IAM1305 – Entrepreneur Helps Thought Leaders Get Featured & Connect with Their Ideal Customers

Tom Schwab knows how to build an online business. Marketing at its heart is starting a conversation with someone who could be an ideal customer. Drawing on his engineering, corporate, and e-commerce inbound marketing experience, Tom helps thought leaders (coaches, authors, speakers, and emerging brands) get featured on leading podcasts their ideal prospects are already listening to. Then he helps them to turn listeners into customers. He is the author of PODCAST GUEST PROFITS: Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy, and he is the founder of Interview Valet, the category king of Podcast Interview Marketing.

• CEO Story: Tom’s first job in the nuclear power plant system taught him that you can build any system, you can teach anything, you can standardize anything. Taking from what they’ve learned from inbound marketing and blogs on how to grow a business, using a different content which is doing podcast interviews. Made a system and it worked for so many years.
• Business Service: Connecting to your ideal customers through podcast marketing.
• Secret Sauce: Focus on one thing – zone of genius. Niching down your business where you are the category king.
• CEO Hack: Trying to figure out what being a CEO means – Chief Evangelist Officer. Put everything through the filter.
• CEO Nugget: Don't take everything personally. Ask, “Are we doing the right things?”
• CEO Defined: Leadership and visionary role.

Other resources mentioned The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level,  Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets

Website: http://www.interviewvalet.com
LinkedIn: thomasmschwab
Twitter: Interviewvalet
Twitter: TMSchwab
Facebook: ThomasSchwab

More information from the past on Tom's site: http://interviewvalet.com/iamceo

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Transcription

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00:02 – Intro 

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, start-ups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:27 – Gresham Harkless 

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Tom Schwab of Interview Valet. Tom, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:38 – Tom Schwab 

Gresh, I am thrilled to be here.

00:40 – Gresham Harkless 

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, what I wanted to do was just read a little bit about Tom so you can get to know him a little bit more. Tom Schwab knows how to build an online business. Marketing at its heart is starting a conversation with someone who could be an ideal customer. Drawing on his Engineering, Corporate, and E-commerce inbound marketing experience, Tom helps thought leaders, which includes Coaches, Authors, Speakers, and emerging brands get featured on leading podcasts for their ideal prospects are already listening to.

Then he helps them to turn listeners into customers. He's the author of Podcast Guest Profits, Grow Your Business with a Targeted Interview Strategy, and the founder of Interview Valet, the category king of podcast interview marketing. Tom, it is awesome to have you on the show again. Are you ready to speak to our IAM CEO Community?

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01:30 – Tom Schwab 

I sure am, Gresh. I am excited.

01:32 – Gresham Harkless 

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, the first question I usually have is just to find a little bit more about you based off of kinda what I already said. But do you have anything you can add to your CEO story about, like, what made you get started in this business?

01:45 – Tom Schwab 

Well, I always look at it as life is an evolution. And so for me, one thing builds on the other. You know, I started off my first job out of college running nuclear power plants, and that taught me that everything is a system. You can teach anything. You can standardize anything. When people say, well, you don't understand my business. I'm like, no. You don't understand your business if you can't, standardize it.

That's one of the things we've really tried doing here is taking what we've learned from inbound marketing and what we used in blogs in how to grow a business and say, hey. Let's just use another form of content, basically podcast interviews, and use that. And so it's something we've done over the last four years. And, it's not magic. It's not art. It's really just a system that we've tested and refined, and I'm excited to share it with people here.

02:34 – Gresham Harkless 

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, could you tell us, I guess, a little bit more about that system and what you're doing with Interview Valet?

02:39 – Tom Schwab 

Yeah. So I would say to any CEO, your biggest problem right now is that you're obscure to your ideal customer. Right? With what you have offering right now, your product or your service, it may not be perfect. It may not be where you want, but it is perfect for some people right now. The only thing that is keeping you from helping them and them from rewarding you financially is that they don't know you're alive. Right? You're obscure. So one of the things we really focus on is how can you connect with your ideal customer. And a lot of people now will start to say, well, you know, how do I break through the noise? I've come to the realization. I'm not breaking through the noise. I'm adding to the noise. Right?

