Breaking Podcast Rules: Mark Savant's Approach

Chris Stone [: 00:00:00

You the host of the After Hours Entrepreneur Podcast, the founder of Mark Savant Media, a company that helps busy out professionals build status and sales with podcast. Please welcome to dealcasters mark Savant. Oh, Mark, thank you so much for coming on. This is not hyperbole. I think when we talk about out podcasting, I think there's a lot of blurry lines out there and people immediately think, okay, well, I have to do podcasting. My business needs to I need to do this and do this and do this and I need this. You have a really great, unique story because you didn't start in the podcaster industry. You had other stuff going on and then you realized that podcasting was something that not only could help launch you as an entrepreneur, but you became passionate about it and it really helped you develop a new business that allowed you to live life on your terms with your family and what you're doing now. And I'd love for you to be able to share that unique story with Hours audience.

Mark Savant [: 00:01:09

Chris, thanks so much. I can't express in words how passionate I am about helping people find find your why. And I know for years I woke up hating Mondays. I would stare at the ceiling on Monday morning, be like, I have to go do this for the next 8 hours of my life. Soul sucking work. And so many people are living this life. So many people. And eventually one day I guest decided I was cranky. I was angry at my wife, I was getting into arguments with my kids. Nothing was working. I was just really unhappy. I said, something has to give. This just cannot proceed. And I started looking at all these different sorts of businesses, right? I'm still working in my insurance job daytime. And then in all my free time, I'm looking at other businesses that I can get into. I looked at everything from Amazon FBA shout out to Amazon, by the way. I looked at writing children's books and illustrating children's books. Kind of kind of crazy there. I even looked at opening up a mattress store, nice real estate, insurance. But what really got me going was when I just considered I'm listening to podcasts every day trying to figure this stuff out. Why don't I just start one? And podcasting is off for everyone. But it was for me. And I just love the space so much.

Chris Stone [: 00:02:31

That's killer. The wonderful part about this is that there are so many people and I don't know if you want to call it impostor syndrome or whatever that go, I'm going to start a podcast. But I have this network that's pretty good. But I really would like to have this person on my podcast. I really would like to have this person on my podcast. And I look at the people that you've had on your podcast and it's everyone from Chris Doe to Roberto Blake to pat Flynn if you're going to look at maybe the Mount Rushmore of podcast guests, you've had many of them on your show. And a lot of people go, I just can't do that. And maybe they want to know the secret of doing that. And I'm not asking you, hey, Mark, give us the shortcuts, right? So that I don't have to do all the work that you did, right? But how did you get all of these folks on your podcast, even maybe before you were where you're at now, bro?

Mark Savant [: 00:03:39

Chris to me, the connections are the best part about podcasting. It's unbelievable. The first show that I launched, the awesome dad Show, within a month. Within a month, I had no broadcasting experience. I had no media experience. I had no marketing experience. I was an insurance. I was selling insurance all day. No experience. I had no business in this industry. Within a month, I had Super Bowl champions on my podcast. I was landing presidential candidates on my podcast. I had landed a meeting with the mayor of our city. This is within 30 days of the show going live.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:04:14

That's amazing.

Mark Savant [: 00:04:15

Super powerful, right? And I could tell you all the things I did to make that happen, but instead, I'm going to fast forward to where I'm at now, hours, years in the future, because I have a lot more insights now. I'd learned a lot through host times. So if you want to get an amazing guest on your show, the first thing to think about is, how can I provide value to this person? Is that person launching a new book? Do they have a paid community? Do they have a course? They have a podcast. Are they posting on Instagram every day? What are they doing? And just try to give them as much value there as possible. Again, someone dropping a new book. That's a perfect time to get them on your podcast because they got a book. They want to tell everyone about their book. If someone's dropping bombs, Bradley style, every day on Instagram, follow them. And as soon as they drop it, drop that post. Leave a quick comment. Boom, boom. Hey, what's up? If you start repeating this, then you start to show up, and people start to recognize your face in their feed. And that's when you can go to the DMs and say, hey, love the post today. We'd love to get you my podcast. What's up? And that's another powerful way. And then the third just a quick takeaway that's been successful for me is join their community. A lot of creators have great communities that are maybe $50 a month. $100 a month. $200 a month. Join their community. They will almost always want to give you back value.

Chris Stone [: 00:05:38

I love that. Okay. There's a number of things that we can totally unpack there because there's a lot of Amazon influencers podcaster that watch our show that listen team replay or hear live. And I think the last thing you said is invest. Really? You've got to invest and not just invest in a microphone. Not just invest in the sure, MV Seven X that Jim sounding so buttery smooth in tonight. It's not just the camera. All of the stuff here in the Amazon carousel, it's investing in your business, which means joining communities, which means increasing your network. All those things can be free. There's things that you can get for free by joining, certain things that are but investing in your community is monstrous. And I think a lot of people, for whatever reason, just want to get as much as they can for free without going, hey, you know what? Roberto Blake has this thing that will cost X amount per month. Well, maybe I can just figure out what I can get for free. And you're going to get what you pay for, right?

Mark Savant [: 00:06:52

Yeah. Nothing wrong with free, right? Nothing wrong with free.

Chris Stone [: 00:06:56

No, not at all.

Mark Savant [: 00:07:01

By the way, I hate using the word but, because it basically just means forget everything I just said. However, anyway, when you do pay to be part of someone's community, I don't go into that with the sole purpose of the only thing I want from this is to get that person on my podcast. Because these communities have a lot of like minded people. A lot of people that, to your point, Chris, are not just looking for the free stuff. They're looking to invest in themselves. So if we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, if our network truly is our net worth, spending time with people that are investing in themselves levels you up a notch, right? And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being free. I'm in free communities. I do a lot of free things. I think they're great. There is a next tier of business of monetization, of podcaster. It were when you start getting into paid communities. I'll give you a perfect example. I had Travis Chapel on the show recently. He's the founder of guestio host of Build Your Network podcast. And he really stood out to me because he had sent me an email. I'm on his email list. It said, I joined $100,000 Mastermind. And I'm like, what? $100,000 Mastermind? That's nuts. That's a pretty big deal. That's a pretty big deal. But when he started and you'll have to listen to the episodes coming out in a couple of weeks, but when he started laying out what happened after he did that, I'm like, okay, it starts to make sense. Now. You're landing this client in this deal, in this tech, in this partnership and this venture, because when you're in a Mastermind with people that have $100,000 to.

Chris Stone [: 00:08:48

Spend.

Mark Savant [: 00:08:51

Rule number one of business, make sure that the people you're selling to actually have money to buy, right? And so when you're surrounding yourself with people that have money, it levels you up and it builds up more opportunities.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:09:03

Well, and I love what you said though, too, Mark, about and I want to go back to the word invest, because Chris and I talk about this all the time. People say, well, it costs this, it costs that. But if you're in business, you're making an investment in yourself or in your business, and so your time is an investment. So whether it's a free group, whether it's a paid group, you're investing your time. So even if it's a free group and you're investing your time, you need to make sure that it's worth it, right? And that you're not wasting your time. Because that's one thing, as I always say, that we can never get back. So I think that's one of those important things that too many people get caught up in the, oh, I'm having to spend money. But it's like you need to be evaluating this stuff from time to time. Chris beats me up from time to time about all the things that I invest in subscriptions. And I do know I need to go and look at that sometimes, say, am I using this if I'm paying for it? But I love how you look at that as an investment.

Mark Savant [: 00:09:58

Absolutely. An investment. Absolutely. And you get this when you're trying to build your first six figure business. There's a lot of expenses. You got your desk, you got internet, you've got insurance, you've got the equipment, the beautiful equipment. So for me, I think prioritizing, what's the next step in this process and just continuously reinvesting myself rather than in a twelve pack every weekend or whatever, right? Just trying to get priority straight on what you're investing in. Certainly an important certainly an important thing.

Chris Stone [: 00:10:29

So, Mark, when you started Mark Savant Media, when you started in this podcaster business, was it a side hustle? Was it something that originally started as something on the side, sort of like after hours, and then eventually you graduated to that point? Because I think a lot of people don't know when to cut that cord. Right. Working on the business, in the business, that kind of stuff. What's that part of your journey about?

Mark Savant [: 00:10:55

Yeah, I mean, I just love the way this interview is going. We're just like going straight through my doomed days, my horrible Mondays. So I launched this podcast. I'm getting Super Bowl champions. I'm getting all these amazing people. I'm like, this is awesome, I love this. I hosted The Awesome Dad Show for about a year, and at the end of a year I said, where are we at? And I knew I wanted to generate income from the show. I knew I wanted to leave my day job. I had that vision in mind. The after hours entrepreneur, though. Excuse me? The awesome dad show. I wasn't generating income from people weren't paying me to teach them how to be a better dad. In fact, 60% of my listenership was female. So there's all kinds of surprising things that happened when I look at the data and whatnot what people were paying me for was to help them with their podcast, to help them with their Instagram, to help them with video clips. They're paying me for a lot of different things because I didn't have clarity yet. Which, by the way, if you really want to leave that day job as soon as you can, get super clear on who you serve, what their problem is, how you can solve that problem and what success looks like, that's when things take off. That's when things take off. It took me a while to get there. To answer your question, it took me a while to get there. I was trying all these different solutions for all sorts of different people until I finally, about a year ago, Chris Jim realized, podcasting. I'm not worried about all this other stuff. I want to help people build status and sales with podcasts. I want to work with busy professionals. And once I got that clarity, I started diving in. It was like client client, more client, group. I have a group for podcaster as well. And that's continued to grow. And it got to this point where I'm like, I think we got something. It took a long time to get here, but we think we got something. And just three months ago, I was able to leave the job. I was able to leave that day job and focus solely on this. And I want this for more people because it has completely transformed who I am. We need more people doing this because anytime you go into a restaurant retail establishment, nobody wants to be there. Very true. I saw a TikTok video of this person who was screaming that they had to go to Starbucks on the weekend, that their boss had given them a weekend job. I'm like, I hear you. You got to start something.

