IAM2205 – Discover the Secrets of Building a Successful Media Company
Special Episode with Dr. Pam Perry
Gresham Harkless discusses understanding clients' definitions of success and how CB Nation and Blue16 Media address these needs.
He emphasizes the importance of collecting contact information and setting up consultations.
Gresham explains the necessity of having clear CTA's on websites to guide users toward desired actions, like subscribing to newsletters or scheduling consultations.
He highlights how podcasting helped him build relationships and generate referrals, emphasizing the role of podcasts in expanding his network and business opportunities.
Business Pillar: Visibility | Human
Episode Link: Pamperrytv
Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE.
I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!
Transcription:
The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!
Gresham Harkless Teaser 00:00
Of the things I talk about again, those offline conversations, I ask clients, what does success mean to you?
Are you trying to sell more books? Do you want more PR? Do you wanna sell, a t-shirt? Or what is success to you? And you wanna, again, hold people's hands to let them know what that looks like.
So like you mentioned, on CBNation, one of the things that we try to do is get as many emails and contact information so that we can always follow-up with people.
But on Blue16 Media, the goal is really to set up consultation. So we want people to fill out a form, go to the scheduler, and set up a time to speak.
Intro 00:37
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 want to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the 8 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.
And subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too, and get to learn about some of those 8 business pillars and how you can continue to leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, rock star and luminary.
So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoy this I AM CEO special episode.
Dr. Pam Perry 01:30
So tell us a little bit about what you have learned in terms of your business, in terms of really doing the website business.
So say for instance, when the first thing if I wanna get someone PR, I said, we have to have your foundational right.
We have to have your website right. So what have you found, like been like the top five things that maybe three things, at least the top three things that people are getting wrong about when they're building their website.
Gresham Harkless 01:56
Yeah. I appreciate that, and thank you for giving me that number because I can go on and on and on as you know, right.
From some of our conversations. But I think the biggest thing that I see, especially on a local level so if potentially there's a business or there's a person that's trying to get a really, strong local following, one of the biggest things that I see over and over again is people fail to have their location.
And that's on the back end, more of the title tag and meta description. They don't talk about where they're located.
[restrict paid=”true”]
They rarely will actually have even if you don't wanna have your address, if you have a home based business, just have where the areas that you serve.
This is one of the biggest things that I see, and I think what a lot of people don't realize and something that we all learn in Arizona Genius is that people don't necessarily know everything that you know, so you wanna be able to translate and spoon feed for people that information.
So especially for search engines, there's something on the back end when you go to the site called a title tag.
Basically, what that is Google's way to understand what's to follow on a website. When you have your title tag set up within certain restrict parameters, I should say, the amount of characters, it helps Google to know who you are, what it is that you do, but also where you're located.
And I think that's one of the biggest things I see consistently that people, forget forget to do. The other big thing.
Dr. Pam Perry 03:23
Yeah. I was saying that's really good because sometimes maybe they'll put in looking for a Detroit, publicist, Detroit black publicist, just Metro Detroit, whatever.
And you can well, for me, Speakers Magazine is targeting African American speakers, and that's one of the things.
But you can also put in things like that to let people know exactly, who your target is.
So that way when people are googling it, they'll actually find you because they're looking for you. So that's really, really good, those title tags.
Gresham Harkless 03:56
Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that brings up the great part that you talked about is, like, really understanding who you're targeting.
And I think as you start to build your website, most people wanna jump in, get their hands dirty, wanna create, their website, put sliders, get the colors, logo, all those things in place, but really drilling down and knowing who you're targeting is so huge.
As you mentioned, the Detroit as it being a Detroit publicist or a Virginia based web design company. All those things allow you to break from the noise and be found a lot easier.
It's less competitive to be found as a web designer in Virginia than to be found as a web designer in the entire United States.
So a lot of times, we forget that those opportunities are really, what we can do before we jump into the websites and make sure that we are finding those niches, those opportunities that are gonna basically give us the revenue and money that we want for our business and our organizations.
Dr. Pam Perry 04:55
And so really not getting the title tags. Number two, one of the things I find that is what people when they put together website, it's like you have to convert.
So for you, when we go to see blog nation, one of the things that they don't have is a good opt in gift or a way to collect information from people. So talk a little bit about that.
Gresham Harkless 05:15
Yeah. I love that. And I was definitely gonna say a CTA. One of the things I talk about again, those offline conversations, I ask clients, what does success mean to you?
