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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Poe. I'm the editor to the New Books Network. And if you're listening to the New Books Network, I imagine you like to read and I'm wondering if you have a goal to read more this year. How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread Podcast is here to help. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and what books aren't. They feature 15 minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. You'll get a brief synopsis, fun and witty commentary, no spoilers and no sponsored reviews. It's just what Casey and Tyler think. Life's too short to read a bad book. So subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming. Thanks very much. Hello, everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast now network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:58]
B
Good morning, good evening, good night, entrepreneurship and leadership Channel listeners on the New Books Network today, I've got a very interesting guest, Jonathan Bailey Straughan, who I met for the first time in real life a few days ago. And Jonathan, I could introduce you based on my version, but I'd Much rather you did it the way you do it. If you meet someone at a business event or a party and they ask you that famous question, what do you do?
- [02:23]
C
Sure thing. Thanks for having me on, Richard. So, yeah, great question. I would say. So not so long ago, I would answer that question by saying I'm in a business context. I would probably say, you know, business networking event. I might say, oh, I'm a podcast producing. I'm a podcast producer. I run a podcast production agency. Essentially, I'm an agency owner. Yeah, basically my focus for the past few years has been predominantly that the area of podcasting. It's a medium that I, I love and I've, I've been, I've had the privilege of working in, I would say. But more recently, about three months ago, I sort of started something on the side and it's given me a new lease of life. And I would say it's kind of broadened my. Yeah, sort of my, my day to day, so that now I would probably consider myself more of a media entrepreneur. And I found that, yeah, basically starting this new media platform which is more focused on local, you know, my local, my, my, my neighborhood, essentially hyper, I guess you could call it hyperlocal, has given me a, A new platform and a very different perspective from one that was just purely focused on the podcasting space. And so now I've kind of gotten to a lot of the nitty gritty around email lists, growth and so forth, and also community engagement. And when I say it's given me a new lease of life, a lot of that has been getting from behind the computer screen and out meeting interesting people. And so that's just sort of given me a new direction which I find myself, you know. So I would say actually I'm kind of in a transition at the moment. You've caught me in an interesting point of time.
- [04:19]
B
Okay. And just, just to be clear, this new media thing is the. That's the Jackson's Height insider, is that correct?
- [04:27]
C
It is correct. Jackson Heights Insider. I would say, though, that that's kind of the, the primary thing that I'm focused on at the moment. But there are a couple of other initiatives that I've got my eye on as well. And yeah, I would say that I've kind of got into the orbit of a couple of other entrepreneurs that have taught me some useful lessons recently. One of those being that I think in the past, you know, I was like, okay, what I've got to do as an entrepreneur is I've got to Focus on the one thing everyone says, you know, you got to, you know, get rid of all the distractions. You got to focus, focus, focus, focus. And so I was like, yes, that sounds like good advice. That's what I'm going to do. But I think for someone with multiple interests and quite a kind of wide ranging perspective, kind of a background that touches on different nationalities and a lot of different influences, I've always been someone who just has multiple interests. And even though they may seem a little bit all over the place, the lesson I learned was that you can have sort of multiple things going on at the same time, but the manner in which you're going to be effective with them is if they kind of somehow interlink so you basically start building a flying wheel of assets. And that's the way I'm sort of approaching things at the moment. Thinking of my entrepreneurial career at the moment as going from just being purely focused on the podcast thing to actually now thinking about, okay, well we've got this email list, but actually I've just set up like a media collective, basically a directory of creatives within Queens, which is the borough within which this email newsletter, you know, the area, the neighborhood with it with which it focuses on and actually those different entities can all support each other and feed into each other.
- [06:26]
B
Yes, well, thank you for that. So just obviously I've been done some research and we've met before but. So the Jackson Sites Insider is a kind of a hyper local, local newsletter on substack and you've also got an Instagram channel, is that correct?
- [06:41]
C
Yeah, that's right. So yeah, email and Instagram are the primary channels with that I, you can also preface the, the that with award winning. We won an award recently.
- [06:51]
B
Yeah, congratulations. And in, in my sort of entrepreneurship support activities, I say that were interest in entrepreneurs at all stages of the entrepreneurial journey. Typically in the podcast we like to share, we say we're not Kickstarter, we like to share stories of people who've already succeeded. So. But this interview will be quite wide ranging. It's also the case that in a previous life you worked as someone who supported entrepreneurship communities for IBM, is that correct? Maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
- [07:26]
C
Yeah. Okay, so, so if we kind of go back through, through my journey, I've, I've, yeah, I've kind of gone through the gamut of working in corporate, working as a consultant, working with startups, working on community building. And so yeah, it has been a bit of a winding journey. There have been ups there have been downs. And so essentially I started off my career in consulting, telecoms consulting. If we go back to before the IBM days, that's when I worked in. I was based in London and I worked for a small consultancy in telecoms. And this is where we were basically sent to client site. We used to work with, you know, T Mobile, O2, all the big telcos and that sort of thing. We're mostly basically helping them with their billing systems. And so a lot of kind of behind the scenes technical stuff did that for some time. The typical kind of, you know, basically had that kind of typical experience as a consultant where sometimes the work was great, sometimes it wasn't, sometimes the people were great, sometimes they weren't. And the third leverage lever being the, the location. And you could never have all of them. It seemed some people got really lucky and if they got lucky, they, they, you know, they made sure that that was theirs and they were set and no one else could have have the, the three levers. So it's kind of like this kind of up and down. I did that for some time and then basically at some point realized, oh, I noticed a lot of people are taking sabbaticals, I think I'll go and do some of that. And so I went traveling and that was where I had the opportunity to meet sort of people in that four hour work week sort of mindset in Southeast Asia, which I kind of deliberately sought out as well. And that's where I suppose I first got my first foray into entrepreneurship, which led me down the path of joining a small agency, working on some, with some big names. I think we were kind of, well, it was a good time for that sort of thing. There weren't that many services offering something like that. So basically offering podcast production as a service. That's how we ended up launching the Tim Ferriss show. So I was part of the team that did that. Lewis Howes was probably the kingpin client for that agency and so worked on these really big shows and to the point where I was like, yeah, you know what, this is what I want to do. Quit my job, decided to pursue that for some time, then had a slight difference of opinion of where to take the agency route and ended up basically getting a bit homesick, moving back to London, but getting very plugged into the startup ecosystem in London and found myself in a position where I just gravitated towards bringing people together. I went through this program called Startup Institute, which no longer exists, but it was basically kind of similar to like techstar as A Y Combinator. But instead of accelerating companies, it was accelerating people's careers and transitioning into from, you know, corporate to startup, or basically, you know, students who were interested in startups but didn't. Just didn't really know where to start. They plugged you into that ecosystem. But the program lasted eight weeks, and by the end of those eight weeks, I was like, where did everyone go? Because I. Yeah, because I enjoyed that experience of being around people. And so. And so I. I decided to start a community on Slack called Tech London, which still exists. It was very active in the early days, and that led me to kind of being. I don't know if headhunted is the right word, but basically a friend of mine who was basically transitioning out of his role as community development manager for IBM softlayer's startup program basically said, hey, jbs, Jonathan, you'd be great at this kind of thing. You do the community thing. And so that's how I ended up being hired by SoftLayer, running my startup program. Did that for a year and a bit, and then eventually moved to New York, where I find myself now. I basically got sucked back into the podcasting space, and that's how I ended up starting my own podcasting agency here.
- [11:50]
B
Okay, well, thank you for that. And so there's a couple of things I'd sort of pull out of that story. One was the differences. Well, so I'm going to come back to these. I'm going to highlight them so you have time to keep at them. One is the differences with the founders of. I guess it was the. Judging by your LinkedIn, that would have been the freedom podcasting company that you slightly went your separate ways there. The second was stumbling across a problem of how do people stay in touch if they're part of a course and setting up a community to solve a problem you identified. But before we go in that direction, I'd like to dial back a bit into your earlier life. That. Yeah, because you came to entrepreneurship by your own account a bit late. And like, when you were a kid, when you were growing up, did you ever have a sense of you might have your own. Your own thing? Or is there anything you did back then that might have been an early indicator that you had entrepreneurial, go it alone type leanings? Or were your parents completely astonished when you stop your safe job and go off digital nomad thing?
- [12:54]
C
Yeah, I, you know, if I'm honest, I don't think it was so much the entrepreneurship bug, you know, from an early age. I think that came later. And listening to too much Pat Flynn, Smart Passive Income and Tim Ferriss and all those sort of people. I would say though, that what, what I did have an inclination towards was just adventure and doing something different. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing like. Basically I was, I was. My parents, bless them. Originally from Scotland, we. I was born in Belgium, grew up there, but grew up in the middle of nowhere. It was beautiful. It was the countryside and it was great when, you know, you're a little kid and, you know, running after cows and things like that, but once you get to your teenage years, you're just like, ah, get me out of here. And that's when. That's the point where I was. I, I just started gravitating way more towards finding my tribe. Getting out there, traveling. Getting out of where?
- [13:49]
B
Where?
- [13:49]
C
I mean, it was, it was lovely and I, I'm grateful for the experience. Um, it allowed me to. I, I always, Yeah, I was kind of like this British kid in the Flemish countryside. Everyone spoke Dutch and also most people spoke English to a better level than I could ever learn Dutch. Um, so I was kind of always this kind of kid sort of in. Yeah, just basically, you know, doing scouts in French and kind of the odd one out. So. Just being used to trying to fit myself into this, like, somewhat international environment. Went to European school, but I was always, I was always interested in just like finding people, you know, having new experiences and that sort of thing. And I think that's what made me gravitate a lot more towards. Yeah, getting out there, having adventures, going traveling, meeting people, bringing people together. And I feel like, you know, you, you mentioned earlier that, you know, that a lot of the people, I mean, I, I had listened to some of your guests, you know, they're billionaires and they're like, they're totally made for life. Maybe I'm not quite at that stage yet, but I would argue that, especially now with the way things are going, that I would say a big barometer of success is maybe less on the financial side and I would say more on the. So I like to think of social capital. I think financial capital is obviously important. We all need money to live and survive and support our families. But at some point all the robots are going to take over, like AI and all that jazz. Like, a lot of people are just going to be our jobs and what do we have left? We have each other, we have relationships. And I think when I think about accumulating social capital, some people might think, oh, that means having a Massive network and being the guy that everybody knows. I think it's less about that. I think it's about increasing social capital for everyone.
- [15:43]
B
And so just to make sure I understood that.
- [15:47]
C
Yeah.
- [15:47]
B
I mean, when we met face to face, we talked a bit about the impact of being somewhat isolated when we were younger. But the things you started doing to address that, they've got deep roots. So to some extent is kind of instinctive that you want to get out there and meet people because you're sort of hardwired not to want to be by yourself and alone, and you're hardwired not to be in the middle of nowhere. So that's kind of shaped your personality. And then moving on to the second part that you talked about, perhaps a more reasonable metric of success these days is not just having tons of money, but building something of value in terms of.
