In this episode, I have the pleasure of hosting Matt Halloran, co-founder of Proud Mouth, a trailblazing company redefining the marketing landscape for financial advisors through the strategic use of podcasting. Join us as we delve into how Matt's innovative approach is revolutionizing the way financial advisors build influence and authority in their field.
Throughout our conversation, Matt offers a wealth of insights, from the nuances of influence in marketing to the unique advantages of podcasting as a tool for financial advisors. His expertise is invaluable for those in the financial sector looking to elevate their presence and connect more effectively with their clients through the power of podcasting and influence marketing.
Unlocking the Power of Influence in Marketing
Matt Halloran's Personal and Professional Odyssey
Gleaning Wisdom from Working with Ron Carson
Podcasting as a Keystone for Influence
Navigating Compliance in the Podcasting Landscape
Enhancing Podcast Impact: Techniques and Tips
About Our Guest:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthalloranpm/
Website: https://proudmouth.com/
About Your Host: Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.
Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com
In this episode, I have the pleasure of hosting Matt Halloran, co-founder of Proud Mouth, a trailblazing company redefining the marketing landscape for financial advisors through the strategic use of podcasting. Join us as we delve into how Matt's innovative approach is revolutionizing the way financial advisors build influence and authority in their field.
Throughout our conversation, Matt offers a wealth of insights, from the nuances of influence in marketing to the unique advantages of podcasting as a tool for financial advisors. His expertise is invaluable for those in the financial sector looking to elevate their presence and connect more effectively with their clients through the power of podcasting and influence marketing.
Unlocking the Power of Influence in Marketing
Matt Halloran's Personal and Professional Odyssey
Gleaning Wisdom from Working with Ron Carson
Podcasting as a Keystone for Influence
Navigating Compliance in the Podcasting Landscape
Enhancing Podcast Impact: Techniques and Tips
About Our Guest:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthalloranpm/
Website: https://proudmouth.com/
About Your Host: Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.
Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com
Welcome to the Million Dollar Producers show. Brought to you by More Clients, more Fun. I'm your host, paul G McManus. This podcast is here to help answer the key question what are the insider secrets to stand out in a noisy marketplace and consistently attract and convert high value clients? To get answers each week, subscribe to the Million Dollar Producers show. Today. I'm honored to welcome Matt Halloran to the show. Matt is the co-founder of Proud Mouth. I'm very interested to dive into his background and his approach to helping financial advisors grow their influence through podcasting. Let's get to the show. Welcome, matt, great to see you.
Speaker 2:I'm super excited to be here, Paul Kindred Spirits here talking about something we're both really passionate about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for anyone listening to today's episode they're going to. I think both of us and I know myself geek out in terms of the topic, which is, I would want to say, broadly speaking or narrowly speaking. We're talking about podcasting and how that can help financial advisors grow their business, but broadly speaking, it's really about the concept of influence and authority, marketing and how to, I would say, really make the whole business of sales and marketing much more effective and, I'd argue, much more fun. It's so much more fun when you come at this from the perspective of influence. But I'm getting ahead of myself. In preparation for today's episode, I was looking at your website, which is a great website, but you said something very specifically there which I thought was a great quote and I thought that, even before we dig into your background, I would ask you about which is? Influence is the only marketing left for financial service professionals. So, just with that as an opening, what do you mean by that? Because that, to me, is a bold statement.
Speaker 2:It is a bold statement and it really came from a guy named Seth Godin. So Seth Godin really talked a lot about influence is marketing. So here's the big thing conundrum for lack of a better word that advisors really need to pay attention to. Nobody wants to be sold to anymore. People want to buy from you. The only way that happens is through you being influential in their lives and motivating them to make a decision.
Speaker 2:I am not saying that there still doesn't need to be a sales component. You still have to ask for the business. We call that a call to action A little bit different than the close, because nobody wants to be closed anymore. Dude people want to be like. I want to work with you. Dr Daniel Crosby said if there was one tool in a toolbox that all advisors need its influence, it's the Swiss army knife that every advisor needs, and so this is the sort of stuff that I don't think advisors really understand what influence is, but it is so core to them, moving people across what we refer to as the influence continuum. Most people are talking to skeptics. So you have to sell who you are, what you do, build the trust, all of that what we want and you and I do for a living is help people create fans. Come in pre sold, tell their friends about you and fans will do most of the selling for you 100%.
Speaker 1:We're going to as I said earlier, we're going to deep dive into podcasting as one of the tools of influence. Before we do, tell us a little bit about yourself. So who is Matt Hellerin? How did you get to where you started? To today, where you're the co-founder and the co-founder and chief relationship officer at Proud Mouth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll give you the truncated version because this could be six, seven hours, because it's been a long and winding road. So I started off doing radio. I was madman Matt Hellerin in high school and I remember getting done off my first radio show and I ran into my advisor. Her name was Chris Kropatrick and I said, miss Kropatrick, I know what I want to be when I grow up. And she said, dear God, I hope it's not a DJ. So at 13, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and within the same breath it got dashed pretty quickly, did radio all through high school, did a bunch of musicals acting, dancing, singing and then in college I was the news director. In between there I was in the United States Navy during the first version Gulf War and so again kind of clouded. I'm going to fast forward a little bit.
