Thought Leadership Marketing
Episode 1013: Thought Leadership Marketing, with Stephen Woessner
View this episode on:
Thought leadership marketing—Elevate your brand’s reputation and authority through strategic content and innovative insights with thought leadership marketing.
Thought leadership marketing — For over 25 years, Stephen Woessner has been in the trenches working alongside and consulting with hundreds of clients — teaching them how to plant their flag of authority within the markets they serve, grow their audience, fill their sales pipeline with right-fit prospects, and ultimately — drive revenue.
Stephen founded Predictive ROI in 2009 and remains its CEO and owner. He’s the host of Onward Nation — a top-rated podcast with listeners in over 140 countries and over 1,000 episodes. His marketing insights have been featured in major media, and he’s the bestselling author of four books, including his latest entitled, “Sell with Authority.”
He believes we’re entering the era of the AUTHORITY. Brands that occupy the coveted “expert” status are afforded the highest level of confidence and trust from their customers, prospects, and other stakeholders because they have a depth of knowledge and point-of-view that can’t be denied or easily replicated.
Stephen’s practical and tactical training sessions help companies capitalize on the huge shift taking place in the market today. In our hyper-competitive market for awareness and attention — brands need to plant their flag of authority and then leverage this position to fill their sales pipeline with right-fit prospects while developing deeper relationships with existing customers.
Our purpose is to deliver predictable and measurable ROI by positioning our clients as THE AUTHORITY in their niches and then monetizing that position.
What you’ll learn in this episode is about thought leadership marketing:
- Why Noah’s outstanding initial email where he reached out to invite Stephen to guest on his Profit With Podcasting show immediately caught Stephen’s notice
- Stephen shares the origins of the Onward Nation podcast and discusses how the show has grown over its more than one thousand episodes
- How the Onward Nation podcast led to the Trojan Horse of Sales strategy and Predictive ROI’s focus on thought leadership marketing
- What the Dream 25 list is, and how you can utilize your Dream 25 as a roadmap for getting intentional about your ideal client prospects
- How a podcast can be an ideal vehicle for connecting with your Dream 25 perfect-fit prospects as a Trojan Horse to get you in the gates
- Why the follow-up process after a Dream 25 client appears on your show is the crucial next step for furthering your relationship
- Why your contacts with your prospect need to be about them and their expertise and not be self-aggrandizing
- Why it’s important to slice and dice your podcast episode to share through other channels so that you don’t become a “one-trick pony”
- How the Sell With Authority methodology has grown into an encompassing, multifaceted thought leadership marketing strategy
Additional Resources:
- Learn more about the power of thought leadership marketing with Noah Tetzner’s Profit With Podcasting
- Elevate your knowledge about thought leadership marketing by tuning in to: Building a Business Through Consistent Thought Leadership, with Bill Jelen
- Email Noah: [email protected]
- Get a free copy of Sell With Authority: https://predictiveroi.com/free-book
- Profitable Podcasting by Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/3qH3yZV
- Free Executive Leadership Summary report from Predictive ROI: https://predictiveroi.com/research
- Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
- Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
Thought Leadership Marketing: Full Episode Transcript
Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.
Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation, where I interviewed today’s top business owners. So we can learn their recipe for success, how they built and how they scaled their business. Well, today’s episode is going to be, well, let’s call it a twist on my typical solo cast. So I’m going to do some kind of setting the stage here to speak in. And when I’m finished with that, we’re going to play a full episode where I was a guest on a show called Profit With Podcasting, which is hosted by Noah Tetzner where he asked me some really amazingly thought-provoking questions around how best to fill a sales pipeline with a steady stream of right-fit prospects so that you can convert them into right-fit clients over time.
