Creating an Influential Organization with Jeremy Weber

In this episode of The Better Leadership Team Show, I sit down with Jeremy Weber to explore how organizations can become more influential by elevating the voices of their people.

Jeremy has spent more than two decades helping experts, executives, and organizations build strategic influence. Together, we discuss why the future of branding isn’t just about company messaging—it’s about empowering employees to become trusted thought leaders.

We cover the three major trends reshaping influence today, why companies can’t afford to ignore personal branding inside their organizations, and the four key roles that can dramatically increase an organization’s reach and credibility.

If you want to attract top talent, strengthen trust with customers, and build a truly influential organization, this conversation will give you a powerful new perspective.

Thanks for listening! Connect with us at mike-goldman.com/blog and on Instagram@mikegoldmancoach and on YouTube @Mikegoldmancoach

Transcript

Jeremy 0:02

but the one, the one primary thing that's truly unique from company to company are your people. Right. And so whether you're, you have a business that's built around one expert, one thought leader, or a business that is much bigger than any one individual, right? and is comprised of multiple experts, and then some people that are more junior or, whatever in their experience and expertise, right? The idea is just saying, Hey, what are we doing as a company to elevate our top talent. And make more of the right people. In the marketplace, know about these brilliant minds,

Mike Goldman 0:44

You made it to the better leadership team show, the place where you learn how to surround yourself with the right people, doing the right things. So you can grow your business without losing your mind. I'm your host and leadership team coach, Mike Goldman. I'm going to show you how to improve top and bottom line growth, fulfillment, and the value your company adds to the world by building a better leadership team. All right, let's go.

Mike 1:16

Jeremy Weber is an expert at building more influential organizations by building more influential employees. Over his 20 plus year career, he's founded, scaled and sold multiple companies. As a personal brand strategist, he has supported hundreds of clients from New York Times bestselling authors and viral TED speakers. To top talent at companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and ancestry.com. Today, Jeremy's focused on advocating for a smarter, more strategic approach to how large organizations leverage the power of personal branding to scale brand awareness, but also attract and retain top talent. Now, I'm super excited about this because not only. Does that introduction tell you a whole lot? And it's gonna be a really interesting conversation. But, if you're a listener, a frequent listener of this show, you may already know that, I launched a book in October of 2026, depending on, on, no, yeah. October, 2025. Man, I can't even figure out the year

Jeremy 2:21

the year straight.

Mike 2:22

and it hit the USA today bestseller list in no small part because of the strategy and the plan that. Jeremy helped me with, we spent days working together on this stuff. Jeremy, I wanna thank you for that. Before we get going is getting me on the USA today, bestseller list. So I've had, definitely some, some real life experience working with Jeremy, so I'm excited to get him out to all my listeners.

Jeremy 2:51

Yeah. Well, thank you Mike, for the intro and for that. Yeah, I mean, I think the reality is yes, we did spend, two. Two days deep diving on your book launch strategy, but ultimately it was you and your team that did the majority of the work to kind of make that strategy become reality and then get the result you got. I appreciate the nod, but you know, I think you, you deserve most of credit on that because, it's, and not only to hit the bestseller list, but to put a good book together with good information. I mean, that's really what's most important at the end of the day.

Leadership Trait Transparency

Mike 3:21

oh, stop. keep going. Oh, stop. Well, so we're gonna dive in. I am, really fascinated, obviously I have worked with Jeremy from a personal branding standpoint, and what we're gonna talk about today is taking those, some of those same ideas and applying it to a larger. Organization, which I'm fascinated with because you typically don't think about personal branding for a large organization. So that's what we're gonna dig into today. but before we dig into that, Jeremy, the first question is always, about the leadership team. And from all of your experience, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?

Jeremy 4:09

Yeah. and I think it, it is a great question and as I just reflect on, being on. On the leadership team and not on the leadership team. Right. over my career I've been on both sides and yeah. I think something I really appreciate, regardless of what side I'm on, is transparency. Right. And I know that you. Sometimes you can't be as transparent as maybe you want to be. Right? and you have to hold certain things back from employees as a whole. But yeah, I think if leaders are always grounding themselves in, let's be as real and as honest and as transparent as we can be, given all the details of a situation, that goes a long way. Just especially in the age we're in now with kind of increased use of technology, primarily driven by ai, right? Like there, there's a lot of. Good and bad, and frankly, a lot of disruption that can come from that. So sometimes, leaders trying to sugarcoat things that, that, employees see through that. so it's just Hey, let's try to be as, as open and honest as we can and transparent. and I just, I think that goes a long way. for all parties.

