Networking with Thought Leaders | Jim Kerr

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Expanding your thought leadership by networking.

An interview with Jim Kerr about networking with other thought leaders, changes to publishing, and seeing your book as an investment.

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Jim Kerr is the founder of Indispensable Consulting, author of The Executive Checklist, and his newest book INDISPENSABLE. He is one of the foremost authorities on leadership and community culture and we are excited to have him as our guest today.

Jim discusses the frustrations that led him to write his first book. Then, we explore the changes and challenges that have taken place over the years as publishing methods have transformed. Also, we talk about how these changes have left authors to be the main promoter of their books.

Over the course of our conversation, Jim shares the successful methods he has used to promote his books. In addition, he explains how he gained name recognition, and built credibility with his peers and audience.

Having successfully exited two previous companies, Jim has a keen knowledge of the topic.  Furthermore, he details why having models, solid frameworks, and mythologies to your IP is the key to a successful handoff.

Finally, we wrap up talking about the power of networking with other thought leaders to promote each other, problem-solve, and perhaps most importantly come together in what can be a very lonely profession.

This is an insightful episode for thought leaders and authors at any stage of their career! Be sure to tune in and take notes!

Three Key Takeaways from the Interview

• If you are seeking to write a book, it should be about a topic of thought leadership that you are passionate about and is lacking in the market.
• Building towards being able to exit a thought leadership business means building in systems that will eventually make you irrelevant.
• Networking with other thought leaders is a great way to share ideas, brainstorm, and meet other generous and smart professionals.

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Are you using LinkedIn for thought leadership? Do you need help converting your conversation there to more business wins? Contact Thought Leadership Leverage and we can assist you!

 

Transcript

Peter Winick And 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 is Jim Kurt. Jim is one of today’s foremost authorities on leadership and company culture. His clients have included the Home Depot, Mitsui, Sumitomo Insurance and General Dynamics, to name a few. His work is featured in a variety of business magazines, including Fast Company, Businessweek and Bloomberg. He’s got a new book out, his sixth one, which is called Indispensable How to Build and Lead a Company Customers Can’t Live Without. I can go on and on about his accomplishments, but I’d rather just talk to him because he’s sitting right here waiting for it. So, hey, Jim, how are you today?

Jim Kurt Hey, Peter. Thanks for having me on.

Peter Winick My pleasure. So you sort of hit a lot of the boxes here, right? You got author box check contributor at a major media publication. Check consultant, check if somebody was listening to this say, Yeah, I want to do that. Like, how does that happen?

Jim Kurt Well, I have to tell you, I mean, way back when, when I wrote my first book, it was really out of frustration because I felt as if there wasn’t the right kind of coverage of the topics that I cared about. So I decided that, you know what? I’m going to I’m going to write the book. And it was more about trying to contribute to the betterment of management thinking than anything else. And that’s what got me started with writing.

Peter Winick So if I were to look at that from a marketing perspective, you identified a gap. Nobody’s talking about X, I have to do that. So I want to push on books for a little bit because it’s an area that we spend time on. This is your sixth book, Indispensable. Take us back in time from your first book to the six book and how things have Changed Just from the publishing industry standpoint. The amount of effort an author has to actually invest in the promotion and the marketing of the book. Just give us the the journey, if you will, from, you know, the difference between the first one and the sixth one.

Jim Kurt Well, you know, I always felt as if authors sort of write and sell the book and publishers basically print and distribute it. And I think that’s been true since I got started. I think my first book came out almost 30 years ago. I hate to admit that, but I would say in regard to what’s changed, you know, it used to be quite a feather in one’s cap in the thought leadership realm if you wrote a book because it meant, you know, it meant you had to get a publisher convinced that this book was worth putting their money into to publish and distribute. So that’s changed an awful lot. Now everybody can write their own book and self-publish it. And, you know, consequently, the meaning of having a book to your name isn’t quite as significant as significant as it once was there.

Peter Winick For a minute, because I think that just from a supply and demand standpoint, a function, if you will, that the publishers had the traditional sort of New York publishers were the gatekeeper, right? So typically it didn’t mean that every book that you read that came out of Random House or McGraw-Hill was going to be excellent. But it went through some level of vetting process, and the probability was it would be of a certain caliber, of a certain quality of a certain whatever, might not be your cup of tea and there might not be a guarantee of success. But it’s interesting that the democratization of publishing has increased the supply, but not necessarily the demand. So there’s a lot of stuff out. There’s a lot of sort of questionable quality out there in both realms now. And there’s more and more pressure for the author to be sort of the marketer of the book, which is really hard.

