David A. Fields Consulting Group Being smart and producing high-value content aren’t sufficient to win new consulting clients.
Unless a broader universe of prospects engages with your content, your opportunities to win business will stay narrow.
On the up side, you have a right to be proud of your work.
After all, you’ve endured the heat of the baking industry for many years, and your consulting firm’s thought leadership on chocolate soufflés is undeniable.
Any restaurant chain that suffers from collapsing creations should be engaging you to consult with their CKO (Chief Kitchen Officer).
On the down side, most prospects who could benefit from your firm aren’t knocking on your consulting firm’s oven door because…
…they’ve never heard of you.
Dang!
You need more eyeballs watching your videos and reading your articles.
You need more earballs listening to your podcasts.
Since a small fraction of your target population appears on your contact list, the audience you can attract directly is small.
How do you increase your exposure?
By borrowing audiences.
Borrowing an audience means presenting your content to the fine folks residing on someone else’s contact list.
4 Steps to Borrowing Audiences
Step 1: Start With Visibility Channels
Some contact lists are intended to be borrowed.
Visibility channels, such as trade publications, share many thought leaders’ content with their list of subscribers.
Each thought leader is borrowing the publication’s audience.
A natural fit for your baking consultancy is Restaurant Today.
The same concept applies to trade websites, associations and conferences, which are also visibility channels.
Does your marketing plan already include at least five visibility channels, such as trade publications, websites, or conferences, whose audience you’re borrowing?
If not, start by locking in at least five of these pre-made, obvious audiences.
Step 2: Identify Visibility Collaborators
Visibility collaborators are folks whose contact list is enticing for your firm, and although they didn’t build their list with the intention of sharing it, they may expose your firm to their list.
Find five potential visibility collaborators whose audience you could borrow.
High-potential candidates are suppliers to your industry.
For instance, your firm might consider a manufacturer that serves your target audience, like Rintin’s Tins.
Other possibilities include software providers, direct competitors, consulting firms with adjacent offerings, other professional service providers (e.g., attorneys), influencers, leaders of networking groups, and anyone who sells Girl Scout cookies.
Step 3: Create Relationships
Audiences are valuable and the CEO of Rintin’s Tins isn’t going to parade you in front of her contacts unless she trusts you.
Hence, it’s time to initiate and nurture relationships with your potential visibility collaborators.
It’s easy: reach out to them.
Compliment them on the value they provide and inquire about their journeys.
In other words, stay Right-Side Up.
Step 4: Help Them (and Along the Way, Help Yourself)
Many consulting firms mistakenly think that their own offering is so intrinsically valuable that potential collaborators should obviously recommend them.
Those consultants lead with, “Promoting me is a way to add value for your contact list.”
In essence, those consultants are saying, “Help me, and along the way you’ll benefit.”
As you know, that’s upside-down thinking.
Flip that Right-Side Up by saying, “Let me help you, and along the way I’ll benefit.”
Discuss how you can add some sunshine to their lives.
Perhaps you could loan them your audience, or introduce them to a valuable contact or resource.
Even better, can you build their services into your consulting offering?
If you truly believe Rintin’s Tins has a superior product, perhaps part of your standard assessment output could be a recommendation that your client purchase materials from Rintin’s Tins.
Best yet, what if you could help Rintin’s Tins leverage their own audience more?
For instance, what if you penned an article (or gave a webinar, podcast, speech, etc.) on soufflé fundamentals and, as part of that presentation you reinforced the importance of using the finest baking equipment—like Rintin’s Tins!
Borrowing an audience doesn’t have to be a big event, though.
Simply posting an insightful comment on your visibility collaborator’s blog puts you in front of their readers.
Borrowing audiences dramatically expands your reach, and finding audiences to borrow should be a centerpiece in your marketing plan.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know.
Text and images are © 2026 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
Brilliant strategy, David. I tell my authors all the time: this is how you expand your audience, by leveraging other people’s. I find that most experts who haven’t done this before need some coaching to develop the relationships otherwise, they’re asking people to marry them before their first date! Upside down thinking for sure and a strategy that seldom works unless a LOT of chocolate is involved.
Very well said, Tina. (And only select types of chocolate can overcome an upside down approach!) Your analogy of asking for marriage before the first date is right on point.
I very much appreciate your lending your experienced voice to the topic, Tina.
Hi David,
It’s been a minute since I last wrote. In my late forties, I wanted to build a national persona to promote my business ambitions. I read a book on building this, and one suggestion I was already doing as a hobby. I became a published writer from 27 to 31 years old, writing a weekly religious article under a byline in six local papers. So, I was writing for an industry magazine called Cleaning Management. They belonged to a trade publication company that owned ten publications, one of which would help me build my persona. The circulation was 25,000 subscribers, who were mostly business owners, and they frequently passed that magazine around to management staff and employees. I attended national conferences and met with the powers that be, and I was asked to serve on a national board of directors for a trade association. After a few more years, I was invited to join an ANSI consensus board to write standards for my industry.
Then I retired three times—(it never took). Today, with AI changing everything, I have to build this all over again. Why? Although back in the day, when I was writing, speaking, and training all over North America, the trade publisher sold and split the issues in different directions. I stopped writing regularly in 2010, except for the occasional article. Now, those publications only go back to 2018. Now that I need to build brand authority for AI search, most of it has passed away. Everything you said is absolutely true. The writing needs to be you, authentic, and fresh from your perspective. We all need to understand that we’re not writing just to influence people (that’s the main goal), but they have to find you first. With AI search, write to build your authority in whatever area of industry you’re in.
Thanks, David, for all your sharing.