Speaker 2:After graduating from college I got a biomedical ethics internship in Omaha, nebraska, worked at a hospital system, which again is a really long story, but I learned how to listen there, which was really important. Then I worked at a place called Boys Town where I lived with 36 teenage boys, eight at a time. Over four and a half years I was a father figure to all of them, which taught me a lot of patience and what it meant to be a good father. My kids were born there. Then I left there and I started working with this guy named Ron Carson, who, of course, your listeners are going to know who that is. We started off. This was way before he was. He was already the biggest producer at LPL for 20 years, but I worked out of the basement of a building when we first started at Peak, which was what is now called Carson coaching. I worked with Ron for a number of years, had an absolutely magnificent experience, left there to go out on my own. Ron had sparked an entrepreneurial spark with me.
Speaker 2:I started Top Advisor Coaching, published two books and then I met this crazy Canadian. I had a conference in Scottsdale, arizona. I was on stage with Matt Ackerman, who is pretty famous in the world of journalism here in financial services. I and Kirk were sitting down and there's just something about this guy. He said, hey, we should just start a podcast together and talk about practice management marketing. He's a marketing branding guy as a practice management consultant and that just spiraled into now. So we're the largest podcasting company for financial advisors in North America. We do over 150 episodes a month. We've done 7,000 episodes and about 75,000 social media posts with over 1.5 million impressions with zero compliance issues. This is who we are. I got to be the radio guy and my partner runs the company. He's the CEO and I'm the one who is the guy who shakes hands and kisses the babies.
Speaker 1:Good journey, wow. It's always interesting to me to see where people started and where they are at now. Not to get into my story too much, but I studied international relationships, I was meant to work for the CIA and I lived in Japan for four years. I ran my family office products company for 10 years. Today, what I do has absolutely zero to do with all the stuff that came before. But to the point of one of the things that you said, along the way you learn skills right. I've had experience that one of the key skills that being a good podcast host entails being a good listener. One of the key skills of being a good advisor or, for that matter, any other profession entails being a good listener, and so it's interesting to see what skill sets were developed along the way, and I love how you started with a dream of being a DJ and essentially you're a DJ, so it all worked out.
Speaker 2:It's a wonderful journey, man.
Speaker 1:If you're open to sharing it. I'd love to maybe just dig a little bit deeper into your experience with Ron Carson, if we can, and specifically. It sounds like I don't know him personally, but I know his name. I'm working with another very influential advisor now and of course, his name is on our radar in terms of who we potentially model a little bit, and so, just from an insider perspective, tell us some of those nuggets or insights in terms of how Ron Carson became Ron Carson, at least as we all perceive him.
Speaker 2:I got into Carson when he was already highly sought after as a person who was running the most successful LPL financial services practice out of Omaha, nebraska. He had built this program called tested in the trenches, and it basically was what he did. Is what I learned to do Now what we do at Proud Mouth, which is we built a very successful firm and then deconstructed it and started offering the components of that deconstruction, which is exactly what the coaching program was all about. This guy could sell anybody, anything, anytime. He is the greatest salesperson I've ever met in my life. I've never met anybody who is that persuasive, that magnetic. When you're in his presence it's like Oprah, the world falls away. Right, he just has that skill Unbelievable speaker.
Speaker 2:A really good business person now has built a humongous. So not only does he have an office, he's got a coaching program. I mean he's got his own like insurance. I mean he had everything in financial services outside of accounting or estate planning, which I'm sure in the very near future he will be launching those two things when I was there, just talk a little bit about, maybe, the culture of what he had built. So this was before Zoom or Skype. So this was. I started there in about 06 and I had left there and I think about 2010, mid 2011, I can't actually remember.
Speaker 1:I'm not terrible, but full suit and tie every day on the phone I would do anywhere from six to 10 coaching calls with advice and I just have to jump in for a second, because this is only people only listen to, not watching this, and today Matt has. He's on this podcast with a full suit and tie. No, I'm just joking, right, if you sorry, I couldn't help myself.
Speaker 2:It's funny looking back at those pictures, dude, because now my beard is five times longer than it was before. I'm wearing a Buffalo check shirt with a ball cap, but yeah, we were suited up every day, man, and it was like Ron would walk through. His culture was so important to him that if your door was open and you weren't on the phone and if he was walking by which didn't happen often cause he was so busy he would open your door and say what's the mission, what's the vision, what's our values? And you would have to be right there.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't like negative, though. It was part of believing right. If you've seen Ted Lasso, ted Lasso has the believe sign and when you walked in the door to Carson, there was a sign that said it doesn't matter what happened before you walked in this door and there was something after that. But that's the part that I remember and man, it was a. He was all about mindset and he's grown an unbelievable business billions and billions of dollars, assets under management, hundreds of advisors now that worked through his RIA, and I'm incredibly grateful for the time that I got to spend with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds amazing and, as you were saying that, one thing that stuck out to me, which is interesting, is that you and I share a common maybe client colleague, john Cutten, who, from a success perspective, is very similar to what Ron Carson has achieved. Interestingly, on my last podcast I did, I had one of John Cutten's go to coaches on it. His name is Ray Kelly and Ray Kelly has helped John, I believe, since 2017 really build out his business towards that today as well as the future of it. And the key takeaway I had from Ray Kelly in terms of what's made John so successful is vision, mission and core values. It already stood out to me as something that I need to pay more attention to myself as I grow my own business, but it just really reinforces it here when you said it about someone else who's extraordinarily successful. And before we continue, just any final thoughts or takeaways from the importance of vision, mission and values.
Speaker 2:I'm going to set up probably the rest of the show, because you just walked right into something that was fantastic. You can't be influential unless you have those three things right, so you cannot. So one of the things that John has, that Ron has, that really successful people have, is they have a very defined brand that's based off of the foundation of those three things right. And so if you're truly going to be influential in the marketplace, if you're going to use books or if you're going to use blogs, if you're going to use video or a podcasting to help accelerate your influence, you have to have a really strong foundation and that's all. Truly successful people have a great vision, an unbelievably secure mission and, most importantly, their core values are really dialed in.
Speaker 1:I love how you tie that into influence. As we start to go more toward down the track of influence and podcasting. More specifically, aside from Ron Carson, who have been some of your biggest influences that have shaped your thinking about influence, I'll share it with you just briefly. My own. I've been a student of marketing and I would say by actually I'll take that back I've been a student of influence, I want to say, since the early 2000s. Originally it was more as a company leader and how to influence internally my company in order to build a better organization. My key influence at that time was Dale Carnegie. Since, probably 2014, I've been more focused on marketing and how to influence externally to get people to buy, et cetera, and my key influences have been, I would say, probably Dan Kennedy and Robert Chaldini. I'm sure there's been plenty of others, but those are the two that stand in my mind. Love to know who's shaped your thinking when it comes to the idea of influence.
Speaker 2:Dr Robert Chaldini is probably the biggest for me, right? So we refer to Dr Chaldini's works all the time. When I first met him, it was the six principles of influence. Now it's the seven principles of influence, I think, if you're really truly going to understand what the word means and I'm not talking about the next TikTok star or an Instagram model I'm talking about truly getting people to do what you know is within their best interest. What I like about Chaldini's work is it really is about intention. So, anyway. So Dr Robert Chaldini is huge.
Speaker 2:Another person that was really big for me when it came to business building and just being influential as a person to look up to would be Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, right?
Speaker 2:So if you really look at what he's built and some of his philosophies of who, not how, is really the foundation of what we built our entire business on, here we are the who, just like with your business, people can do what you do, but why, right? You're the expert, we're the experts, this is all we do all day long, and so that who, not how Dan Sullivan philosophy I really I've been Chaldini for me because my master's degree is actually as a therapist, and so you know learning from psychologists and psychiatrists is something that is very near and dear to my heart. When I first met him at Carson, he was a keynote speaker twice and I actually got to spend time with him the second time because I was. I'm seeing the event and it was just remarkable. His brilliant presentation but his actual, scientifically based, social, studied work, everything you need to know about influences and some principles of influence.
Speaker 1:I love the. I think it was six principles, you said, and now it's seven principles. I think Stephen Covey pulled the same thing is all the eighth principle. That's just a marketing scam to sell another buck man. It's like he knew that principle beforehand. He's held it back from us.
Speaker 1:Well done on Chaldini's part and his part Of course you mentioned Dan Sullivan and absolutely he's impacted by thinking as well, greatly and as funny as I do calls with advisors all the time and helping them to think out their book and write it out.
Speaker 1:I want to say that probably at every single meeting, almost people are referencing Dan Sullivan and who, not how? And 10 X disease, getting two X and all these things, and I think that's a good segue because that's what influences right, that that's concrete influence. The guy is not in the room. I've never met him personally before, yet he's influencing all of us through the work that he's done and I guess that's a good segue into why podcasting? And so, just before I ask the question for myself, as I big believer in influence and the tool that I've honed in on in terms of how to help advisors be more influential is through writing and publishing a book, your similar core idea, which is how do you influence people more effectively and the path that you help them with, is through podcasting. And so, big picture, why podcasting? Why is podcasting a valuable tool of influence for advisors today?
Speaker 2:Advisors talk for a living, dude, right? So when Kirk and I were sitting down and talking about what we were going to build together, that was the foundational premise. So that's what is the foundation, right? So advisors talk for a living. We have something called the perfect podcasting formula, which is storytelling, education, entertainment, call to action, which is something that advisors do all day, every day, in every client meeting, they're telling stories, they're entertaining, they're telling people what to do and whatever. So that's the foundation.