But there’s also some backstory here, Onward Nation, some backstory with Noah that I think is worthy of note. First off, Noah reached out to me several weeks ago and invited me to be his guest, which was awesome, but he did it in such a way that his email really stood out in Onward Nation. I know that we all have super busy inboxes, but when Noah’s email hit my inbox, I took notice, well, why? So let me read this to you because it just really cut through the clutter. So here’s our subject line, excuse me. Read an interview with Stephen Woessner.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Noah’s Introduction
Okay. So my name’s and this subject line interview with him and with was kind of a slash Stephen Woessner. Alright. And then the body have the email went on to read, “Hey Stephen, my name is Noah Tetzner. I’m a full-time podcast producer and the host of a popular history podcast called The History of Vikings, which receives 50,000 downloads a month. I’m a huge fan of your watershed book, profitable podcasting. I recommend it to all of my clients this month. I’ll be launching a new show for podcasters, and we love to interview you about profitable podcasting. My new show Profit With Podcasting will feature conversations with podcasting legends, such as yourself. Please find the logo attached. I’d love to have you on the show. Stephen, please let me know if you’re interested.”
Okay. Onward Nation and seriously, in full transparency after reading Noah’s email, it took me about a second or two to reply and say, “Heck yes, I want to do that. Why?” Because I could tell that he had actually read my book and was using the Trojan horse as a sales strategy, precisely the way that I wrote about it in the book and was now reaching out to me using my own strategy.
How amazing is that? I mean, seriously, how could I not love that? And so I joined him on the show, and guess what? It was awesome. It was a well-crafted series of questions for Noah, and in that led to a fun and energetic discussion around yeah. How to build a dream 25 list, how to slice and dice cornerstone content into a bunch of helpful, smaller cobblestone pieces of content. So that every time an audience member turns around there, you are helpful. And yeah, we even broke down the Trojan horse as a sales strategy and how best to execute it. So after Noah and I finished recording it, I thought to myself, yeah, I need to share this with Onward Nation, not just the backstory, but I also need to share the episode because there are a bunch of helpful lessons in this discussion.
Thought Leadership Marketing: The Trojan Horse Strategy for Reaching Out to Guests
Example of thought leadership marketing: So if you’ve ever thought, gosh, how do I reach out to a guest? That’s why I wanted to share that backstory with you. And it doesn’t matter if you’re in the way we go on to talk about this during the episode, it doesn’t matter if you have a podcast or have you have a blog, or you’re asking for somebody to join you on your video series, or maybe you wanna interview that person four, a chapter or in your book that you’re working on. It doesn’t matter what the channel of content or the form of your cornerstone content is. Write. You can use this Trojan horse strategy in a variety of ways for a variety of cornerstone content. So, that’s why I wanted to share the e-mail with you. Cause sometimes people get stuck.
The business owners get stuck thinking, gosh, how am I going to open that door? Follow the blueprint that Noah just used because it works. It really, really works. So that’s why I want to share that with you. And also want to share this episode with you, because I think you’ll be able to find several golden nuggets in this conversation that you can take and apply. So here you go Onward, Noah Tetzner and me as his guest on Profit With Podcasting.
Thought leadership marketing — Create a dream 25 list of your ideal prospective clients, each of which make up 10% of your company’s annual revenue, inviting these probably out-of-reach prospects on your podcast as guests building a relationship with them and turning them into clients, thinking of yourself as a journalist and your podcast as part of a media company, today’s episode is filled with practical advice and my guest’s journey to making $2 million through his podcast. I’m no attached sinner. And this is Profit With Podcasting.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Building a $2 Million Podcasting Venture
Today. I’m joined by the founder and CEO of a digital marketing agency called Predictive ROI, host of the Onward Nation podcast. A top-rated show for learning how business owners think, act and achieve success. My guest today understands how to use Podcasting to generate revenue. He wrote the book profitable podcasting in which he shares the secrets he learned in podcasting while building a $2 million venture from scratch. Most recently, he wrote another book titled Sell With Authority, owned and monetize your agency’s authority position. Stephen Woessner, welcome to Profit With Podcasting.
