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
Mar 26, 2023 • 38min
It's Not a White Paper, It's a Platform. | Kasey Lobaugh | 479
If you are just closing your eyes and hoping your white paper will go to scale… You might be going about it the wrong way! Our guest today is Kasey Lobaugh, the Chief Futurist for the Consumer Industry and Principal at Deloitte Consulting, LLP. As a senior leader, Kasey is working to get people to embrace their ideas and shape the future of their company and industry as a whole. To gain a profound understanding of the future of their industry, Deloitte spent a year speaking with more than 800 people in the industry – including experts of all ages, Deloitte's customers, and even their competition. The culmination of this work is a white paper titled Buying Into Better. Kasey takes us deep into the process of the research, who they spoke to and why. While the information found in the white paper is profound, Kasey helps us understand that the paper is only a derivative of the platform they've created which will act as a long lived capability investment and objective that they are organized around. Kasey shares that scale is the biggest challenge most organizations face and how they are training people across the business to fully grasp the ideas and be able to take it into the world in actionable ways. Through a two day workshop people learn how various forces come together to create impact, examine the proud things they've learned and find empathy through role-play. Three Key Takeaways: * Value comes from scale, impact, conversation, and stories. * When doing research, one of the most profound questions you can ask is, "Who else should I talk to?" * In order to create change, you have to engage a lot of people in the process.
Mar 23, 2023 • 29min
The Value of Friendship at Work | Morag Barrett | 478
Statistics have shown that productivity and results go up when you work with friends. If you feel you don't have a friend at work, ask yourself the question, "Am I being a friend to others?" Today, I've invited Morag Barrett to discuss why we need friends at work and how her book, You, Me, We: Why We All Need a Friend at Work (and How to Show Up As One!) is helping people not only make friends but learn to be one as well. In addition, Morag is the Founder and CEO of SkyeTeam, an award-winning global leadership development firm. Writing a book by yourself is a hard task - but, does having co-authors make it any easier? Morag's newest book is co-authored by Eric Spencer and Ruby Vesely. Morag shares how working with them for eight years shaping the philosophy and thinking turned the book from a piece of work into a true craft - and they made writing together an easy choice and an enjoyable task. You, Me, We discusses the three points you need to be aware of in order to have friends at work. Look up, show up, step up – which all come down to intentionality. Morag shares how we all rely on others for our professional success. It doesn't matter if you are part of a small team, large group, or even working remotely. You have to be aware of those you rely on, how your feel in their presence and how they feel in yours and intentionally work to create a positive relationship one conversation at a time. You, Me, We is Morag's newest book but not her first. Having written books 8 and 5 years ago, she shares what has changed and what has stayed the same. We learn how the difficulties of writing, launching, and selling, remain just as hard, but technology such as podcasts and live streams have made marketing the book easier. These new technologies allow you to have conversations from the comfort of your home - while reaching large, new audiences. Today's conversation is packed full of advice for professionals seeking to have more positive work-place relationship, for authors about to launch a book, and for anyone that has a book seeking new ways to scale their content. Three Key Takeaways: * Instead of asking "Do I have a friend at work?" flip the script and ask yourself "Am I a friend to others at work?" Be intentional and take the first step towards building relationships. * A business book is a great way to augment the work you are already doing as a speaker, consultant or coach. * Keynote speaking can no longer rely only on entertainment. You need to be engaging and interactive for both the live and virtual audiences.
