Welcome to the Real Fast Results podcast! Podcasting is such a special medium to use, and it is especially effective when you're trying to build an audience for yourself and your business. That's what Lance Tamashiro is going to discuss during this episode. You'll really enjoy this if podcasting is of any interest to you at all because Lance does really well when it comes to demystifying this process. He has a way of making it all so much easier than you ever would have thought possible. Lance has risen far up the charts, and it didn't take him very long to do this. He's right up there with the likes of Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, and Gary Vaynerchuck. So, who better to take advice from? Without further ado, please welcome Lance Tamashiro. Podcasting the Right Way Today, we're going to discuss a couple of items. First of all, I want to tell people how to get their own podcast set up, but I think that's the easy part. I think the whole thing that holds people up is this idea of perfection, this idea of enough content, and the best way to get that done. My goal for today would be: Make sure that people know what they need to do in order to get their podcast up, Know that whatever you have, whatever point that you're at, the most important thing is to get this thing up and running. Just remember that you'll get better, and you'll do better as we go. So, I think, you know, the mindset stuff and also the step-by-step in getting there. Why You Should Have a Podcast – Easy Content For me, I started a podcast, and it got ranked up high pretty quickly. That's true and false at the same time. I don't want to mislead people because I actually started my podcast, I think back in 2012. What I did was, I did three episodes. One was like two minutes long, one was like 10 minutes long, and you can go see; they are still out on iTunes. I thought, "I don't get it… I don't understand why I'm doing this," so I did nothing, and then in 2013, I said, "I'm going to do this podcasting thing!" I did three or four episodes. They are still out there, and you can go [listen] to them, and they did nothing. The same happened every year. I would promise myself that I was going to do this podcast. I run a mastermind group, and I offhandedly said, "January of this year, and we're filming this in 2016." A couple of months ago I said, "My New Year's resolution is that I'm going to do a podcast once a month." I said that it was my resolution because I always break my resolution, so I knew this still wasn't going to work. So, I started doing this, and I stumbled on this other way of doing it, this other way of making content. More importantly, other people that I was able to connect with, that promoted my podcast, ended up shooting it to the top. Now I'm doing three, four podcasts every single week, and I've been as high as #9 in the overall "Business" category. I'm usually between 40 and 20; it fluctuates up and down. But, there's a couple of things that really came out of it for me: They are really easy to do, if you do it the way that I do it. It gets you exposure to a lot of people that you would have never gotten before. You know, [we're] from the internet marketing world, where it's like pulling teeth. You call someone up, and you're like, "Will you promote me? Let me figure something out," and nobody wants to do it, but suddenly you have a podcast, and everyone wants to promote you. I mean, I've had guys like Tucker Max promote me. I've had a New York Times bestseller. I've had guys like [Daniel Hall] promote me. It's a whole different thing when they're creating the content, and it makes it easy for you. You get to be the guy saying, "How do I do something cool that you know how to do?" I'm not a good joint venture guy. It's always awkward for me to meet somebody and try to figure out how to do a joint venture. However, I've found that the podcasts, first of all, give them a reason to contact you. So, they're coming to you and saying, "I want to be on your show." Then, what happens is, you do about five minutes of getting to know each other, but there's not a lot of time before the podcast, so then you do the interview… where a weird thing happens. After 20-30 minutes of talking back and forth, with no expectations, framed around this podcast, you've suddenly, in a weird way, built this rapport with them. You know details about them. It's like at the bar, guys come up to you at a conference, and they go, "Let me tell you about me." It changes that whole dynamic. What I loved about that part is that afterwards, there's a built-in follow-up. There's built-in reasons to keep a conversation going with somebody, whether it is a "thank you for being on the show"… that's one where you can keep that conversation going. I do a thing where I'll get transcripts made and then send them out to them, which is another reason I get to keep talking to them. And then, the show is live and I'm promoting it now, so you've got all of these touch points where you are able to contact somebody, and you're truly doing something for them every step of the way. You know, I've had people send me stuff in the mail, send books, send emails to their list. And, that was the big