Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.750 welcome back to be to be growth. My name is James Carberry and I'm joined 2 00:00:08.750 --> 00:00:13.490 today by Bill Sherman. He is the c 00 at thought leadership leverage. And he 3 00:00:13.490 --> 00:00:16.890 is the host of the leveraging thought leadership podcast. If you're not 4 00:00:16.900 --> 00:00:21.700 already listening to that show, you absolutely should be. Bill. I am really 5 00:00:21.700 --> 00:00:25.330 excited for our conversation today before we dive in, though, I like to 6 00:00:25.330 --> 00:00:30.190 keep it kind of fun on the front end of this conversation. What was your very 7 00:00:30.190 --> 00:00:37.280 first concert? Very first concert would be new order 1988. Order. Wonderful. 8 00:00:37.290 --> 00:00:40.280 Awesome man. So I'm really excited about this conversation because we're 9 00:00:40.280 --> 00:00:44.470 gonna be talking about the difference between content marketing and thought 10 00:00:44.470 --> 00:00:49.520 leadership, and so give us a little bit of context, like why is this something 11 00:00:49.520 --> 00:00:53.540 that you wanted Thio As we were talking about this in the preinterview, It's 12 00:00:53.540 --> 00:00:57.760 something we both think needs to be talked about. But there's some things 13 00:00:57.760 --> 00:01:00.840 that are being said about the difference between the two that you 14 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:05.260 just you vehemently disagree with, and so ts off their talk about kind of the 15 00:01:05.260 --> 00:01:09.120 things you're hearing what you disagree with. And then we can go from there. 16 00:01:09.130 --> 00:01:13.410 Well, I would start in a couple places. One. There's some people that say 17 00:01:13.410 --> 00:01:18.350 thought Leadership is an empty sort of business jargon buzzword that you know, 18 00:01:18.350 --> 00:01:24.120 has no meaning, no content whatsoever, that it's just it's a label, right? But 19 00:01:24.130 --> 00:01:27.390 on a deeper level, I hear a lot of people say, Well, thought leadership. 20 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:31.130 Well, that's just a fancy word or maybe even a pretentious word for content 21 00:01:31.130 --> 00:01:36.890 marketing. And I disagree with that because although content marketing and 22 00:01:36.890 --> 00:01:42.820 thought leadership can be used for similar outcomes, they are two distinct 23 00:01:42.830 --> 00:01:48.300 different functions. And so you continues them both to fill the sales 24 00:01:48.300 --> 00:01:50.940 pipeline. But there's a lot of things that you could do with thought 25 00:01:50.940 --> 00:01:55.580 leadership that you can't do with content marketing. So let's dive into 26 00:01:55.580 --> 00:02:00.060 that. I mean, I think everyone listening here agrees that the reason 27 00:02:00.060 --> 00:02:03.370 we do content marketing is because we want to fill the sales pipeline. But 28 00:02:03.380 --> 00:02:06.800 there's and it doesn't really content. Marketing doesn't really well, it does 29 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:10.380 it exceptionally well. I mean, both you and I have been a huge part of us. 30 00:02:10.380 --> 00:02:14.390 Growing our own businesses is through content marketing, but it's also been 31 00:02:14.390 --> 00:02:17.920 because of thought leadership. And so talk to us about some of the some of 32 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:21.850 the things about thought leadership where you explain it is a Venn diagram. 33 00:02:21.850 --> 00:02:25.410 So there are things where both, like both content marketing and thought 34 00:02:25.410 --> 00:02:28.650 leadership, contribute to your sales pipeline. But what are some things that 35 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:33.890 thought leadership does, that content marketing doesn't necessarily dio right? 36 00:02:33.900 --> 00:02:38.240 So we agree that thought leadership in content marketing could be used to fill 37 00:02:38.240 --> 00:02:42.650 the sales pipeline this month. This quarter you're looking very tactically. 38 00:02:42.650 --> 00:02:46.480 You're putting information in the hands of your sales people so they could go 39 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:50.210 out and they can fill the sales pipeline, get orders, right? But 40 00:02:50.210 --> 00:02:54.340 there's other things that people use thought leadership for which are very 41 00:02:54.340 --> 00:02:59.510 powerful and impactful. And the second one that I would say is thought 42 00:02:59.510 --> 00:03:05.540 leadership can be used. Thio. Continue a conversation with someone when a 43 00:03:05.540 --> 00:03:09.450 sales conversation would be awkward or inappropriate. Let me give you a couple 44 00:03:09.450 --> 00:03:13.890 of use cases on that right? So if you're doing B two b marketing and 45 00:03:13.890 --> 00:03:19.420 you're doing exceptionally large ticket sales which have long sales cycle, so 