Gratitude, Empathy, and AI: A New Era of Leadership Rajeev Kapur, shares how saying…
Leveraging Thought Leadership With Peter Winick – Episode 1 – Chester Elton
In our inaugural episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, Peter Winick speaks with Chester Elton, acclaimed speaker and co-founder of The Culture Works. Chester’s also the New York Times bestselling author of “The Carrot Principle” and “The Best Team Wins.”
Listen in as Chester and Peter discuss the broad impact of positivity in business. For those with a desire to transition from speaking to training, Chester also talks about building responsive and engaging thought leadership content, and how to take your content business beyond a single book or a few speaking engagements and reaching real growth and sustainability.
Learn new strategies for creating adaptable content and get tips on making your content accessible to all audiences. It’s not just our first episode – it’s one of our best!
If you need a strategy to bring your thought leadership to market, Thought Leadership Leverage can assist you! Contact us for more information. In addition, we can help you implement marketing, research, and sales. Let us help you so you can devote yourself to what you do best.
Transcript
Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick and I am launching our new podcast today, our new podcast is Leveraging Thought Leadership. With me, Peter Winick, the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And it is an honor and a privilege to have with me today, Chester Elton as our very first guest on our very first podcast. Welcome, Chester.
Chester Elton Thanks. Thanks for the invite.
Peter Winick Great. Let me just give everybody Chester’s bio here, because I want them to know who we’re talking to, to Chester Elton, who spent two decades helping clients engage their employees to execute on strategy, vision and values. It is provocative, inspiring and always entertaining talks. Number one, best selling leadership author Chester Elton provides real solutions to leaders looking to manage, change, drive innovation and lead a multi-generational workforce. He is a co-author of The New York Times and number one, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling leadership books, all in the carrot principle and The Best Team Wins, which is launching this week. I think today, actually, Elton is also the co-founder of The Culture Works, a global training company, and he’s a board member of Camp Korrell, a nonprofit for the children of wounded and fallen military heroes. He was recently named to the 30 Global’s guru list as number 13 in leadership and number five in organizational culture. He serves as a leadership cult consultant to such firms as American Express, AT&T, Avis Budget Group and Procter and Gamble. He is most proud, however, to be the father of four exceptional children. More exceptional. Now that they’ve grown and left home. So welcome. Welcome, welcome. So glad to have you here Chester.
Chester Elton Yeah, no, it’s great. You know, we’ve been friends for a long time, and I think is a great idea. I’m honored to be a part of your thought leadership group.
Peter Winick Thank you. Thank you so much. So the theme of our show is not really about any specific content, but my audience are people like you, Chester. So what I’m trying to talk about in the conversation that I want to have with folks is what they’re doing to leverage their content and leverage their thought leadership. So let me just sort of open with that, because you’re doing all sorts of cool and interesting things. Obviously, the book is interesting and speaking it is interesting. But talk to me a little bit about the things that you’re doing to leverage and scale your content so it can reach more folks.
Chester Elton Yeah. You know, it is fun. You know, I think you’ve just always got to be aware of where you are and who’s in the room and how you can build those relationships. You know, just that you mentioned we’ve got a new book, The Best Team Wins, and we’ve been launching that. It actually went live on the 13th on Amazon. And so we’ve got a lot of opportunities to do some press. Well, I think being aware in the situations who’s in the room, I did this wonderful interview with Cheddar TV, which is something I’d never heard of before, but all my kids know about it. You know, it’s that it’s the subscription news stream for specifically for millennials. And while I’m there, they have on the set Jason Phifer, who is the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, an entrepreneur media. Well, we had so much fun on the set that we decided to go for a quick coffee afterwards and chat about a few things. And, you know, I mentioned of some of the other things we’ve been doing. We did some quick hits for CBS Radio for the business thing in New York. And so when he says, well, you know, we’ve got entrepreneur radio that we do. And so this in fact, last night, Sunday night, we did an long thing on entrepreneur radio about the book and about teams and so on. So that was a connection I mentioned to the host. You know, Alan Taylor, who is such a character that it would be fun to be a regular on his show with the good news in business and talking about the organizations that I get to speak to and learn from that, you know, your newsfeed is so profoundly negative. I don’t know if you’ve noticed half about 90 percent of what you get through your phone is negative. So I said, hey, why don’t we do a positive bit for two or three minutes every week? Can he cut that? So the message in a roundabout way is, you know, keep networking with your people because you’ve got more content than you think. You know, whether it’s a quick hit on chatter, TV or an interview on a radio or becoming a regular on someone’s show. Adrian, I’m going to start doing quarterly classes and whatnot for the American Management Association. Again, just another way to get your content out there, build your reputation and get noticed.
Peter Winick That makes sense. Yeah. So Cheddar TV, which may have been something that you or I knew about or not, is a place where potential folks can reach you. And it really doesn’t matter if it’s something that you would prefer. Right. So you have to be open-minded and say, where can I reach people? Where are they in formats and modalities and channels and media that might not be familiar to me. And I think there’s an. It’s constantly learning and trying things out there that are different. I love that concept. I also obviously love you have three minutes of something positive a week would be refreshing. You know, we live in a little contrarian there, so no kidding.
Chester Elton You know, it’s interesting. I learned this years ago from Marshall Goldsmith. He invited we at that conference together and he was launching one of his books. And he invited my wife and I to New York for his book launch. And that’s the time we were we were writing another book. I can’t remember which one it was. It may have been the carrot principle or the Orange Revolution. Anyway, I asked Marshall, I said, hey, would you be so kind as to maybe do a blurb for the back of the book? I said, Oh, less than happy. You want me to write the foreword? You know. But over and above, I got you know, that is just so gracious. And he said this to me, it really stuck with me. He said, you know, Chester, there’s two ways to view the world when you do what you and I do. And one is, is that everybody in the room is a competitor.
Chester Elton And the other view is, what can I do to help everybody in the room? So we have a tide that raises all ships. And he says, I’m up the ladder. He says, you know, I say yes to pretty much everything and you should, too. And it’s really interesting because to that point, I really had been part of the former where you’d go to a conference, and you wanted to be the number one rated speaker and you wanted your book to be on the bestseller list to the detriment of other people. And the more I talked to Marshall, the more I thought, you know, that’s just silly. So I’ve really adapted his philosophy and I’m actually now part of his hundred coaches groups where we really do look to see how can we promote each other and promote goodness. And you know what? It’s made all the difference.
Peter Winick No, it is. It’s the right mindset. I mean, I think there’s it for content people and authors and speakers. It’s not a Coke and Pepsi world. Right. If if the more you can get out of your friends and your colleagues and folks that you may have thought of as competitors in the previous sort of mindset shift, the better it is for everybody. Right. Because Marshall’s awesome. Your stuff is fantastic. But it doesn’t mean that because somebody buys triggers, they’re not going to be engaged with your work because they clearly would be. Right.
Chester Elton Exactly. And to that end, you know, I was just recently in India and the guys promoting the conference said, hey, there’s this Web guy and he’s really a great guy. Would you do a couple of segments with him? Sure. You know, how many people does he reached goes out? We’re not really sure that’s okay. But you know what I mean? India, what would I be doing anyway? So why now? And he turns out to be a charming guy and a lot of fun. And I get a little more content. You can throw in link and you can throw on Facebook. You’re sure. And help somebody out. Why not?
Peter Winick I love it. So let me drill down to the business side of content. The business side of Leveraging Thought Leadership. Right. So right now, if if I was a target client and I’m going to ask you what that means in a moment, what are the ways that you would allow me as your organization to give you money? Book speaking, etc. So. So first, tell me who the ideal client is and then tell me how you’ve made it easy for me to buy Tester. And obviously, Adrian, in as many flavors or mental modalities, as many price points as are logical. S.
