Leveraging Thought Leadership With Peter Winick – Episode 4 -Peter Shankman

Peter Winick

Peter Winick of Thought Leadership Leverage speaks with Peter Shankman.

There are thousands of potential thought leaders on the internet, all competing for clients’ attention. How can you be sure to stand out from the crowd?

The New York Times has called Peter Shankman, “a rockstar who knows everything about social media and then some.” He’s the founder of HARO, as well as The ShankMinds Breakthrough Network, and host of the internet’s #1 podcast on ADHD, “Faster than Normal,” and guest on this week’s TLL podcast.

This week, Peter Winick and Peter Shankman bring you an entertaining and high energy look at the essential skills a thought leader needs to stand out from the pack. Peter Shankman shares the power of social media for thought leaders, expert tips to grow your audience, and the importance of being relevant, real, and authentic. This is one half-hour you don’t want to miss!

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 Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And today we’re working on episode number four of the podcast Leveraging Thought Leadership. And I am thrilled and delighted to have with me today Peter Shankman. Hello, Peter.

Peter Shankman Hello, how are you?

Peter Winick Great. So I’m going to give everybody Peter’s sort of official bio. It is. It is pretty long and it’s long because Peter’s done so many cool things. So he’s the author of five books, Faster Than Normal Unlocking the Gifts of A.D.D., ADHD. I’m sorry. Nice companies finish First customer service, New rules for a social media world. Can we do that? Outrageous PR stunts that work and why your company needs them. He’s he’s a world renowned speaker. The New York Times has called him a public relations all star who knows everything about new media and then some. And this is my favorite part. Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you merge the power of pure creativity with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and a dose of adventure and make it work to your advantage. He’s also the founder of Horrow that he sold after a couple of years starting out in his apartment and an all around good guy. So, Peter, welcome. Thank you for joining us today.

Peter Shankman Always a pleasure.

Peter Winick Great. So our focus today is to basically think about talking to people like yourself, author, speakers, thought leaders that are trying in this really busy, crowded world of ours to get their message out, to get their content out and obviously make a difference, make a living. So give me first, because yours is a little bit different than most. Give me a sense of sort of Peter world. What are the various business operations that you’ve got?

Peter Shankman Peter World That’s a grid that would be like a horrible amusement park. My God.

Peter Winick Said Peter to Peter, What.

Peter Shankman Do I do? What do I do in Peter World? Well, I have, I have a mastermind. I have a group of about 200 people in mastermind entrepreneurs from anywhere from 1 to 3 years in business. I built that because after I sold Arrow, I got so many people, you know, say, Junior, that’s my it’s 20 grand a year. And that no one saying, Hey, I want to help people who are just starting out. And I wanted to do that. So that’s what I built. And that’s called shank Mines. That goes really well. From there, I have a accelerated mastermind with about 20 people maximum, and that’s at Shank, my Xcom slash accelerator that’s designed for people over a certain revenue milestone who have one specific goal they’re trying to get. What else with you? I have several books, most recently Faster Than Normal, which is about ADHD. I am focusing on the fact that ADHD is a gift, not a curse. I’m sick of the fact that we put every single kid in the world on essentially amphetamines salts, otherwise known as Adderall. And what premise of your broken when you’re not broken into the fast, faster brain simply to learn how to use it. So my goal is to teach people how to use their faster brain that is accompanied by a bestselling book called Fast The Normal, which Random House published last year. The health study goes to the corporate keynote speaker talking to companies ranging from American Express to Disney, SAP to Oracle, Major League Baseball, the newspapers around the world having a blast doing that. I talk about the customer economy, customer service, things like that. Why the next 50 years of the economy be powered by the customer experience? And then. What else? I consulted occasion and I’m an influencer too. Companies I like, they have to be companies I believe in. And I am so everything from, you know, just someone who has a they’ll send me a product and I’ll play with it and give them my feedback all the way to paid influencing gigs for four different companies where I’m where I’m actually paid, like Sylvania, where they come in. They did they lit my entire apartment with their, their digital Iot lighting and I talk about it. So it’s I’m keeping busy. Have a lot of fun. That’s part of all that I’m a I’m a dad to a four and a half year old. Got to help you if you forget the half. And she has a lot of fun.