- [16:31]
C
Richard, I'll give you a story, if you don't mind me jumping in here. Okay, I'll give you a story. Like, because I'm in these sort of entrepreneurial, like, communities where you have these people and they're going on about, oh, you know, I. I reached a million dollars. ARR. I'm like, yeah, good for you, mate. And you just hear this about this over and over again. But, like, at a certain point, you get just a bit desensitized, right? To me, the stuff that I'm like, wow, that is awesome. Is. I'll give you an example. So I live in Queens, in Jackson Heights, in borough in New York, and there's this chap that I got to meet recently because of this newsletter, this dinky little newsletter that I started from a neighborhood. His name's Jonathan Forgach. If you look him up, you'll see. You see he's been named New Yorker of the Week several times over. And he. During the pandemic. So he's a former chef, and during the pandemic, he saw all these restaurants that were closing because, you know that, like, yeah, there's just no business. No one's going to the restaurants anymore. So the restaurants were closing, and then all the people who used to work at the restaurants, they were being laid off. And so all of a sudden, no one had paid, you know, any paychecks, and no one had money to buy food. So he was like, wow, this is. This is. This is just tragic. And I can't just sit here and. And just let this happen. And so, because he was already, you know, somewhat embedded in the whole restaurant space, he knew restaurant owners. He said, look what I'm going to do is, I'm going to, I, I, I, I, I think I can, I can fundraise some money. I can help you guys stay open. And what he did was he, he raised over a million dollars, helped hundreds of restaurants stay open, basically provided them with the money in order for them to provide food for the food insecure. And he fed, he fed. I think the f, I think it's like 300 to 500,000 people he fed during the pandemic. 500,000 people. To me, that's, that's something. And when you meet him, like, we've, we've, we've been in touch and yeah, we hang out and, you know, we're always trying to see how we can collaborate together. He's a force of nature. He's someone who really, really inspires me, who motivates me, who proves to me that, you know, someone, you know, someone with a mission and a zeal for, for, for making the world a better place can, can really achieve amazing things. And that's what inspires me. That's what really, really gets me jazzed. And, and I love. It's so funny with Jonathan, like, you know, we'll do an event or something together and then immediately, as soon as it's finished, he's like, right, what's next? You know, he says, no, there's no messing around, there's no waiting. He's, he's really. Yeah, so it's, he's, that's just one example of, you know, some of the, some of the amazing people I've managed to meet through this. It's been massively inspiring and, you know, it's given me, you know, that's where a lot of these ideas of like, okay, this is the next thing we've got to do. That's where it comes from.
- [19:18]
B
That's really great. I know. I've just looked him up on LinkedIn while you were chatting. So I'll put a link to Queens together and Jonathan Forgosh in the show notes. And my perspective on this for people listening is it's great to have a social. It's not great. It makes people a lot happier when they've got a clear sense of their purpose. Those. Yeah, and that's a personal thing that if someone just wants to be very, very rich and they work at it consistently because they may miss out on the things that you've been talking about, but if that's what they want, it's for them to define that success. But I'd also say that I've come across people who think that their nonprofit charitable work is going to be the way they make their living. And there can be a bit of a tension between the desire to make money and have a comfortable sound of living and the social purpose. So the. I'd always say to people, make sure you cover, make sure you take care of your personal finances. In my case, that's what gives me the space to do the non profit stuff I do. And once people start being short of cash, the ability to deliver social projects can get very diminished. And I've seen that absolutely quite often. Which brings me on to what I was going to ask about earlier, which is the, the podcasting business. Can you outline in maybe just two or three minutes, what sort of business is it? Like what sort of clients do you have? What scale is it at? Maybe you don't want to reveal all your finances, but like the rough sort of order of magnitude of revenue and profit and how many people you've got, and also very specifically, what sort of people buy your services, who your clients are and why they choose you, rather than because there are a lot of people out there podcasting now. And I just wonder why. What's your sort of, what's your place in?
- [21:04]
C
Secret sauce. Yeah, Secret sauce.
- [21:08]
B
Yeah, Secret sauce or usb. Every entrepreneur should be able to answer a question, for whom am I a good vendor? Where with all the competition out there, they choose me because. And it could be I've got a British accent and you know, 5% of New Yorkers love a Brit or whatever it is, but usually it's more fundamental than that. But it's is really good to know and I'm curious what your take on that is.
- [21:33]
C
Yeah. Okay. So my agency is called Spotlight Podcasting and we work with a range of clients, but predominantly around business podcasting. So it's usually a podcast that supports an existing business or it's an, an organization that's, that's generally mission driven, that has a budget for our services, essentially. So we work with a lot of businesses, technology companies, coaches, consultants. But then occasionally we will do a show with say like a university. So we're doing a show with the university at the moment, University of Birmingham, Alabama. We're working with two university professors doing a show about weight loss. But we're doing it. They're two of the fourth most experts in weight loss and nutrition and obesity and so forth. But what they're trying to do with the show is basically make their research much more accessible to the average person. So that's one example of a show and it's basically funded by the university. We've also done a show, we launched a show with New York Roadrunners, so. For the New York Marathon. Yeah, basically kind of their flagship show. That was during the run up to the marathon. We launched that show along with the, the CEO who insisted on being one of the co hosts of the, the show, which I thought was, yeah, quite interesting, that he would, you know, he dedicated, decided, you know what, I've got lots of things to do, but this is, this is important. He comes from a broadcasting background as well. Rob Simulcare. So, yeah, we, we've worked with a lot of different organizations, but I would say what the, what the main through line is, is it's basically companies, organizations that are mission driven, that really have a purpose to what they do and they're trying to make the world a better place. So whether that be, you know, wellness. So we've worked with like financial wellness, you know, obviously health and you know, we're doing a show. We just started working with a show around robotics as well. So it's often, you know, technology related but generally it's just, we just find that working with, with shows that are, yeah, that just, just have a purpose and they're mission driven, are, are the easiest to really build a good narrative and a story around. It's more challenging. I would say all the Blockchain and the Web3 stuff, I'm just like, nah, that's not, that's not us. So you know, those, those are kind of the people. And I would say we, what we try and do is, I think when you look at the gamut of, I keep using that word, gamut. If you look at the spectrum of different podcast production agents, pure execution. Well, you have lots that are pure execution. I would say, I would say there are few or far between that actually focus on the strategy side of things. And selling strategy is challenging because a lot of people just don't really value it. And I think a lot of people don't really understand podcast strategy and so it requires education. But that's, that's what we try and do. We try and help people actually make good decisions rather than just follow what everyone else is doing in the top hundred.
