Your first reader is a professional editor who will assume the role of your ideal prospect as they go through your thought leadership effort. They’ll put your V1 through the wringer before your ideal prospect does.
Like a regular copyeditor, they’ll check your piece for tone, style, grammar, brevity and the rest. Unlike a regular copyeditor, they approach your assertions, ideas and advice with the skepticism and attention your ideal prospect would.
Why do you want a first reader?
In a perfect world, your thought leadership effort blows your ideal prospect’s mind and motivates them to reach out. But, realistically, you’d be happy with a piece that reinforces your message and adds value to your ideal prospect.
You want a first reader so you don’t put in all that effort for one of these reactions:
“Huh?”
Your stance makes perfect sense to you and you think you’ve aptly proved your case. But neither matters if it only makes sense to you. This is frequently seen in emotionally-charged thought leadership pieces that go heavy on metaphor.
Your first reader will call out the obtuse, confusing or too clever by half material that might be diminishing the piece or obfuscating your message.
“TL;DR”
You’re passionate about your area of expertise and you could talk about it all day if no one stopped you.
Your first reader will get your extremely thorough effort down to a palatable length. They’ll strip it of confusing jargon without sacrificing your display of knowledge or passion.
“Who is this?”
Maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or your football team dropped a heartbreaker, or the news was particularly depressing last night? Whatever’s getting you down found its way into your thought leadership and it doesn’t read like what your audience has come to expect from you. You don’t notice, of course. But your ideal prospect will. And it could leave a sour taste that won’t go away.
Your first reader will call out tonal miscues and provide suggestions for improvement.
“BS!”
A common liberty taken by aspiring thought leaders is to find evidence that supports their assertion instead of forming an assertion after doing the research. In many cases, they’re so jazzed by their unique point of view that they don’t see the backwards approach. A meticulous ideal prospect will see it, though. And no one likes being taken for a disingenuous ride, regardless of intent.
Your first reader will protect your credibility by stress-testing your claims like your most hawkish ideal prospect would.
“We? No.”
You’ve read this before from me, but it’s worth repeating.
“We” and “I” are the dirtiest words in marketing because they centre you instead of your ideal prospect. And talking about ourselves is the default fallback for us all because it’s the subject we all know best. That’s why so many V1s are littered with “we” and “I.”
Your first reader will get your we count as low as it can be, and make sure your ideal prospect is front and centre.
“Next.”
This is a common response to GPT-penned content that is rich with data points but lacks a soul. It’s useful, but not memorable. It’s not compelling enough for your ideal prospect to care about who wrote it. And it positions you as another thought sharer instead of a true thought leader.
Your first reader will inject life and leadership into your content, helping you establish and maintain a unique voice.
“Ugh…”
We’re human. We make mistakes. But when we’re trying instil confidence in others, poor attention to detail is a killer. Your first reader will find and fix the little errors your unforgiving ideal prospects won’t abide.
The one thing your first reader will never do.
Your first reader will never pass judgement on your stance.
The positions you take in your thought leadership are a reflection of your professional and personal experiences, and above scrutiny. If your assertion is that cassette tapes need to make a comeback or that MJ is better than Lebron, your first reader will assume that position as well, and help you make it stick.
Is thought leadership part of your marketing mix?
If you don’t have a first reader and think you should, let’s talk.