In this episode of Mic Drop, Josh Linkner interviews Mary Ellen Slayter, a seasoned leader in content marketing and the founder of Rep Cap. With a rich background as a columnist at the Washington Post, Mary Ellen offers a unique perspective on blending journalism with content marketing to address business challenges effectively. This episode explores the transformative power of storytelling in marketing, the shift towards digital media, and the strategic integration of interviewing skills into business practices.
Mary Ellen Slayter is a content marketing innovator who transitioned from journalism to founding Rep Cap, a B2B content marketing agency that excels in video and podcasting content. Her expertise lies in leveraging journalistic skills to enhance B2B content marketing, focusing on storytelling as a tool to solve business problems and drive engagement.
Journalistic Approach to Content Marketing: Mary Ellen discusses how her journalistic background influences her content marketing strategy. She emphasizes the importance of concrete details in storytelling to make business communications compelling and memorable.
Integration of Digital Media: Reflecting on the evolution of her agency, Mary Ellen highlights the shift from traditional writing to predominantly using video and podcast formats. This transition underscores the growing relevance of multimedia in engaging modern audiences effectively.
The Business of Content Marketing: Exploring the practical applications of content marketing, Mary Ellen shares how strategic content creation aligns with business objectives like lead generation, brand awareness, and customer education. She stresses that content should always serve a clear business purpose.
Advice for Aspiring Thought Leaders: Offering insights for thought leaders and speakers, Mary Ellen encourages a proactive approach to content creation. She advocates for experimenting with new ideas, staying curious, and consistently considering the buyer's perspective to enhance relevance and impact.
Learn more about Mary Ellen Slayter:
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ABOUT MIC DROP:
Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter its starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.
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Josh Linkner — a New York Times bestselling author — is a rare blend of business, art, and science.
On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million. He’s the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā (moo-DEE-tah) Venture Partners - an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion in investor returns. He’s twice been named the EY Entrepreneur of The Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.
While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. Josh has been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years, studied at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and has performed over 1000 concerts around the world. His experiences in both business and music led him to become one of the world’s foremost experts on innovation. Josh
is the co-founder and Chairman of Platypus Labs, a global research, training, and consulting firm. Today, he’s on a mission to help leaders Find A Way™ through creative problem-solving, inventive thinking, and ingenuity.
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Mary Ellen Slayter:
The journalist doesn't just say everybody was happy that day. The journalist says, you know, the smile on her face was so big that she didn't notice that she had spilled ice cream all down her shirt. It's about principles and values as illustrated by very concrete specific details that tell that story.
Josh Linkner:
Hey, friends, Josh Linkner here. Delighted to bring you season three of Mic Drop, the number one podcast for professional speakers and thought leaders on the show. We connect with experts at the top of the field unpacking their success to help each of us grow and thrive from elevating your artistry to booking more gigs. Mic Drop is designed to give you the tools and insights you need to reach the next level. Together we'll accelerate the path to growth, success, and most importantly, impact
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Josh Linkner:
In today's episode of Mic Drop, we dive deep into the world of content marketing with Mary Ellen Slater, the visionary leader behind Rep Cap. Mary Ellen shares her journey from being a columnist at the Washington Post to founding a content marketing agency that now thrives on video and podcasting. She also regularly books speakers, so will peek behind the curtain into the speaker selection and buying process with a background that blends journalism, marketing, and a film director's attention to detail. Mary Ellen unravels the intricacies of B2B content marketing. She emphasizes the importance of storytelling, not just as a way to share information, but as a strategy to solve business problems. Mary Ellen's approach is rooted in creating content with a business purpose, whether it's generating leads, building awareness, or educating customers. Throughout this episode, Mary Ellen offers insights into the changing landscape of content marketing, highlighting the shift toward digital mediums and the critical role of interviewing skills. She also shares valuable advice for thought leaders and speakers, encouraging them to experiment, remain curious, and think from a buyer's perspective. Mary Ellen, welcome to Mic Drop. Oh,
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Thanks for having me.
