Transcript
WEBVTT
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welcome back to be to be growth. My
name is James Carberry and I'm joined
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today by Bill Sherman. He is the c 00
at thought leadership leverage. And he
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is the host of the leveraging thought
leadership podcast. If you're not
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already listening to that show, you
absolutely should be. Bill. I am really
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excited for our conversation today
before we dive in, though, I like to
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keep it kind of fun on the front end of
this conversation. What was your very
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first concert? Very first concert would
be new order 1988. Order. Wonderful.
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Awesome man. So I'm really excited
about this conversation because we're
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gonna be talking about the difference
between content marketing and thought
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leadership, and so give us a little bit
of context, like why is this something
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that you wanted Thio As we were talking
about this in the preinterview, It's
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something we both think needs to be
talked about. But there's some things
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that are being said about the
difference between the two that you
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just you vehemently disagree with, and
so ts off their talk about kind of the
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things you're hearing what you disagree
with. And then we can go from there.
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Well, I would start in a couple places.
One. There's some people that say
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thought Leadership is an empty sort of
business jargon buzzword that you know,
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has no meaning, no content whatsoever,
that it's just it's a label, right? But
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on a deeper level, I hear a lot of
people say, Well, thought leadership.
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Well, that's just a fancy word or maybe
even a pretentious word for content
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marketing. And I disagree with that
because although content marketing and
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thought leadership can be used for
similar outcomes, they are two distinct
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different functions. And so you
continues them both to fill the sales
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pipeline. But there's a lot of things
that you could do with thought
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leadership that you can't do with
content marketing. So let's dive into
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that. I mean, I think everyone
listening here agrees that the reason
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we do content marketing is because we
want to fill the sales pipeline. But
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there's and it doesn't really content.
Marketing doesn't really well, it does
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it exceptionally well. I mean, both you
and I have been a huge part of us.
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Growing our own businesses is through
content marketing, but it's also been
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because of thought leadership. And so
talk to us about some of the some of
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the things about thought leadership
where you explain it is a Venn diagram.
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So there are things where both, like
both content marketing and thought
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leadership, contribute to your sales
pipeline. But what are some things that
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thought leadership does, that content
marketing doesn't necessarily dio right?
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So we agree that thought leadership in
content marketing could be used to fill
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the sales pipeline this month. This
quarter you're looking very tactically.
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You're putting information in the hands
of your sales people so they could go
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out and they can fill the sales
pipeline, get orders, right? But
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there's other things that people use
thought leadership for which are very
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powerful and impactful. And the second
one that I would say is thought
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leadership can be used. Thio. Continue
a conversation with someone when a
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sales conversation would be awkward or
inappropriate. Let me give you a couple
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of use cases on that right? So if
you're doing B two b marketing and
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you're doing exceptionally large ticket
sales which have long sales cycle, so
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you might have ah, 36 months sales
cycle and it could be an eight or nine
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figure deal, right? You can't send your
sales people each month to the to the
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buyer and say, Hey, are you ready to
make that expense? Because they're
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gonna look at you. Go talk to me in
three years, right? So how do you stay
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on their radar? How do you remain
relevant? So and at that level, it may
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even be an RFP that gets put out. How
do you get to be one of the companies
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that's invited to the dance to put a
proposal on the table? Right on dso
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There are a lot of organizations in so
heavy manufacturing equipment, etcetera.
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They used thought leadership to
continue that sales conversation when
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the buyer isn't in a buying cycle. Okay,
In additional to that media, for
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example, you can use thought leadership
to get earned media, but you're not
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selling them precisely. You're not
trying to fill the sales pipeline from
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that also public policy. So you may
want thio influence how either
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government or not, NGOs etcetera are
dealing with issues. And you want to
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shape the conversation again. You're
not selling product. You're shaping the
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landscape through an idea Okay, so
that's the That's the second way you
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can use the thought leadership. The
third way is to influence how people
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think and act, and that begins with
really just a quick sort of foray into
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how I define felt leadership thought
leadership is peering around the corner
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into the future, and you might see a
risk there or an opportunity, and
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that's great. But just looking in the
future on its own, well, you're a
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futurist. You've got ideas of what the
world might be. What really matters.
