B (4:01)

I got a question. Yeah, I knew what it is, but just for the listeners, you very quickly said, cpg. Is that Consumer Packaged Goods?

C (4:11)

Consumer Packaged Goods, yes. Yeah.

B (4:12)

Okay. So I just wanted to explain the acronym.

C (4:15)

So People. No, thank you for that. Yeah.

B (4:19)

And you also have your own podcast. Tell us about this.

C (4:24)

I do. So about three years ago, I decided to start a media company. I call my company Dist. Media Dist because, you know, it's all slang word for disrespected. And, you know, I always said that, you know, I always read a lot of business articles from journalists who might not know a lot about business. So I'm going to be a business person who doesn't know anything about journalism. And hence Disk Media is the name of the company. But when I started the company, I thought to myself, you know, wouldn't it be fun to chronicle this thing from the very beginning? Because a lot of times, you know, when we hear success stories and we hear the, you know, Colonel Sanders, you know, he kicked a lot of ideas around for the longest time before KFC took off. Or we hear about Sam Walton and the struggles that he had building up Walmart, and, you know, wow, it'd be great if I ended up being like, like the next Walmart or Colonel Sanders. But absent that, I thought, let's go ahead and chronicle this thing from the very beginning, and we're either going to crash and burn and people are going to learn something or we'll make something of it and people will learn what not to do and do it better themselves. So that's how the podcast kind of started. You know, the first couple years we did, like 10 episodes a year, but really over the last six, seven months now we've been putting out an episode at least once a week. We're kind of wrapping up to two a week now. So. But it's, yeah, it's a labor of love and that's, that's kind of what, what brought it together.

B (6:02)

Well, and you also take it a little bit further where than most podcast hosts I have found you have a jump the line system where people can invest, but that helps them and it helps you. But you embrace YouTube, you create YouTube shorts, you syndicate across all the various media channels and you add advertising. Tell us about that. That is great. So you, your, your focus, your push, your emphasis is for YouTube to grow and that seems to be the growth area is the video component. How much do you invest in that effort?

C (6:42)

Yeah, so, you know, a lot of this is, is being kind of new. So one of the, again I've mentioned this, this is a labor of love. I started this media with $5,000 of my own money. Kind of blew through that. And you know, we haven't really made a profit. And I know this is going to sound terrible coming from a business professor, but I really haven't focused on profit primarily because I've been learning and building and investing time, energy and effort in, in kind of establishing what the media company is. But when it comes to the.

B (7:18)

Let me, let me, let me intersect there. Now I'm just getting an MBA. I don't have a PhD, but that's okay. I've been accused of saying, hey, more bad advice. But the. I would, I would differ with your statement that it hasn't been profitable. It hasn't been profitable yet. But there's also something called the back end where you may be interviewing people who will hire you for your consulting services, similar to what I do. I don't make money. I don't charge my podcast. After talking to you and several other people, I think I'm going to add and implement dump the line system, advertise it and that way there's a mutual benefit and it might bring in a higher level of guest. I don't know. I mean, do you get much pushback

C (8:01)

from paying, you know, so, so here's the thing. I make it completely optional. It's not a, it's not a required thing and it's something that's just kind of launched. But the folks who have been engaging lately, you know, and I have a, a Google form that people fill out. And one of the questions I ask is if you're interested and haven't really, you know, I don't do the hard sell about it. However, here's the thing that I try to get people to understand. First of all, I've got 30 years of contacts in my personal LinkedIn world, if you will. And in addition to that, I've been focusing three years on tapping into managers, leaders and entrepreneurs, like people who are in this business space. And then on top of that, I've been interviewing people podcasting with people who are experts in their own space. So if, if that's your audience that you're trying to reach, I'm cultivating that audience and I can help you reach them if those are the people that you're trying to get in touch with. So that, that is really, you know, the sell there is that now I offer kind of different levels of engagement, if you will. So because of the volume of activity that I've gotten and the things that I got to keep up with, I'm kind of, you know, I started out doing seven video shorts. So we do the long form interview. I put that out, I boost, put some ad dollars, my own ad dollars against that on YouTube to kind of get in, you know, boost up my subs. That's really what I'm focusing on. Want to hit 100,000 subs by the end of 2026.