Chester Elton Sure. Sure. Well, you know, obviously, you know, we take payment in every form, even, you know, non-sequential 20s in a brown paper Sinek at a diner in New Jersey. We’ve got a philosophy in our business. We’ve never met a check. We didn’t cash. You know, I’ll tell you, when we do a lot of different ways with our consulting and training companies, the culture works. We’ve actually got little bits and pieces we sell online. You know, you can buy a certification online. You can take some of our motivators courses online. You can even buy a singular motivator assessment for $40 online. So that’s the stuff that we promote and know that that trickles in. Normally, where it starts for us is with the speaker. That’s the tip of the spear for us. And whether you’re a mid-sized company or Fortune 50, you know, we get invited to speak at conferences, floor companies, leadership or for associations and associations are rich to work as well, because now you’re reaching 100 companies, you know, in your 60 minutes that you’re up there. And we’ve been really good about, again, sort of that ripple effect of the goldsmith’s philosophy. When we get booked to speak at a conference, there’s always one or two, three calls. And we’re always very good about saying, hey, would you like to take the motivators assessment, and you know what we certify in our training? So as part of our package, we would love for you to give us to people in your training department. Maybe it’s H.R., maybe it’s organizational development and let us certify them for free. Well, we sell those for, you know, fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars. And you might say, well. That’s a big giveaway. Well, you know, it’s sort of the razor and the blade. OK, I’ll give you the razor so that you’ll buy the blades. You know, when you look at this at HP right now, I’ll give you the printer. But you’ve got to buy the hat.
Peter Winick So, let me ask you a question there, because part of what you do answer that with is product. But the other part, which is a touch more intriguing to me is process, because what I see from my vantage point, working with dozens and hundreds of authors and speakers and thought leaders from around the world is many speakers are transactional. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, but the speaking business, the way it is set up is, you know, client calls you. Can you be in Scottsdale on May the 5th? Yes. My fee is great. Thank you. Thank you. See you. Standing ovation. Go home. But part of your process during the priest speaking phase, when they’re most receptive and most attentive to you because they want to give you everything that you need to be successful onsite is you’re giving them a wider view into the suite of solutions that you have. You’re being generous by giving some of that away. But talk to me about that. That process of when to introduce what does I love what you’re doing early on there.
Chester Elton Yeah. No. And you’re spot on. And we’ve learned this over years and years. Right. Where you can have a wonderful speaking engagement that leads to a fifty thousand one hundred-thousand-dollar training engagement. And it’s because they’re so engaged in what we always do as we go above and beyond. And we did a little we do little things. For example, I say, hey, the conference is still two months away. If you’d like, I’m happy to show up the shoot out one or two-minute video that says, hey, my name is Chester Elton. Best selling author. Delighted to be with you in Scottsdale. We’re going to be talking about changing your culture with all of that, our best-selling book. We’re going to talk about this Monday. Excited to see you there. You know, but I’m putting it out and they’ll go, gosh, you’ll do that for us. Well, you know, it takes you five minutes to shoot it on your iPhone. Right. And send it to and then. Right. And by the way, as a follow up to executive, extend the experience, what do we shoot? Another quick video said it was so much fun being with you guys in Scottsdale. We talked about this, this and this. You know, connect with me on LinkedIn. If you’ve got any questions, let’s keep the conversation going. And we talked about the follow-up. Is it, by the way, you’ve got 150 of your top leaders if you’d like, we can get you a great price on one hundred and fifty books that we’ll send out to you and. after that, after we speak. Why don’t we do a book signing? Well, you know, like you say so many times, it’s you’re in. You’re out. It’s a wham, bam. Thank you, ma’am. Ma’am. Transactions, if you can extend that and build a relationship of pre or post video, a good price on one hundred bucks. Let me get some of your people certified. Let’s do some follow-ups. You know, that is more than I would say 90 percent of speakers do. And now you’ve got a relationship, you got product in your hands. They’ve got some of your training in their hands. And it leads to a longer relationship, sometimes multiple engagements to speak, but certainly multiple opportunities to train. And boy, does it work well.
