535 - Who Should Support Me? PR Agency, Ghostwriter, or An In-House Team?
Choosing the proper support for thought leadership is critical. PR agencies, ghostwriters, or in-house teams each have strengths. Learn how to decide strategically, balance investment with return, and build long-term influence that drives business results.
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Who should support me? PR agency, ghostwriter, or an in-house team?
One of the most common questions from CEOs stepping into thought leadership is: Who should actually support me? Managing a personal brand and thought leadership strategy requires consistency, credibility, and structure. It’s not something most leaders can do alone while running a business. This makes the decision of whether to lean on a PR agency, a ghostwriter, or an internal team a critical business choice.
1. PR agencies provide speed and reach.
Agencies work with multiple leaders and bring established systems, relationships, and expertise. They can help you gain visibility quickly and position you in media channels that matter. The downside: they are external partners, not embedded in your culture.
2. Ghostwriters help with polish and efficiency.
A strong ghostwriter can capture your voice and translate your raw insights into clear, powerful content. This saves time and ensures quality. But without a broader system in place, ghostwriting alone won’t drive long-term positioning.
3. In-house teams build sustainability.
Hiring and developing internal talent allows you to integrate thought leadership with your company’s overall marketing and business strategy. This creates alignment, consistency, and long-term ROI, but requires an upfront investment and patience.
4. The hybrid model accelerates and sustains.
A smart approach is to combine both: start with external experts to set up the system and drive momentum, while simultaneously building internal capabilities. Over time, your company becomes self-sufficient in driving thought leadership as part of its DNA.
Final Thought
This is not just a marketing decision. It’s a leadership decision. The team you choose to support your thought leadership will either amplify your voice strategically or dilute it. The goal is not just to look good online it’s to build trust, attract opportunities, and drive business impact. The proper support structure makes all the difference.
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Personal Branding for CEOs
00:17 Building a Return on Investment Strategy
00:39 Finding the Right Team for Thought Leadership
00:47 Leveraging External Agencies
01:01 Developing Internal Capabilities
01:18 Long-term Benefits of a Thought Leadership Ecosystem
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Transcript:
One of the things that CEOs often ask, but who is helping me with all of the things towards personal branding, thought leadership strategy, posting on social media? I get it. I think that's a critical business decision that you need to make. You need to build a return on invest calculation of how much money do you want to invest and how do you get that money back?
And a simple version of that is how do you have the right team members in your company marketing PR that can do thought leadership strategies in a systematic way and driving business results? If you don't have the right people, you need to find them outside, they're there. It's just finding them. You hire them internal and they help you to do that.
Or you use agencies that are professional and do that with a lot of CEOs in the industry. Then you can hire them, you can speed up and what you can do long term, which I would do on, in your case, building the engine internally. So using an external company, helping you, setting the things up and then driving it long term insights.
So building capabilities, building skills in the internal company so that over long time you're building a thought leadership ecosystem with the whole company. Inside of your business and that will drive conversions, that will drive trust, and that will drive impact for your business.