0:00

If you've ever heard me say the phrase, yeah, your audience

0:04

isn't gonna care about you until you give them a reason to care,

0:08

That's me quoting Joe Pulizzi. He is the man

0:11

behind Content Entrepreneur Expo and many,

0:15

many books, and he's on the show today. How cool

0:19

is that? Get your pencils ready. It's a good one. Hit

0:23

it, ladies. The School of Podcasting with

0:27

Dave Jackson. Podcasting

0:30

since 2,005. I am your very

0:34

own personal podcast coach, Dave Jackson, thanking you so much

0:38

for tuning in. If you are new to the show, this is where I help

0:41

you plan, launch, grow, and monetize your podcast. My

0:45

website is school of podcasting.com. And if you go to school

0:49

of podcasting.com/listener or just use the coupon

0:53

code listener, Yeah. That's gonna save you on that monthly or yearly

0:56

subscription, and you can join absolutely

1:00

worry free. So if you're like, nah. I'm not short in 30

1:03

days to figure it out, and I will give you your money back. And

1:07

today, if you don't know the name Joe Pulizzi, you should.

1:11

He writes really good great books. He makes really good

1:14

podcasting, and I'm so excited to have him on the

1:18

show. So let's not waste any more time. Here's my talk

1:21

with Joe Pulizzi. I'll tell you what's really cool about this.

1:25

Number 1, great author, Content Incorporated,

1:28

Epic Content Marketing. 2, don't get the first one. And then you

1:32

you actually just wrote a novel, The Will to Die. He started Content

1:36

Marketing Institute and Content Marketing World and then sold it. And

1:39

then now, in fact, May 5th through 7th in Cleveland, Ohio,

1:43

right up the street from me, You've got Content Entrepreneur Expo. We'll

1:47

be talking about that. But here's what I was like, you know what? Joe

1:51

Pulizzi is a good guy. Because I was getting ready to, like, buy everything you

1:54

have. And it says at the bottom of your website, it says, I've

1:57

published other books such as Killing Marketing, Managing

2:01

Content Marketing, and his first book, Get Content, Get

2:04

Customers. And you basically tell people, yeah, don't buy those. For that, I

2:08

say thank you. You just kept put some money in my wallet. And, Joe Pulizzi,

2:11

thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much. And thanks for mentioning that

2:15

because, honestly, for authors out there, I wish more authors would do that. And,

2:19

obviously, this is not a fiction author thing. But for business books,

2:23

a lot of authors write business books that are no longer relevant. I've

2:27

got 3 of them. So so just just don't don't

2:30

do that. It's great to finally chat with you, Dave. Thanks for having me on.

2:33

I appreciate it. The other thing I forgot to mention, because I read it every

2:37

time it comes out, The Tilt, and I quote it religiously all

2:41

the time, which is a newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

2:44

And tell us a little bit about that. Let's start there. Yeah. I mean, to

2:48

be honest, after my wife and I owned Content Marketing Institute, we we

2:51

sold in 16, and then I exited by 18.

2:56

And I promised her I would never start another business.

2:59

So That didn't work out so well because COVID came

3:03

COVID, I know. COVID came around, and I was getting into like you said,

3:07

I was getting into writing thriller novels, and I'm really proud of The Will to

3:11

Die. And I was working on the second one. But things happened during COVID, and

3:14

I got into this whole creator economy thing. And I started to get a bunch

3:18

of incoming from friends and colleagues about, hey, do another version

3:21

of Content Inc. And I'm struggling here. Can you help me? And I was doing

3:25

a little consult and I I I basically they brought me back

3:29

in, and I couldn't get away. And, and then I started

3:33

well, I said, well, if I'm gonna redo the book, I might as well start

3:36

a business. So we started The Tilt, and it was planned as an

3:40

email newsletter for content creators who wanted to become content

3:43

entrepreneurs. So not hobbyists, like serious content creators that this is

3:47

your business thing, and we did really well with it. It's got

3:51

32,000 subscribers right now and it's we got a great team behind it, and

3:55

then we decided to do the event, c e x, which you said is coming

3:58

out coming up in May in Cleveland, and I got back

4:01

into it, Dave, and I don't know what to say Yeah. Besides I thought it

4:05

was the house. They pulled me back in. Keep

4:09

pulling me back in. That's right. That's the is it The Godfather 3?

4:13

Is that 3 or I think it's 3. And you you are you are called

4:16

the godfather of content marketing. And the one thing I wanna

4:20

ask about I'm gonna throw you some softballs here. What is content marketing

4:24

like, wait. I've never heard this phrase. So content marketing is

4:28

you could sort of think of it as the opposite of advertising.

4:32

So an advertising is you're you're basically calling

4:36

on somebody else's channel. It's somebody else's magazine, somebody else's

4:40

news show, somebody else's podcasting you're saying, I'm going to place

4:43

an advertisement in that pay for the right to do that.

4:47

Content marketing is different where you're creating the show, you're creating

4:51

the magazine, you're creating the newsletter. It is yours, and

4:55

you're selling your own stuff in that. So, basically, your

4:58

whole goal is to build a valuable, relevant, compelling,

5:02

ongoing show to build a loyal audience that knows, likes, and trusts you,

5:06

and ultimately will buy anything. So that's the whole idea behind content marketing,

5:09

which, you know, when I started getting into content marketing

5:13

in 2,000 and 2,001 wasn't even a thing. But as

5:17

social media took off and Google took off almost

5:20

simultaneously in the mid 2000, there were all these companies that

5:24

said, oh, man. Well, how do we get found? How do we

5:28

build audiences? What do we put in all these pipes, in these social media

5:32

pipes? And I'm sending on email newsletter and and it's all

5:35

sales stuff and product stuff, and nobody's paying attention to it. And I wanna start

5:39

a podcast, but I don't have any good things to talk about because we're talking

5:42

about our our own stuff. It's the whole idea of, hey, let's let's

5:46

not talk about your own stuff. Let's talk about your customers pain points and

5:50

what keeps them up at night. Build that audience, and then from there, you can

5:54

actually sell stuff. So that's a long winded answer to I've

5:57

been in this industry way too long. That's basically what that is.

