Episode 58: The Power of Thought Leadership
Episode Recap
Learn how thought leadership—sharing your unique perspective—builds confidence, credibility, and visibility, helping professionals accelerate their careers.
Blog Recap
Thought leadership isn’t just for CEOs—it’s a mindset and skill set that can accelerate any career stage. In this episode of Two Marketing Moms, Aquila Mendez-Valdez, founder of Haute in Texas, shares how women can strategically build influence, credibility, and opportunity through authentic thought leadership.
1. Thought Leadership vs. Personal Branding
Personal branding is about showing who you are; thought leadership is about proving what you know. Once you’ve built credibility, it’s about sharing insights, not just achievements, so others see you as the go-to expert in your space.
2. Start Before You Feel Ready
You don’t need decades of experience to add value. Early-career professionals can stand out by sharing what they’re learning, what excites them, and how they approach challenges. Curiosity and initiative signal leadership before a title ever does.
3. Find Your Niche and Platform
Choose a topic that lights you up and a platform that feels natural—LinkedIn, blogs, video, or podcasts. Consistency is more important than perfection. The key is to regularly show up with useful, passionate insights your audience can rely on.
4. Show the Human Side
People follow people, not logos. Blend your professional expertise with real life—especially for women balancing careers and motherhood. Authenticity builds connection and trust more effectively than polished quotes ever could.
5. Set a Realistic Content Cadence
Aim for consistency you can sustain—like two social posts and one blog a week. Over time, this steady output compounds into visibility, authority, and new opportunities.
Aquila’s Final Advice:
Step into spaces before you feel ready. Say yes to visibility, share your passion publicly, and let your enthusiasm attract new connections and career growth.
Episode Transcript
Kelly Callahan-Poe
Welcome to the Two Marketing Moms Podcast. I’m Kelly Callahan Poe, and today’s episode is called the power of thought leadership with Aquila Mendez-Valdez. Aquila founded Haute in Texas, an award winning PR and marketing agency for national brands like Kendra Scott and Orange Theory, and she launched Haute network agencies to help women start their own firms. She’s a sought after speaker and media presence. Welcome Aquila.
Aquila
Hi Kelly, thank you so much for having me.
Kelly
Well, I’m excited to chat with you today, because we’ve done episodes on personal branding, but not on thought leadership. So, your expertise is on the PR side of thought leadership. How is thought leadership different from personal branding?
Aquila
Yeah, totally. It definitely feels like two sides of the same coin, right? A lot of people use the terms interchangeably, but there is a little bit of a difference, I think. And, you know, some people may define it differently, but for me, I think of personal branding as being really when you’re starting out and you’re really kind of trying to tell the world, this is who I am, this is what I’m all about, whereas thought leadership is okay, I’ve already established that I know my stuff. I’m an expert in my field. Now the rest of the world needs to know how much of an expert I am and understand that when they’ve got a problem in my area of expertise, I’m the person they want to give a call.
Kelly
Understood. We have several different audiences on the podcast. One is early career women, and another is mid-career women. I want to talk first about the early career women who’ve just gotten out of college or only have a couple years of work experience. How can they use thought leadership as a career accelerator?
Aquila
Right? Well, I think the biggest misconception is that early on in your career, oh, you’re not, you’re not a thought leader yet. You’re not an expert yet. But the truth is, especially in the world of marketing, especially in the world of PR and communications, the world and the industry is changing so fast that you really can have that level of, you know, attention to detail in your particular industry very quickly early on. So even if you are in that early career phase, you can use your personal brand and your thought leadership to open more doors for yourself and to really grab the attention of folks who may want to end up promoting you or end up, you know, giving you additional career opportunities along the way.
Kelly
But that can be tough with regards to having a job early on where you may not know exactly what your niche is, right?
Aquila
Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, you know, the biggest thing that you want to be sure to be looking for is in what areas do I have a real passion for, and can I share the stories of what I’m learning, how I’m learning what I’m excited about. And even if you’re not pretending to be the person who knows everything, if you are appearing to be a very curious person, a very go getter, somebody who is hungry for more knowledge, more opportunities, and you’re willing to share that with other people, that’s definitely giving you that perception of a thought leader, right off the bat.
Kelly
So, let’s shift to mid-career women and thought leadership, because obviously, as you gain experience, the focus is very different in terms of what you talk about in thought leadership. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Aquila
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of times once we get to that mid-career section, we think, well, my work just speaks for itself. I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to even worry about it. But the truth is, if we don’t toot our own horn, very few people actually will. So, we have to be willing to share. Here’s the impact that I’m making, here’s the difference that my work is doing, and you’re really shifting from that early career being more of a doer and as a tactical type role to more of a true strategist, and when you make that shift, I think it’s important to share that journey and what exactly you are doing for your company or your organization, that is, again, on that level of a strategic, forward thinking problem solver, versus Just, I’m really hungry and I’m a go getter.
Kelly
So, you would say, Aquila is the PR expert?
Aquila
I would say we propel and curate female founders online and in person presence. So, if that’s something that you’re looking for, that’s something that I’ve Been doing for over a decade now, but we work with thought leaders in all sorts of industries. It doesn’t matter how niche you are. There’s a cohort of people on LinkedIn that want to talk about that topic, or there’s a cohort on Instagram or TikTok, or whatever it is. You know, being really, quote, unquote niche famous can also be extremely impactful and powerful for your career, just as much as broad celebrity status.
