Episode 073: Jason Feifer - Editor-in-Chief for Entrepreneur Magazine

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This is the Rise of the Young podcast, bringing you insights from the most innovative entrepreneurs and influencers of this era. Hosted by entrepreneur, author, public speaker and branding expert, Casey Adams. Now let's get right into the show.

All right, everyone, what's going on? Casey Adams here. Welcome to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have someone special with us, Jason Pfeiffer. He's an editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine. And we connected around a couple weeks ago or a month ago. And I definitely appreciate you coming on the show, Jason.

Hey, man, thanks for having me. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Absolutely, man. So I know just regarding the title of editor in chief, Entrepreneur magazine, before we kind of jump into everything you're doing, how this led up to everything, I kind of want to just let you kind of give your insights to really? What does the editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine do? And kind of just catch people up to speed on everything that you're currently working on today.

Yeah, it's funny, I hadn't realized until I was in this role that people have absolutely no idea what editor in chief means. It sounds fancy and people treat it like it's fancy, but I think people don't know what it is. So it actually means a whole lot of different things depending upon the brand. Like anything in business, anything, anywhere, every job title is kind of different. So for me, here's what it means. I run the magazine, the print magazine here at Entrepreneur. I work very closely with the digital side, but actually digital doesn't report to me. So it's a print job. And then I'm also very involved in other elements of the brand. So I'm kind of face of brand. If somebody's got to go on TV or radio to talk about brand, it's me. I am involved in discussions about our event planning and our other kind of content development. Basically, Keith Kroc, the chairman of DocuSign, I was telling him how I had a hard time explaining exactly what my job is, and he said, he's like, you are. He's like, you're like a chief Product officer and VP of. Well, you know, now I forgot what he said. Ah, whatever. You see, look, it's impossible to. So basically, editor in chief is. I'm deciding the editorial direction of the magazine and the brand overall. And then I also do a whole lot of other things. So I am the host of a podcast here called Problem Solvers. I also have a second podcast of my own called Pessimists Archive. I have a novel coming out which has nothing to do with being Editor in chief, but it's called Mr. Nice Guy and it's something I wrote with my wife. It's about two people who sleep together each week and then critically review each other's performance in a magazine.

That's amazing.

And then I speak and do keynote talks often about how to get pressed for your business or how to think more entrepreneurially.

Yeah.

And generally just kind of out there, out there supporting entrepreneurs and being a part of everything that people are doing and being part of this brand. That was a really rambly answer.

Hey, it's all good. I love it. I love it. And I think especially because I know, like you said, some people may not know what editor in chief is and obviously there's a lot of roles that come behind that. You know, it definitely seems like you're a busy guy that has a lot going on. And I know regards to connecting with you, a lot of people say like, alright, like, how did you guys connect? And I know that I see you do a lot of the stories for entrepreneur on Instagram. When did that sort of take a thing or is that kind of a role of being the editor in chief of just like you said, being the face of the brand?

Yeah, it is. It falls under face of brand to me. I have always wanted to experiment with how to reach people, how to engage people. And I look at the many avenues that we have to reach people and I often think about how we might not be engaging them as well as we could. And that's not like an entrepreneur problem, that's like a media problem. Right. We have all these ways of reaching people and yet are we spending the time to really think about how it is to engage them? And I have this observation that I've pulled from Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss and all these folks, which is. You really see how much the personal brand, the individual engages people in some ways better than brand. Brand.

Right.

People. People respond to individuals. And so I thought, can I be that kind of engagement point? And what would that look like? And so I've been experimenting with that lots of different ways. And on Instagram, the way that you see it manifest is that I do a lot of our stories. So at least a couple times a week, I actually, I was just planning out one right now when we talk. So I'll post it afterwards. Heck, yeah, I'm posting. You know, they're like six, seven slides. And I. And I try to make them lessons that entrepreneurs can pull and things that I've learned along the way. And I am genuinely finding that by putting out a regular face, you know, a regular personality, and communicating that that personality is reachable and adjustable. Right. Like that you can. You can reach out and touch me. And not probably like, specifically, but you can reach out and I'll read and I'll respond and I will learn, and you'll see. See that reflected in the thing that I'm doing. I think that that goes a long way towards building a deeper relationship between brand and audience. And so that's why I do it. And it's been super interesting and fun, and I've learned a lot just by putting myself out there like that.

