38. Back From The Dead And Ready To Party: Passenger Pigeons, De-extinction, & Cloning with Revive & Restore's Ben Novak

[00:00:00] Hector: Okay, well thanks for watching today's training on how to double your podcast revenue in less than 90 days. My name is Hector Sania. Stevan and I have spent much of the last decade trying to figure out what makes a prop podcast. And, um, this is the culmination of said, uh, said experience. And a lot of this is going to be sharing things that, um, worked and, uh, a lot of the things that we have figured out over much of that decade.

[00:00:40] Hector: And a lot of it though, will, has been figured out because we have trialed and aired and stumbled through and. So, so I don't, I don't say all that to say all, you know, everything has been a, uh, a golden touch. You know, that's, that's the farthest thing from sort of the truth. Uh, the unfortunate part about podcasting is that unless you, you know, are a really big celebrity or have an already outsized established audience, it is not always guaranteed to have podcast success and even, you know, whatever that, that, whatever podcast success means, uh, could be lots of different things.

[00:01:27] Hector: Um, so welcome, uh, edia to the, uh, the training. Um, we'll have some times to maybe, uh, ask some q and if you guys throw questions in the chat as they come up, I'll, uh, take a look at that from time to. As we go on. So I, I'll share a, a story with you that, um, you know, may be relevant, but back in, uh, 20, I guess it was 2021 now, we, we were producing a, uh, we were producing the podcast of a, of a network and, uh, it was three shows.

[00:02:02] Hector: And between those three shows, we were probably doing about close to a hundred thousand downloads per, um, per month. And let's see, between the three shows, we probably had close to maybe $20,000 worth of, um, worth of revenue. Now, the reason I say that, and the reason why that's important is that despite all of that, those companies, uh, were, were that that network was gonna shut down their shows.

[00:02:34] Hector: Uh, they were going to shut down, um, the podcasts and they were just gonna fold it. Because they didn't know how, um, they didn't see how it fit into their business, to them, in their eyes. They were spending all of this time, they were spending all of this money on the podcast, and it wasn't really returning much for them because in their eyes they were, you know, a million, I don't know, maybe 10, 10, 15, $20 million company.

[00:03:01] Hector: So for them making a hundred, you know, making six figures on a podcast wasn't that exciting. Now, maybe that's the case for you. Uh, maybe not. But the point was, is that it, it really baffled me that there was this, this business. This, this entity, you know, it was really a conglomerate of businesses that had these incredibly successful shows that everything from the outside, they had all the downloads, it had all the chart rankings, it had all the guests, I mean, you know, shows like Richard Branson and people, um, I mean just like all, all of all of the, the outward facing success from a podcast, but to them it didn't make any sense for their business.

[00:03:47] Hector: And we ended up losing that contract. And so, you know, for our business and, and for me that was like, you know, almost, uh, 70, $75,000 worth of income that sort of disappeared. And, and that is a large reason why I spent the next, I guess, four years or so, focusing on not only what makes us, do we make it make sense for the business, how do we make it profitable for the business and be such a no brainer.

[00:04:18] Hector: For the business that they're willing to invest, the time that they're willing to invest, the money that it takes to, to sustain a podcast. Because with a podcast, there are a couple of things that that come inherent with it. One is the time that's required. And even if that time is just the interviews, there is still an amount of time that is required for the podcast.

[00:04:46] Hector: And a lot of times it is the founder or the one of the leaders of the business that is conducting these interviews and their time is valuable. And so even if they are only doing the interview, we still had to find ways for us to justify. That time being taken, let alone all of the other parts of the podcast that's required for it to be successful, uh, from the editing to the promotion, to the publishing, to, you know, the coordination and the planning and all that sort of stuff.

[00:05:19] Hector: And so all of this is just like, I, I had a, you know, a rather close fa family member at the time. They asked me, they were like, what are you, what are you going to do when this happened? You know, it was essentially like we could, we could fold and, and I could start a new business and we could like, you know, start again because this, this network was, you know, took a large part of our, it was essentially like losing a job, right?

[00:05:43] Hector: Uh, or I could figure it out and I was just like, we're gonna figure this thing out. And so over the last almost five years or so, it's really been about. How do we make it make sense and how do we do it in a way that is, that is clear and so overwhelming in its, uh, profitability that it's, it's warranted for a founder or a leader or a business, you know, whoever is, is at the top of the business to take the time to do so.

[00:06:14] Hector: Um, that, that sort of hopefully gives you some context into where I'm, I'm coming from. And of course, if you, I'll, I'll share that this, this, uh, training will be great for anybody who has a business that they want to grow through and with a podcast. So if they do or sell something else, if they have a product or service and they want to sell more of that, a podcast is.

[00:06:44] Hector: Absolute one of is, is absolutely one of the best ways, if not the best ways for a founder to do that. Uh, I just got off the call with someone who, he got, essentially, he gets paid, you know, how half a million dollar contracts from these large organizations and he attributes it to him having a podcast.

[00:07:08] Hector: And it's not actually the reason that you would think. Of course, he, he cites all of the things that can come along with the podcast, the fact that you can create great relationships with potential clients, the fact that you can really position and establish yourself as a thought leader or, uh, the fact that you can, you know, develop an audience in a platform or even create the content that you know, that you can use on social media and all these sorts of things.

[00:07:30] Hector: Yes, that's there. But he said that just the platform and the place and the ability to have. A place to talk things out and to process his sort of step, um, was more valuable than all of that. And so, um, all that to give sort of context to what it is that we're going to, uh, be talking about today. Um, and if you guys are here live, um, and can and want to throw questions in the chat, feel free to do that.

[00:08:00] Hector: I'll, I'll throw some reminders in there, uh, as well. So, I, I mentioned that this is, is great for people who, uh, have a business, uh, have a product or service that they wanna sell. It's not great for someone who wants to make the podcast their business. And most traditional, or excuse me, most popular podcasts that you see out there.

[00:08:27] Hector: The podcast is actually the business. And I would not encourage someone to do that, uh, just because it's. Once again, it's like trying to, to go out there and be, uh, a Taylor Swift or a celebrity, it's like going out there and trying to make money from your music. Um, if you guys have any friends who are musicians, they'll tell you that being a musician is not like, you know, very few people make a lot of money being a musician.

[00:08:59] Hector: Some are music teachers or some are, you know, professional musicians that, you know, they work for somebody. They are, they provide some sort of service for somebody, and that is how they make their income. And in the same way, a lot of times on a podcast. That is going to be your most efficient and effective way to make a, a sustainable business.

[00:09:19] Hector: Are there ways for you to get sponsors? Are there ways for you to sort of take that route? Yes. Uh, but it's much more painful. Um, it's much, it takes much longer, uh, and the likelihood of success is much lower. So if that is what your plan is and you are stuck and set in that plan, um, I would encourage you to go and find and seek a different training because we're gonna talk about how a podcast can be a business development tool for you specifically in four ways.

[00:09:50] Hector: Um, let's talk about this. Those are up here on the screen and so the, the, maybe not the first one here, but, but the first one that I'm gonna put up and that we'll talk about is thought leadership. And that is probably the one that people are most, uh, familiar with. In the sense of they see how it can help them.

[00:10:11] Hector: Uh, a lot of people like that starting a podcast makes them sort of an expert or creates a a platform for them, and it absolutely can do that. And so we'll talk about some specifics on if that is the path that you want to take, then what you know, how to, how to go about that and why that might be the, the, the path that you choose.

