Podcasting Unveiled: Must-Listen Pre-launch Insights with Karl Sona & Neil Twa

It's up to you to be both a responsible consumer. You don't go looking for stuff, Neil, that quite frankly, you don't want to hear about yourself. You also need to task yourself with being a responsible producer. So if you're going to do this, just be mindful about what you're putting out there.

Welcome to the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast, a show where we interview high voltage entrepreneurs growing and scaling through ecommerce, real estate, and other wealth without Wall Street ventures, showing you the path to making your first or Welcome back to the High Voltage Business Builder Podcast.

It's Neil here, your guest. As always, like, comment, share, beat big tech, subscribe on YouTube, go to the Instagram channel. I don't care if you leave me a nasty message, as I always say, just engage, help us beat big tech, get the message out here. Today I'm meeting with Carl, uh, Sono. We're gonna be talking about the future of broadcasting and podcasting. We're gonna be talking about building a 7-figure business, what it means to be an entrepreneur. I know this guy has built a great company from the ground up. He has an amazing team around him, and I'm really excited today to talk about these things. So let's get to it. Carl, welcome.

Thanks for having me, Neil. What a pleasure to finally be here with you, buddy.

We made it. Yeah, we were just joking a little bit. I think time makes it feel like it was 6 months. It may have been 4 months. It could have been 4 minutes. But as we get older, time seems to speed up and it's been a while since we chatted.

Yeah.

So I am excited to talk with you some more and unpack your background. So podcasting, that's the world you live in, if I'm not mistaken.

That's my world, man. It's funny that I've made a career for myself in this space. I never ventured to become a podcaster or to build a podcast company, much less. But it's funny where life will take you when you just sort of follow your gut and you really lean into curiosity, which is why I love this space. Curious conversations really drive it.

Absolutely. And as you know, we've talked in the past, I didn't intend to start a podcast. My team coerced me into starting one. So I got, they shoved a microphone in my face and said, here, start talking to somebody. So podcasting, I started a while back and have been at it for a while now. And it's been a great way to communicate and meet like-minded folks and just have these really cool stories and just to talk to people. You know, if you're listening to this today and you want to know how podcasting could affect everything from your consulting business to your personal brand to your e-commerce business and how that could affect you, let's pay attention, guys, because that's going to be the topic of today. So Carl, what has changed about podcasting maybe this year or in the years you've been doing it that you are maybe super excited about, you're bullish on this year, or maybe you're more conservative? Like lay it out there for us.

That's such a good question. You know, when we started 4 years ago, At the height of the pandemic, everyone, it seemed, that was in an agency business, a consulting business, personal brand, health coach, financial coach, whatever it was, everyone seemed to be scrambling to try to find a way to stay in front of their tribe, right? And therein lied podcasting as the golden opportunity to usher people like that, that had the COVID pandemic creating this insane barrier between them and their community to ultimately get over that.

Yeah.

There was this school of thought, Neil, that pump out more content as quickly as you possibly can. Who cares if you're just rolling out of bed and right onto your Zoom camera? More is better. Meet your audience where they are so that they don't forget you. And that's where we really created a significant opportunity for ourselves because there was more content than ever coming out that year that people could really keep up with from a production perspective. And, you know, at Streamline, we noticed that that market was being significantly underserved relative to getting this stuff produced and edited. But as the years went on to where we are today, ultimately, at the time of this recording, Q1 of 2024, we've seen that consumer behaviors with podcasts have significantly changed relative to where they were back in 2020. It used to be that consumers were a lot more forgiving about your audio quality, your video quality. Hell, What you were even saying. You know, how many times can you get on the same old podcast and talk about your childhood story? Like, no one really cares, right? But now in 2024, we see that the podcasting space has quite frankly surpassed Netflix in terms of consumption rates. And to quantify that for your audience, you know, there are now somewhere at the time of this recording, 67 million Americans that have an active subscription with Netflix. When you juxtapose that to podcasting, there's now about 90 million Americans that on average are listening to somewhere between 2 to 3 shows every single week, which is just insane.

Man, we are consumers, aren't we? We want more American consumerism.

More, give me more.

I don't want the 12-ounce podcast. I want the 64-ounce podcast.

100%.

The Big Mac of podcasting. So how does that translate into dollars and cents for somebody who might be in the business world or a personal or in the e-commerce How does that translate into value for them right now?

Well, this is exactly where I was going. You know, now that we're seeing more Americans consuming these podcasts, you have to sort of ask yourself if you are a business person, is my target audience on this medium? And I actually just came across a very interesting study. We can link it somewhere in here. It's from Triton Digital. They're one of like the best data subject matter experts in our space. And it basically demonstrated that Today's mid-level executive, you know, approaching the C-level is around that sort of 35 to 44-plus-year-old demographic. And that is by and large 79% of these 90 million folks listening to these podcasts. So if you are building an agency, you're building a consulting business, and your target demographic is that person, you are absolutely missing the boat relative to being able to captivate them. By having a presence on the space. And so what we're really trying to sort of configure here, if you think about the podcasting landscape as like a Rubik's Cube, is how do we help our clients put their best foot forward with this medium without spinning their wheels or operating off of the old 2020 thought process of, well, I'll just roll outta bed and do this and it'll be good enough 'cause I'm on this platform. And how do we encourage them to go, no, quite literally, Think of this as dating your wife for the first time, Neil. You know, I'd like to think that you took some time to think a little bit strategically about how you wanted to approach her. You combed your hair, you brushed your teeth, and you really thought about the value that you're leading with. And that value being a direct representation of your brand's reputation. Because the last thing that I want to see from where I sit is more people getting into this podcasting space because quite frankly, there's a low barrier to entry. but causing reputational harm versus good, which is really like the opposite of why you'd want to start a podcast.

Well, absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really it is set yourself up for success if you are going to do this and then also understand the beast and the monster that this thing is. Consumers expect a lot more. Yeah, go ahead.

They do. Well, they're getting savvy in everything, right? I mean, as the internet goes farther, as technology goes deeper, as people consume more of it and they start to see They're becoming more wise in their time and consumption and delivery. So if they're going to listen to podcasts, they're specifically going to do it because of the intent or outcome that they want to gain from that time they're spending. And hopefully people are spending their time wisely spent on the High Voltage Business Builder podcast. So if you're going to listen, shameless plug and serious plug, this is not a non-advertisement plug. Go to voltagevm.com. I never advertise on my podcast. The end result is that there's so much of that. How do you differentiate? Like really and truly, I have my idea because honestly, I didn't intend to do this for profit and personal gain. I simply just started talking to the best people I knew, which led me to more of the best people I knew. But that really wasn't a strategy. If someone's going to strategize around this and say, all right, I'm going to spend some time, energy, attention, and money building a podcast for a specific outcome in one of the areas I mentioned earlier, which is obviously value consumption, e-commerce works. Personal brand or professional brand development, what is that strategy? What should they— what are the 5 things they should do today if they think about doing this to really be relevant in all that noise?

Yeah, it's a great question. And we have a lot of people that struggle with this because they are in like commoditized type businesses and they see this as something that can be an accelerant to ultimately, you know, having their brand be a little bit more engageable with who they want to ultimately do business But I think first and foremost, Neil, it's about a mindset shift. And you had this mindset shift. You were like, hey, listen, I'm not looking to monetize this. I just want to be interested in interesting. If I flip that around, and I think that's where a lot of businesses that we see as streamlined really kind of missed the ball prior to engaging with us is they don't really understand what would be more interesting to who it is that they want to reach. And I think a lot of people these days, quite frankly, with where the economy is, and this is a whole nother subject, are really just trying to keep the lights on and they're chasing the dollar and bring revenue in as quickly as possible. And sometimes when we're so focused on metrics and numbers, we fail to realize that there's a real person that we're also looking to connect with. So where we really specialize is we've got a whole consulting team now, folks that have actually are classically trained in psychology that help business owners, founders, heads of companies Really identify persona to persona, especially if we're going to B2B, who they're looking to connect with. And we really work to fall in love with who that individual is, where they're spending time online, what other podcasts are they listening to, what do those numbers look like, what are potential gaps that they feel their particular expertise or their worldview would possibly close that we can then lead with to then ultimately have this thing be—

