The hard commercial return on useful thinking

The phrase ‘thought leadership’ has suffered some reputational damage in recent years.

This is partly because almost anything now tends to be described as thought leadership if it is more than 600 words long and contains the phrase “now more than ever”.

We all recognise the culprits. A blog about five trends that everyone already knows. A LinkedIn post declaring that collaboration is important. A PDF explaining that energy is complex, which is true, but not exactly a revelation likely to disturb the sleep of the nation.

But there’s a huge difference between thought leadership and this endless ambient content.

Real thought leadership does something far more useful and valuable. It helps a specific audience understand a specific problem with much greater insight and clarity.

It can take many forms:

• explaining a market shift before it is widely understood
• challenging a lazy assumption
• translating technical complexity into commercial relevance
• giving customers a framework for making a difficult decision
• making visible a risk, opportunity or trade-off that others are missing.

Above all, the intention behind it is not to show that the organisation is clever but to make the reader feel clearer about an issue. 

That distinction matters in energy because clarity is commercially valuable. This is a sector full of ambitious companies with strong propositions, expert teams and credible solutions. 

Yet many still struggle to turn relevance into revenue because the market is cautious, crowded and under pressure.

Buyers are not simply asking whether something works. They are asking whether now is the right time to act, whether the risk is manageable, whether colleagues will support the decision, and whether doing nothing is still the safer option.

Very often, inertia is the real competitor.

That is where thought leadership becomes a growth tool. Not because it replaces sales or business development, but because it improves the conditions in which they happen.

The evidence is hard to ignore

The latest Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, published in 2025, found that 64% of hidden decision-makers trust thought leadership more than marketing materials and product sheets when assessing an organisation’s capabilities. 

It also found that 71% say thought leadership is more effective than conventional sales or marketing materials at demonstrating a vendor’s potential value. 

There is a further point that should interest growth companies. High-quality thought leadership can help challengers compete with better-known brands. Edelman and LinkedIn found that 53% of both target and hidden buyers agree that, if thought leadership is high quality, brand recognition matters less when vetting vendors. 

That is not a small claim. For ambitious energy firms trying to build trust in conservative markets, it is a commercial opening.

What good looks like

The best thought leadership has four distinct qualities.

1. It is specific. It does not talk vaguely about “the future of energy”. It identifies a real tension: grid constraints, customer inertia, flexibility markets, industrial decarbonisation, investment risk, planning delay, skills, data, delivery.

2. It has a point of view. It does not merely summarise the market. It interprets it.

3. It is useful. The reader should leave with a clearer view of what to do, what to question or what to stop assuming.

4. It is credible. The credibility may come from data, customer experience, practical delivery, technical understanding or original research. Ideally, more than one.

The best B2B examples are well known. HubSpot used educational content to help define and dominate the inbound marketing category. Salesforce’s recurring “State of” reports have become industry reference points because they combine data, interpretation and consistency. PwC’s CEO Survey works because it asks leaders questions other leaders care about, then turns the answers into a map of business sentiment.

The energy-sector equivalent is not simply publishing a report. It is using insight to help a market understand itself.

Kaluza, the grid control software company, is a good example. Its resource hub combines reports, case studies, webinars and customer stories around the practical realities of energy retail transformation, virtual power plants, EV charging and flexibility. Its recent materials include content on how VPPs and flexibility can transform energy systems, alongside case studies on advanced software and customer service transformation. 

That is much closer to the strategic use of thought leadership than occasional commentary. It supports a commercial proposition by helping the market understand the problem Kaluza exists to solve.

Poor thought leadership does the opposite. It uses large words to say small things. It mistakes length for depth. It begins with a global mega-trend and never quite lands on a customer problem. Worst of all, it comes across as what it is: a poorly disguised sales pitch 

Customers can tell. If a piece of content claims to offer insight but merely repackages the product brochure, it erodes trust instead of building it. 

The commercial return

Good thought leadership supports sales because it reaches people before sales can.

That matters in energy, where buying groups are broad and internal confidence is often as important as external interest. The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn report found that 95% of hidden decision-makers say strong thought leadership makes them more receptive to sales and marketing outreach. It also found that 79% are more likely to advocate for proposals from companies that consistently produce high-quality thought leadership. 

This does not mean one article magically closes a deal. No one reads a smart paper on flexibility markets and immediately sprints through the office shouting, “Cancel procurement, I’ve seen enough”.

But it can change the commercial starting point.

Instead of entering the conversation as another supplier, a company enters as a credible interpreter of the customer’s world, building trust and helping them understand why they should care. 

The opportunity for ambitious firms

This is especially important for energy technology companies, specialist service providers and growth firms.

Many are selling into markets where need is great but the buying behaviour is cautious. They are not only competing with direct rivals but with delay, uncertainty and the familiar comfort of existing processes.

Thought leadership helps here when it does three things.

1. It articulates the customer’s problem more clearly than the customer can.
2. It gives the customer a better argument for change.
3. It links the organisation’s expertise to the market’s direction of travel.

That is the bridge between reputation and revenue.

For example, for companies selling into industrial markets, it may mean explaining what credible transition looks like for asset-heavy organisations under cost pressure.

The aim is to publish content that is judged by how useful it is rather than how frequent it is. 

A practical test

For leaders considering whether their organisation is ready to use thought leadership commercially, there are some simple questions worth asking.

• What do we know tat our customers would genuinely benefit from knowing?
• Where are buyers confused, cautious or stuck?
• What assumption in our market needs challenging?
• What do our best sales conversations reveal that our wider audience never hears?
• What evidence do we have that could help customers make better decisions?