What I learnt from Dave Gerhardt's new book
Three takeaways from Founder Brand, and why they are important
There is a certain kind of business book that has become ubiquitous in the last decade. The format goes like this: Someone joins a new startup/company/org, it becomes successful, and they write a memoir of their role disguised as a 'how to do x' guide. That idea is packaged well and sold as a panacea for everything that ails other companies. If you only did x, you can win too, is the message.
Most of these books are personal branding disguised as knowledge sharing, though some of them get the balance right. Founder Brand is among the few that actually goes the other way: Only concentrated insights, absolutely no fluff.
I have also believed in the Founder Brand for while.
In September 2020, I wrote about why every startup founder needs to build a strong personal brand. A month later, I wrote about why your startup needs an enemy, another topic Gerhardt dwells on in detail.
I have been following him for years now, and know his views and approach to building a brand. Why read the book then, if I believed in the idea already, and know the subject matter?
Because I might get ideas on how to do these things, the tactics, the details.
And I did, three of which I want to draw attention to. For you, of course, but also for myself, so I remember these things when I’m executing.
1. The concept of the explainer
I wow-ed at this as I was reading it.
First, Dave posits that we need an explainer, a short, memorable statement that can be used in actual conversations to make people understand what you are selling. The goal of the explainer is attention.
And then he gives an example. Over to Dave:
Let's say I'm at an event and a potential customer comes up to me and says, "Hey, what does Drift do exactly?"
I might say: "We are the leading conversational marketing platform." And she will probably say "interesting" or "huh" or nothing at all. And right there, the conversation is over before it started.
Using the explainer model, the conversation is very different. The potential customer says, "Hey, what does Drift do exactly?"
I grin, because not only do I know the answer, I know how to explain it to her.
"You know sometimes when you go to someone's website you have to fill out ten forms just to get a question answered?"
She smiles and nods. "Yeah. I hate that."
Now I've hooked her.
Just this little passage was for me worth the whole book. I wish I had this tactic when I was doing events. I did well enough then, but with this, I would have done better.
2. Becoming a publisher
I’m already invested in the 'build a media company for your niche' argument. Gerhardt gave me another way to think about this in the book: Becoming a publisher.
Over to Dave again (edited slightly). The 'you' here is the founder.
You know more about your brand than anyone else and are the best, sometimes the only, person who can share your brand with the world. Plus you don't need to be a billionaire founder on a mainstream media channel to get your message out. You're becoming your own publisher. You'll be able to tap into bigger audiences to spread your message. I think every founder should be on a constant 'book tour' for their company.
I love that last analogy, with the founder as an author who’s constantly on book tour. Clarifies so many things instantly.
3. The podcast as a Trojan horse
Again, this was something I knew but had not heard articulated in this way.
Gerhardt writes of the podcast as a Trojan horse for your content:
The real ROI of creating a podcast today is that it can be a Trojan horse for all of your marketing content. When I say that your podcast is a Trojan horse, it is because audio gives you the ultimate leverage.
What he means is that the audio you create for the podcast can become so much more easily. It is the most scalable content activity possible.
How? He gives us the example of what he and his team did at Privy.
The Privy podcast worked as a Trojan horse for building up our blog. Each podcast episode could be transcribed, edited, and turned into a blog post. Often we could get two or three articles from a single episode. The podcast also worked as a Trojan horse for getting word of mouth about Privy through our podcast. We'd arm each podcast guest with video clips of them speaking, and they'd help promote the episode by sharing the clip on social media. And on top of that, because of the reach we had built up through my account, the CEO's account, and having the rest of the Privy team excited about sharing each episode, we were able to be part of the discussion in the e-commerce marketing industry.
I had never fully subscribed to podcasting for business. I am now.
There’s so much more in the book, and I think you should read it. But these were the things that made me sit up and take notes.