eye-opening thing for me, it was… Yeah, it's great to have a top-ranked podcast. Yes, you get traffic to all the things that you promote. Yes, you can get sponsorships. Yet, it was that joint venture and those connections in places that I never even thought of before. I thought my niche was this little, tiny thing, and it turns out there are people all over that are interested in my products and services. How to Create a Podcast It's really simple. People thought that it was such a hard thing for so long. Literally, what you need is a WordPress site to start. People will talk about these services like Libsyn, which is a podcast hosting site. They are good to have, down the road as you get bigger; you don't need it to just get started. The next thing you need is headphones. I mean, I started with a $25 Logitech USB headset. I just plugged it in and started talking to myself. Then you need something to record with. I used Camtasia Studio at the time because it was just something that I already had. I could record two sides of a conversation. I used that because it's what I already had. Basically, you just set up a blog and get a plug-in called PowerPress. It's free, and what that will do, is it just puts a player on your blog. You upload the MP3 to it, and it starts to play. Then, all you have to do is go to Google Play. If you search "Google Play Podcasts", it will come up where you can submit what's called "the feed". The PowerPress plug-in gives you that feed, so you just put that in, and the Google Play and Google Plus will pull it up. You'll be in their directory. Then you just click "Submit". It submits the podcast in iTunes and to Google. A site will come up, and then you put that same feed into them. Once you do that, anytime you put a new podcast on your blog as a separate post, it automatically pushes out to all of these different directories. It's the simplest, easiest way to get started. The hardest part, for most people, is to start making the recordings and making the content. Recording a Podcast Is Not as Hard as You Think First of all, you hear all of these podcasts like mine. If you need some motivation for a crappy podcast that does well, go listen to mine. I'm not a great speaker, I don't have anything planned. I bought my intro music off of Fiverr, and I just use that. And, that's it. Even when I started, I didn't even know what I was going to say. If you listen to my first episodes, it's usually just me rambling on. What I like about doing the interview model, which is what I do now, is that I don't have to say anything. Literally, what happens, in the way that I do it, is that somebody comes to me and says, "I want to be on your podcast." I say, "Give me your bio." I read their bio, pretty much word-for-word as they give it to me, and then I say, "How did you get started with…". Then they start talking through it, and I say, "Well that's awesome. What would you tell somebody that's just getting started?" Then, they tell me, and I say "What's a big mistake that they make?" That's it. I mean, that's the formula. In 20 or 30 minutes, if you ask those questions, if you think about it, it gives them the story or what they did. It tells somebody new what they should be doing, and it tells somebody new what mistakes to avoid. You're done and out of there, and you don't have to say anything, other than ask those three questions. You'll get more comfortable as you go, and I would say just get started. Grab somebody you know. Daniel Hall and Jason Parker were the first two people that I interviewed on my podcast. It was easy for me because I knew you guys. I say, grab somebody you know off of Facebook. Grab somebody you talk to on Skype, and start there and build up that confidence, and then move on. But, you're going to find, "Oh, it's just talking to somebody…" once you get started. Recap of What You Need to Start a Podcast You set up a WordPress site. You buy a domain name. Set it up with your hosting account and put WordPress on it. Then, the only plug-in that you need is called PowerPress. It's free, so you can put a theme on there if you want. However, you don't have to because what you're really trying to do is to get it out into the directories--into iTunes and Google Play. You just have the basic theme on there, put PowerPress on there. What PowerPress does is, when you make a new post, it will add a section below the post where you upload your MP3 file. So, you upload your MP3 file, and that puts the post out there. You have to do that before you can submit to the directories. Make that first post with some kind of audio on it. Then you search on Google for either "Google Play Podcasts", or "iTunes Podcasts". The third one you want to do is Stitcher. So, you've got Stitcher, Google Play, and iTunes, these are kind of the big three. Inside of the PowerPress plug-in, it gives you a link that says, "This is your podcast URL." When you go to those directories, they'll have a website if you Google them, all you have to do is paste that URL that the PowerPress plug-in gives you in your blog. You paste it in, and basically, what that URL does is every time you add a new post, it tells all of these directories, "Hey, there's something