How to Develop Thought Leadership Without Being The Expert

WEBVTT 1 00:00:11.340 --> 00:00:14.820 Welcome back to be to be growth. I'm dan Sanchez friends, Comey dan Chevez 2 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:18.520 and I'm here with Pete Larkin, who is the senior Director of marketing at 3 00:00:18.530 --> 00:00:22.570 angle point today we're continuing the journey into the topic of thought 4 00:00:22.580 --> 00:00:25.780 leadership marketing. Kind of discovering what it is, how to become a 5 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:29.840 thought leader and how to develop the thought leadership marketing content. 6 00:00:29.850 --> 00:00:34.660 I'm excited to have peace on the show with me today because he's actually 7 00:00:35.040 --> 00:00:38.460 developed thought leadership content for angle point while not actually 8 00:00:38.460 --> 00:00:41.940 being a thought leader in the space himself. He is not the subject matter 9 00:00:41.940 --> 00:00:46.310 expert yet. He's producing fantastic thought leadership content and just 10 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:50.070 killing it, producing lots of revenue for his company with it. So Pete, 11 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:53.410 welcome to the show. Thanks dan, appreciate that man, I'm excited to be 12 00:00:53.410 --> 00:00:57.570 here and I think this is a highly relevant topic because there's a lot of 13 00:00:57.570 --> 00:01:01.260 people that are tasked with creating thought leadership content for the 14 00:01:01.260 --> 00:01:05.740 company or the Ceo or maybe the internal subject matter experts while 15 00:01:05.740 --> 00:01:09.780 not actually being the expert. So I think it's a highly common task, 16 00:01:09.790 --> 00:01:12.950 especially across people that are like, you know, their official job title 17 00:01:12.950 --> 00:01:16.220 includes thought leadership in it but not only that, but I think most 18 00:01:16.220 --> 00:01:19.960 marketers would do well to know how to do this well because there is a 19 00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:24.080 difference between creating good content and thought leadership content. 20 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:29.160 And I wanted to dive into that with you today, starting with like your story 21 00:01:29.160 --> 00:01:33.410 like how did you even get to this point of doing this of creating this kind of 22 00:01:33.410 --> 00:01:38.560 content for angle point? Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks. Um you know 23 00:01:38.570 --> 00:01:43.620 it's kind of weird um I didn't even know that the industry in which I work 24 00:01:43.630 --> 00:01:47.710 even existed until pretty much I started working here. I work in the 25 00:01:47.710 --> 00:01:52.940 space of software asset management under the umbrella of item or I. T. 26 00:01:52.940 --> 00:01:58.910 Asset management. And prior to working here at angle point I was with a sas 27 00:01:58.910 --> 00:02:04.260 company sas startup here in Utah called Ramadi. And prior to that I worked with 28 00:02:04.260 --> 00:02:08.830 a couple of different organizations in the in the marketing department. Um but 29 00:02:08.830 --> 00:02:12.410 when when I got here to angle point I was pretty much the one man band when 30 00:02:12.410 --> 00:02:20.180 we when we started up Um the company started in 2009, I joined in just to 31 00:02:20.190 --> 00:02:25.760 believe it's 2015 and it was you know, it's just me, all my lonesome doing the 32 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:28.800 one man band marketing thing. I think a lot of people can relate to that, 33 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:32.120 especially in smaller organizations. And then and then you scale up from 34 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:36.170 there and we've grown our team. Um but since then, you know I've done I've 35 00:02:36.170 --> 00:02:41.350 worn so many different hats and done, I had to get deep into so many different 36 00:02:41.350 --> 00:02:47.700 marketing functions uh and in our space as we, you know, really try to make our 37 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:54.120 place and and kind of I guess take our place in the our market and kind of uh 38 00:02:54.130 --> 00:02:58.670 as as I think everybody is trying to do kind of that number one spot kind of 39 00:02:58.670 --> 00:03:02.510 dominate in our space. Um Thought leadership has been such an important 40 00:03:02.510 --> 00:03:08.400 aspect of our work. So as you've gone about trying to become the leader in 41 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:12.840 the space, right? Thought leadership and become kind of the innovator and 42 00:03:12.850 --> 00:03:15.830 the one that people go to for information, that's how usually most 43 00:03:15.830 --> 00:03:19.070 people describe thought leadership to me. I don't know if that's the whole 44 00:03:19.070 --> 00:03:22.130 story behind I thought leadership and that's why I'm doing the deep dive, but 45 00:03:22.130 --> 00:03:26.400 that's certainly a huge aspect of it using the huge benefit of it. How did 46 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:30.830 you, what start from the beginning of what your methodology is like for 47 00:03:30.830 --> 00:03:33.980 developing thought leadership content, even though you weren't the one to kind 48 00:03:33.980 --> 00:03:38.550 of develop this space originally. Yeah, I mean one of the most important things 49 00:03:38.550 --> 00:03:42.180 that we need to be able to communicate is trust and confidence for our 50 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:45.990 customers, right? If they're going to spend a large amount of money with us, 51 00:03:45.990 --> 00:03:49.230 they have to be able to trust that that we are going to get it done for them, 52 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:54.010 right? Like we are going to be able to perform and solve their pains uh and 53 00:03:54.020 --> 00:03:59.170 take advantage of opportunities. Uh and and those were it's so critical to 54 00:03:59.170 --> 00:04:03.520 build that trust and that credibility for us, that thought leadership, you 55 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:07.380 know, kind of our approach of and I look at it as kind of watering holes, 56 00:04:07.390 --> 00:04:12.300 right? And that's kind of kind of my example, or my analogy is is I want to 57 00:04:12.310 --> 00:04:17.120 not only be a watering hole for people to come to for a source of information 58 00:04:17.170 --> 00:04:20.600 for, you know, a trusted source where anytime somebody wants to learn 59 00:04:20.610 --> 00:04:25.680 something about item or SAM software asset management, if they want to learn 60 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:30.680 about Microsoft publishing, license, contract negotiation, um I want them to 61 00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:35.650 come to us, right? And that means that, you know, we have to be able to 62 00:04:35.660 --> 00:04:40.510 demonstrate and to be able to show why people can trust us, right? And so I 63 00:04:40.510 --> 00:04:44.420 don't just want to be a watering hole. I want to be the watering hole, right? 