Episodes
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If there’s one thing marketers know for sure, it’s that people find new things exciting. It’s why at least every few months, one of the things you regularly buy will have a “New! Improved!” label slapped on the packaging.
When you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while, what do you ask them? Is it, “hey, tell me about everything in your life that hasn’t changed at all in the last three years?” Or is it, “hey, what’s new?”
But the paradoxical thing about it is, the best source for finding something new to include in your thought leadership content is often something old.
C.S. Lewis once talked about how “the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century lies where we have never suspected it. None of us can fully escape this blindness.”
He went on to say, “The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”
Photo by Prateek Katyal on UnsplashC.S. Lewis was right. Old books help us correct the mistakes of our own era. It’s not so much that people back then were smarter than we are now, although I think that’s true in some areas.
It’s that they didn’t make the mistakes we make. And, to be fair, we sometimes are not making their mistakes. So like with all of history, you have to take the good and leave the bad in the past.
Lewis prescribed reading one old book for every two or three modern books you read, and I think that’s a good idea.
In spite of all of our natural fascination with newness, one of the harder lessons I’ve had to learn is that marketing, just like thought leadership, is not the search for the new. It’s the search for the proven.
So as strange as it may sound, the best way to keep your thought leadership material interesting is to provide new information from old sources. You’ll surprised at how effective this is. And it’s easier than you think.
This tip concludes the week of making your stuff cool. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I’ve enjoyed bringing it to you.
Subscribe to be smarter.
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Welcome to day four of “Making Your Stuff Cool.” To review, we covered the little-known “RADIO technique” on Monday, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tactic on Tuesday; Wednesday was about making predictions, and today is about details.
Photo by Dimitri Bong on UnsplashWe’ve all heard the saying that “the devil is in the details,” but I’m going to tell you that the money is there, too.
Claude Hopkins taught me that. Of course, I never met Claude, because he died forty-three years before I was born. But he lives on in the ads he created for the companies that were clients of the ad agencies he worked at. And yes, ad men and women can definitely become Thought Leaders. It’s their business to lead the public.
Let’s talk about one of his ads and see if we can steal the tactic he employed.
If you never saw the very first episode of “Mad Men,” you should probably do that. In the show, a Madison Avenue ad agency Creative Director named Don Draper is trying to come up with a “hook” for an advertising campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes.
At the last minute, he has a stroke of genius. He says to advertise this phrase: “It’s Toasted.”
Of course, all tobacco companies toast their leaves as a standard part of their production process, but Don made the point that nobody talks about it. By giving consumers something to think about (besides the fact that cigarettes will kill you), their company gets to sidestep that issue and set themselves apart.
It’s genius.
And it was pulled from real life. That “Mad Men” episode was based on the campaign that Claude Hopkins came up with in 1917 for Lucky Strike. It was a very successful campaign.
So that’s a great story, but what can you and I do with it?
Let’s look at the technique itself: Claude learned as much as he could about the product (just as a Thought Leader should) and then took a single, little-known detail that he could talk about in a fresh, new way.
The tactic was so successful, Claude also used it for Schlitz beer, Quaker Oats, and other companies.
If you put a little thought into it, you could use this tactic as a way to draw interest to your thought leadership content and products as well.
Get thought leadership tips like this in your inbox every weekday by getting on my email list. Claim your free subscription at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Episodes manquant?
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Welcome to day 3 of “Making Your Stuff Cool.”
As previously discussed, I’m talking about driving up the interest of your audience by making your information “cool.” On Monday, we talked about the “Radio Test.” On Tuesday, we talked about combining the interests of your audience in new and original ways. Today, we’re going to apply the technique of fortune-telling to your thought leadership.
Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on UnsplashHere’s what we know about all people: they’re fascinated with predictions. I was just reading an article the other day about the end of the NHL regular season, and the writer talked about his predictions, and the predictions of readers who commented on them, at the beginning of the season.
You might or might not be surprised to learn that the writer was completely wrong about a number of things he thought would happen. In spite of that, the article was still informative and enjoyable to read.
