In this episode of the Interesting B2B Marketers podcast, Maneesh Sah, Founder and CMO of Rave Marketing Partners, shares his expertise on effective communications and marketing strategies.

Maneesh introduces the "three Cs" model, which focuses on content, capability, and campaigns, and discusses how his company's global leadership team developed this successful strategy. He emphasizes the importance of having the right metrics in place to support commercial outcomes and shares insights into staffing a marketing team to support heavy content creation. 

Tune in now to learn from Maneesh Sah about how you can transform your marketing approach.

Key points from this episode:

• The "three Cs" model is a marketing strategy that involves creating content with commercial insight, executing integrated campaigns to amplify it, and hiring individuals with strong writing and storytelling abilities to create engaging content.
• Having the right metrics in place is crucial to support commercial outcomes and elevate the marketing team's position.
• Effective communication is crucial to the success of any marketing strategy.
• The Three Pillars of Communications and Media Relations are important considerations in any marketing strategy.
• Staffing a marketing team to support heavy content creation can be challenging, but it's important to have the right people in place to execute the strategy successfully.

Connect with Maneesh Sah on LinkedIn.

Steve: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Studio 26. You are here at Interesting B2B Marketers, and today I'm really excited to have Maneesh on the show. Give a quick introduction of yourself. Tell us a bit about your background. 

Maneesh: Yeah, sure. Thanks Steve for having me here. So, I currently run my own marketing and PR advisory firm, it's called Rave Marketing Partners. And before that I have many years of experience building and running marketing teams and organizations in Asia and the Pacific. 

Steve: That's right. And you and I work together in a former life. So that's how we know each other. We were on many different global phone calls trying to figure out am I waking up early or are you waking up early? It's the struggle of being a global marketer, right? 

Maneesh: That's correct. 

Steve: All right. So we are gonna open up with some case studies. As always, the first one you're gonna share with us has to do with a company who had a great job of having brand awareness in a market, but the lack of understanding was the next challenge.

So you're gonna walk us through how you take that environment and ultimately succeed in it. So go ahead and take it away. 

Maneesh: Yeah, sure. When I joined the company based on some of the surveys they did speaking with their clients and prospects, what they realized was the brand awareness and brand recall enjoyed by them was pretty high.

But when they really started asking their clients and prospects, some more questions around what they do? What do they actually stand for? The results were pretty astonishing. What we realized at that time was that while brand awareness was pretty high, understanding of what companies stood for and the solutions they provided, and of course they provided a spectrum of solutions.

That understanding of the solutions was pretty, pretty low in the market. So working with our global leadership team, what we decided in this part of the world, and I call that framework, the three C model of marketing, we decided that we are going to plan and execute on three Cs.

So the first C is all about content, which was rich with commercial insight. We clearly made a decision that we'll be investing in building content. We'll be investing in creating insights and really using the power of those insights to both inform as well as challenge our clients to think differently about their businesses and really inspire them to scale the limits they might have placed on themselves.

So that was the first C, the second C, which again I'm very passionate about, is having the right capability or skill sets in the team. So we started hiring people and I think it was the first time in this part of the world, we had somebody who came from a journalistic background who had great writing skills, great content production skills.

So we got them on board, and then slowly we started building teams with a clear focus on having that storytelling ability. So the third C was all about having campaigns in place. So clearly we realized that just having content and investing in creating great content is not enough.

You need to really be distributing that content or amplifying that content to really engage with your audiences effectively so that you really start having conversations with them. So for that to happen, we put in place a series of campaigns, very well thought out and planned much in advance.

And we made sure that we are executing integrated campaigns, which are using this great content we created and amplifying them through various channels. So basically, the campaign, in our scheme of things, was a combination of various content and multiple channels, which we then used to amplify that content.

And then, we also realized that while these three C models would definitely be helpful, we need to have the right metrics in place so that when we have a conversation with our business leaders, it's not based on feelings. It's supported by data, right? So we had specific metrics in relation to leads in relation to share of voice, in relation to social media.

You know, what kind of followers we'll be targeting. So as a result of all of this is a combination of having the three C models and then really supported by metrics and making sure that marketers are going after commercial outcomes and not just busy doing activities and doing busy work.

When we started kind of measuring our results, over the course of our share of the voice, which was actually languishing in relation to our traditional competitors. At 30%, we went to 55% of our leads. We were hardly tracking what was coming through our website. In the past, there was a stage where when we were actually touching hundred leads per quarter, our favorability scores, when we did our survey talking to our prospects in class.

It was actually around the fifties in the beginning. It actually touched seventies. Our LinkedIn followers of our company page that increased by 20% every quarter organic search in relation to some of the keywords which we had in relation to our brand that also increased by 20% every quarter.

So, I think on the back of these three C model, the ability to track those metrics really helped us drive commercial outcomes and also elevated the position of the team in the eyes of our business stakeholders. 

Steve: Yeah that's a really good model. I think the capability C is interesting because of what I've seen.

A lot of people make that philosophical shift, right? They say, all right, marketing isn't just creating brochures. It's more heavy content. And so often business leadership, the non-marketers will say, hey, you have a marketing team already. Just have them do different activities, which is very hard to do, to have a team creating content, whether that's writers, designers, animation, it's tough to do. So tell us about, like, did you encounter that typical friction? I mean, you did get to hire some people so it went well, but like, what was the early stage in convincing people? No, this is a different approach. We have to staff it differently. 

Maneesh: Yeah, no, absolutely. So, I do remember that one of the first hires I made was when I joined as a writer with a journalistic background. But it took me at most six months to get my leadership team to agree to that because you know, in their mind, you have marketers, so why do you really need a writer? So what I realized was, particularly in this part of the world, most marketers are generalists. I mean, they can create brochures. They can create flyers, they would be great at executing events, but what I was looking for was people with great storytelling ability, somebody who can create a very compelling piece of content. It could be even a thousand words, opinion piece or a very punchy social media post.

And what I found was, it was very difficult to find those skill sets in that traditional pool of marketers. We had inside our company as well as even outside in Asia. So what we therefore really did was even went down to creating job descriptions, which were very focused around really looking out and selecting people with the right storytelling abilities.

People with this journalistic background who actually created content, who actually did writing for a living, right? They were not marketers who by the way did marketing writing. They actually did, they wrote a hundred percent of the time. So as I said, it took me six months and then I was fortunate that the leadership team agreed to approve that headcount.

And once they came on it, I mean, you know we were so successful, with that hire and of course they did a great job of creating content and really starting new conversations. We were able to get another headcount. After a year or so. So yes, you know, initially it was difficult because it was a mindset shift, but I think once we were able to kind of, you know, that first person who came on board, it was kind of a pilot program.

I always believe in the power of pilots. So get a small budget in first show results and then get in more budget and headcount. 

Steve: Yeah and I feel that I've been in that same position before. And when you hire that first person, it's so critical because they still are not convinced that you need it.

And you have to hire someone who is so good so that when they see the content, they're like, oh my God. Now we know what we've been missing. And I've seen it in so many B2B organizations, you know, the conversation is something like, well, we're not gonna say we don't need designers.

Clearly we need designers because they have. In graphic design that you can't do. No one expects anyone to do that. But there was always that feeling that, well no, if you're in marketing for a B2B company, you should be a great writer. And if you're not a great writer, you know, what are you doing? You know, it's fascinating.

And I feel like we're many times beyond that conversation now. I think 10 years ago it was an uphill battle. You had to be an innovator in this space to have that lack of resistance. But anyway, it's still out there. Any final thoughts on the first case study before we jump into number two? 

Maneesh: Yeah. No, no, I think this is good and I'll have another case study where I'll probably provide some more color around current content creation and how it benefited. 

Steve: Awesome. All right, well let's just jump into it. So this one's about, this involves a little bit of meaty relations and some other things.

So let's jump into case study number two. 

Maneesh: Yeah, absolutely. So again, the company I joined, what I realized was they had a great set of subject matter experts but they were not getting featured in the media at all, right? We were not even doing any proactive media outreach. So what we did was, and again, I'm, as you probably know by now, I'm a great believer in models.

So I put a model in place in relation to external communications and media relations in particular. So the first pillar of that model was all about creating capability narrative. Capability narrative is all about creating a narrative around the expertise your subject matter experts have. The commercial insights which they can share, to really inspire audiences to think differently about their businesses. So it's not just informing what solutions we can provide to solve your pain points. But really, inspiring your audiences to scale the limits which they might have placed on themselves, right?

So that was my first pillar, which was building a capability narrative. The second pillar was all about what I call building a character narrative. And character narrative is all about humanizing. It's about really selecting some of your key leaders to profile in the media and really encourage them to share their personal stories to really build that strong connection with your audiences.

So I remember I had one of our global CEOs visiting Singapore, and we got him, we pitched him to the local media to one of the leading local business publications and they had a particular column which came in every Saturday and we just featured only global CEOs, right?

So we pitched them and the ceo, did a great job of actually sharing some personal anecdotes, even their aspirations and even some of their disappointments. And their aspiration was to be the first certified actuary from their part of the world.

So they left their home country, went overseas, and, as you know, you need to give a lot of exams to become an actuary. And by the time they gave those exams and they were certified actuary, they came back to their home country, started practicing because that was their other dream they had, they wanted to serve there and be the first actuary. 

So they started serving the country. That was fine, but, when the reporter asked them, were you actually the first actuary? She said no, you know, by the time I passed, somebody else had already become one and I was not number one, but I was number two, which was fine.

Maneesh: So, so what this CEO did? Through the CEO, we were able to really build a character. They were able to share their aspirations, some of their failures, their dreams, their desires, but at the same time, some of their disappointments, some of the goals which they were not able to achieve.

And as a result of that, we were able to build a very strong connection, not only with the reader, but also through the editor with our readers. And that's what I call building a character narrative. 

Steve: So let me ask you a question on that I think, I like what you're saying around humanizing and character development.

It's just better to connect with people. I want to get your thoughts on how, especially, you know, you're working with CEOs, global CEOs, how do you find, you know, oftentimes marketing and PR teams, their mission is to build up the CEO as a very strong and powerful person. They have no weaknesses. They have no flaws.

You know, they are perfect. And you know, I get it. They are traditional, they're the leader of the company. They're great at what they do. How do you get a person to be more vulnerable? And that is a net positive thing as opposed to just someone being perceived as like, well we can't ever say I have a weakness, or I'm not good at something.

Because that would be bad for the company. How do you work with leaders and get them to embrace that?

Maneesh: Yeah. So I think that's where some coaching comes in, right? So you need to have a separate conversation. But there are some CEOs who need some more coaching.

So, that's where I think the models, I mean, the CEOs love to understand things through models, and that's why I like to share my models with them. 

Steve: Yes. 

Maneesh: And then also some share their past success stories. You know in particular in some bigger organizations or in most big organizations. There would be some business leaders who already get it, and if they, you've been able to source some success through this model and share it with the other CEOs, I think they're much more open to it.

And, sometimes it's just taking baby steps. So they may not want to initially, or not be comfortable sharing all of their personal aspects, but it could just be, okay, what was your favorite sport in college? What were your hobbies? What you didn't like growing up? You know, so things like that.

It could just be taking baby steps and then. Yeah, so it needs some coaching. And then of course the CEO, first of all, needs to be open about receiving coaching. But I think that's where I think the expertise of a media relationship per media relations person comes in.

And you know, that's where you need to really show that you know your job and, and then demonstrate what you can achieve through the power of models. And I think most CEOs get it.

Steve: Yeah, that's good. I think humanizing is a good word because there's some balance of, you know, we don't need to do the, we've all seen the LinkedIn, you know, personal story that goes too far.

