Breaking Through the Noise: Targeted Thought Leadership That Drives Results | Paige Velasquez Budde | 638

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Paige Velasquez-Buddy. She is the partner and a CEO at Zilker Media, which is an, uh, Austin, Texas-based agency building people-driven brands. During her tenure as CEO, she has been named one of the fastest growing companies, or Zilker, I should say, has been named one of the fastest growing companies in Austin and a best place to work 2 years in a row. She's been featured as a speaker on people-driven marketing and led workshops for orgs such as, uh, Ernst Young, Harvard Medical School, and she has led all sorts of marketing campaigns and strategies for some of the world's most recognized authorities. So. Without further ado, welcome aboard, Paige.

Thank you so much, Peter, for having me. I'm really thrilled to be here with you today.

So Zilker is in essence, uh, a PR firm, right? With a specialty in thought leaders and the types of folks that we work with as well. So, you know, you're a big piece of what folks are hiring you for is to get through the clutter, is to get through the noise, is to get through that. So I wanna start with Oftentimes, and you probably see something similar, uh, someone will engage someone like you because there's a book coming up, right? Mm-hmm. And they want the book to be successful, right? Because they put all the effort in. But answer that question in terms of what should they be doing 6 months, a year, 2, 3 years before they're even thinking about writing a book to make your job easier.

Absolutely. And that's so right. Typically it's some sort of event that sparks the need to start building their brand. But, you know, I'm really passionate about is shifting the mindset of leaders that it doesn't have to be an event even that gets you to start thinking about building your thought leadership. This is really something that a new age CEO, entrepreneur, leader should be thinking about consistently in order to help accelerate their business. So thinking about these things way ahead of time, just getting really crystallized on How can you stand out alongside your company to help build kind of an on-ramp back to it, help drive lead generation, help accelerate trust throughout the business development part, you know, process. What we're seeing a lot in the landscape today, I know you've seen this as well, Peter, is it is extremely hard for consumers, for other businesses, especially if you're a B2B business with high touch. Relationship building to trust just a corporate brand and logo alone. People trust people, especially when you're in a B2B business with that high-touch relationship building. That is absolutely the key to making sure that you're one, developing lead generation, but two, having the ability to, to bring through them throughout the business development process in an accelerated way.

Yeah. And I would just add to that, I think particularly in professional services, don't tell me how great or smart or insightful you are. Just continue to show me that every day, right? If you put out the ideas, your, you know, anything that's representative of your thinking, your framework, your models, your methodologies, et cetera, consistently, right? Then you don't even have to tell people how great you are, right? They're gonna follow your stuff and go, wow, I follow Paige because she's smart, right?

Yes, that's absolutely right. And what a lot of executives get wrong too is they pour all of their time and their energy and their resources into building their corporate brand, as a lot of us do, and that is important, but they completely forget that their brand oftentimes is the name that is Googled first when somebody refers them business. You know, it's a, it's a lot of times, hey, go talk to Peter. He's the best. Absolute best at building thought leadership, they're not gonna, a lot of times, Google the firm's name. They're gonna Google you.

Yeah.

And so what is that impression? Are you, you know, talking about the things that show that you are the top thought leader in that industry? It's so important. And the funny thing—

Well, and, and, and not being there. So if they, you know, you're, you're interfacing with someone and they Google you and nothing shows up, or you show up as number, you know, 97 or something like that. That says a lot as well.

It does. It's even worse. You know, a lot of, a lot of executives that I talk to, especially from a PR perspective, is that, oh, I've intentionally been behind the scenes and I've intentionally not done this or been online. I'm, you know, I'm too, too whatever for, for social media. And a lot of times what we do is we do that Google search, um, and they're coming up either not at all or they're coming up. Really low on the page or what they have coming up is not what they want to be their first impression. It's, you know, the, the old blog that they wrote 20 years ago or the old press hit that they did 8 years ago, and it does nothing to reflect the caliber that they are at now.

So then your task is a difficult one, which is, hey, I'm a thought leader. Let's just use an example. I've got a book coming out in a couple of months. And I want you to help make me make this book successful. Right. And the reality is there are more books coming out every day, every week, every month than ever before. What are the things that you're advising clients in terms of how they stand out from the others? 'Cause there's X other books just like yours, whether you wanna believe that or not, coming out either right before, during, or after. How do you stand out from the pack? How do you stand out from the noise? How do you, How do you break through that clutter?

