Business Innovators Radio - Episode 51: From The Jobsite to the Mic Using Podcasting to Attract Better Clients

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

This conversation dives into how personal development sharpens communication and confidence—and how podcasting gives contractors a powerful edge in marketing. Learn how sharing your story and expertise can strengthen client loyalty, improve referrals, and position you as the go-to expert in your market. In The Zonehttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/in-the-zone/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/episode-51-from-the-jobsite-to-the-mic-using-podcasting-to-attract-better-clients

Welcome to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live, brought to you by U.S. Construction Zone, bringing you strategies for success with construction innovators and change makers, including In The Zone peer-nominated national award winners. Here's your host, Jeremy Owens. Welcome back to In The Zone. I'm your host, Jeremy Owens, owner and founder of U.S. Construction Zone and three generations improvements in sunny and hot Northern California. Thanks for being here today and thanks for listening. Congrats again for working on your business today. We are sponsored by two great brands. Build12.com automate your construction business into a revenue generating machine with the Build 12 system. Great CRM, all the bells and whistles that you could possibly need. I've been using it for a few years.

Check out Build12.com. Ask for less. He'll take care of you. We are also sponsored by the great team at Builder PayPro. If you need a construction payment platform, this is the one for you. Stop paying those fees. Give those fees to the client. We can't afford the three, three and a half percent of fees.

Instead, you give those fees right to the client, except ACH payments. Invoicing tool, everything integrates directly with QuickBooks online so it's ready to use. Visit builder paypro.com for a demo. Think about today's show. I've been podcasting now for a few years. I'm not quite an expert yet, but I can't tell you how rewarding it has been for me from the beginning of this journey to now, whether it's my own show or being on guest podcasts, the main thing I've taken away from it is how much I've learned from other people. And yes, I get to pick topics and guests that I want. But this is a great topic for us today because this is a chance to learn about maybe you getting your own podcast.

and maybe it's geared for homeowners so that it can actually help you get more leads. Right now, leads are down, people are scrambling, they're looking for creative ways to find clients. This might just be the one. Our show today is called, from the job site to the mic, using podcasting to attract better clients. This conversation dives into how personal development sharpens communication and confidence and how podcasting gives contractors a powerful edge in marketing.

Learn how sharing your experience and expertise can strengthen client loyalty, improve referrals, and position you as the go-to expert in your market. Our guest today is Scott Edwards. As a business entrepreneur, Scott opened over a dozen companies in his lifetime, from small construction companies just like ours to owning a submarine and beach shack to a disco producer. His lifelong love for comedy, led to producing live comedy shows, TV series, concert,

and in no time he opened his first comedy club. We've all heard of it. Last Unlimited, right here in Sacramento. He built this into a chain of the most successful comedy clubs in America. He brings his vast experience working with some of the most famous names in comedy, and I want to hear more about this. Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Sagitt, and Dana Carvey, to name just a few. Please help me welcome Scott.

Scott, thanks for being here. Oh, it is such a pleasure, Jeremy. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm R Scott Edwards. It's nice to be here. Hello, settle down, settle down. It's not that big a deal. You're already bringing in the fire, Scott. So we've got to start with how, I mean, that's quite an eclectic.

You've been all over. Spastic. It's been all over the place. Entrepreneur 101. Yeah, I mean, exactly. I feel that too. Like you either have that or you don't, right? It's just a, so you're always thinking of things.

You could be eating at an ice cream bar and go, like, that's a great idea. But yeah, tell us a little bit about how you got to where you're at now. Well, right now I'm retired. So whoop, whoop, but it has been a long, a weary story. But he's, Jeremy's absolutely correct. I got my start much like you guys. I started my first small construction company when I was 17 years old. Back in the late 80s, yes, I'm old.

I'm sorry, late 70s, at a decade. And back then, the marketing was strictly the yellow pages. So my company was called A&A Restripe. That's what you had to do. Be the first on the list. First on the list. We were a small, just me and a couple high school buddies, had a van and a paint machine,

and we were painting lines and parking lots and repairing asphalt and putting in concrete bumpers and doing all that kind of stuff. And it was a great learning experience. You might find this hard to believe, but I was the face and voice of the company and did the sales. And then the guys would help me do the work.

But what you, and we're really successful for 17, we did all the McDonald's in Northern California, all the Safeway stores, several other projects. And it was great learning experience. But what it taught me is that if you're in the construction industry, you have to be able to think of all the different aspects. It's not just the labor. It's the materials. It's finding the clients getting paid, balancing your cost of product with the money you're getting from your clients.

And very importantly, why we're here today is marketing. And back in the 70s and 80s, when I was doing a lot of my companies, it was really, paid ads on TV, radio, and the freebie was the Yellow Pages, and that's, yellow pages, for those of you that are under 50, that was a thick book of yellow pages that had phone numbers and companies. Actually, I stopped getting those. Are you getting those anymore? Are those kind of done-done?

I think they're done-done. I haven't seen one in a few years. Yeah, me too. But it was the only way to really reach the public. And other than, you know, other creative, low end things like print ads and, you know, bus stop ads. I mean, there's all kinds of things you could do. However, in this day and age, we're very blessed that we have social media,

which allows each and every company, construction or otherwise, to reach percentage of the public basically for free. I mean, if you put together a nice 30-second, 60-second reel or ad about your company, you can put it out over and over and over and people will find it. Right. And if you use proper SEO, it'll get spread around and you could also define it to an area. So if your companies in Northern California, then you can always focus on that. I've been a podcaster for over seven years.

