Dare to become a category of one - David Newman

0:09Someone who's early in their career or just getting established, you know, is it too soon to establish this market eminence positioning and differentiation and so forth? When I hear that question, I hear it in different words. The words that I hear, Radham, are how much time should I waste trying to be everything to everyone, trying to be universally like, doing crap work for crap fees? David, how much time should I waste doing that before I establish who I really am and what I really want and what's really meaningful to me? And I say, well, how about zero? How about we waste zero time doing that nonsense and you jump right into the deep end of the pool where the money and the happiness and the meaning and the impact really lie.

1:09Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I'm talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that inspired lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:56Today I'm speaking with David Newman, author of Market Eminence, about how he helps experts become category of one. In our conversation, David discusses how his concept of market eminence makes you irreplaceable to the right people, why how-to content is dead, and why we should teach people how to think instead, and how being contrarian means uncovering beliefs you already hold, and finally speaking them publicly. He also opens up about how he learned to stop trying to be a better salesperson and become a better person, which taught him that empathy, kindness and curiosity matter more than deal closing techniques.

2:38It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with David Newman.

2:48Hey David, so great to see you today. How are you doing? Hey Radham, it's great to be here. Thanks. I'm doing wonderfully well now that I see your smiling face. oh likewise we are here to celebrate the release of your new book called market eminence and for the record i've become aware of you years ago i was writing my book of branding and somehow it must have been one of your lead magnets whatever i did i signed up to your newsletter and i remember seeing this email saying you have to listen to this episode that episode and this episode literally that's what it said this episode that episode this episode and i'm clicking on your stuff and listen to your podcast i felt like it was a parallel to my creative world because you are in selling and to people in my industry or my sliver of the industry or to my listeners or to people i talk to selling can be such a dirty word because you know people believe i'm an artist therefore i believe i should have all the audience and all the sales done for me or thanks to my greatness but you are very much in the business of selling and this is why i like what do you do and how you do it.

3:53But if that introduction wasn't enough, tell me, who's David Newman, what do you do and how you do it? Sure. So very quick backstory. I started my business in 2002. I made every mistake in the book because I knew nothing about marketing or sales or any of the things that I'm teaching and preaching today. And for three years, it was kind of a bumpy road. And then I finally figured some things out. I figured out what to do. I figured out who to do it for. And then I just refused to stop. So it was that pigheaded stubbornness, I think, that I can attribute most of my success to. I have written three previous books.

4:31You mentioned rather than the other books. So do it marketing and do it speaking and do it selling those three. And then this latest book, Market Eminence, I consider sort of a greatest hits. So everything that I've always been teaching and preaching and speaking about and helping clients with around positioning, differentiation, standing out, being contrarian, being a voice worth listening to. That is I distilled all of that from my client work and from little slivers of it that showed up in the previous books. And I put it into this fabulous little tiny flowerless chocolate cake, very dense, very short called Market Eminence.

5:16I mean, I can see the cover behind you on the shelf. People who listen to this might not see it, but it stands out. And I love that you said it's the best hits. But before we get deep on this one, I want to get to 2002 and the three years of making mistakes. What business did you start and how did you feel for three years to be making mistakes and still persevering? Well, I will tell you my answer to that story. The real interesting answer is what's my wife's answer to that story of fumbling and bumbling and hitting every brick wall and not making any money for three years. So before this, I had a corporate job.

5:51I had a legitimate corporate job. I was a productive member of society. And that job was in corporate consulting and training. So the thought process, and I think many entrepreneurs, many agency owners, many other experts have this idea. They say, hey, I know the work of my work. Why am I making money for somebody else? I'll just go out and do this on my own. And the answer, my friends, and most of the entrepreneurs listening are already shaking their heads. That's not how it works. When you're an entrepreneur, it's no longer about the work of the work. It's about selling the work. It's about getting the clients to say yes.

6:30It's about getting checks in the door. That's the part that I had no experience in. And that's why it was so challenging. But then I became a fierce student. I mean, I think like you, Radim, when you start to realize that, hey, there's something here that I don't know. There's some missing secret combination that other people have mastered and I need to master it also. That turns on the hyper drive. And then we start becoming students of the game. I read every marketing and sales book. I went to seminars. I went to conferences. I hired a couple of sales mentors. And one of my, I'll give you a quick funny story that kind of leads into this.

7:09One of my early sales mentors, he saw me studying and applying and practicing and having some early level of success about two or three years in. And he says, David, we need to have a chat. He says, you're really focused on being a good salesperson. He says, that's not the key here. the key is to be a better person and more sales will happen. And you could hear the record needle going across the grooves going. And I was like, wait a minute, what does that mean? Be a better person? He says, well, you really have to care about your prospects. You have to have empathy. You have to truly listen. Don't just listen in a sales way.

7:54Listen in a human way. Listen with empathy, listen with kindness, listen with openness, listen without an agenda and figure out what's the reason behind the reason, what's the problem behind the problem, what's the issue behind the issue and figure out if you can truly help them. And if you can offer to help them. And if you can't, then move on because that prospect is not for you. I love your answers because you're right. And I remember coming across as a creative, as a part of a creative project for a company in central London. They had lots of salespeople for their events arm. And I remember being in the room for the first time with a hardcore salesperson.

8:38And I'm like, what planet are you on? Because I can tell you what, they didn't give a shit about anything and anyone. What was important to them was like, have we sold this space enough? Have we made enough margin? Have we made enough money? and I remember sitting there in my what I would call the airy fairy creative phase where I was very much about like look this needs to look good you're gonna pay attention to every single detail you know the splits of colors and all the details the fonts and everything this brand needs to be something and then there was a person who could not care less like he would literally happily put it in the bin and say look we've got front doors and the space to hire and we're gonna do it through sales so when you say I needed to learn to be a better person to actually work with kindness work with empathy, that obviously is the making of a better person is actually you realize what other people might need, because ultimately we are all the same.

9:29We are all human. We are equal in this life, but somehow that element seems to be missing, right? Yes, absolutely. And I think that, you know, it was almost like a divine intervention because usually most sales trainers, most sales programs, they don't include that line about don't worry about being a better salesperson, be a better person, and more sales will happen. I think that was really a sign from the universe that I needed to take my selling behavior, my selling philosophy, my perspective on what a good salesperson and a good entrepreneur is all about. And I think that was the beginnings of kind of developing my own philosophy around what sales is and isn't and what it could be and what it should be.

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11:12I like your accountability when you talked about I was a fair student. I like that because there was a great quote on the show from a French animator called Dané Gosset, and she says her favorite quote is, the teacher will show up when the student is ready. Right? And I think the information, like, we can be trudging the water, we can be sort of getting lost, taking the wrong turns, but when we actually want to find the answer, the teacher will show up. So in your case, when did a penny drop that to get to be where you want to be, you need to learn a little bit more? Oh, almost right away. I mean, I've always been a huge reader.

11:53I've always been, because again, I came out of the training world, right? Training and consulting, but I had another logo on my business card, right? I had the company logo. I wasn't doing it under my own banner. So after 10 years of doing that, the consulting skill, the coaching skill, the training skill was there. And then here's another insight. And I actually put this in the Market Eminence book. The insight I had was if you don't like sales and you don't like selling, like you just mentioned, many of our creative friends, they hate selling. They would rather do anything else. They just want to be the artist in the Garrett doing their brilliant work.

12:30They don't want to have to sell it because selling is dirty and distracting and who wants to do it. Imagine if you reframed the sales process as the first moment of delivery, meaning pretend you're already hired. There's no one in the universe that hasn't hired you. Some of them simply haven't written the check yet. So if you treat prospects like clients, so think about you get hired. You have the first, you get a nice, big, beautiful check. You have the first meeting with the client. What's that meeting about? It's about questions. It's about the agenda. It's about what they want, what they don't want, where they're going, how fast they want to get there, what they need from you, what their dream outcome would be, how fantastic this is going to be embarking on this relationship with you.

13:21My recommendation is take that first meeting after you're hired, pick it up out of the timeline, move it over here. So it's actually the meeting before you get hired and before you get the check and watch what happens. Because the more you treat prospects, clients, the more clients you will get and people can feel it. You know, it's so funny. I've taught this and preached this for such a long time. we think of prospects sometimes as the enemy. So we've got to go and close the prospect. We've got to close the deal. We've got to maximize our fees from this prospect. And this prospect is dodging us and avoiding us and ghosting us.

14:08And they're trying to talk us down on price. And they're just horrible, terrible people. And then you finally close the deal. And the same exact person from two minutes ago goes from being a prospect to being a client. And then we'll ask that creative professional, how do you feel about your clients? Oh, my clients are amazing. My clients are the best. My clients are fantastic. My clients are my favorite humans. So it's the same person from two minutes ago that now has suddenly been transformed to this most amazing person. Before, they were the enemy. They were dodging. They were ghosting. They were bargaining.

14:46They were negotiating. They were evading, escaping, and lying. but now they're the greatest person on earth. I said, how can that possibly be? And when I just sit and I say, how can that possibly be? Most of my clients go, oh, so I could give them the benefit of the doubt and I could treat them like clients before they become clients. Yes. How do you think that'll go over? And they usually know the answer. So what you're describing, I think it's a very interesting reminder of like how to treat the client with kindness, empathy and curiosity. Because I have seen in my sliver of the industry, as I would call it throughout this conversation, where I've seen like the sort of the Western shootout, you know, when someone says, what you got?

15:32Job. Okay, how much are you going to pay? Well, we can't tell you because you might tell us a smaller price. And you're like, okay, so is this this much? No, no, no. And it's just, come on, have your values, have your worth and know what you're selling. Because mostly it's, there's no guardrails on most creative projects or they're not most perceived guardrails on creative projects and therefore people just make shit up. Whereas, if you know what you're selling, if you know what you're doing, yes, I can tell you the price straight away. I know exactly how to guide you and firstly, I really want to know who you are and how can we be friends first, so to speak, to actually have a human conversation about how we can collectively go to that sort of common interest and common goal and actually deliver something together because yeah, as you said, That shootout and that sort of that negotiation just feels even just horrible.

16:22Like you describe it. Yes, absolutely. Well, and then here's the other thing. I would say when you have that first sales conversation. It's almost too late. It's almost too late. And again, this is where the concept of market eminence comes in. What have they experienced before that first conversation? What are the ideas? What are the value that you've already delivered ahead of time asynchronously? What value have you put in the marketplace? What image and what perspectives have you put out so that people understand your positioning, your differentiation, what you stand for, what you stand against?

17:03What's the movement that you're leading? Not just what products and services are you selling, but what do you really stand for and what do you stand against? And when they become a client, what movement are they joining? Because if you did that, then there's no more showdowns. There's no more shootouts necessary, right? So it almost turns the equation on its head where we are the pursuers. We're the ones that are constantly chasing and convincing and persuading. Now we can sit back. clients come in already indoctrinated with who we are, what we do, why it's awesome, cooler, better, different, smarter, safer, less risky, more innovative.

17:46And we can literally flip the script and now they're qualifying for us. And all of that playbook is what I call market eminence. And it's a combination of visibility and credibility and brand preference. Visibility, of course, meaning that it's important to get seen. credibility. It's important what you say and what you write and how you show up in the marketplace so that people understand that you get them. You really get them on a deep, personal, emotional level. And also it ties into what we were saying a moment ago, that they understand your perspective of kindness and generosity and curiosity.

18:24And they know that you're a little bit of a different animal. And then brand preference is a combination of positioning and differentiation and messaging so that it becomes risky, dangerous, and dumb to hire anyone else. Let me repeat that. Risky, dangerous, and dumb to hire anyone other than you or your firm. Now imagine how much sales negotiating do you have to do if you're in that position? How much adversarial combat do you have to do if you're in that position? Almost all of it disappears. You become the magnet or the beacon, the lighthouse in your industry that is making sense, that is somewhat polarizing, meaning it turns the wrong people off and it turns the right people on so that the right people all of a sudden all the competition falls away and they say, I need to work with Radham.

19:20I need to work with Radham's firm because he gets it. He's thought about this. He's written about this. He's published about this. He's podcasted about this. I know how he thinks. I know his personality. I like him. I trust him. And we have never met yet. Then you have the first sales conversation. And my question to you is who's qualifying who, right? Who's in the driver's seat now when you've done all of that work to establish sort of a beachhead and elevate yourself head and shoulders above everyone else. I love what you're saying. I think it's incredible, especially for this audience, for the majority of this audience to actually realize that you pre-qualify in a way by showing the world who you are and what you do and how you think.

20:09Because of course, people in this industry, in the visual corner of the industry, our benefit is that our positioning, our differentiation is signature styles. We've got people doing things in a different way, but those are specialists. They're all just sort of hyper niche people but then you go generalist who can do pretty much almost anything you know i think they're the ones who are trying to what i see these people is trying to look around the corner and see like what's the next thing when you can solve and in that case getting the work or being known for one thing is difficult but you can be known for who you are as a person like what can you bring to the table because in this day and age of ai and this sort of what i call it uninformed hysteria about like what AI is going to mean for us and where it's heading or is the bubble bursting.

20:54It's brought me back to the quote by Carnegie Institute of Technology when they say that 85 % of your financial success is due to your personality, ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Shockingly, only 15 % is due to your technical knowledge. When you mix in AI into all of this, it's the 15 % of what we do. It should be the 15 % of what we do, maybe even 5%. percent and i just came back to the school the other day and it kind of rang a massive bell in my head that's a stupid thing to say but it rang a bell in my head i was like wait a minute i need to talk to you about it and talk to a few other friends about this because when you spell it out like this what are we worried about we've got new toys we've got new tools you know but nothing's changing in the way of humanity how we operate with one another because i'm gonna choose to talk to you over a llm model to say well tell me more about david newman i'd speak to you because again that's what it's human after all yeah absolutely right i think a lot of people this ai conversation is so fascinating because you know ai has taken over one and only one kind of human intelligence that is computational intelligence meaning pattern recognition assimilating and synthesizing all of this data, all of these words, all of these ideas that have been published.

22:17And think about what humans are great at. So the world of how to, I will tell you what's dead right now and where people should stop focusing their time and energy. How to content, purely information-based how to content is dead. It's over. Stop doing it. Stop publishing it. Stop posting it. No one cares. AI can do that a million times better than you or I or anyone else. AI has taken over the world of how-to content. And good, I'm glad, because you should not have been posting just boring, same old lame how-to content in the first place. Where humans have the edge, or at least today, they have the edge before the robots take over the world is three other kinds of content that is completely, completely in the realm of flesh and blood people like you and me.

23:15One is not how to, but how to think, how to think. In other words, strategic, high level, insight based advisory type of content. This is based on your personal experience, your battle scars, your war stories, what you've done, what you've seen, what you've learned, your recommendations, your biases, your perspective, your lens onto the world. Nobody can take that from you. That is organic human DNA that is sitting in your chair right now. And perhaps you haven't thought of talking about that or sharing that because, oh my gosh, what if someone doesn't like it? What if someone doesn't agree with me?

24:03What if someone has a different perspective? My answer to that, Radham, is good, good, and good. So category one is how to think. Category number two is what to believe. and more importantly, what not to believe. So how can you be the truth teller in your industry, separate the wheat from the chaff, the signal from the noise, tell people what outdated myths or half truths are holding them back, holding the industry back, holding your entire target market back, and then show them a new and better way. Again, based on your personal experience, your expertise, your background, your backstory. Third category is how to get ready for what's coming next.

24:49Help people see around corners. This is trend spotting or future casting because high level people hate being surprised. They hate being ambushed. They hate being blindsided by something that they could have seen coming, but no one told them, no one warned them. So if you can be the early warning system in your industry saying, hey, here's what's coming three months down the road, six months down the road, 12 months down the road. Here's how to get ready. Here's how to prepare. Here's how to defend, or here's how to jump ahead. Here's how to leapfrog and take advantage of this new opportunity or this new opening in the marketplace that will also separate you.

25:32So just to recap the three kinds of content that you should be sharing. number one is how to think insight based, not information based. Number two, what to believe and what not to believe, productive myth busting. And number three, how to get ready for what's coming next. So helping people prepare and be better equipped for the future trends and the things that you see coming down the road that might either hurt them if they don't take action or that could really benefit them if they take early action. I mean, these are nuggets of absolute wisdom, and they're so important because you're making people realize what is the work of a fair student when you think about it.

26:20How do you prepare people for change and how do you help them to do it? So you put your finger on the biggest and earliest obstacle that I get with every client that brings me in for a strategic work session, every CEO group that I talk to. This all sounds good until about 45 minutes into our conversation. When I start using words like change, polarization, being divisive, being contrarian, shifting beliefs, they're all like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds good. And then we start talking about what that really means and what that really looks like, that things will need to change. And they go, hang on, hang on.

27:03I'm not I'm not so sure this is for us. This sounds a little scary. This sounds like we might be losing something. I said, yeah, you will be losing something. You'll be losing being completely vanilla. You're going to be losing trying to be everything to everyone. You're going to be losing this concept of hedging your bets. You're going to be losing this concept of let's cast the wide and net as possible, because the more fish we catch, the better. I said, OK, let me go back to one of the tenets, one of the early tenets of market eminence, which is this concept of being divisive, not being for everyone and being polarizing.

27:42The way that I explain this to CEOs and founders and agency owners is imagine that we installed a magic fence around your entire company. And this fence was made up of a very powerful electromagnetic force. And what it did was it pulled in all of the best fit prospects, talent, media, partners, investors, maybe even acquirers, people that you want to have by your firm eventually eventually pulled in all of the best fits in all of those areas, all those stakeholders, and it repelled the bad fits. And they're like, well, and like, this is obvious to you and me, Radham, right? But so here's what I do to make them comfortable with this idea of change.

28:30I said, let's define what bad fits really are. Have you ever had a nightmare client from hell? Yes. Have you ever had a bad hire? Yes. Have you ever gotten a bad situation, a bad project, a bad partner? Yes. Great. Let's write on the whiteboard, what were the characteristic traits and behaviors of those bad fits? So they will start to tell me, okay, they're unethical. They don't have the same values that we do. They didn't share our vision. They were out of alignment with our core best practices. as far as employees, they would come in late. They would leave early. They would do the minimum. They would just check the box.

29:12They didn't care about the work. They didn't care about the client. All right, let's talk about bad clients. Okay. They came in, they micromanaged everything. They nickel and dimed our fees. They were a nightmare to work with. They insulted our staff and Radom. I'm writing all of these down on the whiteboard behind me. And it's about five, seven, eight, 10 things. And then I turn to the group and I say, OK, these are the people that the electromagnetic fence is keeping out. These people. How do you feel about that? And when I say, how do you feel about that? I look around the room. Everyone's shoulders start to soften.

29:50They make these dreamy, googly eyes at the whiteboard and they say, that would be great. I say, I know, I know it would, wouldn't it? Welcome to Market Eminence. In your way, obviously, when you talked about being different, you talk about being a contrarian quite a lot. And let's talk about it because being contrarian, again, requires sometimes change, sometimes willingness, sometimes just wanting to be contrarian and actually put yourself in that position because that will ultimately get you hurt. Yes. So let me be, this is another sticking point. You're just going right down the line here. This is fantastic.