June 7, 2021

Behind the Curtain of a Robust Thought Leadership Program

In this episode, Dan Sanchez talks to S cott Miller who was the Executive Director of Thought Leadership at Franklin Covey about the inner workings of their massive thought leadership program.


They talk about:

  • What they look for in future thought leaders
  • How they groom them to get to the next level
  • How they administrate a program across 23 heavy hitters
Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.140 --> 00:00:09.110 welcome back to be, to be growth. I'm dan Sanchez, Friends call me dan says, 3 00:00:09.110 --> 00:00:13.880 and I'm here with scott miller, who is the former executive vice President of 4 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:18.970 Thought leadership at Stephen Covey and is currently a strategic advisor. Um 5 00:00:18.970 --> 00:00:21.420 I'm excited to talk to you about thought leadership because he's been 6 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:26.410 doing it for a long time for a well known brand in the marketing and just 7 00:00:26.410 --> 00:00:30.890 business strategy space um with plenty of years in as you know, as you've been 8 00:00:30.900 --> 00:00:35.200 uh joined me on this journey into thought leadership. It's a topic that 9 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:38.570 I've become increasingly passionate about and I've been a student of and 10 00:00:38.570 --> 00:00:43.470 I'm just trying to interview more people like scott to learn myself what 11 00:00:43.470 --> 00:00:46.620 it actually takes to make thought leadership, what it actually takes to 12 00:00:46.620 --> 00:00:51.970 become a thought leader in position to company as a thought leader. So thank 13 00:00:51.970 --> 00:00:56.580 you so much for joining me scott and welcome to the show, Sanchez, thank you 14 00:00:56.580 --> 00:01:00.340 for the platform for the spotlight honor to be here. Absolutely. And 15 00:01:00.340 --> 00:01:04.680 thanks for calling me Sanchez, that's how I know your friend, but you teach 16 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:09.370 it up pretty well. Right. So I was up for me to either um ride or fail on 17 00:01:09.370 --> 00:01:14.550 that one. That's right, make it easy. But I wanted to learn a little bit 18 00:01:14.550 --> 00:01:17.840 about like how you even got started into this thing of thought leadership. 19 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:22.130 There's as being in a company like this for 25 years, probably a number of 20 00:01:22.130 --> 00:01:26.660 different paths you could have taken. Um how did you land and specifically 21 00:01:26.660 --> 00:01:31.120 focusing on thought leadership for a brand? Like franklin Covey. Sure, my 22 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:34.940 career has been really quite deliberate. As deliberate as I could create it. I'm 23 00:01:34.940 --> 00:01:40.620 from florida originally, I was a associate of the Disney Development 24 00:01:40.620 --> 00:01:43.360 Company, which is the real estate development arm of the walt Disney 25 00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:47.580 company for four years. I'm from Orlando. They invited me to leave, 26 00:01:47.590 --> 00:01:52.650 which is the gracious way that Disney fires you. So here I am a 26 year old 27 00:01:52.660 --> 00:01:57.080 unemployed catholic boy from Orlando. Where do I move? Provo Utah, Right, 28 00:01:57.080 --> 00:02:01.010 where all the Catholics are? That's a joke. If you've been to provo Utah. But 29 00:02:01.010 --> 00:02:04.670 I moved out here in 1996. I live in Salt Lake City now with my wife and our 30 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:09.240 three young sons and I joined what is now the franklin Covey Company, which 31 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:13.510 is by most measures the most prominent biggest leadership development firm in 32 00:02:13.510 --> 00:02:17.320 the world, where a public company offices in Gosh, nearly 50 plus 33 00:02:17.320 --> 00:02:21.280 countries. I started on the sales side, right as a front line sales person 34 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:25.160 carrying a bag, managing schools, universities, community colleges, 35 00:02:25.160 --> 00:02:30.220 selling leadership productivity strategy solutions. I then became the 36 00:02:30.220 --> 00:02:33.520 general manager of our division in Chicago, where I got kind of dipped 37 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.680 into the corporate world really for the first time in my thirties, was always 38 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:41.080 on the education side or the private sector side or on the real estate side. 39 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:45.170 With Disney grew that division to become a large consulting practice for 40 00:02:45.170 --> 00:02:48.690 the firm, came back to the company and became the company's first ever chief 41 00:02:48.690 --> 00:02:53.200 marketing officer, where I was that in that role for eight years, which is 42 00:02:53.200 --> 00:02:57.930 twice the annual tenure of CMOS and public companies proud to report. And 43 00:02:57.930 --> 00:03:01.550 then I disrupted myself. I moved out of that role for a variety of reasons. We 44 00:03:01.550 --> 00:03:04.850 need some new, fresh younger talent, including someone who had a SAS 45 00:03:04.850 --> 00:03:08.630 background as we became a SAS company. And I took on the role for the first 46 00:03:08.630 --> 00:03:12.460 time in the company as the executive vice president of thought leadership 47 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:16.080 and I'm happy to explain what that means more if you're interested. But as 48 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:20.490 a thought leadership firm, I, arguably one of the most impactful, influential 49 00:03:20.490 --> 00:03:25.980 in the world. I I built that division for the last three years, stepped away 50 00:03:25.980 --> 00:03:29.800 from the company, retired after 25 years. And now I'm a advisor to the 51 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:33.270 firm As a consultant still lead their Thought Leadership Strategy, lead all 52 00:03:33.270 --> 00:03:38.400 of our books podcast, keynote speeches, you name it, host myself, the world's 53 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:42.900 largest weekly leadership podcast called on Leadership with Scott Miller. 54 00:03:42.910 --> 00:03:45.990 And now I'm an advisor to the firm, writing, speaking on my own and 55 00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:50.760 building my own brand as well. So I got a few um messes and successes under my 56 00:03:50.760 --> 00:03:53.660 belt when it comes to Thought Leadership. So happy to talk about the 57 00:03:53.660 --> 00:03:57.720 topic on any particular area you want to go into. There's so many different 58 00:03:57.720 --> 00:04:00.950 questions that I could possibly in angles to possibly go out though, I'd 59 00:04:00.950 --> 00:04:05.440 like to hear from you, especially as you're starting to go at it. Um as a 60 00:04:05.450 --> 00:04:11.030 kind of like a solo agent now, um how you feel becoming a thought leader from 61 00:04:11.030 --> 00:04:15.080 just starting as a professional and actually aspiring and then actually 62 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:18.959 taking clear steps to it. Like what would those steps be if your 63 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:23.160 professional, maybe a CMA or a Ceo of a SAS company, you got your first round 64 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:27.070 of funding your relatively unknown other than for being the ceo of this 65 00:04:27.070 --> 00:04:30.070 company. But now you want to become a thought leader. Like if you were an 66 00:04:30.070 --> 00:04:34.170 adviser to that person, what would the steps that have to take B in order to 67 00:04:34.170 --> 00:04:38.410 be positioned as that? I'd assume you'd never call yourself a thought leader, 68 00:04:38.410 --> 00:04:42.200 right? That's job number one. Right? As soon as you call yourself an expert, 69 00:04:42.210 --> 00:04:45.900 you're not so do not read, do not refer to yourself as a thought leader. 70 00:04:45.900 --> 00:04:51.540 Somebody else does fain humility but accept it. But job # one never refer to 71 00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:54.630 yourself as a thought leader. Well, I'm glad you have that position. I was 72 00:04:54.630 --> 00:04:57.240 gonna have to start winding down this interview. If you were like, no, start 73 00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:01.500 calling yourself, just proclaim it. Proclaim it, it's going to be as one of 74 00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:04.370 the world's most prominent thought leaders. Let me weigh in on that, right? 75 00:05:04.380 --> 00:05:09.000 No. So let me level set for a moment dan, because let me define what I think 76 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.640 thought leadership is as a executive Vice President of thought leadership 77 00:05:12.640 --> 00:05:16.630 and my title, I'd say kind of just rudimentary thought leadership is the 78 00:05:16.630 --> 00:05:21.990 new public relations mean no more. Do companies have legions of people in pr 79 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:25.700 calling up news reporters in newsrooms? There are no more reporters. There are 80 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:29.660 no more newsrooms. They barely exist anymore. They're not on the local 81 00:05:29.670 --> 00:05:34.520 business beat. Right? The, the Salt Lake tribune or the, the Dallas, 82 00:05:34.520 --> 00:05:38.160 whatever it is, does not have someone assigned to cover local product 83 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:42.310 launches and local business. They don't exist anymore for a variety of obvious 84 00:05:42.310 --> 00:05:46.220 reasons what has been disrupted in the media business. So really public 85 00:05:46.220 --> 00:05:49.700 relations, although it still exists, I think primarily for, you know, 86 00:05:49.700 --> 00:05:53.580 collateral damage control, reputation repair, right? It's usually you hire a 87 00:05:53.590 --> 00:05:58.620 PR firm in the moment of a reputational crisis. Thought leadership is the new 88 00:05:58.620 --> 00:06:05.060 pr it is the megaphone, if you will where your announcing your expertise to 89 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:11.010 