How Personal Branding In Podcasting Sends A Message That Attracts And Converts More With Tonya Eberhart And Michael Carr Of Be BOLD Branding

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 Hazzard 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 have Tonya Eberhardt and Michael Carr here.

Be Bold Branding Podcast.

I'd love to talk branding because one.

Of the things that I say so.

Consistently in my business and when I'm advising podcasters starting out, that in mind, starting out, but even once you're established, my question to you is who are you going to talk to and how are you going to get that message across to them in a way that they're going to understand? How does that relate? And part of that is branding. Branding is what people say about you when you're not in the room. But it is also what you're putting out there because you're crafting that. So if you're not crafting that from the beginning, you're really not thinking about it.

You're just haphazardly, pun intended, on my last name, putting it out there. So Tanya Eberhardt and Michael Carr are.

International best selling authors. They're partners in brand face and hosts of the Be Bold Branding podcast where they interview experts and entrepreneurs who have made one bold move that help them gain differentiation and recognition in their space. Today, Be Bold Branding has more than 100 episodes and is the top three global rank in its category. Tanya and Michael have helped inspire podcasters, coaches, sales professionals and creators in five countries in 45 states to attract more and convert more through the power of personal branding. Their mantra is people don't do business with a logo, they do business with a person. So let's hear it from Tanya and Michael directly.

Tanya and Michael, thank you so much for being here and I love that I get to talk branding. I don't get to talk branding with many people. I want to say so few really great branding experts who I will let on the show and because you and I have talked about philosophy already that like so much of branding is that logo focus, like it's just all wrong.

Oh, amen to that.

Yeah.

So why don't you tell everybody a little bit about your branding philosophy yeah, absolutely.

So I'll start with this one. Our branding philosophy is really the story behind the brand. Right. It truthfully is why you're doing what you're doing and who you're doing it for. So. And when we brand somebody, we really look at answering five critical questions that we believe every brand should answer, and. And everything else becomes this ecosystem around the answers to these five questions. It's first, exactly who do you serve? How do you serve them? What qualifies you to serve them? How does it make their life better? And what makes you different from everyone else? Also trying to serve that same customer.

Oh, I love that you said that. So for those of you who listen to a lot of the binge factor and possibly a lot of feed your brand, you've heard me do my description exercise with you before, which is our way of writing 4,000 character descriptions. So I think I've said it, I don't know, in probably 20% of our episodes. So, like, you had to have heard this before. That is exactly the essence of it. We don't do it in five questions. We do it in three.

But it's the same things.

We want to get across your personal story brand in your description of your podcast. So it's exactly the same model. I love that you do that. I love that those are the questions.

We appreciate coming on. And thank you for your kind words and letting us on, Tracy. We love meeting of the minds like this because we truly feel like so much out there is done wrong. But rather than focus on that, it's like, okay, what's the right way to do it?

Yeah, like your three questions. Our five questions. Like that approach also gives you a massive amount of focus, which is really, really. I've been an entrepreneur for 31 years. That's the problem with most people, no matter what industry they're in, podcasting to lawn care is lack of focus on the growth of their business. When you dial your brand in, you get that focus, like, as part of the exercise. It just sort of comes peripherally with building that brand. That's why it's so much more than just a logo.

Exactly. It really is. So what's the story about you two starting a podcast? Like, how did that come about for you? And really, it starts as a video cast because you're video first.

Yes. Well, here's a fun story for you, Tracy. So we started years ago. I'd say closer to four years ago. And. And the reason we wanted to do this was to really put our clients at ease and let People know that those people that were intimidated by building a brand and they just really were not sure that that's what they wanted to do. Not sure they really wanted to put themselves out there that much. We thought, you know what? We're going to do something called Fearless Friday and we're going to show them why you should be fearless about this because is you and you should be proud of it. And the brand should be built to equal the great person that you are. And so we started that, but it was awful.

It was horrific.

I mean, it was so terrible. In fact, we took off all those old episodes where Michael's actually in the car and I'm in the office.

Yeah, I was on the phone in a parking lot on the road with a towel. So to block out the sun.

