Unlocking Podcast Success: Insider Secrets from Top Host Matt Brown

That's good.

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew.

And I'm your host, Brett D.

And this week we're really talking about podcasting and the business side of it.

Specifically, everybody knows about the listening, podcasting side and how to find your podcast, but no one really knows about the business side of it.

And that's really important, especially on the marketing side as every business and everybody's trying to get on one as well.

But with me, I have Matt Brown with me and he has his own podcast.

He is a podcaster just like me and he has interviewed thousands upon thousands of great guests.

Check out his website, which we will link in the show notes below as well.

But let's get on with the show.

So welcome to show Matt.

Great.

Thanks for being having me on the show, man.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

The first question, that's all my guest is, are you a coffee or a tea drinker?

Coffee.

Coffee all day, like every hour of.

Every day or do you have like a set limit of how much you will drink?

I actually have.

I don't do, you know, nespresso or filter coffee or any of that stuff.

I actually drink mushroom infused coffee.

So there's this company called Riser.

They're based in the US you pay like a certain amount of money every month and you can choose from their product portfolio, different types of drinkable, you know, performance coffee or, you know, what's that?

Matcha.

I don't know if you want Matcha is like a green green tea based product or anything like that.

But I like their coffee one.

So it comes with, you know, lion's mane, mushroom and all that kind of stuff in it.

Nice.

And I gave a brief description about your expertise.

Can you give listeners a little bit more about who you are?

Sure.

So I've been running a show, my podcast called the Matt Brown show for the last 10 years.

It's in the top two and a half percent of all podcasts globally, done over 800 episodes, have an audience in a hundred countries around the world.

I'm a three time Amazon bestselling author, speak a lot.

And what I do today is I work with business leaders to help them basically scale their influence so that they can really elevate markets, make a positive contribution to the world.

Gotcha.

And so just getting into it, podcasting in general has exploded, especially since the pandemic.

It kind of just hit that break point, actually just exploded on that break point because everybody was trying to start a podcast during the pandemic because everybody had time, no one was doing anything.

But what are some of, like, the key, I think, weaknesses with doing a podcast and like running a successful business around it?

Yeah, well, the first thing to say is that most people who get into podcasting, they quit.

And the reason for that is because they do three or maybe six episodes and then they realize just how much work actually goes into producing a show.

So they have an expectation that it's going to be easier than it actually is.

And so on itunes, there's currently over 3 million podcasts, give or take.

And the amount of podcasts are stat, funny enough, that was shared with me by another podcast company that the amount of podcasters you get past 700 episodes is less than 0.2%.

So that just gives you a sense as to if you're getting over 800, even a thousand episodes, like Startup Hustle as an example, you truly are in the top 0.1% of all podcasters.

So the reason why people quit is because you have to find guests.

Then you have to spend the time, which is your most valuable resource, on doing the interview.

Then you have to get over yourself.

You know, I really sucked at interviewing CEOs when I first began.

And then you have to produce the content and you have to repurpose the content and then you have to then commercialize it.

So when you put all those things together, very few podcasts are actually making any money whatsoever.

They kind of like self published books and the self publishing industry.

There's over 2 million self published books, kind of like a show, right, that, that are published every single year.

And 91% of those books sell less than 100 copies.

Does it give you an idea?

And also another reason why people quit is because they get romanced about this idea of download.

So they look at the downloads and they go, oh, I only got 32 downloads this month, or I only got 3,000 downloads this month.

And so they start focusing on the wrong things.

And so that's why people quit.

Gotcha.

Yeah, I think I read a stat that usually most podcasts, especially the newer ones, won't get past the third episode.

Most podcasts won't get past the third episode.

There's a whole graveyard of could have been shows, you know, and so one of the things, I mean, also be honest, I've also wanted to quit many, many times over the last 10 years.

However, I haven't quit because it's been the Matt Brown show for me, has been and has been the best thing that I ever did.

I'm.

I'm Able to.

I have a global network of some of them as influential business leaders.

I've written three books off the show and I've made millions off the show too.

But not in the way that people think you should be commercializing your podcast.

Gotcha.

And so do you think the biggest pain point will probably be like the analytics?

Because I replied news about every single day.

I mean, I make sure that I'm on top of what's going on in the industry.

And every time it's like, well, what analytics should be looking at.

It was first the 30 day downloads and then it was the 7 day downloads and now it's just like all over the place where it's like, what should they really be focusing on?

Because if you're getting like four different answers, it's like, what do I look at?

Well, what do you look at?

I mean, what the people, the things that people look at primarily are downloads and the prevailing way to commercialize a show historically.

And if you ask a hundred podcasters, they will go, well, you must find a sponsor.

So I was on the Startup Hassle podcast.

They've done over a thousand episodes, they've had over 6 million downloads, and very few shows get to that level of scale.

