Successful Podcast Leaders Patiently Build A Strong Foundation With Kevin Dawson Of The Leaders & Lagers Podcast (Podfaded)

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 back to the Binge Factor. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I've got leaders and loggers today for our podcast. Doesn't that sound like a fun concept? That's exactly how I found our guest today, Kevin Dawson. I got friended by him, or I friended him. I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but we connected up on LinkedIn and I noticed he was a podcaster and I noticed the topic and I thought, leaders and loggers. That sounds like such an interesting podcast. And so I went to go check it out and sure, he was doing really well. He'd gotten over 40 episodes and the topic just seemed like such a great place to start. And when I listened to the show for the first time, I knew why. It has a great concept to it. So I want you to listen to this. I'm telling you that ahead of time and you know, I tell you that every time that there's a real interesting strategy here that could work for your show, whether you already have an existing one and you're on a shift or it could work if this is the strategy for what you want to set up. What he's done is really leave himself open to some great monetization opportunities. So I'm going to talk about that on the post side of the interview. But first, let me introduce Kevin Dawson. He's a culture crafting expert. Culture crafting expert. I love that. Who helps organizations build successful leaders, teams and workplaces. He is a national keynote speaker, successful podcast host, and has developed carefully crafted culture change strategies for mid sized and large corporations, nonprofit associations and congressional campaigns. Kevin is regularly featured at events providing expert perspective for building great teams. And don't we need to build that today? So he's a hot commodity right now and so is his podcast leaders and loggers. So let's talk to Kevin.

Kevin, thanks so much for joining me today. Let's talk leaders and loggers. I think that's a lot of fun. Are you having a drink today or not today? Because it's not your show.

Well, I didn't know if I should bring one, but I do have. I mean, there's cans all around me and you can see behind me. What's funny is people, as I've collected more and more cans because every episode is a brand new beer. I've got a wet bar in another room that is full. Like, I have no more shelf space now. And I'm thinking, where am I going to put more beer? Or do I get rid of cans? And it's been a lot of fun to drink beer and talk to people.

I love that. I love that. I love the concept of your show, which is why I reached out to you and said, let's have you on the show because I wanted to talk about how this concept works. And so there's so few shows that can really do this well, and you've chosen an area that you can do it well, where there's a lot of small brands who are eager to get featured, who are eager to hear, you know, get some kind of publicity. So you've created a system by which they're like, so glad to just be on a startup podcast. Doesn't matter if it's your first episode or your 500th.

Right. So, you know, the idea behind it really was I feel like some of the best conversations are had when you're sharing, you know, a drink with someone or a meal. And for me, I took actually idea I was working for a company at the time that was doing some happy hour events with our clients. And so we were calling it Benefits and Brews. And I said, you know, these are all great conversations that we're having. What if we could take conversations around leadership topics and organizational culture topics and let's share that over a different craft beer every week? Because there's so many craft breweries that have popped up all over the country and they've got their little niche styles. And for me, I was like, I want to learn to be a little bit more adventurous with different styles. And so the leaders and loggers kind of was birthed out of those ideas. And so I tell people when you come on the show, I want it to feel as if it's just you and I sitting at a bar top, you know, having that let's save the world, solve the world's problem conversations that.

That people, because we're feeling a little strong from the drinks.

Yeah, we're, we're, we were bold, we're courageous. Let's go out, you know, be superheroes. And it's just, you know, instead of we're sitting here drinking. But there's an audience all around us listening to our conversation. And it's been everybody that I've talked to about the concept. Like, this is a fantastic concept. Why didn't we think about this sooner?

Why didn't we do that? So let's talk about, though, how it works for you. So how many episodes in are you now?

So we 46 came out last Friday. In fact, we're in the process of doing something special for episode 50, which we're going to do a live recording at our local brewery here.

Awesome.

Yay.

You can do a live.

No, I was like, I texted the brewery owners and said, hey, can we do this? And they said, look, if we can't open, you're still more than welcome to come record and use our space. But they just got approval this last weekend to reopen. And so we're following all the social distancing guidelines, but we're having a live audience. And then the mayor of my hometown here in Midland, Texas, is our guest for the podcast. So I had texted his team. I said, would he be able to come on? They said, yes. So we figured what was going to work best with his schedule and picked a date and said, hey, let's do this. And it was funny because I. He's a longtime friend. And so when I was actually getting ready to launch the podcast, I said, hey, I'm getting. I'm going to do this because he's got a podcast that talks on leadership skills. And he said, those are all of my favorite things wrapped up into one event. So he was. As soon as I said let's.

