2 Ways to Develop Points of View for Your Company or Personal Brand

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.340 --> 00:00:08.730 welcome back to be to be Growth. My name is James Carberry, and today we 2 00:00:08.730 --> 00:00:13.930 are doing another solo episode, and I'm really excited about it. So a couple 3 00:00:13.930 --> 00:00:17.890 years ago, Or maybe it was last year I was in Chicago hanging out with my 4 00:00:17.890 --> 00:00:23.450 friend Andy Crist, Adina from Orbit Media, and he is a genius when it comes 5 00:00:23.450 --> 00:00:27.240 to content marketing. And so naturally we started talking about thought 6 00:00:27.240 --> 00:00:32.020 leadership and he said, You know, James, so many companies, so many people, they 7 00:00:32.020 --> 00:00:37.620 aspire to be thought leaders, but they don't want to do the work of actually 8 00:00:37.620 --> 00:00:41.640 having original thoughts. They don't want to do the work of having thoughts 9 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:46.900 that people actually want to follow. And, man, I just resonated with that so 10 00:00:46.900 --> 00:00:51.040 much. And so in this solo episode, I'm gonna be talking about how you can 11 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:57.140 develop distinct points of view for your brand, for your personal brand, 12 00:00:57.140 --> 00:01:03.260 for your company's brand. And they're two very specific tactics that we're 13 00:01:03.260 --> 00:01:09.520 using to develop points of view for our personal brands for Dan and Logan and 14 00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:14.750 my personal brand, but also for the company. And the first approach is it's 15 00:01:14.750 --> 00:01:17.450 something that we've written about in the past. If you go to sweet fish media 16 00:01:17.450 --> 00:01:23.730 dot com and you put in P. O. V. Discovery, you'll find an article that 17 00:01:23.730 --> 00:01:28.020 we wrote about P. O V Discovery. Or maybe it's a section inside of an 18 00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:32.510 article. But check that out because the P. O. V. Discovery framework is 19 00:01:32.510 --> 00:01:37.560 essentially, it's what we use with our podcast guests toe help them develop a 20 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:42.010 distinct and unique point of view. And it's just a set of three questions that 21 00:01:42.010 --> 00:01:45.880 we ask our podcast guests. But I think you can actually use those same three 22 00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:52.250 questions and answer them yourself. Or have your CEO answer them to develop 23 00:01:52.250 --> 00:01:56.890 points of view for the people on your team and points of view for your 24 00:01:56.890 --> 00:02:01.050 company. And so those three questions are pretty simple. The P O. V. 25 00:02:01.050 --> 00:02:05.750 Discovery questions The first one is what is a commonly held belief about 26 00:02:05.940 --> 00:02:11.640 your space that you passionately disagree with. And so the way I think 27 00:02:11.640 --> 00:02:14.690 about this and the and the thing that I've been talking about a lot a 28 00:02:14.690 --> 00:02:19.510 commonly held belief for me and B two b marketing is that community. All these 29 00:02:19.510 --> 00:02:22.940 companies that are talking about the importance of community and and they're 30 00:02:22.940 --> 00:02:26.540 really starting to do a lot with community. Are trying to do a lot with 31 00:02:26.540 --> 00:02:30.720 community as they market their brand. I think the way people are measuring the 32 00:02:30.720 --> 00:02:36.190 success of community is broken. I think that community should actually be 33 00:02:36.190 --> 00:02:42.610 measured mawr by the intimacy of the community and less by how big it is. 34 00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:46.050 And so you're certain to see a lot of communities pop up and they're bragging 35 00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:49.700 about how they have thousands of members, Ah, part of these communities. 