Running A Podcast Business Effectively Through Digital Marketing with Mike Michalowicz of the Profit First 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 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'm Tracy Hazzard and I am really excited. I'm interviewing someone who I'm a fan of. So I don't get to do that every day and that's really exciting today. I've got Mike Michalowicz on our podcast today and he is the author of Profit first, which I'm a big fan of and I referred a lot of people to the Pumpkin plan and his latest book, Clockwork. I just actually bought an extra copy for my COO who is my daughter, for those of you who don't remember that, but my COO is my daughter who's 24 year old and just killing it on building systems in place. And I know she's going to love the details in this book about making your business run like clockwork. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But Mike has founded and sold two companies, one private equity and another to Fortune 500. Today he's running his third multimillion dollar venture, Profit First Professionals. And so for those of you who I've referred Profit first to, you'll know that there are accounting professionals and other types of professionals you can use to support a Profit first style venture. So that's what that is. Mike is a former small business columnist. He's for the Wall Street Journal and a business makeover specialist for msnbc. Over the years, Mike has traveled the globe speaking with thousands of entrepreneurs and he is here today to help us learn what he's got. Because wouldn't we all like to have a self running business, a business that runs like clockwork? Wouldn't we all like to have profit be first in our business? So we're here to learn from the best. Mike, welcome to the show.

Tracy, thank you so much for doing this.

Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about two sides of things that you refer to in both your books and that is that so many of us are running in the solopreneur world in the really low amounts of staff, we're outsourcing everything. And yet we're still not efficient. We're still not really making it go. And so much of that nowadays is falling into this digital marketing world where we're just doing so many things. Video, podcast, blogs, like doing so many things. How did that happen? Did that happen to you too?

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's the productivity trap. And so interesting about. Well, there's actually a confluence of two things. There's the productivity trap and this hustle and grind mentality that's perpetuating around. And both of them, I believe, are traps. The first, productivity productivity is where we can do more things in compressed time. Problem with that human nature that when we take the load of work we have for the day, say it's 10 hours of work. That's pretty typical for an entrepreneur. We pack it down and we get it down in nine hours. We then say, wow, I freed up an hour for myself. What else can I do? So we actually pack more, work on it, and then we try to compress it down through more productivity. So become impacted with work risk forces if anything goes awry. We've one stumbling tripping point. The whole day, week or month is spinning out of control. The other mentality is this hustle and grind. And hustle and grind is like, you know, you got to push through, you got to work like an animal to be successful. And I'm retaliating against that. I think that's the worst thing we should be telling people is not hustle and grind. The definition of an entrepreneur is, is to choreograph and organize the resources around us. How do we get other people and systems and clients themselves and our vendors working collaboratively through our system to achieve the results we want. The goal we have, the irony is the goal for the entrepreneur is to extract themselves as much as possible. And if we go into it saying, well, we need to be more productive, we need to do more things, we actually become in such a groove of doing that grooves become ruts that we stay stuck there and never go out of it. So the decree we have to make is not to work in a business, to design the outcomes we have and to realize also that entrepreneurs, we're a very small community, about 7% of the world population, will ever have their own business or work for themselves, quite frankly. So by enabling a company that can leverage other resources, including people, actually empowers other people who never want to be an entrepreneur to actually work in a safe, successful environment. Our job, again, is that clarity and the vision we want to have design and Choreograph all the resources we have to achieve that vision and do it through a company that is of service to others. And it excludes us doing the work. That's really what we need to do.

Especially doing all the work here, which is what so many of us have fallen into the trap of. So, you know, this is interesting because we've gotten to a place with digital marketing, with podcasting, video casting, and blogging, specifically those three areas where we feel like it has to be all our voice, all ourselves, all authentically you. And yet, you know, there are other ways, and I'm about to tell a few my secrets here, but I'm sure you are too, that, you know, it doesn't have to work like that.

No, it definitely doesn't. It definitely doesn't. And it's not sustainable. Now, listen, it's not like I woke up the day or what day I started my business, said, I'm not going to work here. I bought into I need to do everything, and fell into what's called a false positive loop, which is the harder I worked, I was getting more results. Therefore, I concluded the harder I work, the more my business will grow. And as I worked harder, the business started to grow. But at diminishing returns, I'd work harder and harder, exhaustively sacrificing time with my family, my friends. Forget life. Just wake up as early as possible. Listen, I had a call once with a friend named John Bates, and he calls me up one day. He was grinding and hustling in his business, and he goes, dude, I only got four hours of sleep last night. And I responded braggadociously saying, I only got three hours of sleep.

