Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Danny Ozment | Podcasting to Attract Ideal Clients

Transcript

Danny Ozment | Podcasting to Attract Ideal Clients · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

0:02
Davina Frederick: Hi everyone and welcome to the wealthy woman
0:04
lawyer podcast. I'm your host Vina Frederick, and today I am
0:09
super, super excited to have a fellow podcast lover, Danny
0:15
Osment here with me. He is the owner of Emerald City
0:18
productions. He is a business strategist and consultant for
0:22
entrepreneurs, professionals who want to start and operate a
0:28
podcast for their business. And he is a also a sought after
0:35
speaker, an online educator. And he's a consultant for major
0:39
corporations and thought leaders to some of his clients include
0:42
Salesforce, LinkedIn, the John Maxwell team, Mike Kim, and
0:48
Ernie, the attorney for those Ernie the attorney fans out
0:50
there. So welcome, Danny, it's great to have you here. Thank
0:55
you. I'm glad to be here. So one of the things I just want to ask
0:58
you about real quick before we jump into some other things is
1:01
the name of your company, Emerald City productions. So
1:04
Emerald City for those Wizard of Oz fans, is that the connection
1:09
for that tie for that name? Or was your not a behind the scenes
1:13
wizard? No, no, no. It's not like that's a that's a
1:16
unintended benefit of the of the connection there. But it's
1:20
really just based on my last name. As we were thinking, I get
1:24
questions all the time, like, Oh, are you in? Are you based in
1:28
Seattle? Are you based in I think Portland is also called
1:31
the Emerald City or something like that. I'm like, no, no, no,
1:33
I'm here in Orlando, Florida, and used to be in Nashville
1:36
before that. But yeah, it's it's the name. It's the Oh, I thought
1:39
you were the Wizard of Oz podcast with a name like so.
1:45
So tell us how to like give us a little bit of a quick story
1:50
about your journey. Sure. You this type of business.
1:55
Yeah, I so I always wanted to be a musician. Growing up, I loved
2:02
music in middle school in high school, I was in Band and
2:05
Chorus. I did all the music theater stuff. I went to college
2:09
and got a music degree. I even have I went so far I have a
2:13
master's degree in conducting. Oh, so I thought I was going to
2:18
be in a tuxedo on stage in front of orchestras and things like
2:23
that, for my entire career. And I took that path, spent about 10
2:28
years or so in the nonprofit arts world. Before I realized
2:32
that I was probably going to be in my 50s or 60s Before I got
2:35
the really good gig. Because the people that get those gigs and
2:39
can work one job in the arts world, they hold on to those
2:44
jobs until they're 70 years old, 80 years old sitting on a stool
2:48
because they can no longer stand up that type of thing. So I, you
2:52
know, I was at that point where I was wondering what I was going
2:54
to do. But then in 2008, my daughter was born. And she had
2:59
some medical issues right away. So my wife and I realized pretty
3:04
quickly that we needed a bit more flexibility. And I came up
3:08
with the idea because I was working in nonprofits and didn't
3:11
have really great benefits. Why don't I start a business, I can
3:14
work from home, I can do something. So I started to
3:17
brainstorm. And I realized that Oh, I know how to record people.
3:23
I've been a musician. I've been in bands. In college, I was in
3:27
acapella groups, and we recorded ourselves in studios and things
3:31
like that. So I knew a little bit I was and I realized that I
3:34
could start a business doing that because there were people
3:37
recording acapella groups traveling around the country or
3:41
recording groups in their homes and things like that. So I
3:44
started that I started a recording studio out of my home.
3:47
And it grew moderately, it was paying the bills, things like
3:51
that, as grew to the point where we actually moved to Nashville,
3:55
and I built a recording studio in Nashville. And we were there
3:58
for four years. But during that time, I was starting to get
4:02
frustrated with working with musicians. I loved working in
4:06
music, but projects would go on for a year and a half. And
4:11
budgeting is questionable. Let's say that in the music world.
4:15
It's not a very business minded world. And people don't think in
4:19
those terms. So I figured out that I needed to diversify, I
4:23
needed to do something else in the recording space. And I was
4:29
enjoying listening to podcasts. I was listening to some podcasts
4:32
that were helping me with my business or helping me with my
4:35
life. All those types of things. And I realized when I was
4:41
listening to these podcasts that some of them didn't sound really
4:44
good. So I just started emailing some of those podcasters and
4:49
saying, Hey, I love your podcast, it's changing my life.
4:52
It's changing my business, but your sound really sucks. Please
4:56
let me help you because it would just make the experience better
4:59
for everybody. And so I started doing it for free. And then I
5:02
started charging a little bit of money. And then it was, hey, can
5:05
you do the show notes too? And hey, can you do this. And over
5:08
the last seven years that has grown into an agency, where we
5:12
now have a team of 10, we've got 40 clients. Like you mentioned,
5:18
big corporations like Salesforce, and, you know, small
5:22
law firms with three people, solo coaches, consultants,
5:26
things like that all types of different people. And we help
5:30
them get their podcast produced each week, I help people launch
5:34
their podcasts, get everything together at the beginning. And
5:37
then we help people keep people moving, help them stay
5:41
accountable, so that they don't and I love before we started
5:44
recording, the use use the term, pod fade, which is something
5:49
that happens in this industry, people want to do a podcast that
5:52
gets started, they get 10 episodes in 15 episodes, and
5:56
then it's, it's hard. It takes time. It you know, they they
6:01
miss a week, they miss two weeks they get behind life happens. So
6:06
we try to help people who know they need a podcast, who are
6:10
committed to doing a podcast, avoid that pod fade by
6:14
supporting them. Right.
6:15
Right. It is really interesting until share with our audience
6:21
the same stats you share with me about the number of podcasts out
6:25
there, and then the number that are actually active podcast
6:28
because I think that's kind of an interesting statistic. Oh,
6:30
sure.
6:31
So let me let me frame it a little bit. The I talk about and
6:35
maybe I'm a little biased. Because this is my industry,
6:38
this is my field. But I talk about podcasting as being really
6:42
the most effective form of content marketing. If you have a
6:46
business, if you have a law firm, you know that one of your
6:49
significant portions of marketing is content marketing,
6:53
you've got social media, you've got all these other things you
6:55
can do. You can you can buy ads, on buses, you can do all those
7:01
types of things that lawyers do. But in content marketing, you
7:05
have that chance to let people know who you are, and spend time
7:09
with them. And I say that other than video besides video and
7:15
blogging, podcasting is the most effective form of content
7:18
marketing, because for one, you're spending a lot of time
7:23
with the person listening to you what really happens. And if you
7:27
listen to podcasts, you you know this effect. After a few
7:31
episodes, you kind of feel like you've got a friend there. When
7:34
you're listening to a friend, you're whether you're commuting
7:37
45 minutes or 15 minutes, or you're running and working out.
7:41
You can listen to podcasts anywhere, and you're spending
7:43
time with these people. In fact, 93% of podcast listeners listen
7:48
to more than half or all of every episode. So when the
7:52
average podcast episode is 45 minutes or more on like a weekly
7:57
show. That means that the podcast listener, your friend
8:01
that trusts you, is listening to you for 20 minutes, 30 minutes,
8:04
40 minutes. When you take that amount of time, then you you
8:09
realize that okay, reading a blog takes five minutes, seven
8:13
minutes. YouTube, they get on there and watch a video, most
8:17
likely, they're only watching two to three minutes of a seven
8:20
minute video. podcast listeners are listening for a long time.
8:23
Okay, all right. And then you look at the total number of
8:28
podcasts out there and you say, Wow, okay, podcast index,
8:31
Spotify, they say there's 4 million podcasts, or Apple says
8:35
there's 2.8 million in our directory. What you don't know
8:39
and you have to dig into the details, you have to dig into
8:42
the download stats that that media hosts like Libsyn release.
8:47
Really, there's only about 350 to 400,000 podcasts that are
8:52
active. That means they've released an episode in the last
8:56
30 days they release episodes regularly. So you're only
9:01
competing really against 400,000 podcasts. And compare that to
9:06
blogs. There's like 7.5 million blogs or No, no, it's it's 750
9:11
million blog. Sorry, I've moved my decimal point 750 million
9:15
blogs out there that will pop up anytime you search something on
9:18
Google if you have the right thing. There's millions of
9:22
YouTube channels, okay. But there's only 350 to 400,000
9:27
active podcasts, and the listeners are spending more time
9:29
with you. And that number has stayed consistent, even over the
9:33
last few years during the pandemic. So that's why I say if
9:37
you're wanting to connect with an audience, if you're wanting
9:40
to build a trust, then a podcast is really your best place to do
9:46
that.
9:47
Yeah, yeah. Well, what I particularly love about I think
9:51
is I'm a big fan of podcasts. I've listened to a lot of them
9:57
and what I like about it is that I can be doing other things To
10:00
listen to podcasts, unlike videos, I'm not a video person,
10:03
because I don't have the time to sit and binge on videos, the way
10:06
I can binge on podcast episodes. And so there's that factor. And
10:12
then the other factor for me is, I think it's a huge difference
10:15
when people can actually hear your voice, as opposed to so I'm
10:20
a professional writer, and I've written a lot of blogs. And I
10:24
really shifted to podcasts because I was still, I still,
10:28
you know, write a lot of content for things. But to me, the idea
10:33
that somebody can listen and they can hear my voice, that is
10:38
a little bit that's how human beings Connect is by seeing
10:41
human faces and hear your voice. So this podcast, you can see
10:45
videos of me on a channel, but if you're like me, you don't
10:48
have time to sit and watch videos, you can also listen to
10:51
it on the go, which is the wonderful thing. And, and that
10:55
does, that does for me, I know the podcasts I listen to the
11:00
ones that I favor, it is because I I enjoy the style of the host
11:06
and the way that they converse with people, and sometimes how
11:10
it's produced, you know, makes a difference. So, one of the
11:15
things I want to talk to you about sound quality, because I
11:19
know this is a big thing for you since you're a musician, and I
11:23
am hearing impaired. So for me, I don't I probably don't have
11:29
the keenest sense of sound quality that a lot of other
11:32
people do. But I will say that, because of my hearing, I guess I
11:37
have certain tones that great. And, and the and there are I
11:42
love Audible. And there are books that I have bought and not
11:45
listened to because the narrator is so terrible. And the sound is
11:51
just, you know, like, grates on you and gets on your nerves or
11:54
something. Are there certain things that if people want to
11:58
start a podcast and have a successful podcast, and they
12:03
want to sound good? What what are some of the sort of tips or
12:06
ideas that you could give people about? It's just like, they're
12:09
just starting out, they're kind of doing it on their own, and
12:13
you haven't hired a production company? What are some things
12:15
they can do to sort of improve the sound?
