PR firms, too often, are letting their executive clients down. They are encouraging them to stroll out in the public square unclothed and unprepared. Result? Their clients are exposed as leaders without vision.

While that may sound harsh, one has to remember that today's marketplace has become a harsh realm.

Market influencers -- media, analysts, consultants -- seem to have decreasing tolerance for bland or boring companies. Nor are they are interested in a particular company's story or product capabilities.

Instead, they are interested in vision. They want to hear from thought leaders -- people like Cisco's John Chambers, IBM's Sam Palmisano, or SalesForce.com's Mark Benioff -- where the market is headed and what opportunities remain to be seized. The perspectives of such leaders are valued because they are provocative, surprising, credible, clear and relevant. They offer a new and engaging view of the future -- a lighted path that represents significant promise. 

But there is clearly room for lesser known leaders -- whose firms occupy a specific market segment -- to present their own powerful visions.

If their perspectives are compelling enough, they are likely to influence the influencers -- encouraging them to write, speak, tweet and all the rest to carry these viral perspectives forward. Market influencers are looking for an illuminating story that will inspire and guide their own audiences, constituents, subscribers, followers and clients. That's what a thought leader can provide.

It's the third party credibility of influencers that executive leaders should be seeking. That credibility enhances brand reputation, builds trust and strengthens confidence among prospects and customers.  

Just consider the example of Gartner. This billion-dollar analyst and research firm has enormous influence over the IT decision-making efforts of Fortune 1000 companies. These companies look to Gartner for guidance and recommendations that will help them invest wisely in technology.

But what does Gartner look for in the IT suppliers it recommends? Two things: Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute.  These are the central criteria in Gartner's famed Magic Quadrant, a model designed to rank and rate IT vendors. It is designed to categorize them as leaders, challengers, visionaries or niche players.  

What every supplier wants, of course, is to be recognized as a leader. They want to move to the upper right hand corner of the quadrant where they are most likely to make short lists and close deals. But, as you will notice, one must be perceived as having a complete vision to get there. 

That's where my problem with today's PR firms comes in.

It seems to me that too few have the strengths, expertise and capabilities necessary to help their clients develop and articulate a powerful vision.  They are unable to create the thought leadership assets -- the presentations, articles, position papers, case studies, research studies, books -- that will engage influencers and, ultimately, buyers.

What PR firms do tend to be very good at is outreach and relationship building. They can reach out to the influencers -- the media, analysts, associations, consultants, academics and others who shape the climate of market opinion. They can set up a media tour and put their clients in front of influential people. In some cases, they can even launch social networking initiatives, capitalizing on their ability to  reach out and cultivate connections. 

But there's no use in constantly trying to strike up a conversation when you have nothing of value to add to it. That's where I think PR firms are letting their clients down. They are not enabling them to become true thought leaders and trusted authorities.

Instead, PR representatives are merely repeating the same old tired lines and pitches -- sometimes, albeit, in new "social media" venues. And when they put their clients in front of influencers and audiences with nothing provocative to say, they are exposing them to the risk of reputational decline.  

It's time to do better. My simple equation is this: Reach x Relevance = Results. The problem with PR today is that there is far too much (out)reach and far too little relevance. Thought leaders are recognized as presenting relevant and compelling perspectives. They not only engage in conversations, they have something relevant to offer -- often sparking conversations without being in the room.

Quite simply, we don't need more naked emperors. We need more thought leaders.

***

What do you think? Have I gone too far this time? Or am I on the mark? Please feel free to jump into this (hopefully provocative) conversation.

"The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model.”

We are all enabled and constrained by our mental models. They shape our thinking and influence our actions. While these explanatory models generally give us greater clarity, sometimes they merely hold us back.

One such model, I would argue, is the conventional sales funnel. In the realm of B2B marketing and sales today, it is the defining model – the one that guides strategy, planning , organization, action and investment.  

Unfortunately, it seems to misdirect our energies and misallocate our resources. The sales  funnel, as I see it, also erects needless barriers in our organizations, contributing to excessive compartmentalization and value destroying silos. 

Strong charges I suppose. But hear me out.

B2B research from CSO Insights suggests that the sales-marketing alignment issue has not been addressed. The firm found in a recent study of 298 companies that four in five marketing groups see no problem with the quality of their leads. Seven in ten marketing organizations feel the same way about lead quantity. However, more than half (51%) of all sales executives disagree and argue that marketing must improve.

But what if the alignment problem didn’t end there? What if the larger problem is that marketing and sales are going to market with an incomplete offering – one that falls short of customer expectations and objectives? What if the alignment problem also encompasses the services organization?

Thomas Lah, author of the forthcoming book Bridging the Services Chasm, argues that “the traditional product sale is an artifact of the past. Enterprise customers want to consume business improvement—not product features.”

As he sees it, “the internal service organizations within the product company are the fundamental source for enabling product adoption that leads to business impact. Whether the service organization delivers a service directly or enables service partners, it must own the identification and development of offerings that unlock product potential.”  

With this in mind, it may make sense to begin thinking beyond the conventional sales funnel and sales cycle. Instead of concentrating on the sales cycle, we should now be focusing on what I’m calling the customer success cycle.

Our mental model, in other words, needs to shift so we see the full continuum of a customer’s experience and organize ourselves around the achievement of customer success. Not only will this ultimately drive more sales, it will enable us to more productively leverage our talent and resources.

