How To Build a Unique Thought Leadership Strategy In The Age Of AI

You want to be the name people think of when your topic comes up. The founder whose framework gets referenced in board meetings, shared in Slack channels, cited in industry conversations. That’s what real B2B thought leadership looks like.

Thought leadership was always worth building deliberately. But in the age of AI it just got 10X more important. Everyone can now create “top 20% content.” Only thought leadership will allow you to cut through the noise.

Most advice on the topic tells you to “share insights” and “publish consistently.” That’s table stakes. The real question is: what are you sharing that nobody else can?

A thought leadership strategy is a plan for turning your unique expertise into proprietary intellectual property — frameworks, models, diagrams, artefacts and terminology that position you as the definitive authority in your space.

Jay Acunzo (ex-Google, ex-HubSpot) puts it bluntly: “Expertise is foundational — like a reporter knowing the facts. But you can’t charge a premium for it anymore.” LinkedIn’s 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report backs this up: 73% of B2B executives regard thought leadership as more trustworthy than traditional marketing, but generic thought leadership is being drowned out. What cuts through is proprietary IP.

This article shows you what to build and how to build it.

The 5 Artefacts Every Thought Leader Needs

Acunzo’s IP Pyramid gives the clearest map of what thought leadership actually consists of. Five levels, each building on the last:

1. Premise — Your core contrarian assertion. Not a tagline — a belief about your field that challenges how people currently think. Everything else flows from this. At Growther, ours is: the reason most B2B businesses produce bad content isn’t bad tools or bad writers — it’s the Founder Bottleneck.

2. Terminology — Language that only you use. “If you can name it, you can claim it.” When your audience starts using your terms in their own conversations — when they say “Founder Bottleneck” or “AI Slop” without attributing it — you’ve built something AI can’t generate.

3. Methodology — Your unique, repeatable process. Numbered steps, phases, or stages that make your approach teachable. Gino Wickman’s EOS has six components. Donald Miller’s StoryBrand has seven steps. The specificity is what makes them implementable — and memorable.

4. Visual Framework — The diagram someone screenshots for their team. This is where most thought leadership IP becomes real — because a visual model forces clarity that words alone don’t. More on this below.

5. Signature Stories — The specific moments from your experience that make abstract ideas concrete. Not generic examples — the real stories you tell again and again because they illuminate your framework better than any explanation.

Most founders have fragments of this pyramid. Few have built all five levels deliberately. That’s the gap — and the opportunity.

How to Build Your Visual Model

This is where thought leadership becomes tangible. A visual model forces you to clarify your thinking in a way that words can’t — and it creates an artefact people remember, share, and reference.

Matt Church, founder of Thought Leaders Global, advocates breaking “the tyranny of binary thinking” with visual models. His principle: when you move from two elements to three, you unlock insight. A Venn diagram with three circles, a triangle with three vertices, a matrix with four quadrants — these structures reveal relationships that a paragraph of text buries.

Choose the shape that matches your insight:

Circles (Venn Diagrams)

Best for showing overlaps, sweet spots, and the intersection where value lives. Two or three overlapping circles force you to answer: what happens where these things meet?

The Ikigai diagram (what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, what you can be paid for) is powerful because the sweet spot in the centre is the insight. Product-Market Fit diagrams work the same way. If your framework is about finding the right combination of competing priorities — draw circles.

Triangles and Pyramids

Best for hierarchies, foundations, and progressive levels. The bottom is the base, the top is the goal. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Acunzo’s IP Pyramid itself. These work when your insight has a “you must build this before you can build that” logic — a foundation and a progression.

If your framework has layers where each level depends on the one below — draw a triangle.

Squares and Matrices

Best for categorising along two dimensions. The 2x2 matrix is one of the most powerful tools in business thinking — it forces you to pick two axes and sort everything into four quadrants.

