May 20, 2025 • 29 mins
Learn why having the most LinkedIn Company Page followers can set your brand apart by establishing social proof, credibility, and industry leadership. Discover how to transform your company's presence on LinkedIn, attract new followers, and engage your audience better.
Key moments in this episode -
00:00 Guest - Ashley Faus
00:55 Defining Thought Leadership
01:51 Challenges with Founder-Led Brands
02:46 Misconceptions in B2B Thought Leadership
04:28 The Role of Executives in Thought Leadership
12:00 Identifying New Thought Leaders Within the Company
21:01 Practical Tips for Supporting Thought Leaders
25:16 Ashley's Book Promotion
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
G'Day everyone.
It's Coach Michelle J Raymond, yourtrusted guide for building your
brand and your business on LinkedInand listeners this week we've
got a bit of a different episode.
I've got one of my favoriteguests of the show back again.
I'm pretty sure this isthe third time lucky.
Because there are some topics that Ithink we need to get a little spicy
(00:39):
on and sometimes it's a bit of funfor me to do that with a friend.
Ashley Faus, welcome back to the show.
Thank you for having me.
You're one of my favorite people to dopodcasts episodes with as well, so this
is, this is a treat for me as well.
We are going to be talking aboutall things thought leadership.
And if I have to quote something fromone of my podcast episodes, the standout
(01:06):
quote for me every single time is"Ashley, what is thought leadership?
And your response is, well, Michelle,big hands have thoughts, be a leader.
And so I knew when we started there,that literally is my response when
somebody else asked me, what is the,your definition of thought leadership?
I can't get that out of my mind.
(01:28):
But today I wanna talk aboutsomething a little different.
We're going at thought leadership,not in the standard kind of way,
because that's been done to death.
We're gonna talk about are people creatingin their brands the thought leader that
they actually need, or the one thateverybody tells them that they should.
(01:49):
What do you have to say on this?
Well, I mean obviously you'veasked me a leading question.
So I'm glad that the whole founder ledbrand is actually already starting to die.
Like I. I cannot, I'm actuallyhosting a debate inbound titled Why
Founder Led Brands Falter, and thisidea that your executives, your
(02:11):
founders, people with a big fancytitle are the best thought leaders.
The only thought leaders, the people,I think, is fundamentally wrong.
I'm not saying that those people can'tbe thought leaders, but the idea that
they should be or are the best or areautomatically thought leaders just
based on their title is nonsense.
(02:33):
And like I have, I have zerowords to mince about that opinion.
Oh, I can't stop laughing on this one'cause I knew you were gonna go there.
And yes, I did set you up to smash thatone out of the park, which you did.
What do you think is the thingthat most B2B brands get wrong
about thought leadership?
(02:54):
I think there's a couple things,and I'll relate it back directly
to this founder or exec thing.
Um, let's first start with have thoughts,and I don't think that just saying
contrarian things or saying the oppositeof the status quo automatically means
that you are having innovative thoughts.
However, when you are being innovative,when you are helping people think
(03:19):
and take action in a new direction,that tends to ruffle some feathers.
And so if you look at what founders,executives, a president, a CEO
generally are supposed to be doing,they're supposed to be ensuring that
everything is steady as she goes.
We're on a stable, predictable upwardgrowth trajectory up into the right.
(03:41):
And so basically they, they neveractually say anything controversial
or new because that's not whatthey're supposed to be doing.
They're supposed to assure customersthat the product is stable and it's
gonna, you know, we're gonna stay inbusiness or the services, we're gonna
continue to provide those services.
They're supposed to assure employees.
(04:01):
That, Hey, this is a great place to work.
You're doing good work.
Customers are happy.
You're gonna get paid.
They're supposed to if you'vegot investors or VCs, or you're
public, you've got shareholders.
They're supposed to ensure thateverybody knows, Hey, you're gonna
get a good return on your investment.
Our stock is a good buy.
If you come outta left field andsuddenly radically put forth this brand
(04:23):
new vision for something no one's everheard of, nothing about that is stable.
Right?
So at minimum, it's very hard for themto have time to think about these radical
new things, let alone codify them.
And then even if they do manage to dothat, they're generally discouraged
from talking about it becausetheir whole goal is to be stable.
(04:46):
So that's just on the have thoughts part.
So I'll pause there before we even getto be a leader, because that's gonna be
a very spicy course for us to go down.
I actually, as you were talking, wantedto interrupt so badly 'cause I wanna
say, Ashley, please tell the audiencethat just having posts go out on LinkedIn
(05:10):
underneath your founder or CEO or somekind of high up execs account is not
thought leadership as defined by this.
And so for me, I often see that peoplewanna go, yes, let's go and just post
under that account and then tick thatwe are building thought leadership.
I love that you were saying thatit's not that, but I'm gonna
(05:32):
let you go onto the second part.
Let's go to the leadershippart because I think.
You are right.
There's an element, and you and I havespoken about this before, that leadership
requires having some kind of audience,and you can talk about how you define
that a little bit, but ultimately you haveto inspire that audience on some level.
(05:53):
And for me, it's a two-way street.
Not just preaching at said audience,which again is often that the post
goes out on LinkedIn under the account.
That person is never to be seen.
They don't respond to comments.
They don't go and engagewith other people's content.
It's just thou shalt listen to me andthat is not thought leadership like
(06:13):
that drives me crazy and I don't knowif it does more damage than good.
Where do you fall on that one?
I actually think the perfect type ofcontent to demonstrate both the lack
of thoughts and lack of leadershipis the company earnings update.
This is something, this is like a coreresponsibility for a CFO, a President, a
(06:34):
CEO, depending on the size of the company,a founder, somebody with a very big title
must give the quarterly earnings update.
Everybody recognizes that just becausethat's coming from a C-suite title, that
is in no way thought leadership, right?
It's news and that'sfine and you gotta do it.
Um, but I, I feel like that's actuallythe perfect example to kind of
(06:55):
show the have thoughts be a leader.
Being a leader in a business and thisis something that people get wrong, they
think that if you're good at your job,that automatically makes any content or
something that you post out into the worldthought leadership, that's not the case.
