Top Advisor Marketing Podcast: 335. Should You Outsource Your Podcast? Here’s the Complete Cost-Benefit Analysis
Let’s say you decide to start a podcast. Will you outsource its production or do it yourself?
Matt Halloran and Kirk Lowe are helping you answer this question! Join them to learn about the podcast production process on a granular level — content creation, editing, marketing, expected results and costs, and more. Doing a complete cost-benefit analysis of outsourcing a podcast, they leave no stone unturned to help you decide which way to go!
Matt and Kirk discuss:
- Creating your own content vs. using canned solutions — what’s best for you?
- Expected costs of hiring different podcast production companies in the market (including us!)
- How to come up with your first 24 podcast topics quickly
- Expected results of outsourcing vs. in-house production
- How to use your podcast to build long-term marketing momentum
- And more
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Intro:
Welcome to the Top Advisor Marketing Podcast brought to you by ProudMouth. I'm your host, Matt Halloran. Being your own loud is not new to marketing, but the mindset, strategies, and resources to help you get there are evolving faster than this industry is keeping up. It is time to find a new perspective on what works, why, and how to move your business forward.
[00:00:24] Listen as I interview guests to help you learn from them how to be your own loud. Let’s get to the show.
[00:00:34] Kirk Lowe:
Hey everybody. It's Kirk Lowe, the CEO of ProudMouth. I'm here today to get our show started. And this is another version of Top Advisor Marketing. Another version, another episode. And today, Matt and I are going to chat about when to say yes or no to outsourcing a podcast. And I'm going to be doing the interview.
[00:00:53] So hold on, everybody. Let's get started here, Matt. By the way, this is our second take of the [00:01:00] intro, but we're not going to let this one go because I can't do a third take. It's just embarrassing. Anyway, Matt, I'm going to pick Matt's brain today. Obviously, we've got an outline as you guys know, what we're going to talk about, but who knows where it's going to go? Matt, why don't you tell us your experience?
[00:01:15] Kind of like, why did you want to do this episode and have somebody as amazing as me ask you all these questions?
[00:01:20] Matt Halloran:
I don't think there's anybody better to ask me these questions than you, since you were one of the ones besides me who nerd out on the research on all of this stuff. But I think the big thing is, we just wanted to encapsulate a great way for people to realize if they should outsource, what are the key things that they need to have and take into consideration if they want to use podcasting as their major form of media and content creation?
[00:01:47] Really, if they should outsource it or if they should insource it, because there are people who absolutely have the capacity to insource this, who wouldn't need to use us at all, but really should be podcasting.
[00:01:59] Kirk Lowe:
Absolutely. [00:02:00] And we know that podcasting has taken off over the COVID downtime. A lot more people took to listening to podcasts.
[00:02:09] We're seeing an uptick in people wanting to start podcasts as well. You know, this is becoming more and more popular. It's definitely not a fad as the trends suggest we're seeing a lot of success with it, and lots of room for areas for improvement and expectations. And that's part of the conversation here today as well, to help you guys understand and answer some of these questions.
[00:02:31] So, the four things that you need to decide before you either outsource a podcast or insource it, why don’t we get started with the big one, which is, do I have time?
[00:02:42] Matt Halloran:
This is a consideration I think everybody needs to make when it comes to content creation across the board. And Kirk, this is one of the main reasons why people use some of our friends in marketing who have their own pre-built out content marketing plans, because advisers really take a look at it and say to themselves, [00:03:00] “Matt, I just don't have time.”
[00:03:02] So let's talk about what you need to do to put into it if you're not going to outsource it. And then we can talk about it, is that okay? Do you want to start with it?
[00:03:10] Kirk Lowe:
Yeah. What's interesting about what you just said about content marketing is that more and more advisors understand that marketing is content marketing and they need to do it.
[00:03:19] The question is, one of the questions that you just mentioned is, do I buy into a canned pre-drawn content system? Or do I create my own content? Maybe we can talk about the difference between when you decide you want to create content. Because if you don't need content, you just don't have the time and you want to go the pre-content or already done content route.
[00:03:43] That's a mindset. But if you decide, hey, I want my own organic content. I want to be known as an expert and an authority. And I want to build this influence over time, which is a way different outcome than the other track. [00:04:00] What's that mindset? What's kind of involved in that mindset? Like how do they get there and what does that mean?
[00:04:05] Matt Halloran:
Well, I love what you just said and I hope everybody paid very close attention to that because I think if advisers no longer have, do we have to convince them that content marketing is the only marketing left? I think everybody's finally figured that over probably the last five years. The big question is, do you want to create your own content or do you want to use other people's content?
[00:04:26] And there's huge benefits and drawbacks to each those. I’ll just briefly go over a couple of those. Number one, time. That's the first thing that you have to consider if you're going to be outsourcing your podcasting or insourcing, but it also matters if you're going to outsource your content or in source.
