****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

Michael Roderick 0:00

Hi, I'm Michael Roderick, and you're listening to A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)

Kenneth Kinney 0:20

Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 0:23

I'm Kenneth Kinney, but friends call me shark. I'm a keynote speaker, strategist, a shark diver, host of this show, and your Chief Shark Officer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:32

Is your business referrable? For many business people? It's a dream when you want people talking about your brand in a positive way, but are they equipped to speak clearly about you? Will that story continue in simple terms, so that it can be recited from one person to another to another in a structure that helps make that message stick? I will ask you again then in a slightly different way. How do you make your product or service referrable?

Kenneth Kinney 0:58

Michael Roderick is a former high school English teacher and former Broadway producer who is now the CEO of Small Pond Enterprises, which helps thoughtful givers become thought leaders by making their brand's referral their messaging memorable and their ideas unforgettable.

Kenneth Kinney 1:12

And on this episode, we'll discuss becoming referrable, the AIM framework, the LESS method, buying on emotion, differentiation, stickiness, target problems and wicked witches, sharing TED Talks, a check for understanding, Shakespeare and Marlowe, how slime is made, grocery shopping in Harlem, raising money on Broadway, and a lot, lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 1:30

So let's tune into referrable Michael with a referrable shark on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

[intro music]

Kenneth Kinney 1:41

Michael, welcome to A Shark's Perspective. Tell us a little bit about your background and your story. It is an interesting one.

Michael Roderick 1:48

Thanks. Yeah. So I started as a high school English teacher. And I went from being a high school English teacher to becoming a Broadway producer in under two years. So a lot of people were very curious about that and wanted me to sort of pull back the curtain on that process. So I started to study networking, I started what were you teaching in high school? I was teaching English. And I ran the drama program at the school as well.

Kenneth Kinney 2:14

Okay, so that was the that was a little bit of tie in I guess I was trying to tie. But those jobs just don't fall out of trees. How did you get that job?

Michael Roderick 2:23

No. So what I learned was that the, the world of Broadway is really about raising money. And raising money is all about building relationships. And one of the biggest elements of Broadway, is the idea that when somebody wants to be a Broadway producer, they go to another Broadway producer, and they say, I'll raise this money if I can get credit on the show. Right? So they'll say I can raise this much for you. And then my name gets above the title or, or gets promoted in some, you know, in some capacity. So I saw that. And I went to a bunch of producers, and I said, I actually don't want credit, I just want to get better, better at raising money. So if you're willing to give me paperwork, I can't promise anything, but I'm gonna go out there, and I'm gonna see if I can find money for you. And as a result, I had all of these producers give me their paperwork. So the the interesting thing about that was when I went to an investor, whereas most of my colleagues were coming to an investor with one show, and basically being like, do you want to invest in this or not? I was actually coming to these people with a portfolio. So I ended up raising a lot of money for a lot more projects, because I didn't ask for the credit. And what eventually happened was people kind of got word that I was doing this, and some producer came to me and basically offered me credit to raise money on on a project called the Scottsboro boys. So I did that, and that I got my first Broadway credit that way.

Kenneth Kinney 4:03

And then you transition to what you're doing now?

Michael Roderick 4:05

Yes.

Kenneth Kinney 4:07

So how did you decide to make that pivot? These are hard lefts.

Michael Roderick 4:12

Yes, I mean, there, there's a lot of them. So So basically, I, after all of that experience, everybody wanted to know, like, how I was getting into all the doors I was getting into. And my initial impression was that it was networking, right, that it was just about the fact that I was good at relationship building. So I was like, oh, okay, I'll teach people, frameworks and models and sort of ways to think about relationship building. And I kind of built a whole brand. Around that process. I had run a conference for connectors for a number of years, I had been featured in these books about super connectors. But there was this period where I basically just asked myself, if I took networking out of the equation, what was it that got me into all the room As I get into, and I had this realization that it was because people would talk about me and my ideas when I wasn't in the room, in a way. So I started to look at because I had built all these relationship building frameworks. I started asking myself, could I build frameworks around refer ability? Could I actually break down why it is, we talk to others about somebody else's ideas, why we refer back to people why we serve, share these concepts. And I just started kind of testing a lot of these theories with people who were in that subject matter space. So now, that's the work that I do is I help thoughtful givers become thought leaders. So people who are very good at doing the work for their clients are usually the ones who struggle with packaging, their intellectual property. So I bring all of these refer ability elements into it, and help them start to get these larger ideas out there.