6:02

You said one of the things that we always hear people say, you know, well,

6:05

you have to know your your customers or listeners, whatever it is, you have

6:09

to know their pain points. And there are some people, like, okay. Well, how

6:13

do I do that if I don't have you know, if I'm just starting out

6:16

a brand new business or or a brand new podcaster, How do I

6:20

figure that out if I don't have an audience yet? Well, I mean, hopefully, you

6:24

have an idea of who your audience is. But, like, in Content, Inc, we say,

6:28

okay. You start with your sweet spot. Like, what is your expertise area?

6:31

And then what is your information and needs of your audience? And the combination

6:35

of that will get to hopefully some content mission statement, like an editorial

6:39

mission statement where you're saying, oh, I'm gonna talk about this, and it's

6:43

in this format, audio format in a podcast case case,

6:46

and it's targeting to the audience and the audience should

6:50

get x, y, or z out of it. So you're really talking about audience

6:54

outcomes. I'm trying to help my audience member get a better job or live a

6:57

better life. You're not actively selling your stuff on it.

7:01

That's the difference. And that's why our content marketing got such a bad name

7:05

because you see all these podcasts created and these newsletters created, which were

7:09

just additional sales tools. And I'm like, you're doing it wrong. You

7:12

don't sell yet. You build the audience, and then naturally

7:16

part of that, your customers are gonna wanna buy from you because you're helping

7:20

them live a better life and get a better job. That's the whole idea behind

7:24

that. And that's why, I mean, honestly, between you and I, nobody else you know,

7:27

we're we're this is not, like, going out anywhere. Right, Dave? Like, we can

7:31

talk about the real stuff. Most companies are really bad at

7:34

content marketing. Like, terrible because they just can't

7:38

get their products out of their way and say,

7:42

what how can I help my customer outside of my product and solution?

7:46

How can I help my customer today? They're only gonna buy your product and

7:50

service for a very small portion of that time. What do you do the other

7:53

99% of the time? You better send them something

7:56

really amazing in the form of a show. That show could be a

8:00

newsletter. A show could be a podcast. It could be a YouTube channel. It could

8:04

be TikTok. It could be an event. It could be whatever. But

8:07

focus on that. And then you're setting up your own marketing. You're

8:11

creating your own future customer list to sell to. If you think

8:15

about building the audience first and then selling to that audience

8:18

second. Oh, amen, brother. I would say, it's plan,

8:22

launch, grow, then monetize. And a lot of people don't a lot of people don't

8:25

plan. They just launch, and then they wanna monetize, and they kinda skip the grow

8:29

part. And I'm like, yeah. You that just is not the way it works.

8:33

And in the tilt, you had a story, and you said that the

8:36

number one way entrepreneurs are making the most profitable thing, I guess we'll

8:40

put it that way, was they were selling their own products and services as opposed

8:44

to advertising. And I quote that all the time because everybody's like, I'm gonna start

8:47

a podcast. I'm gonna get ads. I'm like, let me give you some stats here.

8:51

I guess the balance then is, okay. So I wanna sell my own products

8:54

and services, but how do I do that without kind of

8:58

stepping over the line where you're talking about bad content marketing is when we're just

9:02

talking about me? Alright. I'm gonna do that Dave thing where I

9:05

interrupt. That was a decent question. Hey, Joe. We're supposed

9:09

to sell our own products and services, but we can't just talk about ourselves.

9:13

What's the balance? But instead, I didn't shut up,

9:17

and I turned what was a decent question into a, okay

9:20

question, and I made it a yes or no. Is it as

9:24

simple as I'm just gonna do an ad spot and that one little ad

9:27

spot's gonna be for me? That's a you could be that

9:31

simple. And that's the way that I like it, actually. I could I mean, by

9:34

the way, thank you for your comments about the tilt. So we're on issue

9:38

number, I don't know, 1,000 or something that we've sent out.

9:42

And we sell our own products and services. We have sponsors, but we sell our

9:45

own products and services. We sell courses. We're launching a a book in print till

9:49

publishing coming out pretty soon with the whole thing, and we treat it

9:53

like an ad. We're like, here if you were a media company,

9:57

how would you do it? Here's content, content, content, really solid

10:00

editorial, and then here's an ad. I think people are okay with that.

10:04

Or on a podcast, I don't have a problem with at the end, say, hey.

10:07

Here's how you find me. Or have you heard or, like, in the beginning, you

10:10

and I are having banter. Maybe you launched a new product or service, but it's

10:14

very natural. And people are okay with that because you're delivering so much

10:18

value. It's just like, oh, we're gonna do a YouTube

10:21

show, and it's gonna be a a product demo,

10:25

and we're gonna have a customer at the end talking about how great it is.

10:29

Well, that's not content marketing. Mhmm. That's something else. That's just promotion,

10:33

which is fine, by the way. You can do that. There's nothing wrong with advertising.

10:36

I'm I use advertising all the time. Advertising still works. More money spent

10:40

on advertising than anything else out there. Yeah. But think about this as

10:44

a little bit different. So if you're saying, okay, how do I do this really

10:47

well? Find your favorite media company. Like, I love Morning Brew.

10:50

Mhmm. I I open Morning Brew newsletter every day, and I get a

10:54

good feel for that. Well, when a morning brew says in there and they do

10:58

it as well, like, right at the end. Here's we're selling these courses. We got

11:01

this event coming up, whatever. I pay attention because they

11:04

deliver me so much value. So just think about it that way. It's just like,

11:08

I think as a human being, you sort of know what's what

11:11

am I going over the line a little bit. But just to end this part

11:15

of it, what I love about once you build that loyal audience,

11:18

you can monetize that audience 10 different ways. Right? You have advertising

11:22

sponsorship, launch my own event, I could do it through affiliate links, I could sell

11:26

products, I could sell services, I could do donations if I wish

11:29

to. Right. You could do a lot of different things, and that's what's amazing

11:33

is because it gives you so much flexibility to make money once you build that

11:36

loyal audience. The thing that always gets me about the tilt, you just did 1

11:40

March 8th. I'm really looking into website stuff. I haven't really

11:44

I've kind of ignored my website for a few years. Like, it was up and

11:47

running. I got it, and I know it's never over. But and you just put

11:50

on episode about a bunch about SEO and links and keyword research

11:53

and blah blah. And I was like, this is exactly how does Joe know this

11:57

is exactly what I need right now? Because Joanne's an amazing team.

