Ed: Seven steps to better, more strategic thought leadership. So thought leadership is the lifeblood of professional services marketing, and it offers the best chance for firms to demonstrate their expertise, and it helps clients and prospects. Our own research last year showed that general counsel typically spend more than about eight hours per week consuming thought leadership. Today, we're looking at a bit of a new model for thought leadership, and one that tries to really maximize the strategic business benefit of content. So to speak on this topic and to offer us his 7-steps model, I'm very thrilled. We at Passle are very thrilled to welcome Jeff Barardi, formerly Chief BD and Marketing Officer at Arnold & Porter, CMO at K&L Gates and Ankura. Currently, Jeff is dispensing his considerable expertise as a marketing consultant with his firm Barardi Consulting. Jeff, welcome to Passle CMO Series.

Jeff: Thank you, Ed. It's great to be here. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today.

Ed: I'm glad we got you on. We've been speaking for a while and talking about this and really pinned down a brilliant topic that I know that you've been working on for a while and it really hits home with us as well. So to start us off, why do you think marketeers and BD professionals need to look at thought leadership in a different way? What does your seven-step model offer that marketers should sit up and pay attention to?

Jeff: Yeah, thanks, Ed. And so, I mean, pretty much every organization I've worked for or have consulted with has struggled in some form or fashion with how to effectively connect the dots across the marketing communications, the business development and the sales spectrum. So the reasons for that lack of alignment are numerous and varied. And of course, every situation is a bit different. But I've kind of found that there are some common themes that I've noticed. First of all, in some professional services organizations like law firms, so on, there are different people that oversee different functional areas, and that can sometimes lead to silos or lack of communication or competing interests, and none of that is helpful for bridging this marketing and sales divide. Additionally, another challenge that law firms or consulting firms sometimes struggle with a bit is that the sales team members are often the really knowledgeable subject matter experts themselves. And those folks have typically not been ever trained on sales strategies or how they might grow client relationships beyond the really specialized areas of practice that they offer themselves. So those subject matter experts sometimes might not be taking full advantage of the tools and assets that the marketing or business development team members have at their disposal. So one solution that I found to this disconnect, and there are many solutions, but this is just one of them, and I've discovered this over time, is to really develop some compelling thought leadership that cuts across function areas or practice groups or regional barriers. And that's really the essence of my seven-step model. The steps aren't always completely intuitive to everyone. They're not always easy to execute. But really, with the right amount of attention and focus, they can be absolutely achieved.

Ed: I feel like if they were easy to execute, everybody would be already doing it if it was something that was that simple.

Jeff: That's right I think you're right Ed I think at the same time it's just requires a little attention and intentionality too and I think the tough thing is that with how busy everyone is and how we all have these kind of things that we have to juggle it's sometimes just taking that step back which we'll talk about in a little bit to really consider how to do this and focusing on And I also would say that it fits really nicely with research that has been produced about how, especially on the law firm side, managing partners really consider thought leadership to be an important initiative. So I think there was some research that was done that said that 45% of managing partners at leading law firms have thought leadership as one of their top three goals and objectives or priorities. So, you know, simply put, if you're a CMO at a law firm and you're not thinking about thought leadership as an important priority, I think that's something that you should be doing.

Ed: I think I know the exact research you're mentioning because I think it was carried out perhaps by Passle ourselves. And you mentioned communication being really key. And I remember somebody else telling me about a year ago how it's almost like a relationship because although there's many more moving parts in a relationship, it's usually just one or two people. But in a law firm, you've got marketing, business development, associates, partners, senior associates, managing partners.mThe communication part is so much more important than the normal. 

Jeff: Yes you're absolutely right and I think this happens a lot in large complex organizations which most professional services organizations are that and law firms are no exception so you know i think that's it's not necessarily a problem it's that that's kind of the natural kind of creation of having a lot of people that need to do different things as part of their roles and responsibilities, and you have to have someone who can try to connect those dots across all of these different groups or functions or regions so that's something that i think I've really spent a lot of time I'm trying to do in my career.

Ed: Sounds like a bit of an uphill battle, but I'm glad that we're here to discuss that you've done it and how perhaps you've done it. If we take a little half step back, I mentioned your previous roles at Arnold & Porter, K&L Gates, Ankura, and that you're now consulting. Could you take us through your career journey and tell us when it was, if there was maybe a light bulb moment that you knew thought leadership could be done more effectively?

