Leveraging Thought Leadership

Today's guest is Michele Zanini, the co-founder and Management Director of Management Lab and co-author with Gary Hamel of the best-selling book Humanorcracy a thought-provoking book about organizational change that will help you scale the creative ability of each person in your organization and break through the bureaucracy that often kills innovation. Michele discusses why many organizations continue to operate with a top-down bureaucracy heavy structure that is outdated, while those that embrace change and enable the power of each individual in the company are having record-breaking production and innovation. We discuss the struggle of creating and transmitting thought leadership ideas internally across a company with thousands of employees and how enabling the voices that are often not heard, both inside and outside of an organization can be part of the solution. Michele and Bill also talk about the need for a clear and solid strategy and how it will be impossible to create compelling thought leadership without it. If this deep conversation leaves you wanting more pick up Humanorcracy and for a limited time you can get a four-hour free course filled with tools and tips that will help you create a resilient, creative, and daring organization! Three Key Takeaways: Thought leaders should consider an approach that unleashes the creative potential of each individual in an organization. Thought leaders will need to develop a clear and well thought out strategy if they want to cultivate persuasive thought leadership. Thought leaders in an organization should reach out to the voices that are often not heard to find new points of view that are likely valuable and overlooked.

Today's guest is Luke Collins, the Managing Director, and Global Editor-in-Chief at EY. Luke has had a number of thought leadership roles at high profile companies with a background in journalism before that. Luke talks with us about thought leadership being at an inflection point where there is tension between the need to push users towards the products you are offering and the need to retain a sense of objectivity that engenders trust. We discuss how EY managed to reframe their thought leadership early in the year with the outbreak of COVID-19 and how they are using a Now, Next, Beyond framework to manage what type of content they publish as the world changes. Next Luke shares how he is using his journalistic sensibilities to help build content that is able to grab reader attention in the first 20 seconds and present short-form articles that deliver powerful and useful information. Plus we discuss how you can use the same content in different formats to reach the end-user where they are and not where you want them to be. If you want to make content that tells the user what they need to know in a manner they will actually consume it, this is an episode filled with advice for you. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought leaders need to deliver the information leaders want to know and the information they need to know. · The format of your thought leadership is critical. Breaking it down into bite-sized chunks is more effective than a 3000-word essay. · Creating thought leadership like a journalist would deliver a story can capture an audience and connect with them in an impactful way.

Today's guest is the "Dean of Innovation" Jeff DeGraff, is the founder of the Innovatrium an innovation consulting firm focusing on creating innovation culture, capability, and community. Jeff is also a business professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and bestselling author of The Creative Mindset. Jeff sits down with Peter to discuss how positive deviance is the driving force behind innovation and why bureaucracy both can stifle progress by attempting to pull everything into a more traditional standard. Jeff explains his business model, how it evolved, and how finding new applications for established schools of thought has allowed him to create hybrid schools that have become the key to innovation. Last Jeff tells us the four things you should think about in your life, why they are important, and why for better or worse you need to own them! If you are the creative type, feeling stifled by red tape this episode will give you the insight you need to charge forward! Three Key Takeaways: Cutting edge thought leadership will often feel deviant to the norms because it does not fit into the established standards. Thought leaders should surround themselves with other talented people that will challenge your thinking and force you to regularly evolve. Often there is no career for thought leaders. You'll need to create your own job and make it up as you go.

We are thrilled to have Kara Goldin join us again! Kara is the Founder and CEO of Hint Inc, the host of the podcast Unstoppable with Kara, a keynote speaker first-time author of the best-selling book Undaunted! Kara shares how the four-year process of writing the book played out, while she continued to run her company and host a podcast! She explains how continuous e-mails from customers who were influenced by her story of becoming an entrepreneur influenced the stories she shared and how the stories in the book were therapeutic to share. We discuss with Kara how the book has helped the business and how it can be used as a recruiting tool for attracting talent to the company. Many first time authors have different objectives for their book, Kara talks about what she wants from the book and what success would look like for her. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about Kara and Hint Inc. check out episode 90! Three Key Takeaways: · Thought leaders can take the stories of their experiences and hardships and turn them into a book or larger content to help their audience. · A book about your thought leadership can be a good tool to attract people who will better understand you to want to work with you. · Thought leaders who keep an open means of communication with their audience can use that to determine what content would be useful to them.

Today's guest is Geoff Woods, the co-founder, and vice-president of The One Thing, a training and education company based on the best-selling book The One Thing. Geoff is also the host of the One Thing Podcast which is in the top 5% of podcasts in the world. Geoff shares how he had a successful job that lacked fulfillment and how he found his purpose after rushing to meet Jay Papasan when he came off stage at a conference. Geoff faced the uphill task of making a successful business based on the content of The One Thing without the ability to use either Jay or Gary Keller as the face. We dig deep into building content and IP from the book, the business model, and why thought leaders should distance themselves from their own work to ensure the content and assets can stand on their own. Geoff talks to us about the training they do, how they've found success in the virtual space by looking at what they can become and not getting hung up on what the company was in the past. If you want to be able to detach yourself from your product to have the freedom of being obsolete this is an episode for you! Three Key Takeaways: Thought leaders need to invest time in the creation of content that can stand without them in the room. As thought leaders move deeper into virtual events, you need to think hard about how to continue to build a sense of community in that space. A common problem thought leaders face is the inability to look forward. Don't get obsessed with what you used to be to the detriment of what you might become.

