Latest / The Hannah Hammond Show / Grow Your Brand Faster Using This 3-Part System Most Businesses Ignore | Scott Clary

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Grow Your Brand Faster Using This 3-Part System Most Businesses Ignore | Scott Clary · The Hannah Hammond Show

0:00
One idea that's really served me well, call it like a 10 year
0:02
rule. If you're going to start
0:03
anything, commit 10 years of your life to that thing.
0:06
Because if you commit 10 years of your life to that particular
0:08
endeavour, you're going to set the right expectations.
0:10
You're not looking for overnight success and you adopt that sort
0:13
of long term view. The chances of you succeeding
0:15
are almost inevitable because if you stay in the game long
0:18
enough, there is zero chance that you won't eventually figure
0:21
it out. Most people just quit too soon.
0:23
Did you see immediate or rapid growth when you first launched
0:26
the podcast? Podcast is one of the hardest
0:28
things I've ever grown. So there was no rapid, there was
0:30
no like overnight success. There was no like 1 episode that
0:34
went viral. Did you have a mentor or did you
0:36
just kind of trial and error? I didn't have one mentor.
0:38
I study a lot of people like I study people that are growing
0:42
the fastest, not just have the largest audiences that are
0:44
growing the fastest on one particular platform.
0:47
And I learn whatever I can from that particular creator on that
0:50
platform. These are not people that I
0:51
know, but that's the beauty of the Internet.
0:53
You don't need to have direct access where you're sitting down
0:56
for coffee with these people. You can study the work that
0:59
you're like they're doing doing, reverse engineer it, and then
1:01
incorporate those ideas into your own content.
1:05
Welcome back to the Hannah Hammond Show.
1:06
I am here today with my friend Scott Clary, who I actually met
1:09
almost a year over a year and a half ago now.
1:12
And you were, I was asking you advice when I was about to
1:15
launch my show. And I mean, Scott has one of the
1:18
top business podcasts in the world.
1:20
He's interviewed billionaire founders.
1:22
You've had almost 30 million or over 30 million downloads.
1:25
You've got millions of followers and subscribers.
1:27
And you've just interviewed like the most iconic people out there
1:30
and the most conducts. A lot of fun.
1:31
It's a good job to have you. Yeah, yeah.
1:34
And it's so it's so cool to see what you've built.
1:36
And you're based in in Miami. And I mean, you're an author,
1:39
you're a speaker, you're an investor, you're a podcast host
1:42
and and an entrepreneur. So I'm just excited to to know
1:45
you and excited to hear your story today.
1:47
And what kind of got you into the podcasting world and, and
1:51
personally, selfishly, I want to ask your advice on how you did
1:53
it and. You do like a podcast master
1:55
class if you want. You ask me whatever questions
1:57
you want about podcasting, but I appreciate you for having me on.
2:00
What got me into the podcasting world was an idea that I think
2:05
is really helped me in my my whole career.
2:07
It's future proofing myself. So if I don't know what the next
2:11
five years of my life is going to look like, because of course,
2:14
everybody has their objectives and their goals and the North
2:16
Star they're sort of aiming for in their business.
2:18
But if there's something that's an uncertain, like a new
2:20
technology or a new idea, I just dive into it.
2:22
I learn it. And the podcast built a media, a
2:26
piece of media. It built an audience that I
2:28
could use for whatever I wanted to use it for in the future.
2:30
So when I started the podcast, I didn't know exactly what I was
2:34
going to use it for, but I was a student of the Gary Vees of the
2:37
world that built the audience first and then found a way to
2:40
use that audience to help them with their business later on.
2:43
When I started the podcast, I was building a business that was
2:45
about to be acquired at the end of COVID.
2:47
So I knew that on the other side of that acquisition, I didn't
2:49
have anything else going for me. I had to figure out what I was
2:51
going to do next. The podcast was the smartest
2:54
move to build an audience, build a brand so that whatever I did
2:56
in the future, you have 500,000 a million people who already
3:00
know who you are. So it's kind of like a give
3:02
value and build it before you need it.
3:04
And then when you do need it, then you can launch a business
3:07
against it. You can, I mean, you can do
3:09
whatever you want. You can do coaching, consulting.
3:11
If you want to start an actual company, you have a whole bunch
3:14
of you have a whole bunch of people that you can test ideas
3:17
that with. You can talk to them, see what
3:18
products they buy from you. Or you can just turn the podcast
3:21
into a business itself, which is what I've actually done where
3:24
you have advertisers, you monetize and you build a whole
3:27
personal brand around the podcast.
3:29
So it, it was really just future proofing myself.
3:32
And I've done that like repeatedly, like I all every
3:34
time I'm like unsure where my career is going to go, I'll try
3:38
and just look at the thing that I know is going to impact my
3:41
career in the best possible way and research it, understand it,
3:44
figure out how it's eventually going to impact me.
3:47
So at the time, I wanted to build an audience, I wanted to
3:49
understand how media could impact my career, like
3:51
positively. Now I learn how AI is going to
3:54
impact my career and I just dive into that, learn everything I
3:57
can about it. But yeah, it's always just like
3:59
sort of looking three steps ahead.
4:01
Right. What business were you in back
4:03
and when was this? Software back at the end of
4:05
COVID. Back at the end of COVID, OK,
4:07
you built that big of an audience just in what, 5 less
4:11
than five years? No, the six and a half, six and
4:13
a half, 6 1/2 years. OK.
4:15
Yeah, damn, that's crazy. Yeah, I mean, I was just looking
4:17
to use like almost 2 million followers on Instagram.
4:20
You. Have yeah, but that's about 40
4:21
to 50 pieces of content per day. And I didn't learn how to market
4:25
when I started. So I've been a marketer in my
4:27
whole career, right? I know how to market.
4:29
I know how to go to website, I know how to do audio video
4:32
editing, I know how to write great copy subject lines that
4:37
gets emails open. Like I know how to do all
4:39
graphic. There's not really a thing that
4:40
I don't know how to do. So how you market a product, how
4:44
you find a piece of content that resonates with an audience, how
4:47
you AB test you do that for a company, You're doing the exact
4:50
same thing for a podcast. And when you do that at scale
4:54
and you have a little bit of experience, you can grow things
4:55
a lot quicker. Also, the beautiful, like the
4:58
beautiful thing about a podcast is you can tap into other
5:00
people's audiences too. So when you sit down with some
5:03
of the most famous people on earth and you tap into their
5:05
audience, I mean, that also gives you a huge leg up because
5:08
it exposes you to a million people would have never known
5:10
who you are. So it's about consistency.
5:14
It's about learning, like getting into the weeds, learning
5:16
the details of the craft. It's about leveraging other
5:19
people's communities as well. All of it combined over 6-7
5:23
years if you look for the signs that your content is working,
5:27
yes, 1,000,000 1/2 is a lot of followers.
5:29
We have over 50 million downloads across the show.
5:31
But there's people that look at School of Hard Knocks.
5:34
So in like 2 years they have an audience of over 11,000,000 and
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they have billions of views. Yeah, so he interviewed.
5:41
Me a couple months ago. Yeah, he's really, he's really
5:43
nice. He's from Dallas too, if I'm not
5:45
mistaken. He's from Texas.
5:46
But so yeah, 1,000,000 1/2 is good objectively.
5:51
I look at like what another person is doing an even shorter
5:54
period of time and the first thing I think about is, OK, how
5:56
do I adapt my strategy? Because obviously I'm doing
5:59
something effective, but not as effective as it could be.
6:02
I mean, that's just so. I mean, doing well, doing good.
6:06
It's all very subjective. Right.
6:08
Well, and it depends on your goal too, right?
6:09
Like for me, my podcast is business development.
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And so my main goal with the podcast isn't to monetize the
6:16
podcast itself. It's to drive revenue to the
6:19
business, build relationships with potential new clients, and
6:22
then continue to educate existing clients and things like
6:24
that. So that's like, that's a trap
6:26
that people fall into. So when you're when you're when
6:28
you're building a media asset for a business, you don't need a
6:31
big audience. Right.
6:33
Like you need an audience that converts, but everybody gets
6:35
caught up in vanity metrics and everybody gets caught up in
6:37
followings. And oh Scott, you have a million
6:39
followers. I'm like, OK, but I'm not
6:41
selling a product. Like if I if I was selling a
6:43
product or service and I had 10,000 people where 30% of them
6:47
converted into customers, that's much more useful than a million
6:49
people that just know me for being some cool guy on the
6:52
Internet, but nobody wants to buy from me.
6:54
So I mean, like vanity metrics are overrated.
6:57
I think that once you're in this game long and if you realize
6:59
that very quickly, that follower count does not equal revenue
7:02
unless you do it smartly, unless you find a way to convert that
7:04
audience into people that actually pay for your product or
7:06
service. But if you are looking to be a
7:09
content creator, don't look at growing the biggest following.
