Transcript
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Yeah,
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welcome back to BBB growth. I'm dan
Sanchez with Sweet fish media. And
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today it's just a solo episode Just me,
the dance says. And I'm talking about
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thought leadership because we're still
in this deep dive in the beginning of
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june to explore all the facets and
nuances of this thing called thought
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leadership marketing. Now I've been
working on this for just about over a
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year now. I went and read all the books
on the topic. I've interviewed multiple
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people um who are experts in this topic
already for this deep dive. And over
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time I've developed a few ideas of my
own and it's some of those ideas
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actually want to present in this deep
dive as kind of a uh I don't want to
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call myself an expert because I'm still
very much a student, I'm still trying
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to figure this out. But as I've read
through um the topic, as I've had many
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dozens of conversations with other
people, other b two b marketers out
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there on linkedin and have kind of like
worked wrestled with it and
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experimented a little bit with
customers at sweet fish media and our
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own our own marketing. I've started to
come to some realizations and I wanted
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to share those with you today. I want
to talk about the problem of thought
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leadership, right? And it's a pretty
obvious problem if you ever talk about
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this topic, especially on any kind of
social network. Yeah you'll start to
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find out that there's a lot of people
who don't like it. People don't like
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the term thought leadership. People
think all thought leaders are fakers.
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Um And that there's just it's just the
buzz word, it's just a term, it's just
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the thing people like to throw on their
bios that isn't real, it doesn't mean
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anything. And honestly I disagree with
them wholeheartedly and I'm gonna do a
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whole another episode that kind of goes
into the history um and why the history
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of thought leadership where it got
coined, where it's been done before,
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why it deserves to be its own specific
thing, whether you like the term or not.
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Um but that's not what this episode is.
This episode is talking about um why
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there are so many bad players when it
comes to thought leadership, where all
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the fakers come from and what actually
makes for what I'm calling authentic
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thought leadership or what makes an
authentic thought leader. I find that
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there's actually three primary
ingredients and if you miss one of
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these ingredients that explains why
thought leadership has gotten such a
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bad name out there. Because let's be
honest, we've all seen it, we've all
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seen the person proclaiming and
declaring themselves to be a thought
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leader and well they're not and you can
feel it, it's actually quite obvious.
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You can tell that they don't know what
they're talking about or that they're
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just arrogant, you know, I want to say
a word but I'm just not going to say it
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and they don't actually care about
people. Their, their ideas aren't
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really unique, they're not really that
useful but they're really into it and
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they have massive blind spots, like
they just don't see their own issues or
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they're just there, okay, maybe they're
actually kind of thought leaders, but
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the fact that they're just declaring
out in front of everybody, they're like,
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oh I'm, I thought leader, I've been in
the space for so long, you're like,
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dude, stop it, just stop, Nobody likes
you and you're losing you had some
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trust and you're now losing it, goodbye.
Like we've all seen this happen over
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and over again on social media, on ted
talks on stage, at conferences in books.
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So now I want to talk about like, what
are the three ingredients to authentic
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thought leadership that I'm discovering
as I've been reading through and kind
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of exploring and thinking a lot about
this and what happens when you're just
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missing one or two or all three of
these elements. So first, let's cover
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the elements of what I'm calling
authentic thought leadership that you
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have to, if you don't have any, if you
don't have all three of these, then
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you're not a real thought leader, right?
Um, the first one is expertise, right?
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Kind of critical. You have to kind of
know everything there is to know in
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your particular niche topic, whatever
it is and the supporting areas, right?
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It's not enough to know everything
about email marketing. If you're going
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to be a thought here around email
marketing without knowing things about,
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you know, copyrighting and web design
and just marketing, funnels and
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marketing automation, right? There's a
lot of related categories that you have
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to not maybe be like the best, know
everything there is to know about those
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things, which you have to be pretty
well. And you have to know a lot about
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those topics in order to become a true
expert on the topic of email marketing.
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Right? So that's step number one, you
have to be an expert. The second part
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of an authentic thought leader is you
have to be a contributor. You have to
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actually not just know everything there
is to know on the topic. You have to
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advance the topic. You have to push the
boundaries to where it hasn't been
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before. You have to add new ideas, new
research, new points of view, new ways
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of doing things that are not only
unique. Like you invented it, you made
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it. You're the one who advanced it.