Are you trying to sell more books? Do you want more PR? Do you wanna sell, a t shirt? Or what is success to you?
And you wanna again, hold people's hands to let them know what that looks like. So like you mentioned, on CB Nation, one of the things that we try to do is get as many emails and contact information so that we can always follow-up with people.
But on Blue16 Media, the goal is really to set up consultation. So we want people to fill out a form, go to the scheduler, and set up a time to speak.
So it's really understanding what success means to you and realizing that these digital tools are really for you to manipulate so that you can hopefully reach your goal.
So you don't have to do it the same way everybody else does it. You have different opportunities, but it's huge. You you wanna be able to say, hey. I want you to do x, y, and z. I want you to sign up for my newsletter.
I want you to follow me on social media. I want you to subscribe to the the, magazine. Whatever that might be, you wanna make it as clear as day, so that people can take that action as quickly as possible.
Dr. Pam Perry 06:30
So when you started podcasting, what podcast are you at now? What number are you at roughly?
Gresham Harkless 06:35
I'm over 1300. I think I told you my number when I did yours, but I'm over 1300.
Dr. Pam Perry 06:42
It's like, wow. So 1300 episodes, guys. 1300 episodes of a podcast. So what have you learned from podcast? When you were starting podcasting, was it a way to monetize it at first, or when did you start, like, really starting to monetize podcasting?
Gresham Harkless 06:59
For me, one of the biggest things that I tried to do was, again, going back to Blue16 Media and using it as a way from my zone of genius to network and connect with people.
I was really big believer that there would be opportunities down the line, that probably would open up, but I wanted to make sure that I was able to build my digital marketing business first and foremost.
So that's what I focus on. And then one of the reasons I made it daily is because I'm pretty active.
Even pre COVID, I'm always going to networking events and just meeting people. I really enjoy networking and getting to hear people's stories and what they do.
One of the big things that I wanted to do with the podcast is really to build deeper relationships.
Some of one of my best referrals I actually got was from somebody who was featured on my blog originally and actually I had on my podcast, and that relationship just deepened and deepened from there. I was on her podcast. She was on mine, multiple times.
And I think that's one of the things that I wanted to do first and foremost to say, hey. Can I take my gifts?
Something I would do I was already doing it for free anyways, but maybe have it part of my, quote-unquote, funnel or part of my process.
But yeah, that was pretty much the primary reason and still, of course, working on things to further create those streams of revenue to support the business.
Dr. Pam Perry 08:22
One of the main things that I really like that you do is that you have so many podcasts. And so if anyone were let's talk about your keywords.
If they were looking for a business podcast, say, for instance, you are definitely definitely gonna show up because you're talking to business people every day.
So one of the things do you know without you really giving out your secrets, but what are some of the things that people who have found your your website, CEO Blog Nation or even Blue16?
What were they looking for when they found you? Were they looking for digital marketing? Were they looking for business podcast? What were they looking for?
Gresham Harkless 09:01
Yeah. Funny enough that you said that because be and I think one of the things that you talked about and I wanna just hammer home as well too is I compare your pages, your posts, all the things that you have on your website to, like, sticky paper.
The more pages, posts, generally speaking, content you have, the more sticky paper you have out there for people to find you.
So I remember actually pre pandemic, I actually did some live podcast recordings largely because I was found as media for an event that was going on.
So and they just searched for a podcaster near me, podcaster in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area, and they found my information based off of that.
And I think a lot of that is, again, because if you have that sticky paper, if you really know who you're trying to serve.
And you're able to really drill down as much as possible and see how you can provide value for them, think about all the different ways, it allows you to build your own media company in your own way so that people could potentially find you.
But, of course people looking for digital marketing help SEO in Alexandria, just all those different ways that people could search.
But I think one of the beautiful things about SEO that I think a lot of people forget about is it's really all about psychology.
And people don't talk a lot about this because the idea of Google is Google wants you to find what you're searching for as quickly as possible. Yeah.
There's actual people that are typing in and searching for certain things, and Google's taking all that data and information and trying to return a result so that you find what you're looking for as quickly as possible.
So I often say it on the show, on my podcast, is that we forget about the human aspect of business. We definitely forget about it related to technology.
So when we're talking about SEO, don't forget that you're not just putting keywords in to try to rank higher.
You're putting it in so that you can serve your clients so that you can be there and provide a value to them when they're searching for something else.
So don't forget about the people. That's the biggest thing. What you wrote that book for, who you're speaking to, make sure you're optimizing related to that.
