Top of Mind

by John Hall

  Share Knowledge

  To share your knowledge of the world and your experience within it is to share your most valuable asset. When you offer someone useful information, you’re providing a very real form of currency. This currency could come in the form of an industry tip, an in-depth analysis, or personal wisdom. Whatever the form, helpful knowledge enriches people’s lives.

  I like to think of it this way: storytelling and sharing knowledge is a big part of our humanity, and we wouldn’t be where we are today without it. Imagine if our ancestors never told stories or if Einstein or Ford never shared their ideas with anyone else.

  I make it a point to take the time to share my knowledge when someone asks. This isn’t to say that I think my knowledge is necessarily as revolutionary as Einstein’s—but there just might be a nugget of information in my stories that helps someone or resonates so strongly with people that they go on to bring their own revolutionary ideas to life. Sharing my knowledge and experiences for a few minutes could save them days or weeks (or even years) of wasted time and help them bring opportunity to themselves, too.

  Unfortunately, as much as I love them, in-person conversations aren’t scalable. I can’t talk and share stories with everyone in person, so this leads us to the obvious solution of digital content. And I’m not the only one to use content to share knowledge.

  Let me walk you through an example of what I like to call a “knowledge chain.”

  Labor laws in the United States have recently changed, and an attorney with a firm we’ve used in the past, Armstrong Teasdale, sent some members of my team a few articles and other pieces of content about the changes and what to look out for. He didn’t bill us for that service. He was just looking out for us and knew that part of being a good service provider is educating your clients throughout the process.

  My HR director is a rock star and pored through all this new information not only so she could be knowledgeable herself but also so she could teach me. Not long after we’d gone through the changes together, I spoke with Patrick Ambron, CEO of BrandYourself and a good friend of ours. Being the creative, hardworking entrepreneur he is, he’d kept his head down on several projects and wasn’t in the loop when it came to the details of the new laws. So I let him know.

  He was very thankful, and all I did was share some information with him that I thought he would find valuable. Was that difficult for me to do? No. All I did was what humans have done forever: learn something new and share it with others. And at each link in this knowledge chain—from an attorney to my HR director to me to a fellow entrepreneur—trust was strengthened.

  We couldn’t each meet with one another in person to discuss these updates, and there’s no way that any of the others who’ve been affected by this shared knowledge could possibly join these meetings either. That’s where thought leadership content comes in. Through articles, digital content, social communication, speaking engagements, and the like, you can share insights with huge audiences at once. Consistently deliver useful knowledge to your target audience, and you’ll always be top of mind.

  Connect People with What They Value

  If you’re a new parent, you’re familiar with the concept of “unhelpful help.” You’re at a dinner with relatives and you mention that your baby hasn’t been sleeping through the night. There’s a split second of silence. Your mom’s ears perk up, your uncle cocks his head, your sister inhales deeply, and all at once, every person in your family is blasting you with advice that you never asked for.

  In business, offering unhelpful help can cost you credibility and weaken your relationships. It can make you seem out-of-touch at best and manipulative at worst, as if you’re trying to curry favor but aren’t very good at it.

  You can help a person only if you know what kind of help she would find valuable. So rather than guessing, come right out and ask.

  When I meet someone, I end the conversation by asking, “So how can I be helpful to you moving forward?” and give him an example of what I think would be helpful, such as, “If I run into this type of person, would an intro be valuable?” The question itself is a thoughtful gesture, and it helps forge a bond that will serve as the foundation of a relationship. I log the answer on a spreadsheet so that I can stay on top of connecting the people in my network to what they find valuable, much as our director of helpfulness does.

  People know what they need, and when you deliver on those needs, you’ll earn gratitude, respect, and top-of-mind status.

  Share Resources

  You’re likely invested in a ton of diverse resources, from core assets such as talent and infrastructure to luxury items such as season tickets for your favorite sports team. At any given moment, a percentage of these resources are going unused.

  Think about how you could mobilize your idle assets in creative ways to help your contacts. One of your partners is scrambling to launch a new website; if your star developer is between projects, could she lend a hand? A client needs a place to host a community service event over the weekend; how about your office? Or what about those season tickets? Surely someone in your network would appreciate a night at the stadium.

  Something my team and I realized we could share with our contacts is our software. In the last year, we’ve developed a custom software that helps us with everything from managing content contributors and projects to streamlining communication and tracking analytics for ourselves and our clients.

  We realized that these tools gave us great insight into information that our media and publication relationships could benefit from. So we shared it with them. And so far, it’s helped their staff members save time and their publications run more efficiently.

  In return, we’ve built stronger, more trusting relationships with our publication contacts—which puts us top of mind for them and puts us in a position to streamline the service side of our business. Anytime you’ve got something of value, think about who in your network might benefit from it and how you can share it to strengthen your relationship with those people.