And so they had four sponsors that are paying to have their ad read.

Right?

So this show is sponsored by QuickBooks and we this and that and blah blah and fish based.

But very few shows actually get to any kind of level of scale where you can commercialize the show to that level.

In other words, you're getting paid per thousand reads or per thousand downloads where that ad is heard.

But even today that process can be gamed.

There was a media release.

I saw, there's a news piece, actually I saw on LinkedIn where there's this media company that are working with some podcasters to fake their downloads.

And the way that they were doing that was to essentially integrate the RSS feed of a podcast into mobile gaming for kids.

And so if you ever been, if you have kids or whatever, like your kids are always playing these games and they have the ads always keep coming up.

So as the ads would come up for one second that your, your podcast would play and then that would count as a download.

But it, but no one's actually listening to your show.

It's literally, I'm closing the ad because I want to get back to the game.

And so why is this happening?

Well, it's because this whole idea of cost per thousand downloads, I'm going to pay you a hundred dollars per thousand downloads.

Or maybe you can, you know, drive a thousand people to fill out a lead form like Netscape, Mac, Brown show, Whatever the case is, very few shows actually have that capability.

So if you are not getting like 10,000 to 25,000 downloads per episode, how do you commercialize your show?

And that's the question that one has to ask is, well, what other opportunities are there in terms of the business of podcasting?

I mean, what I know of is there's merch, there's a merch side subscription, side ads, that means host reads, live reads, dynamic ads.

And then there's, I mean if you want to do the editing portion, you can make money off that as well.

So that's really the only ones I know.

Am I missing anything from like the actual monetization of it?

Yes, quite a bit.

So a podcast is actually an amazing lead generation tool.

So I'll tell you a quick story.

So when I arrived in the US about a year and a half ago, I'd lost my whole network.

You know, it's, that's what you do when you immigrate.

And I'm from South Africa, obviously.

And when I arrived in the us I lost all my network, but I had to show.

And so what I did was I sent a thousand emails to startups just in California who had raised a million dollars or more in the preceding 12 months.

And I sent them a very simple email and I said, look, hey, my name is Matt Brown, recently arrived in the U.S.

i'd love to interview you on the show, give you some free PR exposure.

Here's my booking link.

Book your interview.

And I went to bed that night and I woke up the next morning, I had 190 booked interviews.

And that's when I landed on this idea.

Well, what is this?

Why does this work?

And that's influence.

And so this is now why, if you think about a show, that you can use it to open up relationships with people you really want to meet.

So if you're a startup founder and you're a mid market company doing, you know, cloud and you want to talk to CTOs, you create a show, a podcast about cloud or whatever the case is, or you could even say Matt Brown show and you have a series or duty series on the show.

So you're focusing on cloud, then you're focusing on digital transformation.

And so you're focusing on these different conversational areas that are important to you.

And so what that then does, it allows someone to come onto your show to, you know, give their point of view and all you're doing is appealing to their status, you're taking an interest in them, you're activating an emotional trigger called reciprocity, and you're using your show as a lead generator.

Okay?

And then now what you can also do is use something called Funnel Flow.

And Funnel Flow automates outreach on LinkedIn.

So that's what I do.

So I use this to generate leads and open up relationships with my clients.

And so what I'm actually doing is sending automated messages going, same thing.

Hi, my name's Matt Brown, love to interview about, blah, blah, blah.

And then here's the booking link.

They come onto your show and so what you're not doing is you're opening up a sales opportunity, but then you do the show that's creating marketing content, and then you're also growing your network all at the same time.

It's probably the most influential system and a big believer in systems in terms of growing your business as a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, it really works incredibly well.

And it works in all types of industries.

We're implementing the same system, right, for many entrepreneurs and CEOs.

And that's what I mean, if you just think about it from a podcast perspective.

And then I must add subscriptions for more value content, and then I must sell ads.

And by the way, who wants to listen to an ad on a podcast, right?

The first thing you want to do is skip past it, right?

And so that's just one way.

It's using it to open up, to create leads.

And then when you do these series like I do the, my last series called Secrets of Fail.

And what I wanted to do was paint a counter narrative that failure is bad.

Because if you look at LinkedIn, everyone's so successful, aren't they?

So what I wanted to do was change all that.

And I interviewed CEOs about their failures, and then that content became the basis for a book.

Now that book became a number one Amazon bestseller.

We launched 300 videos around that particular series.

Within 10 days, I was booked on seven different podcasts.

And now I'm speaking about failure and to entrepreneurs.

So now I'm generating speaking revenue also.

And so if you start to see that a podcast is not just a podcast, it's a, it's a media platform, meaning it's an opportunity for you to own ideas in the market or associate yourself, your personal brand with value in the market so that you can drive thought leadership and ultimately commercial value.

Yeah, that makes sense as a lead generator because I mean, I see like the Marketing one is my only generator because I get a bunch of marketers that want to showcase them.

