What if the difference between being a ‘best-kept secret’ and becoming a go-to authority in your industry came down to just three things?
In this episode of Yes, And with Avish Parashar, I sit down with David Newman, marketing expert, speaker, and author of Do It! Marketing, Do It! Speaking, and Do It! Selling. David is the founder of Do It! Marketing, where he helps executives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders build their market eminence—leveraging speaking, publishing, and podcasting to elevate their authority, attract more clients, and grow their influence.
We dive deep into why most professionals struggle with visibility, how to shift from ‘how-to’ content to ‘how-to-think’ content, and why polarization in your messaging is actually a good thing. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing great work but not getting the recognition or leads you deserve, this episode is a must-listen!
Key Takeaways:
What market eminence is and why it’s critical for building authority in your industry.
The Obscurity Gap: The four levels from being a ‘best-kept secret’ to a ‘market maverick’.
Why thought leadership isn’t about information—it’s about shaping how people think.
How to leverage speaking, publishing, and podcasting to become a micro-celebrity.
Why most books, speeches, and podcasts fail to generate business—and how to fix it.
How to handle negative feedback, polarizing opinions, and internet trolls (hint: GIFs are involved).
The one small mindset shift that can change the trajectory of your business and career.
Relevant Links:
David’s Website & Free Resources: DoItMarketing.com
Free Training on Market Eminence: DoItMarketing.com/webinar
The Do It! Marketing Manifesto (Free PDF): DoItMarketing.com/manifesto
David’s Podcast: The Selling Show: Listen Here
David’s Books:
Unedited Transcript
Avish Parashar
Hello, David Newman, and welcome to the podcast. How are you, my friend?
David Newman
Thank you, Avish. It's great to be here. I am excited, dare I say, tingly. I am tingly to be here.
Avish Parashar
Well, I don't wanna know too much about that, but I'm glad that being on the podcast makes you tingly. So, thanks for being here. We I have a ton of stuff I wanna talk to you about and ask you about. But to kick it off, for people who are listening, you know, that that tiny percentage of people listening who are not familiar with the brilliance of David Newman, could you just give us the sort of one minute overview of of who you are, what you do?
David Newman
Yes. And first of all, Avish, I gotta tell you, I am shocked that most people don't know. But for that small majority no. No. I'm kidding. No one knows who I am. I'm a very minor league celebrity in a gigantic pod. So my name is David Newman.
I run a firm called Do It Marketing, and we work with CEOs, founders, and executives to build their market eminence. And we can talk more about what that is through the combined power of speaking, publishing, and podcasting. The goal of that is to make you a micro celebrity and a micro authority in front of people who matter the most. So if you want more success with prospects, all kinds of stakeholders, investors, partners, the media, top talent, raise your market cap, and just be a bigger fish in the pond that you're in. Those three strategies over the last twenty years I have found are the three big needle movers, the speaking, the publishing, and the podcasting.
Avish Parashar
Well, I wanna dig into those three a bit. If for no other reason that, I can use this podcast as a way of getting free consulting for myself. Totally. Of course. That's why we do the podcast is to get the advice I need. Before I get to the the the nuts and bolts a little bit of those three things, who is this for? Who's kind of who is gonna most benefit from from developing marketing imminence?
David Newman
Sure. So I spent, a good number of years working with professional speakers, professional consultants, professional business coaches, corporate trainers, people like that, and taking everything from that playbook of how to build authority, how to build a celebrity, niche celebrity, how to raise the profile of your personal brand. We now work with mid market CEOs, so think about Inc 5,000 companies. They're probably already doing some of this some of the time somewhat okay. So they might be writing articles or their team is doing social post thing, and I consider that publishing. They may even have in the back of their mind the idea that someday they'd like to publish a book, and that's fine. We work with folks to help them there too.
They may be speaking at industry events, on panels. I also consider, you know, obviously, virtual speaking. So Zoom calls, webinars. You might be doing this on behalf of your company, product demos, putting kind of a webinar marketing strategy out there as a education based marketing for your company or for your firm. And then, of course, they may, you know, they may be doing some of this some of the time somewhat well, but it's not getting results. So when they get up in front of an audience, an audience of prospects, perhaps, maybe no one comes up after them and says, oh my gosh. We have to talk.
Tell me more about what your company does. We gotta bring you in. We need to get a demo. We need to buy your technology. Maybe when they're on a podcast. They're on a podcast like this, and they get crickets. Even if they socialize the podcast, they're sharing the podcast.
They they tell all their partners. They tell all their employees. Hey. The boss was just on a podcast. What they say and how they say it on that podcast, it's just not that different. It's not that exciting. It's not that compelling.
It doesn't drive people to think differently or act differently about the topic at hand. And then finally, publishing, and you and I know this being in the expert community for twenty plus years, people that write books, 95% of those books are crap. 95%, especially now in the age of AI.
Oh my gosh. Well, AI can write my book in seven minutes.
Like, well, sure. But I got two questions for you. Number one, is that book gonna be great? Number two, is that book going to be you? The answer is no. That book is not going to be great. And no. That book is not gonna be you because it doesn't contain your personality, your point of view, your attitude, your war stories, your battle scars, your personal biases, experiences, recommendations, your manifesto, if you will, of the way that you see the world and the way that you would like others to see the world to benefit them as a reader of that book. So it's gonna be a generic plain vanilla, same old, lame old kind of book.
