Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:08.429 Welcome back to BB growth. This is James Carbery and I'm joined today by 2 00:00:08.470 --> 00:00:12.990 Josh Steinley. He's the founder and CEO of influence, or INC, and 3 00:00:13.070 --> 00:00:17.429 today we're going to be talking about Josh's seven part framework for thought leadership. 4 00:00:17.429 --> 00:00:22.100 It's a framework he calls the seven systems of influence and I'm really excited to 5 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:24.980 get into it. So, Josh, how you're doing today during fantastic. 6 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:29.100 Thanks so much for having me on. James, I have been loving the 7 00:00:29.179 --> 00:00:32.619 content you're putting out on Linkedin the mastermind group. You're doing. You're just 8 00:00:32.659 --> 00:00:37.729 putting out an enormous amount of content around thought leadership and I think it's really 9 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:41.409 timely. It's feels like a lot of companies are trying to figure out how 10 00:00:41.490 --> 00:00:45.490 do we do this, and the first, the first question that I have 11 00:00:45.689 --> 00:00:50.520 for you, Josh's. Why is thought leadership something that you've decided to really 12 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:53.960 hang your hat on? I mean, you've come built your thought leadership around 13 00:00:54.079 --> 00:00:58.000 thought leadership. So why is this topic something you're so passionate about? This 14 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:03.479 gets me excited because I know that everybody out there has a message or a 15 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:07.430 story or an experience or some sort of knowledge that they can share with an 16 00:01:07.469 --> 00:01:12.230 audience and change those people's lives. And it doesn't matter how little experience you 17 00:01:12.269 --> 00:01:17.030 have. I've seen sixteen year olds who are effective thought leaders. Doesn't matter 18 00:01:17.109 --> 00:01:19.140 how old you are. If you're old, you got tons of experience. 19 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:26.219 But everybody has experience that they can share through a certain medium, whether it's 20 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:30.260 writing or video, audio or something, and there's somebody out there who needs 21 00:01:30.299 --> 00:01:34.409 that information and who won't listen to anybody else. And so my job, 22 00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:38.129 I feel like, is to teach people how to get their message out there 23 00:01:40.010 --> 00:01:44.849 and do it in a way that it impacts that audience and changes the world, 24 00:01:44.890 --> 00:01:48.000 or changes the world for at least that one person. Yeah, and 25 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:51.000 and we didn't. I didn't mention this in your intro, but you're also 26 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:56.519 the founder of a marketing agency, Mwi. So how has thought leadership for 27 00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:00.950 you personally impacted the growth of, you know, on your businesses, both 28 00:02:00.989 --> 00:02:07.230 Mwi and obviously what you're doing with influencer ink as well? Well? Let's 29 00:02:07.269 --> 00:02:09.750 all started with mw I, because I started my marketing agency one thousand nine 30 00:02:09.750 --> 00:02:13.310 hundred and ninety nine and I was twenty four. As a college student. 31 00:02:13.349 --> 00:02:15.979 I had no clue what I was doing. I had no rights starting a 32 00:02:15.979 --> 00:02:19.219 business or trying to employ people, but I did it anyway, like we 33 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:23.259 all do. So I ran this business that kind of flailed around and failed 34 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:29.419 its way forward for thirteen years. So fast forward two thousand and thirteen and 35 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:34.050 I'm now going out of business again for the ten time, or at least 36 00:02:34.050 --> 00:02:38.889 almost going out of business, and I was casting about trying to figure out 37 00:02:38.889 --> 00:02:42.210 what can I do that I haven't done before, and I went to a 38 00:02:42.289 --> 00:02:45.560 friend of mine who did PR and I said, Hey, can I do 39 00:02:45.719 --> 00:02:47.960 pr to get more clients? And she said Yeah, you could, but 40 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:52.199 really what you should be doing is you should be writing for these publications. 41 00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:55.120 And she got it. Me An introduction with an editor at Forbes magazine. 42 00:02:55.159 --> 00:03:00.030 They signed me on as a columnist. Then I started writing for Forbes and 43 00:03:00.310 --> 00:03:05.550 that changed my life because as I wrote for Forbes and I had that credibility 44 00:03:05.590 --> 00:03:08.629 of that Forbes name, we started getting all sorts of leads into the business 45 00:03:08.789 --> 00:03:14.860 and my business had had spurts before where it did okay for a little while 46 00:03:14.939 --> 00:03:16.500 and then I'd go back down and almost go out of business and then we'd 47 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:21.900 recover. But this time something was different because when I started writing for Forbes, 48 00:03:22.340 --> 00:03:25.580 we started getting so many leads in that we just shot way beyond where 49 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:30.610 we had ever been before. And so now fast forward to today and I 50 00:03:30.729 --> 00:03:34.169 can track over ten million dollars in revenue back to the articles that I wrote 51 00:03:34.210 --> 00:03:38.289 for Forbes and some of these other publications. And so that's what thought leadership 52 00:03:38.330 --> 00:03:42.400 did for me. I mean we have offices and places around the world now. 53 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:45.039 We have an office in Hong Kong. I spent some time over there 54 00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:50.879 in Asia and it completely changed the trajector of our business and of my life, 55 00:03:51.759 --> 00:03:54.560 and it was just writing some articles and sharing what I knew. So 56 00:03:55.310 --> 00:04:00.509 I'm a huge believer and thought leadership because of that personal experience. I love 57 00:04:00.590 --> 00:04:05.189 it. I Love I've I've had very similar experiences writing for writing for Huvington 58 00:04:05.229 --> 00:04:10.539 Post and writing for business insider, and I know firsthand how this stuff works. 59 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:15.379 But it's not it's also not just limited to kind of almost a lucky 60 00:04:15.500 --> 00:04:17.579 break that you had in writing for Forbes. You can do a lot of 61 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:21.860 this stuff through channels that you own, like creating thought leadership through your own 62 00:04:21.860 --> 00:04:27.329 linkedin channel, now that Linkedin is such a big content platform, now having 63 00:04:27.370 --> 00:04:30.089 your own podcast, doing video series on Linkedin. I think there's so many 64 00:04:30.089 --> 00:04:33.170 different ways that people can establish that leadership. We're going to get into that, 65 00:04:33.889 --> 00:04:38.569 but before before we dive into your system, Josh, which try to 66 00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:42.399 love. It's it's a seven part framework that you've put an enormous amount of 67 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:46.839 thought into. Before we start diving into into the seven systems of influence, 68 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:49.759 I first want to ask you and when you think about thought leadership, and 69 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:53.790 I know a lot of companies are thinking about this stuff now, do you 70 00:04:53.870 --> 00:04:57.870 think about thought leadership in terms of building thought leadership around a logo or do 71 00:04:57.990 --> 00:05:01.430 you think about it in terms of building thought leadership around humans within your company? 72 00:05:02.389 --> 00:05:06.779 I think of it primarily around a person, because people do business with 73 00:05:06.980 --> 00:05:10.860 people that they know, like and trust. You never hear people say that 74 00:05:10.939 --> 00:05:13.459 they do business with a logo that they know, like and trust. We 75 00:05:13.459 --> 00:05:17.339 can't get to know a logo. It's hard to trust a faceless corporation, 76 00:05:18.139 --> 00:05:21.250 but when you see a smiling face and you get to know that person, 77 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:25.610 or at least know something about them, you start to feel more comfortable with 78 00:05:25.730 --> 00:05:29.769 that brand. Think about Richard Brandson. He's got three hundred and fifty companies 79 00:05:29.810 --> 00:05:31.730 or something, but he's the face for every single one of them. I 80 00:05:32.089 --> 00:05:35.360 have no idea who the CEO of virgin are is. You just know about 81 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:40.639 Richard Branson and I have no idea who really runs virgin music. I just 82 00:05:40.759 --> 00:05:46.639 know Richard Branson and they're leveraging his personal brand and his thought leadership. He's 83 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:48.839 got all these books out there, he speaks, he does news appearances and 84 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:54.870 everything. So they're leveraging his thought leadership in his personal brand to grow all 85 00:05:54.910 --> 00:05:58.029 these businesses. Is and now, of course, he's so famous he can 86 00:05:58.069 --> 00:06:01.790 launch pretty much anything and they've got a good shot at success just based on 87 00:06:01.910 --> 00:06:05.660 the power of his personal brand. Now, that's an extreme example, but 88 00:06:06.579 --> 00:06:10.379 when I started out I was a nobody. Nobody knew who I was. 89 00:06:10.420 --> 00:06:15.259 I was in Utah, I wasn't in a major metro, and yet here 90 00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:18.209 I am. I can track ten million dollars in revenue back to my business 91 00:06:18.410 --> 00:06:23.329 and there's so many other people out there who have developed a personal brand and 92 00:06:23.569 --> 00:06:29.610 then leveraged that to grow a business to seven figures, eight figures and beyond. 