When your ideal prospects don't congregate anywhere obvious

A reader wrote to me last week with this challenge:

"My biggest problem is finding an aggregated audience. People love our work and content, but not enough people see it. We work with market-leading companies to reinvent their strategy when their competitive advantage starts to fade. Unlike tech CEOs who have clear podcasts and conferences, growth-oriented CEOs in mature enterprises don't congregate anywhere obvious. We hired well-known marketing experts and neither could help us find watering holes beyond majors like HBR, Fast Company, Conference Board events. We've tried targeting new CEOs on LinkedIn and building groups but these didn't work out. How do you find people who are defined by the way that they think rather than what industry they're in?"

Here’s the 5-year strategy I’d present to help him, and anyone else in this situation, to become Undisputed Authority in his niche. I’m confident this approach will help him, and you, become so oversubscribed with lucrative opportunities that…

You won’t chase clients, clients will chase you.

This plan is built on three assumptions:

• You’re a genuine expert at what you do.
• You’re solving a painful frustration as experienced by the CEOs you mention.
• The volume of those CEOs experiencing that frustration is substantial enough to sustain your business goals.

Year 1

We’re going to start out in the same way Blair Enns did.

Blair identified all the events he wanted to speak at, and between 2002 and 2010, ticked those events off. In that time, he went from an unknown consultant to thought leadership and author evergreen best seller, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto.

That’s exactly the route we’re going to take, but let’s give ourselves a 5 year target rather than Blair’s 8. I’m going to give you the roadmap to becoming 1 of 1, famous amongst the people you want to reach at delivering the value that you deliver.

In that five years, you’re going to write and publish at least one book.

Unlike Blair, you’re not targeting a specific vertical, so that list of events to speak at isn’t as obvious. That being the case, here’s the starting point my friend and PR expert, Lucy Werner, shared with me:

Imagine the CEO you’re targeting has ten books on a shelf that sit alongside yours. Think business strategy, leadership, or transformation books – not industry-specific texts. Make a list of those ten book authors.

Now, build a spreadsheet of every event those ten people have spoken at over the last 2 years. Within reason, that’s the list of speaking events your CEOs are at. Because you’re not targeting a specific vertical, those events may be a little broad – that’s ok. My guess is, several of those authors you sit alongside are similar to you in a sense that they’re vertical agnostic.

Right now, the thought of you speaking at some of those events might seem like a pipedream. That’s fine, we’ve got 5 years to get there.

If none of them seem within reach right now, run through a second exercise: find all the events those authors spoke at during their first 2 years as a speaker. That list should yield a bunch of smaller events for you to target. You can then feed that list into AI and find other similar events if you’re still short on options.

Now, in order to get on any stage, you need an angle. You need something interesting and different to say. Right now, we don’t have a book which would present that angle, but we need something. That means writing a manifesto or framework ebook now (as Blair did with The Win Without Pitching Manual), even if it’s not the final thought leader book we’ll release later. The process of writing that book will give you the interesting frame around a problem required to get on stage with something different to say. It forms the foundational material that you can begin iterating on once you deliver your ideas on that stage.

Set yourself creative boundaries. You’re not taking all year to write this book. Write the best book you can, today, in 12 weeks. This will either be a manifesto book or a framework book. A manifesto challenges how they think about the problem; a framework shows them how to solve it. It’ll frame the way that you approach your work, differentiated from how others do. If you’re concerned that you have nothing unique to say, don’t worry – we all have that fear. The act of spending 12 weeks thinking and writing will help you develop differentiated ideas.

Every time you deliver a keynote, you point people back to that ebook – they receive a free copy if they sign up to your email list.

You publish to that email list, ideally once a week. You can post anything related to the frustration you solve. New stories related to it, examples of solving elements of it with customers, research you’re uncovering. You keep that email list warm and build your creative muscle.

Meanwhile, you’ll write and publish regularly, definitely via email, probably LinkedIn too.

But I want you to reframe the way you view email and LinkedIn.

Don’t think of it as the avenue through which you’ll attract new CEOs. Think of it as a playground to develop your thinking. Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle create their material in private, share it with friends, then perform in front of small, intimate live audiences.

They write, present, cut, curate, repeat.

They do that dozens, if not hundreds of times, using those early audiences to craft the polished, award-winning, stand-up special that they perform to millions live and on Netflix.

That’s what LinkedIn, email and these early speaking engagements are to you. A place to write to few and look for signs of life (i.e. an email reply telling you what the reader liked and why).

Year 2

April Dunford, like many authorities, wrote her book on stage.

She spent a year delivering speaking engagements to small audiences. Early on, many eyes glazed over through large parts of her presentations. Or, she’d receive questions that clearly showed people weren’t ‘getting’ what she was talking about.

So, for the next engagement, she’d address those questions in the presentation, cut the stuff that switched people off, double down on the sections that lit audiences up.

She did that dozens of times and, simultaneously, wrote Obviously Awesome – she was essentially writing a book with her audience. When you think of it that way, it’s no wonder she published an absolute smash hit, self-published, best seller. She was doing exactly what the likes of Rock and Chapelle do.

So you continue doing the things you were doing in Year 1, but you’ll add to the mix. This is the year you start writing your thought leader book, and within the next 12 months, it’ll be ready to publish. You’ll self-publish because you want to maintain ownership of IP.