Right now, we are extraordinarily focused on the transaction itself – where money changes hands. That’s where the conventional funnel ends. If I’m in sales or marketing and my mental model is the standard funnel, then it implies that’s where my responsibility ends. 

Some folks over the years have argued that we should think in terms of the “buying cycle” – aligning ourselves with the customer’s decision and purchasing process. They argue that we get too focused on our own needs and issues when we think sales cycle and they offer this as a more empathic alternative. But, again, the problem with this thinking is that our core organizational process seemingly ends when money changes hands.

We need to think more systematically and more expansively.

We should incorporate the actions of the services team into our most critical model as opposed to leaving their role as an afterthought. Services, perhaps, will become more active in the pre-sale process, helping to set the stage for what will occur after implementation. What’s more, we need to recognize the vital roles of sales and marketing professionals in the post-sale period. Our attention must shift from product sales and delivery to customer performance and success. 

Take a company like SAP, the giant provider of enterprise software applications. It has a “value engineering” team whose responsibility is to consult with prospective clients to help them develop a compelling business strategy and business case that fully leverages SAP’s technology solutions. Consultative services precede the sale.

Or consider the case of InfusionSoft, a provider of marketing and e-commerce solutions targeting the small- and mid-sized enterprise market. It blurs the lines between sales and service as sales professionals and reselling partners become business coaches that are responsible for the client’s continuing success and support. Sales professionals remain actively engaged with customers in the post-sales period

We seem to be seeing a blurring of sales and service in the name of achieving greater customer success. Which is particularly important for marketing. Not only is marketing now generating awareness and leads and supporting sales upfront, it now has the opportunity to capture the stories of exceptionally pleased customers over time. These customers become advocates – one of the most vital assets that a marketing team could ever possess.

Which brings us back to the customer success cycle. Inspired by the exceptional work of Brian Massey and Dave Evans, this new model represents a new way to think about our growth challenges and opportunities.

Instead of remaining overly focused on a conventional sales cycle (or buying cycle) that ends with a financial transaction, top companies in the B2B arena are now recognizing they must provide reliable guidance that enables customers to achieve projected results and encourages them to become enthusiastic advocates to others. These companies are, in other words, closing “the guidance gap” - systematically guiding their customers from awareness to advocacy.

Here are the key phases in this newly envisioned cycle (click on graphic to enlarge):

• Awareness. As with traditional branding and marketing efforts, our objective in this phase is to generate attention and awareness. One thing that does appear to be changing is the growing emphasis at this stage on becoming thought leaders and trusted authorities. By staking out a compelling perspective on key issues that are relevant to our prospects, we raise our profile with them, build trust and draw them into our orbit. By leveraging the array of media and new channels now available to us, we reach them in ways that are likely to have the highest impact. Guidance comes in the form of thought leadership as companies provide relevant, provocative and compelling insights that frame the way their target audiences think about existing problems – and help them consider possible solutions.

• Engagement. Having attracted prospects and generated leads in the awareness phase, we now must nurture them with relevant resources and build the confidence necessary to qualify them for a handoff to sales. Sales then proceeds to further diagnose the situation and identify possible solutions that can address the customer’s core problem. In cases where large deal sizes justify it, sales teams may engage in “provocation-based selling,” as Geoffrey Moore and his colleagues call it. Under this approach, they develop a specific provocation – or hypothesized business case for investment – and then approach the prospect with it.  If the upfront preparation is on target, this may prove an excellent way to reach senior decision-makers and accelerate the sales cycle. Guidance in the engagement phase becomes client-specific, honing in on the key concerns of a particular prospect.

• Commitment. Once a business case begins to take form, it’s critical to justify it, refine it and drive consensus among members of the customer’s decision team. Consultative services teams may even be drawn into the process to discuss the process of change that must occur and the scenarios that have played out with other clients. The bottom line is that the cost of the problem must be significant enough in scope and magnitude to justify the challenge of change and address the anxiety around making the investment. By actively guiding the prospect through the implications of competing approaches or merely remaining tied to the status quo, the supplier makes the case for change and investment. Reliable guidance, in other words, is essential if the prospect is to commit to becoming a client.

• Implementation. One of the main hurdles to customer success in many B2B sectors, particularly information technology, is inadequate customer adoption. One recent study of software executives by Neochange and Sandhill.com found that 70% of respondents cited adoption as the key driver of business value. And yet, the same study found almost two-thirds of enterprise buyers achieve less than 49% effective adoption. No customer benefits from shelfware or implementation processes that drag on beyond deadlines and go way over budget. Here’s where many companies have fallen down. They have not provided adequate guidance to ensure their customers have appropriately and fully implemented their solutions. Addressing this hurdle is a key factor in the drive toward customer success.

• Performance. Beyond implementation, companies are under increasing pressure to document and demonstrate the value they have delivered to their clients. This is particularly true in older line B2B sectors where the threat of supplier commoditization may be most vivid. But such expectations may also be moving steadily toward more new economy industries as well. In order to win new clients, companies must be able to prove that they have delivered the results that they claimed in their pre-sales business cases. Guidance, once again, is critical if customers are to reach their objectives. But analytical consulting skills also are necessary in order to quantify and confirm these results.  Suppliers must not only ensure their customers realize performance targets, they must also be able to measure and document those gains. 