46 00:03:19.420 --> 00:03:23.870 you might have ah, 36 months sales cycle and it could be an eight or nine 47 00:03:23.870 --> 00:03:29.410 figure deal, right? You can't send your sales people each month to the to the 48 00:03:29.410 --> 00:03:32.890 buyer and say, Hey, are you ready to make that expense? Because they're 49 00:03:32.890 --> 00:03:36.870 gonna look at you. Go talk to me in three years, right? So how do you stay 50 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:42.140 on their radar? How do you remain relevant? So and at that level, it may 51 00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:46.750 even be an RFP that gets put out. How do you get to be one of the companies 52 00:03:46.750 --> 00:03:51.160 that's invited to the dance to put a proposal on the table? Right on dso 53 00:03:51.160 --> 00:03:57.230 There are a lot of organizations in so heavy manufacturing equipment, etcetera. 54 00:03:57.240 --> 00:04:00.580 They used thought leadership to continue that sales conversation when 55 00:04:00.580 --> 00:04:06.800 the buyer isn't in a buying cycle. Okay, In additional to that media, for 56 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:11.730 example, you can use thought leadership to get earned media, but you're not 57 00:04:11.730 --> 00:04:15.030 selling them precisely. You're not trying to fill the sales pipeline from 58 00:04:15.030 --> 00:04:22.340 that also public policy. So you may want thio influence how either 59 00:04:22.340 --> 00:04:27.420 government or not, NGOs etcetera are dealing with issues. And you want to 60 00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:33.240 shape the conversation again. You're not selling product. You're shaping the 61 00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:37.770 landscape through an idea Okay, so that's the That's the second way you 62 00:04:37.770 --> 00:04:41.290 can use the thought leadership. The third way is to influence how people 63 00:04:41.300 --> 00:04:46.800 think and act, and that begins with really just a quick sort of foray into 64 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:51.570 how I define felt leadership thought leadership is peering around the corner 65 00:04:51.580 --> 00:04:56.170 into the future, and you might see a risk there or an opportunity, and 66 00:04:56.170 --> 00:04:59.730 that's great. But just looking in the future on its own, well, you're a 67 00:04:59.730 --> 00:05:03.300 futurist. You've got ideas of what the world might be. What really matters. 68 00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:09.200 Can you take those insights back to an audience, share them, communicate 69 00:05:09.200 --> 00:05:13.250 what's at stake, what they need to dio and provide actionable next steps of 70 00:05:13.250 --> 00:05:18.900 what they need to do today and why, so that they buy into it. If you're the 71 00:05:18.900 --> 00:05:23.180 CEO leading an organization, you may use thought leadership to encourage 72 00:05:23.180 --> 00:05:27.430 organization of why the organization needs to transform Newmarket. New 73 00:05:27.430 --> 00:05:32.080 approach. New technology. You may use it to drive a conversation with vendors 74 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:36.330 and ecosystem off the way the market's going, or you may be educating your 75 00:05:36.330 --> 00:05:42.420 customers for something that's coming up 3 to 5 years ahead, right? So think 76 00:05:42.420 --> 00:05:47.170 about the conversation with something like Internet of things when I o. T 77 00:05:47.170 --> 00:05:51.840 initially came out. Yeah, there were engineers in that Who said, Oh, this 78 00:05:51.840 --> 00:05:56.630 will be great But there are a lot of business owners and also then business 79 00:05:56.630 --> 00:05:59.520 unit heads that have to figure out What's that going to do to transform my 80 00:05:59.520 --> 00:06:04.060 business? You can't just show up and say, Hey, we've got these new devices 81 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:08.170 and you should buy some. You've gotta help them plan and prepare years ahead 82 00:06:08.180 --> 00:06:12.870 to shape their business around a new possibility. And those air things that 83 00:06:12.870 --> 00:06:17.750 thought leadership can do the content marketing isn't concerned about because 84 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:22.550 it's about the pipeline. Yeah, yeah. So where Content marketing is exclusively 85 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:27.680 externally focused thought leadership can be externally focused, but it can 86 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:31.740 also be internally focused. So whether you're trying Thio, whether you're 87 00:06:31.750 --> 00:06:35.690 doing something that you're transforming inside your organization, 88 00:06:35.690 --> 00:06:40.450 especially in large companies, CEOs need to be thinking about what thought 89 00:06:40.450 --> 00:06:44.820 leadership of that creating to get their employees aligned and thinking in 90 00:06:44.820 --> 00:06:48.010 the same direction that the business is about to head. I love what you 91 00:06:48.010 --> 00:06:51.690 mentioned about working with vendors and other companies in the ecosystem. 