Peter Winick Awesome. Thank you so much. So. Let’s talk about sort of the product mix. So there’s a spirit of generosity. And then you have the systems and processes built in. This isn’t by accident because I don’t think clients are going to stay up late at night trying to figure out how to buy more from just our agents. Right. That’s your job that your bird. So you’ve got the book, you’ve got speaking, you’ve got assessment tools, you’ve got the certification. What are the other things, the other formats, modalities and who they’re reaching in an organization? Cause people talk about organizations, and you know, American Express, for example, have everything but from frontline. Call Center folks to SFE piece of global marketing that are doing some amazing things. It’s a very diverse organization, which isn’t unusual in terms of skill sets and where they sit. So speak to that a little bit. What do you have? A little bit for everybody?
Chester Elton Yeah. And that whole thing is just to keep working your network, right. In our introduction, it’s that classical sales thing. Hey, we’ve had great experience with you doing this workshop or this keynote. Is there anybody else in your organization you think would enjoy this kind of message or needs this kind of myth? And would you be so kind as to introduce us? I mean, it’s really that simple. Now, on the training side, we’ve got our sales guys and marketing guys, and we make that handoff very easy to say. Listen, I’m going to introduce you at the last Garvin and Lance is going to be the guy that’s going to set up your certification is going to set up your training and you’re going to love them. It’s that transfer of expertise. Now, I’m your guru. I’m your, you know, your thought leader. Let me introduce you to my thought leaders that are going to help you take you through the next step. So that’s the process, you know?
Peter Winick And that’s a key sort of separation between church and state. You are the expert, you’re the speaker, but you’re not going to be personally negotiating fees and coming up with organizational solutions and that sort of thing. You’ve got folks on staff that will help the client navigate those waters with.
Chester Elton Exactly right. And I always joke about it when that happens to I said, listen, I’m going to introduce you to Christy, who’s going to set up all the speaking, I mean, and introduce you to Lance for all the training, because they’re the guys that actually keep us in business. You know, if you ask me, I do everything for free. So I’ve got to get off the phone.
Peter Winick That’s great. So you’ve been at this for quite some time. You’ve had a dozen books, many, many books. Have you written so far.
Chester Elton About this that The Best Team Wins is our eleventh book together with me, with me and Adrian. And we have we’ve had a lot of success. We’ve been really blessed.
Peter Winick So to tell me in our last couple of minutes here, I talked to Chester 15, 20 years ago, when you have eleven books under your belt and you weren’t the Chester Elton that we know today, but you’re somebody smart, somebody passionate, somebody that’s got a perspective and a point of view that’s trying to get the word out, make the world a better place, get their content out there and obviously make some money in the process. What would you tell them? Would you advise them?
Chester Elton Yeah. You know, just be really true to your cause. I love the way you put that, you know, make the world a better place. You know, I started off in sales and I actually wanted to get into writing and so on to be a thought leader to make it easier to sell people stuff. You know, I was very selfish then. Then you started getting into it and you realized that there are a lot of really good people out there trying to do the right thing every day and make the world a better place. And the more you helped facilitate that, the better off you’re going to be. You know, you mentioned in my Bio Camp Corral and it’s part of, you know, Golden Corral, the best buffet in the USA. I’ve spoken yeah. I’ve spoken at their leadership conferences a couple of times and got to know Lance Ternary, who’s their CEO. And I was just so moved by the work they do for military families and their kids. You know, there’s this whole thing is they have these they have twenty-three camps around the country and they pay 100 percent of the cost to get military kids, kids to a camp for the summer just to be kids. Because, you know, military families, they deal with a lot of stuff that you and I never have to deal with. And in the end, it was their way at Golden Corral to give back. Well, we developed such a nice relationship. He said, would you give us some of your time and beyond our advisory board? And I thought, gosh, I’ve never done that before. How much time is it? How much is involved? Then you step back and say it’s for military families, kids, how how can you not say yes? Right. And we’ve had such wonderful, you know, experiences. I’ve been to the camps a couple of times. We’ve brought other people in to help support them and write some checks. Well, you know, when everything’s said and done, you know, it’s the old Stephen Covey thing when people show up to my funeral. Yeah, I hope there are a few people that say, man, I heard him speak and he was amazing. But I’d rather they say, wasn’t it amazing what he did for those military families? Wasn’t he a good father? Weren’t you a good member of the community? And all of that is is part of your brand. And that goodness comes through the business part, takes care of itself. At least that’s the way I’ve approached it. And, you know, so far, so good.