12:17
Definitely. And I love that you, you talked about how this is,
12:23
this is the way that humans communicate. And it's a primal
12:27
thing. For us, the reason that you can connect with a podcast
12:32
is the listening. Since we were in caves, you know, sitting
12:36
around fires, this is how we shared stories and communicated
12:39
and pass things down. Sound quality is a big deal. It's it
12:47
really, there is no excuse at this point for having bad sound
12:51
quality. And when I say bad sound quality, I mean things
12:55
like, it sounds like you've recorded with the built in
12:58
microphone on your computer, and you were four feet away from it.
13:01
And there was a lot of noise in the background. There really is
13:05
no excuse because even if you plug in a set of earbuds that
13:09
came with your iPhone or speaking to the iPhone,
13:13
microphone recording on voice notes, something like that,
13:16
you're gonna get better sound quality than that, and you're
13:19
gonna get usable sound quality. So I like to think of it as you
13:23
know, if you went to your favorite restaurant, you would
13:27
expect them to serve edible food, okay, to exist as a
13:32
restaurant, if that's their job, they have to serve food that you
13:35
can actually eat. When you provide bad sound quality.
13:39
That's essentially what you're doing with a podcast if the only
13:42
thing people are there to do is listen to your voice. And it's
13:45
bad and it's annoying, and there's noise or there's
13:49
frequencies that hurt their ears. And what you said is
13:52
actually true. There are for instance, the frequency of AES
13:57
is a frequency that we actually have a tool to remove. It's
14:00
called a de Esser because that frequency causes headaches. If
14:04
it's too loud, wow. There you can actually hurt people's ears
14:10
and give them pain if you provide bad sound quality. Now,
14:14
it's it's not hard to get good sound quality because literally,
14:18
I mean, I see I think you have do you have a Blue Yeti there?
14:21
Is that something? I do? Okay, so you're using your Blue Yeti
14:24
correctly. There are some people that misuse Blue Yeti, we don't
14:27
tend to recommend recommend those because you can mess up
14:31
using this. The microphone that I love is called the Audio
14:35
Technica ATR 20 100x. I would say that probably 65% 70% of
14:41
podcasts you listen to that sound good are using that
14:44
microphone. It's just like the Yeti. It's a less than $100 USB
14:49
microphone, you can plug it directly into your computer. So
14:52
there's no excuses because that's the microphone I'm on
14:55
here. I have it plugged directly into my computer. And I like
14:59
this microphone because in many different rooms, whether you
15:03
have carpet on the floor, whether you have reflective
15:08
ceilings, high ceilings, things like this, this microphone
15:11
sounds pretty good. Because it tends to sound good on all types
15:16
of voices. It also tends to only pick up sounds that are within
15:21
two to three feet of it. So microphones have this tendency,
15:26
especially this type of microphone is called a dynamic
15:28
microphone, of focusing in on the sound that is most closely
15:34
to it. Excuse me. And so I recommend that and when you do
15:39
that, you've got this microphone, plugged directly
15:41
into your computer with a USB, you spent less than $100, you're
15:45
going to have pretty good sound, you can record on QuickTime, you
15:50
can record on Microsoft Windows voice recorder, that's built in.
15:57
Like I said, you can even take your earbuds and plug them into
16:00
your iPhone and record and then you're gonna have noise
16:02
cancellation, you're gonna have a microphone that's going to
16:05
sound better than the built in microphone on your computer.
16:08
There's really no excuse. If you have the ability to watch some
16:14
YouTube videos, if you have the ability to like I'm a LinkedIn
16:17
learning instructor and have a course on how to produce a
16:20
podcast how to record a podcast. There's information out there
16:24
that shows you how to use free tools to remove noise. There's
16:29
information free information out there that shows you how to DSX
16:33
your recording. There are websites, there's a website
16:37
called Oh phonic, AU, P H, O N, I c.com. That if you upload your
16:44
mp3 that you've recorded, it will process it and remove noise
16:50
balance levels, make it a little louder, so that people don't
16:54
have to turn the volume up and down as you're moving forward
16:57
and back away from things like that. If you're if you're one of
17:00
those talkers that moves a lot. There are tools out there. And
17:05
really, that's all you have to do to get good sound now, it's
17:09
just yeah, it's about the tools or get help.
17:12
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting that you say that, because so I
17:16
had a spate of episodes where I didn't realize that the sound,
17:21
my sound quality wasn't as good as my guest. And what it was his
17:24
eye, I was using a tool that drowns out sound in the
17:30
background, because I have a an English bulldog loves to bark at
17:33
inopportune times. And it works great for a while, and then they
17:38
ran an upgrade on it. And when they did that, something
17:41
happened to it. And it wasn't working as well. And I didn't
17:43
realize it. And so one of the things I think was that I move
17:49
around, when I, when I speak, I'm talking to my hands, I'm
17:52
moving around. And when I would move a little bit back from the
17:56
microphone, I would it would drop out, my voice made it a lot
17:59
lower than, so I switched to something else. And that seems
18:04
to solve the problem. And also, I'm a little bit more careful
18:06
now making sure that I'm still speaking right into the
18:08
microphone, I also have this kind of acoustic panel that is
18:12
right near me that sort of helps with the sound to sort of
18:16
capture it. But you know, those things you learn over over time
18:20
and the long haul and feedback and stuff like that,
18:23
we actually have a pre recording checklist that we give to our
18:26
clients that we say print this out, and put it right in front
18:29
of you so that every time you know even if you're using Zoom
18:33
like we are to record this interview, every time you turn
18:36
it on, you're checking to make sure that the correct microphone
18:39
is selected, you're checking to make sure that there's actually
18:44
a good level, because you can do that in zoom, you can test those
18:47
things. And that way you you avoid the the common problems
18:54
because zoom updated last week and it reset all your settings,
18:58
well, you need to go in and check your settings, you need to
19:00
make sure that it's going to record correctly. Thankfully,
19:04
the last couple years of doing lots of meetings online has
19:09
allowed more people to learn what they need to do, and how to
19:12
improve their situation. So honestly, podcast recordings
19:15
have gotten a lot better over the last couple of years just
19:18
because people are more adept at using these tools.