92 00:06:51.700 --> 00:06:55.810 You're not necessarily trying to sell them on your product or your service. 93 00:06:55.810 --> 00:06:58.970 But you're trying to get them aligned around a way of thinking so that you 94 00:06:58.970 --> 00:07:03.950 guys can collectively all serve the same market together in a unified way, 95 00:07:03.950 --> 00:07:08.430 and in a way that's going to get the most give the most value to your mutual 96 00:07:08.430 --> 00:07:12.730 customers. What would you say? Built like for folks? They're going Okay, I'm 97 00:07:12.730 --> 00:07:16.560 starting toe look a thought leadership through a little bit different lens. 98 00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:21.480 Now. It's not just for adding pipeline. What are some ways that they need to 99 00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:25.100 think about, like what? Our next steps that they need to take to start 100 00:07:25.100 --> 00:07:30.290 creating thought leadership content specifically internal. We've talked a 101 00:07:30.290 --> 00:07:33.760 lot on this show about creating it when it overlaps with content marketing. But 102 00:07:33.770 --> 00:07:37.820 for that internal use case, how some of your clients don't have you seen 103 00:07:37.820 --> 00:07:44.100 companies create what are some examples of souls campaigns, and it gets complex 104 00:07:44.100 --> 00:07:47.950 right, the larger the organization. If you've got 50,000 employees, 100,000 105 00:07:47.950 --> 00:07:53.690 employees, it becomes a question of how fast our ideas sort of percolating 106 00:07:53.690 --> 00:07:59.020 through the company. So do you have pieces of a good idea? One in one silo, 107 00:07:59.020 --> 00:08:02.700 one in another. But if all those people aren't talking, the idea never comes to 108 00:08:02.700 --> 00:08:07.910 fruition, right? So the way that organizations are starting to think 109 00:08:07.910 --> 00:08:12.610 about that leadership as a standalone function, separate from content 110 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:16.750 marketing, separate from strategy, separate from exact calms. But someone 111 00:08:16.750 --> 00:08:23.040 who owns responsibility for the scaling of ideas they don't have to be the 112 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:26.580 person who comes up with all the ideas. And in fact, that's counterproductive 113 00:08:26.580 --> 00:08:31.030 because you want to democratize ideation across the organization. But I 114 00:08:31.030 --> 00:08:36.720 have seen a lot of organizations say we're going to make a competitive 115 00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:40.990 advantage and thought leadership so that our clients and customers know we 116 00:08:40.990 --> 00:08:43.850 spend time looking around corners and we're helping them prepare for the 117 00:08:43.850 --> 00:08:48.250 future. And to make that, we need to make sure that our sales people 118 00:08:48.250 --> 00:08:51.370 understand what the future looks like. Otherwise, they're only gonna be 119 00:08:51.370 --> 00:08:54.070 talking about today. They're not gonna be talking and preparing clients for 120 00:08:54.070 --> 00:08:58.950 the future, and so you need to identify who owns the thought leadership 121 00:08:58.950 --> 00:09:03.130 function and then who on the executive team is going to be willing to sponsor 122 00:09:03.130 --> 00:09:08.970 it. So there's roles that many people within the organization can play. Some 123 00:09:08.970 --> 00:09:13.130 people create content. Whether that's you know, they like to write or they 124 00:09:13.130 --> 00:09:17.350 like to speak or they do podcasts or whatever the modalities air similar to 125 00:09:17.350 --> 00:09:22.560 content marketing. It's the approach on What are you trying to use it for? And 126 00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:26.700 you build a talent pipeline just like you've done with sweet fish where you 127 00:09:26.700 --> 00:09:31.530 say, Hey, let's get a lot of people doing creation of content That's the 128 00:09:31.530 --> 00:09:34.930 same thing. It's the democratization of thought leadership in saying we're 129 00:09:34.930 --> 00:09:39.540 gonna have many people creating and deploying it and so that everyone 130 00:09:39.550 --> 00:09:45.430 expects within the organization they have some responsibility in their job, 131 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.470 for thought, leadership in some way for what they dio or how they touched 132 00:09:49.470 --> 00:09:53.260 customer. Yeah, so when you're talking about thought leadership for an 133 00:09:53.260 --> 00:09:58.270 internal use case, those ideas and I like that you framed them as ideas. I 134 00:09:58.270 --> 00:10:01.320 think so many people want to be thought leaders without actually having 135 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:05.120 thoughts worth following, and so they developed the development of those 136 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:09.300 points of view. The development of these ideas is very important part of 137 00:10:09.300 --> 00:10:14.660 this process, but those ideas aren't coming necessarily from the person that 138 00:10:14.640 --> 00:10:18.390 is leading up thought leadership. They're coming from all over the 139 00:10:18.390 --> 00:10:22.950 organization. What have you seen companies do to build a culture around? 