Speaker 2:But podcasting, specifically, is because it is an unbelievably portable and intimate way to have people consume your thought leadership when it's convenient for them. Because here's the deal marketing is fundamentally change. You have to market to your ideal clients and prospects in the media they prefer while they're there, with organic content. So all of the stuff that we do for all of our clients, it's all custom, right, this is their thought. Now, do we help them? Yes. Do we lead them? Yes. Do we tell them that their idea is a terrible idea? Nobody's going to listen to that? Yes, but the idea of the portability?
Speaker 2:So people, people listen to podcasts in their quiet time, right? And so they listen to it when they're getting ready in the morning, when they're commuting to work, when they're cooking dinner, when they're going for a walk or when they're exercising. And we also know that 27 to 30 minutes is the ideal podcast length, because that's about how long everybody does those things. In our system, the podcast is the hub. But it's not just the podcast, because we also believe in something called atomic content, right, or micro content. So what we do is we take the podcast and then we chop it up into a whole bunch of different pieces of micro content. That actually just makes the advisor's content live longer and be more omnipresent and ever present. That is actually what works the best. The advisor can really do 27 minutes, right, and nobody listens to the podcast. But because all of this content that's generated based off of their thought leadership is as valuable as the podcast itself.
Speaker 1:From my own perspective I can see that in action because when you have a splinter concept right, you have the core pillar piece of content and from there you can splinter it, you can repurpose it and you can get that much more leverage out of it.
Speaker 1:So I think compliance is a big issue, whether it's in reality an issue or whether it's a perceived issue. There might be some crossover there. One of the interesting things and hopefully it's okay for me to share this is that again shared client John Cutten. You work with him on his podcast, which is geared so he's part of AmeriPrize, which is heavily compliance driven. I'm working with them on the bookside as well, so I know the compliance challenge is there, but you've helped him build out, with AmeriPrize's blessing, a client facing podcast, which I think is a very tough environment and I believe you're going to get doing a lot more going forward. Just broad picture from a compliance perspective what should an advisor whether they're independent broker-dealer or work for a company like AmeriPrize what should they be thinking about? What are their limiting thoughts and how can you help them see potentially that they can get to the promised land?
Speaker 2:AmeriPrize's blessing is a little bit more broad than I would say. Dude, I don't know. They allow him to do it at this point and, yes, we are in negotiations with them and many other organizations to get through. So there's a couple of things about compliance. Number one so we've done all of those stats that I said earlier with zero compliance issues, and the reason is because we've personally built in a whole bunch of redundancies. I'm actually the chief compliance officer here too. I don't hold that out as a moniker, but I'm the one who meets with AmeriPrize, the Raymond James's, the LPLs, everybody, every RBCs, all of the and even RIAs. So one and I love that you said this, you set this up so well. Most of it is actually a limited belief, because here's what happens so somebody submits somebody to compliance and compliance says it's not approved, and advisors like they're the business prevention department, but they don't do what they should do, which is the second question, and if anybody gets anything out of this, it's these three things that hopefully can give more value, but honestly. So the second question is, after they come back and say no is how can I make this compliant? That is actually what you write back to the compliance department and if they say, they will tell you what you need to make compliant and then you will then say what can I do in the future to make this process easier. So those secondary and tertiary questions are how you get past 99% of the compliance. But here's the other things, paul. Don't see stupid stuff, dude, just don't see stupid stuff. You know what you're allowed to say. Stop trying to push the freaking envelope right. And it's fascinating. One of the ways that we solve that at Proud Mouth is we do custom disclosures and disclaimers right. So every single solitary broker dealer organization is different. So we actually will custom record, voice record whatever disclosures and disclaimers are needed, and when we first started I did all of them. I've probably done 300 myself, but now I actually have other people who do that, which makes me very happy, because it's really boring reading the same crap over and over again.
Speaker 2:It is a limiting belief, with a couple of exceptions, there are some organizations if you are not able to brand yourself as an individual advisor. So if you are under the Edward Jones umbrella, if you're in the wirehouse component of RBC or Raymond James, or if you're an employee of something like a Mariprize, you're probably not going to be able to do this. Okay, and that's. You're giving up something to get the security, the paycheck, the support, not having to hire, and all of that sort of stuff. If you are an independent advisor, you are able to hang your own shingle. I'm telling you right now you can absolutely do this. You have to do it with a professional, though, and Paul. This is really important, because if you just tried to do it willy nilly, you're going to make mistakes, and the fines that you're going to have to pay by violating some very simple things that we take care of for advisors makes a really big difference.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest issues with advisors when it comes to outsourcing, marketing or their influence specifically, is they can do it themselves. Listen, of course you can do it. You can write a book by yourself, dude. It's going to suck. But you can write a book by yourself, right? You can do the cover art. It's going to suck, right? You're going to have spelling errors, the formatting is going to suck. You're going to publish it the wrong way. So people hire you because you are that expert.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing in the world of podcasting. I'll just give you one very quick example. There's one very large broker dealer that we are approved with. I'm not going to say who it is right now because they actually won't physically let me do that, but anyway, they are only able to publish on Spotify, right. So they can't go to Apple, they can't go to Google, they can't go to Pandora, iheart or anything. It's because of what we know how to do on the back end. So if you are with this organization or with any broker dealer and you want to just go ahead and start a podcast, if you publish and I'm just going to say it to iTunes, where you can't turn off any ratings, comments or reviews, and if they look at that as a testimonial, your podcast is gone, which does you no good and doesn't help you build the momentum. That you and I both know is a huge process of influence.
