Committing To The Stamina Needed To Be An Astoundingly Good Podcast Host With Joseph Jaffe Of CoronaTV

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority Magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters.

Authors and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor.

Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital.

Noise with the Binge Factor.

Hey everyone, welcome to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and today I'm talking with the host of coronatville, Joseph Chaffee. And it is kind of an interesting genesis to start something right at the start of the pandemic and then dive into it, call it Corona tv and now a year and little bit more. What do you do with it? Where's it going to go? And we're going to dive into that conversation. We're also going to hear about the love the JO has for the media for the type of doing live talk show style podcast. And that's what he's doing. He's doing his live as well as recorded and turned into the podcast of course. So Joseph Jaffe is an author, entrepreneur and as of March 2020, the host of Corona TV, a daily streaming interview based show about hope, positivity and optimism and if there's time left, a little bit of marketing. As a consultant and thought leader in the marketing and innovation space, he's worked with countless Fortune 500 companies as well as startups and as a speaker. He delivers a brilliant, high impact message with innovative and practical advice for movement towards growth. Jaffe has written five books including Life after the 32nd Spot, Join the Conversation, Flip the Funnel and Zero Z E R O. His latest book is Built to Suck, the Inevitable Demise of the Corporation and How to save it. In 2019, he joined West Virginia University's Reed College of Media and as an instructor in the Integrated Marketing Communications Online Graduate program where he wrote and lectures a course on brand evolution, strategy and social media. Joe's impassioned, straight shooting and honest perspectives have found their way to every major media outlet including CBS Evening News, ABC World News, Bloomberg, npr, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, Newsweek, businessweek, Ad Age, Ad Week, and the List Continues. He's a member of the Founders Institute, Entrepreneurs Roundtable and techstars and has lectured at NYU Stern Business School, Cornell's Johnson School of Business, West Virginia and Syracuse University. Joe is just such an interesting guy. He's got such an Interesting take. And he is doing a massively intense interview show. It's over an hour long. It's every single day. He's also got an after show, which is a live Q and A session with his guests. So there's a lot of moving parts in this. To top it all off, he's got a heart condition and has to undergo heart surgery. Coming up, it'll probably happen coinciding with the launch of the show. So when this episode airs, and then he's going to follow it up with launching a new version, a variation on his show, a shift, a pivot, and a new branding, which he's going to announce here on the show today. But additionally, I just wanted to kind of give you the story of how I met Joe and why. He intrigued me so much that I had to have him on my show. I had to get him on the binge factor because he's doing such a different model of show that it's so intriguing. And I want to make sure that we're bringing you all different styles of shows and what we can do so we can learn so much from what other podcasters, and in this case, streamers, live streamers, are doing. I met him in Lou Diamond's clubhouse room. And this is kind of the funniest, serendipitous story, right? I love it when serendipity happens. But I was. I, Lou diamond, he's been on the show. You guys have heard it. I wrote an article about him a while ago. So we sort of become reengaged and got to know each other because of Clubhouse, because I popped into a room that he was hosting and checked it out. Well, that's exactly what happened. I finally, finally got Clubhouse on my Samsung. I was so excited about it. I finally got it going. I got all in, and I'm like, I'm just testing it out. I want to hear that. Does my microphone work? Which, by the way, my actual physical microphone works on Clubhouse. It's so exciting. So I hook everything up. I get in, and I look for somebody who's got a room. And wouldn't you know it, Lou's got one. So I pop into his room because I want to check it out and see what he's doing. But I also want to hopefully test out and maybe he'll bring me up to the front so I can ask a question so I can test out and see how the sound is going on my new setup on my Android. And so I pop into the room and of course, Lou is like, oh, Tracy, you Got to come up and meet everybody and we're engaging back and forth. And I met like three of his recent guests of which Joseph Jaffe was one of them. And as I was hearing him talk and I was hearing him, you know, quote his guests because he has so many of them that he can tap into, just like I try to do here. But he can tap into all this rich information and quote someone that he recently had on his show and, and share that information with an audience. And he just, you know, it's like a Rolodex. He's just tapping all of that in and bringing you rich information and then it makes you want to listen to his show or watch it. In the case of the live stream, join it live so you can ask questions of these fabulous great guests too. So that's how that happened. And we have Lou diamond to thank for bringing us together and for bringing us our very next guest here on the Binge Factor, Joseph Jaffe of Corona tv.

Joseph, welcome to the show. So glad to have you here on the Binge Factor because your show has become quite the enterprise in the last year and you're in a few months since you started it. So you started right at the beginning of the pandemic and you started Corona TV and you did this long format talk show. What made you decide that this was the right time and the right type of show?

So there are two answers to that, right? The one answer is you don't actually think, you just do. You just execute and you learn and you pivot and it's trial and error and then you discover joy from something that, from a new idea and then you just keep building. And then the other is some kind of at least plan because you have to at least have a clue. So my story, I'll try and tell it as, as quickly as I can, as succinctly as I can. I'm in South Africa visiting my mom, who, you know, she's about five years now into this, what is really a chronic battle with cancer. And I'm visiting her and I'm about to present, being a five time author and a public speaker and a keynote speaker. So I always would try and double up while I was traveling or doing something personal. And the phone rings and it's my wife saying, you know, I'm not feeling great, I've got a fever and I've lost my sense of smell and taste. And I'm like, you know, you have Covid, right? And she's like, no, I just think it's flu. And I'm under the weather. I said, like, you know, you have Covid. So I flew back the next day and immediately went into quarantine, or, you know, self quarantine. Never got it then. I never got it since. She did have Covid, she's fine. And then over the period of the next week, every single speaking engagement, every event, every piece of consulting just evaporated. Like, so many people listening to this, no doubt. Right, right. And I don't know what it was. I wish I could remember the moment. Ironically, my entire life is on record now and video, but I don't know what the moment was that said, let me just do a Facebook Live. And I did not. I was barely on Facebook at the time, and I was not doing any streaming. I mean, look at this face. This is a face for radio, as they say. Like, I had no business doing video, but I just decided I would do a Facebook Live. And then just to connect with people. What is everybody feeling? How, you know, I just felt like I could do it because I wasn't afraid to do it. And then I decided to do it again the next day, and then the next day, and then I kind of did a Facebook Live of going to get a test. I was able to get a COVID test at the time. We live in a small town, so it was a little easier. And somehow I decided, what if I do this every day of this weird period? What's it going to be? 3 weeks? 4 weeks? 5 weeks?