So those are kind of the mistakes that people make with speaking and publishing and podcasting where they say, well, that hasn't moved the needle in my business. That hasn't helped bring me any more prospects, leads, clients, or sales. It's because you're not doing those things the right way, And you're also not connecting those three areas where the speaking drives the publishing and the podcasting. The podcasting drives the speaking and the publishing, the publishing you know? And so all three legs of that triangle need to be integrated into a self reinforcing system.
Avish Parashar
Okay. So the problem here is that you just dropped, like, seven things I wanna follow-up on. So you have too many little information down.
David Newman
People. Take notes if you're listening here.
Avish Parashar
And, hey, it's a podcast. You can always rewind and listen to
David Newman
it yet.
Avish Parashar
That's true. I know you did say a lot of, things a lot of bells.
And, it's funny. I'm not a mid market CEO, but I'm just ticking off in my head. How many of those things I can relate to in terms of, like, oh, yeah. I've been on podcast. Nothing. Yeah. I mean, word-of-mouth and people seeing me speak is the number one way I get business, but I've never quite tied it together with the, like, flood of leads. You know?
It's like, I got a lot of interest in in publishing. Like, I got I got two books. I got good comments on it, but has that led to inbound leads? Like, not really. So, I'm like, all those bells are going off. Yeah. Before, again, before I I tap your brain for free consulting, you said mid market CEOs.
It's a great tight niche. Obviously, they can benefit a lot. And those are people who are are gonna be potentially invited to speak and wanna start maybe shifting and building a thought leadership type platform. A lot I got a wide range of people who who follow me. I never really had a tight niche. So there's probably people in this who are solopreneurs. There's people who are, like, managers, kind of your your, for lack of better terms, employees.
Like, not Sure. Fee level, but just, you know, doing good work out there. Is marketing imminent something that can help those people or any people, or is it really no. You gotta be, like, kind of a CEO level to really be taking advantage of it.
David Newman
Great, great question. So the answer is any executive any executive who wants to move up. Right? They either wanna move up in the organization that they're in or they want career portability, where they wanna move. They wanna change companies or even change industries possibly, but they wanna take their personal brand with them. So when we talk about building this personal brand that drives the company brand, that is a 100% portable asset. So let's say you're a brand manager at Kraft Heinz and, you know, the you're you've been there for a number of years, and you got passed over for a promotion.
You're like, well, wait a second. I speak at these food industry events. I'm always talking on these podcasts. I'm always, you know, asked to write articles and contribute to the professional journals and the journals and the trade publications in my industry. This company is not treating me right. I'm just using Kraft Heinz as an example. Lawyers, attorneys, please leave me alone.
It's just an example. I love ketchup. I love Heinz fifty seven. I love barbecue sauce. It's not about you. It's about me. So that person wants to move.
That person wants to move, hopefully, maybe to a more senior role or higher salary, higher status, higher prestige. They're gonna look at their resume. Yes. They're gonna look at their qualifications and skills. Yes. But resume qualifications and skills, that is table stakes.
Avish Parashar
Yep.
David Newman
That's the cost of entry. Today, when you're looking at the kind of democratized and popularized media landscape where everyone can have a YouTube channel, everyone can have a LinkedIn profile, everyone can have some presence as a podcast guest. They're gonna look at what else does this person bring to the table. What other brand equity? What other, like you said, thought leadership? What other, assets, tangible and intangible, will this person bring to the company, bring to the department, and bring to their specific role that other candidates can't, won't, or are simply not qualified to do? So this is really the difference maker.
In fact, it's funny. I just had another conversation with another friend of mine, and they said, David, this is this is level 11. I said, level 11? Like, is that a spinal tap reference? Turns out it was not a spinal tap reference. He says, no. No. When you look at the Google HR document, what it takes to rise to the level of, level 11 is, like, the highest executive level at Google.
There's a specific entry in that HR document that talks about your personal brand. As a Google executive those that have it are qualified and considered to be promoted to a level 11 position. Those who do not have it will never make the cut. You will never be in that top echelon of executives at Google unless you have a personal brand defined as who knows you, what's your digital footprint, are you invited to speak
Avish Parashar
Basically, defined as marketing authority. It's like marketing defined as marketing evidence.
David Newman
It's market evidence. That's right. Are you standing head and shoulders above your peers who have similar qualifications, experience, and skills? What what's the secret sauce that you bring to the table? Yeah. And I see you guys. That work for Google, it is your personal brand.
It's required to get to level 11 in the corporate structure.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And I see kinda two sort of benefits to this even if you're not, like, a a CEO. Obviously, if a CEO can really help you boost your business and and all that. But even if you're not, number one to the resume thing, it also kinda is push versus pull. Right? Like, active out resumes is like, let me send my resume to all these places internally or externally. But when you develop this, like, marketing eminence, then people start finding you because you're speaking or you're on a podcast and or you present at a conference, or you publish.
They're like, oh, let's learn more about David. He's published this really interesting stuff. Yes. So it creates more of in addition to working together, because they see your resume, then they find it, but they could potentially find it without. And it's also, like, personal brand is interesting in this world now, like you said, where everyone can have a YouTube channel, an influencer, but it's like planning for the future. You may be like, oh, well, I I'm just a middle manager at such and such a place. But if you start doing this now because because it takes time.
I'm assuming it takes this is not like a a three month, let me do this, then boom boom, I'm promoted. And you could you could tell me I'm wrong. But you start laying this groundwork now, then in two or three or four years, when you start to feel stagnant to, like, I'm not getting the opportunities here. If you've already put this into place, now suddenly you're in a much better position than if you just were like, I don't need that. Basically, digging your well before you're thirsty to quote, you know, Harvey Mckay.