Yeah, there's 3 key things. One, from a content perspective. So say for example, you know, you need to build a following on social media. You have to have an audience to market the book to. We see a lot of leaders who get really excited and they jump onto all the platforms. They wanna be on TikTok, they wanna be on Instagram, they wanna be on LinkedIn. But really the conversation that we had with them is, where is your audience? To think about, you know, from a business perspective, where are you having these conversations? For a lot of the leaders that we work with, LinkedIn is the place that they need to be. So instead of spreading yourself thin, it's focusing in on where can we have the most impact and consistently do it really well in a sustainable way moving forward. So go focused versus, you know, Spread thin. The second thing that I would say is really important is it gets exciting when you do content marketing, social media, when you start to do PR. But if you are just doing a lot of activity without ever bringing those people that you're getting visibility to back to an asset that you own, where you can start to own their data and own the interaction with them moving forward. You're spinning your wheels in a sense and spending a lot of time, money, resources, and never actually garnering results that are gonna last long term. Right. So looking at how you can own your data is so important.

So stay there a minute and I wanna sort of add a bit of a twist to it, right? So, so I've been doing this podcast for 7 years, 600-something episodes, et cetera. And one thing that I find just really shocking is a vast majority, I would say probably majority or at least 50/50, but it's probably a majority of the guests that come to us come through a PR agency or a podcast casting agency or something, which means that somebody's paying the agency to get that person onto our show because people enjoy the show. They've had good, we've had good get, whatever. We've got a good rep. There's lots of reasons, right? And what I find is this part of it, having a, a, an honest, open, insightful conversation, that's easy, right? That's really, really easy. What I find somewhere between shocking and appalling is that for me, I won't just put anybody on the show. So you and I did a pre-podcast call a month or two ago. I wanna make sure it's a good fit. You know what I'm looking for. I get to know you a little bit. I do research on you. Then we do the show, and then when this gets posted or it gets published, I will have my team share with you a bunch of assets for you to share on social media. And what I find is the etiquette of most guests, and I think it's naivete, I don't think they're intentionally being rude, is they don't do any of that. And I'm like, well, why the heck, why the heck would you come on the show and spend the time and spend the money if you're not going to do everything in your power to amplify that message? Because now we're creating an asset right now, right? So I'm going to give you this asset. I'm going to give you some social stuff. Assuming you like it and you think this, this shows you well, which I hope it does, why wouldn't you wanna share that to your followers? Why wouldn't you wanna use that asset now, a month from now, 6 months from now, or a year from now? Or you're having a conversation with a prospect and say, you know what? Oh, that same issue came up on this podcast I did. Let me send you that link. And I think not enough people are getting enough juice outta the lemon, if you will, as it relates to things they did. Would you, am I, am I alone in that thinking? Because I, I could— no, literally every month I'm like, why are people not doing more?

Well, you're absolutely right. And I love that you have that mindset just as, as the host as well, Peter, because what we, what we share with a lot of our, our thought leaders and our clients is the value of PR, the value of appearances like this, conversations like this. It's not only that it's fun and, you know, we have an opportunity to build a relationship, share some of our lessons learned and experiences. The value of PR is not the moment that it goes live. It's all about the remarketing and how you leverage it moving forward. You know, you have a vast network. Your show is extremely successful. So you posting it is one side of that opportunity. The other side of it is exactly what you said. How do you include this in your business development process? How do you include this to get visibility beyond those people that you're already connected with? LinkedIn, especially when you're posting on their outlet, a lot of times they actually favor posts that tag other people. So when I, you know, when this says live and I tag you, Peter, or you tag me, we're naturally going to get a lot more visibility beyond our current networks.

And so it is, is a humble brag, if you will. I know that of the— forget the episodes I've hosted. I've also been a guest on hundreds of things. And there are 3 or 4 things that I've guested on that I could attribute literally millions of dollars worth of revenue to those, you know, and it's one thing for me to tell you, hey, hey, Paige, I'm really smart and really good at what I like. You're going to go eventually go, all right, this guy's kind of full of himself. He's a jerk, or I don't want to hear it. But when I send you links to a TEDx, when I send you links to shows far better known than I am, that I'm a guest on, and I'm receiving accolades from a world-renowned expert. Like, I can't say I'm, I could, but like, it's better when you see that firsthand. Like, wow, look at what all these other people are thinking, saying, look at how admired that person is in their space. How come I don't know about them?

