Ep #418: Finding Your Voice: Why Podcasting Became a Power Tool for Modern Advisors

Speaker A: Welcome to behind the Advisor with xypn, your behind the scenes look at the challenges and victories fee only advisors encounter as they launch, run and grow their independent firms. Join us for a deep dive into real life stories, frontline insights and the actionable strategies it takes to build a thriving, purpose driven firm on your terms. Today we're joined by Mike Blankford, founder and CEO of podbox and host of the modern Financial Advisor podcast. Mike sits at the intersection of financial services and digital marketing with more than two decades of experience both as an advisor as well as helping other advisors adapt to how people actually connect and learn. Today, this episode isn't about podcasting as a tactic. It's about podcasting as a stage, a way for advisors to find their voice, grow personally and professionally, and build trust at scale. Mike, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being on.

Speaker B: Oh, thank you for having me. It's wonderful to see you again. Last time we saw each other we were in person here in Austin, Texas.

Speaker A: It's true. So we did, uh, an interview where I was a guest on your podcast there at XYPN Live back in September. So, uh, excited to have you on, uh, as a guest on our podcast to be able to share uh, your story and expertise, uh, particularly as it relates to podcasting and how that's uh, you have your hands in a lot of different pots it seems, but all sort of connecting up to this sort of general theme around podcasts. I'm excited to learn more.

Speaker B: I'm um, thrilled as well. Thrilled as well. So let's, let's get into it. Let's do it.

Speaker A: So I guess let's uh, sort of set the stage for listeners. Um, you know, tell me a little bit about our, I guess, sort of high level where your time is spent today, like where your focus is and then we'll go back on a little bit more of the career journey and kind of how you.

Speaker B: Sure. So, so I own two companies. You mentioned podbox. Right? Podbox is a, uh, at the moment primarily sending fully assembled microphone setups to podcast guests so they sound their best. Right. We, we started that because we run a company called Finer Marketing which produces high quality podcasts, audio and video and high quality webinars for companies in the fintech and financial services space. So we found that we want to make sure that people sound great when they are on our show and it saves us a lot of time on the back end, as you can, you might imagine when you have somebody show up and they don't sound good, a lot of Editing work goes on.

Speaker A: So talk to me about your sort of journey, uh, into financial services. Is this where you started your career or did you have a career before the career kind of thing?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, I started in financial services actually, when I was in college, believe it or not. I started answering phones for a company called bfds, Boston Financial Data Services. And they basically had a lot of outsourced, you know, transfer agency stuff for mutual fund companies. So I work the four to midnight shift answering phones for, you, uh, know, Warburg Pinkus Funds, you know, whole bunch of others. Right. So if you called at like 7 o' clock at night and you wanted to get the closing price or have somebody send you a prospectus of something, chances are you were talking to me back then. And uh, then when I got out of school, started, uh, working for, uh, a variety of financial firms. I worked for Pioneer Mutual Funds, now it's called the Pioneer Group. I work for Fidelity Investments in State Street Corporation as well. And then around 2006, I left Fidelity and started my own RIA Just Clean Green, kind of like you, uh, guys help people do at X. Yeah. But long before there was an X, Y, P Ed, Right?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious what led you to launch your own firm? Because, I mean, especially then there was very limited support systems out there. You really had to kind of figure it all out for yourself. So not, uh, that, not that it is easy today we like to say we don't make it easy. We, we just try to make it easier. Uh, but uh, that was a heck of a leap that you made. So can you just talk about that decision?

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I come from a little bit of an entrepreneurial background. You know, my mom owned a floral business, uh, when I was a kid. And uh, my first business ever was while I was in college. I started an auto detailing business. You know, just start, you know, shampooing and buffing people's cars and so forth. So I always kind of had a little bit of the bug. I was the same type of kid who was mowing lawns and shoveling driveways and that type of jazz. And um, you know, I, I kind of had a little bit of enough of big corporate life. And at 2000, in 2006, my son was, you know, closing in on 2 years old. And it was one of those deals where I don't know how if you've ever felt this way, but you kind of feel like you want to do something to create something kind of to show your kids that they can Go chase their. Their dreams a little bit. I know it sounds kind of hokey, but that was a big part of the motivation, right? Like, obviously, you think I can make more money, have more control over my life, all those types of things. Yes, of course there's risk baked into it. I don't really. I mean, for me, I didn't really think about the risk because it's like, you can always go work for Big Co again. There's always another job, that type of deal. So, yeah, just jumped in.