Jeff: Sure. So, I mean, I focused a great deal of my career on this idea of thinking horizontally rather than vertically. And so that kind of cuts across function areas, across service lines, geographic boundaries. And that to me is the key to operating a really effective, integrated, differentiated firm in a pretty crowded and competitive market for professional services. So, you know, thought leadership is just one tool in the toolbox that I'd say it's a critical element of what marketing leaders can use to overcome some of those integration issues. But it's not the only thing. So I just want to kind of start there. In terms of my personal journey, I started my post-college career in a full-service marketing agency. I worked there for several years before going back to school on a full-time basis to get my MBA. And soon after graduating from business school, I actually joined a mid-sized national law firm in their BD department. And that was really my first foray and introduction into legal marketing and business development. In 2004, I joined a firm which was at the time called Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, or K&L. Spoiler alert, this was a predecessor firm to what eventually became K&L Gates. And when I joined K&L in 2004, it had about 800 lawyers. It was located in 10 offices. All of those offices were based in the U.S. And over the course of the 15 years that I was at K&L, the firm grew to be more than 2,000 lawyers. It was spread across 45 international offices and had a chance to really do some interesting, exciting things there. I've served in several roles since then, including two other C-level positions at global organizations that you mentioned. I've also been a consultant to numerous law firms and other professional services firms. But I would say that it was really during the formative years of my career in legal marketing and business development that I first realized how necessary it is to bridge the gap between marketing and sales. And that thought leadership initiatives could be a great way to accomplish that need. After all, it was a way to align people with one shared goal of using content to, number one, grow awareness of a firm or a particular practice area. Number two, generate business development opportunities. And number three, actively grow client relationships by offering people something that has tangible value. So those are the three legs of the stool that I really believe should be connected in order to operate at peak levels of performance.

Ed: I think it's something that's come up recently with a fair few people that I've spoken to is building those client relationships. The importance is falling maybe a little bit heavier on that side. Is that something that you would perhaps agree with?

Jeff: I do think that's a huge part of seeing the kind of outcome, getting that return on investment that you have. But I don't think it's the only thing. And to me, there are ways that you can use things that you've done on the kind of marketing communication side, some of the business development activities. Events or webinars or content that you've produced, perhaps, to actually build those relationships. So I wouldn't say that one is more important than the other. I do think that you're right. More attention has been paid in recent years on kind of the end of the process. And rightly so. I mean, there are some great opportunities to grow clients and create new business with potential clients. And so I don't want to downplay that at all. What I'm talking about is using some of the things at the beginning part that you're creating, such as thought leadership, to get in front of actual clients or potential clients, to grow the relationship and give them something of value that allows you the opportunity to engage with them at a different level than you might have just kind of going in cold. That makes sense.

Ed: Yeah, and I think there's a key few words there. Give them something of value. Clients seem to be quite heavily focused on that a bit more now. They don't just want this black and white situation. They want to get more from it if they can. That's probably a whole other podcast for us, that one. 

Jeff: A lot to talk about there, for sure. But you're right. I mean, they're expecting that in some ways from their service providers. So if you're not doing that, you're at a bit of a disadvantage.

Ed: Now, Jeff, we've spoken many times. I've read articles that you're featured in or that you've written. I've heard you speak on specific subjects. Let's jump into the seven steps. If you could give us a quick run-through for the listeners, maybe like a bird's eye view or cliff notes, what are the steps?

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, I would say, you know, we don't want to bore your listeners to death here. So there are seven steps. We're going to really go high level and happy to talk in more depth with others as they'd like to. But first, I want to preface this discussion, Ed, with a clear understanding of what I'm referring to when I talk about these steps. There's definitely a need for regular or consistent content that can come about in the form of final advisories or alerts or blog posts or more reactive and often timely content. And that can be happening at the practice or industry level. I've actually found that a lot of law firms, professional services organizations, they're doing this quite well. They're quite good at producing content. Some are not, but a lot of them are. But in contrast, what I'm talking about here is investing in the development of thought leadership that's a bit more forward-looking, that perhaps might represent 10% to 15% of your overall content mix. It's essentially anchor content that can be used by a large number of lawyers or client-facing practitioners in the firm. And it's intended to be more evergreen content, meaning it should last for months, if not the entire year, rather than for days or for weeks. Does that make sense?

Ed: Absolutely. It's a message that I think Hassel's probably pushed a bit as well. Uh but yeah 100% agree with that yeah It should last for a while and and then also what we've said is potentially have the possibility for um maybe redistribution of a follow-on later on months months and months down the line. 