  You can extend this sharing philosophy to any asset or any relationship. (Just be sure that you are respectful of your time, capacity, and desires when offering help to others).

  Once, my neighbor saw me cutting down a tree in my yard with a handsaw. Noticing my struggle, he came over, handed me his electric saw, and said, “Hey, bud, this will save you about half the time, and you can have a beer with me with the time I saved you.” He instantly became my favorite neighbor; now we’re watching each other’s houses when the other is out of town and taking out each other’s dogs. And it all started when he offered to help me that day in my yard by sharing his resources.

  What resources do you or your company have that you can share?

  Make People Aware of Opportunities

  Even if you’re not invested in any physical assets, you’re still capable of helping people fulfill pressing needs. Whenever you hear of an opportunity—whether in the form of a potential partnership, an exciting event, or a journalist looking for industry contacts—you have a shareable resource. Connecting the people in your network to these strategic opportunities generates trust and goodwill.

  At the beginning of each year, my team combs through every potential conference in business leadership, entrepreneurship, and marketing to see what events would be valuable for us to attend. No joke, as we were sitting together working through our lists, I received a direct message on Twitter from a contact at Time who, as it turned out, had just finished planning out her own conferences to attend.

  In her message, she included her list and said, “Hey, I know you guys look into stuff like this. I hope it helps.” The timing could not have been more perfect, and it helped us capitalize on a few opportunities we wouldn’t have known about without her help.

  To scale this idea of making contacts aware of opportunities, occasionally I like to publish lists in my columns in Forbes or Inc. (I know some people love to hate listicles, but they can be extremely valuable i
f you do them right.) I now write lists of top conferences, industry trends, and blog and publication lists to help make my audience aware of opportunities, and my latest two have been a couple of my most successful articles—not just in views but also in people letting me know how helpful they found it.

  On top of that, I’ve also heard from conference organizers that these lists have attracted thousands of people to their events. It’s a win for everyone involved. Was it difficult? No; all I did was make people aware of these events. Was it scalable? Absolutely. Between the two articles, these lists have generated a couple hundred thousand views.

  But maybe you don’t have an outlet like that to broadcast your message and make so many people aware of opportunities at once. That’s totally fine—you don’t need extensive lists of resources or access to major publications to make someone aware of potential opportunity.

  I had the chance to address an audience at an event recently, and afterward, someone who’d seen me speak sent me an e-mail letting me know of a company he thought could use Influence & Co.’s services. He’d heard someone at lunch talk about how his company just increased its budgets in thought leadership, content marketing, and PR and saw them as huge strategic initiatives in the near future. Talk about a dream client for Influence & Co.

  All he said in his e-mail was that this company was looking for services that mine specializes in, and he thought there was a big opportunity there. This guy didn’t have to do any of that for me, but he went out of his way to make me aware of a potential client or partner. Since then, I’ve probably sent him 10 clients. I don’t believe for a minute that he gave me the heads-up so that I’d return the favor, but it sure was an effective way to build trust with me.

  Whenever possible, go further than simply sharing information and make personal introductions. Remember, a well-timed opportunity can change someone’s life. And introductions are often repaid in kind: I’ve seen that more than 50 percent of the people for whom I make introductions will do the same for me within a year.

  Offer Transparent Feedback

  I don’t love being criticized. However, if it’s between constructive criticism and a meaningless ego stroke, I’ll take the former in a heartbeat.

  Transparent feedback is a gift. When you offer it to someone, you’re saying, “I take you seriously, and I want to help you succeed.” Of course, you actually have to mean it—if you don’t really want the person to do well, any feedback you provide will be tinged with spite. Although it’s technically possible to be helpful and spiteful at the same time, just choose one; it’ll be less confusing.

  I’m probably not alone in thinking of Simon Cowell when it comes to straightforward feedback. When my wife and I used to watch American Idol, I always wondered why he was so popular. (Honestly, he seemed like a big asshole to me.) The more I watched, the clearer it became to me that he was actually offering straightforward, transparent feedback. And more important, I got the feeling that he did it with the intent to help the person on the receiving end of that feedback, not just to be an ass.

  And that’s exactly where that fine line is: if the way you’re delivering feedback doesn’t seem like it was meant to be helpful—in other words, if you’re just criticizing or being an ass—it’s going to be misinterpreted. So although what you say is important, how you say it carries a lot of weight, too.

  For example, one of my company’s new customers recently contacted me directly to let me know that another client of ours, who had referred him, had a terrible experience with our service. He was matter-of-fact in explaining the situation, gave us a suggestion for what to do about it, and ended by saying that all he wanted was to make sure we were aware of that experience.