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Can you take those insights back to an
audience, share them, communicate
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what's at stake, what they need to dio
and provide actionable next steps of
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what they need to do today and why, so
that they buy into it. If you're the
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CEO leading an organization, you may
use thought leadership to encourage
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organization of why the organization
needs to transform Newmarket. New
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approach. New technology. You may use
it to drive a conversation with vendors
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and ecosystem off the way the market's
going, or you may be educating your
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customers for something that's coming
up 3 to 5 years ahead, right? So think
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about the conversation with something
like Internet of things when I o. T
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initially came out. Yeah, there were
engineers in that Who said, Oh, this
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will be great But there are a lot of
business owners and also then business
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unit heads that have to figure out
What's that going to do to transform my
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business? You can't just show up and
say, Hey, we've got these new devices
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and you should buy some. You've gotta
help them plan and prepare years ahead
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to shape their business around a new
possibility. And those air things that
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thought leadership can do the content
marketing isn't concerned about because
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it's about the pipeline. Yeah, yeah. So
where Content marketing is exclusively
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externally focused thought leadership
can be externally focused, but it can
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also be internally focused. So whether
you're trying Thio, whether you're
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doing something that you're
transforming inside your organization,
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especially in large companies, CEOs
need to be thinking about what thought
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leadership of that creating to get
their employees aligned and thinking in
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the same direction that the business is
about to head. I love what you
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mentioned about working with vendors
and other companies in the ecosystem.
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You're not necessarily trying to sell
them on your product or your service.
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But you're trying to get them aligned
around a way of thinking so that you
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guys can collectively all serve the
same market together in a unified way,
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and in a way that's going to get the
most give the most value to your mutual
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customers. What would you say? Built
like for folks? They're going Okay, I'm
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starting toe look a thought leadership
through a little bit different lens.
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Now. It's not just for adding pipeline.
What are some ways that they need to
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think about, like what? Our next steps
that they need to take to start
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creating thought leadership content
specifically internal. We've talked a
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lot on this show about creating it when
it overlaps with content marketing. But
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for that internal use case, how some of
your clients don't have you seen
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companies create what are some examples
of souls campaigns, and it gets complex
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right, the larger the organization. If
you've got 50,000 employees, 100,000
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employees, it becomes a question of how
fast our ideas sort of percolating
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through the company. So do you have
pieces of a good idea? One in one silo,
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one in another. But if all those people
aren't talking, the idea never comes to
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fruition, right? So the way that
organizations are starting to think
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about that leadership as a standalone
function, separate from content
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marketing, separate from strategy,
separate from exact calms. But someone
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who owns responsibility for the scaling
of ideas they don't have to be the
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person who comes up with all the ideas.
And in fact, that's counterproductive
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because you want to democratize
ideation across the organization. But I
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have seen a lot of organizations say
we're going to make a competitive
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advantage and thought leadership so
that our clients and customers know we
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spend time looking around corners and
we're helping them prepare for the
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future. And to make that, we need to
make sure that our sales people
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understand what the future looks like.
Otherwise, they're only gonna be
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talking about today. They're not gonna
be talking and preparing clients for
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the future, and so you need to identify
who owns the thought leadership
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function and then who on the executive
team is going to be willing to sponsor
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it. So there's roles that many people
within the organization can play. Some
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people create content. Whether that's
you know, they like to write or they
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like to speak or they do podcasts or
whatever the modalities air similar to
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content marketing. It's the approach on
What are you trying to use it for? And
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you build a talent pipeline just like
you've done with sweet fish where you
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say, Hey, let's get a lot of people
doing creation of content That's the
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same thing. It's the democratization of
thought leadership in saying we're
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gonna have many people creating and
deploying it and so that everyone
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expects within the organization they
have some responsibility in their job,
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for thought, leadership in some way for
what they dio or how they touched
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customer. Yeah, so when you're talking
about thought leadership for an
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internal use case, those ideas and I
like that you framed them as ideas. I
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think so many people want to be thought
leaders without actually having
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thoughts worth following, and so they
developed the development of those
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points of view. The development of
these ideas is very important part of
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this process, but those ideas aren't
coming necessarily from the person that
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is leading up thought leadership.