Absolutely. It validates that trust, accelerates the credibility that you're able to garner. And again, you're not having to talk about yourself. It's all doing it for you.

Oh, I don't mind talking about myself. I'm being clearly narcissistic enough. We could, We could do that if you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership. Please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps. As well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. I want to go in a little bit of a, a, a different direction 'cause I'm, I'm trying to give people some things to think about on both sides of the coin. 'Cause I have a lot of friends in PR obviously, and then I have a lot of clients that engage in it. And there's oftentimes this gap. So are there things that you look for or look out for in terms of a red flag of during a early on conversation with a potential client in terms of their expectations just being, hey, you're gonna make me a New York Times bestseller, or I'm gonna sell 30,000 copies, right? Like, what are the things that you look out for? Because what you don't want, or I imagine you don't want, is 90, 120 days after bringing on that client, having to have some difficult conversations that could have been avoided.

That's right. That's right. You know, there's a few things that the most important thing is just having a clear understanding between us in a client of one, what are those goals? But are you clear on where we're starting? You know, a lot of people come to us. If you come to, to us 4 months before a book launch, have never done PR before, the expectations that things are gonna one, be live by the time your book launches, or two, you're gonna be in the New York Times during that launch, that's not necessarily, you know, oftentimes the case. Typically, you need to start doing PR way ahead of that, and the first time that you're launching the book shouldn't be the first time you're making a media appearance. You really start— you need to— you really need to start building up that thought leadership, ideally a year or so out, and giving expert commentary, thought leadership. So by the time that you're launching your book, we're circling around to some of those media opportunities to promote the book. We are saying to media, hey, this person has been featured on X, Y, and Z previously. This is why you should pay attention to them. This is why we want to feature in the book. That's extremely important. You know, and another thing is a lot of people, you know, sometimes come to us and think they're gonna get rich quick on their first book. And book sales, as you and I both know, aren't the way to do that. But if you have a clear strategy of what a book can do for you as a tool, whether it's helping accelerate lead generation, helping you up your fees in the speaking arena, whatever that might be, that's where you're gonna really see the value in terms of investing in PR to get the book out there. Book sales alone are not a clear enough goal.

Well, stay, stay there a minute because I think you're 1,000% right is oftentimes Authors, particularly first-time authors, obsess over sales because they, they take sales as a proxy for success or validation or whatever the case may be, or they didn't really understand the market and realize that having an expectation of selling X number of units is not realistic in the period of time that they thought they would. And I think at some level, for most, the number of units sold You know, is really irrelevant. And this is where there's a lot of tension in the marketplace between the author and the publisher, because in most instances, a publisher's compensation is some function of number of units sold times profit per book equal, is that a good deal or not? For an author, it could be, wow, at first blush, if you look at my numbers, that was awful. You only sold 1,000 copies or whatever. And the author might be going, that was the greatest thing I ever did. 'cause I picked up 3 clients that are spending $1 million a year and, and that has nothing to do with the publisher's success. So your metrics for success are different than the publisher's, which, which means we're not in alignment. Right. So, right. So I think having that clarity upfront, having that strategy upfront that says, as a result of writing this book, this is the follow-up. This is what I want, would like to be different one year after the book is out.

Yes. And that, that's oftentimes the first question we ask is why did you write the book? And what do you hope to achieve with the book? You know, visibility and book sales for us a lot of times is a red flag if there is nothing beyond that. The same instance with media these days, there's a dated mindset sometimes of I need to be on Good Morning America in order for my PR campaign to be successful. Reality is, from what we have seen, you know, the past 5 to 7 years of book PR specifically, especially even just business PR in general, having those big TV hits do not move sales units or lead gen for your company the same way the right micro media or the right targeted media strategy will. You know, if you are interviewing a PR firm, ask them about their industry. Are they consistently placing both in top tier as well as micro media? If you have a PR company that is just throwing top tier in front of you, top tier is great for eyeballs. It is great for credibility. I'm talking, you know, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, those types of, you know, Bloomberg. But if you also don't have a micro media strategy with the right podcasts, with the right trade publications in certain niche industries with right blogs, you aren't gonna see as much lead generation or even, you know, at times book sale movement.

