Going “socialist” with your capitalist tendencies
The power of third party validation: is it right for you, now?
You know what’s fun about building an institute, a board or an advisory council? You get the best of both worlds—fearless entrepreneurial instincts paired with the stability and authority of a social enterprise.
There are benefits to invoking the power of a third party validating entity for your business, including:
- Developing, promoting and publishing industry leading research that get you HEADLINES
- Gaining deeper insights into your own industry through the FELLOWSHIP of noncompetitive peers
- Creating rich content and context for NEW INDUSTRY CONFERENCES
- A white hat vehicle for social proof of all kinds, from social media groups to press conferences
As Dave Kerpen of Likeable Social Media says, “Like is the new link.” By creating intentional groups that can work together on your mission and goals, you create a stronger social proof position.
But like all entrepreneurial endeavors, building an advisory board, a trade association, think tank, institute or council is not for the faint of heart. This white paper is a short guide to help you spend less time on the boring stuff and cut to the acceleration factor for your company.
You’ll:
- Fast track the “should I do this or not” decision
- Get samples of invitations to get you started
- Review some ideas about form and structure from a legal perspective
- Sketch the new organization’s future
To be or not to be:
6 ways to make the go/no-go decision for today
The time is right for companies to take a look at building a third party “validation” machine under the following conditions:
- You’re about to launch a product or service into big new territory where you haven’t made a reputation for yourself yet.
- You have saturated your current niche and need more “juice” to influence new friends and partners.
- You need a bigger news presence and at your current scale, you can’t quite get the headlines you hope for or the speaking engagements you need to grow.
- You actually want, need and crave some guidance or feedback from aligned business interests and would like to formalize that powerful process.
- You’d like to start a conference, but you want more than a user conference or client conference—you need to go bigger.
- You want to give a big award in your industry but you sense your niche position as a business just isn’t the right “angle” for attracting the right people to the award.
If this isn’t you, then perhaps now is not the time for a third party validating organization. Keep reading to see if you reconsider.
Did you know?
Reputation
is worth 26%* of its market cap.
Let’s take a step back from tactics of your new organization, and take a closer look at why this matters.
Reputation for your firm is a vital component
of its overall valuation. According to this *June
2012 Echo Research and Reputation Dividend
study, Apple currently has the most potent corporate reputation, worth 58% of its shareholder value. The reputations of ExxonMobil and Chevron followed in the rankings, at 56% of shareholder value each ($645B). From this perspective, corporate reputations contribute a total of $3.19 trillion to market cap in the S&P500 alone. (2012)
Third party groups like industry think tanks contribute to being able
to build your reputation.
1% of people create content.
9% share it
90% consume.
Become part of the 1% that creates to maximize your reputation capital.
Answering WHY with WHO
Writing the right mission statement
This is a strange way to put it—answering why with who—but you’ll understand in a few seconds.