Make the story checkable without you.
Something puts a firm in motion — a disruption, a mandate, a search, more often a call from you. What follows is diligence a buyer runs with no seller present. Publishing, speaking, digital presence and proof rarely cause that moment. They need to be findable when it happens, and to confirm the direction a buyer is already leaning.
That makes thought leadership foundational. Everything else stands on it, and on its own it rarely produces a meeting. Firms that treat it as a lead source get disappointed by the volume and stop, and then have nothing for a buyer to find.