How thought leadership wins attention, trust & business with Nic Peck

Craig Taylor (00:31) So we're back with another episode of the Truth, Lies and B2B Tech podcast. This episode is going to focus on thought leadership, which is a topic very close to our heart. I think more and more organizations are investing in thought leadership and increasingly it's an important aspect for any buyers that are considering working with different vendors as a way to evaluate them. But there's a lot changing in this space, not least as a result of advances in AI and content production.

We were really keen to get our guests onto the podcast when we saw that they had recently launched a new thought leadership survey, an extensive survey. So we're delighted to have Nick Peck from Coleman Parks, who is the director of client services. So we'd like to have you on board today, Nick, and I think if we can maybe just kick off with just a very brief intro into Coleman Parks, what you do, and then we can start getting into the survey in a bit more depth.

Nic Peck (01:31) Yeah, absolutely. So at Coleman Parks, we're a B2B market research agency consultancy. And we're working with clients all the time to predominantly provide research for their thought leadership.

We started asking the question, how can we actually help get our clients to have more value out of the research that we provide? How do we help them provide the best thought leadership and how do we help them do that in a way that's very structured and strategic rather than kind of a one and done thought leadership piece? So you asked about what my role is. Actually, it's just really working with clients to make sure they get the best success out of the thought leadership that they're doing.

And that's really why we launched this study ourselves. We decided to launch a global study. We spoke to 600 decision makers and these are all really senior decision makers from large organizations. That's across tech, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and more. And we really wanted to speak to the people making and influencing big decisions. So high stakes, B2B buyers. And for us, the goal was pretty simple.

It was we really want to understand what makes thought leadership super effective in 2025. So how do we help clients really earn attention and build trust, but also shift it into action, especially when we have this massive sea of sameness and tons of noise out there.

Craig Taylor (03:03) So was there any particular reason that led you to do the survey now?

Nic Peck (03:09) Yeah, I think we just started with our own hunch really, which was that a lot of thought leadership just wasn't doing its job. We can see that brands are investing more, most big brands now have a thought leadership program and the output's looking really slick. They're doing well with the content that they have, but just not all campaigns were landing and we really wanted to test that. So to start moving the conversation away from, are you doing thought leadership? I think it's evident that you need to in 2025, but actually moving it towards what's driving decisions and what thought leadership can actually drive commercial outcomes rather than just focusing on awareness.

James Ingham (03:50) And on that point actually, I think some of the data from your research mentions that the vast majority, I think 99% of decision makers in organizations that deal with contracts above 500k say that thought leadership is a factor in their buying decisions. But what kind of weighting do you give? How much of a factor is it in their decisions compared to other factors that clearly they need to consider?

Nic Peck (04:18) I mean, I think it's huge. It's not just a surface level consideration. When we have a look at what buyers are using thought leadership for and the decisions that they're making there, they're using it to de-risk decisions. This came up really highly when we asked what are you using thought leadership for? And then it's what do they do with it next? So also actions they'll take, they'll really actively judge a provider based on their quality of thought leadership.

A high percentage said you know we will judge a provider based on the thought leadership. Then they start to compare one with another, so with competitors so the thought leadership is really just getting you into that conversation to begin with. Then what we see though is if it's done well it really starts moving along that buyer's journey. So it's not just a factor about getting attention.

What we saw was that a really big percentage said if thought leadership really hits the mark and it's delivered well and it's delivered to them in a way they trust and expect perhaps through account managers or through trusted networks, they will actually proactively reach out to the provider and have a discussion with them. So I think we're seeing thought leadership has a much bigger commercial role rather than just this top of funnel awareness.

James Ingham (05:17) I think that would be quite surprising to a lot of people. I think a lot of people see thought leadership as a brand building exercise, an ability of course to get their opinion, their voice out there, but I don't think many have kind of connected the dots as well as they perhaps could have done between thought leadership and direct revenue generation. I think that could be a really interesting point and something that people might not have considered.

Nic Peck (06:01) I think that feeds into something else we found, this sort of feeling that it's about getting an opinion out and getting a voice out. And that's when it slightly misses the mark. It's taking that brand first approach or that opinion first approach, which can blend from one company to another. And what we found is that six in 10 of our decision makers said that they've seen really nearly identical content from one brand to another. So we've really been exploring how do you make thought leadership more relevant? How do you make it relevant to your audience rather than the message that your brand wants to portray? How do you make sure then that it lands? Something that came into this was that nearly half of decision makers said that the thought leadership they get misses the mark, it doesn't quite hit the priorities that they're searching for answers on and these kind of next concrete steps forward.