Chris Stone [: 00:13:31

Yeah. The other thing, I love you and I have a very similar business as Mark. I have an abundance mindset, and there's plenty of podcaster out there, right? And I think you and I should talk after the show and absolutely connect and help each other. But the other thing that I love about your stuff and your business is that there is a done for you element and there's a DIY element. And so as someone that works with other podcasters, you have conversation with someone, and sometimes that conversation is like, well, this person kind of knows enough to be dangerous about how to get something up on a podcast host and how to do this and how to do that. I can just show this person how to do that. Maybe consult them and kind of walk them through how to do it, maybe their VA, and sort of tell them how to do it and then send them on their way and go have fun. And I hope you're able to monetize and come back to me if you need for me to consult. But you also have and this is what I do in the business that I have, and that is you don't want to know about any of that stuff. You just want a show. You just want a podcast. You just want to be able to walk down into your office, fire up your camera, your microphone, have a guest in front of you, and be able to have a show, and you handle it. So in your business, you have sort of both. So how have you been able to manage that with Marks Amount Media?

Mark Savant [: 00:15:16

Really important question, a really important point, I think that you just laid out here. Chris and I kind of alluded to this a moment ago. If you're going to be able to leave your job, if you're going to build, at least get that six figure mark, we need to get clear on what problems we solve. What's the problem that people have and how can I solve it. And my big ticket offer is that production. The podcast launches the weekly production. That's big ticket, though. Not everyone is spending 5000, $2,000 on services and consulting, right? For whatever reason, they're not there. I was getting off of so many phone calls with people like, Mark, I love you. I want this podcast to work. I want to make it happen. I don't have five grand for a podcast launch. I just don't have it. And I was like, I hear you. How can I still provide values person? How can I find a way to work with this person? And so I launched this community, the podcast Font Pro community, in January or so. And we just meet once a week and we talk about, hey, what are you working on? What's winning? How can we refine our messaging? How can we generate more income from this show? You're running ads to your show. How's that traffic look? Are they real listeners? Are they just robots? What are we looking at here? And so by melding the minds together, it's been a really powerful experience, which solves a problem, which solves a real problem that podcasters run into, which is loneliness, not knowing what you don't know, connecting. And so it's been really powerful. There the goal, though, however, and again, when we're building a business, we do want that cohesive strategy throughout. I believe the goal, though, is, hey, you get in on a lower level in a community that's inexpensive, you learn what it's like to work with me, you learn what it's like to build your podcast. And eventually, when you get to the point where you can afford it, who are you going to choose? You're going to go with Marksvant Media, because Marksvant Media gave you the low ticket offer, and we helped get you to the higher ticket offer. That's a way that I really like to think about businesses. How can I impact people at the lower ticket level so that when they're ready at the higher ticket level, they're hopping on board. And I'll just give one shout out to Alex Hormosi. That's his game. Yeah, that's the Alex Hormozi game with 100 million dollar offer is I'm going to give you all this stuff for dirt cheap. Because when you make it, you're going to come back and you're going to find me. And so far we're in the planting seed phase. We'll see where it goes.

Chris Stone [: 00:17:56

Yeah. Because even if you're a company that's fairly well known, when you first start a podcast, you really got to build the reps. Your first podcast is not going to be as great as your second one. It's not going to be great as your third one. It's almost like start here and then everyone's going to get better. You're going to get better if you're producing it. They're going to get better because at being a podcast host or a guest on other things, which I'd love to get into as well. Because typically you're a podcast host, you have a number of podcasts NFTs and after hours as well. But tonight you're the guest. You're on the other side. You don't have to push any buttons. We're pushing the buttons for you. Speaking of pushing buttons, we do have a question here on Amazon from our friend Jeff C, who does Social Media News Live. So if you're not following social media news live with Jeff C and Grace Duffy. It's the best show on the interwebs. And so Jeff's got a great question. What are some of your tips, Mark, on marketing your podcast business?