Today's guest is Moshe Engelberg, the founder, and CEO of ResearchWorks and author of The Amare Wave. The Amare Wave is an incredible book about breaking away from the old warlike paradigm in business to introduce love and outperform the completion. Moshe explains the origin of the Amare Wave and the common things he found in a traditional business that made him realize the old ways were outdated. He explains how business tradition had a warlike paradigm of terms like "Crush the competition" and "Killing it" that we're creating a resentful environment for employees and clients. Moshe goes on to talk about how brands that are loved tend to build loyalty with their clients and loyalty can quickly turn to profits! Some might think love isn't a suitable word in business, but who doesn't want people to love their company? Join the Amare Wave and watch your profits soar! Three Key Takeaways: The paradigm of business is changing. Is your thought leadership changing with it? Thought leadership can often include words like love that make people uncomfortable, so sometimes you need to be able to use other words to get the same point across. If people come to love your thought leadership, they will be loyal to your brand, and that will result in increased profits.

Today's guest is Mark Victor Hansen, the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise and best-selling author of The Power of Focus, The Aladdin Factor, and Dare to Win. Mark discusses how he shifted from a business going bankrupt to a best-selling author! He shares his years of experience about how the book business has changed from selling books at the back of the room to online, and how things are changing again due to COVID-19. Mark gives incredible insights into how he makes a licensed the Chicken Soup for the Soul books when no one had ever thought it was possible to license a book. We wrap up by disusing how you can keep your name relevant while travel restrictions remain in place by taking advantage of being a podcast guest and learning to speak without an audience in front of you. Three Key Takeaways: Thought leaders need to keep up with the changing environment of sales for books. Licensing your thought leadership might be the method you have not thought of to reach a huge audience. Thought Leaders should be seeking podcasts to appear on to spread the word about their content while our movement is restricted.

Today's guest is Mike Kleinemaß, Digital Marketing & Communications Expert at ThyssenKrupp, a company that deals with engineering and construction of plant technology. Mike discusses how he came to thought leadership while doing other research and how it fits into his role in digital marketing. Bill and Mike discuss the place of platforms like Linkedin in B2B sales and why building a following and creating truly useful content for your prospective clients is important. In addition, Mike talks about the importance of building a relationship in which you are open and available to answering questions, having conversations, and engaging with your followership instead of just pushing out a message. Mike helped create a task force at ThyssenKrupp and explains how that came to be, the purpose of it, and why those involved need to understand their value within the organization and the impact they have. As a digital marketing and growth expert Mike shares some incredible knowledge that can be applied to any company or organization seeking to understand how to be successful in the digital space. Three Key Takeaways: · As more digital transformations happen thought leaders need to understand the new journey their customers will undertake. · Thought leaders can gain a great deal of insight from examining the analytics of their social media and website. That information can be used to create targeted sales strategies. · Becoming a thought leader for your organization will mean understanding the purpose and goals of the company, then building a strategy to convey that to the right people.

Today's guest is David Hancock, the co-author of 16 books including Performance Driven Thinking, The Best of Guerrilla Marketing, and The Entrepreneurial Author. David is the Founder of Morgan James Publishing and Chairman of Guerrilla Marketing International. David sits down with Peter and immediately puts some commonly held myths regarding publishing to bed. During the course of their conversation, they explore the wants of a publisher and the needs of the author. They discuss the pros and cons of a book advance why it isn't just free money, and what you might want to negotiate for more than an advance. David shares what you'll want to look for in a publisher before finishing our conversation with advice for authors about to seek a publisher for their first or next book. Three Key Takeaways: Thought Leaders need to be aware that a publisher is not going to take care of everything for you during the publishing process. Many try to seek a book advance, but thought leaders would be better served to negotiate for higher royalists. When seeking a publisher for your book on thought leadership find a publisher who is going to give you the control you need over your content.

Today's guest is James Carbary, founder of Sweet Fish Media, the executive producer of the B2B Growth podcast, and the author of Content-Based Networking. James chats with us about how he is using podcasting in a much more thoughtful and strategic way to create a flywheel of content that can be used outside of the podcast itself. James talks about the questions he asks before an interview to prompt passionate replies that you can build an incredible episode around. We discuss using your podcast guests to do original research to gain powerful insights into the wants and needs of the very people you are looking to help and how you can use that research to fuel your content strategy for months to come. Finally, James shares how he is going beyond the podcast to create communities and achieve content-based networking to create meaningful relationships. If you have a podcast or are thinking of starting one this is the episode for you! Three Key Takeaways: Thought Leaders can use a podcast to forge new relationships with guests that can lead to the guest becoming a client. During your podcast don't be afraid to ask the guest to do a short survey you can use to fuel your thought leadership. A podcast about your thought leadership should be named around being a useful resource to the client and not around yourself.