Kenneth Kinney 5:59

Where did small pond enterprises come from the name?

Michael Roderick 6:02

Yeah, so I'm originally from Rhode Island, and everybody knows everybody in Rhode Island. So when I decided that it was going to move to New York, all of my friends said, Here, you're a big fish in a small pond, you go to New York, and nobody's going to know you. And I decided that I told them, I'm gonna go to New York and create my own small pond. And that's what I did. I basically brought a lot of people together, I started running all these shows, doing all these different types of things. So when I started to think about what what would I call the company, I decided to call it small pot enterprises.

Kenneth Kinney 6:36

A great name.

Michael Roderick 6:37

Thank you.

Kenneth Kinney 6:37

So how do we make our product or service make our package referrable? Talk a little bit about that methodology.

Michael Roderick 6:44

Yeah, so the, the way to think about it, and it's easy to remember, because it spells the word AIM. So you want to think about the idea of taking aim. And that's accessibility influence in memory. So your first hurdle is always accessibility. Because most of the time, if you are a subject matter expert, you are overwhelmed by your own expertise. And very, very often you live in what I like to refer to as the echo chamber of the Enlightenment, where everybody in your industry is kind of using the same language. And you're using that language thinking, Oh, well, this is how everybody talks. But the second you go outside of that industry, people start looking at you like, I don't know what you're talking about, right? And the big challenge that happens is that we almost always think in the context of like, how do I present to you what I'm all about? Versus how do I present to you what I can actually do for you. And there's a very, very big difference between those two things. I can share with you expertise and tell you about my background, and all those different types of things, but you don't necessarily care about that. But if I am able to identify and really actually give language to your problem, the thing that you are struggling with, then what's going to happen is you're going to be leaning in and saying oh my god, you get me You understand me. And you're going to be very open to hearing about the solution that I have, or the way that you can think about this. So that's always the first hurdle is accessibility, and really thinking through, how am I making sure that whatever it is, I'm sharing whatever it is that I'm offering, is so clear that people outside of my industry can get it. Next is influence. And most of us think about influence in the context of persuasion, because that's what we've always read and sort of been taught, right? So we always hear about influence in the context of, I'm going to do these things to get you to do something. But true influence is when you do something without me asking you to do it. If you do something for me, and I haven't asked you and I haven't coerced you in any way, that is true influence. And the only reason you're going to do that is because it gives you something, it makes you look good. So most of the time, what we're trying to do when we think about influence is we're thinking, How do I package this so that I look cool, so that I look interesting. And what we want to do is we want to package our ideas and our concepts so that when other people share them, they look cool. They look interesting. And the easiest metaphor that I like to use for this is the idea of a magic trick. And if you've ever gone and you've seen a magician, they will show you all these different tricks, but then they usually have at least one trick where they'll show you exactly how they do the trick. And what's the next thing that you want to do? You basically say Oh, Oh, I just learned how to make the card disappear behind my hands. So if you're at a party, you do that, right. And when we craft our ideas and our concepts in such a way that when other people share them, they look good. That's when we truly have an influence. That's one more we're really making it so that people want to go out and talk about our ideas, because our ideas are making them look better. Does that make sense?

Kenneth Kinney 10:29

Oh, 100% I just think there's, you're gonna have a hard time trying to destroy the minds of everybody for the last 20 years who've been on social media, who've made it me, me, me, me, me Look at me. So it sounds like every Instagram post I've ever seen.

Michael Roderick 10:46

Exactly, exactly. And this is the thing, right? We've sort of been, I call it the Faustian bargain of the personal brands, right? We've been sold, the idea that the way to become famous, the way to be known, is to basically be this celebrity, where it's like it's all about, it's all about me, because we see that within, you know, different cultures and different, you know, the whole social media world and everything else. But when people are sharing something, they are getting something out of sharing it. And there are very few of us who want to basically put our entire lives on display in the hopes that we're going to get a following. So I think it's actually much much better to speak softly and carry a big idea. Because if you've got a well positioned idea, if you've got a really interesting framework, or a model or a way of thinking, people will go out and share that model with others because it makes them look cool. It makes them look interesting, right. And that's, that's at the heart of this idea of influence. So the last piece is memory. And the way that I like to think about memory is if you want people to remember you more, you focus on LESS, and that is language, emotion, simplicity, and structure. So I'll start with language. The reason why we all know who Shakespeare is, and only English majors know who Christopher Marlowe is, is the fact that Shakespeare added new words to the English language. And anytime there is a new word or a new way of saying things, it basically cars, a piece of real estate, in our brains. And I can basically use language right now. And you will instantly refer it to a certain brands. So if I say venti coffee, you instantly think of Starbucks, right?

Kenneth Kinney 12:55

Sure.

Michael Roderick 12:56

It's just a natural, natural thing. If I say use the Force, and you have watched a lot of movies, then you think of Star Wars, right? Like it's those types of things. So the thing that often happens is that we very rarely create our own language for things or come up with our own ways of saying things. Because the other way, is considered safe to a lot of people. If I already know a word is popular, and I'm seeing everybody using that word, it's very natural for me to think, Okay, well, I'll just use that word, too. And this is what ends up happening. People just sort of start using these, I call them container words, right, where we all hear them. And we, we kind of nod but we don't necessarily know what they mean. And we all have different definitions of it. And the way that I like to think about it is you want to open up that container and you want to find the contents. You want to ask yourself if I couldn't use this word that everybody else is using, which word would I use? And how does that word tie to like who I am? And what I believe and what I see. Right? So if we have our own language, what will happen is, we will basically carve a piece of real estate in people's brains, they will start thinking of us in that way, they'll start thinking of us in in the context of the ideas that we're spreading. So the second is emotion, and emotion solidifies memory. And the easiest way to illustrate this is if I asked you what you were up to three days ago, and I asked you to give me a lot of detail. There's a there's a good chance that some things would be fuzzy, you'd kind of look back at the day and be like, I'm not quite sure. But if I said to youimagine right now, what you would consider the saddest day of your life. And tell me the details of that day. You're going to remember far more details because your brain is like a sponge. Lunch, when you are in a heightened state of emotion. And again, we don't do this very often, right? We don't take the time to tap into emotion, especially when we're talking about our ideas, our concepts, because we're, we're again, sort of in that echo chamber of the Enlightened right, we're kind of living in that world of okay, well, I'm going to teach you something, I'm going to present something to you. And we don't take a moment to say, well, what are the emotional components of this experience? How did this feel, and help others to feel that and when we do that, they become more connected to us, and they remember the material. And this is why, for many of us, we remember very, very specific scenes in movies, because we were in a very heightened state of emotion. And it didn't have to, it doesn't have to be sadness, it can be laughter, right? We all know a film that we can tell you the scene where we laugh so hard that we couldn't stop laughing. Right? Because our memory pulls that in. So we always want to think about how do I insert emotion into this experience. And next thing is simplicity. And all throughout pretty much all of academics, we have been rewarded for complexity, from the earliest days of school, the more complex, the smarter you work. So if you wrote a big paper, you were smart, if you use big words, you were smart, you were always seen as being above if you had complexity to what you were doing, right. But when we get out into the real world, complexity drives people nuts, because the memory, rewards simplicity, the simpler something is, the easier it is for us to carry in our memory. And the example that I often like to use about this is the grocery store. So if I said, you know, go to the grocery store, get me milk, eggs, and cheese, you're not going to forget that grocery list. But if I said go to the grocery store, get me milk, eggs, cheese, some cleaner, candy bar, a half roasted chicken, and some sponges, there's a good chance I'm not going to get my groceries. Right? Because your brain is kind of trying to hold on to all of those things. And this is the mistake that I see. So many subject matter experts may is that they they they try to impress people with their complexity, right? So they try to say like, here's my 32 points of leadership that you need to think about and who is going to remember 32 points, right? Who's going to think in that way, you're not going to share that you're not going to pass that on. And we always want to have something that we make it really simple for people to be able to pass on going back to the influence concept, right. And that the lat that ties to the last piece, which is structure, because our brains need order, in order to process information. So the more that we give people a structure, the more likely it is that they're going to share that information. This is why jokes have been around as long as they have because they have a structure that never changes, a setup and a punch line. Right? So anytime we're thinking about how to somebody share this idea, we have to ask ourselves, do they have a structure to be able to share it. So anybody listening to this has a structure to be able to share the three points of refer ability because it spells the word aim, and its accessibility, influence and memory, I've given you a structure to carry the information. And that's what you always want to think about if you're trying to make sure that somebody is able to remember something, you want to make sure that they have a structure to carry that information when you want them to be able to share it. And you know, there's I could go miles deep into each of those particular concepts. We could spend a ton of time you know, digging into any elements of accessibility, influence and memory or even just less but that is if you want it to serve look at it from like a 30,000 foot view that is at the core of the elements of recoverability.