Mark Savant [: 00:19:04

It's such a great question and I think that probably the most important thing for a business owner is think about is where am I going to get sales from? Where where are they coming from? Where are we going to get them? And a lot of people say word of mouth. And word of mouth is certainly important for me. I just try to put my face in front of as many people as possible, right? And that can be just doing something like this, going on a podcast tour. Try to get on as many podcast as you can. There's a reason why this industry is blowing up right now, and that's because marketers influencers authors are learning that podcast are a great way to spread a powerful message to many people. So that's one way and that works. You will get clients by doing that. I love going to networking events. I don't know if I'm a sadist of some sort, but they're so easy to get to, right? Like, if you really wanted to, you could be in a networking meeting every day of the week just on Zoom. And that's a great way of meeting potential clients. Now, one of the things that I have really worked on and refined. Again, one of the things we work on a lot in the group is how can I refine a really clear message that speaks to the person that needs to hear me, right? Because one of the problems that comes in those networking groups is everyone is just tuning everyone out until it's their chance to talk. You know what I mean? Right. That's not where you want to be when you're in a networking group, especially on Zoom. You want to look good. You want to have some nice gear. You want to have some hot lighting. Got to have a decent mic. And listen, you don't have to have a 400 $500 mic. You can spend $80. You get a really nice mic. The ATR 2100 was awesome. I still have it. I still use it. So the ATR 2100 is a great, like but getting through networking groups. And I want to give a little bit. I've just been loving books recently, so I'm shouting out a bunch of books. I want to shout out Donald Miller's story Brand. Great book, awesome. And he has a little exercise in the end of the book that is just so good, and I kind of alluded to it earlier, but it's developing a one liner that really impacts people, that really makes people, like, stop and listen. So generally, you want to build a one liner that revolves around who your ideal customer is. Who are they? You can't be everything to everyone. Who do you want to work with? What's the main problem? What's the main pain point that they have? What's your solution? And what is success going to look like after they've experienced your solution? And the better you are at refining that message and refining those four things, the more powerful your messaging is going to be, the more powerful your marketing is going to be everywhere across the board. But in this example, this is how I'm meeting people in networking groups, and it works. I'm landing clients. And it's fun talking to people. It also, by the way, doesn't hurt when you're in a fun and exciting interest industry, right? Every meeting I go to, everyone's like, I'm a realtor. I do payment processing. I do mortgages. I'm like, I help busy professionals build status and sales with podcasts. And they're like, you do what? Yeah, run a podcast agency and then everyone just wants to park next to you in the room.

Chris Stone [: 00:22:22

If you could, for me, Mark, because you breeze through that. Let me hear that again. I help busy professionals how does that go?

Mark Savant [: 00:22:31

Help busy professionals build status and sales with podcast.

Chris Stone [: 00:22:37

Ladies and gentlemen, that is what we call a golden ticket. That's how you do it. And listen, it may not be exactly what Mark said, and it probably isn't, but when you hear that, you know exactly what it is. You know exactly who he's serving. You know exactly what he can do. We talk a lot about Mark, identifying who your avatar is, right? And this is what we're talking about, identifying who your key listener is, who your key consumer, your viewer, whoever that is, what their problems are. And then your content, what you're doing is solving those problems, right? Dealcasters is here on Amazon and all of these other places because we want to solve the problem that people have with presenting and producing shows, producing podcast, producing live streaming. This is what we're doing. But you added another element to that, and that is the results. You're envisioning the results, the success that they have and adding that to that. How do you do that with your clients? What are some examples of maybe some clients that you work with that you know what their ideal results are and how did you get to that point?

Mark Savant [: 00:24:03

So with any business, right, painting a picture of what success looks like, that's super important, whether it's politics and what life's going to be like when they elect you, or whether it's in a business, what it's going to be like when they give you a dollar or $10,000 or 100, whatever your offer is. Right. Painted success is really important, and I think the best way, at least for me, was listening and paying attention and quite frankly, paying attention not necessarily to my customer, but paying attention to my competition. Right. One of the fastest ways to get ahead in your business is to look at what your competitors are doing. What are the successful competitors doing? There's a reason why they're doing that, and that's probably because they understand that that's what works. If you're speaking to busy professionals and you're not talking about money, there's something missing there. That's why everybody talks about money when they're talking to busy professionals, because that's the major pain point. That's what success can look like. So that's part of it, right. Looking at your competitors, what are they doing? What does success look like? How can you be different? But then there's another aspect to that and this can be really powerful. It can get you into trouble. And that's saying, this is the status quo, this is what everybody else is doing. This is why I do it differently. I don't do it that way, I do it this way. And this is why. And that's a really powerful tool for differentiating going against the status quo. And I've been looking at different ways to do that. But one of the ways that I've been looking at doing that in the podcasting industry specifically, is by really honing in on helping people land guests that want to pay to be on the show.

Chris Stone [: 00:25:54

Wow.

Mark Savant [: 00:25:56

Sometimes people podcast purists get angry. When I start talking like this, they start to get angry.

Chris Stone [: 00:26:03

I'm not going to get angry, but I don't know, I'm slipping down a slope right now. But Mark, we're going to get into it. I love it. I want to hear all about this, man.