And then I decided to use Zoom. And I realized Zoom had the capability of the time of being able to stream live to Facebook. So I thought two birds with one stone. And I started having some technical issues with Zoom. But then at the same time, my sister, who lives in London, said to me, she has a spinning studio, so she's a solo entrepreneur. And she said, you know, we were told that we were going into lockdown. I'll never forget a word she said. I knew that if I closed the doors of the spinning studio, I would close them forever. And so what she did was she put all of her bikes into a U Haul, emailed all her best customers, and said, who wants a bike during this time? And she started experimenting with Vimeo and Instagram Live. And I said to her, why don't you come on my show and be my first guest? Quote, quote, air quotes. Yeah, because it wasn't really a show. The show's backside. And she was guest number one today. I had Joe Polizzi, who was guest 102. He was back for the second time yesterday was guest number 204, 58 or 59. And I basically have not missed a show. And then Streamyard came along and I started using Streamyard. But that whole story from the very first Facebook Live to streamyard was three weeks.

We hear about people who start their shows and, you know, it's usually three to six months before they settle into, like, shifting things. But you had an accelerated sort of format of it because you had to figure it out while you were going.

Had to. And the name Corona TV was kind of like poking the bear, right? It was irreverent because that's kind of my. My brand. And it was like just this. Amidst all this terrible uncertainty and unpredictability and volatility and tragedy, the idea of Corona tv, a show born in a global pandemic, but not defined by it. A show about hope, positivity and optimism. And if there's time left over, a little bit of marketing. That's how it was born. And as the old saying goes, the rest is history.

I love that you headed deep into that. That's kind of the decision we all made. Tom and I, just like you experienced with your wife. We got Covid right at the beginning. So literally, we were sick and our kids were out of school because they were home with us, sick. And then they're feeling better and they can't go back to school because they shut down. So, like in that time period, in that week and a half, we were sick, everything shut down around us and we were unaware, right? But we were on the phone with clients who were panicking so we would get out of bed and was like, which one of us feels well enough to take the call? Like, that's how it was for a week and a half for us. But then after that, we said, you know what? We're just going to dive in and we're going to do what we do best. And we did our weekly coaching calls. We were intense. We were there, we were on whining. We weren't complaining. We were doing it. We're like, I'm going to advise you what to do next. We're going to figure this out. You give us your questions, we'll answer them. You know, I think that diving in, you talked about earlier in our pre talk discussion about this, it's like you felt like you've been giving for over a year, and the reality is that you have. You've been so benevolent in. You're giving in, showing up for people, that that audience is your reward is A much deserved.

Well, my reward, you know, exactly. I say I've been giving, but I've been getting back. What I've been getting back is, is the ability to inspire and to be a servant host. We hear a lot about this idea of being servant leaders or servant authors. I'm a servant host. I literally live for my guest.

It's so funny you said that. I just typed that into somebody. Somebody asked me something about my view on leadership, and I just said that it is a servant leadership view. So that's so funny that you were just saying that. And I think that does come from being a podcaster.

It does. And you know what? The thing is, is like, I was on a show today and I was just back channeling with someone. I said, I think I need to help them understand what it is to be a host. Now, of course, like, who am I to say that? What do I know about streaming? What do I know about hosting? But somewhere along the line, in the first few weeks, you know, my wife stormed in my office and she said to me, like, seriously, you just got to shut up. You got to stop talking. You talk and you talk and you talk and you talk and your questions are so long and verbose and you keep talking about yourself. And of course I said to her, what the hell do you know? But she was, as always, right. And it was a life changing piece of advice because I learned how to become an active listener and I learned how to just be quiet and let my guests talk. And when they were done talking, then I would talk. And I very rarely interrupt and I very rarely make it about myself because who you talk about? Binge factors. I'll tell you what isn't a binge factor, is tuning in every day to hear somebody talking about themselves. You know, that's the anti binge factor.

So, so true. That isn't. You are. My number one pet peeve is like, stop making it all about you.

And so, like, when I'm a guest, I can figure out how to make the transition. I can figure out how to get back to verbal diarrhea when I'm a guest. And it's funny how one of the weird things that does happen now when I'm a guest is I don't know what, where to put my hands. So I'm like playing with this thing at the moment because I'm so used to camera angles and banners and comments and so I don't actually know.

I don't have to manage all that when I'm the guest. You're supposed to be able to sit back. I still talk with my hands. So I've discovered where to put them. They're always in the way.

But now I can do things like, for example, you know, I can use my road cast that to like, sound effects. And I've got to tell you, this is my new favorite one.

This, which is you were doing it on Clubhouse.

You know, when I basically say, you know, if I want to say, then I can basically mute.

Well, you just saved my editing team a ton of time. There you go.

How did you do that?

I love it. It, I love it. Well, you had a talk show idea in mind eventually. So, like, you kind of moved into that model. Was there someone specifically you were modeling after? Like, did you have a show that you liked that you said, I want to do mine like that?

It's a great, great question. And I've definitely, definitely been inspired by a bunch of people. I want to say just before we go into that, I just want to make sure that I share this point. I never changed my speaker website at all. I never inserted the word virtual at all. I never wanted to become the world's greatest virtual speaker. The market was so crowded and noisy, everyone was in it. And I just zigged when everyone else was zagging to the point where I just left it all behind and became a talk show host. And that's why now, when you look at my social media profiles as his talk show host, whether I am or not, I'm projecting it. I'm visualizing it and I'm making it. I'm manifesting it to be my reality. And it's not delusional. Or maybe it's partly delusional, but I don't care. And so, like, for me, like, it was be all in or don't show up. And I don't know whether we'll get back to that or not, but it was just this idea of if you're going to do it, then do it the right way and have that staying power. To answer your question, yeah, there are a few people, I mean, different ways, shapes and forms. Tim Ferriss and Howard Stern in terms of long form interviews.