Josh Linkner:
We've got so much to cover today. Uh, we're gonna talk about content marketing and the way speeches are bought and sold, but maybe just starting with a quick overview of, of, uh, your company rep cap. Mm-Hmm. . Um, you just mentioned as we were getting chatting before that you're going through a bit of a transition, but maybe give us a little bit of that story. Like what, what is the business? What, how, how should we think about it today so we can better understand your, your expertise and context?
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Yeah, so I I, you know, I started Rep Cap 12 years ago, or at almost 12 years ago now. Um, and you know, we were, when we did this as a content marketing agency, I had to spend a lot of time explaining what people did, what we did. So I had to spend a lot of time explaining what we did. So, oh, what's content marketing? It's editorial content for, for, for brands. And, um, I come into this world from journalism. Originally I was a columnist for the Washington Post. I wrote a career advice column there. I was a financial editor, and I worked there at a company called Smart Brief. And so for me, moving into this, you know, it was more about taking those skills and applying them. And at the time, I would've said the skills I was applying was my ability to write.
Right? I would've said it was copy creation, it was content writing. Uh, we were writing a lot of white papers. We were writing a lot of blog posts, a lot of email. And, um, and that's something that I would say is a, is a good bit different now. You know? So 12 years later, I, the majority of my revenue is from video and from podcast. And I still do a lot of writing. But if you asked me what the most important skill that I acquired as a journalist that I have brought into this business, it is the ability to interview people. And I didn't even think of it that way.
Josh Linkner:
That's
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Fascinating. So,
Josh Linkner:
Because you, you are, you kind of, as a journalist, you get right to the heart of an issue and, and sort of uncover the truth. And actually, it was a good, good segue. You know, when, when on your site you kind of wrote that we approach B2B content marketing with a journalist curiosity, uh, marketer spark for experimentation and a film director's obsession with detail. I love that sentence. Could you unpack that for us a little bit? 'cause I, I just love how you think about content marketing specifically as it continues to evolve. Mm-Hmm.
Mary Ellen Slayter:
. So the bit about, uh, the journalist, right? It is about the detail. I always say the story is in the specificity, right? General platitudes about what happened are not interesting. Concrete details are interesting. And as a journalist, people would often think of journalists as quote writers, even back in the newspaper day. But the reality is, for an eight hour workday, you spent seven hours talking to people and about an hour writing and writing was only a fraction of it. It, it's not really the most important part. The most important part was the ability to go out and gather information, pick up all those interesting little details, and notice them and bring them into the story. And that's something that I think is also true if you're, uh, thinking about your speeches, like your talks, a great keynote is not a statement of general platitudes about innovation.
It's about principles and values as illustrated by very concrete specific details that tell that story. And that's the journalist part. The journalist doesn't just say everybody was happy that day. The journalist says, you know, the smile on her face was so big that she didn't notice that she had spilled ice cream all down her shirt. You know, like, enjoy when she jumped or something. You know, it's like, there's some, I, I totally made that up, but it's like, there's, you gotta get specific. So that's that part. The second part about a marketer's interested experimentation, that's something that when I moved from journalism into marketing, that's actually something I really admired about marketers, marketers of all the roles in business. To me, marketers are the ones who are most likely to be like, oh, why not try it? That's like, that looks interesting. We'll run an ab test, you know, to, uh, I think sometimes the confusion and consternation of the other functions like finance and, you know, the more operational roles, but, but marketers love to experiment. And then the third piece about a film producer, um, and, you know, sort of that attention to detail and really figuring out what makes a great scene and what makes a great experience both emotionally and intellectually, like filmmakers know that. And a designers like good ones really know that the best way you, you tell a story through the feelings, not the facts. So that's what I mean by that.
Josh Linkner:
It's so funny and, and, and funny enough, as we repeat that sentence, you did that, like you could just say, you know, I have journalist integrity and we're curious and we try stuff, but you said, you know, uh, with a journalist, curiosity, a marketer spark for experimentation and film director's obsession with detail, all of a sudden you, you, you got me curious and engaged, if rather than if you just said the platitudes. So I, I think you're dead on, even, even in that particular example. So you mentioned that earlier on, you had to evangelize what is content marketing? Now, many of us know that phrase, but maybe we don't quite agree on what it is or what it isn't. How would you define content marketing to someone who is maybe just learning about it for the first time?