19:22
Right, right. Right. Well, and I do think it's really kind of
19:25
interesting because one of the things my husband always said
19:27
I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, so I'm always
19:29
like, I don't like it when things go wrong. And and he's
19:32
and he listens to a lot of these sort of larger audience
19:36
podcasts. And he says, you know, you it's amazing, all the
19:40
different little things that go on because people are recording
19:44
out of their home a lot and even some of the big names that he
19:49
says you'll hear dogs barking in the background or stuff have you
19:52
know, kids or whatever. So I do think there is certain level of
19:56
that, that actually makes people feel like they know you Even
20:00
more, because it makes you more human and relatable, you know.
20:03
So let's move away from kind of the technical aspect of the
20:06
podcast, I would love to include links or that microphone, and
20:12
then what you said, after that. Anyway, we'll, we'll get those
20:17
links included in the show notes for people. But I want to move
20:20
away from the technical aspect. And I want to talk specifically
20:23
about show talk, like the purpose of a podcast. So you and
20:28
I were talking before where a lot of people think I'm going to
20:31
start a podcast, and I'm going to make a lot of money on it,
20:34
because I'm gonna get sponsors. And my podcast is set up for a
20:39
different purpose. You have a lot of conversations with your
20:42
clients about the about a business purpose for the
20:45
podcast. And let's talk about kind of the differences between
20:50
the two.
20:52
Sure. Well, I know our audience is, is law firms and lawyers. I
21:00
like to think of it as the best outcome of a podcast, especially
21:06
if your business is to create trust, to create a connection of
21:12
some time to create a relationship. And in we have
21:16
several clients who are law firms like like you mentioned,
21:18
Ernie Svenson, Ernie, the attorney is one of our clients.
21:22
And what I realized early on for, let's call them busy
21:28
professionals. So lawyers, accountants, therapists, we have
21:32
lots of therapists as well. Their one really only way of
21:37
getting clients has been marketing, whether it's Google
21:41
My Business, whether it's their website, whether it's referral
21:44
marketing is a very strong thing. And that's a lot of
21:47
referral marketing is based on trust, right? And what if you
21:51
could do this thing where you had 1000 people listening each
21:55
week that consider you a friend, and you could refer your own
21:58
business to your friends? Well, that's what a podcast is. And
22:02
then for lawyers and law firms, I mean, I think, you know, I
22:07
have a business and I have a house and I have a family, okay?
22:09
The only times I've ever had to call a lawyer, or use a lawyer
22:13
was something big was happening, something scary is happening,
22:17
I'm in trouble, something has gone wrong, the IRS has sent me
22:20
this letter, I don't understand what it means all these types of
22:22
things, whatever the type of lawyer it is that I found my
22:25
course, on somebody else's site online, they've stolen my
22:29
intellectual property. I need to contact someone, what am I going
22:33
to do? Well, I'm going to call a friend because I trust a friend.
22:36
And I'm going to see if they've got any lawyers that they
22:38
recommend. So what if you were a lawyer that could establish that
22:42
trust beforehand? And so that that's why you know, I, when I
22:46
talk about podcasts I talk about as business creating a podcast
22:51
that connects with connects with your ideal listener, whoever
22:54
you're trying to reach out to. I'll use an example recently,
22:59
it's not with a lawyer. We were in Orlando, Florida. So we put
23:03
solar panels on our house. And Florida has a lot. It's great.
23:06
Like HOAs can't deny you having solar panels. So it's really
23:09
cool. Well, what was the first thing I did, I went to Google My
23:12
Business to start looking at, okay, who are the solar
23:15
companies? Because there's a million of them in Florida, that
23:18
have good reviews, okay, here's three or four that have really
23:21
good reviews. Let me go to their websites. Okay. Okay, I see
23:25
this, this looks good. Let me contact these three. And I'll
23:28
meet with these three and connect with them. And okay, and
23:31
I'm going to choose this one, because this felt like the best
23:34
relationship. Well, when I had that person that owned this
23:38
solar company came out, and he did the work and met with me and
23:42
all that sort of stuff. I said to him, I was like, Hey, I
23:44
noticed on your site, you don't have a blog or a podcast. Like
23:49
if you'd had a podcast with even five episodes, I would have
23:52
listened to one or two. And I would have gotten to know you.
23:55
And it would have been easy selection. Because I would have
23:57
already heard you talk about what you guys do and why you do
24:01
it, and what people should know and try to educate people. So
24:05
that's why when I talk to businesses, like law firms,
24:11
accountants, therapists, I talked about it in terms of, if
24:15
you're starting a podcast, it really needs to be about that
24:17
ideal listener, it needs to be about building a relationship
24:20
with the ideal listener, because this is your opportunity to do
24:25
referral marketing on a grand scale and and create those
24:28
connections yourself. Because really, and we talked earlier on
24:33
a lot of people, they want to start a podcast because, oh, you
24:37
know, I want to talk about this interesting thing or this
24:39
problem that I've seen. And I want to interview all these
24:43
interesting people about it. But there's already a lot of
24:48
podcasts out there even though there's 400,000 that are active
24:52
that that listeners are already listening to that cover certain
24:55
topics. And with a podcast listener, what generally happens
24:59
is they find some shows that they like, and they stick with
25:02
those shows. So they're going to listen to a new show. It has to
25:06
be something that hits differently, or covers something
25:10
different than things they're already listening to.
25:14
So again, let's let's talk about law firms. That might be, let's
25:20
say you're, you know, a law firm that covers a certain area of
25:24
law, like we have a client who's an immigration lawyer, and she
25:29
specifically is doing a show about immigration law. But she
25:34
niched it down, she focused down into one industry, and that was
25:38
tech startups, because she's in Silicon Valley. And so she
25:42
wanted to talk to tech startups, to help them deal with
25:45
immigration issues for the workers that they need. The
25:49
employees that they need the coders that they need, the
25:51
developers that they need, that were in short supply in Silicon
25:55
Valley, because they you know, so, China, India, or Australia,
25:59
all these places where they might want to bring people in.
26:02
So it was that little extra level that has led to great
26:06
success for her show, because she focused it down there.
26:11
And that's a great success for her business. Yeah, as well,
26:14
which is really what we're taught like, so a podcast like
26:17
mine, a podcast like that. A podcast for any lawyer who's
26:21
wanting to talk about their area of law, is really the purpose of
26:26
the podcast and for you is to develop your network, develop
26:31
your connections, and get more get more visible with people who
26:36
might benefit from using your services. Yeah. So because a lot
26:42
of people will start a podcast, I recently spoke with a
26:44
colleague who started a podcast, and she started it with the
26:48
intention of it being a business right from the beginning. And so
26:52
she before she even had any content, she was getting
26:55
sponsors before, you know beforehand, cuz she had a
26:58
business model in mind for that podcast. But most of the
27:04
podcasts that you see that are started by business, people like
27:09
us, like you said, the, the entrepreneurs and the service
27:12
providers are they're doing it because what they're wanting to
27:15
do is create more content, but more powerful content, right,
27:19
and a blog that might get skimmed and people don't you
27:23
know, when's the last time when you saw a blog was the last time
27:25
you looked at who wrote the blog? Yeah, right.
27:28
It's really, it's really about finding a way, especially over
27:32
the last couple years, like we saw huge growth in 2020. Just
27:37
like, how can I get in front of people? Because I can't get in
27:41
front of people anymore? How could I meet with 500 new
27:45
clients a week, instead of the 10, that I can schedule to come
27:49
in to the office during certain periods of time. That's where it
27:53
gets into is the let's build this network of listeners, ideal
28:00
clients, client leads, whatever that I can't do. In person face
28:07
to face.
28:09
I have a, I have a client who says we were working together
28:13
one of our one of the tools that we use to market her business
28:18
was to get her to start a podcast. And she's in a very
28:22
specialized. She's in family law. And Texas, and her. She's
28:32
had several cases before the Texas Supreme Court. And so she
28:35
really wanted to connect with other family law attorneys,
28:38
other judges other people out in that area. And it has been a
28:42
tremendous source of referrals for her now, because she's
28:46
inviting people onto her podcast, who didn't know about
28:49
her before. And she recently attended a conference. And she
28:52
says, used to an iTunes conference, nobody knew me. Now
28:55
I show up and everybody comes up and they go, Oh, you're so and
28:58
so this is your podcast Valhalla. And they're, she's
29:01
writing a book and they're all eager to get a copy of her book.
29:04
So it really creates what I call internet famous right you know,
29:07
it helps it helps to, you know, get more people to know you. So
29:13
the goal when people say I want to have a podcast that makes
29:16
money the goal really for most business people in the way that
29:21
we make money through a podcast is by getting those clients that
29:25
our ideal clients that we really really like to have to serve and
29:29
to help you build that trust that know like trust factor
29:33
before they ever even meet us in person which makes the sale
29:36
easier
29:37
right and that that's primary and and if you want to you know
29:42
up level your skill once you have the podcast Yeah, you're
29:46
you're wanting to generate leads but the the people that we've
29:50
seen monetize their podcasts in this service provider world.
29:57
They they find a way to serve their Your entire value ladder.
30:02
That's a term that gets used a lot in marketing. Is that, okay?
30:06
Yes, there's going to be the clients that can hire you, and
30:12
pay the hourly rate or the flat fee or whatever. But then there
30:15
might be the clients that just need a little bit of advice. And
30:18
I know it's like in investment advice and law in therapy.
30:22
There's, there's compliance issues, and there's things that
30:25
you have to follow. But, you know, if you're a lawyer, and
30:29
you could create a checklist that people could download for
30:32
free, and you mentioned it on your podcast, and that gets them
30:35
on your email us so you can communicate with them more
30:38
regularly, that maybe leads to, hey, if there's a basic course,
30:43
that you could do in real estate law, that shows people how to do
30:47
this thing that you guys do all the time, that really doesn't
30:51
require a lawyer, they could, you know, get some help, but you
30:55
charge $100 for that course, or $50. For that course, that's a
31:00
revenue stream that lives on the podcast. I mean, I have a
31:04
client. He is a business strategist, branding strategist.
31:09
And he is six years into his podcast now seven years. And he
31:16
has a product, it's a business proposal template that he talked
31:21
about in episode 47. I think if I remember correctly, of his
31:26
podcast, that it was this template here, fill this out,
31:29
this is how I, you know, write proposals to land these clients
31:33
and all that sort of stuff. It was like a two page PDF, I sold
31:36
it for $50, he still makes $500 a month off of that template.
31:41
He's he's made something like $40,000, over six years off this
31:46
PDF that he put on a thing and has never touched since. Because
31:49
people go back through his podcast. So when you're thinking
31:53
about monetizing, there's all those little ways that you can
31:56
get a little bit here, and you can help the people that are
31:58
never gonna hire you. You can provide them tools, you could,
32:02
you know, you could do a two day workshop on this thing where you
32:05
could teach people how to do it. And you could charge a little
32:07
more than and in the people that often they go through those
32:12
things that start listening to the podcast, and then they
32:15
download the free thing. And then they buy that course. And
32:18
then they attend that two day workshop. Well, three years down
32:20
the road, they're hiring you for this, because now they're a real
32:24
estate investor, and they need a lawyer, that's a go to person,
32:27
and now you're on retainer. You know, it's things like that,
32:30
that, that long term investment of podcasting can create this
32:34
funnel, really is what it is this marketing funnel of people
32:39
for your business.
32:40
Right, right, right. I was gonna just check here and I want to
32:45
talk about what, what it takes to start a podcast, I do think
32:51
that a lot of people sort of underestimate the amount of work
32:56
it takes to produce a podcast. So, you know, we often think,
33:02
well, I could just, I'll just record it, and I'll upload it.
33:05
And we're done. Right? And they don't think about all the
33:08
different pieces and parts that go into producing a podcast. So
33:12
we're gonna talk about that a little bit. Yeah, let's,
33:15
I mean, I mean, that's why Emerald City productions exist,
33:18
because people get into it, or they have seen somebody else do
33:22
a podcast. And they know like, Oh, my God, that person was
33:26
spending four hours a week on their 30 minute podcast. Because
33:32
when you meet with a strategist like us, you meet with someone
33:36
like me, who's going to help you launch your podcast, you get
33:40
information along the lines of You know, yes, you probably if
33:45
you want an effective podcast that's going to grow, it needs
33:49
to be a weekly show. So you have to think about okay, can I do 15
33:53
minutes a week? Could I do 30 minutes a week, could I do 45
33:56
minutes a week. Okay, I can do that recording. But then, if I
34:01
want to edit it, I either have to learn how to edit like user
34:05
tool. And there's lots of easy tools out there. Now, you know,
34:08
you're not loading up Pro Tools. And like I am in editing things
34:13
in wav forms and stuff like that. There's tools out there
34:16
called like descript, where it is a digital audio workstation,
34:21
it's software, but when you record into it, it immediately
34:25
transcribes it, and you can actually edit the transcript. So
34:27
it's like you're editing a document and you're editing your
34:29
audio and you can learn those tools. But that 30 minute
34:33
episode might then take you an hour, hour and a half, two hours
34:38
to edit. If you start to obsess over your own voice. And every
34:41
time you say I'm you're going to be spending three hours. That's
34:46
why like on my team, my editors that do this every week and
34:49
multiple shows a week, a 30 minute show takes them maybe
34:53
even 15 minutes sometimes to edit because they've got tricks
34:56
and they can listen to it faster and they can do all these
34:57
things. So you've got that and then you got to think about,
35:01
okay. All the shins schedule at each week. And I've got to write
35:05
shownotes. And I've got to make sure I list all of the resources
35:09
that I mentioned. And even in the setup part, one of the
35:14
things that we do a lot, we've actually got seven clients right
35:18
now launching, is we take them through that whole process at
35:23
the beginning of okay, what is your idea?
35:27
Who are you trying to reach? Let's do some research to see
35:30
what's out there and what the title of the podcast should be
35:33
to reach those people. SEO wise, like, we've got to, just like,
35:38
in websites, podcast, search engines and apps and directories
35:42
have SEO. So you got to know how Apple works. Who's the the big
35:47
dog in the market? How does Spotify work? How do we get the
35:51
right title to hit the right market to make sure people can
35:54
actually find this? And then we got to describe it. And then
35:57
we've got to create a trailer episode. And we've got to create
36:00
your artwork, and we've got to create your RSS feed, we've got
36:05
to set up a media Host account, what categories should you be
36:08
in? And how do we optimize that? How do we connect you to all the
36:13
podcast directories, there's a lot of steps that go into just
36:16
the nuts and bolts of making sure people can listen to your
36:19
podcast. One of the benefits of podcasts is that it uses an RSS
36:23
feed. So that means that like, Facebook can't shut you down.
36:27
YouTube can't completely shut you down. And then you disappear
36:30
from your audience. You can be in a lot of places with a
36:33
podcast. But it's an older system. It's like, you know,
36:36
we've been podcasting since 2004. We're coming up on 20
36:39
years. So it's an old system. And there's benefits in that.
