How to Find & Package Ideas to Drive Change In Your Industry

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:08.230 welcome back to BBB growth. I'm dan Sanchez with Sweet Fish Media and I'm 3 00:00:08.230 --> 00:00:12.620 here with Matt Church who is the Chairman of Thought Leaders and the 4 00:00:12.620 --> 00:00:16.680 author of the books, Thought Leaders and Thought Leaders Practice, which I 5 00:00:16.680 --> 00:00:20.290 have with me here and I finished reading it a few months ago. So Matt, 6 00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:23.550 welcome to the show. Hey dan, thanks for having me, awesome to be here. 7 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:28.940 Absolutely. As you guys know, we've been doing a deep dive on the topic of 8 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:32.060 thought leadership marketing over the month of june and I've been 9 00:00:32.070 --> 00:00:35.770 interviewing multiple practitioners. Thought leaders, Thought Leader Thought 10 00:00:35.770 --> 00:00:41.260 Leaders and a variety of different episodes about the ideas around thought 11 00:00:41.260 --> 00:00:43.940 leadership market. Now very excited to talk to matt because it's one of my 12 00:00:43.940 --> 00:00:48.130 favorite books on the topic so far because he had a few unique ideas on 13 00:00:48.130 --> 00:00:53.750 how to not only find ideas about how to package them so they're actually useful 14 00:00:53.760 --> 00:00:58.280 later on and we'll be diving into multiple ideas he's expressed in his 15 00:00:58.280 --> 00:01:01.830 book and it's always a selfish interest for me is I get to go in and go a 16 00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:05.470 little bit deeper with the questions that I had from the book itself. So to 17 00:01:05.470 --> 00:01:09.010 kick things off matt, can you tell us a little bit about, like how did you get 18 00:01:09.010 --> 00:01:12.360 into the topic of thought leadership? Like what even brought you here? 19 00:01:12.370 --> 00:01:16.140 Because it's uh always find that there's an interesting story about that. 20 00:01:16.150 --> 00:01:20.440 Yeah, well, we were talking just before we hit record about the reticence to 21 00:01:20.440 --> 00:01:25.830 talk about myself and I think, You know this and you know, how long have we got? 22 00:01:25.830 --> 00:01:31.810 Right? I'm 52, so I've been doing versions of this for a long time, but I 23 00:01:31.820 --> 00:01:36.740 was 17, I graduated with a black belt in a martial art and started to teach 24 00:01:36.740 --> 00:01:42.770 kids and from that space, the idea of being a teacher uh and sharing ideas 25 00:01:42.770 --> 00:01:47.940 and helping you know, being fully self expressed. So training myself and then 26 00:01:47.940 --> 00:01:50.760 being able to share those ideas with others was the start of the journey. 27 00:01:50.940 --> 00:01:55.310 I've loved reading books, I've loved listening to audio recordings back in 28 00:01:55.310 --> 00:01:58.870 the day, it was cassette tapes and I remember the first set of cassette 29 00:01:58.870 --> 00:02:01.800 tapes I was given and then your audience might be a bit young, but 30 00:02:01.810 --> 00:02:04.580 that's like a playlist, you can't change, right? And we were doing 31 00:02:04.580 --> 00:02:10.039 mixtapes and in the eighties and I remember getting brian Tracy's 32 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:14.960 psychology of achievement where he was laying out these principles, it was 33 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:19.540 classic eighties, nineties motivational tour, personal development stuff. And 34 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:24.310 that began my journey and then later in Science and Education director of the 35 00:02:24.310 --> 00:02:27.850 Australian Council for Health, and then getting into corporate wellness 36 00:02:27.850 --> 00:02:32.280 performance, leadership training. It was all just for me this this space of 37 00:02:32.290 --> 00:02:36.010 what do you know? And is there a way you can share it with other people that 38 00:02:36.010 --> 00:02:40.150 adds value and utility to their world or life? And that's, that's pretty much 39 00:02:40.150 --> 00:02:44.040 what thought leadership is. We can talk about it as a, as a marketing strategy 40 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:47.690 for growth and it is, but essentially at its core essence, there is something, 41 00:02:47.690 --> 00:02:52.390 you know, an insider and expertise and that if you can share it with others in 42 00:02:52.390 --> 00:02:56.730 a way they value, everything gets better, Business grows personal 43 00:02:56.730 --> 00:03:01.330 development life improves in whatever domain. So I'm kind of just, I know 44 00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:06.290 that's my jam and it's it's where I love to live, so to be able to think 45 00:03:06.290 --> 00:03:11.160 and speak and write um and be paid to do that. It's just like Nirvana for me, 46 00:03:11.940 --> 00:03:15.640 yes, I love, I've been falling in love with this topic. I was talking to Grant 47 00:03:15.640 --> 00:03:21.880 Butler, who's another guy, not not too far from you in Australia, but he was 48 00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:25.730 telling me yesterday that like, journalism is a record of the past 49 00:03:25.730 --> 00:03:28.740 while thought leadership is really a record of the future or what you're 50 00:03:28.740 --> 00:03:32.840 hoping the future will hold, write a recommendation for where to go, which I 51 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:36.820 thought was kind of a unique and fun concept. Considering your as a thought 52 00:03:36.820 --> 00:03:40.460 leader, you're you're throwing out unique ideas and trying to steer steer 53 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:44.240 a bit of the future in your particular niche or industry with your expertise. 54 00:03:44.250 --> 00:03:49.480 So it's a fun topic. And I could see, I know your your black belt came to play 55 00:03:49.480 --> 00:03:53.710 and lots of the book as you talk about the different levels of uh thought 56 00:03:53.720 --> 00:03:58.210 leadership. But let's go back to like the beginning, if you are an expert or 57 00:03:58.210 --> 00:04:02.160 you're working with experts, I find the hardest part, even as I'm working with 58 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:05.400 experts is they don't feel like they have a lot to contribute, right? They 59 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:08.150 kind of know everything about the topic and they're just like, oh I feel like 60 00:04:08.160 --> 00:04:11.530 everything's been covered already. I've heard this multiple times from people 61 00:04:11.540 --> 00:04:15.830 like as you're working with your own clients and working maybe with your own 62 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:22.060 ideas. Like how do you go about finding topics that are both unique and helpful 63 00:04:22.440 --> 00:04:27.110 for people to kind of call their thought leadership ideas? Well, I'm 64 00:04:27.110 --> 00:04:32.240 really big on insight driven, the thought leadership that doesn't mean 65 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:35.850 it's evidence informed, which is one of the fields of thought leadership and it 66 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:40.110 doesn't mean it's opportunity seeking. So for me, thought leadership doesn't 67 00:04:40.110 --> 00:04:44.750 come from a gap in the market now realizing the B2B conversation, that 68 00:04:44.750 --> 00:04:48.720 might be exactly what thought leadership is doing. But in from my 69 00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:52.990 point of view, working with individuals who might end up writing books on a 70 00:04:52.990 --> 00:04:56.970 matter or doing ted talks on a matter or whatever it might be, It really 71 00:04:56.970 --> 00:05:00.520 comes from deep contemplation and insight. So it's almost like if 72 00:05:00.520 --> 00:05:04.730 meditation was disciplining the mind to not have thoughts that mindfulness was 73 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:08.370 filling the mind with sensors. Contemplation is the third choice and 74 00:05:08.370 --> 00:05:12.260 you can almost see it as a left brain, right brain and the inverted triangle. 75 00:05:12.340 --> 00:05:16.290 And so contemplation or insight developed. Thought leadership is where 76 00:05:16.290 --> 00:05:22.700 it begins. And I often like to think of it as a commercial PhD and I think that 77 00:05:22.700 --> 00:05:27.910 the academy and the whole idea of academia has some really powerful stuff 78 00:05:27.910 --> 00:05:30.900 and I think it's also a little messed up. So so one of the things that makes 79 00:05:30.900 --> 00:05:35.370 the academy really, really powerful is literature review. And so that before 80 00:05:35.370 --> 00:05:39.060 you do a piece of work, like a thesis, you want to be across the body of 81 00:05:39.060 --> 00:05:43.940 knowledge and however you choose to do that when when I work with individuals, 82 00:05:43.940 --> 00:05:47.900 I go, look, you've got a topic you're wanting to write or blog or talk on or 83 00:05:47.900 --> 00:05:51.930 whatever it might be, I say, can you get three books for me? Can you find 84 00:05:51.940 --> 00:05:56.190 the classic bestseller on that? Can you then? And that means like 10 years or 85 00:05:56.190 --> 00:05:59.960 more, can you get the contemporary bestseller on that book? And that's 86 00:05:59.960 --> 00:06:03.670 like five years or less? And can you give me the current best seller? That's 87 00:06:03.670 --> 00:06:06.690 the book that's popped this year and now I'm not suggesting that's an 88 00:06:06.690 --> 00:06:11.000 exhaustive literature review, but what it gives us is it gives us the past, 89 00:06:11.010 --> 00:06:16.430 the recent past and the present. And so you get an idea that it's very quickly 90 00:06:16.430 --> 00:06:21.560 and those three sort of reads whether it be a get abstract with a four page 91 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:26.520 pdf of each or inaudible on two times. Listen. And as you're listening to 92 00:06:26.520 --> 00:06:30.680 those books, a couple of things will start to happen. Let's imagine you were 93 00:06:30.680 --> 00:06:34.200 reading a book, classic old school, right? And you're a student, you read 94 00:06:34.200 --> 00:06:37.260 it, you highlighted paragraph and you go, yeah, that's cool, I hope I can 95 00:06:37.260 --> 00:06:41.250 remember that. As a teacher, you read it and