This book will either be a framework book or a manifesto book—the same choice you made for your initial ebook, but now fully developed for publication.

You’ll publish both, but not simultaneously.

Let’s assume you’ll produce a manifesto.

You’ll begin curating all the insights and notes you collected from audience participation of keynotes you delivered in year 1. You continue to speak with audiences and collect feedback as you deliver keynotes in year 2. Now though, you end the keynote declaring that you have a book coming out. As soon as you’re in a position to take preorders, you point the audience to a preorder page. Until then, you point them to an email signup where they can get the first chapter for free and receive updates of when the book is available to buy.

You’ll also begin a podcast tour, taking the exact same approach you did with finding keynote opportunities. You have a set list of material to speak about, the frame through which you view the frustration that you solve, and you sign off in the same way that you signed off the keynote - plug the new book coming.

And by the way, though we’re self-publishing, this book will not look or feel like it was self-published. You’ll hire professionals to design the cover, design the interior, select the typography and create any necessary illustrations. You’ll also work with a copyeditor. We’re writing this book to stand the test of time and work for you for the next 20 years. You sell a premium offering and this book needs to perfectly manifest that premium. It’s a sample of your work.

Year 3

The book is published at the beginning of year 3.

In the two weeks leading up, you have an intense period of speaking gigs, whether on podcast or on stage. As many as you can get in, plugging the book and pointing to the preorder page. We want to spike the number of sales going out on day one and encourage instant reviews with exclusive content for any readers who submit an Amazon review in the first 2 weeks. That primes the Amazon algorithm in our favour. If the budget is there, we may run Amazon ads to the book. We’ll also promote on socials and to your email list (which you’ve been building over the past 2 years).

At this point, you’re still delivering keynotes, but you’re likely moving up to higher tier stages now with larger speaking fees. Now that you have a book, you’re including that as part of the deal – the event organiser needs to buy a copy for each audience member, which is placed on their seat ahead of your keynote. If you can’t negotiate that, you’ll give the books away to each audience member.

You wowed them with your keynote (which you’ve been refining and perfecting over the past 2 years). They read your book on the flight home, and as this book has been perfectly crafted, you further wow them. If they’re the ideal fit client, they book a call and quickly convert.

“Our sales reps salivate any time there’s a meeting booked and the lead source is book funnel [or if one of the development reps who did the initial discovery call writes a note to say the prospect read the book]… That has an incredibly high close rate because the book sold them on the solution. They’ve already bought into Scalable’s OS methodology as the solution. If they want to talk to Scalable, it’s because they don’t want to DIY it.” - Ryan Deiss

Our plan for this year and next is to continue speaking on stage and on podcasts. Best selling authority books become best sellers on the back of word of mouth. We’re seeding the book in the right places so that the right people get their hands on it.

Something I also want you to think about: April Dunford has sold more than 80,000 copies of Obviously Awesome. The minority bought her $80,000 workshop. But the significance of those book sales is:

• She develops thousands of fans who spread the word about how great she is. Word reaches the people that would buy her workshop.
• She becomes the Undisputed Authority on tech product positioning as a result of the fame the book delivers. When her ideal fit clients ask for recommendations, she’s referred by people who don’t even know her (but have read her book or heard her on a podcast).
• High profile event organisers and podcast hosts discover her book and invite her as a guest. They have the attention of her ideal fit clients.

This may not seem like the direct approach to reach those hard to reach CEOs, but it’s the only approach. They’ll discover your work, either because they attended an event or because they were recommended your book or because they heard you speak on a podcast. Trust that the process you took to write the book ensured that you published a fantastic body of work that pulls the right people into your world and they’re eager to share with others.

Year 4

At this point, you’re high profile and likely an Undisputed Authority in your niche. You’re reaching all those hard to reach CEOs. Luck will determine the degree of your fame, but regardless of luck, your pipeline is full.

Even if you stopped doing keynotes and podcasts now, your book would likely sell each month without further marketing.

That’s not we’ll do though. Now that you’ve got momentum, we want to reinforce your position. You continue to deliver keynotes, but you ease back on podcast appearances (unless you get opportunities to appear on big podcasts). Now your attention turns to writing the framework book. Readers loved your manifesto, but many people respond, “Loved the book, but how do I actually do this stuff?”

So now, you repeat the cycle, but this time you’ve got momentum and a bit of fame behind you. The keynote content changes. You’re no longer speaking about ideology – you’re sharing your IP on how to actually solve this problem.

At the same time, you’re writing your book on the IP, and you’ll publish it at the end of the year, going through the same promotion process you went through the first.

Year 5

"It seems a bit banal to go to someone and say we're going to make you famous. But actually, it's a perfectly healthy aspiration simply because if you're not famous, you have to find all your customers… When you become famous, customers whose existence you never even envisaged will come and find you. That's a kind of escape velocity."- Rory Sutherland

You now have two highly thought out books. One that shares your thinking, the other that shares your IP. These are the two ultimate tools for an expertise based business. You ‘own’ a frustration, meaning, you’re considered the undisputed authority in solving it.

By Year 5, you've achieved escape velocity.

Those hard-to-reach CEOs now seek you out. Your books work as 24/7 sales tools. Speaking opportunities come to you. Most importantly, you're no longer the best-kept secret – you're the Undisputed Authority the market turns to when they need what you deliver.