The point I want you to take from that is that while it’s even more fun when people get it right, nobody cares when they get it wrong.
In fact, if you make a lot of predictions and only get a few right, you can focus on those few correct ones and people will generally forget that you got some of the others wrong.
Now let’s take this one step further, beyond just making predictions.
You can use those predictions to draw a crowd by how you talk about them. For example, you could make a prediction about what you think smartphones are going to be like in a year, and then point to a major change that will happen because of that. Maybe people will trade in or throw out their iPhone, and that’s how you begin your story. Of course, not everyone will upgrade, but if a few people do, that’s a valid prediction.
Maybe you could talk about what industries will be in decline, or what will happen if the President gets re-elected, or if his opponent gets elected. Maybe you could talk about technologies that will be made obsolete.
My prediction is that if you use this to your advantage, you can make your content fun and interesting to the people you want to attract and bond with.
Coming up tomorrow, we’ll talk about using a technique from a marketing copywriter who was born in 1866. You’d never believe this tactic is so old because it works so well. I’ll see you then.
If you’d like to make certain you keep learning all these strategies, you can do that by subscribing to my free daily thought leadership emails at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Welcome back for day 2 of “How To Make Your Stuff Cool.”
Photo by Luca Ambrosi on UnsplashI’m going to jump right into the story:
In November of 1983, Ronald Reagan was a year away from one of the largest landslide election victories in the history of the United States.
But that has nothing to do with it.
At the same time, in Dover, New Hampshire, illustrators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had an idea: they thought it would be “fun” to start a comic book.
They decided on their target market (teenagers), and then brainstormed things that teenagers found exciting.
After a while, they had a long list, and then circled three entries on that list:
Turtles, Ninjas, and Mutants.
Eastman drew a massive turtle standing on its hind legs and holding a pair of nunchucks. Below it, Laird wrote the words “teenage mutant.”
And the rest is history. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (renamed “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles” in Europe) became a multi-billion dollar entertainment, toy, and licensing franchise.
You can use their technique to come up with new and fresh angles to give your own audience. Start out by getting very clear on who your audience is and what they already know and like. Look for crazy and appealing combinations of those things, add in a dose of your personality and creativity, and see what happens.
The reason I’m telling you this story isn’t so you can start making up stories about reptiles. Here is what I know for sure about thought leadership: Thought Leaders become leaders of thoughts by saying original things that have never been said before. And if they have to say something unoriginal, they say it in a way that has never been said before.
This technique will help you with that. Now go sign up for my emails so you can get tips like this every day.
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Some of us might not like to admit it sometimes, but a part of thought leadership is simply bringing cool ideas to your followers. It’s just the appeal of interesting information and concepts. Don’t underestimate your audience’s need to entertained.
So how do we do that?
This week I’m going to focus every day on ways to bring the “cool” to your followers.
Today, I want to talk about a little-known copywriting trick called “the RADIO Test.”
Photo by 蔡 世宏 on Unsplash“RADIO” is an acronym for:
Reward
Affirmation
Deadline
Intrigue
OriginalityReward stands for the advantage that will accrue to your reader (or listener or viewer) for having consumed your content. It’s the old “what’s in it for me?” thing. Make sure that the reward to your follower is clear.
Affirmation means that they will feel better for having been with you for that moment. As Blair Warren told us in “The One Sentence Persuasion Course,” people will do anything for someone who makes their follower feel further convinced that they are “right.” A cynical and reductive way of looking at this could be called, “pandering for fun and profit.”
Deadline, in this case, refers to the timelines of the content. Why is this important right now, and why should I take action right now? Don’t let your cool stuff get thrown on the pile of “I’ll get to it someday.” Get them in the game right now.
Intrigue means to “arouse the curiosity or interest of; fascinate.” Make sure that your content is fascinating. The trick to this is not only to provide interesting information, but make sure you’ve chosen a market that would and should find your information interesting.
Originality, the final criteria, means that they can’t have heard what you’ve got to say every day for the past week. You need to bring them something unique. If you can’t be unique, at least say what you’ve got to say in a unique way.
