Jordan Harbinger - How To Build Relationships With Celebrities and Influencers

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Float Shark podcast with your boys, Mount Wolf and Joe Fear. Wiki wiki Wiki.

We are recording now.

I think, Matt, that's what the red light means.

Perfect. I'm new to this.

But we're talking to someone that's not new to this at all.

No, he is an OG at this.

That's right.

He was one of the originals. Like, this guy was podcasting before podcasting was a thing.

Yeah. Like he said, straight up, There were only 800 podcasts, like, at all. Can you imagine that? With no artwork or anything? It's all text based.

Yeah.

Can you imagine that being. And. And the way he put it was he thought he was kind of like, this was a big pond. Like, there was 800 podcasts. Nobody was going to be able to discover this. Now there's like 800,000 podcasts.

Totally.

Yeah.

I mean, it's only growing. So Jordan Harbinger is on the show today, and I had so much fun with this conversation. He's a fun dude, man. Yeah, he's. He's often referred to as the Larry King of podcasting. Totally true. And yeah, he has, like, an interesting background and totally honest. Like, I think we spoke with him for two hours. Half of that was off. Off recording. Off the record. Because it was just like a. We were just flowing. It was a good time.

You can tell we were all passionate about the same things. We were all passionate about. We were obviously podcasting. We all love podcasting. We were all passionate about, like, shitty, scammy marketing practices. Right. So we riffed on that for a little bit.

Communicating and actually, like, being a cool to the people that listen to you or respond to you on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever the heck it is. Like, actually having conversations that are meaningful and not, you know, being just ignoring them or pushing them away. We get into that actually quite a bit, is how that is how he has grown his brand and how he's been able to kind of quote, unquote, restart to a new, whole new podcast that gets 6 million downloads per month.

Yeah. No, it's crazy. He was on another very popular podcast and he actually left that show and started his own show. And within, I think he said, like, weeks of the new show starting up, it was like, already almost back to the levels of his old massive show that he was on. All because of the network that he created, the connections he's made, the relationships he's built. So we spend a Lot of time talking about, like, how to cultivate those relationships.

Yeah. So he's top itunes podcast for over 12 years. That's insane. And one of the most popular podcasts in the world, so. Dude's amazing. He has a crazy background that we. There's a lot of stuff we didn't even get to cover, but maybe around twos in the cards, so we'll see. But yeah, Jordan. I mean, we.

Shoot.

Where'd we go? I mean, a couple place. We already talked about it, I guess.

Yeah. We covered a lot of ground around podcast. He's just networking and relationship building and. Oh, man. Just. There's a lot of great stuff here. Let's, you know, we can. Bam.

Just get on into it.

We don't have to tell them what we're gonna tell them. We can just, you know, go tell them.

Yeah, I guess we can shorten these things. That one. One star review. Yeah, one. One got in your head, Matt. Yeah. All right. So that's cool. Well, we took notes. We always take notes. That's kind of what we do around here. So you don't have to do those. You can still take notes, but I'm pretty dang sure we can take. I'm not going to challenge you, but I think we can take some better notes because we hired the professionals. So we're testing out this new texting option. We actually talk about texting. Text marketing. Text. Text message marketing with Jordan. So if you actually pull out your phone in a safe place, not driving or doing dumb stuff with your phone when you shouldn't be, text. 38470. That's 38470.

Comp. Yeah. Type the word comp into that message. So the number you're Texting to is 38470. The word you're texting is comp. And we'll send you those notes.

C O M P. So those. And you can also go to hustleandflowchart.com comp.

And you get these notes for free. Jordan's notes got to be quick. Within a couple weeks and they go away.

They're on us. You can say that we're comping them.

We are comping you these comps.

Yeah, it stands for companion, by the way. They're the companion notes, just in case you didn't guess. So hustle and flowchart.com comp go download the notes to this episode. Or you can text the word comp to 38470. I really just want to get into this conversation with Jordan because it's one of my favorite talks we've had in a long time.

Let's go, Jordan. Welcome to the show, man.

Hey, thanks for having me on, guys.

Yeah. Now we're. We're doing some good bantering before, and that's always a good sign. Show to come, you know?

Yep.

I'm sure.

Yeah. We always like to give a little shout out to the connection. It was Greg Merrily that connected us, and I know you're doing some work with him. Website Design Studio 1.

Oh, him. Yeah, I'm talking with him today.

Yeah, he's in.

Yeah. You know, and they've done a really good job to just sort of prop up his biz. I wasn't. It wasn't that. I wasn't expecting that, but I wasn't expecting people to be both nice and really competent and actually care after they get their money. And that's sort of a sad state of affairs. Right. Like, you think as soon as I pay and as soon as they fulfilled their scope of work, they're going to be like, fine. You know, if you have a problem with it, we can add it to your bill. But they've been really cool with me not knowing really what I want on my website. So I'm kind of like, they're redoing our website and I must be, I wouldn't say the worst client ever, but I would definitely say not an ideal client. Because they're like, what do you want? We're like, we don't know. And they're just like, it's going to be one of those, isn't it?

Hey, there are unlimited designs for a reason. So you're.

Yeah. And like, yesterday, the reason I'm talking with him today is because yesterday my wife and I were like, is it just me or does this staging site, like, this part of the staging site is just, like, ugly and cluttered and confusing and it's only. And she's like, I hate this part of the website. And I was like, I can't even figure out how to use this part of the website. And she's like, we really wanted this to look like that. And I was like, I know they're going to kill us if we ask for a change. Because we were the ones that were like, it's got to have this and then it's got to have that. And the rest of the stuff that they designed looks great. And the stuff that I sort of, like, demanded is just absolute garbage and, like, doesn't fit on the site. So I was like, hey, can you fix this thing that we screwed up because we. The main part of the site is podcast navigation and I have no idea how we got, like, how we screwed it up this bad. So he got on a phone call with his designer and then set up a call for like 6pm tonight and he's like, I got plenty of ideas on how we can fix that. I'm just like, I will. I. This is how everyone should do business. So props to him for being an awesome guy.

Yeah, he's a good human man and it shows through. And you're exactly right. There's a lot of vendors out there that we worked with. Podcast related and not. Yeah. Where they just kind of assume, oh, they're way at the highway, you know, oh, I've.

I mean we've all had anybody who's been in business for a while has had someone come back and say, well, this is beyond the scope of work. And it's like you had to at some level know that somebody who orders.

I don't know, like this particular thing, like someone who orders a website redesign is also going to want the website redesign to include a bio page or an about page. And like all these places that sort of give you this quote and then tell you, oh, yeah, and each additional page is $1,500. And you're like, oh, cool, we don't need that. And then you're like, oh, but our existing website has all these pages that you didn't include in the quote. And they're like, yeah, we'll include them for 1,500 bucks each. And you're just like, guys, dude, you didn't think I wanted to import all of my content to the new design? Like, come on, man. And then there's a part of me that just goes, they knew that. They just wanted us to get a signature. And then they thought they would probably. They were probably going to say, hey, what about this page? What about that page? When they were. We were done? And then like, upsell me from there. And I don't like that.

It doesn't leave a good taste in your mouth and return clients. Doesn't set you up on the right foot.

