Jordan Harbinger Reveals the Art of Charm and Podcasting Success Secrets
7 Dec 2025 · 47 min
Interview (podcast) between Brad Costanzo and Jordan Harbinger about the Art of Charm program and Harbinger’s experience as a podcaster and entrepreneur. Topics covered include teaching confidence and emotional intelligence (clients include civilians, special forces and veterans), the business value of social skills/coaching, podcast strategy and distribution (decline of satellite radio, CarPlay/in-dash podcast integration), guest sourcing and audience-building tactics. The piece is conversational and advice-oriented.
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How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap them in bacon for business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business, pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week, our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now, here's your host, Brad Costanzo.
Hey there. This is Brad Costanzo, as the jingle just told you. And welcome to Bacon Wrap Business. If this is your first time listening, I welcome you with open arms and I encourage you to check out all of the other great episodes. And if you are coming back for more, thank you even, even more for tuning back in, leaving those great reviews that we've been getting, sharing it with your friends, and emailing me with all of your questions and suggestions when you send those emails to askbradaconrappbusiness.com as you know, or maybe as you're finding out on this show, I like to dig into all types of business, marketing, entrepreneurial strategies, tactics, mental gymnastics, you name it. I bring on guests. I share some of the best stuff that I've done and that some of my guest hosts have done as well. And today is no different. In fact, I'm inviting in just a moment a friend of mine named Jordan, who is a very interesting guy. He's been through, he's been involved in a pretty interesting business that I know you're going to absolutely love. And especially if you're a guy and if you're a girl, you probably want to pay extra close attention to hear some of the training that these guys are getting. And it's all good stuff. But I invited Jordan on for a couple reasons. I've known him for several years. I've watched the growth of his company. I've been a big fan and a big fan of his podcast. Jordan Harbinger is the host of the Art of Charm podcast, and I believe you can get to that by going to the art of charmpodcast.com if I'm not mistaken. I'll ask Jordan here in just a second, but I don't really know where we're going to take this. We're a couple of friends who've got a lot in common and I'm going to get inside his brain, find out all of the great stuff he's been doing, some of the new changes that he's made to his business, and especially dig into some of the podcast topics that he's gone through. If you haven't listened to It. I highly suggest you do. And without any further ado, let me go ahead and unmute him. Hey, Jordan, are you with me, buddy?
I am with you. Thank you for the intro.
Oh, you're quite welcome. And I'm really honored to have you on the show.
I think it's going to be a good one. I'm really excited to hear some of the new things that you're up to. I've known and followed you for years, but recently it looks like you've kind of really taken off the podcast, so I want to jump in. But for those who don't know what the Art of Charm is, who've not followed Jordan Harbinger, what is the Art of Charm all about, in your words?
I mean, essentially what we do is we teach confidence and emotional intelligence. And so what that means is if you're on one end of the spectrum, a software engineer or somebody who's, and I don't mean just like nerdy guys, but guys who are like, hey, you know what? I want a better edge in this area. We can teach emotional intelligence in a way that anybody can learn and master. So a lot of guys, especially guys and especially smart guys, we have this thing in our brain where everything functions in like, a linear way and everything's got to, quote, unquote, make sense. And emotional intelligence isn't really like that. So we sort of distill that down to logical means. And the other type of guy that we see here at AOC very often is military, especially special forces and intelligence agents and guys who are in high end sales of products that cost thousands of dollars because that requires people to like and trust you. It requires a high level of human interaction, communication skill. And that's exactly what we teach at the Art of Charm as well. So it's not, you know, a lot of guys think, oh, this is just guys with their shoelaces tied together and tape on their glasses. Nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, some of the time when guys come into the class, they're looking at the roster and I'm looking at like, in fact, I look into the classroom right now from studio. There's snipers, military intelligence, guys who are wounded in action in Afghanistan, along with entrepreneurs that, you know, could buy and sell you and I both several times over if they wanted to. So it's. That's really an interesting crew.
Yeah, it really is. I, I remember when you sent me over some of the information on the things you're doing because you've got normal classes for, you know, Your everyday Joe who's just, you know, I guess it's everybody from the completely socially awkward who are trying to get a handle on their social life and have, you know, feel normal once and for all. Two guys who realize that they want to take their, you know, their life to the next level, whether it's with dating or interpersonal relationships or business. But then you have this entire other geared, it looks like, towards military, current military or vets, people who have, you know, special training. And.
I'm willing to bet that there's a lot of guys who've been over, let's say they had been in Afghanistan for years and they're coming back and that's. That can't be the easiest thing in the world to do is re. Enter the, you know, society after being over there fighting wars for us. So. Am I right?
Yeah. You help a lot of guys. They need help readjusting and it's, it's not like, oh, you're so weird. You know, you need re. There's a lot of guys that spent years blowing things up, shooting people or just being around stuff like that, and other people were doing it around them. And I know a lot of, I know a lot of folks that, that came back from Afghanistan, men and women that weren't in combat directly, but still have PTSD as a result, which it's hard for us as civilians to understand how this works.
I can't imagine. I was about a couple weeks ago, I was out playing paintball with some friends and I was ducking behind one of these little, you know, one of these little obstacles and the paintballs were shooting over my head and I just had time kind of slowed down. I had this profound sense of respect for the guys who were out there actually doing this with real bullets, with their life on the line and realizing how big of a wuss I would, I imagine I would be if those were real bullets. I was scared enough of the paintballs and I just imagine it's that times infinity for what these guys have to go through. And then they go from that experience to stepping back into society and just being, hey, you know, get back in there, deal with, deal with shitty co workers, deal with people who are, you know, everyday normal folks. When you've been over there fighting for your life, putting it on the line and there has to be some crazy adjustment that goes on.
There are.
Yeah.
And it's, it's, it's strange because for us, we don't necessarily get why, but it's. People will have weird things that you'd think wouldn't make them angry or, or trip them out a little bit. And it's like, it's not like they don't know any better. I mean, there's things that people do and you go, why did you just do that? And they're like, I don't know, you know, and you're thinking, what a weird thing to have done. And it's not just corrective though. I mean, any champion gets coaching. And that's another thing I think the average guy doesn't quite understand is like a lot of people, well, anybody who's really good at anything will always get have coaches. Any professional athlete, all the entrepreneurs that you know that are making money have coaches, you know that. And it's funny because a lot of people are like, oh, I don't need that. You know, I don't need that. I don't, that's stupid. Or like, I don't, I have guys that need that, or I would have needed that a few years ago. And I'm just thinking people who think that they don't need coaching or need help in certain areas, it's like needed the most. Yeah, they're the guys that need it the most.
Yeah. I mean, I've got coaches to this day. I'm, I'm constantly paying for new mentors. I'll have a coach, sometimes I'll work with them for a year, sometimes I'll work with them for a month. But I'm a big fan of paying for advice. I do it all the time and I highly credit that to being one of the reasons I'm successful. Whether it's in person coaching or just having somebody to call on when I need some business advice or even, you know, lifestyle personal advice. I mean, I don't think of it as like a psychologist, but sometimes my business coach is a psychologist for me and helps me be much more well rounded. And all of my friends who are really high performers as well, some of them much, much higher than myself, every single one of them that I know has mentors and coaching that they've invested in. So big fan of it. And I also really like how I imagine that most people hear what you do and they think that you're just teaching guys how to pick up women. And that to me, that I believe that's a byproduct of everything else that you teach the art of charm. Because when you are charming, you get more business opportunities, you get more opportunities in romance, you get more opportunities with friends. And it's, it is a Lost art, quite honestly. And I think it's great what you've been doing. How long have you been operating the art of charm?
Eight years and change. Almost eight years, I should say, actually.
You ain't no rookie, are you?
No. And you know, it's interesting because going back to sort of like, who needs coaching, who wants coaching, it's really, I'm always looking for an edge. And that's, that's another reason why these like special Forces guys and things like that are really keen on us. Because those are guys that go, wait a second, there's something that might get me 1 to 5% ahead of where I am now. I need that tool. And, and you get these guys who sell things for a living and they're like, wait a minute, there's a skill set for getting people to like and trust me, okay? That's my whole business. I need that.
Even if it improves.
Because think about it. If, if those guys, quote unquote, already knew everything that they Learned except for 1%, if they already knew 99% of what we teach at AOC, which is unlikely, right? And, and they got a 1% upgrade of their, of their rate of, of closing, right? And say these guys are already making 1, 2, 3, $4,000, $100,000 a year. A 1% increase is thousand tens of thousands of dollars over the next several years and millions over the course of your career in exchange for the training. That's already fun anyway, right? So it's like, it's kind of a no brainer. And when people are like, oh yeah, I don't have time, or oh yeah, I can't afford that. It just kind of, it used to bug me, but now I realize it's like, oh, you, by virtue of kind of not getting it, you screen yourself out and there's more room for people to get it. Because, you know, it's like going to somebody at the gym, you know, people go, oh, I don't need this, I don't. You don't need it either. And it's like going up to somebody at the gym or outside a gym who's really fit and be like, man, you've already got a six pack, why are you going to the gym? And they're looking at you like, huh, did you just really say that?
Yeah. You don't get it.
Yeah, it's like I got this from going here every day. Not, you know, and it's a lot of people just, they just don't get that. They don't understand how, how this process works. And that, that makes sense. I understand that because I used to be like, I remember when I first saw some of the dating stuff years ago that I was like, what kind of losers are looking at this dating stuff online? What a bunch of dorks. And I remember downloading one out of like, curiosity because I kept seeing it on the BitTorrent thing where I was stealing all my other media, right? And, and I was, I looked at it and I was like, wait, shit, this is genius. You know, and I, and I consumed all of it. And I mean, it was just like, this is old school stuff too. That was like pick up dating, you know, whatever, Eben Pagan marketing stuff. And I was like, oh my God, this is potentially life changing. And so I understand when people think that. But I realized looking back then, I was like, what kind of losers need that? And then I look at my life back then and I'm like, oh my God, did I need that?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's. What's really funny is the world of business and the world of romance, especially as a guy, when it goes to.