Kenneth Kinney 19:41

Well, I won't be the English historian you will be but a couple of points here. One is Marlowe kind of cleared the field early and died before Shakespeare. So it gave Shakespeare a little more room to also dominate us. Once Marlowe did it in a think it was a bar Fight or something.

Michael Roderick 20:01

Yeah, I think you're right.

Kenneth Kinney 20:03

Yeah, I think he was a little bit of a drunkard to back into the 1500s. But no, I agree with your point on Shakespeare's language. One of the things, though, that I discuss a lot of times with people, and I'd love you to elaborate, you know, you use the example of going into a grocery store. And a lot of times as much as we want to impact emotion into them argument and and I get it and agree with it. But not everything is necessarily triggered by emotion, a lot of things are not Yeah, how do you use the a method to really stick with people when they're making normal purchases, it could be something at the grocery store, or a product and service that's normal with a problem that needs to be solved, versus one that really has an emotional context to it.

Michael Roderick 20:49

Sure. So everything, I would argue that everything actually does have an emotional context to it. And that emotional context comes from the basically the meaning that you give that particular experience. So for somebody who is on a diet, and has really been struggling with their weight, and had a lot of issues, a purchase of the cookies, that are breaking that diet is actually a very emotional is actually a very emotional purchase. Right? So the thing is, there are ways that a lot of these things are described that we may not necessarily see it as like, oh, super intense emotion, but they're tapping into our emotions whenever they're selling to us.

Kenneth Kinney 21:46

No, I agree completely.

Michael Roderick 21:48

Yeah. So so the thing is, even if you have something that you think, and I think that so this actually reminds me of, I went, my daughter, juniper. wanted to go to this slime museum. And basically, the idea was, you went and you made slime. And when I went there, what I discovered was that slime is mostly made as a result of using Elmers glue, which is probably one of the most boring like items in the world. But think about how sort of exciting and interesting slime is. Right? Oh,

Kenneth Kinney 22:28

I want to go so.

Michael Roderick 22:29

Yeah, right. It's like It's like amazing, right? Yeah, think about, you know, in that way. But the thing is, that glue is like the the product or the idea, we think there's absolutely no way that I could infuse emotion into this or you know, et cetera, because that's our that's our natural way of thinking about it. But how could we turn that glue? How can we turn that thing that is boring into slime? Right? So how could we start to explore the idea of emotion, especially when our competitors may not be? Right? So if you're selling a product or service, and that service does not have any sort of emotion to it, normally, how can you infuse that, and I mean, Apple is a perfect example of that. Because in the beginning, we looked at these technology elements, we looked at these tools, these computers, these chips, like all these things as very non emotional, right, like, like, it's technology, it's not emotional at all. And then Steve Jobs comes along, and gives this intense emotional speech about the launch of a product. And all of a sudden, everybody's treating Apple like it's a religion. Right? And this is the thing, we can look at anything that we're doing. And we can start to ask, Well, is there an emotional component to this, and we're going to find that there is we're going to find that there's something that we can tap into, that gets people to start to think about this particular idea, or this particular concept, this product or this service, it's just a matter of spending the time to really dig in and figure it out. Whereas most of the time, we, that's not what we naturally, what we naturally do, we we tend to, and this often happens with anything marketing oriented, we often tend to just kind of lean on whatever we learned before. Right? And believe, okay, well, this is the way you know, this is the way that this is done. This is the way that you know, this goes so I'm going to do a slightly more interesting version of this or I'm going to do a faster version of this or a shorter version, whatever it is, and we don't necessarily take the time to look at something and say, Okay, this is the way everybody has been doing it. What is the absolute sort of left turn on that? And how might I start to play around with that, you know, with that idea with that concept and just see what happens.

Kenneth Kinney 25:13

Something you and I spoke about before we started the show, and I want to lean back on memory. But you know, you live in New York, there's a ton of noise always use this a lot of presentations as sort of the the visuals you get when you walk through Times Square, there's so much noise with advertising and marketing today, we get hit with so many messages from so many different angles. Let's dig in a little bit deeper on how you make that product or service or whatever it is that you're selling a little stickier. Yeah, you know, there is also the conversation that we've had about differentiation, and so much of what everybody's trying to do that is different. There's just a lot of difference out there....