But the funny part is when he talked about the podcast that was trying to generate downloads, I was like, you just have to go to LinkedIn.

You get like tens of thousands of podcast promoters that want to promote your podcast.

I always say no, because I'm like, I don't want you.

I don't know what you do.

So I'm good.

But yeah, that makes sense as a lead generator for either whatever you want to be an expert in.

This is what I'm hearing, right?

Absolutely.

And then is another pain point for podcasters, like creating the show notes, like the title that will engage people, like creating that stuff.

Is that a pain point that you see, or is it more just the monetization side of it?

It's a time sex.

Anything that takes your time, I would say is a cost, but it's certainly, you know, having someone else do that for you or to have a AGI or artificial generative intelligence platform to do it.

I mean, if you use Riverside as an example, the transcripts already there, you know, you run that through gpd, it's just like, you know, it's a.

It's a minute job.

So it's not really necessarily too much of a.

Of a pain point.

You know, if you were thinking about a headache pull versus a vitamin, that would be a vitamin.

But the headache pull is really around the show itself.

And how do you create systems around the show to help you make a positive difference to the industries and customers and audiences that you're trying to serve and do it in a way that is novel and unique?

Gotcha.

And then for email marketing, is it important to actually have that, to actually grab those if you can?

I mean, I feel like some of the hardest part is getting reviews and grabbing those emails and getting return listeners.

Is that like, one of the things that podcasters should, like, try to figure out is try to offer something for free?

You know, it's like a checklist of whatever your industry is.

Should they be focusing, like some of their time on the email marketing side of it?

Yeah, the only thing that people seem to do incorrectly is they broadcast email or they send, you know, 10,000 generic emails, and we all get it right, and we hate us.

That's why spam filters are so important.

So the point is it's not about the email channel itself.

It's in that how it's used.

Right.

So you.

You should absolutely, first of all have your own domain name.

Right.

So not Just the podcast on itunes or Spotify.

But you should have like Brett Dyster.com on your name, not your show.

Like, not the, not like startup hassle necessarily can do that.

But for me, it's about personal branding.

Why do people listen to you?

It's because of your personal brand and the talent that you have on the show.

That's what drives downloads and engagement more than anything else.

The bigger talent you have, the more you know.

New York Times bestselling authors are way different to someone that's never written a book.

Right?

And so you want to have an owned channel, a channel that you own, that you can build a newsletter around or a community around or a hub of content around.

So that's why I have Matt Brown Show.

And so Matt BrownShow.com has links to all my books.

It has all the PR that I've been on, tv, radio, all this kind of stuff.

And so what I'm doing as part of this channel, this website is I'm creating what I'm what's called credibility signals.

So if I want to invite a billionaire onto my show, and I've had several, they're going to first look at what they're going to look not at your RSS feed on itunes, they're going to look at you.

Who are you and why are you worth me spending time with you?

Right.

Is this guy really worth my time too?

And so the more credibility signals you have on a domain that's built around your name, who you are, the more likely it is that you're going to attract attention.

And so attention is the new oil in digital.

So now when you get attention, what can you do with it?

Well, you can then build an email list.

So what do you say on the email?

Are you trying to sell or are you trying to build relationships or are you trying to contribute?

Are you trying to provide a service?

What people seem to do on emails, they just want to sell.

If I get, you know, 100 emails a day that are spam related, it's just straight into pain.

Like, it's just, I want to sell you this thing as fast as I can sell it.

We do this AI sales, blah, blah, blah, and no one cares about that, so they switch off.

But over time, what you do is you create credibility and reputation and that's what drives trust.

People will unsubscribe from your newsletter if they don't trust who you are or what you have to say.

And so do not sell.

That's what, that's the first thing I would say Rather, give, give, give, give, give.

The Matt Brown show has never once taken a single ad from any sponsor, ever.

And never will.

Because people lose trust in you if you start just commercializing.

Commercializing, Commercializing straight out the bat.

So if you clear around what your intentions are, and then you build a platform that you own, a website that you own, a channel that you own, and you build a community and content around that book, that builds credibility and trust, then at a much later stage, you can, if you choose to commercialize it.

But it's bigger than just an email.

It's a much bigger idea that needs to go to market for most podcasters.

Hmm.

I mean, it's almost like those people on LinkedIn.

They're like, Hey, I want to be a part of your connections, and then they sell you immediately.

And I'm like, yeah, unfollow.

Exactly.

Well, my favorite one is, hi, we're in the same engagement group.

I've got that letter that, that, you know they're using automated sequencing, Right.

But they're doing it in a way that sucks.

You're in the same engagement group.

What does that even mean?

What does that actually mean?

And I've had so many CEOs say to me, how's this one?

I've got a great story for you.

There's a guy called Jordan Zimmerman.

He's a billionaire, right?