• Advocacy. Only when companies are truly delivering are they able to turn their customers into advocates – key influencers in the drive to obtain new business. Indeed, this is the point in the post-sale part of the cycle where marketing must be extremely active. By identifying the success stories of customers and giving them a platform on which to share it, marketers can more easily win the confidence of prospects and, thus, drive marketing and sales performance to new levels. Customers provide guidance and validation to new prospects. Momentum builds.  This is the central message in Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (later popularized in Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm). Suppliers, of course, should have well managed customer reference programs. But it’s important to recognize that it is far less difficult to get a reference if the client has been turned into a hero and real results have been demonstrated. Nothing succeeds, as they say, like success. 

While marketing, sales and service professionals tend to identify with separate and specific roles, perhaps what they all share is a role in guiding the customer to the point of success. They are, in essence, guidance professionals.

When they see themselves as part of this bigger picture – this new mental model – they may even begin to think of themselves (and their roles) differently. This model shouldn’t prevent organizations from drilling down further and elaborating on the different steps necessary to, say, close a sale. But it does provide a more systemic and all-encompassing view of what the enterprise is trying to achieve. Most importantly, it shows that companies and their customers should be focused on achieving the same thing: success.

You remember the term "economic boom," don't you? Well, will the boom ever resume?

We experienced extraordinary demand for new products in the post-war period of the 1950s and 1960s. We bought new cars, televisions and household appliances. Our manufacturing economy  boomed.

But products weren't enough. We needed new services. We needed financial services to tend to our wealth and health care services to tend to our health. So our services economy boomed in the 1970s, 1980s and beyond.

The technology boom of the 1990s represented an impressive fusion of products and services in many cases. It was an era of solutions. Just think of IBM's striking turnaround under Lou Gerstner or GE's long boom under Jack Welch.

But we're not booming anymore. The solutions era -- just like the product and services eras that preceded it -- seems to have flat-lined. So what will drive the next stage of value creation and enable suppliers to generate new growth? 

I believe the answer lies in one simple word: guidance.

You are starting to see intimations of the future all around. Our cars are increasingly loaded with navigational guidance capabilities known as GPS systems. Polar, a fast-growing maker of heart rate monitors for athletes and exercisers, promises "graphic guidance" in its products. Yesterday, I heard a commercial on the radio from Wells Fargo. "The economy has thrown you a few curveballs and you need guidance," it stated in its outreach to small businesses.

How Cisco, SKF and RightNow Technologies have Confronted the Guidance Imperative

Indeed, the promise of reliable guidance is particularly resonant in a business to business context.

Cisco Systems, the $40 billion maker of networking systems and solutions, represents a great example of this point. The company managed to eclipse competitors by thinking of itself not just as a technology company but a “leadership consultancy.” John Chambers, the firm’s CEO, contends that the insights Cisco has gained by networking its own business can now be shared with its clients to help them drive growth. “We’re really talking about business process change,” he says. “And since we have done it for ourselves, we can show others how.”

Over more than a decade, Cisco has actively promoted its ideas about how to leverage networks for business success. It has underwritten ground-breaking research. It has published extensively. And its executives, particularly Chambers, have been visible proponents of network-driven business. Such efforts help to set Cisco apart from other players in the networking sector while opening up new markets -– such as telepresence and web conferencing –- for the company to penetrate. The company’s thought leadership positions it as a respected authority as opposed to simply another vendor.

RightNow Technologies, a hosted CRM solution provider, currently is monitoring contact centers all over the globe in a real-time fashion. Through its ‘SmartSense’ capability, it is able to track a contact center's service levels and customer satisfaction scores, and report back to client executives on a continual basis. The company even has patented algorithms that enable it to track the ‘emotional state’ of the client's customer in the course of an interaction (through an analysis of key words and language structure).

The company can track application usage on a continuous basis, which opens up new, higher-value strategy and business discussions. They can rapidly flag problems, but they also can advise their clients on how to generate business gains. RightNow's Business consultants can address key client executives with a wealth of documented findings and analysis. This leads to highly engaging conversations, opening the door to more extensive, valuable and loyal client relationships.

SKF Group, a $4.4 billion maker and marketer of bearings, seals and lubrication systems has introduced what it calls the "documented solutions program" to sell high-value offerings. Sales engineers now expertly demonstrate the "total cost of ownership" associated with an SKF solution relative to the next best alternatives. As a result, the company has increased cross-selling capabilities, enabling sales people to increase close rates by 50-60%.

What I find particularly intriguing in all these examples is the way that such companies are bulking up their consultative capabilities and establishing what I would call a "guidance premium."

Just as PC manufacturers enhanced the perceived value of their offerings by bringing "Intel Inside," today's B2B powerhouses are building superior value and differentiating themselves by, in a sense, bringing "McKinsey Inside." They now offer impressive guidance. They act as analysts and advisors, coaches and consultants. 

The Consultative Front Office

It's a moment of profound advances and process innovation in the front office. Consider:

• The C-Suite: It's no longer the CEO's job to just tell his or her company's story. Rather, the executive leader is now expected to be the thought leader in chief. What are the key issues of the day? What should one's customers expect to happen next? What's the future look like? What perils lie ahead? How does the company's strategy connect to these trends? John Chambers now offers guidance to a vast ecosystem of enterprises. They are looking to him for guidance into what investments they should be making, what challenges they must overcome and how they should organize their enterprises. 

