Personal Vs. Organization Thought Leadership: Which Is Right For You?

WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:09.040 Welcome back, Thio B two B Growth. I'm Dan Sanchez with sweet Fish Media. And 2 00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:12.670 today I'm joined by Craig Beijing's Who is the author of Thought Leadership 3 00:00:12.670 --> 00:00:18.930 Tweet and the partner at Senate s H J. Craig. How you doing? Great to be with 4 00:00:18.930 --> 00:00:22.910 you, then all the way from down Under and Sydney. Well, thanks so much for 5 00:00:22.910 --> 00:00:26.990 waking up early to join me on this episode today. For those of you 6 00:00:26.990 --> 00:00:30.720 listening today, we're gonna be talking about personal versus organizational 7 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:34.530 thought leadership. But before we do Craig, can you tell us a little bit 8 00:00:34.530 --> 00:00:40.860 about you and the team at Senate s h J have been up to these days. Well, the 9 00:00:40.870 --> 00:00:44.500 thought leadership journey is a long one for me. Personally. I started on 10 00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:49.260 about 15 years ago when I started exploring what it meant. Who does it? 11 00:00:49.260 --> 00:00:54.670 Who does it? Well, I joined Senate S H. J five years ago, almost six years ago 12 00:00:54.670 --> 00:00:59.590 now, and I brought that methodology to them a swell. And we've used it with a 13 00:00:59.590 --> 00:01:03.420 number of clients. And I'll share with you some insights about one client in 14 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:09.260 particular on how we did that and what it resulted in. But I must say this 15 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:14.280 stand that while I really did a deep dive on thought leadership for many, 16 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:18.480 many years, I had a blogger on it. I'd written four books on it. What I 17 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:24.930 discovered. Waas. Actually, it's a very small segment of what I call reputation 18 00:01:24.930 --> 00:01:31.570 management. It helps build reputations that helps protect reputations, helps 19 00:01:31.570 --> 00:01:37.720 enhance reputations off businesses. And so I have broadened my research and my 20 00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:43.180 work with Senate S S J into reputation management, off which thought 21 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:48.310 leadership forms one pillar. Okay, so that's really interesting. Before we 22 00:01:48.310 --> 00:01:52.500 dive into, like that one pillar, what would be the other pillars of 23 00:01:52.500 --> 00:01:57.740 reputation management? Fundamentally. I see it is three pillars. The one is 24 00:01:57.750 --> 00:02:02.210 engagement. So engagement with your stakeholders and your own team, your 25 00:02:02.210 --> 00:02:07.160 own stuff. The other one is what I call promotion into which thought leadership 26 00:02:07.170 --> 00:02:13.800 fits. So promotion could be a host of things. Public relations, media content, 27 00:02:13.810 --> 00:02:21.150 events, launches you name it Third one, it's called. Yeah, the third one is 28 00:02:21.150 --> 00:02:25.700 protection, right? Protection is how do you protect your your company from the 29 00:02:25.700 --> 00:02:30.530 crisis or an issue? What crisis plans do you have in place? So really, those 30 00:02:30.530 --> 00:02:34.870 are the three pillars that make up for me and for senators. SJ Reputation 31 00:02:34.870 --> 00:02:39.880 management. Fantastic. So to dive back into thought leadership, how do you 32 00:02:39.890 --> 00:02:44.250 define thought? Leadership? You know, I I ran our next time for many years. My 33 00:02:44.250 --> 00:02:49.080 block. I used to ask people for their definition. And, boy, boy, they are 34 00:02:49.090 --> 00:02:54.520 hundreds, and there's some great ones. My definition of thought leadership is 35 00:02:54.530 --> 00:03:00.480 that firstly, you can't solve. Proclaim it. The market has to view use a 36 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:03.850 thought leader. That's the most critical point of the lot. And it's 37 00:03:03.850 --> 00:03:08.820 amazing if I was a thought leadership policemen, how many times I would have 38 00:03:08.820 --> 00:03:13.170 arrested people for opposing us. Thought leaders. E don't know how many 39 00:03:13.170 --> 00:03:16.270 times you've seen people's websites saying, I thought leadership content, 40 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:21.100 you know, here's I thought leadership piece. So that's the first thing. The 41 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:25.410 second thing is, I have not met any thought leader, whether it be an 42 00:03:25.410 --> 00:03:31.150 individual or a company that isn't brave and isn't prepared to take risks, 43 00:03:31.160 --> 00:03:34.680 so that's the second point. You have to be brave and what you're putting 44 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:40.370 forward because, let's face it, if you're gonna shift paradigms around a 45 00:03:40.380 --> 00:03:44.640 sector off business or if you're gonna make people think differently. Or if 46 00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:48.130 you're gonna give insights that are new and fresh, which is Allfirst's 47 00:03:48.140 --> 00:03:52.190 leadership content, you have to be brave. You have to take a risk and you 48 00:03:52.190 --> 00:03:55.200 gotta be prepared for the blowback. You've gotta be prepared to defend that 49 00:03:55.210 --> 00:04:00.740 or debate that in public. The lastly, What I'd like to say is I have never 50 00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:04.980 met a thought leader who doesn't share stuff right. And when I mean share 51 00:04:04.980 --> 00:04:09.540 stuff, I mean share stuff. I remember once interviewed a guy called Ken 52 00:04:09.540 --> 00:04:14.210 Blanchard. Ken Blanchard is the author of The One Minute Manager. On my 53 00:04:14.210 --> 00:04:19.430 interview the many years ago, Yeah, yeah, and he said this to me and I've 54 00:04:19.430 --> 00:04:24.110 written it down. Hey said you can have the best ideas, the most innovative 55 00:04:24.110 --> 00:04:29.260 thoughts in the world. But if no one hears about them, they are worth squat. 56 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:33.720 So thanks, kin. You're absolutely right. If people aren't sharing ideas and 57 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:37.810 sharing it openly, you can never be a thought leader. So those are good 58 00:04:37.810 --> 00:04:41.730 characteristics for what thought leadership is or good good 59 00:04:41.730 --> 00:04:45.020 characteristics of a thought leader. But what is like the act of thought 60 00:04:45.020 --> 00:04:49.160 leadership like, how do you know, thought leadership. When you see it, 61 00:04:49.840 --> 00:04:53.180 it's fresh, it's new, and it makes you think differently about a topic or a 62 00:04:53.180 --> 00:05:00.130 sector. So I'll give you an example many years ago. And, um, I like to 63 00:05:00.130 --> 00:05:05.100 mention brand names on this program, by the way. Absolutely good. So many years 64 00:05:05.100 --> 00:05:11.500 ago, BMW ran a Siris on the future of travel. Okay, it wasn't anything to do 65 00:05:11.500 --> 00:05:17.110 with Their car was in advance of the launch of their their electric car, and 66 00:05:17.110 --> 00:05:20.690 what they did was it was really clever. They interview people like Buzz Aldrin. 