I've studied dozens of authorities like David C. Baker and Dorie Clark and identified the patterns behind their success.
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I ask the questions that highlight your expertise and challenge you to take harder positions, then help you turn it into a published body of work.
Thought Partner is the engagement I'd love for myself. An external partner in my corner, distant enough to retain objectivity, but close enough to care.
I'm a sparring partner.
Someone to hold a mirror to the unique insight you have. To pull it out of you.
To ask the right follow-on questions that get you thinking deeper about a topic and get to the root of why you believe what you do.
And someone to help you shape the insight. To connect each individual idea to the next to tell a compelling, concise narrative that makes sense as a whole.
Challenging you to take hard positions.
Accountability that energises you to finally do the thing you've wanted to for so long, but the day-to-day always got in the way.
The process below describes a book, which is the most common thing we make. The same rhythm applies to a keynote, a booklet or a series: we outline it, then build it one section at a time.
1
Month one
In month one we map the outline, drawn from the Authority Strategy work. This is the scaffolding for the work: the sections, the chapters, and the core elements within each. We design the reader journey, the path from where they start to where you want to take them. It's a starting point, not a fixed structure.
2
Every fortnight
We tackle one topic every fortnight and spar on each: validating, questioning, distilling, and bridging knowledge gaps until your ideas are concise and defensible. All in your words, not mine. Each individual story, piece of data or nugget of insight is what I call a beat. Think of it as a movie scene.
3
Every fortnight
After our call together, I package everything and send it over: the beats, and a suggested structure to write into – how they connect into a compelling, fast-paced narrative.
4
Every fortnight
The chapter, in your own voice.
5
Every fortnight
From a reader's perspective, identifying gaps or questions as I find them. You revise, I review again.
6
Every fortnight
The beats go out as we work: posted on social and/or sent to your email list.
7
Every fortnight, then on to the next chapter
We look for reader response. What resonated, what wasn't clear, or what felt unsubstantiated. Then we feed that feedback into the writing and editing.
8
When the chapters are done
Once every chapter is written, we bring them together as one piece. I review the whole, we work the connective tissue between chapters, and you make the final edits. This is where it stops being a set of chapters and becomes one piece of work.
9
Moving to publish
When the writing is done, you move into publishing. I give you a comprehensive handoff guide: the whole path from finished manuscript to published book. Who to hire and in what order, what to brief, what good looks like, what to avoid, and the vetted people to use. The first step is an independent editor, someone who hasn't been deep in the writing and specialises in book editing. From there, design and production: the people who turn a finished manuscript into a made object you can put your name on.
You've completed Authority Strategy. You know the one thing you'll build your authority around and the form it will take, whether that's a book, a keynote, a booklet or a series of essays.
When you've worked on thought leadership before, you typically encounter the following challenges:
Your head's a mess, and there's something in there, you're just not sure what it is. You have a hundred things to say and no way to pick the first five.
You tend to overwork everything. An idea becomes something slightly different, you lose the thread, and by the end it no longer feels worth sharing.
You want accountability. Someone to challenge you, ask the right questions, stress-test material before it's published, and support you when things get hard.
You leave with a finished body of work in your own voice, on the one problem you've chosen to own. Genuinely unique insight that contrasts with every other idea on the market. The impact scales without you: people share it, talk about it, pass it to the next person who needs it.
The engagement ends when the writing does. When we finish, we can work together on other insight projects, either as Thought Partner or in the less intense Authority Advisor engagement.
“Liam's a gold pan. A tool used by those of us seeking treasure in our expertise. We run our thoughts and ideas through the gold pan and the sediment and debris pass through the pan, leaving nothing but the gold.”
The book now sells through word of mouth. In his words, "I got a 19:1 ROI on every dollar I spent with you."
My work with Nigel