It's a badge of honor.

Yeah, how moronic am I? And that comment back to him didn't wake me up to it. Ultimately, though, I've awoken to this. I don't aspire to work hard. I aspire to think hard to. To be very strategic, to get joy out of the work I'm doing. I don't want to not do anything that's not the goal either. I just want to concentrate my efforts on what really serves the company, which is the creation of systems.

You have something in your book you call the queen bee role, and I want to emphasize the role, which I know you will, because I think I'm the queen bee here, right? And so we all fall into that trap of thinking we are the essential part of the hive here, of the organization, of the society structure, but it's actually the role. And I think that That's a really interesting switch because it does provide that distance between who you are and what you do.

Yeah. So the role is exactly what you said to. It's putting priority on a function, an activity that the business must do. Now, how I derived this is I was looking to define how business efficiency works. I found nature often has a solution for us. I found beehives specifically are very efficient organizations. And specifically, you know, you'll see a bee fly around your window or something, the next day there's a whole hive there. Those bees follow a two rule set. Rule number one is the colony, its survivability and I guess, therefore thrive ability depends upon the production of eggs. So every bee knows that if eggs are not being produced, our entire colony is in jeopardy. We need to be constantly spawning bees. It so happens the queen bee is the bee that lays eggs. But every bee is responsible for the production of eggs, meaning the queen bee herself. Even though bees have a single bee responsible for that, is not the most important bee. All the bees serve the most important function. To your point role. And if the queen bee is not laying the eggs, she's removed. You know, sometimes they eat her, but they will spawn a new queen bee. And the other bees take actions to keep the egg production going, which could be cooling the hive by flapping their wings. In the cooler months, they'll actually rub their wings together to causing friction, heating the hives. So they follow methods to maintain egg production. This translates to our business. We have to define in our business what's the singular most important activity in the business that our businesses survivability and therefore thrive really depends on. And I'll tell you a real simple way to find it. I was studying like FedEx and stuff. Actually, I didn't even include this in the book. I found out after the fact. I found that every company, every company has a big promise to their customer. Most of us, sadly, small businesses, never define it. We just do best for the customer. But FedEx is a great example because it's a global brand. They promise to deliver packages on time. That's the big promise. Yes, they have print shops and they do packaging services and so forth. But their biggest promise is on time package delivery. What we do is to find the QBR, the queen bee role. We peel back the onion, one layer and say, what's the number one activity making the promise a reality. And for FedEx, it's logistics, it's the movement of packages. And yes, they have great customer service and they offer other things. But what really Matters is logistics. And if FedEx says, you know what, we're going to skip on the logistics. Let's just focus on customer service. Right. They will go out of business within weeks. All over the news, FedEx has no idea where their packages are.

Well, I think they might be in trouble because I've never had problems with FedEx before, but we've had four problems in the last five months logistic, like delivery problems. Delivery problems.

And so customers take notice of that. That's an issue. I hope they resolve that issue. But that's an issue and they will be in trouble. Now, here's the interesting thing. If FedEx says, you know what, let's forget customer service, let's not answer the phones. If the package gets delivered on time every time, they don't need the customer service so much. So you can compromise other areas, but you can never compromise a queen B role. That's the lesson for every small business. You have to define what's your big promise, the biggest singular promise you're making your customers. Great quality of experience, amazing design work, whatever it is. Then say, what's the singular activity? I know there's many things that support it. What's the one most important thing? That's the QBR. And then you teach your Bs, which could be, if you're a solopreneur, just yourself, but maybe you have vendors and even your clients that you will always cater to that queen bee role and never compromise it. So it's always humming along because your business depends on it. Just wrap this up. The second component for bees is once the queen bee role is being served, then they go on and do the secondary jobs. Collecting nectar, defending the hive. So as business owners, once we define the qbr, everyone must protect it and make sure it's moving along perfectly. When it hums along, then they can go off and do their other job functions.

The one thing that I really loved about your defining them in the beehive colony was that I get so many, especially podcasters here, but business owners in general, small business owners who want to have a big impact on the world, and when I think about it, is that the bees are doing their own thing within their own hive. But the effect that they're having on our environment as a whole and the impact that they have outside of that is tremendous because they continue to do the one thing that they're supposed to do or the two things as you point that out. And I love. That's fantastic because that's what I keep trying to stress to Everyone. If you don't have a sustainable business, you can't impact anyone.

It's funny. It is beautiful, you said. I'm working on my newest book. It doesn't even come out till 2020, but I'm writing it and I was talking about this concept of having impact, of being transformational for our community, our society, our globe, our world. And sadly, most not for profits that I studied. Focus on the impact they'll have and don't put any business infrastructure behind it. They just want to change the world, but don't put on their own oxygen mask so the business itself can't feed itself.

Right.

Then I found most not for profits are actually for profit business. They just never achieve profit. This is a systemic problem. Businesses of all type want to change the world, be of the greatest service, but never get the business fundamentals together like what we're talking about efficiency or profitability or even the sales component. If you can't nail those down, forget the impact, you can't have it.

So this is an interesting issue because my column for Inc Magazine is focused on innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs, startups, that kind of thing. And when I talk to them all the time, the big issue that they have, and they want to all have big impact. You know, they believe in their invention and their innovation, but the issue that they all have is that they really don't know what infrastructure looks like because your system's in place, because they've never worked in that environment, they don't know what a system looks like. And they think that they need to create it themselves. They think it's like, I need to invent this system.

Yeah. So here's the reality. Many people think they have to create systems. My argument is, if you're already running the business, you have actually all the systems you need. They're just in our mind. It's our routines or process. So anything that you do on a repeated basis is a system. Even if you're just kind of shooting from the hip, you feel the fact you're doing it routinely is a system. So what we need to do is not create systems, but extract systems from our mind and maybe have a couple of colleagues from their mind. The best and easiest way I should say to do this is by recording. So you. With a simple smartphone, you can speak through what you're doing. You can record a video. Many things are done on the computer. Now you can use screen capture software to record it. Then what you do is now you have the task you're doing recorded. You give it to the person, the virtual help or whoever you're going to be now assigned as assistant to, you say, here's our best practice. Follow this. If you have any questions or any challenges. I challenge you because I hired you for your brains. Figure out your own solution for this to achieve the outcome we want. And then this is the key trace is then have them record the person that you've assigned this work toward. Record another training video because ultimately the smartest student in every room is the teacher. So they can record a video explaining the process. They've mastered the process.

So that's the first thing I took away from your book, is the first message I gave. And that's why I brought the book for my coo, is that we have that system here. We do training videos all the time and all of these things, but we haven't empowered those doing it day to day to make their own videos. And that's the switch. I just said that's it. We're making them. They are empowered to do that. Not only that, but they're required to do it. Every so often they need to update them.

Well done. Well done.

Yeah. So that was a simple change. And yet I now I know this is going to have a greater impact.

And what does is it makes those systems become living systems. Right. So it's not the one video you recorded four years ago. Now they're updating it and maybe they assign someone else. It gets updated again. And should that employee ever leave your office, the knowledge stays now. So we have tons of videos we have all our people make, even if it's a task that they are teaching even and they're going to maintain it, they're not assigning to someone else. It's just as important.

Yeah. So we had to do that. So just so people understand is like we had to do this because we grew from five to 50 employees in about a year and a half. So yeah, there was no other way. We had to figure out systems. Now, luckily we all knew what systems looked like because we worked for some big corporations and great corporations. I used to work for Herman Miller.

Oh, the furniture company. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. So I know understand what great systems look like because you have to be really efficient to be making furniture in the US today. So, you know, those are great reference points to be able to have. And not everybody does have that. That's why your book is so brilliant. I really love it because it really points out that these systems are not so complex and so difficult. They're actually really straightforward and simple.

The old mentality was these things called SOPs or standard operating procedures, which I lived by those. I shouldn't say live by those. I lived by the thought of those. I never created them well, because an SOP was overwhelming. I remember this one case, Tracy. We hired a new employee. Her name was Jackie. And I was doing shipping. We ship a lot of books and being an author, that happens. So I made a procedure of packaging them. I took pictures of exactly how they should be packages. We stuck a thank you letter in there. And the UPS website went click by click on what she needed to do. And I wrote it all up. It took me about three to four weeks of preparing this document. It was excruciating. But when it's done, I remember dropping that 12 page piece of I did it. I'm like, bam. It fell on her desk. And I'm like, I never myself to my head. I'm like, I never have to do this again. Go. Jackie just follows procedure. I was so excited. She left, came back to my office five minutes later and she said, hey, Mike, I started to go to the UPS website to follow your steps. UPS just updated their entire website. None of this is working. Yeah. And I'm like, are you kidding me? About 80% of that procedure was irrelevant overnight. And I had no control over it. That's the problem with SOPs. We rely more and more on technology. It changes so fast that something you make today may be irrelevant tomorrow. Plus, our attention span working on that for weeks was grueling. Reading that document, you wanted to put sometimes a bullet in your brain. So what we did start in that point forward was I just made a video and every time there was an update to the UPS website and so forth, Jackie then was making the new fresh videos and was always current and it took. Now she was actually doing the work. She was actually doing a shipment. So we were actually getting work done while recording the video. Maybe added 10 or 20% more time once it was done, video was captured, done. We're off to the next thing.