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Hmm. So I, to be content marketing, I usually use it synonymously with brand journalism. And in that case, what we're doing here is using content and storytelling to solve business problems. And this is a really important distinction for me, um, especially on the strategy side as I define content strategy. We don't make content for, it's not for art's sake. This isn't literature, it's not even journalism where I'm making it to inform an audience about something that's essential to know for the functioning of democracy, right? I am creating this with a business purpose. And that purpose can be, we need more leads, right? I need to get more leads in the door. It can be no one's ever heard of us, or it can be we've built this great product, but people don't understand it. I've got to educate them. Or another business problem might come up is I have a, we have great customers and they're coming in, we're having no trouble getting 'em, but we can't seem to keep them. And I would take content is like a tool in my toolkit to solve those problems. It's not the only thing. I can't solve your customer retention problems entirely with content, but there are things you could do to help. That's what I mean by that.
Josh Linkner:
I love that. And, and, and you work with speakers and thought leaders, uh, among other clients too, but, but to help, help build sort of these thought leadership brands, I think a myth, at least it was my understanding before, I'm, I'm getting better at this, I'm still not very good, but, um, was that, you know, content marketing, social media was primarily only to get leads. You know, like, oh, someone sees me, they call and wanna hire me to speak. What I'm seeing is that it actually touches multiple points along the purchase funnel, for example. Yeah. That, that could happen. Another thing is that a bureau pitches me, they, the client narrows it down to three different speakers, and then before making that decision, they go on each of those three speakers, social channels and read some of their content and see who they vibe with. And, and so that has nothing to do with lead gen, it has to do with a, a conversion rate, a a a batting average. So what, what are some of maybe other misconceptions or ways that, that, that thought leaders can use content marketing, not just at the top of the funnel to get leads, but to sort of, you know, uh, spur activity in their business throughout the entire buying process? Hmm.
Mary Ellen Slayter:
So it's one of the things you mentioned, uh, I think early on here, my Ryan Estes, a mutual friend of ours, he's also a fabulous speaker, great on the stage, and also delivers a great content experience. And I'm gonna use him as an example here, and I hope he forgives me for this. But when you hire Ryan, you don't just hire a guy who gets up and gives a talk on the stage. You are hiring, you are engaging in an entire experience that starts from before you ever talk, because he publishes a lot on the blog. He puts out a newsletter, he gets up on the stage, there's all these videos, there's the follow up, you know, the content is not extra. The content, like what we think of as content, there is a, the talk plus the content, some extra thing. It is a core part of how he is spreading the ideas.
And that's actually what we're in the business of, both as speakers and also, you know, as content marketers, it's like, what idea are we trying to get out in the world? You know? And it's like, that's actually my, that actually is my criteria for clients. I, I work with very small clients like solo shops, you know, thought leaders. I work with some of the largest companies in the world like Aon and Bloomberg. The thing that they all have in common is that their ideas are big. Okay? Like, it's not about how big the team is. It's not about how big the budget is. It's like, do you have big ideas? Do you have interesting contrary, you know, provocative things that you're willing to say. And you can't just say that once and walk away. If you want it to stick the content's, how you make it stick great content in the follow-up is how you get people to come back to you for a follow-up of it. So
Josh Linkner:
It's so spot on. And in fact, I've often said this, that if someone just gets up on stage and, and, and delivers a memorized talk, you're, you're not a thought leader. You're an actor. A thought leader is involved in creating original ideas, and ideally, by definition leading thought, meaning that you're not regurgitating existing platitudes, cliches and, and, and truisms. You're challenging conventional wisdom. You know, most people think this, but the truth is that, so that's what a thought leader does. And, and so to me, you know, one, one way to communicate set ideas is on a stage, but that's not the only way, another way is through, through other channels. So I think that's a good example of what maybe people get wrong about content marketing, but I, you probably know a lot more examples than I do. So my question to you is, what are some other things that thought leaders and speakers kinda get wrong about content marketing, but maybe could, could, could, uh, rethink?
