How To Create Breakthrough Products Through Podcasting With Jim Beach of the School for Startups

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 noise with the binge factor.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed. You'd brand center of Influence. I am excited to have a great podcaster here. Jim Beach, School for Startups. It's actually one of my favorite podcasts. I know you guys don't know that about me because we mostly talk about podcasting here, but I am always interested in innovation, startups launching, because I do have another show called Product Launch Hazards. So School for Startups, it's a great show, always touching on some really interesting guests. And I gotta say, deep dives into sometimes the education side of things, like how startups move through the process, how marketing needs to happen. You kind of COVID everything, Jim.

On your show, I do absolutely anything.

Yeah. So your first book was called School for Startups and it was published by McGraw Hill in 2011, and you have started businesses and taught entrepreneurship around the world?

Yes, all over, I think 14 different countries.

That's amazing. I love that at the age of 25, you founded American Computer Experience and grew the company with no capital infusion. I love that. I love bootstrapping startups. No capital infusions to 12 million in annual revenue and to over 700 employees operating in 39 states and three countries. That's amazing. That's quite young to be doing that, Jim.

I couldn't find a job. I'm totally serious. I couldn't find a job. And it was easier to start a business than get a business or get a job. So I just said, I'll just start a business.

So you teach entrepreneurship at Georgia State University, and that is a great business school to be teaching at. In 2010, you founded the School for Startups, which not just the podcast, it's more than that. And you've taught over 7,000 people to be low risk entrepreneurs. I really like that term, low risk. I definitely want to talk about that. You've been featured in a UPS commercial. So CNN called you the Simon Cowell of small business. And corporations like Wells Fargo, Toshiba, UPS and SunTrust have hired you as speaker and consultant. Your radio show School for Startups is nationally syndicated. So welcome to the show. Jim, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. It's my honor. And we're going to have some fun, I promise.

That's right. So what made you turn all of the things that you've been working on into a podcast?

It was that McGraw Hill book that you alluded to, School for Startups. I thought book tour, and they were going to help and I would get marketing help. And I guess I was naive. They did close to nothing. And I'm 100% sure that I would have sold more books if they had not been involved at all. And there's a story behind that, validates it. But they didn't do anything. And I realized one day that if I ever anticipate this book selling, that I need to go out there and make it happen myself. So I started emailing podcasts sort of out of the blue, saying, hey, I'd love to be a guest on your show. And I ended up doing hundreds of different interviews. And along the way someone said, you're really natural at this. Maybe you should have your own podcast. And I had never thought about it. Eventually, so many people offered and suggested that I said, okay, I'm going to start my own podcast. And it was an extension of the book. So I just named it right after the book School for Startups. Book became School for Startups Radio. And we started with a one day show, one day a week, 30 minutes broadcast out of a studio where guests would actually come. And I didn't enjoy that so much and it was kind of a pain to go to the studio. So I said, heck, I'll just start doing it myself and producing it myself. And so got the gear and was able to do it in the office. And eventually I was offered a slot on a daily Internet platform and started broadcasting daily. And that turned into my first AM FM station. And now we've grown to 25am FM stations around the country. We broadcast six days a week, an hour a day.

Yeah. So what most people don't know is that I like to listen to it while I'm preparing dinner or doing dishes. So I put it on tunein or on the Amazon show.

Oh, I appreciate that so much. Thank you so much.

Yeah. So my kids are getting lessons subliminally, whether they realize it or not.

Well, that's an extra challenge and burden for me. Well, now I have to be not only kid safe and friendly, but have some guests that are dedicated to keeping them as good, loyal listeners.

That's right. Unfortunately, they're probably mostly plugged in somewhere else and distracted. So you probably don't have a hefty job to do.

Well, it's getting through somehow. I know that.

That's right. That's right. Absolutely. So, well, what year was it then that you started?

2012?

I think so only about a year after the book launched.

Yes.

That's a classic story. What you're alluding to is that most authors find out that they can't sell their books at all even if they get a book deal. And that getting on the top list doesn't mean it's going to sell either.