7:12
Look at creating content that is the most relevant to the
7:15
audience that you're trying to solve a pain point for.
7:18
I think that's how most people should think about content.
7:20
Like you don't need to just be the biggest influencer out
7:22
there. It doesn't benefit a lot of
7:24
people. For example, school of Hard
7:26
Knocks, they make a lot less and so do I as as a as a content
7:31
creator, they make a lot less than a lot of small businesses.
7:35
So would it make more sense for me to have a small business that
7:38
has a really, really niche audience that I can, you know,
7:41
target that audience, they turn into customers and that
7:43
generates 1050 and $20 million of revenue.
7:46
Or do I just want to have a million followers just for a
7:48
million followers? It depends on what you need.
7:51
It depends on what you're doing and what you what your
7:53
objectives are to your point. But I think that too many people
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get caught up in follower count and not enough get caught up in
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like social media is a tool, it's a marketing asset.
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How does it actually help my business?
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And if you if you just focus on follower count, you're not
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creating the same kind of content as content that will
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actually convert the audience into a paying customer.
8:11
There's different kinds of content that is highly
8:13
shareable, it's motivational, whatever.
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That's great content, but it doesn't always turn somebody
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into somebody who's going to actually open up their wallet,
8:20
give you their credit card and sign up for whatever it is
8:21
you're selling. Yeah.
8:23
And when you started the podcast, you were future
8:25
thinking because you were going to sell your company.
8:27
But were you, did you, at what point did you decide you were
8:31
going to monetize the podcast? Because how are you monetizing
8:35
the podcast right now ads. It's an ad play, yeah.
8:37
So, I mean, there's advertisers that I've worked with for the
8:39
past like almost five years now, like HubSpot, Indeed, NetSuite.
8:43
I've worked with a whole bunch of different advertisers, but
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it's mostly ads. And that's because it's very
8:51
easy to talk about not succumbing to shiny object
8:54
syndrome, but it's harder to not succumb to shiny object
8:58
syndrome. So what I mean by that is while
9:00
I was building the podcast, I'm an entrepreneur, I love ideas, I
9:06
love trying and testing new things.
9:07
I was building the podcast over here and then I'd try and build
9:11
other businesses that didn't really sync up with the podcast
9:13
over here. So I've tried to build a variety
9:15
of different things. I've tried to raise for a
9:18
private equity fund, I've tried to build a supplement company,
9:21
I've tried to put together a mastermind group.
9:22
I tried to do a couple different things that ultimately didn't
9:24
work out. So I was just diversifying and
9:28
like my attention was not all focused on the main thing.
9:31
So the podcast was always a media asset that I was growing.
9:35
The main goal of it when I first started it was to be leverage
9:38
for something else. It was meant to be this tool
9:41
that I could use to market something else.
9:44
But I wasn't honoring sort of what I set out to create.
9:49
I wasn't honoring the fact that I wanted to build this podcast
9:52
that had this incredible reach and entire product to that
9:57
podcast audience. I I didn't do it because I kept
10:00
chasing other things. So after a while, when the other
10:05
businesses that I was building and trying to build, they didn't
10:08
work and everybody who's built anything knows there's, you
10:11
know, it doesn't matter how successful you are at one thing,
10:14
there's a million things that you've tried that have never
10:15
worked out. I realized that I'm fragmenting
10:19
my attention. I should do what I originally
10:22
set out to do and focus on my energy and time and money and
10:25
effort on the one thing that is actually working and then figure
10:28
out what kind of product I want to attach on to the back end of
10:31
a podcast. And that's, that's actually
10:33
where I'm at right now. I think that also when you think
10:37
about the things that you can attach onto a, a podcast, like a
10:40
personal brand, a lot of people do coaching, consulting courses,
10:43
that kind of thing. I feel like there's too much
10:47
garbage in the world and I didn't want to just contribute
10:50
more garbage by putting out a garbage course because there's
10:53
already so much bullshit online that people are selling.
10:56
And that's a little bit of like me getting in my own head about
10:59
it. But that's what really pushed me
11:01
to sort of not release something right away.
11:07
There was another coach or, or coursing product, coaching or
11:11
course products. Excuse me.
11:12
So yeah. So Fast forward to today, the
11:15
main focus is the podcast. The main focus is like building
11:18
the personal brand. And that's why I'm, you know, I
11:21
sort of invested in the studio, spent more like energy actually,
11:27
and, you know, putting money, putting money and time and
11:29
effort into the interviews. And now I'm at the point where
11:32
I'm no longer going to be building the podcast and like
11:35
building a product on the side. Everything's going to be like
11:37
aligned. Right.
11:38
Yeah. And did you see immediate or
11:42
rapid growth when you first launched the podcast or what was
11:45
that trajectory for you? And did you have a mentor or did
11:48
you just kind of trial and error or what did that look like?
11:51
There was podcast is one of the hardest things I've ever grown.
11:56
So there was no rapid growth. There was no like overnight
11:59
success. There was no like 1 episode that
12:02
went viral. In terms of mentor, I didn't
12:07
have one mentor. I study a lot of people so I
12:10
study one thing that has really worked out well for my content.
12:14
Like I study people that are growing the fastest, not just
12:18
have the largest audiences, but are growing the fastest on one
12:21
particular platform. And I learn whatever I can from
12:25
that particular creator on that platform.
12:27
So I have somebody that I study on Twitter, on YouTube, for
12:31
podcasts, for TikTok, for basically every single platform.
12:35
The creator that is currently growing the fastest because that
12:37
means that that creator isn't just big because they've been in
12:40
the game for 15 years. They're growing very quickly.
12:43
School of Hard Knocks is one of them.
12:45
Alex from Moses, the Hill Bloom, Justin Welsh, Like these are all
12:48
creators that grow, that are growing very quickly.
12:49
Now, these are not people that I know, but that's the beauty of
12:54
the Internet. You don't need to have direct
12:57
access where you're sitting down for coffee with these people.
12:59
You can study the work that you're like they're doing and
13:02
reverse engineer it and then incorporate those ideas into
13:04
your own content. But no, there was no quick
13:08
growth. It was just, it was mastering
13:12
the fundamentals. Like any business, you got to
13:15
figure out, you know, how do you actually, how do you actually
13:18
create that asset? How do you put it out into the
13:20
world? How can you tell if it resonates
13:23
with the audience that you're creating it for?
13:24
Same as if you were launching a product for a business.
13:27
And, and you just rinse and repeat and every show you get a
13:31
little bit better every, you know, every month, you make sure
13:34
that the numbers are moving in the right direction.
13:37
You keep studying the people that have done it before you and
13:40
have done it at a bigger scale and see what's worked for them.
13:42
And you do that over 5678910 years and you'll find that
13:48
eventually you'll have some decent success, mostly because
13:52
the majority of your competition quits with the majority of your
13:55
competition. Like if you look at the stats,
13:58
it's something like if you release more than 10 episodes on
14:02
a podcast, you're in like the top 1% of all podcasters.
14:06
It's because nobody stays in the game long enough to actually
14:09
figure it out. So there's no secret, there's no
14:13
hack to it, but I don't think there's a hack in it.
14:14
And many businesses, like when we see somebody like I just keep
14:20
referencing School of Hard Knocks because they nailed it.
14:22
They like hit it out of the park when it comes to figuring out
14:25
content like the style, the format.
14:29
For every creator that grows as quickly and say as quickly as
14:32
they did, there's 1000 creators that just put in the reps over
14:38
an extended period of time. That's how that's how most
14:41
audiences are built. That's how most businesses are
14:44
built. Very few businesses have like 1
14:46
huge overnight success. It's like you start your
14:49
business, you're excited about it, it's difficult.
14:53
You're like, whatever I like. This is what I've set out to do.
14:56
You figure out what works, you figure out what doesn't.
14:58
You optimize, you improve, you hire, you delegate, and then
15:02
Fast forward over 10 years, it looks like you had some sort of
15:05
overnight success when really you've just been putting in the
15:08
reps and figuring it out and just being obsessed with this
15:10
thing for 10 years. So now there was no quick wins.
15:16
It was just repetition. It was just putting in the reps.
15:19
That's the main advice that I can give any creator.
15:21
Did you ever think about quitting the show?
15:24
No, no, no, I, I have because I understood what could, what the
15:32
benefit of it would be on the other side of it being
15:34
successful. So an audience never leaves you
15:38
like people who know who you are.
15:40
Yeah, some of them might find other creators to follow.
15:42
But ultimately, if you build a good reputation, if you build a
15:45
strong audience, that's sort of the reason why I started.
15:48
You can use it for whatever you want in the future.
