← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Non-Obvious Thinking for Nonprofit Leaders with Rohit Bhargava
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- [00:00]
Julia Campbell
What if we named things for what they're not? We'd give teachers non oranges and fly non cars. That sounds ridiculous, right? So why is your world changing organization called a non profit? The truth is you are for purpose and the more you raise, recruit and retain, the more good you can do. That's where Bloomerang comes in. Bloomerang's giving platform is built for purpose with easy to use tools and powerful insights that will help you understand your donors better than ever and unleash even more generosity. Imagine spending less time on admin tasks and more time on what matters your mission. Bloomerang customers raise an average of 26% more. Are you ready to join them? Then just visit jcsocialmarketing.com forward/bloomerang to learn more and start making an even bigger impact. That's jcsocialmarketing.com forward/b L O O M E R A N G let's get to the episode hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Get started.
- [02:04]
Rohit Bhargava
Hello.
- [02:05]
Julia Campbell
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Nonprofit Nation. This is your host Julia Campbell and I am extremely excited about one of the guests that we have today. About the guest we have today, I am fangirling a little bit because it's one book that I have read that I actually firmly believe is going to help nonprofit leaders of all stripes. And I want to introduce all of you to my guest, Rohit Bhargava. Rohit is a best selling author, futurist and expert in Non Obvious thinking, which we clearly need a lot of in this sector. And today we're going to explore how nonprofit leaders can break free from conventional wisdom, what's holding us back and discover fresh ideas. So Rohit's latest book is Non Obvious Thinking, how to See what Others Miss. And it introduces a four step framework to help leaders generate better ideas, uncover hidden insights, and rethink the way that we work. And we're going to discuss how nonprofits can apply these principles to fundraising, storytelling, innovation, diversity and belonging. All the Things even with limited resources. So, Rohit, thank you so much for being here.
- [03:21]
Rohit Bhargava
Oh, thank you for the invitation. I love the way you have set up the conversation and also just the audience and all the work that they're doing. So thank you.
- [03:30]
Julia Campbell
Yes. And I love your headshot with the non obvious sunglasses.
- [03:35]
Rohit Bhargava
It is fun. It is. I mean, when you have a company called the Non obvious Company, you kind of have.
- [03:40]
Julia Campbell
You have to have a non obvious headshot. Exactly, exactly.
- [03:42]
Rohit Bhargava
You got to do something a little bit different.
- [03:44]
Julia Campbell
I love that. So you've built a career helping people see what others miss. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started and how your journey brought you here?
- [03:53]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah. I came from the world of marketing and advertising and so creative services and most of my career was in the sort of organization where people would hire us to come up with creative fixes for whatever challenge they had. And that was the world that I got introduced to. And I got introduced to it through an agency. Like I was working at Ogilvy for many years and I worked at Leo Burnett before that in Australia. And when you work in an agency, you're working on a lot of different projects at once and a lot of different clients and a lot of different industries. And sometimes you're working on something corporate, sometimes you're working on a nonprofit, and you're doing it all at the same time. And what's fascinating about that is you're working with people who have different types of budgets, different type of expectations, and different levels of willingness to say yes to something really creative. And that was great training for me as I started my career because I realized that I had to not just be non obvious, like come up with something cool and crazy, but I had to figure out a way to sell it and pitch it in a way that someone would say yes to. Which is really great training to learn in your career.
- [04:59]
Julia Campbell
Oh, 100%. It's. I think half of it is having the good idea and like you said, maybe the other half is being able to pitch it and getting other people on board with it. I know a lot of my clients struggle with that, with their campaigns and some of the cool things they want to do, but they get pushback from the higher ups or coworkers. So I think that's a great point. So what does non obvious thinking mean and why is it so important right now?
- [05:26]
Rohit Bhargava
To me, non obvious thinking is about being flexible enough to shift your perspective and see the world from maybe the lens of someone else, someone not like you. And part of it is about empathy, like having empathy for that person and not just consuming the sorts of things you agree with. But I think it's also a creative challenge. It's this call for you to be the best version of yourself and to be that creative version of yourself at work in particular that you wish you could be more often. And I think a lot of times when we get into the daily stuff we have to do or the habits that we're in, or the deadlines that we have to deal with, we lose that part of ourself. We lose that connection to, oh, I'm going to be more open minded and totally think creatively and do something that I haven't done before. But I'm too busy. Like I got too much stuff to do and I'm trying to advocate against falling into that trap.
- [06:20]
Julia Campbell
I do think that there's a huge problem, especially in the third sector only because they're so under resourced. It's obviously problem in startups and small businesses as well because of the constant plate spinning and there's just so much work and the to do list is so long and there's not a lot of room for this kind of creative outlet. So in your book you have a four step method to non obvious thinking and to think bigger. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how you created this four step method? And I do want to talk about sort of maybe each step in the method, but we can talk about that after. I want to talk more about like how did this come to be?
- [07:02]
Rohit Bhargava
This whole book was kind of, it was kind of an accident for me in terms of writing it because anybody who might have seen some of my work before knows I've been writing about non obvious ideas and non obvious trends for more than 10 years. And I did something really crazy which is I wrote a book about trends and then I rewrote it every single year for 10 years with brand new trends.
- [07:25]
Julia Campbell
Amazing.
- [07:26]
Rohit Bhargava
So I guaranteed that the previous version would be obsolete because I would release a new version every December for the.
- [07:32]
Julia Campbell
Next thing with trends. That's the problem, right?
- [07:35]
Rohit Bhargava
Exactly.
- [07:35]
Julia Campbell
It's always problem or the opportunity.
- [07:37]
Rohit Bhargava
Well, it was both, right? I mean it was a problem from a book sales point of view, but it was a great opportunity because it led me down this path of doing all these other things. But it was after I finished that whole 10, it was a 10 year project. And in 2020 I launched the last book in that series which was called Non Obvious Mega Trends and that one hit number one on the Wall Street Journal list and did really well. And now I was at this crossroads where it's like, do I want to keep doing this for another 10 years or do I want to do something different? And I pivoted and started doing something different. Over the next few years, I realized that what people were really interested in was the method of how do you think in this way to come up with these trends in the first place? And so non obvious thinking, which came out in late 2024, was the answer to that question. It was sort of like the prequel. Like now that I look backwards, I'm like, I probably should have written that first. But it is describes this mindset and this way thinking. And the four steps that you mentioned, they make an acronym because I'm a marketer and I love acronym.
- [08:36]
Julia Campbell
Oh, we love an acronym.
- [08:37]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah. And the acronym is sift. And if you think about what sifting through something means, it basically means paying attention to what really matters and avoiding or getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter, which is kind of what we have to do on a daily basis. When it comes to the media we consume or the tasks that we have on our to do list, we're always sifting. And what the SIFT acronym stands for is creating space. That's the S. Finding insight is the I. Finding your focus is the F. And then creating a twist is where it gets non obvious. And that's the T. So that was the acronym and that was the four step method.
- [09:11]
Julia Campbell
I love that. So to walk us through maybe space. So space is about creating space for new ideas. Like, how can we create the space when, like you said, we're stretched so thin on time and resources and convinced that we're busier than everyone else.
- [09:28]
Rohit Bhargava
We might be busier than everyone else, but it might be just in our minds. I mean, I remember a great quote I heard from someone who was like, you know how everyone loves to complain about the traffic, but like, you are traffic.
- [09:41]
Julia Campbell
You are traffic.
- [09:42]
Rohit Bhargava
You are traffic. Like that's you. Like you're the cause of traffic. You're in traffic, but you're creating traffic.
- [09:46]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, people complain about lines in stores. It's like, but you're in the line, right?
- [09:50]
Rohit Bhargava
Exactly. Like you're the problem. But I do think that we need better methods to find space for ourselves. So when we, my co author, Ben and I, when we wrote about space, we wrote about physical space. As in like creating more like actual, not being buried by clutter, but also mental space. To be able to have new ideas or to be able to crack that thing that you've been thinking about doing, but you've just been too busy with all the daily stuff to be able to get to it. And the way the book's written is that it offers a bunch of tips around each one of these key elements. So the book is divided into the key elements, and then all of the chapters are basically just a tip for how to do that. So creating space, for example, one of the ways that we talk about doing that is by changing some of your rituals. So if you can change what you do every day, especially in the morning, you can send a signal to your mind that says, you know, today is not really going to be like yesterday. Today is going to be a little bit different. And when you send that signal to your mind, like, first thing in the morning, it's really powerful because it reminds you that you don't have to do things the same way that you've always done.
