The Home Service Expert Podcast - How To Get More Clients, Connections, And ROI With Podcasting

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

John Corcoran is the co-founder of Rise25, LLC. He runs SmartBusinessRevolution.com, and has been publishing the Smart Business Revolution podcast since 2012. A writer for Forbes, Lifehacker, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Art of Manliness, Entrepreneur and many more, he landed a job as a Writer in the Clinton White House, without having any insider connections. In this episode, we talked about entrepreneurship, networking, blogging, small business, business strategy, mediation, civil litigation...

but we all realize that relationships are important. We all realize that selling is important. So the question is, how do we overcome that word and how do we actually do it in a way that's win-win? And I learned the importance of networking because when I was a kid, my father lost his job three separate times. And each time we had to move across the country

to a new community, I had to meet new kids. And I realized the importance of building relationships, having watched my father experience that, having gotten laid off. And so I applied that to my life. And that's what I attribute to having gotten a lot of opportunities, like working at the White House, is the importance of building critical relationships. So I just hope to inspire others, whether I ever work with them or not. I know that there's only, just like you, there's only so many clients you can work with. So when I talk to others, I just try and inspire them to go out there and take

interest in other people. And using a tool like a podcast, it allows you to edify them and also to learn at the same time while uploading your network and expanding your network and meeting new people. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I have a good friend. He's introduced me to a lot of people. And this guy is one of the best networkers I've met in a long time. His name

is John Corcoran. And he's an expert in entrepreneurship, networking, blogging, small business, business strategy, and meditation. He's the co-founder of Rise 25 since 2015. He's a Forbes contributor. He was an attorney till about 2015. So he did that for about eight years. He wrote for the White House for a year, and he's also a speechwriter to the California governor for a few years. Like I said, he's a co-founder of Rise 25, landed a job as a writer in the Clinton White House without having an insider connection to help him get the job. Run smartbusinessrevolution.com and has been published in the Smart Business Revolution podcast since 2011. Basically written for Forbes Lifehacker, the Huffington Post, Business Insider, the Art of Manliness, Entrepreneur, and many, many more. John, it's a pleasure to have you on today.

Hey, Tommy. Thanks for having me. So you've done a lot. It sounds like you've been all over the place and now you're really into podcasting and just really contributing to other people's lives. Do you want to tell us your story and where you're going and where you've been? Sure. Yeah. In 10 seconds or less. Yeah. You know, what I'm most known for is at a young age, I went from getting a BA in English in a party school to working as a writer in the White House in the Clinton years. And the way that I got that, I didn't have any special connections, wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth or anything like that. And I basically did a good job of just kind of building relationships

on my way up. So now I think what we do today is really related to that because we're basically teaching and equipping people to use the medium of podcasting, which you use as well. It's a tremendous tool for uploading your network, connecting with new people, having amazing conversations with amazing people that are going to lead to synergies in your business. So if I'd had a podcast back in the day, I would have used it to get a job at the White House. I wish I had it back then. And what we do today is really kind of related to what we did. What I did back then to get that opportunity

is what we help people with today. So that's the main goal is Rise 25 is to help people find a podcast, have a voice. Let's talk about that a little bit. Smart Business Revolution, just kind of explain to me the whole process and how that works. Yeah. So in 2010, actually, I was practicing law as a lawyer here in the San Francisco Bay Area in Silicon Valley. And I had clients and everything. And just kind of on a whim,

I had a good small client that came to me for a tiny little matter. And he was really interesting. He started businesses that had gone public and were household names. And I was like, Hey, can I have like 20 minutes of your time? I'd love to interview you over the phone. I'm going to publish it on the web. I didn't even know how to do that, but somehow I did. And at the very end of it, he was like, Hey, that was a lot of fun. Can you help me with some other legal matters? I got this thing and this other thing. And I was like, I'm no dummy. I was like, well, that works really well. Let me keep doing this. And so flash forward to 10 years later, now I have four young kids. The youngest is 18 months old. I'm busier than ever,

but I've continued to do it because I know it's the highest and best use of my time. And about two years ago was when we had clients who were coming to us asking for help with how to do the same thing. And eventually we started doing that. And now that's the primary focus of our business is helping B2B businesses to really leverage podcasts to uplevel their network, get ROI, get clients, get more referrals, and get more strategic partnerships. Yeah, it's interesting because I started the podcast and wrote the book more out of a labor of love. If people wanted to ask me my why, it was because I knew a few people and I had some really cool conversations and I'm like, I might as well record this stuff and see if anybody else wants to have

it. It wasn't even the platform was called the podcast. It couldn't be called anything back then because I just wanted to have these conversations. And then I found out, Hey, this guy's releasing a book, Michael McElligott was maybe he'll want to come on because we've got to have these conversations. And then I found out, Hey, this guy's releasing a book, Michael McElligott, maybe he'll want to come on because we've got some good listenership. And all of a sudden it's one of the biggest catalysts for my business, I think, because, you know, I was talking to you before we started about Jay Abraham and his whole idea is to take something in one industry and apply it to another one.