140 00:10:22.950 --> 00:10:27.190 Actually getting those ideas to the surface? Is that a monthly call that 141 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:32.020 the CEO is leading depends and it depends on the side of the organization, 142 00:10:32.030 --> 00:10:37.160 right? So some organizations have a dedicated research team, right, either 143 00:10:37.160 --> 00:10:43.130 for R and D or for product, and you've got marketing. And so there's some 144 00:10:43.130 --> 00:10:47.610 communication that goes back and forth there. But the thought leadership 145 00:10:47.610 --> 00:10:51.940 function that cases looking and I think of the thought leadership function 146 00:10:51.940 --> 00:10:55.540 really is almost the spider in the middle of the Web. They have to know 147 00:10:55.540 --> 00:10:59.090 what the executive vision is, what the business strategy is. They need to know 148 00:10:59.090 --> 00:11:03.200 what conversations were going on with the frontline customers, as well as be 149 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:07.150 able, look left and right across the organization and encourage good ideas 150 00:11:07.150 --> 00:11:11.110 there. Often, when you choose someone to be owning the thought leadership 151 00:11:11.110 --> 00:11:16.210 function, their connectors there the person who goes, Oh, you were talking 152 00:11:16.210 --> 00:11:20.330 about this, you need to talk to that person over there, and so they almost 153 00:11:20.330 --> 00:11:27.080 have a joy of connecting and sort of encouraging people to codify their 154 00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:31.060 ideas, bring them forward because what a lot of people have is what I would 155 00:11:31.060 --> 00:11:36.060 describe this content. Insecurity. They've got an idea, but they hesitated. 156 00:11:36.070 --> 00:11:41.050 Hesitate to share it with their peers or to put it out on LinkedIn or to 157 00:11:41.050 --> 00:11:44.100 speak at a conference because they're going. Oh, surely somebody else is 158 00:11:44.100 --> 00:11:50.460 talking about this Thistle isn't you know something radical and that content 159 00:11:50.470 --> 00:11:55.120 insecurity prevents a lot of good ideas. Now you said you need a good idea to 160 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:58.590 begin with, but I've seen a lot of good ideas die on the shelf because of 161 00:11:58.590 --> 00:12:02.460 content, ID, security. And so the person who is the head of thought 162 00:12:02.460 --> 00:12:06.320 leadership, whether they have that title or not, they're the nurturer 163 00:12:06.320 --> 00:12:11.640 there, the encourager. They also I'll give an example, was talking to someone 164 00:12:11.640 --> 00:12:16.220 in manufacturing recently who they were doing data analysis on their content 165 00:12:16.220 --> 00:12:20.210 marketing side. And they're going Wow, we have this couple set of post that 166 00:12:20.210 --> 00:12:26.470 just blew up. Why is that? They dug deeper and they realized there was one 167 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:32.610 employee within the organization that had built 30,000 followers with and 168 00:12:32.610 --> 00:12:39.050 then linked in on their niche in the world. OK, and they went to that person. 169 00:12:39.050 --> 00:12:42.690 They said. You know, we recognize you've done this. You've been doing it 170 00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:47.430 evenings, weekends, etcetera. But you're now a voice. Can you show the 171 00:12:47.430 --> 00:12:51.390 rest of the organization how to do this? So they basically took this person who 172 00:12:51.390 --> 00:12:55.390 done it is a passion project, Put them on a pedestal in the organization said, 173 00:12:55.400 --> 00:13:00.010 Look at this. This works. This has helped us win business, and we need to 174 00:13:00.010 --> 00:13:03.870 beam or like this, right? So they found the use case within the organization. 175 00:13:05.040 --> 00:13:09.100 Hey, everybody, Logan with sweet fish here if you've been listening to the 176 00:13:09.100 --> 00:13:12.980 show for a while, you know, we're big proponents of putting out original 177 00:13:12.990 --> 00:13:17.030 organic content on LinkedIn. But one thing that's always been a struggle for 178 00:13:17.030 --> 00:13:21.270 a team like ours is too easily track the reach of that LinkedIn content. 