If you’re going to use the RADIO Test to be cool, make sure your content meets all five qualifications. Three out of five isn’t much better than one out of five.
I’ll see you tomorrow with what you can learn from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! In the meantime, you should sign up for my free daily Thought Leadership email tips at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Today, let’s talk about testing and experimentation in Thought Leadership. You probably already know that establishing yourself as a Thought Leader in your industry requires constant innovation and experimentation.
Photo by Alex Kondratiev on UnsplashAs an information marketer, it’s essential to take risks and try new things. Today, we’ll discuss why experimentation is crucial in thought leadership and explore some areas wherein you could greatly benefit by testing and experimentation. I think you’ll get a lot out of this if you’re willing to put in the work.
Experimentation can take many forms, such as introducing new marketing strategies, changing the format of content, or exploring new social media platforms. When it comes to thought leadership and information marketing, being open to trying new things and learning from them can be transformative.
Some areas in which experimentation is key include:
Content formats — Blog posts, videos, podcasts — experimenting with different formats and seeing which ones resonate most with your audience can be eye-opening.
Social media — depending on your audience, some social media platforms will definitely be more effective than others. So this is a great area to experiment in.
Product development — trying out new products or variations on existing products can inform the direction of your business and inform your audience. You’ll sometimes be pleasantly surprised at your results.
Whatever you experiment with, it’s essential to look objectively at the results and use them as a learning opportunity. You may discover new strategies or techniques that you hadn’t considered previously.
Experimentation is a necessary component of thought leadership and information marketing success. By constantly iterating and trying new things, you can stay ahead of the curve and differentiate yourself from the competition. Be open to new ideas, and don’t be afraid to take calculated risks.
Here’s an experiment you can start right now: Dedicate the next six months to growing your thought leadership. All you need to do is to sign up for my free daily thought leadership emails. Implement one strategy a week — that’s just one out of five — and see what happens in the next six months. You can start this experiment by going to You Can Be A Thought Leader and dropping your email address in the form. The very next weekday, your experiment can start. I can’t wait to see what you accomplish!
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If you want to establish yourself as a recognized and well-rewarded Thought Leader in your market, creating and selling information products is a key part of that goal. Providing such products to your audience is a great way to help them achieve the transformation they seek.
Photo by Annie Spratt on UnsplashInformation products are resources that provide valuable insights and knowledge to your target audience. They come in various formats, such as ebooks and physical books, physical written courses, video courses, or membership sites.
Each format has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you should choose the formats of your various products carefully, according to the buying behaviors of your market, the curriculum you plan on teaching, your pricing strategy, and other factors.
To create impactful information products, you must invest time in designing a balanced product and curriculum that is tailored to your audience’s needs. A well-designed information product has several characteristics. Let’s go over a few right now:
Impactful information products provide value to your audience. Ensure that your product solves a problem they have or introduces them to a body of valuable knowledge.
Impactful information products are easy to understand. Communicate clearly and avoid any sort of technical language your audience might not understand.
Impactful information products are are tailored to your audience. This is where having an intimate understanding of your market comes in. Whether you are sharing insights for beginners or planning an advanced course, ensure that the content is aligned with the audience’s expectations.
Curriculum design for information products is critical, regardless of format. A well-designed curriculum will have a logical flow that builds on the previous lesson or chapter. It should be paired with appropriate examples, questions, and assignments that reinforce the subject’s concepts and provide opportunities for students to confirm to themselves that they are on track.
Crafting impactful information products takes time and effort, but it can pay off handsomely when done well. They can help you establish yourself as a Thought Leader in your industry, provide the income an expert deserves, and provide valuable insights and knowledge to your customers.
Against my own advice and better judgement, I don’t have a information product to sell you. But I should! In the meantime, I only have something to give you for free:
Every day, I email a group of my followers a tip on how to build and maintain thought leadership. It would be a great way for you to up level your skills and start making real progress toward your goals. You can sign up for these emails at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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As a Thought Leader, your primary aim is to provide value to your audience. However, your message is incomplete if your audience doesn’t take any action on the information you have provided. That’s where a call to action (CTA) comes in.
