Leveraging Thought Leadership Live featuring Rusty Shelton

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us today on LinkedIn Live, which is part of our podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. And today my guest is an old friend, Rusty Shelton. Rusty is the founder and CEO at Zylker Media, and he is a senior marketing strategist at Forbes book and a, what is it, 5-time author? How many times?

3.

3-time. All right, well, we're both sales and marketing, so 3 is— 5 is new for me. His latest book, which we're gonna chat about a little bit today, is The Authority Advantage: Building Thought Leadership Focused on Impact, Not Ego. So that implies that some thought leaders have an ego, Rusty. I didn't know that.

I know, I know that's coming as a shock to you and most of your listeners, Peter, But here and there, you know, the biggest thing, as you know, is unfortunately for a lot of leaders, when they hear that phrase thought leadership, unfortunately ego is kind of the first thing they think about. And so that's part of the reason this new book is really written for that senior leader versus a marketing leader.

Yeah. So I want to sort of get a little meta with this, right? So from the publishing side, this book is not necessarily designed to be the next Good to Great. don't mean from a quality standpoint. This is a great example of why certain experts and thought leaders should write a book. So first let's talk about sort of why you wrote it and who it's targeted for, because this isn't a book for everybody, right?

It's not. And the last book on this side, Authority Marketing, was really a book that was written kind of on a similar philosophy. But what we found was that word marketing in the title, when the senior leaders saw that, they sort of threw it over the fence to the marketing team and it was kind of an excuse. It's actually me and them.

Yeah, exactly.

What we found is the real urgency to this message is not talking to the marketing team. The marketing team's been trying to get the senior leader to get a bit more visible for years and years. They've been shaking them by the shoulder to do that. So we want to actually speak to the senior leader because The urgency around this, Peter, as you know, is not building a brand for the sake of it or having some new marketing tactic. This is about what I would argue is the single most important foundation for moving business objectives forward, selling deals, attracting talent, which is trust, right? And we're in an environment right now where Gallup study last year shows that trust in institutions and businesses is at an all-time low, right? Nobody trusts your brand anymore, but they're willing to trust you as a leader if you are visible in an authentic and mission-driven way, right? So that's really the focus.

So first off, I want to push on one of the things that you said. How are you, in the context of this book, defining senior leader? Because that could be a vague term. Give me a little more specificity around how you're thinking about it relative to your objectives.

Well, it's a bigger target audience here. So we're talking to entrepreneurs, we're talking to founders who right now need to punch above their weight class in terms of visibility and authority. So that's one group. We're also talking to C-suite leaders at Fortune 500 companies who also can do a ton to accelerate trust in their organization if they're willing to get visible and if they're willing to entertain and inform an audience in a different way as well.

Yep. So I like that because that means it could be an entrepreneur or a C-level exec at, like you said, a Fortune 50. Usually those folks have different issues, concerns, et cetera. But as it relates to the thought leadership that you're putting out there, The message is the same. Hey, we may or may not trust your brand anymore or as much anymore, but there is an opportunity here to trust you. So I want to sort of go in a little bit of a different direction. In your view, is thought leadership kind of or sort of the new personal branding or personal branding 3.0 or pick a number?

I think it is an extension of your personal brand. So this is the thing that a lot of leaders, I think, get wrong, Peter. In most cases, what I see is the tendency is for leaders to sort of jump right to the fun stuff. In other words, they're excited to do the PR, they're excited to write that blog for Forbes, work on the book. But for many of them, they're jumping to that without actually thinking about the brand itself. In other words, foundationally, do they have a name that they actually even own search for?

Right.

So if you go generate that impression, can somebody even find you? And then number 2, if they do find you, what image are you creating? So a big part of the book is, is number one, let's motivate you that, you know, this, this is not an issue that's about stroking your ego or building a, hey, look how smart you are kind of brand. It's actually completely the opposite. We want the leader to be the messenger, not the message. The message is going to go further, quicker, Cheaper with more trust if the leader is willing to be the messenger versus trying to communicate it through the corporate brand. So that's number one.