- [11:02]
Julia Campbell
I think that's absolutely true. I know that I work from home, so a lot of people listen to this podcast. They might be hybrid. Maybe they work from home. Maybe they do go to a physical office. And I find that absolutely my morning sets me up. Like, if I. If I put the kids on the bus and then I'm like, oh, I'm just going to, you know, watch an episode of TV or something, or I'm gonna fold some laundry or do some shorts. Yeah. If I do not get on the computer and start focusing first thing in the morning, that's just me. Then I feel like my whole morning, my whole day is kind of thrown off. And I do have the luxury of creating my own schedule for the most part. I have two kids, and, you know, we have a lot of stuff that goes on, But I do think that that is a huge issue that. That people struggle with. So any way that I think people can take that control over their space, even if they're going into an office and maybe they're just in a cubicle, those little ways, those little habits. I know, I know. Really help. So that's really impactful. What about I. I stands for insight. How can we adapt this strategy?
- [12:08]
Rohit Bhargava
So insight is an interesting one because if you think about. I mean, going specifically to nonprofit. To the nonprofit world. Right. All of the work that we're doing is meant to benefit some sort of end community. And there are times when people who are. I've seen this myself. I mean, I. We were sort of talking about this before. Like, I spent a long time teaching storytelling and marketing in a program at Georgetown University. That was for people who were going into cause related communications. So the people who were getting a master's degree and either already working or planning to go and work in NGOs, nonprofits, you know, corporate groups that do, you know, all these different programs that are beneficial. Right. That's who was in the audience there. And one of the things that I found is as the more you're working on a particular cause or topic and you're head down doing perhaps advocacy or whatever the work is you're doing, sometimes you get a little disconnected from the end beneficiary of that. And one of the things we write about in the book in the insights chapter is getting your hands dirty. And the example that we use is when Dara Kozrowski took over at Uber, and I'm sure I pronounced his name incorrectly. But when he took over at Uber as CEO, one of the first things he did is he went and signed up as a driver and then became an Uber driver and drove people around. And when he came back from that experience to the office, he sent an email to the entire team at Uber and the subject line was why we suck.
- [13:44]
Julia Campbell
Oh.
- [13:45]
Rohit Bhargava
And it was all about that's a.
- [13:46]
Julia Campbell
Good subject line to grab attention.
- [13:48]
Rohit Bhargava
Who wouldn't open that? And it was all about the things that he learned being a driver that were not optimal in how they were treating drivers and what they needed to fix and change. And I think that that type of insight comes from getting your hands dirty. In his case, he actually went and became a driver on his own app to do that. But whatever the equivalent is of your audience listening, that's really important because you can find insights by going into those communities as much as you can, or experiencing the world in the way that they experience it, so that you can make sure that the work you're doing is actually helping in the way you hope it's helping 100%.
- [14:24]
Julia Campbell
My first director of development job, well, director of development and marketing and probably 12 other titles, I was hired, I lived in Virginia at the time, and my office was completely in a separate building from where the programs were actually provided and where everybody else was. So I was like with the executive director and the executive assistant, but we were completely separate from. It was a domestic violence program, so the shelter was completely separate. But where we ran the programs and did the intake and did support groups and did kids stuff and events and things like that, I was just at a completely separate office like two blocks away. And I really struggled with that insight and getting that, like getting My hands dirty. I think some bosses don't want you to do that. Like, so how are some ways that we can first of all, overcome our own struggle with getting our hands dirty? But how could we overcome maybe a boss or some co workers that are really hesitant to letting us do this?
- [15:25]
Rohit Bhargava
Well, I think as I've shared this insight and done, you know, workshops where I've taken people through this process and we spend sometimes a whole day together, one of the things that I find people do is they take this tip of getting your hands dirty very literally. I need to go out into the field and. And hold something.
- [15:45]
Julia Campbell
Right, right.
- [15:46]
Rohit Bhargava
Getting your hands dirty could also be watching a YouTube video from someone who is from the community that you're trying to serve, talking about what it's really like and taking you inside that experience behind the scenes. The point is that you want to get the firsthand perspective as much as you can. I mean, obviously it's better for you to experience it yourself physically if you can, but the next best thing is get the unvarnished experience of what that is from someone who is in that world. And YouTube is great for that sort of thing. I mean, you could find videos on all sorts of stuff. Like, I was, and I am very weird. I have a very weird YouTube algorithm because I watch all sorts of stuff I shouldn't like. I watch makeup tutorials, like college videos about, like, what college life is like, you know, stuff that's not in my demographic that I really, you know, have no reason to watch. I just find it interesting. So I watch it. Right.
- [16:38]
Julia Campbell
I love that. I watch a lot of videos because I like the way the video is shot or made, and I watch it for sort of ideas of how to create video. So maybe the topic, I agree with you is not the most relevant to me, but I like the creator or I like just the way the video is made.
- [16:53]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah, it's. It's a. It's a way of exploring these other perspectives. And at the end of the day, like, the way that you can generate these sorts of insights is by getting outside of your comfort zone a little bit, whatever that means to you, whether it's physically getting out of the Office or watching YouTube videos, you wouldn't ordinarily. I mean, everybody has a different level of what they have the ability to do.
- [17:13]
Julia Campbell
So now we're on F in the sift frameworks. We have space, insight, and F is focus. Tell us about focus.
- [17:22]
Rohit Bhargava
Focus is one that feels tough for a lot of people, but also feels like something that they do Easily. And it's an interesting combination, right, because you would expect that people would look at something and say, oh, that's really difficult. I don't know how to do it. Or I know how to do that. And focus is one where we get both. Like, people are like, oh, I have such a hard time focusing. I have all these different priorities. But then you'll also have the exact same person say, I'm an expert multitasker. I get so much stuff done. I know how to focus when it really matters. I get things off my plate. And at the end of the day, there's a few different techniques you can use for focus. And one of my favorites is introducing constraints. So having worked in the world of creativity and with lots of different designers, the myth is that a designer hates constraints because they want to be creative. The reality is that a designer loves a good brief because a good brief adds the constraints to make sure that they're actually designing based on what people really want. And there's very powerful lessons throughout history of how that's been really valuable. So one example of. An amazing example of constraints is. Is Dr. Seuss. So Dr. Seuss, most prolific author of children's books, has written more than 60 books.
- [18:43]
Julia Campbell
Everybody knows my son is actually in the Seussical musical.
- [18:46]
Rohit Bhargava
Oh, okay.
- [18:46]
Julia Campbell
Local community production.
- [18:48]
Rohit Bhargava
Well, then you'll love this. Like, so, you know, in, in Dr. Seuss's books, he uses a lot of simplicity, right? There are two books of his that are the most bestselling, most popular books that outsell all of the other books over the last 60 plus years. The first one is Green Eggs and Ham, and the second one is Cat in the Hat. And the one thing that both of them have in common is that they were both written off of a challenge. Green Eggs and Ham was written off of the challenge of writing a book with less than 150 different words. So it has less than 150 different words in terms of word variety in the book. That's Green Eggs and Ham. And that became a huge bestseller. And then one of Dr. Seuss's editors came to him a couple years later and said, could you write a book with less than 450 words?
- [19:33]
Julia Campbell
Oh, my gosh.
- [19:34]
Rohit Bhargava
And that was Cat in the hat. Less than 50 words. And his number one best selling book is Cat in the Hat. So you look at a story like that and you think, wow, that's an extreme level of simplicity for a guy who was already practicing simplicity. Right. These are not complicated books. But when he doubled down on making it as simple as possible. That was the best one. That was the one that kids identified with and loved. And this is not just kids. So that's the key when it comes to focus. How do you be as simple as possible with the work that you do?
- [20:07]
Julia Campbell
And I believe, and I see it a lot, especially in nonprofit marketing campaigns. Some of the campaigns I see vastly over complicate the issue and the problem or over explain or give too much information. I think the idea of focus is so important for us. We have the curse of knowledge. We want to share everything. We want to talk about every facet of our 25 programs and every piece of impact and every piece of data and every story. But that overwhelms people on the other end and oh, that's so cool. So I would challenge everyone to do the Dr. Seuss challenge. See if you can write your annual report only using 50 different words or even 150 different words. I think that would be really. I think that'd be very interesting to see. I think that's really cool.
- [20:54]
Rohit Bhargava
And you can't use Chat GPT. That would be the other.
- [20:57]
Julia Campbell
No, that's what I the. That's the first thought that came to my head. Of course I was like, oh, how could I do this with Chat GPT? But yes, you can't. You have to do it yourself and challenge yourself.
- [21:07]
Rohit Bhargava
If it's a challenge. Right. I mean it's not a challenge to put it into Chat gbt. Then you just. Then it's just a task and you're getting.
- [21:12]
Julia Campbell
Very true. No, because the whole. Yeah, the whole point is the focus.
- [21:15]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah.
- [21:15]
Julia Campbell
So t is twist. This is my favorite one. And this is, I mean, I was going to ask you after which one most people struggle with. This is the one I personally struggle with most. But talk about twist.
- [21:28]
Rohit Bhargava
Twist is fourth by intention because it is the outcome of doing the first three. And so twist is by its nature the most difficult because you have to put all the pieces together in order to accomplish it. Right. It's the end game. But if you're able to do it, that's where your ideas and your thinking and your output becomes the most non obvious. So that's where you find the twist. And when I talk about adding a twist, there's a few different ways you could do that. So one of the ways we talk about in the book is by thinking un. Whatever. And thinking on whatever means finding an enemy, finding something that you're not like by intention. So a great marketing example of that was when Taco Bell was just taking off as a fast food chain. Their whole tagline was think outside the bun, because they were the only fast food chain that didn't have any buns. And that was their campaign, and they were the only ones. And they stood out because they were not burgers. Same thing with oat milk. When oat milk came out and they were trying to dominate, Oatly was trying to dominate the category, but the whole category was rising. They talked about how they were not milk from a cow, and that was the enemy. Milk from the cow. You should not be drinking this stuff. This is for cows. This is not for humans. That was their argument, Right. You should be drinking something else. And oatly is more natural and all of the other things. So they chose an enemy, and they were against that enemy, and they were the U.N. whatever. That's the marketing technique. That is a twist, right? So that's one way to think about adding a twist.
- [23:04]
Julia Campbell
How do you think non profits can adapt to that? I think is the enemy sort of poverty or hunger, homelessness? Like, what would the enemy be?
- [23:15]
Rohit Bhargava
That would be the natural thing to think, right?
- [23:18]
Julia Campbell
That'd be the obvious thing to think.
- [23:19]
Rohit Bhargava
I mean, you know, but it's not wrong, right? I mean, sometimes the obvious thing to think is the right thing. The challenge is that it's hard to do a twist around that, because everybody knows it. I mean, if you're a nonprofit trying to prevent homelessness, then you know what your cause is. You know what the challenge is. But as you start to dig deeper, right? And anybody who works on. Let's take that one issue for example. Somebody's working on homelessness, they probably have a list of eight things that contribute to someone becoming homeless. Right? And it might be, like a loss of job or, like, breakdown of family structure or, you know, you know, economic policy change or addiction or whatever it is, Right. If you choose one of those and combat that as your enemy, you might be able to find something that's a little bit more of an interesting twist, Especially if it's something. And homelessness has a lot of misperception around it as an issue. Right. People think that homelessness is caused by something, and they don't actually realize how close many people are to being homeless and that sleeping in your car is, you know, I mean, you have. It's not like every person who's homeless is on the street homeless, Right?
- [24:32]
Julia Campbell
Right.
- [24:32]
Rohit Bhargava
So when you start to change some of those perceptions, you can add a twist to say, well, if this thing changes, you can start to solve this problem over here. That's one way to think about any cause related communication. It's what are the contributing factors to the thing instead of just fighting against the thing.
- [24:50]
Julia Campbell
I think that's so important. We use storytelling. We rely on storytelling across a variety of platforms. You know, I've had guests on talking about ethical storytelling and trauma informed storytelling and how to include your community in your storytelling. But I'm interested to hear from you what is sort of maybe a non obvious way that we can stand out with our storytelling since it seems like it's pretty ubiquitous and everywhere.
- [25:17]
Rohit Bhargava
I do think that especially in a media climate where things tend to focus on negativity sometimes I have seen non profit groups focus their storytelling on bringing their issue to life. So they talk about someone who is suffering from whatever they're suffering from and let's say a victim of abuse. And they're talking about what that situation is like for that person or pet shelter. And they're talking about, you know, the, the animals that are. They show at least with those, some of those TV spots, really sad looking animals with the tagline that.
- [25:58]
Julia Campbell
Oh yeah, the Sarah McLachlan arms of the Angels.
- [26:00]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah, exactly. Like you can see a knife. Right. Which is sort of going. It's emotional, which is probably why it works and why they do it. But it's also going in the negative and what you don't see.
- [26:11]
Julia Campbell
And people are tired of it. It's like emotion tired of it. Compassion fatigue kind of.