Mar 19, 2023 • 36min
Creating a Structure for Thought Leadership| Lynette Jackson | 477
In an organization with a large C-suite, dozens of departments, and hundreds of experts, How could you possibly hope to create a unified direction? To better understand how to achieve this feat, I've invited Lynette Jackson, the Head of Communications at Siemens, to join me. Lynette has a background in journalism, communication, and branding making her the perfect person to help us explore the topic. Lynette explains how thought leadership can become an umbrella for the brands of your organization. It can give a safe space for the different disciplines across communication and marketing to come together and move forward in the same direction. Lynette describes how content creates credibility, but it doesn't have to be high level content only experts would understand. In fact, it is better to have a variety of content that draws in an audience that is new to the topic as well as having deeper pieces that allow experts to explore the bleeding edge of the idea. In addition, we discuss how to draw the experts in your organization out. Many can be concerned that talking about a future which may never come to pass might impact their credibility. Lynette shares where to find a balance between achievable and unreasonable, that will make experts keen to talk to you - and will get audiences excited and engaged. Three Key Takeaways: * When a sudden rainstorm comes, people will cluster underneath the same umbrella and find shelter together. Thought leadership is like that umbrella; where people with the same problem can be together in a defined space, and actually work together to solve their problem. * Thought leaders create valuable content that serves others, transmuting their experiences into insights. That's the science and the art of thought leadership. * Thought leadership encompasses everything from "snackable content;" to a series of white papers that go super deep; to medium-sized, bespoke pieces of content; to broad, multi-sensory content. The breadth of what's possible is amazing.
Mar 16, 2023 • 21min
Taking a Book to Scale | Nick Gray | 476
It's hard to create a successful strategy to take a book beyond the consumer market. What can you do to ensure the success of your work? Our guest today is Nick Gray, the Founder and Owner of Museum Hack and the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings, which is the ultimate guide for hosting the perfect party to make friends and network. While The 2-Hour Cocktail Party is full of excellent insights and has hundreds of 5-star reviews, Nick still struggles to get his book into the hands of those for whom it would have the most impact. Using Nick's book as an example, Peter walks through the process of taking a book from shelf to scale. Nick has seen real-estate agents and financial advisors have great success using the content of his book, together he and Peter dive deeper into those clients to develop a clear avatar, where to find them, and how to take the content to scale by approaching associations and parent companies to license the content on a large scale. Another component to taking a book to scale is moving the contents to versatile offerings. Nick and Peter discuss how the book could become a series of videos, webinars, and training sessions that would allow great access to the material at a wide variety of price points. If you've ever wondered what it is we do at thought leadership leverage this episode is like a sneak peek at the range of consulting services we offer and how we could help you take your material to the next level. Three Key Takeaways: * A good strategy covers:1) Who do we best serve; 2) How are we going to serve them; and 3) What products, offerings, and solutions do they need? * Knowing the audience that will get the most impact (and value) from your material is critical to a book's success. * If you are thinking about sharing your story, be sure to include real stories, human moments, and a personal touch to your experience and insights. .
Mar 12, 2023 • 24min
Experiences of a New Author| Jeremy Utley | 475
Writing a book can take a year or more, followed by months of planning, strategizing, and launching. Once the book hits the shelves — What's left? Jeremy Utley is the Director of Executive Educational at Stanford D.school and adjunct professor at Stanford's School of Engineering. Recently Jeremy worked with co-author Perry Klebahn to put their experience into their first book call titled "Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters." At the time of this recording, Jeremy's book had been on shelves for eight days! Jeremy expresses the gratitude he feels toward those that have come forward to thank him for the book, and the actionable ideas it contains. In addition, he shares surprises he has experienced during recording the audio version of the book. Marketing a book takes a tremendous amount of coordination, even with the resources a publisher offers. The bulk of the work lands on the author's shoulders. Jeremy talks about having to get over being self-conscious about telling people he's an author. He also explains the massive amount of help a launch team can be, in spreading the word about your book, and also in keeping you excited when your personal energy is running low. This episode has some great insights into the experience of a first time author that don't often get shared. Three Key Takeaways: · A launch team is comprised of people that are excited and happy to share the word about your book. They often come up with marketing ideas and help keep the ball rolling. · When writing a book, write the book you'd want to read. · Don't start your writing journey trying to write a book. Start with a blog, getting in the habit of writing every day to build your skill and create a wealth of material you can draw from.
