Stand Out, Sell Well, and Tell Your Story with David Newman

What does it truly take to elevate your leadership brand and influence in today’s noisy world?

Jon Goehring, Coach Jim Johnson, and Dr. Rehnuma Karim welcome David Newman, nationally recognized marketing and sales expert and bestselling author, for a compelling conversation on becoming distinctly heard and deeply trusted. David introduces his concept of Market Eminence... the art of raising your visibility, credibility, and personal distinction by being unapologetically unique.

He reframes sales as professional problem-solving rather than high-pressure pitching and shares practical insights on:

• Why sellers must first sell themselves, not products or companies
• Anticipating objections by baking solutions into conversations early
• The power of curiosity and empathetic listening to deepen relationships
• Making networking meaningful through purposeful, detailed introductions
• Coaching young leaders to master storytelling that connects and convinces
• The critical link between marketing, speaking, and personal branding
• Guiding principles to make 2025 your best year with resolve, execution, and focus

Whether you’re navigating your first leadership role or building a personal brand, this episode will inspire you to stand out, lead with heart, and sell with integrity.


Connect more with David Newman:

📕 3X bestselling author of Do It! Marketing, Do It! Speaking, and Do It! Selling
🎙 Host of the global Top 1% podcast The Selling Show
🤓 We work with business mavericks to solve their obscurity problem and build market eminence 
🖥 Watch our 37-min. on-demand executive briefing "Elevate Your CEO Brand"
http://doitmarketing.com/hello

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better
podcast network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to
get you there.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
You can find out.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
More at Teechbetter dot com slash podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
The more that you look like, sound like and act
like everybody else, the more you blend in and the
more you fade away. So what needs to happen is
you need to raise your personal visibility, you need to
raise your personal credibility, and you need to raise the

(00:33):
volume on your personal distinction. One of the criticisms that
Charlie Brown always had, which was a perfect example of
market eminence. Of all the Charlie Brown's in the world,
you're the Charlie Browniest. And that, my friends, is the
path to true leadership success, leadership distinction, and a very

(00:56):
bright career moving up the leadership ladder. You're not a
professional seller, You're not a professional salesperson. You're a professional
problem solver. Sales is not job number one. Problem solving
is job number one.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Do you want to be a leader in a constantly
changing world? Our emerging leaders look different, come from various
backgrounds and from all different age groups.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Leadership is changing and it's hard to keep up. But
the good News.

Speaker 5 (01:25):
You can be a.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Leader too, You can be an e merging leader.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Welcome to the Limitless Leadership Lounge, a try generational conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
For emerging leaders. Come spend some.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Time with us to discuss leadership from three angles. The
coach Jim Johnson, the professor, Doctor Renumah Kareem, the host
John Gering, a monthly guest, and you get in on
the conversation on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to
follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Speaker. So come
on in and make yourself comfortable.

Speaker 6 (01:58):
Well, we're really excited for this conversation today on a
Limitless Leadership Lounge. This is a true generational conversation for you,
the emerging leader. Maybe you just got your first promotion.
Maybe you're now a leader instead of an individual contributor.
Maybe you've left your corporate job to start your own
journey as an entrepreneur. Regardless, that's why we bring on

(02:20):
guests like the one we have today. I am John Garring,
joined as always by coach Jim Johnson, and we hope
you're enjoying the content we're bringing you. We know you're
going to be excited to dive in here with David Newman.
He's a nationally recognized marketing expert, sales expert. He's the
author of a best seller, Do It Marketing. He also
has Do It Selling. It's seventy seven instant action ideas

(02:41):
to boost sales, maximize profits, crush your competition. His career
has gone deep, speaking, technology, professional services. A ton of
experience David has from global firms. He's contributed to high
success of a whole bunch of different companies and also
improving their culture too, delivering over six hundred programs including keynotes, seminars,

(03:05):
strategic sessions since back in nineteen ninety two. So David
is a renowned speaker as well, and we're excited to
dive into David's knowledge here. We're going to uncover a
whole bunch of valuable insights for the young and emerging
leader when it comes to marketing, selling, personal branding, and
so much more. David, it's an honor to have you on.
Thank you for joining us on the Limitless Leadership Louns,

(03:25):
John and Jim, thank you so much. This will be
great fun. So let's talk about that young leader who's
listening right now or watching and they want to stand
out and step up their personal branding game. You're an
expert in the world of selling and marketing, but you
mentioned a new project coming up when it comes to

(03:46):
personal branding. So let's talk to that young and emerging
leader who really needs to improve their personal brand.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Absolutely. The concept that I put everything under is market eminence,
and the market could be your company. The market could
be your department, the market could be your team, it
could be your entire business, it could be your entire industry.
And the idea behind market eminence is that you are

(04:13):
not going to win by being the best at anything.
Very few people can win by literally being the best
the top point zero zero zero zero one percent. Where
you can win is a game that you create a
category that you design that is uniquely you. And so

(04:36):
some people call that personal branding. I'm not crazy about
that term, only because I think it's been abused and
misused and misunderstood for so long. But this is really
about a combination of three things. So you're a new leader,
you maybe got that first promotion, like John was just saying,
and you want to be the leaderist leader you can

(04:59):
possibly be, and so you look at your mentors, you
look at your role models. You look at more senior
executives in the company, and there's a little voice in
your head that says, the path is for me to
be just like them, dress like they do, talk like
they do, blend in, make myself look like all the

(05:20):
other people who do what I do, or who do
what I want to be doing in the next three years,
five years, ten years, right, moving up the corporate ladder. That,
my friends, is a recipe for disaster, because the more
that you look like, sound like and act like everybody else,
the more you blend in and the more you fade away.

(05:42):
So what needs to happen is you need to raise
your personal visibility, you need to raise your personal credibility,
and you need to raise the volume on your personal distinction.
So you can call it distinction, you can call it differentiation,
you can call it positioning. But for example, you know,

(06:04):
Jim Johnson, totally fantastic role model of what's going on here, right,
Jim has put his personal thumb print, his attitude, his story,
his perspectives, his experiences, his battle scars, his war stories.
He has imprinted those on everything that he does. He

(06:25):
certainly imprinted those on this podcast. He's imprinted those on
his fantastic book. He's imprinted those on every keynote presentation
that he gives to corporations and associations, and John same
in your world right, It's like John needs to be
the absolute bestest podcast guru in the universe, the best host,

(06:47):
the best producer. He's not going to win that. But
what John Garing can do is he can be the
John Geringist. This goes back and again for the old folks,
I apologize. This is going to be an old reference
to the Charlie Brown cartoon strip where one of the
criticisms that Charlie Brown always had, which was a perfect
example of market eminence. Of all the Charlie Brown's in

(07:10):
the world, you're the Charlie browniest. And that, my friends,
is the path to true leadership success, leadership distinction, and
a very bright career moving up the leadership ladder.

Speaker 5 (07:27):
David, thanks for the kind words. And I do have
to endorse because I got.

Speaker 7 (07:30):
An opportunity for YouTube fans that I read your great book.

Speaker 5 (07:34):
Do it selling?

Speaker 7 (07:35):
My question because I know you have three really good books,
I know you're working on another one, but with do
it selling, do it marketing, and do it speaking? I'm
a young leader, which one comes first delve into that
a little bit to help them with their eminence and
that type of thing.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Sure, this is basically like asking which of your children
is your favorite, But in this case, because we're talking
about inanimate objects that are printed between two covers of
a book, I would tell young leaders to start with
do it selling, even if you're in a non sales role,
even if you have no aspirations to do anything with

(08:16):
sales or selling. All of us, every single day, we
are selling our ideas, we are selling our influence, we
are selling our impact. We are selling and we are
gaining buy in for the ideas, the initiatives, and the
projects that are important to us and our team and

(08:36):
our department. So understanding sales psychology in any leadership or
management role is absolutely vital, and I've seen a lot
of potentially great leaders and managers who are in a
non sales role completely reject and completely set aside. Oh,

(08:58):
I'm not in sales. I don't like sales, I don't
want to do sales. The reason I'm in a functional executive,
the reason I'm in R and D, the reason I'm
in operations, the reason i'm in whatever department of the
company you're in, is because I specifically did not want
to sell. So I've seen so many of those folks

(09:19):
side swipe so much career success, be passed over for promotions,
miss out on plumb assignments, not get to be in
the inner circle of who gets a seat at the
strategic table because they don't have that inner sales mindset
that we're not selling products, we're not selling services because
that's not your job role, that's not why you were hired,

(09:41):
that's not your zone of genius. But whatever your zone
of genius is, whatever leadership initiatives are important to you,
you absolutely need to sell the value, sell the impact
gain by in overcome resistance, understand the various sources of resistance,
sense of why people might not want to support you,

(10:04):
why people might feel threatened by your ideas, and how
you can circumnavigate, not overcome. I'm not a big believer
in overcoming objections. In fact, it's funny, Jim. One of
the comments about the do Its Selling book is what
David doesn't talk about overcoming objections. Every other sales book

(10:24):
talks about overcoming objections. My methodology, training and tools around
selling is we need to avoid the objections coming up
in the first place. So I'm not saying that in
my world objections don't exist. In my world, we bake
the anticipation of the objections into the game plan, just
like you would in a professional sports team, just like

(10:46):
you would in any endeavor. If you can see and
foresee the obstacles in front of you, the best way
not to have to encounter them is to avoid having
them come up in the first place. So I think
the non sales executive will get a lot of ideas, strategies, tactics,
tools and tips out of the do It's Selling book.

Speaker 6 (11:09):
Now, this is where definitions are so tricky, because we
think about sales. We think about that annoying person who's
just at my door just before this talking about pest control,
and I don't know how he's got like the whole
neighborhood signed up or something. That's what sales is, right,
that's door to door or the emails that come in
our inbox all the time, Hey, do you have fifteen
minutes to spare you? No, I really don't, and most

(11:31):
people don't not to hear about your product anyway, So
that sales to a lot of people. But in Do
It Selling, there's I don't even know if I want
to call it sales. But that's just because I have
the definition of sales ingrained the way that a lot
of us think of sales. Why is do it Selling
so important as well? Not just for the sales person

(11:52):
traditionally speaking, but for anyone, like you said, David, selling themselves.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yes, absolutely, I'm so glad you brought this up. One
very important detail that I forgot to mention is that
the Do It's Selling book was specifically written for people
who hate to sell. So the entrepreneur, the solopreneur, the
individual contributor, people who really reject the premise of having

(12:18):
or wanting to sell anything, but they find themselves in
circumstances where that becomes necessary. So I think the if
we take away the word sales and we take away
the word selling, I think what almost everyone listening can
get behind, and can even somewhat get excited about, is