We'Ll use the word, picking up chicks is not that different than picking up checks. I mean, there's so many, there's so many parallels between the entire game of romance and meeting a woman and getting her, charming her and getting her to like you and go out on a date and, you know, take it to the next level and the next level. And there's so many parallels between that and the world of business. Whether if you're in sales especially, but if you're in any type of business, you have to identify who is your ideal customer, who is your, you know, what are their, what are their traits, what do they want? How do you fulfill that? How do you deliver it in a way that they like and trust you in order to give you their money? Which is the same, I guess, parallel as a, you know, a woman deciding to give you her body. Yeah, I've noticed that a lot of folks in this industry, the dating advice industry, which a lot of my listeners know that I used to have a business in this as well. There's just a lot of similarities. And if you get really good at one, like with women, you can get really good and even better with business. And the two are so intrinsically linked.
They really are. And that's the thing is we don't necessarily sell straight up dating advice only, which everybody knows and everybody does see the parallel. But here's the thing. If I say, hey guys, we are going to help you Network and create relationships that are going to last the rest of your life and help you make more money moving forward. There's a certain percentage of guys that are going to be like, awesome. And there's an even larger percentage of guys that are going to be like, eh, that's for old people. I'm looking for entertainment when I listen to podcasts, or I'm looking for something a little bit lighter or I don't really need that because reason why this doesn't work in my industry, which just shows that they don't really understand the game being played around them. And then. But then if you say, hey, guys, this is going to help you meet and attract women, and you're going to be able to apply it to current relationships that you're already in. If you're married or in a relationship, people are like, hang on, I'm gonna go get a notebook. And I want everything that you have right now in my brain.
So it's. We call it hiding the broccoli. Because in order to get a little kid to eat broccoli, you don't go, hey, listen, Timmy, now this is really good for you, and it's gonna help you become big and strong. You've hear, you've heard adults say that. And the kid's like, no, because he looks like he takes one bite of this and goes, this is crap. I don't want it. So you gotta hide the broccoli. You take Cheez Whiz, you put it in the microwave for 10 seconds, you dump it all over that bitch, and then he's inhaling the broccoli. Can't get enough.
Oh, yeah, it's so true. I've said this for a long time, especially anybody who's listening who is been in the information marketing world of anything like this, you understand that a lot of times you have to sell people what they think they want, but then give them what they need. You know, hey, you think you just want to go out and then learn how to pick up girls? You really need to actually become a much better man. And that just becomes a byproduct that you're happy with everything else. And I. But I think that's great. What you guys like, your curriculum, what you teach, the holistic side of it. Now I want to talk, you know, talk about transforming men. Let's talk about how you kind of transformed a lot of the things you've done with your podcast. I know you, you've been, you've been podcasting and. Or I think didn't you do you or didn't you have a radio show on satellite, like Sirius or something?
I did, yeah. I had a Sirius XM show for three and a half years.
That's what I thought. Yeah. Are you still doing that or are you now just purely podcasting?
We just podcast. Honestly, the satellite audience. Unless you're Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, it's really not that good because I wouldn't think so. Think about it, you know, like, you're looking at people who probably can't stream stuff because that. For one reason or another. And like, no offense, but it's usually dudes who live in super rural areas or like northern Canada or truck drivers. And not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's a pretty damn limited audience. If you look at urban people who live in urban areas that are, you know, looking to, they're making, you know, 100 plus thousand dollars a year doing an engineering job or a finance job or anything like that, or anybody that just works in a city, they've got Internet, so they're not listening to satellite radio. Because why would you pay $25 for satellite radio when you have everything you want for free on the web? Unless you're listening to Howard Stern, which means you're not listening to anybody else because he's on 24 7. Right? So it doesn't matter.
Right.
And so there's just no market for it. It's dying. And once the final nail in the coffin, if you have Sirius XM stock, sell that shit now. Because the final nail in the coffin is going to be when, which is literally like next year and the year after, when CarPlay, which I already know as a podcaster with a partnership at Apple, I already know what's up with that. I'm already like, I already created the feature that's going to show up on your dashboard. The art's done, the page is done. I already made it, so I know it's happening. It's not speculation, it's not futurizing. I created the product already.
Okay, Lucy, you got some explaining to do. Tell me some of this good stuff for PI. You're amazing, podcaster. I want to dive into some of the content, but I really want to hear about this for very, very personal reasons. As everybody knows, I'm podcasting. You have got one of the top shows out there. Tell me what's going on. If people don't know what CarPlay is, this is Apple's version of their, you know, your in dash radio. But it's almost like Having an iPhone attached to your car where you can all of your media streamed and if it's on your phone, et cetera, it's going to be amazing. I've seen some of the demos, but it sounds like you have maybe seen more than the general public. What can you share that is kind of coming down the pipe to making me excited.