So he's based out in New York.

And I sent him an email that was personalized, and I explained, you know, Matt Brown, it's the same formula over and over.

And when he came onto the show, he said to me, matt, I don't actually do podcast interviews, but when I saw what you had to say, that you had done 800 episodes, I knew that you were a guy that I wanted to spend my time with.

Right.

That's from a billionaire.

In other words, I didn't try to sell him anything.

I just gave him access to my platform and my story.

And if you can do that and get the attention of a billionaire, what else is going to stand in your way?

So, I mean, that is the other side.

If you're a podcast, I guess interview type of a podcast, because there are three different ones.

There's solo co host and then interviews.

But if you're an interview type podcast, how do you do that successful pitch?

Because, I mean, we've all tried to pitch and sometimes we're good at it, sometimes we're pretty awful about it, to be honest with you.

How do you successfully pitch somebody to be a guest on your podcast?

Yeah, great question.

So I share this in.

I've got a training academy called Secrets of Influence.

It's at Secrets of Influence.

Com.

I'll share it with you now.

But basically you want to be brief, right?

So the pitch very simply goes like this.

It's the.

It's an intro.

Who are you, briefly?

My name is Matt Brown and I'm the host of the.

Of the Mac Brown show, the globally celebrated Matt Brown show, whatever the reason for my email is.

So why are you now?

Because I know who you are.

Why do you contact me?

I would like the opportunity, or in fact, the right wording is, would you be open to coming onto my show for a short interview to talk about X?

So at the current moment, it's all about Secrets of Influence.

And then I explain what is the intention behind the conversation.

So I want to talk to CEOs who are innovating and pioneering change in worldwide markets or whatever that is to you.

In your case, it could be B2B marketing in an AI world, right?

So whatever that is.

And then you want to hit them with social proof.

The Matt Brown show has featured, then all the signals.

800 episodes, top 2 and a half percent of all podcasts globally audience in 100 countries featured new York Times bestselling authors.

Whatever your proof is to you, don't make it about downloads, make it about the talents.

Because people want to spend time on shows where they've had talent like them.

So New York Times bestselling authors want to also spend time with.

Oh, who else have you interviewed?

How about Mike Michaela versus author of Profit First?

Or how about, you know, Zan Barol, you know, rocket scientist, or whatever the case might be.

So who have you interviewed before?

And then you want to give them a very quick, frictionless way to book themselves on your show.

If you just told them what your show is, what you wanted to talk, would you be interested?

Let me know.

That's not good enough.

You need, if you must assume that they're going to be interested, your intention should be that they will be interested.

And then you give them the link to book directly with you.

So whatever.

There's other, you know, there's booking tools like Calendly.

And then on the calendly list, right?

Or on the booking form, you add custom fields that will allow you to get insights into the guest and what they're thinking.

It's not enough just to ask them for their bio.

Ask them questions related to the topic.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is influence to you?

Because.

Or B2B marketing in an AI world to you.

Because if you don't ask that question, sometimes it's also not worth your time spending time with that guest.

For instance, if I want to talk about influence, this actually happened yesterday.

And one of the.

I call them applicants because I have the choice to say no.

But they.

One of the guys was like, you know, on a set, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is influence?

And he said, 5.

So if I were to talk about influence and he doesn't believe that influence is important, is it worth spending my time there?

Other things you can start to consider is, you know, how.

How much revenue does your company generate per year?

Notes it won't be shared publicly.

But my audience wants to talk to, not startups.

They want to talk to CEOs who have actually scaled their companies.

And so you can start to then filter the value of that guest for your show.

Because remember, you're only as good as your last hit record your own, your last podcast.

And so people will want to know from a trust perspective that you are sourcing talent that they expect to hear on your show.

So as an example, on Secrets of Influence, the aggregate revenues were over $10 billion.

Another proof point, you see.

So that's how you structure a pitch.

So whether you send that as a DM on LinkedIn or you send it, you know, as a, as a LinkedIn post or maybe an email, that structure is one that I've used so many times, and it works beautifully.

And then, I mean, it's great for, like, established podcasts, but how do, like, new ones do that?

Because they might not have any downloads, no one's heard of them.

So how do they kind of like pitch it to make it look like, or make entice people to be on the show?

Because, I mean, it's great if you're established because you can, like, show all those numbers.

But what's.

If you're just starting out and you're like, I just want one guest, how do I get that one guest?

So you need.

It's a great question.

So if you're just starting out, you need to.

And I remember, I'll tell you another story.

I had basically, you know, maybe 23 episodes at the time.

I was just getting going.

And so I looked for influential figures, like professional speakers who had networks that I wanted to get into.

And remember, your network is always going to be your net worth.

So if you're starting out, you don't just want to interview anyone, any CEO, you want to look for people who have true influence and networks that you can unlock.

So here's the rub.

