On this episode of Rhodes to Success I interview Jason Cabassi who is the host of the number one fan podcast for AMC’s hit TV show The Walking Dead. Jason’s show The Walking Dead ‘Cast has 25,000 listeners per episode and this week we pick his brain on how to grow an audience for your podcast, have fun with your show, and get a ton of downloads.

 

Main Questions Asked

-       When did you start podcasting?

-       What was your vision for the your Walking Dead ‘Cast show?

-       Where does your desire to have an audience come from?

-       Did your show start out with segments and sound effects or just a conversation between you and Karen?

-       Did you teach yourself postproduction and editing as you went?

-       How do you get people to engage?

-       What is the reason your show became so popular over the years?

-       What is the process of getting featured on iTunes?

-       How did you make the celebrity interviews happen?

-       How did you get into Walker Stalker Con?

-       Talk about your vision for the future and how you see this being a career.

 

Key Lessons Learned

-       The Walking Dead ‘Cast started a few months before The Walking Dead TV show actually aired.

-       The show modeled itself of the Jay and Jack Lost podcast, which had segments like show recap and listener feedback.

 

Engagement, Downloads, and iTunes  

-       Jason chose not to address that the show had a small audience in the beginning and acted as though they had a good size audience from the start.

-       In the beginning he asked his friends to leave reviews, write and call in to jumpstart engagement.

-       Jason has an eye on trying to reach people who might not find the show on iTunes. In the early days he would get involved in message boards and mention the podcast in forums.

-       Jason wrote to Apple and said he’s the number one Walking Dead podcast and would love to talk about any promotional ideas. Apple wrote back!

-       There is no secret to high downloads, it’s all about producing great content.

-       Jason made friends with other Walking Dead podcasters (rather than avoiding the completion as many might do.)

-       He often does collaborations and guests on other shows.

 

Making Celebrity Interviews Happen

-       Jason reached out to all the publicists of the actors on the show in season one in order to get celebrity interviews. 

-       New actors are more likely to do interviews than more established actors.

-       When you reach out to more people, make sure to tell them who you’ve already interviewed and use that as leverage.

-       Be persistent. If you don’t get a response just keep writing back every month and always be positive.

-       Publicists generally respect persistence and often really do keep your contact details for a later date.

 

Preparing for Interviews

-       Be prepared for your podcast interviews and think what you would genuinely be curious about if you were just sitting with the person having a drink.

-       Write 12-15 questions beforehand and try to keep it conversational and not sound too polished (not sounding like a real person.)

-       The questions are as a safety net but let conversations go into other areas

-       Let the interviewee speak and don’t step on their answers.

 

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

 

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Brains@walkingdeadcast.com

Walking Dead ‘Cast (Facebook)

Walking Dead ‘Cast  (podcast)

Jay and Jack (Lost podcast)

Podcasting Good to Great

Walker Stalker Con

Midroll                                     

Under the Comic Covers

Interview Connections 

 

Entrepreneur Support Services

On this episode of Rhodes to Success I interview Jeannie Spiro, who is an online business coach and speaker specializing in helping coaches, consultants, and small business owners design, sell, and profit from their signature talk. As the founder of the profitable Create Profitable Signature Talk Systems, Jeannie teaches her five step formula to getting clients from speaking. If you want to know how to craft a magnetic talk to attract clients and sell your product, programs, and services then this is a fantastic podcast for you!

 

Main Questions Asked

-       How did you get into business and learn about the underground world of being an entrepreneur?

-       Did you ever say, “I want to be an entrepreneur” or was it more about “I want to create a life that is best for my family”?

-       How did you decide to make speaking the main part of your business?

-       What was the journey of starting the business and doing it on the side, to now where you have programs, courses, presentations and are teaching people?

-       What are your thoughts on teleseminars, webinars, and podcasts?

-       What is the best way to start speaking?

-       Go through what someone should have prepared in their speaker kit to send to a host.

-       Why is it important for bios to be written in third person?

-       How can you find speaking opportunities online?

-       How can somebody prepare for speaking on a webinar and what are some communication tips on sounding engaging?

-       How do you take speaking opportunities and turn them into paying clients?

-       Draw a simple outline of what that funnel would look like.

-       What is the ‘free offer?’

 

Key Lessons Learned

-       A lot of people earn their living in their ‘excellence zone’, which is just under the ‘genius zone.’

-       The genius zone is when you are living in your total creative zone where anything can flow to you.

-       Whatever you do make sure you ‘talk your walk!’

