7 Tips to Become a Channel Thought Leader
Today, thought leadership has three legs: writing, social and speaking.
January 14, 2019
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To become an in-demand speaker, you need to show you have something to say. The lowest bar to influencer entry is writing a regular blog or column.
There are pros and cons of blogging on your own or your company site versus contributing regularly to a media or community site.
Company blog: There’s likely no need for media training or legal review, as there may be if you wish to write for a site like Channel Partners or Channel Futures. Blogging builds your profile within the business and may earn you speaking opportunities at company-sponsored events. You can cross post on social sites — LinkedIn is popular with the channel community. And you will make friends with your internal or external marketing team, never a bad thing.
Media or community site: You may need permission from management, and content published as editorial must be unique, exclusive to the site you’re offering it to and nonpromotional. On the plus side, you will often reach a wider audience than you could otherwise. Here are tips for being published at Channel Partners or Channel Futures.
Often, your company’s marketing or PR teams will be open to working with you to get your writing featured on a media site. It’s a win-win for you and the company, so ask.
Baristas and bartenders take care of their regular customers. Site editors and readers are the same — they reward influencers who come back regularly with new ideas. If you want a following, you need to share content regularly.
Think beyond text blogs. Don’t discount the idea of producing a video or asking to be a guest on a podcast. If you have the talent to do a deep technical dive or can score an interview with an executive or celebrity, go for it.
Here’s a step-by-step guide:
1. Make sure your employer is OK with the idea.
2. Scout out which site or sites you want to write for. Be realistic.
3. Study your intended site and its audience. See if they accept guest posts from people in your role by reading their “About” page or perusing the bylines.
4. Find the email of the community editor, managing editor or editor-in-chief. If the site does not publish contact emails, it’s better to go through LinkedIn or Twitter DMs than to send an inquiry into the black hole of a general email box.
5. Send a great pitch email and abstract with an introduction. Think TOAST:
Targeted (relevant to the audience).
Original (in relation to the site, unique, don’t send a pitch about MRR because they’ve published 12 such blogs this month, unless you have something new to add).
Appropriate and actionable (be controversial but not a jerk. Give usable advice.).
Scoped (don’t try to boil the ocean. If you can’t get a thought across in 1,000 words, split it into two blogs.).
Timely (tie-ins to news, trends or world events are good for SEO).
6. Be open to feedback and willing to adjust the abstract, and don’t take rejection personally. Sometimes editors are just too busy to take on a new contributor. Ask if you can circle back in a month or two.
7. Be dependable. If you promise copy Friday, send it Friday, and not at 11:59 p.m. Pacific.
8. Make the content as clean as you can possibly get it. There’s no shame in using Grammerly or asking an English major friend to do an edit.
9. Include your byline as you want it to appear, a professional headshot, a bio and all your social tags — without having to be asked.
10. Watch your email for requests for clarification, and respond promptly.
11. Socialize the crap out of the content.
12. Rinse, repeat. The content monster is always hungry.
As with speaking, there are enough books on succeeding with social media to keep you occupied through 2019. But experts agree on a few key points for the two most-used social sites for professional content:
Twitter: Work to engage people; don’t just randomly retweet. Be thoughtful with your account name and profile — these are key to whether people decide to follow you. Your bio should be on-point, and your handle branded and appropriate. Use the 280 characters. Ask questions. Tag influencers in your community. Here are 21 useful best practices.
LinkedIn: To build influencer cred, share your content as articles, participate in groups and make sure your profile picture, summary, contact info and URLs are up to date. Here are 10 tips to optimize your profile.
As Bova advises, take every opportunity you find to speak. Offer to do a lunch-and-learn for colleagues on your area of expertise. Get out and talk to customers. Make a series of informational videos — having a video of yourself speaking posted online will demonstrate that you have a decent stage presence.
Ask your new friends in marketing and PR for a heads up when your company is paying to sponsor an event, such as for a distributor, peer supplier or a show like the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, and ask to be the designated speaker. Make any payment your employer makes work for you.
Consider joining speakers’ groups like Innovation Women – a bureau for women who wish to speak – or Toastmasters.
