Transcript
WEBVTT
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Yeah,
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welcome back to another episode of B
two B growth. I'm dan Sanchez, Friends
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call me dan Chevez and I'm here to talk
to you about a problem with thought
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leadership because while I've been
learning about this topic, been
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fascinated by this topic and talking to
some of the experts, I've run into a
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major problem with thought leadership
and that's Most people want to be one.
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The problem is there is not necessarily
a clear path On how to become one. Now,
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if you a week ago or maybe two weeks
ago, I covered a topic called authentic
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thought leadership. It's crazy that I
have to even throw the word authentic
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in front of it because there's so many
fake file leaders out there. But it is
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a real thing. There are true thought
leaders. You probably have other
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podcasters, authors, other people
you're listening to and hearing from
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stage whatever that you're listening to
and are influencing you right now. They
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are legitimate thought leaders. They
are helping you serving you and helping
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you achieve your ambitions, your goals.
You're helping you wish giving you
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strategies, tactics, whatever they are
and whatever sphere of life. Some of
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them are marketers, right? They're real.
And there are authorities out there and
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we talked about the three
characteristics of authentic thought
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leadership, being expertise,
contributing unique slash helpful ideas
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and having authority. That those are
the three keys of being a thought
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leader. Otherwise, you know, you're a
faker, Ak poser, A k a charlatan, right?
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Nobody wants to be that. So then what
do you do if you aspire to be a thought
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leader? Right? It always feels like,
well, it feels Presumptions to push up
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my ideas, like thus, Saith the dan,
Right? So what do you do when you
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aspire to be a thought leader? But, you
know, you're you're good at what you do,
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you're probably, you're great
professional, but you know that, you
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know, whether you're an expert or not,
it's like uh it's hard to say You have
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some unique ideas, but they're not like
research back. You don't have like 1000
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surveys, like giving you stats to pull
from. You have been doing this for 15,
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years and have substantial evidence
that it always works. You know, you
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don't have authority because even
though you have some following on
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social media, you just kind of like, uh
like what is an authority? Like how do
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you measure that? Right? So how do you
do it? When can you call yourself a
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thought leader? Well, I have a theory
hypothesis for you. This is what I'm
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currently doing to do this, right? And
it's a concept I like to call learning
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in the light, learn in the light,
here's how it works. Don't position
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yourself as a thought leader. I know
this is kind of counterintuitive, but
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you don't want to add the word thought
leader to your bio. You don't want to
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add the word thought leader to your
headline shoot. Actually, let's just
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call it out. The first rule of thought
leadership is you don't call yourself a
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thought leader. The second role of
thought leader is equally important.
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You don't call yourself a thought
leader, You just never do. You never
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will because you don't really need to.
So here's the reason here's what you
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can do. Instead, as a marketer, you're
probably brainstorming outside the box
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ideas to engage your prospects and
customers working remotely. And you've
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probably thought about sending them
direct mail to break through the zoom
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fatigue. But how do you ship
personalized gifts to remote decision
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makers? When you have no idea where
they're sitting at B. B. Growth? We use
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the craft and platform to send hyper
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pick and personalize their own gift in
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data capture. So decision makers feel
comfortable submitting their home
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your own personalized craft and gift.
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Go to craft um dot io slash growth to
schedule a demo and receive a
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gift, go to craft um dot io slash
growth. You start by position yourself
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as a student. Again, you position
yourself as a student, even if you're a
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professional, even if you're an expert
position yourself as a student, it will
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go better for you because I'll be
honest, I have people that have quote
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unquote expertise and unique ideas.
They have phds in their field and then
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they come and pitch me. I want to be on
the show
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but I turned them away because I don't
know them. I don't know their ideas.
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Sounds okay. It's gonna it's not a
problem I'm thinking a lot about and
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that's usually part of the problem
right? Is there just not really
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relevant? But they don't know them.
They don't have authority. I don't I
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don't know like I can see that they
have a valid degree and that they've
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been seen on T. V. And stuff but I
don't know them. So I'm not gonna they
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don't they don't have authority with me.
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But you need to be able to build
authority at a time over time and it's
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easier to do it when you position
yourself as a student. So a fun rhyme
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that I have stuck in my head that
helped me remember this is if, if they
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watch you grow, they'll know that, you
know, if they watch you grow, they'll
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know that, you know, because the
problem with the ph d that has come ph
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d s that have come to me before is that
I like, I get an idea that they, they
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know what they know. But if I had seen
them from the beginning, posting and
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earning authorities step by step, I
would probably trust them a lot more.
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Like we've all seen this with people
around us that we've been watched,
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we've watched on linkedin, we've
watched on social media, maybe we've
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been watched on Youtube, right? Um,
people that have grown and influence
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over time and then we really respect
them as we saw them when they were
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nothing and then we watched them grow
and they're learning, We watched them
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grow and their expertise and their
authority, and that's what you need to
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do. We all needed to humble ourselves,
like stop calling ourselves experts.
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I'm not I still have a lot to a long
way to go. I've only been a year into
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this topic and I've gone deep, but I'm
like, man, I still have so much to
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learn. And even if you are an expert,
isn't there always more to learn? Isn't
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that kind of the dichotomy of learning?
You only learn how much, how much more
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you need to learn, right? Like usually
learn people, people that have gotten
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more degrees or spent more time trying
to figure out how things work. Say
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these things. It's because there's
always more to learn so we can always
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be positioned as students. And the
funny thing happens when you actually
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position yourself as a student is that
people don't are less likely to like
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call you out for being presumptuous,
they're less likely to throw you under
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the bus for your bad ideas because if
you position yourself as a student,
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it's hard to hate you, right? You're
coming off humble and so they're not
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trying to pull you off your high horse,
there's no high horse, you're starting,
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you're just like, hey, I'm just here on
the ground trying to learn it works
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much better that way. Here's some ways
you can position yourself as a student
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and grow in real authority as they
actually watch you learn, as they watch
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you grow, as they watch you interview
the experts, they watch you contribute
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ideas. So the first thing you gotta do
is just share what you're learning on
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social media from day one, you can set
a goal to be a thought leader, don't
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say that you're setting a goal to be a
thought leader. Just say, hey, I'm
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trying to, I'm trying to learn how to
do this well, whether it's email
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marketing or if your company, if you're
trying to even position your company as
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this as an expert or authority in this
one topic, you can just say, hey, we're
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trying to master this. We're trying to
figure out how to make this a better
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world in this way and then share your
learnings as you go from the books you
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read from the blogs you read, give
credit where it's due, show that you
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can actually take in the information
and participate in the existing
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conversation that's going on in that
particular niche field. Ask good
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questions. In fact, it's one of my
favorite things about having a podcast
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because you have an excuse to go and
talk to all the authors, all the
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writers, all the other podcasters, all
the people with phds that are are
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authorities in the space to invite them
on the show and have conversations with
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them. So what I'm doing right now in
this series on Thought leadership, I'm
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growing in my learning and you can use
a podcast to be able to do that very
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well. Yeah. So part of this whole
series has been selfish for me to learn
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and to grow. But it's also great
content for you as you get to learn
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with me with all these experts and
thought leaders on this show. So share
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what you're learning on social media
from all the books and podcasts and
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interviews and research and tests and
experience of you just testing out the
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different stuff, share it, take
screenshots of it asked good questions
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on social media. There's a lot of
experts that love to share what they
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learned. Then after you've learned some
things you can go and help other people
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at first it'll just be the people that
are a few steps behind you. But there's
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usually way more people at the very
beginning stages of any topic than
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there are people at the advanced or
expert stages. So there's always more
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people that need help in the beginning.
Go and help them find the questions,
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find the things that they're talking
about and engage with them in their
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posts and their comments. This is a
slow game. But as you help one person
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after another after another after
another you will start to build
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authority One person at a time it works.
I've seen it work. I've only been at
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this for a year but I'm already
starting to see the effects of it and
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I'm just showing up in the comments.
I'm showing up in the D. M. S. When
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people ask me a question, I shoot them
video responses sometimes. Um just
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sharing the things that I've learned
that have gotten me to where I'm at and
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I still have a freaking long way to go.
So help people
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and then you'll find that over time as
you learn and as you grow you'll start
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to develop your own ideas about how
things work and you'll start to
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actually have some practice in it.
