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Michael O'Neal: Why Podcasting? 1

Why podcasting is the first thing that I like to talk about, which is we have all kinds of different mediums that we can reach an audience on it could be blogging could be social media it could be google hangouts are kind of a newer version of that we could have youtube or if you have traditional media you have access you know if you can do that if you can get on the radio than by all means but podcasting is kind of a different animal, so I'm curious off the people in the room we have how many is this? Thirteen fourteen fifteen how many people actually have a podcast of this room so the whole room has one and how much? How many of you will mind this white minus two? All right, so where were the pretty good odds though, of podcasters? I'm curious why you started a podcast who wasn't mike that's close to them that wants to tell me why they started podcast anyone right here in the blue shirt tell me first stand up and tell us what your name is and what your podcast is. My name is nathan b...

rown hair and my podcast is rethink true health rethink true how do you think drew healthy rethink true health show with nathan nathan bro mayer mayer mayer okay, so why'd you start a podcast so I started podcast because I don't like to write and I'm the same way the same way I started to block every day didn't work didn't work at all and I love talking about getting in front of people talking and so for me I just it just took yeah getting in front of a microphone was weird at first, but once I started going very comfortable with it and I really enjoyed you look fit with a trainer is that what you got into it with my own across the gym? Yeah you're across virginia and how long is the podcast podcast been going about five months now all right and so after a week you're now decided to sign up for this part of good this will be a little a bit of kit for you so the s so far what has been the biggest struggle for you as a podcaster that's over this again we keep talking about this eight week hump which is this when you get a brand new podcast jon talked about it on his segment itunes gives you about a sixty or seventy percent boost and you feel like you're running with the big dogs like I'm right next to pat flynn and then you drop off this cliff and you're like, oh, I guess I have to learn how to do this so that cliff well yeah so did you have a bit of that? Did that happen yeah and that's what it is for me since I don't like to write, you know it's it's hard to send people to my website when there's just not a lot on their right and I really want to make the podcast the focal point right? You're leaning really heavy on the five right right here and so I want to grow that but I'm not really sure exactly how to grow that when all I've got is the podcast have I got another for you? All right? Well so just starting so name and your podcast so we can all subscribe my name sprit I'm a little nervous but a cool name thank you you from a spree l a cool so my broadcast is focused on l a startup it's called we are l a tech and I made it to number two all across all of itunes for new new or they done and so right there on the first page of itunes you with number two new nowhere they create it next to alan like alcoholics may now it's it's um it's amazing how recently was that last week I was here just like your three that's it I am dying to know I know nothing I'm totally new podcast michael I don't know what to do tio like stay up I didn't even know really like what what about what yet friends I don't know what did I don't know what to do, you know? You have to be honest, what that means is you probably nailed your brand because if you knew nothing about it and you had no, you know, mailing us that you were, you know, sending people tio that means whatever you did with your brand in your artwork is probably good enough that people found you and settle this sounds interesting. Yeah, and that's, why you started doing what you're doing that's, thanks to my friend marc creating art for me good, but, you know, I cover, you know, that's. The thing is, it's, one of the biggest challenges is is not everybody clearly not everybody's a designer until they hire designer that everyone thinks they're designer that's how that works in the design world like no, but if you could just move this and then change that to purple and then I know as a designer for eighteen years, so but that I mean it's nice to have a stroke of locked, but you'd like to keep it there, you know? I like I want to do podcasting full time. I love it like this second I pressed record on my first episode, I was really tired, I didn't want to be doing anything, and I got to my first interview location and I don't alive, yeah, and I know not live, but I'm doing it, you know what I mean is actually reporting person? Yeah, I pressed record and it was amazing, and I knew at that moment, as tired as I wasn't how ecstatic I felt about what I was doing, and then the impact that I've made in the very short little time I'm like, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life, and so I'm trying to figure that out because everybody's got chills when you said that so everybody's is podcasting isn't profitable, so I'm trying to be wrong. Andi, I'm proof of that jobs for everybody that's presenting today is proof of that. Well, thank you very much that was greatest free. So the the key to this is and I want you to just bookmark what she just said, because it's going to be important in about fifteen minutes when I talk about that part, which is that she that I want to do this the rest of my life, I'm so excited by this that I want to do the rest of my life and that's how I came into play should never do this with a microphone wap, wap wap sorry, outside audience that's how I felt when I when I did I had I subbed for someone? I was I produced another show called the kick ass life with david wood, and he was awake climbing mount kilimanjaro, and we needed a show, so I'm like, well, I'll just do a show, and I trained on social media and I found it so easy and so natural and so all right, this is