Leveraging Thought Leadership

Today's guest is Todd Cherches, the founder of Big Blue Gumball, a consulting firm specializing in leadership development, management training, team building, public speaking, and coaching. Todd is a TEDx speaker and the author of VisuaLeadership! Todd shares his story of the winding road that took him from his dream of working at TV studios to becoming a thought leader. We explore the challenges introverts face and how to grow as a speaker and trainer. Todd explains how his book was born from ten years of notes and 2000 pages of content. He shares valuable advice for getting your idea on the page and hitting a deadline. Three Key Takeaways: When opportunities present themselves, thought leaders need to jump on them even if they feel out of their comfort zone. Introverted thought leaders can be excellent speakers with time and practice. Getting a book written on your thought leadership will require dedicated time to write without distraction.

Today's guest is Anthony Vade, the Experience Architect at FMAV an audiovisual and event technology company that is helping event planners and thought leaders transform how events are produced. Anthony starts by explaining what an experience architect does and how he is helping to transform the events industry to be more than just a box of gear. We discuss the Event Design Collective and the Events Canvas, what the core principles are and how this powerful tool is helping uncover what the needs are and how to get everyone in alignment with what the event should be. Anthony gives some excellent advice for speakers seeking to find a solution in our COVID-19 world where digital presentation is the only available avenue. We get some insight into the technology available and what the future of events might look like using VR, AR, XR, or a mix of these exciting technologies. You can find a sample of the uses of technology Anthony spoke of here. Three Key Takeaways: When planning a digital event thought leaders need to consider timeframe and intimacy. Thought leaders will want to ensure everyone involved in an event and on the same page about what they want the event to accomplish. If thought leaders are going to produce digital content you have to ensure your audio quality is good or risk losing your audience.

Today's guest is Scott Miller, Executive Vice President of Thought Leadership at Franklin Covey, the host of On Leadership with Scott Miller and co-author of Everyone Deserves a Great Manager. This conversation focuses on how both Scott and Peter both work to develop and launch new thought leaders, they compare methods and tactics. We explore why defining your audience is the biggest challenge thought leaders face, how social media plays a massive role when looking to publish a book, and why you need to know and understand who your competition is. This episode is chalked full of insight from two people with decades of knowledge on helping thought leaders find success. If you want a jump-start on your thought leadership career this episode is for you. Three Key Takeaways: Thought Leaders need to find and understand their audience. Your content can not be for everyone. Social media has become a very important platform thought leaders need to cultivate if they want to get a book published. Your content doesn't have to be 100% new ideas. It is okay to stand on the shoulders of other thought leaders and expand the conversation.

Today's guest is Al Shalloway, Director of Thought Leadership for Agile at Scale Programs and Founder and former CEO of Netobjectives. Al joins us to talk about how he is using thought leadership at the Project Management Institute to help teams and entire businesses learn to become more agile. We discuss how to scale an idea into a movement, the importance of understanding value stream management, and why leaders need to be in the middle of the pack, not out in front of it. Three Key Takeaways: Thought Leaders need to help teams to become more agile to help create a business that is agile. Sometimes it is better for you thought leadership to focus on the part that the client needs to know and not overwhelm them with trying to take over everything. Thought Leaders need to step back and seek the big picture to see the problem or they might find themselves solving a symptom and not the real problem.

Today we are joined by JD Gershbein, the Founder and CEO of Owlish Communications, a company that helps clients build a strong online presence to achieve a distinctive and competitive edge. JD is a TEDx speaker, LinkedIn expert on personal branding, and at one time a member of the Second City Improv group in Chicago! JD takes us down his unusual path towards becoming the digital branding expert he has become and how his improv skills are still at use every day. We discuss LinkedIn as a platform that has evolved from a job seeker site to possibly the most important document you'll build in all of business. With the evolution of LinkedIn, we have seen video become a prominent source of content, JD shares with us what you need to keep in mind when doing video and why your brand could be on the line. This is an insightful conversation for anyone looking to expand their LinkedIn profile or exploring video as a means of delivering their content. Three Key Takeaways: Thought Leaders can use LinkedIn as a flexible platform that can change and grow with them. Delivering your thought leadership by video requires a certain level of authenticity and production value. Improvisation isn't just a skill for the stage, thought leaders can develop it to have better conversations.

