You may have a well-run nonprofit organization, a great strategic plan, and effective programs with great outcomes. But your constituents live in a world full of distractions screaming for their attention. So how do you ensure that your charity’s 
message is heard? Silicon Valley’s AHA Guy, Mitchell Levy, joins us on the podcast to share his answer: thought leadership.
Mitchell chats with us about how to apply the five best practices of thought leadership so that you and your nonprofit get the recognition you deserve.
Mitchell is a global credibility expert, entrepreneur, and CEO of AHA-that, which helps accomplished professionals share their ideas with an amazon best-selling book.
Listen in here!
Timestamped Highlights
(3:15) Mitchell’s first best practice for thought leadership.
(8:45) You need to consistently share other’s content as well as your own.
(14:30) The reason that books are still relevant in getting you recognized as a leader in your field.
(19:30) Your best-selling book is not about making money.
(22:00) What creating your own “thought leadership channel” can do for you and your field.
(25:35) Creating a “best of list” to take you on the journey of getting in front of more people.
Episode 143 Transcript
Dolph Goldenburg: (00:01)
Welcome to the successful nonprofits podcast. I’m your host Dolph Goldenberg listeners. I think you know we batch record the podcast. I’m doing it on the East coast today and it’s about a five 20 in the afternoon and that means this is the last recording session that we’re having of the day. And what you may not know is the last recording session is always the best because I’m warmed up, but also I’m a little tired so we just lay it all out there. So Fasten your seatbelts for a great conversation. Today we have the aha guy Mitchell levy on the podcast. Now you are probably wondering what it actually means to be the aha guy. Well, this is what it boils down to. He’s a credibility expert. Now he’s a credibility expert on a global level, on a national level, on a regional level, on a local level. So he has the expertise that do out his career has focused on leadership.
Dolph Goldenburg: (01:01)
Now let me share with you, he has been an entrepreneur that has created 20 businesses. That’s right, 20 businesses in Silicon Valley. He also has served as a strategic consultant to over 500 chief executives and was the board chair of a NASDAQ company. So all that is to say, obviously Mitchell’s got a really strong for-profit background, but I have always been someone, and this is part of what we do in the podcast, is we bring for-profit thought leaders who have something really important to share with nonprofit and nonprofit leaders. Now let me share a little bit more about about this. So a lot of folks in their nonprofit roles, but especially chief executives and board chairs want to be seen as a thought leader. But you know what their thought leadership is lost in a sea of information and voices clamoring to be heard. In fact, far too many people who think of themselves as thought leaders are really just treading water in that sea, barely visible except to someone very close to them who’s probably also treading water in that seed.
Dolph Goldenburg: (02:08)
Now Mitchell is a TEDx speaker on this topic. He’s been a keynote at several conferences. He has a lot of passion projects around this. And by the way, if you look at it as social media and you see how many followers he has, he’s definitely definitely a thought leader. So I am so excited to bring on Mitchell levy for us to discuss how you as a nonprofit leader can elevate your voice, be sir, be seen and be heard as a thought leader. Hey Mitchell, welcome to the podcast Dolph. It’s great to be here. Beautiful intro. Thank you. The last one of the day is always the best. The voice goes a little bit with the last one of the day as always the best. Now Mitchell went, Jay doll. If it was the first one or the last one, we’d have a fun conversation. There you go. Now I’ve obviously in preparation for this, I did some research. I checked out your website and it’s many of your videos and I saw that obviously you talk a lot about thought leadership practices, but you also talk about the top five thought leadership best practices and I was wondering if you and I can have a little bit of a conversation about those.
Mitchell Levy: (03:17)
Oh sure. You know, ears. The number one best practice and thought leadership, uh, is that you present well. So very simply stated, you know, um, I’m going to be going on your podcast. So I Google your name, what pops up? I look at your website, what pops up. I look at your Twitter, your Facebook, and I’m not going to make 
observations of what I saw. We can take that one privately. Okay? But the question is what type of followers do you have? How active are you at these different spaces? Do you have on your website itself, do you have a fatter con right? Does it actually show something interesting or did you not know that you have a copyright, uh, a signature on the bottom of your page? Is it years old or is it current? If you have a LinkedIn profile, how many people follow you?
