Leveraging Thought Leadership

Moving from working at a big brand to starting your own marketing firm will present a number of new challenges. How will you face pitching to the big brands without a big name behind you? What will you have to provide to stay a step ahead? Ron Tite is an award-winning advertisement writer and creative director, author of Everyone's An Artist (or At Least They Should Be) and Think. Do. Say. and is the Founder of Church and State, a Toronto based content and marketing agency. Ron shares how he took a 20-year career as a corporate stand-up comedian and flipped the career to be a corporate professional with a sense of humor. We discuss building a marketing firm and how to win business over larger well-established brands. Testing new ideas by adding to existing speeches and finally developing a book as a framework and methodology that isn't dependent on your presence for it to be effective. Ron has done an amazing job of making his content clear and memorable. Take a minute to read this article about making your Thought Leadership as easy as "Stop, Drop, and Roll."

Too often authors start writing based on an idea they have or solution they think the market needs without having interacted with their target audience or taken the solution into the field. Then when the final product is a flop they are disappointed and surprised. Today we chat with three incredible authors who have taken their direct experience working in the industry and created books to codify their message and help an even wider audience. We start with Chip Conley who is the Founder of the Modern Elder Academy. Chip talks to us about not only identifying your audience but coming to understand what influences them. In addition, he tells us about his experience working at Airbnb and how his time as a mentor-led to writing Wisdom at Work and coined the term "Modern Elder." Next up is Shane Green the CEO of SGEi and has drawn on his past experience at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company to create effective training to create meaningful change to corporate culture. That valuable experience ultimately became his book Culture Hacker. Shane shares why you need to have a long term vision and how you can use it as a marketing tool. Last but certainly not least is Erika Andersen a founding partner of Proteus International and author of Be Bad First. She shares how she wrote the book by mapping sections of it to her product offerings. Plus she shares how she uses her books to build credibility and increase brand awareness. When you are ready to turn your experience into a book be sure to read these tips to learn what your book will need from you!

If you plan to self publish or take a more traditional route with your book you still have to be the champion for it and have an established platform to market it to if you want it to take off. Joesph Michelli is an internationally sought after speaker, consultant and best-selling author of several books including Driven to Delight and The AirBnB Way. Joseph speaks with us about how he writes books about globally recognized brands while working with them to improve their business. We discuss the changes to publishing and what rights publishers want a big piece of. In addition, Peter and Joesph share their thoughts on moving the contents of a book into other modalities to reach a larger audience. Last we finish off with discussing speaking, what role bureaus play and if those relationships are still important. If you have a keynote or book and want to move it to other modalities you'll want to think about the market strategy. We have some tips for ensuring you have the right medium for your message.

Do you consider your favorite musician to be a Thought Leader? Take a minute to think about the message they deliver, their ability to inspire and captivate an audience. Freddie Ravel is a Grammy Nominated performer who has worked with legends like Earth, Wind, and Fire, Madonna, and Prince. Now Freddie merges his music with education to bring his message of active listening to crowds around the world. Freddie explains how his concerts bring edutainment to the stage with a captivating tempo. Peter and Freddie discuss the business side of keynote speaking, building a relationship with speaker agents, and doing your homework before a gig and being specific about what you bring to the table. If you have a unique take on the speaker's industry and are seeking to gain visibility let Thought Leadership Leverage help get you out there.

The problems that blue-collar business face isn't all that different than those fortune 500s have to deal with. High turnover rates, stagnating growth, and untapped potential of employees. Are the solutions to these problems the same regardless of the business model? Jamie Gerdsen is the President and CEO of Apollo Home a home heating & cooling and electrical company, author of Squirrels, Boats, and Thoroughbreds and Zombies Ate my Business and is connecting with traditional businesses to help them grow and renew via Main Street Leadership. Jamie talks about how he wrote his first book from the personal lessons he had learned at Apollo Home and how with Peter's help they turned that book into an assessment that traditional businesses can use to understand where they are and ultimately how to get everyone focused in the same direction. Jamie and Peter discuss the need to ensure that if you write a book it is filled with content people will want to read and that you are not writing it to fulfill your own ego. Jamie has proven assessments can be a valuable asset. If you are thinking about making your own check out our 3 Tips and Tricks for Building an Awesome Assessment.

