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- [00:00]
A
I am not in control of the outcome, only the levers that trigger possibilities. My content is worthy of generating revenue. My content is worthy of creating revenue for me. I think a lot of us, we sell ourselves short because we're like, oh, well, not doing anything, like, valuable, like, in a way that can earn money. If you're podcasting, like, isn't what you're doing already valuable?
- [00:20]
B
Like, what is the promise that I'm giving my audience that I'm solving for them? And if that continues to happen over time, over a long period of time, they're going to keep coming back because it's like, well, these guys are solving my problems. I just need to, to listen to them for free. That's amazing.
- [00:34]
A
I shared this quote a couple years ago on stage and I just, I said this, I said, there's a million ways to make a million dollars. And they're all ways that no one has figured out yet.
- [00:43]
B
Hey, guys, and welcome back to Content is Profit. Today is a very interesting episode. I just had an incredible conversation with Alex and Filippo, the founder of Podmatch, and we were talking in front of their podcast network. They are about to head to 500 shows in their network and we're talking about different ways that a podcast can be profit and six very specific ways that you can play with to make sure that your show and your business is getting traction. So it was a great conversation. He's actually asking me some of the questions, so that's why you will feel like he is the host on that. But anyways, if you want to check him out, you can go to podmatch.com they're incredible platform to collaborate on your content. And Alex, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to your network. All right, enjoy the episode.
- [01:33]
A
We're talking about the hidden systems behind every profitable podcast today and I'm excited to talk about it. Before we get into it though, I don't usually say it like this, but man, just really briefly, share what you do. Because I like, I knew what I wanted to say, but it's, it's too long. I like to share everything that you do. Just share the important stuff for us real quick.
- [01:50]
B
Just important stuff?
- [01:51]
A
Yeah.
- [01:52]
B
I'm a father of two wonderful kids. I've been running around here, so if you hear them, maybe that's why. But we, I mean, we own a production house. I've been calling a production house. So we have like three verticals. One is our agency size. So we create long form content, short form content for people. Amazing. Like you Know, to the extent of Alex, for example, we don't create his content, but like him.
- [02:16]
A
And then, I mean, yeah, we do some work together.
- [02:18]
B
We created together. Yes. We own a physical podcast studio that we rent out the rooms for for people, and then we do podcast production, and then we also have a community called Business Creator Club. So that's the fast version of what's live today.
- [02:33]
A
Sweet. These guys got a great. A great podcast. What network are you all in? You guys are in a podcast network yourself?
- [02:39]
B
Yeah, we have continuous profit. You see our custom sign out here? One of our guests sent us that. But we're in the husband podcast network. They want to be like your network, Alex. Just saying. I don't know.
- [02:52]
A
You know, it's interesting. They did approach me about. About this, and it's just too early. That's all. I just told them, like, hey, like, I'm like, got my. I got the creators in mind, and it's just too early. But you've done a really good job because HubSpot's very picky with who they pick. Be in there in their network and anyway, but a lot of respect for what you. What you and your brother Fonzie have done. You all have done some. Some seriously good work. Your show is amazing. Still to this date, one of my favorite shows I've ever been on. So.
- [03:16]
B
Thank you, man. Thank you.
- [03:18]
A
Yeah, for sure. All right, man. So today I want to talk about the hidden systems. The hidden system behind every profitable podcast. First off, like, you're a systems guy. You understand the profit side as well. Give us an overview of what we're talking about here, and then we'll just kind of go into it.
- [03:32]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the question that we set out to, you know, to figure out when we started our show. Content is profit, hence the name is. We wanted to figure out for ourselves, too, because we're coming out of a situation where on our agency work, we didn't have reliable systems or where, you know, relying on word of mouth. We're doing local work here where we live, and it was just very inconsistent. So we're like, we need to figure this out if we're going to continue to do this. This was like 2018, 2019. Right. And then we launched the show, try to find it. And not only by producing our show, I think we are 700 some episodes right now, but also developing the business side, we've discovered, like, these six levers that our customers, that at the time, the people that we are starting to work with, have very solid businesses, and they just needed support in the production. But we started to see, like, these threads and commonalities between the very successful people on the business side and then the content and how that connects. So we've seen many case studies. We worked with many case studies, and we started seeing these, like, six things that continue to show up in every successful business and channel or podcast. So that's a little bit of the tease on how, you know, what are the those things that we're going to uncover together. And these are levers, right? Some people might have some more of lever one, and then the other ones will have a little bit more of lever five, and that's okay. But it's like by knowing them and assigning those resources to those levers, people can play with their custom systems to make it happen, man, and hopefully build a successful show and a successful business.
- [05:08]
A
Dude, I love that you call it levers. And it actually made me think about this. I'm holding my daily planner here, and there's a quote that I have written down in it I'm going to read, which I had no intent on doing this today because now I look like I'm going to read all the chapter. I'm like, all right, so let's go with bedtime stories. Everyone happy today? So let's go ahead. So once upon a time, Luis joined Alex Sanfilippo for a podcasting conversation. I'm just kidding, but I wanted to read this. I am not in control of the outcome, only the levers that trigger possibilities. I am not in control of the outcome, only the levers that trigger possibilities. And so I think it's, like, really cool that we're talking about like that. That is a staple quote in my life, and I think it's really cool about levers. Like, some you might need to pull a bit more than others. Some might come natural to you, right? Like, there's all these different things, but in the day, it's possibility is what you're unlocking, right? The outcome will happen. It's just a matter of like. And no one's in control of any outcome. That's the thing. Like, these levers are. Are what enable you to receive that outcome which you're not in control of. Right? Such a matter of making the things move. And anyway, I just want to share that because I think it really relates. Well, I don't know if there's any more overview we need to give. If not, I want to move into number one. But before I do that, is there something else we need to cover before we jump straight in, I guess a
- [06:16]
B
little bit of pre work for this. Assuming that people listening or watching right now we want content to be connected with, I guess our business or a way to receive money. I think that's number one, right. If we, if you don't have that belief, if we just create content for the love of the art, I guess this will work a little bit, but I don't think it will be as relevant. And then the other concept that I really want to explain really quick is what we call the publishing pyramid. We're not going to go deep into it, but I want everybody to keep that in mind because you're going to have a little pyramid inside of each one of these levers and that's how you start assigning those things. So at the very top, right, we have the resources. What do we have? Time or money, for example. So are we the ones producing or is our team producing it? And like how much investment does that go? How many resources? Two hours a day, four hours a week, whatever. Like. So in your mind start thinking about like what is your own resource that you have? Do I have a team? Are they full time, are they part time? Is it just a va, that kind of stuff? Those resources are going to have capacity, right? So if, if it's me editing, when we first started, I only had 30 minutes a day to be able to create consistently. So what is those margins for you like? Or is it a budget of $5,000? Is it a budget of a thousand bucks? Is a zero dollars and a bunch of time, right? And then on the that capacity is what is our commitment on consistency? So I'm assuming a lot of people that are here in the room today are very consistent with their, with their podcast, especially if they are in the network. But now we're starting to think, okay, what if we experiment with a little bit more of volume? Can we keep the consistency with maybe a few more episodes or higher quality? Or you start playing with the levers that we're gonna talk about today. And at the bottom is obviously our messaging. You know, what is it? What are the things that we're talking about? Is it interesting enough for our audience? Right? Is it attracting the right people and so on. So with that pre frame, then we can go into the levers.
- [08:10]
A
Cool. I want to share something here that I think is like a belief that needs to be unlocked here. But it's something you said, Luisa. It's this. My content is worthy of generating revenue. My content is worthy of creating revenue. For me, and I think a lot of us, we sell ourselves short because we're like, oh, well, I'm not doing anything, like, valuable, like, in a way that can earn money. If you're podcasting, like, isn't what you're doing already valuable? Would you be posting if you didn't think what you were saying was valuable and would serve somebody? We're all worthy of that. And all of your content is premium, regardless of what the world may think. Just because we have access to it. That's a privilege that we all have. Right. It's not something we automatically deserve as people. I'm not telling you, like, put a paywall between you and the people that listen. Right. Like, in some cases, that can potentially make sense. But what I'm saying here is that what you're doing is worthy of monetization. It is. And so we're talking about these six levers we're going to go into. Like, this applies to anybody here who is doing something that is adding value and that you consider to be a value add to the world. So with that said, I want to get that out of the way, because I think that's important. That's an important mindset we all need to have. Yeah, let's just get into lever number one. Luisa, go for it.
- [09:15]
B
See? Absolutely. So number one is obviously, what do we say? Like, our messaging. At the end of the day, it's like, what? That's the base of it. We kind of tease it a little bit on the. On the column. But a lot of people that, you know, come to. To the studio, they might have a really good idea on how they want the podcast to look like. Or feel like it's like, oh, I love that set. Or I want that camera and I want it to look this way. And then we might have an idea of, like, the first, like, five episodes, but then after that, we're like, oh, boy. Once we start creating, it's like, what else do I say? Right? Like, so number one is, like, understanding really well. Number one, like, who are we helping, like, with this podcast? And it doesn't necessarily have to be like, that. You have a product that helps somebody. But, like, what you say, is it helping people navigate, you know, a specific, you know, problem that they're having? I think I was skimming through the. Through your page, right? And Great Dad Talks, for example, like, right here, it's just, like, speaks to me, right? Like, I want to be a great dad. What are, you know, what. What are these conversations about? Right. And I'm sure there's going to be some solution in there for the problems that I'm having today as a parent. So that alone is like, okay, how do we start finding that message that continues to resonate? And within that message is, what is the premise? Like, what is the promise that I'm giving my audience that I'm solving for them? And if that continues to happen over time, over a long period of time, they're going to keep coming back because it's like, well, these guys are solving my problems. I just need to listen to them for free. That's amazing. And then that starts a whole lot of other questions and follow up and. And so on and so on and so on, man.
- [10:51]
A
So, so this. This number one, which is, like, you said, it's kind of the obvious one, right? Like, what do we say? It's our messaging. You said a key word here, which was it needs to resonate for you. You scrolled through the network page, right? That's the page you're on, and you're
- [11:06]
B
saying, I'm on right now. Yeah.
- [11:07]
A
Okay. And you stopped on one that was about dads, like, being a dad, right? And you're. You mentioned in your introduction, like, you're a dad. It was the very first thing you said. And so, like, that makes sense. The messaging on that is clear who that's for. If there's any moms in this room or anyone like me that doesn't have kids, we would probably subconsciously scroll right past that, not even see it. But you caught it, right? I believe what the point here that you're getting at is, like, having the message right is absolutely key. And if it can be visual and written right there, where someone can see and feel that, like, yep, that's me, like, all the better, right? Like, and I think for us, it keeps us honest too, right? Because to your point, you mentioned, like, what's the promise? And you. You have to deliver on that promise. Well, if you're making the promise up front and people can see it, it helps us also subconsciously be like, my podcast is about this, right? If I call my show the Alex Sanfilippo show, there's no promise there. And even if I have one, it's pretty easy to change. Because if you're new, you don't know my promise is yet, right? It's like, how to be a better dad, right? That's your podcast. It better be about that. It better be the promise you're delivering on.
