The Thought Leader's I.P. Pyramid: The 5 Categories of Material Every Powerful Communicator Needs
Back in high school, young baby-faced Jay learned many lessons.
I learned how much hair gel was too much hair gel. I learned that puka shells can be worn with every outfit, and I later learned that puka shells should not be worn with any outfit.
Also, in physics class, I learned the formula for momentum. It's become a recent fascination again.
Momentum = Mass X Velocity
In other words, momentum has both a magnitude AND movement in a focused direction.
In the business world, we loOoOove discussing movement in a focused direction. How many different ways do we talk about picking a niche, crafting our message, selecting the right channels, adopting the right strategies, defining the customer persona, and on and on and on. We obsess over picking that focused direction, then moving towards it.
Me, I'm more interested in the other bit. The magnitude. What gives our work more power?
We've all experienced the thinking and the content of others whose work feels more like a house fly than a golden eagle. It lacks much mass, much magnitude. The other day, for instance, I saw a founder on LinkedIn proudly declare, "The future of content marketing is AI-led. Let me explain..."
Please don't? I've heard it a billion times before, always the same way.
"5 Pro ChatGPT Prompts for Writing Blog Posts" another post declared, and when that kind of basic, 2012-inspired content marketing doesn't work, what happens? Well, we're living through the obnoxious result, as advice gets aggressive. A quick scroll away was this version of the same exact post, with a more aggressive headline:
"You Are Using ChatGPT Wrong!—#1 Mistake 99% of Users Make"
Ugh. Why? Why the aggression?
Because they're commodities. They're sharing generic thinking, generalized expertise, without any differentiation. There are no underlying insights making it more valuable. There is no personal connection or story making it more original. It is low-impact stuff, and when you produce low-impact stuff, the only recourse to market said stuff is to get obnoxious. You shout louder, hype harder, try to rank higher or move faster or go more viral. And why?
Because you have to reach your buyers before the 17 competitors and 170 creators who all look and sound the same do.
All this content, some basic, some obnoxious, some both—its creators have a clear focus, and they absolutely move in that direction. But despite the motion, they don't experience momentum. Because they're missing the mass. There ideas sound like a kid on the kazoo, not an orchestra whose music fills the building.
There's no magnitude. There's no power.
So yes, we need our direction and focus, but we also need a certain "mass" behind our thinking. What creates that is your IP.
Your IP is your big idea and all the thinking behind it. This is the raw material empowering you to develop, distribute, own, and monetize your ideas.
If you were to somehow scoop out all the goodness from a bestselling business book? You'd be left with the IP.
Your IP supersedes any one thing, but it informs everything.
It's made up of five distinct things, most of which are developed by creating content (which turns your content from a means to distribute ideas to a powerful way develop them).
Your premise
Key terminology you curate, create, and/or define
Your methodologies (divided into how-tos and how-to-thinks)
Your signature framework
Your signature stories and signature bits
You can visualize this like a pyramid, as the layers above flow more easily from and increase their power because of the layers below:
This is my new framework, the thought leader's IP Pyramid. (Melanie, my cofounder in our Creator Kitchen membership, wants me to call this the iPyramid. Which would mean I pronounce it "i-P-ramid" but I can't yet pull off the pun. So it's the IP Pyramid.)
(Fine it's the iPyramid.)
On the iPyramid (still doesn't feel right), you can develop anything you want in any order you want, but the foundation that strengthens the rest is your premise. Your premise is the defensible assertion you make, pulled from your perspective, which informs your choices and your reputation. It's your perspective, made tangible, memorable, and capable of communicating quickly. It's the idea you're known for.
I've written more about how I developed my book's premise here so you can witness the messy process (and hopefully not overthink your own!), then I wrote about how to use your premise to generate better ideas for your content here.
Next, we have terminology. If you have a distinct premise, naturally, you need to ensure everyone is on the same page.