-       A lot of people are moving into webinars because the audience is engaged. However, the learning curve is bigger than with other mediums.

-       It’s important to get your voice ‘out there’ through a teleseminar. This is your starting point and is effective but need to be specific (subject or target audience.)

-       The more refined your subject or target market is the more you can get people to be actively engaged. 

 

Getting Started As a Speaker

-       Getting interviewed and speaking is a great way to grow your business. You need to figure out how to establish credibility to people talent bookers.

-       The best way to start is by getting interviewed and come up with a couple of questions you can be asked on your topic.

-       Ask people who have a similar list and community to yours to interview you.

-       Get yourself ‘out there’ and let people know you have an expertise. Provide them with your list of questions and get the word out.

-       The key is to have your link to your free offer and get listeners onto your site and mailing list.

 

What’s in the Speaker Kit?

-       Create a word document with an introduction note including information on your socials and Skype.

-       Include one or two professional promo photos of yourself, a short bio, a long bio, your talk title, and interview questions about your talk title.

-       Make sure your questions include action oriented, result oriented, benefit oriented bullets that connect back to what your talk is about.

-       It’s important to do your bio in third person so someone else can read it out.

-       Third person bios also give the perception that you have a bigger business that you might actually have.

 

Finding Speaking Opportunities

-       Look at your competitors, what shows and formats are they are being interviewed on and where they are speaking.

-       Set up lists in Twitter and segment to see where they are speaking.

-       Pay attention to your Facebook newsfeed and sponsored posts (take screenshots as reminders to follow up.)

 

Preparing to Speak on a Webinar or Teleseminar

-       Provide your presentation to the host of the webinar or teleseminar (pretend as if its your own show.)

-       To stay engaged, you as the speaker need to have an elevated voice with more volume and energy.

-       Prior to getting on your webinar or teleseminar get your energy going (this will improve your performance.)  

-       To keep people engaged, strategically design your presentation to pull people in.

-       You can ask engaging questions after you’ve presented your information e.g “pick up your pen.”

-       To keep people on promise them something at the end of the presentation e.g a piece of free content or link at the end.

-       Sit up straight and smile when you are being interviewed or presenting.

 

Speaking to Get Clients

-       Your ‘talk funnel’ starts with you presenting or doing the interview and getting people to your mailing list.

-       Cultivate that relationship to the next level (your own presentation, workshop, webinar, live event etc.)

-       The interview is the beginning of your talk funnel and the rest is up to you.

-       What the funnel looks like:

-       A) Opt in - Get free gift (leads to conversation/ consultation)

-       B) Invite them to an evergreen presentation or webinar.

 

The Free Offer

-       Needs to be directly connected to your presentation and what you offer in your business.

-       This is the first taste of free information.

-       When they get to know you better give them even more information.

 

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

 

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Jeannie Spiro (website)

Jeannie Spiro’s Free Cheat Sheet   

Business Girlfriends Online (podcast)

The Big Leap (book)

Melanie Benson Strick

Interview Connections 

 

Entrepreneur Support Services

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Jason Hartman, who has generated more than ten million dollars in income without any sponsors or advertisers. Jason has interviewed more than two thousand guests across his nineteen shows at Hartman Media. In this episode, he reveals the behind the scenes of podcasting in preparing for interviews, dealing with difficult guests, knowing your audience, and monetizing.   

 

Main Questions Asked:

-       How many shows do you have?

-       How did you come up with all the different show ideas? Are some specifically business shows to generate income, and are others passion and hobby?

-       Talk about becoming a good interviewer, and why you don’t do a lot of small talk.

-       What do you do when a guest is difficult?

-       Have you ever had a guest ask you to not air their interview because they didn’t think it was good?

-       How do you prepare for your interviews?

-       Do you write questions, or does it all come up based on what your subject says?

-       Have you ever had a time when you didn’t know what to ask a guest, and what did you do?

-       What is the funnel that happens from the podcast into your business?

 

Key Lessons Learned:

-       25-30% of Jason’s guest interviews are reused.

-       Every tenth episode is a general life success topic.

-       The best way to learn something is to teach it.

-       As a member of the media, you can offer guests exposure to your audience.

 

Know Your Audience

-       As a podcaster, it’s important to understand who your customer is.

-       The audience gives you their time (the most valuable commodity any of us have), and small talk is not beneficial to the listener.

-       Remember the customer is the listener, not the guest.

-       It’s all about producing great content, building relationships with listeners, and funneling them into the back end for offers.

-       If you do too many sponsorships, it will turn people off. All sponsorships should be relevant and curated.