- [12:10]
B
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, if it were the Alex and Filippo we're investing in you, right? Like that's why you see a lot of celebrities and a lot of people that there are their product themselves and that's what the show is about. But you know, for somebody that maybe is trying to solve a problem, share stories, right? Like probably there's levels to this, it's okay, well, it's my name that's not known. Gonna pull a little bit more attention than maybe the topics I'm talking about, right? And then you get to a certain level and then that switches. So that's the other thing, like messaging evolves at the end of the day. I remember having one of our challenges. We did a 45 day live challenge back in the day where we challenge people to go live for 45 days in a row. And that's something that we did to unlock our publishing and that's how our show was born. But one of our customers, he had no idea what to say on these things, right? And we're like, by putting our constraint on a challenge to be able to deliver every single day and sometimes because we're on our own, or maybe we don't have a community like Podmatch for example, to be there and support us, maybe we say, I really want to do this. But then at the end of the day we sit down and maybe lack of resources, lack of knowledge, the gap is so massive that we don't know what to do. So by doing something like this, a little challenge of, you know, sharing something in the day and I'm breaking it down. That could be your pre podcast for obviously for a lot of people here, what does that look like in your own show? But for this guy, trying to find his message and that's okay. You can start the show as the Alex and Filippo show. And then it evolves after 10 episodes into the actual show. So these guys started talking and he just started sharing a framework that we share, which was share something that you're learning today or share something that happened yesterday and then connected with what you do or what you want to do. He wanted to coach and he found that every single day he was finding himself talking about leadership, about his faith, about his family. And those became the pillars of the show. And then after that he was able, after 10 days, that's a week and a half, he was able to pivot the show and name it something different. And he became an opportunity where he ended up meeting the his investor and then they build a co working space together. Wow, what an opportunity, man. So cool. Because he put himself out There and he's tested the message. That's something that we gotta understand. We can test the message ongoing. Even at 700 episodes, we still test the message, right? That we continue to do this right at the end of the day.
- [14:30]
A
I love the actionable, like the actual takeaway here for everybody. Like listen, even if we. Everyone here has a podcast and it's quite established at this point, but it's never too late to test things and you should always be willing to do that. I've seen some people more recently, they haven't done like any shorts or reels or anything like that. And that's been their test section, right? To see like what sticks, right? Like try it. Can't hurt. So love the action. Like how actionable that is, man. Let's move on to lever number two here. What do you got for us next?
- [14:56]
B
Yeah, so that's probably my favorite one and the one I'm more frustrated about.
- [14:59]
A
Hold on. You're supposed to say number six is your favorite. You got to keep everyone here the whole time. Can't say number two is your favorite.
- [15:04]
B
Number six is the most important one.
- [15:07]
A
Six.
- [15:08]
B
Number six is the most important.
- [15:09]
A
Go back to number one.
- [15:10]
B
So important. But this is my personal favorite is because is a creation. Like how do you actually create? And I think this is where a lot of people get hung up. I remember being in. In a conference and this was like a year in where we're podcasting and we're walking around the sponsors room or like the, the vendors area, right? And we see this guy has a massive list and we get to talk and he's asking us, hey, how long have you guys been podcasting? We're like, well, you know, a couple of years. We have 100 something episodes. We're excited. You know, we' brand new at the time. We're doing Facebook lives. And I'm like, what about you? Are you, are you getting a new equipment? And he's like showing me all the equipment. Very proud of all the stuff that he's getting, right? And I'm like, that's so cool. Like, how long have you been podcasting? He's like, I haven't launched yet. This is my second year coming to this conference. And I'm like, but why? It's like, well, I. I just need to get all this stuff right. And it's like it was $5,000 worth of stuff. And it got me thinking, right? Like a lot of, you know, a lot of the friction comes. We get distracted by the shiny objects and the, and the Gear. If we're all gearheads, I'm sure everybody here knows about what is the best microphone for your podcast or, you know, what is the best webcam or so on. And that can evolve. But the way that we create is like, what is the environment? And so, you know, we gotta look at ourselves and be like, based on my pyramid, my publishing pyramid, my resources, right? Do I actually have the $5,000 to actually buy this? Like, that's blocking me. That's friction. Like, how can I remove the friction? What do I need? Today you only need this little guy. Like whatever phone you have, you can start recording a voice note. And that is a podcast. My dad recorded his podcast on a voice note on his iPhone. Right? Like, it can happen. So it's like, what is that environment that we can build? And method of creation? So depends on your messaging and like, what you want to portray. Of course there's going to be levels to this, but identifying to get started or to elevate it, right? If you have it at certain points, like, okay, what is my next thing that I can do on my creation environment to make it better? Is that software? Is that something where I can push a button and everything turns on and it records, Right? Like, what would that look like? And I think we just dream with the top of the line stuff before we actually put in the time to get better and maximize everything else before investing a lot of that. So for me, I know that my method of creation is going to be a lot better if I talk to somebody on the other side. So what am I going to do to facilitate that? Well, I'm going to invite my people in a software that makes it easy. So for example, I use something called ECAMM live. So that is my method of creation. We create through ECAMM Live is an easy process. It removes the friction. For somebody else might be recording on their phone, in their car. We've had shows and guests that people are doing that, right? Like, that might be the best way possible. Some others might be recording on their closet. That's totally okay. But identifying those elements and be like, is this actually going to help me move forward or delay publishing or like evolving my show? Then we have to have a conversation, man.
- [18:14]
A
This idea of method of creation, like creating itself, like, this is the heart in the art of being a podcaster, right? This is the core of it. And I love what you're talking about here. What does your environment need? I immediately think of a podcaster. I'll leave her nameless because I don't know if she'd appreciate me saying this, but Alicia and I went to her house. She has done hundreds of millions of downloads on her show. And I was like, hey, can I see your studio? Because I knew she recorded from like, can I see your studio? Just like, I'm here, might as well see it. She's like, oh, I guess a little bit mess right now. I was like, what do you mean? She goes, it's my closet. And she's like, but come here, look. And she literally just pushed her clothes out of the way. Like they're all in hangers and push them down and she just has like a back drop. And then her camera, her computer, it's all like, right there. It's like a really small little space. And she just stands right there and does it. And I was like, oh, I thought you'd use like one of these rooms as a studio. She goes, oh, no, I love recording in my closet.
- [19:02]
B
Yeah.
- [19:02]
A
And I was like, oh. And she's like, yeah, I'm just. It's like my creative space. And I was like, great. Like, that would drive me crazy personally. Right. But to each their own. It's just funny. I'm like, wow. This person has literally done hundreds of. She's had hundreds of millions of people listening to her podcast over like the course of many years. And it was all done in this little like five by eight closet, basically. And it's just like. But that's, that's her environment. That's what she loves. And I think that that speaks to it for me. I'm in a 10 by 10 room. I like it really simple. I like it really clean, as you can tell, like there's nothing on the walls or anything like that. Like, it's just. It's my style. I like it. It's where I show up and I can feel most creative. And that really is the key here, right?