Something that's so common as day. I talked to a guy the other day, he had a printer business, you know, copy machines. And he said, it took all my people to one of those all inclusive like sandals trips or whatever. And he said, it was crazy. I thought maybe I could do this for printers. So he said, I'm just going to charge. I'm going to take care of the printer. I'm going to take care of the ink, the cartridges, the maintenance, and I'm just going to charge per piece. I'm more of a subscription based and he murdered it and he stole that from the travel industry. And it's crazy the things that I'm doing and I'm moving. But you know, when I started the podcast,

I had a story to tell. I already had made a lot of mistakes. I already had a really pretty fine-tuned business and I knew people wanted to hear about it and I knew they wanted to hear specialists. So, you know, when you're starting a podcast, give us the basics of why you would want to, because, you know, most people listening are home service professionals and they each have their niche. Maybe it's landscaping, maybe it's Christmas lights, maybe it's HVAC, plumbing, electrical. They're all over the spectrum. Rise 25 and your smart business revolution to make this happen. The reason why you should do it... For 10 years of doing a podcast, I've been telling everyone, even long before I had any kind of self-interest in doing it, I was telling everyone, you should start a podcast because it's the best thing ever

for your life. It will up-level your network. It will get you connections to amazing people. You should always be learning. You should always be connecting with new people, no matter what level you're at, whether your business is doing 100 grand a year or whether it's doing 100 million a year. There's someone who's further above you. And what the podcast does is it gives you the opportunity to get access to people that you wouldn't otherwise get access to because rather than picking their brain, you're actually giving them exposure. You're asking them questions, sure, that's of interest to you and you're learning at the same time, but you're also

giving them exposure. Even if you don't have a huge audience or anything like that, you're giving them exposure and publicity and you're promoting them, you're edifying them, which is just wonderful because then you leverage the principle of reciprocity because then they want to repay the favor, which materialize in the form of referrals and recommendations. And maybe they hire you. All kinds of great stuff like that happens. It happened for me way back when I was practicing law and I just continued doing it over and over again because of that. So I strongly, strongly recommend so many different people to do it because no matter what stage you're at in your business, you're going to find a way that it's going to benefit you and it's going to educate you and it's going to help you keep moving things more forward and breaking through different

barriers with your business. I completely agree. And the good news is I do home service podcasts, but I talk a lot about other things like investments and where should we put our money in home ownership. And a lot of this stuff applies to multiple industries, but they say find a niche. They say you don't want something like, let's talk about humanity. Let's see a little bit more niche. And I think you could just start in, for example, if you've got a chimney cleaning business, let's talk to some manufacturers. Let's talk to some vendors. Let's talk to some marketers that only do that. Let's talk to some businesses that are big and small and really dig into it. I haven't interviewed a bunch of people in the garage door niche. And actually, I think

I'm going to be interviewing the CEO of one of the largest home service companies. His name is Val. He's an amazing guy. The largest crossroad companies, but it's amazing. You could just talk to the smallest, just have a conversation about what you're doing. I watched these little kids open presents on these YouTube channels and they're making like a million dollars a month or something. I'm like, who wants to watch a kid do this stuff? It's crazy what people want to see and what they want to do. And there's no wrong answer, right? Yeah. Well, I think part of the reason that people

appeal to those types of YouTube videos is because it's an unfiltered and authentic glimpse into someone's life. And I think that's what podcasting does in an audio format. And so people can listen to it when they're driving or they're walking the dog or they're exercising or something like that. So they love that. They love that authentic conversation and hearing from people. But yeah, you mentioned if you have a chimney cleaning business,

there's literally dozens of different categories which we could go over where you could find potential guests, which would be helpful for your industry. I would absolutely look at, depending on who you service, I would look at potentially clients, but I'd also look at referral partners and strategic partners. And I'd look at other people who are in your industry, like consultants to the industry, but are not competitive with what you do. Especially if you interview someone who is, well, one, is a past champion of yours, that's a great one. Rather than going to someone completely cold, go to someone who's already been a champion of yours,

who's already referred business to you or who's helped you out in some way. It's a way of giving back to them and they'll help you out even more. But also people that are consulting in the industry who are not competitive, because if what you do makes their life better and makes their life easier,

then they'll refer you to one client and then they might refer you to all of their clients. competitive because if what you do makes their life better and makes their life easier, then they'll refer you to one client and then they might refer you to all of their clients. And if they're serving the same type of clientele as you are, that can be a tremendous source for you. You could get 5, 10, 20 referrals a year, depending on what industry you're in, from that one individual from interviewing them on the podcast. Or you mentioned a second ago, you're going to be interviewing one of the top home service garage door businesses out there. Well, who knows where that will lead after you have the podcast interview.

It might lead to some kind of synergies between your business or an acquisition one way or the other, or just even just a nugget of wisdom. You know, like maybe that guy's business is at 300 million a year. I don't know where it is, but he might have overcome some challenge

that you have in your business and you might gain a nugget of wisdom and insight from him in that interview that's going to blow the doors open for you. And so it's tremendously valuable to you, but it's also tremendously valuable to your audience too, because that same nugget of wisdom, you're downloading it, but also everyone else is as well. Yeah. And I downloaded... The coolest thing about the podcast is I asked the questions. And part of the future of the podcast is to allow the listeners to learn about the guests coming on and help direct some of these questions and guide me. I think that one of the coolest things about the podcast is the introductions. But you're right. It's the gold

nuggets. I already got this whole page of gold nuggets, just an ideas I have because light bulbs turn on and I take notes. You should see my podcast forms. There's like, there's all these to do's a lot of it's book reading a lot of it's, and then you get the best authors on here and it's amazing who you could get and network with. You're absolutely right. I mean, it's crazy. So you weren't really good at networking. Let's talk about the biggest obstacle that you had to overcome because I do believe that networking is probably my biggest asset. It's something that a lot of people don't have and it's not born with it. It's actually, you can teach it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

and most people will say their relationships are the most important asset that they have because that's what's going to sustain you. And up economies, down economies, it's the relationships that are going to lead to opportunities. So that's critical. But that word networking that you mentioned, most people will say they hate that.

They hate networking, right? Because they have a negative association with the word, just like a lot of times people have a negative association with the word sales. But we all realize that relationships are important. We all realize that selling is important. So the question is, how do we overcome that word? And how do we actually do it in a way that's win-win? And I learned the importance of networking because when I was a kid, my father lost his job three separate times. And each time we had to move across the country to a new community, I had to meet new kids. And I realized the importance

of building relationships, having watched my father experience that, having gotten laid off. And so I applied that to my life. And that's what I attribute to having gotten a lot of opportunities like working at the White House is the importance of building critical relationships. So I just hope to inspire others, whether I ever work with them or not. I know that there's only, just like you, there's only so many clients you can work with. So when I talk to others, I just try and inspire them to go out there and take interest in other people. And using a tool like a podcast, it allows you to edify them and also to learn at the same time while uploading your network and expanding your

network and meeting new people. Well said. I've listened to a lot of podcasts and I listened to some of the best people that, you know, you got a guy like Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss and some of these monster that just, they make a, they make a killing. And one of the things I found on some podcasts is you got to really be excited, talk to people, ask good questions, be real. Like you said, you got to be unfiltered, real raw. And I listened to some people and I love to know your, what are the biggest downfalls? First of all, let's talk about some of the mistakes we make, like not having the right equipment, not having the right editors, not really having a plan to go live with it. Let's start there.

Yeah. So that's often what people ask me about. And to be honest, equipment is fun. People oftentimes spend hours and hours researching what microphone to buy. On the scale of things, it's such a minor decision. I bought the microphone I'm speaking into right now nine years ago. I've been using it ever since. It's such a minor decision. I bought the microphone I'm speaking into right now nine years ago. I've been using it ever since. It's such a minor decision. The much bigger focus is not what software you use or anything like that. The much bigger important decision is who

you're going to feature because that's going to lead to your network, how your network will evolve and change over time. And a lot of times I talk to podcasters all the time who, even if they're doing it for a year or two or something like that, and they interviewed 100 people, haven't gotten a single client out of it or gotten any results out of it. And those are the people who end up quitting. They end up giving up because they haven't gotten return out of it. So they end up getting busy with something else. And then they put the podcast on hiatus and they never go back to it. And I think that's really sad. So actually, what I think what's most important is you got to figure out how to get return or ROI from your efforts. Meaning that you need to get... If you have a B2B business, then you need to get clients

out of it somehow. Because when you do that, when you get a client that returns revenue to your business, you're going to see the potential. And you're also going to be able to use it to scratch itches and expand your network and meet new people while you're also getting a return from it. So that's also motivating. Because if you don't get a return, you're going to give up. And I just want to mention one thing. So you don't need a Joe Rogan-sized audience in order to do this. I had hardly any audience when I started and I would continue doing it even if no one was listening. And Joe Rogan, actually, it's an interesting point because he recently announced that Spotify was acquiring his business for a rumored $100 million or something like that. I actually think that he wasn't making much money from his show

or wasn't making at least enough because he really pissed off his audience when he announced that because he's going off of YouTube and everything. People were pissed. His audience was pissed. And the reason why I think that was is because he doesn't have a B2B business backing up that podcast. He was making money off of Google AdWords and YouTube views and stuff like that, which is not a great way to monetize a podcast. So that's why I think he was willing to piss off his audience because he was waved a big check at, Spotify waved a big check at him. And so he went for it. I don't blame him for doing it. But what it signifies for me is that if you're going to

try and pursue a Joe Rogan strategy, it's harder than ever today. And also, it's not going to be as profitable as you think it's going to be. If it's not for Joe Rogan, the biggest podcaster out there, it's probably not going to be for you. But if you do pursue a B2B business strategy, if you come from a B2B background, that can be wildly profitable. It's funny because most people listening are B2C. I mean, unless you're taking on commercial, when I think about commercial garage doors, commercial roofing, you're talking to other businesses, right? Yeah.

So there's an opportunity there, but... And I can comment on that. Actually, the B2C, so you can still use the same strategies. It just is going to take a little while longer to be profitable. Or you're going to need more deals in order for it to be profitable. Or you're going to need more deals in order for it to be profitable. But you can use the same strategies. I would still say the same type,

you would feature the same type of people, referral partners, strategic partners. For example, if you have a gutter cleaning business, then maybe you go and partner with a roofing business because you are pursuing similar types of clientele, but there might be synergies between the two of you. You can refer business back and forth. So you go and you interview a bunch of roofing companies

and you strike up some good referral relationships with those roofing companies so that you can refer business back and forth. Well, plus I get a lot of other home service legends like Michael Gerber or, you know, Ken Goodrich is a good guy because he's very, very successful. A couple hundred million. You get these people on and they're giving the tips.