It doesn't. Right. Because. Because the, the assumption, there's two ways to look at it. One, they didn't look at our existing site. So they didn't know we even had those, which is bad because they're designing a site, they should know what's on the existing site. Or they were blatantly trying to trick us into upselling later on or being upsold later on by saying, hey, you didn't include these pages. Do you want us to import those? And, like, which one of them. Which one is it? Negligence or malice? Like, neither one is really what I'm looking for in a vendor.

They're red flags either way. You just gotta run. And, yeah, luckily, Greg and his crew over there are a solid crew. We've had a site design before, numerous. And we're about to go through the same thing. After we heard you and you were with him, we're like, good.

Oh, really good. Tell him to cut me a check.

Yeah, he should.

Well, I think he's doing your site and he's doing James Schramko's site, and both of you guys are podcasters, and we're podcasters, and we're like, well, they can set the example for us.

There you go.

Yeah, yeah.

So if our site looks strikingly similar to yours, it wasn't.

All right. Oh, dang. Yeah. Don't be copying my design, mang.

Now we good, man.

All right, well, so you've got, like, probably one of the most popular podcasts in the world, and this comes after leaving one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Can we get into your backstory just a little bit? We don't have to go too deep, because I know you've probably gotten sick of telling it so many times, but can we just kind of give our audience who maybe doesn't know who you are, just a quick little bit of how you got into the podcasting world and, you know, your story there.

Sure. Yeah. So the way I got into the podcasting world was actually I was having the same conversation with my friends, and frankly, strangers at bars and at coffee shops in law school. And I got sick of doing that, and I was teaching networking, and I started teaching dating stuff because the guy. Well, actually, let me back up the truck. So what was happening was I was talking a lot about networking because I was in law school, and I found that a lot of these partners were like, you gotta know how to network. You gotta know how to bring in business. You gotta network. You gotta network. And I was like, I don't know how to network, and neither does anyone. Literally nobody in a school environment knows how to network, because they don't teach that to you. And then the professors that pretend to teach you how to network, they're just like, put yourself out there, and you're like, okay. And you write that in your notebook. And like, there's no action step.

Yeah.

So I started to learn that after my first internship at a law firm where the partner basically told me that that was how you make partners, like bring in business. So I started talking about that. And no, I found this to be so funny and ironic. No, men cared. Men didn't care. They were like, I'm going to keep my head down. I'm going to work hard. Women, though, disproportionately did care. And I was like, what's going here? In 2020 hindsight, women are often more socially skilled than men. Surprise, surprise. And so this seemed like maybe a little bit more of a natural skill set for them. And also, and this is just speculation, but especially 10 years ago or more now, I think women were like, oh, crap, I'm a very small minority. I need to learn how to meet people. And also I'm a woman in a man's world, so I'm going to need lot of support. And so I think that was either conscious or subconscious. So women were a lot more interested in the networking stuff that I was teaching and that I still teach, frankly. And I started teaching this stuff at bars and at coffee shops because it was easy to just sit down and like, hey, bring five of your friends and I'll teach you what I know about networking. And then guys would start to go, hey, how come you're with like 12 different women every night at Ashley's or at Good Time Charlie's or whatever? And I'd be like, oh, I'm teaching networking. And they'd be like, let me join that class. Because, you know, Angela Feldermeier is really smoking hot or whatever. And I was like, fine. So I started doing that. That was sort of this weird back road for like, guys to sort of be around women that were attractive and outgoing. And women that were attractive and outgoing were really into this networking thing. I didn't think anything of it. Cause we were in college and now, like, the idea that a guy would join something to meet a woman is a little, little skeevy. But back then it seemed totally normal. So how times have changed.

Yep.

And so that was the time where I realized that if I try to sell this to men as, hey, you can meet a lot of people, including women and women as this networking can help your career. I'm teaching the exact same thing, except for both parties are buying it for different reasons. And so then I started burning CDs of the conversations. And the reason I was doing that was because Monday I'd have a three hour conversation and I'd be like, all right, come back Tomorrow. And then they'd bring some new person. They'd be like, wait, wait, wait, back up. I need to catch up. And I was like, okay, I can't have the same conversation every single night. So what I did is whenever there was a new person, I'd be like, stick around, write your questions down, then go home and listen to these 10 hours of audio. And people were listening and putting this stuff into action. And then as I started talking more and more about dating stuff in the audio, women were like, my brother loves this. I gave this to my cousin. And guys were like, yeah, my roommate wants this one. Or I gave this to my brother. And then he took it and he won't give it back. I need another one. So I started selling the CDs for, like, five bucks, 20 bucks. And I realized I don't really want to, like, be in the CD burning business. I need to be able to put these files online. But there was no. Wrap your mind around this. There was no place on the Internet to put an MP3 file and have it hosted. There just wasn't.

That's wild.

And we searched high and low. And I was like, where can I put these files? And then we found out about podcasting. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll just start a podcast. And then I'll be like, all right, episode one, Body Language, Episode two, Eye Contact, or whatever. And then I was like, well, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to turn it into a show like these other podcasts that we discovered. And there were like 800 of them in the store. We didn't realize that this was a thing. It was. Everything was about tech. Like, as you might expect, 2006, nothing was like a show. It was all tech, or it was a repurposed radio show about tech. And then they're like, hey, we have a podcast for those of you that know what those are. So we put those up there and we hosted on, like, a shared GoDaddy server. And we just started getting downloads from all over the place. And I was like, hey, if you're the person listening in South Africa, send me an email. And, like, we'd get three emails. And I was like, oh, it's not just one person. And then, you know, hey, we get somebody in Germany. Hey, who's in France listening. Because we could see where they were coming because we had this thing called site meter. Remember that?

Yeah, that's so familiar.

Yeah, it would, like, show you how many hits, which is not a thing you use anymore. Where you had the hits from. And then it would show you a world map, and the world map would have a little dot on it. And I'd be like, dude, we have people listening from all over the world. This is, like, the coolest thing ever. And so I started paying close attention to that, and I just got obsessed with podcasting because I was like, wait a second. I can upload something that I recorded in the basement on this USB microphone interface, which, by the way, we had to special order a USB microphone interface because there was no way. Guitar center. And we're like, we want to plug microphones into the computer. And they're like, do you want to plug in a guitar? We're like, no, we want to plug in, like, studio microphones that we had then bought on sale into the computer, and they're like. To record in GarageBand. And we're like, I guess so. And so they're like, great. Well, we don't carry that. We have to special order it. So they ordered it for us, and we literally waited, like, two weeks until this giant box from M Audio came, and we just plugged that sucker into.

Our MacBook M audio. Yeah. I have a keyboard.

Yeah. And it was like, it was for instruments, but it just so happened you could turn the gain in a certain way and it would support a studio microphone, too. So it was just crazy. And that's what we recorded. We recorded into GarageBand. And, you know, that was the beginning of the podcast. And it was crazy because now, you know, you're downloading podcasts on your iPhone. But our show started before there was an iPhone.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, you were. I mean, it's like, I just think of the environment now. We're so spoiled with all these USB microphones that are like 50 bucks. Whatever. You can just use anything. It doesn't even have to be something fancy pants.

Yeah. The interface is built into the mic, and then there's a USB cord, or it's like Bluetooth and goes into your computer and you're good. And then everything is done in the computer. We weren't processing the audio. Nothing, man. I mean, this is like a wav file. I would cut out the sneezes and upload it.

That's not far from this episode.

That's basically what we're doing here.

