Rethinking Podcasting: A More Purposeful Approach for Agencies - Interview Valet

In this episode, Tom Schwab of Interview Valet breaks down how to use podcasting as a focused, intentional channel to build authority and attract the right results. If you’ve ever wondered whether podcasting is worth your time, this will change how you think about it.

Key Takeaways

•  Why podcasting isn't a numbers game 
•  The difference between using podcasts as a megaphone vs. a magnet
•  How to choose the right podcasts to build authority and trust 
•  A simple way to turn one interview into months of valuable content 
•  Why most podcast efforts fail to generate results

Transcript

Interview Valet

Russel 0:06

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host Russel Dubree, former eight figure agency owner, turned Business coach, sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is an agency story. Welcome to the show today everyone. I have Tom Schwab with Interview Valet with us here today. Thank you so much and welcome to the show today, Tom.

Tom 0:45

Russell, I'm thrilled to be here and, uh, share my story and any insights that I might have learned along the way.

Russel 0:51

Yes. Well, I, I think you're gonna blow my mind and certainly give some great insights for our guests today. But before we talk about all things podcast tips and more, I'd love to just hear a little bit more about Interview Valet. What do you do and who do you do it for? I,

Tom 1:08

I always look at what problem do we solve? And today there's this noisy world, right, where everybody's trying to break through the noise and get attention, and most of them are just adding to the noise. We work to help people get heard and build authority, and that comes through being heard on targeted podcast interviews by their ideal clients. And the AI that refers them. So we've been doing it for over a decade now. I've got a team of 20 all in the United States, uh, all remote and uh, really it's amazing how you can create the content and repurpose it and a lot of problems in the world, but there's no better time to be alive or to be an agency owner.

Russel 1:51

And, and you were doing this and started this all before I think podcasting was really kind of the thing, right? If you go back 10 years ago, although it's hard for me to keep track of when things came about these days.

Tom 2:02

Well, I'll, I'll tell you, when we first started, I'd give my elevator pitch and people's first question was. What's a podcast? And I'm like, oh, I'm too early. But, uh, it gave us a few years to get everything together. And then about 2018, right? Uh, the iPhone made it easier to download those in 2020 when COVID hit, all of a sudden corporate looked at, said, Hey, this is a way we can still get to our clients. And now, uh, in about 2024, there was no doubt that AI is indexing every. Podcast interview. So with that, it's like every change has made this medium more and more powerful.

Russel 2:43

All right, well, we're gonna figure out all the ways we can make that happen. But before we even get to that, I'd love to just hear a little bit about your background, how you got to even where you're at today, and, and then we will, we'll get to all that good stuff.

Tom 2:56

Well, it, it only makes sense in the rear view mirror. So, um, I'm an engineer by degree, graduated from the US Naval Academy. I ran nuclear power plants in the Navy on an aircraft carrier. Oh. And it's like, how do you jump from there to here? There's a lot of steps along the way, but every place I sort of learned something, right? Working in corporate America, working in sales, and my last company was HubSpot's first e-commerce case study. And you know, people, after I built it up and sold it off, people said, well, how did you grow it? And the answer was easy. At that time it was just guest blogging, but they didn't work by the time people ask me that question. So I hypothesized that you could use podcast interviews, tap in the same way. And uh, people told me, oh, you should start an agency with that. And I'm like. I know agency owners, that's a whole lot of work, right? So I wrote this cheesy little PDF that I gave away. Uh, I was in a mastermind group and some people encouraged me to do a course. Russell, I did the course, but I never took it out of beta because people were honest with me and they're like, I don't wanna do all this, right? You let me be the guest and you take care of the rest. Like, oh, that's good copy. I'm taking that. And one of our clients, early beta tester, he actually bought the name interview Valet, and gave me the domain and said. Here's what you call it. So I, I think I, I came into the agency world kicking and screaming. I didn't grow up in it. Uh, but I've come to have new respect for agency owners in everything that they do.

Russel 4:35

All right, well, you're not the first owner that maybe came kicking and screaming. Uh, so, I can totally empathize with that. I guess let's just get right to the overarching theme today is how can agency owners better leverage being a guest on podcasts or just podcasting in general for their benefit? Is, is that a good way to start it? And where do we even start with this topic to that in mind?

Tom 4:59

Yeah. And I, I think it's a, a great focus and it's really on how can you use it as a channel, right? How can you use it as a marketing channel and get actual results with it, right? So many people will say, I wrote a blog. Well, that writing a blog is not content marketing. Or I post when I think of something. Well, that's not social media marketing. And it's the same way for. I see so many people that say, well, I do podcast guesting, and there's no strategy to it. There's no data, there's no focus to it. So what I hope we can get in today is really how you can get results from every appearance, right? Don't just do more interviews. Do more with your interviews, get more from your interviews, and today it's a very, very powerful channel. Uh, as everything else is changing and it's going to, AI podcasts are a great way to get heard by your ideal clients and the AI that refers'em.

Russel 5:56

All right. Well, and I, I think most owners are gonna get on board with this idea that anything good starts with a good strategy. So with that in mind, we will start with a good strategy. What is the first step to even building that strategy?

Tom 6:11

I think the first one is, who do you wanna talk with? Right? There's a great book out there called Super Consumers by Eddie Yun, Harvard Business Review, published it. And I love how Eddie talks about who are those people that you wanna talk with, right? Those people that will buy everything you have and tell everyone else about you. And this idea, if I'm gonna invest a dollar to talk with the person. I wanna make sure it's the right person. So I think really comes from targeting of knowing who your ideal client profile is, and then being very specific on what podcasts you go onto, right? Too many people think you know that it's just a, a numbers game, right? Podcasts are a, a megaphone, and I reject that. I think podcasts done correctly should be a magnet. They're gonna attract the right people and repel the wrong ones.

Russel 7:02

Okay, I can totally understand that. And, and so what I'm hearing there, right? Yes. I know who your ideal customer is, what is a podcast they're gonna listen to, and if, if you can get on that, that's can always be a great place to start. I guess a question comes into my mind is. And I know sometimes I, I think about this in writing a book that it might not always be the credibility that everyone is going to read that book. Great if they do. But do you find there is just value in building the resume of, you know, maybe you're saying, I've been on a hundred different podcasts and featured as an expert here. That's not, even the value of getting audible listens to that podcast from your ideal client.

Bring Your Best

Tom 7:39

Well, I think there's a lot of ways you can get value from it or a lot of ways you can destroy value with it. Mm-hmm. Right. Just to say I was on a a hundred different podcasts, if somebody looks and they were low level podcasts or untargeted, or you did a bad job on them, that will destroy your credibility. Right. I, I can remember a client coming to us and I learned so much from clients and first thing I always ask him is, why do you wanna be on podcasts? And I loved his answer. He said, because I think most of digital marketing is like advertising above a urinal. And I stopped and I'm like, what? Explain that to me. And he's like, well, if somebody sees me on a park bench or doing a TikTok dance, he says, I'm a high level consultant that will destroy my credibility. So I think it's the same way he wanted to be in the rooms where his decision makers were. And in rooms that raised his authority. So I think it's the same way. It's not just a matter of being on lots of podcasts, but on the right ones where people will say, wow, that proves that they're an expert. So I think it's that targeting there. And you are right, not everybody has to listen to the entire interview. They can just see a post with it, they can get the backlink, it can be cited in ai, all of those different things. And you know, the other one is. We all know that Joe Rogan gets heard by a hundred million people, right? That's what all of the newspapers and the, the media. Now I'm showing my age, not newspapers, all the media said during the election. Well, if you look at the numbers, Joe Rogan gets heard by two and a half million people on downloads through the podcast. Makes'em the number one podcast, the other 98 million. Are listening to that 92nd clip of Elon Musk and going, oh yeah, I listened to that interview. Guests can do the same thing there. Right? So it's really that exposure brings the opportunity.

Russel 9:44

Now we're cooking here. So we're, we're talking about building authority and it's all about who you're showing up to and how you're showing up, making sure that it's authentic to your brand and when we think about, we're going as a guest on someone else's podcast, so it's almost like they're in control a little bit. How do you prepare yourself or navigate. What you're, you're in someone else's content world, if you will, to make sure that you are showing up in, in your best way.

Tom 10:10

Yeah, and I always often think, forget the word podcast and just focus on the word guest, right? If you had a live event and you had me show up to speak at that, I tell you what, I'm gonna show up on time. I'm gonna be dressed professionally, I'm gonna be prepared. I'm gonna know who the audience is. We'll, we'll talk about what I would wanna talk about to bring value to that. So I think if you take that same heart. To the podcast, you'll get a lot more out of it, right? Because you're trying to start a relationship with the host. If that host has access to all this audience that, that you wanna talk with, well look at it as, as the start of something, not just a transaction. I always tell people it's, it's a relationship. It's a conversation, not just a transaction.

Russel 11:03

So preparation is clearly key. I love this word is focusing on the word guest and, um, you know, maybe the same way you show up as a a guest at a networking event. Or do you have your elevator pitch down? Do you have, you know, who you want to speak to that one, find that one person in the room, not try to talk to everybody, and maybe thinking about your messages to some other things that are kind of conjuring in my mind. Any other tips around just how to prepare and show up your best when you're coming on as being a guest.

Tom 11:30

and I think with any conversation, right, it should be intentional. So when you go there to have the conversation, whether it's a networking, whether it's speaking from the stage or speaking from a podcast, think about, you know, what you want the people to believe afterwards. You know, I want you to believe that you can use podcasts and interviews as a marketing channel. You know, what do I. You want them to feel right? I want them to feel that what they have to share is important to the world. You know, what do I want them to do? I want them to take action afterwards. So to sort of go in there with it of what am I trying to get out of this conversation? Because I see too many guests go in there and it was an interesting conversation that may have been entertaining, but no business ever comes out of it. And it's a great opportunity, right? Someone has invited you. To talk to their audience, right? And if you talk from a stage, you might be talking to a hundred people, right? And hopefully they're not on their cell phones or walking out to take a, a call in the middle of it. But on a podcast, you could be talking to, you know, thousands, tens of thousands throughout time, and each one of them are opting in for it. So take it as a serious appearance.

Russel 12:50

We talk about finding podcasts that meet the ideal audience that we're trying to talk to, but within that, how do we evaluate podcasts that may or may not be a good fit, regardless of even if they are the right audience.

Tom 13:02

Yeah. And um, too often now there's something out there called Trojan Podcast and uh, it's a sales call designed as a podcast, right? And we all get these emails now that says, we'd love to have you on the podcast. And they're not promoting it to anybody. They're just. Getting you in there and you, you do the interview with a, uh, sales development rep. So before you look at the podcast, uh, to be on there, listen to it a little bit, see if they promote it, see if they're consistent with it. Most podcasts die within the first 10 episodes. You don't wanna be interview number eight. When there is no interview. Number nine, no one will ever see it. And then just look at it and say. Is this someone that I would like to have a relationship with that professionally for referrals to learn from, is this going to raise my profile or lower my profile? And uh, you know, there's a lot of data that you can license out there and we license it all, but there's also that gut check, right? You sort of have that feel of, are these my people or aren't they?

Quality Over Quantity

Russel 14:11

So I'm kind of thumbing through the, the cliff notes there of one, are their intentions good? Is it something that's meaningful that they're actually trying to be beneficial to their audience? Or are they using it for a tool for themselves? And then you're clearly advocating less is more, but this seems like a hard game to play.

Tom 14:29

Let's compare it to SEO, right, to do SEO without the data. It's really, really hard, right? You've gotta have the data behind it, and then it's like, it's not all the back links, right? You want the ones that matter to you. And I'll give you a great example as we're talking. SEO Rand Fishkin, who's the founder of. Moz became SEO Moz. He's got a great tool out there called Spark Toro, and he gives you, oh, free searches on it. Uh, it's a great platform, but you can basically say everyone and describe your ideal client profile. Maybe they follow, uh, a certain website or a, um, a certain person. You can put that in there and he'll give you audience insights into it. And. One of those audience insights is what podcast they subscribe to, and so that can be a very, very powerful way to find, you know, 25 50 podcasts. That might be great for your ICP right now. Doesn't mean you have to go out and. Pitch slash spam, all of those, right? Pick a handful and listen to them. Reach out to them. So often people will say it's a numbers game. In fact, there's a, um, an agency out there right now, or I think it's an AI tool that says that they will pitch you to three and a half million podcast. I don't know how they can do that because currently there's only a a half million podcasts live and only a hundred thousand have guests. So I don't know, you know where they're sending the emails to, but it's just not a numbers game. So if you can go to Spark Toro and find 50 shows, well find. 10 that you think could be really great. Right. Listen to'em, leave them a ratings and re review. Leave some, uh, comments on their social media. Then reach out to them and say, Hey, I think it'd be, I could bring value to your audience. And people say, that's not scalable. You know what? It's your effective if, if you get half of those people to say, yeah, I'd love to have you on as a guest right now. You got five interviews. Do a good job, ask the host afterwards. Do you know anybody else you know that you think I could bring value to? Hosts, know hosts, and you are much more effective with those referrals than you would be just spamming people, right? When people hire us as an agency, one of the things that, that you're buying with an agency is that network, right? So if we introduce somebody, they've got more gravitas, if you will, than if they tried to do it themselves.

Russel 17:08

This is Fascinating. The first stat that you shared that actually was really surprising me. If only 500,000 active podcasts I, if I had to guess, I probably would've picked a lot higher number.

Tom 17:20

The numbers are always inflated and there was a lot of podcasts that popped up during COVID when had no other idea of what you're going to do with your time, and it's really easy to start a podcast.

Russel 17:34

Mm-hmm.

Tom 17:34

It's really hard to keep it going. Yeah,

Russel 17:37

I can

Tom 17:37

feel that Anybody, that's anybody that says it's easy to do a podcast has never done one or never done it well. Right. Just start. And most of'em, you know, within a couple months they've, they've lost their idea for it or, you know, life has gotten in the way and we get a lot of clients that come to us and they want to. Be a guest before they do their own show, right? So that they can get comfortable with it. They can almost practice on somebody else's platform before they do it. I had one, uh, client, she gave a great example there. She said, um, I was so glad that I was a guest before I was a host. And she likened it to being, uh, a bridesmaid before being a bride, where she could see behind the scenes and how everything went. And she's like, A wedding looks a lot different. From when you're up on the, the altar there than if you're in the pews. And she said a podcast was the same thing, right? It's a different thing if you're just listening as opposed to being a guest or a host.

Russel 18:37

That is for sure. True. And, it's just funny and, and and makes perfect sense when you sit down and think about it, how many of these things you're applying really just. Apply to good marketing or just good relational tactics, period. Right. Don't spam, create meaningful connection. Um, but uh, that really resonates too because I feel like back when I was in the agency business, we did our best work. When we actually went out and got to experience the client services or their product or whatever they were putting out in the world, it gave us such a more impactful perspective to inform the strategy and how we were ultimately gonna create whatever we need to create or do what we were gonna ever do after that. Uh, so that, that, I imagine that has to resonate similarly with a lot of other agency owners out there.

Tom 19:20

Yeah, I, uh, I had a client came to me and he said he wanted to do Warren Buffet marketing. I'm like, okay, what does that mean? And he's like, well, Warren Buffet wouldn't invest in anything that he didn't understand. Right. And he said, for years I've been investing in the algorithm so that we can get, you know, ranked first on, on Google. And for a decade we've been spending money chasing this and that. They come to me and say, it no longer matters. Now it's something else. And he's like, I don't understand it. I'm not gonna keep throwing more money at it. But he said, what I do know is when I talk to the right people, I get business. And so he said from Warren Buffett's perspective, that's why podcast interviews made sense for him. If he can talk to the right clients, he knows he can get or the right people, he knows that he can get business from it.