Mitchell Levy: (04:06)
How good is your profile? We, I’ve got, what is it? Let’s just say a large number over 20,000 followers. I’m on LinkedIn. And so I’m getting between 10 to 15 requests of people to connect with me daily. And so I have a checklist. And when you go through the checklist, there are things that are just, uh, this is beautiful and this is it. And now that I’m doing a, I think we’ve talked a little bit about this, I’m doing 500 interviews on credibility. So part of what I come up with is what makes somebody credible. And at the end of the day, in terms of presenting, well, if somebody hears your name, if somebody gets your business card, if somebody says and recommend you, the first thing that the person who hears your name is going to do is they’re going to Google, Google you. How do you show up?
Mitchell Levy: (04:57)
And if you have, let’s say a Twitter account and it’s unused, you’re probably better off getting rid of it or doing other things that show up on top of that. The problem is you have the social media sites spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure when somebody types your name, their profile comes up. So you need to come up well enough so that you’re not in the bottom 50% right? It’s, you don’t have to be, you don’t have to spend hundreds of hours and tons of money. But what has to happen is, is if you look at you versus somebody else, you don’t want to be the person that says, uh, you know, he doesn’t do very well here or they don’t do really here, let’s, let’s not talk to them. So, and so that’s really what present well means. When you say you’ve got a checklist, a checklist in terms of like you look at someone’s profile and you’re like, okay, this is what’s on it.
Mitchell Levy: (05:45)
Or a checklist as in you, you look at their profile and say, okay, this someone I want to connect with on LinkedIn, I’m really, I really am curious which of those two it is. Oh, well, so, so here’s, here’s, here’s an interesting thing to think about. So when you’re getting 10 to 15 a day, do you do it all yourself or do you have somebody help you? Right? And you have somebody help you. Then the criteria comes down to, uh, it’s, and I have ended up with four. Uh, one is hell, yes, this person is so cool. Not only do I want to accept them, but please make a calendar appointment. Okay? Uh, yes, as accept no or hell no is also very easy. And then, and then the maybe, so I look at the maybes.
Dolph Goldenburg: Okay, got it. And so the hell nos? Are those just like fake profiles?
Mitchell Levy: (06:31)
I’m really curious. What’s the hell? Now that’s what you try to figure out. Is it a fake profile or not? So LinkedIn, you have the ability at the, at the top banner to take it from the transparent one to renew one. Uh, do they have a picture of their face or did they have a picture of their dog? Uh, do they have 500 plus followers or do they have 34? If you call yourself a recognized expert in your space and you have 34 followers on LinkedIn as an immediate, uh, killer at the bottom of the page, there are things that talk about your, uh, basically your skillset. So does it say SQL and HTML and other things, which not necessarily good or if you say that you’re an extremely efficient contract negotiator and you’re the person I need to go to and the top skillset is anything but contract negotiation? Once again, there’s a mismatch there. Got it. Okay, so, so really make sure your profile is in the top 50% or maybe if you’re really feeling ambitious the top quarter, Oh, I would love to say top quarter. All. All I want to say in the present well is you want to make sure you’re not in whatever location you’re at that people immediately, right, you’re off.
Mitchell Levy: (07:46)
Got it. Right. So having a beautiful profile may or may not get people to want to talk to you. In some cases it does. I mean I, I’m a little excessive on mine. Lots of people come to me because they see the profile, but what also on I incorporate my profile or videos. So if you want to hear from customers, you can actually see it directly from my LinkedIn profile if you want to, if you want to see presentations. I have some of those in my LinkedIn profile. So I’m a little bit on the extreme, but you don’t have to be that far. You just have to be far enough so that you’re not a hell no.
Dolph Goldenburg: (08:40)
Yeah. Got it. Okay. So, um, it, it’s almost like the old fashioned equivalent of when you get paper resumes in the mail. And you know, like you, I’m, although I did not work that long in a world without email, like you, I worked in a row with that email where you’d actually get stuff in the what in the world now. Okay, got it. So does that don’t be a throwaway?
Mitchell Levy: (08:41)
Exactly. So, so that’s present well. So number two is to consistently share your and other people’s content. Now you could define what consistent means. Some people think its hourly, some people think it’s daily. Uh, minimally should be at least weekly. And you should be consistently sharing content. Now I was very clear in stating that it should be yours and other people I heard. So I’m really bad about, by the way. So tell me why. I sorry, your doll. If I saw that. So what happens is the world we’re living in today, what a, what a thought leader is today versus a thought leader. Um, let’s say 20 years ago or even a hundred years ago, um, since you saw my Ted talk. Um, and for those that are interesting, it’s just Mitchell levy, Ted and you, you could, you can say it. In the old days, our thought leaders were brought to us by the recording studios.
Mitchell Levy: (09:40)
Essentially, they were telling us who we were going to listen to, uh, by the broadcast media. They were telling us what actors we were going to watch and by the publishers who were telling us who we’re going to read and who we’re going to be our thought leaders. Right? And that was it. Those were our, our people. And those people were told, uh, particularly if you were a published author, you’re going to be the thought leader in your space. Nobody else matters. You need to solve a problem that fits a universal thing because basically the publisher wanted to sell books. Well, today’s what we’ve now switched and the pendulum has moved. And what I want to 
do is have a book called the same, same title as the Ted talk. It’s called being seen and being heard as a thought leader. And I want to read one of the aha messages to you because it’s a, it’s a really powerful way to understand where thought leadership has gone.
Mitchell Levy: (10:30)
And then I can answer your question. So here’s what it says. Good thought leaders are at the top of the mountain. Great thought leaders are at the bottom of the mountain helping others climb up. So what does that mean? It basically means that thought leadership is merging with servant leadership. You need to be somebody who cares about your audience there. You’re now no longer a faceless, nameless entity or they’re no longer a faceless, nameless. You actually talked to them. They could reach out to you. And for those people who are good thought leaders day, good. And I like to use the word recognize experts because you don’t need to be a global thought leader. You don’t need to create original content all the time to be recognized as somebody who is smart and capable and understands the landscape. And so the reason you want to share other people’s content as well as yours is it demonstrates that you’re staying up to speed with what’s happening in your space.
Mitchell Levy: (11:32)
And, and the way to think about it is thinking about the movie miracle on 34th street. Remember that movie and Kris Kringle was my favorite and I didn’t really celebrate Christmas then. It was still my favorite as a kid. I’d still a beautiful movie. And, and the concept is really what servant leadership is about. So what did he do? Somebody would come and ask for a particular toy and he would say, Hey, listen, we have that toy here, but it’s a little bit more money than going to Gimbels go again, balls. And then that person would go to gambles and ultimately come back and do all their shopping at Macy’s. So what you want to be today is the reckon that is Ecker expert in your space. And you want to be able to talk about not just what you’re doing, but other people in your industry in a positive way, not negative.
Mitchell Levy: (12:15)
And so when people come to you and they say, Hey, what is the best solution for me? You could actually legitimately tell them whether if it’s your, if it’s your firm, you could say, what’s me? Because, and they believe you because there are some people who are going to come to you and you’re gonna say, well I think you should go somewhere else and here’s why. And so that it shows that you care about servant leadership. It, more importantly, shows that you’re up to speed with what’s happening in the industry. So if I can, if I can kind of bring that home for nonprofits, because I think a lot of nonprofits do this with their email listeners, social media, where it is all about them. And three-quarters of that is really them asking for money. So part of what I love you saying, and I think this really applies for nonprofits, you know, there’s probably a lot of community or government reports that they could be sharing.
Mitchell Levy: (13:03)
And other things around that issue or maybe articles that are in a newspaper or a magazine or whatever. Um, that would be of interest to their people who would also might be donors. So I, I love it cause you know, I love to bring this back to the nonprofit sector and that’s, that just makes a lot of sense from the perspective of a nonprofit to also share other people’s stuff. Well I, I also, I’ll, I’ll give a cheap button. We do have the website aha, that aha that has 50,000 aha messages and it’s free to use, free to share. So you can go to aha that find particular aha message that’s relevant to what you will want to share that day or that week. I, if you go now how that you should share one or two aha messages a day and then what happens is you just click on chair at whether or not you include it in your newsletter or you share directly from the platform if you include in your newsletter.
Mitchell Levy: (13:53)
The way we build the system is as long as you include the quote exactly like is because it includes a reference back to the thought leader. You have permission. And so share other people’s content, share that thought of the day. That’s going to cause somebody to think where or act to do something different, whether it’s inspirational, motivational or educational. I love that. That’s awesome. That’s an aha. that.com that’s really cool. All right, so, so what’s the third-best practice we should be talking about? Where else have I seen this one? Oh do I will appreciate that. So, so three is really up along the alley of what I do and although book publishing has been democratized and anyone who wants to write and publish a book, candidates that easy are, what I’m going to tell you is that books are still that quintessential tool that says we are an expert.
