Create Demand With Thought Leadership That Feels Human

Haus Advisors Live with Eddie Saunders Jr., Demand Gen + Content Strategy (SpeakFriend)

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Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

• Agencies often treat their own marketing like the mechanic’s “crappy car” — they’re great at fixing client marketing, but neglect their own.

• The #1 issue isn’t tactics… it’s mindset + priorities: you get buried in client work and lose connection with why people hire you.

• The fastest win: reconnect with the people who already said yes and use that language to sharpen your messaging.

• Thought leadership works because it humanizes the brand. Eddie said these posts often see 2–3x engagement vs. more generic content.

• “B2B is H2H” (human-to-human). If your content sounds like a brochure, people scroll.

• Social media isn’t optional if you want demand. The first word is “social” — you don’t get to stay in the corner and still be known.

• Different teams should play different roles: some people are great on camera, others should feed insights that become blogs/posts.

• Thought leadership = good intentions + good info + good distribution. Smart ideas don’t matter if nobody hears them.

Meet the Guest

Eddie Saunders Jr. helps agencies create demand with content that connects — the kind that makes prospects feel like, “Oh… these people get it.” He’s the founder of SpeakFriend (speakfriend.io) and he’s also active on LinkedIn sharing practical, no-fluff takes on content, distribution, and showing up consistently.

He also does professional emcee / combat sports announcing (which honestly tracks — the man knows how to hold attention).

Episode Summary

1. The “mechanic with the crappy car” problem

Eddie opened with a painfully accurate analogy: agencies are like mechanics who work on cars all day… then drive home in a junker.

Why? Because client work eats everything. You’re “turning up the volume” for everyone else, and your own stuff becomes an afterthought.

He tied it to a second analogy too: the airplane oxygen mask. If you don’t handle your own first, you’re going to burn out (and your pipeline will show it).

2. The main tension: agencies lose connection with why clients buy

The big misstep he sees (in agencies and businesses in general): you stop listening to the people who already chose you.

Instead, you slip into “features and benefits” mode — talking about what you do, not the problems you solve and the outcomes people actually want.

“We’re connecting less and less with the audience… and we forget what got us there.”

3. Their unique way of solving it: treat yourself like a client

This was the punchline Eddie kept circling back to:

You already know what to do — you do it for clients every day.

You just don’t do it for yourself.

So the fix isn’t some magical content calendar template. It’s applying your own playbook inward:

• interview your best clients (or past “yes” clients)

• extract the real language they use

• build messaging around the problems they hired you to solve

• then publish consistently in a way that feels human

He basically pitched “self-care… but for your positioning and content.”

4. Framework, method, or mental model

Here’s the cleanest “Eddie model” from the convo:

A simple demand-creating content loop:

• Reconnect with people who said yes (and learn why)

• Translate that into clear messaging (pain → outcome → proof)

• Publish thought leadership that humanizes your expertise

• Distribute it where your audience actually pays attention

• Tune based on feedback (comments, DMs, sales calls)

And his definition of thought leadership was surprisingly usable:

Thought leadership =

• Good intentions (you’re actually trying to educate/help, not posture)

• Good information (real insights, not fluff)

• Good distribution (the right people actually see it)

5. Common mistake or ‘cringe’ moment

Two common patterns he called out:

• The “I don’t want to be self-promotional” hangup

• The opposite: the person who wants to post too much without thinking about the audience

His take was basically: both are solvable, but neither gets a free pass.

If you’re hiding because you don’t want attention, you’re choosing invisibility.

If you’re oversharing, you need guardrails and feedback.

And he made a point that I wish more agency owners would hear:

You don’t need everyone to be a “brand-facing personality.”

You need a system that uses each person’s strengths.

6. Where the founder/leader still belongs

This part hit home for my agency audience:

Founders (and leaders) still have to “enter the party.”

Social media is social. You don’t get to skip showing up and still expect the market to remember you when budgets open up.

Eddie said it plainly: you need some guts to put yourself out there — because nobody can hire the agency they never hear from.

7. Hiring, scaling, or process lessons

A subtle but important scaling point:

Not everyone has to be on camera.

• Some team members are great on video → let them lead distribution.

• Some are “quiet experts” → extract their knowledge and turn it into posts/blogs.

That’s a real operational unlock for agencies: stop forcing everyone into the same content format. Build a pipeline from internal insight → outward publishing.

Notable Quotes

“We’re so busy focusing on everybody else’s… it’s easy to forget about our own.”

“B2B is H2H. That’s human to human.”

“There’s no way the world is gonna hear your message if you don’t put yourself out there.”

“Thought leadership is intention and distribution.”

Learn More / Get in Touch

Visit → speakfriend.io

LinkedIn → Eddie Saunders Jr.

Instagram / Threads → @Eddiemakesnoise

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