Personal Branding for Big Orgs

Mike 5:11

Beautiful. Beautiful. So let's dive into the personal branding space and the influential organization space. Help me, obviously, I understand personally that the personal branding space for a small business, like myself, Help. Help me understand how personal branding relates to larger organizations that tend to think of branding as company branding, not personal branding. Help. Help me make that leap.

Jeremy 5:46

Yeah. Yeah. I think at the end of the day, right, there's different types of businesses, right? You have small businesses, big businesses, right, different sectors, et cetera. but at the end of the day, every business is gonna have, experts, right? I mean, you hope, if it's a successful business, there's gonna be one or more. Really brilliant, individuals right inside that business. and even if you look company to company, right? There's a lot of overlap in products and services and what you offer and you try to come up with great messaging and strategic pricing schedules. All these things to differentiate and give you an edge and help you drive growth. but the one, the one primary thing that's truly unique from company to company are your people. Right. And so whether you're, you have a business that's built around one expert, one thought leader, or a business that is much bigger than any one individual, right? and is comprised of multiple experts, and then some people that are more junior or, whatever in their experience and expertise, right? The idea is just saying, Hey, what are we doing as a company to elevate our top talent, right? And make more of the right people. In the marketplace, know about these brilliant minds, and not to help the individual, start their side hustle and leave and exit the company, especially if obviously you're applying these strategies in a bigger business setting. but to elevate these individuals as a Seamless extension of the business to humanize it, and ultimately help you differentiate, drive more leads, earn more trust, get more buy-in from strategic partners, like whatever it is. And that's where you know, it comes down to the strategy, right? Like who are you trying to influence? That really, influence informs the positioning and the messaging and all these downstream decisions. But the basic principle is the same. Mike, you are an expert. You have very much a business built around you as an expert. you're not trying to build some large enterprise. And that's where you and I met, when. When I was doing, work, hyper-focused on personal brands and individuals that are building businesses around themselves primarily. but this new focus for me is just saying what are the nuances of applying those same principles and strategies, but for top talent that are really operating inside a much larger organization. Right.

Mike 8:05

What is this something new that this idea of building influencers within your organization and elevating these expert, humanizing people within the business? when I think back. 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago. it seems like there, there was very little of that happening, if anything. yes, Steve Jobs was the face of Apple and he was out there and people equated the Apple brand with Steve's jobs personal brand. but it's not something you saw very often. Is, has this always been important or is this kind of a newer trend, that we're seeing?

Three Trends Perfect Storm

Jeremy 10:05

I think it's always been important, but the importance of it. is increasing. Right. and let me explain. I think the easiest way to kind of unpack that is to look at my own journey, right? Is, I studied computer science in college, so your natural reaction is, well this guy is the extreme opposite of somebody that's getting out there and an extrovert, right? I'm this nerd in the cubicle, and I was to a certain extent, but yeah, I knew pretty early on that. I was good at technology and all these deep technical things, but I wasn't as good at that as some of the people that's all they did. But I did kind of have this unique ability to understand these technical concepts, but still communicate'em with non-technical people. And so that set me on a path early in my career, which I started my career in the public sector working for state government, right? And, but that set me on a kind of a path early in my career of getting out and advocating for what I cared about. Right. I wasn't trying to write books and build a personal brand, but I was deeply passionate about what I was working hard to be great at, and I would go out and speak at conferences and create content online and, do these things early on. And, this was in, kind of the. early two thousands kind of, kind of era. And so if you take that and fast forward a little bit, I did up starting my own tech company and sold that and kind of shifted into the private sector. And even in that stage of my, career I was building, I was part of a business much bigger than me. Right. But I was still focused on being great at something like that's the foundation for all of this, right? be great at something, have something worth sharing, but care enough to wanna get out there and share about it, right? so even as I was in, kind of a senior leader and partner in that tech company, I was on the big stages, right? I was pushing a lot of content out online. so again, if I reflect back, I was not. Intentionally building my personal brand at that time. I don't think kind of personal branding had caught on and wasn't this buzzword at that point in kind of, time, but. I was doing a lot of the same things that are foundational to making more of the right people know about you and your company as being a leader in your space. And so that Absolutely. To come back and answer your question, that absolutely those activities of me getting out there as an extension of our business sharing insightful information. Using that to help raise awareness of me and our company was huge when it came to growing our business. Right. What was interesting at that time, and this and that season of my career was right before I went all in on this personal branding stuff, at the company we met at, right? And that was foundational, but it wasn't thought of as personal branding, right? It was thought of as, hey, just, experts getting out there speaking at conferences. And so really it's kind of been the rise of some of these new trends that we can talk about that, that have accelerated this and made it more of a. Necessity to compete and I say differentiate and compete from kind of a sales and marketing perspective, but also differentiate and compete when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent. which I think, as I've focused more on applying these strategies and bigger companies, yes, there are sales and marketing benefits, but oftentimes it's the, retaining and attracting top talent benefits that, that they care about more.