Thank you very much for the invitation Noah and I am very much looking forward to the conversation. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. So thanks again for inviting me. Well,
Stephen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It’s a real treat to have you on the show because I finished your book Profitable Podcasting. After a client, recommended it to me a few years ago, I changed my whole mindset about podcasting and how we as business owners can use it to generate revenue. Stephen, I would love, and you’ve told this story before, but to me it never gets sold. I would love for you to tell the listeners at what point in your business life you began to build that initial $2 million podcasting venture. Take us back in time to that moment. When you looked at podcasting and you realized, okay, there is something here.
This can be such a great tool to generate revenue.
Thought Leadership Marketing: The Birth of Onward Nation
Yeah. I would love to say to you in your audience that it was some sort of a great strategy built out a bunch of research, but if any of your listeners are on their own businesses and I’m sure many of them do, we all know the behind the curtain. It’s not that way. There are a lot of unglamorous things that go into running the business. And the reality was is that my business partner and I had a lot and the domain name, OnwardNation.com, or I should say predictive own that domain name, or I don’t know, a year. It just had the idea one day, and it registered the domain. And then it just, we just kind of parked it for a year or whatever the time period was. Yeah.
Erik and I were onsite with one of our clients, and we ended up losing that client. And so we come, came back from that multi-day yeah. Intensive. And we thought, oh my goodness. Cause they were one of our largest clients. And so now, or like overstaffed and wondering like, well, where are we going to get our next class, my aunt? And we had no idea. And so I was sitting at my dining room table on a Sunday and May of 2015 and for frustrated and really worried and didn’t know what I was going to do. So I would love to say it was a grand strategy, but the reality was is that we launched Onward Nation out of pure and utter desperation.
Thought Leadership Marketing: From Frustration to Success
And I didn’t want to say goodbye to any of my teammates. I love my team very dearly. And so it was one of those moments where I like pounded my fist on the table and said, okay, we’re going to fire off an email to my team. And I’m like, we’re going to launch a daily show. We’re going to call it Onward Nation. I’m going to interview the smartest people that are, can find, and it’s going to be the most amazing show effort or five days a week. And we’re going to launch it in 30 days, June 15th, 2015. Yeah. And setting up that email in closed my laptop, lid and felt okay. Felt really proud of the strategy, which of course is not a strategy that I just sent off to my team, and kudos to them. They’re like, okay, Stephen, as lost as mine, we don’t know anything about podcasting.
He’s been a guest or a couple of times. And that was the grant extent of my podcast knowledge, but true to form, they dug in, we launched a show and then a couple of months later, after being into this year, one of our guests came to me and said, Hey, could you do that for me? And I was like, do what for you? And he’s like, could you launch me a podcast? Your show is awesome. Like, could you do that for me? And I’m like, you do, yes, we can. You not like the typical entrepreneur would say and that, and then it was like, how much would you be willing to pay as you know how to get that figured out? And then we’re off to the races. ’cause then a few months after we launched that show the same client came back to me and said, why aren’t you doing this for somebody else?
Like, my show’s awesome, your show’s awesome. Like, why aren’t you doing this for others? And I’m like, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, would we do this for? And he’s like, Oh for Pete’s sake, you host five business owners a week. Why don’t you ask one of them like, oh my gosh, this is brilliant? So then the Trojan horse was born and you know, we just $225,000 worth of podcasting services in six weeks. I’m like, Holy Bananas, we’re onto something. And I was six years ago.
That is such an incredible story. Stephen sometimes the best venture is the best of businesses or podcasts are built a missed theashes of defeat to put it dramatically. And it is kind of dramatic. You know, I know what it’s like, to be frustrated, but your strategy, the strategy that you outline in your book, profitable podcasting, and by the way, listeners, you can get links to all of Stephen’s books, his podcast, Onward Nation. And I really encourage you to check out his company, Predictive ROI via the links in the description of this episode, the strategy you outline in that book, Stephen is meant to combat that frustration, that sort of a rotating door of clients that a lot of business owners sort of run into.