Mitchell Levy: (14:45)
You are an expert in your space. So having a book that’s specifically focused on, let me be clear, specifically focused on the pain point that you solve for your audience. Right? And so if you serve multiple pain points, great. Have multiple books because what happens if, here’s the interest of the thing. If as a nonprofit, there’s so many beautiful, beautiful errors in the world you serve. And so what audience you’re serving were probably your serve. And, and if that is the title of your book, and I’ll just, I’ll do it. I’ll do it with, I’ll come back and do her Mike. But if that is the title of your book, and by the way it’s an Amazon bestselling book, then people go, Oh, maybe I should reach out. So let me, let me, let me hold up my book again. And, and uh, so for those listening and the holding of my book, it’s bright orange on the outside.
Mitchell Levy: (15:34)
It’s got to have a picture of me with my hand on it. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to introduce myself. Ever been to those meetings and nonprofits, man, I, I, I’ve seen so many of these where 30 people stand up and you have no idea who they are, what they say at the end. Who is that guy? What did they serve? What do they do? So let me, let me hold up my book. And so it comes around to me and I talk and I’m going to say something in 10 seconds. And if you looking at me and you look at the book and typically I’ll have my hat on as well. And so the cover has my ad, you’re going to say, ah, that’s interesting. So let me introduce myself and I’m going to use the same terms that other people use, but I have only one.
Mitchell Levy: (16:19)
Now in those terms I use as adjectives and verbs. My noun is the title of my book. So let’s be clear. So here it is. Hi Mitchell levy, TEDx speaker, international bestselling author of the book being seen and being heard as a thought leader. I have one and only one goal. Uh, as you and I talked at [inaudible] in the green room ahead of time, I have one output. If I’m in front of 30 people and I have 10 seconds, I have one output. I want to be memorable, memorable enough that if somebody wants to be seen or be heard, they’re going to make a mental note. I need to talk to Mitchell. That’s awesome, right? The credibility comes with the book and you don’t even have to open up the book. You say, international Amazon, bestselling author, and it gives a little bit more credibility that I should at least talk to somebody. [inaudible]
Mitchell Levy: (17:08)
can I give you a different way to think about it? Sure. A lot of times when you’re, let’s say, here’s a great example, I happened to have an extra $20,000 and I want to invest and I’m going to put it in one nonprofit, so what am I going to do? I’m going to have my intern or somebody research a bunch of nonprofits that are in this space. I want, they’re going to come up with a list of 10. The then going to use my criteria to come down to three and I’m going to talk to three. When we do a book for somebody, 
particularly a book focused on the C pop, the customer point of pain that gets solved. My goal with that book is that you become one of those three, right? Because at the end of the day, it’s about the conversation in everything we do in business today. It’s about that strategy call, that conversation, that thing where people go, yep, this is a good place for your money and this is how we’re going to use it. But to be at the table in the first place, you need to be one of the three.
Dolph Goldenburg: (17:49)
So how do you present yourself as an organization so that you can be one of the three at the table?
Mitchell Levy: (17:59) That’s what a book helped us helps to do.
Dolph Goldenburg: (18:04) Got it. I love that. And, and it’s interesting, I, you’ve done a little bit of research on me. As you probably know, I published a book. I did it just before, just as I was launching my consulting practice and I’ve also been really upfront about it. That it’s a self-published book. You know, I did it on Amazon and it’s a self-published book.
Dolph Goldenburg: (18:30)
Um, but I have over the last, gosh, five or six years now, gotten so much great feedback from it and I still have people who reach out to me and say, Oh, I just read X, Y, Z in your book. And I have a question. Um, and, and the other thing I will also say, frankly, um, and this is, um, so let me do a quick aside about self-publishing but then really kind of make this pitch for, for nonprofits as well. Um, you know, quite frankly, and, and I was never, um, you know, on the bestseller list for Amazon. Now in the subset of nonprofit business category, I, I did hit, it’s for one point, kind of the bestseller list. Um, but I actually made more on that book than had I gone the traditional publishing route because I got, I forgot what it was, but I got like 60 or 70 cents on every dollar and I gone to the traditional publishing route. I would have gotten like a nickel on every day.
Mitchell Levy: (19:25)
Well, the Delphi DJ, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have, I’m going to have to actually, um, uh, suggest that that’s not something to think about in a book that’s there. That’s your book. Your book is absolutely not for you to make money right now. I were a publisher. I’ve published over 850 books. I write royalty checks them. In fact, that’s one of the things I have to do. And when we get off the podcast, I write world rejects quarterly and some of our authors get good money. Anything I write, at least five or 10 times they’re making in speaking, consulting or in nonprofit, they’re making a charity. Right? So the way to be thinking about this is what could you do that will allow your audience to perceive you as the expert in your space and to encourage them to want to interact with there. And so I at one of the things that, if you don’t mind me, sure it is a slightly off sought out, slightly off-topic in terms of the three but it has to do with books. So one of the things that we have as a publisher is at, let me tell you what we do. So this is where we typically work with successful busy professionals who recognize a need for more credibility. They want that credibility with a book, but they have no time. Our solution is that we will ghostwrite, publish, distribute, make them Amazon bestselling author, and they’ll spend as little as five to 10 hours. And typically what happens that I get that audible gas from there we press the easy button [inaudible].
Mitchell Levy: (20:59)
Now for nonprofits where it gets really interesting and we, we charge for that and we, we make good money, but we do a great service. But for nonprofits what’s interesting is we also have software that makes it easy to create an anthology book. So an anthology book is when you have a number of people who contribute to a particular book. And so imagine if you wanted to have a number of your clients share case studies or imagine if you wanted other people in the industry to be able to talk about a particular topic. And as a nonprofit, what would be easy to do is say, Hey, listen, if you want to be in the book, you have to contribute money as well as the content. And so we have software to facilitate the ease of creation of a book. Where in this is one of those cases, by the way, Dolph, this is one of those cases where we actually make money upfront because we have a very simple model.
Mitchell Levy: (21:51)
We charge 500 upfront. I weigh that for nonprofits and then we split the profit 50 50 it’s a really beautiful owl. That is a beautiful model. So, okay, so that’s number three. What’s number four? So that’s number three. Number four is exactly what you’re doing. Create your own thought leadership channel, right? Because here’s what to think about. The reason for a book is it makes you credible. The reason for a podcast or a videocast or anything you’re doing as a thought leadership channel, it makes you credible. It’s just one more thing in credibility. A sheet in the old days, and it’s still true today, but I want to say in the old days, a college degree mattered or a Ph.D. mattered after today. The academic institutions today are teaching industrial age concepts, not how we live today. And for many people, not the majority of the world, but for many people, the college degree is irrelevant.
Mitchell Levy: (22:47)
And you look at some of the, the big icons in the world today who never graduated high school or college, right? That said it stole a credibility piece. So people use it. And incremental credibility piece, not just the book, but also what you’re doing. So creating a thought leadership channel. And what’s super cool about that is you have a choice on your channel. Um, you could, you could bring on people who are just interesting, fascinating. You could bring on people who are prospects, having your prospect come onto your channel. They get to see you, interact with you in a different way. There’s no confrontation here. That’s a beautiful way to do it. You could bring on, uh, icons, luminaries, other thought leaders in your space. Once again, it gives you the opportunity to meet and interact with other people. And by the way, by creating your own thought leadership channel, you’re helping to do, uh, which is, which is the second one, you helping to have content that you create, that you share consistently. Right. And so, um, I have
Dolph Goldenburg: (23:46)
to share with you in this pool have already released by the time our conversation gets released on the podcast, maybe a month or two ago. Um, we had a conversation with someone that specializes in just creating a podcast because I have always believed that every single nonprofit should have a podcast. And the reason is, first of all, they have stories to tell. Um, you know, so they can have clients and former clients on. They can have donors who’ve made life-changing gifts on and talk about why they, they were so moved by the organization, you know, and then, you know, as you said, they can have prospects or other people, frankly, who they want to be having conversations with. And an example I will give is, you know, if you were a, um, a housing organization, you know, wouldn’t you love to have all the, you might not love to have the current secretary of HUD on, but most of the time wouldn’t you love to have the secretary of HOD on your podcast and then now you’re face to face with the secretary of HUD for 20 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever. So I just, I have always said every nonprofit should have a podcast. And I’m shocked that they don’t, it’s not that difficult to do.
Mitchell Levy: (24:52)
No, no. And yes, no, it’s not difficult to do. And yes, I believe every, every nonprofit should have a vehicle that’s not your traditional vehicle, which is an email newsletter that says, give me money. Right.
Dolph Goldenburg: (25:09)
Agreed. Totally agree. Um, but, but the other thing is that you and I talked about the five. Oh, sorry. I don’t know. Yeah. So the other thing, and you and I talked about this just a little bit before we actually started recording, is most of those other channels that were probably also a longer game. So you know, so you’re probably in your first month, you’re not going to see a lot of traction in your first year. You’re not, that might be a three, four, or five-year game before you really see traction.
Mitchell Levy: (25:36)
Well, it, it, it’s going to be different for everyone. So it depends on what your business is and what you’re doing for nonprofit, who creates a new enough credibility in what they do to be able to bring on potential donors early on in the game. It’ll pay back really quickly. Yeah, that’s right. So it it, yeah. So dove, what I want to say is everything is different in terms of perspective, right? So there, there’s never, this is the funny part, we all have a microphone. We all have a camera. It’s how we use it. And what I want you to go back to think about is that that thought leadership is servant leadership. Go back to thinking about how you could be at the bottom of the mountain, helping others climb up and use your vehicles that way. And so if you’ve done this, you’re a nonprofit, you’ve helped many people climb the mountain, share their stories.
Dolph Goldenburg: (26:30)
Yeah.
Mitchell Levy: (26:30)
Right? Uh, most, most nonprofits, what they do is they end up, um, getting if, if it, particularly if it’s an illness, like an Alzheimer’s association or something, they get the surviving spouse or the, or the, or the child of parents, they, they go after that audience that’s easy and obvious. Yep. Do that. But there are many other things you could do. Imagine having a researcher talking about best practices or what’s happening. I mean, there’s just so, and yes, I agree with you. It’s now shocking how many people don’t do that. Right? And, and I’ll also share with you, I, we’ve had on multiple occasions, New York Times bestselling authors who they wouldn’t, they would not even return my call. You know, if I was just, Hey, I read your book, I am interested, I’d love to have a 30-minute conversation with you. Right?
Mitchell Levy: (27:15)
But if I’m like, Oh, I got a podcast, I’d love to have a 30-minute conversation with you. Guess what? Their publicist returns my call and we can set something up. So number five, sorry. That’s all right. No, no, no, it’s so, so here we have so far. Number one’s present. Well, number two is consistently sheer urine. Other people, content three author a book, or in my case author, multiple books of four, create your own thought leadership channel and five, compile a best-of list. So it’s a really interesting, you’ve 
seen this around where you come up with a top 10 or top 25 in the fill the blank. So if you’re a nonprofit, come up with a list of the top 25 influencers in your space because guess what you’re doing. Now, remember, here’s an important part. A lot of times people think about the destination is more important than the journey.
Mitchell Levy: (28:11)
I want to tell you when you’ve got a camera and a microphone and an organization with a purpose, the journey is as important in many cases more important than the destination. So if you’re doing an anthology book, those people you talk with and interact, not just those that are in the book, but those outside, they get to know you. If you’re doing a best-of list of the 25 influencers in your space, what are you doing? You get to know the influencers in your space personally, don’t just mechanically tell them that they one, get them on a phone, get them on Skype, get them on zoom, talk to them. Let them know what’s happening. Ask if they can contribute in any way. I don’t mean money. Ask if you can contribute to them like how do we make you a better influencer? How do we get your brand out there further?
Mitchell Levy: (28:56)
What do we do? Here’s what we’ve done. You are the number five influencer in the space or you’re the top one of the top 25 and then what happens is you give them a little icon, you cater graphic that they can put on their website. You do a major press release. If you’re doing an annual event once a year, you invite all them to come, give them the free dinner and, and, and tau to the world, these influencers, you then encourage them ahead of time to do all their social media buzz around that evening. Here’s that hashtag I can’t tell you how many nonprofit event events I go to that whether they don’t actually share with everyone in the audience what the hashtag is and how they should be sharing content. Right. So creating a best of Liz is, is a beautiful way to create an excuse for the journey and the journey is to get in front of more people. [inaudible]
Dolph Goldenburg: (29:50)
that’s awesome. I love that. Um, you know, it’s funny when you and I got on and we’re like, well, what might we be talking about? And I had a feeling that, um, the top five were going to take us most of the episode. So I hope we’re going to get you on again cause I got to stop and ask you the off the map question. And you know, I typically have an idea of the off the map question, but then I hope the muse gives me an even better one. And I think the muse has, um, I can see directly behind you. It looks like there is an old-timey metal cash register. And I, I have a feeling there’s a story about that old-timey metal crack cash register.