Yeah.

a category of one and not just another CPA or financial talk or real estate business-focused podcast that's just saying the same thing. So that's the first piece, really understanding who are you trying to serve, who do you want to connect with, what are the gaps relative to what they're currently consuming? Second is we spend a lot of time again on mindset, daring our clients to be more bold, right? Particularly in the B2B space, whether it's e-com, real estate, financial instruments, whatever it may be, There's sort of this like comfortability to just sort of get along, to play along, which means you take a look at your next top 5 competitors, if you believe in competition, which I really don't, and you just kind of mimic what they do because that's what's been shown to you as a safe way to play this game.

Yeah.

And quite frankly, you know, when we dig into that and we understand that that could be happening somewhere deep within the client's psyche, And we call that out and we encourage them in a loving way to nudge them out of that. If they, for whatever reason, are not feeling like they are in a place where they want to be receptive to leading with what makes them unique, that's probably just a client we won't take on because to your point, that only adds to the noise that's out there. And at Streamline, we're ultimately trying to build a business that helps our clients stand out. But how do we do that? If the client themselves doesn't want to really take what's unique to them, I don't care what that is. That could be a hobby, that could be a quirk, that could be something related to the origin story of your business that you lead with, a specific worldview. That could be your take on politics. Dare I say it?

Like, careful.

You've got to be willing to leave this ideology of my podcast is for everybody, which again—

The general store of podcasting.

Yeah. Yes. And that was another antiquated 2020 sort of ideology and thought processes. Everybody was sort of sidelined and sheltering in place at home. So now it's not enough to be for everybody. It's what are your core values, thoughts, beliefs, and how does that align with a target that is missing this in the marketplace? And are you willing to be bold enough to communicate that? And obviously we'll come alongside of you with our creative and help you amplify that. But that's typically where it would start. And then from there we get into an actual production strategy. So one of my favorite examples of this is we work with a senior vice president at the Bank of England, which is like a national bank across, I think, about 300 locations here in the US. And with everything that was going on with banks that were crashing, SVB collapsed, the Fed driving up rates, all these different things that we've seen in the economy, this gentleman recognized that his 20-plus years in banking provided him a very unique perspective from which to speak from. And so we took him through this process and we said, hey, why don't we do a podcast centered on you responding to Jerome Powell and all of his antics relative to new updates coming from the Fed? And we can play off of that wave and give you an opportunity to really show what you stand for. And so we've tied this podcast to the Fed updates and leading up to these Fed updates, we do these interesting breakdowns that really help educate the general consumer out there about all sorts of financial instruments or the topic of inflation or whatever it might be that help them sort of ascend their knowledge so that when a new update comes, they're in a little bit of a better place to actually understand what that means for them. So that would be a great example of who do we want to have be in the audience, you know, the general consumer, right? What's your unique point of view? You know, and this gentleman, we've worked with him to kind of basically understand what those pillars are. And then what's our strategy in terms of publishing this content regularly and frequently so that we teach the audience the value that they can anticipate, which makes them want to go further with us and basically upskill in basic financial education. That way they can make better decisions in real time as these updates come out. So that would be a great example of how we're spending, I'd say, anywhere from about 45 to 60 days, well before we ship you any equipment. Or you get in the studio to record, to come from a position of strength and not find yourself just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Is there any point at which you would tell somebody, I'm sorry, you got a voice for television and a face for radio? Like, when do you like tell somebody, this is not a good fit for you, man. Like, this isn't going to be your gig. You just don't— like, does personality play into it at all?