So if it's Apple and Coke adding to the noise and I'm trying to break through the noise, I'm never gonna win that battle. So instead of trying to have the loudest megaphone, I just wanna get in on the conversation that my ideal customers are starting to listen to. And I think people are starting to filter things out and choose who they wanna listen to, Gresh, even what speed you wanna listen to. When we first started talking, I was like, you sound weird because I'm used to listening to you at one and a half times speed. And when we first started to talk, it's like, wow. He sounds a lot different.

So, from that standpoint to a CEO, it's like the question of how can you use this technology? How can you use all these tools and largely free tools that we have today in order to get in front and have that discussion with your meaningful discussion with your ideal customers?

04:11 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah. I mean, that's a that's very interesting, perspective to look at is that you're kinda adding to the noise, but how can you flip it and become and have those meaningful relationships that you're speaking about, I think, is the ideal target for most CEOs and entrepreneurs and business owners. So I wanted to ask more about, like what do you feel makes you and your organization unique?

04:31 – Tom Schwab 

To me, it's really the focus. Right? Like I said, there's no magic. There's no art. But I think the companies that really focus on one thing, I call it a zone of genius. It comes from a book, by Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap. He talks about your zone of incompetency, your zone of competency, your zone of greatness, and your zone of genius. All we do is focus on podcast interview marketing. So with that, we're sort of the idiot savants of that, where we've got a team of fourteen all in the United States. And we've built the relationships with the Podcasters out there.

We understand the mediums. We focus on just three verticals. So there are four hundred thousand podcasts. We don't focus on all of them. You know, we focus on business, faith and spirituality, and health, nutrition, and wellness. Those are our three verticals. So I think always niching down and figuring out where you can be, is the category king. There's a great book that really impacted my life called Play Bigger, and, it's how pirates, dreamers, and innovators create and dominate markets. And the premise that they make there is that more and more in life, it's a winner-take-all society.

So, you've got the person that's really niched down and owns that category, and then you've got other people that are just trying to play in the category. So from that standpoint, a lot of people, a lot of our current clients that love us, that work with us, they say, hey. Could you help us do this? Could you help us, build a website? Could you help us with our social media? Could you help us launch your podcast? I'm like, we probably could, but you don't want us doing that. You know? As a CEO, you know that you wanna hire people that specialize in that. You know? My family practice doctor, I love him dearly. He's a great guy. But I am not gonna ask him, I trust you. Would you do my heart surgery? Now I'm going to a specialist on that one.

06:22 – Gresham Harkless 

Mhmm.

06:22 – Tom Schwab 

I hope hopefully, I never have to.

06:24 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah. That's definitely not the person you wanna ask at all, so I completely understand that. So I know you gave us already some awesome books that I'm definitely gonna add to my list to pick up. So I usually ask people for, like, a CEO hack, which might be a book, it might be an app, or it might be something that you use on a regular everyday basis that you feel helps you be more efficient and effective as a CEO. Could you give us a CEO hack?

06:46 – Tom Schwab 

Yeah. To me, my biggest CEO hack is trying to figure out what the word CEO means. And for me, everybody say, well, duh. It's Chief Executive Officer. Well, I always looked at it as Chief Evangelist Officer. Right? If I'm doing this right, I've hired the right people to manage the company, to run the company. I've got to be the evangelist for the vision, for our principles, what makes us different, and I have to go out and evangelize the entire category that we're in, this podcast interview marketing. That doesn't mean selling every customer. It means evangelizing it out there.

And I've sometimes got to be very clear, and that's my hack. I've got one of my managers, Dan Moyle. He's got this question that he always asks me. Should you be doing this? And he always keeps me accountable there. And there are a lot of things I can do, but not a lot of things that I should do. So try to focus on what your role, what does CEO means to you, and then put everything through that filter. And if that's not something that goes through the filter, either don't do it, delegate it, or redefine your role.