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Hmm. So one is, is thinking about their investment in their tech. So this is an interesting challenge. I think sometimes if you're a solo person, there's only a couple of you around and you're thinking, it's just me and I don't need to have a CRM, I'm just gonna track this in my spreadsheet, or I don't need to like, get help, like with these other pieces, I just wanna do it all myself, right? But like, if you can begin to build like a base, even when you're still small, you know, and you're just doing a few events a year and you start to get data, like data is the real currency in this economy. And the people that I'm seeing really win right now, especially around gen ai, the more data you have, the more power you have. Even if you didn't know what to do with that data before, okay, , like, you might not have come cases.
I'm talking to people who are like, well, we've got all these call recordings and I didn't know what we do with 'em before. And I'm like, hand them over . Like, I can do something with them now. Um, but invest in yourself in that way. Like, invest in a good website, right? That's branded to you. Invest in an email. You might think, I don't have enough to say, you know, to put out an email every week. I'm like, fine, do it every two weeks. And if you tell me you don't have enough to say once a month, I, I'm gonna seriously question what you're trying to do here. Like, I don't think you can actually be a speaker because you're gonna stay stale. Um, find your channel, find your one or two channels that you feel like you really get a groove on, and start putting content out and use it to test your ideas. Use the data and to do that, you know, get yourself a real grownup, CRM, get yourself a real website, you know, and start pushing stuff out and use that feedback cycle. It's not a just push things out and whatever. It's like, it's an actual mechanism for you to find out what your good ideas are. Like what's resonating, you know, it shouldn't be the first time you ever dropped something. Shouldn't be on the stage. Start with a LinkedIn post, man, , you know,
Josh Linkner:
It's such an important point. I just wanna reemphasize that. I, I'm sure no one missed it, but the sake of being, for the risk of being redundant. We think sometimes some of us think of social media, I'm like an ad, like, I'm just gonna place my ad and people call me and hire me for whatever. But your notion of using content as a testing platform to test what ideas are resonating and which ones are not, to use that as a feedback loop of almost instantaneous feedback from the people that matter most to you is just brilliant. And I think that, you know, many, many of us thought leaders don't, don't look at that way. So I appreciate you sharing that.
Mary Ellen Slayter:
I'm gonna be annoying as a journalist and ask you, how do you test out your ideas? You know, I, 'cause I've been, I've been on, I've been around sometimes and I've seen you come up in testing, say out on stage sometimes. But tell me, what do, what do you do? Do you, like, what do you, how do you, how do you run about, do you run it by like a trusted group of advisors, check in with clients, do you write stuff about it and see how it lands? What's your process look like?
Josh Linkner:
Well, my process, and by the way, may or not be right, it's just, you know, is is my own process. But, um, you know, I, I've often tested material on stage. I'm a jazz musician at, by at, at my core. And so I don't mind, you know, improvising. I don't need everything perfect. I can kind of wing it. And, um, so if I have an idea, I often will, will kind of tease the idea out a little bit. I'll, I'll, I'll run it through out loud a couple times to make sure it's not totally clunky and goofy. And then I'll test it. I usually, I'll test it in a low stakes environment. So if I'm doing a keynote to 10,000 senior people and, you know, a giant arena, I'm not gonna do it there for the first time. I'll test it out in a smaller event where the stakes are a little bit lower and just like you're talking about gauging audience feedback.