67 00:05:20.700 --> 00:05:25.770 You know, one of the first astronauts thio at the moon. And they looked out 68 00:05:26.140 --> 00:05:30.130 all sorts of different ideas. They interviewed Google. They talked a 69 00:05:30.130 --> 00:05:34.100 hollowed of different people about what was transferred, What sport gonna be 70 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:39.730 like 25 50 years down the track? And what would that mean to cities? And how 71 00:05:39.730 --> 00:05:43.680 would people get around? So they're completely shifted people's thinking 72 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:48.630 about transport and travel and started people thinking differently about and 73 00:05:48.630 --> 00:05:52.710 then very cleverly, the introduction of the electric car. Right? So for me, 74 00:05:52.710 --> 00:05:55.580 that's what thought leadership has got to do. It's gonna it's gonna make you 75 00:05:55.580 --> 00:05:59.970 sit up, take note and say, Hey, I hadn't thought about that before. No 76 00:05:59.970 --> 00:06:04.130 one's talked about that before. That's really fresh. That's really new. That 77 00:06:04.130 --> 00:06:09.030 is actually shifted. My paradigm. It's moved me. Have you ever heard of the 78 00:06:09.030 --> 00:06:13.710 term schema cracking? Then? I haven't heard that term, but it sounds. I mean, 79 00:06:13.710 --> 00:06:16.730 it's pretty descriptive, so I could get an idea of where you're going with it. 80 00:06:16.740 --> 00:06:21.660 Okay, so schema cracking is probably the best way of describing it. And I 81 00:06:21.660 --> 00:06:25.990 know it's jargon and I'll just break that jogging down we all. We all run 82 00:06:25.990 --> 00:06:29.830 our own little worlds in our own little minds around schemes that we have about 83 00:06:29.830 --> 00:06:34.340 the world on. We frame our thoughts that way, right? And we have 84 00:06:34.340 --> 00:06:38.540 confirmation bias. So we read stuff that we like that we like to confirm 85 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:44.150 our confirmation bias about something. A schema cracking idea is something a 86 00:06:44.150 --> 00:06:48.950 completely shatters your scheme about the way you think about the world. 87 00:06:49.340 --> 00:06:54.540 Great thought, leadership crack schemers. It breaks your thinking wide 88 00:06:54.540 --> 00:06:59.800 open. It throws out all your confirmation biases about a topic so 89 00:06:59.800 --> 00:07:02.910 that you think very differently, and you see, you see something very 90 00:07:02.910 --> 00:07:06.650 differently. So you're saying that thought leadership isn't just a 91 00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:11.210 difference in a topic that's nuanced. It is a completely different way of 92 00:07:11.210 --> 00:07:15.770 looking at the topic. I think their grades of thought leadership purist 93 00:07:15.770 --> 00:07:20.270 Stickley I'd say the first one is absolutely the nirvana of thought 94 00:07:20.270 --> 00:07:26.460 leadership. But in reality, let's face it, there are companies and there are 95 00:07:26.460 --> 00:07:31.080 individuals out there who have, you know, slightly shift or slightly. Given 96 00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:35.890 a new insight on, I still say That's for leadership. Well, let's be really 97 00:07:35.890 --> 00:07:39.810 fair enough. It is. It does make a lot of sense to kind of put a scale on 98 00:07:39.810 --> 00:07:43.000 their of thought. Leadership makes a lot more serious. This is or isn't 99 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:47.200 right. So where did you discover thought? Leadership. And then how how 100 00:07:47.200 --> 00:07:50.570 was that early story for you? Is you got into it and started developing your 101 00:07:50.570 --> 00:07:54.960 own thoughts around the topic. Okay, My honest answer is there was a very, very 102 00:07:54.960 --> 00:07:56.170 selfish decision. 103 00:07:57.340 --> 00:08:04.450 I immigrated to Australia 17 years ago. I had spent nine on 15, 20 years in the 104 00:08:04.450 --> 00:08:11.180 PR industry in South Africa. I had made a name for myself, Andi. I came here 105 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:15.650 and no one knew me. No one cared and I thought, What do I need to do? Thio? 106 00:08:16.140 --> 00:08:21.970 Take a leap forward in my industry, I need to write a book. But what I what 107 00:08:21.970 --> 00:08:26.200 can I write a book about? And I started exploring and I thought, You know what? 108 00:08:26.210 --> 00:08:29.430 This thought leadership topic. I've come up against the number of times, 109 00:08:29.440 --> 00:08:33.240 and in fact, in my career I've been involved in some thought leadership. If 110 00:08:33.240 --> 00:08:36.700 I If I look at what the definition of it is, actually I've been involved in 111 00:08:36.700 --> 00:08:41.510 some campaigns that are thought leadership campaigns. So why didn't I 112 00:08:41.510 --> 00:08:45.200 explore that? And I did a lot of reading. I used to get up at four every 113 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:50.900 morning for a year and a half, read research, and then I started writing 114 00:08:50.900 --> 00:08:55.500 the book, so it was a deliberate process. But through the research, I 115 00:08:55.500 --> 00:08:59.260 got really excited about the topic and discovered that actually, there are a 116 00:08:59.260 --> 00:09:02.810 lot of people out there who are doing it really well and making a mark on the 117 00:09:02.810 --> 00:09:07.160 world and making a mark in their industry. And I realized that actually 118 00:09:07.170 --> 00:09:12.250 was incredibly powerful to tool to throw yourselves pipeline and to 119 00:09:12.250 --> 00:09:17.550 differentiate your brand absolutely. And after writing the book. I assume 120 00:09:17.550 --> 00:09:21.190 you went on and helped customers implement what you had written in your 121 00:09:21.190 --> 00:09:23.640 books. And, of course I'm holding up for those who were just listening, 122 00:09:23.650 --> 00:09:26.720 holding up one of his books. You've written four books, though, and all on 123 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:29.970 the same topic, all on thought, leadership, all on thought leadership. 124 00:09:29.970 --> 00:09:34.250 And the great thing is that the one you holding up? I collaborated with Dr Lose 125 00:09:34.250 --> 00:09:38.330 Alexander. She actually profited me about that wonderful woman. She's a 126 00:09:38.330 --> 00:09:43.450 futurist, and she used to be in the U. S. She's now immigrated to Malaysia, 127 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:49.680 but she's living there and wonderful mind, wonderful woman and collaborated 128 00:09:49.680 --> 00:09:54.580 with her on that book. Another book I collaborated with Mignon from Holdren, 129 00:09:54.580 --> 00:10:00.540 who lectures on thought leadership in Holland and eso Collaboration is 130 00:10:00.540 --> 00:10:05.990 fantastic when it comes to these things. And the wonderful thing is there a lot 131 00:10:05.990 --> 00:10:09.470 of thought leaders out there who prepared to give their time as well, 132 00:10:09.480 --> 00:10:12.840 And I reached out to a lot of them and interviewed a lot of people about how 133 00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:17.170 they became for leaders what they did, how long it took. I never forget there 134 00:10:17.170 --> 00:10:21.260 was a guy called this guy in Australia called Bernard Salt. He's a demographer. 