Dr. Pam Perry 11:08
Yes. It is. It's like a natural way where anyone's gonna look. And my husband, he does a little bit. Like, he'll put it Google, like, the way he thinks Google would think. It's like, no. Google is trying to the way we would think.
So, like, how to whatever. I mean, just type it out in a sentence. That's what we're looking for. And Google will find those pieces of property for us that best suit what we're looking for. Don't try to think like a computer. Think like a human.
Gresham Harkless 11:33
Exactly. Exactly.
Dr. Pam Perry 11:35
So one of the things, we're wrapping up here, but I wanted to just say, Sharon wants to know how do we contact you. I guess, personally, she wants to contact you besides the Blog Nation. So what is the other, website? And I can put that up as well.
Gresham Harkless 11:49
Yeah. Absolutely. My hub, my personal hub for everything, you can go to iamgresh.com. That's i a m g r e s h.com. That has links to Blue16 Media, has links to CB Nation, the podcast, just all the different things that I'm working on. Sometimes that's the best place to find everything and get a hold of me.
Dr. Pam Perry 12:10
I love it. I love it. That is one of the cool things. So thank you so much for joining us, iamgresh.com. That's down there because we have the comments going and said, well, how do we contact you?
And I love what you're doing. And Sharon said thanks. So she said thank you as well. So I want people to know also too there is a membership program, that Gresh has as well.
That's probably on iamgresh.com. Yes. So he has that part of part of his, collection of things as well. So it's a membership program.
If you wanna learn all things digital, if you wanna know about speaking and really getting PR, ready, set, go, speak is one of those areas as well.
So wanna make sure that people do that as well. So, Gresh, thank you so much for joining us today. I really, really appreciate it.
And, just thank you so much for just joining us and being part of a get out there, get know, because you gotta have the SEO. That's the main thing.
Gresham Harkless 13:01
Alrighty. Absolutely.
Dr. Pam Perry 13:03
Alrighty. Thanks a lot and talk to you soon. Bye bye.
Gresham Harkless 13:05
Thank you, Doctor Pam.
Outro 13:07
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 8 pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these 8 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 Gresh signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Title: Transcript - Mon, 12 Aug 2024 04:11:04 GMT
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2024 04:11:04 GMT, Duration: [00:13:41.39]
[00:00:00.10] - Gresham Harkless
Of the things I talk about, you know, again, those offline conversations, I ask clients, what does success mean to you? Are you trying to sell more books? Do you want more PR? Do you wanna sell, a t shirt? Or, you know, what is success to you? And you wanna, again, hold people's hands to let them know what that looks like. So like you mentioned, on CB Nation, one of the things that we try to do is get as many, you know, emails and and contact information so that we can always follow-up with people. But on, Blue sixteen Media, the goal is really to set up consultation. So we want people to fill out a form, go to the scheduler, and set set up a time to speak.
[00:00:37.70] - Intro
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 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 and luminary. So this is Grant signing up. I hope you enjoy this I am CEO special episode.
[00:01:30.40] - Pam Perry
So tell us a little bit about the, the the what you have learned in terms of your business, in terms of really doing the website business. So say for instance, when the first thing if I wanna get someone PR, I said, we have to have your foundational right. We have to have your website right. So what have you found, like, been, like, the top five things that maybe maybe three things, at least the top three things that people are getting wrong about when they're building their website.
[00:01:56.50] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. I I appreciate that, and thank you for giving me that number because I can go on and on and on as you know Right. From some of our conversations. But I I think the biggest thing that I see, especially on a local level so if potentially, you know, there's a business or there's a person that's trying to get a really, strong local following, one of the biggest things that I see over and over again is people fail to have their their, location. And that's on the back end, more of the title tag and meta description. They don't talk about where they're located. They rarely will actually have even if you don't wanna have your address, if you have a home based business, just have where the areas that you serve. This is one one of the biggest things that I see, and I think what a lot of people don't realize and something that, you know, we all kinda learn in Arizona Genius is that people don't necessarily know everything that you know, so you wanna be able to translate and spoon feed for people that information. So especially for search engines, there's something on the back end when you go to the site called a title tag. Basically, what that is is is Google's way to understand what's to follow on a website. Mhmm. When you have your title tag set up within certain, you know, restrict parameters, I should say, the amount of characters, it helps Google to know who you are, what it is that you do, but also where you're located. And I think that's one of the biggest things I see consistently that people, forget forget to do. The other big thing
[00:03:23.50] - Pam Perry
mhmm. Yeah. I was saying that's really good because sometimes maybe they'll put in looking for a Detroit, publicist, Detroit black publicist, you know, just Metro Detroit, you know, whatever. And and and, you know, you can well, for me, Speakers Magazine is targeting African American speakers, and that's one of the things. But you can also put in things like that to let people know exactly, you know, who your target is. So that way when people are googling it, they'll actually find you because they're looking for you. So that's that's really, really good, those title tags.
