Welcome to the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast! Our guest in this episode is Dan Sanchez. Dan is the Director of Audience Growth for Sweet Fish Media, a full service podcast agency focused on B2B brands. Dan is also the co-host of the go-to podcast for marketers seeking to grow: B2B Growth. Many businesses have thought leaders producing content and drawing attention to the company, but how many take the next step and create a program that evangelizes thought leadership within the org? That's the way to create a body of thought leaders, so that everyone in the company takes part in elevating and sharing those insights. Today, Dan talks about the way he started such an evangelist program, kicking off elevated leadership and organically taking Dan’s Linkedin connections from 1000 to 10,000 in just 5 months! Dan describes how everyone at his organization was offered a chance to invest in and create thought leadership, so long as they committed themselves to the work for a period of time. Join us as Dan talks about his insights and elevates the conversation, sharing his experiences around developing methods of engaging employees to develop the organization's brand. If you want everyone to join in, you need to find the topics they identify with, and help them share their passion for their organization's insights and good work - though thought leadership! If you want to jumpstart your Linkedin brand, be sure to sign up for the 3-part Sweet Fish video series - it's free! Three Key Takeaways: When creating an interactive group of Thought Leaders, your first step is to engage your employees. Give them reasons to be excited, and they will start acting like thought leaders, too!  Learning a pyramid. There may be people above you, but remember, a lot more are looking up at you and could benefit from your thought leadership. Preach! The best way to engage B2B accounts and gain a larger following is by creating and maintaining a thought leadership podcast.