Building Influence with a B2B Content Marketing Agency Expert

Priscilla McKinney: Hello and welcome to Ponderings from the Perch, the Little Bird Marketing company podcast, I am your host Priscilla McKinney. Heather, I am so excited to speak with you, to be perfectly honest. It's a little embarrassing. I'm a little bit fangirling on you. So you're going to have to bear with me a little bit.

Heather Kernahan: Same Priscilla, same.

Priscilla McKinney: My goodness. It's like, just, you know, we've gotten a chance to talk a little bit here and there. And I just felt like every time we finished talking, I'm like, yeah, that conversation was too short. So we're going to have a little bit of it and we're going to have a little bit of it publicly. But definitely for me, hopefully one of many conversations, but my audience is just going to love your perspective, your expertise. So I'm going to try and do what's right for my audience and get them to get to know you. But welcome to the show.

Heather Kernahan: Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here and happy to talk with your audience and you about anything and everything.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you know, one of the things you do talk an awful lot about is how to build an executive presence and how to, you know, maintain that and stay strategic, right? How do you stay front and center as an executive who is absolutely not being pulled along but is directing things? All this behaving famously. So tell my audience a little bit about that.

Heather Kernahan: One of my favorite things to talk about in the world is strategic visibility. And I've had a very long career in marketing and communications and running businesses and all of that, but this is an absolute favorite topic and strategic visibility can be done by behaving famously. And I will explain what that means. When I say it, most people kind of laugh and say, that sounds terrible. You know, I don't want to behave famously. And I try to convince them you actually want to, if you are in business.

So years ago, I'll tell you a little story. I had a sales coach and I was very new to consulting and he was trying to help me build my skill around business development and converting leads into sales. And I was frustrated by the whole process and he said, Heather, you just have to get out there and behave famously. And I said, his name's Chip. Chip, I'm Canadian. We don't know how to behave famously. We're at the back of the room. I don't want any attention on me. No.

And he said, well, if you're going to run a business, you need to learn the skills around this. So we went and we built a list of what famous people do. They're in the press, they're on TV, they're writing articles, they're on social media, they're announcing cool new things. They're out. You know, there's this public, you can see them. And from that big long list of all the ways to behave famously, I picked 10 that felt authentic to me. This was really important because I did grow up in Canada. I lived there until I was about 30. And I thought, how will I do this in a way that doesn't feel icky?

So there were 10. And then every week I started to track these behaving famously activities. And they were everything from connecting with people on LinkedIn to pushing myself to really be on stage as an aspiration. And over time, what I realized is I built the business by behaving famously, but very strategically thinking about where did I need to be visible as the leader in order to achieve my business goals. And that's what I want people to understand that strategic visibility or behaving famously or executive brand is a business strategy to help you fulfill your business goals.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. I love it. And I literally just this morning was teaching the first module of six of my social influence course. And it's so funny because in that first module, which I've taught it for years, but I have an old version of my profile that I showcase. And then we look at my current one, but it was back when I first wanted to become famous as a CEO. And when I first wanted to be seen as a speaker, I wanted so badly for someone to call me. And even if at that point they didn't pay me to speak, I would have done it. Right?

And my profile picture is of me with a microphone speaking. Right? And that idea of like, if that's what you want to do, it's not the same as manifesting it. I know that's not what you're talking about, but it's like, that was me. That was genuinely me up on a stage. That image because I want more of that. That is a way that I was behaving famously and this would work for me. But I got to point out you said at one point you said, I don't want to do this and be icky and don't you find that so many people use as an excuse to not do it and instead you're saying well do it but just don't be icky.

Heather Kernahan: Don't, well, find where your ick is and don't do that. I was talking to this woman executive last week and she's a CEO of a business and she said, I just don't want to be seen as bragging. You know, don't just, people will think I'm bragging all the time. And I said, what an interesting word you're using. You perceive projecting the success of the company and your leadership skills as bragging. Let's work on that thought.

And so to her, that thought was deterring her from executing this as a business strategy. So as we worked through it, so what can you replace that with? So I do, when I work with executives, it's some work to find what feels authentic to you, because you're only going to really activate this as a strategy if it feels good to you. And I've worked with so many different people who have so many different limiting thoughts about this concept. Everybody can find a way to do this in a way that feels good for them.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. You're right. It is ourselves that limit us in it. But let's talk a little bit more detail about what that looks like, because some people will come to you and say, yeah, but I post a lot. I'm always out there. Is that the same as behaving famously? What would you say about that?