So which is like the old school podcasting thing. Like I remember, like it took me about a year where I was giving lectures constantly saying, you don't have to look like this. And it was a picture of a couple of guys in the car with their iPhones and the towel. Exactly. Or in the closet. That was the other one. The closet. So I was like, you don't have to do this.

But we thought then done is better than perfect. Right. And back then there was really no such thing as this awesome big home studio when we first started, or there was, but wasn't mainstream like it is right now.

Like we would speak at like the voiceover conference and things like that with those. Those types of podcasting equipment were more prevalent at the time, especially with voiceover work. Like when people were traveling, you set up in your hotel room and stuff like that. Even then we didn't think about applying it to our podcast. We still were on our iPhones, on a holder in the car and. And then we realized obviously the things that so many other great podcasters figured out, like if you say Fearless Friday, you can only like release on Friday effectively, you can always shoot on Friday. So like, okay, we gotta make this non time specific and help our listenership and stuff. So we changed a lot of things.

I love that about podcasting. It's one of my favorite things is to see how someone show shifted over time. And so I know you deleted some of those episodes, which I actually don't encourage. I say if people want to come back and find some of your Fearless Fridays, you should let them. Like, you should let them. If they're going to consume that much of you backwards through the catalog, you should let them.

Well, we had some good ones. We did some hang gliding and things like that.

Yeah.

The devoted listeners or the ones who really want the information will consume it, and they won't care. They'll come along with you. But I love that you shifted it, because that's my favorite part about podcasting, is how flexible it is. Absolutely. And so it flexes with your brand, because, I mean, this is the one thing that I learned about branding all along, is that branding isn't a stake in the ground. It's not a line in the sand.

Right.

Like, I don't say, this is my brand and it's done because you're not done.

That's true. Especially with a personal brand. You grow like you are your brand. And what we like to say is a brand is an entire ecosystem. It's not just a photo, a logo, and a tagline. It's so much more than that. And you do evolve. Might be a great word about for a brand. It evolves just like you change and evolve.

Like Tanya said, it doesn't just change the way people see you, it changes the way you see yourself. And we're always a work in progress if we're doing the right things. I'm the abundant life broker. That is my tagline. That is my brand identifier. And it took me 27 years of business to figure out that's what I really was and then able to live up to that. And it can mold and change with me. It'll never change. But the look, feel, and how that story progresses will definitely be updated.

Yeah. And I think also our businesses change too. Right. And we start out maybe a little more general, and then we narrow down our audiences. And one of the things that I think you have done so well is that you found that you work really well with real estate professionals, with home improvement, with entrepreneurs. Like, those are your areas of niche. In terms of personal branding, is there a reason that you found that it works better in those areas?

Because that's who we are.

Yeah. And we went by default, too. Like, I didn't realize when I met Tanya, see, I had a real estate company, and I hired Tanya to be my marketer. She had a turnkey company at the time, and I thought I needed marketing, and she taught me I needed branding. I knew how to market. I had already been doing it for years and years and years. Two decades worth. I was a senior vice president when he spent $20 million a year in advertising. I knew how to do it. I didn't realize what I needed was a brand. I also didn't realize she had written a book about it. And I didn't realize that she was putting me through that loop. So when all of that worked so fantastically from a real estate company, and we still employ those principles to this day, now we do it with my other agents. She asked me to come on board and start what is brand face now today. So we naturally just went after real estate agents because I was so successful at it, and then my agents were so successful at it, we could just very easily show it to other people. And then we realized, of course it's profitable. Those principles don't change no matter what you do. Even podcasting, lawn care, it doesn't matter. Lawyers, doctors, auctioneers.

I think that it's so important that you're getting across who you are. And that's the part is that if there's not a match between who I am and my audience, then I'm going to spend a lot of time making phone calls, doing quotations, like doing things that are qualifying.

Yes.

The right brand can already qualify you.

Oh, absolutely.

Saves a ton of time. And that's what I think you've really hit on here in an industry area, especially in real estate, there's I need to find trust quickly, I need to find authority quickly. I need to get something accomplished quickly if I'm going to hire a real estate professional. Like, all of those things have to happen quickly. And there isn't much better way to do that than to express that both visually and in the languaging you're using in a brand. So you've got that dialed in. But I think this is the same thing that you probably applied in podcasting.

Differentiation, really?

