Ep. 3014: How to Produce Content at Scale With Podcasting, Content, and Webinars

As a side note, how often are you going on podcasts every week right now?

I'm not going on podcasts at all.

I think I'm going to try to jack it up to like 1 or 2 per week or so because I want the clips.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, because sometimes I wait when it's in person, like that's why he's doing them. He's doing it for the clips too. And so we— that's my take on it. Yeah.

Well, I found that's easier is I go to a studio I record for an hour to 2 hours and I have enough content for, if I record for 2 hours, I usually have enough content for 2 weeks.

Clips, that's like one per day. So 14, you're recording—

Long form and short.

How many short forms are you getting out per day?

One.

So yeah, you're doing 14 in that session.

Yeah.

That's a lot.

Yeah. And 2 long form, but I don't do the short form. I just do the long form and they take the short form from the long.

Oh, got it, got it, got it.

But the script is planned for short forms to be taken out. So instead of like using Opus would be like, what are the good soundbites? Literally the script is written where we already know what short forms we're creating from that, that we're pulling out from the long form.

Do those do well for you?

Like not as well as me just filming short form—

Where it's native.

Content, yes. And we have, we do have scripts for it. I just haven't had time to record. I'm focusing more on scaling it out and just doing a long form a week, A short form every day, a chart every day, and we're happy with that frequency.

Yeah. You know what's funny?

And then speaking in person at conferences.

You know what's funny for you? You actually posted something on Twitter the other day about how like this is what leads to short form success. A really good hook, a really good story, and like something else, right? Like a couple other things. And like, I think you know this intuitively too. If you just focus on like a native post, it's going to do a lot better. But You know, on average, like I don't think you need to, and you know this too, because on average your videos are getting anywhere from like 15,000 to 35,000 views or so. That's already plenty good, right?

On YouTube?

On your Instagram Reels.

Yeah, we more so like focus on YouTube because we see more qualified leads from YouTube than Instagram.

I don't think Instagram Reels drive a lot of leads anyway, so there's no need. Like it's just air coverage. That's the phrase that's used.

Bingo. You're right. We look at it as like air coverage and we need to be on there, but—

It's funny, our ratio, like my, Usually whatever reel I publish is like 1,000 to 2,000 views on average. And so it's like a follow. I do think Instagram does look at followers a little bit because you have 629,000. I have like 100,000.

Yeah, it could be. I just more so focus on, I'm like, guys, how do we just do better on YouTube and LinkedIn?

We just ran our first webinar experiment yesterday where we spent to drive. So I'll share some results. We use StreamYard, which I got from Neil. We used to use Restream, so we started using StreamYard. And so we stream to my Instagram, we stream to YouTube, LinkedIn, and everything.

And do you like StreamYard?

I do.

I like it. It's more reliable from what we find.

I like it.

It doesn't have as many errors.

But I think we're missing some things where like you can't, like, I don't think you can do the QR scanning.

Yeah, we do.

You can?

I don't know if we can do, it doesn't show the counter of how many people—

The reporting's not good. Yeah. So that's what I think is missing. So we might use a tool called sequel.io. You search it up, Sequel.

I'll check it out.

So they, 'cause they might actually do a deal with us and then maybe you guys can get hooked up for the deal too. But a lot of B2B SaaS companies use SQL. But anyway, StreamYard's great. So we spent $5,000 on this webinar and we got 800 registrants.

Okay.

And the high point concurrently was maybe 250 or 275 people. We'll have to take a look, but we did get, it seems we got at least, I want to say at least 10, if not like 15 qualified leads from it. These meetings still need to happen though, because this webinar was done yesterday. And then I would say the offer that did well was the ClickFlow offer, which is 25,000 free words, right? That offer did well, but also people signing up for like a free AI marketing consultation, which is still a proposal anyway.

Yeah.

That got a few as well. And so, so far we're like, oh, that's actually pretty good. Let's start to hit this a little harder. And so $5,000, if we get, if we even break even on this one, great. And we'll just keep running them. But you don't need to spend, yours is a little different. Yours is, You need 5,000 registrants and you'll make $400 grand, right? Is that what it is?

No, not 5,000 registrants.