Craig Taylor (07:00) You're talking there around the fact that the content is near identical. Is that because buyers are overwhelmed with lots of different opinion or the same opinion from different vendors, but none of it's really backed up or evidenced? Is that part of the problem?

Nic Peck (07:20) I think when you really dig into what it is that decision makers want, you can start to see the gaps where different pieces of thought leadership is just not delivering. Even buyers who said or decision makers who said, yeah, I think thought leadership is pretty good. When you dig into where they think it's good compared to what they actually value, there's big gaps in there. So the first key area that sticks out is really looking for action oriented thought leadership and yet this wasn't a key driver of why thought leadership is improving. So I think that's the gap that decision makers are looking for.

There's another element about they're using it to de-risk these big decisions. So they want something original. And there's an element here of really pushing into owning a white space. So not just me too marketing, not just jumping on a theme or an emerging theme, but really digging in and saying, okay, what can we look at here that actually challenges the existing industry narratives and isn't just a hot take.

I think when you start to move into these areas, you can see how it would then create something much more differentiated.

I think the third key bit to add here is really looking at what we mean by relevance. So not about trendspotting, not looking generally, but we dug in and we had here 74% of decision makers say that the thought leadership they value is really targeted to their specific challenges. And by this, they don't just mean markets and sectors, which we would expect to have some thought leadership tailored to that, but actually to their roles as well.

So it's individuals who have to make a big decision trying to de-risk that next step that they personally are taking.

James Ingham (09:07) I think it's interesting actually what you said in the previous point around the fact that a lot of people perhaps don't necessarily understand the true level of impact that thought leadership is having. Do you think that's leading to some organizations treating thought leadership either as a purely brand exercise or a tick box exercise? And as you found in your report, is that having not just an ineffective approach to thought leadership, but is that having a negative impact on sales and pricing?

Nic Peck (09:46) I think it's a really high risk. It's no longer just a nice to have or let's try and get it right. I think the first problem that brands will face if they're not strategically trying to set this up for success is it's going to be silent to begin with. So we saw that 72% of decision makers say they won't recommend a provider if thought leadership is poor. So yeah, that's lost advocacy, but you're just not going to see that outright.

You know that's something that's going to hit you over time. And then we really saw it moving into impact on new business. 66% said they wouldn't work with a new provider if thought leadership doesn't hit the mark. So now we're moving into lost growth. And I think in that area of the research the thing that for me was the most worrying really was something that could really impact market share.

And we saw that 71% of decision makers said if their current provider doesn't provide thought leadership that hits their priorities, they will actively go and look at other competitors' content. So that's really moving from not just a missed opportunity, but really eroding your market share as they seek elsewhere for the content that they need.

Craig Taylor (11:05) Yeah, I think one thing that we talk a lot about or reference a lot on the podcast is the 95-5 rule. The research was done some time ago by Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. I think it's too simplistic, I think, for this world, but in simple terms, it suggests that 95% of your market isn't in market and you'll never really be able to influence them until they become sales ready, which is something that they'll determine on their own.

But I think the research really pointed towards the fact that you really can shape and influence those people in the 95% to actually come to market with really strong thought leadership. Maybe you can just talk to that a little bit, because that's always something I've intuitively thought was the case. And I think the research brought that out as well.

Nic Peck (11:55) Yeah, I think this is where it starts to move from thought leadership for attention, but actually thinking about the whole buyer's journey and thinking how do you join up the very start point to commercial impact. And I mean, it has to be good enough to do it. But if you think about thought leadership as really being the long game, you want to make yourself really relevant. So understanding what's happening with your audience, keeping it dynamic. We also found that decision makers said that they quite like to collaborate in thought leadership and they want it to be updated. So it doesn't have to be a foundational piece and then, you know, that's it for the year. It's about saying, okay, how do we keep the conversation going and how do we become just trusted by the audience to then feed out more information to them? And I think the research showed two different ways of doing that. On the one hand, we looked at formats that buyers are using at different parts of that decision making. But the other element is to think of thought leadership as not just a static piece and to say, OK, how after we've earned attention, how do we actually get them to engage with content? It might not be that they're ready to make that specific decision, but if you can find ways for them to engage with your content over time when it comes to that decision making, then they know where you are and they're going to come back and reach out actively to you.

