In this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with Rusty Shelton, Founder & Chairman at Zilker Media.

Rusty shares the impact of building a people-driven brand to easily earn your audience's trust. He says that to become a “thought leader”, you have to lead like someone who has something to teach. You call for authority and focus on impact - not ego. Earn those impressions and build trust like that, Rusty says.

Rusty also explains the importance of avoiding transactional or fixed-term relationships with customers from a business model perspective. Instead, he recommends developing long-term customers through visibility and authenticity. He believes the best leaders today are those who are willing to be candid. They reflect well for themselves and their business.

Rusty provides some tips for referral marketing and customer acquisition. He recommends anyone who wants to do marketing a little differently to read his FREE book for a pragmatic roadmap to thought leadership.

Key Points from the Episode:

What is a People-Driven Brand?
Practical Tips on How to become a Thought Leader
Advantages of Authority Marketing

About Rusty Shelton: Rusty Shelton first spoke at Harvard on the changing world of PR and marketing at the age of 23. He is a bestselling author, dynamic keynote speaker and successful entrepreneur. He is the co-author (alongside Adam Witty) of Authority Marketing: How to Leverage 7 Pillars of Thought Leadership to Make Competition Irrelevant (ForbesBooks, 2018), which features a foreword from Steve Forbes, and co-author (alongside Barbara Cave Henricks) of Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), which debuted at #2 on the Austin American-Statesman bestseller list.

An active keynote speaker, Rusty speaks to tens of thousands of people every year about how to build thought leadership, navigate the changing media landscape and make a bigger impact with Authority Marketing. He has been on faculty at more than 20 Harvard Medical School CME courses over the past 15 years and has spoken for YPO, EO, SXSW Interactive, Oregon State University and numerous Fortune 1000 companies.

An EO Member with two exits under his belt prior to the age of 35, he is the Founder & Chairman of Zilker Media, Senior Marketing Strategist at Advantage Media Group, Publisher at ForbesBooks and a partner in Catch Engine and Think Engine.

Rusty’s commentary on the changing world of PR and marketing has been featured in Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Wharton and many other top media outlets. An avid Texas Longhorns fan, he sits on the University of Texas Texas Exes PR Committee and is a proud member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) in Austin, where he has served on the board.

He lives just west of Austin in Spicewood with his wife, Paige and three children (Luke, Brady & Sadie) and their very rowdy black lab, Charlie. Rusty loves to play golf, fish, coach his sons’ sports teams and is the QB for Lake Travis’ top “old man” flag football team.

About Zilker Media: Zilker Media was founded to help clients make a positive impact and, along the way, to provide them with the most enjoyable agency experience they will ever have. They...

1418 – Authority Marketing with Zilker Media’s Rusty Shelton

The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

1418 – Authority Marketing with Zilker Media’s Rusty Shelton