Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 149: “The Thought Leadership Handbook” with Bill Sherman

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Episode 149: “The Thought Leadership Handbook” with Bill Sherman · What is Business Development?

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast brought to you by
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  Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
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  Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, BD pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Association podcast called The BD Podcast. We just changed the name, folks.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: If you've been listening for a while, you may be wondering, hey,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: those guys, I think they just changed the name of
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  Speaker 2: the podcast. And it's also great to have our guest today,
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  Speaker 2: Bill Sherman, talking about his latest book. It's called The
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  Speaker 2: Thought Leadership Handbook. But before we get into our interview
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  Speaker 2: with Bill Sherman today, Let's talk about another book I
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  Speaker 2: always like to talk about in this show, and that
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  Speaker 2: is the Business Development Body of Knowledge. This is the
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  Speaker 2: fundamental universal guide to the profession of business development. You
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  Speaker 2: can get it on Amazon, and once you read the book,
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  Speaker 2: you can then go to the Global Business Development Association
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  Speaker 2: website to learn how you can get your business development
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  Speaker 2: professional certifications. All right, let's jump into Bill Sherman's new book.
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  Speaker 2: It's called The Thought Leadership Handbook. And, you know, everybody
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  Speaker 2: talks about thought leadership, but wouldn't you like to discover
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  Speaker 2: the tools and traits of the leaders who shape the
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  Speaker 2: world's biggest ideas? And in this book, it pulls back
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  Speaker 2: the curtain on a discipline that often feels like improvisation
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  Speaker 2: to bring clarity, and common vernacular that will help define
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  Speaker 2: the industry going forward. It's a groundbreaking work for the executives, speakers, visionaries,
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  Speaker 2: and business developers like you that need to be thought
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  Speaker 2: leaders in your industry. And our guest today, Bill Sherman,
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  Speaker 2: is the COO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And he's worked
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  Speaker 2: with hundreds of thought leaders from people preparing their first
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  Speaker 2: book or keynote to top-tier business school professors, senior executives,
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  Speaker 2: and retired Fortune 500 CEOs who want to stay relevant
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  Speaker 2: and pay it forward. So with no further ado, let's
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  Speaker 2: bring Bill Sherman to the show. Bill, welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Tony. Good to be here.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, well, it's great to have.
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  Speaker 3: You here, Bill.
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  Speaker 2: And I know you have a wonderful podcast with a
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  Speaker 2: lot of shows you've been doing that podcast for, boy,
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  Speaker 2: over eight years now, I think. Really impressive with what
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  Speaker 2: you've done. And you've been in the thought leadership space
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  Speaker 2: for a long time. And it's so affiliated with business development.
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  Speaker 2: And you do business development all day long. How did
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  Speaker 2: you kind of get into this profession?
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  Speaker 3: So I stumbled into both business development and thought leadership.
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  Speaker 3: If you'd asked me when I was in my 20s,
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  Speaker 3: I was studying to be an academic, thought I'd teach
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  Speaker 3: at a four-year university. Give me a tweed jacket, elbow patches.
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  Speaker 3: I'll teach a couple courses on English lit and maybe
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  Speaker 3: do a production in theater every now and then. Instead,
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  Speaker 3: went into consulting, wound up doing HR and organizational development
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  Speaker 3: consulting for Fortune 500 companies. And there, stumbled into an exec,
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  Speaker 3: who worked at Yahoo at the time, was doing business
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  Speaker 3: development at Yahoo. And in fact, he had sold the
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  Speaker 3: first run of house ads for Pepsi, to Pepsi, to
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  Speaker 3: have all of the pages on Yahoo have a Pepsi banner.
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  Speaker 3: Nobody had ever done that before, right? So there was
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  Speaker 3: an idea of, hey, do you want to not only
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  Speaker 3: advertise on the web, But what if you took over
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  Speaker 3: all of our website? That's a business development question, right?
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  Speaker 3: So he'd written a business book, got it published, got
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  Speaker 3: it on the cover of Fast Company magazine back in
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  Speaker 3: the day when the print cover of Fast Company was
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  Speaker 3: the cool thing to be on. And I wound up
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  Speaker 3: speaking with him and he's like, hey, Bill, you know
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  Speaker 3: how to take ideas to scale through organizational development. I
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  Speaker 3: wrote this business book because I thought that's what C-level
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  Speaker 3: executives do at a certain point in their career. Now
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  Speaker 3: I've got people wanting me to speak. I want people
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  Speaker 3: who want training for their organization. Can you help me?
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  Speaker 3: That's how I got pulled not only into thought leadership,
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  Speaker 3: but by someone who was an expert in business development.
