10 Most Common Mistakes Orgs Make with Thought Leadership Marketing

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.140 --> 00:00:08.740 welcome back to be, to be growth. I'm dan Sanchez with sweet fish Media and 3 00:00:08.740 --> 00:00:13.670 today I'm here with Bill Sherman who is the ceo of thought leadership leverage 4 00:00:13.670 --> 00:00:18.360 and is the co host of a podcast by the same name. Bill Welcome to the show. 5 00:00:18.740 --> 00:00:22.710 Good to be here, dan as the audience knows. We've been on a deep dive into 6 00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:26.180 thought leadership and as soon as I start started the steep dive and 7 00:00:26.180 --> 00:00:30.140 started putting names on my list. Bill Sherman was one of the first people 8 00:00:30.140 --> 00:00:33.770 that were on my list because he's got one of the few podcast just dedicated 9 00:00:33.780 --> 00:00:38.450 solely to this one topic. And while GDP growth is very broad and doing a deep 10 00:00:38.450 --> 00:00:40.980 dive, I'm like, I got to talk to the guy who's talking to pretty much 11 00:00:40.990 --> 00:00:45.420 everybody in the field. It's a niche field, but there are still lots and 12 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:49.150 lots of people who are heads of thought leadership and I'm pretty certain Bills 13 00:00:49.160 --> 00:00:54.070 talked to all of them. I know he's probably people I've talked to and 14 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:58.200 certainly all the authors that I've had on the show so far. So it was a no 15 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:02.560 brainer that I had to have Bill on the show to talk about the topic of thought 16 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:06.290 leadership because he is a thought leader on thought leadership, which is 17 00:01:06.290 --> 00:01:10.970 a little meta, but they are out there. But before we jump into what I thought 18 00:01:10.970 --> 00:01:15.000 would be the best topic for Bill to speak to, which is all the mistakes he 19 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.470 sees organizations make around thought leadership. Bill, I wanted to start off 20 00:01:19.470 --> 00:01:22.340 with asking you like, how did you even get into this topic? Like how did this 21 00:01:22.340 --> 00:01:26.460 become a focus for you? Well, if you ask most people how they get into 22 00:01:26.460 --> 00:01:29.880 thought leadership, they sort of usually answer, they got their 23 00:01:29.880 --> 00:01:34.820 accidentally and my story is very much the same. I would describe myself as a 24 00:01:34.820 --> 00:01:40.950 practitioner of this thought leadership field as something unplanned. I did 25 00:01:40.950 --> 00:01:45.810 school and undergraduate in english and theater, I was doing organizational 26 00:01:45.810 --> 00:01:49.110 consulting and I thought I was going to be a consultant in organizational 27 00:01:49.110 --> 00:01:53.160 transformation. And then I had a C level executive, large company in the 28 00:01:53.160 --> 00:01:57.160 early two thousands who said, hey, I wrote this business book, it got on the 29 00:01:57.160 --> 00:02:00.940 cover of fast company. People are asking me what to do with it and how 30 00:02:00.940 --> 00:02:06.830 they can apply the ideas, can you help? And from there I stumbled into a sort 31 00:02:06.830 --> 00:02:12.310 of a word of mouth referral where various execs would go, oh, you wrote a 32 00:02:12.310 --> 00:02:18.470 book, go talk to bill. And it was a sideline for a while and but it became 33 00:02:18.470 --> 00:02:23.340 a passion and really what I saw is the through line in my career is taking 34 00:02:23.340 --> 00:02:27.880 ideas through scale, right? How do you take an idea to scale within the 35 00:02:27.880 --> 00:02:33.890 organization or beyond the organization? And so since 2013, it's been my full 36 00:02:33.890 --> 00:02:37.600 time focus. It's probably one of my favorite things about marketing and why 37 00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:41.510 I'm even attracted to thought leadership at all is because I want to 38 00:02:41.510 --> 00:02:44.730 see the good ideas fly. You know, you want to see the good things get out 39 00:02:44.730 --> 00:02:47.310 there and usually it just needs a little marketing fairy dust. The 40 00:02:47.310 --> 00:02:51.340 thought leadership is usually the kind of marketing you put into ideas. Um, 41 00:02:51.350 --> 00:02:56.290 usually those ideas come with stories come with people and characters, um, 42 00:02:56.290 --> 00:03:00.570 and thought leaders behind those ideas. So, uh, certainly no, that's one of the 43 00:03:00.570 --> 00:03:04.610 reasons why I got into it. It sounds like you fell in love with the topic 44 00:03:04.610 --> 00:03:08.400 for a similar reason, trying to get those ideas, trying to give legs to 45 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:15.090 ideas, but a number of people try to do that and fail. So as you've gone from 46 00:03:15.100 --> 00:03:19.710 organization, organization have provided, like coaching and services 47 00:03:19.710 --> 00:03:24.540 around helping people do thought leadership better. What are you have? I 48 00:03:24.540 --> 00:03:28.180 know you sent me over ahead of time. What are like the 10 biggest mistakes 49 00:03:28.190 --> 00:03:31.780 you see people make is they try to go into this thought leadership marketing 50 00:03:31.790 --> 00:03:37.450 endeavor. So let's start with how the thought leadership function gets 51 00:03:37.450 --> 00:03:41.560 created. And I would describe thought leadership as a function separate from 52 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:47.020 content marketing or executive communications, or even classical B two 53 00:03:47.020 --> 00:03:51.750 B marketing, which I know is the focus here. It's a tool in the subset. And so 54 00:03:51.750 --> 00:03:55.270 the first question is, who is going to be the executive champion? That might 55 00:03:55.280 --> 00:04:00.650 be the head of marketing? That could be someone in ops I know of large 56 00:04:00.650 --> 00:04:05.030 organizations. Were the champion is the C I. O. Who said we need to do thought 57 00:04:05.030 --> 00:04:10.360 leadership. So there's no consistent role but Step # one. If you don't have 58 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:14.160 an executive champion who understands what this is, you're going to struggle. 59 00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:17.899 And does it need to be a champion? And or does it need when you say executive 60 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:23.010 champion, does it need a champion on the C suite? It should be either the VP 61 00:04:23.010 --> 00:04:28.560 or the C. someone who at the end of the day is willing to invest the time and 62 00:04:28.570 --> 00:04:33.690 effort in something which is not going to produce immediate results in 60 days. 63 00:04:33.700 --> 00:04:36.550 You're standing up a business function when you're setting up ahead of thought 64 00:04:36.550 --> 00:04:41.250 leadership and you have to have some patients. So is it usually the CMO or 65 00:04:41.250 --> 00:04:45.890 is it usually whoever is in charge of the whoever is the head of the subject 66 00:04:45.890 --> 00:04:50.480 matter experts of that organization? It depends. So as I said, I can think of C. 67 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:54.670 I. O. S. Who have championed it, I can think of C. 00 S who have championed it. 68 00:04:54.680 --> 00:05:00.370 It depends on who gets it and realizes this is a distinct thing. Nobody has 69 00:05:00.370 --> 00:05:06.470 taken really yet a class and thought leadership at the school. And so it's 70 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:11.470 it's more someone gets the idea that they need to do something different to 71 00:05:11.470 --> 00:05:17.610 deepen a relationship with customers or to drive conversations when you're not 72 00:05:17.610 --> 00:05:22.810 in a sales mode or influence how people think and act and they say, oh what can 73 00:05:22.810 --> 00:05:27.990 we do? Well that's thought leadership. Great, how do we stand that up? So 74 00:05:27.990 --> 00:05:32.570 there we go. Number one lack of clear executive champion, who is that at your 