Do people, uh, talk about it after the, the, the talk watching everyone's faces? Do they light up or do they, do they look away? You know, you can sense the energy shift in the room. And so I try to be perceptive and I, and then I'll sort of say, okay, how could I improve it? Or if I, I've been getting sort of a negative feedback back loop, maybe say, okay, I'll discard it, move on and try something new. So I always like trying new things, just keep, keeps me fresh and keeps, keeps the content fresh. But now I'm starting to think about it more, like you're describing is using other, um, media to test ideas. Social media is a perfect example. You know, let's test it out on LinkedIn and, and see how the feedback is. You could even ask explicitly like, Hey, I'm thinking about these three ideas. Which one resonates with you the most? And let your audience give you that direct line of feedback. It's good for them, they feel engaged. And of course it's good for us 'cause we're getting real time insight. Mm-hmm. ,
Mary Ellen Slayter:
I call it working in public. My friend Lar Schmidt says, I'm just gonna do this work in public . Like, like, and I think you get good stuff and being, being able to work up to that. So I think Joshua one, you're especially brave in that regard. I think we've talked about that's the jazz musician in you. You're willing to get up and do that. And for people who, for my advice is for people who aren't that brave already, this is one way to work your way up to that bravery. And I'm not saying it's instead of me, us telling them, Hey, I realize you memorize every speech and you don't like that kind of wild card stuff and you're not gonna do that at school, don't do that. But I bet why don't we just have you write a, write a LinkedIn post, like, and just little ways to kind of push, push yourself to test some stuff.
Josh Linkner:
So good working in public, I love that.
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Josh Linkner:
So I wanna shift gears a little bit. Obviously you do a lot of work for thought leaders. You're this, you know, run content marketing firm, but as part of that work for your clients, especially some of the larger ones, you're also intimately involved in this speaker booking process. You help those clients, for example, if they're producing an event, identify relevant speakers, make the introductions, kind of check on fee and availability and all that stuff. So you're not, I know it's not your full-time job, but you do, and, and it certainly I've worked with you and, and others have too, you know, play a pretty active role in procuring speakers. So kind of shifting gears to that, um, maybe walk us through how you identify, select and recommend talent. You know, one of your bigger clients says, we're doing this event, what, what happens next? Because I, I think that's a, a big, uh, black hole in the minds of many speakers and thought leaders. They have no idea how someone like you, like where do you even start and how do they, how do is it eventually get to a person who's on a stage?
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Yeah. So this is a really interesting thing and I'm gonna tie it to something for you here that I think you might not have, uh, thought about. 'cause this is something that changed for me during the pandemic. Before the pandemic as a content agency leader, I definitely didn't think of myself as in the events business and the pandemic when everything went virtual. I'm absolutely content. Virtual events are all about the content, right? I would've told you before, I don't do events because I'm not interested in catering contracts. Okay? That's what it's about. Like there's all these little things here that I want no part of in my life. Like, it's hard enough for me to remember to bring the cookies to my kids' elementary school. I'm not negotiating this food, you know, contract. So, but a virtual events live and die by the strength of their content and the ideas that we're selling.
So I got really interested in that, in figuring out how to create, again, a content experience. I consider webinars and virtual events. And then now ultimately now that we're back on in real life again, to be part of like this kind of ecosystem of how we share an idea of, I'm sharing it in a blog post. You're sharing it from the stage. I need the things that are happening on that stage, whether it's virtual or real life, to back up what I'm pushing out all year round. So that's how, as a content experience person, I get very, I'm very interested in who gets on stage. So that kind of shapes the lens that I use. So my process is that by the, I spend a lot of time reading things. I look for people I don't go say I need a speaker on. That's pretty rare actually.
It's more like I go looking for who is saying interesting things about a topic. So I'm looking for an expert. Uh, I'll tell you actually, we recently hired you at an event, and the reason I got to you almost like immediately was because I knew we wanted to write about innovation and I knew we wanted to write about making innovation safe for people who are otherwise really risk averse. And I had seen you talk and I had read, I knew that's what you write about. That's one of your big ideas. And so at that point, I go and I'm research, I was like, yeah, no, I think this is good. And I felt good about presenting that to my client that I think, Hey, this guy, he's good. Thinks that you did right. It was easy for me to sell you because the website was good, right?
