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
Jan 31, 2021 • 28min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Ron Crabtree | 290
Today's guest is Ron Crabtree, CEO of Meta Ops Inc | Meta Experts. Meta Experts is a global network of OpEx development experts ready to take on interim roles as advisors and executives to solve operational problems in fast-paced industries. Ron shares how he got his start in thought leadership at Disney in the late 70s creating training materials for complex problems so they could be understood by everyone. Over his thirty plus year career, he has worked for automotive supply chains, implanted Lean Six, Sigma and continues to be a lifelong learner. As we continue down Ron's career path we learn about his company Meta Experts. We learn what happens when an expertise gap occurs in a company and why their network of experts might be the best route to fill that gap. Ensuring any knowledge gaps you have are filled can be critical but how do you know when there is a gap that needs to be filled? What does that gap look like? Ron gives great examples for identifying the gaps and the process they use for vetting the talent you can hire to fill those gaps. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought leaders can find success with content that identifies a market that needs new solutions to ongoing problems. · When time is money, your thought leadership needs to help clients avoid days of lost profit. · People skills are almost as important as your knowledge. If you can't get your thought leadership to connect with people, it will all be for naught.
Jan 24, 2021 • 31min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Melanie Huet | 289
Today's guest is Melanie Huet Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Serta Simmons Bedding. We discuss with Melanie taking Serta Simmons, a 100-year-old brand, and transforming it for modern-day operations. How she came to understand the culture of the company, built trust and had clear communication to ensure everyone understood where the company was heading and what their role was. Melanie talks about separating the Simmons brand and repositioning it to be appealing to the Gen Z market, including having a hugely successful launch on Tik-Tok with Snoozapalooza. She shares the task of pitching such a new idea and platform to the board and how she got them on board. The success of the Tik-Tok launch wouldn't have been possible without proper research and creativity. Melanie gives us an overview of the work that went into ensuring marketing was in the right place with the right message to guarantee the campaign didn't come off force or fake. We conclude this great interview discussing where thought leadership fits into the Serta Simmons brand, how they find new ideas and ways you can measure the success of those ideas. If you are working with a well-established brand that is looking to update itself or find a new audience, get your pen and paper ready because this episode is full of great information Three Key Takeaways: · If you want your thought leadership to be effective you'll need to understand the culture of the brand you are working with. · Deep research is a must if you want your thought leadership to move your audience to action. · When developing content thought leaders should listen to ideas from anywhere, not just from the top of an organization.
Jan 21, 2021 • 19min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Matias Obludzyner | 288
Today's guest is Matias Obludzyner, a leadership and communications consultant with years of experience at the International Finance Corporation and author of Expanding Circle. Matias shares his experience working at the IFC helping leaders with communication and change management. He explains how his time working with incredible leaders there was a key influence in writing his book. We discuss how Matias has struck out on his own to help the leaders of other organizations with how they position themselves externally and how they influence others. Plus we chat about finding the first clients, developing price and scope without a known brand behind you. Finally, Matias shares the journey of writing the book which started before he left IFC and what the book brings to the table in the next phase of his career, how he uses it to his advantage, and how he promoted it. If you want to take your Thought Leadership out of a corporation and go it alone this episode is filled with great advice. Three Key Takeaways: * Thought Leaders can learn from the experience of the others they've worked with and include it in their own content. * If you are to successfully market your thought leadership you'll need to know who you are solving problems for and what the problems are. * Adding a book to your Thought leadership toolbox is a great way to start conversations with potential clients.
Jan 17, 2021 • 30min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Sue Yasav | 287
Our guest today is Sue Yasav, CEO and Founder at Marquette Marketing LLC. Previously she was the Vice President, Thought Leadership and Content Strategy at Synchrony Financial. Sue discusses her early work at GE Captial building value proposition for credit card brands and the processes she developed that she would later apply to many other topics. She discusses moving to Synchrony and having to build value for a brand that wasn't instantly recognizable. In addition to building processes, Sue was involved in developing content and talent to speak about the brand so customers would understand what the company stood for, who they were speaking to, and why a customer would want to be involved with the brand. We discuss what successful thought leadership means to Sue, how to measure it, and how to identify when something isn't working and adjust the course. We wrap up with Sue giving some critical advice for anyone seeking to move into a thought leadership role at some point in their career. This is a great episode for anyone seeking to better understand and build value in their brand. Three Key Takeaways: * Thought Leaders need to understand what a brand stands for and how to portray those ideals in order to successfully build brand value. * The manner in which content is ingested has changed and thought leaders need to do the proper research to connect with their audience where they are, not where you want them to be. * The measurement of successful thought leadership is often gauged by being asked to speak in the media, be part of a panel, or being quoted.
Jan 14, 2021 • 21min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Jim Kerr | 286
Jim Kerr is the founder of Indispensable Consulting, author of The Executive Checklist, and his newest book INDISPENSABLE. Jim is one of the foremost authorities on leadership and community culture and we are excited to have him as our guest today. Jim discusses the frustrations that led him to write his first book and we explore the changes and challenges that have taken place over the years as publishing methods have transformed, leaving authors to be the main promoter of their books. Jim shares the successful methods he has used to promote his books, gain name recognition, and build credibility with his peers and audience. Having successfully exited two previous companies Jim has a keen knowledge of the topic, he tells us why having models, frameworks, and mythologies to your IP is the key to a successful handoff. Finally, we wrap up talking about the power of networking with other thought leaders to promote each other, problem-solve, and perhaps most importantly come together in what can be a very lonely profession. This is an insightful episode for thought leaders and authors at any stage of their career! Be sure to tune in and take notes! Three Key Takeaways: · If you are seeking to write a book, it should be about a topic of thought leadership that you are passionate about and is lacking in the market. · Building towards being able to exit a thought leadership business means building in systems that will eventually make you irrelevant. · Networking with other thought leaders is a great way to share ideas, brainstorm, and meet other generous and smart professionals.
Jan 7, 2021 • 24min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Best of 2020 | Organizational Thought Leadership | 285
We continue to look back at 2020 this time with a focus on some of our favorite guests from our Organizational Thought Leadership series. We kick things off with Surya Kolluri, the managing director at Bank of America leading Thought Leadership efforts for retirement and personal wealth business services. Surya shares how they are helping people lead better richer financial lives by training advisors on the financial challenges that various life stages present. Next, Nora Super joins us. Nora is the Executive Director at Milken Institute, and the Executive Director of the Alliance to Improve Dementia Care at the Milken Institute. Nora discusses how convening authority helps thought leadership and why bringing people from different areas and industries together to tackle a problem can have a huge impact. Finally, we wrap up with Luke Collins, the Managing Director, and Global Editor-in-Chief at EY. Luke explains how EY is changing the modalities in which they deliver content to ensure they are reaching their customers in the method that will connect with them best and how the first twenty seconds of your content is the most important.
Jan 3, 2021 • 25min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Best of 2020 | 284
We start the New Year by looking back at a few of our best guests of 2020. We start with John Jantsch, the Founder of Duct Tape Marketing Consulting Network, and the author of The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. John discusses making his consulting networking, packaging the content to be delivered by others, and how he maintains quality control over the process of those that join the network. Next, we chat with Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and internationally bestselling author of Contagious, Invisible Influence, and The Catalyst. Jonah shares the challenges and joys of being a keynote speaker, how price can help you narrow down which engagements to take, the relationship you need to develop with the speaker's bureaus, and why it's important to add value off stage to your bookings Last but not least we finish with the incredible Tom Peters. Tom is the co-author of In Search of Excellence in addition to seventeen other books that have sold more than 10 million copies combined and recipient of the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award. Tom discusses writing about Brand You, how it is misinterpreted, the evolution of how we see personal brands and intellectual property.
Dec 27, 2020 • 23min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Jen Cohen | 283
Today's guest is Jen Cohen the Vice President of Engineering at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI). Jen has over twenty years of technology and operations leadership experience that she uses to make technology work for business. Jen shares how her work at TRI is helping to strengthen the research structure that is developing technology that amplifies humans, allowing them to age in place and continue to enjoy their lives with the aid of AI and robotics without replacing the human aspect. Jen discusses the ever-important need to create processes in the development stage that will guide a project to completion. With 50% of IT projects failing, she understands the need to have effective change agents in place and to never take shortcuts in development. During our discussion of what successful thought leadership means to Jen, she shares the concept of Ikigai, a Japanese concept meaning "A reason for being." We chat about how our lives feel most fulfilled when we incorporate work that we love and how TRI is helping people to achieve their Ikigai. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought Leaders can include various forms of automation in their work, the key is to ensure it enhances the human experience and does not replace the human. · When developing processes for anything thought leadership should look at the end goal and ensure the steps to get there are developed early and nothing is skipped. · Ikigai is a great concept for thought leaders. Finding ways to help others live their best life by doing work they love will increase the productivity and satisfaction of clients.
Dec 20, 2020 • 17min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Cara Macklin | 282
Today's guest is Cara Macklin, Founder of Caram, Innovative Entrepreneur, and Success Coach helping entrepreneurs to do things differently, accelerate success, and create meaningful change. Cara discusses her early work in her family business of healthcare and hospitality and how she helped to more than double the size of the business, while training as a coach that allowed her to understand and replicate processes and outcomes. We discuss the type of clients Cara works with, how she finds them, and why fit it isn't a good fit you might be better off referring the client to someone else. We wrap up our conversation discussing how Cara has taken coaching, which often has an outdated modality, and create a suite of offerings that allow her to serve clients one-on-one, create groups from various industries together, and finally a wide audience with an online course. If you want a sample of the aid Cara can offer check out this video just for listeners of our podcast! Three Key Takeaways: · Learning to become a coach is one of the best ways to understand the processes of thought leadership and reliably replicate the outcomes. · Your thought leadership isn't going to be the right fit for every client. Passing on clients that don't fit your offerings is better than failing them down the road. · Having multiple modalities will allow your thought leadership to reach a variety of clients with multiple platforms.
Dec 17, 2020 • 19min
Leveraging Thought Leadership | Harry Kraemer | 281
Today's guest is Harry Kraemer, a professor of management and strategy at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he teaches in the MBA and the Executive MBA programs. Previous to that he was CEO of Baxter Healthcare. These two careers have given him a unique perspective on how academia and business work hand in hand. Harry shares his journey from being a student at Northwestern to CEO, and back to Northwestern as a professor. We explore the somewhat strange origin of his first book Becoming the Best and how a student was the forcing mechanism that brought it to life. We discuss the trilogy of books (Becoming the Best, From Values to Action and Your 168) that Harry has written over the last ten years and how the themes all tie together to help you become a value-based leader, running a value-based organization while living a value-based life! All of the profit from the sales of Harry's books go to One Acre Fund, we highly encourage you to learn more about this incredible initiative. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought leaders can gain a lot from listening to the academic and business communities and developing a perspective that understands both. · Thought leaders need to know their values and their purpose if they want to understand how they affect how you lead and interact with people. · Thought Leaders must live their values even in the face of distraction and difficulty.