5,000 attendees.

I think it's attendees. I could be wrong.

Which is a lot, by the way.

I'm pretty sure it's like attendees and not registrants. Dude, I'm going to do it.

You speak to it for a second. I'm going to do the math on this real quick.

Yeah. But our average, when we have a webinar that hits, we typically will get at least 10,000 registrants. I don't know if we've ever hit 15,000, but we can get like a solid like 10,000+ registrants.

You know what's funny? Okay, so on the math for this one, because our CPA was 8.5, right? So you pay $85,000 to do one webinar. Each webinar would typically cost, if Neil had to pay for this, you'd pay $85,000 for it.

We would not spend $85,000. That's too much. We tried running ads to webinars.

You did?

We find that it works out decently well.

But you don't need to.

Yeah, we have so much volume already.

Neil has a lot of organic traffic, so it goes to his email list and he just drives it through there and that works.

And then I call the salespeople or some of the people on the sales team like, did you guys go prospect to start looking through all the people registered? No, there's too many. I'm like, okay, no more budget for paid webinar ads.

Yeah. But which it makes sense for me because my email list is not nearly the size of yours. It's like minuscule. So, but like this is a great way for me to drive not only email signups but registrants too and to keep it going because it's like a fun event, right? And then I think we're going to have guests coming in. So you're welcome to come at any time, but I think having guests come and making it entertaining and all that. It's a fun thing because I think, I do think people look forward to it too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Webinars are fun.

Yeah.

But sometimes, you know, like my team will put me on virtual speeches and I appreciate them making the effort. And sometimes like people will pitch us, we got to get better at this. They're like, oh, you direct audience, we have X amount of community and all this kind of stuff. And then I'll show up and I'm like, So this is only 5 people on here.

Oh no.

I'm like, oh cool, there goes an hour. I'm like, very bad use of time.

Yeah.

And my team's like, sorry, didn't know. But like sometimes people pitch us and they overexaggerate, you know? Like I had one of events, I spoke for free in Florida and there's like, we're the largest home service marketing event.

Yeah.

You know, like we have big events, like, you know, up to 1,000 people. These are all business owners.

Up to 1,000 people. So it could be like one person.

No, but they're just like, you know, They're like usually 600, 700, maybe up to 1,000. But they're just like, that's roughly the size and it's all your ideal buyer pool. And I speak and I'm like, there wasn't even like 40, 50 people in the room and it was all mainly agencies and providers. I was like, cool, great use of time.

Well, you know, I mean, at least you get the clips, right? For content.

We don't even care for the clips from that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, because we have enough clips and content. Like, what am I going to do? Start posting 2, 3 times a day for short-form clips?

Like, I think so. I think so.

We've tried it out. It doesn't get that much more engagement.

I don't know. I just look at it as a slot machine. I want more at-bats. Yeah, I want more at-bats because you never know. Like, okay, I could just be talking about a discount. You talk about a discount, 8 million views, and then I might talk about like an Instagram hack, 500,000 views. I'm like, you just never know what's going to hit.

But typically for me, the posts that hit drive the least amount of customers.

Yeah, but remember I told you I was at this YPO dinner and then 4 people came up to me and said they saw a video and I was at a conference and 3 people said they saw like a short-form video.

But did any of them purchase from you?

Absolutely not.

Yeah, exactly.

But sometimes I'm just saying in that big pool, you might get some of the right people. And sometimes I'll say like my cousins at a family event, they'll be like, oh, I saw your video. I was like, oh, that sounds good. Makes me feel good.

But no revenue.

No revenue. No revenue.

And this is why you went from doing content content that makes you feel good to content that produces ROI.

I'm like, I don't need the views anymore. You know, let's talk about this real quick. Go ahead.

No, no, but let's go back.

Yeah.

Your webinar, you paid for it to get people on there.

Yeah.

Generated you revenue?

I think it's going to generate revenue.

Okay. Will people come up to you and be like, I saw you on this amazing webinar?

No.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

What one would you rather have?

