Secrets of Successful Podcasts with Joe Fier

How do you start, grow and monetize a podcast? Well, today's guest has the answers to all of those. Joe Fear is one of the hosts of the wildly successful Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and today he shares all his secrets for starting a podcast, getting amazing guests, growing your listeners, and monetizing your show.

Welcome to the Affiliate Guy podcast. If you want to grow your income, serve your tribe, and enjoy all the benefits of affiliate marketing and having your own affiliate affiliates, you're in the right place. Thanks for joining me today. Let's get started.

So a lot of people ask me, how do you start a podcast? And then they start a podcast and then they ask, well, how do you, how do you grow it? You know, how do you, how do you get past those first few episodes? Like, hey, Matt, the first 10 or 12 episodes were easy because I, you know, it's kind of like a first album for a band. You know, it's a lot of times their first album is their 12, you know, 10, 12 songs they've been working on for seven years. Well, how do you follow that up 18 months later, two years with another album of 12 songs when you had seven, eight years to, you know, basically to write all the songs and work on them for that first album. So then they asked me, how do I grow it? How do I, how do I create content for it? How do I get guests? How do I get really good guests? So they do that. They grow it a little bit. You know, they got, you know, they get a few thousand people. They have, you know, a couple maybe all star guests and some other great guests. Well, now, how do I monetize it? Yeah, I get those questions so often and I share my experience and I'll actually do that at the end. I'll share a couple of little tips that we don't get to in this interview. I share my experience, I share my expertise, and I know a few pieces of this puzzle, you know, the monetization puzzle specifically. I know how to get really good guests like today's guests and some of the upcoming guests. I mean, Kali, you guys are in for some seriously awesome guests coming up. I've got interviews coming up with. Golly, Craig Ballantyne is going to be absolutely amazing. You guys just recently heard from Stu McLaren, Ryan Levesque. Just yesterday as I'm recording this, I interviewed Seth Godin, that's going to come out later this year, and some other just awesome guests. And I'm going to show you kind of at the end, one of the things that I do to get that. But today's guest, I mean, you are in for a treat. You are in for a treat because he's going to take what I could teach you and just take it to the next level. That's my goal here. I want to bring on. If there's an area where I'm not an expert, like, you know, really, I know how to podcast doing it right now. And we've had, you know, now we're well over. It took us, what, three years to get to a million downloads, and we'll be at 2 million probably within.

Four to five months. And that's with the slowdown from, you know, from the pandemic. Podcast listenership is down because people aren't commuting, and especially, you know, my audience and many of you, you listen to me on your commute. And so our listeners are down about 5% just because of that. And yet it's still. We're going to. We're going to hit a. It took us about three, almost three years, three months to a million downloads. It'll take us about a year, maybe 12 and a half, 13 months after that to hit 2 million. You know, how fast will we get to 3 million? I don't know. Probably in another eight to nine months after that. So clearly we've done something right. Yet I'm not an expert at it. Today's guest is Joe Fear. He's from the Hustle and Flow. Hustle and Flowchart podcast. I don't know why that word is always so hard for me to say. Flowchart. And he's going to share the playbook for starting a podcast, for getting amazing guests, for growing your listenership, for creating better content.

Like getting into a rhythm with your podcast. We've gotten into a rhythm Tuesdays, Fridays, Tuesdays Fridays, Tuesdays, Fridays, pretty consistently. And ultimately, we're going to talk about monetizing your show. And that's some of the stuff that he's going to share in this episode. He's going to share his perspective on those things, and it's a great perspective. I had an opportunity, you know, to hang out with Joe. I first met him through an exclusive mastermind down in South Florida. And first day I met him was at Rich Sheffrin's pool. And I had to spend 15. My gosh. It took us. I had to spend about half a day. We left at like 8:30 in the morning. And we got to. Where are we flying to? Fort Lauderdale. We got to Fort Lauderdale like 8:30 that night. By the Time we got to our hotel and got checked in, it was like 10:30, you know, it was late. So I had to spend a whole day, basically with all the delays and everything and changing airports and all that stuff, to be able to get the answer to the questions that I ask him. You don't have to do any of that. So I had to spend a whole day flying down to South Florida, and I had to fly all the way back to be able to meet with Joe to develop this relationship. You get the playbook today. You'll get it in about an hour, listening in the comfort of wherever the heck you're listening to. Pretty stinking cool, huh? So that said, he's going to share his playbook, like I said, how to start a podcast, getting those amazing guests, how to get more listeners and grow your podcast. Some all kinds of stuff that happens on the side, you know, with like Facebook groups and all that stuff. Just amazing stuff. How to monetize all today. So let's dive right in to my interview. Interview. Not my interview, my inner. I don't even know what that means. My interview with Joe Fear.

Joe, my friend, welcome.

Hey, buddy. How you doing, Matt?

I'm doing awesome. So I'm gonna share a little inside baseball behind the scenes stuff I've really never shared before. So we were talking beforehand and we'll reference some of the stuff that you shared privately with me. Because that's what we do on podcasts where we just take private conversations, make them public, and, you know, no one's listening, right? No, we're talking and we're already recording. Because I'm gonna tell you right now, if I don't remember to click record at the very be automated with zoom, I will forget. And I used to do that. I would record like entire interviews and then I'm like, hey, do you want to say everything you just said again? So there's this part where we have to be quiet for 10 seconds so that the podcast editor knows. Okay. That's where Matt and Joe started. You know, there's that silence. It shows on the thing that's like the most awkward. 10 seconds. It's only 10 seconds. It is such a blip on the radar. But I'm like, man, yeah, ever going to end.

It's radio silence. I mean, is there such a thing with podcast? And then we had the mics on, so we're just like. We don't look at each other during the 10 second. We're like, oh, no, I can't just look at you. Awkward. I Don't know what it is.

That came out wrong.

Anyway, I am funny looking. It's cool you can say.

Well, guys, you are in for a serious treat today. We're gonna talk about podcasting on a podcast, which is like deeply meta there. Yeah, it's like an artist doing a self portrait kind of. Nothing like that at all really. So real quick, I mean, Joe, I introduced you beforehand, but tell us, just tell us a little bit about your podcasting journey because I actually got to hear this recently. I sent you, I don't know if you remember, I sent you a text message. You were on a podcast with another friend of ours. Ironically, I'll be on their show day after tomorrow.

Nice.

And you got to share some of your journey. I just thought it was fascinating because it really showed me.

That you don't have to figure this all out at first and you don't have to know what the heck you're doing when you start. You just have to get started. So take us through a little bit of that journey and how you ended up where you are today.

Yeah, man, it's been an interesting journey. So it started. First podcast I had was in 2010. Believe it was with my co host, still co host, Matt Wolf.

You guys been together that long? Like podcast?

Yeah. Well that this one was short lived, so I'll talk about that. Yeah, we did a handful of them and we didn't have our stuff straight. Like we were just hacking it together and we. Yeah, we just wanted to really our intention was we just wanted to share the cool stuff we're learning. And these are the early days of our careers in digital marketing. And we would just like kind of regurgitate. Not regurgitate, but in our own words. Like here's what we learned about Tony from Tony Robbins or some or Frank Kern back in the day. And like, oh man, it was so cool. And we just wanted to share it. So that was like the, the motivation to get started. And we're in like Matt's. For some reason, we propped up our microphones on mattresses in his living room. I'm like, I don't know why we didn't just use a table. Soundproofing.

Soundproofing.