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  Speaker 3: And then my second client, as I fell further into
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  Speaker 3: the world of thought leadership, was former chief marketing officer
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  Speaker 3: of Deloitte and Starwood Hotels and worked with him on
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  Speaker 3: a bestselling book. Again, scaling ideas on how do you
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  Speaker 3: build relationships with people before you ask for the sale, right?
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  Speaker 3: So relationships like muscles, build them before you need them.
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  Speaker 3: That's my entree, not only into the world of business development,
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  Speaker 3: but thought leadership. And I've been an entrepreneur since.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's great to have you share a lot of
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  Speaker 2: these learnings from these thought leaders and from your thought
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  Speaker 2: leadership work. And I'd like to really jump into your
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  Speaker 2: book now, if we could. I know you have it
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  Speaker 2: prominently displayed on the shelf behind you, over your shoulder.
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  Speaker 2: But for folks who that are watching, this is the
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  Speaker 2: cover of Bill's book. For folks listening, it's called The
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  Speaker 2: Thought Leadership Handbook. It's available right now. So Bill, let's
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  Speaker 2: jump into some of the top three tactics from your book.
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  Speaker 2: I know it's jam-packed with a lot, but we only
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  Speaker 2: have a limited time to cover these three things. So
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  Speaker 2: let's start with number one.
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  Speaker 3: Number one. So a lot of people believe that good
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  Speaker 3: ideas will speak for themselves. That's not true.
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: Good ideas don't automatically travel. And if you're trying to
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  Speaker 3: persuade someone on a partnership or entering a new market,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera, they often have to buy into the idea
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  Speaker 3: before they buy into the idea of working with you.
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  Speaker 3: So how do you put that idea out into the
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  Speaker 3: world in a place where not only they encounter it,
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  Speaker 3: but they lean in and say, tell me more, right?
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  Speaker 3: Let's talk about that because everybody's scrolling on their phones.
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  Speaker 3: They're fast paced and making decisions. Is this for me
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  Speaker 3: or not for me? Maybe it's an email. Maybe it's
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  Speaker 3: a quick meetup or pull aside at a conference or something.
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  Speaker 3: You've got an agenda. You know where the relationship could go. However,
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  Speaker 3: they're just getting coffee at the breakout session, right? So
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  Speaker 3: what makes an idea effective, a core idea? One, It's
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  Speaker 3: got to be provocative. You've got to get someone's attention
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  Speaker 3: in a way that they pause. It breaks the trance,
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  Speaker 3: whether they're scrolling or they're deciding who are they going
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  Speaker 3: to mingle with at the cocktail event, right? So provocative.
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  Speaker 3: It also has to be generous. It can't be a
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  Speaker 3: complaint of this is broken and it's never going anywhere.
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  Speaker 3: You have to show them a possibility of the future.
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  Speaker 3: Third thing, it's got to be distinctive. you need to
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  Speaker 3: have something that sounds like you, your organization can't be
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  Speaker 3: replicated by competitors and certainly not spit out by AI.
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  Speaker 3: If it does, people aren't tuning in. Oh, I've heard
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  Speaker 3: that before. Final thing, it's got to be short. 20
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  Speaker 3: seconds or 20 words or less or 20 seconds if
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  Speaker 3: you're speaking, right? So provocative, generous, distinctive, and short. All
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  Speaker 3: you want when you put that first hook on the
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  Speaker 3: table is to get someone to say, that's interesting. Tell
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  Speaker 3: me more. I don't know if I agree with you.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not even sure what you're talking about, but they
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  Speaker 3: open the door for conversation. And I've seen way too
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  Speaker 3: many presentation decks that start with a lot of preamble.
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  Speaker 3: And instead of that should be leading with a core
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  Speaker 3: idea that gets someone excited, shows them the possibility and
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  Speaker 3: gets them to say, tell me more.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, you've definitely opened the door to tactic
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  Speaker 2: number two. So tell me more. Tell me more, Bill Sherman. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: So once you get that permission and you have their attention,
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  Speaker 3: how do you advance the idea? Because especially in business development,
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  Speaker 3: people are not only going to evaluate it emotionally, they
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  Speaker 3: might look at the deal financially in a partnership, etc.,
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  Speaker 3: you need to make your case, right? Well, what do
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  Speaker 3: you have? You have stories, data, examples, case studies, quotes, referrals,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera. What I've seen a lot of people do
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  Speaker 3: with thought leadership is wing this part. They don't have
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  Speaker 3: their best material organized, and it's certainly not organized in
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  Speaker 3: the way that they know, oh, if I'm talking to
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  Speaker 3: a CFO, these are the stories that work. If I'm
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  Speaker 3: talking to a head of revenue, these are the examples
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  Speaker 3: that I quote, right? If you don't organize and it's
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  Speaker 3: solely between your ears in your head, if you don't
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  Speaker 3: have a content library where you can find Anything that
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  Speaker 3: you need for support in two minutes or less, basically,
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  Speaker 3: you're going to get stuck. Now, it takes a little
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  Speaker 3: bit of time to organize your content library, stories, data, examples,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera. But it makes you so much more effective
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  Speaker 3: when someone says, tell me more. It also allows you
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  Speaker 3: to scale your persuasive piece. Somebody asks you, hey, can
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  Speaker 3: you write an article on this?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: You've got it documented. You could hand it off to
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  Speaker 3: a communications team and give them and say, here's the lead.