75 00:05:32.570 --> 00:05:38.420 organization? What's number two? Number two is ahead of thought leadership. Who 76 00:05:38.420 --> 00:05:44.770 is unclear on the role. And so number two and number three go together. But 77 00:05:44.770 --> 00:05:47.910 let's talk about the role of the head of thought leadership. Many 78 00:05:47.910 --> 00:05:52.150 organizations don't tag someone and say congratulations, you're full time Head 79 00:05:52.150 --> 00:05:55.760 of Thought leadership. There's some big organizations that are doing that now, 80 00:05:56.240 --> 00:06:01.630 but many cases it's a percentage of your time And you've got to make sure 81 00:06:01.630 --> 00:06:05.920 that that person knows what you're asking them to do. They understand how 82 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:12.120 it fits, what they do 70% of the time and it has to be tied to how they're 83 00:06:12.120 --> 00:06:17.000 motivated and evaluated and compensated because if at the end of the year those 84 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:21.020 were and handle thought leadership, but it's not tied to performance, it 85 00:06:21.020 --> 00:06:26.280 doesn't get done period, right. So usually what you need to do is the 86 00:06:26.280 --> 00:06:29.820 person who is sponsoring the idea, the idea whether it's on the C suite or the 87 00:06:29.820 --> 00:06:33.690 VP of marketing says, Hey, I want you to handle thought leadership and 88 00:06:33.690 --> 00:06:37.670 usually there's a moment where the person looks at at and sort of has a 89 00:06:37.670 --> 00:06:42.460 blank eyed look and goes, what's that? And what does that mean for my career? 90 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:48.260 And that leads us to point # three. All right. So moving on to that point. Yeah. 91 00:06:48.270 --> 00:06:53.350 So the head of Thought leadership needs to see it as an opportunity because 92 00:06:53.350 --> 00:06:57.990 rather than being sent to Siberia, if they think that they're going to be 93 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:03.050 exiled and you know, this isn't an opportunity for growth for them, then 94 00:07:03.050 --> 00:07:06.070 they're going to go, what didn't I do well in the organization, why are you 95 00:07:06.070 --> 00:07:11.270 putting me in this cubbyhole over here that's brand new, has no infrastructure 96 00:07:11.280 --> 00:07:16.250 and I'm sweating to try and get time budget, resources and help right. 97 00:07:16.260 --> 00:07:19.650 They've got to understand it's important. And one example I can give 98 00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:23.360 head of Thought leadership in a major financial institution. He had the talk, 99 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:28.260 had a sea level exact come in and say he was head of strategy, came in and 100 00:07:28.260 --> 00:07:31.200 said, we want you to run thought leadership. And he's like, is my career 101 00:07:31.200 --> 00:07:38.030 being sidelined what's going on, right, thinks about at home and then degrees 102 00:07:38.030 --> 00:07:45.250 to take the role and within about four months is working on a project where 103 00:07:45.250 --> 00:07:50.770 the head of the company is speaking after the president in the west wing of 104 00:07:50.770 --> 00:07:57.610 the White House. Okay. And so with that, that individual comes into the head of 105 00:07:57.610 --> 00:08:01.630 Thought Leaderships office and goes, yeah, I'm used to big opportunities all 106 00:08:01.630 --> 00:08:07.220 the time. This one is special. Let's make sure we do it right. And so you 107 00:08:07.220 --> 00:08:11.310 have to, when you're standing up that person into the role, you have to 108 00:08:11.310 --> 00:08:15.510 convince them this is good for their career as well as good for the 109 00:08:15.510 --> 00:08:19.660 organization. I find thought leadership. I imagine this probably gets handed the 110 00:08:19.660 --> 00:08:24.430 most to content marketers or gets handed often to content marketers who 111 00:08:24.430 --> 00:08:28.760 do you who usually it's often content marketers. So if you were to map where 112 00:08:28.760 --> 00:08:33.220 people come from is heads of thought leadership. Content marketers tend to 113 00:08:33.220 --> 00:08:37.070 be accidental. They stumble into thought leadership and start doing it. 114 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:40.419 And someone in marketing says, I don't know what you're doing over here, but 115 00:08:40.419 --> 00:08:44.790 do more of it because it seems to be working right. Others get recruited in 116 00:08:44.800 --> 00:08:49.640 Executive communications is another path. Strategy is another path. I've 117 00:08:49.640 --> 00:08:54.560 seen people in public policy get handed a head of thought leadership function 118 00:08:54.570 --> 00:09:00.360 as well. Sometimes from the line sales engineering also gets this as well 119 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:04.020 because they understand the customer and they've engaged with the customer. 120 00:09:04.050 --> 00:09:09.220 Sometimes you'll see it from an evangelist role as well, especially in 121 00:09:09.220 --> 00:09:09.650 tech. 122 00:09:10.740 --> 00:09:11.850 It seems to me like 123 00:09:13.040 --> 00:09:18.080 if anybody is in content marketing, this is a promotion essentially. You've 124 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:21.920 been handed like the court. I don't know. The more I've learned about 125 00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:25.650 thought leadership marketing, the more I'm like, oh this is like thought 126 00:09:25.650 --> 00:09:28.390 leadership. This is like content marketing on steroids. This is 127 00:09:28.390 --> 00:09:32.420 essentially like a level above content marketing. This is like, well they do 128 00:09:32.420 --> 00:09:36.050 different places, Right? Right. I mean you can do a lot of things with broad 129 00:09:36.050 --> 00:09:39.890 content marketing. I've done I've done content libraries for S. C. O. Reasons 130 00:09:39.890 --> 00:09:42.380 that aren't thought leadership marketing and I get lots of traffic 131 00:09:42.380 --> 00:09:46.480 from it right ways to do it. But at the same time I'm like thought leadership 132 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:50.020 marketing goes, it's harder to make takes a little bit more talent to be 133 00:09:50.020 --> 00:09:53.560 able to organize it and pull it out of people and all that kind of stuff, But 134 00:09:54.040 --> 00:09:58.790 it's so much more powerful and so much more profitable. Well, especially if 135 00:09:58.790 --> 00:10:02.580 you understand the goals of your organization, you have to understand 136 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:07.260 what the business is trying to achieve not only today, but where it's going in 137 00:10:07.260 --> 00:10:11.220 the future and you have to also understand the landscape of your 138 00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:14.640 business. So the person who is serving that role of head of thought leadership 139 00:10:14.650 --> 00:10:18.550 has to understand the organization vertically as well as horizontally. 