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Whether you want to increase your organic reach, to supercharge your content creation, or to build relationships with other experts in your industry… it may be time to consider how podcasts can help you achieve your goals.

We have Brent Basham, podcast expert and veteran host, here to discuss how podcasting might fit into your business – from either side of the mic.

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Alyson Lex 0:00
On today's episode we're answering the question is a podcast something I should include in my business? The big question is this as entrepreneurs, coaches and business owners, how do we consistently sell our products, programs and services without making our customers feel like we're only in it for the almighty dollar? How do we serve the way we know we're meant to serve and still run a profitable business? How do we put good into the world while we put dollars into our pockets? How do we change the lives of our community while also bettering the life we lead? It's not

Jennie Wright 0:35
a zero sum game. It's not an either or scenario, it is possible to thrive while serving your clients to the best of your ability. This podcast will show you how. I'm Jennie Wright.

Alyson Lex 0:47
I'm Alyson Lex

Jennie Wright 0:48
and welcome to the System to THRIVE. Have you ever asked yourself is a podcast the right thing for my business? Think of the biggest podcasts that you know or that you Listen to, did you ever wonder why they got started, and how it benefits the Creator. There's a lot of reasons to create a podcast, there's exposure for your business, also exposure for your guests. If your podcast has guests, it makes sense in the time, right in your business at that particular moment. It's a controlled way to create and deliver information effectively and efficiently. And it also brings something to your niche that might be missing right now.

Alyson Lex 1:30
These are actually all really great reasons to be a guest on a podcast too. And so today we are talking to seriously one of my favorite people podcaster, founder of the really great podcasting software potted which is an incredible service that I'm a total fangirl of, and just all around great guy and a good person to know. So there are a lot of people launching podcasts right now probably due to the whole pandemic like that. Look at us, we did it. There are more people listening to podcasts right now. And there are more people creating them. And it makes sense that people are doing their best to create, connect, develop meaningful content. And that's why we have Brent Basham here with us. Hi, Brent, how are you?

Brent Basham 2:22
Doing great. Thanks for having me, Dawn to talk podcasting and all this fun stuff.

Alyson Lex 2:26
Yes. And, you know, I've told you from the beginning that I am such a fan girl and yeah, I think you like it. But if you don't, I'm just gonna keep being annoying. You know,

Brent Basham 2:35
it's totally great that people are finding value. And I think that one of the reasons if I'm maybe speaking out of turn here that you really like as you can see, for we're trying to go and trying to back that and bring it into reality. So no, we love having people that like you and everyone that's involved that tries to help us get there because it's a collaborative effort for sure.

Jennie Wright 2:53
Oh, yeah. We're both early adopters. We've been in puppet now for a while Allison first she brought me in And I'm you know, I'm a big fan of the software. I recommend it all the time. I think it's a fabulous platform. It's helped me get more podcasts than any other platform I've used. And there's been quality in those podcasts, sometimes, you know, it's hit or miss, right. So it's been a lot of quality in there too. So we're really grateful that you're here taking the time. I know you were like, major production schedule for stuff that you're doing and also with software updates for the platform. So we're, we feel really lucky to get some time with you.

Brent Basham 3:27
No, my pleasure. My pleasure.

Alyson Lex 3:30
All right, so tell me why someone should appear as a guest on a podcast.

Brent Basham 3:36
You know, you guys really nailed it at the beginning with some of those reasons, but I think there's a few reasons. One of the biggest ones though, is increasing your know like and trust factor. And this is really critical in the world. Now the long tail I think, I tried to look up the most recent statistics all I could find is 2018, but 1.6 plus million self published books from 2016 or 2018. Right, and I'm sure that number grew a lot from there. And you know, you got how many over a million podcasts, you've got a gazillion blogs out there. And everybody on social media is all trying to scream about their thing. So we're trying to find a path to connect with people and get them to know about us and maybe dig a little deeper. And I think podcasting is an excellent vehicle for that.

Alyson Lex 4:21
Agree. Yeah, totally. And I started this whole journey as a guest on a ton of podcast, I built some really great relationships, got leads, like everything that you're saying, it's a really great way to just continue to get known and get your name out there.

Jennie Wright 4:38
I know for a fact that Alison appeared on a podcast a couple of years ago, and has gotten clients from AdSense because people are going back and listening to the episodes. And, you know, we created and launched this podcast July 9 of this year, which is really exciting. And yeah, it's kind of scary slash fun slash xiety. But it was really, really good. And what I'd love to ask you about is some of the understated benefits that someone could get not only from being a guest, but also being a host.

Brent Basham 5:11
I, you know, I think both of those can help you establish credibility for one, and I don't think people realize just how much because when you have a platform, like so, from the podcaster side, you're gonna be able to get access to people that you wouldn't normally have access to. And the reason is, there's a perception of credibility deserved or not. I mean, we had a show that was called Digital dads, and we access some really high profile authors. And they came on and I mean, I played the dad card, but I wouldn't have had access to them and they wouldn't have seen the credibility. Now. We took the show seriously, even though we did a lot of joking around. It was highly produced, it was polished. So it was good. And we did take it seriously. But that's like a it's like an audio calling card in a way. It's like, Hey, I have this podcast like, Oh, well, you're serious about what you do. I think that that opens doors that might not otherwise be open. From the guests, I too if you see I recently came across somebody today In fact, who's done over like 160 episodes up guesting episodes to promote a book when I say that to you, right one well what incredible discipline but an effort right? But to you know you immediately it brings to mind that she has credibility that she is a pro and all I did is tell you a number all I didn't tell you quality. I didn't tell you downloads of those shows that until I didn't tell you anything other than she's been on X number of shows. myself, I've been on just through pottered. I've been on close to 20 shows now, and that it implies credibility. So it's a big thing. Another thing it does is when you go on Google and you search and that's going to help you show up more because you're going to get backlinks. So typically, podcast hosts will put you on their website and link back to their show. particularly useful in like if you ever interview people in like.edu or domains or some of these domains are higher rank, you can kind of game that a little bit depending on your show. If it fits, we interviewed a pediatric emergency room pediatrician. And she was doing summer safety tips, unfortunately for some of the things she saw, but she was she came on our show for that. Well, her domain and the hospital carried a lot of weight with Google. So it helps like all that stuff helps. We got recognized by Apple. Next thing you know, we're in their parenting category. And so these little things over time can really start to add up for your business, but it is important understand it's a marathon and not a sprint. You know, these are things you do regularly build them into your routine. And it's just, it's a powerful way. I would argue a lot more a lot more useful than just shouting on social media every day.

Jennie Wright 7:41
Oh, yeah. I can attest to that. Allison has been preaching about me getting on podcasts and being a guest. For aeons. Yes, years. I finally listened to her and I did it in 28 2019 and also obviously in 2020. And it has a transformational effect. It absolutely does. It's definitely given me more credibility. I've had more people. I even had some guy who was like, yeah, have you ever heard of Jennie Wright? blissfield? queen? And I'm like, What? Like I got mentioned, because I've been on podcasts. I got mentioned on somebody else's podcast. I wasn't even a guest on Yeah, I was like, What is this? This is crazy. It's really, really cool. So it has like this. It has a little bit of a domino effect. Mm hmm. And I think it's fabulous. And I'm a big purveyor of being an expert. Like I've been, you know, I'm the summit person. I've done over 260, almost 265 summits. And I love the expert side of things. But what I, what I find with podcasts, which is different than summits is it has a little bit more longevity. Mm hmm. And so I'm finding that incredibly attractive, I find that really intriguing. But you can do with these things. And they last long.

Brent Basham 8:48
Yeah. And it's even getting better as Google gets better at, you know, transcribing. I hate to use that word. But as they start to unpack these podcasts into their search algorithms, that's probably going to start to surface itself. Even more through Google search, right people will find and I think they're showing now a podcast. So those older episodes that you did, if it's relevant, it's just like an old blog article, it's starting to be really helpful for you in the long run. So you said something key there to their journey about your brand, or people knowing us a thing. I think that's pretty important. Don't just get all scattered, you kind of want to have your brand nailed down before you go starting down this road. Because otherwise you might be wasting valuable effort, you know, because people don't really have a way to reference you as the list bill queen or you know, whatever that product guy or whatever your thing is. People kind of need to know that so it's easy. You live in a world of sound bites, unfortunately. And yeah, if they can't remember some, you know, 15 or domain name, good luck. That's a

Alyson Lex 9:44
good tip. Love that. Okay, so we talked a lot about the really great things and I could keep going about how I've landed, you know, multi five figure clients from a podcast interview kind of thing. But let's get realistic. What kind of results can we realistically expect when we're starting out as a podcast guest or host?

Brent Basham 10:06
So as a guest, I think you have to understand that quality shows, probably you're being pitched. And there's a lot of competition. Right? That's the reality. So how are you going to stand out to them? One thing you want to definitely do is make sure you listen to the show. Make sure the audience's are alignment and and really think in terms of what kind of value Am I gonna bring to your audience, right? Put yourself in their shoes. If your podcast shows, it's kind of easy, because you are you are in that seat. But sometimes we don't switch hats. When we're pitching. We're just so eager to like unload this lat TLDR thing of like, why I'm so awesome. And here's my thing, and here's everything, and they don't really care, they care about what they care about. Right? And we're like, why aren't they and you guys do a lot with headlines in this. It's not so dissimilar. That pitch needs to be pretty succinct. I mean, you're really trying to get them interested enough to say that might be a good fit for my show. If they open that email or whatever the path is, and it's super long. The probably just not gonna read. It's just the truth of it. You know,

Alyson Lex 11:03
I, one of my favorite things to do is and it's worked really well, especially recently is referenced the fact that I have a podcast. And so I understand the production side, which means I make a great guest. I know what a good mic takes I know all the different software I know and understand about production. I'm here to make it easy on you, what do you need? And I did that before, but I couldn't say I understand it from the other side of the mic. And it really I've been landing them much faster now.

Brent Basham 11:33
Yeah, I think if you you want to lead with I've seen it both ways and some various templates and be careful with a template. I think using a template for a pitch is good if you use it as like a loose outline and sort of like blocky block a block b block c rather than like, here's my exact script I use every time because that comes off inauthentic even if you wrote it, in my experience, but so if you if you lead with hey, here's what I like about your thing, like get them hooked on the fact that you pay attention and make them feel important in that First little block, and then the next block, given some credibility, and then in the next block, just give them hey, here's what I'm thinking what are your thoughts are kind of a thing and try to establish dialogue, don't try to close the deal in that first, you know, go or you're gonna probably find them being reluctant. And also know that depending on where you're going, and one of the things about pitch of our platform, but one of the things about our platform is why we wanted to have podcasts in there is, you know, those podcasts are looking for guests. And so, you may not you're gonna have to do some due diligence on this stuff. If you're outside you don't you know, there's all kinds of ways to look for podcasts. But number one is do they take guests number two is are they currently backlogged on guests like are they on hiatus, so do a little effort and know that you're in a highly competitive situation? So that means your success rate is probably on a good rate is going to be 20 25%. Maybe the better a lot, you can skew that depending on your due diligence and alignment and all that kind of thing, but expect to get told no or get ghosted, and as long as you have that expectation from the outset. I don't You'd be disappointed, but the worst thing you could do is get in there with overzealous expectations. And then you know, next thing, you know, you're like, Oh, this doesn't work. And then you go away, and you miss out on a really huge opportunity. Because all you do is just stick with it.

Jennie Wright 13:12
It takes time. It takes time. And that's a really good segue into what I want to ask you about, which is, and we're learning this, Allison and I are learning this as we bring on guests into the podcast where we're seeing that this is a process. But what makes a good podcast guest

Brent Basham 13:28
You know, I think that's a really subjective answer, because it depends on your show. And I know that sort of like passing the buck a little bit, but on my show digital dads, we wanted people with expertise, but we were a very for better or worse personality based show. So we our best episodes, in my opinion, were the ones where the guest was very playful, would go off the cuff. And and that was just our style our show now for some show about you know, getting your medical degree or something like that. Maybe that's not the best fit it needs a more serious tone into the guests may need to be more serious, a little heavier on credentials, maybe, you know. So it's really dependent I think, definitely though there's a couple things you can do definitely be professional show up when you're gonna show up, give them common courtesy be surprised how many times that's just out the window when people treat it. Like, it's just a podcast, I think is the mentality, unfortunately. And you know, that damages relationships, the direct relationship, also any potential referral relationships podcasters know each other. So, it's just bad practice. I mean, this is, I shouldn't even have to give these tips. It's like common sense in my mind, but

Jennie Wright 14:37
it is, but

Brent Basham 14:38
it happens. It happens and it'll happen to you guys. You'll get no showed by guests and things like that. And then it's just like, you don't even have the common courtesy respect to like, tell somebody, you're not gonna be able to make it or I have had situation where somebody had a legitimate thing come up, and then they apologize afterward. But it's just common decency and respect for another human being that's taking the time to let you be on their platform.