You can be very good at yourjob and not be a thought leader.
You could put content out into theworld that is not thought leadership
(07:18):
and that does not actually helpyou build an audience, right?
Like people are not following thesehuge company leader, you know, profiles
for the quarterly on earnings update.
Like that hits the headlines.
Or you can go to the companynewsroom and get that right.
Like it's, it's so it's that I think islike the perfect type of content to show
(07:41):
the lack of thought leadership from.
You know, a C-Suite person or whyjust posting on LinkedIn without
engaging or without saying anythingnew doesn't mean that you're actually
building and engaging that audience.
Like you said, in fairness tothese execs and the people at the
top of the food chain, they arekind of tied in a lot of ways.
(08:05):
Unless you are the founder and it'syour business and it's probably in
startup mode and you can go crazyand build everything from scratch.
A lot of these B2B brands are legacybrands have been around for a long time.
They're established out in themarketplace and to just show up all
of a sudden, like you said, and throwthings out of left field like that
(08:27):
is going to unnerve a lot of people.
But is there any other reasons thatyou think that these people may not be
best suited to be thought leaders andrepresent the business in that way?
I think the other big thing isactually the time component.
They don't actually have time to do,make a hypothesis, do the research on
(08:48):
it, test it, codify it in a way thatsomebody else can use, those people,
then test it, those people codify it.
Whatever they learn from it gets putback into the original hypothesis and
the original research and that iterativecycle like if you're talking about true
thought leadership, you are talking aboutputting new knowledge into the market.
(09:10):
You are talking about puttingthings out in a way that people
can actually learn from it, takeaction on it, do something new.
And most execs just do not havetime for that kind of rigor.
And that's actually fine.
It's not their core skillset and it's nothow they should be spending their time.
And I, I wanna be clear, like execsadd a lot of value, both from a
(09:34):
communication standpoint, from a marketingstandpoint, from a business standpoint.
They add a lot of value.
And I think people, this idea thatthought leadership is, is quality
content or it's the only way to putvalue out into the world if you're
on LinkedIn or you are standing on astage, like that is actually incorrect.
I have spicy opinions aboutwhat is thought leadership.
(09:57):
I also have some spicy opinions aboutthe fact that thought leadership is not
the only way for people to add value.
I think that's the other big thing.
They just do not have time or themandate to do the kind of research
testing, codifying, iterating, updating,and then obviously sharing that is
required for true thought leadership.
(10:18):
If I think about just trying to writenormal, everyday content for myself in
my business, I've been writing contentfor around 10 years now, and doing it
for other people and businesses as well.
But if I look at my own, realistically,if I was to sit down and write just a
normal post, most of the time, that'shalf an hour to an hour for me, depending
(10:42):
how deep I want to go into things.
That's not even at the level of thoughtleadership, like you said, with all the
extra, additional research, you know,proving things that are working out,
coming up with something entirely new.
That's a whole other level in itself.
Like if I then take this to whenI'm presenting on stages, trying
to come up with the next bigidea that's taking me months.
(11:05):
And you know, I've noticed that by doingthat and getting focused on doing that
as a small business, what happens isI drop the ball on lots of other things
that I should be doing to make it happen.
So I absolutely can relate to why it's notpossible for people in these businesses
(11:25):
to make thought leadership happen.
This is not something thatis for the faint of heart.
It is not something that is for everyone.
And that assumes that you'vegot a predisposition to actually
enjoying and wanting to be thatyou know there's nothing worse
than, oh, you are the leader.
You have to do this.
Like nobody wants to be forced to createcontent of any kind, let alone at that
(11:49):
thought leadership, which is like theelite status level of creating content.
But I don't wanna leave our listenerswith the, well, they're the wrong person,
so ner ner ner ner ner kind of feeling.
Ashley, let's go into taking alook at where else can we find
people that might be suitable forthought leaders in the business?
How can we flip this around and reallyspot an opportunity that might be
(12:14):
in a place where people have beenso focused on the CEO and execs and
overlooked a massive opportunity tofind other people in the business?
I will frame this up in terms ofmy framework, which is the four
pillars of thought leadership.
So you and I have done, I think,two episodes on, on some of this,
but I'll, I'll give it as a framing.
So, uh, the pillars are credibilityprofile, being prolific, and
(12:37):
having strong depth of ideas.
We've talked in the past, I think, aboutkind of the different types of creators.
So thought leaders are strongacross all four pillars.
Influencers tend to be strong in termsof having that really high audience.
They've got a decent amount ofcredibility, and they're usually
prolific in one channel, butthey tend to be talking about
(12:57):
existing problems and solutions,so they're low on depth of ideas.
Subject matter experts are the perfectplace for you to start looking internally
because they have very high credibilityand they're actually usually pretty
strong on depth of ideas becausethey're entrenched in these problems.
These are your senior level practitioners.
A lot of times, particularly on the SaaSside, they sit in solution engineering
(13:18):
or customer success management.
They are so close to the problemspace and they're constantly trying to
solve new iterations of the problem.
And so because of that, they'realso pretty good at coming up with
new solutions and then looking atadjacent problem spaces and coming
up with new solutions for those.
Where they struggle is on thatprofile and prolific standpoint.
(13:40):
And so from a business standpoint.
They've got the credibility throughtheir expertise and experience.
They've got the strong ideas,based on their proximity to
the problem and solution.
And so where you as a business canhelp them is by giving them space to
codify what they're seeing as they'resolving those problems, which then
helps them be more prolific, and thenyou can help amplify their voice.
(14:03):
Giving them the space, putting themup to be the person who speaks to
press or putting them up for podcastsor conferences or pairing them with a
marketer or a writer who can help themcreate more content based on their
excellent source material that theycan then use to build their profile.
And so that's a place where actuallyyou've got this wealth of information.
(14:25):
With these senior level practitioners,you just need as a business to amplify
their voices and provide them support.
Again, don't try to force them to go outand be influencers if that's not what
they wanna be, or force them into thatpublic eye if they don't wanna be there.
But that's a great place to start.
And obviously I have a bit of aluxury, I work for a very large
(14:45):
company, Atlassian, and we've gottens of thousands of employees.
