The Art of Authority Podcast with Mike Saunders-John Hall Author of Top of Mind

Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.

Hey guys, Mike Saunders here, the authority positioning coach. Coming back with you another segment with John hall, who is the author of Top of Mind and co founder of Influence and Company. John, welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

Hey, so when I decided to do a summit called Authority and Influence Summit, well, who do you want to reach out to other than someone that is an influencer on the topic of influence? And I think that's really awesome. And when I had you on my podcast a few months back, it just really resonated with me what you do. And I love your agency, I love your approach. So give us a little bit of background on the book Top of Mind and the company Influence and Code, because they're really the thread that runs through them is developing that influence for your client and then using that for them to become known.

Yeah, absolutely. So really the idea of Influence Co and Top of Mind are kind of at the core. It's just trust is that I've been very big on. The way that you earn influence is through engaging people in a way that builds trust. And so content is one of the key ways to do that and scale it. Obviously there's other ways to earn trust, but that's something that we've kind of found, formed a niche in, and that's where Influence Co was born, is that we wanted to help people create engaging content.

About them out in the kind of digital landscape so that when people are reading or educating themselves or engaging in content that is valuable to them, it's either coming from or has that company or people, key employees mentioned in.

Started off with just a simple idea of helping build trust for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Now we deal with some of the largest Fortune brand out there while we still work with the entrepreneurs because it's a much needed service. It's been, it's been a fun evolution.

You know, it's interesting when you say the word digital because a lot of times people would think, you know, back in the day, you know, let's get on tv, let's do newspaper ads. And those have a shelf life because it's kind of like how long does a Facebook ad campaign work for you? Well, as long as you keep feeding the machine those digital assets, the mentions in or the links to those things live on forever. And that's the thing that I want people to realize is yes, you can get mentioned or interviewed on a local TV station and that's great. It's not like you're going to run away from that. But the shelf life of that is as long as that, you know, is going to be shown on their channel. So how did you come up with the focus of focusing on that digital to keep up with the trends and then take that content and make sure that it's sticky and long term. Kind of like the breadcrumb trail online?

I mean, yeah, I mean it's, it's more like when you're, when you're, let's say it's looking at your, like your credibility and your influences is. It's kind of all a map and it's a plan of where's the customer journey, what's the perception of your brand? So I always tell people to take a step back and look and say, how are people engaging and reading around you? Are they looking online at publications? Are they looking on social like LinkedIn or Facebook? First you look at those places and then you look and say, what's the perception of your brand? Because some people don't need like 100 grand investment in their brand because they just need a minimum level of credibility where you people can look and see, wow, this is somebody I want to do business with. So what I tell people is like, hey, map it out first and look at and say like for a perception standpoint, have I been talked about in mainstream media or blogs or things that bring credibility? What are other credibility points? Who are the clients that we've worked with that are big? There's all these things that people look at when they're kind of investigating if they should be working with you and those things can be helpful. Then there's that next stage, that which is this, it's kind of this next level of influence where it's actually becoming influential. Just because you have some credible things about you doesn't mean you're influential or an influencer. It's actually people at mass scale or important context for you, listening to you, engaging with you. And that's where the content marketing is key, is that you have to have a consistent stream of content coming from you in places where these people consume content and then also on your own sites.

So you said a huge amount of information there, which is so critical that I want to point out a couple things. Consistency. You can't just check off a box and go cool. Mentioned in Fill in the blank, seen on Fill in the Blank. It's got to Be consistent. And I'm sure you have found this with clients where they think it is just the checkbox and I'm good to go, but then it starts dwindling off. So what do you say to the clients that feel like, you know, I just need one or two things and I'm good to go. How do you convince them that it's got to be that consistency out there?

I mean, one, it's just, it's aligned with goals. I mean to actually everything goes back to what you're trying to accomplish and you can't truly think you're going to move the needle. If you just do a one time thing, it's just not going to happen. And so you've got to have that consistency there. And you also have to hit several birds with one stone. This is one of the key things that people don't think about. They're like, okay, I want to get placed here. And earlier when we, before we started this, I had told you that some of the things we're involved in, it's mainly thought leadership, pr, content marketing. But SEO also plays a factor in that. When we're getting, let's say an article placed that does well, we might look and say, hey, we should refer to this content in the future because we want something like this to show up. It did really well. And publications like SEO used to be like a bad word in publication land just because there was so much black hat stuff. Publications like it when your content is good, it's engaging and you get it to show up because it brings consistent, engaged traffic towards them. So I would say it's about consistency and it's also about consistently leveraging it and not just for one purpose, but for multiple purposes. And that's ultimately how you're going to get mass roi, is that it's consistent and you're leveraging it in every area to kind of squeeze that juice of value so that ultimately your ROI just keeps on compounding.