Kelly
I definitely agree with that, and for me, especially after having a career for three decades you start, you’re broad, but later on in your career, you tend to specialize. And having that specialization really makes you have a unique point of view.
Aquila
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the ideal scenario is that your niche is something that really lights you up, so it’s not something that’s intimidating for you to create content around or talk about, or write an op ed about, because you feel so excited about it, and you could go on for days and days and days. That is where you are a true thought leader.
Kelly
Well, let’s dive into the practical steps and strategies to help women identify their niche and their area of expertise that we just talked about.
Aquila
Yeah, so everybody’s always worried when we talk about becoming a thought leader. Do I have to have a social media presence? Do I have to do all kinds of video camera work? The answer is probably you will have to have at least some of that. But there’s also LinkedIn, people who are influencing and have a huge following, who are doing long form content. They’re really passionate writing about a subject, but they might not feel super comfortable on video. So, I think the trick is to really find the type of content that you find easy and enjoyable to make, because we need quantity. We need regular, consistent content that you’re putting out there in order for your posts to be seen as okay, I know what to expect from them, and I can always expect really high quality versus, ah, she did one random video, and then I never saw her post about it again. And you know that’s not driving your personal brand or your thought leadership anywhere.
Kelly
So, it’s not just about content and the niche, but it’s also about the consistency of posting and where you’re posting and where your target audience is right? I mean, there’s so many different ways you can utilize your thought leadership, not just in LinkedIn or webinars or in social media posts, there are things like podcasts, but video is probably the most popular one, to be able to watch and gather information quickly. What are your thoughts on different aspects of thought leadership and how women can get their message across in terms of what vehicles to use?
Aquila
Yeah, I would pay attention to the types of platforms that you enjoy being on, and then really identify within that. Am I trying to reach potential clients? Am I trying to reach potential, you know, folks that can hire me for a role or for a promotion, or am I trying to, impress my colleagues in my cohort to be able to say, Hey, I’m the best of the best. And you know, what is that goal that you’re trying to reach? And then you really understand what platforms would be best for you to create content. And then I think it also informs the type of content. I have a lot of thoughts around how to run a PR and marketing agency, but that’s not something that my LinkedIn audience necessarily wants to hear me talk about. Now, I might have a Slack channel, and we do. We have a community of female founders and agency owners on Slack. They can come in and talk about that, and I can be seen as a thought leader within that very niche online community, but my LinkedIn audience is potential clients, and so I’m talking about things in a very different way. I’m not necessarily showing the nitty gritty of what it’s like to actually build an agency.
Kelly
What’s your opinion on having a personal Instagram for both personal and work or having a dedicated thought leadership Instagram channel?
Aquila
You know, it’s, it’s challenging, because I think we’re all very conscious, especially marketing moms. We’re very conscious about putting our kids and mixing them being out there, in addition to business content, I tended to blend things. But the more that I grow as an agency. We tend to share more agency type content on our feed. And then stories are where I still pepper in a lot of like motherhood. And this is what I’m doing, and this is the things that I’m up to on a day to day basis. So, it could still be a blend, but at the end of the day, I think people want to follow people, they don’t want to follow brands. And so, if you are going to be sharing your thought leadership content more from an organizational perspective, I would just still really hold on to that human element versus. Here’s a standard graphic of a standard quote, and nobody really wants to engage with that.
Kelly
Do you have recommendations on how frequently or how much, time a week professionals should spend on developing and pushing out thought leadership? I’ve heard everything from 30 minutes a day to bundle on the weekends and put it out as you go. Is there a rule of thumb that you roll by?
Aquila
Well, I mean, I think it’s certainly what can you stay consistent with? And laying out your game plan to begin with is really critical. So, we, we set a cadence for ourselves to have two posts per week being going out on our organic channels, we have one blog post that goes out a week. We do an email newsletter and RSS feed in addition to that. And then, I’m always looking for opportunities to be on podcasts or submit, you know, expert opinions and things like that as those come along. But it’s really difficult to predict. You know, exactly how many pieces of content per month you can create? So set a plan. Stick to it if possible. Give yourself some grace if things fall by the wayside and you’re not able to hit that number quite perfectly, as much as we would like to.
Kelly
That makes sense. Any final advice to help women understand the power of thought leadership on their careers?
Aquila
Boy, I mean, I can point to my own testimony and version of my own thought leadership. I think when I started my blog, oat, Texas, I was working for another agency. And still to this day, I will have people say, Oh, you’re a blogger, right? And so, I think putting yourself out there even before you feel ready, and walking into rooms before you feel ready. And you know, being willing to say yes to opportunities before you feel officially qualified. It sticks out in people’s minds when you choose to go above and beyond. And even though I’m working this full time job, I’m also going to be, coming up with my own ideas and my own thoughts and doing my own research around my industry, so I can certainly speak to how it’s impacted my life and how it’s helped our company grow. And I think, women tend to be absolute rock stars in their industry and feel really, really excited about the things that they’re learning and growing and evolving. And so all thought leadership is asking you to do is to just share that passion, share your excitement, and that natural kind of enthusiasm will have people gravitating towards you and wanting to give you more opportunities.
Kelly
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your insights today. Aquila, we will post your contact information in the transcript on TwoMarketingMoms.com thanks for joining.
Aquila
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Kelly. I really enjoyed it. Take care.
Aquila Mendez-Valdez Contact Information
https://www.facebook.com/HauteInTexas
