Peter Winick explains why thought leaders plant seeds through content and relationships but rarely harvest the opportunities that grow from them. Most people get the ratio wrong, spending eight hours planting for every hour they actually ask for business, introductions, or deals.
Hi there, it's Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and here's the thought I'd like to share with you today, and that's this: there are times as a thought leader that you should be planting, and then there are times as a thought leader that you should be harvesting. What do I mean by this? I find in my work with authors, speakers, academics, consultancies, thought leaders from around the globe that they're really, really, really good at planting and not quite as good at harvesting. So by planting, I mean They're building the relationships. They're putting high-quality content out there. They're getting their thought leadership out in front of those that matter. They're answering the questions of those that come to them, et cetera. That's planting. That's planting the seeds. That's enabling sort of the roots to set so that, if you stay with me on the farming analogy here, you can harvest. What do farmers do at the harvest? They reap what they sow. They pull out what they've planted. Get the crops out and take it to market. And most thought leaders aren't as good at harvesting, at going back into the network that they've nourished, at going back into those relationships they've worked on and worked with and pulled business from it and asked for an introduction and asked for an opportunity and, you know, gotten the benefits of all that hard work of planting. So anyway, what I would do is ask yourself this, you know, what is the ratio that you've got in your work of planting to harvesting? And it doesn't need to be 1 to 1, but if it's, you know, 8 planting and 1 harvesting, I would suggest that you adjust that ratio. Love to hear your thoughts. As always, thank you.