The speaker section had like your keynotes, the draft keynotes. I knew what the titles would be. It was just very easy. It made, you made it like a 20 minute effort on my part to package this up and be like, I got the guy for you. And it was an easy yes. So by the time we talked to you, by the time I reached out and we had booked that call, it was your to lose. Okay? You could have done something weird and you could have lost it, like . But, but at that point we had already done all the work. Um, there were other people that we interviewed that I did not know beforehand. Um, and similarly though, I was looking for people who were good on those topics. Um, Cassandra Worthy is another good example. The one, the other folks we hired, I knew she HR people love her.
She talks about change again, by the time she got on the call, it was hers to lose. Um, some bad experiences that I have had. And I think this is, if I give you one bit of advice is be very careful about who you choose to represent you in those kinds of conversations. Because I had somewhere I reached out and I scheduled something and when we scheduled a meeting and I brought my client and I was anticipating meeting with the person that again, it was their sal lose and they lost it because they didn't go and they sent somebody else there that was essentially designed to vet us. And my email is pretty detailed, right? I sent a pretty detailed email that says, here's where we are, here's why I'm reaching out. This is our timeline. And if I tell you that, like, and you come back and I, you can see that I, I buy with intent.
I'm not a tire kicker. And I send the email of someone who is shopping with intent. And, uh, you send me your person, like your business manager, your admin, your virtual assistant, uh, like no, I mean, they gotta be amazing. So be very careful when you do have to have someone like that to vet. 'cause I know y'all get busy and there's a level to which you do need to have some of that, but make sure they actually like rep well for you. Because if, first of all, I mean, I can say one, Josh, your your office is great. And then like I think about Lynn Mand to me is the gold standard Ryan's person. Um, getting Lynn on the phone is as good or better than getting Ryan. And you can tell him I said that right? , like, it's, you're like, man, can she speak at my event? But, um, it's, it's really important that they bring the right kind of energy to that engagement. Like if you're thinking, I need to get this and I'm gonna send this to somebody for $5 an hour and they're just gonna show up and take notes like you are, I'm not, it's not gonna work. It's like, I don't know, I, I think that's just a big mistake I'm seeing. I was surprised to see high, certain high level speakers make It's disappointing.
Josh Linkner:
It's funny, yeah, a mentor of mine once I, I'm gonna paraphrase, but he basically said, you know, it's always sad when you, when you get the big stuff right and then blow it on the little stuff. And so that person had to do all this content and get your attention and you know, their in consideration and their body of work and which took years and years of experience. And then, and then that last call, which if it was that person would've represented him or herself in a positive manner and said, you blew it on the little stuff. You swapped in somebody who's a, who's a virtual assistant and, and didn't know the material or didn't have the enthusiasm and, and blew it on the small stuff. So that's great advice. On, on the advice side, you ever see those, those books like eat this, not that, you know, for, for nutrition. So instead of eat, just think about do this not that. What what should we speakers think about when we're trying to get the attention of, of someone who's hiring us to, to convert that attention into an op, you know, a paid opportunity, do this, not that. What advice would you provide in that context? Oh
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Gosh, I think I could be narrow it down. Um, do this, not that. Um hmm. Do be consistent and I mean consistent across channels and I mean consistent across everywhere you show up, don't cut corners
On things that you don't think matter. Right? Here's another way to think about too. It's like, do think about the buyer's perspective would be another one. Don't worry as much about yours. Um, I think a lot of people's processes are designed to make their lives easier, which is how you get a cheap VA that vets your calls, right? But that doesn't make my life easier as the buyer. Um, so yeah, I would say probably my first one would be do this. Not that would be do think about the buyer, don't think about yourself so much. I mean, build build repeatable systems, but make sure they're repeatable systems that work for your clients and they're not just shoving work off on them. 'cause that's a weird, that's a weird thought from a content perspective. It's like, do this again. It's actually back to that to dish about empathy. It's like, do write for your client, do produce content for your client, don't produce stuff for yourself.
Yeah,
Josh Linkner:
That's really good.