new. Add it to your directory." Now, any time you want to make a new one, you just make a brand new post, upload it into your PowerPresss plug-in, which is underneath your post settings, and it automatically, magically shows up everywhere that you wanted it to show up. And, literally, that's all you have to do to get started with your podcast. After that, the big thing is to decide how you're going to do your show. I mean, is it going to be multiple people; is it going to be just you? When I started, it has been just me talking, whenever I had an idea of something that I wanted to talk about. Well, now because the show's there, people contact me constantly to be on the show. Because it's ranked, they find it inside of iTunes. Contact all of the people you know and just say, "I want to interview you. I want to get you on, and it's 20-30 minutes, it's a piece of cake…" You just record it and put it up there. I don't do any editing. If you listen to mine, there were times when people have dropped out, and I just finish up the conversation. There's been times when my son has walked in, in the middle, and I just kind of talk to him. For me, it's kind of about personality. It depends on what you want to have on your show, but I don't want to spend a bunch of time editing. You can if you want. There's also services that will do it for you. If you're just getting started, the important part is to get it out there. Because, if you want to start getting bigger guests, what they want to see is that you're actually doing it. So, if you have 10 episodes under your belt, they are more likely to say "yes" than if you're not even listed. It's really easy. I have had a few people in the internet marketing space, when I was first getting started, that kind of blew me off. Now they all want to be on the show because they know how much traffic it's getting. So, when you get started, it's one of those things where, get some episodes out there, and most people will automatically say "yes". Now, here's the big thing. If you want to get guests easy, go to Amazon, find all of the authors inside of your niche, it doesn't matter what your niche is, and contact them. There is no author that will not do a book promotion. You talk to them about their topic, talk to them about their book and you can fill up your schedule as quickly as you want to. Podcast Cover Art Honestly, when I launched mine, I didn't have cover art. What I ended up doing, is I took a picture of me and my daughter, went on to Pixlr and put in words. I just put "Lance Tamashiro Show" on it. I mean, you can see it. It's just a picture of me and my daughter with the words on the bottom. I didn't overthink it. However, now they want the size to be either 2,000 x 2,000 or 3,000 x 3,000. Again, you just upload that to PowerPress, and they take care of everything for you. This plug-in really does do everything. You know, if you walk through the setup of the plug-in, they have it by menus, and you just fill everything in, you're good to go. And, I think they even have the links now for Google Play and iTunes to send you to the place that you want to go. If you want to have a cool setup, I would say go to Fiverr.com and just search "podcast art". There will be a bunch of people that come up. Just pay them $5 or $10, get that thing made, and don't even think about it. And, even with mine, that's where I got my intro made. I went in and typed in "podcast intro music". The first guy that came up, I hired him, and he did my intro and outro. I think it cost me $20 total, and then I was done. You don't even have to think about it. I do my recording, and then I go back and I stick that at the front, and then the back, and then I'm done. I kind of think the intro music is distracting. I mean, that's the big thing. I've been going back and listening to the other top podcasts, and most of them it's like five seconds with them just talking into it. So my thought at this point is, "I'm going to pull that out, or at least just really strip it back," because I mean, that's not what it's about. It's about the information that you're going to give to people, and the guests that you have on. Podcast Tips If you have a podcast that no one listens to, do you really have a podcast? I mean, that's the big question with all podcasting. It's, "How do I get subscribers? How do I get listeners? How do I get people on?" So, the first thing is if you're starting from scratch, here is what I did. I had a dead Twitter account that I never used. I hadn't made a tweet on it since like 2010. So, I had this Twitter account, and I'm thinking, "Alright. I'll just use this and see what happens." I found this software. It's a website called eClincher.com. What it does, is it basically can make a list of tweets, and it will just tweet them over and over again, as much as you want. So, what happened was, one of the guests on my podcast said to me, "The average lifespan of a tweet is 45 minutes." So, if you tweet every 45 minutes, it's not like Facebook where people are going to get mad at you. It's not like email. You're allowed to tweet every 45 minutes and nobody cares. So, I found this thing that's basically an auto-responder. Now, every time I have a