135 00:10:21.270 --> 00:10:26.580 He works with a very well known management consultancy called KPMG. You 136 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:31.050 may have heard of he when I interviewed him. I said, I'll burn it. How long did 137 00:10:31.050 --> 00:10:34.870 it take you to become a thought leader recognizes such, he said, about 15 to 138 00:10:34.870 --> 00:10:42.980 20 years s. Oh, yeah, look at it. And this is another point, then don't 139 00:10:42.980 --> 00:10:47.440 expect to become a thought leader overnight. It's a long game. And so 140 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:51.180 when you set out whether you're an individual or a company, when you set 141 00:10:51.180 --> 00:10:55.180 out on a thought leadership journey, make damn sure you do a number of 142 00:10:55.180 --> 00:10:59.680 things and you do them well. So this is when I when I explored for leadership, 143 00:10:59.680 --> 00:11:03.440 I came up with the methodology to do that, which I'll share with you when we 144 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:08.030 get to it. But the point is, is a long term play. You need to own a position 145 00:11:08.030 --> 00:11:12.390 for a while before people recognize you as a force leader. As as Bernard Salt 146 00:11:12.390 --> 00:11:18.840 said, You took me 15 years off hard work, so that comes to our main point 147 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:23.640 of the conversation in today's podcast is kind of we'd all like Thio were a 148 00:11:23.640 --> 00:11:26.530 big conversation is still thought leadership. It's been a big play for a 149 00:11:26.530 --> 00:11:30.810 long time, but a big thing I see people talking about is, Do we position the 150 00:11:30.810 --> 00:11:34.600 organization as a thought leader or an individual? Or maybe a group of 151 00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:39.080 individuals in the organization is thought leader or thought leaders? Kind 152 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:42.890 of. What's the pros and cons in your opinion, to those two approaches? Or do 153 00:11:42.890 --> 00:11:48.400 you kind of do both? It's a really good question because it goes to the nub for 154 00:11:48.400 --> 00:11:51.880 a company of If we're gonna become a folk leader who to be put up a Czar 155 00:11:51.880 --> 00:11:57.690 spokesperson. What happens if they leave? And Bernard Salt's And you know 156 00:11:57.690 --> 00:12:01.060 I've used him as an example. He's he works with KPMG, but he has his 157 00:12:01.060 --> 00:12:04.650 individual brand and the KPMG brand, and they're both a line off that 158 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:08.370 there's another management consultancy called Deloitte, which are massive 159 00:12:08.370 --> 00:12:12.220 across the world. They have the same issue. They do something called the 160 00:12:12.220 --> 00:12:15.720 Lucky Country Report in Australia, which is an incredibly successful 161 00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:20.450 thought leadership proposition. But the guy from Deloitte Access Economics, 162 00:12:20.450 --> 00:12:26.940 Chris Richardson, is the guy who speaks about it. A lot s o the question is how 163 00:12:26.940 --> 00:12:30.310 you devolved that thought leadership down the organization. And this brings 164 00:12:30.310 --> 00:12:31.960 me to another point, which is, 165 00:12:33.640 --> 00:12:38.000 if you clever about it, thought leadership is not doesn't just sit in 166 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:42.850 the marketing department or the content department of the PR department thought 167 00:12:42.850 --> 00:12:46.980 leadership has to go through the organization. At a great example is a 168 00:12:46.980 --> 00:12:52.270 client of mine who I think in in in the US you call them pension or provident 169 00:12:52.270 --> 00:12:58.560 funds? Here we call them Superannuation Funds. Big superannuation player called 170 00:12:58.560 --> 00:13:03.610 Hester. And we did a great thought leadership program with them looking at 171 00:13:03.620 --> 00:13:08.360 the age care sector, looking at the care sector, looking at the workforce 172 00:13:08.360 --> 00:13:13.180 of the future in that sector, how important that is. And the point around 173 00:13:13.180 --> 00:13:19.010 that was that the business development people right down at the level where 174 00:13:19.010 --> 00:13:21.940 they were dealing with employers who employ these people who work in the 175 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:26.730 workforce in age care, were able to walk into clients or prospects and 176 00:13:26.730 --> 00:13:31.100 talking a depth about the issues that they would face with their their 177 00:13:31.100 --> 00:13:34.890 employees down the track and what employees were saying about where 178 00:13:34.890 --> 00:13:40.270 conditions etcetera. So the point there is the Ford leadership both of the CEO 179 00:13:40.270 --> 00:13:45.590 level on the CEO Debbie Blake. He could speak about it. The point was that we 180 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:49.770 could evolve it down the organization so even a business manager could speak 181 00:13:49.770 --> 00:13:55.060 about it with employers. So companies need to think very carefully about what 182 00:13:55.060 --> 00:13:58.780 they thought leadership is there to do and how they use it right through the 183 00:13:58.780 --> 00:14:03.740 company, rather than just have one individual use it. It makes a lot of 184 00:14:03.740 --> 00:14:08.080 sense. One of the passages actually underlying in the books as this, it 185 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:10.950 says the most effective thought leadership initiatives empower all 186 00:14:10.950 --> 00:14:16.600 employees by inspiring and supporting them to be campaign ambassadors has 187 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.570 something we actually at my company. Sweet fish media we talk about all the 188 00:14:19.570 --> 00:14:23.390 time is we try to get employees out there on linked in to develop. You know, 189 00:14:23.390 --> 00:14:26.550 some of their own thought leadership or let me least their own personal brand. 190 00:14:26.840 --> 00:14:30.360 Um is part of a collective whole. So I wanted to hear a little bit more for 191 00:14:30.370 --> 00:14:34.990 from you, like, what does that look like to make your the the whole 192 00:14:34.990 --> 00:14:38.610 employee base? What does it look like to inspire and support them to be in 193 00:14:38.610 --> 00:14:43.470 campaign ambassadors it comes back Thio. And maybe now is the time for me to 194 00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:48.080 touch on the methodology of how you go about becoming a thought leader. And 195 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:51.910 they're they're five ships. Yeah, The first step is to understand the 196 00:14:51.910 --> 00:14:55.580 challenge, and I'm gonna headline that each of the steps and I'll get into 197 00:14:55.580 --> 00:14:59.050 them in a bit more detail. Understand the challenge. Number one. Number two, 198 00:14:59.340 --> 00:15:04.210 Develop your food leadership strategy Number three, your content development 199 00:15:04.210 --> 00:15:08.800 and production Number four Your Thought Leadership Communications program A 200 00:15:08.800 --> 00:15:15.150 number five measurement evaluation and recalibration. So let's go back to the 201 00:15:15.150 --> 00:15:19.840 first step because this goes to the number of your question. Understanding 202 00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:24.810 the challenge, What you need to do. There is what and and and this is often 203 00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:29.220 this is where people trip over thought leadership. It's often about me. What 204 00:15:29.220 --> 00:15:32.080 do I know? What am I excited about, Which is important. You have to be 205 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:38.420 passionate about it. But what is your audiences or your stakeholders? Biggest 206 00:15:38.430 --> 00:15:39.750 issue or challenge? 