Jeff: Exactly and ideally it's connected to the kind of regular content that you're generated on an everyday basis which is as I mentioned extremely important as well. So I don't want to kind of confuse people by thinking, this is the only thing you should be doing. What I'm saying is that this is the hard stuff that you should be doing in addition to all the other things and ideally connect the dots between them. All right. So I think we're on the same page there. So thinking about the steps, a lot of firms start the thought leadership process with the development of content. But I think that's actually not the best starting point. You know, so what would that look like? Typically, someone has that idea. I think we should create this content. Let's go ahead and we get started on it and we produce it. Okay. For me, for this evergreen anchor content, I like to think about step one is to give a lot of thought to determining the group of lawyers or subject matter experts that are best suited for taking advantage of this novel content approach. So choosing the participants, selecting the right people is often a big part of this. And so I often focus on industry groups or service lines that are poised for future growth. And you need to have individuals that are interested and motivated to try something new and fresh. If you have a great service line or a practice area and you don't have the right people to be involved in this, I think that can be a challenging thing. So ideally, select participants who have both the drive and the ability to grow the amount and type of work within a practice area or service line or set of practices. So that's why I think industry groups here can really unify across practice groups and regional lines. I often try to start there if possible. That's step one. 

Step two is now that you've kind of picked this group or set of individuals, really ask the question, who are the clients and targets who might benefit the most from market research or insights that we can provide? So focusing on a target audience is step two. The approach and message is going to differ, of course, if the audience is C-level executives versus in-house legal counsel or banking and finance executives, for instance. So one key element of this step is to actively seek out ways to engage members of that target audience in the research collection process itself. So, you know, I found that we often try to tell clients what we think they should know, rather than asking them for their views and thoughts on a particular topic. So that seems to resonate with you too. And I imagine you guys do that or try to do that as well.

Ed: Yeah, it's definitely something that we talk about as a best practice is actually what your clients want to hear, rather than pushing potentially the wrong content in front of them. What do they need or want to know about and find out more about so yeah I'm nodding as you're saying these things because it is all resonating. 

Jeff: Absolutely and so yeah I mean and there's actually a lot of research that's shown scientific research that shows when you get people involved in that research process they'll be more engaged and more interested in learning about the results because they had some part of it. They were kind of actively involved in considering these things that they think to be really important about where the market's going, what issues they're going to be facing, challenges, opportunities, and so on. So that's step two. Step three is now actually conducting the research. And for this, I actually like to approach it from a backward perspective, beginning at the end. And what does that mean? So this is something that I learned from some of my early days of conducting market research for clients. Even going back to that kind of full service marketing agency that I started my career at. And here's how it works. You really need to think ahead to what are some of the actions you might be ideally taking based on the research that you're going to collect. So contemplate what client needs are now, what they might be in the future. Consider what trends are taking place that are going to affect that target audience, say, maybe over the next 12 to 24 months. What trends are taking place? The new laws? Is it new regulations? Is it macroeconomic forces? And from there, you can build a research study that aims to answer the questions that are going to be most relevant for your target audience. At the same time, it's going to help you tap into the services that you offer that can help that audience overcome the inevitable challenges or opportunities that are going to arise in the future. You don't have to know exactly what those opportunities or challenges are at the start. But if you know that you have services or things that you can provide that can be beneficial to that target audience, then it really doesn't necessarily matter exactly what the answers are to those questions. You're really trying to kind of you're both learning through that process. And that's the idea of the backward market research approach. We might circle back on this later, but that's kind of a high level look.

Ed: And we can definitely circle back onto that. I'm intrigued to hear a little bit more about it, but do carry on.

Jeff: All right, I'll keep going. So step four now is the development and the production of the report itself. And here's an area where I think we often have this urge to create a really lengthy process. Report. And in my view, that is a bit counterproductive. I think it's actually better to hold some information back so that you can share it later with your clients or targets as part of a follow-up meeting that allows for more of an interactive discussion. Plus, a shorter, more concise report, it's easier to digest. We got seen and heard a lot of research about how busy people are and how they don't have time to go through these kind of 10, 20-page reports. So shorter is often better. And if you have the kind of underlying research or information, you could always offer that in different ways later in the form of additional content or in actual meetings or discussions with the client. So I think that shorter, more digestible approach is more compelling than a really long one, especially if you use infographics and other visually interesting elements to stand out in a sea of text-based content from competitors 

Ed: Yeah I think uh there's a phrase that we've used before and I've heard it used um outside of Passle many times little and often it is far more beneficial.

