The Progress Bus & Personal Branding with Mitch Carson

What is your personal brand? According to Mitch Carson, it’s what people say about you when you’ve left the room. In this episode, Josh Troche and Mitch Carson discuss the evolution of media—from the high-pressure, four-minute windows of live TV to the limitless connection of podcasting. Mitch brings 40 years of speaking experience and a background as an HSN pitchman to explain why paying your dues is the only way to build "podcasting biceps". Learn why your network is your greatest ROI and how to jump on the "Progress Bus" before it leaves you behind

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The Power of Personal Branding: Discover why your brand is "what people say about you when you’re not in the room".
• Beating Pod Fade: Why 86% of podcasts fail by episode 15 and how to ensure yours isn't one of them.
• Strategic Networking: How podcast lead generation happens through the relationships you build with hosts and guests, not just the audience
• Transferable Skills: Which TV and radio skills translate to the mic and where you need to adapt for the podcasting platform

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Chapters

• 0:00 The 4-Minute Interview Challenge
• 0:46 Meet Mitch Carson: From HSN Pitchman to Global Speaker
• 1:16 The 30-Year Bridge: Transitioning to Podcasting
• 2:49 Why TV is Losing Market Share to Podcasting
• 4:40 Networking ROI: The Power of Global Connections
• 6:15 TV Structure vs. Podcast Latitude
• 8:35 Mastering Conciseness: The Author Publicist’s Secret
• 12:26 Beating "Pod Fade" and Paying Your Dues
• 15:02 Defining Your Personal Brand
• 17:23 The Epiphany: Monetizing Through Guesting
• 23:03 Realizing Your First Speeches Sucked
• 25:53 The Respect Gap: Why Podcast Guests Flake
• 31:05 AI in Production and Raising the Bar
• 34:06 The Progress Bus: Don’t Be Under the Bus

Transcript

0:00

How would you handle it if you only had four minutes to do an interview? And let's flip that script. What happens if you're the guest and you've only got four minutes? My guest this week. That's where his roots come from. He works in television. He's worked in television. Now he's got a podcast, and now he helps people become better speakers. If you want to learn more, stay tuned. Mitch, thanks for coming on today. So you and I mean, your story and the background in this is there's probably going to be some people that you mean, like, that guy's familiar because you spent a lot of the 90s as a pitchman on Home Shopping Network, right? About three years. That's that's awesome. And to me, I've got to wonder, like, you start like you started as the pitch man, and now you end up. I mean, first off, I know you coach a ton of people in terms of becoming keynote speakers, in terms of showing them how to to offer their brand. But how did you go from pitch man to podcaster and is that a far bridge? Oh, that's about a 30 year bridge. So I had I sold on live TV during the 90s and Home Shopping Network, I would sell other people's products, not my own other people's products. So I got exposed to being very precise, managing my time, wrapping a lot of benefits and why people should buy versus talking about features. Remember, features tell benefits, sell. Fast forward did that for about three years, selling other people's products to speaking, which I have been a speaker for about 40 years on stages and spoken on stages in 63 countries, and have taught lots of other people about the craft of selling from the stage and also keynote. I don't focus on the mic part. I've done some mic work and done panel work, and I've certainly done trainings. I like trainings the best because people take away a lot of value, and when you're able to see them transform with the three four day training. How did I get into podcasting? I still have a TV show on channel three, NBC. I'm on it. I'm not a I don't work for NBC. I'm an independent host and I've seen where TV is going. It's losing market share. Sure. I people of my generation value television the most. But the world is changing. I is here. Podcasting has made a major shift. It didn't have any traction at the beginning. Now it does. And it's continuing to grow. People are paying a lot more attention. So I saw where the market was going and I said, I think I can do this. Very comfortable on camera. I have no problem talking. I've been a radio show host, you know, in Los Angeles some years ago, I had a an hour long show on Saturday afternoons on live radio. But there are some subtle differences. We can go back and edit out mistakes. You can't make mistakes on live TV. It is the ultimate test. But I like I'm really in love with podcasting. I can do this while sitting on my rump. Whether I'm wearing something below my shirt is optional as long as I don't stand up. Okay, I get to use a professional mic just like I had for my radio show days, and I get to meet interesting people from all around the world. It truly has no limits. When I was on radio or I was on TV, you had to physically be in studio. Sure, you did have some Collins people would call in, but the audio quality wasn't there. You're using a professional mic. We're both on roads. Yeah, we're both on. Oh, no. Is this. No, I'm on the short. I have a road. Also I end road, I use that, that's my travel mic. I use that when I'm outside because this is fixed to my desk. I love being able to do this. I bet you we now have a connection. Who knows who you're going to introduce me to? Who knows who I can introduce to you? You know, there are there are all sorts of opportunities