Times haven't changed, Jordan.

No.

That's rad, man. So that was back in 06, which is wild. You said 800 in the store at the time. Number of podcasts, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's impossible to Verify that because, like, there's no way for me to go back. But I remember meeting someone that worked at Apple and I was like, yeah, we put up a podcast and he's like, cool, I'll search for it, you know, what's the name? And then he was searching for it and he came back and he's like, I found it because it was all a text directory. There was no cover art, there was no show art back then. And I was like, yeah, there are so many. How many are there? There's like 20 in our category alone. Like 20. Think about that. It's like 20. Or maybe there were 50, I don't know, shows in like the Sex, dating, relationships or whatever the hell the category was back then. And he's like, yeah, there's hundreds of these things. I mean, it's just. There's hundreds and hundreds of them. I was like, yeah. So we weren't thinking, this is going to be huge. We were thinking, no one's going to find this unless we tell them exactly how to do it. Because there's not many people that even know what podcasts are. And there are hundreds of them. And it's funny because people would ask me what I do for years and years and years and I'd say, do you know what a podcast is? And it was like 60, 40, no clue that what it is, or that maybe they think they've heard of it because they don't want to seem lame and out of touch. And then now I was on a plane yesterday or the day before yesterday and these people in their 60s were like, so what do you do? And I was like, do you know what a podcast is? And he goes, please, I'm not that old.

And it was funny because I remember asking like 27 year old technical engineers in the computer engineering school, do you know what a podcast is? And they were like, no. And this is. That's eight years ago, 10 years ago.

That's why. In perspective, I believe, and you probably know the stat better than I, I believe there's about 800,000 podcasts. I don't know if they're all active now, but you know, compared to way back then, and still, if you compare that to the number of blogs online, I mean there's outrageous number of those around. It's just wild how times have changed. I know talking to my mom, even just the last year didn't know what a podcast was. But then, now she's obsessed over it, she's like 65. And he was like, yep, times are Changing fast. So what kept you going, like, throughout those times? It sounded like you were engaging with your fans on the podcast back in 06, even, you know, around the world.

I was.

Yeah.

I still do that. And every, you know, it pisses. One of my pet peeves is when people go, hey, Jordan Robot, I don't care. Where, like, they're like, eh, screw you. Or they're like, ah, you sent me the same thing in another thread. And I'm like sitting there typing it and I'm going, look, I'm already engaging with you on social media. You really expect me to have a novel thing to say every time? Like, how'd you find the show? Oh, you already asked me that. Like, excuse me, but I'm sitting here talking to you. Name anybody else that gives enough of a crap to do that and. Sorry, I asked you the same question twice. Random account that sells cheese on Instagram.

Come on, you just were BFFs. Now I guess we have.

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's funny because it does give me the. I do engage with everyone. I answer all my email, I answer all my tweets, I answer all my DMs on every platform. I'm way behind on LinkedIn, for example. But like, I'm. And I. It's all I can do to answer all my Instagram messages because there's no way to filter by unread, which is just so irritating. Yeah, but like, and if anyone knows how to freaking do that, by the way, please, I will pay for software or whatever. I need to figure out how to have like, unread and have a real inbox and Instagram.

I'll tell you what, man, Instagram is just like, for creators. I know. It's a creator centric platform. It's like they don't want me to answer my DMs. It's like you just. You can't filter by unread. You can't do it on the computer. I'm like, there are hundreds of these things. Throw me a bone here.

Yeah, now you think they would Facebook and all being behind them, but yeah, you're like, my freaking thumbs hurt. I really want to engage with your platform and help your valuation or whatever the hell this is. The hell. Help me help you. Let's do this.

Yeah, it's tough. So there's a piece of software that, if someone can make it. Make a real inbox for Instagram that can filter by unread, that's faster than doing it with. Because there are some instagram programs that let you post photos, but they're photo and post centric. So the inbox is this afterthought that freezes and you gotta crash the program out and start over. But in, like, if anything could, these platforms are all in competition. And I'm like, where's the software that puts all my LinkedIn, all my Instagram, all my Facebook in one place? And there just isn't that. And I get why. But shoot, I would just take Instagram right now.

Well, the closest that might help you is Franz. F A R N Z. F R A N Z R F, F R A N Z does not do Instagram, though, so I can't help you on that front.

Well, basically what it does is it'll take, like, all of your social chat messenger places, and it just puts it into one software. But it's kind of like iframed. But they're all in one place at least.

So.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I suppose. It's hard, though, because I really, like LinkedIn is slow. Instagram is, like, clunky. Like, it's great on the phone, but who wants to answer 400 dms a week on a phone? No, when you can't filter by unread. Like, I'm manually scrolling back to where I think I left off, and I have no clue.

Jesus. Yeah.

Yeah.

One day. All right, so whoever else is listening, just reach out to one of us. We'll make it happen. Yeah, Jordan.

So anyway, yeah, I'm in. I'm interacting with all of my fans in every platform, and people think that that's a waste of time, but Gary Vee doesn't. And I'm not. Like, everything Gary Vee says goes by any stretch. Like, I routinely am. Like, that's terrible advice to drop out of school and tell your parents to go F themselves. Like, don't say that. But the one thing he's right about is engaging with all your fans. And it's really hard for people to get their mind around that because they don't see the value. But let me tell you, if. If a fan reaches out to me and five other people, and four. Four of those people ignore him, and one of them says, hey, thanks for engaging. Have you seen my new E course on generating your first thousand Instagram followers? Click here. And I'm like, what's up, man? Thanks for listening. I appreciate the note. Who stands out among those shows and then who seems like they actually care? And over time, unless my content really sucks, which a lot of these other creators, you know, have that problem. But unless my content really sucks, they're going to be a fan for a really long time because they had one little two second interaction with me. And if you think about customer or fan acquisition like you think about customer acquisition, it's so much cheaper. And businesses know this, right? That's why a bank will waive like $158 in fees if you're a customer because it costs them $260 to acquire you at for Chase Manhattan bank. Right?

That's right.

So if you think about fans like that, it's like, well, wait a minute, why would you mistreat or ignore somebody who's already listening to you and then go spend $58 or, you know, $58,000 on Facebook ads and then you're acquiring new show fans or new fans of your work for 5, 6, 2, even $2 when you could have retained one and made them a fan for life for like 10 seconds of your time.

True.

It doesn't make any sense to me. People don't think about that. They're like, ugh, I have to answer all my DMs. And it's like, you don't have to, but you're gonna have churn that I won't have, because I can now. And let me tell you, I can now say something that comes off dumb, stupid, ignorant, horrible. And people will give me the benefit of the doubt and be like, oh, I don't think you meant to do that. And I've talked to him one time three years ago. I think this is a mistake.

But you planted that seed. It's in that three years ago, that one little engagement piece means so much.

