E126 – How CEOs Can Build a Digital Reputation That Drives Sales

 Tom: All right. Welcome back. Episode number 126. We are all three on the same virtual meeting at the same time. It really can happen. It can happen, can happen. I am in a different continent today though. Yeah. Brandon is in Egypt. Wow. Old. You know, there used to be like this morning show, it was like, where in the world is so and so.

I think that’s with Brandon. It’s like you never know where in the world he’s gonna turn. I was in

Brandon: Houston last week and uh, that didn’t work out so well, but yeah. Yeah. So, all right, well it’s good to have all three of us back. We’re going to talk about digital CEOs and what that means and how that can help the modern seller today.

Tom: So I think that’s gonna be an interesting conversation. We were. Already chatting beforehand with some really good ideas there. Before we jump in, uh, again, want to thank Brandon fist bump for all their hard work on this show and all the production work. Do you guys have anything upcoming any. Uh, cool webinars or anything that we should be talking about?

Brandon: Yeah, I’ve got a, I’ve got a new, uh, a new like ebook training coming out. Um, it’s, uh, you know, I think, and it, and it’s along what we’re talking about today, it’s, it’s how, how an invisible CEO can become visible in one hour or less, uh, using LinkedIn. And it’s a playbook on how to do it. Very tactical. Uh, I’ve been working on it this week actually, while I’m here with my team.

Brandon: So that’s, that’s coming out. Yeah. We’ve got, I’ve gotta get, um, well, what I do have is the, the workshops that we’ve been doing that what, what we found is a lot of our clients that have shows and they’re using the show content, um, their messaging hasn’t been as focused as it should be. And, and I believe that, especially in the last five years, which.

Brandon: Tell me if you guys agree with me, since Covid did, now it seems like it’s gone really quick, but that’s been five years and everything’s changed Our, our customers have changed a lot. The way they think, what they really want, what they’re scared of, they’ve got, we came out of Covid, we came out of this virtual, this remote, this hybrid.

Brandon: Our Com competitors have changed what they’re doing and then we had ai. So much has changed in five years. The question is. Is your messaging working? Are you still spot on with your messaging? And I would say for most of us, you’re not. So we do have a, a messaging that creates customer conversations workshop.

Brandon: Um, it’s something that I did in my, I’ve done in my consulting for a long time that we’re bringing into fist bumps. So if somebody’s interested in that, um, I’ve got. I’ve got one workshop coming up in Atlanta on March 13th, but I have a virtual one coming up later in, in the month of March too. But you can go right now to Brandon lead.me if you wanna learn about that.

Brandon: And it’s, it’s not just a workshop. I don’t, I, I probably should call it something different. I. The workshop is kind of a, a brain dump and a brainstorm that creates the information we need. And then within about two weeks, my team, we work on it, we give you a messaging that creates com customer conversations, playbook.

Brandon: And Tom, you’ve helped me, you know, get through some of that and we got the plays that win. So you end up with. Very spot on messaging, email campaigns. Um, if you wanted to do a show, some titles for the show and ideas for having guests and how to use the content, we take ’em through the entire hero journey, landing page copy.

Brandon: Like it’s pretty, pretty robust amount of copy, uh, that you get. And it’s got a hundred percent money back guarantee. I mean, come on. Can’t lose,

Tom: can’t lose sound. Sounds like it’s essential for the digital CEO. In today’s, in today’s world. So let’s jump in. I wanna say welcome to Bob as always,

Brandon: Bob

Tom: Loha. Um,

Carson: I just booked summer vacation to Hawaii.

So You did Loha? Yeah.

Tom: All right. Very nice. We should have a, a special episode when you’re drinking mi hai on the beach wearing a lei. That’s right. It’ll be special. I think

Brandon: we’ve got a Hawaii, I think we have a Hawaii trip coming up for Megan and I next January or February. She’s got. Uh, a re a retreat.

Brandon: She’s got a trip with all of her high school girlfriends and I’ve been invited that I can come early and do a little trip with her beforehand, and then she’s gonna send me home and stay with all of her, her high school girlfriends. So

Nice. Yeah, I get to be there for a little bit.

Tom: So, Hey, Brandon, why don’t you kick us off by talking about what you mean by the digital CEO.

Tom: Why that is important nowadays and, and, and maybe even the, the priority of, of that compared to maybe other things that you would, that A CEO would typically, you know, consider as part of their job.

Brandon: Yeah, let me, thanks for that. Let me set this up guys, um, to kind of get my thoughts and then I’m gonna say my, my big bold, controversial statement.

Brandon: How’s that? Um, Carson, throughout your sales career. Have you ever asked the CEO, and I know at Microsoft it’s a little different, but throughout your career, did you ever ask the CEO to pop in on a meeting when you had prospects in town or at a trade show, asked the CEO to make sure that they came and joined you, at least for a little bit with the prospect?

Brandon: Absolutely. Or jumped on a call and and joined it. Why, why do you do that?

Carson: It’s the, it, it’s a few things. One, um, you know, it’s the visibility, it’s the face of the organization. Um, you know, it, it makes your client feel special, makes them feel important, like the, you know, the, the important client that you want them to be.

Carson: And, um, furthermore, if you’ve got your extended team there, it enhances morale, um, you know, seeing your leader. Lead from the front, um, has an exponential impact on your team and on your morale. It just, it’s, it’s fuel for whatever you’re trying to do. It’s like the WD 40 of advancing relationships,

Brandon: and I would say that that is the exact use case for having a CEO who is consistently and strategically using LinkedIn to build a personal brand.

Brandon: That’s it. It’s the exact same thing for A CEO who’s resistant. And I know a lot of CEOs are resistant. Um, I was resistant for a long time because I thought, oh, I don’t need it, and all these other things. But it’s, it’s not that we’re trying to self-promote, it’s that we’ve got the mouthpiece of being the CEO we wear.