15:52
And I just one idea that's really served me well is this
15:55
idea, I call it like a 10 year rule.
15:58
Different people have different words for it.
15:59
But if you're going to start anything, commit 10 years of
16:02
your life to that thing. Just just say like, listen, I'm
16:06
going to start a podcast. I want to start writing a
16:08
newsletter. I want to start a business,
16:10
whatever it is like psychologically commit 10 years
16:13
of your life to that thing. Because if you commit 10 years
16:15
of your life to that particular endeavor, you're you're going to
16:20
set the right expectations. You're not looking for overnight
16:22
success, but at the same time, you're setting up the rest of
16:26
your life so that you can maintain it for the long term.
16:28
Meaning if you are planning on starting a business or being a
16:31
podcaster or whatever, say, I assume it's going to take me 10
16:35
years to be successful, even if it doesn't, but I'm going to
16:38
make that assumption. That means that I'm not quitting
16:40
my job with only six months of savings in the bank because I
16:43
know it's going to take me an extended amount of time to
16:45
actually make it work. And I think that when you adopt
16:47
that sort of long term view, the chances of you succeeding are
16:52
almost inevitable because if you stay in the game long enough, if
16:55
you find a way to continue figuring it out for 10 plus
16:59
years, there is zero chance that you won't eventually figure it
17:03
out. Most people just quit too soon.
17:07
So you know, you, you said like did I ever want to quit?
17:11
No, I had no interest in quitting.
17:12
I just from the gecko. I just figured I'll just stay in
17:17
this until it works until I figure and it doesn't mean that
17:20
the thing you're doing Year 5 in your business and your content,
17:24
it doesn't mean it's going to be the same as what you do when you
17:27
first start, right? Maybe your content style
17:30
changes. Maybe the things you speak about
17:32
change, maybe the the format changes.
17:35
Maybe I don't love podcasting, so I'm going to scale back the
17:39
podcasting and I noticed that I'm.
17:40
Killing it on my sub stack or I'm killing it on TikTok with
17:45
short term videos. You can still, you can still
17:48
like evolve and iterate. Doesn't mean that you're like,
17:51
you're so like set in your ways, but the point is you're still
17:54
playing that game for an extended period of time.
17:56
Yeah, you're committed to mastery.
17:58
You are and mastery takes well, I mean, if you if you follow
18:01
Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours or there's a million other ways to
18:03
define mastery, but it's not like something that you ever
18:06
attain overnight. So no, there was no.
18:09
What? What did your Who is your first?
18:12
Do you remember your first interview?
18:15
Yes, I do. His name was, his name was Mark.
18:19
He was a marketer and it was just when I first started my
18:24
podcast. It was so interesting.
18:28
I think that how I started it is how a lot of content creators
18:32
start. They just speak about things
18:34
that are going on in their life. And when I first started it, I
18:38
was running sales and marketing at a startup.
18:41
That's the company that was eventually acquired.
18:42
So I was in charge of all the sales and marketing.
18:44
So I just reached out to a whole bunch of marketers to have
18:47
conversations about things that I was dealing with in my
18:49
day-to-day. And that was my first episode.
18:53
And it was brutal. And I had no idea what I was
18:55
doing. And I actually filmed it.
18:59
I was sitting on my laptop at like a makeup table in like a
19:04
spare room in a condo in Toronto.
19:06
And that's where I filmed my first episode.
19:09
But it's so interesting because it sort of like goes back to my
19:14
point about how as a creator, like you have to evolve over
19:17
time. So when I first started my show,
19:20
I'm speaking to, to Mark. And that's like episode #1 I, I
19:23
think it's him. It's like two or three.
19:24
I just remember which one. I think it's Mark though.
19:26
But if, if you go back on YouTube, you'll find it
19:29
unfortunately. But as a creator, like as you
19:34
change, as your interests change, I think it's really
19:37
important that your content evolves as well.
19:40
So when I first started, I was speaking about mostly software
19:43
sales and marketing because that's what I cared about.
19:45
And then I realized that, well, the best type of content you
19:50
create, especially educational content, is basically for you.
19:54
Like five years ago or 10 years ago, you created for your
19:57
younger self. So that, you know, if they were
20:01
say, say I was creating content for my 20 year old self, what
20:04
would that person care about? What topics could I cover that
20:07
would benefit that version of Scott?
20:10
And as I grew up, I realized that, well, that version of
20:13
Scott is highly ambitious. And that version of Scott, you
20:17
know, wants to take on the world.
20:19
And yes, for sure he wants to have business success, but to be
20:23
a well-rounded person, there's a lot of other things in his life
20:27
that he should care about. And this is how the podcast
20:29
evolved and this is how my content evolved.
20:31
So then I started speaking about not just like business success
20:34
and entrepreneur success and financial success, but I would
20:37
start speaking about like physical and mental health.
20:39
And if you're a high performer and you're working 8 out 80
20:41
hours a week, how do you maintain a good relationship
20:44
with your spouse? And you know, how do you date?
20:46
How do you marry? How do you, you know, spend time
20:50
with your kids when all you're focused on is work?
20:53
Is there spirituality in your life after you've reached a
20:55
certain point of affluence? Like these are all things that
20:58
anybody who's a high performer, who's made a lot of money, some
21:02
of them care about it earlier on, but all of them care about
21:05
it later on in life. And I see on the other side of
21:09
exits, people that have sold companies for 9 plus figures.
21:13
I see people that have like true fulfilment, like true balance.
21:17
They've made money, they're in good shape physically, mentally.
21:21
They have a relationship with God, whatever version of God
21:24
they they choose to subscribe to.
21:26
They have great relationships with their with their wife,
21:28
their husband, their kids. I see these people and they are
21:31
the happiest. I also see people on the other
21:34
side of an exit that are like everything around them is broken
21:39
except for their ability to make money.
21:42
And I realized that I don't think that that is anybody's
21:45
version of true success, because these people are not happy.
21:48
They've sort of won the money game.
21:50
But like 2 ex wives, kids don't talk to them.
21:54
They're incredibly overweight, just out of shape like their
21:57
life is falling apart except for their ability to make money.
21:59
So how my content evolved is I want to make sure that whoever's
22:03
listening to my show understands how to level up across all
22:06
aspects of their life, not just in business.
22:09
So then this is how my content evolved from just sales and
22:12
marketing conversations to conversations who conversations
22:15
with people who were very successful, but figured out how
22:20
to up level and upskill themselves across every single
22:23
part of their life. And then I brought on people
22:25
that were like, you know, big into health and Wellness, big
22:28
people that spoke about spirituality, relationships, all
22:31
through the lens of like high performing individuals.
22:34
Yeah, I love that you said that because I'm the same way.
22:37
You know, it's about my show is about reaching your highest
22:39
potential in all areas of your life.
22:41
You know, the finance and business is one piece of that.
22:43
But health, relationships. Wellness.
22:45
Mentality like if you just achieved like financial success,
22:49
you're not successful. Like you really are not
22:52
successful if you burn everything else down in your
22:54
life just to make money. Because listen, I'm I live in
22:58
Miami. I see a lot of guys that make a
23:01
lot of money that are, you know, when you get into a room with
23:05
them one-on-one, they are depressed or they're not
23:08
fulfilled or they divorced their wife because they came into this
23:12
huge amount of money, this huge sum of money.
23:14
And now they have trouble connecting with anybody because
23:16
they're worried that any girl they dates going to be a gold
23:18
digger. Like, they have a lot of issues
23:20
if you don't sort of take care of all the other parts of your
23:24
life on the way to making money. Yeah.
23:26
And a lot of people that are very driven, I don't know if
23:30
you've read the book Driven, but a friend of mine wrote it and he
23:33
talks about that, that gene that we have, that driven gene that,
23:36
you know, we all find similarities amongst the, the
23:39
driven and obsessed people. But most of the people that are
23:42
very, very driven, relentlessly driven, absolutely obsessed,
23:44
which will get into obsession and how that plays a role in
23:47
success in all areas of life. But they often come from, you
23:52
know, some pretty challenging times in their life, whether it
23:55
was childhood trauma or just difficult backgrounds that have
23:59
created some sort of chip on their shoulder.
24:02
Which is what actually LED them to be successful.
24:04
Exactly. But at the same time, if they
24:06
don't heal that shit, then that that is sometimes why the rest
24:10
of their life is not so great. Right.
24:12
And that's what I realized when I hit the amount of success that
24:16
I thought would cure my pain, that I thought would make me
24:19
happy, and I didn't. And then it was like, OK, let me
24:22
shift this dynamic. I've learned enough about how to
24:25
make money and how to build wealth.
24:26
Now let me balance out the other areas of my life.
24:29
And I do believe that obsession does play a very key role in
24:33
those who are ultra successful in any area of their life,
24:36
whether it be business, athletics, relationship,
24:38
whatever. But at some point, I do believe
24:41
we can have it all and we can have balance.
24:42
We can't have it all at once. I think there's going to be an
24:45
out of balance period in our life because there's chapters
24:47
and there's parts of our journeys.
24:48
Like right now, for instance, I have a newer young infant
24:52
company and I got to be a little obsessed.
24:54
Like I got to, I got to focus on that baby and, and grow that
24:57
baby. But you know, later on I can
25:00
shift that a little bit and start to be more balanced.
25:02
So like, what has your experience been?
25:04
What is obsession? What role has obsession played
25:06
in your pursuit of your highest potential?
25:09
Well, I think that you actually, I think that you described sort
25:13
of my definition of obsession as well.
25:15
It's like there will be periods of your life that are totally
25:18
unbalanced. I mean, that's, that's how you
25:20
build anything great. You cannot build anything great
25:23
with complete balance working, you know, 37 1/2 hours a week.
25:27
That's not going to build an empire.
25:30
But understand that there are seasons to your life.
25:35
And I think that it's also important that, yeah, I'm just
25:40
thinking about my definition of obsession right now.
25:44
I am in a season of being obsessed with my work and I'm
25:49
doing that so that when I have kids, I can be obsessed with my
25:54
family. I think that too many people
25:58
look for balance and they never achieve what they actually want
26:02
to achieve. And then they're kind of like,
26:04
well, I wish now at a later age, which is why I think that as a,
26:09
you know, if you're younger, you have such, you have such huge
26:12
opportunity to just commit yourself to just being so
26:16
entrepreneurial and trying things and breaking things
26:18
because you have nobody depending on you.
26:21
But when you're older, it's, it's harder to make that
26:25
commitment to being obsessed to something if you don't want the
26:28
rest of your life to fall apart. Now, it's not to say that you
26:32
can't do it, but I do believe that, like I said, if you want
26:36
to build anything incredible, you need obsession over that
26:40
thing. You need to live and breathe it.
26:42
There's not a single entrepreneur that I know that
26:45
accidentally created something great basically for a period of
26:50
their life, for a season of their life, that's all they did.
26:54
But they knew that there was a time to shut off too.
26:57
Like they knew there was a time that they had to focus on
27:02
marriage, relationship, kids, family, other things outside of
27:06
their obsession. I also think that.
27:10
I also think that to define obsession, This is why it's so
27:18
important. This is why it's so important to
27:21
like to work on things that you enjoy, because when you're truly
27:27
obsessed with what you're working on, you don't shut off,
27:33
but it also doesn't take away from the rest of your life.
27:35
What I mean by that is like, sometimes when I'm sitting down
27:41
for dinner with my girlfriend and we're just talking about
27:44
life, like we'll have a deep conversation about something
27:47
that can, that can lead to a conversation I have on a podcast
27:51
with somebody or it can lead to a topic that I want to write
27:54
about. Like you incorporate the things
27:56
that you do into your work and you incorporate your work into
27:59
your life. And there's this beautiful like
28:01
harmony between them. I also think that that's why if
28:05
you are, you know, like entrepreneurial, the person you
28:11
spend your life with, like whoever you're dating or you're
28:13
married to, that's the most important choice you're going to
28:17
make. Because the, the, the right
28:19
person, if you are like a very ambitious person will understand
28:23
obsession and they'll support it and they'll feed into it and
28:26
you'll feed into their obsession with whatever it is they're
28:28
doing. And they'll understand when some
28:30
weeks you have to work 100 hours.
28:33
And I think that by being around that right person, I think that
28:36
can like take your, you know, if you do want to build something
28:39
great, it can really just help it and take it to the next
28:41
level. But having that supportive
28:42
person at home is one of the most important things that I
28:46
think anybody can can find. Yeah, I think the spouse you
28:50
choose or the partner, your life partner you choose the most,
28:52
just like you said, the most important decision that you
28:54
could possibly make. Well, because if not, say, say
28:56
you are. And I want to be careful when I
29:00
say this because it's not like you're going to be obsessed and
29:02
just building your whole life. But for a period of your life
29:05
you will be. And I don't think for the period
29:07
of your life where you are obsessed and you are building,
29:10
you should not date or you should not be with anybody.
29:12
I also don't think that's correct.
29:13
I think you should if you find somebody who you want to share
29:16
your life with. But what I see hurt people the
29:20
most is when when the expectations are not aligned.
29:25
So when you're dating somebody and you want to build something,
29:28
you want to be entrepreneurial, you're in that season of your
29:30
life and that that partner is just not on board for that
29:36
journey. And it's just going to do you
29:38
more harm than good. But if, again, if you find the
29:41
right person that's supportive and they are also ambitious or
29:45
are also entrepreneurial and sort of support everything that
29:48
you're doing, that is the biggest hack to being
29:51
successful. Because think about all the
29:53
times when you're building a company and you're stressed the
29:57
fuck out. Like that person can help bring
29:59
you back. Like when you're really, really
30:00
just spiraling, right? Like these are the reasons why
30:03
having that supportive person at home is so important.
30:07
So yes, obsession, unbalanced seasons of life, life.
30:11
But at the same time, who you surround yourself with is going
30:15
to make a huge difference and make that season of unbalanced
30:18
and obsession that much easier. Have you struggled in your
30:21
relationships throughout your entrepreneurial journey?
30:24
Yeah, for sure. Me too, 1000%, So bad. 1000%
30:29
Yeah. I mean, like before Gina, the
30:33
girl I'm with right now, my ex dumped me because I was working
30:37
too much. I mean, yeah.
30:40
So that's not a successful relationship.
30:44
Yeah, no, it's, it's hard. It's been a challenge for me as
30:47
well just just because like you said it and I'm struggling with
30:50
that dynamic right now of I've always instinctively connected
30:55
with people that were most like me, I guess also very driven,
30:59
also very entrepreneurial and and all these things.
31:02
But I'm now I'm like wondering maybe I need somebody that's
31:06
more of a grounded, supportive type of partner that isn't so
31:12
obsessive compulsive just like I am.
31:14
I don't know. I don't know what are your.
31:15
Thoughts on that? Disagree with that.
31:17
Gina's super driven. She has her own business.
31:19
She's very entrepreneurial. So I mean, she just gets it.
31:24
Like, she just gets it. Like if I have to travel for
31:27
work again, if I have to put in like, ridiculous weeks, if I
31:31
have to, you know, for example, huge podcast opportunity, you
31:34
have to like, go like, like that.
31:35
She's like, yeah, for sure, yeah.
31:37
How I? Was just going to say how do you
31:40
do you struggle to turn off the business hat and turn on the
31:47
relationship hat? Well, so I struggled to turn off
31:54
the business hat, but like we have like shared goals and
31:58
objectives in life. So like when we go like go on a
32:06
date night, for example, you've got to still make time to like
32:08
spend time with the person that you're with.
32:10
But when we go on a date night, like we still enjoy talking
32:14
about the shit that we're working on.
32:16
Like it's not like it ruins the night.
32:18
It's like these are the things that actually bring us closer
32:20
together because we're like, I'm dealing with whatever.
32:23
I'm like frustrated because my contents not hitting.
32:25
She just try. She like missed out on closing a
32:28
big deal. Whatever it is.
32:31
These are things that we actually have like knowledge in
32:34
that we can like support each other with.
32:36
So it actually brings us closer together.
32:37
Now you have to have like a life outside of business as well.
32:41
But I think that I don't think it's smart to completely
32:44
separate your business and your personal life.
32:46
I have the most fun with, well, obviously with her, but also
32:50
with friends who also deal with the same stuff as me.
32:53
Like I don't want to be, I don't want to not be my myself with
32:57
the people that I that I'm, I'm hanging out with.
33:00
Like if I had to like tone down my business and I had to tone
33:04
down the things that are sort of like going through my head,
33:06
you're kind of getting like 50% of me.
33:09
So I rather, I rather be with, you know, a wife, friends, a
33:17
girlfriend who like kind of just vibes with 100% of who I am then
33:23
somebody who is completely different.
33:25
That's just the way it's worked for me.
33:27
And like, even the friends that I hang out with that I really
33:29
enjoy chatting with and like, they're people that are also
33:32
super entrepreneurial and they're people that enjoy
33:34
building and they're people, they're people that enjoy just,
33:37
you know, figuring shit out. It's it's just those kinds of
33:42
people give me energy. Yeah.
33:44
Me too, I know. And that's what I was talking to
33:46
someone about that is like people, how many hours a week do
33:49
you work? I'm like it all blends together
33:50
just like you said my. It's always, it's always, yeah,
33:53
I'll, I'll go like hang out with friends.