Jennie Wright 14:58
Absolutely. We've had that. You know, we've had a We've had some interesting because we do a 15 minute call prior to sort of just get to know the person a little bit more we already know them usually, but to get to know them better and also we we check, we check mic, we check light, we check sound, we check video, we check internet, you know, we've even had guests who were like, okay, so your audio only because their internet connection is just such that, you know that it's not conducive to doing video, there's there's a delay and things like that. So we know we kind of look at these things. And again, we definitely want to have those calls. Sometimes somebody looks amazing on paper. And then when you get on with them, you're just like, oh, okay, this is not in alignment with our core values or whatever the case is. We've had that happen as well. So there's, you know, there's there's a lot to be said about being a good guest. Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure.

Brent Basham 15:51
And you can try to be really flexible too, because a lot of podcasts have their own way of doing things their own technology that they use, etc, etc. And some person analogy types aren't predisposed to being kind of flexible. So bring that to the table and just have fun and don't you know, take it serious, but don't take it too serious where you're like, you know, rigid and causing a problem because, again, I don't feel like you should have to say all this stuff, but you do.

Alyson Lex 16:16
You do. I have found as a guest, the hosts that I work with really appreciate it when I'm like, it's go, dude, I'm, I'm here for you. Like, we got this, we'll do this together. And just really coming at it from that, like you said, flexible team kind of attitude, I find that the hosts really appreciate that. And I think as a host, I appreciate that now, too.

Brent Basham 16:41
Yeah, well, not everybody does it. And I think we don't always realize or pay attention to the fact that a lot of these hosts are a little nervous. They take their show seriously. They want to make a good quality thing. And so they're under pressure. And so when things start going a little wrong for them, and they've got a guest that they really are excited about. Yeah, I mean, that could be a tough situation for them. So be able to add that kind of attitude. Allison is fantastic. I think it goes a long way for people.

Alyson Lex 17:05
Absolutely. Okay. What you actually mentioned one thing earlier about this, as far as kind of going and being all over the place with the shows that you appear on, what else Shouldn't you do when you're a guest on a podcast? I

Brent Basham 17:20
think the number one thing you shouldn't do is oversell. And so what I mean by that is don't just spam your link every few minutes. And I'm having to pull myself back a few times, only because there's things we're trying to build into the platform that are relevant to the conversation. But I'm doing that because I know that that comes off wrong and it doesn't help you it doesn't help as a hose. It doesn't help your audience. It doesn't help communicate the material. So you got to be really careful. We had a guest one time on our old show, and I mean, every couple of minutes, she was dropping her website link and it was very much like and you could go to and she even put the www every every time and it was like and the unfortunate part of it was She was a really engaging personality. It was really fun. Everything else was great. It would and it still was okay. It was like really borderline but it just took away It took us out of the conversation, it moved it toward his just sell and it's like, Okay, get people to know you first and get people to like you. And then they'll go to your website at the end, but let them listen to a conversation first 80% of them are going to listen to like the whole show. give them that opportunity to see what you're all about. And then they're gonna be like hooked in, you're gonna have to hard sell on your website every few minutes. This isn't Facebook, you know, they're not gonna click away. So I think I think her background in terms of her experiences with other media maybe have influenced that a little bit and was a great lady. I mean, it pains me even mentioned it but it really came off bad to us as hosts. And we had a couple of our listeners mentioned it too. So yeah, don't do that. Definitely don't do that. They're most almost all the time. Every show I've ever been on, ends along the lines of, okay, people want to learn more in some kind of way, right or it's in the show. notes or something, they'll give you an opportunity to share your thing. And it's organic, and it fits the conversation and people have a way to go find you. And that's all you really need from the conversation.