Peter Winick Yeah. When do you when do we what’s the official break point for not having to do fractions on her age? I just turned 50, so I’m over that, I guess.

Peter Shankman Well, you know, I don’t know what the break point is for kids. I think it’s probably when they hit 11. But I think that what kills me is I talked to parents whose kids are like three and a half and they’re like, you know, she’s just 36 months old. Okay, number one, bitch, stop making me do math. Number two. Number two, she’s just three. She’s a child. She’s not a Brie. Let’s just call it, you know, three years old.

Peter Winick Exactly. Exactly. So I agree. So, okay, The other thing that sort of an expertise that you have is obviously you come from the PR world. So tell me, what are the things that you’re doing to get your message out there that are working and what are the things that you used to do that work that aren’t working as much anymore? Because I think you’re usually cutting edge. So I think there’s a lot of people that might be doing stuff that worked circa 2011 that that haven’t turned the corner.

Peter Shankman I think a lot of what still works. I had a journalism professor once who said, Be brilliant at the basics, and that’s still one of the best suggestions I’ve ever heard in my life. You know, the more the more you’re good at the basics, the easier it is to do everything else. You know, reporting journalists are doing ten times more with five times less. So giving helping reporters do their job, helping them improve their abilities, helping them do things that they’re, you know, that that makes their life easier. That’s still the best thing you could possibly do. Understanding, you know, what you what you what they’re working on. Pitching the right person, focusing on the right reporter, you know, not wasting their time. Those things are still huge and pretty amazing how many people don’t understand how to do it. But the nice thing about that is because most people suck at doing it, it’s really not that hard, you know, It’s I go back to my favorite joke that to two guys who are who are out for a trail run in the woods and they see a bear and the first one is, holy shit, some bear did what are we going to do? And this and the second one is, is leaning down and tightening up his running shoes in the first or since you don’t be crazy, you can’t outrun a bear. The second is. No, no, no. I just need to outrun you.

Peter Winick Yeah. So that’s the basics. I mean, you’re being responsive, you’re being smart, you’re being focused. You’re not wasting someone’s time. What about on the social side? Because it seems there are some days that I see you in a good way, sort of everywhere. Facebook and Twitter and all that kind of stuff. Give me a sense of how you judge or decide what to do and what not to do because you’re a busy guy like everybody else. And I assume the things that you’re doing are yielding benefit. So how do you how do you make those decisions?

Peter Shankman You know, I think for me, I understand where my audience is, what they’re doing with where they’re going. I try to I try to get in their heads to try to understand what my audience wants. And I think the most important thing for me is I focus on giving information to my audience that I know they’re going to use and it’s going to benefit them. In other words, I’m very much of the belief that having a spread of the spandex rule, which basically says that having an audience just like spandex is a privilege, it’s not a right. Okay. I do not have the right to wear spandex. If I work out, if I train all year, then during my triathlons that I that I race in. I have ever had the privilege of wearing spandex during the races as the races over me. So I needed to put on this big oversize t shirt. Now I get that. I understand that. But it seemed the exact thing with having an audience. It’s not a right. You know, the right to an audience is the right to make people eat, to make you listen. You have to earn that earn that privilege every single day. So I spend the majority of my time, you know, creating content that people are going to want.

Peter Winick So. So, okay, So that’s great. So, so let me push on that. So there are a lot of people putting stuff out there every day because we can. It’s cheaper than ever. You don’t need to get into a studio to produce video. Everybody is a publisher, blah, blah, blah. But there’s a ton of crap out there, right? And my I don’t know about you, but my most valuable resource is my time. And I want if somebody is going to put stuff out there, I hope it’s thoughtful. I hope it’s insightful. I hope they’ve put some energy into that. So tell me about, you know, sort of taking the crap so well.

Peter Shankman Again, that’s sort of the best part, is that if you can give your audience good stuff and they come to trust that you’re giving them good stuff, they’re going to keep listening to you. And more importantly, if they start liking you, they are enjoying it. You know, you’re. Going to come up higher in their feed and more listening. So the goal, again, understand your audience as best as humanly possible and make sure you’re giving them what they want. They’ll tell you. They almost certainly tell you.