Stay there for a second with the leader as the messenger, because I've had this conversation with many a CEO where if you ask them, hey, how do you think of thought leadership? And they might say something like, well, I don't know if I really have the bandwidth to write a book. And I'm like, well, that's kind of the wrong answer. Thought leadership could be a CEO walking across the field at Davos with another leader talking. It doesn't need to be a printed word. It could be the bullet points. It could be speaking. It could be when they're on a panel. It could be when they're a guest on a podcast. There's lots of ways to disseminate that thought leadership. Some of it should make them comfortable from a style standpoint. And the other thing is to fit it into various formats.

Yeah. And the way that I try to simplify this for leaders, Peter, is I would say 98% of leaders, if you were to Google their name, they are positioned suit and tie, headshot next to their bio, et cetera. In other words, they're positioned as an operator with something to sell rather than the pivot we're trying to get them to make when we think about thought leadership is you need to be positioned as a mission-driven thought leader with something to teach rather than an operator with something to sell. And the way you get positioned as a mission-driven thought leader with something to teach is you go out and not only build a brand that gives you credibility, whether it's that picture on that TEDx stage with that logo behind you, or you're contributing on the PR front, or you write— there's a lot of different ways you can get positioned that way. But it's really important for the leaders that are watching this right now. What I want you to think about is, if I've been referred to you by name, number one, can I find you if I Google your name? Number two, if I do find you, are you positioned as that sort of commoditized leader with something to sell?

Yeah.

And if so, there's nothing negative, it's just you look like everybody else. Or are you positioned again as the gal that wrote the book on the topic, the person that, I'm gonna feel lucky to get in the room with based on the credibility or the thought leadership that you have. And so that's really for me, build trust before you get in the room.

And I think that's an important point. And oftentimes what that thread unintentionally does is create some friction or tension, healthy tension I would say, between marketing and leadership. Because marketing says, geez, if the CEO has some airtime on whatever, Pitch the product, talk about how great we are. We got the new version of the pen, whatever it is coming out, talk about it. And it's actually just the opposite because if you're a pitch man, that's the ShamWow guy, right?

Right.

That's not what your role is as a senior leader, as a CEO, as an evangelist of an idea. And if you think about some of the things that are happening in the world today, I always look at thought leadership and say, The essence of great thought leadership, in my view, is number one, there's evergreen principles, irregardless of did the stock market go up 1,000 points? Are we in a recession? What's going on? All the stuff that's happening in the world doesn't matter. These are the core principles. Then, however, there's your ability to bridge what you've got that's evergreen to what's going on now. So for example, today in the workforce, we are talking about things like psychological safety. That was not a conversation we were really having at the level and the frequency that we were having pre-COVID. Work from home, same thing. Maintaining a culture in a remote— there are things that bubble up and there will be new things. AI's impact on certain careers, like whatever. There's going to be stuff that's always going to bubble up. The question is, how do you take your evergreen stuff and connect it to that? That's a great example of the use of thought leadership versus saying, Oh, and we have a new product that solves that.

Yeah, that's the thing. Nobody wants to be pitched to or sold to. And what you're saying is exactly right, Peter, which is, in my experience, the marketing team has been trying to talk the leader into doing this for a long time. And even though they may want some promotion, I think what most of them recognize, the smart marketing leaders recognize that if the leader is willing to do media, to speak, to create content on LinkedIn, what it does for the business is it prevents you from having to pay for every impression, right? If you lead with the logo, you gotta buy ads, you've gotta sponsor events. It's the only way to actually get the company in front of people. When you lead as a thought leader with something to teach, you are earning impressions by getting interviewed on people's podcasts, by getting featured on NPR, by speaking, And again, the speed to trust for that leader is dramatically quicker than it is for the company. And so it creates, in my experience, an unfair advantage for companies that are willing to recognize, okay, the biggest untapped marketing resource that we have at our company is not the logo. It's not some generic corporate marketing campaign. It's taking the subject matter experts that work within this company, in particular, the founder or CEO, And moving them out alongside the business, not in front of or instead of the company. But I was thinking about, you know, your company's like an interstate. We want as many of the right talent, the right clients, the right partners as we can get. Visible authorities are on-ramps to that company and the most effective ones that exist.