I'd rather have the revenue. Like, it's cool. Here's the problem with most marketing agencies. They don't understand What is happening with the world of AI? With my agency, Single Grain, we think about agentic workflows. We think about creating agents for the future. When we think about SEO, we think about creating different products such as internal linking products or content consolidation products. And on the other side of things, we think about building products such as Care. We just think about making marketing easier overall. If you want to stay at the cutting edge of marketing and at the same time leverage the power of AI, go to singlegrain.com and we'll see you on the other side. This is what I want to talk about. I have a topic here and then we can move on to one of yours. But the question is, what level of fame is worth it, right? So, you know, I would say you and I, I would say in the marketing niche, maybe I'm like, you know, a B-level star. You're an A-level star. Okay, let's just call it.

I don't know if I'm A-level.

I think so. You get noticed a lot, right? When I go to a conference or you go to a conference, we get noticed and people ask for pictures and things like that. Like, it's nice. It's a nice dopamine hit to get noticed at a conference, right? And say hi. Like, I'm very grateful for that, right? Now, but the question is, if you're super famous, you get noticed all the time. Like if you're like Logan Paul or something like that, it starts to become a nuisance, right? So the question is, what level of fame is worth it?

So I would consider in the marketing world or business world, Gary Vee would be like an A.

Gary Vee, yes.

Okay. I'm not—

You're an A for sure.

No, I wouldn't say I'm an A. Okay, but let's just go with Gary Vee.

I've ChatGPT'd this before. I said, who are the top?

Okay, so let's go with Gary Vee being an A, right? The amount of times he must get hit up when he walks down the street must be irritating.

For sure.

Okay, so Mike and I were discussing this, I don't know how many months ago, and he's like, dude, one day, you know, he's just like, would we ever sell the business if we have the right offer? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, we don't really discuss it, but he's like, Do you know what would be amazing for you if you ever sold 100% of the business? He's like, not a portion, but 100%. And I'm like, what? And he's like, how stoked would you be that you would never have to create content again or post on social media? I'm like, dude.

1,000% stoked.

1,000%. He's like, no one would, you know, know who you are. You would fade away. And I'm like, this would be so amazing.

Yeah.

And I would be ecstatic with that.

You do get noticed on the street.

Yes.

Yeah. And so, you know, and I would say at a conference you get noticed more and then you get stopped. And then sometimes we talked about, because we'd be walking and you start to get irritated over a period of time because it's too much, right? And you're grateful for it, but it becomes a lot.

I'm very grateful for people. Without them, I wouldn't have a business. I'm not actually, the conference part doesn't irritate me. What irritates me, and I'm still really grateful, Is like I take my kids to a play place and get 2, 3 people hounding me and I appreciate them, but then my kids get pissed off that I'm distracted instead of me spending time with them. That's for me where it starts getting a little irritating. Conferences and stuff like that, I don't mind at all. When people want to ask questions, I'm happy to answer as many questions as possible. The only part where it gets irritating for me at a conference is if I have to be on stage at a specific time and I tell someone that and they still want to talk to me and I can't actually be late when I'm going on stage and I had to tell them that, hey, I can answer after or whatever. And they're like, oh no, no, no, this is really quick. That part, like, I get it. They want their feedback, but like, I also contractually cannot miss going on stage at the time that I'm supposed to be there. Yeah, I see that. So I have to say no and I feel like a prick. And then I'm like, man, I wish they were just— some people would understand that I have to go on stage. But I'm like, and I'll give them my phone number, email. I'm like, gladly, when they get on the phone or whatnot. And I did that at Web Summit. I was at Web Summit in Toronto and I had to leave, not because I was on stage, but I had to leave to go to the airport, right? And this guy was like, huge fan. I just have some questions. I'm like, dude, I hate to do this. I'm changing. I changed my flight right then and there to get an earlier flight because some of my interviews, one of my interviews bailed on me. So I was like, wait, there's an earlier flight. Let me just switch everything up. And then my team's like, oh, you're going to have to go economy. I'm like, who gives a crap? I'm flying from Toronto to SF. It's like a 2-hour flight. I'm like, I don't care if I'm in the middle seat, just get me there sooner so I can hang out with my sister.

Yeah.

