Seth Greene 1:55
Sure. Thanks for having me on. It’s an honor to be here serving you and your listeners and viewers. So we got into podcasting by mistake, it was kind of accidental. So I think it was about I’ll have to double check probably 2004 2013 2014, I had just completed my fourth book, cutting edge marketing magic. And it was my first interview book, I had gotten the idea to interview other marketers that I wanted to work with learn from get referrals from make a centers of influence. So I finished the book, we transcribe all the interviews, turn it into a book. And around that time, I started listening to podcasts. And I said, Hey, wait a second, most of the podcasts, I’m listening to our interviews, and I just did a whole bunch of interviews. What if I aired them as a podcast just to see what would happen if I aired one a week, I’ve got enough for almost four months before I’d have to record another one. So I said what the heck, I’ll figure out how to upload it to iTunes, get it to iTunes and launch the show. And I made a lot of mistakes. I literally aired the unedited raw conference call recordings of my interviews, like you hear the phone ring, you’re the host person and I talking about Hey, thanks for doing this. What am I talking about? There was no music, no bumpers, no interest, no production value whatsoever. That’s my plan for this episode, by the way, awesome, your audio quality was terrible. But the show took off. People were like, the reviews were all the audio production is lousy, there’s no production value at all. But if you get past that the contents really good. So I said, Oh, this is working, maybe we should make this a real show. So we did and we launched it is direct response marketing. That’s what the show was called. And at the time after it took off. If you go if you search iTunes for direct response, marketing 80% of the real estate was me. So it was working really, really well. Once we got a professional show produced, and it works so well to help grow our business, our clients started saying hey, can we get one of those too. So then we had to invent a system for delivering a done for you podcast, that turns into a book that makes you an authority your marketplace in generates referrals, we created a service as a way to deliver that as a service for other people that we had just done for ourselves. And then that took off. And now it’s almost half of our business. Because we have we produced over about, you know, 80 shows for different clients.
John Corcoran 4:15
That’s a nice Miss. That’s a nice mistake to have it become your business. Yeah. So which comes first? Is it a book? Or is it a podcast? Are they both they’re intertwined with one another,
Seth Greene 4:24
the podcast comes first. And then the edited, rewritten, edited transcripts of the interviews turned into the book becomes the book. And the book is the authority piece. And they’re related to one another. But they’re different, really distinctly different than, you know, a book, there’s nothing quite like a book, even in today’s day and age of digital media, a book still has, you know, a certain cachet to it, doesn’t it? Because it’s got the thud factor. It’s got the on the shelves at Barnes and Noble factor that you can’t get any other way, shape or form. And even though it you know, everyone’s supposed to be all digital and all Kindle. Now, the number one best selling book category is teen fiction, for physical books. And the teenagers are all millennials, they’re all supposed to be reading everything on their iPads, but they’re buying more physical books than anybody else. Now, that may not be your target market. It’s not mine. But it just goes to show you that the physical book is more powerful now than ever, because in that pretty much all digital world, people prefer to read something physical.
John Corcoran 5:20
That just tells me if I’m going out the wrong, wrong market if you’re going after teen teen readers or something like that. So I’m really interested to know your perspective on this because I started podcasting around 2012, I think, and you know, I’ve seen so many podcasts come and go great podcast, you know, people who love doing it, and they just, you know, give up at some point. What do you think the reason is that so many people can’t stick through it? You know? Do you think that it’s because people are making mistakes along the way? Or what’s your perspective on that?
Seth Greene 5:54
I think the reason they stopped doing is because I’m not making any money. They’re probably following the traditional podcast, media platform formula, which is if you build up your following enough, you’ll be able to sell ads and sponsorships. And that’s how you’ll make money. The problem is you don’t want a second or third job selling ads on your podcast. And most the majority, you know, 97% of podcasts are never going to get 10,000 listeners in episode to where they can sell real advertising. So I think once people get to the point where they figure that out, they quit. Because they’re like, this is more work than I thought I’m not making the money, I would thought so they drop out. Whereas if whereas I’m sorry, I’ll put on Do not disturb it. So what we teach a completely opposite formula for doing a podcast, whether we’re producing it or whether people are just learning from us, and our business model for monetizing a podcast has nothing to do with ads or sponsorships at all. We’ve literally had podcasts that made hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. You know, when they had like nine listeners, it just depends on how you strategize the show,
John Corcoran 6:58
right. And I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I wrote a extensive article where I interviewed over 100 different podcasters a number about four or five months ago. And what I found was It was shocking, probably about 95% of the people. I asked them, How do you get good ROI from podcasts, and 95% of the people thought it was from ads and sponsorship.