You be honest and you be transparent.

I'm just starting out, but I care about this problem.

And here's the difference that I want to make.

I've looked at, and this is where the key insight comes into the play.

I've looked at your profile or your book or your this or that.

You're looking for something that they've.

That your guest has put into the world and that they want to talk about.

So this friend of mine, he's a friend of mine now, but he wasn't a friend of mine at the time.

His name was Richard Mulholland.

He's a global speaker.

And I was just open and honest and transparent.

Hey, Rich, I'm just starting out.

I'm looking for people with amazing stories, and I'd love to help tell your story.

You know, love to come onto the show.

We'd like to have you on the show.

D And then when you on the show, you just be yourself.

Like, authenticity today is so underrated.

People seem to think that, you know, the metrics are more important than authenticity.

I can promise you now, if I started a new podcast and it was just.

And I was just authentic in what I wanted to do, people will resonate with that.

They're not.

Not everyone, you know, is so romanced about downloads and this and that and how many episodes have you done.

They care about authenticity.

So if you communicate that, they will resonate.

So Rich came onto the show, and inevitably we hit it off.

And he was like, this guy Matt is a great guy.

And at the end of the show, what you do say, rich, if you enjoy talking to me, I'd love you to connect me to three other people in your network that you feel would be a good talent or guest for this particular conversation.

And that's exactly what he did.

And I kept doing that.

So then there were three new referrals, and they referred three to me.

And eventually I had a media partnership with Entrepreneur magazine.

They wanted content, right, Interesting conversations for their website so that they could sell ads.

So then Entrepreneur magazine was sending me all the CEOs and entrepreneurs that was on the front cover of their magazines.

But it didn't have nothing to do with downloads, how many episodes I'd done.

It came all the way down to authenticity and making sure that you are creating mutual value for people, because people, if you ask for help, they will help you.

And the problem with most people is that they're so caught up with their pride and so their pride gets in the way and they don't want to ask for help, and they feel like they should lie and they feel like they should be or misrepresent, you know, the.

The amount of downloads or whatever the case is, because they feel like they're not going to be good enough and they won't be accepted, and that's absolutely not the case.

And then on the, on the content side of it, I know podcasting when it started was just audio only, and now we're getting into the video portion of it.

I think I recently read where in the morning, afternoon, people will listen to the podcast, but at night people watch the podcast with the video.

If you have video, should podcasters consider moving into that two format, or should they just focus on audio, then maybe a eventually do a video.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was just doing audio, and I wish I had done video right from the very beginning because people consume content in different ways.

So.

And also, by the way, people move around and so on in the car, they're not watching video, but they'll want the audio.

But then when they have time, like you said, and they, you know, they want to watch that video because you're referencing, you know, another video of something that's happening in the news, people will immediately switch and want to watch that.

And so the biggest mistake I made was just doing audio.

And a podcast is kind of like it's just a distribution channel, right?

It's just for audio.

But what is it?

To your point, what is a podcast now?

It's much bigger than audio.

If you think about Joe Rogan, if you think about, you know, any kind of major global thought leader, Bedros Kulian, you know, these guys have podcasts, Alex Hormozi, but then they also have video, right?

And so video you can start to use on social media in a way that's much more easily distributed, and you can do it at speed.

And remember today, it's about being present everywhere, right?

Being present everywhere.

And so what you want to do is you want to think about things like, if I do one activity, if I invest my time into one thing, one task, one production, one episode, how do I get 10 times that back?

That's what you should be thinking about.

So you shoot the video that goes out onto podcast.

That's another X.

Then you create 25 shorts from that interview.

That's another, you know, seven X.

And then over time, you look at the body of work that you're creating, like secrets of fail, secrets of influence, or you Know, secrets of scale or whatever that is.

And then you can start to use that content in other ways that don't even require video or audio.

You get into written text.

So that's what I'm talking about.

Like, be everywhere.

But think about what is the one media asset that if I create it, I can get 10 times the value back.

And that's for me, is always video.

And what do you recommend for, like, using the tools?

Because, I mean, there's audio editing tools and there's video editing tools.

Some can do both.

But do you have any recommendations for like, how they shoot the video and the audio and how they edit that stuff?

Yeah.

Well, people will forgive you for bad video, but they won't forgive you for bad audio.

So the number one thing you have to focus on is using a mic.

So you must have a good microphone.

Don't use AirPods, don't use this.

Invest in the mic.

They're not that expensive.

And then what you want to do from a quality of video perspective is just have a HD camera.

It's very simple.

Those are the two things that you must have.

And then you can go with it wherever you want.

But people, if the audio is bad, they'll switch off straight away.

And even if people are not watching your video, at least the audio is good.

So always make sure that those are the two things that you must absolutely do, no questions asked.

Gotcha.

And then do you recommend Riverside or.

I've used both, but squadcasters, is that one by Descript.

Do you recommend either one of those two or is it just kind of up to the user's perspective?

Yeah, I don't like zoom because the audio drops if someone's talking over you.

And also the real estate of the video is not that great.

So if you want to get into very high quality video production, what we use as a team is something called OBS broadcaster.

So with within OBS broadcast, you can add all your media elements like your cameras or multiple microphones and all that stuff.

And then what you can do is you can create visual real estate that's branded.

So if you go to my YouTube channel, for instance, and you look at secrets of influence, what we were actually doing was taking the guest and myself and using a green screen for me, but actually using a green image on a zoom call for the guest and then chroma keying out or replacing the green screen for the guest and with myself to put us both into a virtual studio that was branded.

So that branding then included call to actions and all sorts of cool things.

That's the high quality production staff.

And it's not really that hard to do if you know what you're doing.

But you can really create video that's really interesting in terms of branding and production quality.

And for that you use OBS broadcaster.

I can talk more about that.

But then for Riverside, like we're doing now with Secrets of Influence, I just didn't want to go through the efforts of doing this high quality production stuff, recognizing that most people will only use audio.

So for Riverside, the audio doesn't drop if someone's talking over you and they've got cool little effects and things like that.

And so there's obviously other options around that as well.

But I personally use Riverside.

It's just a simple way to create podcast content.

And for my listeners out there, OBS is a free software that you can download and use free without, without any, any money transferred.

It's open source, so if you want to try it out, it is, it's gotten better over the years.

I first used it way, way in like 2014 and it was more difficult to use because you really had to figure it out.

It's gotten better.

I think they're up to like version 30 now, I think is the newest version.

So if you want to try it out, try it out.

But there's a lot of great resources on YouTube for that as well to help you with that.

But then moving on to like the sharing part because, I mean, you've recorded, you've recorded it, you've edited it.

Now we go to the sharing part.

Like, is there some social medias you recommend to sharing it or is it up to kind of your industry that you're in?

So people are on different social media channels for different reasons.

So on YouTube they want to be entertained.

On a podcast they want to learn.

Typically on Facebook and Instagram, it's more about, you know, brand, especially on Instagram, anyway, about branding and, you know, short format content and things like that.

So when you think as a podcast host, you know, where do you want to be?

I personally don't like Instagram, don't like Facebook for various reasons.

I just, you know, it is what it is.

But my show is a B2B entrepreneurship show typically.

So if I want to put content out anyway, where am I going to go?

Well, it's LinkedIn.

And so when we launched Secrets of fail, we put 300 assets into the market and the organic reach just was ridiculous, you know, and it's, it's just, you know, being very considered around, where do you want to put your story?

You don't have to be on Facebook if you're a B2B show, do you see?

And also if you put content out there all the time, if you think about the underlying economics of Facebook, for anyone, if you have, if you have 10,000 people, you know, subscribe to your page, how many of them actually see that post?

Right.

What does Facebook want you to do?

They want you to promote that post so that you can actually reach, you know, the 10,000 people that like your page.

And so it's cost to do that.

There's value in that.

But if you are a podcaster and you're not able to commercialize, especially early on, it's probably not a good idea.

Also, most of your talent is not on Facebook.

They're actually on LinkedIn.

And again, if you think about outreach and sourcing guests and all that kind of stuff, where do you want them to be on LinkedIn?

Also, what they will do, right?

And what I found is that guests on my show, on CEOs as an example, they will share their interview on LinkedIn, but they won't share it on Facebook.

So you have to think about these things, you know, when you're thinking about content distribution.

Yeah.

So like for you, B2B is great.

I mean, my only issue with LinkedIn is that if I upload a video, it can only be 15 minutes long.

So this is like a 45 minute episode.

I have to cut it up.

And I'm like, that's so annoying to cut it up.

So do you recommend doing like a live stream if you're just really focusing on LinkedIn in general?

If you're like a B2B or maybe a marketing or whatever.

So let's take a 45 minute episode.

What distribution channel is most likely to get someone to listen to the whole thing?

What's going to be audio on a podcast when they're driving to and from work or whatever they're doing?

Or maybe they're cooking in the kitchen, they have the audio on the background.

And so on LinkedIn, yes, there's a 10 minute video constraint, but who on LinkedIn is going to be watching anything longer than I would say even three minutes, if that.

So what I've done before was I call you basically have long format content, medium and short.

So the shorts, anything less than 60 between 60 seconds and say 10 minutes as a medium and then you have the full length, the content.

So on LinkedIn, what you said was a great idea.

Right.

And so what we do is we use Restream.

And we were, we just broadcast those medium length videos, right?

The stuff that's not 45 minutes long, but just long enough to maybe get someone to capture the whole attention.

And so live streaming is great.

So I was with a client the other day and he said, matthew, how are you going live?

Because you're here with us.