Craig Taylor (13:24) Yeah, I think that you know, some organizations may struggle with the development of their thought leadership or content strategy, but I think you've got a really strong piece of research to start with. It almost shapes the strategy for maybe, like you say, six to 12 months and everything else can be kind of built around that. And then it does overcome somewhat the viewpoint that sometimes, you know, research can be expensive to do. It doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, but I think there's a perception that it needs to be the case. But I think if you start maybe a year or halfway through the year with a signature piece of research, it can really make it a lot easier to plan around it going forward. You've seen that with your clients more and more.

Nic Peck (14:07) Yeah, I think it can be a real true differentiator because you can have a piece of research that allows you to do each of these elements of really impactful thought leadership that allows you to understand your audience's challenges so that you can be super relevant. But it then allows you to layer on the opinions of your subject matter experts or of your brand with that research, which creates something unique in itself. I think then that becomes about more than a white paper or report.

It's about the whole journey really, at what different points can we share information that's going to help decision makers. One thing that really stuck out to me was how decision makers felt one of the real uses of thought leadership was actually to align decision makers so that if you've got multiple people in a buying unit they will become aligned and really fast track that decision. So again it speaks back to relevance because you need to find a way of personalizing that thought leadership with the data that can be useful for more than one person in that decision-making unit.

James Ingham (15:16) You mentioned in the report itself the importance of making any content that's driven off the back of research practical, applicable, and useful. In the spirit of making sure this podcast is the same, you've touched on a few of them already. But I wondered if you could lay out the seven pillars that you mentioned in the report around producing effective and high quality thought leadership.

Nic Peck (15:42) Yeah, absolutely. So this was really driven by the data to really dig into what are the core ingredients that you need in thought leadership that's just going to stand out above everything else. And I think many pieces of thought leadership do well on two, three of these, sometimes four. But it's the pieces that have real commercial impact and can last for a year and can take decision makers on that whole journey that have these seven pillars. So we grouped them around to begin with that the most valued attributes in thought leadership was to be action oriented. So really high here, 79% said action oriented thought leadership. And that's helping a buyer do something, not just think about something.

And just below that you had 78% original thought. So these kind of provocative, challenging insights that will just bring in a new perspective and perhaps challenge market or industry assumptions, which makes sense when you're trying to de-risk a big decision.

And the final element of being really relevant here so that you can inspire action and not just create awareness was about being targeted. So the final piece really up here in that top three things that are valued is targeted thought leadership by role, geography. So this is not a one size fits all piece. A question that often comes up here, is can we jump straight to being action oriented? Doesn't that feel perhaps a bit self-serving or how do we get actions into thought leadership pieces? I think that's where we saw this other section here. So two more pillars under the becoming trusted. So how do you earn that authority rather than just attention so that you can put these concrete next steps in front of your audience?

And the two elements here that were really valued were being evidence-led and being authentic. So this is really about saying, the brand's perception and expertise is really important, and that's how you get these authentic sounding pieces of thought leadership. But it really needs to be grounded in objective, robust data. So whether that's proprietary research or other credible data that you have.

It's really finding that balance between saying, yep, we truly know what's happening in the market. We're going to share those insights with you so that you can recognize yourself and see where you are in the problems that you're facing. And then we'll layer on our perspective, which just helps build confidence in the next steps. And then that final bit there is, OK, how do you then become important ongoing? And it's about creating a balance of much more forward thinking thought leadership. So helping your audience anticipate what's going to come next, sharing insights on that before you jump to, and this is the action that you should take. And then the final element here is if you can link your thought leadership back to a commercial element to make it commercially focused, then you're really recognizing the specific priorities that that decision maker has.

What are they trying to solve? Are they trying to de-risk something? Are they trying to justify an investment? Are they trying to grow? If you can build back to that and tick each one of these pillars off, really they're not just walking away with a new perspective, they are having the confidence to take that next step.

James Ingham (19:14) Yeah, and I'd be keen to hear from your perspective where people have maybe fallen short most commonly.

I think from our experience working with clients, I think targeting is sometimes really difficult to do, particularly for those that are at the smaller end of the spectrum. And I think that's because our clients, for example, might be targeting maybe three or four different types of organizations in different industries and stakeholder groups in those organizations, particularly in a B2B complex sale, which is what we focus on, are often quite broad and have many different personas.