And my niece and nephew, I haven't seen them in a while, right? I'm like, why wait 3 extra hours? And the guy really wanted to pick my brain and I'm like, what's your phone number? So then when I was in the taxi cab getting to our Uber, getting to the airport, I gave him a ring. He didn't answer. And then I texted him and then he's like, oh, I didn't know it was you. I gave him a ring. He's like, oh, I'm busy now.

Can I call you back in like an hour?

Oh no, no, no, no. No, no.

I picked up the phone with him in the hour because I was at the airport.

I answered all his questions and then I gave him some action items on what he should do. And I told him, once you do it, follow up and I'll give you the next steps. Although he never followed up with me after taking action. That's what I'm saying.

The way he, he should have jumped at the opportunity to take the call with you if he was such a big fan. And then it didn't seem like he was serious about taking action.

Oh yeah, he didn't take action.

That's what I mean.

I told him, once you take action, just give me another call back.

But going back to this, okay, so the level of fame, like it's cool. You know what's cool? When I'm like in lot, like getting on a plane and the guy at the gate recognizes, oh, you're Eric Siu or whatever. Or maybe like I'm walking, say it, 'cause Syed flew over, we're at a coffee shop and this guy's like, this huge guy, right? He's like, sup Eric? And I'm like, hey, I don't know what to say, right? But like, that's fun, right? To get noticed like with your friends or whatever. But I think for you, 'cause I actually was talking to a friend yesterday or the day before, 'cause you mentioned that your brand caps out at $10 million, right?

Yeah.

But so the argument is actually your brand probably does more than that that's intangible because the thing is when you go, when people like are, you're trying to recruit people, people know who Neil Patel is, right? It does help from a recruiting standpoint.

Or it hurts because some people hate me.

Okay, but yeah.

You remember at the last event someone said I murder people?

Yeah, okay, so you could be polarizing, but some people really love you, some people might really hate you, right?

You agree, right? Yeah.

So, but you've also said before that, okay, if it helps you recruit people, a lot of these people bring clients and they bring people with them too.

So it's this thing that stacks up. Yeah.

And then it also does help you, like, sure, some companies don't get, but at least you get thrown into RFPs, right? So I do think from a measurable standpoint—

No, my personal brand does not help us with RFPs.

But it helps with recruiting.

It helped in the early days. It doesn't help really at all anymore.

So a lot of people that join don't know who you are?

A lot of the people who join don't care who I am 'cause they're executives and they're seasoned from other agencies. 'Cause in the world of AI, you need, as you know this, less grunt workers, more high-level talent. They really care about who they're working with, who they're reporting to, knowing them for many years, and—

For sure.

Comp.

But if they like a Gary Vee or if they like a Neil Patel, for example, it helps. It definitely helps, right?

Yes.

And so I think it's, I think the measurable piece is for sure at least $10 million, but I think there's probably a little more than that.

Yeah. $10 million, definitely measurable. There's probably a lot more that's measurable if we accepted the revenue. So like, I don't take most speaking gigs and I don't care how much they'll have to pay. I just turn them down unless we think it's a good fit for not just our brand, but for also potential customers. We also turn down brand promotion deals, like where I'll be evangelist for a company or take shares in a company or give—

You still do that?

No, I turn it all down or like pay. Post on social media and get paid, don't care for it. So when you look at, or like book deals, I turn down pretty much all people who hit me up for book deals.

I think you have scar tissue from that.

Yeah, I don't even respond to them.

Yeah.

And like I can go get like a half a million bucks in advance, maybe more, but—

It's not worth it. You make way more from your, from your business. But I do think my main point is at least $10 million is measurable, but I do think you have some intangibles that's a little bigger than $10 million.

Yes, but I think where you and I are different on the branding side is, I've been doing this longer for you.

Than me?

Yes. So then I've had, I've been used to for so many years of people saying hi, hello, and wanting pictures where for you, you've been having this for years as well, but it's been getting bigger and bigger. Like I texted you the other day when I was at that hotel in San Diego and the person's like, he's like, you're Neil Patel, right? And I'm like, yeah. He's just like, I know you. He's like, you're Eric's friend. I'm like, I follow Eric and I've seen his ads and content. And I was like, yeah. I'm like, Eric and I are really close friends. And he was like, cool. He's like, dude, I'm going to pull up your car and just park it out front and just leave it here. I've learned so much from Eric. I just want to show my appreciation. And I told you, I tipped him well. I was really stoked because I was like—

Thank you for tipping him.

