Peter Winick says most thought leaders build solutions first, then hunt for problems. The ones who win start by finding pain points organizations already pay to fix, then apply their expertise there. A solution without a validated problem wastes years of work.
Hey there, it's Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage, and I wanted to share with you today a pattern that I've seen over and over and over again in all of my years working with authors and thought leaders, speakers, academics, consultants, and CEOs. So one group of folks spends a lot of time, a lot of their energy, a lot of their resources solving something. So they've got a solution, and this solution has been worked out to the 7th decimal point, and it has been validated, and it has been tested, and it has been tried. However, it's never been brought to the market, and it's never been tested against a real problem. Another group of people take a look at the market, and they say, these are the types of people I can help, these are the types of pain points they have, and let me solve the problems they have with my expertise, with my knowledge, with my thought leadership. And when you start with the problem, and then solve something that the market has already told you is a problem that is worth investing in, that is worth spending money on, that needs to be solved, you will be far more likely to succeed when getting your work out into the workplace. And again, it's often tempting to think about the solution and stay in the laboratory and continue to validate models and experiment and such. But if the solution that you have does not match up to a problem that is backed by funding, meaning it's important enough for an organization to solve, not just interesting, not just a curiosity, not just a might be worth thinking about at some point in some time, but a true problem that they're already investing in, you're going to win. And I think it's that intersection of the solutions that you have, the problems that the market are telling you exist, that is, that is where the secret to correct and most efficient leveraging and monetization of thought leadership can happen for you and should happen for you. If you'd like to talk more about this, please feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com.