Speaker A: So then what led you down the path of, you know, Finserve Marketing? Uh, it looks like that was in 2013, so call it seven years after you launched your firm. What sort of led there?

Speaker B: So this is going to take a couple of quick jumps. I'll go through it relatively quickly, but, you know, so when I started, uh, my firm, my ra, I had no money for marketing, right? And so I wanted to get out there, going to get the word out. I was doing the chamber of commerce, you know, type of stuff, as everybody does, you know, shaking hands, kissing babies type of stuff in real world. Started a newsletter back then. This is, you know, newsletters are relatively new. Constant contact is what I was using. So I'd meet you, you'd get on my newsletter list, telling you, like, you know, quick little read about what's happening in the world every week. And then I heard about this thing called podcasting. I'm like, that's interesting. So not only can people read about me, I could, you know, get my voice out there and that back then it was only audio. So I went and, you know, bought a microphone, bought a Mac to record, you know, those little blue snowball microphones that people have seen. Started recording a weekly podcast. It was like 10 minutes. It would just be this quick little update. It was just me. There was no guests, no nothing. And I'd send that out along with the. With the newsletter. But I needed to learn more. I didn't know anything about this. I was on LinkedIn, you know, and I'm relatively early user on LinkedIn. I'm like, one of the first 179,000 users on LinkedIn. Just happened to be there early. So I knew the power of social media or whatever. So I'm like, I got to find some seminars or conferences about podcasting stuff. And I Googled it, and sure enough, there's this thing called Pod Camp. Like, and it is as nerdy as it sounds. Uh, but it was. It was happening in Boston at the convention center where I live. So I'M like, I'm going to go to this convention center. I'm going to learn about podcasting. And it was way more than that. And somebody said, hey, while you're here, our Twitter handle is this. The hashtag is this Whatever. So I joined Twitter that day. This is October of 2007. Um, so I'm starting to get into all the social media stuff. I'm learning about blogging. And a few months goes by and I recognize, like, oh, this is a major shift in the world. This is a major shift that people are now starting to embrace social media. One of my clients, Aaron, sent me an email, and I look and it has. He has his Twitter handle in the email signature. Like, well, that's just idiotic. I have his cell phone number, I have his email. I have. I'm connected with him on, uh, LinkedIn. Why would I need this thing called Twitter? I don't even know how that works, but I clicked into it and he had 600 followers. This is early 2008. And then I Google him and I see all this Twitter stuff. I'm like, oh, my God, Twitter is like Google Juice, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, it was a big SEO driver. I think it still is, but not quite how it was.

Speaker B: So I'm like, well, I'll start using this thing. And relatively early on, I just realized that this might be a lightning in the bottle opportunity here to kind of jump, because I was really mad. And maybe some folks in the audience can. Can feel this way. Like, every once in a while you see a wave and then you realize you kind of missed it, right? So some people might think of that with crypto, they might think of that with, you know, social. Uh, they might think of that with wireless or whatever. For me, it was the early days of the Internet. I'm old enough to remember the. The dot revolution, right? And I was in graduate school when the peak of that was happening. And I was so mad when I graduated in 01 that the bubble had burst that I'm like, I'm never missing this again. I'm going to jump on something if I see something. So I started a company. Fast forward to 2008. I'm like, this Twitter thing's working. The social thing's working, but I need to fix it. Because back then, each tweet was a standalone thing. There was no fully threaded. You couldn't see the full conversation underneath a tweet. We should fix that. And also, this hashtag thing is annoying because hashtags take up part of my 140 characters. So we created something called Tweet Works, which was the first fully threaded conversation platform for Twitter. And it, uh, instead of hashtags, you could use hashtags, but we created groups. So it's very similar to, if you've been on threads right now. It's very similar to that. There's a character limit of short, but you can categorize what you're talking about, right? Instead of taking up part of your, your tweet, your thing, and you can see the full conversation underneath it. So I was, I was there, I parked m. My Ria. I'm like, this is my entrepreneurial journey. I want to be in this space. So I still have the raa, still manage some clients, but, but my main focus was on that. Ran, uh, that for a couple of years, then ran out of money after the, you know, the financial crisis, you know, get to the end of 2010. And I was like, man, I need to do something else. I need to shut this thing. And every. Anybody who's been an entrepreneur, that does stink when you realize like, this is it, I got to go do something else. So I was sitting there, I'm like, listen, I've got a wealth of financial services experience. I have got, uh, a lot of history and experience in social. And there weren't that many people in the world that existed that looked like me at that point in time. So then I found this company, this company called socialware, which was the first company to make it possible for financial advisors to use social media and do that compliantly so they can have everything archived, right? Supervisable and so forth. And so I got recruited. Step was the head of strategy for that company. And then like a lot of other startups, like my startup, that that company didn't work out. So at the end of that I was like, oh, this stinks. And, but a lot of the same clients, the Morgan Stanley's of the world and uh, other firms that we were working with were like, mike, can you continue to work with us? We need your help, we need your guidance and consulting and so forth. So I started Finserve Marketing as a consulting company. That was, that was it for the most part. It was all digital marketing, social media consulting in the financial services space, particularly with organizations that have lots of financial advisors. And then over time started realizing that part of that should be podcasts, right? So right around, geez, you know, 2012, 2013, we've launched a podcast for one of our clients and that led to another podcast, having a CEO of another company on that Podcast as a guest and the kind of thing snowball from there. So everything just pivoted to, like, that's what we do now.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for the background. That's super helpful. As. As you know, obviously, I'm a huge fan of podcasts. Uh, which we'll talk more about how, uh, I'll share a little bit about our journey and how that kind of inter. Just with the podcast, how that has impacted us. Um, but I guess when you're sitting down with an advisor and they say, like, hey, you do this podcast thing, is this really for me? Because how do you approach that conversation? Is podcasting something that all advisors should be doing? Is this, uh, just one option of many that they should be considering? Like, how should advisors be thinking about podcasting, in your opinion?

