How to Turn Your Podcast Into a Client-Attraction Machine

Your podcast does not need thousands of downloads to generate business. It needs the right strategy.

In this conversation, Josh and Derek Fredrickson explore how business owners can use podcasting as a marketing asset that builds trust, demonstrates expertise, and creates better sales conversations.

Derek explains why he views his podcast as a "test drive for your brain," giving potential clients an opportunity to experience how he thinks before they ever get on a sales call.

You will learn:

• Why your podcast should be treated as a marketing tool, not a sales pitch
• How transparency and vulnerability build trust with potential clients
• Why you should not be afraid of giving away your "secret sauce"
• The difference between sharing what and why versus teaching every detail of how
• How a process-driven approach keeps podcast production consistent
• Why Derek's team uses a 27-point podcast production checklist
• How SEO and an editorial calendar can guide your podcast topics
• Why consistency matters more than chasing individual viral episodes
• How podcast content can support your broader marketing and sales funnel
• Why podcast ROI should be measured by conversation quality, not downloads
• How to make your podcast easier to produce so you actually keep doing it

The big takeaway is simple: hitting record is only a small part of successful podcasting. The strategy, preparation, production process, SEO, distribution, and follow-up are what turn a podcast into a genuine business growth asset.

If you're looking to talk podcasting and get more information on how to make your podcast shine, our 30-minute "no pitch" podcast consultation is right for you!  Click the link to sign up for a time. 
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Transcript

0:00

What happens when two operations guys get together and talk about podcasting together? You get one heck of a podcasting plan. Do you want more information? You definitely want to stay tuned. Derek. Thank you for coming on. Really appreciate this especially. I mean, you're a high stakes fractional c o o operator. And to me, like with an operations background, like this is two guys that get to dork out about all sorts of operations stuff, which I'm super excited about. Thank you. Josh. Yeah. You've targeted like seven and eight figure founders. Like it's a demographic that's largely resistant to traditional like marketing. These are the people when you say, hey, we have a service for you, they're like, uh, I mean, before, before they've even heard what the service is, many of them are saying no. So you've described your show as like a long, really effective sales tool because I mean, let's clients test drive you. And I love, I love how you word that it's a test drive for your brain. Yeah. Um, to see things. How did like, how have you structured those core topics to make sure you're building your brand and you've targeted those CEOs that you want to work with? Yeah, yeah. I was very deliberate in the idea of using my podcast as an asset for marketing purposes, right? It's not a sales tool. It's a marketing tool. And I separate the two because I think obviously marketing is getting people to know you, like you and trust you. And then the sales step is to actually have a conversation, to invite them if it serves them to take the next step. So I think I delineated them in that way. And I'm a marketing machine. I believe in a marketer first mindset. And so I'm doing a lot of a lot of marketing. And I knew that the podcast was going to be an integral step as part of the decision making process and in a way for people to find us. So I give them a give an example where if people come to us through a paid ad, maybe they come to us through organic search, maybe they come to us from a referral from AI and they go and check you out. I think one of the things that is the fastest path to solidify the know, like, and trust and the credibility is through a podcast, especially on video, I get because they get to see you, they get to feel you, they get to sense your energy. Um, it's hard to do that in written content. It's hard to do that in very specific, you know, like blog content where you're trying to talk about a particular, uh, subject matter. My podcast is very open. It's very, I would say, vulnerable. Like I share my story about what I'm doing in my business. And that's the story that the client potential client is going through as well. So we're kind of in the trenches together. Um, so I think it's a real good trust building vehicle that allows people to find you, get to know you, and then say, yeah, now I get a sense that I can, you know, take the next step with Derek and his team to see what that may look like, because I was able to watch a couple different episodes, I was able to understand and see that he gets what I'm going through. So there's this relatability that I think kind of cuts through the clutter of what can be a lot of noise out there when it comes to, you know, marketing and some podcasts and that sort of thing. I mean, it makes perfect sense. And in the stuff that I've watched, you're very, very transparent about, here's what I've done. The question that I know some people are wondering, because we get asked it on the podcast side all the time too, is aren't you worried about giving away the secret sauce? No, I'm not, and here's why I didn't figure you were. I didn't figure you were. Otherwise you would have be like, why? Why would I just tell people all of my