B (9:46)

You want that, that, that, that commemoration. Yes.

C (9:50)

Yeah, that, that's, that's. I say it. Keep repeating it over and over. And oh, by the way too, I've also cultivated subscribers on a newsletter as well. Right. So which I have my LinkedIn, I'm sorry substack. No, actually it is to your email software that I use. It's not. Yeah, you know, similar to mailchimp, Mailer Light, but you know, but again targeted. You know, I can, you know, check the opens and the, you know, the engagement rate and all of that stuff on the newsletter. But so I focus on the newsletter, have all the social media stuff that I'm, you know, focused on. I put ad dollars against the YouTube and then, you know, again, I do shorts. So after we drop the long form interview, I do a short every single day for a week. And so everybody's getting, you know, very good exposure from all of this. But because of the backlog, I'm like, okay, I gotta get. My production cycle has to get faster. Here's the other thing too. I don't want to saturate people on my social platforms. So I don't want to put five videos out a day because people are just Going to, you know, scroll right past it. They start to lose impact if you put more out. So there's a little bandwidth issue there. Right. So the. I'm moving kind of to a model where if we're on the free plan, if you will, there's probably going to be, you know, maybe two, three clips, but we can tier that up and we can go faster in the line to move you ahead of some other people. So at the highest price point, I will edit and pump out that video within the week and we'll have seven shorts and we'll blast them out to all the channels. And I will do a very targeted ICP to add advertise what is an I. Individual customer profile. So actually a topic I talk about in my book, but creating a very individualized targeted ad both on YouTube and LinkedIn to really get in front of the audience that you're trying to reach. So you tap into my audience and then the other thing too. Whenever my guest has their own YouTube channel and some of them have, we try to do collaborations on our video because then that way we cross pollinate our, our audiences together.

B (12:26)

Let me, let me interject right there. How do you get around the duplication process? Because if I create a YouTube short, I'm interviewing you today. How do you post my YouTube short on your channel? That's duplicate content and they'll, they'll negate it.

C (12:45)

So when, when I do a short, I am, I am cutting that short through the software that I have. And usually the shorts are the things that I push out there. Now, YouTube will allow you to collaborate on a video, which basically means that you share the audience off of the same video. So your, even though it gets posted on my channel, your followers become aware of it, even though it's hosted somewhere else?

B (13:14)

No. Okay, maybe I did.

C (13:15)

But as far as, like, like if I were to take my video and then I give you a copy of it and then you post it on, on your platform as well, I would probably not encourage that for the reasons that you're saying that they won't allow it.

B (13:32)

So I just want to be clear. So when the listeners are getting accurate information. Yes.

C (13:36)

So now I will say, yeah, I will say at that highest price point. The other thing that I do is I will give you the raw interview. So I will give you both tracks, yours and mine, and then you can cut it up however you like, make your own shorts out of it, put it through your own distribution channels. But that's another thing that I offer, and that's Something I won't do, you know, for any of the lesser, because I've had people actually ask me, you know, can I get the interview when we're done? And in the past, I would just hand it out. And lately I started thinking, like, well, you know, those are kind of my assets. They are your assets, and there's some value to it. And, you know, again, having sunk the money in that I have right now, I'm. The other work that I do outside of this stuff is really kind of my bread and butter. So. So this really is, like I said, it's a labor of love. I love doing it. I enjoy it. I'm not doing this because this is my. The next way that I imagine I'm going to, you know, finance my lifestyle.

B (14:44)

Okay, well, that's good. So you're. You're ticking all the boxes. Have you thought about sponsors with your podcast?

C (14:54)

You know, I have thought about sponsors, as a matter of fact, for the online publication the Daily Pitch. I've had a couple sponsors engage me, and I've had actually the gentleman by the name of Chris Hallberg, who is a management consultant. He has a software program called Go Expand. I actually have an affiliate opportunity with him, so I do run his ad on my website regularly. But, yeah, I mean, certainly open to advertising, but, you know, have not really made that a concentrated effort, to be honest with you. What I've really focused on is the content. Like, I'm. I'm very into building the content the best that it can be, you know, putting energy and effort into a book like I write anyways, so I might as well, you know, do a little something with it.