Sometimes I even think they know how the algorithm works, so it's, I am intentionally gonna cross the line and be maybe emotional is not the good word, but just very dramatic in sharing something personal. Sometimes that's a very good and positive thing for someone to do. Other times I think people say, well, I know if I do that the engagement is really good, and more people will see it.

So I think I like the word humanizing for the CEOs because it can be a personal story. It doesn't always have to be, you know, the classic hero journey. Where, you know, here's my flaw and here's how I overcame it. Awesome. Any, anything else on this one that you wanna share with us?

Maneesh: So the third pillar is all about networks, right? So you have built your narratives focusing on both capability and character

But then you need the right networks to amplify that narrative, right? So it's not only just editors and journalists, but you also need to be leveraging the personal brands and the social networks of your colleagues, because many of them do have big followings. So once your story has gotten published, I think, the work hasn't stopped there for a media relations person now.

I think, you know, you need to be thinking about an integrated campaign and making sure that your published stories are also getting amplified through your social media channels, not only through your company's page in LinkedIn, but also through the personal. Of many of your colleagues who are already very active and have pretty sizable followers, followership as well, which then makes sure that as a marketing organization, you are not the only team which is responsible for amplifying content.

You are actually using the personal networks of many of your colleagues. Even outside marketing to be amplifying your content, which then really, you know, amplifies the reach of the content you have created. And as you know, if you've gotten published in a newspaper or your subject matter expert has, you've gotten them at a TV interview as we know, a lot of people don't watch these media nowadays. So those folks who have actually missed that particular public piece, you have an opportunity to engage with them through their public stories, through their social media feeds as well. 

Steve: Yeah, I like the part, I mean, I'm a big believer in, you know, taking that message and obviously broadcasting it through the brand channels because there's size, there's reach there.

The personal employee channels, I've seen two to three times better engagement on a personal channel than a brand channel. And you know, when you set up these models to kind of feed the teams with content, I've helped clients just go straight the content where, you know, we're using a third party software where we write the content that's uploaded and then employees can kind of shop content and they say, oh, there's 10 posts I could do these two look pretty good.

I've just, it's free media and more companies should embrace that. Cuz again it's more authentic conversations cuz it's coming from a person as opposed to a brand and you're getting to people that you wouldn't normally get to. So it's good all around. 

Maneesh: And just to add to that, I think as a result of all of that, we moved from a press release based PR model to have a very proactive media outreach model, which was really supported by commercial insights and as a result of that approach. Our subject matter got interviewed by Channel News Asia, which is the biggest channel here in this part of the world.

But not only that, global channels like BBC, a lot of them have Singapore Bureau as well, CNN, BBC, and sometimes we were, our overseas, CEOs were visiting this part of the world and they'd never seen. Insights of a studio in their home countries. But as a result of our approach here, using this three pillar model around building narratives and building networks, they were able to even get interviewed by tier one channels.

The other thing which I wanted to talk about was again, in terms of the capability, right, which we touched upon earlier and how people started really seeing the difference in terms of leaders. So, when they started, when our team members and content creators were having a 30 minute conversation with the business leader and a subject matter expert. Converting that 30 minute conversation like this into a thousand opinion pieces. 

And that was getting published under their byline, under the leaders byline in some of the leading publications in this world. They automatically started seeing value because their name was getting amplified. They didn't have that in the past either they didn't have the time or they didn't have the ability to really write, but through the marketing team, when they were able to get published and they were able to then engage with some of their senior business decision makers through media, through their opinion pieces.

I think that really kind of solidified our positioning in terms of having the right skill set, particularly around storytelling in the team.

Steve: Yeah, that's a great story. I think it's so interesting, you know, PR continues to be good at marketing, but it is funny how I always look back at PR as the press release, right?

It was the, there's the media relation size, and then there's the press release side. And that was very much the power of someone in PR in marketing was like, you sent out that press release and you paid for it, and then you got coverage. And it's funny how everyone has access to do that right now.

