David A. Fields Consulting Group Winning clients via thought leadership is harder than ever.
- Prospects are drowning in content.
- AI can spit out thousands of ideas in milliseconds.
To have a meaningful impact on your consulting firm’s revenue, your thought leadership must absolutely shine on one particular dimension: irresistibly interesting.
(I was going to suggest your thought leadership be even more irresistibly interesting than the Dubai chocolate cookie I saw at a patisseria in Menorca this morning, but that feels like an impossibly high standard.)
What’s up with “interesting”—isn’t it enough to have great ideas?
No. Outstanding thinking is not enough.
Your consulting firm’s ideas are only sticky and useful if they’re implemented.
They’re only implemented if clients find them compelling.
Hence:
Your thought leadership is only effective if it’s interesting.
Many bright, clever consulting firms intent on making a name with their thought leadership publish works that are almost diabolical in their dullness.
Prospective clients aren’t impressed with those firms’ ideas, because they never even get to the clever ideas. The boring vehicle (book, podcast, article, etc.) is set aside shortly after the opening lines.
You snooze, you lose?
No, they snooze, you lose.
Don’t be Soporific Sally.
You’ve got to keep prospects engaged.
Add some sizzle to your skizzles.
How to Make Your Ideas Interesting
(So Prospects Will Pay Attention)
Start Right-Side Up
It’s about them, not you.
Tie your idea directly to a problem (or aspiration) your consulting firm’s prospects have, then start with their problem, not your idea.
Get Real
Couch your concepts in concrete terms.
Replace tedious language like, “One’s largest capital investment is in constant peril” with hard-hitting reality: “Your house could burn down!”
Dress Up
Think of your central idea as a mannequin.
Your metaphors, stories, colorful language, and humor drape clothes on the display, and catch your prospects’ notice.
Without the flashy outfit, all you’ve got is a dummy.
Uncover Your Bases
If you’re detail oriented, you feel compelled to explain every exception, variation, gyration and incarnation of your thesis.
Like, “I before E except after C and words like neighbor and weigh and sleigh and kaleidoscope and caffeine and…”
Your main point is “I before E,” so leave it at that.
Mostly-right plus easy-to-remember wins clients.
Engage
Watching the play is inherently less exciting than participating in the play.
Find ways to engage your consulting firm’s prospects in your ideas.
You can employ corny tricks like fill in the , opt for more sophisticated devices like diagnostics, checklists, and surveys, or leverage the power of AI to create extraordinarily interesting interactive content.
In fact, let’s practice some engagement right now:
What do you do to make your ideas interesting to prospective clients?
Text and images are © 2026 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
What are your thoughts about the vehicles? I know the points above are necessary regardless of vehicle, but is there a glaring method of sharing content today? We use short videos (90 seconds), podcasts, blog posts, monthly column in a trade mag, etc. Any advice or does the vehicle not matter if we’re doing the above things?
Great question, Chris! The vehicle can absolutely make a difference, and the right vehicle depends on the audience, the content and the consulting firm.
The most important characteristic of a marketing vehicle, other than that your prospects pay attention to it, is that your firm can commit to using it over at least 2-3 years. A monthly column, for instance, can be effective, but it’s also a lot of work and if you can’t keep it up, then its effectiveness plummets.
It sounds like you’re engaged in a lot of strong marketing efforts, all of which should work in concert to attract clients. I recommend adding collaborations (e.g., through trade associations) to your list—we’ve found them to be very, very effective across our client base.
Thanks for your smart follow-up question on the article, Chris.
Hey Chris
I don’t know what David might say, but I think you’re hitting on all cylinders as far as vehicles go. I guess the rest would lie inside your analytics. If they show growth, new contacts, and positive comments or reviews, it would tell the real story.
I didn’t have all the tools we have today, but starting in 2002, I built a national persona through articles in trade magazines and blog posts. I’ll date myself here, but we used to call blog posts weblogs. I used the national persona to build a successful training company.
Great advice to Chris, Don. Thank you for stepping in and sharing your thoughts, especially while I was frolicking on Menorca!
Thanks Don and David.
David – yes, a lot of effort. It took many iterations to determine the routine / volume that is repeatable and effective.
When you say collaborations, what do you mean? I don’t mean to add work to your plate:), so if there is a previous post I missed or article, please send the link. We currently speak at multiple trade events, serve on panels, deliver webinars to association memberships, etc. Is that what you mean? Thank you, again!
It sounds like you’ve put in hard work to build a strong marketing engine, Chris. And yes, you’re involved in collaborations.
In a nutshell, a collaboration is a marketing effort that allows you to tap into someone else’s tribe. A trade association, for instance, typically has a big tribe that you’d like access to. Many other individuals and organizations have tribes too, and if you can borrow those tribes, you can boost awareness of your firm.
Perfect. Thank you. We’re hard at work … hopefully it’s strong:)