Be of Service By Sharing Your Expertise, An Interview with Jo Miller. (Part II)
I had the pleasure of interviewing Jo Miller, CEO of Be Leaderly, one of my favorite thought leaders and speakers in the world of women’s leadership. Over the last few years, Jo has built a significant following in her niche and I wanted to understand how she went about this. Here are some excerpts from the second part of our interview.
Be of Service By Sharing Your Expertise Widely
Denise: Being of service, I think, is really the key. That’s part of the role of a thought leader. I really believe that’s a key component. Yes, we are trying to build our businesses or our careers, but we are also trying to share our ideas for the benefit of others.
Do you feel that there is a conflict between this idea of selling our services and growing our business versus really sharing our ideas more broadly?
Jo: There’s this tendency, often, when we create our intellectual property, to want to hang onto it and not give it away to anyone who hasn’t signed an NDA and to say to our corporate clients, “No, you can’t record this. No one’s allowed to get the PowerPoint slides. They’ve all got my copyright notice on them.”
Then there’s just giving it away and being of service to people and saying, “Hey, if you like this presentation, download it here and go share it with 10 other people in your office who you think might benefit.”
When I decided to not hold onto stuff too tightly, but instead to share it out in the world, that changed everything. I think if you’re trying to build a presence on social media and put yourself out there as an expert, you’ve got to show your expertise. Otherwise, how will people know? How will they discern whether you’re truly an expert with something of value if you’re holding onto your intellectual property too tightly?
Read Part II of the interview at ThoughtLeadershipLab.com
Denise Brosseau
Denise Brosseau is a thought leadership strategist, speaker and the author of Ready to Be a Thought Leader?. She is the co-founder of Springboard, the women’s startup launch pad that has led to over $6.9 billion in funding for women entrepreneurs. She has her MBA from Stanford and was honored by the White House as a Champion of Change. You can find her at www.thoughtleadershiplab.com, on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jo Miller, CEO of Be Leaderly, one of my favorite thought leaders and speakers in the world of women’s leadership. Over the last few years, Jo has built a significant following in her niche and I wanted to understand how she went about this. Here are some excerpts from the second part of our interview.
Be of Service By Sharing Your Expertise Widely
Denise: Being of service, I think, is really the key. That’s part of the role of a thought leader. I really believe that’s a key component. Yes, we are trying to build our businesses or our careers, but we are also trying to share our ideas for the benefit of others.
Do you feel that there is a conflict between this idea of selling our services and growing our business versus really sharing our ideas more broadly?
Jo: There’s this tendency, often, when we create our intellectual property, to want to hang onto it and not give it away to anyone who hasn’t signed an NDA and to say to our corporate clients, “No, you can’t record this. No one’s allowed to get the PowerPoint slides. They’ve all got my copyright notice on them.”
Then there’s just giving it away and being of service to people and saying, “Hey, if you like this presentation, download it here and go share it with 10 other people in your office who you think might benefit.”
When I decided to not hold onto stuff too tightly, but instead to share it out in the world, that changed everything. I think if you’re trying to build a presence on social media and put yourself out there as an expert, you’ve got to show your expertise. Otherwise, how will people know? How will they discern whether you’re truly an expert with something of value if you’re holding onto your intellectual property too tightly?
Read Part II of the interview at ThoughtLeadershipLab.com

Denise Brosseau
Denise Brosseau is a thought leadership strategist, speaker and the author of Ready to Be a Thought Leader?. She is the co-founder of Springboard, the women’s startup launch pad that has led to over $6.9 billion in funding for women entrepreneurs. She has her MBA from Stanford and was honored by the White House as a Champion of Change. You can find her at www.thoughtleadershiplab.com, on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.