207 00:15:41.140 --> 00:15:46.300 Does it align with your business objectives? Does it get your senior 208 00:15:46.300 --> 00:15:51.330 management engaged? But the key is, if you're not addressing your your 209 00:15:51.330 --> 00:15:54.340 stakeholders, biggest challenges or issues, your thought leadership is 210 00:15:54.340 --> 00:15:58.220 gonna fall on death ears. No one's going to care, and it's not gonna line 211 00:15:58.220 --> 00:16:02.750 with your purpose as an organization. And that goes to the number. If it 212 00:16:02.750 --> 00:16:06.200 doesn't align with your purpose, you're not gonna get your employees on board. 213 00:16:06.210 --> 00:16:10.520 They're going to see it. Is that that campaign over there to make it that 214 00:16:10.520 --> 00:16:15.200 campaign that I can earn their campaign over here? It has to align with your 215 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:19.220 purpose is an organization, so that means a lot of sense. It reminds me of 216 00:16:19.220 --> 00:16:23.680 Steve Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany, right or what became more 217 00:16:23.680 --> 00:16:28.110 well known by the lean startup, you know, identity, starting with the 218 00:16:28.110 --> 00:16:32.880 problem and then developing a product or solution around it. But the problem. 219 00:16:32.890 --> 00:16:37.720 The solution you're developing as a solution of an idea more than ah, 220 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:41.010 product or a service when you're talking about that leadership. But 221 00:16:41.010 --> 00:16:44.210 still they share the same route of starting with a problem out in the 222 00:16:44.210 --> 00:16:49.540 market. It is, it is right. But here's the Here's the thing about the long 223 00:16:49.540 --> 00:16:54.240 term effect and how powerful food leadership, if done well, can work. 224 00:16:54.250 --> 00:17:00.110 Take Phillips or G big brands, right Phillips to have something called the 225 00:17:00.110 --> 00:17:04.240 Future Health Index. You go. Why is an electron ICS company interested in 226 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:08.829 health? Well, I'll tell you why. Because they become an advanced health 227 00:17:08.829 --> 00:17:15.329 tech company. They understand that the the marriage of technology and health 228 00:17:15.339 --> 00:17:22.450 off the world are intricately linked. So many, many years ago, they started 229 00:17:22.450 --> 00:17:30.410 driving down this path of how do we own health and technology? And so it plays 230 00:17:30.410 --> 00:17:34.470 directly to their products and services. But if they were very clever with the 231 00:17:34.470 --> 00:17:40.180 way where they went about it, the G e Imagination campaign, they started that 232 00:17:40.540 --> 00:17:45.080 in the early two thousands. Now you know now they they're looking at all 233 00:17:45.080 --> 00:17:49.390 sorts of things to do with, with how they integrate that with their 234 00:17:49.390 --> 00:17:54.460 stakeholders and their customers, how they integrate technology with them. 235 00:17:54.550 --> 00:17:59.200 And they've got their themes Earth space, material life, etcetera, about 236 00:17:59.200 --> 00:18:05.610 nine themes that they focused on ideas to progress the world. So these big 237 00:18:05.610 --> 00:18:09.170 companies being clever about it, they're being very brave about it. But 238 00:18:09.170 --> 00:18:12.350 they've also put a lot of resources behind it and time and fought and 239 00:18:12.350 --> 00:18:17.470 research. The point is, it plays directly to who they are as a brand 240 00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:22.460 what they do and their products and services makes a lot of sense. So you 241 00:18:22.460 --> 00:18:26.290 said the second step was developing thought leadership. After you define 242 00:18:26.290 --> 00:18:30.060 the problem, you develop thought leadership around that problem, is that 243 00:18:30.060 --> 00:18:34.250 right? Yeah, But there's a step in this developing number two developing 244 00:18:34.250 --> 00:18:38.290 thought leadership that is so important. And that is I call the conductor 245 00:18:38.290 --> 00:18:43.170 thought leadership heat map. And what I mean by that is, is it a busy space? 246 00:18:43.190 --> 00:18:47.380 Because if it's a very busy space and there's lots of content on the topic 247 00:18:47.380 --> 00:18:52.970 you want to dive into, be very wary. Because I'd be bold is to say that 248 00:18:52.980 --> 00:18:57.730 potentially, it's gonna be a hard, hard yards to become a full leader in their 249 00:18:57.730 --> 00:19:02.090 space. You want to find a niece you wanna find, like sometimes to call it a 250 00:19:02.090 --> 00:19:07.280 white space, the space that you can own. And you can only do that by researching 251 00:19:07.280 --> 00:19:10.800 who's already saying what out there about the topic that you're interested 252 00:19:10.800 --> 00:19:15.400 in? But remember, there's something called the Long tail. So if we think 253 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:20.610 off travel, for example, travel has a long tail. There's air travel, see 254 00:19:20.610 --> 00:19:27.100 travel, teleportation, car, bike, electric bike, So what within that 255 00:19:27.100 --> 00:19:30.500 travel spectrum can you own? It doesn't have to be travel Travel is a very 256 00:19:30.500 --> 00:19:36.340 difficult thing to own. But within travel is it Elon Musk's space six 257 00:19:36.350 --> 00:19:40.380 Travel Lady owns and what they're doing in terms of taking people to the moon 258 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:47.610 and two other to other areas in space and mining and space. So think of the 259 00:19:47.610 --> 00:19:51.920 long tail. If you want to own a topic, don't just try and own travel. What 260 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:55.870 within travel is most interesting is going to drive to your purpose, is 261 00:19:55.870 --> 00:19:59.270 going to drive to your stakeholders interest and then try and own that 262 00:19:59.280 --> 00:20:03.970 piece. So that and then you allocate resources internally and then, very 263 00:20:03.970 --> 00:20:07.050 importantly, established. What do your KP ice for your thought leadership 264 00:20:07.040 --> 00:20:10.320 should campaign, and they need to be very simple. And then, if you need to 265 00:20:10.320 --> 00:20:13.340 develop a research commission that research those all the things under 266 00:20:13.340 --> 00:20:17.210 stick to which has developed your fault leadership strategy, great. And then 267 00:20:17.210 --> 00:20:20.720 moving on. I was trying to take notes as fast as possible, but it went fast. 268 00:20:20.730 --> 00:20:25.720 Three. Three was content development and production. You've done your 269 00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:30.650 research. You've done you know. You know what you want to own, then create 270 00:20:30.650 --> 00:20:35.090 your collateral externally. Internally. Look at ways you gonna leverage your 271 00:20:35.090 --> 00:20:38.410 opportunities, develop a narrative framework around their coach, your 272 00:20:38.410 --> 00:20:42.980 spokespeople, and involve people internally. First launched it to them 273 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:46.850 internally. Get them involved, get them, understand? So if you've got a sales 274 00:20:46.850 --> 00:20:50.680 team, for example, share with them early on in the piece. This is what 275 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:55.350 we're doing. This is how we're going to roll it out. How could you guys useless? 