Wonderful. Yeah. The other thing you talk about in your book, which I think is really important for product launchers for people who are launching their businesses or their service packages and other things like that, is sometimes you have to crunch down. And so you talk about a woman who started Anytime Fitness and she would go in, and she would go in for a month and set up a new location and she would crunch and work her butt off for a month and then she'd work like four or five hours a week after that. Like, that's amazing. And so thinking about that is that there is a place for that hustle when you know that you're setting up these systems and you're moving through that because you know there's a benefit on the other side.

Yeah, there's no question. You know, getting your hands dirty, hands on, is probably the greatest trainer that's out there. You discover and learn things. There's a TV show, what was it called? Undercover Boss, and I think it's a great example, is that when you work on the design work of your business, designing outcomes, that isn't 100% of your time. You still want to get your hands dirty. There is still other elements of work that will give you good reflection and perspective. So you're talking about Lisa. I can't remember her last name at the top of my head right now. But she would go into her gyms and observe how they were currently operating. She was particularly attuned to how customers responded to how they worked. She worked in communities in the Deep south that in particular had more weight problems and health problems than their contemporaries in metropolitan cities. And she saw that these gyms were set the same as they were in the metropolitan cities. She said, that doesn't make these people feel comfortable. She adjusted the layout. She figured things out. She worked with the team, got everyone excited. And then after a month, four weeks, she would say, okay, team, now you take over and you run this whole show. And she's been masterful at running by metrics. So she uses complex spreadsheet that she just follows once a week for three, four hours. She goes through the entire spreadsheet and she goes. It almost like talks to me. It's like, it's speaking to me and to other people, it's just numbers, but it speaks to all the elements of the business. And I can see and feel the change. I know exactly where the red flags are raised when the numbers shift. And so that's how she runs her business. And I think she has 20 or 30 gyms now. It's amazing.

Yeah, yeah. And they have a really high retention rate. So when you come in, take over a 70% retention rate month after month on a gym membership is unbelievable. Yeah, that's crazy numbers in that industry. So that's just unbelievable numbers there. And it shows, but it shows how much that system, setting up that observation and understanding what you need to do is critically important. And so she's identified that and said, that's where I'm going to put my workflow. And that's where I'm going to spend my hours and time because it's going to pay off later. I love that mentality because that is sometimes what's required. So, so often, especially those of us who are building a business that has a bigger business plan, we have to crunch down, and maybe it's not a month, it might be a year, but as long as we understand that that's what we're doing and we're building that in place, at least we're aware of that. Instead of getting into that trap of let's just add on I increased efficiency, let's add on an hour of something else.

Right. I think, yeah, listen, I do believe in hard work, but for a deliberate, specific outcome. I don't think hard work as the solution to a problem and maintaining hard work is the fix. Hard work is when we see, okay, here's an outcome we can achieve. We're just going to push hard to make that a reality. But once it's achieved, it frees me up. That's the intention and the goal of entrepreneurship.

Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about profit first, but I'm going to save that for the end because I do want to touch on all these digital marketing things, because you are everywhere. You are writing books, you are out there, You've got articles, you've got all kinds of things going on. You've got podcasts, and you did something interesting, which I do want to touch on as well, which we sometimes say is a no, no, which is you recorded your own audiobook. And I have to tell you, I'm not an audiobook fan. Like, I don't really like audiobooks. I'm a reader. I'm a writer, so I'm a reader. But when your book was recommended to me, the person recommended the audiobook because you're funny, and he said, you won't get the jokes if you read it.

Right, right, right.

And so I thought. And so as I was listening to you and as you were going through this, and it's mostly their own books, they're disaster. And so. And they're just not good. But you're a podcaster. And it dawned on me that if a podcaster didn't record their own book and it was somebody else's voice, all of a sudden, there's a disconnection.

Yes.