Alyson Lex 19:10
One of the strategies that I use when I, it's not really even a strategy, I kind of do it naturally. But during the conversation, I will tell stories about, oh, when I was working for such and when I was working for this client, I did this or we did that. And I'm using these kind of as case studies, that gives me that whole, this is what I do. This is my business, but in a way that brings value to the host and the audience. So then, when they do get my link, they already have an idea, even a better idea of what they can expect when they get there. Now I actually don't even promote until the host prompts me to, you know, when it comes to your platform, you know, I'll mention it. It's potted. We love it. Go there. It's okay for me to do it on the host.

Brent Basham 20:03
Well, you have a different relationship with your audience, right? And that's totally fine.

Jennie Wright 20:08
We're recommending we're recommending products and programs that we actually use. Yeah, on the podcast, things that we actually have employed to grow the business. And we can come from it from an authentic and transparent way. Like, it's not a Hey, you know, Brent, threw some money in our paypal account. So we would do this. It's not my case, right? It's this authentic thing where we've gone. Holy bleep bleep, this is really cool. And it's helped us. Therefore, let's get the let's get the founder on here. Let's have you know, let's let's talk about how this works. So we don't have a problem talking about it. Because there are no

Brent Basham 20:41
yeah, it's just something just more generally. Done. Right. It can be done the right way. Like Allison said, wouldn't you do it in context and it's supporting what you're talking about, it can be done the right way. You just want to be careful about like the constant link dropping you if you don't know, pull back from it, like if you don't have that skill, and you haven't exercised that a lot. And you haven't been on a lot of shows yet. Pull back on that part of it. You know, like what Alyson did was it built credibility because it said a little bit about what you did it was in the context of the question that like, Oh, that's fine. I don't think it is, right. But it can be done poorly. And when it's done poorly, it comes off spammy. So to be really careful, and that turns people off. So no, they don't trust you, which is not what you want.

Jennie Wright 21:21
Yeah, we've um, and we've also known I listen to podcasts a lot we both experienced hearing and these are the kind of things that freak us out a little bit is when the guest tries to take over the the show, you know, and and tries to sort of like run the show and takes it off in a direction so usually, like a host might either have some questions or it's a conversation, but we've seen it happen and you know, we've because we listen to sort of the same podcast we're like, Did you hear that one? You know, that person took over and or they they even talk over the host or things like that. You know, we've seen stuff like ghosting on promo Hmm, I would never do that. It's If there's a reason I can't promote I will tell the host something's up here. I mean, but ghosting on promo that's like a it's another one. And then I think you kind of touched on this, but like the constant name dropping. Yeah, that's another one. Yeah. You know, and using first name only, let's just be like, let's just, oh, when I, you know, the first name and your you expected to be talking about,

Brent Basham 22:20
right? Or the the humblebrag sort of thing. Yeah, I was any sort of sneak in the name. But it's like, yeah, you're sort of telling a story, but it's kind of really just to name drop.

Jennie Wright 22:32
Add that credibility.

Alyson Lex 22:33
And I will say, go ahead. We just totally spoke over each other. And that's one of your pet peeves. It is. I will say I name drop when I talk about my story, but I admit that I mean,

Brent Basham 22:44
yeah, I mean, it's a joke, right? I mean, like my co host, and I talked over each other all the time, because, you know, we both wanted to podcast because we like to talk so I don't know, I'm talking about all this stuff, and I'm probably guilty of 99% of it. So

Brent Basham 23:01
learn as we go.

Jennie Wright 23:02
Right? So how do you find like as a guest? How do you find the right? podcast to be a guest on how to other than the obvious go to pot it, take a look at it. And yeah, obviously do that, what is the process that you would recommend, so that you can pitch to the right podcasts.

