Establishing Thought Leadership

In my last blog post "Beyond the Beside" I shared my business feature in Yahoo! News.

If you are on the GIRL BOSS email list, you also read my email that speaks to the importance of establishing thought leadership. I talked about why thought leadership and being featured in credible publications was important to solidify you as an expert and authority (it's also good exposure to promote yourself and your services).

I also shared a quick update on how things transpired in my business in only 5 hours after sharing my article feature on my social media sites. Below is a recap of what I shared with my email readers.

I shared that 39 minutes after sharing the announcement, I recieved an email from a Program Manager wanting to get newly hired employees trained.

I shared how I connected with a GIRL BOSS reader who sent me an email congratulating me on the article feature and after emailing back and forth, we've scheduled a virtual meet-n-great. Turns out she is also a fellow public health consultant doing similar work. (By the way, this is my favorite way to meet people and in the past these type of connections have resulted in partnerships, collaborations, introductions, and even paying clients.

I shared how almost 5 hours after sharing the article feature on social media, I received an email from a health department in another state asking me to register as a Vendor and considering applying (or responding to) an RFP (Request for Proposal) to provide Community Health Worker Training. (By the way, I will talk more about RFPs in a future "Q&A with QU" video).

Now, if you think that these opportunities are impressive, you should. Even more impressive is what I'm going to share with you next.

Just 5 hours after sharing the article feature announcement with my social media networks, my social media pages for my business had a combined 13 likes, 2 comments, and 1 share ACROSS ALL SITES. My personal social media pages had a combined 13 likes and 89 LinkedIn impressions ACROSS ALL SITES.

Now, I know what you are saying "Quisha, that's not impressive at all". And you would be right, if I was only referring to social media...but allow me to use this as a teaching moment.

In the coming months, I will let you know if I am able to convert the two big opportunities mentioned above. I currently have a conversion rate of 75%. (Yep, you read that right). This year I have converted 3 out of every 4 proposals written for 5-figure contracts. (Just call me #theconverter).

So, here's the take-a-way from reading this blog post. When deciding on your platform to establish thought leadership, go where your potential clients are. Sure, I use social media and it's great for creating individual awareness of my business and services, but my primary goal is organizational awareness. My social media posts are not going to capture the interest of the organizational leaders that I am looking to attract, but that's ok because I know what will.

When it comes to thought leadership, invest your time, energy, money, and resources ensuring your thought leadership leads to the bigger payoff.

In the coming weeks, you will be seeing me everywhere; podcasts, conferences, summits, and print media. As always, I will be sure to take you along for the ride and share my lessons learned.

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Quisha Umemba is a Registered Nurse with a Public Health background. She teaches "helping professionals" to monetize their skillset so they can build, launch, and scale a profitable public health consulting business using her proven step-by-step system called Ready.Start.Launch! Find out more by visiting https://quishaumemba.com/ or schedule a 20-min discovery session.