Growing a professional services firm is hard. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
After two decades of helping firms grow, I feel like a broken record (if you’re under 50 and this reference makes no sense … just Google it). I’ve said it over and over and will say it again: thought leadership isn’t just another marketing tactic. It’s the best lever you have to drive sustained business growth for a professional services firm.
Incidentally, it’s also your “secret wildcard” in creating enterprise value.
My Wake-Up Call
I first encountered The Challenger Sale some time in 2011-2012. It was the sales approach du jour, and every B2B marketer and seller I bumped into seemed to bring it up in casual conversation. I glanced at the insights and dismissed it as another book on B2B selling. I couldn’t have been more shortsighted.
Five years later, when Gartner dropped $2.6 billion to acquire CEB (the company behind The Challenger Sale), it hit me like a thunderbolt. This was so much more than a book—the IP underlying it had played a critical role in driving the company’s valuation. In fact, by my calculations it probably lifted the company’s valuation by as much as $300M (Gartner paid $31.88 per share; CEB’s last reported earnings per share was $22.53 … the difference is “goodwill” … aka IP … do the math).
That’s when I realized thought leadership wasn’t just valuable to growth; it was a huge contributor to value.
Let’s Get Clear: Content Marketing is NOT Thought Leadership
Here’s the thing—content marketing and thought leadership might look similar on the surface, but they serve completely different purposes. Content marketing is tactical, owned by the marketing team, and primarily focused on growing visibility through straightforward content like how-to guides and market updates.
True thought leadership? That’s something else entirely. It:
- Solves thorny problems with elegant solutions: It tackles complex issues head-on, transforming client pain points into opportunities for growth and innovation. It goes beyond surface-level advice to deliver actionable insights that clients can trust and apply, often in innovative or unexpected ways.
- Takes a distinct stance that sets you apart: Standing out in a crowded market requires a unique perspective that resonates with clients and distinguishes your firm from competitors. Thought leadership requires advocating for a position with clarity and confidence, attracting clients who align with that vision.
- Forms the bedrock of how your firm sees the world: Your firm’s thought leadership embodies its worldview, aligning every message and action with its core values and principles. This guiding philosophy helps clients understand not just what you do, but why you do it in a way that uniquely benefits them.
- Shapes every business decision—from culture to service delivery: Thought leadership impacts all facets of your organization, embedding itself in decisions that affect team dynamics, client relationships, and products and services. By rooting business practices in a shared belief system, thought leadership drives an entire organization forward.
- Requires real involvement from senior leaders: To be credible and compelling, thought leadership demands the commitment and expertise of your firm’s leaders. Their direct involvement signals to clients and employees alike that the firm’s insights are more than marketing—they’re part of its DNA.
- Grounds itself in original research and discovery: True thought leadership is built on rigorous analysis and a deep understanding of industry challenges, setting it apart from generic content. This commitment to research adds credibility and trust, offering clients evidence-backed insights they can rely on.
- Builds on insights others haven’t spotted yet: The best thought leadership uncovers fresh insights that competitors have overlooked, providing clients with valuable perspectives they won’t find elsewhere. This proactive approach not only differentiates your firm but positions it as a forward-thinking authority in the industry.
Thought Leadership Sets You Apart
Today’s professional services firms are staring down two massive challenges: differentiation and client acquisition.
Differentiation is particularly thorny because most firms are essentially collections of people hired from the same talent pools, using similar methodologies, building on similar experiences. Try building a truly differentiated firm through nothing more than sales, marketing, and delivery alone. I’ll wait.
Meanwhile, client acquisition has gotten exponentially more complex. Senior executives’ attention is more fragmented than ever, and their information-seeking behaviors keep evolving. I’ve watched this evolution play out over decades:
- The ’90s and early ’00s: All about brand and reputation
- The ’00s and ’10s: Content and search optimization took center stage
- Today: We’re swinging back to brand, but with a crucial twist—it’s all about point of view and belief systems.
Ultimately, clients are looking for professional services firms that stand out because they stand for something specific and aren’t afraid to own it. For firms that fit this bill, a thought leadership platform provides the perfect opportunity to share the story and get noticed for it.