Speaker B: That's a great question. I think that the answer to that is kind of the same for every business. Right. But for advisors in particular, it's really important, in my opinion. Right. Um, everyone you want to reach in influence is listening to podcasts regularly. So every demographic you're trying to reach and influence is consuming podcasts. Whether they think they're consuming it as a podcast or not, they are. Right. People who watch a lot of YouTube shows that they can subscribe to, those are basically podcasts. Anything you can subscribe to and get a regular feed of that content is effectively a podcast. Uh, YouTube is now the number one podcasting platform on the Internet, Right? So bigger than Apple podcasts, bigger than Spotify and so forth. And over a billion people watch podcasts every month. So right there, it just tells you, like, hey, this is how people prefer to consume content. So if you're thinking about reaching and influence influencing clients, prospects, referral partners, members of the talent pool, we know that this is a preferred medium of consuming content. So that's one of the things I. I tell people. Like, you want to put your content in a way that your audience wants to receive it. Um, a lot of people get uncomfortable with it, though. Is it just, you know, not every advisor is outgoing and kind of like, you know, looking to get in front of the camera, the microphone. I do joke with everybody. Like, you will stink at first. You will sound terrible. You will hear your voice and go, I don't like the way I sound. I don't like the way I look. I did that. Everybody has that moment, you know, so it's okay, by the way, to stink at something at first. Uh, put yourself out there. Right. But it goes to something else. I think that's deeper kind of Going back to when I, you know, shared the story of why I started my podcast, my first one back in 2007. Your voice is received differently than just print. Right. And especially today, if you're considering working with somebody, one of the things you're going to do is go out to see if there's some validators out there. They'll come to your website, they'll go to LinkedIn, they'll go whatever, and they're going to hear you. They want to see what you sound like. Right. And it feeds into those core things that every business owner's ever heard. Right. People do business with those they know like and trust. Right. But they also need two other things. I need to feel like, familiar with you. I need to see some familiarity, some frequency of content, content. And I also need to feel like you're competent, like, show me like you know what you're doing. And one of the best ways to do it is to talk about a subject that's relevant to your business and relevant to me.

Speaker A: Yeah. Your point about, uh, YouTube being the largest podcasting platform is really interesting to me because, you know, one of the advantages of podcasting and really that I think it has uh, this advantage that really no other platform or marketing, uh, channel has. And that's sort of the time within time concept. So, you know, when I'm running, I'm not watching a video on YouTube while I'm like running down the street. Right, right. Um, I'm not reading a blog post while I'm driving. Hopefully.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Uh, but podcasts are something that we consume just because we can do it a little bit more passively. We can do it from an audi auditory perspective. Um, but you know, you're really, I guess in talking about YouTube, it kind of expands beyond that. Do you see there being sort of a couple of, I don't know, lanes of podcast in that sense? And, and how should advisors be thinking about how to approach a podcast with these sort of various options?

