Thought leadership should be fun, fast, and fearless. You tap into excitement about new ideas and advocate for something better. That’s the mindset behind The Idea Sled. Projects glide forward gracefully. It’s the momentum of commitment. This newsletter shows you how.
Planning for thought leadership often requires attentive pre-planning and stakeholder engagement. While overall marketing planning and budgeting usually happen towards the end of November, marketing leaders should begin gaining traction on thoughtful leadership plans as early as September.
NB: These normative timelines vary based on organizational cultures, planning processes, and fiscal calendars. But I’ve observed the general concept still applies. Companies that don’t start a calendar year with early thought leadership wins tend to see several months elapse without publishing anything. Without pre-planning, they start a new year several months rather than a few weeks behind.
What you do now—in September or October of 2024—will determine what you can accomplish with thought leadership in 2025.
Engage With Thought Leaders
Now is the perfect time to reach out to thought leaders who have contributed ideas to thought leadership in the past two years. Remind them of the impact they’ve made, share some specific successes, and invite them to help craft what’s next for 2025. Set up time on their calendars for a short (20–30 minute) call to discuss how their thinking has evolved.
During that meeting, you should ask:
- How have your ideas about [past topic(s)] changed since we last worked together?
- Which trends have emerged or matured since our last project(s)?
- What have clients been asking you recently?
- What are your goals and priorities for 2025?
- How can we make it easier for you to be a thought leader? (e.g., process improvements, support)
To prepare for these meetings, you should also research topics and emerging trends. This preparation helps you ask better questions. It also reinforces trust and goodwill.
In conversations with lapsed thought leaders, you should also emphasize questions about how to add more value, be more efficient, and minimize the time and effort thought leaders need to expend. In other words, win them back!
Align with Business Leadership
You should align with C-level and other business leaders. The right mix depends on your organization’s size and structure. These meetings should also be less than 30 minutes. Let business leaders show that your thought leadership aligns with their goals for 2025. These conversations can help you tap into their vision and ensure that your strategy resonates at the highest level.
- What do you see as your main objectives in 2025? (e.g., client growth, new markets and segments, product enhancements and launches)
- Would you be interested in contributing to thought leadership directly?
- How could we make it as easy as possible for you to participate? (e.g., resources, support, and training/coaching)
- Who are the high-potential thought leaders on your team?
In addition, clarify the context of your conversation. Explain that this discussion is preliminary, with more concrete plans to follow. Finally, be vocal in your assessment of the thought leadership strengths and weaknesses under their remit.
Build Your Resources
To bring your thought leadership to life, you’ll need a capable production team behind you. Take stock of what you have now—writers, designers, and editors—and see where you might need more support to ensure your ideas make a real impact. Some of these resources already exist within your marketing team. Others may come from external service providers.
In the lead-up to creating thought leadership plans for 2025, marketing teams should ask:
- Do we have internal writers who can handle complex or technical topics with thought leaders?
- If we use external writers, can they engage credibly with our thought leaders from discovery to final draft?
- How can we produce infographics to complement our assets?
- How can we produce any videos or animations?
- Do we have an efficient process for legal or compliance reviews?
If you need support from external providers, it makes sense to build shortlists, begin discussions on scope and priorities, and set expectations starting in September. This pre-work helps you with budgeting and also helps prepare Statements of Work (SOWs) and plans so they are ready to go the moment you need them.
Map Out the Territory
Good thought leadership stands out from the pack by offering insights that surpass conventional wisdom. It doesn’t make sense to publish things anybody else could say or to repeat your competitors’ insights. Before you develop a strategy or lay out an editorial calendar for 2025, you should take a close look at what your competition is talking about and which channels they are using.
NB: Sometimes, your biggest competition in market share will be different from your biggest competition in mindshare. Market competitors may focus on other topics or simply struggle with thought leadership. Companies outside your competitive set may have stronger thought leadership. Even if they seem to set the tone on a topic, there’s an opportunity to view it from a fresh angle.
As you examine share of voice on potential targets, you should consider the following:
- What are our competitors saying about ‘our’ topics?
- What other companies/voices have published about our topics?
- What are competitors not talking about?
- What gives us a differentiated perspective? (e.g., client relationships, products and services, experience and track record)
This effort is preliminary—you should plan to conduct further comprehensive research and rigorous analysis when you get into the details of strategy work later. However, just as it’s easier to go on a hike if you’ve seen a map beforehand, you’ll move faster and more reliably if you know the basic lay of the land.
The Earlier, the Better
Time has a funny way of flying by ever faster in the fourth quarter of a year. You have a lot to juggle between wrapping up current projects and planning for the next, there’s barely time to breathe. That’s why starting early is key. Pre-planning sets you up for success by giving you lead time to get meetings on calendars and creating a solid foundation for heavier concrete planning.
The need for these preliminary tasks doesn’t just disappear if you procrastinate. You’re going to have to do them at some point. Avoiding them ends up delaying your start and limits outcomes before the new year even begins.
There’s also a hidden wisdom in pre-planning. Thought leadership takes trust—trust from thought leaders and trust in your production resources. The work that you do to engage with them now builds relationships. Those relationships will pay off generously as you get started with 2025 initiatives.
As September continues, you have a choice—start mindfully and gracefully in January or expect cold sweats and frustrated stakeholders in April or May.
Three Grace Notes
“Even though we know we crave and require meaningful human connection to thrive, we keep making decisions that lead to our being and feeling more alone. Connection makes our lives meaningful; a meaningful life makes us want to connect and share it with others.” —Corey Keyes, Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down
“Step 1: Wonder at something. Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you. You should wonder at the things nobody else is wondering about. If everybody’s wondering about apples, go wonder about oranges. The more open you are about sharing your passions, the closer people will feel to your work. Artists aren’t magicians. There’s no penalty for revealing your secrets.” —Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
“The patterns of reciprocity by which mosses bind together a forest community offer us a vision of what could be. They take only the little that they need and give back in abundance.” —
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
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