IAM2195 – Building Authority Positioning and Meaningful Connections through Podcasting

Title: Transcript - Tue, 06 Aug 2024 02:23:05 GMT

Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2024 02:23:05 GMT, Duration: [00:16:54.52]

[00:00:00.10] - Gresham Harkless

The reason why I started all this is just because I think that's ultimately part of my DNA. And I'm just crazy passionate about entrepreneurship. I feel like it always equals hope opportunity in so many different ways. So the best way for me to feel like make a dent in the universe is, you know, Steve Jobs might say, is for me to to go and, you know, capture the stories, capture the knowledge, and learn myself as well too from all these, you know, super successful entrepreneurs and business owners. So that's a lot of my why. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gretch from the I am CEO podcast, and I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast. Podcast. I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you could do is be on somebody else's media company. So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast, and I want to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the eight business fellows we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content and a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing. So make sure, of course, that you subscribe to our podcast, but, of course, you take some time out. Check out the show notes and subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too and get to learn about some of those eight business pillars and how you can continue to kinda leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, rock star luminary. So this is Greg signing out. I hope you enjoy this I am CEO special episode. And I think when you think about marketing, there's a lot of different ways that you can use these ingredients. And it drove out even more podcasting. I think sometimes when you hear podcasting, you're thinking, you know, Joe Rogan, how do I get advertising? How do I go and, you know, build a huge following and all of those things? But quiet is kept. I think one of the best ways and probably maybe I'll give you two if that's okay.

[00:01:40.59] - Michael Bridgman

Yeah.

[00:01:41.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. The the first one is definitely authority positioning. Like, if you were an expert at what it is that you do, the opportunity for you to get to talk about the experiences that you have, talk about the knowledge that you have, the thought leadership in that specific industry is probably one of the best, kind of ways to use the podcast. If you think about, and that is probably still a little bit more of a thing where your book ends up becoming like your business card.

[00:02:07.90] - Michael Bridgman

Sure.

[00:02:08.09] - Gresham Harkless

It's gonna be the same way with your podcast. You have the opportunity to say, you know, why you're great at what you do. Frankly, you can even bring clients on to talk about why you're great at what it is you do without you directly beating your chest. But I think that's absolutely one of the the great ways to to leverage, your podcast or or being on, you know, podcast episodes and being able to even compile those different episodes in in shows that you've been on to have that thought authority that that authority positioning created. But another really, really great way that I think is very, very under underutilized is actually it's it's something that I think a lot of people will skip past. They don't even think about. If you have the opportunity to be featured on a podcast, think about building that connection, of course, with that host. But also think about going through the previous episodes, listening to those episodes, connecting with the people, say, hey. I was also featured on episode number one hundred or episode number fifty. Would love to connect a little bit, hear a little bit more about what you do. So it's it's really a way to kind of, I guess, break through that noise, you know, get that opportunity to to have something that you have a a mutual connection and relationship with. And I think it's something that's extremely underutilized in in podcasting, but definitely in other forms of digital marketing as well.

[00:03:24.90] - Michael Bridgman

You know what? That is so great. It's I think we often underestimate, Gresh, how powerful our network is. Right? Like, how critical that is, and podcasting is such a brilliant way of doing that. And I love how you put it that podcasting can be, like, a book can be your your business card. So talk to us a little bit about that because in all your marketing experience, you've probably been sharing your podcast a ton. So how does that go? Like, what does that really look like?

[00:03:53.69] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I mean, I think that we're getting to, you know, as it gets easier and easier and people might argue with that on in terms of creating content, We have it at our fingertips. We literally have a way that we can create so many different types of content within our pockets, with our smartphones. It is going to allow and has allowed a lot more creators, so to speak. And and that creator, you know, term and that title can, you know, extend to many different things. But at the bottom line, it's about people that are able to create podcasts just by recording what they what they're doing, interviews, whatever it is. You don't necessarily need all the high-tech high-tech technology that you had before or the equipment or all of those things. You can do it with your phone. And and I think what we are starting to see is even the less than high quality, the less than perfected types of content are actually a lot more connection worthy to people because they see the rawness. They see the behind the scenes. It's not necessarily polished. That actually has a little bit, higher of an opportunity for people to to really be connected connecting with. So I think when we talk about that, we're getting to or might even be in this time where you're talking to somebody. And even when I reach out to people to be on the podcast, I'm looking to see if they are also podcasters. And I already know, like, what this conversation is going to be like, how it's gonna flow Just because when you're around I feel like when you're around other podcasters, you have a lot more of a a a flow to the overall conversation. It's more organic. It's more natural. So I think that when you start to connect with people, when you say, oh, I have a podcast. She's like, oh, I have a podcast too. What's your podcast about? What do you cover? What types of guests do you have? Then all of a sudden, when you're thinking of having people on your show, not only is it just for that podcast and that episode that you're doing, but you're also thinking of, hey, this might be a great guest for so and so's podcast that I met. Or Michael has a really great marketing with his podcast that he drills down more. So if I meet a marketing person, I know they connect. So I think it starts to have that, that, I think Malcolm Gladwell talked about being a connector. You start to be a lot more of a connector because you're able to create content and also know other content creators, and you're able to kinda make those connections, very organically, I think.