Thought Leadership Marketing: The Power of the Dream 25 List
You talk about something called the Dream 25 list. And that has a lot to do with building relationships with guests on your podcast for listeners unfamiliar with that strategy. Could you just explain it a little bit for us?
Example of thought leadership marketing: Yeah. Great question. Thank you for asking it at a high level and I talked to the agency owners, business coaches, and strategic consultants. This is our tribe, we call it: The ACC. And oftentimes if I asked the question, Hey, do you have a dream 25 list of prospects? They typically do not. And that’s not me being critical. That’s just a reality in the nature of being a business owner. Or sometimes we just it’s like, we’re hustling until the next client or the next project or whatever. And then it becomes this mad dash for busdev when we lose somebody’s and then somebody that makes a referral, we were like, oh great. And how we can make payroll. I mean, sometimes the early on in the business, that’s the deal. And so the thought of being like having a moment to actually build out a strategic list of prospects, we all know that we should, but we don’t.
Thought leadership marketing — And so the dream 25 list of prospects is actually being intentional about who it is that you want to serve. And like, who can you delight? Who’s in the right niche or the right industry. However, you want to define that. Where do you have some great success in delighting clients like them before? And they’re going to take full advantage of your smarts and you have the gifts and talents to just delight them, to just crush it for them, as opposed to the wrong fit client coming in with a bag full of money and saying, Hey, could you help me, Noah? And then you’re squeezed to make payroll, and you say, yes, you shouldn’t, but we do. And then we pay the price for it later. Okay.
Thought leadership marketing — So building out our Dream 25 list of prospects are these the dream clients we would love to work with? And it is my co-author. And so with authority would say that they stay on the list and they’re getting something from us every six to eight weeks until they file a restraining order or a call you and say, stop getting in touch with me because my brother-in-law owns a whatever you do. So there’s no way I’m going to hire you. So a Dream 25 list is exactly who are the people that you most want to serve in and getting really intentional about it. And then you delight them every six to eight weeks until they decide to do business with you.
Thought Leadership Marketing: The Trojan Horse Strategy for Building Relationships with Dream Clients
Thought leadership marketing — And this dreams twenty-five list of prospects, oftentimes, number one, these are the people who you would love to work with your ideal clients, listeners who you haven’t met before. You don’t have a relationship yet, but that’s why you’re podcast. The sort of a Trojan horse of sales allows you a foot in the door. And it really, I mean, the beauty of podcasting is exactly what Stephen’s getting out here and has gotten out in his book. Profitable podcasting allows you to build such an incredible relationship with your dream 25 list of prospects of clients, and a really cool thing, Stephen, about the Dream 25 list. These are people that you’re investing in relationship-wise because you know what, if they were to become a client or a customer of your company, they could make up a substantial portion of your revenue, say 10% per client, right?
So you only need, maybe if you have a Dream 25 list, you only need a handful of them. One, two or three to really, I mean, for your business to explode quite literally, is that right?
A hundred percent. And that 10% is a totally spot on that. They have the ability to spend, or excuse me, represent a 10% increase in your revenue. Now we all lose clients. You know, everyone listening to you has retention. We don’t have a hundred percent retention every year as I meant to say. And so, yeah, the Dream 25 needs to be big enough in order to represent a 10% increase in your revenue, assuming that you had a, a a hundred percent retention just for ease of math in the way, the, and the reason why the Trojan horse works when you reach out to the dream twenty-five you mentioned not having interracial relationship in our podcast can be so brilliant as a way to opened the door.