He's like, I'm in.

Absolutely. He's like, I'm in. Let's do it. So we're going to do. We're going to do a live recording. And so we'll have our interview. And then after the interview is over, we're actually going to open the floor up to the audience to ask the mayor questions.

Nice. I like that. So I've done a live at south by Southwest, and all I can say is that you can have pros there and the sound will still get screwed up. Like. So we had. Tunein was the sponsor and they were providing the sound. And I was really lucky that my team was also doing some filming. So we had our backup. Backup microphones there as well. So you can never have enough backup recording. Just to let you know, there can never be enough in any live.

Yeah, you over prepare in production world. I've actually got a really good friend who is A musician. He's got a recording studio in the back of his house, and he actually did. So the mayor's podcast, his intro music was written by my friend Tyler. And so I asked Tyler said, hey, will you come be my sound guy? Good. You know, do the mix and make sure that we sound okay. Versus a typical setup for me is this microphone and an audio interface and my laptop. And, you know, we're good to go.

That's right. Most of us are good to go there. But then we get into a live situation and the background sound and all these other things, and then equipment still fails, let me tell you. So, yeah. So, yeah, backup and good pros with you. Good job. You got an entourage now, so you really made it.

It'll be good. I'm excited for it. And to be at 50 episodes is a little unreal to be able to celebrate that.

Yeah, I think that's really great. So now, did you have to, in the beginning, reach out to the brews and explain to all the different lagers and the companies you were. Did you have to explain to the craft breweries what you were doing, or was it pretty easy to get a connection in and get it sent?

Yeah, it was really easy to say, hey, guys, we're going to. I'm launching this podcast. The topics are going to be leadership and organizational culture, but I want it to have a little flair, a little personal touch, and I like drinking like most people. And I said, hey, would you. You know, we want to do a craft beer review to open up the show, to talk about just the uniqueness of the different breweries, because organizational culture as it relates to craft breweries is just as unique as each individual company around the country. And so, you know, kind of bringing that flair of, hey, let's. About the beer and some of the things that come with it, and to open up the show and make people feel like, hey, this is something really comfortable that we can all be a part of. And so they bought in real fast. Yeah.

It didn't cost them much. Right?

No. And if the very first episode is a brewery out of Dallas called the Manhattan Beer Project Company, and what caught my attention was on the front of their can was a cutout of a nuclear bomb from World War II. Right.

Which I thought was, like. When you were describing that, I was like, that's the oddest choice. A package design I've ever heard. Now I want to go see it and.

But what's cool about their brewery is all of their beers are themed after the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb in World War II. And so they've got all these just unique little beer names. And I was like, this is cool. You're in Dallas. Hey, would you want to be a part of this? And they said, yeah, absolutely. They had just launched their first taproom within the first in that year. So they were super excited. And unfortunately for me, I can only get their beers if I'm in Dallas. They don't, they haven't expanded much further outside of the Dallas Fort Worth area. So it's for me to get to Dallas, it's a one hour flight or a five hour drive.

Right. So now you get to experience that. Well, that's great. You know what I love though also is that you're setting up for their perfect audience. So your choice of craft breweries is set at a slightly different demographic level. Right. So you're set at a demographic level of someone who probably has achieved a certain level of success in their life. They're interested in exploring things, so they're, they're interested in the leadership topics. So there's a really nice match between the product selection, then your niche that you've chosen there and the audience that you hope to attract to the topics that you're talking about.

Absolutely. So a lot of the people who are in this, in a niche of craft beer and who haven't, you know, they're not the C suite executives, they're, you know, middle managers or they're wanting to be middle manager. They want or have aspirations to be business owners. And, and I think for a lot of, a lot of leaders that get promoted into management positions, organizations aren't investing well into leadership development, into what that path looks like.

Right.

And so it was like, I mean, I've been speaking on leadership and culture topics for many, many years. And so that was what drove the conversation and saying, hey, let's continue this conversation on a global scale with people who want to be in those and learn lessons from people who have had those successes or currently in C suite roles and say, hey, these are the things that I learned as a leader or, or what I want to invest into our team. So we do have good leaders managing our people.