Today's guest is Mike Mansfield, the Program Director for the Aegon Center for Longevity and Retirement. We talk with Mike about the research that goes into creating thought leadership for retirement planning and how Aegon is helping people think about more than just finances for their later stages of life. Mike shares how Aegon is finding their audience and reaching them by partnering with other organizations, the methods they use to measure success, and how thought leadership is serving both the organization and its clients. Plus we explore how the preparation and deployment of their retirement readiness survey have changed post-COVID-19. Three Key Takeaways: · How the previous experience Thought Leaders have can elevate their message. · Thought Leadership is as much of a people game as it is a knowledge game. · Use short targeted content to reach specific groups with your thought leadership that might not spend the time to read a full survey or report.

Today we have the lovely Juliet Funt joining us! Juliet is a keynote speaker, the CEO of White Space at Work, a business that for the last decade has helped businesses gain back thousands of hours of lost productivity by helping employees find more time to pause and think. In 2021 Juliet's first business book being published by HarperCollins will hit the market. We take a retrospective of Juliet's work starting with her time as a youth and education speaker, how her speaking advanced to helping at the university level, and finally turned into a message that corporations could use. Juliet explains exactly what her platform White Space is, where the idea came from, and how her content has evolved over the years and across modalities. This is a great conversation that shows how thought leadership can go from a single page with three words written on it to advise for Fortune 500 companies. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought Leaders should keep a notepad or voice recorded to jot down ideas as they come to them regardless of when or where inspiration strikes. · Thought leaders need to document stories of client success using their content. It can be useful in many ways in the future. · Locking yourself in a room with other creative types for a long period of time can create more impactful thought leadership than what will come out of several hour-long conversations.

Wow— It's been 2 and a half years of doing the podcast and I'm honored to have had the privilege of interviewing so many world-renowned thought leaders. I'm proud to present to you our 250th episode today featuring none other than Tom Peters. Thanks to all of my guests and listeners for making the podcast a success. I hope that many thought leaders, authors, academics speakers, and organizational thought leaders continue to achieve the impact and leverage they wish from their work. - Peter Winick Tom Peters is the co-author of In Search of Excellence—the book that changed the way the world does business, in addition to seventeen other books that have sold more than 10 million copies combined and recipient of the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award. Tom shares candid stories of his time writing In Search of Excellence, and how it found success amongst an audience that no one was targeting at the time, despite many expecting the book to be a failure. We discuss his article The Brand Called You, how it changed the way people market themselves, and how many who've read it have actually missed the true meaning. Don't miss this fascinating conversation with one of the most prolific business authors and speakers in the world. Three Key Takeaways: · How timing can play a big part in the success of your thought leadership. · Why you can't be mad at others when they misinterpret your thought leadership. · What you need to do to make your thought leadership invaluable to your organization.

Today's guest is Brian Smith, the Founder of UGG a company started on shores of Southern California that would become a globally recognized brand. He is the author of The Birth of a Brand, and one of the most sought after speakers and business leaders in the country. Brian tells the tale of starting UGG and eventually selling it in the late 90s, writing The Birth of a Brand during the recession from years of notes on building UGG, and how he became a keynote speaker using many of the themes from the book. We discuss the speaking business as it existed prior to the global pandemic and how speakers are continuing to work without being able to travel. If you are a speaker concerned about the future of your industry this episode has great insights into speaking during COVID-19, what the future of speaking might look like, and why being social will always be a key to successful speaking. Three Key Takeaways: How thought leaders can take one modality and use it in different formats. What stages a thought leader can expect their business go to through and how they compare to stages of life. What keynote speaking for thought leaders looks like now and might look like in the future.

Today's guest is Steve Markman, who has headed the conference divisions for Comdex and The Conference Board before launching his own firm Markman Speaker Management in 1994 where he provides executive visibility and speaker bureau services. Steve gives us some insight into the free-speaking circuit and how executives and organizations can get raise visibility, gain credibility, and get their thought leadership message out to large audiences. We discuss what conference organizers look for when speakers submit proposals, who you want your audience to be, and why COVID-19 isn't the end of the speaking industry. If you are a speaker waiting for COVID-19 to pass, you need to hear this episode and learn how you can get speaking from the comfort of your home. Three Key Takeaways: Why thought leaders should consider speaking for free. What thought leaders should absolutely avoid doing when pitching to conferences for speaking gigs. What thought leader speaks should be doing to be prosperous in a COVID-19 workplace.