The Marketing Dilemma Every Author Faces | Rand Selig | 725

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 Rand Selleck. He has an MBA from Stanford and got an undergrad degree in mathematics and psychology. That's an interesting mix. He's managed hundreds of complex projects in his career and has run his own financial services firm for over 35 years. He's lived all over the world. He's coached Little League and has been a scoutmaster, and his book has been recently released, which is called Thriving. We're gonna want to talk about that and maybe kids and grandkids and all that other fun stuff too. So welcome, Rand. Thanks for coming on.

Peter, I'm look very much looking forward to our conversation.

So tell me, how did, how did we wind up here today as sort of Rand the author, Rand the thought leader, as opposed to Rand the Stanford MBA mathematician, financial services expert?

Well, I think it's very important to keep evolving, evolving in terms of being a lifelong learner, learning new things, meeting new people, but also evolving your sense of identity. So Stanford MBA, very big deal, opened a lot of doors. And in fact, without disclosing too many secrets, my 50th business school reunion's coming up in October. And I'm hoping actually to do a talk with them about many things that could be very pertinent, maybe workshop, very pertinent to where they are in life. And so that opened a lot of doors. It's a key and it didn't define me. It just propelled me.

Interesting. So, I mean, there's the growth mindset piece because I think, you know, unfortunately lots of times today people, even successful people get into their space, whether it's their function, their industry, whatever. And not that they stop learning full stop, but they're so myopic, right? Like they become, they have to stay on top of whether it's the law, if they're an attorney or accountant or finance or market, whatever it is. And the lens gets smaller, not broader, but you've sort of gone the other way. So talk about that a little bit.

Well, you know, I think I started off pretty early, right? With the view that there's a way to define success, right? That is my definition and not just, you know, the common definition. And that was an idea that I've had. I've been sort of an iconoclastic kind of person since, certainly since high school.

Wait, so you can't leave me hanging there. So what is your definition? I've got to ask that.

Oh, okay. Very good.

Hang in there.

Well, so for me, success is about being at peace, feeling fulfilled, being a certain kind of person, which is being kind and respectful, being grateful. There are a group of things. There's a long list of those qualities on how I'm feeling, having deep and enduring friendships. There are certain metrics that I can apply to that way of being. I can't count the number of smiles I'm giving. I can't count the number of hugs or fist bumps, but they are in some way measurable. And they're measurable by the amount of energy that I continue to have and build and look forward to. I'm a very positive person. Those kinds of ways of thinking about success are different than having a list of accomplishments. Yes, I have.

But stay there a minute. So stay there a minute. So on the one hand, we can say, well, you know, I could— I, I'm not the best at math, but if your 50th is coming up, I'm going to guess you're, you're a little beyond middle age, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You may, like me, be a member of ARP, right? So I'm wondering, if we were to have been having this conversation 30 years ago, right, would it be the same, or, or is it different? Because sometimes there's a point in your life where you're going for the stuff, you know, or the thing or the accomplishments. But has that been a through line throughout your career in your life?

Pretty much, with some very helpful experiences that were negative.

Okay.

So when I finished business school, I went to Wall Street to a firm— Lehman Brothers doesn't exist anymore, right? It was a horrible fit for me. The nicest thing I can say about those folks, they are very smart, very talented, but it was about money. And a lot of that industry, the investment banking, corporate finance business, about making money. And that was not— I thought this is an opportunity to be the fulcrum in capital formation for really great companies and great growth.

Well, but stay there a minute. When you say making money, what you, I think what you really mean is making money for yourself. That's right. Vis-à-vis firm. So it wasn't about because you could be the fulcrum, but the driver there is my bonus needs to be bigger than yours or bigger than it was last year. That's the mentality.

Nailed that one. Absolutely. And it very quickly moves into, is there enough for me?

Is—

I need more. And, um, you know, there's the word greed that comes along too, uh, exerting yourself in a way that sort of positions you to push somebody else down and push yourself up. There's a lot of behaviors there that I think are unattractive. I saw that very quickly. And looking back, I said, wow, that was a very unpleasant period of time, but I learned a lot.

Yeah.

Okay. It became clear who I was. And so, you know, it took me a dozen years, but I finally figured out, yes, I really want to stay as an investment banker. I'm really good at it. But I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to have my own firm. I don't like meetings, so we're not going to have stupid meetings. And I, I've never liked to have a boss. The other, I can only think of one boss that I liked, and that's the, the guy who called up and said, what resources can I send your way?

Right. I love it. So let's go to the book for a little bit more from the standpoint of not so much about what the book's about. We'll get to that, but why, like, why, why now? Did you feel the need to write a book and what, what was that about?