(12:40):
you're not a professional seller. You're not a professional salesperson.
You're a professional problem solver. And this is true whether
you're an executive leading a team or a project, or
you are genuinely a salesperson. Or an entrepreneur or a solopreneur,
and you are in fact selling your products and services.
Sales is not number one. Problem solving is job number one,

(13:04):
and in the entire come from the inner heart of
where you need to put yourself when you're talking to
your team, when you're talking to a prospect, when you're
talking to an existing client or customer. It needs to
be about serving before selling, and it needs to be
about helping before pitching. Now, when you say to people,

(13:27):
how do you feel about serving? How do you feel
about being a servant leader? How you feel about service first?
About helping first? Most people will not reject that, Oh
my god, that's the last thing I want to do,
Jim John, are you crazy? Why would I be in
a helping position? Why would I want to serve anybody?
No one rejects that, right, That's silly, that's just ridiculous.

(13:50):
If you say, however, it is your job to sell
this project, sell this initiative, sell this big change, and
that's real. Really, sales does come down any kind of sales,
inner sales, outer sales, product sales, service sales, idea sales.
What we're really selling is change, and as human beings,

(14:12):
people sometimes don't like change. Maybe most of the time,
they don't like change unless they see exactly and specifically
how it's going to help and serve them, Helping serve
their goals, help and serve what's important to them, Helping
serve the propagation of their values or their ideas or

(14:36):
things that they hold near and dear. And if we
can reframe the entire sales and selling conversation, whether that's
in a leadership context or a sales context, into strategically
solving problems by serving and helping, I think a lot
of that resistance can melt away.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
That's a great point, Davi.

Speaker 7 (15:00):
I know, being a leader and we're trying to help
these young leaders. One of the things I think you
weave this masterfully throughout your book and do it selling.
To me as a leader, I've got to work on
building relationships with my team members. Yeah, so give us
two or three ideas, whether it's from the book or
just with your work, of how you can help that
young leader build better relationships.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think the key to building a helpful, productive relationship
is and this is no big surprise, This will not
shock anyone out of their chair. I don't think figure
out what is important to that other person, and the
best way to do that is with a natural sense
of curiosity. So ask more questions. When we talk about

(15:49):
building relationships, we talk about networking, we talk about all
of these things. People have a natural hesitancy because they
don't want to come across as a blowhard. No one
wants to hear your thirty second elevator pitch. No one
wants to hear your five minute spiel on whatever, And
we mistake this concept of relationship building for talking, and

(16:13):
relationship building is not talking. Relationship building is listening, and
the best thing that you can listen for is the
questions that you yourself ask. So understand I go through
this actually, Jim as in the du It Selling book
that there's multiple levels of questioning.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Right.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
There's the surface level of questions that most people are
naturally asked because they're introductory, they're very basic. I invite
people to go to a level two, level three, or
level four question. In other words, find the problem behind
the problem, find the issue behind the issue, find the
objection behind the objection, and sometimes the most powerful words

(16:55):
you will use in a curiosity based a genuine curiosity
based com it's not the clever word play or the
way that you phrase the question. It could be a
very simple question that's followed up with gosh, no, really, wow,
that sounds terrible. Oh my goodness, No, that can't be.

(17:19):
And so what we're doing there is we're doing empathetic listening.
That opens the door for the person to go further.
So if you ask a level one question, you get
a surface level answer. You ask a level two question.
Tell me where do you think that problem originated? Is
a great example of a level two question, and then

(17:39):
they will tell you it could be that we did this,
and we forgot to do that, and we didn't bring
the R and D department in soon enough, and we
over promised and the project went sideways from there. Then
you don't need to ask a third level question. You
can simply listen, truly listen, truly receive what they say,

(18:00):
and just start shaking your head in a very empathetic,
serious way and saying, gosh, that sounds terrible. Now, I'm
not saying just say those words. I'm saying, you really
feel that, right. This is a genuine conversation. I'm simply
illustrating it for the sake of our conversation here today.
This is not about acting. This is not about faking it.

(18:21):
This is not about clever lines or manipulation. Someone tells you, oh,
my dog got sick over the weekend, threw up all
over the floor, had to take him to the emergency
vet on Sunday night. You would not just sit there
and go, okay, what kind of dog is it? You'd say, oh, no,
that's terrible.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
What did he.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Eat something in the yard or what happened? And then
they tell you he ate an entire bag of coffee beans. No, yes,
not only that, but they were chocolate coffee beans, and
dogs really don't do well with chocolate. But that's terrible
and all, we're just having a natural conversation. But though vocal,
I call those verbal punctuation, right, No, you're kidding, gosh,

(19:04):
that's terrible, how you know? Oh my goodness. This keeps
the person talking. And remember trust is built when they're talking,
not when you're talking. When you're talking, in fact, that
one of my sales mentors, and I put this in
the book, and I think John and Jimy will both
enjoy this, this one liner, because it keeps people honest

(19:26):
in any sort of conversation, leadership conversation, sales conversation, whatever
it may be. The line is that a prospect who
is listening is not a prospect. What in the world
does that mean? Think about it. A prospect who is
listening to you, that's not a good prospect situation. So

(19:50):
what does that mean? Oh, a prospect who's talking is
a prospect. So a team member who's listening to you,
leader yack away, they're not really an engaged team member.
An engaged team member is not a team member who's
listening to you, And engaged team members a team member

(20:11):
who's talking and they're telling you what's important, what's not important,
what are their goals, what are their objectives, why are
their objectives, what do they really want to get out
of this situation, etc. So, whether you're in the leadership
seat or you're in the sales seat, asking those questions
and then digging deeper from a place of natural curiosity,

(20:36):
that's going to become your relationship building superpower.