Heather Kernahan: Yeah, I think, you know, that's the algorithms are finding you. I wonder what your content is. And this is how I think about it. I always think about first, what's the business goal that a person has in mind? What are they trying to achieve? And then who do they need to reach to achieve that goal? So target audience. This is classic marketing. Who am I trying to reach? And then developing your themes or topic areas or messages that you want to convey to those people. And they have to be good, right?

If you're out there talking generically to everyone, you're not reaching anyone. But starting to put those things together, the goals, the target audience, the key messages that you're going to convey over and over again, and then where do you need to be strategically visible to reach that target? And that's different for every target.

One executive I worked with had a hell of a time trying to attract the right talent into their business. So they did a strategic visibility map that was about being in front of the talent they wanted to come join their team. And that was a sprint that we did for six months. And that was very effective. And we were very, very targeted. Where do these people hang out? What Reddit subgroups are they in? Where are we going to start to build some visibility for that person? So you can have all kinds of goals and targets and just build around it.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, you work for big companies. I mean, we've heard of them. You know, we know Google, everybody's heard of them, PayPal and the like. But, you know, if people say but I don't work at a company like that. I don't have that kind of visibility. Help us work backwards there because I know once you've worked with like these big companies, people feel trepidatious about calling you or looking at your expertise and thinking that it actually applies to them. What would you say to that?

Heather Kernahan: Yes, I mean, I have worked with very big companies and we've got very big companies that we work with today at Content Bureau. And we also work with individual executives and that's almost my favorite. Founders. We work with rising stars inside smaller companies that are ready to take their next career leap. That's also very fun work to do.

So recently we've been working with a VP at a mid-sized company. She really wants to be a CMO and she knows she has to increase her visibility in the industry to make that leap. So we're working together with her to figure out, how do we position her strategically to make that leap happen? And sometimes it's really just a conversation or two to get people headed in the right direction. And sometimes it's, we'll do more in-depth work to help get them there.

But this is for anybody that has a goal, in my opinion. If you've got a business goal, no matter what size your business, from founder up to the largest businesses in the world, you've got a business plan that requires strategic visibility in some way.

Priscilla McKinney: Well, given all of your expertise in content marketing, and by the way, it's just so lovely to have another content marketer on my show. Tell me a little bit about what you see people most often doing wrong. What are they getting wrong when companies are trying to come around the executives? What are they just not understanding?

Heather Kernahan: Yeah, about content marketing overall? Yes, and how this relates to really growing the business through visibility.

The things that I see, that volume is a strategy, you know, the we'll just produce a lot of content and that's going to be the strategy. That's one technique I see used. A second technique I see used where I think people get it wrong is they are developing content based on the internal team's perspective instead of asking their target audience or customers. You know, they're forgetting that customer insight is critical to producing content that your target audience wants to read.

So maybe slowing it down a little bit and getting some insights so you produce content that is for your target. Those are the two big ones. And I think it's really, you know, it's difficult with AI and the availability of all the AI tools now in content marketing, because it can be very quick to produce a lot of content and put a lot of content out and maybe not get the results you want and be frustrated by that. I think we've got to think about what role does AI play in the workflow because it does and it can be really excellent. But just rushing into AI tools and AI driven content and just putting it out in the world without the strategy and thinking behind it is something that I see coming up more.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, yeah. Well, some of the things we have in common, we both wrote a book. I want to talk a little bit about your book, but we both speak globally and we both are running companies. I mean, frankly, we're busy and it's not like we're being jerks and like wearing it like a badge, like I'm busy, you know, but it's just true. We're busy.

So tell me how you approach kind of separating some of those things. Like how am I promoting myself as an author? How am I promoting myself as a speaker? How am I actually promoting the Content Bureau? So how do you divide those things out and keep a good balance?

Heather Kernahan: I actually try to meld them together more. That's been my approach with it is to bring it together and not try to separate it so much. But I do have my own goals, just life goals and business goals and all of it. And I do have categories for speaking and authorship and what I want to do next with the content of the book. And I always keep kind of track on that.

