Insight with Chris Van Vliet - How To Monetize Being A Wrestling Content Creator - Chris Van Vliet on "Strictly Business" With Jon Alba & Eric Bischoff

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Chris Van Vliet appears as a guest on "Strictly Business" hosted by Jon Alba (@jonalba) and Eric Bischoff (@ebischoff) to talk about the business behind being a wrestling content creator. We talk about how to get started as a content creator on YouTube, podcasts, social media and more, how you can make money from your content, landing your first big interview, the importance of having great equipment and more! Listen to Strictly Business on the 83 Weeks podcast feed here: https://open.spotify.com/show/17pl2hcO9uPJdUnqvkR0Bt Quote I'm thinking about: "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work." - Stephen King For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas. Oh, hey, how are we doing, my friends? Welcome to or welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight with Chris Van Fleet. As you know, I'm usually the one on this side of the microphone. I'm usually the one asking the questions, trying to learn as much as I can from our guests. But for this one, I'm in the other chair. I was the one being interviewed.

And I'm sure you know Eric Bischoff's podcast, 83 weeks, so, so good. He also has a podcast once a week on the 83 weeks feed called Strictly Business. He co-hosts it with my good friend John Alba, who does, it just does a tremendous job with anything that he's a part of, whether that's this podcast, the Matt Hardy podcast that he does, or just really anywhere that you see, John. He is just always crushing it. and strictly business is so fascinating because they dig deep into the business side of pro wrestling. So Eric wasn't able to record one week. So John hit me up and asked if I could do an episode talking about content creation in wrestling

and how you get into it, how you can monetize it, if you're looking to do interviews, how you can start doing interviews, everything. It's just really, really interesting stuff. And what you're going to hear here is like a conversation that serves as a masterclass for anyone who's looking to start as a content creator. Or maybe you've been doing this for a while and you feel kind of stuck. I really think this is going to help you. Please share this with someone who's a content creator in the wrestling space that you know. And take a screenshot and tag us on social media.

John is at John Alba. I'm at Chris Van Fleet. and if you're not already, please make sure to follow or subscribe to not just Insight. I'm hoping if you're listening to this, you're already subscribed to Insight, but go follow 83 weeks so you can hear both the 83 weeks episodes and the Strictly Business episodes. Both are so, so good. And John Alba and Eric Bischoff bring it every single time. Okay, here we go. Please enjoy this chat with me and John Alba on Strictly Business.

How's it going, everyone? It's time for another edition of Strictly Business right here on the ad-free shows and podcast, Heat Networks. I am John Alba. Now, normally every week, this is strictly business with Eric Bischoff, but unfortunately this week, Eric is unable to join us. But we wanted to make sure that we got you your favorite conversations about the business of the business. That's what we like to do here on Strictly Business. And I am so grateful to be joined by one of my favorite people in wrestling, quite frankly. Frankly, not just wrestling media. That is Chris Van Vleet. And Chris, you are a freaking superstar. I appreciate you hopping on here. And we're going to have a great conversation about the business of pro wrestling podcasting. How are you, my friend?

John, always good to see you. Thank you so much for having me on. And, yeah, with Eric off today, you've got a much less talented, but slightly better-looking co-hows today. Oh, okay, that is a hot take right there. That is a big hot take, because I know that you had Eric come on out to your studios out there in Las Vegas.

And there was a lot of talent on screen. There's a lot of hair on screen there. It was good. What was that experience like having him out there in studio? He came back and he was like, dude, this was one of the easiest interviews I've ever done. It was such a great conversation. And look, you know, I'm all about gratitude. Like I end all my conversations asking my guess what are three things you're grateful for.

So when Eric Bischoff comes out with a book called Grateful, I'm like, no brainer. Like we got to do this. So I've had, I think that was my third interview with Eric. And he's such a pro. And I love the way that he looks at the business. And this podcastrickly business makes so much sense for him to be one of the hosts of because he looks at wrestling as a business. And his take on things, especially with everything that he's experienced in his career, is so, so interesting. So a great conversation with him about wrestling and just a great conversation in general. I have totally changed the way that I look at wrestling just from doing this show. There are things that Eric and I talk about. And I think if you listen to the show, you know, Eric and I certainly do not

agree on everything when it comes to... Really? We don't agree on everything when it comes to how modern wrestling is portrayed. But he has taught me to think about wrestling. in a very different way than I did prior to us doing the show. And I have such a great appreciation for his perspective, especially, and you're a TV guy as well. As TV junkies, there's just this element of curiosity that I feel like people like you and I have about pro wrestling presentation.

And that's what I love that he's able to give every single week here on Strictly Business. I think one of the biggest reminders in talking to Eric and listening to Strictly Business is that pro wrestling, is a television program. And I think that a lot of people forget when they're tuning in on Monday or Wednesday or Friday

or whatever day you happen to watch your particular show, that you're watching a television show that starts at a certain time that has to go to commercial at an exact second on the broadcast. And I think people forget that, like, while there is some incredible athletics and great storytelling going on in the ring,

there's a whole business behind this that nobody's even thinking about. And it's such a nice reminder. when you talk to Eric of like, oh yeah, it's a television show. The way that shows are structured, the little production elements, they're all so important to it. And I'm grateful every single week that we have. You guys here tuning in to Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff.

Again, if you're not subscribed already, head on over to the 83 weeks feed, 83weeks.com. Or you can also get it on the 83 weeks YouTube channel. I do apologize that we're a few days late for this. As I said, Eric's had a few scheduling conflicts, and I just wanted to get something out there this week because we got some great partners here on Strictly Business like our friends over at Empira, who help you get everything together for your business plan.

You're going to hear about them in just a few minutes here on Strictly Business. But, Chris, I wanted to bring you on in particular because your path has always been so fascinating to me. And if you're an ad-freeshows.com subscriber, you've heard Chris talk about his journey a lot, but we're not going to talk about your journey here, per se, Chris. because you have figured out a very specific niche in this pro wrestling space that has allowed you to monetize content,

create different content that other content creators are not putting out there, and in the process, putting a high-quality product out at the same time. And I just would love to know more about how you do what you do. Tell us how the sauce is made over the course of this next hour. And I guess I'll start by asking for those who may not be familiar with what you do, Chris, what is your weekly output like in terms of content creation? I think that anybody that's watching this or listening to this right now might be familiar with the interviews that I have on my YouTube channel or my podcast, Insight with Chris Van Fleet.