That's right. And Amazon, I love it. But it's also done a really horrible thing for authors. It has eliminated the value of being a best seller. So those words used to mean something and today they don't. Everyone can be a best seller and we can generate that in one hour. It means you sold seven books in one hour and that doesn't mean anything. So a best seller could have in total sold seven books, which is a really bad thing.

Right. But what you're doing is you've built the platform and that's what most people assume when they go in and get a book deal, that they're providing that for you. They're providing circulation and they're helping you. But the reality is this, most publishers are looking for a platform nowadays. They're looking to say that you've got a tribe, you've got people, you've got ways to access them, and you're going to get them to follow you and of course, then buy the book.

Yes, I did it in reverse. I really didn't have much of a platform when I started with McGraw Hill. And I think the thesis was so compelling that they were able to take a shot on it.

And.

And then we went and used the book as the leverage, as the authority to build the platform. So we sort of did it in reverse and said, we've already got a book that's by McGraw Hill, so it must be good, we must be legit, and therefore you should listen to whatever else or other products. We did it in reverse. The book gave us the credibility to attract a platform.

Interesting, interesting. That is also some way you can salvage it. If any of those bestselling authors out there, you know, those one hour bestselling authors who are worried, why have I not made anything of this best selling status? Let's start getting you a tribe and authority and think about following Jim's lead and starting a podcast. So do you have some advice for them?

Well, I could talk about advice for a podcast all day long. Yes, I think, you know, and I don't think people are going to like this, but the breakthrough stars, the people who are podcasting and making money from it, tend to be people who are doing it five days a week. And that's not what a lot of people are going to want to hear. The step below that, and I don't mean to say below in a derogatory way, but when you broadcast once a week, I find that those are people who are going to be successful using their podcast for networking, for marketing principles or purposes, things like that. It's a great marketing tool. It's a great networking tool. But if you're doing it once a week, I do believe you're going to have a hard time turning it into a profit center. And I know that there are examples that are contrary to that, but that's just sort of some sweeping generalizations. And so if you are going to start, I'd like you to start with that in mind. Do I intend to do this as a quote unquote loss leader that's going to get me new business for my existing business? Am I going to get new clients for what I already do? That's a great place to be. But you could say it a little further. I'm either I don't care about getting clients or my ultimate goal is really to turn it into a profit center in and of itself. I think that then you need to start thinking about doing it on a daily basis and becoming successful that way. It's easier to monetize something when you're doing it every day than every week.

So, so, so true. The statistics that we have behind the scenes here at my company show that that the shows that do three or more a week do better than the shows that don't. So you're right on with that. That it builds a business better if you've got more invested in it, more time invested in it.

Right. And also I think it's easier to sell ads and sponsors that way as well. If you go to a sponsor and say, yeah, we're on four times a month, that's not going to be enough traction for them to sell something. Most of our marketing and sales gurus would tell us you have to touch someone five, six, seven times before they're going to buy from you. And if I only mentioned your name once a week, and therefore it could take two months for you to get enough name recognition. Before I go check out your website to see if I want to buy your Security product or not, a lot of people are going to say that's just not fast enough, that's not compelling enough. I need something that's a little quicker. And so the decision to go multi show per week is going to have a huge impact on the fiscal pieces of the business as well. Then another thing is if once your show gets good enough, you should be attracting so many guests that you have trouble getting all of them on the air. So eventually you should have 100 guests approaching you a month and you say, wow, if I do one show a month and one guest or two guests a month, I'll never get them. But these are people I do want to network with. These are people I do want to get to know. And even more importantly, these are people I do want to share with my growing audience and growing tribe. Eventually you're going to be compelled to do it more days a week simply because you have so many great opportunities. You'd be crazy not to do a show with this person. So, you know, imagine one month you're going to get Ken Blanchard and Simon Sinek and Steve Ulcer and the Dalai Lama. How are you going to turn them down?

That's right. That's absolutely right. So what's some of the most interesting things that have happened to you since you started podcasting?

Interesting? You mean like crazy little stories of weirdness?

