How Having A Management Blueprint Can Help You Monetize Your Show More With Steve Preda Of Management Blueprint Podcast

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 back to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I have Steve Prada Today Management Blueprint. It was previously called Profserv Traction or Professional Services Traction Podcast and he shifted it over. And I love it when we talk to someone who's found something out and then pivots their show and shifts it so into something better. I love when we can talk about that because there's always an interesting story there that might really apply to what you're thinking about. So you can start out right or you can make that shift that you've been thinking about. So let's get some background on Steve. Steve Prada is a leadership team coach whose passion is to help emerging privately owned businesses grow and thrive. He built and sold an investment banking firm in Europe before moving to the United States. He's written two Amazon bestsellers about transforming businesses into growing and thriving companies. His latest book, five Principles that Take youe Business to the Top of The Mountain received 95 star reviews in its first 90 days. Steve explores business growth shortcuts on the Management Blueprint podcast and he loves helping growth minded entrepreneurs and their leadership teams reach their business pinnacles. So let's hear all about Management Blueprint Podcast with Steve Prada.

Steve, thanks for joining me. And we're going to talk management Blueprint. I think sometimes like podcasters need to have a blueprint. Like they need to understand what they're getting into. Did you build yourself sort of a plan before you started podcasting?

Not really. That's a great question. Hi Tracy. Not really. So I kind of had a vague plan. My plan was that I wanted to have a podcast. I thought it could help my business. It would give me a medium that I could use to regularly communicate to my audience without having to write down or have a blog. So what attracted me was the regularity and the systemizability of it. Let's, let's put it this way. But I didn't have a specific plan other than I wanted to talk about professional services firms, which was my and still is my interest. The Podcast was originally called ProfSurf Traction with a terrible name.

I was going to ask you about that next. So Proftracks Action, which was like, luckily I listened to the first episode to check it out and they go, oh, professional services. Profser. I was thinking it was like some software term that I didn't, like, know or some kind of weird, like, server thing.

It was a horrible name. So I was kind of blessed to have to abandon it because Management Blueprint is better. But I'm not sure it's perfect either, because management is kind of out of vogue kind of term. And it's not really just about management. It's more about entrepreneurial businesses. But anyway, that's what we got.

And that's the great thing about podcasting, though. You get to refine over time. And it's okay to change your mind and change your name, right?

It's okay. It's not easy to change because as you know, everything is branded in a certain way and then you've got the links, and if you change the links, then you lose all the connections and the SEO. So I wouldn't advise this for other people, but it seemed to be working so far.

Well, there are some better ways to do it. And I actually will make sure to link in the blog post for this episode. Some of our feed your brand episodes. I think there might be two about changing. Changing your name or pivoting your show. Because there are some easier ways than others. We think it's more complicated, but it actually can be fairly simple if you make some of the right choices. And not everybody knows how to do that. Luckily, I've done it multiple times, so we have.

I certainly need some guidance in this too.

That's right. So we'll give some guidance so you don't fall into Steve's traps so well. I think Management Blueprint is a better name for it. And I think that when we're talking about some subject matters that have a clear alignment in space. So when you're really talking about, to me, Management Blueprint says plans for management, like, you're thinking through these things that not a lot of shows talk about. There are a lot of entrepreneur shows and you have to watch out because Entrepreneur magazine will come after you if you label your show Entrepreneur. So you gotta watch out for that anyway. So you can't really use that term. Plus, it's really long. I think that to me, if I were looking for someone to help me with planning, someone to help me with these things, I'm gonna go find a show like Yours like the name's attractive for that. So maybe it just needs a subtitle, like a little bit of more of a better description that describes that a little better. So you cover those entrepreneurs and those professional service people that you are always covering. I think it's fine the way it is. Like, I review a lot of shows here, so I think it works. So I do like Management Blueprint. I do like the topics of that you're covering with your guests, and I do like the fact that you stayed pretty much around minutes. So I think your people are busy professionals. You have really tight topics. Like, you had one on pricing recently and I thought that one was such a good episode. Like, I mean, I love the topic of pricing. Anyway, it was such a good episode for me to just check out and listen to your show on. But I just, I think those topics are things that are part of your management plan and you don't always deep dive into those individual topics and you're able to do that with a great guest with great ideas.