Mary Ellen Slayter:
You can write a diary. That's your first, you can have a diary if you want. Like . That's not content marketing,
Josh Linkner:
Right? That's not content marketing. Exactly. Right. It's funny you say that, you know, I've seen, um, two, two different types of examples. One person does it right and one does it wrong. Some people gain some success and then they start to point out cut corners. They, they make it about themselves. They make it more difficult to do business with them. You know, imagine the great restaurant then when they open, they're, they care about every detail and there's the oversized portions and the, the staff is amazing. And then, you know, over time they get a little cocky, they've been sold out a lot. Uh, maybe we can make the portions a little smaller and no one will notice that the service isn't quite as good. Oh, you know, I don't need to change the menu as much as I used to. But essentially the, the edge that got them in that to, to the leadership position in the first place, they essentially forfeit.
And then those, those tend, whether it's a speaker or a restaurant, like they can, they tend to dissipate the other type of person or business is they, they recognize that point of success. And then they say, we're gonna double down on the things that make successful Mm-hmm, , we're gonna be even more fluid, more flexible, more user, a customer centric, more creative. And those are the ones that become legends. Mm-Hmm, . And so when you think about legendary content marketers, legendary speakers, legendary thought leaders, what are some of the characteristics that come to mind? Hmm.
Mary Ellen Slayter:
So the first one I would say is they never, ever, ever stop experimenting, which I think is a topic near and dear to both mind and your heart. They do not assume that whatever they've been doing will keep being enough. They are very, very curious people. As also I'd say part of it, one, a willingness to experiment is probably one. And the second one is curiosity. I mean, again, as a journalist, not surprisingly, I ask why a lot. And whatever you tell me is like, okay, we have to do this. And I'm like, okay, why? Okay, why? You know, that most annoying stage that most kids grow out of, I grew into it. Like it became my like , like it became my whole personality. Um, that's a job. And you should tell those kids that when they grow up, that's what they can be.
Um, but keep asking why and question those assumptions. Um, I think there's another thing that you and I are both a fan of. Uh, you call it the judo flip and I call it pulling a stunt, which is if everybody else is doing this one thing, you should just go do something else. Do the opposite. Like what is the opposite of that? And that will often yield some really interesting results. And I more than one time in my life like that, that is like one of the most important exercises I like to perform mentally because it'll, even if I don't ultimately do the opposite thing, it at least flips my thinking to what is possible. And, um, you know, 'cause one of my other rules inside rep cap is like, look for ways to get things done, not for reasons not to do them. And I think successful people in all of those spaces look for ways to get things done and, 'cause there's almost always a way to get things done.
Um, I don't, I'm, I'm a big fan of Dr. Who, right? So that would be the British version, but Gyr would be the other version. But there's this moment and there's, I'm trying to remember the Jody Whitaker, one of the opening scenes with that, um, as the doctor and she's hanging on this thing and they said, are you ready? And you're like, I'm always almost ready. You know, almost ready is like my constant state, you know, , like, so be almost ready. So just, and I think that also helps a lot. Um, you can also see how your, your thinking has shaped mine over the years. This is kind of funny saying this out loud. Um, being almost ready is, is one of the rules. And then I think the other piece, you know, it's probably, yeah, it's like being willing to, to reinvent things and being open to just 'cause you've been doing it just 'cause you're the expert. Just 'cause it's like, you know how to do something doesn't mean you're right. You know, it doesn't mean you're right. Um, one of the things that my wife Jane and I like to ask ourselves a lot these days is like, so what were you wrong about today? And sometimes that yields some pretty interesting discussion points. It's like, oh, I was totally wrong about this, or I was totally wrong about that. No, I was wronger, you know, . So what are you wrong about? If you can ask yourself that. So
Josh Linkner:
Good. And your point about being right, like being right, it implies that it's a permanent state, you know, like the right way to get to work used to be taking a horse, and now there's a different way to get to work. But like, you know, so we often, when we get to a point of right where we had some success, we, we, we then protect it as if it will never change. And of course the world is changing at a rate like none other history. So you might be quote unquote right for a while, but just let's recognize that's, that's more often than not a temporary condition. And I love that you're competing for wrongness, which is fun. Of course it's playful, but also it's cool because when you're wrong, then that's a chance to learn something new. That's a lot, that's a chance to get it right next time.