So even if only 1% of thosepeople are like, Hey, pick me,
I wanna be out there speaking.
You know, that gives us, what is it?
Let's call it a over a hundred peoplethat we could choose to support.
So we have a almost an embarrassmentof riches in that way, but
even for smaller businesses.
(15:06):
There is probably someone who'ssmart, capable, and willing.
They just aren't able right now.
And so that's where you as a business canhelp make space by either pairing them
with resources or giving them trainingand then giving them the opportunity.
I would say in my experience withtrying to get help businesses get
(15:30):
their teams active on LinkedIn,calling for willing volunteers who are
open-minded and interested in becomingthis, is probably the first stop.
Because I'm not convinced as muchas those that are big proponents
of employee advocacy and they'recheering on that employee generated
content is the next best thing andit's all gonna take over the world.
(15:52):
Until you sit down in an actualcompany and find out who wants to post.
And in general, if you can find that1%, I think you're doing pretty well.
Lucky for you, like you said, you've gottens of thousands of employees to pick
from in smaller businesses, you'll bestruggling to find a willing participant
and not because people aren't capable.
(16:15):
That's a very different conversation.
I agree with you.
There are lots of capablepeople within businesses.
But whether they have that interest toput themselves out there for judgement
is what it feels like in their mind.
Like, why should I do this?
You are not paying me.
There's nothing in it for me.
My KPIs in my job don'tsay, go and do this stuff.
(16:36):
How can a business support people tokind of take that person from capable
into that next step of actually,okay, we're gonna do this together.
How can we help them make it happen?
So the call out about KPIs andit's not my job is not small,
that is not a small blocker.
(16:58):
And one thing I'll note, even froma super tactical perspective, right?
Um, someone's title, and I hearthis a lot, especially on kind of
the comms or PR side of the house.
Oh, they reporters don'twanna talk to somebody without
this certain level of title.
And it's like, is this persondoing that level of work?
Then change their title.
(17:19):
Right?
There's this concept on theengineering side of the house,
of a field CTO, or a field CIO.
And this is somebody who is not actuallythe CIO or CTO of the company, but
has that level of experience of eitherrunning a large org, they've maybe been
a CTO or a CIO previously and now theirwhole job is to go out and be the face
(17:42):
of, you know, the ideas or the processchange or the research or whatever.
And they are an individual contributor.
They really don't have a team.
They're not managing an org anymore, butthey have that title so that they have the
gravitas to actually be able to do this.
Um, so yeah, if, if all your KPIs, ifthis is an interruption to your day
(18:04):
job, you get no credit for doing it.
It doesn't go into your promotion packto say, Hey, I'm, I'm ready to be a more
senior level leader because I'm out therebeing the face or advocating or helping
to shape the industry conversation.
If it's in no way acknowledged orcelebrated internally, then like,
yeah, most people aren't gonna do it.
So there's an element ofthis where they're not wrong.
(18:27):
When they push back and say,this is nowhere in any priority
either for intrinsic or extrinsicmotivation, like companies, you,
you have to offer some upside.
And for some people that is recognitionfor other people, particularly as
they grow more senior in their career.
This be the face thing is somethingthat is considered to be a requirement.
(18:49):
So like.
Note that this is directly tied toyour promotion as you get more senior
or do spot bonuses or make it a KPI.
Their KPIs are around content creation,sharing, speaking at conferences, being on
podcasts, posting on LinkedIn, et cetera.
So there is some of thiswhere the person is not wrong.
(19:10):
Like companies you do have to figureout how to incentivize this and
how to make it less burdensome froma time and resources perspective.
Yeah, absolutely.
Otherwise, there's all riskand no upside for the person.
And it may not be thatthe upside's not there.
It may be that they can't seeit because you haven't had
(19:32):
that conversation with them.
And in an employee's world, itfeels like I'm putting my job
at risk, my career at risk.
What will my peers think of me?
What will our competitors,what will my leaders think?
The more I've done this business,the more I speak to people, the
more I have conversations and askpeople, why aren't you posting?
(19:53):
The more I realize thatthis is one big scary place.
And when you are talking about, goand be a thought leader on LinkedIn,
where you're gonna put out originalideas which will get judged.
And I'm a bit of a sensitive petalnot gonna lie, Ashley like feedback
for me sometimes cuts like a knife.
I am so precious some daysthat I drive myself crazy.
(20:15):
Lucky for me, I've got Lil in thebackground who is always there going,
it's okay Michelle it's just feedback.
It doesn't mean anything about you.
But again, I've been doingthis for 10 years, you would
think I'd be used to it by now.
No, no, no.
All these other emotionalthings get stacked on top.
When I know I can write a postwith my eyes closed, on any topic
(20:35):
pretty much, and make it work.
But I'm human and I think this is whatI wanna bring into this conversation
today, is that you are working withreal humans who are just, just human.
I, I think that's all I can say.
I, I wanted to go further withit, but I think we just need to
understand that people get scared.
(20:57):
That people, even if they wantto do this, may still not do it.
But one of the things you were saying,how we can help them is by having a
resource that can actually help themwith the being prolific side of this.
What are some practical tips you canrecommend from that side of things?
There's a couple ways to approach thisdepending on how big your team is,
(21:19):
how big your budget is, et cetera.
To your point about humans, Iwill reiterate that none of the
things I'm about to say replace theoriginal human, and you and I have
talked about this before, right?
In order for a ghost writer to work,they have to have someone to ghost.
You can have a ghost writer, not aghost thinker, if someone think that
(21:42):
they're just gonna be like, Michelle'sgonna write all my posts for me.
No, she's not.
What is she gonna talk about for me?
If Michelle's writing, if she's doing allthe research and all the writing, and all
the publishing and all the responding.
Isn't, isn't Michelle the personwho's doing every, like, aren't
they just hanging out with Michelle?
Which again, I thinkthat's a great choice.
(22:02):
Like Michelle's super smart,but if you wanna hear from
Ashley, I have to show up.
So depending on the team, andthe internal company culture.
There is a ton of really smart contentideas, knowledge, recommendations, et
cetera, hiding in Slack messages, inour case, in Confluence pages, if you're
in an office, it's on a whiteboard.