33:55
We'll like get drinks or food and yeah, we'll talk about
33:58
business, talk about life, talk about how their families doing.
34:01
Like it, it all blends. It all blends.
34:05
So I mean, like, you know, that's, it's very cliche, but
34:07
you know, you're the average of the the five people you surround
34:10
yourself with. How many times do people drop
34:12
that quote? Right?
34:12
But it's very, very true. And I think that that's why,
34:16
like who you bring into your circle and who you spend the
34:18
most time with is so important because when you can have people
34:21
who have, you know, fulfilled lives, married, kids, whatever
34:27
their version of fulfilled is, Plus they're very ambitious.
34:30
They have great businesses. It's like they're a great role
34:34
model across the board, right? I think I'd rather spend more
34:38
time with somebody like say, if, if my goal is to get married and
34:41
have kids, not everybody's goal, but if it's my goal to get
34:43
married and have kids, I rather spend more time with somebody
34:46
who has a great business, who is an entrepreneur, who is married,
34:50
who has kids. Like there's so many things I
34:51
can learn from them as well. So I think that if you get a, if
34:54
you, if you sort of connect with your spouse or your friends on
34:58
the thing that you care about the most, I think that's a great
35:03
way to sort of build that rapport.
35:04
And then all the other stuff comes much easier versus if you
35:09
just like if you had friends that, you know, always complain
35:13
that you work too much, all they do is drink or, you know, if
35:17
they're just like so huge into sports that every time you hang
35:20
out, all they talk about is sports.
35:22
Cool. I have no issue with that.
35:24
But at this stage in my life, I don't really give a shit about
35:26
sports as much as I used to. I used to play a lot of hockey.
35:29
I'm Canadian. I never really got into like
35:30
basketball or football. Like some Americans are super
35:33
into basketball, football, yeah, it's fun to like watch a game
35:37
every like couple months, but I don't give a shit about staying
35:42
in on a Sunday and watching football for like 4 hours and
35:45
that's not that fun for me. So I think that like, I don't
35:49
think you should ever have to dim yourself or change yourself
35:51
for the people that you surround yourself with.
35:53
Yeah, I agree. Just being around people that
35:56
make you feel expansive and not. Contracted percent and there and
35:59
like it doesn't matter how weird you are, there's like enough
36:02
people out there in this world that will be just as fucking
36:04
weird as you and will have the same exact hobbies as you.
36:08
So I think that that's, I think that's very, very wise.
36:11
And I think also very importantly for like the person
36:13
you're with, at least what I found is if they're more similar
36:18
to me in like their ambition and what they do for a living, I
36:23
just find the dating goes much easier.
36:25
Yeah, yeah, I find the same, same thing because then you have
36:28
things to talk about, you've things in common, you
36:29
understand, you have a level of understanding.
36:31
But I do think it is still important to, you know, where
36:35
I've gotten into trouble is becoming business partners with
36:39
the person I was dating. And I, I no longer do that.
36:42
We'll do business together, like send each other business or help
36:45
each other grow business. But I have a rule now like no
36:47
more business partnerships with anybody that I'm in a
36:50
relationship with. Although some people do it and
36:52
they are successful at it. But it is hard look at.
36:57
Alex and Lila. It's true.
36:58
There's a lot of good examples, right?
37:00
Sarah Blakely? Yeah, like there's a lot of.
37:05
Well, actually though, they weren't in business together,
37:07
but they're both very cool, like her and Jesse Itzler, right?
37:10
I think are like very, very. He built his own company
37:13
separately. I'm trying to think of other
37:14
people that were like in business together, but.
37:18
It's hard. I mean it's hard to make a
37:20
relate a marriage work in general and then it's hard to
37:22
make a business work in general. And then when you put them both.
37:24
Yeah, you can make. The same you can make the same
37:26
argument for family too. It is like, listen, we, Gina and
37:32
myself, we could have gone into business together, but we
37:35
actually chose not to for that reason in particular.
37:38
Like, we help each other. We'll, like, walk through
37:40
problems that we're dealing with, but we both build our own
37:44
shit. Yeah.
37:46
It's nice to have. What are some of the, I mean,
37:48
I'm fascinated to hear about these people that you've
37:50
interviewed because you've interviewed, you know,
37:52
billionaires and very successful.
37:53
People A. Lot of people, yeah, a lot.
37:55
What are some of the key traits, I would say, or consistencies
38:01
among the the most successful people that you've interviewed
38:04
that have contributed to their growth and their success?
38:07
I know we talked about obsession.
38:09
Obsession is one of them. Everybody who has built anything
38:11
great has been obsessed with that thing while they're
38:13
building it. I think that's like table
38:17
stakes. It's just like entrepreneurship
38:18
is just so fucking hard. Like if you are not obsessed,
38:23
you will not see the results fast enough for you to continue
38:26
it unless you are obsessed with that thing.
38:28
That's why I hate motivation because you can get motivated as
38:31
hell about something, but I can guarantee you like year three,
38:34
no revenue, the motivation is gone.
38:37
So it's like what's keeping you going?
38:39
It's obsession. It's it's honestly, it's like
38:43
building systems around you. So like taking action is easier
38:46
than not taking action. It's making sure that, yeah,
38:50
maybe it's taking a little bit longer than you thought, but
38:52
you're still moving in the right direction, that these are all
38:54
things that will help you continue after the motivation is
38:56
long gone. But that's why I hate motivation
38:58
because it is not, it is not a a leading indicator of success.
39:03
And people that just build businesses based on motivation
39:05
or even passion, very unlikely for them to succeed because you
39:10
need more than that. You need more than passion,
39:12
motivation. You need more than just loving
39:13
something for it to actually turn into a viable business
39:19
again, like how 6 1/2 years of podcasting, almost almost seven
39:23
years, it's doing well, but there's other things that I
39:27
could do that would have done better in seven years.
39:30
But I love it. And I also, you know, I
39:32
mentioned this at the beginning, you're building, you're building
39:35
media leverage that can be used for any business that you want
39:38
to launch in the future. So it's a very valuable asset to
39:41
have, but ultimately it's not the easiest thing to build.
39:44
And if I was just, you know, psyched about podcasts seven
39:49
years ago, I would have burnt out and I would have been
39:51
another statistic. Now, the things that make people
39:56
successful outside of this obsession, I would say that
39:59
there's two other very common traits across people that have
40:04
sold companies for, you know, 8090, A 100,000,500 million,
40:09
several billionaires. The two traits are a slight
40:13
amount of delusion. And agency.
40:17
So delusion because being an entrepreneur in and of itself
40:22
doesn't make any sense. Like nobody wakes up and says,
40:26
I'm just going to subject myself to the the most amount of
40:30
physical and mental pain ever in hopes of building something that
40:34
could make me more money, but ultimately, if successful, makes
40:37
me more money than I actually need.
40:39
Like there's some drive in there that doesn't quite make sense,
40:42
but that's what makes like, that's what makes entrepreneurs
40:45
so different. They're not normal.
40:47
Entrepreneurs by definition are not normal.
40:48
They're not the norm. In fact, I think if you actually
40:51
look at stats, some of the most successful entrepreneurs, like a
40:55
majority of them to some degree are neurodivergent.
40:58
Like there's something that is driving them that is beyond what
41:00
the normal person would ever put up with.
41:02
The amount of risk, the amount of pain, the amount of rejection
41:05
that it takes to build anything meaningful.
41:08
So a little bit of delusion and agency.
41:12
Agency just means that you believe you can do it.
41:15
You have an absurd amount of self belief.
41:20
Agency is one of the most important things, and there's
41:23
other words for it too. So there's a concept called
41:27
locus of control. Have you heard this before?
41:29
So agency, what it could also mean is that you have an
41:33
internal locus of control. Internal locus of control means
41:37
that you happen to the world. The world doesn't happen to you.
41:40
If you have an external locus of control, you believe that, well,
41:45
you know, if something bad happens to me, it wasn't my
41:50
fault. Like I had, I had no control
41:52
over it. Like it's just shit luck.
41:55
That's really what external locus of control means.
41:58
Internal locus of control. How they would look at that
42:00
situation, Something bad happens, it'd be like it
42:02
happened, but I've complete control over the outcome.
42:05
And ultimately everything good and bad that's happened to me in
42:08
my life is from in some way my fault.
42:12
And that if I want anything good to happen, I need to take
42:15
action. I need to do it myself.
42:17
No one else is going to do it for me.
42:19
And that's a very powerful perspective shift because a lot
42:22
of people feel like they are victims of the world.
42:25
Entrepreneurs all believe that they have control over their own
42:29
life, their own destiny, absolute agency.
42:31
And again, they can they can control the world.