[00:10:31] Hector: And if you're still unsure, we'll talk about some of the advantages of each of them and why you would choose them. The second one down here is pipeline development. And what I, that's just like a fancy way of saying that it's, it's relationship marketing. It's, it's creating connections. Um, a lot of businesses are built on the back of creating relationships with potential prospects.

[00:10:57] Hector: Or partners. And if they can create more of those connections and more of those relationships, then it will lead to more business. One of my favorite examples of this is the, is the mortgage industry. And I saw a post the other day that talked about how they are fascinated that people would schedule these like lunch and learns or these coffee chats and, you know, they were talking about how someone at their coworking space schedules back to back, you know, coffee chats and, and, and the people leave looking miserable.

[00:11:32] Hector: And they can tell that from over listening to, you know, overhearing the conversation that nothing productive is really happening. And also to think about that it, it's a very large ask to, to ask somebody to come somewhere, meet them, get coffee. Like that's, that's just a very large, large ask of, of somebody.

[00:11:54] Hector: Whereas if you flip it on the other side. Offering a podcast or having the opportunity to connect with these people via podcast interview is a totally different ask. And instead of taking from some, from somebody, you're actually offering something of value to 'em. So we'll talk about that and, and how that plays out, um, and, and some specific things to do if you're taking that route.

[00:12:16] Hector: Uh, the third is direct sales, which we may not, we're not gonna talk about getting sponsors here necessarily, but one way that you can utilize your show is by becoming what, what we call a self sponsor. And we have shows that they're number one driver of business. They are, are a large marketing agency doing, you know, seven and, you know, maybe eight figures of business.

[00:12:44] Hector: Um. The number one driver of business is people who listen to the podcast. So yes, there is a way to generate sales directly from the people who are listening. That is a route and, uh, we'll talk about that. And then obviously content and content is, um, content is a, a fantastic way to amplify your, your efforts.

[00:13:12] Hector: What's really great about podcasting is that you can take a podcast and a podcast can now turn into a YouTube video, and a podcast can now turn into a TikTok or an Instagram reel, or it can turn into a LinkedIn post, or it can turn into a LinkedIn newsletter or a podcast can go in all, and it fits pretty natively into all of these different.

[00:13:34] Hector: Formats. And with ai, aided with ai, you can really leverage it to take one piece of recorded content, one hour of an executive's time, one hour of a business leader's time, and to turn that into 20, 30, 50, even a hundred different pieces of content that can be leveraged all around the internet for, um, you know, for promotional purposes.

[00:14:01] Hector: And once again, it's not, it's not all like, Hey, go listen to my podcast. Go listen to my podcast. Go listen to my podcast. It's, Hey, the business leader talked about something on the podcast. This is a topic that the rest of the industry is really interested in. We're gonna take that little clip that's maybe one minute, two minutes, three minutes.

[00:14:20] Hector: We're gonna take that, we're gonna put that on LinkedIn, and then thousands of people in the industry are gonna see this clip. Maybe not all of them are gonna listen to the podcast, but does it really matter at that point? Because now they see the business leader, they see the business leaders, you know, the businesses company, you know the, excuse me.

[00:14:36] Hector: They see the company, they see, uh, you know, all of the branding that's associated with it. That connection is already made. And so if you do this consistently, you can really start to, you know, utilize this content to create thought leadership, right? To grow the pipeline, to open up doors and relationships.

[00:14:56] Hector: So all of this stuff that the content is really an amplifier in, uh, in that sort of regard.

[00:15:03] Hector: Okay. Um. A quick pause here and see if there's any questions that are coming in off of the chat. And if you guys are watching this, feel free to comment and my best to back as well. Um,

[00:15:24] Hector: so let's keep moving. Let's see if there's anything else here that I wanted to talk about. All that's in, sort of

[00:15:34] Hector: in time. Okay. So let's talk about before we even get to this stuff, all right?

[00:15:38] Hector: People always ask me, what, how do we launch a podcast, right? Like, what makes a good podcast? And I think before any of this stuff works, we really need to have three things, um, nailed down. Uh, we need to have our, we need to have our premise nailed down.

[00:15:58] Hector: Uh, even before that we need to have our product, uh. Clear. Uh, clear. And then we also need to make sure that we are building our platform appropriately and responsibly. Okay. So let's talk about each of these things. And what I mean by this, and these are, you know, the keys when I think about it, these are the keys to, um, you know, the, the foundation to having a, a successful, I don't wanna call it like a business podcast 'cause that's not what it is, but a, a successful podcast for your business to having a successful podcast for your business.

[00:16:40] Hector: Okay, great. Wonderful. That looks great. And formatting. A DHD is good and down. So first thing that a business has to have dialed down, and this is less to do with the podcast and more to do with the business, but that's, they gotta have their product and it could be a service, whatever it is that they're selling, they gotta have their offer.

[00:17:04] Hector: I use product here because I've got my three Ps right here. And it's just, it's kind of fun to, you know, make things, have some sort of, you know, start with the same letter, but whatever it is, you've gotta figure out what it is that you are selling. And I'll tell you, I've seen some people, and I've actually, I'll tell you, we, we start, we tried to launch a show and um, the business was actually, they were starting out.

[00:17:31] Hector: They're, they're, uh, they were a coach and a consultant, and they were launching their business at the same time that they were launching their podcast. And they actually thought it was a really great idea. They said, Hey, this would be a great way to, to launch our, our, you know, to start our business. Um, you know, podcast is a great marketing tool.

[00:17:49] Hector: You know, all of it was, was fantastic. And we were much newer in the game. It was actually one of the first shows that we ever launched. So we were just excited to have a, a, you know, kind of a role in it. And so we said, sure, let's, let's do this. And what ended up happening was, is that, uh, well, a few, a few problems sort of arose.

[00:18:06] Hector: Uh, the first challenge is, is that we didn't have a clear sense of who our, our, let's call it our ICP, right? Our, our Ideal client Profile. Our, our ideal. You know, buyer, not only did we not know, we, we didn't know who was gonna be buying his services, so we didn't know who we should be targeting when it came to listening.

[00:18:29] Hector: And so the branding was really muddled. The, the name was really, really cool, but the graphics sort of didn't match the branding. And, and it just, it, all of it was, wasn't clear because they didn't have any clarity on who they were serving with the business. And so we didn't make it, it made it really challenging for us to be able to know who to attract with the, um, with the, uh, with the show.

[00:18:58] Hector: The second challenge that came up though is that the. Founder's clock was, was ticking in the sense that it was, it was ticking too fast and, and the, and the clock expired. And, and what I mean by that is that they needed it to make money like right away. They needed the podcast to be ROI positive, like immediately.

[00:19:23] Hector: But the challenge was, is that the business wasn't even ROI positive. And so there was, it was, it was a really losing battle because they, they just needed the, they needed the, the podcast to work too soon when none of the other business stuff was figured out. And it was too, it was like having two moving targets and it was too many, too many targets to hit.

[00:19:48] Hector: Um, you know, another analogy might be like chasing two different rabbits. There were just too many things that we were unsure of that that. Naturally take time in any sort of business. It takes time to iterate, whether it's your product or you adjust your market or you adjust your marketing. There is some sort of adjustment and iteration phase that comes along with, with almost every single business.

[00:20:11] Hector: Right? You know, YouTube started out as a dating website, so it's like, uh, I don't wanna say like everyone has to go through that process, but oftentimes a business will have to go through that iteration. And if you're doing that, whilst you're trying to figure out how to make a good show, that's a lot of stuff to figure out.

[00:20:28] Hector: At the same time, especially if you have a limited team, you have limited resources and you need it to work like right away. I would say if a business like needs to make money, like right now, like don't start a pod, like don't, there are are quicker ways to, to making. Um, quicker ways to making money, right?

[00:20:49] Hector: A podcast might be one of the most sustainable, or it might be, you know, faster at creating some of these other ones. But someone is thinking about, should I invest time or money into a, a podcast? Um, they should get their first few, say they should get their first few like customers figured out first and then look to market through a podcast.

[00:21:15] Hector: But let's assume that they have their product, then they know what they're gonna sell, they know what their offering is, they know what their services would be. Great. A podcast is a, a great, um, platform, which we'll talk about later to be able to do that. But what they have to nail down and what I think that we do really well when we are producing our shows is positioning the show in the right sort of way.

[00:21:37] Hector: And you might say that this premise here, let's, let's actually call it, it's it, 'cause it goes with the p let's call it position positioning, right? And what I mean by that is. You wanna make sure that the show is made and feels like it was for the right, for the ideal listener, for the audience, for the ICP, because people on average, and I, you know, go out and do the, the Googling to kind of find this, but they've, they've done studies and they've found that people on average listen to about seven different podcasts.

[00:22:10] Hector: Right. You know, plus or minus, you know, a couple on that, if, if you think about it. So that means that you have to be in someone's top seven in order for them to be listening to you regularly. Now, if we wanna be in someone's top seven, we've re and, and we are not a Joe Rogan and we are not a, you know, big celebrity whomever, we've really got to make sure then that we are specifically for that, that person.

[00:22:39] Hector: And let's, let's take the counter example. When we work with a lot of people, we ask them like, who do you wanna listen to the show? They're like, Hmm. Everybody between, you know, they might say everybody, and that's a terrible answer, but they might say, you know, a lot of times it's like, well, we want women who are, you know, 25 to 45 to listen to our show.

[00:23:00] Hector: I'm like, okay, well that, like, that's not a terrible answer. It's a little better than terrible, but it's not very helpful. And the reason is because 25 year olds and 45 year olds, they do different things. They wear different things. They listen to different things. They, they follow different people.

[00:23:18] Hector: Everything is different between a 25 year, year old and a 45-year-old. And even if you were to just take one of those, just take 25 year olds, well they're 25 year olds. If you just take the group of them, the, within that group, they wear different things, watch different things, listen to different things, uh, follow different people.

[00:23:37] Hector: And so. Being something for everybody can actually be one of the worst things. For podcasts especially. You can get away with it a little bit more if you are like a talker or if you have a YouTube channel, like, you know, you can get away with those things a little bit more in other mediums. But specifically for podcasts, it has to be for that person.

[00:23:58] Hector: And so we think about it in in three ways, right? The first is. We wanna make sure that, uh, we really know who the, the person's demographics are, right? These are the basic things. Uh, how old are they? Um, you know, where do they live? What, what gender do they identify or not identify with? Like, like those types of things.

[00:24:16] Hector: Then the next level you go to is psychographics. And this is like, what are their beliefs, right? What do they believe? Are they sort of, you know, in independent? Are they conservative? Are they like, those are the basic, you know, sort of def defining ones, right? Not always like fun to, you know, to pick those ones, but maybe it's like these people are health conscious or they are spiritual, or they are entrepreneurs or like what, what sort of mindsets and perspectives or beliefs that they have that sort of aligns them.

[00:24:44] Hector: And then the third thing, which I think. Most people are missing. 'cause a lot of people will do the first two. A lot of people will do the demographics. A lot of people will do the site graphics, but a lot of people will miss this third one, which is the, what I call the catalyzing event. And the catalyzing event is the moment that, or is, it's the challenge that they're going through that makes them want to listen to your show.

[00:25:10] Hector: A lot of people who are gonna be listening to this or listening to this training, um, listening to the replay, have some sort of result that they're giving their, their, their customers or the listeners, they have some sort of transformation that they're taking them through, something that they're trying to effect, uh, onto their, their, their clients and their listeners.

[00:25:30] Hector: And so, um, thinking about what is someone going through right that makes them want to listen to, to that. Help to, to help on that topic is what you wanna define your show around. It doesn't mean that you have to only talk about that, but it means that you wanna point your show at the people who are going through it.

[00:25:55] Hector: My classic example is like, okay, you can take a, you know, you can take a, a regular, uh, health and fitness show. Okay. You can take a, that's a, that, that's sort of at the, um, the base level. Okay. Well, the, the next level is, okay, now it's a, a health and fitness show about, um. You know, uh, eating healthy, like a healthy, healthy, healthy fitness show.

[00:26:22] Hector: I dunno, something like that. Maybe another one is a cooking. And then the third sort of level is like, well, are you helping people gain weight? Are you helping people lose weight? Are you, you know, keto? Are you for, you know, moms who are, you know, postpartum and now they're looking to um, you know, get back in shape?

[00:26:40] Hector: What is the catalyzing event that separates you and makes you different from all of the other shows out there? Someone's, you gotta be in the top seven. What makes you different? And I think that can come from a variety of different ways as well. Um, you know, especially for the host when it comes to the platform, we talk about what is the perspective that the host or that the business, even more the entity that the show is trying to bring.

[00:27:10] Hector: And that might be a variety of perspectives, but getting clear on that so that way you can start to. Gather the people who are interested and resonate with that perspective. Those people will start listening. Those people will start tuning in more. And when you get those three right now, you've got the good foundation to to start a show right now.

[00:27:34] Hector: Now when a prospect sees your show, they go, oh, that's for me. And then they click onto an episode and they go, oh wow, this is exactly what I need to hear. And then when they listen to it, they're like, wow, this is exactly the person that I was looking for. Everything is is resonating. And what's nice about that is that when you do it the right way, you don't need a lot of people to listen to it.

[00:27:58] Hector: You can really have some significant progress with a limited amount of audience.

[00:28:08] Hector: Alright, I'm gonna take a breath here. Take a drink of water. And check the chat and see if anybody's still here. Um, if I lost everybody,

[00:28:22] Hector: it's entirely possible I lose my kids when I start getting on my rans. It looks like we're about maybe halfway through and, um, do you guys have more specifics or you wanna talk about your show? Let's do it. Alright, so let's talk about the four paths and which one might be right for which and, and how they sort of differ.

[00:28:50] Hector: The first one that we'll get into is, uh, thought leadership. And thought leadership is, um, I think it is when, when most people think about how it can impact their business, this is what most people see. They go, oh, I can be like the person in, you know, I can have like a podcast. I can be like a cool celebrity.

[00:29:12] Hector: I can be like this, this person who has a podcast. And, and yes, I think that that is, is absolutely, um, possible. I think the, the celebrity esque ness is definitely still possible. And if that rings your bell, um, and that makes you excited, like do it right, because oftentimes in most industries, there is not somebody who is willing to create the content.

[00:29:42] Hector: There is not somebody who is willing to create media for most industries. And what I mean by that is that if you think about, you know, one of our shows that we produce is in one of the most boring, uh. Boring niches you could ever think of. And I'm not gonna put 'em on blast 'cause 'cause they're great.

[00:30:04] Hector: It's a great company. They do great like work. They are, they're so like, important to the infrastructure of our world and like, you would not be able to be where you are doing what you're doing if people, like companies like this company that I'm talking about did not do what they did as well as they do it.

[00:30:24] Hector: But it is still so boring. Like, so boring. I've, I've edited these shows and I am one who I get really interested in, in just niche obscure topics. And when people are, are excited about talking about those topics, I get really interested in listening to them. And even then, it's hard to keep up and, and it's hard to stay like enthralled in this sort of content.

[00:30:54] Hector: I say all that to say that even still, just because they decided to create the content. People, people are listening. 'cause nobody else in that industry is blogging. Nobody else in that industry is creating tiktoks or YouTube video. Nobody, it's such a, a niche industry and an industry that previously, you know, was built on the backs of referrals or it's a, it's a pretty B2B sort of space.

[00:31:26] Hector: And so these, these sales cycles, the, the marketing in these was actually, you know, it was usually done at conferences or the, the, the marketing was done, you know, belly to belly, networking with people, um, you know, connections. Real, real, real relationships that often took people years to develop and years to secure.

[00:31:48] Hector: And now all of a sudden people have a podcast. They can create that same sort of trust, they can create that same sort of relationship. They can create that same sort of positioning in a matter of weeks or in a matter of months. And it is because of this thought leadership possibility. But how do, how do we make sure that we position ourselves correctly?

[00:32:16] Hector: Right. Um, let's talk about first the, some of the mistakes that people might make when they are becoming a thought leader, or they are, they are, um, you know, utilizing the spot leader path of strategy. One thing that they don't wanna do is they don't wanna only conduct interviews. Right now, if someone, what do I mean by this?

[00:32:50] Hector: If someone is.

[00:32:54] Hector: An expert in their field. They've got dozens of years of experience. You know, they've, they've got all of the, uh, accolades and, you know, all of the awards. But oftentimes this person isn't very front facing. They don't oftentimes have a large social media profile. Um,

[00:33:22] Hector: they,

[00:33:27] Hector: they are, are somebody who, um, you know, has a lot of value to share, but they don't really have a, a digital footprint for those people. If they come in and they only conduct interviews, the problem is that nobody's going to actually know how smart they're, they're not gonna know their value. They're not gonna know their expertise.

[00:33:47] Hector: And what they'll find happens is that all of what we call the sales equity or the, the relationship, the trust that's been built over that episode, ends up going to the guest. And I've had people who come to me and they say, Hector, like I'm doing all of these episodes and all of my lists, like, I'm getting listeners, but they're all going and buying my guest stuff, and none of them are signing up or buying from me.

[00:34:13] Hector: And the reason is, is that oftentimes that person is only conducting. They are automatically because of the nature of their conversation, they're automatically positioning themselves as someone who is in the intellectual sort of value-based hierarchy of that the listener has in their head. They're positioning themselves lower than the guest.

[00:34:37] Hector: They're saying, the guest is this great expert. The guest has this great value. Let me ask questions to be able to, uh, you know, to extract some of that value. Now, that works great if you're sort of newer to an industry, and that works great. If you're trying to work your way into an industry or you're trying to establish yourself in an industry that works great because now you can reach up and you can interview people in, uh, who, who, who have way more experience than you, who have way more recognition, and you can sort of borrow and leverage that.

[00:35:11] Hector: And we'll talk about that when it comes to pipeline development, but not in the, not in the thought leadership. Category. If instead you wanna be doing, you wanna have discussions. So what would we say? Discussions

[00:35:26] Hector: not interviews. And what that simply means is that if you, it doesn't mean that you can't have guests on all it means is that if someone is utilizing this thought leadership path, that they don't just ask questions, but they offer their own insight, they add to the conversation. They, they make it a sort of a level, A level sort of conversation as opposed to it being this one sided interview.

[00:35:55] Hector: And simply by doing that, they can retain some of that sales equity, they can retain some of that trust and they'll find that they'll actually start to position themselves in the minds of their listeners in the way that they want them to. So you definitely can still do, uh. Have guests on, but make sure that you structure it in a little bit of a different source of capacity.

[00:36:20] Hector: One of the other things that I think is really helpful when it comes to thought leadership is making sure, let's call this, um, industry placements. And it's gonna be different for every industry, but it's really helpful if you're taking this path to know where your industry hangs out, both physically and in person, and also digitally.

[00:36:47] Hector: We have one show that's in, once again, it's in a rather, it's not totally obscure out as obscure as the last niche industry that I talked about, but are a pretty obscure, you know, uh, niche. Um, one that is, is, you know, really only consists of people who are highly educated. And so just by that nature it's, it's sort of smaller than.

[00:37:10] Hector: A lot of the, the pop culture sort of niches. But one of the thing that they've done really well is, is three things. Uh, they've really identified the, the change makers, the market makers, if you will, the, in the industry, both from a company perspective and in an individual perspective. Specifically with this show that I'm talking about.

[00:37:34] Hector: They did it from a company's perspective, and so they knew that there were, uh, a certain amount of, there was, there were certain companies that, um, there were certain companies that the industry paid attention to, and that if someone in that, from that company was appearing on something, was on an interview, on something, was writing about something, was posting about something, well, then they knew that that.

[00:38:05] Hector: Industry was going to pay attention that they were gonna listen. You know? Um, and every industry is different, but every industry has those companies that move the needle, uh, within that given economy. So change makers is, uh, you know, let's call it that, um, mar, let's call it market makers.

[00:38:27] Hector: Uh, that's huge. Um, another easy place

[00:38:36] Hector: is social platforms. And once again, this is different for every industry. Some industries, it might be LinkedIn, some it might be Reddit, some it might, some might be X, some might be Facebook. Every sort of industry has a unique place where those people are hanging out in sort of a community like fashion.

[00:38:59] Hector: And so understanding where those are and then making sure that your show is being created in those places, uh, or is being promoted and being posted about in those places. It's super helpful. 'cause it's, it, it really creates an outsized return. You know, going back to the previous, uh, well, we can keep going on the same, the same show.

[00:39:22] Hector: It doesn't matter. Um, they're all, they're all sort of similar. Um, in addition to, uh, well it doesn't matter. One of the shows, um, they really made a home for themselves on LinkedIn, you know, because of the niche and because of the industry. And because, you know, that was, that's where people hung out. They really leveraged LinkedIn and it's been great for them and it's, you know, created thousands and thousands, you know, maybe dozens of thousands of impressions for them in a obscure niche that maybe only has, you know, a few hundred people in it that are, are making decisions at that sort of level.

[00:40:01] Hector: And so knowing where those people are looking and hanging out on social is really, really valuable too. The third thing that I'd say is events, right? Events. It's really interesting how, um, there's a lot of crossover between podcast listeners and events because podcast listeners, especially if you're listening to like an industry sort of podcast, are like raving.

[00:40:31] Hector: They're like raving fans, right? And similarly, those are the same people who show up to events. So someone who goes to an event in this rather obscure niche, an industry. Um, they're gonna wanna listen to a podcast about that rather obscure niche in the industry. And so connecting with people there and, and just, you know, you don't walk around and saying, I have a podcast, I have a podcast, I have a podcast.

[00:40:52] Hector: But oftentimes when you are making connections or people ask, you know about you or what do you do? Or yada yada, it comes up, they're great places to be able to start the, start the promotion process. Um, and then also eventually, you know, we've had hosts who start to get recognized at industry conferences and they're like, Hey, aren't you the person who has, you know, this podcast?

[00:41:16] Hector: And, um, that has been, uh, just an added, you know, added sort of benefit. Yeah. So there's a little vanity there, but also when, when they show up to conferences now their, their calendar is like totally booked, you know, back to back to back. Because people just know who they are now. You know, they are like the service provider.

[00:41:38] Hector: For this, their particular service, like the service provider in that niche, so can really be, uh, be utilized in, in some great ways. Okay. Um, how are we doing here?

[00:41:53] Hector: Questions. Questions? Okay. So Vale has a great question. What if, um, what if we don't have some of this stuff? Right? And I think this is actually, um, remind me of Vale when we talk about, uh, direct sales, how to, um, how to, like what I would do if I were you and I still wanted to make some money, um, because I, there is still a way, uh, so we could talk about that.

[00:42:25] Hector: Um, okay, so let's hop down to pipeline development here. And this is one now. The thought leadership is great, uh, although it's a little less, um, it's a little less direct, it's a little less, uh, controllable. It's a little less even measurable. Of course, there are some ways that you can measure that, you know, how, who's mentioning you?

[00:42:56] Hector: Are you being tagged on things like that. But pipeline development is a much more measurable, much more, um, action oriented, drivable sort of method to grow revenue for your, you know, from your podcast. And all this means is, can we use the podcast to create relationships with prospects or partners for our business?

[00:43:34] Hector: So prospects, what are prospects? Prospects are people that can get us, that can turn into clients. So this, you know, one of the, the shows that, um, actually two of the shows that we produce in-house at Amplify Media, uh, are pipeline development shows. Of course, do we try and make a great show? Do we try and provide for the audience, provide value, um, make a, a fantastic episode, great audio.

[00:44:02] Hector: Like absolutely we do all of those things. But the primary reason that we produce the shows is to introduce us to potential people who could, uh, maybe one day. Become a podcast production client or people who will introduce us to people who will be podcast production clients. And with that, we understand that that's going to change both who we are inviting on the show.

[00:44:29] Hector: It's gonna change how we are conducting the interviews, what we're talking about. And then it's also going to change and, and perhaps even limit, uh, the size of our show. And we're gonna be okay with that. You know, two of these shows, uh, they're both in the top 5% of podcasts in the, uh, in the world. They've combined for probably over 20,000 downloads.

[00:44:53] Hector: Um, but perhaps more importantly, they've generated, you know, almost a half a million dollars in revenue just from, from those two shows and counting. 'cause a lot of that revenue is still, still continuing on. And, you know, the, the nature of the business, we have clients that pay us every month. If I had to choose between having a larger audience or more clients for these shows, we're choosing more clients.

[00:45:23] Hector: And so that means that the type of guests that we are bringing on changes. And it also means that the experience that we are creating for them is really tailored for our guests to have a great experience so that we can open up and cultivate a relationship after the episode. Um, one of the, one of the mistakes that we made early on with these types of shows was not focusing enough on the follow up and let's do this.

[00:46:07] Hector: And what I mean by that is.

[00:46:12] Hector: We would have episodes that would come up and the episode would go out and we would tell the guests like a month or so later, we would, we would let them know. Like, and sometimes we, we might not even let the guests know at all. And it was, we such a tour experience for our guests. And then I was sitting there realizing, you know, wondering why more of them weren't turning into clients.

[00:46:38] Hector: And it was like, oh yeah, we're just, we're totally dropping the ball on creating, you know, a five star experience for our guests. And so instead of that, now we really make sure that we send our guests a notification. Uh, now we have a, a full system. We have a, what we call a, a promo page, which I'll, I'll give you guys access to, um, at the end, uh, of the training.

[00:47:06] Hector: But let's see here. Um, I can.

[00:47:14] Hector: But instead of just pretending like it didn't matter or like, it was no big deal, we really made the guest feel like they were the prize. We made them feel like they were, you know, that we like, we were so grateful and, and go over the, the, you know, what's the word? Um, a above and beyond, you know, in terms of the experience that we're creating, that it allows the door to be, to be open for other partnerships, for other business.

[00:47:48] Hector: Obviously for us, it's a little bit, you know, unique because they see sort of the process that we have when it comes to production of the podcast. But even still just, I mean, we've had clients that they've interviewed, somebody didn't know 'em before. Have a great conversation with them. They end up booking a follow-up call.

[00:48:14] Hector: That person ends up signing them to a huge contract, um, to do business with them. And then that person, and then this particular person, uh, and ended up getting a book deal from that person's that, that same company. And so it, it, it all comes from the relationship though, you know, that was, that was guest number.

[00:48:33] Hector: I think he was guest number eight, uh, on that particular show. But because the experience was great, because the host created such a great connection with them, it opened the door and opened that possibility to first do business together. And then, you know, even beyond, and there was some, you know, extend an entire partnership, right, where they wrote a book for this, uh, this host.

[00:49:01] Hector: So focus on the follow up now that it matters. Know that, um, the sooner and the more that you can do to sh to help your guest promote the show, uh, and their episode, because they are not going to do it on their own, it's not going to be something that they, uh, just do automatically. You would hope so, but in my experience and in publishing thousands of episodes, that is just not the case.

[00:49:37] Hector: So what we do is we send them something like this and we call this a promo page, and we build this in notion, and we could talk about why we decided to build it in notion. But we, uh, create a page like this, and this gets sent to all of our guests, and it has the links in here. Um, it has, uh, pictures and graphics and we put, uh, different social media posts that they can copy and paste, but everything is accessible right here.

[00:50:08] Hector: They can download it from right here. And a lot of times when they get this, they're just so over the moon and they're like, wow, this is, this is amazing. Um, that they wanna promote it and it's easy for them. They can just copy, paste, they can download, right? Like everything is right here for them. And so this, this type of, um, these types of things make it really easy for someone to put them into their pipeline.

[00:50:36] Hector: So the experience focusing on the follow-up, um, is huge. Focusing on the experience. Uh, I'll also share with you that, uh, having, having some sort of follow-up offer is really helpful, perhaps critical. Um, and what I mean by that is having some reason to. Take the conversation outside of just the podcast interview and a valuable one.

[00:51:02] Hector: Maybe it's a demo, maybe it's some sort of training, maybe it's an introduction. Maybe it's, you know, some, some sort of event. Something that you can invite them to, uh, that allows you to sort of continue this conversation and really transition them into, uh, the sales process. Because what you don't want to do when you are utilizing the pipeline development strategy is you don't wanna make this a timeshare, you know, sort of experience.

[00:51:29] Hector: You don't wanna make it feel like a bait and switch sort of experience where someone feels like they, um, are not going to, um, you know, where, where someone feels like they are, uh, getting manipulated or being taken advantage of. Right.

[00:51:54] Hector: Um. Take a breath here. Um, so Valeria, I will send you both the, uh, template. Actually, let's see here. I think I can share it with you here. You can grab it from the chat,

[00:52:19] Hector: use that as you will. Okay. We might get through this sooner. Oh, already at the hour. Okay. So we're not, let's keep rolling. The nice thing is, is that the last two are probably the quickest ones because they're the ones that are, uh, the most commonly, commonly used. So let's hop over here to content. And content really relies on, on you having some sort of way to.

[00:52:54] Hector: Once again, already make money or sell stuff through social media. One of the great, you know, um, great things about social media these days and things like TikTok or things like Instagram or even YouTube, uh, to an extent YouTube shorts, is that it's allowing people more and more to get exposure and awareness outside of their current following.

[00:53:19] Hector: And more so on TikTok, but also to an extent on Instagram, where you can post a video and even if you don't have a lot of followers, uh, if it's a good video or if it resonates with people or it sort of gets caught in the right sort of algorithm or shown to the right sort of people, um, it can, it can start to, you know, really get some good numbers.

[00:53:38] Hector: And the nice thing about a podcast is that you can now take a podcast and then. You can put it up on YouTube, you can take some clips and put those on YouTube. You can take the best minute and then turn that into some tiktoks and Instagrams. And once again, is that going to be the optimal sort of strategy for YouTube or Instagram or TikTok?

[00:54:06] Hector: No. Uh, it is much better to create an entirely dedicated YouTube strategy that is YouTube first. But if you don't have that opportunity and you're not at the, you don't have the team or the resources to be able to do that. Well, having a podcast is a great way to cover a lot of your bases, right? It's a great way to be able to take the podcast and then go to, uh, put it on YouTube and then take that YouTube video and then post it to your blog.

[00:54:38] Hector: And so now with one sort of, with one episode recording, you can take the video and then you can. Turn it into a blog post, and then with AI you can sort of, um, go through and turn it into all the sorts of things that you need to, to turn it into. Um, let's see what I have here. One of the things that I, I guess when it comes to mistakes that people make, I think that, um, they either don't do it consistently enough or they don't make it for, uh, the, the, the platform.

[00:55:22] Hector: Um, knowing that on Instagram reels are what you're gonna want to do and that, you know, using things like, uh, the collaborator feature is gonna be helpful on LinkedIn, something like your newsletter is probably gonna be much better, um, on YouTube, you know, making sure that you have the thumbnails, uh, yes.

[00:55:45] Hector: You can take your podcast and you can have all these different placements, but it's still important to treat and or at least understand how those different platforms work and what the, what the nuances are that you, you can control. Right? You may not be able to script in an entirely new different video, but you might be able to create some either thumbnails or keywords or create some, a description that goes really well with the video that helps it, uh, get seen in the search results.

[00:56:22] Hector: Uh, one of the things I would recommend when it comes to content is ai, and I will tell you that we use two things.

[00:56:40] Hector: We still got it. Okay. So two things make our sort of world possible. Uh, the first is descrip. And so if you guys have not viewed the script, uh, I would encourage you to do that. I'll, I'll give you sort of a crash course in that here and show you why we, uh, why we really enjoyed it. And then also, uh, chat sheet PT is also thing that's very helpful for us.

[00:57:13] Hector: That's, so the script is a tool that we use to edit the audio and video of the podcast. Yeah. What's nice about it is that it makes it really easy to not only do the editing for the main episode and actually get the main one out, but it also makes it really easy to create the different clips as well. So you'll see here that this looks like a Word document, but also you'll notice that the Word document this, this Word document, is actually the transcript and it's actually associated with the audio as well.

[00:57:53] Hector: And so if I wanted to edit it, all I have to do is just highlight it and if I hit the backspace, it'll actually remove it from the audio. Um, and so I can edit my audio just like a Word document. And what also nice about this is that I can just copy and paste stuff as well. So if I wanna select a certain really good part of the episode and I wanna do something else with it, I can just come over here.

[00:58:20] Hector: I can

[00:58:23] Hector: just come over here. Past it in and move it around just like that. What's also nice it is that I can easily add on. Captions and like my, uh, words or if I wanna, you know, add different effects, um, B roll, things like that, all of that can be done so that way I can edit my audio and video and it has the transcript and there is a, an ai sort of feature in here.

[00:58:50] Hector: But what we do is we actually take this transcript, we'll take it from the, the full episode here. We'll actually take this transcript and we'll plug that into chat gt and we'll ask it for all sorts of things. So, uh, we might ask it for, uh, social media posts. We might ask it for, uh, a blog post. We might ask it to write our show notes.

[00:59:13] Hector: We might ask it to, you know, tell us how to write some epi episodes, create some episode art for, we can write, create all these different things. And it actually has the transcript there, um, ready to be able to be used and, um. It's actually based on, on the actual episode. So this is another way that we sort of supercharge our content so that way we can take one piece of content and turn it into, you know, our goal is to, to try and create close to a hundred different, um, placements, um, from one episode.

[00:59:53] Hector: Okay. All right. Promise. We're almost done here. Um, I wanted to leave the last part for e either Q and a or, um, discussion. So we'll get through this and then if you, alright, so the last one is direct sales, and this is the one I saved for last, but Will, will, we'll spend some time here. Um, for you specifically, um, we talked about how you might be able to, to work around this, but obviously if you have a, um.

[01:00:29] Hector: If you have a group of engaged people, uh, why couldn't you just sell and promote and market your own products or services to them? And that's absolutely, totally possible. And the larger your audience is, the easier that that's going to be. The challenge is, is that once again, you do need a significant sort of audience, um, sometimes depending on the, the product or service that you have.

[01:00:58] Hector: I've also seen people do, um, one of my friends, uh, Adam, uh, Adam McNeil and Valeria, there's a, a podcast I've done, I've done a couple of episodes with him on my show, but he talks about how when he started, he had a very niche show, very small show, and he was selling, uh, basically coffee. He was selling another.

[01:01:24] Hector: Company's coffee to his listeners. And every time he sold a bag of coffee, he would make, you know, X amount of, of money from it. He would make a certain percentage of it, and he would only make, you know, they only would pay him when, when he made a sale. But he had a small, really dedicated audience that was really into it.

[01:01:50] Hector: And so he didn't need, it's not that he didn't need, it didn't take a lot of, uh, a large audience for him to actually make some significant enough income, uh, based on this sort of model. And so the route for you, Lydia, to consider is, uh, something called affiliate marketing, where you can get. Companies to pay you for either introducing you, giving them leads, depending upon what sort of, you know, business they have.

[01:02:20] Hector: Maybe they just are, are interested in leads, but more, more likely if you can make sales for them. Um, they can, uh, if you can make sales for them, they will give you a cut of. Of the, of the sale. Um, you know, there are companies that, it's easy. I don't wanna say it's easy, but there are companies that you can sign up and just sort of apply online, fill out a form and get your links.

[01:02:46] Hector: Something like Descrip actually, uh, if you wanna start using them, I can send you an affiliate link in mine and I think they'll give me a few bucks so I can sign up. But there's ways like that where you can sell someone else's product or service and they will pay for that. And the, it's gonna be more lucrative if you go out and find those opportunities and, and set up those, those sort of opportunities, you know, and say, Hey, I've got this show I wanna send you people.

[01:03:17] Hector: Can we work something out? You're gonna get a lot more of, of a larger percentage that way than the, um, you know, the ones where you can just sign up and, and they'll give you, you know, sort of a standard rate or standard. So that is one way that you might be able to, um. Still grow the show and make money and, uh, not have to start your own business.

[01:03:48] Hector: Uh, let's see, automation with Zapier. Um, yeah. When it comes to automating the Zapier, especially with the content side, uh, one thing that you can do is you can take the transcript, run it through, uh, open AI's whisper sync, so it'll transcribe there, and then you can automatically, um, run these prompts with that transcript and then have it spit out, you know, whatever it is that you need.

[01:04:23] Hector: We were doing that for a while. Having it create our show notes and, and, and having it dumped it into a, a show notes document. Now we've run it manually, uh, mostly because we like having the, the actual conversation to go back to in our chat g BT dashboard so that we can get, uh, either secondary, um, you know, content, uh, we need to fix anything or adjust anything.

[01:04:51] Hector: We just had, having that conversation there that's already preloaded with the transcript and everything that we can just go back to. Um, but, uh, if we didn't have so many shows and so much like margin of error and we were just trying to be as efficient as we could with one sort of show, I think that, um, getting it to automate it with Zapier is, is really, uh, a good idea.

[01:05:17] Hector: Um.

[01:05:23] Hector: So, yeah, Vale, I would, um, what, what sort of, uh, if you don't mind sharing what, what niche or industry, um, you are your show is in, because I think that the, the show dictates the best partners, right. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we have a, a show that's in a, you know, sort of a sciencey educational background, you know, very, very nichey show.

[01:05:54] Hector: And so the, the companies that are gonna be best for that show are the ones that are in that, that niche, right, in that industry. And so, nerding out for a little bit and thinking about who are the companies that want to. Get their brand. Like there are a lot of companies that they don't, they have the product or service, they don't have the media.

[01:06:20] Hector: So if you have the media, you have the podcast, well you, now you have the distribution, you have the ability to reach people in a way, and the podcast specifically in a, in a unique way that they can't, they can't do it. They can't Google ads someone through like that. They can't do that in a podcast. And like, what I mean is that they can't just like click a couple buttons and then all of a sudden they're, they're in a podcast environment that's like, it can't just, there's for all sorts of reasons, but on the other side of it, you can really provide that where, you know, you can reach out and say, Hey, I have this show.

[01:07:07] Hector: Let's see, I think you said, uh, personal growth and spirituality. So. A little broad if I'm being like, just being very, uh, hard on you. It's, it's a little broad. Um, so I'm, I'm sure that it's, it's niching even more in there. But in the personal growth, it might be, you know, with, in personal growth, there might be accountability, there might be journaling, there might be, um, you know, uh, something like that, right?

[01:07:39] Hector: So even if it is personal growth. You might reach out to like, um, up and coming planners, or you might reach out to, you know, productivity apps or you might reach out to, you know, things like that or even tools that you use. Right. Um, or, uh, you know, obviously you being, um, familiar with Zapier, things that you use, SaaS products that you use, some of them may have, um, you know, their own affiliate programs, uh, if nothing else, um, you know, Amazon has a great sort of, they have a great, like a fun affiliate program and they call it like a rewards or bounty program.

[01:08:19] Hector: But, but basically you can get paid for giving away free, um, audible books. Um, I think you get like $5 for every free book you give away. So if someone gives a, someone signs up for the free. Like, you know, the free trial or whatever, uh, they give you $5 just for having someone sign up for the, for the free trial.

[01:08:40] Hector: Um, there's a lot of cool ways like that, that you can, that you can do that. Uh, ancestral plants and healing therapies. Okay, so, so this is even, so this is great. So that, that's exactly the sort of niche that you're sort of looking for. And what I mean by that is now there are, um, maybe spiritual centers or maybe, uh, nonprofit organizations.

[01:09:03] Hector: There are a ton of businesses who are, you know, because that sort of space is sort of emerging. Um, there are a ton of businesses that don't have the marketing or don't have the distribution to get, get their stuff out there, but they're, they're working on it or they've got a great, you know, uh. I would look at the ones that like are in the, the pharmacological, like the ones who have funding and back, you know, backing just because they have money to sort of spend.

[01:09:36] Hector: Um, all it takes is you reaching out to one sort of kind of partner like that and saying, Hey, we've got this show. And, and at that point, a lot of times in those instances, the amount of downloads that you have, the allow the amount of listeners that you have is actually secondary to, to the, the positioning that you have.

[01:10:03] Hector: Because a lot of times these businesses, they come along and they're like, Hey, if we can, if we can be seen alongside a podcast like this that talks about this and looks like this and is at this sort of quality and whatever, um, that's. That's a huge benefit to them. And especially if you've already been established and you're not brand new and things like that, um, you can really bring a lot of credibility to a business that that is seeking that credibility, uh, within your sort of mark market and niche.

[01:10:34] Hector: And especially if you've built up even a small sort of community that really trusts you. Uh, I don't want to pick my words wisely, but like you can leverage that trust in, in a way that I would hope you would honor and respect, but you can also leverage that trust, um, to create partnerships, you know, and, and get paid for, for your, your content.

[01:11:08] Hector: Alright, we are over the hour and I, I put a long time around there just in case we had a, um. We had a lot of time to get into it. Um, if you guys have any specifics on, on either of these, I'm happy to go into, I wanna see if there's anything else that I cover that.

[01:11:37] Hector: So the only other thing is, you know, on here we've talked about how to incorporate our, you know, once we have something that we wanna promote, how do we do it in a way that actually, um, I. It doesn't turn off our listeners. And because we don't, what we don't wanna do is we don't just wanna spam them with uh, you know, lots of ads.

[01:12:01] Hector: I, uh, started listening to Joe Rogan back in 20, I think it was like 20 13, 24, I dunno, something like that, right over, over a decade ago. And what a lot of people don't know about him is that he used to have like seven or eight or nine minutes of ad reads at the beginning of his show. And it was like, it was just normal.

[01:12:24] Hector: 'cause he had a three hour show, so it was like, what does nine minutes really matter? But the challenge was, is that a lot of people thought like, oh, I'll just do nine minutes of ads at the beginning of my show too. And it's like, well, you're not Joe Rogan and, you know, we could just stop there. Um, so, so we had to search for another way to, to be able to accommodate it.

[01:12:46] Hector: And I remember when I took over, um, uh, a really large show that had. Dozens of sponsors and, and you know, was, was making tens of thousands of dollars in, in ad revenue every month. Um, they, when we came in, all of the reviews were saying how terrible the ad experience was, and all of the reviews were saying, oh my goodness, this is such a terrible, like, the content is great, but like the ads are terrible.

[01:13:18] Hector: And so they were leaving one star reviews because the ad experience was so bad. And so I was like, well, we can't just like get rid of all of our advertisers. Like we can't just say no to ads. This is how like they're making, you know, this is how we're supporting the bus, the podcast. Um, so how do we do it?

[01:13:36] Hector: And so we sort of played around and experimented and found this structure where that would fit into like a typical sort of show. So a lot of shows will have this teaser clip is what we call it, or some people call it a, a, a hook or a cold open. But it's usually that sort of clip that says, you know, it's a quick little clip, uh, that from the episode that gives a, a little insight into what the episode's about, right?

[01:13:58] Hector: And then what we like to do is we go into some, you know, music or we intro the, the show, so that way a brand new listener kind of gets an idea of what the show is about and who's the show is, you know, who the show's for. And then right after that, we'll do what we call a feature ad. And that is the, you know, the primary ad.

