How Do We Make Nat Gas Stickier?
What can we do to create a Natural Gas epidemic?
What small steps can we take to boost the stickiness of our industry's message?
And how can you—as an individual leader—overcome the natural immunity of your stakeholders so that they infect countless others with knowledge of the differentiated value you generate?
Inspired by the Marcellus Shale Coalition's SHALE INSIGHT® 2024 conference, 400 bottles of maple syrup, and Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, Episode 94 of The Energy Detox will help you answer those three questions.
Comment below with all of your suggestions on how we can build upon an already strong shale story to reach a "tipping point" where the undeniable benefits of natural gas become common knowledge among policymakers and their constituents.
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Transcript
(AI training in progress; please excuse any errors)
Well, if you happen to be a resident of Pennsylvania, the swing state of all swing states, then you know full well how many advertisements have come your way over the last couple of weeks and months, from candidates who are vying, in particular for US Senate and for US president, who are trying to get your attention so that they can ultimately get your vote. And as I Joe Sinnott, a fellow Pennsylvanian who is standing here today in Erie, Pennsylvania, a mere 40 days before the big election, can attest the importance of getting people's attention so that they can ultimately take some sort of action like voting doesn't just concern politicians. It should concern you, especially if you're a leader within the natural gas industry.
00:43
And that point, if you will, comes on the heels of the annual Marcellus Shale Coalition Shale Insight conference that's here in Erie, Pennsylvania, that just wrapped up. And throughout that conference, there was a series of speakers, as there always is, all touting the merits and the benefits of natural gas, of course, but as I listened to them speak, it was clear that some speakers had a message that was stickier than others. Some of them had a message that was a little bit different from what you may have heard before if you've attended this conference or other conferences, while some of them may have repeated some of the same talking points. And for what it's worth, both approaches are necessary, hammering home key things that people may have heard dozens of times so that it sticks. That's important, but so too is it important to find new messages, new sticky messages, if you will. And I keep saying the word sticky for good reason, or for several reasons, in fact, one of which is a bit self serving, because last night at a happy hour that was put on by the women's energy network and that you can hear about in the about in the previous episode of the energy detox. I Joe Sinnott, my company, winning partners, handed out a whole bunch of these, about 400 little bottles of maple syrup because of their connection to the natural gas industry.
01:53
And I'll spare you the details on that connection and refer you back to the prior episode. But that stickiness piece, again, isn't just important when it comes to maple syrup. It's important when it comes to messaging, and most importantly, it's important when it comes to epidemics. And again, on the heels of the pandemic from a couple of years ago, you hear the word epidemic and you say, Well, what the heck does that have to do with the natural gas industry? Maybe the syrup connection could make sense. But in epidemic Joe, well, the reality is, when you have a message that needs to get out there, but it sometimes feels like your constituents aren't quite getting it, or they're not quite getting it to the degree that they need to get it for it to spread far and wide to the point where it's universal, and you don't have to go through the motions. You don't have to go through all the same talking points over and over again. When something gets to the point of where it's epidemic, it's everywhere, by definition. And the best summary of that can be found in this book from about 25 years ago, called the tipping point. This classic book, if you will, by Malcolm Gladwell, talks about just that, the stickiness factor, if you will, how sticky is a message getting a message that's already pretty good. And trust me, in our industry, we have a lot of pretty good messages, a lot of excellent messages, if you will.
03:04
But Malcolm gladwell's point from 25 years ago was, if you want to tip the scales away from a fair amount of people who can tout the merits of in this case, your industry, to a critical mass of people where it's basically universal, it's everywhere, you need a message that's just a little bit better. You need to kick it up just a little bit. It's that stickiness piece that he talks about. And so the question for you on today's episode of the energy detox is, what can we do as an industry to boost the stickiness of our message? And I come at you today not as some sort of advisor. I am not a political advisor. I'm not a political strategist. I'm not a communications expert at all. I'm a coach, and as a coach, I ask questions. I trust that the people who are experts have answers, but sometimes it requires the right question. So the question for you today is, how do we make the message about our industry, the natural gas industry, just a little bit stickier, just a little bit stickier, to move it from something that's out there in the public domain, that some leaders in industry, or certainly all in leaders in industry, and some leaders in politics, some appointed folks in our government, may have a decent understanding of, how do you get to the point where a critical mass of people have that fundamental understanding, and essentially, you don't have to worry about that message being spread, because it's there. It's essentially an epidemic. Again, to use the words of Malcolm Gladwell.
04:29
So again, I pose that question for you today, how do you make the message of the natural gas industry stickier? And then, as a related question, and again, coming at this as an executive coach who's focused on leaders in this industry, the question for you is, how do you get your personal message as a leader to be stickier? How do you boost the stickiness factor of everything that you share with your teams, with your constituents, if you will, so that they can take the actions that you want them to take, and you don't find yourself having to repeat the same thing? Things over and over again, because they get it, they've been infected, if you will. Because the reality is, whether we're talking about your team, your stakeholders, your customers, your bosses, there's a very good chance that they've developed some sort of immunity to you. And I am sure, speaking to viewers of the energy detox, many of you have developed an immunity to me, and probably to me out by now, and that's okay, but the reality is, how do you prevent that immunity? How do you get them to the point where, again, that message that you've infected them with continues to spread, continues to be manifested?
05:33
So again, ask yourself, as an individual leader in our industry, how do you boost your stickiness factor? How do you get to the point where people around you can say, You know what that individual you as a leader, are different from everybody else? How do you get somebody to say, hey, so and so, there is nobody else like him or her? What is it that you can do to create that message? Because unless you can, unless you can truly differentiate yourself, unless you can truly prevent yourself from becoming a commodity that's nearly as low in value as natural gas is these days. Unless you can differentiate yourself, you will be a commodity. So how do you increase the stickiness? How do you de commoditize yourself? What are the things that you do differently from everybody else that you want to be part of your message.
06:22
And similarly, coming back to the industry as a whole, what is it that our industry does more so than anybody else, that nobody else can claim? And again, I know you have all kinds of answers, but the question is, how do you whittle that down to something that's sticky, that's memorable, that's going to stand the test of time so that it can infect a much wider audience than, quite frankly, many of the echo chambers that our industry is a part of. Again, coming back to the fact that those echo chambers do play an important role. So those are the questions for you today. If you have answers to those questions, I certainly welcome you to share them wherever you happen to be watching this, on YouTube, on LinkedIn, wherever you're at, share your thoughts what might be a sticky idea that's going to help the industry or even you as an individual, thrive, stand the test of time and not have to devote all of your energy to getting your message out there, so that you can devote more of your energy on basically What we do. Well, continuing to innovate, continuing to grow, continuing to progress.
07:25
And as I close out here, I do want to share some ideas, if not recommendations, regarding that message, whether it's from an industry standpoint or for you as an individual, because there's one word that definitely stood out more so than any other words today from some of the speakers, and that word is innovation. Now. Again, innovation has been a buzzword for a very long time in this industry and all kinds of industries. I worked for a company whose tagline for years was where energy meets innovation. This is nothing new, but it did stand out. And in fact, I must admit, it stood out even before the conference kicked off, because a couple days ago, one of the attendees, Jim Millison, who is again a great industry advocate, who touts the merits of positive energy. Those are his words that he uses all of the time, having a positive message. Well, his other tagline, if you will, is Innovation not Elimination.
08:15
Innovation not elimination, with the idea that, again, let's continuing, building on our strengths, let's continue taking advantage of what we've already done well as an industry, if not as a society, and let's not focus on some sort of false choice, some sort of either or scenario. Instead, let's take what's in front of us and continue building, again, a message that's very similar to Episode 93 of the energy detox that I encourage you to go back and listen to. But that being said, whether the message is innovation and not elimination, whether it's something that speaks to the importance of human flourishing, as Alex Epstein, of course, is known to share, whether it's something similarly that speaks to helping people realize their full potential, which, of course, natural gas does. But again, connecting to some long term goals, some ultimate goals, some final destination. Everybody wants to realize their full potential. Everybody wants their family to realize their full potential.
09:05
How do you get a message that's a little bit stickier and speaks to that instead of the normal, if not strong but still somewhat bland message that you might found yourself, find yourself saying on a regular basis.
09:17
So with that, thank you, as always, for tuning in to the energy detox, again, more so than probably other episodes, I really do encourage your feedback on this conversation about how we can increase the stickiness of the message for our industry, and particularly for you as an individual in this industry. And as always, I welcome you back here next time on the energy detox.