Russel 20:14

You're hitting a special place close to me. I think of all business people in the world, I kind of tend to gravitate towards Warren Buffet especially, and Right. I think he's the king of massive success with a less is more strategy. What's his saying? I think it's something you put all your eggs in one basket and watch the hell out of that basket. The idea of presence and intention and some of these other concepts you mentioned matter far more than. The spray and pray methods that just sometimes, I don't know, it is a human nature that we just gotta feel like we have to try because it more activity feels good.

Tom 20:47

Yeah. It's, it's really that I have to remind myself of what am I optimizing for? And every email that comes across my desk, right. Do you want more followers? Do you want more leads? It's like, no. I want more profits because at profits I know I'm bringing value to the market. So, uh, I want more ideal clients, right? If you just bring me more leads, I gotta kiss a lot of frogs. I've gotta hire a lot of sales development reps, whatever it is. And, one of our clients, Eric Galper, I loved how he said it. He rejected the idea of the sales funnel. He's like. It makes no sense for me to have a thousand leads and then have one client come through it. He said, I like podcast interviews because it's the sales cylinder, right? Have five people that hear me. We talk and I get four clients out of it. He's like, to me, that's a lot more efficient.

Russel 21:44

Yeah. All right. I tend to take a, a less is more approach to everything. not always perfect, but very fascinating Well, we were going down the path of talking about, you know, when or why should an agency start their own podcast? And what are some just starting pro tips to just think about evaluating whether that could be beneficial.

Tom 22:08

Yeah. I always look at it as, you know, people will say, should you be a guest or a host? I don't think it's an either or, right? It's like, should you be an Uber driver or an Uber passenger? Same platform, but different goals. So being a guest is a great way to get new exposure, new leads, big new backlinks, all of that. But being a host is a great way to nurture your current. Clients to nurture your current leads, and so I think each one of those can have their own benefit. For eight years we did nothing but podcast interviews. Then my team came and said, we've gotta have our own podcast, right? Because we've got all of these clients that we want to focus on, right? Tell their stories, tell their successes, answer the most common question. So we really use our podcast right now to highlight a lot of the almost case studies, and also to answer a lot of the frequently asked questions. Because it's such an easy thing for the team to just reference of, oh, you know how to answer that first foundational question. Uh, Jeff Bart did an interview with Tom. Here's the link for it. And so that has the expertise right there. So I think there's a place for both of them. What I would say is that it's sort of the spine to the content too. Don't just do an interview to do the interview or a podcast to do the podcast. Make as much content out of that as you can, right? You can make the, the reels, the shorts. Uh, if you do this correctly, you should never have a problem of what am I gonna post on social media?

Russel 23:50

All right. I'm taking a couple notes here. Tom. This is, this is learning for me too and, I don't know if I heard there correctly, is it generally better, or maybe you weren't saying this, that it's better to think of it more as a nurturing tool, not a magnet tool, or can it really suffice as both?

Tom 24:06

Yeah, you're gonna have a hard time using your own podcast. To draw new clients to you or new prospects, right. For lead generation, it's this idea, if I build it, they will come. That might've worked a decade ago with a podcast, but it's so tough to just, you know, most people aren't just looking for, oh, what new podcast am I gonna. Listen to, usually they already know the person or get introduced to them through another podcast or somebody mentions it. This idea of, I'm just going to use it to get new followers. That's really, really tough and there's a lot of celebrities that spend a whole lot of money trying to get followers on that, and so it's a great way to show some love back to your clients. Right. Okay. And the one I always use on this is Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. Yeah. Some of his podcasts are basically testimonials or case studies. Right. Because if Dan said it, it would sound vain like he was trying to, um, brag. But a lot of times he'll bring on the students from coach and just have them tell their stories and they're selling it better than he ever could. Right. All he needs to do is. Ask the question and then not get in the way of them telling everything. And so that's a great thing with the ability to do that with current clients because think about it, if you have a client on your podcast and they start talking about the great results they got with you, how much they loved working with your agency, calling out people by name. They're probably gonna share that with their audience, right? They're gonna promote it, and guess what? Ideal clients, no other ideal clients. So it's a great way to almost have them as ambassadors or those super consumers that will amplify. Your message.

Russel 26:07

I, I feel like that that is kind of like mind blown a little bit that is a pretty big mindset shift, I feel like in how, when people are considering the idea of do I wanna start a podcast wanting it to be more of a, a magnet per se than a nurturing tool. I don't know if that's making people going to want to run from the hills but I like how we segue that and just say the, the power actually could be that, but the value. Is thinking of it as more of the nurturing tool and let the magnet be the icing on the cake.

Tom 26:36

Yeah, and I think the, the big thing too is just not looking at it as a megaphone, right? We're agency owners, right? We're not gonna be the next Joe Rogan or Brene Brown. And this idea that I'm going to, I'm only gonna say my podcast is successful if everybody in the world knows me. Right. That's, that's an ego thing. That's a fame thing. You just wanna be known by your people, right. Your ideal clients. And if they know you, if they turn to you, that's a successful podcast.

Russel 27:09

Well, I'm a little disappointed that I'm not gonna be, you know, a, a millions of millions listener podcasts. But no, I think I realized that, a while ago. But I mean, I think everything you're saying of, you know, up to this point makes sense that, speaking intentionally and very directly and in a very helpful, valuable way to a small set of people is gonna have far more value. We're an agency business in most case. We're not trying to get hundreds of clients. We're trying to get, maybe at best one or two a month for a lot of folks. And that's the way you're gonna go about getting that done.

Tom 27:40

It's this a micro famous, right? I'll never forget, I was speaking at Inbound one year and I got to ride down on the elevator with Seth Godin. We were both staying on the same floor in the hotel, walked over there with him, talked, everything like that. I was so excited and I texted my son afterwards. I was so excited. I had to tell somebody. I just, I just rode the elevator with Seth Godin and got to talk with him. My son, who at the time was probably 19 texted back, did you rub his head for good luck? And I said, um, what? And he says, I have no idea who Seth Godin was. I just Googled him and I saw a picture. I still have no idea who he is. And to me, I was in the elevator with royalty, right? A celebrity. But to most people, they wouldn't, you know, he could go through an airport and people would know, have no idea who he is.

Leverage Like Gold

Russel 28:36

I like this term, micro famous, um, you know, some, you know, B-list or C list celebrity, but micro famous sounds way more positive than, than, anything less than a list almost when we're talking about celebrity doesn't sound as appealing. So, micro famous, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that. I'm gonna steal that term from you, Tom. I feel like we covered a lot of the bases. Maybe, maybe one area then you can fill in any gaps that maybe we haven't covered is okay. I've, I've found a good podcast. I've gotten on, I've shown up with authority. It goes out into the world. How do I now best leverage that opportunity that I've created?

Tom 29:11

Repurpose the heck out of it, right? This is gold today. 96% of podcasts have video. You get the shorts, the reels, blogs from it, LinkedIn posts, right? It's such a rich. Format, and not only for you, but for your clients too, right? Have you ever asked a client to give you some ideas for a blog or to write a blog for you? Right? It that's a homework assignment. They don't wanna do that, but if you bring them, Hey, we've got an opportunity for you to be on some shows, right? And talk about different things. Man, you can take all of that content and you can use that as foundational gold to make all of the social media, the content marketing around that. We even worked with the client, we started during COVID and then have continued on when they started to work with the client, they would send a film crew to their location and they would get all this B-roll footage. It's like, oh, we can't do that over COVID anymore. So they started to get them on podcast interviews at the very beginning and use that as almost B-roll footage for everything. And then when COVID was over, not everybody went back to the office. They're like, this works easier. And it's more cost effective. So really don't just look at it as an appearance, but how can you use this as foundational content to drive other areas, right? We've got AI agencies that come to us and realize that AI is indexing podcasts, and they're like, can we get. People, our clients on shows, other ones are saying, my CEO won't sit down in front of the camera for interviews. He's nervous with that, right? So we're gonna get him on podcasts, and if you ask him questions, he can talk, right? So all of those things, just don't look at it as a silo. Look at it as how you can use it in your overall strategy. Going back to first principles of how can you use this to talk directly to your ideal clients?

Russel 31:12

Because interesting. I mean, I, I feel like something you, you see a lot is what the typical usage is, is someone goes on a podcast. And share it once, maybe twice on a social media platform or two of just a high level, Hey, I was here and I did this, but I don't know, I guess, I guess I could play devil's advocate and say how much would be too much to share or find pieces and is there a line there somewhere?

Tom 31:36

So pull back the, the curtain here. The way we do it and the way we teach it is when it first goes live, promote it. Heavily for the first 30 days and for us heavily is usually, uh, about twice a week. Uh, so twice a week on LinkedIn. Probably more like four times on, on X, right? That's where most of our clients are. We don't get that much from Instagram or TikTok, so we do that. Then you ramp it down. For the next 60 days. So maybe it's once a week. Then at the end of 90 days you see which posts did the best and keep rescheduling those because we teach that you shouldn't say anything that's time bound on it. Right? So if we were around, um. The year end holidays. I wouldn't say Happy New Year because that makes it sound really dated. Yeah.

Russel 32:31

So don't give, don't give your Super Bowl pics. Uh, yeah. Right before the Super Bowl.

Tom 32:36

So all of those, you can re you can promote this for months, years, right? Nobody's gonna remember. Oh, that interview was a year ago. If it's still good content, you can promote it and go there. The one warning I would have and my, um, marketing manager, Tiffany Mink, has sworn she will quit if I shave my beard because I didn't have a beard pre COVID, and instantly when I came back. Everything looked dated because I looked different. Right now, people just think I had more and more gray highlights as the years go on, but pretty much you can't tell. Was this interview done, you know, today or three years ago? And the thing is, is we've gotten clients from podcast the longest one. Somebody heard a podcast that was recorded five years before and came to us.

Russel 33:28

I think that was one of the surprising things when I got into podcasting is how Evergreen podcast content truly can be. Some of my oldest episodes still pick up, quite a bit of listens and, a single guest appearance. Right. Talking about less is more the way you're telling it. I mean, that can be six months worth of, of content that's not this just one and done share and, and see how it works.

Tom 33:53

Yeah. And most of the time, you know, ev everybody thinks, oh, I wish I was like Gary Vaynerchuk and had, you know, three cameramen following me around a lot, uh, all the time. I would have all of this great content. When you're on podcast interviews, heck, when you're on team calls, if you've got the video going, that is great content. You can slice and dice that and put it up there. We don't really have a content creation problem. A lot of times we have a content capture problem, and after podcast interviews you don't have the capture problem. You've already got it there. It's really just a content distribution problem, and now with the tools out there, it makes it so much easier to do it.

Russel 34:33

Okay. All right. Well, that is really good stuff. All right. What did I miss here? What did I not ask? Any other nuggets that people need to know out there about how to show up and leverage podcasting and building more authority for their business?

Tom 34:46

I'm gonna go back to something I said before, like what do I want you to believe is that most people that do podcast interviews are introverts. we did a study on this and they thrive on one-on-one conversations, but what they struggle with is who would wanna listen to me? What do I have that someone would want to listen to? And I had this problem early on, and a buddy of mine pointed out he's a lawyer. Um, he said the definition of an expert is someone that knows more than the average person based on their education, their experience, their their work. And so you might have to have a PhD in something, but I tell you what, when you're working 60, 80 hours a week in your business. You have expertise like no one else has. You've got points of view insights that no one else has. So one of the things that, that I, it's one of my favorite phrases is, what's ordinary to you is amazing to others. So I think from that standpoint, you know, nobody's gonna ask me what my. Opinion is on microeconomic policies'cause nobody cares about it. And I don't know that I have an opinion, but the things that we do know, that's what we talk about. And the conversation, Russell, that you and I are having right now, it's the same one we'd be having over beers or coffee or, you know, at a, at a conference in the hall. So, uh, you are already having the conversations. Might as well let people listen in on them.

Connecting Podcast Desires

Russel 36:20

I love that. I mean, that's, that's been the biggest, I think, learning curve, you know, that I try to bring to the show, since I first started. And what I hear so much out there in the world and what I try to incur guests is, is the authenticity piece feels like it's more important than it's ever been in 2026. And if, if nothing else for the, the Russell tip of the day is, is just to piggyback on that and say, yes, show up in your most authentic self. That's what's gonna resonate most with people out there, and I can't go wrong with that. Amen. Alright, perfect. Well, specifically, because this is just so up your alley as a business, if, if you wouldn't mind, just give a full shameless plug about interview Valet and what you do for folks and, and how you help magnify this concept for folks in the world.

Tom 37:06

So we help thought leaders talk directly to their ideal clients, to grow it as a business and a marketing channel, right? Our, our mission is to personally introduce inspiring thought leaders to millions of people they could serve for the betterment of all. If you want more information, you can go back to interview Valet with a v.com/. Agency story. Right. Easy to remember. And you know, I'll put a copy of my book, right? You can buy it on Amazon or you can get it free there. Uh, we've got something that's a, uh, it's team calls it a tombo. It's been trained on my book, all my interviews. I can go back there, talk with. Me, I don't know, at any time. Um, and my team likes it because they can get answers quicker and more succinct. With that, uh, that'll be back there. And then also if you'd like to talk with me right live, um, on how you could leverage targeted podcast interviews, I'll put that all back@interviewvalet.com slash agency story.

Born or Made?

Russel 38:12

Alright, well go talk to the Tom Bot folks. That sounds amazing. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure some folks will be interested in that. And, and likewise for my guests as well, when this goes live. You can go to an agency story.com. I'll have that link there in the show notes as well, as well as some key takeaways from this episode today and some great, great content for you for how to leverage podcasts for your business. All right, well one last big question for you then, Tom. Are entrepreneurs born or are they made.

Tom 38:39

I sure hope they're made. Because we need a whole lot more of'em. There's a lot of problems in the world, and I'm not counting on government to fix'em. I think it's entrepreneurs that make'em, and especially, uh, in this AI world, it's these creator capitalists that are gonna win. So, uh, I'm trying to teach entrepreneurship as much as I can.

Russel 38:58

Oh man. Special place in my heart, Tom. Uh, you've done that several times throughout this conversation, but that's why I do what I do every day and so I totally believe and stand behind that and, uh, I think that's a great way to cap off this, this amazing conversation today. On that note, thank you so much for, for taking the time to share your expertise today to really what comes away for me is just. Always comes back to the fundamentals about how you prepare. Having a good strategy, less is more. Being intentional about the way you show up and always, always, always bring value. Uh, really appreciate you taking the time to share all that with us today.

Tom 39:34

Thank you, Russell.

Russel 39:36

Wonderful. Thank you for listening to an agency story podcast where every story helps you write your own, subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit an agency story.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at an agency story for the latest updates.

Tom 39:59

This one has become legendary. Over the last 18 months in our team, so we work on two main verticals, business and health, nutrition and wellness. If you look at me, I'm probably not the great figurehead for health, nutrition, and wellness. And so we started to get more people out there. For the voice of the company and Chloe Williamson, who runs that pod for us, she started to get out there on podcasts and man, the leads started to come in and I take all of the incoming discovery calls and it was the funniest thing because here I am, the founder, the owner of the company, and people had come in and say, do you know Chloe? And I'd have to come back and say, uh, yeah, I, I hired her. And, um, then they'd come back and say. If I work with you, would I get to meet her? And it's like she is now the celebrity and we've got five people from our team that are out there leveraging this medium. And I just, I have to laugh sometimes, but it makes me so proud when people come back and it's like, yeah, I don't want to talk to the founder. I want to talk with the celebrity. Your team members.

Russel 41:08

Yeah, she, she's famous and you're micro famous.

Tom 41:12

I'm just the help that signs the check.

Russel 41:14

There you go. That's an important job too, and we appreciate you for doing it.