those who care on a topic that matters to both of you. So it's very carefully 90 00:06:11.020 --> 00:06:17.330 calibrating deliberately focusing on who are the people out there that need 91 00:06:17.330 --> 00:06:22.490 to know and understand your expertise on a topic. It might be leadership 92 00:06:22.490 --> 00:06:26.140 development, that might be some kind of engineering, might be a medical 93 00:06:26.140 --> 00:06:30.860 invention right now, whatever it is, who needs to understand and learn that 94 00:06:30.860 --> 00:06:33.930 you have expertise and what problem they're trying to solve. That's thought 95 00:06:33.930 --> 00:06:37.420 leadership that may come in any number of fashions. And I want to answer your 96 00:06:37.420 --> 00:06:41.250 question a second, but I just kind of a level set. I think thought leadership 97 00:06:41.250 --> 00:06:45.480 is go ahead. Would you say that thought leadership is synonymous with expertise 98 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:49.200 or as extra? I've never been asked that question, you know, for risk of not 99 00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:52.140 knowing your position, I'd say it's fairly synonymous. I mean, how would 100 00:06:52.140 --> 00:06:57.080 you have thoughts on it? Who would care what your thoughts are on a topic if 101 00:06:57.080 --> 00:07:00.350 you didn't have some expertise? So yeah, I think you have to have a developed 102 00:07:00.350 --> 00:07:04.920 sense of report and acumen on a topic for someone to care about it. I'm sure 103 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:08.560 there's those that developed it over time, right? And welcome to most 104 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:13.400 entrepreneurs. But first and foremost, I think to your point, you have to have 105 00:07:13.400 --> 00:07:17.670 a articulated point of view. You have to bring to the table something new, 106 00:07:17.670 --> 00:07:21.350 something different, something valuable that someone else will choose to read 107 00:07:21.350 --> 00:07:26.140 your book, listen to your podcast, read your article, come to your speech book, 108 00:07:26.140 --> 00:07:30.480 you as a keynote speaker. So there's no question you should have an articulated 109 00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:34.780 point of view, whether it be highly experiential or well researched or just 110 00:07:34.780 --> 00:07:38.760 practice, because you've got the number of reps that somebody else doesn't have. 111 00:07:38.770 --> 00:07:41.940 No, I have essentially the same same viewpoint of what you just articulated. 112 00:07:41.940 --> 00:07:45.500 What I want to make sure is that some people will take, like, we'll say that 113 00:07:45.500 --> 00:07:49.220 you can be an expert if it's synonymous, then you don't need an articulated 114 00:07:49.220 --> 00:07:53.190 point of view, right? Because there's lots of public intellectuals that like 115 00:07:53.190 --> 00:07:56.320 to critique all day because they know the space intimately well, but they're 116 00:07:56.320 --> 00:07:59.730 not necessarily offering anything new. And I'd usually say that a thought 117 00:07:59.730 --> 00:08:04.850 leader is somebody who's adding in his prerequisite his expertise, right? But 118 00:08:04.850 --> 00:08:09.390 is then offering something new, original, useful novel um in a way 119 00:08:09.390 --> 00:08:13.930 that's useful and I'm sure there is space for both. To your question, what 120 00:08:13.930 --> 00:08:18.210 advice would I give you know, to an entrepreneur, a founder I give there's 121 00:08:18.220 --> 00:08:20.690 different advice for different scenarios, right? I mean, I would first 122 00:08:20.690 --> 00:08:24.390 want to really understand what circumstance are they in Clayton? 123 00:08:24.390 --> 00:08:27.610 Christensen was a good friend of mine passed a year ago, of course, the 124 00:08:27.610 --> 00:08:31.150 famous Harvard Professor, author and innovative expert, right? I mean, he 125 00:08:31.150 --> 00:08:35.799 was obsessed with helping business leaders understand what circumstance 126 00:08:35.799 --> 00:08:39.929 are their clients in circumstance based marketing, we know it often known as 127 00:08:39.940 --> 00:08:44.660 the job to be done. Right? So my first question to your client might be, what 128 00:08:44.660 --> 00:08:47.760 is your circumstance? You know? Are you looking to grow your business? Are you 129 00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:52.000 looking to sell a book? Are you trying to sell a book to build your keynote 130 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.870 business? I think, you know, for different reasons, different people 131 00:08:54.870 --> 00:08:57.630 have different strategies. Some people do it because they want to build their 132 00:08:57.630 --> 00:09:01.450 own brand, right? They have they've made all the money they want to make, 133 00:09:01.450 --> 00:09:04.880 they have helped their customers and now they want to be seen as someone who 134 00:09:04.880 --> 00:09:08.020 is influential and build their brand. Nothing wrong with that. If that's your 135 00:09:08.020 --> 00:09:11.890 strategy, I may or may not choose to hire you. I'll ask you selfishly, since 136 00:09:11.890 --> 00:09:16.440 I get to meet with a lot of these ceos and cmos and different people um as a 137 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:21.230 podcast agency, part of the big reason why people come to buy podcasting is 138 00:09:21.230 --> 00:09:23.980 because I thought leadership and I'm usually the one kind of coaching them 139 00:09:23.980 --> 00:09:26.600 on podcasting. That's why I'm doing the deep dive and learning more about it 140 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:30.640 myself is to give them better answers. And usually they're doing it for a mix 141 00:09:30.650 --> 00:09:35.030 of motivations, right? There is a personal branding aspect to it because 142 00:09:35.030 --> 00:09:38.920 they know this startup that they're in right now isn't the final destination 143 00:09:38.920 --> 00:09:42.560 of their life, right? They know by using this they can build a little 144 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:45.830 personal brand here that that might sell, it might fail, but either way 145 00:09:45.830 --> 00:09:49.720 their personal brand gets to live live beyond that. So there is a personal 146 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:53.210 branding aspect to it that gets to live beyond the startup. But addition to 147 00:09:53.210 --> 00:09:56.300 that, they do want to be, essentially, it's somewhere between the mix of 148 00:09:56.310 --> 00:10:01.450 branding and demand gen by having that leader that's out in front and being 149 00:10:01.460 --> 00:10:05.060 positioned as innovative. With thought leadership marketing, they want to be 150 00:10:05.060 --> 00:10:11.100 seen and have their company known for being innovative and whatever kind of 151 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:14.300 industry or category you're either designing a category that position 152 00:10:14.300 --> 00:10:16.880 themselves in a category. And they usually want to use thought leadership 153 00:10:16.880 --> 00:10:22.230 as a means to do that. So it's, it's somewhere between branding so that 154 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:25.270 people like having their mind that this company is innovative because they have 155 00:10:25.270 --> 00:10:30.500 an innovative leader and they want to use it also to generate demand. So 156 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:34.260 people are waking up the new ways of looking at things everything you said 157 00:10:34.270 --> 00:10:39.230 amen to. I think the one point out to build on is you've you've used the word 158 00:10:39.230 --> 00:10:44.550 leader. I think too often organizations picked the wrong person to play the 159 00:10:44.550 --> 00:10:48.130 role of thought leader because you are the Ceo or the founder does not 160 00:10:48.130 --> 00:10:50.940 correlate that you should be the thought leader. Maybe it should be your 161 00:10:50.940 --> 00:10:54.440 chief scientist or your chief legal counsel. It should be your chief 162 00:10:54.450 --> 00:10:58.960 innovation expert or your chief whoever. Right? Not every time should that 163 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:02.560 perhaps rarely should the founder of the owner of the C. E. O. B. The 164 00:11:02.560 --> 00:11:05.790 thought leader. It depends on their medium. No, they're there. If you're 165 00:11:05.790 --> 00:11:11.690 trying to host a podcast and you're very shy, retiring personality and, and 166 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:15.280 or you have a stutter or something like that, it may not be the best venue for 167 00:11:15.280 --> 00:11:18.670 you. You might be a genius writer. You might have several thought leaders. You 168 00:11:18.670 --> 00:11:22.200 might have, you know, the the leader might be great at writing an article 169 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:25.830 for ink magazine and maybe you pick somebody else to have the personality 170 00:11:25.830 --> 00:11:32.390 for keynotes or for interviews. I do think too often organizations select 171 00:11:32.390 --> 00:11:37.260 the wrong person for the wrong medium and one person rarely has the talent to 172 00:11:37.260 --> 00:11:41.640 crush it in all mediums. So be thoughtful about as a leader. Should 173 00:11:41.640 --> 00:11:45.740 you be the person that is the thought leader or perhaps someone else might be 174 00:11:45.740 --> 00:11:48.610 better for your firm, depending upon what your goal is. So that's 175 00:11:48.610 --> 00:11:53.660 interesting. What would you say? The characteristics that are required in 176 00:11:53.660 --> 00:11:57.820 order to be seen as that person depends on the industry depends on the medium. 