And I've been so fortunate throughout my career to talk to some of the biggest faces, the biggest names on the planet. Obviously, we'll talk a lot about wrestling here, but I've also had interviews with people like Tom Cruise and Oprah and Morgan Freeman, Leonardo DiCaprio. But in the wrestling space, I've interviewed people like The Rock, 10 times, not that I'm counting. Yeah, whatever. Who's counting? I've interviewed Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, Rick Flair, John Cena, recently just had The Undertaker on my show.

And I just love to be able to peel back the layers and get to who the root of who that person is. And that's always what I've been fascinated by. I've been fascinated by reverse engineering someone's success and being able to bring it back. to where you might be in your journey. Because it's saying it's so easy to look at someone who's super successful and go, oh, man, I could never do that. I could never do that. But then when you start to peel back the layers and go, oh, wow,

they were where I'm at right now 15 years ago or five years ago or, you know, however old they happen to be. So the biggest thing I think in terms of this podcast and Strictly Business is about 10 years ago, I was able to start monetizing these interviews, especially with pro wrestlers. And I had two very valuable things that were kind of combining together. One was access.

You and I have worked in television, our entire careers. I was so fortunate to be able to interview actors and comedians and musicians. And then every once in a while, WWE would come to town and you'd be able to do an interview with whichever superstar was available

for media that day. And it was so often just like, hey, the Ms. Dolph Ziegler, Jack Swagger, or McFoly, whoever it happens to be. Hey, great to have you in studio and ticket start at $15. Go out and see Smackdown tonight.

Go out and see Raw tonight. I would dig like a little bit deeper and I would ask them questions that I just always wanted to know the answer to. And they're like, wait, wait, who is this guy? What's what's going on here? It's like when you're in a foreign country and you start speaking the language there, they're like, wait a second. What about?

Did he just say bump? What? Right. So I think that like, you. dig a little bit deeper and, you know, we're talking 2011 and 12 at this point. Nobody was really doing that. And it was like the combination of access combined with the value of we were going to put this interview on TV and it was going to go on YouTube. And some of those interviews got millions of views. And that combining together was like this perfect storm for me.

You said some of the videos got millions of views. There is an element of luck in hitting the algorithm in the right way, is there not? Oh, absolutely. And I think that I realized early on, like, titles on YouTube, and this is still a thing to this day, by the way, titles on YouTube should not be looked at as titles. They should be looked at as headlines. And when I was titling interviews like, Jeff Hardy interview March 2011, it wouldn't get very many views.

No. But then when I would title it kind of as a promise of like, this is the title of the interview and what you're going to see here. Here's the promise of what you're going to see during this interview. Boy, those videos just started ticking way up. That's so funny that you just said the promise because in TV writing, I was always taught this. I'm sure you were probably taught similar with your teases. When you're teasing what's coming up, you always want to make a promise. That's what you want to promise the viewers. This is what you're going to get on the other side of this break because then you're going to deliver on it. So if you promise them something,

then they know exactly what they're in store for. And what I mean by that, it's different than just being like, if you're at the top of a newscast and you're saying, you know, coming up on the news at 11, a man, it breaks into a house.

Well, that's not promising the viewer anything. Now, if you say, coming up tonight at 11, a man breaks into a house, we'll show you why this rattled the community. Well, now you're promising the viewer. or something that you're going to offer them something. So that's so interesting to me.

My favorite news tease is they would tell you basically everything that happens. Oh, sorry. And then the promise the tease would always be, and you'll never believe what happened next. Will I? Will I never believe it? You know? I'll never believe it, John. But that's so interesting because there are going to be people.

I mean, let's start on this, I guess, at the very ground level here. I want to have you here because think about, How many people are wrestling fans and want to create content where they talk about pro wrestling for a living? That's why you and I are here in the first place, right? Like we're having this conversation because we both at some point in our lives said, wow, that would be really cool. Yeah. That's where the baseline starts.

So when you have thousands of people, Chris, who are looking to do the same thing that you're doing, how do you go about differentiating yourself from that? I think we got to start way back here. So I think the internet really democratized this for everybody. Because if you go free internet, who was making money off of wrestling other than the wrestlers and the promoters? Just the wrestlers and promoters, absolutely. And I think there was a very small amount of people that either had a magazine.

Maybe they had a dirt sheet, but you probably weren't making a lot of money off a dirt sheet, you know, 80s or 90s. You might have made some money by taking photos at events and selling them after. And then there was a real small market at that time for like those shoot interviews like RF video or selling illegal videos like on VHS. Like, oh man, I've got Royal Rumble 1998 and I'll sell it to you on VHS for $15 or something. That was really it. And then the internet changed everything. And then I would argue when podcasts and YouTube really started to become a thing in the late two days. 2000s, early 2010s, that changed the game for everybody. And now you've got people who are making money

doing like live watchalongs on Twitch with a stream or live watchalongs on YouTube and they're just getting like tip money from people or they're getting sponsorship money. Like the amount of money that is now being made from people who have never taken a bump before. That's no disrespect to somebody's never taken a bump. But the amount of people that are able to make money off this is really mind blowing. And the possibility, really is there for anybody who wants to put in the time and wants to bring the value. That's a very fast-in point that you bring up there,

that there's opportunities there for people who want to put the time in and want to provide value. But my counterpoint to that would be, there are people, Chris, who work their asses off, and they will just put videos out every single day talking about what happened in the wrestling world this day. They'll put podcasts out, talking about what happened in the wrestling world of this day,

and then they see no tangible results from it. that's a frustrating process for a lot of people, especially if they are trying to actually make some money off this or get their product down in front of people that can consume it. What is your response to something like that? Your goal can't be to make money off the bat. I think your goal should be to enjoy the process of creating it. Enjoy every single step of the process.