Do you advise clients or do this for clients where you create this piece of content and have it as a placement in this publication or on their blog post and then they can convert it into a podcast episode or they can then, you know, kind of memorize the script or the flow of the content and do a Facebook Live. What are you advising that way? Because I'm certain that you cannot say, we write a blog post and get it put into this publication and then you're good to go. You've got to do those different mediums to capture your target audience because they don't only run in that one lane.

Yeah. I mean, for us, we're the best digital content. And that thought leadership coming from you and about you as you get into the podcast, that's something where we would like refer them to like a partner like you, who's a spec because it's just such a large spectrum when it comes to influence. And just think that one company is going to go and solve all your problems. You're just full of, you're in la la land. And so for us it's saying, okay, this is what we can do. Great. And what I've tried to position it as is it's the core to me, because it's been the core to my strategy is that like I do podcasts, I do speaking, I do a ton of stuff to build influence. But the core of it, at the very center of it is this content engine of creating content from me and getting that place in different place because that's the source that can. A lot of times, like for example, I just booked a keynot where I sent them an article and I said, hey, this is what I had in line with for that keynote. And they're like, great, I love 0.3, 0.4, this is awesome. And I saw that there was other related content that you had out there that did well too, so I didn't have to put together a speech. I mean, I will end up having somebody on my staff taking that and making some visuals. But when you look at that, that was a very clear catalyst, is that speaking is great, but the core of that was the content strategy.

Well, and the interesting thing there is I spoke yesterday with someone about this and they said, funny you should mention that because I did that this morning, which was this. They got this question in from a prospective client and they asked a series of three or four or five questions and they said, you know, I could hit reply back and type in a nine paragraph answer, but what I did was I created a podcast episode. Now we could turn that into, we could say I'm going to turn it into an infographic, I'm going to turn into a long form blog post. But the point is they wanted to have that evergreen and reuse so that when they replied back to that person and said, hey, I'm answering your question in this format. Now other people that come along and see that are able to have their question answered in the exact same way, but then they don't have to retype that question. Well, to your point about the keynote, you've already Done that content marketing and establish that out there. And you're able to show that, number one, to get the keynote because they see you doing it. But number two, you can go, oh, you want three, four, nine. Okay, good. And then your staff goes and pulls out and goes deeper and creates some graphics, and then you speak from what you already know. That then becomes that foundation. It's that leverage point. Right. I mean, in other words, you don't have to think, what do I have to talk about today? Because you just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and creating case studies. And I think that that's the exciting part with content marketing.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what do you say to someone that says, okay, you say, I should be or could be an influencer or a thought leader? I don't know that I am. You know, it's almost like you have to convince them. You're like, no, no, no, look, you've done this in the industry and look at your resume and look at your accomplishments. How do you extract that thought leadership out of someone that might not think that they've got, you know, reams of knowledge in them?

I mean, I like, people have to get past that. Like, they have to have some sort of.

Some sort of confidence and belief in themselves that they, they offer value to people, especially if they're in a leadership role or anything like that. It's funny, I was on a pod. Tamara, I don't know if you know, Tamara McClary. She, she even pointed out that sometimes a sense of ego or some ego is good. Now, granted, too much is not good, but you have to have confidence in yourself. You have to have mental strength. And I would tell those people to get past it like you have to. A part of leadership these days and a part of bringing opportunities and inbound opportunities to you is by getting educational content. And so you've got to think, take a step back and say, what do I know? What do I know? Well, what are things I can learn and become the best at? You got to challenge yourself, because if you don't do it, I promise you, other people are going to. And especially in roles where employees are becoming more valuable because of their brands, there's going to be someone else that gains an opportunity because they have the confidence and they take the steps forward to get past that barrier. And they map it out. They say, hey, here are the steps I'm going to take in the next 12 months. And they take it a step at a time. They don't say, become an influencer tomorrow. And really, the best People in that area don't even say, I'm trying to become an influencer. It's, hey, how am I trying to gain trust with this audience and engage.

Them consistently, or become an educator and an advocate for my target audience's cause or help them? And then it just. The de facto response is, oh, well, you're an expert, you're an influencer. So, yeah, the person saying, I need to be that influencer, all of a sudden, now you've put the cart of the horse.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I try not to even say that I am an influencer. It's great when people are like, oh, yeah, Hall's an influencer. That's fine. For me, the title is not as important as the credibility and the trust that comes with it.

Do you ever find with clients that might not have their brand or their Persona, you know, out there yet, that once they start seeing, you know, oh, wow, that was now I was mentioned here. And their own internal competence starts getting bolstered. And almost you can feel their voicing in the content you're creating for them, but almost you can see them kind of come to life because it's like, okay, I knew I was good, but that's reaffirming. And that's my theory, is that the more people see that, the more they want it, and the more it kind of bolsters their own confidence in themselves.

Yeah. I mean, when it comes down to it, I mean, people need to just believe that they're like, this is something that is important. This is something that's important to me as. And it's not just about, like, the external value. It's also about the internal value. One of our clients a while ago said, the biggest value that I got from doing this was it helped me think more strategic and thoughtful about how I'm communicating not just to these people, but just people in general. Is that, like, it got me to think about the direction of our company, the strategy that we're doing. And I'll tell you honestly, that's happened with me, like I've said, this is a great example, is that I've written articles where I publish it, and there's a self awareness moment where I publish it. And people are like, this is great. Like, we got to start doing this. They're like, this is really good, valuable information. I'm like, cool. And then I look at it. I'm not even doing it myself. And so it's like, those things are extremely valuable in self development, in confidence, in figuring out the direction you're going and attracting talent around you. So yeah, I mean, I think that the benefits are there for sure.

Do you work with clients in helping them develop the strategy or blueprint for their content? And what I'm thinking is this. I think I saw on your website recently an infographic of like the customer's buyer journey. So what if you were trying to pull clients to your firm and you work for XYZ company, Would you want to create a piece of content that first, you know, interested them at this piece and then it draws them into where they now are? Like, okay, now I understand what this is. Now what about this question? And then what? And gets them all the way, way up to the end. Kind of like, you know, feeding ducks some bread. It's like if you were to run after them, they sprint away. But if you kind of throw some bread out there, they trust you. Do you work with clients to go, here's the ultimate end goal. We want business to be transacted. But before they get to that level, they have to understand this piece. And then after that they need to understand this piece.

Yeah, I mean it's, it just goes back to, I mean this has been around for five or six years. Even longer is about touch points. And it's like, I think it's, some people say it's like between five and eight touch points on sales, which are the best. You don't actually want to sell somebody on the first, you know, go at it. To be honest, it depends on the product, depends on the service. For me to build a real brand, like it's different. Like if you have a short campaign that you want to do that you have an Internet marketing or some sort of campaign where you're just trying to get paper. Like there's a better way to do it other than building up your brand. You can do a paid campaign that's more valuable. But for people who are wanting to truly build a brand, you need to say, okay, this is my long term commitment. This is what I'm spending time on. Because I want these people to come back. I don't just want to buy them to buy from me. Once I want to have multiple products, I want to have a brand that can evolve. And these people are going to want to buy from me because people will buy from what they trust. And you don't earn trust if somebody just clicks. And so I gave the example in one of my keynotes about how my wife educated me and got and influenced me to cook more. And so we have a once a month Date where we ask. I ask her, how can I help you? And she asked me how she can help me. And one of the things was. Was cooking that she said, I'd love to see you cook more. And in that situation, she. She got me to. And she asked me to cook, and I didn't for a week or two. Then she sent me a piece of content. It was from Plated. And I read it, and it was about seven essential tools. Then two weeks later, I still haven't done anything. I read an article that she had sent to me about what dumb spouses need to know in the kitchen.

Did she cross up the word dumb?

First, it wasn't like dumb. I forgot what it was. It was like what spouse.

Attentive spouses do for their. Yeah.

Who don't know what they're doing. I think it might have been. I don't know. I'd have to look it up again. I have the other one screenshot of it. I missed the other one. But the. But I read it. I read it. But then right before our next date, she goes, hey, like. And it's this moment of vulnerability that I call where someone's like. And the example I get is when your boss comes in is like, why is your competitor doing this? Or do you have this report done? It's a sinking feeling. And she goes to me, and she's like, hey, like, so how's cooking going? And I immediately am like, oh, crap. And I run back to those articles, and at that time, you know, I. They had helped educate. I got the tools. I ended up actually being a client of plated, and I had it sent to my office. I went home and I cooked, and I did that for a little bit. And during our day, next day, she's like, hey, this has been awesome. And I was like, yeah, I got to come clean, honey. I've been buying plated and doing this. She goes, oh, I know. And I was like, geez, like, it's.

Better than what you were doing. At least are doing it.

But she educated me. The key thing is that she actually got me the right content. I ended up being not only she influenced me and got what she wanted in a cookie, but plated one. Because they got the client, because they. They educated. And it was several touch points before there. And I have ended up advocating for them in several large keynotes, and there's a lot of value there.

Did she know what she was doing, by the way?

I mean, she actually made a joke and she said, isn't this what you do for a living. And I was like, yeah, but I.

Mean, there are some great lessons right in there because she was educating you and not trying to go buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell, coupon deadlines. She was educating you. She sequenced it out. She didn't, you know, barrage you. She was using some personal relationship, you know, of course, the marriage relationship, but she was playing on that. She was reminding you. And then guess what else she did. When it was discovered that you used a service, not something from scratch, she didn't downplay that. She was like, great, because you weren't using anything before, so at least you were doing it. So I think that there's some wonderful lessons there that we can pull away about content marketing. So that's a cool example. I heard on a podcast recently that the phrase content marketing is almost non. It's not necessary anymore. And the point that they were making is content marketing used to be a thing where it was like, hey, content marketing. Now it should just be a foundation of your marketing strategy. Call it whatever you want, content or not, but you should just be doing this type of marketing. So what do you think about the fact that content marketing really is not a newfangled, shiny object anymore? It just now is baked into a solid marketing strategy?

I mean, it's not even, to me, it's not even a marketing strategy. It's evolved past that. It is a marketing way. But the reason why it's become more is because it's evolved how marketing is related to other parts of the company. So for example, years ago, 10, 15 years ago, you couldn't use marketing content in employer branding. You couldn't use it in recruiting, training, investor communications as much because they're super promotional. If you're like talking about, we have the most amazing product, this, this, this, and you're like, oh, we want you to work for us. It just didn't come off as natural. But now with content marketing, it was more focused on educational and getting good, valuable content about the industry. What's valuable to these stakeholders. And so it made that content more valuable across the company. So then when you look at that, it goes down to, well, what? To have a good content strategy, you have to have the why behind it. So then you take a step back even further. It's like, what is the messaging the company wants? Why do we exist? What's the purpose of this content? And then so you get core to these, the basic, core messaging of the company, which is used in every aspect of the company. So it's like content marketing ends up being fed by this core messaging. And then it becomes this assets and every asset in every other part of the company now. And so for the companies that I see doing it really, really well, it's the content marketers that are going to their CEO and saying, or their leadership, highest leadership they can get to and saying, hey, guys, what we do affects every part of the company significantly. And so this is what I would like to do to talk to them, to see how we can help and basically be a fuel for them as well. And so it's unbelievable how I think content marketing, I think it's going to turn into content recruiting. I think it's going to turn into content investor. Communications. Marketing was just the first one because we were used to it.

Yeah.

The next one, I think, is recruiting and employer branding. As that takes shape, there's going to be a lot of opportunities there for marketers as well.

That's really, it's. I love that thought there because I call, you know, authority positioning, content marketing like blue ocean, because everybody and their brothers in whatever, you know, Facebook ads and SEO and all that, that's the red ocean. Well, what you just described is something interesting because I'm certain and I don't, I'm not. I don't live in the field of, you know, recruiting, but I know that there's some headhunters that just want this one person and it's like, boy, we kind of like the football. You know, we want to get the Peyton Mannings of the world on our team. Well, how else are you going to do it other than maybe having that good content kind of marketing strategy for the purpose of recruiting? I've never heard it said before that content marketing just was latched on to marketing, but now it should be content, latched on to other things like that recruiting. I think that's a really spectacular field.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it wasn't like, I'm like some brilliant.

Oh, just own it, own it.

No, I'm not, I'm not. It's. It's more. It's like, it's not like a brilliant, like, idea that's unproven. It's actually coming come from just listening to people that we work with. Like, you start on thought leadership content, you're like, why are you doing this? And they're like, okay, well, for sales, for trust there. And then you're like, oh, who else is valuable to you besides sales? And they're like, well, recruiting and. But this messaging is important here. And you're like, well, that's kind of similar. And so it's what I tell people to do in marketing is when you follow the value and ask the right questions, you're going to arrive at something that's successful and that's what we're doing there. And we've identified where we're starting as influence co starting to be hired on recruiting sides, on employee branding, on other elements, and we're even filling up other budgets where I always thought we'd be in the marketing budget. Now we're starting to be in marketing, pr, recruiting, these other ones. I'm just giving you the sign that we're seeing, but you never know what can happen. But I think that is based on how we're following the value with some of these brands. That's, that's the direction we're going.

Yeah. And I'm thinking from the employer side, of course, but even from the prospective employee side, if I want to go get hired by some firm and I'm competing against other people and you just look at that resume. Well, if part of that resume is mentioned in featured on Here's a copy of my book or whatever, and it's all thought leadership around that industry. Now you've separated yourself from the competitor, the other applicants and that brand that's looking to hire you. Now maybe you get that second and third interview and still you can blow it and not get hired. But I think that some of that thought leadership can play into that. So. So. Well, I think that's just spectacular from the perspective of the, let's say a target audience looking at an entrepreneur or a thought leader. Isn't it true or isn't it a big factor as well that now you've, you've kind of broken through that psychological barrier where they don't feel like it's a salesperson as much as the person that handed them the flyer or the web link if they're being given that piece of thought leadership, like, hey, you know what I just wrote this article for? It addresses that question you were asking me. Before we meet next week, here's a couple links. Read this article. Listen to that interview that I did. Doesn't that set the stage for at least giving you the best shot as possible landing that deal when you're using. Cause that thought leadership piece is wonderful as a digital footprint, but then that person should be using that in their business development strategically as well to open up doors, to close deals, right?

Yeah, I mean, but it also depends on the content. So like right now there's some salespeople that Are like, oh, cool, I'm doing that. And they're starting to do that. And I'm like, baby steps. I'm proud of you. Because a lot of salespeople don't do it, use content, but they only have one piece of content, and it's not even addressing the challenge that that person actually had. And so you've got to have the right ammo to use. So it's an amazing tool. It increases conversions. I mean, I can give you stats that's up the wazoo of. Just trust me on it. If there's content that's educating as a part of the sales process, people spend more with you, they close faster, they're better clients.

It's unbelievable. There's so much. Just more trust. But I would say that it's got to be the right thing. So, for example, we did a series around content because CFOs are dream killers for us. CMOs are like, yes, we believe we should be doing this. They're like, I got this CFO here that's just like, nope, doesn't want it.

To happen because he's got to write the check.

Yeah, he's got to write the check. And so we're like, okay, well, let's get a series around content around there. Now, if I would have given him an article about content marketing and why he needs to be doing it, this and this and this, that wouldn't have helped him. He would have sent that to the cfo and CFO would have been like, I don't care. We don't have the budget. But then if I sent him article, that was challenges that CMOs have with their CFOs with content marketing, and then basically explained it in very good terms that the CFO would respond well to. Then they use an asset, they can use it, and it's gonna accomplish the goal. So I think my advice on that is that it's just important to have the right types of assets and ammo. So, for example, sometimes it might make sense to have like, instead of a byline, it might be where you're talked about in an article. Now, granted, bylines can really gain trust, and they're great to do that. But it might be like somebody has issues like, I don't get this company, you know, I've never heard of them. And then they get an article like we did. There was a couple features of. Not necessarily some are features, but others were us being mentioned in industry news, where we sent that. Now, that was specific because they had an issue with. I've never heard of this company. So that's different than educating. That's credibility. And so we sent them the credibility asset instead of educational one.

You know, it's in a simple sense. You could sit down and think, what are the top five frequently asked questions that I typically get from prospects? And then what are five more that if they knew to ask these questions, boy, they would really get my product service, whatever it is. So here's 10 questions. And then you just start creating content around that so that as your sales staff, your as an entrepreneur are interacting with your target audience, you're able to just take this piece in this conversation. Never send them all because they're not going to read them all. But yet your point, that's really huge. You got to know where that next step is in the buyer's cycle and then have that piece of content ready. And the beautiful part is, while you do need to continue doing content all the time, those pieces of content can be evergreen. So you can be talking about something nine steps down the road, but then going back to this piece and using it today because it doesn't matter if you wrote a piece, you know, nine months ago, go. It still is relevant for that, for that conversation. Yeah, that's really huge. We've touched on things that I never thought we would and I think that's spectacular. So let's just wrap up with what's the best way that people can reach out and pick up a copy of your book or reach out and engage with your company?

So I mean, you can check out. The easiest way is just to buy the book on Amazon. It's actually, I think cheaper than I can get it for you. But.

Type in Amazon top ofmind and johnhallspeaking.com is my speaking site. And then Influence and co influence and co.com is the company site. And then on Twitter, I'm pretty active on hall and then LinkedIn, Facebook, I'm on all of it, but Facebook's more for personal. But I would say all the other ones are ones that I'm pretty easily reachable by.

Perfect. Well, John, thanks for taking time. Learned a lot and loved some of our brainstorming ideas. Thanks for taking the time and chatting with us today.

All right. It was good seeing you again, buddy.

You too, man.

You've been listening to the Art of Authority podcast. Are you interested in building your authority positioning as the number one strategy to grow your business, brand and influence? Book your authority audit today. This seven point audit of your current authority position will uncover opportunities and show you how to be seen as a leading expert and authority your industry looks to. For advice, visit www.awarenesspositioningcoach.com.