- [26:16]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah, it tugs at their heartstring, but they're also sort of. They're overwhelmed by that.
- [26:20]
Julia Campbell
Yeah.
- [26:21]
Rohit Bhargava
And if you think about media that we all consume and even things that we watch, I mean, dystopian science fiction where it shows the world being destroyed and like tornadoes and like, I mean across every level we have a ton of stuff that makes us feel worse. And what we don't have is storytelling about the wins. And nonprofits all have wins. They have someone whose life has been. Life has been changed based on their work. They have someone who has emerged from whatever that situation was and benefited from what they do. And I think if we spent more time telling stories of that as opposed to painting the picture of what the issue is, we might be able to twist this a little bit. So on a macro level, I would say spend more time telling the stories of the wins and what we should celebrate as opposed to the negative situation you're trying to fight against.
- [27:14]
Julia Campbell
Do you help non profits with these kind of non obvious fundraising campaigns? Does your agency, I know you do trainings.
- [27:20]
Rohit Bhargava
I don't really have an agency anymore, so. Not really. I personally do a lot of talks for groups, so I'll do like keynotes at conferences. I'll also go into like retreats, like if teams are having a retreat to try and teach this way of thinking. And then sometimes I'll lead brainstorms around various ideas. And what I used to do when I was in the agency is I would lead a brainstorm but also come up with ideas which, which I like and I'm good at. And if any facilitator of a workshop will tell you that is not how you run a workshop, like you're not the one who's supposed to come up with stuff. You're supposed to, you know, it out of other people. Right. Which is why I probably am not the best workshop facilitator. From the classic sense.
- [28:06]
Julia Campbell
I struggle with it constantly.
- [28:08]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah, but offering solutions and my ideas.
- [28:11]
Julia Campbell
When you're supposed to be leading people through.
- [28:13]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and, but I do add a lot of value because the ideas come from a perspective of someone who's outside of your space. Yes, in a good way. So they're informed by what might be possible, but they're not limited by what has been done in the past. And I think a lot of organizations, like that's what they need.
- [28:35]
Julia Campbell
They need that outside perspective 100%. And to me, the, the Sift framework, it seems like, especially when I read the book, it would be great for teams because what I could see happening is a nonprofit fundraiser reading the book, getting all excited about it, having some kind of twist on a fundraising appeal and then kind of getting shot down. So how can leaders, how can people listening create this culture where their teams feel safe to take risks and to think in non obvious ways?
- [29:08]
Rohit Bhargava
Well, let's break it down. Let's break down the risk. Right. Why do people say no to ideas that could be great? They say no because it might make them look bad, because it might cost too much money or because it might create some sort of a backlash public. I mean, those are three primary reasons. They're probably other reasons, but those are like the macro reasons. So if you're going to pitch something to someone who's in a leadership position, you have to make it less risky. You have to manage the potential for a blowback or explain to them like, you know, if this doesn't work, what's the cost of it? You have to make sure that you minimize how much money it requires, at least upfront, by doing some sort of a pilot that you could do with a minimal budget where if it doesn't work or it doesn't go the way you think it will, you haven't wasted all your resources. You haven't spent your entire year's marketing budget on one thing. Right. And that's the way that you sell something like that in. And then you get the small wins that give you the credibility to then go and ask for bigger things. I mean, I still remember there was a great panel that I did, a panel of CMOs, and there was a guy who was a CMO of a hospital system in Georgia, and one of the things that he talked about was going in as cmo, and he had all these ideas and he had some budget, but he wanted to do all these things, but he had to build credibility.
- [30:21]
Julia Campbell
Yes.
- [30:21]
Rohit Bhargava
So he went on this listening tour of all the employees, and one of the things that he discovered was in this hospital system was affiliated with a university. One of the things he discovered was that the scrubs that all of the people in the hospital had to wear were a certain color, and that color happened to be the color of the rivals of that university.
- [30:42]
Julia Campbell
Oh.
- [30:42]
Rohit Bhargava
And everyone hated that color because it had connotations of their rival, but that's what they had to wear.
- [30:48]
Julia Campbell
Yep.
- [30:49]
Rohit Bhargava
So the first thing he did is he came in and he said, look, let's change the color. People can wear this other color. And immediately, he was a hero to all of the employees because he changed the color of the scrubs and they were already buying them. So changing the color was not a additional expense. Right. It doesn't cost more to have one color versus the other if they're already getting them. And because he had this huge win and all of this goodwill, it opened the door for him to then do some of the other bigger things. Right. Because changing the color of the scrubs does nothing for marketing the system or, you know, anything tangible from a marketing point of view. But it bought him a lot of credibility within the university system and the healthcare system to be able to then pitch the bigger things. And that's kind of how it works.
- [31:30]
Julia Campbell
Small wins.
- [31:31]
Rohit Bhargava
Small wins.
- [31:32]
Julia Campbell
Oh, it's all about credibility and trust. Yeah, it's all about credibility and trust. I love that. I think that's so important. And also, we need to do that with our donors, too. Build that credibility and trust before the big ask or before asking for their contributions. I think that's incredibly relevant.
- [31:48]
Rohit Bhargava
Yeah. And I think. I mean, anybody who works in nonprofit knows that the act of donation by anyone, large or small, does. I mean, it's a weird way to describe it, maybe, but I think people know it. It's an inherently selfish thing. When someone is donating, they have some sort of a personal motivation to do it. They don't always need the credit. And it's not that they're always egotistical in that sense, but there is a personal motivation. There's something about their identity or something about it that makes it a personal choice to them. And I don't think we spend enough time generally trying to appreciate what is that identity. Like, what does that say about someone and what do they want it to say about them, and what do we give them as a token of how we appreciate what they've done for us? And the one space, which is sort of nonprofit and sort of for profit, depending on what group you're talking about, that does this really well is the arts. So if you donate to a theater or if you donate to a production, they put your name in the program. They actually put your name on a plaque, depending on how much you donate. And they put it in the. In their theater for everyone to see. Right. It's a very visible thank you. And I know some people don't want that, but what version of that might you be able to offer where someone could be a contributor, be a donation person, be someone who donates. A donor.
- [33:11]
Julia Campbell
A donor.
- [33:12]
Rohit Bhargava
See, I was going to find it.
- [33:13]
Julia Campbell
I was going to a donation person. I was. I knew exactly what you're saying.
- [33:17]
Rohit Bhargava
I was. I was almost there. Would a donor want to demonstrate to the world that this is what they believe in? Right. Could you, for example, give them a badge that they could put on their LinkedIn saying proud donor to this group? Right. This is the cause. I believe in something that demonstrates to the world that this is part of their identity because it's what they believe. There should be a lot of thought behind that.
- [33:42]
Julia Campbell
Absolutely, 100%. And that's what I talk to my clients about. That's what a lot of my guests have talked about. I think a lot more thinking and strategic. I almost said strategic strategy. That's totally word George W. Bush from.
- [33:59]
Rohit Bhargava
I think we go to the dictionary. I think they did.
- [34:02]
Julia Campbell
Oh my gosh. I know. And I just watched the SNL50.
- [34:05]
Rohit Bhargava
See, that's why it's in your head.
- [34:07]
Julia Campbell
Yeah. With Will Ferrell. Yeah. So that's why it's in my head. That was fantastic, by the way. So I have to ask you about Trends because since 2011, your non obvious trends series has helped people anticipate their future. Obviously like culminating in 2020, you had the best selling edition of Megatrends. So what's an upcoming trend that nonprofits should pay attention to?
- [34:32]
Rohit Bhargava
So here's one that I think is going to be increasingly important and we described it When I say we. I had a co author on my last future related book which came out in 2023, which was called the Future Normal. And there we taught. One of the things we talked about that I also talked about previously was the human mode and the idea that we will increasingly spend more money, time and mental attention on the organizations that help us connect with people. Especially as we start to work more remotely and our lives become more digital. The moments in time where we get to gather with like minded people are really important. Which is why live sports is taking off because people go and they get to bond with others based on the team that they cheer for. And nonprofits should totally be taking advantage of this because if you did find a way to bring people together, they would come together based on a shared belief that your cause is important. Which is almost as powerful as cheering for the same team. In sports, I would argue which team.
- [35:38]
Julia Campbell
Do you cheer for?
- [35:39]
Rohit Bhargava
Belief?
- [35:40]
Julia Campbell
What teams do you root for?
- [35:41]
Rohit Bhargava
Oh, I grew up when The Redskins in D.C. were winning Super Bowls. So that's been my team forever. But they've been terrible forever until just this past season where they actually got good and they got a good quarterback and changed their owners. So that's my team.