Sure. So the companies that are spearheading that initiative, essentially, they already have their features set up. I mean, if you're a featured partner with Apple or like you know, any of the other big podcast, Stitcher, Tune in. All those guys, they're already, they've created the interface already. It's already being demoed in new vehicles. It's just like a 4G touchscreen that goes in your car and runs either, I believe, iOS, whatever, or Android and depending on the make and model of the car. And it runs Pandora, runs Spotify, it runs Stitcher, runs Tune in, it runs whatever iTunes, light or whatever they're going to end up calling that. I don't know if they have it. Oh, yet. And so you're going to have that in the vehicle. It's going to be right on your dash like some vehicles have now, where you control the AC or where the radio would be. In fact, I believe it's either next year or the year after. They're making plenty of models that just don't have radios because nobody gives a crap anymore. So just not using that stuff. And so they asked us, they asked us for like custom art and you know, things that are going to fit certain dimensions. And there's these sort of HTML5 players that are, you know, low processor consumption, that run on different types of players that don't require a lot of plug in or any kind of crappy install so that they can navigate right on the screen and just push play and boom, there's your latest episode. So like that's already happening. So satellite radio, yeah, it's toast. But we totally digressed. So no, I don't do that show anymore and I don't really. I love doing live radio. It was fun, but it was fun because you're interacting in real time with fans and listeners. But like after that sort of quote unquote wears off, you know, you're good.
Yeah. So is there going to be many changes coming down the pipeline for normal podcasting? Like if I know, you know, to be an Apple, like a. I forget what you called it, like a premier partner or something like that. You have to have a, just a really big successful show like you do. And mine will be before long. As of right now, it's been just live about a month. But are there any things that current or future podcasters should take note of to prepare for that prior to, like any, you know, should I be doing anything different with my podcast?
Sure.
I mean, when that comes to play.
It'S hard to say, but I would say yeah, obviously, first of all, you know, if you can avoid it, I don't, I don't do this, but if you can avoid it, probably make it not explicit because people might be able to filter by that and. Well, they should be able to filter by that because they're gonna have kids in the car. And so shows like mine, where I don't really worry about what said in the subject matter is adult, those are going to be filtered in or out, you know, and so, yeah, there's that. I would say also, you know, and again, I don't do this. A lot of people record video. Here's the problem. It's freaking boring to record two people talking on a webcam. Some people swear by it. I still put my shows up on YouTube, but I do the audio only. But some people are like, oh, I'll have this up. It doesn't really do much to have two people talking on a webcam, but in the future, nobody's just going to have the audio only. But, well, very few people are going to supposedly have that. And you'll be able to switch dynamically between the video and the audio feed. So having nothing on the video portion isn't really the best strategy. But I'm not about to go and have a whole production crew to produce cool videos for each show that I do. It's impossible and it's too expensive and honestly, it doesn't serve that big of a market right now. The other thing is, though, honestly, have good branding and don't do stupid stuff like a lot of these dating knuckleheads did back in the day where they were like, here's an outrageous promise, you're never going to reproduce if you don't buy this product. Doing stuff like that pretty much ensures like. And you know what I'm talking about, right?
Like all these guys, unfortunately, yeah, they.
Over promise and under deliver. Those guys will never be partners because all they're doing is market, market, market. So when they go up to Apple and they're like, hey, I'd love to be a partner with you guys, Apple does a quick Google search and goes, hell no. Go fly a kite. Crawl back into the hole you came from and never talk to us again because it's brand toxic for Apple. We're about as edgy as they get. And we're not that edgy. You know, we try to. We provide great content, but. And we might use profanity here and there, but we're not something where Apple's going to go, hey, let's not touch that with stolen. You know, with a stolen. You know what? Because it's dangerous for them to do that same thing with any of the other partners. If they're like, look at our featured partners. And someone goes, great, I'd love to invest in this company. What's this? And someone's like, f bomb, dirty word, obscene thing. They're like, that's what you're putting in my car with my kids. No way. So.
Good point. So I might have to start. I might have to start bleeping some of my out.
Yeah, I, I honestly, I don't think it's the profanity that does it as much as, you know, the context. Yeah, the context. And also just the idea where people are constantly, like I said, over promise and under deliver. Keep the focus on content and not marketing. And I think a lot of podcasts, they're either totally garbage because the content's crap and the host is not good at his job, which is totally fine. It took me, I feel like I just started to figure out podcasting, and I've been doing it for seven and a half years, so it takes a while to get good at that. And then there's other guys that are good content producers, but they're good at it because they're marketers. That's what they do for a living. So all they produce is. I'd love to tell you the secret, Brad, but you can go get it for free at my website at the Art of charm dot com. Brad Jordan. Buy this right now. And people are like, every time he offers up a nugget, it's attached to my email address in 1995. So screw this guy. I don't like him. So stop doing that and realize that I, you know, one of the reasons that our show has gotten so big over the years is, is because while everybody else was like, you can get this if you buy my DVDs, I was like, to hell with your DVDs. Here's everything you need to know for free on the show. Because information wants to be free. And people were like, oh, I never have to buy Yahoo Knucklehead Marketer Guys DVD set on becoming Alpha Dog with chicks. Ever again. Because Jordan and AJ and the Arctic Charm guys are just going to make up similar content that's probably even better than the stuff you can buy and just give it away for free and deliver it right to my iPhone. So people have to raise the bar. And that goes for any business, any business that you're in. Raise the bar, give away better shit than people are creating behind their paywall, and then give it away for free and watch your competition wither and die and want to become you.