And so instead of like being ashamed or judging ourselves or being humiliated when we, when we aren't, right, that's a learning moment. And that's, that's a beautiful thing. Um, so good. Mary Ellen, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. I just wanted to kind of end, end our conversation with, with one last thought from you. You know, you, you do great work for, for thought leaders and speakers, helping them build their brands, you know, build their message and ultimately, you know, it it monetize that through through getting speeches and, and other activities. What sort of general advice do you have for, for, for those of us in the thought leader industry, especially in the context of all the, all the changes today? Maybe we were right in the past and, and now we're a little bit wronger. What, what, what should we do differently? Just any general, you know, nuggets of wisdom that you can share that would help, uh, the listeners of mic drop?
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Hmm. So I have one that is a general philosophical thing, and then I have one that's more of a technical tip because I want people to think about, I wanna think about how they work. So first is about challenging your ideas. So get yourself some friends that will argue with you, okay? Because my definition of thought leadership requires one, it's step one, have thoughts, right? And then step two is be willing to lead, which means being willing to put them out in public. You cannot be a thought leader and keep it to yourself doesn't work that way. Um, but to be able to put it out there and you need to put it out there with people who are going to argue with you, the quality of your ideas will be essentially the average of the people that you argue about them with. So get yourself some smart contrary friends, like, um, thought leadership is something that you've got a position that other, other smart people in your line of work could argue with.
If you can't argue with it, it's not thought leadership. The second one is actually is about tech and it's about gen ai. And I want you to start thinking about, especially as a solo thinker, you know, as a solo entrepreneur, solo thought leader, how you can use this technology to work for you and not against you. And a lot of times people think that, okay, gen AI means sitting down and asking chat GPT to write my blog post. Please don't do that. That is not thought leadership. However, you can use gen AI to start to get more value out of your other ip. The most baby steps way is, if you've written a book, use gen AI to create your social post, right? Like, have it give you, give it a chapter of a book and say, give me 10 Instagram posts based on this chapter.
Pick out the five that are good and run 'em. And now I don't wanna hear anymore about how you don't have time to post on social, right? Because you've got good stuff. It's in your voice, it's in your brand. Things get really interesting if you record your calls, if you record your keynotes, if you record your, um, you know your pitches, you record those arguments that you have with your smart friends, take those and analyze those and ask them, what, what 10 blog posts can you get out of this? What did so and so say? What did I say about this? Like, start to do that. That's something we always did, but it was very manual and kind of tar, but like, that's how you get the ideas out and turn it into something useful. That's the good stuff. So start playing with that. That's my technical advice.
Josh Linkner:
I love it. Well, our conversation ranged from strategic to technical, from, from, uh, being provocative to to trying new things. And, uh, no one better to lead the conversation than you appreciate your thought leadership, your insight into our, uh, the emerging world of content marketing, and of course how thought leaders can continue to monetize their expertise on stage and other places. So Mary Ellen, thank you again for joining me on Mic Drop.
Mary Ellen Slayter:
Thanks for having me.
Josh Linkner:
Reflecting on our conversation with Mary Ellen, it's clear that the realm of content marketing is ever evolving, demanding, adaptability, creativity, and a deep understanding of one's audience. Mary Ellen's path from journalism to leading a successful content marketing agency exemplifies the power of storytelling in business and the need for thought leaders to embrace change. Her advice to stay consistent, prioritize the buyer's experience and leverage technology like generative AI for content creation. It's a call to action for all thought leaders and speakers. Her emphasis on challenging ideas, working in public and using content as a tool to test and refine those ideas underscores the dynamic nature of thought leadership in today's digital age. Thanks for tuning into another episode of Mic Drop, Mary Ellen's expertise and insights. Not only shed light onto the importance of content marketing, but also inspired us to think differently about how we share our ideas with the world. May her advice guide you to becoming a more effective thought leader and speaker as we all navigate the evolving landscape of content marketing together. Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.
If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit mic drop podcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening, and here's to your next mic drop moment.