Brent Basham 23:20
So I found a really good tip today and I'm looking down at my notes because I want to make sure I give her credit. So this Dorie Clark, she wrote this book stand out, it's got a new book out now I forget the title of it. She says to find your media doppelganger. And I actually really love this. So the idea is that you find somebody that's sort of in the same category as you. That's and you go to their website and you look at their list of podcasts that they've been on. And you go to those shows, because a lot of them obviously are in that same vein of what you might be in right and they're obviously looking for guests and you're so the doppelganger is in the same peer level, all those kinds of things. So it checks a lot of the boxes for you. And then you can also go on Something called listeners and you could look them up to see a bunch of their older ones. And maybe you want to have a different angle on something or whatever else. But that's a really cool way of doing it. Listen to us in general, I think you can search by topic. And on our platform, you can search by category, you can go down the rabbit hole of topics. It's tricky when you go on iTunes and just sort of start looking because you can narrow it down but then you got to figure out you got to do a lot of listening, which is time consuming. It is because they don't always mention the guests in the title. You can't necessarily rely on that. Like they even had that they had to guess it. I don't know there's ways to shortcut it but it's it's just expect some effort for that for that part. But I do love the media doppelganger idea as a way to kind of maybe shortcut that if there's if there's people in your industry that are similar to you, you might be able to kind of put a list together, but you guys probably do this you have. You're going to end up having like a list of podcasts that you want to be on and you have to follow up and CRM you kind of need to treat it like it's sales in a way, like you need to have a list of things. Otherwise you're gonna get sort of, if you treat it haphazardly, those are the kind of results you're gonna get. So, if you treat it more methodically, and as you know and and and it could be blocked off time, too, right? So I don't want to make this like this big huge mountain it is you taking a step, a day, a step, a day, a step a day. And you're gonna look back in a couple months, you're gonna have for a 10 different interviews that you have now links to you. I mean, all the benefits of it, but it's gonna happen one day at a time.

Alyson Lex 25:28
I had, I have a whole organization, I have a spreadsheet. If you've hung out with me for more than five minutes, you know, I'm a spreadsheet junkie. I love them. She made one this morning. And they won this morning. I said, I was like I made a spreadsheet. But I have a spreadsheet and it's all of my podcast research and I actually hired a VA to do a lot of research and filling in for me some basic information. Is it a live show? Because it's still being produced? That's been the biggest thing is finding dead shows. Do Take asks, What's their contact information? What's their website, I can do my research Give me that Apple link I can listen to. I love the media doppelganger thing. One of the other ways that you can do it is just go to Spotify and search their name. And it'll pull up all the episodes that they've been on that are in Spotify, I think you can do the same thing in Apple. And so you might if you don't have listened notes or have access to it, which we'll put it in the resources. And, but that that's just another quick way to do it. And love that. I'm going to use that right now. She's right in the minutes.

Brent Basham 26:36
I'm gonna use it to Well, again, it wasn't my idea, but it's, I love you,

Alyson Lex 26:39
you are the perfect You are the messenger and I love it.

Jennie Wright 26:44
I have a question that I want to ask and I just thought of it. So what what do you think of hiring somebody, an agency or a person to do the pitching for you?

Brent Basham 26:56
So I'm a big fan of in this is budget dependent Right, but living within your strengths as much as you possibly can, because there's opportunity cost. And and so if it's reasonable for you to be able to do that and pay for that, and it's and it's a repetitive task that someone else could do, and you could say, if it's worth it to you to spend that time elsewhere, I would absolutely spend that time elsewhere. You know, I don't, it's just you got to be careful, though, because you need the right person and a longer term. Well, you'd be surprised. PR people are some of the worst pitching people out there. They are. I mean, sorry, anybody lives it's the truth. And I hope you take this seriously and try to get better at it because they don't even necessarily know if you're in the same category or not. They're just very, it's to the point of I said, you know, do all this due diligence and all that. They, I guess, have the opinion that if they just do a shotgun approach and really go out to as many they don't care what bridges they burn, it's not them personally. And again, this I'm speaking in generalizations, but everybody's this way. But if you're going to go that road Make sure you get somebody that understands what you're about and represent you well.

Alyson Lex 28:05
You know, it's pretty important. We had we had a PR person reach out to us and literally their pitch was I have a client that would be a good fit. Email me if you want more. What's your clients name? What are they talking about? wouldn't tell us wouldn't tell us would not tell us her clients name Nope.

Brent Basham 28:24
And I don't know how they stay doing what they do no idea

Alyson Lex 28:28
and would not let us she was like oh no, my client doesn't do the 15 minute get to know you call I'm like then I can't do this. No, no know who they are. Yeah,

Jennie Wright 28:37
we're not gonna we're not gonna book a podcast and then have this you know, whoever they are. Just show up.