I would say personality can certainly shine through with more reps. Now, there There does need to be a basis or a foundation from which one needs to be trained on to deliver a clear and concise message that will allow them to build those reps effectively. And so I actually, right before this podcast, was just speaking to another gentleman who's actually an old fraternity brother of mine from St. Louis University. Shout out to Delta Sigma Phi.

Go, go.

And he's a fractional CMO, so he's working with creative companies that are looking at things like long-form YouTube and podcasts to basically build a brand and raise their profile. But the thing that he's seen, and we've also seen this as well too, is that most executives or founders of companies, you know, the people that are the technical experts, sometimes they have a hard time delivering with that punch.

That's a good way to put it.

You suck on a mic is probably an easier way. You suck on a mic or Maybe there's a little bit of like performance anxiety, right?

Well, sure. It's like public speaking, right? Which so many people are afraid of. At the end of the day, if you're not good at public speaking, microphones won't fix that. Hitting the record button and knowing you're being recorded can change your personality if you're not careful. These are just gotchas, right?

Exactly. And this affects everybody from the top down, bottom up. And here's how I knew that this was a problem, because I'm thinking to myself, well, you're an expert. You've built this like amazing, successful company. Like for instance, one of our biggest accounts is an 80-year-old consulting practice. I'll leave it at that. And a lot of smart people run this company. They're all like PhDs and they came to us and they were like, hey, we're really good at what we do, but we're noticing that like our executives are feeling maybe a little less than confident showing up on camera. And, you know, one of the big initiatives this year is for everybody to have a thought leadership platform. So that's when I really sat back in my chair one day, Neil, and I was like, okay, maybe this is something we need to address and solve for in the market. And so we've actually released something called Modern Media Training for Executives. And basically what that is, is it's a 4-week curriculum that we take these executives and these founders through that drips out a module that helps them sort of build their signature talk and teaches them a framework for— I don't care if you're delivering a C-level presentation, you're talking to your board, or you're talking to your kids at home, you need to leverage the elements of story that really help people be bought in and that help them remember your message. Well, we basically give you a framework that's plug and play that allows you to basically create a talk that will captivate along with some other storytelling principles that you can lean on. And then you meet with one of our consultants in between each module. That way you can integrate that and we can actually like break down the game film because here's the thing, like anything else, practice makes perfect, right? What are some of the best athletes do, Neil? They break down game film. Yeah. And then they get better week in, week out. And unfortunately with podcasting, I don't know if you suffered this, Neil, I'm curious to get your thought, but when I was doing a lot of this, I just could never bring myself to listen to my podcast. Are you able to listen to yours?

Oh, I can't listen to my podcast.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Everything goes out one time and never comes back. This isn't a boomerang. I don't need to hear myself. I don't care to hear myself. I think I sound horrible. I think I sound nasally. Like, I can go through the list of things that I don't like about me personally listening to myself in a podcast. So I simply don't do it. And if at times, if I'm struggling in the conversation or whatnot, it's because I I'm a natural introvert. Like, I don't have an extroverted person really. I'm not a Joe Rogan at the end of the day. So I have to kind of—

what's that? You got me fooled.

Well, I would prefer to hang out on the property and go do things and play with my kids and not necessarily get on podcasts and do this kind of stuff. But there's an affect of me that enjoys the interpersonal relationships of it, meeting people like you and having the conversations. And that part I do enjoy. And since I can do it through podcasting across thousands of miles, it actually kind of fulfills something in me that I enjoy. And I hopefully that resonates through the podcast and it's become more focused on, you know, specifically people in business and development at stages above a certain point so that others who are listening can kind of hear the opportunities and the struggles and the strengths and the weaknesses of people who actually are in the business at higher levels. If they're this deal or the $200 million deal or whatever. It's been giving some people great insights across a broad spectrum. And I enjoy that because I'm meeting a broad spectrum of people too, but not everybody fits. And I do have a pre-show now, which I didn't used to do because not everybody is great on the mic. And I used to just bring people in and hit record and then it'd be like crickets. Like, okay, this is not going— like I'd forcibly end up finding myself talking more on the podcast recording than them. And I'm like, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense if I'm doing a guest-based sort of show, if they're, you know, not talking more than me.

