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 …
What A Real-Life “Don Draper” Taught Me About Thought Leadership Read More »
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 …
Back when my stepdaughter was in high school (she graduated in 2018), a teacher once asked her class who Steve Jobs was. The class was quiet, and then one person volunteered the answer that it was the guy who hosts “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery network. Umm, no. I was shocked when I heard that …
I remember reading some book about how to create characters for fiction. It said that to create realistic characters, you need to have them be one thing but want to be something else. For example, “Emily is a waitress in Los Angeles, but she really wants to be an actor.” That kind of thing. It …
I want to keep you from making a big mistake. It’s one I made, repeatedly, and I don’t want you to fall into the same trap. I ran a marketing agency for over 12 years (it still exists, but I’m no longer in charge of most of the day-to-day operations). When I started it, I …
People surprise me. Constantly. You’ll see why in a moment. Have you ever heard the phrase “born yesterday?” As in when you say something like, “She won’t fall for his lies, she wasn’t born yesterday.” When we say that a person was “born yesterday,” what we really mean is that they don’t understand a given …
One very common mistake a lot of would-be Thought Leaders make is that they try playing the role of teacher to their audience. Logically, this makes a lot of sense. But in real practice, it doesn’t work. Ask yourself, how many teachers in the world are perceived as Thought Leaders? Not many, and those who …
We’re Called Thought Leaders, Not Thought Teachers Read More »
I guess I’m on a “client relationship” kick this week. Bear with me, but this will be applicable to everyone, not just consultants of some sort. Let’s quickly quantify two things: The first is the inflow of new customers for your thought leadership business. Not for your resources or other products (we’ll get to that …
One Superpower That Separates Thought Leadership Winners From Losers Read More »
“Thought Leaders Publish” Publishing is in a Thought Leader’s DNA. Just as sharks supposedly have to keep swimming to stay alive, Thought Leaders must publish to attain and maintain thought leadership. But why? Well, a few reasons… The first reason is that publishing is how you build an audience. You have to leverage media (in …
I get new readers pretty regularly, so you might not have been here last week for my discussion of avoiding comparable products. Short version: if you’re a Thought Leader who sells information products of some kind (and you should be), you want to be careful about selling a product that can be easily compared in …