Podcast Your Way To Profits With Collin Mitchell

Wes Schaeffer:  Collin Mitchell. You say get shit done is right behind you, you better bring in. Are you ready for The Sales Podcast, man?

Collin Mitchell:  Dude, I stay ready so I don't have to get ready. Don't you know who I am?

Wes Schaeffer:  Don't you know who I am? All the way from El Segundo, man. You need to come see me in Temecula. Welcome to The Sales Podcast, dude. How the heck are you?

Collin Mitchell:  I'm doing fantastic, Wes. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm super pumped. I know we're going to have a lot of fun. I don't even know what we're going to talk about, but it's going to be great.

Wes Schaeffer:  You know what? That makes two of us, man. 

Collin Mitchell:  One of us better figure it out. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  Just kind of go with the flow. So you're some crazy dude. A, you live in California; B, you live in Southern California; C, you live in El Segundo, man. During COVID, you launch a business. Should I call you a doctor or are you like crazy like a fox?

Collin Mitchell:  Probably more crazy like a fox because school is never really my thing. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  All right. All right. Sounds good. But I mean, maybe we need a physician for you. Maybe you're not quite right in the head. You know what I'm saying?

Collin Mitchell:  That the jury's still not out on that one.

Wes Schaeffer:  [chuckles] So during COVID, you launch a podcast business. What the heck compelled that?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. With a lot of things that I've done, they just sort of happen organically without much of a plan and see if there's a need. And I love the early startup hustle grind-figure things out as you're taking off part of entrepreneurship. And then when things get sort of good, I get kind of bored. [chuckles] 

And so it all started -- I went on -- my co-founder, Christopher Decker, I went on his show for the first time. Nobody had ever asked me to be on a podcast before. And of course, I felt honored and was like, who, me? And went on his show; had a great experience. It was actually in studio when people were actually seeing each other in person and doing that sort of thing, where now everything you do is virtual these days for the most part. 

But yeah, I was in studio. I had a great experience and I said, hey, I think I might need to start one of these things; how do I do it? And he said, it's very simple. You can interview whoever you want and I'll take care of the rest. And he was just really starting getting it's getting started in content and he had a couple of shows that he was managing.

And somebody who is a very successful podcaster who came along and said you have to release 20 episodes daily and then you'll get listed in the new noteworthy section of of Apple and you'll get a bunch of followers, and it sounded like it made sense. So I recorded 20 episodes, even though I had planned to only do maybe one or two a month, which is definitely what you should not do if you're thinking about starting a podcast. 

I don't think it helped us pick up any extra followers -- I don't know if it did, but what it did is it got me in that frequency and I went on this process and path of interviewing 150-plus entrepreneurs and founders in a short period of time. We're doing a show five days a week and we created a product and a process out of that and said, hey, I think there's more people that would like this. And there was, and then we really started just managing shows and have really focused on B2B shows. And it's a great tool. I love everything about podcasting because the single activity can accomplish so many different things and maybe we'll get into that.

Wes Schaeffer:  So what were you saying -- 20 a day? Are you talking about 20 on day one?

Collin Mitchell:  No. So he had suggested record 20 and then release them daily, and that was supposed to, I don't know, trick the Apple.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. The advice used to be you launch with three right on day one. You launch with zero actually -- number zero as your introduction because people listen  that and then right then three episodes, so technically four, and then one a day for a week and then you can get into whatever your frequency will be. But, yeah, even if you do that and then go to one a week there's eight or nine roughly you got to have to front-end load up your first month. 

I don't know. That probably isn't bad advice to get you going, but, yeah, most people, they can't keep it up.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. I mean, you see most podcasts drop off at about eight to 10 episodes and then you see that they haven't released for months or years or however long. You see a podcast that has eight to 10 -- hasn't released anything new in a while. It's like the podcast graveyard.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. So you see this, it nudges you. I mean, why did you think you wanted to do it? I mean, was it something new? It was a challenge? You see is a long-term vision for the podcast space? 

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. So there's a lot of things. So something interesting happened when -- you releasee a show and you start putting out more content and more people start to ask you on their show. And I went on a show and I was excited to go on a show is most people are especially if you haven't been on a lot of shows at that point. I hadn't been on a lot of shows. 

And an interesting thing happened. It was the worst experience I'd ever had going on a show. And it was like a 15-minute show. We hopped on for the first time, never spoke before, and it was clear that he didn't know much about me, which -- that's nothing wrong with that.

