Joe Rando
On this episode of The One-Person Business Podcast, we go on a journey into the world of business podcasting, guided by George B. Thomas's expertise and passion. Listeners gain practical tips, inspiration, and a comprehensive understanding of how to create a successful and impactful podcast in the dynamic business landscape.
We discuss:
-
The role having a brand plays in business podcasting - Spoiler alert, it's mandatory!
-
A pyramid for business podcasting that can help set solopreneurs up for success - Gain insights into the progression from creating buzz to establishing a loyal following.
- How to get out of your own way and just get started with podcasting (we know, it's intimidating!)
- The biggest mistake business owners make when they create podcasts and what it should look like when it's done right
Plus so much more! Be sure to tune in.
Resources Mentioned on The Show
- Listen to HubHeroes Podcast
- Listen to Marketing Smarts
- Listen to Beyond Your Default
- Check out The Solopreneur Success Cycle
Connect with George B. Thomas
- Visit georgebthomas.com.
- Visit beyondyourdefault.com.
- Learn more about George at georgebthomas.com/about.
- Engage with George at community.hubheroes.com.
- Interested in becoming a HubHeroes premium member? As a listener of our podcast, you can get discounted pricing here!
Favorite Quotes:
"Success is not just about making money. It's about making a difference." - Kathy Calvin
Going solo in business doesn't mean you're alone! Join our thriving Facebook community group exclusively designed for solopreneurs! Connect with like-minded individuals who understand the unique challenges and triumphs of running a business single-handedly. Gain valuable insights, discover proven strategies, and unlock the power of networking as you engage in lively discussions and receive expert advice. We hope to see you there!
About George B. Thomas
George is the "Chief HubSpot Helper" owner at George B. Thomas, LLC. George helps companies streamline and grow by using the right HubSpot CRM, marketing, sales, service, operations, and CMS tools. George is a vault of valuable information, tactics, and strategies with a record-breaking thirty-five plus HubSpot Academy certifications.
George's true passion is being a catalyst for growth and helping others be inspired, educated, and willing to work hard to achieve unlimited success! George is the HubEd Helper YouTube channel, podcast, and blog creator.
He also shares monthly tactical advice through his Tactical Thoughts community newsletter. In George's free time, he is a professional speaker, emcee, husband, father, and friend to many.
Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on Apple Podcasts Thanks!
Full Episode Transcript
George Thomas (00:00):
When you're building a community by adding value, you're building trust, you're building reciprocity, and therefore the sales process becomes really, really easy.
Intro (00:11):
Welcome to the One-Person Business podcast, the show for solopreneurs, consultants and contractors who are ready to take charge of their business and reclaim their freedom. Join us as we bring you inspiring stories, invaluable insights and practical strategies from successful solopreneurs and industry experts, empowering you to create a flagging business that aligns with your unique goals and allows you to live life on your own terms. Here are your hosts, Joe Rau and Carly Reese.
Carly Ries (00:42):
Welcome to the One-Person Business Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries.
George Thomas (00:45):
And I'm Joe Rando.
Carly Ries (00:47):
If you are listening to this podcast or watching this podcast today, chances are you like podcasts, but have you ever considered it for your own business? That is exactly what we were talking today with none other than two time guest, George B. Thomas.
George Thomas (01:02):
Let's go. Two times I get the blue ribbon.
Carly Ries (01:06):
George, for those of you who don't know, has made quite a name for himself in the marketing world, especially when it comes to HubSpot. He is also quite the podcaster himself. He has Hub heroes, Sidekick Strategies, Marketing Smarts, Beyond Your Default. All of those are podcasts that you should subscribe to. Now we get him today. He is the best person to talk to on the topic, and honestly, he's just one of the best people you can ever meet. So George, welcome to the show. We are so happy to have you here today.
George Thomas (01:35):
Thank you. Carly and Joe, I'm super excited to be here. I hope over the next 20, 30, 40 minutes of our conversation, that the solopreneurs that are listening to this are gonna be able to either go from what they aren't doing, to doing something or doing what they're doing to something better. That is my whole goal for the time that we spend here.
Carly Ries (01:58):
Yes. We share that with you. George, I feel like there are so many podcasters that we could talk to in the podcast for business, but we really wanted you on this show because you have such a unique take on it. For you, it starts with the brand and that is the core of it, and that's why I love your take. Can you walk our audience through like the role that having a brand plays in business podcasting specifically?