Michael Roderick 25:51

Yeah.

Kenneth Kinney 25:51

....that become normal.

Michael Roderick 25:53

Yeah. So one thing that I think is a really, really interesting opportunity is looking at what I like to refer to as the target problem, as opposed to the target market. So a lot of the time we're thinking target market, we're thinking, Okay, I'm selling to this group, I'm selling to this audience. And very, very rarely do we think about the idea of a target problem, where we basically say, Okay, well, what is the challenge or the issue that the person who is going to buy this product or service is having? And then what is language that I could create, or that I could develop? That would cause that person to say, Oh, my God, you just punched me in the chest. And now I need to know how I solve that particular thing. And the thing is, most of the time we we describe the problem in a very general way, right? We don't take the time to really think through what is that target problem and the more specific that we get, we start to attract what I like to refer to as sleeper markets. So the one of the one of the most interesting sort of stories that comes up about this, for me, is about the show wicked, very, very well known Broadway show, right. But one of the things that's very interesting about when wicked actually keen to Broadway, wicked, was on was on Broadway at a time when pretty much there was nothing for the tween market. You either took your kid to a shirt to a musical and kind of hoped that they liked it, or your kid was aged out of the other things that were on Broadway, the other shows they they weren't really like, you know, they weren't really a fit. Or you took your kid to children's theater, and hope that they were willing to kind of sit with the four and five year olds, even though they were 12 or 13. Right. And then wicked comes along and addresses a massive target problem, which is tweens feel like the biggest outcast in the world because they haven't developed yet. They're in that place where like their their frontal lobes aren't developed. They're they're feeling awkward and all and all of a sudden Broadway launches a show that has this awkward, Wicked Witch character, become the hero. Now think about that. That caused wicked take off because that market spread that like wildfire. If you were a parent, you took your kid to wicked. Right? So the thing is, wicked, developed that target problem they really thought through, right? What is this? You know, and for them, they kind of discovered this market, right? They were they realize, oh, wait a second, we've got a bunch of tweets coming, we should probably keep, you know, keep doing this. But the thing is, anytime we get hyper specific and we create a target, we create a target a problem. There is the opportunity for asleep or market to basically wake up and start paying attention to us. And most of the time, we don't do that. Like most of the time, we basically have a general problem we sort of we know like this is our market and this is who I'm selling to. And we don't take the time to come up with that. But when we do, it's basically a calling card, right? Where people are like, oh, I need to know more about that. I like you know, and then everybody's like, why are all these people buying this? I need to know why. Why this audience is sort of suddenly, you know, attached themselves to this product or service. And then if we layer on the elements that I was talking about, where we make it really, really easy to share, whatever that idea is, whatever that concept is amongst that very rabid sleeper market, well, things are going to take off in a much more significant way.

Kenneth Kinney 30:24

And you just touched on a point I want to lean back into again, making things more shareable, talking about the power of really making things more shareable and off and talking about it making it bite sized chunks, because people want a piece, not the not the whole pie. Yeah. And that at least gets them started.

Michael Roderick 30:40

Yeah.

Kenneth Kinney 30:41

How does that play is as far as the AIM method goes?

Michael Roderick 30:44

Yeah. So basically, it goes back to this idea of influence, right. And that people are sharing things because it makes them look better. Right? It makes them look good. And the thing is, if something is not easily shareable, and you try to share it, and you mess up and sharing it, you look bad as a result of that, so if you've ever seen a TED talk, and it was kind of all over the place, and you go and try to tell your friend about that TED Talk, you're trying to piece everything together, they haven't packaged it in such a way that it's easy to share. So you're like, yeah, and then he talked about this, and then this thing happened, etc? And then you're like, I'm not really sure. And you're having a lot of trouble, right? Describing it breaking it down? Well, now you kind of look like you're fumbling in front of your friends. Right? You look like you don't know what you're talking about. So are you going to want to do that again? Are you gonna want to go through that experience, again, of sort of fumbling through and hoping, you know, people get it? No, you're gonna go to whatever the easier thing is, right? You're gonna go for whatever thing is easily shareable. Because you can say it quickly. You can break it down quickly for people. And then you look good. You look cool. You look like the person who's sharing the information, not the person who can't remember or understand the information.

