June 6, 2021

Authentic Thought Leadership - Be the Real Deal People Respect

In this episode, Dan Sanchez outlines w hy he thinks the term "Thought Leader" has become so frowned upon and what authentic thought leadership can look like. 

To Dan, an Authentic Thought Leader is equal part expert, contributor, and authority on a niche topic. 

Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:00.240 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:08.960 welcome back to BBB growth. I'm dan Sanchez with Sweet fish media. And 3 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:13.520 today it's just a solo episode Just me, the dance says. And I'm talking about 4 00:00:13.520 --> 00:00:17.030 thought leadership because we're still in this deep dive in the beginning of 5 00:00:17.030 --> 00:00:22.080 june to explore all the facets and nuances of this thing called thought 6 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:26.570 leadership marketing. Now I've been working on this for just about over a 7 00:00:26.570 --> 00:00:30.330 year now. I went and read all the books on the topic. I've interviewed multiple 8 00:00:30.330 --> 00:00:35.110 people um who are experts in this topic already for this deep dive. And over 9 00:00:35.110 --> 00:00:39.990 time I've developed a few ideas of my own and it's some of those ideas 10 00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:45.290 actually want to present in this deep dive as kind of a uh I don't want to 11 00:00:45.290 --> 00:00:48.530 call myself an expert because I'm still very much a student, I'm still trying 12 00:00:48.530 --> 00:00:53.260 to figure this out. But as I've read through um the topic, as I've had many 13 00:00:53.270 --> 00:00:57.870 dozens of conversations with other people, other b two b marketers out 14 00:00:57.870 --> 00:01:01.340 there on linkedin and have kind of like worked wrestled with it and 15 00:01:01.340 --> 00:01:04.459 experimented a little bit with customers at sweet fish media and our 16 00:01:04.459 --> 00:01:07.980 own our own marketing. I've started to come to some realizations and I wanted 17 00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:12.630 to share those with you today. I want to talk about the problem of thought 18 00:01:12.630 --> 00:01:16.050 leadership, right? And it's a pretty obvious problem if you ever talk about 19 00:01:16.050 --> 00:01:19.690 this topic, especially on any kind of social network. Yeah you'll start to 20 00:01:19.690 --> 00:01:23.250 find out that there's a lot of people who don't like it. People don't like 21 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:27.200 the term thought leadership. People think all thought leaders are fakers. 22 00:01:27.210 --> 00:01:30.730 Um And that there's just it's just the buzz word, it's just a term, it's just 23 00:01:30.730 --> 00:01:34.860 the thing people like to throw on their bios that isn't real, it doesn't mean 24 00:01:34.860 --> 00:01:39.840 anything. And honestly I disagree with them wholeheartedly and I'm gonna do a 25 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:44.870 whole another episode that kind of goes into the history um and why the history 26 00:01:44.870 --> 00:01:47.890 of thought leadership where it got coined, where it's been done before, 27 00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:52.100 why it deserves to be its own specific thing, whether you like the term or not. 28 00:01:52.110 --> 00:01:56.450 Um but that's not what this episode is. This episode is talking about um why 29 00:01:56.450 --> 00:02:00.020 there are so many bad players when it comes to thought leadership, where all 30 00:02:00.020 --> 00:02:05.190 the fakers come from and what actually makes for what I'm calling authentic 31 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:09.120 thought leadership or what makes an authentic thought leader. I find that 32 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:12.430 there's actually three primary ingredients and if you miss one of 33 00:02:12.430 --> 00:02:16.000 these ingredients that explains why thought leadership has gotten such a 34 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.360 bad name out there. Because let's be honest, we've all seen it, we've all 35 00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:24.070 seen the person proclaiming and declaring themselves to be a thought 36 00:02:24.070 --> 00:02:28.730 leader and well they're not and you can feel it, it's actually quite obvious. 