That's amazing. And I totally agree with you because, I mean, when I started seeing you kind of do all those stories and you're like, hey, hit me up. And I'm like, dude, this is sick. Like, you definitely portrayed that, like, hey, reach out to me. It's not like, this is someone that's, like, not trying to get in touch with you, you know, and that's why I reached out. And obviously, people listening. This is. We're doing the podcast right now, and I think. I think it's super cool because I know I've been following brands, Entrepreneur, Forbes, whatever that may be. And I think you definitely have a unique insight to really what you guys are doing there. Just because the way of you're really connecting to that individual. You know, it's like, you can follow Entrepreneur, but you. If you see Jason on the story every day, it's like, hey, like, it starts to resonate, you know? But before we get into that.

Yeah. You know, and actually, can I. Can I say two. That was. So when I started at Entrepreneur magazine, I didn't come from, like, a pure business background. I worked at Fast Company for a number of years. So I knew business journalism, but I didn't, I didn't like, launch a whole bunch of companies. That's, I think what often people think is the reason why I have this job. And that's not the case. Like media, we get good at media. The reason I'm running this magazine is because I know magazines, not because necessarily I know how to run companies. And so at first I was really actually, to be totally frank with you, intimidated by putting myself out there as the spokesman for entrepreneurs when I myself am not a traditional entrepreneur. Two things occurred to me in the first year of this job that really changed my approach. Number one was that I don't think that an entrepreneur just means that you've opened a business. I think that entrepreneur is someone who makes something. An entrepreneur is somebody who makes things happen for themselves. You can be self motivated, self started in any variety of ways, and I think rightly call yourself an entrepreneur. And I certainly did that in building my own, my own career. And so I felt like, okay, I can own the word. And then number two is I don't think that people need to see me as somebody who has all the answers. In fact, I think that people prefer to see someone who's learning as they are. And so as long as I could put myself out in a way in which, like, who's my. What's my public character, so to speak, it's really who I am, which is somebody who's learning from the people that I'm covering and then prospecting, processing it and kind of reflecting it back to them. And so once I figured that out, that people are willing to go along with me on a journey that really liberated me in the way that I talk to the audience and the way that I present myself. And so that also comes through in those stories.

Yeah, I can totally see that as well. I think that's definitely a unique insight to everything. And for the people that don't know, like you said when you first started, obviously you haven't opened up many businesses. So when did the time come that you were really titled as the editor in chief of Entrepreneur? How long you've been doing just so that people can kind of know the background?

Oh, yeah. So not that. Not that long. I started in September of 2016 as editor in chief and I was at the brand for less than a year. Maybe three quarters of a year before that as executive editor, which is the number two position at a magazine.

Okay.

And. And then prior to that, I really honestly just bumped around magazines. I was at. I was at Men's Health, Fast Company, like I said, Maxim, Boston Magazine. I was a newspaper reporter, freelance for kind of, you know, kind of everybody from Slate to GQ to Popular Mechanics. My history is in. Is in media.

Okay? So when it comes to media, because I know me personally as well as I have a couple of friends that listen to podcasts, regarding just having a magazine or just having an operation of that, regarding a magazine, a media company, what's from your angle of being such a high position in entrepreneur is like, what's the biggest thing you'd say for people that are actually trying to build a media company of value and show stories and tell people stories about individuals or companies or things? What's like the most important thing to really building and maintaining an established media company in your eyes?

It's a really good question. I mean, listen, first of all, you have to appreciate that media is a long game. Really long game. It is not easy. It's not easy to monetize, and it's labor intensive. I think that the days of people launching brands that just ride the Facebook algorithm and gain advertising dollars on top of that are almost over, if not completely over, and good riddance to it, because I hate that stuff. I think that provided no value to anybody. So my belief right now is that, and I should say, in case you hear this, my office is at the corner of 35th and 7th, and there are a lot of sirens that go blaring down. And so it's unavoidable.

No worries.

So I think that the days of trying to speak to everybody are also over. You need to have a very specific audience. You need to know exactly who that audience is, how you can serve them in a way that nobody else is serving them. And oftentimes when I talk to you, I mean, let's scale this thing down to like an individual level. When I talk to somebody who has a blog or somebody who's trying to grow their Instagram following or something, which is, you know, a small media functionally, and they say, and they ask me for my advice on building it, and the first thing I ask them is, who is your reader? Like, who is your very specific reader, and what do they turn to you for? And if you don't know the answer to that question, then there's no possible way that you're gonna grow your. In your audience. You need to know that. You need to be really specific about that, because then that will provide a filter for the kinds of stuff that you produce and the More that you produce stuff that's aimed at a specific audience, the more that specific audience will know it and come to you for it. And I know that's very, very basic, but when you're starting out, I think that people often overlook that they start to think more about what do they like to do, what would be fun. But no, really, you have to know your audience and then serve that audience.

That's amazing. I think I kind of pulled something from that. Regarding just like, as an individual level, like Gary Vee says, it's like you are your own media company. Is that sort of like the route that you kind of, kind of meant by that? Meaning just like, you have to really look at not only yourself, but if you're scaling, but even from an individual level is like finding the audience and then obviously putting out content relating to that. Sort of like Gary Vee says, when even building a personal brand, you know, sure.

I mean, it depends on what your goals are. You. If you want to present yourself as a media entity, and lots of people do, I mean, what is an influencer, but basically a personal media entity, then yeah, you absolutely need to. You need to have a level of consistency. Just think about. You know, I often think that the way to understand how to produce something is to simply try to understand your own consumer habits. Because what you'll see is that you as a consumer are drifting towards people who are just doing the production very, very well. So when you think about you as a consumer, why do you listen to the stuff you listen to or read the stuff you do or tune into? Whatever you tune into, the reason is because of predictability. You're going to something for a very specific reason. You know what you're gonna get before you get it. Nobody would listen to a podcast that every single episode, it was just random. It was just something totally different. You're tuning into something because. Because that entity has created an expectation in you of value and takeaway. And that value and takeaway could be, this is fun and bubblegummy, or it could be, I'm learning something about how to build this or that. But whatever it is, you are going to it for a specific reason. So now turn it back around. As a creator, you need to have that consistency. You need to be producing something that is aimed directly at a knowable audience and is serving them in a way that they can come to. To rely on. And so, yeah, if you, I mean, like, you know, that's not for everybody, right? So if you are, if you just, if you're on Twitter just to goof around, then I guess do whatever you want, doesn't matter. But if you are somebody who's paying attention to what Gary Vee is saying, then presumably it's because you're in some way or another trying to leverage social media to build something. And then you need to start thinking like a media brand. Absolutely, yeah.

That's amazing. So I want to talk about entrepreneurs. I know, like you said, obviously you're the editor in chief and entrepreneur and this podcast is geared towards highlighting people that have built something of value or just have a complex life based around entrepreneurship, you know, so this is obviously, like you said, this is my niece. When it comes to people coming to this podcast, listen to get value, that's the people that we're speaking to right now. So in that regard, when it comes to just the brand entrepreneur, obviously everyone listening to this podcast knows of it, they've heard of it, they know what the magazine is, and it's been an established brand for years and years and years. Right. So, right. Regarding that, and you obviously have more insight than anyone listening or myself when it comes to just that production and that size of media entity, what do you think when it comes to like this, the maintaining of that, have you seen, is just the most important thing to do. And kind of, let me simplify that real quick. Meaning just when it comes to your kind of main management of a team and making sure things go out every single day, what's. What would you say is the most critical thing from a entity on that size that you tend to do each and every single day to just make, make sure things are flowing correctly?

Hmm, that's a good question. I mean, you know, the first answer that comes to mind doesn't necessarily go to that last part there of making things flow every single day, but I think that particularly for an older media brand like this one, this is a 40 year old brand. So I guess that counts as legacy media. And we have to, and I think did recently, and we'll have to continue to make sure that our vision is refined and updated to the moment and to the expectations of the audience. So let me give you an example. When I took over this brand in 2016, the magazine was not updated. The magazine was a magazine for an older vision of what the word entrepreneur means. So entrepreneur at the time that the magazine had last been updated, whatever the hell that was, really meant small business person. I think really for the most of the 40 years, this brand has been around and meant small business person. And so that magazine was built around serving that very particular audience, which meant that it had a lot of service stuff, tax tips for small businesses, and retail location advice and stuff like that. And so now I walk into this magazine, it's 2016, and I'm looking around and I'm saying, this is not speaking to the people who are calling themselves entrepreneurs. Like that is just completely shifted right now. Entrepreneur, like everybody can be an entrepreneur. Everybody is calling themselves entrepreneurs, young people, older people, athletes, everybody. And so this brand needs to start talking to all those people. It needs to update itself to where the culture is with the word. And that meant a full rethink about exactly what to what I was saying earlier. What is our filter? What are the things that we do that people can reliably turn to us for? What is our value? And the answer that I had was that we needed to speak to everybody who thinks of themselves as an entrepreneur and everyone who thinks of themselves as an entrepreneur, whether they are selling stuff on ebay or they're running a venture backed company, they all have one thing in common, which is the experience of entrepreneurism. They all feel that emotional challenge of entrepreneurism, of feeling lonely and crazy and problem solving through walls. It's all there. And so I remade the magazine to target that feeling, that insight, that shared experience, and get rid of the tax tips. You can find that somewhere else. This is really about belonging and learning from each other.