(22:23):
There's, it's coveredin sticky notes, right?
Like all of this great contentis actually stuck somewhere
that just needs to be let out.
And so whether you use AI to dothat, whether you partner with a
ghost writer, um, I think step oneis getting everything into a central
repository and that can be daunting.
(22:43):
So my book is coming out ina couple of weeks, right?
Everybody when I first started writing waslike, you have so much source material,
just pull all of your LinkedIn posts in,and that's a book right there, right?
It is daunting to go track downeverything you've ever said or
thought and dump it into a repository.
If you are a large company, this is agreat way for, like, if you've got AI
or you've got something embedded inall your systems, put in some prompts
(23:06):
and say, go pull all of these pages.
Here's kind of the questions thatwe're trying to help someone answer,
pull in all of the knowledge that youhave, and you'll probably start to
see certain names pop up frequently aslike, all right, this is the expert.
Right?
I actually write a fair amountinternally about LinkedIn and about,
you know, content and buildingyour personal brand on LinkedIn.
(23:27):
So let's say if Atlassian suddenlydecided we're gonna become the leaders
in how to post on LinkedIn, right?
The prompt for our.
You know, agent basically wouldbe robo and you type it in and
you'd say, okay, robo, go find me.
The person who knows about this,my name would show up a lot.
Right?
So then at that point, it gives ourcomms team or our marketing team,
(23:47):
or if I'm the person writing it, itgives me something to start with.
I've had this question before of likebudget of like, if you had unlimited
budget, what would you spend it on?
You know, a campaign or a Super Bowl ad?
I'm like, no.
I would pair one-to-one, a marketinggeneralist with a like smart, capable
person who wants to be a thoughtleader, but they're just not fluent
(24:08):
in the skill of creating, right?
So having somebody who can help withgraphics, who can help with, um, writing,
who can help with videos, et cetera.
So if you are running very lean,what I would recommend is focusing
in on a couple of key pillar assets.
And from my perspective, I thinkit's easiest to do something with a
conference presentation because it getsyou visuals, it gets you audio, it gets
(24:31):
you video and it gives you somethinglike a transcript to start with.
If you wanna do long form articles,which you can then obviously repurpose
all of that into social media posts.
You can pull your slides outand turn them into carousels.
You can save your slidesas images for posts.
Um, the big key there is you have tothink about designing the entire talk
(24:52):
and the entire slide deck for longtail distribution, and this is where
someone that is a marketer or a commsprofessional like this is where we
shine because this is how we think.
So those are some opportunities, whetherif you're a big company, you've got a
whole comms team and a marketing team anda graphics team, or if you're a lean team,
and you're running kind of on a shoestringbudget with limited time and resources.
(25:14):
Those would be my tips.
Thank you for so many cool things.
'cause most content ishiding in plain sight.
The skill is discoveringwhat's all around you already.
It's not necessarily even creating fromscratch, which is the kind of cool thing.
But you mentioned something that I'mso proud of you and excited 'cause I
know the amount of work that you havedone to get your book ready for launch.
(25:39):
Depending on the timing of thisepisode, it may already be out.
Of course, all of the detailsare gonna be in the show notes.
But anyone that's listening to thispoint in this podcast has loved
this conversation and I know isgonna love your book even more.
Can you give us a bit of an insightinto how that's gonna help people
get more out of what they're doing?
(25:59):
Sure.
So the book is titled Human-CenteredMarketing, How to Connect With
Audiences in The Age of AI.
So it goes back to the,there's humans in this.
They have their fears, they havetheir hopes, , they also have their
very smart thoughts that feed intohaving thoughts and being a leader.
Um, so the book does lay out acouple of different frameworks.
There's a whole set of chapters on thefour pillars of thought leadership,
(26:20):
different types of B2B creators.
There's step-by-step instructionsabout how to find your ideas, how
to think about your personal brand.
I give very few tactical LinkedIntips given that the algorithm
changes every two seconds.
And then there's two other frameworks.
One is this playground mindsetshift, and there's some details
(26:40):
and tactics in there about how toreally design an audience journey
that converts and builds that trust.
And then another framework, which I'vetalked about a little bit, but it's
less, uh, prominent in my own work,and that's the social media spectrum.
And it's how do you go beyond justcommunicating and broadcasting
information even beyond conversations?
(27:00):
I find that a lot of brands get stuckthere and going into community, which is
something that I know you are excellentat and is core to a lot of your work.
The core thesis is really aroundbuilding trust, rapport, and affinity.
If you can win hearts and minds, then youhave a chance at winning the wallet, but
most companies have it backwards wherethey're just chasing the money and they
(27:22):
don't understand why they need to buildtrust and affinity and rapport and you
know, shocker that business impact doesn'tcome if you only focus on the money.
You might be on the sales side of LinkedInand using it for that side of things.
You should go and read this anyway,because I think the crossover between
sales and marketing when it comesto social selling on platforms
(27:45):
like LinkedIn is they're prettymuch the same thing these days.
I'm just gonna put it out there.
I don't think that there's.
This distinct line anymore?
And the more that we can work together,the better the results that we get.
So I wish you every successwith your book launch.
Again, super proud of you.
Super pumped for you to getyour ideas out in the world.
Listeners, all the details of this supercool book will be in the show notes.
(28:07):
Go and check it out.
Grab yourself a copy and if yougrab one and read it and love it.
Don't forget to leave Ashleya recommendation or review.
These things really help authors,uh, speaking from experience.
Ashley, as always, has beeneverything I thought it would be.
Thanks for getting spicy on the podcast.
And will you come backagain one other day.
(28:27):
Anytime, every time.
And one other sneak peek for the book.
Uh, Michelle is also featured in a coupleof places in the book because, you know,
if we're gonna talk about human centeredmarketing, we gotta talk about Michelle.
The love goes back to her froman expertise standpoint as well.
This is my favorite part and I do hopethat you're making an adventure back to
(28:48):
Sydney sometime in the near future sothat we can have another one of those
big hugs and a walk by Bondi Beach.
So listeners, I hope you've enjoyedthis episode as much as what I have.