So many times there's just so much noise, you know, like there's a thousand press releases, and I don’t know if that's an official step that there's gotta be where it's just you can send that out to anything. 

Maneesh: Just want to kind of wrap it up, the media relations part. So if you actually look at the funnel, right? The famous in relation to the customer journey. So I base it on my funnel, it's very simple.

You, in relation to your audiences, as a brand custodian would build reputation. You'll build engagement, and then you'll build demand, right? Reputation, engagement, demand in relation to the firm which you represent. And what I've seen is particularly a lot of startups, I consult with a lot of startups.

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They want to focus on the bottom of the funnel straight ahead. Straight away, right? Which is the demand part of it. Which is great. I get it because, you know, they are in a hurry to grow, right? And of course build their valuations and all of that. But, I feel very passionate about not ignoring the top of the funnel, which is building reputation and engagement.

And that's where your media relations come in. Because that's where you build reputation through your media relations, through your commercial insight, through your opinion pieces. So if you straight away jump into building demand there are high chances that it could take a lot of time to build demand, or you'll be seen just as a commodity.

There's no differentiator in the minds of your audiences. In relation to your brand, but you, if you've actually invested in building reputation and engagement in relation to your brand, you know, there are higher chances that the demand generation engine is much stronger.

And then once the client comes in and you start having it, your sales team starts having conversation. You know, you will end up probably spending less time talking about price because you know, you would already build your brand. And it builds your value. 

Steve: Yeah, it's a great point. It is natural for people to start mid to lower funnel cuz that's where you have to grow your company through revenue. But even if you do that, someone who you capture in that low funnel is going to take a step back and say, all right, you've got my attention.

You've served me something that shows that I'm a buyer. What are you, what do you stand for? What do you believe in? Where are you from? Like, all those questions. So you have to be able to have those questions answered, but it is true, and I can relate to that. You know, I'm in year five running 26 characters, and year one and two was like, oh, I know I have to do top of funnel stuff, but like, I have to generate revenue.

So it's super tough. So it's one of those things where you have to kind of. You have to take your own medicine as a marketer running your own business, cuz it's, you know, it inherently the right thing to do, but it's always hard when that revenue, the revenue is just as important. All right. Awesome. 

So now we're gonna, we're gonna jump into getting to know more about you as a marketer. And you wrote a book, we'll get to that in a second. But I wanna first start with your first job in marketing. Tell me about that. 

Maneesh: Okay, so I started my career as a sales guy, right? I mean, I was basically a quota carrying salesman.

And so I started my career in Mumbai. Then I moved to Singapore as a sales guy. And it so happened that the existing marketing manager quit, right? So there was a vacancy and, so I raised my hand because what I felt I still feel very passionate about, the role of marketeer to drive commercial outcomes, right?

In my mind if a marketer is doing his or her job, it's easy for the sales guy to sell more, right? So coming from a sales background, that was my kind of worldview in relation to sales and marketing. So I raised my hand, I said, look, I mean, I want to get into marketing because I want my sales colleagues to be able to sell more.

And that was with a company called Noel, headquartered in Oota. And ultimately it got bought over later by HP and then, you know, I think then it got sold off again. So I started  my career marketing software pro, software solutions in the software infrastructure space.

Then I moved to market software applications like CRM and enterprise resource planning, business applications and all of that. And then after some time I switched over to marketing professional services. 

Steve: Tell us about your first marketing job. I love that you came from sales.

I think that's great when a marketer understands sales, they're at a huge advantage to help drive the business. What was it like then? Give us what were the channels that were being used? What you know, technology was a whole different thing back then, right? So tell us what it was like.

Maneesh: So I think that time, you know, there was not much online happening. Online was just email marketing. A large part of my marketing budget was focused on doing events, right? Face-to-face events and yeah, so face-to-face events, email marketing and of course also investment in media relations and PR.