179 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:25.010 That's why I was really excited when I heard about Shield the other day from a 180 00:13:25.010 --> 00:13:29.540 connection on you guessed it linked in. Since our team started using shield, 181 00:13:29.550 --> 00:13:34.080 I've loved how it's led us easily track and analyze the performance of are 182 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:38.090 linked in content without having to manually log it ourselves. It 183 00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:41.460 automatically creates reports and generate some dashboards that are 184 00:13:41.460 --> 00:13:45.770 incredibly useful to see things like what contents been performing the best? 185 00:13:45.740 --> 00:13:49.660 On what days of the week are we getting the most engagement and our average 186 00:13:49.660 --> 00:13:53.370 views proposed? I highly suggest you guys check out this tool. If you're 187 00:13:53.370 --> 00:13:57.380 putting out content on LinkedIn and if you're not, you should be. It's been a 188 00:13:57.380 --> 00:14:02.460 game changer for us. If you go to shield app dot ai and check out the 10 189 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:07.930 day free trial. You can even use our promo code B two B growth to get a 25% 190 00:14:07.930 --> 00:14:13.840 discount. Again, that's shield app dot ai And that promo code is be the number 191 00:14:13.840 --> 00:14:18.860 two. The growth, All one word. All right, let's get back to the show. One 192 00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:25.040 theme. One of the things Bill that we're starting to do that I think would 193 00:14:25.040 --> 00:14:30.690 be. I'm convinced that every B to B companies should be trying to do some 194 00:14:30.690 --> 00:14:34.740 form of of what I'm about to explain, but and we talked about it on your show 195 00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:39.540 ah, a couple weeks ago. Its original research? Absolutely. If you're doing 196 00:14:39.540 --> 00:14:43.460 collaborative content, whether it's the podcast or you do a video, Siri's If 197 00:14:43.460 --> 00:14:48.160 you are interviewing your ideal customers, your current customers, and 198 00:14:48.160 --> 00:14:52.280 you're putting the spotlight on them and and featuring their expertise in 199 00:14:52.280 --> 00:14:56.740 their wisdom, then doing original research with each of those people that 200 00:14:56.740 --> 00:15:01.050 you feature on your podcast or video, Siri's or whatever and asking them a 201 00:15:01.050 --> 00:15:05.150 series of 10 to 15 questions that you come up with that you think the market 202 00:15:05.150 --> 00:15:08.900 would be interested to learn about. So some of our questions air like, What's 203 00:15:08.900 --> 00:15:11.610 the most overrated B two B marketing trend. Right now it's the most 204 00:15:11.620 --> 00:15:16.050 underrated B two B marketing tactic. What is your favorite marketing book? 205 00:15:16.060 --> 00:15:20.630 What marketing channels Air working for you right now? And by asking these 206 00:15:20.630 --> 00:15:25.060 questions, we're getting some. There's some questions where we hear very 207 00:15:25.060 --> 00:15:28.060 similar responses over and over and over again. There's some questions 208 00:15:28.060 --> 00:15:32.170 where we get answers all over the board, but we've done about 59 of these 209 00:15:32.170 --> 00:15:35.440 interviews so far, and they usually take about 5 to 10 minutes. A very 210 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:39.680 short. But what we're gonna do once we get to 100 there are three people from 211 00:15:39.680 --> 00:15:44.080 our team myself, Logan and Dan, or we're basically going to structure the 212 00:15:44.090 --> 00:15:49.720 these videos into little time stamps, so we're gonna have for each question 213 00:15:49.730 --> 00:15:52.860 each of the 15 questions we're gonna have a video where we have. We're 214 00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:57.500 seeing the answers from all 100 of the people that we've surveyed in a single 215 00:15:57.500 --> 00:16:02.500 video. And when you watch 100 different people answer the same question over 216 00:16:02.500 --> 00:16:06.070 and over and over again, it's gonna be impossible for us not to walk away with 217 00:16:06.070 --> 00:16:09.250 some insights from those answers. Absolutely. It's an amazing way to 218 00:16:09.250 --> 00:16:13.500 collect market intelligence. And to be it creates a competitive challenge 219 00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:16.720 because you're creating original research. And one of the things that I 220 00:16:16.720 --> 00:16:21.910 think people undervalue in thought leadership a lot is many of your 221 00:16:21.910 --> 00:16:27.040 clients are siloed. They only know their own company. They know their own 222 