David Newman
Absolutely right. So it is, this is career insurance. This is even CEOs, your CEOs are not the CEO of their company forever. So they're looking at what's my next move. Am I gonna become the CEO of a bigger company? Am I gonna be acquired? Am I gonna have an exit event where someone's gonna come in and give me tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for the company that I've built?
That decision also is based on market eminence and what is that CEO's personal brand that the company is acquiring or investing in. So, yes, it's absolute this is a long term play. It is 100% career portability for the rest of your professional life, not just the role that you're in as an executive, as a CEO, as a mid level manager. This you are building an asset that will pay dividends years and decades into the future if if you keep working on it.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And as someone who, finds this very frustrating, as someone who sort of was raised on the idea of the meritocracy, The more we progress in the social media connected world, I feel like it is I mean, you've been in the situation I have, I'm sure, where you go to a conference and the person who got the gig you wanted is not nearly as good as you are.
Not throwing any shade at anyone specific. But it's just they had a bigger platform or they had a better connection. You know, I'm I'm kinda getting in the fiction world. Right? I mentioned you have finished a draft, and I'm hoping to publish in the next year or two. And so much of it now, so getting a publishing deal isn't like I mean, yes, the quality of your man you've got an amazing manuscript, but but a lot of it is like, oh, here's my book. By the way, I got a hundred thousand TikTok followers.
Publishers are like, oh, yeah. I don't care if your book is trash. You've got a hundred thousand people. And it's so I mean, it's a little bit different when I talk about being an influencer, but it's similar in that people equate eminence following publishing with credibility whether it actually relates or not. Yes. Yes. Yes. Actually good and have that marketing eminence, then suddenly you're really firing on all cylinders.
David Newman
Well, the big trend you put your finger on something that is, a topic near and dear to my heart, which is the sad fate of the invisible expert. Mhmm. So people are doing great work in isolation. Sometimes people come to me. They say, you know, David, the problem is we do amazing work. Our clients love us. We have testimonials and references out the wazoo.
To the market at large, we are a best kept secret. And I'm tired of being a best kept secret.
And then who's winning those gigs? Who's winning those stages that you're talking about?
It's the loud and mediocre. It's the loud and mediocre. So if they're broadcasting 10 times louder than you, doesn't matter how good you are. They're gonna get noticed, and you're gonna be overlooked. And so the is there a meritocracy? Well, you know, you and I were raised by parents who believed there was a meritocracy. They were wrong.
Sorry, mom and dad.
Avish Parashar
Been right back then. But the Yeah.
David Newman
That's true. Right. In the sixties and seventies, sure. Maybe there was a meritocracy. Now it's who's gonna tell the best story in the marketplace? Mhmm. Who is gonna be more persistent and consistent?
Who is gonna keep showing up? And what you mentioned about, oh my gosh. Anyway, so I see this person everywhere, You want that level of omnipresence where you are the first person that they think of because they've heard you on a podcast. They've read your articles. They've bought a copy of your book. They consistently see you on stages and webinars and podcasts, and you become a micro authority or a micro celebrity. So think about those two terms. Right? An authority is somebody that we recognize and respect.
A celebrity is someone who has some level of fame or reputation that they're recognized on the street. They're recognized in the grocery store. All you have to do is put the word business in front of both of those words, and that's the impact that we're after. For you to become a business authority or a business celebrity, that's gonna stand you in good stead for the rest of your professional career.
Avish Parashar
Well, it's funny as we're talking about this, and, you know, I mentioned that not everyone listening is a CEO. But, you know, one of the biggest authorities in business these days is Seth Godin. You know, great writer. I love his stuff. But, you know, thinking about what you're talking about, he he often tells the story about one of his origin stories is when he was, like, a manager at a software company, educational software company. He just, like, started an internal newsletter, and would just send it out every week. Here's what my team is up to.
And through that, he developed this, like, name and this reputation and started rising through the ranks. And, again, it's just exactly what you're talking about. It's just you're not publishing, like, out in the world or, like, just even internal. Like, just getting your name out there in ways with credibility and authority just can go a long way regardless of your situation.
David Newman
Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.
Avish Parashar
Alright. Well, you touched upon this best kept secret thing, which, before we get into some of the nuts and bolts, which we probably run out of time for because there's so many other interesting things to talk about. This is something, I watched some of your material. This is something you talk about as the obscurity gap.
David Newman
Yes.
Avish Parashar
There's, like, four levels to it. So and the best kept secret is the first. So if you don't mind, could you share what the obscurity gap is and kinda what what the goal is of the going through those four steps?
David Newman
Sure. Absolutely. So so and it's all those are also color coded. This pyramid that you're talking about is color coded. So there are people that are in the red zone, the yellow zone, the light green, and then the very top of the pyramid is dark green. At the base of the pyramid, which is where most people are, most executives, most founders, most mid level managers, most corporate employees, they are a best kept secret. So they're they're doing work in a vacuum.
They're doing work in relative obscurity, maybe not inside the four walls of their company, but certainly out in the marketplace. No one knows how awesome and amazing and innovative and creative and powerful their their ideas or their technology or their products or services are. And it's really hard to get noticed. It's really hard to get traction. It's really hard to get buy in. And so if you're in the corporate world, you mentioned Seth's story about working at Spinnaker Software, I think, was the educational software company. You know, people would start to listen to him.