Peter Winick What would a wonderful philosophy get? Give me just two or three sort of pitfalls and things to watch out for. As an aspiring thought leader, as a growing cult leader, what are the things that I should be on the lookout for? Yeah.
Chester Elton You know, we’ve sort of talked about all the unicorns and rainbows. Right. And then I’m a very trusting person by nature. And I took our motivators, assessment and friendship is this thing that pops up number one for me. I give my friendship quite freely. And if I had one bit of advice is, you know, be a little careful with that. You do need to guard your reputation. There are people that will take advantage of you, you know, and hopefully you can identify them fairly early. I’ve been burned a couple of times in just a couple of times. But for me, it was pretty traumatic because these were people I had given my trust and my friendship to. You know, I don’t want to get too negative here, but there will be people that take advantage. And you’ve got to know when to kind of pull back and say, you know what? It’s been great. No, and yes, we can’t do business anymore.
Peter Winick And would you agree? Because one of the mistakes I see some folks sort of lean into is if it seems too good to be true. Right. Ultimately, this takes a lot of work, takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of perseverance and it takes a lot of effort. And it’s not a get rich, quick business. And you got to be really good for a long period of time.
Chester Elton Yeah, I know, Adrian and I joke all the time. It took us 20 years to be an overnight success. And that happens because people just don’t know your stuff. And, you know, you’ll come out in your present and you’ll have it. And they go, wow, how did we not know about you so well? You know, it’s a big world, just a lot of books and there’s a lot of good people out there. So, yeah, to be really true and be careful with your time. Be careful with your relations chips. At the same time, be generous. You know, ninety-nine times out of 100, it’s going to be fine. And you’re gonna benefit it. It is a business. You do need to pay your bills so you can always do everything for free. I tell Christie, I go, look, I’ll do one pro bono engagement a month. So 12/8. And I find that that works pretty well for me. I can fit that in my calendar. I said I’d give up my time. I can make a difference. And yeah, I can still build my business.
Peter Winick That’s fantastic. So a little bit of care and a lot of generosity, so I want to thank you and express my gratitude for you. Could have been anybody better to launch our podcast today. Tell folks where they can get the book. Get in touch with you. Check out your site. Until till about we.
Chester Elton Always say find us in bookstores everywhere.
Peter Winick Right.
Chester Elton Amazon, Barnes and Noble. We always have our presence in the airport. So if you travel a lot. Check us out there. TheCultureWorks.com is our Web site for our training. TheCarrotGuys.com is where you go for speaking and so on. But I love to connect with people on LinkedIn. You know, if you ever want to know anything about our business or what we’re doing, we publish lots of articles. We’re doing more and more videos and audios and podcasts. And that’s a good place to reach us as well.
Peter Winick Well, best of luck with the book, and I thank you very much. Appreciate you. And I’m glad to know. A pleasure.
Chester Elton You can call anytime, Peter. Take care, my friend. Thank you.
Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our Web site at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com to reach me directly. Feel free to e-mail me at Peter at Thought Leadership Leverage dot com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.
Related Posts