37 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:31.960 You can tell that they don't know what they're talking about or that they're 38 00:02:31.960 --> 00:02:36.850 just arrogant, you know, I want to say a word but I'm just not going to say it 39 00:02:36.860 --> 00:02:41.160 and they don't actually care about people. Their, their ideas aren't 40 00:02:41.160 --> 00:02:45.120 really unique, they're not really that useful but they're really into it and 41 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:49.600 they have massive blind spots, like they just don't see their own issues or 42 00:02:49.600 --> 00:02:52.420 they're just there, okay, maybe they're actually kind of thought leaders, but 43 00:02:52.420 --> 00:02:55.330 the fact that they're just declaring out in front of everybody, they're like, 44 00:02:55.330 --> 00:02:58.420 oh I'm, I thought leader, I've been in the space for so long, you're like, 45 00:02:58.430 --> 00:03:04.540 dude, stop it, just stop, Nobody likes you and you're losing you had some 46 00:03:04.540 --> 00:03:08.640 trust and you're now losing it, goodbye. Like we've all seen this happen over 47 00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:13.390 and over again on social media, on ted talks on stage, at conferences in books. 48 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:17.590 So now I want to talk about like, what are the three ingredients to authentic 49 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:21.100 thought leadership that I'm discovering as I've been reading through and kind 50 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:25.190 of exploring and thinking a lot about this and what happens when you're just 51 00:03:25.190 --> 00:03:29.640 missing one or two or all three of these elements. So first, let's cover 52 00:03:29.650 --> 00:03:33.440 the elements of what I'm calling authentic thought leadership that you 53 00:03:33.440 --> 00:03:36.010 have to, if you don't have any, if you don't have all three of these, then 54 00:03:36.010 --> 00:03:40.580 you're not a real thought leader, right? Um, the first one is expertise, right? 55 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:43.950 Kind of critical. You have to kind of know everything there is to know in 56 00:03:43.950 --> 00:03:48.330 your particular niche topic, whatever it is and the supporting areas, right? 57 00:03:48.330 --> 00:03:51.070 It's not enough to know everything about email marketing. If you're going 58 00:03:51.070 --> 00:03:55.000 to be a thought here around email marketing without knowing things about, 59 00:03:55.010 --> 00:03:59.820 you know, copyrighting and web design and just marketing, funnels and 60 00:03:59.820 --> 00:04:03.630 marketing automation, right? There's a lot of related categories that you have 61 00:04:03.630 --> 00:04:07.310 to not maybe be like the best, know everything there is to know about those 62 00:04:07.310 --> 00:04:10.980 things, which you have to be pretty well. And you have to know a lot about 63 00:04:10.980 --> 00:04:16.430 those topics in order to become a true expert on the topic of email marketing. 64 00:04:16.440 --> 00:04:21.480 Right? So that's step number one, you have to be an expert. The second part 65 00:04:21.490 --> 00:04:26.420 of an authentic thought leader is you have to be a contributor. You have to 66 00:04:26.430 --> 00:04:29.900 actually not just know everything there is to know on the topic. You have to 67 00:04:29.900 --> 00:04:33.950 advance the topic. You have to push the boundaries to where it hasn't been 68 00:04:33.950 --> 00:04:39.470 before. You have to add new ideas, new research, new points of view, new ways 69 00:04:39.470 --> 00:04:43.540 of doing things that are not only unique. Like you invented it, you made 70 00:04:43.540 --> 00:04:47.530 it. You're the one who advanced it. They have to be useful, right? Because 71 00:04:47.530 --> 00:04:50.770 you can contribute things that are just kind of like nobody thinks that nobody 72 00:04:50.770 --> 00:04:53.610 cares about. Nobody asks for that. It doesn't solve any problems. 73 00:04:53.610 --> 00:04:57.410 Congratulations. You added a unique crypto coin to the market and there's 74 00:04:57.410 --> 00:05:00.800 nothing really unique about the crypto coin. You just gave it a new name. Oh 75 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:05.630 wait, does coin, Sorry? There's nothing really unique about it, right? You have 76 00:05:05.630 --> 00:05:12.510 to actually contribute something that's both equally useful and unique and 77 00:05:12.510 --> 00:05:15.780 that's what it means to be a contributor. So you have to be an 78 00:05:15.780 --> 00:05:21.420 expert. You have to be a contributor. And lastly you have to be an authority. 79 00:05:21.430 --> 00:05:26.820 So many times I get pitched for people to come speak on this podcast that 80 00:05:26.820 --> 00:05:30.990 you're listening to right now and they have PhD So they're clearly experts on 81 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:35.200 the topic And as a PhD, I know they've done unique and original research that 82 00:05:35.200 --> 00:05:40.950 may actually be complete, 100% unique and 100% helpful. It covers a real, a 83 00:05:40.950 --> 00:05:44.960 real problem. It's well researched and they've taken the time, you know, 84 00:05:44.970 --> 00:05:49.070 stripped down the thesis, the big dissertation and put it into a helpful 85 00:05:49.070 --> 00:05:52.220 book and now they want to talk about their book on the podcast. The problem 86 00:05:52.220 --> 00:05:55.490 is, I've never heard of them. I don't know them, so I can't trust them. I 87 00:05:55.490 --> 00:05:59.130 don't really know whether their stuff is good or not because they're not an 88 00:05:59.130 --> 00:06:04.280 authority on the topic. So that's the problem you run into is you have to 89 00:06:04.280 --> 00:06:08.340 actually be an authority. And while I'll do future podcast on how you can 90 00:06:08.340 --> 00:06:12.290 actually build your expertise, become a contributor and build your authority 91 00:06:12.290 --> 00:06:17.650 over time, you do have to build all three and the steps to do so can be a 92 00:06:17.650 --> 00:06:20.970 little counterintuitive. But again, that's for another episode. Let's talk 93 00:06:20.970 --> 00:06:24.020 about what happens when you're not one of these things, which is why I thought 94 00:06:24.020 --> 00:06:28.630 leadership gets such a bad rap, because there's so many unauthentic thought 95 00:06:28.630 --> 00:06:33.790 leaders. What happens when you are an expert and you're a contributor, but 96 00:06:33.790 --> 00:06:36.920 you're not an authority, right? You're like the ph D s I just mentioned, and 97 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:42.540 that essentially just makes you unknown and by unknown, you're just not trusted. 98 00:06:42.550 --> 00:06:45.920 You have all the expertise, you know everything and you have the ideas and 99 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:49.620 that's got to be a difficult position to be in, luckily, you can take a lot 100 00:06:49.620 --> 00:06:52.960 of steps. That's probably of all of all the three positions you can be in to be 101 00:06:52.960 --> 00:06:55.960 missing one of these, It's probably the best because at least you've actually 102 00:06:55.960 --> 00:06:59.780 done due diligence and you actually have something useful and you have, you 103 00:06:59.780 --> 00:07:02.820 have the goods. The problem is nobody knows you, nobody trusts you, nobody 104 00:07:02.820 --> 00:07:06.660 likes you yet. And that's okay. That's, that's easy to fix. You need to become 105 00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:10.700 a marketer or hire someone who knows good marketing in order to Sprinkle 106 00:07:10.700 --> 00:07:14.370 your ideas out there to slowly build that trust. I mean, it would have been 107 00:07:14.370 --> 00:07:18.280 nice if you had started from day one that way, but you haven't, that's okay. 108 00:07:18.290 --> 00:07:22.680 You can start building authorities slowly now. So that's what happens if 109 00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:27.440 you're missing authority. What happens if you are an expert and you're an 110 00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:31.890 authority, but you have no unique contributions or maybe you do, and 111 00:07:31.890 --> 00:07:34.380 they're just not useful. They're not unique. You know, they're just, we're 112 00:07:34.380 --> 00:07:39.470 not just, they're just not contributions. Well then at worst, 113 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:43.150 you're kind of a rip off because you're ripping off other people's ideas and 114 00:07:43.150 --> 00:07:47.830 kind of claiming them as your own. At best, I can call. You may be a public 115 00:07:47.840 --> 00:07:51.940 intellectual, you are an expert on the topic and you have authority. So you're 116 00:07:51.940 --> 00:07:56.530 good at bringing critiques to other people's ideas, you know? So that's at 117 00:07:56.530 --> 00:08:00.500 best. But generally what we're seeing out of the market when people are 118 00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:03.570 declaring themselves thought leaders, which you should never do, by the way, 119 00:08:03.580 --> 00:08:06.580 even if you are an authentic thought leader, never call yourself a thought 120 00:08:06.580 --> 00:08:09.620 leader. It's just safer that way. No need to brag If you're if you're a 121 00:08:09.620 --> 00:08:13.210 thought leader, everybody knows it, no need to say it. But most thought 122 00:08:13.210 --> 00:08:18.730 leaders are masquerading as if they have unique ideas and they're not so 123 00:08:18.730 --> 00:08:21.890 they're rip offs. And that's why I thought leadership leaves a bad taste 124 00:08:21.900 --> 00:08:26.960 in people's mouths, right? Because they've actually well studied and the 125 00:08:26.970 --> 00:08:32.570 true, the good expert authorities, the public intellectuals will certainly let 126 00:08:32.570 --> 00:08:35.520 you know that actually those ideas aren't unique. They've come from other 127 00:08:35.520 --> 00:08:40.429 places and there's a fine line there, right? Because there's certainly, we 128 00:08:40.429 --> 00:08:43.380 all stand on the shoulders of giants. We've all taken and borrowed and 129 00:08:43.380 --> 00:08:45.890 stretched and done different things with different ideas. So there's really 130 00:08:45.890 --> 00:08:51.020 nothing unique under the sun, at least truly unique. But there are still, I 131 00:08:51.020 --> 00:08:54.260 think there are unique approach is unique. Ideas are unique ways of 132 00:08:54.260 --> 00:08:57.830 looking things that are unique enough, luckily, if you never call yourself a 133 00:08:57.830 --> 00:09:00.860 thought leader, you never really have to play with defending it because 134 00:09:00.860 --> 00:09:04.950 you're not calling yourself one. Just try to be helpful and useful to others. 135 00:09:04.950 --> 00:09:07.960 And it's not something that doesn't have to be a problem. Now, if you're 136 00:09:07.960 --> 00:09:12.510 missing the last piece, this is where the most problem problems are created, 137 00:09:12.510 --> 00:09:15.790 right? And these are the worst kinds of quote unquote thought leaders we ever 138 00:09:15.790 --> 00:09:20.420 see out there is if you are contributing unique ideas and you are 139 00:09:20.430 --> 00:09:26.220 actually like, well known, but you're not an expert. That's a huge problem, 140 00:09:26.220 --> 00:09:30.310 right? Those are what you call charlatans. And by definition, a 141 00:09:30.310 --> 00:09:34.810 charlatan is a person falsely claiming to have special knowledge or special 142 00:09:34.810 --> 00:09:40.590 skill and is indeed a fraud. It's not okay to present your ideas with 143 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:44.550 authority as if they've been well researched as if they've been tried and 144 00:09:44.550 --> 00:09:50.080 true without actually having the expertise behind it. And expertise can 145 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:53.370 come from a lot of different things, but generally people can tell really 146 00:09:53.370 --> 00:09:56.510 quickly, especially if they have a little bit, even just a little bit of 147 00:09:56.510 --> 00:09:59.460 expertise in the category itself. Um, you're gonna get found out, 148 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:03.940 unfortunately because some people are so good at marketing. Um, a lot of 149 00:10:03.940 --> 00:10:07.560 people will buy into it. A lot of people will buy the lie and by the rip 150 00:10:07.560 --> 00:10:11.430 off products, you know, if you're a marketer like me, you see all the cheap, 151 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:15.310 like crazy ads that are running on Youtube and on facebook targeting 152 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:19.080 entrepreneurs who want to make a quick buck and they're like, hey, they're 153 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:22.050 standing in front of Ferrari or making fun of the people standing in front of 154 00:10:22.050 --> 00:10:25.630 Ferraris and claiming to say like, oh, drop shipping on amazon or this or that. 155 00:10:25.630 --> 00:10:29.090 They're pretending to be an authority there, pretending to have useful, 156 00:10:29.090 --> 00:10:33.480 original ideas, but they're not experts. They're like, they're like 21 years old, 157 00:10:33.490 --> 00:10:36.840 right? And it's not that 21 year olds can't be experts. There are a lot of 158 00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:40.670 them, but generally you're like, uh just puts a bad taste in your mouth, 159 00:10:40.670 --> 00:10:44.400 right? So we've all seen those people, Well we've all seen the unknowns, we've 160 00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:47.300 all seen the rip offs, we've all seen the charlatans and that's why I thought 161 00:10:47.300 --> 00:10:51.850 leadership has a bad name. So let's change that. Let's actually seek to 162 00:10:51.850 --> 00:10:57.570 become authentic thought leaders by slowly working on our expertise as we 163 00:10:57.570 --> 00:11:02.580 work on our expertise, finding and contributing unique and useful ideas 164 00:11:02.730 --> 00:11:06.480 and slowly building authority all without ever proclaiming, being a 165 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.410 thought leader. Shoot. I mean, if you're listening to this now, you're 166 00:11:09.410 --> 00:11:12.580 like dan, is that what you're trying to do with this deep dive in some ways. 167 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:16.120 Yes. But also I'm also declaring like, dude, like I've only just started 168 00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:21.080 studying the subject um and I have years to go, but this is my intro to it. 169 