 

Act As A Media Outlet

-       Take the position of a media reporter and a watchdog (not a lap dog).

-       If a guest glosses over something, sometimes it is important to ensure they answer the question.

-       If you take the approach of being an investigative reporter, you will deliver a lot more value to the customer (audience).

-       As a host and outlet, your role is to be a gatekeeper and save the listeners’ time.   

 

Difficult Guests

-       If the guest is bad, Jason says he simply won’t air the show.

-       As a media outlet, you get to make the choice on what media you want to air.

-       It is your choice whether you want to edit it or not air the show at all.

-       As a guest, it’s not your chance to do a commercial but rather to provide high quality editorial content that provides real value to the listener. In doing this, the listener will view you as credible, and they will check you out.

 

Preparing for Interviews

-       If you are willing to be controversial and disagree, you can still have a great interview.

-       Podcasts are there to report on things and not just promote. 

-       Hosts will often ask their guest prior to interview, “Are there any questions that are off limits?”

 

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

 

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Hartman Media

Jason Hartman

The Longevity and Bio Hacking Show

The Creating Wealth Show

Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive (book)

She Podcasts

Interview Connections 

Entrepreneur Support Services

On this episode of Rhodes to Success, I interview Jim Palmer who is a marketing and business building expert, host of Newsletter Guru TV, Stick Like Glue Radio, and is the founder and CEO of multiple six figure businesses, including the Dream Business Academy. Jim is also the author of five books and known internationally as the Newsletter Guru and Dream Business Coach. This podcast covers business coaching, what being a successful entrepreneur involves, and purchasing speed of growth. If you’ve ever wondered what the Million Dollar Platform is, then this podcast is a must listen.

 

Main Questions Asked:

-       Talk about the first time you experienced a business coach.

-       What are your thoughts on people wanting to wait until they get to the next level to hire a business coach or people who say they can’t afford it?

-       What is the Million Dollar Platform?

 

Key Lessons Learned:

 

Working With a Business Coach

-       If you are working with a coach, it has to be a person with a successful track record.

-       The right coach is someone who is going to push you, tell you when you aren’t doing things right, and when you are making stupid decisions.

-       You don’t need a friend, you need a coach who will tell you what to do and hold you accountable.

-       Ask yourself, “Am I growing a business or friendships of likeminded entrepreneurs?” The answer should be business.  

 

Being a Successful Entrepreneur

-       A successful entrepreneur is someone on the move, who is climbing and taking people along with them on the journey.

-       As an entrepreneur, if anyone is going to slow you down on your journey, you have to cut the rope.

-       Ego often gets in the way for entrepreneurs. If it is not the entrepreneur’s idea, then they often don’t buy into it.

-       Will you be more hung up on ‘whose idea it is’ or who actually gets the credit?

 

Focusing on Revenue Generating Activities

-       If you want to ‘do it all by yourself,’ then you are creating a job for yourself.

-       Entrepreneurs come to the table with a skill or talent. However, a successful business needs accounting, marketing, and administration as well, but at a certain point you have to be focused on the skill that bought you to the table.

-       That skill is your revenue generating activity. You need to focus on that skill and outsource all other skills.

 

Purchasing Speed of Growth

-       As an entrepreneur, you have to put money out before you get it back in.

-       There are two types of ‘you’:

1.    Current you/You that you want to be.

2.    Business you have today/Business you want to have. 

-       The only way to get where you want to be is to invest.

-       You can purchase speed of growth by getting connected with a coach or mastermind group.

-       These are people who have been there and done what you are trying to do. Getting involved and following good advice will give you a shortcut.

-       It’s only an expense if it fails to produce a return on the investment.

-       Green Eyeshade Thinking: An accountant will make a decision on the numbers ‘today.’ Entrepreneurs think of the numbers you can ‘make.’

-       There are so many ways to get a return on investment with a coach and mastermind group.

-       This comes on from ideas and implementing what you do right, as well as saving money by not implementing things too.

 

Tough Love and Defending Your Position

-       Don’t make rash decisions after you get ‘tough love’ as the ego can help and hurt you.

-       Sometimes we get so emotionally tied to something, even when you get feedback from lots of people saying ‘no,’ it’s hard to do.

-       Defending your position often helps you to really think your idea through.

-       When someone challenges, you’ll either defend it saying it’s a good idea or start to question yourself.

 

Subscribe to the show in iTunes or Stitcher Radio!

 

The music in today's episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic 

 

Links to Resources Mentioned

Dream Business Academy

Interview Connections 

Entrepreneur Support Services