Leveraging Thought Leadership
Peter Winick and Bill Sherman
Welcome to the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast, a beacon illuminating the paths and possibilities of thought leadership. With your guides, Peter Winick and Bill Sherman, we will embark on a journey into a captivating world where ideas converge with strategy and insight.
Where will thought leadership take you?
In each episode, we engage with thought leaders from diverse backgrounds. Whether it's professional keynote speaking, writing your own thought leadership book, investigating the niche expertise of specialized consultants, or crossing mental swords with distinguished academics, our guests collectively paint a vivid mosaic of thought leadership's multifaceted potential.
Through nuanced perspectives and rich experience, our talented co-hosts aim to offer you views of the ways independent thought leaders navigate success, elevate talent, and change company culture – while simultaneously examining how organizations harness the power of thought leadership to catalyze innovation and nurture sustainable growth.
Peter Winick is your guide through the realm of independent thought leadership. For the past two decades, he has helped individuals and organizations build and grow revenue streams through designing and growing their thought leadership platforms as well as acting as a guide and advisor for increasing business to business sales of thought leadership products. Peter is the Founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. His clients come from a diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. They include New York Times bestselling business book authors, members of the Speakers' Hall of Fame, recipients of the Thinkers50 award, CEOs of public and privately held companies, and academics at prestigious institutions such as Yale, Wharton, Dartmouth, and London School of Business.
With a keen eye for detail, he delves into the intricacies of crafting personal brands, fostering genuine engagement with audiences, and expertly monetizing one's expertise. From the artistry of crafting keynote speeches that resonate with audiences to the strategic deployment of bestselling books as conduits for inspiration and insight, Peter's guests offer a treasure trove of strategies for creating value and impact and driving revenue through thought leadership.
Bill Sherman specializes in the exploration of organizational thought leadership. He examines how companies conceive, curate, and deploy thought leadership initiatives, and how those initiatives benefit the orgs and the people who work within them. Bill listens to the stories and advice of industry leaders and their triumphs within the competitive business landscape. Whether through the dissemination of white papers that shape industry discourse, webinars that educate and engage, or insightful executive blogs that offer thought leadership at the highest echelons of corporate governance, Bill's guests provide illuminating perspectives on the evolution of organizational thought leadership and its pivotal role in shaping industry paradigms and perceptions.
Bill concentrates on organizational consulting and business expertise, investigating organizational thought leadership and its effects, from instructional design and learning product development to marketing strategy and execution, to organizational development and transformational consulting. He enjoys working with business leaders, speakers, authors, academics, and other consultants, connecting their ideas organizational platforms and enterprise-ready product development.
As the series unfolds, Peter and Bill will lead us through a nuanced exploration of the latest trends and advancements in thought leadership. From the transformative impact of technology on communication and collaboration to the evolving preferences of consumers in an increasingly digital marketplace, they will dissect the shifting landscape with precision and insight. Moreover, they will shine a spotlight on emerging modalities that are reshaping the contours of thought leadership, from the ascendance of virtual events as a cornerstone of engagement to the growing influence of social media platforms as conduits for thought dissemination and audience interaction. Through their discerning analysis, they will reveal how thought leaders can adeptly harness these trends to amplify their reach, captivate new audiences, and maximize their influence in an ever-evolving business environment.
Whether you find yourself at the height of your career as a seasoned thought leader, or whether you stand at the threshold of possibility as an aspiring entrepreneur, the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast offers an enriching voyage of discovery.
Join us as we unravel the enigmatic secrets to success in the vibrant realm of thought leadership, where ideas have the power to shape perceptions, drive change, and inspire action. Together, let us explore how you, too, can engineer value, evoke impact, and cultivate revenue through the sheer power of your ideas and expertise.
Welcome aboard.
Where will thought leadership take you?
In each episode, we engage with thought leaders from diverse backgrounds. Whether it's professional keynote speaking, writing your own thought leadership book, investigating the niche expertise of specialized consultants, or crossing mental swords with distinguished academics, our guests collectively paint a vivid mosaic of thought leadership's multifaceted potential.
Through nuanced perspectives and rich experience, our talented co-hosts aim to offer you views of the ways independent thought leaders navigate success, elevate talent, and change company culture – while simultaneously examining how organizations harness the power of thought leadership to catalyze innovation and nurture sustainable growth.