Real Thought Leadership Success Stories (Not Just Theory)
Let me share three examples that show exactly what I mean:
- Jump Associates built their entire firm around the Master POV of “Future Focus,” tackling the fundamental challenge of why large companies fail to innovate and risk disruption. This isn’t just some marketing message—it’s the backbone of everything the firm believes and does. This POV comes to life through:
-
- A clear positioning that focuses exclusively on the Fortune 50
-
- An overhauled website that brings its intertwined positioning and POV to life
-
- A podcast, newsletter, recurring Forbes column, and annual event that are orchestrated to bring together a community of “future focused” leaders to learn, share, and collaborate together
-
- Last, and maybe most importantly, the push needed to get the company through its first growth ceiling
- TBM Consulting doesn’t just talk about “Speed Wins”—they live it. Firm leaders have baked this POV into everything they do from their operational excellence methodology, to their internal processes, and even the due diligence they do for P/E companies. It functions as the north star for decision-making at every level. It has led to:
-
- The launch of several new practice areas including talent and leadership, supply chain consulting, and private equity to open up critical new revenue channels
-
- A thought leadership program focused on the prescient issue of managing supply chain risk that emerged nine months ahead of global supply chain disruptions, positioning TBM to capitalize on clients’ surging and urgent need for supply chain solutions and near-shoring
-
- Sustained long-term revenue growth
- DCM Insights went all-in on a 12-month research study to examine the approaches of the most successful business developers in professional services firms. The project culminated in the discovery of a unique selling archetype coined “the activator.” Activators take a unique approach to selling, and DCM Insights built their entire firm around this POV:
-
- Launching the POV through a series of HBR articles and a book scheduled for publish in Spring 2025
-
- Building a custom training program to activate the findings through large professional services firm worldwide
- Generating demand for training that from the outside looking in appears to be outstripping the firm’s capacity to train
Implementing and Measuring (OH MY!)
We hear it all the time from marketing leaders: My CEO is looking for more measurable impact—how do I show it to him/her? How long until we see tangible outcomes? Who should be involved in implementing this across the firm?
Before you can even think about impact and results, you have to be honest about what building a thought leadership platform requires. Point blank, it takes time and effort. And most importantly, it takes buy-in. In the firms that do thought leadership best, the CEO is always fully onboard, which makes building the platform a championed and celebrated initiative instead of an uphill struggle at every step.
To build a platform you need:
- Time for real, foundational research (not just surface-level stuff)
- Patience to uncover deep client and marketplace insights
- Resources for content development and distribution
- Real top-down commitment including senior leadership participation (not just lip service)
It’s equally important to keep in mind that quantifying the direct impact of thought leadership on growth isn’t easy. Again, before you get started, you need buy-in and consensus around what you should be tracking to see the success of your thought leadership efforts.
Here are some leading indicators that correlate with future revenue:
- Content views and engagement metrics (yes, they matter)
- Quality of inbound opportunities (not just quantity)
- Client retention and expansion (the real money-makers)
- Market perception and brand premium (you need to be seen as the expert)
- Talent attraction and retention (thought leadership drives culture)
The key here is that these metrics aren’t isolated. They build on each other over time, creating a flywheel effect that drives sustained growth.
Getting Started
After all of that, you still need to get everything started. Just like everything before this, it’s important to kick it off right. The best place to start is by aligning around three key elements:
#1 Get crystal clear on your ideal client
- Firmographics — The organizations with which we are ideally suited to work.
- Demographics — The people within those organizations who hire us.
- Psychographics — The pressing and burning issues those people face right now that you can help them solve.
#2 Deeply understand the key issues you’re hired to solve
- Do our clients have this problem? If so, do they know that they do?
- Does this problem clearly connect to a core business driver?
- Do we know what the solution is to the problem? Is our solution a better one?
- Do we have proof that the solution works? Can we point to real world examples of the solution?
#3 GET CLEAR ON HOW YOU’LL OWN THOSE ISSUES IN THE MARKET
- Find your Master POV — that frames those issues and serves as the guiding light for your firm’s marketing efforts, its culture, and its solutions design.
- Tap experts within your organization to be the subject matter experts to own those issues.
- Work with your SMEs to clearly define your POV on each one—Use our 5-step process for developing a POV that is compelling and unique.
Finally, make time for a reality check. Meaningful results typically take 24 months to achieve. At Rattleback, we always say, “Lead generation is for this year’s revenue, thought leadership is for next year’s.” Buy into that and believe it. This is not a temporary initiative. It’s a permanent shift in how you approach the market.
The Future of Thought Leadership is Already Here
We’re at a pivotal moment. AI-enabled search technologies are reshaping how clients buy. They’re spending less time on traditional search and more time with AI-powered search engines. This shift requires adapting your thought leadership publishing and promotional strategies while holding onto what makes thought leadership valuable in the first place: deep insights, elegant solutions to complex problems, and differentiated points of view.
Here’s the bottom line: the firms that will thrive in this new environment are those that recognize thought leadership as more than marketing. Growth and value creation in professional services relies on your ability to resolve your clients’ issues in unique and compelling ways. And thought leadership is how you communicate this ability to new and existing clients. In my experience, there’s simply no other approach that delivers comparable results in terms of scalability, differentiation, and long-term value creation.
Want to start building your thought leadership platform but not sure where to begin? Reach out. Let’s talk about how to make it happen.