You're so right. And I think that because I've given a lot of thought to this and I. I truly believe that, you know, infant, like you said, information wants to be free. And there is so much information out there. We are drowning in it, more so than ever before. And that's only changing as everybody now has the ability to produce and distribute information, and information should be free. I believe that people will pay premiums for, like, personalized guidance and wisdom. So wisdom being how to use that information in a way that's right for you. And, you know, we talked about mentoring, we talked about coaching, mentoring programs that are designed to get you involved in it. You can read a book about how to be charming, and that's not going to get you anywhere. As far as coming to meet you one on one or one of your coaches or one of your folks and going through exercises and getting over your personal sticking points and really understanding how to apply this to your life, I think that's almost like a barbell strategy where all. There's all this information on one side. It's free. The things you have to pay for is the personalized guidance, wisdom, and somebody to call when you need it. Charging all these different amounts for little tactics, strategies, doesn't matter if it's about business or dating or whatever is. It seems like it's a dying industry to me. And I think that you hit the nail on the head when he's like, look, give away the information, but if you really want this to work for you, come invest in me and I'll make it work for you quicker than just trial and error on your own.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like. It's funny because a lot of people are like, I want to figure out how to get this handled on my own. And I'm like, cool, but that's just ego talking. I mean, there's no reasonable. There's no reasonable idea behind trying to figure out something on your own. It's like, yeah, you could try to figure out calculus on your own. Or you could hire a tutor and let's. And a lot of people would really enjoy that challenge of maybe figuring it out on their own. Just kidding. Everyone hates calculus, right? So, like, why would. Why wouldn't you hire a tutor? Oh, because nobody's going to go, you need a math tutor. Oh, you're so dumb. They're going to be like, good idea. But as soon as you're like, exactly.
Why. Yeah, it's just people don't value their time. No, people don't value their time. They absolutely do not equate time, money, or time and value. And in fact, time isn't money. Money is time. I mean, time is the most valuable thing we have. And people who are like, I'm just going to go do this on my own have nothing better to do than. And that's fine. There will always be people like that. But if you really want a result, shouldn't you want it as fast as possible? And don't, you know, don't you put a value on getting it even quicker? And those are the people that you see paying for mentorship, paying for advice, paying for coaching, and not just trying to do it on themselves because they value their own time too much.
That's a really good point. And I hadn't. You're absolutely right. I hadn't put tons of thought behind that, but you're right. People who go, I really want to learn this on my own, they tend to be younger. So I just said, hey, it's probably ego, because there is that. But you're right. When you're 20, to, sure, listen to 400 hours of audio, try everything that I've taught you in that time, and then try to make sense of the results and the lack thereof. And then try to figure out. Try to look at your own blind spots, which is a fish trying to figure out water, and coach yourself, which is, as we all know, kind of impossible. And a really lengthy period of time. And then in 10 years, when you're like, oh, I thought I was going to get married, and it didn't work out, then you can come to AOC and you can cry about how the last 10 years were a waste.
Yeah. Because when you're in your 20s, you're going to live forever. You're going to live forever. When you're in your 20s, all of a sudden you get a little older. You know, like myself, I turned 40 this year, and it's like, well, crap, I've got, you know, hopefully I got a lot longer left, but I value my time Who I spend it with, how I spend it much more. And I know that if I've found an outcome that I want, if I, if I know it's for me, if I know that I'll get a lot of value out of it, I will go spend as much as it takes if I think it's a worthwhile investment.
Time, money and energy to get that outcome.
Because that's, that's so true, you know, and it's funny, I just realized, and maybe this won't make sense as I unfold this analogy, because I am thinking out loud, companies do this all of the time and people never compare themselves to successful businesses. So for example, say that you work for Google and you want to start a podcast. Well, you have all the talent in the world at Google and so somebody there or a team there could figure out the best way to make an all star winning podcast that just crushes it and gets to the front of itunes and really just, you know, murders it. And they do it all for free and they don't have to expend any resources other than salaries that they're already paying. But what they would never do that. They would never do that. What they would do is they would look to somebody who already understands how the system works is already crushing it. They would give that person a really good offer that they can't refuse. That person would go consult there for a week or a month or a year and, and that product would come out spit shined. But when we, when we think about our own lives, we go, I'm not going to give somebody else money for this. I'm going to spend a ton of time getting suboptimal results, banging my head against the wall, and then eventually I'll get some approximate reward and approximated results, maybe if I'm lucky towards what I was originally going to pay for, but damn it, I won't have to give up a dime. I'll just spend years. And it's like, what? So when you think about it like that, it makes absolutely no freaking sense at all to not hire somebody to help you with things. I mean, I work for the art of charm. I hire a marketer, I hire people in accounting. I'm not going to figure out accounting. I have no desire to do that. It's inefficient.
Hell no.
But when, but when we look at our personal lives, we're like, to hell with efficiency, reason and ideal outcomes and getting this handled in a reasonable amount of time and getting great results. I'm just going to read lots of e books. What?
Yeah. Yeah. And one of these days, when I've got a bunch of gray hair, I will figured it out for myself. Yeah, pretty much.
The irony is I'll have figured it out for myself. And the answer was, damn, I should have just paid somebody that knew what the hell they were doing, taken my head out of my ass, and enjoyed the results for a little bit longer.