• Marketing. “The buyer’s cycle has become decoupled from the seller’s,” argue Barry Trailer and Jim Dickie in the Harvard Business Review. As a result, buyers now initiate their buying process on their own. Through Internet-based research, they now have access to white papers, case studies, webinars, web sites and research reports. They also rely on analysts and other third-party advisors. They have become smarter and gained greater negotiating power. Given these patterns, marketing must take the steps necessary to provide thought leadership and decision-driving content early in a decision cycle. They must provide guidance at the outset if they are to engage the prospect, influence the decision making process and position their companies as the suppliers of choice. 

• Sales. The term "consultative sales" first appeared in the 1980s. It isn't new to say that sales people should act like advisors or consultants to their customers. But too many solution sellers have sought to simply listen and respond to a customer's most obvious "pain points" with their own solutions. They haven't diligently diagnosed the full scope and magnitude of their clients' problems or offered strategic guidance, as Jeff Thull contends they should. Nor have they  concentrated on "decision facilitation," as Sharon Drew Morgan contends they should. The game is changing. Now, Geoffrey Moore and his colleagues are advocating "provocation-based selling" approaches that provide "a new angle on the situation" instead of "aligning with a company's prevailing outlook." 

• Service. Once thought of as a necessary evil for product-oriented firms, it's increasingly clear that service represents the most stable and predictable revenue lines. As product companies grow and mature, they tend to recognize the mounting importance of service. Software titans such as SAP and Oracle now have greater service and maintenance revenues than product license revenues. Companies such as GE and IBM are now as well known for their services as products. But to capitalize on these revenue streams (and even identify new product sales opportunities), service professionals must become the eyes and ears of their companies in the post-implementation phase. They must identify new needs and concerns -- and guide their prospects to new levels of performance. For this reason, client coaching and consulting services are increasingly essential to maximize results and identify new possibilities.

This is a decisive moment in business. Companies are now challenged to determine how they will invest to remain profitable and competitive. Will they continue to concentrate on conventional product and service investments and ignore the emerging third category of guidance? If so, they will miss the chance to establish a guidance premium in the marketplace.

Companies that do embrace this vision will have to recognize that not all guidance is directly monetizable. In other words, you may not get to charge your clients -- directly -- for the thought leadership you create -- key insights, resources and content that guide them to a successful decision. You won't be able to bill your clients for the diagnostic and facilitative expertise of your salesforce. However, other types of guidance -- such as consulting, maintenance, training and technical support -- can be sold as distinct offerings. In fact, they represent a clear, predictable revenue source.

But recognize, whether you charge for the guidance you provide or not, it is all contributing to the value you produce and capture in the marketplace. As I see it, guidance is the element that will drive growth and differentiation, particularly in the B2B arena, in the coming years. 

While it may be a long time before another economic boom raises our collective fortunes, enterprises that capitalize on the demand for reliable guidance may be expected to experience their own impressive boomlets. Count on it.

So we are all now confronting the guidance imperative. Reliable guidance is what buyers now want from sellers -- whether or not they can express it. The question is: Who will capitalize on the moment?

How can we have thought leadership without thought leaders? That's the question embedded in recent research published by BlissPR that looks at thought leadership trends in the professional services industry. It seems to me they have uncovered some challenging dilemmas for this industry -- and all other industries engaged in a high stakes sale -- to consider and address.

Having studied 46 management consulting firms, the researchers found that nearly all have "content rich" Web sites. That wasn't a surprise. Consultants, as they note, are "intuitively skilled at developing and articulating trends and insights to their clients."

The surprise was that nearly 30% of the companies failed to clearly identify any thought leaders -- the individuals who articulate those trends and insights. It's as if they are hidden behind a veil.

Of those firms that cited their thought leaders, little effort was made to promote these individuals as authorities in their field. Typically, their biographies were the only added information provided. Only 19% provided links to the thought leader's body of work such as bylined articles or conference presentations. One notable exception: CRA International.

So why would this be?

To some extent, it's just a matter of recognizing best practice in the field. This study, I imagine, helps rectify the problem it identifies by shining a light on it.

But I wonder whether this reveals a tension that exists in all businesses. It's the conflict between stars and systems.

When companies actively promote individuals and turn them into stars, they become somewhat vulnerable. What if that individual leaves? What if that individual must be let go? Hewlett Packard had to deal with this issue when it ousted Carly Fiorina. She had become the IT industry equivalent of Martha Stewart. So who's the present CEO of HP? I'll bet you can't name him -- and that's my point.

In most industries, smart companies recognize they can't become overly tied to stars. They must build brands -- and systems -- that scale.

In the terrific book The Blind Side, Michael Lewis talks about how San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh popularized the "West Coast Offense." The whole point of the approach was to introduce a new system that would transcend the individual stars that were part of it. It worked: Both quarterback Joe Montana and his successor, Steve Young were immensely successful with the approach.

Which isn't to say that stars don't matter. Few would argue that that the West Coast Offense would have worked with just about anyone. Both Montana and Young were immensely gifted athletes.

I would argue that management consulting firms -- and by extension, most firms that offer complex B2B solutions -- must have both stars and systems.

They cannot build scalable and successful businesses unless they establish trustworthy brands and introduce systems that make individual contributors less critical to the success of the enterprise. Should any particular thought leader become "indispensable," the firm's long run potential will be depleted. It won't survive and thrive over time.  

But such firms cannot truly build trust and credibility either unless they demystify themselves and show who's behind the veil. The McKinsey Mystique may have worked for McKinsey very well in the past, but today's clients increasingly want to know who they will be working with and what caliber of thinking those people bring to the party. (Even McKinsey is now actively establishing new "outposts" on the social media frontier that -- I would argue -- will progressively require it to more actively promote its individual thought leaders and give them a distinct voice.)

These days, trust and credibility are built through the sharing of ideas and insights. But it's hard to trust someone you don't know. It's hard to get attached to a brand alone when it's actually people -- live, flesh and blood -- that will determine whether your high stakes project is a success or failure. While I am not arguing that companies "throw open their kimonos," I am arguing that greater transparency matters. The veil must be lifted.

So the question becomes: How does one smartly promote both thought leadership and thought leaders? Answer: It's a balancing act.

Professional services companies (like all companies that offer high stakes, high impact solutions) have to both produce thought leadership and promote their thought leaders if they are to stay in the game -- and ultimately win. 

They achieve balance by balancing their portfolio of thought leaders. They cultivate an array of thought leaders and insightful individuals, not merely one or two stars. They build a content factory that actively and efficiently produces and packages compelling perspectives and promotes the thought leaders behind them.  They encourage -- and incentivize -- their people to more actively communicate their insights and perspectives.

This may prove to be a problem for some executives who are concerned about the mystique of their brands and the vulnerabilities that more active and open communication represent. With this in mind, I would encourage companies to step with caution. But keep stepping forward nevertheless.

Your clients want to know more about the thought leaders behind the thought leadership.

They want to see that your company has clarity of vision and the ability to execute -- and they want to see who's behind the veil. They can't gain trust in your people or your company if the things that matter to them are hidden from sight. 

We've reached a consensus in many spheres of the B2B marketing world that relevant and compelling content is critical to success. But where's the execution? Few firms are actually pulling it off at this point.

One reason firms are struggling is that they don't have a rigorous and efficient process for producing decision-driving content. Content projects -- even white papers -- can put everyone out of sorts. Many issues -- Who owns the budget? Who should participate? When will the edits be completed? How will the creative design be produced? How will we promote the content? -- can delay a project or even run it into the ground.

The big question is: What must happen to turn this flawed and fledgling operation into a high performance content factory? Paul Dunay, a well recognized social media marketer and now global managing director of services marketing at Avaya, believes the vision of a content factory is now within our grasp.

In a recent Leading Lights interview, he provided some insight into his own efforts toward this objective. "At the front end, it looks like a template," he explained. "So don’t hand me just the white paper. Hand me the white paper, hand me the landing page, hand me the blog content, hand me the key words, hand me the email post and then I can get that to the interactive team. The interactive team can formulate it and distribute it in places it needs to be distributed."

In Dunay's description, you begin to get a sense of some of the key factors that must be tackled in this effort. For instance, there must be a division of labor -- specialists that take on special roles as part of united and methodical process. The three key stages of that process, as I see it, are:

• Content Development (Production). In this stage, the actual content is created. The content team conducts the interviews, runs the surveys and tracks down the facts. They operate as reporters, researchers and analysts -- all focused on the key issues of concern to your customers and prospects. They produce the content -- reports, white papers, case studies, interviews, audio recordings, video recordings, email copy, blog copy, articles, speeches, keywords -- and hand it off to the interactive/media team for the next stage.

• Media Development (Packaging). In this stage, the media team takes the content and packages it for easy consumption. Reports and white papers are laid out in an appropriate design format (easy to read online). Images and graphics are added. Audio and video are edited and produced for xCasts. Content is dropped into established templates for distribution. Much care must be given to ensuring the format is appropriately matched to the medium and the audience.

• Audience Development (Presentation). In this stage, content is actively leveraged across channels and media. SEO experts work Google and other search engines, purchasing keywords if appropriate. Social media and public relations specialists take the message to Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn and other forums where particular ideas will be valued. Analyst relations professionals rework their presentation decks for meetings with Gartner and Forrester. Marketers plan direct campaigns. And sales professionals rework their presentation decks and web conferencing interactions.

As you see, the key is ensuring that content assets are rigorously produced and packaged and then actively leveraged. Make it once, present it many times in many formats. This is a crucial point. It helps to justify the case for investing in truly compelling "source content" such as a survey-based executive study. Once you've done the initial research, you can keep repackaging the content for different uses and audiences and media vehicles. The value multiplies.  White papers, eBooks and case studies can be reworked and repackaged as authoritative articles or executive presentations. Blog posts can be repackaged as newsletters.

Obviously, the factory proposed here demands an array of skills and talents. As Dunay suggests, one critical role in the whole process is that of "editorial director." This is the individual responsible for developing the editorial plan and ensuring its executed. While I would look to senior executives and influential advisors to contribute heavily to the thought leadership agenda and determine what issues should be explored, it's the editorial director -- much like the editor in chief at a traditional publication -- who ultimately must ensure the content is produced in a high quality fashion.

Whether we call it a "content factory," a "converged newsroom" or a "thought leadership team" is less consequential than the fact that we move in this direction. We now have an enormous number of ways we can engage and interact with prospects, customers and other stakeholders, but we need to have something relevant and meaningful to contribute to the conversation. By strengthening and streamlining our content operations, we position ourselves as trusted authorities, insightful researchers and providers of reliable guidance. 

Donovan Neale-May is leading the charge for something he calls “authority leadership.” He is the president and managing partner of GlobalFluency, Inc., a global organization of independent marketing and communication firms with 70 offices in over 40 countries. But he is perhaps best recognized as founder and executive director of the Chief Marketing Officer Council, a global affinity network made up of more than 3,000 marketers. He has further driven the concept of “affinity networks” by launching such groups as the BPM Forum and the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE). Neale-May defines peer-based affinity networks as “highly respected membership groups and communities that serve as critical global channels of insight, access and influence.” He argues that such networks represent a powerful way to “enable companies to initiate strategic conversations and knowledge exchange with key stakeholders and purchase influencers.” His work on authority leadership is the means by which he helps clients strengthen their market positioning by staking out a compelling point of view. Britton Manasco interviewed  Neale-May recently for his take on key trends in the B2B marketing arena:

Let me just start by getting your perspective on what you called “authority leadership.” What is it and why is it important?

What we’re doing is, in effect, making an argument for why the solutions and services companies are offering something relevant and valuable – something that addresses pain, vulnerabilities and risks. So the whole point of authority leadership is to have an advocacy position, a point of view. It’s about being able to speak to what is contextually relevant to the customer, not just about your products. For years and years companies focused on their products, functions, features, speeds and feeds.  But nobody has been painting the mural. Nobody has been addressing the key issues, challenges, problems, needs, requirements that truly concern customers. Companies need to directly focus on these issues.
The problem with too many marketers today is they don’t look at the marketplace strategically.  They don’t build platforms that establish credibility. They don’t take the steps necessary to establish authority in the marketplace.

So they aren’t producing relevant and valuable content? They aren’t staking out a compelling point of view?

Exactly. They’re not equipping their executives.  They’re not equipping their sales organization or their channel with meaningful, relevant content.  And it is about content.  It’s about intellectual capital. But most companies today are pretty poor at producing it.

Your content has to be well-packaged.  It has to be shipped and distributed effectively.  Sometimes it’s sliced and diced and presented in different formats so it can be consumed quickly and efficiently.  It may have a very limited shelf life.

Content generation is really what is important today in the marketplace when it comes to complex B2B. That’s because today’s decisions are based on business value propositions, performance requirements and process improvement mandates. They’re not necessarily made from a technical standpoint.  So you’ve got to have an argument for why your solution is going to help increase the efficiency, the effectiveness, the competitiveness or the differentiation of a company.

What then is the payoff for the B2B service or solution provider that embraces this perspective?

It’s essentially a way for B2B marketers to differentiate their enterprises, distinguish themselves, and elevate themselves above the noise.  That’s why they need to embrace authority leadership. 

Tell me more about how you’ve seen the buying environment evolve.

Customers have become more sophisticated and knowledgeable.  They are less reliant on the vendor and the channel partner, and much more focused on peer-to-peer validation and co-innovation.
They’re the experts in many cases, particularly in the world of information technology. The customers are the expert in the application and the delivery and the installation, the implementation.  In many cases, they want to go direct to the software as a service provider because the time to value is quick.  Risk is low and the value proposition is clearer.  They don’t have any cost of ownership issues and implementation. So not only is the technology delivery changing but the sophistication and knowledge of the buyer and the specifier is changing as well. 

The buyer also is very much more empowered to use the Internet to join communities, to get involved with affinity networks and groups to link in. Most of those folks are making buying decisions based on what their peers are saying.  The whole environment has changed because the web has also enabled viral, word-of-mouth and knowledge sharing and knowledge exchange like never before. There’s a place for everybody to go to learn and tire-kick and check and validate and affirm what the solution value is.

So what are smart companies doing that others are not?

There’s a much stronger focus on the business – making a business case for the technology and that’s got to be content-driven.  They aren’t putting out self-serving product stuff.  They’re gathering insights, knowledge. The world today is about conversational marketing. It’s about engaging your customer in a conversation and modifying and adapting and evolving a relationship.  And continuing that conversation so you grow more and more knowledgeable, familiar and tighter and more connected to the customer.

How does the seller remain valuable in a situation where all of one’s prospects are most interested in communicating with their peers? What is the value that the seller has to add? 

Well, the vendors have got to interject themselves into the conversation.  They act as thought leaders when they have something meaningful to say or contribute to the conversation. Thought leadership means you’ve got  followers, right?  So, you’ve got somebody thinking, “Yeah, I want to hear from this guy because he’s actually credible. He’s informed, he’s knowledgeable. He’s got a provocative point of view.  It’s pertinent.  He’s got research and market interaction data to support and make an argument.”

Ultimately, authority leadership marketing predisposes and conditions the market to a need or requirement, elevates or sensitize management to a strategic imperative to adopt or embrace or address a problem that they have in their organization.

How does this drive greater sales?

Maybe it enables you to sell up the food chain and make a stronger business case and make a stronger justification for the investment, and potentially increase the value of the deal, shorten the selling cycle. You’ll have prospects identified who’ve already consumed content that indicates that they are interested in learning more. It’s not just about thought leadership; it’s about demand generation.  I mean, ultimately this is the route to take to actually create a more sales-ready, receptive marketplace.

The way you’re doing it is through the manufacturing of meaningful content and the packaging and the delivery and distribution of that content and the tracking of the consumption of that content. That allows you to you identify specific targets that have already been, shall we say, predisposed or are likely to be predisposed to your selling proposition.

Well, that’s an interesting point you made about sales using it in the field. Are you finding that when this content is available to them they just take it and run with it?  It just seems like there’s a lot of research suggesting that salespeople generally don’t use the content that marketing people create, or they haven’t in the past.

Right, because most of the stuff marketing people create is pitiful. I mean, it’s insipid stuff and it may actually not be created by marketing. It’s more likely to be created by product management or some of the technology folks, engineering. It’s just repackaged and repurposed by marketing.
So the problem with marketing is that they don’t own the customer relationship. They’re not running customer councils or customer communities. They defer that to sales. They’re not intimately engaged with the channel so they don’t have that perspective.   

So that’s the problem we run into with marketing organizations. They tend to be very tactical.  They tend to wait tables in marketing. They're not very good at creating menus and preparing food. So sales people just see them as tactical resources that put together trade shows and events and literature.  Every now and then, they will pop out an ad campaign or hospitality event. They’re not seen as people that set strategic agendas. So that’s the kind of problem that we run into. That’s what I see in the technology sector to a large degree. 

The other problem that you run into is just getting folks to get unified behind advocacy positions and platforms and thought leadership.  A lot of marketers don’t get this because what I’m talking about is multi-level, multi-channel marketing. It’s not about tactics.  It’s about defining strategic advocacy positions or thought leadership platforms that endure and that continue to evolve and grow and multiply. It becomes an ongoing process. But most companies aren’t set up that way.
They are engaged in random acts of marketing.

What is working out there in terms of solid thought leadership?

We’ve had success with programs we’ve done at the BPM Forum and at the CMO Council and at CLOSE, a community we created with Oracle and the Wall Street Journal.

We’ve got 12,000 participants in that community we created from scratch.  We built a thought leadership platform and channel in a community which is self-perpetuating. It’s driven by people contributing content, participating in discussions, posting their views and opinions. So there is sort of user-generated content in that community but a lot of what we’re publishing is thought leadership. We’ve built a channel of inside access and influence, which is important to remember.

It doesn’t have to be a company web site. If you want to build an affinity group, what you’re trying to do is you’re aggregating prospects. You’re aggregating potential buyers and specifiers into a non-threatening environment -- a peer-to-peer network where they’re feeding off of one another. Here also you’re actually shaping the discussion. You’re managing the conversations. You’re introducing the topics. That’s what we do.

What would be some key points of advice that you’d give marketing decision-makers with regard to moving in the right direction to become authoritative, thought leaders?

Well, you’ve got to get more strategically embedded in the marketplace. You’ve got to become the champion, owner and custodian of the customer. Customer engagement is what we’re talking about here. Ultimately, it always starts with customer engagement and customer knowledge, customer insight and customer advocacy.

The more you know about the customer, the more you know about the customer’s market and issues and challenges. The more you know, the more credible you are.  The more you can architect these types of thought leadership programs, the more you can drive conversational marketing campaigns and build communities and channels of inside access and influence.

So, it starts with knowing the market and getting really smart about what’s going on in the marketplace, not just on what you are selling. You have to understand the context, the environment and the strategic issues that matter to prospective clients. It’s surprising how few know this stuff.  Many marketers have very little idea who their customers are.

We are clearly going through a wrenching economic transition. But what comes next? The next economy, as I see it, should be thought of as the guidance economy. 

What do I mean by this?

Our economy has evolved from commodities to products to services over the years. It then split off into different directions. Some spoke of the knowledge economy. Some focused on the experience economy. The rise of new technologies and extraordinary corporate valuations put the focus on a new economy of ill-defined substance for a fleeting period at the turn of the millennium.

The thing that defines an economy, however, is the offering that represents distinction. When the offering is commoditized, companies must rise to the next level of economic sophistication to remain profitable and competitive. 

What seems to be happening right now is that there is a divergence between the considered purchase and the impulse purchase. While there are exceptions, most business-to-business transactions are complex and considered. Most business-to-consumer transactions involve less consideration and shorter decision cycles -- though a consumer's financial, health and real estate decisions, for instance, can be very complex and demanding.

When the decision is complex and demanding, there is a great deal of exploration, learning, comprehension, comparison, analysis and due diligence that must be undertaken before an investment can be confidently made. While little is at stake when you purchase an iPod or a new brand of shampoo, there's much at stake when a family considers its investment in a college education or a company assesses what enterprise software solutions are most appropriate.

Which gets us to the divergence. While it may indeed be the "experience" that represents economic differentiation in the arena of impulse purchases (mostly B2C), something else seems to be happening in the arena of complex, considered, high stakes decisions (mostly B2B).

In this arena, buyers have much at stake. Too often, however, they lack the knowledge, evidence, experience, trust and confidence necessary to invest and commit. More than anything, they are seeking reliable guidance that will give them the confidence to move forward successfully.
No one likes change, of course. But no one likes standing still -- and being left behind -- either.