And then maybe six months, a year, two years, whatever down the road, maybe you can start to make some money off of it. But if you're not enjoying the process and loving this, then you're taking the wrong approach to this. So I would say that you've got to start with that. Also, what makes you different? If there's so many channels out there and there's so many podcasts out there that are just doing a recap or just giving their hot takes,

got to love everybody's hot takes on everything here, right? Jeez, and this will be a completely different subject, but small tangent here, there is way too much negativity when talking about pro wrestling. Maybe serve up a little bit of positivity. Maybe that could be the difference maker there. I want to piggyback on that for a second here because we like talking about current events here too

on Strictly Business. For example, I know this is a conversation I'd never be able to have with Eric because Eric would be like, this whole L.E. Hodele Vikingo Kenny Omega thing that has happened on wrestling Twitter this past week. For those of you not aware, Tony Kahn announced this Kenny Omega

Eho del Vikingo match for Dynamite this coming week. It's a dream match for people who love pro wrestling. E. Hale Del Vikingo, if you've never seen him, he might be the best luchador of his generation. And so many people, Chris, are losing their freaking minds over the fact that this was dropped as a Twitter announcement six days ahead of the show rather than shown on TV. And like, I understand the argument of, hey, I want to see a vignette.

And they did show one on rampage. But it's like what these wrestling companies do has no effect on me as someone who's not an employee of any of these companies, like 99% of fans. Yeah. And I feel like people waste so much energy getting angry about that. That is such a great point. Like, what a waste of your energy. And every single day, you've got the ability to focus on positive things and negative things. I really don't understand why people are like shouting at clouds all the time.

like, it doesn't really matter. Especially like if it's not impacting your bottom line specifically, which, listen, if it's impacting your bottom line, then I understand the grips. I understand the reason to complain. And there's some creators out there, and I'm not going to name names, but I'm sure some will pop to mind for anybody listening to this, but there's some creators out there that just thrive on negativity. And I think that for some of them, that's kind of a bit of a gimmick that they're playing,

because let's be honest, you can't watch an entire episode of Raw, Dynamite, Rampage, Smackdown, Impact, and just see negative things. Then you don't like wrestling at that point. Yeah, and that's the other thing. Like, if all you're doing is picking out the worst parts of the show every single week, do you really like wrestling? You're hate watching.

Seriously. We should make that a hashtag. Hashtag hate watching. Send it to us at 83 weeks. So to get back to your point, you're saying that you can't just get by by just being a podcast that has hot takes and recaps this up? Because I think there was a time, Chris. As someone who, that's how I kind of broke into wrestling podcasting.

I had a podcast that wasn't crazy successful, but it had a sizable audience because that's what we were pretty much doing. But we started it back in 2014 when we were still kind of ahead of that podcast boom. Now it's just so saturated. You can't really stand out that way. Yeah. And I think one of the biggest ways to stand out is just consistency. And I will shout out my friend Jason Solomon, Solomaster, like, he's just been putting the work in every single week, week in, week out, month in, month out, year and year out.

And Jason is so insanely talented with what he does. But if he were to start today, he obviously wouldn't have the success that he's having because it's been taking that time for him to really build this up. So I think it's consistency and it's continuing to deliver. Like we talk about promises with a YouTube title. I think when you're starting a podcast, and we're kind of jumping all over the place here, but with a podcast, the promise needs to be, I am going to show up every week on this day or these days. And if you don't, if you say new episodes every Tuesday and Friday and you miss one of them, why should I believe anything you say now? 100%. And you're breaking promises,

you're breaking that trust with your audience. It killed me that we weren't able to deliver this week's episode on time because I know how valuable that connection that we have with our audiences. Obviously, there were some extenuating circumstances that we weren't able to do it. And I think people who,

especially if you're subscribed to ad-freeshows.com, you very much know how dedicated Eric Bischoff is and he doesn't take that stuff lightly. But you're 100% right on that, Chris. and you're talking about bouncing around. Guys, if you're not familiar with Chris's podcasting, which if you're not, you should be by now. Go subscribe to Insight with Chris Van Vleet.

But what makes Chris so great is that this is what all of his show sound like. It's a very conversational delivery and these interviews that he does. And I think that also style, I feel like, Chris is something that helps someone stand out as well in creating that connection with an audience. I think that I just didn't want to ask like the typical questions,

especially of wrestlers. interviews. And the people that I really looked up to as broadcasters before I broke into the industry were the people who spoke to the camera and spoke to the viewer like they were talking to a friend. And that funny news voice that we were doing before when we were talking about news teas. Chris Van Bleed, Strictly Business. Welcome back to another episode of Strictly Business. John Alba, Chris Van Bleak with you here. Nobody talks like that in real life. So I think for me, was like, it was trying to make this sound like an actual conversation instead of just going, this is the question I am going to ask, followed by an answer, this is the next question I'm going

to ask. And, you know, the more you do it, the more you do anything, the better you get at it. And I'm now 452 episodes into my podcast, 18 years into my broadcasting career. So it's just a matter of like putting in the time. And also being able to read the trends. Because what I I was making very small amount of money on in 2011 when my YouTube channel first got monetized. It's very different than what I'm making money from now. If you were to interrupt a video in 2012 with an ad read for any sort of product or service, people would click off that immediately. It just wasn't a thing.

And now people are kind of, you know, they're used to that being a part of a YouTube video. They're used to that being part of a podcast. And I think it's just reading the trends and going with it and realizing that you're making content in 20203 for 20203. And I think there's a lot of people that are making content in 2023 with something that worked for them in 2019 or 2018 or something like that. The medium has changed, right? It's not this dramatic change,

but it has been a slow change over time where people are understanding that the way we consume whatever content we're consuming, it just has evolved. I used to think, and I still do believe, by the way, that's why we have these podcasts in the first place, I do believe there is a lot of value

in long-term content, long-form content. But there's also a lot of value, increasing amounts of value, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, because I know you can attest to it, in short-form content with the advent of TikTok and previously before that Vine, which I still miss Vine for the record.

But you were just talking to me off air about the YouTube shorts. Where did that shift come from? And what do you think the viability is in short firm versus long form podcasting? I will start this with a great example. So if someone says, oh, man, you've got to listen to this podcast

and they text you the link to it, there is a very small chance that you're going to listen to 60 minutes, 90 minutes of that podcast. But if someone says, oh, man, you'll never believe what so-and-so said on this podcast and they send you a clip that's 45 seconds long, you'll probably watch that thing. So I think for me it was, I use my podcast or my main interview as the big kind of chunk, the big piece of content. I then break that up into two to five-minute thoughts, which are like widescreen videos on my YouTube, my CVV clips YouTube channel. And then I break that further up into like 8 to 10 to 15 shorts, reels, TikToks, whatever you want to call them.

And my hope is that those work as breadcrumbs that lead you to the loaf that is the main episode. So the growth for shorts and reels and TikToks has been absurd lately. I'll totally break the fourth wall here and I'm happy to talk to you about this. My main YouTube channel does like about two million views a month, which is pretty solid. Be damn good. Last month, my clips channel, which is the clips and most interesting moments from these interviews, did 62 million views. And I get it.

It's so much easier to consume a 20, 30, 30, 40 second clip than a 40, 50, 60 minute interview. So I've just been leaning into what works. And that may not last forever. I'm going to ride this wave while it's happening right now. I know that in six months or a year, it's going to be a completely different game. And I will hopefully be able to be ahead of that wave and be able to figure that out as it happens. I was recently a guest on a podcast called Straight Talk Wrestling. Shout out to them.

They've got an amazing TikTok account with, I think, half a million TikTok followers. And it was interesting because we did the full interview. And then afterwards, we specifically shot Seth. that they were going to use as TikToks. And those videos did hundreds of thousands of views. And I thought it was so interesting that they were creating content for the platform, which I still, for whatever reason, think people aren't doing enough of. Just creating platform-specific content?

Yeah. So we had the full interview. And then afterwards, they have a great game where it's like, guess the wrestler, 60 seconds go. And then you have to ask yes or no questions, and you finally, do you get who it is at the end? that works out so well on TikTok because it forces people to watch to the end like, oh, is Chris going to get it or is he not? Like, is he good at this or not? Then we did another one of fill in the blank.

And it was like questions like, this blank needs to end Roman reign streak or blank deserves a better push. And I was like, this is so brilliant that you're creating the separate content. And I think there's not enough people that are doing that. Well, when you say something like that to me, Chris, I hear in the back of my head, when you're going about creating content, you need some sort of a game plan, right? You need some sort of a workflow and a plan. Well, I'm going to ask you about yours in just a second, but first, I want to talk about our pals over at Empira here with Strictly Business because Impera is quite frankly the most valuable tool that any business can find to help plan for the future by turning their ideas

into actual plans and concepts. I've been talking about this for a few weeks now here on Strictly Business. This is not just a gimmick that Eric and I have bought into. This is something that we are actually cohesively using together to help make strictly business as good of a product as we can. Because Impira, with two A's, by the way, allows business owners to work on the business, not in the business. And there's such a big difference between working on something rather than being stuck in the weeds of every single part of it. We all care about accountability in business. We all care about delegation in business. And that's what Empira is helping business owners all over the world. They're based in Australia, and yet they just opened up a brand

new office in Denver. Congratulations to our friends over there at Impera for doing that, because they are so bound to helping people 24-7. What am I talking about here? You can set up a vision statement for your company. You can create core values that you expect all of your employees to buy into and help them buy into. You can create pillars that become the foundation to every single good business. plan, while then assigning different team members to every single objective and pillar along the way. I know these sound like abstract concepts, but they're really not, because Impera helps you prioritize your task for your business, ensuring that you're working on the very most important

things first, regardless of whether it's a business with hundreds of employees, thousands of employees, or maybe it's just you and a few friends. with Imperial, you'll have the peace of mind knowing that your business plan is well structured, thought out, and achievable. And we want to help you here over on Strictly Business. Sign up now and receive free onboarding, your first 14 days for free and 24-7 support. And that's not a gimmick. I mean this. I bit these guys up at like three in the morning and they got back to me. It's amazing. Get ahead of the game now. Save 20% on your subscription by using code wrestle business. That's W-R-E-S-T-L-E-B-I-Z when you check out.

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That's E-M-P-I-A-A-com forward-slash Eric and start your journey to success because we are big believers here on Strictly Business. That everyone needs a plan and it's okay if you need a little help. along the way in getting there. And that's something too, Chris. Like, it's okay to lean on others, right? When you're talking about content creation and helping build your own platform.

I think you have to. I mean, find somebody who's already been there and just ask for directions. So when I started my podcast specifically, my YouTube channel had been around for, I think, seven years at that point. In 2019, it was actually a conversation I had with Ryback. I had done an interview with him recently

and his podcast was doing pretty well. And he goes, dude, I think you'd do really well if you had a podcast. I'm like, I don't know. I think it's going to cannibalize my viewers. And I was making some money on YouTube. And I didn't see at that point in time any potential to make money on my podcast. And he goes, just do it. Trust me.

And I think it'll be like a pretty good thing for you. And he was right. And he told me like, here's the hosting you need. Here's the type of microphone you need. And he kind of walked me through that process. So I would say, reach out to somebody who, already done it and you can figure things out from there. And I got to correct myself, it's straight shoot podcast that I wanted to shout out. Straight shoot podcasts. And these guys,

they're just crushing it on TikTok. And I would say that to kind of piggyback off of that, find the platform that's really working for you. And go all in on that. If you're not great on TikTok, but you're crushing it on, I don't know, YouTube or Twitter, well, I think that the writing's on the wall, you know, go all in there. I think somewhat are. the writing's on the wall for Twitter as well. It's really interesting to see what happens. That's been the hardest part for me, honestly, because the only platform that I really have had

any degree of momentum with is Twitter. And, man, some of the changes that have been happening lately have been really affecting my engagement levels. It's actually been really fascinating, but also kind of scary to see unfold for me personally. But I want to ask you then off that, platforms change all the time. How have you dealt with trying to pivot with them?

The biggest adjustment, pivot and change that I've done recently is going all in on the vertical video on YouTube. I used to be all about like, all right, every video I'm going to post in my YouTube channel is going to be 40 minutes long, 60 minutes long. We're TV guys. That's how it is. Exactly. And I wanted to tell a full story, right?

and now I'm posting, I don't know, 70, 75 vertical videos a month, which is, you know, I don't know that sounds like a lot. But if we take this back two years ago, I had a friend that was like, try posting one, this is when Instagram Reels were pretty new, try posting one reel a day, do a 30 day challenge, one reel a day for 30 days. And I found it like immensely hard to do that. And I didn't quite know what my content was supposed to look like on there. This is back when TikTok was.

It was all about dancing, and I certainly had no interest in doing that. And this is when, like, I think stuff just, I don't know, it was different. And I was like, what if I just started taking my best moments from these interviews and putting them up there? And I've had a lot of success with that. But I think it's also just listening to your audience. And you're going to find out pretty quickly what works and what doesn't work. That's a really good point, because I feel like you have to constantly be on the pulse when

you're a content creator of recognizing what works and what doesn't work. How do you deal with the disappointment of putting a lot of work into something and then seeing that it's not necessarily getting the feedback or the viewership that you were hoping that it was going to? And this happens to every content creator. And I think all you can do is learn from that and move on to the next one. And sometimes in the world and the algorithm and the world of YouTube and TikTok, sometimes something picks up after weeks or months.

And it might surprise you. But I think you just take it and you just kind of move on to the next one. And that's all you really can do. It's not a loss. It's just an opportunity to learn from there and move on. Why is it, in your opinion, that pro wrestling has become such an arena for so many different people trying to get in on the content creation game? Like, there's sports, right?

And there are a million sports podcasts out there. How many random podcasts can you find two guys talking fantasy football, right? There's a million. And I feel like pro wrestling's not that far behind from the general sports discourse. Why is that? I mean, the fact that wrestling has its own category in podcasting, I think, says a lot about the fact that, like, there's a lot of content out there. And I think it's because everybody has an opinion.

Right or wrong, everybody has an opinion. And when you're talking about sports and you're talking about baseball, football, football, hockey, golf, whatever it happens to be, things are objective. You know, you win a game or you lose a game in wrestling. It's all subjective. And I think that because it's subjective, everybody can have an opinion and then you don't know what's going to happen on the next episode of whatever show it is that you like to watch. So now you can speculate. And I think that that's what it is. It's the fact that there can be so many conversations around this. what is since there are so many conversations about it you said you you dislike all the hate discourse

what is your biggest pet pet peeve when you see other people trying to create content is there something that maybe an inexperienced podcaster or video creator does that you just want to be like hey man like here's what you got to do stop that and here's how you can make that better what's one piece of advice you would give on that front. I feel like we could talk for like three hours. Please, by all means, whatever. Because listen, people are going to listen to this, Chris, and they'd be like, wow, you know, I've always kind of want to start a wrestling podcast, so what should I avoid doing?

And I hope that in some ways, like me and you talking about this does like light that fire in someone and does like, maybe serves as a little bit of a master class of like, okay, here's what you have to do in order to make this happen. I think I'm going to speak to interviews specifically and then we can talk about content creation after that. I think with interviews, everybody swings for the fences immediately. People go, I really want to interview wrestlers. And they're talking about, like, I want to interview The Undertaker in the Rock and Triple H and, you know, Sean Michael is like, okay, hold on. Like, pump the brakes here a little bit, okay? And I think the first thing that people need to do

is find an independent wrestling show that's near you. Wherever you live, there's an independent wrestling show within an hour, two or three, you know, drive from where you live. So go to your local independent wrestling show, speak to the promoter and say, hey, here's who I am, lead with value always, and go, here's what I can bring for you, your company and the people who work for you, and start to interview literally anybody who will say yes. Yeah. And I think that not enough people are willing to do that.

They're blindly sending emails to like WWE Hall of Famers, which that's great, you know, dream big, but you got to start somewhere. Dude, I'm so glad you said that because, I mean, you follow me, you know this, and I think anyone who follows me knows is I'm such a huge indie wrestling proponent. I'm so big on promoting the indies because the reality is everyone that you see on television today, for the most part, I'd say a good 70% of them started in independent wrestling in some way, right? So you never know if you're going to, you know, mom-pah's restaurant in Brewer, Maine, and there's a, show going on in front of 50 people with hashtag Mikey versus, I don't know, insert, you know, name here. You never know who on that show might one day turn into something special. I'll give you an example of this. The first indie I ever worked was this small promotion called IWE in Brewer, Maine specifically.

That's why he said. And their first woman champion was a girl who, she said, she said, started working there maybe 10 matches into her career, that girl ended up being Mercedes Vernado, Sasha Banks. Wow. Within, you know, the first six months of her career, she was their women's champion.

Now, can you imagine if you took Chris's advice and you paired up with that indie and all of a sudden, you're interviewing someone that is going to be a future WrestleMania caliber main eventer? What, how much charm is there to that, right? Right. Let me give you an example, the very first independent wrestling show that I went, I was 16 years old.

It was 2000, the year 2000, and I didn't even know that any wrestling existed before this. Was this in Canada? It was in Toronto. Yeah, it was in Toronto. It was at a bar called Cactus Peets, and the ceiling was so low, they couldn't jump off the top rope.

They had to do all their moves off the middle rope. And there was a masked female wrestler that was making her debut that day. And she wrestled, and she was great. She wrestled under the name Lafalina. A few months later, she ended up taking her mask off and started working under the name Gail Kim.

And it was amazing that I was there for her debut at Cactus Peets in Toronto. So the point of my story here is start with anybody who's going to say yes. Anybody who's going to say yes. I bet you if you reach out to John Alba and you have a good pitch and you bring lots of value,

I bet John Alba would do an interview interview with you. And I'll tell you what, and I know you're similar to that too, but I will say I have turned down interview requests for podcasts when they don't come to me with any either professionalism or if they just say,

yeah, I just want to talk about wrestling with you. Well, let's show some value here. What are we going to talk about? I'm not someone who requires to know every little minuscule thing we're going to talk about. Not at all.

I think the beauty of an interview is you kind of go with the flow on it. But for me, and I'm curious your thoughts on this, I take note of anyone that carries themselves professionally and has some sort of a game plan because you and I are both busy guys

why is it worth my time to make time for you and I don't mean that in a mean way by any switch imagination but it's an exchange. Yeah. Absolutely 100%. I'm amazed by the amount of people that will send an email saying I'd love for you to be a guest on my

podcast called the XYZ podcast and then they don't even put a link to the podcast. So you're telling me that I've now got to open up the podcast app, remember the name of it, then type it in, then hit play. Are you kidding me? Like, take the extra three seconds to control C, control V, paste the link. And I've gone on so many podcasts that get 10 viewers in a month, okay?

Yeah, same here. But I loved the conversation that I had with the host because the host was professional. They sent me, hey, this is what the concept of my podcast is. and I'll do those any day of the week. But it's when you just have the expectation of, yeah, come, you host a podcast with Eric Bischoff and Matt Hardy and Kurt Engel and all that. Just come talk about that on my show. Give me something to buy into here, you know what I mean?

Yeah. So I would say you've got to have professionalism, and you've got to lead with value. And I think that the more that you do it, the better you're going to get. and I say this all the time, and I will continue to say it, but I've said it so many times, the best thing about podcasting or YouTube or content creation is that anybody can do it. The worst thing is that anybody can do it. And the bar is so low that, you know, you could have a $10,000 camera and a very expensive mic.

Not that I have a $10,000 camera, but you could have an expensive studio, or you could have a phone and you hit recording, you know, your podcasting. I think that's such a beautiful thing about it. And it's also such a frustrating thing about it because then it puts you on the same levels. So if you're going to be on that same level, step it up, like make it worthwhile for whoever it is that might be your guest.

And whoever it is, it's going to invest their time into listening to it because there's nothing that's more valuable than time because you're never going to get it back. No, you're never going to get it back. and I think that everyone kind of remembers those things in the back of their head at the end of the day, too. Especially if you see someone randomly pop up on social media again. You're like, oh, wait, that was the podcast that I did with that person.

I remember that and didn't leave the best taste in my mouth and all that. So that's your advice for interviewing specifically. What are the bad habits you see in content creation, you know, the review shows or any other sorts that you typically see in the wrestling space? Number one, I think the biggest mistake I see is there's no consistency. Like you do it one week, you don't do it next, the next week, you do it one month, you don't do it the next month. So I think be consistent with it. Like if you want to treat this, if you want this to be a job, you have to treat it like a job. You know, if you just showed up every other day to your job at work, well, you probably wouldn't have that job for very long.

So I think you've got to be consistent. And look, I get it. Life happens, right? You're super busy with everything else is happening in your life. but if this is an important thing to you, then you've got to make time for it. So I think that that's one of the most important things. Number two is if you are going to do this consistently,

buy some sort of a microphone. It could cost you $20 on Amazon, but buy some sort of microphone and figure that out because nobody, perception is reality. And if your podcast looks like garbage and sounds like garbage or your YouTube channel looks a garbage,

Sounds like garbage. People are going to think it's garbage. So perception is reality, get just something that's half decent to record with. And I think the other thing is don't lead with negativity. Like don't, like, and I'm not saying like, don't try to make things sound like they're better than they are, especially if they're not. But don't lead with negativity because negativity begets negativity. And I just think that that's just a bad, slippery slope to beheaded down. It's so funny that you mention the whole microphone thing because that like that like hits me very

hard in my my core. I started doing content creation in sports specifically and then I say content creation because content creation wasn't even really a thing when I started doing this, but I was in eighth grade and I was doing live sports talk radio on some platform that no longer exist because I was just so desperate to find anything. I wanted to get the reps. You and I have done other interviews

where we just talk about how important reps are, right? Reps, as many reps as you can. So even as an eighth grader who was aspiring to be a sportscaster, I recognize that. And when you're in eighth grade, you don't have any money to your name. Maybe you're doing chores or you get allowance or whatever it is, but you've got nothing to spend money on.

Right. So what I did was, I jerry-rigged a guitar stand that I had that I could like raise and lower and I had, you remember the video game rock band? Of course, yeah. Right? They had the USB microphone that would come with

super crappy, you know, like not great quality, but it was something. And I would sit down in a chair with my big bulky computer, my guitar stand that only got up to like yay high so I'd be like leaning over like this the entire time. And my USB microphone from Rockband, and I would do live sports talk radio online. And was it great?

No. But it showed that I cared and that I wanted to put out a product that was as close to professional as I could get to professional at the time. And now you could get a USB microphone, like a high quality one for like 35 bucks. Yeah. Anyone can do that. Yeah. Anyone, I just, I see so much value in that.

Yes, I think that if this is something that you truly want to do, find somebody in the space who's crushing it. Take a little bit from them. Take a little bit from somebody else who's crushing it. And like, put that all together and you'll have a pretty good place to start. And also, like, don't give up. That's the biggest thing is don't give up. Nobody was listening to the Joe Rogan experience on episode seven.

In fact, nobody was listening in episode 207, but he just kept going because he was enjoying the process of doing it. And look at him now almost 2,000 episodes in, Joe Rogan's the king of podcasting. So I would say, once you start, just don't stop. And don't worry because your first episode or your first YouTube video, your first TikTok, tweet, Instagram, real whatever, might only get 17 listeners or 17 views. Just keep going. Like just keep going and keep building on it. And remember that everybody starts at zero. I 100% agree with you.

And there's a couple more things I want to pin your brain on. But it's pretty amazing seeing you, Chris, where you know, you had your TV background and then you break into this content creation. That's what you've kind of become known for where the traditional path had always been, oh, you've got to climb the local TV market. So that's how you get to where you want to be. And you kind of created this niche where now you're, you're, You're doing signings at RussellCon.