Speaker 1:Very interesting. It definitely I can see just from that one angle alone. For anyone listening to this that's considering a podcast. I could see that they should be reaching out to you at some point to discuss this, because you can solve a number of headaches, aside from all the value that you can help them create. So that leads me into I've been podcasting myself since 2019.
Speaker 1:I haven't been consistent. At first I was going home and then I backed off, but I kept the podcast because I found that some of the core interviews that I did were highly influential, meaning that as part of my sales process, I would always include oh you should listen to this as part of getting to know me in advance, knowing that if someone listens to it, they're going to be very positively persuaded to want to do business with me. So there's so many ways to utilize it and, of course, I'd seen the last year or so I've been really much more gung-ho about podcasting. I'm trying to do one per week. It's a great tool In my own, or the way that I do it I think this is probably the way that you do it is that it's really you're the host.
Speaker 1:You're bringing on guests who are influential. They could be client stories, they could be thought leaders, they could be any number of things. And then the other type is what I would call a solo cast, where you're there, sitting there, talking about your ideas and educating people From an advisor's perspective. Do you recommend one or the other, or a combination of both? What gives the person the best ROI and what do you see people gravitating more towards?
Speaker 2:I am not a huge fan of solo casts. There's a couple of reasons why. Number one, it's very hard to be entertaining for 27 minutes and most people aren't trained to do that. If you look at 27 or 30 minutes, that is a whole standup sketch where they've practiced it hundreds and hundreds of times, right, they've tested it, all of that sort of stuff. Now advisors have some ego involved and they think I can talk for 30 minutes when no problem, and you are correct, you can. So we believe it should be a conversation interview style. So we actually provide co-hosts at the beginning of the show so that the advisors can go ahead and be interviewed by somebody who's a professional interviewer. I've got a grant or an Emmy award winning person who's on my team who interviews people, right, and so that's just an example of how we do that, because here's the deal in a podcast, people want to feel like they're a fly on the wall, participating passively in a powerful and engaging conversation, and it's very difficult to do that as a monologue.
Speaker 2:Now, guests is how we grew the whole business, paul. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Our entire multimillion dollar business that my partner and I built is all about guests. We've done 450 episodes, ish of the top advisor marketing podcast. Like 80% of them are guests. So I'm bringing on an industry influencers and friends and marketing people and advisors and all of that stuff to tell their stories, because that's really powerful. But I do want to say this you made a mistake and potentially are going to be making a mistake that we find a lot of people do, which is the inability to maintain a consistent cadence.
Speaker 2:Now, this isn't just for your fans, this is also for your own mental health, dude. Like, we didn't start podcasting every week for a really long time. In fact, we don't even let our clients. If you're a client of proud mouth, you're not allowed to start at one a week. You're not. We don't do it. We won't let you do it. I don't care how much you want to do it. I don't care if you want to pay us double what we normally charge. We're not going to let you do it, because it's a muscle you have to exercise. Right, there's pod fate is real. So, out of the three million podcasts that are out there right, there are like 20% of them that are really active.
Speaker 2:Right, the issue is pod fate. You're all excited about it. You don't have a plan. You don't have support, you don't have accountability, you don't actually know what you're going to talk about in the next episode. We solve all of that for our clients, but that's how you have to go into it. In fact, you said something else. You said something else that I really need to highlight, which is utilizing the podcast in your sales process. Our core system, or the first three episodes that our advisors do, is exactly meant for that. It's them telling their story about why there are financial services professional, the journey that they're on, who they work with and what they do. Now. That can be anywhere from one to three episodes, and part of their sales nurture process is supposed to be saying exactly what you do. Please listen to these three before you come in, because then I get to do what I really should be doing, which is listening, not talking at you about how great I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic. That's exactly how we use our books. Is that read, listen to the book For those exact same reasons? By the time, maybe during that process, you're like I don't want to work with this person. That could be a good thing because you want the right people to come to you, but when they go through that process and a couple of things here, you really spark a nerve with me. Is that's part of the process of influence?
Speaker 1:I think a number of people would question and say, oh, I'm going to talk or I'm going to persuade her, I just want them to schedule the call so I can talk to them and do my thing. I think that's a general sales mentality, which is very normal. But when you think about it from an influence perspective, you want your marketing collateral podcast book or something else to really do the heavy lifting for you. So by the time they actually show up on your door or your Zoom room, it's simply how can I help? And you dive right into it and they tell you exactly what it is. And that is the sweet spot, whether it's through the podcasting process that you describe, whether it's through books, whether it's through a combination, in my own case, I find that because I do both Most people.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I listened to your book and I listened to this podcast and it's, I know it's. I don't need to do any selling. Really it's hard to stop, but I don't really need to do any selling at that point. There's three areas and I'm going to break one of your rules. So I'm going to break one of your rules, which is we're going to go past 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:With your permission, maybe we'll do a part one and part two, because I am listening and I did catch that with what you said, and so I'm just enjoying the conversation too much and hopefully our audiences as well. So three core areas I want to jump into. So your podcast, from my understanding and you can tell me the exact details but it's one of the top ranked podcasts and what that actually means is that you have a really solid audience. I think you were telling me that the day that you get pitched like a hundred times a month and you turn most everyone down to do it, but you have a real following. And so, for an advisor, think about podcasts what kind of expectations should they be thinking about? Are they looking to be the next Dave Ramsey, suze Orman, or what should they be anticipating in terms of the return on investment, time, energy, things of that nature, when it comes to, over time, developing an influential podcast?