Photo by Brett Jordan on UnsplashA call to action is a prompt that encourages readers, viewers, or listeners to take a specific action towards doing something about the information you have provided. It can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, buying a product, or leaving a comment on your article or video.
Examples of CTAs include “Sign up for our free trial,” “Download your free eBook today,” or “Get your exclusive discount now.” All of these might be very successful, depending on the context. That is why it is important to test the wording of your CTA to see which one works the best.
In today’s world where attentions span are short, it’s important to have a strong and effective CTA strategy to turn people into followers, and followers into customers.
The key to crafting effective CTAs is to make them persuasive through strong messaging. So here are some tips for crafting persuasive CTAs:
Use action-oriented language that drives your message forward, such as “Grab,” “Join,” or “Subscribe.” In other words, lead with a verb.
Keep it short and sweet. Make sure your CTA is easy to understand and straightforward. Now is not the time to get cute or to drop hints. Be bold, and be direct.
Provide value to the reader. A CTA is always more effective when it offers a clear benefit or incentive to the reader. They aren’t going to do anything for you, so they need to understand why they should do it for their own benefit.
Create a sense of legitimate urgency. If there is any kind of deadline or limitation, make sure you highlight that. People respond to urgency like nothing else.
It’s also important to note that the placement of CTAs on your website or Thought Leadership material is key. Placing them in high-visibility areas can increase click-through rates.
An effective CTA strategy is essential for successful thought leadership and information marketing. It engages potential customers, drives conversions, and helps you build and maintain thought leadership in your industry.
My call to action, right now, is this: Register for a free subscription to my daily thought leadership emails so you can up level your skills and achieve the recognition and reward you deserve. Sign up today, right now, at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Do you want to stand out and establish yourself as a Thought Leader in your industry? Then you must understand the importance of delivering high-quality content to your audience.
Photo by Carlos Esteves on UnsplashIn today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, it is essential to provide fresh, relevant, and high-quality content that speaks to the needs and interests of your customers. Solid, informative content can establish you as an authority and start a conversation with your reader. Today, I’ll discuss how quality content can help you differentiate yourself from the competition and drive your thought leadership efforts.
One of the most effective ways to develop quality content is by conducting data analytics that identifies your target audience’s needs and preferences. By examining your data, you can create content that fits your target market’s traits, preferences, and behaviors.
The importance of readability of the content cannot be overstated. You need to ensure that your readers can understand your content by writing in a way that is concise and straightforward.
Finally, providing valuable insights through your content can drive engagement with your readers, who will want to learn more from you. When you produce content that gives readers actionable advice they can take to the bank, they will come back to you for more.
Delivering content that resonates with your audience is a game-changer, allowing you to stand out as a Thought Leader in your industry and start being rewarded for your expertise.
The tips I have provided here only scratch the surface of content quality. These factors are just the ante that you have to pony up to play the game. In order to establish yourself as a highly rewarded and highly respected Thought Leader, your content must also be persuasive and emotionally connect with your audience in a way that guides them toward being a good follower and customer.
Join me as we explore topics like this every day. Register for my free daily thought leadership emails at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash
As a Thought Leader trying to grow your audience, you may be trying to target your audience with an ad campaign or some other effort to target who you would like to put your thought leadership content in front of.
Today, I want to go over a couple of things that will help you do that.
When you think about the kind of people you want as followers, you might start thinking about what you want them to be like. What kind of people you want them to be.
I’ll give you an example: for my business, The Educated Authority, I need people who are willing to study and learn. In fact, if they aren’t willing to study and learn — maybe they feel like they already know everything or they’re too intellectually lazy to learn anything — from a thought leadership business perspective, they aren’t any good to me at all. They’re worthless.
I need people who want to learn, and enjoy learning about things they’re interested in. And not just willing to learn from me, but to actually be a student of their own industry.
I could have a list of a million followers, but if they’re not willing to invest time and money in continually learning, I really have no following at all.
What I’m doing there is selecting a follower by something called psychographics. And like the word “psychology,” it has to do with how people think. And it’s important that you spend some time on identifying what your ideal follower would be like.