Well, it does. And it's funny to think about. Here's a real example. I posted some meme that it didn't even occur to me that it seemed a little racist at the time. It didn't even occur to me at all. It was like this kid dancing. It was like an African kid dancing. And he was like, yeah, the Seattle Seahawks gear gets here tomorrow. It's like a Super bowl beam. Because they had just lost the super bowl. And it didn't. I didn't think about the race thing at all. I just thought like, oh, it's funny. All the gear that they made that for the losing team goes to Africa. Like, it was something I just thought was funny. So I posted that. And a few people that I'd talked to once four years ago were like, look, we don't know each other, but I remember talking to you back in 09 and you were pretty cool. So this looks racist. And I don't know if you knew that. And I was like, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. I had no idea. I deleted it. And they were like, oh, that's cool. You took it down. We knew we'd be able to reach you because I reached out that one time and you answered. So imagine they could have just gone onto social or unsubscribed or written me a one star review or just like gone online and been like, jordan Harmon is racist. They didn't because they knew they could reach me because I replied that one time. And they actually cared enough to reach out because I had talked about who knows coffee once in 09. And they were like, oh, he's a normal person. That probably isn't a racist piece.

Crap. Now, do you. Do you think there's ever going to be a time where you're going to have to, you know, pick and choose what you respond to, or do you think you'll always be able to reply to everybody?

It depends on. This is a weird thing to say, but it depends on the tools. Like if I found something that allowed me to answer my Instagram fast and if they can speed up the damn LinkedIn inbox, I'm happy to keep going even if I have twice as many incoming because there's a lot. But most of it is spent waiting for this stupid thing to load or like seek or find the last message or anything. Or like scrolling to find unread. If I can get rid of that pain point, then I would keep doing it because yeah, look, if you're like the rock, you probably have thousands of messages per day in your inbox and it becomes actually impossible. But at that point I almost think, why wouldn't you hire someone who's full time or team whose job it is to just full time go, hey, Jordan, can't check this because the inbox is super full, but I'm going to pass along your well wishes to him. Thank you. By the way, he's got an interest list for everything that he's doing here and we hope you're subscribed to the podcast. Like there should be a full time, two or three people, two or three person team doing that at the point at which you're getting so many messages it's impossible for you because otherwise you're leaving money on the table. Like I suppose if your lady got mono. If you're Lady Gaga, you want an email list of all your fans, right? So you should have somebody answering the messages in your inbox. And I know that that seems very strange, but as kids and as fans in general of anything, become used to talking with you or being able to reach you, imagine how much more of a fan someone is when they can reach out to you and get a reply. Even if they know it's from someone on your team, they're going to remember you rather than this sort of like dead empty inbox that everyone else has. And how at the point at which you're getting thousands of messages a day, you're a multi, multi millionaire. So spend 80 grand a year having two full time people that are just on it eight hours a day keeping that thing empty, like, what's the problem?

And just think about this army of support that you're building around worldwide. Whatever your brand is, podcast or not, it doesn't matter. But you have. And like you said, if you have the money to spend on a VA to help you out, do it. You know, that's probably going to be better marketing than you can ever do with Facebook ads and all this other stuff out there.

Absolutely. Like, what I'm thinking is, look, if you have that many messages coming in, tell the kid or whoever's writing into you. You know, you're, you're, if you're a musician, say like, hey, it's hard to keep in touch here. There's so many messages. What's your phone number? We'll add you to our SMS list where we send out once a week we send out like fan messages and stuff like that. And then it could be like if you're Lady Gaga, what if it's like getting ready for my show at Madison Square Garden. Here's a pic of me with half my costume on and like my makeup's going on. Your fans will go bananas for that. They'll all want to join the SMS list. You advertise the SMS list on Instagram or wherever else your fans are. And then when you're like, hey, my new CDs on sale. You text 300,000 Ravenous fans, that message goes to their phone with a link to buy it on whatever, wherever the hell people sell music now. Right? Stream it on Spotify or to like purchase tickets or purchase merch. I mean, you're going to literally crash servers in what you have to pay like 180 bucks a month for enterprise level SMS marketing.

Who cares, right? Oh man, it's so cool. Yeah, we're actually starting SMS on the podcast. Have you ever actually done that on your podcast at all call to action.

Yeah, yeah. We did an SMS when I was on satellite radio. One of our show fans, he owned an SMS marketing company and I was like, hey, what's this all about? So he hooked us up for free. And this is 10 years ago almost. Or maybe no, it was actually 10 years. So it was really kind of clunky. Like people had to opt in. We didn't have a short code. It was like they really had to type in like a full number. And then the problem was it would like crash and send them 400 texts in a row. And it's like, okay, this is, you know, people would want to unsubscribe. So it was kind of a mess. And we weren't able to sell anything because e Commerce Online 10 years ago. I mean, what could we do? We could send them like a URL that didn't work on mobile and tell them to go type it in. So what we were doing was we were sending them messages that said, hey, our show is on right now. If you've got satellite radio, tune into Maxim 103 or whatever the hell we were on at the time. And now I'm like, well, what I would do for this is probably do product announcements. Or I'd be like, the reason I don't do it now is if you are a pod, if you're a podcast listener, you do get a notification on your phone already when there's a new episode. So me texting people, hey, new episode up with Kobe Bryant not doing much that they don't already have because chances are they've already got a new notification. Hey, new Jordan Harbinger show episode with Kobe Bryant or Dennis Rodman. So it has to be something that they're not getting. And podcasting by virtue of the fact that it's on most people's phones already. That's like how 99.9% of podcasters listen. I don't see a really big reason for me to get that list going because I don't know what I would sell on that list. I don't have merch and I don't want to sell it it and I don't have any sort of product. But if you're a musician, if you are selling anything at any time or you need to reach people in a way that's not just a new episode. I think that's a brilliant idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we use it for different call to actions, but yeah, a whole different monetization plan probably than you have.

Sure.

What are the stats it's like 100%, 99.9% or something of all text messages are read and received within 10 minutes. Minutes.

Yeah.

So like you'll never, you're never going to email's finest hour. Didn't even approach that at all.

Right.

Yeah. Back in the 90s or whatever, the 70s, whatever they say it was.

Well, yeah, like the golden, the number one, the most. The email that was sent out to a hundred thousand people, that was opened by the most people. Didn't you know, the world record holding email, not that we'll ever have that information, did not even come freaking close to 99% open rate within 10 minutes. Not even close. So text message marketing is still the only text message marketing I even get is like my Kaiser Permanente insurance company sends me the occasional hey, get vaccinated. And then I get some scammed crap on there, like, need $3,000 for your business, go to SGI Mobis, you know, slash 704GXY7Z.

I always get the get some Ray bans for only $25 this week only.

Right.

It's a hell of a deal.

It was a hell of a deal. Definitely real Ray Bans too for sure. Yeah. So I've yet to see really good text message marketing and honestly I've seen it before, but only temporarily. Like they'll shoot something. Like you'll be at. You know what EDC is? I'm into EDM because I'm a, I'm freaking 40, but I'm like 21 in my emotional maturity.

We saw you in the bar over our podcast movement. You were going.

Yeah, jamming.

I actually think you were singing Rapper's Delight if I remember correctly.

Oh, you were there.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, look, it's better than me. It's better for me to sing something like that than to jam out to some edm. That's a way to clear out a karaoke bar. But like I think at EDC they have like test text messaging stuff and it's like, hey, the doors are open, you know, see you tonight. And then like an artist will. It'll be like, hey, above and beyond is on at this hour. That's great because how the hell else are you going to reach someone at a 3 day, 4 day long music festival? SMS is the only way that's happening. So I love that kind of stuff. And it's. We're kind of just at the beginning for that kind of like push notification stuff and people are abusing it inside apps. But text messaging, I mean it's really hard to sort of turn that off and block senders. So spammers love it. But I think marketers have yet to really kind of get the full.