I'm sure you're mailing out 8 by 10s. Are you mailing out 8 by 10s ever? I am mailing out 8 by 10s. You can grab them on my website, Chris VanVleet.com. So I know that if you are mailing out 8 by 10s, Chris Van Vleet, I know you, okay? And I know that you've smartened up and you're using our friends over at stamps.com. Because listen, when you're just overwhelmed with all these 8x3 10 requests that they want to see your handsome face for whatever their own personal reasons are,

Chris Finns. I would say it's just a pay tribute to you. You know that you're going to be shipping all over the country. And it can be tedious to have to run to the post office when you're making like 45 videos a week, if not more than that. You said 70 short form in a month that you were doing. That's just a short form. That's a lot of time. Well, with stamps.com, you don't have to be to worry about all of that Ballyhoo that comes with trying to get to the post office at a good time. Instead, you're getting this stuff shipped directly to you for you to utilize in whatever way you can. Or you can print your own postage and shipping labels right from your home or office. It's ready to go in minutes so you can get back to running your business even sooner than you

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because ultimately we are talking, of course, about podcasts and use that promo code Bischoff. They are going to hook you up, and we very much appreciate them here for sponsoring Strictly Business. All right, Chris, let's continue our conversation. Eric Bischoff told me that same story when we did the interview. Eric Bischoff told you the story about the backstage confrontations.

Yes, it's great. Great story. Go check all that stuff out at AdFree show. dot com, of course, if you haven't already. Talking with Chris here about the business of pro wrestling content creation in particular, we've talked a lot about where pro wrestling content creation was.

Where do you think pro wrestling content creation is headed? I think it just continues to grow. It continues to get bigger. And wrestling really lends itself to this. I have said this for years, and I firmly believe it, now is the best time ever to be a problem. pro wrestling fan and subsequently the best time to be a pro wrestler as well. I thought while that video

was playing, I thought about something way before I ever worked in television or ever worked as a broadcaster, I would go to WWE house shows in Toronto and I would sit there with a notepad and I would take notes on the matches and like who wins, who loses. You remember when that was a thing on wrestling websites? You would go and you would read the results of what I was a house shows. People would send in results. Yes, I was one of those people. I didn't want any, I wasn't getting any money from this. I wasn't getting any credit. Maybe my name was in. He wants to be part of that shared experience. Yes. And I think that that's what's so exciting about all of this. And we've talked a lot about the business of this and trying to make money and

the monetization of it. But there's also something that's just being a part of that world. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to make money from it. But the fact, that you could be shooting a video at a wrestling convention, or you could be helping somebody out at a signing or something like that, or you could help produce a podcast. I think the fact that you're in that world is also really exciting, and that never existed before. Well, and the biggest thing that exists now that didn't exist back then was access, right? Access is a huge thing, and I'm not just talking about, you know, requesting an interview from A.E.W. or WWE. I'm even talking about, like, ad-free shows. You, and this is not a shill for ad-free shows, but like, you could have and ask

Eric Bischoff anything on any given week where you get to talk to Eric Bischoff. That kind of access just did not exist prior to this evolution of content creation. The only way it really existed before was you went to an autograph signing, you stood in line, and then maybe during the 14 seconds while they were signing your 8 by 10 or your belt, you asked them a question and then they gave you a brief response and then you moved on from there. That was it. Now you've got, like you said, so much access and the internet has given us, you know, the access of like, you could tweet somebody and there's a pretty good chance they'll see it and there's also a chance they might respond to you. You could slide into someone's DMs. And again, there's a chance

they may see it and a chance they may respond. That didn't ever exist before the advent of the internet. Never. And now that opens doors for people, that opens opportunities for people, or it can work conversely to that where you end up burning some bridges in the process too. So it's always important to be cognizant of how you talk to people and how you go about approaching people for trying to create these relationships. Yeah, we've talked a lot during this episode about like actually creating the content and being on this side of the microphone or this side of the camera. But if you happen to be a videographer or a photographer, man, again, it goes back to leading with value. Just get your foot in the door somewhere.

Offer to shoot promo photos at an independent wrestling show or offer to shoot video at a wrestling convention. Offer to do something like that. So you can start to build up your reel, build up your resume, and then more opportunities will come to you easier because they'll go, oh, you worked with so-and-so or you worked at that show. Oh, wow, if they said yes, why wouldn't I say yes? Absolutely.

It's and it really is like shooting your shot half the time. But you have to do it in a way where you do come across as credible. You come across as professional. And you also provide, it's kind of piggybacking off that point that we talked about earlier, you provide the why. Why am I worth investing time into for you? And for me, at the same time, I think that's a huge element that a lot of people can't provide when they're coming up with ideas for content creation.

And I think that's also the core of your content in general. Why should people take time out of their day to listen to what you're putting out? And I understand that you and I are very fortunate because we have the background of broadcast and it lends a lot of credibility to podcasting, to content creation, to YouTube, to making clips for social media, I get that. If we take this back to like 2018, 2019, when my YouTube channel was really growing with wrestling content specifically,

I was just saying yes to every opportunity that was presented to me. And a perfect example of that was when Chris Jericho signed with AEW, I was connected with Chris Jericho through a mutual friend. And I happened to, through that mutual friend, reach out to Chris Jericho.

And I had done an interview with him maybe like six months before, when he was touring with Fawsey. And I said, hey, congrats on the AEW thing. Would you want to do an interview? And he said, well, I'm doing a live podcast in Ocala, Florida. And I was living in Miami at the time. And I looked at a map and I went, man, that's like four hours away.

That's horse country, baby. That's far. But it was like, he said yes. And that was all I needed. Yeah. And I drove up there four hours. I think on the way back, we were editing the video in the club. car, me and my buddy Daniel. The laptop died. We ended up stopping at a service station to plug in the

laptop. And I think that there's unfortunately a lot of people that aren't willing to do that. They go, oh, well, man, so-and-so said they'd do an interview, but they live in Texas and I live wherever. It's like, okay, like, do you have a car? Could you take a flight there? Like, I put so many of these expenses on my own credit card or pay for them out of my own pocket just because someone said yes. Or I would piggyback on like my dad and I go to a different Major League Baseball Stadium every single year.

And it's this amazing father-son tradition that we've been doing. I've gone to 21 stadiums. Happened to be going to Minamay Park to see the Astros play. And I went, who lives in Houston? Oh, Sammy Gavarra lives. in Houston. Reached out to him.

He happened to say yes. It all worked out. He drove to my airport hotel and we randomly shot this interview. Those are the things I'm talking about that I think a lot of people don't think outside the box enough. Not everyone's going to have the financial means to make something like that happy and not everyone's going to have. But I think it's about thinking outside the box.

How can we get creative? How can we make something happen here? And having that flexibility. I think that's just a huge element. of all this at the end of the day is being flexible, and as you said, especially in the beginning, saying yes.

Yeah, and I get it. Not everybody has the ability to hop on an airplane at a moment's notice or drive in their car four plus hours, eight plus hours round trip to do an interview in the backseat of Chris Jericho's car. I get that. But are you going to a local wrestling show at any point in time?

Are you going to a WWE or AEW show? Perhaps are you going to WrestleMania? Boy, if you're going to WrestleMania, mania. Everybody who has, anybody who's done anything with wrestling is going to be in Los Angeles this year, Philly next year, like they're going to be in town. Figure out a way to just shoot something there. And on top of that, you go to an indie show and say there's a legend who's appearing on the show.

Hey, Gangrel is at your local indie show. Yeah. We'll find a way to interview Gangrel, who by the way, I can't put over enough. He's amazing. I don't know if you ever met Gangrel in South Florida. I assume you did. Yeah, he's the best. But guess what?

Gail knows a lot of people in wrestling. And maybe one day you aspire to interview someone even higher. And you say, yeah, you know, I interviewed Gangrel. Well, all of a sudden, well, that person's good friends with Gangrel. Gangrel puts in a good word for you. Hey, I love doing an interview with that guy. And now, some, you got those wheels turning. You just, you never know.

Yeah. And I think that going back to what we talked about earlier about the negativity stuff and how much negativity exists in wrestling, I would just be worried that if, you you're dragging on a specific product or just wrestling in general, I would be really worried that if you continue your career of content creation or broadcasting, that that might get back to you in some sort of way. So I would just be aware of that.

The internet is forever, everybody. I can attest personally it is certainly very much so. Even if you're very innocently doing stuff, sometimes you have to be cognizant of that to the end degree. 100% agree with you, my friend. This has been great. Is there anything else that you'd like to add to this conversation, Chris, that people should be aware of when they try

to venture into this field of content creation and pro wrestling? This has been great. And John, thank you so much for letting me come in here and borrow Eric's seat and keep it warm for him and, of course, be the less talented, slightly better looking version of a co-host for you.

I think all of this boils down to two words. Not suck it, but it boils down to just start. And if this is something that you've ever wanted to do, if you've ever wanted to film something wrestling related, start a podcast, write a book, start a TikTok account, whatever it happens to be, just start. And I love this Chinese proverb. I quote this all the time on my podcast. It's the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And the second best time is today. And if this is something that you've wanted to do and it's really speaking to you, just start and figure it out and find people in that space who are doing the thing.

And don't be afraid to reach out to people and say, hey, I'm just getting started right now. What did your first episode, video, YouTube video channel, whatever it happens to be? What did that look like? What can I learn from that? And I think another invaluable resource is something like this, like just listening. to someone's podcast and just like eavesdropping in on these conversations and going, ooh, that's what worked for them. Maybe that'll work for me too.

But I think it boils down to you've just got to start. He is Chris Van Vleet. He's the host of Insight with Chris Van Vleet. He's got a million other things going on. Where can people find you, Chris? You can listen to my podcast wherever you're listening to this, Insight with Chris Van Vlead on all podcasts, you know, apps, wherever you fill your ears with podcasts.

My YouTube channel is my name, Chris Van Bleed, and CVV Clips. And say hi to me on all social media at Chris Van Vleet. And make sure if you see him in Los Angeles WrestleMania Week, you say hi and say, hello, John Alba. He'll really appreciate that, I promise. What an insult. How dare you. I think it's more insulting to you that I get called Chris Van Bled

sometimes. That should be the biggest insult to you more than anything else. I'm just saying, man. People say like when I was on TV for like in Cleveland and Miami, I would get a lot of, oh, you're taller on TV. I'm like, I don't, thanks. The other is you're much more attractive in person than on TV. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. What was that?

I'm more in person than on TV. Oh, so I'm ugly on TV. Thank you. Or I get to like, oh, wow, you're way more like muscular in person. I'm like, oh, geez. I gotta stop wearing sleeves on my suits, I guess. Hey, you know what? Build a business plan with Empira.

They'll help you get everything together, Chris, and then you won't have to worry about any of that in the weeds. You can bump iron as much as you do, and you'll be good to go, man. Hey, Eric and I are so grateful for you hopping on Strictly Business with us. Eric's going to be back next week, guys. Really appreciate everyone tuning. And if you're not tuning in every single week to Strictly Business,

what are you waiting for? Subscribe now, 83weeks.com, or the 83 weeks podcast feed on whatever device you use to get your podcast. And of course, early access ad-free shows.com. It is the best value in all of pro wrestling content creation. The Conrad Cinematic Universe, as I like to refer to it, we've got a lot of great stuff going on there. He's Chris Van Bleed.

I'm John Alba. We'll see you next time right here on Strictly Business. Oh, man, I hope you got at least a little bit of value out of that one. The main goal here was to try to answer as many questions as possible surrounding not just content creation, but specifically content creation in the world of wrestling. And it is a completely different ballgame now, like we talked about here. There's a chance here for everybody to kind of have their tiny little piece of the pie, which did not exist 15, 20 plus years ago. So I hope that you enjoyed this and I hope that you're inspired to go out there.

and start creating, or if you are creating, to go out there and keep creating and maybe to really turn up the volume on everything that you're doing. Please take a screenshot. I'm sure there's a lot of people that would love to listen to this episode, which is why we put it here on my feed, in addition to the Strictly Business feed on the 83 weeks podcast. Tag us on social media so we can share this out. John is at John Alba, ALBA. I'm at Chris Vanfleet, and I found this quote from Stephen King that I think is very fitting to everything that we covered during this conversation here. Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work. How about that? Be great. Be grateful, my friends. Have an amazing weekend and we will see you on

the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987.

Hammer Alley. Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Allie. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.