12:01

That's exactly how Joe knows. Speaking of that, you know

12:05

okay. So now I've I've got my podcast out there. I'm promoting my products

12:08

and services, and there's the the old joke, right, that 50% of my marketing

12:12

works. I just can't figure out which one it is. Right? Is it this one

12:16

or that one? Do you have a favorite tool to

12:20

try to solve that problem? I look at

12:24

as wherever you have your core base, so you're building your

12:27

platform at, and then you have an email offering. Like, if if

12:31

any creator out there is starting today, and it's so easy to start

12:35

because the technology is is so inexpensive

12:39

and all these social channels are, quote unquote, free. Mhmm. Like

12:43

okay. So, like and you have a say in where you wanna get this started.

12:46

I'd say it's like the Harry Potter marketing hat. Like, you might be really good

12:50

at something, like, maybe you're better audio or better on video, but you have a

12:53

say in it. Like, you could say, oh, yeah. I don't wanna do the video

12:56

thing. I wanna do the audio thing, or I wanna do an email newsletter, whatever.

13:00

So figure out where your show is gonna be. Figure out, okay, this is what

13:04

it's gonna be about. This is the audience where there's where we can be one

13:07

of the leading experts in the world and deliver something amazing to that

13:11

audience. And then as part of that, that call to action

13:15

is a regular email newsletter. And this is so simple, Dave.

13:18

This is not rocket science. It's been done by media companies for the last 20

13:22

years. That's the model. They basically build a website or

13:26

they build a podcast show or a YouTube show,

13:29

and then they say, can get more of us through the email newsletter

13:33

and what that does is it has them control a little bit of that

13:37

business model. Because if they story on, let's say, YouTube,

13:41

YouTube could kick them off at any point. Right? Could kick your eye off and

13:44

change the algorithm once I'm doing growth, then I'm not. They could

13:48

say, okay. Well, you gotta pay tomorrow. You you never know. I I just talked

13:51

to a friend today who had 80,000 subscribers on YouTube,

13:55

and he lost his channel entirely and never got it back and had to restart.

13:58

That's horrible. Just to think about all the work it takes to get to 80,000.

14:02

So you wanna make sure you have that email newsletter. And when I say email

14:06

newsletter, I don't mind just collecting emails. I mean, sending them something

14:10

amazing at least every other week. And

14:13

if you do that and you have your core base show and then your AV

14:17

email newsletter, that's a pretty simple scenario for

14:20

success if you do that for the next 9, 12 months, 15 months.

14:24

I think you'll start seeing, oh, hey. I've got an audience here. They're

14:28

signing up for the newsletter, and then you can start to monetize from there.

14:32

There you go. And don't you have another newsletter? I think it's the orange.

14:36

The orange letter? Yeah. Yeah. That's my personal my personal newsletter.

14:40

So, yeah, that's where I get to talk about whatever I

14:44

whatever I well, I had to talk about. I took a page out of

14:48

your, you know, book or whatever. And because I started my news, and

14:51

I'm like, I don't know what to to talk about because if I start marketing,

14:54

then it's, you know, it's this 12 page newsletter. Nobody wants to read

14:58

that. So I started just writing a paragraph about, here's what

15:01

I'm working on. Here's the horrible thing that happened. Here's the great thing that

15:05

happened. Oh, and by the way, here's everything I just did. And I've had people

15:09

tell me, I like your newsletter because I can read it in about 2 minutes.

15:12

And it was just simply, I heard you talk about the orange newsletter, and I

15:15

was like, well, he's just giving, like, the here's Here's what I

15:19

think. Yeah. A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how I don't

15:23

think people value their time, and I was talking about how men the statistics on

15:26

people that scroll through social media, and they don't value their time and what they

15:30

could do with the time. So did that kind of thing. I'd last week, I

15:33

talked about Bitcoin because I'm you know, I'm into

15:37

little cryptocurrency here and there, and I just said, hey. You may not understand it.

15:40

Here's a video I think you should look at. So that kind of stuff. And

15:44

so, basically, I usually have one content creation tip. I have one, like,

15:47

marketing tip, and then I have one life tip. I talk about goals a lot.

15:50

But, actually, Dave, I'll tell you why I did that. Because my wife and

15:54

I sold CMI, and we sold CMI in 2016.

15:58

CMI had over 200,000 email subscribers at that

16:01

point. It's a very valuable company. We sold the event, Content Marketing

16:05

World. It was a great exit for us. But then,

16:09

I had nothing. I had I mean, I had my social

16:12

channels, which I have a 150,000 followers on Twitter that are

16:16

mean nothing because I that doesn't go there. I could Right. Do it. I

16:20

lost all my status on on Twitter because I didn't, I didn't tweet

16:23

regularly, and and I guess Elon doesn't like me. So whatever. And then I

16:27

said, okay, 2018, 2019. I'm like, what do I do?

16:31

I wanna talk to my friends and family and colleagues, and I wanna create a

16:34

thing that's just mine. So on joe polizzi.com,

16:38

I created the newsletter. And now, thankfully, I think it has, like, 46,000

16:42

subscribers or something like that. We're doing really well, but it took a long time

16:45

to get there. And now I'm like, whatever happens, if I ever start a

16:49

thing and sell it, if I ever decide to go anywhere else, if I ever

16:52

got shot on any social media site on the planet, which I always think is

16:56

going to happen, I have this list of amazing people that

17:00

I'm connected to. And then it's your choice on how you wanna do it.

17:03

And luckily, people see value in it. And they keep I

17:07

love getting responses, and I love this. And and I get family and friends that

17:11

are signed up to it, and they give me crap about it. I love it.

17:14

Absolutely favorite thing. Well and and you've mentioned, you

17:17

know, YouTube, TikTok. You know, there's Instagram, Facebook.

17:21

You name it. They're all there. And I know so many people

17:25

that get really stressed out because they're trying to do everything. And

17:29

I I personally I have been on and off TikTok, and it's just it's always

17:33

the thing. And if I have more time, I'll go over and do some some

17:36

talk face, some book chat, whatever they you know, the next one up.