276 00:20:55.640 --> 00:20:59.690 Don't assume that if you give them a great thought leadership presentation 277 00:20:59.850 --> 00:21:03.230 that your sales people going to go out and present that they may turn around 278 00:21:03.230 --> 00:21:07.280 ago. We don't talk like that. Our clients don't even watch PowerPoint 279 00:21:07.280 --> 00:21:12.770 presentations. Well, I need is X. So be damn sure that when you evolving your 280 00:21:12.770 --> 00:21:16.980 thought leadership proposition that you collaborating internally about how 281 00:21:16.980 --> 00:21:21.930 different sectors within your organization, different teams could use 282 00:21:21.930 --> 00:21:26.190 it. We did that with his dimension Hester. Earlier, the Superannuation 283 00:21:26.190 --> 00:21:30.270 fund. We went to their business development team and we said to them, 284 00:21:30.270 --> 00:21:34.460 This is what we're doing. This is the research we're doing. How could you get 285 00:21:34.460 --> 00:21:39.440 involved on? They came up with some great ideas. What they said was 286 00:21:39.450 --> 00:21:42.700 actually know what? Once you've done that first piece of research, give it 287 00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:47.260 to us in its raw form. We'll go and we'll discuss it with our clients just 288 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:51.950 in the meeting. Well, since check it, we'll find out what their reaction is, 289 00:21:51.950 --> 00:21:55.450 and then we'll come back to you and we'll bring you their insights. And it 290 00:21:55.450 --> 00:21:59.800 was fantastic because what we did was we called it sensing we sense check the 291 00:21:59.800 --> 00:22:03.740 research with the people were trying to influence. And then the business 292 00:22:03.740 --> 00:22:07.670 development. People came back to us and said, Hey, this is the reaction. 293 00:22:07.670 --> 00:22:10.750 They're really excited. They want to do that. They want to do that. And we wove 294 00:22:10.750 --> 00:22:13.900 that entire thought leadership proposition which made it a lot 295 00:22:13.900 --> 00:22:17.720 stronger. And hey, guess what? The employees loved it because they were 296 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:21.410 involved. They felt involved. They owned it. They co owned it. They 297 00:22:21.410 --> 00:22:27.030 collaborated. And that's the power of foot leadership. Done well. So that was 298 00:22:27.030 --> 00:22:33.290 the third piece. And the fourth one was becomes program itself. So that is 299 00:22:33.300 --> 00:22:38.200 launch it, get it out into the marketplace and build a pervasive 300 00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:42.770 presence. Okay. And that could be Yeah, the engagement of employees are talked 301 00:22:42.770 --> 00:22:48.120 about employee events, media interviews, media collateral, digital collateral, 302 00:22:48.130 --> 00:22:53.090 speaking engagements, third party support. I mean, that's where you bring 303 00:22:53.090 --> 00:22:56.780 your whole com's team in. You may even have to hire an agency to help you 304 00:22:57.240 --> 00:23:02.020 launch it out into the marketplace, but you've planned this in advance. And by 305 00:23:02.020 --> 00:23:07.370 the way, here's an interesting thought. I mentioned the Lucky Country Report 306 00:23:07.370 --> 00:23:11.960 that Deloitte used. They were really clever. That's really a view of 307 00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:15.840 Australia and the world and hard players in the world. And what's coming 308 00:23:15.840 --> 00:23:20.500 down the track and have is going to impact the country. What they did was, 309 00:23:20.500 --> 00:23:24.700 they said, our stakeholders government, and so what they did initially is they 310 00:23:24.700 --> 00:23:28.920 went and launched to the bureaucrats within government, and that's it. And 311 00:23:28.920 --> 00:23:33.610 then the media followed. Be very aware of to your audiences Thought leadership 312 00:23:33.610 --> 00:23:36.440 doesn't have to be media thought. Leadership could be 100 people you're 313 00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:41.640 trying to reach. Could be the 100 top footsie listed companies, the New York 314 00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:46.440 Stock Exchange, that top 100 companies. You may not need media. You may need to 315 00:23:46.440 --> 00:23:51.680 be engaging with their boards, so you're very aware of the audience. Why 316 00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:56.960 you doing this and then how you launch it. If you're getting value from this 317 00:23:56.960 --> 00:24:01.010 podcast, you are absolutely going toe Love, our weekly newsletter. In each 318 00:24:01.020 --> 00:24:05.160 email, I share something that you can do toe love your team well, toe, hone 319 00:24:05.160 --> 00:24:09.400 your craft, the craft of marketing and to grow your leadership. Plus, there's 320 00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:12.800 a super funny video at the top of the landing page whenever you go to sign up 321 00:24:12.800 --> 00:24:17.050 for the newsletter, So go to sweet Fish media dot com slash newsletter and sign 322 00:24:17.050 --> 00:24:23.800 up today makes a lot of sense. It's not too unlike I just did. Ah longer 323 00:24:23.800 --> 00:24:28.900 interview with somebody on category design. You have thio address the 324 00:24:28.900 --> 00:24:33.100 specific problem. Think about where the company's positioned already get them. 325 00:24:33.110 --> 00:24:36.220 Employee feedback is you start to develop the category internally and 326 00:24:36.220 --> 00:24:40.310 then rolling out a whole new categories, a long and hard process and a multi 327 00:24:40.310 --> 00:24:44.410 year process. It sounds like thought leaderships actually much more akin toa 328 00:24:44.410 --> 00:24:47.050 how you would be rolling out a category, which means you're playing it for the 329 00:24:47.050 --> 00:24:52.780 long game you're talking, if not a decade or two kind of ah, play. The 330 00:24:52.780 --> 00:24:56.690 most successful thought leadership programs I've seen are the long term 331 00:24:56.690 --> 00:25:00.620 ones, and I've mentioned a few of them already. Which brings me to the final 332 00:25:00.620 --> 00:25:04.190 stage of the methodology, which is measurement, evaluation and 333 00:25:04.190 --> 00:25:08.530 recalibration. So if you're playing a long game, you then benchmark your 334 00:25:08.530 --> 00:25:13.710 results against those objectives. You sit right up in the early phases, you 335 00:25:13.710 --> 00:25:18.530 feed betters results to the management team and to the team, and you re 336 00:25:18.530 --> 00:25:22.470 calibrate your strategy. And maybe you have to research your stakeholders to 337 00:25:22.470 --> 00:25:27.100 find hard landed how they found it, what else they'd like to hear in that 338 00:25:27.100 --> 00:25:31.570 space. And that's when you start owning a proposition, and that's when it 339 00:25:31.570 --> 00:25:35.630 really matters. And it really can't say I've seen it work and it's incredibly 340 00:25:35.630 --> 00:25:40.750 powerful. If done properly, I'd be interested to hear Craig. What you look 341 00:25:40.750 --> 00:25:43.670 for is measurements of thought leadership or a successful thought 342 00:25:43.670 --> 00:25:48.140 leadership campaign theme, multiple measurements. The measurements need to 343 00:25:48.140 --> 00:25:51.630 align with the objectives right up front, so I'll give you an example. 344 00:25:51.630 --> 00:25:57.520 Bain had a program out of the U. S that they ran for many years. I think it's 345 00:25:57.520 --> 00:26:02.700 still running, actually, and they had three objectives. It was get our 346 00:26:02.700 --> 00:26:05.760 partners onto the speaking platforms. 