And so that's really what I think really meant something. So you got to then learn a little bit about how to record properly. So you do it right. But.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You really got to know what you're doing. But reading my own book has been extraordinary in building bonds and connections to readers. So I do public speaking and I get a chance to meet a lot of these people have read my books, and they're like, I loved it. And I feel bonded and connected with you, which simply means I trust you and I'll listen more intently to what you say because I feel a connection. And I found there's two ways to do it. One is by being your own voice everywhere. Secondly is through pictures and videos. Like, I know we're recording over video, maybe broadcast over a podcast. But video and pictures are very important. Mistakenly, many people will put their single favorite picture from 20 years ago, you know, up on their website and say, that's who I am. And that actually doesn't build bonds because when they meet you in person, like, whoa. You don't look at all like that picture. And who are you? It's the one picture I see over and over. What I found is we actually want a massive variety of pictures out there, a large variety of videos out there, and do our own readings. And by doing that, I believe it's elevated the degree of comfort my readers have with what I'm doing. And therefore, I think I can be more persuasive in sharing stuff like Profit first and Clockwork and them adopting it because there's a higher degree of trust.

That's right, yeah. So have you found that for podcasting? What made you decide to start a podcast? Actually.

So I just enjoy listening to podcasts. I'm like, oh, I should do this. I love podcasting. We have a studio here in my office, a full blown studio. So it's like a little radio show. And there's something special about that. When the guests. And there's a co host, Kelsey, here, when we're all here, there's just, I don't know, this magic that happens. And the podcast, it's real. So we do live to tape. We do very, very little edits. So it's bumpy and clunky. And we break the rules of podcasting. Like, don't do the banter, just go to the content. No, we bullshit and we horse around and we interview guests and we just. We're true to who we are and who I am. There's joking and stuff. And I know it's goofy, but it just gives me joy. And as a result, it's built this fandom. Listen, some people are repulsed by our show, and I get it. It's not for them. There's other people like oh, my gosh. I've never heard a business show like this. It's just fun and crazy, and I laugh at myself and I laugh at you guys. Kelsey is always knocking me down, so it's not like I'm some exalted smart guy.

So it's really interesting. So I have a co host who happens to be my husband.

Oh, yeah.

So typically, yeah. I mean, we don't always do that on these interviews, so that's why you're not getting both of us. But we have the banter go on. And people are fascinated by the banter side of it. So you have hit on something that really does work actually really well. It's a little harder to be that all the time on your own. And also to get at, you know, we get in our terminology and we get in our head, and you're working on your next book, and Kelsey's like, I'm a little farther behind here. Catch us up. And, you know, it's that little reminder of, oh, I'm supposed to be paying attention to where my audience is now, not where I am now. And that helps.

It helps a lot. You know, and for the people listening in, they have to fly in the wall. Tracy. They listen to you and your husband and just kind of fun to be sitting in there, just listening in. I think it just plays into what we all want, to be able to be accepted into that room where we wouldn't be accepted or didn't have the time to make it, but we can still be part of it. I think that's the power of podcasting.

You know, most people think that it's not a value. Like, they're just. So this is just stuff that you do that there's this marketing level of things that you're just doing.

Yeah.

Now you don't find it as doing. You must find value in it, or you wouldn't keep it up because of your model.

Yeah, yeah. So I do consider doing right. So it's doing. Designing is, to me, is clarity on vision and choreographing resources. Doing is an activity that derives benefit to the customer or is an infrastructural thing. So a podcast is definitely doing. So I still do podcasts. I still speak. I still write my own books and some interviews. These are the four things I do, but I've compressed it down that it's taking up less and less time. At a certain point, I may say, you know what? I got to stop the podcast, or I got to not write books. And then I got to Figure out which one I don't want to do, which I know I'll never stop writing books, at least for the foreseeable future. What's interesting with the podcast, another opportunity came up to do a podcast. I'm like, you know what? I don't know if I really should or could take on another one without compromising design work by doing more. So we actually have a new host for the show. Danielle Mulvey's her name. It's Profit First Nation. I had this thing called the Profit first podcast, which we changed to Entrepreneurship Elevated. But so many people are fans of Profit First. They want to speak only to that. So we launched Profit First Nation, but we're launching it without me. And I think that's the way to scale. At a certain point, I have to get my ego out of the way and release things. They can continue on without me.

That's such an interesting way to do it. And so we actually do find here that spinoff podcasts that podcasts that are associated around the topic, whether they're fandom podcast, that happens too, right? That they do really well. That they really still continue to provide service to that community. That is so want so much more information. But then they still have the limited access to you because, you know, you're still doing your show occasionally. So it really does help though, that whole community thrive and serve itself in a way.

Yeah. You know what's funny? Like, as Profit first has really grown in popularity, I've really come to the realization that it isn't about me. I just happen to be the guy who's lucky enough to write that book. But those concepts were, you know, they're not original concepts. I took all these different concepts and accumulated them for very specific application to business. But people are embracing the concept of Profit First. That's what excites me. So to many people that are using Profit First, I'm not relevant at all. It's the content that's relevant. It's the people that are doing. It's the support structure they get in place. I don't think they need to hear from the guy who wrote the book. They just need to hear about people talking about this so they can further move forward their Profit first journey.

Yeah. So let's touch a little bit on Profit first for a moment because you've mentioned it here, and this is what I find very unique about your books is that they do have. There's some principles of things you may have heard before, whether you heard them in Scaling up or you've Heard them in other places. You've heard companies that run like this, like FedEx or like other place, large corporations. But you pulled the ideas together with something that anchors it that's unusual and profit first. It's your plate idea, your multi plate idea. And with Clockwork, it is this. I think it's the essence of that queen bee role. Right?

Yeah, the beehive. Yeah.

I'm sure you have an element of it. And I think that what's most unique about your podcast is that as I listen, I start to get hints of where these ideas are forming in your mind. And you're almost using your podcast, floating the ideas out there like a test market. And it's really interesting.

Yeah, that's funny. That's a good observation. That's exactly what we're doing. My newest book, I started talking about elements of it and I'm seeing how people are responding, how engaged they are. It's real simple. The data is there, we watch downloads. And if downloads are normal, well, that's normal. If downloads spike, that means people are sharing it or listening multiple times or downloading on multiple pictures. So yeah, we play with ideas there. And I have a document here, about 25 to 30 book concepts that I'm working on at any given time. I'm just trying to see what's the next one that people have decided to read my books, where's the next part of their journey? I want to serve them and continue their path.

Well, all of your books tie together this idea that a business needs to be profitable.

Oh, yeah. That's the essence of it.

If it's not profitable, why are you doing this? And not profit for profit's sake, but just that it has to be sustainable.

Yeah, it's funny, it's like, I don't know if it's a great analogy, but I think profit's like the health of a business. And a lot of people say they want to get healthy. And you see him smoking a cigarette and eating horrible foods or living a very sedentary lifestyle, saying, well, one day I'll get healthy. And we know the longer you maintain that lifestyle, the likelihood of you making the turn is worse. Lowers and lowers. Profit is the same way. I think a lot of people delay the profit consideration. Yeah, I need to be profitable, but not now. I just need to sell. My business needs to grow and one day I'll be profitable. But since we keep on delaying the profit consideration, become less and less capable of figuring out how to drive profitability. So that's why profit first is titled the Way it is. Profit must come first. It is the health quotient potion for business. So, yeah, profit needs come first.

So this is the number one thing I write about in my column and I was so, so thrilled to find you talking about this. And that is that here I am. I come from a. You don't know this because we've hardly talked about this in the past, but I come from a degree in design and actual product design. And so you would think that I'm a product first girl. And I am not. I am a market first girl. I am a. Let's get proof that the market wants what you have to buy. If people like it, that doesn't matter. If people are willing to plunk down a dollar for it, you're onto something. And that is something that you really highlighted in Clockwork in a great way. But you also talk about that a little bit in profit first because you got to make sure you have viable businesses and services before you dump money into development. Right.

I have a real simple saying. I've saying that people speak the truth through their wallets and not through their words. You know, it's a classic thing. You go to your friends and say, hey, this great idea. What do you think? That's amazing. Good luck. You're gonna crush it. Well, they're saying that because they're our friends, they want to support us, but then when it comes to actually selling it and you go to your same friends like, oh, how much? Let me think about. I'm so sorry. I had to go see my kids and pick them up at the soccer game. There's an excuse to avoid you all of a sudden and now it causes damage because you made this big investment. So I believe in can you pre sell something? If you can sell a concept and get people buying into it, you've got something that's real juicy because that means the storyline is big enough. So if you can get customers to plop down money and say, I don't have this product or offering yet, it's coming, this will do for you. Are you willing to put down some money? Right now the people that put down money are affirming they see value in what you're developing.

You know, it's so interesting. When we started our podcast business a few years ago, that's exactly what we did. We sold packages so we would pre sell episode of packages. So rather than pay a monthly fee and then people like, the renewal comes up and they panic. We sold 25, 15 episode packages. And so we were Essentially pre selling them. And we thought, oh, we'll just do this for a little while. Help us get our cash flow moving. It'll help us get the basis going on the business, and we'll be sure we have these clients at least for a period of time while we figure some of our systems out. And it works so well that we never do. We don't do anything else. We only.

Take prepaid packages now. And our clients actually really love it because it's. It gives them an accountability to force them to make sure that they finish their packages and that they're podcasting on time because otherwise they're wasting money they already spent.

And so it can be a real win win. That's fantastic.

Yeah. And so it worked out really great. So it's something we decided never to rethink because it was just working so well there. Why rethink something that's already working? Right.

I love it.

So let's talk a little bit about podcasting so that our feed your brand listeners can get some tips from you. So how has your position as a podcast host helped the business?

Well, you know, it elongates the storyline. So I'm an author. That's my business. Right. But listen, it's not a small business. We have 14 employees here now. So I'm an author. And what that means is my job is to. Well, my mission is to make entrepreneurship simple. That's what I do through my books. But the experience people have with me is either they read a book or maybe they see me on stage. Those are two very short experiences. A book doesn't build a bond and see what's on stage for 45 minutes hopefully is inspirational. Some calls to action. But think about a big time celebrity like Oprah. If you see her speak on stage, it's amazing. But it's really the fact that she was on television day in, day out, and you saw her in your living room for so long that built this bond and trust. Well, podcasts is the poor man Oprah. It's a way to get in someone's ear week after week after week. It builds such a bond of trust. It allows storylines to play out. We just recorded our 260th episode, I think, or something like that. I mean, that's almost 260 hours of content because each show goes for about 50 minutes. So say it's not 260, say it's 200. That's a tremendous amount of time in front of people. And when people. The beautiful thing about podcasts too is the Binging effect, which I think is really important now, is when someone anchors into something I do with television shows. I watched Breaking Bad and I watched the first episode like, this is amazing. Second episode. And then I was like, Saturday night. I've watched like 15 episodes in a row. And I think that's the new consumer thing, is if we link into something, say, I love this, we want to get more of it. And so podcasting has served me as a host because people can binge and build that rapport with me sometimes in a day just by cranking through all these episodes.

Yeah, no, we find that really valuable too. So that is really great. I want to have. We like to do these five quick lessons that you may have learned in podcasting. So any experiences you have on the best ways to book great guests.

Yeah, so I just reach out to them. I actually identify them in advance and reach out to them. But even someone with a big name, I'll do a 15 minute pre interview. Here's who I don't book. And I'm not saying this is not good, but I get, and I'm sure you do, too, solicited daily. I got this great guest for you. These booking agencies or whatever that never call me. It's just email after email after email. It's like, delete, delete, delete. What we do is we say who would be an interesting guest for our community? We identify the category, then find the people that are either experts or experience that story, and then say, hey, listen, we want you on the podcast, but can we talk for 10 minutes? Because maybe it's not a fit for you or for us and you can tell within 10 minutes that someone's going to be a good guest or not.

No, it's right. Yeah, exactly. Well, so, you know, easier for me to be able to go and listen to your podcast and go up. This is the right fit. Right?

That's another way to do it. Right?

It's so great.

It's a great way to do it. Listen to other podcasts.

Yeah, yeah. So how about some best ways to increase listeners?

So one thing we did was we gave away a book and we said, hey, if you're listening to the show, please post a review and share it. And we'd love to send you a book and to send a screenshot of the review. And when we did that, you know, people are getting the book, but they become more ingratiated to the podcast. Plus, they did a review. They tell their friends. So that spreads. The great thing is, I do a lot of Public speaking. So I'm like, hey, listen to my podcast. Let's continue the conversation there. So we'll get chunks of people. Every time I do public speaking coming onto the show.

Yeah. And I find too often people forget to mention that they have a podcast. Like, I can't tell you how. I was like, what are you doing? Say it, say it on stage. People want to know, how do you produce in a professional way?

Well, we have an outside firm, it's called Soul Search Records, a music studio. And I approached a guy a couple years ago, said, hey, can you produce podcasts? He's like, ken, I haven't. I said, well, we'd like to be your first and try it out. And he's done an extraordinary job. Now he has a podcast community. We don't build in house, but we do have all the equipment here. Like I said, we have a studio. Right across the wall from where I'm speaking to right now is our studio. It's soundproof. We have four mics and we have a producer that comes in for every single episode. You know, we record live tape. You still need to produce it. You know.

What are some ways that you encourage engagement?

Well, I shared with the share and review. We encourage people to do a review and send it to us. That's a form of engagement. Everything is. We have them just email us. So sometimes we give away books and stuff. We go, yeah, just email Kelsey, you listen to this episode and we'll send you a book. Or other times. We encourage people sending questions. We get questions in email constantly on every show. We're answering them live. We talk about their business briefly and promote their business. Such a great way to get engagement. We've even tried to do live call ins. That was really hard because it's not live broadcast. So that one, we skipped that one.

Yeah, we've had issues with those too. So really too hard. So do you have any tips on maybe the best way to monetize your show?