George Thomas (02:23):
Yeah, I think there's even a foundational point that I want people to put in their brain as I go forward to answer this. That we are having a dramatic conversation in one direction. We're not having a podcasting conversation. We're having a podcasting for business conversation. They are two entirely different things. And you would pull different tactics and strategies based on your're doing it for business, or you're doing it as a passion project. I do not do the same things in Beyond Your Default as I do in Hub Heroes and things like that. So with that understanding that we're talking about business podcasting, I think for solopreneurs, this conversation comes down to twofold. Two things that they should be paying attention to. One is a podcast is gonna be one of the things that will expedite brand growth or building a brand.
(03:14):
You can go from whatever you are about in your solopreneur business, zero to whatever, you wanna become hero around those topics because you are creating valuable content that people can listen to or watch. If it's video or audio based, hopefully you're starting with video, then going to audio anyway. We'll probably talk about that down the road. But being able to get yourself out into the world and start to build the brand around the things that you want to be known for. One, podcasting is the easiest way to start. What I mean by that is, it's not the old school where you had to have like this account, that account, some aluminum foil and like, hold your leg up in the air and, "yep, we got a podcast", "what's an r s s feed?" "I don't know. But we're live,"! Those days are gone.
(04:05):
You can literally go over to transistor.fm. It's one of my favorite podcasts, like audio hosting companies. I'm not affiliated, I don't get money for saying this, but it's one of the easiest to just get a podcast up, get it live, get it out, and share it with all the places like Amazon, Spotify, Apple. There are one button pushes that you can get your show to 7, 8, 10 different locations because you have to be thinking, "Everybody has their own favorite podcast app." So we need to make sure we're on everybody's favorite podcast app. It's easy to start. The other thing is, it is very easy to add value. You can have an outline, you can even have a script, but please don't sound like you're reading a script. But literally, if you decide not to do video, nobody has to see your face.
(04:55):
Nobody has to see your background. They just get to hear the words out of your mouth. So you can start easy. You can start to add value, meaning content into the world. The biggest thing and the difference of podcasting versus business podcasting is it's an easy way that you can start building a list. When I say building a list is that all these kind of solopreneurs are out there and they're like, "I gotta be on Facebook. I gotta be on LinkedIn, I gotta be on Instagram. I gotta be on..." I'm getting tired just listing out the platforms, let alone actually interacting with them. Create your own platform that people want to come to, and that's your podcast, but make sure they can subscribe to the show notes. Make sure they have a form somewhere that they can tell you this is the type of show or the next topic I'd like you to cover.
(05:41):
Again, we'll dive into this a little bit more, but what I'm talking about is it's the easiest way to build a community. And when you're building a community by adding value, you're building trust, you're building reciprocity, and therefore the sales process becomes really, really easy. That's one fold by the way. Second thing that I wanna talk about is extending the brand. You've taken the time, you've built that brand, but now you can use the podcast or another podcast because you're so comfortable with doing it, to serve the community over time at maybe a deeper level or a different level. You can start in your podcast to offer products and services, but what I want everybody to hear is, I'm not saying start a podcast and start selling, selling, selling, pitching, pitching, pitching, selling. Start a podcast, add value to the world and if you use the subtle sell, "hey, we happen to do a workshop on that." Hmm. What? A tease, a bug in the ear. Let their brain actually discover the fact that over 2, 10 or 20 episodes. You know what, I've heard about that workshop enough. I want to get the workshop. Now all of a sudden you're selling a workshop and you didn't even sell a workshop. Your podcast did because you slightly mentioned it over several episodes. You can start to bring in your products and services. Here's the thing that I think most podcasts, especially for business podcasts, are forgetting. Getting that listener feedback, communicate with them, whether this be a form where they're giving you content ideas, whether this is giving them a community where they can actually chat with you. We can all have conversations with Facebook Messenger and Facebook groups. There's things like Circle and Mighty Networks. How can you listen? How can this become a conversation engine that can end up equaling conversions, that then is driving revenue to the bottom line of your business? Those are the two main things I would think about.
Joe Rando (07:47):
I have a question, we've talked about podcasting before, and basically you talked about how it's building your brand. You're using the podcast to build your brand. But if I understood you before, there was some aspect of you gotta define your brand before you start your podcast.
George Thomas (08:06):
Oh, you need to know how you wanna show up for the world. And you need to know the topics that you're passionate about and want to talk about. As a matter of fact, at some point in the podcast, we may even dive a little bit deeper. I have this kind of pyramid metric, that I talk about as far as making this a rentable, repeatable, scalable thing. I do want to answer your question a little bit deeper. For me and the podcast that I do, I know I'm showing up as a certain type of human being. I'm showing up with a certain type of brand or a slice of the brand. Now let me explain what I mean by that. Carly, at the beginning of this listed off
(08:58):
the podcasts that I do. When it's the Hub Heroes, I'm coming up and I'm pulling the slice of my brand that is the HubSpot expert. It's all about HubSpot, CRM, CMS, marketing, sales service. I'm also showing up as I'm part of a brand because there are three to four people, sometimes a guest on that show and we're talking about the strategies and tactics that HubSpot users could use. That's fundamentally what that brand is and how I need to show up. When I show up for Sidekick Strategies, the part of my brand that's showing up is Helper. I'll tie this all together here in a second. Helper, meaning I'm helping the guest who is the hero of the Sidekick Strategy Show, be able to get the information out in a way that the audience is gonna be able to understand and move forward with, helpful.
(09:52):
If I go into Marketing Smarts, which is a podcast that we do, I know again, my job is to show up as being helpful, but also be happy. And when I say happy, what I mean is be entertaining. When you think of B two B marketing, it might not be the most exciting thing that you've thought about diving into, but we can create a show that's actually gonna be a little entertaining, but educational along the way. Then Beyond Your Default, I show up as the human side of me. This is literally a passion project where I'm unpacking what life has taught me as a 51 year old businessman who owns an organization or a company that started out in a one room log cabin with no running water and is a high school dropout. What lessons did I learn to get here?
(10:42):
So how do I wanna show up? How do you wanna show up? If you pay attention to any of my content, I literally say at the end of my podcast or at the end of my videos, don't forget to be a happy, helpful, humble human. That is who I'm showing up. These are the slices that I bring. I'm happy, helpful, humble human that helps people with HubSpot. I'm a happy, helpful, humble human that helps humans just in general. I'm a happy, helpful, humble human that creates valuable content and puts it into the world on topics that I'm passionate about.
Joe Rando (11:19):
There's the George B. Thomas brand, but then, which is authentic, and then that's basically applied to different areas slightly differently in order to be appropriate for the particular content.
(11:32):
George Thomas
(11:32):
Exactly.
Carly Ries (11:34):
Well, George, you make podcasting sound very appealing. I know we are podcasting as we speak, but for people who aren't, you mentioned the pyramid metric and that you have this pyramid that you refer to for business podcasting. Can you walk us through that?
George Thomas (11:50):
It's funny, it was built because I needed a way to visually show all the moving parts of this. What can fundamentally happen is you can start a podcast, and then people are like, "I don't even know what that means." Sure, it means go find a tool, go find a mic, and start talking. I'm sure I can give you a graphic that can be on the show notes so as people are listening to this, if you head over to Lifestarr.com and you go to the episode, we'll have a screenshot that you can look at while we're actually talking through this. Yes. What did I just do? I made you go somewhere on the podcast so you could actually interact with the Lifestarr brand. This is a lesson that you might take and run in your podcast after you're done listening to this today.
(12:42):
Now go over right now. Open up a new tab and go over to Lifestarr.com and look at this screen. Here's the thing. There are a lot of moving parts. The first place you have to think about, because one of the words that is key to your future success is consistency. You have to be consistent with the content you're creating. You're gonna wanna be able to talk about it for weeks, months, years, forever. And so you have to find out what's the topic of passion. That's number one. When you find out that topic or topics of passion, you need to figure out do they actually tie back to what it is we do that drives revenue for the business. There has to be some sort of correlation.
(13:34):
Otherwise, we're just podcasting and we're not doing business podcasting. So the passion topics and what drives revenue for your business have to collide together. Then if we think about the next step of that, we're starting to have that topic. We want to create a buzz. Hey, we've got a show. We're creating a show. We've launched an episode of the show. Here's a clip from the show, the show's on YouTube. Hey, look, we're growing this way, we're growing that way. We're bringing this person. Anything that you can do to talk about it, you're creating a buzz. You're creating a buzz. You're creating that valuable education. You're creating those conversations on the internet so that you can start the conversations. Again, if I go to start the conversations, this literally means your conversion or your list strategy. We'll get to that here in a minute, but it's starting conversations with humans.
(14:25):
I don't want you to get stuck on the marketing side. I don't want you to think let me start a podcast around a topic I'm passionate about and create a buzz so that I can convert them to a customer. You are skipping a whole big part of the journey, if that's the way you think about it. But it's starting the conversations. The conversation might start in your inbox because you said something that just moves somebody. Conversation might start by them subscribing to your podcast. Conversation might start by them suggesting an episode so they can see how you would unpack your brain on a certain thing. But as you start these conversations, what you're doing is you're building your tribe. You're building that community. People who like the way that you talk, like the way that you think, like the way that you entertain or educate are going to start to a circle around you and you'll end up building a community with actually not even thinking that you're building a community.
(15:18):
That's a real piece there. Your goal in your strategy isn't to go build a community. It's to create helpful content for humans and have conversations. And then poof, it becomes a community. Now we can talk about in a minute of giving them a place to go and to live and all that good stuff in the future. But if we do this topic of passion, create a buzz, start a conversation, build your tribe. At the end of the day, we end up with a very, very powerful brand. So how do we take those steps that I just said and think about them in the marketing and sales perspective? Simple, topic of passion means educate, execute, educate, execute. What I mean is you educate yourself on something, you execute it, and you turn around and educate others how to execute it. That by the way, is just fundamentally in life how you become a master at your craft. Educate, execute, and then educate others how to execute it.
(16:17):
After that, the create a buzz, we're creating valuable educational content. I almost went into my word. I like to say edutainment. I want to entertain you and I want to educate you, but you can create valuable educational content because I don't want you to feel like it has to have an entertaining level because what is entertaining to you is maybe not entertaining to me. Just be your authentic self and it'll be entertaining and educational to the tribe that wants to be around you. That starting conversation, that's your conversion, that's your list strategy. I've already mentioned it a couple times. Subscribe to the podcast. What are your show ideas? It's a form. Come join the community. It's a place where they convert and we can understand how they are and we can drive these deeper conversations.
(17:06):
Then building that tribe, all of this content, it's because I want them to be in the earbuds. I want to be in their earbuds. I want them to take me on a plane. I want them to take me on a train. I want them to take me on a hike up a mountain. I even had a lady that emailed Marcus Sheridan and me and said that she was listening to us in the shower one day. Kind of freaked us out. But hey, it's good to know that people are listening to your podcast. I want them to have the ability to take me wherever they're gonna go. You as a solopreneur want to enable the people that could potentially buy your products and services to take you wherever they can go. Do I preach about starting with video? Yes. But do I make it a mandatory thing to have an audio podcast that people can easily get to and take anywhere?
(17:53):
Absolutely. The moral of the story is over time, they like you, they know you, they trust you. You have taken the balance, the two scales, and one has hit the ground filled with reciprocity. So why would they work with anybody else? You're their long lost friend that they've spent 272 episodes learning and massively changing the way that they do business or lived their life or whatever your product or service is. Why would they go anywhere else? And the very tippy top of this pyramid, the last thing, 'cause it shouldn't be your focus, but it is the outcome. Chaching, you start to get paid.
Carly Ries (18:40):
That was a great ending.
George Thomas (18:44):
It's like the rollercoaster ride and we just went over the hill. Woo.
Carly Ries (18:49):
I didn't know if you were gonna say something after that. It was the best way to end that. So, that was amazing. It's funny 'cause I feel like the the tee up with the brand and then just this pyramid, you would think that that would set people up for success, but even with all of that, it can still be intimidating. Actually, I was listening to one of your recent episodes of Beyond Your Default, and you said that you didn't think you had a voice for podcasting, which is hilarious to me because you have one of my favorite voices ever. But you were saying that that was an intimidating thing for you because you didn't think you had a voice for a podcast. You obviously got started, now you have four podcast for people who are excited about this. How do they just get out of their own way and Just do it?
George Thomas (19:46):
Yeah. That might the be the most difficult part. What's fun is you can manufacture probably what I'm about to say, and then I'm also gonna just bring up some questions that I want you to ask yourself. I probably would've never started a podcast. In my own head, believe it or not, my voice sounds squeaky and my voice inside my head kind of annoys me. Not so much anymore, but back in the day. Marcus Sheridan was like, we're gonna start a podcast. I'm like, "Dude, no, I hate my voice. No way." And he forced it. If your boss tells you you're gonna start a podcast, you start a podcast. So we started podcasting. We got about six months into it and then we went to Inbound, which is HubSpot's big conference.
