IAM2202 – Utilizing Podcasts to Showcase Expertise and Build Relationships

Title: Transcript - Mon, 12 Aug 2024 03:19:03 GMT

Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2024 03:19:03 GMT, Duration: [00:16:54.12]

[00:00:00.40] - Gresham Harkless

Resources are going to be extremely, important for everybody that has an idea, vision, or goal that they wanna accomplish. And the reality is when you say everyone, you're not being laser focused on who you're targeting, which means it costs more. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh 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. 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 wanted to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the eight business pillars 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 to 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 and luminary. So this is Greg signing out. I hope you enjoy this I am CEO special episode. I've always wanted to hear stories, hear what led people to start their business, hear about, you know, what and how people are kind of purpose driven. All those things kind of, stuck with me. The stories really stuck with me. And as I started to see, I I I became an English major when I was an undergrad. I wanted to do journalism, but I wasn't, ballsy enough, I guess, to do that because of the industry was being destroyed. So I've always studied that that industry. I've always studied, how things have changed and evolved. And and you know, this thing that we all have in our pockets has completely been a game changer because now we have media in so many different ways where we can record people, we can video people, we can write blogs or send tweet or do all these things. So it was kind of like, I don't know exactly what I want to do, but I know media is gonna be a part of ultimately where I wanna go. So

[00:02:03.09] - Mark J. Carter

as far as why do you believe every entrepreneur is their own media company? I could take a few guesses, but I'd love to hear it from you.

[00:02:09.59] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Yeah. I'm probably I'm probably touching on it a little bit. But I I I truly feel like we're in this day and age where we do have this smartphone that's in our pocket, iPhone, Android, whatever is your your your cup of tea. You have the power to be able to communicate with your potential ideal clients and customers to fit whatever need you you might have. A lot of times I I play of course in the lane of business, People that wanna connect with their clients and customers, and really want to be able to, provide value for them as quickly as possible in a in a way that meets them exactly where they are. But I see media very broadly. I I simply see it as a way of, communicating information from one person or one entity to another. So if you are a mom, that potentially wants a stop sign that is within your community and people are blazing down the driveway, you can create a Facebook group or create an online petition and start to tell people of why it's important. So I literally see it from that perspective where there's ways to get it out there. And of course, you can go and do it the traditional way where you go and, you know, you have the the, the notepad and you're getting all the signatures, but you can also hop online. Phenomenal and exciting time because we have so many different ways that we can employ media to really solve whatever problems we might have.

[00:03:35.80] - Mark J. Carter

Well, with all the media out there, where does a successful media strategy start?

[00:03:41.19] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I think that's a great question. Usually, anytime I I talk about building a a media company, I really focus on three main questions. And those three main questions are something you always wanna answer, but always continue to ask yourself that because you can learn more and more about it. And those three main questions are around your target market, who is the person or people or organization that you're trying to target. You you really paint a picture from an avatar perspective on age, location, interest. But I I think if you gel down a lot deeper, you'll start to understand that when you are solving problems, you're solving problems because something might be keeping them up at night. So think about things that, that are their problems. Think about how you could potentially be a solution to their problem or provide a solution to their problem. So really understand the whole, psychological aspect, but also, you know, the the age, the location, the two and a half dogs, and three and a half kids. All those things are, of course, you know, important, but make sure that you understand it as much as possible and and continue to keep tabs on that because it can continue to change. The next question you really wanna understand is your resources. Resources is often kind of attributed and associated with money, but it also includes time. If you are in startup mode, maybe you're rolling up your sleeves literally to to make sure that you are doing as much as possible as efficiently as possible. So you're gonna play more to your strengths, things you're interested in. But maybe as you start to develop more, clients and customers, you have your marketing budget. So you're looking at, money. So again, resources is your money, your time. So you wanna make sure that you're aware of what that is and what that looks like. And then the final question is, what does success look like? What is your goal? Do you have an e commerce store? Are you looking to really sell more widgets, on your website? Do you wanna get more trial, downloads for your new software, your new AI, you know, ChatGBT, spin off or whatever it might be. You're gonna define that in a different way. If you wanna have someone coming through your your, your brick and mortar store, you're gonna look at that differently. So be very clear on how you're defining success because that's gonna determine exactly what ingredients, what media you're gonna use to make sure those things happen.

[00:06:00.00] - Mark J. Carter

Well, I love what you said about target market. So many people, especially with media, you hear when it's like, oh, who do you need to know? How can I help introduce you to people? Like, well, I really I I really work with everyone. Yes.