Speaker 6 (20:41):
David Newan is the author of do It Selling, Do
It Marketing, Do It Speaking. Actually we were talking about
do it Selling in David you pretty much turned selling
on its head, saying that selling isn't really what a
lot of us think of selling, to be, at least
not in the traditional sense. So if you did that
to selling, I can't imagine what you've done to market
And I want to talk about that too, because it's

(21:02):
also your website. Do at marketing dot com and one
thing that's huge in marketing and selling, And the lines
kind of get blurred here, But it's networking connections, right,
And we've all been on those networking called those thirty
minute coffee chats for lack of better term, and I
think those can be great, but those also can just
be this odd exchange of Hey, will you be a

(21:22):
referral partner for me?

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Sure?

Speaker 6 (21:24):
Will I be a referral partner for you? Okay, cool?
But there's it lacks what you're talking about, that verbal punctuation,
that true empathy that goes deeper. So, whether it be
from do it selling, from do it marketing, from a
combination of both, how can we make better networking conversations
in person virtually anywhere?

Speaker 2 (21:45):
So I think networking. It's funny because I used to
be very much against networking for the exact reasons John
that you just mentioned. It's a morphous people make these connections, like,
am I supposed to be the prospect for him? Is
he supposed to be a prospect for me? Because here's

(22:06):
the kind of introduction that I think is completely useless.
John meet Jim, Jim meet John. I'm sure you guys
will have a lot to talk about thanks by What
am I supposed to do with that? I don't know.
Is John a prospect for Jim? Is Jim a prospect
for John? Is it referrals? Is one in a better

(22:28):
position to refer the other? What made you think of
connecting the two of us? Hey, two good people who
should know each other. There's no data in there, So
compare that to John is a brilliant So let's say
that I were to introduce you to which of course
doesn't need to happen because you've already built an empire together.

(22:48):
It's amazing. But let's say we turned back the hands
of time and I know Jim and I know John,
and I've had a conversation or multiple conversations with Jim,
similar with John, and I'm thinking, Okay, I think these
two folks could be tremendously helpful to each other. So
I'm going to write an email I'm gonna write that
three way email, and I'm gonna save very specifically. Jim

(23:13):
is a very accomplished sports coach, keynote speaker, and author.
He would love to get into podcast thing, he doesn't
necessarily want to get into the nuts and bolts. John
is a brilliant podcast host and podcast producer. I think
you know you two will have a lot to talk about,
specifically around Jim's ideas and strategies to start a podcast

(23:37):
and John's ideas and questions around professional speaking, getting on
more stages, both in person and virtual. I think you
two will be tremendously helpful to each other. Now that
doesn't even mean necessarily that there's going to be a
financial relationship. Jim might not end up being a client
of John. John might not end up being a client

(23:59):
for Jim. But I now I'm seeing the Jim circle,
I'm seeing the John circle, and for the two of you,
I am painting in that intersection of why Jim might
bring value into John's world and why or how John
might bring value into Jim's world. Now that when you

(24:21):
two start that conversation, let's well fast forward this to
the ultimate conclusion of this right Jim and John decide
to have a CAUs based on crazy David Newman saying
you should get together and maybe some wonderfulness will develop. Hey, Jim,
I did some research on you. I watched your videos.
I've ordered your book on Kindle from Amazon. What an

(24:43):
amazing speaking career, What an amazing sports coaching background you have.
I have a couple questions for you. Similarly, right when
it comes time to switch off, Oh my god, John,
you do all this amazing stuff with podcasts and voiceovers
and ho thing and producing. I would love to have
one tenth of the knowledge that you have in your

(25:04):
little pinky. Tell me a little bit about podcasting and
what does it take to get going, and what does
it take for long term success and blah blah blah
blah blah. So now what have I done. I have
facilitated a value exchange, not necessarily a money exchange, although
that might develop depending on who it is that you're connecting.
But there's clarity onto why you're connected. There's common ground

(25:28):
right in that introductory email of some things that John's
going to want to ask Jim, and Jim's going to
want to ask John. And I've basically paved the way
right me as the introducer, I have paved the way
for them to have a productive conversation. So now when
I dig into networking as a gigantic, enormous waste of time,

(25:52):
it's not about the two people who are networking. It's
how they were introduced, and the lack of quality, the
lack of specificity, the lack of detail, and the lack
of depth in that introduction is what gives networking a
bad name. The kind of introduction that I just mapped out,
My dearest wish for the rest of my professional career

(26:15):
is for the folks listening, please send networking introductions that way.
When you get one of those weird ones, Hey, Sally
meet Bob. Bob meet Sally, don't respond to it, go
back to the introducer and either get on a phone,
get on a zoom call with them, give them a
little five minutes of coaching. Hey, I got your introduction

(26:38):
between me and Sally. At this point, I don't know
what to do with it. She doesn't know what to
do with it. The chances of this being a productive conversation.
I know you're trying to help, and I appreciate that
you're trying to help. Could you please put a little
bit more detail in how I might be helpful to
Sally and how Sally might be helpful to me. Just

(26:58):
two or three sentences in each direction, resend the email,
and then I'll be glad to respond. So when you
get that bad or weird or incomplete kind of networking introduction,
don't accept it. Go back and coach your wonderful introducer
to do this better. And if we can spread that

(27:19):
and multiply and amplify that throughout the networking world of
executives and entrepreneurs, I will have done my job on
the planet.