Speaker 2:So it's time. First off, we have to talk about the time. We are in the top 3% of all podcasts in the world, right, by the way, kitsis is in the top 1.5%. Kitsis has been doing this longer than we have. His podcast is. He had a huge blog following before we ever did. He had established an audience way before we even hit the scene as the organization that we are right now. But I bring that up because I remember when Kitsis was like writing a blog in his basement right, he was, and he was still a financial and successful advisor, but it took years and years, right. And so that's one of the things that I think advisors have a really unrealistic expectation on is I think they think that they're going to do their podcast for 6 months and they're going to land a million dollar client. Now, that can happen and it has happened. It is out of the norm, right, you're looking at 18 to 24 months, and that's just what we've done so many of these now that we know that's the sweet spot. So that means that you are consistently podcasting once or twice a month for 18 to 24 months before you really start seeing what would be defined by most advisors as a return on their marketing spend.
Speaker 2:But there really are five ROIs here that I don't think a lot of advisors pay attention to. The first one is the content itself. So what you're paying for is content creation, and no matter if you go ahead and do that with client communication in mind or whatever that actually has value. And one of the stories that I like to tell is have you ever bought local art and is it in your office? And almost every advisor said yeah, totally. Do you ever sit and look at that art and say how come you haven't paid me back? No, they don't think like that. So content is really art, right? The other thing that a lot of people don't understand. This is within the first ROI is experience. We have our clients tell us Paul all the time oh my God, I had the biggest epiphany because I said something in a way I'd never said it before and now I'm going to say it that way for the rest of my career, because you're practicing your process. You're practicing talking about yourself, and that's one of the things that most advisors don't do. Secondly, it is the greatest, most intimate client communication tool that you're going to have, much like a book. So everything I'm saying here is entirely ubiquitous with what you do. It is in line with who you are and what you do with your organization and with ours.
Speaker 2:The next one is um auditation and increased referability. What a lot of people don't understand is nobody calls the guy anymore, right? What happens is you. This actually happened with you and I, just so we're transparent with the audience. You were referred to me by John. I Googled the hell out of you before I ever decided to even think about scheduling time on your calendar. Now, also, I know John and John doesn't refer anybody to anybody unless there's a good reason for it. That did have weight. But listen, dude, I Googled the hell out of you, looked at your websites, I checked you out on socials, making sure that you weren't saying like terrible things on social media. Those are the things that are really important, right?
Speaker 2:The next thing, that the fourth ROI is COIs. So we built our entire business on bringing centers of influence onto our podcast and advisors need to do that too. Advisors need to bring the estate planning attorneys and the CPAs on, interview them, because not only is that really an endorsement of you, but it's also giving you access to their audience, and if you have a good system, you can gain access. Another thing about centers of influence is you're actually going to be able to sell new products to existing clients. You bring in a state planning attorney on or CPA, and the CPA talks about RMDs. Oh my God, I need to do that. I have this fidelity account that. Oh my God, I have to start taking RMD. Don't what I'm doing there. I'm going to hire the advisor and estate planning attorney says I do all of these trusts all day long and very few of them are ever funded. And somebody calls the advisor up and says oh my gosh, I have $250,000 sitting in a bank CD right now that was meant to fund that. Can you help me manage that? So you are able to sell new products to existing clients? But if you do all of these things for 18 to 24 months, you're going to have people walking in the door.
Speaker 2:My favorite story about that is I'll just use us as proud mouth. Personally, I was at the FPA national conference last year and my sales guy and I had just finished setting up the booth and we were like sweaty dude because my Mrs Partners, a marketing guy, had this huge booth that closed. It's got all of these working parts anyway. And this guy goes meh, meh and I'm like, I'm looking at him and he just be lines right towards us. It gives me this huge hug, starts telling me his life story, telling me about my life story.
Speaker 2:We're going back and forth as an advisor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah it's about 10 minutes in my brand new sales. He'd been with us for about three weeks, by the way. His mouth is like open the whole time, like what the hell's going on. And then the guy high fives me, said hey, I'm coming to your breakout, I can't wait to talk to you. Oh, and, by the way, I'm buying your lifetime membership, which we offered for our Academy there.