So those were the three broad buckets there. You know, and of course you had websites and all of that, and search engine marketing was just starting. So we were kind of experimenting with it away with them that time but I just feel that I was just speaking at an event moderating a discussion on event marketing, and looks like, at least in this part of the world, even after Covid. You know, people still prefer face-to-face events. Nobody, at least in this part of the world, very few people are going back to webinars. I think the large part of marketing dollars are now being focused on doing marketing events face-to-face. I think we can see that countries like Singapore and neighboring countries like Thailand and Malaysia and other countries, they're really attracting a lot of overseas companies trying to do offshore events in these locations.

So I think that after those two years, I think the face-to-face events have really come back with a big bang.  

Steve: Yeah, I've seen that as well. I think we all know, If there was a good outcome of covid, for marketers, it was this was their time to shine using technology to kind of keep something happening, cuz you couldn't do it in person and it's very interesting, like there wasn't really any technological breakthroughs during covid. The technology was already there. All of a sudden there just was a need. So that was also fascinating to see that just helped drive the demand. Cuz people, you know, hey, we need to do some type of a webinar that can get a message out or tell a story.

How do we do that? You know? So all these platforms really started to shine during that. All right. What are some things lately that drive you nuts as a marketer? Whether it's like that, it could be anything, the technology side, the storytelling side. What are some things that you're like, oh my God, if I see now they're one of I can't handle anymore. 

Maneesh: So for me, it's people. It really drives me nuts if a marketer says I can't write. So you know, to me in my previous companies, I made sure that I gave them a writing test, and, obviously a lot came with it. We had limited headcount, so everybody had to do a lot of things, including writing.

So I made sure that they at least know how to craft a sentence properly by giving them a writing test. For me, it's a prerequisites if you can't write, you know, you are in the wrong profession, I think because, you know in this scheme, in the current scheme of things, I think you need, if you are a marketer, you have to be a storyteller, right?

So you need to be able to tell stories, particularly. In using the written word whether it's opinion, I mean maybe you can't write a thousand word piece, but you should be able to draft a decent social media post, right? With using storytelling as it's not about my features and benefits of what we are trying to market.

It's all about what insights I can share with you to inspire you to think differently about your businesses. 

Steve: That's a great perspective. It reminded me of, you know, my first job. I did an internship in 1996 at an ad agency. It was a big ad agency in Minneapolis and there were probably six or seven interns and they brought in someone to talk about writing.

And her whole point was, you know, there's the writing of what we do externally, like it appears in ads but she's like the real professional for your development. And she pulled this stat and she went and looked at like every promotion she had, she had this promotion data, and it was all about a question, why did this person get promoted?

And you had to have like five top reasons why they got promoted. And I think her data was number one or two would always be their ability to be a good communicator. Using written tools. And I've always remembered hearing that and just being like, wow, that's, that's pretty profound. At the time I was all about like, no, it's all about the idea and as long as you have a good idea, it doesn't matter how it's documented, but looking back now, it's spot on.

If you can't tell a good story or just communicate, it's harder to get noticed. You know? It's harder to get the things that you're looking to get. Whether that's communicating an idea, getting a new one, you know.

Maneesh: So, yeah, exactly. So I think what I have about marketing is that a marketing organization should act like a media organization.

And therefore, marketers must think like journalists and act like publishers. And I think the good news is that we now have social media, right? So everybody can publish, you know, we have the power to publish and that's why there's all the more reason, I mean, if you are able to utilize the social media tools we have at our disposal. We need to have writing skills. We need to have storytelling skills, because if you don't have that, then you know, you're not really maximizing the opportunities you have in front of you. 

Steve: All right. Speaking of writing, we're now gonna segue into something that you and I have in common, which is we both have written a book, so if you have the book there, show us the cover.

So, obviously there is our audio, our audio listeners aren't looking at the cover, but if you're on YouTube or somewhere else, you can see the cover. So a new marketer, tell us what before you started the book, what was that light bulb moment where you like, you know what, I gotta write a book.

How did it start? 

