An Authentic Voice in Thought Leadership | Simon Leslie

Peter Winick

Using an authentic voice in your thought leadership

An interview with Simon Leslie about how publishing a book has changed his business.

Today’s guest is Simon Leslie, CEO and Founder of Ink Global and the author of There is no F in Sales. Ink Global delivers print magazines for airlines; an industry many thought obsolete, yet Simon leads his company to grow year after year. Join us as Simon shares why he wrote his book: There is no F in Sales, which highlights the struggles and successes of his career. Learn why having a published book has personally changed Simon, how he views business, and what opportunities are on the table now that he is an author.

Four Key Takeaways from the Interview:

How you can gain confidence in your thought leadership from publishing a book.
Why thought leaders need to think long term and not just about the next quarter.
Why you need to understand the contract you sign in order to get the full potential of putting your thought leadership into a book.
When is the right time to put your thought leadership into a book?

Simon revealed his authentic voice through his thought leadership and brought out his ideas within his book. As a result, his book has been a vehicle to open doors all around him. You can do this with your book! Reach out to Thought Leadership Leverage and we can help you with a book launch strategy or even a book campaign to bring your ideas to the world.

Transcript

Peter Winick Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And you’re joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest comes to us from the other side of the pond. It’s his name is Simon Leslie. He’s the author of a book called There Is No F in Sales. He’s the chief executive officer and co-founder of Think global.com. For the last 26 years, he’s built a media company focused on the travel sector. He’s probably developed a fantastic work culture. The book documents three years in business, his highs, his lows and many learnings over the years. And instead of reading his work, I’ll just talk to Simon because he’s sitting right here with me. So welcome aboard, Simon.

Simon Leslie Nice to be here, Peter.

Peter Winick So here you are, Sheldon away running a business that’s growing really, really nicely right in the media space, in a tightly competitive space. And you wake up one day and you say, I don’t have enough to do so. I’m looking for things to do. So I’m going to write a book and dive into this thought leadership thing. So first off, what the heck were you thinking and how did that work out?

Simon Leslie You know what it is. When you’ve done something really nice and you’ve done it for so long and people are not giving you the credit that you deserve or you don’t think they’re giving you the credit you deserve and you want, that you will have put a flag in the ground, that this is the you know, this is a great business. This is a business that has been ignored by many, many a brand over the years and discarded. Now, part of our business is we produce magazines for airlines. And I and I you to I needed to I needed a vehicle to get that message out there and tell people how good a business this is. What a unique culture we had, how we’d defied the industry, like you said, defied, you know, this industry has been dead for a few dozen years and we’re still growing 20%, 25% actually last year. And it doesn’t make any sense. Mean that was that was some of the sort of the headline in the book. Nothing needs to make sense. But there there’s a different way of doing things and you can lead even.

Peter Winick So it’s probably fair to say that, you know, the genesis of writing the book is really you wanted to tell the story. You want to sort of capture some of the magic that is global from a growth perspective and a cultural perspective as well as pride, Right. It’s nice to be proud of something that you’ve built that’s enduring. But I would venture to say you probably looked at this as sort of a project in isolation, one, to get it out there, one to do it, not necessarily something that could be connected so much to the growth of the business and serve some of the business objectives. Is that a fair statement?

Simon Leslie I wanted to share some of the secrets of some of the demons that hold most entrepreneurs back on some of the challenges that they’re going to face in starting a business now, building a business halfway through a business? We’ve been through so many challenges. And, you know, as we as we start 2020, this is already a challenging year already. And I feel confident. I feel I don’t feel nervous about it. And we’ve been through many of these challenges over the last decade. And we came out stronger and better from all of them. And what the book does, it gives other people a blueprint to look at the point in time they are now and say, look, actually, someone else has already made these mistakes. We don’t like them as well.

Peter Winick So, you know, the book’s been out several months, several months now. Tell us what you what you know now that you didn’t know when you started in terms of what you learned about what it takes to write a book, to create a book, to publish a book, to get it in the hands of the folks that you want to want to connect with.

Simon Leslie What I didn’t know was how far it would go. Emails daily from people in as far as Georgia and Australia and Canada and Minnesota. And people have picked up the book and they’ve seen it either in one of my publications, either aboard a plane or on a screen in one of the airports, and they bought it. They like the title and they say, You captured things that I thought were my problems. I didn’t realize other people have the same problems or the same or you help me deal with demons that I hadn’t been able to bury or a paper a to call a psychiatrist. Right.

Peter Winick Right.

Simon Leslie A lot of money to give me the answer to that. And you articulated it beautifully in one chapter. So I think the confidence I’ve got from writing the book six months ago, the last chapter talks about, you know, was I just lucky or was this this planned? And. Since the book’s been out, I feel I actually feel more confident. I feel more very. Cause I feel. I feel more. This is it. This actually hasn’t been a bit of luck. This has actually been a quite interesting journey.

Peter Winick Yeah. So let’s take off your CEO hat for a minute. Right. And just put on this this relatively new hat, which is author, thought leader, etc.. Right. So now at this stage of the game, you know, on the business side experience, you know what you’re doing, you know how to run a business, but now you’re putting on this new head of Simon the author, the speaker, the thought leader. What does that look like for you now? What opportunities has it opened for you? You know, what is how have you started looking at things differently because of that going through, going through the experience?

Simon Leslie I can’t actually believe how much I’ve changed.

Peter Winick Really.

Simon Leslie I’m having really, really different conversations with people. I challenge people in a in a different way because I’m thinking about it from their point of view and saying, okay, how are you positioning this right? Positioning it this way? Why are you looking at it so short term? What is ever think about return on investment today, tomorrow, this quarter? Next quarter? You know why? It doesn’t make any sense. This is a we’re all in business for the long term, that most people are operating in a much narrower timeframe than they need to. And they’re not thinking about what’s good for the business as the business evolves. And I think it’s give me this sense of belief that I didn’t have before because I always felt, you know, I operated like an operator, not like somebody who was actually thinking, where are we going next and how are we going to get there and who are we going to bring with it?

Peter Winick So it’s it a more. Thoughtful, a little bit more detached from the actual operating of the business because it’s hard to be knee deep in a business from an operational perspective, you know, how’s the week going, how’s the quarter going? And we’re hitting our numbers, you know, which is my hair on fire. And also be, you know, sort of a thought leader and an author, which is by your very nature, you’re thinking about things, you’re noodling over things, you’re comparing them to other things. You’re not subject to a deadline of by Friday at three at the staff meeting. This needs to be done. Is it is it the cadence? It’s a little bit different for you.

Simon Leslie I’ve taken so much stress out of my life.

Peter Winick Really?

Simon Leslie All the all the, you know, the deadlines that you run to the phone as you’re running from a really damping down, even with, you know, the crisis is going on right now. I can see clearly or I know clearly that we’re going to come out of this stronger, much more powerful, much more, much more opportunity than that. And I can see how I can help a lot more people.

Peter Winick If you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcasts, please leave us a review and share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps as well as at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com/podcasts.

What about the doors that it’s open? So what I mean by that is a year ago when you weren’t Simon the published author. Right. If you wanted to go speak somewhere, you’re Simon the CEO and founder of Right. So the business sort of defined you, right? And in some ways that opens doors, but in some ways it’s limited. Have you found sort of new doors and that and maybe, you know, podcasts like this or opportunities that the book has opened for you that you wouldn’t have opened for, you know, just a year ago?

Simon Leslie 100%. I’ve been on so many podcasts. I’ve managed to have conversations with people who are hard to reach, so-called gurus. You know, I have a business which has a billion and a half interactions a year with real consumers, yet writing a book, you know, 200-page book gets me access to people that would just, you know, wouldn’t even take me seriously before.

Peter Winick So let’s talk about that, because, I mean, you and I know each other fairly well at this point. You’re curious person, you’re a learner. You read all sorts of interesting books. And I think what I’m hearing is, you know, you’re sort of now in the club when you reach out to another published author, you can say you’re not just sort of fanboy, my God, I love your stuff, I love your stuff. Would you please waste a half hour of your life talking with me? You’re like, Hey, I’ve written a book as well. So it’s a sort of coming at it almost as a colleague or a peer is that those experiences happen.

Simon Leslie Yeah, I think I think that’s right. And I think people want to hear what I’m going to say now, as opposed to, you know, even though I had this successful formula and I guess people maybe it’s just me, maybe I just change. Maybe I started believing more in in the formula that it wasn’t just a little bit like 26 years of. Okay, yeah, sure.

Peter Winick And how many times have you heard from friends, whether it’s social, personal or professional, after you wrote the book, like, geez, you know, I always wanted to write one or I’ve got one in my head. And, you know, all of a sudden people start coming out of the woodwork like there’s one that they want to write, but they look at you and go, But, but by George, you did it. You know how many of them as of yet.

Simon Leslie Not only that, they also say get a university reporter to speak to, you know, millions like me, you know.

Peter Winick Yeah, exactly. Even better. But how many folks share that sentiment with you?

Simon Leslie Lots of people mean a lot more supportive than I expected. And I think people have read the book. And the people who know me have talked about it feels like you’re sitting on my shoulder reading. To me, it’s a book is very conversational. It’s written in the very, very easy to read style. So even if people don’t know me, they get a sense of what I’m like. Very quickly, I got an email this morning from somebody who said, Just in big letters, Loving you come through in this book. Awesome.

Peter Winick So I want to touch on something that you said there. So you’re not an academic, right? You’re not someone with a lot of fancy letters after your name. And you talk about all this in the book. Your school is not your favorite place to be. On and on and on and on. So I would imagine some of this was just the challenge to say, Yeah, I’m going to write a book. Me Right. Yet here we are. And you don’t try to bamboozle people and hide behind, you know, big words and hyperbole and nonsense. It’s very, very it does feel like you’re sitting on my shoulder.

Simon Leslie I guess the thing that drives that is, is everybody telling me you can’t do it or you shouldn’t do it. I mean, that’s been the driver of me and my business for the last 25 years that this company is going nowhere or you’ll never make it or you’re not going to be good enough or you’re never going to survive this recession, you’re going to fall apart unit. It’s like it’s been such a constant battle. And the book was no different. And everybody says when you publish a book like this, you can’t do it like this. You have to do it like this. This is this, this, this, this way, that way. And I did everything opposite to what everybody told me what to do. And I’ve raised coming up from nearly $10,000 for charity, every penny profit from the book is going to charity. So it’s been it’s been a successful venture for raising money as well. And for me, it’s defied the odds. And that’s been the story of my life. Thank you so much.

Peter Winick Very cool. So let’s talk for a minute about now the book, which was, you know, sort of a project that you did for lots of reasons. Now, it actually presents you with some opportunities to integrate it into the business from a sales side of the business, from a culture side of the business, etc.. Talk about sort of some of the things that you’re pondering around that which may not have been on your plate or on your radar when you started the process.

Simon Leslie I get plenty of opportunities, so to speak, that people want to hear me talk, which is nice. And I’m very comfortable talking and being in front of an audience. It gives me a chance to talk about what we do as a business, to talk about our culture, the unique things that we do as a media business and how we continue to thrive against whatever the market throws at us.

Peter Winick So I want I want to pause there for a minute. So a year ago, you’re just as accomplished, just as successful, but you probably weren’t getting invited to speakers. They’re going to go, okay, CEO of Englobal. Ultimately, he’s probably going to try to make the case that he should buy some advertising from his from his organization. Right. Because that’s what a good steward of the company does. Now, you’re not even talking about that stuff, but it’s great for the business, right? You’re talking about culture. You’re talking about obstacles. You’re talking about the struggles of an entrepreneur and you’re getting into other places. By the way, I would argue there’s also a primary benefit to the business of some of those people are buying advertising.

