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You need a podcast. Here's the truth. I've had my podcast for a couple years. You can find it on iTunes by opening your iTunes desktop program or searching any iPhone or iPad for "Lance Tamashiro." I'm listed on podcast directories such as Stitcher and PodBean.
Four years ago, I recorded a podcast "episode" every now and then. I only recorded 3 to 6 episodes per year. They were difficult and I couldn't come up with content. I didn't know what to say. It was difficult.
I also couldn't get traction. No one listened to the podcast. I couldn't see any tangible result. I didn't want to record the podcast. In January of this year, for our Double Agent Marketing Mastermind group, we were talking about New Year's resolutions. I said, "My New Year's Resolution is to publish one podcast episode per month. Minimum, once a month."
What happens with New Year's resolutions? You break them. I knew I wouldn't get any traction, so it was an easy New Year's resolution to make.
I discovered an easy way to generate content from simple interviews. I no longer had to come up with podcast content. I only needed to get an expert in a field near my target market, and let them talk. The hardest part was stopping them at 20 or 30 minutes. Finally, some traction! The podcast ranked near the top of "Business" as well as "Marketing & Management" in iTunes. It fluctuates up and down depending on the day, when I release an episode, etc.
This was promising. I published episodes every couple days. Get the episode out. Get it ready to go using the system we show you in Podcast Crusher. It was nice ranking in iTunes. Traffic was nice. This impresses people. One was over-the-top ridiculous. This is a huge benefit of having a podcast.
If you've tried to get a joint venture with somebody, to get them to work with you, create a product with you, send an email for you, promote you... if you've tried to do that in any niche, that's impossible. How do you approach somebody when you know that you want them to promote you?
The Turning Point
You know you want to do some kind of joint venture. It's awkward. You send an email or get them on Skype and say, "I created this product. You should promote it because I'll give you commissions."
What happens? Unless you know them, you have a relationship with them, nothing happens. It's frustrating to get traction. You're approaching them saying, " I want you to promote me." That's ridiculous. It never works. I don't care what anyone tells you. They say, "Contact somebody. Show value. Give them money. Show how it converts." It flat out doesn't work.
Several guests appeared on my show. There's a way they can schedule themselves. You only have to show up. Call them on Skype, record the interview, and publish that podcast episode.
Contact your guest when their episode goes live. We discuss this in Podcast Crusher. Send the transcript of the interview, for example. You have reasons to talk to people and build a relationship that isn't about you asking them to do something for you. You're doing something for them.
Tell your guest, "The episode is live. Here's a transcript." The law of reciprocity kicks in. THEY now owe YOU a favor. They want to send emails about you and promote you on social media. They want to talk to YOU. That builds your following, which builds your podcast, which builds your connections, which builds your business.
I will continue to produce this podcast because it replaces the need to travel to a seminar or conference across the country. As entrepreneurs, we always need to meet people and build relationships for joint ventures in the future. Instead, my podcast builds this component of my business. I can talk to my guest before or after the podcast. You need this no matter what your niche is.
I sent a "canned response" to get my next podcast guest. He scheduled himself onto my calendar. I'm meeting with Ajay Prasad. I don't know anything about him. I don't even know how to pronounce his name. I have his name, email address, and Skype address. I added him.
It says, "Enter the bio you want to be introduced with." Ajay Prasad is a serial entrepreneur and online reputation evangelist. He thrives on helping small businesses maximize revenue from the internet recently through RepuGen, a program that gains positive reviews for online businesses.
That's all I know about him. I've never spoken to him. The "pre-interview" is short and simple.
A notification from Gmail appeared. An appointment is coming up. I sent the message, "Hi, Ajay. Looking forward to chatting with you." Ten minutes later, he accepted my contact request and said, "Yes. Talk to you at 10:30." That's all we know. I'll say, " I am here and ready."
It's 10:27 his time and 11:27 my time. I'll call him and talk. We give you a template inside Podcast Crusher for this. All I know about him is that he's a serial entrepreneur and he's evangelized. I don't want to know anything else. No pre-interview, no extra work, no research.
Podcast Interview
I'll record a 20 to 30 minute episode. I'm doing it to make a new connection. I want a possible joint venture partner. I want to meet a new player in my industry. I want to become friends with them without being like creepy or pushy. I interview and ask him about his websites, I'm promoting him with no strings attached.
He sent a message saying, "Let's start." I'll call him.
Ajay Prasad: Hi, Lance.
Lance Tamashiro: Ajay, how are you doing?
Ajay Prasad: I'm pretty good, and you?
Lance Tamashiro: Good. Hey, before we go any further I just want to let you know I have a group on Facebook that I'm streaming your audio to. If that's okay so they can hear you. I'm kind of showing them how these podcasts work and how fun they are and all that other good stuff. I hope that doesn't matter. If it does I can turn it off.
Ajay Prasad: Yeah, absolutely. No problem for me.
Lance Tamashiro: All right, cool. Maybe we'll get some cool questions and stuff in here too. One other thing. I just wanted to make sure, your name is pronounced ay-jay pruh-sod, right?
Ajay Prasad: Yeah. That is perfect.
Lance Tamashiro: Ah man, awesome. Is there anything that you need to know before we get started or should I just hit record?
Ajay Prasad: Yeah. I just wanted, just quickly tell me who your audience is, typically.