Ah, see, there was a science. And I didn't. Matt's the audio engineer brain. Yeah. So I was just, you know, I'm just coming up, Matt sets up all the tech stuff, so I have no clue what the heck we're doing. So that one was our first podcast, probably last like four episodes. And we did another one A couple years later, again, maybe 10 episodes. And those all flopped because of lack of systems, lack of consistency. We didn't batch record. There's so much stuff that we were just, we were just kind of doing it whenever we felt like it. You know, record a show, publish it. Maybe we publish a couple in a day. And that's not the way podcasting should be. It's not how broadcasting is run, you know. So yeah, Hustle and Flowchart is our current show and that's been going almost four years now. And that's, it's, it's the best thing we've ever added into our business for so many reasons. I mean, we can go on all day long about those, but yeah, and now we've just dialed in. I think there are a lot of this hacking stuff together and failing a lot. We've just learned along the way and we just slowly iterate piece by piece. And now, I mean people are just like, how have you been? Never missed a. We're two times a week now. It used to be a one time a week show. We haven't missed a beat. And we even had a daily show spin off for a little bit that didn't really. We didn't want to do a bunch of marketing there. So we actually just axed that a couple months ago, which is fine. That was just another test. That's how we roll podcast though. It was like a spin off shorts show of our longer form show. It was called Hustle and Blue Clips, basically. Or basically.

Yeah. It's kind of cool.

Yeah.

So like you said, if you're not gonna market it, then it's not gonna really take off.

Yeah, yeah. And that's fine. And yeah, that's it. That's a key thing around podcasting is we figured, oh, if we make it, they will come. And back in the day in itunes, definitely that was probably the case because they're, you know, you can pop into the charts of new and noteworthy pretty easily Back then and then the last like few years, Apple's just, just totally let it all go and we've learned a lot of insights and how Apple works and all these other platforms. So it's. Yeah, we just, we've just been diving in. So our big thing has always been a mix of digital marketing with podcasting and then affiliate marketing as well. So it's a cool trio.

We got a lot to talk about just based on what you said. I mean, I'm just gonna. We got systems, batch recording, we got content, something you mentioned there. Consistency I want to dive into how to grow listeners, how Apple works. Like that's all before we even get into the monetization with affiliate marketing. That's just based on your two minute story there. That's crazy. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about.

The content side. I want to hone in on something that you mentioned there, which is the consistency. My personal belief is that is without consistency, you know, everything else, the best marketing, the best content, the best interviews, the best, you know, whatever systems and all this stuff. Without the consistency, it really doesn't matter. How important has that been for you guys to have that consistency?

It's huge, man. And that's so the consistency for one, it's on our end. Like now we're setting up expectations to like, here's when we record and we have a schedule, a release calendar that's like six weeks, eight weeks out or so. By the time we record, we know when it's going live and how, you know, like how that falls in the sequence. And we have a whole plan now. And it all started from consistency. Knowing that people want to expect something that they're subscribing to if they're going to dedicate time with us, which, you know, we're an hour long show on average. I mean, that's a lot of time people are dedicating per week. That's two hours a week for us and tons of people dedicate that. So we want to make sure that we're showing up on every Tuesday and Thursday for them because, you know, they're donating their time to us in a way, you know, and then going down the rabbit hole with us and you know, that's. We see them like we're serving them. And we talk about like the motivations behind a podcast too, because those have definitely shifted over the years. But yeah, consistency, just like think of your favorite TV show, you know, I used to love the Simpsons, you know, as a kid growing up. And it's like, I don't know what it was. It was like 7 o' clock on Wednesdays or something. It's like I was frickin riled up, man. As that kid from school, I'd have it in my brain. I'm like, new episode tonight, gonna see Homer do some dumb stuff. And yeah, and that's just like, you gotta think of it like it's a bro. You are the Brock. Like we are the media now, you know, in these little niches. So we got to act like it. And it wasn't until this current show that we actually, you know, put our big boy pants on and actually figured out some systems and organized.

You guys wear pants?

Not today, actually. I have no pants on as a broadcaster, you know, you look. I have something on. Yeah. Camera's not going lower.

I'm usually. I mean, most people don't realize this. Like, it's comical when I'm doing, like, a live stream to a certain audience where I'll wear a dress shirt or like a collared, you know, like a golf shirt type thing. I'm still wearing gym shorts, of course.

I mean, yeah, I'm pretty much always. I'm in San Diego, man.

Yeah. I wear the same thing in the office every day. It is a T shirt, gym shorts, and flip flops.

You know, So I was going to say I don't normally ever wear shoes in the winter. That's the other thing. Yeah, I just like. I'm out of the house. I'm on a little padded floor. I'm like, I'm not wearing shoes. Why shoes?

I'm floating on a cloud of carpet right now. Part for soundproofing, but also just because it feels good in the office. I'm on a. On a carpet that's like that thick. Plus one of those, you know, those standing pads.

Yeah, that's what I'm on now.

So I'm usually either barefoot or in flip flops, you know.

That's what I got out of that, by the way. Everything you just said, I got you now. Wear pants when you.

Super valuable.

Yeah. So there's our first tip. Wear pants always. How do you guys keep up with the. I want to talk about that. So all of your episodes almost are interviews now, or is that okay? Do you ever do just the two of you? I haven't heard one in forever, but it's okay.

So we. Yeah, you're right. Lately, we've been barraged with amazing people that want to be on our show, and it's hard to say no to.

People who looks like you on your show. Please.

I blame you. Yeah, exactly. But we have these occasionally, and we got to do it more. We were shooting for about once a month, we have this thing called a therapy session, which is just. Yep. And it's just Matt and I basically just riffing on the good stuff, the bad stuff. I mean, I go super personal. Matt does, too. I talked about losing my father last year to suicide, and it's just like, you know, I'm just gonna put it all out there, man, and. Cause it's all learning lessons you know, and it wasn't, we weren't comfortable in doing that from the beginning. And like, we definitely have found our voice, like our own voice, and we're just going to act like us. So those episodes are like the true us that people get to see. And it's, you know, the fans are actually the ones that demanded that too, which is really cool. So I think most, most people should consider, if you have a podcast, consider those, those solo episodes or duo episodes in our case, because it's, it's a whole different kind of character coming out.

Yeah, so you mentioned that now you're getting people just coming. You'll never run out of interviews, like good quality interviews. They're coming to you, they're being referred by other people. Like it's easy to talk about that. Like, oh yeah, the way to get interviews is, you know, you interview Jay Abraham and he introduces you to 28 people. Right. Roland Frazier and he introduces you 30 people. Okay. For everyone out there who doesn't know Jay Abraham or Roland Frazier, who are both two new acquaintances of mine, I've only known either one of them for about six months.

How do you get interviews? Like those first 20 or 30 interviews. And you guys, you know, you won't take offense when I say this. You guys were nobodies, you know, most of the people you're reaching out to. How did you get Those first, like 20 or 30 to build a little bit of that momentum?