Okay. It was a situation where I was winding down my entrepreneurial life and I had missed being in the comedy industry and I told my wife, you know, I'm going to write a book. And she goes, you know, no one's going to read your stupid book. Do a podcast. And I'm like, what's a podcast? You know, back a number of years ago before podcasting was very popular. So I did about six months of research and then launched. And since then, my main audio podcast is about 700,000 downloads and is considered in the top 50 stand-up comedy podcasts in the world. And it's been just a real pleasure to be a part of.

But today, Jeremy, we're here to talk about using podcasting as a marketing tool for small companies, which is something I didn't have access to back in the day, but now I utilize it quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. Yeah, I mean, it's cool to hear some of the people that you've worked with. Do you have any before we dive into some of the content, any cool stories? Who's your favorite comedian at all those? I mean, well, I grew up watching Jerry Seinfeld. And I mean, he was, you know, he was on every TV.

Right, right, right. And everybody needs to know that as the, after the construction company, you made a quick reference to it. It's not something that was quite as exciting, but I was in the DJ business and spinning disco records before Saturday night fever. I caught that wave and was able to do that. But I also opened laughs unlimited. all comedy showroom in old Sacramento.

We built it up to three clubs. They're still operating today. So that's pretty incredible legacy. But when I opened it in August of 1980, before most of you were born, it was the 12th, full-time comedy club in the country. And we had a chance to work with some of the best in the business. You name drop Jerry Seinfeld, who by the way was scheduled to work my club. and he calls me up.

And he says, hey, Scott, I got a shot at this pilot TV show. You know, I'm going to have to cancel. And I said, no, hey,

that's what we're here for. Comedy clubs are kind of the stepping stones to television and movies. And I said, you go for it. And Jerry's such a cool, straight guy and a good friend.

He calls me back a year later after the Seinfeld Chronicles had come out, later known as Seinfeld, and said, hey, I owe you a week. And he came back and worked a four-day week for the same money I had contacted with him a year earlier before his TV show. So he's a real good straight-up guy. But some of the people that got their start at my club was Dana Carvey, who went on to Damon Fortune on Saturday Night Live.

When I opened the club in 1980, the very first act making $150 for the whole week was Gary Shandling. You may know him from the Larry Sanders show and many, many movies. But what was really exciting was that once you got in the business, there was a need for quality comedy clubs. And the guys that really got me going were Dave Cooier and Bob Sagitt. Bob was a little dirty, yeah? Yeah. You know, they went on to fame and fortune with Full House and Fuller House. they also did America's Funniest Videos and many other shows.

But it was Bob Sagitt and Dave Cooleyer who really taught me the ropes. Bob Sagitt wrote and starred in my first TV commercials for free. And, oh, great quick story. Bob Sagitt calls me up and he says, hey, a buddy of mine, an actor needs to prepare a comedy set. Can I bring them up as my opening act? I mean, I got anything for you, Bob. and Bob shows up with this young man and I was teaching him the mechanics of comedy,

you know, where to look, not, you know, don't look into the lights, but look at the audience and how to use a mic and stuff like that and interacting with the crowd. And Sagitt wrote his material and we helped him put together about a five-minute set that was clean enough and good enough for television. and the very next week that actor performed that on his very first TV show, you may remember, bosom buddies, and the actor was Tom Hanks.

Jeez. Yeah. And he was a stand-up comic? I didn't know he was into that. No, no, he wasn't. He was an actor, but he had to do a little comedy set of bosom buddies. So Sagitt kind of wrote him and we taught him how to be a comic just for that brief

moment. Okay. He ended up doing a movie about being in comedy. But back then, he was a very young man and a new actor, and it was his very first show. But there's been a lot of great people, Harry Anderson, a terrific comic magician. Later on, I got a chance.

My dad was a big fan of comedy. So to please him, I brought in people like Soupy Sales and Pat Paulson. And one of the comics that went on to Fame and Fortune, that literally her first, you know, real gig out of her hometown of Boston was at Laps Unlimited. And that was Paula Poundstone. And she ended up doing really well. But a number of people got a chance to work my stage.

Robin Williams dropped in twice. So, you know, getting a chance to just be in that industry and interact with such talented people made me want to stay connected with comedy after my retirement. and I went into podcasting, and during the audio podcast, stand-up comedy, your host and MC, I get a chance to not only share a lot of great comedy sets from the 80s and 90s, from all these celebrities and many, many other people that are not famous, but very funny. And then I interviewed many people from the industry, club owners, waitresses, agents, managers, and many, many comics, and all those are on my podcast. and it turned out I kind of created a history of stand-up comedy from the 80s and 90s,

and it's been a big success. That's great. I mean, I didn't realize I was talking to the Podfather here. That's really cool to kind of go back. I mean, because you're right, you know, back seven years ago, that was like the beginning of, right? That's when they first started coming about. But what is podcasting meant to you? I mean, obviously, like you said, you're able to stay in tune with your roots.