- [24:48]
B
Presumably the fact you work with people like Tim Ferriss in your, in your personal career gives you a real edge because.
- [24:56]
C
Well, this is actually I was thinking about. Okay, so the Tim Ferriss example is an interesting one because, you know, for a long time, you know, of course everybody's heard of that name. To be honest, my involvement in that show is minimal. If I've got to be really honest, like I help choose the COVID art, I can still say, hey, I work with, you know, I worked on the Tim Ferriss show, which is true. But I've actually found that to be more of a problem when talking to, you know, prospects because they go. Because loads of people come to me and they go, oh, turn me into the next Tim Ferriss. I'm like, okay, like, do you, so do you have. What, what are we working with? Like, what's your audience like? Oh, I don't know. Have you got an email list? Not really, like social following, you know, a few hundred followers. Have you got any New York Times best selling books? Not really. So what, like, you're not Tim Ferriss? I'm sorry? Tim Ferriss, when he started podcasting, he would like, he, he had like a, he had rabid fans, he like had millions of fans and so forth. He wasn't sure if podcasting, you know, his podcast is really going to take off. When we started with him, it was a seven episode pilot. Is. I was, I was skeptical myself, uh, because I was used to reading Tim. I was like, I don't know, do people really want to hear his voice? And this is, it kind of goes on for a bit. You know, he's got some interesting guests, but, but now it's, it's, it's, you know, it's his main chat. It's his sticky thing that everyone, you know, tunes into. And when people stop him on the street, they don't say, oh, Tim, I love your books. They say, I love your podcast. That's the first thing that they say. It kind of actually annoys him a little bit because, because he, he, he spent so many years, you know, working on his books and so forth. But the main thing people love is, is the pog. Well, this, yeah, it's just that, that sticky medium that keeps, you know. Yeah, people just want more Tim. And that's where they get it from on a regular basis. So that said, I, where actually, I think I actually took his show I used to have on our website. I said, oh, we've worked with Tim Ferriss. I took it down because actually the guy from Freedom podcasting, he said, can you take that down, please? I think I made the mistake of, you know, we run like cold email outreach campaigns and I mismanaged this. So we ended up actually contacting some of his, you know, his clients, his agency clients. He was not happy about that. Understandably, I wouldn't have been. And so, and so I was like, oh, okay, I'll take that down. But what I will say actually that Tim Ferriss show was helpful for was hiring. Because when you tell people this is the kind of show that we work with or that you know, that we've been involved with and when you look at the hiring applications and people go, oh, I love that show, that's excellent because that's, that's okay. So one of the, like the, the key question we ask on our application forum for people who want to work with us is actually like, record a loom video. Tell us what your favorite podcast or book or YouTube channel is. And I actually just got a call off, I got off a call with one of our team we recently hired and she, she recorded the best video ever because she was like, I listened to all the shows that you've worked with. I'm so excited. And it means that I know that she already gets so many things about what it's like to work for a small, you know, startup entre, you know, agency, what entrepreneurship is all about, what leadership is about, all these things I don't need to describe in detail. She, she's already listened to hours of this stuff. We, we've all listened to the hours of the same thing. So we're kind of on the same page on so many different levels. That's, that's what actually working with these shows and being able to say, you know, if you listen to these shows, actually, you don't actually we didn't even need to, you know, if you just say, oh, if you listen to these shows, you're probably a good fit for us.
- [28:46]
B
Okay, another lesson to listening that it wasn't what I asked about, but what Jonathan said is critical to realize. If you're starting an enterprise or a new project, be a business or nonprofit, you have to sell to potential team members. It's not just about selling your product or service to clients, but it's much more risky for someone to get a job with a new startup that no one's ever heard of than to get a job with a well known company and all their friends and relatives and their mother will be saying, is that really a good idea to work for that odd guy Jonathan? But so you need to brand yourself and it's harder to do when you're small because a lot of small entrepreneurs are very sniffy about big corporations. And I always say to them, well, wait till you're a big corporation before you criticize. Because if You're. But jumping back to the business. So yes, that's very, very useful. Jumping back to the size of your business. You mentioned employees. Can you talk a little bit about your team and your scale and obviously, again, just to give people a sense, because the reason I'm asking this is you're not just a one man, one woman band. To me, a business is something that can operate when the CEO's not working. And I saw you running and doing stuff in Europe when presumably your business was still looking after clients in, in the States. So could you talk a little bit about the scale of your business?