Mike 13:30

And what are you mentioned that the trends, making this more important and I automatically, start to think of. social media influencers and folks on TikTok that are talking about brands and influencing us on brands. SEO giving way to more, AI driven visibility out there. Are there, is that what we're talking about? And are there other, kind of trends going on that are causing personal branding and humanizing our brands to even be more important than it was?

Risks and Company Policies

Jeremy 14:03

Yeah, you've hit on some of'em, but there are a few more. Right. the way I kinda look at this and what was interesting is I was deep in the trenches of kind of working with personal brand based companies, right? people that are building businesses built around them, but was feeling this itch to. Kind of go into this new space. I stepped back a little bit and kind of reflected on the evolution of some things. Right. And that's where I started noticing, a couple other trends that you didn't kind of mention. and the way I look at it is I feel like we're kind of at. in this perfect storm, right? And it's really the convergence of three major trends. So the first one you just alluded to, which was the rise of social media, right? And we all know that, right? That's been going on for a while. and where we find ourselves now is just individuals are spending more and more time each day on these social media platforms, right? but the rise of social media. Triggered the rise of this next trend, which is a major trend called the rise of the personal brand. Right? And you kind of alluded to it, right? Individuals have these outlets now to share information and now they have opportunities to raise awareness and build businesses around the work they do. Right. so that second trend was really the rise of the personal brand and some stats around this. Right? And you've seen these stats, 82% of Americans agree that companies are more influential if their executives. Have a personal brand they know and follow. Right? 74% of Americans are more likely to trust somebody with an established personal brand, right? 58% of Americans are willing to pay more for services with somebody with an established personal brand. So as a result of social media and now individuals becoming more known, trusted, you have a shift in buying behavior and how trust is kind of managed. And those three stats are from. The trends in personal branding, kind of national research study from brand builders group. Right? so really trusted source. Great. so what's interesting though, if we just kinda see how this plays out a little bit more, right? So you have individuals seeing these opportunities, right? Because of the rise of the personal brand. That really triggered this third trend, which is kind of interesting, which is the rise of the side hustle. And I, we ran into this a lot, at Brand Builders Group when I worked there and some of our clients. But, it's the individuals, right? They're employees, FTEs at big companies, right? Or companies, that see these opportunities. they see the freedom and the impact and the income and all this that comes from using social media to build a business around yourself, become an influencer or become a coach or whatever. And so you have this huge rise in people being distracted with and working on their side hustle, right? and so there's interesting. Stats around that as well. I'll share one 36% of US adults have a side hustle in 2024, 40 8% of Gen Z and 44% of millennials, right? so it's just the reality is because of these shiny objects, you have more individuals kind of being distracted with that. But what's interesting is in the eye of the storm, right at the intersection of all these three trends, especially when you look at how it's impacting larger organizations, is a huge rise in employee disengagement, right? Scrolling, more, being, distracted with this idea of a personal brand. Oftentimes, if they are working on their personal brand, it's not. Positioned in alignment with their full-time job and reinforcing it. it's oftentimes supporting the side hustle or something kind of on the side that's pulling them away from their things. so the question is, what happens? how do organizations respond to this? And that's really at the heart of the work I'm doing and, so yeah. So we can talk more about that. But those are some of the other trends and kind of the backdrop. I think makes this more and more important because there's a couple different ways leaders can react to this reality that either positions them for, to ride the wave or positions them to kinda, not.

Mike 18:05

What I wanna get into the hows of someone says, yeah, this is interesting. I'm branding my company. I don't have a personal brand. My people don't have a personal brand. How do I do that? I want to get into the hows, but before I do, what's the danger? Here, and I'll tell you where I'm going and you may already know where I'm going, which is, if I took my business and made it much bigger and my tiny little company became a large company and I had a bunch of coaches working for me, and one or more of those coaches are building their personal brand, which is helping my company. Right? And this is. Yes, mine is a coaching organization. But think about that. For any organization, you've got someone in addition to the founder slash CEO that is building their personal brand. And now as is likely to happen, people don't typically have lifetime employment. they build that personal brand, they build that level of trust, and now they leave. And maybe they go to the competition. what's the danger there of building a brand, building those personal brands in addition to a company brand? Even CEOs leave and go somewhere else. What's the danger there? or is there a danger there?