Kenneth Kinney 32:11

So whether you're a business owner, you know, a manager, marketer, advertiser, whatever. What do you think is the most important thing that people can do to start with referrability?

Michael Roderick 32:23

Yeah, so I go back to actually my teaching background, and there is a tool in teaching known as the check for understanding. And as a teacher, what you do in a check for understanding is you've presented something to the class, and you call on one of your students, and you say to that student, so I would like you to tell me what I just said, in your own words. And you can see whether or not they get it, you can see whether or not they understand it. So the most powerful thing that you can do is to go to somebody, preferably somebody outside of your circle, preferably somebody outside of your industry, and say to them, I'm going to basically tell you, what I do, or what I'm about, or I'm going to tell you about this product or this service. And all I want you to do is to tell it back to me, in your own words. And you will be shocked at what you think you're saying versus what they hear. And this is the mistake that gets made all the time is that we don't do enough of that. So if you want to, if you want to, like have like what is the first thing that basically will just give you a boatload of clarity, and help you to start to think about your offer, whatever you have, do that check for understanding, because it will open your eyes up to the things that you might be dismissing, that are actually the things that people are really interested in, it'll open you up to the fact that you are not being as clear as you thought you were, it'll open you up to the fact that there might be asleep or market that you are not paying attention to it is a very, very powerful tool.

Kenneth Kinney 34:15

I could not agree more I used to give this story all the time I would talk about you know, telling somebody a story at the start of a line about especially about yourself. You can be anything you tell whatever basic story it is. Let's just say the word automobile. By the time you get to the end of the line, it gets confused and now it's Rubber baby buggy bumper. Yeah, the same thing happens with your own personal message. And it doesn't take a long line of people it now takes to that you and the person that you think you're communicating with and how off they hear your message versus what it what it is you think you say so I love every bit of it. So Michael asked this of all my guests, you're on the sharks perspective. What is your favorite kind of shark and why if your daughter loves slime, then surely you've got some kind of shark story with kids.

Michael Roderick 35:06

So I actually my favorite movie is jaws. And it's always, I, I've always been fascinated with that film. And so the great way, it's definitely my favorite as a result of that.

Kenneth Kinney 35:21

It's a memorable movie, for a lot of not good reasons as well, because it is the absolute not way that sharks are. But it was a fantastic movie from a just a, I mean, it's hard to believe it's 50 years old.

Michael Roderick 35:38

I know, right?

Kenneth Kinney 35:39

I mean, yeah. What could they have done with the special effects today? Right. So Well, Michael, it says special time in the show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions that you're going to be asked today?

Michael Roderick 35:51

I love it. Let's go.

Kenneth Kinney 35:53

Number one, you were a high school teacher. And you've mentioned movie so I'm going to bring this up a better movie to represent real high school. Say aliens have landed and you only have two DVDs. We're using DVDs not streaming to tell the story of high school, the Breakfast Club, or High School Musical. A breakfast club. That was kind of a stop. I would have worried but you had the Broadway route to so afraid you might say High School Musical, which I think combination on so many levels. Oh, gosh, what was his name? The guy he died a couple of years ago.

Michael Roderick 36:33

John Hughes, right?

Kenneth Kinney 36:35

Yeah. Yeah, fantastic movie. So your career also including being on and off Broadway. So you get friends in from out of town? You've only got time for one show. You're taking them to wicked? Or Hamilton?

Michael Roderick 36:55

Oh, I'm gonna gonna say Hamilton. Really? Okay. Why so I've got to say Hamilton, because Hamilton is just a mind blowing show. And wicked has been around wicked has been around forever wicked has a film coming out. Yeah.

Kenneth Kinney 37:21

Let's let's change it them Wicked or the Lion King. They both been around forever.

Michael Roderick 37:27

Oh, yeah. No, then definitely Wicked. Definitely. All

Kenneth Kinney 37:30

right. So you're in Central Harlem. Number three, you're shopping for groceries? Do you like the whole foods in Harlem or going to a local bodega?

Michael Roderick 37:44

I I would go with I would go with a local bodega. There are a couple of like fun, like local places around here that I that that I definitely am a fan of

Kenneth Kinney 37:57

that have got fresh fruit?

Kenneth Kinney 37:59

Yes, yes.