Mark Savant [: 00:26:11

Yeah, I guess I'll toss the mic back over to you all, but I found that in the industry, nobody talks about paying guests. But here's the reality that you have these podcast booking agencies that are making thousands, tens of thousands of dollars finding guest. And you're the host, you're the podcaster, you're the one who's putting blood, sweat and tears. You mentioned Chris backstage that you edited eight episodes today. And the problem is that the vast, vast majority of podcaster are doing all this work tens of hours every week. They're not getting paid anything. And I think that I would like to change that narrative. I like to change that to your guest. You want to come in front of the business, the audience that I've built over the past year, two, five years, there's a guest experience charge, and that helps with the production of the show. That helps to improve the quality of your show. Because now you should have some cash coming in, you have some cash flow. So that's the tip of the iceberg. But I'm very passionate about this because I think it's a really and people get very upset too when I start talking like this.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:27:25

But you know what, market podcast movement, there was definitely some conversation about this. And when I thought about it, right, like, you take a step back for a second, it's like, okay, if you're going to bring on your business that's looking to make money, you're going to come on Mark Savant's show and talk about something that when you get in front of his audience, who has the target audience that's going to make those purchases.

Chris Stone [: 00:27:48

I guest that.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:27:49

It's like, you know what, I'm bringing you into my house and you're going to walk away with money in your pocket if you do your job because Mark's going to do his. So as much as I think initially, right, you get that, oh, I never paid. It's one of those never say never, because you might find that actually there's some value and you're also it's going to be tough. And our friend Jesse is saying the same thing. He likes the idea, but it is going to be hard to adopt. But I have seen there are some people that are paying to be on podcast, or I think there's even chris, you talked to me about this a little bit. I think there's some networks where they all pay to be in it and then they're on each other's shows.

Chris Stone [: 00:28:34

Well, Mark, you mentioned this. There's a lot that goes into this. Not just the amount of money for the equipment and the gear and the hosting and all of that, but the time that goes into it. And after a while, you're okay, the downloads don't warrant the sponsorships and all of the monetization that goes into it. So everybody's looking. Listen, we're on Amazon.

Mark Savant [: 00:29:02

We're.

Chris Stone [: 00:29:02

Monetizing here on Amazon. There's no secret when you click on Amazon and you see Deal Casters, it says, we're part of the Amazon Influencer Program, and we make commissions based on what is sold here. Okay, that's monetization. And why wouldn't you want to say, okay, two 4% of whatever's purchased on this show goes to us as commission at no cost to you? That's fair. That's absolutely fair. And what you're talking about, Mark, is fair as well. If there is a value for value trade that's going on here, it's why I like and I don't know, Mark, if you're familiar with what's going on with Value for Value and what Mark Courier is doing, or Adam sorry, Adam Courier Podfather is doing with Value for value. And I'm sure you're aware of this being in the NFT space where basically satoshis are going out of your digital wallet while you're listening to a podcast. Because it's like, okay, if I'm getting value by listening to social media news live with Jeff C and Grace Duffy, and I want to pay them X amount of money, and that could be $5 an episode. So every time I listen to something for 45 minutes, they're getting $5. I'm just throwing this out, Jeff. I would probably pay you more than $5. But my point is this. If I feel like I get value every time I listen to after hours entrepreneur, then I should pay for that. I pay for cable that I don't even watch, right? And so why would I not want to pay Mark Savant for valuable content that I'm now listening to for free? And so everyone is scrambling to look for opportunities to monetize. So I totally understand what you're saying, but there's the traditionalists, it's kind of like Major League Baseball traditionalists. It's like you will not pay to be a guest or on a podcast.

Mark Savant [: 00:31:09

It's crazy. Yeah, there's a lot and I'm speaking to my attorney about this and various issues that pop up with bringing on paid guests and paid sponsors and such, so on and so forth. I think, though, at the reality at the end of the day is the vast majority of podcast die before episode ten. I think that because these people, we don't see the return. Sure, the return can be far off, but I don't think it needs to be. I don't think it has to be. I love the word invest, which brought up a few times here, but investing in yourself, investing the time, it pays off big. You're just not going to be satisfied waking up doing the same nine to five every day, working for a boss, eventually getting phased out because there's some 19 year old that knows how to do TikTok and you don't or understands how to do Metaverse sales and you don't believe in the Metaverse or whatever. You're going to get phased out. Now is the time. Podcasting is a very powerful tool. I love podcasting, obviously, and helping more people get into it and stay involved with it. There's so many great voices out there, and as more and more people leave traditional media sources, they're going to find you. They're going to find your podcast, and there's got to be ways for you to generate income so that you can keep the show rolling, baby. You can keep that message going. That's what I want to see.

Chris Stone [: 00:32:52

I love the passion, man, and it's why I got into this business as well, because I don't want to speak for you, but I saw a bunch of people that were doing great, that had great content. They just didn't have their act together in terms of how to do a podcast. And their audio maybe was wonky or their video was wonky, but they had really good, valuable content. I was like, I can help this person. I can help this person launch their show and get them to the point to where they need to be, because I would love for more people to be able to hear this. And you saw the success early on, right, where it was like, you start to do a podcast and all of a sudden you're getting found.