cool, and I got a bunch of feedback from around like maybe I should do this because I've been a professional drummer for a lot of my life, so I've been a very supporting cast role for most of my life, and I never really felt like standing on the front of the stage like this, and then when I did, I'm like, wow, it sure feels different on this when your your names on the marquee it's like a lot more nerve racking to put the content out so it's very interesting anyway, I'd love for you guys to connect with me right now if you could, I'm on the twitter at solo hour and it's ah solo our dot com for you guys want to check out the podcast itself and we have a really great group for my show called the proudly unemployable because that's what I consider myself is probably unemployable. Um and it's the probably unemployable group on facebook we have about eight hundred people in it now. It's fantastic, it's free. Obviously sola preneurs dot com slash group will get you there. S o john did an amazing job presenting how to create, grow and monetize a podcast, and he had a lot of really awesome dear suggestions. He had a lot of software suggestions, and what I'm going to say is what he alluded to when he introduced me. We do it almost completely opposite lee I think there's more than one way to scan a podcast cat. So for me, I came from a standpoint where I wanted this to be what I did. So when someone says, what do you d'oh? I would say I'm a podcaster and they would go what is that? But that's another story altogether. But to do that, I lead back to what I knew as a designer on a web guy for eighteen years. I did a lot of branding. I grew up on howard stern kid like we saw when I lived in philadelphia. We used to listen to howard stern. We'd be driving down the scougall expressway in rush hour traffic, and he would say something funny and every car would be laughing. You just see that the whole place was listening to same thing, and so you know you take away some of his edgy stuff he's the most brilliant interview we've had in the last twenty five years I mean he gets stuff out of people that you know you've never seen before so I didn't realize this but I was studying between that and my huge love for stand up comedy I learned how people could take an audience through a specific energy and I didn't realize I knew that until I started podcasting and was like oh wow I can I know how to guide a conversation in a way that can can have I can have the desired outcome and I can actually steer someone there and that's a powerful tool tohave that's what I want to talk about today so before key pillars for me for having a business out of podcasting are your brand becoming a better prod castor that's not a typo social media strategy and the monetization strategy I'll make sure I move around for you guys so you can see the board I'm not going to spend a ton of time on brand because john covered a lot of the basics but what I would love to find out from someone whoever wants to raise their hand what is a brand and not john anybody can anybody tell me what a brand is what's your name sean o'daniel michael o'neal what out watch irish power ok so what what is a brand tio it's your reputation yeah, I like that will know you. Yeah, how people know you. Yeah, I like that answer it's very close to dead center on what a brand is. What I like to say is a brand is a promise whatever you are promising to your audience, john, talk about your avatar and we're going to talk about that. Just I'll give you one example that will give you the really good difference between the target audience in an avatar and he's so good at defining his exact avatar so everyone should that should be step one for you to go home ago, ok, who is my person? I'm talking tio, and then the thing I'm telling them, well, that's your brand, the thing that you're promising that person is what your actual brand is. So what I promised at the soul of manure, our is lively conversations, candid insights and bold advice for the probably unemployable people who are prime for real prosperity and fulfillment. So I want people to really get the nitty gritty and in terms of my, um, my identity, I want my audience to have a feeling of being completely empowered by these people on the show not to be like I'm going inspired as vova, but wait a second this person was exactly where I was three years ago and look what they've done with that three years so I can actually take that exact path. So rather than just being inspired, I want them to be I want them to initiate. I want them to actually do something with it. I love getting the phrase when I'm doing an interview. That's a good question. I've never been asked that in fact that's my I wear that is ah, you know, like a little crown um and I get that a lot. That's a question that's a thing I get all a statement I get a lot for me. Just a quick glance I can just show you my logo and on itunes a couple things happen so I know it's a designer that black on yellow is the highest contrast that the human eye can see. So when I look at a c of little squares that air on itunes and I'll show you mine in a second and I squint my eyes a little and I look at what's jumping out, john jumps out, mind jumps out, alex's jumps out again simple without being oversimplified. So you still have to tell the story. But that's why words are so important when I say the word library, you get an idea in your brain of what a library is you start thinking, well, it probably is marble floors and I see the books all the time, the dewey decimal system or if I say bank, you see vaulted, you see teller windows and you see the strength, those two words in a tag line or as part of a brand are super powerful because they paint that picture. So what is the word unemployable paint, there's a whole story? They're well, what does? What does he mean is that is that, like he can't get a job or she can't she's isn't up to the task will know, but then if I put the word proudly in front of it, it's all of a sudden a wait a second, I don't have any intention on being employed, this is not this is not an option for me, I want this is what I'm doing for a living, so I want you to get