(20:35):
I kid you not, I kept hearing, "dude, we love your podcast. You sound like a radio announcer." I'm like, "WHAT?" Oh man, yeah. Buttery smooth. I could listen to all day long. So here's the thing, What I thought was my biggest weakness, ended up being my largest strength over time. Once I embraced the fact that people actually like to hear my voice, then we went from podcasting to video tutorials, events, speaking on stage, it was the unlock. I would challenge people to look at the thing that is holding you back and spend more time on figuring how to unlock that than anything else that you might be trying to do. Because you don't understand the dominoes that will fall once you make that decision. Now you have to ask yourself, why do you feel this way?
(21:29):
Why is there a level of fear? Why is it intimidating? I don't think it'll be all of these reasons, but I think it might be one or several of these reasons. So for instance, man, I've just gotta fear of public speaking. Do your podcast in your closet. Then there ain't nobody there but you, a computer and your mic. It's not like you're literally stepping out on stage. Also on that one, please realize the power of post-production. You can mess up 72 times and chop that junk out and make it sound like you are the smartest dopest communicator on the planet. Just let your brain out and don't be afraid of what you're gonna say or how you're gonna say it because it can be edited before it goes live and you're not in public.
(22:28):
If it's your perceived lack of experience, who am I? Why would they want to listen to me? Ladies and gentlemen, you are one step above millions of people on the thing that you do on a daily basis. You are having imposter syndrome or you're having the curse of knowledge, meaning you've been doing it so long, you forgot that it's freaking special. You have to force yourself out of this thought of who am I? And just simply teach at the level that you can teach understanding again, there are thousands, if not millions of people that are one, two, or 17 steps below the words that are going to come out of your mouth. Also, I want to kind of pivot for a second and I hope everybody's realizing this,This all ties back to the fact that you fundamentally care about the humans that you're gonna impact with the thing that you're doing.
(23:25):
You're doing this with a purpose. You're doing this with a passion. So the public speaking, the lack of expertise should be like, screw it. Let's go, time to rock and roll. You might actually be sitting here going, well George, I'm not the most technically savvy person on the planet. Sweet. Hire somebody to help you, watch a YouTube video, take a course, whatever you gotta do. Have your nephew come over and set it up for you. Or your grandchild. Come set it up for you and have him show you how to just press the record button and the upload button. What I'm saying here, figure out ways to simplify the complex. If technology is complex, then figure out a way to make it real easy for you to rinse and repeat your content.
(24:22):
It might by the way, 'cause I mentioned content be the creation process. Well, I create the podcast and then I have to create clips, and then I have to have show notes, and then I have to have an email that goes out. And then I have to...and you "have to" yourself out of even recording the first episode. Just take it easy. Take a chill pill, do what you can when you can do it, and add the layers in as you go. It doesn't have to be a 100% perfect revenue driving engine, community building engine, brand building system from the get go. Listen 1 okay podcast is going to be more power than no podcasts. 10 Okay podcasts are way better than no podcasts or no videos or no, whatever. So if it is the content creation process, realize there's a method to your madness.
(25:23):
You just need to think about how can you ideate ideas to talk about and how can you organize the steps that you need to take from it being an idea to being live and people being able to get back to it. Simplify the complex. Last, but not least, "man, this is a big commitment," darn straight. But anytime you step out of being what I'll call default human and decide that you wanna go beyond your default and you wanna put a dent in the universe and you want to serve a community. If you want to serve a community, it's all about being committed. It's all about being consistent. So thinking about, I'm gonna do this podcast 'cause it's the easiest way for me to serve the humans to get past the hurdles or to reach the aspirations that they're trying to achieve. And I know if I do that, I reap what I sow. And so I'm gonna reap cha-ching, get paid!
Joe Rando (26:43):
One of the interesting ones to me that you mentioned is the idea of not knowing what you know. What you said basically, you don't even realize how much you've learned. I kind of had that experience when we started podcasting, it was interesting. What I ended up doing was I created something called the Solopreneur Success Cycle. I kind of put together a flywheel of a solopreneur business and I went through it and ended up creating a page on the website. You actually helped us with it, I think. And it ended up being 25,000 words. So literally could be a book.
(27:20):
And I had no idea until I sat down and wrote something to help people. And it made such a difference. Now I always feel like I have a place to draw from.