Wes Schaeffer:  You're not talking about this right now, are you?

Collin Mitchell:  [laughs] No, no, no.

Wes Schaeffer:  That's going to be really awkward. Good thing I'm not live streaming. [chuckles]

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just in case you don't release it, I've got my AI bot listening, so we'll put it out there.

Wes Schaeffer:  [chuckle] All right. I guess I got to publish this. All right. Continue.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. So anyway, here's what happened. We hopped on. He says, here's the questions I'm going to ask you. And he wanted my answers and I gave my answers. And then he kind of suggested a little bit of a different answer on one; I'm like, okay, that's kind of weird, but I'm just going to go with it here; this is his show, his format. And then so we went on really quick and it was like 10 minutes. And then immediately after the show, he tried to sell me some high-ticket consulting to launch a show. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  Hey, when we're done -- when we're done, I'm not recording and your eyes turned off, I need to compare notes because I might know who you're talking about.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. And it really kind of pissed me off, but hey, that's his hustle, and it's clearly working or he wouldn't maybe still be doing it. It pissed me off but then it got me thinking. And I'm like, it's actually a really -- are we allowed to curse here? 

Wes Schaeffer:  Sure. I started with "get shit done." 

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, yeah, I know, but I didn't know if F-bombs were allowed. They're required on my show, just so you know. I had a past rabbi on last week and I really tried to get them to drop an F bomb, but I failed. [laughs] 

So it pissed me off and and I said it's actually a really good fucking idea; it's just extremely poor execution. You know? The idea of having people on a show, creating content together, delivering a good experience -- in that case, it was a bad experience -- and being intentional about the types of people that you want to build relationships with and adding value in a meaningful way, it actually works when it's done properly and from a good place and not the way that I just described. 

So then that's when I was like, hey, I think we can do that but better for more people and they need it. And so our big goal is we want to work with the top 10 change makers globally and use the art of storytelling to connect more people and change the way B2B sales is done by people using a podcast to build relationships with people on a deep, meaningful way.

Wes Schaeffer:  Nice. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, podcasting, people think maybe it's peaked or something, but I mean, it's here to stay and it's only growing. I mean, you got Joe Rogan and somebody else I just was reading about, it was like a $60 million contract for three years -- a female.

Collin Mitchell:  Was it the Barstool one? 

Wes Schaeffer:  I don't know; just skimming on Twitter, saw it the other day. I'm like, man, $60 million for three years. That's legit. You know, people don't they don't trust mainstream media as much anymore, so being able to pick and choose -- it's like cable TV. You can pick your show. So same thing with podcasts and it's to stay, so jump on in.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. And there's way more demand in there is inventory because the top 10 to 20 percent of shows get 90 percent of the listenership. And yeah, there's a lot of podcasts but a lot of them are crap or a lot of them don't stick with it. So there's way more demand than there is inventory of good quality shows that stick around and everybody's getting into it. Netflix just poached the head of podcasts from Apple, hired their first head of podcast. Kajabi is offering subscription podcasts. You can listen to podcasts and there's audio rooms on Facebook now. It's like everybody, it's not too late to get in.

Wes Schaeffer:  So I want to get into some do's and don'ts of that, but I want to go back a little bit and go through your story of how you started it, because there's always little gotchas, little subtleties; those big things that hit, you're like, oh, crap, I wish I'd known that before I started, you know? So can you kind of walk us through that? I mean, you're kind of a serial entrepreneur anyway, right? So did that help you or did you have too many irons in the fire and that actually hurt you?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. I mean, having working on too many things at once -- you know, it's nice to have your income diversified; have different revenue streams. Like, there's definitely benefits in that. But you're only one person, right? So you can be kind of good at a lot of things or you can be really great at whatever particular thing that you're more focused on, and I've definitely learned that the hard way. 

And with the podcast, it's just -- it's a lot of fun, like, the people that I get to work with. So maybe if you're somebody who's got a lot of different things that they're working on --what thing do you enjoy the most? And whatever that is, this isn't going to feel like work. You're not going to be as limited and you're probably going to take that a lot further.

Wes Schaeffer:  What if it's napping and Netflix?

Collin Mitchell:  Well, then you've got a bigger problem. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  All right. I was hoping maybe there was a way. Okay. 