They have to be useful, right? Because
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you can contribute things that are just
kind of like nobody thinks that nobody
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cares about. Nobody asks for that. It
doesn't solve any problems.
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Congratulations. You added a unique
crypto coin to the market and there's
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nothing really unique about the crypto
coin. You just gave it a new name. Oh
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wait, does coin, Sorry? There's nothing
really unique about it, right? You have
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to actually contribute something that's
both equally useful and unique and
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that's what it means to be a
contributor. So you have to be an
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expert. You have to be a contributor.
And lastly you have to be an authority.
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So many times I get pitched for people
to come speak on this podcast that
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you're listening to right now and they
have PhD So they're clearly experts on
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the topic And as a PhD, I know they've
done unique and original research that
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may actually be complete, 100% unique
and 100% helpful. It covers a real, a
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real problem. It's well researched and
they've taken the time, you know,
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stripped down the thesis, the big
dissertation and put it into a helpful
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book and now they want to talk about
their book on the podcast. The problem
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is, I've never heard of them. I don't
know them, so I can't trust them. I
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don't really know whether their stuff
is good or not because they're not an
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authority on the topic. So that's the
problem you run into is you have to
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actually be an authority. And while
I'll do future podcast on how you can
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actually build your expertise, become a
contributor and build your authority
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over time, you do have to build all
three and the steps to do so can be a
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little counterintuitive. But again,
that's for another episode. Let's talk
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about what happens when you're not one
of these things, which is why I thought
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leadership gets such a bad rap, because
there's so many unauthentic thought
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leaders. What happens when you are an
expert and you're a contributor, but
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you're not an authority, right? You're
like the ph D s I just mentioned, and
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that essentially just makes you unknown
and by unknown, you're just not trusted.
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You have all the expertise, you know
everything and you have the ideas and
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that's got to be a difficult position
to be in, luckily, you can take a lot
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of steps. That's probably of all of all
the three positions you can be in to be
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missing one of these, It's probably the
best because at least you've actually
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done due diligence and you actually
have something useful and you have, you
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have the goods. The problem is nobody
knows you, nobody trusts you, nobody
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likes you yet. And that's okay. That's,
that's easy to fix. You need to become
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a marketer or hire someone who knows
good marketing in order to Sprinkle
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your ideas out there to slowly build
that trust. I mean, it would have been
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nice if you had started from day one
that way, but you haven't, that's okay.
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You can start building authorities
slowly now. So that's what happens if
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you're missing authority. What happens
if you are an expert and you're an
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authority, but you have no unique
contributions or maybe you do, and
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they're just not useful. They're not
unique. You know, they're just, we're
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not just, they're just not
contributions. Well then at worst,
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you're kind of a rip off because you're
ripping off other people's ideas and
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kind of claiming them as your own. At
best, I can call. You may be a public
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intellectual, you are an expert on the
topic and you have authority. So you're
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good at bringing critiques to other
people's ideas, you know? So that's at
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best. But generally what we're seeing
out of the market when people are
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declaring themselves thought leaders,
which you should never do, by the way,
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even if you are an authentic thought
leader, never call yourself a thought
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leader. It's just safer that way. No
need to brag If you're if you're a
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thought leader, everybody knows it, no
need to say it. But most thought
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leaders are masquerading as if they
have unique ideas and they're not so
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they're rip offs. And that's why I
thought leadership leaves a bad taste
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in people's mouths, right? Because
they've actually well studied and the
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true, the good expert authorities, the
public intellectuals will certainly let
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you know that actually those ideas
aren't unique. They've come from other
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places and there's a fine line there,
right? Because there's certainly, we
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all stand on the shoulders of giants.
We've all taken and borrowed and
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stretched and done different things
with different ideas. So there's really
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nothing unique under the sun, at least
truly unique. But there are still, I
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think there are unique approach is
unique. Ideas are unique ways of
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looking things that are unique enough,
luckily, if you never call yourself a
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thought leader, you never really have
to play with defending it because
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you're not calling yourself one. Just
try to be helpful and useful to others.