Peter Winick is your guide through the realm of independent thought leadership. For the past two decades, he has helped individuals and organizations build and grow revenue streams through designing and growing their thought leadership platforms as well as acting as a guide and advisor for increasing business to business sales of thought leadership products. Peter is the Founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. His clients come from a diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. They include New York Times bestselling business book authors, members of the Speakers' Hall of Fame, recipients of the Thinkers50 award, CEOs of public and privately held companies, and academics at prestigious institutions such as Yale, Wharton, Dartmouth, and London School of Business.
With a keen eye for detail, he delves into the intricacies of crafting personal brands, fostering genuine engagement with audiences, and expertly monetizing one's expertise. From the artistry of crafting keynote speeches that resonate with audiences to the strategic deployment of bestselling books as conduits for inspiration and insight, Peter's guests offer a treasure trove of strategies for creating value and impact and driving revenue through thought leadership.
Bill Sherman specializes in the exploration of organizational thought leadership. He examines how companies conceive, curate, and deploy thought leadership initiatives, and how those initiatives benefit the orgs and the people who work within them. Bill listens to the stories and advice of industry leaders and their triumphs within the competitive business landscape. Whether through the dissemination of white papers that shape industry discourse, webinars that educate and engage, or insightful executive blogs that offer thought leadership at the highest echelons of corporate governance, Bill's guests provide illuminating perspectives on the evolution of organizational thought leadership and its pivotal role in shaping industry paradigms and perceptions.
Bill concentrates on organizational consulting and business expertise, investigating organizational thought leadership and its effects, from instructional design and learning product development to marketing strategy and execution, to organizational development and transformational consulting. He enjoys working with business leaders, speakers, authors, academics, and other consultants, connecting their ideas organizational platforms and enterprise-ready product development.
As the series unfolds, Peter and Bill will lead us through a nuanced exploration of the latest trends and advancements in thought leadership. From the transformative impact of technology on communication and collaboration to the evolving preferences of consumers in an increasingly digital marketplace, they will dissect the shifting landscape with precision and insight. Moreover, they will shine a spotlight on emerging modalities that are reshaping the contours of thought leadership, from the ascendance of virtual events as a cornerstone of engagement to the growing influence of social media platforms as conduits for thought dissemination and audience interaction. Through their discerning analysis, they will reveal how thought leaders can adeptly harness these trends to amplify their reach, captivate new audiences, and maximize their influence in an ever-evolving business environment.
Whether you find yourself at the height of your career as a seasoned thought leader, or whether you stand at the threshold of possibility as an aspiring entrepreneur, the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast offers an enriching voyage of discovery.
Join us as we unravel the enigmatic secrets to success in the vibrant realm of thought leadership, where ideas have the power to shape perceptions, drive change, and inspire action. Together, let us explore how you, too, can engineer value, evoke impact, and cultivate revenue through the sheer power of your ideas and expertise.
Welcome aboard.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 11, 2023 • 20min
Short Form vs Long From Reach and Impact | Henry Mintzberg | 509
If fewer people are buying and reading books, why should a thought leader write one? Today we delve into the world of authorship and publishing with Henry Mintzberg. Henry is a Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University and the author of more than 20 books including Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development and Simply Managing: What Managers Do - and Can Do Better. Our conversation starts by discussing where you find the value in writing a book. Whether it be the intrinsic value of codifying your thought leadership or the extrinsic value of higher engagement and client acquisition. Henry shares with us his compulsion to write books, regardless of if they succeed or not. He discusses how a few newer books have not done as well as expected and how difficult topics like climate change might play a part in those results. When publishing about important, but hard topics that many would rather not think about how do you get your message out? Henry talks about expanding into new modalities to capture the audience's attention and how hard it is to get uninterrupted attention for your topic. He explains how interruption is just one of the reasons a book can have a bigger impact than articles, even if the book reaches only a fraction of the audience a short-form piece might. Three Key Takeaways: · Reaching ten thousand people with a book can be far more influential than reaching one hundred thousand people with an article. · A publication date is not a measurement of value. Many books continue to be relevant years after their publication. · Do what is in your heart. Don't let anyone talk you into something else because you will end up doing it badly.