Thought leadership marketing? This is also a channel-agnostic strategy. So maybe some of your listeners love listening to your show with the thought of them having their own podcasts doesn’t for whatever reason that doesn’t appeal to them. And there are lots of reasons that would appeal to this. But think about this for a second, like, okay, the Trojan horse still works. We have a video series or a rock, and also a blog, right? A book. And you wanna interview somebody from a chapter or become a Forbes columnist and you or a contributor, and you want to write an article. So the Trojan horse works. When we decide that we’re going to interview or a dream 25 prospects or their smarts and insights for your content, it works channel agnostic. Doesn’t have to be a podcast, or we do need to interview them.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Nurturing Relationships with Dream Clients Post-Show
Why? Because it changes the game. You’re no longer an agency owner, business, coach, or strategic consultant, looking for a new client that meets 10% of the revenue goal. You’re a journalist and you’re looking for insights and wisdom that are going to be helpful to your audience. It’s even better put lighter fluid on the strategy when your audience happens to be somebody you’re a dream 25 want to get in front of it. And then it’s like, yes, please. I would love to be on your show or whatever.
I’m so excited about this, Stephen. And this is the way, I mean, as I said, I read your book Profitable Podcasting a few years back, changed my whole outlook on the way that we can do podcasts once you’ve booked and conducted that initial interview with a prospect on your dream, 25 list, a for listeners who are not yet familiar with this strategy, what’s next, the interview goes live. You know, you, you give them this white glove experience where you’re in touch with them. Everything’s professional, your calendar links are our good, and the booking process is easy. They’re getting confirmation. They don’t have to jump through hoops. The interview’s booked.
It goes live. Then what, how do you over the next a few months carry on that relationship?
Yeah. Okay. So thank you for asking this question, because this is where some business owners really get hung up or sort of like the Achilles’ heel. It’s kind of funny. Actually, we were talking about a Trojan horse, and you just mentioned a cube anyway, a, since he dives in the middle, the Troy anyway, so a, the Achilles heel of this strategy is that it’s, there’s the temptation to like turn off the recorder and then jump all over the prospect. And Jerry and I didn’t close a sale. Right. I ever heard so many people do that. Like, you know how, how soon as I turn off the recorder then, and then it’s no, no, no.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Post-Interview Engagement Done Right
Thought leadership marketing: You do not turn the interview into a pitch Fest that feels yucky. Nobody likes it when it gets out when it happens to them. And guess what it feels yucky when you do it to somebody else. So don’t do that is really amateur-ish if you do this. Okay. So here’s what you do. So after that interview is done in whatever form that content is going to end up being podcast, blog, video, whatever, it doesn’t matter. You take a golden nugget in inciting, the key smart thing. And that person said, oh, and you design what we call a quote card is a nice little graphic with the quote of that person. And if you know, John Smith said this and it has a list, a small little logo of you.
Thought leadership marketing — It’s all about their smarts, not you. And you get that printed really, really nice, and you matte it with Reymond under glass and a nice wooden frame. If you send it to them with some nice packaging and so forth. John and Sarah really appreciate you being a guest on our show. Thanks so much for sharing your smarts with our audience. They get that. They’re like, oh my gosh, can’t believe Noah’s sent that to me. How amazing they take a picture of themselves with it and put it on. And LinkedIn, just because they love it so much. And like, and this is the best gift I’ve ever received after guesting on a show or whatever it happens to us. It’s amazing when it happens. You’re like, okay, that’s the first step. The second step is like six weeks after they receive the frame.
We send him a book, not our A book because that’s how that feels. Self-aggrandizing, you don’t say, look at these amazing books. We know we sent them a book from a colleague or a friend we think is going to be helpful to them. And so we oftentimes send a content written by a <inaudible>, who was a founder is the founder of content marketing world and, or a content marketing Institute in a content marketing world. You recently as sold the business. Anyway, we send them that book. And then it’s like, Hey Noah, thanks again for the, great conversation. Speaking of, which chapter seven would be perfect for you. And some of the things that we talked about that you shared during the interview; best wishes, Stephen or Onward with Gusto, and send it off.
Thought Leadership Marketing: The Art of Post-Interview Engagement
Okay. Every six to eight weeks, we’re sending something, it’s a book, it’s an Ebola, it’s a tip sheet. If it’s tagging them and social, it’s highlighting their smarts in a Forbes article, then we wrote is promoting them and email making sure that you get a copy of it. So there are all of these high-quality touchpoints, but there is nothing schmaltzy or gimmicky. We’re not sending any sort of like swag, nothing with our logo on it. It’s all about them. We don’t get a predictive ROI. T-shirt zero. They get good stuff that would never be looked at as promotional or self-aggrandizing, okay?