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And it's not something that doesn't
have to be a problem. Now, if you're
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missing the last piece, this is where
the most problem problems are created,
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right? And these are the worst kinds of
quote unquote thought leaders we ever
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see out there is if you are
contributing unique ideas and you are
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actually like, well known, but you're
not an expert. That's a huge problem,
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right? Those are what you call
charlatans. And by definition, a
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charlatan is a person falsely claiming
to have special knowledge or special
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skill and is indeed a fraud. It's not
okay to present your ideas with
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authority as if they've been well
researched as if they've been tried and
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true without actually having the
expertise behind it. And expertise can
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come from a lot of different things,
but generally people can tell really
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quickly, especially if they have a
little bit, even just a little bit of
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expertise in the category itself. Um,
you're gonna get found out,
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unfortunately because some people are
so good at marketing. Um, a lot of
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people will buy into it. A lot of
people will buy the lie and by the rip
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off products, you know, if you're a
marketer like me, you see all the cheap,
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like crazy ads that are running on
Youtube and on facebook targeting
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entrepreneurs who want to make a quick
buck and they're like, hey, they're
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standing in front of Ferrari or making
fun of the people standing in front of
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Ferraris and claiming to say like, oh,
drop shipping on amazon or this or that.
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They're pretending to be an authority
there, pretending to have useful,
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original ideas, but they're not experts.
They're like, they're like 21 years old,
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right? And it's not that 21 year olds
can't be experts. There are a lot of
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them, but generally you're like, uh
just puts a bad taste in your mouth,
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right? So we've all seen those people,
Well we've all seen the unknowns, we've
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all seen the rip offs, we've all seen
the charlatans and that's why I thought
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leadership has a bad name. So let's
change that. Let's actually seek to
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become authentic thought leaders by
slowly working on our expertise as we
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work on our expertise, finding and
contributing unique and useful ideas
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and slowly building authority all
without ever proclaiming, being a
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thought leader. Shoot. I mean, if
you're listening to this now, you're
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like dan, is that what you're trying to
do with this deep dive in some ways.
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Yes. But also I'm also declaring like,
dude, like I've only just started
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studying the subject um and I have
years to go, but this is my intro to it.
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This is my first beginnings this year.
The first ideas like all good thought
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leaders come from somewhere and
especially can do well if they come
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with a sense of humility. If they come
with a sense of just servant hood and
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helpfulness to help other people. I
have enough people coming to me asking
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me uh help them with their podcast. And
one of the big motivations why they
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started a podcast is because they want
to position themselves as thought
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leaders. So it's actually from all
those questions that I've had, the
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desire to like learn how to coach
people in this. And I still have a long
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way to go. So as I'm going, that's why
I'm interviewing all these
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practitioners to test ideas with and
even doing this episode now. Um I've
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talked about this one at length
multiple times on linkedin now, so I
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think it resonates it rings true. I
still have some time to continue
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testing it with our internal Lincoln
evangelist. We call them in our company
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and with customers to actually put out
more research that says that these are
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indeed the three key elements so far.
It's looking good though. As I've
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talked to other thought leaders who
have been in this game longer than I
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have. As far as validating that these
are really the three critical elements.
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But this is just my, my findings so far
and I'm presenting it to you. So
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hopefully this episode has been helpful.
I have more solos, just like this one
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coming down of things that I found to
be true, things that I found to be
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helpful to me and I want to share them
with you. But I don't pretend to come
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with these as well researched well
backed, like things that I've been
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experimenting with for 10 years and
have statistically validated with math
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and science ha um, no, they're not that
these are just ideas that I'm roughly
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putting out. There is like, hey, these
are something findings I've had after
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my first year into this topic. Um, I
have years to go and these are
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essentially a hypothesis. So take that
as it is and uh if you like it, run
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with it, play with it, make it your own
idea. If you so desire. Um, and if this
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has been helpful, please give us a
rating on your podcast app of choice
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that always helps us a ton. So this
show gets found by more people and if
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you want to talk and connect with me on
this idea in particular, please find me
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on linkedin dot com slash I N slash
digital marketing dan would love to
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chat to you about authentic thought
leadership or if maybe if I had some of
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these off, would love to hear about
those two. I'm still a student and I
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need as much help as I can get. So
thank you for listening. Mhm.
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Mhm. Mhm Gary V says it all the time
and we agree every company should think
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of themselves as a media company first,
then whatever it is they actually do.
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If you know this is true, but your team
is already maxed out and you can't
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produce any more content in house. We
can help we produce podcasts for some
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of the most innovative BB brands in the
world and we also help them turn the
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content from the podcast and blog posts,
micro videos and slide decks that work
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really well on linked in. If you want
to learn more, go to sweet fish media
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dot com slash launch or email Logan at
sweet fish media dot com.