36 00:02:49.700 --> 00:02:54.180 But I actually think community breaks down and it's not actually community 37 00:02:54.190 --> 00:02:59.090 when it's just a massive group of people. And that's not to say that 38 00:02:59.090 --> 00:03:02.670 these large communities don't add enormous value. But I think there's 39 00:03:02.670 --> 00:03:07.180 even more value in intimate communities and so we're starting to do B two B 40 00:03:07.180 --> 00:03:12.160 growth groups where we're putting 5 to 7 people that Air B two B marketing 41 00:03:12.160 --> 00:03:18.930 leaders inside of a monthly call, and we're asking everyone in the group to 42 00:03:18.940 --> 00:03:23.950 share on a regular basis, so the framework for those groups are actually 43 00:03:23.950 --> 00:03:29.000 break down in a future episode. But by doing these B two B growth groups, I 44 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:34.020 think we're fostering community that is much more helpful to our ideal buyers 45 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:40.190 to our market than just putting someone into a massive Facebook group or, you 46 00:03:40.190 --> 00:03:44.490 know, mighty Networks Group. Not that those things are bad at all. I just 47 00:03:44.490 --> 00:03:48.730 think that there's a different type of value to be had from being in a small, 48 00:03:48.730 --> 00:03:54.340 more intimate group of your peers. So that's my point of view, right? And 49 00:03:54.340 --> 00:03:57.740 there's a lot of people on LinkedIn, as I've talked more and more about this 50 00:03:57.750 --> 00:04:02.620 that are starting to follow my content because I have this unique point of 51 00:04:02.620 --> 00:04:06.770 view. That community is measured incorrectly. Eso And that's just me. 52 00:04:06.770 --> 00:04:11.340 Answering the first p o b discovery question. I've obviously got multiple 53 00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:15.440 things that I passionately disagree with but that question of what is a 54 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:19.829 commonly held belief in your space that you passionately disagree with. If you 55 00:04:19.829 --> 00:04:24.210 ask yourself that question, that's that's your point of view. You can 56 00:04:24.210 --> 00:04:27.790 start building content around that point of view. Another two questions 57 00:04:27.790 --> 00:04:32.370 that you can ask yourself what is something that people in your space are 58 00:04:32.370 --> 00:04:38.720 currently doing that they should stop doing? If you're getting value from 59 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:42.520 this podcast, you are absolutely going toe Love, our weekly newsletter. In 60 00:04:42.530 --> 00:04:46.740 each email, I share something that you can do toe love your team well, toe, 61 00:04:46.740 --> 00:04:51.090 hone your craft, the craft of marketing and to grow your leadership. Plus, 62 00:04:51.090 --> 00:04:54.260 there's a super funny video at the top of the landing page whenever you go to 63 00:04:54.260 --> 00:04:57.460 sign up for the newsletter. So go to sweet Fish media dot com slash 64 00:04:57.460 --> 00:05:04.220 newsletter and sign up today on another question is, what is something that 65 00:05:04.220 --> 00:05:10.320 people in your space should start doing that they're not doing already? So both 66 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:13.560 of those questions are very similar, but they will get you to a similar 67 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:18.410 place where, as you answer it for yourself, you'll start to develop a 68 00:05:18.410 --> 00:05:22.470 point of view. As you answer it. On behalf of your company, you'll be able 69 00:05:22.470 --> 00:05:26.390 to develop distinct points of view around the answers to those questions. 70 00:05:26.390 --> 00:05:30.880 So that's one way. Ask yourself p o. V Discovery questions to develop points 71 00:05:30.880 --> 00:05:34.940 of view so that you can have thoughts actually worth following. Not you're 72 00:05:34.940 --> 00:05:38.810 not just saying the same thing that everybody else is saying. The second 73 00:05:38.810 --> 00:05:45.420 way that you can develop unique points of view is by doing original research. 