Podcast: Download
Matt Johnson joins Chip to discuss his book MicroFamous and how agency owners can apply the concepts to grow their own businesses.
The pair talk about the value of podcasting and where it is headed. They also talk about Matt’s experience in working with businesses to help them become active in podcasting to generate leads, increase their knowledge, and achieve results.
Resources
- Pursuing Results
- MicroFamous
- Matt Johnson on LinkedIn
Transcript
The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.
Chip Griffin
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Chats with Chip. I’m your host Chip Griffin. And I am very pleased to have with me today Matt Johnson. Matt is the author of Microfamous. He also has a podcast Promotion Agency, and he’s got his own podcast. So welcome to the show, Matt. Thanks, Chip. I’m excited to be here. It is great to have you here. And before we dive into the conversation, why don’t you share a little bit more about yourself and what you do so that listeners have a base to work off of.
Matt Johnson
Alright, so short story, we produce and launch podcasts, mostly for the coach consultant kind of independent thought leader market and the agency takes me about 45 hours a week to run so not bad to do do what I want with my own time outside of that which is what gave me the time to write the book and then you know, the rest of us just kind of optional marketing Legion activities like running the podcast and you know, things like that preparing for the future, future books and stuff like that. But five years ago, I was just some dude, we’re gonna have another you know guys marketing agency here in San Diego and I got the chance to step into business. His development and his idea for doing biz dev was to put me on as a host of like Google Hangouts back when that was a thing. And just to kind of nurture the relationships with all their key strategic partners and influencers in the agency. And that went really well, to the point where one of them called me up one day and said, Dude, we should start a podcast together. And that was the that was about as far as that idea went beyond that was just to start a podcast because we thought would be fun. And that was five years ago. And now that podcast is it’s called real estate Uncensored, it’s in the kind of the residential market, and million half downloads and counting and still going strong run a bunch of accolades, a bunch of top 10 lists in that space. It essentially took me from being a nobody that worked in an agency to speaking on stages in the industry and being an influencer and an insider in 18 months. So that’s been
Chip Griffin
my experience. That’s fantastic. And podcasting is fun. So you know, why not do it? I’ve had podcasts for many years and really enjoy it. And now you’re
Matt Johnson
wondering, Oh, geez,
Chip Griffin
well, yeah, I started doing audio back in the 1990s. Actually, before it was even called pod casts and it was a heck A lot harder to to publish things back then. They used to have a little like it was it was like a telephone bug that I had on my phone. As if the record calls. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. and use that to do my telephone interviews. It was it was it was interesting. It’s a whole lot easier today where we can just use zoom stream yard, those kinds of tools. So yeah. Great. So, so earlier this year, you came out with your book micro famous, what inspired you to write the book.
Matt Johnson
I wanted more ideal clients. That’s the bottom line. Because what I found out like as an agency owner, like the thing that grows the agency is client results, referrals, and then obvious social proof, like in my space, because I’m pretty narrowly niche down. So a lot of times when my prospects would come to me, they look at my page and they look at the the other people that we work with, and they go, Oh, I know them, and I know them and I know them, right. So it’s pretty, pretty easy. Yes, but I wanted more of that. I wanted them to come in with the right expectations. So I wrote a book, basically That was all the things I wish ideal clients knew. And if they believed and agreed with me on these things, it would make them more ideal clients, like the first third of the book is essentially all strategy and the mindset of how do you how do you align a podcast with the rest of your business strategy. So the podcast actually generates a 10 x ROI. Because I’m working with people that look, if you don’t generate any actual revenue, this is a waste of my time I can I can go post on Facebook, if I want to waste time. And so I wanted to like basically strip away all the extraneous stuff and all the confusion and just give my like, Hey, this is my point of view on how do you actually run a podcast that generates a 10 x return to the business and attract the right the right people. And so that was the genesis of the idea.