Who Should Be Influencers

Jeremy 19:29

Yeah, I mean there, there's definitely risk, right? and what you're alluding to there is usually one of the bigger objections I would get when I'm talking with somebody that's considering this. But you have to, we have to ground ourselves in some truths, right? I mean, the truth is that, people do business with people, so like that there's a level of human, to human interaction and. The data also tells us that buyers are valuing more, trust from individuals, especially if they're more influential online. so with that information and those truss that some are global trus, they've always been around and we'll always be around, the question is really how do you respond to it, right? if you're a company. And what I say is there's a couple extremes around your policy, right? Let's call it your personal brand policy inside a company. one extreme, I would call it suppression, where you're like, Hey, I think there's too much risk with elevating individuals. they're gonna have more visibility. Somebody's gonna poach'em. Let's not. Right. So you suppress'em. you don't empower them or embrace some of these ideas to elevate more awareness of them, right? So that would be one extreme. On the other is like shotgun, where you you're like, Hey, everybody, do everything. But you're not strategic about it. So what I'm advocating for is in the middle, but kind of what you're alluding to is. A little bit of the outcome of somebody suppressing, right? Hey, I don't like this, and there's some risk here, so we're not gonna embrace this and be more conventional about how we do it. And you have to think that, okay, well if these truths are there, there is an uptick in demand to no individuals want. Know them intimately online, through online influence and speaking, and you're a company that doesn't embrace that well, your top talent's gonna feel that. Right. They're gonna see opportunities and they're gonna, they're probably gonna have conversations around this and be like, Hey, I've got some ideas about things we could do, and they're not gonna feel supported and empowered to continue growing in the organization. And absolutely they're gonna be looking at other opportunities and exiting. Right? So if you flip it on its head and say, well, okay, well. There's risk there, obviously, right? But we're gonna choose to embrace it, right? And create programs and pathways around this. Well, what happens is your top talent feels supported. they're with an employer that, that is creating pathways to continue to grow and have impact. Some of that's financially for the individual and for the company. But they feel empowered to grow. And so if you create the right incentive structure, yes, they're always, your top talent is always gonna have opportunities, right? I mean, that, that's what happens with top talent. But if you've created an environment that is really compelling. To stay in. Right? Well then that you have the best chance to keep them right? I mean, if you suppress'em and try to hide'em, well that's not gonna last, right? So what we say is, the reality is this is happening whether you want to embrace it or not. And you can choose to be a company that creates an environment that your top talent not only wants to stay in. But because you've got an environment and a culture built around this, in a way that's a win-win. I'm not saying be it reckless, right? This is where the strategy comes in. But not only do you give yourself the best chance to retain your top talent and grow the company and grow them, right, you give yourself the best chance to attract top talent from competitors that aren't embracing this, right? That are doing the suppression play. so I think you know anybody that, that kind of usually reacts that there's risks here and the more. People that know about me. I mean, those risks are there. And you can choose to be a company that is, and the last thing I'll say on this is. Some people think that, if somebody, an individual gets a lot of influence and they have more visibility, there's more opportunity like true. But I think individuals are also seeing that, the idea of going out on my own right, which would be one opportunity, Hey, I'm just gonna leave to do my own thing, versus go to a competitor that you know is similar to this environment. it can be lonely, right? I mean, there's actually, I feel top talent likes to operate in an environment where they have access to great resources and a sense of security financially and great benefits, right? So that's kind of the cool thing about this is if you can pr create an environment where your top talent can do some of these. Entrepreneurial things, think of it as entrepreneurship, right? and they have pathways to, to kind of scratch some of these itches, but they also have the security of operating inside a business that is not a hundred percent dependent on them. With the, as you're well aware, being a business owner and an entrepreneur. So I think companies, yes, there's risk, but there's really more opportunity here to. To help your top talent have the biggest impact, which is gonna help your company, retain them and attract top talent if you really are innovative about how you approach this.

Internal Influence Unlock

Mike 24:20

Yeah. It sounds as you said, of course there's risk, but there's a. Probably a bigger risk in not doing it right. Especially if there are others reacting and they are building influencers and humanizing their brand and you are not, that's a hell of a risk too, in addition to, as you said, maybe losing some of the top talent. So that makes a lot of sense. when we think about this and we start to dive into the how on this are there. in a larger organization, are there certain roles that are more that, that are ideal to become these organizational influencers, building their personal brand?