74 00:05:45.420 --> 00:05:51.100 Now I just did an episode. I don't know exactly where. What? I just recorded it 75 00:05:51.100 --> 00:05:53.930 a few minutes ago. I don't know when it's gonna be going live. It should 76 00:05:53.930 --> 00:05:58.630 already be live. So if you search our unique approach to original research or 77 00:05:58.630 --> 00:06:03.480 just look for an episode in our feed titled Our Unique Approach to Original 78 00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:08.150 Research, you're going to see me do a deeper dive on this concept. But 79 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:11.940 essentially we're going to 100 of our prospective customers, existing 80 00:06:11.940 --> 00:06:16.700 customers, and we're asking them the same 15 questions and the answers that 81 00:06:16.700 --> 00:06:21.060 we get to those 15 questions from 100 different B two B marketing leaders are 82 00:06:21.070 --> 00:06:27.160 effectively going to fuel our content strategy for all of 2021 because we're 83 00:06:27.160 --> 00:06:31.210 going to be reviewing all of the answers to those questions from all 100 84 00:06:31.210 --> 00:06:35.710 people. And we're gonna be able to develop insights based on what how 85 00:06:35.710 --> 00:06:39.990 we're seeing these people answer these questions so as an example to of the 86 00:06:39.990 --> 00:06:44.370 insights that we've already pulled and we've only done 59 interviews so far, 87 00:06:44.370 --> 00:06:48.810 we're planning to do 100. But to insights, one is that marketers, 88 00:06:48.820 --> 00:06:54.230 marketing leaders don't seem to read marketing books. So one of our 89 00:06:54.230 --> 00:06:58.070 questions is, what's your all time favorite book on marketing? And more 90 00:06:58.070 --> 00:07:01.630 often than not, I hear people respond by saying, Well, it's not actually a 91 00:07:01.630 --> 00:07:05.840 marketing book. And so one of the insights that we've been able to draw 92 00:07:05.850 --> 00:07:10.660 from doing this research is that, you know, marketing leaders are reading 93 00:07:10.660 --> 00:07:14.680 different things. They're reading books on leadership on organizational health. 94 00:07:14.690 --> 00:07:18.750 Jim Collins, good to great has come up a ton. The reading books on creativity 95 00:07:18.750 --> 00:07:23.260 and psychology. They're not actually reading marketing books now. That could 96 00:07:23.260 --> 00:07:26.730 be an indictment on the fact that most marketing books suck and their vague 97 00:07:26.730 --> 00:07:30.090 and they don't actually share anything all that helpful. It could be more 98 00:07:30.100 --> 00:07:34.830 because marketing is changing so rapidly and so things that the things 99 00:07:34.830 --> 00:07:39.070 that don't change, you know, exercises toe, help your team be more creative, 100 00:07:39.070 --> 00:07:43.140 and things like leadership, those air, more timeless principles. And because 101 00:07:43.140 --> 00:07:48.770 marketing is so quickly evolving and changing with technology and with 102 00:07:48.780 --> 00:07:53.310 everything else happening at the speed that it's happening in 2020 it would 103 00:07:53.310 --> 00:07:57.310 make sense. That s so. It makes sense to me that a lot of these leaders don't 104 00:07:57.310 --> 00:08:00.170 necessarily read a lot of marketing books, or at least their favorite books 105 00:08:00.180 --> 00:08:04.490 are not marketing books. But if you're a brand trying to reach marketers and 106 00:08:04.490 --> 00:08:08.330 you want to do that by writing a book, think about writing about something at 107 00:08:08.330 --> 00:08:13.270 a higher level than just marketing. Because these folks are not. They're 108 00:08:13.270 --> 00:08:16.300 saying that their favorite books air not marketing books, So that's one 109 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:20.290 insight. The second insight is that the marketers that we're talking thio when 110 00:08:20.290 --> 00:08:24.810 I asked them, What are the KP eyes that your CEO is looking at regularly? 111 00:08:24.820 --> 00:08:30.420 Almost all of them say it's something related to revenue. So it's marketing 112 00:08:30.420 --> 00:08:35.570 source pipeline. It's closed one business, and so that's I don't think 113 00:08:35.570 --> 00:08:39.090 gonna be shocking to anyone. But as I asked that question over and over and 114 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:45.270 over again repeatedly, I I hear people respond with some sort of revenue 115 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:50.550 number, and so marketers are being measured seemingly by revenue, the ones 116 00:08:50.550 --> 00:08:54.090 that I talked to, at least, and so it makes me think about our own service 117 00:08:54.090 --> 