Leveraging Thought Leadership With Peter Winick – Episode 6 – Chip Lutz

Peter Winick

In an upbeat and fun conversation, retired Navy commander and speaker Chip Lutz joins Peter to discuss the importance of fun and humor in Chip’s leadership strategy. They explore the process of content marketing for thought leaders, and talk about re-purposing content in different modalities to find new leads, build authentic relationships, and generate new opportunities for your business.

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 are an episode or podcast No.6 of leveraging thought leadership with me Peter Winick I am fortunate today to have with me as a guest. Chip, let’s say hello, Chip.

Chip Lutz Hello!

Peter Winick Chip is quite literal, obviously. So let me give everybody chips sort of official bio. So they have a sense of who we’re talking to. So Lieutenant Commander Chip Lutz, U.S. Navy retired MSD CSP is the president and founder of Unconventional Leader and has twenty-seven years of solid leadership experience. He’s a retired Navy officer. He’s had two command tours and also served as the director of security for Naval Four Naval District, Washington, D.C. on September 11th, 2001. In that capacity, he was responsible for the safety and security of twenty-five thousand people in six different naval installations in the national capital region during one of our nation’s most trying times. He’s a seasoned educator and trainer. He’s currently adjunct faculty for two different universities and has taught over 20 different classes. He’s the author of four books and has been published in Security Management magazine. And they had a bunch of articles published in Zig Ziglar weekly news newsletter. And he is a leader that has been there, done that as the uniform to prove it. So welcome aboard ship.

Chip Lutz Hello, Peter Thanks for having me. It’s awesome. Welcome aboard.

Peter Winick So the theme of this show, as you may or may not know, is Leveraging Thought Leadership. So what we’re trying to talk about. Well, first of all, we’re talking to people like you to author speakers and vote leaders. And we want to have a rich conversation around what you’re doing to get your content out there, to scale, to leverage, to get to more people. So why don’t we start with if you could give us just a brief overview of Chip World. What are the things that you do? What are the things you get paid to do? What are the ways that you get your work out there that might be for marketing purposes? But can you give me sort of a broad view of the world you’ve created?

Chip Lutz There’s a broad view of me. For the most part, I’m a keynote speaker. So, you know, and I work with mostly associations and businesses. So for me, I’ll go in, share some leadership strategies or teamwork strategies. And, you know, that’s my bailiwick on the mall. Sometimes I have a little bit longer training periods. You know, I do have an education background. So I do like, you know, the longer-term relationship during the course of a day is a little less show or a little more relationship based. You get to know people a bit better. But for the most part, I just do keynotes.

Peter Winick OK. So if I were to somehow find 20 people that were fortunate enough to see you speak in the last couple of months, what are the three things you’re hoping they would take away and say what I remembered from the trip speech is dot, dot, dot.

Chip Lutz Well, I would hope that they would remember that, you know, leadership is a choice. Each and every day that nobody is a natural-born leader. That’s a misnomer. It’s a deliberate choice each and every day that you make a decision on what you’re going to do to serve people every day. Don’t they realize now or will remember that I’m hilarious because I am shy. I know that that, you know, humor is a great tool that people can use to connect with people. We live in a time. Very little is changed underneath the sun as far as leadership goes. Since the beginning at. The population is changed. The workforce has changed. So it really kind of comes down to, you know, how do you connect with people? And I want people to realize that, you know, humor as well as to tools as an equalizer between people that, you know, if you can laugh with somebody, it’s one of those things that helps you connect with them. And, you know, maybe you can find all the more with them and motivate them. Third thing, that’s a good question, that nobody gets there alone. Everybody’s help along the way. That’s you’re charged as a leader is to make an investment in other people.

Peter Winick I love the fun piece because I think if I were to randomly stop 10 people on the street and say, tell me what you think about leadership, the first thing they do is probably ask me if I’m nuts, but fun probably wouldn’t come up. And it you know, I believe that learning and being exposed to ideas doesn’t have to suck. Right. Like, it could be fun. It should be fun. It could be engaging. It’s a higher bar. Right. We all remember the professors that we had that were sort of the droning voice of the peanuts, the teacher on the peanuts or something. But to make it fun, to make it engaging, to have a laugh over something that’s not just, you know, somebody slipping, involving or something like that. That’s a bit of a higher bar, I think.