Yes. And that's my point, right? And so you found a way to sort of build up enough inherent value to push you through the activity of podcasting and really building up a voice.

Make it a joy. Yeah.

Which is a learnable skill. But if people aren't willing to do the thing long enough and then review the footage so that they can identify areas or possible gaps that they can shore up, you can never really get effective at this.

And so that's where we're really looking to come from with this executive Well, and that's a good thing to do to set boundaries too, because if they're speaking on behalf of their company and they own it and I can say what I want, that's one thing. If I'm beholden to another company, I'm being told to podcast on behalf of that company. I can't say certain things like Epstein killed himself and other stuff that, you know, you wouldn't put on the air. But I'm fine doing that because it's my podcast and I own the outcome. Do whatever it says. And just going on record, Diddy didn't do it either. Nidalee didn't get diddled. Uh, just going on record here with that. See, I, I, but there's boundaries if you want to create your own personal brand, if you want to create business brand, but then there's the, I am beholden to somebody else. Like if I, in my days at IBM, if I had to get on a podcast, I know I'd have to have done this a very different way. And honestly, that would create more stress in what I say and less freedom to be open and have a conversation. Um, and be able to cross certain boundaries or say certain things that now my brain has to kick in and it has to be checked and it's like, oh, don't say that. Or now we have to edit that out. Or, so there's, there's boundaries to that, that, you know, as a personal brand and as somebody maybe who's doing a personal brand or wanting to build that brand into their business and relationship. What advice would you give them about that kind of boundary, that complication, if that makes sense, that I'm asking it the right way?

Yeah. So just so I understand the question correctly, for anybody looking to do this that wants to ensure that they're representing themselves and their organizations in as accurate a way as possible, what's the recommendation? What's the advice? Is that the question?

Yeah.

That's a good question. At Streamlined, we've sort of begun to like level up in our sophistication of clients that we work with. So we're actually coming against this more and more, you know, the bigger the company, typically the more chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, that have to kind of approve what we actually publish so that an executive isn't caught with their pants around their ankles, so to speak.

Making financial recommendations or whatever the case may be, right?

Yeah. So there's a lot of legal counsel involved these days from where I sit, but I think ultimately, you know, it really comes down to that strategy and that consultation on the front end and really understanding what your mission and what your values are with this and ensuring that at the end of the day, you understand that this podcast is effectively a digital asset that should be intended to perpetuate those missions and those values. And sometimes you'd be surprised that the people that come to do this don't even really clearly understand their missions.

They don't know why they should tape this.

Yeah.

So it's just a great refresher to really ensure that what you're building here, you understand, will exist in perpetuity. Obviously, you own the RSS feed, and at any point in time, you can take that down, but it is the internet. You know, people download these things, and there's all sorts of ways for them to archive what you put out there. So it's about being thoughtful on the front end.

Voice AI.

Yeah, 100%. There's deepfakes, all sorts of crazy stuff now that can be falsified or misrepresented as you. And so we are sitting down and again, taking the time to go slow in the beginning so that we can go fast. And what I really encourage anybody thinking about doing YouTube, podcasts, whatever it might be in terms of long-form content is don't just jump in. I know that there can be kind of that itch or that FOMO at times, particularly if you've been on the sidelines and you feel like you're not the most visible.

Yeah. Yeah.

But don't just jump in all willy-nilly. I mean, this is a monster, it's a bit of a beast. And if done incorrectly, you really can misstep and cause more harm than good. So it's just about taking the time, trusted team to really build that out accordingly. Yeah.