Making sure that you're bold and standing out. That's why you're called the bold branding. Right? Like, making sure that you're standing out for who you really are. For that story that you were talking about before is like, did you find it?

Like, there's so much of this, I.

Mean, sameness going on in the podcasting.

Oh, we coined the term sea of sameness years ago, about a decade ago in the real estate world. That's where we first noticed it because that's where our focus was at the time. And of course, then we realized, okay, we're coaches and creators, right? So that's who we should work with as well. And a lot of those people ended up being podcasters. Right. Because what's the greatest thing a coach or a creator can do is have their own podcast to express their expertise. So differentiation became, obviously, was from the very beginning. That's really what we stand for is the differentiation. You've got to show how you're different from everyone else, because better is subjective, different is inarguable.

Oh, that's such a good point. I think that this is a perfect time for me to hit on your Finch factor. Actually, what I really found was so unique about your show is the languaging that you utilize, the advice that you give within your show, which is really unusual because a lot of times we get this. This same old model in podcasting, where everybody's doing an interview or everybody's doing topics and they're running down a checklist of I gotta ask these questions, and I've gotta do it this way. But you never deviate from your key focus on who you're talking to. And so your questions that you ask, the topics that you choose are unique in and of themselves because they are focused at giving that unique listener the answer they need. And that focus is so hard to maintain in the podcasting industry, but it is serving. I guarantee you're serving your business well.

Yeah, that focus is hard to do in any part of business, period. I just think that's the key. I think differentiation is the anchor, and then focus is the chain. Like, it's got. You got to have it in it, because if you don't, you're not. You're just going to spin wheels or.

Not get anywhere or you're doing too much. Right. Like, that's what I think is, oh, gosh, yeah, you're doing too much. It's. And we used to call it, like, in design. I called it like, the shotgun approach is like, I have clients who would want me to design hundreds of products. Like, I literally designed over 800 office chairs in three years. But if a client didn't ask for that or one of their customers didn't ask for that, I could go in with five chairs, knowing which one exactly should be on that shelf, and I could get them to pick it. And if I could get them to do that, that really targeted, focused approach, that product would outsell the others tenfold.

Exactly. You know what the analogy is? Like, your listeners have kids. When our kids were tiny, you put them in a high chair, you put the bib on them. If you open up the can of peas, all our kids love peas, and you poured out the whole can of peas. They'd eat three peas. If you gave them three peas at a time, they'd eat the whole can.

That's right.

Like, and we're not any different as adults.

We're not.

Too many is too many. Right?

Right.

I know. I love that thinking. I think that is really where the focus and refinement and I call it curation a lot here. Right. Curating our content, curating it to be right for our brand. And in being right for our brand, it's right for our listener. That's what you've done so well.

That's your true bend factor.

I think we need some new branding advice for podcasters. I think it's a different day and age, as you know, when you started, you were saying, like, the technology was difficult, like, there was so much else to concentrate on. Not only that sea of sameness that you referred to, which I love that term. That's a great term. The sea of sameness is there. But that sea of sameness is full of junk. It is full of podcasts that have pod faded. There's over two and a half million shows and, you know, tens of millions of episodes. But two and a half million shows, and only 300,000 of them are actively posting and providing advice and providing quality. So how do we brand ourselves and stand out differently today?

Well, I think, first of all, if you can answer those five questions we talked about earlier, that puts you on the right path, because then you know who it is you're talking to. You can't be talking to everyone you can't possibly be. And when you know who it is you're talking to, then you take life experiences into play. Like, for us, we've gone through hundreds of clients, so I know what their objections are. We know what they're thinking. We know their pain, we know their joy. So we ride that wave. Right? So, for instance, today on our solo topic, we're going to be talking about why branding should come first.

Oh, I'm so glad you said that.

Yes, yes, please come first.

Listen to them.

Yes, please come first, come first. Well, think about it this way, Tracy. If you don't know who it is you're talking to, how on earth you know where to market and what to put in your marketing, and your brand dictates who it is you're talking to, or the other way around, one can come before the other. But the point is, you need to know who that ideal customer is you're trying to draw in. And if you know that person, then content becomes so much easier. And I think a lot of people try to cram a lot of topics into one podcast when they should really just break it up one at a time. Time. And give them a P at a time. As Michael Says, you know, three P's at a time. I think that's really important. And staying so focused on that. I know a lot of people with podcasts, and they'll just interview anyone. Now, lucky for us, everyone has a story. Right? So we can figure out, okay, what is your story? Let's talk about this. Let's talk about your brand. Why are you doing what you're doing and who are you doing it for, and how's it changing their life? So some of those things are really important. But even at that, we don't interview everyone. We're very selective about that, too, and getting even more selective as we move forward. Like you said, the ability to change is important.

Yeah, I agree with that. That brand, first model, it's okay for a show to shift over time, for a brand to shift over time. We talked about that already. But if you don't have that focus of where you're starting from, you don't have an idea of who you're talking to. And so I think some of the most successful podcasts that I've heard had a vision in mind for who was listening on the other end, even if there was nobody there yet. Right. Like, they had this idea of who that listener was, and it comes across from the beginning of the show in a better way.

Agree, agree. And, you know, I think the focus of, really, we're mass media, so we're on a podcast. I hope everybody wants to be Joe Rogan. Right. We all want the millions of listeners. But the fact of the matter is we, every time we do a show, every podcaster should be talking to one person like you should be, because it might just be one person that needs it, and that one person is the one that matters, and then that one multiplies over time. But the focus works both ways, we believe. And so niching down to who you're talking to, entering your podcast in a mindset that you're talking to that one person, I think it comes across better to people.

I think it does. I think it comes right across the mic and that intimacy and into the way. The advice is, what I really think is we should segue into some of our three questions that we do with every guest that I have on the show here, because I think this is some of that thinking is, so, like, I've now got this focus of one listener. How do I grow it into more. What did you do that you thought was really successful for you and worked for you?

Well, we stayed focused on the things that we know people struggle with, with Regard to branding. Okay, first of all, the biggest mistake people make is marketing before the brand is built. Right. And no wonder that happens, Tracy, because there are so many people out there these days that say, oh, don't worry about it. Your customer will decide what your brand is. Just do what you do. And we're going, oh, my God, really?

Please don't give them that advice. Because the greatest thing you can do is influence how you want people to view you. So that's one thing you can do for sure.

Yeah. I think that's really critically important, what you just said there, because too often I think that it's somebody who's selling you something prematurely that is telling you that advice. Right. And so if you don't really understand where that advice is coming from, then it's not working.

Yeah. And I think that you do have to. Browbeat wouldn't be the right word. But it's like, Tanya used to be in a radio business, and she say that, you know, she'd sell an ad to people that would be their own voice or whatever. They building their own brand. Right? And then they come to her and they'd call her on the phone, they'd say, get. I'm tired of my commercial. Cut it off. I listen to this radio station, too. I'm sick of hearing my voice run the same thing over. And she's like, no. That means if you're sick of it, the people you're trying to reach are just now listening to it. And so I think Tanya's right. Sort of the repetitiveness of continually fighting with people like you to show the mass public what branding really is. Because your business, our business, the branding business, we're competing with people all the time, like website builders. We'll build your brand. No, you won't. You'll help me build a website that my brand will be on. Right. You build websites, you don't build brands. And then that confuses the mass public because they're like, oh, well, I have a website. I have a brand. Oh, I have a logo. I have a brand. Or I have a. A tagline. I have a brand. No, you just. Those are just parts of your ecosystem that you haven't even started on yet. And I think it's easier for those of us that are. Can stay focused on that because we're still defining that, we're still hammering that into people.

That.

That is the definition.

Right, Right. And I think that that's the major listener growth strategy that you've hit on. Right there is that consistency and constancy if you are doing that again and again and again and you're not deviating from your brand message, then it's gonna come across and at some point it's gonna hit that story like right there, that SEO. Oh my gosh. How many website SEO companies sell a website build with zero branding experience? Right. And they say they'll put a brand on it. But when I actually go back, if you actually did and people don't do this, but they should check the references, you'd see that every single website looks exactly the same.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. And we noticed that first of all in the real estate genre. Right. But it's really no different from any other genre.

No, it's not.

No.