64 00:04:44.420 --> 00:04:49.970 I want to be the biggest best I can get a really like tasty deep drink in the 65 00:04:49.970 --> 00:04:53.260 angle point watering hole, right? That may sound a little weird, but that's 66 00:04:53.260 --> 00:04:57.750 kind of our take on it. So there's often a differentiation between content 67 00:04:57.750 --> 00:05:00.550 marketing, thought, leadership marketing. Where do you draw the line 68 00:05:00.550 --> 00:05:05.740 in them? Yeah, dan, that's a great question. And for us uh we create a lot 69 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:09.260 of content for different reasons specifically for search engine 70 00:05:09.260 --> 00:05:15.780 optimization. It might be for trying to build, you know, relationships and to 71 00:05:15.790 --> 00:05:19.440 for to get for people to get to know our people a little bit better 72 00:05:19.440 --> 00:05:25.720 specifically. Um for example, creating content that's about our Ceo or one of 73 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:30.500 our analysts and it's not specific to leadership in that aspect. Sometimes it 74 00:05:30.500 --> 00:05:36.240 is, but in in this context specifically talking about humanization, trying to 75 00:05:36.250 --> 00:05:41.030 help people really get to know who we are um that we're not just um you know, 76 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:44.450 robots, you know, working behind, you know, behind screens on computers, but 77 00:05:44.450 --> 00:05:49.550 that we're real people. Um so that's definitely a piece of it. Maybe for, 78 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:53.980 you know, lead capture lead generation purposes. Um There's a lot of different 79 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:58.440 reasons why we create content, but the difference for for for us between 80 00:05:58.440 --> 00:06:02.990 content marketing and the thought leadership is that for for Thought 81 00:06:02.990 --> 00:06:07.730 leadership, we're really trying to help build that that trust and credibility 82 00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:12.900 for our people and for our our company. And that kind of breaks into a 83 00:06:12.900 --> 00:06:17.990 discussion on like thought leaderships for brands and thought leadership for 84 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:22.590 people individuals, right? And that, you know, linked in for example, linked 85 00:06:22.590 --> 00:06:28.020 in put so much focus on the individual profiles and it does on brand pages, 86 00:06:28.030 --> 00:06:32.210 and that's so much more optimized and helpful to be creating content as 87 00:06:32.210 --> 00:06:36.500 individuals than just the brand, right? And that's, you know, part of how we 88 00:06:36.500 --> 00:06:40.470 take our approach on on Thought leadership is how do we build that um 89 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:46.040 for angle point our brand and how do we build that for our individuals? Right. 90 00:06:46.050 --> 00:06:52.770 Our contributors are subject matter experts are smes find one of the 91 00:06:52.770 --> 00:06:55.520 differences. I see what content marketing all the time is, that content 92 00:06:55.520 --> 00:06:59.330 marketing isn't necessarily unique to you. You might have organized it better, 93 00:06:59.340 --> 00:07:02.490 you might have put together information that was already out there and just 94 00:07:02.490 --> 00:07:06.170 didn't there wasn't a good blog post for And you published it. Thought 95 00:07:06.170 --> 00:07:10.580 leadership marketing is unique, right? It's new ideas and people tend to trust, 96 00:07:10.580 --> 00:07:13.320 I think you said the word credibility. I think that's a big piece of it is 97 00:07:13.320 --> 00:07:17.010 thought Leadership builds more credibility and people tend to trust 98 00:07:17.010 --> 00:07:20.060 those people more and tend to go to the person on the cutting edge for the 99 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:24.050 information. Right? So we're always looking for that new thing. So, I think 100 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:27.000 that's a big piece of it. It's certainly we can unpack that in the 101 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:31.820 whole episode. Yeah, absolutely. and you know and kind of adding on where um 102 00:07:31.830 --> 00:07:35.150 it is something cutting edge, it is something new but it's also something 103 00:07:35.150 --> 00:07:40.160 deep, right? Where there might be a lot of discussion about a certain topic 104 00:07:40.340 --> 00:07:45.770 that may not be getting as deep as it as it could be. So um and that's where 105 00:07:45.780 --> 00:07:51.130 the topic might not be necessarily new but like the supporting details like 106 00:07:51.130 --> 00:07:55.130 the house, the what's the winds, the wise um and getting really deep on that 107 00:07:55.140 --> 00:08:00.530 where that there might be new content or new information specific to that 108 00:08:00.530 --> 00:08:04.250 topic. But the topic itself might not be new, right? It could be a gold. 109 00:08:04.340 --> 00:08:10.480 Right? Absolutely. So let's dive into your process like how are you creating 110 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:15.470 thought leadership content for angle point? Even if you're not the one, the 111 00:08:15.470 --> 00:08:18.770 subject matter expert, were you going to get it? And how are you crafting it? 112 00:08:18.780 --> 00:08:23.070 Yeah, man. And this process has changed from when I started with angle point 113 00:08:23.080 --> 00:08:26.380 until now because we're, you know, like we went through that whole learning 114 00:08:26.380 --> 00:08:32.799 process and on how to really dial it in. But now after years of practice, trial 115 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:37.470 and error, I still