42:35
They can manipulate the world to their wishes if they put enough
42:40
energy and time and effort towards it.
42:43
You know, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
42:48
So Marc Andreessen has a very famous quote.
42:50
I'm going to paraphrase, but the quote basically goes like this.
42:56
If you put enough energy and time and effort towards
42:59
anything, you will start to find that the world is very malleable
43:03
and it bends to your will. So this is a common, this is a
43:07
common idea amongst entrepreneurs.
43:09
Like yes, building a business is hard.
43:12
Yes, creating something from nothing is hard.
43:14
But if you put enough time and energy and effort towards it
43:18
over an extended period of five, 10/15/20 years, you will find
43:23
that the world will start to bend to whatever it is that you
43:26
want it to do. And I've seen this time and time
43:29
again, again, like the most successful entrepreneurs,
43:33
they're not always the ones and rarely the ones with the best
43:36
ideas or the ones that are the most hyped about the product
43:40
that they're launching. They're literally the ones that
43:43
just stay in the game long enough.
43:45
And when you stay in the game long enough, like everything
43:49
eventually starts to work out, not by chance, but because you
43:53
take enough shots that things start to work and that you're
43:57
not a stupid person. So you can see what's working
44:00
and what's not, and you do more of the stuff that's working.
44:03
And you just do that repeatedly. And it compounds over a period
44:06
of time to the point where you've actually ended up
44:07
building a good business. Yeah, I'm I'm rereading Jim
44:11
Collins great by choice right now.
44:13
His whole series good to great, great by choice.
44:15
And I forget the third one is. But anyway, he says that same
44:18
thing is is I can't I can't remember.
44:20
Very powerful idea. Very powerful, yeah.
44:23
And he, he talks about the three points of the triangle are that
44:26
are the three attributes to 10X companies, companies that 10X
44:31
all of their competition within a certain era of time.
44:35
And so he said the same thing, like they all had the same
44:37
economic circumstances, like everything was the same as far
44:40
as that goes. But these are the things that
44:42
were different. And I think, you know, obsession
44:43
was that concept was one of them.
44:45
These are not new concepts that I just.
44:47
Discovered these are just things that if you study enough people,
44:50
you'll find they all have the same traits.
44:52
But what's what's beautiful about these ideas is that the
45:00
reason why I think I love entrepreneurship is because I
45:02
don't think that the the environment that our parents and
45:07
grandparents were raised in, it's not the same as what we are
45:10
raised in right now. Like the nine to five job does
45:12
not afford us the same cost, the same quality of life as what it
45:16
afforded my parents and my grandparents.
45:19
So I think that people have to and entrepreneurship by the way,
45:22
as a concept was not as popular like 50 years ago or 100 years
45:28
ago, maybe 1000 years ago actually entrepreneur was very
45:31
popular. But like in in the last 100
45:34
years, entrepreneurship is really getting popular now.
45:38
The reason why is because so many people feel left behind by
45:43
the system, by the government, by whatever playbook that their
45:47
parents had in place that allowed them to, you know,
45:49
afford a detached home, support an entire family on one income
45:53
with like not even a college education.
45:56
It doesn't exist for a lot of people.
45:57
So they're like, how do I, how else do I make money?
46:00
How else do I escape the matrix? How else do I sort of live a
46:03
life that doesn't feel like I'm living paycheck to paycheck and
46:05
drowning all the time? And that's where
46:07
entrepreneurship is the answer. But I think that also a lot of
46:12
people, because entrepreneurship is relatively new as a concept
46:15
for the majority of people. I don't think there's ever been
46:17
as many entrepreneurs and people that have like leveraged
46:21
Internet and social media and now AI to sort of build
46:23
something from scratch like that wasn't it's super easy to do
46:27
even like 15 years ago. So now it's easy to be an
46:29
entrepreneur, but they still find it scary and they still
46:32
find it like venturing into the unknown.
46:36
But from what we were just speaking about, about like
46:40
staying in the game long enough and figuring out what works and
46:44
compound effect of just taking action over a period of time.
46:48
What that all really means is that building a business, being
46:52
an entrepreneur, it's, it's not complicated.
46:57
It's hard work, but it's not complicated.
46:59
Like everything we've just said is a very complex way of saying
47:02
just do it for a long enough period of time and you'll figure
47:05
it out. Like it's not about do it for a
47:08
long enough period of time and then hopefully you figure it
47:11
out. It's like, I have a lot of
47:13
confidence that if you stick with something again for a long
47:15
period of time, you will figure it out.
47:17
So it's, it sort of shifts it from hopefully this will be
47:21
successful one day to, well, if I find a way to play the game
47:24
long enough, it will be successful.
47:26
It goes from an unknown to a certainty.
47:28
And I think that that's how more people should look at
47:30
entrepreneurship. It's not easy.
47:31
It's like more work than you'll ever do, but the outcome isn't
47:35
an unknown if you can stay in the game long enough.
47:37
That is my absolute belief because that is what I've seen
47:41
with most people I've brought on my show.
47:42
Most of my friends that are entrepreneurs, again, they just
47:45
stay in the game long enough, not doing things that don't
47:47
work, but progressively moving towards things that work better
47:50
and better and better and getting rid of the things that
47:52
don't. And and that's how you end up
47:55
being an entrepreneur. Yeah, it's a it's a beautiful
47:59
journey that we're on. It is painful, but it is the
48:02
most rewarding thing and I would never have it any other way.
48:06
What is so going back to some of the I know we have, we don't
48:10
have much time here left. But going back to some of the
48:11
tactical stuff, how do you, especially when you were getting
48:14
started and you didn't have a big name yet?
48:16
Obviously when you have a big name, like it's so easy to, you
48:18
know, connect with anybody. But when you were getting
48:20
started and didn't have a big name, how were you getting top
48:23
people onto your show? One of the most important skills
48:26
that any entrepreneur can learn in sales and I come from a
48:29
background in sales and marketing.
48:30
So when I started my show, I was scraping lists of like top
48:36
business influencers. I was finding their e-mail and
48:42
actually no backup before I even did that.
48:44
When I first started, I realized that to bring people on my.
48:46
Show it was a sales pitch and in any sales pitch you have to
48:50
solve like a pain point. That's how you sell anything to
48:52
anyone, right? So the pain point that a podcast
48:56
solves is exposure. It's access to an audience, even
49:00
if it's not a big one, it's a small audience.
49:02
There's another thing in sales and keep in mind, I was like
49:06
sort of classically trained in enterprise sales.
49:08
But there's another thing in sales called intent.
49:11
And intent in sales means that you are reaching out to somebody
49:14
that already has intent to buy your product or service versus
49:19
if you're reaching out to somebody who, for example, well,
49:22
I, I don't really need to, you know, invest in a new accounting
49:26
software right now. Ours is good compared to
49:28
somebody who is, we're actively shopping for new accounting
49:31
software. Oh, what are you selling?
49:33
It's much better to hit somebody up when they have intent to buy.
49:37
How does that translate into podcasts?
49:38
So you have to find people that are actively looking for media
49:41
coverage. So when I started, I went on
49:43
Amazon because a lot of, a lot of authors try and get on
49:46
podcasts. I went on Amazon, I filtered
49:49
books by up and coming, new release, bestseller, business
49:53
category and just looked at the top authors that were writing
49:56
books that were going to be released in the next 6 months
49:58
because they were all going on podcast tours already.
50:01
So all I had to do was say, hey, I know you're already doing 50
50:05
podcasts for your book that you're going to be putting out,
50:09
you know, December of this year. I'm a podcast, It's not a lot of
50:14
work to come on my show. We do it virtual, so we'll just
50:17
do 30 minutes virtual. I'll clip a whole bunch of
50:19
little clips. I'll send it to your team.
50:20
You can post it on social. We have 5000 listeners a month,
50:24
but it's really only going to take 30 minutes of your time.
50:26
So Ben, by the way, if you send that to 100 people, two or three
50:30
will say yes. And you take those two or three
50:33
and then you include them in the subject line.
50:35
Do you send to the next 100 people?
50:37
And now because they're social proof, then even more people
50:39
will say yes. So in the 1st week, week first,
50:44
like say like because I was running campaigns for the first
50:47
week, two weeks, I got Guy Kawasaki because he was
50:51
launching a podcast. I got Grant Cardone, I got
50:56
Anthony Scaramucci trying to think who else?
51:00
Those are like the biggest names early on.
51:02
And I got Patrick Bet David very early on as well.
51:05
There was, it was just a little bit of right positioning.
51:09
What pain am I solving by you know what, what are you
51:12
launching? Because like Guy Kawasaki was
51:14
launching a podcast at the time. I think Grant was launching a
51:16
book. Like it was just like the right
51:18
time. And you send a really, really
51:21
concise e-mail to these people. And like I said, if you hit up
51:25
100 or 200 of these people, a few of them will say yes.
