TDC 072: How to Become A "Category of One" Thought Leader.

TDC 072: How to Become A "Category of One" Thought Leader.

Three questions that separate thought leaders from everyone else in their market.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of The Digital Contrarian, host Ryan Levesque reveals the Category of One framework that's made his consulting practice oversubscribed and generated 24 speaking invitations in 18 months.

You'll learn the three critical questions that establish thought leadership positioning, discover why timing and novelty matter more than credentials, and understand how to make all roads lead naturally to you.

Question of the Day 🗣️

Which of these three questions is hardest for you to answer powerfully in your market?

Key Take-aways:

• Category of One positioning requires answering three questions in your market's mind
• "Why now?" establishes urgency by showing the old paradigm is obsolete
• "Why this?" positions your novel solution against conventional approaches
• "Why you?" creates natural authority where no other provider is worth considering
• Strategic content ecosystems can syndicate across 37 formats and channels

Timestamped Outline ⏱️

00:53 – Results from the framework approach
01:14 – Agency work and strategic content ecosystems
02:09 – The three questions framework introduction
02:13 – Question 1: Why NOW?
02:29 – Question 2: Why THIS?
02:47 – Question 3: Why YOU?
03:05 – Reflection prompt for your business

Links & Resources 🔗

• Priority waitlist for agency clients → https://www.ryanlevesque.net/apply
• Subscribe to The Digital Contrarian newsletter → https://thedigitalcontrarian.com

Connect & CTA 🎯

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Credits

Host: Ryan Levesque
© 2025 RL & Associates LLC. All rights reserved.

Transcript

How to become a category of one thought leader. Three questions that you must answer in the mind of your market. After a late evening neighborhood Halloween party last night, the early morning sunrise this morning on the farm was epic.

Easily in my top 10, maybe even my top five. This photo here doesn't do it justice. And I wish we could freeze time and save it because in less than 24 hours, Tyleen and I are hosting a small group of agency clients here on the farm.

These are founders that my team and I are working with to establish themselves as category of one thought leaders in each of their respective fields. By creating a weekly single source of truth email newsletter, just like the digital contrarian and syndicating that newsletter into an omni-channel strategic content ecosystem that creates a strategic weekly presence across 37 different formats and channels online. This by the way is the same process and path that I've been following for the last 18 months.

An approach that's left my private consulting practice oversubscribed, it's landed me two dozen different speaking invitations and it even helped me launch an entirely new business. And because I'm making final preparations for our newest clients who are about to arrive, today's episode is going to be short. By the way, if you have interest in potentially becoming a client and working with me and my team to establish you as a category of one thought leader in your specific field by building and managing your own source of truth, strategic content ecosystem, you can join our priority wait list which we'll make sure to link to along with the description in this episode.

Now, the reason why I mentioned this is because we're planning on opening up a very limited number of spots very soon and I expect that they will go quickly. Note, we will only be announcing this to those who have joined and filled out this wait list. All right, so all that being said, there is one quick thing that I wanted to share with you today and that's this.

In the category of one framework that we use with each of our clients and which I'll be doing a deep dive into with our guests here on the farm, there are three key questions that you need to be able to answer in the mind of your prospect to establish category of one positioning in your respective field. Now, these three questions are as follows, beginning with question number one. The first question is, why now? In other words, what circumstances have changed in the world such that the old paradigm is now obsolete and a new way of seeing things is now required? That takes us to question number two, which is, why this? In other words, what new and novel solution is now required to solve for this new paradigm and by default, why is the conventional, i.e. old way of doing things now obsolete? And question number three is, why you? In other words, why are you the clear and obvious choice to deliver this new and novel solution such that no other provider is even worth considering? Why do all roads naturally lead to you? Now, these are three questions that need to be answered in the mind of your market and these are three questions worth spending some time reflecting on here today.

Okay, I'll leave you with that for today. I do have to shift my attention toward preparing for our guests. So I wanna wish you a great rest of your weekend.

Remember to hug the ones that you love and until next week, I'll see you in the next episode. Take care and talk soon.