177 00:11:57.820 --> 00:12:01.140 I mean, here's a good example, right? I mean, there's lots of things I cannot 178 00:12:01.140 --> 00:12:07.490 do well fly a plane cook parent, you know, but I have lots of poor skills, 179 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:10.630 but I do have one skill of fairly ubiquitous and I can write and I can 180 00:12:10.630 --> 00:12:14.400 speak and I can host and I can interview. And so I'm actually probably 181 00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:18.680 a fairly good candidate to be considered a thought leader on topics 182 00:12:18.680 --> 00:12:21.830 where I have expertise, right? It should not be a thought leader on six 183 00:12:21.830 --> 00:12:28.340 sigma or on only in manufacturing. So I just think it depends on the content. I 184 00:12:28.340 --> 00:12:31.890 mean, you might have a topic where you're perhaps you're in the beauty 185 00:12:31.890 --> 00:12:38.300 industry, right? Perhaps your you own a series of hair hair salons and maybe 186 00:12:38.300 --> 00:12:41.120 you are charismatic and outgoing and you know the practice well, you know 187 00:12:41.130 --> 00:12:43.870 how to run the business side, as well as the marketing side and the 188 00:12:43.870 --> 00:12:48.720 recruiting side and you wanna you wanna school and perhaps you can speak to all 189 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:52.410 of those in a variety of mediums and modalities. I think you have to be self 190 00:12:52.410 --> 00:12:56.600 aware, you have to recognize am I the best person? Again, that really has to 191 00:12:56.600 --> 00:13:02.160 do with your intent. If your intent is to build your brand, you build your ego, 192 00:13:02.540 --> 00:13:05.680 then you might find yourself being the thought leader in mediums that don't 193 00:13:05.680 --> 00:13:09.020 resonate well with people that are searching for advice. I love this 194 00:13:09.020 --> 00:13:13.680 question dan. And that is um I think effective thought leaders, effective 195 00:13:13.680 --> 00:13:20.140 leaders are more concerned with what is right than being right, so take a step 196 00:13:20.140 --> 00:13:25.370 back and say who in this firm would be the best thought leader provided they 197 00:13:25.370 --> 00:13:27.970 have, you know, the capability, the knowledge, you can teach knowledge to a 198 00:13:27.970 --> 00:13:31.830 lot of people and they can innovate on their own. I know a lot of people that 199 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:35.720 serve as thought leaders of their firms and you're thinking, yeah, you've got 200 00:13:35.730 --> 00:13:40.280 you have expertise but your ability to persuade me to hire you or your ability 201 00:13:40.280 --> 00:13:46.150 to articulate it is not resonant with me. So I turn you out, turn you off. No. 202 00:13:46.150 --> 00:13:50.700 I definitely say that the ability to kind of create a personal brand around 203 00:13:50.700 --> 00:13:54.230 that expertise is probably one of those things that you want to be able to 204 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:58.130 build right. Because people not only have to be able to hear and understand 205 00:13:58.130 --> 00:14:01.410 your expertise, they have to believe that they have to trust you, so they 206 00:14:01.410 --> 00:14:05.960 have to be able to kind of like to some degree resonate with you and who you 207 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:10.460 are, maybe even your your background, your backstory um to some degree. But 208 00:14:10.940 --> 00:14:14.820 do you think for a company that it would be worth playing out as a single 209 00:14:14.830 --> 00:14:18.370 thought leader, do you think it's better for a company to have multiple 210 00:14:18.370 --> 00:14:21.980 thought leaders? Maybe all your, maybe you pitch all your employees and being 211 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:26.660 that leaders to some degree? Yeah, I think it depends. Uh I don't think 212 00:14:26.660 --> 00:14:29.180 everyone is a thought leader. I don't think every employee should be a 213 00:14:29.180 --> 00:14:31.940 thought leader because you have people that are off brand off message there 214 00:14:31.940 --> 00:14:35.130 perhaps saying things that are confusing, contradictory. And so I 215 00:14:35.130 --> 00:14:38.510 think she'll be very deliberate around how you curate thought leaders for what 216 00:14:38.510 --> 00:14:42.980 industry, here's a good client, here's an example. I'm coaching a client in a 217 00:14:42.990 --> 00:14:48.290 pro bono fashion where the ceo of this major hospital is going to create a 218 00:14:48.290 --> 00:14:53.240 podcast and I love this idea and I think actually he would be and I told 219 00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:58.120 him, I think he actually will be a better ceo host of this podcast for 220 00:14:58.130 --> 00:15:02.550 internal associates. That there are thousands of employees in this health 221 00:15:02.550 --> 00:15:07.260 care network I think will be great at building culture retention recruitment. 222 00:15:08.340 --> 00:15:11.430 I think he'll be the right person to be the thought leader on how they're 223 00:15:11.430 --> 00:15:14.950 leading out. I don't think he's the right thought leader for the industry 224 00:15:14.950 --> 00:15:17.680 per se, but I think maybe that maybe the chief medical officer or somebody 225 00:15:17.680 --> 00:15:22.690 else that has a little more charisma, um I don't actually think the ceo is a 226 00:15:22.690 --> 00:15:26.080 physician where the chief medical officer is, and he might be a better 227 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:30.680 better spokesperson for um mergers, acquisitions, things like that, you 228 00:15:30.680 --> 00:15:35.350 know, and trials that kind of stuff. So, again, circumstance, right. I mean, I 229 00:15:35.350 --> 00:15:40.090 know a lot of ceos that are very charismatic, but quite frankly can't 230 00:15:40.090 --> 00:15:43.400 write a column weekly to save their life, right? They don't have the 231 00:15:43.400 --> 00:15:47.010 discipline or the management or they're just there are better with the spoken 232 00:15:47.010 --> 00:15:50.400 word than the written words. So it comes down to self awareness and how to 233 00:15:50.400 --> 00:15:54.980 get a team that you trust, sit down and say, what should our thought leadership 234 00:15:54.980 --> 00:15:58.090 strategy be? Where do our customers find us? You know, it might just be 235 00:15:58.090 --> 00:16:01.420 that you should have a thought leader that's out key noting at conferences, 236 00:16:01.430 --> 00:16:05.490 or perhaps you're writing a column in a, an industry journal that doesn't take 237 00:16:05.490 --> 00:16:10.040 any charisma that just takes expertise and good writing skills. And again, you 238 00:16:10.040 --> 00:16:13.200 know, match task to talent, match it to the right industry. That's how 239 00:16:13.200 --> 00:16:17.720 ubiquitous answer. But I think it's a valuable answer is one strategy does 240 00:16:17.720 --> 00:16:22.500 not fit every organization. Look at franklin covey, you know, we produce 241 00:16:22.510 --> 00:16:26.390 intellectual property for a living, we don't own anything we don't own and 242 00:16:26.390 --> 00:16:30.140 there's no inventory books and manuals, but beyond that it's all personal 243 00:16:30.140 --> 00:16:35.410 property. But we find ourselves hosting podcast and also being guests on 244 00:16:35.410 --> 00:16:39.490 podcast were writing books and audiobooks and giving keynote speeches 245 00:16:39.490 --> 00:16:43.450 and writing columns and articles and interviews and it's endless and we pick 246 00:16:43.460 --> 00:16:48.500 people that are expert in that medium. You don't see our ceo writing any 247 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:52.820 columns or giving any speeches or any interviews, it's not his passion, he 248 00:16:52.820 --> 00:16:56.410 doesn't want to be in the limelight. He probably should be a little more public 249 00:16:56.410 --> 00:17:00.550 in his brand, but quite frankly is more of a producer director. Therefore we 250 00:17:00.550 --> 00:17:06.260 deliberately craft people that have charisma and expertise and energy and 251 00:17:06.260 --> 00:17:11.839 competence and points of view and deploy them very strategically. So tell 252 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:15.869 me about that process that you take internally. So you find people that are 253 00:17:15.869 --> 00:17:20.140 already have strong points of view, expertise and our charismatic and can 254 00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:23.550 get in front of a microphone or on stage or something. So you have that 255 00:17:24.040 --> 00:17:28.310 that's already pretty far along. What do you do with them next? Well, there's 256 00:17:28.310 --> 00:17:32.360 more than just that too, right is we make sure that they are on brand, that 257 00:17:32.360 --> 00:17:36.010 they have paid the reps, that they have, you know, X 1000 of client 258 00:17:36.020 --> 00:17:40.230 implementations behind them and that they have the ability to not just, you 259 00:17:40.230 --> 00:17:44.160 know, charm someone behind a microphone, but they actually have strong 260 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:47.750 leadership skills and they have intuition and self awareness. They can 261 00:17:47.750 --> 00:17:52.070 write and they can speak. We make sure that they have a good reputation, Right? 262 00:17:52.070 --> 00:17:55.230 I mean, I don't check their credit score, but I sit down with the key 263 00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:58.330 people office, we talk about where they've been, where they are, where we 264 00:17:58.330 --> 00:18:02.580 think we're going, right? I mean, what is their own reputation outside the 265 00:18:02.580 --> 00:18:05.180 firm? Do you think they'll be around for a while? It's part of that is very 266 00:18:05.180 --> 00:18:07.960 pragmatic. It's almost like getting married. I mean, kind of investment 267 00:18:07.960 --> 00:18:11.970 you're gonna be making in them, you better make sure its job and there's 268 00:18:11.970 --> 00:18:16.060 upside for them, Right? And I'll tell you, I'll tell you probably the biggest 269 00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:21.270 criteria is your social media. I mean I I'm the author of multiple books. You 270 00:18:21.270 --> 00:18:25.200 can see them behind me if you see a video clip and I lead our book strategy 271 00:18:25.210 --> 00:18:29.390 and there's not a publisher in town that will take you as an author. If you 272 00:18:29.390 --> 00:18:33.380 don't have 50,000 instagram followers and 50,000 subscribers to your Youtube 273 00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:37.670 channel and 30,000 linked. I mean it's just the new media and I coach people 274 00:18:38.040 --> 00:18:42.320 way too often that say I hate social media. Well do you hate billboards? No 275 00:18:42.320 --> 00:18:46.590 to hate radio? No direct tv. No do you hate Time magazine? No do you hate I'm 276 00:18:46.590 --> 00:18:51.570 like you gotta get over it because social media is the way that you