- [30:11]
C
Yeah. So we currently have a team of five people with another contractor who occasionally comes in as well. So we run things quite leanly. We don't take on. We're not like a factory shop of, you know, hundreds of clients at all. No, we have a small, small number of clients. We do, we do podcast launches, we do podcast production. We do a little bit of guest placement as well, placing people as guests on shows. And we run things very cleanly. So we got a team of five actually not so long ago as a team of three of us, like me and two others, which actually wasn't entirely ideal because especially when one of our team members was like, sick or something like that, then it was like, oh, no. But obviously with the, you know, with the, all the developments with AI, I just sort of realized that, oh, all of a sudden, like, one of the biggest challenges was finding good writers that are willing to write the kind of content we were looking for. And it's, it's not the best paid writing work. It's like show notes. But it's important that it's done well, especially for our clients. But it's not, it's not like sales, copywriting and that sort of thing. And then you have to find people who are like, actually into the content. But then with the introduction of all these different AI platforms and especially the writing was one of the first things that we could actually go, okay, as much as we like having interesting working with interesting writers, it's been so hard to get the right people who are actually really interested in doing this kind of work. Now we can actually just have our team members execute this stuff. So we've used AI a lot.
- [31:50]
B
And.
- [31:50]
C
We continue to do that. And that's. So we basically, we used to have a team of five, then we went down to two with the AI and now we've gone back up to a team of five because, yeah, basically we're just sort of at that Point where I can see, I think as I'm stepping more into a leadership role and I'm basically expanding into other areas, I'm realizing that I'm becoming too much of a bottleneck myself, and I need to empower my team, and I need to also bring people into the mix that have some of the. Yeah, just some of the kind of skills that we might have been deficient on. You know, so I had a lot of kind of operational people who were good at just, like, following, okay, this is the sop and we just do this. But inevitably, it also always fell on me to, like, do the review or think about strategy and all that sort of thing. And so just recently we've. We, you know, we brought in more people, more on kind of, like the creative side of things. And then also Grace is her name. She's basically stepped into this position where now she. She leads the team meetings. And so I. I go last. I let her just run things. I let her decide what the agenda is. And that's just made things. It's just made things so much better. Yeah.
- [33:05]
B
Okay. I just want to get a couple more questions about the. About the business you're currently leading before you move on to your. Your local news site. One is, I suppose, was there a sort of. When you were setting it up on your own as opposed to with partners, so was there like a moment where you thought, I now know this is going to work, because quite often at the start of a project, you're sort of. You think, is this a good idea? Is it going to succeed? Is there really a market? Will people buy at the most that I want to sell it? And was it like a. Like a kind of magic moment where you thought, yes, well, if I can get a client like that, then this is going to work? Or was your prior experience working with other people such that you just knew it was going to work? You never had any doubt?
- [33:56]
C
Well, I mean, at the point when I started this agency, I'd already. So I'd worked with Freedom Podcasting and actually going back to the lean team size, I think this is something that really, you can manage in this space. Very, very leaning. So actually, when we started working with the Tim Ferriss show, I think I'm pretty sure it was basically me, Ian and Veronica. It was just the three of us at that point. You know, we had a bunch of other clients as well, but, yeah, you know, it was just three people, so you don't really need too many people. And then, yeah, I guess in terms of. I Think really what. What propelled that first agency to. To, you know, to answer your question about, you know, having that, you know, that key client or whatever it might be. Yeah, it was really what made that agency was essentially that first client they had. Lewis House, Lewis Howe School of Greatness. His show just did so well. I think a lot of that was due to. He's a very smart guy, and he knew how to make that show a success, and we did a great job. But I think a lot. But I think most of the credit is probably due to Lewis himself. And I know that's not an isolated case. It's happened with other agencies. I spoke to a branding agency who said pretty much the same thing. They worked with Lewis, and everybody, you know, saw how Lewis's brand did so well and just started coming to him saying, oh, you know, who do you recommend for this? Who do you recommend for that? So that's, you know, that's one client acquisition strategy. I have not been able to replicate that at all, to be honest. Unfortunately, for whatever reason.
- [35:34]
B
So you mentioned outbound email. What is your client, your sales process like, by the way? You said sop. Not everyone knows that's a standard.
- [35:43]
C
Oh, I'm sorry.
- [35:44]
B
Standard operating procedure.
- [35:45]
C
Fancy way of saying a checklist.
- [35:47]
B
Yeah, but. So what are your most effective ways of getting. Getting clients at the moment? If you're not giving away too many secrets? Because it must be all, no. What can you share?
- [35:57]
C
I wish I had a great answer for this. I wouldn't say we've already cracked the code, to be honest. And I would say, you know, our agency does. Okay, what we've been focusing on, you know, for. I would say, you know, I went traveling for the last.
- [36:12]
B
For.
- [36:12]
C
For a year with my wife. We just took off and went traveling, and so I kind of took my eye off the ball. But in that, in the meantime, we were basically using cold email, you know, cold email campaigns and basically trying to go, okay, well, you're not just, like, spraying and praying, but basically going, like, okay.
- [36:29]
B
What.
- [36:29]
C
Who are the best people to reach out to? Well, probably people who are already doing podcasting so we don't have to sell it. Sell them on the concept. And so looking at existing shows and then also looking at, okay, what are the different categories and subcategories of those shows that we can, you know, look at and go, well, we have good case studies in this area, okay, well, we can say, look, you know, this show that's doing, I don't know, like a, you know, personal development show or Whatnot we can pick out. Okay, we've got, you know, two or three really great case studies where we had these great, you know, we, we had great outcomes. We helped our clients really achieve, you know, X amount revenue or like we, we, you know, grew their audience by XYZ and, and so they're very relatable for those, those people. I would say though that to be honest, yeah, cold outreach, we kind of had some, we've had some moderate success of that, but it's not, yeah, it's not the all in be. I think there was a time when it was very, very effective and it was, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. It's. No, I don't think it's that anymore. Or, or it could just be that there are just various factors that mean that we're not necessarily executing at the level it should, it should be at. I would say, actually, I would say really a strategy I think we're going to move more towards is, you know, the Dream 100 client approach where basically you go, you know, who are the people that we just really want to work with?