So you have to kind of narrow your focus, all right. So you're invited on this show; you your eyes are open; you see the vision; the clouds part; a dove descends. And what did you do?

Collin Mitchell:  I went back to my co-founder, Chris, and I told him about this whole experience and I said exactly what I mentioned. I said, it's a fucking good idea, but it needs to be done right, and there's a lot of people that need to have a podcast because it's going to it's a way of getting access to people. 

And this is the story that I like, or the example I like to give people. Let's say you have a hundred -- now, I'm not saying podcasting is going to be your only way of -- your silver bullet of hitting all your revenue goals and you don't ever have to pick up the phone again. No, that's not what I'm saying. But you still need to do your other activities, but podcasting can allow you to build deep, meaningful relationships with your dream clients, like whoever that is. Like, who's your top hundred? If I got these people as clients, it's a game changer for me. And those are the -- you can build a show around interviewing those types of people, and people remember -- they remember a little bit of what you say, maybe a little more of what you do.

But they really remember how you make them feel. And if you deliver a good experience where they're funny like you, ask good questions and it's clear they actually pay attention, or they're curious about learning about you and you deliver a great experience and then you continue to add value after the interview -- because that's where a lot of people fall short, is like, hey, thanks for coming on my show -- and I have I've been on a lot of shows and I would say probably 90 percent of the shows that I've been on, I've never heard from those guests again. They've never put me on an email list. They've never sent me a thank-you card. They've never asked me to collaborate. They've never done anything else after that. They got from me what they wanted, which was me to go on the show, and then they did nothing with that relationship, and what a waste. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. I hear you. So so you talk with your co-founder and you're like, all right, this is a good idea. Then what? How do you know where to host your show? Did you have the equipment that you needed? Did you buy a course? Did you hire a consultant to launch you?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. So Chris had a studio and had equipment and had a lot of experience with creating content, video and audio. And he's a very creative person, so that helped us significantly. Like, we didn't have to go try to figure all that stuff out. It was mainly just figuring out how can we put an offer together that's affordable for people, start to test that, and see how it goes. And also, eat our own cooking as well. So we manage almost 40 shows now, and every show that we manage somehow originally, the relationship either stemmed from somebody coming on my show, somebody going on his show, or somebody getting on one of our client shows -- or some second or third degree of a guest somehow, some way. So we know that it works. 

And then we basically teach our clients on how to not just start a podcast because it's fun and everybody else is doing it, but a podcast that actually drives revenue. And not the type of podcast that’s like, hey, we need to wait six to 12 months so you have the downloads to get some sponsors. Like, how can we build some relationships that are going to align and drive revenue for your business?

Wes Schaeffer:  So how did you figure that out? I mean, that's a fast turnaround. I mean, nine months, 40 shows in something that's new to you -- or are you just a fast learner? I mean, just burning the candle at both ends?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. So we learned a lot in that first show that I had, where I interviewed entrepreneurs and founders. And what we realized is this works really well for mostly B2B; B2C, not so much. It works really well with any sort of business or offer or professional services that that is highly driven by like a relationship-driven sales process. We know those things based on what we tried and tested and things like that. 

And then we sort of came up with three overarching high-level strategies of how do we drive revenue for our show, because we realized how do we not have a bunch of shows that then die after eight or 10 episodes, like a majority of shows that you see in the podcast inventory today? Well, it's got to be an activity that they enjoy and that is going to drive revenue or else they're not going to do it. And so there's the most -- my personal favorite, which is we structure our show around interviewing the types of people you want to do business with, or if you have a legit partner program and you have these sort of partners -- like an example there would be if you're a marketing agency that does SEO, but you don't build websites or you do paid traffic, but you don't do SEO or whatever the case is. There's other agencies that do similar work and you have the same customer profile. So those are great relationships. 

So you can have a show around building relationships and interviewing those types of people to then foster more partners or kind of the more long tail strategy, which is less adopted is who do your customers go out and interview? Those types of people, convert their followers to yours.

Wes Schaeffer:  I like it. So how do you find these people? Or do you find like a mediocre podcast and say, hey, we can make it better? Or do you find like a big agency and they don't have a podcast and try to sell them on letting you grow it for them?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. So we have in a few cases, we've taken shows where they've started the show. They maybe are tired of doing it themselves or they've taken it sort of as far as they could take it and want to go further and then we'll take the show over. So we have a few cases where that has happened. In most cases, we're launching the show for them and we've gotten good at targeting the types of people that we think should have a show. 