Jeff: Completely agree with you and that's kind of a great segue yet into step five, which is after you've kind of created this report, but before you distribute and promote it, you atomize the content. In essence, breaking this report or study or whatever you have in terms of thought leadership into many, many small parts. And that way you can share those bite-sized pieces via drip campaign, use on social media or other distribution channels. You can communicate the results in a steady stream after you launch the report. It goes right to what you said, Ed, little and often, was it? Right? So it's allowing you to grow brand awareness, but also to generate a number of new business leads. And that can also be a great way to incorporate generative AI tools into the mix. Because you can take a longer report or content, feed it into some of these generative AI tools, ask it to come up with five or six different pieces to it into logical sections. So marketers can and should be doing that as a way to be more efficient. Whereas in the past, this could take hours and hours of time. How can it be done in a matter of seconds?

Ed: Now that there are the AI tools available, it does simplify it a hell of a lot for the majority of people. I know Passle's implemented a few AI tools, some of it being generative AI. It's a shortcut, but it's a hugely beneficial shortcut. It's not you're not really it's not like a cheating shortcut. It's a shortcut that's just getting you from A to B in a much easier and simple way.

Jeff: Exactly. Exactly. Use these tools for what they're really best purpose. It's picking something, refining it down into smaller pieces. To me, it feels like it's a good way to use it. It feels ethically sound. And it's just a good way for marketers to save a lot of time.

Ed: Agreed. 

Jeff: So that's step five. So step six now is after you've done that, rather than distribute the report and then break this thing into pieces, because that all takes time and you don't have a strategy for when these things go out. Step six is the distribution and the promotion of this report on a broad fashion in a broad way and so that could be webinars it could be client round tables it could be speaking engagement it could be client alerts white papers media opportunities so much more and really it should be all of the above so this is the broadcast approach to try to hit as many people as possible in that target client community. And another important part of this, Ed, is to activate the internal community of client-facing practitioners who can and should distribute this thought leadership to their clients and contacts. That's something that is often overlooked as a really important, meaningful part of this process. But those are going to be your best advocates for getting this thing out in the hands of their actual clients and using it, as I said, in that meaningful way to build client relationships. So that's step six. And then step seven is really the idea of driving one-to-one meetings. Or when I say one-to-one, it could be one of your lawyers or consultants meeting with a group of people from a client organization. So it's not always one-to-one, but it's one to a small group. But this is really where the rubber meets the road. Using that thought leadership in an intentional way to get in front of your audience with something of inherent value to them. And it's another way that you can track and measure and report on the successful outcomes of this investment of time and money that you've spent on creating this thought leadership. And that's going to help you demonstrate ROI better. It could be the overall number of meetings that you have with targets or clients. It could be anecdotal feedback that you're collecting. It could be any new engagements or matters that have been generated as a result of the campaign. But at the end of the day, that's really the purpose of investing in this thought leadership campaign is to show that it has actual results in growing the relationships that you have with clients.

And I think that's where there's often that disconnect at is creation of content sits in one area. It's being done, growing awareness, perhaps. Salespeople in the form of subject matter experts are dealing with clients and talking to them about what their needs are they're not often using these things in a really cohesive way and that's what this seven-step program is really intended to do

Ed: thank you I'm sitting here nodding sort of everything's resonating and I have a feeling that there's probably the listeners who are also getting the same where they're thinking yeah that all adds up this makes perfect sense so great explanation of the seven steps I think as we've discussed before and I'm going along right now thinking perhaps there's a story or an anecdote that you might have that would bring it all together for some of the listeners. 

Jeff: Yep sure I mean yeah there are various examples of how I've done this in the past but you know I want to think ahead a little bit and perhaps give some people some ideas to mull over in case that's helpful. And I'm somewhat prompted by thinking about the recent damage caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which came in back-to-back weeks. If these sort of extreme weather events are going to keep happening, not just throughout the U.S., but all over the globe, then, you know, I think it's logical to imagine that there are very few businesses or industries that are not going to be impacted by climate change issues in the upcoming years. So with that in mind, here's just one example of how. We might want to consider using that information. So looking ahead over the next 12 to 24 months, there's likely going to be a lot of activity related to the global energy transition or the ongoing process to shift away from the use of and consumption of traditional fossil fuels and a move towards renewable energy sources like electric power. That's something that's been going on for a long time. And regardless of which side of the political spectrum you might be on, it's hard to argue with the sheer amount of momentum that's built up over the last five to 10 years as companies and governments around the world have committed billions of dollars to make this change happen for a variety of reasons. So these issues impact energy regulatory issues, the electrification of transportation and heating, manufacturing supply chain issues, The list goes on and on.