Yeah, no, it's a great question. And this is the. One of the most common things that people struggle with when starting a podcast is we started with our network. So fortunately we, we did have a following internally with, with a, with an email list. Luckily, mat been my co host has always been more of that kind of side of the business where I was much more of a one to one kind of guy networking and doing client work with folks. So fortunately I actually was able to grow a really good foundational. Like a lot of people in the IM space, I was doing product launches with their. I was doing the VSLs with slides and keynotes and all that stuff. Kind of the Andy Jenkins style. Back in the day with Video Boss, I basically did that on a micro level and just grew the network that way. So we were able to pull people from both of those sides of our businesses because we weren't always partners throughout this whole thing. Matt and I, we kind of pop in and out, but we just combined both of our networks into this thing, invited our buddies on there and from there. Yeah. Then it turned into, hey, who do you know or how can we help you? How can we serve you? And then we're always trying to keep that relationship alive. Even if it wasn't a super tight relationship, it was enough to get them on the show. We knew that they had a network that we would love to be introduced to as well. And it's just kind of snowballed. And you mentioned Roland wasn't until last year, maybe early last year, he was like, hey, make a list of 100 people for me. And it's the dream 100 thing. And yeah, I was in a mastermind with him. We have these informal things every couple months in San Diego. And he was like, alright, so you know, I know a lot of people and I like you. You should make this list and send it to me. So I did. Next day, he introduced me to like 25 people in his network. Jesus. Okay, well, there goes my day. It's a great thing. And we got almost all of them on the show and some of them, you know, that's. And now I've made kind of like a little automated system on back of that whole thing.

Yeah.

Because you guys.

So I, you know, I came. We met through Rich Sheffrin.

Mm.

We met down at. We were hanging out in Florida. Hey, you know, I should be on your show. Yes, you should. We should be on each other's shows. Let's do that. That's why y' all are hearing this today. And I get this email and I'm not sure if it was from you or from Matt. And at the bottom it says like something like, you know, do you know any of these people? Or something like that. I forget exactly what it says. And it's just, you know, I'm on G Suite, just like you guys. And so in G Suite, it comes as an attachment. It's just a Google sheet. And I'm like, well, I don't know. Do I know any of these people? You know, it's our. It says like, do you know any of our dream 100? If so, we'd appreciate an intro. And here's the thing I want to point out from my perspective. I don't know if you guys did this on purpose. It's kind of like when somebody says, have you ever taken the Wonderlic test? Or have you ever taken one? Like, you know, we're in the middle of Ryan Levesque launches. We're promoting this. And the quizzes are the big thing. Right? And like, it's almost like the. Well, which. Which superhero?

Really? Am I right? Curiosity man, am I, am I, in.

Fact, am I Superman? You know, like, like I'm a grown man. I'm almost 41 years old as of this recording, and I still want to know if I'm Superman. So here's the thing I'll point out is when I got that email, this is. It's such a simple thing that you guys did, is not complicated. I had to click on that. And I'll tell you, from my perspective, I think I introduced you to like two people, you know, because there's only two people on there left that I knew. Everybody else was like, they're not, I don't know.

Oprah, Oprah. Yeah.

I do not know Elon Musk, you know, but I was like, I'm not going to mention their names, but I knew two people and I. And I shot those intros. I had to look and if I saw somebody, I had to introduce you because it was like an affirmation of my own worth. And it's 41 years old.

Yeah.

Doing that crap. So explain that system how that came about because this is. Guys, I just want to say that this is the way to get podcast guests. Once you start getting just a tiny bit of momentum, once you start getting that little bit of momentum, this is the perfect way to do it.

Yeah, man. Now you, you, you said it. That was the exact emotion I was trying to. To get out of folks who read my emails.

So well done, because.

Yeah. And I stumbled upon. It wasn't like all masterful plan, but I noticed the way I. So I made that list for Roland in Google Sheets. And like you said, we use G Suite for all of our emails. And I attached that sheet to, I think like, you know, email to him. And then some other people just that were curious, like, hey, who do you want to get introduced to? So I started plugging it into thank you emails of guests that we've had on the show. So basically all the follow ups are always going to say like, hey, we're always happy to introduce people to you from our network. Any shows you want to go on and check out our Dream 100 list, maybe you know someone. And I started to realize, or maybe someone pointed out to me, hey, that's an attachment. That's interesting. Like, did you attach that? I'm like, no. And then I went back to my sent emails. I was like, interesting. And I noticed it was always just the first email. It wasn't every single email. So it's not going to berate them every time, but it's always the initial either send or reply to an email. And yeah, so I take that dream 100 Google Sheet link and plug it into my footer or my signature of the email in G suite and wrote pretty much exactly what you said. Hey, check out our dream 100 in like parentheses. Do you know anyone? Question mark. And that just links directly to that sheet. No fancy redirects or anything like that. I have tried the redirect thing before. So we can like retarget people and doesn't work. But I'm sure there's a way to do it. We're always experimenting, weird stuff like that. But yeah, and then it attaches to the email as a. It looks like an attachment, but it's just that curiosity thing. And no joke, it's probably twice a week I get people saying just from course of sending normal emails, not even trying. And you mentioned momentum. I mean, honestly, you don't even need to have momentum on the show. You can just start sending emails with this list of people that you'd love to have on your show. Or maybe it's podcast you want a guest on. You can do that as well. You could spin it from the other side or really anything you want in life if you want to get connected with people. Just, I mean, like, you never know what your accountant, your bookkeeper, your whoever knows someone or someone related. Like, that's the thing. They might not always say, like, hey, I know Oprah, but I know this Oprah like, person that also has a lot of credibility and, you know, you know, clout. I'll introduce you to her or him, and it's like, cool. Okay, thanks.

Yeah, they're looking for that. Because if I didn't know anybody on that sheet, I probably would have just come up with one or two people.

Exactly. You know, like, get your mind working.

Yeah. Do you know so and so. And the cool thing, I think Matt mentioned this when. When I was on your. I don't remember where I heard Matt say this. It might have even been you. But he said that, like, one of the cool things is you end up getting introduced to people you never would have thought of. You mentioned an accountant there, and immediately I was thinking, you know, my accountant would be a great podcast guest, not only for my show, but I should introduce you to my accountant. Because I'm not saying you would. You would name. Because you maybe have somebody else, but, like, the way his mind works for entrepreneurs, because that's who. That's. Only people he works with are entrepreneurs, like, in the way that his mind works and like, the things I have learned from him about basically how to pay less taxes is mind blowing. And, you know, we can focus on, like, Facebook strategy and podcasting strategy, all that. At the end of the day, if you can lower your taxes by 15%, that's about as good as running a really successful Facebook ad campaign. And it takes like 20 seconds, you know, like, it's literally like the. Some of the stuff he's told me, like, hey, yeah, just move this money from here to there, and it'll save you $7,000. I'm like, really?

Okay, that's 7,000 less. I gotta either pay or earn somehow.

And it's like, oh, that's all we have to do. Like, it would make $7,000 from Facebook ads. Would take, like, if you're starting from scratch, would take months of beating your head against the wall until you. So just, you know, those are the type of things that you get from that sheet. I love that. I love that. I love that. So.

I know that one of the hidden connections that you've gotten. One of our hidden benefits. Sorry, that you've gotten from podcasting is those connections. Yeah, I want to talk about some of those. Like, the hidden benefits of podcasting. I'm gonna see if we're in alignment there. And if maybe if you don't share, you know, some of mine, I'll. I might throw in one. But I know that's been one, obviously, like, you know, the fact, friends with these people. What are some of the other maybe benefits that people just don't think about when it comes to podcasting, Especially your format where you're doing interviews.

Yeah, our format. So the network is actually the reason why. Okay. So it goes back to the intention of the podcast. So we knew networking would be a great thing. It's like a scalable network because we used to travel around all the time when we were starting a business, going to conferences and stuff, which is great. Spend most of the time at the bar and not actually go into the conference because of better networking at the bar. So we do that.

They send you the replay of the session.

Exactly.

I mean, I love traffic and conversion and I know all those guys that run it, but guess what? I spend most of the time in the bar.

That's a little tip. You should spend time in the halls.

Yes.

In the bars, sitting, just talking to people, one on one. Or in small groups. You'll get the recordings of the sessions.

