Get Slightly Famous

Get Slightly Famous Online Thought Leadership featured in Investor's Business Daily

I was recently quoted in an article by Investor's Business Daily (along with networking guru Ivan Misner). I commented about strategies for online visibility, particularly the strategies I've long advocated about online thought leadership -- a short excerpt from the article follows:

Networking Will Go Where No One's Business Card's Ever Gone Before BY MOREY STETTNER 12/29/2006

One time-honored business practice that will really morph in 2007 is networking....

"Another tactic to bolster connections is through reverse networking. Instead of contacting others to pitch yourself, let them come to you and judge for themselves whether they want to contact you.

An emerging strategy to bring others to you involves "demonstrating your credibility and expertise online," said Steven Van Yoder, author of "Get Slightly Famous."

He foresees more networkers employing this three-step process in the years ahead:

• Identify Web sites that serve your target audience. If you want to network with insurance brokers, for example, get familiar with Web sites for agents' professional associations and trade groups.

• Write informative articles and get them posted on those Web sites. Your articles, which should be no longer than 750 words, must provide valuable content. Avoid a promotional tone. You don't want those articles to "read like advertisements," Van Yoder said.

• Dangle an incentive for readers to contact you. In your bio at the end of the article, offer something of value that people can receive free if they get in touch with you. For instance, provide a link to your Web site so that readers can download a free booklet or resource guide.

"Entice people to drop into your world where you offer them a solution," said Van Yoder, owner of Get the Word Out Communications, an online marketing firm in San Francisco."

Real World Success Story

Spencer, Fane, Britt & Browne, a Kansas City law firm, works with professional building contractors. In 2005, they committed to positioning their firm as thought leaders to Midwest construction industries. The result was Midwest Construction Law, a comprehensive online resource that targets regional construction companies.

Midwest Construction Law has positioned Spencer, Fane, Britt & Browne as a thought leader and resource to Midewest construction firms. The web site provides a one-stop shop for information relevant to contractors, including articles, educational teleseminars, a blog, and a free e-booklet called How to Use Your Law Firm to Get The Most from Your Construction Business.

“Our thought leadership efforts have given us credibility and notoriety in our target market,” David Seitter, an attorney and construction expert with Spencer Fane Britt & Browne in Kansas City, MO. “When I hand my card to a prospect with the tagline, ‘If you want more information about the construction industry, visit www.midwestconstructionlaw.com,’ it really piques their interest because they see that we are committed to the construction industry.”

Midwest Construction Law begins a conversation with prospects considering a legal firm. But instead of functioning like a typical law firm web site that focuses on selling the firm, Midwest Construction Law attracts prospects by providing useful information, and by providing value and instead of merely asking for business.

“More people are researching business issues online,” says Seitter. “They don’t want to be sold, but welcome online resources that help them make informed decisions. Our site has generated three great speaking engagements at construction conferences, and up to eighty participants regularly take part in our teleseminars.”

Spencer, Fane, Britt & Browne’s commitment to educate construction firms not only generates goodwill, it turns prospects into clients. “Because we provide so much useful information, prospects spend time on our site educating themselves. It’s only natural that some companies contact us and say, ‘I see you do succession planning. Can I talk to you about it?”

Make Thought Leadership a Strategic Imperative

Thought leadership is the result of a very deliberate effort to position an organization as a voice within their target market that people pay attention to and respect. It results in a broad acknowledgment that your company, a real sense, leads the thinking in your industry.

“Thought leadership doesn’t happen by accident,” says Antony Bell, Managing Partner of The Bell Group and author of Great Leadership: What It Is and What It Takes In a Complex World. “It requires work and a commitment to look at your company from the perspective of the outside world. Generating a company-wide, ongoing effort to thought leadership is the best way to ensure that it happens.”

Thought leadership marketing is most effective when becomes part of the essential fabric of a company. For larger organizations, thought leadership marketing succeeds when a CEO or executive creates the conditions within the organization that foster thought leadership at all levels of a company.

