019 Anthony Kennada (AudiencePlus) on Evangelists, Creators, and Owned Media

Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute

Today’s guest is Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder & CEO at AudiencePlus and author of Category Creation. Anthony joins Ethan Beute to share why leading companies champion an idea, not just provide a product. They engage, educate, entertain, and host conversation. They wrap products with valuable content and a meaningful community. And evangelism is key to all of this.

Anthony explains why our reliance on rented channels drives so much of the struggle with tracking and measuring an evangelist’s impact, as well as how thinking more like a media company can resolve much of it. He also shares the differences between a creator and an evangelist – and the benefits of both in a changing B2B sales and marketing environment.

Takeaways:

• The most important job as an evangelist is not just to create content, speak, and leverage a network, but to do it all with authenticity and subject matter expertise.
• We’ve underappreciated and underinvested in the ideas that people want to buy from people and that people want to buy more than just a product.
• Category creation is when you're positioning more than just your products. You position a problem that people may or may not recognize that they have.
• Ultimately companies don’t create categories, customers do. Evangelism helps carry the torch for the idea or the movement, but a category isn’t created unless the community rallies around it.

Quote of the Show:

• “There’s a responsibility for companies to carry the torch for a new idea – and evangelism plays a massive role in that.”

Links Related to This Episode:

• Anthony Kennada on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/
• AudiencePlus: https://www.audienceplus.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/akennada
• Category Creation Book: https://www.amazon.com/Category-Creation-Customers-Employees-Investors/dp/1119611563

See or Hear More Conversations on Chief Evangelist with Ethan Beute:

• YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chiefevangelist
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tEPLXnkNSYAsjpwD3O69t
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/id1652687400
• Chief Evangelist: https://www.podpage.com/chief-evangelist-with-ethan-beute/

Chief Evangelist is produced and sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/