So I wanna stay there for a moment. So one of the things that we also see now is There can be a risk of one person in the company being the face of the thought leadership of the company. And we've seen examples of it, because then what happens, that person leaves, that person does something bad, whatever. So there's brand risk there. Think of it as portfolio risk. So one of the things that we're starting to see, or at least I'm starting to see, are organizations are going, you know, yeah, our CEO clearly needs to have a part in this. But we've got some really, really smart people here. Maybe they're technical, maybe English isn't their first language, maybe they don't even fancy themselves a writer or a speaker or whatever. So we support them with capabilities development. How do I— hey, maybe I've got some technical expertise on, I don't know, refrigerated supply chain or whatever, and I'm an engineer, right? They might need some speaking help, they might need some writing help. I think, you know, Smart companies, evolved companies are looking around saying, how many people can we get to touch the thought leadership? Now we wanna have some control, lowercase c, over that, right? So how do you feel about that?

Well, I think you've hit one of my favorite things to talk about, which is this shouldn't start and end just at the top, especially as you start to look at bigger companies. And in particular, Peter, where I see this as a huge advantage for companies that are smart enough to think differently about this is the biz dev team. So if we look at sales and biz dev, almost every single one of those reps, they're getting referred, they're setting appointments, and the person before they take that appointment is Googling their name. And again, 99 out of 100, I'm gonna get the LinkedIn profile with the suit and tie picture and the sunset photo off the coast of California up in the header.

Right.

The one person that I'm getting set up to do a meeting with, and I Google their name and I see, okay, wow, they host a podcast, they've been featured. In other words, there's a different level of trust and respect going into that conversation. I've seen, you know, one of our clients is one of the fastest growing regional banks here in the state of Texas, Peter, in their new branch in downtown Austin, they've got a podcast studio in the branch.

Wow.

And they use that as a way to involve So this idea of thought leadership, in my experience, when it's done the best, it is both a way to serve an audience that's gonna benefit at scale from your message, but number 2, it's a bridge to build relationships that can open doors for the business. And that's going back to, to me, best and highest use of a really busy CEO or really busy entrepreneur that's watching this. We're not just wanting you to do content for content's sake. It's really integrating it with the goal set for the business.

Well, and that relationship piece is, I think, really, really important, Rusty, because you can, as a senior person in an organization, reach out and want to have a conversation with somebody, and it could feel like a sales call, right? You say, hey, I'm the CEO of X, and I'd like to talk to you. And sales call might be a little bit extreme there, but in essence, what's the point of the call? You want to tell me about your business, et cetera, et cetera. Now, the other side is you might also be that same CEO who has a podcast and say, hey, this is a fast-growing regional bank in Texas. We bring on entrepreneurs in our podcast to talk about the challenges of growing a business in Texas. Would you like to join us? Well, I would imagine if they're smart, they're finding a mix of customers and non-customers to have that conversation. Now, if I'm a non-customer and I got into the studio of this bank and I'm looking around, I'm going, why the heck am I not banking here? These are my peeps. They think like me.

Yes.

This is a great entree because nobody wants to take the call from a bank, like move your checking account over here, yawn, yawn. But if we're like-minded, if I believe what you have to say, if I'm aligned with your beliefs, why wouldn't I want to move my money over there?

That's the thing, Peter. I mean, every other banker is doing the same thing. Hey, let's go play golf. Let me take you for drinks. We can't delete that email quickly enough. This one comes over and it's, hey, would you like to be a guest on our Banking on Community podcast? Well, That's getting a response right away. That leader's excited to come down and it starts with a win for them. And the worst thing that happens is you build goodwill with that person. The best thing that happens, as you mentioned, is you're on their radar as they start to have needs. And so that's my favorite way when we look at creating an authority advantage. Step 1 is get your brand right. Number 1, have a name you can own search for. Number 2, create an image that positions you not as an operator with something to sell, but as a thought leader with something to teach. The second thing is once you've got that brand in place, building thought leadership and creating content, if you can integrate it with really specific business goals. So for example, think about over the course of the next 5 years, who are the 50 most important relationships for the growth of your business, for the growth of your nonprofit, whatever it might be? Half of that list probably are people that already know and love you. There's an existing relationship. Half of them are wishlists. And then relentlessly work backwards from that list, Peter. So one way to do it is the podcast example. Another way to do it is, you know, you've got a guest post that you're writing for Forbes or that you're writing for your blog on culture. Reach out to somebody and say, hey, listen, you guys stand out as a group that's done culture really well. I'd love to hop on the phone and get a couple of quotes from you for this piece I'm working on culture. Your position there, not as somebody with something to sell, you're a media member, you're a thought leader, there's a different thing that happens there. And so it's a game changer. And part of why you see me just so passionate about this, and I know you've seen Adam around, is just, yeah, this changes everything about the way trust is created for businesses.

Totally. So I wanna spend a few minutes because I think I'd be remiss if I didn't, given your expertise. So you've got deep expertise both on the PR side with a, I would say, a concentration in books, right? Not exclusively, as well as publishing. So let's go there for a minute. Lots of folks sitting here listening today are authors or thinking about writing a book. And the writing of the book, not to discount how much energy and effort it is, but hahaha, that's the easy part, right? So talk a little bit about sort of What's different about publishing today, where PR comes into play and where it doesn't, and how to have reasonable expectations for the investments that you would make in your book and all the things around that, from marketing to launch to PR and all that.

Oh man, so much there.

Yeah.

So what I would say for most business leaders, the way to think about the book is to use it as a tool to drive not only impact, and obviously we want the book to impact as many people as possible, To drive really specific outcomes that matter for your business. Irrationally, whether you like it or not, the fact that I see you have written the book on the topic, whether I ever crack it open, there's an authority by association that happens there.

And by the way— You're literally the guy or gal that wrote the book.

Yeah.

Literally.

I am not a fan. I see a lot of people do this, Peter. I am not a fan of a book as a brochure. I'm not a fan of mailing it in. It needs to be a good book. But whether I read it or not—

Let me, let me, so I just wanna confirm that because there's lots of, without naming names, group out, write your book in 5 minutes and book in a box, like whatever. And I think the reality is if you treat your book like a brochure, what happens to 99% of brochures? I open it, I throw it in the garbage. A book needs to be representative of who you are, who the company is, and you can't phone in the thinking. Now you could get help. You might need a ghostwriter and all that sort of stuff, but don't, don't think of it as all the, filler and let's just get it done.

It's one of the things I love about the way we approach it at Forbes Books. I mean, it has got to be a book that reflects really well if somebody goes through and reads it. So that would be the first thing. With that said, Peter, the misalignment that I see for a lot of leaders who write books is kind of the pie in the sky. All right, am I going to sell 100,000 books or am I going to be on this bestseller list, et cetera? And what Adam's always said around this, my co-author Adam Whitty, that I really love, I think is the right way to think about it, which is the worst way to make money off a book is by selling it.

Yeah.

So, in other words, really think about that book as a way to, again, make an impact but drive business outcomes. For many of the people watching this, you know, one deal for them is half a million dollars, $100,000, $50,000, whatever it might be. And if that book can educate a buyer or empower somebody to refer you, it's a game changer. You're punching above your weight class. In terms of visibility. So that would be one thing to really think about. The second thing, Peter, is I see so many authors going back to kind of building that relationship list. We have some of our authors at Forbes Books that will pay back their investment before the book is ever printed.

Exactly, exactly.

By, by building relationships with it, interviewing people for certain chapters, featuring certain stories.

So the book Shouldn't just be your own, you know, let me, let me, let me play, let me comment on that. So I think that you're 1,000% right in that people tend— I mean, this is just human nature— to think in a linear way. I'm going to plan things out in stages and phases, right? So they think, I'm going to research, come up with an idea for a book, I'm going to write a book, book's going to get published, going to market it, and then the rainbows and unicorns.

Yeah.

Now the trick is, to your point, you can create the rainbows and unicorns earlier on. If during the course of writing the book, before the ink hits the press, you've developed 8 new relationships with 8 new prospects and 2 of them convert, the book's paid for itself. Totally. Yeah. Before you ever sell a book. The other thing I would say is that, and this isn't a Forbes thing, but traditional publishing treats books like a seasonal item. So the cadence of traditional publishing is the launch, 90, 120 days. So your book's coming out May 1st or September 1st, lots of activity, activity, activity, activity, and then it goes from 10 to 0. And I think folks that are writing books from a business standpoint to build a business, no pun intended, but a book should have a 5 to 10 year shelf life because everything you've written about in your book, whether I read it today, weeks after it was published, or in 5 years, if it's the right person at the right moment in time for me, I'm going to get the same aha of, I need to talk to Rusty.

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And traditional publishing, I mean, listen, if you can go get a deal with HarperBusiness or Penguin Portfolio, props. And for many people, there's, you know, the goal set aligns with what they do really well. We've got a lot of friends there. We still do a lot of PR for those publishing houses. But as you mentioned, it's sort of a different philosophy to to how the book is actually going to be used to the goal set that you may have. So that's one thing on the publishing side. The second thing I would mention, Peter, is for many leaders, the outcome of publishing that book is not just building trust with prospects and inspiring referrals, it is a great bridge to drive PR. It's a great reason to reach out to media. And part of what I want people watching this to think about is When you get featured in Forbes, when you get interviewed in the New York Times, when you get, you know, on CNBC, whatever it might be, there are 3 really important levels of value to every single media hit that you get. Number one is the actual audience watching that interview or the actual audience listening to that interview. And I hear a lot of leaders that say, listen, Rusty, I didn't get any phone calls from that Forbes hit, or I didn't get any phone calls from that Fortune hit. And It's really rare that you're gonna hear right away from somebody. So that's one level, but it's really not the most important level of value. The second level of value, which I would argue is the most important level of value, is the ability to remarket that logo, that media hit from here forward on your website. It's how you're introduced on stage, et cetera. The third-party credibility of Forbes vouching for you or NPR vouching for you, For the next 10 years or the next 20 years, that's going to be the most important ability to create value from that. The third thing that I would mention, Peter, is what I find for many people when I Google their name, if the second hit is that Forbes feature or the third hit is that HBR feature, etc., for that prospect that is sizing you up from afar, do not underestimate how much that changes the way they're looking at you. Again, from operator with something to sell to, man, I'm lucky to even get on the phone with her based on—

And I think the key point that you're making here is, listen, we all want instant gratification. If I'm going to get a media hit today, I'm expecting my phone to ring off the hook tomorrow. That's just not the way it works. Now, can that happen? Does it happen? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you need to be thinking about things as an investment that you're making and assets that you're creating over time. Sometimes they're easy to measure. Somebody will, like, I picked up a new client the other day that it was easy to track that they saw a webinar that I did with a publisher and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there's so many other times where it's a combination of things.

Right.

And they might not tell you, ah, the reason that I specifically hired you at this moment in time is the Forbes logo, or you were on Fox or CNN, whatever, whatever. But when they're checking you out, they're like, wow, that adds credibility. And, um, you know, if they're looking at you and competitors and you've got what your competitors don't, you know, it's way more than a tiebreaker.

It is. That's, that's the thing, is just put yourself in the shoes of your prospect. They're sizing up 5 different people, 4 of them look exactly the same. They're Googling your name, they're seeing you wrote the book on the topic, you've been featured in media, you've won certain awards. Again, This is not you saying that about yourself. This is others saying it about you. And that's one of the things I want to get really, really clear with your audience about is a good brand today is not you stroking your own ego or you building a, hey, look how smart I am, kind of brand. It's actually completely the opposite. Kind of the fine line I encourage people to walk, Peter, is on one side of the coin, you want the visuals within your brand. Essentially, I want them to say what I don't want you to say about yourself. Which is top of her category thought leader, wrote the book on the topic, featured in major media. In other words, I can trust her to teach me on this topic. And then the flip side, the entirety of your content strategy as a leader is all mission-driven thought leadership, right? If you never take another step with me, I'm gonna leave you better off. But the reality, Peter, is that audience is not interested in your message until they recognize you are the person to teach them on this topic. And that's why you have to do both sides of that coin.