So my concept for the show and it's called management blueprint, that was the original term I came up with a couple of years ago. But the idea of what it covers is essentially business framework. So everyone wants to shortcut their way to success. How do I simplify things? And this podcast has become maybe the first 20 show that was not crystal clear that this was what we were going after. But after about 20 shows, so we are now recording about 120. It's very clearly we are mining the conversation for a business framework the listeners could implement in their own business. It's a shortcut way. It's a simple way of doing something in the business, whether it's pricing, you know, what are the three ideas on pricing? If you just follow that, your pricing is going to improve dramatically. Same goes with sales, for marketing, for culture of your business, for systemizing your business. So that's what it's all about. And I am super excited because I never thought when I started the show that there are so many frameworks out there and many of them have not been published anywhere other than the Management Blueprint podcast. And it's. Many of them have not even been articulated by the person who uses them. So in the conversation it comes out and then we articulate it, we give it the pithy name and there you go, we've got another framework.

I love it. I love that you do that. So I normally do everybody's binge factor at some point in the episode. I'm going to do Yours right now. And it's my opportunity to psychoanalyze what I really think is really going for you in your show and why people are going to listen to more than one episode. Right. They're going to listen and binge through your portfolio of episodes there. And I think it's because you come across on the management blueprint as curious about learning about these management plans, these blueprints, these frameworks that you talk about. You're learning as much about them and absorbing them and trying to figure out how to utilize them as your audience is. And so I think there's kind of a level of excitement about that that you're bringing through and energy that you're bringing through the show about. This is something really interesting. This is something worth Lear, that it makes us want to learn more. And of course, we want to check out the next episode to make sure we do learn more. What's next on this framework? What's the next one? And how could we update and change ours? So I think that that's really. It's this sort of learning energy that you have in here, this curiosity that's really working for you.

Well, thank you. Thanks for noticing. It's great to get feedback, but sometimes I feel I'm one of those selfish hosts that are all about their own curiosity, their own desire to learn something. And of course, I try to make it so that the guest shines on the show, but it is undeniable. I'm curious about the business. I don't invite people that I'm not curious about. I'm curious about that. I'm going to dig deep and going to have a couple of my questions asked, and it's a lot of fun.

Well, I wouldn't call it selfish. I think at the end of the day, I mean, first off, you're benefiting your audience, but I guarantee you, your clients are better off for this amalgam of information that you're gathering for them and new tactics, new ideas that you're melding into your own process. So I guarantee you everyone's benefiting from this. So don't think of it as selfish.

Yeah, you're putting out waves of additional knowledge, so it's a good thing. Well, let's move on to the three things that I ask everyone, because you just mentioned guests. And so I want to talk about, how do you find these great guests? And I can see that you're being careful about who you're inviting on your show. They have interesting ideas, maybe something outside the norm. They, as you put it before, maybe haven't articulated it before, but how are you finding them? Are you thinking of, I want to talk about this topic and going looking for them or are you just stumbling across them?

So I'm looking for people who have shown some success as an entrepreneur or as a business leader. So I'm really looking for people who have businesses that are maturing. Because if you are a solopreneur, you're just starting out, the chances are that you have an original framework that you developed is much lower. So I'm going for more mature business leaders, entrepreneurs, and I'm serial entrepreneurs. I look at their LinkedIn profiles very carefully. I look at the website, I look at their history on LinkedIn, what they have achieved and invite those that are look promising and also try to mix it up. So I don't just want to have entrepreneurs that run marketing agencies. I'm looking for different kinds of businesses and different kinds of expertise from these people. And if I follow that, then the result tends to be pretty good.

There you go. You got a system down for yourself there and how you're working on it. Well, everyone wants to increase their listener base. It's like the podcaster's dream. Everybody has a problem here. You wouldn't be alone if you said, gosh, I need more listeners, everybody needs more listeners. But what do you think that you do well, that does help you grow that listener base?

Well, I don't know if I'm doing it well enough, so I just hired someone who is helping me post. I'm really not consistent. So what I do well is I think I've got good guests, I think I've got a good visuals for the show. You mentioned that I keep it in 30 minutes. I didn't start out like that. My early episodes were. Some of them were 45, 50 minutes, some of them were five minutes when I just had my own monologue of something. So it was very inconsistent. I made it more consistent. I think visually it comes out good and we promote it on LinkedIn primarily. And now I have someone who's helping me so that I can consistently post it. But certainly I'm a student here, so I'm green and growing. I don't have it done well.