Peter Winick So give me an example. You mentioned shade minds in the Mastermind. I’m assuming those are business owners, entrepreneurs. Give me a sense of who that audience is and what are the things that you can do to give to folks like them that could be clients of yours at some point, down to the simplest.

Peter Shankman Thing in the world? I think it’s a start every day with, Hey, what are you working on? How can I help? You know, literally ask me how can I help? How can I help you? What can I do for you? What can I do that’s better? You know? What do you need, right? It’s incredible how many people don’t do that. They say, Hey, I’m working on this. How can you help me? And I find that just like I can help you right there. That’s half the world. That’s literally half the battle.

Peter Winick I love it. I love it. But where I was going is from a specificity perspective because I love the generosity. And you walk the talk, right? So a lot of people sort of that’s their pinch. That’s what they say. But you’re you really are aligned with what you say and you do what you say, which is refreshing in today’s world. You know, I grew up.

Peter Shankman I grew up in a world that’s just what you’re supposed to.

Peter Winick Be. A mensch. Right. Great. So where I was going, though, is if we break apart, for me, a specific target market. So, for example, the market of people that join Shank Minds is different than someone on the corporate side that needs to bring you in for a contract. So sort of distinguish between those two markets. What could you do to each of those for each of those populations that’s a benefit from that to them? That’s different.

Peter Shankman I think for the for the in terms of the audience to some segments, you know, for me, it’s really about focusing on what I know about how I work with them, the things I’ve learned in history, I’ve learned in my career in terms of what I do for the customers. It’s the things that I’ve done that have created a very big company, right? And I create a company that I was able to sell. And what I learned from that, I think there are a lot of people running around giving speeches, running mass strikes who’ve never actually done anything in the real world. Right? Everything you do. I wanted to take the stuff I did that actually paid money, actually earn me a lot of money and figure out a way to show that to the rest of the world. And that’s that to me is it seems to be the most logical way to help people.

Peter Winick So credibility, gravitas. You’ve earned the right to say what you’re saying because you’ve been there, done that. Right. I probably wouldn’t take diet and exercise advice from somebody that’s 80 pounds overweight. Right, exactly. And what about on the corporate speaker side? Right. So as a corporate speaker, quite frankly, you’re a commodity, right? There’s thousands of speakers out there that’ll do what you do for more money, less money. You might be smarter, funny or pithy, or some of them could juggle fire, whatever. But exactly how do you differentiate to those folks?

Peter Shankman At the end of the day, my goal is very simple. I need to be able to create a I need to know to give you something. If I make you laugh, that’s a nice bonus, right? Let me do that. That’s great. But my goal at the end of the day is to is to give you valuable information. At the end of the day, you can go home or go to your office and implement immediately.

Peter Winick Got it. So when you so that’s perfect because a lot of times and you mentioned sort of the there’s an abundance of speakers and folks out there speaking that have never done right. Part of what I like about what your style in your blogs and such is it’s pretty tight and pretty relevant. You’re not giving me pie in the sky, you know, theoretical stuff. I want a little nibble, nibble a little touch of something that I can actually implement. So how do.

Peter Shankman You like, you’re going to go home and you’re to benefit from that.

Peter Winick Got it. And that’s hard, right? So let’s talk about talking to someone on a previous podcast around the work part of this, the W word people. You know, I think a lot of people look at this business in this industry and say, my God, you’re on stage and you’re flying first class and you get paid all this money and it’s like, you know, it’s sex, drugs and rock and roller would.

Peter Shankman First of all, the only time I get a first-class win is when I get upgraded. I do not I never if I if I’m speaking in Asia, yes, I ask for business class. I never ask for first class. But if I’m speaking in the US, it’s coach all the time. I’m the last thing I am is I’ve got it.

Peter Winick But where I was going with that is they look at this world and they say, Wow, that’s pretty cool. And that’s pretty sexy. That’s pretty. That’s pretty cool. Tell me about the work, because a lot of people don’t realize what goes on behind the scenes to constantly create content that’s relevant, that’s smart, that’s targeted. Tell me a little bit about the energy and the effort.