That said, although psychographics are extremely important in attracting the right kind of follower, you can’t run your business by psychographics alone.
The opposite of that is what people are like on the outside, their demographics. And this is the kind of thing that’s more identity-based, as well as possibly their careers. And demographics are pretty easy to take to a list broker or someone planning an ad campaign and tell them exactly the demographics you want to talk to.
So how do we balance between the two?
I suggest that as much as you can, you target market by demographics, and then you filter and indoctrinate by psychographics. You draw a huge crowd with demographics, and then from there you can pull out the best people for your business.
Your thought leadership content should repel the people who are psychographically wrong for you, and at the same time, your content will create an even tighter bond with the right people — the people that have the values you need in your ideal follower.
And that’s the real trick of thought leadership content. Not only do you establish authority, inform people, and entertain people, but it also has to run off the wrong people and make the right people fall deeper in love with you.
If this interests you, you are going to love my free daily Thought Leadership how-to emails. You can sign up for them at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash
I wanted to circle back to something I mentioned on Monday, because I think it’s really important for you to understand not just the how but the why.
So what I said Monday that I thought was so worthwhile is that there is one thing that no one will ever disagree with: a conclusion that they come to themselves.
So in other words, this is important if you’re in a Thought Leadership situation or a sales situation, which you should probably realize are essentially one and the same. If you’re trying to convince someone of something, and you almost always are, you are definitely going to run into some level of resistance. That’s just the way the human brain is wired.
So what do we do about that?
What we do is we stop trying to force our mental frame on the other person, because that makes them wrong. And nobody wants to be wrong.
What we do is we feed them persuasively designed information so that they can’t help but arrive at that conclusion themselves. That way, they get to be right.
And once they arrive at that conclusion, it would be difficult to try and convince them otherwise.
Why?
Because, again, people typically don’t disagree with their own conclusions. Particularly if they feel like they’ve gotten to them somewhat independently.
So that’s the “how,” but I really want to focus on the “why” of persuasion for Thought Leaders.
Persuasion is not just a matter of convincing others to adopt a certain viewpoint, but also of provoking a shift in underlying attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. Thought Leaders need to be able to understand the psychological principles of influence in order to effect genuine transformation in their followers.
Additionally, thought leadership requires persuasion to be able to communicate in a way that resonates with others and establishes you as the authority.
And those two things are what my company, The Educated Authority, is all about. Creating transformation and the establishment of you as the authority in your field.
And to do that, I send out emails every day to help you learn exactly what you need to do. You can sign up to get those emails, they’re free, at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Gear5.8 by Roberto R. on Unsplash
I’m once again returning to how followers think (after yesterday’s message was very well received) with a tactic for establishing common ground with your followers.
First off, why would you want to establish common ground?
Well, you do and you don’t, actually. You are the leader and they are the followers, but they need to be solidly convinced that you understand their lives, and particularly their situation that is applicable to your expertise.
This builds trust in you as a Thought Leader, which is something you’re going to need. And the reason you need it is because your follower needs it.
There are a few ways to establish common ground with your follower, but I’m going to give you the best one right now.
You should have a before and after story about you and your thought leadership career. This is your personalized story about what your life was like before you learned and implemented what you now teach, and what your life is like now.
Your followers need to see themselves in the “before” part of your before and after story, so you need to tell that part with as much detail as you can. In the context of telling them about your life, you need to be telling them things about their lives that they’ve never told anyone else.
So let me give you an example. Let’s say you help people lose weight and get in shape because you were once very overweight and you figured out how to drop all those pounds.
When you’re talking about the “before” in your story, you need to talk about getting winded going up a flight of steps, the embarrassment of having to ask for a seat belt extension on a plane, and how you felt when people looked at you as you were eating an ice cream cone.
They need to feel that not only do you empathize with their situation, but that you have lived their life and you understand it intimately. You need to be saying things that only people that have lived through it can understand.
And that is the best way to establish common ground with your followers. Now if you haven’t been through their experience like that; let’s say that using my previous example you were never overweight, so you don’t have that “before” phase of your life, don’t despair. There are still ways to establish common ground.