They let it all, they tell you their story and how they changed and the biggest mistakes they made from the beginning to now. And it leads you to this huge epiphany of, wait a minute. And, you know, I'm going to do a seminar here, a pretty big one for a couple thousand people. The big thing I'm going to focus on is speaking to my younger self. If I had to do it over again, here's post-COVID what I'm changing in my business and why. The biggest thing that we don't do enough, and especially when you're real and raw, is you got to tell stories. You got to tell as many stories as possible because people remember

stories. Absolutely. Yeah, I totally stories as possible because people remember stories. Absolutely. Yeah, I totally agree with that. You know, rather than lecturing, tell the actual stories. The greatest news about this podcast is the ROI that I get is to have people on because my business, my A1 garage door service, I mean, I want to be a billion dollar company. And I don't think I can get there without the podcast and without reading books and without talking to the authors personally on the podcast and asking the questions. And then just tell me one little gold nugget per podcast. But the great news is anybody can hear these gold nuggets. And I guarantee you,

if I'm getting gold nuggets, someone else should get gold nuggets. And I don't advertise on the show and I'm not trying to do anything fancy. Ultimately, what I want, here's what I'm going to try to do, John, this is my plan, is I want to get a huge Facebook group and I want to deliver so much value that I could charge a little bit of money for another Facebook group, but I could get the best, the best. I could get Gary Vee. I could get Frank Kern and Perry Belcher, the best people in the world, the best lawyers, the best accountants, like the

guys that literally write the laws, which you're familiar with because you spent time in DC. If I could take the money from the paid group and get them on and deliver a lot of value to the free group, but more to the paid group where they could actually come ask questions, do lives with us. It just was like, all of a sudden you're like, you're in that next class. Now, all of a sudden the material you're getting, because look, if I'm taking a portion of that paid group, let's just say I'm taking a hundred and a thousand people to join. I say I'm taking a hundred bucks or 500, whatever the number is, and applying that to just pay people to come on.

But you can't sell anything. It's just deliver, deliver, deliver. And we've got a real structured process. And then it also molds into the podcast. And that's one question I was going to talk to you about is, say for me, the ultimate purpose of this is just to reach more successful, more successful. And it doesn't always have to be money or business. It could be, how are you spending so much amazing time with your family? How did you find financial freedom to travel? What do you like about traveling? We can talk about successes defined within one's own person, but how do you manage? You got YouTube,

you got Facebook, you got Instagram, you've got the podcast channel. Everybody's saying, do YouTube. You make money with YouTube. Do Facebook. You've got to get a Facebook. And you can make them all tie into each other. But really, you're saying podcast is where to go. Other people are saying, don't waste your time until you got this. So what's your answer to that? What I say is, first of all, podcasting is completely different from the rest of those because podcasting is owning your own real estate. And YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, everything is sharecropping.

You don't own your channel. And with Apple, you broadcast it on Apple and through, what is it, Libsyn and all these other places? Apple's about half the downloads now, but fundamentally you own your feed and you own your hosting platform. And then that gets distributed across multiple different channels. Whereas with YouTube, with Facebook, with Instagram, those companies can change the rules of the road after you've put a bunch of money into it and you can do nothing about it. I mean, big companies like McDonald's and Coca-Cola and stuff like that, they spent a

ton of money building up big Facebook groups. Then Facebook changed the rules of the road. And then all of a sudden it became pay to play. And you couldn't even have all these people that you paid to acquire to follow your page or to follow your group. Couldn't see the content that you're putting out there. And so that's, that doesn't happen with podcasting because you have much more control over your channel. But in addition to that, I don't have any problem. I don't have any problem with people building up a Facebook group after first establishing a podcast channel, because the podcast channel to me is the foundation. It's where you build the relationships that will lead to the other assets that you've built. So as you said, you want to create another Facebook group. That's fine. I think that's cool. You can build up a

YouTube channel, whatever it is. Just this week alone, I'm actually doing three different webinar presentations, including three for three different audiences. In each case, I'm doing an educational training for someone else's audience. And this is someone else who I interviewed on my own podcast at one point in time, built a relationship with them. And now they're bringing me in as a expert

to come in and to train their community, which then will lead, flow back to benefits for me. It will probably lead back to clients and opportunities and more strategic partnerships and things like that. But it starts with the podcast because it starts with that conversation. It starts with getting to know each other. And then that other sorts of synergies and joint ventures and collaborations and stuff like that will happen afterwards.

In fact, that I think is where a lot of people don't put enough emphasis is making sure to have a post-podcast collaboration to talk about, hey, what else can we do together? How can we support one another? And if you're, whether you're the guest or the interviewer, you should be asking the other person, what can I do for you? Who else can I introduce you to? Because that's part of the tremendous benefit is just looking at what else do we have in our network? How can we support one another? So good. I love this. This is just full of gold nuggets. So I think about networking and there's a guy that comes to mind that some people might recognize. His name is Joe Polish.

I don't know if that rings a bell, but he's- I know him. He's a great networker. Yeah. He's the epitome- In Arizona as well. He's in Arizona. He started, I don't know if you know this, but cleaning carpets. Yes, he did. He had service. That's right. The number one guy, probably, I love marketing, that I could think of. I mean, the Genius Network is a monster. And he's a big podcast. He's a zealous advocate for podcasting.

Oh, the dude is amazing. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I 100% agree. But you know how much he charges for his Genius Network per year? It was $25,000. $25,000. And then I think he's got a new group at 100,000, which is the elite.