93 00:06:30.009 --> 00:06:32.120 Yeah, I'm seeing it a lot in just the BB Sass community. 94 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:36.160 So you're seeing companies like Gong do it. First with Chris or lab and 95 00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:41.319 now Devin Reid and Sarah Brazier. Terminus did it with Sangraum vager, a 96 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:45.040 WHO's, you know, one of their co founders. outreaches doing it with 97 00:06:45.199 --> 00:06:48.310 Scott Barker and Knox Out Shuler. So you know the BEC brands. Obviously 98 00:06:48.470 --> 00:06:55.589 the the the Virgin Richard Branson story is great, but and Elon Musk and 99 00:06:55.709 --> 00:07:00.389 steve jobs. You have those stories. But seeing it actually apply to the 100 00:07:00.459 --> 00:07:02.980 use case of like a BB SASS company, which is a lot of folks 101 00:07:03.019 --> 00:07:06.980 listening to this show, and seeing the success of what drifted with Dave dear 102 00:07:08.019 --> 00:07:12.819 heart and David cancel. It's working and I think people are so much more 103 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:17.009 likely to resonate with a human face than they are a logo. So I 104 00:07:17.610 --> 00:07:21.050 were very aligned in our thinking there. Joshua, want to dive into your 105 00:07:21.089 --> 00:07:25.529 seven part framework because I think people are going to walk away from this with 106 00:07:25.649 --> 00:07:30.079 so much tangible content that they can go and apply to building thought leadership. 107 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.600 Before we dive into this framework, do you want to give us what led 108 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:39.399 to you building a seven part framework around the stuff? Well, was following 109 00:07:39.399 --> 00:07:43.199 up from my experience with Mwi, where I was writing for Forbes and other 110 00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:47.670 publications and then generating all this revenue for the business. That really sparked my 111 00:07:47.709 --> 00:07:51.149 attention because I thought, well, Gee, this kind of happened to me. 112 00:07:51.269 --> 00:07:55.110 It was kind of an accident. It was one lucky break after another, 113 00:07:55.910 --> 00:07:59.300 and so I started looking at at this and sane, well, what 114 00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:01.860 really happened here? How can I dissect this and how can I repeat this 115 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:07.740 process and how can I repeat it from myself? But then, as my 116 00:08:07.060 --> 00:08:11.660 personal brand grew, because I had the articles and so people knew about me, 117 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:13.610 and then I that led to speaking opportunities and it led to a book 118 00:08:13.610 --> 00:08:18.170 deal and so people, some people knew who I was, and so I 119 00:08:18.250 --> 00:08:20.930 started getting people coming and saying Hey, can you coach me on how to 120 00:08:20.009 --> 00:08:24.529 do this, and I'm thinking, I don't even know how I did it. 121 00:08:24.649 --> 00:08:26.889 I got lucky, like, how do I coach you on how to 122 00:08:26.930 --> 00:08:28.439 get lucky? I don't know. Go Talk to my friend who got me 123 00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:33.200 into Forbes. That's how I got lucky. But when I started to sit 124 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:37.759 back and analyze that, I realized, okay, well, I did this 125 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:41.909 thing and I did this thing, and then I started piecing together this puzzle, 126 00:08:41.629 --> 00:08:46.269 these steps or this formula and then I started look applying it to other 127 00:08:46.389 --> 00:08:48.350 people and saying, well, does this apply just to me or does this 128 00:08:48.429 --> 00:08:52.750 apply to other people? And so I started researching other people and how they 129 00:08:52.830 --> 00:08:58.139 became highly influential. And as I did that research, that's how all these 130 00:08:58.179 --> 00:09:01.779 pieces came together. And it wasn't that I came up with seven systems just 131 00:09:01.899 --> 00:09:05.539 all one day. It was more like, okay, here these three systems 132 00:09:05.620 --> 00:09:09.419 and then wait, now there's number four, and then there's number five, 133 00:09:09.539 --> 00:09:11.850 and I got two six and I stuck there for a long time and I 134 00:09:11.889 --> 00:09:16.889 knew there was something missing, and then I found number seven, and so 135 00:09:16.009 --> 00:09:20.049 they've come together over the past several years as I've been researching this. But 136 00:09:20.210 --> 00:09:24.279 the spark was really what happened to me and then saying how can I repeat 137 00:09:24.279 --> 00:09:26.919 this, and then how can I help other people to do this as well? 138 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:31.039 Yes, I love it, all right, so let's let's dive into 139 00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:35.639 these seven systems. Josh, the first one, you you say, is 140 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:37.990 it? System Number One is vision. Talk to us about this, this 141 00:09:39.389 --> 00:09:43.029 first system. So this is pretty straightforward. You want something, you got 142 00:09:43.110 --> 00:09:45.509 to have an idea that you want it, otherwise you're never going to get 143 00:09:45.549 --> 00:09:50.669 it right. I mean that's just logical. And so you have a vision. 144 00:09:50.909 --> 00:09:52.580 The more clear your vision can be of what you want, the more 145 00:09:52.659 --> 00:09:56.539 likely you're going to achieve it. This is kind of influence. One on 146 00:09:56.659 --> 00:09:58.980 one, you got to have an idea, a plan, a goal and 147 00:10:00.100 --> 00:10:03.299 objective in your head. So that system number one. Now there are a 148 00:10:03.340 --> 00:10:05.700 lot of details that go into that, like figuring out who, what your 149 00:10:05.740 --> 00:10:09.330 values are and your core roles and the things that you really want to focus 150 00:10:09.409 --> 00:10:13.370 on. Sometimes we come up with a vision and we think we've got a 151 00:10:13.450 --> 00:10:16.649 good vision, but then later we realize, you know, a those somebody 152 00:10:16.690 --> 00:10:20.090 else's vision. It wasn't really my vision that I really wanted to do accomplish. 153 00:10:20.210 --> 00:10:22.480 So there are all sorts of details you go can get into, but 154 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:26.960 the point really is there's something you want to do, that you want to 155 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:30.600 turn from just an idea in your head into reality, and that could be 156 00:10:30.679 --> 00:10:33.480 something big, like I want to start a hundred million dollar company, or 157 00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:35.909 it can be something small, like I'm trying to get my ten year old 158 00:10:35.950 --> 00:10:39.470 to take the trash out today. Both of those are objectives. Both of 159 00:10:39.549 --> 00:10:45.389 those require influence to turn them into reality. Did you have this vision with 160 00:10:45.470 --> 00:10:50.059 Mwi or the influencer ink or maybe any of your can you share some vision 161 00:10:50.220 --> 00:10:54.980 from the clients that you've worked with as you're helping them develop their thought leadership? 162 00:10:56.019 --> 00:11:01.940 Sure so, with influencer ink, for example. So I run a 163 00:11:01.019 --> 00:11:05.970 mastermind and we have these people in this master mind who are trying to figure 164 00:11:05.970 --> 00:11:09.009 out how do I leverage my influence, my personal brand, the things that 165 00:11:09.049 --> 00:11:13.210 I know to grow my business? And we have this woman in one of 166 00:11:13.289 --> 00:11:18.120 our groups and she works with index funds and investment funds that are trying to 167 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:22.240 raise money. She's raised over eight billion dollars for these funds and she finally 168 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:28.120 figured out that she wasn't finding satisfaction raising money for the really big funds. 