Peter Shankman I’m very fortunate that my ADHD actually allows me to get on stage and I get I draw energy from that. Like I really draw tremendous amount of energy from getting on stage and being in front of an audience. That to me is is is a highlight, right? I love that. So to be able to do that and get paid for it continues to blow my mind, right? I mean, I’m in love with it. So that’s a lot of fun for me to do that. And I think that the best thing is to be able to, you know, again, go on stage, create valuable. If I think if I just enjoyed going on stage and didn’t actually give the people I’m speaking to any value, I wouldn’t be doing it a lot.

Peter Winick Yeah exactly.

Peter Shankman Right. I would be hired. But I’m you know, I’m speaking very, very large corporations and events, things of that, because people have heard me speak in the past and they’ve gotten value out of it. So that, I think, is the is the goal. You know, what can you create That’s people.

Peter Winick So you got to be helping people, You got to be giving value. So I want to go back to something that you touched on and tie it back to one of your areas of expertise, one of your books. You know, you’re not a diva, right? And to me, I also don’t think a lot of people that are in the space, speakers, authors, thought leaders, etc., think about their own customer experience. So I can can’t tell you how many speakers and stories that are out there that somebody, you know, they’ve got their website up. And as you know, when they’re spending all this money and somebody’s a real live potential client emails them and it’s six days later till they get a response.

Peter Shankman Yeah, I’ve gotten more speeches. I’ve got more speeches right off the bat because I just answer the goddamn phone.

Peter Winick Right. And again, it’s I only have to be you. It’s the running shoe joke. But I think there’s the customer experience side, right? So you think about the buyer of a speech. It’s somebody that’s busy. They’ve got other things to do. They’ve got people to answer to. Tight budgets, tight timelines, whatever. And I don’t think a lot of speakers think about their customer experience. So the first thing that they do, you know, you call me back after seven days and say, and here’s my requirements. Business class to fly from New York to Cleveland. Do they even have that right? You know, and the Green Eminem’s and the Swedes. And it’s like, you know, tell me a little bit about how you would hope the last five keynote keynotes that you gave, they would describe the customer experience of working with Peter Shankman Very easy.

Peter Shankman Like I said, I answered the phone myself. I always show up early. I mean, I’ve I took an earlier flight out last week by a day because I knew there’s going to be a snowstorm and I wouldn’t rule it out. You know, I’ve rented a car and driven a thousand miles to to get to the speech because the flights were canceled. You know, I, I do a ridiculous amount of research on my audience, but I never I also never use PowerPoint. And I don’t I don’t get up there and, you know, poor people, I get up there to tell stories, which is so much fun. That’s, I think, the highlight of me because I don’t know, but I just got to tell stories and people within five days are like, Holy crap, this guy’s for real. That’s just that’s. How do you beat that guy?

Peter Winick So I believe based on my experience in the work that I do, there are two types of speakers, right? And one is the type of speaker that wants to speak more. And two is the type of speaker that wants to speak less. And we work with both types. Talk to me now is if I was, you know, Peter ten years ago and I wanted to do more, how would you advise someone sort of coming into this odd, weird business space of thought leadership and content? And one of the things I wanted to do was speak more. How would you what would you tell them to do.

Peter Shankman If you know, if you want to if you want to speak more, speak for, you know, it’s the intent. I had a favorite my other favorite. If you can’t change the people around you, change the people around you. So I am a believer that if you want to speak more, speak more. That’s what if that’s what you want to do, continue working at it. Bust your ass at it, get really good at it, and keep doing it and talk to anyone you know who you meet and make sure you tell them what you do and obviously tell what you want to do more about what you do and share what, what what the goal isn’t. The goal isn’t so much to say what you do. The goal is to make sure that people know that you’re helping people. But as well as that, you know, the more you do that, the more people understand what you do. You know, if you’re next to me on a on a on a plane, you know, I talk to everyone. If you’re next to me on a plane, I mean, unless you fake your death, I don’t know everything about you, but at some point.