Right. So how many people there's probably, let's just pretend there's a thousand members at 25,000. That's 25 million. But the difference is too, is he makes phone calls to Richard Branson and goes to Necker Island. He gets free wherever he goes.

The networking is such an amazing thing if you could organize it and have the Rolodex. That's a good question. I've got so many questions, so this is amazing. I know you've got a hard stop here in 30. How do you organize it all? Once you get the podcast, how do you figure out who they know? Because the first thing you should say is ultimately who they connected with that they could introduce you. What can you do for them So what can you do for them? You have

to have your stuff organized with them. What can you do for me? What can you do for the other person? So how do you do that? How do you organize it all and start to really put a plan together? Yeah. So there's a couple of questions there. So first of all, what I would do is proactively, I would take the time to really map out and think through who are the people that you are going to seek to connect with, to deepen relationships with before you even embark on this initiative. Or if you've started already, at any point in time, you can stop and say, okay, who should I be developing and deepening a relationship with over the course of the next 12 months? Because if you do, let's say a weekly interview, that's 52 people over the course of the next 12 months. Because if you do, let's say a weekly interview,

that's 52 people over the course of a year that you are developing or deepening a relationship with. That's in tremendous value to any business if you do it right. But a lot of people don't think that through. A lot of people just like, maybe they take whoever comes because you start getting emails from PR reps and so you take whoever can come in

or they don't really think it through. Maybe they're not interviewing their best clients. Maybe they're not interviewing their best referral partners. Maybe they're not interviewing potential strategic partners in their industry. So I think the first step is to really think through that piece and to map it out and brainstorm a list of people who are most important. Then the other question is, how do you take that relationship further? How do you continue to maintain that relationship? Personally, I'm a big fan of introductions. So whether I'm being a guest on a podcast or I am interviewing someone on my podcast, I'm thinking in my brain, who else do I know that would be a good connection for this person? Because it takes little skin off your

back. It does not take a lot of time to introduce two people to one another. But if you introduce two people to one another and some good comes out of it, whether it's a podcast or something like that, or a discussion or synergy, or in my case, I've had people who started businesses together from an introduction. When you do that, people are deeply grateful to you. And it will materialize in forms of, again, clients, referrals, strategic partnerships, that sort of thing. So I look for that sort of opportunity. But just being aware, just talking to the person and figuring out what they're focused on. Like you, you want to build a

billion-dollar company. Well, I've interviewed billionaires on my podcast. Maybe I should offer to introduce you to someone who would maybe be a good fit for you to talk to because then you could talk to them, you could get some insights insights and that would help you to achieve your objective. So really, it's about listening to what the other person is looking for and seeing how can I help them out? How can I help them to achieve that objective? That's a great point. And I think there's a great book on my shelf, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And it really discusses some of those key factors of be a good listener, meet people, introduce them to other people, genuinely listen to what they have to say. And I think a lot of us in this day and

age, we're getting screamed at from 90 different directions and we forget the core of just being a good person. And I love what you do, everything you're saying about just share with one another. And I think the fact that we're not advertising all over on this thing and just really trying to build something that's going to help small businesses. And the trick is, is the podcast is not organized in a way that you listen to one through 150. It's not like all marketing and that or the other, but you can listen to it by the person. And then we put out everything we talk about. We literally, we transpose the whole thing and you can find out what this one's all about and if it's up your alley or not. And what do you have to say about the organization of the

podcast to keep everything kind of ebbs and flows? Because I like to go down a deep tunnel sometimes. I don't need to be, oh, next question, next question. I hate the people that send me a list and they go, here's the four questions we're covering. I do the same things every time. That's fine. But what if we got a really good story that goes deeper into one of those questions? And it just goes off topic. Right, right. So yeah, as far as the conversation goes, I mean, every interviewer is different. I think you can learn a lot from listening to different interviewers and their styles. I've been listening to Guy Raz at How I Built This a lot recently, because he's a great interviewer. I've been doing it for 10 years. I'm constantly trying to

improve the way that I do it. My business partner, Jeremy Weiss, his podcast, Inspired Insider, he does a great job of asking questions and teasing out stories from people. So that's another way you can really improve. And you're right. You brought up a great point. You put out all these different episodes and people might enter from any point. It's not like a marketing funnel where people always start at the beginning and they go through in the system that you want them to. You can have email opt-ins so people get onto your email list and then they go through that sequence. But as far as the podcast goes, people don't go in in that order. So you have to be aware of that. One thing I think people

don't do a great job of that they should do is always sharing who they are. Because a lot of times, the podcasters, they don't focus enough on who they are and what they've achieved. And so there's some ways you can do that by introducing yourself, not in a salesy way or anything like that, but just explaining a little bit at the top of who you are. Another thing I recommend is that the business be the sponsor of the podcast? Because the business ultimately is underwriting the cost of the podcast. Sure. And so reading a sponsor message, especially live when your guest is on the other line, will educate the listenership. It'll allow you to tailor it to the guest who's on the other end.

And it will also be an opportunity to educate your guest on who you are and what you do, which the guest doesn't always know. And so when you do that, then that will lead to afterwards in the post-collaboration conversation will lead oftentimes to the guest saying, hey, by the way, can we talk about something? I have a question for you. And this happened for me when I was practicing law, where I would interview people. And at the end, they're like, I got a lawyer on the other end. And when do you have a lawyer on the other end who's not billing you by the hour?