Right. They all look the same and they don't realize it because they're looking at their own and they're like, oh, I have a website, look, I'm up. Like it's. They don't really look at it because they're not in a housing complex where every house looks exactly the same. Right. They're not looking at them next to each other. And that website builders is counting on that. That you won't ever see, that you won't ever notice. But that's happened to us. That's actually why we ended up building websites in our business. We don't really build them often, but we, if somebody has a brand, they have a brand or we won't do it. But if they have a brand and their website just isn't functioning, we'll fix it for them. And we started doing that because what we found was, is that there were so many people that had non functioning sites because someone would build in and.

Would look pretty, but they were all the same.

And so we started getting people coming to us and we were like, do you realize that your website is exactly the same as these 10 speakers or these 10 real estate positionals? They're all exactly the same structure that's the same. They have the same weaknesses. So it made us easy to do our job. But I was like, you guys gotta fix your look. And it was a problem. But this is the case of, you.

Can see why that website builder sells them that.

Because otherwise they're going to be waiting months for them to go find a branding expert, go get it branded, or go figure it out themselves.

And they won't.

And then they won't. That's the key.

They won't most of the time. The truth is, most people don't understand there's a big divide between branding and marketing. They See it all as encompassed into one thing. So when somebody says, oh, well, brand yourself through video. Brand yourself through this. They're selling a marketing tool. They're not selling a brand.

Well, that happened recently. I just saw that as, like, somebody did trailer videos, and they look so amazing, and they were super professional, and there was branding involved. It at least that's what everybody was told. And then now that so much of the same group has gotten them, there's probably about 20 in the group who has them, and we have a group of about 150. Everyone realizes when they watch the video.

That they're exactly the same.

Is the same.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And everyone realizes it. And so it's like, it only hurts you at the end of the day, right? It only hurts you. So it's going to hurt your listener growth, it's going to hurt your business growth, is going to hurt growth in general. And so the best way is to stay true to who you are, stay true to that brand, and stay true to that listener. Right? That's what you're really getting at. Let's talk about guesting, because guesting has a significant growth factor for your show as well. We all want guests because we hope guests are going to bring more of the targeted audience to us. So what do you do to really select a good guest and make sure. Because I know you're really selective about it, and you've gotten even more selective going forward. So tell everybody about your criteria here.

If I can start before you. If I could answer a question that wasn't asked. We learned the hard way because we've been podcasting long enough. There was no dating match platforms and things like that. Like, we literally had an intern calling people, sending emails, sending letters, like, typed letters, like, anything we could to try to get on any kind of show that we possibly could get on. And attempting to get that in there because we recognized that we could come and talk to people that was a direct correlation to our ideal customer because they had that listenership. But then, thank goodness, people like Alex Sanfilippo and come up with great ways for us to be able to do that. And I'll let Tanya pick up on that now, because then that has opened up a Pandora's box.

Well, it opened up the podcast swap, which we love. Right? Where you go on my show, I go on your show. Like, we love the podcast swap because we both have listeners. So it works out great. Right? Going beyond that into the guests that you invite on your show. Like that selectiveness has now come out for you as well, right?

It had to.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things, and this might be a little bit edgy, but a couple of things are we want to invite people on that could be our ideal customer too, because they have a story to share and yet their story may not be defined, developed and displayed correctly, which is what we're known for. So we have the opportunity to showcase their story and then also talk to them about going through our program and becoming a brand face. The other thing is we want to make sure that we have somebody with a dialed in story. They may not have the brand out there and fully developed and displayed correctly yet, but they do have a very intriguing, unique story where it all begins. And that's what we want to pay attention to. We really don't care if they have 500,000 or 5 million social media followers. That's great. Of course, if all you want to do with podcasting is just make sure that you get your face out in front of as many people as possible. But that's not really what it's about for us. We want our face in front of the right people. So that's one of the characteristics we look at is could they be a customer? And the other is, do they have a very compelling story, whether or not it's built out yet.

Right. Because you've got to hold true to the lessons that you're bringing to your show. And so that's that curation that you're doing so well.

