HOW TO BE INTERESTING: THE SECRET TO A GREAT BRAND

Morning!

I was at dinner the other night and I got into a debate about how uninteresting my life outside of work can be. The person laughed a little, then got serious and told me I was more interesting than I knew. I didn’t agree, but it did make me think.

Ever since, I’ve been thinking about what makes someone “Interesting”. It’s arguably one of the most important aspects of marketing, yet how do you make it happen?

This playbook is exactly how to become interesting.

Let’s get into it!

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION HERE

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION

BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

The most valuable thing I've ever done is build a brand.

At first, that was my personal brand, and today I’m seeing the exact same effect as we build the company's brand.

But it’s only in the last year or two that I’ve really started to understand just how valuable a brand can be. Not just for attention, but for driving real business growth, opportunities, and leverage.

A few months ago, someone asked me a question that stuck with me:

After a bit of pondering, I answered, “I’d keep my personal brand.”

Because I honestly believe that by the time the next payroll date came around, I’d be able to drum up enough business to get things back up and running with the business.

It took me 4+ years to get to that point, but today I have:

• 50,000+ followers.

• 11M+ views/year.

• A massive lead gen channel for the business.

And that’s a drop in the water compared to what I think the impact the company brand will have in 4 years’ time.

That being said, I've made my fair share of mistakes when it comes to branding.

And one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that building a brand isn’t just about getting views, followers, or attention.

(It’s actually quite easy to growth hack your way to getting attention)

The tough part is to become a Key Person (or company) of Influence in your industry.

Because the only way to truly do that is through being interesting.

Over the past few days, I've been reworking my personal & company brand strategy, and I've spent a lot of time studying what the most successful Key People (and companies) of Influence actually do to make themselves interesting.

This playbook is a breakdown of the biggest lessons I’ve learned.

Here’s how to be interesting (the real secret to building a brand that matters) ⤵️

Lesson 1: Be Strategically Absurd

People have a love/hate relationship with Steven Bartlett. Some people hate him. Others absolutely adore him. Either way, it's impossible to ignore just how good he is at building brands.

At this point, I’ve spent well over 1000+ hours studying how he operates and how he thinks about branding. So much so that I could talk for hours about the tactics, the strategy, and the positioning he has used to get attention over the years.

But there’s one singular principle he understands better than anyone else I know.

It’s the same principle he used to make SocialChain one of the most well-known marketing agencies in Europe. And it’s the same one he's now using to make his new company, Flight Story, front-page news.

As Steve puts it himself:

It’s the idea that the most absurd things a brand or person does end up cementing who they are more than anything else they do.

Steven did this masterfully with Social Chain when they made national news by installing their infamous “Big blue slide” in their Manchester office.

It wasn’t practical. It didn’t improve efficiency. But it painted a perception: “We’re the young kids running the internet.”

That perception led them to global fame and clients like Amazon, Sony, Vimto, and more.

Now with Flight Story, he’s doing it again. Their new office will feature a floating astronaut receptionist (that guests have to talk with to gain access) and digital walls you can interact with.

It’s all completely absurd. Yet it’s also unforgettable. And it paints Flight Story as a company that lives at the cutting edge of innovation, evolution, and possibility.

It’s because of that absurdity that we’ll all hear about how Flight Story is so innovative in about 18 months time.

Lesson 2: Say Novel, But Important Things

The almost impossible task of being an interesting person is consistently saying interesting things.

It sounds simple, but it's where most brands - and most people - fail.

Everyone thinks what they say is interesting, but unfortunately for them, the rest of the world begs to differ.

Recently, I was listening to the How I Write podcast by David Perell, where author and journalist Derek Thompson broke down his formula for saying "interesting" things:

He explained that most people fall into one of two traps:

• They talk about things that are important, but not novel.
  (Think: another TED Talk about "following your passion" - true, but everyone’s heard it a thousand times.)

• They talk about things that are novel, but not important.
  (Think: obsessing over whether Kim Kardashian unfollowed someone on Instagram — new and dramatic, but completely meaningless a week later.)

But real “interestingness” happens when you consistently say things that are both new and meaningful.

• It’s the company that reframes a universal truth in a way no one else has said yet.

• It’s the founder who gives words to an unspoken frustration everyone feels but no one has articulated yet.

• It's the campaign that reveals a shift everyone sensed - but couldn't yet describe.

That's how you become a key person of influence. That's how you build a brand that actually has impact.

In a world drowning in "me too" content and shallow hot takes, brands that sit at the intersection of novelty and importance will own the conversation.

If you want to be interesting, if you want to dominate your category, you can't just be louder.

You have to be first to say something that matters.

(Although that is harder said than done!)

Lesson 3: Steal From Strange Places

George Mack is one of my favourite people on the internet.

But while some see him as a “modern philosopher” or an unconventional thinker, I first knew George because he ran a marketing agency called Multiply - which I believe now goes by AdProfessor.com.

George doesn’t spend much time talking about personal branding. In fact, I’m not sure he’s ever even mentioned those two words together. But ask anyone who follows him, and the one word you’ll hear over and over again to describe him is:

Interesting.

Unfortunately for us, George has never written an essay on how he made himself interesting, but if you follow his tracks and study his methods, it quickly becomes clear how he did it.

And if there was one framework to summarise how George makes himself interesting, it’s this:

He steals smart ideas from weird places.

One of his favourite questions is:

Because while most people scour the web to talk about the things that everyone else is talking about, George looks for what’s being overlooked.

It’s a simple principle, but it’s exactly what makes him so interesting.

If you want to build an interesting personal brand or company brand, you can't just talk about what everyone else is talking about.

You have to pull your ideas from places your competitors aren’t even looking.

Daniel Priestley did this perfectly with one of his recent tweets:

While everyone else is showing fancy AI-generated ads. Priestley breaks down how LLMs will affect businesses by breaking down the history of the refrigerator.

Interesting ideas are a byproduct of interesting sources.

If you want to be interesting, you need to hunt for insights in unexpected places - and then be brave enough to post them online.

Lesson 4: Systemise Your Way to Interestingness

Talking of Priestley, he also happens to be one of the most interesting people I follow. Yet on paper, Daniel is a very normal man.

He’s a dad. Lives in London. Runs a few businesses - a quiz funnel software company, a group of agencies. Most people couldn’t even name the companies he owns.

And yet, in the world of entrepreneurs, marketers, and founders - he’s adored. He’s seen as one of the most influential, insightful voices in business today.

So why is that?

It’s not because he’s naturally larger-than-life. It’s because Daniel systemised his way to being interesting.

Daniel doesn't just hope people find him fascinating. He has frameworks, processes, and strategies for how he builds and compounds his influence over time.

One of the clearest examples of this is what he calls the Podcast Pyramid.

Daniel explains that he used his Podcast Pyramid method to build his way all of the way to the No. 1 podcast in the UK.

He started at the lower tiers of the pyramid, doing any podcast that would have him. He used those as a testing ground.

• Tested stories.

• Saw what resonated.

• Showcased his ideas.

Then he moved on to the next tier.

• Slightly bigger shows.

• More refined stories.

• Better ideas.

Then he moved on to the next tier.

• Quite big shows.

• Even more refined stories.

• Popular ideas from other pods.

Then he continued and continued all of the way up to being the highest recurring guest on Diary Of A CEO (4 appearances). All with millions of views and massively amplifying his brand.

And he uses that same approach to run through everything he does:

• He systemises how he shows up online.

• He systemises when and how to pitch his offers.

• He systemises his content frameworks (like his famous Key Person of Influence five-step methodology).

Daniel didn’t just try to "be more interesting." He built systems that made him more interesting over time.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• Steven Bartlett on building Flight Story. (See here)

• Writing interesting things Derek Thompson. (See here)

TL;DR

1. Embrace Strategic Absurdity

2. Say Novel, Important Things

3. Steal From Strange Places

4. Systemise Your Way to Interestingness

I’m not sure it’s normal to say you want to become more interesting, but at the end of the day, at the core of any great brand is “Interestingness”. These 4 lessons are great ways to approach things.

Hopefully you found this useful, if you did - forward it to a friend :)

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

WAIT… BEFORE YOU GO

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

🚨 Want to become famous(er), grab more customers, and 100X your reach?

Stop burning budget on ads and hoping for clicks. Podcast listeners lean in, hang on every word, and buy from guests who deliver real value. But appearing on dozens of incredible podcasts overnight as a guest has been impossible to all but the most famous.

PodPitch.com is the NEW software that books you as a guest (over and over!) on the exact kind of podcasts you want to appear on – automatically.

⚡ Drop your LinkedIn URL into PodPitch.
🤖 Scans 4 Million Podcasts: PodPitch.com's engine crawls every active show to surface your perfect podcast matches in seconds.
🔄 Listens to them For You: PodPitch literally listens to podcasts for you to think about how to best get the host's attention for your targets.
📈 Writes Emails, Sends, And Follows Up Until Booked: PodPitch.com writes hyper-personalized pitches, sends them from your email address, and will keep following up until you're booked.

👉 Want to go on 7+ podcasts every month? Book a demo now and we'll show you what podcasts YOU can guest on ASAP:

Book Your Incredible Demo Now