IAM2205 – Discover the Secrets of Building a Successful Media Company

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.