36:44
But there's also you got to know how things change and how things
36:47
are happening right now. What changes is Apple made recently
36:52
that we need to update. So we like to go through that whole
36:55
process. And then we also work with our clients on what should
37:00
yearly content be? Because like I mentioned before, with that
37:05
episode from the business proposal template, selling seven
37:10
years on podcast, listeners like to discover you later on, they
37:15
may be listening to Episode 200, or episode 40. And then they go
37:20
back to Episode One. So how do we establish a relationship
37:23
right away, and we talk a lot about that content and what that
37:26
should be. So these are all things that you've got to think
37:27
about. And then, okay, I want to launch I want to put this
37:33
podcast out there, but I don't want crickets. I want an
37:36
audience. So what do I do? So we often spend a lot of time in
37:40
launch strategy of how to borrow audiences, how to use your
37:45
current audience, whether you've got an email list, whether
37:47
you've got some social media following, how best to get those
37:50
people turned on to your podcast, because that's going to
37:54
be the place that your your core audience lives, right, the
37:57
people that are spending the most time with you, your, your
37:59
loyal audience. And through that process, you know, I'll use an
38:04
example from a lawyer that we worked with a solo Personal
38:09
Injury Attorney down in Louisiana, really small
38:13
community, maybe like 10,000 people in this town. Okay. He
38:17
wanted to do a podcast, he was actually part of one of earnings
38:20
groups. And we had met through that. It's like, I want to start
38:23
a podcast, but there's only 10,000 People in my town and
38:26
pretty much the only personal injury attorney here. So people
38:31
know if they need a personal injury attorney, they know who
38:33
to go to. But I want to make sure people hear about me. And
38:38
so we talked and we and we came up with the idea and that
38:41
strategy process of well, maybe the best way for you to use your
38:44
time is for you to become the digital mayor of the town.
38:50
You've lived there all your life. You know about the town
38:52
people know you they know your family. You want to grow because
38:56
he was talking about how is transient community there's a
38:59
lot of a bedroom community, not transient community bedroom
39:03
community for New Orleans and Baton Rouge. And so there were a
39:07
lot of new people there that didn't know about him, didn't
39:10
know about his business didn't know about the town. So he
39:13
started a podcast as a lawyer, sponsored by his law firm that
39:18
talked about the town and the events and interviewed the
39:21
principal of the high school and interviewed a former football
39:23
player that had gone on to LSU and stuff like that. And that
39:27
podcast gave him the opportunity to build a relationship with
39:31
people in the town that never knew he existed. So much so that
39:35
like he created a Facebook page for the podcast in a town of
39:40
10,000. He had 1000 people on that Facebook page. And that's
39:44
that's absurd. Yeah. 10% of the population of the town. You
39:50
would be lucky to get like 2% of your email list for most people
39:54
to listen to your podcast. He's dominated the area because he
39:57
decided to focus on the regen, instead of doing a podcast about
40:02
loss, so that process as you get started up, that you need to
40:07
think about, like all these variables that that are possible
40:14
with a podcast when you're getting started.
40:16
Yeah, I think that's a really wonderful idea and thought for
40:20
people, because I know that a lot of attorneys, you know, who
40:24
thought I would love to do a podcast, but nobody wants to
40:27
hear about acts like what am I going to, you know, people
40:30
don't, people don't hire me until something happens. There's
40:35
a triggering event. And so, you know, I'm having to hit a broad
40:39
swath and personal injury is a great example of that, you when
40:43
you're trying to identify an ideal client, and you're it's
40:47
not a demographic, it is a someone's been injured in a car
40:52
accident, right. So, or some other type of vaccination. And
40:55
that's a triggering event. So to sort of tailor that to a
40:58
specific audience would be a little difficult to do. But the
41:01
idea of, you know, just focusing on your region and being like
41:05
you said, the digital mayor, that's a great idea. And I think
41:09
that's probably one of the things that trips, a lot of
41:12
attorneys up when they're thinking about a podcast, they
41:15
may love podcasts and listen to podcasts. Oftentimes, what I,
41:19
what I see are people who kind of tried to do you know,
41:25
something similar to what's already out there, but kind of
41:27
put like a little bit of their own spin on it. So they'll take,
41:30
you know, there are a lot of coaches, for lawyers now or for
41:36
women. And so those people there, there's these podcasts
41:38
out there with these topics. So I'll focus on instead of the
41:42
money, I'll focus on the happiness or I'll focus on the
41:45
whatever. And, and oftentimes, they do that, because they don't
41:50
want to talk about their area of law, they think it's boring and
41:53
will be boring to people. So they're looking for something
41:56
else. That's a topic. And oftentimes, those are the ones
42:01
that kind of fade away too, because they're really trying to
42:05
force something that doesn't, you know, that there's not
42:10
longevity to
42:12
one of the things that I like to tell lawyers specifically about
42:16
the benefits of podcasting, partly because a lot of lawyers
42:22
are used to dictating, right, so they're used to speaking
42:25
lawyers, lawyers need to speak. They're used to dictating. Do
42:31
with a podcast, knowing all the marketing that is out there
42:36
nowadays, like you've got to have a social media presence,
42:39
you've got to have a blog, you got to have an email list, you
42:41
got to send this out, you got to have some different types of
42:45
just regular advertising out there. When you create a
42:51
podcast, we've talked about the average length we've talked
42:54
about even if you did 10 minutes, even if you did 15
42:56
minutes, that is a piece of content that is really long. And
43:02
whether it's your paralegal, whether it's a virtual
43:05
assistant, it's pretty easy to take 15 minutes 1000s of words,
43:11
and find two or three really good quotes that you could turn
43:15
into social media posts. And I often tell our clients, hey,
43:19
record your podcast live, just go live on Facebook, LinkedIn,
43:24
whatever. So you record some video, you go live, you have the
43:29
opportunity if people happen to show up and ask a question, you
43:32
can answer the question. You can then take that audio and turn it
43:35
into a podcast. You've got video that now on Instagram, Tik Tok,
43:40
whatever, like really, these things matter, you could clip a
43:44
minute long video and put up an Instagram reel, which is what
43:49
Instagram is really pushing. You could put up that video on
43:52
LinkedIn as well you could put up that video on Tiktok and
43:55
tiktoks algorithm will go to work and you might get something
43:58
that you mentioned put up there and then people who are sitting
44:03
on their phone looking at Tik Tok while they're at the
44:05
hospital after they just got run into might see your video like
44:09
it's all these types of things. So you've got social media
44:12
posts, you've got we we take our podcast episodes. And we have
44:18
copywriters that we actually provide as part of our services,
44:22
where they take the episode and they turn the episode into a
44:25
blog post. So different than the shownotes. There's a blog
44:30
article that now goes on your website. And so you've gotten
44:32
new blog posts every week. And that's helping your SEO on your
44:36
site. And your show notes are going up with media players, and
44:39
that's helping your site's availability and prominence in
44:43
search results on Google or whatever. There's all ways that
44:47
you can take this one piece of content where you just sat down
44:50
for 15 minutes and talked. And now other people or even people
44:55
on your own team can quickly take a transcript and generate
44:59
some Social media can generate other things. So that's why like
45:03
it is like, if you're thinking about your marketing in general,
45:07
besides the fact that you need to have the content marketing to
45:09
build trust, you can take your content that you create purpose,
45:13
turn it into a lot of other things.
45:15
Yeah, yeah, we do that with us. We repurpose, you know, and
45:19
create reels and things like that out of it to pull people
45:22
in. And part of is to pull people into listening to the
45:25
podcast, because I want them. What I'm sharing on this podcast
45:29
is stuff that I think will help them. And I think if you're
45:32
creating, if you're creating a podcast, with that in mind that
45:36
I am trying to help people, and you keep that at the forefront.
45:42
This is about servicing an audience and really providing
45:45
something that's beneficial and useful to them. And if you do
45:47
that, and you approach it sincerely, I do think it, you
45:50
know, it works to your benefit. I want to make sure that people
45:53
don't feel overwhelmed by everything, I know that you can
45:58
start a podcast organically, you can grow it organically, you can
46:02
start with you in your basement with your microphone, and, and
46:07
some of the, you know, so many tech tools and automation out
46:09
there to get started. As you grow, it's just like with your
46:14
law firm business, as you grow, you're making you know, you're
46:18
becoming more and more successful, then you get to a
46:20
point where you can invest in other people to help grow your
46:24
team. So don't let this conversation intimidate you. If
46:28
you feel like oh my gosh, I have to go hire this whole production
46:32
team. It's a whole lot harder than I thought most people who
46:34
start podcast started out with them a microphone and, you know,
46:39
some some tenacity. And and you learn as you go along and it
46:44
gets bigger and better. And then you can afford to hire a
46:47
production team like Emerald City productions. And so do keep
46:54
that in mind. If you're thinking about it, if you already have a
46:55
podcast, and you're realizing that you might start fading
46:59
because you're running out of steam. The reason why is
47:03
probably not the recordings and the conversation. The reason why
47:06
is all the production aspect that goes into it. And
47:09
definitely professionals make a huge difference. In production.
47:14
It's not something you need to develop a whole career. Second,
47:17
third, fourth career around when you can hire people who already
47:21
have that knowledge. So Danny, tell us how we can get in touch
47:25
with you. If we want to talk with you more, or get some of
47:29
these tools that you've talked about. I know you mentioned a
47:31
production checklist. Yeah, how we can do all that.
47:35
The best way for most people listening to this to find me
47:38
would be to go to Emerald City pro.com. If you go there, there,
47:44
not only is there a lot of information about the different
47:48
things that happen in the podcasting process, what you
47:52
should know about those, we answer a lot of questions.
47:56
Pretty much every page is written like a blog or FAQ,
48:00
where they can get common questions answered. But there's
48:03
also a lot of buttons on that site, literally all the calls,
48:07
calls to action or schedule a call with me. And if you do that
48:10
you're gonna get a a time with me. So I'd love to answer
48:14
people's questions that way, but Emerald City pro.com is going to
48:18
be the best place to
48:18
go. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for
48:21
being here. I've enjoyed our conversation. I've learned a few
48:24
things. I know that my podcasts are long. And but I have people
48:31
who you know, and there are people who won't listen to the
48:32
whole thing, but I also have people who binge on those long
48:35
road trips and tell me oh my god, I just binge, you know, so
48:40
don't don't also don't think you have to be locked into something
48:43
short just because that is the you know, the popular view. My
48:47
individual podcasts are shorter, but my interviews always go a
48:50
little bit long and I find that people absolutely love it. So
48:54
thanks so much, Danny for being here and sharing your wisdom
48:57
about Podcast. I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate that.
49:01
Thank you. I appreciate you having me on