Maneesh: Okay, so I read somewhere that if you really want to be a master in a subject. You should be a teacher, you should be able to teach. Right? So if you teach something, then you learn more. You understand more, right? And so I started with that, that was my primary objective. But my secondary objective was also a bit selfish, I wanted to use the published book as a differentiator of my personal brand, right? Because as you know, a lot of people talk about writing books. They dream about it, but not many people have the discipline to write it. I mean, you've written a book as well, and you know, it's not writing a blog post, which you can complete pretty quickly and publish it.

Writing is a marathon you need and not many people really have that persistence and discipline to write and publish a book. So I just wanted to use that as a differentiator as well to stand out in the market vis-a-vis other marketing and communications leaders. And the third thing which was basically a spinoff benefit is I just learned the new industry.

I mean, tomorrow if I publish it I can even become a publisher if I want to. Because I learned the whole ropes of publishing as I wrote and published it, publish my book. 

Steve: It's true. I can relate to what you just said. I mean, I remember making that decision. And you instantly, on day one of writing your book, you're an expert.

Whether that's right or wrong, you're an expert and you have that expert mindset to say, well, if I'm an expert, I'm writing a book, I have to create something interesting, and there it's a process that forces me to just evaluate my beliefs. Did I have good thoughts on anything? Are they bad? And you know.

I'm really proud of the book I wrote, but it's a love-hate relationship because there you, you'll work on something for a day or two days and you'll be like, this is going nowhere. It doesn't make sense. And you just, you abandoned it. And that's a very healthy thing to do when you're writing a book. Tell me about your process.

Like how did you go through moments like that too? Maybe that was just unique to me. Maybe I'm the only one who was angry at my book at times. 

Maneesh: I think, what for me, it took me three years to write it. And, what happened was that the marketer in me, I think, got very excited about the marketing aspects of the book rather than the writing thing, right?

So I started thinking about what should be my book title, what should be my cover? You know, and I spent I think, probably too much time thinking about it and researching the title and the cover and on and all of that but then I gave myself a deadline and I said, you know, I need to finish it, finish writing by, so and so date, I religiously went into a public library, which is very close to my home.

So after this pre covid, I went to the office and came back after work instead of going home. I straight up, went to Google Library, spent two hours there, just writing, you know, and just, I switched my laptop off. And then only came home after I'd written the specified specific number of pages I had targeted for the day.

And what I realized was you know, it's all about dealing with resistance. In fact, I wrote a post just yesterday about dealing with the resistance in LinkedIn. It's all about just starting. You know, it could just be an outline. Just whatever comes to your mind. Just start typing and don't think about editing.

You know, think about editing later. Because if you start writing and editing are two different processes and a lot of times some of us tend to mix that together. And if you start thinking about editing before writing, you will not be able to start because then you start chasing perfection instead of chasing excellence, which is something which you can do right now if you start writing.

Yeah. And I think that's what I did. And then, I think I also went about it in a very professional way. I hired a developmental editor who read through the whole manuscript after I completed it. And they said, okay, maybe this part you need to do some more research and maybe you need to fill in the gaps here a bit more.

And then they just gave me some great nudges and then I was able to do some more research and based on the research, then create some more content and, and I think that's how I completed it. So I think that would be my advice to myself and to whoever is asking. If you want to write a book, just start and think about editing later.

Steve: Yeah. My process after finishing the book was really appreciating that it is, I looked at it as like ice sculpting, right? Like in your mind you start with this vision of, well, if I'm gonna chisel some ice and create something nice, what? And then that first time you sit down and write, it's still a block of ice.

You know, you're still using different tools and really, it took me, I would write, I would have maybe two or three rounds of me editing that. And I had the luxury of an editor, right? So like, I didn't even have to take it fully across the finish line. I had someone do the editing for me. But even for me to get it ready for the editor, It's a lot of work. There's the craft of how do you know, write well. And then there's also this: is this good? Like, are marketers gonna think that this is gonna help them? So it's this constant battle of quality of the content versus the style and the craft of writing.