George Thomas (27:31):
Yes. I love a couple of things about that. One, ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't go over to Lifestarr to actually look at the pyramid, you should go over to Lifestarr and look at the Solopreneur Success Cycle that Joe's talking about. But also you make a valid point of, I have something that I can point back to. Every episode that you create is something that you can point back to in the sales process, in the marketing process, in the service process. Your content is the engine for everything that you're trying to do. Just know that there's that layer of it that we're probably not even really talking about today. It's funny to hear you tell that story. I said something last week to somebody, I said "man, I love when you ask me questions on the show because I get to learn how I think about them." There is so much in our brains and, and we just don't know what it is until we give it a place and output it. And your podcast is one of the easiest places to put the output of your brain into the world. Do you know how many things I've taught myself just because I've answered that question on a podcast and then be like, "Hey, dang, maybe I should follow my own advice."
Carly Ries (28:52):
Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing I'll throw in there is I have never met nor listened to a podcaster say they love their first episode. Say that they were like, it was the best. I'm so good at this. Right out the gate, every single person I've talked to or heard, I think John said it said it on our recent podcast, everybody starts from the beginning. Nobody goes "I'm the best at this"
George Thomas (29:20):
It's cringey. One of the things that I wish I had was my first video tutorial or the first podcast episode that I ever did. But, what I want everybody to realize from what we're talking about is there is gonna be a messy middle. There's gonna be where you're just figuring out. But if you just keep pushing forward, if you just keep hitting record, if you just keep publishing, there becomes a time where you're like, "Hmm, this is so easy." I mean, before we even hit the record of this show, I came on, you saw I was super happy and I was like, yeah, I looked at my calendar and I get to create seven pieces of content today. To most mere mortals that would be like, what are you doing today? And me, I'm energized. It's just become so easy over time to hop on the mic, get in front of the camera, add value, hit record, publish, and understand at the end of the day, I am impacting my little space, my universe, and the humans that will be able to see that.
Joe Rando (30:32):
Can I make a point though, George and I think it's important. Maybe you didn't out of the gate, but you have a gift. I can do this for 10 more years and I won't be where you are 'cause you're just built for it and that's great. But there are some podcasters out there and some that I listen to regularly that aren't really very good, I'm probably one of 'em, that aren't believe very good at presenting on a podcast. Their voice isn't animated and they screw things up and they forget their train of thought, but they're presenting material that is of interest and they're getting the right guests if they have guests. People forgive that if you're giving them something that helps them
(31:14):
Or something that interests them. I just think it's important to know that not everybody's gonna become George B. Thomas. Even some of the biggest podcasters going, Lex Friedman really big in the science world and a huge podcast. I like the guy, he's very likable, but when you listen to him, he's not really that great in terms of his voice and his pronunciation and all this stuff. But he's vulnerable and honest. And that's all it takes. That's all people want.
George Thomas (31:50):
You don't have to be a GBT. You don't have to be hyperdynamic, you don't have to have focused on great communication and read books and you don't have to watch your game tapes. I do. I'll listen to a podcast, watch a video. Where did I mess up? How can I get better? But you don't have to do any of that, Joe, What I love about what you said, and then by the way, I'm gonna pivot and tell you what I don't love about what you said too. But what I love about what you said is, just be your authentic self and bring to the plate the conversations that people need to hear. They will love it. Listen, I don't need some shenanigan entertaining dude, if I'm trying to listen to a podcast on neuroscience. I need a neuroscientist, which I know is going jto maybe be a little dry potentially, but I want to learn that information.
(32:49):
If I'm listening to a manufacturing podcast, it might not be the sexiest podcast ever, but I'm gonna learn what I need to learn about manufacturing. So you gotta take that as you, as the solopreneur. What voice, what tone, who are you, how do you wanna show up? Boom, show up and just do that for your podcast. Now Joe did something on this podcast, and the only reason I'm gonna bring this up is because how much I like Joe and how much I know, Joe. If you're sitting here and you negative talk yourself, "well, I might be this type of guy, or I might not be that type of guy." If you start to make excuses for who you are, ladies and gentlemen, nobody cares about your nose, your face, your ears, your hair, your weight, how you sound. They don't care. They simply care about the words coming out your mouth. That's it. So be your best advocate and be like, I know out of all that God has given me, I can come up with some dope words. Let's hit record.
Joe Rando (34:01):
I didn't mean to say that I wasn't providing value, I said that but yeah, it's a good point. And it's one of those things where honestly, I hated the most, was going to video. I didn't mind doing audio, but going to video was like, "no, I don't wanna do it." And everybody was telling us we had to do it. I think you were one of them. It was like, nah, I don't want to do video. I want to be able to wear my lifestarr t-shirt, but I did.
George Thomas (34:30):
There you go.