[00:04:41] So here's the thing. You can hire a company and they will create targeted lead funnels for you based off of content. One that I use all the time is Roth conversions, right? So, I know that there's a couple of friends of ours, Snappy Kraken happens to be one. There are all sorts of [00:05:00] organizations that offer these things that are out there.
[00:05:03] And so, you go on the Roth conversion track and they have all of these different sorts of pieces, parts that people click on so that they warm them up more and more. And that works really well. But the problem is, and this is one of the cost-benefit analysis that everybody has to make a decision on is that isn't preferred from an SEO perspective.
[00:05:22] Google and all of the search engines know, email campaign people know, spam filters know that you are utilizing somebody else's content. And you also have to make sure that it's in line with you philosophically. And if it is, great, use it. If it's not, you might want to put your own spin on it. So that's really why you would use a canned marketing technique.
[00:05:42] Now let's talk about creating your own content, and I'll try to do this quickly. The easiest way to do this is, every time a client asks you a question that you know that you have answered many times in the past, you put it on a list. And that becomes your content creation tool. And you can [00:06:00] utilize this during any client meeting.
[00:06:01] So this presupposes that you're going to be creating your own content. But if you're going to write your own content, blog your own content, video your own content, or you're going to podcast your own content, you also have to look at the time that it takes not only to create the content, but also all of the post-production time.
[00:06:21] And Kirk, I think it's super important to cover those four things. So, if you're just going to be writing social media posts, for every social media post based off the content that you create, you need to look at about 30 minutes. It's going to take about 30 minutes to write that content, edit it, and make sure the links are good. It goes through compliance, all of that stuff.
[00:06:39] Kirk Lowe:
If you know what you're doing.
[00:06:40] Matt Halloran:
Well, absolutely. Right, right, right. So, your hashtag game’s gotta be strong. Your keyword searches, your backlinks, all of those things that a lot of people don't know about. Then, the second thing, let's say you're going to blog, right?
[00:06:49] So, there are still a lot of advisors who blog. You're talking two to three hours per blog, and that's just for the writing time. That's not for compliance and post-production. So, you're [00:07:00] really looking at, for every blog, you're looking at about five hours of time from inception of the idea to completion and post that blog on your site, WordPress, or on social media.
[00:07:11] Kirk Lowe:
Yeah, I think for the people who get it done in two or three hours, they've been doing it for a couple of years, to be honest there. And before that, it's more like four to six hours just to get the post, the article done.
[00:07:23] Matt Halloran:
All right. Video. So, let's talk about video really quick. So, for every minute of video that you do, unless you're just going to do it wicked raw, you're looking at 15 to 30 minutes of editing time.
[00:07:34] Post production, most of your videos are three to five minutes long. So, think about that. Right? You also have to practice the script. Deirdre Van Nest is a client of ours. She does unbelievable training on how to be an amazing speaker. They're called Crazy Good Talks. She wants you to memorize every script, do it over and over and over again before you ever shoot it.
[00:07:53] So you're looking at a good hour prep time for that three-to-five-minute video. So, you have the script memorized, you know where you're [00:08:00] pausing, breathing, sneezing, coughing, all of the things that you do in video. And then, you have to edit the video at the end, upload it to YouTube and whatever you want to do, subtitles generally are very important to be diverse and inclusive.
[00:08:11] All right, now you talk about podcasting. So, if you want to do your own podcasting, the amount of time that it takes to do a show is going to be three to four hours per show. All right. So, what that means is you have to come up with the topic, you have to outline the topic. You have to record the podcast.
[00:08:30] You have to do all of your warm-up stuff, which we don't even need to go into today. If you're getting your guests, you have to get all of the stuff in line for the guest. And then, you have to send it into post-production. Now, if you use us, or if you use a company like Fiverr, which is an amazing organization and a company, or Upwork, you can outsource the editing of your podcast.
[00:08:50] There's a cost involved with that. But if you're going to do it yourself for every 30-minute show, you need to allocate about two hours, [00:09:00] because most of you aren't very good at this. You need to learn the software. Even when you get to know the software, a 30-minute podcast, taking out the spaces, the pauses, the mess ups, mastering it, all of that stuff.
[00:09:10] And then, you have to figure out what you're going to do with the show afterwards, because podcasting is a little different from video, because video is basically, you're going to upload to Vimeo, YouTube, or your website. In podcasting, there are some syndication things. Did I answer those about doing yourself, Kirk? Did I miss anything?
[00:09:26] Kirk Lowe:
Yeah. You answered those wonderfully, man. There is a lot for our listeners to process there. What I'm thinking is, when you get to understanding all the things that need to get done, and you're thinking about outsourcing, I'm wondering if you know where people are as far as whether or not they can afford it. This cost-benefit analysis that we all do as good business owners is what's the opportunity with podcasting?
[00:09:52] If I do it on my own, do I have enough time to fit it in? Is it going to move the needle the way I want it to? Or should I outsource it? And if I outsource it, [00:10:00] is it going to move the needle? Is it going to be the right mixture of my authenticity, things like that? So, can you tell us a little bit more about knowing how much time and what are the options?
[00:10:12] Matt Halloran:
Sure.
[00:10:13] Kirk Lowe:
What should I expect to pay for this? Whether, one, I'm doing this on my own, two, I'm outsourcing parts of it, or three, I’m outsourcing the whole darn thing. Or as much as you can outsource.
[00:10:24] Matt Halloran:
Regardless of whatever social media content or content creation that you're doing, you are going to want to have some checks and balances in place.
[00:10:32] So if you're a blogger, you need to send it to an editor. If you're going to be outsourcing video, you need to generally outsource the editing of that video. And let's just talk about podcasting, which is really our wheelhouse, not even taking into account all of the content that we create based off of your podcast.
[00:10:48] All of the social media posts that we build for our clients. But if you're going to do it in house and then do it yourself, that's three to four hours. So, take a pencil and write down on [00:11:00] a piece of paper how much your time is worth. The average advisor generally builds themselves out at anywhere from $150 to $250 an hour.
[00:11:09] So let's just middle of the road and say it's two hours, I'm sorry, $200, three to four hours. So, you're looking at $600 to $800 of your time per podcast. Is that fair? Yep. Okay. If you partially outsource it, with which you can cut that time in half, because that's all of the editing time, it's going to cost you a couple hundred bucks to edit your show. Edit Master, put the intro and outro on it.
[00:11:35] That's generally a high-quality person who's going to have your podcast volume be consistent. You're looking at a couple hundred bucks there. Or if you use us, you're looking at roughly 500 to 600 bucks a show all in for us to do all of the stuff, including the podcast description, infusing it with hashtags, keywords, writing the summary, and syndicating it to all the major [00:12:00] players.
[00:12:01] Kirk Lowe: Yeah. And I think you're, just to be clear, the 500 is if you're bundling it and the 600 is if it's just straight up, right? I mean, there are some good benchmarks there for everybody to understand what the cost is. I know that one of the things that's interesting about if you do want to outsource your podcast, can you talk a little bit about the types of outsource podcast companies?
[00:12:23] Because we've experienced very specific types of podcast production firms. Can you speak to that a little bit?
[00:12:30] Matt Halloran:
Well, you absolutely will. The first thing you always have to ask anybody who you're going to outsource your podcast to in our industry is, do they understand compliance? I cannot stress that enough.
[00:12:39] In fact, Kirk, I think I might've shared this with you offline, but I had a meeting with an advisor who is part of this very large coaching group that's not a financial-services coaching group. But it's a large coaching group. And in their little mastermind group, or whatever they call them, there was a podcast production company. And they were like, look, we want to get into financial services.
[00:12:57] We're going to not only produce your video, but we'll [00:13:00] produce your audio. And it was a really ridiculous price. I don't even know how they got to that price point. And so, I'm talking to the advisor and I'm like, okay, so how do you file this for compliance? He's like, well, what are you talking about?
[00:13:13] I just give compliance the MP3. And I was like, they’re not going to listen to your 40-minute podcasts, dude. They're not going to take notes on everything. That's not how the game works. I said, you have to transcribe it, have the transcription scrubbed so it's readable. And he's like, oh my God, I've done 10 of these.
[00:13:29] And we have no transcripts. I'm like, that made me really nervous. There's one thing that you have to make sure is that they understand compliance. And two, that they understand the jargon in the industry, because if they are editing your show with a lot of the acronyms that we use, if they don't understand the content, they're not going to be able to write you a great summary or a great description to the show, infuse it with hashtags, or any of those things, because it's a language that they don't understand. But there are podcasting companies out there, everybody.
[00:14:00] You're looking at, I've seen it as inexpensive as $99 an episode, to as expensive as $1,500 an episode. And that's where you're getting into like NPR quality. They bring in B-roll audio so that you've got sound effects and car noises and crap like that. But if you want to spend the 1500 per, there are definitely companies out there that will do that.
[00:14:23] Kirk Lowe:
I can see some of our listeners being a little bit overwhelmed. And we're only 10 minutes into this?
[00:14:28] Matt Halloran:
I’m sorry, dude.
[00:14:30] Kirk Lowe:
No, it's the reality. And I think that's why we've had a successful business, helping people take this off their plates. They don't have to think about it. And that's why there are lots of podcast companies showing up.
[00:14:45] One of the things that we've talked about before, I wanted to tee up this question by just saying that we've experienced a certain type of experience, the skill set that [00:15:00] typically runs podcast production companies. And how different and unique our experience and skills are when we got into this compared to others. Can you speak to that a little bit?
[00:15:10] Matt Halloran:
Well, I am so grateful that you and I partnered on this every single solitary day, because of all of the stuff that we've built, and not only just through the co-hosting interview style technique that we have, but all the branding and marketing experience that you brought to the table with Tactibrand for 20 years that you guys branded financial services professionals and helped them market.
[00:15:32] You have to keep those in mind. There are huge graphic design elements that you have to understand. You have to understand language, how social media works, how you're going to take your podcast and turn it into other pieces of content.
[00:15:45] Because here's the thing, everybody: If you’re blogging, you still need to cut that blog up and turn it into regular social media posts. If you're shooting video, if you're doing regular social media, it's all about volume of ever-present and omnipresent [00:16:00] content creation. And Kirk and I figured out a couple of years ago that there are eleven different disciplines that you need to have to create ideal content.
[00:16:08] And I'm not going to go over all of them. I just hit a couple of them. Graphic design, professional writers, SEO experts, people who have specific training in social media. You've got to have the post-production, pre-production, all of the hosting that happens, the coaching that goes involved with making sure you're going to be great behind the microphone for us.
[00:16:27] But I think that really outlines the time thing.
[00:16:32] Kirk Lowe:
You listed seven. I’m not gonna list them but —
[00:16:34] Matt Halloran:
Well, did I miss anyone that we really should bring up?
[00:16:39] Kirk Lowe:
Oh, now you put me back on the spot. Are you getting even with me for teasing you there?
[00:16:44] Matt Halloran:
A little bit. Okay. So, let's just move on from that though. Hold on.
[00:16:47] Kirk Lowe:
Well, there's audio editing. There's just understanding how to put together a podcast. There's somebody who can host it or co host it.
[00:16:56] Matt Halloran:
How to syndicate it. I mean, all of the syndication —
[00:17:00] Kirk Lowe:
Just general branding and marketing. There's promotion. How are you going to get more listens? And understanding podcast business. So, channels and how you syndicate your podcast? What are the rules around syndication?
[00:17:14] Matt Halloran:
There are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration. When you ask yourself, do I have the time to create my own content?
[00:17:21] And the answer is, you do, just do a cost-benefit analysis. And if you want to have the control over it, or do you want to be able to outsource it to somebody who's done this for a living in our space, because that's really who we are. If you're really okay with spending $800 of your own time per episode, then do it yourself.
[00:17:44] Absolutely. If you don't value your time at $200 an hour and you're like, well, I've got all the time in the world, then you're absolutely right. I would love to have a conversation with you on helping you launch and learn all of that stuff. Yeah. But that really gets to the next point. So, Kirk, let's move on to the next one.
[00:17:58] Kirk Lowe:
Well, no. Actually, I want [00:18:00] to ask you. Hey, who's the interviewer here? So, listen. I'm thinking, as you just went through a lot of stuff there, I wasn't expecting to go through that much stuff, but you're on a roll. I'm curious if anybody's thinking, or maybe they should be thinking, can I afford not to do this, not to figure out? Can I afford not to figure out how to make my content, my authentic content marketing, as efficient as possible so that I can keep growing my business and creating momentum in my marketing?
[00:18:36] Matt Halloran:
I don't think you can afford not to do this anymore, everybody. You have to find a very efficient way to distill your voice, your unique ability, in a way that's going to communicate your message to your ideal client and prospect. That is the world that we live in.
[00:18:52] And every one of you who's listening to this knows that when you have that key hire of that number two or that assistant or you have better [00:19:00] financial planning software, better CRMs, when you invest back into your business, everything changes. But very few of you invest what you're supposed to, which is 10% of gross, not net, into your marketing.
[00:19:15] 10% of gross. So, if you are a $200,000 producer, Kirk, how much money is that?
[00:19:21] Kirk Lowe:
$20,000.
[00:19:22] Matt Halloran:
$20,000. Right? And nobody is spending $20,000.
[00:19:26] Kirk Lowe:
You know why I am CEO. That math.
[00:19:30] Matt Halloran:
That was beautiful. If you are a hundred-thousand-dollar person, you need to spend $10,000. If you make a million dollars, you should be spending a hundred thousand dollars on marketing.
[00:19:44] And when you go to conferences, I'm going to leave you with this, when you go to conferences and you're all sitting there and you're looking at those people who are sitting up on the main stage. And you’re like, I want to be like them when I grow up. Every one of them is spending way more on marketing than you think they are.
[00:19:58] Kirk Lowe:
I'm just leaving a little silence [00:20:00] there because it's so true. It’s one of the biggest differences between people who go for it and don't. They're so committed. We talked about it, some of our most successful advisors don't just hire us. They do stuff on the other side. We watch what they do. We instruct them to do some of it.
[00:20:17] Some of them get on their own. They're already doing it. It's all the good stuff. They do not set it and forget it with a podcast company. They're all over getting it out. They talk about it all the time. We originally pushed this out as organic marketing tactics for your podcast. We're in the process of building this into a full assessment.
[00:20:38] That's gonna queue up people with a checklist of priorities they need to do to make their podcasts sing. And we're pretty excited to launch that stuff here in the very near future.
[00:20:49] Matt Halloran:
Very near future.
[00:20:50] Kirk Lowe:
Another decision, one of the four things. The third one that we hear a lot of, we can usually get people through this if we're in contact with [00:21:00] them.
[00:21:01] But for the people who don't allow us to get there with them, or haven't listened to our podcast, might not get this. But I think a lot of people have anxiety or maybe a lack of confidence around being able to come up with enough topics to run a podcast.
[00:21:17] So, if we maybe can start with telling what's the best prescription for the frequency of a podcast, and then, how difficult or easy are some best practices to come up with content so that they don't have that anxiety.
[00:21:30] Matt Halloran:
So, the run rate that we recommend is two podcasts a month. So that's the run rate that we recommend.
[00:21:34] We'd give you 24 podcasts a year, and I will give you a formula right now, for anybody who's going to be doing this themselves, to have that first whole year of podcasts ready to go. So, grab a piece of paper and get ready. The first three podcasts are this, who are you? What do you do?
[00:21:51] And what is the client experience like? We got the first three done right there. Generally, we want somebody to interview you to pull it out of you. So, it's not just you talking. We are not fans of [00:22:00] solo-casts here. It's just not a good use of your time. And it's very hard to keep people's attention.
[00:22:04] So there's the first three. The next seven, which will get it to ten, is going to be whatever is on your website about frequently asked questions, which almost every one of you has. That can be a podcast right there. So now, we just got to 10. We're almost halfway there.
[00:22:21] Kirk Lowe:
As long as those frequently asked questions, I guess, aren’t about processes in their business.
[00:22:26] Matt Halloran:
That's right.
[00:22:26] Kirk Lowe:
They should be about big questions that people have about their finances. Your ideal audience. Anyway —
[00:22:32] Matt Halloran:
So, we're at 10 now. So, the next two, so we're going to get you halfway there, are going to be interviewing team members, whoever's your paraplanner, whoever's your director of operations.
[00:22:42] Whoever's your director of first impressions, your assistant. You're going to interview those people. So that gets us halfway there. Now, the next six are going to be the questions that you answer every time during your onboarding process, [00:23:00] the discovery process with a client after they become a new client, after the first meeting.
[00:23:04] So, you should be able to pull two podcasts from each of those. So that gets six. And then, the last six, Kirk, are going to be, you're going to create a dream list of six people who you want to interview and get on your show, who's a center of influence or somebody that you want to have a better and deeper relationship with. That just came up with 24 topics right there.
[00:23:24] It took me four minutes.
[00:23:27] Kirk Lowe:
Do you have any other resources to help advisors in particular with coming up with topics?
[00:23:34] Matt Halloran:
So, we got over 150 podcast topics outlined for our clients in case they're concerned that they're not going to come up with anything. And these are the ones that we know have gotten the most clicks, the most listens.
[00:23:45] We've distilled the best ideas. We have more topics. We have topics coming out the wazoo man, for our clients.
[00:23:54] Kirk Lowe:
Someday, I'm gonna look up wazoo because I have no idea what a wazoo is. But you talk about it [00:24:00] a lot.
[00:24:00] Matt Halloran:
I do. There was a great commercial. It was a Superbowl commercial where this guy's being wheeled into the ER.
[00:24:06] And they're like, oh my God, he's got money coming out of his wazoo. And there's just money shooting out from underneath the blanket. And it was like some sort of credit card company with cash back or something. But that's the popularization of wazoo.
[00:24:19] Kirk Lowe: Okay. Well, maybe I won't look up wazoo. Okay. So, this is the big question, which is, what kind of results do I expect from a podcast, whether you're outsourcing or insourcing it? What should people expect?
[00:24:33] Matt Halloran:
If you're insourcing it, you need to double all of these timeframes. That's just the reality of the situation. Okay. Just double it. So, we know that if you outsource it to somebody who has experienced working with financial services.
[00:24:48] It's going to take you nine to 18 months to see an actual what you all would refer to as return on investment. So, A plus B equals C. I bought podcasting. I put [00:25:00] podcasts out. I get new clients. All right. It takes nine to 18 months, but all good marketing takes time for you to gain momentum. Most of you are just chasing the next shiny thing.
[00:25:11] Then it doesn't work because you don't give it enough time. And then you find the next shiny thing. And then, that's just how your marketing has always been. We're fundamentally challenging that. So, if you're going to do it yourself, you're looking at 18 to 36 months. It’s how long it's going to take you if you're going to do it yourself.
[00:25:27] But there's other components of ROI I have to talk about. Number one, client retention and greater share of wallet. If you do this correctly, you're going to retain clients longer. You're going to have a larger share of your wallet and you're going to become more referable.
[00:25:45] In fact, listen to Bill Cate's podcasts, The Top Advisor Podcast. He talks about how to use not only podcasting, but also other referral tools within your existing book of business, to get more and more referrals from your ideal clients. So, there's one. Number two, [00:26:00] deepening relationships with your center of influence.
[00:26:02] If you follow that template I just had, which means that you're going to have six of your greatest referral sources on your show. They are going to give you access to their listenership, their audience, because you're going to ask them to share the podcast with their whole network. You are going to have a better relationship with them.
[00:26:21] Be more top of mind, and get more referrals from them right there. And that actually can happen very quickly. But if you're just going to follow the standard format, you're looking at nine to 18 months if you outsource. And you're looking at 18 to 36 months, if you do it yourself.
[00:26:39] Kirk Lowe:
Yeah, having been in the business, you and I, so many years working with advisors, anytime somebody pursues what we call a center of influence referral approach to filling their pipeline or getting new opportunities, driving revenue, whatever you want to call it, there's typically amount of time from when you start trying to build those [00:27:00] relationships before they start paying off.
[00:27:02] Is that any different when they are guests on your podcast versus you going for a coffee or just calling up and saying, hey, can you align some expectations around that? Because one of our more successful podcasters has almost exclusively used this podcast as a center of influence relationship building tool.
[00:27:20] Hey, be on my podcast. And maybe you can speak a little bit to the expectations there. And then what it was like for that particular advisor that we've worked with.
[00:27:30] Matt Halloran:
The particular advisor that you're referring to, it took him a little while to be convinced that he needed to interview other people.
[00:27:38] In fact, he was just being interviewed by our team for a good solid year, 18 months, before he implemented our guest system. And he's still had relationships with all these people, Kirk. He would take them out to lunch, give them a referral, all of those sorts of pieces. That's what they would do pretty regularly.
[00:27:57] But they're going to wait you out, everybody. [00:28:00] CPAs and estate planning attorneys go to conferences just like you. And every one of those people who have successful relationships with financial advisors, one of the things that they'll say is you need to wait a year before you give them a referral.
[00:28:15] But when you bring them on the podcast, everything changes. And here's why, because they're going to share that podcast with their network. It's a 30-minute commercial about how awesome they are as a CPA or estate planning attorney. Why wouldn't they share that with everybody? And honestly, that's a condition for them to be on the show.
[00:28:31] Did that answer your question?
[00:28:32] Kirk Lowe:
You just surprised me that you didn't fill in more there. Why does it shorten the time from, so you get a new CPA relationship, you invite them out, what's happening that's changing the dynamic of how you would normally do that? It may be obvious to some of our listeners, but maybe worth it just going through that for clarity.
[00:28:50] Matt Halloran:
The first thing is, everybody, podcasts are still really cool. Podcasts are still something that isn't really happening as much professionally. And so, the fact that you have the [00:29:00] show.
[00:29:00] Kirk Lowe:
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:29:02] Matt Halloran:
The next one is, you have a chance to interview them and ask them questions.
[00:29:07] Ask them questions to show that you understand their business and understand what makes them fundamentally unique and different. You're not going to sit in a coffee shop or at lunch and just pepper the person with questions. You're going to have small talk. How are your kids? How's your family? Blah, blah, blah.
[00:29:23] We don't do that on podcasts. We're going to dive right in. Then I'm going to pick your brain and pull everything out of it that I possibly can. It's just so much focused on your professional, unique ability. That professionalism that you have as one of my referral partners, and I want to focus on that whole heartedly. And then, finally, they are going to share it with everybody else.
[00:29:43] When you go out to lunch with one of your CPAs, they're not going to go back and say, hey, I had a great lunch with Kirk Lowe. He was awesome. And here's all the great things that we talked about. That's not going to happen. When you share a podcast, and they come back and say, oh my God, man, I just got off a podcast.
[00:29:57] Man, Kirk was asking me some great questions and [00:30:00] hey guys, I got to talk about this new product or service that we offer. I want everybody to listen to it. It's just a totally different feeling and conversation.
[00:30:06] Kirk Lowe:
This is part of the beautiful parts of podcasting. I just asked you a question, which you're telling me I need to do to be a good interviewer, right?
[00:30:17] To listen, to ask questions, which is a lesson for everybody here. And you gave a different answer than you've ever given, or you added a new dimension, which is that you get to ask a center of influence a bunch of questions that would seem kind of odd for you to ask you. You basically get to test how smart they are.
[00:30:36] So, in a way, you could come out of that with, geez, I'm not really sure that it is as much of a fit as I thought, or I can't believe they know that. I now know something new that I can go back to my clients with or, wow, I didn't realize you did that. That's what podcasting is, like discovery.
[00:30:57] If you have a good interviewer, which is [00:31:00] one of the things that I love listening to on our podcasts, because you get to see things when somebody asks a great question, enlightening, a lot of the times to dig into somebody's mind or their experiences. Anyway, I think that's a really cool angle. You know, you're talking about results being anywhere from, I think you said nine months up to 18 months.
[00:31:24] I believe in the case where you were talking about our client who's doing a lot of centers of influence relationship interviews, once they got there in their mind, because that was a strength of theirs. I think it actually, results didn't start till after the 18th month. I think it might've been closer to between 18 and 30 months.
[00:31:39] They had massive growth and success, but there was definitely anxiety along the way. We had some calls and I think that's another thing about having really good people in your corner when you do outsource. Or if you are going to insource, have somebody who can bring some perspective because really good marketing takes some time.
[00:31:59] And if [00:32:00] you're not willing to put the time in it and stay focused on the longer-term results that will come from good marketing, then you'll end up stopping it. Anytime I've ever seen stop-and-start marketing, what's that like?
[00:32:13] Matt Halloran:
Our ideal client is that financial advisor. Right? And I know there are advisors who are sitting, “Why does what Kirk just said sound so familiar?”
[00:32:21] Kirk Lowe:
This doesn’t have anything to do with whether they're a client of ours. But we can help them with the stop part of it. In general terms, if you start and stop something because you're not willing to put the time in to see the results come, and it's a hard thing, it's a huge leap of faith to say, I'm going to spend two years on this.
[00:32:35] Matt Halloran:
But it shouldn't be. And that's what I'm challenging you on because our clients are financial advisors who are listeners, say that to their clients all the time. Hey, look, what I do for you takes time. We're taking the long view on a financial plan. I don't time the market. It's not timing the markets, time in the market. All of these things that we are finding.
[00:32:57] Because we hear about this all the time on the podcast, right? [00:33:00] All of our clients are podcasting about this. Why aren't they looking at their marketing the same way, Kirk? This is what just baffles me. They say this to their clients all the time. And we're saying the exact same thing. We know that you're going to have so much more success if you stick with one thing for a while.
[00:33:19] I have to tell you a very quick story. I had a guy on the show, or I'm sorry, I had a prospect meeting last week. They had been doing radio. Okay. And he's like, Matt, we've been doing radio forever and I haven't gotten any results. I was like, well, tell me what forever is?
[00:33:36] Six months. I know people who've done radio for 12 years and it is a consistent lead source for them. But they said when they signed up for radio, they knew that it was going to be 24 to 36 months before they had enough clout in the community. And that's one of the issues with radio versus podcasting, clout in the community to really turn that around.
[00:33:59] It's just, [00:34:00] put it in your brain. If you're going to do this yourself, which is the whole onus of this. If you're going to podcast or create content yourself, you're going to double the amount of time that you have to do it, unless you outsource it.
[00:34:13] Kirk Lowe:
Here, maybe, one of the more important points about long-term marketing and where I see it fail a lot is, and I see this with radio.
[00:34:24] Because if people understand that radio is going to take years and they say, you know, I'm going to commit to it. And they had some good people teach them. Sometimes, what I see happen is, there's this propensity to say, well, it's going to take years. So, I better work hard to sell to people right now.
[00:34:41] And that's absolutely the worst tactic to take. Do you know what I'm talking about?
[00:34:45] Matt Halloran:
Amen, brother.
[00:34:46] Kirk Lowe:
It's like, I gotta speed up this path to success and turning this into a pipeline generator. So, I'm just going to put more pressure. I'm going to talk about selling people more. I'm [00:35:00] going to talk about call to actions more often.
[00:35:02] And the truth is that, what Matt and I have really tried not to do that most of the time, is you still want to talk about it, give those option, because if somebody's really interested in the moment, you want to make sure they understand that you're interested in talking to them. But if we showed up and talked about selling podcasting or we're selling marketing all the time, and we didn't educate you guys.
[00:35:28] We have all of our points that we're going to list and give you all kinds of resources and tools and ideas and new thoughts and mindsets and partners and bring in on this podcast, we've had 250 different guests who have expertise and things that are sometimes cross over with what we're doing.
[00:35:45] Sometimes, they are a bit redundant. And sometimes, they are completely different, new, and interesting. And occasionally, maybe not the best fit for our podcasts, but we're learning. That's a huge part of long–term success is to put the work in. [00:36:00] Think of your audience. What do they want to hear you talk about?
[00:36:02] Any final thoughts, Mr. Halloran? I'm being serious when I say Mr. Halloran. You better come up with something great.
[00:36:09] Matt Halloran:
I'm in trouble now. Well, I just wanted to talk about the perfect podcast formula, and we're going to end this on the perfect podcast formula, which is, every time you're creating content, we just call it a perfect podcast formula.
[00:36:19] It's a perfect content creation formula. It's education, entertainment, storytelling, and then call-to-action. So, I think it would be remiss, Mr. Lowe, if we didn't have a very specific call-to-action at the end of the show. What should our call-to-action be?
[00:36:36] Kirk Lowe:
I think it's to listen to more podcasts. If you think this is right for you and you don't want to push it off any longer.
[00:36:45] Go to our website, ProudMouth.com, click on the contact us, and that note actually queues, tees up our team to get you on a call with Matt. Ask the hard questions, like really hard questions, like [00:37:00] Matt can handle it. He just had a huge coffee this morning. So, he's ready to go. Matt, by the way, his coffee mug is not really a coffee mug.
[00:37:09] I think what he does is he just pulls the caster right out from the coffee maker and starts drinking right out of there. For a little sugar, you're cream and sugar? I can't remember.
[00:37:18] Matt Halloran:
No, I'm a lot-of-sugar guy, dude. Come on. You know that. You used to give me crap about all the candy eating.
[00:37:24] Kirk Lowe:
Sure. I couldn’t remember if it's cream or milk.
[00:37:26] Matt Halloran:
No, no, I'm not going to, no, it's going to be black and it's going to be ridiculously sweet. Okay. Here's the other thing I want everybody to do is if you go to the ProudMouth.com website, check out what we're doing for other people. If you even have a little bit of an inkling that you want to start podcasting, listen to our clients’ podcasts. It's all written right there on the website.
[00:37:49] You can sort of see the quality that you're striving for, the content that you're striving for. All of those things, that's what you want to do. And it is actually ProudMouth.com/be-your-own-loud. [00:38:00] It's actually where that is.
[00:38:03] Kirk Lowe:
Where's the page where we actually show samples and what we do? Or do they have to reach out and talk to you first?
[00:38:07] Matt Halloran:
Well, no, they don't have to do that. They can just do it. So everybody, Kirk's pulled up the website on the screen, but it is actually forward slash be your own loud, Kirk. I have it saved on my web browser. So, it is Be-your-own-loud. And that is all of the examples of all of our work.
[00:38:25] And we want to make sure that we'll have this in the show notes, but that's where it is. A few of our kinds of clients’ podcast channels. You guys can see the channel, what you need to build. If you're going to do it yourself, here is everything you need to do it yourself and everything that you need to keep into consideration if you're going to —
[00:38:41] Kirk Lowe:
This is what it looks like. You want to actually learn how to do it, you got to go to the PodRocket Academy. Well, that's very true. Now, we got like three call-to-actions.
[00:38:54] Matt Halloran:
We ruined the whole formula.
[00:38:56] Kirk Lowe:
Don't sell for heaven sakes. Don't sell, just be smart, [00:39:00] but you know what? Sometimes, we get so tired of being smart. We just got to —
[00:39:04] Matt Halloran:
Look, just do something. That's it.
[00:39:07] Kirk Lowe:
It sounds like this podcast is about to come to an end, everybody. We don't want anybody falling asleep at the wheel or while you're commuting. You don't want to miss your stop. Or if you're walking the dog, anyway, we hope everybody is enjoying life.
[00:39:21] Thanks for listening to our podcast. We appreciate it. If you don't mind, this is call-to-action number four here, please tell other people in your business or in your world, could be even other professional services people like lawyers, accountants, about our podcast. We want to make a difference.
[00:39:39] We have an academy dedicated to making a difference. We have free courses there. We have paid courses, which is like $99 a month, or if you pay in advance, it's $79 a month, to get access to our brains and our team teaching you. We've had some really cool companies reach out recently saying they want to put courses in our academy.
[00:39:58] I won't name names, but [00:40:00] there's some neat stuff going on. If you guys loved the idea of the academy, or if you get a marketing assistant in your company and you want them to become a lot smarter and maybe more organized with tools and stuff, as far as marketing is concerned, we'll try to help them.
[00:40:16] Or in some cases, we may just be validating some of the stuff they already know, and that's a good thing too. We're here for you guys. Appreciate you. See you on the other side of the mic real soon.
[00:40:25] Outro:
Thanks for listening to the Top Advisor Marketing Podcast brought to you by ProudMouth. If you want to learn more about how you can be your own loud, visit our website, read our blog posts, attend our educational webinars, and sign up for our new academy, where you, too, can learn how to truly be an influencer in your space.
[00:40:46] Have a wonderful day.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