They're coming from all over the
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organization. What have you seen
companies do to build a culture around?
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Actually getting those ideas to the
surface? Is that a monthly call that
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the CEO is leading depends and it
depends on the side of the organization,
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right? So some organizations have a
dedicated research team, right, either
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for R and D or for product, and you've
got marketing. And so there's some
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communication that goes back and forth
there. But the thought leadership
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function that cases looking and I think
of the thought leadership function
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really is almost the spider in the
middle of the Web. They have to know
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what the executive vision is, what the
business strategy is. They need to know
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what conversations were going on with
the frontline customers, as well as be
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able, look left and right across the
organization and encourage good ideas
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there. Often, when you choose someone
to be owning the thought leadership
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function, their connectors there the
person who goes, Oh, you were talking
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about this, you need to talk to that
person over there, and so they almost
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have a joy of connecting and sort of
encouraging people to codify their
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ideas, bring them forward because what
a lot of people have is what I would
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describe this content. Insecurity.
They've got an idea, but they hesitated.
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Hesitate to share it with their peers
or to put it out on LinkedIn or to
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speak at a conference because they're
going. Oh, surely somebody else is
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talking about this Thistle isn't you
know something radical and that content
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insecurity prevents a lot of good ideas.
Now you said you need a good idea to
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begin with, but I've seen a lot of good
ideas die on the shelf because of
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content, ID, security. And so the
person who is the head of thought
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leadership, whether they have that
title or not, they're the nurturer
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there, the encourager. They also I'll
give an example, was talking to someone
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in manufacturing recently who they were
doing data analysis on their content
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marketing side. And they're going Wow,
we have this couple set of post that
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just blew up. Why is that? They dug
deeper and they realized there was one
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employee within the organization that
had built 30,000 followers with and
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then linked in on their niche in the
world. OK, and they went to that person.
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They said. You know, we recognize
you've done this. You've been doing it
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evenings, weekends, etcetera. But
you're now a voice. Can you show the
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rest of the organization how to do this?
So they basically took this person who
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done it is a passion project, Put them
on a pedestal in the organization said,
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Look at this. This works. This has
helped us win business, and we need to
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beam or like this, right? So they found
the use case within the organization.
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Hey, everybody, Logan with sweet fish
here if you've been listening to the
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show for a while, you know, we're big
proponents of putting out original
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organic content on LinkedIn. But one
thing that's always been a struggle for
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a team like ours is too easily track
the reach of that LinkedIn content.
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That's why I was really excited when I
heard about Shield the other day from a
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connection on you guessed it linked in.
Since our team started using shield,
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I've loved how it's led us easily track
and analyze the performance of are
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linked in content without having to
manually log it ourselves. It
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automatically creates reports and
generate some dashboards that are
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incredibly useful to see things like
what contents been performing the best?
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On what days of the week are we getting
the most engagement and our average
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views proposed? I highly suggest you
guys check out this tool. If you're
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ai And that promo code is be the number
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two. The growth, All one word. All
right, let's get back to the show. One
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theme. One of the things Bill that
we're starting to do that I think would
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be. I'm convinced that every B to B
companies should be trying to do some
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form of of what I'm about to explain,
but and we talked about it on your show
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ah, a couple weeks ago. Its original
research? Absolutely. If you're doing
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collaborative content, whether it's the
podcast or you do a video, Siri's If
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you are interviewing your ideal
customers, your current customers, and
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you're putting the spotlight on them
and and featuring their expertise in
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their wisdom, then doing original
research with each of those people that
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you feature on your podcast or video,
Siri's or whatever and asking them a
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series of 10 to 15 questions that you
come up with that you think the market
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would be interested to learn about. So
some of our questions air like, What's
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the most overrated B two B marketing
trend. Right now it's the most
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underrated B two B marketing tactic.
What is your favorite marketing book?
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What marketing channels Air working for
you right now? And by asking these
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questions, we're getting some. There's
some questions where we hear very
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similar responses over and over and
over again. There's some questions
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where we get answers all over the board,
but we've done about 59 of these
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interviews so far, and they usually
take about 5 to 10 minutes. A very
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short. But what we're gonna do once we
get to 100 there are three people from
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our team myself, Logan and Dan, or
we're basically going to structure the
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these videos into little time stamps,
so we're gonna have for each question
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each of the 15 questions we're gonna
have a video where we have. We're
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seeing the answers from all 100 of the
people that we've surveyed in a single
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video. And when you watch 100 different
people answer the same question over
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and over and over again, it's gonna be
impossible for us not to walk away with
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some insights from those answers.
