1313: Practical Steps to Position Yourself as a Thought Leader w/ David C. Baker

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:08.750 Welcome back to be tob growth. I'm Dan Sanchez with sweetfish media, and 2 00:00:08.910 --> 00:00:12.789 today I'm joined with David C Baker, who is the author of the business 3 00:00:12.869 --> 00:00:17.829 of expertise and who the New York Times calls the experts expert. David, 4 00:00:17.870 --> 00:00:22.300 I know you do a lot of podcasts and that you have been just on 5 00:00:22.339 --> 00:00:24.579 a number of episodes are ready, so I thought I throw you on your 6 00:00:24.579 --> 00:00:28.660 toes for a bit and ask you what was your AOL screen name back in 7 00:00:28.699 --> 00:00:33.740 the s? HAH, I think it was recourses, but I have to 8 00:00:34.179 --> 00:00:38.009 which was the such a stupid name, but I and I could have picked 9 00:00:38.049 --> 00:00:40.810 anything. You know, this is when all the domains were available on pick 10 00:00:40.929 --> 00:00:44.649 something stupid. But the first website I built I had a filter on there 11 00:00:44.850 --> 00:00:49.810 so that anybody who was surfing using AOS connection would see a blank screen, 12 00:00:49.850 --> 00:00:53.240 because I determined early in those days I'd never wanted to work with anybody that 13 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:59.000 used AOL, so I didn't pay much attention to it, honestly. Well, 14 00:00:59.479 --> 00:01:03.040 I remember my a well screen name actually to join in was wind runner, 15 00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:07.870 just because that just sounded fun and of course I was well not that 16 00:01:07.989 --> 00:01:11.150 old at the time. So I was thinking, you couldn't have been. 17 00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:12.829 You would have. It's four years old when Il was around, right, 18 00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:19.060 seven, eight, something like that. Today we're talking about the practical steps 19 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:23.019 to positioning yourself as a thought leader and, David, we're going to be 20 00:01:23.099 --> 00:01:27.900 jumping into first. How do you even define thought leadership? It's a word 21 00:01:29.299 --> 00:01:32.459 that's out there. People think it's a little cringey even, and don't like 22 00:01:32.579 --> 00:01:34.930 to use it. But I think it's worth actually starting there because a lot 23 00:01:34.969 --> 00:01:40.170 of people have different thoughts about this. I know even around here at sweetfish 24 00:01:40.209 --> 00:01:44.530 we've had conversations about how, how this word or phrase should be defined. 25 00:01:44.689 --> 00:01:48.719 How do you define it? Yeah, it is such a sloppy word. 26 00:01:48.959 --> 00:01:53.480 I lie awake at night sometimes thinking of new words, but then of course 27 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:57.359 I'm not big enough in any setting to create a new word. But I 28 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:00.670 just don't like the word, mainly because of all the people who use it 29 00:02:00.870 --> 00:02:06.430 who I don't think really are thought leaders. I would say a thought leader 30 00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:10.310 is somebody who has a following. So there's multiple parts to the definition. 31 00:02:10.509 --> 00:02:14.469 They have a following. I don't think there are thought leaders who don't have 32 00:02:14.629 --> 00:02:22.500 one. They influence the conversation. Second and third, they tend to bifurcate 33 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:29.500 the audience. So there are people who say, yes, that's really that 34 00:02:29.620 --> 00:02:32.449 really makes sense, that resonates, and then others who say what that just 35 00:02:32.530 --> 00:02:38.289 seems ridiculous, it doesn't make any sense. And by Bifur Kate I mean 36 00:02:38.449 --> 00:02:44.479 they eliminate the folks who read it and register but don't ever do anything with 37 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:49.120 it. So thought leaders are by definition, they're not they're not Prias, 38 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:53.039 but they do have a clear point of view and they force somebody to either 39 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:55.599 agree or disagree with them. So those are the three parts of that definition 40 00:02:55.639 --> 00:03:00.789 I would use. It's interesting thing and that you define thought leadership is someone 41 00:03:00.830 --> 00:03:04.270 who has to take like a really clear stance on something, which means other 42 00:03:04.349 --> 00:03:07.110 people are going to be of a different opinion. It's something, something new 43 00:03:07.349 --> 00:03:12.310 that I haven't heard before. So with that, is that as the definition 44 00:03:12.389 --> 00:03:16.180 of thought leadership? Like would you say that there's reasons why someone wouldn't want 45 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:20.580 to be a thought leader? Do you have clear reasons why it would be 46 00:03:20.659 --> 00:03:23.259 better for someone to stay away, even if they thought it might be desirable 47 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:29.770 to become one? Yeah, especially in in today's world, where you can 48 00:03:30.289 --> 00:03:34.050 stand out for the wrong reasons, there are certain brands that need to be 49 00:03:34.330 --> 00:03:39.849 completely inclusive. They don't need to exclude people because that's not a part of 50 00:03:39.889 --> 00:03:44.479 who they are, and in that world I think it's really it works against 51 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:49.560 you to be a thought leader. So thought leaders make more sense when your 52 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:54.560 brand stands for something and stands against something else, or when it's research based, 53 00:03:55.270 --> 00:04:00.830 when there needs to be a steady stream of new entrance into the conversation. 54 00:04:01.069 --> 00:04:05.949 That's when a thought leader makes sense. The difference between an individual thought 55 00:04:05.949 --> 00:04:10.300 leader and a company thought leader, though, there's a lot more nuance around 56 00:04:10.379 --> 00:04:14.900 that and that's not quite as clear. What's changed all of this more than 57 00:04:14.939 --> 00:04:17.980 anything to me, is Google. When you think about how the world operated 58 00:04:18.060 --> 00:04:21.300 before the world was google eyed, so this was in the late s, 59 00:04:23.300 --> 00:04:27.689 you largely had a local audience. It wasn't that you couldn't travel, it's 60 00:04:27.689 --> 00:04:32.610 just that you didn't need to, and so people's expectations of expertise were lower 61 00:04:32.889 --> 00:04:39.959 because it had to encompass whoever their local experts were. When the world became 62 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:45.000 googleized, we got really excited and really depressed by things. We got excited 63 00:04:45.079 --> 00:04:51.360 because now we could reach out and work and attract somebody that was way outside 64 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:57.589 of our previous geographic influence, but all of our competitors could then reach in 65 00:04:57.750 --> 00:05:00.389 and take us so a all that makes sense right. But what was the 66 00:05:00.470 --> 00:05:04.350 role of Google? The role in Google was that Google had to be given 67 00:05:04.550 --> 00:05:10.819 something to work with. So that trained over the last twenty five years or 68 00:05:10.860 --> 00:05:16.420 so, twenty three years. It is trained consumers to expect very specific answers 69 00:05:17.139 --> 00:05:21.610 and those answers should be quick and they should be free. So those are 70 00:05:21.649 --> 00:05:25.449 the things that we give to Google to work with. So now when a 71 00:05:25.930 --> 00:05:29.850 consumer, a client, has a question, they go to Google and Google 72 00:05:29.970 --> 00:05:32.689 says all right, here I have found exactly the person who has your answer. 73 00:05:32.850 --> 00:05:36.519 I found it quickly and you're going to be to get their insight and 74 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:42.000 not pay anything, and that, ideally, would entice this client or customer 75 00:05:42.199 --> 00:05:46.920 to pay you real money to do something even deeper for them. So we've 76 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:50.149 just been in the back seat here, because unless you gives Google something to 77 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:55.189 work with your they're just not going to deliver traffic to you. That doesn't 78 00:05:55.230 --> 00:05:59.310 include everybody. There are some expert who don't need to depend on Google. 