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  Speaker 3: Here's the supporting material. Go forth, send me a draft
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  Speaker 3: and I'll look at it, right? But if it's only
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  Speaker 3: between your ears, you've got to be in the room
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  Speaker 3: or the Zoom or wherever to persuade and influence others.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like what you say about organizing that content
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  Speaker 2: library in advance. So you're not winging it. You're not
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  Speaker 2: shooting from the hip. and hoping that it sticks. These
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  Speaker 2: are things that you've prepared well in advance. These are
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  Speaker 2: things that you've probably tested as well, right, Bill? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you know they resonate. Exactly.
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  Speaker 3: And you start with the material you think that's going
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  Speaker 3: to work for this audience. You test it. You take notes.
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  Speaker 3: You figure out what are your greatest hits. And you go, oh,
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  Speaker 3: I know these three work most of the time. Here's
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  Speaker 3: my backup for this audience, right? And then if you're
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  Speaker 3: doing a similar BD or partnership pitch on a regular basis,
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  Speaker 3: things will change over time. We've certainly seen the world
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  Speaker 3: change overnight, and you've got to change your language, right?
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  Speaker 3: If you don't have a content library to fall back on,
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  Speaker 3: you're doing improv, and that's scary.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, improv is scary. It can be entertaining at times
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  Speaker 2: if you're a professional comedian.
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  Speaker 3: But for BD, no.
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  Speaker 2: Stick to your business development day job, folks. Okay. All right.
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  Speaker 2: So Bill, let's jump into tactic number three.
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  Speaker 3: So we've talked about two of what I describe as
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  Speaker 3: the four elements of thought leadership, core ideas and content library.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to jump to one more, which is called
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  Speaker 3: platform identity. Okay. And with that, We know about corporate brands.
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  Speaker 3: We know about product brands. It's how people sort of
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  Speaker 3: understand what the brand is. And I'm not talking about
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  Speaker 3: like Nike has the swoosh logo. It's how do you
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  Speaker 3: describe the brand? So Nike, you might say, oh, it's
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  Speaker 3: athletic gear. It's sponsorship for, you know, professional athletes. It's
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  Speaker 3: a just do it mindset. There's a body of information
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  Speaker 3: or a body of knowledge. around a brand. Personal brands,
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  Speaker 3: the same thing. You might be reliable. You might be innovative.
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  Speaker 3: You personally might be creative. Those are both useful. But
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  Speaker 3: does your core idea have a brand? And the reason
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  Speaker 3: I ask is, how do people explain your idea when
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  Speaker 3: you're not in the room to be there to correct them, right?
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  Speaker 3: What a lot of people haven't done is they work
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  Speaker 3: on building an idea. They try to take it to market.
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  Speaker 3: They're trying to persuade others to buy into that idea.
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  Speaker 3: And they haven't made it easy for other people to explain.
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  Speaker 3: And that means the idea can only travel as far
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  Speaker 3: as you can take it. Because if someone doesn't understand
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  Speaker 3: an idea, they're not talking about it. They're not taking
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  Speaker 3: it up the chain in an organization. They're not telling
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  Speaker 3: their colleagues about it because they're not like, I'm not
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  Speaker 3: sure what's on the table, right? So how do you
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  Speaker 3: check if your idea is clear, communicable and memorable and useful, right?
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  Speaker 3: Because the more excited others get about the idea, the
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  Speaker 3: more likely they are to share it, to build the
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  Speaker 3: consensus within another organization, get that signing authority to say, yes, well,
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  Speaker 3: You test it out. If you have people you know, trust,
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  Speaker 3: friends and family, colleagues, explain the idea to them.
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  Speaker 2: Okay?
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  Speaker 3: Following day, send them an email. Hey, in your own words,
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  Speaker 3: what was the big idea I shared with you? What
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  Speaker 3: do you remember? Okay? Sometimes those come back like a
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  Speaker 3: game of telephone. where the teacher whispers something in a
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  Speaker 3: kid's ear and it goes down student by student until
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  Speaker 3: the end and then it's complete garble, that's a learning lesson.
