IAM2275 – The Importance of Building Connections through Podcasting

Title: Transcript - Tue, 22 Oct 2024 02:20:03 GMT

Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2024 02:20:03 GMT, Duration: [00:16:59.78]

[00:00:00.28] - Intro

Hello.

[00:00:00.48] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello.

[00:00:01.03] - Intro

This is Gretch from the Imceo 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.

[00:00:18.08] - Gresham Harkless

Wanted to share a little snippet with.

[00:00:19.39] - Intro

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, 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 kind of leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, Rockstar and luminary. So this is Gretch signing out. I hope you enjoy this Imceo special episode.

[00:00:53.00] - Michael Bridgman

We are going to dive in today into a hot, hot topic. Like, this is one of those topics that so many people are, like, giddy excited about is how do we use podcasting and how do we become a guest on podcasts to really grow our brand, grow our impact, and really extend our reach. But before we get there, tell me, because we're going to jump into that. So anybody who's watching right now, we got a bunch of people watching live, which is great, but anybody watching, we're going to get to that. But before we do, I just want Gresham to tell me, because you're not actually in Washington.

[00:01:26.54] - Gresham Harkless

I'm not.

[00:01:27.06] - Michael Bridgman

Right. So whereabouts are you actually from?

[00:01:29.48] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, so, funny enough, we were talking about a little bit more about our location. You said you're about 45 minutes outside of the Vancouver area. I'm about 45 minutes outside of. Well, I was about 45 minutes outside of DC, which is where I was pretty much raised, which is in this place called Woodbridge. I'm now in Springfield, Alexandria area. So that's about 1520 minutes outside. But I always, you know, say, and I always, you know, tell people DC, but you have to see if somebody's from DC or if they're familiar with DC, then you have to drill down a little bit more and say, this is exactly where I am, where I'm from. Because, you know, it's not just the landmarks.

[00:02:03.20] - Michael Bridgman

Nice. Nice. I love it. I love it, I love it. Okay, so now you've been doing podcasting, gresh, for ten years, right? Or for five years, you said. But you've been in the marketing industry for over a decade. So for those folks that are watching right now, this is a man that's got a ton of intellectual capital here, like a big brain resource for us to tap into today. So, gresh, what have you found has been, like, really powerful when it comes to podcasting. Like, if you were to put something on a pedestal and say this is one of the big reasons to use podcasting, what would that be?

[00:02:39.53] - Gresham Harkless

You know, there's a lot of different ways to use a podcast. And, you know, I have this talk that I give a lot talking about, you know, you are a media company. How to really look at marketing strategically. I compare it to, like, going to the grocery store to figure out what ingredients you're going to put into whatever dish you're going to make.

[00:02:57.03] - Michael Bridgman

Okay, nice.

[00:02:57.93] - Gresham Harkless

It's getting cold around here. So I love sweet potato pie, my mom's sweet potato pie. So I'm always thinking about what's gonna go in there. And I think when you think about marketing, there's a lot of different ways that you can use these ingredients. And it drilled 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. Yeah. The first one is definitely authority positioning. Like, if you are 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 it's probably still a little bit more of a thing where your book ends up becoming like your business cardinal. Sure, it's going to 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 great ways to leverage your podcast or being on podcast episodes and being able to even compile those different episodes and shows that you've been on to have that thought authority, that authority positioning created. But another really, really great way that I think is very, very underutilized is actually the whole networking relationship building around podcasts. 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 and listening to those episodes, connecting with the people. Say, hey, I was also featured on episode number 100, or episode number 50. Would love to connect a little bit, hear a little bit more about what you do. So it's really a way to kind of, I guess, break through that noise, you know, get that opportunity to have something that you have a mutual connection and relationship with. And I think it's something that's extremely underutilized and podcasting, but definitely in other forms of digital marketing as well.

[00:05:07.87] - Michael Bridgman

You know what? That is so great. I think we often underestimate gresh, how powerful our network is, right? Like how critical that is. And in fact, I don't know about you, buddy, but there have been times in my life where I've invested both time and money, right, those two resources into a network to get ingratiated into that network to be a part of it. You know, I did this just about a year ago with the Napoleon Hill Institute. I was like, okay, I want to join this particular group of people. And part of it was obviously for the material, but also a big part of it was because I wanted to be in that group of people and all the value that both I could bring and I could get from being in that group. So you're absolutely right, buddy. 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?