And that's, that was very difficult for me cuz hopefully I'm a better marketer than I am a writer and that's where you truly have an appreciation. People who are great at writing. Not just marketers, just authors in general. Like they can tell a story, but the craft of how they tell it is, is unreal.

You know, like, just you know, what may take me 10 minutes to do? They're like, I don't know, that's two minutes . You know, like, that's amazing, and what is it? Tell me about, since you've published it, what are some, like surprise, some things that have surprised you?

Where encounters with people or just things that, wow, I didn't know this person read my book. I had no idea that they would take the time to read it. Like, did you have any moments like that? 

Maneesh: Yeah. You know, I did. So, what I realized was that. Yes, you do get people who you know, there was this guy who went to a store called here in Singapore.

He just bought a book. I didn't know, and I didn't know him earlier. It went, grabbed a book and took a photo and posted it in and tagged me saying, you know, I bought this book today and I'm going to read it. So you do get such pleasant surprises, if you will. But at the same time, what also happens is that, I mean, as you know as well, once you've written a book, and then of course as we discuss it, it's a marathon.

It takes persistence. People attach a lot of value to it. That's one. But at the same time, you are seen as an expert, right? You, your credibility increases. And I realized that firsthand when a pretty big technology company, US headquartered having Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.

I got a call from them, they were having a sales kickoff and said, Hey, we are having a sales kickoff with all the sales guys coming in from all over Asia. Can you come and take a session? And that was an aspirational brand for me. I always, you know, looked up to the brand and got them to invite you to speak at their event. That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't written a book. 

Steve: Yep. Yeah, that's a great story. I mean, I think the power of the book is pretty intense and I think to me, like the example you just shared, what really gets at the heart of, I think a lot of B2B marketing is that sometimes marketing is the act of de-risking a decision, right? So for example, they had to make a decision on who to hire to speak. And you present a book, they'll read it, they understand, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. And it's almost like this combination of like, you need a solution to solve it, but you need to de-risk that decision.

And I've seen books just be such a great tool cuz it's like the person goes, oh, this person wrote a book about. Yes. Not many people have done that. Therefore, he now is an expert in that category. I think really de-risking decisions, books can be great, right? I mean, it's the modern version of theirs that the old traditional, you know, saying about no one ever got fired for hiring IBM, right?

That's a safe decision. No one ever got fired for hiring McKenzie. Right? Like, well, McKenzie's smart, they told me to do it. And, the book is a more of a modern way to de-risk decisions. So I think, you know, personal branding, it's great. I also think companies can benefit from a similar mindset.

Not that they have to write a book, but just long form thought leadership is better at de-risking, you know, like I had a really good conversation with a client who was just like, look, no one's gonna read this. They don't have the time. And you know, I was telling them, look, half of it is all about consumption of the content.

But the other half is like, you are perceived as an expert who has the bench strength to write this. And if you only create content that is in the philosophy of short sound bites and everyone wants videos and info. You will just play there and your competition will win on the other side.

So it's not all, you know, there's so many people who, I've given my book to who I know who haven't read it, but they skim it and they'll go, this guy wrote a book. He seems to know what's going on, so yeah, sometimes marketing is not the goal is not to finish all of the content. The goal is to create a perception.

where someone goes, this person, this company, they are an authority at what they do. So I've enjoyed connecting again, Maneesh. Is there anything you wanted to share? Anything goes? Marketing, storytelling, APAC trends, culture things. 

Maneesh: No, no, I think this has been good. 

I think we've covered almost everything. And I think you asked some great questions. So I think I've covered everything which I had in mind. Hopefully it was up to your standards,

Steve: I have, I should say I have very high standards and you've met all of them, as opposed to saying standards, what are you talking about? There are no standards. You just have to be interesting to be on Interesting B2B marketers and of course you are interesting and very capable of what you do.

So thank you Maneesh for joining today. And make sure to like and follow the podcast if you haven't already. And thanks again for joining us on this. 

Maneesh: Thank you. Thanks for the invitation. 

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