Yeah.

My rule of thumb is if there's somebody that I particularly care about, like, have a Relationship with. I'll go in and heckle them.

Yeah, man.

I'll go in and support them. I'll stand on chairs and yell loudly for them and be obnoxious.

Exactly. Make them feel great. And then like, I got stuff to do now. I gotta go. So, I mean, the networking thing has always been a huge motivation, but really, if you think about it, if you can cherry pick the types of guests you want on the show, and this is what we did for a lot at the beginning of the show is we want a kind of free consultation in it. We wanted to be very, you know, kind of just Jesus. The words I'm looking for is essentially we just wanted people to teach us and then give them a platform. And I know that sounds selfish. That's the word I was looking for. So we wanted to be very selfish around, you know, what we wanted to learn and from who. But then from there it progressed in. We started to realize, well, that got us to get really curious around the topic because we were genuinely interested in that topic. So it made for great episodes for the listeners. And now we're just totally. We tell people, like, yeah, a lot of times, almost always we are selfish in some respect. That allows us to dive deeper, which is why people love the show. And I know you do the same exact thing. Most good podcasters that have longevity, look at, like, Joe Rogan. He's curious. Like, if you are a curious person, you can have, you know, however many shows he has now, it's in the thousand, you know, seventeen hundred or something. I don't know what it is, but it's a lot. And that's how you can keep the momentum going with these things. Make the show that you want to make, really at the end of the day when you're starting out. So networking, that's great. Onto the monetization side, we're just noticing right now affiliate opportunities are great, but now we're starting to get approached as, you know, becoming partners in a lot of different companies as advisors or just like a royalty or rev share type partnership. A lot of the guys, like, guys like Jay, Abraham, Roland, we're starting to do business with them on a tighter relationship. And we've been doing that, you know, on multiple projects. Rich Sheffrin as well, you mentioned Rich. We're helping him launch his podcast and that's why we even got invited to his launch, is because we were helping him get on shows. And that all came from a connection through Mars Burden. And I've known him for seven years or something like that, and that's. It's just this interesting web of relationships. And if you can kind of harness that with an outcome and then be open to new outcomes, things can happen like that. Very interesting. Another benefit is top of mind this. Like, in this relationship with your listener, you're only talking to one person. Typically in a podcast, one singular listener. It's not like a Facebook ad where people are, you know, attention scattered and they're scrolling and watching a video or a YouTube video where a group of people in that, you know, a house might be watching together. This is a very intimate one to one thing. Or maybe it's not one to one. You know, it's two. Two of us talking, but they're kind of just like over here in this really interesting conversation, they're sticking with it. I always think of, like, the party analogy. It's like, hey, we might be having a really cool conversation. And then like a couple people start to crowd around, or like one single person, like, oh, it's interesting. I like what you're talking about. What do you think about? You know, obviously there's not really the back and forthness with podcasting, but I'm always kind of thinking of, like, who are the other people overhearing our conversation and, you know, kind of serving ourselves. But also it's like, hey, yeah, this could be kind of fun. If we just start talking about riffing on some cool stuff, more people will come. And so really from there, if you think about it, if you have a product or service or something after the fact, people are warmed up into how you talk into your personality. The trust factor is already, like, super high. If they're listening to a bunch of podcast episodes, when you offer them some next step, like, join our Facebook group, join our email list, and get this freebie of something. It's. You're gonna get, probably from our experience, the best qualified leads that will take an action to the next step after that and become a buyer that then leads to a raving fan. I mean, it's this whole web that kind of is created with the podcast.

Yeah, I've heard the statistics that say, and we'll talk about monetization in a moment, but I've heard the statistics that say, like podcast listeners or something like 170 times the. Basically the lifetime value of a podcast listener compared to other ways that they come into your EcoSystem, they spend 170% more money.

I believe it.

You said it's that intimacy. When I think about when I listen to a podcast.

I'm usually doing Something very passive that doesn't require a whole lot of brain power.

Mowing the yard, I'm shaving. You know, something like that. I'm. You know, I'm doing the dishes. Like, it's very mundane, not really taxing on my brain. So I'm genuinely listening. And I remember stuff that I heard in podcasts, like, totally irrelevant stuff, because I'm a history buff, so I listen to a lot of history podcasts. I know more about the first English Revolution than, you know, Civil War than you could possibly imagine. And there certainly no purpose.

Sure.

But.

I don't remember the YouTube videos that I've watched. Like, I'm entertained. I have no idea what I watched, you know, because again, like, other things, you know, I'm not. Usually, I'm not listening to a podcast while also, in fact, I make a habit. If I need to look something up, I pause the podcast. That's how much I'm into the podcast. I don't do that with YouTube videos. If I have to go to the bathroom, I go to the bathroom. I come back, I missed 45 seconds of it.

Good point, man. Yeah.

Okay, so I want to highlight something, though, that you said. Of course, Sales, notoriety, you know, ranking high. You said something. You said you get free consulting.

Yeah.

And that's something a lot of people don't think about. In fact, we're going to go into the free consulting phase of this podcast episode. I'm going to get some free consulting from you.

Now.

The beauty is we have a relationship where I could just be like, hey, dude, can we talk for 20 minutes? And you could share this with me, but a lot of my guests. I just had Mike Michalowicz on. I don't know Mike.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm. There's a pretty decent chance we're probably never really going to connect outside of a business relationship. And I'm never gonna be like, hey, I'm having this problem in my business. Can you help me? No, it was strictly, like, talk. But I got free consulting for half an hour. I mean, it's the best thing in the world. We did one the other day. I'll share this last. And I mentioned Ryan Levesque earlier. We're talking as a team. Like, hey, we got to make, you know, we got to create our quiz funnel. Boom, boom, boom. And, like, you know, what do we do? And Robbie's like, dude, you're interviewing him tomorrow. Just ask him how to do hours on the interview. You know, oh, how do you publish a book? Just ask the guy you're interviewing about publishing a book. So that's kind of cool. So let's talk about growing listeners. And you mentioned something earlier about how Apple works and those tie in together. So tell me how to get more listeners.

Yeah, yeah, listeners. That's the age long thing of like. So we've always looked for the silver bullet or the magic bullet of this thing. And it's not as. Yeah, there's really not one, unfortunately. But you could do, you could kind of figure out the scattershot and then do the whole 80, 20 analysis and kind of start honing in on what works. Podcast guesting has been great for us and we have a philosophy of kind of how we do that. And so I would say podcast guesting is going to get your more quality listeners. I think the mind shift that needs to be done for a lot of folks is they want more, more and more. And we've been like this for. And we still. You always want the higher numbers. You want to keep growing and all that, but at the same time, think about the quality of folks that you want. You want subscribers, the people that will take action to lead to the next step. You don't want just a passive listener or onesie twosie listener and then they're out. You want someone that's gonna help you share the show, be an evangelist of your brand, become a fan, and then, you know, grow your email list, join that, go buy something, go join your Facebook group. And you know, all of these are just layers of more commitment that they're taking with you. So you're not gonna, you know, we've tried like paid traffic on all different sorts of things. Like things like you can advertise on a lot of the podcast players. Overcast is one of them. They have an open ads area that you can check out pricing. And Spotify just released some ads, some new ways that you can basically promote your podcast. It's still very kind of broad, but they're pretty inexpensive. We're just starting some there. We're chatting with some of the podcast folks who know about that. Spotify is a good opportunity right now to target certain people. I forget all the different targets that you can do there, but it's not like Facebook ads quite yet.

Sure.

