3 Ways a Book Can Position You as a Thought Leader

Being a thought leader is a kind of nebulous concept. It’s difficult to prove, and that proof is all-important when it comes to leveraging your status.

How can you demonstrate that you are a thought leader?

• By having a high social media follower count, in a time when the rise of bots and paid followers brings those numbers into disrepute?
• By being asked to lead panel talks and seminars, something you can’t control?
• By founding or leading one revolutionary company? What if people think you can’t lead outside of that niche?
• By being interviewed — something that if you have to ask for it, you don’t deserve?

It’s so tough to prove your position as a thought leader through these methods, with many of them being chicken and egg situations.

Writing a book is a concrete and demonstrable way to position yourself as a thought leader, especially if that book contains challenging concepts, future predictions, and new ways of doing business.

Whether you write it yourself or hire a ghostwriter, putting your name on the front cover will show everyone that you have the credentials — and those talks, business opportunities, and invitations to appear will come flowing afterward.

Show your expertise

The first thing you should do in your book is to show your expertise.

In business books, we normally start with an introduction that explains your background in brief. This setup allows the reader to understand that you are an expert on the subject matter with plenty of qualifying experience.

That’s not the only place where we can showcase your experience. In each chapter, there is room to include anecdotes and examples from your own life, even when writing a purely business-based book. You can turn your memories into case studies which help to get each point across whilst also emphasising the fact that you have lived through all of this.

When you demonstrate that you know how to fix common problems, have good tips for getting ahead, and understand the different ways things can turn out, you’re showcasing your expertise. That makes you a leader in your niche.

Give a new angle

The second step towards positioning yourself as a thought leader is to put a new angle on what you are saying.

Let’s take a book for entrepreneurs as an example. There are lots of books aimed at entrepreneurs out there and many of them say the same things.

If you are able to take your experience and apply it to new lessons, to advice people have never heard before, it can make that book so much more exciting.

This doesn’t mean you have to totally reinvent the wheel. You could include chapters on emerging technologies and how entrepreneurs can use them. You can look at a common problem or event from a different angle — for example, how a failure might actually be a success. If you have a way to flip the script or add something new to the discussion, you show that you are ahead of the curve.

If you’re an expert in your niche who is ahead of the curve, then what does that make you?

Yep, that’s right — a thought leader.

Apply it to wider life

The third step and the most effective way to really establish yourself as a thought leader is to apply the lesson you are teaching to wider life.

This is the trickiest part, but when done right, it can really cement your position as a thought leader in a wider niche. You may not want to run the risk of being pigeonholed as being relevant only in your specific industry.

(If that is what you want, that’s absolutely fine, too! You don’t have to apply this step to your book).

Demonstrating that you can take a rule or lesson from your industry and apply it to wider life shows that you are a thought leader in a more general sense — someone who has something to say about a lot of things. That puts you in a great position for future opportunities wherever they may arise.

Let’s take a real-world example of how this can be done. You may have read or at least heard of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, the author sets out with a business example: the shoes made by Hush Puppies went from being only for hipsters to one of the most popular brands in the country.

He then takes a new angle on this: comparing that business phenomenon to the fall of crime in a particular New York neighbourhood, and drawing the comparison that a certain tipping point had to be reached in both cases. This was a new way of looking at things that had not been explored in a mainstream fashion before his book.

Finally, Gladwell shows you how to apply this to wider life by breaking down exactly what happened and why, what it means, and how you might use this to make change happen. He does this in a number of different ways throughout the book, but you can see that the formula is the same.

When that book was published and became a hit, everyone knew it: Malcolm Gladwell is a thought leader.

If you’re ready to cement your position now and put yourself in the best possible spot for future opportunities, it’s a good time to talk about writing a book. Whether you want someone to ghostwrite it for you or a coach to guide you along the way, I’m here whenever you want to get in touch. Just drop me a message and we’ll create a plan!