- [38:02]
B
Are.
- [38:03]
C
We, we think that we can really knock it out of the park for. And that's looking at, you know, content creators where we just really respect them. We can see they have integrity, we can see their mission driven. We believe in what they're doing and we're willing to actually maybe even like do some free work with them without even actually asking for anything upfront just so that we can prove like we're not just talking the talk. We'll walk the walk for you. Yeah, it's kind of riffing off the Charlie Hone strategy. I'm not sure if you're familiar with. I do know. Are you familiar with Charlie?
- [38:37]
B
Explain in a sentence.
- [38:39]
C
So Charlie Hone, this is going back many years. He has a TEDx talk about it. I think he also wrote a very short book called Recession Proof Graduate. And basically Charlie Hone is an American chap who, you know, he basically went through the whole college thing and you know, he applied for a million jobs, wasn't getting anywhere, and he thought to himself, you know, this is, you know, I'm not getting anywhere. This is, this is pointless. What am I doing with my life? I'm applying for all this stuff that I'm not even really that interested in. And so just on a lark, on a whim, he said, well, how about I just like, reach out to people that I, whose blogs I read, whose content I consume. And so he started reaching out to People like Seth Godin, Ramit Sethi, Tim Ferriss, and just saying, like, hey, you know, Ramit, I love your content. I notice You've got a YouTube channel, but your, you know, thumbnails aren't completely optimized. I think I could help you with that. In fact, here's a couple that I mocked up for you already. I've got two other ideas of projects I could do for you. I'd be willing to work for you for free for two weeks. How does that sound to you? And by doing so, he did something that very, very, very few people do, which is being super proactive and basically helping. Helping entrepreneurs identify areas they didn't even realize that they were deficient in. And instead of saying, oh, Ramit, what would you like me to help you with? Said, here are some ideas I had. So they're actually kind of. They're. They're. They're basically preventing the. The entrepreneur, the founder of thinking, oh, what do I have? What kind of work do I have to give this person? Oh, I have to come up with a job description or a role. They basically created the. He recreated the role for himself. And then once he was able to get not even a role or a job, but just a testimonial under his belt because sometimes it wasn't the right fit, but he put together some thumbnails, he said, well, would you mind giving me a testimonial? And that person that Seth Godin was like, yeah, sure. Okay. You know, such and such did a great job. And then the next time he reached out, he was able to say, I got a testimonial from Seth Godin who said this, like, whoa, okay. Like, if Seth thinks you're good, then you must be good. And just repeated that over and over again.
- [40:52]
B
Yeah, this is very useful advice. A benefit of having. Did you call yourself JBS earlier?
- [40:59]
C
Having my initials?
- [41:01]
B
Yeah. Having JPS Jonathan on the show is sharing a great idea. And for people who are earlier on in their career or trying to get something new going, there's a very arrogant approach to doing business where people say, you know, well, I'm far too talented to work for free. If you're already well established and you've got a long list of clients, of course you can say that. But if you're getting yourself up and running, don't be arrogant. It's much better to go out and do what has just been suggested. And if everyone says no, that means you can't even give away the thing you think you can sell. That's Quite a good indicator that maybe it's not such a good idea. And, and at the end of the day, if you try it and it doesn't work, the only thing you've lost is your time. Okay, I'm conscious of time here myself and I'd like to, just before we leave podcasting behind, I'd like. If someone who's got a medium sized company, say a 15, 20, 50 million dollar a year revenue business that meets your profile in the States, what are the reasons, the two or three main reasons they come to you saying they want to have a podcast? Is it that they see it as part of the marketing mix? Is it because their competitors have got one? Is it because someone in the team has a huge ego and they like the idea of being Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan? But like, if you could identify the reasons why people come to you and what in fact are the best reasons to have one. And if you can't answer the question in more than two or three minutes, we'll have to cap it because I see you could talk for hours, but like just two or three categories. And what, what really are the benefits of having a business podcast if you're a medium sized company?
- [42:47]
C
Yeah, so I think you described some of them already. So one, oh, look, all our competitors are doing it. We should do it too. Which is fine. I think the approach that, usually the way that we approach that. Well, okay, cool, your competitors are doing this, so are you. Don't want to be just like another me too. Okay, let's look at the competitive landscape and see like, how these shows differentiate. What do people like? What do people dislike? Are we gonna, you know, mine all the reviews, content, mine and see what people are saying that they really, really turn it, like they love about the show and they dislike about the show. And what elements of that can you leverage to your benefit that you can say, oh, well, actually, you know, people are saying that they, you know, they don't like those guys or they're too arrogant. We can be the more like, you know, relatable. We can bring on talent that's like, you know, speaks more to what our, you know, our prospective audience looks, you know, is interested in. I think also looking at like, you know, what, what, what, what audiences can you piggyback off? And sometimes that might even be okay. I mean, ideally you're probably looking at podcast audiences because where do you find podcast listeners? Well, podcast listeners listen to other podcasts, right? But sometimes it's like, oh, well, actually we can see this whole body of content on, say, I don't know, YouTube or there's like, you know, there's lots of books around this topic, but there's not really a podcast. I'll give you a great example of this. Harry Duran did a show around vertical farming. He noticed, like, on TechCrunch where he was like, oh, there's like all the, all these funding rounds, you know, for, for vertical farming companies, but there's no, like, proper, like, flagship podcast. There's nothing in podcasting. And so he, he was like, oh, great. You know, there's an opportunity. And he started interviewing, you know, founders of these companies. And he got, he got sponsorship. He got big sponsorship deals before he'd actually even launched anything. So. So, yeah, that. I mean, yeah, I think I've reached my 2, 3 minute mark, but there's a lot to be said about that. A lot of. Yeah, yeah.
- [44:43]
B
Okay. Well, if anyone wants more details, they can always ping Jonathan directly. Okay. Now, in the last few minutes, I want to talk about the, the purpose of your local community idea that, you know, starting something new. You could double down on your business, which, as you've indicated, is doing quite well. But, you know, maybe you don't feel you've nailed everything. But, like, if, if your local news community site does what it wants you to do, in the sense that in two or three years time, you're talking to your friend or to me or to your mom and you say it's going really well because. And then you, like, rattle off three or four things that you're really proud of that it happened because you launched that project. What, what would be your. What would be your sort of your load? What do you say? North Star? Your. Your gold, not your gold mine. But what would be some killer outcomes that would make you feel, this is really what I wanted to do?
- [45:42]
C
Yeah. Well, I would say one thing that is already. It's already really done.
- [45:46]
B
What?
- [45:47]
C
Okay, because I'm going to backtrack to what you said about, you know, I could focus on the agency. Of course I could. But one of the main reasons why I started this is because a lot of those sales conversations that you have, they take ages. You know, even people that are great to work with and they're, they're, they're positive. I was speaking to a VP of marketing recently and they were like, they're awesome. They're like a former athlete. They're like, gung ho. They're like, yes, we're going to do this. I'm like, great. When do you want to start quarter 2, 20, 26. It's like, that's like half a year from now. I'm ready to start today. So that's where I'm like, you know, it's a bit of a, you know, it's like, you know, like kind of trudging through treacle sometimes with the sales process. And that's just kind of the fact of life with a lot of B2B sales processes. But that's kind of one of the reasons why I started this hyperlocal thing because I could, I can have, I can start, you know, a little email newsletter and I can have like subscribers and I get such beautiful messages from people where, you know, it's family saying, you know, we're so grateful for this, thank you so much, please don't stop this. It's, it's, it means so much. But it's mainly an events newsletter that I've started. And so I would say, you know, already, like, even if this, you know, thing goes nowhere, I like, I've gotten so much, so much, so many warm fuzzies from just the replies and the engagement I've got. But I'll tell you one thing, so this is a revenue generating thing. Even though I know the news, this newsletter itself, by itself is not going to generate that much meaningful reven. One of the things that we've started, we're experimenting with is we have essentially used a platform called Dinner without the vowels because they're a startup, so of course, but essentially they've allowed us to white label their platform. So we have a landing page for communal dinners that we run and people in the neighborhood, they sign up. We just tell people, mostly through the email newsletter, they sign up, they pay a small fee for the logistics. 70% of that fee goes to us and they fill in a questionnaire, directory preferences, all that kind of jazz. And we match them on tables of six people, simultaneous dinners. So we've got 25 people signed up for the one happening this evening. And, and yeah, they're all going to get together. What's really interesting is that one of the demographics that it skews way more towards is women over 60, which I think is amazing, which I think is such a brilliant thing. So we're supporting local businesses, we're bringing people together, we're, we're helping with social isolation, people who are lonely, who want to make friends, that's, they're looking for friendship. I think it's like, it's, it's an amazing thing where we're able to build Community where we're actually, it's, it's profitable as well. Uh, we're supporting local. There's. Yeah, I mean this, it's, it's all the good things. And so for example that, I mean we've got 25 people. So revenues somewhere just like within the region of 250, $300. But on average, actually if we were to actually promote this properly like as, as well as I could, we would probably be doing, I would say 500. Yeah, 500 to $700, you know, dollars per, per month which is not, you know, it's not a huge amount but it's, it's something and it's, and it pays some of those bills. Like I say, it's not. It's, you know, this, this, this newsletter is never going to be like the, the big money making machine. I've got other aspirations around that. That's probably going to be more of a B2B newsletter play that's probably going to cover a wider region. Queens, which is over 2 million, you know, residents rather than Jackson heights which is 2 square kilometers. 100,000 people, 60% of which are Latino. Next demographic is Bengali. So English native speakers that read newsletters is probably only, I would say probably 10,000 people of which we already have about a tenth of that. 1200 on at the moment, 75% open rate, 15% click through rate. We haven't done any paid acquisition. Paid acquisition is actually very cheap for local newsletters. So we'll probably do that at some point. But yeah, I'm pretty happy with the way things go. And to be honest, I don't really care about growth. I like, I love little meetups. I love meaningful interactions and I think it doesn't. Everyone thinks about scale. I just went to Web Summit, it was 70,000 people. It's exhausting. So yeah, I'm all about the little. One of the things we're starting actually next week is new in the neighborhood meetups and it's basically just people who just recently moved it moved in. And I'm capping it, I'm capping it. Eight people at most. No more than eight people. Sorry. We probably will, but it's actually to do like. One of the reasons we're capping it is because the venue, you know, we can't take over the venue basically. But, but yeah, that's, that's what's really getting me jazzed these days.
- [50:37]
B
Okay. And, and are you anticipating getting involved in delivery of events as well as, as well as having the distribution of information about Events in the sense that there was a famous entrepreneur called Felix Dennis who made a fortune in the UK with How to Get Rich and he used to do poetry readings and he used the fact he owned lots of newspapers to promote himself as a poetry and like, can you, can you see yourself in the role of doing the community stuff as well as publicizing it or are you not sure?
- [51:11]
C
Possibly. It's just a lot of work, isn't it? And a lot of time and, and energy and I, I know there's like, you know, there are things like, there's like, like brands that do like bingo night and they scale it and they make tons of money from it. Do I want to do that? I don't think so. I'm, I'm, I, I would say I'm more interested at the moment maybe, you know, I think at some point probably I'll find an event format that feels it, that will just be part of my groove and part of my flow. But I would say at this time and point I'm more about being a community enabler rather than, I wouldn't even say I'm necessarily like, okay, like community building always does come into the part of the equation. But like if to go full in on, on community building is like, it's time and energy and it's often it's, it's not very well paid and I rather support you know like our, our local, you know, running team captain like Sam, she does amazing team though, you know, and, and all these people who do all this amazing work and they don't do it with so few resources and that those are the people I'm trying to support and trying to help. But yeah, you know, I, I would never say no to. I, I do love doing events. I, I will say well, I'm more interested in like maybe doing a TEDx at some point. I know you've got a bit of TEDx experience. We've spoken about that.
- [52:30]
B
Yes, the, the plan I've got with JBS is after this podcast and I understand more. Well here's, we're going to have a follow up meeting to talk about how we can cooperate and for sure listen to this show regularly. They'll know that I did TedXS. I do newcomer welcome clubs, I do open coffee meetups and there's certainly, I think there's a, there's a, in order to enable, you need to know how to do things because it's hard to enable or you just get lucky with other enablers. But there's definitely a crossover in the, in the two roles of community leader and community enabler. Well, I'm, I'm conscious of time. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to share with our audience on the subject of entrepreneurship and leadership? I think, you know, you're slightly unusual for the show in the sense that your business is at a slightly smaller scale. On the other hand, you've used business to enable you to do things that you want to do. And you're also clearly wide open to taking on, Taking on new challenges and new initiatives, which makes your story very interesting. You also know everything about podcasting, which means that as a podcaster, I feel slightly under the microscope that I'm wondering at the end of this call, what are you going to say about how he did? But from my point of view, I'd just like to give you this opportunity to share anything extra that I didn't ask about.
- [53:50]
C
Yeah, I know. I think it's been a good. Yeah. You know, you asked some great questions. We touched on some important topics. I think I would say I feel extremely lucky. I'm very happy in the position I'm at. I, I have freedom, I have flexibility, and I, I do have to give credit to, to people in my life who've, Who've helped me do that. You know, having a supportive family, having supportive, you know, parents. My wife is just, she's absolutely amazing. And, and, yeah, I could, you know, I would, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be doing what I do. Was it not for them, you know, it takes a village. Yeah. So my. I, I'm. Am I at the stage where, you know, I ultimately want to be or I wanted to be. I'm on my way. I just know I'm on my way there. That's, that's the. I know. And I've got, I've got. I think I've got a much more clearer vision than I did if you spoke to me, like a year ago. I, I'll tell you, like, when. Okay. Okay. One last thing. Okay. When I first moved to New York, I couldn't figure it out. Okay. I moved here and I was like, what is this whole New York thing? I love it. It's, you know, big city. I love big cities. But I really struggled to make friends. Right. Like, and the first few years, I was like, well, you know, I live in this neighborhood. It's quite cool. Jackson Heights, over 160 languages spoken. Most ethnically diverse neighborhood probably in the world. Really cool. But it I only ever saw it as a place to eat and sleep and hang out with my wife's family. I thought, like, most people who come to New York, it's like, oh, we got to be in Manhattan. We've got to be in Brooklyn, you know, because that's where, you know, that's where I'm going to build my professional network. That's where I'm going to hang out with the tech bros and the finance bros and the hipsters, and I'm going to eat free pizza from the VCs. You know, just. You know, they just spend all the money on the pizza, and I'm gonna eat their pizza. It's gonna be great. So I did that, and then a couple years went by and I was like, I was fat and I had no friends. So, like, yeah, then. Then I had a health scare and I was like, oh, you know, like, basically, what? Diagnosed with heart block. I was like, oh, okay, I gotta watch the cholesterol levels. I gotta do some running, join the local running club. And that was the best thing I've done with my life. Just committing to that, Going like that. This is a thing, you know, I think anywhere you are, you know, there's going to be something local, you know, if you can. If you can just like, even if, like, not completely your thing, or you're like, oh, I'm not really sure about the people. Some of them are a bit weird or whatever. But just commit to, like, doing some kind of activity. I don't know what it is, quilting, yoga, whatever floats your boat. Just find that, like, little group, and that will become your tribe, because those are people who will look out for you, and they will be like, hey, why? Where's Richard? Like, he was here last week. Is he okay? Like, people will look out for you. You will become friends with them, whether you like it or not. And those will become your friends for life. And those are people who will be invested in your success, in your life, in your family and your friends. That's. That's a lot. That's a. That's a life lesson that I've. It's taken me so long to learn this, and it's so obvious at the same time.
- [56:51]
B
I was smiling internally as we closed this podcast because you said some very powerful, meaningful things. And you said, two years ago I was fat, I was. Fascinating pictures.
- [57:02]
C
I look like a spot.
- [57:04]
B
Luckily, luckily, this isn't a video channel, but, no, it's been fascinating. That's a very good, inspiring end. And as I told you, one of the leaders of the nbn, Caleb Zachary, and lives in Brooklyn, which is the other end of New York. But I'm certainly going to introduce you to him. He's talking about the stuff he does in the city. And from my point of view, and on behalf of all the listeners of the Entrepreneurship and Leadership Channel on the New Books Network, I'd just like to end by thanking you very much indeed for your time.
- [57:36]
C
Thank you, Richard. It's been a pleasure.