Originally posted in the Colorado Women’s Bar Association, The 1891 Blog.
Gaining recognition as a thought leader within your area of practice is undoubtedly a game changer for your brand and your law firm as a whole. Among business decision-makers, 92% report that thought leadership increased their respect for an organization and 58% awarded business to a company because of their thought leadership.
The challenge, then, is figuring out how to rise to the occasion and establish yourself as a thought leader. These five strategies will help you not only build your own brand as a lawyer, but also encourage critical thinking and discussion of issues within your practice area.
Create Innovative Content
To serve as a thought leader, you must be visible and trusted. That means getting in front of more people with consistent, high-quality content. Posting on your own website is one aspect of this, but you need to go further. Writing guest blogs for trusted sites within your area of practice helps you reach those outside your current sphere of influence. You can also get involved with B2B platforms and networking sites, such as LinkedIn.
For many busy lawyers, the level of content creation required to reach this level of leadership is too time-consuming to do alone. Outsourcing most of the workflow allows you to retain control over the topic and direction of your content while focusing on other tasks or billable work.
Extend Your Reach Through Speaking and Publications
Being trusted by your target audience is a positive outcome of thought leadership, but you must also be trustworthy among those in your industry. Devote some time to looking through your current memberships and finding ways to be of service to their organization through speaking and publishing. You would be surprised at how many publications are seeking submissions and event managers that are looking for engaging speakers. Putting yourself in front of your peers and also your target audience to connect with them in this regard will elevate your status. It will also allow you to build a stronger network to share your ideas, inspiration, and leadership.
Learn From Other Thought Leaders
No one is so advanced and educated in their field that they cannot learn from others. By connecting with others within the legal industry, your niche, or your practice area, you can develop an understanding of how they engage with their audience and how they have reached their status. Take this time to offer thoughtful comments on their content, pose questions, and lay the groundwork for professional collaboration. Through these efforts, you can slowly earn a place in the thought leadership community in your niche and hone your own strategies.
Develop Online Education Programs
Those who teach naturally become thought leaders. As they provide their students with the tools and knowledge they need to move forward in their careers, they become an invaluable source of information for those students. As those students go out into the world and blossom, they are living examples of their instructor’s knowledge and expertise. Through platforms like Kajabi and YouTube, lawyers can easily develop online education programs that provide resources for other legal professionals and people that consume legal services. These connections can lead to client referrals, publishing opportunities, and professional references.
Read the full article at the Colorado Women’s Bar Association, The 1891 Blog.