Absolutely. It's an amazing way to
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collect market intelligence. And to be
it creates a competitive challenge
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because you're creating original
research. And one of the things that I
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think people undervalue in thought
leadership a lot is many of your
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clients are siloed. They only know
their own company. They know their own
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perspective. They don't know what their
peers or their competitors are talking
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about to the same degree. And so if you
can bring market insights, if you can
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bring that thought leadership to the
table, you've differentiated yourself
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because they don't know what someone
who wears the same title in a different
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organization doing is thinking of doing
what. So so two of the insights that
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that I've figured out so far and doing
the 59 interviews and again, we're
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gonna have loads of these insights
coming on the on the heels of finishing.
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And you've made it a process which I
think is one of the most powerful
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things You've created a routine in a
process to create thought leadership,
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which is fantastic. And I think the
developing of the ideas themselves they
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don't necessarily need to come from you
or your exactly. So these. We've done
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59 interviews so far, and there's two
specific insights. I just did an
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episode of another episode about it.
Maybe there's an internal video that I
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did for a team but one marketing
leaders that we're talking to. B two b
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marketing leaders. VP, CMOS. You know
your lane in your narrow casting to
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that you're not trying to reach
everybody. And I've learned that they
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don't read marketing books. So when I
asked them what they're what they're
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all time favorite book on marketing is
most of the time. They're responses are,
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well, it's not actually a marketing
book, which is a very interesting
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insight, because one if you're a
marketer trying to get to that level in
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the organization, you're trying to
become a V P. R C m o. You should know
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that like, Hey, the people that are
already there they don't read a lot of
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marketing books well, and let me even
amplify that the average into a couple
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of years ago. The staff, the average
business person reads 00.8 business
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books every two years. Wow, right? Yep,
Yeah, so? So that little nugget, though.
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That's something now that we can, we
can build a flywheel of content around
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we can do. You can do content for our
podcast. We can do internal videos to
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educate our team on what are things
that are interesting for our customers.
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We can run them through our B two B
growth groups, which are mastermind
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groups that we're doing with
prospective customers and existing
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customers. We can put content on
LinkedIn. We could do slide decks and
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and so that's That's just one insight.
Like marketers don't read marketing
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books. They read these kind of books.
They read books about psychology and
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creativity and organizational, health
and leadership. The other insight is
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that most of the marketers that I
talked to when I asked them what KP
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eyes their CEO is regularly looking at
related to their function. It zits
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revenue. They're they're looking at,
like its revenue source pipeline. It's
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closed one business. And so knowing
that like and I don't think that that
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comes into a shock to anyone. But even
for us internally knowing that our
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podcasting service, if it does not map
to revenue for our customer, then
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they're likely not going to be a
customer for very long because the way
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they're being measured is revenue. And
so I think being able to share just
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those two insights alone differentiate
us as a brand. Whether it's the
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personal brands within our company
sharing that kind of content, whether
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it's our company doing it from our cos.
Channels on Social, we're actually
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putting fresh insights into the market
based on research that we've done, as
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opposed to just having to rely on our
own thoughts and our own ideas. And
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what we think are buyers should be
learning and what they should be
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consuming. And and that's one of the
fantastic things about leadership and
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sort of our overlap, right. So if you
look back at the field of thought
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leadership, either on the
organizational level or the individual
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level, the business books that you and
I both read, right? There was a
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traditional sort of road. 20 years ago,
you wrote a book you got on the New
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York Times best seller list. You went
out into the keynote speech. You were
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on the circuit, etcetera. Right? If
you're a business, you were doing white
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papers and research reports and
conferences. All of these long form
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static, one way communication, whether
it's the book, the speech or the
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research report now thought leadership
has become much more granular, much
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more immediate. We're taking content
and deploying it down to two stackable
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bites because people are consuming
content, different ways. And it's a two
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directional communication, just like
you're doing the interview. And you're
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learning from your guests. They're
learning from you. And what I think
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we're doing now is we're turning up the
heat. Sort of think like a gas stove,
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right? We're increasing the heat on the
stove, So ideas air coming to a boil
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faster. Yes, yes, I I completely agree.