[00:06:11.81] - 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 that creator term and that title can 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're doing, interviews, whatever it is. You don't necessarily need all the high tech technology that you had before or the equipment or all of those things. You can do it with your phone. 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 really be 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 going to be like, how it's going to flow, just because when you're around, I feel like when you're around other podcasters, you have a lot more of 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 Wizards 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. 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 kind of make those connections very organically. I think.

[00:08:17.25] - Michael Bridgman

I love that, man. I love that. I love that. And see, because I think what you're tapping into, gresh, is this idea that, that your content and your, your channel. Like, I love how you say that. We're, you're a media brand. Like, whether you like it or not, if you're in business, especially if you're a solopreneur or a small business, you're your own media agency, right? You and I've talked about this off air before. That you're your own media agency 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?

[00:08:51.58] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. And I think when you start to really think, and one of the beautiful parts of all 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 archived, 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 going to be gold, because sometimes for you, being able to kind of leverage your time, leverage your resources, the time and the money kind of creatively and strategically, the best way to do it is sometimes having that piece of content that's already there. We're seeing that more and more potential clients and customers are a lot more informed and a lot more informed because they're Google searching, they're looking at reviews, they're doing all those things. So why not provide them more information 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're working on, it's going to compliment all the things that you're doing, but only if you start to create that media company or even be on other media companies and start to archive that so that you have that information there.

[00:10:07.27] - Michael Bridgman

I love that, man. I love that. Because I always put it that your marketing is a habitat. It's like an environment, right? And people are going to come in and they're going to see, oh, look at that, look at that. Look at the plant on that rock that's been there for three years, aka a piece of content you built on YouTube or on your podcast or whatever, right? And they're seeing the whole environment of your marketing. Yeah, you got their attention with an ad, but they're going to come and see your whole environment of marketing, your whole habitat of it. So it's important to have all those pieces in place. I love it. Now, I want to dive into your advice on how to get a podcast started. Okay. What things to do when we before. And we're going to dive into that in just a minute. But before we get there, gresh, I want to know why do you do this? Right? Like, why, you know, the old Simon Senate 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 a time to grow a media channel from zero to something, you know, we've 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 drives you, my friend?

[00:11:27.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I think that's a great question. And funny enough, I have to go probably even farther back, before I started everything to answer that question. And when I was kind of 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 going to major in?

[00:11:43.51] - Michael Bridgman

Have you grown up yet?

[00:11:44.42] - Gresham Harkless

Like, is that how he's still working on it here and there. There you go. It's all relative, right? But 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 one of the things that kind of stood out to me, I was that kid that sold potato chips on the playground and did things like that. But I started what was then a family newspaper. And I did that because I was about ten years old and my dad was in the military, he was 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 messenger just to stay connected. Exactly. Exactly. Don't call. Make sure no one calls because you'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 our family.

[00:13:00.82] - Michael Bridgman

For your family.

[00:13:01.79] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. 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 our family. So between that and me, of course, selling the subscriptions to family members, I sold the subscriptions a little bit. Yes, I sold a little bit. And if anybody's listening and still might be interested, I can put something together if you want to see some archives.

[00:13:31.87] - Michael Bridgman

That's awesome.

[00:13:32.98] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. But when I was thinking of 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, and that kind of put me in this kind of media company mindset. Of course, I wasn't calling it that then. I just loved to write. So, to answer your question, the way that I kind of 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 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, as Steve Jobs might say, is for me to go and capture the stories, capture the knowledge, and learn myself as well, too, from all these 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 had 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, it's 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 her why was all those things? And I say all that to say that sometimes when you're doing things, and at that time, 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 kind of gets me going to hear those stories and try to impact others. So long winded answer, Michael. But that's a little bit about my.

[00:15:44.29] - Michael Bridgman

Why I love it. I think that, I mean, I love what you just said. Entrepreneurship equals hope. If I want to get a podcast started today, it is Wednesday, 1 November 2023. What do I do? What do I do? What's the first step? What do you what should I do if I want to start a podcast?

[00:16:03.37] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I would say my questions that I really go back to are they going to be the same no matter what type of marketing you're going to 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 are you targeting? Why are you actually creating this podcast and who is it going to be for?

[00:16:25.77] - Intro

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the Imceo 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 guessed it on their episode, and.

[00:16:54.62] - Gresham Harkless

Of course learn more.

[00:16:55.58] - Intro

A little bit more about us as well too. This is grass signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.