You'll start to form an opinion that
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might differ from some of the common
generic advice that's out there because
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you've been testing and you've been
helping people, you've been having
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conversations about social media and
everybody's been kind of watching this
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happen. So you'll start to share ideas,
you put out unique ideas and sometimes
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will be shot down. Sometimes people be
like oh shoot dang, that's good. Um and
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sometimes you as a student, remember
you need to position yourself as a
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student throughout the process. I would
even ask for feedback on things like
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hey had this idea what if such and such
were more like such and such, right?
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You like you have these ideas and you
throw them out there and you be like
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just a unique idea. What do you guys
think and invite criticism? Truth be
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told. It actually makes you better,
helps you learn faster because somebody
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more experienced than you, more of an
expert than you. And there's always
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some out there, we'll be able to point
out some flaws with it, right? And
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that's where thought leaders or people
professed thought leaders get in
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trouble is they're, they're coming up
with ideas and not even validating and
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not even really having a conversation
about it before. They're they're
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pitching their ideas. Don't do that,
throw your ideas out there, test them,
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see how people react to them. That's
what the real, authentic thought
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leaders are doing their testing ideas
just like good comedians, go and test
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all their jokes in front of small
crowds over and over and over again and
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refine them, refine them. You need to
do the same thing with your ideas. I've
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been practicing this and it works
remarkably well on linkedin, but I'm
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sure it works pretty well on twitter as
well. And over time you share your
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ideas, you perfect them, you make them
better, you can publish them in bigger
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and broader ways. You go from small
social post to longer meaty blog post
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to a full on book with a collection or
portfolio of your ideas that are all
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around a central theme or a topic that
address something and then you're
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starting to become a thought leader.
But you've never called yourself a
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thought leader, You've never positioned
yourself as a thought leader, you were
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just a student that was there to help.
And that's kind of the secret. If you
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want to learn in the light, you
position yourself as a thought leader,
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your humble yourself and you just say,
I want to serve people by learning as
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much as I can about this topic and
helping others with the problems in
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this particular niche space. And over
time, over the years of learning and
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the years of helping, in the years of
just helping others, you will just be a
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thought leader, you will just be the
one everybody trust on this topic
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because you've helped so many people,
they've watched you grow, they've
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watched you wrestle, they've watched
you help one person after another,
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that's how real authority is built. And
that's kind of the answer to the
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problem. You can't just come off the
scene, not even with the PhD, which is
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credible. You can't even just launch
off the scene as an unknown and just be
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like, here I am like, open the curtains,
I have arrived to take care of your
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problems. No, you can't do that. You
gotta do it one person at a time and
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kind of go low to be able to be an
authentic thought leader. So this is an
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idea of mine. I've actually tested it
on linkedin. I've kind of gotten
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feedback and refined it. Um and I want
to do that now, I do not, I'm not the
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expert in this and this is just
something is a hypothesis that I come
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up, came up with and I love your
feedback on this. Let me practice what
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I preach right now. Like I want your
feedback. Does this ring true. Have you
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seen circumstances where this isn't the
case? And somebody became a thought
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leader, one that you actually respect
that just launched on the scene and
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then everybody knew them, love them,
trusted them. I'd love to know. Let me
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know at Lincoln dot com slash en slash
digital marketing dan. I answer all my
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direct messages that aren't automated
and anyone that comes from the show and
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answers me there. I certainly love to
have conversations with. So let me know
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How did this go?
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Are you on linkedin? That's a stupid
question. Of course, you're on linkedin
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here, Sweet fish. We've gone all in on
the platform. Multiple people from our
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team are creating content there.
Sometimes it's a funny gift for me.
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Other times it's a micro video or a
slide deck and sometimes it's just a
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regular old status update that shares
their unique point of view on B two B
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marketing leadership or their job
function. We're posting this content
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through their personal profile, not our
company page and it would warm my heart
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and soul if you connected with each of
our evangelists, we'll be adding more
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down the road. But for now you should
connect with Bill Reed, R. C 00 Kelsey
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Montgomery, our creative director dan
Sanchez, our director of audience
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growth Logan Lyles, our director of
partnerships and me, James Carberry.
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We're having a whole lot of fun on
linkedin pretty much every single day
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and we'd love for you to be a part of
it.