Then, six months later, this takes patients. This is not like, boy, I need some immediate leads, six months later, or whatever the time period is I send Noah an e-mail and you know, if you’re or a drink, 25 prospects, I sent you a note and I say, Noah, thanks again for being a guest on our show, really appreciate. Are you taking the time to share your smarts, insights, and wisdom with Onward Nation super helpful? Hey, I was a real listening to our episode. And when you mentioned X, that made me think about why, you know what we do Y really, really well here, a predictive ROI by chance. Is there a date or time next week? Then, we can sit down and talk about that because I’d love to share some thoughts with you. Noah replies and says, yes, please.
And not because it’s a persuasive sales pitch. Cause it isn’t, it’s about me being able to solve your X with our Y. And it’s like in a few solve X, if you move your business forward a yeah, I think I want to do that because now no one never felt like a prospect. It’s two business people coming together solve a problem.
Because people remember how you made them feel. And when you’re catering all of these things to them, you’re giving them this great publicity, and I hope you listeners cot. This is one of the key pieces of the strategy here. Podcasting is often the entry point. It’s not the only way to build a relationship with prospects on your dream 25 list, but it’s a good one. You are the second you create a podcast and it’s available to the world. You are not a podcast, or you are a journalist who runs a media company. There are a lot of different things you can do here in a day. Once the interview with that guest is published. I mean, you could always invite him back on this show for some sort of five-minute segment or another interview, but that’s not really that creative.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Beyond Podcasting to Build a Media Empire
What is creative? Some of the strategies that Stephen and his team have implemented are publishing eBooks, doing blog articles, LinkedIn posts, et cetera, et cetera. So you’re promoting your prospect across numerous different platforms. Stephen, could you tell us about this concept of, and I’m really attached to it, this sort of media company idea podcasting is great, but what are some of the other platforms that one can utilize to augment and compliment their podcast?
Yeah, I think that there’s a really long list of missed opportunities in and what I mean by that is I think it’s really easy to think. Well, I’m going to, I’m going to launch a show and that’s really all I need to do. You know, everybody in the world is going to be attracted to this podcast in, and then therefore, my door is going to be knocked over with all of these new, fresh, hot leads who want to do business with me. That is not how it works now, will they hopefully be better as a result of the content? You have shared hope. So if you’ve structured the content such a way or that you’re actually teaching them something new and that you’re actually going to your audience with the sincere desire to be helpful to them, will they be better for every episode that they listened to?
I hope so, but not everybody wants to consume a podcast as much as I love the medium. Not, not everybody wants to like consume content in that channel. So we have to think about that. And we have to make sure that we don’t fall into the trap of being a one-trick pony, which means that if they don’t consume your podcasts, then they have no chance of being better as a result of your smarts. So, let’s take that podcast episode. Let’s slice out four golden nuggets and episode. Let’s turn those in, take those a little video clips list, record both the voice and audio like you are doing here. Let’s take the four of those golden nuggets in video form. Let’s turn those into long-form LinkedIn posts.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Strategies for Multi-Platform Distribution
Let’s take the little transcript out of that two to three-minute clip, and let’s make that the content in the long-form LinkedIn post, we can max out at 1300 characters, and upload the video natively into LinkedIn. And now we’ve got great content for at least a month right. Like a weekly post for a month. Awesome. Let’s take the transcript now and let’s turn that into email campaigns. Well, why don’t we take our email and link them over to LinkedIn, right? So like, if you want to watch the video, I’m going to drive people over to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is going to love you for that, right? So don’t like take them maybe over to a Vimeo file or a Vimeo channel. Take them over to LinkedIn, write, drive them over to LinkedIn. If you’re not connected yet with me on LinkedIn, please do.