new show, I put that into my "auto-responder", my auto-tweet, called eClincher. I set it to run every 45 minutes, or 60 minutes, and it just cycles through. When I started at like 10 episodes, it just cycled through every 45 minutes, making those tweets go out, and then I just add a new one. Here's the key that I did. Every guest that I had on, I would tag them. You've probably seen this on Twitter. You see that every day. You see I'm promoting it, and you're likely to like it, or re-tweet, or whatever, so your people see it. But, then what I do is I use the hashtag. So, I use #podcast almost always. My podcast is business-related and entrepreneur, so I use #business and #entrepreneur. My Twitter account was, just from doing that, 200-300 followers a day. Just from tweeting that thing out. I mean, constantly tweeting those things out. However, you've got high-profile people that re-tweet it every day because they like it and because you're promoting them. It doesn't cost them anything; they are there anyway. It keeps you in their heads. I mean, you're never going to forget that you were on my show because every time you log into Twitter, you're going to see X-number of tweets from me promoting it. Again, having guests for me is what blew up really fast because I couldn't believe how willing people were to tweet about it, to Facebook about it, to email about it. I mean, people with massive, massive followings. If I were to have approached them and said, "Hey, email for my product. Let's do a webinar." They would have said, "No way," but because it was this podcast, they were all willing to do that. I attribute a huge amount of the growth and success of my podcast to that because, I've got a pretty big mail list, and I've got a pretty big following, but I rarely, I mean maybe twice, I've sent out emails about my podcast. So, this grew without me being involved. It was all pretty much my guests. Here's probably the biggest tip that I got from doing this, about getting guests, and getting high profile, and growing this thing fast. For me, I always thought of myself as in the internet marketing space. I found out I wasn't, especially for my podcast. Let's say you're in the dog training niche. You're not in the dog training niche for your podcast. You're in the animal-whatever niche. If you want to focus on dogs, that's fine, but here's where I think people are missing the boat. They start saying like, "Well, I'm a dog trainer so I'm just going to train about this type of dog." What they need to do is contact places like the Humane Society. They need to contact places like Purina, places that make dog toys, and the reason is all of these people have a huge following on social media. The second thing is that they all have PR departments that are set up just to get out PR and get their word out. So they will do an interview with you, if they see you have a podcast. And then, three, that gives you a lot of credibility to say, "Hey, the guy from Purina was on my show. Why don't you be on my show," or "the guy from the Humane Society was, why don't you?" They will all promote it. These big companies will all post it onto their Facebook pages. Don't think of yourself as in this small, little microcosm niche. Think about how big you can blow it up, which is the opposite of what we hear in online business. People say, "Pick your little niche and do that". That's fine, but for your podcast, there's only 10 broad categories in iTunes. Pick one of those, and that's your niche. Then start thinking about what companies, what big players you can go to. Most of them have big PR departments, and they are just looking for places to get their message out and will promote you. Connecting with Lance The easiest way is to go to iTunes and type in Lance Tamashiro. That would be a great way. The other thing is, if you're interested in podcasting, setting up something similar to what we're doing here today, you can check out the PodcastCrusher training. It's basically a step-by-step course that lets you look over our shoulders as we set up an actual podcast that we started from scratch, and you can watch and see how that's been growing as well. Resources Lance's PodcastCrusher Course (I bought this and use it myself) - PodcastCrusher Course Podcast Plugin - PowerPress Podcast Hosting Site - Libsyn Photo Editor - Pixlr Social Media Management Tool - eClincher Lance Tamashiro Podcast - Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Productivity & Results Podcast Cover Art - Fiverr.com Podcast Platforms: Stitcher Google Play iTunes.com Daniel's Real Fast Results Tips: Podcasting Pick a topic and start asking friends when you can interview them. You can use Google Hangout to record your interview. Make sure you have a good microphone. Real Fast Results Community If you are diggin' on this stuff and really love what we're doing here at Real Fast Results, would you please do me a favor? Head on over to iTunes, and make sure that you subscribe to this show, download it, and rate & review it. That would be an awesome thing. Of course, we also want to know your results. Please share those results with us at http://www.realfastresults.com/results. As always, go make results happen!