I think about when I'm out behaving famously on stages, I'm often talking about the content of the book, but I'm doing that as the CEO of Content Bureau. And this is another thing that I talk to executives about. Executives will say to me, how do I develop a personal brand and then the company CEO brand? And I say, there are not two separate things. They are all together. And so you have to represent yourself fully no matter where you are.

So I do bring the book in. I think it's important that leading a content business, I've developed content, long form content, which is the book. I encourage lots of executives to do books, by the way, so I'm able to bring that into conversations with clients. So that's been my goal, not separate, bring together.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, I'm going to really push on you here and this is where I get selfish because it's my own show. This is how I'm going to lay on a couch and just tell you all my problems.

You've also been involved with all kinds of mergers and acquisitions and I know that you have had such in-depth conversations with founders and I'm sure very interesting founders and there is a big fear. What you mentioned, what's the brand of me as a CEO and the brand of me personally and sometimes we fear that we're never going to be able to exit the business if we meld these too much. So tell me what you've seen in mergers and acquisitions and what does it mean to have had a strong founder and what does that mean then when it's exit time?

Heather Kernahan: Yeah, I mean, when I worked inside technology companies for a long time, in that environment, we did quite a few acquisitions. And I'm going to talk mostly about the agencies that I've been running, the consulting firms over the past 12 years. Hotwire Global. I did three or four acquisitions during my time there. I was part of a team at Eastwake that was acquired by Hotwire Global. So I've seen it from both sides, you know, being acquired and acquiring.

And I think strong leaders who have a very strong point of view on the industry, on their business, and they are visible publicly, and they've got a personality to go alongside of it, are very, very attractive, both from a talent, a client, a partner, and an acquirer point of view. And I found very rarely had I seen leaders that had their name so wrapped up in the business that it was indistinguishable from the rest. Their name was indistinguishable from the company itself.

I think most that I've worked with do a nice job of building their leadership point of view, having a personality, but the company itself that they've grown has a leadership team. They've got clients working the business, not everything depends on them. So I say, if you're wanting to build your business, do that with a leadership organization that you create over time with real company business plans, with real team who can execute without you there day to day. And part of your job is to be out in the world with that leadership message.

Priscilla McKinney: Okay, I love that. And we're both authors, so now let's talk about this. You wrote the book Unstuckable. So if people haven't read it, like, first of all, give me a little bit about what the book is about, but then also, why did you have to write it? What was the burning desire?

Heather Kernahan: Oh yeah, so there's a couple of stories within the story here. So in 2020, I was talking to a whole bunch of our CEO clients all in one week. And there were, I think out of 10 conversations, three or four of them, the CEO said, oh, I'm finishing my book at some stage. Priscilla, you could have knocked me over. I was like, are you writing a book? Everything's a crisis. We don't know what's going to happen in the world. And they all said some version of, I don't let my long-term goals get interrupted for short-term.

And I was like, I constantly let short-term emergencies interrupt my long-term goals. Like, I'm operating completely opposite. What can I take away from this? And so I kind of locked that in, one that they were writing books, and they were all men, by the way. And so I was thinking about the work my team was doing at that time too. So we were placing influential speakers on virtual stages for our clients who all had to take their technology conferences online. So we were constantly vetting potential speakers for these stages.

And my team kept bringing me lists that looked just one gender and looked just one color. And I was saying, where are, give me some other diverse candidates for these that we can place in front of our clients. And they were all saying, well, this is the hottest speaker. They just wrote this book with a lot of authors. I was just like, it really hit me. Like there is a credibility of authorship that you cannot replace. And when I started watching all the news programs, it's shocking the amount of people who will say, next up is this person, author of this book. I'd say at least half of people.

So I was thinking, okay, I got to get more women in business writing books. I need to put more women forward onto stages with my clients and media, la la la la la, stomping around the house. How am I going to solve this? And you know, my lovely husband said, I think you're going to have to write a book. And I was like, I've got enough to do. And I don't really need to, it's not a goal of mine. And I just kind of sat with it and I thought, okay, I'm going to figure out how to write a book. The only thing I know is the technology industry I've worked in my entire life.

And I thought it's 2020. Everybody I talked to is stuck. I had this idea for an unstuck framework. I'm going to write a book called Unstuckable and I'm going to bring in the lessons from the technology industry that I've learned over my career about how this industry never gets stuck and hope some people find it helpful. But really I want to go through this process of the book, developing it, writing it, launching it, so that I can convince other women leaders who have a book in them to do it too.