That is amazing.

And that's great. And now here's the danger. So I'm all proud of that, right? And I tell that story and that's wonderful. The danger is that I'm so proud of it that I forget to keep an eye out for when that becomes outdated at some point. That vision that I have for how to serve an entrepreneur In 2016, 2018, hopefully beyond, it's going to change. Something is going to change, right? And I am going to have to be nimble enough to recognize it and adjust. And not just me, but this entire brand, and that's the big challenge for a large media company, is that if you're around long enough, your audience is going to start changing. And the way that you need to talk to that audience is going to change. And you either need to be self aware enough to do that or frankly step aside and let somebody else do it.

Amazing. That's super cool. Because I mean, even for me, it's like I've been following the magazine for years and like you even see, like you said, like the pivoting point where it's like obviously with the social Media side and the content, everything regarding just the pivoting of the brand. It's super cool to be speaking with you because obviously like you have the thoughts and really the plan and you had the just vision for what it is today, you know, for the years that you've been there. And I, it's super cool to just be speaking with you about that because I think a lot of people listening when it comes to just whether that be following entrepreneur or knowing what it is, like you definitely, it's like it's in the culture. You know, it's like, like you said, it's not that old media company that's getting tactics. It's like the up to date culture based entrepreneur, hip slash culture based entity. Correct. And I think, I think a question that I wanted to kind of follow up with that is regarding just everything, social media, everything nowadays you can get it in a three second timeframe of turning on your iPhone and clicking on an app. Right. So with the brand itself and the time you've been there, how is social media played a distinctive role? Because obviously everything today is social based. What's been that kind of transformation pivot point since you've been there in the brand?

Yeah, well, I mean we've done a good job of experimenting inside of different platforms. I think that, you know, we have, we have a really, we have a small social team. There are, there are some brands out there that, you know, just have enormous, enormous teams and they can be producing on a dime and that's amazing and congratulations for them. We're actually a fairly small operation despite the large footprint that we have. And so I think that creates new and interesting opportunities. Right. Like, it's great to have, you know, it's great to have like tons of people to do stuff, but it's actually kind of amazing when you have these restrictions which force you to be really resourceful. So, so we have our social media manager, Andrea, who just does the work of 10 people. And one of the things that I think she has been especially good at is identifying how people engage on different platforms and then evolving that conversation in each one. So Instagram is interesting. In addition to my stories, which I don't honestly coordinate with her, I mean we talked about it at the beginning and then I just kind of started doing it. She started a daily, there's like a daily news roundup video that we post as like a regular post. It's hosted by our editorial director, Dan Bova. She experiments a lot with the kinds of inspirational quote stuff that does really well on Instagram, but then also videos, clips from stuff that we produce, and basically just figuring out what it is that people want on that platform and how to give it to them and how to not be salesy. I often see other brands and it's just like all their stories are basically sales pitches and we do some of that too. And actually it converts quite interestingly well, but I think that it converts well because enough of it is just the give. To quote Gary Vee for like the 10th time, this podcast, the jabs and then the right hooks. So she's doing really well there. And on Facebook, we've been really amping up our Facebook lives. We just tried this really interesting experiment. I've never seen a brand do this before. We put the date and address web address for a Facebook Live on the COVID of a magazine. So we planned to plan it out many months in advance. So we produce a second it's a newsstand only magazine called Startups and it comes out quarter or three times a year. And the current issue, which has Peloton on the COVID it's actually about to leave stands and be replaced with something else. But it has the CEO of Peloton on the COVID and we're doing a Facebook Live with him tomorrow actually. And I mean, that's not gonna be relevant to your audience. But anyway, we put it right there on the COVID Like tune into this Facebook Live, ask this guy who you're seeing on the COVID questions, how cool is that? Let's just try, let's experiment, see what we can do. And personally, I've taken inspiration from that and have been doing the same thing and have found amazing results. LinkedIn has been a particular kind of shining star for me, where I did not understand LinkedIn just personally, all I would do is post links and nobody would engage with them. And then I finally realized how people engage on LinkedIn with lessons and inspiration and motivation. And now my LinkedIn is constantly blowing up. You have to spend time really seeing what the ecosystem is, what the conversations are, and then adjust yourself to it rather than think that you can just go in and get whatever you want out of any platform.