Speaker 7 (27:29):
Well said wow, David, I got to delve into a
little bit because obviously it's my world now as well
as yours, and you do it speaking. So you're coaching
a young leader, and I know one of the things
I could leaders is they should be the CST, the
chief storyteller. So as a speaker and as a leader,
I think you have to have the ability to share

(27:51):
stories like I always kid people. I think you need
stories of warnings and examples in stories of inspiration we
could go. So, if you're coaching a young leader, what
would you share with them and how they can become
a better storyteller.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
That is a great question. My expertise is not specifically
on presentation skills. Obviously, I've spoken hundreds and hundreds of times.
I do tell stories. I think people need to have,
They need to see themselves in a story. So, for example,
in one of my marketing keynotes, I tell the story

(28:30):
of this woman named Nancy in Buffalo, and she was
a client, and she's absolutely brilliant. She wrote a fantastic book.
And we're on one of our coaching calls and she
says to me, David, all these great strategies, all these
great ideas. I hear you. I love you. My problem
is I can't get out of Buffalo. I said, what

(28:53):
she says, I can't get out of Buffalo. Everett. So
she lives in Buffalo, New York, and she says, every
gig that I get, it's like down at the Ladies
Auxiliary for three hundred and fifty bucks, down at the
chamber for two hundred and fifty bucks, down in the
church basement here in Buffalo for three hundred bucks. She says,

(29:14):
I can't get out of Buffalo. And I said, Nancy,
I understand that you're well known in your community. And
these are not high paying, high profile speaking opportunities that
you're being presented with or that you're finding. I told her,
I said, the problem is not that you're being invited

(29:36):
to the church basement or the lady's auxiliary or the chamber.
The problem is that you're taking them. And I said,
a national level expert does not go down to the
chamber for two hundred and fifty bucks. A national level
expert does not. And the moment I called her national

(29:56):
level expert, this was a zoom call. I could see
her entire body language change. She started to sit up
a little bit straighter, she started to have shoulders back
a little bit, and she says to me, David, that's
exactly what I needed to hear. Until this call, I

(30:17):
never considered myself a national level expert. So I wasn't
looking at these opportunities in Buffalo from the perspective of
a national level expert. I was looking at these from
little Nancy in Buffalo. And I said, little Nancy in
Buffalo is gone. We can have a little memorial service

(30:39):
for her, but she's gone. I am looking at Nancy
the national level expert. And from then on, she went
from like these three to five hundred dollars gigs to
five thousand, seven, ten thousand dollars gigs because her self
image it was no longer a little Nancy from Buffalo,
it was national level xcitur So as an example of storytelling,

(31:05):
everyone listening if they're like, oh my god, I'm like
Nancy and Buffalo. And it might be a different circumstance
or a different situation. But when your self image does
not match your external goals, your external hopes, dreams, financial objectives,
et cetera, are you acting like the old you or

(31:25):
are you acting and have you taken on the mantle
of the new you, the new self image? So I
think if the more that we can share stories where
people they're listening to the story and it does not
have to be beautifully eloquently delivered every single time. So
that was like a C plus B minus delivery of

(31:46):
a probably an A or A B plus story. And
I'm not being it's not false humility. We've all seen amazing, fantastic,
world class storytellers tell amazing, world changing stories. So that's
the other thing. The bar for this is not high, right,
we don't need you to be tony Robbins, We don't
need you to be Oprah to get the storytelling piece right.

(32:07):
Share examples, share people, share case studies, share before and
after stories of how people overcame the same kind of
problem that you or your company or your product or
your team solve, and make it human, make it relatable.
And if you can add a little bit of humor,

(32:28):
so much the better, because of course humor also humanizes,
and so that makes your story a little bit more
enjoyable to listen to and more memorable to repeat to others.
But I think that's the key, is that, Jim, the
stories that we tell, the listeners can put themselves in
the story and say, there's an element of that's just

(32:52):
like me, just like my experience, just like what I'm
going through, just what I'm thinking, just what I'm feeling,
just the way I've been holding myself back. And those
kinds of stories they stick with people for years.

Speaker 5 (33:07):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (33:07):
Yeah, you got a protagonist there who's relatable in a
lot of ways to all of the other It may
even be in the same city or an hour away
from Buffalo, so that really hit home too. We're talking
about David Newman, and this has been really fun so
far we just got into speaking, which is where I
want to go too, because do it selling, do it marketing?
Now there's do it speaking, and that seems selling and
marketing are together, of course, like we think of those

(33:29):
two in the same vein, but we don't always think
of speaking as part of building that personal brand too.
What kind of speaking opportunities are you talking about here?
And as a speaker, why would you encourage other young
and emerging leaders to also pursue some speaking?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
So it's funny to answer your question about how do
these pieces all fit together? The Do It Marketing book
came out, and that was again for the solo or
small business owner about marketing, product services and ideas that
thought leadership marketing. When I wrote that book, thought leadership

