How to Build Your Thought Leadership Writing Muscles
Writing does more than create material for your website and marketing campaigns. What you write gives people a window to how you think and work and helps you sharpen your focus as a thought leader. It gives you a platform to showcase client successes and your unique point of view. If you can write consistently, you’ll build your reputation and brand and attract more ideal clients.
All of my clients are capable writers, but writing is not their primary job. They consult, train, or advise others. They spend their days in working meetings, developing plans and programs, or speaking at industry events. Most don’t have a formal writing habit. And they all have the desire to reach more people through their work. The challenge is always time. Whether it’s the outline for a big talk, an edgy opinion piece, or a quick blog post on industry news, it’s tough to get to writing when more pressing issues come up every day.
With so many of us working from home through the coronavirus pandemic, the time that used to be spent commuting can shift to something else. It’s the perfect time to build your writing muscles and create a more consistent writing habit.
3 Tips for Writing Thought Leadership Content
Great writing takes time and headspace. It requires you to change tempo and think about your distinct point of view. Working as a thought partner with my clients, we’ve found some ways to accelerate the process and get more writing across the finish line.
#1 Identify Your Topic and Your Platform
Before you sit down to write, find some open, free-form time to generate ideas -- sometimes this is easier with a thought partner.
Personal: What excites you? What do you feel passionate about? What do you think people misunderstand?
Business: What is important for your organization right now? What do you want people to know about you? What do you offer that others can’t? What do you want to be known for?
The intersection of these two sets of questions is the sweet spot. Having a good, somewhat objective partner in this process will help you generate more ideas – and help you narrow the field to your best ideas.
Make a list of topics that interest you the most, then prioritize them. Or at least pick one you’ll tackle first. Especially if you are working with a larger team, create a more formal editorial calendar or a pipeline list of topics and themes. What’s important is getting something captured that you can go back to.
Source: Quickstep
Also think about the format that appeals most to you. Does a pithy social media campaign sound better to you than a long-form article? While over time you will want to produce variety, when you are starting out, go where your energy is.
#2 Tune In and Pay Attention
Once you have a focus or idea for something you want to create, you can make a good amount of headway shaping your piece before you get to actual writing. Once you tune yourself to a topic you want to write about, you’ll start to notice things related to your idea. It’s kind of like when you need a new car and you notice models you like everywhere you go.
As you start talking about your idea to colleagues, asking questions, reading articles and starting to shape ideas around your topic, figure out a way to capture your ideas.
You can use a tool like Evernote, text yourself, leave a voice message or record thoughts into your phone. Or just go back to a doc on your computer that you keep adding to. Jot down ideas you want to include, articles or books you should scan as sources, quotes from people you talk to. Anything that will give you a jumping-off point.
Many of my clients will send me quick notes with ideas, then we will get on a call to talk through them in more detail. They talk through the gem of an idea. I listen, ask questions, and take notes. This advances them past the “blank piece of paper” phase that can be so hard to break through.
Tricks of the Trade from Writers
Source: Quickstep
#3 Block the Time
How will you make time to write?
First, go back to your motivation and remind yourself why it’s important to you and your business. Then decide how much time is a reasonable amount to spend each week, and start to carve out the time. Time blocking your writing time is one way to honor and enforce writing as part of your schedule and help you focus. It takes discipline, but it’s very productive once you create the habit.
Writing takes a specific kind of energy and focus, and when it comes to producing your best writing everyone is different. My client Doug and I share a preference for writing first thing in the morning, before starting calls or other work. When Doug is writing something, he protects that early morning window. My friend Beatrice does her best writing late into the night. Some people need longer blocks of time to write, while others do best with a shorter, focused hour or so.
Experiment to see what time and structure works best for you. And let us know if you would like to learn more about any of these tips.