Jim Kurt Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, you know, vanity press was always around today, it seems to me anyway, that that’s what’s, you know, taking off. There’s far more people writing books and publishing themselves. Some of them take off. Most of them don’t.

Peter Winick But it’s not just vanity. It used to be a binary world of either traditional press or, quote, vanity, which ultimately was code for I got rejected by all the other publishers, but now I do it. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think there’s this stuff in the middle. There’s these hybrid models where there is some editorial piece, there’s some business model discussion. You also have some of the big houses insisting that authors guarantee the minimum buys. So there’s this blending of best of both worlds and worst of both worlds from a business model to a quality standpoint. So that being said, now, you know, 30 years later that it’s a harder it’s a harder road to forge ahead on. What are you doing differently now to get this book to stand out versus some other things you might have done in the past? Well.

Jim Kurt You know, I’ve always written for magazines, so it was. Sort of the first place that I consider when I think about promoting a book is to get out there and write about it, do excerpts, kind of just get the name recognition and the tie to whatever the book’s about. Then, you know, with social media being what it is. Platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn provide opportunities to also promote and in and I’m using those. And then networks you know you and I came to know each other through a network of people that are in that thought leadership realm. And you know, you bounce around ideas and you support each other’s work and you promote each other’s stuff and you just think it’s all a little that’s all a little different than it used to be.

Peter Winick I think it’s even more important today that there are multiple communities of thought leaders that collaborate to support one another because it’s a lonely profession, right? You’re, you know, you know, everybody’s in their place, particularly in the world that we’re living in now, where we don’t really leave. We come up like turtles or something every now and then. But I think that people don’t realize how powerful those communities are on many levels, intrinsically, intellectually friendships and then ultimately from a promotional perspective. But you don’t go in there with the promotional piece leading, but it’s almost as or maybe even more so important today to get those endorsement and get those fellow authors and volunteers to say, hey, my friend Jim just wrote this great book that the dot versus, you know, there’s only so many times you can say it to the same followers, right?

Jim Kurt Absolutely. And I think it’s the extension of the network all over to each other’s networks. Yeah. The key to success now. And like you say, you know, having somebody else endorse your work is not only personally meaningful, but to get the word out to a broader audience than you’re capable of doing on your own. So.

Peter Winick Got it. So I want to also talk about, you know, let’s look at the book as an investment. It’s an investment of your time, energy, effort, money. You know, the time that you spent writing and promoting the book. You know, there’s opportunity costs when you do other things, etc.. When you decided to go forward with this book, what were the things that you were thinking about in terms of success? And sometimes you just need to write a book because you just need to write the book. But what does success look like for you? Were you hoping for to achieve that? If we were to talk in a year from now and you this book quote, killed it for you, what would that look like? What would that mean?

Jim Kurt Yeah. I mean, you know, the thing is, I’ve been a management consultant, an executive coach for 30 years. I sold a practice about ten years ago. I joined a firm for a while as part of the deal. I then stepped out once I met my obligations and joined another firm. And then at the end of last year, I decided, you know, I’m going to hang this shingle back out again and maybe ride this into the sunset. And I thought the best way to do that would be to sort of jump start the business again with the launch of a book. So that was my motivation for writing the book. And I guess success looks like people really respond well to it. And the phone started ringing and people start asking for some consulting help.

Peter Winick Got it. So you’ve had a couple of exits, which is not as common as one would think in this space because nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has ever sold a speaking practice. Right. Because, you know, the role of Malcolm Gladwell can’t be played by people today. And so what are the things that you’ve learned? In terms of when you’ve gotten to the exit saying, geez, if I would have done this differently, it would have made it easier to sell or could have gotten a better premium. If you were to build it again for the purpose of an exit. What are the things you would take into consideration today?

Jim Kurt I think leverage. I mean, the biggest thing, you know, in regard to selling a management consulting practices is really who are the people that can do the work that you’re doing and who have you been doing it with? So when that control transfers over to the new owner, they’ve got a team of players that, you know, do your thing the way you do it and can extend that through there.

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.

Peter Winick So when you say do your thing, so opposite of that is some of the skills or the traits of folks that are successful is thought leaders are actually the opposite of what you’d look for if you were an acquirer of a consulting practice. And it’s all based on your charisma. If it’s all based on your personality, if it’s all based on your personal storyline. I always tell clients, I’d love to get your push on it. You know, my job is to make you irrelevant, right? Because if you’re too relevant, the only value that you have is the cash that you can squeeze out by, you know, selling yourself by the day, the week, the retainer or whatever the case may be. So how do you make the intellectual property and the models and the methodologies and frameworks sort of the star, because that’s really a key element of where value is determined. Not that Jim is a smart guy. Obviously you’re smart and engaging. Know how to run consulting gigs. So what? Right.