Mar 9, 2023 • 18min
Authors and Community | Jeremy Madsen | 474
Unless you are writing a book with a co-author or ghostwriter, it probably feels like a very lonely task. But what if you could find a fellowship that provided encouragement and advice? Our guest today is Jeremy Madsen, Operations Manager for BK Authors an author group affiliated with the award–winning publisher Berrett-Koehler. This group helps authors and publishers bridge the gap to bring better books to market. Jeremy starts by helping us understand what an author's group is all about. He explains that these communities, especially when supported by a publisher, can give authors a better awareness of the market and industry. In addition, mentoring is a sharing process that works best when all sides open up. Authors further down the path share advice from experience, while newer authors share information about new skills and tools that didn't exist five years ago. Finally, we discuss the timeline of publishers versus authors. Publishers have limited resources, and need to move on to the next project as soon as possible, meaning they are by your side for mere months. The author's timeline should be further-reaching, amortizing the investment over 5 – 7 years. Plus Jeremy shares the growing trend of publishers investing into a backlist of older titles, giving non-fiction books an even greater chance to see success over a longer course of years. Jeremy is deeply involved in both the writing and publishing community and brings unique insights in this episode that few others can provide. Three Key Takeaways: * Being part of an author community can be big morale booster to not be alone on the journey. * Don't be afraid to reach out to established authors who have published books in your area of expertise. You'd be surprised how generous many will be with their time and advice. * A publication date has no bearing on the importance or usefulness of a book. It is a date of reference, not an expiration.
Mar 5, 2023 • 35min
Thought Leadership and Artificial Intelligence | Spencer Ante | 473
How does the world of thought leadership intersect with the growing technology of AI? A lot of news stories lately have focused on the use of AI "bots" to answer questions, generate images, or create entire dissertations on a topic. As the technology grows closer and closer to replicating actual human thinking, we have to ask, "How will AI be used in thought leadership?" To help better understand the field we are joined by Spencer Ante. Spencer has a background in business journalism, investigative reporting and was most recently the Head of Insights at Meta. We begin the discussion by looking back at the origins of thought leadership which has been around far longer than most people assume. Spencer lays out the three phases of thought leadership he has seen from company blogs in the early days of the internet, to more sophisticated uses blending owned content with earned, paid, and social media. The through threads of all of these are honesty and trust. Spencer explains why these aspects are the foundation of good thought leadership and how you risk your reputation when your thought leadership leans into the realms of product marketing or sales enablement. As for the future of AI, Spencer share how machine learning works – that it requires humans to feed it datasets and that humans will play a key role in that learning for decades to come, working to ensure that the information it is fed is factual and verified. As AI continues to learn it will still lack concepts such as empathy, creativity and the ability to generate original ideas, the ability to connect ideas that are not obviously related remains a human quality. This means AI will serve as a great tool for thought leaders to streamline content creation, having a great new source for communication, research and marketing. This is a great conversation on a topic that is going to be relevant for many years to come. Three Key Takeaways: * The need and dependence on thought leadership will continue to grow, as trust in media and governments dwindles with an expanding world. * When creating thought leadership, lead with the problem your product solves, and not the product itself. That's how you generate an audience. * AI is clever, but it's not innovative or insightful. Thought leaders need to realize that while AI can be of use, it's their insights and experience that will really change the game.
Mar 2, 2023 • 19min
CEO Branding | Raoul Davis | 472
It is important for CEOs to have a personal brand that supports their organizational brand. That's why smart CEOs build their personal thought leadership early on, and maintain it throughout their careers. Today we are joined by Raoul Davis, the Founder, and CEO of Ascendant Group Branding one of the first and most integrated CEO branding firms. In addition Raoul is the author of Firestarters: How Innovators, Instigators, and Initiators Can Inspire You to Ignite Your Own Life which is based on interviews with entrepreneurs and leaders in many walks of life, this self-help book gives readers the tools for finding success in their careers, businesses, organizations, and private lives. Raoul starts by laying out the various types of branding you can build, such as personal and organizational. We learn how a CEO with a strong personal brand can create a sense of connection and commonality with customers, making them trust and want to interact with the company as an extension of the CEO. Building such a strong trusted brand can be accomplished best with thought leadership, which can be institutionalized across the organization as a way of demonstrating leadership in an organic way that is more powerful than traditional marketing. Raoul explains how thought leadership can be evergreen lasting far after you've finished paying for traditional marketing. It's never too early to start building your thought leadership and your brand. Raoul shares advice for those early in their career on where they can start, such as by finding a niche within a larger area of expertise to drill down on and become an expert in. By sharing your thoughts and ideas on the subject on social and within your organization you can become the go-to person for that subject, which can open new doors of opportunity. This conversation provides excellent advice for starting or sharpening a personal and organizational brand that is useful to professionals at any stage of their career. Three Key Takeaways: · It is important for a CEO to have a brand that supports the brand of their organization. · Talk in terms of the interests of the audience, this allows you to communicate in a way that will provide value to them. · There is an authenticity to thought leadership when you are sharing what you know simply so others can benefit from it.