Well, it could be weirdness or it could be just like fantastically interesting. You got to interview someone you've always wanted to interview.

That happens frequently.

It's a daily occurrence.

Sort of is. Once you start getting a show that's successful, you will get inundated with the people that you want and you will get amazing opportunities that you had never expected. So I think that's almost sort of a given. If that's not happening, you're not doing something right and you need to call me back and I'll fix it and figure out how to make that happen. The moments that stick out in my mind are the 12 year old kid who's already doing $4,000 a month in revenue. Those sort of moments where you just are so inspired by someone's story that you just feel good about humanity. Another is for I was interviewing the founder of Taser, you know, the taser guns the police use. And I had a breakthrough moment in my life where during that 22 minute interview, I realized something that I had never seen about life before. That turned into a book idea. And I now am going to do a book on the idea. It's a fiction. It's a piece of fiction. Make a great thriller type thing about the idea that follows onto the authors or the CEO of Taser's book that he had just released. His book was called the End of Killing. The idea that we could evolve to a point where no longer do people get killed with guns. Is that possible? And if you look over the 3,000 years of recorded history, death by strangulation, murder, getting hanged, being in a war is going down, the trend is decreasing. And even over the life of guns, the trend of gun deaths is decreasing. We could get to that point. Okay, so what if you took that and turned that into a movie and that was a fictional cool story? So that's a breakthrough that I had only because I was podcasting.

I love that. That flash of genius that, like connections that you make in your mind of things that you'd been mulling about and it turns into something new that you would never have considered before.

So you get inspired. This is the coolest story ever to listen to this story. So I had a guest on and we were talking about WI fi and out of the blue he mentioned how detrimental WI fi is to the development of a child's brain. And he pointed out that France has banned wi fi within 200 yards of every nursery and school. And all of Europe is thinking of following on. And we continued on the interview. Yada, yada, yada, yada. How do I get in touch with you? How do I find out more? Put it away. Three months later, I was sitting in a room of Indian high school kids. And these are Indians from India, but living in the United States. So they're American Indian high school kids. And we were sitting around thinking about a business that we could start that would make an impact on the world. And I had this idea and I was like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but WI fi is really bad for the development of babies and brains. And France banned WI fi. Why don't you do something that solves that problem? And now, a year later, the six of us have a patent on a paint that blocks WI fi signals. It's designed for babies nurseries. You paint the walls with this paint and now wifi won't get into the room. Your baby's brain doesn't get all messed up, but it's so precise that your baby monitor will still work. That idea and the fact that I now have a patent in chemistry after getting kicked out of high school chemistry because I wasn't smart enough, all happened because of a nugget I Got off of my podcast.

I love that. I love that. Well, I want to volunteer to design your colors because that's my experience. I'll do your palette because you're going to have to have great colors for baby's rooms. So I'll do your colors. There you go. Now you've got a complete package. I love it, Jim. That's so fascinating. So how about some of the funny things that might have happened early on, the mistakes you made, the shows that you with, you were like, I really should withdraw that show.

Well, you know, I still do those things. The time you interview someone for 27 minutes and you forgot to hit the record button, that's happened probably this week. My favorite story, though, is one time I had a kidney stone. And the treatment for kidney stone, there isn't really any. And you just sit there in pain. And the only time you're not in massive pain is when you relax certain muscles of your body and just relax. And you don't really want to do that unless you're sitting on a toilet. Right. So I do remember doing one interview with a superstar that I couldn't delay. I took two months to get him on the schedule in the first place. So I interviewed him naked from the toilet. Is that the sort of thing you were asking about?

Yeah, I think you're definitely hitting on that.

Yeah, yeah. So I was naked on the toilet for one of my superstar interviews. I'm not gonna tell you who.

We won't mention who.

Yeah. But if you go back and listen, I bet you could figure it out.

But anyway, a little more echoey than your normal.

Yes. Yes. So funny things like that do happen, and mistakes happen as well. And by far the best way to handle it is to immediately call the guest and say, hey, dude, I forgot to turn the record button on. I'm a moron. Will you be kind enough to record again? And I've never had anyone not say yes to that.