Skip Personal Branding Label

Who Should Be Influencers

Jeremy 25:02

Yeah, absolutely. and before we dive into that, I think for anybody that still is maybe. They hear this idea of building more influential companies by building more influential employees. Or some people just hear the phrase personal branding and immediately like Red flag, the sirens go off and they're like, we would never invest to build the personal brand. You know what? What I would just say is. to a certain extent, companies are already doing this through influencer marketing, right? Influencer marketing because of social media. And that rise right. Is, has, is taken off. Right. And that's not a new strategy or concept, right? But you obviously companies investing in the influence of individual. so they're already doing that. They're already, riding the waves of some of these trends of consumers valuing the influence of individuals. But what I would say is the leaders of the future, right? the companies that, that will be the leaders in the future, they, they will do that, right? They will continue to partner with outside centers of influence, but they will also understand one important thing that you can't outsource too much of your influence. Okay. You cannot outsource too much of your influence because at the end of the day, you have to keep in mind that these external influencers are pushing multiple products or services. They are not a hundred percent focused on your business. Right. and so if you think about, and I'm not saying not do that, but it's applying those same. Principles and strategies to top talent that has invested a hundred percent of their focus to growing your company, right? Or this company and saying, what do we do to give them pathways to have similar levels of impact? Not to just serve them individually, but to help them grow individually and help the company grow. so again, that's an important little. Kinda unlock for people that are still struggling with this. It's it's kind of already happening. and if you wanna really push the envelope here, you need to kind of think about those same influencer marketing things, but really apply to some of your internal influencers.

Mike 27:04

And I wanna grab a little nugget from what you just said, and it actually, it helps me name this episode,

Jeremy 27:11

Okay.

Four Roles Framework

Mike 27:11

So, I am not gonna put the phrase personal branding in the title of this episode because I got a lot of CEOs, senior leaders of mid and large size organizations. I'm gonna pass it by and say, I don't need that. but it really becomes about how you create a more influential organization through these organizational influencers, within your company. That's really what it's about. And that becomes, oh yeah, of course I need that. So it's don't get hung up on the phrase personal branding because you think it doesn't apply, and let's not try and convince people that it applies. it's do you want an influential organization? Okay. you're probably not gonna do that because your website looks really cool. you need people to do that, so that's super important. so back to, so that, so that's really helpful. Back to the question of, are there. is this really just about the CEO creating, becoming an influencer? is it salespeople or product development folks? who are the what are the ideal roles within an organization or are there specific ideal roles for people to become those organizational influencers?

Roadmap Step One Positioning

Jeremy 28:23

Yeah, absolutely. and this is really, if you look at kind of my influential organization roadmap, kind of the process, I take clients through this is step one, right? the businesses I'm working with, right? or. Whether I'm working with'em or not, that are hearing this and thinking about applying it, they're established businesses, right? I mean, they've done a lot of things right to get to where they're at. So what we're doing is it's less about company brand positioning and company messaging, right? We're coming in and starting to focus on individuals and elevating them. so a natural first step is saying, who does this even apply to? Right. And it doesn't apply to everybody. Right? That's an important thing to understand is we're not saying this is some generalized thing that, that, that's applied across the board. so before I get into the four key roles, right?'cause there are kind of what I would call like the lower hanging fruit, right? And there's always gonna be edge cases, so don't get too boxed in on this, but these would be the four. Primary types of roles that, that you need to think about being more tactical about elevating your top talent in these types of roles. but before I get into'em, just know that, It, depending on your stage of growth as a business, it's gonna determine if you're doing it across all four of these, or maybe just one or two. So as the business grows, you're checking more of these boxes, right? So just that's again, where the discussion and the strategy comes in. But the first role is like your CEO, your founder, right? A very senior type leader that you had mentioned, Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, or whoever, right? These, it starts with them and oftentimes these individuals are