140 00:10:19.040 --> 00:10:22.530 It's a big, big shoes to fill if somebody else to do it. But I don't 141 00:10:22.530 --> 00:10:26.480 know, I think it has a huge opportunity for lots of people who get to or 142 00:10:26.490 --> 00:10:31.840 invited into it. Let's move on to number four. The What's the 4th mistake 143 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:38.120 you see companies run into. So the fourth mistake is that the organization 144 00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:43.570 doesn't set goals that are aligned with business goals and so I can give an 145 00:10:43.570 --> 00:10:47.920 example, We're going to put out a piece of thought leadership. It could be a 146 00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:52.570 white paper, it could be a podcast, it could be a journal, it could be a 147 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:57.590 conference, but they're not tying it back to the business goals. And so what 148 00:10:57.590 --> 00:11:04.320 happens is the asset or the event gets the focus rather than the outcome. And 149 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:10.450 you've got to think about who are we trying to reach and if we reach them, 150 00:11:10.660 --> 00:11:15.760 what are they going to do? And so the goals and we'll get into this in terms 151 00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:20.940 of measure and success have to be thought about up front because this is 152 00:11:20.940 --> 00:11:24.980 not like content marketing and one of the ways that I distinguish it is, you 153 00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:29.340 know, you can use content marketing metrics and say, Hey, I got all these 154 00:11:29.340 --> 00:11:32.850 likes and I got all these impressions, pat yourself on the back and that's 155 00:11:32.850 --> 00:11:37.050 good in thought leadership. That may not be good because if they're not the 156 00:11:37.050 --> 00:11:42.690 right audience, you failed. So what specific of enough of a goal? Because I 157 00:11:42.690 --> 00:11:46.150 think there's many shapes and sizes of goals and usually when people are 158 00:11:46.150 --> 00:11:49.760 coming to me and saying because I get to consult with customers were walking 159 00:11:49.760 --> 00:11:52.880 through our podcasting process and ask him like, okay, so what's the main 160 00:11:52.880 --> 00:11:55.910 goals of your podcast? Thought leadership is often one of its one of 161 00:11:55.910 --> 00:12:01.060 the top three goals. So we want to produce content to have better thought 162 00:12:01.060 --> 00:12:04.660 leadership. You know, they want to be seen as the expert. It's almost a 163 00:12:04.660 --> 00:12:09.130 branding, It's a credibility play. It's also kind of a content marketing where 164 00:12:09.130 --> 00:12:12.810 they're, they're learning from them. Is that specific enough? What are you 165 00:12:12.810 --> 00:12:16.300 looking for as far as you go? I would go a little bit deeper on goals there. 166 00:12:16.310 --> 00:12:20.570 Right. And there are three sort of categories that I would say the thought 167 00:12:20.570 --> 00:12:25.950 leadership is good at. One. It can fill the sales pipeline different way than 168 00:12:25.950 --> 00:12:28.980 content marketing or other types of marketing, but you can use the 169 00:12:28.990 --> 00:12:34.950 leadership to fill the sales pipeline. Two, you can use it to continue 170 00:12:34.950 --> 00:12:39.230 conversations and deepen relationships when it would be awkward or 171 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:44.450 inappropriate to have a sales conversation. So you may have a 172 00:12:44.450 --> 00:12:50.180 potential buyer that's not in a bi mode. If you go to them and you just feed 173 00:12:50.180 --> 00:12:54.060 them marketing, which is assuming that they're in the bicycle, you've got a 174 00:12:54.060 --> 00:12:59.320 problem. Or you could be talking to a policy maker or a regulator or any of 175 00:12:59.320 --> 00:13:04.990 those folks. They're not buying what you're selling is the idea. Okay, So 176 00:13:04.990 --> 00:13:09.330 that's a second goal. The third is to influence how people think and act. So 177 00:13:09.330 --> 00:13:13.390 if you're in the C suite and you've got a vision, your ceo you're doing thought 178 00:13:13.390 --> 00:13:17.360 leadership to your organization, to say, this is where we're going, this is the 179 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:21.320 future, this is how we're going to be successful, right? And that's the 180 00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:25.690 purpose of a town hall, that's the purpose of all of the meetings that you 181 00:13:25.690 --> 00:13:31.460 do, listening sessions, et cetera. And then if you're trying to influence 182 00:13:31.470 --> 00:13:37.390 customers, so that when they put out an RFP, they're thinking about what they 183 00:13:37.390 --> 00:13:41.220 want to buy from what you've already communicated to them and have been 184 00:13:41.220 --> 00:13:47.660 talking about for two years, okay? Or it could be influencing standards and 185 00:13:47.670 --> 00:13:53.890 practices in the overall um sector. Right? So whether it's a specification 186 00:13:53.890 --> 00:13:59.070 or an industry standard, are you influencing how the world is going? I 187 00:13:59.070 --> 00:14:02.520 love those three. So I'm even just written and writing it down and 188 00:14:02.520 --> 00:14:06.290 thinking about it. So when you say create sales pipeline, I'm usually 189 00:14:06.290 --> 00:14:10.790 thinking of like you're creating demand for something that you're want to be 190 00:14:10.790 --> 00:14:14.360 known for. You're deepening relationships. I think that has a huge 191 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:18.100 place and account based marketing where you're, you know, building 192 00:14:18.100 --> 00:14:20.740 relationships with accounts and just can't keep you like, hey, are you 193 00:14:20.740 --> 00:14:23.380 interested in buying yet? I think you even mentioned this in our pre call 194 00:14:23.380 --> 00:14:26.670 yesterday. Like you just account reps can't just be buying, like coming up 195 00:14:26.680 --> 00:14:29.300 and be like, hey, do you have the RFP yet? Hey, what are you putting our 196 00:14:29.310 --> 00:14:33.140 can't be Simpson in the back of the car going, are we there yet? Are we there 197 00:14:33.140 --> 00:14:37.320 yet? You're gonna buy, you're gonna buy, that doesn't work. And assuming we get 198 00:14:37.320 --> 00:14:40.990 back to the point where we have face to face meetings and business dinners and 199 00:14:40.990 --> 00:14:45.340 that sort of thing, you can equip your salesforce if you're doing it well with 200 00:14:45.340 --> 00:14:49.410 thought leadership and say, here are the things to tee up in conversation 201 00:14:49.420 --> 00:14:54.650 because it will help fill your pipeline, not this quarter, but if you're smart, 202 00:14:54.740 --> 00:14:59.160 you're filling up your pipeline for next year on this right here, the seeds 203 00:14:59.160 --> 00:15:05.120 to plant huge and then the last one just broader influence, kind of in some 204 00:15:05.120 --> 00:15:10.950 sense, trying to influence or steer to some degree, a larger industry, um, in 205 00:15:10.950 --> 00:15:15.160 ways people are thinking broadly about a topic which is a big thing as well, 206 00:15:15.540 --> 00:15:20.840 and you can elevate a topic that isn't being talked about or discuss an 207 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:25.290 existing topic in a new way. So essentially, thought leadership 208 00:15:25.290 --> 00:15:30.260 marketing can be used as a primary driver of category creation. Absolutely, 209 00:15:30.290 --> 00:15:34.960 absolutely. And maybe maybe in the B two B space, it kind of always is, I 210 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:39.550 can't think of a situation where you can create, uh, maybe in a hardware 211 00:15:39.550 --> 00:15:42.580 space, you probably could, but generally it's going to take thought 212 00:15:42.580 --> 00:15:46.510 leadership in order to power category creation well. And I'll give you an 213 00:15:46.510 --> 00:15:51.470 example on category creation. So in it's one where there's a different 214 00:15:51.470 --> 00:15:56.640 alignment between the buyer and the manufacturer. So in industrial 215 00:15:56.640 --> 00:16:01.770 equipment, um, there's an organization that does thought leadership around. 216 00:16:01.780 --> 00:16:06.880 They build cement plants, right? Which is not a very green environmental 217 00:16:06.880 --> 00:16:12.010 friendly industry. But their corporate goal is to make the cement plants as 218 00:16:12.010 --> 00:16:17.200 green as possible. They know their buyers that's lower on the list. And so 219 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:21.330 where they use thought leadership as they say, look, we know where public 220 00:16:21.330 --> 00:16:25.370 policy is going to go. We know how regulations are going to change and as 221 00:16:25.370 --> 00:16:30.850 a result, instead of buying this update your plant this way, so that you're 222 00:16:30.850 --> 00:16:36.310 ahead of the game. So moving on to the 5th question, our 5th most common 223 00:16:36.310 --> 00:16:41.250 mistake you went into, what is that? Let's describe it simply as department 224 00:16:41.260 --> 00:16:47.390 misunderstandings and sometimes even turf wars. Right. The problem happens, 225 00:16:47.390 --> 00:16:52.090 you stand up a thought leadership function, you sort of dubbed someone on 226 00:16:52.090 --> 00:16:56.720 the shoulder and they are now the night of thought leadership, right? But 227 00:16:56.720 --> 00:17:02.150 they're in existing organization where things have been done. And what often 228 00:17:02.150 --> 00:17:07.490 happens is people say, well, weren't we doing thought leadership? We were doing 229 00:17:07.490 --> 00:17:11.829 content marketing or we were doing exact calms and we handled the speeches 230 00:17:11.829 --> 00:17:18.750 for sea levels and that sort of thing. And the problem happens when people 231 00:17:18.750 --> 00:17:23.859 feel threatened. And so you need a head of thought leadership who is willing to 232 00:17:23.859 --> 00:17:29.070 build bridges and create those relationships and trust so that they 233 00:17:29.070 --> 00:17:34.930 know where to call you in and where to call your team in and know where you're 234 00:17:34.930 --> 00:17:38.190 not going to play, that you're not trying to take over all of their 235 00:17:38.190 --> 00:17:42.600 sandbox, but that there are things that you can do well and things they can do 236 00:17:42.600 --> 00:17:46.090 well, certainly be worth pulling all those people into a conversation right 237 00:17:46.090 --> 00:17:50.090 from the beginning, right. And hopefully absolutely champion at the 238 00:17:50.090 --> 00:17:53.420 executive level of spearheading maybe that first kick off being like, hey, 239 00:17:53.420 --> 00:17:56.780 I've designated this person is the head of thought leadership, but you guys 240 00:17:56.780 --> 00:17:59.380 have to work together, right kicks off that meeting. And that's where the 241 00:17:59.380 --> 00:18:05.230 executive champions helpful in terms of what's really worked well is a lot of 242 00:18:05.230 --> 00:18:09.910 one on once. And so I'm thinking of ahead of thought leadership, who 243 00:18:09.910 --> 00:18:15.210 basically went to peers across the organization. And he said I had more 244 00:18:15.210 --> 00:18:21.990 lunches with peers both in town and I traveled just that they understood what 245 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.660 what we did, right? And he said, I did a meet and greet tour for six months. 246 00:18:28.340 --> 00:18:32.960 So that's a lot of conversations. And it makes sense when you look at the 6th 247 00:18:33.640 --> 00:18:37.640 mistake, you see most often where the head of that leadership is in charge of 248 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:42.590 everything, tell me more about that and how it's a mistake. So There are three 249 00:18:42.590 --> 00:18:46.930 functions I would describe and thought leadership. The ability to create 250 00:18:47.010 --> 00:18:52.470 thought leadership, curated and deploy it. The role of the head of fault 251 00:18:52.470 --> 00:18:56.980 leadership is to curate it. Marketing and different functions and marketing 252 00:18:56.990 --> 00:19:01.520 are great at deploying right? Thought leadership teams don't have to deploy 253 00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:05.900 on their own. They can lean and collaborate with existing marketing 254 00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:12.240 functions. The creation what happens is is if you have an organization of any 255 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:16.220 size, you've got a lot of smart ideas and brilliant people. you've hired 256 00:19:16.220 --> 00:19:21.770 smart people and so with the head of thought leadership and the reason the 257 00:19:21.770 --> 00:19:25.650 head of thought leadership function is important. You're the person paying 258 00:19:25.650 --> 00:19:30.590 attention through the organization as to where are good ideas that deserve to 259 00:19:30.590 --> 00:19:35.280 be elevated or would create more value for their brought together or put in 260 00:19:35.280 --> 00:19:40.030 the hands of sales or put in the hands of marketing. Often good ideas, go to 261 00:19:40.030 --> 00:19:47.120 die in PowerPoint decks and never encounter the outside world. So the 262 00:19:47.120 --> 00:19:49.710 head of thought leadership is essentially an idea hunter. They're 263 00:19:49.710 --> 00:19:54.610 always looking for things that probably have value. If it's been set inside, 264 00:19:54.610 --> 00:19:57.190 it's locked inside our powerpoints and they're looking for the things that 265 00:19:57.190 --> 00:20:01.110 probably need to be repackaged and sent through marketing to distribute. So 266 00:20:01.110 --> 00:20:05.110 they're an idea hunter. And they're also looking for people who can speak 267 00:20:05.120 --> 00:20:09.930 on behalf of the organization. So if you think about it, there are some 268 00:20:09.930 --> 00:20:13.830 people who are good at writing, put them on stage, they freeze, some people 269 00:20:13.840 --> 00:20:18.490 are good on stage but lousy on writing. You're looking for talent as well as 270 00:20:18.490 --> 00:20:24.230 ideas and say who can be a good conduit to help get this idea because there are 271 00:20:24.230 --> 00:20:30.470 times where someone leaves the organization, they get taken for a new 272 00:20:30.470 --> 00:20:34.870 position or go to a competitor or they retire or they go on sick leave or 273 00:20:34.870 --> 00:20:40.330 something and you can't depend on that one person in the organization and 274 00:20:40.330 --> 00:20:45.330 thats why instead of trying to do it all, you're trying to build a team and 275 00:20:45.330 --> 00:20:49.490 make thought leadership, everyone's responsibility. Some people create some 276 00:20:49.490 --> 00:20:50.960 curate, some deploy 277 00:20:52.040 --> 00:20:56.590 to kind of go on a slight rabbit trail between writing and speaking. Which 278 00:20:56.590 --> 00:20:58.670 one's more powerful as a thought leadership content. 279 00:21:00.340 --> 00:21:05.690 It depends on the person who's doing it Right. There are people who can stand 280 00:21:05.690 --> 00:21:12.120 in front of a room of 10,000 people and bring them to tears, right? Or they can 281 00:21:12.120 --> 00:21:15.940 paint a vision of the future that says yes, we need to do something. There are 282 00:21:15.950 --> 00:21:22.700 other people who can write an article or write a piece that just goes viral, 283 00:21:22.710 --> 00:21:23.260 right? 284 00:21:24.840 --> 00:21:29.150 You have to find people who are skilled in the medium and you may find someone 285 00:21:29.150 --> 00:21:34.040 who is a genius at ideas, but they're not a communicator, pair them with a 286 00:21:34.040 --> 00:21:39.590 communicator. Someone who is a writer or get them a speechwriter find a way 287 00:21:39.590 --> 00:21:40.850 to help the idea fly. 288 00:21:41.940 --> 00:21:46.300 So essentially there's subject matter experts like this happens with um I was 289 00:21:46.300 --> 00:21:49.170 amazed when I found this out about the Harvard Business Review is hardly ever 290 00:21:49.170 --> 00:21:52.570 written by the people whose by lines are on it, right? They're usually 291 00:21:52.570 --> 00:21:55.880 writers who interview the subject matter expert and actually turn their 292 00:21:55.890 --> 00:22:00.100 ideas into things that people like to read. Um, so you're talking to like 293 00:22:00.110 --> 00:22:04.730 doing things like that. Exactly. So if you're an expert in logistics, you 294 00:22:04.730 --> 00:22:09.080 haven't spent your career writing business school articles for HBR, 295 00:22:09.090 --> 00:22:13.540 that's not your lane. But you have the insight pair him with someone who can 296 00:22:13.550 --> 00:22:17.170 communicate that idea in a way that people go, wow, we should be doing that. 297 00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:24.410 Moving on to the 7th 1. What is the 7th most common mistake you see? So the 298 00:22:24.410 --> 00:22:30.640 head of the leadership needs allies within the organization. And this is 299 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:36.670 the metaphor that I said top to bottom and across allies open doors for you. 300 00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:42.950 Ambassadors speak on your behalf, Your sales force can be allies for you, 301 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:48.270 where they go, oh, let's get you in this room to talk. Or they can be 302 00:22:48.270 --> 00:22:52.150 ambassadors, You equip them with the right information. They're going to 303 00:22:52.150 --> 00:22:57.500 talk to all of your prospects. Your marketing team are also potentially 304 00:22:57.510 --> 00:23:03.240 allies. Ambassadors, People in product your research or in customer service. 