Mark Savant [: 00:33:36

Yeah, well, I wouldn't say that I got found immediately, but one thing that did happen is when I started my podcast, I started thinking this again about four years ago. I had no history in marketing. I was thinking about what happens if I go to Google and type in Mark Savant, or I go to LinkedIn, type in Mark Savant. I was not showing up. There's other Mark Savant. He's a doctor in California. I see you, Mark. I see you, Dr. Savant. And he was popping up everywhere. I could not top the charts, but I will say that over the course of the last few years, dr. Mark Savant, I'm sorry, but you're gone, baby. You're gone. You can't find him anywhere. You go in, you see Mark Savant media on YouTube, and then the podcast and the guest podcast, and then I'm all over the place. So it's a powerful tool for being found.

Chris Stone [: 00:34:26

It's like a little battle you have with Dr. Mark Savant. I love that. But it's true. Google loves podcasts, and getting found is people talk about, know, like, and trust all the time. And the basis of your business is to get more sales, right? So you're working with clients to get more sales. And a lot of people look at that and they go, wait a minute. How is a podcast going to get me more sales? And so when someone asks you that question, do you start with the search as far as, hey, you get found, and then this is how it generates sales, or what's that conversation look like?

Mark Savant [: 00:35:12

Well, you probably recognize this, too. It depends on the client. It depends on their exact goal. It depends on the way that they want the exact benefit, they want their business to to return. But I think that one of the best ways to generate sales from a podcast is is using as a direct selling or maybe even an indirect selling tool. And I'll give you an example. A client of mine sells a very expensive DNA kit to police agencies around the country, around the world, in fact. It's expensive, tens of thousands of dollars, and it's able to solve cold cases. It's really remarkable. Taking DNA off of 100 year old bones and stuff. It's pretty wild. So he has this very expensive DNA kit and what he does is he uses the podcast as a way of inviting decision makers onto the show. Says, hey, today we've got the chief investigator from Denver PD. You develop relationship, you build momentum, you lead with value, and then when done correctly, that can lead to a sale, that can lead to sales with that decision maker at that business. It's a very powerful B to B sales tool, which is one of the reasons I like working with busy professionals, because it's very easy to monetize the show very quickly when you're using it like that. Because how many times do you get this message on LinkedIn? You buy myself a jerry by myself, five minutes later, you finish the paragraph and it's like, click this link to Buy. Now, that doesn't work. It doesn't work. And it's much easier to say, hey, love what you do, love to invite you on my show. It works almost every time. And you're going into sale leading with value. It's not take, take, take, it's give, give, give. And that changes the relationship dynamically right from the front.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:37:10

Well, and I guess too. Going back to Chris's comment about Google loving podcast, now they're using, still trying to figure it out. YouTube is going to have podcast. How are you looking at working with that Mark? Or you're not really worrying about it because you're doing what you're doing?

Mark Savant [: 00:37:30

Yeah, well, both for me. My show is on Google podcast. It's also on YouTube. YouTube is a great place. I think we're streaming live. What's up, YouTube? We see you over there. Make sure you hit the like button, smash, subscribe, hit the Share button. Do it, do it now.

Chris Stone [: 00:37:46

Where's the bell?

Mark Savant [: 00:37:48

Yeah, hit the notification bell. If you haven't yet, make sure you check your Google Chrome extension, all that stuff. Yeah. No, I mean, I love YouTube. One of the things that's really interesting to me is Spotify, and Spotify is placed in the market. I don't use Anchor as a host right now, but if you're hosting on Anchor, you have the ability to push a video to Spotify, and that's something that I've got my eye on as well. Rumble is starting to pick up steam. I don't know where that's going to go, but they're publicly funded now, so Rumble could be a thing. The last time I checked it out, it was just very political, which wasn't interesting to me. But there's so many different players getting into this podcasting game, which is something that I try to pay attention to. Doing what works ten years ago I don't think is a great way to go in way to the next phase of what happens next or the next decade. I'm looking to see, how can I get in early, develop a relationship with this company early. Maybe it's a financial relationship, too. Maybe I'm exclusive there. I have a friend who got an exclusive deal with Spotify. He's making millions of dollars just because of his exclusive relationship there. So how can I get in with a new company, see their need, see their problem, offer a solution, and then paint a picture for what success will look like. Right? I just use that formula over and over and over again. And developing relationships with new up and coming platforms is a great way to win. And I'll give you a perfect example. When you're setting up your podcast RSS feed, there's a lot of hosts that won't be suggested or a lot of distributors, right? And Ghana is the largest podcast distributor in India. A lot of people listen to it. A lot of people in India. So I reached out to them, said, hey, I'm on your platform. Would love to collaborate. Let me know how I can help. And they actually tweeted out my show twice to their fans on Twitter. So shoot your shot. Try to connect, try to build a relationship.