you 277 00:18:51.570 --> 00:18:54.740 project your thought leadership because you can write an article for ink 278 00:18:54.740 --> 00:18:58.890 magazine every week as I do. But then if you don't activate it through all of 279 00:18:58.890 --> 00:19:02.120 your social media, the only people are going to read it are those people 280 00:19:02.120 --> 00:19:06.560 happened upon it on inc magazine's So thought leaders also need to have a 281 00:19:06.840 --> 00:19:12.700 curated reputation and deliberate strategy and cadence to make sure they 282 00:19:12.700 --> 00:19:17.670 are maximizing their social media platforms. It's it's everything, it's 283 00:19:17.670 --> 00:19:22.750 the first and only question a publisher really cares about now. So it sounds 284 00:19:22.750 --> 00:19:25.840 like by the time they're getting to you, like The kind of already are thought 285 00:19:25.840 --> 00:19:28.690 leaders. I mean, if you would've got 50,000 Twitter followers and 30,000 286 00:19:28.690 --> 00:19:33.930 followers on linkedin and uh expertise and established point of view and the 287 00:19:33.930 --> 00:19:38.410 background to get there, I'm like, I mean you're kind of a micro thought 288 00:19:38.410 --> 00:19:42.470 leader into some point. Well, you might be a micro thought leader and you might 289 00:19:42.470 --> 00:19:47.970 have 400 connections on linkedin. So if I think you have promised on a variety 290 00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:52.090 of you know, criteria, I'm willing to help you build your thought leadership, 291 00:19:52.100 --> 00:19:55.570 it's gonna are your social media is going to take, you know, three years to 292 00:19:55.570 --> 00:20:00.000 build your linked incredibly with a cadence where you've got a post two 293 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.460 times a day or one time a day with really thoughtful value, add things, 294 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:08.450 not just pictures of your kids, which sometimes is a good. Also you'd be 295 00:20:08.450 --> 00:20:12.210 surprised, I think, I mean, you know, I I've been this business a long time and 296 00:20:12.220 --> 00:20:17.740 and you know, I'll post an income that I think crushes it. I'll post a picture 297 00:20:17.740 --> 00:20:21.270 of my kids dancing, my dining room table and we'll get, you know, triple 298 00:20:21.270 --> 00:20:25.570 the engagement, right? So I don't mean that to be funny, but also need to be 299 00:20:25.570 --> 00:20:28.580 true. You also have to build a connection with your audience. They 300 00:20:28.580 --> 00:20:31.800 want to know that you are real, that you have struggles, that you're 301 00:20:31.810 --> 00:20:36.680 thinking through something that you're relatable, that you also take vacations 302 00:20:36.680 --> 00:20:40.380 and that you you know, take pictures of your sushi dinner. Do you believe 303 00:20:40.390 --> 00:20:43.670 people want to know that you're relatable, you're trustworthy and that 304 00:20:43.670 --> 00:20:47.500 they like you outside of just your expertise. It may sound trite, but you 305 00:20:47.500 --> 00:20:50.240 look at the best people that are thought leaders that are also 306 00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:54.730 distributing through social media and you see the whole person, not just 307 00:20:54.730 --> 00:20:59.610 there, there there's sterile or sterile article people want to know, I mean, 308 00:20:59.610 --> 00:21:02.580 that's why Gary Vaynerchuk is successful because he shared little 309 00:21:02.590 --> 00:21:07.390 bits of his story and in fact that he likes this or that or has dreamed of 310 00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:10.070 the new york Jets, Right. I mean, people buy into that kind of stuff 311 00:21:10.080 --> 00:21:12.760 because well, there's there's probably a good amount of Jets fans out there 312 00:21:12.760 --> 00:21:17.170 and people who really die hard for their underdog football teams, right? A 313 00:21:17.180 --> 00:21:20.460 lot of people can relate to that. I can, I'm not a big sports fan, but like 314 00:21:20.840 --> 00:21:23.600 there's all kinds of little hooks you put out there to connect with you on an 315 00:21:23.600 --> 00:21:27.400 emotional level. But ultimately he still has to deliver on all the 316 00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:31.020 business and marketing an entrepreneur ice. Right? So that's like 80% of the 317 00:21:31.020 --> 00:21:36.010 game in 2010 20% that, But what do you do? So you got that person and your on 318 00:21:36.010 --> 00:21:40.030 boarding them? You said you spend like three years like helping them get in a 319 00:21:40.030 --> 00:21:43.570 rhythm of creating it and most of that they're just, they're doing themselves, 320 00:21:43.570 --> 00:21:45.620 you're just putting in front of them being like, hey, this is what it's 321 00:21:45.620 --> 00:21:48.700 going to take, this is what you're gonna have to execute, what other 322 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:52.520 things are you putting in front of them to do once they get signed on with you 323 00:21:52.520 --> 00:21:54.460 to become these internal thought leaders. 324 00:21:55.740 --> 00:21:59.140 Yeah. So the point you mentioned that I want to reiterate is we don't just take 325 00:21:59.140 --> 00:22:01.930 people that are, you know, good looking and well spoken and turn them into 326 00:22:01.930 --> 00:22:06.670 thought leaders, right? I mean, these people have serious reps of expertise 327 00:22:06.670 --> 00:22:10.180 on the topic in which we've decided to make them the public face of the firm, 328 00:22:10.370 --> 00:22:13.360 but we do a lot of things that, you know, it may seem superficial, but we 329 00:22:13.360 --> 00:22:18.480 do media training, right? We we we sit them down with an outside media company 330 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:22.860 and ask them hard questions about reputational issues and what is the 331 00:22:22.860 --> 00:22:25.830 company point of view and find out whether they know it or not. And we 332 00:22:25.830 --> 00:22:29.510 make sure they have it authentically, we make sure that they know they're an 333 00:22:29.510 --> 00:22:33.770 ambassador for the firm on and off the clock and that when they've had four 334 00:22:33.770 --> 00:22:37.110 martinis on a friday night at Bruce chris they need to know that probably 335 00:22:37.110 --> 00:22:40.890 was too too many. And I mean that to be, you know, metaphorical, but we will 336 00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:45.480 talk to them about the responsibility they have for our organizational 337 00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:49.780 reputation. We make sure that if they're incubating a new idea that they 338 00:22:49.780 --> 00:22:52.190 talk with us about it right? We don't want them to go out and test it with 339 00:22:52.190 --> 00:22:56.400 clients because they have a fiduciary responsibility that we need to remind 340 00:22:56.410 --> 00:23:00.530 them of. We hone their writing skills. So we actually put them through some 341 00:23:00.530 --> 00:23:04.150 writing training because you know how you write for Fortune magazine is 342 00:23:04.150 --> 00:23:07.170 different than how you might write answers to a question for Good 343 00:23:07.170 --> 00:23:10.970 Housekeeping, which is different than how you might right, you know, a blog 344 00:23:10.970 --> 00:23:15.390 post or a book for that matter. So we actually we really helped to build 345 00:23:15.390 --> 00:23:19.060 people's writing skills and their speaking skills, their interviewing 346 00:23:19.060 --> 00:23:23.310 skills. So we do a fair amount of training like I said before a lot of 347 00:23:23.310 --> 00:23:27.540 social media training as well, you know, I also do training on your own personal 348 00:23:27.540 --> 00:23:31.420 image, right, kind of clothes you wear and you know your grooming habits and 349 00:23:31.420 --> 00:23:34.060 things like that. I mean my responsibility to make sure that you 350 00:23:34.060 --> 00:23:38.540 are a good ambassador for the brand, You also know where the company is 351 00:23:38.540 --> 00:23:42.130 headed at any given time. You can articulate kind of where the company 352 00:23:42.130 --> 00:23:45.070 isn't just where we are now, but where we are headed, what are we seeing in 353 00:23:45.070 --> 00:23:49.550 the market place that you are just a thought leader on an island, but you 354 00:23:49.550 --> 00:23:52.600 can speak to other topics of the organization, you might be a thought 355 00:23:52.600 --> 00:23:56.940 leader on organizational change, but you should be adept at understanding 356 00:23:56.940 --> 00:24:00.720 where we're headed on productivity, on building a culture of trust. What are 357 00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:04.680 the trends and employee retain recruitment? Of retaining, retaining 358 00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:09.720 right? So retention rather. So we do a fair amount of refreshing frequently on 359 00:24:09.720 --> 00:24:11.460 kind of, where is the overall firm? 360 00:24:12.540 --> 00:24:17.280 Gosh, what have I missed a lot? It's a lot. What do you do for training? Like 361 00:24:17.290 --> 00:24:21.350 for example, you said writing skills, does that mean they're they're 362 00:24:21.350 --> 00:24:24.920 submitting and you or somebody else on the team is behind it and kind of like 363 00:24:24.930 --> 00:24:29.500 even appointing a different program books you recommend? Or is it kind of 364 00:24:29.500 --> 00:24:33.080 like a pretty well established? They go through this for the first three months 365 00:24:33.080 --> 00:24:37.700 or we just start critiquing everything you write. Here's what I usually find 366 00:24:37.710 --> 00:24:41.380 people who tell you their a thought leader aren't and people who tell you 367 00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:45.790 they can write can't, so there's usually an inverse correlation in your 368 00:24:45.790 --> 00:24:49.240 confidence and your ability to speak it and say it out loud and what's really 369 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:55.120 true. So we do I mean, we we sit everyone down in a different place and 370 00:24:55.120 --> 00:24:58.850 we have them right for us, right? It might be a column on article or blog 371 00:24:58.850 --> 00:25:02.800 post, and we just talk about stuff like smooth transitions, right? And what is 372 00:25:02.800 --> 00:25:07.500 the call to action? And how far deep into the article? Is your idea embedded? 373 00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:11.630 And who are you writing this for? Is this for health care practitioners? Or 374 00:25:11.630 --> 00:25:15.550 is it for hospitality professionals? And you can't just keep the same idea 375 00:25:15.740 --> 00:25:18.480 and we appreciate the same column, right, in the same article or the 376 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:22.370 interview that matter. So yeah, we do. We we have an editor, we do teach 377 00:25:22.370 --> 00:25:25.940 punctuation and grammar, but we also expect that by the time you're a 378 00:25:25.940 --> 00:25:28.630 thought leader you're able to you know, compose but you'd be surprised. You 379 00:25:28.630 --> 00:25:32.910 know there are some very credible, articulate thought leaders that can 380 00:25:32.910 --> 00:25:38.020 crush An audience of 10,000 but they can't put five sentences together or 381 00:25:38.020 --> 00:25:41.850 five paragraphs together to save their life. So sometimes we have to protect 382 00:25:41.850 --> 00:25:44.910 them from themselves and we may choose to have a ghostwriter right? Interview 383 00:25:44.910 --> 00:25:48.520 them and then turn that into some article and they approve it and change 384 00:25:48.520 --> 00:25:53.250 it in such again, each person is in a different situation. It's so helpful to 385 00:25:53.250 --> 00:25:57.960 identify a thought leader and then have a really high courage conversation. 386 00:25:58.540 --> 00:26:00.580 Here's where we think your strengths are, here's what I think your 387 00:26:00.580 --> 00:26:03.640 weaknesses are, here's where we need to protect you from here. We're gonna 388 00:26:03.640 --> 00:26:08.270 burden or burgeon your skills and build them up. That can only happen when they 389 00:26:08.270 --> 00:26:13.030 trust your intent and you trust that they have humility and vulnerability 390 00:26:13.030 --> 00:26:15.690 and that they're willing to have you grow them. There are some thought 391 00:26:15.690 --> 00:26:19.560 leaders that are quite frankly arrogant, you know what? And I tend to steer 392 00:26:19.560 --> 00:26:24.620 clear from them and don't give them a whole lot of platform because they're 393 00:26:24.620 --> 00:26:27.790 not moving with the times, they're not adapting them going, their skills. 394 00:26:27.790 --> 00:26:32.790 Thought leadership is an iterative process. I know a lot of experts that I 395 00:26:32.790 --> 00:26:37.530 have had on my podcast and we have not aired the tape because they literally 396 00:26:37.530 --> 00:26:42.060 did not realize they gave me a 12 minute answer to a question, are you 397 00:26:42.060 --> 00:26:47.340 out of your mind? You gave me? I mean literally a 12 minute answer and so 398 00:26:47.340 --> 00:26:51.670 those that are open to the training and writing and speaking and interviewing 399 00:26:51.740 --> 00:26:57.980 man, I'm all in on hey everybody Logan with sweet fish here. If you're a 400 00:26:57.980 --> 00:27:01.830 regular listener of GDP growth, you know that I'm one of the co host of the 401 00:27:01.830 --> 00:27:05.840 show, but you may not know that. I also head up the sales team here at Sweet 402 00:27:05.840 --> 00:27:10.410 Fish. So for those of you in sales or sales ops, I wanted to take a second to 403 00:27:10.410 --> 00:27:14.570 share something that's made us insanely more efficient lately. Our team has 404 00:27:14.570 --> 00:27:18.640 been using lead I. Q. For the past few months and what used to take us four 405 00:27:18.650 --> 00:27:24.490 hours gathering contact data. Now takes us only one where 75% more efficient 406 00:27:24.500 --> 00:27:28.350 were able to move faster with outbound prospecting and organizing our 407 00:27:28.350 --> 00:27:33.170 campaigns is so much easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys check out 408 00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:39.640 lead EQ as well. You can check them out at least I Q dot com. That's L E A D I 409 00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:47.330 Q dot com. All right, let's get back to the show, man. It sounds like a lot of 410 00:27:47.330 --> 00:27:50.290 work, but at the same time it's like well, I mean you're taking people that 411 00:27:50.290 --> 00:27:56.120 are probably 60 70% of the way there and Polishing up to get to 100%. Which 412 00:27:56.120 --> 00:28:00.420 somebody operating at 100% is going to be operating pretty effectively. How 413 00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:07.690 many people do you have a better These kinds of thought leaders at 2043, 23. 414 00:28:07.690 --> 00:28:11.180 So on any given day I've got like a big like an air traffic controller right on 415 00:28:11.180 --> 00:28:14.960 the team. And we're helping them with their social media where many of them 416 00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:18.910 have weekly columns at any given time. There is, you know, eight or 10 media 417 00:28:18.910 --> 00:28:23.100 inquiries coming in a day and some of them aren't trained to be spokespersons 418 00:28:23.100 --> 00:28:26.710 for the company because there might be a not nefarious but there might be a 419 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:31.670 journalist who has an angle and he or she. And so we make sure that in some 420 00:28:31.670 --> 00:28:35.040 cases we might have our director of public relations on the phone with them. 421 00:28:35.050 --> 00:28:38.560 We might just simply say, you know what that person's expertise on this topic 422 00:28:38.940 --> 00:28:42.770 Isn't what you need when you talk to this person. So we have 23 and any 423 00:28:42.770 --> 00:28:46.530 given time, we have probably four or five that are kind of coming up in the 424 00:28:46.530 --> 00:28:51.960 ranks. You've not seen them yet, but we're helping them perfect. They're not 425 00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:55.970 thought leadership per se because they've got articulated expertise on 426 00:28:55.970 --> 00:28:59.420 the topic, but helping make sure that when we do launch them, that they're 427 00:28:59.420 --> 00:29:03.470 never in over their head, right, that there safely ensconced. If you will, we 428 00:29:03.470 --> 00:29:06.070 don't try to control the message. I don't need it to be like the White 429 00:29:06.070 --> 00:29:09.310 House communications firm, but we want to make sure that, you know, we don't 430 00:29:09.310 --> 00:29:13.430 lead people into a path that they could get over their heads in. It makes sense 431 00:29:13.430 --> 00:29:16.090 that you kind of get boundaries. It's like, hey, here's some boundaries play 432 00:29:16.090 --> 00:29:20.560 within those, right? There, probably fairly generous boundaries. So 23 433 00:29:20.560 --> 00:29:23.830 people is a lot to be doing this kind of work with. Have you started, were 434 00:29:23.830 --> 00:29:29.670 you like number one? No, but I was so it's interesting you ask that because 435 00:29:29.670 --> 00:29:34.710 my job was the Executive Vice President of Thought leadership, right? A a you 436 00:29:34.710 --> 00:29:39.290 know, named officer in a public company. So my job was to identify, grow and 437 00:29:39.290 --> 00:29:42.250 build people, you know, and I might have actually, there are some cases 438 00:29:42.250 --> 00:29:45.760 where I plucked a person out of the audience and said, gosh, I think you've 439 00:29:45.760 --> 00:29:50.770 got great talent and you know, you're so in demand with clients on this topic, 440 00:29:50.780 --> 00:29:53.880 we're thinking of writing a book and this is the book, were writing on, 441 00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:57.040 Would you be interested here all the things you'll have to do and how do you 442 00:29:57.040 --> 00:30:00.050 feel about this? And you're willing to pay the price to become an expert on 443 00:30:00.050 --> 00:30:04.550 this topic? Your, you know, more than a novice, but so we'll build them up. So 444 00:30:04.550 --> 00:30:07.950 I had four or five people that were quite significant already. 445 00:30:09.040 --> 00:30:11.610 People that sold, you know, a million or two million copies of their book 446 00:30:11.610 --> 00:30:15.400 inside the firm. And then I started writing myself and podcasting and 447 00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:20.100 speaking. And maybe once along the way, someone referred to me as a thought 448 00:30:20.100 --> 00:30:23.420 leader, you will never hear those words come out of my mouth. I'm an author and 449 00:30:23.420 --> 00:30:28.250 I'm a speaker and I have expertise on topics, I'm not afraid to say, you know, 450 00:30:28.260 --> 00:30:32.760 I have expertise on this because I know I do have expertise on how to launch a 451 00:30:32.760 --> 00:30:37.310 book. I have expertise on how to build communities of clients inside 452 00:30:37.310 --> 00:30:41.460 organizations, to buy your products and things. So along the way, I kind of 453 00:30:42.140 --> 00:30:45.790 moved from being producer and director to also being kind of actor on the 454 00:30:45.790 --> 00:30:51.410 stage and I'm in I'm in half the time I'm a thought leader as described by 455 00:30:51.410 --> 00:30:55.180 others, and the other half the time I'm promoting and raising other thought 456 00:30:55.180 --> 00:30:58.780 leaders. But I think it's good because it allows me to understand the 457 00:30:58.780 --> 00:31:02.090 challenges of thought leader plays, and I can say to people, you know what guys, 458 00:31:02.090 --> 00:31:04.990 you gotta follow what I'm doing and you may not like what I'm doing, but learn 459 00:31:04.990 --> 00:31:08.870 from it, take what's good leave, what's bad and create your own, your own 460 00:31:08.870 --> 00:31:12.210 strategy around it. That works for you and for the firm, There's nothing wrong 461 00:31:12.210 --> 00:31:14.790 with being a thought leader. There's nothing wrong to aspire to be a thought 462 00:31:14.790 --> 00:31:18.860 later. Take the steps to be one. You just can never call yourself one right? 