[01:14:16] Hector: And most people are here. This, this has been long enough for them to sort of get settled in because they're in a podcast. They, uh, you know, are either into their drive or they're walking, you know, on their hike or whatever. Like, you know, if, if it's, if it's a pre-roll, when people start it. The problem is that if you put this ad in what's typically called a pre-roll before at the, you know, anything starts.

[01:14:38] Hector: A lot of times they're just gonna skip through it because they're, you know, they've already got their phone in their hand, they haven't, you know, fully got settled in. And so it makes it really easy to just skip through. So we like to put a, a little bit of content, then we put what we call our feature ad.

[01:14:51] Hector: We have some more of the episode. So, you know, usually about, um, then about two thirds of the way through we'll have what we call our mid-roll. Um, and we usually only like to have about a minute of ads total. So we might put two 32nd ads. Um, I wouldn't recommend maybe any more than that. I mean, three 22nd ads, I guess if you're like, really going quick, quick, quick.

[01:15:17] Hector: I don't know how effective those are gonna be. Then we have the main part of the episode, and if we wanna have one other ad spot at the end, we have one at the end called it end roll. So if you look in here, we have potentially two, four, up to six different advertisers. If we wanted to advertise for either six different things or six different offers, we could fit in two, two different ad spots for, for, um, each one.

[01:15:43] Hector: Um, so that is, is an option too, if you want to, uh, incorporate them. And so similarly, you might have an ad for Audible here and then, you know, another one for Notion or whatever, you know, whatever it is that you're promoting, um, throughout these.

[01:16:15] Hector: Um, so let's see here, branding. How as important is it to have success with the podcast? Uh, branding.

[01:16:26] Hector: Branding I do think is important. So when it comes to, let's see where I might put this, uh,

[01:16:39] Hector: for branding, we could probably go over here. So when it comes to branding, there's a, a few sort of, um, things to think through. Uh, you've got your,

[01:17:00] Hector: your audio side, and then you've got your visual, visual side. And I do think that like. Do matter, um, to the extent that they matter,

[01:17:16] Hector: I think that you can get, if you're, if your positioning is right now, we could, we could go into even more. Right. So like within the audio, this is like the, the songs that you're using, um, does that convey, is that in alignment with your messaging and your brand and all that sort of stuff? Um, you know, visual branding as I'm sort of talking it out, I think, I think you can get away with it being like, like not, not great if you're willing to be consistent.

[01:17:50] Hector: If you're willing to do all of the other things that we sort of talked about today, I think that you could sort of get away with your branding being like, you know. Something that you could do on Canva or something that you can do on, you know, like you can get away with with it. If everything else comes from a place of alignment and everything else comes from a place of heart and it's like, I think that you could get away with it.

[01:18:16] Hector: Um, yeah, that's what I would say. Uh, pay attention to your, um, pay attention to your cover art. So it, it's worth it to, to redo your cover art, uh, to think through that. Um, make sure that you feel good and that you love your cover art. 'cause your cover art sort of goes everywhere, so you should feel good about that.

[01:18:38] Hector: Um, you should feel good about your song. I always say that like, you know, at least for me, I know the song is right when I start doing like, the air drums. Like if I'm, if I'm listening to the song and I start doing air drums, uh, or I start like, you know, really moving, like, you know, I like for, I've had hip hop sort of songs, right?

[01:18:58] Hector: It wasn't really like a. Air drum thing, but it was like a, you, you feel it in your body. You're like, okay, this is the right one. I think you should feel good about the songs that you have. Um, and then same thing, you know, visually, uh, can you get away with not having great backgrounds and not, not having great sort of stuff.

[01:19:15] Hector: Yeah, of course. Um, but does it help? I think it, it, it, uh, hires the ceiling on in terms of what, uh, what sort of success you're having. Um, that's what I would say with regards to brand. Great question.

[01:19:36] Hector: So when it comes to, let's see what find here.

[01:19:52] Hector: So when it comes to, you know, your production, uh, let's see.

[01:20:12] Hector: So here is our,

[01:20:17] Hector: here is our production process essentially, and this is in a, um, we put this into a dashboard in Notion, and so you can get this too. Um, but

[01:20:38] Hector: what we try and do is, uh, this happens before the recording planning, the guests planning out the episode. Uh, during the recording, then where we take over is we do a couple of things. Uh, first we actually do sound treatment, which is, we do that first, but we'll go in through and we will, um, improve the, the sound and the background noises and, and clicks and, and things like that.

[01:21:02] Hector: Making sure that it, it's level, you know, one, one problem is people turning up and down their, their radios, um, all the, all that time. Um, because if they, you know, one person is really loud, one person's really low, and so we, we treat all that first. Then we go through and we remove, uh, we do what's called content editing, where we'll remove the filler, where we will take out the, the stuttering or the double takes or the misfires, or some people, sometimes people, you know, our, our clients will say, Hey, can we take that question out or Wanna try that again?

[01:21:36] Hector: Or anything like that, or, we're, we're like making it sound. We're making it sound smooth and good. We have so many of our guests who come back to us and say like, wow, that edit, like, you made me sound so good. And, and that's a big reason why we want, well, you know, we, we try and do that because our clients, you know, are sort of relying on that experience.

[01:21:57] Hector: And so we just wanna open that door, but that's part of it. Then we go through and we'll write the show notes, everything that's required for the publishing. So, so the show notes, the timestamps, um, the chapters, the links. Uh, for YouTube you'll need a few more things like the thumbnails, you'll need the keywords, the hashtags, um, uh, so that's for the, the publishing part of it.

[01:22:20] Hector: And then, um. The, the next part, which is, is almost just as important as the production is the promotion side of it. And so that is oftentimes creating the promotional videos for it, uh, creating the promotional social media posts, and then getting those out to, uh, wherever those things are getting posted to, whether that's a social platform, a website, and email the newsletter, um, or, or blog.

[01:22:47] Hector: That is probably the other, the other placement. So that's sort of what we do, is we take care of this process, um, where once the client is done recording it, we pick up the slack and we do everything else.

[01:23:05] Hector: All righty. Um, hopefully that was helpful. Got it. We're, we're approaching the 90 minute mark. So, um, I wanna thank you both Michael and Vale for being here. If there's any questions. Free to unmute or throw those down there. Um, I will fill a bust for a few more minutes while we hang out. Um, but, uh, yeah, I appreciate you guys doing this and allowing me to, to verbalize this.

[01:23:38] Hector: This is a training that I had wanted to do for a while and, uh, I mentioned that I was just going to get the, uh, for sure gonna have the recording. But now similarly, I have this recording that I can throw into chat, GPTI have this recording that I can create lots of content from. And so, um, you have done me a great service by playing full out and being here as, uh, as well.

[01:24:04] Hector: All right, y'all, well. Appreciate you being here as well, and hope you have a great evening and, uh, I'll give you guys a few more minutes back and if you have any further questions, feel free to reach out. Otherwise, uh, we'll be doing these trainings, um, probably once a month I think is when we're gonna do deep dives like these, so look out for those, uh, as well.

[01:24:31] Hector: And, um, we'll chat soon. Yeah, uh, absolutely. You have questions. Um, reach out. I'll, uh, buddy, I'll send you, actually probably the easiest thing is Michael, I'll, I'll give this to you as well, is just to book up a follow up session. So here's a link where we can just go one-on-one and spend some time talking about where you're at and if we can help, great.

[01:25:00] Hector: If not, at least you can, um, you know, have some.

[01:25:09] Hector: That link if you'd like. Um, before we close it.