79 00:05:59.750 --> 00:06:04.019 They are allowed to pontificate broadly about all kinds of things. But I don't 80 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:08.500 know how to be one of those people. It's not something that's reachable to 81 00:06:08.540 --> 00:06:12.860 me. So what I'm hearing you saying is that you essentially become almost a 82 00:06:12.980 --> 00:06:15.660 servant of Google. If you want to be found and be recognized as a 83 00:06:15.740 --> 00:06:18.490 thought leader, you need to be found by Google, and getting found by 84 00:06:18.490 --> 00:06:21.970 Google, well, it takes a lot of work, but it does take 85 00:06:21.970 --> 00:06:27.089 about of discipline. It takes it takes having opinions that have real research opinions, 86 00:06:27.329 --> 00:06:29.649 because when you get found by Google, you have all these people who 87 00:06:29.649 --> 00:06:33.000 can then interact with your expertise and they can call you stupid and Google's going 88 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:38.480 to believe them. So in your book you cover a number of different topics, 89 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:42.000 one of them being how to how to monetize thought leadership. But since 90 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:44.680 a lot of these listeners are working for a business, often want to become 91 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:48.069 thought leaders to use that as a marketing means to bring more revenue to their 92 00:06:48.110 --> 00:06:50.829 business, will leave that off the table. I know most people are looking 93 00:06:51.350 --> 00:06:57.389 to make the transition from expert to thought leader and it's not the same thing. 94 00:06:57.509 --> 00:07:00.389 There's a there's a clear transition there. But before we jump for that 95 00:07:00.500 --> 00:07:04.899 transition, like why do you designate if you're an expert enough, because there's 96 00:07:04.939 --> 00:07:10.579 different levels of profession, professional out there. How do you know you are 97 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:14.339 kind of at the level where you're a professional and you're I don't know, 98 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:17.689 you've known enough now to be to even consider yourself an expert, to even 99 00:07:17.730 --> 00:07:21.769 start promoting yourself right to my thought leader, not that you would call yourself 100 00:07:21.889 --> 00:07:26.810 that right. Yeah, that's sort of the unwritten rule. You don't call 101 00:07:26.889 --> 00:07:30.079 yourself a guru. Let other people call you that and then you've kind of 102 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:36.040 fame lack of interest in being called that. I you know, I want 103 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:40.519 to before I answer the question, I want to define a little bit more 104 00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:46.069 because in the world that I'm addressing I'm really talking about experts related to thinking. 105 00:07:46.230 --> 00:07:54.029 There are a lot of very gifted experts who do other things, crafts 106 00:07:54.149 --> 00:08:00.740 people, for instance, poets, musicians, and though their expert their expertise 107 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:03.939 is just as deep and just as real, but it's not the kind of 108 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:07.339 expertise that I'm talking about. So in the context of that, I would 109 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:13.410 say you're not really an expert until a lot of people are willing to pay 110 00:08:13.449 --> 00:08:16.970 you a lot of money for just what's in your brain, for your ability 111 00:08:18.129 --> 00:08:24.089 to listen to their situation and address it in a way that solves the problem 112 00:08:24.449 --> 00:08:30.600 that they have, strictly through the things you say or the things you write, 113 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:35.000 not the things that you do, and that's how I'm defining expertise in 114 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:39.320 my world. It's interesting, as usually define expertise is like you, you 115 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:43.309 essentially know everything. They're kind of is to be known on a maybe a 116 00:08:43.350 --> 00:08:48.230 very niche topic and maybe, of course, adjacent topics, because there's a 117 00:08:48.230 --> 00:08:52.190 lot of overlap between different topics. But you're saying that it's not enough to 118 00:08:52.269 --> 00:08:54.509 just to know those things. You need to be able to put it to 119 00:08:54.590 --> 00:08:58.500 such practical use that people who are willing to pay you to solve very niche 120 00:08:58.539 --> 00:09:03.419 problems right, because otherwise you have this expert, quote unquote, who's never 121 00:09:03.659 --> 00:09:09.690 tested in the real world. The whole practice of expertise is a giant feedback 122 00:09:09.769 --> 00:09:16.809 loop. So most experts are pretty stupid until they're on stage. By on 123 00:09:16.889 --> 00:09:20.250 stage I mean they're talking with the prospector or a client. That's when they're 124 00:09:20.649 --> 00:09:26.159 most articulate, and then they take a chance and they try to analyze the 125 00:09:26.320 --> 00:09:33.600 client situation and then they addressed that with specific ideas about how they might improve 126 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:37.159 it. And they're going to get immediate feedback. That's what I mean by 127 00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:45.070 this immediate feedback loop. And expertise doesn't get better until we force articulation and 128 00:09:45.269 --> 00:09:50.110 we force testing in the market place. That's why there aren't experts who then 129 00:09:50.350 --> 00:09:54.220 give these ideas to other people to go out and apply in the market place. 130 00:09:54.299 --> 00:09:58.059 It doesn't work that way. Experts are always on the front line and 131 00:09:58.139 --> 00:10:01.460 they're always learning, not just because there's always more to learn, but because 132 00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:07.289 the world is learning, is changing all the time and whatever is true today 133 00:10:07.330 --> 00:10:11.250 won't necessarily be true two years from now, and I have to be put 134 00:10:11.289 --> 00:10:16.289 in a position where I'm constantly learning. It's what it's what keeps me interested 135 00:10:16.370 --> 00:10:20.769 in what I do. I was talking we were doing an episode blaring's and 136 00:10:20.769 --> 00:10:24.480 I were doing an episode in our podcast to Bob'scom and we were talking about 137 00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:28.200 what would be the one thing that would make us lose interest in what we 138 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.559 do, and both of us answered, without comparing notes, if we ever 139 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:37.549 felt like we stopped learning. And that doesn't mean that we have to learn 140 00:10:39.070 --> 00:10:43.309 broadly all over the place about all kinds of things. I do that in 141 00:10:43.389 --> 00:10:46.269 my personal life, but in my work life, what means is if I 142 00:10:46.470 --> 00:10:50.299 am able, if I'm not able, to keep digging deeper and deeper and 143 00:10:50.419 --> 00:10:52.940 deeper, I'm going to start to die, and that that a feedback loop. 144 00:10:54.059 --> 00:11:00.059 Is What is what makes the expertise build up like a snowball and you 145 00:11:00.179 --> 00:11:03.820 start to charge for it and you start to see the connections in other places. 