Brent Basham 28:45
I can roll the dice right and yeah, it's good. Maybe you don't even know it is.

Jennie Wright 28:51
I'm a little bit more risk adverse. Yeah, in that particular aspect. So it was it as they say on you know, the TV It was a no for me.

Brent Basham 28:59
Yeah. Well, it'd be different if there weren't a sea of other options out there for you, right? I mean, they they act like they're the only game in town and there's so many quality people out there that you can always find guests for your show. You know, you have what if you do a weekly show, you have 52 slots in a year. You get any kind of you know, depths are tied behind your belt, you'll have people that many coming to you in a week trying to be on your show. So yeah, it's those game.

Jennie Wright 29:26
Elson did a post in a group, how many did we get 38 or something like that? And out of that, I think we pulled for four

Brent Basham 29:37
illustrates the point so you can be selected as the podcaster

Alyson Lex 29:40
and we're brand new. We're not even not like in a super in demand podcast yet yet. We're gonna get there. But that

Brent Basham 29:48
Yeah. But it's just there's so many people in the long tail and they're all so desperate to get their word out. You know?

Alyson Lex 29:55
So you mentioned other options, you happen to have another option. This is where I'm inviting you to spam your platform your link, tell us all about pot it. What is the inspiration behind it? What makes it different? Why should everybody get on it other than the fact that Jennie and Alyson say? So

Brent Basham 30:16
I think that's a great reason. I think he just sold it for me. Now your audience trust you, I think that well, so I should back up and say, you know, digital dads, I mentioned that show I did that for in 2014. We did that for about three years. And part of the reason not the entire reason a part of the reason we stopped doing that was because the effort in sourcing and coordinating with these quality guests, which became a big part of our show, and we brought a lot of value. So we love doing those. We love the output of that. But there was a lot of time and effort put into that. And so pot It was created a bit later with my co hosts from that podcast, when we realized that, you know, this still hasn't really been solved, the way we think it should be solved. We're computer science guys, and we're just like, this is where our brains just wake us up. 3d is to solve problems this way it is. If you know coders, that's what happens. But but so we were just really frustrated by the fact that it took our voice out of the world and took I mean, my kids were on my show this was really near and dear to my heart. We had guys emailing us no joke from the delivery room telling us that our podcasts not us, because we had experts, not us. But our podcasts, it made them feel better equipped to be a dad, you know, and that was a season in my life. My kids have grown a little bit more to but the point is that's gone now. And so we're maybe cheesy really optimistic that this platform can help make all of that process easier for people in the long run and save them time and keep them podcasting and keep their voices in the world. And they can keep doing what they love because saves them some time and effort.

Jennie Wright 31:46
It does. It absolutely does. Because the effort and Allison I have had a couple of rollercoaster moments in the creation of the podcast First of all, from my partner saying it was a good idea to launch was a month And crazy us. And then we had the rollercoaster of getting all that done and Alison building the website, which she doesn't want people to know. But she made an amazing website. And everyone, I just told everybody, and you know, all the things that went into building it, to then launching it and going, like, wow, okay, that was a lot of effort, and no expectation that it was going to take off and go viral, but somebody was gonna listen to it, right? Mm hmm. You know, and then there's the well, what were my expectations? And why isn't it the number one podcast on iTunes or all these different kinds of things, then you have to realize that the effort that goes into creating it and the back end of it, the forms, the emails, the you know, the scheduling links, the editing, the social posts, the scheduling of the social posts, all of those things that go into making this all come about once a week where you drop it, and you're like, Okay, I just spent 10 hours or whatever the The amount of time doing it, what's the, you know? what's the what's the good? What's the thing that's going to make it feel like I got something from it. And we've had those stressors, I will say that pot, it helps with a very, very, very tight part of what that is very clear distinct Nish of what that is, which is finding quality guests and finding quality experts and also putting our podcast up there. And it helps us because people are like, Oh, so you have, like you were talking about earlier? Oh, you have a podcast. Okay. Would you like to be a guest on mine? And we've had that happen now. So it has, like, do know that it does help? Because as a brand new podcast. That's one thing that it can be taken off our shoulders a little bit. Mm hmm.

Alyson Lex 33:46
And that helps a lot.

Brent Basham 33:48
Yeah, it's encouraging to hear I mean, we have booked over 1300 interviews already, which kind of blows my mind. I'm really proud of that. The reason why I'm proud of that is because the site in my mind is complete. pletely incomplete right now. Yeah, just tell you it's, it's two directories, you can connect with each other. That's all great. It's a shell of what we're making. And so for it to actually be resonating the way it is now is incredibly current encouraging for what we're working on between now in the end of the year, largely, there's this unified inbox, which basically we're going to have states where you move through and say, I'm interested now this has been recorded, it's been scheduled. And if we know all those states, we can hook things into it later. Because we know you're about to schedule, we know you're going to record or we know you did record and so now Hey, you want to give a testimonial Hey, the episodes out, do you want to add it to your page, like there's all these little things that can be so we're playing a framework, and then we're putting this sort of feed, front and center everybody go and that's where all the opportunities are. And so people don't just get lost in the backlog of all these profiles. So really, the core of the site changes to The feed and the inbox versus these two static directories. And so the directors are still there, they still are hugely important the vetting process, and they back up those other pieces, but the entire site is going to be different.

Jennie Wright 35:14
I love it. I'm looking forward to those updates, though. Yeah, it was a really, really good. Okay, so if we want to find you, where can we find you? I'll tell you right now that also and I will tell you to go to System to thrive.com for slash pot it to go and check out pot it but where else can people find you?

Brent Basham 35:32
Yeah, do that for sure. Cuz you can get a free account. So definitely do that. And then probably on Twitter, I'm at Brent bash, or at get pot at whichever one I'm pretty engaging in Facebook group. We have a pretty thriving Facebook group. People are pretty engaged in there. And a lot of connections happen in there too. Because right now we don't actually have PR built into the system, which is some we're going to eventually build. But for right now we bring those people in because our ultimate goal is just to help facilitate people making connections for podcast, so If you go in the group, and it happens in the group, great, like that's our goal help you make connections or podcasts. So I would say go there because you're gonna find opportunities there too. And you can just go to slash group slash pot it, I think, or just search for it. And yeah, and engage with me personally, I'm happy to help you ever again.

Alyson Lex 36:16
Mm hmm. Well, and earlier, we talked about our podcast launch day, which was July 9, and I think that was your new podcast launch day two. Was it close to it?

Brent Basham 36:25
close to it? Yeah. Yeah, it's so that's, it's called longtail success. It's really just about trying to help get more people to know like and trust you. It's more a labor of love and more. I want to drink the Kool Aid or I want to eat the dog food, I guess is the better term. I want to eat the dog food right? Because I'm in pot it and I would used to be a podcaster. But I kind of want to put that hat back on and we'll see if I stick with the every week schedule. I don't know. But I want to keep that hat on because it helps me be in the loop with what is this process going to look like? As Annie already has With like, accepting guest requests, so I'm in the platform doing it for real. And so once we get to those parts with like scheduling, and all these other kinds of things, which we actually want to build in natively at some point, but when we get it, all those things, that's going to be really helpful for me to have my own pocket. So you can certainly go listen to it, but it's kind of more for me. But he certainly listened to it. And I've had some really you guys have both been guests. And so the ones release ones coming up. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely a lot of great people there. But yeah, I just do it for selfish reasons.

Alyson Lex 37:29
Well, I love that I think that's actually a really great differentiator for pata is, you are still you were in the world you in the world this is this is not just a cash grab for you. That really struck me when you talked about the inspiration behind it. And that's what we're all about here is making the world a better place. Really serving our clients in a big way, and making a business out of it. And I think that's what you've done and I can't thank you enough for being here to share all of this information with us and You know, I'll see you in the Facebook group,

Brent Basham 38:02
for sure for sure. Thank you guys so much. This has been fun.

Jennie Wright 38:05
Thank you. So thanks for listening, everybody. And we'll be back next time answering another big question. Thanks again for watching or listening to this podcast. We hope we've answered some of your big questions today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast anywhere you're listening and leave us a review.

Alyson Lex 38:22
Also, make sure you've checked out the thrive collaborative podcast community, our Facebook group for listeners and entrepreneurs find us on Facebook or online at System to thrive.com