I think LinkedIn is a really good choice for you because that's where your people are, where the listeners will be are there. And I think the under 30 minutes is working for you because they're busy. Right? The people who are going to listen to your show are very busy. But too short isn't Enough information. Right. So when they listen a little bit and they go, oh, that's really interesting topic, they will give it the full 30. And I think that's important. So I think that's working for you there. So let's talk about how this is translating into the business itself. So we don't really think of your show. You probably don't think of your show as monetizing through the traditional model of it, but I'm sure it's helping your business. And so in what way are you receiving a return on investment from the podcast?

Yeah, so that's a great question. So there are multiple ways that there's a return. So one is great way to network. I meet very interesting people, I learn their ideas. So it keeps me fresh. I've got clients where I'm working with helping companies grow and I can bring these ideas into these sessions. I can actually teach some of this framework to them. So that's super helpful. I also write books. So for example, I'm right now I'm thinking about how I could perhaps maybe one of my next books are going to be about some of these frameworks I learn and how I'm going to organize them so that it's really useful and I can touch different areas on the business and give some kind of a higher level business framework, business operating system. My previous book was about that. And I can take this to the next level. So that's also something I'm thinking about. And, and obviously I meet great people. Many of them, they read my book. If they like me, they're going to refer me. Sometimes they become my clients. So it's a great way to talk to people who are relevant, who focus on this half an hour, an hour that they spend together provide great information. So it's a very engaging way of communicating with them.

Yeah, I love that that you're looking at it from a more holistic perspective as to like what is my return from this? Rather than saying this is my 1 metric. Because too often people give up on their show before they really realize how great it is. And you've gotten over 100 episodes under your belt. So that usually means that you kind of have started to see this layering of return on from your podcast. So some of the things that I want to mention is that what part of what attracted me and made me invite you on my show here isn't just because you have over a hundred episodes and management blueprints sounded like something we'd want to talk about here, but it was also because you have P's, so you have your book Pinnacle and you've got five principles and they're all P's. And my process, my process that I used to do with my product development clients was seven Ps. So I was like, I have to check this out. So yeah, so I went to go check out your website and check out the P's that were there and I loved the overlap in them because you've got like people, purpose, Playbooks, perform and profit. And I love Playbooks as like an idea because that's really what your show is working on. So maybe that's your new name in there. You got to work Playbook in there. And so maybe that's just with a new twist on management blueprint, but I think that might be your new book name, something like that. So there's something there because I do think that this is what people are looking for. When I was asked to write a column for Inc. Magazine, they wanted stuff that was nitty gritty and tactical. And you do have that here. And I think that's a great appeal. So when thinking about it in terms of your process and your platforms and all the things that you're working on and doing, what do you think? Do you think that Pinnacle, that your five principles apply to the podcast itself and not just your business? Could you treat it like that as well, like a little ecosystem?

Oh yeah. I'm sure it is possible to relate to it. I mean, a podcast is kind of a business. Maybe it's a starts out as a one dimensional business. It's more about communicating, getting the word out. But if you think about it, I mean, podcast is all about attracting the right kind of people to the show and the right kind of listeners who.

Would appreciate the content or the right kind of guests. Right too. Because it's networking, right? It's both.

Exactly. So either guest or audience, if it doesn't have a purpose, then really it's less attractive than it's more of a commodity. So my purpose is, I mean the podcast actually fits in with my personal. My personal purpose is to create and to distribute tools for entrepreneurs that help their business move better and faster and go faster. So that's definitely the purpose of this podcast is in line with my personal purpose Playbooks. Well, that's what it's all about, right. We are creating.

It's all about finding new tactics and tools. Right.

Finding Playbooks for different areas of the business perform. If you implement these playbooks, you're going to perform much better. And the playbooks are designed to accelerate your gross, your performance, make it more systemized, make it more logical and organic and ultimately profit.

Right.

Profit is going to be the byproduct. But also we have episodes like the Percy Offers episode on pricing that you mentioned. Pricing is all about improving your profits. Sometimes there's more resistance to increase the price. And you can improve your margin dramatically by. By applying one of these frameworks that came on the show. And there are many frameworks like that. So yeah, it does apply. You're right.

Yeah, I think it does. And so maybe that's a lesson. Is so many of us, like start a podcast without a plan or a framework in place for what we're thinking about, and so we miss some of the pieces and it takes us over time to start filling in those pieces. That's why you pivot your show name. That's why you add a social media person. Right. You add these things. I mean, sometimes we just don't have the budget to be able to do that at the beginning. But if we know that that's going to happen when we hit this metric, when we perform at this level, then it's time to add my social media person in place and whatever that might be. Maybe if we looked at it from a framework standpoint, we'd accelerate the success of our podcast. Right. But too many podcasters are visionaries and we forget that there are tactics and other things out there. Right?