I mean, you misstep, you say the wrong things like building a future freedom of family and time and energy using the power of e-commerce would not be the right way to do it, right?

You wouldn't want to say that.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Podcasting. There's no opportunity in podcasting. You certainly don't want to go check out Streamline Media if you have a podcast or an idea. Definitely don't go do that.

Please come. Please just don't. Don't even bother. No, you should be, you should be in the comedy genre, I think.

We're in the conflict marketing side of business building. That's all I can refer to it. So again, leave comments below this if you hate podcasting or you love it. We want to hear either way, please. 100%. Engagement is always good.

100%. And the other thing I would say too is like, be prepared to be criticized a little bit.

That's something else that— Are you kidding me? Have you been on the internet?

Dude, that's something else that I see a lot of our clients struggle with after they've been doing this 6, 9 months down the line. Because, you know, if we do our job, which we aspire to do our job, you are going to get visibility online with the content that you create. And inevitably, that's going to bring voices and opinions that you may not necessarily care for.

You want to find out whether or not you got a good haircut. If you think your eyes are too far apart, if you, if you think slurred speech makes it sound like you're drunk when you're podcasting, if you didn't say anything wrong and somebody just hates you, like you're gonna, you're gonna get all the love in the world from all the wonderful people, no matter whether you are perfect at it or imperfect. So the real end of it is you asked why I don't listen to my podcast. The same reason why I don't go scrolling through comments on social media these days, because people just hate to hate on hate for hateful reasons. Who knows why? And like I said, I challenge them, right? Because at the end of the day, all you're doing is helping my social engagement. It's called conflict marketing.

So exactly, exactly. And at the end of the day, I tell everybody it's up to you to be both a responsible consumer, which is why I like what you say. You don't go looking for stuff, Neil, that quite frankly, you don't want to hear about yourself, the haircut or the eyes.

My—

your, your words, not mine. And you also, you also need to task yourself with being a responsible producer. So if you're going to do this, you know, just be mindful about what you're putting out there. I mean, use common sense.

Absolutely.

Be mindful. You got to be smart, right? That's it. But if you're going to get involved, there is an upside potential. Just be smart about it. If you don't know how to get started, contact these guys.

Okay.

Streamline does my stuff. They've been a very good partner with us in the production of ours. I'm very happy with the way they do business. And Carl definitely has spent a lot of time learning how to become a businessman and entrepreneur and has built up a great foundation. Give us some insights into that real quick, man, because this is not like, You got a history.

Oh man, we got a history. All right, dude, it is so interesting. And thank you for asking the question because as I mentioned at the top of the show, it was never my aspiration to go out and do this. I actually come from a medical device background and ran sales teams. You know, I love the world of business development and solving real problems in the marketplace. But when I got the opportunity to do Streamline, you know, things had sort of sidelined. That company was exiting, couldn't travel as much, and the opportunity had come up because I was an independent podcaster and really dealing with a lot of the frustrations that we help clients with now. And so I saw it and I was like, you know, I've always had a desire to bootstrap and build something real because as an immigrant into this country, I feel that education is everything because I come from a place where education is not so common. It's not so accessible. And being able to build and bootstrap like a real company that provides real opportunities for people that solves real problems is a piece of knowledge that no one can ever take from me. But I'll tell you, it doesn't come easy.

No, no, no, it does not.

When we, when we started, when we started back in 2020, we were a very different business model. We were sort of like a high-volume, low-profit margin business. We sort of aspired and set out to basically become the Walmart of podcasters. So at our height, we had, I think, maybe 220, 230 shows at any given point in time, paying us anywhere from on the low end, $99 a month to maybe on the high end, about $450 a month. And we were putting out north of 12,000 assets every single month, which basically brought us to a situation where things are breaking and things are breaking quickly. Yeah.

A lot of mechanisms.