after over five years in this industry, you know, I do 116 00:08:37.470 --> 00:08:41.030 my research and I get deep in in doing my best to understand, you know, our 117 00:08:41.030 --> 00:08:46.850 market, our segmentation, czar personas and to just know the ins and outs of 118 00:08:46.850 --> 00:08:50.580 the industry and still when it comes to the technical spaces, the technical 119 00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:57.530 parts of the services that we provide, man, it is just like it is so, so deep 120 00:08:57.530 --> 00:09:02.870 in there. We, we provide a number of different services. Um and they're 121 00:09:02.870 --> 00:09:07.290 literally, you cannot find um there's no like special unicorns that you may 122 00:09:07.290 --> 00:09:10.740 find in other industries, in our particular industry. You're not gonna 123 00:09:10.740 --> 00:09:16.950 find one specific person who is a like deep thought leadership expert in every 124 00:09:16.950 --> 00:09:21.290 part of our business, right? You can find some generalists who have like a 125 00:09:21.290 --> 00:09:24.530 pretty high level on all of the different components of our business 126 00:09:24.530 --> 00:09:28.100 and you might find someone who's like really deep in one or two components, 127 00:09:28.100 --> 00:09:31.830 but you're not going to find someone who has that depth for everything, 128 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:36.470 right? And so so for me, like I'd have to go back to school and spend years 129 00:09:36.470 --> 00:09:41.640 upon years learning about, you know, everything um to do with the technical 130 00:09:41.640 --> 00:09:45.260 components of our business to be considered, you know, a thought leader 131 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.240 for the different verticals, right? Of our space because you're not an I. T. 132 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:51.890 You're not a procurement, which is kind of like the people that are doing the 133 00:09:51.890 --> 00:09:56.340 thing that you are trying to attract and build that leadership around. So if 134 00:09:56.340 --> 00:09:59.620 you're a marketer doing thought leadership, unless you're selling to 135 00:09:59.630 --> 00:10:03.450 other marketers, you essentially have to get your your thought leadership 136 00:10:03.450 --> 00:10:08.400 content from somebody else, right? Yeah, dan. I found like in in our space in 137 00:10:08.400 --> 00:10:13.410 particular, um that you're either a subject matter expert practitioner 138 00:10:13.420 --> 00:10:18.900 turned marketer or your marketer having to market, uh, you know, the subject 139 00:10:18.900 --> 00:10:22.850 matter that you don't know a ton about market or first or a subject matter 140 00:10:22.850 --> 00:10:28.110 expert first, but you you don't find a lot of really talented subject matter 141 00:10:28.110 --> 00:10:32.650 experts who become these really, you know, deep talented marketers, it's 142 00:10:32.650 --> 00:10:36.140 hard to find those, right? Those would be probably unicorns to find that type, 143 00:10:36.150 --> 00:10:40.990 right? So for for me at angle point, I'm still after these many years, I 144 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:45.270 don't feel to any degree that I'm a real subject matter expert in the space. 145 00:10:45.280 --> 00:10:49.650 So I have to work very, very closely with our subject matter experts 146 00:10:50.140 --> 00:10:54.100 throughout our organization who are all by the way, you know, billable, right? 147 00:10:54.100 --> 00:10:57.680 They are spending their time with our clients and taking any time away from 148 00:10:57.680 --> 00:11:01.710 them at all means I'm taking away from billable hours, Right? So I have to be 149 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:06.210 very, very careful and cautious about how much time I'm taking away from them, 150 00:11:06.220 --> 00:11:11.410 which has been influential, you know, crucial to the processes that we've 151 00:11:11.410 --> 00:11:15.380 built around this on how do we build thought leadership and how do we build, 152 00:11:15.390 --> 00:11:19.880 you know, the the brands around these particular individuals and our company 153 00:11:19.880 --> 00:11:24.280 as you know, credible sources? Um, without just taking, you know, an 154 00:11:24.280 --> 00:11:28.700 exuberant amount of time away from, you know, billable hours away from our 155 00:11:28.700 --> 00:11:32.500 clients. So how do you extract the information from your subject matter 156 00:11:32.500 --> 00:11:37.930 experts getting the information to start with. I'll tell you a little bit 157 00:11:37.930 --> 00:11:42.160 of kind of the back story. Um when, when we first started, when I first 158 00:11:42.160 --> 00:11:46.220 started kind of one man band approach at angle point, um you know, I'd sit 159 00:11:46.220 --> 00:11:49.630 down with them, I would interview them, I would, you know, kind of journalist 160 00:11:49.630 --> 00:11:54.300 approach, I would take notes, I would record, and then I found, man like I'm 161 00:11:54.300 --> 00:11:58.560 just I'm taking too much time away from these people, and then I said, okay, 162 00:11:58.560 --> 00:12:01.640 I'm just going to have them write it, you know, here's the topic that we need 163 00:12:01.640 --> 00:12:05.380 to talk about. If you can go and create like a presentation or if you can write 164 00:12:05.380 --> 00:12:08.530 an article about this, that would be great, and then they send it back and 165 00:12:08.530 --> 00:12:12.320 I'll be like, man, this is crap, right? Like great content butthole, man, like 166 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:17.000 it is hard to read write like not you know, expert writers and, and and then 167 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:20.980 the tone and voice was coming across so different across so many different 168 00:12:20.980 --> 00:12:26.740 people, right? And so just like what was coming back to me was not stellar. 