Kenneth Kinney 38:00

That's the hardest thing I always said when I live there. So Alright, number four. Being a teacher, or being a producer or a Broadway producer?

Michael Roderick 38:16

I love to being a teacher. I think I will always be a teacher. Like it's just it's just part of who I am. It's just part of the way that the way that I think about things it producing is fun. It's an amazing, it's an amazing business. I still love and sort of know so many people. But teaching has always been my first love.

Kenneth Kinney 38:36

So I think most people can think of themselves as being a teacher. They understand the concept. What what, what would have blown our minds about being a Broadway or a show producer that we wouldn't know. Like, because to your point earlier about, you know, messaging, the way people on Broadway talk about inside baseball is not the way everybody coming to the event speaks about it. And I'm always curious about how different Broadway is.

Michael Roderick 39:03

Yeah, well, I think the thing that a lot of folks do not know about is how precarious the financial situation actually is. That there are Broadway shows that literally open and close on the same on the same day, because of the way that the financials work in that particular industry. Now, it doesn't, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen, you know, every day or anything, but there are many instances there's actually a place called Joe Allen's that has a whole wall of posters of shows that have closed and open on the same day. So they opened and literally did not have money to run and closed that after after their opening night.

Kenneth Kinney 39:51

Yeah, they need a Broadway show called PS 123 or something like that. You know, you need a show about high school in In Harlem or Manhattan or somewhere? All right, number five, and the most important question you're gonna be asked today is biscuits or cornbread.

Michael Roderick 40:07

Oh, it's a really good one too. Ah, I'm gonna go with cornbread. Yeah.

Kenneth Kinney 40:17

Alright, so Michael, where can people find out more about you listen to your podcast, keep up with what you're doing your thought leadership and more.

Michael Roderick 40:26

Sure. So they can, the podcast is access to anyone and they could just go to access to anyone. podcast.com if they're curious about their own refer ability, they can go to my refer ability raider.com And that's where they can basically take a test and see what their refer ability sort of skill scale is or where they're at. And the website which will be ready is going to be referral brand.com.

Kenneth Kinney 40:59

Michael, thank you so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Michael Roderick 41:03

Yes. Thanks so much for having me appreciate it.

[music]

Kenneth Kinney 41:10

So there was my conversation with Michael Roderick, a former high school English teacher and former Broadway producer, who is now the CEO of Small Pond Enterprises, which helps thoughtful givers become thought leaders by making their brand's referral their messaging memorable and their ideas unforgettable. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from my conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 41:29

First, how do we make our products or services referral? Well, the start, Michael's framework can be remembered from the acronym aim, accessibility, influence and memory. It's a great metaphor for getting over the hurdles that come up. One of the great points he mentioned is having a well positioned idea that others want to share. And that makes them look cool. All while leveraging less language, emotion, simplicity and structure. That whole segment was well worth listening to again.

Kenneth Kinney 41:55

Second, I love simplicity, we've been taught so much about creating complexity. Over and over again, it seems like all the messages and experiences out there are a tangled mess, but memory rewards simplicity. And I could not agree more with this. It's one of my own favorite topics to point out on stages. Brands and people overcomplicate this too much. There are too many choices out there. For consumers, too many are complex, or there's too much friction to buy, and consumers want less of that. I'll put it this way. If aka made a razor, I'll bet you'd be more simple to understand and remember than traditional marketing copy from even razor brands. Okay, quite simply, it shouldn't take an English Franciscan friar from the 1300s to point out that the simplest answer is often the answer. And from a marketing standpoint, it's often the easiest one that they'll remember.

Kenneth Kinney 42:43

Third, we talked about target problems and how that applies to differentiation. The more that you're speaking to that individual or group of individuals who have a specific need to fix that particular problem. We often think too much about the packaging and the features and the benefits and all the marketing babble and not enough about the specific problem that we're trying to solve for them. And the experience that we create in solving it often is the real differentiator.

Kenneth Kinney 43:09

Got a question send me an email to Kenneth at a shark's perspective.com.

Kenneth Kinney 43:14

Thank you again for the privilege of your time and I'm so thankful to every one of you listens.

Kenneth Kinney 43:18

I'm not a Broadway star, but off Broadway, like 1000 miles south and slightly east of there where you'll find me in a tropical location. You'll find me doing an underwater show anyway.

Kenneth Kinney 43:27

Please join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.

(Music - shark theme)