169 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:31.840 She wanted to help the underdogs, she wanted to help the little guys and 170 00:11:31.990 --> 00:11:37.070 she wanted to take back a chunk of the investments that are managed by these 171 00:11:37.230 --> 00:11:41.789 huge index funds and give it to the smaller companies. And so that was 172 00:11:41.870 --> 00:11:43.909 her vision, but she had sat on it for two years and she wasn't 173 00:11:43.950 --> 00:11:46.980 doing anything. When I met her and we sat down, we had one 174 00:11:48.059 --> 00:11:50.899 conversation. We talked about her vision and we talked about some of the other 175 00:11:50.980 --> 00:11:58.620 steps. And she went away from that first meeting and she had to speaking 176 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:03.450 engagement the next day and she got up and she explained her vision to the 177 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:05.409 audience. She said it was the one of the scariest things she's ever done 178 00:12:05.409 --> 00:12:09.409 because she was really putting her heart and soul out there and she shared with 179 00:12:09.490 --> 00:12:13.490 the audience. She said this is what I want to do, this is 180 00:12:13.570 --> 00:12:16.559 what I want to accomplish. I want to take back this chunk from the 181 00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:18.320 big funds, give it to the little guys, the underdogs, and help 182 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:24.519 them. And afterwards she said she was just flooded with people coming up and 183 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:26.120 talking to her and saying, I want to help you with this. How 184 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:30.429 do I get involved? How can I be a part of this? And 185 00:12:31.269 --> 00:12:33.269 she went back to our company the next day and set or changing everything. 186 00:12:33.509 --> 00:12:37.389 We are changing the direction of this company. This is what we're going to 187 00:12:37.429 --> 00:12:43.710 do. So just clarifying her vision was a huge step for her. That 188 00:12:43.950 --> 00:12:46.100 took something she had just been sitting on for two years but turned it into 189 00:12:46.179 --> 00:12:52.019 action. That then led to big changes in her business the very next day 190 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:54.899 and now she's well on our way to this. But that just goes to 191 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.529 show how having a clear vision, can impact behavior, can make changes and 192 00:12:58.570 --> 00:13:03.889 then change your life. Absolutely all right, Josh, your second system is 193 00:13:03.049 --> 00:13:07.330 called Genius Zone. Talk to us about this one. So I got this 194 00:13:07.490 --> 00:13:13.840 idea from reading a book called the big leap by Gay Hendricks, and that 195 00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:18.879 book he explains how we each have a certain overlap of skills, knowledge, 196 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:24.240 experience and much that that make us unique and different from anybody else. So, 197 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:28.029 for example, I've run a Marketing Agency for the past twenty years. 198 00:13:28.029 --> 00:13:31.629 So I know a lot about marketing, but compared to everybody else out there 199 00:13:31.669 --> 00:13:35.149 who knows marketing, I don't really know that much. I mean, you 200 00:13:35.190 --> 00:13:37.509 can find twenty other guys who have started marketing agencies. You can find a 201 00:13:37.789 --> 00:13:41.460 million other people who know a lot more about marketing than I do. So 202 00:13:41.659 --> 00:13:46.220 by itself, marketing doesn't that's not my genius. Son. You could call 203 00:13:46.259 --> 00:13:50.179 it one of my expert zones, but it's not my genius. So the 204 00:13:50.299 --> 00:13:54.700 magic of the genius own is that it's in the overlap. So let's take 205 00:13:54.700 --> 00:13:58.450 another expert zone that I have, which is skateboarding. I grew up skateboarding, 206 00:13:58.570 --> 00:14:01.009 I love skateboarding. My ten year old skateboards now. I still go 207 00:14:01.049 --> 00:14:05.289 out with them and hurt myself sometimes. And I know a bit about the 208 00:14:05.330 --> 00:14:07.690 skateboarding industry, having grown up with it and I used to run a skate 209 00:14:07.769 --> 00:14:11.639 shop and I have friends who are in the industry and everything. So I 210 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:15.639 know a bit about that, but compared to other guys in the skateboarding industry, 211 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:18.519 I don't know that much. I'm not that's not my genius own either. 212 00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:22.679 But now let's take these two things when we overlap them and we say 213 00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:26.110 how many people in the world know as much about marketing as I do the 214 00:14:26.190 --> 00:14:31.029 way that I do and know as much about skateboarding as I do? When 215 00:14:31.110 --> 00:14:35.870 we overlap those two things, now that makes me unique because there might be 216 00:14:35.309 --> 00:14:39.980 ten or twenty people in the world who know them as much about those two 217 00:14:39.019 --> 00:14:43.179 things as I do. So that's something I could say this is my genius 218 00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:48.299 zone, marketing skateboarding, and I could go to a Nike or an Adidas 219 00:14:48.379 --> 00:14:52.139 and say, Hey, I know marketing, I know skateboarding, I can 220 00:14:52.220 --> 00:14:56.009 help you sell a ton of shoes to teenage skateboarding kids and I would have 221 00:14:56.009 --> 00:15:00.929 a credible claim to make that pitch. So that's the power of the genius 222 00:15:00.970 --> 00:15:03.610 own. The great thing that I love about the genius zone is that it's 223 00:15:03.649 --> 00:15:07.919 not all about your strengths, it's also about your weaknesses, because your weaknesses 224 00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:13.360 are also experience that you can leverage as part of your genius sown. So 225 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:18.480 you might be a terrible speaker, let's say a terrible public speaker, but 226 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.470 because you're a terrible speaker, you understand the challenges that terrible speakers face and 227 00:15:22.590 --> 00:15:24.950 so you go out and you say, well, I want to help people 228 00:15:24.990 --> 00:15:30.309 become better speakers. Now that weakness becomes a strength because when you combine that 229 00:15:30.429 --> 00:15:35.779 with other talents that you have, now you've got this empathy in this understanding 230 00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:39.100 that you can bring to the table and you can reach people with that that 231 00:15:39.220 --> 00:15:43.139 other people simply can't reach. I mean like as an entrepreneur. I've been 232 00:15:43.179 --> 00:15:48.899 an entrepreneur for the past twenty plus years and I've experienced so much failure and 233 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:54.129 so much heartbreak in my business is but because of that I have an edge 234 00:15:54.330 --> 00:15:56.409 over these guys who have never experienced that. I have friends who the first 235 00:15:56.450 --> 00:16:02.049 business they started was successful from day one and now they're multimillionaires. They don't 236 00:16:02.250 --> 00:16:04.799 know what it's really like to go through hard times, but I do, 237 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:08.120 and so I can leverage that as part of my genius son, if I'm 238 00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:12.039 reaching out entrepreneurs who are also struggling and that gives me an edge. Does 239 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:15.559 that make sense? It does, it does. So. So first you've 240 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.750 got to figure out your vision, your objectives, where am I trying to 241 00:16:18.830 --> 00:16:23.070 go? Then you start to figure out, okay, based on my expertise, 242 00:16:23.629 --> 00:16:27.950 my background, my interests, it sounds. It sounds like where is 243 00:16:29.070 --> 00:16:34.620 my zone of genius? Can you share maybe maybe an example from you're working 244 00:16:34.700 --> 00:16:37.820 with so many people on this stuff. I'm going to keep going back to 245 00:16:37.899 --> 00:16:41.980 having you share examples of people that you've helped or mentored through this stuff. 246 00:16:41.419 --> 00:16:47.250 You share with US maybe an additional example to your genius zone, maybe somebody 247 00:16:47.250 --> 00:16:51.610 else that you've worked with what their genius zone look like? Sure, Blake 248 00:16:51.690 --> 00:16:53.210 Hanson, this is a guy in my mastermind as well, and this is 249 00:16:53.250 --> 00:16:57.370 one of my favorite ones because I cannot wait to read this guy's book when 250 00:16:57.409 --> 00:17:00.600 he writes it, and I'm pushing him hard to write this book. And 251 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:08.920 Blake's experience is that he has started three successful separate companies. Now, everybody 252 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:12.160 will tell you in the entrepreneurial world you got to focus on one thing at 253 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:15.910 a time. You can only run one business. You can't run two business 254 00:17:15.950 --> 00:17:18.789 as well. If you try to do multiple things at the same time, 255 00:17:18.150 --> 00:17:22.190 it'll never work out. You gotta focus. You got to focus. This 256 00:17:22.309 --> 00:17:25.950 is what everybody tells you. And then Blake comes along and he's got these 257 00:17:26.029 --> 00:17:30.019 three businesses doing a combined I'm not sure of sixty, seventy million or something, 258 00:17:30.099 --> 00:17:33.460 but these are real businesses and he's done it and he's got these three 259 00:17:33.500 --> 00:17:37.420 businesses and he's not working a hundred hour weeks, he's not going crazy, 260 00:17:37.460 --> 00:17:41.660 he's not stressed out or anything. He's doing fantastic. Well, how did 261 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:45.569 he do this? Well, he came up with a model and said I 262 00:17:45.210 --> 00:17:48.930 