Well, yeah, so we just do through sponsors and promoting our own thing. So we have a sponsor that's been with us since day one. They love us and so they pay, probably paying 200 or so per episode. Then we bring on supplementary sponsors that send another 150 to 200 an episode. So we don't make huge money on sponsorship, but covers all the costs for running a show. We record three to four in one day. So we actually recorded today we actually did two, which was a slow day. Two to three a day. And so our cost to produce is probably 400 bucks, but we make about $800 plus to do it with two sponsors. But the other thing is, you know, promote your own stuff. So I invite people to buy my books at the. On every episode. And sometimes I think, well, if I say every episode, doesn't that kind of drone in people's ears? Yeah, that's kind of the idea.

That's the point.

That's the point. That's the point. And if you truly believe in your product you're offering, you should be droning on about it. So that's a great way to monetize, is by offering what you have for people to go beyond just the podcast.

Wonderful. So how long have you been podcasting? So you said 260 episodes, but how long has that been?

I think four years now.

Four years. So we've been doing about the same length. I have a little bit over four. So I have four shows. So about a thousand podcasts recorded. Yeah. It feels like second nature now, though. Don't you find it?

Yeah, it does. Yeah. So we actually. I have a second show, too. So cumulatively, I've probably up to about just shy of 500 shows. It is second nature. But, you know, it's funny, these shows, like someone somewhat. You record and say, we record one, it was good, but it wasn't great. And then we recorded another one like that one, hit it out of the park. It's just, you know, your audience is.

On the ride, so it doesn't matter. Right?

Yeah, exactly.

Right. So, well, before we go, is there anything you'd like us to know about Clockwork Profit first or your podcast that you can share with our audience? Anything that they should as a takeaway?

Yeah, just, you know, we talked about a few topics today. I just encourage people to take one specific actionable item. I think a lot of people take notes, and I go, oh, this is great. And I got an idea of making my business more efficient. Oh, I can take my profit first, like a percentage of money before I do anything else. And, you know, I hear all these ideas, and then we get overwhelmed and we do nothing. So I just encourage people. Of all the things you heard, pick the one thing that's actually easiest to do that you think will have some impact. But it's easy. Start with that one and keep a note of the others and then start building your way up. I am really a big fan of starting slow and letting it grow.

Wonderful. And, Mike, I know you're a big fan in all your books, in putting in early on, forcing them to Be accountable and send you an email. You sell them. Email me that you're going to do this. And you may not even read it, but email me that you're going to do this.

I'm just looking at my. Because my email's open right now. One just came in a few minutes ago. I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, about 8 since noon today. And we're recording this at 1:30 my time. So, yeah, in the last hour and a half, eight of them have come in. It's awesome.

Yeah.

And selfishly, every time I read one, Sanjay and Melissa, I can see Michelle when I'm going to read those. Ariel when I'm going to read those. They touch my soul every single time. It gets me so excited to be an author. Every time I read one, I want to write more.

I love that. Yeah. So that's what you've created, this accountability. But you've also created a feedback loop for yourself, which is tremendous.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. It's serves both.

Yeah. So wonderful. Well, Mike, I love what you're putting out in the world. I really appreciate your books. I hope you don't stop being an author and don't take that off your queen B roll, please.

I won't, I won't because I'm a.

Fan and I know there are lots of us out there who are still readers out there who really want to get your book. We also have a lot of podcast listeners out there and I highly recommend Profit First. I mean, just gosh, binge listen, you guys. You gotta, gotta listen. So what you have said you have multiple podcasts, but what are all the titles?

Yeah. So Entrepreneurship Elevated is my podcast for small business owners. And our mission on that show is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. To make entrepreneurship, the achievements and goals you have, make them a reality. Don't be in this impoverished experience where you're struggling for money and time life. And the other show is called gmap stands for Grow My Accounting Practice. It's a show I do specifically for accountants and bookkeepers on how they can help eradicate entrepreneurial poverty by growing their business.

So important. Yes. How they can be a bigger help. I love that one. And then you've got your Profit First Nation coming up.

Profit First Nation with Danielle Mulvey will be coming out first episode in about four weeks from now.

Ah, well, great. Well, we'll be sure to push it out on our social media so everybody knows it's live. Mike Michalowicz, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Feed your brand center of influence listeners out there. If you enjoyed the show, please reach out to us. You know you can find us on social media edyourbrand but you can also find us on our website, feedyourbrand. Co. Thanks so much for listening everyone. This has been Tracy Hazzard from Feed you'd Brand.

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 to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.