Chip Lutz Well, it takes an element of risk. I mean, you have to, you know, get rid of your ego. You have to get rid of your positions in a way. But leaders that can laugh at themselves and laugh at their own mistakes show a whole different kind of bravery. And they help create an atmosphere of risk without fear of reprisal that, you know, if you’re strong enough and brave enough to laugh at yourself, you know, then that I can do the same thing because I’m going to laugh about it. We’re going to find learning and what we just messed up.

Peter Winick And I think it makes you human right. It’s a common denominator, even though I might rank you or whatever. There’s certain things that everybody is as a human being can relate to and connect to on an emotional level. So let me ask you this. Most of your work is speaking and workshops. So that’s hand-to-hand, right? That’s you know, we’re selling chip in a couple of flavors there. So let’s go backwards and talk about how you’re finding the work. Right. So when the good old days of whatever 10 years ago was largely bureau controlled, give me a sense of the breakdown of where business comes from and what you’re doing that’s creative to get good business in the Dorland and get clients satisfied again.

Chip Lutz That’s always the big question, isn’t it? Or does your work come from some time? You. And what’s interesting to me is that most of my work actually comes from referrals that, you know, when I go on speak, I usually speak more, you know. But, you know, when in those initial ones, you know, usually comes from good old-fashioned produce and contents. You know, I write consistently, you know, and I like it, you know? You know, your Thought Leadership Leverage, you know, thinking things about for me. I’ve never thought of myself as a thought leader. I always think of myself as an application guy. You know, I like I look like look at things differently and thinking about things differently. I also like to know what works, and so, you know, that’s what I try to produce content on because like I said, not much has changed in the world of leadership. However, we have a constant churn and that’s in that area and people always learning, you know, and you know how things work. And, you know, how do I do this? How do I do that? So for me, that’s the content I’m trying to produce. And where most people find me, they like my content.

Peter Winick So let me play that back to you with a little bit of a different twist. So, again, this is the business side of thought leadership. So at some level, there’s not much new in leadership. And I totally agree that there’s not much new in most things. A lot of what differentiates someone is the packaging or the little what you’re adding to the conversation, what you’re your nuance, your shtick, if you will, sticks, but not the right word, but what you can add or differentiate. So if on the one hand, I say, leadership speaker, you’re a commodity. You’re right. If I’m going to hire you, I can go and there’s 100 other guys or gals that I can hire. So how are you using the content as a differentiator? You said you’re putting a lot of stuff out there in writing. That’s more on the branding. A new generation. So. Right. Is that you’re not getting paid to do that per se?

Chip Lutz No, no. I been just constantly like on my blog. Then I repurpose it on LinkedIn. I might use part of it. If I’m talking on a podcast, just kind of depends. So, you know, I’m not.

Peter Winick But there’s some nuggets there that you’re fast-forwarding over. So what you said that most people don’t do or don’t realize is you’ve got your blog. So your personal blog is a low-risk place. You can jump on your laptop, jump on a plane and, you know, crank out a couple of blogs, throw it on there. Then you say, oh, wait, that one’s actually more interesting than this one because people are commenting or whatever. That’s sort of a laboratory in real-time. And then the repurposing and this is a key I drill listen to my clients all the time is that many people in the content space? Not all, but many don’t repurpose. So they’re constantly doing is holding themselves up and putting themselves under this unnecessary pressure. I got to produce. I got to produce. I’ve got to produce new stuff. And I think the reality is, if you make a blog and then you can put that on LinkedIn or for example, we’re creating content right now. Right. We’re having a conversation that’s pretty easy to do. Chatting. Maybe some cool things will come from this. And I can write a blog post or you can turn into a blog post as opposed to staring at that, the proverbial blank sheet to tell me about how you repurpose and then tell me if you’re repurposing into multiple modalities.

Chip Lutz I am repurposing in a multiple modalities site. And that thanks for me reminding me that because I very much what you just said is what I do, you know. So with anything that I write for my blog, Hywel, repurpose that on the LinkedIn. You know, since they opened up long-form Publishing a few years ago, you know, I took all my content, put it on there, which got me I’d already been on LinkedIn since two thousand and seven since it’s premature inception. So, you know, I’ve got, you know, thirty-two hundred first-line contacts, but then I have, you know, forty-five hundred people to follow my work, which isn’t huge, but it’s still, you know, forty-five hundred additional people that read my stuff. And what’s interesting about that is that I’ll get a lot of content comments back and I’ll be able to, you know, build some relationships with people. So if they’re looking for a speaker or I can reach out and say, hey, if you thought about doing this, it’s one of those things I can do in the same respects.

