What do you do if your career as a thought leader is off to a rocky start?

Reflect on your niche Look critically at the content you've been producing. Is it valuable, unique, and engaging Building a thought leadership brand requires interaction and engagement with your audience. Are you actively responding to comments and messages? Engaging with your audience can not only help you build a loyal following but also provide valuable insights into what resonates with them. Seek feedback Network strategically Review and adapt

Refine Your Message: Take a step back and clarify your message and area of expertise. Define what sets you apart and what valuable insights or perspectives you can offer to your audience. Refining your message will help you establish a clear and compelling brand as a thought leader. Identify Your Audience: Identify your target audience and understand their needs, interests, and challenges. Tailor your content and communication style to resonate with your audience and provide them with valuable, relevant insights. Create High-Quality Content: Invest time and effort into creating high-quality content that showcases your expertise and thought leadership. This could include articles, blog posts, whitepapers, videos, podcasts, or presentations

You're not a thought leader, you've to become one. You may know the existence of life on another planet, but if can't back your claim, Your audience will see you as a fraud. You can take control of your path to become a thought leader in 3 steps: ⚡ Get deep expertise in something before you share something online (You can also document your journey if you've just started your career) ⚡ Create a personality people love (get better at storytelling, charm them, give them a reason to hear you out). ⚡ Share your opinion, and perspective, and challenge the status quo if you've to. You can't figure out everything from the get-go. But you'll definitely figure out if you'll keep moving forward on the road to building your personal brand.

Step back. Access the environment. Access your strengths. Ask yourself if your strengths will thrive in that environment. If the answer is no, then determine a new goal that is to find the environment where you will thrive. If that isnt possible, then access where you need to reach and impact the environment you are in.

If you're off to a rocky start have an open and transparent conversation about what isn't landing with your stakeholders. Perhaps redefining your message and delivery will help or taking some time to observe what is working for others while asking for additional support. Let people know you're open to feedback and then put it into practice.

Talk to those who respect your expertise, the people you admire in your field. Ask them what resonates and what lands flat. It might sting a bit, but honest feedback is gold. Use it to refine your message, find a new angle, and make sure you're giving your audience what they truly crave.

I recommend you to pick 10 relevant stakeholder and ask them for an interview. Use this opportunity to learn and reflect and also to position yourself. It's eye-opening to see your doing from the opposite side.

Knowledge is power. Dive deep into that niche of yours, soak up everything we can from courses and workshops, and become the info sponge we were always meant to be. People crave authenticity, so while we're learning, let's not be afraid to share our journey and unique perspective. Remember, even stumbles can be stepping stones and your experience can help others who are just starting out too!

True leaders, especially thought leaders, never stop learning. As a thought leader it is your responsibility to always challenge your existing knowledge while working to increase that knowledge. But know this, knowledge alone isn't enough. You must implement and EMBODY the knowledge you've obtained. In other words, it's not enough to just "talk the talk" - as a thought leader, you need to also be able to "walk the walk".

Prioritize networking. Industry events, online forums, connecting with established thought leaders – it's all about building relationships. You never know what collaborations or speaking gigs might blossom, and it's a fantastic way to get your ideas in front of new people.

Networking is a two-way street. You can't expect something without giving. Trades could be made in the form of time, money, power, etc. For example - If I want to learn how to scale an agency from a successful agency founder, I must trade their time for money. Thanks to social media platforms like Linkedin, you can go beyond that. If people like your content and like you. You'll open new doors of opportunities and help you skyrocket your career.

If your career as a thought leader is off to a rocky start, either you are on the right track in challenging the status quo or... you really are off track. On the right track? Friction is good! It pushes you to refine and clarify your unique contributions to the world. If you're not on the right track, keep asking: Do you have something unique to say? Why is it transformative? Could you say it more clearly? For whom? Either way, the steps are like the question, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice." And do find a qualified thought partner to help. Being the thinker, speaker, and audience at the same time is like giving yourself a haircut without a mirror. You can do it, but why would ya?

Understand the algorithms and the successful content on the channels that you are using. Most social media platforms reward you for consistent posts. To achieve this create a backlog of prepared topics to use if you do not have time to write them on-time.

For me it's also about experimenting. Try different formats and tone of voice, content types and channels. Identify what creates the biggest attention on your target audience.

When building something, focus on speed. When pivoting from one idea, business model, or whatever to another, focus on data. First-party data works the best!

In my experience, any time we face a challenge in something new, it always helps to seek out someone who's a few steps ahead of us. Whether it's a mentor, coach or even a colleague who once held your position, seeking their help and insight can help you navigate the challenge with more success and ease while also drastically reducing the time period that you stay on the rocky road.