From Corporate America to Entrepreneur: Spotting Opportunities and Building High-Tech Businesses with Pete Gruber

[00:00:00] The other concept is this idea of dominoes can actually knock down a bigger domino, right?

[00:00:05] And what they say, oh wow. It can actually knock down a domino. One and a half its size. Right? And so your first domino is like, you know, this small, but by the time you get to the seventh, 10th domino, you're, you're reaching like literally the height of the Eiffel Tower or something, like, something crazy exponentially.

[00:00:21] And so it's, it's about really lining up these dominoes and then flicking that first one so that they topple all of these big ones over. Right. Thank you Tommy. I appreciate that. Um, good job, Tommy. Super helpful. Right. And I think that's, that's kind of a great theme. Or that's kind of a, um, a great theme for, for maybe today, right?

[00:00:46] In the sense that Matt, before you were hopping on, what kind of prompted this as we were talking about and, uh, morning. Good afternoon, Brian. Good to see you. Uh, we were talking about, okay, we've got these things in our worksheet. We've got these ideas that are coming out. We're ideating here. How do we actually.

[00:01:04] Implement them. How do we actually turn them into, how do we, how do we implement them into our show? How do we integrate them into our show in a way that, um, you know, is intentional, right? And so I, I was saying, you know, Dave, he's like, his word is go, go, go. And perhaps, but I might say maybe Dave's, maybe Dave's, you know, word should be like dominoes or like, you know, in that, that kind of concept.

[00:01:29] Okay, you're going, but is there some intention behind it? Is there some foresight? Right. You know, I look at, uh, I really admire chess players in the way that they can foresee 2, 3, 4 moves ahead. Right? In the sense that a lot of times me as a business owner, entrepreneur, individual, I'm trying to, I think one step ahead.

[00:01:48] Okay, what's one? Okay, what's two? And I think the next level, when you can think 3, 4, 5 steps ahead and have the patience and, and understanding that I'm gonna work on this one. Here's, and then this is gonna lead to this, and this is gonna lead to this, as opposed to, I'm gonna try and work on all these things and, and then end up getting nowhere.

[00:02:06] Right. Or spinning your wheels. Right. So, Hmm. Um, so anyways, I think that was just a great frame for, for this morning. There's also the other side of that where, You spend all your time planning and you got this big long plan, and then you like talk yourself out of it or it's not ready enough. And I, it's, I can't possibly try it yet.

[00:02:27] So there's like this. Yeah. Space in between where, you know, totally, it's both right. Yeah. Analysis of paralysis. Mm-hmm. , the important thing is like the first domino. What's that first domino, and then moving on to the next one. Right. What's the next domino? What's, you know, the, the concept of that book that I really love it is because I'm so neurotic and, and, and Kevin knows this, I have bunch of ideas and all these things going on in my head.

[00:02:50] but I, but I like that book. He's nodding me and Yeah, for sure. He is. And he, the book, the theme of it is like, what's the one thing that I could do today that if I did this thing, everything else would be easier or, or unimportant, right? Like, what is that? What is that one thing? And there oftentimes is an answer, even if that answer is sequential, right?

[00:03:09] It's like, okay, I've got five things that I need to get done. What's the one thing that if I do, then it's gonna make the rest of 'em easier? There usually is some sort of, You know, order of operations. Right? Or at least you know that we can bring that. So anyways, Matt, I'm gonna slow down here. We've got some people who are here and, and I was just, uh, breathe, not filling time because I, uh, I don't like silence.

[00:03:31] So he doesn't like the silence. Yeah. Oh, now I know that. Oh, I didn't know that. Now I know that. Yeah. So you can always feel free to hop in Dave. But, um, Matt, I'd love for you to kind of give some, some context today or some, you know, Bring your wisdom to what we want to do today. Well, first of all, uh, I've been, I don't know if you guys, I think Tommy, you posted on the discussion thing and we added some comments in for anyone that's posted on the discussion, and so I don't wanna go there first, but I just wanna mention that we have that there and what I hope from.

[00:04:08] One is that it, it gets you to kind of solidify some of the ideas, well not solidify, but put together some of the ideas from the brainstorming worksheet that we think are helpful for everyone else here to kind of understand a little bit more about the journey that you are currently on or that you're about to go on.

[00:04:27] And also make it a safe space where we can provide. Maybe we can call them rhetorical questions. Uh, that maybe we'll you'll think about, don't necessarily have to answer us, but to give each other feedback in a safe way. Uh, and that we don't feel, I don't know the word offended, maybe. I hope not. I'm not talking about the discord yet, Dave.

[00:04:50] Oh, but on the, on the podcast, ama.com. Are we gonna say Hector? Well, yeah. I think it would be a good, a good thing to just kind of recap now that, um, Now that, um, what's the word I'm looking for now that everything is kind of up a little bit, you know, you should be able to access a lot of this stuff. So, um, I'm trying to pull up some links in here for you and just so we can kind of go over what's in there so that way you guys know.