Peter Winick So we wait. So hold on. You’re going to plot to there because you’re fast-forwarding to something that is intuitive to you that a lot of people don’t do. A lot of people treat the content side as, you know, directional. I’ll put my stuff up there and that’s it. But it sounds like you’re going in there and actually monitoring the content, the comments and responding to them and engaging in the dialogue to touch on that from them.

Chip Lutz Well, I mean, it’s imperative. I mean, as you said, if it’s one-directional, one-way communication, there’s they’re not going to really know a thing about me except what I write. And like with any, you know, sales, it’s really about the relationships. If I can, you know, spark up some kind of conversation. It doesn’t always lead in each place, but you never know. You know, five years down the road, that person might be in a position where they need to speak or it’s like, hey, you know, this guy here, who you know, we had a good rapport back and forth on this. You know, it might be the thing that does it. I don’t ever go for the hard sell. It’s like, hey, bring me in. You know, for me, it’s just trying to build a rapport and build some, you know, some relationships online, because it’s kind of like I don’t remember the movie Mrs. Doubtfire when, you know, he’s at the pool and throws a wrench in his. It was a drive-by fruiting, you know. So just he hits it. It shouldn’t be like that. Socially, you know, he just might push something and leave it. You know, like those people that posts like the big dramatic things like I’m so sad and they just leave it. Well, I’m you’re leaving me hanging here. I need more. Give me what’s going on. The same thing rings true with, you know, the things that we post content-wise is that you have this piece of yourself that you put out there for content and people might want a little bit more. May they disagree with you. And that’s cool. I like those discussions. Like, well, why disagree? Because for me as a leader, I’m always in learning mode. So, you know, I’d like.

Peter Winick Sure. And a conversation. Engagement is a higher level of connection than I could read your stuff all day and night. But you’d never know it. Now, if I make a comment, whether I agree with you, disagree with you, add something to it and, you know, respond to that. That’s a whole different level of connectedness that we now have. Right. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to write a book you tomorrow, but you’ve differentiated yourself. And one is your human. You’re not just a robot, you know, putting content up there. Talk about the modalities. You have a great idea. It’s on a blog. You put it on LinkedIn. What else do you do with infographics, video?

Chip Lutz Well, I’ll probably check. I will probably take the same content I have since I started speaking a decade ago. I send out a monthly newsletter to my list, time I go speak. I know I, you know, try to collect people’s information and I don’t spam. I’m I don’t know some stuff. Try to some stuff. I just like my leadership thoughts for the month. I put them in a newsletter format. I send that out. And consistency, you know, I think is the key to it for my business is that the things that I do consistently are the things that provide results. So like I have done that consistently for, you know, every month for like, you know, 10 years. And you know that some people like I last year I just worked for Workforce Argento. And, you know, the woman that brought me in had been on my list since the beginning. I mean, she was, you know, one of the first people. She finally had an opportunity to bring me in. But because I was consistent and what I was doing, you know, I was still, you know, kind of top of mind. You know, she was able to follow what was going on, you know, in my speaking career a little bit. So I think that it is worth mentioning that a lot of times we try something really quick and audit and work and try something else. But, you know, consistent. Yeah, this is not a get rich quick business.

Peter Winick So I love the fact that the consistency so consistency to me, there’s sort of two pieces to that. There’s a cadence. So if I’m on your list and I look forward to seeing those and I know that when that pops into my mailbox, it’s going to be thoughtful. And you’re not. You know, it’s not the vacuum cleaner hose pointed towards my wallet where you’re giving me good thoughts. You’re sharing with me. It’s refreshing. It’s good. It’s insightful and it’s smart. The second piece I would ask you on the consistency and I think you do an awesome job on this is there’s a certain expectation I have when I see your newsletter coming in. I’m not expecting you to do a review of a restaurant you went to or tell me about your waterskiing follies or something like that. Like you’re I’m expecting insight on leadership. And by the way, you have fun with it. There’s your personality in there. But I think sometimes what happens is thought leaders feel like they should just be commenting on everything. And I think that that focus on the discipline to make sure the core, the essence of what you’re messaging is ties to what you do. Can you touch on that for me?