And once you get there, let’s take those video clips, throw them into a Facebook group can start building membership around these amazing, smart, awesome insights that your guests are sharing. You know, inside a private Facebook group, let’s take three or four episodes. If I’m going to interview Noah and Jacques and Sara and Beth, is there a commonality between those four super smart people? If so, I’m going to take all those golden nuggets and put those into an ebook to further build out my resource library, right? I’m going to take Noah’s smarts and I’m going to distill that down into, into a tip sheet or a checklist that now goes into my resource library, right? So I mean like you and I could have a conversation for days around slicing and dicing and all of these missed opportunities.
So, the goal is that no matter what medium that somebody wants to consume and get better as a result of your smart LinkedIn, Facebook podcasts, video, whatever time you turn it around or every time you’re a prospect turns around with the question there, or no, it is being helpful. And it all came from your cornerstone of the episode. All you did was got creative on slice and dice and distribution.
Thought Leadership Marketing: The Key to Sustainable Success
I love this process, Stephen, because it really is like magic. I mean, it’s just so natural. It’s just that the ability to build a relationship with somebody oftentimes untouchable, somebody who is a busy, high-performing executive for an example, at some sort of company on your dream, 25 list, the ability to connect with them like this and build a relationship, invest with them and eventually reap the rewards. I think that is so cool. And so incredible. Stephen, you’ve done great work through predictive ROI. And I encourage listeners to check out the company website via the Lincoln. The description of this episode, you’ve used this process and still do at that company.
Tell us a little bit about what you guys are up to at predictive these days. How are you guys generating these great or revenue results for your clients?
Happy to share that. So, and just going to put a pin in that for just a second. Sure. And I want your audience and I hope you don’t mind that I share this real quick. You know, I get a 15 to 20 pitches a day to either guest on a show or have somebody, a guest on our show, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, lots of stuff. Okay. What I don’t get, or a lot of emails from NOAA’s of the world who have read my book and I am not like egocentric or ego-driven or interested in self-aggrandizing stuff. But when somebody sends me a note and says, Hey, I read your book. And it was impactful for these reasons.
I pay attention to that or not because I want a stroke, my own ego, but because I’m interested in helping that person who read it, that’s why we wrote it to be helpful, not to make a good million dollars. So that’s a type of email that you sent to me. Okay, I’m taking an interest in this now. And then you have some conversation with Katherine on my team who is our director of ops, who I trust explicitly. And she’s like, Hey, you should talk to Noah. Like, I think he’s smart. I’m like, okay, so I’m gonna talk to Noah. We hopped on a call. You and the holy bananas. Now we are doing stuff together. Yes. Their Trojan horse works just does.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Leveraging Content for Diverse Revenue Streams
It does. Right. Okay. So to answer your question about how are we still using this stuff today? I think what we’ve done is I think we’ve gotten so much better at a slice and dice. Then we’re six years ago and the six years ago were, were, we were all about the podcast. And now because of the work that drew McLellan and I, as the CEO of the Agency Management Institute. So when he and I were writing the book and we teach a lot of workshops together, when he and I were writing a Sell with Authority together and putting all of this slice and dice stuff together, it was like super eye-opening experience for me. I went into the book as a podcaster.
I came out of the book as, oh my goodness. We can be doing so much better with our cornerstone content, which at the time happened to be a podcast. And like this could lead to research was, which is another piece of the cornerstone. This could lead to a video series or this can lead to or whatever. And then Eric and I, my business partner who now, or we thought, well, gosh, we can turn this content into a weekly Q and A. What if we taught a weekly Q and A? How amazing would that be? Their we’re like, that would be amazing. So now we host a weekly Q and a call, how to fill your sales pipeline. We turned some of that content into our authority sales machine membership site. We built out a 90-day strategy process. What we call ASM, a sprint in all of this is coming out of this Sell with Authority methodology, which is not channel specific is channel agnostic.
And it’s been amazing. So, all of those, our different revenue streams, do we still do the Trojan horse and user charge and Morse, of course we did. But now it’s very multifaceted.
