How to Become a Thought Leader: The 9 Step Strategies that Work

Like you, many experts badly want to become a thought leader today because thought leadership gives you the chance to contribute to your industry, challenge the status quo and even gain recognition, regardless of when or how you started.

As recognized thought leaders, a number of formerly unknown voices, now have the chance to sit on decision making table in different boardrooms, become entrepreneurs and even industry influencers.

Personally, thought leadership has given me and my team the chance to work with some leading brands, consult for and sit on the board of businesses earning very decent figures, because of the respect they have for our ideas and results.

As someone who’s benefited from the impact of thought leadership; over the years, I’ve picked up some lessons that’s shaped my journey. And in the following paragraphs, I’ll be sharing some of these lessons with you.

Set a Goal

What do you want to achieve? Like what exactly is driving your pursuit to become a thought leader?

Is it because you want to advance in your career? Build a well recognized brand or get your expertise in front of people that matter?

Whatever is driving you or whatever it is you want to achieve with your thought leadership journey, you have to identify it at this point and get yourself ready to dig right into it.

Taking this step is very crucial because it gives you an idea on what to lookout for and some guidelines on how you can plan your way to actually achieve this.

So, if your thought leadership goal is to build a brand that consults for leading companies then your strategy will be slightly different from someone whose goal is to earn a political position as a leader of thought.

From shaping your brand story telling, to influencing your voice as a content creator, your thought leadership goals will affect everything you do as a thought leader

That’s why, it is important you set out your goals clearly from the onset. Understand where the journey is going and with this you’ll be able to craft a strategic plan that will get you on track.

Get a Niche

It is crucial to identify the industry you want to build your thought leadership within.

In fact, this is one of the first steps you need to take before you become a thought leader.

This is important. A lot of aspiring thought leaders do not start out this way. In fact, many people only get to stumble on thought leadership in their different industries. But, that’s not the best way to get started.

To get started and grow fast, you have to select a specific niche and then give it your best shot, right in that niche.

As soon as this is sorted, you can then work on following the steps below to become a thought leader in your chosen niche…

Create a Plan

Successful thought leadership takes work, effort and a clear action plan. Unfortunately, a lot of aspiring thought leaders start out with zero plans and an inconsistent system.

Back then as a beginner, I didn’t have a plan. There was no clear pathway on how to build the we wanted to build. We stumbled through it until we realized we needed a plan. And then we got one.

To become a thought leader successfully; as a beginner, you need a well thought out plan that will direct your daily activities.

Okay let’s say you might not necessarily need to have it all structured out from the onset but, you need something to guide you. This is crucial.

You need something you can always look up to, to measure your success and possibly find the next step to your next goal.

Since you’ve already identified your goal(s) as a thought leader, in step two above, now its time to create a plan or let’s call it the strategy you’ll work with.

Here’s how to get started:

Let’s say your goal is to become a thought leader as a start up coach in X industry in Y number of years…

Your plan should capture the things you will do in between the period leading up to your targeted time line.

Before setting up your plan, understudy the industry or your niche to know what’s working.

Work on identifying the important metrics that matter in your niche. For example, the kind of content your audience prefers, the best posting hours, the platform they go to, etc.

With a workable knowledge of this metrics and a fair understanding of what other established thought leaders are doing, you can easily evolve a strategic plan that will work for your brand.

With your plan you can then go ahead to set up things like posting schedules, content posting calendar etc. This will give you something to work with.

Build your Brand

Since you now know your goal and you’ve got a plan in place, your next step to become a thought leader is to build your brand.

Do this carefully. Building a brand can be both tasking and simple. So, you want to keep things as straight forward as possible.

One thing you must have in mind is that authenticity is what will define you as a thought leader. So, regardless of how much you admire other thought leaders in your niche; to become an authentic thought leader yourself, you have to bring in your personality to the fore.

As a beginner, you may not have a clear idea about what you want as a brand but the goal you want to achieve as a thought leader and your niche should be able to shape your brand aspirations.

So, if your goal is to become a thought leader as a startup coach for example, set up your brand messaging in a way that clearly aligns with this.

Also, keep in mind that other elements of branding like your vision, mission and even your brand voice should reflect the needs and appeal to the aspirations of your target audience.

As a beginner it might be difficult to get this right from the onset. But to make things easy, you can check out other leading brands in your niche, find out what they are doing and use this to shape your own personal brand.

In any case, do not copy or lose your authenticity in the process of evolving a unique identity for your brand.

Create an Online Presence

After your brand has successfully been created, the next thing is to create an online presence for your brand if you do not have one already.

To get started on this, choose a social media platform or a handful of platforms that have a large number of your target audience. Don’t bother about being on all the social media platforms. Use the ones that give you the best result.

Ensure that your social media handles have the same names as your brand name, with the correct photographs, tags and other identity you want to be associated with your brand.