  Without this new customer coming to me and letting me know, we probably wouldn’t have had any idea what was going on. But after some digging and extra communication, we learned it was all a misunderstanding with our original client, and we addressed what we could to move forward in a healthy way. Not only did this new customer’s feedback help us clarify the situation, it made us a stronger company.

  That’s the power of transparent feedback. It can help you become a better person, team member, and company leader, and it can make your company stronger than before. I value that opportunity, so I’ve made it a personal habit to tell people the honest truth when they ask for feedback. As much as I might want to softball it, I don’t let myself. This habit doesn’t give me license to be rude or disrespectful—it just means I do my best to deliver the pure and simple truth.

  Not long ago, I was at a conference watching a keynote delivered by a big industry personality. When the speaker finished, a crowd formed to shout praises at him for delivering such a wonderful speech. But the truth was, it hadn’t been a great speech—he had simply recounted his company’s victories without teaching us, the audience, anything. Much to the discomfort of the adoring crowd, I informed the emperor that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. He was taken aback, but because I was transparent in my criticism, he listened.

  After the event, he texted me to invite me to a birthday party of one of the most well-known leaders in our industry. Because I was honest, I was helpful. And because I was helpful, I was remembered. The bond that this created has led to both a professional relationship and a personal friendship.

  I still remember the person who first offered constructive criticism on one of my earliest articles about being careful with ego in writing. He said, “Remember, writing isn’t all about you. It’s about a connection to the reader, so do everything you can to keep that connection. And don’t do anything to risk it.” I think of him with gratitude every time I publish. Always practice transparent feedback; it is a powerful way to achieve top-of-mind status.

  Become a Brand Advocate

  Next to the love I feel for my family and friends, there is no greater love than what I feel for our brand advocates. Seriously, the sense of affection I feel when I hear someone not on payroll talking up our company can be overwhelming.

  When you stand up for someone else’s brand, you are performing one of the most fundamentally helpful services imaginable. In today’s You Marketing economy, credible endorsements are priceless. Even micro-influencers, those with fewer than 100,000 social media followers, can greatly affect a buyer’s decision. More than 80 percent of people are likely to follow the recommendation of a micro-influencer they trust.3 Advocates generate trust, forge connections, and bolster brand equity in ways that nothing else can.

  One of Influence & Co.’s big brand advocates is the CEO of Hawke Media, Erik Huberman. Erik is probably one of the nicest guys out there, but when I asked him why he was such a strong advocate for our brand and what we could do to reward him, he simply said, “You have done such a great job with me, and I think you can help the others in my network.”

  It was that simple. He felt that we were doing good work for him, and he wanted to tell other people that he thought we could do good work for them, too.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, I could almost physically see this trust form around us. This guy was out there helping people—helping others in his network by connecting them to a company that could help and helping our company by being an advocate for us—just because he wanted to be helpful.

  To be clear, there are more ways to be a brand advocate than sending introductions someone’s way. In fact, it commonly takes the form of content distribution. For example, Matt Heinz of Heinz Marketing comes to mind as someone who advocates for the Influence & Co. brand by sharing our company’s content, and each time he does, I think of his brand.

  It should therefore come as no surprise that brand advocacy is a direct path to the top of someone’s mind. Again, though, authenticity is key—to shill for a brand you don’t really care about in the hopes that the company’s leadership will notice you is shortsighted. You may even end up damaging the credibility of the company, which is the exact opposite of being helpful.

  Provide Referrals

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p; Like brand advocacy, referrals are critical for generating trust around your brand, which invites people to establish direct, powerful connections with your company.

  In 2015, 30 percent of our clients at Influence & Co. came through partner referrals, making referrals our largest revenue source. This figure is especially staggering when you consider how many of these referrals took the form of a quick phone call or a casual conversation. These are simple gestures that have tremendous impact. I feel such gratitude to our partners for providing these referrals—each one is a key stakeholder in our growth and success.

  Make it a habit that anytime you find out what someone’s needs are, you write them down. Someone could be looking for a hire, website designer, way into Google, and so forth. Jot it down. David Ehrenberg, CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, has driven his company’s skyrocketing growth simply by setting goals for referrals to people in its partner network. I know him personally, and he’s a naturally helpful person; it makes sense that he feels so strongly about making the right connections for his partner network. (It’s almost like a Field of Dreams mentality; if you help, opportunities will come.)

  Because referrals are such a crucial part of your helpfulness practice, you need a system or even goals (like David has in place) to ensure that you are consistently providing (and collecting) them. Developing a protocol in which you offer a partner referral at certain stages in every strategic relationship can be tremendously helpful, but you have to stay on top of which dots you’re connecting. Sometimes keeping track of these relationships is as simple as updating a spreadsheet, but often it requires software such as Contactually or SalesforceIQ to offer more highly targeted help.4