And Howard Stern's questions are awesome.

He is the world's greatest interviewer. I mean, he really, really is. And he is an artist. And many people that will talk badly of him or critically a are certainly not listening to him for sure. I can say 100%. But you also realize I'll listen to him not even to hear the words, but to hear not the What? But the how and so. Howard Stern, for sure. Tim Ferriss also in terms of just insightful, thoughtful, and long form. Like, an interview can be like two hours. I love the fact that you shouldn't have to feel pressurized. We're going to an ad break. It's three minute segment. It's get to the point. There's got to be preamble. There has to be essentially a bit of foreplay in terms of leading up to whatever the aha moment is.

You don't get to that depth. Right.

You don't, you don't. And then, you know, two others that I've been in different ways in terms of the new format, which I think we'll get to Jon Stewart. But Bill Maher was. I like Bill Maher for many reasons. One is, I actually think he's just like, he is the real deal, as is Howard Stern.

He's really prepared. That's what I find about Bill Maher. Like, he doesn't just like, I just read the COVID to the book. He's deeply into, like, where the really good questions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. And I also went with him on format. Right. He's got his monologue at the beginning, then he has his first guest, then he has a bit, then he has his panel, then he has new rules, and then he has like an after show. And the after show was a big part of at least the first format and the first year and change of Corona tv.

So. Yeah. So I want to give everybody a little prep about what the after show is. So not only do you do your show, which is over an hour, but you do your show and then you have an after show, which is another live Q and A with the guest as well.

Yeah. So it began on Zoom and it actually became a family. I mean, a community. Not even a community. More than community. Everyone talks about community. This was family.

Well, they all seem to know each other. Like, that's what I was listening. Because you leave it raw. And so if you listen to it after the fact and you leave it raw on your YouTube and people are commenting back and forth, you're like, hey, you know, so and so every week your zoom is still muted. Like, maybe each other. It's hilarious.

The show is not a labor of love. The show is love. The after show has been a labor of love because I don't know what to do with it because it's so special and unique and almost. And I want to protect it, but at the same time, it's more time. It's an hour and a half every day. And so I've done a lot of experimentation with the after show. Now at the moment where we are, but it will change, no doubt is that now I'm taking my guests from Monday through Thursday and bringing them back. And I've got to say this is Lou diamond, our mutual friend Lou diamond, hat tip to him in full attribution to his inspiration and leadership. But bringing them back in clubhouse or Twitter spaces the following Friday to drive back attention to those episodes and do something. But it's going to change again. And one of the ways it will change is to reward Jaffe Coin holders, my cryptocurrency, my creator coin. I want to figure out real unique ways that all you have to do is hold my coin to get all these perks and benefits. One of them might be access to the after show. Another one might be the ability to be on stage and participate and ask questions of my guest. A third one is going to be my show is moving to 9pm and I will get there as well into late night. And why I've decided to do that. But if my guest can't record at 9 o' clock at night, Eastern, because let's say they're in London, then I'll record at 12. But only the after show regulars and coin holders will get access to an unlisted YouTube URL. And so they will be able to watch and participate and comment on the show at 12. So I'm thinking of like, ways to like, how do I recognize and reward, I mean to use your phrase, people that have earned the binge, maybe they.

Binged enough to earn the right to have access. But you know, that's the interesting part about the community that you're engaging with that you've created is you can see they've been there for a while. They not only know each other, they know the type of guests. They seem prepared with the questions that they want. They definitely have been listening and making notes for themselves or whatever it is. But they're thinking about like, what do I want to ask? And they ask great questions.

Oh, they're so smart. I mean, one of them, Tom Morris, the guy that I'm always muting, he was a guest on the show. I mean, to me that was the epitome. The epitome was that your guest, it's never a one and done that. It's the beginning of a relationship that people should come on my show. That's why Joe Polizzi coming back today. It makes me the happiest person in the world that he would want to come back. Of course I want him back. But that's the thing. It's like this world is divided into two camps, the transactional camp and the relationship camp. And for the most part, it's overwhelmingly, disproportionately in favor of transactions, quantity data instead of quality relationships, meaningful connections. And clearly, I mean, it should be obvious which camp I care about.

Absolutely. Well, before we go into some of the sort of pieces that we always do on the show, because I'm sure people want to hear your perspective on that, I want to touch base because you've got a lot of moving parts here. So you've got Corona TV that runs live every single day. You've got the after show going. You've got a new show in the works. So you've got a relaunch. You've got Jaffe Coyne going on. How are all these pieces? How are you looking at it now? More global perspective on what you're building.

Oh, and by the way, we forgot to mention the undergoing heart surgery.

That's right, we didn't even mention that. Yes.

In fact, when this episode comes out, I will probably be in the hospital or I will have just come home. So isn't it kind of weird thinking about people are watching this now and realizing where I am right now, even though it's crazy? So there is a strategy. Absolutely, 1,000%. And really what I'm building is a platform. The show is the hero and the show is. Is my heart and my soul. But around that, looking to build out eventually a keynote and a book and a workshop or a training program and solutions that will allow me to extend the brand and bring it to life. But for the most part, the way I've looked at even the corporate solution is, what if your next status meeting was a show? What if your next employee onboarding was a show? What if your next all Hands meeting or your next training program was a show? Recognizing that it's even. We had this discussion with Joe Polizi today. It doesn't have to be either. Or, as he said today, business people are people too. In a B2B environment or in a corporate environment. Why do we have to check for fun at the door? You know, the one thing that was happening with me is that a lot of my guests would say, wow, that was fun. You know, and at first I was like, I don't know if I like fun. You know, like, this is not fun. You know, fun is going to a bar or something like that. And then I realized, wait a second. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth if they're telling you that their factor. Right. I want to use the B word. But if what's connecting with them is fun, I had fun doing this. Well, then lean into that. So the thing that connects us all together is hope, positivity, and optimism and being a light and shining a light and helping other people's light shine, because it's not about my light. You know, I'm just a vessel and being able to go out there. And for me, I'm a bit of a geek. You know, I want to reinvent the variety show in the streaming era. I want to be a voice for creators.