[00:05:21] And then, um, you know, we can kinda go from there. So, uh, 1, 1, 1, 1. Here. You can put the link in there or. I'm gonna, I was just saying that if you've already done some, I've put in some comments of just some ideas and that, just wanna make sure that everyone knows that that's there. But you can show. Yeah. I wanna recognize Tommy and thank you for being the first to hop in there.

[00:05:42] And so when you log in, when you log in spot, um, You'll have, you know, you'd be able to see in here. And, uh, this should look familiar to you if it doesn't, talk to Matt and I, um, and we can kind of help you get access. But over here in, for each of these weeks, we're gonna have these overviews. And this one has this, this P d F that we're gonna talk about and dive into today, right?

[00:06:04] And then what also is on here, what about is our discussion? So, mm-hmm. , you'll see in here, there. Uh, we have the replay from Monday, uh, up here along with the transcript. Um, it's not perfect. We didn't edit the transcript, but hopefully that helps a little bit. You obviously have your resources and then what Matt was talking about is this discussion here where we'd encourage you guys to go in and put in some thoughts and questions and answers, you know, uh, I.

[00:06:28] Today's Thursday, you know, when you're doing this, ideally by the weekend, tomorrow would be great so that we have kind of the time and the weekend to go back and forth on that. Um, but that's where everything will be in that dashboard. If you don't have access to that or don't know how to find or move around that, let me or Matt know and then.

[00:06:44] What, uh, Dave is talking about is there is also, and we're gonna launch that today and give you guys the link and access to the Discord channel that Matt set up where this discussion on, in the, in the kind of the dashboard here. This is great for you to go and post your answers similar to like where you would submit an assignment.

[00:07:00] Right. You know, we don't wanna make it very schooly, but, but it does help to have some structure. The discord will be a place where you can chat throughout the week and get feedback and share silly memes. And there, you see, there's a, a variety of different channels and things like that, but just where you guys can connect with each other, um, a little more as well.

[00:07:18] Yeah. Well, yeah. We're trying to, we wanna build the discord part of it where we, how we need it. So it's not gonna be, if you've ever logged into a discord that's already like going crazy and there's 5,000 channels, we're not gonna have that. We're gonna start out with a few, and then if we notice that, Themes are happening.

[00:07:34] We might break those out into separate channels, but we'll definitely give you that. Uh, but to Hector's point, you know, it's up to you how much you participate in, you know, posting these things. Uh, I don't know if we want, did you want to go through those things, Hector? Like the week one? No. Okay. Uh, So what I was saying before is just basically if you want to participate and you want other people to see what you're doing and also ask you questions about it or help you refine, you know, maybe, uh, your name, that you're, you're bouncing between a couple names and you're not quite sure what that looks like or your one liner, or I like to call it.

[00:08:14] And Hector and I can argue about this, but I like to call it the 10 word description of your show, which I think is a lot harder to do, but I think it's a lot more valuable because it really forces you to like figure out and nail down what is that description of your show that someone would fully understand whether or not they wanted to listen.

[00:08:32] So that's what this week discussion, week one discussion board is all about. And so, yes, Tommy was the first person to post in there, and then Lorraine joined in and then Ben joined in. But. What I was saying before is that once you post in there, I'm gonna try to log in there a couple times a day and try to give you my feedback.

[00:08:49] But feel free to give each other, you know, your thoughts and, and what you think about it. Uh, try to be as constructive as possible, uh, because you know, If you don't think it's great, then see if there's a way that you can help them make it better versus telling them it's great because you just want someone to feel good, right?

[00:09:08] We're trying to help each other and, and, and build what we think would be helpful and we could be potential listeners for, for each other's show. So I think that's super important. We only pulled out a couple ideas from that brainstorming worksheet, so if you haven't downloaded that pdf d. , I would, oops.

[00:09:26] My whole screen went away. I will pull that up just so, oh, I can't show it. Can you make, can you allow me to screen share? Uh, on the, on the worksheet, we've just created a bunch of questions that we want you to think about. Uh, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to answer all the questions. It also doesn't mean that all the questions are gonna be relevant for where you are in your podcasting journey.

[00:09:50] Uh, . And so that's important. So take what's relevant to you or what might be helpful for you, and then, you know, leave the rest, like we said last week, but we've made this so that you can use it digitally or you can print it out and start, you know, putting stuff in here. Oh, wow. Uh, so download that. Where is that?

[00:10:07] That's on the, the weekly lesson overview. And it's also in the resources and weekly worksheets. Yeah. So we try to put it in most of those spots to where you can grab it. One, one quick question. Uh, I'm a little nervous because Matt, as an educator, you're not gonna break out your red pen and start, uh, you know, changing, you know, you know, be, you know, you should have put a comma there.

[00:10:31] Tommy, going to, I'm not Carrie. Okay. That's actually what I'm gonna do the whole time. , no, I, I mean, the way that I, as an educator, Carrie probably does the very same thing since we work at the same place, but we, I try to give feedback. A lot of my feedback comes in a rhetorical type question that maybe you can ask yourself.

[00:10:51] So this is me reading it for the first time. This is my question. This is what I have, and this is a challenge to you to think about it, take it or leave it. It's, it's, this is your show. You could do what you want, but as an outsider that doesn't know all the ins and outs of what you've done. Here are some of my thoughts, so I'm not, there's no, there's no right or wrong answer.

[00:11:09] I can't, can't tell you how to do your own show, but, uh, no, I'm not gonna redline it. Plus I don't even have a red pen, so there's that. Um, and this platform doesn't allow me to change the colors of the font, so no worries, Tommy. But I did put in some comments on what you posted in there to get you thinking further, so, So, yeah, so what we did with these worksheets and kind of what we're gonna do for moving forward is these worksheets will be like one to four pages long of different things you can think about.

[00:11:40] There are some weeks where it's mostly just resources, uh, when we get closer to kind of like recording or editing or things that we have tips. In that sense, there's not gonna be as much brainstorming because you've already kind of done that development, right? It's more of the actual creating. Uh, but we will each week have a discussion.

[00:12:00] Kind of post where we'll pull out probably the most, most important areas that that would be helpful for each other to know. So for this week, you know, we have, why do you wanna create the podcast? Describe it, write it, write a description in 10 words or less, what are some of your names, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:12:18] What are some of our goals here? And then we're asking you to share with each other. What's your. What are three or more goals that you have for your podcast? What are some of the names that you've come up with and what's your one-liner, which I'm gonna call the 10 word description, uh, which I highly recommend doing.

[00:12:36] So you can see we're not using all these questions because some of these are just like more helpful for you to think about. And for those of you that joined late, Hector was talking more about, you know, kind of this, how do you like make all these plans and. Do you implement them all at once? Do you do 'em in chunks?

[00:12:54] Do you, these are the things we want you to think about before, you know, making all these decisions to make sure that everything's aligning right. Because next week, I think it's next week, we're gonna talk a little bit about the branding, and it's important to understand your why. It's important to understand.

[00:13:13] Who is listening or who's your ideal listener so that your branding can match that. It's important to understand to Hector's po. Uh, question on here, like what effect or emotion or vibe do you want to create for your listeners? Um, it's important to understand that when you're kind of picking the fonts and you're picking the colors and you're picking your artwork and stuff like that.

[00:13:35] So this is the foundation that we want you guys to think about. I think what would be valuable today though, Hector. Would be to do little breakout rooms with each other and talk through, uh, some of the goals and some of the names and maybe the descriptions, uh, to kind of narrow those down, almost like workshopping together, if you think that would be most valuable from here, for sure.

[00:14:01] I definitely wanna jump into some breakouts and to give it a little more structure. Let's take this first page here, right, this first page, and if you think. I want you to either approach it of two ways. If you've gone through this, I would encourage you to, to share what is your, what's your 10, 10 word description.

[00:14:20] Right. I really like that. It's just not as sexy as a one-liner. It doesn't sound as cool, but it's still a one-liner, but it's limited. Same thing. But yeah, I really, I like the idea of trying to condense it as much as possible. If you've already walked through the worksheet, share that 10 word description, share your one liner, and then we'll spend the, the, the rest of the time, the rest of the group.

[00:14:39] Ideally they should go, oh, that makes sense. Right? But if they don't, once again, ask questions to really peel in and, and, and figure out what, you know, get helping them to get clarity. Right. This one is not gonna be, uh, again, it's not gonna be a ton of ideas, it's clarity that we're trying to get to. And, and so that the, um, that, that can really help.

[00:14:59] If you haven't gone through the worksheet, just answer these questions for the people, right? For your, for your, your kind of your breakout, um, mates. We need to have a better word for that too, but, um, We're not breaking outta jail or anything, but just go through why you wanted to create the podcast.

[00:15:13] Describe, you know, describe some of your ideas. Try and, and give a, you know, that 10 liner or, or some of the names. And, and in that, I think that you'll be able to see where some of those, um, those, uh, blind spots or, or gray areas are that aren't as clear because, um, like we talked about for some of you guys hopped on, the more that we can line up these dominoes and the more clarity that we can, Um, ahead of time before we hit the record button.

[00:15:36] The, the less figuring out or the less kind of experimenting we'll have to do, you know, once we're actually in the production process. So we also, and also to that, there's, uh, I think we, we provide ourselves with more clarity in our idea than other people might see. Uh, for instance, someone posted on the discussion board, you know, some, some of their ideas and then they also gave some of their names and the names.

[00:16:01] Cue me in on some of their ideas. And so in, in our minds we're like, oh yeah, that totally makes sense. But by explaining it to other people and they're like, what? You know? So I think that's what's gonna be valuable about kind of coming up with that description, but also tying it to everything else. Sweet.

[00:16:18] So you guys know how jarring these things are. Yep. Get ready, get ready. Hold on. Close eyes. Hold on your pants if you get nauseous and we'll see you guys. Free Wonka's ride. We're gonna take about. Tommy has a question. Ro just real quick, I, I'm assuming, You know, essentially these next eight weeks, you guys, you and Matt, um, and Kevin have things where I planned out one thing I would like to recommend maybe for a future Thursday or, or what have you.

[00:16:49] Um, years ago I was in this business group and. Once a meeting, we would put somebody on the hot seat. And I wonder if, you know, maybe that's a potential, uh, for this group is to Sure. Have somebody, you know, talk about either they're starting their podcast or, you know, some of us who are struggling with our own podcast and just get a, uh, a group discussion and um, you know, brainstorm that as well.

[00:17:17] So, uh, I'm gonna hang up now and listen to the rest of the show. Um, yeah, no, we, we definitely have that plan and we've got a variety of different ways to, to, you know, create some engagement. Uh, initially, right now we are, um, . Yeah, we just, I think there's, we want to get everybody, kind of have a voice and then we'll, we'll spend maybe that next, we're gonna take 20 minutes here, we're gonna come back at about 1135 ish.

[00:17:43] And depending on how that goes, maybe, maybe we'll take that time to, uh, to do that. Or maybe we can, you know, see if there's anyone in particular that wants to dive in more. So, uh, let's take about five minutes each and then, um, we'll see you back in about 20 ish minutes or so.

[00:18:02] I'm pretty sure you can search on pod chaser. Um, that's kind of, I, I mean that's kind of a dark horse in the, so in, it's a social media podcast platform. You can post there and rate and do all those things, but it's more, uh, person driven instead of statistic driven.

[00:18:22] Uh, you also may want to look at good pods. It's kind of newer, but they might have some like lists and categories as well of, of those particular, I would also say if I'm just being frank, to spend, to pay less attention to what. Like, if you're looking at, at what to do, you're probably not gonna wanna look at m and a podcast.

[00:18:46] You're probably, that's probably too niche. And there's, there's, there's maybe some that, that are doing things well, but, but most of the time you're gonna see what not to do. Right. In the sense that. By looking at what else is out there, you can kind of position yourselves against them, right? Even if it's in the sense of these guys do, you know, they come out once a week, we're gonna do twice a week, or these guys have hour long shows, we're gonna do half hour.

[00:19:08] Like, like really positioning yourselves against them. And then the, if you're gonna look for models though, I would look in the more general kind of range in terms of what are the top finance shows? What are those people doing because they're, they're probably modeling a lot more of the best practices and strategies.

[00:19:27] Then, uh, then, you know, then as niche of an m, you know, m and a, if you're gonna look that niche, I would look to position yourselves against what they're doing. You know, and you might come across some things like, oh, they, they're, you know, they're doing the cool topics or, you know, whatever. But look more broader when you're looking for how do we, you know, I would look at like the top 10, top 15 finance, you know, kind of, or maybe not finance, but entrepreneurial.

[00:19:52] It's like a weird space. But I would look like that kind of space. And then, Make sure you look like those, right? Or make sure that what you would, you would, someone, you would be put next to those and someone would go, okay, that makes sense, right? Like, there's a, there's a, a, a. A certain thing with podcasting where you've, you've gotta fit in enough to where you look, someone looks at your podcast cover and they go, oh yeah, that's, that's a finance show, or that's a business show, or that's a, you know, they, they can tell even just from the imagery what kind of show it is.

[00:20:22] But then you also, you've gotta be just different enough, right, to stand out within that same kind of thing. And so, you know, there's a balance there. That's a great point. I, I mean, I, I also, I mean, going against a little bit of what you said, Hector, is like, I would still listen to some of the m and a ones because what kind of like actual content value can you give that's different, is a good, you know, like what kind of question can you ask that the other ones aren't that might draw people more towards yours?

[00:20:53] You know, in my, in my case, I have. You know, like there are tons of storytelling podcasts and so I have to be really specific about, I want people to talk about the specific moment in their life that changed everything. I don't want them to just give me their life story and then it's over. Right? There's a lot of podcasts that can do that.

[00:21:08] So kind of figuring out what can I make myself just a little, to your point, Hector, just a little bit different, you know, and bring that so there is a little bit of value listening and you might hear how terrible they are too. And then you'll feel real good about. Which is also another boost. Yeah, I say I, I would say that some of the feedback we've gotten from some of our guests and, and some of these guests have, have had real transactions, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars is, they've said, I've been on whatever, 50 podcasts, I've been interviewed hundreds of times, and no one has ever asked me about that point in time.

[00:21:42] Um, and, and so we are trying to lean into that, not really knowing if it's as interesting to listeners as it is to. . Um, well, but it's kinda balance, right? Think about it, people like, it's it when you're in and you kind of, we get this kind of being in the marketing spaces like you're trying to. You're trying to catch people when they hit this, this stage in their life, right?

[00:22:07] And we've kind of talked about where do you catch them in that stage, right? But the nice thing is, is that you know, that there are going to be this flow of people who are going through this. And so if you can, it's kind of like setting a net in a river. Now, fucking I, I've never fished by netting, but I've watched enough life below zero to where, you know, I, I would, I would die, you know, in three days, not two.

[00:22:28] But, you know, you set out the net where you know people, where you know fish are gonna. Right. And you, you don't set it out knowing they're already there. You, you set it out knowing that they're, they're going to come because that's just how it works. Right. And so you set that net there and it's very intentional about we're gonna catch people at this part of their journey.

[00:22:45] And then everything points to that. To that part, right? And calls to them. And it's like they, it is interesting to you. . And if you just make it interesting to the person at that particular part, right, and everything is geared towards that, then you're gonna, that's enough of a separation and that's enough of a distinction to find someone who talks about what is life like post merger or what is life like.

[00:23:06] You know, how do you, how do you scale your business to a place where you're even think, you know, to be, to be in that place? But if you can just set your net where you know people are gonna be coming through and signal that, I think that's gonna be. You know, as, as opposed to going and trying to cast a bunch of lus and fishing all over the lake, trying to ca find out where they are, if you can just set the net and know they're gonna run through there, I think that's a better, at least a better way to go for it.

[00:23:32] Brian, was your question kind of more, how do, how does an audience find you? Is that I think about, you know, I, I've been in this job the last four years, but previous to that I was full-time national. . And so the, the business world is something very new to me. So you, if you would've said m and a four years ago, I might have thought you said m a, you know, and like I wouldn't have had any idea.

[00:23:54] Um, and so I, I'm wondering, you know, I'm, and I'm in, I'm deep into funnels right now, like, you know, maybe what are the, if that was your question, what are the key words that are, you know, maybe people don't even realize they're looking for a podcast about mergers and acquisitions. Cause they maybe don't understand those definitions.

[00:24:11] So maybe what. , what are the broader keywords that people are, are looking for, to drive them to you? Does that make sense? Or maybe I'm way off. N no, I I Hopefully that, that question is helpful for ev everybody, um, be because it is, it is something that we scratch our head, uh, on, on a bit, uh, in that it's, you know, being, having a marketing background and more importantly, a digital marketing background.

[00:24:36] You know, we feel really comfortable. Google search how YouTube works, how, um, you know, how to, how to tweak the algorithms in, in a lot of different ways to support. And I think that's why we're, we're more successful with our video content. The audio, I found it just personally speaking, I found it more difficult to explore, I guess some of these sites that you guys have highlighted just in the last five minutes are super helpful.

[00:25:01] Cause I, I don't know that I understand those algorithms or the best way. To drive more, um, more listeners or to, to, to advertise beyond purely advertising, to, to drive that in the same way we would with, you know, video content or search search algorithms. Well, to your point, you, you know, we, what's a challenge is we can't really carry.

[00:25:25] That same knowledge, you would expect them to work the same in the sense that you would expect YouTube's algorithm to work the same as, uh, you know, Apple's podcast or Spotify's, you know, podcast app. But they're, they're, they don't, and unfortunately, you know, we're kind of getting there and there's this big thing, but, but podcasts, it really has to be driven by.

[00:25:46] The, the, the creator, right? YouTube has a unique thing and TikTok has this Instagram less so where if you throw something, and here's this river analogy, right? Or if you throw something into YouTube or TikTok, they have an algorithm there that, that has a good chance of sweeping that into somebody who's going to enjoy it or getting it to somebody who's gonna see it, and then they sweep it to one person.

[00:26:04] They like it. So they're like, it triggers them and it tells them to keep, you know, it builds up a compound on itself because of the algorithm that you talked about, podcasting. Does not have that. Right. It's just, you know, there are these good pods and there's these places that are trying to do it, but unfortunately you can't, like, you, you can't rely on it in the same way.

[00:26:22] So when you're like, I don't understand how these algorithms work. I'm like, they don't work . Like, it's just, they don't, there are ways that you can, the, the closest thing is getting into. Like search. Right. I think search is a, is probably the, the, the big factor. But it's, it's so much different than algorithm or, or, or like you, you, you're, you can't rely on.

[00:26:43] Someone listening to your episode, really enjoying it, listening to the whole thing, and then that telling Apple to show it to more people. Whereas on YouTube, if someone watches your hour long video on YouTube, YouTube's gonna be pumping that video out to as many people that they can to try and get other people to watch it too.

[00:26:59] Cuz they saw that it worked for somebody. You can't really rely on that. So that's why it's gotta be driven so much by the creator or the guests or whatever it is. Um, so I know that's not a very good answer, only to say that. You know, you're not, you're, you're spinning your wheels and you're not, it's not because of you or your, you know, your lack of competence necessarily.

[00:27:20] Yeah. I, I, I personally have gone down, you know, podcasts like, like the one that you, you host and, and others to, to try to, you know, better understand. Um, you know, we're all. Natural born kind of analytics folks around these topics, right? You wanna know what's a good, what's a good number, what's a bad number?

[00:27:36] How do I make that number bigger? And there has to be, you know, ways that just brute force I can grow. Um, and it doesn't seem like it works quite that same way. Um, the only thing I would say is, is that you can do, and it's much slower than anything, is titles and show notes, because, Search is a big part of podcast discoverability, but the problem is, is that Apple, they don't, they don't, they don't consider a lot of stuff outside of your title.

[00:28:06] And like your description, right? Or even then some of the, the summaries, the show notes aren't even being considered, but really writing really good show notes and really like being intentional with your titles. Kevin and I go back and forth like so many times on like, what's a good title? Or this title, you know, he, and, and it's a very big part of our process because it has to be, you know, it a, a good title, an okay title versus a great title is the difference between.

[00:28:33] That po like that episode doing well and that episode, like not right. It has almost has nothing to do with the content unfortunately. Um, because if it has a, a title that isn't clear or whatever, they're just not gonna listen to it. And so the other thing is show notes, right? And you don't wanna like pack or stuff 'em with keywords, but, but that you have thorough enough show notes where.

[00:28:53] if someone is searching for one of the topics that comes up in your episode, that it, it, it shows up in the rankings, right? And then you get a chance at that. So those are, those are the only things that, at least right now, that you can kind of leverage and turn the knob on, um, for that. I appreciate it.

[00:29:07] Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully that's helpful for more than just me. I, I, I guess my last point would be the thing that we, we noticed a couple weeks ago is that the, the organic traffic just to our website that includes, Our, you know, our podcast website hang that hangs off our primary domain that includes all of our transcripts.

[00:29:24] One of the primary traffic sources to our website organically is the names of our guests, which is, is is like such a backwards way to think about kind of SEO and traffic to the site in that like we're trying to build out a site with content in 10 different ways that highlights m and a and what's really driving the traffic is our transcript.

[00:29:47] And the commentary around the guests or we're having in our show. What a great insight. What a great insight. Um, I'm not, I'm not surprised though, right? Because you, like we put up, uh, I posted a video, a YouTube video for one of our shows yesterday, and within maybe three to five minutes, I was just searching for that guest to like look for another picture or something like that.

[00:30:09] And that YouTube ranking was already the top ranking. Right. It was like, it was in, it was a good title, whatever, whatever. But like within five minutes it, it already hit and it was the guests, it was cause I was searching for the guests. Right? Yep. And so you're onto something there. And I don't, you know, there's ways that maybe we can lean in to leverage that, but I think, like, I think you're onto something.

[00:30:31] Thank you Tommy. You've had, uh, your hand up for a little bit. What's up man? So the one thing you're talking about with YouTube, who owns YouTube? Think about that. Who owns. Google, thank you. Thank you for participating. Yes, so Google loves Google, so that's why it really is important. Even though I only do audio, I upload my podcast to YouTube.

[00:31:01] Google loves Google, so that's why it is important to to have. Content on YouTube because like you were just talking about Hector, that guest that's gonna drive up possibly their rankings, is gonna possibly drive up your rankings. That's why it's really important to utilize YouTube. Well, well I think to, to Brian's point though, he is also, he's, I think he's seeing it from, from his website, right?

[00:31:31] And so, absolutely. Tommy leveraging YouTube on your website, like double down. But I think to, to not for the people who are like, oh goodness, YouTube, and I'm, you know, I'm not one of those people, but like, there are people who are, who are anti YouTube. The the point is, is to really leverage the things that are people are interested in.

[00:31:51] Right. And you might, Brian goes, I, I think that there, people are really interested in our topics and stuff. Well, it actually looks like the way people are finding you is through, through the guests. You could either fight that current or we could set up our net there, and then on, on those pages that people are coming through, have your opt-ins and have your, your, you know, your, your newsletters or whatever, right.

[00:32:13] Have all of your call to action. Like, like we could either fight it and, or we could recognize where people are coming from and kind of set our nets there. So I think that, That, that's really valuable too. And, and creating content that people are actually interested in or, or doing episodes with people that people are actually interested in, I think is kind of a, a big takeaway here.

[00:32:37] Um, because, because get, like searching for guests is absolutely a, a huge way that people will find your show. Um, it's not the only way. And of course, you know, there's some guests that are bigger than others, but it is a, it is definitely one opportunity. Um, Mitch Moses, you guys are unmuted. You guys want some questions?

[00:32:56] Anything thoughts you wanna add to the discussion?

[00:33:01] I, the, the total rookie here, I was thinking, you know, it feels like to to, to game Google, you would want to have a landing page for your podcast, right? Like, does that help? Like, yes. If I Googled merger and acquisition podcast and then it went to. Web link and then gave me Spotify links. I feel like that's where Google would help you.

[00:33:26] Maybe I'm wrong. No, you're hun. You're a hundred percent on, and I think, I know even we don't squeeze all of the juice out of a podcast, right? Because Yes. Having. You having your own website for your podcast is huge because when people search for that, that that's gonna rank higher than any of the other kind of social ones or whatever.

[00:33:46] Um, but then what you can also do is, is when you put out, um, when you put out. Your show and you get it distributed to Streaker and Anchor or you know, all those different places. If you have your website in your show notes, that gives you like 15 or 16 different back links. And I don't know, for those who aren't, as you know, into the digital marketing world, it's basically all these links that are pointing back to your website and Google sees all those and goes, oh, that's, That that means these, this website is actually worth something.

[00:34:14] Others people are pointing 'em. And so if you can have 15 links going to your website every single week with each new episode that comes out, that can really boost it. And then what I think Brian is talking about is he takes his, his episodes and he creates a blog post on his website. He does all the things to juice it where he, you know, he puts the YouTube video in there.

[00:34:32] Um, you know, he's got some words in the transcript and all that kind of stuff. Signals to YouTube, hey, or actually signals to Google, Hey, this. This is good stuff here. So you're absolutely right and, and there's so much to squeeze, um, out of the show that can help with SEO and outside of even just, you know, your own in-app rankings for sure.

[00:34:56] Moses, you wanna, Dave? I, I have a, I have a salad and Groupon reference, but I, I'm afraid to use it. I'm, I'm use it. No, no. Um, Brian, uh, you have 20 episodes,

[00:35:13] Brian? Yeah, we're, uh, we're like, I think we just posted our 17th or 18th just before the holidays, and we've got three or four queued up that I just haven't released yet. Yeah. And, and what span of time? Uh, we started in September, so we were pretty much every week. Uh, we took probably a three week hiatus, two three week hiatus Over the, over the holiday.

[00:35:29] Yeah. 20, 20 episodes. When you get to 50 and a. Boy, things are gonna be so different. You're gonna, you know, guests and numbers will be so different. I mean, 20 is, to me, in, in my opinion, is in the podcast world. 20 is, you know, you, you're, you're not even Cecil, you're, you , you're, you're an ameba. You know, I mean, there's 2 million podcasts.

[00:35:54] There's 20,000 or 200,000 active ones. You're, you know, what is it cashing? I, Brian, I think he's trying to be encouraging. I think so, yes. Yeah. Yes. , yes. Love, I mean, as much love it as the crouton could be. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, but uh, getting guests is the big thing. I, I have a buddy that does an environmental show called, uh, the Climate Champions.

[00:36:16] Um, and it's all about batteries and energy and concert, conserving all this off the grid stuff and grit, whatever. It's just a whole bunch of that, and he calls it the climate champions. He's in the industry and he gets industry people. And the more notable these people on the industry, I think the better are his ratings, um, and his and his numbers, and then, He actually, he wraps the, if I could speak to that though, Brian, and for everybody on the call is that, I think you Great.

[00:36:42] Bring up a great point, Dave, that like guests matter, but I think they don't matter in the way that people think because I think a lot of people think that they get a big guess on and it's gonna boost their downloads or like all of a sudden, and it may happen. But what it does though is it gives you credibility and it gives you.

[00:37:01] Gives you the, let's call it, for lack of a better term, it gives you the authority, right? Or all of a sudden, if you have, you know, let's, let's call it a, a c level guest on, well, now a B level guest looks at that and says, okay, you had a C level guest on. All right, I might give it a chance, and they'll come on.

[00:37:16] But then now by having a B level guest on and a level guest looks at in that and says, oh, you've had a B-level guest on, or maybe you. Five B level guests on, and then they look at that a level and that a level person goes, okay, you know, this is something that's, that's established, that's credible enough.

[00:37:30] And so what guests you can ac by. Yes, they'll help your downloads. But what I would encourage you to do is to help you piggyback it guests in terms of how can you, you kind of, you know, piggyback up the, the ladder, if you will, to, to bigger and better guess. Not necessarily because it's going to create more downloads, which it may, but hopefully that.

[00:37:50] and opens doors and opportunities and connections that turn into, you know, a lot more stuff. So I think that guests, Dave, you bring up great point. Guests are huge and it's, it is, it is a great way. But I think that if someone goes, oh, I had a huge guess and I didn't get a bunch of downloads, it's like, well, You know, that's not abnormal necessarily.

[00:38:11] You know, I find that some of the best guests are, what we look for is big fish and small ponds. Those are the, those are the guests that we want to, to have on the shows because they've got, they've got usually a smaller audience. Then say an A, you know, a a a, a small fish and a bigger pond or whatever, that, you know, that different kind of person, but they're much more engaged, right?

[00:38:33] They're much more engaged of an audience. And so, um, those are just some thoughts on, on guests and stuff. Uh, I, you couldn't have described our experience more perfectly. We had somebody named Jeff Ma. Um, kind of mid midstream of our 20 episodes, Jeff led the m i t blackjack, m mi t blackjack team. So it was the, the movie 21.

[00:38:52] Oh yeah. And a big, a big book. Right? He's gone on and built and sold a bunch of businesses. Right. So we talked about that and we were like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be great. We can lean into Vegas, blackjack, all these stories. And the episode kind of flopped. , but we can use his name, you know, for folks in the venture community or the entrepreneurial community, they, they know Jeff and that's a big name, but from a download perspective, it was, it was a joke.

[00:39:14] I, I, I think he's, you know, he's the bottom quartile because he didn't do any promotion Right. Himself. Right. He didn't put it out there. Whereas we have somebody who was, you know, a big, big name in a small pond who's a, a digital marketing guru. Right. And, you know, he has a follow. But most people would never have heard of him before.

[00:39:34] He, he's 10 x to any other episode that we have, simply because he did a great job of promoting in the right ways. Um, and it, and it drove a ton of activity. So yeah. You, you described our, our experience perfectly. Yeah. What else? I'm usually quick to run off these calls cuz I, I know, I feel like my, I feel like I have an aversion to people.

[00:39:57] Well, I have an aversion to people. I don't like people very much. So that's why I do podcasts, . Um, but I love all of you. So what else? Is there anything else? I will, I will say that we, some of these conversations will be really good on the discord to kind of, you know, if we get into that space. Do you wanna talk about that?

[00:40:16] Do you wanna talk about that a little bit or, I mean, I can, there's not, I can pull it up and at least share on the screen here what, so people can know what, what it looks. Yeah. We haven't done anything in there. We've created it and we need people to come in and, and, and just engage. And so like, some of the questions that, that Brian was bringing up are like, perfect for, you know, like, Hey, has anyone seen something like this?

[00:40:36] Or, how would I find a list of this? Then Kevin comes in, is like, Hey, look at this. Listen notes. You know, and, and so, As much as we can or as much as we see fit, use that discord server, as you know, as someone would use slack or something along those lines. Yeah, so I think that's a great transition to talk about.

[00:40:56] You know, these, these calls are here to. It's like class, right? You know, back in school and it's bad that we're making it schooly, but, but it's like this, the class was never where the real work was done. Right? It was done in the assignments or the, the homework or the projects or whatever. And so hopefully that these calls, they give you what you need or they give you enough of what you need to.

[00:41:19] To send you down the rabbit hole to open up or, or spark the conversation or to introduce you to the resource or person that, that you need. And in between these calls, we really wanted the, the Discord channel to prove and, and be that place where we could go, um, in between then. Right? So tomorrow, over the weekend, you know, next week when you guys are, you know, Hey, how about this?

[00:41:42] Or You guys are working through this stuff, um, this is a place where you can kind of post it. And those of you guys who have not been on. Discord. It is a, it's just another app. It's, I probably liken it. The closest thing is to like a Facebook group with like some more buttons and stuff like that. But, um, what's nice is that you'll see here we have our podcast, ama what's called a server.

[00:42:01] This is just like a a, a chat room, right? A group, right. However you kind of wanna put it. And then over here on the left, there's all these different channels or different places where you can post stuff. And so we'll have announcements here and we'll have reminders and links to calls and stuff like that.

[00:42:13] We'll try. Add all the resources from certain weeks into here so that you guys can see those, and we'll be adding those as well. But then if you guys wanna add in some stuff, you know, you just, hey, I don't know, whatever you wanna put in here, or however you, you know, questions that you have. There's a d uh, a few different channels in here, even some opportunity to share some funny memes.

[00:42:30] But we just, uh, we wanted to create a space, just keep those out of the general. We wanted to create a space where you could, um, connect with other people, where you could hang out with Dave, you can hang out with Matt or Brian or whatever, um, outside of these calls. And, um, so that discord will be, uh, will be the place that we do that.

[00:42:45] Um, Matt, did you put that in the uh, I can actually put it in. I have it right here. Um, I think the link might ch might have changed, so hold on. I try, it only lasts for seven days, so I just re-upped it. So you want me to put it in the. I got it. Oh, you got it. Okay. It's different than mine, so I guess it works the same way.

[00:43:09] Hey, here's a question. You, you guys, uh, um, save this video and you, you put it on the, um, on, on the site. Is the chat also available? Do we, or should we, if we want to do save the chat at the end of the show, I think you have to save the chat. Okay. And if, if anybody doesn't know, I think it's the three dots on the bottom right of the chat, you click.

[00:43:28] And then it says save chat, and then I'll send it to a folder. Your choice. Perfect. Yeah. Cause yeah, I'm gonna try to get that disc now. Alright. Does anyone have, and if you can't, let us know. And, and then Hector, you can just email everyone the, the link for the people that aren't here. Yeah, I'll put the link in the, in the emails and, uh, yeah, as cool.

[00:43:50] All right. Well, unless there's any final burning question. I think this was a great first discussion and I appreciate you guys coming and, and you know, bringing, uh, playing full out, you know, I think is the only way that I could say it. It's very easy for a lot of people to just come and sit around and not engage and not participate and, um, You know, we, we want these to be helpful for you.

[00:44:10] And, and I think the way that we, the, the, the most effective way to do that is when you know, when you're able to engage and participate. So, um, yeah. And if, last thing, Hector, if you guys want, if you haven't thrown in some ideas in the week one discussion activity, if you wanna throw those in there. And I'll be looking in there a couple times a day just kind of putting.

[00:44:30] Questions or thoughts or whatever they may be. Take them, leave them, do what you want with them, but I just want to engage in that way as well. Cool. Thank you guys so much for, uh, for being here. And, uh, we'll see you guys on Monday.