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:31.740 perspective. They don't know what their peers or their competitors are talking 223 00:16:31.740 --> 00:16:37.790 about to the same degree. And so if you can bring market insights, if you can 224 00:16:37.790 --> 00:16:41.340 bring that thought leadership to the table, you've differentiated yourself 225 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:45.810 because they don't know what someone who wears the same title in a different 226 00:16:45.810 --> 00:16:49.940 organization doing is thinking of doing what. So so two of the insights that 227 00:16:49.950 --> 00:16:54.190 that I've figured out so far and doing the 59 interviews and again, we're 228 00:16:54.190 --> 00:16:57.890 gonna have loads of these insights coming on the on the heels of finishing. 229 00:16:57.890 --> 00:17:01.030 And you've made it a process which I think is one of the most powerful 230 00:17:01.030 --> 00:17:05.390 things You've created a routine in a process to create thought leadership, 231 00:17:05.400 --> 00:17:09.000 which is fantastic. And I think the developing of the ideas themselves they 232 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:13.680 don't necessarily need to come from you or your exactly. So these. We've done 233 00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:17.780 59 interviews so far, and there's two specific insights. I just did an 234 00:17:17.790 --> 00:17:21.130 episode of another episode about it. Maybe there's an internal video that I 235 00:17:21.130 --> 00:17:25.109 did for a team but one marketing leaders that we're talking to. B two b 236 00:17:25.109 --> 00:17:29.410 marketing leaders. VP, CMOS. You know your lane in your narrow casting to 237 00:17:29.410 --> 00:17:32.450 that you're not trying to reach everybody. And I've learned that they 238 00:17:32.450 --> 00:17:36.050 don't read marketing books. So when I asked them what they're what they're 239 00:17:36.060 --> 00:17:40.280 all time favorite book on marketing is most of the time. They're responses are, 240 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:43.550 well, it's not actually a marketing book, which is a very interesting 241 00:17:43.550 --> 00:17:47.590 insight, because one if you're a marketer trying to get to that level in 242 00:17:47.590 --> 00:17:50.970 the organization, you're trying to become a V P. R C m o. You should know 243 00:17:50.970 --> 00:17:55.090 that like, Hey, the people that are already there they don't read a lot of 244 00:17:55.090 --> 00:18:00.290 marketing books well, and let me even amplify that the average into a couple 245 00:18:00.290 --> 00:18:04.310 of years ago. The staff, the average business person reads 00.8 business 246 00:18:04.310 --> 00:18:12.120 books every two years. Wow, right? Yep, Yeah, so? So that little nugget, though. 247 00:18:12.130 --> 00:18:16.090 That's something now that we can, we can build a flywheel of content around 248 00:18:16.090 --> 00:18:20.380 we can do. You can do content for our podcast. We can do internal videos to 249 00:18:20.390 --> 00:18:25.170 educate our team on what are things that are interesting for our customers. 250 00:18:25.140 --> 00:18:28.520 We can run them through our B two B growth groups, which are mastermind 251 00:18:28.520 --> 00:18:30.890 groups that we're doing with prospective customers and existing 252 00:18:30.890 --> 00:18:34.500 customers. We can put content on LinkedIn. We could do slide decks and 253 00:18:34.510 --> 00:18:37.440 and so that's That's just one insight. Like marketers don't read marketing 254 00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:40.230 books. They read these kind of books. They read books about psychology and 255 00:18:40.230 --> 00:18:43.880 creativity and organizational, health and leadership. The other insight is 256 00:18:43.880 --> 00:18:48.210 that most of the marketers that I talked to when I asked them what KP 257 00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:53.360 eyes their CEO is regularly looking at related to their function. It zits 258 00:18:53.360 --> 00:18:57.150 revenue. They're they're looking at, like its revenue source pipeline. It's 259 00:18:57.150 --> 00:19:00.920 closed one business. And so knowing that like and I don't think that that 260 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:05.260 comes into a shock to anyone. But even for us internally knowing that our 261 00:19:05.260 --> 00:19:11.250 podcasting service, if it does not map to revenue for our customer, then 262 00:19:11.260 --> 00:19:13.790 they're likely not going to be a customer for very long because the way 263 00:19:13.790 --> 00:19:17.950 they're being measured is revenue. And so I think being able to share just 264 00:19:17.950 --> 00:19:22.210 those two insights alone differentiate us as a brand. Whether it's the 265 00:19:22.210 --> 00:19:25.150 personal brands within our company sharing that kind of content, whether 266 00:19:25.150 --> 00:19:29.520 it's our company doing