07:54 – Gresham Harkless 

I love that. I love that. Yes. It's so, important for you for everybody to definitely make sure you're staying here is on a genus, so to speak, like you spoke about, but also making sure that even if you can do it, doesn't mean that you necessarily should be doing it, which is, a good kinda distinguisher that we should kinda remember. So, that brings me to kinda the next thing, which is a CEO nugget. Like, what types of advice or words of wisdom would you give to other entrepreneurs and business owners?

08:18 – Tom Schwab 

Yeah. I think as CEOs, we can take everything very, very personally, and that can be very tough. So from the standpoint, when things are going well, it's not all you. When things are going bad, it's not all you. So I try to take that and just look at it from the long term of trying to make that understanding of that, you know if it's a bad hour or a bad day or a bad month, are we doing the right things? And if it's a great hour, a great week, or a great month, are we still doing the right things? Because sometimes you can get the right results from the wrong actions. So, just trying to look at it from that standpoint.

08:55 – Gresham Harkless 

That makes perfect sense. And I know you already kinda touched on this, but we look to have, like, a bunch of different types of CEOs. So different entrepreneurs and business owners, people that might be running businesses from their homes, or people that might be CEOs of huge Fortune five hundred companies. So how would you define being a CEO?

09:13 – Tom Schwab 

To me, it's that leadership role, that visionary role. You know, we've got a remote team. We've got fourteen people on our team. We do a good seven figures in the business. But, you know, some people have a smaller company. And sometimes I think it's harder to be a CEO when you're smaller. Right? Because it's easy for me to say delegate. Well, if you have a small team, the CEO includes being the chief cooking bottle washer too. And every decision you make could be fatal for the business. Right? If you've got two people on your team and you hire another one, you just increased your manpower by fifty percent.

That has a huge financial impact. If the person doesn't work out, if it destroys the team, that's a huge, huge decision. A CEO with a thousand people or a hundred people adding one more person, it's not as big of a thing. So I don't diminish the people who are CEOs of small companies, nor do I glorify the people who are the CEOs of huge companies. I think all of the challenges we have are big to us. And I sort of know where my sweet spot is.

I've always said I will not own a company that has an HR department or a legal department because I've worked in those companies before, and that's when the CEO stops being the CEO. He had to answer to somebody else. So not saying that's bad, but, I just tried building them up to a certain point and then letting somebody else take them over. Just sorta know my sweet spot and where my my talents are.

10:42 – Gresham Harkless 

Exactly. The power of knowing yourself and understanding what your goals are and hitting your goals, not hitting somebody else's goals is definitely insanely important. So, Tom, I truly appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to kinda speak with us. I wanted to give you the mic, so to speak, for any additional kinda words of wisdom or information, you can tell us about Interview Valet as well.

11:03 – Tom Schwab 

Yeah, Gresh. I appreciate this. You know, we've talked before about your biggest challenge right now is that you're obscure. There are customers out there. There's people that could really benefit from the product or service you have today. The problem is they just don't know you exist. So if you're listening to a podcast right now, you understand the power of this medium, and you understand that more and more people are gonna be listening to it. Some of them are gonna be your customers. And in the future, are they gonna be listening to you or your competitor?

Now they could be listening to you as a podcast host like Gresh here. They could be listening to you as a podcast guest like me, but you need to figure out a way that you can use this medium to tell your story and connect with those people who could be ideal customers. And if we can, be of any service to you, there are lots of resources on how to do podcast interview marketing. I really believe that in five years this is gonna be as common as Facebook Marketing or Email Marketing. Just another way to connect with people.

So love to be of service to you. In fact, Gresh, I'll put a page together just at interviewvalet.com/iamceo. And I wrote that book that you mentioned, but I give away more copies of that than Amazon sells. So, if you just go to interviewvalet.com/iamceo everything Gresh and I will talk about will be there. I'll put a copy of the book, all my social media, and my calendar link. So if there's any way that I can help you, please reach out to me.

12:30 – Gresham Harkless 

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate that, Tom. Definitely, you're providing a tremendous amount of value, and the idea of being able to be visible as CEOs, Entrepreneurs, and Business Owners is insanely important, so I'm glad you're doing your part to kinda help us make sure we get that visibility. So thank you so much again, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

12:48 – Tom Schwab 

You too, Gresh. Appreciate you.

12:51 – Outro 

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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