Speaker B: So there's a couple of, couple of ways to unpack that question. So, you know, one is I want to feed into your, your, your observation there that like this is kind of a zero net time activity for your audience members, meaning they listen to it while they're doing something else. Right. Um, I also layer in there, podcasts are possible. Right. So when I'm listening to a podcast, when I walk the dog in the morning, as an example, every morning I walk my dog, I'm usually listening to a podcast. When I get home, I pause it I've got other things to do. If I get into my car, guess what? Spotify is right there in my car, picking up where I left off when I want to listen to it and that type of thing. Or I can jump to another thing and I can come back, right? So it's possible. It's also crazy. You can speed it up. You can do 1x, 2x whatever. You can be one of those psychos.

Speaker A: I am not a 2x. I don't understand. People are like, oh, I listen to this on 2X. I'm like, how? I can barely process at one.

Speaker B: Yeah. But people rip through things. And also like it's on the YouTube side. And this is, this is actually true. Now on podcasts and the audio players now you have chapters. So let's just say we're having this conversation and somebody wants to just jump to the section where we get to the how to fact, you know, whatever, and they click into a how to section. They can jump right to it and get just what they want, right? So there really are becoming awesome tools in that manner. So the, the, your question about lanes, I think is the way you, you, you asked it about like what kind of lanes of podcast though there's a couple, uh, there might be more than a couple, but a couple that I see that work really well. So one is what we're doing right now that, uh, this is my favorite kind, the interview style podcast, right. It's actually also one of the easiest ones to do, right? Because it's not all the work is on you as the, the speaker. You bring somebody on who's interesting, right? And have a conversation with them about something that's you think will be interesting for your audience, right? So I always tell people like, guess, guess who you should have on your show. Clients, prospects, referral partners, members of your team, right? That talent pool, that's the same people who are your audience, right? Have those people on, have clients on. Now one question you'll hear advisors ask is like, well, wait a minute, uh, testimonials and all that type of stuff. Like we don't have to talk about why they think you're a great financial advisor. We can talk about their life, right? So especially if, uh, you have a niche, right? They're, you're focused on tech entrepreneurs in the Austin, Texas area, for instance. Great. Have them on. Hey, we're talking tech here in Austin, Texas today. We've got, you know, uh, Alan Moron and we're talking about, right? So we're showcasing the client. We're showcasing the guests and so forth. So there's two goals there. Right. Uh, I want to give you a stage. I have this stage that's open 24 7, 365 and has global reach. Let me invite you to be on it with me. I get you, uh, a platform that's great. You feel great as a client, as a prospect. And then also my audience gets some value out of this as well. So we're showcasing that. The other type of show that we see pretty frequently is kind of the educational show. Right. And I always talk about for podcasts and this is true for any other content. There's four E's, right? You know, evangelism first. Right. Spreading the good word, getting good ideas out into people. Right. So this is more than thought leadership. This is trying to get people to kind of believe in ideas and talk about those ideas with your audience. Education. This is a big one. You see a lot of people take the educational approach with their podcast, and that's awesome. You can talk about all the things you've had conversations about. You know, uh, Roth conversions. Great. That can be a podcast episode, right? When to do it, how much you do all that type of stuff. Uh, engagement, right. I want to engage with my audience. I want to have, you know, some interactivity. And then, of course, the fourth E being entertainment.

Speaker A: Quick pause. Behind the Advisor isn't just about inspiring stories. It's about real support. So we're taking a moment to share a few gems from the Advisor's toolkit to help you grow, save time, and make life a little easier. Stay tuned for some real life resources and then we'll be right back. Are you ready for a deeper connection with the stories and strategies shared on behind the Advisor? Subscribe now@joinxypn.com BTA and you will get first access to every new episode, plus bonus content that takes you behind the scenes of each episode delivered straight to your inbox. If you found that tool useful, hang tight. We've got more coming your way. We're pulling more tools from the Advisor's toolkit to help you work smarter, connect deeper, and save serious time. Stick around, there's good stuff ahead. Yeah, and I'm certainly biased because podcasting is my preferred marketing medium, but it does seem like, I mean, of some of the other ones, like social has always felt in the pre AI world, um, this sort of like, almost like personality or need to be, uh, sort of witty, funny. There was sort of this engagement personality you needed to have to be good at blogging. You have to be a good writer, which most of us are not. Video is its own, uh, you know, sort of skill set to be great in front of a camera. And I do think podcasting, at least for me, was sort of like the lowest barrier of entry in terms of, okay, I don't need to go, like take acting classes to be successful. I just needed this. To your point, just like find interesting people and have interesting conversations, uh, and share that with others. And so do you. I mean, what do you feel like is, especially in this sort of world of AI, like going forward, what do you feel like is the, uh, sort of the next evolution for podcasts?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You mentioned like chapters, which is interesting because it, you know, the line between audiobooks and podcast has gotten really blurry. Yeah. Used to be really clear what you were doing. Now, I mean, I listen to a podcast that does like three and a half, four hour episodes and it's basically like reading a book once a month and the way that it's done. So I'm just curious, sort of how you're seeing that evolve and how that may impact advisors decisions, uh, you know, to jump in and leverage.