That's true. That is so true. Because they enjoyed it the first time. Thank goodness.

Well, if they. Yes, hopefully they did. And if they're not, if your guests are not telling you that was fun, you need to reconsider how you're doing it, because it should be fun. And if it's not fun, I can guarantee you no one's going to listen to it.

So you've been podcasting since 2012. How many shows?

About 1500.

1500 shows. Wow, that's amazing. I think I calculated, because I have multiple shows, I think I've done over 1200 so we're pretty close there. But I stopped doing five days a week on my one show about a year ago. We lowered the volume on it because it just wasn't making much of a difference to what we wanted to do. That's a lot of shows under your belt.

Yes.

So how has your position as a podcast host and your authority helped really impact your business and increase opportunities for you speaking engagements, things like that?

Well, the expression visibility begats visibility is very true. And the podcast has turned into multiple different books and multiple speaking engagements. It gives you the sign of credibility, and I think that that's a huge reason to do it. I'm also a big believer that you should make the jump to, and a lot of people call it backwards to terrestrial radio. I think that that makes a lot of sense. If you're interested in the authority piece, the speaking piece. You know, if two guests or if two potential speakers were to come across an event planner's desk and they're the exact same. Same, except that one of them has a normal radio show, I think the guy with the normal radio show is going to get the ad sale, the sponsor and the speaking contract.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's partially why I went the publicity media route, where you go to getting a column, because it's the same thing. It does have a higher level of authority at the end of the day.

Definitely. Yes. So I think that the podcast, you should use it as a rung on your ladder and hopefully it should help you get closer to whatever the goal is. It should sell stuff, it should make money, it should give you great introductions. All of those things should be a piece of it.

So what makes your podcast binge listenable? Because I know people do that all the time. What's special about it and the content that you bring that makes those that are saying, I'm going to start a business, I'm starting a brand, I'm doing this, I'm going to listen to school for startups nonstop.

I don't think you mentioned any of what it is. It's not the content. I don't think the guests are relevant at all. I don't think any of it's relevant. Well, it is the content in one way. You have to have a thesis that you defend regularly. So there has to be a spine to the show and it has to represent something. So you can't just say, I'm going to have a show on parenting. I don't believe that's enough. You have to have a show that says, we're going to have a parenting show with the thesis that you were a complete family before you had the kid. And the kid is a really cool add on to your family, but the kid is not in charge. And that's what we're going to talk about. And that's the underlying point of my show. Something that is tangible. I believe that, number one, you have to have a thesis to your show. And even if you don't mention it every show, it should be mentioned in your introduction. Maybe you have an ad in the middle of the show that talks about it or like that. And whenever anyone bumps up against it, you say, oh, that's really great. That sort of reinforces our thesis about babies and that your point of throwing baby, that it's bad to throw babies off of bridges really reinforces the thesis of our show. That's great. So now it's sort of got a big ribbon on it. You tie the whole thing together. So number one, I think that you have to have a consistent thesis because that way I know what I'm going to get when I watch Game of Thrones. I know what I'm going to get. I'm going to get a dragon, I'm going to get some naked people and there's going to be a head cut off.

Somebody's going to die. That's right.

It's definitional. So number one is that. Then number two, and this is the hard piece, and I think it's hard to talk about this. You have to like the host and the host has to be your friend or you pretend that the host is your friend. So who do you listen to in the big world? Do you listen to some of the famous right wing talkers or do you listen to some of the progressive left wing young millennials? You know, those people need to be people that you're friendly with and that you can have a relationship with. So I talk a lot about my kids. I tell kids stories. If there's a kid sitting in my lap for an interview, I mention that I let people know what businesses I'm doing. I tell entrepreneurial stories from my life and things that are happening to me because I think that it's important that I come across as a person that even if the interview is boring and useless to you, you still want to listen just to see what the person your friend has to say. So why do we listen to Howard Stern? Because we're interested to see what disgusting comment he's going to make next.

That is one of my favorite parts of the movie by the way whenever, if you've ever seen Private Parts, I.