347 00:26:06.840 --> 00:26:13.650 Get media coverage in the in top tier main tier publications and open doors 348 00:26:13.650 --> 00:26:18.090 to I think it was, I think that would even put a number open doors. I can't 349 00:26:18.090 --> 00:26:23.790 remember the number 10 top companies that we aiming for and have meetings 350 00:26:23.790 --> 00:26:27.740 with, Um, that's was it three objectives. So they're measurement was 351 00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:32.620 against those three objectives. Other people are measured on things like MPs, 352 00:26:32.620 --> 00:26:37.120 net promoter, score or how their brand compares. There's a company called 353 00:26:37.120 --> 00:26:42.030 Wreck Track that measures brand reputation so you can use outside 354 00:26:42.030 --> 00:26:46.580 measurement. You can do research. You could look a media coverage on. Measure 355 00:26:46.580 --> 00:26:50.960 that against your competitors there. Lots of media coverage companies that 356 00:26:50.970 --> 00:26:56.060 do incredible in depth research in that regard, just that you could do employee 357 00:26:56.060 --> 00:27:01.250 engagement on it. There's so many forms of measurement you just need to make 358 00:27:01.250 --> 00:27:06.290 sure the lines of what your objectives are That'll work now to come back to 359 00:27:06.300 --> 00:27:11.290 like organizational versus personal thought leadership or for individuals. 360 00:27:11.300 --> 00:27:16.540 It almost sounds like your best strategy is to make all employees from 361 00:27:16.540 --> 00:27:21.880 CEO down to the very bottom rung. An advocate for the thought leadership 362 00:27:21.890 --> 00:27:26.850 campaign Is that right? It is right, but it's different advocacy sales. 363 00:27:26.850 --> 00:27:30.670 People will be engaging with their with their targets in a very different way 364 00:27:30.670 --> 00:27:35.350 to their competitors. You know, you think of a sales conversation trying to 365 00:27:35.350 --> 00:27:40.600 sell. Often you see the shutters come down, the person you're selling to, as 366 00:27:40.600 --> 00:27:44.600 opposed to chatting to that person, about something that's near and dear to 367 00:27:44.600 --> 00:27:48.470 their heart and their business. That is really interesting and useful to them. 368 00:27:48.630 --> 00:27:53.480 They're thought leadership proposition, totally different outcome. Not only do 369 00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:58.090 I, as a salesperson feel empowered, but I'm having a conversation. I was a 370 00:27:58.100 --> 00:28:03.260 deeper, richer than I've ever had before with my stakeholder. But the CEO 371 00:28:03.270 --> 00:28:09.590 will be speaking on CNBC or, you know, with The New York Times about something 372 00:28:09.590 --> 00:28:12.330 else on their thought leadership proposition, but at a very different 373 00:28:12.330 --> 00:28:17.750 level. And that's the point. You can layer it depending on what is all the 374 00:28:17.750 --> 00:28:22.420 used to that employees with their stakeholder group look, they're going 375 00:28:22.420 --> 00:28:27.210 to be sectors within the business that potentially don't use it at all. But 376 00:28:27.210 --> 00:28:33.440 the point is that it's about engaging your stakeholders better, so they has 377 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:39.260 to be somebody who carries the load of publicly who's speaking about it and 378 00:28:39.260 --> 00:28:42.170 This is where we get into this thing about individual thought leaders as 379 00:28:42.170 --> 00:28:46.700 well. Can an individual be a thought leader versus a company? Absolutely, 380 00:28:46.700 --> 00:28:50.510 They can on their many individual thought leaders up there, though it 381 00:28:50.510 --> 00:28:54.310 makes sense that maybe you wouldn't want to put all your cards or all your 382 00:28:54.310 --> 00:28:57.940 investment into one person and making them the one expert that represents 383 00:28:57.940 --> 00:29:01.300 your company, especially since that person can leave. But if you spread it 384 00:29:01.300 --> 00:29:06.610 across a lot of employees or maybe a team of execs than well, you're 385 00:29:06.610 --> 00:29:09.300 mitigating that risk a little bit as far as your thought leadership goes. 386 00:29:09.310 --> 00:29:13.390 And the more employees take on the positioning of the thought leadership 387 00:29:13.390 --> 00:29:17.450 that you're tryingto or the angle that you're trying to take, the more does 388 00:29:17.450 --> 00:29:22.190 become organizational right. The more employees you can empower toe speak 389 00:29:22.190 --> 00:29:25.860 with the same tone or in the same message. The more does become more of 390 00:29:25.860 --> 00:29:30.640 an organizational piece, though every person becomes a little small piece of 391 00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:35.270 that. You're quite right, and I use an example of a law firm that I once 392 00:29:35.270 --> 00:29:39.410 worked with. They'd be meeting for 18 months. They thought leadership. They 393 00:29:39.410 --> 00:29:42.580 had a thought, leadership group and they hadn't done anything, hadn't come 394 00:29:42.580 --> 00:29:48.330 up with any thought. Leadership proposition on this was the reason the 395 00:29:48.340 --> 00:29:53.180 senior leadership team sword is too much work and didn't want to be engaged 396 00:29:53.840 --> 00:29:57.720 when I went in. Then I discovered that I just said quite clearly and I say 397 00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:01.100 this to any client that I speak to a prospect about food leadership. If 398 00:30:01.100 --> 00:30:05.920 you're not prepared to give senior management time to this, pack it away 399 00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:09.970 right now, don't even bother. It's a waste of your time. It's a waste of 400 00:30:09.970 --> 00:30:15.620 your money, and it's a waste of your resources. And so that company off the 401 00:30:15.620 --> 00:30:19.420 back of that realize that there to engage their senior leadership team, 402 00:30:19.430 --> 00:30:20.260 which they did. 403 00:30:21.340 --> 00:30:26.860 They ran an incredibly successful for leisure proposition for about six years. 404 00:30:28.440 --> 00:30:32.180 The benefit of it was that the senior associates who did a lot of the 405 00:30:32.180 --> 00:30:32.970 research 406 00:30:34.140 --> 00:30:39.800 over a period of five years by a process of osmosis, their knowledge the 407 00:30:39.810 --> 00:30:43.760 research was on the merger and acquisition market in Australia. Their 408 00:30:43.760 --> 00:30:50.530 knowledge of M and A activity in Australia went from everybody. Every 409 00:30:50.530 --> 00:30:54.740 other law firms knowledge to weigh exceeding their competitors, law firms 410 00:30:54.740 --> 00:30:58.720 knowledge, so senior associate could go into a client and talk about this 411 00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:04.450 research in such depth that no other competitors could. And the result was 412 00:31:04.450 --> 00:31:08.460 there, invited by the investment banks to come and present their research. Now, 413 00:31:08.460 --> 00:31:12.080 if that isn't a great example of for leadership working from senior 414 00:31:12.080 --> 00:31:15.410 leadership down to senior associates and I don't know what it is. And that's 415 00:31:15.410 --> 00:31:19.190 the point. Uh, if your senior leadership teams not prepared to be 416 00:31:19.190 --> 00:31:24.170 involved, pack it away. You ain't gonna be a thought leader reminds me so much 417 00:31:24.170 --> 00:31:27.270 that everybody wants to be a thought leader, but hardly anybody wants to put 418 00:31:27.270 --> 00:31:31.880 in the work. But if you do truly earn the title of being a thought leader, of 419 00:31:31.880 --> 00:31:36.220 course, said by somebody else, generally there's a lot behind it. 420 00:31:36.230 --> 00:31:39.170 There's a lot. Everybody wants the tip of the iceberg and doesn't want to do 421 00:31:39.170 --> 00:31:43.750 all the work toe that goes underneath it right. But when you've actually done 422 00:31:43.750 --> 00:31:48.250 the work and you