That's what I want to tap into here. So you called your Jaffe coin the creator coin. We consider podcasting a creator economy. Right. Why does that interest you so much?

The creator economy?

Yeah.

Well, first of all, I am a creator, but I wouldn't have called myself one before. I mean, I was a content creator, but as a creator, as in people that have chosen to create content for a living, you know, to entertain for a living, that's my definition of creators. It's creators that have decided that this is not their side hustle. This is their hustle. This is their reason for being. And you know what I realized, especially going through Clubhouse as well, and being exposed to people that weren't like me, that didn't look like me, they weren't from the same places I came from, that didn't have the same privilege I did, that their voice was maybe as powerful or even more so, but they didn't have the same platform. They didn't have the same opportunity. And I thought if I could be a conduit, if I could play a small part, you know, I've got a very simple. It was a tagline, which somebody else has added to. And I wish I could remember who said it, because I always love to give attribution, but my tagline was celebrate, elevate, compensate. And then they added advocate. And those are the four things now. And so, you know, one. It takes one to no one. So I am a creator, too, but also I do believe in the creator economy. I do believe in the streaming era. I certainly believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion. And now I have the possibly potentially a way to bring all this together with the fourth pillar, which is crypto.

Yeah. And that's one of the interests that I have, that when I started in that sort of crypto blockchain space, it was that idea of that creator compensation, that creator credit also. Right. You want to do attribution. Right. All of that has a place in that blockchain economy. And so that's what I was always looking at it for. And that's what intrigued me. And I can't let that go. Right. There's something about that. And you dove in and you started your own coin and you're doing a really interesting thing. And that's what I want to touch on right now is you're doing this really interesting thing where you're combining your coin with a donation process. And hopefully that's really going to help alleviate some of the external costs here that you're going to be having happen to you as you go through this heart surgery.

Well, so just to explain it a little bit, the Create a Coin initiative is actually an initiative that belongs to a company called Rally. Rally IO Their whole going to get a little weird now, but they're actually a company and they're very well funded by A16Z Andreessen Horowitz. They actually have a plan to dissolve the company once they've been able to get this initiative to be self supporting and self sustaining. So there is new kind of new age company that isn't trying to be 165 years in existence with oil paintings of old dead white guys and mahogany tables. They're actually planning on moving on to the next project when they've been able to get this off. So their vision is not only to have thousands upon thousands of creators with creator coins, but for it to be self service. At the moment it's invitation only and there's kind of like a VIP process, that backlog like you cannot believe. And I was so fortunate enough to be offered a coin. I'm so grateful. But eventually anyone who want every podcaster, anyone that wants to be able to create this universal currency, this token that allows them to build an economy and feed that economy. So that's where this initiative comes from. Because I have a pioneer mindset. And I'll just tell you the little non secular but anecdote I should say. A very senior media person once came up to me and he said, joe, there are two types of people in the world. They're pioneers and settlers. The pioneers get shot and the settlers take the land. He said, you are a pioneer. And I was like, thanks a lot for nothing.

Thanks for listening. I'm going to get shot.

And look, what's that in my back? And someone stabbed me in the back again. But I love to be on that leading and bleeding edge. So for me, I said, well, let me take my creator coin and let me create or let me see if I can explore a use case. The use case is a go fund me. But I was very mindful, and I still am, to straddle or at least bridge the two extremes of Machiavellian opportunism. Never waste a good crisis, which I hate that term, that idea. And then desperation. When I think about medical bills and when I think about now, my show, everything has to be set back for four to six weeks. When I take a break, could I find a middle ground? And so the middle ground was the GoFundMe use case for creator coins would be tied back to my show. So I created a whole suite of rewards essentially that are like Kickstarter, Patreon esque. So each one includes the one before and they have a heart, big heart, heart of gold, heart to heart. They all have the word heart in them, but they're all connected to the show. So from shout outs, to super size shout outs, to cameos, to hanging out with me backstage, to sponsoring a show, to actually creating where I would create a custom one hour show for a company that would be fully customized, personalized, branded. And I felt that that way, even though people are supporting me and the work I've done to date and hopefully the work that I'm able to continue to do, they're also getting a benefit of visibility and promotion through this channel.

There's creative exchange in there.

Yeah. And why not? And so from a geek standpoint, I just think if this use case of cause and I'm giving 10% of the proceeds to the Mitral foundation as well. So there's a charity angle, there's a GoFundMe use case, and if it all comes together, I think everyone will win.

I agree, I agree. It sounds so interesting. I can't wait to see how it comes through. So we're going to have to have you on again after you've recovered so that we can hear some more about it. But you've got a lot of show shifts going on. So before we talk about that, because I need to talk about what you've done in the past here so we can get to some of these five things that you think you've done really right or some things that maybe you didn't do right. You know, you've got some tips on that. So while we get to that. Getting great guests, you have had some really great guests on your show. How have you gone about getting them.

So, you know, I'm gonna have to give you the standard line, which is, if I tell you, I'd have to kill you. No, I mean, one of the things that I committed to doing from the get go is being very transparent and helping people. Like, people want to know what software I'm using, what mixer I'm using. Just like the world needs more streamers, the world needs more podcasters and more creators, especially from the ground up. So there are a few pieces of advice that I would give. Number one, your first guest is your hardest guest and also your easiest guest. And what I mean by that is.

You had access to yours. Your sister was there.

My sister was really my easiest guest. But for. Well, so generally when I say the hardest, what I mean by that is the second guest should be easier than the first and the third easier than the second. Why? Because you can go back and say, well, these people were on my show. So when I've had Jamal Mashburn and James Rollins and Robin d' Angelo and Tom Peters and Seth Godin and Philip Kotler, it's very easy to go up to someone else now and say, and just dangle the FOMO little carrot. These are the guests that have been on. But if you don't want to be on, that's fine. I mean, I'm just being a little. But suddenly it's like, well, the perceived risk of coming on for them is so much now lower in terms of, well, they must have known something that I didn't. Or if they came on, then I would want to be in their company. But what I would say is it's the hardest, but it's also the easiest because everybody knows somebody, right? I knew my sister. I know my sister. But everyone knows someone famous. And if you don't, then you know someone who does, or someone with a.

Really great story in the case of your sister. Right?

Absolutely. And so, like, whether it's starting out with someone that's like calling in all your favors or. And I wouldn't recommend that because you want to cut your teeth, you want to get better, you want to refine your craft, you want to put in your 10,000 hours, but everybody has a network, and everybody has a Rolodex. And quite frankly, everyone has family. And I'm not necessarily saying get your brother or sister on, but I am saying reach out to the people that have your back and ask them to help if you don't have the network yourself. And success begets success and momentum. You know, as Lou diamond would say, the definition of thrive is onward and upward, which I also equated with movement and momentum. Keep moving, don't stop, don't atrophy, don't stand still.

Builds off of itself.

That's momentum. And that's his definition of thrive, which is onward and upward.

So increasing listeners, this is the one that I get. Everybody's like, I don't know, I wish there was a magic bullet, like, how do I increase listeners? But are you doing something? Did you do something early on to try to grow that listener base?

That's one area where, you know, my fifth book is called Built to Suck. And that's one area that I'm still sucking. I'm still struggling. That's where I feel like I need the most help. I've been stuck in my own bubble, in my own social media containers, so. And there's a lot of post blindness and there's a lot of algorithmic, nefarious, I would say, things going on that really make it really hard if you're not paying to play. And so what I've realized is I've done a lot of experimentation. I've decided that my home, my base, is YouTube. I'm starting to promote episodes every day. Not spending too much money on it, but enough to start actually getting the word out and getting the impressions in front of people in the right places. I'm looking at metrics. The only metric I care about, which is subscribes on YouTube because that's the ultimate demonstration of commitment. I don't care, to be honest with you, about views. And the main reason I don't care is because I'm not really at the moment interested in sponsorship. So here's the thing again, being very honest. I've struggled with growth even though it's my number one goal. But when you are one man band, in my case a one person band, you can't do it all. And so I had to let it go. I had to actually say I want to focus on being the best possible host that I can be. I'd rather focus on the art than the science. I'd rather focus on my craft than the business side. But now in year two, it's time to shift. It's time to make tough decisions. It's time to have to kill some of the stuff that isn't working as hard as it could be. And these are gut wrenching decisions, but they're ones that have to be taken. And I will just share a piece of insight that I got early on, which is someone said if you are starting A streaming show and you're not prepared to commit at least two years of your life to it. Stop now. Just quit right now. So I looked at it and I said, well, wait a second, here I am. It's. What's it may? We're 14, maybe 15 months into this little experiment. I still got time. I've still got.

You got some months left.

I've still got some time left to find my tipping point or to find the moment when the thing gets hopefully thrust or catapulted into the stratosphere. And when that happens, I better be ready for it. And I can promise you, if I was focused on the short term gain too soon, everything would have, I believe, unraveled.

Well, you've got to show that. I can see that whether or not without even knowing your numbers, I can see that there had to have been growth because of the type of guests you have on, because you've had to have steady growth. So I want to dive into normally with. My next question is about producing like a pro. And I don't want you to tell me about your mixing board. And the reason I don't is because we can gain so much more information about how you prepare to interview the guests that you prepare. That's something that not every host mixes their own show. Not every host produces that, but every host has to prepare for how they're going to talk to their guest. So how do you do that? How do you do that on such a professional level?

Joe, my advice, I would say don't try this at home because it's not for everyone. But I basically don't have any notes because I don't know what my guest is going to say. So if I've got a list of questions, then I'm not really listening to them. I don't really care what they have to say. I'm just like, great, let's move on to the next question. I heard a great line from Natalie Nixon, who was my guest last week. She spoke about this concept called chaotic, which is actually an amalgamation of chaos and order. And it's a thing, it's not a made up word. And so there is method to the madness, is a way I would interpret chaotic. And so what I do is have a Google Doc. I send the Google Doc to my guests ahead and I really just ask them three things. Three sets of three things. One, what's on your mind? What do you want to talk about? That's it. Two, what do you want to promote? One, two, three and three are. What are three Fun facts about you. The three fun facts about them is the icebreaker. It's a section that's called Fun Facts and it breaks the ice. And in some cases, I do these very, very intentionally bad Photoshops. I take their heads and put them on the bodies of lemmings and possums. If they hate possums, I'll make them into a human possum. But what it does is it really just disarms them, especially the more famous they are, the better it works, actually. And sometimes I'll skip it. But another thing that's so interesting about that is I remember having someone on Bob Liardes who's the head of the ana that's the most powerful, biggest association of national advertisers. He's a Trekkie, he's a Star Trek fan. And what I actually found out. And we ended up with this whole conversation about how Star Trek was ahead of its time in terms of teaching us about diversity and leadership. And so we ended up talking about that for eight minutes instead of 10 seconds. And then the three topics, I'll do a little bit of work around it. Maybe I'll get a Wikipedia screenshot or it's an article that they wrote that they referenced. And what I'll do there is I'll go in there and maybe the three points that they referenced in the article and I'll go, so there were three points in this article. Let's go through them one by one. So there's a tiny little bit of structure, but then I just trust the process and I trust myself and I trust them and I just let the conversation go.

Now you do a soliloquy at the beginning, though. Are you preparing that ahead of time?

