Raise your hand if you have ever thought about marketing like a thought leader.
Of course, advertising, digital marketing and PR agency owners would never call themselves a thought leader. The same is true for consultants, business coaches, and high-end service business owners.
That is a title bestowed on you by others.
But to fill your pipeline with right-fit prospects, you need to market like an authority in the field.
I always say you can’t spell authority without the word author.
If you want to attract high-paying clients by marketing like an authority, you must commit to becoming an expert. That means typing and talking, authoring and speaking. That is the method to use.
Especially if your expertise is in a subject many think of as taboo.
Consider the career of Rachel Braun Scherl, a thought leader in women’s sexual health and wellness. A self-described “vagipreneur,” Scherl is a market-maker in the multibillion-dollar global women’s sexual health subsector.
“Building expertise in an area requires constant learning, innovative thinking, building partnership, and the willingness to face challenges,” says Scherl. “This is especially true in women’s sexual and reproductive health where entrepreneurs are creating solutions, creating conversations, and driving growth.”
Scherl spends a great deal of time speaking publicly, loudly, and passionately in an effort to drive the conversation around the business of female health and sexual pleasure.
After a successful career in corporate America, Scherl became an entrepreneur because she wanted to be more in control of her financial future. She cofounded SPARK with her longtime business partner, Mary Wallace Jaensch. Her international client roster includes multiple divisions of Johnson & Johnson, Allergan, Pfizer, Merck, Bayer, and more. Scherl and I met when I helped her publish a book about profiting from the coming surge of women’s sexual health and wellness, Orgasmic Leadership. The title was too provocative for many, and that was the point she was trying to make.
“The growing awareness of the ‘size of the prize’ has led to a boom in the founding of companies that meet a broad range of needs out of medical, gynecological, sexual, and reproductive necessity,” says Scherl. “I am passionate about reframing entrenched beliefs about women’s sexuality, with an important emphasis on creating conversations. Without a vocabulary, the conversation and progress would be stalled before they start.”
Scherl feels strongly that today’s industry leaders need a language for the complexity of female sexuality to destigmatize pressing health and aging concerns for women.
“With that common vocabulary, companies can grow businesses in historically taboo areas,” says Scherl. “The first step of building that expertise is an obsession with the subject matter—and who better to be at the helm of their own health than women?”
A thought leader needs to write and speak, and it helps to win awards. Scherl is the recipient of numerous business awards: SmartCEO’s BRAVA Awards honoring top female CEOs, Top Twenty-Five Entrepreneurs in New Jersey, and Best Fifty Women in Business by NJBiz.
Thought leaders need to get involved and collaborate. Scherl is a board member of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and serves on the boards of multiple women’s health and wellness companies.
“I have been a proud contributor/participant in this space, with a laser-like focus on the intersection of women’s health and businesses responding to them,” says Scherl. “By driving growth with companies—large and small, established and developing—I have the frequent opportunity to collaborate with investors, inventors, entrepreneurs, conference leads, researchers, academics, and health care practitioners.”
In addition to seeing increased investment in women’s sexual health and wellness, she has observed a spike in conversations regarding all aspects of women’s health, including pleasure, which she says is long overdue.
Are you willing to market like an authority? Authoring books, public speaking, podcasting, and regular LinkedIn newsletters are great places to start.
What is your area of expertise?