Chris Stone [: 00:39:53

I love that. And so we've talked about and I need to hang on a SEC here. Here we go. We've talked about this podcast, and so if you're on Amazon right now, or you listen to podcasts on whatever player, apple podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast has come up. There's some great players that you may listen to, whether it's podcast or overcast, which is another great app. Amazon Music is a podcast player and after hours entrepreneur. Wow. Say that ten times fast, right? Is available for free. Okay. For free. Ladies and gentlemen, there's no better deal on dealcasters than free. I'm not joking when I see how I mean chris Doe, Pat Flynn, sean Cannell that's just like Atomic Hat, roberto Blake. That's just like the last ten episodes. I just named, like, again, mount Rushmore of podcasters, live streamers entrepreneur right there. I listened to the Christo episode, mark, that was absolutely fantastic. I love the way you put your episodes together, by the way. I'd love to nerd out with you on that. I'm not sure if our listeners get into that or not, but there are so many podcast, Mark, that you listen to, and the first thing you're hit with is little intro music. And here's everything about me, and here's what I like to do. And it's the same intro sort of every time, and you have this really great way you stitch together your episodes where you're pulling out a nugget from the episode and you're putting it right at the front end. And it just is a nice hook. Because I think a lot of people that are putting together a podcast, they don't understand how that works. That when someone hits Play, it could be the first time they've ever hit play on that podcast. And it could be the hook Point podcast. It could be the Kristen Corpion episode. It could be the Blake Hutchinson episode. It could be the Chris Doe episode because they Googled Chris Doe, but you're hitting them with content right off the front that hooks them in. And then once you got them in for a few minutes, you got them. And I love how that does. And I think that's an art form that a lot of podcaster really don't do. How long did it take you to get to that point, to where you were putting together episodes like that?

Mark Savant [: 00:42:37

Gosh, I've experimented with so many different ways of doing it. I'll tell you what, it helps having a production team. It helps a lot, which, again, is why you need to generate income so you can pay people who can do it better than you. But what I learned is when you're actually in the episode itself, you can take really brief and quick notes that help save you so much time in editing. Oh, my gosh. And here's something that I do. Every once in a while or multiple times during an episode, the guest is going to say something you're like, that was really good. That's exactly why people are here. That's the problem that people need a solution for. And what I'll do is I'll just notate the time. Maybe it's 30 minutes in. I'll just put plus 30. Then I know when it comes back to editing, I want to take out this clip at 30 minutes. That's going to be the hook. Maybe that's going to be an Instagram reel or a TikTok video. And by being more thoughtful during the recording process, it makes my future self much happier because future self can spend date night with the wife rather than trying to find the perfect moment during the episode.

Chris Stone [: 00:43:51

I love how that's driving you. It's like date night. This is not the first time, like, preshow. You were bringing up date, and he had early date night, and date night becomes and that's important, right? Because I think the whole idea behind why you're doing this is so that you can live life on your terms. And the job that you were in, you were like, this is not working for me. I have more important things than working. And so I'm going to be able to dictate this stuff on your terms. So tell us about that. Tell us about your family. What is your passion here for life?

Mark Savant [: 00:44:34

Family is the driver. It's really what got me off my butt and got me working. The challenge is when you're leaving your job and you're building your first six figure year A, it's a lot of fun because you're getting to work on this project, you're solving these problems all time. It's like a video game in a way, but you can start to become obsessive about it. And like Denise says here, date night is so important. I think about Walter White from Breaking Bad, and he gets sick, and all he needs to do is just needs to make a lot of money so he can leave his kids, just so he's kicking out of college and the home is paid off, that's all he needs. So he goes out and he cooks crystal, right? So he went a different route. For anyone that doesn't get that, and I won't give spoilers, I will say this. If you lose sight of what's important on that guest, it's not worth it anymore. The quest isn't worth it anymore. And I spoke to my wife about this the other day because she was she was saying, you know, Mark, you know, I feel like we don't spend any time together. Every Friday night, you're in your office and you're working and we don't spend time. And what I did was I took a note from James Cleary's book, Atomic Habits, which, by the way, you get it on Amazon. That book is incredible. Atomic Habits. Really, really good. Like, you need to have bought it a week ago. So good. And there's a section in Atomic Habits where James says the chances of you actually doing something double to quadruple if you actually write down when you're going to do it and where you're going to do it. And that was the problem that her and I had had. We said, we're going to try to find some time on Tuesday night, and it just didn't happen. So what I did is I read that excerpt to her. I said, listen, because at first when I told her I'd have to put her in my calendar, she wasn't thrilled about it.

Chris Stone [: 00:46:27

Yeah, so romantic.

Mark Savant [: 00:46:29

Is it? Yeah, send me an email. She didn't go for it at first, but when I read that page from Atomic Habits, she was like, oh, okay, I get it. So I've got her marked down. We're marked down for date night at least 30 minutes every night this week. And again, it's not worth building your six figure business. It's not worth leaving your job and building something if you don't get to spend time with those that you love. And I can definitively say if you're not thoughtful about it, it's very easy to get those things pushed off. It's very easy for family and friends to get pushed off the back burner. And that's not where I want to be.