146 00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:07.970 It's like entering one room and finding a door that leads to another room 147 00:11:07.049 --> 00:11:11.690 with all kinds of other doors and it just never that's the one strange thing 148 00:11:11.730 --> 00:11:18.639 about expertise is people feel like narrowing your focus, making a positioning decision is 149 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:22.480 feels like it's narrowing your opportunities to learn, and that's not the case at 150 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:26.840 all. It deep into opportunities to learn. That's fascinating. I've been having 151 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:31.159 quite a few conversations on linkedin about people wrestling about this one topic, like 152 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:35.389 should I go niche or should I brought in? Because I have so many 153 00:11:35.429 --> 00:11:37.909 clients that I'm already working with and I feel like I might get bored working 154 00:11:37.950 --> 00:11:43.509 on the same thing over and over and over again and that I'll be unstable, 155 00:11:43.590 --> 00:11:46.029 that it's actually kind of dangerous for me to try to niche myself into 156 00:11:46.110 --> 00:11:50.340 two narrow of topic. Because what if? What if that changes right, 157 00:11:50.379 --> 00:11:52.899 read if this change and I'll goes away. What if this vertical starts to 158 00:11:52.980 --> 00:11:56.539 shring? Worries like that keep up from niching end and that crazy, though 159 00:11:56.820 --> 00:12:01.049 those guys, nobody else in the professional services field ever ask that question. 160 00:12:01.610 --> 00:12:07.049 If we heard a surgeon over launch saying that to a colleague's like yeah, 161 00:12:07.049 --> 00:12:09.490 I know I'm one of the best nerror surgeons in the world, but I 162 00:12:09.649 --> 00:12:16.240 just love the idea of thinking about psychology and and how the foot operates and 163 00:12:16.279 --> 00:12:20.720 I just want to keep excess like I wouldn't go to that doctor. It's 164 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:24.679 like. Or if an engineer or an architect or you know, it's just 165 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:30.549 but we in the creative field, in the marketing field, we feel like 166 00:12:30.909 --> 00:12:35.389 developing deep expertise is a is how we begin to die and it's such a 167 00:12:35.509 --> 00:12:41.909 ridiculous idea. The solution to that, ultimately is to have more of a 168 00:12:41.149 --> 00:12:46.340 t shaped expertise. So you have a very deep expertise that you get paid 169 00:12:46.500 --> 00:12:48.419 for and you make a lot of money with that and that's where your thought 170 00:12:48.419 --> 00:12:52.899 leadership comes but there's a tea and that your personal life is very, very 171 00:12:54.139 --> 00:13:00.129 broad and it spans all of your interests and those those interests in your personal 172 00:13:00.169 --> 00:13:05.210 life provide a an anchoring context to your deep expertise, the one that you 173 00:13:05.330 --> 00:13:09.889 make your money from. But if you expect to have a broad expertise, 174 00:13:11.490 --> 00:13:13.039 you're not going to get people to pay you a lot of money for that. 175 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:16.600 It just doesn't work. I think what people wrestle with is like, 176 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:22.240 let's just take marketing, for example. They don't want to specialize in just 177 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:26.039 one channel because chains kind of come and go. I'm faster and faster these 178 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:28.509 days. I don't want to just be an email marketer. I know I've 179 00:13:28.509 --> 00:13:31.509 been challenge with that. I've almost been pushed in some direction sometimes and it's 180 00:13:31.509 --> 00:13:35.950 made me nervous because knowing well, actually stink. Email marketing still great, 181 00:13:35.070 --> 00:13:39.830 but at of people are shouting from the rooftops that it's dead, just fun. 182 00:13:39.870 --> 00:13:43.220 I've been shouting that for twenty years and they've all been wrong. Yeah, 183 00:13:43.940 --> 00:13:46.460 but I know it would make me nervous just to specialize in one thing 184 00:13:46.500 --> 00:13:48.580 and I've always kind of prided myself on being a generalist. But at the 185 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:52.779 same time I am starting to discover that it's better to if I'm going to 186 00:13:52.820 --> 00:13:54.929 be a generalist, than at least pick an industry of vertical you can be 187 00:13:56.009 --> 00:14:00.090 a really strong generalist end. It's just stronger that way, right. So 188 00:14:00.169 --> 00:14:03.769 I can see where people are nervous about it, especially in marketing, where 189 00:14:03.769 --> 00:14:07.169 things change fast. Maybe not as fast as we think they're changing, but 190 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:13.039 yeah, we keep pretending that our marketing world is changing. We keep saying, 191 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:16.840 you know, over the last two decades that now, with the advent 192 00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:22.120 of digital marketing, we really understand what works and we can be held more 193 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:28.070 accountable. That's all. If it was so clear, there wouldn't be twentyzero 194 00:14:28.389 --> 00:14:33.230 books on marketing and somebody would have figured it out. You don't get permission 195 00:14:33.389 --> 00:14:39.059 to be a second generation expert until you're an expert in the first generation. 196 00:14:39.500 --> 00:14:43.659 And if you're really leading a field and it starts to fade away, you're 197 00:14:43.659 --> 00:14:46.460 going to see it quicker than anybody else and you're going to be able to 198 00:14:46.539 --> 00:14:52.460 easily pivot your career in that direction as well. So, for someone who's 199 00:14:52.460 --> 00:14:56.250 thinking about making the jump to I know a big part of that is learning 200 00:14:56.289 --> 00:15:00.210 how to position yourself in that so what question should they be asking from the 201 00:15:00.250 --> 00:15:03.490 outset? How does someone begin begin that journey of positioning themselves in the right 202 00:15:03.490 --> 00:15:11.080 place. Well, we have to acknowledge that it's not going to emerge from 203 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:16.159 nothing, from a vacuum. So they have a multitude of options at the 204 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:18.360 moment. So whatever the new positioning is going to look like, it's going 205 00:15:18.399 --> 00:15:24.669 to emerge from something that they are already good at. And that's what's dangerous, 206 00:15:24.710 --> 00:15:28.590 or not dangerous, it's what's painful about positioning, because positioning is not 207 00:15:28.629 --> 00:15:31.470 about saying yes to something, it's about saying no to all those other things 208 00:15:33.269 --> 00:15:37.940 and recognizing that your life is very successful if you choose to focus in a 209 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:41.059 particular area. Somebody who's very successful, who looks back on their life and 210 00:15:41.299 --> 00:15:46.460 says I wish I'd have been more successful, they don't ever say if I'd 211 00:15:46.580 --> 00:15:48.940 just had more opportunities that. That's not what they say. What they say 212 00:15:50.090 --> 00:15:52.330 is, Oh, if I had just been more focused on and choosing some 213 00:15:52.450 --> 00:15:56.850 of those. So it's going to emerge from something that you already do. 214 00:15:56.850 --> 00:16:03.250 Second, it's going to be built around noticing the patterns that come from that 215 00:16:03.559 --> 00:16:11.320 and and that stepping back and just enjoying the pattern matching process has to be 216 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:15.399 something that comes naturally for you, and we often talk about how important it 217 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:21.629 is for people to be curious. That's just a friendlier word for pattern matching, 218 00:16:21.870 --> 00:16:26.149 honestly. So you start to pull these patterns apart and then you will 219 00:16:26.269 --> 00:16:30.549 naturally start to see that in order for you to be effective, you're going 220 00:16:30.669 --> 00:16:37.419 to need to bring a steady stream of clients to you that have similar problems, 221 00:16:37.500 --> 00:16:41.659 because you've helped your clients solve those similar problems. Those can't be similar 222 00:16:41.659 --> 00:16:47.889 problems that everybody solves, because then you're not you're replaceable. You're very replaceable 223 00:16:47.889 --> 00:16:51.330 at that point. So it's a process of going through all of this. 224 00:16:52.090 --> 00:16:53.850 One of the easiest ways to do it is to say, all right, 225 00:16:55.210 --> 00:16:59.929 what are this is prepositioning. You're just working normally and you've got lots of 226 00:16:59.970 --> 00:17:03.240 different clients from different areas and you're wondering how to narrow your practice. One 227 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:07.519 of the ways to do that is to say, what are the questions I'm 228 00:17:07.559 --> 00:17:11.160 getting where I feel a little bit more stumped than I would be otherwise? 