And I remember a conversation with a client not too long ago about this very kind of topic. And she said to me at the time, well, that's great, but I have a budget. I can't necessarily produce content for every single one of those personas which is targeted and every single one of those industries. So I don't know if you've seen that yourself or whether there are solutions to that problem or whether there are other areas where you see people falling short.

Nic Peck (20:13) I think really it's about starting with the end in mind and that doesn't mean taking a closed-minded approach to what's out there, but it's like what are you trying to do with this piece of thought leadership? Who are the actual people you're trying to influence? And then if you can look at that carefully, you can say, okay, how do I really get to understand what's happening with a granular level of detail, what's happening for them? And then depending on objectives and budgets, you can decide how big or small that you make that. But I think the danger is spending money on something that tries to cover many different things but actually doesn't get any of the depth because then you just join this sea of noise where it's just another thing that's at this surface level. So I would really pick the market, the sector, look at, let's segment your audience and let's drill down into some of that detail. If you've got a bigger budget or more time or want to put the research really at the heart of what you're doing, I think a strategic piece of research can actually help you tick off many of those pillars. It allows you to understand how to put those actions in front of them and what the market needs.

I think the other thing that really gets missed here is the opportunity for more interaction with thought leadership. So we saw decision makers saying they value giving feedback, but actually this is actually feeding into the thought leadership process, as well as at the end having more personalised delivery of it. So that could be done, I mean, that could be done just by talking to your customers and including them in the research process. Or it could be done where you've got a great piece of research, loads of insights, you've got a strong thought leadership piece and then we can help design much more interactive tools for them off the back end. Perhaps looking at three or four self-assessment questions, so having a look at the data and the insights and saying okay how can we ask a few questions that the audience then puts in a bit of information and then the next step they get served up content that's really specific to them to whatever stage they are in the journey and I think that's the real opportunity for personalisation when you say we've got this big set of insights but what we can do is give you the exact ones that you need for the situation you're in at this moment.

James Ingham (22:36) Yeah, interestingly we're working on a project that's very similar to that at the minute, where we have a foundation piece that has supported the production of a large scale guide, but digitally as you mentioned, we then continue to gather data for people that are interested in reading the initial report, which has extended the life cycle of something like that potentially across a decade, because we can then compare new findings from those self-assessments to the original data and look at trends and how things change. This was under AI readiness but so that's a really interesting use case as well in terms of topping that data up through interactive self-assessments that can then be used to create new versions of the report over the years without having to continually invest in large-scale research year after year.

Craig Taylor (23:29) I think Nick picks up a really important point for me as well, because I think a big mistake a lot of people make is they focus too much on top of the funnel and they don't have the content to follow through across the buyer journey. And that really came out in the research how important that is to do. I think that maybe because, and you probably have a view on this, a lot of thought leadership is driven by marketing. Therefore they tend to be more measured top of the funnel. I think when it really, really works is when you've got content aligned to that signature piece all the way through the funnel. So I think we talked earlier before the podcast about the case study of how your client galvanized its team behind the research piece and used assessments to interact with clients. That, you know, not just worked from a go-to-market perspective, but it overcame another huge challenge that a lot of internal teams have in terms of aligning marketing and sales. So it has a number of different benefits if you can get this whole kind of strategy right.

Nic Peck (24:26) Yeah, and that piece where they really had everything from short form content, really, at the early stages of the buying decision, infographics, bits that just caught attention. And also, I think what feeds into that is some really big, interesting stats that the media pick up on. You know, what are those hero headlines that you want? And let's pull those out so that it captures attention, both of your audience and of the media. But then moving through that, you know, how do you get the message further out there? And this particular client, they then managed to go into longer form content. They had reports that were personalised by market, job role. But also they did a series of conferences and keynotes. Each keynote was tailored to that audience. It was a massive organisation themselves, but they got all the internal stakeholders involved and said, what's happening in your market? And we really worked through the research and the insights with them to say, look, this is what we see in the data. Give us the commentary around that. And they built up quite a rich narrative of context that was really individualized by markets which they rolled out at different conferences. It was only because of the traction of that and the interest that they started to get globally that they said you know what how can we take this one step further.

I think by then they'd had over 500 global media articles. So they'd been almost a kind of global media wildfire on this. And then other teams were much more sort of easy to get involved. And you had the head of marketing that went out and briefed their sales team. So 200 salespeople to say, look, these are the insights we've got. We've created you this benchmarking tool and this very interactive, easy to use self-assessment. You can actually take this out for prospects and you can sit with them and you can work through the insights and say okay this is where you are, this is where the rest of the market is, this is what other people are doing, which was just gold for a sales conversation. And so then they started to use that tool which they see as their main tool to generate C-level sales meetings now.