A lot of coaches, a lot of consultants, a lot of founders, entrepreneurs, founders of SAAS companies, authors, speakers -- like all of these types of people typically make great podcast hosts in a lot of cases. 

There's some other exceptions, too, but for the most part, those are the types of people that in in a lot of times when we do talk to them, they've usually been kicking around the idea of starting a show for a year or two and just haven't really gotten what they needed to get it started. And it's a pretty natural progression of a conversation of just getting one started. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. Have you had any duds?

Collin Mitchell:  [chuckles] Shows that, like, started and then stopped?

Wes Schaeffer:  Well, I mean, maybe a guy is a great consultant, but man, he's just not a great interviewer.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, so we coach around that too. So we have weekly coaching as well. And if somebody comes to us and they don't have a lot of experience speaking or on camera or interviewing people or going on podcasts, then we typically would recommend why don't you go guest on some shows and kind of find your voice, kind of see how that feels before fully taking the plunge of starting a show.

Wes Schaeffer:  Nice. Because I've been on some bad ones.

Collin Mitchell:  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Oh, man. Cool. Well, so you got 40 shows; are they all pretty much weekly?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, they're at least weekly. They're at least weekly or twice a week or three times a week or we have one show that's seven days a week. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Oh, wow. How do you determine the ideal frequency for a show?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. I mean, the frequency -- weekly is the minimum. Podcast listeners, they like consistency. So you can't release an episode on a Tuesday and then next week released on Friday and then not release for two weeks. Like, that's just a disaster, especially now because after a couple of weeks, the episodes actually stop downloading on your device, which is going to hurt your show. So we recommend everybody has at least a weekly frequency. 

And for some people, that might feel like a lot; like I'm just going to be in this hamster wheel of interviewing people all the time. And so you can -- a lot of people will batch record. So they might record one day out of the month or two days out of the month and then we release the show weekly ao it's not as maybe overwhelming. And then you can also do some things like if you're busy and you just didn't do your part to get a guest. you can do a solo episode or we could do a compilation or highlight reel from multiple episodes. There's lots of things we could do to, like, fill make sure we stay on that weekly frequency. 

But I like to put it this way. When somebody is like, oh, I don't know if I can do weekly. Well, it's like how many high quality sales conversations can you have? Oh, I can have five a day. Well, then you can at least have one a week as a podcast episode.

Wes Schaeffer:  Right. Yeah. That's what boggles my mind, is like I get to talk to cool people for free. And hell, I'm pitched, it's -- literally my inbox, at least 12, 15 a day, is either, hey, I got a great guest for your show, or can I write a blog post for your website? I'm like, holy crap. So in that regard, it does kind of turn me off lately. But obviously it means there's interest, if there's that many people out there pitching.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. Once your show's been around, you start to get on some of those lists that are floating out there, you start to build a bit of a listenership, yeah, your inbox is going to start to fill up with with those. And surprisingly, sometimes some are not bad, but there's a lot that are just horrible and are not even relevant or just -- it's like you're sending me the same piece of crap that everybody else is sending.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. And a lot of them they'll just have a -- I'm just on a list. I can tell they screen scraped me so I'll reply and say, yeah, I charge for this. And I always laugh like how offended some of them will get. And I'm like, wait a minute. 

Collin Mitchell:  I'll give you a trick on that. 

Wes Schaeffer:  You're charging $350 to $800 to just email blast, and everyone that says, yes, you get paid, but I can't get paid? I'm like, kiss my grits. [chuckles]

Collin Mitchell:  I'll give you a little secret there. So I also get tons of those just like yourself. And I also said, you know what, screw it. Hey, if they actually look like a good fit, then they can come on, but they got to pay. And so I did, hey, $500 to come on the show and I got zero conversions. It was like, shit.  

So then I changed the language and I said, hey, if you want to come on the show -- and I make sure I have someone on my team that looks, make sure they're a good fit, like, hey, is this somebody that we would maybe have on the show anyway? And if they say yes to that, then we reply and we say great, we get tons of emails just like this all the time. If you want to support the show, then write us a killer review and then send a donation based on what you can afford and we have a sliding scale. And that puppy converts.

Wes Schaeffer:  Nice. I like that.