Aug 3, 2023 • 19min
Building Capabilities for Change Management | Tim Creasey | 508
Tim Creasey, Chief Innovation Officer at Prosci and author of 'Change Management: The People Side of Change', shares insights on effective change management. He discusses the importance of asking nuanced questions to recognize patterns and create impactful content. Tim emphasizes tailoring communication to diverse audiences using various modalities to enhance engagement. He also highlights the evolving role of thought leadership in the context of current trends like the pandemic and AI, urging continuous learning and collaboration for successful change initiatives.
Jul 30, 2023 • 25min
Connecting Thought Leadership to Sales and Lead Generation | Dani Buckley | 507
Thought leadership is a great source for lead generation. So how do you create content that a sales team can easily access and assess? And how can you measure the success of it? To discuss these topics I've invited Dani Buckley the Vice President and General Manager of LeadG2 to join me. LeadG2 is a sales performance agency helping businesses sell smarter and faster. Dani is also the host of the podcast Sell Smarter, Sell Faster where she offers insights, strategies, and real-world examples to help her audience take sales enablement to the next level. Our conversation begins by establishing a baseline of how thought leadership and lead gen intersect. Dani talks about how powerful thought leadership can be and how it really needs to come from a philosophical belief in wanting to help people and your industry, even if you never get anything in return. Next, we discuss reaching your audience and focusing on them. Dani shares how they have a created persona they keep in mind while creating content, but also how a few times a year they look at who their largest clients are. Discuss what their needs and problems are, even reaching out to them to gain greater insights into what they are looking for. Then incorporate that real-world information into the content they create. Often the bridge between sales and thought leadership can be a tough one to cross. Dani tells us why it doesn't have to be. Having a sales background she offers examples of what sales team love to see from thought leaders, from the time of content they seek, how technology can make it accessible, and even help evaluate how popular or useful content is. Three Key Takeaways: · When creating thought leadership for sales teams take the time to understand their role. Listen to sales calls, and get to know what they do, and what sales conversations sound like. · Thought leadership has a compounding effect year over year. Start making content early and be consistent in sticking with it. · Thought leadership needs to be created with a very specific audience in mind. Look at the clients you've had success with and use them as a template of who you should be speaking to.
Jul 27, 2023 • 24min
Compassionate Accountability | Nate Regier | 506
Accountability and compassion are often thought of as two things that can't go together. Yet they are not ideas that are in opposition to each other. In fact, when put together they can have a transformational effect on the employees, leaders, and culture of your organization. In order to really understand how we can merge these two concepts I've invited Nate Regier to join me. He is the Founder and CEO of Next Element, a global leadership firm helping build cultures of compassionate accountability. And his newest book is Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results. We start with Nate explaining exactly what Compassionate Accountability and why putting the two ideas together can create psychological safety and build trust that will ultimately lead to stronger relationships and increased performance. Now that we know what Compassionate Accountability is, how can we practice it? Nate explains how he has developed a working definition of compassion that helps to shift our mindsets. This mindset is about more than simply getting along it is about being an active participant in solving problems and being in the trenches together. Not only does Nate help us understand how to practice this mindset he shares how you can deploy it across your entire organization! In order to do that you have to be clear about what the behaviors norms are. Nate lays out the six areas of organizational life where you can apply this new lens, how you can identify critical behaviors being manifested, where the gaps are, and where the opportunities for improvement are. If you want to see revolutionary change in yourself and your organization you'll want to listen to this episode and immediately pick up Nate's book! Three Key Takeaways: · Leaders that hold people accountable without also treating them as valuable and capable will not have employees for long. · Compassion is a teachable and learning capability. And it can have a dramatic positive impact on people's lives. · If we struggle together and bring more compassion to the world then everyone wins.
Jul 23, 2023 • 24min
Why Good Ideas Alone Are Not Enough | Jessica Duffield | 505
Thought Leadership can be very complicated, with nuanced ideas and industry jargon. Unfortunately, complex language and niche ideas won't catch your audience's attention! To explore how to take big thought leadership ideas to market, I've invited Jessica Duffield to join me. Jessica is a Senior Consultant at Thought Leadership Leverage. She's worked with clients for nearly 10 years, helping them create content, find their best audience, and go to scale with unique ideas. We discuss the most effective ways to take big ideas and turn them into bit-sized content, ensuring your audience will notice them - and easily remember the content. Jessica walks us through the process of finding the strongest core ideas of your thought leadership and focusing on those, creating a simplified vision of your content that can be easily grasped. In addition to breaking your content down, you need to know your audience - who do you want to work with and for? Jessica gives valuable advice not only for finding your audience, but understanding their needs, worries, and where they are within their organizations. Additionally, we discuss the need for a hook that will grab your audience quickly. Jessica shares how and why sharing your story authenticity can be the "hook" you need to get your audience to stop scrolling and want more. Three Key Takeaways: * You often only get a few seconds to grab your audience's attention. And if you can't evoke interest and curiosity in your idea in that time, you've failed. * When creating content, sometimes you'll have to "Kill Your Darlings" to maintain focus on the most important facets of your thought leadership and your audience. * Big ideas don't have to be complicated. In fact, making your ideas easy to understand means a larger audience will be able to consume your content and follow you to the next level.