Craig Taylor (26:42) So I think you've also mentioned in the report, this whole way of developing a strategy that really looks for the white space. And I think you used the phrase, you know, basing it on a hunch. So maybe you could just talk through that process a little bit, because that, you know, you obviously, you're the experts in crafting these kinds of surveys and pulling together the kind of the hypothesis, if you like, with a client, but where does it start? Where does that kind of, how do you help people get that hunch and then follow that through to something that's really actually going to work and get traction and be relevant.

Nic Peck (27:15) Yeah, and I think it depends on how close that brand is to its audience at that point in time with whatever is evolving. Sometimes we'll have someone who comes and says, you know, I've got this really strong hunch or hypothesis, let's test it. But much more often we try and work with bigger groups of people. So get the important stakeholders involved in your organization. You know, don't have this thought leadership as a siloed piece in marketing.

And we often facilitate that, almost doing like a focus group of stakeholders, I suppose, so that you can say, OK, what could be the end result of this? What are all the business ambitions? And then can we work with that end in mind and bring it back to one strategic piece of research? So I think for that campaign, we ended up with a questionnaire that was only something around 30-odd questions. So it doesn't have to be massive. But because we got everyone in a room to begin with, we could really understand all of the different elements that needed to be in there and already their opinion on what was happening. These SMEs, these are experts, they do know what's happening, but what we need to do from there is build out to take an objective view of the broader market. I think it was following that process where then they had sector reports, market reports, then they had big interesting data points that were interesting for global press, so picked up in just top-tier media because you had those really robust numbers. I think that's often useful when you have a research agency that's where market research society accredited. All of those things are important if you want to get that global media attention.

I think for brands themselves, it gives them confidence that if they do get into that white space and they're finding something really interesting to say, we're there with them to say, yeah, the data is leading this story. This isn't opinion based. We've got the insights here. So I think it's combining the expertise of research with the expertise of the brand itself. And it's that crossover point, which is where you get these really interesting, authentic narratives that can move into a white space and capture the market's attention.

James Ingham (29:31) Do you ever find any kind of challenges in identifying that white space? Because certainly from our experience producing content, sometimes the direction that the business wants to go in for its own kind of self-serving purposes doesn't necessarily match data that might be derived from a study like this. What strategies would you have for trying to align the business's direction and what the market is actually saying through research?

Nic Peck (29:55) Yeah, there are always the worries. It's what if we don't find anything worth talking about or do we have to publish it if it says something we don't want it to say? But actually, I think that's where if you're not sat just researching anything and everything that comes up, you're looking at what is the business objective here? What are the commercial objectives that you need to fulfill?

And then we work back from that and we say, okay, how do we unlock ultimately what the audience needs to take those steps forward? And it's digging into the real nuance of what different parts of the audience need that unlocks the authority to then say, ah, here we go. This is what you need to do. And if you, you know, if your product or if your service is genuinely helping with a market need, then that's going to be a very easy journey.

I mean, I would then argue if it's not, and if that feels very uncomfortable, then you need to make thought leadership really an integral part of all of your different teams. You know, make it more strategic, get product involved, get sales involved, get marketing, get everyone saying, what's this showing? What's the true story in the market? And then how do we get behind that? And actually that's something that happened with this, this really successful case study as well is just as an add-on at the end, they gave all of this insight to their product team, who simply by being closer to that very nuanced feeling within that audience and the very specific challenges they were facing in the next three to 12 months, they just finely tuned some of their products. So they already had their offering, but just by having a deeper understanding of their audience, they could tweak that to say, this is going to help you with that next step.

James Ingham (31:44) Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes it's just as valuable in your work and certainly in some of the work we do as well around strategy. Finding that the hunch or hypothesis that you had is actually wrong and you can take a different course of action in your own business, but also now often it's possible to position that perspective in a way that actually aligns quite well with what you're trying to say as a business as well.

Nic Peck (32:09) Yeah, and I think it's probably unlikely that something's going to be totally wrong. Like typically you tend to find these experts, they're really close to their clients, they are the experts on what is happening in the field. But it's just about combining that objective research view to validate or to add nuance so that they really can spot opportunities and that's what thought leadership is. It's spotting those opportunities and the next part of the conversation that attracts attention.