People he would earn a seat at the proverbial table because he started to elevate and become more of that visible expert. So that's level two. Level two is in the yellow zone where you you do make your expertise visible. Now the problem with that is a lot of visible experts look the same, sound the same, say the same things. Mhmm. So they've commoditized their expertise, the thinking being, if everyone's a thought leader, then, well, really, no one's a thought leader. And so people are assuming that title and taking it, and then they're just posting commoditized information.
So here's how to information is dead. If you're if you're sharing internally, externally, in your speeches, in your podcasts, in your social media posting, if you're sharing how to information, ChatGPT, all the AI tools, can do bigger, better, faster, smarter how to information than you will ever be able to do. You're gonna lose that game a % of the time. In order to move from the yellow zone into the light green zone, where you're really looked at as an authority, you need to change the kind of content that you're speaking, podcasting, and publishing about. No more how to because how to is dead. Stick a fork in it. It is now how to think, what to believe, and how to get ready for what's coming next.
So how to think is about perspective, opinion, your lens on the world, that manifesto type of thinking. Don't just tell people, the how to. Tell them how to think about the problem, how to think about their situation, how to think about solutions. So that is a much higher order kind of content. The second one is what to believe. So you need to be a myth buster. You need to stick, you know, stick it to all those self soothing delusions, partial answers, incomplete information, all of the things that have led people astray.
You know, the easy answers, the quick fixes, all of that nonsense. You need to be the democratizer and the popularizer that is going to battle against the easy answers. And so the third level is how to come how to, come to the table prepared for what's coming next. So what are the trends? What are the positive forces? What are the negative forces? How do we think about seeing around corners?
Where is this leading us? Who stands to win? Who stands to lose if certain things come to pass? Whether that is in your product category, in your service category, market, regulatory, compliance, political changes. You know, we're taking over countries left and right, Avish. We're taking over Greenland and Gaza and Canada, and we we're we're we're gonna soon take over Australia. Absolutely. Australians, but the Americans are coming for you.
How is that level of disruption and change and rapid, rewriting of the rules? How can you share? How do we get ready for what comes next? So those are the people in the light green zone. At the very top of the pyramid is what I call the market mavericks, And the market mavericks borrow from the playbook of the authority and the celebrity. They democratize and popularize this new way of thinking, thinking about thinking, thinking about shifting beliefs, and also how to prepare for what's coming next. And they are continually speaking about it, getting on interviews.
They're maybe either guesting on a podcast or hosting on a podcast. They are publishing books and blogs and articles and social media posts on a consistent basis. They have a Substack newsletter. They have subscribers. They have followers. They have fans. They have built a movement around their intellectual property, and they're the ones that are getting quoted in the media. They're the ones that people are lining up around the block to work for or buy from or invest with or acquire.
And it's those market mavericks that have gone up this four layer enchilada. We all start as the best kept secret, then we go to visible expert. We have to decommoditize that to become the authority. And then from the authority to be the real rock star at the top of the pyramid, the market mavericks, who are truly considered business authorities and business celebrities. And that's the pyramid that you're talking about.
Avish Parashar
That's that's great. It's funny. It's timely for me, because I've been thinking a lot about my content. And going back, I've been writing various articles, blog posts, whatever, for twenty plus years. And I think when I started, it was the how to content is kinda what was drilled in, like, just put out a lot of content on how to do things. And number one, as you said, it's I mean, even before AI, it was already being overblown by the Internet because doing TEDx talks and YouTube, like, any any answer, any question you could find. So the how to content wasn't great anyways, and now AI is blowing it out of the water.
And when I was when I started paying attention to the newsletters that I get, the email newsletters I get that I read, it's funny because it's not the how to content for the most part. Yeah. The how to content, I'll go out and find when I really want it. The stuff that hits my inbox that I read, it is the how to think. And ironically, because one of the hard things about content is what do I write?
What do I publish? It's almost the exact same message every email. Just maybe a slightly different story is wrapped in a slight but it's not like, I gotta come up with how do you say yes and? How do you build a better team? How do you lead more effectively? How do you say it to yourself? How do you deal with change?
How do you deal with software? No. No. It's like it's every message is almost exactly the same, and it's that repetition. But you would think it turns people off, but as a consumer, it's the it's the one I read. The ones I read are the ones that are basically saying the same things over and over again. Now is that something you found in in working with your clients in terms of the messaging, in terms of, not necessarily just throwing the same stuff over and over, but is it just, like, one kind of message you just find different ways of saying over and over again?
Or is it more like, I gotta kinda say a lot of different things, and I'll kinda fit under this one umbrella?
David Newman
I I don't think so I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. In other words, it's not literally one thing over and over and over again, but it's also not every topic under the sun. So, I mean, obviously, this depends on your your goals as well. So if you look at Seth Godin, let's because Seth is a great example of this. Seth, you can't Seth has written millions of words, millions and millions of words, like 50 books and blogs and all kinds of coffee table books, all kinds of crazy nonsense.
You'd be hard pressed to find a single how to article ever Yeah. From Seth Godin. It's not like, oh, here's how to do this. Step one, step two, step three, step four. Right? Five tips on so and so. It is always reframing, rethinking, different lens, different perspective.
Now his topics, because he's primarily a business thinker, marketing thinker. Right? He's not gonna talk about dairy farming unless there's a lesson in dairy farming for businesses.