229 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:15.910 Not The easy questions, but the tougher questions. Where are the ones where 230 00:17:15.910 --> 00:17:19.230 I have to pause or I have to worry about whether my answer has any 231 00:17:19.230 --> 00:17:25.349 substance to it or not, and write those questions down and do some research, 232 00:17:25.910 --> 00:17:30.259 not specifically for a given client but for all clients like that, and 233 00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:33.460 see if you can pull out some of those patterns that other people are not 234 00:17:33.539 --> 00:17:38.900 noticing and that will start to nudge you in certain directions and help you ignore 235 00:17:38.940 --> 00:17:42.859 all of the other options that you have around you and then build up positioning 236 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:48.529 around it. Ultimately, you're going to come up with six or eight options 237 00:17:48.730 --> 00:17:52.250 for your positioning decision and then what you would do to narrow those down is 238 00:17:52.369 --> 00:17:56.890 to follow some specific parameters that help you make those decisions. For instance, 239 00:17:57.369 --> 00:18:02.240 can you think of at least ten firms that focus on that, but no 240 00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:07.319 more than two hundred firms? Can you think of problems that that particular segment 241 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:11.279 that your might that you might be addressing? Is Losing Sleep over at night? 242 00:18:11.319 --> 00:18:17.589 Are they regularly paying money for those sorts of things? And so you 243 00:18:17.630 --> 00:18:22.750 can go down this pathway and tested in many ways and in the end recognize 244 00:18:22.829 --> 00:18:27.339 that there probably aren't any bad decisions because there are actually five or six good 245 00:18:27.700 --> 00:18:33.539 possible decisions that any individual could make as they decide where to go, and 246 00:18:33.740 --> 00:18:37.220 that any decision they make is not necessarily. It's not a life sentence. 247 00:18:37.220 --> 00:18:42.329 It could be a three or a five year decision. But walking down that 248 00:18:42.529 --> 00:18:48.490 path will open up so many other avenues down the road and the next decision 249 00:18:48.490 --> 00:18:52.809 they make will not be broader. It might be slightly different, but more 250 00:18:52.930 --> 00:18:57.920 likely it'll actually be narrower than this initial decision was. How narrow is too 251 00:18:57.960 --> 00:19:03.599 narrow? When picking a topic, there's only one problem with a narrow positioning 252 00:19:03.640 --> 00:19:10.069 and that's running out of opportunity. So if you don't have at least two 253 00:19:10.230 --> 00:19:15.390 thousand clients that you could work with, then your positioning is too narrow, 254 00:19:15.150 --> 00:19:19.990 because in the field of expertise you don't want to make an assumption the you 255 00:19:21.029 --> 00:19:25.220 can lock up any more than one percent of the opportunity out there, and 256 00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:30.059 one percent of two thousand is twenty clients and most experts need around fifteen, 257 00:19:30.339 --> 00:19:36.500 ten to fifteen to twenty clients. So that that would be the only way 258 00:19:36.539 --> 00:19:40.049 you would be nervous about being too narrow. So that would kind of give 259 00:19:40.049 --> 00:19:44.410 me an idea of what someone who wants to be like a so solo practitioner 260 00:19:45.089 --> 00:19:48.970 would want to go after. What if you're like a CMO at a at 261 00:19:48.009 --> 00:19:52.920 a large tech company that's trying to scale. You just try to then pick 262 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:57.839 a larger largest fear of influence, to go after. Know you those numbers 263 00:19:57.880 --> 00:20:03.160 apply. So two thousand to Tenzero. That's not true for scalable be TOC 264 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:07.430 products. I don't have the data for that. But in an expertise world, 265 00:20:07.430 --> 00:20:11.190 if you'RE A CMO and you're selling expert product or service, then those 266 00:20:11.269 --> 00:20:15.029 same numbers would apply. Two thousand to Tenzero. If you have more than 267 00:20:15.069 --> 00:20:22.819 Tenzero addressable prospects, then usually the marketplace is going to view us two interchangeable 268 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:26.500 with somebody else. That's fascinating. Getting those numbers did you is this your 269 00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:32.059 after years of trial and error? Yeah, or do you did extensive research 270 00:20:32.140 --> 00:20:36.849 to find come to those numbers? Both. So the analog sort of research 271 00:20:37.009 --> 00:20:40.569 is having worked with more than nine hundred firms now, expert firms, and 272 00:20:40.690 --> 00:20:45.930 understanding seeing the correlation of my practice is a little bit unique in that I 273 00:20:47.130 --> 00:20:49.880 not only know exactly what they're positioning is, because usually I've helped them fashion 274 00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:56.440 it, but I also see the financial results and I see the lead generation 275 00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:00.559 specifics that come from it. So I can put all that into spreadsheets and 276 00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:06.470 say this is an outlier or ninety percent of firms that are very successful here 277 00:21:07.190 --> 00:21:11.029 have a positioning where these characteristics are true of it. So there's a lot 278 00:21:11.069 --> 00:21:15.349 of analog research and working with these nine hundred firms and then some other specific 279 00:21:15.430 --> 00:21:18.579 research that I did for my for my last book. And does product extension 280 00:21:18.660 --> 00:21:22.859 start to become like the death of a company when they start to go outside 281 00:21:22.900 --> 00:21:26.140 that realm of expertise? Or do you would you start a new company for 282 00:21:26.220 --> 00:21:29.740 every vertical you went after? How do you start to grow beyond the tenzero? 283 00:21:30.779 --> 00:21:36.089 You have to think first about how a prospect might think about having these 284 00:21:36.289 --> 00:21:40.130 two disparate focuses, or folk I together. So, to use a silly 285 00:21:40.170 --> 00:21:45.490 example, if you decided that you wanted to expand and you have a medical 286 00:21:45.529 --> 00:21:49.839 practice and then you also want a funeral home business, you wouldn't have both 287 00:21:49.880 --> 00:21:53.880 of those on the same business card, right. So if it would be 288 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:59.359 a jarring thing to see both of these next to each other in the world, 289 00:21:59.960 --> 00:22:03.269 then you would have to do them separately. There are lots of other 290 00:22:03.430 --> 00:22:07.230 reasons to think about to so. For instance, if you're selling a customized 291 00:22:07.309 --> 00:22:11.549 versus a productized service, those always have to be separate. If the sales 292 00:22:11.630 --> 00:22:15.509 process is different. You have to do you have to have those separate so 293 00:22:15.900 --> 00:22:23.299 the common mistake that folks make is feeling like they need to expand because they 294 00:22:23.380 --> 00:22:29.740 don't see enough opportunity in the current niche rather than stopping for a minute and 295 00:22:30.089 --> 00:22:34.049 digging deeper to see if there's more opportunity there. This is a particular problem 296 00:22:34.089 --> 00:22:40.089 in the US in that part of our genetic makeup is we feel like it's 297 00:22:40.130 --> 00:22:44.559 sinful to say no to opportunity. So we feel like it's wrong to waste 298 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:49.400 opportunity and so when opportunity comes our way, we just it's unconstionable to say 299 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:52.640 I can't do anything with that instead of instead, what we do is we 300 00:22:52.759 --> 00:22:56.119 say, Oh, I can turn that into something, it doesn't matter how 301 00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:00.630 bad it looks. altern it at something and we're constantly getting pulled off our 302 00:23:00.710 --> 00:23:04.950 best games because we we want to explore things and there is a certain amount 303 00:23:04.950 --> 00:23:10.230 of expiration that takes place in a business and a lot of expiration that needs 304 00:23:10.269 --> 00:23:14.140 to take place in someone's personal life. But we'd be a lot better off 305 00:23:14.180 --> 00:23:17.980 if we if we stuck to our guns and played in our lane, so 306 00:23:18.099 --> 00:23:21.460 to speak, to use a term that means something else nowadays. Do you 307 00:23:21.539 --> 00:23:25.500 find that positioning a person is a lot different than positioning a company? Or 308 00:23:25.539 --> 00:23:26.609 is it? Do you see, it is both in the same thing here 309 00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:32.930 it depends on the company. So in this is changed a little bit over 310 00:23:33.049 --> 00:23:38.650 time. So nowadays there's more relevance to the leaders of a company and what 311 00:23:38.730 --> 00:23:42.119 their personal brands are, and that wasn't true in the past, and that's 312 00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:49.759 because consumers are so wary of the messages coming to them that they feel like 313 00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:55.950 it's more useful for them to be able to identify with a person that they 314 00:23:56.069 --> 00:24:00.829 trust and respect, and that's where the personal brand comes into play. There's 315 00:24:00.829 --> 00:24:03.950 also an element of how do we apply this to a big firm versus a 316 00:24:04.069 --> 00:24:07.069 small firm? Right, if you are, say, a consulting firm of 317 00:24:07.269 --> 00:24:12.980 forty five people and the and there's one owner, one major partner, and 318 00:24:14.059 --> 00:24:17.500 that partner has a big personal brand, then your clients are going to feel 319 00:24:17.500 --> 00:24:19.579 ripped off if they don't get to work with that person, which is going 320 00:24:19.579 --> 00:24:22.940 to be really bad for the firm's growth. So there are lots of things 321 00:24:23.019 --> 00:24:29.250 to think about there. I generally am more open to the idea of an 322 00:24:29.329 --> 00:24:34.210 individual at a firm being encouraged to have a personal brand if the result of 323 00:24:34.289 --> 00:24:40.880 that activity is that it's steers prospects into the company itself. So if that 324 00:24:41.039 --> 00:24:45.759 person left, let's say you have an employees hosting your podcast and that person 325 00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:48.240 leaves, what's going to happen to your podcast? Was the purpose of the 326 00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:53.549 podcast to draw people into the culture of the firm itself or was it to 327 00:24:53.630 --> 00:24:57.269 build individual followers of that person? So there's lots to think about there. 328 00:24:57.829 --> 00:25:02.789 Yeah, that it really is an interesting thing when you start to consider building 329 00:25:02.950 --> 00:25:07.539 employees as thought leaders or as personal brands out there or ambassadors, evangelists. 330 00:25:07.819 --> 00:25:11.779 His companies are starting to build those kinds of programs. More for me, 331 00:25:11.940 --> 00:25:17.859 if it's select employees, do you think that's more of a threat or more 332 00:25:18.059 --> 00:25:22.250 of an opportunity for businesses? I think it's more of an opportunity generally, 333 00:25:22.769 --> 00:25:29.529 because you want to attract employees who whose light will not be hit under a 334 00:25:29.609 --> 00:25:32.809 Bushel, so to speak. They're going to be more open to working for 335 00:25:32.890 --> 00:25:37.000 your firm if you are going to encourage them building a platform, as long 336 00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:41.920 as it's ethically drawing people into the firm and not just to that person. 337 00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:47.559 So I'm you know, the control freak side of me is nervous with that, 338 00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:51.470 but the more generous, expansive side of me says this is a really 339 00:25:51.509 --> 00:25:53.950 good thing. We should encourage this. Where some places you've seen this work 340 00:25:55.029 --> 00:26:00.430 well. I've seen it work really well when somebody who is like first or 341 00:26:00.549 --> 00:26:06.660 second in their class is thinking about what firm to go to and they want 342 00:26:06.660 --> 00:26:12.859 to rise quickly and they made if you got them to talk with you honestly, 343 00:26:12.900 --> 00:26:15.460 they would say, I'm only going to work for this place for two 344 00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:18.849 or three years and I'm going to move on. Not Be afraid of that. 345 00:26:18.970 --> 00:26:22.809 That's completely fine. You will actually convert some of those people to stay 346 00:26:22.930 --> 00:26:26.490 longer, but if you don't, that's okay. I would rather have a 347 00:26:26.609 --> 00:26:32.009 steady stream of real winners coming in and building their personal brand and when they 348 00:26:32.089 --> 00:26:36.319 leave there are other people that come behind them building their personal brand, and 349 00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:38.480 this, the sum total of that, is really good for the firm. 350 00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:45.960 That's not true of a smaller consulting firm or a firm where the principle is 351 00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:49.230 going to shed a lot of the daytoday stuff and they simply are going to 352 00:26:49.349 --> 00:26:53.910 migrate into a role of business development from a high platform, then it would 353 00:26:53.910 --> 00:26:56.950 be really important for them to build a personal brand. But otherwise I love 354 00:26:57.029 --> 00:27:02.779 the idea of individuals building personal brands. I don't the flip side of that, 355 00:27:02.819 --> 00:27:06.700 as you don't want too many people doing it. So in general that's 356 00:27:06.900 --> 00:27:11.059 like using the example of a fifty person firm full of experts. The market 357 00:27:11.099 --> 00:27:15.019 place is going to get confused if you have more than two, three or 358 00:27:15.059 --> 00:27:21.529 four of those people with individual voices. People tend to connect to individuals and 359 00:27:21.809 --> 00:27:26.250 there needs to be a unified voice. Those experts need to speak. They 360 00:27:26.289 --> 00:27:30.400 can have different points of emphasis, but they should not be contradicting each other. 361 00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.599 Sure, sure, it makes sense and they'll probably have their own expertise. 362 00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:38.039 They'll be speaking from and experiences right right. Something we're experimenting at Sweet 363 00:27:38.039 --> 00:27:44.160 Fish is having a linkedin evangelist team where we have a designer and operations guy, 364 00:27:44.309 --> 00:27:47.750 a sales guy to Seeo and myself as the marketer. Of course we're 365 00:27:47.750 --> 00:27:51.990 all kind of in marketing at a media marketing company, but we're all talking 366 00:27:52.029 --> 00:27:56.150 about our individual disciplines and probably twenty percent of the time talking about well, 367 00:27:56.230 --> 00:27:59.460 be to be podcasting right. It's been an interesting experiment so far. We're 368 00:27:59.500 --> 00:28:00.900 only, I don't know, maybe a month of a month in, but 369 00:28:02.019 --> 00:28:04.819 it's been positive. There's five of us and we're starting to see, I 370 00:28:04.900 --> 00:28:07.500 don't know, people are starting to catch on that there's multiple people at this 371 00:28:07.500 --> 00:28:11.420 company doing this thing right, but it's still early. I've only seen a 372 00:28:11.460 --> 00:28:15.210 few other companies head into the water so far, gone being one. I 373 00:28:15.289 --> 00:28:18.250 know there's a few more, I just can't to get their names. One 374 00:28:18.289 --> 00:28:21.730 of the most difficult things for employees to pull that off is whether or not 375 00:28:21.890 --> 00:28:26.130 they feel the freedom to have a, and I clearly articulated point of view. 376 00:28:26.329 --> 00:28:30.440 That might push people away from the company. If you don't allow them 377 00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:36.599 to have that articulated point of view, then it's just going to be vanilla 378 00:28:36.680 --> 00:28:41.160 kind of stuff, that it's all the noise, the signal stuff at Linkedin. 379 00:28:41.319 --> 00:28:44.470 It's not going to draw people because it doesn't push some people away. 380 00:28:44.589 --> 00:28:48.109 That's that's one of the tensions in that in that method. You know, 381 00:28:48.789 --> 00:28:52.150 as I've been reading about thought leadership, I've come across a number of authors 382 00:28:52.309 --> 00:28:55.779 that just scream, you know, don't try to be different, don't try 383 00:28:55.779 --> 00:28:59.859 to be someone else, just be yourself. That's the most positioning you need 384 00:29:00.019 --> 00:29:03.500 just be yourself, which to me sounds a lot like just a really nice 385 00:29:03.619 --> 00:29:07.099 to feel good platitude and doesn't actually like tell me what to do, because 386 00:29:07.339 --> 00:29:11.730 sometimes, you know, what is our self? Ourselves always changing, right, 387 00:29:11.890 --> 00:29:14.289 so it's kind of like, well, what like the version of myself 388 00:29:14.289 --> 00:29:15.890 I think I am? I actually am that my friends think I am. 389 00:29:17.009 --> 00:29:19.930 There's so much to put there. What would you say about that advice, 390 00:29:21.049 --> 00:29:22.690 in particular to be yourself, and what would you say is a good thing 391 00:29:22.809 --> 00:29:29.160 for someone to consider? To consider instead? That phrase reminds me of the 392 00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:34.440 of another bit phrase, follow your heart and successful come, which is simply 393 00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:41.630 isn't true. You can't be anything other than yourself, obviously, but that 394 00:29:41.950 --> 00:29:47.710 seems like bumper sticker triteness to me. You. Yeah, if yourself is 395 00:29:47.829 --> 00:29:52.430 being yourself, is being trying to be really smart and learning all the time 396 00:29:52.710 --> 00:29:56.740 and articulating a clear point of view around a particular positioning, then yeah, 397 00:29:56.220 --> 00:30:02.619 feel free to be yourself. But if be yourself means lazy, undisciplined, 398 00:30:02.660 --> 00:30:08.049 sloppy thinking, than don't be yourself. You need to change yourself instead. 399 00:30:08.089 --> 00:30:12.289 What are other ways people can kind of have a personal brand that's more attractive 400 00:30:12.329 --> 00:30:15.849 like, what are some questions they can ask or steps they can take in 401 00:30:17.009 --> 00:30:19.890 order to be a little bit more relatable, because it's one thing to stick 402 00:30:19.930 --> 00:30:23.960 out your expertise out there, and if it that were enough to have good 403 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.799 ideas, then, like most college research professors would be throwing out original ideas 404 00:30:29.839 --> 00:30:32.599 all the time, but you don't see them being followed often because, well, 405 00:30:32.680 --> 00:30:37.430 sometimes it's just dry and academic and buried in a certain word count that 406 00:30:37.509 --> 00:30:40.549 you no one wants to read. So what's the difference, then, if 407 00:30:40.589 --> 00:30:44.630 someone who's putting out original ideas where someone who's actually getting traction out there? 408 00:30:45.390 --> 00:30:48.190 I think I don't know if I'm just reading myself into this too much or 409 00:30:48.230 --> 00:30:55.259 not, but I think people are really drawn to sharp thinkers who are also 410 00:30:55.500 --> 00:31:02.299 transparent about the process for themselves, so everything is not completely polished. They 411 00:31:02.380 --> 00:31:08.730 are willing to work around this MVP, the minimally viable product sort of idea 412 00:31:08.849 --> 00:31:15.450 they're they're testing things, they're willing to listen to feedback. They're not afraid 413 00:31:15.569 --> 00:31:23.200 of feedback, they embrace it. They talk about failures. So in all 414 00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:27.440 of this carefully dressed up persona stuff that we're talking about, it seems to 415 00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:33.950 me like people are really drawn to this combination that comes together people who think 416 00:31:34.109 --> 00:31:38.869 clearly, who are also transparent about that process and helpful. One of the 417 00:31:40.029 --> 00:31:47.140 beauties of thought leadership is its inherent generosity, because you are giving away all 418 00:31:47.259 --> 00:31:52.299 kinds of useful things to people and expecting nothing in return, and that is 419 00:31:52.420 --> 00:31:57.099 such a beautiful process it you you need to think of yourself as investing in 420 00:31:57.299 --> 00:32:00.220 other people that you don't even know of. At the end of Your Life 421 00:32:00.220 --> 00:32:02.609 you look back on it and say, I don't even know some of the 422 00:32:02.650 --> 00:32:07.089 people I touched, but I generated three million dollar, three million words of 423 00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:10.769 insight that a lot of people have told me was really helpful. That's my 424 00:32:10.970 --> 00:32:16.720 investment. That's what thought leadership of it is really it's empathetic generosity. That's 425 00:32:16.839 --> 00:32:22.160 not jet that you're where you're just writing things to sort of get an audience. 426 00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:27.359 Know you're really thinking about your audience carefully and you're willing to carve away 427 00:32:28.160 --> 00:32:31.430 two hours that you might have spent with real clients thinking about this bigger, 428 00:32:31.589 --> 00:32:36.309 broader audience and you're doing what you can to be generous to them. So 429 00:32:36.549 --> 00:32:39.829 something I've heard Gary v say a lot, and whether you you love them 430 00:32:39.869 --> 00:32:43.990 or hate him. He certainly got a lot of influence out there. Is 431 00:32:44.029 --> 00:32:49.380 He incouraged just people to document, to just start recording and kind of putting 432 00:32:49.420 --> 00:32:52.059 their journey out there on their process, usually to becoming a thought leader, 433 00:32:52.099 --> 00:32:55.740 but maybe just to being an artist or in their craft of some kind? 434 00:32:57.059 --> 00:32:59.769 Do you feel like that's a helpful process and becoming a thought leader? Have 435 00:32:59.849 --> 00:33:02.369 you seen that Pan out? I do. I really think it's a it's 436 00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:08.450 good advice. I generally hate Gary v partly because he's way more successful that 437 00:33:08.529 --> 00:33:13.319 I am and partly because I've thought of a lot of things he says. 438 00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:19.839 But he gets credit for him but honestly, he's he's definitely a thought leader. 439 00:33:19.880 --> 00:33:24.200 He he's somebody that's articulated a point of view that people either love or 440 00:33:24.279 --> 00:33:30.430 hate, and that's the essence of thought leadership. And he's also very articulate. 441 00:33:30.750 --> 00:33:34.710 So and finally, he's somebody I'd love to have a drink with right 442 00:33:35.029 --> 00:33:37.710 a lot of thought leaders bore me to death and he doesn't. So yeah, 443 00:33:37.710 --> 00:33:42.500 I think that's brilliant. That's that exactly makes the point that you, 444 00:33:43.099 --> 00:33:47.539 even if nobody that's a thing, you're not doing anything differently. Later when 445 00:33:47.579 --> 00:33:51.420 you have a following and you were earlier. The only differences. You have 446 00:33:51.500 --> 00:33:55.529 a following, but you need to start doing all those things mainly for your 447 00:33:55.690 --> 00:34:01.170 sake to hold yourself accountable, and then eventually it will attract an audience if 448 00:34:01.210 --> 00:34:06.369 you're honest with yourself about all that. It's interesting in that a big part 449 00:34:06.410 --> 00:34:10.400 of marketing and getting your your ideas out there become almost like infotainm at like. 450 00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:14.519 The more you can blend the two together, I far they're probably going 451 00:34:14.599 --> 00:34:19.039 to go. Yeah, just honestly, extremely difficult. My opinion. It's 452 00:34:19.480 --> 00:34:22.639 it's hard enough to have original thoughts