[00:06:11.80] - Gresham Harkless

And that's

[00:06:12.39] - Mark J. Carter

never a good answer. What do you have to say to to people like that as far as why it's important to have a target market and how the heck do you define one if your answer is, well, I can kinda work with anyone.

[00:06:23.30] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I I heard sometime, I think, ago in in the networking world, if if your target market is everyone and your target market is no one. So what we really have to allowing ourselves to get the clients and customers that we ultimately wanna have. By saying we work with everyone, we're trying to take on everyone. But in reality, when we say everyone, we're actually not being able to kind of trigger people to understand exactly who we're targeting and be aware when they're talking, having those conversations or being on the outlook, for those people. If I say, hey, I'm just looking for a car, you see cars all the time. But if I say, hey, I'm looking for a red car, you're gonna start to hear that red car. So the more specific you can be about that, the more it's going to trigger people to see that. And oftentimes, once you say red car, you'll start to see red cars all the time even though you don't think that you you ultimately will. So, that's one of the, you know, psychological things that happen, you know, when you're saying that. But also keep in mind, I talked about resources. Resources are going to be extremely, important for everybody that has an idea, vision, or goal that they want to accomplish. And the reality is when you say everyone, you're not being laser focused on who you're targeting, which means it costs more. And it costs more as far as time and money, both of those resources I kinda touched on. So understand that the more targeted you are, if you know, I am really trying to focus on businesses, that are attorney led, firms that have single, one individual within the firm that are solo practitioners, and they may be focused on technology law, that's going to help you target a little bit more. If you say that, Hey, I'm gonna focus on the, the Virginia area, that gets you targeted a little bit more. If you start to drill down and say, Hey, I'm gonna find that city, I'm gonna focus a little bit more. And the reality is as you start to do that, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more SEO talk, it helps you to drill down into what's called the long tail. When you go and drill down enough and you really have an idea of your target marketing, who they're searching what they're searching for and the type of searches they might have or the things that they're interested in, it starts to get less competitive. So while you might be a firm that does what everybody else does, as you start to drill down more and more and more, you get to be that expert, tremendously when you start to pick your ingredients, but you also start to execute on those ingredients as well.

[00:08:57.79] - Mark J. Carter

How do you pick the ingredients? So let's say you okay. You've defined a target market. You've got it narrowed down. How do you start picking ingredients for a strategy?

[00:09:06.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I I think you really go back to those three questions. But, Mark, I don't know if you have, like, a favorite dessert or a favorite thing that you like to cook or make or even eat. I love Mexican food. Mexican food? Okay. There we go. We're gonna go with enchiladas. So, I always love, a good, mix of enchiladas. So if you're going to the grocery store to cook enchiladas, you wanna make sure that you get the ingredients that you need for that. If you are trying to get bread, that's not necessarily great for my enchiladas. I don't know about everybody else, but you wanna approach the same thing that you're doing. Those three questions that you answered, you wanna go to the grocery store to pick the ingredients, and those ingredients are the ways that you're gonna get your message out there. They're TikTok, that's LinkedIn, that's podcasting, that's blogging, that's SEO, that's SEM, Google Ad There's so so many different things. Just imagine going to the grocery store, there's all these things. And if you go to the grocery store hungry, you know, it's a dangerous thing that you're doing. And don't do that for your marketing. Be very clear on your avatar, who you're spending time with and who you're targeting. Be very clear on your resources and be very clear on what your goals are. And that's going to help you decide what are gonna be those ingredients, what are gonna be those platforms in the way that you're going to execute it. Because you're gonna have the exact same business as somebody else. But because you've answered those questions in a different way, you're gonna execute it in a different way. And you're gonna look for those ingredients from a different perspective.

[00:10:33.39] - Mark J. Carter

So what give an example of what does a good execution look like? Once you have the ingredients there, then how do you execute?