But that's a great way to think about it. There's a lot of. I forget some. There's just a lot of. If you think of the podcast apps, they typically have some visibility thing that you can ask them. Like that's what we do. Actually. A lot of the Times is like, we don't see it publicly on the website. We're reaching out to someone on their team to try to like, hey, how can we get more visibility on your podcast listening platform? Could be just, we might have to pay for it. Sometimes they just do it because we asked and they'll put us at the top of a feature and a category for the month because that's kind of something they just do and you're not going to know until you ask. So we're constantly doing that. A couple other strategies. So I mentioned paid ads. We'll run some Google Ads to say, like, here are the best business podcasts in 2020. And we actually have a blog post attached to that link or to the ad. It'll take them to our website where it's like a list of 10 podcasts. Ours happens to be number one.

But we're just targeting people I know who did it. But we're legitimately curating the other podcasts we also like. And so that's a way to bring in people who are relevant. And so a lot of those types of things, we're constantly getting our podcast guests to share and giving them all the assets needed to make them look like the star, not us. So it's all this kind of ego baiting play. We have a guy on our team, Jacob, who's constantly making new multimedia type assets, video, audiograms, videos, images, quote cards. So every time someone's episode goes live, today was one of them. I forget who went live, but I'll check it out later and I'll send him an email with these things. And more often than not, Brian was one of them. Actually Levesque, just last week, him and Elliot, you know, Elliot, you know, they're like, oh man, this is freaking awesome. We'll share it around. Like, yeah, I know it's crazy with launch time. I don't expect you to do it now, but like, we'll queue it up. You know, it's like these people will do it. Jay Abraham, you mentioned him, he was on our show and he ended up in. If you can get them to verbally kind of commit when they're on the show, or at least in the course of conversation, it's kind of locking it in their brain. So it's usually a passive ask that we do after we're done recording. It's not like we're not gonna ask him on the spot. Like, you gonna share this thing before I let it go?

Joe, will you please make sure to share this episode with your Yeah, I.

Want it on recording.

Awkward, but sure.

Yeah. Way to strong arm me. Good luck getting more guests.

I mean, you mentioned that strategy there, Joe. That's a great point, because when I was on your show, I mean, we shared it. I think we did one or two Facebook posts, and probably, like, literally, we scheduled, like, a hundred tweets, you know, to go out over the course of, like, it goes. They go over the course of a year.

Sure.

It's a strategy I learned from Jeff Bullis, who gave me a free. It's literally the episode that went live the day that we're recording this, actually today.

Nice.

That was one of the strategies I got from him, you know, was how to, you know, use Twitter better and say, we've got, like, probably, like, a hundred tweets. It'll go out like, every, you know, 11 days over the course of eternity, it seems, you know? Anyway, why did I do that? Well, yeah, no, why. Why would I do that? Why would I promote your podcast? Because it makes me look good again. It's just like that. It's just you were talking the same stuff or the same language. Just like the Dream 100. I knew when I introduced you it made me look good. Now, don't. Does that doesn't make me weird. That makes me a human being. And if you don't think you're like that, then you're lying to yourself. You're delusional, because everybody is like that. You know, we all want to look good. It's. You know, every time I think of that, I always think of Chris Farley walking by the pool and Tommy Boy, you know where the gym is?

Yeah. I mean, it's the same kind of boy.

Little coat. Yeah.

Bad guy. Oh, Jesus.

I'm have to insert a clip there of that.

Please do.

Anyway, so the point is, it made me look good. Like, hey, look at me. I was on the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Oh, and by the way, when you go there, you'll see also that recently they interviewed Jay Abraham and Rich Sheffern, you know, Roland Frazier and all these, like, amazing people. And. And me, you know, me, I'm associated with those guys. That's the beauty of it. That's one of the ways that you grow your podcast is having those guests on. And I found that actually, the ones who tend to get the best results are kind of those. They're not the, like, A plus listers, and they're certainly. They're not, you know, the people that don't have any audience.

Right.

Like, the B plus and the A minus people, because they're just big enough, you know, they have, like, you know, 40,000 people, 20,000 people, but they're so excited, and they share it like crazy. Or they scan hustling.

Yeah, you're right. Well, what's interesting, and just to loop back to Jay really quick, he was on our podcast, and, yeah. He said, hey, tell me when this thing goes live, and you know how my team queue some stuff up. Well, it wasn't until, like, a month later, we noticed on his ultimate entrepreneur podcast, he actually put our entire interview into his podcast. And I was like, whoa. And then he started tweeting all about it. Yes, he directed it to his show. But that's fine, you know, like, now we got inserted into his entire news and, you know, his subscriber feed and all that, which we're like, dude, that's even cooler. Like, so it's interesting you say, like, because it's totally true what you said, but we're actually noticing, like, the A listers, A plus listers, all that are almost willing to go and do some really cool stuff that are. And it's not across the board, but. Yeah, man, I mean, you'd be surprised. And it's. It's. They sometimes are more creative with how they do it as well.

That's awesome. Yeah, we do that. We do that once a quarter. We take an interview that I did and just plug it into the feed.

Yeah.

Number one reason is I don't have to create a new podcast.

Right. And I'm sure that was the case for him too, but that's fine.

Like, this whole interview has been full of, like, ulterior motives. Like, why do I do this? I get free consulting. I don't really care if anybody listens or not. I totally do. And if you're listening, I love you.

Okay, so anything else before we finish up? Growing, growing listeners.

You cover a lot there, but we have so many. We literally have, like, a presentation of, like, I mean, I don't know how many.

Give us one more tip for growing, growing listeners.

So we do contests. Contests, like, maybe once a quarter or so. And we'll. And we're not doing crazy contests. Like, it's literally just a Facebook post. And we used to get all elaborate with it. Like, put your screenshot in that you subscribe to the show, and then we'll put you in this drawing to win a pair of Bose headphones or something like that. And that's great and all, but, like, you could do that, and you probably don't even need to give away something that costs money. Give away your products or something that has to be relevant to the thing. Like yeah, we've given away other stuff but it's just like eh, you're usually going to get some people that are probably not the best fit for, for the podcast because you're trying to grow the podcast. So on these contests we'll always prompt them to subscribe to the show, leave a rating and then leave a comment on this Facebook post. And then from there we basically pick them at random. We'll put them in a little randomizer thing and then we're like, ah, Jim, cool, you just won this thing. And so contests, I mean you could do that just on your Facebook wall. We do it in our group and you know, right there you're gonna get the most loyal people who are down to do a little, little work for you. But with subscribing from back to Apple really quick, that's the best thing you can possibly do in terms of everything that's public is to just get a subscriber on Apple. Ratings and reviews don't really do anything. They're more like a vanity thing for you. Vanity metric. But to get a subscriber, that's where you start seeing the momentum climb and get you more exposure in the charts. You don't need a lot. You can just get like 10 people in a, you know, maybe a couple days span of time and you could really jump up pretty quick. So it's kind of like the velocity of subscribers in a period of time. So if you can do that, you know, plan maybe a monthly contest or something that's pretty consistent with that in mind to get higher up on Apple. Of course, you know, you have all these other platforms, it doesn't really affect those. But still people are looking at Apple as it's kind of the big dog, even though it's gonna be Spotify very soon.

But I think. So we're not gonna talk about podcast trends. We'll have to have you on again to talk about that because I'm sure I shared. I think I got that from you guys. Yeah, it was in Speak. Okay, let's talk about your Facebook community. Actually, we'll go there for just a second because we're gonna go from the podcast to social media. We'll tie that in. But matter you shared something in the face in the Hustle and Flowchart Facebook community that I then took and posted in about four other places and look like a total genius for doing so. Like All I did was have that post, you know.