are poking out above the water there, you can back it up 423 00:31:48.250 --> 00:31:53.540 with substantial work, evidence and research and, uh, just learnings you've 424 00:31:53.540 --> 00:31:57.480 had by digging deep so that you can actually contribute something original 425 00:31:57.490 --> 00:32:01.440 right. It's hard to contribute original ideas, thoughts and research if you 426 00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:05.780 don't understand the existing conversation. What's already been known 427 00:32:05.790 --> 00:32:09.860 without understanding the full scope of what that topic already includes? You 428 00:32:09.860 --> 00:32:14.420 can't add original ideas to lead with her least. That's kind of been what 429 00:32:14.420 --> 00:32:17.170 I've been coming to a conclusion to when it comes to thought leadership 430 00:32:17.540 --> 00:32:21.710 quite right. It's not like any topic then, and the people listening to this 431 00:32:21.710 --> 00:32:27.010 podcast will know the deeper you get into a topic or a subject or your in 432 00:32:27.010 --> 00:32:30.960 your career, and and the more knowledge you build up a the less you realize, 433 00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:36.030 you know, because it's, you know, you could just died so deep. But be you 434 00:32:36.030 --> 00:32:40.450 start realizing that if you do the work and if you do the research, you become 435 00:32:40.450 --> 00:32:43.860 more innovative. You become more creative, and that's the point. The 436 00:32:43.860 --> 00:32:47.270 more work you do, the more research you do. The more you know about a topic, 437 00:32:47.840 --> 00:32:51.550 the more innovative and creative you become. And so your team also becomes 438 00:32:51.550 --> 00:32:55.070 and the ideas flow. And that's the great thing about for leadership. Once 439 00:32:55.070 --> 00:32:58.670 you start on the journey, you see a whole lot of other opportunities. I'm 440 00:32:58.670 --> 00:33:01.270 only in the beginning of my journey started with reading a lot of books 441 00:33:01.270 --> 00:33:05.170 this summer, but now I'm on a interview. Siri's with awesome people like 442 00:33:05.170 --> 00:33:08.360 yourself, and it's been fun, But you can. I could definitely start to feel a 443 00:33:08.360 --> 00:33:11.330 little bit of difference, even though I'm still early on in my journey here 444 00:33:11.340 --> 00:33:14.880 into this topic. Now, I still have a long way to go. It's a long mountain 445 00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:19.550 path ahead. People like you have been at it for over a decade now, and I'm 446 00:33:19.550 --> 00:33:23.700 like, Well, I e got a long way to go but it'll be good. But then you know 447 00:33:23.700 --> 00:33:29.000 what? I still its's the point I made earlier. The longer I spend on this, 448 00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:34.640 the more I realize I have to learn about it. Hey, everybody, Logan with 449 00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:37.700 sweet fish here. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you 450 00:33:37.700 --> 00:33:42.020 know we're big proponents of putting out original organic content on like 451 00:33:42.030 --> 00:33:46.140 dead. But one thing that's always been a struggle for a team like ours is too 452 00:33:46.150 --> 00:33:50.100 easily track the reach of that linked in content. That's why I was really 453 00:33:50.100 --> 00:33:53.700 excited when I heard about Shield the other day from a connection on you 454 00:33:53.700 --> 00:33:57.960 guessed it linked in. Since our team started using shield, I've loved how 455 00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:02.060 it's led us easily track and analyze the performance of are linked in 456 00:34:02.060 --> 00:34:06.780 content without having to manually log it ourselves. It automatically creates 457 00:34:06.780 --> 00:34:10.560 reports and generates some dashboards that are incredibly useful to see 458 00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:14.000 things like what contents been performing the best and what days of 459 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:17.460 the week are we getting the most engagement and our average views 460 00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:21.219 proposed? I highly suggest you guys check out this tool. If you're putting 461 00:34:21.219 --> 00:34:25.230 out content on LinkedIn, and if you're not, you should be. It's been a game 462 00:34:25.230 --> 00:34:30.469 changer for us. If you go to shield app dot ai and check out the 10 day free 463 00:34:30.469 --> 00:34:35.860 trial. You can even use our promo code B two B growth to get a 25% discount. 464 00:34:35.940 --> 00:34:42.400 Again, that's shield app dot ai And that promo code is be the number to be 465 00:34:42.409 --> 00:34:50.080 growth. All one word. All right, let's get back to the show. One last question 466 00:34:50.080 --> 00:34:53.360 I had for you is one interesting idea you had in the book is thought 467 00:34:53.360 --> 00:34:57.680 leadership through content curation, which was really intriguing to me 468 00:34:57.640 --> 00:35:00.350 because the more I dig into thought leadership, the more I realize it's 469 00:35:00.350 --> 00:35:04.680 about, you know, presenting original ideas right? And that's what we call 470 00:35:04.680 --> 00:35:08.020 thought leadership content sometimes, which I always kind of rubs me the 471 00:35:08.020 --> 00:35:12.460 wrong way because all your content really is thought leadership in a way. 472 00:35:12.470 --> 00:35:16.220 But certainly the pieces that are original and unique research and 473 00:35:16.230 --> 00:35:20.360 interesting perspectives are considered more of the thought leadership peace. 474 00:35:20.360 --> 00:35:23.430 But then you're over on the other and say No, you can use other pieces 475 00:35:23.430 --> 00:35:27.210 content to help with your own thought leadership. Can you expand on that a 476 00:35:27.210 --> 00:35:32.430 little bit? Yeah, I think I'll use an example to Best illustrate that. And 477 00:35:32.430 --> 00:35:37.590 the example is Malcolm Gladwell, who, you know, when he first started writing, 478 00:35:37.600 --> 00:35:42.680 pulled research from all over the place and then positive ideas around that and 479 00:35:42.690 --> 00:35:45.910 sort of bounced off that research and came up with some really interesting 480 00:35:45.910 --> 00:35:51.870 thoughts and concepts informed by others research. And so I think the 481 00:35:51.870 --> 00:35:57.190 point I'm making there is yes, you can curate content, but we're still looking 482 00:35:57.190 --> 00:36:01.550 for the original piece. So are that content. What's your insight? You know, 483 00:36:01.560 --> 00:36:05.250 just giving other people's content is not gonna be formally issue, but it's 484 00:36:05.250 --> 00:36:09.740 about how you it's about the dots that you see in the connections. You make 485 00:36:10.130 --> 00:36:14.640 across that content for an idea or a thought, which is what Malcolm Gladwell 486 00:36:14.640 --> 00:36:23.180 did so well and continues to do. And it's just a great way off firing up. So 487 00:36:23.190 --> 00:36:27.980 in the methodology outlined. And I said, You know, do your research do that 488 00:36:27.980 --> 00:36:31.120 thought, leadership, heat map. Understand what others are saying? You 489 00:36:31.120 --> 00:36:34.640 may discover a whole lot of research and insights around the topic you want 490 00:36:34.640 --> 00:36:40.400 to talk about That could give you some new ideas. So never ever poop what's 491 00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:44.300 already being done. Have a look at it. Combine it with other research because 492 00:36:44.300 --> 00:36:47.990 out of there could come the magic on there