And I'm like, no, that's my team.

And I've had so many.

I was in South Africa once doing cold calling for to CEOs and stuff.

And I phoned this one guy, I'm like, hi, my name is Matt Brown.

He goes, hang on, are you Matt Brown?

That's always going live on LinkedIn.

And so, you know, these distribution mechanisms are great, right?

If you can get someone to keep getting this message going.

Matt Brown's gone live.

Matt Brown's gone live.

It's awareness.

It's awareness.

And so many times you underestimate just how many people are seeing what your content or your content on social media.

Like it's just crazy.

Like people go, oh, I saw you do.

You just released a new book.

And I hadn't spoken to this person in like a year and I didn't know who, you know, who was watching the content.

But you see all those, you know, 10,000 organic impressions a month or you might find, you know, 11,000 monthly players on Spotify alone, which is kind of like what we're doing.

And you don't know who in those 11,000 or who on who of those organic impressions are actually, you know, watching your staff.

And so you mustn't stop.

And I think people underestimate, well, number one, how much content you should actually be putting out.

But number two, they overthink distribution.

Just put it out, put your stuff out there.

Because if someone, if you notice and someone does, whose attention is going to win there, right in the attention game.

And so the more attention that you can create on different channels, however, that looks like the better off for you.

But you don't need to be everywhere just for the sake of being everywhere.

Unless you have a team around you that you can use to leverage what you're doing from a media perspective so that you can be everywhere.

Right?

But if you're a solopreneur of podcasters, how are you going to do that?

You didn't have the time.

True.

I mean, Riverside does allow you to actually do live streaming as well.

So you do have a few options.

I know, I know of Restream.

Restream is actually really good software to actually use as well.

But when it comes to like, let's say from the guest perspective, because there's two, there's two sides of this.

There's the co host and there's the guest.

How do you pitch, how does the guest pitch to the host?

How, how to be on a podcast, because we're not going to be able to like find every guest out there and sometimes it's surprising that someone wants to be on our show.

So how do guests pitch to podcast host?

What's the best avenue for that?

Because there's always the two sides of that coin.

I'm so glad you asked that question because I get pitched a lot.

PR firms, you know, exactly, like, it doesn't matter.

Podcast booking agencies are the new one.

You know, hey, I've got an amazing talent, blah, blah, you know, written this book, you had a fish face.

But like, they don't understand.

Most PR firms and podcast booking agencies and potential guests don't know how to deal with the platform owner.

They don't.

And so what they think, which is the incorrect assumption, they think that you're desperate for talent, which you're not, you're desperate for the right talent.

And also going back to what we discussed earlier, what system are you using your show in, right?

Or what context or objective are you using your show to achieve, right?

And so they don't think about these things.

All they want is free pr.

They want, and they want your time for nothing.

And so what they don't understand is, is that you are in business, you are not there for them to tell their story for free.

Because what does it cost you?

It costs you time.

Then you got to do the content and all that kind of stuff.

So if you're, if you're a guest looking to get on other shows and you have your own podcast, why don't you do an interview exchange, Go to a podcast host guy and say, listen, I'll interview you, you interview me, right?

That's one way to get onto a show if you're a podcast host.

If you don't have your own show, here's what I suggest you send again, a personalized email that goes something like this.

Hi, my name is Matt and I'd love the opportunity to add value to your show.

In exchange For a short 30 minute interview, I'd like to give you 10 copies of my book called Secrets of Influence over and that you can give away to your audience.

Or maybe it's a digital copy, or maybe it's something else, right?

But something of value that's relevant to the audience.

Then you say to them something like this.

On top of that, what I'm prepared to do is put $250 or $100 or $50 or whatever that amount is to you into social advertising to ensure that your episode with me will be popular, watched, download, and consumed more than most of your other episodes.

Because here's what's happening.

No one else is offering to put a little bit of money on the table to promote this show.

Even if the guys, I don't want your money, or maybe I don't want your books.

What have you done?

You've created reciprocity because you're prepared to give something more than just, I want to promote my cool book on your show.

And so if you think about also the cost to reach someone, if you put $50 on Facebook, right, for video views, you're going to reach thousands of people.

Thousands.

So what does the podcast host looking for?

He wants to reach other people.

So all, if you understand that someone, what someone is trying to do with their show, where they're trying to reach people, they're trying to influence people, all you say to them is, here's how I'm going to help you do that.

So instead of just trying to, you know, be this, like, I want free PR for my new cool thing, rather care, like, care about what this other person is looking for.

And if you don't know, ask, go, hey, Brett, I know you got this cool show.

What are you trying to do with it?

What does success look like for you?

Okay, great.

Here's how I can help you do that.

I can do this, I can do this, I can do that.

I can do an interview exchange, blah, blah.

And by the way, most of the things here you can offer for free, you don't need to put money on the table necessarily, right?

