Kickstart Your Thought Leader Journey With the 30/30/30 Plan

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:09.500 welcome back to be to be growth. I'm dan Sanchez with sweet fish Media and 3 00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:14.400 today I'm talking about how to kick start your path to becoming a thought 4 00:00:14.410 --> 00:00:18.020 leader. And we've already talked about many episodes that one you should never 5 00:00:18.020 --> 00:00:23.550 call yourself a thought leader, but to it's worth trying to become one because 6 00:00:23.550 --> 00:00:27.980 really a thought leader is someone who is an expert, contributing original 7 00:00:27.980 --> 00:00:33.860 ideas that has authority in order to advance and industry in order to help a 8 00:00:33.860 --> 00:00:39.770 group of people, which is a good thing to do. Now. Of course there is a lot of 9 00:00:39.780 --> 00:00:44.230 credibility that's built with this and therefore is very, I don't know, 10 00:00:44.230 --> 00:00:49.290 profitable, right? So a lot of people try to kind of misuse and manipulate 11 00:00:49.290 --> 00:00:54.680 this, practice this process in order to scam people and that's not what we want. 12 00:00:54.680 --> 00:00:57.730 We don't want to presume anything, so we'll never call ourselves thought 13 00:00:57.730 --> 00:01:01.190 Leader. So if you never call yourself a thought leader this, you won't have a 14 00:01:01.190 --> 00:01:03.360 problem with that because you're not going to try to use and abuse it. 15 00:01:03.540 --> 00:01:06.040 You're never going to call yourself an expert a thought leader and authority. 16 00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:10.260 You're just going to put out helpful ideas that help people. But after 17 00:01:10.260 --> 00:01:14.580 reading multiple books on this topic, I found that no one really had a great 18 00:01:14.580 --> 00:01:18.570 game plan for how to become a thought leader, especially actually there are a 19 00:01:18.570 --> 00:01:21.930 lot of books and they're great. I will say there's lots of books that will 20 00:01:21.930 --> 00:01:25.570 walk you through this. But I found that there was not a lot aimed at somebody 21 00:01:25.570 --> 00:01:29.590 who was kind of starting not from the bottom, but from just kind of like the 22 00:01:29.590 --> 00:01:33.530 baseline of being a professional in the topic, which is where I found myself 23 00:01:33.530 --> 00:01:35.900 starting, right? It's probably where you're starting. If you're listening to 24 00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:41.120 this now, you're probably not a thought leader yet, but you want to be, you 25 00:01:41.120 --> 00:01:45.140 know, you have some of the goods, you know, you have the ambition to become 26 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:49.890 one and I'm telling you right now, that that is a good thing. Yes, that is not 27 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:54.950 just pure selfish ambition to be a genuine and authentic thought leader. 28 00:01:54.960 --> 00:01:58.580 You have to want to help people and that's what we're here to do, and 29 00:01:58.580 --> 00:02:02.220 that's what I'm here to help you with in that process, no matter what 30 00:02:02.230 --> 00:02:06.210 industry you're in, no matter what your specialty is or what profession you're 31 00:02:06.210 --> 00:02:09.600 is, this will work in a lot of different situations. It will certainly 32 00:02:09.600 --> 00:02:12.920 work for marketers and BTB settings and it might help you as a marketer, help 33 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:17.260 somebody else, Maybe a subject matter expert, become a thought leader, even 34 00:02:17.260 --> 00:02:20.000 though technically right now they're just a subject matter expert. They 35 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.860 don't have quite the authority today. I want to show you how to kick start it. 36 00:02:23.870 --> 00:02:30.260 Um, with something I'm calling the 30 30 30 plan. And again, this is 37 00:02:30.640 --> 00:02:34.880 hypothesis. Like many of the ideas I've presented over the last month in this 38 00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:38.580 thought leadership series, um, is something I've done myself. It's 39 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:42.580 something I've worked on to some degree with others. But this is just a 40 00:02:42.580 --> 00:02:46.160 hypothesis. By the time this is actually proven and well known, it 41 00:02:46.160 --> 00:02:50.730 might be different, it might be passed the time this idea is useful, but still 42 00:02:50.730 --> 00:02:53.910 I thought I'd throw it out here for everybody to hear. And I think once you 43 00:02:53.910 --> 00:02:57.430 hear it, I've tested this on linkedin. I've talked, I've talked to lots of 44 00:02:57.430 --> 00:03:01.990 people about it. It tends to hit home, it tends to resonate, it feels right, 45 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:04.920 but I don't have any empirical evidence, but I wanted to tell you that to kind 46 00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:08.410 of like just be on the forefront. Like I don't have like tons of research that 47 00:03:08.410 --> 00:03:12.690 validates that this is beyond, without a shadow of a doubt the path to 48 00:03:12.700 --> 00:03:17.880 becoming a thought leader, but it's working for me so far and I think it'll 49 00:03:17.880 --> 00:03:21.560 work for you too. Oh, and in addition to this plan, I'm going to talk to you 50 00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:25.920 about how a podcast specifically, especially a personal podcast can help 51 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:29.610 accelerate this whole thing and actually becomes like the tool that I 52 00:03:29.610 --> 00:03:33.760 think is probably the secret weapon of thought leadership, my opinion. But 53 00:03:34.140 --> 00:03:37.120 First let's walk