Marketing and Inspiration: Conversation with Glenn Gibson

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      Glenn Gibson is the author of the book Before the Mic and Director, Global Technology Evangelist at Hyland, a leading software company. Glenn is an award-winning public speaker with a passion for technology and has collected several IT certifications such as a VMware Certified Professional, Citrix Certified Administrator, and Microsoft Certified Professional.

As a native of Scotland, his passions include all things Scottish; kilts, bagpipes, whisky, (real) football, meat pies as well as playing the drums and expanding his ever-growing vinyl collection.

In this conversation, Glenn talks about entrepreneurship and inspiration.

Geetesh: Glenn, like you, many readers offer presentation-related services. Some have also published books in their areas of expertise. These activities are similar to what you’ve done. Can you share some quite creative marketing techniques used to get your book noticed?

Glenn: Yes! I’ve had a lot of fun trying a variety of ideas to get my book noticed. Here are some of the highlights!

1. Ready Presenter One Competition

I’m currently running a competition inspired by the book Ready Player One. I’ve hidden two easter eggs in my book, Before the Mic, and I’m currently running a competition to find the first one. You can see the riddle and leaderboard here. Three people have found it so far, so if you like solving puzzles and would like to get your name etched in infamy on the leaderboard, there’s still time!

As you’ve been so kind to interview me, here’s an additional clue exclusively for your readers Geetesh!

The competition will close soon, With or Without You.

To submit a guess, simply fill out the form at the bottom of the competition page on my website.

Once the first competition closes, I’m going to release the second easter egg, so stay tuned for that too! Those that have found the first one, will find the second one easier to locate.

2. Spotify Playlists

My book correlates presentation writing to song-writing, so of course, I mention a lot of songs throughout! I created a Spotify playlist containing every song mentioned in my book, and you can listen along as you read here. Some of these songs are classics, and some more obscure, but I think it makes for a pretty good listen. It’s probably not a surprise to realize the songs I mentioned happened to be some of my personal favorites, and I enjoyed the opportunity to highlight several Scottish bands. My hope is that people will hear these songs and remember the lesson from the book, but if someone simply listens to the playlist and discovers some new music they love or a band to check out, that’s a success in my book too!

3. I love to present campaign

I’ve said for years “To get a thrill, some people jump out of planes, I get on stages”. Presenting still scares me, but I love the adrenaline rush of getting up there and the brilliant afterglow that happens when people tell me how much they enjoyed a presentation. I built on this idea with a mini-campaign I created called “I love to present”. For this campaign, I created two videos (shark video, tightrope video) and some mugs, t-shirts, and bookmarks on this very topic.

I really do love this profession, and I think that people who choose to do this for a career should be proud of that fact, as so many people seriously do NOT love to present, and only do it because they have to!

Those are some of the proactive things that I’ve done to get the word out, I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with different ideas and catching people’s attention in unusual ways.

Geetesh: Where do you get your ideas? Is there a resource for inspiration that you look at when facing a creativity block?

Glenn: There are ideas for inspiration all around us, so I’m constantly on the lookout for cool and creative ideas in TV ads, radio, books, LinkedIn posts, and even movie trailers, to name just a few sources. Ultimately, whether we are selling a book or a presentation-related service or starting a new business, we are all in the Marketing game and there are ideas for marketing everywhere! I came across the idea to create a Spotify playlist for a book on a Scottish food-related podcast, where an author of a cookbook had created a playlist to listen along while cooking.

I got the idea for the “I love to present” campaign from an accounting software company that created badges saying “I love a good audit”. I always thought that was funny and clever, to proclaim love for something that most people dread, so I borrowed that idea and applied it to presentations! Bono said, “every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief!” This is so true, and I take it as permission to get inspiration from others’ ideas!

Whenever I’m facing a bit of a creative block, I try to come up with something weird, wild, or off-the-wall and then go from there. My personal motto is “start bold and work backward from there”, I like to think about ideas that make me nervous or get me excited – when that happens, I know I’m on the right track.

Geetesh: What advice would you have for others?

Glenn: As far as advice for people looking to launch a book or business, I have two simple phrases that I’ve been saying quite a lot to people recently, so I thought I’d share them here too:

If you never try, you’ll never know

Getting endorsements for my book is something that I felt a little overwhelmed with at first. I mean, not only was I going to be asking people to read my manuscript, but was also asking them to attach their name and reputation to my book. My inner voice was telling me “who would want to do THAT?” I applied the above advice and simply asked people that I respected if they would consider it. I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by the response. You can see some of these endorsements here.

My favorite band of all time is a Scottish band called Runrig. They started in 1973 and I’ve loved them since my first concert at 14 years of age. I reached out through the fan club to see if I could have a member of the band read my book, and their founding member, songwriter, and bass player. Rory Macdonald gave me the amazing quote which is on the back cover and still makes me smile every time I read it! I’d also presented on the same stage as the amazing juggling act “The Passing Zone” at a conference a few years ago. I reached out to them to see if they’d give me a review, and not only did they do so, but they also juggled my book while juggling flaming clubs! I feel deeply honored by the nice words that some very successful and well-respected people gave me to put in my book, so I’d say to everyone “if you never try, you’ll never know.”

The next piece of advice is this:

Stuff leads to stuff

A brilliant work mentor said this to me several years ago. Basically, what this means is that when you put yourself out there, this triggers things to happen, which in turn triggers more things to happen. But if you DON’T do any “stuff”, then you can’t expect anything to happen. So, I apply this by simply taking every opportunity to put myself out there. I’ve LOVED participating in podcasts, interviews (like this one and our previous conversation!) and being featured in newspapers in Scotland and Ohio! One of my favorite events of 2021 was the Presentation Summit, where I had the opportunity to present and make a lot of new friends in the Presentation industry, such as yourself! So, whenever I’m considering pursuing an opportunity, I always keep in mind that “stuff leads to stuff”.

It’s been a pleasure Geetesh, I hope your readers get a little inspiration from some of this advice which has helped to guide my own journey so far!

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.