Yeah. And it was about Joe Rogan, you know, going exclusive with Spotify, which is, I mean, massive news in the podcasting.

Huge.

Instantly, they're gonna roughly probably increase their market share by 50 to 100% in the podcast space. So Apple will still be way ahead, and it's probably gonna be that way for a few years.

I mean, that's probably a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, it's just like anybody who had a big lead in the business world, it takes time. So let's talk about that Facebook community. I mean, first of all, why a Facebook group? And then maybe the second question on that is, you know, what if. What are some of the benefits you've seen from. From that group?

Yeah, man. So the. I got to give a shout out to our mutual buddy as well, who was out in Florida with us, Molly Mahoney. She was the one that basically told us, you guys got your brand all screwed up, man. Like, we had the. It was called the Evergreen profits community, the Facebook group. So we had this existing thing that was going on, this Facebook group that we weren't. We were just letting it die, to be honest. We had no motive behind it, no strategy. It was just kind of like a catch all for our customers, more or less, and our subscribers, if they happen to look it up in Google or Facebook. So she's like, okay, make that synced up with your hustle and Flowchart podcast, like, just direct people there and make the branding all tight and make it all same colors, same header graphic, all that stuff. So we're like, okay, thank you, Molly. We'll do that. And we started basically putting little calls to action inside the podcast. We made a little redirect, it's called flowchartgroup.com and that basically redirects to join the Facebook group. Now in the Facebook group, we ask them, I think, a few questions, but definitely we're asking for their email address and we're telling them straight up, you will go on an email list, but we're gonna send you really cool stuff all the time. And then we ask them like, hey, so what's your big business struggle or thing you're trying to get overcome?

Iq.

Yeah. And then basically, are you already getting the companions? I think we asked them if you're a listener or something like that. But so we're just like small data points. 80%, 80 plus percent actually put in their email address with that call to action, just Facebook group. So of course we're piping that Name over into activecampaigns. So they're joining our list at the same time.

There's no automated way to do that. Right? It's manual, isn't it?

So we're doing it manual right now. There are these tools that basically will add them to a spreadsheet with through Zapier and then. But there's still, I think a manual process where you literally have to hit the button to pipe them in.

Is it worth it? You just got a subscriber.

I know it is. So we have a guy on our team, that guy Jacob. He's the one that like pushes that stuff over once a day and dude, oh my God. And we do that for multiple groups. We have some affiliate groups too. I mean they're growing our list every single day. There are a lot of organic people that come through, but mainly coming from the show. It's just a simple call to action. We just pipe out in the beginning and sometimes throughout. Hey, you want to be in this community that's totally free. There's no skin off your back. You can hang out with the different guests we've had on the show, chat with us. We're always hanging in there, sharing cool stuff. And then you can just chat with the other listeners that you might not have known before. And now it's a great way to connect and it's this cool melting pot.

It's a no brainer call to action. It's probably easier, better than sending them to an opt in form.

And then at the end of the day that now has become a lot more engaged than our Facebook or our email list. It's about on par. So we're able to throw in things like Mike Phil Sames groove pages for instance. He has a free offer. So we put that in there and I think it's made close to 4,000 bucks so far from us. Just like a post. Just like in the group. No special fancy bells and whistles. We're like, yeah, that was easy.

That's so awesome. I love that. I mean I love the idea. And you're using it to grow your email list. Of course. Because we're so. I'm sorry. I'm trying to make sure this cord connected to my computer doesn't drag my computer onto the ground. I'm like, why is my computer moving?

It's grown legs. It hates me. It's out.

Okay. Guess this relationship is ending.

Terminator.

Anyway, so I don't know where I was going with that, but yeah, oh yeah. You know, you're using it to grow your email list, which is, of course, important, but, you know, doing it through Facebook groups. So being that this is the affiliate guy podcast.

We'Ve talked about creating content and getting, you know, the consistency, getting guests, the benefits of podcasts. And we've talked about so much, like, how to get. I said how to get interviews and the Dream 100, like, how to grow your listeners and how Apple works and all that stuff. I mean, there, like, so many good things. But let's talk about the nuts and bolts now, because there's a stat you shared before we went live that didn't surprise me, but was just. Was. It's one of those things, like, can it be shocking without being surprising? You know, it's disturbing without being surprising. And you said less than 5% of podcasts actually make any money. I didn't say make enough to pay for, you know, the hosting. You didn't say make enough to make it worth their time where they can make the equivalent of minimum wage.

Right. Zero.

They'd even make, like a dollar in a month. And it's. It's less than 5%.

Out of a.

Thousand people we surveyed. Yeah.

Let's talk about how do we monetize? Because you guys are. I mean, it's. Right now, at least it's virtually 100% affiliate marketing. I mean, that's what people want to hear right now. You know, like, give us your affiliate marketing podcasting playbook.

Yeah, man. Might as well do this.

At the end of this, you're gonna give us a playbook.

But we do.

Let's talk about how you monetize with affiliate marketing.

Yeah, man. So it's. So our podcast is. That's gonna be the discoverable. Like, that's the first touch. Usually for people, it's the most consistent touch other than email that they get from us and then maybe the Facebook group. But that comes later. But yeah. So we're basically bringing in the types of guests that are. That are going to sync up with the needs of the listener, of course. And then sometimes. Or like in Ryan Levesque's case, actually, he's an affiliate partner. There was a reason why we brought him in around the time of his launch, and we synced up the episode to drop right when this beginning of the launch syncs up. So that's one way to do it. We don't always do that, but you can definitely time your guests with some promotion that's going around. We do that with books all the time. I know you mentioned Mike Michalowicz. I'M sure that was probably part of his new book coming out. And it is.

And that's a good way, by the way, to get guests. But yeah, it was all about.

There it is. And we've had him on the show. He did that with Clockwork, with us. And ironically, just to close that loop, the way that we found Mike and he bought thrivecart from us as like we were the affiliate. I was looking through my transactions, I was like, mike Michalowicz, what the. And I literally reached. Huh.

Isn't that fun though? When I don't pay attention to Iris. But every now and again I don't.

Either get a message like, hey, I.

Bought through your link. Can you go check? And I'm like, sure. And I'll go in and I'll see our orders. And I'm like, oh my gosh. That like that person.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow, cool.

I mean, that. That literally was me just randomly looking through transactions. Saw Mike's name and I saw his email. I'm like, I'm gonna shoot him a message. So I did. And it was probably a loom video because I always try to put my face to it. And that turned into. I was like, hey, I'll help you guys set this thing up. Like, you're awesome, man. Been reading your. Love your stuff. So that led to him on our show and then us on his show and profit first and then. Yeah, it's really cool. And then we got a cool testimonial out of them. It's like, we're the best affiliates ever. I'm like, hahaha. So cool.

Side tangent. But the. Yeah, so you could sync it up with guests. And that's a great way to get guests on your show if you want as well, because you have a platform and numbers aren't public. On podcasting, you can kind of see rankings, but no one sees your download numbers. People aren't really going to ask typically, you know, a guest. So don't feel shy about asking. That's typically the bottleneck. It's like, how do you get that guy? Well, I asked. Sorry. That guy. Just ask. You have no skin. Skin off your back.

Like promoting their products on podcasts, like talking about them, I shared earlier.