Jul 20, 2023 • 21min
Selling From Your Comfort Zone | Stacey Hall | 504
Summary:Ever heard, "To be successful, you have to get out of your comfort zone!" But if your "comfort zone" aligns with your core values, what then? Can you find an alignment between those values and marketing that will allow you to stay in your comfort zone and find success? Our guest today is the "Go for Yes Gal!" Stacey Hall! Stacey is the founder of Success with Stacey Hall, a well-known success strategist, TedX speaker, and best-selling author with her fifth book "Selling from Your Comfort Zone: The Power of Alignment Marketing". Our conversation starts by covering the 23 years between Stacey's first and fifth books. She shares what has changed and what has stayed the same in the publishing industry and why she returned to BK Publishing for her newest book. Stacey discusses the content of her book Selling from Your Comfort Zone explaining how people want to stay aligned with their core values and are no longer willing to let them go. She covers how the current environment for sales can be confusing and why it is often better to stay in your comfort zone, expanding on it in alignment with your current values and skills. In addition to learning about the content of the book Stacey shares how she is marketing the book and what she is doing differently now. She gives us insights into using technology like social media, AI, and podcasts to market the book from home to create both free and paid offshoots of the book that you can use to lead people to the book or your other offerings. Three Key Takeaways: * Put tidbits of your book on social media. Don't just tell them the book is coming give them bits of the content as a teaser. * When creating free tie-ins to the book, they have to come out before the book to create interest and excitement. * It is important to publish your book in different formats. Paper, ebooks, and audio have all become popular methods of consuming books.
Jul 16, 2023 • 31min
How AI Can Augment Thought Leadership | Stephanie Grayson | 503
AI is a powerful tool that is growing at an astonishing rate, but can thought leaders trust the technology? Or should a human be keeping an eye on the process - and importantly, the output? Our guest today is Stephanie Grayson, a Content Marketing Leader and Thought Leadership Advisor with experience in the worlds of agency marketing, large consulting houses, and enterprise scale software. She is also an AI enthusiast with a creative view on how to best use this remarkable new technology. We start the conversation by defining the difference between thought leadership and content marketing. Stephanie helps us understand how content marketing focuses on the now, while thought leadership focuses on the future. Stephanie explains how the current limitations of AI make it unlikely to generate truly new ideas that could be considered genuine thought leadership. In addition, since AI can only learn from what we give it we have to be careful about introducing bias and be sure to fact check any results it gives to ensure it isn't a very convincing AI hallucination. So if AI isn't completely trustworthy, how can we best use it? Stephanie shares AI would be capable of sorting through huge datasets that might be too cost and time prohibitive for people to go through. From these datasets, the AI could deliver valuable stats and even pose answers to various hypotheses allowing the thought leader to spend more time asking smart questions. Three Key Takeaways: * AI cannot (yet) accomplish the level of thought leadership that gets executive response. Collation is not creation! * Great thought leadership should stop you in your tracks for a moment and make you say, "Now that is a unique and interesting #idea." * There is a need for more than one set of eyes on large company-level data-backed thought leadership - be it human or AI. Check your facts, your sources and make sure everything is correct.