Beyond social media, you need a website to look more professional and authentic. By all means, get your website here. Make it stand out in a way that reflects your brand.

Create Content

Content is the hallmark of thought leadership. The ideas and value wrapped around your content are what makes you known, listened to and accorded your well deserved respect.

You cannot become a thought leader without creating and sharing content but you can create content without becoming a thought leader.

There’s a mindset about content creation for thought leadership. So as a thought leader, you have to be very intentional about content creation and storytelling.

Whatever content you create must be in line with your thought leadership goals. They should be built around giving you the leverage to spread your ideas, expertise, experience and become well known.

To get it right with content marketing as a thought leader, you have to create a content strategy that is in line with your goals and niche.

Work on creating high quality content that will add value to your audience. Put in time to research, create and share meaningful content that will distinguish you from the crowd.

Regardless of your industry, add your own narrative to the content in a way that your content gets you distinguished from the crowd.

Share your Unique Ideas

One of the ways to successfully become a thought leader is to evolve ideas that are unique to you, spread and share them with your audience.

So you want to learn new ways of doing things. Innovate novel ideas, spice up your content with unique strategies and share it with your audience.

These are part of the hallmark of thought leadership.

Look up exciting conversations in your niche, add your own perspective to it. That’s what your audience wants.

You don’t need to have a popular opinion all the time. Your role as a thought leader is to be able to evolve new thoughts, ideas and opinion that will expand the conversation in your niche. That’s what sets you apart.

Outside this, you’re just like any other person, doing the same old thing.

PS: Do not worry about holding a minority opinion. Get popular topics from leading brands in your niche and spin your own narrative around it.

Don’t be scared to create controversy if necessary, provided it harmlessly serves your own good.

Make your Voice Heard

The truth is, if you’re not being heard then your opinion doesn’t count. So, if you’re planning to become a thought leader, you don’t just have to be heard, your opinion has to count.

That is why you have to get yourself out there, so you can get heard.

Like I mentioned earlier, to be noticed, you need an opinion that is distinguished. But beyond that you will need a platform where you can be heard.

For platforms, you can start with your social media platforms, your blogs, website, etc. But that’s not where it should stop.

Real thought leaders have their opinion heard and respected in many places beyond their personal platform. That’s why you’ll have to share your ideas on other platforms. This is very important.

Create an outreach plan that will spread your ideas. Using strategies like guest blogging, collaboration, SEO etc. can fit in really well right here.

As a beginner it might be a bit difficult to get platforms outside your own, where you can share your ideas.

But the more you get established, create great content, the better your chances of getting published on bigger platforms.

Also your ability to network with other influencers matters a lot. Be helpful to other thought leaders and aspiring thought leaders in your niche. Build connections.

With time, you can leverage such connections to advance your goals.

Write books. Ebooks, case studies and share ideas in your own distinct voice. As much as possible, pitch key media persons with your ideas, for PR purposes.

Create Consistency

Go back to the plan you wrote down, earlier in step three.

One of the reasons I asked you to write out a plan is because you have to create some kind of synchronization and consistency in your post and other activities.

There’s nothing as bad as showing up inconsistently, once in a while or whenever you feel like it.

Unfortunately, a lot of aspiring thought leaders are still doing this. They create content and show up only when they feel like it.

Truth is, inconsistency does not make sense. It won’t help you to become a thought leader.

For you to create an impression on the minds of your audience, you have to show up again and again, consistently.

Of course creating consistency can be difficult from the get go. Especially for beginners without a team to work with.

As a thought leader, at some point, I personally had to face the issue of inconsistency when it comes to creating and posting content, during my early days.

Overtime, i found that most times one of the factors responsible for the inconsistency was because I had more than a handful to deal with at the time. And I was not well coordinated. I learned from this.

To create a more consistent posting timeline for your audience, get better organized. Also, be more adept at time management so that you can have adequate time to create better content.

With some automated tools and marketing resources around, you can schedule or automate some of your tasks. With this, you will save up time for other activities.

For example, instead of showing up to post on your social media all the time, activities like social media posting and others can be scheduled with some of these apps while you focus on other things.

In everything you do, you have to create consistency. It helps a lot. From creating a consistent brand across your platforms, to showing up consistently and posting on regular days, you will gradually increase your KLT.

Final Words

With the right strategy and effort, it’s possible to become a thought leader from scratch but following the steps outlined in this guide will get your journey to thought leadership, even faster.

So, in summary, to really become a thought leader, you want to choose a niche, identify your goal(s), create a brand and a platform then get started on this journey.

But the question is, do you really plan to become a thought leader? If you do, then the ball is now in your court. And you can start with these steps right here. Or reach out to us here, to guide you on how to get started.

Now, it’s over to you! What’s been your biggest challenge on your journey to becoming a thought leader? Drop your comments below.