How To Launch A Successful Podcast with Spencer Smith

You are impacting lives and that is why you are having the success you're having.

Well, thanks, man. And I wanna. I learned. This is funny. It was an Instagram ad and I'm just like scrolling as I'm like, tired, trying to go to bed. And it was an Instagram ad with this guy that wrote a book called Greatness. Have you seen this ad? No. Yeah. Apparently he's worked with everybody from, like, the San Antonio spurs when they were struggling and turned them around. But he, he used a term in that ad that caught me. Selfless excellence.

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Bullpen session. I am excited today. I've got a good friend of the industry with me today who everybody knows his name by now. We are going to talk some good things about podcasting. So today I've got my good friend Spencer Smith joining me. Spencer, welcome to Bullpen Sessions.

What's up, Andy? I don't know if everybody knows me, but I appreciate you suggesting that might be.

If they don't, man, it's getting pretty damn close. Let's just be honest with that.

So they like insurance and, and self funding? Maybe.

Here's why. I know. Here's where I know your branding is spot on. If I go do a workshop or I'm at some industry event and I say, who is the first person you think of when I talk about Stop Loss?

Yep.

In invariably they will say, Spencer Smith.

Yeah. Because I'm the only person that associates himself with Stop Loss publicly. So I don't have.

I actually, I actually used you as an example today with Haran. We were talking about Haran. I was talking to the guys there because they had some hesitations around video content and what they should do. And one of them said, I don't know if I want to use the whiteboard. I said, remember, Spencer Smith took a very boring topic, stop loss insurance, and used a whiteboard to make it interesting. Anybody can do it. Anybody can make. You can take a boring subject and make it interesting.

Yeah, absolutely. I would, I would agree with you wholeheartedly, man.

We're gonna get there. We're gonna actually talk about that today. But let's. Before we get there, let's. Let's hit the. Hit the rewind button.

Okay.

For the people who don't know your past. Where, where are you from, Spencer?

I am from Arlington, Texas, which, you know, love him or hate him is the home of the Dallas Cowboys.

Also.

The home of the Texas Rangers, who are finally starting to turn things around as a baseball guy. They've Got a pretty damn good team this year, so.

Well, that's exciting. And I. I literally tell you, I have not paid attention.

I could tell you're like, yeah, what, what are you talking?

Cubs game the other day, if that helps. But I know that's unrelated. It is baseball, but yeah, man, I can't. I confess. That is not a sport I follow.

No, you're. You're good, man. We'll let it pass. And, and the sport you do follow because you played it for a long time was soccer. What? I was curious what as a kid. What gravitated to you? Sorry, I got some beliefs of why soccer is a great sport for kids. What gravitated you to soccer as a young kid?

I think when I was playing. I'm an 80s kid, so I was born in 82, so when I was playing, soccer was starting to just be popular, especially as a kid sport in the United States. So I think it was just one of those things that my parents said, oh, let's sign them up for soccer and see what happens. And I found out I actually really, really enjoyed playing. I started late, though. I mean, some of the kids are starting at like three or four these days. I started at like seven or. Or eight, because I don't think sports had. Youth sports have the same emphasis that they do now. But it was really probably just an accident, man. Played a little baseball. I did play some baseball up to about 14, but. But soccer was really always my. My passion.

You know, I think in the. In the United States, I feel like late 90s, early 2000s, lacrosse started to become what soccer was.

Okay.

But I agree. I grew up in the. I was a late 70s kid. You know, soccer was the thing you played as a kid, and I think it definitely taught you as a child. Like, I think I thought it was perfect for eye, foot, eye. You know, eye, foot coordination.

Oh, yeah. Well, and it's easy too. You need a soccer ball and some cones. Right? I mean, and that's the extent of what would be needed for practice. That's all. And so you're right. Foot, eye coordination, overall coordination, balance, agility, working in a team. I mean, every one of those things translates to other sports. So I think that's why people start there.