51:29
And then you just rinse and repeat.
51:31
How has that shifted since now you're not doing virtual
51:33
podcasts For the most part, you're in person.
51:35
Are you reaching out to people and are you traveling to them or
51:38
are you requesting that they travel to you, or you're doing a
51:40
combination of both? Obviously, you're here in
51:41
Arizona right now. But no, but so I'm not recording
51:45
my stuff here. I'm going on other people's
51:47
shows, right? So I so now.
51:49
So on your show you bring them to you on.
51:50
My show, I bring them to me once in a while.
51:53
Once in a while I'll travel to like record at wherever they
51:57
are. But I mean, like, that's also
51:59
why I moved to Miami. So I was, you know, Miami, LA,
52:03
New York, everybody comes through at some point.
52:05
And, and that was that was strategic.
52:08
Like I, I moved to a city strategically.
52:10
Like I, I like Miami, but it's like not the only place in the
52:13
world that I would live. So yeah, I asked people to come
52:17
come to Miami. And also because the in person
52:21
stuff does so much better than the virtual stuff unless the
52:25
person is like. Very famous.
52:28
I rather do an in person show. And just wait until they can
52:33
come through my like, I don't care if I have to wait a year.
52:37
It really makes no difference to me because I know that waiting a
52:40
year and having them step into my studio and recording and
52:43
getting some like a much better conversation and getting short
52:47
clips from that person that's going to outperform anything
52:49
undo on like Zoom or Riverside or any kind of virtual platform.
52:54
So yeah, at this point, IDM them, a lot of them DM me as
52:59
well. But if I ever, if I'm ever
53:03
bored, once in a while, I'll go on Amazon and I'll see you as
53:05
writing a new book. And if there's someone
53:07
interesting that I haven't spoken to that I wanna bring on,
53:09
it's gonna be the same pitch. Yeah, it still works.
53:12
I just don't have to do it as much because you build a name
53:15
and people come to you, but it will always work.
53:18
And then your newsletter, because you have a newsletter as
53:20
well, you have over 320,000 subscribers.
53:22
You send out a weekly newsletter.
53:24
How did you build your newsletter out?
53:26
And like, how do you, I actually, I need to subscribe to
53:29
your newsletter because I, I want to start reading it.
53:32
And it's, you interview all the people that I'm interested in.
53:34
But I actually, because I'm not subscribed to it right now.
53:36
I don't know what, what your structure is, but like, how did
53:39
you get your newsletter going? And how do you, how did you get
53:41
so many subscribers to it? Do you, are you putting links in
53:43
the podcast? Like what platform?
53:45
Because I've, I started a newsletter recently and I'm, you
53:48
know, trying to like, learn, go high level and figure out like
53:51
all these things. And yeah.
53:53
So what's the newsletter secrets?
53:54
So the reason why an e-mail list is so important is because you
53:59
own that list. This is this is marketing one O
54:02
1 right? Like you can publish and post it
54:05
on social all day. But first of all, when you post
54:08
something on social, say you have a million followers, maybe
54:12
5 to 10% of those followers actually see when you post,
54:15
right? It's not 100%.
54:17
And now actually with algorithm changes, it's even less than
54:20
that because people platforms are now showing people content
54:24
based on like their interests versus who they follow.
54:29
So social is great, but keep in mind it's not your platform.
54:34
If you ever get banned or suspended or anything like that,
54:37
you do not get those. You know you don't get those
54:39
people. You don't have access to your
54:40
followers. So you always want to build a
54:42
list. You want to like bring people
54:44
off of social. You want to bring people onto an
54:46
e-mail list because when you send an e-mail blast, 100% of
54:50
the audience gets that e-mail. Well, unless it goes to spam.
54:53
Unless it goes to spam, but it's still better than it's still
54:57
better than social. It's still better than social
54:59
regardless. Like yeah, so I get about a 40
55:02
to 50% open rate on my e-mail, which is great, but it's not
55:05
100%. You're right.
55:06
So, but still, it's better than Instagram anywhere else, right?
55:12
How do you, how do you build that?
55:13
A few ways. There's a few ways to build any
55:15
asset, then market any asset by the way, like there's you can
55:20
run paid, you can collaborate with other creators and you can
55:24
basically tap into organic reach.
55:26
Those are sort of like the three main ways you can grow anything.
55:29
So paid collaboration and organic is how I've grown the
55:34
podcast is how I've grown social channels, how I've grown the
55:36
newsletter. What does this mean?
55:40
So organic reach for newsletters in particular.
55:44
Wait, sorry, I blanked out for a second.
55:46
You said paid is how you've grown, Joel, running paid ads.
55:48
Paid. Yeah, paid ads, Collaboration
55:51
with other big creators. Could you tap into their?
55:54
Audiences and organic. And organic, all three for every
55:56
single asset I've ever grown. OK, so I mean, I can explain how
56:01
this works for podcast too, if you want.
56:02
But for newsletters, let's talk about how to tap into other
56:08
audiences for newsletters. OK, if you're going to tap into
56:11
another creator's audience for newsletters, you can do a couple
56:14
different things. You can either just publish an
56:17
ad on someone else's newsletter and send it out to their
56:19
audience with a call to action to subscribe to yours.
56:21
Or, and you can do like a swap where, and I do a lot of swaps.
56:26
So somebody will say, hey, Scott, this is my list.
56:29
This is what I write about. This is your list.
56:31
This is what you write about. I, I'm going to put an ad for
56:34
your newsletter in my newsletter and you're going to put an ad in
56:38
your newsletter for my newsletter.
56:39
We're going to do, we're going to do a swap.
56:42
And that's a great way to grow and tap into another person's
56:45
audience base. Also doesn't really cost you
56:48
anything because you're both, you're sort of you're just doing
56:51
a swap. I've done that with podcast too.
56:53
So for podcasts, there's something called a feed drop
56:57
where I take a full episode of my podcast and I take a full
57:00
episode of your podcast and I will upload your podcast into my
57:04
feed for one episode. And I'll, I'll, I'll introduce
57:07
it. I'll say, hey, this is this is
57:09
this is one of my favorite shows.
57:11
You can download it everywhere. You get your podcast, go to, you
57:14
know, Hannah's YouTube channel at whatever.
57:16
And then I'll play and I'll say this is a full episode.
57:20
If you like it, this is where you go subscribe.
57:22
You'll post that on your YouTube.
57:24
I'll post that on my YouTube. I'll post that for my RSS feed,
57:27
like with my actual, like my actual podcast.
57:29
And you'll do the same. So my audience will get to
57:32
listen to a full episode of your podcast.
57:34
Your audience will get to listen to a full episode of my podcast.
57:38
And then if they like it, they go subscribe.
57:40
Now you do this enough, you collect someone else's audience.
57:44
Right. Do the same thing with a
57:46
newsletter. Now, one thing that is very
57:50
important if you're trying to grow a media asset like an
57:53
Instagram account or a podcast or a newsletter, if you do these
57:57
kinds of swaps, you can do it on Instagram too.
57:59
You can say, hey, like do a story with a call to action to
58:02
follow me. I'll do a story with a call to
58:04
action to follow you. Like these are very easy swaps.
58:07
They don't cost you anything. You're just tapping into each
58:09
other's audiences. So it's like a win win.
58:11
But when you do these kinds of collaborations, you want to, you
58:15
want to stick with the same medium.
58:16
What does that mean if you are advertising a newsletter?
58:20
I personally would not pay to advertise on someone else's
58:23
podcast or I would not do a swap between a newsletter and a
58:26
podcast. Why?
58:27
Because if somebody is a newsletter reader and that's
58:30
what they read, you know, every Monday they open a newsletter.
58:32
They love reading newsletters. I do not want to have to
58:35
convince them that they should be also into podcasts and then
58:39
be into my podcast. All I want to convince them is
58:42
that, hey, you like newsletters? I have a newsletter, Just
58:45
subscribe to mine. Same with podcasts.
58:47
I'm not going to advertise my newsletter in someone else's
58:50
podcast. If I'm trying to advertise,
58:52
sorry, let me re say that I'm not going to advertise my
58:55
podcast in someone else's newsletter.
58:58
I'm going to advertise my podcast on someone else's
59:01
podcast because all I want the listener to hear is OK, Scott
59:06
has a podcast. I know you're a podcast listener
59:09
because you're listening to Hannah's podcast.
59:11
All I want you to do is listen to mine.
59:13
Now does that make sense? Yeah.
59:15
Are you putting your podcast on your newsletters?
59:18
Like the links to each episode? But yeah, but you're.
59:21
Not that is different than collaboration, right.