Know exactly the scene you're talking about. Yes.

That the scene is where they talk about why he's in the ratings and why he's still so high in the ratings when people hate him and there's like. Because they want to see what he's going to say next. And that's exactly why the people who like him show up, too. It's the same thing. And I think that's so interesting.

That's what we need to be as podcast host. The idea is we are opening our lives and ourselves and our topic to you. And you know what my thing or my thought is on that topic. You know how I think about it. You know, my life and you know a little bit about Denarius and Jon Snow, and therefore you're interested to see what happens to your friend. You were talking a couple weeks ago that you started a paint business. That sounded really cool. What's up? What's happening with it? You know, you want the follow up. And so I think that that's the personality piece that's important as well.

You're so right. I remember very early on in one of our shows, we did a show on 3D printing. That's my oldest show. And we talked about we were getting ice cream delivered, and it was a brilliant business model. And that's what I used it for as an example, because the woman who started it couldn't get a dairy license. A dairy license is harder to come by in Orange County, California, than a liquor license. And so she couldn't get the license she needed to start this ice cream shop. So she was going into a commercial kitchen and making ice cream batches and selling them on Facebook. And she would say, here's my flavors today. I'll deliver it to your house by 5pm and so you would order it on Facebook that morning, and it would come by and she would deliver it to you that evening. So I'm telling the story of how she didn't let something stall her business. She kept it moving and she kept making money while she was waiting for that dairy license to show up. And the tweets that I got were, you didn't tell us what flavor you ordered. And so I loved that. It really taught me a lesson early on about how important it is to say, it's not that my life is irrelevant. It's very relevant.

Yeah. You have to just pretend like you're talking to your friends and your friends are going to want the follow up and they're going to want some inside secrets and stuff like that. You know, one of the things I do is I have two alerts that I do. One is we have a billionaire coming up. And I never tell you, I don't think it's appropriate to tell a billionaire that he's a billionaire as part of his interview. And. And Frank Smith, also a billionaire. That just doesn't sound good. And so in the week beforehand, I'll tease it and say, next week, we have a billionaire coming up. Now, I'm not going to tell you who it is, and I'm not going to introduce him that way, but we got a billionaire coming up. And then another thing I'll do, I do this to drive downloads and stuff a week or two after a show is I don't know if this is right or not, but this is what I do. I'll be honest with you and tell you this, that I will say, do you remember that guest we had last week? Worst guest I have ever had. I disagreed with everything they said and of course I couldn't say it to them. I was polite. I didn't disagree with them to my face. But, oh my God, what a moron that person was. That was last week. And I cannot gonna tell you who it was. But y' all go listen to all the downloads from last week and figure it out. You'll figure it out pretty quick.

It'll be your most popular episode. I love that. You know, when I found Jim. That's so, so funny and in a way sad, but that people don't even like to listen to themselves on your episode. Because sometimes Tom and I will do a post after an interview and we'll do this post discussion and because it's between the two of us and we'll kind of debate it. Like, wow, we didn't agree with that, but we didn't agree in person. But it's still a part of the same episode. And no one ever has ever said anything to us or called us out about it. So I don't think they actually listen to it.

I'm sure some PR agents do.

Yeah, a lot of people are listening and chuckling and then moving on to the next one. That's one of the hard things about podcasts. You don't get a lot of feedback sometimes. And sometimes you can have thousands of listeners who don't choose to listen to or to write to you that day. And so you just have to keep battling through. You know, if your numbers say that 10,000 people downloaded it from iTunes, you have to assume they listen to it and that they enjoyed it. Right. And that's the thing to focus on.

So you mentioned your thesis, so would you tell the audience your angle?