you go, yeah, that's cool, how 96 00:06:41.250 --> 00:06:45.320 could I share that? But as a thought leader, you read it and you go, that's 97 00:06:45.320 --> 00:06:51.280 interesting, what do I think about that? And you pause And you pause and you ask 98 00:06:51.280 --> 00:06:58.180 yourself two questions. Do I want to refute or extend that idea? And you're 99 00:06:58.180 --> 00:07:03.070 moving into the path of contribution which is you read something, you go, 100 00:07:03.070 --> 00:07:07.940 yeah and in the finance sector that looks this way or in real estate that 101 00:07:07.940 --> 00:07:12.540 looks this way or in banking that looks this way or in software service that 102 00:07:12.540 --> 00:07:16.520 looks this way, so you may be going yeah and and making it relevant or 103 00:07:16.520 --> 00:07:20.180 you're going yeah, but and what you're doing is actually contradicting it and 104 00:07:20.180 --> 00:07:23.720 you're going yeah but that does not relate to small business or that does 105 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:27.840 not relate to globally distributed companies. So at contribution and 106 00:07:27.840 --> 00:07:33.790 contradiction you start to if you like, capture your insights and I think you 107 00:07:33.790 --> 00:07:38.570 can do this with, you know, with quotes with uh with the abstract on a piece of 108 00:07:38.570 --> 00:07:43.260 research with just a really cool mantra you hear someone say or something 109 00:07:43.260 --> 00:07:47.440 that's on an instagram post and these are the butterflies of ideas that 110 00:07:47.440 --> 00:07:53.050 should float around and that you kind of want to take them and then work them. 111 00:07:53.140 --> 00:07:57.250 Um Probably just one more thing not to extend the answer to make it too long, 112 00:07:57.740 --> 00:08:02.160 but I think there's a four step process and I think people start at the top and 113 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:07.150 you don't want to, you want to start at the bottom. Uh The first thing you want 114 00:08:07.150 --> 00:08:11.900 to do is imagine you're an art gallery and you're the curator and what you're 115 00:08:11.900 --> 00:08:15.110 gonna do is you're gonna go, there's some cool stuff on, let's say service 116 00:08:15.110 --> 00:08:19.870 experience, your or or customer usability or something, whatever it 117 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:22.460 might be. You know, there's some cool stuff on this and you just start 118 00:08:22.460 --> 00:08:26.910 curating it, just putting it up on the wall with really strong reference. The 119 00:08:26.910 --> 00:08:31.390 artist of that is the artist of that is letting giving good references. Then 120 00:08:31.390 --> 00:08:34.220 what you do is you start to promote those that really resonates. So let's 121 00:08:34.220 --> 00:08:37.620 say you're on behaviour change, you'd probably get James clear and his book 122 00:08:37.620 --> 00:08:42.400 atomic habits. You might get Professor fog from the stanford behavior and 123 00:08:42.400 --> 00:08:46.790 influence clinic and the work on tiny habits. And you'd be talking about 124 00:08:46.800 --> 00:08:51.260 promoting those as authors. If you're encourage, you might be, you know, 125 00:08:51.260 --> 00:08:56.170 talking about Brown a brown, right? So you start with curating and then what 126 00:08:56.170 --> 00:09:00.640 you do is you propagate. So you sort of share other people's ideas. Um, then 127 00:09:00.640 --> 00:09:05.810 what you do is you aggregate and the aggregation is where you go. So and so 128 00:09:05.810 --> 00:09:10.620 said this, so and so says this and I'm wondering it makes me think about this. 129 00:09:10.620 --> 00:09:16.720 So it's like one to me, one to me and you share your insight. And then once 130 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:19.980 you've done those three things, which is almost enough, what you can do is 131 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:22.800 you can think, okay, now here's my unique insight that I'm going to 132 00:09:22.800 --> 00:09:27.170 contribute. But if you spend all your time trying to be terminally unique, 133 00:09:27.180 --> 00:09:30.230 you don't engage with the conversation that's already present in the 134 00:09:30.230 --> 00:09:34.310 marketplace and you kind of, it's disrespectful because obviously we're 135 00:09:34.310 --> 00:09:37.900 all standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to developing ideas and 136 00:09:37.900 --> 00:09:41.990 it's really good to be able to join yours back to source, you know, what, 137 00:09:41.990 --> 00:09:45.720 where was some of the original thinking? I love how you kind of pulled it back 138 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:49.380 to academia because it's kind of the process that phds go through, right? I 139 00:09:49.380 --> 00:09:52.860 have a friend who's in a robust PhD program and he's telling me about all 140 00:09:52.860 --> 00:09:55.790 the reading he's doing and of course he read broadly. Now he's going to do his 141 00:09:55.790 --> 00:10:00.750 niche topic and reading every book ever written on like a specific, he's going 142 00:10:00.750 --> 00:10:04.930 to do a dissertation on a specific man in history that only has one major 143 00:10:04.940 --> 00:10:09.290 paper written on on the man's life. So naturally he has to go and read every 144 00:10:09.290 --> 00:10:13.760 book about that man, the man's work, like every good friend demands had, you 145 00:10:13.760 --> 00:10:16.750 know, it's kind of like he's gotta go understand the conversation that's 146 00:10:16.750 --> 00:10:19.940 already happened in order to even understand what he could add. That's 147 00:10:19.940 --> 00:10:24.170 new to the conversation that I also kind of like that in your process, you 148 00:10:24.170 --> 00:10:29.040 have to um essentially, I mean modern days, it looks like posting on social 149 00:10:29.040 --> 00:10:32.460 media. Um but it could also be if you're in the academia world posting to 150 00:10:32.460 --> 00:10:35.510 journals and things as you're sharing out different peoples insights but 151 00:10:35.510 --> 00:10:40.370 allows you to actually build a credibility as people get to watch you 152 00:10:40.370 --> 00:10:44.170 learn and watch you grow. Um and I think that's an important thing. I 153 00:10:44.170 --> 00:10:47.890 certainly have phds contact me to be on this show and it looks like they've 154 00:10:47.890 --> 00:10:50.710 been published in Forbes and entrepreneur, but I've never heard of 155 00:10:50.710 --> 00:10:54.350 them and I don't like maybe their ideas useful, but I'm like, I have no idea 156 00:10:54.350 --> 00:10:57.200 who you are, I'm not going to have you want me to be growth, even though it 157 00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:01.000 looks like you have the makings of all the credibility you would need, but by 158 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:03.670 publishing it and kind of sharing it out there in those stages that you 159 00:11:03.670 --> 00:11:08.760 mentioned, you can kind of build credibility with the industry over time. 160 00:11:09.140 --> 00:11:12.860 Yeah. And I think, I think the thing whether you ever publish a book or not, 161 00:11:12.870 --> 00:11:17.770 and I realized that a lot of your audience might be directors or VPs or 162 00:11:17.770 --> 00:11:22.790 in house B two B marketers and they're like, it doesn't hurt to go imagine I'm 163 00:11:22.790 --> 00:11:23.560 writing a book, 164 00:11:24.940 --> 00:11:29.710 you don't have to, but you just think about it as a book. And then anybody 165 00:11:29.710 --> 00:11:33.130 who is writing a book, I say don't write a single book, write a series. 166 00:11:33.140 --> 00:11:36.330 Now, you don't have to write the books, you don't have to actually publish them. 167 00:11:36.340 --> 00:11:41.350 It's just such a useful way to kind of catalog your thinking. And uh, and I'd 168 00:11:41.350 --> 00:11:44.850 almost encourage people go, what's the title of your book? If I read the back 169 00:11:44.850 --> 00:11:49.440 page, what would it say? Give Me the Table of Contents. All right, just give 170 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:53.240 me the top 50 words of every chapter. And then I go, I don't need the book, 171 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:56.870 I'm good, thank you. Now and now is there a diagram that summarizes the 172 00:11:56.870 --> 00:12:00.480 whole book? Can you give me some circles, squares and triangles, shove 173 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:03.680 them together in some way? So I get a snapshot and is there a metaphor that 174 00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:07.060 explains your book? Because then the contents almost irrelevant, isn't it? 175 00:12:07.140 --> 00:12:11.510 The 40-70,000 words that goes into a book becomes irrelevant because you've 176 00:12:11.510 --> 00:12:15.450 given me the insights and you've given me the architecture of the framework of 177 00:12:15.450 --> 00:12:18.990 your thinking. So I always love to sit with thought leaders and go what your 178 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:22.640 current book project, I don't even care whether they publish them. And you know 179 00:12:22.640 --> 00:12:27.680 that all my books are digitally free. So I believe that our job is to not be 180 00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:32.100 just in the idea business, but to be an experienced business. To your point 181 00:12:32.100 --> 00:12:36.270 about those academics, it's one thing to know something, but it's another to 182 00:12:36.270 --> 00:12:39.180 be known for knowing something. And I think that's the fundamental 183 00:12:39.180 --> 00:12:43.180 distinction between linking thought leadership and say B two B growth or 184 00:12:43.180 --> 00:12:48.680 growth versus just your friend who's going deep on one person as a 185 00:12:48.680 --> 00:12:52.980 contribution to a body of work in society. And I go, okay, that's cool. 186 00:12:52.990 --> 00:12:59.200 But I'm interested, I have a bias towards utility. Can someone grab this 187 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:03.080 and use it to make life or business better? And so everything in my world 188 00:13:03.080 --> 00:13:03.960 excuse that way. 189 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:09.680 So if you walk through your process and you started to share other people's 190 00:13:09.680 --> 00:13:13.160 ideas, share your opinions on other people's ideas and throw out some new 191 00:13:13.160 --> 00:13:17.300 