Yeah, totally, totally. And I think that's super unique, especially I keep bringing up the stories that you're doing, just adding that personality behind the brand. I think that's something that I'm putting a lot of focus into with the page that I have build you'd empire. I've definitely, I'm starting to just kind of see the value of it when it comes to you posting the stories or even other brands. Right. But yeah, regards to you, like as an individual with your podcast and your book coming out. I want to talk a little bit about that because obviously you have this amazing title at entrepreneur and it's valued you in so many different ways. But when it comes to you as an individual, and like I said, the podcast, the book, when did 10 of all that come about? Was that something where it's like as working there, you kind of putting focus into personal branding and doing more stuff as an individual or whatever. What's sort of the driving force behind the personal podcast and the book that you have coming out soon?

So I have always thought that I needed to be learning new things. And part of that is just in me. I get bored easily. I don't really like to learn how to do something and then just do it over and over again. I almost more enjoy the process of learning it. And. And then I also having spent enough time in media and I think the media is in this way a stand in for basically any other industry. So this holds true for everybody. You look around and you see a lot of change and you see a lot of people who know how to do one thing get really outmoded and then don't know how. Right. I've heard so many stories of somebody who had a great career as a movie reviewer at a regional newspaper, and now they came to do anything else because everybody got rid of their movie reviews and so now what do they do? So I never wanted to be that person. I always wanted to make sure that I was constantly expanding my skill sets so that at any time, on a dime, I could present myself in different ways so that if I showed up, if I showed up at Entrepreneur magazine tomorrow and they had decided to fire me or the company shut down or whatever, you know, whatever nightmare scenario it is that I'm gonna be okay because I know how to do all these other things. So that's how I've always. That's why I learned how to be on video.

Right.

And that's. And that's why I launched my first podcast. So my first, my. The personal podcast came before the Entrepreneur podcast and actually is a really great example of exactly how this kind of stuff pays off. So I started this podcast before I became editor in chief called Pessimist Archive. It's a history of unfounded fears, of innovation. So every episode we look at the moment that a new piece of technology was introduced and we try to understand why it freaked everybody out. So it's the Walkman recorded music, the car. Thanks. It's super fun. And why did I do that? I did it one, because it interested me. That subject has always fascinated me. But two, because I wanted to learn how to podcast and I knew that if I had figured that out, that's a skill set that would come in handy at some other point. Who knows when? Doesn't matter. You do not need to know the ROI on something before you start doing it. I launched that podcast. It's done well, it's built a great audience, super fun. I still run it, but then when here I am an entrepreneur like maybe eight months, a year later or something and we are talking internally about launching a podcast network internally. Who's the guy who knows how to do that? Well, it's me. It's me because I launched my own podcast. So I was able to kind of guide that. And my podcast for entrepreneur was the first one to launch. And the same thing is true with Mr. Nice Guy, the novel. I see writing books as a potential future career. Maybe probably not fiction, probably nonfiction, but this was a good way to start. My wife is a novelist. So we decided to team up on this idea that I had had for a long and I'm doing it because one, it's fun and it's also just good for my relationship with my wife. It's a great project, but honestly, the thing that gets me super pumped up is thinking about marketing this thing. So this comes out in October and you know what I will make because you've got a young and entrepreneurial audience. So let me make a challenge to you guys. I am trying to think of as many non traditional ways to market this novel as possible. We'll be okay on press, I think. I hope we know a bunch of people. But how do I build out other things? How do I get people's attention? How do I do the unexpected? That's what I'm really interested in. I've got a gigantic spreadsheet that I've been building for the last year and I want this book to teach me a lot about book marketing so that maybe in the future when I'm writing a book a year, who knows, I'm changing things up now. You know, I know how to do that. So if you listener have any great ideas or you know, want to be a part of getting Mr. Nice Guy out there into the world, reach out to me. Definitely let me know because man, my ears are open for sure.

And like your social media links will be all down below. And everyone if you would like to follow him, which I highly advise you to do, please send him a dm, because I think it's super cool that you bring that up. Because I think a lot of especially young people anywhere from 15 to 25 that are following me, it's like, especially with the current marketing and how so much things change so fast with different algorithms or whatever that may be, I think it's super cool. And I definitely want people to take their time out of the day to kind of reach out to you and kind of just give you, whether that be one tip or two, things that's on their mind currently that you can kind of innovate with. So I definitely want everyone listening to make that happen, because I think that that'd be super cool.