As to shortcuts, having a C-level or evangelist title at a cool company helps cheat the system. An editor will take notice of content from or a potential speaker who is a CEO/founder, or who has an evangelist title at a hot Silicon Valley company, or who works for a household brand. If you are the CTO for Starbucks, producers will be chasing you to speak. Keep this in mind when negotiating title or finding your next gig.
A speaking-session abstract should follow the same rules as a pitch for a contributed column. Do your homework: Who is the event audience? What are the tracks? What hasn’t been covered in the past few shows that should be? What will make someone on the fence about attending decide to get on a plane?
Also be aware that whether an event will cover T&E for speakers varies. You’ll get a free pass and can request a +1. But beyond that, if you need costs covered to be able to speak, state that upfront.
A thought-leadership connection must deliver value to both parties. At the end of the day, look on a relationship with a producer/editor as you would with a valued business partner.
McBain adds a few more tips:
Less is more: Don’t try to convey your entire message on charts. Use PowerPoints as a pleasing, picture heavy, visual guide through the talk, and focus on interesting anecdotes and stories.
Focus on your strengths: If you are a funny person, make it funny. If you are great with puns and word associations, do that. If you are a serious analytical person, stay in that zone. Most speakers underperform when they move too far from their center of gravity.
A thought-leadership connection must deliver value to both parties. At the end of the day, look on a relationship with a producer/editor as you would with a valued business partner.
McBain adds a few more tips:
Less is more: Don’t try to convey your entire message on charts. Use PowerPoints as a pleasing, picture heavy, visual guide through the talk, and focus on interesting anecdotes and stories.
Focus on your strengths: If you are a funny person, make it funny. If you are great with puns and word associations, do that. If you are a serious analytical person, stay in that zone. Most speakers underperform when they move too far from their center of gravity.
What separates a channel-industry influencer from just another person with an opinion? Influencers have personal brands that they back up with knowledge, thought-provoking and timely insights, and a little sass. They are active in their fields, using social media – especially Twitter and LinkedIn – to share and comment on articles, videos, announcements and news in a way that demonstrates their commitment to the community. They’re not “knowledge hoarders,” but understand that sharing good ideas tends to give rise to even better ideas.
And they’re not shy about speaking up, whether at a small gathering of customers or colleagues or in front of a large audience.
Forrester’s Jay McBain
It’s that last step to influencer gold status – public speaking – that trips many tech people up. While there are volumes written about how to address crowds effectively, three of the very best orators in the IT and channel space have remarkably similar advice.
“It is all about how you make people feel,” says Jay McBain, principal analyst, global channels for Forrester. “Attendees will forget almost everything you say and show – and even you – but a great speaker leaves people with a feeling that they will never forget. So much time is spent preparing the perfect words and charts without focusing on the storytelling and emotional component that will have a lasting impact.”
Tiffani Bova, global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, and author of “Growth IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices That Will Make or Break Your Business,” stresses the criticality of finding your own voice and style.
As part of our “In Focus” series, we feature a series of galleries designed to help partners grow their businesses in 2019 and beyond. |
Salesforce’s Tiffani Bova
“Don’t try to be someone else on stage,” Bova says. And, never turn down an opportunity to get some practice.
“To become a better speaker, you have to actually speak more,” she says. “You don’t need a big stage or even a stage at all. Run a meeting, present to your team, your company, the PTA — whatever, just start doing it. Work out the nerves and get better each time. And remember: People can earn more money, but they can’t get time back. If they are going to sit for a half hour or an hour to hear you speak, you have to make it valuable. This is where preparation pays off. If you don’t care enough to prepare, why should they care enough to listen?”
Andi Mann, chief technology advocate at Splunk and a regular speaker at IT conferences, adds that when it comes to slide decks, less is more.
Splunk’s Andi Mann
“More visuals, less text,” says Mann. “Your slides are to support the talk track. Build the content you need to help you make the point, then kill all the text. Put it in the notes if you need it, but keep the slides visual.”
And don’t be held back by fear.
“Be comfortable being nervous,” says Mann. “You will be nervous. Branson is still nervous in front of a crowd. I am. Every speaker I talk to is. Even with years of experience. It’s OK, you’re not an imposter. You are just human.”
Of course, McBain, Bova and Mann didn’t get onto the big stage circuit by accident. They built their brands step by step, and so can you. Today, thought leadership has three legs: writing, social and speaking. Click through our slide show above for seven tips on becoming a channel thought leader.
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