Somehow it just hasn't really caught on, I guess because it's hard to get people's phone numbers. Like, I'm not really sure why.

Yeah, I mean, our philosophy with it isn't even really a full on text message marketing plan. We're literally asking people to opt in and then we're just pushing them over to an email list. So we're assuming that if you're listening to our podcast, you're not sitting at a computer right now. So we're telling them to sort of text in and when they text it says, okay, what's your email? And then we put them on our list and then you get our free offer that we put at the front of every episode and then we never text them again. It's literally just a mechanism to try to get them on our email list.

That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Especially because if you ask for email, they're not going to, like, maybe they don't want to, but if you ask for the phone number and it's a good. Those are your superfans. Those are the people who are clearly going to be interested in your stuff because by the time they're letting you call them or text them, they will obviously open your email.

Yeah. So that's the point there. So going back to your progression with the podcast, I mean, so much has changed. I know. Since 06. And now you have your new show and I'm sure that's just probably kicked off because you had this momentum for so long and the relationships we started talking about, the different dynamics with social skills and all that stuff that you started with. It sounds like you've just carried that on throughout your entire time up till now. And it's interesting because Art of Charm, that was the previous podcast that you were talking about in 06, right? That was when you kicked off back then.

Yeah, it kicked off back then. And since their we're in the middle of litigation, so I'm just not going to be able to talk too much about that. But yeah, it's funny because that's sort of like a whole branding conversation that I suppose is for another time or perhaps another show. But yeah, I started off with that and then just obviously outgrew that stuff.

Yeah. And there's a mutual friend. You were on a podcast, Mike Dillard. You were on his podcast and I think you dove pretty deep into some of the story around that. So. So if it's cool, we'll probably link that up in the show notes. So if people want to kind of hear a little more about what happened there, I feel like that's a pretty good primer with what happened.

It is. Yeah, it is.

So how did it look like restarting a brand new show? So after all that stuff, kind of just starting from scratch, Obviously you have this following, you have these amazing relationships around you. What did that look like? To kind of pick everything back up and. All right, going to give it another go. What did that restart look like to you?

I mean, it was, like, emotionally awful, but actually the. The amount of momentum that we had already had was really, really good. And so I found it a lot easier to, quote, unquote, start over.

And that was a huge relief. But it's not easy to start over in a niche like podcasting because it's not like it would be different if I'd had all the social media accounts and the email list, and it's like, hey, I'm starting this new thing. But I didn't have access to anything. I had to start over on Twitter. I had to start over on every platform. And so what happened was, in the beginning, I was like, no one's gonna find me. But the amazing thing about podcasting is you have such an intimate relationship with your audience. I think if. If you were a. I'm trying to think if you're a YouTuber and most of your videos were about, like, cars.

Yeah.

And you vanished, people would just find another fricking car channel.

Sure.

Right. And you'd have some super fans of, like, what happened to that Jordan guy, did the car videos, you know, but they. And they might search for you a little, but that's kind of it. But with podcasting, my old business partners, they kept doing the show, but obviously they'd never done a podcast before. So it was a different animal of different quality, you might say.

Sure.

And you can't really replace somebody who's got 12 years of broadcasting personality with somebody who's, like, never spoken in front of a microphone before and expects to go well. So people were like, where's Jordan? And so people started Googling right away. And these were already podcast listeners that were really interested. So it wasn't. The lucky thing was people go, oh, start YouTube. It's easier to build a YouTube. And I was like, no, no, no. One, I love podcasting for a billion different reasons. But two, if I start a YouTube channel, all these people who have been listening to podcasts for years, they're not necessarily going to go, I like Jordan so much, I'm just going to start watching YouTube. That's not how this is going to go. So luckily, I didn't listen to those people because the majority of the audience tried to look for me as soon as they ran out of my episodes and found that the show wasn't hosted by me anymore. And so we rebuilt the audience extremely quickly by going on a bunch of new shows, reaching out to people via the social media channels that I did control, like Instagram. I had a bunch of friends of mine who were in the space for a really long time that I'd known for years. I had them blasted out to their list. I went on other shows, I had them make these announcements I could call a fitness podcast. And they'd go, hey, for those of you that used to listen to Jordan Harbinger on this other show, he's got the Jordan Harbinger show now. And so people came over droves because they were like, I wondered what happened, what the hell? I was listening to this and now he's gone. So they'd be listening to like Jocko Willink and then he'd say, hey, by the way, if you listen to Jordan on this other show, he's got a new show now. That was enough to get like thousands of people to start coming over. He's like, I wondered what the hell had happened.

We found him finally.

What was weird, what is strange is it's been over a year and a half and I still on the daily get a message from people. Like at least one person every couple of days I should say, somebody will write in and say, hey, so this is weird. I know I'm a little late to the party, but I just found your new show. And the reason was because I got so far behind or I switched to Netflix, or I was starting, I took my bar exam and I went back and you're gone from the other show. And I'm like, yep. And they're so. The audience is so. It's molasses slow. Like it's crude oil slow. But it's super loyal. I mean, there are people, people coming over, like, yeah, sorry, I took an 18 month break because I was studying for the Series 7 accounting exam. And I'm back and you're not on the show anymore. Like, where are you? And they'll come back and they'll listen. And so that is kind of unique to podcasting, you know, I just don't know Anybody who's like, I used to follow this person on Instagram, and they're gone. Where did they go? The answer is, who gives a crap? It's Instagram. There's a million people on there. And they're all the same.

Yeah, it is kind of bizarre. Like, we'll go to events like, you know, for example, podcast movement, and we'll be talking to people just in the halls or whatever, and they'll be like, man, I loved it when you said this on the podcast. And we're thinking about it, we're like, when did we say that on the podcast? And people will reference stuff that we said two years ago. And we're like, what are you talking about? But it's bizarre because it's just like, this content lives on forever, right?

It's all, like, time shifted and stuff. And it's very cool, though, to see that people will be like, yeah, didn't you go to Poland? And I'm like, no. And they're like, yeah, I swear you did. And I'll be like, like, I did in 2008, you know, or something like that. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that because I Googled Poland. And, you know, something. Something the other day. And, like, you were on the first page of Go. It's so, so strange. And they develop this intimate relationship with you. Because think about it, like, if you listen to every episode of my show, you're listening to me for three hours a week. Let's say you only listen to half of the episodes that I put out. You're still getting six hours of my voice with a guest. Guest every month, which is. That's a long, long time. And so if you've been listening for two years, you've heard potentially hundreds of hours of my conversations.

Yeah.

So that's. That's more than, like, I follow this guy for quotes a lot on Twitter and Instagram, or, like, I always watch this person because they do great workouts. Like, you just can't get the amount of time with people on social media. Like, you can get with them on a podcast.

Yeah. There was some crazy stat, too, about engagement podcasts. I know we see typically at least 85% or more for our show, and we're usually about an hour length. And then you look at what Facebook videos. I think the highest engagement that people typically see is around 7%. And I don't know what Instagram is and all that stuff that just shows you the attention span per channel and the type of medium podcasting is how intimate it is and how relationship worthy it is. You know, it's all wrapped around you, the person behind the mic, and you know, the relationship with that person listening as well, one on one.