Huh?

Thank you for tipping him.

Yeah. And I was like, I was stoked. I was like, cool. And then I was like, 'Cause he's like, are you leaving now? I'm like, no, my kids are making some bracelet thing 'cause they had like some activity. And he's like, dude, just leave everything here. I'll load the car. I'll just leave it out front. Take as long as you want. And I know if he didn't leave it out front, I would've had to wait like an extra 5, 10 minutes. Like going from San Diego to LA around 1 o'clock, you're going to get traffic coming back.

It would take you forever.

Yeah. And it was already our 2-hour car ride turned into a 3-hour car ride because of traffic.

Was this the Odyssey?

Uh, no, the, uh, Bentley.

Okay. Got it.

So, but he was just really nice. Um, I tend to drive the Odyssey. It is my favorite car.

Yeah.

And it's really funny because I was at, uh, where was that place? I took my kids, uh, this week they don't have school or summer school.

Legoland?

No. Uh, well that was in San Diego, but yesterday I took 'em to Century City.

Oh, the mall.

Yeah. So then I took my wife's car because my car doesn't have 2 car seats in there.

Yeah.

one of the car seats broke, so we're waiting for another one. Hence, we didn't take it to San Diego. So then going to Century City, the guy's like, you got a really nice car. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. This isn't my car. This is my wife's car. He's like, if this is your wife's car, I can't imagine what your car is. He's like, you got a Bugatti?

I have an Odyssey.

And I'm like, guess again. So then he's like, Ferrari? I'm like, nope, Honda Odyssey. And he's just like, Wise man.

That's dope.

And then I told my wife this story and he's like, you're making me look bad. He's going to think that like I just spent all of this money. And I'm like, no. I'm like, well, if he assumes that, he assumes that. Because the only reason my wife has this car is because I got it for her. She can get it on her own as well. But the first Bentley I got her was a Christmas gift and it stayed in the garage for 2 weeks before she even drove it. And the first thing she said is, why'd you get me a car? My existing car is only like 4 years old. It still works.

Yeah, you have a lot of cars. I don't know why you have a lot of cars.

No, I only have 2 cars.

You used to have a lot of cars.

I have a lot of cars.

Yeah.

I've sold most of the cars.

And it wasn't even like you're a car person. But okay, but going back to this, as we talk through this level of fame thing real quick, well, I think my conclusion here is the level of fame is worth it if it helps you recruit amazing people. That's what ultimately every— by the way, as I've gotten to the Bill Gates section of that $500 book that I was talking about, Bill Gates is like, we just got really lucky with people. Everything is about just people.

Yeah, he had an amazing team.

Amazing. He's like, I just got like, he's like, when he's interviewed, he's already super like billionaire already in the mid-'90s. He's like, I still work 12 to 15 hours a day, but without my people, I would be nothing. Yeah. Yeah.

I do agree. Like Mark Zuckerberg trying to poach these AI specialists. I believe he himself is making the effort to recruit these people.

He's calling them. It's, it's, dude, these are like, you'd read about MBA-level contracts all the time, but these are like $300 million deals, a billion dollar deal. And people still wouldn't join.

Yes. And I think the Zuck style of doing business is more my style than Elon.

Yeah.

I think Elon version is much harder, but I'm big on, if I look at my business and why I've done well, it's all people.

I think you like deal making. It's just the process.

Yeah.

Yeah. You like deal making. You're similar to the, you know, we have another person in the country that likes deal making.

Yes. I'm more, if I had to pick my entrepreneur type, I'm more of a private equity guy than a creator.

Yeah. You're a dealmaker, and who else likes doing deals?

Are you talking about the president?

Yes, the president likes doing deals, right? But that personality, I'm not saying you guys are the same people, but like, they like pushing to get deals done, right? Versus I think Elon, I don't think that's in his personality. Like he likes pers— like, no, he's just like, I'm just gonna do it. So yeah, anyway, that's it for today, guys, and we'll see you tomorrow.