Let me give you an example: when I go to the doctor with a broken leg, I don’t need the doctor to tell me about how they broke their leg a few years ago and talk about how much it hurt. I need them to show me they understand what I’m going through, and they have the tools, skills, and knowledge to fix my situation in the best and most painless and convenient way possible. And there are ways that the doctor can communicate that.
This is the kind of thing I discuss in the emails I send out every day to people who are up and coming Thought Leaders and quite a few who have been very successful at achieving and maintaining thought leadership. You can claim your place in that discussion by signing up at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Free Walking Tour Salzburg on Unsplash
It’s Monday and I have too many other things on the calendar today (and Shayla’s off work), so I’m going to be brief and very, very to-the-point.
I don’t often focus a lot on the “leader” part of Thought Leader, so I thought today would be a perfect time to give you three principles about how followers think and what you can do about it.
There is a lot more to talk about, and we will, but I think if you can just work on these three, you’ll be off to a good start.
Follower Psychology Principle #1: Followers are looking for someone in whom they can place hope and confidence, because they have none for themselves.
This means that everything you do, especially when it’s directed at people who are just being exposed to you for the first time, has to inspire confidence in first yourself, and then in the follower.
Follower Psychology Principle #2: The follower pays you to fix problems.
You can’t be a profitable Thought Leader telling people how to prevent something bad from happening to them. Nobody ever goes on a diet to keep from getting fat, right? They’re looking for solutions, not prevention.
Follower Psychology Principle #3: The person who does the convincing is the follower, not the leader.
Pop quiz hot shot: what’s one thing no one will ever disagree with? The answer: a conclusion they’ve arrived at themselves.
Instead of trying to convince your follower of something, especially in a sales situation, don’t try impressing your belief system about the product on the follower. They’ll resist because we all resist when we’re being sold to. Don’t lecture them. Instead, present the facts in an interesting story in an almost passive way, and let them draw their own conclusions.
Now here’s a story about two Thought Leaders.
One Thought Leader subscribed to my free daily email tips at You Can Be A Thought Leader. This individual woke up the next day in mysteriously much better shape. Everything was easy for them, and when they were behind the wheel of their car, which was always clean and had a full tank of gas, every single traffic light was green. And their bank account balance ended with more zeroes than it ever had before. They lived happily ever after in a loving relationship with a person even more attractive than they are.
Another Thought Leader struggled through life, and died unlamented, broke, and alone. Their body was never identified, and they were buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave outside of town by the garbage dump.
Which Thought Leader do you want to be? If you want to be like the first kind of Thought Leader, you know what you need to do. Sign up for my free daily Thought Leadership emails at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Tran Phuc on Unsplash
I want to follow up yesterday’s “what do Thought Leaders Say” discussion with a “what do Thought Leaders deliver” discussion.
I think most Thought Leaders understand the concept of value, that you have to deliver value if you want to stay in business as a Thought Leader.
But a couple of things about that:
First, who determines value?
The customer determines value, not you.
Second, the customer determines value based on their values. And they value more than just the financial return, if you’re selling them something that helps them make money.
So what other things do people value?
Well they often like ideas a whole lot. They often like cool ideas more than doing the work those ideas are centered around. In fact, if you can’t keep bringing your audience a stream of good ideas, you’re not going to last long in this business.
They like to put their faith in something besides themselves, because they don’t believe in themselves. They need a sense of confidence and a feeling of hope.
They like to be entertained. You don’t have to be entertaining, unless you want to get paid. Then you do.
They want a sense of belonging in a group of people — are there other people out there in the world that are like them? They need that support.
Finally, they want a sense of progress, of forward motion. They need to feel like they can eventually get to where they want to go.
If you’d like to get to where you want to go in Thought Leadership, your next best move is to subscribe to my free daily emails, where I teach you how to establish, scale, and maintain a Thought Leadership business. You can register at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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One of the questions I’m constantly asked is, “I want to be a Thought Leader; what do I say?”