Simon Leslie So much so that they actually realized how grossly undervalued my media is. When I when I go out there and I talk about it and people say I didn’t actually think about it like that or, you know, I think know that or I’ve been spending X million dollars on trying to chase some digital. In a look alike. And actually, there’s this huge vacuum of travelers who are incredibly affluent, who are hard to reach with sherbet, who are not scared of going out there and being out there and going and spending money in something that is quite unique. Now that, you know, when you are traveling, you spend about 4 or 5 x, what you might do when you’re sitting at home or in the office. You get the chance to tell that story. And I have multiple clients being okay, but how can I? How can I get my brand in there? Is this something you can do for me? And even Simon Sinek, I had I called him at one of his events and he came afterwards. He said, Who are you? You’re just a cheeky chatting in the audience. Yeah. I told him, Why do I want to be in that magazine? I want to be in the news. And I said, Fine. I said, Here’s the deal. You come and see me in the office and give me a call. Give me half an hour of your time and I’ll get you in the magazine. And he was good to his word. And not only did he do the do this 1 to 1, he actually did come to the office and he said, mingle my team. And it allows me to just spread the message with an eye to the credibility is the right word.

Peter Winick Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Well, I would also say if you had two different events to go to today on behalf of the business. One is I’m going to talk about two a bunch of, you know, companies that combine my advertising about the power of advertising and, you know, the captive audience that all the, you know, all the metrics that you have or I’m just going to talk about network and sales. I’m just going to talk about my book, my story, whatever, which one’s going to like, you know, put the fire in your belly a little bit more in you to look forward to a bit more. Right.

Simon Leslie So it’s a difficult question.

Peter Winick Which of your kids do you like better?

Simon Leslie I love you all equally. I think the two things actually do marry well. I think I can blend them. And because the book is about 26 years I’ve been in this business. It’s about it’s about the highs and lows. It’s about dealing with failure and success and winning and losing. And that’s what people want to hear. People want to hear.

Peter Winick Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Leslie The difficult times. I don’t really want to know that you’re doing 25% growth in a career. There were no. How did you deal with when you start study writing on Glassdoor? What a bastard you were to work for it. I can’t do that. Because, you know, in the book that is one of the one of the stories I share. I say, look, you know, somebody wrote, this is worse than hell. And I’m thinking, is that that’s an airport in Finland.

Peter Winick Right? Exactly. And so as we start to wrap up, think about a couple of folks listening right now today that are in the space that you were three or 4 or 5 years ago, the book wasn’t even on your radar. They’re successful starting the business. The business is doing well, but that you missed maybe this little, little, you know, kindling in their back of their brain somewhere of a story they’d like to tell someday or might want to tell someday or could tell one day. What would you what would you say to them?

Simon Leslie I sat on this book for about two months. Because I thought, I don’t want to publish this. I don’t want to air my dirty laundry in public. I’m not sure I want this to be, you know, do I need to tell everyone what’s going right or wrong in my life and not need it? And then I don’t know what happened. One day I woke up and I went. I’ve put so much love and energy. Yes, I’ve got to get it done. And I published it. I have promised you I’ve never felt so satisfied. So if anybody’s thinking about it, just do it because it will allow you. It’s cathartic. It gives you that that sense of it gives you a legacy for your kids. Your kids are going to read people, you know, long after I’m gone. People are probably still reading this book. And so that’s how we should run a sales organization or that’s how I’m going to go and do business, because.

Peter Winick That’s what is a bit of a legacy component as well. Right?

Simon Leslie Absolutely. I think that my kids told me to have a little books. I believe them. But I do know one day that, you know, it’ll be there and there’ll be things in there that, you know, they’ll know about me that they may have forgotten or they didn’t know about me. So I think it’s a it’s a wonderful thing to do for yourself just to document some of the things you’ve done.

Peter Winick Excellent. Well, this has been fantastic. I appreciate your time. And this is a lot of information and learning and transparency here. Some good stuff. Thank you so much. The designer.

Simon Leslie The pleasure. Good to see you.

Peter Winick Thanks. To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at Peter at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.