Yeah, wonderful. Well, let's talk a little bit about the startup of the show. So when you first started the show or when you were on your path to starting, what was the biggest lesson learned? What surprised you the most? What really, you know, what advice do you have to someone who's just starting out?

So for me it was preparation and being prepared of, okay, what are we going to do? How's this going to go? Trying to figure out what's going to be best to fit my personality. So as a podcaster, learning what's worked. So is it going to be a 15 minute show, a 30 minute show, an hour? Do we go full on Joe Rogan and go, you know, hours? And, and so for me, in preparing for that first episode, I listened to a lot of different podcasts. I listened to how did they do their intro, how did they set up questions? I emailed and asked different podcasters, hey, what is. When you bring somebody on the show, do you do to inform them of the conversations? Who are you looking to? And so there's a lot of preparation on my part to prepare for that very first episode of figuring out who I going to be as a podcaster. Not necessarily to replicate someone else, but to take different bits of pieces from podcasts that I like to listen to and infuse those with my own personality, my own thoughts into the show. And so that was kind of how it went. And I would bounce ideas off of different people that knew me and could say, hey, we think this would work well, or no, that doesn't quite fit your personality. So I wouldn't maybe do that.

Did you get feedback along the way as you started?

I did. Very first episode. I mean, it had launched because each episode releases at 8am on Friday mornings, 8:30, I get a text from a good friend and he said, hey, congrats on your first episode. But it was really kind of hard to hear the audio.

Yeah, you have a sound issue in your very first episode. So one of the things that I always do when I check out a show is I'll listen to your most recent. Listen to one that just interests me because the topic or the guest is interesting. And then I'll go back to the very first one. Most people start at the beginning, you know that that's. But I like to go back to the first one because then I get to see this nice difference between where you've come and where you were. And so you certainly improved from there.

Yeah, it was, it was one that, even as I listened to it, like I had to crank the volume all the way up in my car to hear. I'm like, okay, this is not the best. So what do I need to do to improve? So that was, you know, learning what type of equipment do. Could I get to help improve audio and build it from there. And then other feedback from people saying, hey, you know, we liked these topics. We didn't like this topic. And here' why we didn't like the topic. Or it was an interesting point, but they wished I would have gone more in depth. And so there's a lot of good feedback from people that I trust in my personal board of directors that I have.

Good. Absolutely.

Good.

Well, let's jump into our five things, because I'd love to get your opinion on them right now. So what is some of the best ways you found to book great guests? The ones you don't already know.

So I've used my LinkedIn network, and so I targeted people that I wanted to talk to and actually not only just talk to, but hopefully influence. So I started connecting with chief people officers, chief human resource officers, chief marketing officers, chief diversity. I mean, all of those people who, you know, in trying to start networking and then that started to grow, and people would just say, hey, have you met so and so. They would. I think they'd be a great guest. I had listeners who would text me and say, hey, have you met so and so? Or do you know so and so? And would you bring them on in? And so as I started to book guests, it just kind of bloomed from there, and it really took off for me with the quality of guests at the beginning of the summer back in June.

Well, because more of those leaders have more time.

So that kind of helped in your favor.

It did. And it was just. It blew up so quickly. I mean, I almost kind of felt overwhelmed. As it started growing. I'm like, I did not expect this. And the quality of leaders or guests quickly started to grow, and I'm like, what am I doing? I did not expect this. I mean, even I joke with guests that I've talked to. I said, my. My favorite episode to date was interviewing author Mark Sanborn because I was starstruck by him. His book was one of the first books I read coming out of college on leadership. And so as I'm talking to him, everything that he had said, I mean, I was just eating it up. And so I would just respond, absolutely. And I tell people, that was absolutely my favorite episode because I said absolutely two dozen times.

So it was a good lesson of, okay, they wanted to be on your show, and they see you as an equal. So don't feel like you have to be so starstruck by them. They're just a normal human being.

Actually, we like to say that you're the actually authority because you control the audience, so you control their access to the audience. So you're actually a bigger leader There. So own that next time. Yeah, I love that. Well, increasing listeners. Have you really worried about the listener base? Like, you know, what was your plan for launching and growing that?

So when I launched, it was really kind of targeting at the HR network that I had been a part of and trying to influence local HR professionals across West Texas. Texas, and a little bit beyond that kind of ran in my circle. But people started to listen and share. It just kind of started to grow and then may hit. And at the time, the biggest person that I had as a guest was my friend Matt, who had just appeared on the Voice. And so his network, when he shared it, it started to grow. And then I started getting other guests coming on, and it just grew and grew so quickly that I didn't know what to do. It's like, wait, I'm in how many countries now? How many listeners? This is not real. And so I just kept talking, and now I've got a whole bunch of Fortune 500C suite executives, celebrities, athletes that follow the podcast and listen that. I mean, it's still kind of all.

New and exciting, but you don't have a concerted effort in how you share it. It just so happens that the guest sharing has really worked for you.

It has been. I mean, I work on making sure I had good graphics for marketing. So when I got to episode 25, I redid of my branding and using the website Canva for. I mean, so it's a great free.

So you didn't spend a lot of money, you just. Yeah, but you spent a lot. You spent some time getting it right.

Spent some time getting it right. You know, tweak the logo and then using that model for the logo and saying, okay, these are my color schemes. This is what I want it to look and feel. Everything that I've created has just been just kind of replicating that. So, you know, I created a website so host all of my episodes on as well as, you know, information about speaking opportunities that. That I go and, you know, I had, you know, social media pages and sharing.

So we're actually tapping into my next question, which is about producing in a professional way. What do you think are some of the keys there that has really been helping to make it more professional for you?

I think consistency is big, you know, sharing, you know, a consistent message, a consistent look and feel, it may change. But doing it for a season at a time, whether it's a year or, you know, quarterly or whatever, it may be just having that consistency and saying, hey, this is what we're going to do to build that brand. And for me, that was okay. When I'm going to announce a guest, I'm going to preview the podcast to my audience of, hey, this is who's coming up this week. And these are some of the conversations that we're going to be talking about. And so people kind of get excited of hope I need to make sure I'm saved or subscribed to hear that episode. And then following up after the episode, you know, promoting the episode release the following week, I take one or two quotes from the podcast and put that into a graphic for people to, to use and share, whether it's, you know, Instagramable or tweetable, you know, topics, quotes. Because that's, I mean, I feel like we live in a world that thrives on 140 characters. No.

Really? Yeah. And the visual of it too, so that you got that Instagram able side of it. So. Well, that's really good. Now when you do that, then my next question usually is it's how do you encourage engagement with that? So you've got these posts going out, you've got them professional looking, you've got the messaging right, you're teasing out new episodes and announcing the ones that are existing. So how do you encourage the engagement? Get questions going in.

So for engagement for the audience, you know, we'll take, you know, what we're talking about and try to find ways to get people to think about and respond to how it's going to be in their, their own lives. Part of the episodes, we always end what we call last call. And it's a challenge to listeners to here's what you can do to be a better leader this week. And so we kind of use that challenge to be an engagement factor and try to find out from people, hey, what are you doing? How did you grow as a leader this week? Or what are things that you want to know to be a better leader this week? And so people respond that way. And even with talking with the guests on the show, you know, we're pulling, you know, stories from them about some of these things that people are wanting to know. How do I be a better leader? There's not. I mean, there's thousands of books on how to be a better leader, but there's not any one way to do it.

No, there's not one path. You're so right about that. So everyone out there is probably going, Tracy, ask the question, are you monetizing the show? Are you making money from the brewery? Are you turning it into clients? How are you monetizing the show?

So we haven't monetized the show directly. It's been more indirect and part of that has been on purpose to not monetize it yet. For me, I was like, I don't have a year under my belt on the podcast yet, so I kind of wanted to feel like I want to go through a year to just see where it goes. But that doesn't mean I haven't been preparing for monetization.

Your show is set up for it, and that's one of the things that you're really set up for. Multiple ways to decide which is the best path for you. Where so many, you know, they default into only one way and it really wasn't working from the beginning and now they have to shift to try to focus on that.

So, so yeah, so where, where it's kind of going to end up going. One of the things that I love that LinkedIn updated because LinkedIn has been a huge benefit for having a podcast page because the people that I want to influence are mostly found there on LinkedIn. And so being able to invite people that I want to influence from, from all these different organizations, hey, come follow my show. That has been huge. So I'm keeping track of. Here are all the different companies and their titles who follow the show. And so once I get to that point of, you know, I don't have thousands and thousands of listeners. I mean, I've got right now we're averaging, you know, two to 3,000 a.

Week, which is really good. So for those of you out there listening or starting out, this is a good place to be at 50 episodes, like, you know, and you're about to hit that. This is a good growth path. So you're right on where you should be. You're not blowing up the world. But you know, most people don't in their podcast, right?

And so, so while, because I had a friend who owns a couple small businesses and he's got a background in marketing, it was episode five and he said, hey, would you charge for a sponsorship? I said, I don't even know what to charge. I went and researched. I'm like, well, this is what I found. But I told him, I said, you know, if you just want to send me some beer that you, you found in California, I'll promote you for saying that. You know, I got beer, you sent me the beer. And but as, as I have collected this list of all these Fortune 500 and well known brands, now I can turn to sponsors or vendors that I've worked with in the past for, at different conferences that I've spoken say, hey, you want to get your product, your message in front of this audience? Here you go. So instead of going big and wide, it's much more focused on the clientele that I know people would want to get their messaging in front of. So when I hit that one year anniversary, that will be when I start to say, let's start to think about.

What am I going to do now. I like that. But I love that patient approach, Kevin, because you know, that patient approach really helps you understand your audience better, understand where the value is being derived from your show, gives you the time to do that and also to make sure you really love it.

Yeah, you know, when I launched it, it was funny. I've got a really good friend who has a blog and has been writing for years and I told him, well, I don't think I could do that. I don't like to write and. But I love to get up in front of people and talk. And so he's like, well, why don't you do a podcast? And so that's how the podcast got started, was just that idea. And now it's funny, I say I don't like to write. I'm in the process of writing a book based off of all these different conversations and lessons and so hopefully that will come out first quarter of next year.

But are you blogging the podcast?

No, it's strictly an audio only podcast.

Well, that might be next for you.

It will, it will. I know talking with one of my first guests this summer, Justin Lee, who is the host of the Professionals Playbook podcast F35 Air Force pilot. And he does a monthly newsletter that highlights some of the things and I even talked to a friend whose brother is leadership expert John Gordon and he said, hey, you should think about doing a transcript of your episodes or at least highlighting some points, whether it's, hey, it's the whole episode or it's your own personal thoughts on the episode and send that out on either weekly or monthly basis, however often you feel like is going to be best for your audience. So yeah, there's a lot of things that are in the works.

There's a lot of play in there. Well, you know, we do find in our business and potatoes that we the blog posts and the keywords associated with leadership and other things like that. And even on the logger side, right, the craft beer side, the creation of the influence side will show up on the website before it will show up in the Audio numbers. So your website numbers will lead before the audio number. So that's why when sometimes people add them later, they're like, wow, why didn't I know about this from the beginning? So I actually do think that's a really good play for you to test out between now and your year to see if that's the case for you to see how that plays for you. Because I think that that will give you a good indication of like, what is this well rounded sponsorship model or what is this well rounded lead generation to client model that I want to go on? Right. Which way do I want to go? It'll give you some indications by having a more full, well rounded multimedia package in a sense.

Right. And so yeah, so that's kind of, I mean for me during this first year is just, hey, let's make sure we're consistent. And then once, you know, we're collecting ideas and seeing what best fits are in the market, the need, you know, people that listen what's gonna be best engaged. And yeah, whether it's a blog or a newsletter, it's easily to share and read a two minute word file than to sit and listen sometimes to a full episode. And so, but, but that's a good hook for someone who, hey, let me forward this email to so and so about the topic and then it gets them to say, well, I want to know more, let me come listen to the episode. Or hey, I'd love to engage with, you know, the host a little bit more to, you know, we, we want to develop our team better or we want to.

Well, let's talk about that. So you mentioned adding speaking to your website and things like that as you built that out, you know, have you gotten some more authority within your niche, within your area that you have just found has come from being a podcast host.

So it's is definitely grown. Last year I spoke at about a dozen events over the course of 2019. This year I've doubled that. And really it's been in the last four or five months it, to me it's funny because back in February I had a former senior vice president company I was working for tell me, oh, you don't have the qualifications, you're not, you don't have the authority.

You're not on, like you're not big enough.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, okay. You know, to me nowadays, like I really do wish I could like just reach out to him and say, hey, you know, remember when, you remember when you said these things Now I'm Cool enough.

So. So it has. It has brought a lot more opportunities. I've had several.

It sounds like it's really accelerated that authority for you.

It has. It's opened up the doors to a lot larger conferences and events versus just, you know, local events or even companies saying, hey, would you come in and talk to our team for, you know, an hour to. To about, you know, we've got this issue, or would you provide, you know, some feedback on this is what our company culture is, and we kind of have some issues or, hey, how do we train our leaders to be better? And so it's opened a lot more doors this year. It's funny, I've done. I think part of why it's been so well is we're living in the age of zoom and you already know.

You can command the technology, right?

Absolutely. So I've. I mean, I've spoken in events all over the country this year without ever leaving my house.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah.

I was set up. Exactly. I was already set up to be there because I do it all the time. So they get very lucky that they can call on you to do that. So. Well, that's great that your authority's increased. This is going well for you. You're looking at that year mark coming, you know, in a few months, and you're going to be looking at that and saying, what do I do next? But, you know, here's the thing. What did you surprise you? What did you gain from it? That just went, wow, I never expected this. This wasn't in my plan.

I didn't expect this to really be as big as I thought it would. And I think for most people launching podcasts, they're looking to maybe influence their local network. Yeah, we'd love to be big and well known. But when you look at, I remember hearing a statistic that there's three quarter of a million podcasts on Spotify now.

There's a million podcasts out there, but there's only 350,000 that are active.

Yeah. So there's lots and lots of different ones out there. There. And for, you know, when I launched, I was like, okay, I'm going to maybe influence 100, 200 people to have that be 10 times and greater and growing. It has surprised me and I think. But the other part of it was after launching those first few episodes and finding that rhythm of here's how it's going to go, it became so much easier.

If you found you liked it, it was great.

And which Is funny for me, being someone who wants to speak, being someone who, who has been doing the podcast, who's writing a book. If you would met me 15 years ago, I was shy guy that I was sitting in the back row, not wanting to get up in front of people, but it was learning to find my confidence, learning to find my voice. And both of those combined, people started to listen and that felt good. And I think that's why it's continued to grow.

Yeah. So I'm going to ask you, because this is about the point where I'm going to hit on your bingeability, but what do you think your binge ability is? So do you think you're a binge able show and if so, why?

I think people love the passion that I, you know, when I bring to people and even, even guests that I brought on. We love the show, we love the passion that you bring to wanting to grow leaders, to, you know, develop better cultures. And so people are like, I get emails weekly from people all over the world saying, hey, we'd love to be on your show. I can't respond to all of them, so I kind of have to be a little picky sometimes of, well, I don't think you're going to fit the right market and be able to say it's okay to be, to say no to people.

So you're being discerning in your process.

Very discerning. I mean, there, there are people that I want to talk to and then there are people that I don't really want to talk to because I don't think that they're, they may be great podcast guests, but they're not great for me.

Right, Great for your audience. That's really good. I do think that that's one of your bench ability factors. But the biggest one I think is that you ask the questions about the path. Like that's your, I'm going to say you can tell at the beginning when you do your announcements about the cloud craft brewery and about the beer that you're drinking that you're, you've got this kind of, I'm going to call it like a geek enthusiasm. Right? Like you're like exploring and you're excited and you're interested and you're, you're like, wow, they put this on the can and you know, like you're exploring and interested in all of that and that cascades into the way that you ask questions and explore the leadership topic. And that helps me feel really comfortable if I'm not at that top of my game level, and I'm not there at the C suite level. I can relate to you. I can see that you're advocating for me to understand that path, and that's what I really think is your true binge ability factor.

Well, I appreciate that. You know, I was talking to a good friend who was actually on a podcast of mine just a few weeks ago, Tony Bridwell, who has another. His. He has a podcast called Breakfast with Sis. So it's him and his daughter. And so he was the very first podcast that I was a guest on. He surprised me. Cause I. He said, hey, you're going to be in Dallas. Once you come by, you know, Chick Fil A, we're going to be recording, you know, Saturday morning, you can come watch. And I show up and they say, hey, by the way, you're going to be our guest today.

Oh, yeah, we really roped you into this.

And so I was kind of surprised. But as we talked, for me learning, I'm a huge advocate for uncovering individual strengths. So you've got like Gallup Strengths Finder or my personal favorite is the standout 2.0 by the Marcus Buckingham Company. And my top strength from standout is as a teacher. And as a teacher, being that strength is I have a natural curiosity to want to pull things out of people. I want to see and understand why people think and do. And I get excited about learning. And so I think you kind of hit on that.

That excitement comes through in your show. And that's really why I think people binge and they're saying, well, I want to hear what happens next. I want to see who you talk to next. And I think that that's really the key to creating that binge effect. Right. The one you're. Why you're going to go from episode to episode to episode and listen to them all and stay subscribed. Right?

Right.

Yeah. Well, Kevin, I think you've done a great job at getting this podcast going. I love where it's going. I love that it's doing so well because it's rewarding that effort that you've really put into it and that strategy and thought that you've put into it. So kudos to you. And really, leaders and loggers, good luck with that. It's just such a great topic. I can't wait to see where you take it next.

Well, I appreciate that, Tracy.

So I told you that was going to be really interesting, that the idea of the multiple levels of monetization, of the way that he's built the strategy for the show. And what I really do love is that patience that he's built in this idea that he's not ready for this yet, as you heard him say, but he's thinking about that. And he's built in some really great building blocks and foundation for being able to monetize in so many different ways, depending on what works, what works for his business. Because, you know, our business shifts over the course of a year, especially this year, and where we thought we might want to do a lot of corporate training, maybe tomorrow we don't want to do that. Maybe we want to do more one on one consulting, or maybe we want to do events ourselves and courses and offer different things. So he's left his options open as he's been building this foundation. But what he's really proven in his show is that he can command an audience. He can get them to binge on his content, he can get them to come back again and again. He can get them to suggest guests to come on his show, he can get the guests to want to be on his show. So now he can create a nicer network and association. So Kevin Dawson has done everything right in terms of developing a pop that's bingeable. And I really think at the end of the day though, it's the quality of that conversation. It's what I told him his bingeable factor was. It was that he is that discerning voice and that person who questions and inquires about what the path to great leadership is. And so he's deep in that niche, he understands it, but he's acting on behalf of the audience and creating a quality conversation in that process. And sometimes we can get this sort of like idea of having a craft brewery and all of this can begin gimmicks. But it's innately dialed into the right type of person that he's targeting. Person who's interested in that, who's at that right level, middle management still working in and around and in the team and not necessarily on the leadership of the team. And they're not in that elite group yet, but they want to be and they want to find the path there. And so he's created this place to have that conversation that simulates what it would be like in the real world. And so it be could it creates that intimacy with the audience that he was looking for. And it's doing it in a way that's not gimmicky, that's really interesting. And then he's created a great marketplace for that monetization later. Because the craft breweries are the perfect type of sponsor. In the future. They can send a few hundred dollars, they can send their brew in. All of a sudden you've got your production cost paid for. You're being paid to market your own self. And wouldn't that be great? You subsidized your costs. You can even do it at that minimum level, level in the beginning. And then as it grows, you can expand that and get a larger sponsor or work it with, you know, distributors or other things. And so it can create that model of it non competitive because if you started to take sponsors and advertisers in that leadership world, then he's competing against himself, against his own services. And so we really want to have an influence in that area. But having the ability to maybe subsidize and pay for the cost of the show and, or get sponsorship in a way that is really synergistic with what we do. And that's what Kevin's created here. So don't miss out checking out leaders and loggers. And of course, you'll have all the links to Kevin Dawson and all of his shows and everything. And hopefully by the time this airs his 50th episode, you can go check that out and hear that fun, that new episode that he's created, that sort of engaging and exciting 50th. And it might give you an idea for what you do when you, you get hit 50 or 100 or 20, whatever it is that you want to celebrate. So hopefully that will be out in time for the blog post for this episode. And of course, all of that is located@thebingefactor.com and as always, I'd love to hear your suggestions for great guests. I'd love to hear what types of shows, what types of questions you have. Reach out to me and I will find you the right podcaster to get us some answers. So thanks everyone for listening. This is Tracy Hazzard on the Binge Factor.

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.