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  Speaker 3: If you ask five people, hey, what's the idea I
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  Speaker 3: shared with you? And they come back with different things,
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  Speaker 3: that means your message is not being received clearly. So
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  Speaker 3: as much as you want to control the brand for
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  Speaker 3: your ideas, you have to realize they own the brand
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  Speaker 3: And you have to listen to what they're telling you, right?
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  Speaker 3: You can influence it, but that's the limit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, Bill, because referrals from your customers
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  Speaker 2: and even from prospects are so valuable in business development.
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  Speaker 2: You know, that is our mission as business developers. Business
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  Speaker 2: development is customer and community advocacy that creates value. corporate growth.
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  Speaker 2: Folks listening to the show have heard it many times before.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a double entendre. We advocate for them so
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  Speaker 2: that ultimately in the end, they become fans of ours
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  Speaker 2: and they advocate for us. But I love what you're saying,
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  Speaker 2: which is, you know, listen to what your customers are
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  Speaker 2: saying about you. How do they define your brand? What
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  Speaker 2: is that big idea that you hope you're conveying to
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  Speaker 2: the community? But you know what? They may be a
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  Speaker 2: little bit confused. And that means you need to tighten
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  Speaker 2: up your message. You need to share more. and you
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  Speaker 2: need to help inform your clients so they can be
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  Speaker 2: the best advocates for you. Wow, Bill, this has really
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  Speaker 2: been so powerful to hear these top three tactics. I
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  Speaker 2: know you have a lot more jam-packed into your book. Again, folks,
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  Speaker 2: we're talking with Bill Sherman, the author of the new book,
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  Speaker 2: The Thought Leadership Handbook, how the experts elevate their big
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  Speaker 2: ideas and how you can too. Bill, let me summarize
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  Speaker 2: the three main takeaways that we discussed in your book.
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  Speaker 2: Number one tactic, which I really love, is earn the
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  Speaker 2: right to open the door. And you have to do
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  Speaker 2: that in four phases. One is being provocative. Get their attention.
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  Speaker 2: Minister those sniffing salts that make them wake up. Get
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  Speaker 2: them out of that trance that you talked about, Bill.
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  Speaker 2: The second thing is be generous. Be generous with the
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  Speaker 2: value that you're providing to them. And so that they
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  Speaker 2: get a lot of great value and no strings attached here.
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  Speaker 2: I'm here to help you out. That's what I'm here
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  Speaker 2: for as a business developer. Second of all is be distinctive.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you can't be like everybody else in the marketplace.
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  Speaker 2: You can't be vanilla. All right. You want to be
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  Speaker 2: the most exciting flavor of ice cream out there and
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  Speaker 2: make it very distinctive so that you have those competitive
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  Speaker 2: differentiators that make it easy for your prospects to understand
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  Speaker 2: how you are uniquely different.
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  Speaker 3: Different.
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  Speaker 2: And then you wrap all of that up by being brief.
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  Speaker 2: Keep it short. You're just trying to get that next
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  Speaker 2: meeting and you're opening that door. Once you're in the door,
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  Speaker 2: make sure you have all of your content, all of
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  Speaker 2: your talking points organized. You've tested them. You know they
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  Speaker 2: work and you know they resonate with prospects everywhere. And
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  Speaker 2: then finally is nailing down that brand, not the brand
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  Speaker 2: in your voice, not what you post on your website.
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  Speaker 2: It's what your customers, your prospects are saying about you
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  Speaker 2: to their friends so they can be the best advocates
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  Speaker 2: for you. Bill, did I miss anything?
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  Speaker 3: No, no. Okay. It's understanding core ideas, understanding your content
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  Speaker 3: library and building the platform identity so that others can
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  Speaker 3: speak on your behalf.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Bill, I'm going to speak on your behalf.
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  Speaker 2: This has been fantastic. I can't wait to share these
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  Speaker 2: tactics with my audience. It's been so great having you
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  Speaker 2: on the show. Bill, how can folks connect with you,
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  Speaker 2: get your copy of your book? And again, folks, name
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  Speaker 2: of Bill's book is called The Thought Leadership Handbook.
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  Speaker 3: So you can follow me on LinkedIn, bill-sherman-aha-moments. I'm sure
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  Speaker 3: you'll put it in the show notes. as well as
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  Speaker 3: the Thought Leadership Handbook is available wherever you get books
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  Speaker 3: sold or thoughtleadershiphandbook.com.
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  Speaker 2: All right. Well, Bill Sherman, thank you so much for
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: sharing all of your wisdom with us today and most
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  Speaker 2: of all, your thought leadership.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, Tony. Thanks for inviting me.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Business Development Podcast. Join
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: our free community of corporate partners and business development professionals
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: advancing the art, science, and ethics of the business development
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: profession at GBDAsociation.com.