Collin Mitchell:  Just changing the language. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. So what have you seen? Like, what's the average? Is at least $100

Collin Mitchell:  I would say the average is about -- so the minimum on our -- we have a sliding scale -- we'll say $150 to $500. And for whatever reason most people don't want to pay the least amount. 

Wes Schaeffer:  They don't want to be the cheap one. 

Collin Mitchell:  [chuckles] So most people come in around $200 to $300 as the average for a 30-minute episode with somebody I would interviewed anyway. But it's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of commitment to continuously having a show. And it's absolutely appropriate to ask somebody to support that if they want to come and reach your audience. And as long as they're a good fit, I think that's the thing that's essential. I wouldn't just have anybody on the show that could pay, because that would not end well and then we wouldn't have much of a show left.

Wes Schaeffer:  Right. I got to look into my merchant account, I don't know -- 

Collin Mitchell:  So you just use PayPal. PayPal.me, send them a PayPal.me link or whatever if you have a business PayPal, and then you just let them drop in whatever they want to do to support the show and it converts well. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah, I could do it. 

Collin Mitchell:  And that's an easy way for like early podcasters to at least -- the reason I do, because I could have sponsors, but I don't want to, but it's an easy way to just make some revenue on the show and especially for people just getting started. If somebody took the time to reach out to you and values coming on the show, they're more than happy to support it. 

And I'll give you another little trick there, too, is a lot of times people are reaching out on behalf of. So we sent a lot of those messages and a lot of them we just got crickets. I was like, hmm, I know the person is probably paying them to get them booked on the show, which is fine because we offer that service, too. And so they're probably not sharing that information with the person that wants to come on the show. So I just went on LinkedIn, found their email, and then we would reply that same reply and copy the person, and that increased the conversion as well.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah, I know. I feel bad when I'll get pitched by a firm but like I know the guy. I'm like, I don't want that dude to be charged, but, yeah, he is a good guy. I just -- I'm connected to a lot of people. It's not that I haven't wanted to have him on the show, just with thousands of connections -- whoever raises their hand. So I'll shoot him a note. And a lot of times it's like, yeah, well, that's fine. Just go through the agency and book. I'm like, okay, you don't have to but -- yeah. There's so many. That's crazy. But yeah, those are great tips.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. And also podcast swap is a great idea too, because every host knows the value of going on shows. And so if they have a show then if we look and they have a show and the show's decent, they will just say, hey, we'll do a swap; come on my show, you go on your show, because that's the -- any podcast you're getting started, that's the best activity to grow, is go on more shows -- really, regardless of the quality, even if it's a show that's just getting started. Because if you go there and you deliver a good message and you're interesting, good chance there's a chunk of them that are going to check your show out.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah, I don't think I've ever told anybody no. I've gotten on a few where I wish I had told them no. [chuckles]

Collin Mitchell:  Which is fine. Just don't promote the episode. Just bury it.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. But if somebody asks -- and I've been early. I've been like first 10 for many. Because I remember like when I got started -- it was so long ago, though, it was cool. I had access to some really great people early on because. I mean, this goes back to 2013, so I remember. And I'm not going to say, what are your downloads, make sure you are worthy of me. 

Like, send a calendar link and I will -- it may be a couple of weeks out. I will find time. I will make time. And I get a little miffed; some of these are too hard, right? You can go to some Web form, Gravity form, whatever; takes me 20 minutes to fill the damn thing out. It's like, come on, dude. I have bailed on some of those.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you have a show and you have a guest on board and you're asking them for their blood type and their Social Security and their political views, forget it. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Got better things to do, brother, and filling out your form ain't one of them.

Collin Mitchell:  Right. Yeah. I mean, we all get it. You need some basic information so that you can post the episode and have our headshot and bio -- and even the bio, man.  Sometimes people give us -- come in and give you a bio and it's like I'm taking two sentences of that and disregarding the rest. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. I've got -- I use this text expander. I've got a long bio and a short bio. And usually I just -- short one, like chop that up all you want. Like I don't care, man. If you're having me on the show, I do want to make it easy, but golly, you've got to make it easy for me as well. Needs to be a little a little quid pro quo there.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. And that's what I talked about earlier, is like if you're having these people on, you're trying to build a relationship, when you're trying to deliver a good experience and the experience starts like that, you're starting off on the wrong foot. Like, even just scheduling to come on your show needs to be simple and easy and professional.

Wes Schaeffer:  Right. Yep, amen. So what's your plan? You got 40; want to get to 100? You want to get to 1,000?