Big time shortcut, I think. You know Richard Branson, famous billionaire CEO of Virgin Companies, you know, his whole secret to success, he always said, was surrounding himself with people much smarter than him. And I guarantee he didn't do that for free. They weren't all just working for, you know, for airline miles.
No. Yeah.
They weren't the best people around you.
Such silky blonde hair. I totally want to work in your office for free. No, you. You hired those people to come around you. I mean, that's. That's sort of the. The best kept secret, right? People go, oh, you know, I've got a team here. They're really good. Well, of course you do. You're a billionaire. Sometimes people will work for people who are brilliant for free. It happens. We get little tastes of that here at aoc, where we get really talented interns and people who really want to work here. But eventually people who have talent go, hey, I kind of deserve money for this, and I know you're making money from this, so let's work something out. And if you're smart as a businessman, you go, I can't wait to hire you. Absolutely. I can't afford not to hire you. You are hired. That's how good business works. And, you know, we just don't apply these principles to our personal life, and a lot of us suffer really stupid consequences that are completely avoidable as a result.
Yep. Couldn't be more spot on with that. You know, speaking of people like Richard Branson, people like top performers, people in all different walks of life. That is one of the changes I've noticed with the Art of Charm podcast is it is not just about dating. I was listening the other day to a guy that I've actually never met him. I may ask you for an intro. Stephen Key.
Oh, yeah, super cool.
The licensing expert. So one of the things in the past year and a half that I've really been focusing on, and I kind of done it throughout my career, and I didn't even have a name for it. This is the concept of licensing, which kind of sounds like a big, complex subject, but is a. It's really just giving Somebody else the rights to either use your product or getting the rights to use somebody else's product service idea. And, you know, the world of intellectual property and licensing is so exciting to me. I really, I enjoyed that episode a lot. And I realized that when I was going through some of the other ones and going, man, you cover so many different topics in different areas, which I love, because, you know, it's just a lot more variety. What are some of the. Who are some of the guests that you've had that you've really just enjoyed interviewing? Because some are more, you know, some are more fun than others. But have there been any real big highlights of the podcast for. You.
Know what? It's really cool for me because basically my. My whole job is find really interesting people and get them, have somebody chase them down for me, and then essentially, you know, figure out how to get the best information out of them that I could use and then put that in some sort of format, AKA a podcast for the rest of the world to enjoy. And they will say, thank you for the exposure. And it's like, wait a minute, let me get this straight. I get to call up my favorite authors and thinkers, have somebody go through the hard part of reading their book, write me a summary, and then I get to poke holes and ask them questions based on that stuff. And then at the end, they send me a thank you email.
Yeah. And then they share it with their audience, too, thus giving me a larger, more persuasive group of people to pitch the next author with. And it's incredible. So for me, I can't point to, like, one or two guests, but it's really great because, you know, you can knock on doors. Even as an entrepreneur who's successful, you can knock on doors and go, hey, you know, I'd love to meet you. And they go, oh, you know, no offense, but I'm. I'm. I'm networked out. I'm trying to sit down and be creative because I'm creating a book. I don't have time to, like, meet up for lunch or dinner or come to this big group thing and we'll, you know, we'll chat, and you get access because you're an entrepreneur. And, you know, you know, maybe you're an eo, you know, a bunch of people that they know an intro. But then you go, oh, you're writing a book. Cool. Let me know when it's done. Because I have sold more books for Tim Ferriss than MSNBC and the Today Show.
Like, wait, what? And you're like, yeah, yeah, Just perked up.
Yeah, you go, I move books. I've got the largest audience of men in itunes. That's exclusively men. Like, my demographic is something like 94% male. We're number one in self help. We're number two in health. And they're like, hold on, here's my card. Call me tomorrow. I want to talk about how to do this. Because you're. Besides having Amazon put you on a seller list, New York Times put you on a seller list, and a few other places like Goodreads or whatever features the art of charm is one of the best places to talk to a men's demographic and sell a book anywhere in the world. And that gets people fricking listening, you know? Yeah. And that's. And that's what I love about it is it's like a big swinging. You know what? When it comes to talking to important people. And it's not like, oh, my ego. I love being important. No, I don't care about that. I just care about the access. And this has gotten me access to things that I never would have dreamed about in my life. I remember when I started the show, I was thinking, I'm going to get some of those ebooks and CDs that all these, like, dating companies and stuff are putting out, and we're probably not even going to have to pay. And then we can talk about them on our show. And now I'm like, somebody just paid me $10,000 to mention an app. And I'm like, what planet am I on? How did I get here? This is great.
You know, it's awesome. How do you. Speaking of that, how do. What's been the most effective way for you? And I asked this for selfish reasons, although I do have a lot of listeners who do have their own podcast, so I know this will be great for them. You are not just starting. You've been doing this for a long time. You've got a lot of clout. But you just mentioned you have people go out. Your assistant, for instance. I know you contacted me directly because we're friends, but what has been the most effective way for you to source some of these guests? Like when you give. When you give your assistant directions to go find influential people to be on your show, or vice versa for you to be on my show, for instance, is there a strategy that you've used that it's funny because work better than others.