No, thanks. I appreciate that. And you know, and by the way, that's. That's another value. That's another benefit of being the kind of person who responds to all their DMs. There's a reason why I respond to DMs, and I do, to literally everybody. It takes so much time. The reason is because I create a kind of back and forth value. Somebody can reach out to me and maybe give me an idea that's really useful. And sometimes just being in touch with me can be useful to people. Sometimes people like you reach out and then I'll go on their podcast or whatever and. And I just think that it's BS when somebody gets a cool job and then they shut themselves off. That it is hard to reach editors in chief of other magazines, I think is ridiculous. Those people are ridiculous. You should be constantly reacting and responding to your readers, your viewers or whatever. And when I was at other publications and I would see that the, you know, the boss was not doing that, was not reachable, I just, I thought that was obnoxious.

Yeah, that's a unique. That's a unique viewpoint, I think, especially for me kind of building my smaller media company known as build your empire right now. I think that's a valuable tactic that I just got from that. I really appreciate you bringing that up because it is super cool, especially when it comes to just. We brought up gravy so much. But like his access, I sent him a DM and he got back to me. And I think sort of that entire realm of like being the big guy that doesn't respond is kind of outdated. Would you agree on that? When it comes to like having them no access to someone 100% like.

Right. The person, the person who doesn't respond is the person who doesn't get engaged with. That's, you know, like, I'm. I am not. And you know what? Also you gotta think of it this way. And like, this is. I don't. This is like, I hesitate to say this because it sounds. It sounds like kind of coldly strategic in a way that. In a way that I don't mean it to be, but it's also, it just happens to be true. And so that if, you know, if you're thinking about how to build a personal brand, you have to think about this. Okay, so in sales, we talk about touches, right? Like, how many touches does it take for a consumer to make a purchase? It is my belief, and it's kind of borne out in my experiences on social media, that to build a personal brand fan by fan, requires literally one touch per fan. Like, if somebody reaches out to me through Twitter, through dm and I respond once, like, and I'll keep responding, but, like, sometimes people reach out and then I'll respond and then they'll respond and they'll just be like, I didn't expect that you'd actually get back to me. That's done, right? Like, deal done. Close sign. They are following me now forever, right? And if I put a book out, they're gonna buy it. It actually doesn't take much. And so for people, like, it's so crazy to me that this is one of the easiest things that you can do is just respond to me. I don't need to write a novel back to people. Whenever they write, just respond to them, show them that you heard them, that they made a connection. Just that small gesture goes into unbelievably long way. It's amazing. And frankly, you know, you know, when I do this. So I. Sometimes I just, if I need a break from whatever, if I just edited a 3,000 word story and then I'm done, I'll just go into the DMs and start responding. But often I'll just do it. I'll just do it, like filling time during the day. Like I'm on the subway or I'm waiting for the subway or I'm walking down the street or I'm brushing my teeth. That's when I do it, you know, and it just, it means so much to people and it's just not that hard.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And I think, I think it's super cool because I mean, the more that I'm. Like you said, when it comes to me reaching out to you, it's like you see the value. You Know, it's like me reaching out to you and you reaching out to me, saying, hey, I'm down. It's like, I'll forever be following you and keeping up to date, and when your book launches, I'll buy it. You know, that sort of stuff. You know, it's like. And I don't think people get that, because I have a lot of young listeners that follow me, and they're like, dude, like, how did you meet Gary Vee or Andy Vercella or Grant Cardone? It's like, dude, I sent them a dm and they happen to respond. And then I was able to position myself to get them on the podcast or whatever it is. Right. And I kind of want you to touch on that because obviously, just based on your kind of thesis of you, like, getting back to people, what's been your sort of thought process on that regard? I know we just touched on, like, hey, it's not kind of the good thing to do to not reach out to people, but when it comes to sending a DM and trying to interact with someone, how valuable in your mind do you think that is? Because I know with social media, it's like, some people think, like, I can't get in contact with him. And from my experience, it's like, dude, if you're persistent and actually have a core reason to reach out to someone, they will get back to you if they actually are the type of person that takes the time to reach out and respond back. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I think that you need to reach out with some realistic expectations and also to provide some kind of value in your initial outreach. And it does not have to be much. So let me. Let me explain what to me, here's value. If somebody reaches out to me, here's value. You know, hey, Jason, I loved that article you just wrote. Oh, hey, I listened to that podcast. Or, you know, hey, I'm a subscriber to your newsletter or whatever. That's value. Like, that was value right there. Because you know why? Because it showed me that you are. You're like a. You're. You're. You pay attention to me, right? You. You've listened to me. You. I've been. I've been heard. Like, I. That. That hooks me in. You know, what is the opposite of that is when somebody reaches out to me and they're just like, hey, I have a company. Will you cover it? And it's like, no, I'm not interested in that, because I have this policy of basically always responding. I'LL often just say, like, oh, it's not a fit for us, but congratulations on success, or something like that.

Right.

But really, what I'm saying, I'm not paying attention to it. Right. Because you didn't. I'm not saying that you need to flatter me. I'm not here to be flattered. But I am saying that if you're gonna reach out to somebody on social.

Yes.

That the smart thing to do is to open up by showing them that there is some connection there. Right. Like, that they've been heard that you're not just, like, reaching out, looking for something, that you are in some way, in some small, small way. Building a relationship instead of just looking for a transaction really makes all the difference. And then also, there are so many people who just reach out to me, and here's what they say. Ready? Hey.

That's it.

What is that? I don't know. Just can't figure out what you're looking for. Are you looking for me to respond and say, hey back? I don't know what that is.

Dude. I love that you brought that up, because I bring that up so much to people as well, where it's like having a meaningful dm, you know, like you said, figure out whatever piece of value you just explained giving to someone. But it's like, if you're just one of those guys that's like, what's up, man? Like, what do you expect to get in return? Right. You're not gonna get anything of value in return if you don't come up in the forefront and give value to them, you know?

Right, Exactly.

That is the fundamental truth of the DMs.

It's so weird. I do not get what these people are going for with, hey, like, do they. It's like, do they think that we're gonna have, like, a long chat?

Yeah.

Back and forth. Like, texting each other.

Like.

Like, you know, like buddies. I don't know what's happening. So. So, yeah, so reach out. Say, you know, like, just. I don't know. Do you have a question? Do you have. Do you, like, something. Whatever it is? I mean, I don't know. People DM me in smart ways all the time. You know what I mean? Literally, before we got on the. We got on the phone here. So I just came back from. There's a place called Broadway Bites, I think. Is that what it's called? It's. Yeah, like the. Like the food marketplace on Broadway in the 30s. So there is a. There's a woman who has a Hot sauce company. And she DM me, like, you know, a million years ago, and I responded. And you know what she was doing? I think she basically was just, like, responding to stories of mine. She saw a story and she would just. This is like what a lot of people do is she just sends some thoughts or something, and then I would send some thoughts back. And then after a while, she asked if she could send me her hot sauces, and I said, sure. So she sent me some hot sauces, good hot sauces, and I should give a shout out to them, pull up the name of what they're called. So I'm doing that. Oh, Silly Chili. They're called Silly Chili Hot sauces. And so now it turns out that she's got this dumpling stand right down the street from my office, and she invited me to come down and have some dumplings.

Nice. The touches.

I said, sure. And you know what? I probably wouldn't have done that if I didn't feel like I knew her at all. Like, if she was just like, out of nowhere, hey, come down and have some dumplings. I'd feel like, I don't want to, like, put this person out and they're gonna give me free dumplings and expect something. But, you know, she had built this relationship.

Yes.

And so I went down there. We spent like 30 minutes talking. I love her story. I took like a bazillion photos. I'm gonna go post, like, an Instagram story on entrepreneur's account. You know, hopefully it'll get her some dumpling sales. But that, like, she got that from not asking for anything. Yeah, she got that from just building a relationship slowly over time. Not like not asking, never. Hey, like, it was just an organic conversation.

Yes.

That's what you need to go for.

The touches, like you said, bringing it back to the point. Just the multiple touches, building that relationship, you know?

Yes, exactly.

So last thing I know, we have a lack of time right now. So one thing that I think is super cool when it comes to just media in general, obviously I'm young right now and just like kind of growing up, up in this social media age, when it comes to your experience being editor in chief of Entrepreneur and really just like being a core individual in a big media company. When it comes to your insights on just media in general, whether that be entrepreneur or other companies, what do you think the biggest thing is to differentiate yourself from other media companies when it comes to just the content, the brand behind it. What's your thoughts on that? Just how to be different than other media companies.

Well, I think that voice has a lot to do with it. So every. We talked about audience and identifying the audience and understanding how to serve that audience. And part of serving that audience is knowing how you're speaking to that audience. I think something that non professional writers who don't think about what their like writer voice is often overlook is how they're coming across. You know, it's really interesting. You'll look at it like a piece of writing from somebody and it will change tones throughout the thing. It'll start kind of conversational and then suddenly it'll get kind of academic and then you know, it'll do something other, some other thing. And every like go look at BuzzFeed and, and go look at the different voices and styles on buzzfeed. Those are all done in really strategic, thoughtful ways. Even the kind of gif listicle thing that they popularized, right? That's funny and all that and whatever. But just think about that as just a piece of media creation. It's really smart. It was really smart. They were thinking about how can we produce really engaging, fun, basically low resource stories that keep people scrolling. And they came up with this. It's a voice. It's a voice. It's like speaking in a particular way and it totally connects with a particular kind of audience. Right? And then buzzfeed is not afraid because it's a big, sprawling enough thing. And I wouldn't suggest that somebody who's just starting out do this, but they have built BuzzFeed Life and they have BuzzFeed News and they talk to different audiences and they talk to them in totally different ways. But like, again, none of that is accidental. That is all very, very thoughtful. So I would think not just about who the audience is and like what it is that you're doing, but what is your voice? What is your voice? Morning Brew is a, is a newsletter. It's a daily business newsletter for kind of young people. Like, it's kind of like young people in banking. And I subscribe. And the thing that I'm most impressed with about them is just is their voice. They're like relentlessly clever throughout the thing, but at the same time useful. They have figured out how to be straightforward, deliver you the news, but do it in a way that doesn't feel dry, that has a kind of sense of humor to it. It's great. And I think that the more an audience relates to the voice, the more they're gonna wanna keep coming back because the more they start feeling like that voice is Coming from a human and not just from like a brand thing. Voice builds relationships. And so you should not discount it. It's the reason, I think, why people become so fixated on podcasts, right? Because a good podcaster has a specific voice, and then that voice helps build an audience and a relationship. And so you feel connected to the podcasters because you feel connected to their voice. And I don't just mean their, like, actual voice, I mean, like how they're talking about. So that translates in every medium. I would say that even in like, for example, if people follow my Instagram, you'll see that my DMs have a particular voice. Again, that's not accidental. Like, I'm thinking through what is the voice of my DM and then adjusting it as I see what gets more engagement. So think about how you're communicating. What is your voice? It really, really matters.

That is very critical. And I think the key to this podcast, to wrap it up, is know your voice. You know, whether that your personal brand, your entity that you're building. It's like you don't know your voice. You shouldn't expect to get engagement because you don't know what audience you're targeting in the way you're saying it in the tone that you're putting it in, you know, so that was. That was phenomenal. Jason, I definitely think that people are gonna get a lot of value from this, obviously. But last thing before I let you go. Number one, where is the best people that people can hear your voice from? Is it Instagram? Is your podcast? Where can they all find more information about you? And yes, this will be down below, but what's the best from your eyes?

Yeah, boy, there's a lot. I mean, I guess the umbrella thing, if you can just, if you can remember one thing, is to go to my website just because it has links to everything, which is just my name, Jason Pfeiffer.com but, you know, yeah, check me out on Instagram, a Pfeiffer. Same thing on Twitter, though I'm more active on Instagram. And yeah, the podcasts again, Problem Solvers is about entrepreneurs solving unexpected problems in their business. And Pessimists Archive is history of untimed fears of innovation. And then of course, like I said, I got that novel, Mr. No Sky Comes out in October. And if anybody wants to deliver upon me some brilliant marketing scheme, I'm all ears.

Definitely everyone listening. Make sure you do that. And then also, one more thing. I know, obviously I found you through the Instagram stories that Entrepreneur. If you want to see Jason in action and kind of more what we talked about in the podcast, go follow Entrepreneur if you aren't already. But actually stay updated with their stories, you know, because Jason putting out phenomenal content, you'll see what he means by creating that voice of the brand. So that being said, Jason, everyone following listening to this right now, make sure you go follow Jason, tell him that you came from the podcast, let him know about that book marketing strategy because he's definitely wants to hear hear from you guys. And that being said, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the show, taking the time. I know that you have a lot of things on your plate as well, but it definitely means a lot for you to come on the show. Jason, thank you so much.

Hey, thank you. This was great.

Absolutely.

It's hard to stop my movement when I'm already in motion this ain't luck this is by design I had to work in the dark for my light.

To shine A lot of people are dope. They just quit.

To.

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