463 00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:24.250 A men beautifully said. And that's that's the first and the second rule of 464 00:31:24.250 --> 00:31:27.230 thought leadership, Right? And I would never be afraid to talk about thought 465 00:31:27.230 --> 00:31:30.850 leadership. I know there's been parodies about it and such and I think 466 00:31:30.850 --> 00:31:32.960 they might even been one on saturday night live or some like that. That's 467 00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:36.600 totally fine. But there's no question thought leadership is a space that I 468 00:31:36.600 --> 00:31:41.090 think any organization, I don't care if you're a mechanic, if you're a dentist, 469 00:31:41.100 --> 00:31:45.000 if you want a carpet business. I mean, there is no reason why, you know, as 470 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:47.930 the owner of a carpet business. If you can write, you couldn't have a weekly 471 00:31:47.930 --> 00:31:51.800 blog that goes onto your linkedin account, right? Or goes to your company 472 00:31:51.800 --> 00:31:57.690 website. Every organization could and should have a thought leadership 473 00:31:57.690 --> 00:32:01.870 strategy because that's kind of in many ways the new marketing, new advertising, 474 00:32:01.870 --> 00:32:07.020 not just the new pr so the way you guys are implementing thought leadership is 475 00:32:07.020 --> 00:32:10.540 different from most of the guests that I'm going to be talking to have the 476 00:32:10.550 --> 00:32:14.410 title like thought leadership in their their title, right? Usually their pr 477 00:32:14.410 --> 00:32:17.710 bent maybe journalists and background. And they're helping the company come up 478 00:32:17.710 --> 00:32:20.610 with thought leadership content. They're talking to the subject matter 479 00:32:20.610 --> 00:32:23.450 experts and then crafting it into content. It's the usual thought 480 00:32:23.450 --> 00:32:26.440 leadership role. But what you guys are doing is a whole step ahead and that 481 00:32:26.440 --> 00:32:31.510 you're developing a 23 is a big team of thought leaders. Um so I'm kind of 482 00:32:31.510 --> 00:32:35.300 curious about the administration of this kind of a program. Are they all 483 00:32:35.300 --> 00:32:39.460 these people on on staff, are they like full time salaried or are they like 484 00:32:40.040 --> 00:32:44.080 ambassadors of some kind where they're like, so there may be there all paid 485 00:32:44.080 --> 00:32:45.420 differently, maybe they all have different. 486 00:32:46.840 --> 00:32:49.940 Yeah, they're all different. Right? Some are executive officers and the 487 00:32:49.940 --> 00:32:53.540 firm, here's a good example. Our Chief people Officer is a man named Todd 488 00:32:53.540 --> 00:32:57.260 Davis. He's the Chief People Officer, Franklin Covey, this is an executive 489 00:32:57.260 --> 00:33:02.810 role with a large group and uh he is a two time Wall Street Journal 490 00:33:02.810 --> 00:33:06.300 bestselling author. He gives keynotes around the world. He does interviews 491 00:33:06.300 --> 00:33:10.340 for us. He writes responses to journalists all the time, wanting to 492 00:33:10.340 --> 00:33:14.280 have a quote from him in their article, whatever it is, he's on salary. He 493 00:33:14.280 --> 00:33:18.530 makes no money off any of his thought leadership. Right? He's on salary as an 494 00:33:18.530 --> 00:33:22.000 executive officer. We have people who are independent contractors that like 495 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:25.510 for example, Stephen M. R. Covey, Doctor Covey's oldest son. He wrote the 496 00:33:25.510 --> 00:33:30.060 book The Speed of Trust, an amazing book. He's considered by most to be the 497 00:33:30.060 --> 00:33:34.420 most preeminent Nayman organizational trust worldwide. He's actually a 498 00:33:34.420 --> 00:33:38.600 contractor for us. We have full time consultants. We have some sales people 499 00:33:38.610 --> 00:33:42.090 who on the side are kind of working their way to become an author and 500 00:33:42.090 --> 00:33:45.590 they're writing blogs and they're kind of building their brand. Everyone's at 501 00:33:45.590 --> 00:33:50.670 a different level in terms of impact, competence, compensation is honestly 502 00:33:50.670 --> 00:33:54.630 all different. We have some outside publicist we hire, we have an outside 503 00:33:54.630 --> 00:34:00.080 digital distribution company that helps us to land and maintain columns. And we 504 00:34:00.080 --> 00:34:03.340 have a team of three or four people inside that help us produce podcast and 505 00:34:03.340 --> 00:34:07.730 activate columns and things. So not a large, not a huge team, about three or 506 00:34:07.730 --> 00:34:12.469 four people that work to envision execute the strategies that I lied. But 507 00:34:12.840 --> 00:34:17.770 uh, it's a machine that I think is uh, second to none in our industry. I have 508 00:34:17.770 --> 00:34:21.330 not been one like quite like that. I think Dave Ramsey would probably like 509 00:34:21.330 --> 00:34:25.590 he's got a number of personalities that are pumping out content but not 23, but 510 00:34:25.590 --> 00:34:28.600 he's got quite a few. Now. I notice he's trying to diversify away from his 511 00:34:28.600 --> 00:34:32.360 own personal brand. Right? That's kind of been interested and I think he's 512 00:34:32.360 --> 00:34:37.090 lost a few recently too. I think he's lost a few as well. I know Dave what is 513 00:34:37.100 --> 00:34:39.840 in the nature of the beast to help people build their own platforms 514 00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:41.820 naturally. Some of them are going to want to go off and chase it. And I 515 00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:49.179 actually think that's, that's not bad. That's yeah, I know especially well 516 00:34:49.190 --> 00:34:53.250 people are going to be talking about you. Right? That's right. Look at me. I 517 00:34:53.250 --> 00:34:56.330 mean, I'm the perfect example, right? I mean I left the firm and I'm the 518 00:34:56.330 --> 00:35:00.650 biggest evangelist out there for the firm on more podcasts than anybody and 519 00:35:00.650 --> 00:35:04.910 I'm a huge ambassador for the firm. You're exactly who's, who's responsible 520 00:35:04.910 --> 00:35:09.780 for finding the new people. Do you just have like people raising their hands 521 00:35:09.780 --> 00:35:12.500 being like, hey, like I've noticed you're doing this thing. Can I get in 522 00:35:12.500 --> 00:35:15.290 on that? Do you have like a number of those? Just pick from them or do you go 523 00:35:15.290 --> 00:35:18.190 find them or is it kind of a combination of both? Yeah, It's 524 00:35:18.190 --> 00:35:22.180 controversial. Right. I mean, I think a lot of people probably think scott has 525 00:35:22.180 --> 00:35:26.440 his favorites and I hope that's not true. But you know, we have a grid that 526 00:35:26.440 --> 00:35:31.590 we look at all kinds of criteria and I have my eye on someone and I always 527 00:35:31.590 --> 00:35:35.840 consult with the ceo of the company, the chief people officer, the DP 528 00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:39.380 consulting and four or five people talk about their reputation, their 529 00:35:39.380 --> 00:35:43.250 competence of a team player. Do you think they're here for the long term? 530 00:35:43.340 --> 00:35:46.500 Do we think they have expertise? Are they open to feedback? Are they thunder 531 00:35:46.500 --> 00:35:50.080 work with? Like, do you enjoy working with, Are they humble? Are they 532 00:35:50.080 --> 00:35:55.240 grateful? Are they open to learning? So as I'm raising someone up, it's usually 533 00:35:55.240 --> 00:35:59.230 because I've had a series of four or five conversations with three or four 534 00:35:59.230 --> 00:36:02.690 executives from different points of view of different backgrounds of 535 00:36:02.690 --> 00:36:05.780 different races. Right? Just to kind of make sure that we have different age 536 00:36:05.780 --> 00:36:10.040 groups. I'm not just, I'm not anointing people on my own by any stretch. No, 537 00:36:10.040 --> 00:36:13.080 it's definitely a team effort, but it's sounds like it's fairly robust and 538 00:36:13.080 --> 00:36:17.270 you're trying to get multiple people on board with making the decision beyond 539 00:36:17.270 --> 00:36:22.860 yourself, which at a company that size is smart, especially as a, as a public 540 00:36:22.860 --> 00:36:25.530 company. Right? Because quite frankly, the majority of our thought leaders for 541 00:36:25.530 --> 00:36:29.980 decades were, you know, caucasian males from Utah's where our company is based 542 00:36:29.980 --> 00:36:33.940 and that worked for us for, you know, several decades. And of course it's not 543 00:36:33.940 --> 00:36:37.850 anymore. So we have a very diverse group of thought leaders that are 544 00:36:37.850 --> 00:36:41.650 coming up in the firm, actually more diverse than our our members of our 545 00:36:41.650 --> 00:36:45.070 board of directors. And even our executives were quite proud of the 546 00:36:45.070 --> 00:36:48.900 level of diversity, both in age and gender and experience and background, 547 00:36:48.910 --> 00:36:53.210 ethnicity, sexual orientation. Right? In terms of making sure that our 548 00:36:53.220 --> 00:36:57.430 thought leadership quite frankly, looks more like our customer base than it 549 00:36:57.430 --> 00:37:01.180 does our employee base right now. How do you know if it's successful, You got 550 00:37:01.180 --> 00:37:06.290 23 people on this program. How do you know if it's working? Yeah, different 551 00:37:06.290 --> 00:37:10.680 criteria for different mediums and channels. Here's a good example. Um If 552 00:37:10.680 --> 00:37:15.070 I write a new book six months from now and we pitch when you invite me back on, 553 00:37:15.080 --> 00:37:19.280 it's working. If you don't invite me back on, it's not working, we might 554 00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:24.430 sell 100,000 books on a particular topic. But if that's not driving 555 00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:29.290 clients to be interested in purchasing the solution to adopt in their program, 556 00:37:29.290 --> 00:37:32.940 the organization, all we've done is sold a bunch of books. You know if we 557 00:37:32.940 --> 00:37:38.260 book a keynote speech at the conference And they pay us $30,000 for that. But 558 00:37:38.270 --> 00:37:42.100 you know the phone doesn't ring with 12 clients wanting to book that keynote 559 00:37:42.110 --> 00:37:46.410 and then that person doesn't drive ongoing business. It's not working. If 560 00:37:46.410 --> 00:37:51.370 we write a column and fortune magazine for a series of five issues and that 561 00:37:51.370 --> 00:37:55.530 person's social media doesn't grow. It's not working. So we have lots of 562 00:37:55.530 --> 00:38:02.710 measures and tests to know are you just building likes and impressions or are 563 00:38:02.710 --> 00:38:07.510 you actually building influence where people know to come to you when they 564 00:38:07.510 --> 00:38:09.950 want to solve that problem? Because there's lots of times when someone's 565 00:38:09.950 --> 00:38:14.520 not ready yet, right? You're just, you're building credibility with them 566 00:38:14.530 --> 00:38:18.270 that when they are ready they will come to you. There's some times when you 567 00:38:18.270 --> 00:38:23.430 might have a ceo of a hospitality company that later becomes the ceo of 568 00:38:23.430 --> 00:38:28.340 an airline and now she is thinking about you and says, I'm gonna call up 569 00:38:28.340 --> 00:38:31.160 dan because I've been, I've been loving dams topic and dan might be able to 570 00:38:31.160 --> 00:38:36.690 refer me to someone in our firm or even outside our firm. Sometimes a long 571 00:38:36.690 --> 00:38:39.890 burning you're not gonna become a thought leader and have a thought 572 00:38:39.890 --> 00:38:43.950 leadership strategy and see your qualified leads exponentially in 573 00:38:43.950 --> 00:38:47.510 salesforce dot com. That ain't gonna happen. Thought leadership is a 574 00:38:47.510 --> 00:38:52.290 committed long term strategy where you're building reputational 575 00:38:52.290 --> 00:38:56.360 credibility and a point of view that someone will come to you when they are 576 00:38:56.360 --> 00:39:01.320 ready. You thought leadership does not tip A decision like you know a 577 00:39:01.320 --> 00:39:05.840 marketing campaign or advertising campaign, its overall kind of 578 00:39:05.850 --> 00:39:10.920 infrastructure that helps you shape the reputational credibility of your brand. 579 00:39:10.930 --> 00:39:14.480 So how do you monitor all that though? Because it's got to be a lot of work if 580 00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:18.000 you got 23 people that's and they're all doing a variety of activities. I'm 581 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:21.690 like do you have them self report in what they've gotten or what has 582 00:39:21.690 --> 00:39:24.590 happened or do you have maybe someone underneath you that's kind of like 583 00:39:24.590 --> 00:39:30.230 keeping tabs with everybody to make sure things are working a variety of a 584 00:39:30.230 --> 00:39:33.910 variety. I would be fraudulent if I said we took and tie every single you 585 00:39:33.910 --> 00:39:37.950 know post and what the outcome is. But we we we have some good processes in 586 00:39:37.950 --> 00:39:43.080 place that are very predictive of of uh success. We know he placed someone at a 587 00:39:43.080 --> 00:39:48.320 certain conference or a certain An event or a certain publication or on a 588 00:39:48.320 --> 00:39:51.740 certain podcast or TV program. We generally know what that will do and 589 00:39:51.740 --> 00:39:55.440 sometimes you get it wrong, I mean you could go on to the today show and not 590 00:39:55.440 --> 00:40:00.830 sell four books. You could go on Donald Miller's podcast and sell 8000 books. 591 00:40:00.910 --> 00:40:04.250 It's just it's all kind of situational. You naturally sometimes you get it 592 00:40:04.250 --> 00:40:09.240 right. Sometimes you don't, we have pretty good measures in place to uh 593 00:40:09.710 --> 00:40:14.920 make educated decisions on. Was that a good investment? Sometimes they're not, 594 00:40:14.920 --> 00:40:18.510 sometimes they are quite frankly dan, some of its instinctive gut, right. 595 00:40:18.510 --> 00:40:22.710 Some of it is, let's just put this person, let's give them a column and 596 00:40:22.710 --> 00:40:26.510 Forbes and let's just make sure it happens every week for 52 weeks. Let's 597 00:40:26.510 --> 00:40:30.000 watch their social media, let's watch their lead flow. We check in every 598 00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:33.560 three or four weeks with them and we know if it's working or not based on, 599 00:40:33.560 --> 00:40:38.430 you know how many inquiries they got. Forbes might not be the best place for 600 00:40:38.430 --> 00:40:42.860 a column, unemployed retention. It might be a great place for column on 601 00:40:42.870 --> 00:40:48.190 building sales pipeline or converting your pipeline to revenue. So we, we we 602 00:40:48.190 --> 00:40:52.850 we we are increasingly more adept at knowing who, what, when and where, how 603 00:40:52.850 --> 00:40:57.940 do you make sure ambassador actually champions the company? Like they all 604 00:40:57.940 --> 00:41:01.980 have their individual things that there a thought leader on. How do you, how do 605 00:41:01.980 --> 00:41:05.430 you, how do you tie the company back into each one of their own particulars? 606 00:41:05.810 --> 00:41:10.640 Her particular expertise is like, is there a unifying theme between all 23 607 00:41:11.010 --> 00:41:13.610 or do you have standards you give to all of them being like, hey, you have 608 00:41:13.610 --> 00:41:18.450 to do this regularly, do these things regularly, for example, and sweet fish. 609 00:41:18.450 --> 00:41:22.040 We have, we don't have thought leaders are really like more brand evangelists, 610 00:41:22.050 --> 00:41:26.720 but like all of our employees and maybe this maybe may not be a good idea, but 611 00:41:26.720 --> 00:41:29.560 they have to change their byline to kind of have the company position 612 00:41:29.560 --> 00:41:32.020 statement and the byline. So that is there commenting and stuff. We're 613 00:41:32.020 --> 00:41:35.590 putting a lot of resources in their own posts and stuff. Um you know, our our 614 00:41:35.590 --> 00:41:39.460 positioning statement is always there. We do podcasts or beauty brands so that, 615 00:41:39.470 --> 00:41:42.140 you know, that's kind of like an ad that's just floating out there. We're 616 00:41:42.140 --> 00:41:46.500 gonna linked in. We could probably do a better job at that. But these are 617 00:41:46.500 --> 00:41:50.390 mature, sophisticated people. We, we don't have to monitor them, we don't 618 00:41:50.390 --> 00:41:53.580 police them at all. We know that they're going to be great ambassadors 619 00:41:53.580 --> 00:41:57.280 for our brain. We also know that, you know, they also have a brand on their 620 00:41:57.280 --> 00:42:01.310 own and that you know, they may not always be an employee of Franklin Covey. 621 00:42:01.310 --> 00:42:04.270 We recognize there's some value in it for them as well. They're doing a lot 622 00:42:04.270 --> 00:42:07.940 of work to build our brand and they ought to build their own as well. Not 623 00:42:07.940 --> 00:42:11.580 at the expense of our firm, but I just philosophically believe that I can 624 00:42:11.580 --> 00:42:15.870 build my brand and also Bill, Franklin Covey is not the expense of franklin 625 00:42:15.870 --> 00:42:19.920 Covey write the books that I've written. Don't come at the expense of franklin 626 00:42:19.920 --> 00:42:22.970 Covey. So I just generally think we pick people who have an abundance 627 00:42:22.970 --> 00:42:27.670 mentality that their mindset is, they are an ambassador for franklin Covey 628 00:42:27.680 --> 00:42:33.350 and I recognize that they also have a brand of their own and they can 629 00:42:33.350 --> 00:42:37.070 peacefully coexist with us and interviews and columns and podcasts and 630 00:42:37.070 --> 00:42:42.670 speeches. We do obviously have very strict rules about certain things like 631 00:42:42.670 --> 00:42:48.740 so for example, you know, you can't go out and give a speech for us and market 632 00:42:48.740 --> 00:42:52.750 or pitch books that you wrote outside of our firm. That's not ethical, right? 633 00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:57.200 You can't take one of our clients and an offline pitch one of your products. 634 00:42:57.200 --> 00:43:00.660 If you again are a contractor, it's not ethical. And you know, there's been a 635 00:43:00.660 --> 00:43:04.380 couple incursions along the way, but the vast majority of people are highly 636 00:43:04.380 --> 00:43:09.100 ethical, implicitly trustworthy. And it really isn't even a question for us. So 637 00:43:09.110 --> 00:43:12.640 mainly you have like a baseline standard of just like business ethics 638 00:43:12.640 --> 00:43:17.300 that are kind of like Plane one on one like base level. But then you like, 639 00:43:17.310 --> 00:43:22.120 we're going to help you. We know it'll come back to us. That's exactly right. 640 00:43:22.120 --> 00:43:26.890 I mean, these are, these are people that we hopefully trust implicitly and 641 00:43:26.890 --> 00:43:28.950 I don't want to jeopardize their relationship, right. These people are 642 00:43:28.950 --> 00:43:32.430 smart, self governing people. So honestly, we have to do very little 643 00:43:32.430 --> 00:43:36.850 policing of that. I can think of maybe two incursions and I've been in the 644 00:43:36.850 --> 00:43:41.300 firm 25 years and they both still work for us were perhaps a little more 645 00:43:41.300 --> 00:43:47.610 cautious. Um, and you know, generally our Ceo has a methodology of assume 646 00:43:47.620 --> 00:43:52.720 good intent and that was what permeates our culture here. What services do you 647 00:43:52.720 --> 00:43:56.300 provide for them? So they're doing a lot of work already. They got social 648 00:43:56.300 --> 00:43:59.580 media kind of going there doing a lot of their own work. But what what are 649 00:43:59.580 --> 00:44:03.820 you doing to help them build their brands? Yeah, So we provide a global 650 00:44:03.820 --> 00:44:08.720 platform. I mean we provide, you know, people who can help to build their 651 00:44:08.730 --> 00:44:13.750 social following. We have people that edit their columns and articles. We 652 00:44:13.750 --> 00:44:18.600 have a podcast that I host. It goes to eight million people every week. So if 653 00:44:18.600 --> 00:44:21.580 one of our thought leaders earns the right to get on our podcast, I mean 654 00:44:21.590 --> 00:44:25.810 Matthew McConaughey was two weeks ago, right, and next week was going to be 655 00:44:25.810 --> 00:44:30.490 Bill Gates. I'm not sure it's going to be right now. He's having a rough row 656 00:44:30.490 --> 00:44:34.060 right now. But you know, for one of our thought leaders to have a chance to 657 00:44:34.060 --> 00:44:38.870 earn our a spot on our podcast is a big deal for them. I actually host a 658 00:44:38.870 --> 00:44:44.130 franklin Covey book Club for a new start up called book Club dot com, 659 00:44:44.130 --> 00:44:47.710 launching in june and so they're gonna get a chance to actually be a guest on 660 00:44:47.710 --> 00:44:52.370 Franklin Covey's book Club. So we have a massive platform where we get to 661 00:44:52.370 --> 00:44:56.720 shine our spotlight onto them. So there's a significant amount of 662 00:44:57.190 --> 00:45:01.840 gasoline that we put into their tank. But at the end of the day, they have to 663 00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:05.720 turn the engine on and they have to keep the keep it gas because it's an 664 00:45:05.720 --> 00:45:09.980 issue. There are some people that don't want to pay the price and they, and 665 00:45:09.980 --> 00:45:14.820 they look at me as a model and I say, yeah, well I spent six hours on social 666 00:45:14.820 --> 00:45:19.320 media yesterday and I also worked six hours and I also wrote for four hours. 