Chip Lutz Well, for me, it’s more of I don’t comment on everything because I don’t know about a whole lot of things. So, I mean, my wheelhouse is, you know, leadership and teamwork. And, you know, on my news, I mean, anything that I write. I share my experiences because I think that’s one thing that separates me from, you know, some other people is that I’ve been in some pretty big leadership positions. And so and it’s similar things where you think you know things and you realize you don’t know one thing. And then I you know, for me, it’s kind of a mission to help the other leaders, you know, bridge that education gap of like, I didn’t know that was a thing. I can’t do that. So. So when they do get it and I get comments every month, emails back from my listeners, my readership, since I always really look forward to your newsletter, it’s always got some good insights formula like, hey, I was just thinking about that the other day. So like you said, it’s not sales. So it’s just, you know, my thoughts and I try to make it applicable to whatever, you know, I’m going through, but I figure everybody else is going through as well.

Peter Winick Well, and it’s probably more effective from a sales perspective because it’s not sales. Right. People know when you’re. I call them sort of the yellow highlighter marketers more the information marketers where every email I get, it’s like, oh, my God, you know, expire at the end of this email. If I don’t call today and it’s only two hundred ninety-seven dollars and. Oh wait now it’s one ninety-seven. But keep reading. You’ll pay me like there’s no you know, I think people are smarter than that. And I think there’s a respect that you have for people’s intellect and not creating this artificial crazy sense. You know, we a native speaker. I’ll get laryngitis.

Chip Lutz Well again it’s me. It’s, you know, even with my newsletter, it’s about the relationship I have with the people on there. Like, I respect the fact that they stay subscribers and that they’re loyal subscribers. And I I believe that sure. When an opportunity arises, because I’m true, my relationship with them that they’ll bring man will tell me what I want. One other thing that I do that I just started, I think goes with consistency. Like, you know, last year I started my, you know, my own podcast. So and. So with that, like you were saying before, I repurpose that information as well. So I’ll take, you know, some excerpts from the podcast I put on my blog and I put on Linked-In and just get just another cycle of things. And even with that, at the end of the year, the first year, I was measuring like, is this something I’m going to continue not? And then, you know, it was kind of twofold that I really enjoy it. I really enjoy talking to other leaders about leadership one. But two, I know that if I stay with it consistently, it will provide results.

Peter Winick Got it. I think the other piece about whether it’s podcasting or video or whatever is experimenting with various modalities. You know, there are speakers tend to be there. They’re the most effective communication is vocal. Right. You speak doesn’t mean you can’t write. But, you know, some people are more their default sort of mode of communication might be written. Some people may be spoken. Some people are fun on video, whatever. And I think there’s so many different ways and so many different tools out there to find something that’s in your comfort zone that enables you to create content that it’s relatively easy for you to do and valuable and able to be purposed across multiple formats. So going back to the time machine for a moment. So you’ve been at this for 10 years. You’re incredibly successful. Lots of folks admire the work that you do and you’re making a living at it. You’re having a blast and you’re impacting a lot of people’s lives. So right now out there somewhere is a Chip. Let’s 10 years ago, but he’s not named Chip. Lets’s. Chip, let’s do it right and give that person two or three nuggets of advice on how to really make a difference and be successful as an author and a speaker and a follower.

Chip Lutz That’s a hard question. See, if I was going to give myself advice, I would first piece advice I would tell people is just to be you. It may be true to who you are as a person that you know. A lot times when you start out, you have people that you admire in a certain venue or business. I like I want to be just like that person. And so you think, well, you know, I’ve got to be, you know, like, I like to have fun. I like to have a good time. But then I found myself, you know, all my writing at the very beginning was very, very serious. A serious, you know, because, you know, these other leadership speakers are all serious. And then I found that was really stripping all the joy out of what I was doing. And that once I got in touch with, you know, like this is who I am. I was much more authentic in my writing, which resonated better with people. And you have to find that right. So in the beginning, I think what you said is true. You’re replicating the grades that you’re putting on this? I am no chip the leadership guy, right. Versus developing who you are in a different voice, on a different channel. So, yeah. So that’s one piece of being authentic. I love that because there’s nothing worse than sort of the. You see this more in the motivational stage like, oh, that person woke up today and thought their Tony Robbins. They’re not.