Jim Kurt Right. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think the methodologies have always been a centerpiece for my consulting work. It’s being able to come in with an approach that can be widely applied that’s industry agnostic, at least in my case. I don’t pretend to be an industry expert, but rather I tend to be someone who can do strategic planning, culture shift, you know, business transformation. And the reason that I can do those things is I’ve got a standard approach that I can apply again and again and have had the opportunity to continue to do that for many, many years. So to me, the methodology is the centerpiece. You know, training materials around it create sort of gravy circling around it is gravy writing about it. It’s gravy. You know, but.

Peter Winick What that also means is the.

Jim Kurt Cores method.

Peter Winick Yeah. So if you’ve got but the litmus test of a method is how many engagements could be run where Jim doesn’t know about them, doesn’t touch them, whatever it is, teachable to someone else that someone else might need to have base level skills as a basic consultant or something critical thinking skills, analytic skills, etc. You can just write entertaining but interesting. So were you of the same mindset with regards to that 30 years ago when you started, or is that something you learned along the way?

Jim Kurt I have to say it was from the get go and the reason was really pretty straightforward. When I got known I was in the technology space, I was doing a lot of work around database technology and it was really just emerging when I got started. And there were methods out there that people were touting that I disagreed with. And again, why did I write my first book? The first book was called The IRA and Imperative Information Resource Management Guru. And in that book, I proposed that the data assets should be something that you count on a balance sheet, that it’s that most asset you could put, you know, monetize it.

Peter Winick That was radical then.

Jim Kurt That was radical, right?

Peter Winick Right.

Jim Kurt And people were talking about top down. You know, this is how you get at the data and so on. And my suggestion was, no, it’s bottom up. You’ve got a bunch of applications and they all have data and you can take all those things and integrate them. And over time you’ll ultimately have this data resource that will be valuable to you, but it will be, you know, populated from, from each application one at a time, you know, that kind of stuff. And people really responded to it. And that’s kind of how I launched the consulting business. There were so many people calling me and asking me and I was giving them what amounted to free advice on how to do this that I just thought to myself, you know, why not start a consulting business and sell this? And that’s kind of how it got going.

Peter Winick And I love it. So the first point that was key was sort of the importance of having frameworks modeled methodologies, well codified and teachable. The other that you were alluding to is the value in the embedded client. So what does that mean? So if I’m the acquiring, I’m looking to buy Jim’s company versus Peter’s. We both have great models and frameworks. What’s the next thing I’m looking at?

Jim Kurt Yeah, it’s the ability to have a revenue stream, right? So you want to be able to extend those clients into additional work. In the way I did it was, you know, it started out on the i t side, but I probably only did that for maybe 8 or 9 years. So 20 years ago, I recognized that, you know, the biggest gap is isn’t so much in technology strategy, it’s more on business strategy. And then I started frameworks to help with strategic planning and culture and those kinds of things.

Peter Winick And so looking for more of a specialist to a generalist and said, Yeah, I probably will, but, but the problem is bigger than that. Interested.

Jim Kurt Interesting. Because what would happen is clients would talk to me about a technology strategy and my very first question is what are you trying to do as a business, right? And when they couldn’t answer that question, I realized, okay, we’re going to have to answer that question first. And what does that amount to? It amounts to strategic planning.

Peter Winick Got it. So any hacks, for lack of a better term, on things that you’re learning? Because we’re always learning when you’re launching this book, like, wow, this is this is sort of cool and interesting. These little tricks and tips seem to work that others or.

Jim Kurt Other.

Peter Winick Smart folks are using.

Jim Kurt Well, you know, and Peter, I’m going to give you credit for teaching me this. You know, I think the fact that you invited me into a network of people that that you’re with that are about doing the same kinds of things that I’m about doing has been really, really helpful. And it’s the idea of potentially leveraging each other, like we talked about earlier, as well as just being there to commiserate with one another about how challenging this kind of stuff is and brainstorming ways to overcome some of the challenges. To me, that’s been the biggest difference in my approach to this book versus any of the five before it.