Photo by Daniel Álvasd on UnsplashFair question! And as I said, not an uncommon one. We all have to speak knowledge and wisdom into the silent void.
So I’m going to give you three types of things that Thought Leaders say, so that you will at least have a perspective you can work from. You can take your pick between them.
The first things Thought Leaders say are things that haven’t been said before. We introduce original concepts and market those concepts. Let the content marketers write about us. So we say things that have never been said before.
But you don’t always have to be so original, because that’s extremely difficult to do. If you have three to five original concepts, you could have a entire thought leadership career based around those concepts.
Second, we say things that have been said before in ways they have never been said before. Tibor Kalman, one of the premier graphics designers of the late 20th century, once said, “I’m always trying to turn things upside down and see if they look any better.”
That’s what Thought Leaders do. We turn things upside down and provide another perspective.
Third, we re-introduce people to forgotten and valuable knowledge. It always amazes me how easy it is to find what seem like new ideas in very old books. We’re always on the hunt for old, rare, and valuable knowledge. So we repeat things that haven’t been said in a really long time.
So to recap, we say things that have never been said before, we say things that have been said before in ways they haven’t been said before, and we say things that haven’t been said in a really long time.
I hope this helps you conquer the blank page.
If you are an up and coming Thought Leader, I have something to give you. I want to help you grow into that role, and you will learn a lot from my daily thought leadership emails. You can sign up — it doesn’t cost anything — at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash
I’ve put off recording this one for several days. It’s too dangerous in the wrong hands.
What if you had the ability to get someone to do anything you wanted them to do? Even if it went beyond their moral or ethical limits?
This is what the compliance formula does, and it’s been used by some of the most evil people in history to achieve their nefarious ends.
So I’m asking you to be careful with this, and treat it with the respect it deserves. And that might be difficult for you because it’s so simple.
Here it is:
Social Proof + Authority = Compliance
Social proof is when you see other people doing what you’re considering doing, and you see them being happy with the outcome.
Authority is when you respect someone’s opinion on a subject and accept their conclusions because you know they know more than you.
Add those two together, and you get compliance.
It’s that simple.
This is the kind of thing I talk about with my subscribers every day over email. Except is usually a lot less dark. You can sign up to get those emails free of charge at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Steven Libralon on Unsplash
In his book, “Superhero: The Secret Origins of a Genre,” Peter Coogan discusses the definition of a superhero and how superheroes have evolved over time.
By the way, I’m assuming you can see the connection between superheroes and Thought Leaders. If you’re not getting it, you probably aren’t going to be successful as a Thought Leader without some instruction and assistance. I can help you with that.
One of the primary conventions of a superhero, Coogan writes, is a costume. Superheroes have costumes. Initially, the costume was to obscure the identity of the superhero. It was a disguise.
But the creators of Superman changed everything when they made his costume an expression of his identity. The big “S” chevron on his chest and the colors of his costume all told you, “this is Superman.” Batman had the same thing going on — his costume with the bat logo proclaimed him as being Batman.
Coogan says, and I’m quoting here, “The superhero costume removes the specific details of a character’s ordinary appearance, leaving only a simplified idea that is represented in the colors and design of the costume. The chevron especially emphasizes the character’s codename and is itself a simplified statement of that identity.”
I told you all that to tell you this: your costume — how you appear in public to your followers and customers — needs to proclaim your identity as a Thought Leader. What does your costume say about you? What message does it send?
I’m thinking of Kevin O’Leary on Shark Tank. He’s always in that black undertaker suit and wearing a fancy watch with a red band. That’s his look, and it’s part of his branding as the whole “Mr. Wonderful” persona. Yes, you can find him on social media wearing lots of other kinds of clothing, but when he’s working and there to do business, he’s always dressed the same way.
You don’t need a uniform like that, like the black turtleneck and jeans that Steve Jobs often appeared in, but you do need to put some thought into how your personal appearance sends a specific and intentional message about who you are and what you can do.
And of course, the same thing could be said for the branding of your business, but that’s another discussion for another day.