305 00:23:03.250 --> 00:23:09.690 You have to be listening because the insights don't always come from within 306 00:23:09.690 --> 00:23:14.280 the walls of the organization. So you want to build a listening network that 307 00:23:14.280 --> 00:23:17.960 brings information to you as the head of thought leadership so that you can 308 00:23:17.960 --> 00:23:24.270 figure out is this signal or is this noise? And if it's signal, what do we 309 00:23:24.270 --> 00:23:29.850 do with it? Who needs to hear it? And what action do we need to take today? 310 00:23:31.240 --> 00:23:35.350 What are some like, common things are common ways? People usually get that 311 00:23:35.350 --> 00:23:39.280 wrong and then get unstuck with that. If they're if they're bad at finding 312 00:23:39.280 --> 00:23:41.560 allies. So 313 00:23:42.840 --> 00:23:47.760 if they're not good at finding allies, they're not thinking about the 314 00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:53.310 relationship side of the role. Okay. And I think back to marshall Goldsmith 315 00:23:53.310 --> 00:23:58.020 wrote a great book in terms of the early part of his career, what got you 316 00:23:58.020 --> 00:23:59.360 here, Won't get you there. 317 00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:06.550 Head of thought leadership has to focus on the relationships. And if you're not 318 00:24:06.550 --> 00:24:11.110 doing that, and if you're focused solely on thinking, the best idea will 319 00:24:11.120 --> 00:24:15.870 automatically win in the marketplace of ideas and your job is justifying the 320 00:24:15.870 --> 00:24:22.900 best ideas. You're going to hit the wall again and again. Because as you 321 00:24:22.900 --> 00:24:27.450 know, and as our listeners know, marketing creates unfair advantages, 322 00:24:28.140 --> 00:24:33.590 right? You need a good idea with excellent marketing, that's going to 323 00:24:33.590 --> 00:24:34.060 fly 324 00:24:35.340 --> 00:24:39.760 an excellent idea with weak marketing doesn't go anywhere. And a big part of 325 00:24:39.760 --> 00:24:44.290 that is the people around you, right? You're working in an organization. It 326 00:24:44.290 --> 00:24:47.430 takes more than one person to get the idea out there unless your team is so 327 00:24:47.430 --> 00:24:50.320 small and you're the only one in charge of thought leadership and marketing, 328 00:24:50.330 --> 00:24:55.360 right? Even then you could get into trouble if you're just publishing all 329 00:24:55.360 --> 00:24:59.180 the time and not checking in with your few teammates, right. A lot of this is 330 00:24:59.180 --> 00:25:03.360 about relationship. What is the 8th most common mistake you see people make? 331 00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:09.240 So the eighth I would say is that people get impatient. The organization, 332 00:25:09.280 --> 00:25:13.910 the head of thought leadership, others around and they go, oh, we set this 333 00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:19.460 function up three months ago. What have they done? What have they accomplished? 334 00:25:19.560 --> 00:25:25.680 And they may have some early winds, but the team needs time to get their feet 335 00:25:25.690 --> 00:25:31.520 underneath them and also be able to achieve the goals. Right? And so if 336 00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:36.620 you're talking about creating assets and getting them out there, I encourage 337 00:25:36.620 --> 00:25:41.100 rapid prototyping. Always right test to get into market tested as fast as you 338 00:25:41.100 --> 00:25:46.250 can. But the big winds and results where people go, Oh, now I see this 339 00:25:46.250 --> 00:25:50.940 works. If you're thinking on a 90 day horizon, you're being too impatient. 340 00:25:50.950 --> 00:25:58.550 You've got to think at least a year to let the team find its way and to build 341 00:25:58.550 --> 00:26:02.810 those relationships and create those winds. And is that a year from like 342 00:26:02.810 --> 00:26:06.560 first publication of your first piece or a year from when you actually start 343 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:12.760 start thinking about it? Planning for? I would say it's a year from when you 344 00:26:12.770 --> 00:26:18.480 actually launch the team. Okay. Don't expect that they're gonna be knocking 345 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:24.690 home runs out of the park on day one, it may happen and that's a delight. But 346 00:26:24.690 --> 00:26:28.360 you have to think about standing this up as a function for the long haul. And 347 00:26:28.360 --> 00:26:33.880 if you're thinking about this on a 90 day trial, it's not gonna work. Most 348 00:26:33.890 --> 00:26:37.320 organizations that I've seen be successful with this have looked and 349 00:26:37.320 --> 00:26:42.330 said, this is a multi year commitment and year number one, we're gonna go out, 350 00:26:42.340 --> 00:26:46.330 we're going to try stuff. Some things will succeed, some will fail. Look at 351 00:26:46.330 --> 00:26:51.200 that will set more specific goals in year two and by year three we know what 352 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:55.470 we're doing. We do have our lanes and we've got our processes. Would you say 353 00:26:55.470 --> 00:26:59.170 you should probably commit to like a 3-5 year commitment towards making this 354 00:26:59.180 --> 00:27:03.360 thing? It's kind of like, you really have to think broad and big picture, 355 00:27:03.360 --> 00:27:06.970 which means it's like it's going to take a few years for this to become the 356 00:27:06.970 --> 00:27:09.930 full weight of what we want to see, what we might start to see some 357 00:27:09.940 --> 00:27:14.230 inklings of success about a year end, Right. It's a big picture thing, which 358 00:27:14.230 --> 00:27:17.840 is why going back to the earlier point in the first point that I said, have no 359 00:27:17.840 --> 00:27:21.800 executive champion. You have to have someone on senior leadership whose 360 00:27:21.800 --> 00:27:26.780 patient enough and go, no, we're planting seeds. This will pay off in 361 00:27:26.780 --> 00:27:33.310 big ways, but we don't expect them to be successful next month because 362 00:27:33.310 --> 00:27:37.130 chances are thought leadership, you know, it can create demand, it can 363 00:27:37.130 --> 00:27:42.380 create some more short term results. But really it's more of a branding play. 364 00:27:42.390 --> 00:27:47.230 Really, it's more of a positioning play to some degree where you're trying to 365 00:27:47.230 --> 00:27:52.010 position yourself as a leader in some respect and your customers mind, right? 366 00:27:52.010 --> 00:27:55.220 Which takes, I don't know, it takes a while for you to build that kind of 367 00:27:55.230 --> 00:28:00.850 reputation amongst your buyers, reputation and trust absolutely matter. 