Brandon: We’re the only person that carries that title. And for what Carson just said. Bringing them in helps create credibility and recognition shows that you care excites and motivates your team. That’s really why CEOs do it. And here’s, here’s my bold statement, and I, I’ve been, I’ve thought this for a while, and honestly I think I’ve, I’ve been a bit of a coward to really stand to it, but now I’m like, I, I think I just need to go all in on this in 2025 and beyond.

Brandon: A C part of a CEO’s job description should be having a strategic and consistent LinkedIn personal brand strategy as part of their job description. It’s 2025 folks.

Yeah, right.

Brandon: LinkedIn is not just for resumes. It’s not just for people looking for jobs. It is a networking platform, and if you’re not there leading your company.

You shouldn’t be leading a company in the 21st century.

Carson: I love it. I mean, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, well said. I, um, you know, I, I think about as a seller even, and just as a mere peon, I. How many CEOs I follow, you know, and, and I’m even a lurker in some cases. I know we’ve talked in the past about the lurkers and you can’t really quantify the lurkers, but, um, I follow a lot of CEOs.

Carson: I’m inspired by the messaging of those CEOs, and it absolutely gravitates me toward those brands because of what that CEO. Stands for on the platform. They are building awareness. Um, they are showcasing a winning culture. I can’t tell you how much impact and influence that it can have. Not only in the perspective, think about how much money some of these organizations pay for, like advertisement.

Carson: This is free advertisement. You’ve got your CEO out there. Showcasing the culture and the brand and everything that’s great about it. It attracts talent, it attracts share, and you can’t beat it, and I could not agree more.

Tom: Yeah. So, so I’m gonna be kind of, I’ll, I’ll kind of be the devil’s advocate on some of this.

Tom: Not that I don’t disagree with you, Brandon, but I can like

Carson: Reeves and, uh, Al Pacino devil’s advocate or,

Tom: yeah, maybe, maybe.

Carson: I trying to see, are we movie reference? Yeah. Are we doing a movie reference? The devil’s greatest tricks. Yeah, he is. Uh,

Tom: so I, I’m gonna start with Bob’s comment here. He’s saying, you know, some CEOs are not people person.

Tom: Mm-hmm. The title impresses the client, but you hope they don’t say something that makes closing the deal more difficult. Yeah. Right. So,

Brandon: okay, so I will, I will cave in a little bit on one area. If it’s not the CO because a personality or you know, extreme fear or shyness or something, somebody from the C-suite needs to take on that.

Brandon: Evangelist role face, however we wanna say it, somebody from the C-suite level needs to do that. And

Carson: I would even take it a step farther to say, you know, Hey, let’s, I’ll call it out. I work for a gargantuan organization. Is it meaningful that my CEO’s out there and has a strong presence on LinkedIn?

Carson: Absolutely. I mean, it’s inspiring. Um, you know, it, it reinvigorates. I came from a world years ago where we were traveling a lot more and. Especially for like, you know, annual kickoffs and things like that. And now there’s such a virtual and hybrid element to that that, you know, going back and, you know, getting in, getting in with 15,000 of my peers in one place at the same time isn’t happening as commonplace.

Carson: So seeing my CEO out there active on LinkedIn is huge for me. But, um, I also see my chief commercial officer out there. I see our, our co-chair and president out there. I see our chief human resources officer and so on, so forth, and they’re out there regularly. Consistently, their messages are all unique, but they are evangelizing core components of what we stand for.

Carson: And it’s almost like a, for me, it’s like a dream. It’s like a presale. You know, they’re going out and evangelizing all these amazing things that are differentiating our brand, that help my potential buyer, uh, know about these things before I even try to create a relationship. So it’s setting a lot of important groundwork and it’s enhancing the probability.

Carson: Of my outreach being successful because of the great work that they’re doing that is, again, free.

Brandon: Yeah. And I, and I think the, you know, the reality is people like to connect with, engage, read, fill a part of CEOs, so when CEOs are active, they’re gonna get more people, not just. From our team, but they will get competitors as well.

Brandon: But they’re gonna get a lot of our buyers and people from the buyer companies following to pay attention because they are the CEO and people care about what does the CEO think about? What are they saying? What are they talking about? And I, and I think just to piggyback on top of that, I still believe we’ve got a couple years where LinkedIn Organic.

Brandon: Still has a ton of play where I believe right now on Facebook or Instagram or even TikTok, you’re gonna have to pay to play. But for smaller companies, it is really like a Best Buy right now. It’s like a great deal to invest in content around your CEO because the organic value of it is still prime.

Tom: Hey, and I want to, uh, welcome Anna from New Zealand. Hey, we go. Hey, Anna. I think it might even be Thursday there. I don’t know. I would imagine it’s, but, and Brandon almost Thursday

Brandon: where I’m, so it’s for

Tom: sure. So, all right, my next devil’s advocate question, Carson, you can tell me if I’m really doing a good job with this.

Tom: As far as the. The movie role. So as a CEO, let’s say I’m willing to go out there and, and talk and put myself out there on LinkedIn. What should I be talking about? Am I talking about me? Am I talking about the company? Am I talking about the products? Am I, what, what am I doing? How do I present myself? And, and how do, how do, how do we use that as a positive and not a negative?

Tom: Carson, why don’t you get us start with that? Yeah,

Carson: no. Hey, look, if, if you’re a CEO that’s out there, and we talked about the formula before, even for individual contributors on this show, I think there are some similarities. Um. You know, planning out, and I go back to even like the Darren McKee episode where he talks about how you can space out your week and there are, you know, methodical elements.

Carson: And I’m even thinking about, you know, senior leaders in my organization that have posted over the years and what has really resonated, frankly, knowing them as human beings first and foremost has been really helpful given getting that glimpse into, you know, what they’re up to, um, how they’re spending their time, their routines, um, you know, their, how.