James Ingham (32:41) Yeah, and I suppose wrong is probably the wrong word, isn't it? I think ultimately if the hypothesis was not proved to be prevalent in the minds of the people that we were surveying, it could also be an awareness issue of that problem. And like you said that probably suggests a greater demand for more thought leadership to make that challenge and that problem more mainstream in the minds of the people that you're trying to reach.

Nic Peck (33:04) Yeah.

Craig Taylor (33:04) Well, if nothing else, if you proved that your theory was wrong, your hunch was wrong, and you're probably about to embark on a strategy of developing content based on that without any research, then at least you've probably saved yourself a few quid in the process. But I think then you can pivot and focus on whatever the findings came out of the survey. One thing I wanted to touch on because as the title of this podcast would suggest, we do have a sort of a leaning towards technology. And I think my view is certainly thought leadership is being impacted by AI. And equally, I think there's more and more opportunity to develop more interactive digital tools that can be used by sales teams, subject matter experts, pre-sales people, et cetera. And I think again, probably not explicitly, but the research did suggest that that kind of trend is, all those trends in terms of AI increase in interactivity are certainly becoming more and more prevalent. Is that something you feel yourself?

Nic Peck (34:08) It's definitely something we get asked about a lot. What's the role of AI in this? And what's the role of research? I think the real value there is about using it to scale what's already good rather than replace the thinking.

Fundamentally, you still need something. If you want it to be true thought leadership, you need something insightful to say. It needs to be conversation leading and not just joining, not just joining the content out there. And I think that's where really valuable true thought leadership that hits each of these pillars is going to really stand out. The message here is definitely not about more in terms of volume. It's about more in terms of quality, getting the right thing to the right person at the right point in the right format. Where is AI great at that? It's that in the right format, you know, at the right point, making sure that campaigns can really have this 12 month, 18 month longevity with kind of less human need to be constantly creating more content. But I think really the base of it is having human-led human insights from real people devised by real people and then you can scale it like crazy.

James Ingham (35:27) I think it's also obviously other people can scale poorer quality content much more greatly through AI. In some cases, probably creating directly from a single line prompt with AI and the quality of that content, like I said, is likely to be a lot lower. And so, you know, we've mentioned a couple of times the noise out there is much greater than ever before as a result of AI. So using research-led through thought leadership is a good way to, I assume, break down or break through that noise created by AI as well.

Nic Peck (36:01) Yeah, and I think also it's what I keep saying about layering up the insights. It's not just about one thing. It's not just about the research insights. It's about combining that with the brand's like authentic experience and putting those perspectives together. It was quite an interesting exercise for me just with the insights from this report. I kept putting them into AI and kept trying to create different things that would be useful for different people.

Very quickly it homogenises the results and it just keeps coming back to a few key points and although I think that will change over time where it can if you put more specific insightful information about your audience in it will be able to pull out more specific insightful data points for that audience and at the moment there's we still need to combine multiple different points to get these true thought leadership pieces.

Craig Taylor (36:58) I think in the survey as well, the study you touched on how the thought leadership is shared. I think online search was one of the areas, not the top in terms of the most effective way of sharing thought leadership, but I think it was something like 40% of buyers will use online search. And that's clearly changing as well with AI search. And I think research-based, high authority content is what's going to win the day in those kind of searches. So again, it's got another benefit there. A lot of people are worried about search and you know, the way traditional SEO is changing. So I think if you've got a really comprehensive piece that's based on facts, not just opinion, it can really make a big difference. I think the other thing that was relevant to that part of the research, I think was the most effective way of sharing thought leadership is through kind of personal relationships and networks. So maybe you could talk to that a little bit more.

Nic Peck (37:57) Yeah, the highest scoring way that decision makers want to have their thought leadership delivered to them was through account managers. So through someone they already have a relationship with. So I think that really makes sense that if then that thought leadership is quality and hits their current needs, then of course it leads into a conversation and starts moving into more commercial discussions. But other ways there were mainly through trusted networks. So it was about through peers, through networks that you're within and a real spread across those and then this 40% who would actually search for it was right in the middle and I think that element talks back to the 70 odd percent who will seek competitors content if they're not getting what they want served to them through a trusted network and I think that insight is quite interesting to consider whether it's traditional search as we know it now, or through AI. So what are we doing in that moment? If mostly you want your thought leadership to come to you through a trusted network, what are the markers of trust? And we can see that, that it's evidence led, that decision makers really value primary research over other types of data points.