17:40

And you've kind of got a different strategy on that. Talk a little bit about

17:43

that. Well and this is through a lot of interviews with

17:47

a lot of successful content creators and marketers on how they've done it and been

17:50

successful, and I call it basically, we all have

17:54

a set number or amount of what I call content energy.

17:58

And no matter how much budget you have or how much time, everybody has sort

18:02

of the same amount of content energy that they put towards things. So it's basically,

18:06

if you're most content creators and you wanna do this as a full time

18:09

business, you said, okay, I'm spending time on Twitter x. I'm on

18:13

Instagram. I'm figuring out Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm doing

18:17

my podcast. I'm doing a YouTube show. I just launched this research project.

18:21

I've got an event. I'm going out and doing speaking. I mean, I'm

18:25

already tired. Right? This is so so and when you when you lay all

18:28

that out and you're like, I'm spreading my content energy to 8, 9, 10,

18:32

11 different things, what happens? And the answer is

18:36

nothing happens because you're mediocre at best on any of these

18:39

platforms. And in order to break through all the content clutter out there, you have

18:43

to be great at at least one of those things. Great to that

18:47

audience, delivering something amazing to that audience, one of them. And

18:51

you can't do it if you spread yourself so thin. So you have to make

18:54

a decision. You say, okay. What are the things that I'm gonna say no to

18:58

so I can say a big emphatic yes to 1 or 2 and be amazing?

19:02

And what's funny is I used to do this content marketing consulting and I

19:06

used to get hired to come into these $1,000,000,000 companies. And they

19:09

said, Joe, come on in and then give us the big content

19:13

idea. Like, what what's the show we can start? Like, what is it a

19:16

podcast? Is it YouTube? What what are we gonna do? And every

19:20

time, I would say, well, you're gonna have to cut some things. That's

19:24

really like, I would say, you've got a couple things over here that really have

19:27

potential, but you're spreading yourself so thin with all your resources and time and

19:31

energy that you're never gonna get great and build an audience there. So chop

19:34

these five things off, reallocate those resources over here, and then

19:38

consistently deliver over time, and you're gonna see success. That's what I've

19:42

done. That's what, you know, when I interview people for Content Inc, that's what they've

19:45

done. And then once they build what we call a minimum viable audience or an

19:48

audience large enough that you can monetize against, then you can

19:52

diversify. And by the way, Dave, this is just media

19:55

101. So if you look at any successful media company on the

19:59

planet, Huffington Post, the way that they grew, New York Times,

20:03

Morning Brew. They all started by doing 1 or 2 things really

20:06

well podcasting on one audience. And then once they build that audience, then they

20:10

diversify and they're become these big media companies. Yeah.

20:14

A lot of the stuff in your books, to me, the things why it resonated

20:17

is it was, like, simple, blunt, and

20:21

and perfect in a way. Like, one of my favorite lines is, yeah, your audience

20:25

doesn't care about you. And I was like, wait. What? What? But everybody

20:28

loves me. Wait. Not and it was like until you give them a reason to

20:31

care. And so every time I see a podcaster open up an

20:35

interview, and they go, so, Joe, tell us a little

20:39

bit about yourself. And I'm always like, oh, here we go. Because now Joe's gonna

20:42

be like, oh, I was a paper boy, and, you know, my dog's name is

20:46

Kippy. And I'm like and then they don't edit it out. And so

20:50

you want people to engage with your content. You wanna engage them.

20:54

Right? So it's, again, kind of a a marketing 101. But what do you

20:58

consider engaging content? To be honest, I don't

21:02

care about traditional engagement. Like, I have to have feedback. Mhmm. What I'm

21:06

trying to do is to get a real good sense and feel

21:09

for who my audience is. And then whether you call that a buyer

21:13

persona or not Right. Or whether you have a picture of what

21:16

your your perfect customer is or audiences. I don't

21:20

care how you do it, but you have to figure out something where this is

21:24

the person. These are the challenges that they have right now,

21:28

and how can I deliver an insane amount of value to that person to help

21:32

them? By the way, it usually doesn't mean your product. We talked about this. So

21:35

how do you really figure that? And I'm writing things down, and I'm doing

21:39

surveys, and I'm going and checking out Google, and I'm figuring with chat

21:42

gpt, and I'm getting all these listening posts where I can figure

21:46

out, oh, this this is what my customer is dealing with. This is what

21:50

my audience is dealing with. And then I can put together an

21:53

ongoing editorial calendar and deliver on that every

21:57

time. So that when I get then when I go out to promote, I'm never

22:00

promoting me. Like, I'm always podcasting, here's an answer to

22:04

this problem. Here's something I'm really struggling with. Are you struggling with it?

22:08

Here's some some things I tested that maybe will work for you. It's just

22:12

that thing, like, how can I like, I get up in the marketing, I say,

22:15

how can I deliver more value than I'm taking? That's it. This is,

22:18

like, simple humanity, but a lot of people are like and I get it. Right?

22:22

It's like, I got a quarterly budget to make. I gotta sell the things.

22:25

I need a number of leads, whatever. I'm like, okay. I get it. But take

22:29

a deep breath out. We'll do the lead somewhere else, and we'll just

22:32

focus on creating something that's really gonna help your customer. And

22:36

how can that be wrong? The worst case scenario is they kinda

22:40

like you more. It might you might have trouble, like, figuring

22:43

out how it's getting to sales, but we'll get there. Like, we'll

22:47

figure that out. And a a really good example is is that we launched

22:51

Chief Content Officer Magazine when I was a CMI in 2011.

22:55

And we're launching a print magazine in 2011, even then, was a

22:59

risky thing. And I'm trying to show, and we're trying to get together,

23:03

is this thing working? Like, is it doing anything for the business? So what we

23:07

found out and it took us 2 years to get this data, but we found

23:10

out that those customers, those companies that were getting

23:14

the magazine were sending more people to Content

23:17

Marketing World than average, and they were spending more when they got

23:21

to Content Marketing World. They were higher yield customers. And I'm like, isn't

23:25

that the greatest thing ever to say about a print

23:28

magazine? So it's those types of things that I love. But,

23:32

again, you've gotta you know, we had to set I could I was the founder

23:35

of the company, so I could say, we're gonna wait on this. But if you

23:39

go into most companies, their dog's like, rush, I I need it right now.

23:43

Well, if you need like, like, if you came to me and said, Joe, I

23:45

love this content marketing stuff. I wanna do it right now. What can I expect

23:48

in 6 months? I would say nothing. You should

23:52

expect absolutely nothing to have. You got something?

23:56

Great. Better than most. Are you having fun doing it? Yeah.

24:00

I did a deal with a very large company in Chicago

24:04

for a magazine. This is back in 2004 or something like that.

24:08

And they said, well, we don't wanna do the 2

24:12

year deal for the Mag Quarterly Magazines. We wanna do 1 year and

24:15

2 issues. And I said, I can't help you.

24:20

I said, I don't believe that will work. You're gonna send 2 issues in a

24:23

year, and then you're gonna see if something works? I can tell you, you're not

24:27

gonna see anything. You're not gonna get enough data then. You

24:30

have to deliver amazing things to them 7, 8 times a

24:34

year, 9 times a year in print form. Whatever it is, you have to deliver

24:38

amazing value. 2 times isn't enough. They probably forgotten, thought you spammed

24:41

them if they ever subscribed to it. Same thing with email newsletter. So it's

24:45

those types of things that we're still dealing with today because of this

24:49

mentality of I need to get the business today. And if we just

24:53

say, hey, focus on the audience for a little bit, customer,

24:56

those things will come if we do it the right way. Well, I know this

25:00

is part of Joe's greatest hits, and, you know, we wanna hear the hits. So

25:04

it's it's your favorite question. How long does it take to grow an

25:07

audience? And then, of course, the follow-up to that is, especially if you wanna

25:11

monetize. So we we know a couple things. So we've done

25:15

some pretty good research at The Tilt with Anne Hanley and Jay Clouse,

25:19

and we found out that it's generally your number to

25:23

get to monetization that you're comfortable with. So, basically, the

25:26

business is growing and it's throwing off some

25:30

cash. That number was 18 months, and I still think that's

25:33

low, Dave. Mhmm. Because most of the people I talk to,

25:37

they're saying 2 plus years, in my case,

25:41

4 years with Content Marketing Institute. I mean, I was

25:45

doing a lot of odd jobs until we till I knew that I

25:49

didn't have to work for somebody again. And I guess I would treat it like

25:52

any small business. Most small

25:56

businesses fail inside 5 years. It takes

25:59

about 3 years for a small business to make it. Content

26:03

creation, I've got my phone here. You and I are talking. Right now right

26:07

now, this technology hasn't cost us all that much because we've been using it so

26:10

long. You know, we're we're talking online, or Internet doesn't cost us that

26:14

much, all those things. But, honestly,

26:18

we've got to bake in more time. So my wife and I

26:22

started in 2007. We had to make some really

26:25

critical expense judgments. It's okay. Let's get rid of the

26:29

car. We're not going on the vacation. She calls it the baloney and ramen

26:32

noodle years. Like, really cut down expenses so that

26:36

you can make it. Now, made and I talked to a creator today.

26:40

They did a $1,000,000 in revenue in 12 months. And I

26:43

said, congratulations. You're a 1 percenter. Yeah. I rarely

26:47

meet people like you. I don't know how you did it, but congratulations.

26:51

Because I don't know that model. That is foreign to me. My

26:55

model is more like mister beast model, not that I'm mister beast or anything.

26:59

But mister beast started in 2012. Right? It took him 4

27:03

years to get to 30,000 subscribers. It took him 2 years just to figure out

27:06

what the heck he was gonna talk about on a regular basis. 5 years, he

27:09

got to a 1000000 subscribers, still not making money, and now he's worth a

27:13

1,000,000,000 plus dollars. That's after 12

27:17

12 years. Yeah. Hit the long tamer, game approach.

27:20

Get expenses down. Figure out some odd jobs so you can make it there.

27:25

Have a good support from your spouse and your family, and and you can

27:28

then be part of one of the best

27:32

businesses ever, and that's the content creation business, and be a

27:35

podcaster, and do all the wonderful things, because you and I love this stuff.

27:39

Yeah. But set yourself up for success because it does take some time. It

27:43

sounds like you've tried a lot of things over the years. Do you have

27:46

a favorite out of all the things you've tried that just failed

27:50

to such a a horrible word, but it just didn't work that you learned

27:54

the most from? Man, that's well,

27:58

wow. I don't this is a whole different podcast if we're gonna talk about Joe

28:01

Pulizzi and the number of times I failed.

28:05

Well, I'll I'll be honest with you. The tilt.com and the

28:09

newsletter, it's doing great. I'm I'm very proud of what

28:13

the team and and I've created 32,000 subscribers,

28:17

good open rate. We get a lot of positive feedback like yourself. It's wonderful.

28:21

But it took us a long way longer

28:25

to monetize and way longer to be any kind of

28:29

profitability than I thought because I'm like, oh, hey,

28:33

Joe Pulizzi. I got a big audience here. I'm coming off a big

28:36

success. I know this model. I've I teach this model. I do this whole

28:40

thing. And I'm 2 years into this saying, why am why are we

28:43

not making money hand over this with this thing? I have some

28:47

answers to that about why if you wanna know, but I even,

28:51

like I probably would have done it completely

28:54

differently if I had to do it over again. Now, I'm happy with this community.

28:57

I love this community, my favorite of all time. I would never but if I

29:01

had a do over, I don't know if I would have done it the same

29:04

way. I think I would have not started it or I would be right now

29:07

my 3rd novel or something like this. This is incredibly hard

29:10

business. But if you do wanna know why what I would do differently Yeah. I'm

29:13

gonna say I'm gonna you you got me all peaked now. So yeah. What wasn't

29:17

working? And you'll hear his answer right after this.

29:22

So I know and a lot of the players in

29:25

content marketing and have first, I mean, I've been in for since

29:29

2000. So I I know the players. I get content

29:32

marketing. I get the philosophy and the methods and all those things.

29:36

Getting on to the creator economy side and working with

29:40

individual creators is a different thing. And I was taking

29:43

what I learned and moved it over, But I did not realize

29:48

the vast amount of resources available for content creators coming

29:52

from so many different companies all over the world

29:56

that we were competing with. So I'm thinking oh, it's funny

29:59

because it's called the tilt. I'm thinking, oh, we've got a really good content tilt,

30:03

which means we've got a really good differentiation area that we can break through

30:06

all this clutter and build an audience and we can monetize this really quickly.

30:11

But we really did not. What I found out

30:15

after the fact is that there were 100, if not 1,000

30:19

of really amazing resources can you build an audience and say, hey, we're one of the leading

30:27

experts in the world. Can you build an audience and say, hey,

30:31

we're one of the leading experts in the world. I thought starting out that

30:34

we could say that at the till, which the way we positioned it, really focusing

30:38

on content entrepreneurship, but a lot of people taught. Now I think we have a

30:41

very unique way to do it, and I'm glad you like it, and we growth

30:45

a great community. But when starting out, we didn't have enough

30:49

differentiation. We were going to too wide of an audience. I would have focused on

30:52

a different content niche. I would have focused on a more

30:57

way smaller audience than going after just content

31:01

creators. I might have picked the area of financial or

31:05

home services or civil engineering or whatever, something

31:09

different where we would have had an advantage and a moat instead

31:13

of just going out and saying, oh, we're competing with not only other

31:16

creators, we're competing with our sponsors that we're going after, and we're

31:20

creating with other companies and media companies. So right off the bat, we're

31:23

creating we're competing with 5000, 10000

31:27

different things. It's like there's too many. Like, look at like, I

31:31

love Content Entrepreneur Expo. We'll get have 4

31:35

100, 450 amazing people at that. But, you know

31:38

what? There's a lot of other bits out there that do a lot of

31:42

similar things. I think ours is the best, but I could see if somebody else

31:45

looked and said, Joe, there's 72 other events out there just like

31:49

this. And I can't persuade them differently

31:53

because there are 72 other events going to that audience. So,

31:57

again, I would say it's my recommendation if you're just listening to me whine about

32:00

this stuff. I would say, really look at your

32:04

content tilt. Like, really look. Do you have the a niche there as you could

32:07

say? You could be the leading expert in the world if you do this. Do

32:11

you have an audience that's small enough where you can understand their

32:15

pain points and needs better than anyone else? We did that really,

32:18

really well at Content Marketing Institute. Didn't do that as

32:22

well at the till, and we we had to backtrack and really change things

32:26

so we could we could do that better. Well, you mentioned, you

32:29

know, your your event coming up here in May, and I'll have links to all

32:33

this stuff and his books and everything else. It'll be a very long show notes

32:36

page. But tell us a little bit about the event that's coming up in May

32:40

in Cleveland, Ohio. Yes. In Cleveland, Ohio. I'm really

32:43

I get to host the event. I do the opening keynote and host it May

32:46

5th through 7th in Cleveland, CEX. It's at, the Renaissance

32:50

Downloads, which is my favorite hotel in Cleveland, and it's completely renovated.

32:54

And we're the 1st event in the space. So I'm really excited about it. But

32:58

basically, 3 days of workshops for content creators who

33:02

wanna be content entrepreneurs or full time content entrepreneurs who are like, how do I

33:05

build audience? How do I grow revenue? How do I figure out

33:09

AI? I think we've got 8 AI sessions

33:12

alone, plus a workshop on AI. We've got a workshop on book

33:16

publishing. We've got a the Andrew Davis coming in and doing a great workshop on

33:20

how to be a professional speaker and get more speaking revenue. So it's basically all

33:24

the things that you and I just talked about. How do you build a loyal

33:26

audience? How do you monetize that audience audience in 4, 5,

33:30

6, 7 different ways? How do you future proof your business model

33:33

so AI doesn't eat you for lunch? Like, all those things. And

33:37

I'm really excited that we've got a good dissect dissection of people

33:41

coming. We got about 20% that are doing 500,000 or more, and we

33:45

got 20%. We're just getting started. So we've got we

33:48

got sessions for all those people, and you've got the Jay Clauses of the world

33:52

there and Justin Welch. And and we've got BJ Novak

33:56

from The Office, who's our closing keynote, and a lot of wonderful people that

33:59

are that are coming and gonna put on hopefully an amazing show and

34:03

just have fun with it and network and my favorite community. This is the

34:07

best group of people I have ever met because they all wanna help each

34:11

other because we're all trying to build this wonderful small business and

34:15

not have to work for somebody else. It's kind of the goal. The

34:18

other thing I just wanted to bring up is I love the fact that you

34:21

have a novel, and and the novel is not about how to get

34:25

customers. You know what I mean? It's it's it's not a business book.

34:29

So a lot of what we talked about today, I think a lot of people

34:33

are gonna disconnect that, oh, that's a business thing. So how does this

34:37

apply to someone that's doing

34:40

I don't know. I I don't know why I'm stuck on movie podcasting the last

34:43

2 weeks, I've been Like a consumer side? Yeah. The consumer side, I'm just, a

34:47

it's an entertainment show. It's it's fit in 50 over 50

34:51

or, you know, or it's the psycho cinema show,

34:55

where we talk about really bad movies. You know, the the typical podcast

34:58

stuff. Because the the advantage of looking

35:02

working at Lipson is I get to hear lot of podcasting. The disadvantage of

35:05

that is I'm hearing a lot of Hear a lot of podcasts? I'm hearing a

35:08

lot of people's first podcasting, which isn't fair to anyone.

35:12

But to the person that's kind of doing marketing that way,

35:15

do you have any insights on that? Yes. I do. And what

35:19

I would say is, I want you to think

35:23

beyond just the podcast. I want you to think about

35:26

what what's in it for you? Like, what is your I I call

35:30

it call it an exit strategy or begin with the end in mind. What do

35:33

you want out of this whole thing? If you want this to just be a

35:36

wonderful hobby where you get on a podcast and like to kick off a little

35:40

bit of cash, good for you. You go do that. You be that person.

35:44

But if you want this to be, like, your full time thing where you're

35:48

generating a 100, 200, a $1,000,000 a year and you've

35:51

built a full fledged media business around it, well, that

35:55

excites me. Like, I like that because that's the greatest

35:59

business on the planet, but you have to make some different decisions. So you're not

36:03

just thinking about, okay, you've got the show, but

36:07

what what is what is the end of that what's the end all

36:10

be all of that show? You're gonna build this loyal audience. You're gonna hopefully have

36:14

some kind of e newsletter where you can have 1 on 1

36:18

conversations with those people and deliver directly to those people from an opt

36:21

in standpoint. You're gonna look at, okay, well, I've got 10 different

36:25

ways to generate revenues. Okay. Well, in a podcast, how many do you have? You

36:29

could sell products and services. You could sell advertising and sponsorship. You could do a

36:32

lot of other things too. Maybe maybe your industry for

36:36

your 50 plus car show or your

36:39

crazy dessert show or I'm an I'm an amazing I'm

36:43

a runner over. I have a friend of mine who's just started a podcast, Runners

36:47

Over 60. And I'm trying to talk. I'm like, okay.

36:50

Great. It's not just a podcast. This is a

36:54

mission where you're really trying to help people. This is a media

36:57

property that you're going to build. The first thing is the podcast, but then we

37:00

wanna look at what this model is going to be. You build that loyal audience.

37:04

You have the email component. You look at the 10 different ways that you can

37:07

generate revenue. How do you support yourself

37:10

until you get to a minimum viable audience? I want you to ask those questions

37:14

now because what are you do like, go back to the beginning. What are you

37:17

doing this for? Write this down. Review it every day. I mean, you

37:21

might you might know this because you know a bit about my background, but when

37:24

I started in 2007 and I

37:28

left corporate America, I didn't know

37:32

exactly what that long term goal was gonna be. Well, I read a couple books.

37:35

I read Stephen Covey. I read Napoleon Hill, a couple other ones,

37:39

and I ended up writing down my goal. And my goal was

37:43

I sold, I do it in the past tense, I sold Content Marketing

37:46

Institute for over $15,000,000 by

37:50

2,015. Very audacious of me. I wrote that

37:54

down in 2,008, didn't have 2 nickels to rub together. I read I

37:57

read that thing to myself twice a day

38:01

for 7 years trying to because it shaped

38:05

everything I did because that's what my goal was because I wanted

38:09

generational wealth for my kids and my family, and I wanted to build this media

38:12

company. And I said, that's what I'm going for. So I don't have to work

38:15

ever again if I don't want to. I wanna do it on my time. But

38:18

I had to read that ongoing, and I found, Dave, that most

38:22

creators and entrepreneurs don't have that. They've never spent the time and

38:25

said, well, yeah, I know I like this thing, and I like my podcast,

38:29

and I like being a content creator, but give me the big picture. It doesn't

38:32

have to be an exit. Like, you don't have to sell your like, what's the

38:36

perfect ideal of your life? Do you wanna do a nonprofit?

38:40

Do you wanna spend more time with your kids? Do you wanna take care of

38:43

your parents? Like, what is it? So write that down,

38:47

and then strategically start to make sense start to make plans

38:50

with your podcast to get you to that point.

38:54

And that's what I'm trying, like, if the most important thing I work with content

38:58

creators on has nothing to do with content creation. It has to do with

39:01

business planning for entrepreneurs because that's what you are if you're a

39:05

podcast owner. You are an entrepreneur, and you're doing the greatest thing ever.

39:09

And if we treat it like that, I think you'll be more successful.

39:13

Beautiful. If you want more, Joe, and I know I do,

39:17

Content Inc podcasting then this old marketing podcast, and, of

39:20

course, come to Cleveland. How many network parties are

39:24

going on at night? So we have we have 2 ourselves. So we

39:27

have the opening reception. That is Sunday night, the 5th,

39:31

in Cleveland, and that'll be wonderful. And I'm doing a live taping with

39:35

Robert Rose of This Old Marketing, so we're gonna have a little fun there. And

39:38

then Monday night, we're having an eighties party

39:43

after the, you know, the day's events, if you will. And that's gonna be for

39:46

at my favorite restaurant in Cleveland, Pickwick and Frolic. So we're having

39:49

that there, and we're gonna use the marketing room, and there's gonna be a lot.

39:52

So what I try to do I've been as you know, I've been in the

39:55

events industry for a long, long time. And

39:59

education is really important, and you'll get the best education from

40:03

the best content creators on the planet. But the most most people go

40:06

to events like that for networking. They're trying to find a couple people that

40:10

can help them build their business, and that's what we try to set up on

40:13

a number of situations. Even for you introverts out there

40:17

where you can feel good about talking with some other people podcasting next to the

40:21

right people and ask some questions in a in a format that's not gonna make

40:24

you feel weird so that they can help you along your journey to build

40:28

your business together. Excellent. I wanna say

40:32

it's c e x, but it's not. What is the website for your, oh, c

40:36

yes. C e x dot events. Dot events. So so go to yeah. Go to

40:40

yeah, so I'll do the quick promotion, cex.events. And if you decide to

40:44

come, I would like to meet you there and talk to you. Use coupon code

40:47

JP 100 JP 100. That'll get you a

40:51

$100 off if you pick the conference pass or the all access where you get

40:55

the workshop and the videos and everything. But I'd love to I mean, it's my

40:58

favorite thing is just talking to other creators, and we're all

41:02

on the same journey together. And it's podcasting. Kinda like you. You know, you've been

41:06

working on podcasting for, what, since 2,005 or something like

41:09

that. Like, you, like, you probably you're only doing

41:13

that because you enjoy talking to other podcasters about the

41:17

business of podcasting. Yeah. Because you if you didn't enjoy that part,

41:20

you wouldn't be doing this. And I believe the same thing about content creators. I'm

41:24

like, I think this is the greatest job on the planet, working for yourself,

41:28

building an audience, helping people, not feeling bad about selling to

41:32

them. I mean, that's the greatest thing ever. So I like that. I'm I'm just

41:35

like you in that respect. Well, I just love the fact that, you know, we're

41:38

all in our spare bedroom talking into a microphones, and there are times when we

41:42

feel like our own little freaky people, like, nobody your

41:45

parents story at Thanksgiving going, it's a what? You know? You know?

41:49

And so when you get around other people that are doing the same thing, you

41:52

don't feel like it's like, okay. Everybody else is going through the same struggle. It's

41:56

not just me. And that can be So true. Really

41:59

engaging. By the time you get home, you're like, okay. Plus, you've you've had all

42:03

these great sessions and you've hopefully taken notes. Please take

42:07

notes. And then the the key is when you get home, do

42:10

them. Do something a little bit every day. Yeah. Do one thing or

42:14

something like that. But you what what you said resonates. So I just you just

42:18

talked about this in my newsletter. I'm a big Billy Joel fan. Love Billy Joel,

42:21

and I love the fact that he released a new song. Yep. Why did he

42:24

release a new song? He started talking to another songwriter. And

42:27

that collaboration with Freddie Wexler, another songwriter, helped

42:31

him figure out that he wasn't done writing. And that just gives

42:35

me goosebumps. I'm like, that's why we do that's why

42:39

you can't just always do this in your bedroom or at Starbucks

42:43

or whatever. You need to talk to other people that are dealing with the same

42:46

crap that you are every day. So that's why, you know, however you

42:50

do it. If you do it at CEX, great. But but get together with a

42:53

group of people that are dealing with the same things you are, and that'll make

42:57

you a better person, and then it'll make you a better content creator. And I'll

43:00

have links to all of Joe's books. I'll have links to cex.events. I'll

43:03

have a link to joeppleezy.com. It's all there in the show notes. Joe, thank

43:07

you so much for your time, man. I really appreciate it. Dave, anytime, my friend.

43:11

It was a lovely conversation. Oh, you know what's cool about Joe? What you hear on this

43:20

podcast is what you get. A guy that loves to serve

43:24

his community. One of the couple things that jumped out at me, I love the

43:27

fact that he said, the Orange newsletter, it's his.

43:31

Like, he doesn't have to worry about, I don't know, Clubhouse going

43:35

away or back in the day, Myspace going, like no. That's

43:38

his. And if the world blows up, he's got his newsletter.

43:42

And he talked about how going to a community can

43:46

help you feel less like a freak. He didn't say that I did, but

43:50

he did stress the importance of community. And I'm here to tell you,

43:54

people come for the courses, they come for the coaching at the School of Podcasting,

43:58

but they stay for the community. And then the

44:02

hard question that we have to ask ourselves is,

44:06

can we be a leader in this space? And my

44:10

answer to you is, of course, you can. Don't listen to the voice in your

44:13

head. Now it's not gonna come easy. It's gonna take some work,

44:17

but why not you? You know, so many times we

44:20

we say, wow, nobody's gonna well, why not? Why not you?

44:24

And then my favorite thing he brought up is

44:28

people will put up with ads. And, again, if you are new to

44:32

the show, I'm not anti ad. It's just not my first string

44:36

kind of strategy when it comes to monetization. But I'm gonna replay this

44:40

quote. It was so good. Marketing, Bruce says in there, and they do it as

44:43

well, like, right at the end. Here's we're selling these courses. We got this event

44:46

coming up, whatever. I pay attention because they deliver me so much

44:50

value. Not just value, so much value. And I'll

44:54

have a link to everything out at school of podcasting.com/925.

45:01

Joe mentioned a couple different ways you can make money with your podcast. If that

45:04

is something you are interested in, go to profit from your

45:08

podcasting /book, and you will see that

45:12

the audiobook is now available. I'm actually recording

45:15

it now. You've got about an hour and a half worth of material there now.

45:19

I'm recording chapters on a regular basis. And the cool thing is the

45:23

early adopters can then feed me questions for the

45:26

bonus content. Yeah. Check it out. Profit from your podcast.com/book.

45:32

And since we're talking about books, my buddy, Thomas Umstatt

45:36

Junior, is doing this the last time. His book, Launch

45:40

Secrets, is going away. They've been doing this particular

45:44

class, this course, for 7 years.

45:48

So it's Thomas Umstead Junior and James l. Rupert. And if you

45:52

are a person that is writing a book or you've already written a book and

45:56

you didn't get much out of it, go to school of podcasting.com

46:00

/booklaunchsecrets, and that'll take you over

46:04

to a presentation Thomas did. And there will be a link there if you

46:07

wanna sign up. The last day to sign up is April 12,

46:12

2024. I wanna thank Joe again for coming on the show.

46:16

What a great guy. Looking forward to seeing him. Can I say something that

46:20

sounds weird? I just recorded this episode. I edited it and

46:24

put it together right after last week's because I'm going to Podcasting

46:27

Movement in you know, basically, I'm leaving on a plane

46:31

in about 12 hours, and it seems kinda weird because I feel

46:35

like I just talked to you because I I just did. It just it's a

46:38

week till this comes out, but I do appreciate everyone taking the

46:42

time to listen to the show. If you know

46:45

somebody who's struggling with content, like, what do you

46:49

mean? What is good content? And how do I get this to work? And how

46:52

do I engage my audience? Go, hey, you need to listen to this Joe

46:56

Pulizzi guy. He was on the School of Podcasting. You can check it out. You

46:59

can just share it there with your phone. You can tell them to go to

47:02

schoolofpodcasting.com/924, or even better,

47:06

have them go to schoolofpodcasting.com/follow, and it'll

47:10

be the episode right there they can listen to depending on, of

47:14

course, when you listen to that. But it's in there. All the episodes are in

47:17

there when you follow the show. School of podcasting.com/follow.

47:23

Thank you so much. Until next week. Take care. God

47:27

bless. Class is dismissed. Yeah. Here's a little another little it's not really a blooper, but

47:45

I pulled this out because, well, I sounded like an

47:49

idiot. I I didn't understand why he called the

47:52

newsletter the tilt. And, well, this is what I thought it was.

47:56

I I totally appreciate that. And when I first saw the tilt see, I'm old

48:00

enough to remember pinball. And I was like, the tilt, because that was a

48:04

thing if you hit the the machine. That's right. You know, it's, like, is this

48:06

a pinball? What's what what's y'all doing? Exactly. You're, like, what?

48:10

Well, yeah. If you read got that ink, it's the second

48:13

step is the content. Tilt. And I thought it was the greatest URL ever. I'm

48:17

like, oh my god. I got the tilt.com. This is amazing.

48:21

And Joe wasn't doing that in a mean way. I've read epic content,

48:25

and now I'm in the middle of epic content too. And I will read Content

48:28

Inc when I'm done with those. But I thought it just made me look like