(34:05):
marketing was really the only kind of marketing that would
be effective. And so part of thought leadership marketing. There's
three legs of that stool. There's writing, there's publishing and
I'm sorry, There is writing, there speaking, and there is
social media. So writing makes you credible, speaking makes you visible,
and social media makes you shareable. It was natural at

(34:28):
that point that I go, Okay, let's dig into speaking
and to do it speaking book is not just for
the professional speaker. So it's not just for the John's
and the Jim's and the David's of the world. It's
for anybody who wants to make an impact on other
human beings, whether that's your team, whether that's your department,
whether that's an existing customer. Anytime that two human beings

(34:53):
get together in the same space and share words vocally,
that to me is a speaking opportunity. So one of
my favorite reviews of the Do It Speaking Book is
someone who read it and said, Man, this David Newman character.
He has put speaking in a much bigger box, and

(35:16):
I love that. So I have, in fact put speaking
in a much bigger box. It's not just speaking on stages.
It's not just speaking at conferences. It's not just seminars
or team training or an internal meeting. When you're on
a podcast like this is a fantastic speaking opportunity. You
guys do this all the time. You've made your own platform,

(35:38):
you've made your own stage on this amazing podcast. Each
episode for you is a speaking opportunity. We as your guests,
are especially privileged because you're shining your spotlight on us.
So for me, this is absolutely a speaking opportunity. Anytime
that you are in front of other people, think of
it as one many. If you're in the sales mode,

(36:02):
and I know some people are and some people aren't
in the sales mode, one to many lead generation, if
you're in the leadership mode, one too many influence. So
you can talk to all twenty people on your team
one at a time, and you can have twenty meetings
on the calendar over the next couple of weeks. Or
you could say, hey, gang, we're having a team meeting

(36:24):
today at three o'clock. You get up, you deliver an
incredibly powerful, specific, valuable, a little bit humorous, and highly relatable,
fifteen twenty minute talk laying out the future of your product,
your service, your project, your company, your team, whatever you
want to do. You have compressed time because instead of

(36:47):
having twenty meetings, you've had one speech, one presentation, one
speaking opportunity, and you've impacted twenty people. Now should you
follow up one on one? Should you all up in
small groups? Yes, sure of course. But it is a
thought amplifier. So, whether you're speaking on a big stage

(37:08):
like the stages that Jim speaks on, whether you're speaking
into a microphone, like what John and I do quite
a lot, whether you're talking to a seminar room filled
with twenty or thirty or fifty executives, one to many,
influence one to many, selling your ideas one to many,
selling your impact or your vision is really important. And

(37:29):
by the way, this also applies if your company does
webinars of any kind, internal or external. If your company
has a YouTube channel, every executive that is featured on
that YouTube channel, whether it's for two minutes or twenty
minutes or anywhere in between. So webinars, live streams, YouTube,

(37:51):
All of those I put into the speaking bucket, and
each one of those is an opportunity to impact and
influence the key stakeholders that are important to your success.

Speaker 5 (38:04):
Well said David, I have to delve in.

Speaker 7 (38:07):
When I was looking at your different materials, Well, you
struck a real curiosity code with me, and that was
one of the things I saw was thirty three ways
to make your twenty twenty five your best year. Yet
you've struck my curiosity? Can you share two or three
of those thirty three?

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Are these are the are these the three word the
three word little nuggets?

Speaker 5 (38:32):
Or no, you know what?

Speaker 7 (38:34):
I just saw it as thirty three ways to make
twenty twenty five your best year yet.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
So it could be the three words I know you've
done that I.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
Know, I know they're not Actually it's they're a little
bit longer. So these are I so thank you for asking.
This is one of my favorite things to do. I
do so this particular one is not in that three
word format, but I have like seventy seven sales ideas
in three words. I have something like I have another

(39:03):
seventy seven marketing ideas in three words. This one's a
little bit longer. So this I trot this out to
set the intention for the year. So one of them,
for example, is fewer resolutions, more resolve. This is about
and so each one of these thirty three is a
little fortune cookie, right, let's say four to ten words,

(39:26):
and they're guiding principles that I have found helpful in
my life and in my business. For example, fewer resolutions,
more resolve. When we promise a resolute a new year's
resolution is a promise to yourself. And I think the
research says that promise to ourselves is broken around ninety
three percent of the time, and it's broken ninety three

(39:49):
percent of the time, usually by February twenty eighth. So
it's ah, I'm gonna lose weight. Oh, I'm gonna I'm
gonna hike, get it more into hiking, I'm gonna spend
more time with my kids, or whatever it is that
you promise yourself. Ninety three percent of the time, you don't,
and you usually fail within eight weeks of making that resolution.
New Year's resolutions really do not have a great track record. However, resolve,

(40:14):
right resolved is the same root word as resolution. If
you are resolved, let's say you want to lose ten pounds,
You're gonna pick something simple. When you make a decision
like that, you make a resolved decision. Your choices on
a daily and hourly basis are easy. Right. The reason

(40:35):
that we go for the cheesecake, the reason that we
don't go for the two mile walk with the dog,
is because I don't feel like it. I don't feel
like it lives in a vacuum. If you are resolved,
truly resolved, that you've made the foundational, directional decision, I'm
gonna lose ten pounds. Not only do you not get
the cheesecake, you don't even ask for the dessert menu.