To be a successful keynote speaker you need a lot of skills. The right message to deliver, credibility, a stage presence, and magic? Jon Petz is the best-selling author of Boring Meetings Suck and Significance In Simple Moments. He is a world-renown keynoter and emcee that brings stage magic and a performance mindset to delight and surprise audiences at all levels. Jon chronicles how he merged previous careers of sales and marketing with magic to deliver motivational keynotes around the world. Peter and Jon explore the reasons for having used both self-published and used traditional publishing house methods. Plus they discuss the often difficult topic of pricing and providing value for your fee. Jon literally uses magic to keep his audience engaged. If you find yourself struggling to keep an audience's attention check out our guide to smart (and simple!) audience engagement!

An essential part of your Thought Leadership is solid content. Without it, you will not be able to reach the audience you want or have the impact you desire. Creating compelling content isn't cut and dry but today we have a wealth of knowledge to share on the topic. Gregg L Witt is a speaker, author of The Gen Z Frequency, and Chief Strategy Officer of Engage Youth Company. He has a keen knowledge of how to connect with tweens, teens, and young adults. Greg discusses building strategy around giving content away while keeping key pieces gated. David Mammano is the author of Crash and Learn, TEDx speaker an America's Entrepreneur Coach! David shares how you have to follow the dollars to find what the market wants, why you should not create in isolation and how you can engage your followers and peers to test material. Nancy Halpern is a pioneer in leadership development coaching executives inspiring to the c-suite. We talk with Nancy about the trouble of getting lost in your head and the need to have ideas externally validated. Plus she shares why you just need to focus on what you need to do in the next 15 minutes to push things forward Once you have brilliant content in place you'll need a solid model for it. Check out this article for creating an effective content model.

When you see a professional mix-martial arts professional you don't think "There is someone who has anxiety." The fact is most people have shortcomings or demons they need to overcome. Our guest Eliot Marshall is a former UFC fighter, co-owner and head instructor at Easton Training Center, host of the Gospel of Fire podcast and author of the Gospel of Fire. Eliot gets candid about his struggles with anxiety and having a complete breakdown. He shares how with the help of friends he built himself back up and is now taking the lessons he learned to help others. We discuss Eliot's podcast and how it's the perfect medium for a guy who really likes to talk and get to know people. A common struggle Thought Leaders need to overcome is Content Insecurity, check out this article to make sure Content Insecurity isn't destroying your work.

Why are negative habits easier to build and what can we learn from them? Is it possible to use the very formula that we build negative habits with and flip it on its head to slowly build positive habits? Our guest Adam Fridman is the Founder of the digital marketing Mabbly - where exceptional cultures happen when people pursue purpose together. He is also the co-author of The Science of Story and Founder of Pro Habits - a positive psychology-based application that links professional habits to personal and organizational goals. Pro habits is a highly customizable application that can help you take your company values and make them actionable! Adam shares how authors, speakers, and consultants can use Pro Habits to help people create long-lasting change by taking micro-actions every day that help build positive habits. We discuss using similar principles social media uses to provide a shot of dopamine to keep you coming back and gamification techniques to keep you engaged. We share some further insight into the Secrets of Changing a Company's Culture that might help you determine why Pro Habits might be the tool you need if you are looking to change your company's culture.

There is no straight path to becoming a Thought Leader. Many come from careers where what they have learned can be applied to making content to help others. The question remains is the transition from those careers to Thought Leader easy? Today we talk with John O'Grady a West Point grad, former Army colonel, and distinguished combat leader who managed a 14.4 billion dollar portfolio for the US military. John shares with us the successes and struggles of transitioning into the Thought Leader space. We discuss the skills and experiences that he is using to build content and coach in the private sector. Plus John talks about the assumptions he had coming into his new career and the lessons he has learned. If you are starting the metamorphosis to Thought Leader, Peter shares the Three Things you'll need.