The Wisdom Whisperer is a powerful PR strategy.
Giving advice is a form of art.
Whether you’re a leader giving orders, an industry expert providing advice to clients, or a blogger offering insights, there’s more to giving people direction than just telling them what they need to hear.
It’s about advising in the spirit of servitude.
And that is what education is all about.
Of course, educating your industry is also a great PR strategy — especially for B2B.
Here we go:
Step 1: The Foundation
Some might think that education is about handing out good advice left and right. But giving good advice and offering guidance is difficult.
The willingness and ability to serve will transform someone who gives good advice into a Wisdom Whisperer.
Why is servitude so important?
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Existentialism: Thought Leadership, Advisory, and Education
Regarding thought leadership, advisory, and education, I often remind myself of the beautiful words of the Danish existentialist Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855): 1Søren Kierkegaard. (2023, November 27). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard
“If one is truly to succeed in leading a person to a specific place, one must first and foremost take care to find him where he is and begin there.
This is the secret in the entire art of helping.
Anyone who cannot do this is himself under a delusion if he thinks he is able to help someone else. In order truly to help someone else, I must understand more than he — but certainly first and foremost understand what he understands.
If I do not do that, my greater understanding does not help him. If I nevertheless want to assert my greater understanding, then it is because I am vain or proud, then basically instead of benefiting him I really want to be admired by him.
But all true helping begins with a humbling.
The helper must first humble himself under the person he wants to help and thereby understand that to help is not to dominate but to serve, that to help is a not to be the most dominating but the most patient, that to help is a willingness for the time being to put up with being in the wrong and not understanding what the other understands.”
— Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)
Servitude is the foundation for success for all aspiring thought leaders, advisers, and educators.
Learn more: Existentialism for PR Advisers
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Step 2: The Message
Every Wisdom Whisperer must, like an organisation, have a Core Message and a Promise Filter. 2Early in my PR career, my personal Core Message as a thought leader in the PR industry was that we must adapt to digital-first. That core message was present in everything I said and did.
By dividing the Core Message and the Promise Filter into Content Themes, the Wisdom Whisperer can cover several topics without losing focus:
Content Themes
Let’s use a fictitious example of an IT company. First, they decide on a Promise Filter for their content strategy:
Promise Filter: We make IT easy to understand.
Then, the IT company breaks their core message down into four business-critical Content Themes:
Q1 Content Theme: We make people understand the Internet of Things (IoT).
Q2 Content Theme: We make people understand business automation.
Q3 Content Theme: We make people understand cloud computing.
Q4 Content Theme: We make people understand managed services.
For each quarterly Content Theme, they produce Content Packages (to build Content Skyscrapers). Each Content Package could contain the following:
Learn more: The Content Themes PR Strategy
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Step 3: The Structure
Every Wisdom Whisperer needs an online basecamp, whether that is a brand website or a personal website. To get any educational PR activities across, the content must be wisely published and distributed for inbound success.
How can you share your insights in a structured manner?
Deep Content
Above is an example of an online content structure that’s five levels deep.
In the example above, five layers of evergreen content are stacked:
Deep Content is centred around providing increasingly higher quality to Content Divers (clicking vertically) since they’re more valuable than Content Surfers (clicking horizontally).
As for the importance of structure and depth, the logic is the same as for Iceberg Publishing and Content Themes.
Learn more: The Deep Content PR Strategy: Win By Going Deeper
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Step 4: The Narrative
For anyone in a position of superiority, be it a leader or an expert or both, accepting the role of a servant is the true challenge in every educational enterprise. The Wisdom Whisperer must be ready to take the high road and seek the path with the most obstacles.
How can you achieve such a PR tonality?
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The Stoic PR Professional
I’m inspired by Stoicism — and intrigued by the idea of translating classical Stoic virtues (wisdom, courage, justice, temperance) and applying them to public relations:
The Wisdom Pitch
“A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desires into undertaking.”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Tell PR stories of how organisations can be wise and overcome obstacles that have stopped others in their tracks. Convey PR messages on how to apply wisdom, knowledge, and experience.
The Courage Pitch
“We cannot choose our circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”
— Epictetus
Tell PR stories of brands that never back down in the face of hardships that would lay waste to other organisations. Convey PR messages of how an organisation can be righteous even when storms are raging.
The Justice Pitch
“Concentrate every minute on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Tell PR stories of how organisations relentlessly can strive for honesty and transparency — even when uncomfortable. Convey PR messages about how all brands, without exception, can rid themselves of dishonesty and incompetence.
The Temperance Pitch
“It’s not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor.”
— Seneca
Tell PR stories of organisations that strive for higher values in a world where all other organisations suffer shortsightedness. Convey PR messages of organisations prepared to abstain from short-term gains to make the world better for all.
Learn more: Stoic Philosophy for PR Professionals
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Step 5: The Resilience
Establishing and maintaining relationships takes time.
No one will become a Wisdom Whisperer overnight. Long-term resilience is critical for any online educator who wants people to listen.
The secret to success is to stay consistent and offer valuable insights repeatedly.
The Wisdom Whisperer
Being regarded and revered as a key industry educator is first and foremost a responsibility. Any positive outcomes in terms of PR must be secondary considerations. Teaching might not be your calling if serving a community with your insights and knowledge isn’t your Ikigai.
For the Wisdom Whisperer PR strategy to work, all sharing must always begin from a pure passion for education and servitude.
Thanks for reading. Please consider sharing my public relations blog with other communication and marketing professionals. If you have questions (or want to retain my PR services), please contact me at jerry@spinfactory.com.
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“The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.”
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The Magical PR Strategy Question
Your PR strategy should answer one simple question:
Whenever your PR strategy fails to answer this question, it also fails to provide a roadmap to success.
“Competitiveness is derived from permanent infrastructural characteristics of organizational design, rather than just relying on temporary strategic assets.”
Source: Strategic Change 3Connor, T. (2007). A consideration of strategic assets and the organizational sources of competitiveness. Strategic Change, 16, 127 – 136. https://doi.org/10.1002/JSC.789
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ANNOTATIONS
1 | Søren Kierkegaard. (2023, November 27). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard |
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2 | Early in my PR career, my personal Core Message as a thought leader in the PR industry was that we must adapt to digital-first. That core message was present in everything I said and did. |
3 | Connor, T. (2007). A consideration of strategic assets and the organizational sources of competitiveness. Strategic Change, 16, 127 – 136. https://doi.org/10.1002/JSC.789 |