Where and how deep are you willing to plant your flag of authority?
What is the secret of attracting high-paying clients?
“Being relentlessly helpful,” says Stephen Woessner, co-author of the book Sell With Authority.
Woessner stresses that research gives you something helpful to say.
But where and how deep are you willing to plant your flag of authority? I caught up with Woessner in May at the Build A Better Agency Summit in Chicago to get his thoughts on selling with authority.
Woessner runs a company called Predictive ROI. For more than 25 years he has worked with agencies, consultants and coaches to fill their sales pipelines with right-fit clients. He is an advocate of creating what he terms “cornerstone content” to create a depth of knowledge and point of view that cannot be easily replicated.
“When you think about how best to create your cornerstone content, don't think about what’s trendy,” says Woessner. “Instead, focus on what will provide the most value to your audience and what aligns best with the gifts and talents of you and your team.”
To market like a thought leader, it all comes down to research and then talking or typing.
“Maybe you talk it out by hosting a podcast and interviewing people, or consistently creating a valuable YouTube video series to share with your audience,” says Woessner. “Perhaps you want to build your reputation by being a keynote speaker.”
Or maybe writing is more your thing.
“You could write a book, post a valuable blog series, create a quarterly eBook series that goes deep into your niche, or perhaps an annual research series that knits back into the eBooks,” Woessner points out.
Woessner says creating cornerstone content is where many strategic consultants, business coaches and marketing agencies miss the mark when it comes to content strategy.
“We get overwhelmed at the thought of having to create content on a consistent basis, so we err on the side of deciding to make a lot of little pieces of content as opposed to starting with something substantial,” says Woessner. “For some reason, writing 50 blog posts seems less daunting than one research project a year or writing a book every couple of years.”
Woessner says you build a dependable sales pipeline with thought leadership research, a strategy I typically call proprietary client research, which I learned from the writings of David Maister of the Harvard Business School.
“Clients today are bombarded with articles, speeches and seminars that contain generalities and do not distinguish the author or presenter from any of his or her competent competitors,” said former Harvard Business School professor David Maister.
In his classic book Managing The Professional Service Firm, Maister explained how to prove that you have something to offer that your competitors do not.
By conducting proprietary research, you obtain special information that prospective clients can’t find elsewhere. Typically, this is about how they compare to their peers. The foundation of selling with authority is to give away cornerstone content through talking and typing, which demonstrates to the client niche you target that you have the expertise to help them.
“Creating cornerstone content is the key to stepping into your rightful position of being a thought leader, someone with authority,” states Woessner.