“Thought leadership starts by taking a good look at your target market and identifying the point on the horizon where your want to take your organization,” says Bell. “Thought leaders determine opportunities to position themselves within their target market based on their key competitive advantages.”

Most importantly, thought leadership achieves full potential when it is seen as a top-down initiative that welcomes participation from eveyone inside a company. “When thought leadership achieves widespread ownership inside a company, there is greater likelihood that the company will generate the internal momentum critical to keep thought leadership moving into the marketplace,” says Bell.

Tips for a Successful Niche Community (Pt. 4 of a 4-part series)

Define your niche and do your market research. As a Slightly Famous entrepreneur, you already know your marketplace. Go further and identify what your prospects want and need and provide that in the form of a niche community.

A clear and realistic set of community goals.
Absolutely paramount is knowing what your community "is," how you intend it to function, and what the overall goals are. Write yourself a candid "Mission Statement" and make careful note of the expectations you have of both the community as a whole and of individual participants.

Actively recruit new members.
Use a registration process, even for free events, which allows you to capture contact information to add to database. Use short feedback forms to solicit input about events, with “Please contact me about” with your calls to action at the bottom.

Provide more value than expected.
Your niche community will thrive if you deliver a dynamic, benefit-oriented experience for participants.
Be continuously creative and keep the community fun and interesting.

Take responsibility for the leadership and outcome.
Most communities fail due to lack of leadership. Create an organized system and plan events well ahead of time. Determine a realistic game plan for managing your community and stick to it.

Involve participants.
Niche communities prosper when participants “buy in” and feel a sense of connection and ownership over the community. Be responsive to participant issues and requests
Ask members to get involved, form committees, or volunteer to greet, host, set-up, break-down events activities as needed.

Don’t do it alone.
If your group is successful, you may find that your time in short supply. When practical, outsource administrative functions to free you to work on your business and serve your clients.

Form strategic alliances.
Your niche community is an ideal platform to pursue joint ventures and cross-promotions with related businesses. Look for ways to collaborate with other like-minded professionals and network with complementary organizations.

Actively promote your niche community.
Use a website, newsletter, schedule of future programs/events, e-mail distribution list, and conference calls to communicate with participants and prospects and keep them engaged. Alert relevant media about community events.

Online Thought Leadership = Great PR

Few things can have greater impact on your personal brand and your organization's brand recognition than developing and sharing your expertise with the world. Whether you call it becoming a thought leader or a public expert, or, as marketing guru Steven Yoder's book espouses, Getting Slightly Famous, you should do it. Trust me. I'm living proof that it works.

This is the introduction from an article by Inc Magazine columnist Keith Ferrazzi. I discovered it only after a collegue brought it to my attention. It's obviously exciting when a major publication mentions my business in such a praisworthy, prominent way. It delivers tremendous credibility that adds to my overall reputation in my marketplace.

How did I get such a prominent mention/endorsement by an Inc columnist? Is this a fluke? A stroke of luck? No way!

This happens to me all the time. And it's no accident.

Today, for instance, I was asked to submit a short article for Home Business Magazine about the role of online thought leadership in becoming a more successful salesperson. Last weekend, I was asked to speak at the Institute of Management Consultants about Thought Leadership Marketing, which enabled me to address over 100 potential prospects.

How did this happen? Why do these opportunities come to me without my asking?

Because I make a committment to put my expertise out there consistently, in many forms, and it attracts high-credibility opportunities that put me in front of my buying public. These opportunities come to me -- I don't have to chase them down -- and they can come to you, too.

It starts by regularly and widely promoting your expertise, in the form of media interviews, articles, blog entries, teleseminars and other thought leadership marketing strategies. You, too, can practice online thought leadership, and watch the PR opportunites come in. Ferrazzi sums it up nicely:

This simple formula -- 1) Build expertise, 2) Get people to recognize it -- is one I have used throughout my career.

Read the entire article at Inc.com