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Content Is Profit
Former Head Of Growth For Hubspot Talks How To Grow Your Podcast by 40%+ in 3 Months (From The Vault)
01:04:57
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- [00:01]
Jonathan Marshall
This was actually a pretty compelling hook. If we saw them on another podcast, odds are it was a good experience. They had a great time. And so we would just email them and saying, hey, we saw that you're on this podcast. Do you have any interest in getting booked on other podcasts? And that that response rate was surprisingly high. It was just literally two sentence, two sentence email. And people ate that up.
- [00:20]
Fonzie
You know, for us, when we bring our guests, like, it's us, like, we don't have a, EA or va that does it. That's our decision because we love to connect on a one on one with our guests before they come in and build that relationship. A big part of what we do and how we do it. So I think also an important point is, like, you made the process like your own and you were so proactive.
- [00:38]
Jonathan Marshall
I mean, these are all things that you've probably read in a million blog posts. But, like, it's really important to like, think of this when you're, when you're about to hit someone up. It's like, what's in it for them? How can I articulate this in the simplest and clearest way possible and sort of just like make it a no brainer?
- [00:53]
Fonzie
Nope, nope. We don't go. All right, here we go. We've got. Hey, I'm Louise.
- [00:57]
Louise
I'm Louise.
- [00:59]
Fonzie
You're listening to the Content is profit.
- [01:01]
Louise
Podcast where we talk about entrepreneurship, mindset, and of course, how to turn your content into profit.
- [01:07]
Fonzie
But most importantly, where we come here and have a really, really, really, really good time, baby. So go to contents profit.com and join the community. You like that spin? I saved it.
- [01:17]
Louise
I know you saved it. Take a deep breath before we continue. There we go. Good job. Now what are we talking about today?
- [01:23]
Fonzie
Are you throwing it back at me, man? Oh, my God. All right, episode 243, how to grow your podcast by 40% or more than three month. Let's go. That deserves one of these.
- [01:34]
Louise
That was like a rough calculation that I did with the, the data that they threw at us. You know, I know.
- [01:39]
Fonzie
It sounds so clickbaity, by the way.
- [01:41]
Louise
Hopefully my math is right.
- [01:43]
Fonzie
I know.
- [01:44]
Louise
It is very clickbait.
- [01:46]
Fonzie
Yeah, it's all good, but I think it's gonna be a good conversation to be able to do that. There's so much more that we have to uncover, but. Oh, yeah, before that. Foncy, do we have a sponsor today?
- [01:55]
Louise
Indeed we do. Thank you for asking. Good Sarah. And today's sponsor is your own, the Biz Bros. Yes, we Sponsor our own podcast with content Momentum and you might be asking yourself, what is content Momentum? Well, if you produce a long form piece of content just like this one that you're listening to or watching and you want to turn it into daily consistent content, we're here to help you out. Sliding the DMs at Bizbrosco, on Facebook, on Instagram.
- [02:21]
Fonzie
Fire emoji. Fire emoji. Fire emoji.
- [02:24]
Louise
Is that a cue for the video?
- [02:26]
Fonzie
Fire emoji. Fire emoji.
- [02:27]
Louise
Just put him in there.
- [02:28]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah.
- [02:29]
Fonzie
Guys, if you enjoyed this show, go ahead and follow because every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, these episodes are dropping in your favorite podcasting platform to go and move and create momentum in your daily life and business.
- [02:39]
Louise
That is right. And if today's guests help you move one step forward towards your goal, please don't forget to share this episode and and leave a five star review.
- [02:48]
Fonzie
I hope you're ready for today's guest. If you are looking to substantially grow your podcast to learn the strategies from one of the new hottest podcast networks out there, then this is the conversation for you.
- [03:00]
Louise
This is going to be epic. Today's guest is the head of podcast growth for the recently formed HubSpot Podcast Network, which has massive podcasts such as Entrepreneur on Fire, Gold Digger, and one of our favorites, my first million.
- [03:17]
Fonzie
That's right. And check this out. Today's guest is responsible for growing my first million podcast from 700,000 monthly downloads to more than a million monthly downloads in just three months. Meaning my first million got their first million.
- [03:33]
Louise
Thanks to today's guest, My blowing. Please welcome the head of podcast growth at HubSpot, your go to podcasting genius, Jonathan Marshall. What the.
- [03:49]
Jonathan Marshall
Epic.
- [03:50]
Louise
Appreciate it. How you doing, Jonathan? Welcome.
- [03:53]
Jonathan Marshall
Great, great. Thanks for having me. This is awesome.
- [03:55]
Louise
Oh, man. I'm gonna give some background on what happened before going live. We've been spending like 30 minutes behind the scenes. You know, we would call this rapport building, but we were trying to figure out how to go live today. It was a struggle.
- [04:09]
Fonzie
It's totally our awful, by the way. Just saying, just saying. We're just talking about this event like plan A. If it doesn't go right, plan B. What is it? Plan C. And today we failed, Jonathan. But we just had a plan A. Y. How you doing, man? How's your week?
- [04:24]
Jonathan Marshall
Good, good. Going well. Appreciate you having me. This is high energy show. Y' all have a fucking awesome production here.
- [04:31]
Louise
Appreciate it. I think we should. I'm gonna make a call out here. Red Bull sponsor us so we can send Red Bulls to all of our guests and, you know, just even raise the level higher up.
- [04:43]
Fonzie
Oh, boy.
- [04:44]
Louise
Dude.
- [04:44]
Fonzie
Okay, so here's the. I think you and the next two people are coming, which we won't announce yet, is like a dream guest for us. And of what you have created with the network and the shows that you guys have in the network have added so much. But I'm literally addicted to my first million. Like, if every. Every morning I'm like a new episode release, like, can you guys do the daily also on my first million? And it's. It's become like this cornerstone of inspiration, bounce ideas, new perspectives and different things. So thank you so much for bringing out to that to the world and to the audience that the people are listening or watching right now. This is. This is the incredible thing about publishing and the positive impact that you can create for somebody else. So I just wanted to say thank you to you in person because it's meant so much what you guys have been doing consistently over some time now.
- [05:40]
Jonathan Marshall
I appreciate that, but I can't take any credit because that's all Sam and Sean, like, they have been at it for like two, three years at this point. And I mean, as you said, like, it's super addicting. I'm the same way. I started out as it was my favorite show and I was like, how do I get a job with these guys? And that's a whole story in itself. But yeah, that was the impetus of it is like, I need to work with these guys because what they're doing is incredible.
- [06:01]
Louise
I love it, man. So I want to hear the story. But before that, you know, I'm guessing there. There used to be this person called Jonathan Barshop. Pretty cool, right? Going around town and eventually you got interested into podcasting and, you know, maybe you started a thing here and there. So why don't you share a little bit about your story? How do you get into the scene podcasting and maybe how do you get then into working for HubSpot?
- [06:28]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah, I always say, like, I somehow I'm like the guy who like, sneaks backstage at a concert and ends up like, going into the VIP and hanging out with Drake type thing. Like, I started out just basically like graduated in 2014, was in a desk job in a cubicle, like, hating life. Like I think most people kind of are right out of college. And during that time I just filled a lot of it with podcasts. So I was listening to Tim Ferriss show, how I built this, that kind of stuff. And I was Taking a lot of notes on them just for like my own personal sort of journal. And I was like, at a certain point I had this huge directory of notes and I'm like, what do I do with this? Like maybe turn it into a newsletter, a website. So I started googling around and I found this was this website called the Podcast Wire. And Eric Jacobson, who ended up being my co founder in our podcast agency, he was running it where basically he was doing what I was doing. He's taking these like incredible podcasts, whether it's Tim Ferriss or, you know, whatever, summarizing down into 250 words and making it a weekly newsletter. And I was like, oh perfect, I'm already doing this and he's got some traction already. So cold emailed him and he's like, I'm looking for someone to help me with this. So I, while I was working the desk job, I was like, kind of. It was one of those jobs where you can really get away with whatever, like as long as you just get the deliverables out the door when they need to be. And so I feel like I was spending like, honestly like 75% of my time just doing stuff, not work related, all sort of like podcast focused. And so for basically a year we, yeah, we rebranded the Podcast Wire into a thing called Startup Mixtape fm, which is a big directory of some of the best podcasts out there. We haven't updated it since like 2018, but there's some incredible, incredible shows on there if anyone wants to check that out. We'd also like do podcaster creator like profiles. So we interviewed like Alex Bloomberg of, founder of, of Gimlet, Jordan Harbinger and just kind of asked them like, what, what are some of your favorite podcasts? So we kind of tried to make this sort of content newsletter, website thing out of it. Eventually Eric was building out Lemon Pie, our agency in the background and he was like, oh, we work really well together on this thing. Why don't we team up on that thing? So that's where the podcast agency came about. And the podcast agency started as basically a guest booking agency and evolved into a full sort of. We did production, we sort of did a little bit of everything. Yeah, and I'll stop there.
- [08:43]
Fonzie
Awesome. By the way, I relate so much to the part of like you have this job and then you working on your thing on the side.
- [08:50]
Jonathan Marshall
Right.
- [08:51]
Fonzie
That's such a, that's such a cool time and experience and growth, you know, primer I guess on the personal growth because you're Chasing, you know, what you want to. I'm curious, do you ever see yourself as building something, or was this something out of frustration from that day job or something that were happening at the time?
- [09:10]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah, I think I was just really hungry to not even necessarily, like, do my own thing, but I was just like, I see what all my friends are doing and they seem to be happy, but I'm not. And there's like a whole conversation in that itself. But I was like, I can't do this. I need to find a better solution. I love podcasting. And so when Eric offered me the job, basically taking like a severe cut, but you know, to sort of build my own thing, I was like, no brainer. So I moved back with my mom for a year to. To make it happen, and then, you know, shortly after move to Austin. But I was like, I would rather live at home with my mom and figure this thing out because it's way more fun versus being, you know, on the hamster wheel, kind of doing the whole, you know, nine to five thing.
- [09:52]
Louise
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's. Let's be clear, it's not for everybody. Not everybody's willing to take those risks, right, to move back with your mom or take a big pay cut. But at the end of the day, if you are happy, and I know it sounds so cliche, but if you're happy doing right, chasing what you want to build, at the end of the day, it's probably going to be worth it. And don't get me wrong, there's going to be challenges, up and downs, probably a lot of downs, and you're going to go to some dark places and you're going to reconsider everything, but then when you see the results, it feels so good, right? Yeah. And then life unexpectedly throws you opportunities, right? Like, for example, the one that you're having right now. I mean, I remember when HubSpot released their network and I was like, dude, this is amazing. And I think it was when they acquired the Hustle and they grabbed my first million and they started the whole network thing. And I was like, I'm gonna apply this, apply. And I just been, like, pretty much, like, closely following what podcast they're putting in and they're doing such a smart thing and you're like, in the middle of all that, Right? So you went from pretty much being a podcast fanatic, if you want to put it that way, Right? Like, you really enjoy podcasts and you decided to build something around what you enjoy to now being probably in one of the Most exciting networks out there. There's other networks that have whole lot of other podcasts. But. And I don't know if it's because we're in the entrepreneurial world, but we love the whole idea that what you guys are putting together. But before we go there, I'm pretty curious.
- [11:26]
Fonzie
You're just launching hooks today.
- [11:29]
Louise
Open loops right here. You know, before we go there, I'm curious of exploring your experience in Lemon Pie. Right. And I, I'm curious because we have an agency of our own, we don't do the podcast production side of things.
- [11:44]
Fonzie
Right.
- [11:45]
Louise
We work with the content that comes out of that. But it is hard work and you know, managing clients, finding the clients, it takes a lot of work. So based on your experience, what does it take to grow an agency?
- [12:01]
Fonzie
Right.
- [12:02]
Louise
And maybe if you want to share, what was it that led you to moving on to the next thing?
- [12:10]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So me and my co founder had a really good sort of like relationship. He was sort of like the CEO sales. So he was great on as far as like, if he got someone on a call, he was an assassin and pretty much close. Anyone?
- [12:27]
Fonzie
Game over.
- [12:28]
Jonathan Marshall
We also had a really unique hook where. Where we weren't like every other agency out there, PR agency out there, we just focused on podcast pr, essentially, like podcast booking. So people would come to us and maybe they're a CEO of company or an author. We didn't work with a ton of authors. We kind of tried to position ourselves in the B2B space because that's just where more money is. But we positioned ourselves as like the podcast booking agency. And so CEOs and founders would come to us and we'd get them booked on, you know, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 plus shows for as long as they worked with us. And so the way we would get those leads is we basically just have an EA kind of scrape lists of founders and CEOs and C suite execs at different companies that either just got funding or well funded. We worked with HubSpot, we worked with FreshBooks, we worked with, you know, D2C brands like Four Sigmatic. The coffee company. Yeah, kind of all over the place. And a lot of that was just based off literally cold outreach, saying, hey, yeah, we saw you. This was actually a pretty compelling hook. If we saw them on another podcast, odds are it was a good experience. They had it, they had a great time. And so we would just email them saying, hey, we saw that you're on this podcast. Do you have any interest in getting booked on other podcasts. And that. That response rate was surprisingly high. It was just literally two sentence, two sentence email. And people ate that up. So, you know, when we delivered for them, like, we didn't just, like, you know, talk shop. We actually, like, did good work. And so, yeah, I mean, a lot of it was just based on cold outreach. And that's. That's how we would book people on shows. That's how, you know, that's like the sort of. My core skill set is like, cold outreach and getting people's attention. And that's how we built the company pretty much.
- [14:07]
Fonzie
That's. That's awesome. So I'll share a little bit. I don't know why you have in mind, Fancy, but I'll share a little bit of how we got to where we are now to like, to. To. To relate a little bit. But we started in a community, right? Like in our business or. We started Biz Rose seven years ago. Vinyl stickers, screen printing, T shirts, online brand selling social media to restaurants. Like, we pivoted probably like 15 different times. And with every pivot, it was a new lesson, right? And we stood together and it was freelancing mode at the time, right? Finally, we invest in this, in one of our coaches, and we dial it into just one thing, one process. And that's what allowed us to grow a lot compared to where we were before. Now the community that we're in, like, we're trying to communicate with the same community. And we quickly found that maybe the money was not there, right? And maybe the. And we. It took us a good amount of time to learn that lesson and a lot of pain. I'm like, man, like, is our product not the right product? Like, is the audience not the right audience? And, you know, for. For us, maybe when we started the show in 2019. Right. No, 2020, March 2020, the outreach to get people inside of the show was. Was not a hard thing, right? Because we're passionate about this. Like, I think just the energy, like, attracts a lot of. A lot of it. I do think that we provide a ton of value here. But also we. Okay, we started connecting that to. To the business side and allowed us to create that market research as. As we were publishing as that side. But it's been hard because of the world that we started on, the bootstrap world, right? We're like, oh, man, we need to shift. So with our current coach, we had the conversation with, like, where do we move, right? Is it B2B? Is the agencies, right? So we, you Know, we started in the last month or so, we started working with two or three agencies, and the process, there has been a lot of friction because of the back end and the. Every agency has a different process, and it's like, oh, my gosh, now we have to adapt to that.
- [15:58]
Jonathan Marshall
Right?
- [15:58]
Fonzie
On the. On the product side now. So my reflection here is like, okay, where you start in your background will dictate a lot. Maybe the speed, maybe how you operate. Right. You mentioned EA, like an executive assistant, that you have SOPs, you have processes. Right. So how much of that. Of your past, maybe of the things and the experiences and the things that you did before that, how much did that affect or was there a learning process as you guys were doing this? Because a lot of people that tune into us, they're probably developing a product, they're probably developing a business on the side, and they might be learning on the go or they're bringing skills with them. So how was that experience for you?
- [16:33]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah, I mean, so spot on. It's like, you. You're running an agency, and then one client asks, like, hey, can you do this? Like, can you. Y' all already doing content for us. Why don't y' all just, like, produce the podcast? And you're like, yeah, we can do that. And then you start, like, kind of taking on this, like, octopus of, like, different responsibilities and stuff that you never, like, really anticipated just because, like, a, the money's there and you're like, b, like, yeah, I think I could do this. And what you quickly realize is, like, you. You're kind of trying to juggle too much, and it just kind of becomes a lot. And so I think what I would recommend is, like, just specialize in one thing. Like, y'.
- [17:06]
Fonzie
All.
- [17:06]
Jonathan Marshall
Y' all specialize in content, and that's really smart because everyone needs content. I think, you know, like, we specialize in booking and kind of, like I said, we sort of did production and we did, like, a few other things, but then we just eventually always came back to pr. Podcast booking. Like, full disclosure, we had a production arm in the company, and we completely shut it down. This is actually after I left, but shut it down because it was just kind of a nightmare to manage all that.
- [17:31]
Fonzie
Yeah.
- [17:31]
Jonathan Marshall
So, like, I think that's just very natural to have sort of that shiny object object syndrome and sort of, like, you sort of have to chase the cat's tail a few times to realize, like, that it's not, you know, all it's cracked up to be. And there's a lot of downsides with it, but you can only learn that through experience. And who knows, like maybe you build this agency that kind of is like a one stop shop and it's incredible. But I think it's in people's best interest to kind of figure out like what their special sauce is and just double down on that.
- [17:56]
Louise
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's also two other lessons on what you shared before, right? On how you guys were getting your clients. First, you guys were clear on who you were targeting and a lot of people. Right. And we've been through this journey where we thought we were clear on who we were targeting and we had the totally wrong customer avatar, if you want to call it that way. Right. I mean, we were targeting people that didn't have the purchasing power to afford the service. So then we were asking ourselves, why are we having such a difficult time selling this thing? Right. Well, it makes total sense. Right? They cannot afford it. You guys were extremely smart and said, what are the companies that are being funded? They just have an influx of cash in the B2B space that are looking to literally be everywhere, looking for a lot of exposure. And that was your target. Very, very smart. So again, that's lesson number one right there for you. Listening. Ask yourself, am I 100% clear on who do I want to work with? And also, is that person capable of, you know, acquiring your services? Because if they're not, you might. I mean, if you are all about 100% free work and just, you know, give back to the world. Yeah, pay forward, that's, that's, that's great too. I'm not complaining about that. And the other lesson that I saw that I love is that cold outreach, right. You just sending emails, you said that two sentence just works like a charm. And I'm curious, how much have you used that skill throughout your life? Was that natural for you? Did you feel awkward at first sending these emails? Right. Knocking on people's doors? And did you use the same skill to maybe obtain the opportunity in which you are right now?
- [19:49]
Jonathan Marshall
Totally. It's maybe like the most valuable skill I have. And I think it's super learnable for everyone. And yeah, it's taken me from like getting clients to getting, you know, guests on big shows to landing this job. And it's like, I think, you know, there's like I could sort of break down the, the, you know, approach, at least in my mind.
- [20:12]
Fonzie
Sure.
- [20:12]
Jonathan Marshall
It's, it's kind of just like, you know, I guess you could break down each of those separately of like, okay, how do you reach out to someone via podcast, like to get on their podcast? How do you reach out to someone like Sam to get his attention? And yeah, I guess the thesis is kind of this. It's just like, what's in it for them? And I mean, these are all things that you've probably read in a million blog posts. But like, it's really important to like think of this when you're, when you're about to hit someone up. It's like, what's in it for them? How can I articulate this in the simplest and clearest way possible and sort of just like make it a no brainer? So like when I would reach out to podcasts, this was not a foolproof method. But like, what I would do is I would start out by saying, hey, love your show. So much so that I just left you a five star review. And in that review I would like attach it at the bottom and in that review, like, it would be like a really thoughtful, like, like message. And so it's a, it's a thoughtful message and it's a value add for them because they get a review. And then I'd kind of go into the email and say, hey, if, you know, I know you don't typically take guests or whatever, you know, you kind of have to do your research there. But like, you don't typically take tape guests or whatever. But would love it if you consider Sam as you know, Sam just built these incredible companies. Here's three or four things that he can teach your audience. And that's a really important indicator. There is like, you don't want to, you don't want to say, hey, Sam has done this and he's done that and he's done all these cool things like no one really cares at the end of the day. Like, yeah, those are good markers. But like really what podcasters and what people care about again is like, what's in it for them. So when you're reaching out to a podcaster, I would always be like, okay, here's the five or so things that he can teach your audience. That would be a value add. And then just wrap it up by saying, you know, absolutely no sweat if it's not a fit or the timing isn't right. You know, P.S. here's the media kit. So that's kind of like the general framework and that kind of works, holds true if you're trying to hit up sam in the DMs or whatever. It's like, hey Sam. And you know, you Kind of have to restructure things a little bit, but it's like, what's in it for them? How can I add value upfront and have zero expectations?
- [22:05]
Fonzie
Yeah. By the way, if we would have received a message from you guys, I think it would have been like, yes, every single time. It's crazy. We have. We have this email attached to probably. I think it's listen notes, to be honest. And we get. Every. Every single day there's something there. And, like, there's some attempt of doing it that way, but I. I take a second to read it, right? And then I also take a second to answer. Sometimes I'm like, awesome. What was your favorite part of this episode?
- [22:30]
Louise
Whatever.
- [22:30]
Fonzie
Right? Because they just are very general and then you don't hear from them at all. Right, because exactly. Here's full disclosure for the ones listening, right? Like, for us, we obviously deal with people that produces content, right? So people that do podcasts might also produce content visual. So for us, that agency could also be a source of leads if it's a good relationship. So it is in my best interest to respond back and see if there's a relationship there. But it's incredible how many people don't respond back to these things. Right. Which could also mean an opportunity for them. Right. Like, if the question is, am I serving my client? Am I serving the people that I work with in the best of my ability? That's probably not the scenario. So let this be a lesson of, like, what to do and also what not to do whenever you're reaching out, whether that's your service or something else.
- [23:15]
Louise
I have.