Peter Winick So I think, yes, we have just to unpack that. So we have a Tuesday call at 1:00 Eastern that we started in the midst of Covid just because everybody was like everybody’s hair is on fire. I never claim to have the answer, but I had two things. I had a pretty good network and had a pretty good Zoom account. And since that, you know, it’s been six, eight months, whatever it is now, that’s become a real cool community and there’s a lot of collaboration and support. And I’m not the only one. I mean, there’s the M.G. 100, whatever, but I’m a real big fan. And it wasn’t this wasn’t by design, just you get a bunch of smart people together that are that are either suffering or celebrating and cool things happen. And I think that’s the issue because unlike most professions, if you’re an accountant, you can pick up the phone and call 22 other buddies that are an accountant or, you know, you’re on the soccer field for your kid’s game and there’s seven other lawyers there. This thought leadership thing is pretty lonely, you know?

Jim Kurt Absolutely. Yeah.

Peter Winick So and it’s also a very with a handful of exceptions here and they’re open and giving and generous community. People are always willing to help. There’s no trade secrets. There’s no you know what.

Jim Kurt I well, you know, it’s interesting that you bring that out because I think that’s been a shift as well. I think in years past, people were a little less generous. And there’s still yeah, and there’s still some people that aren’t necessarily all that generous.

Peter Winick Right.

Jim Kurt At the moment. I’m not sure why. I just think there’s power in numbers. And again, I guess I’m using and probably overusing the word leverage, but there’s a lot more to bring to the table if I can bring myself and for other people that are really, really smart than if I just can only bring myself.

Peter Winick You know? And that’s right. Because, you know, ultimately everyone’s a specialist. And from a supply and demand standpoint, you’ve always got supply. You don’t know when the client needs demand. So when you can show the client there’s more flavors of ice cream in the shop for when they need it. You know, if you’re not an innovation guy now, you have access to innovation people, right? Whatever creativity guy, whatever. And it’s not, you know, things aren’t so siloed. When clients have problems, they tend to bleed into multiple functions. And we talk about, you know, you go from I.t to strategy to culture like, okay, well, you could argue those are three different things, but you clearly make the case. Well, no, they, they believe they bleed together.

Jim Kurt All right. Absolutely.

Peter Winick Very cool. So any final advice? Thoughts. So if you were to talk to somewhere out there today, is Jim -30 years? Right. Some seven year old is out there right now that wants to grow up and maybe that’s 17 or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. What might you what advice might you give them other than don’t lie about your age.

Jim Kurt Yeah. You know, I guess what I, what I’d say to that 28 year old.

Peter Winick Carrie the one. Yeah.

Jim Kurt Is listen, you know, make sure you’re always listening and why that’s important. It is really two different things. One is you’re listening to problems and you’re trying to figure out how do I solve them?

Peter Winick Right.

Jim Kurt And then secondly, you’re listening for ideas that you never considered before. And, you know, when you think about the group that we’re part of on Tuesday that we talked about a minute ago, some of those folks that I count myself in that bucket are really introverts. It’s not that you’re afraid of talking. I’m not right. I can talking in front of 3000 people, it doesn’t bother me. But what it what it boils down to, we really get your energy and I get my energy from ideas.

Peter Winick Yeah.

Jim Kurt It’s not being around people, you know? My wife is someone who is a people person. She needs to be around people. She doesn’t. That it? She is.

Peter Winick Yeah.

Jim Kurt I’m not. You give me a crazy idea I never considered. And I can chew on that all day and be just as happy by myself thinking about all the implications of your idea. People sometimes get me tired, you know?

Peter Winick Only sometimes, you know.

Jim Kurt So. So too that 27 or 28 year old person, I’d say, be listening, you know, and look for those ideas because the things you can solve and then the things that can be exciting and that you can make your own and that’s what you write about. Those are the things that pleasure your writing.

Peter Winick Well said. And what I would add to that, based on what you said, is, you know, too many introverts try to be extroverts and too many extroverts suffering when they get into book mode thinking they need to be an introvert. There’s a path for everybody. You know, I.

Jim Kurt Absolutely.

Peter Winick Agree. I would feed you. And I think it’s ironic that so many of our colleagues and such in this community that you think of their public persona are actually real introverts, like most introverts. Part of their job isn’t getting on stage in front of 3000 people. That would be a nightmare. But it is. And it’s just that’s a role that you perform at a point in time to serve a purpose, but then you want to go back up to your hotel room and just curl up in them.

Jim Kurt Absolutely right. That’s what happens.

Peter Winick Yeah, Yeah. You know, when you’re not going to do the cocktail party thing. But anyway, this has been great. I appreciate your time. I appreciate you and I appreciate your work. Thanks, Jim.

Jim Kurt Yeah, Peter, thank you. It’s been great.

Peter Winick 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.