it from our cos. Channels on Social, we're actually 267 00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:34.500 putting fresh insights into the market based on research that we've done, as 268 00:19:34.500 --> 00:19:39.000 opposed to just having to rely on our own thoughts and our own ideas. And 269 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:43.520 what we think are buyers should be learning and what they should be 270 00:19:43.520 --> 00:19:47.920 consuming. And and that's one of the fantastic things about leadership and 271 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:51.270 sort of our overlap, right. So if you look back at the field of thought 272 00:19:51.270 --> 00:19:53.950 leadership, either on the organizational level or the individual 273 00:19:53.950 --> 00:19:57.520 level, the business books that you and I both read, right? There was a 274 00:19:57.520 --> 00:20:02.810 traditional sort of road. 20 years ago, you wrote a book you got on the New 275 00:20:02.810 --> 00:20:06.560 York Times best seller list. You went out into the keynote speech. You were 276 00:20:06.560 --> 00:20:09.900 on the circuit, etcetera. Right? If you're a business, you were doing white 277 00:20:09.900 --> 00:20:13.780 papers and research reports and conferences. All of these long form 278 00:20:13.780 --> 00:20:17.900 static, one way communication, whether it's the book, the speech or the 279 00:20:17.900 --> 00:20:22.360 research report now thought leadership has become much more granular, much 280 00:20:22.360 --> 00:20:26.230 more immediate. We're taking content and deploying it down to two stackable 281 00:20:26.230 --> 00:20:30.200 bites because people are consuming content, different ways. And it's a two 282 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:33.740 directional communication, just like you're doing the interview. And you're 283 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:37.390 learning from your guests. They're learning from you. And what I think 284 00:20:37.390 --> 00:20:40.670 we're doing now is we're turning up the heat. Sort of think like a gas stove, 285 00:20:40.670 --> 00:20:45.450 right? We're increasing the heat on the stove, So ideas air coming to a boil 286 00:20:45.460 --> 00:20:51.850 faster. Yes, yes, I I completely agree. And and I just love Bill, your 287 00:20:51.860 --> 00:20:56.000 perspective of thinking about thought leadership in in a different way, 288 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:00.990 through a different lens than just how it contributes to pipeline because 289 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:06.130 these ideas that were surfacing through the original research we're doing are 290 00:21:06.140 --> 00:21:10.760 going to be so beneficial for our team, our internal team, the folks serving 291 00:21:10.760 --> 00:21:14.830 our customers them, knowing these insights about the people that they're 292 00:21:14.830 --> 00:21:18.760 serving are going to make them much more strategic thinkers. They're going 293 00:21:18.760 --> 00:21:23.500 to be much more aligned with the desires and and wants of our customers 294 00:21:23.500 --> 00:21:25.770 because they're going to understand them better. They're gonna be able to 295 00:21:25.780 --> 00:21:29.840 empathize. And us as an organization, we're gonna be able to evolve and make 296 00:21:29.850 --> 00:21:34.860 our service better the more we understand our customers. And so it's 297 00:21:34.860 --> 00:21:39.710 not just adding sales pipeline. Let me, Vince that it's going to do that but 298 00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:44.230 that the internal benefit is huge. Yeah, well, let me add another example on it, 299 00:21:44.230 --> 00:21:48.240 too, because there's that direct, immediate monetization of the pipeline. 300 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:52.110 And then there's that long term strategic almost business development 301 00:21:52.120 --> 00:21:58.310 approach to I have seen organizations that have given the thought leadership 302 00:21:58.310 --> 00:22:05.480 team responsibility for choreographing what senior leadership is doing when 303 00:22:05.480 --> 00:22:09.930 they go to conferences and when they speak, for example, not just on what 304 00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:13.660 they're saying on stage, but who they're also meeting within you know 305 00:22:13.660 --> 00:22:17.120 those five minute pull asides where they're talking with appear and they're 306 00:22:17.120 --> 00:22:23.050 planting the seeds for 12 or 18 months out in advance, and it's really 307 00:22:23.050 --> 00:22:28.150 thinking strategically on. Maybe one way to think about it is if content 308 00:22:28.150 --> 00:22:34.080 marketing is to sales thought leadership is DBT. That's really 309 00:22:34.080 --> 00:22:40.010 interesting. So expand on that a little bit. Yeah, So in sales, you're looking 310 00:22:40.010 --> 00:22:42.550 at your pipeline. You're