Building a professional profile is an essential career skill today. This article describes how you can grow your reputation as a thought leader through creating and publishing content.

1. The growing need for an effective
content marketing strategy
Author: Carl Friesen
Firm: Global Reach Communications Inc.
Originally published in Environmental Science & Engineering
November 2012
Put yourself in the position of a prospective client who is looking
for expertise that happens to be exactly in the sweet spot your firm
most wants to build -- your ideal client. Would this person be able
to find your firm?.
In years and decades past, the prospect’s
search for expertise would have involved
paper, perhaps a trade or professional
directory.
Now, they’ll use Google -- or
increasingly, YouTube. Accordingly, it’s
vital for firms that want to get noticed and
stand out to get involved in the growing
trend of content marketing.
This means developing useful,
non-sales-oriented information or
“content” about your firm’s area of
expertise, and making it available online.
If a prospective client comes to see your
firm as a trustworthy source of
information, it’s a short step to starting a
business relationship.
Being discovered in a search for
expertise
To see how this works, consider a recent
lunch conversation I had with a colleague
I’ll call “Janet” who works with one of
Canada’s biggest banks. She leads a team that
sources external expertise. They get called in
whenever the bank needs to solve a particular
problem and doesn’t have the expertise in-
house or want to hire someone permanently.
Because of this role, I figured she’d be
a good person to shed some light on the
question of how the bank determines whether a
self-proclaimed “expert” is right for the
assignment.
As Janet told me, “We hire a ton of
consultants.”
Her team includes a researcher whose
job includes online searches to find experts.
This starts with keyword searches under
relevant topics. The researcher develops a long
list of people and firms that seem to have
expertise on the subject at hand.
Then, they’ll get to work qualifying the
names on the list. They look for articles that
the purported “expert” has published, speaking
engagements, the number of times quoted in
the news media, courses they’ve taught, books

2. published, white papers written and other
indications of expertise.
Depending on the level of recognition
of the potential consultant’s expertise, Janet’s
team develops a short list and then, after
interviews with the people involved, makes a
recommendation.
The purpose of content marketing is to
impress searchers such as Janet’s team that
your firm has the expertise, bench strength,
experience and other attributes to be the go-to
firm in its areas of operation.
Getting noticed in three kinds of
searches
Let’s say that you’ve recently made a key hire
we’ll call Aisha, who’s world-class on
mitigating the potential environmental impacts
of geothermal energy systems. You’re relying
on Aisha to be the core of a new geo-energy
practice area.
A prospective client looking online for
that kind of expertise might
use any of three ways to
search, according to my
colleague Grant Goodwin of
online agency AllRoads Inc.
1. They’ve heard of you --
but how good are you?
Many potential clients would
start by looking for the name
of a firm or individual --
asking a colleague, friend, or
other person in their network:
“Who do you know who’s
good at this topic?” or “Can
you recommend a firm that
knows its way around that
issue?”
This “name search” could also happen
if someone met Aisha at a networking event
and wants to find out more about her
professional credentials.
They’ll simply enter Aisha’s name
into a browser’s search box and see what
shows up.
The searcher will want to know what
articles Aisha has authored, papers she’s
published, books she’s written, speeches she’s
given, awards she’s received, projects she’s
worked on, and other evidence that she’s the
go-to person to solve their issue.
Probably, Aisha’s LinkedIn profile will
be near the top of the search.
If your firm wants to make Aisha look
good to someone who is investigating her
credentials and expertise, it’s important to
support her in developing evidence of thought
leadership. This might include arranging
speaking engagements, helping her write
articles and papers, and allowing her time to
participate in industry functions.
This information needs to be on
Aisha’s LinkedIn profile, and if she doesn’t
know the finer points of maintaining her
profile, you should provide that support.
2. They know what they want -- but
don’t know who can help
If the potential client doesn’t have a name of a
potential service provider, and is conducting a
search to find those names, he might conduct a
“topic search.” For example,
if the prospect has heard that
surface and groundwater
contamination are potential
issues for geo-energy, that
search might include
“groundwater contamination
geothermal” or “geoenergy
precipitated salts.”
If Aisha has published
information on those topics,
and it includes the right search
engine optimization (SEO)
measures such as keywords,
she should show up as
someone with expertise in
those fields.
To support Aisha, try
thinking like a potential searcher -- what search
terms would you use? Then, make sure that
those terms are prominent in headlines, meta-
tags, descriptions and the content itself.
3. They’re new to the idea, and need to
find a friend
It could be that Aisha’s prospective client
wants to build green and has heard that for