368 00:28:01.240 --> 00:28:06.860 Also, it takes repetition because your listener rarely. We'll hear something 369 00:28:06.860 --> 00:28:12.350 once and go, oh yes, I 100% agree, I'm all in, right? You have to repeat an 370 00:28:12.350 --> 00:28:16.970 idea several times. So there's a time period there. The way that I define 371 00:28:16.970 --> 00:28:21.130 felt leadership is you're looking around the corner into the future and 372 00:28:21.130 --> 00:28:26.220 you're looking to see what are the risks and opportunities and make sense 373 00:28:26.220 --> 00:28:30.540 of them. Then you bring that information back to people today and 374 00:28:30.540 --> 00:28:35.500 say, here's what we see is coming and here's what you should be doing to 375 00:28:35.500 --> 00:28:41.350 prepare, right? And you build trust by telling them about the future, telling 376 00:28:41.350 --> 00:28:45.820 them what to do. They take the action. They go, wow, that paid off six or nine 377 00:28:45.820 --> 00:28:50.820 months later. Right? So there's a trust building cycle. If you're in a 378 00:28:50.820 --> 00:28:55.770 transactional sort of relationship with your customer, you don't have as much 379 00:28:55.770 --> 00:29:00.840 of the time to build trust. But a lot of B two B is relationship driven. An A. 380 00:29:00.840 --> 00:29:04.820 B. M driven, right? It's interesting, I was just talking to a Grant Butler 381 00:29:04.820 --> 00:29:07.860 yesterday and one of the interesting things that stood out to me that he 382 00:29:07.860 --> 00:29:12.300 said was that if journalism is past focused thought, leadership is really 383 00:29:12.300 --> 00:29:17.780 future focused, you're not necessarily writing the future, but you get so in 384 00:29:17.780 --> 00:29:20.750 that sense, you are, you're trying to write the future. You're trying to say, 385 00:29:20.750 --> 00:29:25.210 hey, we should be going this way. For whatever reason, it might just be more 386 00:29:25.210 --> 00:29:29.080 effective, It might be better for everybody involved if we go this way, 387 00:29:29.090 --> 00:29:34.490 you should go this way, What's the 9th most common mistake? You see, you have 388 00:29:34.490 --> 00:29:39.250 to make it something that's inclusive. If you present thought leadership 389 00:29:39.260 --> 00:29:45.410 that's done by only a handful of elite people in the company or that it's 390 00:29:45.410 --> 00:29:49.560 something that is full reserved for a very few. 391 00:29:50.840 --> 00:29:56.350 It doesn't work where I've seen it be. Most successful is when that senior 392 00:29:56.350 --> 00:30:02.380 leader says, hey, we're going on a journey and we all have to invest in 393 00:30:02.380 --> 00:30:06.740 the leadership. That doesn't mean all of us are writing or speaking. That 394 00:30:06.740 --> 00:30:10.540 doesn't mean all of us are posting, but we have to be willing to talk about 395 00:30:10.540 --> 00:30:16.690 these ideas, engage our customers and speak with one voice in thought 396 00:30:16.690 --> 00:30:20.450 leadership. And where I've seen it take most success 397 00:30:21.540 --> 00:30:26.330 is when the organization says, yeah, this is partly everybody's 398 00:30:26.330 --> 00:30:30.360 responsibility rather than, oh, you do thought leadership. That means you're 399 00:30:30.360 --> 00:30:35.180 smarter than everybody else, Right? That's not the case, Honey, would you 400 00:30:35.180 --> 00:30:40.440 say it's company wide? Yeah, I would absolutely say that. And I would say 401 00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:47.270 that a vast array of the ideas within an organization 402 00:30:48.340 --> 00:30:55.710 are in the corners that people often overlook. So I can think of a consumer 403 00:30:55.710 --> 00:31:01.550 packaged goods company where they identify thought leadership globally 404 00:31:01.550 --> 00:31:05.160 and they have hundreds of thousands of employees, right? one of their 405 00:31:05.170 --> 00:31:12.730 expertise is yeast and understand a Geest and you might guess is to sort of 406 00:31:12.730 --> 00:31:20.480 what industry they're in. But those people in terms of brewing are 407 00:31:20.490 --> 00:31:27.830 absolutely critical for them and if you lose someone with that knowledge, not 408 00:31:27.830 --> 00:31:31.390 just as a subject matter expert, but they retire and that knowledge isn't 409 00:31:31.390 --> 00:31:35.460 transferred to the next generation, that knowledge has walked out the door. 410 00:31:36.140 --> 00:31:39.450 I've certainly, I think there's different opinions on this particular. 411 00:31:39.450 --> 00:31:42.480 Some people are like, no, some people are very set on it being like the 412 00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:48.040 founder Ceo and staying in the C suite. I've seen groups, usually everybody's 413 00:31:48.040 --> 00:31:50.450 on the same page. You probably just shouldn't have one subject matter 414 00:31:50.450 --> 00:31:54.050 expert. That's the thought later because if that person leaves or 415 00:31:54.540 --> 00:31:58.830 tragically disappears or something like that, then you you put a little bit too 416 00:31:58.830 --> 00:32:03.070 much investment in just one face in one person. But I've not heard a lot of 417 00:32:03.070 --> 00:32:06.170 people talk about unlocking the whole organization. I have heard of other 418 00:32:06.170 --> 00:32:08.970 people talking about it and that's kind of where I'm leaning personally is like, 419 00:32:08.970 --> 00:32:10.850 no, like everybody's got a little something 420 00:32:11.940 --> 00:32:16.900 to offer. Some, of course, some have way more to offer than others, but it 421 00:32:16.900 --> 00:32:19.610 almost seems like everybody has a little piece of expertise, especially 422 00:32:19.610 --> 00:32:21.890 since they're kind of doing it full time, right? And working on your 423 00:32:21.890 --> 00:32:24.680 organization and working in that particular position that you're at in 424 00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:28.890 your industry, there's going to be a lot they're especially collectively, if 425 00:32:28.890 --> 00:32:33.330 you can find it though, setting up the systems and processes to get it out, 426 00:32:33.330 --> 00:32:38.130 there must be must be an interesting work right there. And if you can 427 00:32:38.140 --> 00:32:43.990 identify and communicate within an organization, here's the value I 428 00:32:43.990 --> 00:32:49.440 adheres my unique perspective, this is what I do that really helps the company 429 00:32:49.440 --> 00:32:53.500 shine. That's great for morale. That also creates more and more 430 00:32:53.500 --> 00:32:58.050 differentiators when you're trying to go to market and it creates an 431 00:32:58.050 --> 00:33:03.060 environment where people want to contribute their best thinking an 432 00:33:03.070 --> 00:33:08.320 effort rather than they see themselves as Chicago a large machine. I like that, 433 00:33:08.330 --> 00:33:10.790 that's kind of where we're heading with sweet fish Media. It's just good to 434 00:33:10.790 --> 00:33:14.010 hear somebody else say it. So I'm not like alone in my thinking, I'm like, I 435 00:33:14.010 --> 00:33:18.470 feel like everybody could be it, but I don't know, it seems like that's not as 436 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:23.630 popular as an opinion where most people are trying to make good, right? Trying 437 00:33:23.630 --> 00:33:27.100 to, most people are trying to select a few subject matter experts, you know, 438 00:33:27.100 --> 00:33:31.500 34 of them. It depends on what size they are, but that's the more common 439 00:33:31.510 --> 00:33:36.070 route. Unless uh, I don't know, I guess organizations like Mckinsey and 440 00:33:36.070 --> 00:33:41.130 Deloitte will often have multiple people submit to a journal of some kind. 441 00:33:41.140 --> 00:33:45.680 Well in professional services is an area that has done this longer than 442 00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:52.660 many because if you're one of the big consultancies or if you're um working 443 00:33:52.660 --> 00:33:59.050 in programming and software and doing solutions and that for your clients, 444 00:33:59.540 --> 00:34:02.350 you're selling the knowledge of your people and the more that you can 445 00:34:02.350 --> 00:34:09.730 showcase your workforce as able to solve smart problems, then you win more 446 00:34:09.730 --> 00:34:14.780 deals, right? That's a big win. Um, and I'm looking forward to rolling this out 447 00:34:14.780 --> 00:34:17.969 as we fished and see if we can kind of replicate their success that they've 448 00:34:17.969 --> 00:34:22.639 had. So the last one, I want to make sure we hit all tens, I promised all 10. 449 00:34:22.650 --> 00:34:27.250 Uh, the last one, what was the last mistake that most companies make when 450 00:34:27.250 --> 00:34:31.290 trying to implement thought leadership programs? So the last one, I'll say 451 00:34:31.290 --> 00:34:35.570 simply the organization tries to measure success by the wrong standards. 