The BCG Growth-Share Matrix (market growth vs. market share) created the language of “cash cows” and “stars” that boards still use 50 years later. The Eisenhower Matrix (urgent vs. important) changed how millions of people think about priorities. Your version might map “founder involvement” against “revenue impact” to show clients where they’re spending time on the wrong things.

If your insight contrasts two dimensions — draw a square with four quadrants.

Process Flows

Best for sequential methodologies. A horizontal chain of steps, each leading to the next. StoryBrand’s seven-step framework. Design Thinking’s five phases. These work when your insight is about order — when step 3 only works if you’ve done step 2.

If your framework is about doing things in the right sequence — draw a flow.

The test: Can someone who saw your visual model once redraw it from memory a week later? If yes, you’ve built an artefact. If no, it’s too complicated or not distinctive enough.

Creating Language That Sticks

Visual models give people a way to see your thinking. Terminology gives them a way to talk about it.

The goal is words and phrases that enter your audience’s vocabulary. “Founder Bottleneck” works because it names a feeling every $2M-$20M business owner recognises but couldn’t articulate. “AI Slop” works because it describes something everyone has experienced but nobody had a word for.

Practical principles for creating terminology:

Name the pain. Give the problem a label before you offer the solution. If people can diagnose themselves using your language, they’ll seek out your framework to fix it.
Use plain words in unexpected combinations. “Growth ceiling” is more accessible than “scalability constraint.” “Revenue plateau” beats “stagnation in top-line metrics.”
Be consistent. Use the same term every time. If you call it “Founder Bottleneck” in one article and “founder dependency” in the next, neither term sticks.

The 3-Phase Process

Matt Church’s methodology provides the practical starting point for building all of this.

Phase 1: Mine. Three questions: What pattern do you see that others miss? What mistake do you watch clients make repeatedly? What approach works for you that goes against conventional wisdom? You’re looking for the contrarian truth your industry hasn’t caught up to yet.

Phase 2: Structure. Choose your visual archetype. Name it memorably. Develop the terminology. Create the artefact someone would screenshot for their team. Don’t overlook your own data — client outcomes, failure patterns, success indicators — you’re sitting on insights nobody else can share.

Phase 3: Validate. Test with trusted clients before a wide launch. Develop signature stories for each element. Can you explain it over coffee and make it land? If the framework only works as a diagram but falls flat when you talk through it, it needs more work.

The strategic balance: share your frameworks and models generously. Hold back only client-specific details and implementation nuances. Your thought leadership should make people think “this is brilliant, AND I need their help doing it.”

Key Takeaways

Expertise alone is no longer a differentiator. AI can produce competent content on any topic. Proprietary artefacts — visual models, signature language, repeatable methodology — are the only thought leadership that can’t be commoditized.
The IP Pyramid has 5 levels: Premise, Terminology, Methodology, Visual Framework, and Signature Stories. Most founders have fragments. Building all five deliberately is the opportunity.
Your visual model is your most powerful artefact. Circles for sweet spots, triangles for hierarchies, squares for categorisation, flows for sequences. Choose the shape that matches your insight.
Terminology creates ownership. Name the pain before you offer the solution. Use plain words in unexpected combinations. Be relentlessly consistent.
Share generously, hold implementation. The framework itself is your marketing. The implementation is your product.

Do You Have a Thought Leadership Strategy?

Could you draw your proprietary framework on a whiteboard in under two minutes?
Do you have terminology that only your company uses — words your clients have started using in their own conversations?
Is your thought leadership based on a contrarian premise, or does it sound like what every competitor would also say?
Have you turned your framework into a visual model that your clients screenshot and share with their teams?
Do you have signature stories — specific, real moments — that illustrate each element of your framework?

If you answered “no” to more than two, your thought leadership is probably built on expertise alone. That was enough five years ago. In a world where AI can generate competent expert content on demand, the premium goes to proprietary IP — the artefacts that came from your specific experience and can’t be replicated by anyone else’s prompt. The IP Pyramid is a starting point. The deeper work is building each level deliberately, starting with the visual model people will remember long after they’ve forgotten the blog post that introduced it.