Yes. So I write the soliloquy. It's actually been very interesting for me because when I keynote, I don't have notes. It's very. Just free form and free flowing. But this, I'm very deliberate in writing 300 to 400 words every day. I read it off a teleprompter because I want to be succinct. I want to make sure that every word is chosen and means something. And just today with my intern, we're now going back and trying to capture every soliloquy.

I was hoping you were going to do that.

I have not missed one. And you know what? I still can't tell you what the first one was, when the first one was, or how many they are. But guess what? I have. I have a book. I have an entire book. I have an entire book, maybe 300 pages of not just daily monologues, but monologues that can track back to what happened when George Floyd was murdered, when there was an insurrection, when I turned 50, when my son had his bar mitzvah in quarantine on Zoom. Everything has context behind it now, and who the guest was that day on the show. And so now I'm thinking what I can do with that. So one of the most important, I swear, please, please, if you are watching this right now, I'm about to give you a multimillion dollar idea, and you can just tip me and Jaffe. I'm kidding.

That's right.

But take notes. Take notes. Understand the power of the content you create is in the archive.

In the back catalog. That's what we call it here.

Yeah, in the back catalog. But take copious notes. Don't let the ideas dissipate. So while I'm actually. This is really hard to do. But while I'm actually doing the video interview and changing the camera angles and the banners and comments and everything, I'm also taking notes and timestamping everything, and then I type them up afterwards so that I don't lose the sparks, the insights as well. And if part of your business model is going back and then figuring out how you can connect the dots and remix the content, if that's part of your model, this stuff is going to. You know, I go back and I look at the episodes now that I wasn't taking notes, and I just. That's the only regret I have. The regret that I didn't start a lot of this. The rigor and the discipline sooner.

Well, it's not too late. You can still have them transcribed, right?

Well, it's so hard when you got a Daily show, you know, it's hard to catch up.

You're going to need a team for that. More interns.

More interns. More interns apply at.

That's right. Well, the. The fourth thing is encouraging engagement that we talk about all the time here on the show. So encouraging engagement, and you've got this really engaging after hour. But how did you kind of jumpstart that? Because I think that's the hardest part is getting that engagement going at its simplest level.

And this is a quick answer. I believe in live prerecorded has no interest for me. And I actually think when I'm benchmarking my show and reinventing the talk show, the variety show in the streaming era, you know, I am looking at the felons and the Kimmels and the Noahs of the world. And none of them are live. You know, none of them are live and none of them are engaging their community. And so that's what I believe can be my differentiation. I don't know whether that becomes. That isn't a binge factor. Right. Because it's not live anymore. But in terms of engagement, there's something about the excitement, the exhilaration of knowing it's live. Actually something Lou says as well, which is it's less important that being live. And it's more important knowing it was live. And just the comments that come in every now and then, you know what it does? It's also a way for hosts to cheat. If you're like going through a bit of a lull or you finding a bit of dead air, suddenly, oh, look, here's a comment. And you know, it's like Tracy had this to say. Well, Tracy, then you lean over to your guest. What do you think about that? So it's not just engaging people, but it's actually engaging yourself and your guest.

Right. Wonderful. Well, monetizing your show, you said you weren't really focused on the sort of ad model. You've not been focused on that. But you know, you have to be thinking about how you keep supporting a show like this. So what are your monetization plans?

Yeah, so, I mean, many answers. The one thing that I really did not push was traditional monetization. My first book is called life after the 32nd spot. So I don't believe in traditional spray and pray. Interruptive, poorly targeted. I mean, that's my enemy. Of course it has a place, but that's not the first place I'm going to look. So I started to think about what I called at the time, Corona Corporate, which is being able to actually do my show for a corporate, for a HR and for training and development and capabilities and internal comms. That has been my primary audience. To find several clients that actually want to turn their next zoom into a boom. What I call the greatest zoom on Earth. That's been one way. The other way has been trying to monetize, but also embedded with the creator coins. So actually sponsoring, but also building the Jaffe economy and then being able to figure out ways to activate that economy. Very, very much interested in that as a means of monetization. And ultimately, as the show grows or continues to grow, yes, there will be some more familial ways to monetize using Media 101s or kind of like Media best practices. But for me, it's all about me growing personally and then growing my community. I don't really care about the advertising. I just believe that if I'm able to do that and do a great job of it, you know, as you would call it, the binge factor. If I can create something that people miss, you know, it's the classic thing that when I was doing the show at the same time every day and one day I was late or my guest canceled, I started getting emails. Are you okay? Everything okay?

Right.

That's when you know you're on the right path. So do I have all the answers figured out? Not even close. But it's more important knowing that I'm on the right path. It's the journey versus the destination, but at least knowing that I'm on the right path. Because there's no point of a journey where you're completely lost and out to sea, right?

Absolutely. Well, you mentioned your binge factor. What do you believe the binge factor is for you?

I don't know. Maybe I've said it, maybe I haven't. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's just the fact that it's having fun, it's learning something, it's being inspired. I don't know. I think there's first onsite, honestly, to tell you, I don't know. Maybe it's all of the above and maybe it's none of the above. But I do think that it probably lies somewhere, at least in terms of the new direction of the show, in terms of those four buckets, crypto creator economy, streaming era and the diversity, equity and inclusion angle. But I will tell you, my mother in South Africa watches every episode and we have a retiree in South Carolina who watches every episode and my mother in law in Israel watches every episode. And then I've got people of my industry that watch every episode and then I've got Tom the philosopher. And I think that if I can have people who are not of marketing enjoying marketing content and learning and if I can have people that are of marketing not feeling that it's been dumbed down, I feel that the binge factor or that X factor is somewhere there saying you've created a crossover between a business and marketing show and something that is just kind of generally interesting and cool. And probably the best example of that is Malcolm Gladwell's the Tipping Point. It's a business book. It doesn't read like a business book. You're finding out stories about Sesame street and hush puppies and they're just really interesting stories. And yet it's a business book that doesn't feel like a boring self serving business book. What do you think it is? Help me.

So your binge factor is really in this place of, I'm going to call it smart stamina. Because that's kind of what you're doing here. You don't have this, as you put it, dumbed down. There's nothing dumbed down about where you start with your guests. You let them dive in at their level. And if people don't know who they are, they're going to get the story somewhere along the way because you've got lots of time to cover it. But you aren't worried about doing this in that sort of 101 way of like, let's do your origin story and then let's do this. And it just doesn't come from that. And part of it is the structure that you've created, that you've created this monologue soliloquy structure that sets the tone for the entry into the conversation. So you are starting that term in milieu, right? Where you're starting in the middle, you're starting in conversation already because they've been listening to that. So that has this really interesting model of creating this, I'm going to say a smarter show where it's still fun and it's still interesting, but we have this sort of smarter, a little bit more intellectual view of a talk show which can be so dumbed down in.

Other views, you know what I mean? I'm going to have to watch this again because you just nailed it for me, this idea of a smart stamina. Because even smart stamina is a crossover, right? It is a hybrid between the brain and the brawn. And that's true. The word can be overused and sometimes people don't love it. But there is a thing, a realness and authenticity to being able to be true to myself, right? Never compromise. Never compromise myself, but also never compromise my audience as well. And so I think that's. I love, love, love what you just said there in terms of being able to find this unique angle. And I've been using that phrase a lot lately, crossover. Cause I like the idea. I think crossover artists, they're bridge builders. And that's what I like. And if you're a bridge builder, you're also a translator. And somewhere in there is this ability to. Someone else said to me that part of the art is in the framing and the reframing and the ability to create connections. I don't know. I just I love doing it.

See, I don't think you're a pioneer. You know, when you were talking before about pioneers, that's. I see you more as that bridge builder, which I always see come behind the pioneers. So the pioneers go out there and they are just like fiercely blazing trails without looking behind. They don't care. They're like, you follow me, because I know what I'm doing and I got this. I've got the vision. But there's somebody who comes behind them, builds the train lines and the bridges and builds the use case. Right? That's you. That's you, Joe.

Good. Because I want to take the land. I want to be a successful ones.

That's right, you did. And you do it and you show people how brilliant it can be. Right? That's who you are, Joe.

Well, thank you for saying that. That is very, very kind. And. And the thing is, as I said, you know, if we've learned anything from the last year and a half, it's that life is short. Right. The only thing that matters is health. And it's something that. That if we take, I mean, look at me, what I'm going through as well, if I. Or we needed any reminders, and I'm going to just say, as well, which is for every person born in 1970, I'll just say that. Get your annual general physical. Make it a. There's a reason they call it the annual physical. Just take care of yourself and of your body and of your physical. Your mental health, it's just so important now more than ever, this murmur, which found out that I had a severe prolapse in my mitral valve, was picked up in my physical with just my primary care physician applying a stethoscope to my chest and doing something that even he might have Just, you know, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. All right, you're on your way.

Well, and so often today we're just doing. You were phoning in the medicine, so, you know, the fact that you went in to go get that checked, good for you. And you're right. More of us need to do that.

I just think that that's important. Just make the most of your time. You have. And there's something as well that even I wrote in Baltusak, which is embrace your mortality. Instead of feeling debilitated or hamstrung or, you know, paralyzed, just make that. It really is like a carpe diem. It is. And I think being a creator, you live that every day because there is a youthful exuberance Exhilarance, high exhilaration, however you want to call it, that comes from not just being able to, by definition create something that didn't exist before, but to do it with others. The collaboration and in service of others. And how lucky am I to be doing this?

Well, before we go, you know, we teased it, we got to talk about it. So you're going to go and you're having your heart surgery. You're going to be off for four to six weeks. Is the show going to happen during the hiatus? Are you going to record? Is nothing going to happen? And then is it going to come back new?

Well, I'm actually launching the show. By the time people watch this, a I'm in hospital, maybe I've just come home. So by all means, I'm very easy to be contacted. If you've watched this and this has inspired you, you can easily contact me on any of the social medias. I'm Jaffy Juice on everything. And hopefully just say if this show was valuable to you, wish him well. Yeah, please. You know, that'll be awesome. I hope I will be well, but I'll take all of your wishes. But, you know, the other thing is a few people said, I'll host your show while you're gone. Now, by the way, that's a tell. That's a tell that the show is valuable enough that they would want to host it. But I've decided to take a break. I've decided to take a break because as the saying, I think the Tony Robbins saying goes, life is not what happens to you. Life is what happens for you. So this is a sign that I'm meant to slow down and take a break. I haven't taken a break since March of last year and look at what's working and look at what isn't and then come back stronger and invigorated and fresh again. And so I can say this because at this time, you know, the new name will be announced. Are you ready for it?

I'm ready for it. I'm excited to hear it.

So I'm going to tell you the quick story behind it was Bruce Turkel was a guest on my show. Amazing, amazing marketing, genius mind. And we're just doing a little Zoom. He was one of my guests as well. But now we're having a Zoom and having a cocktail and he's like, you know you have to change the name of your show, right? And I'm like, but do I though? Because isn't a Corona. It's like a crown. It's like light. It's a halo. It's hope. It's like, dude, it's like calling your show 911 TV. And he just said that. He said that. And I just went like, you're right, it's Y2K. Yeah, yeah. And he's. Look, his point was, without being flippant about it, which is at the time, you know, you're in it and it's a part of you, but at some point, people want to put it in their rear view mirror. So he said to me, it's very appropriate conversation. You may as well have been asking what my binge factor was. Maybe this is the answer. He said, what makes you different? I was like, well, I've got a funny accent and, you know, I'm this and I'm a crossover. And he was like, yeah, but there are lots of people with accents. What makes you different? What's truly different about the show? And I said, well, the show's not about me. It's never been about me. It's about my guest. I change my backgrounds, my green screen. I do everything is about my guest. And then he said, okay, tell me more. And I said, well, if I'm ever fortunate enough to get an agent or a manager, I will give them only one brief, which is if somebody wants me on their podcast or their show, and maybe they've just started it, their first episode, they don't even have a single viewer or listener. If you say no to them, I'll fire you on the spot because that is my commitment to helping other people. And he said, the new name of your show is Joseph Jaffe is Not Famous. That's the name of the show.