Carson: Like their hobbies, their passions, their favorite sports teams, like those types of things. I, I are a piece of interest, um, talking about the, you know, the direction that we’re going in. So you gotta think anytime that you’re a CEO and that you’re making a post out on LinkedIn. There are two. Very distinct possible and probable audiences that you wanna make sure you’re reaching to.

Carson: And one is potential clients, one is your employees. And so I’ve worked best as an individual contributor when my leadership is transparent and communicates. And there are internal channels and avenues to do that. But when you put it all out there for everyone to see, that’s transparency. And if you’re able to really play up, you know, I, I see people that are.

Carson: You know, giving kudos and praise to people on their teams that are being promoted or, you know, there’s opportunities from within or they’re, you know, touting culture or they’re talking about great wins and successes that that organization is having. Or even better the wins that the, those that they serve are having.

Carson: You know, when I see my leadership share stories about how an organiza an organization, a customer has done something transformative. Serves humanity with our platform and something that they’ve been able to do because of our technology that changes the game. It’s great for the customer audience, but it’s also great for employee morale because you feel like you’re a part of something.

Carson: You feel connected. And so when I’m thinking from a CEO lens, what’s gonna really resonate? What’s gonna really feed those audiences? It is all going to be about the things that show their humanity, but it’s also going to be that really showcase what’s our culture all about. What differentiates our organization?

Carson: And I mean, coming from my world, every, every customer I work with, they’ve got a lot of options when it comes to who they can buy cloud from, right? I mean, that can be very commoditized. What matters and what’s the difference maker is how can we lean in as a unique partner. And collaborator in that space.

Carson: What is the unique value that we can bring? And if your posts as a CEO are about that, those are the things that are gonna make them stand out. The last thing I’ll say is even just starting like provocative conversations and dialogue and, and I’ll throw it out like I. What I love about Brandon’s post is on Friday, like, you know, we rely on the dad joke, right?

Carson: These, these unique flare elements that stand out. And so when I see these posts, I’ve got another CEO that I follow, and they post all about their organization’s winning. I. And it’s never about them. It’s about people in their organization that are doing amazing things. And I love it. It, it gets me going.

Carson: Just reading those posts, you know, when you see these common themes, you as a person, you as a CEO, you can stand out, find your way of kind of doing that and relating to your audience and saying the things that are gonna really resonate and, um, standing out in amidst all the noise.

Brandon: That’s good. Carson.

Brandon: Yeah, so I got a few things I wanna say on this. As you were talking, I always thinking about a bunch stuff. I think so nu number one, I, I believe that there’s a lot of CEOs that use, I don’t have time and it’s a resistance because there’s a fear and there’s a fear that’s lay that’s layered in. Some misunderstandings.

Brandon: I think, I mean, I’ve got a, a blog article I’ve written, I don’t think it’s been published yet on the five myths, CEOs believe about social media that’s costing them millions. And those myths are that, um, you know, social media is about self-promotion and there’s some influencers out there. And if you look at some of the big name influencers, they are like, look at me, look at me.

Brandon: But that’s not what we’re talking about. This is about brand promotion through your voice, through your title, and you’re the only person in the entire organization that has that title. And we’ve already talked about the value that everyone gives to that title. And so you’re either gonna show up or no one shows up.

Brandon: The other piece, the other thing I think, um, I hear and I wrote in this article is, um, a lot of CEOs I talk to say I don’t have anything valuable to say. Um, it is a little bit of a, a tap into imposter syndrome. Um, but you know, their experience, their vision, their industry insights, what they’re thinking, what they’re observing, sharing a conversation they had with somebody.

Brandon: They don’t have to say, who just give the person’s title and their industry and say, Hey, this is what we talked about and this is why it was meaningful to them. They really are the source of a lot of very valuable information for their prospective buyers, for their current customers, for their team, for hr, for recruiting.

Brandon: They just don’t realize how important that is. And then the third thing I want to say, based on, on Carson, what you were saying is, is share this example when, and I’ve been, I’ve been using content. With business owners to create conversations with prospective customers. Since 1998, like I’ve done this a very long time, and here’s an example I was thinking of the other day.

Brandon: I had we, and this is in the print world, this is back in like 2004, 2005, we had a magazine that was called Swirl and Sip. It was about wine and food, and we personalized the cover for professional service providers. We had a lot of like lawyers, um, and accountants primarily use that one, but the magazine became like their magazine that they shared with a database of people.

Brandon: Now, what does wine and food have to do with legal work? I. Absolutely freaking nothing but that magazine dropping, you know, a database of two to 300 people dropping in their mailbox every month and them looking through it. What happened? People remembered the lawyer and then when they had a need or somebody, I mean, I always loved this one where they would get the referral.

Brandon: ’cause somebody was in someone’s office, they were talking about something. They go, wait a minute, and they grab the magazine and go call this guy. And because you know, there’s the lawyer on the cover and it’s the lawyer’s magazine. My, my point of that is we get, we get so focused on do we have the right things to say that we forget in real life, live face-to-face networking.

Brandon: 95% of that conversation has nothing to do with business and what we know. It’s just that initial. Get to know each other, feel ’em out. Do I like this person? Do they, you know, do they have good vibe? If they asked me for a meeting, would I say yes. That opportunity is abundant with LinkedIn, with social media, with content, and I think because we’re, you know, oh, it’s LinkedIn, it’s business, it’s content.

Brandon: We, we just bypass that. And I’d argue that, that if we bypass that stage, it’s harder for us to get to the meeting stage.

Carson: And if you’re a CEO that, um, you know, isn’t confident or comfortable in creating some of that content first, remember, I mean, there’s a multitude of ways that you can create and put out content, but furthermore, you know, get a, get a team to help you, uh, to do this.

Carson: Um, I’ve done a lot of reading lately, uh, especially, you know, Simon Sinek and Ryan Holiday. You know, Simon Sinek really being able to talk about some of the strengths and skills that are inherent of some of the generational gaps. And because this generation has come up so prominently in an era where technology and AI savviness has been almost a norm, there’s a lot of prominence in the workforce and the talent pool to be able to jump in and create and manage a brand and maintain it.