169 00:12:26.750 --> 00:12:31.690 Right? Again, the subject matter itself, the content of the sub, like regarding 170 00:12:31.690 --> 00:12:35.910 the subject and the quality of that content, it was great to be honest, 171 00:12:35.920 --> 00:12:39.730 even like reading into it, I would look at it and I'll be like, I think this is 172 00:12:39.730 --> 00:12:43.150 great. I like I think this is right. Like I don't have no way to verify that 173 00:12:43.150 --> 00:12:48.070 this is right and that those kind of challenges that we're facing as what, 174 00:12:48.070 --> 00:12:52.730 what impacted the process that we've built today, um for us and this, this 175 00:12:52.730 --> 00:12:56.660 particular approach, it works for us. It might not work for every 176 00:12:56.660 --> 00:12:59.190 organization, but I think there are quite a few that that this would be 177 00:12:59.190 --> 00:13:07.350 applicable for where one. man, we first, we have to identify what topics do you 178 00:13:07.350 --> 00:13:10.930 need to be talking about, right? Um and if it's going to be cutting edge, if 179 00:13:10.930 --> 00:13:14.220 it's going to be relevant or if it's going to be, you know, really deep or 180 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:18.350 something new based on an older topic, you do have to know and understand the 181 00:13:18.350 --> 00:13:21.360 industry and what's happening, right? And as someone who's not a subject 182 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:24.670 matter expert, especially in all the different verticals in our organization. 183 00:13:24.670 --> 00:13:28.700 That's hard, right? So one thing that we've done is we've created an internal 184 00:13:28.700 --> 00:13:32.590 way for people to report on like new and emerging topics for us, we use 185 00:13:32.590 --> 00:13:36.830 Microsoft teams. So within teams, we have a channel that says, hey, anytime 186 00:13:36.830 --> 00:13:42.080 you see something new or some like a hot topic, throw it in here like report 187 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:46.330 it right? Tell us about what's going on. And then we, we kind of get put on our 188 00:13:46.330 --> 00:13:48.850 journalist hats and we start investigating. You know, someone had 189 00:13:48.850 --> 00:13:53.120 just come into that. This new thing is happening. You know, this new trend or 190 00:13:53.130 --> 00:13:57.380 like this is where things that we predict, things are going to go. Um, 191 00:13:57.380 --> 00:14:00.680 that's where we really start investigating deep on the marketing 192 00:14:00.680 --> 00:14:05.400 side. Uh, and then we'll schedule some time with that particular person who 193 00:14:05.400 --> 00:14:09.670 commented or with a couple of different people within the organization. We'll 194 00:14:09.670 --> 00:14:13.410 do some short interviews just to get a better idea of what's happening. And 195 00:14:13.410 --> 00:14:16.770 then one of the best things that we've been able to find is, well actually 196 00:14:16.770 --> 00:14:21.660 create a webinar, right? We will, will meet with the particular subject matter 197 00:14:21.660 --> 00:14:25.510 expert, who, who is, you know, the best person to talk about this particular 198 00:14:25.510 --> 00:14:31.250 subject. And then we will set up a webinar will market will get people to 199 00:14:31.260 --> 00:14:35.600 drive people to come to our webinar. And in the process of creating the 200 00:14:35.600 --> 00:14:39.670 webinar and preparing the presentation the subject matter expert. They put a 201 00:14:39.670 --> 00:14:44.350 lot of thought and you know, they do put it's not a significant amount of 202 00:14:44.350 --> 00:14:48.400 time that we found, but um it probably, you know, four or five hours, maybe a 203 00:14:48.400 --> 00:14:52.500 tops um that they create this presentation prep for that webinar. And 204 00:14:52.500 --> 00:14:56.670 then after the webinar is done, we take that and then we repurpose it right. We 205 00:14:56.670 --> 00:15:00.350 create articles from that. We create social content from that. We create 206 00:15:00.350 --> 00:15:05.910 audio clips from that micro videos and we just reuse it the blog articles. 207 00:15:05.920 --> 00:15:10.520 Then we really focus on the keywords for search engine optimization. In 208 00:15:10.520 --> 00:15:13.720 addition to, you know, it's a thought leader piece, but it's also very much a 209 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:18.920 search engine optimization piece. So we are repurposing that content without 210 00:15:18.920 --> 00:15:22.860 having to involve the subject matter expert, you know, um time and time 211 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:26.820 again. We, because they've already created it right, they've already 212 00:15:26.820 --> 00:15:30.510 created that content with the webinar. Uh and then we're just repurposing it 213 00:15:30.510 --> 00:15:33.230 so we don't need to go and say, hey, can you, can you verify that this is 214 00:15:33.230 --> 00:15:37.980 right? Or can you can you check our work on this? But even then, like, um 215 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:42.100 there are times when maybe we're not doing a webinar or we're not doing uh 216 00:15:42.110 --> 00:15:45.360 you know, a podcast or something. So if we're going to say just create an 217 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:49.960 article, we will have a similar process where we'll sit down with them, will 218 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:55.360 record them talk about a certain subject Uh for maybe 15 minutes to half 219 00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:59.420 hour. Then we'll go and we'll write the content and then we'll send it back to 220 00:15:59.420 --> 00:16:04.010 them and we'll go through our first round of of review. Um so we have that 221 00:16:04.010 --> 00:16:07.570 particular subject matter expert check that content to make sure that it's 222 00:16:07.570 --> 00:16:10.440 good and that, you know, we're not saying anything that's going to be 223 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:14.160 embarrassing to us, right? Because especially in our space, and I'm sure 224 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:18.500 that this is very similar in a lot of organizations where you can say one 225 00:16:18.500 --> 00:16:24.150 word wrong and make yourself look like an idiot like your company and you 226 00:16:24.150 --> 00:16:28.610 totally uproot like all of the efforts to like build this credibility in this 227 00:16:28.610 --> 00:16:32.130 trust and it's like common that doesn't know what he's talking about, right? Um, 228 00:16:32.130 --> 00:16:36.180 so like in a space like ours and many organizations, you do have to be super 229 00:16:36.180 --> 00:16:41.140 careful about what you say and how you say it. So we, for a lot of the content 230 00:16:41.140 --> 00:16:44.610 that we create, we actually have a two step verification or content review 231 00:16:44.610 --> 00:16:48.450 process where we don't want to take too much time from our experts, but we need 232 00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:52.700 