[00:10:39.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. So I'm gonna just pretend like someone that might be listening to this. Let's just say they're attorney, and they are the solo practitioner, and they don't have as much of, the marketing budget. They're gonna kinda DIY and then do a lot of things themselves. What you really wanna do is get clear on, what exactly might be your super powers? What exactly might be, well, as I like to call it, your secret sauce. Your secret sauce is gonna be that thing, that kinda sets you apart and and makes you unique. Once you get kind of clear on that, you know that if you are potentially helping people out with, the technology aspect, say you're doing AI. I'm going to say AI, law because that's something that's booming, and a lot of people are trying to really understand exactly what that looks like and how to navigate that. One of the things that you can do is because you know that you love to talk, but you're not really as much of a writer, maybe you're going to decide to start start a podcast. You can start a podcast and that's going to be the ingredient that you're going to do, to do that from. And you can really approach a podcast in two separate ways, ways, which is where you start to realize like, okay, I have the ingredient, but how am I going to execute on that ingredient? So Mhmm. You might decide that because I know so much about AI law, the ramifications, what it's going to look out, look like five years from now, and a lot of great information. I'm going to do a solo podcast. That solo podcast is gonna be basically for you to position yourself as an authority. So you're gonna talk a lot around case studies. You're gonna talk a lot around, how exactly you work with clients, what that looks like. You might decide to experiment a little bit and have potential clients and customers as long as, of course, the legalities are taken care of to talk about their case and what that looks like. Or very at the very least, maybe you don't even have them talk about that. Maybe you have them talk a little bit more along the lines of how it is to work with you, what that process was. Maybe they don't have to talk about their specific case or their specific, situation. But you really get that opportunity to do that, which is which is phenomenal. But if I was to believe that maybe I enjoy interviewing, maybe I enjoy talking with people, a little bit more, maybe I'm gonna take that exact same ingredient and I'm gonna execute differently. I'm gonna take my podcast and use it as a way for me to, develop relationships with potential referral partners. Maybe I'm gonna have other attorneys that are on, that are gonna come on the show and talk about their business. And maybe of course, I'm gonna learn more about who they are because my gift is to ask questions and learn more about them. I'm gonna do that. But on the before and after, I'm gonna start to develop that relationship with one of my referral partners. So hopefully, when someone says, hey, do you know somebody that knows about AI and law? I'm gonna be top of mind. So those are two different ways that you could take the same exact ingredient and execute in a

[00:13:29.79] - Mark J. Carter

a completely different way. Well, as you start executing, is does the definition of success does it change? And how does that is a guiding light, a true north? I would imagine as you get in and you get a little more niche, a little more niche, you find out, oh, AI, TikTok, whatever. Oh, LinkedIn's really popping for me. I'm gonna focus on that. Does the definition of success stay the same, or do you think it changes over time?

[00:13:52.89] - Gresham Harkless

No. I think it definitely changes over time, which is why you always wanna define exactly what that is. And and when you pick the ingredients, I usually say you pick one or two ingredients that are gonna be integral to you so that you can really own and master it. So if you're gonna gonna do a podcast, maybe podcast is gonna be your big thing. But just as you said so well, maybe you want to experiment a little because maybe it's a younger demographic that you wanna try to focus on, but you know that TikTok is something that might be booming. So maybe you experiment a little with TikTok. You take some of your podcast and you can repurpose them into TikTok. Or you know, you could do reels or any different things, but just know you can pick that other thing to kind of experiment. But one of the big things that we sometimes forget about our business is that it's it's definitely a marathon. And as you start to build and grow it, it's going to evolve and change just like just like we are. So maybe you're starting out as the AI go to person, but maybe after three years, you decide there's not someone that has written a book about what this is and what these ramifications might be. So you're saying I'm going to write a book and then maybe my book is going to be an opportunity for me to start doing speaking engagements for, corporate agencies. So all of a sudden that same ingredient that you're using, you're going to use from a different way because maybe now you do use your podcast instead of referral partners you're trying to have on. Maybe you're going to use it as a way to interview other businesses that you might potentially want to work with. So it's it's just thinking and and keeping tabs on what the answer to those questions are because they'll evolve. And in the same way, as your, your avatar, your your ideal client is is, as you are evolving and changing, so are they changing. So the ramifications of what's happening with AI could change in the next three years. So maybe you're going to provide a different type of information to them. So it's always paying attention to what that is and what that looks like. I think it's a it's a constant net, always and never always changing. You never stop kind of learning about it from that perspective.

[00:15:54.20] - Mark J. Carter

Well, with everything you just said, all the different ingredients, how do you have longevity when things are changing so quickly? How do you know when to let go? How do you know when to hold on?

[00:16:03.79] - Gresham Harkless

That is a very, very challenging question. And I don't think there's necessarily is the the right answer to it. I think a lot of what each have to do is ultimately similar to, that question of like, what does success look like? 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 enjoyed 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 little bit more about us as well too. This is Grass signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.