That's right. Yeah. So I mean, our whole thing with the affiliate side. So we have a newsletter that's probably the most obvious monetization path from our podcast. And trust me, this lines into affiliate marketing. So we have the EGP newsletter that is like a Cliff Notes version of our podcast. Once a month, we Send that out to folks. It's like eight episodes we package up. But in that we're constantly talking about the tools and the resources and all the cool stuff that relates to someone's episode. And those are going out to our best buyers. The people that are watching us as close as possible. These are our fans that are paying, you know, 15 bucks a month for this thing. So it's dumb cheap. It's like super, super cheap. Low barrier. It's basically just cost. But we know once we have this pool of engaged people who are super fans, they're not only covering our cost for the print and our time and the people doing the show, but now that's a pool of people we can show offers to on our email list within the newsletter with inserts, with links. We have a whole membership site that we then have a lot of folks will come in and do like a round two with us or maybe some visuals. Typically there's an affiliate option for a link or something to a resource of theirs. So we try to, we look at all these like pools that, you know, the Facebook group's another one I mentioned that, that done really well with like a Justin Brooke free book offer which paid us, was it $50 CPA or something like that? So it's like.

There'S all these different ways that you can kind of use these buckets of audiences. And we just constantly were thinking, okay, so what's a good offer to this pool? Or what's relevant to this episode? And that's how we're monetizing. We have sponsorships and all that stuff. That's just kind of like a different type of affiliate play in a way.

Sure.

But yeah, I mean that's how we're thinking of things. And it's just, it's the whole customer or listener journey. It's just like a customer journey. It's like, okay, so what are the needs of where they're at right now? Oh, this syncs up well. Boom. Let's give them a really cool resource and make some good content around it. So it's kind of a no brainer for them to buy.

I love that, man. I mean that's exactly how it's done. Use the podcast is a way to, you know, as a channel, as a channel to promote. Obviously we want to take them from the podcast to the email list and vice versa and do all those things. But use it as an opportunity. You know, whether it's, you know, you mentioned, we both mentioned Mike Michalowicz. You know, you had a unique angle that most people aren't going to have. Right. I'll just share my quick strategy. Every, every month I go to Amazon, say, show me all the books coming out in 90 days. And then I make a list of them. I've landed people. Back in my old podcast, I landed people I had no business landing. Now I kind of feel like I do, at least in the marketing space, like there's nobody. I'm like, I don't have any business landing you. But on this old one, like, I was leaning people, you know, like, we're talking. I landed two. I landed the former ambassador to the United Nations.

Cool. Is that.

I don't, like, I had no. I had like 800 listeners. But like you said, you know what I did, I asked. He had a book coming out and I asked and I got a 20 minute interview with him. That was, that was the bet, you know, and it was awesome. You know, I landed all these interviews with these, like, people that, you know, were selling hundreds of thousands of books. I was gonna sell like 30.

I got him.

Awesome. Yeah, man. And that's a. I think that's a big point what you just said. It starts with the ask, and if you can get a warm referral, all the better. So that's why we have the dream 100. So it just kind of makes our job a little easier. But think about the relationship after the interview. I think that's where we really don't let the momentum stop. So after, you know, stop record, most people do and that's all right. And typically it's because they haven't thought about it or they haven't created some system around it. But yeah, I mean, we have a little post chat, typically maybe five minutes, like, hey, how can I help you out? Are you looking for anything I could do? I learned that from Roland Frazier too. It's like, how can I help you? It's just putting that out there into the world. I mean, in person, on through text, on phone. I mean, he's always asking that. So I kind of adopted that. And you never know what's going to come out of there. Our buddy Brad Costanza always asks, like, what nut are you trying to crack? He actually asked that on. That's his last question of his podcast. And he says all the time that lands him so many consulting deals or just another extension of the conversation. And that's all I'm trying to do. That's what Matt and I do. So then we follow up with a thank you email. Typically it's a loom Video me going like, hey, thanks for the hour along with us yesterday. Freaking blast. I'm like usually walking around my yard. I probably have my baby on me or something. It's like super nonchalant. I don't have the ring light set up, none of this crazy equipment. I'm just like, it's literally my iPhone. Shaky, nasty. I probably have crust on my face from walking around for an hour outside or I don't care. And people love it. They're like, that just made my day. And like, I just want to talk back to you. But that leads to this relationship, that and then the affiliate side of things. It's usually like, oh my God. All right, so you have this cool thing. It gets us preferential access to the product owner. So typically it leads to like a follow up piece of content or some video that we can then like co create together. In the case of like Mike Phil same, for instance, that's what we did. A whole Facebook Live later to our group and then to our Facebook page. And then that helped generate, you know, affiliate sales and we're able to repurpose that into other content. And then, you know, it's, it's like this whole web kind of develops from a cool relationship.

Yeah, I love that. And it all starts with.

Something that we talk about so much, which is just asking.

Mm.

You know, it's. You're asking them when they're in a selfish mode. You know, when somebody has a big product launch or a book coming out, they are selfishly wanting to promote that. And here's a little thing I learned. I don't know if you knew this. I didn't learn this until about three months ago with the publishers. The publishers will go to somebody. This only works with books that I know of. They'll go to somebody, you know, whoever will just. Steve Sebold, you know, his book sitting there, they'll go to Steve and Steve will have, he'll say from, you know, from 1 to 5 on Tuesday and from 3 to 6 on Thursday and you know, 10am to 4pm on Friday, like fill my calendar with interviews. Here's what happens if they have like a half hour that's still open like a couple days before they will, they will schedule anybody. That was part of how I landed John Maxwell back in the day when I had no. Now I could land him because I have a connection to them. But at the time I didn't have a connection to John Maxwell, but I knew, I think it was Penguin maybe. I'm not sure who his publisher Was. And I still to this day get a book every two weeks from Penguin, asking me to interview there. And it's about literally 19 out of 20. I'm like, there's no way I'm interviewing that person. But every now and again I'm like, oh, what? And I'm like, I know that person. They had a reality TV show. You know, they were. They were the CEO of Yum Brands. You know, I'm kind of like, hey, I'll get a half hour of free consulting.

Let's do it.

But they will just fill that spot. And they will fill it with basically the first person who says yes.

Interesting.

So there's a little tip there. If you can get in with the publishers. How do you get in with the publishers? You reach out initially to people who have books coming out. The publishers will just add you to their list. They will ask, they will add you. They will just add you. And then.

So you say you reach out to the author and then you. And then he's probably going to say, hey, talk to my guys over here or whoever.

And then when somebody reaches out to you and says, is this person a good guest? Don't just say no or don't ignore it. I learned this from somebody on the lines. And basically every time I reply, I reply to every one of those emails. I say, no, thanks, this person's not a good person. But keep them coming.

That's what makes exactly what we do.

Yeah, we end up landing. I mean, like, I got to spend 35 minutes talking to John frickin Maxwell when I was like, nobody. How does that help you? Because I, I. When they emailed me and said John had an interview cancel, can you fill it? It's because John has a choice between doing a podcast with 800 people or doing nothing with those 30 minutes. That's the operate. So that's cool. This has been so good. So.

First of all, I want to be respectful of your time. Secondly, I want to get that post chat. And thirdly, have another interview in six minutes.

All right, let's wrap this thing up.

The transparency here.

What happens, man? Your batch recording said it's a good thing. Yeah, of course.

What question did I not ask that I should have asked you about? Whatever.

Yeah.

So handsome. I don't know.

I knew this was coming. And I'm like, man, I'm struggling now because usually I can. I'm like, we covered so much.

I know we did. That's why it's such a hard question. And that's.

It really is.

I Don't have to answer.

Well, how about, like, the whole thing of having a co host or host, you know, a single. Because a lot of folks are like.