Jul 13, 2023 • 22min
Growing a Leadership Development Firm | Vaughn Sigmon | 502
Thought leaders have a passion for ideas, frameworks, and methodologies. But many struggle with defining their brand, finding clients, and maintaining a stable revenue stream. Don't worry - help is on the way! Today, we're talking with Vaughn Sigmon, the co-founder of Results Driven Leadership which specializes in helping businesses unlock their full potential through transformative leadership practices. Vaughn is also the host of The Business Mechanic – where he shares his expertise to improve the impact of executives and managers by enhancing their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Leaving a stable executive position to start his own leadership development business was a huge risk. We talk with Vaughn about the driving force behind his shift in career and why he chose the area he did. Leadership development is a crowded space to enter. Vaughn shares what he did to stand out and win clients. Acquiring clients is the hardest part that few want to talk about. We learn how it requires a multi-step marketing process that creates multiple touch points, allowing potential clients to get to know you, what you stand for, and the problems you are able to solve. Vaughn explains how the two main marketing platforms he has been using are LinkedIn and podcasting. We learn how Vaughn became smart and focused on who his audience would be and how to create awareness, interest, and a relationship with your audience on the platform. Finally, we learn about the advantages of starting a podcast or doing the circuit as a guest. Plus, he shares tips for getting your audience to engage and move further down the sales funnel. Three Key Takeaways: · You need to get in front of the right people so they get to know you. If they don't buy who you are they're not going to buy your concepts. · If you are smart and focused, your message is on point, LinkedIn can be a gold mine. · The title of a podcast or blog entry is of utmost importance. Having great content won't matter if no one reads it because the title does not entice them.
Jul 6, 2023 • 20min
How to Effectively Publish and Monetize Your Book | Michelle Gladieux | 501
Authors tend to be very proud of their books and believe what they've written can help anyone, anywhere! Although that might be correct, the hard truth is you are going to have to focus on the .001% of the population that is going to get the most out of your book and that will in turn get the most out of your content. To discuss the ins and outs of marketing to your target audience we've invited first time author Michelle Gladieux to join us. Michelle is the president of Gladieux Consulting, which offers one-on-one executive and employee coaching and strategic plan facilitation. Michelle's first book is Communicate with Courage: Taking Risks to Overcome the Four Hidden Challenges. Michelle shares how she spent four years writing her book to ensure it was ready for publication. Then, her editor suggested that she rewrite the book and focus on an overarching message that would better resonate and pull the reader in. That message would become the four hidden challenges that prevent people from becoming fearless and peerless communicators Peter and Michelle discuss the hard task of marketing a book, and why you need to start marketing before you're published. We learn what personal touches Michelle used to give the book legs and what experiments she has tried and is continuing to do that have a low cost but potentially high impact! Three Key Takeaways: · For most people making money cannot be the main driver for writing a book. · Don't be afraid of failure when experimenting with marketing. Some ideas might not fly, but others could go further than you might imagine. · It is easy to fall into the trap of feeling like everyone can use your book. In order to get the best return on your investment you have to drill down deep into who your target avatar really is.
Jun 29, 2023 • 35min
Leveraging Your Organization's Thought Leadership | Peter Winick and Bill Sherman | 500
It's celebration time! The Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast is celebrating our 500th episode with our co-hosts, Peter Winick and Bill Sherman. In this special episode, Bill and Peter share news about their most recent white paper, "The OrgTL Canvas," and walk us through the deep insights they've gained by spending more than 20 years working with thought leaders, from Fortune 500 and Global 100 successes to new, single-shingle startups - all looking to get their remarkable insights out into the world. Over the past four years, Peter and Bill have spoken with more than 250 heads of thought leadership, many of them on this very podcast. Those conversations have given them incredible insight into the pain points that organizations face when creating, curating, and sustaining thought leadership initiatives. The OrgTL Canvas synthesizes their acumen into actionable steps that help organizations use thought leadership to gain higher visibility, greater success, and a strong, loyal following. In today's conversation, Bill and Peter share how organizations are changing the way they interact with consumers (and potential clients), and how thought leadership can bridge the gap that leads to "next steps" for their audience. They discuss thought leadership strategy (and how to create one), as well as the baseline criteria and metrics you should use, the warning signals that your strategy isn't working, and the importance of alignment across the organization. The OrgTL Canvas is a framework that can help your ideas spread beyond the walls of your organization, and create real impact. We're pleased to share it, and to join with our listeners in celebrating an amazing 500 episodes of Leveraging Thought Leadership. Thank you for listening to our podcast, and here's to 500 more! Three Key Takeaways: * Strategy does not happen by accident. It has to be purposeful. * You only need 3 - 5 core provocative ideas to bang the drum on. More isn't always better. * Thought leadership works to facilitate awareness, provoke curiosity, and serve as a call to education.