But are you also like a giant podcastee? listen to a lot as well? Is it a way to scratch an inch? I don't listen to as many as you might think. There's a few here and there. I have a website, a network called the Stand Up Comedy Podcast Network, where I actually host 20 different podcasts done or are created by or hosted by Standup Comics that allows me to hear different shows and different types of podcasting. But what was interesting for me is a salesman, and an entrepreneur getting into podcasting, not only let me reconnect with the entertainment world and the comedy side,

but I also took my business experience and was able, and I've been a producer my whole life. I've done two different TV series and TV special for Fox. I did radio shows. So I was able to bring all that, plus all the live stage shows, to podcasting. And so there's some business,

value. I was able to create a podcast just for Elk Grove called Heard It Here, where small companies were allowed to talk about themselves and promote themselves for free. And then I'm also the producer for a podcast of a company out of Reno, Nevada that is a business communications expert called the Wilson Method. And he's quite successful as a speaker and as a teacher of of business communications. So podcasting has had a chance to breach both the entertainment and the business side of my life. And that makes it very satisfying that way.

Yeah, that's awesome. So that's a lot of great kind of content there. Let's talk a little bit about podcasting now. Like, how can we use it for marketing? Because obviously for a lot of us who have just been ingesting it, we haven't really put that side of their brain on and how can we actually use this for our home service business? Well,

every small business is looking for ways, creative ways to reach a potential client and customers. And podcasting is really one of the newest forms that's really gaining a lot of speed in marketing. And the reason is that it gives you a platform to talk about yourself, your company, your clients,

your successes, and share, it with whoever might be interested. And what I've taught a lot of young companies in Elk Grove, my home base, is that if you have a podcast or you're a guest on a podcast,

you get a chance to talk about yourself, your success is your company, and, you know, share, hey, here's my address, here's my phone number. But you have to then use that tool like you would, let's say if you created a radio ad,

If you just ran it on the radio, you've kind of wasted it. What's great about podcasting is every company's got a website. So you connect that podcast to the website. Then you do social media ads, and you can connect your website and the podcast to those social media ads. And then if you do do a paid ad, television or radio, you're plugging your website, plugging your podcast. And they all work in conjunction together to bring. people and information about your company to the public. You know, for example, everybody that we're talking to has a business card.

Hopefully, if you're smart, not only do you have your phone number, but you have your website on there. Well, imagine if you can now add a podcast link that people can go to because they're maybe not sure if they should hire you or not. They can go to that podcast and they hear you talking about your suppliers, where you get your product. or they hear other customers saying how great you are, or you get a chance to share the awards that you've won

or the successes you've had in business. Or maybe they hear you interview one of your employees that's talking about the value of working for your company. You know, three generations' improvements has had many awards. Right. Imagine going out and being able to share that with everybody in a certain region. And that's something else that's great about podcasting is, Yes, my podcast go worldwide.

Right. You can market them to a small geographical area for very affordable. And people will find you on, you know, X or Instagram or something like that and have access. On top of your business card, on top of your magnet sign on your trucks, or on top of your website. I mean, it all really works together, right? Yeah, no, definitely. So podcasting for the home service business is probably a little bit, this would be kind of the ground floor, right? I mean, I haven't really heard of it too much with our type of industry.

So maybe the ground floor for us, but for podcasting, we're at the boom. So one of my questions to you is like, is it saturated or is it or are you seeing kind of podcast come and go? Because that's what's been my experience is like now that I'm past a year and I got a rhythm. I enjoy it. So it's like part of my life. But like for a lot of people, they do a couple months and they're like, well, shit, this is just too much. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things that gets hot.

And right now, podcasting is hot. And, you know, there's a million people that will start a podcast. But the only ones that really make it work for themselves is when you're consistent and persistent, you have to stay with it and build up a foundation of, base podcast and then just keep adding to it so that you have this, you know, tower of advertising and information that potential customers and clients can find and rifle through to find what interests them. But you're right.

Most people fail. But it's much like being an entrepreneur and all the people we're talking to that have successful businesses. How many people do they know that wanted to start a construction business or a restaurant or something and failed? Right. Failure is the stepping stones to success. If you're not trying, you're not failing, right?

If you're not failing, you're not trying. Either way you put it. So podcasting, much like a lot of other formats to reach platforms, to reach potential clients, is high and low. For example, it used to be the Yellow Pages. Well, times have moved on and that doesn't work anymore. There was a time it used to be television, but that was really expensive.

and with streaming and stuff, it's got a smaller and smaller audience. Radio used to be like number one for small business because you can get on fairly afforded. And it's just in your region. But these days with streaming and everything, radio is actually lowering its audience as podcasting is building its.

So really podcasting, I think, is the future. And if you have any doubts about that, if you do a little research, you'll learn that as recently as five or six years ago, there was maybe, you know, a few hundred thousand, maybe half a million dollars in advertising business and podcasting. And now it's well over a billion, billion and a half. It's crazy what advertising is done with podcasting and vice versa. They support each other. Yeah. For any small business, if you start a podcast, which is challenging, it's not difficult.

I mean, Jeremy did it. Come on. Yeah. That's what, people. Let's go. Is this thing on? We've all been there. And we're so proud of all your success, Jeremy.

Thank you. He's done a great job. But what he's done is he's taken three generation improvements and put it at a higher level than his competitors because he not only has his business card and his website and his other marketing, like his name on his trucks and stuff, he's got a podcast. And that is a way for his potential customers to learn more and more about the suppliers that give you your quality products. They learn about your customer success much better than Yelp because you can kind of formulate

what you want to share with the public. But also your employees, you know, why has Ben been with your company for five years? Well, he's good at his job and he likes it. You know, let Ben share that story. Let customers say how happy they are with your work. There are so many things you can do. You can talk about trends in the industry. And people are always looking for what's next in construction and home improvement.