Yeah. I mean, vision is great. It's actually easier to be a visionary than to be a good execution person.

I'm so glad you said that. I think that's so true. Right. And I think lots of people think, oh, there's so many people without vision in the world. But I find it's the other way.

That's right. So it's easy to dream and daydream and have these grandiose ideas, but execution is name of the game.

Well, what's next for your podcast? What's on tap for the future here?

It's a great question. I haven't thought about how to evolve it. My sense was it is going to be kind of a soft evolution. So how it started was we were looking at these major frameworks like Scaling up and E Myth and Great Game of Business. So the big ones that are about the whole company. Pinkle is like that as well. And we are now moving towards niche frameworks inside the business because we covered all the major ones. So we are now digging deeper. And are we going to run out of material? I don't think we're Going to run out soon.

I don't think you're going to run out at all. I think. I think there's as many frameworks as businesses out there.

So yeah, probably. So maybe at some point it's going to be more frameworks which are on the fringe of the business. So we all know what the major functions, you know, everybody. Business, sales, marketing, operations, finance, administration, engineering. Maybe we can go and we can find some niche things. Maybe podcasting can be a framework as well. How do you use podcasting for your business? What are the five steps to launching a great podcast? You could be a good guest on the show as well.

Well, thank you. I would love to at any time, but the idea of it is I think there's also a timing thing. Like that's something that I'm in the restructure. So we have over a hundred staff members at my core company productize, and so I'm restructuring the management level. And so it's like there are times that you make framework changes too. Like, I think that could be really interesting too explore as well. Is it the right time for you to make this change or is it too soon and it's going to stress everybody out, or is it too late and you're really going to need to work harder to make it happen?

You just need to close your business now. It's too late.

It's too late now. Yeah, it's just, it is like as your business shifts and grows and sometimes it happens in a very speedy way, you don't realize that you didn't put the framework in place. And I think that's kind of what happens to a lot of podcasters, is that they just accelerate into this and they're like, wow, I have all these listeners and. Or I have all these guests wanting to be on my show. I need a system. I need a framework. I didn't think about this before. How does this really fit into my overall business?

So you're absolutely right. So you have to think ahead of your growth and put the foundations and the infrastructure in place so that you can keep growing and you're not going to be the Stop, Go. Stop. Go. Growth cycle can be really dangerous.

So what advice do you have for an aspiring podcaster out there? Someone who's visionary and been thinking about it, dreaming about it, but hasn't, like, taken off. What advice do you have?

Just keep doing it. Show up. Don't try to overly systemize it. I think that can backfire as well. So I see some people, they automate everything on Their podcast. And basically I even was invited to a podcast where the host didn't even show up. They delegate the interviewing to someone else who was not as into it. And I think that's a mistake. So overly automating, I think, can be a mistake. Stay engaged with it, enjoy it, be excited about your podcast, and then the guests are going to be excited as well. If you get bored of it, then find a way to rejuvenate it.

Right? Exactly. Well, Steve, I am so glad you came on to talk about Management Blueprint and I wish you really well in your show. I hope you make it another hundred episodes because it's a fantastic idea and I look forward to see the book that comes out next.

Okay, well, thank you, Tracy, for having me on the podcast.

I find it so fascinating when someone learns more from their podcast than they're getting anywhere else. And I think that that's just a fascinating return on investment model from podcasting. I love to learn. A lifetime learner. It's just the way I am. And I love when you can really do that, when what you're learning and communicating back and forth on is really taking and then transforming that into something useful for your clients, for your next next book, for whatever it is that you're working on. The hat to me has residual value that can't be measured. It's not going to be measured in the downloads. It's not going to be measured in number of listeners or anything like that. What it's going to really be measured in is in the overall growth for your business, for you yourself. That, to me is very fascinating and I love that Steve was able to highlight that for us here and it's a part of his management blueprint. Of course you have to grow, so that's part of the process. So thanks to Steve Prada. Love it. Checkout Management Blueprint might be something you need in your business thinking about growing. So check out that podcast. I'm Tracy Hazard and I will be back next time with another Binge Factor host who bringing you a different perspective on podcasting.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast Podcast. For more information on podcasting and videocasting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.

Sam.