to verify and ensure that what we're putting out its quality. There's I mean, 233 00:16:52.710 --> 00:16:57.260 James Carberry talks a lot about quantity leads to quality and were very 234 00:16:57.260 --> 00:17:01.770 much on board with that, like we're not necessarily trying to create perfection, 235 00:17:01.780 --> 00:17:06.010 but we are trying to make sure that we're focusing credibility. So first we 236 00:17:06.010 --> 00:17:10.569 have that subject matter expert, review it and and sign off on it and then we 237 00:17:10.569 --> 00:17:14.680 send it to a second um subject matter expert as just kind of a second set of 238 00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:20.040 eyes and that second person that we're sending it to, um they've got a lot of 239 00:17:20.040 --> 00:17:25.380 experience throughout in our industry and throughout the different verticals 240 00:17:25.380 --> 00:17:29.670 of our space. They might not have as much deep expertise as that first 241 00:17:29.670 --> 00:17:33.520 subject matter expert, but as a second set of eyes, they're really helpful on 242 00:17:33.520 --> 00:17:38.550 catching things that maybe that first subject matter expert didn't see. So we 243 00:17:38.550 --> 00:17:42.850 have the kind of that, that two step verification content review that's 244 00:17:42.850 --> 00:17:46.300 really, really helpful. And I think that that's what has been so crucial 245 00:17:46.310 --> 00:17:50.900 for us in creating content, um that that people want to read, but also that 246 00:17:50.900 --> 00:17:54.260 really helps build that thought leadership, that trust and credibility 247 00:17:54.260 --> 00:18:00.500 for us. I love how thorough the process is. So essentially I took notes and I 248 00:18:00.500 --> 00:18:03.520 was saying these are the kind of the steps you have, right is identify the 249 00:18:03.520 --> 00:18:06.350 topic categories ahead of time that, you know, you want your subject matter 250 00:18:06.350 --> 00:18:10.600 experts to kind of pay attention to. And then you created a channel, you did 251 00:18:10.600 --> 00:18:13.340 it on teams, but it could easily be done on slack or other kinds of 252 00:18:13.340 --> 00:18:17.250 internal chat system. Or they could just kind of post things that they saw 253 00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:20.970 were interesting. What was unclear is in between that. Do you identify as 254 00:18:20.970 --> 00:18:24.240 they're posting things to this channel to you as the market or pick out which 255 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:28.610 one do you want them to do webinars on? Yeah, that's a great question. When it 256 00:18:28.610 --> 00:18:33.060 comes to like, uh which topics we're gonna do a webinar or what topics we're 257 00:18:33.060 --> 00:18:38.130 going to do? Maybe just an article on. We will uh this content, we actually 258 00:18:38.130 --> 00:18:40.980 have a content review team. I was talking about going through the first 259 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:46.160 person in the second person, the second set of review. Like we have a channel 260 00:18:46.170 --> 00:18:52.330 within teams, you can do this on slack, but that's where we post um kind of our 261 00:18:52.330 --> 00:18:56.580 plan for the content that we want to roll forward with say, hey this, this 262 00:18:56.580 --> 00:18:59.780 looks like a topic we should really invest in. Um we're thinking about 263 00:18:59.780 --> 00:19:03.050 doing a webinar and we'll have the content review team look at it and 264 00:19:03.050 --> 00:19:06.670 they'll say, hey, yeah, actually you definitely need to look into this or in 265 00:19:06.670 --> 00:19:10.760 others, they might say, actually, uh maybe not, don't spend too much time. 266 00:19:10.760 --> 00:19:14.160 Maybe write an article about it. Cause like we're not ranking very high for 267 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:18.270 any of these terms, may be doing S. C. O. P. S on this and you know, it's 268 00:19:18.270 --> 00:19:21.470 still a great piece to share on linkedin, but maybe don't be as 269 00:19:21.470 --> 00:19:25.880 invested on, on the way that your repurchasing or building more committed 270 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:29.810 content for. I love that you're jumping right into webinars after you identify 271 00:19:29.810 --> 00:19:34.370 the main topics you want to hit, it's live, it's, it forces them to really 272 00:19:34.370 --> 00:19:37.000 think through what they're going to say. So their delivery is really good. 273 00:19:37.010 --> 00:19:40.380 Oftentimes when you just come and record things, I don't know, it could 274 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:43.650 take more time. I don't know. I guess you can go back and forth because I 275 00:19:43.650 --> 00:19:47.270 like being able to jump on a podcast, just record and being able to box 276 00:19:47.270 --> 00:19:49.560 something and they know that the editors are going to get in the back 277 00:19:49.560 --> 00:19:53.250 end. But once you've done the webinar, that's one that's a whole different. 278 00:19:53.260 --> 00:19:56.450 You could do things live, which is a whole channel in itself and then take 279 00:19:56.450 --> 00:20:00.820 and push it to Youtube or something later. That's a different channel. Um, 280 00:20:00.820 --> 00:20:04.850 and then splinter it up into all kinds of different pieces. And generally if 281 00:20:04.850 --> 00:20:08.990 they did a good job on the webinar while you're running it through two 282 00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:12.660 different filters to make sure it was good, chances are probably pretty good. 283 00:20:12.660 --> 00:20:15.510 It's going to be pretty clean and probably rarely gonna need like much 284 00:20:15.520 --> 00:20:18.830 editing from there because they had to do it live, which means they did a lot 285 00:20:18.830 --> 00:20:21.370 of homework out ahead of time. So I'm not surprised they're spending you know 286 00:20:21.370 --> 00:20:25.290 2 to 4 hours preparing for its probably a good amount of time because you're 287 00:20:25.290 --> 00:20:29.850 going to save time on the back end just editing it right? So I love that 288 00:20:29.850 --> 00:20:34.330 process that way. You're just kind of coordinating it, getting them your 289 00:20:34.330 --> 00:20:37.370 internal subject matter experts to create the content that's relevant 290 00:20:37.370 --> 00:20:40.110 because they're paying attention to what's going on out in the world in 291 00:20:40.110 --> 00:20:44.490 this industry. And as they surface things, they you flag it, they come up 292 00:20:44.490 --> 00:20:47.890 with a unique opinion about it, do it as a webinar, get it out there and then 293 00:20:47.890 --> 00:20:52.910 you splinter it out to reinforce that pillar piece of content you mentioned 294 00:20:52.910 --> 00:20:57.100 to me before in this just before recording that you had an internal set, 295 00:20:57.100 --> 00:21:01.440 but you also have an external set to capitalize on thought leaders outside 296 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:04.970 of your company. So tell me a little bit more about that process. Yeah, 297 00:21:04.980 --> 00:21:08.910 absolutely. You know, this is this is maybe a little bit unique to our space, 298 00:21:08.910 --> 00:21:12.850 but I think it's also applicable to to others as well. For those who are 299 00:21:12.850 --> 00:21:16.200 familiar with Gartner, it's, it's a research organization. They do a lot of 300 00:21:16.200 --> 00:21:20.160 events, but they're very trusted source, right? They do also something called 301 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:24.110 the Gartner Magic Quadrant. I'm sure that a lot of of listeners have heard 302 00:21:24.110 --> 00:21:28.480 this or have seen this before where they kind of plot where organizations 303 00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:33.390 are on on kind of this uh, this to access quadrant, right? If you're in 304 00:21:33.390 --> 00:21:37.690 the top right, you're usually the leader, right? And Gardner is very 305 00:21:37.690 --> 00:21:40.940 careful in the way that they position things where you know they want 306 00:21:40.950 --> 00:21:46.590 everybody on the on that magic quadrant to be uh to be seen in a great light. 307 00:21:46.590 --> 00:21:49.490 But you know if you're in that top right quadrant like that's that's the 308 00:21:49.490 --> 00:21:53.080 place to be, that's the top spot. Yeah and for marketers listening to this to 309 00:21:53.080 --> 00:21:56.970 me it sounds like as I was unfamiliar with them. I've heard of them it's a 310 00:21:56.970 --> 00:22:01.960 big name but at the same time like oh it's kind of like G. Two which more 311 00:22:01.970 --> 00:22:06.030 marketers and I think maybe startups are probably more familiar with G. Two 312 00:22:06.030 --> 00:22:09.340 but you're dealing with like I. T. Enterprise where there's just a 313 00:22:09.340 --> 00:22:13.520 different gatekeeper when it comes to reviewing who's who out in the tech 314 00:22:13.520 --> 00:22:18.240 world, right? Yeah. And and at Gardner they have a lot of uh you know really 315 00:22:18.250 --> 00:22:22.940 knowledgeable experts and thought leaders, right, who they hire to come 316 00:22:22.940 --> 00:22:29.200 and do a lot of this research and then to, you know, publish content materials 317 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:34.330 that other organizations can purchase and can learn from. And they, you know, 318 00:22:34.330 --> 00:22:38.530 Gardner is a great source of great watering hole, write a great source of 319 00:22:38.530 --> 00:22:43.310 information. Uh, you know, speaking of thought leadership. Um, and for us this 320 00:22:43.310 --> 00:22:48.540 kind of external approach is um, a lot of people go to Garner saying, hey, you 321 00:22:48.540 --> 00:22:51.860 know, like we're looking for for this type of solution and we're looking for 322 00:22:51.860 --> 00:22:55.110 this type of vendor, any recommendations or any referrals, 323 00:22:55.110 --> 00:23:00.300 anywhere you can send us to for this type of thing. And in our particular 324 00:23:00.300 --> 00:23:04.090 space that happens all the time, people are going to Gartner for, you know, for 325 00:23:04.090 --> 00:23:08.750 some guidance and direction and we wanted Gardner to know who we were, 326 00:23:08.760 --> 00:23:13.520 right, and we want a gardener to know what we do and um not just at at a 327 00:23:13.530 --> 00:23:18.240 surface level, but we wanted to build that brand perception, brand awareness 328 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:22.690 and thought leadership in the eyes of Gardner, right? So we're targeting 329 00:23:22.690 --> 00:23:26.830 Gartner in a way, you know, kind of target marketing, um you know, 330 00:23:26.830 --> 00:23:30.890 targeting gardener so that they see us in that light, um you know that we want 331 00:23:30.890 --> 00:23:35.420 to be seen to perceive us as industry experts, but the way that we've done it, 332 00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:39.560 like it's a difficult thing to do and we found that, you know, Gardner, I 333 00:23:39.560 --> 00:23:43.780 think Forrester as well, you can do this with them as well, but you can 334 00:23:43.790 --> 00:23:48.220 pretty much purchase a package or you can pay to spend time with them. And 335 00:23:48.230 --> 00:23:51.540 they will review like any, pretty much anything that's called an inquiry, a 336 00:23:51.540 --> 00:23:55.330 gardener inquiry, you pretty much um they will review anything that you want 337 00:23:55.330 --> 00:23:58.710 to talk with them about. And let's say that you're going to create, you know 338 00:23:58.710 --> 00:24:04.500 some a blog article or a presentation or you're gonna do a webinar your 339 00:24:04.500 --> 00:24:08.220 website literally like anything you want them to look at and review. You 340 00:24:08.220 --> 00:24:12.470 can sit down and have them look at that, they'll give you some feedback and then 341 00:24:12.470 --> 00:24:15.460 you can then implement that feedback and just, you know, make it better 342 00:24:15.470 --> 00:24:20.550 right? Whenever you're working on now, the beauty in this is as I'm having 343 00:24:20.550 --> 00:24:25.210 them review the content that that we're working on, um they see that content 344 00:24:25.220 --> 00:24:30.730 and they learn the depth and breadth of what we do, right? So they get to learn, 345 00:24:30.730 --> 00:24:33.960 say I'm going to write an article specifically, you know, in the 346 00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:37.580 marketing world. They've got a Gartner magic quadrant for marketing automation. 347 00:24:37.580 --> 00:24:42.210 Let's say I'm gonna meet with Gartner about you know how this new integration 348 00:24:42.210 --> 00:24:47.550 with linkedin right? Where I can talk with the marketing analyst and they can 349 00:24:47.560 --> 00:24:52.990 learn everything about this integration with linked in and while I am, yeah, 350 00:24:52.990 --> 00:24:56.590 I'm trying to get their feedback, I'm also educating them on what we're doing 351 00:24:56.600 --> 00:25:01.010 and how great of a solution that we're providing. Right? And then as we do 352 00:25:01.010 --> 00:25:04.260 that we're building that, reported that reputation with these Gartner analysts. 