You can share ideas that not only are coming up in the world. but your company does. Another thing you and I talked about at a previous podcast is you can share safety tips. You know, hey, today we're going to talk about balconies and safety. You know, how important the construction is and the railing and safety with kids and having the rail so far apart so kids can't slip through. All the little things that might seem mundane, but to families out there that are thinking about getting a balcony and have kids. kids under five or six are worried about. Yeah.

Also, we talked about, you know, kind of highlighting our network, right? So, you know, having, you know, Scott our electrician on and having our roofer on, you know, so it's like an opportunity for those who have similar growth mindset is like, hey, let's share, let's be on each other's podcast. Let's highlight each other. Exactly. Let's let's. Yeah.

Cross-pilation. Yeah. You talk about your suppliers. guess what? Your suppliers are going to talk to their customers about you. You know, let's say you have a siding company that you use and you bring the siding company president on

and you talk about his siding and how good it is, now easy it is and durable it is to take care of. And then when that siding guy is on another podcast or starts his own podcast, guess what? He's going to be talking about three generations improvement and the value that they bring using their siding. right that cross-pollination builds customer base builds clients it's it's a real synergy that way yeah and you talked a little bit about consistency so let's get let's get to some of the details so how often do you

think it should be coming out what the time you know obviously we're talking to more the homeowners now so it may be a little bit less long form and a little bit more succinct so what's your take on that So my example is my own podcast. I started off doing one-hour shows because that was considered, you know, what you needed to do six, seven years ago. But with the short attention span of the public and with the idea in business that you want to be short and succinct and get to the point of things, generally these days my podcast are around 20, 25 minutes. But for businesses, it could be anywhere from five to 15 minutes.

It doesn't have to be long. Whatever it takes to get the information out. For example, if you were doing a safety show, it might only be 10 or 15 minutes, but if you're interviewing a supplier or a customer, it might take a half hour. What's great about podcasting is there's no time limit. And if it's interesting and fascinating, and that's where editing comes in, you can make that a tight informational package that now you can share to your potential customers. But it is, so going to your question, the general rule is once a week, but you could be just as successful doing once a month, once a quarter, as long as you're consistent and persistent. I recommend once a week. There are some that are very into it and do it daily, but there's twice a week.

I mean, there's really anything. What's great about podcasting, it's free-form entertainment. you know, free form and information sharing. So you could do whatever time is needed to get the point across, and you could do it as much as you want. My recommendation is doing it once a week, keeping it tight, 15, 20 minutes. But as consistent and persistent is what I keep saying, is that's what builds the audience. So let's say you decide you want to do your podcast, Jeremy, what the rules are and the

I would recommend it is that you produce your first three or four shows. Right. You pick a launch date. You launch all three shows on the initial launch date. So right off the bat, you have three different shows that people can find and listen to and decide if this is something they want to follow, share, or be a part of. Then I like to bank shows. So I pre-edit, I pre-produce maybe five shows, ten shows, whatever I can. get away with three shows. And then I don't have that pressure form. Like, you know, you might say,

hey, I'm going to do a show next Wednesday. And then you have a construction opportunity where you've got to be on the job and be on the site. You can't be there once they do the show. Now you're not consistent. You're not persistent. You're going to lose your followers, right? But if you bank them, you're always working several months ahead. So in my, case with my show. I'm generally two months ahead. So that's only eight shows because I do once a week, right? So it's not an insurmountable amount of content. And that allows me the freedom to travel or do what I need and not worry about the show being launched. And with Buzz Sprout and other platforms, you can set up and schedule the launch dates of your podcast. I should share that

Jeremy, you do a video podcast and you do a live stream. I was old school. When I started, it was just a audio podcast, which I think is the way to start because it is easy. People can listen to it while they're in the car. They can listen to it while they work out. There's no screen in their face. And it's very comfortable for people to listen to audio podcast. However, the future is video podcast. That's where things are going. I launched my my first video podcast a year ago. It's called the Tag Team Talent Podcast. And it's available on YouTube and Spotify.

I just hit, by the way, whoop, whoop last month, I hit one million views. Wow. Worldwide, so very exciting. But it is a little bit more work, a little bit more energy to do a video podcast because you're adding extra equipment.

You're adding, you know, you want to be pretty. And don't, worry, Jeremy. We'll work on the makeup. So it is a little bit more challenging. For example, if you have guests, you have to have them there in the room on camera with you or doing it like this and a professional Zoom call. With audio podcast, I did many of my interviews over the phone. So I was able to interview Dave Strassman, who's a famous ventriloquist out of Australia,

or Kelly Monteth, who's a famous comment. out of England. You don't have to be. Right. You can get better talent that way, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you just choose what works for you. You, the contract and producer of your podcast, make these decisions.

So audio, video, how often you want to do it, how many shows you want to book ahead. And what I would say, much like small business, Jeremy, you and your fellow contractors know this, you're not really a success if you don't make it five years. And most small businesses don't make it three years. The vast, vast majority, something like 85, 90 percent fail in the first three years in small business. Podcasting, as you pointed out, is a lot of people start and then they flake. Now, because it's the Internet, even if you only did three podcasts, they're kind of out there in the cloud. to be found, but it's not showing any professionalism on your company's part. So if you want to do

this, be a pro, get into it and stick with it. And just like Jeremy, after the first year, and then three years and then five years, if you do it once a week, once a month, whatever you decide to do, but you're consistent with it and you're persistent with it and you bring, it doesn't have to be real professional, by the way. Let's get that off the table. Don't worry about having the perfect camera, perfect makes that jump into it. You'll learn as you go. Right. Definitely.

Let's talk a little bit about the trust component to podcasting. I find this to be fascinating, but also I value it myself. There's a credibility built into this, right? Like when we're doing this and we're talking about our business, you know, is it building trust for our clients? And then what kind of clients maybe are we attracting that we wouldn't ordinarily do if we didn't have one? Well, it is true. And in business and in sales, and all of us know that we're all businessmen,

we're all salesmen, right? Yeah. What do you think is more successful in sales? Calling somebody up and saying, hey, please be a client or going and seeing them, right? That personal exchange makes it much more intimate, makes it much more likely you're going to have a chance to close that sale. Because they're meeting you, which builds trust, they can talk to you and ask you questions. which builds trust that, yeah, you could do in a phone call or you can do in a TV ad, but being there with a potential client is really what closes the sale and builds that trust that they're going to invest in you to get something done. The other thing about podcasting is we're raised as kids to kind of look up to people that

are on the radio or people that are on TV. You know, many, many, many, many of them are not celebrities, but just the fact that they're on TV or on radio gives them a certain air, right? A certain pedigree that bring them up. So when a company does a podcast, based on what we've learned through our lives, podcast is very similar to radio and TV. It's a format to reach a client that is up a level. So when you say, oh, I have a podcast and most of your competitors don't, that puts you at a higher professional level. You're going to get more respect. You're going to get more attention because you've raised your business to that level.

Jeremy, you've been doing this year. Don't you feel that way? Absolutely. No, I really do. And I think it's just, it's a creative way of kind of showing who you are. And I think that's hard to do. Sometimes when you're just going on, quote, bids or you're just like meeting with homeowners, like, they don't know who you are. You don't get a lot of time with them, especially now.

People are not giving you an hour. Like you need to really kind of tighten things up. And so I think this is just another way to show who you are inside. And like if they really want to do a deep dive and find out, okay, let's find out a little bit more about this company than I think that you can actually look at the person. And I think that's the part that I like about the most is that. if you look at a series of a year or a couple of years I've been doing it, you're going to kind of know who I am. Oh, exactly.

You know, it's a great way to introduce yourself. You know, we're all taught to do the elevator speech. You know, you want to get your message across in 90 seconds or less. How can you make yourself stand out against your competition in a short time? Well,

what podcasting does is it takes it to the next level. Instead of 90 seconds, now you have five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes to share information about your problem. products, about your construction value, about your awards, about your customer satisfaction that builds upon what other people are doing. You know, Joe's construction down the street might have that bus bench ad or they ran

something on radio, which, by the way, was on and off in 30 seconds to be gone. Never heard again, right? Podcasting, once you put it out there, it's there forever. Right. I had a children's podcast. I did two years ago. I did it for one year. It was for my grandkids.

And it had okay success for a children's podcast. But I shut it down. And to this day, it gets five, you know, maybe downloads a week. Right. I haven't worked on it in a year and a half, right? Because once it's out there, people can find it through SEO, which is search engine optimization, and you do that using keywords and in your descriptions of your podcast helps the internet find you. So what a customer will do, and let's roll play for a second, Jeremy, I want to

hire three generations improvements, and I go to the Googler and I say, hey, I want home improvement, I need some siding, and I'm in Sacramento. And if you have, you have, have any of those words in your description or in your name, it's going to come up on the Googler, right? They're going to be able to find you. They may have to scroll a little bit, but it's going to be there. Right. You can't do that with a radio ad or a TV ad, even a print ad. Once it's out, it's gone, generally. Right, right. And podcasting, because it's part of the internet, is kind of evergreen. It's always going to be there. That's why it's really important to. stay current on your podcast because people will find it maybe months, years later and want to hear

about it. So a little hint, this is a safety hint. Don't use a lot of dates and references to a timeline. For an event, Eric's, right? Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, it won't be quite as timeless that way. Yeah, I'm with you. I like the fact that it lives on forever. I think that's a legacy component to what I do, in my work for my kids is like, hey, they're obviously not tuning in right now. Trust me, they're not tuning in right now. But in the future, if they wanted to see what I was thinking about in, hey, to do this, because you just told me not you, in 2006, they can go back to this and see what I was digging,

you know? Yeah, and vague references to time are fine. But I was just saying that if I said, hey, this is a, a special St. Patrick's Day show. Yeah. Oh, right. My green beers right over there on the bar. Yeah. It might be interesting for that moment, but won't really connect with anybody a couple

months from now. So, you know, you try to keep it somewhat generic that way. But when we're talking about trends and construction and home improvement, you know, you do want to be, hey, you know, this year, this is the hot item. That's okay, you know, because that's what you're selling. But I got to say, Jeremy, you're right on in what you're doing with your podcast. And to everybody listening, if you have a small company and you want to stand out against the competitors, by doing a podcast, not only is it informational and not only is it a great sales tool,

but it allows you to connect with potential customers on a more intimate way than any of the other medium out there. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Thanks for saying that. it does feel that way. And, you know, I kind of look back at my podcast journey and what I consume as well. And I'm trying to think of what kind of client we would attract. So let's talk a little bit about that.

I mean, not everyone does podcasting, not everyone listens to podcasts. But I think in my general experience, I'm super generalizing right now. But they tend to be kind of more thoughtful people because you are willing to take time out of your day on your commute, on your drive to actually learn about something as opposed to just, you know, veg in out with the tunes. So like I feel like it might kind of attract maybe a different client than you're used to. Well, yeah.

And let's give a great analogy of that is that if you're driving down the street and you see a bench ad for some company, you might notice it, you know, maybe, maybe if it was something you're interested in, you'll stop and try to scribble down a phone number, very unlikely, but it happens. What's great about a podcast is that people are generally searching you out, right? They're looking for, hey, I want to information on home improvement in the Sacramento area. Oh, wow, here's three generations podcast. And they can search you out.

Then they get a list of your shows and they can pick the show they want to listen to. Oh, that was informative. Oh, I learned something. I'm going to listen to more. and now they're a follower, now they're learning about you. In each every show, as you explained, it's more intimate relationship is being built. They feel like they know you. Right.

Because they've been listening to your podcast. All of a sudden, you're not just Mr. Owens contractor. You're Jeremy, who's got the podcast and happens to, you know, sharing information on construction. Yeah. So that intimacy, that information sharing on a almost, you know, it's not really one-on-one, but that's how they're getting it, right? Right. Turn on a podcast and you're talking or like we are now,

the people listening are getting the information direct from us. Right. Not through some third-party media. Yeah, exactly. Do you have recommendations on the platform you use to get it to all of the different podcast app? So I guess, have you done a deep dive on like where people are listening from? Like, is that really important?

Is Spotify the game? now. I mean, I know I use Apple iTunes, but it just depends on what you have on your hand, right? The simplest, and you've been more specific with yours, Jeremy, but the simplest is if you want to do one that's free that is a little more equipment, a little more work, because you have to understand sound and lighting, if you do a video podcast, it's free to post everything on YouTube. It's amazing. And once it's on YouTube, which, by the way, something like half a million uploads a minute or an hour, let's say, on YouTube, people will still find you.

On audio podcast, what's great is that you can do them by yourself in your room, get them laid down, get them edited, and then put them out. And there are several different platforms. I happen to use Buzz Sprout, B-U-Z-Z-S-P. R-O-U. What's great about it is once you do an audio podcast, this is different than video. You get what's called an RSS feed. All right.

And what that basically is is a link to your podcast. Buzz Sprout creates it. But then they help you connect it to Apple and Spotify and IHeart and literally more than a dozen different platforms. So I upload my podcast one time to BuzzSpruy. and they make sure it's shared with, you know, 12, 20 plus platforms. And then those platforms each have their own huge audience. So exponentially, it spreads more and more and more.

Audio podcasting is easier to pinpoint demographically where you want to hit. And the platforms that you think are important, you know, you think I'm, I really want to be strong on iHeart radio. Well, you can push your podcast to do well on iHeart and advertise it for iHeart and stuff. And you can do that through bus sprout or these other platforms. On YouTube with the video podcast, it's all on you because there's no RSS feed. There's no way to automatically share it. So it's up to you to share it. YouTube will help you with very affordable advertising. but what's great about YouTube is I do twice a week. I do these 30, 40 second reels, just a short snippet from my show, which comes out once a week.

And those snippets, I can put day after day up on social media, whether it's X or Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn. And I build my own following and my own audience with these basically mini 30 second apps. of my 20-minute podcast, all of which is out there on YouTube. So you really, it's really not as time-consuming as it sounds really easy. And get into it, Jeremy, it's kind of fun. Yeah, no, I think you're right. So for those kind of, maybe they're like, okay, I'm going to try this. What do I name it?

Is it something very specific to the industry that I support or is it more general home improvement? Like, what's your take on that? Well, the name isn't as important as the content. You know, if you're doing quality content and sharing information that your customers will find valuable, you name it whatever. However, as an entrepreneur,

I always believe that it's good to have what you do in the name. You know, my podcast, stand-up comedy, you're hosting MC. I mean, obviously it's about comedy. Right. I went off a little bit with tag team talent podcast, but talent's in there, and you find out that it's an entertainment platform. But for a construction podcast, whether it's video or audio, I would recommend somewhere in the name talking about either you or your company or what you do, mostly what you do. What's really amazing, Jeremy, we're living in a world that's just getting easier and easier. So for me, when I'm doing projects or I need help editing or I want descriptions that are good in SEO, search engine optimization, I go to chatGBT.

Totally crazy. You know, you go to chat GBT. Hey, I'm doing a podcast about my construction company and I focus on siding or roofs and I like the steel roofs and blah, blah, blah. You know, give me a title and it'll give you like 10 possible titles. Yes. Oh, I like this one, but, you know, then you got to self-edit and tweak it to make it you. But chat GPT and some of these other AI have made so easy what we need to do, just like writing a description of a podcast. Back in the day, I'd have to sit there and try to, well, what's going to really do well with SEO and I'm going to have to write it myself?

Now I just go to AI. Hey, I need a short description of this podcast episode that's based. on roofing and boom it writes it. They're right. Yeah. And the same goes for looking for topics. I think, you know, I'm just trying to think of objections that contractors might have. One would be, hey, I'm not a content person, but I think you just described it. You can go in a chat, put your website in there and say, give me 20, give me 50 topics. And the A, it would give you 50 topics. But then maybe you have a Q&A section on your website.

go down that list of Q&A and answer the questions and podcast because you can actually link it just right from your website and say, hey, you want to learn more about that, boom. And then you're linking around your website and people, if they want to learn more, they can go listen to your voice on that same topic. So the topics to me are kind of endless if you think about it. If you keep getting questions from homeowners, that's your topic. Yeah, you know, let's say we're talking about balcony safety by three-generation construction. Talking about electrical safety, three-generation construction. We're talking about, you know, Bob's Supply Company. I mean, I would put in the title kind of what the topic of that episode is.

And the name of the podcast, again, is almost irrelevant. I think it's important for sales. But once you get to the description of each episode and the title of the episode, what you want to keep kind of short and succinct, if you talk about whatever topic that is, that's what people will be searching for. You know, you got to picture Joe sitting in his computer. He's 52 years old and he's thinking of getting his house re-roofed. You know, he doesn't know anything about it.

And he goes to the Googler and says, I need a quality roofer in Sacramento. And I want to do a steel roof. We have an episode talking about your supplier that provides quality steel roofing and you have a little 15 minute podcast on it. He's going to take the time to download it and listen to it because he's getting educated. He wants to be a knowledgeable customer and a buyer of your construction work. So, you know, it really, and again, it works hand in hand with all your other marketing. I would never say do just podcasting. I would never say just radio ads or just a sign on your truck or just a business card or just a website.

You've got to do them all. And if you can't do it, it's so easy to hire somebody. Let me tell you this, Jeremy, you probably already know this because you're a hip dude. But there's a company called on the internet called Fiverr. And the key is it's spelled F-I-V-E-R-R, two-Rs. But you can hire contract labor from all over the world. And these people from all over the world, let's say a lot in India or England or, you know, who knows where they'll be from, maybe somewhere like Canada. Who knows?

But you can hire these contractors for really cheap. For example, I use a guy named Danny. I think he lives in, you know, Budapest or something. And for a really reasonable fee, he edits and creates all my reels. Now, I can do it, but I'm busy. Right. him $100 a month and I get eight reels two a week plus a bonus one. So I'm getting nine reels. I'm ending up paying maybe $10 a reel and these are 30, 40, 40 second basically many ads for

social media of my podcast. But I found him through Fiverr. And Fiverr is a way to find they can help you with writing. They can help you with websites. They can help you with podcasting. They can help you with marketing. And you pick who you want to use. You pick how much you want to spend. and what's great about going through Fiverr versus just finding somebody on the internet where you could get ripped off or somebody could steal your personal information. Fiverr is a company that backs it. So I've had a couple guys flake on me after I paid him. Fiverr paid my money back.

Nice. They don't pay the guy until I'm satisfied with the job. Right. Going through Fiverr, you have kind of a protection level there. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, that does make sense. Do you recommend transcripts? We're talking about the SEO component.

You know, you have the title, you have an image of the show, and then you have the description. And then do you have the more where it's just the transcripts so that Google can scrape the content, or do you think that's maybe a little much? No, no, no. I highly recommend it. And again, it's all about search engine optimization. You want people that are going to the Googler or any other search engine to be able to find your podcast, find your, your ad, find your information, find your website. How do you do that by having quality written descriptions on your website? You know, on your website, you should have somewhere where, you know,

info about me or my company, right? Well, that becomes information the internet can find. So what a transcript is is basically the written word of whatever happened on the show. What's great about Buzzsprout is they offer this service. And right now, because it's kind of new, it's free, but there's lots of different places you can have transcripts done. I just lost a light. Transcripts done that cost you no or little money, and they really help get that search engine optimization. All those words become part of the search engine.

Because when you're doing a podcast, you're talking about construction. You're talking about roofing or siding. You're talking about a certain supplier. Well, guess what? if somebody goes in and searches that supplier, your podcast will come up. Yeah. I'm going to give me a little more light here. That makes sense.

So if someone wanted to get started on this, what do you recommend kind of the first couple steps just so they can get a rhythm? What do you recommend? So in audio podcast, it's so simple. You could actually just use your phone, the quality of these new iPhones and other folks out there. I have such good quality that you can just record there. I actually have a professional mic system like you do.

I have my lovely road caster here. Thank you, thank you. I can do different things. But, you know, it helps clean up my audio and make it sound more professional. But really, you don't need much. I mean, the roadcaster was maybe $500. My mic system was maybe $250. I have a mic stand that's maybe 50 bucks.

I mean, you don't have to spend a fortune. Most of us in construction understand that you have to spend money to make money. What I would say is set aside a budget of $2,000 or $5,000, whatever your company can afford and say, I'm going to create a podcast. If you do an audio podcast, just get yourself a mic and a way to record it like a roadcaster, or you could do it directly onto sites. like Jeremy's using Google Drive and some of these others, and Zoom is easy to record.

And you could do an audio podcast really simple. And then, as I said, once you edit it, which a lot of people don't even edit. You know, I like taking out the, uh, and some of these things. But some people just put it right up. You can't choice. Get a platform like Bus Sprout.

Once you upload it, they also clean it up the audio. and make it sound even better. And now you're, again, an RSS feed, you get the transcript, you get the description, because you used AI to help you with all this,

and boom, it's out there. Video, it used to be difficult. It is more difficult than audio. Why? Because now you have to have some sort of background. This is horrible.

Yours looks nice. In my show, I use a green screen. Okay. I have art behind it, so it's real, you know, it promotes,

It's my podcast. Yeah. And you have to have lighting. So people think, oh, lighting, that's really expensive. No, you go on Amazon, you can get some two really good quality stand mics for 50, 100 bucks, maybe 150 tops that you can turn on, get from each side, maybe a little from above. You can get that from the house or the studio light. and what was incredible about my audio podcast is I recorded all on my phone.

Yeah. Cameras these days, you couldn't say this 10 years ago. The camera quality wasn't there. Right. But in the last three years, five years, all of our phones have pretty really strong cameras compared to what, you know, you could buy an expensive camera, but why? You're right. We'll do it just fine.

I did pay, I think it was $35 for a stand that holds my phone. There you go. And then I got a mic system. They're a wireless mic system. Again, I think you can find them online for $39.95. A buddy of mine for Christmas got me a little bit better, a Bose set. It was about $150.

But you can get these portable mics, hook it into your phone. get it up on the stand, get a couple lights, and boom, you're in business as a video podcast. Jeremy, you do video. You know there's a little bit more to that. Yeah, a little bit. You know, so I do the video and then I just take the audio and make the podcast that way. So I do a two and one. I just kind of, for me, it's like I'm in my office already.

Might as well do it that way. And like you said, I think the future of people liking to see videos, you can chop it up into those little reels and a little advertising pieces that I think people like. I mean, I'm not on TikTok and doing all that, but I imagine that's another good place you can throw that is just a little snippet of your show. So I think there's a lot more uses that you can have on the video side. But like I said, either way, as long as you get something started, I think maybe getting a rhythm of like, hey, this isn't so hard.

You can always add video later. Right, right. start in audio, it's basic, it's easy, and getting it up and using the RSS feed allows you to pinpoint which platforms you want to put it out on. And I agree with you, X is not the best for business marketing, but LinkedIn is really good. Right. And Facebook still has a good crowd. And it depends on the audience. All of us in construction know that we're not really going to get a lot of 20-somethings.

We need to be aiming at 30-40s. Yeah. They're getting their first home or their own. or they're starting to fall apart. The 50-somethings are a big market for construction and home improvement. So what's great about an audio podcast is you can kind of pinpoint where you're going to market it and send it. Now, with the video podcast on YouTube, it automatically goes to the world. But when you do the social media marketing and the reels, you can pinpoint the geographical area you want to hit.

And as Jeremy said, you're very smart to realize this that if you do a video, it's real easy to edit out the audio and just put that out there. Yep. Yep. Yep. So you get both with one. So it is something I highly recommend if we have construction companies listening to this podcast. Thanks to Jeremy for bringing this information to you. I highly recommend that you expand your marketing platform by utilizing podcasting as a way to share. of information. For example, the company I produced for out of Reno, Nevada, the Wilson method. He's a professional communications expert for small business and corporations. And he's been doing a show a week for the last two and a half years. He doesn't get the kind of numbers I get for entertainment, but he's getting a consistent 150, 250 downloads a week. Those are people hearing about his company, hearing about his teachings when it comes to business communications, and it

very, very, very affordable. Yeah. Well, great. What's the podcast that you're currently still doing now? What's it called so we can get tuned in? If you're into stand-up comedy from the 80s and 90s, some of the celebrities we talked about, there's some great interviews and comedy shared on the audio podcast, stand-up comedy, your host and MC, available on all platforms.

The newer one that just hit a million downloads is Tag Team Talent Podcast. That's the Tag Team Talent Podcast. And it is more, all the videos are less than five years old of professional comics. And then I throw in a classic rewind. I've edited out pieces of my TV series. I had two TV series back in the 80s. And I share some, they're all three minute videos. The whole show is only 15 minutes.

And it's all great stand-up comedy, magic. troloquism, a lot of the variety arts, a lot of fun. And thank you, Jeremy, for allowing me to plug that. And I mentioned the Wilson method. By the way, the name of his podcast is called How to Talk to Humans. So there's a case where he's marketing communication to businesses, but the title is how to talk to humans. That's funny. Relates, but doesn't have any of the direct information in the name. Yeah, yeah. Well, great. Well, I appreciate you being here, Scott. This has been a wealth of information. I know this is going to be very valuable for our industry. So, thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's been a real pleasure. And ladies and gentlemen, we're so thankful.

Jeremy, you're rocking it. You're doing a great job. And I know your fans and listeners appreciate what you're bringing to really a challenging industry these days. Yeah. Home improvement and construction always has its challenges. Everyone's getting those extra big refunds this year, so go get them. That's right. Thanks so much, Scott. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Thanks again for being here on In The Zone.

I am your host Jeremy Owens. We'll see you guys next month. Thank you so much. You've been listening to In The Zone and Construction Executives Live with Jeremy Owens. Be sure to subscribe to In The Zone and stay in the know with the best minds in construction industry. To nominate an innovator or change maker in the construction industry, connect with your management peers and stay up to date with construction industry news. Be sure to visit usconstructionzone.com.