The Industrial Sector Has a Thought Leadership Problem

In 1964, Bruce Henderson, the cantankerous-yet-brilliant founder of Boston Consulting Group, mailed out the first issue of Perspectives.

Composed of a single, eight-hundred-word essay that grappled with either a new idea or a nagging business question, Perspectives was a relatively novel innovation in marketing that was published in a brochure format just the right size for tucking into a coat pocket.

Back in the 1960s, this type of marketing—the marketing of ideas— was relatively new.

McKinsey & Company began publishing their Quarterly in 1964, and management consultants of the time were known to publish a piece or two in Harvard Business Review, but Henderson’s Perspectives were original and sometimes polarizing in their nature.

As Walter Kiechel III writes in Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World, Henderson was a disruptive thinker, writing in “opposition to the authority of established ideas and conventional thinking.”

According to Kiechel, in the decades that followed, BCG published over four hundred Perspectives, reaching an audience some reckon was as large as that of Business Week.

What Perspectives did for Henderson, besides serving as the core of BCG’s marketing program in the early years, was allow him to hone his intellect, to wrestle with his ideas until they were distilled into a crystal-clear, growth-inducing elixir that he could offer to some of the biggest organizations of his era.

He was engaging as a “thought leader” and “content marketer” decades before either of those terms had been coined.

What Henderson and countless other great business minds have shown is that in a sea of sameness, it’s the companies who aren’t afraid to say what’s on their mind that stand out.

It’s the companies who take a position about the work they do, about the people they hire, about the issues they find important, that attract the audiences they’ve been searching for.

It’s the companies who are willing to wrestle with ideas, and to be wrong publicly, the companies who are willing to have an opinion that’s contra to what’s typically thought, that rise to the highest levels of business.

Filling the white space

When I survey the industrial landscape, it’s clear to me just how much white space there is for companies to become true thought leaders.

There are simply not that many industrial (or construction or trucking or heavy-equipment, etc.) companies that regularly publish their insights.

My guess is that the nature of the work these companies do has given them the impression that what they think about the work they do doesn’t matter as much as the work itself—or as much as it would matter in, say, another industry like law or management consulting.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Establishing a position of intellectual authority is critical for any business, because it serves as the foundation for differentiation, not to mention acting as the cornerstone of an organization’s content-marketing program.

When asked about what makes them different from their competitors, industrial companies often respond by saying it’s their people that make them different.

But that answer is tired and cliché and—if we’re being honest—meaningless.

At least until you dig a little deeper.

What these companies actually mean is that it’s the way their people think, which informs the way they act, that makes them different.

And that, I believe, is true.

Because every organization is a collection of humans with brains that are all thinking about ways to solve the problems they encounter.

The people in the field might be solving different problems than the people in the office, but there’s overlap, because the way problems are solved in the field affects what happens in the office, influencing everything from profitability to positioning.

What’s more, the topic of how those problems are solved in the field becomes the evergreen topics a company can write about, allowing the organization to build a foundation of thought leadership that provides their customers with a base of knowledge to pull from that answers their questions while establishing (and continually reestablishing) credibility and trust—two crucial prerequisites your customers require before they’ll do business with you.

Expert consultant David C. Baker points out that if don’t regularly publish your perspective, your customers have every right to relentlessly question you.

They have every right to demand that you prove yourselves to them, or maybe even do free work, because they don’t know how you think or how you solve problems or how you’ve solved their particular type of problem before.

This alone makes regularly publishing thought leadership worth it.

And it’s the reason some of the biggest companies out there do exactly that.

A few good reasons and examples

Coyote Logistic, a leading global 3PL, writes about everything from supply chain network optimization and shipping trends to the truck driver shortage.

John Deere publishes The Furrow, The Dirt, and The Landing, which are all John Deere publications that showcase the company’s perspectives, people, and problem-solving ability.

Legence, a leading integrated provider of energy efficiency and sustainability solutions for the built environment, writes regularly about everything from mental health and safety in the workplace to understanding the SEC’s final climate disclosures ruling.

Each of these companies has made a concerted effort to write and publish their perspectives.

Each of these companies knows that disseminating compelling thought leadership results in an outsized return on investment.

Even so, many industrial firms are still hesitant to embrace this powerful tool.

So in an effort to quantify the benefits of regularly writing and publishing, here are ten opportunities your carefully honed words can help with:

1. Establishing Credibility and Trust: By sharing insights and expertise, companies build credibility with potential clients, fostering trust before the first business interaction.
2. Enhancing SEO: Regular publication of high-quality content improves search engine rankings, making your company more visible online.
3. Keeping the Team Sharp: The process of creating thought leadership content challenges your team to stay current and think critically about industry trends.
4. Driving Innovation: Deep dives into industry challenges often lead to innovative solutions and new product ideas.
5. Attracting Top Talent: Forward-thinking content positions your company as an attractive employer for skilled professionals.
6. Facilitating Networking: Sharing valuable insights can open doors to new business relationships and speaking opportunities.
7. Supporting Sales Efforts: Thought leadership content serves as a powerful tool for sales teams to educate prospects and demonstrate value.
8. Enhancing Brand Differentiation: In a world where brands are having a harder and harder time standing out, unique perspectives set your company apart from competitors.
9. Improving Customer Education: Complex industrial processes become more accessible to customers through well-crafted thought leadership.
10. Addressing Industry Challenges: Tackling tough issues positions your company as a problem-solver and leader in the sector.

A new-old perspective

Back when Bruce Henderson started publishing Perspectives in the ‘60s, his approach wasn’t just about marketing; it was about pushing the boundaries of thought in his industry.

He used thought leadership as a tool for intellectual growth, for challenging conventional wisdom, for positioning BCG as a disruptive force in the consulting world.

Today’s industrial companies have the same opportunity.

By following in Henderson’s footsteps and embracing thought leadership, you can transform your marketing efforts, your industry standing, and even your own internal thinking.

And with the advent of LLMs, even non-writers now have the ability to contribute in ways they couldn’t before, using technology to clarify their thoughts, to refine and structure content, to transform what they know into a distinct competitive advantage.

In 1964, Henderson couldn’t have foreseen how his simple eight-hundred-word essays would evolve into the content marketing and thought leadership landscape we see today.

Yet, the core principle remains the same: companies that aren’t afraid to think deeply and share their insights are the ones that stand out, attract the right audiences, and ultimately, lead their industries.

Schedule a brainstorming session with your team today to identify three unique insights from your recent projects.

Then, commit to publishing one thought leadership piece within the next month.

The white space is there.

It’s time for you to fill it.