No brain🧠, no gain🚀

A look at how one entrepreneur could use thought leadership to grow sales

Hi there👋

I don’t know about you, but I pay for a gym membership that I rarely use. I prefer walking. Twice a week, I do a six-mile uphill walk. There are fitness benefits, plus walks are good for clearing your head, or catching up on audiobooks and podcasts. Also, walks aren’t a subscription service.

I’m probably going to cancel my gym membership—but that’s easier said than done. The internet is full of horror stories about people going through hell to cancel their gym memberships. (here, here, and here). Last year, the Federal Trade Commission even proposed a rule to make it easier to cancel a gym membership.

None of this is a good look for the fitness industry. But putting aside the ethical issues, cancelation horror stories create a narrative that every business in the fitness space must contend with. Basically, your call-to-action conjures a meme in the mind of a potential customer, and that’s a problem.

A disruptor enters the chat

Recently, Marketplace interviewed Jeff Witherspoon, founder and CEO of E2M Fitness. Witherspoon has a good story. He’s a former army officer who went to business school and launched a personal training company. He also has a compelling value proposition: customers pay E2M once, and Witherspoon trains them for life. Here’s how Witherspoon explained it on Marketplace:

Going to a gym, you’re going to end up paying subscription fees. I have people do an eight-week program where they pay me once and they never pay me again. I’ve had people that I’ve trained three or four years ago, and they haven’t paid me since and I’ve still been training them to this day.

Is that a good business model? I don’t know. But it seems to be working for Witherspoon, so let’s go with it. For E2M, the name of the game is new business, and according to Witherspoon, new business is all about referrals.

The whole thing behind my business model is the referrals, the word of mouth. That just brings in new clients to me over and over again.

It’s good that Witherspoon has identified a growth engine, but in order to activate that engine, he needs a specific audience. We’re talking about people who are likely to tell others about E2M. Thankfully, Witherspoon knows who those people are.

When somebody goes to their doctor and their doctor says, “Hey, you need to be a little bit healthier. You need to work on your body weight” or “You need to work on eating healthier,” they don’t have a plan to give them. Now, because I actually train thousands of doctors, those doctors know exactly what plan to prescribe to them.

But what is Witherspoon’s message for those doctors? And what challenges stand in the way of that message? Spoiler alert: that meme about canceling your gym membership is real.

It was hard to convince people that I really am giving them exactly what I say. Because internet stuff becomes a little bit salesy or gimmicky, it is a new challenge for me to convince them that I’m the real deal.

Can thought leadership drive sales for E2M?

After I heard the Marketplace story, I went to the E2M website. There’s a lot of good content, but as far as I can tell, Witherspoon isn’t doing thought leadership. Before I explain how thought leadership can help Witherspoon grow E2M’s business, let’s clear up two things.

First, what is thought leadership?

Thought leadership is often confused with content marketing, but it isn’t marketing at all. Thought leadership is expertise, freely given. There is no marketing angle, no promotional agenda, no advertising hook. It’s about giving value to others in your space.

Second, what’s value of doing thought leadership?

While thought leadership is used by B2C and B2B brands, there are lot more studies of its effectiveness in the B2B space, so let’s look at those. According to an Edelman-LinkedIn survey of 3,400 business leaders, 90% of decision-makers said they are more receptive to sales and marketing from brands that consistently produce thought leadership. Meanwhile, according to a Financial Times survey of 2,600 executives, thought leadership ranked first in terms of driving sales. Why is that? As the FT put it, thought leadership:

1. Helps your customer understand and define their needs

2. Creates urgency to act on those needs

3. Primes a preference for your brand

4. Provides ideas that resonate across the buyer group

5. Transcends the transactional sale to create long-term value

OK, here’s what I’d tell Witherspoon if we were on a Zoom:

E2M is a B2C brand with a B2B marketing opportunity

Doctors, and presumably other healthcare professionals, are E2M’s best evangelists. Your customer base gives you a built-in B2B audience that you can activate with thought leadership.

How big is that audience? Witherspoon said he’s trained “thousands” of doctors, but there are 22 million healthcare professionals in the U.S. He can’t train them all, but he can reach a lot more of them with thought leadership.

Like every industry, healthcare has its own media ecosystem of blogs, newsletters, and trade publications. Those outlets are the perfect for contributing thought leadership. In Witherspoon’s case, talking about the latest studies in his field (information that might be too technical for the general public), sharing expertise about the challenges of motivating people to start and keep a fitness routine, and adding insight to relevant topics in the news are all ways to share value.

Thought leadership leverages your target audience

By contributing thought leadership at a regular cadence (between one and three guest posts per month), Witherspoon will increase the audience segment that is most likely to drive referrals. Remember, he already knows that doctors are his best resource for driving new business. By sharing thought leadership with doctors, and other healthcare professionals, Witherspoon isn’t just preaching to the choir about the benefits of fitness, he’s giving the choir new songs to sing.

Thought leadership is playing the long-game

Thought leadership is about establishing credibility and building trust with your audience. That won’t happen overnight, but there is a snowball effect. In the short-run, referrals will grow. But in the long-run, influence grows as people begin to seek out your expertise. As influence grows, sales grow, and in turn, referrals grow. It’s a virtuous circle, powered by thought leadership.

Wait, who are you again?

I’m Michael Estrin, an award-winning journalist, best-selling humorist, and novelist. Thought Partner is part of my communications practice. If you need help with thought leadership, business storytelling, or anything else, let’s talk! Reply to this email, connect on LinkedIn, or drop me a line at michael.j.estrin@gmail.com.