candid insights and lively conversations with these people that consider themselves probably unemployable it's with me it's going to be an hour, you know that before you click on it. So that's pre qualified you know how long the show is going to be, I don't necessarily believe in the it has to be less time than a commute. A lot of people say, well, show us to be twenty eight minutes long. I look at the top shows on itunes and their two hours and through. I mean, joe rogan's is like three hours long sometimes so my philosophy on that is if your show is entertaining, people will listen as long as you make the show and that's that's it that's truth is, if you make an entertaining show, whether it's, business oriented or pop culture oriented people will actually listen to it so and until a pretty are my favorite thing about my logo which shall take is my little orange sola preneurs guy is jumping out of the clock. It's deuce drunk and it's one hour, not by accident. John had a right, so he totally nailed it. He had his logo, right. He had it was simplified and I and I love one little thing that I'll jump on his I love making the brand the fullback so I know san francisco's, a big football town in an old school football. They used to send this big giant guy through the offensive line, the defensive line before the little guy with the ball would run through the big hole and he was the fullback generally, and in podcasting, your brand has to be the full back, so not everybody knows a spree yet but if they get to know her brand in the next year when she does a brand refresh in twelve months just what to name your show again all right so it would be we are late tech with a spree whatever her last name is I want her to get facebook stalkers all right she's like compare three devora it's a great name by the way he's uh that's anyway so but at that point when the show gets some legs and maybe a spree wants to do some speaking or she wants to be out a little more public facing she can bring her own brand into the logo and so that's what I just recently done I've just refreshed my logo it didn't look like this before it was just this it didn't have this with michael o'neill and it had job security for the unemployable that was my tagline but after a year and after the show has morphed because they always do you think you have an idea of how your show is going to go but it's actually going to go and it's its own path it's going to find its own way until it settles and I've just done a little refresher put the orange thing around it again just to pop a little bit I just wanted to be that much more when I did this my rankings went up in itunes the next day when I did the refresh, I mean, just like that, so it really matters how well you nail your brand. Um, you might be wondering why I have a red bull uh, logo I'm here and that's because I've never been I'm forty three years old, I am not a skateboarder or an energy drink drinker or a video gamer I've never been on red bulls whiteboard in their marketing room, they've never thought of me and what I really how I'm going to experience their stuff. However, if the red bull air races were happening in the bay over there, I would totally stop. I would totally check it out and I get a broad in a coke or something bad for me, and I watch these airplanes drive around these giant pylons really well, and I would do all of that even though I have nothing to do with who their avatar is their avatars in nineteen year old kid, but that doesn't mean that I can still enjoy what they're putting out and thats target demographic, so I have made it to their board in target demographic, but I've never made it because think about how you would physically speak toe a nineteen year old skater versus a forty three year old podcaster. And just how that conversation would go like, dude, I mean, not anywhere like you would actually, right? So how could you possibly have a show speaking to? Well, I'm going to talk to twenty five to forty five year old women really have you talked to a twenty five year old girl and then a forty five year old girl? Anyway, it takes time, so branding takes a lot of time to do well and this concept again, if you guys just as a quick squint your eyes right now and look at what it looks like on itunes for people just quit and see how a show sticks out look at john's is right there and look at mine and just look how they stick out it's crazy? How of these people that have, you know, black logo's or they just disappear? And so, like he said before, some of the times when the people are in it, they don't pop like you want them to, especially when you don't have a brand yet so it's really? Ah it's. It takes a while for the people that I have a group called solo lab and we bring people through this process it's exhaustingly sometimes three months it takes to get it right, but when you get it right, everything opens all the doors open you could all you'll find that everything all of your creative is easier all of your marketing is easier pages almost create themselves because now you have this exact idea of who you're speaking to and when you do that on a show where you can actually talk and if you typically e I think a lot of cases you are the avatar because you're trying to solve a problem, you probably had enough times you're like, hey, I need to make show on this this doesn't exist otherwise, and for me I created a solo preneurs hour because I had had lunch with my buddy pat flynn who's right there and he we're just in san diego having some pizza and we talked for about two hours, he said, you know what? I never get to do that? I'm always talking about smart, passive income and I'm talking about business I never just get to talk about my wife and my life and my kids and my my old gold honda uh, it's it was a great kind of back room conversation that we had this is a couple of friends and I walked out of the going don't be a good show just having those kinds of conversations with people that people know, but they don't know what it's like to live their lives every single day and that's really where my show started um time to talk about this concept of becoming a better broadcaster and I'm combining podcasting and broadcasting for a reason because people used to go to school for four years to be a broadcaster. This this was an actual education and now, because someone invented a usb microphone, everyone thinks, oh, yeah, I got this got it good there's actual skill set here and it's it's, one of those things that I can't if you could, if you could remove it from podcasting and go ok, what other discipline when we just here you have put on a football jersey, you're in goa, and no one feels like they actually have to learn how to physically do it? Well, like how to hold a microphone or how to speak into a microphone and how to introduce someone how to interview someone who's tough. I just had a really hard interview a few weeks ago, I mean really hard like like I had admits on, not because we're battling were battling silently and you have to know how to deal with a guest if you have guests on your show that aren't open and how do I open these guests up? What do I do? Like what happens when I have a person that says, well, so tell me about your last few months and they go was good okay uh uh my next question is you know, you know and I had a guy the other day who interviewed me and it was it was literally the chris farley sketch on snl I would just go through this thing I just talked about how my parents had passed away and I'd spread the rashes and done all this stuff and came back from fourteen dollars in this whole story that goes awesome so bottom line just went on I was like, wow, that was amazing you were just like the snl sketch so let's become a better broadcaster so for those of you that have podcasts or aspire to have podcasts let's make you a little better at actually doing this um there's two reasons why people tune out the podcast um actually, I would ask that does anybody know why people tune out on podcast or why you would tune out to a show? Does anybody have any ideas in the green sweater? Because they're bored hold on so let's say your name real quick my name is nathan pierce a thin pearson what's your show microbe er podcast microbrewer podcast well, thank you, nathan. So why why would they tune out? I think people would tune out if they were listening for a while and just got bored just got bored so entertainment value down the tubes anybody else distracted distracted it's distracted walking the dog he you know fights the mailman anything like whatever it is okay I'm slightly out of my control but I'm with you on that okay so distracted if I don't like the person's voice because they have low energy and if they don't speak clearly are marble there were something else that's that you like the old school broadcasters high like tio rko my announcer voice ok anybody else you might get up that's okay right we would get paid for your creativity doctor hold on slow that down we gotta get the man some props and what is it rodney washington with get paid for you create to get paid for your creativity dot com cool and actually what I just did talking too fast and not giving enough air space in between your wars terror people time to digest what you're saying ok I just did it yeah now you're slowing down I feel like you so does your I feel like you have the smoothest show you're like you've got what's your intro music on your show don't tell me it's not very white is it better they better be like now it's time for you to give me oh but it's so long come on now come on all right all right so here's the deal the two reasons why people tune out on podcast the number one and two number one audio quality when remember, now you're not competing it's me, you're competing it's npr howard stern in morning radio that's what is happening in podcasting? People are opting to choose your show while on their commute while walking their dog while whatever and they're not either not listening to their music or they're not listening to some very famous some someone who has huge production teams and studios behind them. So audio quality I give shows I've been on lee because tim farris was tim farris and I give him more than one chance on his show his it was awful for the first few shows and it was like, ok, not we don't all have that kind of leverage if you're if you're coming and starting from scratch and you have to actually start a show that people want to listen to it better sound good out of the gates because that's when you're new and know where these session is that's when you're going to get the most new listens to your show so if you don't have it dialed in now is the time the other thing is consistency when you say your show is going to be monday wednesday friday you can't miss monday wednesday, friday it has to be those days, so that is now what your job is you're you have to clock in and get that thing done, I produce another show that it's sort of mandy pandy about when we put the show out and an audience has no idea you know what from my people they're like oh yeah I want this thing to be out this day they expect it john's they expect seventies week if he all of a sudden drop to three days a week and they were like every once in a while three days people be like yeah, this is not for me so it just really disenchanted the listeners to do that so you've got to be consistent you've got to have your sound dialed and we're gonna talk I've got all this gear set up to show you how to get your sound dialed in and a little bit um while I'm right here does any do we have any questions from ah internet world it's the people who were asking about what? Why they too now on ben b says because it's badly produced a podcast that has too many awesome zehr too many amazing this write it like that are the media just says, if it's boring I to now it's highly subjective, subjective but simple is that so? So what? What I'm suggesting and I think what the world is suggesting as well for me entertainment trumps all you can have a business show or a pop culture show or whatever it is it better be entertaining to be entertaining, you have to know what you're doing to know what you're doing. You have to actually have to learn this and study it. And that's. What this life after eight weeks is about.