because of podcasting that very different than what TV has, had provided me. But I gave it gave me a lot of background to be able to do what I do today. It's interesting you say that because the when you look at the market share numbers and things of that nature, what's interesting is, is I read something a few weeks ago that the average age of an MSNBC viewer is 70. Yes. And that's the average age. That's not the high. That's not that is the average age, which to me is like, holy cow. And that's eventually the they're they're going to run out of those people. Unfortunately I get this. So yeah, it's a shift in that. The thing that I like that you mentioned was the the meeting people and the, the collaboration piece. And I mean, because early in your career, when you're on HSN, you're speaking to a blank lens and you're, you're trying to speak to a huge number of people. Do you find a million? Yeah. Which to me is is insane. I always feel like lucky when I get five, and one of them isn't. My mother is, that being said, like, do you feel that the podcasting is more collaboration than it is the trying to broadcast to everyone or weird? Where do you see that fits in between the five and the 5 million, I guess is what I would say. Well, when you're when you're on TV, you are speaking to a lens. You may have a host that's they're working with you that you're engaging with. If you're a guest, the time is quite limited. It's very structured. So an average interview is four minutes or less. Rarely exceeds that for for a subject matter expert. So there are time limits. Podcasting. As you started out, we could go from this amount of minutes to that amount of minutes. And wherever it takes us, it takes us. And it allows a lot more of a dynamic. Rarely have I interviewed anybody less than than 20 minutes. I think one person was 15 minutes because he was so deadpan. I couldn't get anything out of him, so I had to wrap it up. An answer for him. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to. I've had a chat and we've had a few of those, and you can fill it in with commercials. There's a lot more creative latitude with being a podcaster. TV is highly structured, very limited to what you can do, and I like the idea of being able to edit. You can edit as opposed to live TV. There are no redos. No, you can't say, oops, let me start over now. You better be on point. It's a lot, a lot harder. Oh, sure, a lot higher expertise to be effective on television. Podcasting. You can fake your way in the beginning. You can fail your way to be successful. You just. It takes numbers and time and feedback. Sure. The. I want to touch on something there. You said the average TV interview was four minutes. I find that fascinating because to me, it's something that I never even thought of is like, when we're going to sit here and talk, we're going to talk for half an hour or 40 minutes or whatever. And the amount of information that we're going to exchange over that is going to be big. Four minutes. Like, what can you get out of that? And I guess my question is, like, if you're talking with someone for four minutes, what, like how did you drill into the the specific things or did you have to stay very general, I guess would be the question with it. All right. If I'm if I place people on television, I work as a book publicist, an author, publicist. So I'll get them on NBC in Tampa or ABC in Tampa as an example. I just did a client recently there. I have to get them so focused on answering questions concisely and on point, because they're usually 3 to 5 questions are asked during that four minute interview, and you cannot mess up if it's live. Some of the stations are live. Some of them are taped to live. So they may tape run through and and tape a bunch of people and then they air it at a later date. So they have some in the can, so to speak. Sure. Very similar us. We put it in the can and then it airs later gets uploaded later. So the four minutes is fast, man. It's over. It's over quickly. Whereas we have a lot more time. We have ten times the time to do this and we're having a conversation. Sure, yeah. Where is that? It's interesting because then those to me those are two very different things. Then because the like we're we're conversing about a topic, whereas that interview is very much like these are the exact points and don't really waver from that. Is that, is that is that a good assumption with that? Pretty much. And the host, in most cases, I would say in all every case, I can't think of a where they didn't review the guests beforehand. Looking at you have to fill out an intake form. Here are the questions that you're that you want asked. And then they creatively some robotically. There are good hosts and they're not so good hosts. Most are trained broadcast journalists who've gone through the school to be competent. Like you teach a podcast course. I'm sure you may go through some dummy interviews with your class so they get better at it without doing it. How do you possibly get good at podcasting without doing it? You have to go through the motions, and I'm sure you're a better podcast host today than you were in your first one. Oh my gosh. Yes. It's something that we always talk about, like the don't be afraid to suck. The first time you got on a bicycle, you did not take off on a 20 mile ride. You you tipped over. Once they took the training wheels off, you tipped over. You crashed into the fire hydrant. You got back up and you're like, okay, I'm going to try this again. Still. That's, It's. Yeah, it's it's interesting to me because, like, in so many cases, we talk about, like, pod fade, how it's I believe it's 86% of episodes. Don't make it past episode 14. And that's because people realize that it takes the work and things of that nature and something that I want to address in that your trainings that you do to help people in that is the the example that I always like to give. And I'd love to get your take on this. I always joke that in some cases we should make podcasting equipment more expensive. Because to to raise the barrier of entry, I, I see it as the, people are like, well, I can talk. So therefore I'm a good podcaster. And the thing that I equate it to is like, I drove here, I drove to my studio. So therefore I'm a race car driver. What do you say when people think like the the. Hey, I know how to talk. I know how to ask questions. As you train people for that presence, for the to to be the host, do those things. What would you what would you say to someone that's got that attitude about it? I guess. In order to here's why I like television. In order to ascend to the level of being an anchor, which is the ultimate in television to be an anchor. Then of course, you have your own talk show. That's a different game. Let's say Oprah is at the top level or was at that top level for that. That track. But to be a host or to be an anchor during primetime television? Let's go back a little bit in time. You have to first assist in the studio, see what the more senior people are doing, then you become a field reporter and you go out to interview people. You put the thrust, the mic in their face and you put it back in years high. It's, you know, it's Josh Croce reporting here on the lake. We just saw the clouds come over and it's snowing like crazy. What do you think about Mabel? And then Mabel starts talking. Oh, it's really cold and I'm shivering. Great. And then you pull the mic back. Well, it's Josh wrapping up. We'll turn it back over to you, Steve. In the studio on channel five in Ohio. Okay. That trained you to be more effective. So then you jump into the studio ultimately to become there's a track. And before you even get accepted into the studio in Ohio, even a smaller station, let's say, a small station there, you have to graduate with a good degree in broadcast journalism. You have to go through the journalism department, and you learn at least you've gone through mock interviews before you then apply for the job, and you have to be top of the food chain to get a job. Even at a small, you know, rinky dink station to be a podcaster. You hang a shingle and say, iTunes, I'm here, Spotify, I'm here and buy a nice mic. Or some people, if they're really not into this properly, they're using their phone. Hi, I'm a podcaster. Come on. The bearing the entries. What I think you're talking about. Yep, is so low. With podcasting there are great hosts and there are many that suck, right? Yes there are, yes there are. So when it comes to your training, so hot like I love how you talked about like there there's this experience that comes into it that makes people better. And that's the schooling portion of it. When you're teaching people how to present and how to speak, is it that same type of thing where it's like, look, there's a reason why you're not singing the national anthem at the World Series or you're not you're not speaking at this this large event is a keynote. Is it is it's paying the dues and learning, learning how to engage with the audience. And it's learning those skills that most people just aren't aware that they need. Well, and they don't know until they know. Sure. And you have to skin your knees. You have to use the training wheels before you can knock them off. And then you set the example. You hit the fire hydrant. Well, and that also requires feedback. I understand that you consult with people and help them with their podcast. You wouldn't be qualified to do that if you weren't a podcaster yourself. Sure. And I believe I, for example, my background I was a martial arts teacher for years and that's how I got through college. What somebody isn't going to study with me if I didn't have a black belt and I happened to have a six degree black belt, but I paid my dues to get there. And you've, you simply have to put in the time you got to put in the reps before your biceps grow. It's pure. It doesn't happen. Just, hung a shingle. I want to look like Arnold Will. Great. Arnold did that for 15 years. Daily, two hours a day, as an example, you know, but people want the the end result of being a popular or be an authority or an influencer without paying their dues doesn't work that way. Now it's it's it's interesting. And I love how you put that kind of parlaying into that. You talk in a lot of cases about how you say your brand matters more than you think. Like, oh yes. What what is your like the, the, I guess I would say like what? When did that click for you. Well, let's let's define first and let's agree on what's a personal brand. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. I love that, yeah. What are they saying when you leave? And then if you put your ear to the door, you're going to find out how you're perceived in life. Period. But the good old glass trick exac. That's that's the visual we can. Yeah. What are they saying about me? Are they gossiping? And it might hurt. It might hurt. Josh, it's a matter of what do we do with that? What do we do with that pain? Do we grow from the pain? Do we wallow in it? Do we call out for mommy? No. You take it like a man or a big girl, big woman and a responsible person, and you grow from it because pain causes change, or you're going to continue to stay in the pain. Now, there are some masochistic people, but that's a different podcast. It's it's funny you say that because I do see so many people that, and you have to you have to be willing to take the feedback because there's oftentimes where we'll give feedback to hosts and they'll be like, I kind of like what I'm doing. And we're like, well, no one else does. Look at the numbers. And the numbers tell you. In many ways, yes, in many ways they do. And there's and there's two sides to that that I say on that is, of course, I love to pay your dues piece because the the problem is, is most people don't want to sit through that, that pain of of the pay your dues piece. And it's why I always tell people if there was ten people in the room next door that wanted to hear from you, would you go talk to them? And they're like, well, yeah. And I'm like, well then great record the podcast because it's going to be the same thing. You're going to get ten downloads, go do it. That is absolutely awesome. So but it's once again it's putting in the pain. It's building that audience as to say that as someone that is currently un famous, not infamous, UN famous, that's what the you, how do you feel like the podcast can help? Like give them a tangible return on investment, whether it be in growing the thing or do you think it's just putting in those initial first reps to to get to get the biceps? I think you got to put in the first reps to get pass. I mean, it's interesting and I'd love to understand the source that you said. I think it was 86% make it past episode. What was it, 18 since 1550. I know that most podcasts fail after episode eight. Yes. Statistic that I read it's 50. If you it's 50 after a it's 86%. Don't make it past episode 15 okay. So yeah it's only 14% that make it past episode 15. Yeah. So it's because it's not easy. You've got to edit, you've got to be interesting. And the ROI is not there for a while. And I heard something recently where I had a man on my podcast and he said he made a mistake. He guessed it over 900 times and 101 podcast in, he had an epiphany. He had to wake up, the light bulb went on where he finally monetize. You have to keep digging, digging, digging. I'm sure you've seen that picture. Don't give up. But the man with the pickax till he gets to the to the gold. And it took him 101 guest appearances to where he made money. He he changed his focus from thinking about the audience, giving him business. But it was the host that turned out to give him business. And then he. His whole conversions changed. Like, I'm coming into this, you and I now have a professional relationship. We've related to one another. We'll learn about what you do. And if I can refer people to you, great. And you'll learn what I do refer. That's the rule of reciprocity. Whether we get the listeners to refer to either one of us. I look at that as a bonus, and I get I get to grow my contact list from around the world. It's like. Oh, it's I, I'm in love with so much of what you said there. Because part of it is, yes, the the growing, the contacts, to I mean, like you said, you're consistently you used to be on TV consistently in front of 5 million people. Not everyone gets to talk to people like that. And one of the things that I love about podcasting is recently I was I was working with a congresswoman. I had the president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank in the studio. These are all people that I've been able to work with that has just I mean, I wouldn't have the opportunity to work with them otherwise, which to me is absolutely awesome. And it's it's yeah, the network extension is huge. I want to go and I want to talk about like how that when you first started speaking, you said you. Spent. And when you first started speaking, you said you sucked. Now is that a realization that you came to later, or is that a realization that you had when you first started speaking? There was a Cleveland mentor of mine, because you went here from Cleveland or close to it? Yeah. Name is Dan Kennedy, so well known marketer. I was in his mastermind and he said to me after I spoke at one of my early events, I had a background of speaking and selling on TV, but selling from the stage is a completely different platform. Selling to a live audience was fine. That was in when they were in TV land, but selling to a live physical audience. Completely different skill set. Some of the skills are transferable, but it's not the same. Similarly, my ability to sell on TV doesn't mean I'm going to be great on the podcast. Do I get to tap into a lot of my skills that I've been able to put in my the arrows I've put in my quiver over the years, 100%? I believe I'm good on a podcast because of my background. Have I had a tremendous learning curve as a podcaster? Yes, each platform is uniquely different and why I like podcasting so much. Just as you said, access to experts, access to people that would normally not take your call. I would like to invite you on my podcast. Oh, the eyes get big today because it's a newer, respected platform. If I said, I want to interview you on my show, the older demographic is much more responsive to that than someone that is young. I'd say under 50. Most have never watched TV. No, no. There's many. I mean, I'm I'm 47 and I grew up with The Dukes of Hazzard. Sure. But beyond that, yeah, I know, it's it's so funny to see how quickly that tailed off in terms of and I think part of it is too is now is just the one of the things that I love about podcasting and just like things like YouTube, Netflix, everything like that is it's on demand. I always talk about that. When growing up, we had channels three five and 819, and if the clouds are right, channel 43, if okay, if all five of them were playing something I didn't like, I just had to deal with the one that I didn't like the least, you know what I mean? Whereas now, I mean, we're only a swipe away from the next show or the next thing, or the next whatever. I want to say something that you mentioned just a minute or so ago as you mentioned, transferable skills. What is a skill that you realized when you started podcasting? I got to learn this. Oh. All right. The one side is they're flaky people. I'm going to talk about the operation side. Yes. Gotta lock down guests. Gotta lock down guests showing up. They don't take it as seriously as they do television. No. The respect isn't there yet. Matching there. I have never had a guest because I'm a publicist for for authors to getting them on television. It's my. It's how I make my money. That's ultimate. That's where it leads to. I've never had somebody not show up to a TV interview all the years I've done it. Podcast guests flake, man. Yeah, or they show up late. The respect for showing up. It does not match. So I've had to deal with that. I was shocked, I like, wait a minute, we made an appointment and you're not here. Oh yeah, I got busy. Like, are you kidding me? Yeah. And you're shaking your head. It's probably happened to you too. Oh, gosh. Yes. Yeah. They just don't show up. So I've had to accept it's either the platform, it's the generation or my follow up before the interview needs to be different for that platform than it was when I or is still is when I get people on TV. Nobody doesn't show, right? They have all shown up. They value it. The perceived value of podcasting is not the same as TV yet. I think it will change over time in order to get on a top ten podcast. Like if you were invited, you or I were to be invited on Mel Robbins show or podcast or Joe Rogan. You bet your butt we're going to be there an hour early waiting. Bated breath to get into the studio with her. We're going to be anxious because I know you know, I know what that's going to do for us. Whereas Billy's podcast, who just started and he's still using the microphone out of his laptop, isn't going to get the it, give us the same procedure. We may not even want to be on that podcast. I've had to stop when somebody was so unprofessional, didn't have a microphone and there were a host. Sorry, I my brand is not going to be associated with you. So I've had to put the brakes on a couple times, two different times. Or I said interviews over. Has that happen more than two you or two others that you know. I haven't had that happen as much. I have one of my podcast hosts, network that we produce for she has had a few where like, she had a book that she wrote and, I actually co-host another podcast with her and, I, she said so many times people would show up and the thing that they would say would be like, so what is your book about? Like, damn it, at least read the back cover. It's the, I mean, read the back cover, at least get gets like, have an idea? I mean, do it put put. I always like to say, yeah, be prepared, put in the same effort that at least the same effort that I did on my eighth grade book report. If you don't, if you're not willing to put in that effort, then why the hell am I here? And that's why, too, we've got the questions that we ask ahead of time. I make sure I stalk people on LinkedIn. I stalk their podcast because I want to make sure, as an interviewer that I show up and I've got some decent questions, not just be like, so you got a podcast because no one's going to learn anything from that. That's where we're here to learn. We're here to share information, and we're here to connect. And I mean, if you're a complete stranger and I have no idea who you are, I have no idea what you've done, and I have no idea what your podcast is about. Well, then what the hell am I doing? It's just creating content for the sake of creating content. And. Yeah, I'll I'll get off my soapbox. Here is, that being said. Well-Received, I get it. Yeah. Yeah, I, I figured you did, especially when you talked about, like, the branding side of it. It truly is. I mean, it's it's a big piece of it. As you move forward with your podcast, what do you see for your podcast and what do you see for the future of podcasting and how things are going? Obviously, AI is changing the game for a lot of things. There's a I mean, there's a just a we're going through a huge amount of changes right now. So like, what's your plan for the near future and what do you see as podcasting in the near future? AI hasn't affected my podcast in terms of the guests. It's affected the ability to take notes like I use fireflies, to use as a note taking tool. I mean, there are others that are out there. There's Otter AI. So I think using AI to help with the production side is improving, and it's probably going to get better for us. I'm, you know, I'm hopeful because you you understand the pain is editing. That seems to be the bane of most podcasters and why they leave. Because it takes work. Yeah, it's almost double it. So what I'm going to do for my podcast, I'm going to become more focused on people with bigger followings, bigger names to get in, to raise the bar of who I'm interviewing. So it's not just another podcast. There are people that played the numbers game and I've put in I've conducted about 150 interviews and now I want and I was doing about 10 to 15 interviews a week to get those numbers up, because I wanted to show my legitimacy. Now I'm going to cut it down to probably 2 or 3 a week, cut it back to 2 or 3 interviews a week, and be more selective. I've put in the numbers and I can be more selective at this point. I like that. And that to me goes back to that putting in that work, putting in the initial work to make sure that, okay, hey, I've, I've, I've laid the foundation, I've laid the base, I've got the basic skills, I've started to step past those. So what's the what's the next step for it? It's funny, I. Am upping my platform and that's why I talk to you a little bit about the tech you're using. Riverside I've been using zoom up to this point and it's worked. But I'm going to change. I'm going to make little additional tweaks. Like, I like the fact you've got your stickers in front of you, you've got a different I'm going to look at changing my background. Am I going to green screen or not? But it's not at all. Overnight I think I'm going to make little improvements and little hinges swing big doors. So little improvements all the way through. Ooh, I like that. That's a great. Yeah I haven't heard it. Yeah, it really is. Truly is. Yeah. That that all being said, the the one thing that I always like to ask, as we kind of start to wrap up, is if someone is a business owner, as a promotions person, as a marketing person, as whatever, if they're thinking about starting their podcast, what would be the one piece of advice that you would give to them to be like, do the thing. You'll get exactly what you have. If you do nothing, you have to. Yes, you will stay exactly where you are. I mean, three types of people I use. This is the metaphor and you'll like this one. Two. There's a boss, a progress boss. It's got a stamp on the outside of it. It's called progress, boss. Three people, three individuals. The early adopters will jump on that bus and do it and take the risk of doing it, and then figure it out on the way because they're rich. Sir Richard Branson said. If you see a great idea, leap on it and you'll figure it out later. You know, you got to take the leap twice. Jumped out of balloons and done all these things, or jumped out of airplanes and you're ballooning. Got to take the risk. The second person will comment, gosh, I guess I missed the bus, so I'll have to wait for the next one. And then there's a third person that doesn't even see the bus. Doesn't even recognize the opportunity. As I said, does that person end up under the bus? Could be under the bus, yeah. That's. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Josh. Thank you. We talked that through. We we masterminded that one. Yeah. They're under the bus. That's better, that's better. That's a great. Opportunity. Bus. Somebody takes some jumps in the front seat. Second one says I'll take the next bus. The meanwhile, the person that jumped on the bus in the beginning is already being successful. Early adopter took took charge, jumped in. Then the other one thrown under the bus I like that the third one, yes. Absolutely love it. With all that, this conversation has been awesome. I really appreciate the time today. Where can people find you? They can go to my podcast, which is the Amazing Authority podcast.com. They'll see. And that of course that links to Spotify and iTunes and Amazon Music where they can pick it up. And that's the best place to, to listen to the podcast. I would say go there first or they can find me on iTunes if they go, if that's your chosen platform, to find me or they want to go to my website, Mitch carson.com, that's for, different ways to utilize my skills. But that's the easiest way is to go to, the podcast. Absolutely love it. We will put that information in the show notes in the description. Mitch, I really appreciate your time today. Greatly appreciate it. I am going to take a few minutes. I'm going to summarize some of my thoughts here, because you gave me a lot to lot to think about. And, I will be back in a few. Mitch, once again, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Oh, you could tell Mitch has spent time in production in other realms, and I'm going to kind of connect to that here in a few seconds. But I found Mitch on pod match. And the reason why I wanted to talk to him, because he has all of this experience in television and radio. He's got this adjacent, this industry adjacent, adjacent experience. What's interesting about that is that, like he he brought up the point that I didn't realize that most TV interviews are four minutes or less. Can you imagine if you had four minutes with a guest? And to me, it's an exercise that you should probably partake in. And it's something that I'm going to look at here moving forward. If I only had four minutes with this person, what would I say? What would I ask them? It's really going to sharpen the interviews when we start to look at it that way. I've got a limited amount of time. How can I ask the best questions, the most direct questions in that limited amount of time? Awesome thing to look at. Because once again, you guys have heard me say this all the time. How long should my podcast be? As long as it's interesting if you're asking better questions. Yeah, like longer podcasts are not necessarily better. People see these these long podcasts and they think, oh, I need to have a three hour long show that those are two professional people that are creating that three hour long show for you to make a 10 to 15 minute show that's really concise and really sharp. You're going to be so much better than if you make a 40 minute show. That kind of meanders all over the place and just covers a bunch of randomness. Keep it sharp, keep it simple. Think about what you would accomplish and how you would do things. If you only had a four minute interview to work with. Really, it was an interesting thing that he brought up, that it's something that I'm going to focus on to see what I can do to sharpen those, those skills. Speaking of skills, he talked about these transferable skills. There are some skills that I think, yes, transfer from TV, transfer from radio into podcast. I mean, he talked about like there's pieces of podcasting that he really had to learn that were different. And I found that interesting because I make I make references to them all the time. And I guess I would say that there's parallels. There's some things that are adjacent. If you're charismatic and a good host in one, it's probably going to be easy to adapt to another. But in the same sense, in the same sense, there's different skills that are needed there when guiding that interview. And once again, I'm going to take it back to the four minute interview thing. We've got a longer amount of time. If you've only got four minutes of an interview, it's going to be pretty easy to keep it really sharp, really concise and exciting and pointed. If you know you've got 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes of an interview, oftentimes you're going to make that you're going to give it that chance to wander a little bit. I have found when it wanders, probably nine out of ten times, it wanders to a weird place. One out of ten times is when it wanders to someplace. It's like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. I didn't realize that. So to keep it sharp and work on the skills necessary for that, when it comes to the skills most of us don't know, like it's the it's part of the Dunning-Kruger effect where you start to get into it. You think, oh my gosh, I know everything about this. And then all sudden you cross this hump where you realize, oh my gosh, I know absolutely nothing for me. My podcasting journey when I first started out, I'm like, yeah, it's just the audio and throw it up there. As I have gotten into this, I have learned how complex and how intricate this can be. Now, the cool thing is, is it doesn't have to be. You can start out with just something very basic if you want to, and just post it up and run with it. And that's that low barrier of entry that we were talking about. It's simple. It's easy to record something. Heck, you can record it on your phone, record it there, post it up and away you go. But if you want to be good at it, if you want to get to the next level, it becomes that much more intricate. I'm going to use a driving example here, because when you look at a formula one car, it like if you look at a picture of a formula one steering wheel, there are more buttons and knobs and switches and levers on that steering wheel itself than there probably are in your entire car, and there's no heating and air conditioning controls. There's no there's there's no there's no radio in there. There's there's not CarPlay or Android Auto or anything like that. It's a different skill set. And most people get in their car and they think, well, I could drive an F1 car. And I tell you what, as soon as you would look at that steering wheel, even, you'd be like, what the hell is this? How do I have rate this thing? Because once again, everyone thinks they can get into that car until they realize how complex it actually is. Learning those skills, always pushing to say, how can I ask the better questions? How can I be a better interviewer? How can I be there better for my audience? Is it a huge one? Ask that question, get better at the skills, and once again look for the feedback. Hey, how did that go? What's one thing that I could do to get better next week? Ask people about that. The other one is the metaphor that he said little hinges can move big doors put in the work every day, show up. It's I've worked, I've worked out for years and I've seen a difference. When I look at pictures of me from 12, 15 years ago there, there's a there's a big difference there. When you look at it on a daily basis, you're like, yeah, you don't see that difference. It's the same thing with podcasting. You have to put in those reps. You have to you have to just get out there and do it, and you have to build the thing. You don't build a foundation. You put bricks down one at a time. And son of a gun, you look back at some point and realize, hey, I built a foundation. So don't think that you just throw a bunch of bricks in the hole and you've got your foundation. Build those one at a time. Every time you record, every time you put that out, you are building that foundation. And to me, that is really the greatest gift that you can give yourself in the future. Speaking of the future, I hope you stick around for the future. Make sure you subscribe. I would love to hear a review or a comment by all means let me know what you would like to hear. Let me know who I should be interviewing. If you have questions about your podcast, do me a favor. Make sure you sign up for the 15 minute No Pitch podcast consult. I'm not going to pitch you anything. We'll talk about camera position, we'll talk about microphone position, and I will answer any other podcasting questions you have. It's all about making you better as really our core value as a company is success is a shared thing. With that, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can't take care of someone else too, I will see you very, very soon.