into the plan and then as we go through each step of the plan, 54 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:41.620 I'll tell you how I would accomplish this with a podcast. So the plan, the 55 00:03:41.620 --> 00:03:48.610 30, 30 30 plan is 30 bucks, 30 interviews and 30 blog posts. This is 56 00:03:48.610 --> 00:03:52.650 what you need to do in order to kick start your path to becoming a thought 57 00:03:52.650 --> 00:03:57.030 leader. Now, of course this isn't this isn't going to like doing this plan 58 00:03:57.030 --> 00:04:01.460 isn't going to take you from a professional in your industry to expert 59 00:04:01.840 --> 00:04:06.160 overnight. Like you can't just execute the plan in 90 days and then bam you're 60 00:04:06.160 --> 00:04:10.540 gonna be rolling in authority. No, but this is going to get you way beyond 61 00:04:10.550 --> 00:04:14.010 where you're probably at now and some people, you know, some of you are 62 00:04:14.010 --> 00:04:18.390 further along than others in doing this. But I've done this three times now or 63 00:04:18.390 --> 00:04:23.400 parts, I've done this fully twice in parts of this a third time and I can 64 00:04:23.400 --> 00:04:26.680 tell you man, things start to really change for me every single time I do 65 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:31.450 this and once I just did it even recently and it it started taking my my 66 00:04:31.640 --> 00:04:36.350 perception of others in a kind of a direction that I wasn't even trying to 67 00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:40.460 go in, but because I was executing this plan, people started perceiving me as 68 00:04:40.460 --> 00:04:42.950 an expert and I would say, just starting to perceive me like I was 69 00:04:42.950 --> 00:04:46.590 starting to get into the crowd of like people known for this topic and I'll 70 00:04:46.590 --> 00:04:52.400 talk more about that later. But let's dive into the plan 1st 30 bucks. If you 71 00:04:52.400 --> 00:04:56.590 want to be a thought leader first, you have to be an expert and you can't be 72 00:04:56.590 --> 00:04:59.770 an expert without knowing everything that's been read on this next topic. 73 00:04:59.780 --> 00:05:02.560 Now, hopefully you're already a professional, you're already well aware, 74 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:06.090 you already have hands on experience with this thing you've been doing it 75 00:05:06.090 --> 00:05:10.640 for, I don't know, at least five years, like you, you went through college, 76 00:05:10.640 --> 00:05:13.390 you've been doing this for five years. If you didn't go through college, then 77 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:16.660 generally they kind of like, say, You know, add another five years of 78 00:05:16.660 --> 00:05:20.110 experience to equal college or whatever. But you've been doing this for a while. 79 00:05:20.110 --> 00:05:25.470 You've already read books generally and broadly on this topic. But to read 30 80 00:05:25.470 --> 00:05:31.520 books is different to go into one single niche and read just about every 81 00:05:31.520 --> 00:05:35.450 book written on the topic. Now, if there's more than 30 books on the topic, 82 00:05:35.450 --> 00:05:39.870 then the niches too big go down lower. Like actually specialize in something 83 00:05:39.880 --> 00:05:45.220 that has 30 books or less. I'd say between 15 and 30 books should be about 84 00:05:45.220 --> 00:05:48.400 the mile marker. It's give and take because sometimes it's hard to define 85 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:53.490 the lines of where a topic starts and stops, right? So I just say 30 books 86 00:05:53.500 --> 00:05:56.850 because you need to know what's been said, You need to know about all the 87 00:05:56.850 --> 00:06:00.280 ideas that have come before you otherwise, how do you know if you're 88 00:06:00.290 --> 00:06:05.040 contributing a unique idea, You don't, if you haven't read all the books on 89 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:08.410 the topic, you have no idea if your idea is original. So starting with the 90 00:06:08.410 --> 00:06:14.260 30 books on the topic is the best way to go. This also helps in a few other 91 00:06:14.260 --> 00:06:17.640 ways and that um if you listen to my other podcasts about learning and the 92 00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:21.270 light, you can start going on social media and sharing what you're reading, 93 00:06:21.270 --> 00:06:24.860 sharing your insights from it, sharing your favorite passages from these books. 94 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:28.610 Maybe doing a blog post with all the like, like quotes from the books that 95 00:06:28.610 --> 00:06:31.930 you loved have all crossed all the books and people will start to kind of 96 00:06:31.930 --> 00:06:36.460 understand like, hey, hey, you're into that thing. Uh Susie keeps posting 97 00:06:36.460 --> 00:06:40.620 about these things. She keeps reading book after book and she keeps posting 98 00:06:40.620 --> 00:06:43.960 some of the best insights I've seen, right, great summaries of the books. 99 00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:45.050 She must be into this, 100 00:06:46.140 --> 00:06:50.110 right? You're sowing seeds to build authority later. Just by reading and 101 00:06:50.110 --> 00:06:55.140 talking about the books on social media. Now some of you are listening to me in 102 00:06:55.140 --> 00:07:00.960 like 30 books dan. I I hardly, I hardly read five books throughout college. 103 00:07:00.960 --> 00:07:05.550 Like 30 books dan. That's a lot of books. I'm not that big of a reader. 104 00:07:05.640 --> 00:07:09.230 Let me tell you, reading 30 books on one topic isn't as hard as you would 105 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:14.390 think. Here's why when you have a really knits up niche subject, let's 106 00:07:14.390 --> 00:07:20.010 take let's give an example. I did the first time I did this was for nonprofit 107 00:07:20.010 --> 00:07:22.440 marketing. I was working for a non profit and I was trying to learn 108 00:07:22.450 --> 00:07:26.020 everything there ever had been written on the topic of nonprofit market. This 109 00:07:26.020 --> 00:07:29.000 is how I started to find that this was a thing that this actually worked to 110 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:36.370 build credibility and get me into this space. There was 16 books on this topic 111 00:07:36.380 --> 00:07:40.620 and I went and read them all and honestly reading them all took way less 112 00:07:40.620 --> 00:07:43.710 time than I thought. I thought I was going to be into the slog of reading 16 113 00:07:43.710 --> 00:07:48.870 books. It actually probably took the amount of time of 15-6, sorry, it took 114 00:07:48.880 --> 00:07:53.110 even though was 16 books, it took about The same amount of time to read six 115 00:07:53.110 --> 00:07:53.560 books. 116 00:07:54.640 --> 00:08:00.100 Because when you're reading all on one topic, naturally, naturally, if it's 117 00:08:00.100 --> 00:08:05.060 that niche, they cover the same information over and over and over 118 00:08:05.060 --> 00:08:10.330 again and that's okay. This is something PhD students have to learn to 119 00:08:10.330 --> 00:08:14.220 do is that they start reading a lot of books. And then once they're, once 120 00:08:14.220 --> 00:08:16.610 they've picked their topic to write their dissertation on and do the 121 00:08:16.610 --> 00:08:20.530 research on. They've read all the books. So you have to learn how to fly through 122 00:08:20.530 --> 00:08:25.070 books faster by only looking and scanning for new information. Once 123 00:08:25.070 --> 00:08:28.470 you're on book two or three, like you start to find that there's just some 124 00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:33.330 repetitive information. You know, how many times I had to read about like 125 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:36.179 social media marketing and the nonprofit space. And it just walked 126 00:08:36.179 --> 00:08:39.640 through the basics of setting up your account and thinking about who you're 127 00:08:39.640 --> 00:08:43.809 targeting and writing your first post. You know, many books covered that. I 128 00:08:43.809 --> 00:08:46.510 didn't have to read that again. I just kind of glanced at the page, knew what 129 00:08:46.510 --> 00:08:50.810 the content wasn't skipped. So I'm flipping towards the end, you're hardly 130 00:08:50.810 --> 00:08:54.090 reading every word. You're just scanning each page and here I am, 131 00:08:54.090 --> 00:08:58.260 flipping through each and every single page and scanning for new information. 132 00:08:58.640 --> 00:09:02.990 So you don't have to read every word of every book to have read every book on 133 00:09:02.990 --> 00:09:07.610 the topic because you have read at all, you're just not going to reread the 134 00:09:07.610 --> 00:09:11.230 same thing, but in different words. And that's kind of a shortcut that people 135 00:09:11.230 --> 00:09:14.370 don't really know about because most people don't think to read every book 136 00:09:14.370 --> 00:09:18.750 on a single topic, it's easier than you think just do it once you do it. The 137 00:09:18.750 --> 00:09:24.300 benefits of it our way are huge one. You just gain a sense of confidence 138 00:09:24.310 --> 00:09:27.830 knowing you've read every book on the topic. It allows you to speak with a 139 00:09:27.830 --> 00:09:31.730 little bit more authority when you say like, hey, my favorite thing about this 140 00:09:31.730 --> 00:09:35.530 or one thing I disagree with or like when you just writing about it and 141 00:09:35.530 --> 00:09:39.480 talking to people about it, you kind of know a lot more because you've, you 142 00:09:39.480 --> 00:09:43.250 know, confidently that you've read everything out there From the main 143 00:09:43.250 --> 00:09:47.110 books. Everybody talks about all the way down to the obscure kindle books 144 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:51.110 that has five reviews. Yeah, I read those two again. Just pick a niche 145 00:09:51.110 --> 00:09:55.280 topic that has no more than 30 books on it. And your your father far enough 146 00:09:55.280 --> 00:10:00.030 down you might also add to that is extra credit research that's been done, 147 00:10:00.040 --> 00:10:03.600 top ranking blog posts, Listen to the top podcasts in the industry. So it's 148 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:07.400 like, it doesn't have to end with books. Obviously you can do a lot more highly 149 00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:10.290 recommend going to go into google scholar and putting in your topic and 150 00:10:10.290 --> 00:10:13.510 looking for, you know, like a dozen different research reports. Those are 151 00:10:13.510 --> 00:10:16.090 really good to know if you want to be an expert on the topic and you have to 152 00:10:16.090 --> 00:10:20.630 know everything that's been before. Go and look at those things too. Now, what 153 00:10:20.630 --> 00:10:27.650 would be helpful with a podcast is just recording what we are reading and then 154 00:10:27.650 --> 00:10:31.880 sharing your insights about the book. There's whole podcast just around book 155 00:10:31.880 --> 00:10:35.190 reviews and they're great podcast because you can learn a lot about from 156 00:10:35.190 --> 00:10:39.330 a book without having to read the whole book in about a 30 minute or 10 to 30 157 00:10:39.330 --> 00:10:44.280 minute podcast episode. You can do that. And the reason why I would recommend it 158 00:10:44.290 --> 00:10:47.150 is because it forces you to kind of think through what you've read, what 159 00:10:47.150 --> 00:10:49.490 you liked about the book, what you didn't like about the book, kind of 160 00:10:49.490 --> 00:10:52.760 take some of your things you underlined in it and share it with an audience. It 161 00:10:52.760 --> 00:10:56.450 just forces