Chip Griffin
And I that’s a great point that you need to tie the podcasting or anything else that you’re doing back to an actual business strategy. And and frankly, this is a mistake that I’ve made over the years in part because I like doing these kinds of things, you know, you sometimes do the more out of vanity And enjoyment than you do out of real strategy. But the more that you tied into the strategy, the better the results, you’ll see.
Matt Johnson
Well, yeah, and it the thing that we lose sight of a lot of times, and maybe not so much in the big company world, but definitely in the in entrepreneur land where I where I run, which is that it’s got to give something back to you. And sometimes that giving back is in the form of money, but also needs to get back into in terms of energy and enjoyment. The problem is when you do something strictly for the energy in the enjoyment, but it doesn’t directly translate into revenue, even the energy you get back from the enjoyment of it starts to fade over time. And so I didn’t want people coming in just for the cool factor of podcasting. And then six months later, they were starting to get burned out on it because they weren’t seeing the results because I knew that that like that arc was going to happen. So I wanted them coming in for the right reasons with the right expectations, the right timeframe in mind, and having all the other stuff in place that they actually got not just enjoyment out of it, but it actually produced return so that they kept on enjoying it and kept on being clients for you know, 234 years.
Chip Griffin
To see the maximum results, you really need that consistency. And and, you know, persistence over time, right? It’s not something that you can, you know, have overnight success in most cases.
Matt Johnson
No, it’s not. And I think any agency on our listing is probably identifying, you know, like, if you sell any kind of content marketing, like there’s probably a 12 to 18 month window. I mean, even Gary Vee himself said, he shouted into the void on Wine Library TV for the first 18 months, like no, no single video of his got 300 views more like over 300 views in the first 18 months. Same guy that’s now running a $600 million agency couldn’t get more than 300 views on his YouTube videos. And so I think anybody that sells like a content marketing strategy understands it takes that kind of time horizon. And I think God, I run in the circles where it’s the same decision maker, but when you’ve got decision makers switching out, you better be really secure, that they’re that that company is getting a return.
Chip Griffin
Right. Now you advocate podcasts as a way to get micro famous, but yet you wrote a book about it. So So book versus pod Do you need both? You know, talk to me about that a little bit?
Matt Johnson
Yes. There’s a chapter in the book about that now, first podcast. And I love this discussion, because I think in a lot of cases, the podcast should come first. And I don’t say that selfishly because I, I, I kind of didn’t do it necessarily the right way around. I jumped into like a podcast, and then then we did all kinds of other stuff. But like Seth Godin basically said, like somebody asked him, like, when’s the best time to start a blog, if I want to promote a book, he’s like, well, then the best time was two years before we launched the book, the next best time is today. And to me, that’s what like podcasting is the new form of blogging if you want to build and nurture an audience that then you can launch something too It’s better to have started a podcast two years ago if you don’t have one now start one today. So you can start building and nurturing that audience so that when you do have a book, you have a group of people to launch it to. So thankfully, I had that with my own and was able to launch it and and through all the relationships I’ve built up with the with the podcast guests that I had, I had a really Really good kind of strategic referral partner and early advocate early readers kind of group that I was able to reach out to. So immediately launched and hit like number one new release and number one in a couple of different categories and got some really great reviews and that that fed into my landing page for the book looks really good because it’s got a whole bunch of really great reviews from prominent people that people in my world will know. And it all came from doing the podcast first and then launching the book later. So that’s that’s the best recommendation that I can give based on all that I’ve seen in people doing that world.
Chip Griffin
So it’s not too late to start a podcast, we’re out oversaturated at this time.
Matt Johnson
Now and you know, this, it’s, you know, there’s like, what, 900,000 podcasts or something? What, what is there 100 and 50 million WordPress blogs. To me through this, the sky’s the limit, and one of my recent guests put it really well he just launched like this random podcast in Canadian politics, and it took off and gets like $50,000 a month. He says it’s all about finding the crack in the market. Somewhere out there. There’s an audience that is underserved and neglected. And if you can create a podcast for them, they’ll find you. It’s only a matter of time. And then that podcast has a real legit shot at taking off. And I think that’s still the case today. So for any company out there, if you have, if you have an underserved market, that they’re, you know, it doesn’t matter how many podcasts are in your space right now, there’s always some little pocket of it that feels neglected by the shows that are out there. Right now. Somebody’s scrolling through all the podcasts out there right now, and having to scroll through five or 10 episodes to find one that they like, that’s your person, figure out what they’re finding, and go make more of that.
Chip Griffin
And the trick is to find that that crack in the market that matches up with your ideal client, right? I mean, that’s exactly that’s really, and I think that’s the mistake a lot of folks make when they start the podcast, they look for the gap in the market. They look for the maximum number of eyeballs, but they lose sight of their ideal client.
Matt Johnson
Yeah, and that’s exactly what it is. They start by looking at where the audience is, and they they don’t keep an eye out for who their ideal client is. Yeah, and I talked to somebody the other day, who runs a podcast and they get, you know, 20,000 downloads a month pretty respectable for a business podcast. And, but it has no connection to his business. He did exactly what you said, he started a podcast that took off. And he has listeners, and now he’s trying to figure out okay, well, how do I get to promote my core business? Or how do I need to come up with something to sell them. And that’s a really not fun place to be in because then you feel like if you if you transition things, you’re letting your audience down. If you try to sell something that doesn’t isn’t a good match for them. you’re you’re you’re shortchanging your business because you’re spending time marketing something that isn’t tying in your business. Like it’s just, it’s a really weird position to be in to have like an audience of people that doesn’t buy the very core thing you sell. So yeah, always start with your ideal clients figure out where their crack in the market is, where are they being underserved in the podcast world, and that’s, that’ll lead just the right place a lot faster.
Chip Griffin
Right. And most podcasts, at least in the b2b space, don’t need a million downloads to be successful there. They would do i mean frankly, a few hundred, maybe fine as long as it’s the right few hundred.
Matt Johnson
Well yeah, I mean, I’ve got I’ve got friends and clients who are all in this really one interesting niche in real estate, where you have like team leaders and independent brokers and you know, there’s, I mean, the total addressable market is 10 to 15,000 people and all of those friends of mine run multi six and seven figure businesses selling to that tiny tiny market, we’re talking about two people’s worth of Facebook friends is your entire is your entire target market. And and they’re charging, you know, Grand 1500 a month these are not small price tags for like individual solo businesses and and they will they all run seven figure businesses selling to that tiny market. And so I think we way overestimate how many people we need to be consuming our content in any form. And in order to actually get sales. And I think more than that, it leads us away from the very ideas that would actually would generate sales. You know, I think that quest for more listeners more audience just for the sake of it leads us away from a very polarizing idea. really sharp, clear and compelling idea that gets people in the door and gets them off the couch and taking action because it’s just too broad. We’re trying to reach too many people. So we ended up saying something that isn’t all that compelling to any one of them.
Chip Griffin
Now, if I’m an agency owner, and I’m thinking about starting a podcast, you know, what, what should I be thinking about as far as format? And obviously, I need to be thinking about my ideal client. But how should I be thinking about format frequency? You know, what advice do you give people when they’re first getting started?
Matt Johnson
So in the book, I talked about the weekly podcast formula, that’s where I’d start is interviewing two people a month from like a cold, cold audience. just build your network interview the other influencers in the space? Do one episode with a successful guest or client as a guest. And then one episode versus you speaking to the audience. If you do that, you’ll be fine. The question is really for the agency owner that’s running a podcast what’s the goal with the podcast and to me? There is like an agency on our can have two levels of expertise. You can be an expert in what you do. for clients, and that’s great. That’s also like table stakes. Like, if you’re not an expert at what you do for clients, like you just get out of the game, you know, you’re in trouble. You’re in trouble. That’s what they expect. Like that’s, that’s that’s the barrier entry. But what I noticed from from my background like being like, I’m coming from the real estate space, like I was in real estate, I read all the books, I knew who the coaches were, I jumped on and I hosted the podcast and I became an expert in what my clients did to the point where I could speak at their events, not about what I did, I could speak at their events about what they do. That’s a whole different level of expertise. If I was an agency owner, looking to start a podcast and expecting it to generate business, that’s what my goal would be is I don’t want to just show that I’m an expert at what I do. I want to show that I’m an expert at what you do, Mr. client, you know, that’s what that’s what my goal would be is I want to learn and soak up as much as I can about the industry. I want to share my opinions on where the industry is going. And I want to show that I’m not just an expert in what I do, but I’m an expert in what my clients do, because that’s a whole different level of trust when they know that you’re an expert in what they do. And you really deeply understand their business, when you come to them and you say this is the marketing strategy I recommend for you, there is a completely different level of respect that goes along with that.
Chip Griffin
And if you plan your podcast, well, you can you can do all of these things, right? You can reach your target audience, you can use it to build your network. And you can use it to learn by bringing on the experts that help you understand the industry that you’re serving even better.
Matt Johnson
Yeah, hundred percent couldn’t said about myself.
Chip Griffin
And I think that that that’s, that’s an often overlooked part, but the ability to use it to build your own expertise. So it’s not, it’s not just because if you’re there, and you’re asking questions that you’re curious about, those are the kinds of things that others in your audience are probably going to want as well. And I think that, you know, too often, you know, folks are thinking about the podcast as a way to showcase their own expertise, when in fact, curiosity may be a better way to lead.
Matt Johnson
Well, when you’re when you’re a deep thinker, if you’re a strategic thinker, your version of curiosity is going to get Deep strategic thinkers attention right now if you’re if your tactics first person and your version of curiosity is to skim along the surface and ask them just kind of what they’re doing that’s working right now, then that’s not going to get you a lot of respect. So it depends on the circumstances. But yes, if you’re if you’re a deep thinker, and you really pay attention to what’s going on in your industry, and your your curiosity leads you to really deep, interesting questions, and the audience is going, like, and you may not have the answers, but man, that guy’s really smart, because he’s asking questions that even the question themselves, I wouldn’t have thought to ask that. And that’s where that’s what I noticed when I was doing my very first rounds, like when I was just doing Google Hangouts, is that I would sometimes throw the guest off with my question, because they’d be like, Huh, I’ve actually never I’ve never thought about that before. That’s a really interesting way to ask that question. It was because I was doing all that deep thinking behind the scenes, just like trying to trying to soak up as much as I could about the industry and learn myself. So then yeah, I would come with curiosity questions, but they were deeper questions than just the You know, most people would ask them, and so that got their attention and got the audience’s attention. So then they would come back to those shows and they would go, they would know this is a place for really interesting and different perspective that not everybody else shares because he’s asking really different questions. To me. That’s why Tim Ferriss podcast took off. It isn’t just he’s talking to all these high performers, you can get down on any random podcast now is the fact it’s Tim Ferriss questions. That’s why you show up because Tim Ferriss asked different questions. They’re deeper, different, you know, perspective questions. So yeah, like if you’re going to do interviews, like that’s what you want to do you want to be that guy. You want to be Tim Ferriss
Chip Griffin
and work just four hours a week to all ironically, he doesn’t work just four hours a week, but we’ll exactly pretty good. All right, well, we’ll save that debate for another day. So, you know, where do you see podcasts headed are, you know, obviously, particularly during, during these times, as everybody likes to say, you know, there’s been an explosion of video, everybody’s doing it. There’s more live streams. Do you see Do you see video overtaking podcasts? You see them complementing each other? Do you see what’s happening with podcasts? Do you think over the next couple of years?
Matt Johnson
Well, I think complementing is a great a great way to put it. Because I think the I think it’s always headed in this direction. And and we’re I think we’re just seeing an acceleration of trends that were there, which is that companies, individual thought leaders inside companies or people like me that I’m the thought leader for my agency, we’re going to end up having a show quote, unquote, like you have a show Chats with Chip. And that show can be consumed on video. So you can get on YouTube and various other places or you can go and consume it on audio, but really, it’s the the entity is as a show, and then there’s just different ways to subscribe and syndicate and distribute the content. So to me, that’s kind of where it’s heading. I’ve already split my podcast into two. So I’m experimenting with kind of like a dual podcast strategy where there are two different feeds one for all of my guest episodes, one for all my solo strategy episodes. So each feed is a little bit more focused and if people stumble onto any one of them is a little bit more crystal clear what they’re going to get out of the show. So I think we’re going to see more of that. drift, the SAS company that does like chat bots and things like that. I was talking to somebody that referred me over to them and told me like, just Hey, look, these, these guys are doing podcasting, like at a company level really well. And if you go look at the podcast page, on their website, they’ve got five different shows, hosted by five different people inside their organization, on each different level of their service appealing to a different buyer persona. So that’s kind of where I see things going is, you know, converging towards the main thought leader having a show and then potentially having multiple different sub shows or sub podcasts within your overall content strategy that hits different buyer personas with different types of content.
Chip Griffin
Now, we’ve focused a lot of our discussion so far on interview style podcast, but we’ve touched on the solo shows and you just mentioned that you have the two different feeds. What’s your advice to someone who says Look, I don’t know I don’t want to deal with all of the hassles of scheduling guests and all that because it does it that takes time. So maybe I just want to go the solo route, you know, what advice do you have for someone who wants to be doing solo podcasts?
Matt Johnson
I think for some people, it’s exactly the right thing. I would call that a teaching podcast. And if your goal is to build authority and make a reputation for yourself, I think that’s exactly what you should do. I started by mixing I solo pod, like solo podcast episodes into my overall show, because I wanted the value of the networking along with it. And so you can absolutely do that. But yeah, if you don’t want to bother with the guests booking don’t do it. I mean, just really focused on making really great shareable content that shows your authority and credibility in the space. And yeah, it’s a heck of a lot easier to run to run that. I mean, I would say for our for our clients. Like if you’re a busy thought leader, it is a lot easier to jump on and have a conversation with somebody else, to her to record content, if that makes sense. And if you get the right guests You know the the the hassle of scheduling them is more than offset by the enjoyment you have of having a conversation like this is like conversations like these are fun if we’re talking about stuff that we’re both excited about. And it does allow you to create content faster, quicker and easier with a lot less mental load. So that’s why I typically will tell people like do a blend of it instead of trying to do it. So episode, podcast by yourself. Because if you’re a perfectionist, you’re gonna get into like scripting out your episodes word for word, like you’re gonna go way down the rabbit hole and you might find you just never run your podcast. That’s the one caveat to that.
Chip Griffin
Right when and that begs the question, do you need to be a perfectionist or people? You know, what are people’s expectations when they’re listening to podcasts in the b2b space these days?
Matt Johnson
No, I think perfectionism gets in the way a lot more than it helps. I think what you shoot for is consistent excellence, but not perfectionism. You know? So So you and I are running different gear. Your gear is probably more expensive than mine. But mine is good enough for my purpose. good solid webcam, right but I’m not running a DSLR camera, the microphone, I’m recording To is under 100 bucks on Amazon. And I have this mop this microphone for a very specific reason, which is that it doesn’t pick up all this other stuff. So I don’t need to be in NPR studio to sound good. I can take this microphone to the, to a hotel room or even out to my car if I need to. And I can record an episode and the sounds identically the same. Is there a podcast episode or you know, like a microphone that could conceivably sound better in specific situations? Absolutely. But not from my life as a coach consultant thought leader agency on it right. So just Yeah, you got it. But yeah, that’s that’s why buying the most expensive gear and being a perfectionist on certain things ends up shooting, you know, shooting in the foot potentially.
Chip Griffin
And I love that you use the phrase good enough, because that’s, it is an important bar that that people should be shooting for because it needs to be good enough that it’s listenable, right, you don’t want something that’s just oh my God, I’ve got to crank my volume up all the way and even then I’m still straining to hear there’s so much background noise. It’s distracting, but it doesn’t have to be NPR quality or, you know, broadcast quality?
Matt Johnson
Not at all, no, especially in the podcast world. It’s it’s really more about a base level of audio quality. And then what’s your content? If your content speaks to me and your audio isn’t annoying, then then I’m going to listen.
Chip Griffin
Now in all of the work that you’re doing for clients and helping them put together their podcasts, are there. Are there trends that you’re seeing in there in the data that you’re looking at? Are there certain types of shows that work better? Not necessarily for industries? But you know, are there other formats that are working better length? You know, are 20 minute podcasts better than 40 minutes or 60 minutes? Or is it really irrelevant?
Matt Johnson
Yeah, I am
seeing Justin I’m sure you’re probably seeing this too. Just an overall downtrend in people’s attention spans and my personal belief on it is that a lot of people in a lot of spaces now if they’ve been paying attention to podcasts at all, they kind of have their favorites. So now the new podcasts that are coming out, you’re you’re essentially competing for existing podcast listeners and you’re trying to get them to shift some of their minutes away from listening To the Joe Rogan’s and the entrepreneurs on fire over to yours. Okay, so it’s like, right? Well, it’s a lot less of a commitment for them to listen to your 20 minute episode than your three hour episode. And I know people that want to do like a Joe Rogan style podcast in their industry niche, and I have to, like, walk the expectations back, because it’s a lot easier to get somebody to take a chance on you, and a new podcast if you’re not asking as much from them, and you don’t take a half hour to warm up to get to the good parts. Right. So I just think, yeah, you know, shorter attention spans. So over on my, on the micro famous podcast, which is my solo strategy, so I try to keep all my solo episodes to around 15 minutes. So I typically don’t cover any more than three bullet points in strategy episode. It’s about you know, what I think most people can handle and what I can get across clearly in 15 minutes, and then it’s on the next episode, so I’m not asking too much of them to listen to my dulcet tones, or for longer than 15 minutes. So yeah, so shorter attention spans. I think that’s the biggest thing I’m saying.
Chip Griffin
Yeah, and, you know, my approach generally been to try to keep podcasts under 30 minutes because that’s that aligned with commutes pre pandemic doesn’t align to the amount of time someone will spend on the treadmill or the exercise bike or something like that.
Matt Johnson
I put out I put out that question, though, to my to my email list the other day, and I got one person that said, Why I really like when they’re about an hour and a half long hour and 45 because that’s how my evening walk is like, well, you are, you are in the minority buddy.
Chip Griffin
I don’t know who else is walking hour and 45 minutes, I was gonna
say, That’s a long time to walk. That’s a long time to listen to a single podcast. But right. So we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the content itself and the format. And but what about I mean, you can’t just create the podcast and expect that people will show up. So what about the promotion side of the podcast? What advice do you have for folks if they’re getting started and they’re trying to build an audience?
Matt Johnson
So the biggest thing that I run up against it’s probably I would say that is a misconception is that the shiny objects do it right, the audio grams where you see the little waveform or the video clips of the Gary Vee style video clips and stuff like that. And those things all help They can’t hurt, a little bit of visibility never hurt anyone. But 60% of all podcast growth comes from word of mouth. Like that’s the dirty little secret in podcast growth. So the question is, Are you are you creating a show that your ideal clients will love and tell their friends about because if not, everything else is that much harder. But then if you do create a podcast that your ideal clients will love, well, then it’s just a matter of getting that message to them. So that so it becomes a different challenge. And the first place I tell people is go get featured, right. So there’s a whole ecosystem of podcasts in your space, most likely, there’s other places where your ideal clients attention is go there, pitch yourself as a guest so that you can speak to your ideal clients and they find out you host a podcast and I’ll come check it out. So if you’re not doing that, like if I have clients that they want to grow their show faster, and they’re not getting featured, my first question is who on your team could be pitching you right now because I’ve got the training forum, just give me somebody and in turn a VA, I don’t care who it is. Just give me somebody that I can give them the training so that you can have five to 10 pitch emails going out. every couple of weeks to get you featured on podcasts. Because if you’re not doing that, all the other things like the audio grams, and you know, throwing out another post on Instagram that reaches 10 people, it’s just not going to move the needle.
Chip Griffin
I think the other thing about podcasts that a lot of folks overlook, they think about it in terms of lead generation and marketing and thought leadership and that sort of thing. But it actually can help with the sales process itself, right. Oh, yeah. I mean, particularly for anyone selling expertise. And obviously agencies are selling expertise, someone who has listened to your podcast, they feel like they know you more. And so at least in my experience, it dramatically shortens the sales cycle. When you’re talking to someone who has seen or heard you speak before.
Matt Johnson
Yeah, and and I couldn’t have said it any better than than that phrase, it shortens the sales cycle. So I won’t elaborate on that part. But there is a funny story. Just to piggyback off of that. I was speaking at an event A couple of years ago, it was in kind of that same niche where I spent a good chunk of my time. And I was in between sessions hanging out with a client who was also speaking at that event. And somebody came up to me. And there’s always been an inside joke on my, in my real estate podcast about how I have like a fake wife and three overweight kids like that was we would roleplay through sales scenarios, and my co host assigned to me a wife and kids. So this random person came up and said, Hey, man, how’s the house? Julie, how’s the how’s the wife and kids? And it’s amazing how much like when people listen to a podcast over time, they get the inside jokes, right? They understand and they listen, they get to know you, they know a little bit about your life. They know. They know that you know, but like that’s not a real wife and kids and all that fun stuff. And that doesn’t happen very often in the business world. Like you don’t get that kind of relationship. If I ran 20,000 Facebook ads in front of them, you know that you can only get fat from that from spending quality time with somebody with your voice in the air. And so, yeah, to me, that’s the that’s a combination of the most effective part and and the most fun part is building the relationships with People listen.
Chip Griffin
I remember I was at an event in I think it was in Boston about 10 years ago. And I was having a conversation with somebody in a marketing event. And I heard someone behind me say, Hey, I know that voice. And so someone I had never met before, but but they recognize my voice for my podcast. And so that’s a moment to say hello. So that you really you really can, particularly when you’re focused on a niche audience, which is what most b2b podcasts would be doing, you’re able to have that kind of an impact much more easily than if you’re, you know, pursuing mentions in the Wall Street Journal or something like that, which are great for vanity but don’t tend to do all that much for the bottom line.
Matt Johnson
No, they don’t. They’re they are great for vanity and for credibility. But yeah, as far as building relationships with people, I mean, there’s just there’s no place like podcasting where you get to spend 20 3040 minutes with somebody. There’s just no other form of marketing where people are actually looking for solutions and spending that amount of time. I mean, maybe they’ll spend five minutes reading your white paper, but not much not beyond that. Somebody told me the other day, that the average length of a business book that people actually read is to page 18. Which immediately wanted to make me throw, throw my book across the room in frustration, but but I get it. You know, we’re all busy. But yeah, that’s that’s why we have podcasts. Yeah.
Chip Griffin
Yeah. And that’s actually probably a good place to end up because most business books are, are really magazine articles run amok. So I guess if you get to page 18, that’s about the length of a good long, you know, business magazine article, right?
Matt Johnson
Oh, that’s hilarious. Business article run amok. I’m gonna steal that. That’s awesome.
Chip Griffin
But in any case, if someone is interested in learning more, they’d like to get the book they’d like to listen to the podcast, where should they go?
Matt Johnson
easiest places get micro famous calm, because the links
out to everything is there. If you are a reader, first of all, I love you. Thank you for keeping the written word alive. But if you want to get a physical copy of the book, we do the whole free plus shipping thing. You know how the drug goes. So just go to micro famous book calm and get that there.
Chip Griffin
Great. Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time, Matt. It’s been a great conversation. I think you’ve given lots of really practical advice for agency owners. So,
Matt Johnson
thanks, Chip. I appreciate it.
Chip Griffin
Great. My guest today has been Matt Johnson, the author of Microfamous.