already out there because they were somebody that was involved in the beginning. They've been a pivotal person to, to continue to advocate for the company and grow it and drive revenue and, all the things. so they already have a lot of influence at the end of the day. but that would be the first one. and just saying, what are we doing to make sure that our, kind of the face of the organization as a whole. is out there and seen and trusted by the right people in the marketplace as a leader, as a thought leader in the space we're in. Not, again, not to help him or her, just pump their ego up, right? but to humanize the company behind them, help us get in front of people from places of authority. Big stages, big podcasts, whatever, and differentiate. And ultimately just again, drive more brand awareness and growth for the company, on the back end. Right? so that would be the first role as the founder, CEO type role. The next one would be leaders, just senior leaders. And what's interesting about this one. and I'll be honest, coming out of, seven, eight years of doing deep personal branding work and primarily working with, people running lifestyle businesses that have, businesses built around them. I totally had a blind spot with this one because,'cause when you think about, elevating individuals, most people think it's for sales and marketing purposes, brand awareness, lead generation, et cetera. but this next one, your leaders. If you have a big enough company, right, you have senior leaders that are leading hundreds and thousands of individuals, right? Giant teams, and for those individuals. the primary segment that they're trying to influence is not necessarily an external stakeholder group. an industry or partners that drive leads and adoption. They're trying to influence the hundreds of thousands of people they lead internally, right? So if the company's big enough, you want to be tactical about what we're doing. To make our senior leaders as influential as possible to drive alignment and productivity and outcomes, and keep your top talent on the teams they lead and even attract top talent that, think of it as lead generation, but it's not for new customers, it's for new talent, right? So that was kind of the big aha for me as I was doing some work with. A large publicly traded kind of HR consulting company was like, Hey, I like what you're talking about, but I really don't care about external influence. I'm focused on internal influence. so again, those senior leaders that are leading large teams like that is a type of role where you wanna say, what are we doing to properly position you, and help you effectively communicate at scale. Do a lot of these things, but focused on, in influencing internal people, right? So that, that would be the second kind of stakeholder group or type of role, right? The third one is subject matter experts, right? So think of these as, just people that are experts at what you do for clients. Right. so clients are trusting you and doing business with you, and then they interact with individuals. and so think of these as just subject matter experts at whatever you do. the segment of the market that these individuals are trying to influence our customers, not prospects, but customers. Right?'cause they've already made a buying decision and the reason they're trying to influence them is for retention, right? so we want customers to, to intimately know your top minds in the company and feel that they can trust them and look up to them and be like, man, I would never think about going somewhere else'cause this company's got the best minds giving me the best advice. and obviously those individuals are an extension of the product or the platform, right? Or whatever it is you sell. But they're a key part of ultimately communicating best practices, providing support, leading by example, et cetera, right? so those subject matter experts would be the third role. And then the fourth and final role are really business development or salespeople, right? and those are gonna be individuals that we want to elevate them as an extension of the company to influence prospects to, to buy and do business with you guys. and so obviously they're, they are the ones that are focused on lead gen and customer acquisition and stuff like that. so it, what's almost interesting is the way. I, the way I just talk through that and kind of teach that framework around the roles that this applies to is the opposite of how you would implement it. Most companies are saying like, look, we love the idea of doing all this stuff with our leaders or our subject matter experts, but we need more revenue. So let's focus on, biz dev people that can give us an edge, drive more leads, close more deals. Okay, great. we've got a good pipeline, good revenue coming in. Now we need to monitor our churn and keep patient, keep our clients longer, et cetera. Now, because of a byproduct of that, we have bigger and bigger teams and we're elevating people to be leaders. Okay, let's make sure they're good. And then the icing on the cake is kind of the, the CEO or something. So it doesn't always play out like that, but it's an important little. Nuance to be aware of, when it comes to the proper sequencing to think about implementing.