Speaker B: So we're getting to an interesting place. Maybe, you know, you and members of the audience can really appreciate this, where we're already starting to recognize what's AI and what's not. And people say, well, eventually the line's gonna be blurred. You won't be able to tell the difference. Well, uh, then people are going to start potentially coming off of social media. Right. If I go there and all I know is this AI slob, right? And I know, I know nothing is real and none of this is actually real and interactive. I might not want to be there anymore. So this is where podcasts can really help. Right. And by the way, not all podcasts have to just be recorded, edited and posted. You can do live stream podcasts and then take that live stream, take the recording afterwards and share it as well. But when I could recognize this, this is a real world conversation between two human beings. And I can hear you, I know it's you. Uh, what a difference, right? And uh, if you think about going to the foundational principles, like why does anybody choose you to be their financial advisor? It's not because of your products and it's not because of your pricing. Right. Every other financial advisor out there has same access to the stocks, bonds, mutual funds, insurance products that you have. They have about the same pricing and they offer about the same services. Right. So they're choosing you because of you. They Liked you. I met Alan, I looked in his eyes, I hear his voice. Something about Alan gives me the sleep at night factor and the confidence that my financial life is going to be good. Right. And, uh, hearing your voice, seeing your face routinely, having that opportunity to interact with you is just a wonderful way to bring that home. Now, AI can support your show. One of the things we do. So if you were coming on my show, Alan, one of the things we would do would be, okay, I'd take Alan's LinkedIn, I would take, uh, I'd go get a couple podcasts that I know he's been on, I get his website, and then I would have a couple of things that took some notes on a prep call we had and I would fire it into AI going, okay, I want to have five or six good conversation starters based on everything I've just given you. And it gives me a great roadmap. It's helped me with the research. Right. Then after a show, we get a transcript of the show. We run that through AI that we've trained as well to help us create blog posts for the show. Right. So one recording, one half an hour to hour, uh, recording creates multiple marketing assets. It creates an audio podcast episode, a full length video episode. It creates social media clips, like several clips from the show that we can use. And it creates a blog post, an email that we can send out that says, hey, on the latest episode of whatever show we had Alan on. Here we go.

Speaker A: So it, it does seem like with technology, it is, I guess make it should, I would hope it should be amplifying the sort of reach of podcast. Your point? Because it, you know, creating the content's the hard part. Uh, you know, coming up with the 32 different ways to use the, the podcast should be the easy part, but that's the part most of us skip. Um, so are there new tools coming out that sort of do everything you were just talking about in one place or am I, you know, are you having to train your own GPT and have all these sort of various things out there? Uh, I'm just curious how consolidated it can be there.