I love it. I love it.

That's the name of the show. But my next guest is. So I will always, when I say that, when I say it right, so that it's. But my next guest is, you know, so it's like, it's not about me, it's about them. It's about you as well. It's fun, it's irreverent. And of course there's a joke, right?

And everybody can get the joke. Like that's the other part of it, right?

Yeah. I don't even have to explain what the joke is, right? But it's, you know, I love it. And it's. Talk about active experimentation. It's risky. I could have just gone with the Jaffe show. I mean, my coin is called Jaffe the Jaffe Coin. You know, I am Jaffe. My email address is Jaffe at Or Jaffe Juice. And I was like, no, this just feels right. It feels like, you know, I'm so.

Glad you decided on that because it is a great variety show name because there's a history in variety shows of having the Carol Burnett show. Right. Having the person's name on it. Right. And that in and of itself though, is so, you know, some ways self focused that you don't have that as a part of your show. It's not who you are. And it actually wouldn't really work because we see that again and again and again here as we launch more shows that the shows that are named after the host do significantly worse than shows that are named something else. That being said, a show with a joke title, the play on that. No, that's eye catching. Ear catching. Right. You want to find out more about that? That is going to make me stop.

Yeah. And it's the opposite, right? The Joseph Jaffe show is all about me, but Joseph Jaffe is not famous. It's kind of like, wait a second, did you just Jedi mind trick me?

That's right. That's right. It's totally perfect. Your geek is coming out just like mine does all the time.

And it's fun, you know, and ironically, it does come back to that word that started coming back. I'm referencing Joe Polizzi a lot because he was on my show a few hours ago and the quote that I remember clearly and I've taken notes, as you know, is this concept of I think this is a thing. And what he was referencing was he has his book in front, right. Was the color orange. That what else is. I can't find the box at the moment, but everything about him is orange. And what he realized at some point, stumbling into it was that he did this. He was talking about how he did this event in Belgium and it was a black tie event and he was wearing his tuxedo and people came up to him and said, why aren't you wearing orange?

It's your thing.

I think this is the thing that sometimes in marketing they say perception is reality. You know, when I do a lot of mentoring of founders, I always say to them, like, you are what I say you are. I meaning the consumer. So, like, they would pitch to me and I go, oh, wait a second, you're the Uber meets waze of charitable donations. They go, no, no, no, we're not that. We're actually. And I go, no, no, you are the Uber meets ways of that. The fact that my mind has made the connection, which is a Clear one and triangulated you into that place indicates that something is sticking as well. So for me, like, it came back to this idea now of saying fun. This can be fun as well. We can learn, we can be educated, we can be inspired, and we can do it without being bored to tears.

Oh, and that is definitely your show, no matter whether it's called Corona TV or Joseph Jaffe is not famous, which I cannot wait for the start of.

But my next guest is.

But your next guest, which hopefully will be you soon. I would love to be on your show. So our hearts are with you that you're recovering as this is airing right now, that your heart is recovering really well.

I feel good.

And we'll look forward to the relaunch. And everyone, of course, will be able to connect with you through the bingefactor.com because we will have all the ways to reach Joe Jaffe. Joseph Jaffe, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so glad Lou connected us.

I know I said, I'm so, like, I owe him so much. It all came again from being open. And my story was I heard him in a room on Clubhouse, a random room that I might have just. It wasn't a random room. I mean, it was like a speaker room, et cetera. But I was there. I didn't have to feel like the need to be on the stage and talk, talk, talk. And I was listening and I was like, this guy seems like a good guy and he's smart. And I clicked on his bio and I saw he had a show, and I reached out to him saying, hey, let's do a swap. You know, you be a guest on my show, I'll be a guest on your show. And now he's a brother from another mother.

That's right. A recipe for success.

Because of him, I met you.

Oh, thank you, Joe. So glad to have you here. And we'll have to have you back after the new show has had some traction and we can hear how it goes.

I look forward to it.

So I know that was so jam packed. It was so jam packed with great advice, great process that Joe goes through with how he produces a show and what he's thinking about, and obviously a lot of intellectual and unpacking thoughts about how he's structuring his show, what he's building, how he's growing it, how he's shifting it. He's got so much going on both on the show and off the show as he's structuring this. He is all in, as he said in this, he really is all in and it is coming through in a great show and it is a shame if this is a show that is not listened to. There is so much out there for all of you marketing geeks, all of you out there who want to learn more about marketing and entrepreneurship want to hear these deeper dive conversations than we get on a lot of podcasts, you know, where we're just skimming the surface. And that's why I didn't shorten this episode. I let Joe talk because there's so much learned information that I wanted to pull out of him and I wanted to make sure that we got him to share so that you could learn from that, so you could thrive on that and turn it into something that works for your show, turn it into something that you can apply and you can use. And there are so much more of that on his show. So you're going to want to check out Corona tv, but you're also going to want to check it out because, I mean, as we just heard, it's got a new name. Joseph Jaffe is not famous, but his next guest is. And we're going to want to hear who those next guests are. So as always, you can go to the bingefactor.com, you'll be able to connect up with Joe, you'll be able to find him. Everyone on social media, please go help him, wish him well. Because I hope that as this is airing right now, he is in full recovery, surrounded by the love of his family and the love of all of us here who've gotten a chance to meet him, be guests on his show, have him as guests on our show and go out there and share that love back with him. If you learn something from the show, go let him know because that's the only thing some of us podcasters have. Here are some of us live streamers have is that audience feedback when you take the time to let us know that you shared something brilliant with us. So go let Joan know that you learned something from him, that he shared something brilliant with him and wish him well. Thanks everyone for listening. I'll be back next time with another Binge Factor.

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