Well, my original thought, and this is going back maybe 5 years, was to take this 4-foot-high stack of papers that I've been collecting since high school, articles that I'd read, thoughts of my own, many, many quotes. My book is filled with really great quotes, nicely located, my readers say. And I was going to make a book that was kind of like a legacy project for family and friends.

Okay.

And when I had the manuscript ready, I very wisely sent it to 3 friends, knew me well, several were authors, and said, please give me feedback. I'm not interested in typos, but I am interested in what doesn't make sense, what's missing, those kinds of higher-level issues. And they all came back and basically said, No. And I thought, oh gosh, you're kidding.

What do you mean?

What do you mean? No, they said no. You know, I said I was going to make this a little legacy project and, you know, send it to, you know, 100 people. Right. And they said, no, this is a great book. It's of enormous value. You have to publish it. You have to get it in as many hands as you possibly can. And I so appreciate it. Of course, they had really great constructive comments about the book too, which I incorporated. But that really sent me off on this course. It's become my mission to engage with people on the possibility of taking more steps down the path of thriving. And not that I have all the answers, but I've had a very rich life and I'm full of life.

So, and what is, if any, is there a business model underneath or people, I mean, other than buying the book, are there other things people can do to learn from you, work from you, engage with you?

Well, I'm playing around with a couple of models. You know, I thought, okay, for a while I thought, well, I'll do, you know, go on the speaking thing and be a keynote speaker. And I've kind of pulled away from that a little bit, although being in front of the right audience is definitely what I like to do. But I don't want to market myself. There's something about that that people reach out to me. I will absolutely take a hard look at that.

Wait, wait, but I, I wanna pause you there for a minute because I've heard those words and variations on that theme dozens and dozens and dozens of times. So on the one hand, I would say this is mission-driven. This isn't about, you know, Rand's a narcissist or an egomaniac, or it's me, me, me. You wanna get the word out there. It's, it's almost evangelical, right? Because people should benefit from, from what you've put together and you're willing to do whatever it takes. Like you have these stacks of material, you spent hours and hours and months and months polishing it and getting it out there. But that pushback on the marketing, almost visceral, is pretty common because it gives many people either the ick factor or I don't want to be that guy, or I just, I don't like it. But that's a circle that you need to square because if it is true that you want to get the book out to as many people as possible, and whether it's for intrinsic reasons or extrinsic, there needs to be some strategy, needs to be some marketing because other than people banging at your door saying, I heard about this book, can you sell me a copy? You know, so tell me about that a little bit. How are you balancing that?

Okay. Well, it is a very legitimate question. Thank you, Peter, for asking it and trying to square that circle. You know what I am doing, and I think I'm happily doing it, is being on podcasts. This is 123. As guest. So it's, you know, I've been in front of lots of people all around the world in different kind of domains. Some are about stress, some are about health, some are very business-focused and on and on. So I like that. I enjoy these conversations. I'm meeting interesting people and people are then coming to me because they've seen me on a podcast and they want to link in with me or something. The second thing I'm doing, again, I think very, very, very well, I like it, is I use an AI platform, Inkflare. These are run by two amazing people, super smart NASA engineers who Inkflare read my book in 16 seconds, which is a little faster than I can read it. And every week they're putting out 5 posts, a blog, a YouTube, an Instagram, and 2 LinkedIn things. And I can edit and review those. I can reject it and off we go. So that's getting out and people are seeing that and commenting and, you know, saying, hey, Rand, uh, would you be interested in doing this with us? So that's the second. The third thing, those are the two primaries. The third thing is I'm collecting people I call collaborators. This is where have something to teach me that they're interested in learning, uh, the kinds of things I have. So the output is good, but the relationship is there too. And you know, we know each other's stories. We know how our hearts are beating and, you know, the moral compass is in front of us. So that would be a third thing. Now to dress that up, to continue the four sides of that square, then I'm looking at some other things. So, you know, before the recording started, I mentioned that a couple of people have reached out to represent me Or to buy the rights to the book for a, a film. Yeah. Or documentary. Very interested in exploring that. That's early stages. It may come to nothing. I don't know, but I'm very keen on that. One of my collaborators said, I want to be the younger Ram.

Well, I want to go back though. Yeah. Because you, you just accidentally contradicted yourself, right? So you said, oh, I don't want to do any marketing. And then I said, well, what are you doing? And you've been on 123 Podcast. You're using this InkFlare, using the content generation. I'm gonna make the argument, well, that smells like some marketing to me, Rand.

Oh, well, I think what I said is that I don't want to do marketing when it comes to keynotes. I don't, yeah, it was very specific to that.

Got it.

And the same, I think I've reached that same conclusion, at least for the time being, about building a workshop. Yes, I'd love to have a workshop. I could, you know, get some assistance. I've got a lot of material. Yeah, we're either a 3-hour thing or maybe a 2-day thing that would be fun to build and then deliver it. But I don't want to be knocking on doors and saying, oh, here it is, here's this shiny new toy.