Carson: And I think we’re gonna touch on this in this show, but you know, when I even think about some of the content that I’ve created in the past. Getting creative about that content. I took literally, um, this was a, an experiment I found on a cassette tape, a sales speech that I had given back in the year 2008.

Carson: And I transcribed it with technology and turned it into an article. Had to change and update a few things, but I mean, it’s, my words from 17 years ago made new. Furthermore, you know, presentations that I give internally, I.

These transcripts, these recordings are there. I can turn that into an article.

Carson: Removing any of the internal references or customers, you know, names, but keep the stories intact. CEOs, I mean, I think about a lot of CEOs that write, um, write articles, write memoirs, write books. You know, you can take all of this content and create posts from it. What resonates with people is stories, whether it’s stories about you and how you’ve come in and created a nurtured culture.

Carson: Your organization, but also how your organization is standing out and empowering and enabling other organizations to win. As a result, those things resonate and these pieces of material, whether it’s video or transcripts or articles that you’ve written or books, they can all be turned into so many individual pieces of content that you could, that could literally.

Carson: Fill up years and over time, I mean, you keep making deposits in these wells. I mean, if, if I go out and I Google myself today, I mean there’s thousands of pieces of material that wasn’t the case 15 years ago. But you make these deposits and this body of work grows and grows, and that is where you as a CEO can put yourself in a position of strength.

Yeah.

Brandon: And that’s, and that’s why, and Tom, I don’t know where you’re gonna go, but, um,

Tom: oh, I have a whole bunch of other Yeah. Buts ready for you. So, so

Brandon: lemme throw this one out before you give us another Yeah. But, um. You know, over the last probably three, four years of working with companies, especially leaders, CEOs, sales leaders, in doing this, I think one of the reasons why I, I really, and we do other stuff, but I landed on the live show and podcast, is our main like recommendation for most prospects we talk to is the ease of use.

Brandon: And the natural environment of it, like they don’t have to prepare a whole lot. Their experience, like they’ve already got it between their ears, their experience, their history, their knowledge, it’s all there. They can show up 10 minutes before an episode, five minutes before an episode, review the agenda briefly, have a quick chat with a guest and have a conversation.

Brandon: It gets recorded and, and what we’re getting is we’re getting all their words. We’re getting their thoughts. We’ve got ’em on video. We could create newsletter content out of it. We can create blog content, multiple blog articles out of it, a whole bunch of social content, written video. Like we, we produce about 28 pieces of content out of every episode, but the best piece is we’re getting.

Brandon: The CEO and other, other hosts of the show, we’re getting their voice, we’re getting their words. It’s one of the easiest ways to do it in the way I think CEOs can do, you know, lead with their content in less than an hour a week.

Tom: Yeah. That was my next, yeah. But, or around that area. Right. So let’s say I’m a, I’m not the CEO of Microsoft.

Tom: I’m the CEO of A of early stage, or. Medium stage company, right? How much time, I mean, do I need, do you spending on doing LinkedIn? I have a few questions on this, right? Mm-hmm. That I think are probably going through people’s head. Do I need to do other things, Brandon, like you’re mentioning, do I also need to be doing live shows and other content?

Tom: Do I also need to be on Twitter and other social channels? Right? How much time is this going to take? Mm-hmm. Or should it take outta my day? Or week to do this. And then secondly, what kind of budget does this require? What kind of team do I need to have to act? Because I, and I think one of the biggest, I, I heard an our or an interview with Steve Jobs that right when blogs were coming out and somebody asked him, why don’t you blog?

Tom: And he said, because if I start blogging. Then I stop for some reason, or I get busy or something else comes up. He goes, I’m committed to it and I don’t want to be in a situation where I start and then I stop and then I look like I’ve, I’ve quit on the whole thing. So I know that was a lot of things all at once.

Tom: But if I’m a CEO, I’m thinking about what is the time investment, what is the cost investment, and what am I committing to? I. Right over what time period. I’m gonna

Brandon: say, Tom, you’re asking the questions in the wrong order though. I mean, we’re saying, I mean, first and foremost. Can data and, uh, a playbook or a path to show that there is an ROI from this investment.

Brandon: And then you can take a look at, okay, I can see that there’s an ROI here. Um, you know, I, we had Melody kills a, a customer of ours that I just happened to be, I’m in the Egypt office, and that someone on our team was talking with her and she was given a testimonial that she’s. She, she’s been with us for four months and she’s already five.

Brandon: Xed her annual expense. Like she hasn’t even spent the annual budget with us, right? She spent with us for four months. She’s five x her annual fist bump expense and new realized revenue from this. So if a CEO can see a path to an ROI, then you can ask those questions. And I think there’s some, there’s some answers.

Brandon: Like, like I was saying before, I like the show format. Because it gets CEOs in a very natural and easy environment. They have a conversation. They don’t have to prepare a whole lot. And from a 30 minute to to 60 minute video of them having conversation, we can create all the content we need for the next week.

Tom: So, so what I’m hearing you say is. Start with the end in mind, right? Of what you’re trying to accomplish. Yeah. First and foremost, and I assume then I need to compare that against other things that I’m doing. That may or may not have that same return, right? Mm-hmm. For, for my company or my otherwise, and again, another, yeah.

Tom: But, and, and you know, Brandon, I’m, it’s not that I’m, you know, that I’m doing this because I think I’m trying to spark conversation. Yeah.

Branond: No, I appreciate it. I, I, I appreciate the questions is, um, you know, isn’t this, and, and Carson, I’m in your take, right? Because isn’t this the job of marketing? Like, that’s why I hire marketers.

Tom: That’s why I have a marketing team and all of that stuff to get ourself out there, build our brand, do all of those types of things. Isn’t that something they should be doing? Maybe I can be pulled in from here and there, but is this something that as the CEOI should be doing consistently?

Carson: But now we’re gonna get into a philosophical conversation of marketing and sales and when they’re on the same page and when they’re not, and.

Carson: You know, I, I think the challenging element is, you know, in an ideal world sure, I mean, it, it is an area where marketing can lean in and, and help create some of this messaging. And, you know, I’ve seen a lot of different iterations over the years of ways that, you know, marketing can keep, can be.

Carson: Restructured, pulled in a lot of different directions. Their KPIs change and they don’t, you know, they don’t align with what sales has or is doing, and they’re on a different, they’re on a different page from one another. Um, I’ve also seen interesting iterations too, of where, you know, projects have been spun up that I think are very valuable.

Carson: Um, different, you know, customer facing, uh, types of events. Um, you know. Round tables or, you know, fireside chats with executives. Um, you know, so even within that realm. There’s a number of different ways that these things can play. I mean, even I, I’ve recently started tinkering with, you know, doing kind of fireside chat, um, podcast style interviews with some of our partners, talking about wins and success stories that they’re having with customers.

Carson: And then, you know, putting that out to the information Super highway. I think, you know, there’s a number of ways that these things can work together, but it also, like we’re, we’re challenging the norms here. Right, because you’re typically, you’ve got your sales over here, you’ve got your marketing over here, they’re doing kind of their own thing.

Carson: There’s minimal to limited visibility to the C-suite and you know, everybody just kind of does what they’re told by the step above. And so I, I think you do inherently, if you want to build this culture of, you know, having the CEO be. Out there, be the mouthpiece lead from the front. You’ve also gotta be able and willing to challenge some of these other maybe historical norms.

Carson: Um, I. And I, and ideally, if you’ve got a leader that is able and willing to be out there and be that mouthpiece, you’ve got one that is more forward thinking and able to challenge some of those norms so that they can actually get people working together for the greater good of the organization. You know, quelling some of the, um, you know, the ego quelling some of the, you know, organ, you know, parts of the organization working in silos.

Carson: Those are the things that have to be broken down in order for them to, to work well.

Brandon: Yeah. And, and Tom, I would, I would say that your, your question is a black and white, either or. Um, when you look at data, like, and I can’t remember the reference, it was an, it was an article in entrepreneur. They referenced a different research study, and I can’t remember that I, I can go find it.

Brandon: But, um, the data point was 82% of people rated companies more trustworthy. Who had CEOs or C-suite senior executives very active on social media. So there’s, there’s a lot of other data points like that, that I think would be compelling. And, you know, a lot of my clients, they’re in that 5 million to $50 million range.

Brandon: So we’re not talking like, you know, Satya at Microsoft probably has a team of people that help make him look good and they, they probably have a larger budget than a lot of my clients have from the entire year. But it’s not, shouldn’t marketing be doing this? It’s like, what can we do in small periods of time to leverage our best asset, the CEO, and then equipped marketing to do it better, to do things better, wider.

Brandon: And that’s why I like, I. The live show and podcast format because it’s easy. I’ve seen, it’s easy for CEOs. I mean, I’ve worked with CEOs, I’ve worked with senior leaders and pulling out their phones and trying to do thought leadership videos, and they’ll, they’ll do like eight of ’em, delete ’em all, spend 40 minutes and they go and never do it again.

Brandon: That the show, it’s like you’re just talking with people. Yeah, but we’re getting your real thoughts. We’re getting your real experience. We’re getting your real stories, and we capture it. And then allow marketing to take that one minute, really, really brilliant thing you said, and turn it into a short.

Brandon: Take the three minutes that are around that and take that transcript and turn it into a blog article. Reference it into our newsletter. And turn it into a LinkedIn article newsletter article as well. And all of a sudden, you’ve equipped marketing to better leverage the best asset they have, which is the voice, the thoughts, the person of the CEO.

Carson: And you think about the time commitments, right? I mean, like, think about the tangible and intangible outcomes that we get from different activities that we do as leaders in a given day. You know, I, you don’t always see immediate, tangible return on every investment that you make, but you know, as a CEO, I mean, you’re doing town hall meetings, most likely, you’re probably doing some internal facing.

Carson: Communications that are very, very important. It’s a deposit, it’s an investment that you’re making in your people. And I see these time investments as very similar. You know, you go live for an hour as a CEO or even half an hour as a CEO, um, and, and forego maybe a meeting that, um, doesn’t need to happen today.

Carson: Mm-hmm. And you have this opportunity to speak in a platform where you have. You know, even a thousand or, you know, several thousand followers or whatever it looks like the opportunity to impact and influence and to have that brand recognition and familiarity, that investment is timeless. You’re gonna be able to keep making these deposits over time.

Carson: Six months, a year from now, you’re gonna look back and be blown away by the, um. You know, the, the stockpile of influence that you built up. You know, I look back, it’s funny you mentioned, um, you know, something about like, Steve Jobs not wanting to make a commitment to a blog, right? I mean, first off, you study anything that Apple’s ever done.

Carson: They’ve always kind of done things their own way, um mm-hmm. And they’ve earned their right to do that. Right. I mean, their brand is global and it’s a behemoth. Now I look at even like my initial reluctance to call myself a podcast host back in the pandemic. You know, I had all these people reaching out because I started publishing content videos with people that I was meeting and different leaders I was talking to and at, at the beginning it was just like water cooler talk.

Carson: It’s like, man, I miss just sitting around talking about leadership and sales and culture with people. And then I realized I can do that with zero geographical barriers at any time in the world. I can publish something and post it, and I was getting people reaching out all over the place saying, I wanna be on your podcast.

Carson: And I’m like, I don’t have a podcast. I don’t wanna a podcast. I, I got a wife, three kids, a fulltime gig, but. When you start to realize the impact that that can have, not just like as me a lowly, you know, mid-level manager, like the what that creates, you think about what a CEO can do with that kind of time and power and influence and just even having a conversation.