want to start multiple businesses at the same time and everybody's telling me no, 263 00:17:49.250 --> 00:17:52.529 but if I do these things this way, I can make this work. 264 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:56.690 And a lot of that is through strategic partnerships and hiring the right people and 265 00:17:56.730 --> 00:18:00.319 stuff. But he set out with that vision in mind and now he's done 266 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:04.160 it and now that's his genius. Own Is he is the guy who knows 267 00:18:04.200 --> 00:18:08.039 how to run multiple businesses at the same time. So it's an intersection of 268 00:18:08.519 --> 00:18:15.470 expert zones like entrepreneurship and business and leadership and architecting, and then you add 269 00:18:15.509 --> 00:18:19.710 this piece and there of running multiple businesses. That's one of his expert zones 270 00:18:19.750 --> 00:18:23.109 and when you combine it with the others, he's got this really unique genius 271 00:18:23.109 --> 00:18:27.220 son. That's not common. I love it all right, the third system, 272 00:18:27.220 --> 00:18:32.500 Josh here's audience. This is something that I think the listeners of this 273 00:18:32.539 --> 00:18:36.339 show are going to their ears probably just perked. Everyone seemed ere. Everyone's 274 00:18:36.339 --> 00:18:37.420 trying to figure out how do I grow an audience? How do we grow 275 00:18:37.460 --> 00:18:41.259 an audience? We hear this a lot with our customers. How do we 276 00:18:41.339 --> 00:18:44.930 grow an audience for our podcast? So talk to us about this third system 277 00:18:44.970 --> 00:18:49.769 audience. So audience is the biggest mistake people my make with audience is they 278 00:18:49.890 --> 00:18:52.730 try to go too broad. They try to capture everybody. Right, you're 279 00:18:52.769 --> 00:18:56.119 writing a book. WHO's IT for? Oh, it's for everybody. Now 280 00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:59.960 it's not. You write a book for everybody and nobody will read it. 281 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:02.599 Right. It's like they say, the riches are in the niches. So 282 00:19:03.640 --> 00:19:07.319 you've got to focus down in. The thing that's funny with most people is 283 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:08.960 a lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of companies. 284 00:19:10.829 --> 00:19:14.789 If you ask them how many new clients do you need to get to completely 285 00:19:14.829 --> 00:19:18.750 change your business change in your life? For a lot of people the number 286 00:19:18.750 --> 00:19:21.390 is not that big. I mean, if you're an executive coach, it's 287 00:19:21.430 --> 00:19:23.740 like five or something. If you could sign up five clients, your whole 288 00:19:23.740 --> 00:19:27.940 life would change. And if you run a consulting agency, maybe it's ten 289 00:19:29.059 --> 00:19:32.220 or twenty clients or something. And if you're in a SASS business, of 290 00:19:32.299 --> 00:19:34.859 course you want to get a million clients or something. But still the point 291 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:41.849 holds, which is there are more than enough customers of your ideal customers out 292 00:19:41.849 --> 00:19:45.049 there for you only to focus on the ideal. So why spread yourself then, 293 00:19:45.450 --> 00:19:49.769 when you can go after the absolute ideal? So my whole job with 294 00:19:49.849 --> 00:19:55.640 the audience system working with clients is helping them to narrow down further and further, 295 00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:59.359 and so I always ask who's your ideal customer? I mean take your 296 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:03.599 best customer. What does that look like? And they'll start telling me details 297 00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:07.630 and then I'll ask questions like well, wait, what you just told me? 298 00:20:07.670 --> 00:20:10.869 You didn't narrow down by geography, like would you rather work with a 299 00:20:11.269 --> 00:20:15.349 client that's in your country and speaks your language? Or client that outside of 300 00:20:15.390 --> 00:20:18.470 your country and doesn't speak your language and now you have to translate into two 301 00:20:18.470 --> 00:20:21.269 languages on your website and it's more work. Well, yeah, I guess 302 00:20:21.269 --> 00:20:25.220 I'd prefer to work with people in my own country, but then I'm excluding 303 00:20:25.299 --> 00:20:27.700 these people that I could get over there. Don't worry about that. If 304 00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:33.140 there are ten million potential clients in your country and you can only handle two 305 00:20:33.140 --> 00:20:37.849 hundred thousand, why are you going overseas to this other market? That just 306 00:20:37.009 --> 00:20:41.009 means that much more work. Why are you not narrowing down on this niche 307 00:20:41.049 --> 00:20:44.450 that you've got right in front of you and you can really narrow that down 308 00:20:44.730 --> 00:20:48.730 to day? Sometimes, Hey, you're based in Boston. Maybe your ideal 309 00:20:48.769 --> 00:20:53.400 client is people in Boston, because maybe some facetoface matters with your audience. 310 00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:56.359 So why not do that? Do you hate travel, then? Why are 311 00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:00.400 you targeting people who are across the country when you could just be targeting people 312 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:06.430 that don't require you to travel more than a little drive away? And would 313 00:21:06.430 --> 00:21:10.630 you rather work with clients who have money available to spend, because I've got 314 00:21:10.670 --> 00:21:12.349 ten million in the bank, or somebody who has to put it on a 315 00:21:12.430 --> 00:21:18.900 credit card? Would you rather work with a client to is searching for your 316 00:21:18.980 --> 00:21:22.539 product or somebody who needs to be educated about your product. So they're all 317 00:21:22.539 --> 00:21:26.420 these different questions that you when you put it that way, when you say 318 00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:29.579 this or this, people say well, yeah, of course I would choose 319 00:21:29.579 --> 00:21:32.259 this one. And yet when you look at their marketing plan, that's not 320 00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:34.490 what they're doing. In their marketing plan. They're spreading themselves all over the 321 00:21:34.609 --> 00:21:40.769 place and trying to target all these this broad demographic. So when you really 322 00:21:40.809 --> 00:21:44.769 and narrow it down and you say, okay, I've got this really focused 323 00:21:44.769 --> 00:21:48.559 audience, maybe I've got ten or twenty different points that make them my ideal 324 00:21:48.599 --> 00:21:52.839 audience, then that affects everything else, because then you can say, well, 325 00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:56.839 now this feeds into the kind of content I'm going to create and where 326 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:00.480 I'm going to place that content and how I'm going to target this audience, 327 00:22:00.920 --> 00:22:04.509 whereas when you're spread then you have to go broad and then you're wasting a 328 00:22:04.589 --> 00:22:10.630 lot of dollars. Hey, everybody, logan the sweet fish here. If 329 00:22:10.670 --> 00:22:12.950 you've been listening to the show for a while, you know we're big proponent 330 00:22:14.230 --> 00:22:18.380 of putting out original, organic content on linked in. But one thing that's 331 00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:22.380 always been a struggle for a team like ours is to easily track the reach 332 00:22:22.460 --> 00:22:26.140 of that linkedin content. That's why I was really excited when I heard about 333 00:22:26.140 --> 00:22:29.619 shield the other day from a connection on, you guessed it, linked in. 334 00:22:30.089 --> 00:22:33.930 Since our team started using shield, I've loved how it's let us easily 335 00:22:33.130 --> 00:22:38.529 track and analyze the performance of our linkedin content without having to manually log it 336 00:22:38.609 --> 00:22:45.240 ourselves. It automatically creates reports and generates some dashboards that are incredibly useful to 337 00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:48.000 see things like what content has been performing the best and what days of the 338 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:52.839 week are we getting the most engagement and our average views proposed. I'd highly 339 00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:56.480 suggest you guys check out this tool if you're putting out content on Linkedin, 340 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:00.630 and if you're not, you should be. It's been a game changer for 341 00:23:00.789 --> 00:23:03.869 us. If you go to shield APP DOT AI and check out the ten 342 00:23:03.910 --> 00:23:07.789 day free trial, you can even use our Promo Code B to be growth 343 00:23:08.069 --> 00:23:12.660 to get a twenty five percent discount. Again, that's shield APP DOT AI 344 00:23:14.099 --> 00:23:18.380 and that Promo Code is be, the number to be growth. All one 345 00:23:18.460 --> 00:23:23.900 word. All right, let's get back to the show. We figured that 346 00:23:25.019 --> 00:23:29.089 out with US knowing that our sweet spot client is a VP of marketing and 347 00:23:29.210 --> 00:23:33.130 a BB SASS company with fifty plus employees, and having that clarity it makes 348 00:23:33.170 --> 00:23:37.490 everything easier, the type of content we know we need to create, the 349 00:23:37.609 --> 00:23:40.690 type of people we need to reach out to to get on as a guest 350 00:23:40.769 --> 00:23:44.359 on me to be growth. Doing content based network just makes everything so much 351 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:48.440 cleaner and so much easier. Whenever you have a very crystal clear idea of 352 00:23:48.599 --> 00:23:51.680 who your ideal buyer is, what does that look like for you? Josh, 353 00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:55.789 it at both them. Wi and influence rank well. For me, 354 00:23:56.269 --> 00:23:59.349 I start with WHO I am and I say my ideal client is going to 355 00:23:59.430 --> 00:24:03.190 be somebody who looks a lot like me. I mean not physically looks like 356 00:24:03.349 --> 00:24:07.910 me, but somebody who has the same characteristics, because I'm going to understand 357 00:24:07.990 --> 00:24:11.220 that person better, I'm going to relate to them better. So I try 358 00:24:11.220 --> 00:24:14.740 to focus on entrepreneurs because that's why I'm at heart. I'm an entrepreneur. 359 00:24:14.740 --> 00:24:18.700 I've got an entrepreneur brain. That's how my mind works. It's just easier 360 00:24:18.740 --> 00:24:21.900 for me to relate to entrepreneurs and I wrote a book a few years back 361 00:24:21.940 --> 00:24:26.009 and I interviewed CMOS at Fortune, five hundred companies for that book. So 362 00:24:26.049 --> 00:24:30.410 I feel like I understand executives too, but I've never really been in that 363 00:24:30.569 --> 00:24:33.410 world. That's not the world that I live in. I live in the 364 00:24:33.529 --> 00:24:37.890 startup world with entrepreneurs, and so although I could go out and do executive 365 00:24:37.930 --> 00:24:41.880 coaching or masterminds for these executives, I focus on entrepreneurs because I can relate 366 00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:45.720 to them. They're like me, we speak a common language. Is just 367 00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:51.440 so much easier to narrow down to that. So with Mwi we've gotten a 368 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:55.150 little more spread out than that because we have other people on the team and 369 00:24:55.190 --> 00:24:59.230 they have their own areas of genius and so we can use those as well. 370 00:24:59.910 --> 00:25:03.509 But typically we're working with SMBS, smaller medium businesses. I mean we 371 00:25:03.670 --> 00:25:07.500 have some large clients, Marriott, Sony, that we've worked with, but 372 00:25:07.619 --> 00:25:11.700 typically were working with smaller businesses because we know what they're going through, we 373 00:25:11.819 --> 00:25:15.299 can relate to them, it's easy to speak their language. I love it 374 00:25:15.579 --> 00:25:21.339 all right. This fourth system here, Josh, is content. So once 375 00:25:21.380 --> 00:25:25.210 you've gotten clarity around your audience, this this is a this makes perfect sense 376 00:25:25.250 --> 00:25:26.569 to me that the next step is content. Talk to us about this. 377 00:25:27.609 --> 00:25:32.609 So another mistake that people make is they usually jump to content first. So 378 00:25:33.049 --> 00:25:36.880 you're in your business, you need clients, you're looking at marketing and you 379 00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:40.880 say go write something, go produce something, go make a video, and 380 00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:44.720 people just want to jump straight into content. Let's do a podcast and if 381 00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:48.279 we do this podcast still bring in a bunch of business. Well, wait, 382 00:25:48.319 --> 00:25:52.109 why are you launching this podcast? WHAT'S THE VISION? Why should you 383 00:25:52.309 --> 00:25:55.710 be doing this? What's your expertise? What's your genius own who are you 384 00:25:55.829 --> 00:25:59.349 even targeting here? Who's your ideal audience? So people leave out these first 385 00:25:59.430 --> 00:26:03.579 three systems and then they get to the content and it's like setting sail in 386 00:26:03.700 --> 00:26:07.900 a boat without a rudder. It's like getting into your car and you haven't 387 00:26:07.940 --> 00:26:10.539 set up GPS yet and you're just like, well, I just need to 388 00:26:10.579 --> 00:26:11.980 get drive it. It's like, well, maybe you're going in the wrong 389 00:26:12.099 --> 00:26:15.700 direction, maybe you should sit down and figure out where you're going before you 390 00:26:15.779 --> 00:26:19.049 actually start driving. And that's why we go through the first three systems and 391 00:26:19.170 --> 00:26:22.890 then we get to content and then it becomes really easy, because content is 392 00:26:23.009 --> 00:26:27.930 three things. It's your message, what you're saying, it's your channel where 393 00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:33.640 you're delivering it, and it's a call to action. It's whatever you want 394 00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:38.759 the audience to do once they hear, read, see your content and process 395 00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:42.440 it. So, but once you know those first three it becomes pretty clear 396 00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:45.319 because you say, okay, who's my ideal audience? Where do they hang 397 00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:49.269 out? So, for example, when I started writing for Forbes and it 398 00:26:49.349 --> 00:26:53.069 start generating all these leads, I thought well, man, I'm onto something 399 00:26:53.150 --> 00:26:57.549 here. This is great. Hey, they're all these other business publications out 400 00:26:57.549 --> 00:27:02.380 there. What if I could write for them too and write the same type 401 00:27:02.420 --> 00:27:06.140 of content? I could double, triple, quadruple the lead flow that we're 402 00:27:06.180 --> 00:27:10.180 getting. So I got signed up for Entrepreneur magazine and I took some of 403 00:27:10.220 --> 00:27:12.420 my articles from Forbes that had generated a lot of leads and I thought, 404 00:27:12.420 --> 00:27:17.210 okay, I'll just rewrite these to be different and unique but essentially the same 405 00:27:17.250 --> 00:27:21.410 type of content, and I'll put these up on entrepreneur and then we'll have 406 00:27:21.529 --> 00:27:25.410 double the leads coming in. And I did that and we got no leads, 407 00:27:25.569 --> 00:27:27.970 like zero leads from entrepreneur and I couldn't figure it out because I'm like, 408 00:27:29.250 --> 00:27:33.039 this is essentially the same article. Why is it generating millions of dollars 409 00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:38.680 of leads on Forbes and zero on entrepreneur? In the answer was my audience 410 00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:41.759 was on Forbes. They weren't on entrepreneur. That's just not where they were 411 00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:45.349 hanging out. So you look at your ideal audience, you ask where are 412 00:27:45.390 --> 00:27:48.950 they hanging out? That's where you've got to put your content, otherwise you 413 00:27:48.990 --> 00:27:53.750 get no results and this next part or you've got your message first, which 414 00:27:53.950 --> 00:28:00.460 is my artist. I have one article on Forbes that generated like ninety percent 415 00:28:00.539 --> 00:28:03.059 of the results that we got, and the reason why is that it had 416 00:28:03.099 --> 00:28:06.740 the right message, that hit the right audience in the right way at the 417 00:28:06.779 --> 00:28:11.059 right time, and it was an article on how to hire an SEO firm. 418 00:28:11.140 --> 00:28:14.210 We were really heavy into Seo at the time, search engine optimization, 419 00:28:14.890 --> 00:28:18.690 and so you think, okay, when somebody goes to hire an SEO firm, 420 00:28:18.809 --> 00:28:22.329 they go on Google and they type in how to hire an SEO firm 421 00:28:22.009 --> 00:28:26.609 and because I had written this article on Forbes, it popped right up to 422 00:28:26.650 --> 00:28:30.000 the top of Google. So somebody sees the first result in this says how 423 00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.519 to hire an SEO firm and they think that's exactly what I just typed in, 424 00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:37.279 and it's on forbs, a reputable, reputable publication. I should go 425 00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:40.039 take a look at this, they click through, they read this article. 426 00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:42.869 It tells them all these steps on how to hire an SEO firm and they're 427 00:28:42.910 --> 00:28:47.069 like, wait, who wrote this? Oh, this guy owns an SEO 428 00:28:47.150 --> 00:28:49.470 firm. Will wait a second. If this guy owns an seo firm and 429 00:28:49.589 --> 00:28:52.789 his articles at the top of Google and he's telling me how to hire a 430 00:28:52.950 --> 00:28:56.940 firm, maybe he knows what he's doing. We should just contact this guy 431 00:28:57.019 --> 00:29:00.900 and hire this guy. This is the guy we're looking for. And so 432 00:29:00.099 --> 00:29:03.539 that's how we generated millions of dollars. It was the right message, the 433 00:29:03.660 --> 00:29:07.779 right place. Just everything kind of lined up and was perfect with that. 434 00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:11.769 Well, everybody can do that. There's a channel that's right for your business 435 00:29:11.930 --> 00:29:15.329 where your audience is hanging out and you can write content that speaks to them 436 00:29:15.369 --> 00:29:18.049 and answers the questions they have about how to buy your product, how to 437 00:29:18.089 --> 00:29:22.490 buy your service, how to hire your company, and when you put that 438 00:29:22.849 --> 00:29:26.599 stuff in the right place at the right time the right way, then you 439 00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:32.480 get these kind of results. Works all right. This fifth system, Josh's 440 00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:37.279 action, unpack this one for us. So action is your plan, and 441 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:40.950 we've all heard the saying if you fail the plan, you plan to fail 442 00:29:41.670 --> 00:29:45.109 so often times we say, okay, we're going to launch a podcast or 443 00:29:45.190 --> 00:29:48.069 we're going to do blogging, and two weeks later you've pumped up, let 444 00:29:48.230 --> 00:29:52.509 pumped out like one or two blog posts or one or two episodes, and 445 00:29:52.549 --> 00:29:55.579 then somehow, six months ago, buy and you haven't done anything else. 446 00:29:56.259 --> 00:29:59.539 Well, you didn't have the right plan in place to make sure that it 447 00:29:59.619 --> 00:30:03.019 would actually happen. And so action if you're writing a book, this might 448 00:30:03.059 --> 00:30:06.859 be your action plan might be really simple and might be I'm going to wake 449 00:30:06.900 --> 00:30:08.250 up every morning, I'm going to write for one hour or I'm going to 450 00:30:08.289 --> 00:30:11.609 write two pages every morning. That's my action plan. Can Be that simple 451 00:30:11.930 --> 00:30:15.930 or it might be more complex, because maybe you have a marketing department, 452 00:30:15.009 --> 00:30:18.170 you have twenty marketing initiatives you're working on, and so you need an action 453 00:30:18.210 --> 00:30:22.839 plan for each of these. The point is not that there's a certain plan 454 00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:26.400 that works for everybody, it's that if you don't have a plan, then 455 00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:27.880 you're not going to get any work done, you're not going to get the 456 00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:32.799 results. So there has to be some sort of plan in place and there 457 00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:37.509 are lots of different planning methodologies out there. Some of my favorite are, 458 00:30:37.869 --> 00:30:41.509 for example, the book, the one thing by Gary Keller, talks about 459 00:30:41.509 --> 00:30:45.630 focusing on one thing. That's a great action plan. Or you can look 460 00:30:45.670 --> 00:30:51.460 at ideas like Steven our cutty's big rocks things, where he talks about you 461 00:30:51.539 --> 00:30:53.259 get have your big rocks and you get those things done first and then you 462 00:30:53.339 --> 00:30:57.180 put in the smaller stuff later. So they're all different ways to prioritize and 463 00:30:57.299 --> 00:31:00.420 plan and that, but the important thing is you got to have some sort 464 00:31:00.460 --> 00:31:04.089 of plan that works for you. Yep, makes total sense. This next 465 00:31:04.210 --> 00:31:08.730 one, Josh, is something I'm particularly passionate about. System six is collaboration. 466 00:31:10.049 --> 00:31:12.009 This is something we've built our entire business on the back of. I 467 00:31:12.089 --> 00:31:15.210 I wrote a book about it and kind of based networking. Talk to us 468 00:31:15.210 --> 00:31:19.440 about collaboration and how you think about collaboration as it relates to the thought leadership. 469 00:31:21.359 --> 00:31:26.400 So I love collaboration as well, because you can create a thousand times 470 00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:30.119 the influence by collaborating with others then you can if you're working by yourself. 471 00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:34.750 And it's easy to even look at individuals like authors and say, well, 472 00:31:34.750 --> 00:31:38.630 they're not collaborating with anybody. I mean, look at Jake he rowling, 473 00:31:38.710 --> 00:31:41.710 like who did she collaborate with? Well, if you start digging deeper, 474 00:31:41.789 --> 00:31:48.099 you realize she was connected to a lot of other people who helped out with 475 00:31:48.140 --> 00:31:49.579 this book. I mean, obviously she had a publisher. Where would she 476 00:31:49.660 --> 00:31:52.460 be without a publisher who actually took the book and put it out there? 477 00:31:52.779 --> 00:31:56.099 She had her kids, who are inspiration for her. There are all sorts 478 00:31:56.140 --> 00:32:00.180 of people who impacted her and who are collaborators with her. One of my 479 00:32:00.220 --> 00:32:05.089 favorite examples of an author collaborating is actually harperly, who wrote to kill a 480 00:32:05.170 --> 00:32:09.809 mockingbird. We think of her as kind of the Quintessential Lone Wolf influence. 481 00:32:09.890 --> 00:32:15.170 Are All by yourself, who had this massive best seller. She only wrote 482 00:32:15.210 --> 00:32:17.319 one book. She published another book right before she died later on, but 483 00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:21.759 it was really to kill a mockingbird. That's her big thing. And yet 484 00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:29.160 she also had collaborators and she was working on writing, but she had never 485 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:30.670 published a book. Yet she had a normal nine to five jobs. She 486 00:32:30.710 --> 00:32:34.990 had two friends who came to her and said, Harper, we know there's 487 00:32:34.990 --> 00:32:37.430 a book in you that you need to get out and you're never going to 488 00:32:37.470 --> 00:32:39.869 get it out unless you quit your job. So we saved up a year 489 00:32:39.990 --> 00:32:43.309 salary for you. We're giving it to you, we want you to take 490 00:32:43.309 --> 00:32:45.660 a year off and write a book, and she wrote to kill a mocking 491 00:32:45.740 --> 00:32:47.339 bird, and here we are, one of the most famous books of a 492 00:32:47.420 --> 00:32:52.220 while. So she had collaborators as well. But here's an example I love, 493 00:32:52.299 --> 00:32:55.140 which is my friend Derek Anderson. He started an organization called Startup Grind, 494 00:32:57.059 --> 00:32:59.529 and the way the Scots started was he was in the bay area. 495 00:32:59.609 --> 00:33:04.250 He's an entrepreneur and he had been through some startup experiences and he was really 496 00:33:04.289 --> 00:33:07.529 curious about the people who had succeeded in their startups and how they did this. 497 00:33:08.130 --> 00:33:12.410 And so he said, you know what, I'm going to go on 498 00:33:12.529 --> 00:33:15.680 meet UPCOM and create a little meet up and invite some of my friends and 499 00:33:15.759 --> 00:33:19.160 invite a successful entrepreneur and I'm going to sit down and interview them for an 500 00:33:19.160 --> 00:33:21.839 hour and ask them how they did it. And so this is what he 501 00:33:21.920 --> 00:33:24.279 did. In ten people showed up and everybody said Hey, that was great, 502 00:33:24.279 --> 00:33:27.269 you should do this again. So we said okay, I'll do it 503 00:33:27.390 --> 00:33:30.470 next month and he did it the next month and fifteen people showed up. 504 00:33:30.750 --> 00:33:34.589 Then he did again and twenty people showed up and then more and more people 505 00:33:34.630 --> 00:33:37.109 started showing up and then somebody came along and said, Hey, can I 506 00:33:37.190 --> 00:33:39.589 start doing these events like you're doing, but on my own, but like 507 00:33:39.750 --> 00:33:44.539 with your brand and we can partner, and so it's like sure, yeah. 508 00:33:44.900 --> 00:33:47.099 Well, fast forward to today. Start up grind has like seven hundred 509 00:33:47.140 --> 00:33:52.380 chapters all around the world and pretty much every single country. Millions of people 510 00:33:52.420 --> 00:33:58.009 have attended start up grind events. They're interviewing entrepreneurs and their local area and 511 00:33:58.809 --> 00:34:00.769 there's no way that Derek could have had this kind of influence if he had 512 00:34:00.849 --> 00:34:04.410 said, Nope, I'm going to keep it all to myself and I'm just 513 00:34:04.529 --> 00:34:07.809 going to do these and nobody else can interview the way that I can interview. 514 00:34:07.369 --> 00:34:10.800 Instead, he opened it up, he collaborated with other people, he 515 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:16.159 built this huge network and he's influenced millions of people as a result and build 516 00:34:16.199 --> 00:34:19.960 something that runs without him now. And now he's onto his next thing, 517 00:34:20.039 --> 00:34:22.639 we'll start up grind keeps on growing. That's the power of collaboration. I 518 00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:27.989 love it and and I love it so much, Josh, because I feel 519 00:34:27.989 --> 00:34:31.150 like we've been talking a lot to folks that are in podcasting that obviously I 520 00:34:31.150 --> 00:34:35.389 us producing podcasts for a bunch of companies, something that I'm starting to say 521 00:34:35.429 --> 00:34:37.579 a lot more. Is this idea around like you can go a whole lot 522 00:34:37.619 --> 00:34:40.940 further, a whole lot faster if you go together. And so what is 523 00:34:42.019 --> 00:34:45.860 keeping you from your company podcast that we're producing for you or that somebody else 524 00:34:45.980 --> 00:34:49.739 is doing for you, that you're producing an house? Why are you not 525 00:34:49.900 --> 00:34:53.369 inviting one other people within your company to Co host the show, as well 526 00:34:53.449 --> 00:34:57.809 as other people outside of your company to host this show? So with BB 527 00:34:57.929 --> 00:35:00.969 growth we've got, I think, nineteen different CO hosts for be tob growth. 528 00:35:00.730 --> 00:35:05.610 It allows us to create a lot more really valuable content because we know, 529 00:35:06.130 --> 00:35:08.280 similar to Derek, we don't have the market cornered on how to host 530 00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:13.280 a great interview, but we know a lot of people that have great relationships 531 00:35:13.360 --> 00:35:15.199 and can talk to a really interesting people. And Baby Marketing as well, 532 00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:19.320 and we're now able to die, I think, to my knowledge, where 533 00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:22.909 the only bb marketing podcasts that's daily. And the reason we've been able to 534 00:35:22.989 --> 00:35:27.389 do that is because we said, hey, we don't have to be the 535 00:35:27.510 --> 00:35:30.269 only host of this show. We can collaborate and invite other people to become 536 00:35:30.309 --> 00:35:35.670 cohosts for this show. And so I am I am a hundred percent, 537 00:35:35.710 --> 00:35:38.980 a hundred, ten percent on board with this idea of collaboration, because I 538 00:35:39.099 --> 00:35:43.380 really do think you can go a whole lot further, a whole lot faster 539 00:35:43.460 --> 00:35:46.380 if you just get some folks and go together with them. So thank you 540 00:35:46.539 --> 00:35:52.449 for for talking about this and for really bringing light to this idea in your 541 00:35:52.489 --> 00:35:57.050 seven systems methodology, because I think it really can be transformational for companies. 542 00:35:57.570 --> 00:36:01.449 In this last system, Josh, you mentioned that that you really stood on 543 00:36:01.530 --> 00:36:06.519 this sixth one for a while before knowing that there was a seventh one that 544 00:36:06.679 --> 00:36:09.599 you just that you had an unlocked yet. The seventh one is love, 545 00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:15.559 and I know that this, this this probably shocked everybody that was just listening 546 00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:16.920 to this. What do you mean? The seventh system is love. Talk 547 00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:22.150 to us about this one and why it's so important. Yeah, as soon 548 00:36:22.230 --> 00:36:24.630 as you said the word love, everybody listening to this just got this really 549 00:36:24.670 --> 00:36:30.389 awkward feeling. They're like wait, what, and that's why I think it 550 00:36:30.510 --> 00:36:36.659 eluded me for so long. I knew there was something missing with these systems 551 00:36:36.699 --> 00:36:39.300 of influence and I just couldn't figure it out and I thought maybe it's mindset 552 00:36:39.380 --> 00:36:45.019 or attitude or something that that just didn't quite seem right and I try to 553 00:36:45.059 --> 00:36:50.929 reordering the systems and looking at them different ways and it's just like, man, 554 00:36:50.969 --> 00:36:52.969 there's there's a seventh system out there, I just cannot figure out what 555 00:36:53.050 --> 00:36:55.969 it is. And then one day I realized it is love. Now, 556 00:36:57.050 --> 00:37:00.010 of course, it's not romantic love. When we talk about love, we're 557 00:37:00.050 --> 00:37:05.760 talking about empathy or understanding your odd dance. We're talking about passion for the 558 00:37:05.880 --> 00:37:08.920 material, the content that you're putting out there. We're talking about that sense 559 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:15.949 of excitement that you feel when you're creating the content. So love is all 560 00:37:15.030 --> 00:37:22.949 these things and, most importantly, it's true good will for your audience, 561 00:37:22.269 --> 00:37:27.429 really wanting to help them, really caring about them. And the reason this 562 00:37:27.550 --> 00:37:30.860 is so critical is there is the cliche that people don't care what you say 563 00:37:30.980 --> 00:37:35.659 until or they don't care how much you say until they know how much you 564 00:37:35.699 --> 00:37:42.300 care. But there's something to be said for people really could care less about 565 00:37:42.340 --> 00:37:45.849 your brand, your company, your product, but if they know that you 566 00:37:46.050 --> 00:37:50.570 really care about them and you really want to help them, then that foster's 567 00:37:50.610 --> 00:37:53.449 loyalty. That's where loyalty comes from. I mean it also comes from other 568 00:37:53.530 --> 00:37:57.449 things, like actually having a good product or a good service, but when 569 00:37:57.449 --> 00:38:00.199 they know that you care, it makes all the difference in the world. 570 00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:05.800 And the great thing about love is if you get the other six systems wrong 571 00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:12.119 or halfbaked, but you've got system seven, love in place, it almost 572 00:38:12.159 --> 00:38:15.309 doesn't matter that you're messing up on the other stuff. You can still make 573 00:38:15.389 --> 00:38:17.670 it through, you can still influence people, you can still make an impact. 574 00:38:19.309 --> 00:38:21.789 But if you don't have seven systems, if you don't have the love, 575 00:38:21.909 --> 00:38:24.590 you can get everything else perfect and it won't matter because people will sense 576 00:38:24.670 --> 00:38:28.780 that. They'll sense that it's just all about the transaction, it's all about 577 00:38:28.820 --> 00:38:32.619 making money. They know you don't care and so their loyalty is just it's 578 00:38:32.940 --> 00:38:37.219 there as long as you're providing value and as soon as the value is gone, 579 00:38:37.300 --> 00:38:39.739 they're gone to but if the love is there, you can make mistakes 580 00:38:39.900 --> 00:38:44.090 and they'll stick with you. This is incredible. Josh, the what and 581 00:38:44.130 --> 00:38:47.449 I think I'm pretty sure I've heard you talk about this system with in a 582 00:38:47.570 --> 00:38:52.690 slightly different way before. That really caught my eye, and you talked about 583 00:38:52.690 --> 00:38:55.280 it in terms of longevity. So if you're wanting to build thought leadership, 584 00:38:55.760 --> 00:39:00.760 it needs to be around something that you can talk about a lot and for 585 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:04.239 a long time. And if you don't love what, if you haven't not 586 00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:07.039 fallen in love with the thing that you are trying to build that leadership around, 587 00:39:07.280 --> 00:39:09.989 it's going to be really hard for you to have the longevity that it 588 00:39:10.150 --> 00:39:15.510 takes to us to actually establish influence and thought leadership around whatever it is that 589 00:39:15.630 --> 00:39:20.550 you're trying to impact the world with. And so that's another angle that that 590 00:39:21.110 --> 00:39:23.860 was really profound and really helpful for me as I came across you talking about 591 00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:28.059 this. Is there anything else related to kind of the longevity piece of it 592 00:39:28.179 --> 00:39:30.739 that you find yourself talking about a lot? Yeah, absolutely. I mean 593 00:39:30.780 --> 00:39:34.780 you have to have excitement for the content, and this also goes back to 594 00:39:35.019 --> 00:39:38.650 system number three, audience, which is part of what makes your eye audience 595 00:39:38.889 --> 00:39:44.210 the ideal audience, is that they energize you, because if you're not energized 596 00:39:44.250 --> 00:39:47.010 by working with your audience in the way that you work with them, then 597 00:39:47.050 --> 00:39:50.409 you're going to burn out and you're not going to be able to keep it 598 00:39:50.489 --> 00:39:53.320 up. And so, for example, James, you obviously you must love 599 00:39:53.440 --> 00:39:58.000 doing podcasting and doing these interviews, or you would have burned out a long 600 00:39:58.039 --> 00:40:00.559 time ago. So you love this format. You love doing this and you 601 00:40:00.719 --> 00:40:05.960 love talking to the people that you're interviewing, and so you're able to keep 602 00:40:05.960 --> 00:40:08.750 it up because it doesn't seem like work. Now for me it's a little 603 00:40:08.750 --> 00:40:12.670 bit harder to get on a podcast. Mean I got a dress up, 604 00:40:12.710 --> 00:40:15.150 I got to do my makeup if we're doing the video thing and all that 605 00:40:15.269 --> 00:40:16.550 stuff, you know, and I have to be concerned about my voice. 606 00:40:17.389 --> 00:40:22.420 I have an easier time writing and so I tend to just gravitate towards writing 607 00:40:22.460 --> 00:40:25.579 and I can crank out so much written content. But if you ask me 608 00:40:25.659 --> 00:40:29.820 to make a video, I'm like, Oh man, it's like plenteeth to 609 00:40:29.860 --> 00:40:32.019 get me to do a video or do something in the audio, unless you 610 00:40:32.059 --> 00:40:36.650 make it really easy for me, like you've done here. But if I 611 00:40:36.730 --> 00:40:38.690 have to go do it myself, it's like I'll find every excuse in the 612 00:40:38.730 --> 00:40:42.969 world not to do it because it's just hard for meeting engage with my audience 613 00:40:43.050 --> 00:40:46.489 that way. And so my ideal audience is people who read content, who 614 00:40:46.650 --> 00:40:52.119 prefer to read stuff, because that's my preferred way of communicating. That's what 615 00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:55.360 I love to do. I love to write. Awesome, thanks for elaborating 616 00:40:55.400 --> 00:40:58.519 on that. Josh, I've got a couple questions that I want to ask 617 00:40:58.639 --> 00:41:01.320 in closing. So we've gone through the seven systems of influence. So we've 618 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:07.710 got vision, your genius zone, audience, content, action, collaboration and 619 00:41:07.989 --> 00:41:13.110 love. These last two questions are around thought leadership. The first one you 620 00:41:13.230 --> 00:41:15.869 know, Josh, what's a commonly held belief around