Transcript
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Conversations from the front lines and marketing. This is be tob growth. Today
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I am here with Bob Uday.
He has just authored a new book titled
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Competing on Thought Leadership. I picked
it up, I gave it a read,
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I thought and this is a conversation
worth having. And so, Bob,
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I'm excited to chat with you today
on be tob growth. Welcome,
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thank you. I'm excited to chat
about what I know about this topic of
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thought leadership. Yes, competing on
thought leadership. So, before we jump
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to the book, let's go.
What have you been up to in the
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world? What's your career been about? Tell us a little bit about yourself
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and what sparked this this interests for
writing on this topic. Sure, what
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I have been doing thought leadership for
thirty five years, which bans I've been
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doing it long before the term was
concocted. Yeah, so really by Joel
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Kursman back in the s when he
was at Booze Allen. So what we
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were doing thirty five years ago we
didn't really have a common term for it.
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We were just I was working at
a consulting firm. That said,
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the way we generate business is by
writing publications and giving conference speeches and running
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our own conferences and, you know, try to get the expertisets in the
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head heads of our consultants, package
it, so to say, and get
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it out there and a non sales
the nonpromotional way. You know, it's
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like we need to educate. This
is how we will educate our target audience
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and those who are in drinking enough
and think we have something to say,
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they'll raise their hand, they'll call
us and we'll say, Hey, I
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loved your speech or I loved your
article. Want to talk to you more
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about it. Yeah, you define
thought leadership as the a claim that a
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firm or a person earns for developing, marketing and delivering superior expertise, which
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is exactly what you just said.
So even before the term was defined,
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that's essentially what you're doing. You're
educating the market. You're doing that by
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developing marketing and delivering superior expertise and, when you say in solving complex customer
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problems. And then, more broadly, and I think this is really important,
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you see this as a business strategy, not just a marketing strategy.
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So break that down a bit.
How is this a business strategy and not
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just simply a function of marketing.
So most people think of thought leadership as
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a marketing strategy. Right. That's
thought leadership. Marketing is, I think,
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what most people think about. My
careers has been working with firms that
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are in the business of delivering expertise. They sell their expertise. These firms
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are management consulting firms, law firms, architecture firms, it services firms,
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training and development companies. There in
the business of telling their expertise. You're
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hiring them because you want to solve
a certain problem in your company. So
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they're in the business, or they
should be in the business, of creating
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new expertise, because expertise, especially
in the last decade or so, gets
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obsolete faster. There in the business
of developing expertise, improving the expertise they
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have, of course, delivering it
to market, more training and developing their
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people to operate at the performance of
the best people in their firm. And
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of course they're in the business of
creating demand for their expertise, and that
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means marketing, selling and doing research
when they need to take a step back
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and say we need to upgrade our
expertise on solving this business problem or we're
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going to solve a new business problem
and we don't know much about it.
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So we're going to conduct some primary
research to understand what the best companies are
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doing and solving this problem and how
the way they're solving it differ from the
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rest, or the worst companies especially. So there's a lot when it comes
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to demand specifically for thought leadership,
that I have thoughts on. And but
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I think we know there's mounting complexity, specifically and for this audience. You're
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talking to a be to be marketing
audience and they're going yeah, continued mounting
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complexity. How do we continue to
kind of all of this complexity has caused
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this demand for specialized expertise, for
thought leadership, but also there's a ton
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of content out there. So so
how do you think of that? There's
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a growing need for this demand in
specialized expertise, but there's also a ton
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of content, right, that's right. And so the good news is there's
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growing demand for four people and firms
who are deep experts in their domains,
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growing need. So you know,
fifteen years ago we didn't need social media
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experts in companies, right, because
what fest facebook started two thousand and two
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two thousand and three Linkedin, I
think, around the same time, twitter
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as well. So maybe it's twenty
years we didn't need experts in social media
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because social media was really not a
widespread thing. Now we do, and
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now we have all sorts of people
who deponom cells as experts in social media
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mark so the good news is the
the complexity in doing business, especially created
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by digital technology, means that companies
need experts to help them deal with the
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complexities. So that's the good news. The bad news is it is so
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easy to find any amount of people
who have an opinion or more on any
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topic, pseudo experts, right.
So Google and let's just do that.
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So, and I haven't done this
recently, but if you typed in social
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media marketing experts and imagine you'd have
dozens of search results from Google and and
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some good content from some of those
search results. So back when I started
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in thought leadership in one thousand nine
hundred and eighty seven, there was no
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google, there was no web.
The way we got our expertise out was
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through printing publications mail, putting them
the mail, giving speeches at conferences.
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That was a high barrier to entry. You had to pay for publishing,
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mailing, you had to, you
know, have people go out and give
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speeches. That cost money. So
getting your expertise out there was a lot
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more difficult it is easy today.
You write a white paper, you put
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it on your website and you you
know, you do some social media marketing
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and all of a sudden you have
dozens of people reading it. So that
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makes for a crowded marketplace and just
about any domain, any be tob domain,
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it's crowded marketplace and that in turn
raises the Bar, in my mind,
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of quality. So when we're competing
against dozens or hundreds of other people
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who are trying to show off their
expertise, that's a much different game than
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competing against five or three yep that
professed to have deep expertise on some topic.
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Yeah, you figure out over time
as well that how you're going to
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differentiate. It can be on the
depth of which you go, and we'll
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talk about some of the different sort
of categories we need to be hitting on
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when we think of thought leadership and
also think we're watching right now. This
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happened in BBC and I'm it's happening
more in B tob as well, where
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people are differentiating based on tone of
voice, on personality of who the thought
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leader is as a individual for the
company, like as a spokesperson. So
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you're seeing people get more and more
unique in how they present themselves as thought
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leaders, because we realize the more
crowded this gets, some of this content
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is getting commoditized. But there's still
ways to differentiate and to be a deep
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thought expert in your field, and
I that's what's interesting. More voices,
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but still so much space for thought
leadership. Right. That's right. And
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the ultimate differentiator is evidence behind the
prescriptions that you're voicing in the market place.
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There's a great example, current example, the metaverse. Is Anybody proved
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to anybody that companies are making a
ton of money off metaverse? If they
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have, I haven't read about it. I am a't right, but a
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lot of companies are spelling a lot
of spilling, a lot of digital link
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talking about the metaverse. Microsoft,
Goldman, Sachs, all, you name
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it, everybody, Mark Zuckerberg.
It's like a land rush. Okay,
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the metaverse, you gotta be you
got to be in there. You know,
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companies got to be in there,
got to play. They fought leader
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or thought leaders on the metaverse,
I predict will be the people and organizations
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that bring forth proof that companies that
are doing metaverse like things are getting significant
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business benefit from doing so. When
we start to see those case examples and
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what those companies did to get those
kind of benefits, that I think people
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like me will listen to them and
say, Oh, this really isn't hype,
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this metaverse. You know, it's
it's not something a fad that's going
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to go away in two years.
There really is something there. But until
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you know, until there's evidence behind
the assertions that we all want to make
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they have this, that what I'm
telling you you should do really works.
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It's just theory. It's you know, no matter how well it's put,
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it's still theory. I think of
it as right now, in this season
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for a platform like a metaverse,
you can have reporters who then can become
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trusted voices because they're going, oh, this is what's going on in the
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space. You're reporting on what's happening. You can't report on the facts in
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a thought leadership, evidence based way
yet because there hasn't been enough runway,
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there hasn't been enough time to collect
all the data. But if you can
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distinguish your voice. Let's say you
wanted to be an expert on the metaverse.
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Become a reporter. Don't say the
don't think you're a thought leader yet,
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because it's impossible to be one.
Let's just report on what we're seeing
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take place and then, Bill,
you'll see that you had that interest from
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the beginning. Five years from now, when you're looking back, you are
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a trusted voice that built that can
then talk on evidence. So that's where
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I think the space is with the
new platforms. But you're totally right.
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There's a lot of people that talk
like a thought leader but don't have thought
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leader evidence, and that's why they
lack authority. So okay, let's talk
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about that. What are the four
elements you believe to a thought leadership strategy?
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So successful thought leadership requires first having
a strategy and that and that really
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comes down to a company saying what
customer problems in the world do we need
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to own, and what problems do
we not need to own, even though
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they're related, and we could see
us wandering into solving these customer problems.
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What customer problems in the world do
we want to own? So a great
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example of this is a firm called
integrated project management. They've been around since
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the s. There are, you
can tell by the name, a project
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management consulting firm. They work with
a lot of the large pharmaceutical companies,
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especially those that have vaccines, for
covid in helping their people manage these very
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complex clinical trials and other aspects of
the drug development process. So IPM in
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a great project management the client problem
they solve is when you have a big,
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very complex project with a lot of
moving pieces and you can't have,
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you know, many or any pieces
kind of drop. You need industrial strength
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project management expertise. Where the one. So IPM. That's the customer problem
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that they've owned for thirty years and
that's at right. So you can build
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a very large and lucrative firm based
on that. In the book I talked
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about a firm called urban science and
if you remember that passage, it's a
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firm in Detroit that I think they're
roughly thirty years old. The problem that
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they have owned since day one is
helping auto manufacturers make the monumental decision of
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where do we locate our car dealers? All right, by studying traffic patterns,
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population, Democrat and other demographic the
like. Where do we put the
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dealer? Because that's a consequential decision. You put a dealer on a wrong
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straight and competing dealerships open in much
more accessible locations or where there they're more
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the target customer and that hurts the
dealership and that, of course, hurts
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the auto manufacture. So now they
branched out from owning that customer problem to
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owning some more problems of autom manufactures
the dealerships. But still that's what that's
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the customer problem that they focused on
and have stayed rooted on, and the
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last time I checked they had a
thousand people working in this firm, privately
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held firm focused on largely one customer
problem. How do we make the dealers
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make more money? One customer problem. You go on to say that.
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Then the second would be how the
company will develop exceptional content about solving those
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core client problems. So you know, a lot of people know the problem
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that they solved, but many don't
go to that second step of saying we're
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going to create exceptional content. That's
right and they often feel that. Well,
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the the experience we've had in the
field, whether it's a law firm,
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you know our lawyers now to how
to defend against class action lawsuits.
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You know, we or are consultants. They know how to help clients design
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efficient supply chains. The reason for
primary research is to help avoid the scenario
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of you know what, our expertise
is outdated. There's a new consulting firm,
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new law firm, new accounting firm, new what other firm that is
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is aimed at the same customer problem
that we thought we owned, that we
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were the the by far the best, but this other firm has solved it
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better. You know, they brought
new thinking to this problem. So this
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is the reason for primary research,
in thought leadership, in studying best practice
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companies against the rest, especially the
worst practice, and understanding why do the
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best companies solve this problem better than
the worst? And this is the kind
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of research that I saw work many
years ago, back in the late s
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and s that led to the biggest
consulting service of the S, which was
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business engineering. It was that kind
of research, studying how the best companies
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were managing information technology. What did
they do differently than the companies that got
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little or no payback from information technology? It was that primary research that enabled
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the firm I work for, to
say the best companies. Here's the way
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the best companies do it. They
rethink business processes across the silos. He's
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information technology to share information across across
silos that hadn't been shared before, which
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reduces time to market, improves quality, improves effective that thought leadership, that
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concept was built on the back of
primary research and that's the reason that firm
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set the world on fire back in
the early and mid s with that concept.
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It did the primary research that led
to the big idea and one of
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the many things that Michael Hammer,
who was really in the forefront of working
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with the firm I worked at.
He was the father of re engineering.
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This is reengineering. Mike was once
to asked by a reporter. He said
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so, Mike, how did YOU
INVENT RE engineering? And Mike said I
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didn't invent reengineering, I discovered it. HMM, those words meant a lot.
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People Thought, Oh, Mikey,
you know he was in a shower
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one day and he said, oh
well, you know, this is what
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I only need to do now.
That's not what happened. Yeah, there
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were the research and I was at
an occasional researcher and when they when they
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needed somebody to help interview companies.
That research was Bayed on. I think
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it was sixty or seventy companies that
opened up their doors and talked about how
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they were using information technology in the
late s and and from Mike Rea Hammer
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and the research team stepping back from
these interviews and saying, all right,
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so the companies that were getting the
biggest payback from it, what did they
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do differently? You know what's going
on here, folks. So Mike would
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say I invented really, I didn't
invent re engineering. I discovered it,
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and meaning I discovered it by having
my research team do these interviews with companies
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that told us a whole bunch of
things that nobody else would put together.
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The other large consulting firms at the
time, Mackenzie, Boston consulting group,
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Bain, nobody, certainly the software
vendors, had done this kind of customer
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research and that led to the biggest
consulting service segment of the s. It
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was an almost five billion dollar a
year segment by ninety five, according to
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Gartner. So that when thought leadership
research pays off handsomely. Hey B to
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00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:44.839
be gross listeners. We want to
hear from you. In fact, we
217
00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:48.720
will pay you for it. Just
head over to BDB growth podcom and complete
218
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a short survey about the show to
enter for a chance to win two hundred
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and fifty dollars. Plus. The
first fifty participants will receive twenty five dollars
220
00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:00.640
as our way of saying thank you
so much one more time. That's BTB,
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00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:10.200
growth podcom, letter B. Number
two, letter be growth podcom.
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00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:14.200
One entry per person. must be
an active listener of the show to enter
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00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:23.440
and look forward to hearing from you. That led to the biggest consulting service
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segment of the s. It was
an almost five billion dollar a year segment
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by ninety five according to Gartner.
So that, when thought, leadership,
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research pays off handsomely. Yeah,
so we have these four elements. We
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talked about the core problem. Then
you have how the company will develop the
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content. You go to three and
four, being how to create demand for
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the expertise you can provide and then
how to ramp up services. That solve
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those problems. Really, what I
want to do, because we have limited
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time, is focus on those middle
two and we've done a bit of that
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here around developing exceptional content but we'll
talk about creating demand for the expertise in
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a minute. So if we're,
as marketers were, on a mission to
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create that excellent content, I would
say, and I've felt this as a
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marketer, it can feel vague,
it can feel kind of undefined and when
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it pertains to developing thought leadership,
there has to be some sort of filter
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that we run things through. So
you've put this bit in a list form
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and we'll go into it in some
detail, but tell me a bit about
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a filter that you use to define
great content. So the filter, you
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know, the nine criteria or nine
hallmarks of great thought leading content, begins
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with novelty. Are we saying something
new here about how to solve the problem?
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For Not saying something new, why
should the audience pay attention? They
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can go get it somewhere else.
Depth, you know, how much of
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these folks showing us about their understanding
of the problem and a better way to
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solve it? Evidence, the most
important of these nine criteria. Do they
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have proof that the solution actually works
and that that is produced sizeable results for
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companies? Without evidence, you have
theory, that's all you have. Relevance,
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you know, is this an here
and now problem? Or is this
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a problem that they say we're going
to run into in five years but nonetheless
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we must do something about it?
Today it's a much harder thing to make
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a to to generate demand from thought
leadership, from to say Yeah, you
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folks may not believe this, but
in five years you know this is going
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to happen. Nobody's thinking that Farhad
and Rigger, you know, I look
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at thought leadership as a narrative argument. You know a problem in the world,
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why existing solutions fall short in solving
it, a better a new and
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better solution that actually works better,
obstacles to adopting that new solution and how
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to overcome them, and then why
companies should move now. So so that's
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an argument to make. Okay,
so the rigger, this notion of rigor,
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comes into play. Of Have you
made a persuasive argument? Are there
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pieces of the argument that you have
forgotten because you know the argument so well?
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This is going back to a book
called the curse of Knowledge, Hm
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that knowledge made to stick, in
which the concept was the curse of knowledge.
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Smart people who master a topic know
so much about it that when they
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try to explain it to people,
they say let's say there's ten logic points.
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They say point a, point B, they skip point C and d
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because they think everybody knows that.
Well, not. Not Everybody knows that,
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and so they you get lost in
the argument. So so rigger of
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argument? Is this a persuasive argument, and part of that is evidence,
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but have they unfolded this argument in
a way for the reader or viewer to
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get it, to grasp it?
Hey, that's rigger. Clarity is a
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little different than rigor. Clarity is
are you writing or speaking in terminology that
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your target audience understands? So I've
read that educational level of the Wall Street
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Journal reader is like eleventh grade.
They write eleventh grade readership level. They're
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not writing to a PhD level,
right. And so the most effective thought
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leaders are those who say things very
plainly, speak very clearly and don't spell
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out acronym after acronym and hi,
a concept after high big concept. So
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that's clarity and and there's some other
criteria, but those, those are the,
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you know, the most important ones, and a good way to after
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you've written an article or a presentation, a good thing to do is to
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stand back and say, okay,
does it make these criteria. Where is
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it strong? Where could it be
improved? How could I improve it?
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Evidence? All I have is one
case example. People believe what I'm trying
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to tell them with one case example. Okay, I better get a couple
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more. All Right, get a
couple more. What about the results?
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You know the improvements in those case
examples? Are They big enough? Are
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there? Are there any results?
Improvements supported? Right, Yeh. So
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it's a way kind of say,
how do I know this ship, rocket
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ship, is going to actually get
off the launch pad? Their ways to
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do that. It helps you get
a baseline and then it helps with iteration
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because you run it back through the
filter. Right. It's a purification system
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over time that then you create momentum
off of, and that's why I like
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thinking through it. I think a
lot of us are creating content and when
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you remove a piece of this,
I'll go back to that same phrase because
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we say it a lot around here
and around sweet fish, but commodity content
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happens often when you're missing some of
this stuff, like you might have just
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evidence but you haven't presented a point
of view. So now you're lacking in
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a different area, and especially as
we see a rise in the Betab space
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of a need, in a want
and a desire for data. Everything,
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every conversations about data. If all
your company does is present data, you're
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actually not differentiating yourself because you're not
telling us your opinion about how you read
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the data. There's no room for
you to be a thought leader if all
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you do is just provide information.
So I think these nine are fantastic.
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Yeah, but most important, with
that data, and it means great,
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you need data and you need a
real examples. It's not just quant right,
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it's qual. We need stats and
stories. Right, that's the evidence.
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But as you're as you're appointed to
Benjie, we also need to say
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we need to wrap those stats and
stories around. Here's what we're telling you
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you should do. Here's you know, we told you about this problem.
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You can decide whether you have the
problem, and we're telling you how to
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solve it. And we have weird
stating story, but that's the point of
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view. Tell me how to solve
this problem. Just don't speal out that
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facts and stories and not tell me
what I should do about it. Tell
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me what I should do about it. And a lot of companies either don't
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say okay, if we now not. We don't need to tell them what
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to do, because if we tell
them what to do and a presentation or
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white paper that they won't hire us. You know, then we're kind of
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giving it away. I have want
to be denied. You want to tell
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them what to do, because then
you're you set yourself up as the guide.
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Correct if it's as easy for them
to read your white paper or your
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book, just read and can get
great results and you don't really have much
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of a business. And it's rarely
that easy to just read somebody's book or
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read a White Paper and operate at
the level of skill that the authors operate
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that. It's never that. It's
never that easy. Okay, so let's
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say we've done the work, we've
done the research, we create great content,
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and now what we are needing to
do is we're needing to create demand
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for the expertise that we provide.
Give me an example that comes to mind
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for you of a person or an
organization who has done this truly effectively and
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correctly. So one great example is
a firm we work with in Twenty fifteen
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and two thousand and sixteen. It's
a pricing strategy consulting firm called Simon Coucher
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and partners. They're based in Germany. They are the premier experts on pricing
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and which we price our product or
service at. They came to us.
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We help them develop a book on
pricing strategy, especially for technology products.
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The book was called Monetizing Innovation.
It's been a best seller. It's been
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a piece of thought leadership that they
have used that has helped them grow fifty
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percent, I think, over five
years, two thousand and sixteen to two
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two thousand and twenty one. And
the way it's and the way they brought
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that content to market is, in
addition to the book and getting a whole
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lunch bunch of promotion around the book, they run conferences. So they have,
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you know, the authors from the
book. They've had them appear at
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their conferences. I think they were
doing forty or fifty conferences around the world
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before the pandemic. Pr Right,
getting reporters to interview the books, excerpts,
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giving private company presentations. You know, a Linkedin says I would love
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your book. Can you give a
presentation to our executives here? We'd love
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the book. So the Malt the
marketing mix for thought leadership is is multifaceted.
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It's not just one thing. Oh, you know, we've mailed at
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white paper. Were One and done. That's a recipe for failure. It's
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it's multiple ways to the market that
book. They're still they're still speaking on
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the basis of that book six years
later. You know, look at monetizing
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innovation and and one of the two
authors made revenue, John or Gee Org
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is co author, a Gier,
who I think has retired. But they're
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still marketing that book six years later. It's still, I imagine, generating
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business for them. So the marketing
mix for thought leadership is, is what
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I say in the book, is
High Band with low bias as opposed to
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low band with high bias. So, you know, high bandwidth means it's
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marketing channels in which we can impart
a lot of information, because we're going
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to have to show people how smart
we are. So high bandwidth channels are
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things like white papers, op eds, Harvard business review articles, conference presentations.
358
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Okay, Hi band with low band
with channels are not nearly as effective
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for thought leadership. Low Band withth
is we can only impart a little information
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because in an advertisement of one or
two page add you know we're not going
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to write a, you know,
print a two thousand word article on a
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two page you donment or trade show
boots. Okay, low band with high
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bias and low bias. So low
bias is the audience doesn't think you're trying
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to sell them anything you they think
you're trying to educate them. So this
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is the difference between somebody speaking at
a conference and somebody operating behind a conference
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booth. Everything's branded. So high
band with low bias. Channels to market
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are the best ones for thought.
Leadership. Those are different. INATIONAL marketing
368
00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:19.880
channels, right, those are those
are different. It's not like putting a
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golf at it says jpmg on it
or nothing wrong with that, but that's
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not how you do that. Leadership. Different type of marketing? Yeah,
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different type of marketing. Not to
put that down at all. It's good
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brand image marketing. Oh, you
know, KPMG is is a sponsor of
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the masters. They must be a
big firm, they must schmove with executives.
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You know that that's important. Or
marathon sponsorship. One of our clients
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taught a consultancy services as sponsored the
major marathons around the world, including the
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New York Marathon and the Boston marathon
up here where I am. Great brand
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image, great brand image, not
the leadership, though, but great brand
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image. Yeah, that's why I
think you're so spot on with saying this
379
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is more about business than it is
just about a marketing ploy and I love
380
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that you also explain how you get
the message out there as this this ripple
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in the pond approach to thought leadership. Right, so you have moving out
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from owned to shared, two earned
to paid, into this way of thinking
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about it. Then I'm like,
yeah, ultimately we have this owned property
384
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right, and there's a lot of
people, I don't want to say this,
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I'm not going to just spout out
a lot of people because that's not
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our fact, but you know,
there's many out there that have an owned
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piece of content that could separate them
from the market, but they don't know
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how to put it properly out there
for them to actually become thought leaders.
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They've created some piece of content that
they hope is attracting people, but once
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you get beyond just the owned media, you have to figure out a way
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to get that ripple effect happening right. So explain that a little bit.
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How you move out from just owned
to then the ripples that you see in
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the pond. So obviously the own
platforms are our websites, right, if
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we run our own conferences, that
kind of thing, the our your email
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newsletter, those are important. I'm
not we're not advocating against that. We're
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advocating for those. So the shared
content are things like I post on Linkedin,
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right, or an issue a tweet, or or I post an article
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on mediumcom. So those, those
platforms are not yours, but you can
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publish easily on them, right,
but anybody can publish on them then.
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So those are important. That will
get the message out and get people to
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your own content on your website.
And we think the place where you got
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to wind up getting people to is
your website, all right, because then
403
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you begin to control the sales process, right, and what else they can
404
00:32:00.359 --> 00:32:05.440
learn about your company. So the
shared shared content is important to get them
405
00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:09.680
to your website and because there are
a lot more people typically and linkedin than
406
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:16.680
are on the typical companies email mailing
list. But shared content, the reader
407
00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:22.559
knows the difference between getting that same
content as a linkedin post and getting that
408
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:28.400
content in a prestigious publication like am
slow management review or a Harvard Business Review
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or the oppened section of a newspaper. Those opportunities are earned and those kind
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of publications reject more than ninety percent
of the unsolicited submissions that they get.
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So the reader knows the difference.
Like, well, if it's in Harvard
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Business Review, it must be very
good, because the content read content.
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Yeah, it's curated and it's edited
heavily often by it people at each of
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you are. And so I could
run the same article on Linkedin and if
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HBRE ran it, and they wouldn't
if they have sought on Linkedin. So
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you know, we'd all aduse clients
to do it, and I don't.
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I don't do that. But if
I managed to run the same article on
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my linkedin profile as ran under my
name at Hbr, I can guarantee you
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the one a hbre would generate a
lot more interest, would be seen as
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much more credible, much more believable, even though they're the same one hundred
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words as what I said on Linkedin, simply because of the credibility of that
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platform. So so that's owned media
and that is really important, especially as
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more and more people are are are
putting their content on their website and using
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linkedin another shared media. You know
what kind of begins to separate the week
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from the chaff. Is Are you
getting? Are you earning your place in
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the venues that your target audience is
actually reading and putting stocking? And then
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there's the paid media. You know, that's adds, right, Google,
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add words, Linkedin ads, twitter
ads, facebook ads, etc. That
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can get too much bigger audiences,
but but at the end of the day
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their advertisements and so people know that. Yeah, that's a me seems like
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the kind of icing on the cake
in a sense. When you think about
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thought leadership, people, you can
skip around within this framework. When you're
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just thinking of advertising more generally,
you jump to paid more quickly if you're
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thinking about just ads, but when
you're thinking of thought leadership you're not not
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really at that ripple until you've created. Those the the first ones that we
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00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:39.079
talked about there. So I love
the I'm a very visual person, Bob,
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so I like the way that you
laid that out. But one other
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rite out about the ripples in the
pond is you know, and I say
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00:34:45.280 --> 00:34:49.559
this in the book, the better
the content you have, the bigger the
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rock. You know, to use
this metaphor that you're throwing into the more
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00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:57.480
ripples you're creating. Mediocre content is, you know, it's like a small
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00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:00.159
it's like a small rock. Throw
it out there, not a lot of
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00:35:00.199 --> 00:35:05.440
ripples. As a marketer, the
worst things for marketers are to have to
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00:35:05.480 --> 00:35:12.199
market crappy content. They dread having
to do that, and for bosses to
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00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:17.920
expect miracles from crappy content or or
mediocre you know, marketers dream is is
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00:35:17.960 --> 00:35:22.559
to have truly unique and compelling content. You just know, right, we
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00:35:22.599 --> 00:35:25.280
all know that that's going to get
a lot more legs out there, it's
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00:35:25.280 --> 00:35:28.800
going to get a lot of word
them out, a lot of shares,
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00:35:28.960 --> 00:35:34.519
etc. When you nail a piece
of content. So the better the content,
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00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:37.679
the bigger the wrote, the bigger
the rock you're throwing into the pond
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00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:40.239
and the more ripples that are going
to emanate from that. Yeah, I
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00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:45.480
think of that because on this show, I know we're in recent weeks,
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we've talked a lot about pillar content
and when you're taking pillar content into this
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00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:52.400
thought leadership approach, the way that
you could see it similarly, is even
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00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:57.280
if you were just creating this piece
of content wants a quarter or twice a
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00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:00.599
year to begin where you're putting a
ton of F it in, but the
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00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:05.639
amount of content that can come out
of that one piece is almost limitless,
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00:36:05.679 --> 00:36:10.519
like it's worth the extra effort to
have this cohesive piece of content you've created
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00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:15.800
that. Then other videos can come
out of other topics for your blog can
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00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:20.960
come out of other but you're really
really working to make that rock as big
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00:36:21.000 --> 00:36:27.000
as possible so that the ripples really
are endless. We got to take guys,
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00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:29.920
start to wrap this thing up.
This's been a fascinating conversation, but
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00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:32.760
I want to I want to go
back to basically where we were at the
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00:36:32.760 --> 00:36:37.840
beginning, this idea that this has
to be a business strategy and not just
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00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:42.480
a peace in the marketing plan.
So when we're thinking of implementation from the
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00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:45.800
top levels on down, I wonder, Bob, what would you leave us
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00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:49.320
with is you think about what this
should look like? What are the high
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00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:53.239
level conversations or the structures that have
to be in place first for us to
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00:36:53.320 --> 00:36:59.559
really be competing on thought leadership?