Lance Tamashiro: Well my audience is a bunch of awesome people. Isn't that who you like? My audience is mostly small business owners, entrepreneurs that are either coming online or have online businesses and they're just looking for things they can do to better their stuff and I like that you have this whole idea wrapped around reviews and stuff like that and I think a lot of it for like Amazon sellers, even digital product sellers, this kind of thing is huge.
Ajay Prasad: Perfect, perfect. Okay. I just wanted to make sure so that I can answer your question that is going to be helpful for them also.
Lance Tamashiro: All right, I'll try not to stump you.
Ajay Prasad: Okay.
Lance Tamashiro: All right, let me hit record here and we will get started.
Ajay Prasad: Sure.
Lance Tamashiro: Hey everybody, this is Lance. Welcome back to the show. We've got something really interesting, different, and great that we're going to talk about today. Our guest is Ajay Prasad and here is something cool. He's not only a serial entrepreneur, but he's also an online reputation evangelist. If you guys are just getting started, if you're selling physical products, if you have a small business coming online or you have digital products that you're already successfully selling, you know that this whole idea of reputation management in today's world of reviews everywhere, social media, all of these different things, how important it can and how it can make or break your business, so what Ajay does is he helps small businesses maximize their revenue from the internet through a program called RepuGen which I'm sure we're going to be talking about it. What this program does is it helps you gain positive reviews for your online business. Ajay, welcome to the show. I'm super glad to have you here.
Ajay Prasad: Thanks, Lance, and I'm happy to be here.
Lance Tamashiro: Just to get started right away, can you kind of tell us just a little bit about yourself and RepuGen and what it is and how it all sort of fits together and works?
Ajay Prasad: Sure. I am serial entrepreneur, I guess, for the last 12 years. I used to in corporate America. I just realized that I paid my dues and if I really wanted independence or more control over my life, I wanted to start my own business. I started really as a digital marketing, to help do digital marketing for small businesses. 12 years back, I'm talking about the time when many, many, many small business don't even think they needed website, let alone digital marketing. That's where I started and I've been trying to help web-based businesses build their own businesses.
[23 minutes later]
Lance Tamashiro: This focus you're talking about is correct. The good reviews are good. You don't have to worry about those. Where you need to hyperfocus, and I think as business owners we focus on, "I need a 5 star review. I need more reviews. I need more good reviews." Really, as a business owner, the place that we should be hyperfocused is on the negative reviews and figuring out what's wrong with our business process, what's wrong with our products, and more importantly, deal with those negative reviews so that we can turn those people in to happy customers.
I think the best review ever is one that says, "This was terrible, but they reached out to me, took care of it, and now it's not going to happen." That's the best review that you can get. THat's as genuine as it gets. I love that advice that you're giving.
Ajay Prasad: Lance, the interesting thing is because you have to get positive reviews, there's no way around it. Only 2% of the people look at the reviews before they contact. What RepuGen does, it frees your time from asking customers for these positive reviews and every small business owner listening knows that they have limited hours. I'm one of those too so I know that you don't have unlimited hours. When it frees up your time from asking people for reviews, then you can now rechannel that time into addressing the problems.
Lance Tamashiro: Yes. Yes. So where can people go to find out more about you, more about RepuGen, check this out for their own business.
Ajay Prasad: The RepuGen is, of course, it's repugen.com. It's R-E-P-U-G as in Gloria, E-N dot com, and they can find about me is I have Twitter handle. It's @AjayPrasad_. It's A-J-A-Y-P-R-A-S-A-D and then underscore. That's my Twitter handle and then my LinkedIn is AjayPrasad.
Lance Tamashiro: Awesome.
Ajay Prasad: They can find out about me. They are on LinkedIn, they can see my other businesses that we have done.
Lance Tamashiro: Awesome. Well I appreciate you taking the time to be here. Everybody, go check repugen.com. R-E-P-U-G-E-N dot com. We'll have the links to both, to all three, RepuGen, Ajay on Twitter, Ajay on LinkedIn. Really take notice of the stuff that he's talking about here and how important these are and how bad reviews can turn into the best reviews you've ever gotten and increase your business processes, make you a better business so you can deliver more. As always, we thank you for listening to the show and we'll talk to you on the next episode. Thanks and bye now.
Conclusion
Think for a second about how many doors and opportunities a top ranked podcast would get you...
- without having to "call anyone on the phone" and have awkard conversations (I hate that)
- without having to mail for someone and "hope" they'll mail for you
- without having to get 50 people to mail for you, and now you owe 50 favors
I don't know about you, but when I began podcasting a while ago...
- everyone wanted me to "geek out" about audio equipment (I still use the same $25 headset)
- they wanted me to focus on getting into what's called the "new and noteworthy" section (a common trick to make me think my podcast was picking up speed)
- they wanted me to think podcasting was hard, they wanted me to add editing, sound effects, "wait to publish X episode until Y episode launches"... whatever!
I almost didn't do it at all... It was TOO COMPLICATED back then...
AND... no one has taught you not only how to create a podcast quickly and get it on iTunes (takes just a few minutes, you can create an unlimited number of shows and episodes within those shows, AND set this up as a service to others)... we also show you how to rank on iTunes!
Finally, there is one huge final reason why you MUST have a podcast...
- It's not traffic (although that is nice)
- It's not the prestige (that's nice too)
- It's not even for the advertising dollars (also nice)...
You NEED a podcast for the joint ventures they create and the connections you make. People want to talk to me because I have a top ranking podcast. Do this correctly and people seek YOU out!
I'll show you how to have your very own iTunes podcast AND get guests.
