“Competing on Thought Leadership” will hit the market in December and January — and it’s already generating lots of buzz among thought leaders themselves. It goes beyond marketing and explains why thought leadership must be an overarching business strategy, and shows what it takes to get there.
November 16, 2021, HOPKINTON, MASS. — More than 30 books on the topic of thought leadership have been published over the past two decades. In December, another will come to market, but this one will be different: It is focused on how companies (not just individuals) can thrive on being recognized as leading experts in their fields. It also explains how to use thought leadership as an overarching business strategy, not just as a marketing strategy.
“Competing on Thought Leadership: How Great B2B Companies Turn Expertise Into Revenue,” by Robert Buday, a pioneer of this fast-growing field, will be released by Ideapress Publishing as an e-book on Dec. 6, and as a print book in January. Both versions are now available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The book distills Buday’s 35 years of working with companies that have brought groundbreaking ideas and services to market. It provides illuminating examples, frameworks and approaches that show how these companies increased revenue, raised market recognition, and became talent magnets through thought leadership.
On the first day the book was promoted, Amazon ranked the hardcover edition as the #1 New Release in its Market Research Business category.
More than 20 Thought Leaders Weigh In
Preview copies of the book have been praised by more than 20 leading business experts including:
- Geoffrey Moore, author of the classic book “Crossing the Chasm” and a marketing guru to tech companies: “Thought leadership is the engine that drives the early adoption of disruptive innovations. It inspires visionary customers not only to embrace a new paradigm but to set aside budget to incorporate it into their future plans. “Competing on Thought Leadership” is an essential guide to navigating this challenging terrain.”
- Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter and bestselling author of “The Disruption Mindset”: “Every company that’s trying to create disruptive change in the marketplace needs to be seen as a thought leader today. Thought leaders are crucial to getting an audience to see and solve their problems in a very different way. Robert Buday shows you step-by-step exactly how to make thought leadership a winning business strategy.”
- Vijay Gurbaxani, director of UC Irvine’s Center for Digital Transformation: “Today’s knowledge-intensive firms compete in a world where success accrues to those with the best ideas. As Bob Buday tells us in this insightful book, thought leadership has its own distinctive value chain. As the director of a university think tank, I found the advice in the book to be extremely valuable.”
- Ram Charan, global advisor to CEOs and NY Times bestselling author: “Content matters! This practical book lays out clear, specific steps to achieve thought leadership and build a business on it.”
- Tom Stewart, former editor in chief of Harvard Business Review and chief knowledge officer of AchieveNEXT: “Bob Buday was one of the inventors of thought leadership for professional services firms – a master practitioner—who since then has taught what he knows and is still learning – a master instructor. This is a very smart book that gives practical advice about how to use thought leadership to compete.”
Additional book endorsements can be read on this Buday TLP web page.
Said Buday: “My book captures the techniques I’ve developed and the client experiences I’ve had since 1987, when I began working in thought leadership marketing at a consulting firm (CSC Index). My colleagues and I were at the epicenter of a concept that changed how businesses around the world organized their operations: business reengineering. Since then, I’ve helped many other firms, from $20 billion multinational companies to small-and medium-sized B2B firms, to develop and market ideas that raised their profile and increased revenue. My book distills those experiences into best practices that have worked time after time for companies of all sizes.”
The author’s approaches to crafting thought leadership strategy, developing compelling content and marketing that content have helped others grow their businesses on the back of best-selling books, more than 50 Harvard Business Review articles, and dozens more for prestigious business publications such as Forbes, the Financial Times, and MIT Sloan Management Review.
The Book’s Content: Examining the Demand and Supply Side of Thought Leadership
“Competing on Thought Leadership” dives deeply into what Buday calls the “demand” side of thought leadership (marketing, selling and displaying big ideas effectively) and the “supply” side (conducting primary research that leads to big ideas, and turning those ideas into scalable services that can be delivered by many in a firm, not just by a few). He illustrates this through case examples of thought leadership successes at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Deloitte, Microsoft, McKinsey, FMG Leading and many other companies.
Over 258 pages, the book’s 11 chapters are organized into six sections:
- The forces that have brought thought leadership to the fore: Why so many B2B sectors have made major investments in research, books, publications and marketing their ideas, and why it matters to their target audience, too.
- Organizing and steering thought leadership: Why companies need to relentlessly focus their thought leadership activities on client problems they must own to have a successful thought leadership strategy.
- Creating breakthrough ideas: Approaches to conducting primary research and collecting a firm’s field experiences that increase the chances of developing groundbreaking concepts.
- Attracting the right audience to your content: How to stage the “Ripples in the Pond” approach to marketing campaigns so groundbreaking ideas can travel far and wide in a digital world; using data visualization and other digital techniques to turn website visitors into prime prospects.
- Scaling expertise: Why companies that create and market big ideas that are embraced in the marketplace must also focus on the supply side of thought leadership – turning those ideas into rigorous methods that can be mastered quickly by their people.
- Turbocharging thought leadership: How helping a company’s leaders get recognized in the marketplace for their expertise can propel thought leadership programs and turn skeptical insiders into devout advocates; five other momentum boosters of thought leadership in an organization; and three momentum busters to avoid.
About the Author and the Publisher (Ideapress Publishing)
CEO of the thought leadership consulting and marketing firm Buday Thought Leadership Partners, Robert Buday was the first person to research the then-nascent field of thought leadership in the 2000s, when he co-led the pioneering thought leadership consultancy Bloom Group. With business partner Jason Mlicki of Rattleback, Buday has co-produced the leading annual conference for thought leadership professionals, “Profiting from Thought Leadership.” The 2022 conference will be held next fall.
Ideapress Publishing, based in Washington, D.C., is focused on management books. It has published books from management gurus Ram Charan, Charlene Li, and other eminent business authors.
Says Ideapress Co-Founder Rohit Bhargava: “My firm specializes in publishing big-idea books for business executives worldwide. When Bob Buday showed us his manuscript, I knew I had to publish this book. It provides ideas that every author of a management book and their firm should follow to achieve eminence and the financial rewards that follow.”
Contact: Connor Deeds, publicist at Buday Thought Leadership Partners. Email: connor@budaytlp.com. You can also get more information on the book at www.budaytlp.com.