So where I'm going with this, Ed, is are you a law firm, not you, but our listeners, of course, are you a law firm or an advisory firm that has practices that support clients affected by energy transition or climate regulation, supply chain, and so on? Do you have practice areas or service offerings that can provide advice and guidance to companies that are dealing with these regulatory challenges or economic opportunities or political uncertainty that might benefit from your perspective on these topics? If so, then I think you might be right for creating some unique content that gathers information from your target audience, presents the results back in a way that will enable you to get in front of those clients and prospects in a fresh and exciting way.  That's what I've done for other firms in the past. I think ahead to where this wave of demand is going? That's going to be coming, that's going to be cresting in the future. How do you get ahead of it? How do you ride that wave? How do you plant a stake in the ground and position your firm as an expert in that burgeoning area? That's the essence of it. It doesn't just happen organically. Otherwise, everyone would be doing it, right? It does require some thought and time and attention paid to this. And it requires you to mobilize people from different groups and functions and geographic areas in some cases or practice groups. And so for that, thinking ahead to what's happening, how can you kind of get ahead of it and how can you really help your clients with something that they're going to have to consider and that they're probably worried about. But if you have the answers to that, if you have some support and guidance you can provide to them, that's where you're giving them something that's very different from what every other competitor is doing, so that's something that I would suggest as one example there are many, many others, but it's just something that was a little more fresh in my mind given some of the things that have been taking place over the last few weeks. 

Ed: Yeah, I think that's a great example. It's very current and I'm sure a lot of people's minds still, and I think that also comes back to something we touched on earlier, it's kind of giving that value add. It's getting ahead of the game, but giving that value add as well, whatever they can in that situation. As you mentioned, the two hurricanes, but it could be anything along those lines. It could be something completely different, but it's just giving whatever they can to add the value. I like that. I like the example a lot. We mentioned very briefly earlier, potentially, I know we could talk about the seven steps and break down each individual one. But we mentioned perhaps circling back to step three, which I think could be an entire podcast on its own, potentially. If people want to learn a little bit more about that, where can they go? Where should they go? 

Jeff: Yeah, there's an article that I wrote for the Legal Sales and Service Organization. That's posted online at legalsales.org. So anyone can access that. I'm also in the process of writing something on this topic for J.D. Supra, which will also be able to be accessed. If you'd like to get in touch with me directly, you can message and connect with me on LinkedIn or simply send me an email at jberardi@berardiconsulting.com. So happy to continue the dialogue. I think, as you said, organizations might be getting four of the seven steps really down. And they've got that covered. And it's the three that they're lacking or need some help with that might require just a little bit more attention paid to them. Every organization is a bit different. And I found it rare that companies are getting all of these things right. And they might not necessarily need to get everything right. Because if they don't have any of this happening, then maybe just kind of a small batch of them can kind of benefit from doing the things they're doing. But I do feel like getting into the weeds on some of these areas can be really critical and that requires a deeper conversation and analysis.  

Ed: We'll put those links into the text as well for this podcast. A deeper dive is something that I think sometimes people are a little hesitant to do because it's time and money, and maybe they don't have the resources for it. But as you said, you might be hitting four of the seven. Maybe you need to do a deeper dive and figure out where you can improve the other three or where you can balance out the four to the three as well. 

Jeff: Absolutely. Yeah. And the other thing I would say is that if you're doing this well and you're tracking and measuring and reporting on the results, this is a very, very worthwhile investment that a firm can make because it really doesn't take that many new engagements to show and justify the value of the investment. But you have to be able to show and demonstrate that the things that you've done and created are leading to those business development opportunities and have some sort of impact in a way. So I think that's part of the key is making sure you're putting together the KPIs, the other things that you're tracking and measuring beforehand so that you don't wait until the end and say, oh, we should have captured this because by then it's a little bit too late. 

Ed: Yeah, the forethought is more as important if anything. As I said, Jeff, we could talk about this for hours and hours, and I know we have almost on previous calls that we've had and chats over a beer up in Boston. So Jeff, now we're going to get into the quick five questions which some of the listeners love to find out a little bit more about yourself and some of the other guests. What is it that you're reading or listening to at the moment? And that it can be an audio book or a podcast, or it might be the sort of old-school proper book. 