stuff? Yeah, well, I think so. What I've realized is that I talk and I'm very transparent. I'm very open about this in the sense that, listen, what I'm sharing on the podcast is a lot about what and why, but not so much of the how. And here's why. If I give the how, one might say, well, then you're giving away your solution. You're giving away the keys to the kingdom. Even if I was to give away the what and the why and the how, most CEOs and founders and I mean most probably ninety five percent aren't going to do anything with it. Why? Because it means building the things that they're not wired to do in their business in the first place. Right. I've said on podcast business owners aren't meant to run their own business. Business owners are supposed to focus on the next version of the business, where we're going, the future, the vision. But you can't do that unless you have somebody running the day to day of today. So if I give on my podcast how to build a culture of accountability, how to create dashboards, how to have the right person in the right seat, how to build project management tools, how to hold people accountable, how to have a process driven structure. Business owners would drool, but they're not going to go and implement it because that's not their jam, that's not their zone of genius. And so I'm very open about sharing those things because I want them to see that this is the thought process of what's involved. But I don't recommend you go and try to figure it out on your own, because you'll start and you won't finish it. You'll start a little bit and then you'll get stuck, and then you'll be like, this isn't fun. This isn't exciting. I don't like creating dashboards on Google spreadsheets. I don't like running weekly meetings. I need to get out. So it's almost just this level of transparency. It's this level of vulnerability that I am going to be very open with you on what it's going to take. And that can be an attraction, or it could be a repel that maybe people are interested in that way. But that's just the way that I do. It totally makes sense. Plus, I also see it as like, if someone's going to take your advice, they can find some of that out there anyways. Yeah. Um, some research, but if they need help implementing it. That's I mean, to me, that's a huge part of your value is that implementation and how to do it, how to make it specific for their application. And once again, it's always nice to have that person in the corner going, hey, did you do the thing? Yes. Yeah. Well, and I think this is the benefit, the advantage that I have is that our model is we're not consultants. Right. So I can come into a company and with our team say, you should do this, you should do that. Maybe you could do this. And here's a report on everything you should do in your business by right. Like we step in and implement like our CEOs are wired to execute. So it's what I call a done for you model, right? So I'm teaching them all the things that need to be done. And the kicker is you don't actually have to be the one to do it. When you bring in a CEO that actually can implement that for you, that's their zone of genius. So there is a benefit to knowing how to do it. But also we give you the solution and it's actually done for you. That's a, that's a great point in that I guess it's showing them what they need to know. Yeah. And what's going to actually happen. And then yeah, because I mean, the example that I would always give is you probably don't want me running a backhoe. Um, but I may, I may not know. I need my basement dug, but if you tell me, hey, you need a basement dug and it needs to be this size, that's great. You still probably don't want me running the backhoe because that's probably a bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. That's why I always say to a potential client, listen, we're here to help you with what you want to do to grow and scale your business, right? Maybe you want a two X, maybe you want a ten x, maybe you want to exit. Maybe you just don't want to work so damn hard in your business anymore. Whatever that is, great. We'll do that. But how we do that is we focus more on how you're doing the, what you're doing. Because the how is the systems, the structure, the process, the people, the accountability. And that's the thing that actually moves the needle of the business. And so when you give the founder the the permission to stay more in their lane of what is really going to add the most value and exponentially grow the business and somebody there to implement and execute and land the plane. I think that's where you get really, really good momentum in that way. So yeah, that's a great way to put it. And something else that kind of that kind of tags into a piece that with this that you've truly noticed, and we've noticed this with all the podcasts that we do that founders never, they, they never typically refer to a single episode. Most clients aren't like, oh, I saw the one episode and I called you. Um, that's we all hope, we all hope it's that one Instagram post that we put out there that they're like, oh, I saw you on Instagram once. And therefore, here's a very large check. Yeah, it doesn't quite work that way. You found that they find you via search. They binge three or four episodes back to back, and then they reach out from like, how do you manage the recording schedule to make sure that. First off, and I know I'm asking a fractional CEO c o o how to manage a recording schedule, but really it's the like, you know, with the podcast, there's a, there's a schedule. How do you manage all that to make sure that you've got content coming out because you want to make sure that you've got four or five episodes that are related to people, you want to make sure that you've got content coming out for the people. How do you do that? Okay, this is going to sound like a very cheeky answer, but it's the truth. I love it. I don't manage it. Our process manages it. We have a process on how everything gets done in our company, and I'll use the podcast as an example, but you could say the podcast, our email newsletter, our paid search campaigns, our blog content, our social media calendar, whatever it is, there is a process. We are a process driven company, not a person driven company. That doesn't mean we don't value people, but the people in my marketing team and I have twelve people in my marketing team love to follow a process. They love to know how to dot the i's, how to cross the t's. How do I know what I'm doing when I'm doing it? How I'm going to get it done? That is a simple process of running a company, and you can scale that. You can scale simplicity, you can't scale complexity. And so if a production schedule for a podcast or anything else, a blog post, an email newsletter feels like, oh, every time I feel like I'm pushing the boulder up the hill of trying to get this blog post done, I got to shoot the video. I get somebody to edit the video. Now I got to review the transcript. Now I got to do the show notes. Now I got to get the reels done. We have a twenty seven point checklist on how we do our podcast. And we do two every single month. We do blog video content every single month. So I have four pieces of content going out every single month. They're all very specific to my audience. They're all very SEO strategically designed so that people are finding me through search and now through AI. And literally my part is to be involved in the, I would say, ideation and the creation of what we think the content pillars should be. But my SEO team is the one that's really driving that. And then they say, here's the topic, here's the subtopic, here are the talking points. I build out my transcript or my script, if you will. I do the video. Then everything else happens. Everything else happens because it's a process. It's not reinventing the wheel every single time. So how does it get done? It gets done systematically because we know what we're doing every day, every week, every month, because it's a well-oiled machine. And that's what we teach with how we do our work with our clients. Like, don't reinvent the wheel, create a process, execute. You need to reinvent the process, fix the process. Don't fix the person, right? If the person doesn't follow the process, maybe there's something wrong with the process and maybe process. Maybe not with the person. There's a lot of P's in there. I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but as you started to mention the process, my smile got bigger. I didn't notice that. Yes, because I mean one hundred percent. This is the same way we handle it for our clients. It's literally the process from start to finish. So that way they're like, we can crank out a, a, a, a familiar. And it's never, it's never the same exact thing, but it is very familiar every single time because there's that process to it. I mean, I want to ask too, you mentioned the SEO team in the ideation on that. Um, this is something that we talk to people about some and would love to like you're looking at preparation on this. You guys have a setup for where you're deciding what topics you're wanting to talk about well in advance. Correct? Yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah. At least I think our editorial calendar is mapped out at least three to four months in advance. Um, and what that means is we know what we're going to be talking about because it's all based off of a very long term strategic SEO strategy based on pillars, themes, markets that we know. Listen, I want that when a business owner who's overwhelmed as the bottleneck in their own company, scaling at seven to low eight figures is looking for the idea of a fractional COO. I want them to find us. And if that search comes through Google, AI, YouTube, or whatever that might be, and they end up checking us out through the podcast, that's it's like, I really want everybody to go back into that. But it's going back to your question, it's the editorial calendar. And we know not just what the topics are, but the reason behind those topics because they all align to the bigger, bigger purpose strategy, the bigger picture idea. And I think this is where sometimes I've seen this because, um, some of our clients have podcasts and they've struggled with the, um, I start with the video like click record because I have an idea, right? So they're ideators, they're creators. They start something in on a whim and then they're like, how do I then go back to see if this is the right? Well, you can't, you've already done the video. And then there's like, oh, darn, I've got all that other stuff that needs to happen. So I always say, if you're thinking about doing a podcast or you have a podcast, focus on the process first, because if the process feels heavy, you'll stop, you'll become inconsistent. You'll do it once a week, then you'll do it every other week. Then you'll do it once a month. Then you'll do it like when you feel like it, and when you feel like it usually means never. And then it's. And consistency breeds trust. So the more consistent and frequent you can be, whether it's blog content, an email newsletter, or a podcast, build out the structure so it feels easy. So it feels fun as opposed to feeling like it's work and heavy. If that's the case, you won't do it. Visionaries don't like to do things in their business when it feels like work, they like to do things when it feels like fun and exciting. So create the structure around them to have them just do their part, which feels like fun. I truly love that and I truly agree with that, even from. To me, the operator side of it is having the process operationalized. So I know what my next steps are because on the like the visionaries and I love the, the, the fact that you're like, no, like you can't just ideate and ideate in front of a microphone and think, that's good, right? It doesn't work. And for me, as the process oriented guy, I truly love it because I know what I'm supposed to do next. Yeah. There's not like the visionary can, if we give them a guide of what to talk about, most visionaries are comfortable talking about it as a process guy. If you tell me, hey, you're going to talk about X, Y, and Z, I'm very comfortable in that because now once again, I have instructions on what to do. There's a process. There's there's a roadmap. Exactly. Yeah. Don't stick me in the desert with no roads and no maps and tell me to get someplace. I will just I will just sit there and cry. Yeah, the visionary will get an eye. The visionary will get an idea on on a hot air balloon or a dirigible or some way to get out of the desert. I'm just going to sit there and cry. I guess it's true. There's some there's definitely truth to that. I think, you know, if you're going to put the time, energy and effort into this as a vehicle, that's going to expand your marketing and reach and visibility, make sure it's actually going to move the needle as best as it can. And I think sometimes people like the idea of a podcast. So they start with like the end in mind, which is I do the video because of this idea. But is that idea really what is the voice and the question that's going on to your prospects mind? Is it going to answer or address some objections of what people might be thinking about when they're exploring working with you? Like you have to really think about it strategically. Hitting record and talking for five ten minutes into a video is the easy part. It's one percent everything else. The ninety nine percent is what actually makes, I think, a podcast successful, I give this example so often I always equate a podcast to like so many other things, like a paint job in a room. If you spend the time to wash the walls, if you cut it in, if you pull out all the outlet plates, you're going to you put in the prep work. So now the paint job is going to look good if you just walk into the room, pop the lid off and spin with the can. Well, it's probably not going to look all that good. Um, you, I mean, you talk about the podcast as a trust building asset and I love that. But the big thing about that is you say, and I want to get the quote right here. ROI is measured in conversation quality, not downloads. And whereas so many people are obsessed with the vanity metrics of it, like, hey, we got a thousand downloads. Congratulations. How often did that make your phone ring? Yeah, that's always my, my question. How do you practically connect the podcast to the sales funnel? How do you see that? Hey, I know I'm doing this and there's a, how do you make that relation? Because it's, it's something that a lot of people and I get, they get two months in the phone hasn't rang yet because of the podcast. They give up. How have you been able to connect those two? So there's a couple ways that I do that. I think the most direct way and the way that I know for a fact that it works the best because potential clients have told me on a sales conversation or a follow up conversation. I'll give you the walk through of what happens. So let's say somebody finds me as through a referral or from a paid ad, right? So they come to the website. I have a lead magnet. That's a quiz. It's like a fractional CEO readiness quiz. Should I bring on a fractional CEO? It kind of walks them through yes, no, etc.. Okay. Then they're kind of in my universe. They're in my world. So they may go and check out the podcast. I do think that's probably one of the very first things that they go to on the website in terms of, you know, there's our, our clients services about Us podcast, they go to the podcast because it's like the most direct, relevant current thing. And I can see what's really, you know, what is this legit? Is this really, you know, the real deal? Is he actually a person? Yeah, exactly. And the way I do my podcast is I do one episode where it's a solo where I talk about a topic like founder burnout or a culture of accountability or building a process driven out of person. You know, the things that are like people that are my ideal client are like, yes, I want that. This is what I need. It's the conversation that's already in their head because I've done the prep work, because I know my audience, I'm already speaking their language, even without them maybe even knowing it. And then every other episode is a guest. Uh, it's usually those that are subject matter experts that are outside the lane of what our company as SEOs does. So it might be marketing, might be finance, might be AI, might be mindset, might be health and wellness, right? Because I'm trying to establish a bench of credibility of those that are not just in our lane where we talk about Ku ad nauseam, but we're bringing like, listen, you need to think about AI, you need to think about finance, you need to think about marketing. And then so I think it kind of builds the, the depth of credibility and content in that way. But the thing that's the most direct path is that, and I'm giving you my exact process is after somebody books a sales call with me before the sales call. Two things happen. There's a short pre call nurture sequence that goes out via email. One is inviting them to fill out a brief pre call survey. Share a bit more about your business your situation. That's standard. The other email that goes out is an email that says please watch this video. And it is a case study of one of our clients. And it's from the podcast because I can tell people all day long how good our services are, but if they hear it from somebody else who is watching it, and the person who's watching it is in the before situation of what the client is sharing in the after. It's a transformation. They've already kind of put themselves in the shoes of that's what I want. They're speaking my language of where I want to be. I'm in the before. I want to be in that person's after. And this is a bit of a hack. And some people can judge me about this, but I've used it deliberately and strategically. And what's interesting is that I would say half of our clients are women and half of our clients are men. And I do feel that sometimes like attracts like. And so we know if a prospect is a man or a woman. And in our follow up sequence, we tag them as a man or a woman. And the case study video that goes out. If you're a man, you watch one of one of our best clients, Rocky Anderson or Adam Wolf. And if you're a woman, you watch one of our other female clients, which is Lucy Radin or Amy Anderson. And I do feel because there's this likeability, there's this like, I want to be in their shoes. I want to like, can I really relate? Listen, the guys at some of our clients are like rah rah, rah rah. Like they're big, big men. They're like in construction and manufacturing, which is different from some of our clients who are women that might be more in like a coaching or a consulting business, right? So I use that and some people come on the call and they'll say, yeah, I watched that video of Adam. It was really inspiring. Or I watched that video of Lucy and I'm like, literally that. So they're pre-sold when they get to the call, just based on leveraging an asset that I've already done in the podcast, which is helping to bring people to me, but now I'm using it as a sales tool to warm them up where they're more likely to want to take the step forward, not because of what I'm saying, but because of what my clients have said on the show. I truly love the relatability in that. And I mean, it's so funny. And I talk about it in some of the when we're talking with people about the marketing of a podcast, because you have to call out your specific audience, we can't treat everyone as the same. I had a great story in a podcast in class that I teach a woman. She was developing a podcast for, um, men that were becoming single fathers. And she's like, it's for men anywhere from fourteen to sixty five. And I'm like, you cannot tell me a fourteen year old and a sixty five year old, they don't even speak the same language. Yeah. I'm like, the vernacular is completely different. So making sure and I love the example that you gave of the construction worker, he probably is not going like if someone sells purses and they've been phenomenal at purses and makeup, he's probably not going to relate as well to that. Yeah, exactly. Construction worker and that's why I give them both meaning. Like I do that strategically, but in the ones that like, you know, some of our men, male clients, they run brick and mortar companies, construction, manufacturing, engineering, they've got guys in the field, you know, like they're engineers. That's a different, especially because in the way that we provide our service. When you work with one of our CEOs, they're your second in command. They're sitting right next to you. So they need to really be on that same page and have that level of trust. And I think when, you know, the clients share the story of what it's like working with the CEO, it's quite raw, it's quite transparent. And so I think they want that. I want that prospect to really relate to that and be in their shoes so that when they come to the call with me and sometimes I don't ask, they bring it up. And I was like, they share. I saw that video and it was like, it was really, really inspiring. I'm like, well, thank you. Thank you to my clients. You know, I love that. And also congratulations on that in that, moving on to that, I mean, talking about these superstar clients and that you, you've said to that consistency compounds, but only if the, the content is worth compounding. Meaning like if you bring on a bunch of mediocre episodes, you have now compounded mediocrity. Sure. Um, like how do you make sure that the episodes stay top. What, like is there a I mean, I know you talked about filling in for the CEO. I know, you know, like most of the people that you're interviewing, you know pretty well. Yeah. Um, how do you make sure you're getting that good content? Because we've all had podcast interviews where we're like, oh God, that's not going to see the light of day. Yes. That's true. I mean, call it what it is. I, you know, I probably have ten that I started in the first few months. And I'm forgive me if you're watching. I'm never going to use. Why? Because it's been up leveled since I am constantly up leveling who I'm bringing onto the show. And I'll give you the most recent example that I've been. So I do this again. There's a process. Um, I use the eight. It's very simple a, B, c, right? I'm looking at a players who are the ones that are like the big fish. Like if I could get that person on my show, that would be amazing. I have people now that have been on my show that six months ago were my a big fish, right? So it's an evolution. My B are the ones that are realistic but a bit of a stretch, right? I think I can get them on. I think they say yes, but I have to put in some effort. And the C are the ones like, you know, do an outreach. Sure. Do a swap. Great. I'm focusing more and more on how to get more bees, and especially how to get more A's. And I spend more time on trying to position myself as the next step, meaning I'm not just going to DM them on LinkedIn, I'm not going to use a podcast platform to reach out and be like, hey, would you like to be on my show? No, I'm building a relationship. I'm being stopped top of mind. I'm, I'm serving as a resource and what they're posting on social media, I'm getting them to see me before they have an opportunity to evaluate will they know, like, and trust me to then decide if they are going to want to be on my show. And I use this example. I just had somebody on my show this past Monday. Uh, it's not live yet, but it will be live very, very soon because I'm going to fast track it in the schedule above all others. So. And I hope it's okay to share openly about this group. It's a group called scaling dot com. Scaling dot com, uh, is founded by a guy by the name of Doctor Ben Hardy and Blake Erickson. Uh, Ben Hardy wrote a number of best selling books with people like Dan Sullivan and who not how and ten X is easier than two X, etc. Blake and Ben co-founded scaling dot com, which is. The premise is that we will help you reach ten X in your business in three years or less. There are five hundred entrepreneurs in that community that are looking to ten X their business. Four of them are current clients that are already working with us. And I'm thinking this is a natural fit. You teach them how to ten X. We are the vehicle with the CEO on the execution. I finally got Blake, who's the co-founder of scaling dot com on my show on Monday, not to talk about us. I want to talk about him. I put him on the pedestal. Tell me about scaling dot com. Tell me about your book, The Science of Scaling. Tell me about how amazing your community is. And I'm not trying to be cheeky. I'm actually being very legitimate. It's an amazing community. It's an amazing group. And naturally, at the end of that conversation, record buttons over. Derek. Tell me about the c o o solution. I hear you're working with some of our clients. It was the natural door opener, and I couldn't open that door in any other way by then. For the last two months, showing up on Blake's feed, engaging with him, reaching out to him, inviting him to have a conversation, getting to know him, inviting him to be on the podcast, scheduling the podcast. I live in France. He lives in Utah, so it's an eight hour time difference. I did it at nine o'clock at night on a Monday, right? I'm willing to do it on his time. I know he's not going to be willing to do it on my time, and that's fine. So and after that, what I realized is like that was one of my A's. And now I'm looking at who else are some of my A's? Who else? It's not about the guest getting on the show. It's everything you're doing to get the guest to say yes, to then be on the show. That, I think, is a lot of the work in terms of making sure that you've got amazing content from your guests all the time. I love that, and I love that there's like, you talk about the process behind that because so many people just have the, like you said, there's the, the random, like they hired a pitch person or they hired a this. And it's just to, to, I guess I would say it's the machine gun effect. Yeah. Um, and another, another show that I co-host the, the I talk, I've talked about this before. It's called the business fix. It is me and my co-host every week. We just recorded episode, I think seventy two. It is her and I every single week showing up for this. And all the time I am receiving letters. Hey Josh, I have a great guest for your show. Um, and I'm always like, really? Because have you looked? It's always been just her across the seat. We've never had ever. Um, so my usual response to them is just because I'm a little bit of a jerk is who's been your favorite guest so far? But really it's that nurture sequence, and I love the fact that it's that intention behind it. Yes, it's the same as the rest of your business because if you're trying to do things, if you're trying to do a three week project that's due tomorrow, you're going to end up with three week project that's due tomorrow results. If you spread that over the three weeks it's supposed to have and you have that organized into a process. Holy cow. Does that become something that you can execute on at a very high level because you aren't doing it in a state of panic? It's true. It's it's, it's so true. I think this is the this is the misconception, which is they think about podcasts, they think about the front stage, right? The front stage is the five percent of everything that's going on back behind the scenes, right? You go to a Broadway show, you go to see theater, you see the ninety minutes of everything front stage that came together. You don't see the three months of rehearsals. You don't see the the practicing, you don't see the mishaps. You don't see the creation. You don't see everything else that's going on. You just see the the front stage and you pay a pretty penny for it. But there's all the work that's behind the scenes, the backstage, the preparation, the planning. And again, I think for your audience, that's listening. If you're a visionary founder, you're like, crap, I got to do all this stuff now on my own. No use services like Josh's use services like mine that actually get you to be and just what your unique brilliance part is as it relates to the podcast. And then get a system, a process, a structure to, to, to create the machine around it. You don't have to own it all. It's not your job to own it all. Somebody else or somebody or another system can own that for you. I, it's, it's so funny because, and I love as a, as an operating operations guy myself, I like hearing you talk about it in this way is just truly music to my ears because there is there's all these steps to it. There's all these things that, once again, people don't think about. And yeah, I get why people don't think about it too, because like you said, they only see the front end and that's all they know. So that's what they start with. They're like, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to turn a camera on. I'm going to talk at it. I'm going to have someone record a Zoom meeting, whatever it is. And all of a sudden like, great, I got this recording, I have a podcast. And it's like, no, no, there's, there's an infrastructure around this like anything else. And it should, it deserves that care. It deserves that time. It deserves that, um, that piece to, to grow along with your business. Yeah. With that, as we kind of, one of the last questions, I always like to kind of finish out with what's the big mistake that you see so many business owners, marketers make, like when it comes to podcasting or business in general, I think, I think I know the answer, but go ahead. I may not give you the answer that you're expecting. Oh, good. It's, uh. And it might be a bit different. To what? Yeah. You would expect. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think the, the biggest mistake that business owners make as it pertains to marketing as it relates to the podcast, is that you don't go on enough of other people's podcasts. Yeah, I do two episodes a month of my own. I may do two, I may do one a week. I'm right now, I'm doing every other week. And that that works well for me. I also do blog content, so I'm doing video all the time. Um, I'm on other people's podcasts three to five times a week. I'm doing twenty to thirty shows a month. And if you think why? Well, I mean, you know, you're the expert, but like when people find me through ChatGPT, it's because my, my content is everywhere. I'm omnipresent. The other benefit is I get to practice. I get to show up on other people's shows and perfect my message. Talk my story. Talk about other stories, right? I remember when I first started getting on other people's podcasts, I would like spend half an hour like, okay, who's the host? Watch the show, get my script and be be there. Like, so the job of a CEO is, and I wasn't natural. I wasn't like, you know, like Derek as you see today. And that's because I've been doing this now for eighteen months on two to three shows a week. So I think the biggest mistake is, yes, focus on your own, but you can get better at your own by being on others three to four times as much. And it accelerates your know, like, and trust because you're more natural and more like kind of organic as to who you really are, as opposed to trying to be scripted. Because the only time you rehearse or practice is when you go live on your own podcast, practice and rehearse on other people's podcasts, right? Get your message out there, craft your message, perfect your message, whatever it might be. So I think, yeah, practice and you don't have to do it just on your own. You can use that with, you know, do that with others. And it also creates collaborations, I think, which is a huge part of it. And the last thing that I'll say, which is a real kicker. One of our best clients came from me being a guest on his podcast. So I often say you don't get clients from a podcast, but you may get clients through a podcast by having that as the conversation starter. So who knows? There's, I mean, there's a lot of benefits just right there of showing up on, on other people's shows for a number of reasons. I, it's so funny you say that because just to me, like our conversation, like both of us being operations people, um, we spent ten minutes geeking out on operations before we ever hit record. And it's to me, I, I, I'm pretty sure we're going to stay in touch on stuff like this just because of the fact like we're, it's finding a friend. Um, just because you have that thing in common. Now for us, I'm going to say this is kind of a dorky thing to have in common, but I think it's a very cool thing to have in common, but still kind of dorky. I think it's an amazing thing to have in common, but it's probably not going to. It's probably not going to have our name in lights above Hollywood. Right? I think I think we're both okay with that. Speaking of name in lights, where can people find you? That was a good setup. Josh. I didn't know where you were going with that for a second, I was. I didn't follow your lead there. Sorry. Uh, yeah. So where can people find out? I mean, really, it's my website is the c o o solution dot com. Uh, I have a podcast called the C o solution podcast. You can check that out. Uh, surprise. Um, there's the quiz that's there for those that might be, uh, wondering if they're exploring the idea of bringing on a fractional Co, but I'm also very active on LinkedIn, so I appreciate having conversations with individuals on LinkedIn. So a number of different places you can check us out. Wonderful. Derek. I really appreciate the time today. I got to to appreciate our future conversations. Also, for everyone else, I took a lot of notes, so I'll be back. I need to summarize this and I'll be back in just a minute. Stay tuned. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with Eric. I mean, once again, as I said this a few times throughout, but I'm going to say it again, what an operations person. And I mean, when you get two ops people together in the same room, we're going to find something to geek out about. And we most definitely did. Great guy. I mean, obviously knows his stuff, both on the podcasting side and on the operations side. So it was it was truly an honor to get to talk to him. A couple of things that I want to address here. In fact, I got five main points for you today, which is, is really solid. You'd expect that from an organized podcast that came from operations people, right? That being said, the first one is the what? Why not how? You don't need to say like the the implementation, you don't need to give all of the ingredients on how to do something. There's I know a lot of people that watch cooking shows and they learn about cooking shows, but they still can't cook. Think about that in there. You're giving people great, great information. You're serving them well. And in that, you're going to find people that can implement it. And that's great. Those might not be your clients. If they're going to implement it yourself, they're going to find the information. They may as well find it from you. Right? And that obviously, that's a great way to build that up. If it's someone that isn't going to be able to implement it, if it's not someone that's going to be able to do the how, well, then that's someone that you're probably going to be able to help. And that that's probably especially if you're in a service business that is going to be your client, that is going to be the person that you really want listening to your podcast. The next point that I want to get into is the know, like and trust. I have said this a thousand times. I believe I have said this probably on eighty to eighty five percent of the podcast that I am on know, like, and trust is built through podcasting. We are showing up right here consistently. We, you see us, you see me, you hear my voice. You see how I move. You know who I am. You've gotten to know me. Hopefully, if you've hung on this long, you've gotten to like me. And in that, in showing up consistently, there's a building of trust there. Those are huge elements. Those help you build that. So you are now much further into the sales process. He addressed. Another point that I truly love to is speak the language of your clients. Don't necessarily speak your language. Say the things that the people you are talking to want to and need to hear. I could talk all sorts of technical stuff about podcasting. We can talk about camera resolution, we can talk about gain, we can talk about compression, we can talk about compression ratios, we can talk about denoise. I can talk about all of those things, but that's not probably why you're here. You're here to learn about the basis of podcasting. You're here to learn about how to structure the show. You're here to learn about how to market the show. You're like, that is who we are working with. You guys don't want to hear about the the technical jargon. You want to know how to build the things. And that's why we talk about this. So make sure that you are speaking the language, the terminology, and the things that your clients need to hear. Part of that is doing that through relatability. I am a huge proponent of analogies. You've heard me. I believe I used like four different analogies during the show as I was talking about some stuff in response, like finding a way to relate to people, especially your clients, is a huge, huge key. If you make it relatable, you make it something where you can actually connect with people. I've had people explain obscure concepts to me and they see the eyes start to glaze over. And I mean, I don't know how it works. And at that point they've probably lost me. But as soon as they find a way to connect it to me, to connect it to something that I can relate to, that totally changes not only my perception of what they're talking about, but it also changes the connection that I'm going to have with that person. Finally, operate on a high level. It's one of the things that we take a lot of pride in here at Pedal Stomper Productions, we operate on a high level. We we make sure that our processes are step by step by step by step. If something happens to someone in our company, someone else can step in very easily and help out. And no one should ever know the difference now. It may be a hair slower, but once again, the process and all of those things are the same. And we do that. So that way we can execute at a high level and give high level results. It's those processes. So if your podcast doesn't have the processes to it, let's talk because we can help you put those in. That being said, do me a favor. Take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else too. I will see you very, very soon.