Speaker B: There are new tools and it's, it's like every day, right, with, with AI, you're getting a new thing. Like for instance, I just got an email today. We use a, A, One of the tools we use is called Descript. Um, and it's, you know, it, it allows you to edit a podcast very similar to editing a Word document. If you want to do that, you can go in and grab the sentence and delete it. And it'll delete that section of the, the, the audio and the video, those types of things. It's not great if you're doing super high end performance, you know, like you're producing stuff. But there's a lot of benefit. So we still do use it. But uh, they're getting some cloud integration which is really kind of neat. So. And people are getting more comfortable with that stuff. People are getting more comfortable with going in and typing in human language, type description of what they want done to something and then having it transform. So we are seeing that, um, there are some tools we're using. One of the things that's been wonderful has been, uh, AI improvement of audio. I mentioned earlier that we created podbox to send out microphones so people sounded better. And we still do that because it's way better than smaller microphones that lick in your earbuds. But occasionally somebody will have some background noise that the microphone is picking up. And it used to be a lot more work to get that out. Now it's a lot easier. They have what's called voice isolation. So it used to be you try to train a tool to listen to like this is what background noise sounds like. Find more of that and get rid of that. Now you, it just says this is a human voice speaking. Drop everything else. And it's really cool, it's really neat. Um, but yeah, like I say, you know, leverage, leverage the tools that you have. Don't get overwhelmed with them though. I mean the general thing is you're, you're creating a product.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: You don't have to overthink it. You gotta. What's the idea for the show? Okay, we're gonna, I used to say have a prep, have some sort of prep session with your guest, right? At least 15 minutes. Talk about what you're going to talk about. Make sure they can get on zencastr, which is what we're using here or Riverside or whatever platform you're using. Make sure everybody's all set up, schedule your time to record, have some sort of like doc, high level outline of what you're going to talk about. Record, take it, edit it any way you want and get it published. Right. Relatively easy. It's like producing a product. Right. Then promote it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I, you know, we launched this podcast back in 2015 and it took me almost a year to do it because I didn't know anything about audio editing. Uh, and I knew I wasn't going to learn that. Is anyone who knows me knows I. That was going to happen, you know, one time, and then it was going to be done. Uh, and I remember I went to two or three different conferences and I remember going to fincon, uh, the Financial Bloggers Conference, and just saying like, does anyone do this? And everyone with a podcast, like, oh, no, it's so easy. You just need these, you know, 14 different tools and all these editing skills. I'm like, like, you're spending eight hours. Like, what are you doing? Like, I, I don't, I, I just don't have that time. And I ended up at the Podcast Movement conference, which I don't even know if it's still going on. I think, I think it is, uh, and happened to find someone who provides, who provided a similar. What, uh, you're providing now, which was just like, it was more turnkey. And so for advisors out there, I do think podcasting is, uh, is can be challenging to get into because of sort of the unknown of all these various things. And so that's where services like yours are coming in. That's right. Uh, and just making it so that, you know, we can show up and do the part that we're necessary for, which is interviewing, uh, and let the rest of it sort of get handled by experts.

Speaker B: It's funny to, to build on, on that. Alan, one of our clients once said, you know what I love about this? I don't have to do any work. He's like, do you know how long it used to take me to write a blog post? I would spend like six hours, writer's block, rewording, researching all this type of stuff. He's like, with these podcasts, I just show up, we've got an outline, you ask a bunch of questions, and I'm good, I'm gone. And then the editing takes, takes, takes care of itself. Right? So not everybody's going to be in that situation. If you're a solo advisor, you know, you're going to be a chief cook and bottle washer. You're going to be doing a lot of the things yourself. So there are certain things you may have to decide. All right, I'm, um, either going to pay somebody else to do the editing or I'm going to set up pre production in such a way meaning planning. Right. So that when I get my recordings, there's not much editing to be done after the fact. Right. So you can be cautious of that. The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, you can go live. Hey, we're going to have a live on zoom on Whatever you do, and click the record button. And when it's after it's done streaming live, you now have a full product. And if you're okay with the ums and the OZ and the occasional like, hold on, let me take a drink from my yeti, whatever, that's okay, by the way. And in fact, some of that's valuable because your audience is looking for you to be a human, right? They want to interact with you.

Speaker A: So when we talk about podcasting, I mean, obviously, uh, you know, for advisors, getting new clients is sort of top list probably of reasons that they would, uh, they, they would be interested in starting a podcast, investing the time so that that area sort of, it does. You're gonna get better at your podcasting as a medium for advisors.

Speaker B: And that sounds really interesting to say, but, like, look, man, the more you say the things that are important to your business, like as an example, you know, you know, I gave you my four e's, right? Evangelism, education, you know, engagement and entertainment. I've got to, you know, know you, like you, trust you, plus familiar thing. I've said those things a lot, right, over time, and I've gotten better at them. As I'm talking and interacting with people, your brain's kind of firing on a new level. Like, I've got to find a way of articulating this so that it makes sense of simplifying things. You will start doing that better. You'll. You'll notice little things and you'll cringe. Of course, as we were talking about earlier, the first time you hear your voice, you're like, I don't like the way I sound. But you'll also notice, oh, man, I use a lot of ums and us, um, oh, I'm doing a lot of like. And you know, oh, I. I've got to clean that up, right? I've got to get better at some of the things that I'm doing. So that's one side benefit. The other little thing is you're going to be stunned. This will happen. I've never had a client where this doesn't happen at. When you get somebody outreach, some outreach from a prospect who finds a video of yours that's an old video. I don't know how they found it, but this has happened to me multiple times. We actually just had one this past year. A, uh, video was nine years old. Somebody saw the video, reached out like, mike, can you work with us? I saw this video, like, nine years ago. We had a client who was on episode 62 of their podcast and somebody found episode 5 and reached out and wanted to work with them. So that you're, you're creating this evergreen content for the most part, unless you're doing like a current events podcast and people are going to find it and they're going to interact with it. Right. So you're, you're sowing the seeds of sales by planting these things around. Um, so that, that's, that's one of the benefits. It's also like keeping your existing clients engaged. Everybody's heard that you have to touch your client 22 times E or 30 times E or whatever the metric is. We've heard a bunch of them. Right. Well, what a great way to do it when they see your face in their LinkedIn stream. Right. They are subscribing to you. That doesn't mean they're going to listen to every episode by the way.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, but they can when they see the one that's interesting to them and, or they'll say, oh, I saw you did that episode, even though they didn't listen to the full thing. Little fun one though. Your number one most opened email, highest open rate and highest click through email will be one that says new episode subject. And then we tell every client, send out podcasts, you know, emails let people know and people are excited because we've been conditioned by Netflix and unit, whatever that new episode is. Great. So I open this email and then great. When they come to your website, they get, they're there and experiencing your business. So it's another huge benefit.