thought leadership that you just 621 00:41:15.989 --> 00:41:21.699 passionately disagree with? It's the idea that in order to be a thought leader 622 00:41:21.860 --> 00:41:24.940 you have to be kind of slimy or you have to be a slick salesperson 623 00:41:25.019 --> 00:41:30.139 or something this in fact, I would say it's almost, you know, 624 00:41:30.260 --> 00:41:32.449 reversal. With people who come to me and join my mastermind or sign up 625 00:41:32.449 --> 00:41:37.530 for coaching services, at some point during the discussion they will say something like 626 00:41:37.690 --> 00:41:40.530 this. They'll say, I want to be a thought leader, but I 627 00:41:40.690 --> 00:41:44.210 don't want to be like Tony Robins, or I don't want to be like 628 00:41:44.329 --> 00:41:47.920 grant car doing, and they'll mention somebody, and no disrespect to those guys, 629 00:41:47.960 --> 00:41:52.280 this is just what people say to me and I get what they're saying 630 00:41:52.360 --> 00:41:58.239 would which is they don't want to come across as selling something, as trying 631 00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:01.070 to make a bunch of money or something like. They genuinely want to help 632 00:42:01.190 --> 00:42:06.949 people and they feel like they can't be a thought leader because every thought leader 633 00:42:06.989 --> 00:42:10.190 they've seen is some slick guy with fancy watches and fancy suits or whatever, 634 00:42:10.230 --> 00:42:14.510 jet planes, Nice cars and stuff, and they're like, I don't want 635 00:42:14.510 --> 00:42:15.539 to be that kind of thought leader. I just want to help people. 636 00:42:16.219 --> 00:42:22.059 And so the idea that you have to be slick or slimy or something that's 637 00:42:22.059 --> 00:42:24.420 one of the biggest misconceptions out there, because thought leadership is nothing more than 638 00:42:24.900 --> 00:42:29.019 getting your ideas out there in a way that they help people, so that 639 00:42:29.179 --> 00:42:31.489 people can follow you and they can benefit from the value that you have to 640 00:42:31.610 --> 00:42:37.010 share. And there's so many ways to do that that don't involve selling your 641 00:42:37.050 --> 00:42:40.929 soul or doing anything unethical or doing anything that's even awkward or uncomfortable. Yeah, 642 00:42:42.329 --> 00:42:45.079 I've heard a lot of people say that the folks that are pursuing thought 643 00:42:45.079 --> 00:42:50.519 leadership they just come across as very selfserving. So I think that slides right 644 00:42:50.599 --> 00:42:52.679 into kind of the sleek. I don't want to do that because it just 645 00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:57.679 comes across like I'm just talking about myself all the time. That's very selfserving. 646 00:42:57.960 --> 00:43:00.190 When an actuality the Fok said, I really look up to and that 647 00:43:00.389 --> 00:43:04.829 have established that leadership. In my mind, are the folks that do the 648 00:43:04.949 --> 00:43:09.550 opposite. Actually, they're they're so focused on helping others that I'm attracted to 649 00:43:09.630 --> 00:43:14.139 their content. And so I think if you're thinking about thought leadership and you're 650 00:43:14.139 --> 00:43:16.420 worried about it being to self serving, then you probably need to go back 651 00:43:16.460 --> 00:43:21.699 to one of your systems, figuring out, really probably system three, your 652 00:43:21.780 --> 00:43:27.099 audience and figuring out how can I create content that is insanely helpful for that 653 00:43:27.099 --> 00:43:30.449 audience and hopefully that helps get some people unstock and thinking, okay, it's 654 00:43:30.489 --> 00:43:36.289 not selfserving if I'm creating content in an attempt to help this specific group of 655 00:43:36.409 --> 00:43:39.170 people. So I love I love what you said. They're this last question, 656 00:43:39.409 --> 00:43:45.360 Josh. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see companies specifically making 657 00:43:45.440 --> 00:43:50.280 as it relates to thought leadership? One is that they think that thought leadership 658 00:43:50.280 --> 00:43:52.960 is the content. So they focus on the content. They say, okay, 659 00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:54.909 we're going to put out why white papers and blog posts and we're going 660 00:43:54.909 --> 00:44:00.349 to make videos. That's not thought leadership, that's content, that's information, 661 00:44:00.750 --> 00:44:05.710 but that's not thought, not necessarily thought leadership content. Thought leadership content. 662 00:44:06.989 --> 00:44:08.829 First of all, you have to be taking something. You don't have leadership 663 00:44:08.829 --> 00:44:12.820 unless you have followers. You have to be guiding people from Point A to 664 00:44:12.900 --> 00:44:15.900 point B, and so you have to be taking people in a certain direction 665 00:44:15.940 --> 00:44:20.300 and it has to be unique and new and something that is not commonly found 666 00:44:20.340 --> 00:44:24.730 out there. So white papers are almost the antithesis of thought leadership content because 667 00:44:25.369 --> 00:44:30.130 they're not engaging there. I mean they're usually not engaging, they're not interesting, 668 00:44:30.289 --> 00:44:32.889 they're usually just full of facts and information and that might be helpful to 669 00:44:32.969 --> 00:44:38.920 somebody, but it's not thought leadership content. Thought leadership content involves changing people's 670 00:44:39.039 --> 00:44:45.199 minds so that they change their behavior so that they get different results. And 671 00:44:45.320 --> 00:44:49.480 if you're not doing that, you're not really engaging in thought leadership, and 672 00:44:50.079 --> 00:44:52.550 the best way to do that is to put a person out there who lives 673 00:44:52.630 --> 00:44:57.429 and breathe the stuff. So it's not just hey, we're going to get 674 00:44:57.429 --> 00:45:00.349 a committee together and we're going to think about the type of content that we 675 00:45:00.389 --> 00:45:04.989 want to put out there and then will create this content, will hire an 676 00:45:05.070 --> 00:45:08.260 expert copywriter and he'll put it together and then that's our thought leadership content. 677 00:45:08.820 --> 00:45:14.019 You really need somebody who can just sit down and talk about this stuff and 678 00:45:14.539 --> 00:45:17.340 the stuff that will come out of their mind. You say that's perfect, 679 00:45:17.380 --> 00:45:21.690 we don't have to do any editing or anything. We can just take that 680 00:45:21.889 --> 00:45:24.170 and that's our content and we can build on that. That's where the best 681 00:45:24.170 --> 00:45:29.889 thought leadership content comes from. I would say too many companies are trying too 682 00:45:30.050 --> 00:45:35.840 hard to create this type of content and so it comes across as committee driven 683 00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:40.400 or formulaic, when what they really need is they do need that Richard Branson 684 00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:44.719 type of individual who just goes out there and says stuff and maybe sometimes he 685 00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:49.159 says things that makes other executives cringe, and the same with Elon Musk and 686 00:45:49.199 --> 00:45:52.150 a lot of these other high profile people. They make mistakes and they say 687 00:45:52.269 --> 00:45:55.630 things that maybe they shouldn't say, maybe they do things they shouldn't do, 688 00:45:57.469 --> 00:46:00.750 but what you never doubt is that they mean it and they believe it and 689 00:46:00.829 --> 00:46:04.940 they're living it. I mean, look at trump like trump's like the ultimate 690 00:46:04.980 --> 00:46:07.900 example. I mean, whether you're for him or against him, everybody has 691 00:46:07.940 --> 00:46:12.219 to admit that he says things he shouldn't say and that he could say better, 692 00:46:12.739 --> 00:46:15.139 but nobody doubts that he means what he says. I mean when he 693 00:46:15.179 --> 00:46:19.449 says something you're like, I don't like what he's saying, or I wish 694 00:46:19.489 --> 00:46:23.650 you wouldn't say it that way. But yeah, he's he's truthful, he's 695 00:46:23.690 --> 00:46:29.530 saying it and that's one of the key ingredients of a successful thought leader and 696 00:46:29.650 --> 00:46:32.760 probably is part of why he's president today. Exactly right, Josh. Thank 697 00:46:32.800 --> 00:46:36.679 you so much for your time today. This has been incredibly valuable for me. 698 00:46:36.840 --> 00:46:38.480 I know it's going to be really valuable for our listeners as well. 699 00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:43.519 What's the best way for listeners to connect with you? My website, Josh 700 00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:45.480 stimleycom. All Right, Josh, thank you so much for your time today. 701 00:46:45.480 --> 00:46:50.789 I really appreciate it. Thank you, James. It's sweetish. We're 702 00:46:50.789 --> 00:46:54.510 on a mission to create being most helpful content on the Internet for every job, 703 00:46:54.670 --> 00:46:59.710 function and industry on the planet. For the BB marketing industry, this 704 00:46:59.829 --> 00:47:02.699 show is how we're executing on that mission. If you know a marketing leader, 705 00:47:02.739 --> 00:47:07.099 that would be an awesome guest for this podcast. Shoot me a text 706 00:47:07.139 --> 00:47:09.420 message. Don't call me because I don't answer unknown numbers, but text me 707 00:47:09.780 --> 00:47:14.539 at four undred seven for and I know three and threty two eight. Just 708 00:47:14.619 --> 00:47:16.849 shoot me their name, maybe a link to their linkedin profile, and I'd 709 00:47:16.969 --> 00:47:20.769 love to check them out to see if we can get them on the show. 710 00:47:21.329 --> 00:47:21.809 Thanks a lot