[00:03:56.69] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Absolutely. And and I think that, you know, brings up the the the the great part that you talked about is, like, really understanding who you're targeting. And I think as you start to build your website, most people wanna jump in, get their hands dirty, wanna create, their website, put sliders, get the colors, logo, all those things in place, but really drilling down and knowing who you're targeting is so huge. As you mentioned, the Detroit as it being a Detroit publicist or, a Virginia based web design company. All those things allow you to break from the noise and and be found a lot easier. It's less competitive to be found as a web designer in Virginia than to be found as a web designer in the entire United States. So a lot of times, we forget that those opportunities are really, what we can do before we jump into the websites and make sure that we are finding those niches, those opportunities that are gonna, you know, basically give us the revenue and and and money that we want for our business and our organizations.
[00:04:55.19] - Pam Perry
And so so really not getting the title tags. Number two, one of the things I find that is what people when they put together website, it's like you have to convert. So for you, when we go to see blog nation, one of the things that they don't have is a good opt in gift or a way to collect information from people. So talk a little bit about that.
[00:05:15.60] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. I I love that. And I was definitely gonna say a CDA CTA. One of the things I talk about, you know, again, those offline conversations, I ask clients, what does success mean to you? Are you trying to sell more books? Do you want more PR? Do you wanna sell, a t shirt? Or, you know, what is success to you? And you wanna, again, hold people's hands to let them know what that looks like. So like you mentioned, on CB Nation, one of the things that we try to do is get as many, you know, emails and and contact information so that we can always follow-up with people. But on, Blue sixteen Media, the goal is really to set up consultation. So we want people to fill out a form, go to the scheduler, and set set up a time to speak. So it's really understanding what success means to you and realizing that these these digital tools are really for you to kinda manipulate so that you can hopefully reach your goal. So you don't have to do it the same way everybody else does it. You have different opportunities, but it's huge. You you wanna be able to say, hey. I want you to do x, y, and z. I want you to sign up for my newsletter. I want you to follow me on social media. I want you to, you know, subscribe to the the, magazine. Whatever that might be, you wanna make it as clear as day, so that people can take that action as quickly as possible.
[00:06:30.69] - Pam Perry
So when you started podcasting, what podcast are you at now? What number are you at roughly?
[00:06:35.39] - Gresham Harkless
I'm over thirteen hundred. I think I told you my your your number when I did yours, but I'm over thirteen hundred.
[00:06:42.00] - Pam Perry
It's like, wow. So thirteen hundred episodes, guys. Thirteen hundred episodes of a podcast. So what have you learned from podcast? When you were starting podcasting, was it a way to monetize it at first, or when did you start, like, really starting to monetize podcasting?
[00:06:59.19] - Gresham Harkless
For me, one of the the biggest things that I tried to do was, again, going back to Blue sixteen Media and using it as a way from my zone of genius to network and connect with people. I was really big believer that there would be opportunities down the line, that probably would open up, but I I wanted to make sure that I was able to build my digital marketing business kinda first and foremost. So that's what I kinda focus on. And and then one of the reasons I made it daily is because I'm, you know, I'm pretty active. Even, you know, pre COVID, I'm I'm always going to networking events and and, you know, just, you know, meeting people. I I really enjoy networking and getting to hear people's stories and what they do. One of the big things that I wanted to do with the podcast is really to build deeper relationships. Some of one of my best referrals I actually got was from somebody who was featured on my blog originally and actually I had on my podcast, and that relationship just deepened and deepened from there. I was on her podcast. She was on mine, multiple times. And I think that's one of the things that I wanted to do first and foremost to say, hey. Can I take my gifts? Something I would do I I was already doing it, you know, for free anyways, but maybe have it, you know, part of my, quote, unquote, funnel or part of my process. But, yeah, that was pretty much the the primary, you know, reason and and still, of course, working on things, to kinda further create those streams of revenue to to to, support the business.
