White Paper: The Power of Positioning

This month's White Paper is The Power of Positioning by Matt Church; A chapter from the first book in the Ideas Series; Original perspectives on life and business by leading thinkers.


We are not what we do – but we do need to be able to answer the question, “What do you do?” in a way that makes us better known and creates more business. As a card-carrying introvert, I find the prospect of commercial networking about as attractive as having root canal treatment. Still, I recognise that without customers, clients and attendees at my events, my business would dry up quicker than a well in the outback.

Download your complimentary copy today, after answering some brief questions.

Enjoy!

M@

Quotes can set your thinking free

If you are trying to unpack your Intellectual Property you can use quotes to start your thinking. The book 'First Things First' by Dr Stephen Covey is built from a quote. Now, I don't know Dr Covey but I reckon the Goethe quote came before the book.

The quote goes...
Seldom should we let the urgent take the place of the important but oftentimes we do. Goethe, 17th Century German Philosopher

He (Dr Covey) then went on to build the now famous 'First Things First' priority management system.

Here is how you do it:
Identify a contextual word that encompasses some of your thinking. A work like leverage or success or leadership.
Go to Google and type in 'quotes on...' (your contextual word). eg. quotes on leverage
Start to create points (A,B) distinctions from these quotes.
Then, build out the rest of your Pink Sheet or IP Snapshots from these distinctions.

You can discover the full 'pink sheet' process in my latest book, Thought Leaders, or by attending the MDE Program.

Unblock your thinking by being stimulated through quotes.

M@

Cool hunting, life hacking and totally ‘sick’ jargon.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge an extremely significant celebration today - the International Women's Day Centenary 2011.

According to the official website, this day began with 'Suffragettes' campaigning for women's right to vote (the word 'Suffragette' is derived from the word 'suffrage' meaning the right to vote).

Although there are many areas on the globe still to be reached, it is a perfect example of a ripple effect.

With the use of such an impactful word (suffrage), it led me to think about the creation of specific phrases. For example...

Cool hunting is a term coined in the early 1990's, referring to a new breed of marketing professionals called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends.

Life hacking is figuring out ways to make life easier or more effective. Probably the most famous life hacker is Tim Ferris of 4-hour work week fame.

I know, for those who know me, I am so last week with this vernacular. I guess what I wanted to point out though was the idea that as Thought Leaders you need to be setting the language. When you define the language - that is Thought Leadership.

What words can you adopt or even adapt that define your ideas and express them in a way that is memorable and able to be repeated?

I am off to do some cool hunting... (does that make me less cool to declare it?)

M@

Lumpy Billings

A classic problem for most service based consultants is the challenge of getting work when you are consumed delivering work. A project ends, a client adjusts their plans and you're left holding the empty bag. You think it's ok and you're priced well but after a few years you wonder why it's not working. The answer is actually one you know.

You are an expert but you are not an authority.
You need to become a thought leader.

Your ideas are valuable if they are relevant.
Your ideas are even more valuable if they are thorough.

If you can then make them elegant and unique, you are ready to rock and roll.

This way you can start to truly leverage your positioning and get free of the lumpy billing syndrome.

Drop me an email and we can discuss how you move from subject matter expert to industry authority.

M@

Develop an Idea Bank

World class presenters develop a bank of thoughts or ideas that can be accessed in a moment and can be instantly customised to any audience or situation. For this to work though, you need to capture the essence of an idea quickly and have a system for depositing ideas, reviewing them and withdrawing them as required.

I believe that you should never speak about something unless you have given it considerable thought. Even when faced with a spontaneous request to speak, you can still speak from a well considered space, assuming you have done some prep work on your Idea Bank.

An Idea Bank is constantly being enhanced, re-worked and customised. It is a well organised, chunked down catalogue of mini presentations. The IP snapshot system we teach in the Million Dollar Expert Program allows for different people to deliver the same message and adjust it for their style and environment.

Seven benefits of an Idea Bank

1. You can speedily prepare a great speech
2. You are free to customise content whilst preparing
3. The message can be picked up and effectively delivered by others
4. You don't have to rehearse speeches word perfect
5. You demonstrate your knowledge impressively when asked to speak
6. A team of people can present the same message and adjust the content to suit their personal style
7. You can extend or shorten the speech duration as required

In short, it's about creating a set of key ideas and messages that you draw upon at different times and present in a different sequence depending on the outcome you are looking to achieve. The ideas in your bank are all valued differently, some are big ideas, some lesser. A presentation may need a few smaller ideas to make the big ones work.