- [23:15]
Jonathan Marshall
And I think that's. That's. That's a big differentiator. Right. Like. Like, that was the reason why we were able to kind of like, charge higher premiums and deliver better results was because we weren't just, like, spraying and praying. Like, I'm sure a lot of the emails you get where it's all templatized and you don't get a response when, you know, you, like, ping them a few times. And every email we sent, like, for the most part at least, was totally personalized. So.
- [23:40]
Louise
Yeah.
- [23:40]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah. I mean, and it's. It's crazy how. How, like, you can just, like, really different, like, really stand out from the crowd by just being, like, literally, like 5% better. It's. It's not. Doesn't take a lot, but it's just like, yeah, absolutely.
- [23:54]
Louise
I think investing the time up front to actually do some real research about the other person goes a long way It'll just set you apart. I still remember this one that we received one day. It was an assistant pitching somebody, right? I mean, who they were working for. And the way they did it, it honestly like upsetted me a little bit because they were like, oh, we listened to your stuff. We actually left your review. And they screenshotted. Not the review, but they screenshot it kind of like the. When you're typing it. So they hadn't submitted it yet. It was just a screenshot of that. And I was like, oh, nice. And I go and I like, check the reviews. And I never saw that review. So I'm like, these people just like type it and they don't actually publish the review, right? And they expect. It was also a very general email. So I answer. I was like, I don't remember the exact answer. I try not to be too rude or anything, but I was like, hey, awesome. Yeah. What was your favorite part of the podcast? I would love, you know, the episode that I listened to. And yeah, people just disappear. Right. And that lack of follow through as well. I feel. Okay, maybe if you, let's say you send that general message, if they get back to you asking, what part of the, the episode do you enjoy the most? Guess what, go and listen to the episode and then tell them which part you enjoy as well. But it's like people.
- [25:15]
Jonathan Marshall
So much of my success with outreach is in the follow up game, like you said, because they get this, they get the first email and that's sort of like the media kit, right? Like, that's like, here's Sam or whoever, here's why they're cool, here's what they can teach your audience. And then from there it's like they either respond pretty instantly because they're like, yes, this is a great fit, or they're like, whatever, send it to the side. And so the follow up game is like almost more important than the actual initial email. And like, that is where you can really. Like, that was honestly some of my favorite parts because then you'd have to spend time to do a little bit of research and figure out. I would like, I would do some like, probably too intense stuff, but I would like go to their Twitter, figure out what they're interested in. Like, oh, they like Game of Thrones. Let me find a funny Game of Thrones gif. And then I'll throw that into follow up email and just be like, hey, did you catch, you know, this last episode? Crazy, like whatever. You know, that kind of stuff. And that was, that was because at the end of the day, like. Like when people send those templatized emails, like you said, it's like, this is probably just a robot. This is probably just, you know, one click, like, mass email blast. But the moment I know there's actual human on the other side, like, that kind of changes the dynamic.
- [26:15]
Louise
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this might sound a little creepy, but, you know, I had. I added you on Instagram today. I was like, oh, man, this guy has an Instagram. Let's go follow him. And I noticed that you are, like, the. The master of crock pots, too, you know, so.
- [26:31]
Jonathan Marshall
So it's been on a chili kick lately.
- [26:35]
Louise
Honestly, it looked good. I was like, man, I wish I knew how to do something at the crock pot.
- [26:40]
Fonzie
Well, we go. I mean, you just shoot yourself in the foot. Now that we go there, you're gonna have to, like, something you want to go visit. And, you know, you're more than invited to come to Jacksonville, Florida, and we eat some Venezuelan arapas. It's happening. No, I love it. This is the best part of this, right? Like, we've. The conversation that we had over the last few weeks has been all about the relationships that we build over content, right? And it's like, okay, what's just now the event that we were at, you know, Dave, which you guys work with, like, Dave Gerhardt, like, what's was saying, like, was asking to the group, like, what do you feel when you publish? Like, what are the things that you've noticed like, about these things when you are consistent and building their relationships? And it's about that because opportunities will follow, right? Like, you connect, you talk. You have things in common, like Game of Thrones or Crockpots or whatever that is, right? For example, we have a crazy story with. With Monica. This guest that came in. This is when Clubhouse was a really big thing before. Before Sean, you know, tweeted that he was going to fail, and it was true. And, you know, we jump on this room, and it's just, you know, she starts talking to me, and this was a person that came to the show, and we're like, sweet. She lives in Boise, Idaho, at the other side of the country, where we are. And we start having conversations like, where are you cooking? And I'm like, cooking at night. I'm like, I'm making this thing called an arepa. She's like, oh, my gosh. What's an arepa? And I'm like, well, I explained what it is. Two weeks later, we're in Boise, Idaho, for An event. And she texts like, you guys are here. You have to come to my house and make the arepa. Right. So we ended up meeting with her at her house, cooking this massive batch of arepas for her. Her family. We ended up staying with them for like, four days. Yeah, well, you know, she. She is very in the community that we're in and was able to introduce us to incredible people that have meant the world to us and our business. Not just like client wise, but like mentors and people that helped us in very. In moments of need. So investing that relationship from the get go is incredible. So thank you for sharing, like, how you do it, because I think a lot of people are missing the mark big time and these are actionable steps that they can implement today to actually make that happen and move that forward. So thank you.
- [28:48]
Jonathan Marshall
Totally, totally. And like, yeah, it's like those relationships can come very organically and, like, result in y' all cooking a rapist together. Or it could be like, I have like a DM from someone from like four years ago and then bumped into them in Austin like a week ago, and now we're buds. It's like those, like, you know, there's so many dots that. That, yeah, like, you can't connect in the moment. And then looking back, the standards job.
- [29:15]
Louise
Saying, it's like, yeah, yeah, absolutely, man, absolutely. So I feel like this has something to do with how then you transition into HubSpot.
- [29:25]
Fonzie
Right.
- [29:25]
Louise
And I'm curious to hear that story. How was it? Did you create the opportunity? The opportunity came to you because of these relationships. Yeah. How did the go. Experience go?
- [29:36]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah. So after I exited the agency in early 2021, I kind of just spent a few months to kind of like, try my hand at like, my own podcast, which didn't last long. I still have dreams of bringing it back, but did that for a little bit and did some work with Noah Kagan, who's, you know, big marketer. He's been growing his YouTube channel. Really?
- [29:56]
Fonzie
His YouTube game is on point. Like, I. I've been loving his videos when he goes to houses and like, cold outreach.
- [30:04]
Jonathan Marshall
Awesome. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, his producer is one of my best friends, Jeremy. Shout out to Jeremy Mary, let's go. But I started, you know, writing YouTube scripts for him and doing podcast stuff for him. Just kind of like part time, basically, while I was like, kind of figuring my own stuff out and all in the background, sort of just like waiting for an opportunity. I knew, you know, I've been in podcasting for like four years. And I was, I just sort of looked around. I was like, okay, if I did work with the company, there's like a short list of who I'd want to work for. And HubSpot, like, was just clearly at the top. Like, they're just doing the coolest shit. They acquire the Hustle. My first million is my favorite podcast. It's just checked all the boxes. And so I was like, how do I just beeline into getting myself into that organization? And so like Sam, over the course of like those, you know, eight months that I was working for Noah, he would post like, hey, looking for a producer or looking for a guest booker or whatever. And the timing was just never quite right each time. But then finally after like three or four months, he posted another one and I was like, oh, this is my opportunity. So, yeah, around like, I guess like August ish, like he posts something on Twitter saying, hey, looking for like a guest booker, I think. And I was like, he's like, in the, in the tweet thread, in this tweet, you know, you have 240 characters. Like, explain why you're the man for the job. I put four bullets, like, ran a podcast booking agency responsible for over like a thousand bookings, blah, blah, blah. Just like kind of like my resume. And basically I said that this is my 10 second bio and boom, boom, boom. And that got his attention. And also just through like, him kind of knowing Noah and stuff like that, that also helped. But anyways, that was like, what kind of got his attention. And then job posting comes up. I go through the whole process and I just start like, basically, you know, so for those who aren't familiar, like, the Hustle is a big tech and media newsletter and Sam's the founder of it. He also has my first million his podcast. And then within that, like, HubSpot has a bunch of different, like, channels. So Trends Co is one of like the, basically like the daughter things within the Hustle. I know that's a little bit confusing, but anyways, I would host events through Trends as another way to kind of get my name in front of, you know, decision makers at HubSpot. So basically like, like, like, you know, ping Sam, ping. Like Trends ping, like Steph, who's head of, you know, basically like all the kind of media going on at HubSpot and just like trying to sort of insert myself in all these different conversations and just add value upfront. And so one of the first things I did was like, hey, Sam. After, like, he responded to my, my, my message, I DM'd him. And I was like, hey, here's a list of 100 plus guests I could book on your show, like this month type of thing. And you know, that also really excited him. And then I just started like kind of like doing work up front without any expectation. And whether it was the guest list or like these kind of spreadsheets on like how they could grow the show or whatever, I just tried to like basically make it an absolute no brainer for them to hire me. So by the time like the actual job interview came around, I'd already built out like all these different assets that I was able to like point to during the interviews and be like, they're like, how would you, you know, approach guest outreach? And I'm like, oh, funny you asked that. I've actually got this whole spreadsheet that I can send you how I would approach, you know, so it's like, it's sort of like build one, sell twice type of thing where it's like you just build it all up front and maybe you never use it, but the odds are it's going to come handy in some way.
- [33:21]
Louise
Absolutely.
- [33:22]
Fonzie
This is so inspiring, man. Thank you, by the way, for sharing the full story on how the pieces work together. Because it does take work, right? Like it's crazy. Like when we've been probably both sides where we've been, you know, trying to find opportunities, right? And we've also, over the last two years we've been on the side to. We need people to bring to the team. How do we handle that, right? Like, who are we actually picking right for, for these roles and it's experiences like the one that you just described that normally we would like to find those, right? Like, so as a company, right, you're like, okay, how can I create an environment that I can elaborate a little bit more on that. I mean, like, how can we attract that top talent, right? Especially like the event that we just wear, like that was one of the main topics. But also on the other side, like for example, you know, for us when we bring our guests, like it's us, like we don't have A EA or VA that does it. That's our decision because we love to connect on a one on one with our guests before they come in and build that relationship. A big part of what we do and how we do it. So I think also an important point is like you made the process like your own and you were so proactive.
- [34:26]
Louise
So these, like before you go on a question here, there's a Few points that I think they're so valuable for, you know, the listener to understand. And it kind of goes back to those principles that you shared with the COLD outreach, which is the first one. And this is the acronym we use is wft. Right? What's in it for them? And you. That's all you had in their mind is like, okay, how can I help them make what what they are doing even better, right? Okay, they need more quality guests. Guess what? This is the list. I got the experience. I know how to do it. I know which guest would be absolutely amazing in your podcast, because I consume your podcast, right? Then you're like, okay, who are the people that are around the environment that I want to be in? Cool. Let me be friends with them. Let me reach out to them. Plot twist right here. This podcasting is one of the best mediums to build those relationships. So, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, Jonathan. Obviously, I was like, this guy on LinkedIn is super cool, but at the same time, I was like, damn, this guy is the head of Growth Spot. Let me see if I can, you know, try to bring it and have a conversation with him. And now turns out we're like Crockpot Chili brothers over here. So, you know, I've been thinking about.
- [35:47]
Fonzie
The marriage between Crockpot Chili and Arepa, and I'm like, I can't. I can't focus on the interview you anymore.
- [35:54]
Louise
That'd be very interesting. But, you know, you did all this by putting them in front of you and thinking, what's in it for them? So again, at the end of the day, you're just being selfless. You're leading with value. So when the opportunity presents itself, right? I mean, you're not being reactive. You're being total. Total opposite. You're being 100% proactive in search of this opportunity. So again, just ask yourself, right, the listener right now, what can I do proactively to go and take advantage of these opportunities? There is a possibility because you are not in control of whether the person on the other side says yes or no, but you are 100% in control on whether you deliver a lot of value upfront to that relationship.
- [36:40]
Jonathan Marshall
100%.
- [36:43]
Fonzie
How can. How can people use this? I'll call it at scale, right? Like, let's say you are using a strategy like this for whatever, getting clients, right? Like, it's just you. Maybe there's one va. Maybe, right? Like what. What's it like? It. Can it be scalable, right? Like we. How we. How we produce our show. And there is the vehicle of our show. It's a step in our process. But we found that a lot of people starting up, they might be very confused or intimidated. Right? They're like, oh, man. Like, that sounds like. That sounds incredible. But it's like just the thought of like building all that out can cause a lot of friction to actually go ahead and execute it. Right. So is there a way to scale it? Where were some tools? Automation? Was it a va? Was it just you? Right. And just consistency? What are some things and lessons that maybe you can bring to us?
- [37:34]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah, as far as Legion for the agency, it was a lot of hiring EAs to pull the lists and then they were honestly the ones kind of sending emails, those two sentence emails, and then we would be the ones who responded to them. But a lot of that can be outsourced as far as finding the names and then clicking send on that email. Then on the guest booking side. So the tools I loved and used at our agency. So on the kind of research side, if you're trying to find podcasts to go pitch, you can use a tool like Refonic R E P H O N I C. And basically it's just a big database that lets you search by keyword and find podcasts in your niche. I always recommend, if you're using a tool like that, like, probably sort by listenership based on, like, you're gonna get fed like the top shows out there. So if you type in like entrepreneurship or whatever, you'll see Joe Rogan at the top and people get bright eyes and they're like, oh, I can find Joe Rogan's producer's email. Like, I actually recommend you start at the bottom of the list, Start small and work your way up. Because A, by doing that, you're going to get better at interviewing or becoming a better interviewer. And two, like, you're just going to be more likely to get a few wins under your belt and then you can point to those wins and say, hey, I was on this podcast, we talked about X, Y and Z. Would you be interested in having me on yours? So that's a great tool to find shows. And then as far as like managing your sort of like your outreach, I used HubSpot. That was another reason why I was super, you know, gung ho on, like, yeah, because their tools are amazing. So for all of the outreach, like, I manage it all in like their CRM and leverage, like their sales tool for different pipelines. I have a thread on Twitter if anyone wants to check it. Out. It's pinned to the very top of my tweets and it kind of details all the different tools and like how I used HubSpot a little bit. So if you want to search at bar the number 5 hop, it's my last name with the number 5 instead of S. That. That thread will kind of at least point you in the right direction. But yeah, the, the main tools are refonic for research, HubSpot, kind of like, you know, back end CRM, like templates, email templates, all that stuff. And then, you know, a few other tools that I kind of detail in that thread are just sort of like how to add a little bit of extra, you know, like personalization to each of your.
- [39:52]
Fonzie
I love it. By the way, the link is going to be right below. So all you got to do is scroll down and just click there and it's going to take you directly to the profile.
- [39:59]
Louise
Yeah, and you mentioned something that is a principle that we shared before. We call it the levels of influence. Right. And let's say, Joe Rogan, the example that you. That you use is level A, right. Is probably one, if not the most difficult podcaster probably to communicate with. But you got influence level D, right, Which can be just a podcast that is a step or two above yours. And it's way easier to reach out to them, have them on your show or vice versa. You be in their show and like you said, just get a few wins under your belt. And by doing that, you can kind of like go up that influence ladder step by step until eventually getting to your goal. Right. Again, it's not going to be overnight. It takes work, a lot of time and a lot of consistency. So you better understand that. Right. But it's, it's a great concept because a lot of people just try to aim so high at first, and then they just get a bunch of losses and they get discouraged and they stop doing it when instead it's like, hey, there are so many options at one, just one level above you that you can leverage. Right. Build those relationships, focus on value. We go back to the same, same principles that we've talked about. All the part, all the episode today, and then you can move on to the next one. So thank you for sharing that. I think that's extremely important.
- [41:21]
Jonathan Marshall
Totally. And it goes also back to kind of what I was saying earlier of like kind of picking your lane and kind of sticking to it because there are so many podcasts out there. So if you are trying to go on every marketing show, like that's Going to be pretty overwhelming. And, like, soon you'll be having like 200 outgoing emails, and it's just sort of like, a lot to manage. But if you're like, oh, we're just focusing on content for this type of business leader or this type of company, then that narrows your search down and you can have a list of 50 shows or whatever that probably actually would love to have you on because you're the perfect kind of, like, guest for that show.
- [41:54]
Louise
Yes, absolutely.
- [41:55]
Fonzie
This is so good. I know.
- [41:56]
Louise
I want to transition here a little bit, though. This is great.
- [42:00]
Fonzie
I want to know the secret of, like, how we grew 40% in three months. Tell me.
- [42:05]
Louise
We had a super click baity headline. We need to deliver on that promise. Right. So tell us a little bit about that. I mean, crazy growth. Honestly, we've been a fan since, like, almost the very beginning. I'm not gonna lie. I told my bro I got it. I got him into the. Into that. Because I. Addiction.
- [42:24]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah.
- [42:24]
Fonzie
I'm like, he's guilty.
- [42:26]
Louise
Yeah. I followed the hustle. We became members of Trends since they launched it, and when they started that podcast, I was like, man, this is awesome. Honestly. So I'm curious now how. What did you guys do to grow that podcast considerably? Right. Specifically, I'm more interested in your role, like, what have been some of the things that you came in there implemented and helped them literally scale that thing to the moon.
- [42:56]
Jonathan Marshall
Totally. Yeah. Well, I think first off, it's important to note, like you said, the show is incredible. Sam and Sean are incredible. If you listen to an episode, there's a good chance you're going to listen to another episode and then another episode and then another episode. And so you can't get that. Like, you can't knock that because incredible content, very, like, engaging hosts. So that's kind of like the baseline there. So. And then in terms of actually, like, getting audience. So my background is entirely in earned media, meaning I was doing podcasts, getting people guested. Sorry, Getting people booked as guests on podcasts. No experience at all in paid. And so this last four months that I've been at the company has been like a literal MBA in, like, paid advertising and podcasting. And I've learned so much. So I can. I can kind of talk through some of this. Some of the stuff we've done, we've done a lot. So, you know, kind of like, basically my job when I came in was like, to build this. This podcast growth playbook. And based on, like, a lot of the research I had done in the space. I kind of came to this conclusion that like, okay, Jordan Harbinger, he is sort of the, I don't know if you all familiar with him, but he's got a wildly podcast and he's grown it from 0 to 11 million downloads in like three years. And a lot of that, you know, there's, there's definitely some caveats in there. So he, you know, he had a show previously, he ended up having a falling out with his like co founders or whatever, co hosts. And then so he had a little bit of like a built in audience to begin with. He also had a lot of relationships, casting space that he could leverage to launch a show and say, hey, can you give me a shout out? Can I get on your show? So I can't discount that. But he's, he's kind of said over the last two years of all of his marketing budget has pretty much gone to two things. Gone to host red ads, which is like y' all reading an ad for Jordan Harbinger show and buying ads on podcast players. And this is a playbook for a, you know, someone who has substantial funds to grow shows. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you the background on this, but I can also give you the bootstrap version of it and how to, you know, approach with like $0, basically. But yeah, for, for, for my first million, we had some substantial budget. So we invested in all the, all the things I just said, like hosted ads, podcast players. We did a lot of stuff. We did a lot of YouTube ads, which, you know, I don't think is like the smartest way to grow a podcast. But hey, if you have extra budget, you got to put it somewhere.
- [45:15]
Fonzie
Yeah.
- [45:16]
Jonathan Marshall
And you know, there's a lot of other like, channels that we leveraged. But, but at the end of it, at the end of like, you know, testing all this stuff from basically October to December, what we came back to is, okay, the most effective things over that time period were one host read ads. At least for us. Like, because we had the budget we could spend and we saw, okay, if we spend this amount of money, we can get this, these many subscribers. So that was one piece of it. The podcast players, you know, to varying degrees, you'll get success. One of the most successful ones we ran was on Castbox, but you know, that's like a $10,000 buy. So again, it's not cheap.
- [45:50]
Fonzie
Yeah.
- [45:51]
Jonathan Marshall
And then the third component was these kind of like viral giveaways that we did. So we did one thing where we did Like a clips contest where we basically crowdsourced from our audience to create amazing clips. I think y' all actually did some of them as well.
- [46:02]
Louise
Yeah, we did.
- [46:03]
Fonzie
We're still waiting for the. The 5K. No, I'm kidding.
- [46:08]
Jonathan Marshall
Well, we're gonna be doing another contest, so.
- [46:11]
Fonzie
So I'm just gonna say that we gotta step up our game 100%. The, the, our team, they were like, they were on it and they were, they're not happy and they're like, when is the next one? So they're ready.
- [46:22]
Louise
They're ready. I love that strategy. That was, that was genius from you guys.
- [46:26]
Jonathan Marshall
Yes. So, yeah, that was a big one. We also did different, like we did a giveaway where we said because not everyone can afford to, you know, get like different prizes to give away and stuff like that, so we did another giveaway where basically you could win 60 minutes of time with Sam and Sean, which, you know, super valuable. So that was another really successful one. And basically we just, we just figured out that we have this like, very die hard audience of fans. It's kind of like an army of people that are ready to take action, you know, sort of at a moment's call. And so that's sort of like one of the biggest levers that we're using to grow the pod now is like crowdsourcing content, finding people who are genuine, genuine fans of the show and maybe like buying ads on their show, that kind of thing. And then, yeah, just like the podcast players, like those are kind of all the low hanging fruits.
- [47:09]
Fonzie
Yeah. I feel like since you guys launched that contest and got the results, Sam has not stopped talking about how awesome and how in shock he is. And, and we, you know, we obviously paid a very close attention to it because obviously we were participating and you know, 100, we could have done 100 better every single time. Just that that's the growth mindset.
- [47:31]
Louise
We can always do, always do better.
- [47:32]
Fonzie
But we're like very close to what's happened, what was happening around, right? And it was incredible because you guys got people from all over the place. And then on the marketing side as well, we were very curious to see what the result of that was going to be. So just on the micro asset side of things, millions of impressions, right? So just as brand awareness and people consume content in different ways in different platforms, right? So the TikTok consumer will enjoy the TikTok content, might be aware that there's a podcast, right? And because of the repetition, the points of contact that happens there whenever they transition into Listening to a podcast, they will tune in, right? Same thing happens with YouTube, same things happen with other platforms. I think that's super valuable. You know, we obviously that's part of our product and how we help people, right? So we're going to obviously advocate for this, but we call it the safety net effect, right? So you're developing this audience and the way that you guys executed it, right? Like you guys had a budget, right? Like it was out there. But for, for some people that or the nationalities where they are, those $5,000 is life changing, right? It could be like a full year worth of living expenses for some, right? And it was a great motivator for them. Like the trade to do this and the exposure you guys got was incredible. So I truly hope that you guys keep doing, whether, you know, whether it's us. We honestly like that will be just this experience. This exchange has been so worth it. But just the fact that some people can put their, their foot out there and in an even field play and have that opportunity and is a win win for literally everybody, right? Because now they also have a case study that they can go and be like, hey, by the way, this is what I did with this brand or with this podcast, right? And they can go and actually follow those opportunities, right, with the amazing cold outreach strategies that you've been saying all day. So I think it was a great execution. So thank you for sharing.
- [49:17]
Louise
I had to two questions and we got about five minutes left here. But that these are the main questions that come to mind. First, of course, like you mentioned, they already had kind of like an audience that you guys can leverage and you guys have a big budget that you can take advantage of, right? So for the bootstrappers out there, right? How can they do these things if maybe they don't have a die hard audience at first, right? And they don't have a really big budget. And I'm pretty sure this is go on the side of the guerrilla marketing type of deal. But I'm curious to listen your thoughts on this. And then the other thing is you guys are running paid media. Are you guys turning that earned media into owned media? Right? Are you guys getting people's emails addresses and then you know, doing email campaigns when you guys release new podcasts or leveraging that as leads for HubSpot? I'm extremely curious on how you guys are because I know advertisers for a fact. Like we've been living in this world, specifically in the direct response marketing world. You don't want to just Spend the money and just leave it out there in the ether. Right. You want to capitalize in a way. So I'm curious how you guys are doing that.
- [50:37]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah, like, it's funny, when I came on, I was expecting, like, you know, joining HubSpot and all these, you know, huge company and hustle, you know, incredible team. But when I got to my first million, it's literally Sam, Sean, the producer, and like, their researchers, and that's it. And like, they have conversations with the HubSpot team and make sure everything's on track, but it's like they are their own operations siloed kind of in their own world. And I was just like, that was kind of like a shock to me. So a lot of those systems, the reason there isn't a weekly newsletter is because we just haven't prioritized it yet. But we have all the capabilities. We have this huge company to do it. So those are kind of like the someday maybe type things that we're definitely going to be doing in the near future. But in terms of taking some of that, that paid media and turning it into like, owns. So perfect example is the clips contest. The guy who ended up winning that, we basically ended up hiring him and, you know, like, more or less, like, kind of he handed over, like, a lot of the videos that he created for us, and now we're turning those videos into Instagram and Spotify ads. So, yeah, totally. Like, that's. That's another, like, beautiful part of that is the kind of, like, secondary use you get out of, like, a lot of those pieces of content. And then I think you also had a question about, like, how to bootstrap if you are trying to do some of these things. So I think if you are already have a show and you're trying to grow it and you don't have a lot of money guesting on other shows and figuring out ways to do, like, swaps with other. With. With other podcasts or. Yeah, figuring out some sort of structures where you could do source cross promos with. With other shows that are of similar size. Like, that's always a good thing. That could be anything from, like, guessing on each other's shows to y' all each run an ad on each other's shows to a full episode drop within each other's RSS feeds.
- [52:30]
Louise
Oh, I love that.
- [52:30]
Jonathan Marshall
So there's a lot of different ways to kind of skin that cat. But yeah, that is the best way to do it is just. Or, you know, kind of what would. You know, a lot of What I've been talking about is like cold outreach and trying to figure out a win win for both parties.
- [52:44]
Fonzie
Yeah.
- [52:46]
Jonathan Marshall
And then a way to kind of go. So if you're thinking about like doing a giveaway, this is a cool hack that I recently learned. I think giveaways for a podcast are great for like spark in the like flash in the pan type thing. So if you're, if you're launching a show like we just did with the Hustle Daily show, we ran a contest. It was hugely successful. We got to the number one chart spot in the, the business news section. And we're up there with like Bill O'Reilly and stuff, stuff like that. And I just got a shout out.
- [53:16]
Louise
Yeah, let's go. There we go.
- [53:22]
Jonathan Marshall
And so basically, yeah, so like what we did there was we. I totally lost my train of thought. I was saying, oh, launch. Okay. So we had like, yeah, we had like, you know, tech giveaway. We gave away iPad, AirPods, stuff like that. And we created this funnel that basically is just like a viral loop. So anyone who entered the contest, the first thing they had to do was follow the podcast. Because a lot of people don't know this, but like the best, the only way to. Not the only way. If you were trying to chart on Apple, follows are the most important thing. Like you should just get everyone to try to follow. Don't leave a review, don't, you know, maybe download and listen a little bit. But follows are the most important thing. So the, the campaign I set up was like, okay, get people to follow. And then on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, we posted videos of the giveaway and the next call to action was like. And comment on the, on that post. And so that way you have a consistent flood of people like liking and commenting on the contest giveaway post. And so it's just like a viral loop of people constantly like entering and getting more points when they promote the podcast. And then the more it's promoted on social media, more people see it. So that's a big component of it. We also ran some Facebook ads in the background, but that's not worth highlighting. And then so yeah, it's like a seven day contest. And so yeah, we, we have $5,000 worth of tech gadgets that were given away. But a way to do this for free is you. And this is taken from another podcast that just recently launched. One of my buddies launched this show for a barbecue and grilling YouTuber and he's got like a little bit of an audience to begin with. And what he did was he reached out to different brands in his space, whether it was like a grill company or like a barbecue sauce company or whatever. And he was like, hey, I'm running this big giveaway. Would you want to give me a free product and return you get promo for that product. We're doing this huge giveaway. Like, you're gonna get a ton of eyeballs on this. And so that's a really cool way to kind of growth hack it of being like, reach out to brands that you think your podcast, your giveaway aligns with. See if they give you free product and then you don't have to spend a penny.
- [55:24]
Fonzie
And it's incredible. Like, people say, like, people would say no to this. And you'll be surprised how many people say yes. We've done it with small businesses and different things, and it was directly related to, like, a funnel, and it was a whole thing. And I think the last one that we did on that specific thing, completely organically, no ads, no nothing, was 2,000 leads in about two days. Just like three emails. It was six different businesses. And by the way, if you're listening and you work in a local business, like a small business, this is perfect because you don't have to do any kind of paid media side of things. And then after that, it was like a quick transition to 300 bookings, 300 people going to a wealthness studio. Right. And you're like, what? They thought it was a mistake. Right. So these things, like, people will say, yes. You just have to go ask. Right. And use the frameworks that, you know, we've shared here today. This episode is probably one of my favorites so far.
- [56:14]
Louise
It's good.
- [56:15]
Fonzie
Not. We don't say this to everybody, by the way. I'm just going to put this out there.
- [56:19]
Louise
You're going to have to listen to every episode just to prove that statement.
- [56:22]
Fonzie
Right?
- [56:23]
Louise
You know?
- [56:23]
Fonzie
I know, dude. That's awesome. Okay. By the way, I'm going to put this out there, part two, at some point, because one of the things with the chili. With the chili and the RF is like, you know, I really wanted to explore frameworks on how you guys stay consistent. That's one of the top friction points in a lot of things. And I don't think we'll have time right now, but. But I really want to explore that. But Fonzie, I don't know. Any last thoughts?
- [56:45]
Louise
Just the last question is because there's been plenty of action points in today's episode, but where would you be if you didn't create content if you didn't publish, man.
- [56:57]
Jonathan Marshall
I see. I am like, not the most active person on Twitter. I don't have like a ton of blog posts or anything like that. But the act of going through that and like, I think this is kind of like a something that doesn't get written about or talked about enough. But it's like, if you are doing, like, the reps sort of behind the scenes, and even if you don't press publish, I think there's still a lot of value there. For example, I was saying that when I left the agency in February, I started my own podcast. I never really released it, but I learned so much through the process of. I did all the things, I interviewed guests and I tried to figure out the formatting, and nothing just really stuck with me and, like, called me. But I am such a better, like, host slash interviewee, slash, like producer, all the things, because I went through that and I never published a lot of it. But yeah, I. I have all the skills now. And I think that's kind of like a lot of people say you have to press publish, you have to press publish. And I do think, like, you totally should, but if you don't and you're still kind of like, you know, working on stuff behind the scenes, it's not the worst thing in the world. So I would say, you know, consistency and all that stuff is super. Are important. But, you know, people fall off the wagon. Like, I tried to build a daily writing habit and I did for, you know, like three months, and then I felt the wagon and now I don't. But, like, I think, I think also people tend to hold that stuff too, like, close to the chest and say, like, you have to consistently write. You have to consistently, whatever, whatever. But, like, so much of the writing I do like, is just like, through work emails. And that is like a short, effective, like, writing. You know, it's like when I'm crafting an email to get someone booked, like, that might as well be a blog post because it's like, so. It's so, you know, you're so being. You're being so nitpicky with every word you choose. Same is true of, like, a report that I'm sending, like, my higher ups. I need every word to be, like, crystal clear and, like, super detailed. And so, like, even if I'm not pressing publish on a lot of these things, like, publicly, anytime I click send on one of those emails or whatever, I sort of treat that as like my own pressing publish. If that makes Sense.
- [58:52]
Fonzie
Yeah, that's such a cool answer. And very different to what we've seen in the past episodes, too, because it's doing the reps, right? Like, it's like, what is it? Is that every single message? I mean, at the end of the day, that's still publishing, right? It's just publishing to one person. When we first started publishing, it was a Facebook Live and we had one person, right? It was Fonzie listening to mine, and.
- [59:10]
Louise
I was listening to his roasting each other.
- [59:13]
Fonzie
But it was like that. That was the thing that. That started to create momentum, right? And eventually, right, If. If we're very big fans of creating your own framework, your own systems, like your own team, right? That's how really you can adapt and move very quickly, right? And a lot of people still, I feel like, need to. That needs to be understood, right? It's like, no, the production of this, I can give it to an intern or I can give it to, like, this person that doesn't know me, doesn't know the stories, doesn't know, like, hasn't published ever. So the fact that you went through the reps and. And share this openly to where, like, the reps doesn't mean that it has to be public. The reps can be. Every single email, every single dm, every single slack message that we put out there, that's still so valuable because it's gonna help you take it to the next level. So thank you for sharing that.
- [59:58]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah.
- [59:58]
Louise
Jonathan, where can people find you? Where can people connect with you? You know, maybe if they want to read these tweets, get cold email, you know?
- [60:07]
Jonathan Marshall
Yeah, yeah. On Twitter, on Instagram, it's my last name bar shop number five instead of the letter S. So B A, R5, H, O, P. If you Google my name, I'm sure you'll find all the different socials and all that stuff. And my DMs are pretty much wide open, so hit me up.
- [60:22]
Louise
Awesome. Yeah, I just hit him up. When I saw the chili thing, I was like, yo, what's up, Jonathan? I'm curious. Yeah, can I. Can I get some chili? I'm curious why the 5 instead of the S?
- [60:35]
Jonathan Marshall
Because bar shops taken, unfortunately. You know, it's one of those, like, dead accounts with like one person who's following it. And I wanted to have like a universal Instagram, but it is on podcast. It's tough to say, so I think I need to rethink that a little bit. But it also just kind of looks badass. So that's another Reason it does look.
- [60:52]
Fonzie
It can also be if you ended up doing like, some merch or stuff like that.
- [60:57]
Jonathan Marshall
Totally. With a logo that could be like five. Like, Gary Vee always throws up the number five, so I could. I could steal that from him or something.
- [61:04]
Fonzie
There we go.
- [61:05]
Louise
Absolutely. No, I think it's pretty cool. See, I was curious if there was like, an epic story behind it. Not so epic, but it's still pretty cool story.
- [61:14]
Fonzie
It just threw you on the bus big time. I mean, all the report that able to build for an hour out the window is gone. So. By the way, pick a bro. Fonzie is out of. Out of the question. You're good.
- [61:24]
Jonathan Marshall
Part two. Part two, not happening.
- [61:28]
Fonzie
By the way, we got live feedback over here. The five looks great. Let's go. Thanks.
- [61:33]
Jonathan Marshall
Love you.
- [61:35]
Louise
Jonathan, anything else you would like to.
- [61:38]
Jonathan Marshall
Add before we head out? No, I mean, I guess, like, to kind of reiterate on that last point, it's like you can be doing a lot of stuff. Stuff behind the scenes that, you know and kind of like kicking yourself because you aren't, like, out there pressing publish and like, being public about it. But I think with everything, it's like, there's seasons of life. And so, like, right now I just don't have the time and energy to, like, publicly press publish. But I'm still building, like, all the, you know, tools and, like, systems and like, my own crafting my own sort of, like, voice behind the scenes to where when it is a season to, like, be in promo mode and do more of this kind of stuff, like, it's going to be super dialed in and, like, I'm going to be kind of ready and prepared. So I think that's something I'll just leave people with is like, even if you don't feel like you're making progress and you see a lot of other people, like, pressing publish and doing all this cool stuff on social, it doesn't feel like you're making progress, but you actually are.
- [62:29]
Fonzie
So that's so important to understand. Thank you for sharing that. And by the way, as soon as you do that, we're going to be like, keeping an eye very closely because the thing that you do is literally the secret sauce to all of this.
- [62:42]
Louise
Because you're like, he's the genius behind the madness.
- [62:45]
Fonzie
It was a pleasure, man. Thank you so much again for. For coming up today. Fonzie, anything else you want to add before we head out?
- [62:51]
Louise
No, man. Thank you so much. It was an absolute honor having you here.
- [62:56]
Jonathan Marshall
Totally, totally. Yeah. Let me know when you all come to Austin, we'll get some chills.
- [62:59]
Louise
Absolutely. Yes.
- [63:01]
Fonzie
F1 next year has to happen. We're big fans, so we'll hang out. All right. With that said, thank you so much for tuning into the Content Profit Podcast. Go ahead and follow the show in your favorite podcasting platform and on social media at that is right.
- [63:14]
Louise
And if Jonathan here help you move one step closer towards your goal, please don't forget to share this episode. And and I'm not gonna ask you for a review, but a follow. So see ya.
- [63:26]
Fonzie
Bye, guys.