Like one of those criteria is very important that the our ideal customers on the listenership. Because in marketing, overall, people say newspaper's dead. We say newspaper is not dead if your customer is reading the newspaper. Right. And so your brand needs to be on the newspaper if your customer is reading that newspaper. And we follow that same very finite principle on podcasting too. So we really pay attention to who's listening to their show. Because if it's a car mechanic, we can help him with branding, probably, or her with branding. But we're not talking to the ideal customer the end of that day. Or want to talk to entrepreneurs, coaches, speakers, podcasters, authors, and real estate agents.

You know, it's so funny, we talked to a real estate videocaster I'm going to call because they're not a podcaster right now. They call themselves a podcaster, but they have no podcast show. Right. It's all video. And we're trying to talk to them about, like, why they haven't syndicated it properly as a podcast and is because they believe the audience only Watches. And so it came down to the fact that they only watch.

Yes.

Oh, very good point.

And I was like, do you really understand that? I know. I know for a fact in the real estate industry that radio ads still do tremendously well to drive traffic to real estate professionals. Radio ads?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I do radio. I do radio on three different radio stations. Yeah.

Right. I've got some groups that do real estate groups.

Right.

Like the Reis. And so they have all of those going on and they still advertise for their group on radio. Right, yeah. So I was like, you're missing a whole segment of the audience because you're thinking only about what you like.

Exactly how many people, even if it is a video type, video cast or whatever, but they're just listening to it. I do it all the time in the car. I'm not watching it, I'm driving. Right. But I'm listening to it.

Right.

In being in all those formats. Right.

Yes, yes. You need to be on a pot true podcast platform that. Were you just listening? Because so many people just listen.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's talk about profitability before we go here. And you talk about profitable for personal brands, and I like to talk about profitable podcasting. Now, the traditional model is what's my return on investment? People think, oh, it's going to be ads. And I can say less than 1% of all my guests will ever say ads. It's just never going to be the case here. But when you look at your podcasting and at this time of year, because we're starting out 20, 23 together, as we're doing this interview, although it'll air in a month or two, and I look at what was my return on investment from the past year. So let's reflect on that. What was the return on investment from podcasting for you? And do you see it as part of your profitability for your personal brand?

Yeah. Podcasting brought us probably 60% of our business last year. Okay. And it was in various different forms as well. So through podcasting, we've met collaboration partners. Alex Sanfilippo would be one of those. We got some clients from doing a collaboration webinar with him. After we met him through podcasting, we did that with several other people as well. So that's one way we've utilized podcasting to meet the right people like that. We've also had several of our guests become our clients and several hosts become our clients. And then the other thing is, we are exploring right now sponsorships and not your typical ad Buying, because that's pennies on the dollar. Guys. I used to be in the media world. When Internet ads first came out, it was like, oh, well, how many impressions does that ad get? And I'm thinking you are barking up the wrong tree. This has nothing to do with it. Right. Same thing in podcasting. Don't go for the pennies on the dollar kind of groupings, what we say, bundle, bundle aggregates and so forth. Look for people that actually are going to be an asset. In other words, what we look for in a partner is, okay, what things might our clients need next after their brand is built? Do they need a social media company? Do they need a videography company? Do they need a website company? Those are the people that we look for to become partners and sponsorship partners for our podcast. So there's just a few ways that podcasting has brought us money and made it profitable for us.

Absolutely.

Well, good.

I'm so glad to hear that. 60%. I mean, this is what I think people really underestimate the power of it. And the other thing that I think most people don't look at from a return on investment, but I bet you found this to be the case, is that that selling branding is hard. Right. Selling branding is hard because it's a little bit ethereal. Yeah, it's ethereal. Right. There's lots of unknowns in the process. I bet you have less conversations than you used to have with prospective clients because of the podcast.

Yeah, no question about it. It educates people. And now when our staff gets on sales calls with those people, they'll say, oh, yes, I know, my logo's not my brand. Right. They'll say things like that. I know that a tagline in my photo and my logo, they're not my brand. I realized realize it's a lot more than that. It's like, okay, we're off to a good start.

Right? We don't have to go for education, we can go for the opportunity. Right?

Exactly.

That's exactly right.

Wonderful. Well, every year I think about shifting my show. I think about what's next for it. What's next for your show?