Speaker 2:So there was a sale. He was like I'm already buying this and they walked away and Mark goes Mark's our sales guy. He goes dude, is that like a high school buddy? I was like I don't even know who that guy was. He's what do you mean? Like, listen, we have been for so long being unapologetically ourselves giving so much stuff away for free that this is what happens now. We don't really sell things here. People show up on Mark's calendar who have already done the research of who we are, what we do and what is unique and different and what we do for advisors and they just ask Mark questions to see if they're a good fit for our system. I'm not hard closing anybody. I'm not doing any arm twisting. I'm not saying what can I do to get you in this car today. That's what influence is, and having a book, having a podcast, having a strong social media presence really accelerates that influence.
Speaker 1:Wow, there's so many notes that I took there and different directions that I questions I have for you. I need to pick one because I know, even though I'm breaking the 30 minute rule, I'm not going to break the 60 minute rule. Everything that you said I agree with and I love the insights that you shared there. I know from my own experience. It's primarily. I think one of the biggest benefits I get from hosting my own podcast is one of the things you said, which is the center of influence relationships right Couple things.
Speaker 1:If I want to get to know someone and we don't know each other, and even if we have common connections, the fastest, most effective way for me to build a relationship with them is to invite them to be on my podcast. This is literally our second call and I know you better than I probably know 95% of the people I went to high school with. Another 5% I don't even know what they do now and I don't really care that much. I just want to underscore the value of a podcast when it comes to building those centers, center of influence relationships. A lot of advisors I work with, they work with CPAs and they're always I don't want to say struggling, but they're trying to figure out how do I build these relationships effectively, and I think too often they're trying to pitch them and the.
Speaker 1:CPA is repelled by it. Turn that around and invite them to come up with a podcast that make. That can frame everything in a way that you can invite the right people to be a guest and chances are they're going to say yes, chances are you're going to accelerate trust. I think Stephen Covey called it the trust barrier. You're going to go right through that and it becomes this reciprocal thing where pretty soon, there's this law of reciprocity which I probably learned from Chaldean and others, which is how can I help you? I got to share one more quote that resonates with me at this point is that Bill Carnegie said that it's something along the lines of the fastest way to build relationships is to show genuine interest in them, and just the whole process and art of being a good host and asking thoughtful questions and allowing the other person to share their story. I think that's the psychology it ultimately taps into.
Speaker 1:I want to ask one more question or a couple more questions, but the next one is competency. So I think part of when clients and you mentioned it with me you checked me out and make sure, okay, who's this guy? And I always tell the story, but I assured you that I wasn't the axe murderer out of Ireland. I'm a different Paul McMannus, so just don't get me confused, hopefully. But competency rights. When you write, when you speak, those are tools of influence. People respect the writer, they respect the author, they respect the speaker, because they're demonstrating different qualities, but one of them is competency. And I don't know if you can expand upon that, because I think a podcast is a good way to show one of two things Either you're really good at what you do and you know what you're doing and you're inspiring confidence, or it can work against you and it's oh my goodness. I'm so glad I listened to this because I do not want to do business with that person. When people come to you, how do you assess that?
Speaker 2:Very quickly. In fact, we say no more often than I would like. Just, entrepreneur, dude, like really, because, listen, this is a show. So the difference between writing a book, necessarily, and doing a podcast is people are really gonna experience your personality because they're gonna hear you. They're gonna hear your pace, your cadence, your volume, your inflections, your accents, your go-to words, all of those different things. And part of Mark's job. So he's our we call him an influence liberator here. He's our national sales manager. Part of his job is to listen. We'll talk about competency a little bit more in just a second.
Speaker 2:What you just said there is the greatest takeaway anybody's gonna get from the show, which is when you interview somebody and you show genuine interest in what they're doing, which means you're listening to listen, not listen to respond. Right, that changes the game. Very few people get listened to. In fact, when I first started doing we called these OPPs Other People's Podcasts which is one of our marketing strategies, right, that we teach our clients in our nine podcast growth tactics. I remember getting off the first podcast and I debriefed with my business partner, kirk Lowe, and he was like how did it go? And I was like, dude, I talked way too much, because my job as a podcast host is to listen. My best interview I ever did, I said three sentences, three sentences, and it was one of the best shows ever because I was holding that space and I was giving permission and I was showing that I was listening and you and I maybe we're just weird ducks, brother, but I really do wanna know. I'm not gonna spend this time with somebody unless I truly wanna know them. And with the Centers of Influence is a perfect example. When you hold that space for them and they feel truly listened to and appreciated, because that doesn't happen often. That really helps.
Speaker 2:Now back to the competency thing. Real quick. It's also practice. If you go back and listen to our episodes number one through 25, we were terrible. Right, the show wasn't good. We were talking over each other. We were going 85 minutes one episode, 20 minutes, another episode. We were loosely trying to follow a mind map and it was just bad because you have to practice. This is a show. We don't expect you to be able to go out and compete with the big dogs within the first two to five years. Right Now, two years in, if we've actually structured the system, dude, so you are gonna accelerate much, much faster, like.
Speaker 2:We get feedback to all of our clients, right? So after they get three to five episodes in the can, we're reviewing them. Okay, this is what you're doing. Your go-to word is this. You're saying it this many times. Here's a technique to reduce that, but you keep talking over your guests. Stop doing that. Put yourself on mute in order so that when you're trying to say something, you have to consciously push a button to interrupt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, make sure you're asking the right questions, making sure that you're prepared. That's the other thing, and I talk about this in presentations all the time. But all professional athletes warm up before they're gonna go on the court. Most advisors just show up and they do their work. They're not practicing, they're not stretching out, they don't know their plays. And being on a podcast is no different. This is a show and you have to warm up.
Speaker 2:So I'll give you a great example, brother, before I got on this one. I do podcasts a lot. I have an exercise bike over here, I have a guitar over here, so I'm getting my heart rate up right, getting my energy up. Then I warm up my instrument, my instrument's my voice. I looked at your outline that you gave me. I wanted to see what you wanted to talk about. I already know what I'm supposed to talk about because I know my plays right, because I'm here to hopefully convince people who are listening to the show to hire us to do their podcasts right. So I know what I need to do. I know what I need to say, I know how I need to say it. I know what people like. That's really important to understand that it's a show. I just don't think a lot of people do that and when you do the show, more and more your confidence increases, which means your competency can increase and more and more people are gonna consume your content.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna ask you two other questions up front and then you can navigate them. The key question is between hosting your own podcast and being a guest on other people's podcasts. How can you compare and contrast those? And then the two other questions I have is is there any questions I haven't asked you that you'd like to make sure to share? And then the final one is where can people learn more about you?
Speaker 2:So I do not like it when people think that they can just piggyback on other people's podcasts, having a guest strategy without your own show. Most podcasters are gonna say no, just so you know, like you said, I personally get a hundred inquiries a month. My team probably gets another two to 300 a month of people trying to pitch to get on our show. That's not how you get on our show. You have to be invited by somebody who was previously on the show and then again, I wanna see if you have a show, because what you and I are gonna do is a podcast swap. Bro, you're gonna come on my show, you let me be on your show. Podcasting is a community plug into the community. Do I think you should still be on other people's podcasts? Yes, but I also wanna be able to drive people to my thought leadership right, which, by the way, is a really powerful way to do it. Now, can you do it if you have a book? Yes, so there is only that one caveat that I normally wouldn't say on this show, because most of the people who I'm on other people's podcasts they don't help advisors write books. If you are a published author and your book is good, if it's good and it maybe even says something that other people haven't said. Yes, please get on other people's podcasts. It's a great way to market your book. It is a great way to market your book, but you have a book, which means you have an entire two years worth of podcast content already done, because you wrote a freaking book right Now. What questions should you do? You've asked me that you didn't. I'm not even gonna go there, brother, because we're gonna be on this call for another seven hours. We'll have to do that another time.
Speaker 2:The last thing is listen. If you are an independent financial services professional or somebody who provides services to financial advisors, and if you wanna be able to outsource to somebody who all they do all day long is help people accelerate their influence through podcasting, customer and social media. That's who we are and what we do, and there's two different tracks. You can go One. You can go ahead and email mark at prodmouthcom, who's my influence liberator, national sales manager. You can check us out, prodmouthcom, but what I'd really like for everybody who's listening to do is to join our Podrocket Academy.
Speaker 2:So we built an entire learning management system to help advisors learn how to begin the process of accelerate during their influence. It's podrocketacademycom, actually for a short period of time, but you can actually join it for free and get everything that you need to know to be able to start your own podcast, begin the process of brand building and also learning how to do basic things some basic video tips and some basic SEO techniques and some website techniques and some social media techniques. So podrocketacademy is where I'd love everybody to go, because when you set a call with Mark, I want you to understand you better, be serious and ready to go, because we're gonna help you build a show, and part of his job is it's like being a talent agent. Right, we're trying to find the best of the best advisors who truly wanna use a proven system to help them accelerate their influence. We're the only ones really in the marketplace with any level of experience and expertise to do this, and we would love to be able to do it for your audience, man. So thanks for the opportunity, brother.
Speaker 1:I think you just in one sentence, whether you realize it or not, you just demonstrated influence right, and I wrote this down and it says you said okay, call to action versus close, which was, if you've been listening to this and you wanna take the next step, go here. And you also said, when you speak to Mark and I love the name that you gave him, the influence liberator you said you better be serious and ready to go. I just know from experience that's 100% legit. I can imagine the people that actually reach out to you, your close rates astronomical, the sales cycle is very small because they've done their due diligence, they know enough about you, et cetera. And that, ultimately, I think, is what you and I both are working independently but have a shared vision of how to help financial advisors achieve the same thing.
Speaker 1:Imagine you go from chasing chasing. Why did they ghost me? Why aren't they calling me back? Why is the sales cycle taking six months To? You have a line of people that are excited to work with you. Your sales cycle is very short because the people have already pre-selected themselves going into the conference. So thank you for just demonstrating how well the influence can be put to use. Again, I could go on for another hour, but we've run out of time, so maybe I'll invite you back if you're willing to do so. We can pick up at some point in the future. But thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I'll see you in the next video.