(40:57):
If there's a dessert buffet, you walk right buy the
dessert buffet because you decide that is not part of
your decision making criteria right now. So that's related to
another one of my little favoriteisms or sayings that once
you've made a decision, your choices are easy. Right suit up,

(41:19):
take the two mile walk with the dog. Do not
look at the dessert bar, do not order the cheesecake.
These things are easy when they're not easy. When we're tempted,
when we stray off course, it's because we have not
made a foundational internal decision, not just intellectually, but in
our heart, in our soul. We have not made that

(41:42):
very clear, very strong, decisive decision that I am going
to I want to is the path of good intentions,
and we know where that leads. I am losing ten pounds,
I am going to spend more time with the kids
or the grandkids or whatever it is, and then show
me your calendar, show me your planner, when's your next

(42:05):
trip to go see those grandkids or whatever it is.
So I think that's one of them. That's a New
Year's related one because it came out in January. Another
one that I like is less excitement more execution. And
I wrote a much longer piece years and years ago
called Excitement is Killing Your Business and the reason excitement

(42:25):
is killing your business? And this is mostly for the
entrepreneurial set, but it's true in corporate America as well.
If your day to day business, your day to day
leadership is incredibly exciting, there's always new things. I would
argue that you don't really know what you're doing. You
don't really know what you're doing if there's all this
new novelty, excitement dynamism. Once you have this really dialed in,

(42:51):
especially in the entrepreneurial world, your marketing should be pretty boring.
Your marketing should be pretty systematized, based on process. It
should be like a machine that you build. Imagine if
we're building a space shuttle. We're building a new kind
of space shuttle, and the lead engineer says, oh, we

(43:12):
have new ideas all the time. We're constantly just throwing
new stuff in. You'd be like, I'm not getting on
board that space shuttle. You want the building of that
space shuttle to be highly systematic, highly organized, not a
lot of randomness being introduced with new, crazy, exciting ideas.

(43:32):
So when I say less excitement and more execution, most leaders,
most entrepreneurs, they know what to do, they're just not
doing it or they're not doing it consistently enough. So
if you have words like stability, process, execution, consistency, not
a lot of excitement there. It's like, we have been

(43:54):
doing this consistently with zero failures and zero safety incidents
for four and a half years. Is that exciting? Frankly,
it is. Does it have a lot of excitement and
random novelty mixed into it? It does not. It is
making smart decisions day after day consistently with rigor and discipline.
So basically, we have a whole bunch more of these

(44:17):
that I could rant on about. But they're little fortune cookies.
They're little kind of guide posts to success that are
meant to spark some thinking, and not all of them
will land with everyone that reads them. But I've literally, Jim,
I've had people print them out and they say, David,
I printed this out and I made a poster and

(44:38):
I put it on my wall. And sometimes I believe
them and sometimes I don't. But I say, hey, could
you snap a photo and email that to me? And
they do. They actually have big posters that they've put
on their wall in their office. They send me a picture.
It makes my day, it makes my week, it makes
my month. I am thrilled because they resonate with these

(45:01):
little fortune cookie size bites of wisdom.

Speaker 5 (45:06):
It's a really good thing.

Speaker 7 (45:08):
But one of the things obviously coach bass for a
long time, and I always just tell our players, if
you don't master the basics, it's hard to make the
game exciting.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
Really great point. There, go ahead, JH.

Speaker 6 (45:19):
Yeah, So that's brilliant stuff there, David, and you. I
want to hone into our final minutes here on a
word that you said that means everything for selling, marketing, speaking,
or frankly, any professional effort you have, and that is consistency.
And so many of us struggle because we have so
many new ideas and we want to rewrite, reinvent the

(45:40):
wheel every time something pops into our heads. And this especially,
like you said, is for those entrepreneurs, but can really
be in any area. Talk about a couple of ways
that you suggest a couple of strategies to be more
consistent and have more of that resolve rather than just
bouncing off ideas to actually follow through for the entrepreneur

(46:01):
who does know what needs to be done but struggles
to do so consistently.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yes, so I think there's two paths to getting this right.
One is process and the other is people. So about
seven years ago I hired a fractional COO SO, a
fractional chief operating officer, because I am the crazy visionary,
the creative, the mile amitute idea guy, and I needed

(46:28):
someone outside of my head who thinks completely differently than
I do, who thinks in terms of process and systems
and rigor and discipline, and so we get along amazingly. Well,
we are completely opposite and so opposite. It's a tract
in this case. Right, there's the creative visionary, then there's

(46:50):
these systems operator implementer type of personality. But that was
a huge leap forward because he keeps me grounded, he
keeps me focused. He takes that creative energy that I
have and is able to direct it and redirect it
to the most profitable, productive avenues. So it doesn't squelch

(47:13):
my creativity, it just focuses and directs it. So if
you're lucky enough to work with someone as a leader,
you have another leader, you have a mentor, you have
a second in command person who's working under you, you
can assign them that task. It's like your job is
to keep David within the guardrails here and keep them
from bouncing off the ceiling all the time. The second thing,

(47:36):
so the process part. If you don't have the people,
but you're maybe you're an entrepreneur solopreneur and you are
the mile aminute creative idea person. I have gotten into
the habit of using a structured journal, and there's lots
of different brands and lots of different companies. The one
I happen to use is called the Self Journal from

(47:57):
the Best Self Company, and it is is a personal
organizing and goal setting and time management tool three different
areas at once. It is a very simple practice. It's
ten minutes in the morning, it's ten minutes at night.
The morning routine is you list three items that you're
grateful for. You map out your day, whether you have

