nProducing on-going value.\nDeveloping a client “following”,\n
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DISCUSSION\nWhat stage are you at? Need a web site?\nWhat’s the conversation you need to have in your firm?\n
People don’t know what they need until you offer it.\nBeware short-termism - spending all our time on immediate problems. Anticipate future needs.\n\n\n
Makes you more valuable to the clients.\nSmall firms are more agile than larger ones\n
Career mentoring - I see disappointed lawyers\nStuck in a field, generalists, not commanding a price premium\nYou end up doing the work that comes in the door, regardless of what it is.\nTake control of your career. Develop what is unique in you.\n\n
Why should it not be you?\nAudacious, arrogant - claiming what is not yours\n
Don’t play small - Think big - Be a thought leader\n