I can remember Spencer, I was like you. I didn't start. I had a friend like, tell me I should go out for soccer. And I think it was like seven, eight years old.

Yeah.

And I remember that first year playing whatever they called it, peewee soccer. I scored like 28 goals. Chad scored like 30, the guy that got me. And I'm like, this is an easy sport. And then as I got a couple years older, I'm like, wait, no, there, there's a lot of good competition out there. But you. I stopped playing soccer, I think when I was like 12 or 13. Maybe. You ended up playing, going out and playing soccer in high school and having a really good career, which ultimately led you to play college soccer. Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, so. And I was even a little bit of late bloomer, you know, I started late like I said. Although at that time wasn't necessarily playing a ton of catch up, but I think just physically my development and then just overall sort of growing into my body and, you know, some of the natural abilities didn't start really coming out until I put in a lot of effort and training and double down on my, you know, my focus around 16 or 17. And I really, it's like overnight I feel like I hit this huge development jump. And so that led me to playing in some, you know, club tournaments where people were, you know, coaches were scouting and got a phone call out of the blue one day and said, hey, would you like to come to Drury University and play soccer? And I said, where's Drury University? And it happened to be in Springfield, Missouri, and toward the campus and beautiful in the springtime, beautiful field, Division 1 at that time. And I, man, it was probably one of the best decisions I made in my life because I almost didn't go play. If it weren't for that phone call and kind of a last minute pivot. Yeah, I'd probably be at University of Texas not doing anything instead.

What I like about that story, you know, being an athlete myself, I was just having this conversation with a friend here locally because of how, how extreme travel sports are now. And I'm sure soccer's club. Club is just like travel and baseball. It's almost like to play college athletics, you have to be seen today as like a freshman or sophomore. And if you're a late bloomer. He was talking about his son. Good, good baseball player, but he's probably not going to bloom until he's a junior senior, like growth wise.

Yep.

It's too late nowadays. That's the sad part. It's hard for these kids. I didn't get my, my scholarship until the end of my senior year.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

And I just don't think that happens anymore because of how, against how extreme sports are. These kids are playing and focusing on it at such an early age.

That those Scholarships aren't as easy to come by.

Yeah, well, you know, soccer is, you know, unfortunate in the sense that because of football and the number of scholarships in college football. Yeah, soccer had actually a limited number one of, of scholarships overall. But then the number of men's soccer programs in the United States is limited as well because football's so big, especially in Texas, that there's no UT team. There's no, you know who you want. A and M team. Yeah, there's. There none of those big schools that you think of actually have men's soccer programs.

Really? I didn't know that.

Yeah. University of Oklahoma. None. None of the big state schools have soccer. There's SMU. Yeah. It was like the only Division 1 soccer team that I'm aware of in Texas.

Wow. So what you were playing. Let's get to a little. Let's get to know Spencer, the soccer player a little bit. What was your position?

So I kind of bounced around the midfield. Andy in club ball and in high school, central midfielder. So I was sort of the, you know anything about soccer. I was the tempo guy.

Okay.

I wouldn't. I wasn't a full box to box midfielder. But I also wasn't a number 10, which is your guys that are super, super creative. I had some creativity, but I was more the guy that could distribute the ball around and you know, kind of track the ball around the field. In college, okay, I became a winger because I was pretty quick. I was small, but very, very quick. And so I could sprint up and down that line faster than most people. And so that was the way I could get on the field early on in college was to be a winger.

I'm interested because again, I know enough about soccer today as an adult, but not enough to really understand certain concepts. So talk to me because like Messi's number 10.

Yeah.

What is the go. The guy or the man or woman wearing 10 on the field, you said is.

They're, they're the great, they're the playmaker. So think about the most creative person on the field. Usually in that position. I'm gonna whiteboard it. I need a whiteboard. You sit under, you sit underneath your. The forward, the striker. But you are basically the guy or gal pulling the strings for making something happen. They also typically have little to no defensive responsibilities because you don't want messy spending a lot of time and energy tracking the ball back to his defensive third. So Messi is the guy that's, hey, you hang around, we get you the ball and you make something happen for Us. And that's what they do.

Are there any other numbers associated with certain positions?

Almost all of them are, yeah.

Really? I didn't know that. Wow.

Yeah. Starting goalkeepers, one. Defensive midfielder, six. You know, the guy like me was a number 11. Your striker is usually number nine. You know, the wingers and, you know, wing backs have positions. Positional numbers as well. The center backs, they're all, they're all kind of. If you know their number, you kind of know what their, their job is.

Okay, well, I'm curious because I'm sure the listeners are. Did Spencer Smith ever get a red card in college?

In college? No, actually, believe it or not, I did have one in. It's so funny. The only red card I think I ever got was in high school. And I was complaining to the ref and I literally go, that's a load of crap. Or that's those exact words I, I said. And he gave me a red card for that. And I remember my coach made me do bear crawls for half an hour in order to, you know, that was my punishment. And I was so sore the next day. I mean, I literally sore for a week. Like my arms wouldn't go above my head. But that's it. That's the only red card I think I ever remember getting. Honestly.

That's funny. That's. It reminds me, you know, when I was done with pro ball, I played a little couple years of adult league baseball back home here. And the only time I ever got ejected from a game in baseball was the most subtle, quiet ejection I've ever seen. So I'm, I'm batting.

Yep.

And the pitcher throws an outside fastball and the ump calls us. I mean, it was a good couple inches off the plate. Ump rings me up, strike three. And literally, like in conversational tone, I say, wow, you are terrible today. And he ejects me. I didn't even react. I just walked off the field, put my bat down and sat on the bench. I'm like, that was the most reserved ejection I've ever seen.

Your skin.

The dugout. Actually didn't even know I got ejected. That's how quiet it was. It, it was just really. That was the only time I ever been ejected from a game.

Well, I'm curious, looking back at your soccer career, you know, doing what you're doing today, it's a good segue. You talk about the most creative. Where's number 10? We're going to talk a lot about creativity today.

What lessons have you learned from Playing sports that you look at what you do today, you're with Pareto, that you still apply today.

Well, man, I. So I was at an opera event this week, and I actually had this, you know, kind of reflection. I struggled. So, Andy, I'll give you a little backstory and I'll tell this. Fully answer your question. So I went to Drury University my freshman year. Started pretty much every game. We were a mediocre but middle of the pack, Division one school. I had some friends that went to smu, speaking of smu, and that was probably the best team, if one of the best teams in the country in Division 1, top, top, top, top tier. I got a chance to go there, but I struggled mightily because I had this huge shell shock of the level of ability for, I mean, 30 guys as good or better than me in one spot, with pedigrees from Brazil, the AC Milan Academy, you know, it was. You name it, they were the who's who. And I just. I hit a wall because I lost my confidence. I literally started feeling like I'm an imposter. I don't belong here. And I struggled mightily, and it actually ended up meaning I exited SMU because I played like two games, and it just wasn't. Wasn't worth it. So I had this reflection at this Pareto event because I'm in a similar situation right now. They are literally pulling in as we grow. Some of the best people in our industry, our leaders are incredible. And so I'm looking around going, hey, I'm. I'm. I'm with another situation like SMU where they're handpicking some of the best talent in the country. And so I. But I. The reflection I had is I can feel now 20 years on, that I do belong here. And I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable with that. And that would. That took two decades to go, hey, you know, I do belong. And I'm going to act as if I belong here as well as something.

I knew there was something I liked about you because that's. That's your story is my story. You know, when I got to college, I think one of the reasons you look at college sports, everybody comes in as a hometown hero, right? They were all the. The stud athlete at their respective high school. And now all of a sudden you're on a team with everybody who was first team, all state.

The difference between those people, I think that go on to have a lot of success and those that don't, yes, they put the work in, but they also feel like they belong.

Yeah.

Now, I did a great job in college. But what's interesting, to your point, when I got to pro ball and I found myself on the same team with guys from lsu, Texas, Florida State, you know, the biggest schools in college baseball, I too, didn't feel like I belonged. Yep. And that impacted my pro baseball career. So I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's something a lot of people in our industry deal with.

Oh, cool.

I think there's a lot of people, A lot of people are looking at what everybody else is doing. Right. And they don't. They, they, they lack that confidence to feel like they belong at a certain level of validation, I may call it, as an advisor. And I think a lot of people struggle that with that in our industry.

Sure. I had a kid. I say kid, a young guy. One of our young salespeople asked me, hey, do you ever feel imposter syndrome still? And I said, yeah, the, the second I got here, I felt imposter syndrome. Right. Like, there's this little voice in the back of my head that says, hey, one day they're going to figure out you maybe don't know what you're talking about or something to that effect. But I told them, hey, even though I'm going to feel that, and I can guarantee our leadership in certain situations when they stand on stage, are going to feel that as well. But the difference is how you actually respond to that feeling. Right. You either pull back and cower and go, you know what? I don't belong. I should go do something else. Or you say, hey, if I feel like that, maybe there's a deficiency in training or education or there's something I can do to work through it so that that feeling propels or motivates me to actually respond positively to the. That feeling. And that was kind of the message I gave to him. But the. I think the thing that he liked is the fact that I answered yes. Like, I'm not impenetrable. Right. I'm not infallible. And so I do feel those same feelings that everybody else does.

Yeah. I, I actually think if you don't feel imposter syndrome once in a while, you're not challenging yourself enough.

Yeah, agreed.

I, I look back at some of our best clients, Spencer, that we've had since starting Complete Game Consulting are. Got our men and women. When I jumped on the first call with them in my head, I'm going, why do they need my help? And they've turned out to be some of Our best clients. And so you just got to get over that. It's okay to feel it. That tells me you're challenging yourself, you're getting outside your comfort zone, but just keep pushing through. I absolutely love that. Yeah.

And I want to go back to one other lesson, Andy, because you touched on it, I think it's pertinent to talk about. The hard work is kind of like a baseline at this. Right. Table stakes. When you're around excellent people, hard work is, is. Is a given. You literally either work harder, you're not. You're not gonna succeed. So I just think knowing that, Right. Like the hard work probably got you there when you were that all state high school kid. But like, what is the thing that's actually going to separate you and help you compete? When you're with some of the best of the best, hard work is not necessarily the only thing that you can rely on. True.

Yeah. There is a level of knowledge that has to be there as well, and skill. And I get it. I agree with. But with all that being said, don't ever lose the hard work, because that's the thing. I look at our industry and I do think people sometimes sell this destination and people forget to get there. You also have to bust your ass. Right. It's not like there's some magic script out there where just do this and you'll be there in the next two months. And a lot of everybody wants the result. Right. Not everybody wants to put the work to get to that result. I want to ask you a question before we get into podcasting.

Okay.

That I think I didn't intend to ask you, but now I'm going to. You know, you are very good on camera and you're very good with a microphone, and that's what's one of the reasons you have done so well with the. The self funded With Spencer podcast, is you are good on camera and with a microphone.

Okay.

But you've also put in practice to be good at it. And one thing I want to talk about, I don't know if anybody. Everybody knows this about you. You did some stand up comedy for a while.

Yeah.

And I look back at that and I'm curious how much of an influence did that have on how good you are on camera now? Because there's a lot of pressure with stand up.

Well, so not even just stand up. I also did on camera acting like classes and scene study concurrently with that. So two slightly different mediums with the same end. Like it's an entertainment medium. But I learned all the mechanics. And I learned, hey, if you want to be good on camera, bust out your camera an hour a day and record yourself. Rehearse your scenes, you know, if you're an actor and watch them back and go, was that believable? Did you do a good job? Was your sight line good? All these things. And then stand up is just a performative art. Right. So not necessarily always on camera, but there's a performance aspect through communication that. I mean, I look back, Andy, and I tell people this quite frequently. If they know that I did that stuff. I didn't realize that was preparing me for this, that was preparing me for the podcast. And I might go, man, I wish I'd had a standup career. I wish I'd had an acting career. Actually, I have both of those things. They just happen to be through the medium of podcasting instead.

Well said, because it took me a long time to realize this, because people will say to me, like, you're good on camera. You seem. You're good on stage. It seems easy for you. And what I realized was one of the things that set me up for that Spencer that I would have never thought about 10 years ago is being a pitcher. You're literally on stage every time you take the mound.

Oh, yeah.

All eyes are on you. The game can literally not move forward without you throwing a pitch. And I realized today, the speaking stage or a podcast, to me is the pitcher's mouth. And pitching like that, with that pressure is probably what helped me the most, set me up the most for what. What I'm doing today and what you're doing today.

Well, and tying those two things in. Have you ever seen that Bill Burr bit? He's a comedian where he's playing catch with his son or, you know, future son, and it's him. It's not actually playing catch. He's on stage doing a bit, but as he's throwing it, he's having this really interesting and funny conversation, but he's performing the art of pitching through, you know, sort of the act out, and it's. It's a phenomenal bit. If I can find it, I'll send it to you.

Yeah. I think the lesson, though, with this, people look at what you're doing today, and they might think, well, it's easy for a guy like Spencer. But what they don't realize is you have put thousands of reps in.

Oh, yeah.

By acting and being on camera and in comedy, that's the reps. Yep. I have a mentor, a coach I work with, and he One of the things he says is the difference between a good speaker and a great speaker is a thousand speeches. You're just not putting enough reps in.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's well said. So let's talk about what your brand has become best known for. Self funded with Spencer.

Yeah.

So take me back or take us back when you had the idea. All right, I am going to take a subject like Stop Loss and I'm going to start creating content. This, this was even before the, the True podcast. Everybody knows you actually had a video podcast on YouTube In a way, self funded with better. What gave you the idea or at least the, the courage to go, okay, I'm gonna hit record and I'm gonna start talking about self funding.

Yeah, I. So why I picked self funding is probably pretty simple. It's the only thing I felt like I was a truly an expert in in the insurance industry. And so it was really a function of what do I know and what could I teach. And so that was, you know, sometimes people think there's a grand design and a master plan and you had this great epiphany and all of a sudden he put it all together and orchestrated this, this fantastic career. It was just, I think I could do this. And that was it. Dr. Bricker obviously is a phenomenal whiteboard presenter. I think he was doing a lot of that at the time. I saw him do that well, and so that's where, you know, the co working space I had at that time had a beautiful whiteboard that had wood, you know, framing up and down and the lighting was good in the room. And I just said, why don't I try stop loss 101? And I did shot it on an iPhone. Didn't even have, you know, microphone equipment or anything and didn't even know how to edit. So I just loaded it up by itself and it trended three times on LinkedIn in a week with like the top 1% in the entire platform. And I put it up on YouTube and ended up getting 15,000 or whatever the views are. And I thought that's crazy. And I just kept going, right, if you do it once, well, you can't just go, I did that once and then stop. I said, well, why don't I do another subject of Stop Loss and another subject. And so every week for 20 something weeks, I shot a video and people started following the hashtag. They started waiting and asking, when's the next one coming out? And I realized I was on to something at that point.

Yeah, I, I mean, I I wish. If I went to your YouTube page right now, how many followers do you.

Have on YouTube in terms of, like, followers or subscribers?

Subscribers?

Yeah. 2300 or something.

I mean, that's phenomenal for a page on Stop Loss. Right. And so since the. The early days of doing it on the whiteboard, you've now turned it into the podcast.

Yep.

I'm gonna ask a bunch of questions here because I think this is where the viewers are gonna really get value, because this is. I think podcast today is really. People get so caught up in what a podcast is because they think of Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss and all the people who have Alex Huberman, all the people who have.

The top podcast in the world.

Yep.

The point of a podcast is not to become a celebrity. It's to create another form of content through audio that people listen to. Right. And so when did you realize, okay, I really want to step into this.

Podcast channel, you know, sort of another fateful circumstance. I changed co working spaces. And on the tour of that co working space, they said, oh, by the way, here's our podcast studio. And I've been talking to Steve Overton. You know, I work for plan side. He's our CEO or now cpo, but at the time he's the CEO and we'd been just joking around, hey, would you ever want to do a podcast? I think we'd be good at. And he's a tech guy, he's an audiophile. He has all the gear. And so we'd been joking around for a few months that we were going to do it. And then it was like this silver platter was sort of laid up to me and Steve being in another location, he says, oh, you do it, you run with it. I think you'd be better at it anyways. And I just invited a few folks on Dennis Fowler being the first Dr. Bricker was like number three, I think. And people kept saying yes. People started following it. People kept saying, hey, why don't you have so and so on? I'll connect you. And a few people flew in to town just to be on it. And then you start going well again. I must have got stumbled onto something that I didn't plan. But as stubborn as I am, I just keep going with stuff without really any, again, any grand design. It's just keep. Keep doing it. And it is snowballed to what obviously you see today.

Yeah, no, it's. It's become. I. I think it's you and David Saltzman who's got the shift Shapers, which he's had now, Man, I think it's a decade.

Yeah, he's done it for a long time.

You guys have two of the top podcasts in the industry. And let's talk about that, because this is, again, if we're selling to advisors, that podcasting is another prospecting channel. It's just a channel done through audio. And I'm sitting here going, cool. How do I get started? Let's just start with. Let's use your podcast. An example, what you've done a phenomenal job with, Spencer, is you have used the podcast, become known for one thing, self funding. Right. It's not a podcast on everything.

Yep.

And I think that's a key ingredient.

How do you determine who your guests are going to be?

It is a combination of quite a few things. Right. So there's inbound interest. And every once in a while, you know, I may say no to certain circumstances that don't make sense, but I have a lot of people that ask now, how do I get on? Or what do I need to do? Or how do I qualify or whatever. Referrals have been really good, too, Andy. You start getting better at it, and people recognize that, and they say, well, you should have X person on, which is typically somebody that's either founded a business or runs a business in our industry that they think will benefit. So now you have this credibility that comes on with. Comes along with an introduction. And then I do actually proactively ask people, I think, of subjects that I would like to cover. You know, let's say stop loss, for instance. I might try to cover it two or three times a year. So I go, well, who should I have on? That would keep the conversation interesting. So it hasn't been that difficult. I've never used a, you know, what would you say, a booking company to find guests. Maybe in the future, I'll try when I really, really want to go up market. But for now, it's been relatively organic, that it's happened pretty easily.

I also think that comes back to the fact you are very clear about what your subject is.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's very clear what your podcast is about, which makes it easy to find guests and have guests reach out to you. How about this? I'm sitting here, Spencer. I don't have access to a podcast studio. And now today, you. You work out of Maker's Gym and Frisco, which, if you're an advisor, you want to go get some content done, get your butt down to Frisco, Texas, and set Up a connect with Spencer at the Makers Gym. I don't have a podcast studio, Spencer. I'm just getting started. I don't have all the equipment. What advice would you give? Like, how can I get started without to invest in a ton of equipment?

Well, I mean, you, You. I'm gonna ask you too, but obviously you and I are. Are on streamyard right now, which is a. Is a turnkey service for relatively low expense that you can run a podcast exactly like we're running right now, and they turn out really, really good audio equipment. You've got a, I think a yeti. A blue yeti right in front of you.

I actually have. This is A. Sure M3. Sure M3.

Okay. Right.

So also, I also have a blue yeti mic.

There you go. Yes. So for 100 bucks, maybe a little less, depending on if there's a special on Amazon, you can get you a decent microphone. You don't have to. I'm actually using just my. My laptop right now in a sound booth. I don't have a microphone here with me. I have one at home.

And you sound great.

And a ring light. Yeah. So, I mean, find a spot that's relatively quiet. You don't even. I don't think you have to spend a dollar, Andy, on. On equipment if you don't want to. But I would say just get started. People often propagate, like, excuses or barriers to why they shouldn't start. Because I can't do this or I can't afford that. Excuses sort of trickle away when you really dig into it. I would really just plan. Get a few guests, ask a few people. Hey, I'm thinking about doing a podcast on this subject. I think you would be a great guest for that. Would you be interested in being on. On my show and even tell them. Tell them straight up. It's my first episode. I had to tell Dennis Fowler, dude, this is my first episode. You're my guinea pig. Would you do it? And he said, absolutely. So find people you know and that trust you and just have a conversation. It's not that hard. What's hard is continuing to have the conversations over hundreds of episodes. Right. And that's where most people fall short.

Well, and I tell people, too. Even before you have your first guest make your first episode, just you telling people you're coming out with this new podcast.

That's great.

Why am I doing this? How am I going to do it? Just let people know. It's. It's a great way. So I got a couple of questions then for the, from the viewer standpoint, that I think would be super helpful for them. Okay, so we've got. How do you determine your guest? I now realize I don't need a ton of equipment. You know, you can even use a platform like, like anchor. That's free too.

I use anchor myself, so.

So do I. So it's free. Right? And that's how we host our podcast. Other topic or other questions that might come up that I know people ask me all the time. Spencer, should the podcast be more interview or conversation? What's your thoughts?

Conversational, for sure. I started interviewing at first more just structuring my questions because I needed to feel like I had a framework to follow. As you get better, you, you kind of abandon the framework to a degree. Otherwise you know, it is going to feel scripted. It is going to feel like a 20 minute or 60 minutes interview instead of, you know, a podcast. So I would say, though, don't go so conversational that it meanders everywhere and there is no theme to the episode. I still come to the table with an idea of what it's supposed to be. But then you have the, you develop the, the trust in yourself to be able to navigate between those lines so it's not too structured. I don't like listening to interviews as much as I like listening to. I agree.

I'm glad he said that. Length. Spencer, how long should a podcast be?

I don't want to say should. I'm not going to tell somebody what it should be. I could say it probably shouldn't be three hours if you don't know what you're doing, but it probably also shouldn't be two minutes. Then it's something else. It's, it's probably more short form clips for Instagram or something like that, but I fall in the range of anywhere between 40 to 60 minutes or so. I do think if you get too long, you better have a really, really good reason why you think somebody would stick around for a 90 minute or two hour podcast. I know my audience, I know my audience is busy. I know my audience wouldn't listen to a three hour podcast. I also know if I gave them a 10 minute podcast, they'd be like, well, you didn't go into enough depth on that thing. So the sweet spot for me is around 45 as an average. Average.

I, I heard I was given this lesson from a coach as well about content. Whether it's a podcast, a video copy on a, on a sales page. Length doesn't matter. If the topic sucks.

Fair enough. Yeah, Focus on the topic. Right. And then, and then worry about the length. This one, I would love your opinion because I got a really strong opinion on this one. You've built self funded with Spencer and I think it was a good idea from a topic perspective because you were, you still are. You work directly with the broker market. Yeah, but I'm a broker and I want to start a podcast. What should I, what should be the subject? What, what should I focus on? What should be the one thing I'm known for with my podcast?

Oh, let me, let me. I will probably give you a couple different answers. I would think you have to understand who your audience is going to be. Right. Who's going to listen to you and why. And also what is the goal? If this is a hobby podcast on the side and you want to talk about fishing, because you love fishing, that's awesome. But if your podcast has the intention, whether it's direct or indirect, to drive business to you, drive interest to you, then you probably should pick a subject that you know very well and that is related to your, to your business. Business. Otherwise again, it's just, it's just a side hobby and it's for fun and that. There's nothing wrong with that. But I would.

Builds a little personal brand.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's okay. I mean, literally, if you're the guy that talks about fishing, but people love fishing and they. Half of your industry likes to go fishing as a, you know, as something fun. Great. Maybe you do pull you real people in with that subject.

There's that stand up comedy.

Yeah, I would, I picked a subject again that I thought was relevant to the people that I wanted to speak to and ultimately it was hopefully attracting them to what I talk about so that I could get in front of them and, you know, sell what I sell.

I like that I have a little twist to that.

Okay.

My belief is if I'm a broker and I'm trying to attract attention of who, a CEO, cfo, HR director. Yeah, I don't think they want to listen to a health insurance podcast.

Okay.

I really don't. What I think they. What I think would be wise is have a podcast where you interview clients and prospects about business topics. Let them, you know, be the heroes. Let them talk about their journeys and what they've done. I feel like that is a podcast where other business owners and decision makers would want to learn from their peers versus listening to a health insurance podcast. And I know people will disagree with me, but I think it's pretty saturated.

At this point, I mean, it really is Andy. There's quite a bit of health insurance podcasts and benefits podcasts.

It's a lesson I learned from listening to Gary Vee. I remember when he talked before I started my podcast, he said if I were a real estate broker, he said I would start a podcast in my town. Call it the. The name of the town podcast, Small Business Podcast. He's like, I would just interview small businesses in my community because they all could become potential buyers for me. And that's when I heard them, like, that's a good concept. If I'm a broker and I want to grab the interest of decision makers, bring other decision makers on my podcast so they can learn from each other.

Yeah, I would agree with you. And I was going to actually look up a gentleman. I want to give him a shout out. I'm not, not paying attention to you. But I didn't want to forget his name. Christian Mosier. Do you know that?

I know Christian. Yeah.

He. His podcast is kind of like that. He's in, like, Virginia, and he focuses on a town. Richmond, I think is the town.

Yep.

And he. That's exactly what he does. And it's brilliant because he. He's a young guy and a young consultant, and he's saying, how do I get credibility with business owners in my city when I'm a youngish as a consultant? And so he's got young ish CEOs, or not even youngish CEOs that come on. And it's Richmond focused. So now all of a sudden, he's the producer in Richmond that talks to other business owners. I think it's brilliant.

I just had a. I did a workshop yesterday. We're recording this on July 21st with a company in the vision industry. So vision coverage, insurance space in our industry. And I told them, because they have a very targeted audience kind of in the. In the middle. Middle America, small rural area of middle America. That's their. That's their target market. I said, you guys are going to laugh at me when I say this, but somebody on this team should be doing a podcast, represented by your company, interviewing small businesses in middle America because you're trying to put out the brand that we are, just like you. Yeah. There's not a better way to do that than to interview the people you work with.

Totally.

And. And I think that's where people get so stuck these days. It comes back to, this is just an audio form of content. So if I. This is your chance to brag a little bit. And I know you're a humble guy, so you don't like to brag, but what if I said, Spencer, what are the 1, 2, 3 things behind the success of Self funded with Spencer? What. What would you point to?

I think committing to in person production when Covid, you know, kind of we were coming out, but I committed to in person because I was tired of doing zooms and I thought, well, maybe other people might be as well and would. If I could capture people in one room together, I thought that would be different. Right. I would also say the consistency component of it. I have produced 100 episodes. The episodes I produce obviously have a lot of effort that goes into not only production, but post. So it's. It takes a lot, and it takes a lot of scheduling and logistics and time. And then the last but not least, I think just being willing to spend the money, even when it was out of my own pocket, to keep the quality high, and then setting a precedent of what I. I wanted it to be so that it attracted more interest and more funding as a result.