I've come up with all these really cool strategies, and none worked as well as just asking my audience to find people that they want to hear from. Because the show started out as people I wanted to talk to and people that I wanted to hear from. And after a while, it was like, holy cow. I mean, there's so many people out there. How do I keep a pulse on it? I can't serve blogs all day looking for, like, the next guy to interview. This is totally. So what I did is I said, hey, guys, we rely on you for guest suggestions. Now I get like five per day.
It's like, oh, my God. So I went from, oh, man, who can I have on my show a couple about a year plus ago to like, looking at things and going, oh, man, there's so much out there. How do I know who to get? You know, hey, if you know anybody that would be a good fit for my show, let me know. Asking alumni and stuff. Then I put it out of my show in the. In the. I think the close of the show. And now I literally have the next hundred days of shows already uploaded, planned, edited, and I've got 100 plus guests, which is like the next, I think fully the next quarter and possibly the next two quarters are just totally planned out already, already set, already, you know, scheduled and recorded. And so it's. It's kind of insane because I didn't see that coming. I thought, I'm gonna get like a month ahead of the game. And now I'm like six months ahead of the game. And it's. It's great.
Awesome.
Now, of course, my skill set as a host is. Is going up rapidly just because I'm interviewing so many people. I'm getting access to really great people. People are going, damn, that was a good interview. You know, I. I've done shows before, they're not that good, blah, blah, blah. And I go, great, thanks for the compliment. Who else do you think would be a good fit? Now you're getting introductions from other guests and your audience. So that's really good. Because when you interview somebody with a high profile, you don't have to cold call the next guy with a high profile. You say, hey, I noticed that you were on so and so show. Or I noticed that your Facebook friends with Sean Parker. Can you make the intro? And they go, yeah, no problem. And then that intro says, hey, my friend does this and he runs a good podcast. And also he interviewed me. And he's not a butthead about it, you know, like, yeah, it got me listeners, got me fans. You know, I. One of the guys that I interviewed recently, he got me a bunch of really great authors. And I was like, man, your network's good. And he goes, well, it's not that hard. I told him I got 1200 new subscribers from you within 48 hours. And I was like, is that true? And he's like, yeah, it's true. And I went, Damn, I want 1200 new subscribers in 24 hours. You know, but we just threw him a ton of traffic because he was a good fit. So now he's telling everybody he knows, because when he makes that intro, it makes him look good, too. So it became this weird snowball effect that has been super beneficial for me as a host and for us as a business at the art of charm, because now we literally have people who are writing books going, hey, how soon can you get me in? And it's like, well, you have a hundred thousand Twitter followers. How's next week look for you? You know what I mean? Because it's just. They're knocking on the door now, which never, ever happened before. I never expected that to happen.
It's a great snowball effect when you're able to pack that, get it rolling, and then you get one and then the other. I've just noticed in the past month that I've been doing this, that it's been happening to me. And you brought up something I'll kind of reverse to a topic you just brought up where you said, you know, you get to pick the brains of these people who normally would kind of be, like, out of reach just if you wanted to sit down and have coffee with them or have a phone call for no other reason. So I had this epiphany recently, you know, when I was planning out the whole podcast. I had a lot to say, and I knew I'd be interviewing some people. I've listened to a lot of interviews where it's just. They go really, really basic. Tell me about your background. They ask very scripted questions. I don't have any. I don't have any questions set up. I'm not looking at notes when I'm talking to you or anybody. And I decided I can go one of two ways. I can go the really fundamental, basic route and think about all the people listening in the audience who have no idea who you are, who the guest is, and give them the one on one version, which very well may bore the heck out of me, the host. Or I can get on the phone and ask all the questions that I'm dying to ask and get all the information in somewhat of a selfish way, take it to a higher Level and pick your brain. Pick my other experts brains in a way that would normally cost me thousands of dollars and let my audience eavesdrop in on these calls. And I'm talking right now to you as a listener out there. This is the format of my show going forward. This is how I'm motivating myself to get some of the biggest and best people on this show. Because I can do exactly what you just said, Jordan, is I have the ability to reach out.
And get almost like free mentorship.
From some really, really high level people. And I had that epiphany on a show that hasn't even aired yet. It's actually a video. I'm stripping out the audio. But are you familiar with Mike Koenigs who owns Traffic Geyser?
No, I don't know anything about Internet marketing. I know, I like, if I did, I'd probably be tucking you from my jet. I need to hire. Yeah, I've heard of Traffic. I don't know anybody behind it or anything.
Right. So anyway, so he's software CEO, does a lot of stuff in the Internet marketing world. However, I was on his show and he even mentioned this is where the epiphany occurred. He goes, brad, I'm sitting here with you. And it was about a two hour sit down session. I would charge somebody $10,000 to sit down and pick my brain for two hours. But because you have a podcast and you're able to help get my message out, and I like you doing this for free and we were using that to help hammer home the importance of having a platform like this, like a YouTube show, like anything. But what you just said hit the nail on the head. It's so much fun to be able to get on the phone with people like yourself, people like others, and just really dial it in and talk about learning a lot in general. I can't imagine some of the conversations you've had with some of the high level folks and some cool stuff. You.