Speaker A: Yeah. One of the, uh, I guess, uh, interesting things that I never really thought about when it comes to podcasting is to your point, it is evergreen. So if you want to go back and listen to episode one of our podcast, you can. I think we're at 415, uh, 420 now, uh, episodes over 10 years. And so and I, I will meet advisors at conferences, are like, hey, I've listened to every episode of the podcast and I'm ready to join. And I'm like, really? A hundred hours wasn't enough? Like you had to go all 415 hours of recordings. Um, but people really do engage, um, you know, in that content, which is, which is so cool. It does create sort of an interesting one sided relationship where there are folks who have listened to every episode of the podcast and they know a lot about me because I can't help but share a personal tidbit, you know, in each episode and in the aggregate they know like my kids names and their ages and my background and all that. And so it does create sort of this interesting dynamic when I don't really know them, but they know me really well. Um, and that's not always recognized. But.

Speaker B: But for a business that is built on relationships, that's exactly what we're looking for, right? If you're a financial advisor and you're looking to grow your business and mature the relationships you have with your clients, that hopefully goes beyond just that one client, it goes into multi generational relationships and so forth, you're looking for referrals. The more connectedness you have, even if you just like you're saying it's a little asynchronous, right? The, the other, they're more familiar with you than you are with them type of thing. It's. It's powerful, right? It really is. And it goes back to that thing I was talking about, the familiarity perspective. Like I feel familiar with. I feel comfortable with you. And now I can, you know, refer a client with, to you a little more easily because I've seen Alan talk on my stream all the time. I love him. I love his style. Like, you should absolutely check this dude out.

Speaker A: So when anytime advisors are, are taking on sort of a new initiative, especially one that's going to, to use time, uh, or you up some of their time, like podcasting would, uh, you know, I always put an emphasis on we have to track results, we have to know how we're going to measure results. So how do you encourage your advisors to kind of look at measuring results from a podcast on what does success really look like from a KPI perspective? When do you decide to hang it up and say, this isn't working for me. Uh, and I guess, what data do you need to know if it's working for your.

Speaker B: That's a great question. So one is you have to look at all the metrics. If you're, if you're thinking about metrics and you want to be measuring it, because sometimes people will look at, like, I started a podcast, I've done 20 of them, and we're still stuck at 50 listeners. Okay, well, wait a minute. That's just listeners, right? So.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But if I told you that at the Marriott, uh, down the street, I've rented out a conference room and I've got it filled with 50 people who are priming your target audience, can you carve out some time today to come talk to those 50 people? The answer is yes. How quickly can I get there? So. Of course. Right? So number one, keep your audience numbers in perspective like 50 is still amazing that 50 people took the time out of their day to listen to your show. Check out views, obviously on YouTube. When you're sharing them, the clips matter too. If you share the clips on LinkedIn, you're going to see how many people viewed or in some engagement there, how many people commented. Right? So it's looking across all the places that you shared the content that you created for your podcast. Uh, same thing with email. If you're sending out an email blast, look open rates, click through rates, and all that type of stuff, it doesn't mean that they're going to immediately translate into instant new clients. We know that for a fact. And that's by the way, that's true for all marketing endeavors. Right. Everything you do to market your business is not always a one to one. I spent a thousand bucks, I spent three hours, it created this many sometimes, but not always. So just be mindful. But content marketing is important. You know, I think about when people come to you, I always tell people, make sure you have a blog on your website and the blog tab should have episodes of the podcast. Each episode should get its own blog post. Right? So now it's a piece of content that lives there. When people are searching, whether they're searching on Google or they're searching via, uh, you know, ChatGPT or whatever their AI of choice is, they're likely going to come to your website and find rich content. Right. And so we want to make sure that we're doing it there, you know, at the end of the day, of course, we want it to drive business. Uh, as you mentioned earlier, we also wanted to drive conversation. How neat would it be if a client or a prospect comes in and they're like, oh, I've watched your videos, I've listened to your show, I saw your clip, whatever that is. We had, um, actually did a podcast episode not too long ago with an entrepreneur whose company was acquired by another company. And he said, before I chose to join that company and accept their acquisition bid, I went out and watched every single video and podcast I could get my hands on for this from the CEO of the acquiring company and other leaders at the company. I wanted to know who I was joining. Right. So people are doing research and what a wonderful way to, uh, kind of feed the beast, if you will, make sure they find something good.