That's a fantastic question, because there are
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00:36:59.559 --> 00:37:05.360
a lot of people in big firms
there their head of thought leadership, researcher,
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00:37:05.480 --> 00:37:09.039
the cheap marketing officer and they will
come to us and they say we
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00:37:09.119 --> 00:37:13.239
don't have a big enough budget to
do what we want. Most of the
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00:37:13.239 --> 00:37:17.639
top management team has a skeptical view
on thought leadership. You know, if
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00:37:17.679 --> 00:37:21.480
it works then they'll give us more, but they're not sure they should be
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00:37:21.480 --> 00:37:23.199
doing it in the first place.
That you know, yeah, we're doing
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00:37:23.199 --> 00:37:28.280
it because so and soap competitors doing
it and so it's an expense that has
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00:37:28.360 --> 00:37:31.480
to be minimized. That's that's to
you at the top. So if I'm
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00:37:31.519 --> 00:37:37.280
that head of thought leadership, research
and or chief marketing officer, the best
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00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:40.079
way I have found to get the
folks at the top to actually take a
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00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:45.239
leap of faith and their minds to
believe that thought leadership something they need to
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00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:52.159
do get a lot more serious about, is to set up conversations with key
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00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:59.559
clients or firms that could be clients, who executives in these firms who love
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00:37:59.840 --> 00:38:04.920
good thought leadership content. Introduce those
folks, half a dozen, if you
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00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.800
could get them at a focus group
with your top management team and tell your
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00:38:08.840 --> 00:38:14.159
top management team to just listen.
Why these people? And you're going to
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00:38:14.199 --> 00:38:17.239
have to select these people make sure
that they are in fact advocates that they
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00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:22.079
are big consumers of fout leadership.
Have have your your clients talk about why
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00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:28.119
this is so important in the way
they do things. I think nothing will.
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00:38:28.960 --> 00:38:32.159
Nothing in our that many CMOS will
say or heads of thought leadership research
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00:38:32.159 --> 00:38:37.360
will say to the bosses will count
nearly as much, or at account nearly
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00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:43.920
as much as what big clients say. And the hope would be once a
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00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:47.280
leadership team says, you know,
the six clients that were in this room
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00:38:47.320 --> 00:38:52.840
represent thirty percent of our revenue,
now we get a much better idea,
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00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:58.880
we have a much better idea of
why thought leadership matters to them. Then
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00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:01.559
the lightbulbs go on and they say, Gosh, we got to fund this
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00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:06.960
thing. You know, we're starving
you guys of funds. We got it.
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00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:09.239
Now. If clients say it's important, it's got to be important for
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00:39:09.320 --> 00:39:14.639
us. Yep, snowball effect from
there. Well, we want people to
499
00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:17.159
go get the book. It's called
competing on thought leadership. Encourage everyone to
500
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:20.840
go grab it. Bob, for
people that want to connect with you,
501
00:39:21.039 --> 00:39:24.519
what's the best way for them to
do that? Sure want is to look
502
00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:30.880
at our website, which is Boudet
tlpcom or they can email me at Bob
503
00:39:30.920 --> 00:39:37.960
at Boudet tlpcom. Well, thanks
to everyone who has taken time to listen
504
00:39:37.960 --> 00:39:42.519
to this episode. I know it's
extremely insightful. It's one that will continue
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00:39:42.599 --> 00:39:46.199
to help us as we are creating
content, as we're thinking about the type
506
00:39:46.199 --> 00:39:51.719
of work that we're doing, and
so love this. If you have not
507
00:39:51.840 --> 00:39:54.079
followed the show yet, be sure
to do that on whatever platform you're listening
508
00:39:54.119 --> 00:39:58.400
too this on. I'd love to
connect with you here from you. You
509
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:01.199
can do that on Linkedin. Just
Search Benjie Block. Bob One more time.
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00:40:01.639 --> 00:40:05.760
Thanks for being here man. Thank
you, Magie. Great Conversation.
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00:40:06.480 --> 00:40:22.760
Will be back real soon with another
episode. We're always excited to have conversations
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00:40:22.760 --> 00:40:25.480
with leaders on the front lines of
marketing. If there's a marketing director or
513
00:40:25.519 --> 00:40:29.719
a chief marketing officer that you think
we need to have on the show,
514
00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:34.639
we're reach out. Email me,
Beng dot block at Sweet Fish Mediacom.
515
00:40:34.639 --> 00:40:36.000
I look forward to hearing from you.