One of my clients recently asked about how to get better cooperation from the subject-matter experts (SMEs) who are the authors of the content. My work for this firm is mostly around ghosting content based on interviews, PowerPoints and other written materials, and it’s what’s now called “thought leadership content marketing.”

Many project descriptions are just-the-facts descriptions of what was done on a project. This format misses out on some huge opportunities to help sell the firm’s services. To do this, a project description needs to engage the reader, keep them reading, and by the end the reader has learned something useful.

If your firm needs to reach senior-level executives – the C-suite – to present your services, it can be difficult to get a chance. Senior people are guarded by assistants, voice mail, a never-ending schedule of meetings, and frequent travel. They’re not likely to see your e-mails, take your calls, return your voice mails, or be at any networking events you can get into.

Many of the business professionals I work with are deeply in love with their work. For example, I talked recently with an engineer in Montreal who is a firm believer that a chemical process called electrocoagulation (EC) is the next biggest thing in water purification.

In the days of mainframe computing, there was a saying: “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” The machines produced by Big Blue (as it was called) might be pricey, but they had a reputation for reliability. Their salesmen (and they were nearly always men) wore blue pin-striped suits that matched their company’s logo. The company’s reputation meant that any executive could defend the decision to choose IBM over its competition. IBM was the safe choice.

Don Draper had it easy. The brilliant advertising executive of the 1960s-era series “Mad Men” would simply think about a client’s issue, scribble an idea on a table napkin, and his job was done.

Many professional services firms today are tightening their marketing focus these days, often with a focus of developing and building relationships with certain specific target companies – the “key client” strategy. Marketers are under pressure to do their part in building and retaining their firm’s relationship with these clients.

If you ask many professional firm marketers the purpose of their firm’s content marketing program, they may come back with vague ideas like “to position our firm’s members as thought leaders,” or “To build awareness.” That’s easy to say, but hard to do, and harder yet to verify whether or not it’s working.

“But it takes so much of their time!” is a frequent complaint that many professional services marketers have about content marketing, followed by, “We can’t get our firm’s busy professionals to generate content.” Well, yes, it consumes some of their time. But it doesn’t have to take a lot, at least not in comparison to the benefits they receive.

Does your firm see greener pastures in other markets? Other industries, maybe, or other parts of the world? Your thought leadership strategy can help make that happen.

In his book “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell raises the idea that 10,000 hours of practice makes one competent at a task – whether it’s Bill Gates learning to code, or The Beatles performing outside a Hamburg stripper bar.

Is your firm’s content an asset in the sales process for your firm’s services? In too many cases, I hear that the sales cycle is so long and multifaceted that it’s impossible to expect thought leadership content from actually having a noticeable impact.If it’s not impacting, why are you doing it?

“80 percent of our company’s business comes from existing clients.” I heard this recently from a senior member of the marketing team at one of my biggest and longest-duration clients (18 years!!!!). That proportion is true for my firm, and I expect it’s like that for your firm too.

Have you ever arranged for one of your firm’s members to give a presentation at a conference, but it seemed to be a dud from a business-development perspective?

Are you looking for the ideal marketing vehicle for reaching people with significant budgetary discretion in your firm’s ideal markets? This vehicle needs the following characteristics: