Episode 133: Podcasting Tips: Authenticity, Repurposing Content, and Getting Unstuck

Mike O'Neill: Welcome back to Get Unstuck and On Target. I'm Mike O'Neill. Whether it's our team at Bench Builders working with a company, or it's me coaching a CEO one-on-one, getting people and companies unstuck is at the heart, everything I do, and that's exactly what this podcast is all about. Each week, I bring you incredible guests who share their hard won experiences of getting themselves or perhaps others unstuck back on target and moving forward, I hope it gets you unstuck and on target as well.

This is episode 133, and I have had a number of people who have come up to me and says, Mike, I listen regularly. I love your guests. Tell me more about doing a podcast, how do you do that? And I am happy to kind of share a little bit about the mechanics of doing the podcast, but I think there's a bigger question.

And the bigger question is, why would you even consider posting a podcast? And if that is in the back of your mind, you're going to love today's guest. Joining me today is Jason Croft. Jason is the founder of Media Leads, an agency dedicated to a new form of business development, media lead generation. As a frequent speaker and guest on podcasts, he teaches people how to create leadership level content, business coaches.

Consultants and others hire him to build their own power content machine, and I'm looking forward to sharing a little bit more about what that is and learning from Jason. Welcome, Jason.

Jason Croft: Thank you so much. So glad to be here, Mike.

Mike O'Neill: Jason, I'm looking at your backdrop, and for those who are watching this, they see on your backdrop, Media Leads strategy and act, what is that? Strategy and act? Action podcasts that's the name of your podcast, right?

Jason Croft: Yes. One of them, yes.

Mike O'Neill: All right. How many podcasts do you host?

Jason Croft: Two right now, and. Got a, got a couple more about to launch.

Mike O'Neill: Ah, well, as people can already tell, if you already host two and you're about to launch two more, you are the right expert to have this conversation since I brought up strategy in action. Is that how you'd say it? Strategy in action.

Jason Croft: Yes, exactly.

Mike O'Neill: Tell me what that podcast, what's it all about?

Jason Croft: Certainly it's a, it's a show about, and for coaches and consultants, for an audience of coaches and consultants. Because in practicing what I, I preach and we'll get into today on, on that, why do a podcast I really.

Reach, you know, having your ideal clients on the show and, and that that's who I love to work with. And so it made the show all about them and we really structure every episode as well around a, a core topic. Whether that's, it really depends on, on what that's guest's expertise is in, but that way we, we come together and we have this.

Meaningful, meaty discussion rather than just, you know, a history lesson, maybe of, of their life story. And really kind of getting into, the, the nitty gritty so the audience can take away some, some good action points.

Mike O'Neill: Jason, I have shared what kind of led to the podcast was actually a webinar series for me at the very beginning of the, of the pandemic.

We didn't know what to do. People were scrambling. And someone whose opinion I value a lot says, Mike, you oughta start a webinar. Well, I listened to her and I immediately hung up and I had to go look up what a webinar was. I wasn't sure what it was. And lo and behold, two weeks later, I was hosting my first webinar.

It was recorded live and I was bringing experts on, and we were just learning from each other what to do as a result. I love the spontaneity of it, but I didn't necessarily like the pressure of it had to be right. Because this was live, any technical issue became a problem. So that kind of morphed. After 26 weeks into this podcast, I simply wanted to continue on inviting folks that I would find interest in, and the people who I get to work with would find interest.

That's what prompted me to start a podcast. But you've got some other ideas as to why people might consider starting a podcast. What might be some of those reasons?

Jason Croft: Oh, absolutely. And sometimes that is the reason it is I really wanna have these great conversations. I want to, to, to. To dig in and learn from these folks, and, and that's fine.

Sometimes that is enough. What I get into a lot, and we'll, we'll dive into here for sure, is, you know, those business reasons around having it and make sure that you can achieve, you know, that first goal there and have it still benefit your business. Because as much as I, you know, preached. Bring on your ideal clients.

Bring on strategic partners, those folks who have an audience of your ideal clients. I take my own medicine about half the time. The other half of the time is just like, Ooh, I wanna talk to that person. And that, you know, I bring them on the show. You know, where, where, where appropriate. Sometimes, you know, you have to start another show to have, you know, maybe that type of person on the, for it to fit maybe.

But that's, that's the fun of it because I, I talk a lot when I talk about the why behind doing a show that's going to benefit your business. I talk a lot about the, the sales aspect and rather than, you know, treating this like, Just a content marketing piece, that that's what we've heard, you know, since the, the dawn of podcasting, kind of, you know, it's, that's what's preached, you know, just put that value out there and in six months, two years, eventually someone will be interested, like, hold on.

Like if you structure this the right way and have the right mindset going into it. This can be valuable to your business from episode one and then all the promise that that content marketing makes all that, all that happens as well because it is an evergreen platform. It's fantastic. So I, I talk a lot about that, but I mean, one of the greatest things that this is for too is networking in general to be a networking tool.

Wow. And, and shout out to our mutual friend Daniel Andrews. I'll stop saying that. To build a network, a tool to build a network rather than networking, I'll appreciate that one. It's, it's fantastic. Cause it really is, it's the greatest cold outreach tool that you can have to, to have a conversation with somebody you've maybe been trying to get on the phone or just connect with for six months when you have this platform.

It, it allows you to have that conversation when their guard is down, you're actually putting them in the spotlight, but you actually get to, to give, right at the beginning, you know, you, you, you are shining that spotlight on them. You're creating this piece of content that they get to then go and share with their audience.

And so it's just this. It's what we would all love a first sales conversation to be right, A casual un, you know, understand who each person is, their value, what they do, and if there's even anything there to maybe, you know, do business together or introduce each other. And so that extends out into networking and, and all of that as well.

There's a lot of times that. You know, someone maybe is referring me to folks and that's just awesome. And, and the one thing I have at the moment is to bring them on the show as that reciprocation, you know, and say like, man, I don't have anybody right now, but if you wanna come on the show, if that helps you at all, that would be great.

So, so many, so many useful tools and or useful reasons to go and, and start something like this.

Mike O'Neill: Jason, when I started this, I found myself scrambling. There were already a lot of podcasters out there. There's far more even now. And I know that we're not going to talk about the mechanics of microphones platforms.

That would be for another purpose. But I guess what I am kind of curious about is I know that you work primarily with coaches and consultants. I happen to do both. So that's how you and I originally crossed paths. And so I probably would be the kind of person who would be reaching out to you from the, from the get go.

But you don't limit your clients to just coaches and consultants. You work with others as well, is that correct?

Jason Croft: Yeah, and there's, I mean, As far as my full breadth of work in the, you know, the past 31 years, it's kind of, you know, every type of business under, under the sun, a lot of B2B in the, in the past.

But especially that what, what that term, you know, more of like service providers, coaches, consultants, maybe even, you know, agency owners, professional services, any of, any of those folks can really benefit from, from this structure. But yeah, that's, you know, Coaches, consultants, those are, those are my people like, like, that I just resonate with.

Those are my dear friends. Those are, you know, that's my circle of, of folks. And, and so that's really why I've, I've focused there and, and, and as opposed to, you know, early on starting media leads, I was focusing at that B2B level because using a podcast in this way as a sales tool, it's, it's such a, Fantastic tool for them.

For b2b, if you, you're in super high ticket sales, long sales cycles, you can shorten sales cycles so much. But I found there was such an education process to, it's so outside the norm of, you know, telling some, you know, large B2B sales team. Like, here's what you should do is start a show and was like, what are you talk, you know, I don't have to educate.

Coaches, consultants, and other service providers on the value of a podcast. Even just generally like, oh yeah, I could see I've been wanting to start one anyway, and then I'll help them structure it in a way that actually, you know, benefits their, their business and yeah. And I, I just wanna, I wanna applaud you for, you know, what it, you said, this is a hundred, episode 133, the webinar series.

Before that, heck, I mean, just jump again, going from what's a webinar to two weeks later doing 26 weeks straight. That is the, that is the biggest lesson I hope somebody grabs from this is just go, you know, just like you said, there's, we can, we can talk mechanics and I can help people through that, but it go, do the reps jump in and do do all of that.

So yeah, it's, that's powerful.

Mike O'Neill: You know, as we're chatting before we start this recording Jason. Helped me with something that was podcast related, and I'll go ahead and share with our viewers and listeners. And that is, I realized that up to this point for a hundred plus episodes, I was really trying to make it all about the guest.

And I had a surprising number of people that says, I really listened to your podcast. Love your podcast, Mike. What do you do that didn't even know? And so I've committed myself to be a little bit more intentional to explain that. Not because I'm trying to make the podcast about me, but what I realized is people didn't know.

And what's interesting about that is that what I was doing two years ago has evolved, and that's the beauty of, of podcasting is that it can evolve with you. Let's say that there's someone listening to this podcast and they kind of have them back in their mind, you know? I've, I've been on a, a few podcasts.

I think that kind of got the bug. I'd like to maybe explore that. Can you just kind of walk us through, when you take on a new client, what are those big things that you're trying to help them understand if they're considering starting a podcast?

Jason Croft: Be, be glad to. If, if I may, really quickly to address what you brought up.

Number one, us cross crossing paths and, and sort of having that, that first conversation about all this. Thank you. And again, you know, great shout out to the wonderful Suzanne Taylor King that introduced us and we've been in, in her world and cross crossing paths there. But that, that realization that, that you had, it was, I mean, that was something that I had to get taught, you know, very point blank.

You know, multiple episodes into, to my second show that I had done. So first show I ever did Startup Dallas, I was still back there. You know, we had a production company, we did this in-person, you know, big thing. Did 80 something episodes of that. It was great. It was a, it was specifically a marketing tool.

I fell in love with it, loved it. My second show I did, I jumped in and Seinfeld style driving entrepreneurs around and had a blast doing it and, This fantastic lesson for me was when I interviewed Matthew Pollard. Great introvert sales guy. Like that's his, his whole message and really awesome guy, wonderful.

Driving around, interview. We got back, we parked, he said, do you mind if I coach you a little bit? I was like, always please. He said, we've had a great epi. I feel amazing. We spent the last hour, I getting to tell my story, getting you know all about me. What about you? So similar to, to, to somebody coming, coming to you, Mike, what do you do?

That was, that just hit home. He said, that's great, but this is your show, your platform. You need to be right there with me. And that was, That. I've never forgotten that. Right. I've never let that go. And that was why, I mean, I've structured, you know, strategy and action. That best structure I described earlier was exactly for that.

So that we are two experts having a conversation on the show rather than what's so easy for me. And I think a lot of people who are halfway interested in the other person, you know, it's so much easier. Just go, oh wow. Oh that's cool. I mean it's a new, they're, you know, And you should have some of that.

Like, that's great, but this is a positioning thing and that this flows into what I would, you know, that advice I would give to somebody starting out in that first conversation. I, you know, there's a list of things that, that we go through that I call, you know, decisions and elements, right? All the decisions that need to get made from a po, you know, if you're going to do a podcast, and then all the elements that need to get created, just that launch, you know, just to get going.

And a lot of those decisions are. You know, your show name, your ideal client, how you think this is going to benefit your business. Why do you wanna do that? I always start with that. You know, I wanna do a podcast. Why? You know, just like you talked about at the very beginning, why do this? That's the biggest thing.

And if, and if it's to benefit your business at all. Awesome. Let's structure, let's dig in. And so we really start with who they're trying to reach, who their ideal client is. And it depends on, you know, what they're doing. Again, I work with coaches, consultants, and what I encourage them to do as much as they can in the, in the structure of the show, cause this goes into the major decision in, in how you structure a show, is to do what they do for people in public.

If, if at all possible coach people on your show if you're a coach, right? If you're a marketing expert, help them with their marketing, some insights, something specific to them during that episode, because that's, in a perfect world, you're inviting that ideal client on any way to have that conversation.

So that's an easy, oh yeah, I get that. But also you're demonstrating it for anybody who listens or watches what you do, exactly how you do it. Your process, your personality, your insights that you can have in a moment. And then if you build those elements around it, like you and I have discussed the intro, the outro, maybe an ad in the middle, whatever that might be, but that demonstration of, Hey, if here's how I help people, if you love what you're hearing today and you think you might need some help with that, reach out.

Glad to have a conversation. And it's that easy. It's that casual. And we hear it all the time on other people's podcasts, but when we go to do it so often we get into, oh, ugh, this is about the ga I, I, I don't want to seem salesy. I don't want to, you know, it's, and it's so, it's so hard to kind of stand outside of that a little bit and go, oh wait, okay.

I'm putting all of this time, effort, money into this. This is, this is prime time real estate. You know, like this is, you know, back in the day, 7:00 PM on NBC, right? Like, this is, we're going through all of this, like, let's, let's make sure that somebody listens or watches this. They know how, how you work with somebody.

Mike O'Neill: You know, one of the things I've discovered with podcasting is to some extent, there's a lot of interaction I have with the guest. And then we go back and finish it up. We begin promoting it. But I don't know exactly who is listening to the episodes. I know how many I know from which countries they come, and I kind of go, oh, that's pretty cool.

Thousands of downloads, listeners from 50 plus countries, but. But who actually is listening and are they getting anything out of that? It was just very gratifying. Not long ago someone who I knew, but I had no idea that this person was listening to the podcast and the conversation went something like this.

Mike, I've been listening to the podcast. I love the guest, but I also feel that the kinds of things that you talk about, I think you can help me. Let's talk. That was it. And so I didn't go in, in a, from a sales standpoint, he already vetted me because as you can probably tell, you're better looking. You sound better.

Your, your picture is clearer than mine. But with me is, what'd you see is what'd you get, flaws and at all. And what I would just throw out to those who are listening, who are saying, well, do I have to be on? The answer is, you got to be yourself. And I hope what people are starting to hear is that what makes podcasts appealing is, is they're real.

Matthew, I think this is the first episode I've ever done, that we even get into this topic of, of, of podcast. You've shared that there are some important decisions that people need to make. The most important is why do it. You have shared that in an ideal setting, the people you would bite on would as guests, would be be potential clients.

But we both are subject to meeting people we find interesting and say, I think they'd be great podcast guests. And that's what's kept me fresh, is I learn, I, I look down and I'm writing down. When I'm talking to guests and people think maybe I'm doing something else, I'm taking notes just like others.

So I'm learning a great deal there. You know, Jason, you could talk at length about a wide variety of things. What is the number one reason why someone should not start a podcast?

Jason Croft: To me, it would be because I'm going to be the next Joe Rogan. Next week, right? Like it's, it's just that monetization in terms of ads and millions of listeners and, and all of that. Not that, that's not a worthy goal. Cool. You wanna do that and be that personality. Awesome. But for the, the business owner who thinks, oh, well I'm going to do this so that I also, you know, That's a, that's icing on the cake.

That's long term. And yeah, do it long enough and put in the reps and do a whole lot of other things around that. You, you can get to that point, that's fine. But it's having that, realistic you know, aspect to, to, to, or goal going into it. But, but also not even that negative side of like, oh, don't dream big.

You know, I don't mean that at all. But what I do mean is I. That's, that's the lottery win. If that happens, cool. There's so much you can do if you really want to do this podcasting thing to earn money very quickly, you know, when it's structured and tied into to your business. And then, you know, the, the kind of in between those two things though, too, or, or is the fact that you can, you can monetize earlier than you think if you're, you know, Like going back to that B2B space, right?

If you, if you're talking to a really specific group of folks bringing on those kind of folks to a podcast that, you know, there's not a. There's not a big demand necessarily for them from listenership or viewership, but it's an amazing niche that's underserved and spends a lot, right? So in that B2B space, you know, you may, you may partner up with a, a SaaS company that, you know, one sale for them is multi six figures.

Sure. If you've got an audience of these folks, however small, or you're just starting out, they'd be willing to do something like that all the way to. You know, it, it might be friends and family, just like, Hey, you wanna just support me? I'm going to do this podcast thing. You know? And that happens rust to Edge.

Friend of mine just met on, out on LinkedIn. He did that with his podcast from episode one. It was monetized just from, he just went around to local businesses where he was and said, I really wanna do this podcasting thing. And they were supporting him more than, oh, we're going to get out there and be seen.

But I think, again, we're in our heads about a lot of this stuff that, oh, okay, well, that I can't do that till, you know, I have a million, a million downloads or something like that. And so there's all of these, these different ways. And the only other thing I would caution against for folks who are, you know, maybe to say, don't do it for these reasons.

I, I don't know if it's just another one or I should really be doing this without a full awareness of that time commitment. Like it is crazy. You're either, even if you're paying to outsource a bunch of it, that time commitment to promote and do all of those things it's a big, it's a big undertaking.

But it's. That's why I encourage so much tie it in your business, have an ROI to it, and that'll keep you doing it because even if you love it, if there's not an ROI to it, it'll fall by the wayside.

Mike O'Neill: There are so many ways we could kind of unpack this topic. One thing I do want to cover, and that is when people think of a podcast, I think of what you record it, it gets uploaded to Spotify or Apple and that's it.

And I think what you've tried to do with your clients is point out. You could record a podcast, but the content that results can be used in a variety of ways. How can podcast content be repurposed?

Jason Croft: Yeah. So many ways, and that's, that's why I've always done. Video podcast as well, because certainly the audio goes up to, to Spotify and Apple and all the, all those places.

But now you've got video over there for YouTube and again, that just grows, that becomes this evergreen, asset that you build over there. And then, you know, gosh, you can turn that into. Newsletter article for your, you know, LinkedIn crowd. You can splice it up, especially when you have it on video, it just becomes easier to promote out on social because you can splice up the videos.

They've got something to look at and create all the different formats for that. There's so many, so many different ways. The other way too is, you know, let's talk through that scenario. You brought on your ideal client, right? Had them on an episode because you. They're exactly who you serve in the industry, in the market, in a role that you, you know, as the decision maker for you.

Well, now you can take that even just a clip of that and go message a hundred people on LinkedIn who are also just like that guest and say, Hey. Just interviewed so-and-so. It reminded me a lot of you and what you're doing. He gave, you know, there's some great insights. Thought this might be useful to you.

I mean, what a great opening tool to have in all of this as well. Or you know, when you first, not, if you're already connected, you can use this in a variety of ways to connect to more of those folks as well when you can jump in and say, I'm always looking for new guests on my show from this industry, yada, yada.

I'd love to connect, maybe have that conversation. There's just a variety of ways like that, that you can really reach out and do and yeah, they, they absolutely, they, they, they take time and there's you, you know, effort and all of that. But when you can, when you can do that, you can put the time in for, you know, one episode and turn it into to all these other pieces for sure.

Mike O'Neill: I think people realize we were recording this, both audio and video. A lot of people don't know that, this is available on a video. We have a YouTube channel. Some prefer it visually. That's why we choose to do it that way. Another little nuance of what you just subscribe is in the back of my mind as I am speaking to a potential guest.

I'm trying to ask myself how might they use this finished podcast to help them get word out about what they do? And so there's a kind of a role you're trying to stay engaged with that current conversation, but the resulting podcast, how might that benefit them? And if it does, everybody wins. I get a great guest.

I can promote that podcast. Needless to say, in promoting the podcast that brings attention to bench builders and to to, to my business. That's great. But if the guests can take that same podcast and go share it with their tribe, that's what's really been kind of powerful, the, the way you really can deepen relationships, as a result.

Jason, in keeping with the theme of this podcast, I'd like to kind of ask you to think about a time where perhaps you. Or a client got stuck and when that happened, what did it take to get them unstuck?

Jason Croft: Oh, goodness. The one that comes to mind for me that I can, I can speak to for myself is, is, is honestly this transition that I've been in.

I think you and I discussed it a little bit on, on a call earlier this week, but that transition that I've been in from. You know, the service provider done for you for 31 years now. Right? That's easy for me to jump in and like, oh yeah, I'll shoot that for you. I'll edit that for you to transition to the coaching aspect of what I do.

Because it's always, it's always been there for years and years and years, you know, from behind the camera and all of that, you know, coaching people through this process, but realizing and allowing. To lead myself to lead with that. Right. And I really use that term allowing because it is such a head game.

Because logically it's like, yeah, dummy, you've been doing this for years, you're really good at this. You can help people through that. It's okay to just do that aspect of it. But then getting through that, We, we all know what to do then, you know, really knowing down in here right, is a different animal.

And having, again, coaches consult, these are my peeps, these are my wonderful people in my life. Having enough of them slap me in, in the face with, yeah, what are you doing? Yeah. Come on, let's go. You need to be doing this and having the guidance of Suzanne Taylor King Charlie Timmons, who, who, you know, we all know as well there in the group.

But getting those, just that, not just, yeah, you can do it. You know, not, not that, but really structuring things in a way of. Yes, it's very possible. Here's how you do it. And then, and then just moving forward and, you know, like you, with the webinars way back, just jumping in and going, yes, I do that now.

And, and going. So that, that's the, that's the one that comes to mind the most on the, on the, on the being stuck.

Mike O'Neill: I appreciate you sharing that in large part. You and I had a conversation literally earlier this week. And I shared with you that I get a chance to do a variety of things. Consulting is what most people think I spend most of my time, and that is true.

But the thing that I find that I really probably enjoy even more is the coaching. Yeah. I am a certified executive coach, but most people don't know that. When I shared that with you earlier this week, what you said is, Mike, why don't you just make that clearer? And maybe I can help you with that. So literally as we wrap up this episode, I'm going to be trying a new close that talks about a, a little bit.

Now that's how you help me make known maybe something that I would like to do more of. In the same way you've had folks who know you say, you know, you too. Jason ought to be doing that. So I just thought that you and I are on a a parallel path. And hopefully we can find ways to be supportive of each other along the way.

Jason Croft: Absolutely. And that, and that it really does make the case right for, you know, people kind of laugh at it a little bit, but, you know, coaches, having coaches and, you know, coaching other coaches and all that. So, but it really, it really does speak to this, the, the, the power of coaching of. You know, having that mirror held up for us and just that outside perspective, we all need it.

It doesn't matter how successful, how many years, how many of those, just to have that, that other little, like, eh, have you thought about this? Like, We all, all need it. And that's, and that's, I don't know, for me that's, that's, that's the fun stuff, right? Is finding those little, those little tweaks. And and that's why I certainly like, please give me some insight anytime you want to, because I know that there's not a whole lot more perspectives out there.

Mike O'Neill: Jason, I know that folks either listening or watching or saying, gosh, I need to see this guy cause he's got a great voice. I wonder if he's got something to match that great voice. If folks really want to learn more about media leads, about how you help clients, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Jason Croft: I ask this most direct, just thejasoncroft.com and that's one of, it's kind of like a multi-site landing page there that'll get them to media, leads to the shows that I'm doing, LinkedIn, all that fun stuff. I've definitely spent a lot of time over on LinkedIn. It's probably where I promote my shows the most and have that engagement over there.

Mike O'Neill: Speaking of engagement, we've been chatting, I've lost track of time. We probably went over the normal amount of time that we spend on a typical podcast. I can assure you, we could have gone on much longer. You've been a great guest. Thank you.

Jason Croft: I appreciate it. Thank you so much for, for having me on. It's been a blast.

Mike O'Neill: I want to thank our listeners for joining us also today, for those who are looking to truly get unstuck and moving forward. I've got something special for you. My favorite thing, and honestly, what I'm probably best at is coaching leaders in a way that does exactly that gets them unstuck. Now, I'm not that good at creating multi-page sales letters or kind of detailing a 27 point system for how I do it.

I have found that the most effective way to demonstrate how I coach leaders like you is to actually coach. So I'm offering a complimentary coaching session for folks like you who are doing incredible things but have maybe hit a wall or who know you've got more to give, but you just need some help seeing that path.

There's going to be no obligation to future sessions, no sales pitch. Just a powerful conversation. And a new perspective to walk away with. If you'd like to experience the benefit of such a coaching session, just go to our website, bench-builders.com to book a time. It's that simple. So I wanna thank you for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some quick wins from Jason that'll help you get unstuck and on target.