Well, I don't know. That's a good question. Because actually, if you'd asked me this last year, I would have said, okay, we're going to end up doing one guest and one solo, which we have. And that's actually just been working so well for us that I think we're gonna stay on that bend. But one thing that you pointed out kindly as we started this and we're in the process of is getting on Spotify and some of the other platforms that we're not on yet. And that's just simply out of just lack of time. You know, sometimes you just get so busy and you know, those things have to be done. But when we first started, we started on a video only kind of platform. We just literally talked about that wasn't necessarily because we just watched a video. It was, okay, we're gonna do this because it's different, right? Because at the time everybody was doing audio and we thought, well, we're gonna, they'll zig right, we'll zig left, right? And we did. And then before you know it, so much time passes and we've missed huge opportunities on the audio only platform. So. So there you go. We're still learning and evolving too.

It's always a work in progress. But I love the fact that you ask about the roi, because that's so important. And I would tell your listenership, know your numbers and keep up with them because that is where your real growth is going to come from. When you look back and you say, this came from this, this, this, this came from this. I need to tweak this, I don't need to mess with that. That's when you really start to scale well.

And not getting caught up though, in the vanity of the numbers, like, oh my gosh, I have a hundred thousand listeners. Like any of that doesn't matter because look, if you're speaking to a room of 50 people each week, that's 50 people. I can't get on the phone with that many in a week. Right.

Huge.

It's still way more than I can.

Do one on one.

And so it's still better.

Amen. It is like if you could get 50 people to listen to what you're saying, that's an incredible sales opportunity every time. So, yeah, don' caught up on the big numbers. They get caught up on the right numbers.

On the right numbers, the growth factor, what's working, which ones are resonating, which ones are they? I love that when people quote, quote you back to you, right? Like that's what they're saying. I know this, I've heard you say this. That's amazing. You know, you have them, the sale is done.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, one of the things we like to say about the right type of clients is people don't just need to know that you exist. The right people need to know why you exist. And that goes from way back in my media days. When people said, Well, I have 50,000 impressions on that ad, and I thought, I don't want to impress 50,000 people. I want to talk to 50 who want to buy.

Yes, that's right. I love that. I love that. Well, thank you both Michael and Tanya, for bringing EBOL branding to the market and Brand Face principles to entrepreneurs everywhere.

Thank you, Tracy, thank you for having us on.

Tanja and Michael bring up such great points about the way we're thinking about our brand, the way we think about how we're personally outreaching our audience. Like, every part of those five questions that they have are so critical in the process of thinking things through. But I don't want you to get bogged down by this idea that, well, brand needs to come first. Brand thinking definitely needs to come first.

Right.

Because that's the model that you're going to go after. It doesn't mean it can't shift. And I love that we talked about that. Because you don't stay static. Your clients aren't going to stay static, your business isn't going to stay static.

And your podcast is definitely not to stay static.

It's a dynamic thing in and of itself. And to be able to test out and flex your branding through your podcast is a fabulous thing. I just talked to a longtime client. He's got over 500 episodes, probably close to 600 by now. He's been a client for over three years, and he said to me just yesterday that his podcast is going to shift for the next year, and he's going to be focused more on solo episodes and doing things that are really deeply dived into the niche of his show. And that's a huge departure from where he was a year ago or two years ago.

And that's okay.

The model of your business, the model of your brand can shift over time, but your podcast could be a great testing ground for the brand. Perception resonance. So this is something that I say, and this is in addition to. And I'm very, very sure Tanya and.

Michael will agree with this.

But we can put what we want out there and craft our brand in the way that we think is absolutely perfect. It's just the right way. We want to be perceived, but that doesn't mean it's going to be received. On the other end, brand is completely perception, and it is on us to make sure that we're testing that it's being received as we intended it. And there's no better way to do that. To have an engagement, to have a dialogue. And your podcast is a great way to test that out in a really simple and easy way at which you.

Can shift it the next time you go and record.

So it's a great place for you to test all of those brand ideas you have.

So keep your podcast moving. Take some advice from Tanya and Michael.

And the Be Bold Branding Podcast and go listen to some of their ideas out there. Because the concepts they're talking about and the way they talk about branding is essential to the development of your podcast. So until next time, I'm Tracy Hazard here at the Binge Factor and I'll be back with another concept, another podcaster, and another way to look at the brand you're building and the messages you're creating in podcasting.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and video casting, success, tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feedback your 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.