[00:08:22.60] - Pam Perry
One of the main things that I really like that you do is that you have so many podcasts. And so if anyone were let's talk about your keywords. If they were looking for a business podcast, say, for instance, you are definitely definitely gonna show up because you're talking to business people every day every day. So one of the things do you you know, without you really giving out your secrets, but what are some of the things that people who have found your your website, CEO Blognation or even blue blue sixteen? What what were they looking for when they found you? Were they looking for digital marketing? Were they looking for business podcast? What were they looking for?
[00:09:01.20] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Funny enough that you said that because, you know, be and I think one of the things that you talked about and I wanna just hammer home as well too is I compare your pages, your posts, all the things that you have on your website to, like, sticky paper. The more pages, posts, generally speaking, content you have, the more sticky paper you have out there for people to find you. So I remember actually pre pandemic, I actually did some live podcast recordings largely because I was found as media for an event that was going on. So and they just searched for a podcaster, you know, near me, podcaster in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area, and they found my information based off of that. And I think a lot of that is, again, because if you have that sticky paper, if you really know who you're trying to serve and you're able to really drill down as much as possible and see how you can provide value for them, think about all the different ways, it allows you to build your own media company in your own way so that people could potentially find you. But, of course, you know, people looking for digital marketing help, you know, SEO in Alexandria, just, you know, all those different ways that people could kinda search. But I think one of the one of the beautiful things about SEO that I think a lot of people forget about is it's really all about psychology. And people don't talk a lot about this because the idea of Google is Google wants you to find what you're searching for as quickly as possible. Yeah. There's actual people that are typing in and searching for certain things, and Google's taking all that data and information and trying to return a result so that you find what you're looking for as quickly as possible. So I often say it on the show, on my podcast, is that we forget about the human aspect of business. We definitely forget about it related to technology. So when we're talking about SEO, don't forget that you're not just putting keywords in to try to rank higher. You're putting it in so that you can serve your clients so that you can be there and provide a value to them when they're searching for something else. So don't forget about the people. That's that's the biggest thing. What you wrote that book for, who you're speaking to, make sure you're optimizing related to that.
[00:11:08.39] - Pam Perry
Yes. It is. It is it's like a natural way where anyone's gonna look. And and my husband, he he kinda does a little bit. Like, he'll put it Google, like, the way he thinks Google would think. It's like, no. Google is trying to the way we would think. So, like, how to whatever whatever. I mean, just type it out in a sentence. That's what we're looking for. And Google will find those pieces of property for us that best suit what we're looking for. Don't try to think like a computer. Think like a human.
[00:11:33.20] - Gresham Harkless
Exactly. Exactly.
[00:11:35.50] - Pam Perry
So, you know, one of the things, we're kinda wrapping up here, but I wanted to just say, Sharon wants to know how do we contact you. I guess, personally, she wants to contact you besides the, BlogNation. So what is the other, website? And I can kinda put that up as well.
[00:11:49.60] - Gresham Harkless
Yeah. Absolutely. My hub, my personal hub for everything, you can go to I am gresh dot com. That's I a m g r e s h dot com. That has links to Blue sixteen Media, has links to CB Nation, the podcast, just all the different things that I'm working on. Sometimes that's the best place to to kinda find everything and and get a hold of me.
[00:12:10.10] - Pam Perry
I love it. I love it. That is one of the cool things. So thank you so much for joining us. I am gresh dot com. That's down there because we have the comments going and said, well, how do we contact you? How do we contact you? And I love what you're doing. And and Sharon said thanks. So she said thank you as well. So I I want people to know also too there is a membership program, that Gresh has as well. That's probably on I am gresh dot com. Yes. So he has that part of part of his, collection of things as well. So it's a membership program. If you wanna learn all things digital, if you wanna know about speaking and really getting PR, ready, set, go, speak is one of those areas as well. So wanna make sure that people do that as well. So, Gresh, thank you so much for joining us today. I really, really appreciate it. And, just thank you so much for just joining us and being part of a get out there, get know, because you gotta have the SEO. That's the main thing.
[00:13:01.79] - Intro
Alrighty. Absolutely.
[00:13:03.50] - Pam Perry
Alrighty. Thanks a lot and talk to you soon. Bye bye.
[00:13:05.89] - Gresham Harkless
Thank you, doctor Pam.
[00:13:07.10] - Intro
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 bit more about us as well too. This is Grass signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Sign up to receive email updates
Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.
[/restrict]