And and I just love Bill, your
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perspective of thinking about thought
leadership in in a different way,
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through a different lens than just how
it contributes to pipeline because
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these ideas that were surfacing through
the original research we're doing are
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going to be so beneficial for our team,
our internal team, the folks serving
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our customers them, knowing these
insights about the people that they're
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serving are going to make them much
more strategic thinkers. They're going
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to be much more aligned with the
desires and and wants of our customers
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because they're going to understand
them better. They're gonna be able to
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empathize. And us as an organization,
we're gonna be able to evolve and make
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our service better the more we
understand our customers. And so it's
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not just adding sales pipeline. Let me,
Vince that it's going to do that but
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that the internal benefit is huge. Yeah,
well, let me add another example on it,
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too, because there's that direct,
immediate monetization of the pipeline.
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And then there's that long term
strategic almost business development
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approach to I have seen organizations
that have given the thought leadership
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team responsibility for choreographing
what senior leadership is doing when
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they go to conferences and when they
speak, for example, not just on what
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they're saying on stage, but who
they're also meeting within you know
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those five minute pull asides where
they're talking with appear and they're
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planting the seeds for 12 or 18 months
out in advance, and it's really
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thinking strategically on. Maybe one
way to think about it is if content
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marketing is to sales thought
leadership is DBT. That's really
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interesting. So expand on that a little
bit. Yeah, So in sales, you're looking
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at your pipeline. You're looking
conversion. You're looking for
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marketing qualified leads, sales
qualified leads. You're trying to pull
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them through the funnel and thought
leadership You main the person you're
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trying to influence may or may not be
your ultimate buyer. They could be
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media, they could be policymaker. They
could be a CEO. That then refers down
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three levels to an ultimate buyer sort
of thing. But you're trying to create
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influence through ideas, right and
build relationships, deepen
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relationships, accelerate them, and
then get people to lean into the way of
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thinking. And the way that I think of
it is think about it like wiring an RFP.
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If you get your client thio, adopt your
way of thinking in the RFP. You've got
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a leg up on the competition when you're
putting it a bit. If you get a client
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to adopt your way of thinking of how
the future is going to be two years out,
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three years out, etcetera and they're
moving towards that future, then
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they're already looking to you to help
them reach that future. It's the same
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sort of thing. Makes perfect sense.
Bill, this has been incredible that I
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love the work you're doing. Your your
podcast is so focused and narrowed in
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on helping thought leadership
practitioners do this stuff the right
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way. Think about it differently. Think
outside the box and not not just
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thinking about it like a content
marketing effort, but seeing it for
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everything that it can truly bring to
your organization other than
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subscribing to your podcast. Leveraging
thought leadership What are some other
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ways that listeners have? B two B
Growth can stay connected with you. You
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can find me on linked in. I used the
personal hashtag, or TL, and I. This is
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my passion, and that's one of the
things about thought leadership is it's
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gotta come from a place of passion. If
you don't wake up in the morning
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excited to talk about it, guess what?
Your listeners aren't gonna be excited
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to listen about it and they'll move on.
And you recognize that 99.99% of the
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world won't care about what you want to
say and what you want to talk about.
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But that's okay, because the world is a
wide and wonderful place. So find me on
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LinkedIn. Look, follow me on or TL and
let's have a conversation e Love it.
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Thank you so much, Bill. This has been
incredible, and I'm looking forward to
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staying connected with you. Awesome.
Thank you, James.
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Are you on Lincoln? 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 all status update that shares
their unique point of view on B two b
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marketing leadership, bori, 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
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heart and soul if you connected with
each of our evangelists, will be adding
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Mawr down the road. But for now, you
should connect with Bill Reed, R C 00
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Kelsey Montgomery, our creative
director. Dan Sanchez, our director of
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audience growth. Logan Lyles, our
director of partnerships. And me, James
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Carberry. We're having a whole lot of
fun on length in pretty much every
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single day on. We'd love for you to be
a part of it.