- [35:56]
Julia Campbell
There are very few things that are more powerful. I'm a Red Sox fan and I've traveled the world and wearing that Red Sox hat is that's a sim just such a symbol and just building that community. I think a lot of nonprofits can reflect on what you said and I just have an interesting question just because I don't really know how I feel about this, but can AI tools contribute to non obvious thinking or do you feel like they are a detriment to not obvious thinking?
- [36:28]
Rohit Bhargava
I'd say AI tools can be both a contributor and a detriment. So if you're using them to avoid thinking or to avoid having to put in any actual work, then it can be a detriment. It can do to your brain. The same thing that Google Maps has shown to do to people's brains in terms of their sense of direction eroding because they just follow the maps. That's not a must. It doesn't always happen like that. Some people can use Google Maps and have a sense of direction, but it's their choice to do that and to maintain that skill. So I think we're at the same point with AI where you're going to have to make a choice. Are you going to let AI do your thinking for you and make your arguments for you and then just copy and paste them, or are you going to use it as an additive partner? Here's an example of how I used it as an additive partner. So my co author and I, we wrote chapters of our book and then we fed it into AI and said, give us a one star negative review and tell us everything wrong with this chapter.
- [37:30]
Julia Campbell
That's amazing.
- [37:32]
Rohit Bhargava
And it gave us a criticism and some of the things we didn't really agree with or think that we needed to change and some of them were like, oh yeah, you know, we didn't think about that valid criticism, like we should probably fix that. And then we went and wrote it and changed it. So in that way, AI didn't write our book for us or make our arguments or think for us, but it did become a reflective partner in the writing process. And to me, that's a good use of AI.
- [37:58]
Julia Campbell
A reflective partner. I love that. I think that's perfect. So Rohit, this has been, this has been phenomenal. I know people are going to learn a lot. They're going to absolutely love this conversation. So can you tell us about your podcast where people can learn more about non obvious thinking and connect with you online?
- [38:17]
Rohit Bhargava
Absolutely. Yeah. So nonobvious.com super easy, no dashes or anything, just nonobvious.
- [38:22]
Julia Campbell
Nonobvious.com I love that you got that URL.
- [38:24]
Rohit Bhargava
That's awesome. It was expensive, but we.
- [38:27]
Julia Campbell
It's worth it.
- [38:28]
Rohit Bhargava
When you have a brand and you trademark it, you got to go and get the URL too. So anyway, we got it several years ago and it's been great. So that's where you can find everything. The podcast is available anywhere you get podcasts. You can also see an episode list@nonobvious.com podcast and I also have a weekly email that I write which is the most non obvious stories of the week that I curate from hundreds of different sources. And so if a lot of this reading and paying attention to things feels like a lot of work, I spend hours and hours every week to do that as part of what I do. And I write about what I thought the most interesting stories were and I share that with my subscribers. So you can subscribe to that also either from the non obvious site or nonovious.com subscribe and you can get on the newsletter as well.
- [39:13]
Julia Campbell
Perfect. I love it. Thank you so much for being here and thanks for all that you do. I would love to see you speak at an upcoming conference. So I'll subscribe to your newsletter and I'll make sure that I'm apprised of where you're going to be. But this has just been phenomenal and I really appreciate you taking the time.
- [39:29]
Rohit Bhargava
Oh, thank you so much. And the one last thing I'll say to your audience too is people like me who do what I do, we are often invited to do things. And I have seen and heard from friends of mine and people who I know now know who work at nonprofits that sometimes they will not ask because they're like, oh, they'll be too busy, they'll be too expensive, they can't help. And I will tell you that a good pitch from a nonprofit on a cause that I believe in or anyone else like me will often get a response that you wouldn't expect. So go for it. It would be my last piece of advice. Even if you don't think that you could reach someone, you never know how much passion they might have for what you're working on and what they might be able to do to help you. So give it a shot.
- [40:19]
Julia Campbell
I will second that. I will echo that. I think it's incredibly important that we put ourselves out there, that we don't just automatically assume that someone's not going to be interested in what we do or or help or that our pitch isn't good enough. So that's really powerful. Thank you so much. Thanks Rohit for being here.
- [40:36]
Rohit Bhargava
Thank you.
- [40:43]
Julia Campbell
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram. Juliacampbell77 Keep changing the world you non profit unicorn SA.