L'article
In an age of information overload, where content tends to be impersonal and generic, blogs echo each other, and speeches remain predominantly neutral and corporate, decision-makers who boldly speak out to share their strong opinions, professional experiences, and practical advice inevitably reach a high-quality audience.
Artfully taking the stage to say compelling things to the right people is a dual effort to build brand awareness, establish credibility, humanize the brand, and amplify business opportunities. Let’s delve into this…
1. Thought Leadership: brand awareness in service of business
Thought leadership, a marketing strategy centred around speaking out, aims to establish the credibility, legitimacy, and authority of a decision-maker and consequently, a company, within its core expertise. It focuses on disseminating content that meets the following criteria
- The speaking engagement is carried out by a human, not a corporate entity. It’s a decision-maker speaking in their name through a post, video, webinar… ;
- It presents a personal and decisive point of view, far from general truths and usual banalities;
- It’s based on field experience and/or expertise and provides informed advice, points of caution, and possibly feelings, projections, or an informed forecast.
According to the Edelman-LinkedIn study, 89% of decision-makers state that thought leadership has improved their perception of an organization.
Thought Leadership in Practice:
- Channels: LinkedIn, webinar platforms, company blog, sector-specific media ;
- Themes: columns, personal reflections on the industry, experiences shared, immediately actionable advice, industry updates;
- Length: articles ranging from 800 to 1,500 words, webinars lasting 30 to 45 minutes, 5-minute videos, relatively lengthy (but well-structured) LinkedIn posts;
- What to avoid: inaccessible jargon, reading a speech on camera, providing generic information easily available elsewhere, and direct advertising.
2. Using your voice to accelerate the sales cycle
Speaking up through audiovisual formats (webinars, LinkedIn Live, podcasts…) systematically adds depth, density, and authenticity to the company’s communication, provided that the speaker is strong in both content and delivery.
Speaking directly to the camera allows for natural storytelling, enriching a technical discourse with para verbal elements and humanizing the brand. This is why salespeople increasingly prospect with short videos (rather than written emails), even if they are made with limited resources.
Moreover, a cold email that includes a video of the salesperson speaking has a 19% higher response rate compared to text-only emails[i]. The parallel is clear with speaking up on social media, which is, in a way, an indirect pitch about the company’s value proposition, whether at the top of the funnel or in a branding context.
Putting a face, a voice, an intonation, or even a personality to a brand will strengthen trust and remove some barriers. Your prospect will take several steps forward in their buying journey… and it would be a shame to miss out on this in a B2B sales cycle that can tend to drag on.
3. Speaking, injecting authenticity into a highly digitised environment
In an era of vague AI-generated content, corporate blogs that rehash each other, and overly promotional emails, speaking up as “real people” injects authenticity and freshness, ultimately serving as an excellent differentiator.
A brand that invests in conversational formats, such as first-person LinkedIn posts, webinars, interviews on specialized media, and opinion pieces, will inevitably generate more interest than a company stuck in impersonal, cold, and neutral communication.
Conversational formats encourage strong opinions, a certain level of risk-taking, unconventional discourse, and the art of the punchline—all ingredients that stimulate debate, provoke reactions from industry professionals, advance practices, and, ultimately, boost the brand’s awareness and business opportunities.
💡Our actionable tips for speaking today
There are no miracles when it comes to successfully speaking up. You need to have interesting things to say and say them to people who, like you, will find them interesting.
1. Having interesting things to say
Several techniques can help you develop compelling speaking points for your audience:
- Leverage Internal Expertise: Use the professional experiences of your internal team members and structure this knowledge into digestible formats;
- Regular Sector Monitoring: Stay updated on your industry to identify interesting topics or contextualize insights and advice with current events;
- Embrace Controversy: Don’t shy away from sparking disagreements. Strong, well-founded opinions stimulate debate and are more engaging than neutral stances;
- Generate Primary Data: For example, conduct market research, surveys, or expert interviews to create first-hand data. Share unique insights with your audience that they won’t find elsewhere and use this data to inform your internal decision-making ;
- Learn from Client Collaborations: Extract lessons, best practices, and insights from client collaborations, ensuring to anonymize clients when sharing these experiences;
- Personalised Tone: Adopt a conversational, personal, and natural tone in your communications.
2. Speak to an Interested Audience
When it comes to choosing the channel and format for your speaking engagements, particularly in B2B contexts, it’s crucial to focus on:
- LinkedIn ;
- High-Affinity Specialized Media: Engage through interviews, articles, advertisements, etc., on platforms with a strong audience base in your industry;
- Sector-Specific Events;
- Collaborations and Partnerships: Partner with influencers or industry leaders to enhance your visibility and credibility;
- Talk shows, especially online ones ;
- Podcasts ;
- Newsletters.
[i] https://www.btob-leaders.com/video-b2b-4-facons-intergrer-vente-commerciaux/