you have your thought leadership 493 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:52.040 off the back of content Curation. Yeah, and I thought your book. I mean, your 494 00:36:52.040 --> 00:36:55.450 book was like a shining example of that, right, because it's called thought 495 00:36:55.450 --> 00:36:59.200 leadership tweet, and it's actually a lot of bite sized thoughts about 496 00:36:59.200 --> 00:37:02.760 thought leadership. But a lot of them are from other people like, this isn't 497 00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:07.420 all you. This is ah, curation of interesting ideas about thought, 498 00:37:07.420 --> 00:37:11.330 leadership So that's what I thought was interesting about that book because you 499 00:37:11.340 --> 00:37:14.740 you pulled it off right in the book. You know, there are a lot of smart 500 00:37:14.740 --> 00:37:18.990 people out there then and why not use what they've said. There's an absolute 501 00:37:18.990 --> 00:37:22.460 gems and there's some people are doing this really well and people who note 502 00:37:22.460 --> 00:37:27.100 and un standard really well, and we can all learn from them. Absolutely. What 503 00:37:27.100 --> 00:37:31.680 are some ways you can? Specifically? So we were looking at other people's ideas. 504 00:37:31.680 --> 00:37:39.210 But what are some things we can do to take their ideas and then use use it so 505 00:37:39.210 --> 00:37:42.420 out of it can come from original ideas? But is there anything more Weaken dio 506 00:37:42.430 --> 00:37:44.060 with other people's ideas, 507 00:37:45.130 --> 00:37:49.940 you know, coming out of covered 19? I think one of the things that I've seen 508 00:37:49.950 --> 00:37:55.450 and certainly our business has seen a Senate S H J. Is that 509 00:37:56.530 --> 00:37:58.060 the need for collaboration? 510 00:37:59.130 --> 00:38:03.970 I believe that if you look at the vaccine, for example, on the work on 511 00:38:03.970 --> 00:38:09.290 the vaccine around the world, one of our clients happens to be Pfizer in 512 00:38:09.290 --> 00:38:14.710 Australia, and we've seen the news about vaccine. But the point about that 513 00:38:14.710 --> 00:38:19.120 is all of these companies, and I'm just using that as one example, have been 514 00:38:19.120 --> 00:38:23.740 collaborating like they've never done before. And I believe that to go back 515 00:38:23.740 --> 00:38:29.650 to your question that the more we can collaborate across the foot leadership 516 00:38:29.650 --> 00:38:34.230 proposition, the better the outcome is going to be. And if we link it to 517 00:38:34.240 --> 00:38:40.460 curation, what's to say that you don't get a whole lot of people in a room and 518 00:38:40.460 --> 00:38:45.300 collaborate around coming up with novel ideas and new ways of thinking on 519 00:38:45.300 --> 00:38:50.910 sharing the schema cracking idea instead of trying to earn it yourself? 520 00:38:50.920 --> 00:38:55.030 Because maybe by yourself, you don't come up with it. You may be on your own. 521 00:38:55.620 --> 00:38:59.310 You're never going to arrive at it. Maybe you need to do one plus one 522 00:38:59.310 --> 00:39:05.030 equals three on Collaborate with others So you get the three instead of the two. 523 00:39:05.520 --> 00:39:09.600 If that makes sense, so I think collaboration, particularly off the 524 00:39:09.600 --> 00:39:14.040 back of what the world has gone through now. E think we're going to see more of 525 00:39:14.040 --> 00:39:18.810 it. I think people understand it better now. They've seen how hard can benefit 526 00:39:18.820 --> 00:39:24.170 the world just through this, what we've gone through, and I would love to see 527 00:39:24.170 --> 00:39:27.750 more collaboration. Thio come up with more thought leadership propositions. 528 00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:32.200 Gosh, I agree so much. I mean, it's not unlike this podcast interview, right? E 529 00:39:32.210 --> 00:39:36.220 mean, these are my ideas there. Your ideas. Some I'm reading from your book. 530 00:39:36.230 --> 00:39:40.410 Others. You're just speaking from experience, of which I can comment on, 531 00:39:40.410 --> 00:39:44.910 er ask more questions from But this is a collaboration in itself. It's why, 532 00:39:44.910 --> 00:39:47.950 like podcasting so much. But I'm a podcasting company, so I'm a little 533 00:39:47.950 --> 00:39:54.770 biased. I think you're doing a great job. A man. This has been a very 534 00:39:54.780 --> 00:39:59.520 insightful podcast episode. Thanks so much for joining me. Working people 535 00:39:59.530 --> 00:40:04.990 learn a little bit more about you and what you're up to at Senate s H J. 536 00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:10.490 That's a bit of a tongue twister. It is a bit of a muscle. Look, Senate s s j 537 00:40:10.500 --> 00:40:15.580 dot com dot au is the website. You'll find me on there, you'll find sort of 538 00:40:15.580 --> 00:40:20.390 work we do on there on. Then I'm on linked in a swell. Just join up with me. 539 00:40:20.390 --> 00:40:25.500 I love connecting with people. And then my my twitter handle is at Fort 540 00:40:25.500 --> 00:40:30.880 Strategy at Fort Strategy, So I'm on Twitter. I think I was one of the 541 00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:35.810 earlier doctors of Twitter she was on in the 2000 and something, but yeah, 542 00:40:35.810 --> 00:40:40.200 that Z I love engaging with people. I love talking to people. So if anybody 543 00:40:40.200 --> 00:40:44.120 wants to re chart, please feel free. Lincoln is probably the best and reach 544 00:40:44.120 --> 00:40:47.150 out to me. You know, I'm happy to have conversations with people about 545 00:40:47.150 --> 00:40:50.470 anything to do with Ford leadership or reputation management. All right, I 546 00:40:50.470 --> 00:40:54.570 will definitely be putting links to all of these places in the show notes for 547 00:40:54.570 --> 00:40:57.610 anybody who wants to go and click it rather than remember it to go there 548 00:40:57.610 --> 00:41:03.510 later. And then I'd like to know I'd like to. Also may be sent to you if you 549 00:41:03.510 --> 00:41:07.980 prepare Thio mentioned a number of books. I'm happy to share that quite 550 00:41:07.980 --> 00:41:11.170 openly without people The thought leadership tweet. One you mentioned. 551 00:41:11.180 --> 00:41:15.540 People have to buy, unfortunately, but the others I'm prepared to just put up 552 00:41:15.540 --> 00:41:18.810 on your website and people can download them and read them for their worth. 553 00:41:18.810 --> 00:41:22.770 Fantastic. I would read them myself. I tried to get a hold of the other ones. 554 00:41:22.770 --> 00:41:27.650 They were actually hard toe hard to find. Yeah, I'll send them to you in 555 00:41:27.650 --> 00:41:31.380 soft copy form. And if people want to download than more than happy, All 556 00:41:31.380 --> 00:41:34.360 right, if you guys want to take advantage and see and have access to 557 00:41:34.360 --> 00:41:39.540 those books, go to Sweet Fish media dot com slash t l books, and you'll be 558 00:41:39.540 --> 00:41:43.910 directed to the This episode page where you'll find links to those books. Mhm. 559 00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:46.890 This was a fantastic interview. Thank you so much, Craig, for joining me on 560 00:41:46.890 --> 00:41:50.970 the show today. That's the pleasure. And thanks for inviting me. Is your 561 00:41:50.970 --> 00:41:54.450 buyer of GDP marketer? If so, you should think about sponsoring this 562 00:41:54.450 --> 00:41:59.400 podcast. B two B Growth gets downloaded over 130,000 times each month, and our 563 00:41:59.400 --> 00:42:03.220 listeners are marketing decision makers. If it sounds interesting, send Logan 564 00:42:03.220 --> 00:42:06.020 and email Logan at sweet Fish media dot com.