Remember, have thoughts, be a leader.
Are you choosing the creatoryour brand actually needs?
Or are you just following what you thinkis popular and the expected choice?
(29:10):
'cause I promise you, if you take alook around and follow Ashley's advice,
you might actually have the rightperson hiding there in plain sight.
So until next week, cheers.
G'Day everyone.
It's Coach Michelle J Raymond, yourtrusted guide for building your
brand and your business on LinkedInand listeners this week we've
got a bit of a different episode.
I've got one of my favoriteguests of the show back again.
I'm pretty sure this isthe third time lucky.
Because there are some topics that Ithink we need to get a little spicy
(00:39):
on and sometimes it's a bit of funfor me to do that with a friend.
Ashley Faus, welcome back to the show.
Thank you for having me.
You're one of my favorite people to dopodcasts episodes with as well, so this
is, this is a treat for me as well.
We are going to be talking aboutall things thought leadership.
And if I have to quote something fromone of my podcast episodes, the standout
(01:06):
quote for me every single time is"Ashley, what is thought leadership?
And your response is, well, Michelle,big hands have thoughts, be a leader.
And so I knew when we started there,that literally is my response when
somebody else asked me, what is the,your definition of thought leadership?
I can't get that out of my mind.
(01:28):
But today I wanna talk aboutsomething a little different.
We're going at thought leadership,not in the standard kind of way,
because that's been done to death.
We're gonna talk about are people creatingin their brands the thought leader that
they actually need, or the one thateverybody tells them that they should.
(01:49):
What do you have to say on this?
Well, I mean obviously you'veasked me a leading question.
So I'm glad that the whole founder ledbrand is actually already starting to die.
Like I. I cannot, I'm actuallyhosting a debate inbound titled Why
Founder Led Brands Falter, and thisidea that your executives, your
(02:11):
founders, people with a big fancytitle are the best thought leaders.
The only thought leaders, the people,I think, is fundamentally wrong.
I'm not saying that those people can'tbe thought leaders, but the idea that
they should be or are the best or areautomatically thought leaders just
based on their title is nonsense.
(02:33):
And like I have, I have zerowords to mince about that opinion.
Oh, I can't stop laughing on this one'cause I knew you were gonna go there.
And yes, I did set you up to smash thatone out of the park, which you did.
What do you think is the thingthat most B2B brands get wrong
about thought leadership?
(02:54):
I think there's a couple things,and I'll relate it back directly
to this founder or exec thing.
Um, let's first start with have thoughts,and I don't think that just saying
contrarian things or saying the oppositeof the status quo automatically means
that you are having innovative thoughts.
However, when you are being innovative,when you are helping people think
(03:19):
and take action in a new direction,that tends to ruffle some feathers.
And so if you look at what founders,executives, a president, a CEO
generally are supposed to be doing,they're supposed to be ensuring that
everything is steady as she goes.
We're on a stable, predictable upwardgrowth trajectory up into the right.
(03:41):
And so basically they, they neveractually say anything controversial
or new because that's not whatthey're supposed to be doing.
They're supposed to assure customersthat the product is stable and it's
gonna, you know, we're gonna stay inbusiness or the services, we're gonna
continue to provide those services.
They're supposed to assure employees.
(04:01):
That, Hey, this is a great place to work.
You're doing good work.
Customers are happy.
You're gonna get paid.
They're supposed to if you'vegot investors or VCs, or you're
public, you've got shareholders.
They're supposed to ensure thateverybody knows, Hey, you're gonna
get a good return on your investment.
Our stock is a good buy.
If you come outta left field andsuddenly radically put forth this brand
(04:23):
new vision for something no one's everheard of, nothing about that is stable.
Right?
So at minimum, it's very hard for themto have time to think about these radical
new things, let alone codify them.
And then even if they do manage to dothat, they're generally discouraged
from talking about it becausetheir whole goal is to be stable.
(04:46):
So that's just on the have thoughts part.
So I'll pause there before we even getto be a leader, because that's gonna be
a very spicy course for us to go down.
I actually, as you were talking, wantedto interrupt so badly 'cause I wanna
say, Ashley, please tell the audiencethat just having posts go out on LinkedIn
(05:10):
underneath your founder or CEO or somekind of high up execs account is not
thought leadership as defined by this.
And so for me, I often see that peoplewanna go, yes, let's go and just post
under that account and then tick thatwe are building thought leadership.
I love that you were saying thatit's not that, but I'm gonna
(05:32):
let you go onto the second part.
Let's go to the leadershippart because I think.
You are right.
There's an element, and you and I havespoken about this before, that leadership
requires having some kind of audience,and you can talk about how you define
that a little bit, but ultimately you haveto inspire that audience on some level.
(05:53):
And for me, it's a two-way street.
Not just preaching at said audience,which again is often that the post
goes out on LinkedIn under the account.
That person is never to be seen.
They don't respond to comments.
They don't go and engagewith other people's content.
It's just thou shalt listen to me andthat is not thought leadership like
(06:13):
that drives me crazy and I don't knowif it does more damage than good.
Where do you fall on that one?
I actually think the perfect type ofcontent to demonstrate both the lack
of thoughts and lack of leadershipis the company earnings update.
This is something, this is like a coreresponsibility for a CFO, a President, a
(06:34):
CEO, depending on the size of the company,a founder, somebody with a very big title
must give the quarterly earnings update.
Everybody recognizes that just becausethat's coming from a C-suite title, that
is in no way thought leadership, right?
It's news and that'sfine and you gotta do it.
Um, but I, I feel like that's actuallythe perfect example to kind of
(06:55):
show the have thoughts be a leader.
Being a leader in a business and thisis something that people get wrong, they
think that if you're good at your job,that automatically makes any content or
something that you post out into the worldthought leadership, that's not the case.
You can be very good at yourjob and not be a thought leader.
You could put content out into theworld that is not thought leadership
(07:18):
and that does not actually helpyou build an audience, right?
Like people are not following thesehuge company leader, you know, profiles
for the quarterly on earnings update.
Like that hits the headlines.
Or you can go to the companynewsroom and get that right.