My premise (resonance over reach) requires that I define resonance. (Resonance is the urge to act we feel when a message or moment aligns so closely with us, we feel amplified.)
CFO/COO Susan Boles, who offers fractional services and intensives, asserts as her premise that you should make calm your new KPI. As a result, she defines something standing in the way of building calm companies, which she calls default decisions. (Decisions in your business you don't think about or realize you're making, often because it’s what you're "supposed" to do in a business culture that solves for growth-at-all-costs.)
Your terminology comes back again and again in content and conversation.
Of course, as experts, marketers, and educators of our audiences, we also spend time on the next layer of the IP Pyramid (I switched back, so sue me): methodologies.
Your methodology is the how-to and how-to-think advice you share. It's your tips and tricks, strategies and tactics, formulas, frameworks, mnemonics, systems, rules, and more. This is where we tend to live as communicators and content creators. We give advice. But our advice tends to lack that POWER, that magnitude, when the underlying foundations are weak or absent.
Given my premise of resonance over reach, my methodologies include how-tos (how to find signature stories; how to develop your signature talk; how to answer the prompt of "tell me about yourself" better) plus how-to-thinks (the 4 types of problems experts solve and which makes you a thought leader; and actually, this pyramid is a how-to-think too)
Tamsen Webster is the founder of the Message Design Institute and the author of a remarkable new book that just launched, Say What They Can't Unhear. She asserts, if you want buy-in for your ideas, don't challenge their beliefs. Exchange them. Tie your ideas to what they already believe. Great! So she uses that premise to develop how-tos (like the Smart, Capable, Good Test for Messages) and how-to-thinks (like the 4 audiences to create change). Even advice that sounds familiar, like it COULD be a kazoo (how to overcome objections) sounds like a symphony, because Tamsen's methodologies are informed by her premise and her key terminology.
Next, we have the two layers that really separate memorable leaders from yet-more generic experts sharing content and tips online. Is it any wonder both layers start with the phrase "signature," as in, sign your name to the work?
Your signature framework is the model you use to contextualize your IP, as well as help people embrace and use your methodologies more quickly, easily, or effectively. So, sure, I can say to you, "Hey, create better stories, why don't ya?!" Or I can share my signature framework, the Idea Impact Matrix:
Now, I can define what I mean by work that resonates, work that's higher-impact or "better." The impact of an idea is directly proportional to its value and its originality. That's what I mean by "better stories." Is there a distinct insight it conveys? That makes it more valuable. Is it uniquely personal to you, instead of generic? That makes it more original. Where are you now? We know where you want to be. What's in the way? Let's move. And we can move using various methodologies I can provide.
Then, the tippy-top of the iPyramid (I like them both, okay? calm down): signature stories and signature bits.
Can you ILLUMINATE your IP? Can you make it clear to others and also connect with them emotionally? You've got your premise, terminology, methodology, even a signature framework. But can you convey it in such a way that it deeply, memorably resonates?
You know what a signature story is (and if you want to hear amazing people dissect theirs, listen to How Stories Happen). A signature bit is just a quick way of explaining something about your IP that you can use repeatedly. I have a signature opening bit for my talks. That lasts a 3-4 minutes. I have a signature bit where I explain why resonance matters. It lasts 3-4 lines. ("Don't market more. Matter more. When you matter more, you can hustle for attention less.")
All of these things feel familiar to me, meaning I can then play, customize, tweak, and surround them with stories and ideas and advice that feels fun and new. I know I can bring the power, so I stop worrying about my efficacy and focus more on enjoyment in the moment—much like giving a talk where you don't need to think about each slide and can just focus on the little things that make THAT talk unique in the room.
Others access and benefit from your IP through your work: your messaging, your pillar projects like podcasts, speeches, books, and more, your ongoing content, your social media, your guest appearances, even your offers. Your IP supersedes any one thing you do, but it informs everything you do, everywhere you go.
Forget the volume of your marketing. Give your work more power.