Chris Stone [: 00:47:17

I love that so much, and I think this word gets tossed around a lot. But if we're going to wrap that up into a word, it's being intentional, right? And you're saying, okay, this is very important for me. And in order for me to do this, I have to carve it out this way, and that way I know it can get done because it's that important to me. And that's why we do it. That's why we have businesses. That's why we're entrepreneurs. That's why I left a job working for Sony for 28 years, because I'd rather be a father and a husband than whatever the title that I had at Sony Music. Because that is your legacy. That's what you have. That's what's going to drive you. And I don't want to be like my coworkers were on their fourth spouse because I want the spouse I chose, or I guess she chose me. I don't know how that works.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:48:23

Hopefully she's not watching right now. Right?

Chris Stone [: 00:48:25

So Jim, quick we got to put atomic habits I did all right. Artists at Heart, Denise Lipka, by the way, you guys need to if anyone's watching on Amazon and if you haven't, go over to Dealcasters dot Live, but go and search Artists at Heart, Denise Lipka is fantastic Amazon content creator, wonderful human being who joined us at Podfest and VIDFEST. Now, you were at Podfest, Mark, right?

Mark Savant [: 00:48:57

Oh, yeah.

Chris Stone [: 00:49:00

How did we not connect at Podfest?

Mark Savant [: 00:49:04

Or did we that was a blog. I'm sure that we at least I'm sure that we at least shook hands briefly, but there were so many people there. I know there were so many people. There were people that I knew that I was excited to see in real life that I didn't get a chance to say hi to because it was so busy. I was there for four days. Cannot wait for Podfest again in January. It's going to be so fun.

Chris Stone [: 00:49:29

Are you going to speak there or are you going to attend? And soak it okay. You are okay.

Mark Savant [: 00:49:34

I'm going to be speaking about how to make $1,000 a month from your guest. That's what I'm speaking about. And I'm going to ruffle some feathers, baby. I'm going to go in there prepared. It's going to be good. But at the end of the day, what's going to happen is the people that leave that session are going to walk away with a real strategy, real action Word templates on how they can actually start to make money on their show that same day. And that's what I want to see. Because if you can start making money, then you can use that money to run ad traffic. You can use that money for production. You can use that money to get your wife flowers, whatever you want to do. You've got some money there to elevate the show, but more podcasters, more empowered, with more cash means better shows, better lives.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:50:21

He probably didn't see us, Chris, because we were in a room for a full day.

Chris Stone [: 00:50:26

Well, he was there for four where were we the other three? Jim I guess we were covering.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:50:30

We were recovering from the one day we did have to entertain our beautiful brides as well.

Chris Stone [: 00:50:36

James Hicks, we see you over on Amazon. Thanks for joining you. Jeff C. He will be there in January as well. So we need to have like a show with the four of us. Is Grace going to be there too this time? Jeff? Grace better be there as well. For Social Media News Live. But Mark, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been one of, if not the most valuable show that we've had. I think you just dropped some amazing things that people can take in their entrepreneur journey in their podcast. I mean, someone that is just starting out has gotten so much value from this and someone who's been doing this for years, it's the same thing. Mark, we appreciate you for joining us tonight. And so for those of you that are watching, make sure you head on over to Mark Savant Media and of course the after hours entrepreneur. There it is. And the NFT podcast that you have as well is called and this also.

Mark Savant [: 00:51:46

In our carousel, NFTs Made Simple.

Chris Stone [: 00:51:50

NFTs made simple as well.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:51:52

That sounds like my speed.

Mark Savant [: 00:51:54

Yeah, you got to keep them simple. I started talking about NFTs at Thanksgiving, during the summer to summer vacation, and then my whole family's like, mark, just stop this stuff.

Chris Stone [: 00:52:10

I'm going to clear a room, start talking about NFT. Right?

Mark Savant [: 00:52:14

Pretty much. That's one of few ways to clear a room.

Chris Stone [: 00:52:20

Awesome. Thanks again, Mark. We appreciate you joining us, man.

Mark Savant [: 00:52:24

It's my pleasure. Yeah. Chris, Jim, make it a great day. Deal Casters, go pick up one of those books we talked about.

Chris Stone [: 00:52:32

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. And as always, ladies and gentlemen, don't fear the gear.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:52:38

Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or Follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be reminded every time we drop an episode.

Chris Stone [: 00:52:55

We love hearing from our listeners and viewers. And if you're wanting to watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at Dealcasters Live. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel where we also include added content that you cannot find anywhere else.

Jim Fuhs [: 00:53:15

If you have questions about this episode or have something you want us to review, you can also email us at dealcast at dealcasters live. Thanks again for listening. And you know the deal. Don't fear the gear.