Carly Ries (34:32):
I think we can all agree that we're all in this together. We all make mistakes. We all start at the beginning and improve as we go. Those mistakes you can learn from them, but when it comes to business podcasting, there are mistakes that you can make that actually are detrimental and it doesn't have to do with the recording itself. George, can you touch on a few of those mistakes that you see a lot of people make and how they might be able to avoid that?
George Thomas (34:56):
Yeah. It's interesting because as I was thinking about this question, I've started to realize how they kind of pair together a little bit. First of all, I really love the question, but we as humans get in our head so much. So if you think about business podcasting, the first thing if they're good marketers or business owners, "oh, we've got to measure this. We immediately gotta know if it's successful. If we don't have 12,000 downloads in the first 15 minutes then podcasting isn't for us." They worry about the numbers too soon. You can tie that back to the fact that listen, you got the messy middle, you got the ugly beginning. How about you get past those points before you really start to focus about the numbers and what it's driving and where it's going.
(35:57):
When we're born, we have to become teenagers before we become adults. We have to crawl before we can walk, before we can run. Your podcast is gonna be the same way. Give those numbers the time to grow that they need instead of being so focused on them immediately. But the second thing that I'll say on this is, and this is what I mean by pairing, they don't worry about the numbers at all. They're like, "this is fun". Let's just hit record. Who cares? Oh, for the last seven months, only one person has been listening to it. Well, what do you mean we should have been promoted on social? What do you mean we should have been doing clips? What do you mean we should have been emailing our historical database. They're missing all the tactic and strategies to make sure that the numbers are actually doing what they should do. That the content is doing what it should do. So don't do it too soon, but make sure you are focusing on the numbers at some point.
Carly Ries (36:49):
I want to reiterate, this is for business podcasting. If you are doing a passion podcast, like Beyond Your Default, who cares about the numbers? That's your passion project. But reiteating this is for business podcasting.
George Thomas (37:02):
I literally do not look at the numbers of that podcast. If I could turn off the analytics in transistor FM for that podcast, I would. I'm gonna do that no matter what. Hub Heroes. Let's just say ladies and gentlemen, I look at the metrics. Now here's the thing, they don't stay consistent. There's some sort of stat, it's seven, maybe now it's 10, most podcasts don't make it past episode seven or episode 10. And let's even make it worse. Most podcasts, if they started out as weekly or biweekly, by the third or fourth episode, have become monthly or bimonthly. NO! It's gotta be consistent. This is huge ladies and gentlemen, if I could tell you anything that I would hope that you would take away from this is once you start, be consistent. It's one brick at a time.
(37:56):
It's 1% each and every day. That's what grows your podcast and the revenue and the conversations and everything that we're talking about. It's a little hit at a time like you're chopping down a tree. Gotta be consistent. The other thing though is if you're gonna be that consistent and you are gonna focus on the numbers, by all that is holy, please have a home base to send them to. Don't think that just putting your podcast on the podcast app and then sending it out to Spotify and Amazon and all those places is enough. "Oh, we put show notes in Transistor or Lipson, we're good." NO, NO. There should be a page that they could come back to on your website where there's additional resources, the show notes, maybe the players there, maybe the video versions there, maybe it's links to other things that you've talked about.
(38:50):
There should be a home base. At that home base, by the way, there should be a call to action at the bottom of your podcast being like, and if you need help with this, we're here. This is what we do. This is why we created the conversations in the content so that you could maybe get to this point when it's right for you. I'm waxing a little funny, but literally you should have a call to action, to a product or service that you do on this page, 'cause you're bringing 'em back to home base, like the amount of people I've seen podcast and not have a place to send them to. Crazy. Speaking of that, I was just talking about call to actions, which leads into selling. It's okay to sell, but way too many people are selling way too soon.
(39:35):
Episode one, we've got these 17 workshops that you can get. Now we're gonna talk about imposter syndrome. NO, please, build the value first. With the HubCast, we waited till the 52nd episode to bring up the fact that we had a HubSpot intensive workshop that you could take. 52 episodes. By the way, when we did start to talk about the workshops, it ended up being six figures in business one year just off of those workshops. And that was the only place we were talking about them. So you can drive revenue with business podcasting. You can sell, but don't sell too soon. Here's the other one, which by the way, you'll never hear me sell on beyond your default, again, passion project, but business podcasting. If you're doing a business podcast and you've been doing it for three months, six months, nine months, consistently adding value and you haven't mentioned what you do or a product or service that is around what you do, do that over the next 10 episodes and then call me and tell me what happened.