Oh, you guys have different strengths. And I think that's. Let's walk through that real quick.

Yeah, it's a personality thing. So I'll just. Yeah, I'll just riff really fast. I mean, we're fortunate enough to have a long history, but, like, it was until recently where Matt and I really realized our strengths are so opposite, but they're combined in an effort. And this is perfect for any business partner, too. So we did, like, Colby assessments, disc assessments, all this stuff to figure out how does that guy's brain works, how does mine. How do we talk to each other and how does that go into an interview? So, like, he's the one that's very tactical, Matt, and he's gonna ask these very, very specific questions where I'm more of the. Let's dig a little deeper. Yeah. Or the yes and. Or the relatability thing. And if you could just figure out how to. If you're a solo podcaster, just figure out those kind of strengths in yourself, make them yourself, because you don't want to just be. Yes. And all day long. But. But if you can figure out how to bring that tacticalness. Because I've learned this as well. It's curiosity and figure how to mold that to yourself. If you can hit both of those sides, I feel like that leads to a really interesting interview, and it's a fun conversation for everybody involved.

Yeah, that's awesome. We thought about having a co host. On my old podcast, I had a co host and it actually works for me.

Mark.

We thought about doing that and just have it because, like, we have this. There's this rhythm, you know, like, we do them Facebook lives together, and there's a certain rhythm and you can take those tangents and get off track and it sometimes entertaining. So.

Yeah, it is.

They have to do that. We'll see. I tell you what, everybody listening, let me know, you know, if you've watched our Facebook lives. You. Like when I have Mark and Robbie on. Let me know if you think this would be better with, you know, with. With a co host or two. And whatever you guys say, you know, let me know if you don't. I don't want to just be. Only if you think I should, because that'll just skew the numbers. Let me know either way. Like, send me an email. Matt mcquainage.com Let me know what you. What you guys think I want to know if you would like me to have co hosts? I think I'm like, I think I might be better with those. So that said, man. First of all, guys, go check out flowchart group.com. think I got that right there.

Yeah, you nailed it, man. Thank you.

I'm in there, guys. I'm. I comment, I participate. So it's a good way to connect with me as well. So go. Go to flowchart group.com and there's one other place you mentioned, this playbook.

Yeah. So we have this podcast playbook that's like, it's basically got. Well, I'll just read off the page here, because Matt just made it yesterday.

Yay.

Like, talking about how to scale podcasts. So it's like, a lot of the stuff we covered here, but in deeper detail. So how to make money with the podcast, how to get a list, guests on a podcast. So we actually line out that Dream 100 strategy and kind of more details.

You guys see this? Like, you gotta see the visual on this. So go get this.

Yeah, man. Sponsors and how we do newsletters, monetize all that stuff. So it's at hustleandfluchart.com affiliateguy. So made a little special link. Hustleandfluechart.com affiliateguy I love the special links.

The pretty.

We got to do it, man. Yeah, that's all Matt right there.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna go write that down, actually. We'll get in the show notes for you guys, and you guys should go check that out so it'll be right in the show notes. You can just click on it. Even though it's easy to remember, you guys can just click on it, man. Joe, this has been awesome, dude. Thank you. Thank you so much, guys, seriously, go get. Go get the playbook. Go join the Facebook group. When you join the Facebook group, tell them that, you know, I sent you.

Yeah, man. Tag Matt and go give him some help.

Send me, like, a bucket of chicken or something. So.

Yeah, that sounds good. I'm hungry now.

Like, buckets of chicken.

But you're a healthy man. I know you're doing the CrossFit and all that stuff. You don't know fried chicken. All right, man. It does.

Thank you so much, buddy.

Thank you so much. Have a good one.

So that was so stinking awesome. That was amazing. I mean, we had a chance to go back and listen to it as a team. Just absolutely amazing. Biggest takeaway that I got, and I hope you got now, if you got your own takeaways.

That's cool.

I'm just saying, one of the biggest takeaways, Consistency is key.

They got, they found success with their podcast, Joe and Matt, when they were consistent. You know, for me now that is Tuesdays and Fridays. It is non negotiable. There will be a podcast on Tuesday. There will be a podcast on Friday, come hell or high water.

I mean, it is absolutely, it is just, it's consistency that is the key. If you, you know, I mentioned you'll hear from Seth Godin, you know, this fall on the podcast. He blogs every single day. And I asked him why.

It's not what you think. It's not what you think. But the thing is that practice of just daily doing it, that consistency, that's why he's a great writer. And he would even tell you he's not necessarily a great writer. Not necessarily.

You just see his great stuff, you see his highlights. But here's the thing. In order for his highlights to go live 365 days a year, it means that he writes 1500 blog posts a year. You only see 365 of them. So of course he seems like a great writer to you. And of course Joe's podcasts are great because you know, they're coming out you, you know, just like ours. I hope you find, you know, they're, they're coming out Tuesdays and Fridays. You can count on it. You're gonna get amazing guests, usually on Friday. Sometimes we run an interview on Tuesday, but you're gonna get an amazing guest on Fridays or at least once a week. And you're gonna get something from me where I teach you and it's consistent.

So check out the links that Joe mentioned, the podcast playbook@hustleandflowchart.com affiliateguy Join the Facebook group, the Hustle and Flowchart Facebook group that if that's your thing and I'm going to tell you, you're going to get value out of it, just go to flowchart group.com that'll redirect you and you can join there. And if you're looking to start a podcast and you need a podcast player, we highly recommend Fusebox. It's what we use. So if you're listening to this on our site or you've ever listened to a podcast on our site, you know how amazing Fusebox is, just go to mattmcwilliams.com fusebox that's f u s e b o x mattmcwilliams.com Fusebox the links to all of those will be in the show notes. That's. That's Pat Flynn's podcast player. And it's absolutely amazing. We love it, love it, love it. So check those out. I mentioned at the beginning that was going to share a strategy about getting guests, and I decided I'm not going to do that now. I'm actually going to create an episode coming up here shortly, probably be in about three to four weeks, about how to get guests and how to also become a guest podcasts, which is one of the best ways to grow your audience. I was on Joe and Matt's show on the Hustle and Flowchart show, and I can tell you, many of you listening came from that. And we got hundreds and hundreds of subscribers just from me spending an hour with those guys. It's very. It's a very powerful way to grow your email list. Very intimate way of growing your email list. I'll tell you right now, if you've made it this far in this episode, you've just been hearing me and Joe for over an hour. It's a very intimate form of communication. We're right in your ears, right? We're right there. We're talking to you. So being on podcast is a very powerful way to grow your email list. Some of you are going to become huge fans of Joe and Matt, and I hope you do. I hope you do. So we'll do that as a special episode here in the next few weeks or months. Let's look at the content calendar. Speaking of the content calendar coming up next week, next Tuesday, because that's when we release these. Got an awesome podcast episode for you. Why you aren't succeeding with affiliate promos. It might not be what you think. It's probably not what you think. This is something we've done in our coaching program and it's 90% of time, not what they think it is. So I'm going to share with you why you aren't succeeding with your affiliate promos so that you can succeed. You have to know why you're not succeeding so that you can succeed. That's happening next week right here on the Affiliate Guy podcast. With that, I'll wrap up and I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening today. Remember to check out all of our deep dives into affiliate marketing at the Affiliateguide TV. And if you have a question, ask it@asktheaffiliateguide.com who knows those. Maybe you even be featured on an upcoming episode. And lastly, if you haven't yet. Make sure to leave a rating and review wherever you're listening to this episode. See you soon.