looking conversion. You're looking for 311 00:22:42.550 --> 00:22:46.230 marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads. You're trying to pull 312 00:22:46.230 --> 00:22:50.380 them through the funnel and thought leadership You main the person you're 313 00:22:50.380 --> 00:22:54.720 trying to influence may or may not be your ultimate buyer. They could be 314 00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:59.080 media, they could be policymaker. They could be a CEO. That then refers down 315 00:22:59.080 --> 00:23:03.510 three levels to an ultimate buyer sort of thing. But you're trying to create 316 00:23:03.520 --> 00:23:09.060 influence through ideas, right and build relationships, deepen 317 00:23:09.060 --> 00:23:13.710 relationships, accelerate them, and then get people to lean into the way of 318 00:23:13.710 --> 00:23:17.960 thinking. And the way that I think of it is think about it like wiring an RFP. 319 00:23:17.940 --> 00:23:23.520 If you get your client thio, adopt your way of thinking in the RFP. You've got 320 00:23:23.520 --> 00:23:28.650 a leg up on the competition when you're putting it a bit. If you get a client 321 00:23:28.660 --> 00:23:33.290 to adopt your way of thinking of how the future is going to be two years out, 322 00:23:33.290 --> 00:23:37.360 three years out, etcetera and they're moving towards that future, then 323 00:23:37.360 --> 00:23:41.510 they're already looking to you to help them reach that future. It's the same 324 00:23:41.510 --> 00:23:46.170 sort of thing. Makes perfect sense. Bill, this has been incredible that I 325 00:23:46.170 --> 00:23:50.540 love the work you're doing. Your your podcast is so focused and narrowed in 326 00:23:50.540 --> 00:23:55.030 on helping thought leadership practitioners do this stuff the right 327 00:23:55.030 --> 00:23:59.520 way. Think about it differently. Think outside the box and not not just 328 00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:03.000 thinking about it like a content marketing effort, but seeing it for 329 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:06.230 everything that it can truly bring to your organization other than 330 00:24:06.230 --> 00:24:10.930 subscribing to your podcast. Leveraging thought leadership What are some other 331 00:24:10.930 --> 00:24:14.330 ways that listeners have? B two B Growth can stay connected with you. You 332 00:24:14.330 --> 00:24:21.110 can find me on linked in. I used the personal hashtag, or TL, and I. This is 333 00:24:21.110 --> 00:24:23.930 my passion, and that's one of the things about thought leadership is it's 334 00:24:23.930 --> 00:24:26.900 gotta come from a place of passion. If you don't wake up in the morning 335 00:24:26.900 --> 00:24:30.250 excited to talk about it, guess what? Your listeners aren't gonna be excited 336 00:24:30.250 --> 00:24:35.480 to listen about it and they'll move on. And you recognize that 99.99% of the 337 00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:39.170 world won't care about what you want to say and what you want to talk about. 338 00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:43.730 But that's okay, because the world is a wide and wonderful place. So find me on 339 00:24:43.730 --> 00:24:48.600 LinkedIn. Look, follow me on or TL and let's have a conversation e Love it. 340 00:24:48.610 --> 00:24:52.450 Thank you so much, Bill. This has been incredible, and I'm looking forward to 341 00:24:52.450 --> 00:24:54.800 staying connected with you. Awesome. Thank you, James. 342 00:24:57.340 --> 00:25:01.470 Are you on Lincoln? That's a stupid question. Of course you're on LinkedIn 343 00:25:01.480 --> 00:25:06.010 here. Sweet fish. We've gone all in on the platform. Multiple people from our 344 00:25:06.010 --> 00:25:09.810 team are creating content there. Sometimes it's a funny gift for me. 345 00:25:09.820 --> 00:25:13.880 Other times it's a micro video or a slide deck, and sometimes it's just a 346 00:25:13.880 --> 00:25:17.960 regular all status update that shares their unique point of view on B two b 347 00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:22.190 marketing leadership, bori, their job function. We're posting this content 348 00:25:22.190 --> 00:25:26.490 through their personal profile, not our company page, and it would warm my 349 00:25:26.490 --> 00:25:31.200 heart and soul if you connected with each of our evangelists, will be adding 350 00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:35.850 Mawr down the road. But for now, you should connect with Bill Reed, R C 00 351 00:25:35.860 --> 00:25:40.060 Kelsey Montgomery, our creative director. Dan Sanchez, our director of 352 00:25:40.060 --> 00:25:44.400 audience growth. Logan Lyles, our director of partnerships. And me, James 353 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:47.990 Carberry. We're having a whole lot of fun on length in pretty much every 354 00:25:47.990 --> 00:25:51.170 single day on. We'd love for you to be a part of it.