Got it.

So it's, it's that edge that I'm, you know, working with a little bit.

Okay. So it seems like if a byproduct of the activities that you're doing that you are doing lead to someone emailing you and saying, hey, I heard podcast number 32 or whatever that you did. Have you ever thought of doing a workshop? Now they have to put that together. Could you come in and help us? Whatever. Right. I think I get that. I think that works to a degree, but I also think that the onus and the burden is on the thought leader to say, hey, here's 3 things I could do for you. Not in every instance, but these are the type of, type of ways I can work together, collaborate with you if If these ideas resonate, let's have a conversation, whatever the case may be.

Peter Winick, uh, absolutely, uh, correct. I think that's very sage and a lot of experience coming from you when you say that. And so what I need to do with my profile, my bios and so on is make that a little clearer. That step of what it is that I have to offer in terms of the message.

And it's really a packaging issue, right? Because they can fall in love with the idea.

Yes.

They're not gonna stay up late at night going, oh, I heard him speak and that, that whole piece on, you know, A, B, and C really felt like something that makes me, makes me comfortable and I'd love to bring this into my company to share it with people. But I don't see that on a site and I don't even know, eh, all right, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go through all that. Right.

I, I'm, I need to make it easier and clear, uh, a little more through line. So here's something that is a revised bio that I'm doing. You know, through his talks, Rand bridges the worlds of performance and purpose and the worlds of doing and being, offering practical experience-based insights on how to move forward beyond external measures of success and creating a life rooted in meaning, alignment, and impact. Audiences walk away with a new perspective. A deeper understanding of what drives their choices.

Yep.

What's holding them back from thriving and clear principles they can apply immediately to begin living a more intentional and fulfilling life.

So one thing I would change, I'll give you some free consulting, right?

Please, please.

I would, that last piece when you talk about the audiences. Yes. I would change that to, and the benefit of participating in one of these programs is Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Or, or to the individual, it's X, to the team, it's Y, and to the organization, it's Z, right?

Right.

Then what happens is the, you know, the organization go, wow, this makes sense for us as an organization. It feels good for the individuals. A team that thinks this way will be more productive, more collaborative, uh, more high-performing, whatever, whatever. And an org that works this way is gonna retain a set, whatever. You gotta put the pieces together, but how does that work at an individual level, a team level, and an org level? And now what you've done is you've crossed that bridge into sort of the, well, what does an organization want? Right? Yeah. And you made that like, oh, this fits that.

Uh, thank you. Thank you. So you, if you wanna pop an invoice in the mail, that's okay.

Good. There we go. What's your email?

Okay. There you go. No, that's good. I, I appreciate that. Uh, Peter, that's good.

Cool.

Good.

Great. As, as we start to land the plane here a little bit, what's been, what are some of the things, 'cause you're a lifelong learner, you, you gave that up in the beginning. What are a couple things you've learned along the way from the book? Maybe one that was really surprising and one that was less surprising.

It's about becoming an author.

Yeah. Becoming an author. Not just whether it's the writing side or the getting the ideas out there side, or however you want to pick that.

Well, this has been an enormous adventure, and I've really enjoyed it and learned a lot. One of the things I've learned is, you know, what it takes. It takes a lot to get a book written and edited, published. And guess what? Congratulations, you're a third of the way there. You got to get the word back. So there's not a lot of transparency around this, and it is a business for a lot of organizations, a lot of people. And so there are a lot of, I don't know, Charlatan comes to mind. They offer stuff, but the, but the, you know, the connect to ROI is very unclear and they can be very pricey kinds of propositions.

So that's expensive lessons. Those are expensive lessons. And it feels like they somewhere between predatory and crawl out of the woodwork, right? Because there's lots of things you haven't done. Writing a book isn't one. So obviously, you're a novice when it comes to being on the receiving end of that versus if it was in a space that you have deeper experience in.

Exactly right. And, you know, because we're living in an AI world, it's very easy to have some pretend person write up an amazing email saying they're representing somebody that they don't really represent. And then off you go. And if you make the mistake of opening up your wallet, you could be out those bucks. So there's a cost.

The expense could be— yeah, it could be. I mean, the expense could be financial, reputational, you know, that's right. Lots of damaging you can do. Well, it's been fantastic. I appreciate you sharing some time with us and telling us about your journey. Good stuff. Thank you, Rand.

Well, pleasure to speak with you, Peter. You're— you're got a lot of wisdom going on in that receding hairline head of yours.

It has receded. I think it's— yeah, it's— it's Maybe there's more to go, but we, we shall see. Thank you so much. Thanks, Rand. Thank you. 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.