B (15:56)

Sure. And who's the ideal guest for your show?

C (16:02)

You know, here's the fun thing. Like, I. I enjoy talking to people. I tend to, you know, get a lot of people who are into business, but I love conversation. And, you know, one of the things that I'm going to be doing soon with, with the podcast is having more of a panel kind of a show that will. That. That we explore topics. You know, I think learning comes from discussion. And I'll be honest with you, Mitch, sometimes it's a little tiring to just get pitched episode after episode with somebody just saying, you know, giving you the talking points, telling you the highlights of, you know, the, The. The. They want to hit these six or eight bullet points as part of the presentation of the. Their guest appearance on a show. And it's like, you know, I kind of want to. I can want a Conan o' Brien experience. I want to have a conversation with people, I want to dig into the things that they're interested in. And you know, sometimes the interview goes there and sometimes it doesn't. But I'm going to try and do a little bit more some episodes that are a little bit more focused around that kind of stuff. The other thing I will say this. Now I'm going to plug something after I just gave people a hard time for doing that. I am starting what we call the daily Pitch community. It's an invite only community. And so what I'm doing is on my website, if you go to ben almost.com which is where you can buy the book and everything, you can download the first chapter of my book for free. And when you do that, you will get on my mailing list. Now every once in a while I'm going to release a select number of seats for this community group that I'm building. And I'm also trying to get former guests that I've had on my podcast to be in, in this community group as well. You'll get access to, you know, experts, people that I know, you know, and again, brand new. I mean this is, barely have anybody in it yet, but it's building. And you know, the idea here is to really just have a focused, concentrated group of people who are interested in content creation, growing your business, leadership skills, management skills, you know, venture capital, funding, like all of the things it takes to run a business and promote a business. We're going to try and create a community of people who are just focused on that.

B (18:37)

Awesome.

C (18:38)

Yeah, awesome.

B (18:39)

Awesome. Well that's great. I mean you've talked about, you've thrown a lot of mud at the wall and seeing what fix and that's it's called an evolution. And I don't know where you are episodes wise with your podcast. This is about 190 in my interview process. Not all are uploaded yet. I think I've got about 160 uploaded. But the where I was in the beginning to where I was, let's say at 100 episodes to now and where I want to go, that constantly tweaks. I think it's a tightening of the wrench squeeze, turning down the screws a little bit tighter here, here and here, these 1% improvements which makes a big difference over time. And like you said, getting into the content, I like that. So digging deeper, being more of a Conan o' Brien than being a robotic AI where you could be replaced, repeating the talking points or asking the talking. So why do you, why do you do what you do. I mean that gets a little boring. It's not as engaging. So you're talking about engagement and.

C (19:45)

Yeah, you know, part of this too is just, you know, kind of my nature. Yeah, you mentioned you throw a lot of stuff at the wall. You know, you kind of have to, to know to figure out what works and what, by the way, what's going to work for me is going to be different than what works for you or anybody else. So.

B (20:06)

But there are some best practices. Yes.

C (20:08)

Yeah. For example, I, we started last year, I built a learning platform on, on the Daily Pitch and you know, sunk some money into it, spent a lot of time. I mean I build everything myself. I do all the web development, I mean I do all the back end systems. I mean I do everything partly because I can and partly because that's, I'm just a builder. Like I like doing stuff. But you know, the, what I found was that online learning class, online classes, they work for some people. They didn't work really for my audience. People didn't really care. And it's not that they don't want to learn, but they want to be engaged learners, they want to be social learners. They don't want a structured classroom. Read this and quiz on that kind of learning. That's not where their headspace is. And so, you know, I did it, put some money against it, it failed miserably and we abandoned it. And that's why we're switching over to this community platform because I think it's just going to be a better thing and who knows? Hopefully it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, tank like the other thing did. But you know, if so we'll figure something else out.

B (21:30)

Well, that's, it's called testing. You've got a test. A good marketer tests and constantly improves and tests against the control. And if what you're doing is there and it works right now, well, okay, it may not. You've got to evolve. And for example, the podcast host journey has changed from its inception was strictly audio and then you talked a lot about. Rightly so. Where the trend is going is video podcasting, which used to be called a video blog more but now it is. YouTube is huge for podcasters. I wonder if it'll surpass Spotify and itunes at some point.