The more ideas you have in your bank the better, but only if you can access them easily.

M@

Is it plagiarism?

Thought leaders are required to know first what is being said by other leading thought leaders.

Reading others books and blogs is a great way to do this.

Often you might quote what one author said in your speech or advice session.

For example, in one of Seth Godins books, Meatball Sundae, he quotes something like 6 (I stopped counting) other current books. What he does however (and we can model this), is interpret the message into a new context, not just regurgitate what some one else could read.

Here is a plan for borrowing ideas...

1. Quote the source
2. Add to the message somehow using your expertise
3. Encourage people to go to the source and tell them how and why
4. Twitter and Facebook about the source and encourage your followers to follow them
5. Advance the sources business, positioning or prestige anyway you can

Respecting and acknowledging the source is a key to growing who you are as a thought leader, it forces you to go beyond "Thought Repeatership".

It's also good Karma.

Be meticulous when nicking someone else's ideas. The web is transparent!

Check out the Creative Commons Licence to explore the attribution rights framework. Some great thinking around the sharing of ideas.

M@

Everything is connected

Within my 2-day Million Dollar Expert Immersion program, one of the ideas we work on is how to make your ideas exist on various levels.

The simple explanation of this is to become aware of the big, medium and small layers of thought. For example:

Small: Steak

Medium: Food

Big: Energy

Once you embrace this concept and build your ideas in this way, you get several benefits. Some include:

Moving disagreements from the content of ‘you said, I said'

Linking seemingly unrelated ideas

Appealing to more people, more of the time

And the list goes on….

Start cataloguing your intellectual property and deepening it by adding layers of logic and exploring the themes that bind it together.

M@

Deliver your ideas in any format

As thought leaders, we love to deliver ideas in any format. I believe that the ability to share your ideas should not be limited by how you deliver it. There are three broad personal communication modes.

1. Tell

2. Show

3. Ask

Knowing which part of your ideas to share, in which mode, is critical to excellent thought leadership.

Tell me a story.

When keynote speaking, be sure to focus on CONTENT. For example, Stories that inspire, tell the relevance of your ideas, unpack a 3-step process, share facts and statistics.

Show me an idea.

When training or running a workshop, be sure to focus on the CONCEPT. For example, Draw a model, make a point, present a case study of how the idea has worked already for someone else.

Ask me a question.

When coaching people, be sure to focus on CONTEXT. For example, Ask questions that elicit content, then draw a model.

Doing this ensures you can use your great ideas again and again - in many different formats.

M@

The shoulders of giants

Thought leaders need to come up with original ideas. Their intellectual property needs to bring new thinking to a field of expertise.

Isaac Newton is quoted as saying 'If I have seen further than others it's because I have stood on the shoulders of giants'.

When is an idea yours and when is it not?

I use a simple technique when rethinking established ideas. As I come across an idea in a book or blog, I ask myself not 'What are they saying?' but rather 'What do I think about that?'

Often my thinking will come from a 'yes AND' or a 'yes BUT'.

It's in the contributions and contradictions to existing ideas that you can add your piece to an existing thought.

M@

Disruptive Ideas

Happy New Year!

As we launch into a new decade we get to ask some big questions...

For me, the big questions are those around the idea of foresight.... so, what will stay the same and what will change over this decade?

For me, the best business question is; ‘what idea, technology or innovation will disrupt your business this decade?

If TV manufacturers knew the 'flat' screen would be the norm, would they have stayed on the 'fat' screens for so long?

Will local video stores survive or will digital downloads kill them? Are they already dead but don't know it yet?

Web page designers are being replaced by cloud solutions. Check out http://www.squarespace.com to get an idea of what I mean.

Imagine your primary way of making money and existing were to disappear. What would you then do? Alan Kay who invented the pretty way we look at computers (GUI) said that 'The only way to predict the future is to invent it!'

So, keep an eye on the future and adapt what you do so you are relevant and positioned on the leading edge of change.

M@