452 00:34:35.580 --> 00:34:42.590 And so this is like pulling out a metric wrench when you need a standard 453 00:34:42.600 --> 00:34:47.310 wrench right and you're trying to turn it, but it doesn't work. And so the 454 00:34:47.310 --> 00:34:52.360 most common version of this mistake is when you start applying content 455 00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:59.630 marketing metrics to thought leadership and you wind up rewarding and 456 00:34:59.630 --> 00:35:03.680 incentivizing the wrong results. So what are those metrics that are 457 00:35:03.680 --> 00:35:07.920 commonly applied? And what are better metrics? So I'll start with what 458 00:35:07.930 --> 00:35:13.060 commonly gets applied. And often sometimes I just have to say whoa, stop. 459 00:35:13.740 --> 00:35:20.470 So views impressions attendees at events and conferences. And I had a 460 00:35:20.470 --> 00:35:24.560 conversation once with a client who said, Okay, we did this webinar and we 461 00:35:24.560 --> 00:35:30.590 had X,000 number of attendees. I said, great. Which of those attendees were 462 00:35:30.590 --> 00:35:35.260 the most important people that you needed to reach to make this idea fly. 463 00:35:35.640 --> 00:35:40.050 And do you know who those people were? Were they watching? Were they engaged? 464 00:35:40.740 --> 00:35:45.020 And there was a moment of silence instead of looking at the aggregate 465 00:35:45.030 --> 00:35:52.720 attendees and saying a bigger number is better. It's if you're creating impact, 466 00:35:52.730 --> 00:35:58.640 some of your target audiences are able to open doors more effectively for you 467 00:35:58.650 --> 00:36:03.240 be decision makers that can create impact or achieve results. And if you 468 00:36:03.250 --> 00:36:09.740 get to them and they buy in, then the idea goes further and faster at scale. 469 00:36:10.930 --> 00:36:13.670 So you talked about events, but what are other metrics you can look at if 470 00:36:13.670 --> 00:36:17.260 you're not doing events at all? Is it kind of the same thing applied to 471 00:36:17.260 --> 00:36:21.900 podcasting? For example. Exactly. You don't know exactly who's listening 472 00:36:21.900 --> 00:36:25.680 unless you pay a ton. Recently, I did find software that will tell you what 473 00:36:25.680 --> 00:36:29.520 companies are listening to your podcast, but it costs like 500 bucks a month. 474 00:36:29.520 --> 00:36:34.500 And I was like, well, and that's the difficulty, right in podcasting. You 475 00:36:34.500 --> 00:36:40.250 look and you say, okay, I've put bait out there for people to listen to. Not 476 00:36:40.250 --> 00:36:44.620 only one are people listening, but then two are they the right people. And if 477 00:36:44.620 --> 00:36:48.670 you focus on the number of, how many downloads did you have in a month? 478 00:36:48.680 --> 00:36:55.000 Right? It's a very squishy stats statistic. It's like putting out a 479 00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.980 press release and going, oh, we had this much reach, Congratulations. But 480 00:36:59.980 --> 00:37:05.690 did you reach the right people? Okay. And so that's why you launched the 481 00:37:05.690 --> 00:37:10.100 conversation here and said, we do a very niche podcast on Thought 482 00:37:10.100 --> 00:37:15.600 Leadership, right? We consciously made that choice to go niche rather than 483 00:37:15.600 --> 00:37:20.490 broad. And we said, These are the people we want to reach and were 484 00:37:20.490 --> 00:37:26.450 irrelevant to 99.99% of the world's population where they shouldn't listen 485 00:37:26.450 --> 00:37:30.800 to us. They should go do something else more valuable with their time in life. 486 00:37:30.810 --> 00:37:38.440 But you want to be indispensable. The relevant to that fraction of a percent 487 00:37:38.450 --> 00:37:44.060 of the world. Okay. I'll give you a few pieces and these go into an IQ data 488 00:37:44.070 --> 00:37:50.110 rather than hard data, but there are good, good example. So when we put out 489 00:37:50.110 --> 00:37:53.990 a podcast and we have people come back to us and say, I listened to your 490 00:37:53.990 --> 00:37:59.950 podcast and it sounded like you were in the room talking to me and I was 491 00:37:59.950 --> 00:38:03.340 sitting with your guest and we were around the table talking about issues I 492 00:38:03.340 --> 00:38:08.170 cared about that. You'd walked into my office. That's when you know you one 493 00:38:08.180 --> 00:38:12.180 because that person that you were trying to reach is most likely a buyer 494 00:38:12.190 --> 00:38:16.900 and they were paying really close attention. That's beautiful. And while 495 00:38:16.900 --> 00:38:19.840 we tend to take usually a slightly different approach with our podcasting, 496 00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:24.250 I could certainly see the benefit of creating a very niche podcast. And at 497 00:38:24.250 --> 00:38:27.480 the end of the day, it's even something I'm still measuring though I usually 498 00:38:27.490 --> 00:38:30.210 counted a little bit more on linkedin where you can see exactly who's 499 00:38:30.210 --> 00:38:32.880 interacting with your comment, who you're engaging within comments. It's 500 00:38:32.890 --> 00:38:36.960 linked and it's like, I don't know why if you're in B two B and you're not 501 00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:39.910 active on linkedin, I'm like, why? Because it gives you so much for 502 00:38:39.910 --> 00:38:44.150 information like everybody is on there well, and Lincoln is great because you 503 00:38:44.150 --> 00:38:49.020 can see who's engaging with your idea and do they fit the types of people 504 00:38:49.020 --> 00:38:52.940 that you want to reach? You can actually see if you're reaching the 505 00:38:52.940 --> 00:38:56.240 people because they're the ones in the comments, right? Or you can just more 506 00:38:56.240 --> 00:38:59.250 easily go and find the people who are active in your space, who you'd like to 507 00:38:59.250 --> 00:39:01.640 do business with and engage with them in their comments. It's kind of like 508 00:39:01.650 --> 00:39:04.410 start commenting with them and then all of a sudden they start showing up in 509 00:39:04.410 --> 00:39:09.790 yours. It's a beautiful thing. So I love that essentially. Uh you're 510 00:39:09.800 --> 00:39:13.590 measuring percentage reached on the key accounts that you want to do business 511 00:39:13.590 --> 00:39:20.710 with. Exactly. And you also measure impact in different ways. So another 512 00:39:20.710 --> 00:39:26.230 example is if you're responsible for thought leadership for your executive 513 00:39:26.230 --> 00:39:31.350 team and they're meeting people in industry and you're giving them a list 514 00:39:31.350 --> 00:39:36.030 of pull asides, for example, of here, the pull asides and the three minute 515 00:39:36.030 --> 00:39:40.510 conversations that you're going to have while you're at this event. Those 516 00:39:40.510 --> 00:39:42.750 conversations may not bear fruit 517 00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:48.150 in six months. Those are strategic deals. Those are relationships that 518 00:39:48.150 --> 00:39:53.660 have to be nurtured. And so the initial thing is checklist. Did all those 519 00:39:53.660 --> 00:39:58.470 conversations happen? Yes or no. Great. Did we get a follow up on those 520 00:39:58.470 --> 00:40:03.140 conversations afterwards? Within a couple of weeks, you almost have to 521 00:40:03.140 --> 00:40:08.450 think on a campaign level and say if this is moving forward, what evidence 522 00:40:08.450 --> 00:40:09.330 would I be seeing? 523 00:40:10.710 --> 00:40:13.940 Um, I know the evidence I'd be looking for is one consumption 524 00:40:15.410 --> 00:40:20.030 consumption would be number one after that. I'd be looking for how many 525 00:40:20.030 --> 00:40:24.450 people are like responding to it. So usually depending on the medium, 526 00:40:24.460 --> 00:40:27.790 there's different ways where people can respond and linked in its comments. But 527 00:40:27.790 --> 00:40:31.960 oftentimes people can just mention it. I usually just ask customers or new new 528 00:40:31.960 --> 00:40:35.300 prospects in the pipeline oh, where'd you hear about us? Oh, we saw this, and 529 00:40:35.300 --> 00:40:38.120 then I read this, you know, they start to tell you themselves where they come. 530 00:40:38.120 --> 00:40:41.480 And I usually listen for like, oh, like what did they read before? Were they 531 00:40:41.480 --> 00:40:44.270 listening to the podcast where they literally just come off a linkedin. 532 00:40:44.270 --> 00:40:47.350 They don't even listen to our podcast, but we've been talking about it so much 533 00:40:47.350 --> 00:40:51.640 on linkedin, you know, um, what kinds of things did they read and what can be 534 00:40:51.650 --> 00:40:54.780 even based on the kind of questions or point of view they're coming with it? I 535 00:40:54.780 --> 00:40:58.150 can tell like what they've read recently, all things that kind of 536 00:40:58.150 --> 00:41:01.600 measure the thought leadership or the strength of the thought leadership 537 00:41:01.600 --> 00:41:06.440 content. Another good example is with the podcast. If you have people who 538 00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:11.100 come to you and say, I've been listening to you for a year or whatever 539 00:41:11.110 --> 00:41:15.260 and it wasn't the right time for me to come to you. But now it is all of a 540 00:41:15.260 --> 00:41:18.870 sudden you've closed your sales cycle from a year long where you were chasing 541 00:41:18.870 --> 00:41:22.900 someone where it wasn't the right by time to they show up and they're ready 542 00:41:22.900 --> 00:41:27.920 to close the deal almost immediately. Man, this has been fantastic. And going 543 00:41:27.920 --> 00:41:32.680 through 10s, usually a lot for a list in a podcast, but it's been fun to kind 544 00:41:32.680 --> 00:41:34.790 of hear all these different perspectives. I know I've gotten a lot 545 00:41:34.790 --> 00:41:38.090 of nuggets out of it, just even thinking through like, oh, like sweet 546 00:41:38.090 --> 00:41:41.910 fish is a small Company compared to people. I mean, we have 30 employees, 547 00:41:41.910 --> 00:41:45.750 some companies of, you know, hundreds, thousands, uh, some of the dynamics. So 548 00:41:45.750 --> 00:41:48.690 you might have to face if you're a thought leader in those companies and 549 00:41:48.690 --> 00:41:52.360 I'm sure the audience has gotten quite a few nuggets out of it. I know I have, 550 00:41:52.370 --> 00:41:56.760 um, for my future, we're trying to implement that leadership for sweet 551 00:41:56.760 --> 00:42:01.940 fish. I know you want to talk a little bit about the Stevie Awards for Women 552 00:42:01.940 --> 00:42:05.740 in Business bill. So tell us a little bit about that and why what the 553 00:42:05.740 --> 00:42:10.480 audience can do to go check that out. Yes. So one of the things that we 554 00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:16.730 recognized is thought leadership as an evolving function needs to recognize 555 00:42:16.740 --> 00:42:23.360 excellence. And so we partnered with the Stevie Business Awards specifically 556 00:42:23.370 --> 00:42:29.180 for recognizing excellence and thought leadership and they do a series of 557 00:42:29.190 --> 00:42:36.090 eight different award programs international, uh, US Business Awards 558 00:42:36.100 --> 00:42:41.060 over the course of the year, the category that's just opened up as of 559 00:42:41.060 --> 00:42:46.800 the middle of May is for women in business and recognizing thought 560 00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:50.730 leadership excellence and three categories for women in business. One 561 00:42:50.740 --> 00:42:55.930 organizations that are doing an excellent job of developing women as 562 00:42:55.930 --> 00:42:59.740 thought leadership practitioners and promoting their ideas within and beyond 563 00:42:59.740 --> 00:43:04.150 the organization to excellence and thought leadership campaigns by and for 564 00:43:04.150 --> 00:43:12.050 women and then three excellence as best female false leader for themselves and 565 00:43:12.050 --> 00:43:16.030 for their organization. There will be other categories going on. But we felt 566 00:43:16.030 --> 00:43:22.240 it was absolutely critical and essential to start really within the 567 00:43:22.240 --> 00:43:27.010 business space, recognizing the folks who are day to day doing thought 568 00:43:27.010 --> 00:43:31.320 leadership and the excellent work they're doing for their companies. 569 00:43:32.500 --> 00:43:38.840 That's great. So where there are places where you can nominate women, um or did 570 00:43:38.840 --> 00:43:47.090 you go to Stevie Awards and you can download a nomination packet. So if you 571 00:43:47.090 --> 00:43:50.990 think you fit one of these categories for women in business, go to the Stevie 572 00:43:50.990 --> 00:43:57.190 Awards, download it and submit. Or if you know someone who fits this category 573 00:43:57.190 --> 00:44:01.530 and I encourage you because especially with women in thought leadership, women 574 00:44:01.530 --> 00:44:04.580 have sometimes told themselves, know what I'm doing, really isn't thought 575 00:44:04.580 --> 00:44:09.390 leadership for their my business or they've had their colleagues say that's 576 00:44:09.390 --> 00:44:12.320 not thought leadership, You don't have to speak that sort of thing. They've 577 00:44:12.330 --> 00:44:16.230 actually actively been dismissed. If you know someone who fits this category, 578 00:44:16.230 --> 00:44:19.720 reach out to them say, hey, I know you're rocking it here and thought 579 00:44:19.720 --> 00:44:24.820 leadership, you're doing amazing work, Take a look at this. It's worth you 580 00:44:24.820 --> 00:44:31.840 seeing if you want to apply and we want to celebrate the best work of thought 581 00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:35.610 leadership that's out there. That's fantastic. I definitely have someone in 582 00:44:35.610 --> 00:44:38.410 mind somebody that interviewed for this podcast and I was like, how do you not 583 00:44:38.410 --> 00:44:42.180 have a book on this topic? Or like I would have learned so much. So I'm like, 584 00:44:42.190 --> 00:44:46.230 I can already think of somebody that I could, I want to right up and put in a 585 00:44:46.230 --> 00:44:49.110 nomination for them and then let them know like, hey look, I've nominated you 586 00:44:49.110 --> 00:44:53.560 for this because you freakin earned it and somebody, somebody needed to like 587 00:44:53.570 --> 00:44:57.580 toot your horn for you, you know, So I'm sure there's a number of people in 588 00:44:57.580 --> 00:45:01.630 the listening right now where you know somebody who deserves it who has been 589 00:45:01.630 --> 00:45:04.780 working undercover or is a brilliant thought leader and maybe it doesn't get 590 00:45:04.790 --> 00:45:09.220 recognized enough or gets recognized a lot and still could use some more 591 00:45:09.220 --> 00:45:13.250 because they continue to do great things. They don't just rest on their 592 00:45:13.250 --> 00:45:17.050 laurels from long ago, they're continuing to push the envelope. So I 593 00:45:17.050 --> 00:45:21.620 recommend all the audience to go and check that out. Bill, this has been 594 00:45:21.830 --> 00:45:26.540 wonderful episode, learning from you, taking advantage of your years of 595 00:45:26.550 --> 00:45:30.180 wisdom that you've built, coaching so many thought leader practitioners 596 00:45:30.180 --> 00:45:33.580 through the craft of thought leadership. Um if people want to learn more from 597 00:45:33.580 --> 00:45:39.860 you, where can they go to find you online? So the best place to find me is 598 00:45:40.490 --> 00:45:43.300 Thought Leadership leverages our company. That's thought leadership 599 00:45:43.300 --> 00:45:49.080 leverage dot com or look for me on linkedin. I use the personal hashtag or 600 00:45:49.080 --> 00:45:55.520 T L O R G T L and I'm Bill Sherman. Fantastic. Thanks again for joining me. 601 00:45:55.530 --> 00:45:58.390 I need to be growth. Thanks dan. This has been a joy 602 00:46:02.590 --> 00:46:06.740 at sweet fish. We're on a mission to create the most helpful content on the 603 00:46:06.740 --> 00:46:11.280 internet for every job function and industry on the planet for the B two B 604 00:46:11.280 --> 00:46:15.290 marketing industry. This show is how we're executing on that mission. If you 605 00:46:15.290 --> 00:46:18.740 know a marketing leader, that would be an awesome guest for this podcast, 606 00:46:18.750 --> 00:46:22.270 Shoot me a text message. Don't call me because I don't answer unknown numbers. 607 00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:28.710 But text me at 4074 and I know 33 to 8. Just shoot me. Their name may be a link 608 00:46:28.710 --> 00:46:32.630 to their linkedin profile, and I'd love to check them out to see if we can get 609 00:46:32.630 --> 00:46:36.110 them on the show. Thanks a lot. Mm hmm.