Step Two Incentives Ownership

Mike 35:07

Yeah. but super helpful to think of those four. Key roles because it definitely, and you and I have talked about this stuff before, but it broadens my thinking of, oh, I, I didn't think about those types of folks, or I didn't think about doing it, the internal influence versus the external influence. as when I think about my own personal brand and the journey that, that you are a part of, I wanna get into to some of the things that companies can do and that you may be able to help them do to help. Different key roles, get more well known and as a smaller company, in my personal brand, it was, a book, it's this podcast, it's getting on more stages. It's, there, there's a whole host of things that personal brands do. But, and again, it may be very different depending on which key role we're talking about. But give us a sense of what are some of the things that. Companies can do, or you could help them do, to help these organizational influencers truly become influencers and become more well known.

Step Three Thought Leadership

Jeremy 36:14

Yeah. and it's probably easiest to answer that question by just continuing to work through the process, this influential organization roadmap. So if step one is around who are the right people and how do we properly position them?'cause there's a lot of companies that do a lot of work with PR and comms and, different vendors that do great work. But, maybe, and you could invest a lot of time, money, effort into elevating individuals. But if they're not. Positioned properly, right? It's not like we're not focused on who am I trying to influence, right? You can actually waste a tremendous amount of time and money, right? so that's why step one is so critical of who are the right people and how are we positioning their them individually. I about said personal brand, but again, that would be a red flag. So we want to not raise that phrase, but so how are we positioning them individually in the marketplace to influence the right. People. Right. So that's like that first step is critical. If you don't get that right, then you got kind of a shaky foundation. The second step is how do we incentivize the right actions, right? This is kinda,'cause you alluded to it, there is risk here where you get into a company paying to elevate the influence of individuals. And and I won't get too deep into it, but some of this gets into, kind of, comp plans and employment agreements and some boring stuff with that. But it's important to just make sure from a legal perspective, everybody, it's kind of fair and equitable, right? But a key thing you have to think about in this second stage of kind of incentivizing the right action, where it's a win-win for the employee and the company, right? Is understanding kind of the asset stack. So if we look at all the way from my social media handles all the way down to the leads, the contacts in a C-R-M, I may drive through the work I'm doing, there's several layers of, kind of intellectual property and email addresses and websites and, social media followers, et cetera. so you wanna really understand that asset stack and get clear on who owns what. if something was to go down, like we never want something to go down, but if something was to go down. What is the employee able to keep with them and take with them and that's fair and just, and what is the property of the company, right? so again, it's not always the most. Sexy conversations to have, but it's it's important to kind of think through those things in this second phase.'cause otherwise you're just introducing more risk downstream, right? So with that in place, the right people properly positioned with the right incentive and comp plans and things like that where everybody feels good about it. Feels fair, let's get after this together. Then you get into kind of the heart of the question you asked, which was like, what are we actually doing with individuals to elevate awareness of them? So a lot of it starts, with what you know, when we know who you're trying to influence, right? That was part of that first kind of step. Then we can be more intentional about what I call your thought leadership platform. What is actually the information that you need to be communicating with the people you're trying to influence, and how do we structure that information in a way that people can wrap their head around, they can buy into, they can understand and they,'cause if people can't understand what you're communicating, right, you have a hard time getting'em to do what you want'em to do, whatever that is. Whereas work harder or opt in for a lead magnet or buy your product, right? so that really the first step is how do we take. Your brilliance.'cause these people are top talent for a reason. They're smart. They have a lot of insights. How do we structure that into a true thought leadership platform that's man, this is worth sharing in the marketplace. It's actually the right information to influence the right people. Without that, you can't then get into how do we package and distribute all or some of that. Content into these distribution channels, right? So to actually raise awareness of it and start influencing people. so step one is really just building out that thought leadership platform and the content, the expertise. And then step two, we actually get into how are we distributing that? and some of it's as simple as how do we use. Your thought leadership as, and I say yours, it's a hybrid of the individual and the company, right? I mean, we're doing this to grow the company, but we need, we don't want everybody regurgitating the exact same thing, across, that's where it was, where you.

Mike 40:35

a bunch of robots are not gonna be very

Jeremy 40:37

Exactly right. That's not gonna be authentic, that's not gonna resonate with people at scale. so absolutely we want to reinforce and align with company messaging and positioning. Absolutely. That would be reckless to not do that. but the magic happens when we, when that's the underly. Theme of a thought leadership platform, but we're layering in unique stories and unique expertise on top of that's truly unique to the individual. Right? so once we have that, then we get into how we go to market with this per se. And that could be anything from as basic as your content marketing strategy on social media or blogging right through the company's, kind of like insights or blog portion of their website. To formal presentations you give. A lot of the work I do is you can imagine big companies invest big dollars to get on big stages, at industry conferences. So what are you doing to not get up there and squander that opportunity? Right? so these individuals are not. High dollar paid keynote speakers. Right? but why not get up there and deliver a keynote? that, that looks like one, right? And so whether it's formal kind of presentations to informal presentations like webinars, all the way down the line to a book, right? I mean, you kind of brought that up earlier. I just finished helping a client, big client, where the CEO and Chief strategy Officer co-authored a book and they're like, look, obviously we believe in our IP. We want to package our IP in a book. We want to use that to drive brand awareness and growth. Help us differentiate from competition by hitting a big bestseller list. all those things and unfortunately we didn't hit the New York Times as one of those weird things, even though we outsold, several of the other books on that list, which is kind of typical. but it was overall number one on the USA today list, which is huge. And so anyway, a lot of good,

Mike 42:27

by the way, you only made me number 25, so I'm a little

Jeremy 42:30

I know.

Mike 42:30

Oh

Jeremy 42:31

sorry. I should have not brought that up. My bad. but yeah, so again, and there's other kind of distribution channels or opportunities, but, but the way I, if you just strip it down and keep it very simple, a lot of it is saying, if I know. Who I am focused on influencing primarily day in and day out. And I've got a well thought out talk track. Think of it as like a talk track or just a way that I've have structured the critical information about what we're doing, how we do it, how we're getting where we're going. Like whatever it is where like in just one-on-one conversations or. Kickoffs or whatever it is with your team, right? like the ability to efficiently and effectively communicate is really the foundation for influencing people. and obviously if you don't have anything worth sharing, that's a fundamental flaw on the front end, right? That's why prerequisite is being great at what you do, and doing the hard work to earn the right. To be one of these people that a company is saying, we need to invest. This person has demonstrated loyalty to the business. We trust them. they're one of our top, some of our top talent. let's continue to get'em out there.'cause we know that at the end of the day, this is gonna work out the way it needs to and there's gonna be a lot of benefits for them and the company along the way.

Mike 43:47

So from tracking, right. That in the four step process you talked about, that was step number three.

Jeremy 43:52

Correct. Yeah.

Mike 43:53

what's the last step?