9 snips
Feb 26, 2023 • 33min
Building and Maintaining Consistent Thought Leadership | Verity Craft | 471
Producing consistent thought leadership is hard work! Thought leaders have to be deeply insightful in addition to a full plate of work, social life, and everything else. But as the best TL's know, consistent content is the only way to make sure your message gets out there and sticks. To discuss building and maintaining the momentum of thought leadership content, I've invited Verity Craft to join me for today's podcast. Verity is General Manager and Storyteller for Intelligent Ink where she helps purpose-driven experts become thought leaders that have a greater impact. Verity explains how thought leadership is like investing; it works best when you start early and stay consistent, even if you start small. Starting out you'll need to use modest resources and grow, but you'll also want to start as early in your career as possible, to maximize your returns down the road. Next, we discuss some common traps that people fall into that become a barrier to entry and consistency. Thought leadership means doing a lot of experimenting, while this might sound a bit frightening it means not having to have perfect ideas out of the gate. You can put your ideas out and refine them through discourse with your peers and followers. We don't have to have a perfect idea or even know everything to start the journey. With some ideas in hand, we can start to create consistent content. Verity shares how you can keep on track by scheduling time to work on thought leadership with someone else. This creates a sense of responsibility and accountability that is harder to push aside. In addition, we learn how a single piece of content can be stripped down and repurposed for blog posts, social media posts, and even videos allowing your work to go further and reach a wider audience by using multiple modalities. If you are struggling to keep a consistent release schedule or feel like you're not able to leverage your content properly this episode is full of great advice that will help you out. Three Key Takeaways: * Thought leadership is about trying things, testing things, refining things. And consistently working to make your insights sharper. * The strongest thought leadership creates a system of community and accountability, to ensure your content stays on track. * Experiment with breaking down your content, to be used on other mediums. The more ways people can access your content, the more it will spread.
Feb 23, 2023 • 19min
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Deconstructed | Lily Zheng | 470
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are problems that require long term work in order to provide long term impact. So, why do companies keep seeking "quick fixes" and flashy solutions that just won't work? To understand the issues the industry is facing in DEI, and the hard work needed to change organizations, we've invited Lily Zheng to join us. Lily is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion speaker, strategist, and organizational consultant. Recently, they wrote DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right, a definitive foundational text for critically analyzing and applying actionable DEI techniques and strategies. DEI is an ongoing issue for most organizations, so it's baffling to think of it as a subject that ebbs and flows with trends. Lily explains why this continues to happen, and the dangers it poses to the long term success of DEI in the workplace. We learn that there are no short term fixes or hacks to solving the problem. It's going to take hard data and hard work to concretely change the way people think and act. Lily further shares how they help companies assess their workforce and understand what is going on beneath the surface. By collecting data on employee engagement, retention, promotion rates, and access to opportunity, Lily is able to get a clear picture of the problems the company is facing and provide solutions that change culture in a lasting manner. With so few best-practices and many underdeveloped strategies out there, Lily took it upon themselves to literally write the book on DEI. Today, they share how they hope the book can teach companies to hold themselves accountable, and also provide a critical resource for budding practitioners in the industry. Three Key Takeaways: * Complex problems such as DEI don't have quick fixes. It's the nature of the beast. * Thought leadership is a way to up-skill your audience, allowing those who work with you to "skip the baby steps" and spend more time on the hard stuff. * Data has to be the core of problem solving. You can't provide a solution, when you don't understand the problem.