And they would just ask me a legal question. They'd be like, can I ask you a legal question? And I'd be like, well, yes, you can ask me a legal question. I was happy for it. And oftentimes, it led to a client relationship afterwards. Not 100% of the time. Nothing works 100% of the time, but oftentimes it did. So those are a couple of different ways that I think you can optimize the process. I really like that whole mentality because ultimately, this is a business for me. I want to share my message. I want to be able to do keynote speeches. I think that I have a story to tell to people. And I think there's something good here that I could tell. And I made a lot of mistakes. More importantly, the one thing that I'll tell everybody is I go a hundred miles an

hour and I go head deep. I jump in head first and I put a lot of the mistakes in the book I wrote, but I've made a ton of mistakes and sharing these stories is very valuable. And you know, there's not a lot. I looked it up the other day. There's about 2,200 billionaires. That's a crazy stat. That's a small elite group. And I don't care to be in that group. That's not the point, but there's not a lot of people that can get to that point. The point is it's a tough task. There's not a lot of people that can get to swimming in the Olympics. There's a lot of things depending on, but home service, it's a really small, small pool of people. So when I get those people on it, it's fun to talk

to them because one thing that I've noticed is they said they systematize their business. They've made everything into a system. And now that I've learned how to do that, it's going to be so easy to jump from 60, 70 million to 200 to 500 to a billion, because you see, I spent 10% on marketing and I've got different, you know, I spent a little bit more in certain cities and stuff, but as the number grows, the marketing grows, and then it turns into this thing where no one can touch me. They can't pay as much as me. You know, it's kind of like,

it's just crazy how it all works. But ultimately I am building a business and I didn't even realize it when I started the podcast, the business is going to be to get in front of amazing people have live. And the great news is I'm not depending on this for my life. And either is most of the people we're talking to. They can do this for fun. They can be real. They can talk about, they just had to fire somebody. And man, I'll tell you this, it's the biggest struggle in the world for me to fire people, especially when they didn't make a mistake. They're just, they're not good. But I wanted to ask you a really important question for me. It's frequency because I build these up. Last week, I had five.

We only post one per week. And we try to get the best people. We try to do a ton of research. We've got a lot of questions. You see, I got three pages here of questions. And I'll probably get to a third of them with most interviews because you're going to hear me. But how do you determine the frequency? I think most podcast listeners, they come to expect a weekly frequency. So I recommend most people start with a weekly. Plus, some people, sometimes they ask me, well, why don't I do a monthly show? And this is the way I look at it. Look, over the course of a year, if you do a monthly show, so you've connected with 12 people, that's not going to move the needle in your business.

And I agree with you. You know, really like it's incredibly difficult to build a business as a business in itself without a business behind it. So I think you're much better to come in with a separate business and use the podcast really as a marketing channel. But it's a lot more than that. It's actually a channel for networking and business development

and client acquisition and personal and professional development and content marketing. It's all of those things at once. It's not just a marketing tool. But as far as frequency goes, to answer that question, people ask, should I do it once a month? Well, that's not really going to move the needle. If you have 10 to 12 people over the course of the year that you've edified, that you've connected with, you've deepened a relationship with, but weekly, even if you take some vacation time, that's 50 people. And in any business, if you do it right, whether it's a business that's doing 30 million a

year or 300 million a year, a billion dollars a year, it's going to move the needle. It's going to make a huge impact. And by the way, there are billionaires that have podcasts. Reid Hoffman does a podcast. Tony Robbins does a podcast. Why did they do a podcast? Because even at their level, they are up-leveling their network. There are people that they want to connect with, they want to deepen a relationship with, and the people that they want to connect with have equal busyness. And it's just not going to happen. We're not going to carve out time in our busy schedules. Like Reid Hoffman interviewed Barry Diller not too long ago.

Like Barry Diller is busy. They're both busy. You know, they're not going to carve out time. But the podcast forces you to. You know, because of the podcast, a busy person will carve out the time. I mean, I'm blown away by the caliber of people that I've had on, literally billionaires and CEOs of publicly traded companies that would carve out 45 minutes to an hour of their day to talk to me because I'm recording it, because I'm going to put it up

on the internet because it can be up there forever and because other people are going to hear it. And so as a roundabout way of saying that, yes, frequency, I would recommend a weekly basis because you have 50 people over the course of a year. So I'm getting 15 to 20,000 downloads a month. I'm happy. I'm happy we're sharing the message. Most importantly, I'm happy because people come up to me and they tell me, Tommy, I listened to your podcast and I got to tell you that one thing that you said or that the guest came on and did, it changed my life. And it means a lot to hear those stories. And I would never stop this. This is like my therapy session. This is

like my counseling. And my question to you would be, how do you go to that next level? How do you bring it up to that 100,000? How do you spread the word and get it to go viral? Honestly, you're probably not going to be happy with my answer to this, but I've been doing it for 10 years and I don't even check my downloads. And I would continue doing it even if no one was listening. I think that it's good to have listenership. I like people listening to my show. I've had the same experience. People come up to me at conferences and they're like, hey, I really love your podcast. And I love that and everything. But I think that it should be valuable to you regardless of whether anyone's listening. In other words, the value that you get from connecting with high caliber people and getting value from them and learning nuggets