Peter Winick Well, there are two type of peoples on two types of folks on plane, Right? The talkers and the non talkers.

Peter Shankman But that’s the thing. I’m not a talker. I’m going to know everything about you. Right. I didn’t say you know anything about me. Right, right, right, right. And that’s a big, big difference. Right? I’m getting on that plane. I’m going to listen to you. And very few people do that. I’m going to listen, figure out what you want to talk about and how at the end, by the end of the trip, I don’t know how I can help you.

Peter Winick Well, I’m what’s amazing is there are many people I fly a lot as well that are total strangers. When you sit next to them and, you know, ten D or whatever. And, you know, all of a sudden the 30,000ft they’re share with you their greatest fears, their their struggles, their whatever it is at a pretty intimate level. And that’s pretty cool. Right. But but but you have to be authentic and you have to listen and you have to make it about them and, you know, come at it from a place of wanting to be helpful and be of service. What are the other ways that you could see scaling either your world of content or some others that are pretty interesting now, whether they’re digital or tools or where else can you see Peter World going?

Peter Shankman So what I’ve started doing in the past year, I’ve sort of carrying my real camera with me. I carry, I have a Canon 5D4. Yeah, I’m sort of carrying that camera with me everywhere and I’m shooting that for my Instagram. And I’ve, I’ve, I’ve doubled my Instagram from about, I think from six grand to 12 grand. Just a five grand, ten grand for the people in about a year just because I’ve started taking better pictures.

Peter Winick So give me an example of what that does that. So you’ve got a bigger Instagram following that leads to dot, dot, dot, dot.

Peter Shankman Well, having that, having that, having that better Instagram feed right there has gotten me more followers. What are those followers do? Well, when I post something that they find interesting skydiving, triathlon, early mornings, whatever, it’s just more information I’m giving these people. Wow. Peter gets up really early. I’m going to. Really? I wonder what else he does. My God. He is a peloton bike. So do I. Let’s follow him on that. It’s about creating that world. One piece of there’s not one piece of content that will get someone to trust you.

Peter Winick Sure.

Peter Shankman But repetitive good quality will make anything viral. But you can make something good.

Peter Winick Exactly. And where I was going with that is the the authenticity of some of those Instagram type videos that you’re sharing is you might be up at 530 in the morning all sweaty and gross and whatever coming off the bike, not necessarily your your best CNN moment, but it works in that medium. That authenticity in that format is, geez, we all look like crap at 530 in the morning.

Peter Shankman And I’m the same minute. Right. Should I go grab my best day so I know who I am?

Peter Winick Got it. Give me a couple. But before we sort of start to wrap up here, other other learnings, other tips and tricks for folks. So, you know, you sort of glanced over the the big stuff. It’s hard work. You’ve got to be consistent, put out high quality because not everybody wants to hear those things because there is no get rich quick way to do this. But any other tips and tricks of what things should be doing for the aspiring thought leader, the thought leader that wants to leverage their self, their work and them themselves a bit more.

Peter Shankman Let’s say everything you post should be again. Think about your audience. You know, do whatever you can to to focus on them more than anything. You know, create good stuff. Create good stuff that that is. Useful that is healthy, create good stuff that that people like that makes people smile. I mean, there’s enough shit in this world. Don’t bitch. No. Be that person that actually creates good stuff, that makes people happy and useful.

Peter Winick And the other piece, my observation of the stuff that you do and I think so the stuff that all people that are great do in this space is you’re having fun doing it. This, you know, there are many worse ways to make a living. And I think there’s a little bit of gratitude and show the passion and show the fun that you’re having and being blessed to do what you do. I’m not.

Peter Shankman A blast. Not a lot of fun. No question about it.

Peter Winick Awesome. Well, tell everybody how they can find you and stalk you and do inappropriate things.

Peter Shankman Yeah, why not? My entire life is at stake. Become the mastermind of Schank minds.com. The ADHD podcast is faster than a normal.com. And I’m at Peter Shankman on all the socials.

Peter Winick Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. I am very glad we had you on today and I think you had a lot to to share with everybody. Thank you so much.

Peter Shankman One is happy to be of service. Talk soon.

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.