Mitchell Levy: (30:32)
You know, and it sounds I had at the TEI, I have a little button. It sounds just like this when you open it. Um, it, it’s really interesting. I’m a, uh, we’ve lived, uh, uh, generally we, we lived a really good life. I had been married for 30 years. My wife and I grab a house that we rent in Europe once a year and we, and we do it for a month. We have friends and family come to visit. And so we’ve, we’ve, we’ve actually, we live and continue to live a very nice life. And when we travel around there just things that we sometimes see. Like you could also see behind me there’s a sword collection. So when I stopped at, uh, w when I stopped at, uh, at antique shops or sometimes, uh, you don’t really see my garage fairs, but you seem in stores.
Mitchell Levy: (31:25)
And so just collective and overtime on the cash register, I know as an antique shop and I saw it and I go, that is so beautiful because it is, it is such an interesting representation of how the world was like money. If as, as a vendor, the only way I made money is every time you press this button, the door opens up, you take the change, you put it back in. Nowadays we make money in so many unique ways and many times we never hear or see or even understand there was a cash register at all happens behind the scenes. Lots of times it’s automatic. I mean, if you can get the cash register to ring while you’re sleeping, that is the goal of every business person.
Dolph Goldenburg: (32:17)
And so, and also, let me say, It’s also the goal of every nonprofit. I just got to say,
Mitchell Levy: (32:22)
yeah, yeah, no. So that’s the thing. So anyhow, it was just, uh, I was out with my wife and I, I looked at it and I go, honey, I don’t know if I could pick it up but I think I want this. And my wife’s been really good. She goes, well, as long as it goes in your office.
Dolph Goldenburg: (32:41)
That’s awesome. Admittedly, I I have a 1940s Royal typewriter that I got the same response on. It’s like, I love this. I want it. Okay. If it goes in your office, you can have it. Um, Mitchell, thank you so much. I feel as if today our conversation in and of itself was an aha moment. And let me also say that you have, you have been at the bar of the last conversation of the day is always the best conversation and you continue that tradition. So thank you so much for sharing your techniques, for elevating ourselves as thought leaders. I know lots of the nonprofit leaders that are listening to this today are going to benefit from that. Now if you dear listener, think you are in need of some help with thought leadership or have ideas that you are ready for an aha, that book, make sure to connect with Mitchell.
Dolph Goldenburg: (33:32)
So here’s how you do it. Go to Mitchell levy three sixty.com and that is one website they can take you to all of his other websites because again, when you, when you go to that website you can see this person is prolific, he is truly prolific. So from there, you can go to aha, that.com you can get to the link to his consulting site. You can get to his social media, TEDx Talk, his YouTube page. Lots of other things. So make sure you go to a mid so make sure you go to Mitchell levy three sixty.com Hey Mitchell, once again, thank you so much. My pleasure doth this was a fun conversation. Thanks for having me. Don’t forget the, we’ll have the URL for Mitchell levy three 60 and Mitchell’s contact information in our show notes@successfulnonprofits.com now, listeners, I just have to share with you one of the things I love about what I do is I get to do this podcast.
Dolph Goldenburg: (34:29)
It is incredible and one of the other things that I love about what I do is I get to travel the country and work with lots of progressive nonprofits all over the nation. Now, I’m typically booking about three months out, but if you’re looking at about a quarter or so and there’s that strategic planning or board development project you might be interested in doing, if you think I might be a good fit, give me a call. I’d love to have a conversation. Now, every episode I also ask that you subscribe, rate and review the podcast and let me just share with you other than personally telling a friend or maybe even picking up their phone and saying, Oh my God, you’ve got to subscribe the successful nonprofits podcast and subscribing to it for them. You subscribing, rating and reviewing it is the best way for other people to find out about the podcast. That is our show for this week. Dear listener, I hope you have gained some insight to help your nonprofit thrive in a competitive environment.
Disclaimer (35:23)
I am not an accountant or attorney and neither I nor the Goldenburg Group provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Cause material has been provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for tax, legal, or accounting advice. Always consult a qualified licensed professional about such matters.