And you find that a lot of times I've noticed this, like, a lot of YouTubers and stuff like that. Instagrammers, they'll start podcasts and these podcast networks are so keen on them because they'll bring over like 50, 60,000 people in the first month or so to their show. And it's annoying as a podcaster because I'm like, dang, that's a lot of people. People. It took me years to get there. But then you talk to the ad agencies and they're like, yeah, we buy that one. But we don't pay for the full rate because one third of the listeners are like under 18 and don't have a credit card. And then two thirds of them listen for like two minutes and then stop. Or like the completion rate is really low. Like, they just, you see like this massive, massive drop in engagement for these social media people that have podcasts. And the quality of the podcast is usually pretty low. It's like, like, it's like Shane and Tom are talking in the garage about fart jokes. And it's like, yep, that's. And you're not going to sell too many $2,500 mattresses on the Fart Joke show with these two kids.

Or they just repurpose their. Their content that was designed for video and just make it audio format and it just doesn't translate very well.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And you know people who go, oh, yeah, well, they make it up in numbers. It's like, to an extent, they do. However, if you really want to look at this, I've got plenty of YouTuber friends. And I was so jealous of them for so long because I thought, man, if I'd started on YouTube instead of podcasts, I'd have 10 million instead of, you know, 6 million, or I have 60 million instead of 6 million or something per month. But then I talk to them and I'm like, man, you must be making that Ferrari money, that Lambo money by now. And they're like, Well, I get $2.50 after Google gets their cut. And then, you know, I've, I gotta sell merch. And I'm like, why are you selling fricking hats? Like in, you know, how many hats do you have to sell? And they're like, yeah, I'm making 30 grand a month off merch. And I'm like, That's cool. And they're like, yeah, but I'm making, you know, 20 grand a month off of ads. And I'm like, that's not bad money. But you have. You have 4 million people following you. Like, what the hell? You should be making like 10 times the amount of money. Because I have. I've got 250,000 downloads per episode and we're making the same amount of money. Or I'm making more and I'm like, in my underwear.

No one sees you. It's great.

Yeah. And it shouldn't be that way, but it is. And now those YouTubers, a lot of them, not all of them, but I talked to these guys. I won't call them out. They're really good people. But they had this dating channel and their stuff was viral. Like, I would go into a fricking coffee shop in LA and there would be people who didn't even speak English watching these guys goof around on YouTube and showing it to their friends and subscribing and sending the video to their whatever. I mean, it was absolutely the most ridiculously viral stuff. Fast forward to now. Their main product is showing people how to, like, beginners, how to make videos for YouTube, just how to even do it, period. Not how to go viral, just how to make videos and start your own channel. And I'm like, what's going on? He's like, well, we can't do stuff where we run around college campuses and like, stick our face in girls chest for five bucks and make a joke out of it because we're 40. And I'm like, oh, yeah. And then I'm like, well, this other channel was all body language and stuff. And they're like, how do we do a podcast? And I'm like, why the hell do you want to start that? Don't you guys have 4.1 million subscribers? And they're like, yeah, but we have to make the same video every week. And I'm like, oh, and it's two minutes long. I'm just like, oh, yeah. You can never have a long conversation with your audience. Most people don't know who you are because they're not not looking for you. They're looking for, like, the Donald Trump body language breakdown.

So you have to just do that every month or do the Game of Thrones body language breakdown. Like, this is what you're doing. There's nothing wrong with it. And they're really smart guys, but they just. I didn't think anything of this. Of course they didn't either. They were going off on a rocket ship, and I was just sitting here building brick by brick. But now I can talk about sand. Literally, I did an episode about sand. Massively popular, and they're like, I would kill to do an episode on something I'm actually interested in for longer than two minutes, but I can't. I need to, like, get, like, Donald Trump clips and do a body language breakdown and be like, he's lying because he's scratched his nose.

I think I actually know which YouTube channel you're talking about.

You know exactly which channel. Yeah. I'm not gonna say anything, but they're great guys. I really like them. So I'm helping them get into podcasting because they're smart. They're, like, really good people, and I want them to succeed. I feel bad because they're sort of trapped. And as a creator, it doesn't really matter how much money you're making if you feel trapped, because you just start to get sad every time you do your work, which is the worst. It would actually be better if they weren't making money doing it, because then they could move on to something else. But if this is how you pay everyone, you have to keep doing it. It's called the Golden Handcuffs, right? You have to do it. So for me, I'm like, the second I start not wanting to do podcasting, I'm going to start looking for something else. But the beauty of podcasting is that. That the odds of me not wanting to do anything where I talk are pretty slim, right? Like, if I get sick of interviewing people, I can just be like, great, why don't I just start doing narrative storytelling and then slowly pivot my audience to that? Because that works for podcasting. Or if I really. If I fancied myself hilarious, I could just start doing more and more funny episodes of my show and, like, pivot the audience to that. And I know that you can do that. It's like steering an oil tanker. It takes forever. Forever. But you can never. With a YouTube channel where you're all about body language, you can't turn it. You can never. You can literally never turn it into a comedy YouTube channel.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can't. That's why people subscribe. You have to play the algorithm. And with podcasting, you guys know this. Like, there's no algorithm. So that sucks for discoverability because we're all in this sort of, like, purgatory where no one can freaking find us and everything is word of mouth. But on the upside, you don't have to Optimize for an algorithm because you can't. So everybody I know who's been a successful, I know so many super smart successful podcasters and they're like, I'm branching out to YouTube because that's how people have been discovering us. And I'm like, great, good idea. So they spend hundreds of thousands, slash millions of dollars going into YouTube, hiring YouTube people, SEO, thumbnail hack this, hack that. And now their guest selection has been optimized for YouTube. So they're interviewing like out of work actors. Seriously, their thumbnail and SEO stuff is all YouTube optimized. So it's like this quote blew my effing mind explosion. And I'm like, oh, that's corny. You know, and they're doing more of that and then they're doing like all of these different, like, oh, look at Jordan's face. Would he heard this. And it's like a weird freeze frame of me from the show. And I'm like, okay, that's weird. And they're optimizing for that and they're optimizing for Instagram. And so they have these huge YouTube and Instagram followings. And if you look at their YouTube channel, half the comments are like, I miss when you had neuroscientists on the show. Hey, when are you going to have this professor on? And the answer is never, because no one's searching for that. So their super smart, educated audience that they had built from their podcast is now like slowly leaving. And then they're building this very large audience of like 17 year olds with no job and no credit card that love their new stuff. And I go, uh, oh, you trade. You started optimizing for YouTube, you started trading quality for quantity. And the problem is there are people inside these companies that are like, we're screwed. Because we're now competing against like a vlogger kid who's basically like, you know, some twitch streamer. And we can. And like everyone hates it. Everyone. The content blows now because no one's interested in making it it because they're 45 year olds or like 40 year old people that were really switched on. And now we're doing videos with like, you know, the guys from Jackass or something. And it's. And so I've, I've been really. People go, man, your YouTube's really not growing. And I'm like, I don't care. And they're like, oh, well, if you built a set, you did this. And I'm like, that's the problem. I can either do 12 really good episodes of the podcast per month. Or I can do like 12 mediocre ones and have a YouTube that grows really fast.

Yeah, I mean, we can get into podcast marketing in a second. But one thing that we actually suggested some other friends who, they had a podcast that was doing pretty well and they said most of their leads for the podcast, most of their listeners came from shout outs they were getting on YouTube. So I told them, well, why don't you just go create YouTube ads that are 30 seconds that sort of shout out your podcast and put them right in front of your ideal demographic and bring over to your podcast. Don't try to start a YouTube channel. Go just siphon off more people from YouTube using YouTube ads. It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper than creating set designs and shit like that.

And also, look, dude, there are so many problems with having a podcast that is also a YouTube channel. So I. This might make, this may or may not make sense, so stop me if it doesn't. I film my podcast. So I film the creation of the audio. I don't take the audio from my video and there's a huge difference. So I will film an interview with Dennis Rodman in a hotel room. And there's no set. It's just me and Dennis Rodman, you know, with a weird IV drip that he was doing and like a couple of random people in there that are like working for me or working for him. And so we'll, I, I will take the audio from that and I'll film us creating that audio. And you can see the microphones in the shot, like the lavaliers and like, you know, you can see, see some behind the scenes stuff. There's no fancy set, there's no branding. But when you find people that have a kick ass set and then their podcast is the audio rip of what's created on that set, there's a massive problem and people will go, oh man, how did you get this person? How did you get that person? And the answer is, I go to them. But if you've got a killer set, even if you're in LA now, I'm going to the Pentagon and doing an interview with the General. You can never do that because you've got to have your like orange microphone in there and you've gotta have your cool blue chair and you've gotta have all your lighting and da da da da. I can literally do this in someone's patio. Wow. And so I'm free and you're screwed.

I love it. And you're Totally. Right. And actually you just reminded us because this is something that we were talking about with a buddy of ours, Mike Koenigs, and I believe he said, yeah, you travel to every one of your interviews and you have kind of like this to go set. Like you have, I don't know, whatever you want. Like big, you know, your equipment for every single podcast. And it's exactly what you just said, very flexible. You can go anywhere, it's going to sound the same. You don't need some freaking fancy set behind you and all this other stuff that others need to worry about.

Did he say that about me or he has that.

I believe he said that about you.

That conversation was a while ago.

It was a while ago. Yeah.

No, it's correct. I. I have a giant orange pelican case that holds three cameras, headset microphones. I also have lavalier microphones and I have backup lavaliers that are not wireless, that are in there. And then I've got tripods that are light and folding and I've got everything in there. And I throw another couple things in my backpack and I can travel and check that thing anywhere, carry it, bring a couple changes of clothes, and I'm mobile anywhere in the world to record a pretty damn professional looking audio and video. And I'll tell you, I don't even really need the video gear because I'm not worried about like the 3,000 YouTube views that I'm gonna get. Some videos get like 70,000 views, but I'm not worried about that stuff at all. The truth that I, you know, will never tell anyone in the moment is the reason I've got the cameras there is because what I found was I was interviewing really great cool friends of mine, like wonderful scientists and writers, and I would do it on Skype or Squadcast, and I'd be like, hey, are you there? And they'd go, sorry. Or I'd hear like, ding. And I'd go, hey, do you mind turning your phone off? And they'd go, yeah, sorry. It's just my wife wanted to know if I was going to make it for lunch because we're going a little over. And I was like, you know, who's not getting texts in the middle of an interview? Someone who's on effing camera.

That's right.

So I didn't think I had to do my interviews in person. And then I realized, you know, I'm just. People just are. They're not bringing their A game if they're at home talking into their home, rig their dogs Running in and out. The doorbell's ringing. I'm like, if I'm there with cameras, they're ignoring all of that.

Yeah, that's true.

And so I started to do that and my, my video crew has standing instructions where I say if the battery dies, these cameras die, There's a power failure, lightning strikes, and the EMP knocks all this stuff out. Don't say anything thing. Because I don't want anybody to think that they're off camera.

Yeah, you're like steering them straight a little bit.

Like they start, they start mailing it in. And I was using GoPros for a while and they just don't do well in like indoor lighting and all this other stuff. But I'll tell you, you know, being able to film people, they do a better job. It, it's not that I need the video as a product, it's just that people do a better job when they're being filmed and, and there's just no way to get around it. And so I started to really work on that. And I'll tell you, everything fits into a box. Everything can be set up by one other person. If I really had to do it all on my own, I could. It would just be a huge pain. And that's how you gotta do it. But I will never. And I put that in quotes. Cause I've said that a lot and then gone back on it. But I will never focus on YouTube. And all these marketing people are like, you need to work on your YouTube, you need to work on your YouTube. And I'm like, cool. CPM $3 on YouTube. CPM $30 in a podcast. Who's, you know, if, if anyone's paying attention to engagement, it's the people who are paying millions of dollars to reach audience. And they seem to think that my audio only audience is worth 10 times more than your video audience. So I'll just go with their recommendations. Thanks though. Thanks. The person who clearly sells YouTube video consulting packages like I'll work on my YouTube, but I'll work on it as passively as possible. So I would love to hire someone to like just grow the YouTube. But the answer frankly for me on this, and you can tell me what you guys think. If Google is hiring the most brilliant people in the world to find the greatest content, then all I have to do is create really good content that looks good and is cut together well and the algorithm will eventually start to do the rest as they tweak it. And if people don't want what I'm putting out there. If they don't want an hour long Kobe Bryant interview that's lit well and framed well, then I, I don't want to start creating stuff for people who don't want that.

But I think they do want that. And I think people have shown that just by the CPMs with podcasting. So eventually Google will figure out, hey, this Jordan guy doesn't have a ton of subscribers on his YouTube, but he has a ton. They'll figure out what popular podcasts are, and eventually they're going to incorporate that into their search algorithm, I would imagine. And then they'll be like, oh, there's a lot of people watching this Guy's videos for 20 straight minutes, 40 straight minutes. Like my playthrough rate is something like average is like 22 minutes. So I didn't, I was like, oh man, a lot of people aren't finishing my videos. And like all these marketers were like, oh, what's your playthrough? It was like 20 average, 21 minutes. And 60 seconds are like, dude, that's literally 10 times more than most people are like 20 times more than most people. And I didn't know that because if you stop my podcast after 20 minutes, I've made a terrible mistake.

Totally.

This is not engaging that. If you stop my YouTube video after 21 minutes, apparently I'm like, got 21 times more of your attention than an average YouTube video ever does. And so I'm like, the algorithm is eventually going to figure out that I've got that high quality stuff in there. And as YouTube stops becoming children only and starts to become, quote, unquote, everyone, which is what it's doing right now, channels like mine will become more and more popular because there's still a huge element of YouTube and I think it's the majority where it's like kids that are watching on their phone that are literally watching like their favorite vlogger throw pizza at someone. And as that changes, you're gonna start to see smart people using YouTube a lot. But those people right now, they're using podcasts because they are working out and they're on their commute. They're not killing three hours in a day. Cause they're, they don't know what else to do. They're successful and affluent and educated. They don't have that kind of time. So you get this totally different educated and affluent audience that isn't sitting around on fricking YouTube all day. They're just not.

Yeah, yeah.

Now I wanted to ask you, this might be a little shift of gears. And I want to be respectful of your time too, but I wanted to ask about the relationships that you have with your guests and how you sort of, what does the process look like after you've recorded? Do you have some sort of way to make sure you're staying in touch? Because I know you're very relationship focused. The reason the Jordan Harbinger show was able to, you know, grow so quickly, so fast after you left your old show was because of all the relationships you'd built over that time. So I'm curious what your approach to maintaining relationships, and this is something we struggle with. So I'm kind of asking this selfishly, but what's, what's your approach to maintaining relationships after you've had a guest on the show?