My followers and I have these discussions every day, and you can be a part of them by signing up for my free daily emails at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Petros Kelepouris on Unsplash
I had a conversation over the weekend that I want to tell you about.
Somebody asked me one of those “one thing” questions. In this case, it was, “what’s the one thing that I could do that could make me a Thought Leader?”
I thought about it for a moment, and then I gave my answer. But before I tell you what it was, what would your answer be?
What’s the “Royal Flush” of thought leadership that could beat all these “content marketers” spreading their mediocre dreck all over the Internet?
What’s the trick to beating AI at its own game? You can’t become a Thought Leader using “me too” or “also ran” type of content, so it has to be better than what AI will come up with.
So what would you say? What’s the one thing that could be the key to thought leadership?
My answer was a bit of advice: conduct original research, and from there, you can draw original conclusions. The research and conclusions will be your intellectual property.
You can quickly become known for asking and answering questions that everyone wants to know the answer to, but nobody has had a way of finding out.
AI can never do your research and draw your conclusions, and content marketers will cite your material. Most of them will be cool enough to give you credit. That way, you’ll be doing concept marketing, a step above content marketing.
Original research is the exclusive benefit that only you can offer your followers, and I strongly suggest you make the most of it.
I publish my own original material every day, and you get it by signing up for my daily emails at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
I was reading about William Bernbach last night — he was the advertising guy behind such legendary classic ad campaigns like Avis’ “We Try Harder,” and the Volkswagen “Think Small” and “Lemon” ads.
He had a number of sayings about advertising that could — not surprisingly — be applied to thought leadership.
I wanted to share seven of them with you today, adapted to the subjects you and I talk about, and strung together to tell a story as old as the hills and more useful than your smartphone:
1. The most powerful element in thought leadership is the truth.
2. The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you.
3. They can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying.
4. They can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you.
5. They won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting.
6. You won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.
7. Our job is to bring facts to life.
I think these seven principles are your marching orders: tell the truth, be persuasive about it, get in front of people and grab their attention, and for Pete’s sake, be interesting.
I dig up lessons like this every day, and present them for you to put into action in your thought leadership business. And they don’t cost a dime. You can get them delivered to your inbox by signing up at You Can Be A Thought Leader.
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Here’s a policy that I’ve established for myself that’s worked pretty well, and I think you might benefit from it as well:
I never read the comments.
Whether it’s a YouTube video or a news article — especially a news article — I never read the comments.
Yeah, I break the rule every now and then, but it’s rare.
If you’ve ever read comments on a piece of content like that, I think the reason for this policy is pretty obvious.
That’s where the poison is!
Photo by Denise Chan on UnsplashOne reason for that is that it’s anonymous. We’ve all seen someone hiding behind a screen name saying things online that they would never have the guts to say to someone face-to-face.
There is a lot of anonymity available on the Internet, but if you’re online as a Thought Leader and you’re selling something to someone, it’s probably the least anonymous place there is.
Ten or twenty years ago, there were only a handful of sites people could go to complain about a business online, and really no harm was done.
Nowadays, you make one false move and people will blow you up, and it doesn’t cost them anything to tear you down.
And just like in rumor mills or between gossips, bad news spreads faster than anything. And there’s no “truth detector” on these sites to let people know that this guy is lying about you.
So let’s talk about what you can do to vaccinate yourself from this poison.
One thing is to systematically build up as much goodwill as you can between yourself and your followers. Additionally, in the context of a transaction, you want clear and easy ways for your customers to provide feedback and get support.
The thinking is that if they can easily get their problem addressed, they won’t make the effort to feel like they need another outlet for their frustration.
You’re not going to believe my example for this, but it’s actually “The Godfather.” Not the movie, which was great, but the book by Mario Puzo. In the book, Vito Corleone became the godfather by doing favors for people and establishing such goodwill that people happily did whatever he wanted them to do because he had done so much for them.
He based his power on goodwill, not fear.
Now do me a favor and let me extend a little goodwill toward you. Sign up for my free daily thought leadership tips, tactics, and strategies at You Can Be A Thought Leader. I hope you’ll find it an offer you can’t refuse.
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