Gordon McClellan of Dartfrog Books: 5 Things You Should Do To Become a Thought Leader In Your Industry

An Interview With Abe Alon

Humility (your idea is never as perfect as you think it is…so be humble and open to ways it can be improved or tweaked…the more open you are to learning from others about what you don’t yet know, the better informed and more precise your thought leadership will be in its proposed solutions to the problems you are trying to solve).

As a part of our series about how to become known as a thought leader in your industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Gordon McClellan.

Gordon McClellan is the innovative leader of DartFrog Books — an independent publishing company offering traditional, hybrid and self-publishing platforms. Founded in Vermont with international authors and a truly global reach, DartFrog Books is both an evaluator of existing indie books and a publisher of new indie titles. Under Gordon’s leadership, DartFrog was the first source that independent bookstores trusted to evaluate and select indie books for direct placement into stores — solving a frustrating problem for authors.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I self-published a children’s book ten years ago but found it nearly impossible to get it into bookstores. I decided to ask a friend of mine who owned an independent bookstore if he could give me an honest assessment of my book. When he said that he liked it, I told him my experience of not being able to get it into any stores (including his) and wondered if he had any advice. He didn’t hesitate in his reply, which sounded something like this: “To be honest, we want to run away when an author like you comes into our store asking for us to carry your book, because we aren’t built for this. We are built to receive and sell books from the big publishers, not evaluate individual books from authors.” The honesty was brutal but also incredibly enlightening. I realized then that there was a potential business opportunity to help bookstores vet independently published books and to simultaneously build a gateway for independent authors to gain access to those stores. So, I started going to bookstore conferences to introduce myself and the concept. Eventually, stores began sending authors my way and after about a year I had read through enough books to find a few that were really well done and worthy of placement in a bookstore. I went back to the bookstores with those titles and pretty soon thereafter began to establish shelf space in those stores for the display of newly curated indie books every quarter. This was all still a hobby for me, and would be for a while, until it grew to the point where we began to publish our own books and I felt like it was time to leave my profession and run this business full time.

Can you briefly share with our readers why you are an authority about the topic of thought leadership?

Well, I’m certainly not an authority. I saw a need and built a solution to fill that need. But a hugely important factor in all of that was my friend’s brutal honesty about why his store didn’t like self- published authors coming in to ask for shelf space. Had he not been willing to tell me the truth, I don’t think I would have ever had the idea, which actually highlights one of the most important qualities of thought leadership in my opinion: the willingness to speak truth. To provide an honest assessment of a situation is what makes it possible to see the problems and the possibilities.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Every book we publish is ultimately a reflection of someone’s spirit…someone’s experiences…someone’s imagination, which is what I have found so interesting about this business.

It’s fascinating to read people’s stories and come to learn of the ways that those stories are a reflection of their past and present. Of course, some are juicier than others, like the Hollywood stories that Jim Piddock shares in his memoir, Caught with my Pants Down and Other Tales from a Life in Hollywood. And some are inspirational, like the stories MMA champion Tom DeBlass shares about his father in his memoir, How You Bear it: Triumph and Resiliency in Life. And some are just jaw dropping in their power and truth, like the incredible and never before told story of Hinda Mondlak’s escape from Auschwitz in Tatae’s Promise. Truly, every book…every story…is sacred in the ways it reveals a piece of the author’s life and spirit, which is just endlessly interesting to me.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I made lots of mistakes, most of which weren’t very funny! But from all the mistakes I learned the importance of never making excuses and always taking full responsibility for the mistake, even if it was made by someone on my team. As the owner of a business that deals directly with clients, there may be no more important lesson than this.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define what a ‘Thought Leader’ is? How is a thought leader different from a typical leader? How is a thought leader different from an influencer?

A thought leader is someone who seeks a solution (or in some cases a better solution) to a problem.

This can take many forms, from social and moral leaders to business leaders and entrepreneurs. In all cases, the thought leader is the one who sees a better path, a better solution, and works to pave the way. Typical leaders, by which I assume you mean people with responsibility over people, products or projects, can definitely be thought leaders, but effectively managing people or projects doesn’t necessarily require one to be a thought leader. And I would say that while a thought leader can definitely be an influencer (and there are many examples from the realm of moral leadership where that is the case), I think the way we largely define influencers today (people on social media who recommend products and trends to their followers) is not generally a role that requires thought leadership.

Can you talk to our readers a bit about the benefits of becoming a thought leader? Why do you think it is worthwhile to invest resources and energy into this?

Interesting question. I’m not sure that I ever sought out the role of thought leader. I think when you see something that can be improved or that needs a solution, you either are motivated to find a solution or you aren’t. Maybe it’s a personality trait, I’m not sure. I’d say it’s often lonely in the role of thought leader, especially if others don’t see the vision you see or would rather live with the status quo. But it’s worth the investment of time, energy and resources if the results of the work you undertake will benefit others. And when it actually reaches that point, when your work results in new opportunities for people that they didn’t have previously, it feels great.

Let’s talk about business opportunities specifically. Can you share a few examples of how thought leadership can help a business grow or create lucrative opportunities?

Every business provides an advantage for itself if it sees and then provides a solution to a problem, an obstacle or an inefficiency that people face. I think the saying goes that 75% of the products we will use on a regular basis in 10 years don’t yet exist, or something along those lines? Many of those future products will be the result of thought leadership, and will provide lucrative opportunities for the people and/or businesses that develop them.

Ok. Now that we have that behind us, we’d love to hear your thoughts about how to eventually become a thought leader. Can you share 5 strategies that a person should implement to become known as a thought leader in their industry?

I think thought leaders need to be tuned in to recognizing the inefficiencies in their market. I’m not sure it’s something you go looking for, but rather something you recognize when you see and commit to finding a better solution. In this way, I find thought leadership in industry to be organic and somewhat accidental. I would say that thought leadership within the moral and humanitarian arenas is much different, as it is almost always intentional in its efforts to right a specific wrong or fight a specific injustice.

But as it pertains to thought leadership in industry, I would say these are five key points to be keep in mind:

• Awareness (take notice when you see an inefficiency).
• Creativity (allow yourself to think completely outside the box so as to not be bound by convention orstatus quo).
• Perseverance (creating anything new is always uphill at first and rejection is common).
• Nimbleness (the approach you begin with is almost never the approach you finish with, which just means that being able and willing to pivot is crucial…the inability to pivot quickly can often mean the end).
• Humility (your idea is never as perfect as you think it is…so be humble and open to ways it can be improved or tweaked…the more open you are to learning from others about what you don’t yet know, the better informed and more precise your thought leadership will be in its proposed solutions to the problems you are trying to solve).

I can think of lots of times when I pivoted my strategies based on client feedback or when I learned things about the industry that I hadn’t known until I was knee deep in my work and realized that a change of course would improve the product. Inflexibility in this regard is basically a guarantee for failure.

In your opinion, who is an example of someone who has done a fantastic job as a thought leader? Which specific things have impressed you about that person? What lessons can we learn from this person’s approach?

Well in my own industry (independent publishing) I would say that the founder of the Alliance for Independent Authors, Orna Ross, has been a really significant thought leader when it comes to helping authors navigate the often tricky world of independent publishing. Her understanding of the issues and creating of tools/resources to help authors avoid pitfalls has been game changing for many people. I think what we can learn from her example is that one dedicated person can truly have an enormous impact on an industry, which is really what thought leadership is all about, right?

I have seen some discussion that the term “thought leader” is trite, overused, and should be avoided. What is your feeling about this?

I think when it’s used in a self-congratulatory context it should definitely be avoided. But when used for the purposes we’ve discussed in this interview, I think it appropriately describes the work of thinking about issues in a new and different way to create momentum for improvement and positive change, which is how I would define leadership. So, in that context, I think the term fits.

What advice would you give to other leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?

Burnout is real. There is no doubt about that. For me, learning how to turn work off and do something else for a day or two is very important. I’m still trying to improve in that area, because I fight the workaholic battle that many entrepreneurs do. There’s always this feeling in the back of my head that I need to figure everything out now, which just isn’t true. Learning to let that go, live a more balanced life, and then come back to work refreshed and full of energy (and potentially new ideas) is crucial.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Well, I don’t think I have enormous influence, but I appreciate your generosity! The movement I would want to inspire is simply to make real the motto from the summer camp I attended as a boy, which is to always put the other fellow first. Imagine if we all considered the needs of others before or at least in conjunction with our own needs. What a different world this would be!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I have a book of quotes that I’ve built over the years. It serves as a source of inspiration to me. So, my first response to your question is there’s no way I could choose just one! But I suppose one of my favorites is a great line by Theodore Roosevelt: “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that caring about the experience your clients have is most important. It doesn’t matter how much we (me or anyone on my team) knows about publishing if the client doesn’t feel like we care about them or the quality of their final product. This is why I try to connect with as many clients as possible on a video call, or in person if possible, to establish a relationship and build a sense of caring and trust. This foundation of caring is most important when a project runs into problems or unforeseen issues, because that’s when anxiety sets in and the reassurance of knowing that we care and won’t let them down is most needed. But in a more general sense, to care about your clients and the product they are putting into the world is to build one’s business on the belief that the work with the client is about so much more than the transaction. There’s no better foundation upon which to build a business, in my opinion.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have lunch or breakfast? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Oh my goodness, where do I begin? I’d love to have lunch with Reed Hastings, Founder and Executive Chairman of Netflix. His company is definitely a thought leader in the world of entertainment, and has exhibited an exceptional ability to pivot when necessary. But what is most impressive to me is Netflix’s commitment to storytelling, even if those stories aren’t destined to be blockbusters. In the world of books, publishers routinely reject authors with great stories to tell because their platform is too small for the publishing house. Netflix seems to take the opposite approach, by making room on their platform for a wide variety of stories that appeal to large and niche audiences alike. I have great respect for that, and believe that our world can only be as wide and colorful as the stories we allow to be told within it.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Readers can find more info at : https://dartfrogbooks.com/ or on https://facebook.com/dartfrogbooks/ or https://www.instagram.com/dartfrogbooks

Thank you so much for your insights. This was very insightful and meaningful.