Yeah, it's. It's fun. I mean, it's, it platform is great. I prefer podcasting over YouTube because right now.
Yeah.
If you want to get somebody on your YouTube channel, you have to what, pay them to fly out to you or go near them? It's really hard. And you have to have a film crew, then you've got to edit it and you need a soundstage because if you film without one, I know all of these marketers say, oh, you don't even need that. Yeah, it sounds like you do need it. If you don't do it, it sounds like crap. And honestly, when people invite me to do video stuff, I usually prod and ask like what kind of studio and whatever. And if it's not good, I just, I don't want to do it. Because what that tells me is you're not really professional, which means you probably don't have an audience, which means it's probably a waste of time. But with podcasting you never know because you could go to Adam Carolla down in LA and he's got a great studio, but you could also go to somebody's house who's a nerd like me, and they might have a studio in their house that's just as good, if not better. So you have no idea how big someone's audience might be. There are podcasts in the iTunes top 50 that are recorded in dudes living rooms on their iPhone. And I'm not exaggerating and it's amazing.
I'm recording this right now. I'm literally on my iPhone. We called it, we were trying to do it on a little bit more professional audio, but I'm calling in, I've got my iPhone, I've got my little white earbuds in and we're using a conference line to record it. So if the call quality is not as good as the Art of Pod, the Art of Charm podcast, you as a listener understand why, but it just shows you the ability to. To do this. It's. It's available to absolutely everybody. Have you ever read do you know James Altucher? You probably.
Yeah, he just called me this morning actually. That's funny.
That's awesome. So I'm doing some work with James and he's a friend of mine and I'm working with him and helping him, you know, on his podcast and his newsletter and everything else, so. And I became a fan of James before I ever met him. And what's awesome is whole his whole choose yourself philosophy of never has it been more possible to. You don't have to wait for somebody else to publish you to anoint you as worthy. You can go out and do it for yourself. And that's the topic of his book. But if you never. If you haven't talked to James actually, man, you're love it. Such a. Such a great guy. Wealth of information.
Yeah, he's got it. Just got to keep him organized and we're in here on fire. Right, so.
True. True.
Yeah, he's a genius or something for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. So Jordan, you've got a lot of stuff going on the Art of Charm is obviously the. Your home base for everything. Is that. Is that the art of charm.com or. I know you have the art of charm podcast dot com.
Yeah, you know what I would say? The podcast, I would say if guys are listening to this, you know, and they want more, they can either email me directly, Jordan H. At the art of charm.com or, you know, call the office. But honestly, the podcast is. It's. So. It's all free stuff. It's. You don't have to buy anything. You're already listening to a podcast. Just search for the Art of Charm in itunes or Stitcher, or go to the art of charmpodcast.com, subscribe there and check it out. But, yeah, I love hearing from people. I'm cool answering questions. Most of the time, it just depends on my workload and what it is. But, yeah, I mean, reach out. I'm. I'm pretty accessible. That's another thing is, I think.
No kidding, you know, the.
The biggest. The bigger you you get, the more accessible you should be, because that should be the primary job of you as, like, the mouthpiece of your business. If you, if you want to scale, you have to have people do other things, but not your email and your, Your. Your tweets, you know?
Yeah, that. That kind of has to be. Should be you doing that personally. Well, I, I mean, I can't recommend highly enough your podcast. I've been listening for a while, and I, you know, rekindled my listening ship several months ago and just love what you've done with it. You know, you're. You're an awesome host. I actually take some notes when I'm listening to hosts like yourself how I can do this better because I'm just, you know, I'm still on wobbly legs with the way I'm doing this, but I know my listeners are liking it and they're letting me know, and I appreciate all the feedback I've been getting. But, guys, go check out Jordan's stuff. Check out his podcast, girls. You should probably listen to it to hear what all these, you know, men are learning on how to charm you.
That's right. Female fans, too. So they'll dig it.
That's awesome. If anybody else has questions for me, if you would like to like to share your own business strategies, advice, maybe even be featured on the show, or if you know somebody, like Jordan said, ask the audience. I'm doing that right now. If you know somebody you think would be a perfect fit for bacon wrap business, please just shoot an email over to ask bradakenratbusiness.com and if you'd like a second opinion on anything you're doing, your marketing, your business strategy, your direction in life, it really doesn't matter. I love fielding these questions. Please don't hesitate to shoot me over an email once more that askbradaconrappbusiness.com Jordan, do you know anybody else I should be interviewing? Isn't that how you do it?
Yeah, I do. I do. And I'm happy to reach out and get some intros. You know, if you email me after this, I will send you three plus people that you should have on your show.
That's awesome. I love it. I love it. Well, everybody, thank you for listening. Jordan, thanks for being awesome guest. This has truly been a bacon wrapped episode and everybody knows they I'm trying to replace the name or like you know, those little colloquialisms like this is so ninja. That's such a gangster tactic. I hate those words. Like that's so bacon wrapped. I'm trying to make it.
Everybody loves bacon. So that being said, man, I really appreciate your time. I know you got another call coming up and to everybody else out there, if you have a problem, wrap it in bacon. Talk to you next time.
Sam.