In "To Sell is Human," psychologist Daniel Pink redefines the sales acronym ABC: Always Be Closing, as Alec Baldwin shouted so memorably in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Pink has a different idea. He says that ABC stands for a kinder and more effective method of selling: attunement, buoyancy and clarity.

• Attunement is a message that resonates with the audience.
• Buoyancy combines straight talk with a positive outlook.
• Clarity is the ability to make sense of complex situations.

Pink's ABC isn't a bad description of what thought leadership should be. It's not sales material in the conventional sense. Instead, it's a top-of-the-funnel awareness- and credibility-building message with a vision and viewpoint that resonates with customers and helps them address the challenges they face. Customers are “sold” as they learn valuable lessons. 

Think of thought leadership as a way of enabling every customer and prospect to talk to an expert with deep understanding, a positive outlook and a desire to help. There are such people. But most customers don’t get to talk to them. There aren’t enough to go around.

In early-stage companies, anyone a customer talks to is an expert because a small core of founders does everything. As companies grow, silos emerge. Sales, marketing, and subject matter specialists form their own tribes. Customers who want insight and expertise often get pitches instead.

The term "thought leadership selling" refers to the way buyers, especially buyers of B2B services, want to be sold to: with compelling ideas. It’s a useful term because it links thought leadership to revenue. But it’s also easily misunderstood because “selling” brings to mind boiler rooms rather than conference rooms.

As part of the process leading to a decision to buy, however, thought leadership is very much part of selling. And although salespeople will never become pure subject matter experts, a little bit of expertise goes a long way—especially when true subject matter rock stars are in short supply, billed out to existing customers and wearing a dozen different hats.

How would your customers react if salespeople became subject matter experts in their own right? It’s not impossible. Becoming an expert is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Think of the one-eyed man—and remember that we’re all one-eyed men, flanked by the blind on one side and the fully sighted on the other.

In some situations, your salespeople may already be subject matter experts. In others, a little help from marketing—a 15-minute presentation at the sales meeting, a script, a few slides in the deck—can help salespeople take the conversation further and build more credibility with customers.

Of course you can do a lot more to help salespeople elevate their conversations. The point is that there’s an entire range of subject matter expertise. Perfect is good. Better is best. To the extent you build bridges between full-blown thought leadership content and sales conversations, you’ll be helping salespeople become better at engaging customers.

Aristotle taught that persuasion requires credibility, logic, and emotion (ethos, logos, and pathos). Thought leadership selling provides all three: the credibility that comes with targeted knowledge, the logic of a resonant argument, and the emotional connection that comes with personal engagement. Helping salespeople achieve all three may be the highest form of sales enablement.