Would they hire you?

The inspiration for this newsletter, and the video I created for you, was born from the original video called It’s Not About the Nail about how men don’t listen to women. That is news to me … but I think my mother sent it to me for a reason when I confided in her a few years ago. 

The video (and newsletter below) ties exactly to how people get fixated on content alone; however, need to be thinking about the bigger picture. It may strike a nerve, make you laugh, or make you feel seen. It may also help you plan better for 2027 and reverse engineer your goals.  

Shoutout to my friend Claude, who I couldn’t have done it without.

Now, back to the newsletter  . . . So, you put real thought into a post. You share something you’ve learned, something you believe could help another person. You publish it, check back, and wonder whether any of this is bringing you closer to the work you want to do.

Maybe you want consulting clients. Maybe you want to speak on bigger stages, join a board, write a book, or become known for an idea you’ve spent years developing.

When those opportunities aren’t materializing, it’s natural to examine the content. Was the hook strong enough? Should you have recorded a video? Published at a different time?

Those are reasonable questions. But I think we often ask a single piece of content to carry expectations that belong to an entire business.

Content has a meaningful job. Its ability to do that job depends on what’s happening around it.

That’s what I mean by the thought leadership orchestra.

Your brand, product, relationships, sales, and content each contribute something different. The opportunity comes from helping them play together, with a clear understanding of where you want to go.

Start with your goals

You can want consulting clients, speaking engagements, board seats, press, a book, recruiting opportunities, an eventual company sale, and sponsorships. These ambitions can reinforce one another. Each also requires specific preparation, relationships, and work.

A potential consulting client and a conference organizer may encounter the same article. What each needs to see before taking the next step will be different.

The more clearly you define the opportunity you want, the more intentionally you can build toward it.

Let’s make this practical.

Imagine you’re building a consulting practice. Heading into 2027, you’ve identified five goals:

These goals serve different purposes. Three clients is a business outcome. A clear brand and repeatable offer help make that outcome possible. Your publishing cadence creates opportunities to demonstrate what you know.

Thirty prospects is a starting assumption to test. Your content schedule is a rhythm to develop. What matters is whether those activities are helping you build the business you want.

Here’s how the parts connect.

1. Develop your offering through customer conversations

Before the consultant decides what to publish, they need to understand whose problem they can solve.

What is that person navigating? What have they already tried? What is the problem costing them? Where does the consultant’s experience become useful?

You develop those answers through conversations and customer work. Someone describes a challenge differently than you expected. A client struggles with a step you thought was straightforward. The same question comes up across several engagements, and you realize there’s something worth developing.

Those experiences help you turn your expertise into an offering people can understand and buy. You become clearer about the outcome, what the engagement includes, how you’ll deliver it, and whether the economics support the work.

For the consultant who wants to serve 10 or more clients, that means testing the delivery model alongside the offer. Can you consistently deliver what you promise? What needs to become repeatable? Where will you need support?

When your expertise is the product, this process can feel personal. Feedback on your approach can land as feedback on you. Giving yourself room to refine the work is part of developing the confidence to deliver it.

Those reps also give you something substantive to say. The questions, objections, tradeoffs, and lessons you encounter become material that helps the next person understand your perspective.

2. Build a brand that helps people understand you

As your offering develops, your brand should make it easier for someone to understand why it matters to them.

Someone meets you at dinner, receives an introduction, or reads your newsletter. They look you up.

Can they understand what you do? Does your website connect your experience to their situation? Do your messaging, visual identity, and body of work tell a coherent story?

Those touchpoints help someone who doesn’t know you decide whether to keep exploring. They also help a person who likes you explain your work to someone else.

For the consultant, a distinctive brand should give the right prospect a clear sense of who they help, what they help with, and why their experience is relevant.

You can begin customer conversations while your brand is developing. Those conversations should inform it. Over time, what people encounter online should reflect the clarity you’ve earned through doing the work.

That gives your content a stronger foundation and somewhere useful to lead.

3. Give your content a job in the customer journey

I was speaking with a client recently who told me a new customer had chosen him partly because of videos they found online.

The videos came from work he had done years earlier. He was building a new business, and that older body of work helped someone feel confident choosing him.

Often, so much time looking at what happens immediately after publishing. Someone may encounter your work much later, at the moment it becomes relevant to a decision.

Public engagement gives you useful information. It captures only part of how people use your content.

For the consultant, the proposed media mix should support specific needs. A short video might answer a concern that keeps coming up in discovery calls. A newsletter might explain their approach in enough depth for a prospect to evaluate it. A LinkedIn post might help a referral partner recognize who would benefit from an introduction.

If speaking is a priority, some of that work should also help an organizer understand the ideas you could bring to their audience.

The publishing schedule gives you consistency. Customer insight gives you substance. Your goals give that work direction.

4. Create opportunities for relationships to develop

Content can give someone a reason to pay attention and a way to build confidence in you. Relationships give you opportunities to understand their situation more deeply.

If you want three consulting clients, where are you creating those opportunities?

That might mean organizing a small dinner, meeting someone for coffee, attending a relevant event, hosting a webinar, or following up thoughtfully after a conversation.

It also means developing relationships with people who know your prospective clients and can recognize when an introduction would be useful.

A podcast can bring several parts together. You have a reason to invite someone into a substantive conversation, showcase a client’s perspective, and create something useful for the community around you. The relationship deserves attention after the recording, too.

For the consultant developing 30 prospect relationships, the work is in learning what matters to those people, contributing where they can, and following through.

When there is a fit, a clear offer and an appropriate invitation give the relationship a commercial next step. Someone still needs to understand the buyer’s situation, discuss the engagement, and help them make a decision.

5. Design the partnership around the whole goal

This is where expectations deserve more attention.

Content is tangible. You can pay for posts, newsletters, and videos. You can see what was delivered. It’s understandable that a broader ambition can get attached to that investment.

A good partner should help clarify what you’re building, explain how their work supports it, and make your participation easier. They should bring strategy, execution, guidance, and accountability.

Your contribution matters alongside theirs: your judgment, customer conversations, ability to build and sell your offer, relationships, feedback, and delivery experience. Then feed it back to your team.

For our consultant, that could mean a partner helps shape and produce the newsletter while the consultant brings a question from a recent engagement. Together, they develop something useful. The consultant then shares it with a prospect whose situation makes it relevant.

That’s the connection worth designing. You should understand what support you’re receiving, what it can reasonably accomplish, and where your involvement will make the greatest difference.

Bring the parts together

In the future, better tools and interfaces will make this coordination easier. There is still friction between having an idea, acting on it, following through, and understanding what’s working.

As that improves, we humans will actually have more time to give the system substance.

For now, choose the goal that matters most to you. Write down what already supports it, then identify the connection that needs attention.

Perhaps you’re publishing consistently but rarely speaking with prospective clients. Perhaps you have strong relationships but an offer people struggle to explain. Perhaps you’re doing valuable client work and haven’t created a way to share what you’re learning.

Choose one action that helps those parts work together.

Your content can become more valuable as the business around it develops. The more clearly you understand what you’re working toward, the more purpose you can give each instrument, and the more purpose content has in the world.

That’s where you begin conducting.