and interesting ideas out there, but try 453 00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:27.869 to make them entertaining somehow. It's like, okay, and which really wellknown 454 00:34:27.909 --> 00:34:31.230 musician didn't start out playing a bunch of small dive bars late at night with 455 00:34:31.429 --> 00:34:37.349 smoke and getting thirty bucks or free drinks in exchange for all that work? 456 00:34:37.429 --> 00:34:43.500 You know, I'm pretty small time, honestly. There's forty plus thousand, 457 00:34:43.579 --> 00:34:46.260 fortyzero three hundred people I check today, people who get my who signed up 458 00:34:46.260 --> 00:34:51.940 for my weekly email. That's pretty small time, but that's the allso precious 459 00:34:51.940 --> 00:34:54.889 asset I have. Those are people who have who've sampled the stuff and say 460 00:34:54.929 --> 00:34:58.329 they want more of it, and I'm so grateful for that. And it 461 00:34:58.449 --> 00:35:01.650 just comes from lots of hard work and trying to be myself, but the 462 00:35:01.769 --> 00:35:06.170 the self I'm trying to be as a self that works hard and tries to 463 00:35:06.250 --> 00:35:09.599 think clearly for people. I've read the hub spot says that it takes about 464 00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:15.280 two hundred pieces of original content to have the chance at being a thought leader. 465 00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:19.639 Like, how much content do you think someone needs to produce and then 466 00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:24.469 keep producing in order to to really have an influence? HMM, there's probably 467 00:35:24.469 --> 00:35:29.590 an inverse relationship there. You know, I can think of a thought leader 468 00:35:30.469 --> 00:35:34.989 who's maybe written to fantastic books and all of their time, all his or 469 00:35:35.030 --> 00:35:40.579 her time, is spent making those books fantastic. I have spots. Approach 470 00:35:40.659 --> 00:35:45.340 to thought leadership is very different, friend. They they their thought leadership isn't 471 00:35:45.340 --> 00:35:50.250 very deep, it's a lot, it's very broad and they just throw tons 472 00:35:50.289 --> 00:35:53.130 of stuff at it, giving Google stuff to work with, hoping that in 473 00:35:53.210 --> 00:35:58.489 the end they'll pop up soon enough. I don't I haven't done the research 474 00:35:58.610 --> 00:36:01.090 myself on what that but when I heard you say that, it resonated with 475 00:36:01.210 --> 00:36:07.079 me like yeah, probably that's probably about right. You could probably, if 476 00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:12.800 you're willing to take some some chances, then you probably could establish thought leadership 477 00:36:13.519 --> 00:36:17.909 with fewer than two hundred, maybe fifty or I like in my own career, 478 00:36:19.110 --> 00:36:22.110 I remember being slightly embarrassed time and time again when people would ask me 479 00:36:22.190 --> 00:36:25.710 certain questions, clients, and I thought, oh my goodness, like my 480 00:36:25.909 --> 00:36:31.230 clients are consistently expecting me to have a an articulated point of view on quite 481 00:36:31.230 --> 00:36:36.099 a few topics that I don't have one on, and I just started writing 482 00:36:36.139 --> 00:36:38.780 those down and I then I counted the whole list and it was fifty five 483 00:36:38.820 --> 00:36:44.300 of them. And what really launched my career in a new way, like 484 00:36:44.539 --> 00:36:46.250 at a jet pace, was saying, all right, I'm going to commit 485 00:36:46.329 --> 00:36:52.170 to articulating a clear point of view with with thought behind it for each one 486 00:36:52.210 --> 00:36:55.489 of these topics, and I attacked them one a month. So it took 487 00:36:55.530 --> 00:36:58.690 me, however many years, four and a half years, to do that, 488 00:36:59.730 --> 00:37:01.119 and so I don't know what the exact number is, but I really 489 00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:05.960 like that thinking. That makes sense. And of course I'm talking about when 490 00:37:06.000 --> 00:37:08.199 I hear how spots say that a seem they mean like long farm blog post 491 00:37:08.360 --> 00:37:13.360 as like the medium. Of course a book is much or substantial right of 492 00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:16.269 books at worth at least a five fifty to a hundred blood posts, and 493 00:37:16.389 --> 00:37:21.190 then a social post is could be just a meme. So I'm I'm thinking 494 00:37:21.269 --> 00:37:24.309 that they're they're two hundred. Is, like two hundred long form blog post. 495 00:37:24.750 --> 00:37:27.989 You might be able to get it done in a hundred, like a 496 00:37:28.030 --> 00:37:30.219 hundred social media post. My count for one of those. Yeah, and 497 00:37:30.260 --> 00:37:32.739 whether you get noticed by Google or not matters. You know, if it's 498 00:37:32.739 --> 00:37:36.420 less than three thousand words, you're probably not going to get noticed by Google, 499 00:37:36.500 --> 00:37:38.099 but you might be noticed by the people that subscribe to your stuff. 500 00:37:38.139 --> 00:37:43.059 So it's pretty complex question. Yeah, I mean it might be podcast videos 501 00:37:43.179 --> 00:37:46.369 and of course that's a good ten minute video can count for a lot. 502 00:37:46.409 --> 00:37:50.769 Yeah, if someone wanted to take those steps and wanted to learn more, 503 00:37:52.090 --> 00:37:54.650 what are some resources that you would recommend that have been the most helpful to 504 00:37:54.690 --> 00:38:00.719 you in your studies? And well, I think the approach that the folks 505 00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:07.679 that hinge marketing take their programs called the visible expert. I think there's a 506 00:38:07.719 --> 00:38:13.230 lot of really good thought put into that. Dorry Clark is somebody I know. 507 00:38:13.989 --> 00:38:15.750 We're not close friends or anything that somebody I know, and I think 508 00:38:16.150 --> 00:38:22.269 she does a really good job at helping people think through that. I think 509 00:38:22.110 --> 00:38:30.179 looking at some of the authors out there, even though maybe the foundation isn't 510 00:38:30.179 --> 00:38:35.579 academically pure, I think they've done a really good job of of like a 511 00:38:35.699 --> 00:38:38.940 Seth Goden for instance. It's done a good job of that, just putting 512 00:38:39.059 --> 00:38:46.010 the effort into articulating very clearly a point of view and doing it within a 513 00:38:46.170 --> 00:38:51.489 discipline style. Those are the people that I admire because of all the work 514 00:38:51.610 --> 00:38:57.440 that they put into their craft. All right, I think as I'm learning 515 00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:00.519 and growing myself, I've read Doris Book and a big seth coat in Fan. 516 00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:02.360 Of course. I've read multiple many of his books. off to check 517 00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:07.880 out hinge marketing as I dive into thought leadership myself. Your book was also 518 00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:10.750 fantastic. I've read a lot of fluffy thought leadership books so far and I'm 519 00:39:10.789 --> 00:39:16.590 like your book was actually concise and to the point. was actually very helpful, 520 00:39:16.590 --> 00:39:20.670 especially around positioning, which most people have been beating around the Bush with 521 00:39:20.949 --> 00:39:23.190 in their books, saying like Oh, yeah, just be different, yeah 522 00:39:23.300 --> 00:39:30.820 right, great. You actually had some very clear examples and exercises people to 523 00:39:30.940 --> 00:39:32.659 go through in the book. I won't say what they are. They can 524 00:39:32.699 --> 00:39:37.179 read the books as quite lengthy, but they were very, very handy and 525 00:39:37.219 --> 00:39:39.650 practical. I'll thank you. I really enjoyed writing the book. The the 526 00:39:39.730 --> 00:39:44.929 business of expertise was my fist book and the one I really enjoyed writing the 527 00:39:45.010 --> 00:39:49.449 most. It was very passionate exercise for me. Fantastic. What last thing 528 00:39:49.489 --> 00:39:53.599 would you want to leave our audience with? Who are highly considering pursuing this 529 00:39:53.639 --> 00:40:00.760 thought leadership as as a marketing play, but in an authentic way right, 530 00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:09.429 I just can't over emphasize enough