(48:17):
an electronic calendar or not. It helps to transcribe. I
find it helps. But they also have done the psychological
testing that it does actually help all of us, no
matter how digitally native we are. Grab a pen, Grab
a pencil, write down the key parts of your day.
Then you want to put in your three big goals.
The three big goals for that day are the definition

(48:40):
that the best self journal uses is if you got
nothing else done that day except those three things, you
would still consider the day a success. Then there's an
area for there's an inspirational quote, and then that's the
end of the morning routine. The evening routine is lessons learned, which,

(49:01):
not putting it kindly, is like areas where you screwed up.
Lessons learned, three big wins of the day. That's very
important because that's positive reinforcement and positive progress. And then
evening gratitude. So it's gratitude in the morning, gratitude at night,
set the intention for the day, three big goals, inspiration, reflection,

(49:23):
end of the day, lessons learned, the big wins from
the day, and the evening gratitude. As the book ends,
there that little twenty minute process ten minutes in the morning,
ten minutes at night, I get all kinds of creative ideas.
And again, the job of the person or the process
is to keep your goals front and center and to
build some kind of guard rails where you can make

(49:45):
significant progress to your goals. Without getting distracted or derailed.
So between the person who's my COO. If I didn't
have the person, I would lean even more heavily into
the process of this daily, daily visioning and planning of
what is the most important thing that I need to
work on, that I need to accomplish, no matter what

(50:07):
shiny object, no matter what distraction, no matter what calendar,
disruption or emergency happens to pop up. It keeps me
focused on the mission of the day, and that's been
very helpful.

Speaker 5 (50:21):
It's great I've gotten.

Speaker 7 (50:22):
I always talk to leaders about the bookends of your
day and how you start, how you finish a really powerful.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
So thank you so David.

Speaker 7 (50:29):
I know, first of all, I just want to thank
you so much for your wisdom in your time today.
I have my final question. I know John will wrap
it up here, is it I do want to delve
a little bit into because I know our friend John
was a guest time. Tell us a little bit about
your doing selling podcast.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Yeah, so it's called the Selling Show. And actually it's
funny because it started out as the speaking show. So
again from moving from marketing to speaking to selling, the
show has evolved as well, and it's really about the
kind of sales that we're talking about, or it's not
purely selling products and services. It is about selling ideas,

(51:08):
selling your market eminence, selling your influence, and selling your impact.
So we have all kinds of fascinating folks on there,
and some of it is directly relevant to leadership, some
of it's directly relevant to sales. Some of it's just
really cool interesting people that I meet and I want

(51:28):
to showcase the way that they think. And so the
reason that I say it that way, it's not about
showcasing their books or their speaking or their company. It's
showcasing the way that they think. In the age of AI,
the how to information, no matter what brilliant person you
talk to, the how to information in any realm has

(51:52):
been totally commoditized. Digitized AI can now grab any how
to information and make all kinds of amazing things with it.
I think we're the humans at least for now. Where
the humans can still win is how to think what
to believe? So different mindsets, different frameworks, different ways to

(52:14):
process the world as we know it, how to think,
what to believe, and how to get ready for what's
coming next. Because as of this moment, AI is not
really great at doing any of those three things, and
humans are still top of the food chain. So leave

(52:34):
behind the how to informations of what we try and
do on the show as well is leave behind the
how to refocus on, how to think, what to believe,
and how to get ready for what's coming next in
any area of endeavor or professional pursuit. And that's what
that show is about. So thank you for asking Jim great.

Speaker 6 (52:57):
And wherever you found this, you can find that the
selling show. And I really had a blast with our
conversation about podcasting, David, So thank you for that opportunity,
and thank you for putting out all that good content.
You got what four hundred plus episodes, it's something crazy. Yeah,
we'll past four four point fifty now. Actually you are
crushing and putting out great content. And speaking of your content, David,

(53:17):
I know do it marketing dot com slash hello is
one way to learn more. How can someone get more
of David Newman because we all want that, and how
can we get in touch with you?

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, so everything is all in one handy spot, which
is do it marketing dot com slash Hello. Just as
John mentioned a moment ago, there's resources. There's videos, there's
pdf downloads, there's podcast episodes, there's all kinds of fun
things there and including how to get in touch with
me and I'm available on all the social media. LinkedIn

(53:50):
might make the most sense, but that's also on there.
So if you want to delve into some more free
resources and some big ideas to help you with marketing
or selling or speaking, or to build your own market
eminence and your personal brand, do it marketing dot com
slash hello is the place to start.

Speaker 6 (54:08):
And David, you talked about the building your marketing, your
market eminence early on, and you mentioned you tease that
book that you're working on. So when can we expect that.
Are you still in the early stages of that?

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Nope, pressure, it's actually thank you for asking, it's middle
stages and it should be out by November or December
of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
You will, all right, do.

Speaker 6 (54:30):
It marketing dot com slash Hello. We learned so much
from you, David, excited to continue our conversation and our
relationship with you. Thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Him and John is so great and I can't wait
for what's next.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
Thank you for joining us this week at the Limitless
Leadership Lounge. To listen to this episode again and to
find previous episodes, check us out on Apple.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Podcasts, Spotify, and Sprinker.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
You can also get in on the conversation find us
on Facebook and Instagram.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
Then tell three of your friends to join in as well,
Numa and John.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
We'll be back again next week for another trigenerational leadership discussion.
We'll talk to you then on The Limitless Leadership Lounge