The Power of the Podcast: Unlock Your Brand's Marketing Potential

It's Never Too Late to Go Viral: How Authenticity Drives Success

• Pedal Stomper Productions - Josh Troche

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In this episode, we chat with Kerry Grinkmeyer, a retired financial advisor who has defied expectations and built an incredible online presence with over 183,000 YouTube subscribers—all at the age of 80. Kerry shares his unique journey into content creation, his passion for teaching others about financial independence, and the strategies that have turned his YouTube channel into a thriving community.

Hear how transparency, consistency, and authenticity have been key to Kerry’s success. Discover how he connects with his audience through honest storytelling and actionable financial insights. From leveraging modern tools to creating meaningful relationships via Discord, Kerry reveals the secrets behind his impressive subscriber growth and the fulfillment he finds in creating impactful content.

Whether you're starting your content journey or looking for fresh inspiration, Kerry’s story is proof that it’s never too late to find your voice and make a difference.

Chapter Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro: It's Never Too Late to Create
03:00 – Kerry’s YouTube Journey at 80
08:15 – Building Trust and Engagement with Transparency
15:30 – Why Consistency is Non-Negotiable
22:10 – How Kerry Connects Through Discord and Builds Community
30:20 – Lessons from Failure and Personal Growth
37:45 – Actionable Financial Tips and Resources
45:00 – Kerry’s Vision for the Future of Content Creation

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It's never too late to start creating content. I get the question all the time. Am I late to the game for YouTube or podcasting or whatever? No you're not. Today's guest is Carrie Meyer. He's 80 years old, 80. He has 183,000 followers on his YouTube channel. I say that all very slowly because that to me is insane and really, really impressive. If you want to get some of the information on how he got there and why he does it, stay tuned. Oh, so, Carrie, thank you for coming on this. I've been looking forward to this since we talked last week. Kind of in a pre call. I mean, we met through the 10,000 small businesses platform. You've got a massive YouTube following. What strategy? I mean what strategy have you found like the biggest piece to engaging with those people that. I mean like I said, it's 183,000 people that you have following you. What is your strategy for engaging with those people and keeping them active all the time? I think it was, it was brought to my attention several weeks ago. Every Friday I have what I call stock talk, and anywhere from 50 to 100 people show up on a zoom call, and we talk. And Heidi, Heidi is the blind girl on our. She's legally blind. But she made this statement. She said, Carrie, I fell in love with you. Back when you told me about your daughter's death. And you're totally transparent and and you, you will say however you feel and you draw the hearts of the people that you, you deal with. So, I think that's it. And I on a lighter side, I had my eyelids lifted so you can see my eyes. I believe you fall in love with people through their eyes. So, that that's my two keys to success. Be transparent. Be honest. Admit your frailties. Because we all have them. We do. And, And you will draw people. And they will. It's like I learned in in sales. First they got to trust you, and they got to feel comfortable with you. And then they'll give you what what you want. That 100% makes sense. That's we talk a lot about that know like and trust with people about how to build that up, how to make sure that you're you're working with that and how video does a great job with that. Yeah. And I mean, the fact that you're obviously sitting there in your office, talking with people is really, an amazing part of that. You said every Friday a lot of people struggle with consistency and be it their marketing efforts, be it their video efforts. How do you manage to stay motivated? And I mean, and let's I'm not going to beat around the bush here. You're 80. There's a lot of people that are 80 that are sitting on the beach and perfectly content with that. You know, how do you stay motivated? I love the stock market. And I think, and I'm a competitive person. I, I think I told you, I, up until about two years ago, I ran in the senior Olympics, in the 100 meter or the 50 meter and the 200 meter. I love to compete, and I love to train. And so in my mind, the stock market is the is the one place I can still very, very competitively compete. Because I'm, I'm a focused person. And if, if I want to know something in today's world, it's all available to to me here on my keyboard. And so I can beat you at the stock market. Just by research I learned. Then there's there's 66 million people in the world who manage their own portfolio. So I, I basically said I'm a retired financial advisor. I understand the financial markets with with the addition of the internet and the data that I can I can access. I can figure out which stocks are going to go up. And then if I can share that with you at a reasonable cost, so you can make money and you can improve your family's life. I'm contributing and to contribute at 80 years old. That's that's pretty amazing. You don't see many people can do that. And then I take I take nmn in, this is, an additive that I take and I don't I don't make any money on it. For three years I have taken that. I read a book, by Robert, Sterling. And it basically said, if you'll take that, you'll you'll be able to go out once a three times a week and raise three other people with a tiger coming after you. And you can you can for sure not get eaten. That 100% makes sense. 100% makes sense. I absolutely love it. With this, it you've mentioned, your son helps you repurpose some of the content because you you got into this basically out of necessity to do something. Correct? Right. Right. Your your son helps you repurpose some of the content. Have you found that repurpose those snippets have been valuable for you? Yeah. The, he puts them on Instagram and TikTok. And we get a a movement of younger people, from those two channels. And, and it it's built are our base, but our, I would say still, 60% of our people are over 55 years of age. And, well, and that's to be understood. We, we go through a life cycle where, you graduate from college and most people, or from your last year of education, and most people struggle and and they start a family and they have children who, educate, they have a mortgage, they have a car payment. I have none of those. Yeah. No. And as you as you get into your your elder years, you start saving money. And so that's why, you know, about 55, your your last child graduates from college. You've got tuition money that you can allocate in other directions. You learn what a 401 K and an IRA and a Roth IRA are, and you start thinking about retirement. And I just wish I could get to people who are 20 and come and get them to commit. I did, Josh, I did a chart. I said, what if in 2004, as the internet was taken off, I had been smart enough to invest in, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft and put put $6,000 a year into a Roth IRA and did that every year. Equally distributed between the the four of them today, I'd have $4.2 million. That's all tax free money. That's all. Yeah. And it's happening again. Yeah, it's happening again. Because a I will be bigger than the internet. I think I agree with that. It it brings us so much more. And I think the easiest way to think about AI is it gives you access to all the knowledge in the world. What do you want to learn? Just go ahead. Sure. And now. Now I found one where it makes podcasts for me. It's a it's a Google product called, notebook. Yep. And, so I say you want to know about, GTL as a stock. Just just go. Gather all from the internet. The latest articles, the latest earnings report, and they'll give you a 15 minute podcast and you'll know all you need to know about that stuff. Yep. That notebook has been an amazing tool. And it's funny because people ask us about it all the time. And like, are you threatened by it as a because it it'll create podcast for you. And I'm like no because it's a research tool and it's it creates some engaging, interesting information. But it's not this authentic this authentic interaction, which is it's funny because it's a great segue into my next thing here. You've got quite the camera presence. There's that enthusiasm. There's, there's the charisma behind it. Has that always come natural to you, or have you worked on that? No, it's just comes natural. I'm very expressive with my hands. I did a video this morning. I got really carried away. I want to say I got slow down. No. I believe in what you and I are doing is we are connecting with people. And if you've got energy, then you express it and it becomes contagious. And and so if, if I can, if, if I, I, I had to bleep some words this morning out of my video and I think and I thought well I'll just cut that out. And I said no no that's me. That's how I express myself. My wife Steph stop talking like that. Well I'll just cut it out. You know, I think I think the, the human factor is, is extremely important in connecting with people. And I think I hear people I was talking to a young lady who asked me, well, how do I become, successful? On YouTube? I said, well, the first thing you got to do is take your glasses off. She said, no, I look good. I said, I'm not arguing that you look gorgeous with your glasses. Why can't see your eyes? And if you've got any light that is going to reflect off of that, those glasses, I won't be able to see your eyes. And you and I will lose connection. So it's just it's just opening yourself up and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. But then also you've got to convey knowledge. That's why people come. I can remember. I think my first experience with YouTube was my, my wife many years ago. I was giving Christmas presents and she says, I'm not interested in that. I don't like it. And I saw her giving everything. I gave her to goodwill. And I said, Nita, what is it you want? She said, I think I'd look awfully good in a Porsche. And so I was doing well at the time, and so I bought her a Porsche. But the headlight went out after a couple of years, and I knew what it was going to cost me to have that headlight replaced at the Porsche dealer. So I went to YouTube and a guy taught me how to open the headlight out, and the replacement saved me $600. But he was extremely giving, and he looked directly at me and I said this, this is something I want to be a part of. I can share my knowledge. I can share my experiences, and I can help somebody make their life better. And so that was my first introduction to it. I love that that is in retirement. It it's become what? Josh, you're you're you're involved with the school. And you're you're very active. Once you retire, you your world gets very, very small. Okay. Unless you unless you get involved in a gym or you have a group of people that you meet every Tuesday for coffee, your world gets extremely small. And most people end up sitting on TV watching their favorite news programs and favorite TV programs, and their life comes to a basically a standstill. And then they entertain themselves, by going on cruises and putting themselves within a community of nobody that they know. And just having a nice week on a cruise ship. Where is my life? I interact with people every day. I make a video. I go to the video, they make comments. Sometimes they don't make nice comments. It is the internet that's enjoyable. Sure. But again, it's like I said to somebody the other day, you take a swing at me and I'll punch you in the nose and, come back at you hard. I love that. That gives me some life, gives me some activity, gives me some inner interchange. Most retired people don't have that. So the, a lot of the stuff you said and there's really interesting because of the retirement piece, and we see that in so many cases with men. Most men die within 2 to 3 years of retirement. We have that's that's a fact because they have once again lost their purpose in life. The thing that I want to go back to that you touched on just a couple of minutes ago. That guy that you saw on YouTube that taught you how to do to replace that headlight. You said he came from a very giving place and I find that really, really interesting because really what you're trying to like everything in your channel is trying to bestow knowledge and what you've found to other people. Do you feel that that giving has been like one of the big keys as to why your channel's been successful? Oh, yeah, most definitely. I put out a video starting, I guess it was in November of 2019. I did it for four years, every day. Seven days a week. Wow. I just recently, I guess after the pandemic ended, I've brought it down to six days a we are 5 or 6 days a week. And now now, I've, I've. This is the other element I've brought in as part of actually the, the Goldman Sachs program. They challenged me, as you know, what is your growth opportunity? What is your opportunity to grow your business? And I came away and said, I've never paid for a subscriber. I've never paid for anybody to, come to my channel and and subscribe and pay me a monthly fee to have access to my portfolio. So I started a, paid advertising and on, on, December the 1st was the first time I put any money towards paid advertising. And through the month of December, I spent $1,200 on paid advertising and brought in 220 new subscribers, paying me,$19.95 a month. And and now, Josh, all I got to do is throw money at it, and it it will grow. It will grow. That return on investment is a there's a return on investment there. That's a pretty good one. Yeah, it's it's, I spend, I've, I've tracked it. I spend something around, $13 to get a $240 paying customer. That's not bad. No. And they'll pay me probably for the next five years. Yeah, that's not a bad one. When it comes to. I mean, you mentioned you went from seven days. You you back down to like 5 or 6 days a week, which is still insanity. When you do that, are there any tools that you use to help you with that? Or. I mean, how do you make sure that you've got content to come out every single day? I wake up in the morning at 6 a.m.. I lay in bed for roughly an hour and think, interesting. All I do. And in that hour I would. I say to myself, what would I, if I were out there, what would I like to learn about the stock market today? What what what could give me some information that would make me a better investor? And a where I found again, I will lean on Goldman Sachs, I was shocked. There's 26 people in our in our program. And we got into that section where you start talking about the the metrics and your balance sheet and your income statement. And I was shocked that I was the only one who understood, a income statement. Sure. I unders I was the only one who knew the difference between gross margins and and operating margins. And I said, oh my goodness. I'll bet. No, these people who are buying stocks don't know the difference between a gross margin and an operating margin. They don't understand that earnings per share translates into profits. And if you aren't growing your earnings per share faster than inflation, you're going out of business you're going to miss. It's either. It's just like I said, don't. She said I don't understand that. My wife I said, if we got if if we're spending more money than we're bringing in, we're going out of business. Oh. Going in debt, which is just putting, going out of business further out. Right. That's just kicking the can down the road. I, I look at it at Ford. Ford Motor Company. Yeah. I mean, they, they, they, they grow their, their profits at 2% while inflation was that 5%. Sure. You're going out of business, folks. It doesn't work. Don't realize it yet. Right, right. Yeah. It will catch up to you, but. But then there are other companies who are growing their revenues and their earnings in excess of 20% per year. Sure. So why not invest in them? Yeah. Go go go go go where the money is and where money is growing. Yeah. For sure. Growing. Speaking of growing, you've. I mean, you've really built a community. And, you've mentioned you've got, pretty good sized discord group that you work in. Yeah, that community. How important has been that, has that community been for in terms of building your channel and building that just knowledge of people knowing what you do is there? I mean, do you feel that like that word of mouth and the the people in the community working together as is what makes it so people are staying around? Yeah. It there's there's a interaction with me through a video, but they really can't interact. Okay. So, why do you why do you go to church? Is it to interact with the priest or the pastor or the rabbi? Not really. It's to interact with the other people in the congregation. Sure. You stay after you have coffee. You chat here. You share your experiences. That's what a discord is. That's what a discord. This is what I did today and this is the result. And in some cases, it's to bury your wounds. Or in some case, it's the brain. It's you're saying, hey, this is working for me, and I want to share it with you because on our discord, you. It's not only if you're familiar with the discord. For a long time, it was just typing and interacting right in the chat. Well, now discord has a live function so you can go on and we have two different number of groups. One is swing traders. These are people who are trading actively during the day or during the week. And then there are others who are like me who are long term investors. And so we compare, I have what I call an office in the discord. People come ask me questions, I show up, I answer the question, and, we we create a relationship. And one of Josh, one of the most important things happened to me. Oh, I guess it was last year. I got a phone call. I don't usually make my phone number. It's there if you really want to hunt and find it. And it was from a Mexican guy in, Houston, Texas. And he told me me and my brothers owned a laundromat. And, I've been following your channel, and you mentioned that you have a learning disability. I said, yeah, I'm dyslexic. And he said, and you talked about how you read books. And I said, yeah, I use, audible. He says, I have two boys who have learning disabilities, and they are made fun of in school, and they're having a lot of difficulty. Tell me about what is audible is all about. And I told him, called me back two months later, and he said, you've changed my boys lives. They now read. They now interact with each other from the books that they're listening to. They now can go to school and they can participate. I mean. You just don't get that in life. No. And you're. It's tougher to find that. I mean, I guess it would say I don't want to say it's tougher to find that in a daily interaction. But when you can find that from someone that's a couple of thousand miles away. Yeah. And you know that there's all sorts of people that are getting, not necessarily that direct interaction, but they're getting that same education from you in between their. That's a pretty good feeling. Yeah. That's, that's its purpose. 100% I love that. And it's, it's funny because I see in so many cases when people are like, we're obviously focused on helping companies make marketing videos. It's a big part of it. But in that we see so many people that are so busy trying to make marketing videos that they lose that connection. Yeah, you kind of go the other direction. You're 150% about the connection and the education and the fact that it organically is marketed itself is really been a big bonus for you. Then. Yeah. And it's it's a win win on both sides. I love it. Gary Vander Chuck says give, give, give and then ask you. I mean, you've talked about the importance of finding your passion in this, and you talked about that before. Is that is your passion for this? Do you feel that's a big part of your success with this? Oh, yeah. First of all, I discovered I'm a creator. I love to create. When I worked for, Polaroid, I worked for American Express. I worked for Purex. I didn't realize this until I would come home and I would paint paintings. Sure. Let me see that Picasso there. Yeah. Okay, I painted that. Nice. Well, where is it? Well, you can't see it because of the like. I realized I enjoyed taking a white canvas and paints and painting, and I would stay up

till 3:

00 in the morning and then get up at seven and go to work. But I always came back to painting. Then I got into photography. I loved creating photography after I retired. I wrote four books. And I at, at about 68 years old, I said, Holy crap, you're not a salesman. You're a creator. You're a creator. And I thought, if if I had known that when I was 18 years old, what would I be? I, I, I'd been a movie producer. Interesting, interesting. That's. I would have, I still, I, I, I'm excited. One of the, one of the books that I have written is all about my learning who I was. I, I, I recognized that you and I's personalities and our character was formed in the first 14 days, 14 years of our lives. And I used 14 because that's when it happened. That's when I hit my 10th day. Things happen to you in your childhood that form your character, and it it channeled. And then with the talents that you've got, you, you find you, you gain vision into your passion. My mother died when I was five years, when I was eight years old, of cancer, when she was dying. She was in the hospital with. With cancer. The most important day in my life happened on May the 3rd of 1953. We went to see my mother and in the hospital, my brother and I. It was his birthday. He is 16 months older than me. My mother did not realize it was his birthday, and he got angry because he thought we were going there to see her. We hadn't seen her for six months to celebrate his birthday, and she didn't say anything about it. And he got angry, and he took it out like he always did on me. So I him my head against the wall, I started crying. My dad said, go down to the car, you boys, you're disturbing your mother. My mother said, no, leave Kerry there. I want to see him cry. I did not know what that meant until I was in my 60s. I believe my mother didn't love me. Interest. That was the most important day in my life. I carried that with me for years. My father never talked to me about my mother's death. There, nine other days happened in my life that formed Kerry's character. The most important thing. Kerry. Kerry needs is love. Sure. And he gets it through his YouTube channel. That to me, it's those types of personal stories that you've shared throughout your channel two that I believe also are a big connector. It's the it's that authenticity that you show up with that to me, I find absolutely amazing. You are very much you have this unique blend of this charisma, this zest for life and this honesty that presents to people that I absolutely love, what I would call a Josh vulnerability. I even like that better. It's it's funny you say that because to me, that is really what allows people to connect with their audience, that vulnerability. Hey, this is actually me. This is not a curated version of me. This is actually who I am. Yeah. That is. And to me, what's interesting about that, that I feel like that is a big key ingredient to your community because they know they're, they're dealing with actually they're dealing with Kerry. They are not dealing with this curated persona that you're trying to put out there that may or may not be a little bit fake or whatever. It's you. It's it's raw, Kerry. And that is and it's not just Kerry. Elon Musk is the same way. Interesting. Jeff Bezos is the same way. Steve Jobs was the same way. They're very vulnerable. Sure. And they let you in if you want to come in. But. But they'll punch you in the nose, you know? So here's a big question for you then what is probably when it comes to your content creation journey. What is the biggest lesson that you've pulled out of that, that you feel like you can share with people that are maybe just starting out, or maybe a little ways along the journey? What what is the one thing that you could say, this is something that I learned that I need to share with someone about that content. Do it from. Do it from your heart. Sure. And and and spend the time to create knowledge that is worth something rather than rather than just, fabricate things and and try to do it all with your personality. But actually, I spend a lot of time researching stocks and getting into the numbers, and, and then I, then I create, Excel spreadsheets that try that I put it in a form that you can understand and you can digest, and then I make it available to you in a in a game. Is there a profit motive here? Oh, yes there is. There, there. And why? I don't need the money. But again, I told you I'm competitive in in in in business, there's only one measurement of success and in business. And that's money. You know. Again, I'll be very straightforward with you that if, if my tam my total addressable market, which I told you earlier, is 66 million people, if I can just get 2% of that. And that's a good day. And you need $20 a month. Do the math. I mean, I'm I tell people, and people say, why are you. So why do you use such big numbers? And I said, because they're possible I can become a billionaire. I can become a billionaire. I you know the word unicorn. Yep. You create a business that is worth over $1 billion. I see it within three years. That's amazing. Again, I told you, I am spending$1000 or $5000 in January, and I will get a $240 customer for a $13.50 expenditure. All I gotta do is throw enough money at this at my 66 million potential buyers. Yeah. You know, I ran ads. Do you? I got 2000 views from Nigeria, from Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, as well as the United States and Canada. And what's interesting about that is those can be your target audience because they can invest that way. Yeah. And they have an interest. If I had told you there were 2450 people in Nigeria who were interested in investing in the US stock market, you'd say you're crazy. No, they're they're. And I can reach them. There's a what's interesting about it is too is it's there are what I think so many people lose sight of is and you you really speak well to this is people are like when they go to start a podcast and they go to start a YouTube channel. They're like, well, we teach them in the niche down. And to be specific, because when you do that, when you realize that there's 8 billion on the planet, if you niche in to the right people, there's still there's probably only a couple of million that are interested in what you're doing. And if it's only a couple, if there's only a couple of million people that would be interested in what I was doing, I may lose some sleep about it, but I'd probably still be okay. Yeah, yeah, it's and it's Seth Godin writes the book, and says, if you can find a thousand people who who are loyal to you, you can make a living. Oh, and he uses the Grateful Dead as an example. They never had. They had one big hit. Yeah, they had a group of people that just followed them around and worshiped them. Yeah. You just need to and again, I, I don't like the word niche because it it it it it it tells me to think small. Sure. Just go to Google. This is this is what I did. I went to ChatGPT and I said, how many people are there in the United States that manage, at some level manage their own stock portfolio? And they came back to me and said, 33 million people in the United States. So I went back and I said, how many would you guess there are in the world? And their answer was, we really don't have sound information on that, but we would guess it's another 33 million. So I tell we, I have a $66 million Tam. Yeah. Total addressable market. So whatever your go ask chat one. How many people want information on how to create a podcast. And I'll guarantee you it's going to be in the millions. Sure. Now you say, okay, how much would they be? Would they be willing to pay me$5 a month to teach them how to do that? Well, okay. So I get a million people paying me for an hour or so a month. Can I work with that? Yeah. Yeah. I'd have to cut back on a few things, but we could find a way to make it work. That's Carrie. I mean, I, I really appreciate the conversation here today. You. It's interesting. You're you're a visionary in so many ways. And you're at work and and inspiration in so many other ways. Where can people find you to reach out, to find your channel, to get in touch with you? Give me a couple of places where people can get Ahold of you. Well, it's it's best of us investors. Dot com is our website. Our YouTube channel is best of us investors. Our Instagram is best of US investors. And you can carry wire and you'll find I'm a retired financial advisor, built a large practice within the Ameriprise system, and then sold it in 2005 and traveled the world. And then my daughter died. That I need to point out that. Sure. Yeah. Go ahead. That's a bicycle jersey. You and I talked about this. You like your bicycle? On October of 2014, my daughter and I, went to a cancer raising fund to, ride 24 hours of beauty. It was called, to raise money for finding a cure for cancer. That was October of 2014. She died on December the 26th of the same year, fighting cancer. I think that's part of part of the driving force. I want to keep her memory alive. I heard a wonderful quote that when they stopped talking about you, that's when you die. I've heard that, too. But as long as there are people talking about you, Shannon Marie will live. I love that, Carrie. Once again, thank you so much. The the talking that you're doing and the legacy that you're building, both in what the video that you're creating and the the legacy that you're helping others build to me is going to live on for a very, very long time. Once again, Gary, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time today. Any time I enjoyed it immensely. Carrie's really found his audience through his passion. I mean, he's got a passion for not only what he does, but helping other people and educating them. To me, that is the piece that sometimes is missing from content creators. You. We see people that just aren't passionate about what they do. You can tell. Obviously, I enjoy being here on this side of the camera. In some cases. I also enjoy being on the other side of the camera. My enthusiasm for that, I think, shines through, and it's one of the reasons why, as a business, we've been successful and it's one of the reasons why I truly I mean, I'm grateful for this every single day. I love hearing from people. I love hearing their stories. I love hearing that content creation. I'd also love to help you with that. So do me a favor. Go to our website. Go ahead and sign up for that email list. We send out podcasting tips every week. We update you when new podcast come out. We're not spammy. We're not going to I. To me, it's making sure that we are giving you valid value. Much like what Carrie does. It's all about making sure that we're educating you and giving you value. So go ahead and sign up for that. Also, make sure you subscribe. Follow all the other things. Push those buttons. If you could leave a review for us, please, it would help us immensely. If you can share this with a friend that you think may help. As always, take care of yourself and if you can, take care of someone else too. I will see you very soon. If you go oh.

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Josh Troche

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