Carson: You don’t wanna talk on a podcast show or be interviewed like. You can stack the deck in your favor. I mean, I can easily arm somebody with questions that I wanna be asked that bring out the best about my company. So there’s a number of ways that you can arrive at the desired outcome. And to do it in a, you know, a way that works with your schedule.

Carson: You give maybe 30 minutes in a week to commit to doing something like this. You can make it work and the, the dividends will be immense.

Brandon: Yeah. I, I like, I like the, um, the strategy approach that, that you took to that. I mean, we talk about, um, we call it the episodes strategy and there’s different ways to set up an episode.

Brandon: Um, Tom, you and Kevin, I, I mean, I, I, I really love, I. The format and I, I think there’s a lot of benefit that came from the format that you guys use in your other show that you, yeah, I don’t think you even realized at the time, but I call your other show a curated content strategy and you don’t wanna tell everybody what, what you do with your other show and how it works.

Tom: Well, it’s, it’s based on a newsletter, so we do an industry newsletter. Every week the newsletter goes out. Then on Thursday night, Friday morning, we get on and talk about the news that’s in the newsletter and try and talk about, you know, a little bit of the story behind the story. Peel the onion, you know, go behind what you just read in the article.

Tom: And people seem to really like that because it gives them a way to keep up on the industry and what others are doing in an hour, hour and a half. Which they’d have to go then figure out and do on their own. Right. So they, they appreciate that, that guidance and help.

Brandon: So let me, let me, is is the, the marketing strategist kind of behind the scene in my brain, what I’m hearing is, okay, so you went out and curated other people’s content to create a newsletter.

Tom: Correct.

Brandon: Now you send it out on Thursday night before you talk about it on Friday. Well, that means you’ve given everybody in your industry a really, really easy reason to give you their email address. True. It’s true.

Tom: You’re And the white. And the white. List us too. White list us. No,

Brandon: because they want it.

Brandon: Like how many marketers right now are going, oh, our emails are going to spam. We can’t, we’re not getting open rates and all that, and you guys are here getting people going, Ooh, ooh. Send it to me. Send it to me. Right. So you’ve curated it, and I, and I know you guys don’t do this, but I tell you, you should like, when you go and, and you start talking about the newsletter, you can tag all the authors from those articles and you’re giving them promotion, but you’re also getting their network attracted to your brand, into your newsletter, into your show.

Brandon: Right. And then you guys talk about these articles and you guys have become like, I mean, before the news got to be so controversial and, you know, kind of jaded and having their own opinions and, and agendas. But I would say back in like the seventies and eighties, the, the an the evening news anchors had a ton of credibility.

Brandon: Like they had all this credibility and they didn’t create any content. They just read. They just read the words, but we gave them all this credibility and you, and to you and Kevin are getting that type of credibility. And I’ve heard Kevin’s stories, like he goes to trade shows now and people come up and go, Kevin, and they, they know him.

Brandon: Kevin has no idea who they are, but they’ve given him all this credibility because you guys simply curate other people’s articles and then talk about what you think they mean every week.

Tom: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. We got a, an interesting. We got invited to a major conference in Washington DC in September, and rather than us having to pay, which you would normally do to go to a conference and have a booth or whatever, they’re gonna pay us to come and be the moderators for their panel sessions because they want to have like a kind of back and forth podcast format on their panel sessions that are there.

Tom: So there’s a lot of things that you can for sure that can come out of that. Uh, along the way and, and yes, this was sort of, it was like you, Carson, this was a bit of the accidental podcast. It wasn’t something that was necessarily planned. It was just like, Hey, let’s go share what, whatever, you know, let’s go share this.

Tom: What the hell, what do we have to lose? Right? It was, there wasn’t a lot of. Strategic thought that went into it, um, along the way, which I’m not sure was a good or a bad thing, Brandon, but it, there wasn’t a lot of strategic, it was both.

Brandon: But the, you know, the, the episode strategy, Carson, to what you were saying is you can have a guest.

Brandon: And we call it, one of the guests is a big dog. We’ve used it on our show. We’ve gone out, we’ve got Mike Weinberg, we’ve asked Anthony Andino, the Larry Levine, Amy Francos, you know, we’re still working on Gemr. He’s, he, he’s close and then something happens. But with the big Dog strategy, we’re, we’re actually giving them a platform to expand their personal brands, but we’re also leveraging their popularity.

Brandon: To get more people to come to our, to our network. And you know, I, I like to share this example. The first time Larry Levine came on our show, Chris Dunn from BlueHive Exhibits was part of Larry’s, you know, coaching program. When he saw that Larry was going to be on our show, he came and watched our show and then he started following me.

Brandon: And now BlueHive is a fist bump client and we manage, produce and promote. Their live show and podcast that Chris is the host of, like that, that big dog strategy works really well. You’ve got, you could bring your own customers on as guests and let them tell their story, which is promoting you. But without you having to promote yourself.

Brandon: And like today, we have no guests, but we’re talking about things that are, I mean, this show obviously is very important to me with fist bump, but we get to talk about it very specifically and add value to educate people. And for everyone watching, you’re gonna see. Snippets and shorts and newsletters and things from this episode over the next week, because that’s, that’s exactly what we do.

Brandon: So you’ve got all these different strategies that you can use with episodes to make it super easy for A CEO or other members of the C-Suite or sales leaders to give an hour, 45 minutes a week and know that there’s this whole system in place that’s gonna help them. Grow their reputation, meet more people, help sales, get more conversations, help HR recruit better, lots and lots of value from 45 minutes a week.

Tom: So I think what I’m hearing both of you say, and, and, and I certainly know this myself, but I wanna make sure we’re, it’s we reiterated, is, if you’re gonna go into this, there’s kind of a, a cultural and a mindset shift. It has to happen. Maybe not a shift, but a commitment, right? It’s a cultural and a mindset commitment to this, and inherently that creates a bit of a strategic mindset or a strategic commitment.

Tom: Is that true? I mean, would Bo I I, I’d ask both of you. Do you think that’s a critical element to kind of have that mindset and then. Let that mindset carry through the organization and have the organization kind of channeling into that versus just trying to go do something tactically and cross your fingers and hoping for a result.

Carson: Yeah, my Look, my answer’s brief. It’s, um, short answer’s yes. I mean, I. The, the playing field’s changed. You have to go in eyes wide open. You know, the ways that you’ve done it up to this point, um, is, is kind of this, no matter what, no matter how big your tunnel is, it’s tunnel vision and there’s new ways, there’s new audiences, there’s new ways of touching those audiences.

Carson: That’s out there. And so to not do those things, to not pursue those things, you are in essence making the conscious decision to cut off all of that potential audience and all those ways of touching those potential clients and amplifying your message internal to your organization and also external. Um.

Carson: Because it’s, it’s very real. It’s, it’s, it’s vibrant. Um, that community is active and if you ever doubt that and you’re a CEO, go out and look at, you know, your competitors and their CEOs who maybe are vocal out there and the comments that they’re getting and the rah rah pump me up. You know, things that their employees are saying in the comments, or, you know, the people that they’re connected with that are.

Carson: Customers you’d like to have, you know, there’s a lot that you can do to go out there and, and view the new landscape. So yeah, I mean, I encourage you to go into the para, you know, into the situation eyes wide open. And don’t just not lean in because it’s uncomfortable or it’s new muscle. I. Or because it’s unknown, there’s a lot of data and intel that’s out there that can help you have this strategy and do it well.

Carson: Um, and I mean, frankly, just call Brandon.

Brandon: Okay. You know, I think two things that made me think of, and thank you for that Corson, but um, you know, it was probably nine months ago, plus ish. Um, I was speaking to a CEO around our age, probably a little, you know, sixties ish. And, uh, he’s like, Brandon, you’re a LinkedIn guy.

Brandon: Like, okay. He’s like, come here, explain this to me. Okay. He’s like, there’s this kid who’s, who’s in my industry, and I’m gonna pause there because that, that’s a really important statement. There’s this kid who’s in my industry, so this guy’s got, you know, 35 plus years. Experience, and he pulls up and he says, basically, I’ll give you the short version.

Brandon: This kid is crushing it on LinkedIn. He’s like, he’s in my industry, but he’s getting so many more people talking with him and engaging with him than I get what’s going on. Well, um, number one, this kid has learned how to use modern platforms to network, and you think just because you have 35 years experience that everybody should come running over and kneel down and listen to every word you said, and I, and I don’t mean to sound like a jerk about it, but it’s just not gonna happen.

Brandon: And, but what this kid learned how to do was talk with people. He brought his humanity into it so people felt like they knew him. And this guy had posts that were getting 25, 30 comments and the, the CEOI was talking to would get like three or four likes and one or two comments that were usually people on his team, and he was bringing it to me like there was this big injustice.

Brandon: That was taking place because it’s his industry. I got more experience than he does. And I said, man, you gotta look at it. You gotta look at it differently. Because unless you figure out what this kid knows, you’re gonna get buried because they’re not gonna care as much about your experience. If he’s building relationships and creating conversations with them,

Carson: tell him to hire the kid.

Tom: Yeah.

Brandon: Yeah. Yeah. Well offline, I’ll tell you who it was.

Carson: Yeah, I take it we know this person. We do.

Okay.

Brandon: Yeah. So I think you know, the other, the other piece, and I think for a lot of our clients in that, you know, 5 million to $50 million range, I ask him. We, we did, we did the episode. We called Level Up LinkedIn Fast and it’s ’cause I was getting a lot of calls from people to go, man, you know, at the end of last year we gotta level up LinkedIn fast.

Brandon: What do we do? Big first question, ask what’s going on? There’s a pain I. More and more of them are starting to experience that pain, that they’re just typical cold outreach. They’re cold emails, they’re, Hey, we do this. Let’s talk. It’s just not producing a return. So they, they’re, they’re now getting desperate to figure out how to do something else.

Brandon: And, and one of, one of the value propositions I think, of doing like a live show is that not only it’s 45 minutes, you’re getting the CEO out there, you’re creating social content. But you also can use that to create content for all your other outreach. So instead of your emails all sounding the same, Hey, we do this, you wanna talk, you can say, Hey, here’s a short from an episode that talked about these things.

Brandon: Or we had a, you know, this person is a guest. And they talked about these things. Here’s, here’s the timestamps of a 45 minute show. Find what you, you know, what’s valuable to you, and go check it out. Like you can immediately become a giver of information making deposits instead of your one trick pony of wanna talk, I’m gonna sell you something.

Brandon: I mean, that alone is worth the small investment, in my opinion, of doing it. But they’ve, they’ve gotta figure out if the pain, if the pain, you know. Is the pain gonna cause me to finally be willing to take a look at something different? And then there’s options. But you know, it’s funny is the three of us all haphazardly started shows and here we are years later going, wow, this has been one of the coolest things.

Brandon: We didn’t have a plan, we just started talking.

Tom: So Brandon, do you suggest that they have a plan that somebody is doing this when they start off?

Brandon: You know, I, I think years later I. Now there’s people like, I mean, they could tap into any one of us and we could give ’em a quick, you know, breakdown of how to use it with purpose, obviously, and thank you Carson.

Brandon: They can come learn from fist bump, how to do it in an hour, a week or less, and have a purpose. But even, even if they just tap into their marketing people and say, you know what, let’s just, I would say have a strategy for your show name that captures your customer’s attention. Have topics that are gonna capture your customer’s attention, and then plan on using the recording of the show and the transcripts to create.

Brandon: A few pieces of content, like even if you just start there, I guarantee if A CEO is willing to do a 45 minute show a week, your your marketer who’s stressed out about how to create content would love you for it.

Carson: I’ve also seen so many leaders in like my organization that’ll do fireside chats with customers.

Carson: And do that in front of employees. Why in the world wouldn’t you turn that into some type of external facing show where you could find a customer that is willing to come on and speak and you talk to them, you interview them about the experience and make them the star and put that out there. I mean, the, these things that, like, again, I go back to the time investment, like these are things that you’re investing time in anyway, right?

Carson: So do it in a way that has maximum potential.

Tom: Well, you guys have convinced me

Brandon: no more. Yeah. Buts,

Tom: no, I, I don’t have any more. Yeah. Buts. I, I think that the digital CEO is, and, and all the things that go with that, that we’ve just talked about it, it certainly seems relatively high reward and low, relatively low risk to the potential reward, I guess, that can come out of it.

Tom: And I think there’s also a big lost opportunity cost for doing nothing. Right. Every day that you do it, there’s that lost opportunity. I

Brandon: would, I would push back a little to, to play the other side. Now

Tom: you mean? Yeah, but. Are you saying Yeah, bet. Yeah.

Brandon: Well, I just think let’s, I wanna be realistic, and this is over, you know, hundreds of conversations with CEOs or CROs or just business owners of, you know, five to $10 million companies.

Brandon: The fear is real, right? There’s. I think I, I started jotting down and I ended up creating this ebook on the myths that CEOs believe, um, and how to get over it because it’s real. I mean, it’s really real. They’re, they, they’ve spent their career building up a network and a reputation, and then they’ll go on, they’ll see on the news or Twitter or something like that, that somebody got canceled because they said something stupid and they go way to the extreme, go, oh my gosh.

Brandon: Like, just don’t say anything stupid like, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s like we’re either a boardroom or a, or a cocktail party or something. You’re very aware to not say something stupid, but I think there’s some really real fear that CEOs need help. And I think that’s where we can, we can help them with their fear or find a community of other CEOs that are all going to do this together.

Brandon: And, and have some, have some support systems in place. But I think the bottom line is if you’re, you’re a CEO of a company and you’re not figuring this out, it’s gonna cost you millions in unrealized money. But it’s also could cost you millions in just lost revenue because if your competitor CEO starts becoming a, a well-known reputation and character, if you will, and they’re, they’re gonna crush you.

Tom: Hey, before we wrap up here, I wanted to mention one other. Sort of side effect hack, if you want to call it that, that I was shocked about. We recently took our around the horn episodes and took the whole transcript and put ’em on our website. So we create a page for every episode and there’s a transcript and stuff on on there.

Tom: What I noticed with some of the new AI search is the AI search is picking up the things from these transcripts and playing them back as part of what’s coming out of the AI when our company is mentioned. So it’s kind of a new AI SEO hack that most people don’t think about. ’cause it’s not keyword based.

Tom: It’s looking at all of that content that’s there and using that in its response when it’s. I didn’t expect it, it just happened. I’ve noticed recently, we’ve been doing it about, well, most of the year, a couple months to, to get it there. So another side effect, another SEO side effect or, uh, maybe not AI or engine side effect.

Brandon: So, yeah.

Tom: All right. Well

Tom: that’s really, that’s,

Brandon: that’s you, you got my wheels turning on that. Okay.

Tom: Yeah. But it’s another thing that people, it’s like. That’s free content Right. To put out there to, yeah, to, to cut. Loading those things. All right. Well, it’s really, this has been great to get everybody back.

Tom: Hopefully we can do this for a few more weeks. As, as we go forward. Any final thoughts before we wrap up here?

Carson: Yeah, uh, just one quick one. Um, you know, as I think about this, and I, you know, think about the, the film, the Devil’s advocate, I, I, I wanted to pick a quote that really kind of sums it all up and, you know, of course the, one of the central characters is.

Carson: The devil himself. So obviously this, um, this line is kind of drenched with conceit and vanity, which is his favorite sin. But he says, you, you don’t cultivate power overnight. Um, or you don’t, uh, develop power overnight. You cultivate it. And so when I think about developing a brand as a CEO, I think about, you know, the things that we talk about in this show that you can control.

Carson: You can control the quality of your message and who it’s going to, and then the types of platforms, the quantity of outreach, the types of mediums that you’re investing in, but also just that consistency of execution over time. You’ve really gotta commit to a process. That’s what I loved about what Brandon said about, you know.

Carson: In hindsight, I think it makes sense to have a strategy, but you also have to be adaptable with that strategy. You can’t just stay on a path and say, well, hey, this isn’t working. Or when things change, like new AI solutions and tools and ways that things can be done that are, make it more expedient or can spruce up your message, you’ve gotta embrace and explore, uh, these different things.

Carson: So you’ve gotta be adaptable. In your process, but that, that really resonated with me is that you can’t cultivate reputation and power overnight. Yep.

Brandon: That was good. Good stuff, Carson. Hey, I liked our conversation today guys. Thanks so much.

Carson: Always. Yeah.

Tom: Brandon, you gonna go eat dinner at 11 o’clock?

Brandon: I’m gonna go eat dinner at midnight.

Tom: Okay. Alright, well have fun. Carson, we haven’t had you here to wrap us up in weeks. We don’t. We don’t even know how to wrap up anymore, so

Carson: Am I supposed to do something? Say something? Yeah, you just say something. Yeah, we we’re,

Brandon: we’re so used to you doing it Carson, that when it’s just us, we go. Oh, bye. Bye everybody.

Carson: You’re so uncomfortable.

Carson: Have no fear. Carson is here. Thank you everyone for being on, gentlemen. Always a pleasure to see you guys. Thanks for all the, uh, the helpful morsels and advice and helping to make our CEOs more impactful and influential. And until next time, happy modern selling. Thanks everyone.

Brandon: Bye everybody.