Oftentimes on the service-based side, I would not recommend that. Maybe if you're on the e-com side, I would, because fulfilling is easy. You know, you ship something out, boom, you're done. But on the service side, there are so many different hands that need to be involved that it can really introduce things like scope creep, which really creep on your profit margins. And then obviously when the service from a fulfillment perspective is not there, word of mouth travels, you've got churn, churn outpaces your ability to onboard new clients, and you've got a recipe for disaster. So we were very quickly heading that direction, just to be fully transparent. And fortunately, we've always been very responsible business owners. And we went through Patrick Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions of a Team early. So it really helped us have humbling conversations at the point of needing to have them versus allowing things to drag on. So somewhere around 2021, early 2022, I came in and I said, hey, listen guys, We really need to focus on going upstream and focus on more people like Neil that want to do this with a higher level of professionalism and that don't mind paying a little bit of a premium to do so. But what that'll ultimately do is, A, that'll allow us to shrink our book of business and increase the premiums that we charge on our monthly subscriptions.

Increase the value.

But long-term speaking, that will only help enhance our reputation, our ability to fulfill, because now we're not trying to solve couple hundred different problems every single month, we're working on more on the order of 50 to 75. And beyond that, we can deliver real results because podcasting is starting to be taken as more of a professional medium. And that'll actually enhance our lifetime value. And so that shift came with pain, because ultimately, it meant offboarding a lot of clients that, you know, no longer were going to continue the journey with us. It meant, quite frankly, Neil, offboarding a number of team members, That basically added overhead that wasn't accretive to the company. But with where we sit today, you know, we've got a very manageable book of business. The average client is paying well into the thousands every single month. And because we've got greater profit coming in, we're able to do cooler things for them. We're able to actually deliver for them at a higher level.

Yeah.

So what I was saying, you know, several minutes ago about creating more cinematic style content that will produce over the course of time. So I don't know if I'm ranting here, but these are just things that I think about because Carl 4 years ago was like, yeah, we're going to have 27,000 podcasters paying us a couple hundred bucks a month.

It's all about quantity. There you go with your 64-hour podcast again.

Literally, bro. And I just, I didn't know business well enough then. I mean, I'm still learning every single day. And that's why I love this game is you're constantly faced with the puzzle. And if you want to make it, If you want to extend runway, which by the way, we've never taken debt. We're still bootstrapping this thing and doing very well. But if you want to make it, you've got to task yourself with really getting to the root of what needs to be done and finding a way to actually get it resolved.

Yeah.

So it's been fun learning that. And had I known what I know now, I would've started out more on the premium end of things. Sure, we would've done less deals, but they would've been More valuable deals, not just for us, but more importantly for our clients. And beyond that, we're in the relationships business. We create content for High Voltage, for instance, your podcast, Neil, that goes on to be heard by thousands of people every single month. Lord knows what they hear, whether it's from one of your little funny, look, antical jokes to a piece of business advice that can help them in their e-com consulting business. that can absolutely shift the tide for them. Like, that's what we do here. So I take that very seriously and, you know, getting the right message out at the right time to the right person is the goal, right?

Correct.

Which is what we're doing here today. So is there a question I didn't ask you that I should have asked you that you'd like to answer now?

Oh, that's a great question. So I think you can ask me where I see podcasting going.

The future. Okay. Crystal ball time. You steadied your crystal ball and not your 8-ball, because when all that goes out, you know, please turn this over and quit your business and go home and rethink your life. That's not the answer we're looking for here, but the crystal ball side of that, what do you see 2024, the year of the podcasting, the year of the opportunity to get started, the year to grow? Is there a different channel? Is there a different strategy? Like what do you see for 2024 in podcasting?

Yes, I'll answer kind of from 2 different perspectives. One, we're in an election year right now, in case you haven't noticed. So what, who said that? I would be paying attention to who's doing what that's running. Like what are they doing on podcasts? And Yeah, I'm gonna go out and say that podcasting will be a large driver relative to how this next election is decided.

Play-by-play year 2024, right?