Stay there for a minute because again, I've been on both sides of the coin. So when I've retained agencies to pitch me on a podcast, where I've gotten frustrated is they'll show me who they're gonna pitch to after I've had the conversation and say, listen, This is, these are my avatars. These are my client profiles. This is who I want to get in front of, period, full stop. I don't need to hear myself talk. Right? So then I look and I see like, oh, okay, I'm looking at the audiences for half of these and they don't align with my avatars. So I've called them back and said, I have no interest in that. Oh, but we can get you on then. I'm like, okay, but the objective here isn't how many times I can see my name on a podcast, you know, in, in in iTunes or Spotify or whatever.

Right.

I want to, I want to get onto a, a medium to reach an audience to get the desired outcome, which is lead generation, build the brand, all those other things.

And that's right.

That might be a lovely population that that host speaks to. They're just not my people. And that's okay. And I think once you realize that 99% of the world doesn't care about what you got, you can spend a lot of time saying, but that 1% or 1/10 of 1% is what I stay up late at night trying to, you know, sharpen my tools to be as good as I can, can at my game.

Absolutely. And two, you know, from a thought leader perspective and executives, founders, your time is so finite that if you are spending 30 minutes to an hour doing a podcast interview, it has to be connected back to an audience that is gonna drive results for you and your business. But for example, even if, if you have a strong targeted strategy, I would even challenge, you know, listenership, readership, those numbers don't matter as much if it's the right audience. We worked with a subflooring manufacturer. This is one of my favorite stories. A very niche business, not a lot of podcasts in this space. And of course we could have done a lot of other podcasts that the entrepreneur would've been great on, but we found this podcast that had, I think it was, you know, 1,500 to 2,500 listeners per month. So pretty, pretty small for an executive of, you know, several multi—

No, but that's huge though. But it's, I, I would argue it's actually huge cuz it's the right audience for that.

Right. And that's the thing about this case study is most, you know, from a vanity perspective, CEOs of a company that big, a manufacturing company, would come back to affirm and said, I'm not gonna waste my time with that small of an audience. But he understood our strategy. He understood how targeted we were getting, and he got the biggest business development opportunity that his company had seen in terms of partnership from that interview and the right listeners listening to that interview. And so I, I love sharing that with, yeah, especially these industries, how important it is.

No, and I'm in, I'm in total agreement of that is, and you mentioned the term sort of these vanity metrics. Don't fall for this laziness of vanity metrics of number of listeners, number of downloads, number of whatever. Because for that CEO to get in front of 1,300 people in that industry that actually would tune into a podcast on flooring, you've got to be in that business to have like, like seriously, that's not something you like, that's not something random switch of the dial. Like, ooh, I think all of a sudden I'm interested in flooring. Like that's not going to happen. So logic would tell you that anybody engaging in that is in the business of service to the business event, like, you know, or it's that, that's that world. Cool. All right. As we start to wrap, any final words of wisdom to folks in the process of thinking about or currently working with a PR firm to launch their brand and their books and all the things that you do?

Yeah, I would say the, the biggest thing is, especially with a lot of leaders and thought leaders, what we see. Is oftentimes to take that first step to start building their brand, even before they have a big event or before they launch their book. A lot of times, you know, what do I have to say? Or, you know, if this is not highest and best use of my time, what I want to encourage them to think about is what do you do day to day to make your business grow? You are doing thought leadership all day, but it's mostly one-on-one. Yeah, these are, you know, PR, content marketing. It's just taking what you're doing day to day and building it to scale. It's not putting on this new face, this new personality that you're not. So that's the kind of mindset hack that I encourage leaders to have is think about the day to day and what you're doing. And once we start talking to leaders and they start realizing, oh, I'm already doing this, it's just one-on-one meetings. They get really excited about being able to scale that. So don't wait for 3 months ahead of your book launch or to get a book deal or start writing that manuscript. Start building that now because that's going to only serve you if you have some of that foundation built for more success when you do get to that big milestone.

Awesome. Love it. Thank you so much for sharing the time and your wisdom with us, Paige.

I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. This was so fun, Peter.

To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.