Like it's, it's so it's that I think islike the perfect type of content to show
(07:41):
the lack of thought leadership from.
You know, a C-Suite person or whyjust posting on LinkedIn without
engaging or without saying anythingnew doesn't mean that you're actually
building and engaging that audience.
Like you said, in fairness tothese execs and the people at the
top of the food chain, they arekind of tied in a lot of ways.
(08:05):
Unless you are the founder and it'syour business and it's probably in
startup mode and you can go crazyand build everything from scratch.
A lot of these B2B brands are legacybrands have been around for a long time.
They're established out in themarketplace and to just show up all
of a sudden, like you said, and throwthings out of left field like that
(08:27):
is going to unnerve a lot of people.
But is there any other reasons thatyou think that these people may not be
best suited to be thought leaders andrepresent the business in that way?
I think the other big thing isactually the time component.
They don't actually have time to do,make a hypothesis, do the research on
(08:48):
it, test it, codify it in a way thatsomebody else can use, those people,
then test it, those people codify it.
Whatever they learn from it gets putback into the original hypothesis and
the original research and that iterativecycle like if you're talking about true
thought leadership, you are talking aboutputting new knowledge into the market.
(09:10):
You are talking about puttingthings out in a way that people
can actually learn from it, takeaction on it, do something new.
And most execs just do not havetime for that kind of rigor.
And that's actually fine.
It's not their core skillset and it's nothow they should be spending their time.
And I, I wanna be clear, like execsadd a lot of value, both from a
(09:34):
communication standpoint, from a marketingstandpoint, from a business standpoint.
They add a lot of value.
And I think people, this idea thatthought leadership is, is quality
content or it's the only way to putvalue out into the world if you're
on LinkedIn or you are standing on astage, like that is actually incorrect.
I have spicy opinions aboutwhat is thought leadership.
(09:57):
I also have some spicy opinions aboutthe fact that thought leadership is not
the only way for people to add value.
I think that's the other big thing.
They just do not have time or themandate to do the kind of research
testing, codifying, iterating, updating,and then obviously sharing that is
required for true thought leadership.
(10:18):
If I think about just trying to writenormal, everyday content for myself in
my business, I've been writing contentfor around 10 years now, and doing it
for other people and businesses as well.
But if I look at my own, realistically,if I was to sit down and write just a
normal post, most of the time, that'shalf an hour to an hour for me, depending
(10:42):
how deep I want to go into things.
That's not even at the level of thoughtleadership, like you said, with all the
extra, additional research, you know,proving things that are working out,
coming up with something entirely new.
That's a whole other level in itself.
Like if I then take this to whenI'm presenting on stages, trying
to come up with the next bigidea that's taking me months.
(11:05):
And you know, I've noticed that by doingthat and getting focused on doing that
as a small business, what happens isI drop the ball on lots of other things
that I should be doing to make it happen.
So I absolutely can relate to why it's notpossible for people in these businesses
(11:25):
to make thought leadership happen.
This is not something thatis for the faint of heart.
It is not something that is for everyone.
And that assumes that you'vegot a predisposition to actually
enjoying and wanting to be thatyou know there's nothing worse
than, oh, you are the leader.
You have to do this.
Like nobody wants to be forced to createcontent of any kind, let alone at that
(11:49):
thought leadership, which is like theelite status level of creating content.
But I don't wanna leave our listenerswith the, well, they're the wrong person,
so ner ner ner ner ner kind of feeling.
Ashley, let's go into taking alook at where else can we find
people that might be suitable forthought leaders in the business?
How can we flip this around and reallyspot an opportunity that might be
(12:14):
in a place where people have beenso focused on the CEO and execs and
overlooked a massive opportunity tofind other people in the business?
I will frame this up in terms ofmy framework, which is the four
pillars of thought leadership.
So you and I have done, I think,two episodes on, on some of this,
but I'll, I'll give it as a framing.
So, uh, the pillars are credibilityprofile, being prolific, and
(12:37):
having strong depth of ideas.
We've talked in the past, I think, aboutkind of the different types of creators.
So thought leaders are strongacross all four pillars.
Influencers tend to be strong in termsof having that really high audience.
They've got a decent amount ofcredibility, and they're usually
prolific in one channel, butthey tend to be talking about
(12:57):
existing problems and solutions,so they're low on depth of ideas.
Subject matter experts are the perfectplace for you to start looking internally
because they have very high credibilityand they're actually usually pretty
strong on depth of ideas becausethey're entrenched in these problems.
These are your senior level practitioners.
A lot of times, particularly on the SaaSside, they sit in solution engineering
(13:18):
or customer success management.
They are so close to the problemspace and they're constantly trying to
solve new iterations of the problem.
And so because of that, they'realso pretty good at coming up with
new solutions and then looking atadjacent problem spaces and coming
up with new solutions for those.
Where they struggle is on thatprofile and prolific standpoint.
(13:40):
And so from a business standpoint.
They've got the credibility throughtheir expertise and experience.
They've got the strong ideas,based on their proximity to
the problem and solution.
And so where you as a business canhelp them is by giving them space to
codify what they're seeing as they'resolving those problems, which then
helps them be more prolific, and thenyou can help amplify their voice.
(14:03):
Giving them the space, putting themup to be the person who speaks to
press or putting them up for podcastsor conferences or pairing them with a
marketer or a writer who can help themcreate more content based on their
excellent source material that theycan then use to build their profile.
And so that's a place where actuallyyou've got this wealth of information.
(14:25):
With these senior level practitioners,you just need as a business to amplify
their voices and provide them support.
Again, don't try to force them to go outand be influencers if that's not what
they wanna be, or force them into thatpublic eye if they don't wanna be there.
But that's a great place to start.
And obviously I have a bit of aluxury, I work for a very large
(14:45):
company, Atlassian, and we've gottens of thousands of employees.
So even if only 1% of thosepeople are like, Hey, pick me,
I wanna be out there speaking.
You know, that gives us, what is it?
Let's call it a over a hundred peoplethat we could choose to support.
So we have a almost an embarrassmentof riches in that way, but
even for smaller businesses.
(15:06):
There is probably someone who'ssmart, capable, and willing.