you to kind of chew on it a little bit more and you get to make 162 00:10:56.450 --> 00:10:59.590 content with it in the process. If you've listened to me, you know, I've 163 00:10:59.590 --> 00:11:04.320 reviewed multiple books on this podcast um in this series and in the past a. B. 164 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:08.230 M. Series that I've done. Um and it creates its great content because 165 00:11:08.230 --> 00:11:10.810 people want to know about great books. So I'm highlighting some of the best 166 00:11:10.810 --> 00:11:15.230 books I've read on topics here on this podcast. So it's good content and it 167 00:11:15.230 --> 00:11:18.600 starts by recording and sharing that content again kind of like posting to 168 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:22.290 social media. It starts to build your authority on the topic after you do 169 00:11:22.290 --> 00:11:25.570 book after book after book. Now I don't recommend doing this with all 30 books 170 00:11:25.570 --> 00:11:28.630 because some of the books are gonna be crap, let's be honest. But maybe the 171 00:11:28.630 --> 00:11:34.640 top five books record a podcast episode on those. The second part is the 30 172 00:11:34.650 --> 00:11:40.150 interviews. So part of the 30-30 plan is to interview 30 experts in the field. 173 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:43.360 Once you've read 30 books it's starting to become clear who those people are 174 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:47.210 because some of them are the authors. Some of the authors reference other 175 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:51.140 experts in the field. So as you're reading, you can start making a list of 176 00:11:51.140 --> 00:11:57.490 all the people you want to talk to. This helps in multiple ways. One, once 177 00:11:57.490 --> 00:12:00.940 you've read all the content or have read a lot of the content, not that you 178 00:12:00.940 --> 00:12:05.100 have to like finish one section before you move on to the next. Being able to 179 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:10.850 talk to the experts takes your knowledge to the next level. Because 180 00:12:10.850 --> 00:12:13.390 you could start to test your understanding, you could start to ask 181 00:12:13.390 --> 00:12:16.710 the questions that weren't clear in the books. You could start to take some of 182 00:12:16.710 --> 00:12:20.550 your favorite ideas that you've read about and ask the author about them and 183 00:12:20.550 --> 00:12:25.120 start digging deeper because believe me, every time an author writes a book, 184 00:12:25.130 --> 00:12:28.410 they're leaving like they're due slicing and dicing and leaving things 185 00:12:28.410 --> 00:12:32.380 off the table. There's more to everything they've shared. There's more 186 00:12:32.380 --> 00:12:37.020 stories, there's more research, there's more history behind every single idea 187 00:12:37.020 --> 00:12:39.520 they presented in the book and a podcast. You can take some of your 188 00:12:39.520 --> 00:12:44.060 favorite things and pull them out of the experts if their authors and then 189 00:12:44.060 --> 00:12:48.040 find the people that you want to learn from that haven't written books, maybe 190 00:12:48.040 --> 00:12:51.080 they're just really active on social. Maybe they've done a lot of research, 191 00:12:51.080 --> 00:12:54.370 maybe they're a professor at a university, maybe they're a famous 192 00:12:54.370 --> 00:12:58.920 entrepreneur, a business person, whatever that person is, you can go and 193 00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:03.490 learn from them first hand and interview them. This does something 194 00:13:03.490 --> 00:13:06.710 else other than just learning from them to increase what you know and 195 00:13:06.710 --> 00:13:11.250 understand and how you, in the grass that you have on the subject matter, 196 00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:16.360 you build relationships if you want to become a thought leader in a space, you 197 00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:21.060 can't just like launch onto the scene without anybody knowing you. You have 198 00:13:21.060 --> 00:13:25.730 to build a network a little bit. And by interviewing these experts, 199 00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:30.480 they start to get to know you. So when they see you or hear about you later, 200 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:33.620 they'll be like, oh yeah, I've met I've met that person before. We did a 201 00:13:33.620 --> 00:13:38.010 podcast interview together. Huh? They just published a book on it. Oh, I just 202 00:13:38.010 --> 00:13:40.790 saw their social media posts. Oh they just got mentioned in this journal, 203 00:13:40.790 --> 00:13:45.770 this this thing, they're going to know you and they can validate that. I don't 204 00:13:45.770 --> 00:13:50.120 know. It just it comes back around to you and I can't say like all the ways 205 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:53.950 that it will happen. There's not like a distinct way this will happen, but by 206 00:13:53.950 --> 00:13:57.280 having all these people know you and your spending time with them. So 207 00:13:57.280 --> 00:14:00.480 there's a lot of them are going to remember you. It helps you build 208 00:14:00.490 --> 00:14:04.940 authority later and of course by interview them. Hopefully you're 209 00:14:04.940 --> 00:14:09.380 recording it and you can publish this content later on to again, begin 210 00:14:09.380 --> 00:14:12.820 building some of your own authority, not that you're putting out your own 211 00:14:12.820 --> 00:14:16.760 ideas yet, but by sharing all the things that you're reading and all the 212 00:14:16.760 --> 00:14:19.910 people that you're talking to, people start to get a sense that you're kind 213 00:14:19.910 --> 00:14:23.140 of into this thing and that you're learning a lot and sharing really