Carly Ries (40:40):
Love it.
George Thomas (40:45):
You can directly chat with me by going to community.hubheroes.com because we have the technology.
Carly Ries (41:52):
Well, George, I think this episode will help people be successful in their podcasting endeavors if they are wanting to take that route, which after this they should. Last time we were on the show, we asked you what your favorite quote about success was, and I feel like success changes for people over time. So I want to ask this to you again. What is your favorite quote about success?
George Thomas (42:15):
It's funny because my mind has completely changed around success. I would even say now more than ever, I default on "significance over success", which is why I love this quote by Kathy Calvin. Just so everybody knows, Kathy Calvin is a prominent figure, president and chief executive officer of United Nations Foundation, focused on connecting people, ideas, resources. Maybe this entire podcast was about those three things. But the quote that success is not just about making money cha-ching, it's about making a difference. When I'm about to hit the record button, that's literally my focus. "Okay, God, how can I make a difference in the world? How can I make a difference in the one person that might listen to this or watch this? How can I make a difference in the 10,000 people that might listen or watch this?" By the way you focus on that, success shows up.
Carly Ries (43:30):
I feel like we should quote that too.
George Thomas (43:34):
"Focus on different, success will show up." George B. Thomas.
Carly Ries (43:37):
It's going in the show notes. You heard it here. George, you know we love hanging out with you. I think our audience feels the same way. We've mentioned a few of the podcasts on the show and I have to say, we've been talking about business podcasting. For George, he has Hub Hero's podcast, Sidekick Strategies and Marketing Smarts, for his business podcast. But I have been listening to George's Beyond Your Default, which is his personal podcast. I know he's not gonna promote it as much. It's his personal passion, but man, do I love it. George, I told you I was gonna send you a little recap of what I actually thought, so I'm going to give you a little snippet here, but if you want to get to know George B. Thomas and you already like the guy, you are just gonna like him even more. It is such a good show. I have learned so much about you through it and I'd feel like I'm closer to you through it, even though I get to talk to you on a weekly basis. It's awesome. So definitely follow his business podcast. I am very impressed and very excited for you for this new passion of yours. We will link to all those in the show notes, but George, where else can people find you?
George Thomas (44:39):
Thanks for that because I'm really trying to step out. Let me tell a little story then I'll show how people can connect. I was once doing a business webinar and somebody was talking about personal life versus professional life and I said in a chat pane, "this is why I only do HubSpot tutorials. Nobody cares what I think, they care what I know." Multiple people in the chat pan said, we care what you think. It took me years to get to the point where I was comfortable to share some of the things that I'm sharing on this passion project and get to the point where I felt like it was time to activate mentor mode. Podcasting got me to that point though, got me comfortable. The making a difference, reaching the success, got me to the point where I was willing to do like this passion project that thank you again for mentioning and if people want to listen.
(45:44):
So let's go to the connection part. If people want to learn more about me, it really depends. That's a great marketing answer by the way. "It depends." If they want to find out more about the business, then head over to georgebthomas.com. You'll see the who, the why, all of that stuff. If you wanna learn more about me as a human of like, "Hmm, this guy, first meeting on this podcast, never heard of you before," head over to georgebthomas.com/about. That'll give you a nice little dip your toes in the water of who I am. Or like Carly said, you could go to beyond your default.com, listen to that podcast and you'll learn all sorts of fun stuff about me. If you want to actually engage with me, meaning you're not in research mode and you want to talk or conversate, then I would send you over to community.hubheroes.com.
(46:34):
It's our little nerdy area of the internet. We've got live chat, we've got resources. There are other community members, so you won't just be talking to me. There are other folks that you can talk to as well. But over there we love to talk shop about things like video marketing, podcasting, HubSpot, sales, marketing, service, revenue operate, there's just a lot of nerdy topics that we'd like to talk about. So if you want to engage, then head over there. But those are the best places. Notice, I didn't reference one social media platform, but you'll find me there too.
Carly Ries (47:10):
I think there's only one way to wrap up this show, and that's woowoo! George, this has been so fun. Thank you so much for coming on.
Joe Rando (47:29):
Thanks George. Talking about helping people, and you helped us help people today and we really appreciate it.
George Thomas (47:35):
Love it. I appreciate the opportunity.
Carly Ries (47:42):
Listeners, if you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to this podcast or watch us on YouTube and we will see you next time.
Closing (47:52):
You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. At Lifestarr, we're creating a one-person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com