of wisdom, that sort of thing should be enough that the downloads don't even matter. But beyond that, I mean, just continuing to do it is what separates you from everyone else who quits. Because there's a really high failure rate. There's a lot of people out there who quit doing a podcast. And if you continue doing it over the course of five years, 10 years, over time, it's gonna be 500 people. It's gonna be a thousand people

and your network is gonna grow and it's gonna be tremendous. So that's really what's most important. I don't mean to minimize the issue of downloads. It's just that I think a lot of people listening to this, maybe if they haven't started a podcast before, are thinking, oh man, I can't do it because other people have done it before me or because how would I compete with other people out there? And the fact is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you compete with other people. You would get value

from it, whether hardly anyone is listening or not. Because your network's different from everyone else out there. And you're going to be deepening relationships with your network and getting referrals from your extended network, unlike everyone else does. And so that's truly what differentiates people. And I can agree with that. I understand what the audience you're speaking to. I'm a little bit different to where, you know, from a different perspective is key performance indicators drive me. They make me try harder. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do the best. And the one thing I preach on this podcast is know your numbers, know your numbers, know your numbers, know your numbers. You can't fix it if you don't know it's broken.

So if I'm losing listenership, that must mean I must be going the wrong direction So I like to do things to stimulate the listeners and the only thing I could track Is that one thing to say we're doing a great job. We're delivering value ultimately my main goal is that we deliver more value because I want people to walk up to me and be like I'm your friend. I know all about you. I know all about your podcast. I've read your book because you put out so much value. I want you around me. And that's the way I think I'm going to network. And those KPIs, those, it's like, I can't go to school and then everybody go, I'm not even going to grade you. You're all passing my class. Okay. Maybe gym class. That's

fine. And I still think you should do pushups or something. Well, all right. So in light of that, since you love the KPIs, I will tell you this. Let me tell you a story because we were talking about the importance of stories. A few years back, a friend of mine is one of the biggest podcasters out there. His name is Jordan Harbinger. He had a different show

with a different series of business partners, had a bit of a falling out and had to start over from scratch. And at this point, I don't remember how many... He had millions of downloads a month with his previous show, which he'd been doing for about eight or nine years or 10 years at that point. So you can imagine how hard that would be to start over. So what did he do? He leveraged his relationships, of course, because he built some amazing relationships within the medium. So with other podcasters, he basically went on

a podcasting tour. And I was very privileged. I was the first one that he did, actually, when he announced he was starting this new show. And he went on every other show that he could out there and told his story and said, hey, I'm starting a new show and please subscribe. And within a year, he built back his audience and then some. It was even bigger than it ever was before.

So one of the best things you can do with the medium of podcasting is to be present on the medium of podcasting. So to use your podcast to get other podcasters, especially with larger audiences, on your show, and then many of those podcasters will then reciprocate if you have a story to tell by having you on their show. And then many of those podcasters will then reciprocate if you have a story to tell by having you on their show. And that's a great way to build your audience.

There are other strategies as well, but I'll leave you with that one. I really like that. It makes a lot of sense to me. I want to hear more strategies, but we'll do that another time. I was going to ask you, what are three tips you could give to make networking a little bit easier? Just three quick ones. Three. Okay. To make it easier. First, I would say it's all in the philosophy and the approach. So be a giver, go out there. There's a great book, you know, give and take. Go giver. Go giver or give and take by Adam Grant's another tremendous book out there, which I would recommend, you know, go out there and deliver value to other people.

Do it consistently without fail because what tends to happen is something bad happens to people, like they lose a job and then all of a sudden they're reaching out. So don't be that guy who reaches out to people when you need something only, but reach out and connect

and build relationships with people in other times. And what's the third tip? Be good at clearly articulating to other people how they can deliver value back to you. Because oftentimes people are looking to reciprocate. They're looking to repay the favor. But I know many people who I'm not sure how I can help them. I'm not sure what they're looking for. I'm not sure what would be a good introduction for them or what knowledge shared with them would be a value. So be really clear and it can evolve and change over time, but be really clear on who is a value for you. Man, my brain is just like firing right now. There's like dendrites and axons and all kinds of stuff going on. It's amazing. So tell us one interesting experience you've

had while creating your podcast. I'm curious about that. One interesting experience. I mean, I don't know if I get, it's like picking a baby, you know, picking who's your favorite baby, I guess. I mean, you know, I've had such amazing opportunities. You mentioned Michael Gerber.

I've connected with him through podcasting. I'm looking at my bookshelf here. Vern Harnish, I'm active in EO here in San Francisco. Vern Harnish is the founder of EO. And I've had him on my podcast. Gino Wickman, EOS, I believe I introduced you to him. Yeah, he came on. We did a live one. That was amazing. But he has a prerequisite. He just doesn't jump on any podcasts. He does. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So there's a ways to get around that sort of thing. So if you're just starting out with a podcast,

what a lot of people do is they don't position it right. And they don't leverage other elements of social proof. So they don't leverage their years of expertise or they don't leverage maybe clients that they worked with. In substitute of downloads, there are other ways you can establish your expertise so that the person on the other end is excited about interviewing you because they want to meet you. They want to

connect with you. Maybe they want to learn a little bit from you. It's not just downloads. So anyways, it's a good point. But I mean, Guy Kawasaki, who was with Steve Jobs early on at Apple, so many amazing... And then I also have a stack of my books here of people I've interviewed on my podcast who then put me in their book. Zvi Ban put me in Success in Your Sphere. Michelle Tillis Letterman put me in The Connector's Advantage. Dori Clark put me in Stand Down and Entrepreneurial You. These are people that I interviewed on my podcast. And as a result, not only as a result, but one of the consequences of having built a relationship with them, they featured me subsequently in a book. That's pretty cool, right? In fact, Entrepreneurial You by Dori Clark,

I'm the first story in the first chapter in the very beginning of the book. It's like talking about me. So I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this that you put in your time, you put in your effort, you deliver value to others and all kinds of tremendous benefits

will come back and will flow back to you. Yeah. I got so many great things here. So I ask three questions always, and I want you to really think deep and hard about the last one, which is going to be, I want you to give some time to kind of talk to the audience and a message. But first of all, we want to get a hold of you. Whether we want to find a podcast or maybe we just got a question for you. What's the best way to do that? Sure. Rise25.com or email me john at rise25media.com or LinkedIn. You can connect with me there also. And all this stuff's available via homeserviceexpert.com. You can find all the podcasts, all the information. Okay. So give me three books,pert.com. You can find all the podcasts, all the information.

Okay. So give me three books, give and take. You can probably give me six if you want, because you got them all sitting there. But I want to know, since we got a little bit of time, why these books? And think about home service. We're always trying to market. We're trying to find a balance between our personal lives. We work busy days at night times when we usually get stuff done. We're on the road a lot. What are lives. We work busy days at night times when we usually get stuff done. We're on the road a lot. What are the three books that really stand out to you? I like the give and take idea because you got to give a lot and then you can take it

back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that book... Who's the author of that again? Adam Grant. And that's really about the different types of personalities out there. There are givers, there are takers, and there are matchers. And basically what he said is that

people who are givers are more likely to rise to the top of the success ladder. And he backed it up with all kinds of social science proof and experiments and stuff. So that's a great one. I mentioned, It's Not Gonna Go Successes in Your Sphere by Zvi Band is another great book. I'm not gonna mention just three.

I gotta mention a bunch more. You mentioned Dale Carnegie earlier, How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book's over 100 years old, but it's as relevant today as it was when it was written 100 years ago. And Scaling Up by Vern Harnish, that's another great one. It's had a big impact on my business and many, many other businesses as well. And E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber, classic, right? You got to check that one out as well. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy. I've seen him speak a bunch of times i had him in my office and that day happened to be all my trainees were out they were doing an activity a huge one and my guys were off it was a friday and he walks through and he

goes tommy this is a big place where are all the people and you know i'm like well i got this day and age we got people that work from home. My trainees are out. It was kind of embarrassing because he's like, now why is that? And then he made me go get a warm glass of water for him. And he's like, it's not warm enough. And he's like, you have lemons. So we went and got lemons. He didn't touch the water. He didn't touch the lemon. But I'll tell you what, that guy can get what he wants whenever he wants. That guy is like the staple of what a business should be like. And the last question I always ask, and I want to give the floor to you, and I really

want this message to be something to take action, something to really think about for the listeners. And there's so much you can put into this, but so you got to do it in under five minutes because that's how much time you have. But tell us something that's going to make them take action and a gold nugget for them to think about. Yeah, I mean, it's been said many different ways. A lot of people say your network is your net worth or you are the average of the five people that are closest to you.

But the bottom line is, look, the people around you, the relationships that you build proactively are going to determine where you go in life. And I learned that from a young age, seeing my father get laid off and from having to move around the country and having to basically build new relationships in a new school and a new class, all that kind of stuff. And so I've applied it to my life. And I've had some amazing opportunities throughout my career because of that. And to this day, I continue to put effort into it. And so be one of those types of people who

is constantly working to uplevel your network to connect with new people. And it's hard, right? It's difficult in today's day and age because the higher, higher caliber people that you're trying to connect with are busy. And if they view you as a taker or someone who's just trying to pick their brain or something, it's going to be hard to develop a relationship with them. So I do it with content. You do it with content. We do it with our podcast. But do it no matter what. Take the time to build relationships with people and deliver value to them first. And when you do that, you will gain insights, nuggets of wisdom. They will introduce you to other people. You'll expand your network.

It'll lead to more opportunities and you'll be happier overall. So that's what I would leave everyone with is go out, do that, and good things will happen for you. John, I'll leave it with this. You're amazing. You reminded me of this guy. He wrote Blue Fishing, Steve Sims. He came on the podcast and he says- Yeah, I know Steve, yeah. He's like, you pick out your targets and you go find them

and you stay top of mind with them and you do something for them. We investigate the people. We found out one of the guys that I was trying to get on had an autistic kid and we made it happen And we changed his life. And what he learned how to do is just amazing, what you're doing.

And I think to be around more people like you is gonna make everybody a stronger person, a better human being. John Cochran out of San Francisco, ladies and gentlemen, you can find him. Obviously, he's got the Rise 25. That's his main claim to fame. And the, is it smartbusinessrevolution.com?

Yes. And Smart Business Revolution podcast on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, I appreciate you coming on, brother. Thank you, Tommy. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me. And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast.

Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor. Leave a quick review. It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review.

Make it four or five sentences. Tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick, we started a membership. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company. And we're just, we're telling everybody our secrets basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward

slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your life season further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it.