good 214 00:14:23.140 --> 00:14:27.590 ideas or others ideas at first, right as you go, that you start to become a 215 00:14:27.590 --> 00:14:31.270 perceived expert because you're the one hanging out with all the experts and 216 00:14:31.270 --> 00:14:34.230 just by hanging out with them and posting the content that you've been 217 00:14:34.230 --> 00:14:37.650 talking to them about something starts to happen. It's something James 218 00:14:37.650 --> 00:14:42.240 Carberry talks about in his book called content based networking. It's called 219 00:14:42.250 --> 00:14:47.150 he calls it the Oprah effect. You start to become perceived as an expert in 220 00:14:47.150 --> 00:14:51.560 that thing just through association, just by having your name next to their 221 00:14:51.560 --> 00:14:55.370 name and having conversations with them and then putting that out there in the 222 00:14:55.370 --> 00:14:59.870 public space association starts to take place and people start to some of the 223 00:14:59.880 --> 00:15:03.760 expertise of all the people you're interviewing starts to rub off on you. 224 00:15:04.140 --> 00:15:07.280 This is why we call it the Oprah effect because Oprah does this better than 225 00:15:07.280 --> 00:15:12.720 anybody else, right? There's a reason why Oprah is so beloved by everybody 226 00:15:12.730 --> 00:15:16.590 because she meets with some of all the coolest people on the planet, right? 227 00:15:16.600 --> 00:15:21.390 Interviews them, gets into their raw, vulnerable stories, uses empathy to 228 00:15:21.390 --> 00:15:24.820 like bring out the best, but she's talking to the best people, right? So 229 00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:28.560 over time over interview after interview, after decade, after decade, 230 00:15:28.640 --> 00:15:32.730 Oprah is a powerhouse because she's taken association from lots of people. 231 00:15:32.730 --> 00:15:36.050 Not like stolen it from them, but some of it's rubbed off on her slowly over 232 00:15:36.050 --> 00:15:39.120 time and she's interviewed that many people so that can happen to you, 233 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:42.430 especially when you really focus it in while she's really broad and it took 234 00:15:42.430 --> 00:15:45.700 her a long time to do that. If you focus it in really tight to a very 235 00:15:45.700 --> 00:15:48.750 narrow subject, that will happen with you much faster, especially if you're 236 00:15:48.750 --> 00:15:52.110 sharing it on social. Again, learning in the light along the way. Now, of 237 00:15:52.110 --> 00:15:56.640 course, this is obviously where podcasting shines the best because it's 238 00:15:56.640 --> 00:16:00.120 easy to jump on assume call push record or if you want to upscale it a little 239 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.100 bit riverside dot FM is probably a little bit higher recording quality. 240 00:16:03.100 --> 00:16:07.320 But either way it doesn't really matter. The point is getting on recording and 241 00:16:07.320 --> 00:16:12.190 then just pushing that recording out onto a podcast, you don't even have to 242 00:16:12.190 --> 00:16:15.780 be fancy about it, you can just publish it free to anchor intro, you don't even 243 00:16:15.780 --> 00:16:19.510 have to have an intro and outro necessarily. Um it's also a lot easier 244 00:16:19.510 --> 00:16:22.670 to get an audience with these experts if you have a podcast and the podcast 245 00:16:22.670 --> 00:16:26.040 is named around their expertise that usually the experts are some of the 246 00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:28.800 easiest people to get a hold of when it comes to podcasting because they're 247 00:16:28.800 --> 00:16:31.930 trying to build a platform for themselves to and by saying, hey could 248 00:16:31.930 --> 00:16:34.890 you come on my podcast, the likelihood that they're going to say yes is really 249 00:16:34.890 --> 00:16:39.490 high um I know because we do this for BTB growth all the time. Any time I 250 00:16:39.490 --> 00:16:42.600 want to meet with somebody, I'm like, hey, you want to be a guest on GDP 251 00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:47.280 Growth? Really? It's not because it mean usually it has to be something 252 00:16:47.280 --> 00:16:51.480 that you, the audience wants to hear. But A lot of times it's just because I 253 00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:53.900 want to learn from that person. I'm curious about what they have to say 254 00:16:53.900 --> 00:16:57.960 about a certain topic and I just want an audience with them. So I invite them 255 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:01.540 to be on a guest on B2B growth and you can do this even with a small podcast. 256 00:17:01.540 --> 00:17:05.200 I've done it with the small personal podcast before. They hardly ever asked 257 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:08.660 like how many downloads it gets. Um but they're really popular. They might ask 258 00:17:08.660 --> 00:17:12.310 you how many downloads it gets, but generally most people never even ask 259 00:17:12.310 --> 00:17:13.380 most people say yes. 260 00:17:14.440 --> 00:17:20.569 And the 3rd part to the 30 30 30 plan is 30 blog posts. There's something 261 00:17:20.569 --> 00:17:26.290 about writing about a topic that just forces you to think, right, This is why 262 00:17:26.290 --> 00:17:28.760 colleges and schools have you right? 263 00:17:29.840 --> 00:17:33.210 It's not because they want to read your papers. I know I've I've done a few, 264 00:17:33.220 --> 00:17:36.710 I've taught a few college classes and if there's anything worse than writing 265 00:17:36.710 --> 00:17:41.300 college papers, oh my goodness, it's reading them, they're just horrible. 266 00:17:41.310 --> 00:17:45.790 Still the process is a helpful exercise if you've written than, you know, right? 