Peter Winick Right.

Chip Lutz The second thing I tell people is that people tell you these are the things you have to do. You have to do this. You have to that. And I don’t think there’s any one clear path on getting to success. And one. You know, we define everybody define success differently, you know? So I have got a friend of mine that has a job. You know, that wouldn’t be I wouldn’t define success. But he’s very, very happy. So he’s got his own definition of success. You need to define that yourself. However, everybody tells you that, oh, this is the path. This is the path, this path. And I would tell you I would tell myself, you know, don’t be afraid to try something different, that there’s no one set path on getting there. Wherever there is is that you have to. You know, experimental, but see what works for you. And if it works for you, then do it a little bit more. And if that works, you do it a little bit more. Then there’s no one set path.

Peter Winick Well, by definition, to experiment means be comfortable with failure. Right. Right. You’re going to try something. You’re gonna fall down, go. That was pretty dumb. And then just try something else. It’s an experiment.

Chip Lutz Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at the heart of innovation is our ability to try something without fear and fear. That fear is like something tells you all this what you need to do and then you get kind of scared like, well, that’s what I supposed to do. So she grew up in a military environment like I did, you know, so. And the third thing and it’s a piece of advice I got a couple of years in it was from Jim Ziegler, who’s also a speaker. And he said you know, how did he put it? It was more about I’m trying to exactly. Pricks is so eloquent of, you know, be wearing of me like pitfalls disguised as opportunities. Something in that vein that a lot of times, you know, it’s one of those things that’s like, oh, this is the best, the greatest, you know, sign up for this, you know, book writing camp or this. They’re here and all it ends up doing as, you know, costing a lot of money. And you feel like broken afterwards. Yeah.

Peter Winick So if it’s too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true.

Chip Lutz It probably is. Exactly. So for me, I just you know, I’d look at everything with kind of a critical eye and think, all right, this is support and where I’m going in. Talk to a few other people about it. If because I get really excited, you know, like a lot of people, I said something like, oh, man, that seems really awesome. Like my first book, my first book with a colossal piece of crap that was, you know, this review on the cover from the author, a colossal lot. So I’ll say straight out, I mean, I’ll be honest about it. I say I believe in authenticity is that everybody said you need to have a book. So, you know, I went with this company that was doing like this interview book. Right. And I got 1000 I got my thousand copies with my picture in between Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard. And I was just like, oh, man. And then when I got it, I was like, man, this is so for anybody out there that purchased it. I’m sorry.

Peter Winick Well, apparently, probably more about many people to apologize to it sounds like.

Chip Lutz Exactly. I love a box of em in the garage.

Peter Winick Exactly.

Chip Lutz And if you want it, we’ll put the link on the cover it autographed.

Peter Winick So. OK. As we wrap up, tell folks where they can find you, reach you. How are you? Stalk you? Whatever we’d like them to do.

Chip Lutz Easiest is to e-mail. I got my Web site, unconventional leader dot com or e-mail me at Chip at Unconventional leader. I’m on LinkedIn. Chip Lutz, Facebook. Chip Lutz, Instagram et. Chip Lutz. You know, Twitter at Chip Lutz on Instagram. I pay much attention there, although there’s one other is a senior golfer on the PGA tour named Chip Lutz. And if he has a good game, sometimes things get confusing on Google if you Google me so.

Peter Winick So Nike’s sending you gear for no reason or something.

Chip Lutz That would be that would be awesome.

Peter Winick That would be kind of cool. Well, anyway, I want to thank you for sharing your journey and some valuable insights to focus folks on Leveraging Thought Leadership. And I appreciate the work that you do. And I am on your newsletter and I enjoy it.

Chip Lutz Well, I appreciate the fact that you thought of me to be on the podcast. I enjoy your content as well. So I think for your obsession NSA, I still think about that a lot of times. Like just even with the last book I just wrote, I was sick and you know, Peter was right. Why does anybody write books? Nobody reads anymore?

Peter Winick I still read two books a week.

Chip Lutz I appreciate everything.

Peter Winick And it was great to have you on today. And thank you so much. Thank you. The pleasure is mine.

Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our Web site at Thought Leadership Leverage dot com to reach me directly. Feel free to e-mail 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.