Have you ever opened a favourite magazine or journal only to find an article by or about your biggest competitor? How did that feel? Not too great, I imagine. Especially when you know that your product or service is superior. Some people just seem to get all the media attention. They also tend to get more business than those with lower profiles. In my experience, media attention and increased business go to those people who have established themselves as the experts

Finding the Needle

In this day of information overload, it is harder to find the needle in the ever-increasing haystack. There are many new businesses entering the arena because of redundancy (layoffs) and the attractiveness of becoming an entrepreneur. These new companies just crowd the market, confusing and diluting the messages from serious players. So, even if your company is the best, you need to shout even louder than before to be heard above the din.

Economic drivers and time pressures cause decision makers to react in ways that may not be ideal. For example, instead of taking the time to read the hundreds of emails, direct mail pieces, magazines and other print and online media, they resort to simpler methods of choosing suppliers.

The vast majority of companies I speak to say that they have seen a tremendous fall in the number of proposals they are asked to generate as well as the number of proposals to which they are being asked to respond. It seems no one wants to spend their time putting together lengthy documents and even fewer people want to read those documents. The nature of business decision making is changing, and it is going back to more old-fashioned values.

People do business with people they like and trust. They get to know about those people by meeting them, reading about them and hearing about them. So, a combination of personal relationships, public relations and word of mouth. The people who stand out are those who write and speak like they know what they are talking about, and the PR serves to validate that perception. And it is always a person who is a leader, by the way, not a company. Companies don’t have opinions, companies don’t sign agreements – people do. If the top executives create the right reputation, the company will do well as a result, and clients will be attracted to you.

Therefore you will be doing your clients a favour and saving them time if you stand head and shoulders above the competition, thus eliminating the need for complicated buying processes.

Someone has to be the expert; it might as well be you

If we look at the market as a pie, we must admit that the pie is a bit smaller than it was before. However, companies still want the same size slice of pie they had last year. Well, that’s simply not going to happen. As a result, the rate of business failure is up while a larger number of businesses than ever before fight over the smaller pie. And the table manners are not always pretty!

In every industry, one person is always going to get his or her slice of the pie, and that person is the obvious expert in the industry. The top person (or company) is the one that stands out in a decision maker’s mind because of their reputation. And, as I mentioned above, that reputation is built by good relationships, good PR and positive word of mouth. If you make yourself visible and share influential views on key topics in your industry, you will become known as the go-to person, a highly valued opinion moulder.

Executives cannot afford to be too busy to write or speak in public

I speak to hundreds of executives every year and one comment I hear consistently is that they are very busy running their businesses, and there is no time to do things like writing or speaking. My argument is that there are always some people who make time to distil their thinking and share their wisdom with the market. I call them the ‘REAL thought leaders’. Their willingness to be visible and vocal as well as bold and opinionated gives them an edge over those who have their heads down, buried in the business. It is not always easy to prioritise these kinds of activities, especially when business pressures intensify.

In fact, it is precisely when times are tough that creative approaches are necessary. The payoff can be more significant since so few are willing to do what it takes to be seen and heard.

Real thought leaders find the time to write and speak about their area of expertise. Steve Glowinkowski, PhD is founder and managing director of Glowinkowski International, a firm of management consultants specialising in organisational and leadership development. For 25 years, the company worked at building their reputation as a leader in this area, with an innovative process and framework, and an impressive client list. However, it was the publication of Steve’s book It’s Behaviour, Stupid! – What Really Drives the Performance of Your Organisation that consolidated the many years of work and established Steve and the firm as the go-to people for people development. The timing could not have been more critical, with the launch of the book taking place in the spring of 2009 when consultancy work began to dip dramatically.

One person is standing out above all the others in your industry. It may be you, or it may be the other guy. Being seen as the expert is no longer a luxury since a shrinking market delivers business deals to the obvious experts or the REAL thought leaders only. The good news is that it is easy to set yourself up as that top expert, if you have the resolve and determination to win. I hope you see your name the next time you open your favourite magazine.