267 00:17:45.800 --> 00:17:49.920 Like writing about what you're learning, just forces you to think about the 268 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:53.600 material as you learn how to communicate it to others. Um There's 269 00:17:53.600 --> 00:17:57.160 another benefit when it comes to writing blog posts and that you get to 270 00:17:57.160 --> 00:18:00.790 learn what people are actually asking about. I would specifically write blog 271 00:18:00.790 --> 00:18:03.670 posts, not to just put them out there on social, but to write to rank on 272 00:18:03.670 --> 00:18:08.020 google. So that when you're doing keyword research, which is I'm writing 273 00:18:08.020 --> 00:18:12.760 ranking on google's can be a sophisticated topic but I honestly just, 274 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:17.490 I can't even have time to cover this now. Just google the word alphabet soup 275 00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:20.970 and then an article will explain how to find the key words out of google search 276 00:18:20.980 --> 00:18:25.530 index itself um or Youtube video or something. But once you find the 277 00:18:25.530 --> 00:18:29.210 keywords that people are actually asking around the topic, you can start 278 00:18:29.210 --> 00:18:32.740 to get an understanding of like what, where the shortfalls are, like where 279 00:18:32.750 --> 00:18:36.240 people are confused about said topic because believe me, a lot of the 280 00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:39.670 experts write about things in academic journals and then just trade 281 00:18:39.670 --> 00:18:44.620 publications about things that other experts are asking about. They're not 282 00:18:44.630 --> 00:18:48.070 asking about what people are asking about or what your prospects are asking 283 00:18:48.070 --> 00:18:51.390 about or what the people you want to become perceived as an expert in on 284 00:18:51.390 --> 00:18:55.480 this topic, what questions they're asking about. So go to google, find out 285 00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:59.190 what people are actually google searching for and write those blog 286 00:18:59.190 --> 00:19:03.230 posts, become an expert in the topic and the questions people are asking all 287 00:19:03.230 --> 00:19:06.270 the time. It's a good place to start because generally the things that are 288 00:19:06.270 --> 00:19:09.570 the most googled are the things that beginners asking. That's where we all 289 00:19:09.570 --> 00:19:12.670 go. When we have a question about a new topic, we go straight to google. 290 00:19:13.740 --> 00:19:18.710 So answer their questions, become an expert and the things that they're 291 00:19:18.790 --> 00:19:23.120 asking about And by the time you've read 30 books and you've talked to 30 292 00:19:23.120 --> 00:19:27.280 different experts on it, chances are you can write those blog posts with 293 00:19:27.290 --> 00:19:31.480 ease. they're not easy to write, but they're not that difficult either. Um 294 00:19:31.490 --> 00:19:37.170 The trick to writing for google to is writing easy to consume yet exhaustive 295 00:19:37.170 --> 00:19:40.890 blog posts. Not long winded, it's not about word count necessarily, but you 296 00:19:40.890 --> 00:19:44.110 want to write in depth content. So usually it's going to be about a 297 00:19:44.110 --> 00:19:48.230 1,202,000 word article to answer the topic and you're aiming to make the 298 00:19:48.230 --> 00:19:52.160 most useful blog post on every single question to rank for number one. That's 299 00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:55.220 the kind of blog post you want to write, you want to write the blog post that 300 00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:57.790 it's going to be the most helpful. Don't worry about back links, don't 301 00:19:57.790 --> 00:20:00.960 worry about all the technical stuff. Just write the article that you think 302 00:20:00.970 --> 00:20:06.670 is way more Helpful than the top three ranking articles and you're well on 303 00:20:06.670 --> 00:20:07.170 your way. 304 00:20:08.340 --> 00:20:14.400 So That has a few benefits, right? one. It forces you to think to your learning 305 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:18.480 what people are asking about, getting a feel for the topic and what the 306 00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:23.180 beginners are asking. And then three again you're creating content to begin 307 00:20:23.190 --> 00:20:27.770 publishing, to search, publishing to social, and you're starting to build 308 00:20:27.770 --> 00:20:30.860 authority because now you're not just talking about what you're learning from 309 00:20:30.860 --> 00:20:33.730 others now, you're starting to put out your own stuff. And um honestly, in 310 00:20:33.730 --> 00:20:36.940 some of these blog posts, you might add some of your own two cents, right? And 311 00:20:36.940 --> 00:20:40.710 you should by now you've wrestled with the material, you've had conversations 312 00:20:40.710 --> 00:20:43.790 about it. You're starting to think as you right, and you're probably coming 313 00:20:43.790 --> 00:20:47.220 to some of your own conclusions. Again, hopefully you're a professional in the 314 00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:50.590 field already, and you're starting to put some of these ideas to use in the 315 00:20:50.590 --> 00:20:53.620 workplace. As you're going through this process, you're actually getting your 316 00:20:53.620 --> 00:20:57.080 hands dirty and testing it and playing with it as you're getting all these 317 00:20:57.080 --> 00:20:59.820 learnings from these books and these experts, and as you write about it, 318 00:20:59.830 --> 00:21:02.560 you're testing it out and you're going to share some of those tests and some 319 00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:06.030 of those experiments you've done in your day job in the blog post to make 320 00:21:06.030 --> 00:21:09.990 it more personal, making it more personable. But also just start sharing 321 00:21:09.990 --> 00:21:13.040 like, hey, I'm wrestling with us. I tried this and this expert recommended 322 00:21:13.040 --> 00:21:18.410 this. So I did this and this happened, that starts to build authority again. A 323 00:21:18.410 --> 00:21:22.820 podcast can make this easier. If you hate writing, you can actually shortcut 324 00:21:22.820 --> 00:21:25.850 the process through a podcast. You still have to do the keyword research. 