Well, and I think those awards, accolades, lists, et cetera, some people don't really understand the power of them. Like I can say I'm great at what I do, right? You could say you're great at what you do, but if a respected authority body, whatever, in your respective industry said Rusty is a top X, right? Wow. Okay. Yeah, you could say that's gonna sound kind of jerky, but when they go, when they're checking you out and go, wow, look at all these places where he's ranking pretty high, whether it's his podcast or his contributions or whatever the case may be, those things matter. Now, again, not short-term hits, but you gotta play the long game, right? You have to continually invest in your thought leadership. And I think that's where, again, that tension between marketing and thought leadership, marketers are trained to measure everything and measure it immediately and track the results. And that's a great thing. And I'm not saying that thought leadership doesn't have to live up to that standard, but you have to look at it over a longer period of time. You do.

And it's creating a lot more long-term leverage, but you're right. It takes some time to build that momentum.

So we have a question here. Writing a book takes something. What would you say is the best way to get the book written when we are busy? Hire a book coach, ghostwriter, etc.? Well, you could take that one first, Rusty.

Yeah, Elaine, first of all, thanks for the question and thanks for being here. For most leaders, the practical reality is the value of their time is such that instead of spending 200 or 300 hours sitting down and writing the book, it's much more efficient and effective for them to work with a ghostwriter or work with a company like Forbes Books to help them write and publish that book in more like 20 or 30 hours of their time. So, if you have good relationships with ghostwriters, that's one way to do it. Some hybrid publishers or independent publishers like Forbes Books actually have the ghostwriters that are part of the process that they can pair you with and they run it soup to nuts. So, I do think for most leaders, Elaine, getting interviewed by somebody that's got the expertise that can take it 90-95% of the way there and then you can polish polish it. In my opinion, that's the most efficient and effective way to do it for a leader that's got 1,000 other plates spinning.

And what I would add to that, Rusty, is that I think a little bit of education goes a long way. So the term ghostwriter really covers a continuum, right? And I think sometimes people think, oh, that means I'm not writing anything, right? And there are actually different types of ghostwriters for different things. Like, it might be you're really good at what you do, but maybe you're not the greatest writer. I am a mediocre writer at best. I have plenty of ideas, but getting them polished and getting that narrative and getting that story, that's not my sweet spot. Then there are others that are like, I actually need an intellectual sparring partner to help me solidify my models. Then there are others where it might be, how can you help me shape this? How can you coach me? So I think when you're talking to, whether it's through a publisher or a ghostwriting agency, whatever the case is, understand the different types of ghostwriters there are and what the right one is for your need, if one. Because most people, you know, I would— you know, most people are not good writers, right? It's just they're not. Like, it's not— you know, I'm a CEO, I run a business, and, you know, even for you, this is your third, uh, third rodeo, if you will. What percentage of your total career have you spent writing? 2%?

Right.

And not to say you're a bad writer, Yeah, cool. As we start to wrap up here, any other thoughts that you would have or—

I would just say, just to get pragmatic for people that are trying to figure out, okay, what do I do right now? Do an online brand audit for yourself. So put yourself in the shoes of somebody that's been referred to you, go into an incognito window within your Google Chrome and meaning sort of take away the location and everything else and search your name. And number one, can you be found? And if the answer is no, my guess is for many people and maybe even Elaine, they've got a name that's really common. So, in other words, they've got a name that's John Smith or so.

Yeah.

So, in other words, do you need to change your name? Do you need to add a middle initial or a middle name to give you something you can fully own? If you don't yet own your name, first name, last name, .com or first name middle initial last name .com, go grab that. Second thing, Peter, and I won't go too far in the weeds on this, but if I can find you, the big thing I want you to think about is you've got to keep in mind I've been referred to you. When I get to LinkedIn, there's no image in my mind yet for you. When I get to your bio page on your website, there's no image in my mind. So if you're leading with a headshot or a sunset picture or stock photos, you are doing nothing to build trust with somebody that doesn't yet know you. So that idea of authority by association, if I was talking with somebody the other day who did a TEDx speech a couple of years ago, there's no LinkedIn header image. I can't find it unless I pack a lunch and go 15 results deep on Google. You ideally wanna put yourself visually in a setting that connotes authority, right? So those visuals saying what I don't want you to say about yourself. So that would be the big thing. Do your own search. Number 2, are you creating an image that positions you as that thought leader with something to teach rather than the operator with something to sell? And certainly the book will go deeper on each of those things.

Yeah, love it. Well, this has been great. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your insight and best of luck with the continued success of the book.

Peter, thank you so much, man. Appreciate you having me.