A lot of content, a lot of content to make up in that space. A lot of content to make up in that space. So keep your eye on that. And then, you know, on the e-com agency business owner side of things, you remember how in like 2009, 2010, everybody was like scrambling to have like a Facebook business page? You remember that?

Yep.

Yeah, it's like, hey, like us on Facebook. Well, I see that very quickly becoming the trend for podcasts. And quite frankly, it's because it's where your clients are. Quite frankly, it's where your clients are. So everybody understands social media is critical. I think a lot of businesses struggle with it because it's just, again, it's a behemoth. But the ability to show up as you are the way that Neil does week in and week out on a podcasts, take that content and leverage it into content for your social media to where your clients, both new as well as prospective, can get a little bit of a better insight as to who you are and how you help them before they trade you dollars is going to be the wave of the future. And I think we're going to see a world where every business has exposure to the medium, whether they're doing it seasonality, whether they're doing it ongoing evergreen style, current events, The actual season of it might look and feel a little bit different depending on the business, but we're certainly seeing that trend and we're talking to more and more VPs of marketing and beyond that are really trying to wrap their head around how this fits into the marketing mix. So I'm gonna call that, and we're gonna be perfectly positioned in the marketplace as a trusted advisor to help people actually think about how they take their core values and really put it, you know, to work with something like this.

Well, and what are the core values? I mean, in this instance, my podcast isn't about just what Voltage does in the e-commerce world and consulting. It's just about personality and affect of what we do and conversations and know, like, and trust relationships building for even getting people to see and hear something different at the end of the day and come take a look. It's more attraction marketing at the end of the day than outbound. So I know a lot of people maybe resonate with that and listen to the podcast who don't necessarily see themselves doing business with Voltage, but hopefully gain something from the guests and people that are around and listening to this, great people like you and the great things you've done and have been doing and the learning curve and just having somebody listen to that and say, hey, I could, Do what Carl did, right? I could follow him. I could go out here and get this done. And I'm listening to the premium value of what you said, not just the idea that consumer and this 64-ounce podcast is the way to go do things because it really isn't. You're just going to get fat at the end of the day. If it was in my power to introduce you to somebody that you would love to meet and sit down and have a conversation, maybe lunch with, who would that be?

Anybody?

Anybody? Well, maybe living, because if you say somebody who's living, I might be able to help you.

I'm going to put this out there because I think you can probably help me with this based off of where you live in Missouri.

Okay.

So the person I would love to sit down and have lunch with is a guy named Andy Frisella. He does— Andy Frisella. So he's based out of St. Louis, Missouri. He runs the First Form company. Maybe you've heard of First Form. It's a big supplement company, Supplement Superstores. They've got several locations in and around Missouri. And he does the Real Talk AF podcast, which is one of my favorite for current events.

Real Talk AF.

All right, guys, if you're listening, entrepreneurship.

So if somebody knows him, you're connecting. If you're listening, if you're in our network and you've heard this podcast, reach out. That's the way we want to get it done around here. You never know. Thank you so much for joining me. And I appreciate you, brother. Have a great rest of your day. And thanks for joining me.

Thank you, Neil. Talk to you soon.

Ask you this, if you're serious about building an e-commerce business starting on Amazon FBA, what if myself and my team worked with you one-on-one to execute the steps outlined in the podcast while helping you discover what the heck to sell, how to make sure it's profitable, and how to successfully launch a brand? Plus how to do it under a consulting plus performance-driven model where I put a $10,000 skin-in-the-game guarantee for those that show up and are serious about building a real business done with us. If yes, text keyword profit to +1-416- 1-417-413-4209. That's 1-417-413-4209, and I will personally respond with a few simple questions. If you're not in the US or Canada, please visit voltage dm dot com. That's voltage dm dot com. Click Get Started and book a no-pressure discovery call with me or a member of my team to learn more about the Business Builders one-on-one coaching and mentoring for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and those looking to build an empire or retire using the power of ecommerce. Once again, thank you for listening, and be sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast.