Ask these questions about potential thought leadership topics and angles to avoid producing content that blends into the background and doesn’t differentiate you from the pack.
Recently, I discussed with a real estate attorney I work with the next article we would collaborate on. I suggested we address the zoning disputes across the country regarding data centers. Specifically, the resistance data center developers face from residents living near a proposed data center.
As we discussed different angles the article could take, it became clear that we should avoid writing a “Here are the zoning issues data center developers tend to face” article, because it’s an article that’s been written many times before.
Any decent land use and zoning lawyer can write that article. It’s practically a Mad Libs exercise, where they can swap out “data center” for “warehouse” or another undesirable industrial use, and discuss the concerns residents would have: energy use, noise, environmental impact, traffic, etc.
But then I asked one particular question. As my client answered, his mental gears started turning, and we landed on an angle that was relevant, valuable, and compelling to the people he wants as clients-and one that hadn’t been covered many times before.
With thought leadership, it’s the angle selection, stupid
Most people think the most important step in creating thought leadership is actually producing it. That is, the writing of an article, the filming of a video, or the recording of a podcast. While obviously that’s an important step, it’s not the most important one.
That designation falls to angle selection. Many attorneys have genuine knowledge, wisdom, and expertise built over years of handling real client matters. But they’re conditioned, based on most of the thought leadership they read, not to channel these interesting, rich thoughts when producing thought leadership. Instead, they produce safe, generic, undifferentiated thought leadership that just about any other attorney in their practice could have produced.
If they follow that path, they’re doing themselves a disservice. The most impactful thought leadership comes from an angle that a particular attorney can credibly own and that few others could.
Of course, not every angle is worth owning. So, before an attorney and I choose an angle for a thought leadership article and get to work producing it, I run potential ideas and angles for that article through three filters.
A different angle through which to address data center construction disputes
Back to my client’s article. Data centers, as you know, are being built seemingly everywhere today, but many communities oppose them. They have concerns about many aspects of data centers’ operations, such as the noise they’ll produce and the water they’ll use to cool their servers, along with concerns about whether any tax benefits received by the companies building and operating these data centers outweigh the costs to the local communities.
My client works with both developers and municipalities. That’s why we considered an angle about what data center developers need to know about getting zoning approval for their projects. It’d be well-written and relevant to my client’s current and prospective clients, but again, any decent land use attorney could have written it. So we continued exploring other angles.
That’s when I asked: “How would you advise a client who wants to develop a data center on how to navigate local pushback against their project?”
He thought about that for a moment. Then he told me that, with these kinds of projects-that is, those where residents strongly object-the key to getting the project built is managing the human side of the dispute.
Municipalities tend to approve development projects when people on all sides of the debate come together, put aside their disagreements and biases, and work together to develop a plan that benefits everyone. This angle, focused on engaging the opposition, was entirely different from where we had originally started, and sounded promising.
But that didn’t mean we were off to the races yet.
The three-question framework for converting commodified thought leadership topics into high-value ones
Before we put the proverbial pen to paper, I ran this promising angle through the three-question filter I use to decide whether a potential angle for a thought leadership article is worth pursuing because it will differentiate my client’s thinking from the commodified thinking that’s so prevalent in the legal marketplace today, and provide value to the people they want to hire them.
Question #1: When clients face the issue this article would cover, does it actually cost them dollars, deals, relationships, or outcomes?
If the angle that a piece of thought leadership content takes regarding a topic isn’t addressing a client’s problem, it’s unlikely to register with them or make an impact.
Both the first and second article angles would have passed this filter. When, for whatever reason, real estate projects stall, timelines blow up, and approval costs spike. That’s a real set of costs for developers.
Question #2: Would a prospective client read or consume a thought leadership article with this angle and think to themselves, “Wow, I need to talk to someone who understands this dynamic because I’m dealing with it right now?”
Both the first and second article angles would have passed this filter. If a data center developer or municipality is involved in a contentious development process, they would find an article on obtaining zoning approval for disputed data center projects relevant.
That said, an article focused on the human side of zoning and land-use disputes would be directly on point with the issues they’re facing and thus resonate more with my client’s target audiences.
Question #3: Does the angle reflect a perspective held by someone who has handled these situations repeatedly?
This filter was the difference-maker with my client’s article, and I’d hazard a guess, most of the time when applying these filters.
The first article angle I discussed with the client about what developers need to know about data center zoning issues did not pass this test because it would have led to commodified content. As I mentioned earlier, any decent zoning and land-use attorney could have written an article on that topic.
But the second article angle satisfies this test. An attorney understands the human dynamics problem only if they’ve been involved in enough zoning and land-use disputes to see how the human touch and open lines of communication have won the day by bringing together parties on all sides of a debate.
Focus on differentiated thought leadership, not commodified content
The reason so much legal thought leadership, and really, thought leadership across all professional services sectors, is forgettable is because there’s nothing unique about it. Authors often communicate surface-level, commodified information that anyone with similar practices could have written.
To avoid producing this kind of commodified content, attorneys and other professional services providers should produce thought leadership that’s unique to their perspective and directly shaped by their past work with clients.
With a data center zoning article, a well-organized overview of the permitting process is something people in need of legal counsel would likely search online for and find insightful, but it’s not true thought leadership. The article’s substance is unlikely to stand out to a potential client and indicate that a particular attorney is THE person they should hire to assist with a zoning dispute.
But if a zoning and land use attorney with significant experience helping developers and municipalities navigate contentious zoning and land use battles discusses how developers and municipalities can engage those opposed to their projects to resolve disputes and get shovels in the ground, that’s the kind of piece that gets a call from a prospective client saying, “Hey, I saw your article. Can we talk? You described our situation exactly.”
If you work with internal or external colleagues to produce thought leadership, they should regularly push back on the topics you bring them. They should challenge you to rethink the angles you’re approaching those topics from to increase the chances that you settle on ones that are unique to you and bring new thinking to the world.
Colleagues, including ghostwriters, who go along with the topic you suggest without pushback or attempting to dig deeper to find an angle unique to you and your experience aren’t doing the hard part of the job. The best thought leadership ghostwriters aren’t order takers or stenographers who just show up, ask you what you want to cover, and start typing away dutifully to make sure they’ve recorded all of your thoughts.
They’re editorial partners who challenge their clients-like you-through questions, through pushback, and through a framework like the one above, to find article angles that are actually relevant, valuable, and compelling to the people that their clients-like you-are trying to reach.
That process produces high-value thought leadership that’s more effective than commoditized content at attracting clients by differentiating its author from their peers and establishing them as an authority regarding the work they do for clients.
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