ideas, how do you then go about validating whether those ideas like, 192 00:13:17.300 --> 00:13:22.440 hold like are going to be something, maybe you would put a book behind or 193 00:13:22.450 --> 00:13:26.240 push out there with your name attached to it in the public sphere, knowing 194 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:30.080 that people are kind of kind of ruthless on things like twitter and 195 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:33.380 facebook, right? They'll tell you apart, But I'm like, no, it's completely bowl 196 00:13:33.380 --> 00:13:38.900 and I'm not buying it. Right? So how do you go about validating idea or kind of 197 00:13:38.900 --> 00:13:44.150 getting to that point? Well, my answer is, you don't have to, the market does. 198 00:13:44.160 --> 00:13:48.170 That's an extreme capitalist point of view, and I'm not a capitalist, I'm a 199 00:13:48.170 --> 00:13:53.660 classical libertarian, so I'm not socialist, not capitalist. I sort of 200 00:13:53.660 --> 00:13:57.180 sit in this third choice, which is you do whatever you want, as long as it 201 00:13:57.180 --> 00:14:01.290 doesn't stop me doing whatever I want. And when I think of the, you know, I'm 202 00:14:01.290 --> 00:14:04.230 Australian, right? So I look with admiration at, like, say, Aaron 203 00:14:04.230 --> 00:14:07.690 Sorkin's version of America and the West Wing, and I look at and I go, oh, 204 00:14:07.690 --> 00:14:13.210 yes, I love that. And the whole idea of emancipation, that's meant to be in the 205 00:14:13.220 --> 00:14:15.550 constitution. And 206 00:14:17.540 --> 00:14:22.070 And so for me, and I don't mean like the invisible hand of economics and the 207 00:14:22.070 --> 00:14:28.070 invisible hand of the market, because we know that's a flawed, flawed model, 208 00:14:28.070 --> 00:14:33.910 if we just look at 2008 and even more recently, right? So but to some extent 209 00:14:33.910 --> 00:14:39.600 I go, well are people buying your idea and they buy it with their money is the 210 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:44.140 lowest form of currency, right? Like are they buying it with their time? Are 211 00:14:44.140 --> 00:14:48.240 they buying it with their energy? And are they buying it with their identity? 212 00:14:48.250 --> 00:14:52.470 Because I think money is the lowest commitment. You can join the gym by 213 00:14:52.470 --> 00:14:55.480 paying the money, but that doesn't mean you go you got to put in the time, 214 00:14:55.480 --> 00:14:58.100 you've got to put in the energy and then when you ultimately think of 215 00:14:58.100 --> 00:15:01.710 yourself as a cross fitter, then you can't not train, you know what I mean? 216 00:15:01.710 --> 00:15:06.610 It's like all these uh middle aged accountants who ride Harleys and 217 00:15:06.610 --> 00:15:12.810 identify as bikers. So it's like once identity starts to take over things 218 00:15:12.810 --> 00:15:18.710 work. So what I find is people gather around an idea and so the validation 219 00:15:18.710 --> 00:15:23.240 for me is in that Is there an audience for that idea? But we are in an outrage 220 00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:27.850 culture. One of the things that I really like is Professor cal Newport's 221 00:15:27.850 --> 00:15:32.400 work on deep focus and I really like the idea that thought leadership is the 222 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:38.970 result of deep focus. Not 142 280 characters on Twitter and followership. 223 00:15:38.970 --> 00:15:43.270 So there's a distinction for me between thought leadership and being an 224 00:15:43.270 --> 00:15:47.720 influencer on social media. And I reckon the heart of your question 225 00:15:47.730 --> 00:15:52.450 around validation is probably in that. So I'm not looking for the superficial 226 00:15:52.450 --> 00:15:57.170 validation of likes. I'm looking for the significant validation that people 227 00:15:57.170 --> 00:16:02.840 identifying around a story and around a set of memes and insights and that 228 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:06.290 being the ultimate validator. I find that most people when they approach 229 00:16:06.290 --> 00:16:10.440 validation are looking for some kind of mathematical or scientific approach to 230 00:16:10.440 --> 00:16:14.600 apply to ideas. But some ideas are easy to do to do that with. And you might be 231 00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:19.120 a research body and you have all the data and you just pull insights from 232 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:22.980 that data. It's it's more but not all, not all insights are like that. Some of 233 00:16:22.980 --> 00:16:26.010 them are times, they're just epiphanies like oh well I noticed this and I 234 00:16:26.010 --> 00:16:28.660 noticed this and you mix them together and all of a sudden bam we have a whole 235 00:16:28.660 --> 00:16:32.150 different approach that seems to be working for a lot of people And 236 00:16:32.150 --> 00:16:36.140 sometimes can be hard to validate unless you have 10, 20 years of 237 00:16:36.140 --> 00:16:40.150 experience doing it. Then people tend to buy it. But sometimes you don't know 238 00:16:40.150 --> 00:16:44.890 if you wanna wait that long to produce to publish an idea. Maybe you just hold 239 00:16:44.900 --> 00:16:49.360 your idea open handed and be like, hey, this is something that's worked for us. 240 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:53.950 It may not work for you. Well, obviously there's so many domains for 241 00:16:53.950 --> 00:16:57.760 thought leadership, Right? So there's, there's a thought leader that I work 242 00:16:57.760 --> 00:17:01.900 with, which is the individual solo consultant writing books and getting on 243 00:17:01.900 --> 00:17:06.250 the ted stage right there and they could be members of institutions, but 244 00:17:06.250 --> 00:17:10.099 they're like Harvard professors who then want to go out and be a brand in 245 00:17:10.099 --> 00:17:14.990 their own right. So if it's your name dot com, um, that's sort of the Worrell 246 00:17:14.990 --> 00:17:18.750 might come from. So I think that's one of the benefits of being on your show 247 00:17:18.760 --> 00:17:23.800 is you've got this unlike Wasabi, you wouldn't make a meal out of it, but it 248 00:17:23.800 --> 00:17:28.590 will make the fish taste better or the sushi tastes tastes better. So coming 249 00:17:28.590 --> 00:17:32.220 from that outside world view, my, my validation is if people aren't reading 250 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:36.520 your books, if they aren't following your posts, if they aren't engaging 251 00:17:36.520 --> 00:17:39.860 with the conversations and applying it then there's your validation. It's real 252 00:17:39.860 --> 00:17:43.740 close as real immediate because you're so close to the customer. But if I was 253 00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:47.810 an entrepreneur so I was a thought leader within a large organization, I 254 00:17:47.810 --> 00:17:51.870 was using it to say build organizational agenda or customer 255 00:17:51.870 --> 00:17:58.000 engagement or or just classic sales growth. Then yeah. I think the key is 256 00:17:58.010 --> 00:18:05.280 if the this is probably probably more important than the algorithm is to move 257 00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:10.940 from convincing yourself through data and algorithm that it's a good idea and 258 00:18:10.940 --> 00:18:15.240 more having the conviction that that idea solves a problem that someone has. 259 00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:21.070 And I think that when experts develop empathy they are more able to become 260 00:18:21.070 --> 00:18:25.170 thought leaders. So they go from I know something to actually they figure out 261 00:18:25.180 --> 00:18:28.920 that part in which they know that is useful to someone else. And then the 262 00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:32.330 validation disappears because people go that is my problem. I have been looking 263 00:18:32.330 --> 00:18:36.650 for a solution that sounds like the solution and they start to engage with 264 00:18:36.650 --> 00:18:41.620 it in that kind of self directed self interest orientation. Um You know when 265 00:18:41.620 --> 00:18:45.210 you when you when you thought leadership is expressed in service to 266 00:18:45.210 --> 00:18:48.490 others, you get rewarded for the contribution. And so that's like this 267 00:18:48.490 --> 00:18:54.690 magic Venn diagram that kind of brings it all the life. I do like the way you 268 00:18:54.690 --> 00:18:58.380 describe people buying into and actually believing it actually acting 269 00:18:58.380 --> 00:19:01.920 on it. I think anybody who's done consulting knows that it's it's kind of 270 00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:05.540 disappointing even when people, they pay you good money for your ideas, they 271 00:19:05.540 --> 00:19:09.340 say thank you so much. This is so helpful. A year or two goes by and 272 00:19:09.340 --> 00:19:12.250 you're like how did that go? And they're like oh we never did it. But it 273 00:19:12.250 --> 00:19:17.920 was really good. You're just kind of like what they're like can we hire you 274 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:18.760 again? You're like 275 00:19:20.040 --> 00:19:23.790 okay sure. If you want to keep just paying me money for ideas you don't 276 00:19:23.790 --> 00:19:27.920 implement right? I think I will consultant at some point. So I think 277 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:30.480 you're right. I used to think of dollars is the way to validate 278 00:19:30.490 --> 00:19:36.760 something but really buying change and a true adoption of the idea is really 279 00:19:36.760 --> 00:19:41.140 is kind of like the final final goal post, right? Yeah. I love what you just 280 00:19:41.140 --> 00:19:44.550 did there that whole it's almost like there's a continuum right? And on the 281 00:19:44.550 --> 00:19:50.870 left, I'm inspired but on the right I implement and you go, well what what is 282 00:19:50.870 --> 00:19:55.560 it that help someone move along that curve and I feel it's a series of 283 00:19:55.560 --> 00:20:00.450 decisions. And so the mistake we make as thought leaders is we come in with 284 00:20:00.450 --> 00:20:04.500 the solution. So someone asked us for the time and we tell them the history 285 00:20:04.500 --> 00:20:10.440 of clocks when in fact perhaps the way of looking at this is not that they're 286 00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:13.880 fools for paying you and not taking on the idea and I know you didn't put it 287 00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:18.590 that way, but rather than we haven't done the work of walking them on the 288 00:20:18.590 --> 00:20:22.680 journey. And for me it's really what are the three decisions that someone 289 00:20:22.680 --> 00:20:28.880 needs to make to move from turned on to your idea, inspired to actually doing 290 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:32.640 something with it? What are the three things that stand in the way? So for 291 00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:35.550 example, let's say you were working with small business owners, like I know 292 00:20:35.550 --> 00:20:39.560 you're not, but let's say you go, you know, and that you want to teach them 293 00:20:39.560 --> 00:20:43.190 that turnover is irrelevant like what you turn over, who cares, It's what you 294 00:20:43.190 --> 00:20:46.650 take home that matters. So get the money out of your business and into 295 00:20:46.650 --> 00:20:50.030 assets or something like that because they're small little businesses that 296 00:20:50.040 --> 00:20:53.980 are never going to be sold or statistically unlikely to be sold. So 297 00:20:53.980 --> 00:20:57.880 this is such a good sort of hypothetical to talk about because we 298 00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:01.520 can all look at it and go, all right, what's the biggest problem they've got 299 00:21:01.530 --> 00:21:05.110 and its cash flow, what's the second biggest problem? They've got its staff 300 00:21:05.120 --> 00:21:08.860 and what's the third biggest problem? It's time they never take some time off. 301 00:21:09.440 --> 00:21:11.660 And so what you want to do is you want to talk about cash flow 302 00:21:12.740 --> 00:21:18.050 staff and time not take home and you come in as the expert going, let's talk 303 00:21:18.050 --> 00:21:21.400 about take home and they go, you know what, I just need my cash flow up. And 304 00:21:21.400 --> 00:21:26.180 so the idea is help them with a series of decision gates that helps them move 305 00:21:26.180 --> 00:21:30.340 from just simply being turned on by possibility to actually implementing 306 00:21:30.340 --> 00:21:35.720 things practically. And I love that the word decides, it's from the same 307 00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:41.410 Entomology as suicide homicide, Regicide. So all of the kill off words 308 00:21:41.420 --> 00:21:45.960 and and you know, homicide as I kill another suicide as I kill myself, 309 00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:52.190 Regicide is I kill a king or a queen. Um but but to decide means to kill off 310 00:21:52.190 --> 00:21:55.720 choice and I think that's what happens at the inspiration and everyone's got 311 00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:59.280 unlimited choice. And what you want to do is narrow it down to a series of 312 00:21:59.280 --> 00:22:03.320 decision gates where people are moving from the convergence of possibilities. 313 00:22:03.320 --> 00:22:11.150 So the divergence of possibility to the convergence of of decisions and like, 314 00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:14.690 wow, we could do everything. Yeah, but let's do one thing, we could do 315 00:22:14.690 --> 00:22:18.390 everything. Yeah, but let's do this thing and that kind of out and in 316 00:22:18.390 --> 00:22:21.670 because because when we when we develop our thought leadership it's very 317 00:22:21.670 --> 00:22:26.640 divergent. You were talking about your friend doing the PhD reading everything 318 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.050 on a topic, you got to go really divergent, but at some point you have 319 00:22:30.050 --> 00:22:35.580 to converge down onto one person at one point in history and he'll probably end 320 00:22:35.580 --> 00:22:40.080 up talking about one quality or character attribute that person has and 321 00:22:40.080 --> 00:22:43.620 that is the fundamental difference. So this whole expanding and contracting I 322 00:22:43.620 --> 00:22:48.190 think is why people don't adopt great ideas is they don't know where they are 323 00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:52.960 and they they, you know, output. And bali wrote a great book. Uh such a good 324 00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:57.210 book is called before our next meeting, read this. And he basically says 325 00:22:57.210 --> 00:23:00.510 there's two types of meetings, brainstorming meetings and you want 326 00:23:00.510 --> 00:23:07.010 beanbags and muffins, you know, or cupcakes and then he goes and decision 327 00:23:07.010 --> 00:23:10.360 making meetings where you want an agenda and everybody standing up and we 328 00:23:10.360 --> 00:23:13.520 keep running our meetings confused between those two and I think that 329 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:17.990 talks to that idea eating nature and that deciding nature and you've got to 330 00:23:17.990 --> 00:23:21.950 get that balance just right. My head's swimming with all the ideas and 331 00:23:21.950 --> 00:23:26.040 thoughts that you, just from what you just said. I am. I've often thought 332 00:23:26.040 --> 00:23:29.420 like a lot of thought leadership is really the work of simplifying things 333 00:23:29.420 --> 00:23:32.460 for people. But you made it even clearer by saying like Snow did the 334 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:36.800 work of deciding is by eliminating choice and essentially just giving 335 00:23:36.800 --> 00:23:42.010 people an easier and smoother path to go down there, desired to get to their 336 00:23:42.010 --> 00:23:45.510 desired end goal and just make it easier for them to get there. So you're 337 00:23:45.510 --> 00:23:49.640 as a thought leader essentially, like just foraging new new paths to get 338 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:54.730 there. Now for the implications for the audience. Often think of like 22 major 339 00:23:54.730 --> 00:23:57.350 audience members, right? We have our service providers and we have people 340 00:23:57.350 --> 00:24:01.850 who sell a product of some kind often assassin tool. The service provider is 341 00:24:01.850 --> 00:24:05.420 actually kind of benefit from them not being able to fully implement it 342 00:24:05.420 --> 00:24:09.510 themselves. I mean that's sweet fish as a B2B podcasting service provider, I do 343 00:24:09.510 --> 00:24:13.250 try to make it as clear as possible so people want to start a podcast but at 344 00:24:13.250 --> 00:24:16.570 the same time it's like, well, like if they like the advice, they liked the 345 00:24:16.570 --> 00:24:20.360 idea, if they want to do it, they could also just pay us money and we could do 346 00:24:20.360 --> 00:24:23.290 it for them, you know, and that's kind of the thing. But if you're on the sas 347 00:24:23.290 --> 00:24:28.290 side, if you're selling a software, you trying to you and usually your, your 348 00:24:28.290 --> 00:24:33.830 software, your system, um your your product has an idea baked into it the 349 00:24:33.830 --> 00:24:37.390 more you can actually do what matt saying and making it easy for them to 350 00:24:37.390 --> 00:24:40.520 make decisions to actually get to execute the idea that your tool 351 00:24:40.520 --> 00:24:44.180 actually helps them do. The more use you're going to get out of it, the less 352 00:24:44.180 --> 00:24:49.510 turn you're going to have with your products and the more revenue you're 353 00:24:49.510 --> 00:24:53.020 going to make, the more you're going to have positive word of mouth. Um so that 354 00:24:53.020 --> 00:24:59.570 really has legs to it now once they've validated their ideas and have tested 355 00:24:59.570 --> 00:25:04.160 it with the market and um probably tested it over time in small ways and 356 00:25:04.170 --> 00:25:07.750 gotten more and more adoption with it. It's picked up steam. One of my 357 00:25:07.750 --> 00:25:11.050 favorite parts of your book talks about what's called building an I. P. 358 00:25:11.050 --> 00:25:14.900 Snapshot and you kind of hit on it briefly when you were talking about 359 00:25:14.910 --> 00:25:18.570 developing a book. So tell me like where did the idea for? Like why, why 360 00:25:18.570 --> 00:25:21.960 was how did you even come up with this idea? What's the story behind it? And 361 00:25:21.960 --> 00:25:28.600 then how does someone actually like implement an I. P snapshot? Look, the 362 00:25:28.610 --> 00:25:34.090 casual name for an ip snapshot is a pink sheet. The formal name is an IP 363 00:25:34.100 --> 00:25:37.980 intellectual property snapshot and it's basically, can you summarize an idea on 364 00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:40.060 one page and 365 00:25:41.140 --> 00:25:45.710 you could almost imagine, well the principle that sits behind this is full 366 00:25:45.710 --> 00:25:48.940 spectrum thinking the reason I'm pausing is this is such a big piece of 367 00:25:48.940 --> 00:25:53.650 work and I'm trying to find the most simplest access point and then sort of 368 00:25:53.650 --> 00:25:57.730 step us through two levels of depth. So it's like we're sitting above the 369 00:25:57.730 --> 00:26:01.950 Mariana trench, the deepest part of the ocean. And we're on the surface on a 370 00:26:01.950 --> 00:26:05.230 boat and then we're about to go down into a submarine and then we're going 371 00:26:05.230 --> 00:26:08.640 to drop down into a deep dive decompression chamber and then we're 372 00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:14.930 going to end up in a jules verne city on the base of the Mariana trench or 373 00:26:14.930 --> 00:26:20.930 lit up somehow. So this concept begins with everything you would want to say 374 00:26:21.020 --> 00:26:26.420 exists at multiple levels. But at least three. There's the thing, you're 375 00:26:26.420 --> 00:26:27.860 sharing the stuff, 376 00:26:29.140 --> 00:26:33.620 there is the point, you're making the concept and then there's the big 377 00:26:33.620 --> 00:26:42.090 picture that it nests within. And when you can travel across those three 378 00:26:42.090 --> 00:26:46.510 levels of abstraction from concrete, through the abstract, what you start to 379 00:26:46.510 --> 00:26:51.870 do is you start to fully form ideas because I think a lot of ideas are half 380 00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:56.230 baked and they're not fully formed. So just giving it a backbone. Do you know 381 00:26:56.230 --> 00:26:59.870 what I mean? Like a concrete example, and that might be some numbers that 382 00:26:59.870 --> 00:27:03.990 back it up. Very left brain or it might be a narrative that brings it to life 383 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:10.310 very right brain. So I like to think of it almost like a cross hair or or a 384 00:27:10.310 --> 00:27:14.960 compass with the north, south, east and west. Uh and at the south is the 385 00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:19.130 concrete stuff like the numbers and narrative at the north is the abstract 386 00:27:19.130 --> 00:27:24.150 stuff. And I think that, you know, the left brain abstract is some sort of 387 00:27:24.150 --> 00:27:25.770 model or diagram 388 00:27:26.840 --> 00:27:31.710 squares, triangles, circles, geometry shoved together some way. Um you know, 389 00:27:31.710 --> 00:27:36.890 the consultant to buy to, you know, the xy graph, the Venn diagram that the 390 00:27:36.890 --> 00:27:40.840 three by three matrix that you know, concentric rings that, you know, the 391 00:27:40.840 --> 00:27:44.260 pyramids of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know, all these sort of things are 392 00:27:44.260 --> 00:27:49.800 geometry and metaphor of course, which is, you know, some kind of short 393 00:27:49.800 --> 00:27:55.090 symbolic myth, a poetic narrative that doesn't need a story to go with it and 394 00:27:55.090 --> 00:27:58.040 that communicates rich meaning, which might be it's like the tip of an 395 00:27:58.040 --> 00:28:02.290 iceberg is like turning a battleship, it's a plane that's off course, or 396 00:28:02.290 --> 00:28:07.150 indeed a compass. So all of all of these tools, whether it's the numbers 397 00:28:07.150 --> 00:28:11.450 and narratives, which are the concrete tools, or is the models and metaphors, 398 00:28:11.450 --> 00:28:16.470 which are the abstract tools, they sit on this level of concrete, abstract and 399 00:28:16.470 --> 00:28:20.840 from analytical tour motive, which is essentially left brain, right brain. Uh 400 00:28:20.850 --> 00:28:23.880 and I realized that all the left brain, right brand stuff is in itself a 401 00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:27.900 metaphor. And, you know, whilst there is a corpus callosum that joins them, 402 00:28:27.900 --> 00:28:31.890 there's been some interesting research to debunk the left hemisphere right 403 00:28:31.890 --> 00:28:35.760 hemisphere game, but I do love Jill Bolte. Taylor's ted talk on that a 404 00:28:35.760 --> 00:28:39.400 neuro anonymous out of Harvard who had a stroke and then talks about what 405 00:28:39.400 --> 00:28:44.850 happens when you only have access to your right brain. So all of that sits 406 00:28:44.850 --> 00:28:49.050 to me on a piece of paper with like a big infinity sign or a figure eight 407 00:28:49.060 --> 00:28:52.750 over it, you know, and you go there's all the, you know, the big picture and 408 00:28:52.750 --> 00:28:56.360 then there's the all the detail and it's sort of all brought together like 409 00:28:56.370 --> 00:29:00.220 a circle with a belt, like an eight. It's all brought together in the middle 410 00:29:00.220 --> 00:29:04.090 around, you know what's what's your point? And I try to work with thought 411 00:29:04.090 --> 00:29:08.420 leaders to get them to go look. The numbers can make a lot of points and a 412 00:29:08.420 --> 00:29:12.970 story could make a lot of points. The models could make a lot of points and 413 00:29:12.970 --> 00:29:16.200 the metaphors could make a lot of points. So what we need to do is have a 414 00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:20.310 piece of paper where the top of the piece of paper might be the same across 415 00:29:20.310 --> 00:29:24.670 12 of them. And the bottom of the piece of paper might be the same across 12 of 416 00:29:24.670 --> 00:29:28.470 them. But the point you're making is uniquely differentiated. So where the 417 00:29:28.470 --> 00:29:32.720 figure eight squeezes in the middle and so the pink sheet process or the 418 00:29:32.730 --> 00:29:39.990 snapshot is that and it's been, you know, it's it's yeah. Is it me sure? Is 419 00:29:39.990 --> 00:29:45.210 it what we do with thought leaders? Absolutely. But is the idea of abstract 420 00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:49.340 concepts sitting above I guess as old as time. If you want to talk about 421 00:29:49.340 --> 00:29:53.500 tactics and you want to talk about strategy if you want to talk about meta 422 00:29:53.500 --> 00:29:57.950 and matter. Uh if you, you know, you know, context and content, these ideas 423 00:29:57.950 --> 00:30:02.280 have been around forever. So what we've done is sort of if you like, put it 424 00:30:02.280 --> 00:30:06.640 into a template that enables thought leaders to capture their insights 425 00:30:06.690 --> 00:30:12.710 because and this is at the heart of it if you have a thought and you capture 426 00:30:12.710 --> 00:30:21.000 it in application, so as a speech as a workshop as a slide or as a blog or as 427 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:27.430 a and you capture it in its application, it is baked into that application and 428 00:30:27.430 --> 00:30:31.750 it loses its insight mobility, which means that idea can only be used as a 429 00:30:31.750 --> 00:30:35.350 speech or as a book or as a post or as a tweet. I go, no, no, no, no, we need 430 00:30:35.350 --> 00:30:40.510 to leverage this stuff. So you want to capture your insights agnostic of how 431 00:30:40.510 --> 00:30:43.790 they'll be delivered or shared with the market in the world and then look at 432 00:30:43.790 --> 00:30:48.120 them as a body of work. And that's how you go from not just one snapshot but 433 00:30:48.120 --> 00:30:51.730 to like a filing cabinet full of snapshots and almost like in the movie 434 00:30:51.730 --> 00:30:55.590 matrix you can have filing cabinets on filing cabinets slapped into an 435 00:30:55.590 --> 00:30:59.370 inception movie, you know going on and on into time and you can develop your 436 00:30:59.370 --> 00:31:03.770 thought leadership that way I like I like to think of it as a never ending 437 00:31:03.770 --> 00:31:07.340 journey of capturing insights and putting them on this piece of paper. 438 00:31:07.340 --> 00:31:11.670 This take a snapshot of them and then go okay I got that and I can draw that 439 00:31:11.670 --> 00:31:14.920 out at any time and like a deck of playing cards like in poker or 440 00:31:14.920 --> 00:31:17.740 something, I can lay them in front of me and go, you know what that one and 441 00:31:17.740 --> 00:31:21.920 that one are really good for this client. And the idea is think before 442 00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:26.680 you speak, think before you write, think before you sell and capturing 443 00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:30.480 them on the intellectual property snapshot is the tool we use and the 444 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:35.740 practice we use to take you down. That contemplated path to take you down into 445 00:31:35.740 --> 00:31:40.250 deep inside development around an idea. It's honestly one of the most powerful 446 00:31:40.250 --> 00:31:43.550 ideas on um thought leadership that have come across in all the reading 447 00:31:43.550 --> 00:31:47.520 that I've done so far. I still have more books to read. But it really got 448 00:31:47.520 --> 00:31:51.970 me to start thinking differently as I was thinking about my own ideas or 449 00:31:51.970 --> 00:31:56.580 spins or different things and it forced me to sit down and actually flush them 450 00:31:56.580 --> 00:32:00.000 out to actually explore them a little bit. And most people don't do it until 451 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:03.300 they go to write a book about a topic and then they do. The problem is you 452 00:32:03.300 --> 00:32:07.500 can do, you can create a lot of useful ideas without having to write books 453 00:32:07.500 --> 00:32:10.420 about them. Or if you are going to write a book, it's a great it's a great 454 00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:13.000 place to start because if you can't flush it out on a piece of paper, 455 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:15.690 you're sure it's going to be beating your head against the wall if you can't, 456 00:32:15.700 --> 00:32:19.510 you're not going to write a whole book on it. Um So now every time I think I 457 00:32:19.510 --> 00:32:22.770 have a unique idea, I'm like, oh that's interesting. I try to describe it in a 458 00:32:22.770 --> 00:32:26.470 sentence and then maybe I describe it and I like make a paragraph to kind of 459 00:32:26.470 --> 00:32:30.490 like if I had to do that and then I might give it a name. So even if I'm 460 00:32:30.490 --> 00:32:34.320 kicking around internally, we're not thinking like, oh that one idea you had 461 00:32:34.330 --> 00:32:38.590 last week. Yeah. Yeah, that one. It's like, no, let's talk about that idea of 462 00:32:38.590 --> 00:32:41.570 content based networking, which is one of our c E O s books, right? But it has 463 00:32:41.570 --> 00:32:45.180 a name. Content based networking without the name. It's hard to even 464 00:32:45.180 --> 00:32:48.710 refer to the idea that could be documented somewhere. So now I even 465 00:32:48.710 --> 00:32:51.850 started working with multiple employees being like oh that's a good idea like 466 00:32:51.850 --> 00:32:56.090 let's sit down and put that on like a one page google doctor even know to 467 00:32:56.090 --> 00:33:00.590 access that later. Usually I put it in a blog post. Um You can really start to 468 00:33:00.590 --> 00:33:04.100 do its its powerful that you can build a whole portfolio with it. Right? And 469 00:33:04.100 --> 00:33:07.050 you were talking like a filing cabinet. I come from a graphic design background 470 00:33:07.050 --> 00:33:10.370 where it's all about the portfolio right? Here's my logos, it was my print 471 00:33:10.370 --> 00:33:13.690 work, here's my website and you could do that as a thought leader. And as an 472 00:33:13.690 --> 00:33:16.570 intern if you're an internal thought leader of content marketer you could do 473 00:33:16.570 --> 00:33:20.410 that for your comfort. Be like where are all the unique ideas you have about 474 00:33:20.410 --> 00:33:24.130 this topic that you guys deal with? What about this topic? You can have 475 00:33:24.130 --> 00:33:29.670 like a collection a portfolio around all those unique ideas. So it's it's 476 00:33:29.670 --> 00:33:32.780 certainly changed the way I approach thought leadership even with Sweet Fish. 477 00:33:32.780 --> 00:33:36.480 But even our our employees who are developing some of their own thought 478 00:33:36.480 --> 00:33:41.230 leadership themselves in small ways is getting them to think about cataloguing 479 00:33:41.230 --> 00:33:45.790 their ideas. Um And I certainly liked like thinking about it like logically 480 00:33:45.790 --> 00:33:51.850 what's our um with research and findings and then the right side brain 481 00:33:51.850 --> 00:33:56.800 right? Uh With a metaphor with the diagram with the story. It's a great 482 00:33:56.800 --> 00:34:01.390 way to like really encapsulate an idea. If you can get it on one page at least 483 00:34:01.390 --> 00:34:05.770 it's been helpful for me. I love the idea also just to extend that a little 484 00:34:05.770 --> 00:34:09.600 bit like we're giving people a checklist, right? And and for me it's 485 00:34:09.610 --> 00:34:14.739 like people say, what, what business are you in? And you know, if I'm in a 486 00:34:14.750 --> 00:34:19.710 mildly playful mood, I'll go I'm a property developer and they go, I like 487 00:34:19.710 --> 00:34:23.150 you buy condos, do you and me? Are you develop property? I don't know, I'm an 488 00:34:23.150 --> 00:34:27.449 intellectual property developer and just like you would find a plot of land 489 00:34:27.449 --> 00:34:32.090 and design a blueprint and build a building and you would go to work on 490 00:34:32.090 --> 00:34:35.560 the design and architecture and landscaping of that. It's the same 491 00:34:35.560 --> 00:34:40.360 process is just we're doing it with the intangible of ideas versus the tangible 492 00:34:40.370 --> 00:34:44.070 of real estate. But you do want to develop it, you do want to, you know, 493 00:34:44.070 --> 00:34:47.040 is it a well formed one? Is the one that's going to fall down, Is it well 494 00:34:47.040 --> 00:34:51.429 built? Is it, you know, is it, you know, weather tested is a climate appropriate? 495 00:34:51.429 --> 00:34:54.510 You know, in the southern hemisphere, does it face north? In the northern 496 00:34:54.510 --> 00:34:57.580 hemisphere, does it face south? You know, it's you know, you want to get 497 00:34:57.580 --> 00:35:02.210 all these different orientations going um And so yeah, I get that's a metaphor, 498 00:35:02.210 --> 00:35:06.120 which is only partially useful, but it's but it doesn't hurt to realize 499 00:35:06.120 --> 00:35:10.680 that you don't want your ideas only in application, you want to have them 500 00:35:10.690 --> 00:35:14.970 application agnostic. So you want to have them as this is like insite 501 00:35:14.970 --> 00:35:19.150 mobility. And for example, if I was to read, You know, you were talking about 502 00:35:19.150 --> 00:35:23.580 one of your directors and and the content, networking, content-based 503 00:35:23.580 --> 00:35:27.960 networking, I go, okay, well I bet there's like 24 ideas in that, and I 504 00:35:27.960 --> 00:35:31.450 bet four of them have got nothing to do with networking and nothing to do with 505 00:35:31.450 --> 00:35:36.440 content. And I go, well what are they and now I can take them and repurpose 506 00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:41.070 them somewhere else because I think repurposing content is the leverage of 507 00:35:41.070 --> 00:35:45.800 thought leadership. We just think once apply often and find all the different 508 00:35:45.800 --> 00:35:50.880 ways to deliver and apply those concepts. Um yeah, it's super cool, 509 00:35:50.890 --> 00:35:55.340 super cool. So if you're working with people and thought leaders on this, do 510 00:35:55.340 --> 00:35:59.960 you find that you have them packaged their ideas and then use that as a 511 00:35:59.960 --> 00:36:04.610 starting point for their content marketing for their speeches. Um How do 512 00:36:04.610 --> 00:36:08.410 you usually take their their one shooters provided that they flushed it 513 00:36:08.410 --> 00:36:13.300 out? It's good, they've validated it to some degree. Like how do you then turn 514 00:36:13.300 --> 00:36:14.160 it into more? 515 00:36:15.530 --> 00:36:19.830 Well there's a three step process and you've alluded to this because it's the 516 00:36:19.830 --> 00:36:24.530 subtitle of the blue book, all my books are like jelly beans, they're color 517 00:36:24.530 --> 00:36:28.930 coded, so you can choose in that way. But the blue book Thought Leaders has a 518 00:36:28.930 --> 00:36:34.800 strap line that says capture package and deliver your ideas and we're really 519 00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:38.460 getting from packaging in this interview now to the delivery question 520 00:36:38.460 --> 00:36:43.750 which is around how do we go to market and how do we share them? I've been for 521 00:36:43.750 --> 00:36:50.560 if you study law and you go into law, you kind of learn that dialogue and 522 00:36:50.570 --> 00:36:54.220 conversation has sort of three directions to it. It has a declarative 523 00:36:54.220 --> 00:36:58.890 direction which is you make statements, it has an instruct development where 524 00:36:58.890 --> 00:37:05.010 you give process and steps and it has a questioning element where a space is 525 00:37:05.010 --> 00:37:08.120 created in the conversation through questioning and you could summarize 526 00:37:08.120 --> 00:37:17.190 this as tell show us and when you're telling people stuff, you're making a 527 00:37:17.190 --> 00:37:22.070 point and then sharing concrete examples. So whether that's in a book 528 00:37:22.070 --> 00:37:26.840 or a speech, but when you're asking people stuff, it's the exact opposite 529 00:37:27.530 --> 00:37:33.170 your you're establishing a context like a framework and they're having a 530 00:37:33.170 --> 00:37:38.530 conversation into it. So, in fact, the content comes from the market when 531 00:37:38.530 --> 00:37:42.720 you're in a facilitation mode or an ask mode, and so we split that into six 532 00:37:42.720 --> 00:37:47.560 delivery modes, speakers, authors, that's the telling modes, trainers and 533 00:37:47.560 --> 00:37:52.120 mentors, that's the instructive mode, or the show mode, and facilitators and 534 00:37:52.120 --> 00:37:56.130 coaches, and that's the asking mode. Now, obviously I'm teaching people how 535 00:37:56.130 --> 00:38:00.120 to do that and to go to market as consultants using those six delivery 536 00:38:00.120 --> 00:38:03.610 channels, but they translate into every organization as well, because they're 537 00:38:03.610 --> 00:38:07.780 answering six primary questions. You know, if we just look at authorship, 538 00:38:07.790 --> 00:38:11.210 it's could you please give us a strategy and can you document it so we 539 00:38:11.210 --> 00:38:15.590 can follow it? And if you look at speaking, it's basically can you share 540 00:38:15.590 --> 00:38:18.760 that strategy and give us a vision? So if someone says, do you have a strategy 541 00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:22.130 and you have a vision? They're saying are you being a speaker and an author 542 00:38:22.140 --> 00:38:25.990 and that's how it turns up in an organization. So I think what you want 543 00:38:25.990 --> 00:38:30.740 to do is take one pink sheet or one ip snapshot and then figure out which bit 544 00:38:30.740 --> 00:38:36.140 of it to use around whether you're in a telly moda showy mode or an asking mode. 545 00:38:36.220 --> 00:38:40.510 And that way the one pink sheet can go to market in six different ways and 546 00:38:40.510 --> 00:38:46.720 that translates to not just consultants who are writing books and getting on 547 00:38:46.720 --> 00:38:50.900 the being executive leadership coaches. You know, it also translates to those 548 00:38:50.900 --> 00:38:56.520 who are trying to deploy their ideas either internally to their audience. 549 00:38:56.520 --> 00:38:59.790 That's internal. So people understand like value propositions and points of 550 00:38:59.790 --> 00:39:04.500 difference and how we work or externally out to market, where you're 551 00:39:04.500 --> 00:39:08.780 like the rainmakers for the business and you're starting to bring in people 552 00:39:08.780 --> 00:39:11.780 who are attracted by the depth and quality of the thinking within your 553 00:39:11.780 --> 00:39:15.290 organization. I like how you break it into three different sections. Most 554 00:39:15.290 --> 00:39:18.360 people when they think of thought leadership, they think of just the, you 555 00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:21.370 know, the speaking, the broadcasting of the idea, but there's so many different 556 00:39:21.370 --> 00:39:27.230 ways to express an idea I think is useful and I think Is just fun to have 557 00:39:27.230 --> 00:39:31.110 more applications of thought leadership than just broadcasting, publishing a 558 00:39:31.120 --> 00:39:36.340 white paper or a webinar or speaking on stage, which is what is the most common 559 00:39:36.340 --> 00:39:40.610 for B2B marketers. But I want to link it back to your observation that 560 00:39:40.620 --> 00:39:45.310 getting people inspired is not the same as getting them engaged. And if you 561 00:39:45.310 --> 00:39:48.610 said to me travel me through that inspiration to engagement, I go, well, 562 00:39:48.610 --> 00:39:51.910 the telly stuff, which is everything you just identified is very good for 563 00:39:51.910 --> 00:39:56.170 inspiring people. But if they actually come into your funnel for one of the 564 00:39:56.170 --> 00:40:00.480 better term or into your process or your pipeline or into your workflow, 565 00:40:00.490 --> 00:40:03.690 what you want to be doing is moving from talking at them to talking with 566 00:40:03.690 --> 00:40:07.560 them and you want to be moving to How does this idea replies? So you go from 567 00:40:07.560 --> 00:40:13.230 tel to show to ask and in fact thought leadership should run, not just at the 568 00:40:13.230 --> 00:40:18.740 attraction growth marketing phase, it should also be deeply embedded into how 569 00:40:18.740 --> 00:40:22.730 you do what you do and the experience that your customers and clients get. As 570 00:40:22.730 --> 00:40:26.350 a result, I just blew my mind. I was like holy cow applying it to the 571 00:40:26.350 --> 00:40:29.100 thought leader that way. I mean I was thinking about in terms of different 572 00:40:29.110 --> 00:40:33.780 business models, but to think about those stages of thought leadership, I 573 00:40:33.780 --> 00:40:36.440 haven't heard anybody talk about as far as like telling on the front end of the 574 00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:41.020 funnel, having a conversation in the middle and then asking questions, which 575 00:40:41.020 --> 00:40:45.260 is like perfectly mirrors the funnel. And that's how I thought leadership can 576 00:40:45.260 --> 00:40:49.620 really be echoed all the way through and not just be top of funnel, which is 577 00:40:49.620 --> 00:40:53.370 how it's usually referred to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it should be 578 00:40:53.380 --> 00:40:57.370 that's not thought leadership, that's curating content as a way of 579 00:40:57.370 --> 00:41:01.300 differentiating your products and services and that's that's not deeply 580 00:41:01.300 --> 00:41:05.150 embedded and baked into your value proposition. But, you know, the minute 581 00:41:05.150 --> 00:41:11.310 it is, I believe that everything begins to hum and it's you know, when, when we 582 00:41:11.310 --> 00:41:16.520 silo anything in an organization, we're in trouble, and what we do is we 583 00:41:16.520 --> 00:41:20.930 compartmentalize for. E So let's put finance over there. Let's put marketing 584 00:41:20.930 --> 00:41:25.740 over here, let's put sales over there. But an integrated system of course, is 585 00:41:25.740 --> 00:41:30.280 what a high performing organization is and it operates in service to each 586 00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:35.300 other. Um So we see that in a lot of industries that disintegration and silo 587 00:41:35.300 --> 00:41:39.890 going, whether it's market silo going, whether it's employee tears, silo going 588 00:41:39.890 --> 00:41:45.410 and it's not an effective way to run a high performing organizations. So do 589 00:41:45.410 --> 00:41:49.040 you find that there is usually at least from the people I'm talking to about 590 00:41:49.040 --> 00:41:52.050 that leadership and they're on this podcast talking about that leadership 591 00:41:52.050 --> 00:41:55.240 because they do it usually do it remarked fairly well. Otherwise I 592 00:41:55.240 --> 00:41:58.130 wouldn't be talking to them about it, but I've just never heard of somebody 593 00:41:58.130 --> 00:42:01.790 actually working it into their usually it's kind of like they're pulling from 594 00:42:01.790 --> 00:42:05.400 their own subject subject matter experts, the ideas and therefore the 595 00:42:05.400 --> 00:42:08.900 subject matter experts are kind of like it's kind of already their thing. So 596 00:42:08.900 --> 00:42:11.720 you would hope that it's baked into the whole process. But usually there's just 597 00:42:11.720 --> 00:42:15.560 some gaps like the sales people might not be fully in line with what the 598 00:42:15.570 --> 00:42:21.200 unique idea that the organization is trying to present is so try to bake it 599 00:42:21.200 --> 00:42:24.880 in that way is interesting. I can't remember if this is part of the book 600 00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:27.700 and I have to go back to check, but do you actually lay out a framework for 601 00:42:27.700 --> 00:42:33.300 how to how to how to bring thought leadership into the asking part? Yes 602 00:42:33.300 --> 00:42:38.230 enough. The in the blue book, Thought Leaders, which is the first book we 603 00:42:38.230 --> 00:42:43.030 wrote on it, there is a chapter about Tell Show Us And it talks about the six 604 00:42:43.030 --> 00:42:48.000 delivery modes and how they work in organizational entrepreneurial and 605 00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:54.310 personal consulting practices. So it's kind of light. But the ask bit, I'm 606 00:42:54.310 --> 00:42:59.550 actually working on a new book in that space, which is looking at was a book 607 00:42:59.550 --> 00:43:02.870 called deliver, which is going to be across all of these three directions. 608 00:43:02.870 --> 00:43:07.790 Tell Show Ask, but they ask stuff is really exciting because I think it's 609 00:43:07.800 --> 00:43:12.020 it's where we get to do. The deep work of engagement may be a reference for 610 00:43:12.020 --> 00:43:15.960 your listeners that will take them down a rabbit hole. Is I love Forest 611 00:43:15.960 --> 00:43:21.210 Landry's work on ephemeral group process, which is essentially a 612 00:43:21.220 --> 00:43:27.770 collective decision making. And it's how does a town has a let's imagine a 613 00:43:27.770 --> 00:43:30.830 bridge goes down and you get the whole town together to talk about. What are 614 00:43:30.830 --> 00:43:33.930 we going to do about the fact there's no bridge connecting us to the mainland 615 00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:37.340 and you go, well, do we even want a bridge or do we want to barge? Do we 616 00:43:37.340 --> 00:43:39.540 want to build the same kind of bridge or a different kind of bridge? Do we 617 00:43:39.540 --> 00:43:42.430 want to hire? Lower? Do we want to open? So there's a lot of questions that go 618 00:43:42.430 --> 00:43:45.180 into the collective decision making around whether a community is going to 619 00:43:45.180 --> 00:43:50.040 build a bridge. So forest begins with that and he begins with that as a line 620 00:43:50.040 --> 00:43:54.460 of inquiry and says, how do we now get a bunch of people together to make a 621 00:43:54.460 --> 00:43:59.150 good decision? And it's a really cool process. And it reminds me of Owen 622 00:43:59.150 --> 00:44:03.340 Harrison's work on open spaces technology, which is some of the 623 00:44:03.340 --> 00:44:09.860 original. How do we how do we get self organized learning environments? And 624 00:44:09.870 --> 00:44:15.050 his story in his book, open spaces was three weeks before he was dumped. This 625 00:44:15.060 --> 00:44:19.580 association conference where he had 3000 delegates coming, but no speakers 626 00:44:19.580 --> 00:44:23.650 have been booked and no sessions have been organized and he goes holy great, 627 00:44:23.650 --> 00:44:26.570 what am I going to do? And so he says, well there's no way I can get speakers 628 00:44:26.570 --> 00:44:29.820 or sessions, so I'm just going to get the 3000 people to self organized 629 00:44:29.820 --> 00:44:34.340 around topics that interest them. And in the heart of those two things Forest 630 00:44:34.340 --> 00:44:39.350 Landry's work, there's a lady called linda must show Hamilton as well who's 631 00:44:39.350 --> 00:44:43.850 Azan none but also an organizational consultant. And you can understand like 632 00:44:43.850 --> 00:44:48.730 zen is about sort of sitting in paradox, sitting in ambiguity, sitting in the 633 00:44:48.730 --> 00:44:53.310 space of uncertainty and not rushing in with a slide deck and a pithy answer. 634 00:44:53.390 --> 00:44:59.290 It's and so I reckon in those three people you might have three really good 635 00:44:59.290 --> 00:45:01.980 reference points to get you off and running on this stuff about 636 00:45:01.980 --> 00:45:07.870 facilitation coaching or asking as a modality versus telling and what it's 637 00:45:07.870 --> 00:45:13.100 done is it's flipped diagnostic selling, so diagnosed, you referred to 638 00:45:13.100 --> 00:45:18.320 consulting earlier on in this podcast. So in diagnostic selling the basic 639 00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:21.780 premises of course is if we understand you enough we'll do business together. 640 00:45:21.790 --> 00:45:25.640 So I want to ask you enough questions. But you know, let's say you were in a 641 00:45:25.640 --> 00:45:29.580 large pursuit in a like in the SAs corp or something like that and you were you 642 00:45:29.580 --> 00:45:32.980 were looking for a large piece of work. Sometimes. What you want to do is you 643 00:45:32.980 --> 00:45:37.460 want to not do diagnostic selling. I know this sounds uh controversial but 644 00:45:37.460 --> 00:45:40.710 you want to use the content based networking that you're sort of proposed, 645 00:45:40.720 --> 00:45:45.380 which is kind of like here's what we know, here's the kind of person we work 646 00:45:45.380 --> 00:45:49.780 with if that's you, let's do business, which is very different to let us 647 00:45:49.780 --> 00:45:53.930 understand as much about you as possible. Ah look at these insights 648 00:45:53.930 --> 00:45:58.510 that we've created now let's do business. And so it's almost it's kind 649 00:45:58.510 --> 00:46:03.430 of flipping the game and for me it's moving from an orientation of selling 650 00:46:03.430 --> 00:46:08.180 others to an orientation of creating the conditions where people will buy. 651 00:46:08.190 --> 00:46:12.070 And for me, what thought leadership does is it creates the conditions that 652 00:46:12.070 --> 00:46:16.530 attract people so they'll buy what you do and it's giving them the agency to 653 00:46:16.530 --> 00:46:22.780 go, no, thank you. Um Seth Godin wrote a book. He's written a lot, but one of 654 00:46:22.780 --> 00:46:26.770 the books I really love one of the best in my opinion was permission marketing 655 00:46:26.780 --> 00:46:30.590 because it took us from a game of, let's interrupt the hell out of people 656 00:46:30.600 --> 00:46:33.410 to a game of earned the right to talk to them, 657 00:46:34.580 --> 00:46:38.980 you know, and if you read permission marketing alongside tribes, which says, 658 00:46:38.990 --> 00:46:42.050 you don't need a lot of people, you know what I mean? You just need to find 659 00:46:42.050 --> 00:46:45.620 your people, what you'll actually find is to me, I think this is where I 660 00:46:45.630 --> 00:46:50.380 thought leadership as a, not just a marketing strategy, but a full business 661 00:46:50.380 --> 00:46:54.500 development process can really go to town. That was certainly two books that 662 00:46:54.500 --> 00:46:58.290 were fundamental in my early career. Uh one of the first ones I've read, 663 00:46:58.680 --> 00:47:03.430 content based networking is close. It's actually an idea that you can use 664 00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:07.900 something like a podcast. Like I am now to build relationships with people like 665 00:47:07.900 --> 00:47:14.030 I am sitting here talking with you now, but oftentimes from a B especially BTB 666 00:47:14.040 --> 00:47:17.240 perspective, you can build relationships with your ideal buyers 667 00:47:17.250 --> 00:47:22.020 and it's not that you finish the episode and then give them a pitch 668 00:47:22.020 --> 00:47:24.870 because then there, it's not going to feel great for them and they're gonna 669 00:47:24.870 --> 00:47:28.870 walk away, not having a bad taste in their mouth, right? But you build a 670 00:47:28.870 --> 00:47:31.570 relationship with them naturally, they're going to check out your website 671 00:47:31.570 --> 00:47:34.600 and see who you are. And uh if they're in the market for what you offer, 672 00:47:34.600 --> 00:47:38.530 chances are you've just spent an hour talking to them showcasing their best 673 00:47:38.530 --> 00:47:41.610 thinking, they're probably gonna think about you and when they're in the 674 00:47:41.610 --> 00:47:44.200 market, you're probably gonna be in the consideration. That's kind of the idea 675 00:47:44.200 --> 00:47:48.970 behind it. But I have implications beyond B two B sales. I mean if you 676 00:47:48.970 --> 00:47:52.870 even if you're job hunting and just interviewing hiring managers on the 677 00:47:52.880 --> 00:47:57.160 marketing manager podcasts, chances are you're going to land a job really soon 678 00:47:57.170 --> 00:48:01.600 because you're building relationships by creating content together. That's 679 00:48:01.600 --> 00:48:05.760 kind of the idea behind that though, I certainly buy into the idea of it's 680 00:48:05.770 --> 00:48:09.050 certainly what we do is sweet fish media and that we have a very 681 00:48:09.050 --> 00:48:12.250 particular methodology, that methodology of content based networking 682 00:48:12.250 --> 00:48:15.500 through podcasting. And we present that it's like this is kind of our thing. 683 00:48:15.510 --> 00:48:18.810 You just need an audio editing shop. There's a lot of people cheaper in us 684 00:48:18.810 --> 00:48:22.830 shoot. I wrote the whole blog post on like all of them with all their prices 685 00:48:22.830 --> 00:48:26.300 on it. I'll give it to you and you can go like there's better providers for 686 00:48:26.300 --> 00:48:30.220 you. I will help you find it or even give you the advice to do it in house 687 00:48:30.220 --> 00:48:34.050 if you if that's what you want to do. So. But I've we've certainly found that 688 00:48:34.050 --> 00:48:37.800 it works better. And I like the idea of trying to blend your thought leadership 689 00:48:37.800 --> 00:48:41.620 and essentially having a point of view and then just presenting that to people 690 00:48:41.620 --> 00:48:44.150 and asking them the question. I think that's what you're trying to get at. 691 00:48:44.150 --> 00:48:47.700 Two is having letting your thought leadership present itself and be like, 692 00:48:47.700 --> 00:48:51.340 this is the way we do things. If you'd like to work with us, that's fantastic. 693 00:48:51.350 --> 00:48:55.990 But if not, then maybe we can help you find the right place. It's swagger. You 694 00:48:55.990 --> 00:49:00.750 know, it's like brain surgeons don't get built, don't do billboards, 695 00:49:00.770 --> 00:49:05.320 Cosmetic surgeons might, but a brain surgeon doesn't what a brain surgeon, 696 00:49:05.330 --> 00:49:10.340 If you're going to put a scalpel in my mind, I'm not I'm not doing it from 697 00:49:10.340 --> 00:49:14.430 search engine optimization. I'm going to talk to my general practitioner, I'm 698 00:49:14.430 --> 00:49:17.740 going to talk to someone who's had surgery. I'm going to read who is the 699 00:49:17.740 --> 00:49:22.750 best surgeon who has published the most on it, Who's written a book who trains 700 00:49:22.750 --> 00:49:26.340 the other surgeons. And I'm going to go, right, that's who gets to open my head 701 00:49:26.340 --> 00:49:30.760 with a scalpel. You know, I'm going to find the person who's, who's got that 702 00:49:30.760 --> 00:49:35.630 reputational positioning. Look, the other thing about this content stuff is 703 00:49:35.630 --> 00:49:40.860 it's deeply respectful. It's deeply respectful of who you are and what you 704 00:49:40.860 --> 00:49:46.350 do and not trying to be all things to all people. It's deeply respectful to 705 00:49:46.350 --> 00:49:49.390 who they are. And the fact that they should have freedom of choice. And I 706 00:49:49.390 --> 00:49:55.640 think that from, You know, the 90s and 80s and before there was a little bit 707 00:49:55.640 --> 00:50:01.950 of an ugly process around business, which and the ugly process was if we're 708 00:50:01.950 --> 00:50:04.940 clever enough, you'll do business with us. If we can trick you enough, you'll 709 00:50:04.940 --> 00:50:09.050 do business with us. And I think any of us who live in the current era go, you 710 00:50:09.050 --> 00:50:13.490 know what? Our authenticity filters are so strong. You know, we've seen so many 711 00:50:13.490 --> 00:50:17.950 people in positions of authority just fall from grace that we go, hey, you 712 00:50:17.950 --> 00:50:21.410 know what to show me your stuff first and let me decide whether I want to do 713 00:50:21.410 --> 00:50:24.960 business with you. And so I think the other thing about this content based 714 00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:29.870 networking is how is how deeply respectful it is and that, that can't 715 00:50:29.870 --> 00:50:33.420 be a bad thing, can it like to build long term trusted commercial 716 00:50:33.420 --> 00:50:37.490 relationships around respect? I go, that's got to be a good thing. It's 717 00:50:37.490 --> 00:50:41.410 been working well for us. We've been growing just through sheer relationship 718 00:50:41.410 --> 00:50:43.910 building because even if we know someone's in the market, I'm not gonna, 719 00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:47.950 I'm not gonna try to like persuade them to be in the market. Are you kidding? 720 00:50:47.960 --> 00:50:50.670 Like if they like us and they're like, no, we're just not looking at the 721 00:50:50.670 --> 00:50:54.620 podcasting right now, you're like, cool. And then they quit that job, go to 722 00:50:54.620 --> 00:50:58.800 another job and they're like, hey, this company is, and then they call us right, 723 00:50:58.800 --> 00:51:03.810 It just works. Um, and still, I love podcasting particularly because then I 724 00:51:03.810 --> 00:51:08.990 can use it as a way to meet fun people like yourself. You know, I love meeting 725 00:51:08.990 --> 00:51:12.330 the author's behind the books I read because you get a, such a different 726 00:51:12.340 --> 00:51:15.460 perspective when you get to read it, wrestle with it. Maybe wrestle with a 727 00:51:15.460 --> 00:51:18.600 few others on the topic and then actually ask them yourself. Like what 728 00:51:18.600 --> 00:51:22.460 do you mean by this? Tell me more? You know, uh, one of the true delights of 729 00:51:22.460 --> 00:51:25.560 my job and this, this episode has actually been a delight. It's been fun 730 00:51:25.560 --> 00:51:29.510 to kind of kick around a lot of ideas with you. Um, and I have to ask one 731 00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:33.230 last question, is there any so many topics we've covered and I've wondered 732 00:51:33.230 --> 00:51:37.510 if there's anything else that you wish you would have added that maybe we 733 00:51:37.510 --> 00:51:45.410 missed? Oh no dan, we could go to so many places. I do believe that standing 734 00:51:45.410 --> 00:51:54.440 up and speaking in front of a target rich audience is such a, it cleans you 735 00:51:54.440 --> 00:51:58.400 up really quickly. If you stand in front of 1000 potential clients and you 736 00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:03.770 bomb you learn really quickly really quickly. It's like this rapid fire 737 00:52:03.780 --> 00:52:09.930 crucible of personal development and maybe just exploring what it's like to 738 00:52:09.930 --> 00:52:16.270 be a good speaker. I see too many thought leaders doing death by survey. 739 00:52:16.850 --> 00:52:21.810 I see too many thought leaders doing death by PowerPoint and I think what 740 00:52:21.810 --> 00:52:26.470 you want to do is you want to create an engaging conversation with people 741 00:52:26.480 --> 00:52:31.930 rather than just delivering a presentation and and that that comes 742 00:52:31.930 --> 00:52:36.250 down to just not what you're saying, not just what you're doing, but also 743 00:52:36.250 --> 00:52:42.150 who you're being as you turn up as the messenger for a particular message. And 744 00:52:42.150 --> 00:52:45.020 I think doing some work on that, it's like personal development, public 745 00:52:45.020 --> 00:52:49.920 speaking thought leadership. They all come together to help you sort of stand 746 00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:56.480 in a place of conviction. Thought leadership is about you, standing in 747 00:52:56.480 --> 00:52:59.770 your conviction and therefore not having to convince anybody of anything. 748 00:53:00.150 --> 00:53:04.890 And that's why it integrates so well in B2B growth, that's why it integrates so 749 00:53:04.890 --> 00:53:08.450 well with marketing and sales divisions and why it should be integrated and 750 00:53:08.450 --> 00:53:13.770 baked into the whole service offering. So I love that idea. I'm going to be 751 00:53:14.450 --> 00:53:18.260 probably thinking about this all weekend and thinking about how we can 752 00:53:18.260 --> 00:53:21.770 be better incorporating our own thought leadership into the rest of our process. 753 00:53:22.250 --> 00:53:27.160 Um so I have a lot to think about now matt. This has been a fantastic time. 754 00:53:27.170 --> 00:53:31.870 Learning from you, flushing out these ideas if people want to learn more 755 00:53:31.880 --> 00:53:35.170 about you and from you like I have in this episode, where can they go to find 756 00:53:35.170 --> 00:53:41.410 you online? Uh so my personal location is matt church dot com. So M A T T C H 757 00:53:41.410 --> 00:53:45.960 U R C H dot com. Maybe download my books, they're free, have a re see how 758 00:53:45.960 --> 00:53:48.500 that works for you and then we'll connect and for those who want to be 759 00:53:48.500 --> 00:53:51.560 Thought leaders themselves, writing books and speaking, go to Thought 760 00:53:51.560 --> 00:53:56.770 leaders dot com dot au and you can begin a journey there. Fantastic again. 761 00:53:56.850 --> 00:53:59.270 Thanks for joining me on GDP growth. Thanks dan. Also, 762 00:54:01.950 --> 00:54:05.700 for the longest time I was asking people to leave a review of GDP growth 763 00:54:05.700 --> 00:54:10.120 in apple podcasts, but I realized that was kind of stupid because leaving a 764 00:54:10.120 --> 00:54:15.240 review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing my 765 00:54:15.240 --> 00:54:18.910 tune a bit. instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just gonna ask you 766 00:54:18.910 --> 00:54:22.910 to go to beauty growth in apple podcasts, scroll down until you see the 767 00:54:22.910 --> 00:54:26.530 ratings and reviews section and just tap the number of stars you want to 768 00:54:26.530 --> 00:54:32.300 give us no review necessary. Super easy. And I promise it will help us out a ton. 769 00:54:32.310 --> 00:54:36.270 If you want to copy of my book, content based networking, just shoot me a text 770 00:54:36.280 --> 00:54:40.740 after you leave the rating and I'll send one your way, text me at 4074 and 771 00:54:40.740 --> 00:54:43.070 I know 33 to 8.