- [19:38]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's funny because obviously by owning a studio, we have a couple of rooms that people can come in and rent. And when they visit, we explained to them that we have different options, right? And they think that we're trying to sell them to be in the city. I'm like, no, dude, I'm trying to sell you to create whether, like, if, if you're coming here, it's gonna make that process a little bit easier. Awesome. We have like this doctor, right? And he talks about the pharmaceutical industry, and he tried for five months trying to launch his show from his house. And he has all the equipment, he has all the budget, right? And for him, it wasn't working, and he just needed an environment where he needed to come in legit, like, talk to somebody, the producer, and be like, let's start, and everything's taken care of. He has a budget, right? So that works for him. And he doesn't mind to drive there. But we have other people that come in and maybe driving to the studio is 45 minutes. Trying to get the guests. There is another 45 minutes. Do it every week, you know, breaks their day. Like, for them, that causes friction. So what we recommend is like, well, why don't we do a different solution? Maybe at your house, maybe you have a space. So anyways, there's different ways. I'm like, okay, the goal here is to be consistent, right? To help our audience solve their problem through our messaging. So if this is creating friction for me, executing, let's take it away, let's strip it down. Like, what is our method of creation? Maybe that if you love hikes, maybe that means that your podcast is walking on a hike, recording with an iPhone at the end of the day, right? Like, what is that? And I think podcasting is at a point where it can evolve to be those things, right? I think number three show in the world right now is this guy that interviews people on the subway in New York, you know, and there's like a 15, 20 minute thing. So of course, like, everybody's gonna have their own standards on what they want their show to look like and, and, and, and. And show up, like on, on screen. Depending on your industry, that changes as well. But at the end of the day, it's like you can start stripping down those things and, like, can we facilitate it so we can be consistent for a long period of time?
- [21:32]
A
It's so good. I mean, it's all about. It's all about consistency and the time it takes to set up and break down. If you have to do that, great. But like, that, that's causing friction. For me, a messy room was causing friction. That's why my wall is just a plain gray wall with some LEDs hitting it, right? Like, that's why there's nothing else in the space. Like, Luis has been in this room. I'm like, wow, that's it. You know, like, you didn't say that. But my mind, that's probably what you're thinking.
- [21:51]
B
I was like, I'm jealous.
- [21:57]
A
But, hey, listen, whatever works for you is what you're trying to figure out, what makes. What makes you feel creative and you can do for a long Time. And I know we're just talking at this point, we got to keep on moving here for sake of time. So number three, man, kick us off with this one.
- [22:08]
B
Now. Number three is your production. It's normally where people find us. And it's like, okay, the way that the podcast looks and feel at the end of, you know, when you. When you hit publish. And, you know, a lot of people put a lot of faith into the editing side or a lot of people also waste a lot of time on the editing side, depending on how you look at it, right? So, I mean, there's a thousand ways that people can go about this, but I think today, right, it's like, what will be your vision? Like, where do you want it to look? Like, how do you want it to feel? And depends on your publishing pyramid, right? Your resources. If you have a ton of resources and you can invest in a production team, awesome. You can just give them directions and they'll do it. Right. But most people don't have a massive budget for podcasting, or at least in our experience locally with the people, like in our studio, in our agency, we try to find somebody because we're that production team that produces for them, right? So there's different things, but it's like, okay, well, do I record for an hour and then that turns into three 20 minute episodes, or is that 61. 60 minute episode. What's the intro? What's the outro? What's it? Do we put music on the background? Do we process the audio so it sounds crispier, right? Like it's all these little details, which is, by the way, problem number one. Because people start recording, they have this raw thing, like they said something, the messaging, right? They created in the room or the house or studio, and then they have this like, raw piece of content, and then they try to figure out, like, how to make it look good. But the thing is, like, we have to take care of messaging first to make sure that we can script and we can make sure that we at least have an outline of like, why are we gonna, you know, what are we gonna say? How are we gonna say it? How are we gonna hook people into it? If we take care of those things ahead of time, then production becomes like, really, really easy because the instructions are like, you know, here's my hook, here's my story, here's my solution to the problem that we're talking about today. So we take care of those levers first, then the production, whatever instructions or whatever you're doing. Easy. Of course, there's tools that are going to make editing a lot easier. So let's take for example multicam from something like this. Descript. Incredible, right? A lot of people, I'm assuming they use Riverside. Excuse me. Also great solution for clips. Descript, opus clips. Do they perform? We're going to talk about that in the next phases. We'll see. But at the end of the day it's like, how do we. What is our vision for the final product of that? And then we can reverse engineer to take care of those elements ahead of time so it doesn't become a distraction.
- [24:32]
A
Man, this is so key here. First off, your production really starts before you ever hit record. Like, and a lot of people are like, oh, we can fix it in post and fix it, that's great. But if you show up without an outline, an idea, a vision, the messaging is all wrong, then fixing it. You just made your job really hard. And I've seen some people, I've been on some podcasts that they have full production studios and when I'm getting interviewed, it's so random. It's like, tell me about your business you're doing right now. Tell me about the business you did before this. And it's like, what do your parents do? What's your school? Right? And in my head like I'm always like, as a, I can call myself like a trained speaker but like I understand that like the way that people like to consume content is in a narrative fashion where they don't have to be like, now what are they talking about? I wonder what he did before this. Like, you're, you're not causing those, those questions from the listeners mind. So when I'm doing this, I'm like, how are they going to fix this? And they're like, yeah, they'll, they'll reorganize it all in post and get it looking good.
- [25:26]
B
I'm like, in the meantime, the editors listen is like, no, you just be
- [25:30]
A
like job so hard. If they could just been like, listen, we want to get from Alex leaving corporate to starting pod match to where he has it today. Like, if you just would have said that from the start, all of your questions would have pretty much by default gone in that order. Reverse engineering goes such a long way. And I want to mention one more thing about editing. We've got to avoid perfection. Like, y' all, listen, we, we. I'm speaking myself as well. Like, I had to get rid. I actually had to before I could financially afford it. Get editing off of my plate. I don't do It. I don't even listen to the edits anymore. Like, I send the raw footage and I'm not allowed to hear it anymore until it's out. And even at that point, it's too late. I'm not allowed to touch it because I'm such a, like, perfectionist by nature that I was editing things out that literally only I would ever notice. If I left it in, no one would have cared. And I'm not, like, I'm not making a case for doing something less than excellent, like, have pride in it, do things at an excellent level. But there's a line between. A very fine line between excellence and perfection. We should not chase that. And so for me, I learned the best thing I can do is not do it right? The rest of. If you're just like, I can't do that financially, well, then you're just gonna have to get better to be able to say, hey, you know what? It's not me perfect. It's going to be really good for people, though. And that's okay. I know I want a little rant there about editing I had to share.
- [26:43]
B
I think that's where one of our major friction points, not only for us, but in general. Right. Like, because, you know, especially if you're newer in the space you're putting out there, you're Just the fact that you're putting your thoughts out there is pretty intimidating. Right. So obviously, you know, when we put our thoughts out there, we want it to look and feel the best way possible. But again, our best way possible might be very different than somebody else's best way possible. And it's very subjective. You know, it's just like art is very subjective. For some people, they might love it. And then some people, because they're. The blue is not their favorite color, they're not going to like it, but it's nothing. What I say is, like, they just don't like the blue, right? So they might just turn it off. Right. And they might just listen to it. We have people that comment on our accents. I'm fully aware of that. And be like, dude, guys, I cannot listen to your podcast because your accent, I can't stand it. And I'm like, man, I respect it. Does it. Does it change the way that I'm going to create this to change? Like, am I going to change the way I speak if it adds friction to me? Probably not. Can I get better? Absolutely. Do I choose to? So, like, we have to be okay with those choices at the end of the day, right? Like, when we. Look, when we first started our show, it was called Bruce and Bros. Right? Because me and Fonzie, two brothers, right? And we were debriefing a course that we're going through marketing. This is like 2018, and we're drinking beer while we do this. Well, the process was a lot of friction because we had two cameras with timers, and we had to stand up and hit it, and then the beer fell on the computer, and then we had to edit all that. Well, guess what? We recorded three episodes. Never edited, never poured out. Then we grabbed the equipment that we paid a thousand bucks for and shoved in the closet. And my wife was like, what are we doing? Like, why are you doing that? We waited a year. What allowed us to publish was that we made the decision. We saw. Do we have resources? No, we don't have money to pay an editor. We don't have the time to edit. So how we're going to frame the content is as a live show. So we went live, and then we just grabbed the audio without any editing, and that was put in the podcasting platforms. That's it, man. Well, guess what? It stayed like that for 300 episodes. And he changed our life because we made a decision that that's good enough, and we're going to work on our message. Eventually, resources came, and we were able to design resources, be like, oh, man, I think it's time to level up a little bit of the editing. To this day, very minimal editing. There is tools that can allow you to do that, but at the end of the day, it's like, what's going to allow me to increase frequency? Our main goal for the show is build relationships. We're doing three times a week. How can we fulfill, like, average. But there's studies average production time per episode of 60 Minutes. It's four hours from start to finish. Do we have 12 hours a week to do this? No. So we have to figure out our margins. Like, we record for 45 minutes, and then we have 15 minutes to get it out ready on the platforms. How do we do that? And when we ask those questions, we can figure out. So that's where I'm going to challenge. Of course, everybody has their own standards, but just be okay. Like, if you want the standard, there's going to be a little bit of friction.
- [29:47]
A
I'm taking note here to bring you back to talk about editing at a future date. I want to talk.
- [29:50]
B
Oh, this is a whole.
- [29:51]
A
We were doing, like, I'm not gonna get into it today. Listen, look at Me being respectful of time giving us. But we are gonna. I. I need you to come back,
- [29:58]
B
talk about that number is our service, right? So we're, like, deeply attached this. And anyway, there's a lot of thoughts around this.
- [30:05]
A
Yeah, of course. All right, let's keep on moving here. So on to number four now.
- [30:11]
B
So once you have the final product done, right, like, you're. You're happy with the thing, or you haven't seen it, right? And your editor sends it, and you're like, okay, what do we do with this is distribution. And I think this is where a lot of people kind of miss it because, like, they spent all their time and energy trying to figure out what to say, you know, do the thing. And I'm producing it. And then they're like, oh, I got the final episode. And then it's like, crap, what do I do with this? Like, what now? And it's okay. Well, we obviously have organic distribution, which obviously you have your YouTube channels, and then you have your bussprout with all the podcasting platforms. But distribution just goes a little bit beyond just putting it out there, right? We gotta market the marketing. This is one of the things that we have to figure out. It's like, how do we promote the content itself? So there's different ways, of course, depending on the platform, depending on what you do. YouTube is a great search engine. So, you know, if you write a little bit of a better copy, where you present it in a. In a way that people are searching it for, they might be able to find you on audio platforms. That's the toughest place to grow content in general, like podcasting. We are doing the hardest thing out there, right? I clip. Can go viral in two seconds, right? If you. If you clip the right or the wrong thing, right? Like, you could, like, just get a ton of traction. But is that traction relevant to our business or to our goals? Right? So it's understanding distribution. We have, again, the other example with our doctor, I have it very fresh because they recorded today, but they're talking about the economics of the pharmaceutical industry. This is not a show that's going to gather millions of downloads, right? Like, they're very technical. They were interviewing this founder of this tech company about AI and pharmaceuticals, right? Like, it's not the most sexy content for most people, but for them it is, and for the right people, it is. So how can we grab that piece of content and put it in front of the people that need that content? Right? So identifying those groups and where they hang out online Is key. That could be ads, that could be commenting on relevant Facebook groups, that could be putting your show in a guest post in somebody's newsletter. That could be a shout out from somebody else. That could be being on a network I match. Right? Like, so your message is shared. Like, there's different things that you can do to be like. The question we always encourage people is like, who is your ideal listener and where do they hang out in person and online? And then how do we build a relationship with that place so we can fit the content consistently? Can we do a partnership with somebody that has a community, let's say on the dad side, that has a community with dads, that maybe we become the official podcast for them and then that show is shown to that community? Can we do that with a second community? Right. How can we show up in those pockets of people and then we can stretch? Right. That's why in our specific case study with continuous profit, the most effective thing has been when other shows from our network run the meat rolls and the pre rolls for our show. It's because podcast listeners listen to podcast listeners and they have listeners that they build relationship with. And then when they say, guys, you guys should listen to the bros over there, to Luisa and Fonzie, people go and transfer. So start testing different ways and see which one sticks for you. It's all going to be a little bit different.