Speaker A: Yeah, they say great marketing should repel more, uh, you know, prospects than it attracts. And I remember in the early days of my firm, so this would have been back in 2012, uh, and I looked like I was about 19 when I started my firm. And I remember being really stressed about. I did not want to show up to a prospect meeting and some. And the prospect be surprised by my age.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so I did these and you can still go find them. Terrible. These, like, really cheesy YouTube videos. It's just me reading blog posts that I had written, but those would go on the website and, and I, you know, I'm assuming a lot of people did not show up to my office, uh, because of my age. They're like, oh, I need somebody who's seen three market downturns. Well, I had not. Um, but I, you know, they, so by the time they got to me, they, they knew I had a slight Southern accent. They knew, you know, my age, they knew a little bit about me. Which, uh, it is amazing, the power that, that, you know, uh, I guess sort of how much faster trust can be built when you have that sort of foundation to build on.

Speaker B: I'm so glad you put that out there. The whole, like, it could repel somebody because that actually is an. So back when I was in my social ware days, right, And I was going around talking to rooms full of financial advisors, usually top producers, and the questions would come up like, what if I get on LinkedIn and somebody says something negative about me? Say, first of all, you think they can't say something negative about you even though you're not there. Like, first of all, they can say trash you no matter what. Right? So. But LinkedIn isn't going to go grab and suck all your network in and send it to everybody. Like, you're going to have to do some stuff, Right. But like, you're right. The reality is not. You're not going to be everybody's cup of tea. I know I'm not. Right. Some people are going to want to work with a different advisor. Fine. But the ones who are going to resonate with you, you've already have a book of business, you have at least one client, probably, you know, maybe you have more. You're going to be interacting with people you want people to get to, again, know you, like you trust you, develop some familiarity, know that you're good at what you do. What a wonderful way to do it. And show them if they don't like a Southern accent, fine.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Like, I used to have a thick box Boston accent. I lost it on purpose, but it's there if we've had a few beers. But, uh, but like, some people don't like that. That's okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's absolutely how I felt with my Southern accent. It has also kind of, uh, faded over time. If you go back and listen to the, probably the, the original podcast episodes, uh, it was much thicker. So. Well, the, the time here has flown by. I, I have sort of one final question as we're, as we're headed into our wrap up, and that is, you know, you have decades of experience as an advisor, as a marketer, as a podcaster. If you can distill all that down and sort of into the, the best piece of advice for listeners who are contemplating podcasting. They're, they're curious about this. What, uh, do you, what would that sort of one main piece of advice be?

Speaker B: Actively put your voice out there. Right. So you think about when I started, it was a newsletter, my voice was in type, you know, written form. Right? Put your voice out there. Be active on your, on a podcast. Right. Some sort of audio and video can be short clips. It doesn't have to be super long. Okay. It doesn't have to be overly produced. Share that stuff on LinkedIn or whatever social network that your, your audience is there. Send out emails. Right? Become a regular part of your audience's content consumption. So getting your voice out there, it doesn't have to be crazy. Like I said, overly produced or overly thought, but interact. Just get your voice out there because they'll know what you do. They know you're a financial advisor, right. But they start to become comfortable with you. They start to know that you're there. And at some point in time, they're going to have the opportunity that they need a financial advisor or they're going to know somebody who needs a financial advisor. They're going to connect with you there. So I love it.

Speaker A: Well, Mike, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and share your sort of career journey and story and expertise as it relates to podcasting. So thanks so much for taking the time.

Speaker B: My pleasure. Thank you for having me on the show.

Speaker A: All right, thanks for joining us, uh, on behind the Advisor. Want more bonus content from this episode and future episodes? You can subscribe to our email list@joinxypn.com BTA Remember, it's all about helping people live their great lives here at xypn. We'll see you for the next episode.