Teacher in Development

Really interesting article over at the Selling To Big Companies blog around the role of Thought Leadership and landing new customers.

I freelance. Finding new customers is pretty imprtant to me, so I really found this short post to be of interest. Key thought:

In today’s crowded market space, one of the best ways to stand out from the competition is by becoming a thought leader. What does this mean you need to do? Basically, thought leadership is about willingly sharing your ideas, insights and expertise with others who can benefit from them.

Selling to Big Companies Blog: Thought Leadership Attracts Customers

I would say, at least in Mexico City, that the ESL industry keeps close pace with the street side taco stand as one of the most crowded in existance.  So how are the “little guys” going to get noticed? How are you going to start getting people’s attention without an advertising budget or high profile PR campaign?

I have to totally agree here with Konrath. Share what you know. Forget the “scarcity mentality” and my thought to tack on here: start blogging, but link locally.

Here’s how I’ve slowly started developing relationships on a local level using my blog. 1. I’ve started seeding my bloglines and netvibes readers with local Mexico City bloggers. (Screened to personal taste and interest of course…) 2. I’ve started regular commenting on a few, and conversations have begun. Nothing to do with “working together” yet, but the all important relationships are beginning to form. As a result of a series of comments, one local blog author has already linked to me, and has even done some low level explorations of this blog.

This is where, if the prospect is at all interested, can see how I work as an English teacher. They can learn about my teaching ideas, my “methods”, my philosophy etc, and can get a pretty good “digital feel” for how I am in person. A sort of preveiw if you will.

Perhaps I’m not a great ESL thought leader…I don’t mean to even imply that, but this blog is where I am freely throwing out my ideas and ways I work to the rest of the world…and maybe even to a prospect.

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