Yeah, my show is very simple. That entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk, or passion. And once you get those three things out of your concerns, that it's really, really easy to be an entrepreneur and anyone can go and do it. And so the average person on the street says, oh, no, I have to double mortgage my house. I saw it on 2020. This billionaire guy double mortgaged his house. So that's how I have to do it. No, that's not. Please don't. Yeah. Or my favorite is creativity. When God strikes me with my idea, when I get my lightning bolt, oh, my goodness, I am going to go crazy when I get my big idea. I'm receptive to big idea. But no. 93% of businesses are copies of other businesses. We have some famous entrepreneurs like Henry Ford. Henry Ford didn't invent the car, but he's still an entrepreneur in the auto space. Right. And if you go start a new restaurant today, you're still an entrepreneur. But I feel bad for these people waiting on an idea, when in fact, what they need to do is find a thing in their own industry somewhere that they already know a lot about and go start a business really similar to the job they already have.

So, podcasters, listen up, because this applies to you too. You don't need like a lightning strike to say, that's my show topic. You just need to get moving because there are lots of other podcasters and models out there. You can formulate and make a difference with who you are. So let's touch on a couple of the five things. So I call these the best ways to. The best way to book guests.

Let publicists come to you. I don't go after guests. I go after publicists. I don't date guests. I date publicists.

Nice. I like that.

Yeah. Because the publicist will give you a hundred guests if you let them. That's their job. Makes the job real easy.

Yeah, they bring you better and better ones, so agree on that one. The best way to increase listeners.

I have a great show in the first place.

Definitely the best way to produce in a professional manner.

I have no idea. I don't know what that means. You edit to the West.

What does that mean?

So this is one of my pet peeves, actually. I think a show should be the same length every time. And I don't know why I think that. I guess it's my radio bias. But a radio show is 54 minutes, and so therefore my podcast is 54 minutes. So I start at the outro, the bumper music that ends the show, and I go to the left, and to the left is generally considered west. And I end up. Then I put the last interview up against the bumper music, and then I put some bumper music, and then I squeeze out all of the stuff I want to edit out. And then I put the second interview in. So I go interview three. Then I put bumper music, and I'm going left toward the west, toward the beginning of the show. I then drop in interview two, I put some more bumper music, drop in interview one, more bumper music, and whatever is left over the 3 minutes, 12 seconds, the 8 minutes, 9 seconds is my introduction. And then I record that introduction directly to the tape, listening to the bumper music. And as the bumper music starts, I know that I got to shut up. I got eight more seconds to go. I call it editing to the West.

I like that. First off, I don't edit my own show, so I wouldn't know how to do that. So that's how I do mine professionally. But that's a really interesting methodology, and I like it because when you do your intro last, you also have the energy of knowing what's coming after it. You've got a passion. You've got to be excited. Yeah, I think that's brilliant.

That's exactly. You know what you're going to talk about. That's right. So you can say something like, oh, you're going to love. In this interview, we talk about sex. So make sure you listen because we're talking about sex. Next. Who's going to turn off then? No one's going to turn that off.

Yes. It gives you great energy in through the show, too. So I love that. Okay. The best way to encourage engagement, Engagement.

From the listeners, contests. Call and get something free. That kind of thing. The giveaway. So I've added a section on my website called Gifts. I think it's important and I've never seen it on any other podcast website where a good guest is going to offer a gift at the end of the show. Right. That's best practices. And the gift is usually something to entice the listener to give their email address. So it's a free book or something like that. So I have built a page on the website where it's called Gifts. And I list all of the gifts that my guests are giving away so that if you just want to go get all the Free stuff. It's like going to Costco and just eating the samples, that kind of thing.

Well, now you got me thinking, so I got to think of some great gift when I come on your show. So I got a good one. I think.

Yeah, you need to have a basket if you're going to be a guest. You're stupid not to have a gift because if you don't have a gift, you don't get the email address. And so it's part of the system. The best practice, you've got to have a gift. And you should have multiple choice gifts depending on what kind of a show you're on.

Yeah, absolutely. So the best way to monetize it. Now you mentioned this earlier. You talked about, you know, having lots of shows, doing five days a week and taking sponsors and some other things. You monetize mostly through the core business because you're obviously running 7,000 people through your startup school. So that's a lot of people, right?