Collin Mitchell:  Hundred by the end of the year. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Cool. 

Collin Mitchell:  And I think we're on track to do that. We're also starting to do things like where we have a master class that we're doing for $100, give you a coupon code if any of your listeners want to join, where we're going to teach them pretty much everything we talked about -- the strategy, the resources, everything that they would need to get a show that drives revenue on their own if they didn't want to hire somebody like us. It's a three-hour session; tons of resources, and we're starting to do things like that. We're also coaching and mentoring with some startup communities and doing all kinds of stuff. And anybody who ever wants to start a show, we hop on a call and give them all our best ideas. Hey, if you were going to start a show, here's what we'd recommend. Here's what you should use. Here's what you should consider. Whether they decide to hire us or not doesn't really matter.

Wes Schaeffer:  So where are you now? Is that your own office or are you, like, in a Co-working space or -- where do you work out of?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. I work out of a Co-working space. And then my co-founder, he works over in Orange County where we have a studio. So we have some shows that interview people in-person there or virtually where they come into the studio. Occasionally we also saw that a lot of times when people were launching shows, it would tend to get dragged out. To launch a show was like a two- to four-week process. And we said that's not the experience people want. 

So we launched their show in a three-hour session in one day, which we call our podcast boot camp. So sometimes people will come in or fly in and do their boot camp there to launch their show. And it's basically we make all the decisions, come with an open mind and three or four people that you want to interview next, and that's it. And then by the end of it, know your host episode one; let's get on that weekly frequency from there.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. You got the Rode podcaster microphone. 

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, yeah. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Dude, I had it since '09. And I started -- I got some weird high-pitched tone and it made me crazy. And my son's an audio guy. He was troubleshooting stuff; I couldn't figure out. I bought this little blue Yeti for $60 used on eBay and it's been fantastic. And it hurt my soul, though, to get rid of that Rode podcaster. I loved that thing.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, I love -- it looks nice. I haven't had any problems with it. My co-founder has the blue Yeti on his desk and then we have the Shure mikes in the studio.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. And do headsets matter? Like, I've literally never worn a headset but I see more and more people using them.

Collin Mitchell:  It really depends on the room and like if sound is bouncing around a lot so, and how much -- so that, it's not necessary. So when we record podcasts, and majority of our clients, we record on a platform called Riverside.FM. And so that's recording the audio and the video locally and then rendering it up for higher quality at the end. And with that particular platform, it does matter a little more. If you have headphones, it actually asks you when you enter, like, do you have headphones or not, and makes a small adjustment based on how you answer that.

Wes Schaeffer:  I have noticed -- like, Zoom is good, but I'm wondering if it's time to upgrade because it seems like sometimes the guest might be a little hot and it seems like the video isn't as good.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. The video is not as good as like Riverside, and there's another one -- I think Squadcast does high-quality video now, but Riverside was the first one to do it, and it was a little bumpy at first when they first got started, to be honest. There were some glitches, and they've come a long way. It's a fantastic product now. And then Squadcast had always done higher-quality audio only, and then they rolled out video and we tested it right after they rolled out video and we had some hurdles. and we had a client that, like, had recorded a whole episode that couldn't be used. We're like, we're not going to recommend that one anymore for now. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah, interesting. You could cost me some money here, brother, but I think it's going to work out. I think it's going to be a good thing. We were meant to meet; you know that?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. I think you're coming on my show, too, right?

Wes Schaeffer:  [chuckles] Dude, it's going to melt your servers. Do you know who I am?

Collin Mitchell:  I don't know. Please tell me. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  [laughs] Yeah, I've taken some notes here, so that's cool. Yeah, I will -- I'll give them a try. 

So are you -- in your coaching, are you advising these folks, like helping them really monetize this? Because I know a lot of times people can just get caught up in their content, and they're passionate and knowledgeable about what they do; they don't think, oh, yeah, I need some kind of call to action on this episode. Like, how can somebody monetize what they're doing without sponsors?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of options. So our coaching calls have evolved into a lot of different things. We used to have more like, here's the topic, here's what we're going to teach everybody today; and then we just decided to increase the frequency and have it more open office hours like, hey what's top of mind, what's blocking you? How can we help? And it all kind of ties back to podcasting. 

But it also is weaves in with with their business goals very nicely because we really try to have the strategy of the podcast aligned with their business goals. And we've helped people -- we have clients that have sponsors. Their shows have gotten big enough where sponsors make sense and they're making revenue. We have other clients where they don't maybe have as big of the following in downloads, but they have a really niche audience and there's a lot of value in that, too. So, like, maybe a Patreon makes sense and they have people, hey, they want to support the cause or the mission or the you know, whatever you're doing that's making impact. 

Majority of our clients are really just using the podcast because it accomplishes so many things. They can interview somebody 30 or 45 minutes. They are building relationships with the people that they need to anyway for their business. They're creating impactful content for social media. So they're investing in their personal brand. They're also getting transcriptions, which they can turn into blogs and quotes and do all kinds of other things are getting the full video for YouTube. So different clients value different things. 

And then a simple thing you can do as well is I mentioned like, hey, when people reach out, charge them. That's an easy way to make some money. And then there's tons of affiliate things you can do, too. So you don't have to have an official sponsorship agreement with somebody who is paying you to run an ad or a commercial. But if there's a product you believe in that aligns with the type of listeners that you have, then you can go out there and find some things that you can start to recommend; or if there's things that you use in your business that you want other people to use, you can recommend them. And pretty much any SaaS product's got at least a decent affiliate program, and they're happy to let you promote their stuff and drop a link. And if your listeners -- listeners are pretty loyal people that want to support people if you're providing value. You know, they're happy to sign up that way through something that you recommended.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah, yeah. That's cool and I do that. Like, oh, I'll do an intro and outro and plug a program or like a CRM selection tool and it's driving traffic for me there. I transcribe it. I'll use the video to get a little extra SEO juice, drop it on all the regular social media platform. 

It was cool. Friend of mine months ago, she was in a rental car with, I think, CarPlay and stumbled across my podcast and she took a picture -- her husband was driving. "Look what I just found." It was pretty cool, you know? You've got to be everywhere.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. And there are so many podcast platforms that you don't even know exist, and you'd be surprised how much listening actually happens on the other platforms that you're not as aware of. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah. Do you know much about Clubhouse? Have you been using that?

Collin Mitchell:  You know, I know very little about it, and I have my own experience with it. I started a show with somebody who had had come on my show; I went on his show. We became friends and we decided to start a Clubhouse room together. And we were going to do it daily. And we're both busy people. And we thought, like, hey, just the 30-minute room daily would be great and tons of people will show up -- and that's not what happened. 

And so what I've realized is for Clubhouse to be to work for you, for your business, you're not just hanging out. You got to put a lot of effort into it. Like, you've got to do -- like, be consistent. And you've got to do like a two-hour room or three-hour room. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Really? 

Collin Mitchell:  I mean, or an hour. Maybe an hour. I don't know. But it was 30 minutes wasn't enough. We increased it to an hour and and we just neither one of us had that level of time to commit to that. And depending on what you do and it could work for some people. But I wasn't willing to put the investment into that much time on that platform when having a podcast and being active on LinkedIn works for me.

Wes Schaeffer:  Yeah, I just had a guest, he was really hounding me to get on it and I was like, all right, I'm on it. Like, I got to put it into my routine. But if it's that long, like, oh, hell, no, I can't do that.

Collin Mitchell:  Well, that's why you see a lot of people doing stuff on the weekend or in the evening. And it's like, that ain't for me, man. You know, I come in, I grind for eight hours, nine hours max, and then I'm home with the family. I'm not going to be at home Clubhouse.

Wes Schaeffer:  And yeah, I mean, I work from home. People think I'm crazy with seven kids. And a friend of mine has a Coworking space and she's always hounded me. It's like, I'd love to support her, but it's across town and we are a little bitty town, but still it could be 15 or 20 minutes to get there and back. I'm like, I like being home.

Collin Mitchell:  Well, I can say that I concur with everybody who thinks you're crazy for having seven kids. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  It's my wife's fault. You know who I am? She can't keep her hands off me. [chuckles] But only five are still home. So, I mean, I got that going for me.

Collin Mitchell:  Still a lot. Sounds like you're counting.

Wes Schaeffer:  This is why I do so many podcasts. I just close the door; I need some space. I'll just interview 5000 people. No, really, I'm working. Leave me alone. Please. Somebody, do an interview. Yeah.

Collin Mitchell:  You probably got one of those signs on your door, "on air." And they're about to come in -- 

Wes Schaeffer:  Leave me alone -- [chuckles]

Collin Mitchell:  You're in there just napping and binging on Netflix.

Wes Schaeffer:  I got a movie from the library, "Last Full Measure." I am watching it right now. 

Collin Mitchell:  What the hell is that thing? Is that a DVD? I didn't even know those existed.

Wes Schaeffer:  I know. I was talking to a guy the other day on the podcast; it's like they're free from the library. So I'm like, I just -- I watched "The Godfather" two weeks ago because it's -- you got to buy it, right? Because it's not part of a subscription on Amazon or Netflix. Like, they hand-select the good ones. They're like, oh no, you're going to buy this. Like, I get it free from the library. 

But I do wonder what's going to happen, because fortunately I've got a USB DVD player that's literally 10 years old, I bet, for my Apple. Because they started taking the DVD out of their laptops. So fortunately, I have it. I had to dig it out of a drawer, but it's like, where's it going to? The library needs to catch up. Just let us stream this stuff.

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. The reason it's free is because they don't want you to bring it back. I need to get rid of these things.

Wes Schaeffer:  I've told people all during COVID, one of the things I discovered, like we do have a great library system out here and we would always go. We've always brought the kids and just loaded up on books. But, man, I've probably grabbed 60 books and movies just since last summer from the library. It's been great -- a lot of business books, but a lot of fiction books, probably 10 movies, eight or 10 movies. 

Collin Mitchell:  The librarian knows you, man. They're like, here he comes, with all seven of them. Hide the good books and the DVDs.

Wes Schaeffer:  Oh, my gosh, dude, we will walk out of there just -- we would bring bags. My wife's got little shopping bags we bring in. Well, then you got to track the damn things. Holy smokes. But I digress. All right? Don't leave me in a bad mood, man. You can't leave this with me all amped up, okay?

Collin Mitchell:  With seven kids there's got to be something that's going to come back damaged. There's no way everything's coming back in the condition it left.

Wes Schaeffer:  You know what, we've been pretty good. We have definitely gotten our money's worth out of it. And we were considering moving. We just we flew to Texas last week and I think we've decided today we're going to we're going to stay. But we did -- one of the benefits, and I always tell people this, it's like I randomly tell my wife we're going to have some company so the house will get cleaned. So we purged like crazy, dude, because we're like -- oh, we might -- a friend came over, a realtor and okay, we'll take some pictures; oh, we got to stage the house -- we purged so much stuff. That's when I realized I got a crap ton of books. Like, I don't know if I need to keep all of them, but I do feel like this bond with my books. I don't know. How do you get rid of them?

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah, I'm an Audible guy myself. 

Wes Schaeffer:  I do a lot of Audible.

Collin Mitchell:  But since the podcast, man, everybody wants to send you a copy of their book. 

Wes Schaeffer:  Holy crap. Dude.

Collin Mitchell:  And then you got to promote it and pretend like you read it, but then just listen to it on Audible. [chuckles]

Wes Schaeffer:  Dude, I got 100 at least -- at least. So it is good and bad. Oh well. 

Well, that's cool man. So you got a special link you had shown me. I created one before we hit record. So where do we send people to learn more about you?

Collin Mitchell:  Very, very simple. Whatever fantastic podcast platform they're listening to this interview on right now, as long as you decide it's good enough to release.

Wes Schaeffer:  I'm considering it -- I mean, it's going okay.

Collin Mitchell:  Sales Hustle. I have a podcast, we release three episodes a week; keep it super-tactical. You can tune in and get the kick in the ass or whatever it is you're looking to hopefully learn to up your sales game. So check us out on any podcast platform that you're listening. And as long as Wes releases this one, you might hear him over there.

Wes Schaeffer:  [chuckles] Oh, yes. Part of the grand plan coming together. 

Very nice. So Sales Hustle, right? So make sure you got that pulled up. Cool. All right. We will send people there. And if you get tired of L.A., man, come on out to wine country, come see me. 

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. Well, if I have seven kids, I'll probably have to.

Wes Schaeffer:  Even if you don't, man, come on. About 50 wineries out here; bunch of microbrews. We'll kick it. 

Collin Mitchell:  All right. 

Wes Schaeffer:  All right, Collin. Sales Hustle. Thanks for coming on the show, man. It's been great. 

Collin Mitchell:  Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Wes Schaeffer:  All right, dude. Have a great day.