Jeff: Well, I'm more of an old-school kind of person, I think. So I actually, I would recommend a book and a podcast. The book I would recommend is a great one called “Give to Grow” written by Mo Bunnell, recently published. And it's an excellent overview of how to grow client relationships in a really authentic and meaningful way. And I've actually given copies to a number of people, all of whom have really appreciated it. So I can't recommend it highly enough. So that's the book. The podcast, I would say, is something I listen to quite often, and it's called “Hidden Brain”. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. Really interesting analysis of some of the psychology behind why we do the things we do, how words actually matter, and just a really interesting look at a lot of applications in both the business world and personal life. So I really recommend that. I’ve found it to be really helpful over the years, and there are always new episodes coming out. Those are the two things I would recommend to listeners here.

Ed: Thank you. I’ve written “Hidden Brain” down; it’s not one I’ve heard of. I have heard of “Give to Grow”, and I do have a copy of it, so I can back you up on that. It’s a great read and incredibly useful. It’s the first time somebody’s mentioned a book on this podcast that I’ve actually read, so thank you, Jeff. I feel better now. Next question is: what is one thing you couldn’t live without in your working life?

Jeff: Well, I guess since I live in New England, my day doesn’t really begin until I have my cup of coffee from Dunkin’. So I think I’m actually obligated to say that as a Bostonian. That is medium hot coffee in the colder months and small iced coffee in the warmer months. It’s just a good way to get things going. I feel like having a little caffeine—not too much—is a necessity for me, personally. Although there have been times when I’ve abstained from caffeine, I enjoy the routine and habit of starting the day with it.

Ed: That makes perfect sense. I like that you go medium during the winter months—you might need that extra little kick compared to the summer months.

Jeff: Exactly.

Ed: On to question number four: are there any habits that you think helped you particularly in your career and to get to where you are now?

Jeff: Yeah, I would say reading as much as possible, not just business articles but books of all types—fiction, nonfiction, all different things. That’s really helped me make connections in various ways and be open to different perspectives from perhaps unlikely places. I’ve seen people be closed off and rigid in their mindset, but I’m always striving to learn and grow, no matter what stage of my career I’m at. That’s been consistent. Another habit I’ve tried to form is setting aside time on a weekly basis to consider what important things need to be done over the next week. I don’t necessarily get started on them right away, but setting aside the time to plan out the week has been beneficial for me.

Ed: That’s a very good point, and I have a sneaking suspicion that’s a little bit of a Mo Bunnell lesson, perhaps?

Jeff: Yes, Mo is definitely a big proponent of that, but from a habit-forming perspective, I think it’s really important to force yourself to do these things. Habits aren’t always easy to form.

Ed: That makes perfect sense. This one’s an open-ended question, and some of the answers are fantastic that we have had before, I’m intrigued about yours. What’s your favorite way to unwind?

Jeff: Definitely spending time with my family, whether it’s traveling to new places, playing tennis, or skiing together. The ocean or the mountains are my happy places. Spending as much time with family as possible is the best way to unwind for me personally. I imagine it’s not too different from the other answers.

Ed: That’s a great answer. I love tennis and skiing as well quite a few people have come back and said family and that that is an absolutely perfect answer there's also a few curveballs that people come back with as well that you'd say oh this opens my eyes to how I think about you now perhaps but I love skiing and tennis so I completely understand excellent, now we didn't even know that we had that in college next time I’m up in Boston, Jeff, I’ll bring my tennis rackets and we’ll get on the court.

Jeff: Can’t wait. I’ll have to start practicing a little more, perhaps.

Ed: If you were offering one takeaway or piece of advice to those thinking about tackling thought leadership in this new way and using your seven steps, what would it be?

Jeff: I’d say think horizontally rather than vertically. I’d also stress the importance of having an effective content strategy, but more specifically, setting aside some percentage of your budget and time to create compelling anchor content. It doesn’t have to be a huge investment, but it needs a more intentional, strategic, top-down approach. If anyone wants my help working through the seven steps or in an integrated fashion across marketing communications, BD, and sales, I’d be happy to assist.

Ed: Solid answer. Intentional and strategic really jumped out at me. Great advice. Wonderful, Jeff. It’s been fantastic having you on the podcast. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us. We’ve discussed this a few times, so I’m very grateful for this opportunity.

Jeff: Ed, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for your time, thanks for the discussion, and I look forward to continuing it.