You know, I add them to my CRM, which is contactually is what it's called, and I will then.

Try to keep in touch with them like once every, I guess you'd say like once every 90 days or so. And that's been pretty successful. I'm a huge fan of doing that that way. I believe, like, keeping in touch with people is like super, super, super important. It's the only way to develop long term relationships is like maintaining the one you already have consistently. And so that's been quite helpful. That said, you know, I'm not able to really like, text Kobe Bryant and be like, what's up, player? You know, like, I can't do that. And there's a reason that I can't do that. And it's, it's by the lifestyle design that they have. That said, all these scientists, thinkers, authors, like these folks, I for sure keep in touch with them. And you'd be shocked at how many of them are like, hey, I recommended this other person to you. Or I'll look them up and I'll go, oh, I noticed you're friends with this other person I've been trying to get. And they're like, yeah, would you like them? I can throw in a good word for you. So the guest booking has become a lot easier. Not just because people go, oh, well, you have celebrities on your show, it's easier for you to get other celebrities. They don't care about that. You know, you're dealing with publicists. The celebrities never go. And I want to be on Jordan's show. It's the publicist. And the publicist says, oh, this Jordan guy was really easy to work with. When I booked this, this author, this speaker, this scientist, this other random nobody, they were really easy to work with. So now that I'm representing Kobe Bryant, I'll ask Jordan if he wants to do it because he's not going to be a pain in the butt. And I know how to work with him. People aren't normally thinking that they just want, like, the latest big celebrity. So you have to really treat people like they have. You have to give without the expectation of anything in return and maintain relationships with all these publicists. And I'll tell you, man, and I've kept in touch with someone who's like an intern at Penguin Random House in the publicity department. And then like, three, four, five years later, they're like, yeah, so I'm managing the social media team for this sock company, and our spokesperson is Jay Z, and he's going to be doing a couple shows. And it's like, I'm the one that they brought up in the meeting because I was nice to them when they worked at Penguin getting coffee.

There it is.

So you have to do that. And as soon as you start turning relationships into transactional stuff, like, what can you do for me? You're screwed. Because 99.9% of people you meet are never going to be able to do anything for you. And you certainly don't know what they're going to be able to do for you later, because they don't even know. So if you're cool and you maintain relationships with them and you help them out with stuff, then when they do have something you're top of mind, it's really, really transparent. And there are a lot of these online influencers and folks like that that do this. They'll. Well, I hear about this through back channels. They're like, well, so and so asked me for this person, but screw that guy. He ignored everything I needed for two years, and now he found out that I represent so and so. So I'm never going to help them. And I'm just like, yeah, I'd love to have that guest. And you just don't. What's funny is they'll never tell you if you're doing it wrong, right? You'll never hear back, like, hey, candidly, you never answered my emails when I needed a job. So I'm not going to help you get this actor. They're never going to say that. It makes them sound petty and they don't owe you anything. So if you've been cool with them, they may tell you that. That's why. But usually I just find out secondhand because I'll get an email from Them that says something like, hey, fy, I remember talking with you three years ago when I worked at such and such and now I'm representing this person and you're like, well, of course that's why that happened. But if you, if you're on the outs, you don't know that the reason you didn't get something is because you were a jerk to that person three years ago. Because nobody wants to admit that. That right.

Yeah. And it's as simple as at the end of every email, phone call or whatever is just saying, hey, how else can I help you out? Or let's stay in touch or like you said, contactually. Maybe you can automate a little bit of this too. Wish them happy birthday every year, text them, I don't know, whatever. It could be little things like that keeps you top of mind. You never know what connection can come from that. That's rad. Let's want to be careful of time here, so let's wrap it up here. Your show, obviously, great things happening. In short, do you see anything, the future of that show? Do you have any interesting new directions that you're working towards or goals specifically?

I'm going to try to grab another 50 to 100,000 new listeners in 2020. It's going to be really, really tough. I'm trying some new strategies that haven't been tried at scale by me, but have been tried by other companies that have done it for like narrative form podcasts. So we'll see. It's going to be a big spend. But I'm at now where I can finally afford to invest in podcast growth. And I'm doing it in a way that's maybe a little bit, I don't know about controversial, but certainly not the usual way. Most people when they want to grow a show, they start building like their Instagram or their YouTube, like you guys are saying. I'm actually going to try via podcast ads in doing so in a big way. And I don't know if it's going to work, but I think that it should. I just think it's going to be expensive, but I think I'm going to end up with higher quality followers and fans that way. And that's just worth it to me to do that, you know.

Oh yeah, we've done a lot of that stuff. Probably not to the scale.

Well, we haven't actually had sponsorships on other people's podcasts yet.

That's true. We've been talking about that. But yeah, definitely platforms. There's ways to. Yeah, like advertising and where other podcast listeners hang out. I mean, that's the easiest way to grab folks, and you can definitely partner up or, you know, invest in that and get some good spikes.

Yeah, I know. I know. Dave Asprey, we had him on the show, and he was saying that he. He bought sponsorships on a whole bunch of podcasts, and that was a really, really big growth factor for his show. So.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. That's good to know.

Cool. So, like, there's. If there's a book that you'd recommend, one that you just can't not grab, say if your house was. This is playing this one out. But say your house on fire, What's. What's one book that you just got to grab? You can't let that thing go. Something that you'd recommend. Anyone else out there?

Yeah, that's. That's weird in the digital age because I'm like, just bring my phone, and I'll have 300 audible audiobooks. Not the point, Jordan. Not what we meant. You know, there. It's hard to recommend just one book to everyone, but I would say one that pops in my head a lot is extreme ownership, you know, with Jocko from Jocko Willing. And the reason is because. Because there's so many things that go wrong, and a lot of it is someone else's fault. Like, there's just no kind of other way to look at it. However, when you look at things like, what could I have done to avoid this situation? Doesn't mean it's your own fault. If you look at every problem like that, it's like, man, you can solve a lot of problems, and then it doesn't matter whose fault it is. Right? So you start looking at the things and taking extreme ownership, and you realize that that's the only way to kind of look at every problem, and you go, man, you know, I could have avoided a lot of crap that is actually someone else's fault, but who cares? Who cares if it's someone else's fault? You know? So I. I liked that book. And it's also full of war stories where Jocko's applied this stuff. And, like, Ramadi, you kind of can't put it down, you know, it's a good book, and it's got a lesson that makes sense.

Yeah, it's a great book. It's a great book. So the. The. The Jordan Harbinger show is the podcast. Everybody needs to check that out. Is there anywhere else you'd want people to go check you out after this any of your social media accounts you want to share or anything like that?

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Instagram and Twitter, but yeah, check out the Jordan Harbinger show and let me know what you think. Long format interviews. I do a lot less talking, I promise. So.

This is fun, man.

This is amazing. I. I feel like we probably could easily do another hour here just chatting about this stuff. And we didn't even really get into podcast marketing or branding and things like that. That I think would be fun discussions as well. So maybe they'll be around too in the future if you're open to it.

Sure.

Awesome, man. I appreciate you, man, and have a great one.

Thank you. Take care, guys.

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