325 00:21:25.860 --> 00:21:31.140 You still have to outline the blog post. But instead of writing it yourself, 326 00:21:31.140 --> 00:21:34.200 what you can do is jump on a podcast. Kind of like I am now, in fact, I'm 327 00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:38.540 going to do this with this, this very topic. This very episode is that I'm 328 00:21:38.540 --> 00:21:43.890 talking about it and now I can take this episode and hand it over to a 329 00:21:43.890 --> 00:21:48.090 writer that knows how to write blog posts and they can write it for me. I'm 330 00:21:48.090 --> 00:21:51.330 still, I'm still forced with having to come up with the content. But if you're 331 00:21:51.330 --> 00:21:55.150 great at speaking and not at writing, I like doing both. I like writing my own 332 00:21:55.150 --> 00:21:58.480 blog post, but there's many blog posts that I just didn't have enough time to 333 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:01.920 write. So I handed it off to a writer after recording a blog posts like this 334 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:05.140 one and then they can write it. Then that blog post can rank and you can 335 00:22:05.140 --> 00:22:07.510 start to build authority because you're the one showing up on google when 336 00:22:07.510 --> 00:22:11.620 people are asking the questions. And that way you get two pieces of content 337 00:22:11.620 --> 00:22:15.110 with it, right? You get the audio and the written one. So that's where a 338 00:22:15.110 --> 00:22:19.340 podcast can really help you kind of again speed up the process and build 339 00:22:19.340 --> 00:22:25.230 authority in multiple places. So that is the 30 30 30 plan. Again, I've tried 340 00:22:25.230 --> 00:22:28.130 this three different times, one with nonprofit marketing and I really 341 00:22:28.130 --> 00:22:31.640 started to build up credibility there. It started picking up momentum much 342 00:22:31.640 --> 00:22:34.810 faster than I thought. I probably spent three months on this and I launched a 343 00:22:34.810 --> 00:22:40.140 podcast. Um I started posting on social and I uh I read all the books in a 344 00:22:40.140 --> 00:22:43.500 short amount of time and started interviewing experts on the topic and I 345 00:22:43.500 --> 00:22:46.910 remember just feeling the momentum going up and people kept showing up 346 00:22:46.910 --> 00:22:49.800 being like, wow dan. I mean I knew you were a nonprofit marketer but I didn't 347 00:22:49.800 --> 00:22:53.700 know like I didn't know like you were this deep into it, what they were 348 00:22:53.700 --> 00:22:57.160 trying to communicate to me over and over again. It's like wow dan. Like I'm 349 00:22:57.160 --> 00:23:01.240 perceiving you to be a bigger expert in this than I thought as people would 350 00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:04.760 begin messaging me about it podcast like experts that I was just asking 351 00:23:04.760 --> 00:23:08.240 questions to wood. Like after the interview would be like, wow dan. I 352 00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:12.180 didn't know you were like, I didn't realize how good you were at this, 353 00:23:12.190 --> 00:23:14.650 which is funny because I was only asking them questions and they were the 354 00:23:14.650 --> 00:23:17.270 one talking, they were the experts and they were perceiving me to be the 355 00:23:17.270 --> 00:23:20.520 expert. That's just what starts to happen. Especially when you start to do 356 00:23:20.520 --> 00:23:22.930 all these things together because you're, you're dropping books, you're 357 00:23:22.930 --> 00:23:26.180 like, oh I like that idea. Remember this other author talked about that 358 00:23:26.180 --> 00:23:28.820 when you're starting to drop references like that because you've been reading 359 00:23:28.820 --> 00:23:34.160 and researching everything, you start to sound knowledgeable and it's because 360 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:37.780 you are and it's not that hard to go through this process. You can get this 361 00:23:37.780 --> 00:23:41.740 done. Yeah, I mean you can you can do it as faster, as short as you can just 362 00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:45.100 depends on how much time and effort you put into it. You can knock the 30 books 363 00:23:45.100 --> 00:23:49.850 out in about 30-90 days. You can knock the 30 interviews out in one month. I'm 364 00:23:49.850 --> 00:23:54.790 doing it right now. Um it's a lot of work. Um You can do 30 blog post, 365 00:23:54.790 --> 00:23:58.220 probably takes the longest, but it's possible to get it done in two months 366 00:23:58.230 --> 00:24:03.120 depending on how fast you write or how fast you can outsource it. So I've done 367 00:24:03.120 --> 00:24:06.910 this again, I get it with nonprofit marketing and I wrote I did the 30 368 00:24:06.910 --> 00:24:10.400 books, I did the 30 interviews and I did the 30 blog posts. And it started 369 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:13.490 to take off really fast and I did it in a short amount of time, probably like 370 00:24:13.500 --> 00:24:17.150 all of it together, probably four months. Um I did it again with account 371 00:24:17.150 --> 00:24:22.270 based marketing not long ago and I only did part of it. I read there was only 372 00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:25.930 12, 13 books on the topic. So I read all of those over the course of the 373 00:24:25.930 --> 00:24:29.580 month and I did 30 interviews over the course of the month of this last 374 00:24:29.580 --> 00:24:33.740 february and I didn't write any blog posts on the topic. But already I was 375 00:24:33.740 --> 00:24:37.820 talking I was posting about it on linkedin as I was reading books, doing 376 00:24:37.830 --> 00:24:40.980 podcasts on the books, doing podcast with lots of experts. A lot of the 377 00:24:40.980 --> 00:24:44.680 biggest names in the topic on a. B. M. And I didn't have a lot of experience. 