the notion of articulating expertise. We sometimes sometimes 531 00:40:09.469 --> 00:40:15.909 come at this and think that it's a two step process, that we come 532 00:40:15.070 --> 00:40:20.869 to clarity about something and then we articulate it to the marketplace, and I 533 00:40:21.030 --> 00:40:27.059 just haven't found that that's the way experts develop this. It's a twofold process 534 00:40:27.179 --> 00:40:31.860 where both things happen at once. The clarity comes not before the articulation, 535 00:40:32.139 --> 00:40:38.530 but it comes in the articulation. So start thinking out loud and letting the 536 00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:45.170 marketplace interact with your thoughts. So, for instance, if something keeps coming 537 00:40:45.170 --> 00:40:50.679 up regularly in your client discussions and it comes up yet one more time, 538 00:40:51.119 --> 00:40:55.679 don't just start talking about it. Instead, reach to your IPAD and pull 539 00:40:55.760 --> 00:41:02.440 out a little scratch diagram of a time when you actually thought through what it 540 00:41:02.480 --> 00:41:08.429 might look like before they ask that question. So you start putting things in 541 00:41:08.590 --> 00:41:14.230 writing, putting things in diagram diagrams, and you explain them and then, 542 00:41:14.510 --> 00:41:17.349 as you do that, you see how you could clarify it even more and 543 00:41:17.429 --> 00:41:22.820 it gets it's gets sharpened every time you do it. And we've got two 544 00:41:22.820 --> 00:41:28.820 kids who are both very intelligent and very articulate and when I think about how 545 00:41:28.820 --> 00:41:34.929 to transfer this to raising great kids, it's about encouraging them to articulate their 546 00:41:35.010 --> 00:41:38.969 thinking along the way to we could pretty much scrap most of school. As 547 00:41:39.010 --> 00:41:45.170 long as people knew how to write and read well, they would be fine 548 00:41:45.250 --> 00:41:50.800 as citizens out there. And that whole process never stops. The process of 549 00:41:50.840 --> 00:41:54.800 learning how to read and write well carries over into expertise, and the one 550 00:41:54.880 --> 00:41:58.920 thing I would ask people to do more of it. Just start articulating what 551 00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:04.150 you're thinking and the clarity will come in that process. And I just posted 552 00:42:04.550 --> 00:42:07.469 the other day that, like I wish I could quote it exactly, but 553 00:42:07.550 --> 00:42:13.429 I said I actually write on Linkedin more to learn than I do to teach 554 00:42:13.550 --> 00:42:15.900 marketing. Right. Yeah, because the process has just been fantastic. Someone 555 00:42:15.940 --> 00:42:20.099 challenged me to post every day, so I've been at it for maybe seventy 556 00:42:20.139 --> 00:42:22.300 days or something like that. It's just been an excellent process. If Philip 557 00:42:22.380 --> 00:42:27.539 Morgan, to fill a Morgan Consulting, has a process, forgotten exactly what 558 00:42:27.579 --> 00:42:31.769 it's called, something like the expertise insight incubator, something like that, and 559 00:42:32.289 --> 00:42:37.250 and he challenges people to write every day for that same reason and they're there's 560 00:42:37.289 --> 00:42:40.409 some author, famous author. I don't remember who it was and I won't 561 00:42:40.409 --> 00:42:43.849 get the quote. Is Zat he right? But it was something like I 562 00:42:44.090 --> 00:42:47.119 write to figure out what I think, and that's that's exactly what you just 563 00:42:47.239 --> 00:42:51.519 stated. It's just another statement of that. It's funny. You said that 564 00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:54.280 about schools, like if we can only teach two subjects. As I reflect 565 00:42:54.320 --> 00:42:59.030 back on my own schooling, I've I've had two similar conclusions. I'm like, 566 00:42:59.150 --> 00:43:00.030 man, if there was just one class I wish, I would have 567 00:43:00.070 --> 00:43:05.469 worked for the A and they all weren't worth the A, but the one 568 00:43:05.510 --> 00:43:08.070 class I was worth it would have been English. No one actually mattered. 569 00:43:08.710 --> 00:43:14.300 Math eighth grade. Algebra was fine, don't really use much beyond that. 570 00:43:14.500 --> 00:43:17.699 But English every day, all day. It has massive consequences if you get 571 00:43:17.699 --> 00:43:22.659 it wrong right, massive upside if you get it right. Absolutely, yeah, 572 00:43:23.179 --> 00:43:28.329 work in our audience learn more about who you are, what you do 573 00:43:28.809 --> 00:43:31.730 and can find where your resources are. Sure. So if they want to 574 00:43:31.769 --> 00:43:35.929 know more about the most recent book, they would just go to expertise dot 575 00:43:36.210 --> 00:43:40.090 is, expertise dot is, and they want to know more about my advisory 576 00:43:40.170 --> 00:43:45.880 practice, it's David C Bakercom and between those two sites it's about it. 577 00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:50.480 I presume they're not interested in my woodworking or or flying or my racing or 578 00:43:50.519 --> 00:43:53.039 anything, but those are the two places where they learned the most valuable stuff. 579 00:43:53.559 --> 00:43:57.389 Nonsense, I think. What those are actually the things that make you 580 00:43:57.469 --> 00:44:00.230 much more interesting. When I started learning those things about you, I was 581 00:44:00.269 --> 00:44:01.429 like wow, like I don't know, it just makes you more human and 582 00:44:01.469 --> 00:44:06.710 naturally there's a few piece of it that maybe I had over hear the audience 583 00:44:06.710 --> 00:44:09.659 might have overlap with right. So those things are fun. David, thank 584 00:44:09.699 --> 00:44:13.019 you so much for joining me on the show today. I've learned a time. 585 00:44:13.099 --> 00:44:15.900 I'm sure the audience has learned a time as well. Thank you damn. 586 00:44:15.900 --> 00:44:19.980 I appreciate the chance to chat with you and your audience. Hey, 587 00:44:20.059 --> 00:44:23.059 everybody, logan with sweet fish here. If you're a regular listener of BB 588 00:44:23.289 --> 00:44:27.170 growth, you know that I'm one of the cohosts of this show, but 589 00:44:27.329 --> 00:44:30.809 you may not know that I also head up the sales team here at sweetfish. 590 00:44:30.170 --> 00:44:34.210 So, for those of you in sales or sales ops, I wanted 591 00:44:34.250 --> 00:44:37.130 to take a second to share something that's made us insanely more efficient lately. 592 00:44:37.170 --> 00:44:42.519 Arts team has been using lead Iq for the past few months and what used 593 00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:46.199 to take us four hours gathering contact data now takes us only one. We're 594 00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:52.909 seventy five percent more efficient. We're able to move faster withoutbound prospecting and organizing 595 00:44:52.949 --> 00:44:57.630 our campaigns is so much easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys check 596 00:44:57.630 --> 00:45:00.750 out lead Iq as well. You can check them out at lead iqcom. 597 00:45:01.150 --> 00:45:12.780 That's ee ad iqcom. Are you on Linkedin? That's a stupid question. 598 00:45:13.139 --> 00:45:15.300 Of course you're on Linkedin. Here's so we fish. We've gone all in 599 00:45:15.539 --> 00:45:21.059 on the platform. Multiple people from our team are creating content there. Sometimes 600 00:45:21.099 --> 00:45:23.530 it's a funny gift for me, other times it's a micro video or a 601 00:45:23.610 --> 00:45:29.050 slide deck, and sometimes it's just a regular old status update that shares their 602 00:45:29.170 --> 00:45:34.250 unique point of view on BB marketing leadership or their job function. We're posting 603 00:45:34.369 --> 00:45:37.639 this content through their personal profile, not our company page, and it would 604 00:45:37.719 --> 00:45:43.480 warm my heart and soul if you connected with each of our evangelists. will 605 00:45:43.480 --> 00:45:46.079 be adding more down the road, but for now you should connect with bill 606 00:45:46.159 --> 00:45:52.070 read, our COO, Kelsey Montgomery, our creative director, Dan Sanchez, 607 00:45:52.110 --> 00:45:55.110 our director of audience growth, Logan Lyles, are Director of partnerships, and 608 00:45:55.349 --> 00:45:59.829 me, James Carberry. We are having a whole lot of fun on Linkedin 609 00:45:59.949 --> 00:46:01.789 pretty much every single day and we'd love for you to be a part of 610 00:46:01.829 --> it.