"When over 90% of consumers say they trust recommendations from people they know, and trust peer recommendations more than ads, your reputation as an individual expert is more powerful than your brand's marketing in 2026. Thought leadership is not about ego, it is about using your experience to solve real problems in public forums, in a way that builds trust, opens doors, and drives commercial outcomes."
"When founders tell me they "don't have time" for thought leadership, I usually ask one question: If your ideal client were choosing between you and a competitor tomorrow, what would they find about you in two minutes on Google? In one Edelman-LinkedIn B2B study, 73% of decision-makers said an organization's thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities than its marketing materials, and almost 60% said thought leadership had directly led them to award business to a company."
Peer recommendations outrank advertising: over 90% of consumers trust people they know, and peer recommendations beat ads. Individual expert reputation will be more powerful than brand marketing by 2026. Thought leadership leverages experience to solve real problems in public forums, building trust, opening doors, and driving commercial outcomes. Decision-makers place higher trust in thought leadership than in marketing—73% view it as a more trustworthy basis to assess capabilities, and nearly 60% have awarded business because of thought leadership. Entrepreneurs should own one clear problem, craft a one-sentence positioning, and use that framing consistently everywhere their name appears.
Read at Forbes
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]