59:24
So making sure that all of my audience ecosystem knows
59:28
everything that I'm working on. So yes, on my on my YouTube and
59:32
on my podcast, there's a call to action to subscribe to my
59:35
newsletter. So I collect the audience from
59:37
everywhere, but that's different than tapping into someone else's
59:40
community. OK, the second thing, so there's
59:45
paid, there's collaboration, and then there's organic reach.
59:49
So the reason why YouTube is so important for podcasts is
59:55
because people can discover your podcast organically.
59:59
If you just did audio, nobody can discover you.
1:00:03
So when you upload audio to like Spotify, Apple, a little bit of
1:00:07
organic but not really much organic reach at all.
1:00:11
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world after
1:00:13
Google, even though they're owned by the same company.
1:00:15
But that's where people can actually discover your show,
1:00:18
right? For newsletter, most people
1:00:20
don't realize this, but Sub Stack has really good organic
1:00:25
reach. What is that?
1:00:26
Sub Stack is a newsletter hosting platform.
1:00:28
Or you can write. You write.
1:00:30
Yeah, it's like there's a there's a lot of them.
1:00:32
There's, there's Kit, there's Beehive, there's Medium, there's
1:00:36
sub Stack, there's probably others.
1:00:38
There's MailChimp, There's a million different places.
1:00:40
There's go high level. I've used all of them.
1:00:44
The reason why and I've listen, I've gone sub stack, Beehive,
1:00:49
sub Stack Kit. I also know Nathan, I have no
1:00:52
issue with Kit, but I've gone back to Sub Stack because Sub
1:00:55
Stack has the most organic reach.
1:00:57
Meaning when I publish A newsletter, it doesn't just go
1:01:01
to my audience. My newsletter goes to the
1:01:04
millions of people potentially go to the millions of people
1:01:08
that all read newsletters on Sub Stack.
1:01:12
So there's a suggestion engine built into Sub Stack.
1:01:15
So if I write about entrepreneurship and say I have
1:01:18
100,000 people that read about entrepreneurship, great, my list
1:01:22
gets it. But also Sub Stack is going to
1:01:25
recommend my newsletter to 5 million people that have never
1:01:28
heard of me before. Nice.
1:01:31
So that's what I mean by organic reach.
1:01:33
That's that is that is a huge secret to growing something
1:01:37
because outside of collaboration and organic reach, the only
1:01:42
other way people can discover you is by running paid ads.
1:01:47
So unless you want to spend a shit ton of money, then you have
1:01:50
to figure out how to tap into other creators, audiences, or
1:01:54
you get people to discover you and that's why you do all three.
1:01:57
You grow successfully and you grow a little bit quicker, but
1:02:00
organic reach is huge. Collaboration is huge.
1:02:04
And then of course you can run paid ads for everything.
1:02:08
You can run paid ads on Spark loop on YouTube.
1:02:11
You can run paid ads. They have like a built in tool
1:02:13
to run paid ads as well via like Google Ads, but that's kind of
1:02:16
like the lazy way to promote something and the expensive way
1:02:20
and the expensive way. And the one thing that's really
1:02:22
great about tapping into like a platform's organic reach is
1:02:30
you'll be able to tell if your content's good.
1:02:33
Like if, for example, people are subscribing to my YouTube
1:02:35
channel or subscribing to my newsletter and they're just
1:02:40
discovering it without me running any ads, that means my
1:02:43
content is great. If, if, if I'm putting out a
1:02:45
whole bunch of content on YouTube or on sub stack and
1:02:48
nobody's subscribing, well, the content's not hitting.
1:02:51
So if I run paid ads, like I'm going to be burning through a
1:02:55
lot of money because I'm going to be sort of promoting
1:02:58
something that isn't that great already.
1:03:00
So if my organic discovery, if my organic reach is already
1:03:04
good, if people are already subscribing to my newsletter,
1:03:06
already subscribing to my YouTube, then putting paid into
1:03:09
it is like throwing fuel on the fire.
1:03:11
But at least I know the product is good.
1:03:13
It's also like one last example. If you're ever running ads for
1:03:17
your business on Facebook, Google, whatever, you don't just
1:03:20
run ads on just random ass creative.
1:03:23
You take your best performing organic posts and you turn that
1:03:28
into your ad creative because you already know it works.
1:03:31
Like people are always trying to figure out like how do I make
1:03:33
sure my ads are going to hit? I'm going to have like a lower
1:03:36
customer acquisition cost. Like I want to reduce my, I want
1:03:39
to reduce my expense as much as possible.
1:03:44
And then they create like 10 different pieces of ad creative
1:03:48
that have never been tested before.
1:03:50
Like if you're a business owner, go to your Instagram, see what
1:03:54
real or what image worked the best on your Instagram, what got
1:03:57
the most likes, shares, saves, whatever comments.
1:04:00
That's your ad creative. It already works.
1:04:03
You know it works, yet you're, you're posting like fire organic
1:04:07
content over here and then over here you're like doing this dumb
1:04:11
shit in Canva that's never been tested.
1:04:12
And you're using that as your ad creative on Facebook ads.
1:04:15
And you wonder why your ads are so expensive and they suck and
1:04:17
no one's converting because the content sucks.
1:04:19
So organic is a great way to attract people, obviously to
1:04:23
build an audience, but also just a test if what you're putting
1:04:25
out is good. So yeah, organic collaboration
1:04:29
and paid. That's how you grow anything.
1:04:32
OK, Thank you. And then we're going to wrap up
1:04:34
here. But for a final question, why
1:04:37
does most people's content suck? And what's the number one piece
1:04:40
of advice you would give them to make it not suck?
1:04:44
Their ego. Their ego.
1:04:47
They think their content is better than it is, and they
1:04:49
aren't willing to. They aren't willing to learn
1:04:52
something new or to test new things.
1:04:55
If you, if you get rid of the ego, if you're like, listen, I
1:04:57
don't know what I'm doing. I'm just going to look at
1:04:59
somebody who's growing faster than me and I'm going to figure
1:05:02
out why their content's hitting. And I'm going to try and as
1:05:05
like, especially like a first step, just emulate what that
1:05:08
person's doing. You're going to do, you're going
1:05:11
to do fine. It's like your own ego gets in
1:05:14
the way and people have, people will spend years putting out
1:05:19
garbage content because they think it's good.
1:05:22
They're like, I know what I'm talking about.
1:05:24
Why? Like people should love my
1:05:26
content. It's so professionally produced.
1:05:28
Like I put so much energy and effort and time and money into
1:05:31
it. Like your ego's getting in the
1:05:34
way. You don't understand.
1:05:35
Like your content isn't for you. It doesn't matter how good you
1:05:38
think your content is. If it's not hitting, there's
1:05:42
something wrong with it. So it's not because you're a bad
1:05:46
creator, it's because you don't test enough.
1:05:48
So go to somebody that's doing what you're doing that is
1:05:51
growing faster than you're growing, that's growing faster
1:05:53
now, not like has grown faster 15 years ago and be like, OK,
1:05:58
what are they doing that I'm not?
1:06:00
And also you have to keep in mind that that creator that
1:06:03
you're looking at and modeling after and researching, like This
1:06:08
is why it's so important to look at people that are growing fast
1:06:10
now. Because there's creators that I
1:06:13
know that were killing it like 5 or 10 years ago and they'll have
1:06:17
like a huge audience and they'll still get great reach.
1:06:21
But if they did what they're doing now, starting from
1:06:25
scratch, they would never grow because there's so much
1:06:28
competition. So it's important to look at
1:06:30
like who is growing the fastest now from zero that they just
1:06:36
seem to have come out of nowhere.
1:06:37
That's the person you look at, That's the content you model.
1:06:40
And This is why there's some new creators that has in the past,
1:06:45
I'm going to reference school of Hard Knocks against.
1:06:47
He just killed it. But in like two or three years
1:06:50
built audiences bigger than people that have been doing it
1:06:53
for 15 years because they figured out what works now.
1:06:56
Now they will also have to figure out if that will work for
1:07:00
the next 5 years. But for now they're killing it.
1:07:03
That's a model. There's lots of models of people
1:07:05
that are currently growing faster than anyone else.
1:07:09
So if your contest not hitting, kill the ego and figure out why
1:07:15
theirs is working and yours isn't and just test more and
1:07:17
test what someone else is doing and just see if it works.
1:07:20
And funny enough, like if somebody is, if somebody's
1:07:24
content is doing very well and you sort of model your own
1:07:29
content after that it does yours starts to do quite well too.
1:07:33
So great advice. Well, thank you so much for
1:07:35
coming on the show. My pleasure.
1:07:36
I can keep talking to you for 16 more hours, but we'll continue
1:07:39
the conversation offline. Well, my pleasure.
1:07:41
Thank you.