Although it's a good option, right?

Or how about I will offer to give you 15 shorts of the interview for free, right?

And you go to AGI platform and you do it and it costs you like 20 bucks.

That's what you should be doing.

But the problem I have is PR firms, these podcast booking agencies, they all think because some guy built a million dollar business or he wrote a book or, you know, he did a TED talk, that you should care, right?

I don't need talent.

I need the right talent.

And you should also be looking for the right talent all the time.

And also spell the name correctly.

I had one that didn't even spell my first name.

Yeah, totally, bro, totally.

It's Ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so how do you say no gracefully, I think, is the best way of saying it for the host or even the guests.

Sometimes guests.

You could be like, yeah, what I.

This doesn't seem right for me.

So how do you say no in the right way?

Because you could say no archly and be like, no, you're worthless, like, or whatever.

But how do you say it in the right way?

Yeah.

Well, just be honest.

Say, look, you know, I don't think you're a right fit.

Got you.

I mean, here's.

Here's what I also have a problem with.

People are so scared to say no.

And so what they do is they drag you along the line, right?

They to.

They just give you mixed signals and this and that.

And all you're doing is you're actually being more disrespectful by not just being truthful.

Rather say, listen, Brett, I don't think you're the right fit for my shirt.

We're looking.

We're doing this and you're doing that, and I don't think there's a fit.

Or maybe your.

This company, you know, we.

My audience actually looks for people, businesses doing $5 million or more in revenue.

I literally have that.

If you.

If your business generates less than 5 million, don't book interview.

I literally put it there.

So rather just be honest and say, listen, you're not the right fit for these reasons.

I wish you all the best.

Like, that's what people really want, right?

That's called respect.

What's disrespectful is where you go.

You don't give them an answer or you postpone this, or you just not.

You give them mixed messages and the guy keeps chasing you or she keeps chasing you.

Just following up on, how about if I could come onto your show and you ignore them, and you ignore them and you ignore them.

And this is such a big problem in sales and B2B, it's like rather just say, look, we don't have the budget right now.

Rather just be open and honest, because that's what builds trust, isn't it?

So rather, there's no right way or wrong way other than the truth.

Sorry, you're not the right fit for these reasons.

I wish you all the best.

Gotcha.

And so what do you see in the podcasting industry in the next five years?

Do you see less podcasts happening?

Because just people are like, I got life.

I can't do this.

Do you see more brands getting into the.

Into involved with this either through advertising, starting out their own podcast, or do you see AI starting to be their own.

Their own hosts for whatever reason?

Well, that's a.

That's actually that last thing around, you know, can you have an AI host?

So I've actually explored that.

So I've got such a big body of work, right?

So why couldn't I train an artificial generative intelligence machine to create, or maybe some models to learn who I am, how I think, how I speak, whatever, and give them a huge library to work with and then go, here's a digital avatar, right?

So I think that could happen one day.

I mean, personally, I think it would be a little bit weird to have an AI representing who you are, but with AI, like, it can literally do things that have never been possible before.

So if you can think about the context of a digital avatar of Matt Brown hosting breath or hosting a New York Times bestselling author.

And it literally is me, if you think about it.

Right?

My thoughts and the way that I perceive things, and it's just a conversation, why couldn't it happen?

I think that could most definitely happen.

We just don't know.

I also think that there's going to be a consolidation in the podcast world.

And so what you're going to see are groups like MPN, where they essentially create a cohort of marketing shows together.

And the reason why they want to do that, because one of those marketing shows, let's say there's 100, show number 27, is only getting X number of downloads.

So what you do is you pull all those hundred shows together, and now you're getting 100,000 downloads a day across the network.

And then what you'll find is that advertisers will be looking for.

For those sorts of opportunities where they can take one ad and put it across 100 shows all at the same time.

So that's what I mean by consolidation.

Because remember, this whole thing around podcasting, the prevailing thing is you must sell advertising.

And so that's what I'm.

That's what I see as it's already happening.

I just see more of it.

Because also if you're show number 27 and you're the host, what are you looking for?

You're looking to actually generate commercial return.

And if you don't have that level of scale at 10,000, 25,000 downloads per episode, it's very difficult for you to do that.

But if you're getting a thousand or maybe five thousand.

Right.

Well, if you could join a network of a tribe of shows all about the same thing, then there's benefit for you.

And so I see that happening as well in the future.

Gotcha.

So where can people find you online?

Matt brownshire.com you can check out my books on Amazon, Secrets of Fail, Secrets of Infants.

You go to YouTube or just wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

All right, thank you Matt for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Brew and sharing your knowledge on podcasting.

Cool Ed, welcome and thank you as always for listening.

As always, please subscribe to all your favorite or this podcast and all your favorite podcasting.

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All right guys, stay safe and understand how to do better podcasting for your business for you or just to be a better guest in general.

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