I love that. I love that, Stephen. And I’ll just encourage going back to what you said a, and before you answered that question, I’ll encourage all of your listeners. When you are looking to build a relationship with somebody, you have to be all in. You have to have a genuine interest in the work that they’re doing. I had read Stephen’s book or Profitable Podcasting before I connected with him. And I eventually talked to his business partner, Eric Catherine, who’s on his team. And I connected with him as well. And I had a genuine interest in respect and admiration for him and the work that he was doing. And I knew that I had an interview coming up with him today. So I listened to the audio book of Sell with Authority. And I finished it before the interview because that’s just one thing you can do: read your guests’ books before you interview them on the podcast or a what a concept.
Thought Leadership Marketing: Sell with Authority and Monetize Your Expertise
But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself, Stephen, and it’s been such a pleasure speaking with you today on the podcast. I understand the listeners can get, and there is a way for them to get a free copy of your new book that you co-authored. Drew McLellan Sell with Authority. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
We have a link on our website where somebody can go and get a free copy in just to be clear, too. It’s like a free bonefied copy, a paperback copy, or you don’t have to pay for anything. You don’t have to pay to ship it. It’s not a PDF. It’s like, we will literally show you a few paperback copies. And it’s so fun too. Like when we first put that out too, our email list, I got a couple of emails, not a couple, gosh, I don’t know. I think we ended up sending several dozen books or internationally, but I got a, some emails at the beginning. It was like, I’m in Australia. Will you send me the book? Yup. Or I’m in Belgium when you sent me to the book. Yeah. And so we did so anyway, that was cool. Anyway, I we’ll get you the link a, that you can include, but it is a free bonafide copy of Sell With Authority, and we’re happy to ship it to whoever thinks that might be helpful to them.
Listeners, take Stephen up on that offer and follow the link in the description of this episode to get your free paperback copy of Sell with Authority owned and monetize your agency’s authority position. Stephen, what a pleasure it’s been having you on the podcast. I really appreciate it. I love the work you’re doing. Thank you so much for joining me today.
You’re very welcome. And thanks again for the invitation. I should also say about the book, when you read the subtitle, you mentioned agency and in and drew, and I absolutely a hundred percent, without a doubt, we wrote it for the agency owner that said, if you’re in the B2B space, no doubt, you will be able to read that book and say, I’m not an agency owner, but I’m a B2B marketer. I can take and apply a ton of golden nuggets in this book. So please, if you don’t own an agency and you would like to Sell with Authority or to the book, and we’re happy to send it to you, but, but again, Noah, thanks for the invitation. It was a pleasure and a joy to be with you here today. Thanks for the great questions and really loved our conversation.
And by the way, we are going to be slicing and dicing this episode and sharing it with our audience in the way that I described before. So, thanks for the great material.
Most definitely Stephen, and that’s wonderful. Thank you again, listeners, do yourselves a favor and spend 15 seconds reviewing the show notes or the description of this episode and checking out all of Stephen’s fascinating and groundbreaking work.
Okay. Onward Nation. I hope you found that helpful and that the conversation with Noah sparked new ideas or some new ideas about how you can further fill your sales pipeline with a steady stream of right-fit prospects. But before we go, I want to say a very big, thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing some of the very precious 86,400 seconds that you have today. Thank you for sharing some of those seconds with us. Please know that my team and I, are extremely grateful for every single email, every piece of advice, every social media post, every encouragement, every time you spend time inside our Facebook group, every helpful critique that you send our way, all of it has helped us continue to get better and better over the last six plus years than our podcast has been live.
Thank you, Onward Nation. Thank you so very much. So, until next week, this is the time to double down Onward with Gusto.
This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food. If you have your ambition, continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.
Fill Your Sales Pipeline Q&A
LIVE Wednesdays at 1:00 pm Eastern / 12 Noon Central
The Sell with Authority Podcast is for agency owners, business coaches, and strategic consultants who are looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality.