Today’s guest is an entrepreneur, sales leader & thought leader. Nicholas Thickett is the Managing Partner at Alignd and the Co-Host of The B2B Power Hour. Nicholas shares the important role stories play in learning, how to find the right guests to provide value to your audience, and the basics of running a successful live show.

Takeaways:

• It’s easier to learn soft skills in fields like sales and marketing using tacit knowledge picked up by listening to and mimicking those around us. With the move to remote work, there are fewer opportunities to interact with and learn from others.
• Podcasting provides a way for people to learn more about a field by hearing stories in interviews with their peers and industry experts. It’s more impactful for people to hear experiences and advice with the context provided by the stories behind them.
• Stories are better for teaching because the ideas within the story are able to go beyond a person’s logic and reach their emotional core. By absorbing stories, audiences are able to feel, to a degree, what it was like to live through that experience.
• Try to discover the small steps and incremental changes that your guest has used to succeed. These are the tips that your audience will most helpful because they are feasible and attainable.
• Pick guests that you and your audience actually want to learn from. Don’t invite people because of their large reputation if they don’t have any real knowledge to impart. It’s better to politely decline to interview a guest than it is to waste your time and theirs.
• Use a prep call before recording the full interview with a guest to gauge if you have any chemistry with them and if they have valuable information for your audience. Without connecting with the guest, the conversation will suffer and have little value.
• When launching a live show, start building your audience by inviting five to twenty handpicked people to join the show. These people should be asking the same questions you ask on the show. Being handpicked, they are more likely to engage authentically.

Quote of the Show:

• “Podcasting is one of the few ways in the remote world that we can open up.” - Nicholas Thickett

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasthickett/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NThickett
• Company website: https://getalignd.co/
• Podcast: https://podcast.b2bpowerhour.com/

Shout Outs:

• Jen Allen
• Morgan Smith
• Justin Simon

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/12f108ea-018f-44a6-8bb0-9444e9cbf3cc
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creating-the-greatest-show/id1638399900
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1B7OnWCGoxBRzH2rbkEFIf
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2NyZWF0aW5ndGhlZ3JlYXRlc3RzaG93L2ZlZWQueG1s
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/creating-the-greatest-show-4823789
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/N1Xg2EEZbcs

Creating The Greatest Show is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/