- [33:49]
A
I like what you said here, that who's your ideal listener and where do they hang out in person, online, like, where are they spending their time? I think that's a good question. Because what I found is so many of us, myself included, especially initially when I got into this space. We create content, we became podcasters. We have a message. We want to get to the world, not because we're marketers. And it's super disheartening. We've probably all seen this happen. You see somebody who's not a good podcaster, and I'm not trying to be rude by saying that, but they're a great marketer and their show blows up and then you listen to it and you're like, what? Because you're like, I'm putting my heart and soul to this. And they're barely even trying. It feels like, well, they're good marketers, right? And so. But being a good marketer doesn't make you a good podcaster. Those people probably churn pretty quick. But being a good podcaster doesn't by default mean that your marketing is going to be easy. But answering that question, who's my Ideal listener. And where do they hang out? And then meeting them where they are, that is, that's the fast track hack. And notice, Luis, you never once said post in that group or say new episode alert or new episode out. Like, not once that come up. You said engage is what you said in so many different ways. You said engage, collaborate, find other people to help. Right. Like, and that's the nature of it. It's not just like posting my episode done, let's move on to the next one. I think that many of us, that's what we want to do, but the reality is it's got a long tail effect. And I encourage you start building the relationships with the groups and people you need. I'm putting this in the chat. All of you have access to this. It's the CRM inside of Pod Match. Now log these contacts, find the people you need to meet, build the relationship. It's not going to happen overnight, but use the CRM to be able to follow up with them. Distribution. It's our job to get our show out and for the right people to find it. It's a lot of work and we can talk about this a lot. But again, sake of time, we got to keep on moving. But did you have a quick thought on that one before we move on here?
- [35:27]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think people sleep on events and people sleep on in person situations like I'm going through again here. There's a show called the Affair Recovery Room, so I'm assuming is people healing from a relationship or something that happened in that, that world. Right. Well, who has customers that in real life? Is that a psychologist? Is that a doctor? Is that who has it? Can we go talk to that person, bring them on our show and then because they were on our show, build that relation and be like, hey, dude, I actually have this show. Can we collaborate? Can we put it, like, maybe you have a TV in your, in your waiting room and we can put it there. Right? Like, I remember having somebody reach out to us for the podcast and we were like, man, this show. Why does he have millions of downloads? And like, it's crazy. And you know, to all due respect, right, like, but for me, like, it didn't just resonate. And I'm like, I could, I couldn't figure out, like, why they had that level of downloads with the messages that they were portraying. And it was because they were one of the 10 shows allowed in US prisons and they had that contact and they were showcasing the show instead of prisons. So I'm like, well, that's amazing for numbers. Like, and we jog in, we're like, we need to find out. And we call the producer. We're like, how are you guys doing this? And it was like they just found a network. But for them, their content, they were selling sponsorships on the content on those numbers, right? To each their own. That was, that was not our business model. Our business model is like the people that listen to us want to learn from us. They want to be part of the community I want to, you know, to deal with. So for me, a prisoner is not the ideal client. So I have nothing to do with that. I will be nice like to show up those numbers. But is that going to be good for me? Maybe leverage, I don't know. So at the end, it has to align with your goals as well to go about partnerships. I see a couple questions here. But about those partnerships, they can be paid there shows that can exchange them, right? As well, there are creative ways that we can do an exchange. So for example, if you have a strong newsletter, maybe you exchange your exposure in your newsletter for some ad reads on the other show, maybe you can do a trade right at the end of the day. What are the resources that we have that you're working with? But I would recommend everybody to approach it as an experiment for the next 30 days. What is the one thing I'm testing? So is that commenting on Facebook groups with my relevant topic and be like, hey, adding value. And then by the way, there's a show here or DMing that person, like, what is the one strategy you're testing for 30 days? Did that move the needle compared to the last 60 days?
- [38:01]
A
Dude, that's that again, I love anything that's actual. That's actually everyone here can do that today. Like we can start. I can start that 30 days. That you can't do it today. You can do it for the next 30 days, but you can start today. And I love that. Let's move on to number five.
- [38:13]
B
Number five after distribution is monetization, baby. How do we connect it with our actual revenue? Right? So this is going to be different for everybody. But at the end of the day, probably for most people here in this network, this is like, we want to make money with this at the end of the day, right? Like, we don't want this to be a money pit. So there's a few ways. One is your content is your product. Let's say you don't sell any anything. Your content is your product. So your content, by being the product has to be good at attracting the audience has to be good at keeping the audience. And then from there, then that becomes inventory for you to go and sell sponsorships on your show, for example. So that is the most common that people whenever, at least in our studio, where people come in and they're thinking about monetizing is because they're not. They don't have a business on the back end. So they're seeing it as a. I'm a creator and this thing that I'm creating is my product. Right. So there's a few resources there that we can talk off, offline. Alex has a bunch of resources on that side as well. But then if you have a business, it's like, cool. There's levels to this, right? So it depends on what you sell. Do you sell a service? Right? Do you. Are you selling a book? Maybe it's a low ticket item versus a high ticket item. I can share our experience with how we did it. We started as an agency, so we were focusing on relationships. So we use our show for a couple of purposes. One, find out how to make money with content. We're asking these experts how to do that through our podcast to building these relationships with them. And then we were asking for people that were interested, be like, hey, now that you know the show, who's somebody else that you can bring us, you know, similar topics? And we're looking for. And we would describe our dream customer because after an hour of conversation that the content was relevant to the topic, by the way, like that. That has to be very key. We were able to build enough rapport for us to ask. And then we just started showing behind the scenes of hey, I honestly would love feedback. And people are like, man, I love that. And that's how we started getting our initial customers and refer, referrals and so on. So we started using our show as the vehicle to build a legit relationship, to then be able to be like, hey, we're looking for xyz, we can support in this way. Do you know anybody that can do that? And sometimes they become customers, sometimes they became referral sources and so on. But is that. That's because it's our business model today now, because we've been able to build an audience now in the show, apart from husband. We plug our own stuff. So we plug our community. So people go to business creator club from there. We haven't tried really any lead magnet or trip magnets. Different things like that. Because we are a service company, it's a little bit different, but we Use it as a platform to do that. So of course, we're like, okay, what is the path between. What is the fastest path to cash in my business? Right? So I'll give you two examples. One is this lady came into our community. I'm like, well, Luis, I sell a $7 book, right? Like, if I plug the book in our show, then I might sell one or two copies, but I want to sell a ton. And she was interviewing people. I'm like, well, what about you use your show to talk about the topic of your book, which was education. Maybe we bring the headmasters or directors of different schools. And then with that person, who is that one person that can place an order for a thousand books, or we build a relationship for somebody that could support you and be like, hey, you know what? That library needs a ton of your books. And what is the purchase order for that kind of stuff? If you have the resources or capacity to run ads, cool. Run the ads. Those are paid ads to maybe a lead magnet with something called Tripwire, which is like a $7, $17, $27 product, to finance the cost of that ad. And then they go to your email. You continue fitting your content, and then in your content, you sell to that person. There's different ways that you can do it. What I recommend is, like, draw that line between who's my customer and how do I get to that point? Probably the faster way will be a relationship. How do I build a relationship with that person? So then I could do the ask.
- [42:22]
A
You're asking who I serve and how do I reach them? I guess what it is, like, who I serve, who I can actually help, right? And how I can ultimately get them to bust out their wallet so that I can help them. Right? It's like building that connection in the fastest way possible. I think that's brilliant. If you're an author, it's one thing. If you're a coach, it's another. If you're somebody who's helping people create content, it's different as well, right? If you run your own company that's like, software as a service, like I do, it's different. And so there's no, like, true right or wrong way to do this, but the right way to do it is to find the connection as fast as you can, like, what needs to happen. I saw what Jess said, that, like, we got the brain spinning. That's what you want here, right? Like, we've got to think about this. This is the stuff you whiteboard out on your own later. But, Monetization, is really important. I mentioned early on, like, we're all worthy of having. Of earning through what we do. And there's plenty of creative ways to do this. I shared this quote a couple years ago on stage, and I just, I said this, I said, there's a million ways to make a million dollars. And they're always. That no one has figured out yet. Creativity leads to that. Not that we're all trying to make a million dollars. It's just a fun, easy, memorable way to say it. The reality is, though, to at least offset our production costs, there's some creative things that no one else is doing yet that you can come up with.
- [43:30]
B
Yeah.
- [43:30]
A
Think about it and always think service is what I want to really reiterate. It's about how you're helping somebody with what you're doing.
- [43:36]
B
I think there's a big belief out there that I. That I personally think is wrong, which is I need a lot of downloads for people to believe in my content or to be able to monetize. I mean, we've been able to finance shows in the studio, like their production. They come in, they're like, we want to do it here. I'm like, X is X amount of dollars. And they're like, we don't have that. And we literally give them some of their resources and they go execute and they're able to finance their show before even launches. And it's. It's just like a business, right? There's going to be investors. People believe in you, people believe in your message. They're going to, they're going to pay for that. Not the. They're going to pay because of you, because of what you stand for. So there's different things. Like, we actually have a bunch of religion shows in the studio. And with religion is pretty interesting because depends on the platform that you put out there. You know, we've seen different changes, different things. But, like, how do you market? Well, where are those listeners? Are they in churches? Are they in synagogues? Are they in gatherings? Like, how do I come up and show up and shake hands and be like, guys, like, here's my show. By the way, like, I would love for you to be a subscriber. I think, like, you, Alex, you mentioned this. Like, you were like, my goal is to get one new listener a day. Like, if we do that, like, if we, if we approach our conversations with that. I remember being in Orlando, one of the parks, and we're like in this line for Harry Potter, right? And it's late at night. The park is about to shut down. It's the last opportunity for us to go. And then it breaks down and the people around us start talking, right? And my. My wife is terrified of social interactions, right? She's, you know, very quiet, very, you know, we're opposites. And I'm like, let's make friends. So as soon as they start talking, they go like, luis, like, what do you do? And I'm like, well, I do. I do podcasting. And everybody's like, oh, so cool. Like, you know, they think it's like a murder mystery type of show. And I'm like, it is a business podcast. Anybody's like, oh, but like. Like, the guy that was like, seven people down was listening to it, and he has his show, and. And he. He put it on the phone and he showed me later. I said, man, like, on the line, I listened to one of your episodes. We need to talk about this, like, in person. Like, I didn't have to target the guy for an ad. It was like, we talk about this in events. We are all in networks. We're only communities, right? Like, let's make it known and be like, I would love to collaborate. And that guy listens, is one of the subscribers today. And he still messages. And he was like, okay, well, cool. We gain a new subscriber just because we mentioned it. It's like, what is the one person? Like, if I could get one new listener every single day, where would I find it?
- [45:59]
A
Man, that's good. Jess brings up a good point. Everyone assumes it's a true crime podcast. Thank you for that. In the chat, that is 100 true. Everyone's like, oh, what murder is your podcast about? I'm like, it's about podcasting. Leave me alone. All right, number six.
- [46:14]
B
Number six is what ties it all together, and I think is where people kind of get overwhelmed is ops, operations. How do I actually run this thing consistently and profitably, right? And it's where we talk about the business side. So, you know, everybody has their spreadsheets with the guests and the things. And now we have solutions like PodMatch that allow us to all have our SOPs in there and track our interviews and things like that. So it's like, okay, for everybody, it's going to be a little bit different, but same thing. Like, what's the. What's causing friction to be able to execute on that? And can we bring it down to the thing? So if my goal is within 30 minutes a day, I want to do three episodes a week, and every single person, every single episode needs to be a guest. How do we manage that? So maybe that's a CRM. Maybe that is a spreadsheet that is, you know, organized. I need to call probably 10 people to see if they want to be on my show. Maybe I need to ask after my interview if you know somebody that would love to be on the show. We have that question after every single guest. And we get two to three people in every single interview. We do not have to do outreach, because we solve that problem there. Because they're so excited. They're like, oh, yeah, dude, I'll introduce you to Alex and I'll introduce you to Fonzie. And then the next day, we're having emails and we're setting up, and it's like, okay, how do we make this process easy? Well, let's set up a calendar. And how do we manage this? What are the ops of the business? And this is like getting in the weeds. But a lot of people don't even think about this because when they're, like, deep in, there's, like, production processes here, managing my guests over there, thousand emails, and it becomes so overwhelming that then what happens? After 12 episodes, 93% of people stop. How do we manage our topics? Like, if it's a solo episode, how do we collect that research? How do we process that research? How do we create the outlines? Like, what software do I use? And those are things that we have to start thinking if we want to scale and we want to go longer, because as you scale and you assign more resources, you're going to be removed from that process. Right? You might have a producer that does the research for you. How do we document that? Where is that happening? Is that on Google Docs? Is that one Google Doc or is it a Google Doc per episode? Ah, that was something that we used to have. We used to have one Google Doc per episode. Now we don't have Google Docs. Now we have notion databases. And so again, like, how do we keep it all organized and simplify, simplify, simplify, simplify so we can scale it and make it super simple. It's like one button. I have my thing here. My research is my chart, GPT thing, my Gemini, my whatever. You know, maybe we build an app, vive coding. I don't know. There's many possibilities. But operations, people forget that that's there. And without it, we cannot be consistent.
- [48:56]
A
I think back to a friend of mine. Her name's Kelly, and she was giving an analogy about the importance of operations, because she's like an ops person. And she started off with saying operations is kind of. Let me explain why it's important. She goes, it's kind of like taking a shower. And I was like, where is this going? Right? But bear with me, it's actually a really good analogy. She goes, where are you most creative? And she asked the room and pretty much everyone says the shower. And she's like, you wanna know why? She's like, it's because you have a system there. She goes, you do the same thing every time you get in the shower in the same order. And it's subconscious because you've got it down to a science. You've done it so many times. And so your brain is like, I don't need to think about what's happening, so I'll think about something else. And some of us want to skip this. On podcasts we say, well, it's not really a creative endeavor. I'm more on the creative side. This might not be directly a creative endeavor, but it leaves room for creativity. When your operations is so honed in and so simplified and smooth, you might find your brain is going through it and you're like, yeah, I just got the best idea for a new episode while it's happening versus like, oh, I got to do this stuff. I hate what do I do here, what do I do? Right. Keeping it organized to me is absolutely key if you want a thriving podcast. Long term operations is the most boring part. Right. But I'll tell you what, it leads to some serious creativity. So, man, these were these six points. Amazing. Luisa, thank you. Do you have them right in front of you? Can you recap them for everybody real quick?
- [50:14]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [50:15]
A
So quick.
- [50:16]
B
Yeah, yeah. So obviously, you know, at the very beginning we want to talk about publishing pyramid. Very important because that's how we have our resources, the capacity of those resources. Right. And the commitments, like are we doing this X amount of days a month or a week or you know, X amount of hours? Assign a little pyramid under each of the of the levers and then we have your messaging. That's number one, you know, quality of the message over quality of the production 100 of the time. Right. Number two is your creation method. Like what remove the friction so you can actually create. Is that automations? Is that one camera? Is that your phone? Whatever that that that looks like, make sure that is frictionless. Then we have our production method. So we're going to do a different session on just production side. Then we have, once we have our product is distribution. Where do we Put it out there. Of course, our traditional organic methods. Can we start experimenting with paid. Is that bringing resources whether that like align with the goal of the show. Right. And then after distribution, we have monetization. How do we connect it with our business? Is our content the product? So if our content is the product, we gotta become really good at the content so people watch it. Right. Or is our content a vehicle to build relationships and for people to buy from us, for example, in our business? And then at the very end we have operations. It's like, how do we manage all these little pieces so we can consistently create and eventually delegate it to somebody else?
- [51:40]
A
Good stuff, man. I love that. I'm dropping on the screen right now real quick. Your. Your website. So Business Creator Club. Yeah. If anyone wants to check that out. If you just want to quickly just share what this is on the screen for like 10 seconds here and then we're ending.
- [51:53]
B
So yeah, absolutely. Business Creator Club is our community right now. There's a few resources out there. More in detail of what we talked about today. Every Friday, we jump on on office hours. So literally everybody has been asking questions. The last three weeks has been heavy on building agents to facilitate all this process of not only from research, but also for the content production process itself. So we share screen, we share different case studies, not only us, but the members in there. And it's been really fun little projects. We're about to start scaling it. I think right now we're still at founders rate, so people want to be there. You can test it out and if you don't like it, if you're like, this is not for me. Totally okay. We didn't give you a full refund and we're still friends.
- [52:34]
A
I love it, man. Luisa, thank you so much for being here, man. This was really a great time. I appreciate you.
- [52:39]
B
Thanks, man. Thank you for having me.