353 00:25:04.260 --> 00:25:07.650 And then when people go to gardeners say Gardner, who should we go check out? 354 00:25:07.650 --> 00:25:11.340 Right. Um for this is you know, these are our challenges are pain points, we 355 00:25:11.340 --> 00:25:14.900 need help with uh you know, linked in some of our marketing automation and 356 00:25:14.900 --> 00:25:19.610 they said, oh you know what, I was just talking to dan Sanchez and he told me 357 00:25:19.610 --> 00:25:23.090 this like really cool stuff that he's doing with like some of his linkedin 358 00:25:23.090 --> 00:25:27.050 automation stuff like that's gonna be top of mind for them, right? You know, 359 00:25:27.540 --> 00:25:30.700 So would you be doing this with features of your service or product or 360 00:25:30.700 --> 00:25:33.690 would you be doing this with your thought? Your unique thought leadership 361 00:25:33.690 --> 00:25:37.440 ideas? Yeah, dan. I mean it's both right? That's a great question, but 362 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:42.030 it's both like, we'll do that for for we want them aware of the products and 363 00:25:42.030 --> 00:25:46.430 services that we're offering, but we also want to, you know, to be able to 364 00:25:46.430 --> 00:25:50.490 pass on um that thought leadership content that we're creating both for 365 00:25:50.490 --> 00:25:54.080 feedback. I genuinely want their feedback there really, it could be like 366 00:25:54.080 --> 00:25:58.990 a unique methodology or approach to identifying a problem. Maybe everybody 367 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:02.630 russell's with the same problem, man, that's a really interesting take. So 368 00:26:02.630 --> 00:26:07.290 you're getting the kind of the some of the industry gatekeepers and I don't 369 00:26:07.290 --> 00:26:10.130 know what else to call them, but they're like the ones that people go to 370 00:26:10.130 --> 00:26:14.720 the trusted authorities on the topic and essentially get into paying them to 371 00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:18.490 review it in. So doing you are one getting valuable feedback. It's 372 00:26:18.490 --> 00:26:22.250 probably worth it just for the feedback, but also getting on their radar so that 373 00:26:22.260 --> 00:26:26.440 you're in their minds, so that when they're either reviewing the category 374 00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.060 that you're in or giving advice to other people, because again, other 375 00:26:30.060 --> 00:26:33.000 people are going to them paid and probably unpaid sometimes, who knows? 376 00:26:33.010 --> 00:26:36.110 You're in their minds, you're cementing your position, your cementing your 377 00:26:36.110 --> 00:26:40.630 thought leadership. So those guys are now going to all their other customers 378 00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:44.990 and probably mentioning you when it's relevant. We've had a lot of referrals 379 00:26:44.990 --> 00:26:50.860 come from Gardner and it's been incredibly impactful for our business 380 00:26:50.860 --> 00:26:55.170 to the tune of of seven figures, right, man. So is that I was just going to 381 00:26:55.170 --> 00:26:59.270 lead into like what would have been the results of doing this? So do you have 382 00:26:59.270 --> 00:27:02.430 more specifics around like the numbers of what this thought leadership has 383 00:27:02.430 --> 00:27:07.680 done? Yeah, I mean without getting too specific, I can't legally get too deep 384 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:12.950 in here. But I can tell you that it has become such a key component to our 385 00:27:12.950 --> 00:27:16.100 marketing strategy because of its impact, that it's one of our key 386 00:27:16.100 --> 00:27:20.110 drivers, right of new revenue. And that's, I mean, everything that we're 387 00:27:20.110 --> 00:27:23.390 doing, that we've been talking about today, the metrics that we're looking 388 00:27:23.390 --> 00:27:27.050 at is ultimately its revenue, right? If you're not looking at that revenue 389 00:27:27.050 --> 00:27:32.020 metric, then you're missing a big piece of this. And are you attributing that 390 00:27:32.020 --> 00:27:35.800 by people coming in, new customers coming in when you ask them like the 391 00:27:35.800 --> 00:27:38.140 proverbial question, like how did you hear about us? And they're saying 392 00:27:38.140 --> 00:27:42.950 Gardner? Yeah, that's exactly right Yeah. Thing. And they probably play 393 00:27:42.950 --> 00:27:45.780 into each other, right? So you're doing the first step by getting your internal 394 00:27:45.780 --> 00:27:48.370 subject matter experts and you're constantly have like a little bit of a 395 00:27:48.370 --> 00:27:51.820 machine, like creating thought leadership content that way. Um through 396 00:27:51.820 --> 00:27:54.850 the process, we just talked about, are you taking like the best pieces from 397 00:27:54.850 --> 00:27:58.850 that and pitching those two Gardner? Yeah, the content that we create, that 398 00:27:58.850 --> 00:28:01.970 we're specifically going to show the gardener. I mean we're not going to 399 00:28:01.970 --> 00:28:06.010 show them everything right, We're going to show them the pieces um that are 400 00:28:06.020 --> 00:28:09.770 most important that helped build, you know, that that perception, right? It's 401 00:28:09.770 --> 00:28:14.050 it's kind of that branding piece, the branding strategy, it's the the analyst 402 00:28:14.050 --> 00:28:18.990 and and thought leader aspect of branding for the company and are 403 00:28:18.990 --> 00:28:22.220 individuals, right? Because we also want to show like who who's creating 404 00:28:22.220 --> 00:28:25.840 this content like that. All this was uh this person on our team and this person 405 00:28:25.840 --> 00:28:29.670 on our team and then we'll have those people meet with our analysts as well. 406 00:28:29.740 --> 00:28:33.460 So it's not just I'm like, actually I very rarely meet with Gardner myself, 407 00:28:33.540 --> 00:28:37.730 right? I send the creators of this content, the creators of this thought 408 00:28:37.730 --> 00:28:41.540 leadership material so that they are having face time and interacting with 409 00:28:41.540 --> 00:28:45.710 these analysts, Right? That's a super important piece, man. I think this is a 410 00:28:45.710 --> 00:28:49.610 pretty good 12 punch one on reproducing content systematically from your 411 00:28:49.610 --> 00:28:53.270 internal experts, but also gonna almost an outbound strategy for getting the 412 00:28:53.270 --> 00:28:55.930 thought leadership out there and getting it validated, you know, stamp 413 00:28:55.930 --> 00:29:00.890 of approval from other people that are that your customers respect. Um, if 414 00:29:00.890 --> 00:29:04.320 you're a SAS company, go and find the gatekeepers, the people everybody's 415 00:29:04.320 --> 00:29:08.390 looking to for information and see if you can get in front of them if you're 416 00:29:08.390 --> 00:29:11.960 selling SAS and there's probably a lot of service people who are working with 417 00:29:11.960 --> 00:29:16.520 lots of customers, right? So like, I mean, sweet fish could be one of those, 418 00:29:16.520 --> 00:29:21.440 right? We're podcast agency. We have, I don't know, 85 active shows and we've 419 00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:25.480 launched hundreds of podcasts. So we have a bit of a voice in podcasting. 420 00:29:25.480 --> 00:29:28.850 But if you had podcasting tech, I'm like, I don't know, maybe you should 421 00:29:28.850 --> 00:29:33.990 come find me. Right. I could probably be, I'm a like a micro, very tiny micro 422 00:29:33.990 --> 00:29:38.020 influencer between like the rest of the Swedish team. But it wouldn't be, it 423 00:29:38.020 --> 00:29:40.260 probably wouldn't be a bad thing, especially if you wanted to reach like 424 00:29:40.260 --> 00:29:45.350 b to be like podcasting people. But there's probably, that's just a very 425 00:29:45.350 --> 00:29:48.950 small case. And to be tacked. Like if you went to, um, if you're in demand 426 00:29:48.950 --> 00:29:51.870 gen probably want to go find chris walker and see, have a little 427 00:29:51.870 --> 00:29:56.830 conversation with them, see what you can do now. He's pretty tight lipped 428 00:29:56.830 --> 00:29:59.110 about his vendors and what he recommends. And he's actually kind of 429 00:29:59.110 --> 00:30:03.080 anti tech sometimes, but you know, trying to find the gatekeeper, the 430 00:30:03.080 --> 00:30:08.500 influencer or the organizational gatekeeper in your case, Gardner who's 431 00:30:08.510 --> 00:30:11.440 seeing a lot of people having lots of conversations and is generally 432 00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:15.140 respected in the industry and seeing if you can get in front of them. Yeah, 433 00:30:15.150 --> 00:30:19.120 it's the third party source, right? Who is the third party source that 434 00:30:19.120 --> 00:30:23.610 everyone's going to that watering hole for information, uh, and direction on 435 00:30:23.610 --> 00:30:27.380 where they should go, right? And if you can build a reputation, report with 436 00:30:27.380 --> 00:30:32.170 them uh, than the referrals. You know, there's big opportunity there, what 437 00:30:32.170 --> 00:30:36.120 we've been talking about here. There's a referral aspect here. Thought 438 00:30:36.120 --> 00:30:40.810 leadership aspect to your content marketing aspect here, right? There's a 439 00:30:40.810 --> 00:30:44.360 lot of, you know, different kind of approaches to this kind of, wrapped 440 00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:48.980 into one, but definitely all around this idea of building credibility and 441 00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:52.990 trust in your organization and your people and that's fantastic. Is there 442 00:30:52.990 --> 00:30:58.120 anything I missed in breaking down this methodology and the results that you've 443 00:30:58.120 --> 00:31:02.150 gained? Um No man, I think we've covered it pretty well. I just say that 444 00:31:02.150 --> 00:31:06.170 like, it may seem like a big daunting task and like, oh man, this is pretty 445 00:31:06.170 --> 00:31:10.060 heavy, How are we going to get the ear of of, you know, this particular 446 00:31:10.060 --> 00:31:13.230 organization or this particular person, you know, the chris walker or the 447 00:31:13.230 --> 00:31:17.560 gardener, Right? But first and foremost, it's important to understand in your 448 00:31:17.560 --> 00:31:22.840 space to identify who these, you know, these other influencers are and thought 449 00:31:22.840 --> 00:31:26.630 leaders. Like there's an influencer aspect here, Like B2B influencer 450 00:31:26.630 --> 00:31:31.340 marketing, like that's a thing to write. But identifying who they are and then, 451 00:31:31.350 --> 00:31:34.620 you know, trying to build relationships with them, right? That's right. You can 452 00:31:34.620 --> 00:31:38.030 do it on social media, you can do it by your podcast and interview them on your 453 00:31:38.030 --> 00:31:43.870 show. I'm actively doing it pretty much every day doing it right now. So, a man, 454 00:31:43.870 --> 00:31:48.830 that is a great point to wrap up the show. Where can people go to ask you 455 00:31:48.830 --> 00:31:52.530 follow up questions and learn more about angle point if they have more 456 00:31:52.530 --> 00:31:56.700 questions after this? Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on linkedin. I'm pretty 457 00:31:56.700 --> 00:32:01.770 active there also, you can go to angle point dot com, find more information. 458 00:32:01.940 --> 00:32:06.780 Um but Lincoln is definitely the easiest place department. Fantastic. 459 00:32:06.830 --> 00:32:10.480 Again, thank you so much for joining me on GDP growth. Thanks man, appreciate 460 00:32:10.480 --> 00:32:11.850 it. Mm mm 461 00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:18.170 For the longest time I was asking people to leave a review of GDP growth 462 00:32:18.170 --> 00:32:22.630 in apple podcasts but I realized that was kind of stupid because leaving a 463 00:32:22.630 --> 00:32:27.790 review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing my 464 00:32:27.790 --> 00:32:31.490 tune a bit instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just gonna ask you 465 00:32:31.490 --> 00:32:35.520 to go to beauty growth in apple podcasts, scroll down until you see the 466 00:32:35.520 --> 00:32:39.180 ratings and reviews section and just tap the number of stars you want to 467 00:32:39.180 --> 00:32:45.000 give us no review necessary. Super easy. And I promise it will help us out a ton. 468 00:32:45.010 --> 00:32:49.010 If you want a copy of my book, content based networking, just shoot me a text 469 00:32:49.020 --> 00:32:53.570 after you leave the rating and I'll send on your way, text me at 4074 and I 470 00:32:53.570 --> 00:32:56.670 know 33 to 8.