00:08:58.240 and how you know we're not just producing podcasts. We have to help our 118 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:02.380 customers drive revenue through the podcasts that we're producing for them 119 00:09:02.380 --> 00:09:05.730 because that's how they're measured. So that was a really powerful insight for 120 00:09:05.730 --> 00:09:09.940 me. So those are Those are two different ways that you can develop 121 00:09:09.940 --> 00:09:13.460 unique points of view. Do original research with your ideal buyers. Come 122 00:09:13.460 --> 00:09:17.870 up with a set of 10 to 15 questions. Go and ask Ah, 100 people that have been 123 00:09:17.870 --> 00:09:21.510 on your podcast or 100 people that are in your pipeline right now. Just say, 124 00:09:21.510 --> 00:09:24.890 Hey, can we jump on a 15 minute call or doing some original research in our 125 00:09:24.890 --> 00:09:29.340 space? We'd love to ask you these 15 questions, and a lot of them are going 126 00:09:29.340 --> 00:09:33.900 to say Yes. I know a lot of folks who have said yes to us. So do original 127 00:09:33.900 --> 00:09:38.770 research. Or ask yourself the three p o. V discovery questions. And that is 128 00:09:38.780 --> 00:09:42.950 again, what's a commonly held belief in your space that you passionately 129 00:09:42.950 --> 00:09:47.450 disagree with? What's something that people in your space should start doing? 130 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:51.890 And what's something that people in your space should stop doing answers to 131 00:09:51.890 --> 00:09:56.370 all three of those questions will help you develop unique, distinctive points 132 00:09:56.370 --> 00:10:00.940 of view that you can start to build your content strategy around in 2021. 133 00:10:00.950 --> 00:10:05.420 Hopefully, this is helpful if you have not already subscribed to our 134 00:10:05.420 --> 00:10:10.160 newsletter. B two b Growth finally has a newsletter, and you can go to Sweet 135 00:10:10.160 --> 00:10:14.380 Fish media dot com slash newsletter to sign up for that In every single 136 00:10:14.380 --> 00:10:18.740 newsletter, which comes out Thursday mornings, I talk about something that 137 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:22.930 you as a marketing leader conduce toe love your team. Well, I also share 138 00:10:22.930 --> 00:10:28.040 something that will help you hone your craft, the craft of marketing. And then 139 00:10:28.040 --> 00:10:30.980 I talk about something that's gonna help you grow your leadership. So it's 140 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:35.950 a pretty simple framework, but we've been getting a lot of positive response 141 00:10:36.040 --> 00:10:40.710 to that newsletter so far, and you can go to Sweet Fish media dot com slash 142 00:10:40.710 --> 00:10:45.050 newsletter. Sign up and get a delightful little nugget in your inbox 143 00:10:45.060 --> 00:10:49.320 every Thursday morning again, thank you so much for being subscribed for 144 00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:52.910 listening. We hope this is enormously helpful for you. If you have any 145 00:10:52.910 --> 00:10:56.990 questions, you can email me James at sweet fish media dot com or connect 146 00:10:56.990 --> 00:11:02.400 with me on LinkedIn. James Carberry, C a r B a r y. We will talk to you soon. 147 00:11:02.940 --> 00:11:11.250 Hey, everybody. Logan was sweet fish here. If you're a regular listener of B 148 00:11:11.250 --> 00:11:14.910 two b growth, you know that I'm one of the co host of the show, but you may 149 00:11:14.910 --> 00:11:19.050 not know that I also head up the sales team here. A sweet fish. So for those 150 00:11:19.050 --> 00:11:22.640 of you in sales or sales office, I wanted to take a second to share 151 00:11:22.640 --> 00:11:26.770 something that's made us insanely more efficient. Lately, our team has been 152 00:11:26.770 --> 00:11:30.590 using We'd like you for the past few months and what used to take us four 153 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:36.440 hours gathering Contact data now takes us on Lee. One where 75% more efficient 154 00:11:36.450 --> 00:11:40.290 were able to move faster with outbound prospecting. And organizing our 155 00:11:40.290 --> 00:11:45.140 campaigns is so much easier than before. 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