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:24.800 This is my first beginnings this year. The first ideas like all good thought 170 00:11:24.800 --> 00:11:29.520 leaders come from somewhere and especially can do well if they come 171 00:11:29.530 --> 00:11:33.830 with a sense of humility. If they come with a sense of just servant hood and 172 00:11:33.830 --> 00:11:37.590 helpfulness to help other people. I have enough people coming to me asking 173 00:11:37.590 --> 00:11:41.830 me uh help them with their podcast. And one of the big motivations why they 174 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:44.880 started a podcast is because they want to position themselves as thought 175 00:11:44.880 --> 00:11:48.270 leaders. So it's actually from all those questions that I've had, the 176 00:11:48.280 --> 00:11:53.310 desire to like learn how to coach people in this. And I still have a long 177 00:11:53.310 --> 00:11:56.380 way to go. So as I'm going, that's why I'm interviewing all these 178 00:11:56.380 --> 00:12:00.870 practitioners to test ideas with and even doing this episode now. Um I've 179 00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:04.170 talked about this one at length multiple times on linkedin now, so I 180 00:12:04.170 --> 00:12:08.570 think it resonates it rings true. I still have some time to continue 181 00:12:08.570 --> 00:12:13.280 testing it with our internal Lincoln evangelist. We call them in our company 182 00:12:13.290 --> 00:12:18.080 and with customers to actually put out more research that says that these are 183 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:22.580 indeed the three key elements so far. It's looking good though. As I've 184 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:25.560 talked to other thought leaders who have been in this game longer than I 185 00:12:25.560 --> 00:12:29.760 have. As far as validating that these are really the three critical elements. 186 00:12:29.940 --> 00:12:34.260 But this is just my, my findings so far and I'm presenting it to you. So 187 00:12:34.260 --> 00:12:37.740 hopefully this episode has been helpful. I have more solos, just like this one 188 00:12:37.740 --> 00:12:42.890 coming down of things that I found to be true, things that I found to be 189 00:12:42.890 --> 00:12:47.280 helpful to me and I want to share them with you. But I don't pretend to come 190 00:12:47.290 --> 00:12:50.690 with these as well researched well backed, like things that I've been 191 00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:54.450 experimenting with for 10 years and have statistically validated with math 192 00:12:54.450 --> 00:12:58.930 and science ha um, no, they're not that these are just ideas that I'm roughly 193 00:12:58.930 --> 00:13:01.930 putting out. There is like, hey, these are something findings I've had after 194 00:13:01.930 --> 00:13:06.320 my first year into this topic. Um, I have years to go and these are 195 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:12.640 essentially a hypothesis. So take that as it is and uh if you like it, run 196 00:13:12.640 --> 00:13:16.720 with it, play with it, make it your own idea. If you so desire. Um, and if this 197 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:21.800 has been helpful, please give us a rating on your podcast app of choice 198 00:13:21.810 --> 00:13:27.430 that always helps us a ton. So this show gets found by more people and if 199 00:13:27.430 --> 00:13:31.230 you want to talk and connect with me on this idea in particular, please find me 200 00:13:31.230 --> 00:13:35.800 on linkedin dot com slash I N slash digital marketing dan would love to 201 00:13:35.800 --> 00:13:40.540 chat to you about authentic thought leadership or if maybe if I had some of 202 00:13:40.540 --> 00:13:44.040 these off, would love to hear about those two. I'm still a student and I 203 00:13:44.040 --> 00:13:48.150 need as much help as I can get. So thank you for listening. Mhm. 204 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:56.760 Mhm. Mhm Gary V says it all the time and we agree every company should think 205 00:13:56.760 --> 00:14:01.960 of themselves as a media company first, then whatever it is they actually do. 206 00:14:02.440 --> 00:14:06.210 If you know this is true, but your team is already maxed out and you can't 207 00:14:06.210 --> 00:14:10.600 produce any more content in house. We can help we produce podcasts for some 208 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:14.530 of the most innovative BB brands in the world and we also help them turn the 209 00:14:14.530 --> 00:14:19.560 content from the podcast and blog posts, micro videos and slide decks that work 210 00:14:19.560 --> 00:14:22.930 really well on linked in. If you want to learn more, go to sweet fish media 211 00:14:22.930 --> 00:14:27.460 dot com slash launch or email Logan at sweet fish media dot com.