Seth Greene 7:20
Which means if you do what everyone else does, you’ll get the same results. And you got to do the opposite, which is kind of what we do. And it’s funny you interviewed 100 I only interviewed about 12 before I we relaunched the show the right way, the way I decided was the right way. And I turned that into a book called market domination for podcasting, which is on the shelves at Barnes and Noble and at Walmart and Target now.
John Corcoran 7:42
Yeah, so tell me about the evolution from the prior version of the show to the shark printer podcast and specifically, how did you meet Kevin Harrington? A lot of my listeners are always curious about that. How do you get someone who’s you know, phenomenally well known accomplished in their career? Not that you’re you’re not you’re accomplished as well. But
Seth Greene 8:01
listen, he’s got a few more zeros at the end of his network than I do. Right, right.
John Corcoran 8:06
He’s on, you know, Shark Tank, which is, of course, you know, nationally televised famous TV show, inventor of the infomercial, Mo, you just walk up to him and conferences at a conference and say, hey, let’s do a podcast together. How’d that work?
Seth Greene 8:19
No, I kidnapped him. Well, I’ve walked up to him at a conference. And when he was in the back of the room signing books, and I said, Mr. Harrington, I’m here to take you to the airport. And this was pre Uber and he said, Oh, I was just gonna get a taxi. That’s okay. And they said, No, I insist. I’m taking you to the airport. He said, Okay. Um, so I was able to drive very slowly to the airport, because the conference was in my town, and I knew where it was. And I had the car, it wasn’t an Uber. So I drove slowly, I had 20 to 30 minutes in the car with him, where he was literally a captive audience. I pitched him on some we weren’t podcasting. At the time, I didn’t have any show. I had pitched him on the 12 holes I had identified in the As Seen on TV, com marketing funnel that he owned back that, and how we could add 20% to his business, which he said, Okay, you got my attention. You know, it’s a billion dollar a year company, it’d be 200 million extra. I said, Yes, sir. I’m aware of that. And he said, Okay, I could use an extra 200 million, you got my attention. So I followed up, he gave me his direct contact information, I followed up with a shock and awe box, which is a whole nother conversation, but it had a custom video from me to him, outlining what we thought we could do for him, that started our consulting relationship. And then we speak in a lot of the same conferences, he started sending us his portfolio companies to do marketing for, and then not for five years into our relationship. We were speaking again at one of his events this time together. And he said, you know, what are you doing that’s sexy lately. And I had told him we had recently, you know, we are done for you podcast into book model, and explained it. And he said, Well, I want a podcast, I don’t want to do any work, and said, Okay, so what do you want from me? And he said, Well, you’ve already have a show. And you have a following. How about I come on, I’ll be the co host, you rebranded around the two of us. And I’ll guarantee you, I’ll do one episode a week, because that’s about all my schedule can handle. And I’ll promote every episode that I’m on. And we’ll have a podcast together. And I said, done. I’m in.
John Corcoran 10:20
And what is he? What is someone like that get out of doing a podcast? What’s the
Seth Greene 10:25
money, I’m so okay, getting deals out of it. He’s getting investment opportunities. He’s getting companies that want to give him equity in exchange for helping them. He’s hired employee, he’s hired firms that were on the show to do the work that they were talking about, on the show that he’s hired them for his companies. So it’s working, just funding, launched a separate product off of it in the next couple months with a with the largest company of its kind on the planet. So it will that will also add some zeros to both of our bottom lines.
John Corcoran 10:58
It’s interesting, because I’ve listened to some of the you’re episodes where it almost sounds like he’s interviewing someone, you know, he’s
Seth Greene 11:05
he, as soon as we hit, he’s like, hey, Seth, get me through direct contact info, I want to talk to them. And I’m like, I know there’s a deal happening.
John Corcoran 11:11
Yeah, yeah. So how does that make you feel that that is happening at the same time?
Seth Greene 11:16
The checks clear, so that’s a blast.
And those people now obviously are forever in my debt, because I got them in front of Kevin and Kevin hired them, which Kevin hiring someone can change a career or a business trajectory very quickly. So I get all kinds of kudos, appreciation, thank you gifts, and Hey, can I do anything for you? Which of course the reciprocity is wonderful.
John Corcoran 11:39
Yeah, that’s that’s a big piece of it, isn’t it with podcasting, because you are doing someone a favor. I think a lot of a lot of people don’t appreciate that, especially when they’re thinking about starting their own podcast, they don’t appreciate. You know, they’re thinking, Oh, well, I don’t have any audience. I’m inconveniencing someone by asking them to come on my show. That’s not the case, is it?
Seth Greene 11:59
No. And like I said, we had one client who was a local professional in a sport like a golf golf coach, who literally went from literally generated, like over $100,000, when there were nine listeners to the show, and three of them were his family members. So it’s all about having the exact right person, as your guest in the relationship you can build and the power that comes from that. So I would say, you can’t wait till you have a million followers because that may never happen. I think if you it’s never an inconvenience anytime my phone rings, and it’s a another podcaster like you saying, hey, I want to interview you, or it’s a media outlet. I job. Because I mean, that’s how Inc, Forbes, NBC, CBS, the phone rings, they said we want to interview you on air. I say, when do you want me what time I’m driving down to the station now or I’ll jump on zoom and let’s do an interview. Because you’re granting me You’re making me micro famous to your listeners. You’re adding to my long list of shows I’ve been on and been on and you’re building a relationship with me. Why would I ever turn that down? It’s crazy when we are booking guests for our client shows. And someone says no to one of my Booker’s, I will say give me the number. I’ll call them how the earth Could you turn it down? Yeah, we get the answers of I don’t want more business. I’m retiring. I’m selling. Like, okay, those makes sense, right. But if you’re growing your company, why wouldn’t you take every media opportunity that was offered? Because you never know who might hear it? Right? Absolutely.
John Corcoran 13:27
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I ended up doing I did a tiny little interview, that I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. It’s always the small ones that end up some great thing out of it comes out of it right. And the next day, I get an email from someone who says, I work for Tony Robbins company, would you like to come and do a presentation to his business mastery students, I was like, floored, I was like, I couldn’t believe it. You know, and they’ve been impressed by this little interview that I done.
Seth Greene 13:57
Like to be also speak at business mastery. Be forever in your debt. Ocean. And it’s the same thing happened to me. That’s how I got an ink magazine, I had done an interview with someone on their show that had, I think, less than 1000 followers. And lots of people like that the names you’re talking about would never do that. And I will take anything, any opportunity, because you never know. Because literally a couple days after it aired, I got a phone call from Inc, which was on my bucket list of places, business magazines, I’d love to be in saying, hey, we’d like to interview you about podcasting. And I said, find me off.
John Corcoran 14:31
Right, right. And there’s we’re talking about two different things here, right, there’s being a guest and other people’s shows, and there is having others come onto your show. Correct. And there are benefits to both of them. Right, then they’re there. But they’re distinctly different. Right? There’s a different there’s a different rationale behind both of them, can you talk about some of the balance between those two and how much time and energy and attention you should devote to either?
Seth Greene 14:56
Sure. So the benefits to being on other people’s show is they will already have hopefully a listener base. And that listener base may be your exact ideal prospect or client. So going there is perfect, because it sets you up for leverage, instead of getting maybe one listener or customer for yourself, you might get thousands. So it’s like a speaking gig, you take anything that’s right for you. So the advantage of being a guest on other people’s shows, it gives you credibility, you’ll get some of their listeners to listen to you and your show. And it’s an awesome business opportunity. You should do that. And you should also unbiased, have your own show where other people come on your show, because you’ll benefit from my influence, like when we email our entire email list and subscriber database and say, Hey, listen to rise 25. I was just on the show. Some of them will go listen to the interview I did with you and become followers of yours. Some of them may become customers and give you money. So it works both ways.
John Corcoran 15:52
Right. Right. And so how do you advise people around their guests selection? I think that’s an interesting point, which a lot some people you know, I say that people sometimes get drunk when they start a podcast and they go out and they they try to interview you know, everybody Robbins. What’s that?
Seth Greene 16:11
Yeah, exactly. Which is not going to happen, because Tony’s not going to do your show unless you’ve got like millions of people
John Corcoran 16:16
exactly right. Or that, you know, they’re trying to interview people that aren’t really directly related to the business that they have. So talk a little bit about that.
Seth Greene 16:25
Sure. So we would tell you don’t get drunk in podcast, we tell you that strategically think out what guests do I want for what benefit can they bring to you? So don’t have a guest to have a guest have a guest because their followers are the people you want to follow you have a guest because you want to them to send you on referrals or business have a guest because you want their business and you’d like to start the relationship in a non threatening non salesy way, have a guest because you want to pick their brain. So for example, I’ve had the good I’ve interviewed john Lee Dumas, who’s arguably one of the top podcasters in the world twice. I’ve interviewed Russell Brunson, the founder of Click Funnels twice. And I got to pick his brain for half an hour both times without having to pay 50 grand a year to be in his mastermind group. And the second interview, I specifically wanted to interview him on how he scaled Click Funnels from zero to 100 million in like three years and how he hires fast enough, because our biggest problem is in this biggest Russell’s, but our biggest problem is also hiring fast enough to keep up with demand. And I specifically wanted to learn from him how he was doing it. So that interview was really helpful to me, and I didn’t have to write a check to find out.
John Corcoran 17:32
Yeah, that’s so great. I say it’s like professional and personal development that doubles as marketing, because you’re just getting to ask those questions that you wouldn’t get to ask them, as you said, you write a big check. What about delivering value to those guests, after the episode airs is do you have you mentioned the shock and awe package earlier? Do you do anything formal like that? Or how do you continue to maintain that relationship, particularly with the larger guests that, you know, you know, that they’re very busy.
Seth Greene 18:01
So thank you for asking, we actually have a done for you service that does that to where we send them a thank you gift, physical direct mail. And then we send the in addition to the thank you gift, we send direct mail twice a month to them. One is warm and fuzzy one is another gift on so we’re in front of them all the time every two weeks. And then we send a multi step direct mail campaign that designed to get them to participate in our latest launch, or promote something directly as opposed to just to show every single quarter. So we are they are hearing from us almost like 50 times a year, which is one. I mean, we’re in front of them more than anybody else. So we get it results in phone calls, referrals, speaking gigs opportunities, because again, we’re showing up like nobody, nobody else. So we’re getting results like nobody else
John Corcoran 18:54
I had been on probably 60 or 70 shows or something I’ve lost track and I don’t know any podcaster that that does something like that.
Seth Greene 19:02
That’s I’ve been also on many many shows, and I’ve only had two of those 60 to 70 shows who actually sent me a thank you get snapped something that said thank you snail in the mail. And those two were also the only ones that followed up after that initial touch on everybody else, just send a thank you email and then disappeared, right?
John Corcoran 19:25
Actually, you know what one of them was this boom mic. That’s right, this arm here that’s holding the microphone, which I have to say was a tremendous gift because I get compliments from it all the time people just you got like a an arms thing for your microphone. Yeah, there you go. That’s that looks legit custom
Seth Greene 19:40
Mike block with our logo on it another gift from somebody
John Corcoran 19:44
and that is that an ATR 2100 that I see rocking on your desk.
Seth Greene 19:49
Audio Technica ATR 2005. Okay, got it. I’ve just a model number.
John Corcoran 19:55
Yeah. So, you know, that’s another thing people struggle over the equipment
Seth Greene 19:59
doesn’t matter, either. I’ve had clients who literally, first of all, if they hire us, we’ll send them a studio in a box anyway. But we’ve had clients are like, even that’s our easy versions too technical. So they will just use literally use their iPhone, you know, Mike and speakers from the computer, or the earbuds that they plug in to their Mac, which does not result in as good audio quality. But technically, it’s better than what I aired the first 15 episodes of my show on which was a telephone. Right. Now a physical phone, not an iPhone,
John Corcoran 20:32
right? Yeah, I mean, my literally my first episode was even before the podcast, it was literally just I saw I was practicing law as a lawyer. And I asked the client who’s a really interesting client who hired me for one small thing, if I could interview him, and I just hopped on the phone free conference call calm on the phone, I used Exactly. and record it didn’t even know how it published it or anything like that, and got it out there. You know, but I’m glad that I did end up becoming a great client.
Seth Greene 20:59
That’s awesome. Congratulations. How long were you in for as a lawyer?
John Corcoran 21:03
Well, it was a, you know, five, six years or something before I started escape. Congratulation doing it. Yeah, escaped, exactly. Recovering. Laurin now. So um, I wanted to ask, though, about your background is in direct response and marketing. You’re one of the only or the only person who was nominated for believe marketer of the Year by Dan Kennedy, who’s just like the godfather of all marketers, incredibly well respected, long career. What? I’m going to correct you one second. I’m not the only person who’s been nominated. I’m the only person lots of people get nominated every I’m the only person who’s been not who is nominated three years in a row. Sorry, I apologize. Okay. That’s all right. That’s right. But no, that’s incredible. There’s three years in a row. So but I want to ask you what from that background you bring to the work that you do now, with podcasting? How does that inform how you serve clients and how?
Seth Greene 21:56
Yeah, it’s the entire strategy behind it. It’s a direct response podcast, it’s not designed for brand awareness. It’s not designed to get my name out there. I don’t care if I get recognized at Starbucks, I’m looking for directly trackable leads, sales and deals that come directly from the show. So it’s the whole reason we’re different. Whereas there’s, you know, 400,000 podcasts of people trying to brand themselves and get their message out. I started a controversy by mistake in a podcast or Facebook group. I’m commenting on that the other day, when I said, I don’t care about getting my message out, or brand awareness or any of that stuff. The only reason I’m doing it is to track ugly, make money. And there were all these people who were upset at my answer, but I said, Okay, now that you’re upset of my answer, how much money does your show make? And there were a whole bunch of zeros. Exactly. I said, we pulled in $456,237 and 14 cents last year, and I know that, so. But I had a whole bunch of people saying how did you do that?
John Corcoran 22:53
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I’ve had these same conversations with people, you know, they do it for branding. There’s no real business behind it. They think that they’re going to somehow get ads, somehow. It’s just
Seth Greene 23:02
another form of media that you can use to market whatever it is your marketing. That’s the whole point.
John Corcoran 23:07
Right? You but you have to have something begin business to begin with.
Seth Greene 23:11
That kind of does help.
John Corcoran 23:12
Yeah, and selling widgets isn’t really going to do it either. Right? I mean,
Seth Greene 23:16
to be high priced widgets. So for example, we do have a client who’s an information marketer, and they sell courses, products and conferences and mastermind groups, and they do have a podcast that they get business from. And the front end product in the door is 997 bucks, and it’s videos, audios, PDFs, membership sites type of thing. But we have a really good conversion rate of getting people to buy the thousand dollar product to take the $5,000 product to buy the $10,000 event to buy the 50 or $100,000, your mastermind group, which is where we make our real money, right. Now, what do you say to those who say, there’s so many podcasts out there already, it’s too late. It’s never too late. There were too many podcasts out there when I started years ago. So there’s more lyst. I mean, there’s a billion listeners right now in 2019, is we’re recording this. And next year, it will triple to $3 billion, because of the global proliferation of smartphones. And because that if you haven’t noticed, if you have a new car, in your dashboard, that display has the Apple iTunes interface as a native app, which means you can’t delete it. So whether you’re even if you don’t have an iPod, iPad, or iMac, you have an AI car. And because of that, because as everybody’s car turns over and you get a new car, every new car is coming pre bundled with iTunes podcasts, you can’t get away from it, the number is going to triple they’re trying to basically Apple’s trying to kill terrestrial radio.
John Corcoran 24:39
And I think it will happen. I mean, you know, they’re doing a good job. Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about podcasts is that there’s an interest for everyone, you know, right,
Seth Greene 24:47
something that might not ever support a radio show that’s nationwide, or even local, because it’s not a big enough niche. Like if you wanted, there is a podcast for Elvis impersonators. And there’s like, I think 50,000 registered. This is nationwide, which is a phenomenal audience for a podcast, but it couldn’t support a national radio show. They’re not all in Las Vegas, they don’t all live in Vegas. So you couldn’t support a local radio show or a national radio show with those numbers. But you can make a ton of money with the podcast.
John Corcoran 25:16
Now one thing I want to ask you about, and then we’re running a little short on time. So we’ll wrap this up. But one thing I want to ask you about is so many mainstream media publications have have gotten into podcasting in recent years, the NPR, CBS, ESPN, that kind of thing. And they’ve really crowded the top of the charts in many ways and gotten a lot of attention. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that that is, is going to affect the independent podcasters out there who’ve got a business, we’re using it to promote a business?
Seth Greene 25:43
I know I don’t. And here’s why. First of all, you shouldn’t be trying to get to the top of the charts. So that’s again, that’s a branding thing. I’m on iTunes new and noteworthy. Who cares? It’ll get you some more organic listeners. Yeah, that’s true. But are they the right organic listeners, I would rather have listeners I paid to market to to get to the listen to my show, because I control that. So first of all, if you’re trying to do a news podcast, you aren’t going to compete with NPR and you shouldn’t bother trying, they have bottomless pockets and street cred, you should be doing a news podcast in a sub sub sub sub sub niche, where you’re the only one or there’s five or 10, or maybe 20 other shows, so you can stand out. If you’re trying to get across the top across all of iTunes, I mean, you’re literally going to have to launch with like 30 to 40 episodes on day one, you’re going to have to be airing a couple every single day for months. And you’re also gonna have to have a heck of a marketing budget to pull it off. So I would never try. I mean, we happen to be top six to listen to in 2019. But we weren’t trying for that at all. Because I’m not trying again, I’m not doing it for branding. I’m doing it for direct response.
John Corcoran 26:48
Right, right. This is great. I’m going to wrap things up. Last question I always enjoy asking, which is let’s pretend we’re at an awards banquet, much like the Oscars, the Emmys. you’re receiving an award for Lifetime Achievement, Seth. What we all know is, you know, who do you think in addition to family and friends were the mentors who are the friends. I know, as we record this, this is video people will be listening to it and audio, but we’ve got you know, Kevin Harrington, Alex Mendoza, and Dan Kennedy, a bunch of big icons that are behind you. Russell Brunson who are the big Who are the people that you would acknowledge as being so instrumental in your career? business partners, anyone like that, that you would acknowledge?
Seth Greene 27:23
Sure. So you just picked my top four. Okay. Dan, Alex Russell and Kevin. I’ll give you number five, Dr. Corey Melnikov, who you haven’t heard of. He wrote a book called The $4 sandwich, how he went from having his debit card declined for a $4 sandwich at sheets to building 12 multimillion dollar chiropractic clinics. So here’s the thing that stuck out I read that reread it anytime I’m having putting out a fire. And my favorite quote from that book is who you are affects how well what you do works, who you are. We are being a how well what you are doing is working. So that is one of my favorite quotes. And he would be number five on my list.
John Corcoran 28:07
Okay, great. All right. Where can people learn more about you, sir?
Seth Greene 28:10
Absolutely. So the shark printer is on iTunes, Google Play Spotify, Stitcher, I Heart Radio, YouTube everywhere, though our websites market domination LLC. com if they want to talk about getting a direct response podcast for them. And Kevin and I are actually doing a special promotion. We’re giving away a pot entire podcast studio, Mike headsets, mixing board everything that’s relatively easy to use, in honor of our 300th episode. So if you go to podcast Studio contest.com you can register and enter to win a free podcast studio.
John Corcoran 28:39
No, brilliant. That takes away the question about equipment for whichever and has. Exactly, yeah. Alright, so thanks so much.
Seth Greene 28:46
Thanks for having me.