[00:05:59.00] - Michael Bridgman

I love that, man. I love that. I love that. And growing a channel exponentially this way by reaching out, networking as you put it, that has this potential to really snowball what it is that you do. Would you agree with me there, buddy?

[00:06:11.69] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head. And I think when you start to really think, and and one of the beautiful parts of all this, these digital tools is that you're going from one to one to one to many. And when you're able to reach more and more people and also have this, you know, archive for lack of a better term so that you can send people that you meet today, a year down the line, five years, ten years down the line, back to the same video, the same interview to talk about some of those foundational elements, that's gonna be gold. Because sometimes for you being able to kind of leverage your time, leverage your resources, the time and the money, kinda creatively and strategically, the best way to do it is sometimes having that piece of content that's already there. We're we're seeing that more and more, potential kinds of customers are a lot more informed and are a lot more informed because they're they're Google searching. They're looking at reviews and doing all those things. So why not provide them more information and and give them some, I guess, tools along the journey so that they can say yes when they actually do get on that call with you or they do see your ad or whatever it is that, you know, that you're you're working on. It's gonna complement all the things that you're doing. But only if you start to, you know, create that media company or even be on other media companies and start to archive that so that you have that information there.

[00:07:27.39] - Michael Bridgman

I love that, man. I love that. Because I I always put it that your marketing is a habitat. It's like an environment. Gresh, I wanna know why do you do this? Right? Like, why, you know, the old Simon Sinek question, what's what's Gresh's why? Like, why did you build a marketing agency, and why have you spent all this time? Because, man, you and I will both agree, it is a shit ton of time to grow a media channel from zero to something. You know, we reached just over a thousand YouTube followers. It's been a year in the making to get there, slogging away. So why why invest all this time? Why do this effort? What's what's drives you, my friend?

[00:08:10.19] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I I think that's a great question. And and funny enough, I have to go probably even farther back before I started everything to answer that question. And when I was kinda even in college, I was trying to figure out, you know, what I what I wanted to be when I grew up. At that time, it was really just, like, what am I gonna major in?

[00:08:26.60] - Michael Bridgman

Have you grown up yet? Like, does that happen?

[00:08:28.10] - Gresham Harkless

You know, he's still working on it here and there. There you go. It's all relative. Right? But, I I think a lot of times when you're trying to figure out all those things, my answer is always to go back. So what I did is I went back to what I did when I was a kid, and and one of the things that kinda stood out to me, I was that kid that sold potato chips on the playground and did things like that. Yes. But I started what was then the family newspaper, and I did that because I was about ten years old, and my dad was in the military. He's in the air force. So, he got reassigned to go outside of the United States, for an entire year, and it was super heartbreaking, cried, boohooed like a baby, all of those things, during that time. But we didn't have all these snazzy tools that we have now to, like, instantly connect with somebody right in our pocket. All we had was dial up AOL instant mess messenger to to exactly. Exactly. Don't call. Make sure no one calls Yeah.

[00:09:21.00] - Michael Bridgman

No one calls.

[00:09:21.29] - Gresham Harkless

Because they're on the Internet. So during that time, I started to, like, compile a lot of the things that were going on in my family. So these were stories from a squirrel that got into my grandma's house to a wedding in our family that didn't actually get started and that didn't actually go according to plan. So all those things, I was like that TMZ for, for our family.

[00:09:44.00] - Michael Bridgman

For your family.

[00:09:44.79] - Gresham Harkless

That's okay. So I took those, and I made it into, a family newspaper, Microsoft Word, clip art, all those things to compile them. And I would send them to my dad with his care box so he would know all the things that were going on in in our family. So between that and me, of course, selling the subscriptions, to family members,

[00:10:04.79] - Michael Bridgman

You've sold the subscriptions

[00:10:06.10] - Gresham Harkless

for the A little bit. Yes. I I sold a little bit. And if anybody's listening and still might be interested, I I can I can put something together if you wanna see some archives?

[00:10:15.00] - Michael Bridgman

That's awesome.

[00:10:16.20] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. But, when I was thinking of, like, what I wanted to do, that's one of the stories that really came back to me. My mom kept them all. So I had two years worth of, like, all these things. Wow. And that kinda put me in this kinda media company mindset. Of course Sure. I wasn't calling it calling it that then. I just love to write. So to answer your question, the way that I kinda look at everything that I do is an extension of that same ten year old kid that's collecting content and information about whatever it is that I might be interested at at that time. And for me, like, knowing that I wanted to start a business, knowing that I had those tendencies, I didn't really know what that was. So I said, what's the best way for me to do that? Let me go ask other entrepreneurs. So I started to do freelance writing, which eventually became blogs, which eventually became the podcast because I was recording them and added a intro, outro. So the reason why I started all this is just because I think that's ultimately part of my DNA. And I'm just crazy passionate about entrepreneurship. I feel like it always equals hope and opportunity in so many different ways. So the best way for me to feel like make a dent in the universe is, you know, Steve Jobs might say, is for me to to go and, you know, capture the stories, capture the knowledge, and learn myself as well too from all these, you know, super successful entrepreneurs and business owners. So that's a lot of my why. And, funny enough, one side thing is that when I first started my podcast, I had people that I featured on my blog on the podcast because it was already a warmer connection. And I actually had somebody during my first episode that said one of the reasons that she started her business, is called No Monaja, was because we asked her and a lot of other people, like, what does being a CEO mean to them? And it sparked her to really think about what she was doing in her job, what what her why was, all those things. And I say all that to say that sometimes when you're doing things, and I at that time and before that, I didn't really know. It wasn't until she told me that story that it made me say, okay, this is my why. This is exactly what kinda gets me going to hear those stories that try to impact others. So long winded answer, Michael, but, that's a little bit about my why.

[00:12:28.29] - Michael Bridgman

No. I love it, man. I love it. I think that I I mean, I love what you just said, entrepreneurship equals hope. If I wanna get a podcast started today, what do I do? What do I do? What's the first step? What do you what what should I do if I wanna start a podcast?

[00:12:43.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I would say my my questions that I really go back to are they're gonna be the same no matter what type of marketing you're gonna do. And I consider podcasting to be a type of marketing. Three questions I would make sure that I answer before I even hop into trying to figure out how to do a podcast, what to do on a podcast, so on and so forth. Ask yourself, who were you targeting? Why are you actually creating this podcast and who is it gonna be for? We talked about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship to me at its heart is about problem solving. So obviously, most of us are gonna be thinking about from a business standpoint, but think about whatever problems you can be you you you can wanna solve. Even if you're the the mom that maybe wants to get a, traffic stop sign put up on the corner, think about what problem you're gonna be able to solve. Be very clear about who you're targeting with that content that you're going to be creating because that's going to help put so many things in connection. So paint that avatar, figure out who you're targeting. After that, know your why. And I kinda touched on that a little bit. Why are you doing this? Are you trying to get that tap traffic stop sign put up there? Are you trying to sell more books so that you can get more speaking opportunities? Are you trying to drive more people to buy the the, the thing on your e commerce site, that widget that you wanna sell multiple copies of. Whatever that is, figure out exactly what you're trying to do as far as, and and what success ultimately looks like, what your goal is. And then we touched on the most important question with that, no one ever wants to answer, but everybody has to answer, which is the resources. Are you putting in the time, or are you putting up the money, or are you doing a combination of both? A lot of times, if you're just starting to today, you just wanna bootstrap it. You probably have more time than you have money. Sure. And so that's really the three questions that you want to try to jump into. But I think once you get clear on that, that's gonna help you figure out, probably what's the next most important step, which is understanding, what exactly your podcast is going to be about. You can start to think about, you know, certain, you know, titles for your podcast and start to do the looking of, you know, what might be there. But I think after you get those things cleared up cleared away, it's going to help you to take the next step and the step after that. If you want to really jump start things quickly, there's a a platform that was formerly named Anchor, that is now named Spotify for Podcasters, that can get you started very very quickly. It's gonna get you on all the different Podcast platforms very quickly. Free to use, and I actually, anytime I test out and actually my podcast I have now, the IMCO podcast, I actually started it out there before I moved it over to what I use for my podcast hosting. But really great platform to kinda test out ideas. It'll get a lot of things up for you, pretty quickly.

[00:15:24.60] - Michael Bridgman

Okay. And that's so that's the Spotify podcasting?

[00:15:27.00] - Gresham Harkless

So that's Spotify for podcasters. Mhmm. Absolutely.

[00:15:29.29] - Michael Bridgman

Okay. How how would you grow your reach then? What would you do with the podcast afterwards to go, okay. I've done it. It's there. I've got two episodes, three episodes, four episodes. How do I now extend it and gather more listeners?

[00:15:41.60] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I think that's one of the the biggest challenges, you know, you have for your for your podcast, which is why I think it's so important that you go back to that question about why are you doing your podcast. Because you can grow and grow and grow, and I think it's, of course, important to look at metrics as a digital marketer. Of course, it's important to make sure tracking as much as you can know as many as much as you can about the people that are listening to the episodes. But, of course, there's always that limit. But you wanna know the why you're creating your podcast because if you lose sight of that, you'll will you will be chasing metrics, and those metrics may not turn to the dollars that you ultimately hope or the connections or relationships, whatever that might be. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I Am CEO podcast. Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these eight pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these eight pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization. So hope you enjoy this episode, and definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on their episode, and, of course, learn more a little bit more about us as well too. This is Grass signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.