It is with this in mind that an opportunity emerges for today's sellers, suppliers and solution providers. They can differentiate themselves and drive growth by making consultative guidance a core element of their overall economic offerings.

This is what buyers want most. In decades past, companies were far more insulated from competition by geography, regulation and other barriers to market entry. No more. Global trade, outsourcing and Internet commerce have reconfigured markets -- forcing most enterprises to operate in a far more lean fashion. They no longer have the technical resources to fully assess new opportunities, conduct necessary due diligence or smartly manage the implementation of complex solutions on their own. Nor can they afford to pay top dollar to have independent consultants manage all these tasks either.

And yet, these tasks all must be undertaken if buyers are to invest in high stakes solutions. This is where sellers must get much smarter.

Years ago, companies started to recognize this pattern by embracing such concepts as "solution selling" or "consultative selling." They trained their sales people to sell not just products, but wider offerings that encompassed services as well. Such initiatives, however,  have proven incomplete and disappointing. "The business of selling is not just about matching viable solutions to the customers that require them," argues Jeff Thull, author of Mastering the Complex Sale and other compelling works on the subject. "It's equally about managing the change process the customer will need to go through to implement the solution and achieve the value promised by the solution."

Buyers often felt (with much justification) that solution selling amounted to a new technique for moving the same old stuff on the truck -- supplemented with a service contract of some sort. It had very little to do with performance gains or measurable business value. It was just a repackaging of offers. Products plus services equaled "solutions," according to the new approach.

But this is no longer acceptable. Buyers aren't buying anymore without greater guarantees of value. Sellers, meantime, are unlikely to differentiate themselves and drive profitable sales if they are simply relying on the same old mix of products and services. Such offerings are vulnerable to commoditization or customer indifference. Why? Because customer expectations are rising. 

What seems increasingly clear is that buyers are now demanding far-reaching guidance to ensure they reach promised levels of performance and value. The opportunity, then, is for sellers to provide guidance on several key levels to ensure customers realize this value:

• Value Identification. Sellers must rise to the level of thought leader and trusted authority to help prospective buyers understand the key issues that make change necessary. They guide prospects by clarifying why particular trends, problems and opportunities may be relevant to them. What is happening in the marketplace? What are the consequences of standing still? What are the benefits of change that justify making it? What have other companies experienced as a result of their investments? Finally, enterprises can engage prospects through interactions and conversations that identify whether they may be experiencing the problems outlined in marketing efforts and are vulnerable to the risks that have been posed. 

• Value Demonstration. Sellers must collaborate with their prospects to make a convincing business case for change and investment. It's about showing how the cost of the problem lines up with the value of the solution. Indeed, the case for change often revolves around what Thull calls "the thoroughness of the diagnosis." In the absence of sufficient pain or risk, there is simply no incentive to change. Assuming the magnitude of the problem is great enough to justify action, the business case shows what steps must be taken to realize particular objectives. What is the financial case for change? What disruptions are necessary? How will we get from the present state to the future state? 

• Value Delivery. Once a contract is signed and a commitment made, a seller must guide a prospect through successful implementation of its offering. Too often, purchases turn into shelf-ware -- an outcome that helps no one. Smart sellers recognize that they are unlikely to gain references and reach greater market momentum if their offerings are not actively in use. With this in mind, they provide the guidance -- strategy consulting, training, technical support, implementation and integration services -- necessary to get their clients up and running in a way that is consistent with projections in the business plan.

• Value Assurance. While many sellers walk away at the point of implementation, it's increasingly vital to recognize how important it is to document and assure value. Companies that are thinking in this way engage in efforts to measure and substantiate the value they have promised. (Some even tie some or all of their compensation to demonstrable results.) The key is providing the consulting and research resources necessary to assess ongoing business value in a way that is respected and certified by the client. 

• Value Expansion. Having delivered the value that was projected in the original business plan, the seller is in a great position to drive value expansion. The seller has achieved the credibility necessary to explore this opportunity. This may mean an expansion of the original contract to encompass more problem areas. It may mean a reference and introduction to new departments or lines of business within the same enterprise. It should also include a customer reference that can be used to promote one's business value with new customers. This may include a case study, reference calls, speaking engagements and other activities that encourage the initial customer to help substantiate and diffuse one's credibility throughout the marketplace.    

So these are the key forms of guidance now necessary to complete the "customer success cycle." However, few companies are presently organized to capitalize on this dynamic.

Instead, they are locked in silos marked "sales," "marketing," "service" or "product development." They are prone to truncated actions that fail to move their customers to the next level of value realization. It's largely because they don't consistently think and act as "guidance professionals." That is different, as I will argue in future posts, than performing as marketing, sales, service or product development professionals. 

To provide superior guidance, enterprises engaged in a complex sale must begin to organize around guidance. Indeed, they should cultivate a culture of guidance.

Rather than get locked in silos, they must collaborate and span boundaries to ensure that the case for change is articulated, developed and substantiated over time. The focus on guidance shouldn't stop when a "solution" is implemented. It's critical that companies continue to guide their customers to new levels of performance and measurable success. They will need to gather feedback dynamically and continuously, ensuring new insights are used to enhance new offerings and strengthen new marketing efforts.

The guidance economy is just now beginning to reveal its secrets. Companies that listen closely -- and take action -- are in a position to set themselves apart and drive growth to new levels. In the next economy, guidance will be the new source of differentiation and value creation.