C (22:10)

That and you know, I don't think so. Here's the interesting thing about podcasts, especially podcasts on YouTube. So a lot of people may not sit in one place for the long, longer form interview. They are more likely going to get introduced to your podcast through clips. So if you're just putting the long form out there, it's probably not going to get picked up very much. But once you start pumping the clips out there and putting them on TikTok and putting them on Instagram and even on LinkedIn and getting people used to snippets of the most interesting parts of your conversation, eventually they decide to come on in for a little bit and sometimes they stay and other times they just dip in for a couple episodes. But you know, that, that's kind of the thing, you know, it's. It's a little bit like, it's a little bit like wine. So I used to work for Coca Cola and I've worked in the wine industry. Coca Cola is all about brand loyalty. Like, people rarely leave the brand, their soda, brand, wine, completely different. Everybody tries. Nobody has a go to thing they go to every single time they buy wine. They always like to try a little something different from a little different place. And, you know, the loyalty is not as strong to the individual product, but it is strong to kind of the individual. Maybe the grape, you know, varietal a little bit stronger. Like, people will say, I like a Pinot versus a Cabernet versus a Merlot, and they'll kind of stick to that category more, but not necessarily to a brand. So, yeah, I mean, you know, there's lessons the CPG industry teaches you about this kind of stuff.

B (23:56)

Consumer package goods industry. Yes.

C (23:58)

Yes. Sorry, Yeah, I keep shortening it.

B (24:02)

Well, no, it's just for people who aren't familiar with it. Yeah. And acronyms, when you're in your own unique niche in the vocabulary that some people may not follow. But yeah. Consumer packaged goods. Yes. And how has that changed? Does your podcast cover consumer packaged goods?

C (24:23)

It does not. So I tend to focus on entrepreneurs, you know, business, emerging businesses, new products that are coming out. And now I. It doesn't, it doesn't highlight any of the industry work that I do. And I purposely do that because, you know, there's a lot of relationships I have that, you know, I want to, I want to kind of preserve those things in their space. Right. This is my opportunity to break beyond that normal world that I spent a lot of time in and kind of dabble and get into things and meet people that, that do different kind of work in different industries. So for me, this is, this is all about exploration and learning and learning from people beyond that space. Now I have had some people on who are in that consumer packaged goods world. Or even do lending. Had somebody on my podcast who lends money in the consumer product space world to businesses up and coming because that industry introduces kind of a unique need when it comes to financing and converting your cash to conversion cycles tend to be a little bit longer because of that industry. But you know, again, we don't focus on any specific product. You know, it's not like we're talking about General Mills or anything like that.

B (25:56)

Okay, cool. So where do people get in touch with you? Is it benomals.com?

C (26:01)

yes, check out my website, ben almost.com you'll learn a lot about me there. But you can also check out the Daily Pitch, which is our online business publication. That's kind of where I put a lot of the new episodes and podcasts. Have not written any hard articles lately because I put so much energy into the book. But some articles are going to be coming back up soon and yeah, we're already, already thinking about book two and what that's going to look like.

B (26:32)

That's smart, you know, being an author. And I want to share this because I think it's important and you probably will agree. Writing one book is a big feat. That's a big feat. Being a multi book author is really impressive because once the Writing book two is a lot easier than book one. Writing book two and three.

C (26:55)

I will say this now which I had a little bit of, I had a little bit of a. This is kind of weird for me. Book one was not as hard because I had to do a dissertation because I had to do a peer reviewed paper to get my PhD. That was a lot harder than my first book. But, but, but it is still no small task and I, I admire anybody who puts time, energy and effort into this. It is a brave thing to do. To do your first book and you birth the child to get past that, it gets so much easier and you start to, I think you start to look at the world a little differently and the task about it a little differently as well.

B (27:43)

Great. Well Ben, thank you so much for your time today. Been an awesome guest, you spent great nuggets and I'd love to have you back in the future.

C (27:52)

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

A (27:53)

Thanks for tuning into the amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top for behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarsen.com until next time. Stay amazing.