They just aren't able right now.
And so that's where you as a business canhelp make space by either pairing them
with resources or giving them trainingand then giving them the opportunity.
I would say in my experience withtrying to get help businesses get
(15:30):
their teams active on LinkedIn,calling for willing volunteers who are
open-minded and interested in becomingthis, is probably the first stop.
Because I'm not convinced as muchas those that are big proponents
of employee advocacy and they'recheering on that employee generated
content is the next best thing andit's all gonna take over the world.
(15:52):
Until you sit down in an actualcompany and find out who wants to post.
And in general, if you can find that1%, I think you're doing pretty well.
Lucky for you, like you said, you've gottens of thousands of employees to pick
from in smaller businesses, you'll bestruggling to find a willing participant
and not because people aren't capable.
(16:15):
That's a very different conversation.
I agree with you.
There are lots of capablepeople within businesses.
But whether they have that interest toput themselves out there for judgement
is what it feels like in their mind.
Like, why should I do this?
You are not paying me.
There's nothing in it for me.
My KPIs in my job don'tsay, go and do this stuff.
(16:36):
How can a business support people tokind of take that person from capable
into that next step of actually,okay, we're gonna do this together.
How can we help them make it happen?
So the call out about KPIs andit's not my job is not small,
that is not a small blocker.
(16:58):
And one thing I'll note, even froma super tactical perspective, right?
Um, someone's title, and I hearthis a lot, especially on kind of
the comms or PR side of the house.
Oh, they reporters don'twanna talk to somebody without
this certain level of title.
And it's like, is this persondoing that level of work?
Then change their title.
(17:19):
Right?
There's this concept on theengineering side of the house,
of a field CTO, or a field CIO.
And this is somebody who is not actuallythe CIO or CTO of the company, but
has that level of experience of eitherrunning a large org, they've maybe been
a CTO or a CIO previously and now theirwhole job is to go out and be the face
(17:42):
of, you know, the ideas or the processchange or the research or whatever.
And they are an individual contributor.
They really don't have a team.
They're not managing an org anymore, butthey have that title so that they have the
gravitas to actually be able to do this.
Um, so yeah, if, if all your KPIs, ifthis is an interruption to your day
(18:04):
job, you get no credit for doing it.
It doesn't go into your promotion packto say, Hey, I'm, I'm ready to be a more
senior level leader because I'm out therebeing the face or advocating or helping
to shape the industry conversation.
If it's in no way acknowledged orcelebrated internally, then like,
yeah, most people aren't gonna do it.
So there's an element ofthis where they're not wrong.
(18:27):
When they push back and say,this is nowhere in any priority
either for intrinsic or extrinsicmotivation, like companies, you,
you have to offer some upside.
And for some people that is recognitionfor other people, particularly as
they grow more senior in their career.
This be the face thing is somethingthat is considered to be a requirement.
(18:49):
So like.
Note that this is directly tied toyour promotion as you get more senior
or do spot bonuses or make it a KPI.
Their KPIs are around content creation,sharing, speaking at conferences, being on
podcasts, posting on LinkedIn, et cetera.
So there is some of thiswhere the person is not wrong.
(19:10):
Like companies you do have to figureout how to incentivize this and
how to make it less burdensome froma time and resources perspective.
Yeah, absolutely.
Otherwise, there's all riskand no upside for the person.
And it may not be thatthe upside's not there.
It may be that they can't seeit because you haven't had
(19:32):
that conversation with them.
And in an employee's world, itfeels like I'm putting my job
at risk, my career at risk.
What will my peers think of me?
What will our competitors,what will my leaders think?
The more I've done this business,the more I speak to people, the
more I have conversations and askpeople, why aren't you posting?
(19:53):
The more I realize thatthis is one big scary place.
And when you are talking about, goand be a thought leader on LinkedIn,
where you're gonna put out originalideas which will get judged.
And I'm a bit of a sensitive petalnot gonna lie, Ashley like feedback
for me sometimes cuts like a knife.
I am so precious some daysthat I drive myself crazy.
(20:15):
Lucky for me, I've got Lil in thebackground who is always there going,
it's okay Michelle it's just feedback.
It doesn't mean anything about you.
But again, I've been doingthis for 10 years, you would
think I'd be used to it by now.
No, no, no.
All these other emotionalthings get stacked on top.
When I know I can write a postwith my eyes closed, on any topic
(20:35):
pretty much, and make it work.
But I'm human and I think this is whatI wanna bring into this conversation
today, is that you are working withreal humans who are just, just human.
I, I think that's all I can say.
I, I wanted to go further withit, but I think we just need to
understand that people get scared.
(20:57):
That people, even if they wantto do this, may still not do it.
But one of the things you were saying,how we can help them is by having a
resource that can actually help themwith the being prolific side of this.
What are some practical tips you canrecommend from that side of things?
There's a couple ways to approach thisdepending on how big your team is,
(21:19):
how big your budget is, et cetera.
To your point about humans, Iwill reiterate that none of the
things I'm about to say replace theoriginal human, and you and I have
talked about this before, right?
In order for a ghost writer to work,they have to have someone to ghost.
You can have a ghost writer, not aghost thinker, if someone think that
(21:42):
they're just gonna be like, Michelle'sgonna write all my posts for me.
No, she's not.
What is she gonna talk about for me?
If Michelle's writing, if she's doing allthe research and all the writing, and all
the publishing and all the responding.
Isn't, isn't Michelle the personwho's doing every, like, aren't
they just hanging out with Michelle?
Which again, I thinkthat's a great choice.
(22:02):
Like Michelle's super smart,but if you wanna hear from
Ashley, I have to show up.
So depending on the team, andthe internal company culture.
There is a ton of really smart contentideas, knowledge, recommendations, et
cetera, hiding in Slack messages, inour case, in Confluence pages, if you're
in an office, it's on a whiteboard.
(22:23):
There's, it's coveredin sticky notes, right?
Like all of this great contentis actually stuck somewhere
that just needs to be let out.
And so whether you use AI to dothat, whether you partner with a
ghost writer, um, I think step oneis getting everything into a central
repository and that can be daunting.