3. every technology, there are downsides. He
doesn’t know much more, at present. So, he
types in a “question search” such as, “What
environmental problems are there with
geothermal energy?”.
This is perhaps the hardest kind of
search for your firm to show up in, because
there are so many search words and terms that
could be used. It’s also the most rewarding,
because someone new to a topic will treasure
any online resources that answer their
questions, and be more likely to prefer your
firm when it comes time to
make a choice.
Paying attention to all
three types of searches can
pay big dividends when it
comes to demonstrating your
firm’s expertise to potential
clients.
Why your firm needs
a resource-rich
website
Getting noticed, favorably,
means going beyond a
“brochureware” site, still used
by many engineering firms --
an online brochure, with information about the
firm, its practice areas and its principals.
While a brochureware site provides
essential information to anyone wanting to
learn about your firm, it does little to convince
a prospect that your firm has a superior grasp
of its areas of practice. However, if your site
has a good supply of white papers, published
articles, case studies, videos, slide shows,
audio files and other content, it has a better
chance of being seen as the go-to firm in its
field.
Building and maintaining this kind of
site can be a major investment in time from
your client-service professionals, including
those whose time is most valuable. It involves
hiring appropriate marketing team members,
possibly supported by external suppliers. And
it demands management time.
But the advantage is that prospective
clients are already convinced that the firm is
the go-to source in its industry. This means that
your team spends less time preparing proposals
and selling, and more time generating billable
hours.
Go further: third-party credibility
Part of the solution to being visible to potential
clients comes in just having persuasive,
informative content available on your site.
But for selling high-end professional
services, you need to go the extra step of
having your firm’s content available through
sources already known to and
trusted by the people you
want to reach. This can
include industry and trade
magazines and their websites,
professional journals,
websites of professional
organizations, and aggregated
online sources. Why is third-
party hosting important?
Imagine a
competitive-bid situation. One
firm’s representative says,
“We’ve written six posts in
our blog on this topic.” The
other says, “We’ve published
six articles on this topic in
major international magazines.” The added
credibility makes the effort worthwhile.
It also boosts its visibility -- many
people have bookmarked websites that are part
of their daily routine, including their
professional and industry sites. Prospects are
more likely to encounter your firm’s content if
it’s posted where they’re already looking.
And, back to Google -- search engines
rank content higher if it’s found on sites that
already have substantial credibility, shown in
their traffic in and out.
Content marketing doesn’t replace
advertising in trade media, speeches and
workshops, newsletters and other marketing
tools. But it’s a growing trend, and firms that
master it early have an edge in the marketplace.
This article is adapted from Carl
Friesen’s upcoming book, “Your firm’s
expertise edge.”

4. About Global Reach Communications
We are a virtual firm that helps business
professional firms share their knowledge and
expertise through publication in print and
electronic media. This helps their though-leaders
get noticed and stand out as offering extra value.
We do this through:
 Helping thought-leaders determine what
expertise they want to demonstrate
 Seeking out online and print media that
reach people in our clients’ market, with a
capacity to turn ideas into reality
 Developing the content itself -- in the form of
an informative magazine article, a white
paper, video, audio file or other form of
communications
 Getting the information published
 Helping leverage the published content
through social media to spread the message
as far as possible
As a result, our thought-leader clients are able to
get their ideas in front of more people so that
they can be implemented. Benefits include their
choice of work at the rates they want to charge,
professional recognition and the satisfaction of
knowing that others are able to use the concepts
they have developed.
Tel. 1. 289.232.4057
carl@showyourexpertise.com
www.showyourexpertise.com
About the author, Carl Friesen
I love helping my business professional clients show their
expertise through getting their ideas published. This
makes their ideas available for others to implement --
helping my clients succeed professionally and personally.
I do this through:
 My journalism training and experience, which has
taught me how to find “the story” that conveys my
client’s expertise
 An MBA in Marketing, with a Certified Management
Consultant designation -- showing that I can put my
clients’ ideas into the words businesses use
 Over 15 years of experience working with business
professional firms, so I understand their culture and
how to work within their culture
 Excellent relations with a wide range of editors from
business publications, in North America and globally
 Good understanding of media including video, audio,
slide shows and info-graphics, as well as social media
including LinkedIn, Twitter, Slideshare, YouTube and
Soundcloud