Priscilla McKinney: I love that. And you have spent an awful lot of your time and your influence in order to put other women up on stages. I mean, I know when I talk with you, it's like, it feels so satisfying. It's such a big part of who you are and what you do. Why do you think it is that women just continue to play small like this?

Heather Kernahan: It's, you know, I don't know and I don't know if I'm ever going to know in my lifetime. And I talked to so many women executives and founders and emerging leaders, and there's really just five or six thoughts. That's what I've come to. Five or six common thoughts they have.

And what I've been good at doing is saying, tell me your biggest fear. I want to know why you can't do this. Tell me everything. And they'll tell me. And then I can say, okay, you really, let me figure out. I can get you moving forward. Let's just try the next step, right? And so if I can bring that little bit of confidence to somebody and allow them the freedom and space to really share what scares them the most, then we can start to make progress. Little by little.

I don't know why I love it so much. Like, I don't know, maybe it's the Canadian me because I do like being in, you know, back. That's how I grew up, back of the stage, pushing people out all the time. And I've had to work really, really hard on myself to put myself forward and be publicly visible as part of the journey to help other people do it. But I can tell you, I blow my own mind all the time and I love helping women blow their own minds like I just did that stage I just published that book whatever it is.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it and I'm going to call you, I'm going to make you do some conference calls with me because we have Insights Marketing Day every fall and I always start and I ask women speakers and I ask diverse speakers and I get turned down and it's frustrating because then I get to my event and it's like, sometimes I do get people but then it's me and white guys and I'm like, oh my gosh, I get frustrated because I want to put other people out first, but yet, I gotta say ladies, you gotta say yes when we call you.

Heather Kernahan: Absolutely. Yeah, or you get a no, just say, you can't say no, you got to talk to my friend Heather and she'll talk you through it.

Priscilla McKinney: Right. I'm going to send this nice Canadian in to do my dirty work. I love it. I love it.

Heather Kernahan: Exactly. She'll smile a lot, but she'll get you there.

Priscilla McKinney: We'll get you there. We'll get you there. Okay, so you were going to write this book and you, like me, have a husband who was like, just do it, right? What do you say now to other people who are kind of sitting on that book idea? How do you get them past that hesitation to get that bigger visibility?

Heather Kernahan: You know, probably all the work that I do, no matter what size client or situation or whatever, I always come back to like, what are you trying to achieve? What is the goal? Let's start there. And if I can understand somebody's goal, I can actually sometimes tell them, you know, it's not a good idea right now. Like that's not a big enough goal or that doesn't sound like a priority goal for you. Like what, you should table this for a few years.

So if they've got a goal that I feel has got some urgency behind it and they, that goal is going to carry them through the dark hours of writing. Because Priscilla, didn't you do that like early, early mornings or late at night crying? Oh my gosh, I spent so many 5am to 6am crying about why am I doing this? It's so hard. I don't need to do this. Like, you know, no one's making me.

And what saved me every time was going back to the goal that I had written down for myself in the beginning. I need to get more women on stage and in the media to raise profile. And I'd go back and I'd read that and I'd say, okay, keep going. Keep going. Yeah. And so that's what I'd start with. Do you have a strong enough goal? And if you do, then, you know, the next couple of steps are there's so many free resources online. So I point people to some of those. Here's some authors to follow who talk a lot about the process of writing a book and then just start to put some blocks in your calendar to keep it moving forward.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, I, you know, I'm not sure if I'm glad or sad that I wrote my book before AI. I go back and forth. Yeah.

Heather Kernahan: Yeah, AI was just coming in when I was nearing the end of the manuscript and I did test a lot like parts of it like the closes and the opens, like what would AI tell me to do but it didn't weigh heavily in my process.

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, well, some of the things I wanted to pressure test, I wish I could have gone to AI, but I do remember that, yes, for me it was very early mornings and you're just crying it out because just when the editor I was working with, we just undid all the chapters and they're in all the wrong order. Now it makes no sense.

I just do remember though getting to that weekend where I sent it to one of my sisters. I have sisters with writing degrees and very good writers in my family. And I sent it to her and I said, look, you know, just read through it over the weekend. Just give me a sanity check. Like, do you think I'm gaslit? Did you follow along with anything? And it was really interesting because all the editors I had that were, you know, in my professional sphere. And I just would like to say I did pay my sister to read it. It's her time. It's valuable. Women's time is valuable. Right. But I was like, but I don't need editing. I've got an editor, but I want someone who knows me to just give me a sanity check.

So just read it for kind of like enjoyment. And she's not in my industry either, so I wanted to know does this still make sense? You know, it's so interesting and not just because it was a sister, but it just totally surprised me. It was the first editing comments I got back that were encouraging. Like, oh I laughed a lot right here. Oh this was so funny. Or, you know, this would be really good in education. Or, why didn't we think of this when we were doing this project? Or, you know, and I was like, oh gosh how did I miss this part of the experience? It was really fun and so you know when I think about how much you talk with people about how they get stuck and they don't want to then get visible but I would have missed out on a lot of that interaction and that kind of encouragement you know.

Heather Kernahan: Yes. Yes. Yeah. What a great sister. Yeah. I've got two as well. Sisters everywhere.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. I've got lots of them. So if you need to borrow them, let me know. See, it's sister power. I love it. Okay. So writing a book in that process. Do you think you have another book in you?

Heather Kernahan: Yes, when I launched the book, I said, this is my first book. And I said that everywhere I went. At the time I was like, I don't know if I could ever do this again. I am tired and I know I'm just at the beginning of marketing this thing, but I'm going to say it's my first book.

So yes, I will certainly write more books and I haven't started one yet. I'm really busy with Content Bureau, which I acquired last summer and coming in, assuming the CEO role and working on this company right now. So stay tuned.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. We're going to put the book in the show notes so you can link there and get it from her. But honestly, Heather, I hope this is the start of a really great friendship, but also just as a massive thank you for coming and sharing these ideas. I'd love to hear from you. Who would be great? Who should be calling you for Content Bureau? And who should be calling you about, oh my gosh, I'm stuck?

Heather Kernahan: Oh my god. Everybody gets stuck. Everyone gets stuck. Okay, so on the book Unstuckable, if you are leading teams and you yourself need to stay unstuck and you need to lead people through becoming and staying unstuck, the book is good for that. It's quite practical. I'm a very practical person. I chalk that up to being Canadian as well. So there's lots of tools and checklists and things like that in the book. So that's the book.

For Content Bureau, we do everything B2B content and in technology, professional services and financial services. So if you're in any of those industries and could use some help thinking through your content strategy, growth of your business, that major product launches or solutions coming up, please let us know. And I would just, if there's anyone out there, an individual in business who would just like to talk a little bit more about strategic visibility, just have a chat, please contact me. I love to talk about this topic one-on-one and get people moving. So always happy to do that.

Priscilla McKinney: I can't think of any kind of a conference or strategic meeting that Unstuckable would not be a good keynote.

Heather Kernahan: I know. I know. Everybody gets stuck. Literally everybody. Yeah, even me. Even though...

Priscilla McKinney: Yeah, I love it. And we all have to have frameworks to work ourselves out of our own boxes. So I love that. Well, if you are looking at an event and need a keynote, want someone strong, hey, I've got a woman for you right here. And I'm sure, too, that she's got a lot of other suggestions of other women who could grace the stage and bring us to that next goal of ours.

And I love what you said about like just keeping that so front and center. Like we've got to be committed and sold out to our own goals because that's what will keep us going when it gets hard. And it's just going to get hard. That's just the way it is. I love it.

Heather Kernahan: It's always hard. Yeah. And years ago, you know, I did my MBA after I had my daughter and I was going part time. I was working full time, traveling a lot. And I had a specific goal around doing the MBA and I got pregnant with my son and I called my sister up afterwards and I said, you know what? I'm not going to go do my MBA anymore. I don't need to do this. You know, blah, blah.

And my sister said to me, get out that goal sheet and think about what you'll tell Madison when she says, why didn't you finish your MBA? And I was crying and I went back and I did it. Like we can do hard things, just it has to be worth it. The goal has to be big enough for us to do it. And if it is, you can do anything. Anybody listening to this, you can achieve anything.

Priscilla McKinney: I love it. Heather Kernahan, thank you so much for joining us. My goodness, what a total pleasure. From all the peeps here at Little Bird Marketing, have a great day and happy marketing.

Heather Kernahan: Thank you for having me.