667 00:45:19.320 --> 00:45:22.730 So yeah, I had a long day yesterday. Right? And, and so you got to put the 668 00:45:22.730 --> 00:45:28.670 price in and if someone is not going to put the price in, then um, they get 88 669 00:45:28.680 --> 00:45:34.000 octane gas, not 93 octane gas. I'll tell them I'm very clear. I mean you're 670 00:45:34.000 --> 00:45:37.400 not putting the work in so I'm putting the team back off. You I have a lot of 671 00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:42.160 hikers. I don't have a lot. No. And kind of like all or nothing. Or do you 672 00:45:42.160 --> 00:45:45.390 have like different stages? Right. You're like, because a brand like yours 673 00:45:45.390 --> 00:45:48.920 has access different levels of access to different things. You got websites, 674 00:45:48.920 --> 00:45:53.450 you got podcasts, you got speaking deals. You know, I mean kind of like 675 00:45:53.450 --> 00:45:57.120 the Dave Ramsey who gets it. I don't know what the size of his show is, but 676 00:45:57.120 --> 00:46:00.630 like not everybody speaking with him on his prime time, some of them are on 677 00:46:00.630 --> 00:46:04.700 different things there on podcasts are lower down. Yeah, I think he has the 678 00:46:04.700 --> 00:46:08.550 second largest radio program in the world that rush Limbaugh has passed I 679 00:46:08.550 --> 00:46:14.440 think Hannity was two and Dave Ramsey was three But there's no question if 680 00:46:14.440 --> 00:46:20.220 someone is crushing it on their end, they're getting 93% octane gas from 681 00:46:20.220 --> 00:46:20.800 Scott 682 00:46:21.880 --> 00:46:24.570 Question it, meaning they're writing their reading, they're taking 683 00:46:24.570 --> 00:46:30.480 interviews, their podcasting, they're paying the price to not just build 684 00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:34.990 their social media but respond right and engage people and give people value 685 00:46:35.380 --> 00:46:39.130 With coaching and answers. Takes a lot of work. This is not for the this is 686 00:46:39.130 --> 00:46:44.130 not a full time job for anyone in our company is for me as the administrator. 687 00:46:44.140 --> 00:46:48.780 But you know these people all have mostly have day jobs. These people have 688 00:46:48.790 --> 00:46:55.530 you know 50 hour a week jobs plus they're writing plus they're doing all 689 00:46:55.530 --> 00:46:58.240 of this, right? This takes a lot. This is not for the weak of heart. Let me 690 00:46:58.240 --> 00:47:02.460 tell you, not for the lazy, nope. Sometimes you got to be able to work 691 00:47:02.470 --> 00:47:07.040 really hard in order to get out there. What's that quote, successful people 692 00:47:07.040 --> 00:47:11.370 are merely those who are willing to do what unsuccessful people weren't I 693 00:47:11.370 --> 00:47:15.570 slaughtered that. But there's so much wisdom in that right there. That's why 694 00:47:15.570 --> 00:47:19.020 it's usually see tiredness is a is a good thing, right? Taking tired Good. 695 00:47:19.030 --> 00:47:24.060 That's good because the people who run the world are tired, right? Isn't that 696 00:47:24.060 --> 00:47:28.490 true? This has been fantastic scott. If there's anything left, like if there's 697 00:47:28.490 --> 00:47:31.990 anything our audience has heard after all these questions and talking about 698 00:47:31.990 --> 00:47:35.470 this program, what what question haven't I asked? That would be good for 699 00:47:35.470 --> 00:47:39.270 them to know? Yeah. You may have asked this and I may have talked over you, 700 00:47:39.270 --> 00:47:42.800 but I think, you know, to be a great thought leader, your ticket to the game 701 00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:45.210 is obviously having a articulated 702 00:47:46.280 --> 00:47:50.280 point of view that's grounded in expertise, research reps and you're 703 00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:54.410 constantly innovating, disrupting yourself, giving your audience new 704 00:47:54.410 --> 00:48:00.360 value, new experiences. You're also insatiably curious and open to coaching. 705 00:48:00.370 --> 00:48:03.270 You're willing to get some writing coaching, you're willing to get some 706 00:48:03.270 --> 00:48:08.910 platform speaking skill coaching. You're willing to take feedback from 707 00:48:08.910 --> 00:48:12.260 people who have your best interests at heart. At some point, you get to a 708 00:48:12.260 --> 00:48:15.730 level where you're drowning and feedback. I mean, look at me, I'm not I 709 00:48:15.730 --> 00:48:19.060 know celebrity, but there are blogs that are dedicated to my glasses and my 710 00:48:19.060 --> 00:48:22.100 hair. And I have I have a speech impediment, have a stutter that I've 711 00:48:22.100 --> 00:48:26.230 tried to control on this call today, and I wanted to be careful about who I 712 00:48:26.230 --> 00:48:35.020 take feedback from but like me has like like me, I would say to people um make 713 00:48:35.020 --> 00:48:39.740 your brand be that you're open to feedback that you're really working on 714 00:48:39.740 --> 00:48:44.760 all of your skills. Because I think the most impactful thought leaders are 715 00:48:44.760 --> 00:48:50.170 those that can master the variety of mediums that your organization will 716 00:48:50.170 --> 00:48:55.110 need you to crush it in key noting on stages, radio interviews, tv interviews, 717 00:48:55.110 --> 00:49:00.970 podcast interviews, writing columns, writing articles and also writing short 718 00:49:00.970 --> 00:49:04.160 snippets. I mean I have I have thought leaders all day long where we'll get an 719 00:49:04.170 --> 00:49:09.490 ap reporter That's writing an article for some kind of something or other. We 720 00:49:09.490 --> 00:49:14.000 gotta find someone and they and they want 75 words in three hours all the 721 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:18.480 time. And that person has to be able to, you know, on their lunch break 722 00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:23.250 somewhere in an airport in the Delta crown room, flip open their laptop and 723 00:49:23.250 --> 00:49:28.640 write 75 valuable words and make sure it sends happens, happens multiple 724 00:49:28.640 --> 00:49:32.820 times a day. If you want that reporter, if you want that publicist, if you want 725 00:49:32.820 --> 00:49:36.800 that editor calling you back for future comments and articles because they know 726 00:49:36.800 --> 00:49:40.360 you're a credible source That not just has a point of view, but you're willing 727 00:49:40.360 --> 00:49:44.050 to do the hard work to sit down and focus on it and give them 755 words 728 00:49:44.050 --> 00:49:48.170 that they may use 12 of the words when the article comes out. Man, that's a 729 00:49:48.170 --> 00:49:51.950 great to be able to turn that. But if you're, if you're into writing articles 730 00:49:51.950 --> 00:49:56.230 and content, all that is usually pumping out 75 words well, it's like 731 00:49:56.230 --> 00:49:59.780 you got to refine muscle to be able to do it. So it kind of makes sense. I 732 00:49:59.790 --> 00:50:03.690 think even a year ago I probably would have shuddered at that fact. I would 733 00:50:03.690 --> 00:50:07.210 have been like, oh my gosh! But after doing Lincoln constantly all all year, 734 00:50:07.220 --> 00:50:11.970 doing 1 to 2 posts most days, I'm like, yeah, I think I could squeeze that out 735 00:50:11.970 --> 00:50:15.680 in a 30 minute lunch break or something like that in an airport or on my cell 736 00:50:15.680 --> 00:50:19.740 phone in between things on my girl would be a challenge. But you know, so 737 00:50:19.740 --> 00:50:24.390 it makes a lot of sense. Where can people go to learn more about what 738 00:50:24.390 --> 00:50:29.110 you're doing? It's franklin covey. Well, so obviously franklin covey dot com. 739 00:50:29.110 --> 00:50:33.380 You can also visit my own website, scott Geoffrey miller dot com as an 740 00:50:33.380 --> 00:50:37.580 author and columnist and speaker. I put up all of the podcast that I host up 741 00:50:37.580 --> 00:50:40.880 there, all the articles that I write and you can use them as examples of how 742 00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:44.840 to improve your own meaning. Like do what I'm doing but do it better. You're 743 00:50:44.840 --> 00:50:49.330 welcome to use everything that I do as an example of how you should and could 744 00:50:49.340 --> 00:50:53.700 do it better. So franklin covey dot com. You also can visit scott, Geoffrey 745 00:50:53.710 --> 00:50:57.720 Miller dot com. Fantastic. Again. Thanks for joining me on GDP growth. 746 00:50:57.730 --> 00:50:58.990 Thank you. 747 00:51:03.760 --> 00:51:07.720 Are you on linkedin? That's a stupid question. Of course you're on linkedin. 748 00:51:07.730 --> 00:51:12.240 Here's sweet fish. We've gone all in on the platform. Multiple people from our 749 00:51:12.240 --> 00:51:15.980 team are creating content there. Sometimes it's a funny gift for me. 750 00:51:16.030 --> 00:51:20.110 Other times it's a micro video or a slide deck and sometimes it's just a 751 00:51:20.110 --> 00:51:24.190 regular old status update that shares their unique point of view on BB 752 00:51:24.190 --> 00:51:28.420 marketing leadership or their job function. We're posting this content 753 00:51:28.420 --> 00:51:32.710 through their personal profile, not our company page. And it would warm my 754 00:51:32.710 --> 00:51:37.130 heart and soul if you connected with each of our evangelists, we'll be 755 00:51:37.130 --> 00:51:41.330 adding more down the road. But for now you should connect with Bill Read our 756 00:51:41.330 --> 00:51:46.290 Ceo Kelcy Montgomery, our creative director, dan Sanchez, our director of 757 00:51:46.290 --> 00:51:50.630 audience growth Logan Lyles, our director of partnerships and me, James 758 00:51:50.630 --> 00:51:54.220 Carberry. We're having a whole lot of fun on linked in pretty much every 759 00:51:54.220 --> 00:51:56.990 single day and we'd love for you to be a part of it.