Avish Parashar
Right.
David Newman
So his his range is very, very wide. What I have found is with CEOs, founders, mid market executives, corporate managers, they want to pretty much stick to the domain area of whatever product, service, business, or industry their company is in. So let's say that you're a, founder of an accounting firm. Right? You are not gonna start talking about, you know, pig farming or other kinds of things. It's always gonna center around what to think, I'm sorry, how how to think, what to believe, and how to how to prepare for what's coming next with something to do with accounting, finance, corporate finance, regulatory, compliance, personal finance, money, saving, investing. So we could probably make a mind map of, like, 25 things that a CPA firm could start to publish content on regularly.
Similarly, if you're a management consulting firm, if you're a widget manufacturer, if you make fire hydrants in Peoria, right, fire prevention, that's your domain, and there's gonna be fifteen, twenty, 20 five different topics. So will it be literally all over the map like Seth Godin? No. Will it be, you know, single topic, single issue, reiterated over and over again? Not literally. But I think what you're what you're saying is because I think the most interesting people to follow are the ones where the tone, the voice, the attitude, and the point of view is consistent. And then they apply that to a narrow spectrum of topics that are of great importance to their readers or of great interest to their readers.
So it's it's you know, is the voice and the tone consistent? Yes. The content is probably gonna be this narrow band of relevant topics.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And I think the key there, at least I could say thing internally, is the shift from how to to how to think. Yes. Because because how to think it's how to think it's that's really more like first principles. Right? It's not like like, with how to's, you can really get into thirty, forty, 50 different tactics. But with how to think, you're talking about one, two, three mindset shifts. Right? Yes. So you may talk about a lot of areas, but they're all gonna sort of feel like they're talking about the same thing because at the end of the day, if you're doing how to think or what's coming, or busting myths, like, it's just gonna be a few central ideas that then get propagated in different ways. Yes. Alright. So we're gonna shift gears.
I know I wanted to get into the free consulting, but, I I wanna kinda dig deeper on this thing and get a little bit meta and to to make it a little selfish. Because as you know, the point of this, right, my my podcast is called yes and with the VeeSharon shirt. It's about saying yes and instead of yes but. And what you just talked about there, your point of view, your authenticity, what you wanna talk about, I wanna get into that because I talk about something in some of my keynotes and my writing and, workshops about saying yes and to yourself. Because I think what happens is we get so wrapped up in what I should do. It's like, here's what I here's what I'm really passionate about or where I think I could go. Yeah. But I don't know if that's gonna work.
And I feel to a degree that one of the first steps in this process is identifying what is it that your expertise in and not just, like, your expertise, obviously, here's my resume, but, like, what do I really wanna talk about? What's my point of view that's different? And to me, that's kind of versus saying yes and to yourself. So is there a part of your process where you help people figure that out, or do they generally come to you kinda fully cooked knowing, alright.
Here's what I wanna do. I just need help doing it.
David Newman
No one when people first that's such a great question. No one has any freaking idea. No one has any idea how what they have to offer is any different, any better, cooler, faster, smarter. We totally have to dig into that. We totally have to excavate that. Now almost always, it's there, but it's you know, we can't recognize it in ourselves. Right? This is why the coaching and consulting and advising business is so important.
You don't need necessarily a brilliant consultant to help you with these things. You simply need someone who's not you. Someone who is not in your head, who is not two inches away from the wall looking at their thought leadership or their ideas or what they have to offer the world. Someone who can look at it from the outside, start to draw this out of you with questions questions and prompts and what's right with the world and what's wrong with the world, and where do most people make easily avoidable mistakes, and what have you seen that just breaks your heart out there in the marketplace, and how have people shot themselves in the foot when it comes to this topic? So this is funny. You know, you can unlock these things. It almost is like a yes and exercise.
So you might remember that, Dale Carnegie, who first came to fame back in the nineteen thirties and forties with a public speaking class, he would get fairly introverted people together and say, hey. Stand up and talk for two minutes. It was like pulling teeth. They did not wanna talk. And then he realized, well, how do I get these people to talk? And one of his first prompts that got people to open up immediately, Tell me about one of your pet peeves. Oh, Avish.
Let me tell you what really bothers me. And they were just off to the races. So he realized that it's the topic that gets people talking. So when we talk about what's right with the world, what's wrong with the world, where have you seen mistakes, what are some easily avoidable errors and disasters, you know, what do you think about this topic, this topic over here, over there, the prompts and the questions that evoke stories and that evoke, emotion. That's where people start to tap into the really good stuff. And so that's where you can also start to differentiate differentiate your ideas, differentiate your positioning, your messaging, not just as a expert, but as the face and the voice of your brand. So, you know, you become known as someone who is contrarian or different or is not afraid to share what's right with the world, what's wrong with the world, the point of view, the attitude, etcetera, etcetera.
And that, in the age of AI, being more human is going to be your competitive advantage.
Avish Parashar
I I love that. I love that idea of starting with kinda what annoys you, the pet peeves. And this contrarian thinking, it it always kinda triggers something in my mind because I talk a a lot about what is your persistent yes, but. Like, what's the idea that keep pops up? And every time it does, your mind's like, yeah, but. And to me, it sounds like almost because I feel like there's some ideas you're gonna come up with, and you're gonna say, yeah, but I don't know if people are gonna agree with that, or, yeah, but that's not what common wisdom says. Like, for example, you know, I've never considered myself a very disciplined person.
I've achieved a lot. People think, oh, I'm very motivated. I'm like, I'm not. I'm really lazy. And I'm always afraid to talk about this because everything that's been beaten into me from the personal success industry is discipline and habits, and here's what you have to do. And if you're not, you're lazy. And a lot of speaker friends, I know, talk about it like this, like, oh, oh, you know, suck it up.
I don't have time to get I don't have, you know oh, I I only write when I get motivated. Luckily, motivation hits me at 9AM every day, or, like, my mortgage is can't be paid with motivation. Like, I get it. I get all that. But there's always something that's operated differently. But every time I think about writing or talking about it, my mind's immediately like, oh, yeah. But if these people see it, they're gonna start attacking you.
And that almost makes me feel like the stronger the yes but is, the more I should be leaning into it to do it, because that may be my biggest point of differentiation.
David Newman
A %. So one of the prompts, when we sit down with our clients during, let's say, a think tank day where we kind of lay all of this out, whiteboard it, flip chart it, mind map it, brainstorm it, One of the prompts that gets almost always some sort of immediate burst of creative output. What do you say that other people cannot say, do not say, or are actually afraid to say? Because, oh, that's not done in our industry. That's no one ever says that. That's, you know, taboo. That's forbidden.
That goes against the playbook of success, motivation, discipline, all that stuff you're talking about. Then then we dig even further, and we say, okay. So let's talk about what's not done. What's not done in your industry? What would be frowned upon? What would piss your competitors off? What would piss your customers off?
What would piss off the trade press? What would irritate people?
They're, oh god. I hate that guy. And so we don't necessarily use all of that verbatim. We never use all of that verbatim. But the idea is polarization is good. Polarization is necessary. So if you don't risk turning some people off, you will never turn anybody on.
And this polarization is incredibly powerful because when, let's say, we dig deep into this with a specific client, They go, oh, but there's a whole bunch of people that would disagree with that, and we're gonna get hate mail and we're gonna get I said, okay. Cool. Are those people that would really hate that idea and violently disagree and send them send them letters and emails and and start, you know, posting on your social media how crazy and wrong you are. Are those people people that you want or need on your side? They go, no. We hate those people. Those people are completely wrong. They look at our product, our service, our industry the complete wrong way.
I said, okay. So you are afraid to turn off people who are never gonna buy, never gonna work here, never gonna invest, never gonna acquire your company, never gonna give you media coverage. It's basically the enemy. You're pissing off the enemy. Mhmm. Yes. And then here's another flip. Right? What's the definition of an enemy?
Someone who believes all of these things differently than we do. So it's not like, oh, well, you know, people are gonna disagree with us, and so that makes them the enemy. The definition of an enemy is people who think completely differently and in your in your world view, think wrongly or at a very surface level around these critical issues that are so important to your best clients. Right? So I said, okay. Would your best client disagree with this? Would your best customer would your biggest investor disagree with this? No. Our biggest investor loves this idea.
That's why they gave us $10,000,000. I said, okay.
So as long as you're not pissing off people who love you and believe in you, what who you're pissing off is people who already don't like you and already believe in a whole different world view than what you contain. So, honestly, what do you have to lose? Nothing. Nothing. So I I piss off people who will never do business with me. You know, am I a polarizing character with my personality, with what I say, how I say it, how I think, how I recommend other people think, what to believe, how to get ready for what's coming next? There's a lot of Avish, this is gonna be a shocker to you.
There's a lot of people who don't like me What? And who would never buy a book, would never sign up for coaching, would never engage with me in any way, shape, or form. Pissing them off brings me such amazing joy, such great satisfaction because I only want to work with people who believe what I believe and who are going in the same direction that I want to take them.
Avish Parashar
And I think that is such a a powerful lesson, but it's a hard one for people to embrace. Like, I'm a people pleaser. When I get that one email, I suddenly start rethinking my entire keynote. Right? A 200, thousand people in the audience. You get one person's like, I didn't see how this like, literally, I did a keynote from a thousand HR professionals. Had a bunch of feedback, you know, the client.
I didn't do feedback form. The client sent me their feedback form. A bunch of people said, this is great.
So relevant to HR. I had, like, one comment. I didn't see how this related to HR and no one at my table did either. And I was devastated. It was, like, eight, nine years ago. I was devastated. I'm, like, I'm not good enough.
Do I need, like it's just like but I had all these other people in the comments talking about how relevant it was to HR professionals. I don't know. Do you have any this is, like, deep psychological issues, but you must encounter this with with clients, like, the they have a much stronger desire to avoid negative feedback than to even grow their business and hit their revenue goals and further their careers.
David Newman
Absolutely right. So I call this the voice of judgment versus the voice of objective intelligence. And I've been literally teaching this for twenty years, twenty years plus. I learned this in 2,003 from one of my early mentors. Think of it, the voice of judgment. We all know what that sounds like. You're not good enough.
You're not smart enough. You're stupid. People don't like you. There's an entire table of these. There's an entire table of SHRM people who now hate your guts. Yes. There's 295 other ones that love you, but these five people, god, they hate you.
They they have your name on a dartboard. They are just throwing darts at your face. That's the voice of judgment. The voice of objective intelligence says, okay. Let's put this in perspective. Number one, you are a seasoned speaker. You have thought about this material for the last twenty years.
You've shared this with clients and audiences who have taken away tremendous value. Your feedback is 98.7% positive. Why in the world are you listening to that 1.3% of whiners, complainers, and unimaginative boobs? That's right. Unimaginative boobs who don't agree with your world view and don't see how it applies to HR. So the voice of judgment is that little red devil on your shoulder, and the voice of objective intelligence is little white angel on your shoulder. Our professional and personal happiness depends on dialing down the volume on the voice of judgment and dialing up the volume on the voice of objective intelligence, the voice of judgment, that little red devil, never gonna go away ever.
Avish Parashar
Mhmm. I don't
David Newman
care how much money you make. I don't care how many promotions you get. I don't care how big your company or your bottom line is. You know, does Jeff Bezos have that little red devil whispering? Yes. Does Bill Gates? Does Oprah? Does yes.
They all do. The difference between them and us, they put that in perspective, and they pay commensurate attention, which is very, very little. They pay commensurate attention to the little red devil, and they pay commensurate attention, which is 95% on the voice of objective intelligence. That keeps them going, thinking bigger, doing bigger, being more ambitious, reaching for higher and higher goals. The voice is saying, you've never done that before. That's not gonna work. That's impossible.
That goes against the current trend. We don't have technology to take people to the moon, blah blah blah blah blah. Okay. Or we do. You know, the best the best iteration of this, Avish, I think is Steve Jobs. And people that worked with Steve Jobs back when he was alive, they called it his reality distortion matrix.
Avish Parashar
Yep.
David Newman
He didn't care what people oh, that's impossible. That's never gonna work. We don't have the tech the technology literally does not exist, Steve. He says, you'll figure it out. Bye. And he closed the door. The deadline did not change.
The goal did not change. The technology requirements did not change, but the technology doesn't exist. Doesn't matter. Here's your iPhone.
Here's your iPad. Here's your smartwatch. Here's your next iteration of the MacBook.
And he didn't care. He literally did not care about the voice of judgment. So he is the mental model as close as I know. I I didn't know him personally, obviously. But his voice of objective intelligence was set at 100. His voice of judgment was set at zero. That's a superhuman capability most of us can't do that.
Avish Parashar
Well, it's so funny because listening to this and thinking back to what we're talking about earlier, I realized personally for me, in addition to kind of the the habits and the conditioning, I think one of the reason I gravitate so much even when I'm trying not to write how to content, I think one of the reasons I write how to content is because of the voice of judgment. Because if I write something about, like, how to think, my mind immediately goes to the objections the reader's gonna have. So I gotta make sure I address them, and then I gotta make sure I get how to so no one has any questions. And then I end up with a 1,500 word article that no one reads that gives too much information instead of, like, a nice concise 300 word how to think one, which is gonna get people going, oh, I wanna learn more about this. And, again, I think really is it all comes together as that voice of judgment that's making me do it, not just like a tactic.
David Newman
Yes. So let's go back to Seth Godin, who's really a great mental model for this. Seth will write a 300 word blog post, the first sentence of which, the conference industry is broken, period. I just came back from a conference. Here's what I experienced. Here's what they forgot about the way humans connect when they gather and should be collaborating. And it's a thought piece. Right? And so the pre the first sentence, imagine all the meeting planners, conference producers, trade and professional association people.
What do you mean the meetings industry is broken? The conference industry is broken.
He just says, listen. Go with me on this journey. Right? I'm gonna propose that the conference industry is broken. I just had this experience. I wish it had taken into account the way that humans connect, humans collaborate, humans communicate. It didn't, and there is room for massive, massive innovation in the way that trade and professional conferences are put together in the future.
Is he gonna give you a recipe? You give you seven steps how to make conferences better? No. He's gonna say, think about what's broken. Think about what could be and should be, and then he'll plant a couple of value bombs, a couple of kind of thought, thought starters. Right? He'll he'll put a couple of handles on these ideas out there that say, what if we stopped having conferences and we started gathering and convening collaborations?
What do you think would be different if we called it a conference versus a collaboration? Now he's great at posing these questions and making us think. He doesn't he doesn't predigest the thinking and spoon feed you the answer.
He's like, well, damn. And then can you imagine all the people going to their boss going, boss, we're six months away from our next company conference. What if it was a company collaboration? Say, well, what does that mean? Let me send you this 300 word Seth Godin article. Now everyone's thinking along the same. What if the world were different?
What if we approach this with fresh eyes and a whole new perspective? What does a company collaboration do that a company conference could never do? And they're off and then people go, he's a genius. And other people go, that article was a total waste of time. It was a fluff piece. It didn't give me any any help in how to make my life or my conferences better. This guy is arrogant, and he obviously did not go to the right conference.
Now, again, is Seth concerned about pissing off that reader? Probably not. He's probably jumping up and down happy about pissing off that reader. Is he excited that he start he started to change the boardroom conversation with that other person who read it and said, hey, boss. We're six months away. What can we do to have a company collaboration instead of a company conference?
Avish Parashar
Yeah. So what's the the payoff Jack is
David Newman
that now people are talking about your ideas, sharing your ideas, and amplifying your ideas, not because it gave them the answers, but because it gave them the right questions.
Avish Parashar
What's interesting about that too, and I don't think he does this intentionally because I think he's gonna be a social media guy, and I don't even think his blog has comments. But when you leave it open ended, then people who disagree will often comment because people on the Internet these days cannot help but comment on something they disagree with. Yes. Now what that does is it fuels engagement, because the algorithm see, oh, people are engaging with this content. They don't care if they're engaging and say, I hate this. This is stupid. You're wrong.
But that spreads, and then more people who benefit from the message find it and comment, and then you got people arguing in the comments. But if you go too granular, again, either no one reads it because it's too long or you've already laid out all the points, so someone reads it and is like, I disagree with this, so I'm gonna move on. But if you leave it more how to think, you encourage by encouraging the disengagement, you actually increase the reach, which is hard to stomach, but incredibly powerful.
David Newman
Yes. And I have a really good hack for the negative comments if you're getting negative comments on LinkedIn, Facebook, social media of any kind. Like you said, the more negative comments, the better. First of all, other people who agree with you will come to your defense, and they will mix it up in the comments. But what I do, I always reply to even the most negative, hateful, ignorant comments, but I don't reply with words.
I reply with a GIF. And it's usually a funny GIF. It's usually something that will disarm the person. It it's it's even sometimes, it's usually in agreement. Like, you know, it's someone going, yep. You're right. Yep. Uh-huh. And they don't know what to do with that because they're expecting a fight.
And it's like verbal judo that it's like, I'm going to use your own energy against you, and I'm gonna put a little funny a funny meme. You might never see it or you might see it and it makes you laugh and it disarms you. But all the other 50 people in this thread are gonna see that I reply with humility and good humor to my haters. And so that drives even more engagement. Right? And I've had I've had comments that people go, oh, yeah. Sorry, man.
I was having a bad day. I didn't mean to be a dick. It's like, okay. Cool. But I never I never engage in an argument. I acknowledge. I either like it or I have a little, you know, whatever, and then I drop a GIF that is funny and that is meant to be disarming or more of a, you know, humility play.
And so this is why, you know, you get fifty, sixty, 70 comments. 35 of those or 40 of those are from me because I'm replying to everybody in the thread.
Avish Parashar
Comment. Yeah. That's I love that.
And I think that's just a great it's it's it's it's you know, again, to tie it to my own content, it's a very yes and response. Right? Their general thing would be like, oh, this person is being yeah. But let me tell you we're wrong. It's like, yep. And here's a funny GIF. Like, I'm just not gonna disagree with you.
I'm not gonna engage with you. I'm just gonna post something funny, disarm. And sometimes it's gonna make people more mad. So what do they do?
They comment back?
David Newman
Yes.
Avish Parashar
This is the algorithm. Right? It's like it's And
David Newman
then you give them a second GIF and a third GIF.
Avish Parashar
And eventually they'll figure out, like, alright. This person is just not gonna respond. I I love that, and I think that's a great sort of thing to to end on. It's probably about 20 more things I wanna talk about. So, you know, we'll do this again at some point, hopefully. I'm gonna finish up with one more quite one final question in a minute. Before that, you know, I talked about I wanna go in the nuts and bolts of the speaking, publishing, podcasting.
We didn't get to that. But I had watched some of your content, and I know you have some of this stuff out there where people can learn more. So that's one of the reasons I was okay not going in super deep here because I know you have resources, I believe, where people can learn and go deeper in this. So why don't you share, number one, if people wanna work with you or just learn more about you? God, we talked about so much good stuff. I didn't even get into the fact you have three books, one on marketing, one on speaking, one on selling, called do it marketing, do it speaking, do it selling, all of which are through the best books I've read on those topics. So people want your books, they wanna learn more about you, or they wanna get a deeper dive into these core elements of marketing eminence.
How are how what are some of the best ways to experience the the David Newman show?
David Newman
Thank you. Thank and thank you for the kind comments on the three books. So we do have some free training. If people wanna kinda dip their toe in, they pop over to doitmarketing.com/webinar, and that is our thirty seven minute, executive briefing on demand. You can watch it anytime twenty four seven on how to build your market eminence and how to start thinking about the publishing, podcasting, and speaking, kind of power triangle, if you will. And then we also have a free PDF, a free download called the do it marketing manifesto. That's at doitmarketing.com/manifesto.
And everything else is on the main website, doitmarketing. com. There's a blog. There's our podcast called The Selling Show. You'll find all kinds of goodies on there, but the the two freebies that might be more relevant to our conversation today are the, free training and the manifesto.
Avish Parashar
Excellent. And I will link to those in the show notes as well, so people can click on the links or just, you know, type in in how is best for you. Fantastic, David. Well, we're gonna wrap up here. I just, I kinda like to end these with the same question for every guest.
It's a very simple question. I do what I do because I have an honest belief that if everyone made the very small, shift of switching their default from yes, but to yes, and, the the world would be a better place. If I were to start with yes, and, I think the world would be a better place. So what, in your experience, is one small thing that you feel if more people or if everyone did, the world would be a better place? Just a small shift that people made.
David Newman
Asking for help. Asking for help and then being willing to accept the help. This is an area where if I could turn back the hands of time in my professional career, both as an employee and as an entrepreneur, I look at all the times. I didn't say no but, but I said no thanks. I said no thanks when people extended genuine help, genuine advice, genuine guidance, genuine feedback. I I always felt that it was a sign of weakness, and I find out now that asking for help and accepting help along the way is actually a sign of strength and smarts. So my yes and is please, please, please, when you're in trouble, when you're stuck, when you're about to make a decision or you have a, question that you need answered, ask smart friends for help and be willing to listen and be open to that help.
Avish Parashar
Wow. That is, fantastic and feels like a message I should probably also take away for myself. Alright, sir. This was fantastic. I took notes. I'm actually gonna relisten to this episode. This was great.
I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much, David.
David Newman
Great to be here, my friend.