(22:43):
So my book is coming out ina couple of weeks, right?
Everybody when I first started writing waslike, you have so much source material,
just pull all of your LinkedIn posts in,and that's a book right there, right?
It is daunting to go track downeverything you've ever said or
thought and dump it into a repository.
If you are a large company, this is agreat way for, like, if you've got AI
or you've got something embedded inall your systems, put in some prompts
(23:06):
and say, go pull all of these pages.
Here's kind of the questions thatwe're trying to help someone answer,
pull in all of the knowledge that youhave, and you'll probably start to
see certain names pop up frequently aslike, all right, this is the expert.
Right?
I actually write a fair amountinternally about LinkedIn and about,
you know, content and buildingyour personal brand on LinkedIn.
(23:27):
So let's say if Atlassian suddenlydecided we're gonna become the leaders
in how to post on LinkedIn, right?
The prompt for our.
You know, agent basically wouldbe robo and you type it in and
you'd say, okay, robo, go find me.
The person who knows about this,my name would show up a lot.
Right?
So then at that point, it gives ourcomms team or our marketing team,
(23:47):
or if I'm the person writing it, itgives me something to start with.
I've had this question before of likebudget of like, if you had unlimited
budget, what would you spend it on?
You know, a campaign or a Super Bowl ad?
I'm like, no.
I would pair one-to-one, a marketinggeneralist with a like smart, capable
person who wants to be a thoughtleader, but they're just not fluent
(24:08):
in the skill of creating, right?
So having somebody who can help withgraphics, who can help with, um, writing,
who can help with videos, et cetera.
So if you are running very lean,what I would recommend is focusing
in on a couple of key pillar assets.
And from my perspective, I thinkit's easiest to do something with a
conference presentation because it getsyou visuals, it gets you audio, it gets
(24:31):
you video and it gives you somethinglike a transcript to start with.
If you wanna do long form articles,which you can then obviously repurpose
all of that into social media posts.
You can pull your slides outand turn them into carousels.
You can save your slidesas images for posts.
Um, the big key there is you have tothink about designing the entire talk
(24:52):
and the entire slide deck for longtail distribution, and this is where
someone that is a marketer or a commsprofessional like this is where we
shine because this is how we think.
So those are some opportunities, whetherif you're a big company, you've got a
whole comms team and a marketing team anda graphics team, or if you're a lean team,
and you're running kind of on a shoestringbudget with limited time and resources.
(25:14):
Those would be my tips.
Thank you for so many cool things.
'cause most content ishiding in plain sight.
The skill is discoveringwhat's all around you already.
It's not necessarily even creating fromscratch, which is the kind of cool thing.
But you mentioned something that I'mso proud of you and excited 'cause I
know the amount of work that you havedone to get your book ready for launch.
(25:39):
Depending on the timing of thisepisode, it may already be out.
Of course, all of the detailsare gonna be in the show notes.
But anyone that's listening to thispoint in this podcast has loved
this conversation and I know isgonna love your book even more.
Can you give us a bit of an insightinto how that's gonna help people
get more out of what they're doing?
(25:59):
Sure.
So the book is titled Human-CenteredMarketing, How to Connect With
Audiences in The Age of AI.
So it goes back to the,there's humans in this.
They have their fears, they havetheir hopes, , they also have their
very smart thoughts that feed intohaving thoughts and being a leader.
Um, so the book does lay out acouple of different frameworks.
There's a whole set of chapters on thefour pillars of thought leadership,
(26:20):
different types of B2B creators.
There's step-by-step instructionsabout how to find your ideas, how
to think about your personal brand.
I give very few tactical LinkedIntips given that the algorithm
changes every two seconds.
And then there's two other frameworks.
One is this playground mindsetshift, and there's some details
(26:40):
and tactics in there about how toreally design an audience journey
that converts and builds that trust.
And then another framework, which I'vetalked about a little bit, but it's
less, uh, prominent in my own work,and that's the social media spectrum.
And it's how do you go beyond justcommunicating and broadcasting
information even beyond conversations?
(27:00):
I find that a lot of brands get stuckthere and going into community, which is
something that I know you are excellentat and is core to a lot of your work.
The core thesis is really aroundbuilding trust, rapport, and affinity.
If you can win hearts and minds, then youhave a chance at winning the wallet, but
most companies have it backwards wherethey're just chasing the money and they
(27:22):
don't understand why they need to buildtrust and affinity and rapport and you
know, shocker that business impact doesn'tcome if you only focus on the money.
You might be on the sales side of LinkedInand using it for that side of things.
You should go and read this anyway,because I think the crossover between
sales and marketing when it comesto social selling on platforms
(27:45):
like LinkedIn is they're prettymuch the same thing these days.
I'm just gonna put it out there.
I don't think that there's.
This distinct line anymore?
And the more that we can work together,the better the results that we get.
So I wish you every successwith your book launch.
Again, super proud of you.
Super pumped for you to getyour ideas out in the world.
Listeners, all the details of this supercool book will be in the show notes.
(28:07):
Go and check it out.
Grab yourself a copy and if yougrab one and read it and love it.
Don't forget to leave Ashleya recommendation or review.
These things really help authors,uh, speaking from experience.
Ashley, as always, has beeneverything I thought it would be.
Thanks for getting spicy on the podcast.
And will you come backagain one other day.
(28:27):
Anytime, every time.
And one other sneak peek for the book.
Uh, Michelle is also featured in a coupleof places in the book because, you know,
if we're gonna talk about human centeredmarketing, we gotta talk about Michelle.
The love goes back to her froman expertise standpoint as well.
This is my favorite part and I do hopethat you're making an adventure back to
(28:48):
Sydney sometime in the near future sothat we can have another one of those
big hugs and a walk by Bondi Beach.
So listeners, I hope you've enjoyedthis episode as much as what I have.
Remember, have thoughts, be a leader.
Are you choosing the creatoryour brand actually needs?
Or are you just following what you thinkis popular and the expected choice?
(29:10):
'cause I promise you, if you take alook around and follow Ashley's advice,
you might actually have the rightperson hiding there in plain sight.
So until next week, cheers.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com