How Jeremy Helps Companies

Jeremy 43:55

No, it's just the three, right? it's kind. Yeah. so that third step is kind of elevating influence, right? Is so now we're getting into the specific things to start elevating the influence of those employees. and I, you can call it influence, you can call it, personal branding, whatever. But, I've found that at the end of the day, it's kind of how do we take your top leaders and make'em trusted industry thought leaders, right? really, I feel If personal branding is the phrase that resonates with the solopreneurs and the entrepreneurs and the side hustlers, thought leadership is probably the phrase that resonates with the corporate environment. So some of this is me playing the game, and learning the hard way from pitching it and being like. I'm not building any personal brands. Right. But really, I've kind of embraced this idea of how do we take your top leaders and make'em trusted? Industry thought leaders and or just internal, again, some of it's like less about industry awareness, it's more about deep trust and loyalty for the big teams you lead it.

Mike 44:53

So this is Obviously a lot more complicated than just, Hey, let's get these five people doing a lot more social media. there's a lot here and there's a lot to learn, not only about as a company. who are the right folks? What is the right messaging? How do you get the messaging out there? Even if you've got some great folks that are really charismatic within the organization, they're gonna need some support in, in, in sending those message. So that all being said, Jeremy, tell us a little bit more about your business and exactly how you help. And then of course, I'll ask where people should go to find out more about you.

Book Talk And Next Steps

Jeremy 45:30

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. so I mean, it's pretty simple how I work with companies. some companies are intrigued by this and they're like, Hey, how do we dip our toe in the water with something like this? So I could come in and just do kind of a half day strategy session to start exploring some of these. Kind of concepts and how you could ease into it. if you're at a point where it's like, Hey, we have a group of people, whether it's leaders or employees that really wanna learn around about some best practices with this, I can drop in and do a paid keynote or a formal workshop or something, but really the companies that embrace it and they're like, Hey. We like this, we think this can really help us. we want to engage in more of an ongoing kind of relationship to start implementing some of these things and having support along the way. that's ultimately where I engage in, six, 12 month retainer contracts with companies and just, as you can imagine, these are big companies with brilliant minds, right? so my role is to come in and create structure and guidance. And really just empower the company to kinda do some of these things, but own most of it, themselves. I mean, they have big budgets, they have great vendors, right? so this is me just coming in as a strategic partner, pushing forward. so either one of those extremes, but it usually starts with kind of a one time engagement drop in, and then we see where it goes from there.

Mike 46:51

And what I see a New York Times number one bestselling influential organization book in your future,

Jeremy 46:59

You spoke. You spoke it into existence, Mike.

Mike 47:03

Maybe by the time you're hearing this, it's already out there and it's a number

Where To Find Jeremy

Closing Takeaways

Jeremy 47:06

Yeah. No, I am not working on it, but I probably should be, it's interesting, the, obviously for the last 10, 15 years, right? I've been working either directly or indirectly in this space, and it, it's kinda like the story with the cobbler and their kids in the shoes. Right. it's there's things that I should do and, maybe wanna do a little bit. But my primary focus has been on, serving, my clients. And, I keep telling myself that I think how to do it properly and all these things. I mean, I know that'cause that's what I do. But yeah, there'll come a point where it's just look, I feel really. Compelled, like there, there's something here that needs to be really heard at scale and I'll just be pulled in to wanting to do that. But you know, like step one, as I even work with clients, right? Step one is not writing the book, right. that's like at the end of the journey, right? Step one is being clear on who you're trying to help. Right. and then getting organized with how you do what you do and deliver great results. and so I'm very much, in that stage of tightening my process, that three phase process, deploying it, working out the kinks with clients and, if the market demands, I'll, I can continue to do that and package all of it in a book someday, we'll see.

Mike 48:19

I'm a coach, so I'm gonna tell you, it sounds like a whole bunch of excuses to delay writing a book. but you know, more than I do

Jeremy 48:25

no, you're right. You're right. To a certain extent, there's some truth in that.

Mike 48:29

now that's great. so Jeremy, for folks that are interested and man, I'm sure there'll be a lot where should they go? And of course we'll put this in the show notes, but where should people go to find out more about you and contact you?

Jeremy 48:42

Yeah. Yeah. You can just go to my website, it's my personal brand website, thejeremyweber.com. J-E-R-E-M-Y-W-E-B-E-R, so thejeremyweber.com, and you can learn more about, I mean, there's a lot of. Free stuff out there to just kind of learn more about this and how it might apply to your company. And then obviously there's specifics on kind of the different types of work I do with organizations and a way to schedule a call if you want to talk about any of that. So that's probably the easiest thing is just to go to the website and see where you go from there.

Mike 49:13

Excellent. Well, I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. This is definitely a new angle on how to make that happy happen. Jeremy, thanks for helping us get closer to that great leadership team today.

Jeremy 49:27

Yeah. Well thank you for the opportunity, Mike.