The monetization. I think people are surprised how easy it is to get a sponsor. I have seen shows that have 500 downloads a week get a sponsor for $1,000 a month. And that's big money. That's worth doing if your show has a definable niche. Again, back to the thesis. If I can define the niche, you should be able to define the sponsor that wants that niche. And so I think that it's easier to get sponsors than people want. People believe if you can't get a sponsor, it's probably because you can't tell me what your show is about. My show is about parenting. That doesn't mean anything. That's generic, that's totally void of anything. My show is. I can teach you how to have low risk, zero creativity and no passion and still make $100,000 a year. That's what my show is about. And so any business that is interested in people who are going to try to start $100,000 a year business, well then those are my sponsors. And it's easy to define to them what I'm talking about. And so it's easier for them to tell their boss what the show is about. It's just easier. The super strong niche will get you a good sponsor with 500 downloads.

I love it. So, Jim, everyone has a preferred method of social media that they actually monitor themselves. They connect in with their listeners. What's your preferred method?

Yeah. Not at all.

Not at all. I expected that. To be honest with you, having this new show.

I hate social media. I think it is A destructive thing. There's nothing sadder than seeing a 12 year old taking a selfie or a food picture, you know, I mean, what is that person thinking at 12? They're building their core self esteem on the wrong thing. Your self esteem is not based on how many people liked you. That's not appropriate. I do use LinkedIn personally, so I am on LinkedIn. I do like that I have relationships and stuff there and I use the others via outsource. So if you see me on Twitter, you're 100% sure that someone in the Philippines was tweeting on my behalf?

See, I always say I was. You're pretty sure it's a bot on my end because I only auto tweet. I'm not going to play there. But I agree with you. I prefer LinkedIn as well. That is my preferred playing field too. So good.

But I'd rather just not even have linked. I like email. I'm old, I guess I've become a curmudgeon now and I'd rather look at your website on my computer than on my phone. I am old fashioned now. I'm 51 and I guess I'm old fashioned.

It's amazing how quick we get there. So you've already had some amazing guests, but who would you really like? Who's your big get?

I get those people sometimes and sometimes I don't even air it because I'll get someone that's interesting to me as an individual, that I know my audience won't want to listen and I won't air those on the AM FM stations. I'll just drop it at the end of a podcast to kind of bury it. I'll tell the person I'm going to do that. I don't have a superstar that I'm dying to get. You know, in my first business you talked about, I was 24 when I started that business. By the time I was 27, our customers were people with famous last names like Lucas. And I was invited to the Star wars world premiere in 1999.

Oh, my daughters are jealous.

Exactly. So when you're getting invited to world premieres like that, that game sort of changes. I don't care who the guests are. What I want now is to be in an airport, not in my city, and see someone wearing my logo.

I love it. There you go.

I want audience. I want to meet my audience, not my guest.

That's how you know you've arrived. I love it.

Well, you know, with my business that I ran in my 20s, it was a summer camp business, but we got into anything involving technology and kids. So we had movie making camp and Shakespeare camp and anything. Right. The coolest thing that ever happened to me was seeing five kids wearing my logo in the Denver airport. That blew me away. Those kids chose to wear my logo that day. So that's a cool moment.

I love it. Do you have anything you want to share with us before you go, Jim? Any pieces of inspiration for aspiring podcasters?

Gosh, I'm not going to remember the movie. It was the fake rock documentary Spinal Tap where they say you have to turn it up to 12. I want it to go to 12, not to 10 to 12. You need to do that when you're podcasting. Eight or nine is not interesting. You need to take your personality and turn it up and be more you. Otherwise I don't think I'm going to listen again. It's got to be fun, energetic, entertaining or I'm not going to learn from you. The way to do all of that is to turn it up as much as you can and be a little crazier, a little more psycho, a little funnier, a little more willing to be self deprecating. That just makes it more interesting. Turn it up to 12 is my advice.

I love it. Thank you Jim, so much everyone out there at School for Startups, nationally syndicated, so you probably find it on your local radio stations as well as on any podcast player out there.

We were number six on iTunes this week. Number six.

Number six on iTunes. So you definitely can find it there. Well, thank you again, Jim Beach. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you. It's been fun.

You've been listening to the Binge Factor 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.