378 00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:48.200 In fact the whole premise I had for that that deep dive was that I know I 379 00:24:48.200 --> 00:24:51.130 don't know anything about this. I've only read a book on it. I'm still new 380 00:24:51.130 --> 00:24:54.390 to B two B marketing. I don't know what's going on. Please tell me what 381 00:24:54.390 --> 00:24:58.990 this means. But as I started posting it on linkedin, people are like started 382 00:24:58.990 --> 00:25:05.100 associating me with this topic. Again, the power of association happened. The 383 00:25:05.110 --> 00:25:08.430 influence and confidence that I had from reading all the books in a short 384 00:25:08.430 --> 00:25:12.690 time period started to kick in in my interviews and in the post that I was 385 00:25:12.690 --> 00:25:15.760 writing about account based marketing. So people are reading, people are 386 00:25:15.760 --> 00:25:18.780 listening. People are hearing me associate with the names in the field. 387 00:25:18.790 --> 00:25:22.550 And naturally by the time the deep guy was over, people were starting to tag 388 00:25:22.550 --> 00:25:25.280 me and things being like, oh listen to these people on A B. M. And I was 389 00:25:25.280 --> 00:25:27.920 throwing showing up in those lists. I was like oh my gosh, I wasn't even 390 00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:31.240 trying this time to like I didn't want to be a perceived expert in a B. M. I'm 391 00:25:31.240 --> 00:25:34.260 still practicing it myself. I still have a lot to learn. I didn't have a 392 00:25:34.260 --> 00:25:38.830 baseline knowledge in it per se because I hadn't done a B. M. Before, but I was 393 00:25:38.830 --> 00:25:43.700 already starting to be perceived as an influencer in this space, as a leader 394 00:25:43.700 --> 00:25:48.280 in this space And it wasn't my thing at all. And now I've been kind of doing 395 00:25:48.280 --> 00:25:51.780 this with the topic of thought leadership, not because I'm a thought 396 00:25:51.780 --> 00:25:55.560 leader on thought leadership. Um that's kind of where I'm trying to headbutt 397 00:25:55.560 --> 00:25:58.880 again. I would never say it about myself. I am still a student. I still 398 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:03.950 have a ton to learn a whole reason why did this 30 this deep dive right now is 399 00:26:03.950 --> 00:26:07.590 begin Again, doing everything I just talked about in the 30, 30 30 plan. I 400 00:26:07.590 --> 00:26:12.670 was trying to eat my own dog food and it's working like people I'm showing up. 401 00:26:12.670 --> 00:26:15.220 Unless people are starting to talk about it. All I'm doing is showing up 402 00:26:15.230 --> 00:26:18.400 and trying to be the most helpful in a topic that I think is important. That's 403 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:23.180 it. So if this sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend like start just 404 00:26:23.190 --> 00:26:26.530 search for the amazon books that you think would be start making a list of 405 00:26:26.530 --> 00:26:30.050 all the books that you want to read by, five of them. Start reading them. Talk 406 00:26:30.050 --> 00:26:32.580 to others about what this might look like for you. Bring some of your 407 00:26:32.580 --> 00:26:36.220 counsel in and see if what topic this might be that you could focus and 408 00:26:36.220 --> 00:26:41.370 specialize in. It is a great path. It's been working well for me. I have a few 409 00:26:41.370 --> 00:26:44.750 others that I'm working on it with the team on. And again, it's just a 410 00:26:44.750 --> 00:26:48.790 hypothesis. So I'm feeling it working well for me, it's resonated with others. 411 00:26:48.790 --> 00:26:52.570 I talked to them about this plan, it doesn't get you to expertise, but it is 412 00:26:52.570 --> 00:26:58.370 a fantastic way to accelerate that process. So if you have any ideas about 413 00:26:58.370 --> 00:27:05.010 this or have any tweaks critiques about this 30 30 30 plan um ideas or if this 414 00:27:05.010 --> 00:27:08.000 has inspired you, I'd love to hear about it. Come find me on linkedin dot 415 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:12.330 com slash science slash digital marketing dan. I love connecting with 416 00:27:12.340 --> 00:27:18.330 anybody from BBB growth and talking about how the podcast is. I don't know 417 00:27:18.330 --> 00:27:22.750 how how the podcast is sounding to you. Is it helpful? Is it not helpful? Is 418 00:27:22.750 --> 00:27:25.680 there something you would add to this? 3030 pretty plan? I'd love to hear it 419 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:28.630 because I'm still formulating this idea and it's getting better and better with 420 00:27:28.630 --> 00:27:32.050 time and of course with your feedback. So let me know 421 00:27:36.040 --> 00:27:39.680 one of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 422 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:44.320 mouth works. It works really, really well actually. So if you love this show, 423 00:27:44.320 --> 00:27:48.200 it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it. And if 424 00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:52.500 you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend meta, 425 00:27:52.510 --> 00:27:56.110 I know I'll send you a copy of my book, content based networking, how to 426 00:27:56.120 --> 00:27:59.530 instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is 427 00:27:59.530 --> 00:28:04.770 40749033 to 8. Happy next thing 428 00:28:07.340 --> 00:28:08.000 Yeah.