Million Dollar Producer Show
The Million Dollar Producer Show™ interviews highly successful financial professionals, thought leaders and organizations in the financial services and life insurance industries. 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 Producer Show.
Million Dollar Producer Show
033: Podcasting for Influence: Amplifying Your Financial Expertise with Mike Langford
In this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome podcasting industry expert Mike Langford. As the CEO of a top podcast production company and the host of multiple successful shows, Mike has extensive knowledge of using podcasting to boost your brand.
Mike is an expert in leveraging podcasting as a powerful marketing tool. He knows how to use it to build authority, expand your audience, and create meaningful relationships with important clients and influencers.
Mike's Journey into Podcasting
- Mike recounts his initial venture into podcasting, aimed at connecting with clients and prospects more effectively.
- He shares how his successful podcast led to the founding of Finserv Marketing, assisting financial professionals in producing and marketing their podcasts.
- Mike emphasizes podcasting's advantages for financial advisors, highlighting its ability to engage and reach the target audience effectively.
Podcasting's Impact on Financial Practices
- Paul and Mike discuss podcasting's role in enhancing financial advisors' practices, comparing it to traditional marketing approaches.
- They underline the significance of building a personal audience through podcasting, illustrated by a political candidate's success story.
- Mike points out podcasting's potential for financial advisors to gain similar recognition and growth.
Mike's Journey from Podcasting Enthusiast to Digital Strategy Expert
- Mike reflects on his initial foray into digital media with podcasting, inspired by the advent of the Apple iPod and the desire to connect more personally with his audience.
- Mike discusses his early adoption of LinkedIn and his venture into developing threaded conversations on Twitter through Tweetworks, a significant innovation at the time.
Financial Advisors' Role and Content Creation
- Mike highlights the essential role of financial advisors in guiding Americans through financial management.
- He notes the general lack of financial management knowledge and expertise among the populace.
- Encouraging content creation via podcasting, Mike stresses its value in educating and reaching financial advisors' target audience.
Marketing Essentials in Financial Advisory
- In this introduction, Paul and Mike discuss the critical nature of marketing within the financial advisory realm.
- Mike introduces fundamental concepts like "buy low, sell high," linking them to the average American's investment knowledge gap.
Embracing Podcasting as a Marketing Medium
- Paul and Mike delve into the effectiveness of podcasting as a contemporary marketing tool.
- They note the medium's rising popularity, with a significant American audience tuning into podcasts regularly.
- Podcasts are presented as a means for financial advisors to demonstrate expertise and establish trust with their audience.
- He underlines the importance of consistency in podcasting and its role in maintaining audience engagement.
About Our Guest:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelangford2/
Website: https://www.finservmarketing.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 another episode of the Million Dollar Producer Show. I'm your host, Paul G McManus. Today I'm honored to welcome Mike Langford to the show. I was recently a guest on Mike's podcast, the Modern Financial Advisor podcast, and we had such a great conversation that I wanted to introduce him to my audience here on the Million Dollar Producer Show. Today we'll venture into how financial advisors can harness the capabilities of podcasting and video to elevate their practices. Welcome.
Speaker 2:Mike, great to be here. Paul G, by the way, I'm a Mike G, so my G stands for Gordon. I'm not sure about what yours is. So as a kid who grew up in the 80s, there was a character on Sesame Street named Gordon, and that was a teasing point. For some reason, little kids thought that was hilarious, that I had a middle name with the same Sesame Street character.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I told you the story or if my audience knows it's important to me to add the G into my name. Is that a few years back, I googled myself. I'm sure I'm being like that, but I googled myself to see what showed up and what all the results were an axe murderer and murder pedia out of Ireland and that was one of my first lessons in personal branding is. That was not good, and so I learned that if I add my middle initial, then I'll have the search results that I want, which is typically LinkedIn, my website, amazon, podcast, et cetera.
Speaker 2:So that is hilarious. There is a famous photographer in I think it's Australia or New Zealand. One of the two named Mike Langford and, by the way, there's lots of other ones you know out there. I'm sure there's lots of Michael Langford's, but it's really funny. I will get tagged occasionally, like on Instagram. Oh, I learned so much about photography from Mike Langford and so on, so that's, I'm not that guy.
Speaker 1:Okay, very good, let's figure out who the Mike Langford we have on today's podcast is. Again, we had a chance to get to know each other a bit just in the past number of months. That was guests on your podcast, and it was a very enjoyable experience, and I'm really excited that we're talking about podcasts. This whole year I've done a essentially a guest podcasting tour I'll call it and it's been interesting because I've seen a variety of ways how hosts interact with their guests and this is an honest feedback.
Speaker 1:You were definitely on probably the most positive experience I had. Out of all the people's podcasts I've been on and I've been on a lot of them are mid range, where they do a decent job. There was a couple that I thought were not so great, but you stood out as exceptional, and so I'm really excited to get your insights today for our audience about podcasting and really how to excel at podcasting. But before we go there, I just want to find out a little bit more about you. Who is Mike Langford and how did you go from where you started to where you are today, working with financial advisors?
Speaker 2:That's a fantastic question. It's always good for people to know the person a little bit better. I jokingly say that's the IMDB question, the internet movie database. Who is this actor? Who is this person? Where have I seen him or her before? So it's an IMDB question Like what was Mike Langford? How did he get here?
Speaker 2:My whole career has primarily been in the financial services industry. I started in 1994 answering phones for mutual fund companies. Right, so you'd call up. I was working the four to midnight shift while I was a senior in college, studying. After eight o'clock Usually the phone volume died off, but anyways. So my whole career was in financial services.
Speaker 2:I went to grad school for my MBA. That was during the dot com boom right, dot com bubble burst, just as I was graduating. So I was really ticked off and I promised myself that I would never miss another big thing, if you want to call it that right, like another massive transformative wave. And to give it a few years, I'm working at Fidelity Investments and I decided to leave Fidelity and start my own investment firm, and this is 2006. I have no real marketing budget, so I do the thing that most financial advisors and, I think, most insurance agents anybody who's a financial professional? Does you start going to the Chamber of Commerce meetings, right? You just start going to anything you can do to meet people and interact.
Speaker 2:I had known about email newsletters. This is again. It doesn't sound like it's a million years ago, but in digital terms it is a million years ago, right, like you'd be surprised at how few people were still really actively on the web or using mobile in 2006. So I started using constant contacts, sending out a newsletter. But then I heard about this thing called podcasting. It was brand new because the Apple iPod was still a relatively new thing, right, and that's where the term was coined. And that's neat. I wonder if I started doing something like that for my business. If I started using, people could hear my voice. So, in addition to just seeing a newsletter in their inbox, they could click on something and listen to me talk about whatever. And I knew that if they heard my voice and they maybe had met me at one point in time, they'd get more comfortable with me and I'm like, oh, this is great, so I'll try this thing out. So it's really started a journey.
Speaker 2:I went to this thing called PodCamp. There was a conference, a mini conference, in Boston because I Googled podcasting seminars or something like that and I don't know if there's still an existence, but there were podcamps all around America and the globe started popping up after this. The first one was in Boston. I went to the second one ever. This is 2007. So I went to it because I wanted to learn more about it and I learned a lot more about digital. That's also the day I joined Twitter. Was that day because I didn't even know about Twitter and then they said join Twitter, you can follow this stuff.
Speaker 2:Anyway, relatively quickly after that, that's transformed my career. I still have my investment business, but I realized that this social media thing, this podcasting, all this digital stuff, was about to really, as the kids say today, pop off. It was about to go nuts. Right. I started using Twitter pretty aggressively and other social media tools and I had been I'm like one of the earliest users on LinkedIn. I joined LinkedIn like I'm user 176,000 or something like that.
Speaker 2:I started this thing called Tweetworks, which brought the first fully threaded conversation. Prior to that, twitter was really new. You'd post a tweet and the tweet was like a unique webpage. If somebody replied to it, you'd have to click in reply to you to see the reply and it would open up a new webpage, right, and then you click in reply to it. So it was very arduous. There was no threaded conversations. I'm like there's got to be a way to do this. So I hired some developers, we built it Anyway, ran that for a couple of years, then ran out of money what's a weird thing that startups do right.
Speaker 2:So this is the end of 2010, 2011. And I decided that we shut the company down. But I also like I've been to Austin for a few self by self West experiences realize Austin's a young, growing town, pretty cool. My wife and I were sick of winter, so we decided to move to Austin and I joined this company as the head of strategy, for it's called social, where they were making the first platform to allow financial advisors to use social media and do so Compliantly, to have their tweets and posts archived, to have things pre approved and supervised by their compliance departments. This was a big deal.
Speaker 2:I basically started flying all around the country speaking at every major financial advisor conference. You can imagine talking to every board of directors at the Morgan Stanley's and the Cambridge's and the you name it's of the world about why you should be using social media. Why should allow advisors to do it? Blah, blah, blah. So I got every question you could ever imagine a financial advisor might ask for why they should be doing. That company didn't work out. So I'd like a lot of startups. Another startup, right? So other companies started cleaning their clock.
Speaker 2:But when I left social where a lot of the same companies came calling and asking me Mike, can you help us with our digital strategy, can you help us with our social media stuff, and so forth. So we've continued to do that as a consultant. Then, a few years in, one of the clients, I suggested why don't we do a podcast for you? Podcasts are really growing and we started doing that podcast and it got really and that's the modern financial advisor podcast, by the way started getting a lot of good traction. Then I would have CEOs from other companies would come on as guests and they'd be like this is awesome, can you do a podcast for us? And the next thing you know, like we transform the business into, we let's just produce shows, will produce podcasts for people in the fintech and the wealth management space primarily, and so that's where Fincer marketing was born. So Longwood did story, but in just jumping for a second.
Speaker 1:When you say produce a podcast, that's you doing the tech and the know how, and it's their podcast their host.
Speaker 2:Correct, that's correct. Yeah, so it's I always the way I always tell people. Imagine if you had a podcast where you were the only sponsor. Right Now, it could be somebody like me being the host of the show or the co-host of the show, or could be somebody at your team being the host or the co-host of the show. But we produce it, it's white labeled, it's your show, right, it looks and sounds like your show, it's got your branding on it and all that type of stuff, but you're not hearing if you've ever listened to podcasts five different sponsors in there, right, it's no, it's your company, your sponsor, and we help you book your guests, we help you plan out the content of the episodes, do the recording, get it edited and get that stuff published, and we measure it along the way as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very cool. And I know I interrupted you, so you were going to go right ahead.
Speaker 2:No, that's the way I was wrapping up the origin story and I'm sorry if that's long winded, but I think it often helps.
Speaker 2:Number one it helps us somebody who's listening to us today understand, like my journey of hey, I know you, I've walked in your shoes, I am like I still actually maintain my RA, my Series 65 license, so I know this space and we're going to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Think about knowing your audience, right, I think that's super important for a podcast or for any type of creative endeavors, like knowing who's consuming the content that you're producing and adapting it as such, speaking their language, if you will. But I also think it's important because it shows that it's not like I've been doing podcasting, like that was my the career, that I started out and I got into broadcasting and then, oh, you know what this new way of broadcasting was podcasting. No, I was a financial professional. I worked for pioneer mutual funds, state street corporation and then fidelity investments. I've been in the big financial services world, not as a the marketing guy, not as the guy on TV or radio. I was like no, this I adapted and I changed and added some things to my bag, if you will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thank you for sharing the origin story. I always love to hear people's origin stories because it's always fascinating to see how people became who they are today. So I've been. I started my own podcast this podcast, a million dollar producer show back in 2019. I honestly have not been consistent. When I started, I did a few episodes, I probably took a year or two off, but I always kept it, because the one thing about a podcast that I think is so valuable is that it's essentially an archive. It's Mark and Clutter right. So I still have podcasts that I created three, four years ago that continue to get plays, that I continue to use specific episodes to influence potential sales conversations that I'm having, et cetera, and so the content that you're creating really does live potentially forever, which is a reason that I always kept the podcast going, even if I wasn't actively doing it week by week. What if this year, 2023,? I don't want to say rediscover podcast, but I regained my passion for podcasts, both in hosting a podcast as well as being on guest on other people's podcasts, because it has proven to me the combination of having a book, which is my specialty, and then essentially building relationships through a podcast and marketing a book and, essentially, your message and brand through podcasts is the most potent combination.
Speaker 1:Today I'll share an example with you that comes to mind. People have their politics and this isn't about that, but one of the people who I've been impressed by this year is a presidential candidate. His name is Vivek Ramaswamy, and he started out as an author, I think the past couple of years writing some books, and then he launched his presidential campaign this year with, I think, virtually no name recognition, to say the least. But what he's done is that he has his own podcast. He's constantly on other people's podcasts and he's gone from essentially a no-named presidential candidate to one of the top contenders on the Republican side. And to me, that example just underscores how effective podcasts are to build relationships with the right people and to expand your audience and to get your message out in a big way. Tell us, from your point of view, why. You obviously do podcasts much more than I do, and this is one of your specialties. What are you seeing in terms of how effective podcasts are for financial advisors and their firms to grow their practices?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. Interesting example too Just to put something out there into the ether before we dive into the specifics for financial advisors is there was a time in which you had no other choice but to rent somebody else's audience, to get access to somebody else's audience. So you needed to get in the newspaper, you needed to get on TV or on the radio, because those were the channels and they were controlled by somebody else and, by the way, there's still value in that. So it's not saying that you shouldn't do those things, that you shouldn't speak at somebody else's conference or be interviewed for a magazine or a newspaper or whatever channel that is. But it really is worth highlighting that we are now in the early 20th year, if you wanna call it that, of the ability to grow and own your own audience, to create an audience and to create your own content and share it with those people. So the example you mentioned of a political candidate coming out of nowhere, even though he was a very wealthy businessman and having a big budget the ability for that person to I'm gonna create my own content, I'm gonna start to grow my audience, put this stuff out into the world and leverage free to use social media platforms and put it out there and drive traffic back to my site, to my podcast, to my video, whatever it's really breathtaking.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to have ambitions to hold public office, to be the president of the United States to take advantage of those things right, you just don't. And so if you're a financial advisor or an insurance agent or a CPA living in a small town in America, there's no reason why you also can't create great content and put it out into the world. I truly believe it's two things here as it relates to financial advisors. Number one I believe American people need financial advisors like they need oxygen, because the average American knows next to nothing about finances. They and the reason why we have financial advisors who used to be called stockbrokers, by the way is that the products that we the package financial products that we use, are just more complex than the average consumer knows about. They don't know how to use them right Now. Look, they can learn on their own. That's fine, but the average person has a job, they have a family, they need help, and then they also have. They should have emotional detachment from the process.
Speaker 1:I laugh because they should have right. I'm recalling stories of recent clients I've been working with and it's yeah, basic principle buy low, sell high, that's right. And it's like the reality that few people are able to do that because of what you just said.
Speaker 2:That's right. There's a study I wanna say it's the Dow bar study or something like that like the results of people who manage their own money and the results of people who use a professional, and there's a monstrous gap. And the reason for that is, when you're the one who makes your own investment decision, you think you're smart, right? Yeah, I got this, I'm betting on this one, right? And then, when it starts to go south, you're like when do I sell? When do I? So? Inevitably, somebody buys high, sells low. They get in when everybody's talking about Bitcoin or whatever. The rage of the day is petscom or whatever, like they're in the dot com boom. And then, of course, when everything starts going south, they hold on until the thing craters into the ground and they can't take the pain anymore. So I really do believe that financial professionals play an incredibly vital role in the average American's lives. However, most financial advisors frankly stink at marketing. They are uncomfortable with it. As I said, many of them got their jobs saying I want to be a stockbroker. That's where they started. Insurance folks got their start. It's a sales job, right? They're great. One to one right, that type of stuff. But they have not been trained as marketers. It doesn't mean they can't, but it's a skill that they can learn and they should right.
Speaker 2:One of the questions you sent over in prep was why do you believe some like digital strategies are so transformational for this audience? Think of who you're selling to, who you're looking to serve. They spend all their time on their phones. They spend all their time with their face on the screen, even when they're in their cars. Now they're listening to Spotify or Apple podcasts or something like that Google Play in their car. They're not even listening to regular conventional terrestrial radio anymore, and most of them aren't listening to Sirius or the XMRE, so they're taking podcasts with them and over a hundred million Americans listen to podcasts regularly. That's pretty stunning, right.
Speaker 1:It's completely stunning and I just from personal experience I don't watch. I cut my cable. I don't watch cable. I might have Netflix, but really, where do I get my information and entertainment? It's I'll go to YouTube, I'll go to Twitter, I'll go to places like that, but what am I really paying attention to? Watching it's podcasts, right, that's where I get the bulk of my information.
Speaker 1:And again, just this year, as I've been investing more time in doing this podcast guest tour, I've just been astonished where the plurality of my prospects have come as a direct result of podcasting. I do a lot of things, right, I'm not just gonna do one thing and be done. I'm a marketer by training. I believe in testing things, I do webinars, I do LinkedIn, I do, obviously, referrals and speaking and all these different things. But it's just utterly amazed me at how effective the combination of having a book and then going out and speaking on podcasts is to getting the message out as well as attracting super high quality prospects.
Speaker 1:The prospects I'm getting as a result are not they're the ideal prospects that you want, that are coming to you and these to me. These are complete strangers who I have no idea who they are. They listened to a podcast that I was on and they schedule and if they do their due diligence whether it's by listening to the podcast, maybe getting my book, et cetera they already know all about me. It's better than a referral because they're educated and they've heard, they've listened to me speak enough and maybe they go to my podcast and listen to a few of my episodes that I've done with people and they're coming in so warm to the process that it's just astonishing and just myself as a growing my own practice and I'm very ambitious in terms of what I wanna do.
Speaker 1:But I'm doubling down on podcasting and tripling down, really going forward because it's such a powerful medium. What do you find? There's a lot of ways we can discuss this, but one of the things the question I have, and maybe a listener has, is in terms of hosting a podcast, is it better to do guest interviews and what is that? Is it better to just talk, have your own podcast and you talk out ideas and concepts? Is it better to guest podcast? Is it better to do all of the above? How do you typically guide a new client when they come to you and are thinking about getting into the world of podcasting?
Speaker 2:So the answer is I say yes to all of the above. Right, it's like I tell you why. Right? So you hit on something and you and I have actually talked about it, I think, and in a prior conversation I can't remember if it was on the podcast we recorded together. But you're hinting at something that I, a long time ago, coined this term, or I think I coined this term presentation magic. Right, where, if you stand up on stage in front of people and you talk for a few minutes or an hour, give a presentation, inevitably somebody will come up after you or a group of people will be waiting to want to get near the speaker and listen to what they just said.
Speaker 2:Something magical happened while you were on stage. You became an expert, you became a mini celebrity, if you will. Right, in our society in particular, we're conditioned to the people that we hear on inner earpods or on our speakers, on a computer or in our car or on our TV or on our mini TV that we carry everywhere with us this little phone thing that has a full HD screen on it. Those are celebrities. They are experts, they are knowledgeable people. Right, for whatever it elevates you and anytime you can take your message, take your personality, your voice, your image, whatever it is your style, and put it in front of me on the screen or in my earpods. Excellent stuff, right? Because I always say to people look, there's an audience for everyone. You mentioned a political candidate earlier in the show. He's not for me, he's not my guy, right? He will not be getting my vote in any way, shape or form. There are people who love him. There are people who think that guy's amazing. Right, that's the way the world is. I always joke like you could swear like a trucker and just be an absolute jerk. There's an audience for you, right? There's seven billion people in the world. 330 million of them live here in America. There is an audience for you and your style being you and whatever, and the way that you do business, the philosophies you have, so embrace it.
Speaker 2:So, as for how do you start? Like, where should you be putting your priorities In terms of? I say, start with whatever you feel comfortable with you mentioned? I think one of the questions you sent over is like what if somebody feels a little uncomfortable getting started, let's start with that audience first. Oh, I'm a little nervous, we all are. First of all, everybody stinks at this when they first start, so you know you get it the first time. You roll up and record yourself if you've never done it before, and hear yourself. If you're doing a video podcast, see yourself. You're gonna be like oh wow, I look and sound like that. Get over it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna jump in for a second. But I've taken some improv classes over the years and one of the pieces of advice that really resonated from the instructor was that if you're gonna fail big, it's really a mindset right, instead of being timid and being scared, it's hey, I'm just gonna go out there and fail big. But of course, what's really happening is you're freeing yourself to do your best and you're making progress and you're getting better in the process.
Speaker 2:Just get started, that's right. So here, one of the little recommendations I have you actually tipped on it with your previous show you mentioned. You've had podcasts. You recorded episodes that are out there in the world. They become evergreen, right. Occasionally you record something that's current event related, but for the most part they're probably pretty evergreen, right. So just start recording a series of short clips, and those short clips can be if just this is gonna be your practice, right, it can be introduction.
Speaker 2:Hi, my name is Mike. I own a company called Finster Marketing. We produce podcasts. These video clips can be on your website, right. You can use them on LinkedIn or whatever else. Right. If there's a compliance issue, just send it to the compliance team, get their approval, obviously for the script. But then you can do things like tips and explanations. Hey, saving for your kids' college education here's some little good ways to do it. You can talk about 529 plans. You can talk about other different strategies for saving for college, right. You can talk about explaining the differences of a Roth IRA versus a traditional contributory IRA. This is stuff that your clients, your prospects, your referral partners might wanna know about. Right, and you can take those videos or those audio clips, if you will, and put them on your website and people can click and listen to it and go oh all right, mike knows what he's talking about here. Well, great, this is interesting. I didn't know that Because, again, going back to like, my initial motivation for doing podcasts was I wanted people to be more comfortable with me, right?
Speaker 2:I think I told you this before. We've all heard that phrase. People do business with those they know and trust. Everybody's heard that. If you've ever been to any type of sales webinar or seminar or whatever, they all say that that misses two big things, though. Right, it misses familiarity. We do business with those that we know and trust, but if I haven't seen you or heard from you in 10 years, chances are you're not the first person I call when I have the need for your service. And if you're a financial advisor or you're an insurance agent, one of the things you know is that not everyone you meet right now is in the market for your services.
Speaker 2:Right now I might already have a financial advisor or all my money's tied up at my 401k and I own a small business or whatever. I don't have investable assets for you financial advisor to manage. But eventually I will right. Maybe I'll change jobs, maybe I'll sell my business, whatever, I'll have some form of liquidity event. I need to hear from you regularly. You need to.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why you see the same commercials over and over again on TV and the radio. You're staying at the top of somebody's consideration set. I want BMW, mercedes, audi, whatever. If you're a luxury car guy, I hear from them regularly. Why? Because they want me the next time I go to buy a car, whenever that is right. So familiarity is really important and podcasting is awesome for that.
Speaker 2:The other one is competence, and I touched on this before. Right, I can know you, like you trust you, I can see you all the time. But if I don't know you're good at what you do, you still might not get my business Recording podcasts or videos and putting it out into the world like you do. You're interviewing me. Your business isn't podcasts for financial advisors, right, but you're demonstrating, by your command of the subject matter, your command of marketing, your understanding of how people think, right and then bringing on quality guests. You're demonstrating a competency in what you do right and for financial advisors. That's the same as true for your prospects and your referral partners. And if I see you in my stream I hear you occasionally I'm like, oh, that's the person I'm gonna think of doing business with or sending business to, so awesome tools for that.
Speaker 2:Let me jump in for a second.
Speaker 1:So I totally agree with everything you're saying and, for example, you mentioned early on email marketing and believe that email marketing is still the number one most effective way to communicate with people, but it's also the content that goes in there. So what are you communicating? Simply emailing and throwing out some generic email that someone else made that every other advisor is sending out tends to not move the needle very much. Either people don't open it or they just don't relate. It doesn't make an impact, right. And so to your point. Even if you're doing about a topic, whatever the topic is 401ks, roth conversions, et cetera, et cetera a short podcast where you're just talking about the idea, maybe telling a story lives in different mediums, right? So it's out there on your website, as you talked about. It also becomes a fantastic tool to nurture your email list, to nurture your LinkedIn connections. I find also it's a great way, especially if you get conversations that you're having with clients all the time and you wanna educate your clients, maybe have that lead to a more in-depth conversation. It's a great way to seed the conversation, right. So I might do a podcast about some topic and I might send it to my clients and say, hey, you should listen to this and then schedule a call with me so we can deep dive into your situation. So it's a tremendous time saver because now you're not having to always start from scratch and tell people why they should be interested in something. You can do this much more on a one to many level and then have the people that are most interested and receptive come to you and take next steps Fantastic.
Speaker 1:I love what you said about competence. It's so true Is that? Marketing can be like pixie dust sometimes, where we can make people myself included seem sometimes better than we really are, but you're not going to. It's hard to fake competence, yes, sir, and when you're speaking about topics, people form that impression and they can see pretty quickly okay, this is someone who knows what they're talking about. So it goes beyond the no interest. It gets into competence. This is one of the fastest ways to demonstrate that. I find this interesting.
Speaker 1:Nowadays, if I'm going to talk to someone or make an introduction about to someone, basically a referral the first thing I look to find is I want to introduce them through their book or their podcast or a combination, because I know that there's nothing stronger than giving the person I'm introducing the recipient of that a chance to check them out in advance, basically screen them, and then form their own opinion and then, based on the introduction of referral, now they're that much more likely to want to take action, and so it's such a accelerant to the whole referral process.
Speaker 1:There's one more thing that I'd love to get your thoughts on. This falls into the having your podcast and interviewing people as guests. I call this authority by association. Yeah, so why? A lot of people want to talk and say their message, and so what's the value of sitting back and playing the role of a host but inviting guests onto your podcast to do most of the talking? What value from a marketing perspective does that have? And I just said my two cents is authority by association. I'd love to have you expand upon that from your point of view.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great way of articulating it the authority by association, right, because it does happen, right, like, as an example, I host an event here at South by Southwest right every year and I'm the host, right, but I create this kind of I always call it like a gravity for myself. Everybody comes to my event, right, I'm not doing all the work on stage. I come up and introduce, say hey, the next team that's presenting their startup is XYZ team, super excited to have them here. Turn it over to them, welcome to the event. Blah, blah, blah. We got a sponsor, but suddenly I'm a rock star as it relates to this topic. Right, and so your point is very apt. You are like curating some cool, some really good content for your audience, right. So you know, in your case, it's writing books for helping people write short books for their business as a marketing tool, but you're bringing on other people like me. Hey, by the way, in addition to a book, you may consider podcasts as well. Right, let's talk about the value of podcasts. Your scene is a trusted expert in marketing and you're bringing on valuable stuff for your audience.
Speaker 2:I always say, know, your audience is the most important thing when it comes to anything, who are you targeting so for a financial advisor? As an example, I always use the example that maybe your target market is people in the tech industry in your area. I would go native. I would be going to local tech events hanging out. I would be the financial advisor at whatever the Ruby on Rails programming event, the Web Dev event, whatever that is that's interesting to me. I would be having executives from the local tech industry pop out of my podcast. They will talk to you about this type of stuff. How'd you get your star, whatever the topic is. And then occasionally I might interest first like, oh, just so you know, you're on the XYZ financial podcast today and today we're speaking to blah, blah, blah executive.
Speaker 2:To your point, now I'm getting competency or authority by association here. They agreed that executive from that company is on Mike's show. Well, mike must be somebody I'd like to talk to. Mike. Right, like that, it happens, right, we've all seen it. Like you, just, you ever watch the famous people and they have an entourage of like hangers on, and the hangers on are always like yeah, I'm boys with this famous rapper or this athlete or whatever. Right, they're hanging out Suddenly. All the pretty ladies, or all the handsome dudes whatever are throwing themselves at the guy who's done nothing is in proximity to famous person. Do you know what I'm talking about? It works, it's just. It's human psychology.
Speaker 1:It totally does, and it's just by extension. When you have a list of podcasts and that people are checking you out and doing their due diligence online, as we all do, and suddenly I see that, oh, this person that we know in common, or multiple people that we know in common, just it accelerates trust like nothing else and then they can ease, drop on the conversation and oh, okay, competence, no trust, so-and-so trusts you. Then I should trust you. And it does all this really on a one to many level. That's really hard to beat.
Speaker 1:I want to ask about another aspect of this. I love the one to many approach in marketing and building my practice and I always talk to financial advisors about this is that would you rather steer your marketing towards bringing on one new client or would you rather steer your marketing to the potential of bringing on 10 new clients at a time? What I mean by that is that centers of influence are very key way to create much more of a snowball. As an example, if I have, if I'm an advisor and I have a CPA relationship and the CPA is referring over 5, 10, 15 people a year, that relationship is much more valuable to me from a business standpoint than doing engaging in marketing. That might bring on one new person Right, and at the end of the day, the time and energy and effort is the same, but one has the potential to massively impact your business. One is a slower process, and so in my case and what I do for myself and what I teach people to do or coach people to do or advise people to do is that if you want to build COI relationships, one of the best ways to do so is to have your own podcast where you're interviewing people and make sure you can steward in such a way that it's relevant to your business goals, but also relevant to the people that you're bringing on.
Speaker 1:But anyone I want to get to know. Instead of reaching out to them cold and trying to approach them that way, the first thing I would do is invite them to be a guest on my podcast One. They're that much more likely to say yes, because this is media right. You're giving them an opportunity to elevate themselves and talk about their story and get their message out, which is more attractive to them.
Speaker 1:But there's also this amazing thing that happens in the process of interviewing someone and doing a good job as you do is that you go from complete stranger to new BFF. Right, you go from I didn't know you a week ago to like hey, I like you, and how can we collaborate and do all these different things? You can get there so much more quickly than you probably can in any other traditional relationship. I might be a member of the local service club, the Rotary, the Chamber of Commerce, and mostly these are all strangers to me or people that I have a surface level relationship with. But if you're a good host and you invite the people that you want to get to know to your podcast, in my estimation it's the fastest way to build meaningful relationships. I'd love to get your take on that.
Speaker 2:No, I agree, I always I said it about social media, and I think the same is true here. It's an incredible accelerator of relationships, right? When I invite you to come on a show with me and we're about to talk in depth about either about you specifically or about an area of which you have great expertise and interest, this is a fun. I'll share a personal story. I was just visiting my son at LSU. He's a freshman there and it was family weekend. We talked about how some guys have a hard time talking to ladies and he does not. He's good with it. We talked about this trick and he's already using a trick, and I don't know if I ever told him about it, but it's the fastest way to get somebody interested in you is to show that you're interested in them. Right, because everybody's favorite topic is them, is their stuff. If you go up to a girl at campus and you say, hey, my name's Jackson, it's my son's name and how are you enjoying LSU? I'm a freshman. Whatever, where are you from? That's his thing. He's like where are you from? Because he's really interested in travel, and so he'll ask where you're from and he inevitably knows a lot about that place because he's researched that place, he'll be like oh no, philadelphia, are cheese steaks really a big deal there? Is it just one of those? What are a silly things? Have you been to the Rocky stairs? Is it worth going? So he'll just do that type of stuff. And I think the same is true here.
Speaker 2:In business is building relationships is really important, but you can accelerate a relationship by, to your point, having you on the show talking to you about your book, talking to you about your business. How do you work with a client? Why is a financial advisor? What is the benefit of a financial advisor having a short book? And you shared all your strategies on that episode, which people should go check that out, by the way, it's really cool and I 100% agree it's. It opens up so many doors and, of course, that person's walking off, going to pause the man. Even if I don't have business for him right now, I'm going to remember him fondly. And oh, by the way, I'm going to share with my audience my network of people. I was just on the million dollar producer podcast. Of course, I'm pimping that out to my group of people. Right, they got to hear me on there, cause it's awesome.
Speaker 1:So that leads me to my next question. This gets into me why I think, ultimately, it's important, for if I was to advise, if an advisor were to say, paul, today, what should I be doing when it comes to my marketing? There's a variety of things that you can do. There's a variety of things. I recommend it's not to only do these, but the top three I would tell them based off of experience for myself as well as working with many advisors is threefold. One is to have a book, because that establishes your authority and you're about a topic. The other two is one to have your own podcast so that you can build CEOI relationships, as we've talked about. Then three is to basically go on a podcast guest tour and promote your book and expand your audience and your visibility to relevant audiences. And so, to be clear, it's not just about being on podcasts, it's about being on the right podcast podcast that serve your audience.
Speaker 1:Invariably, what I find is that one of the benefits of having both your own podcast as well as guest podcasting is that you start, if you think about it strategically and you think about this. It's not a numbers game, it's a quality game, right? If I go on someone's podcast and I have a good experience and we serve the same audience. Naturally and strategically, I'm going to want to reciprocate and invite that person on my podcast because it's reciprocation, but it's also deepening the relationship with potential centers of influence, strategic partners, whatever you want to call them. That would be my suggestion to an advisor, from your perspective and what you're seeing, the question is how would you prioritize having your own podcast versus being a guest, a podcast versus doing both? I believe your firm helps with both. So if you can maybe talk about what your advice would be as well as, potentially, how your firm can help people accelerate that process, I'm a firm believer that everyone should have their own show because people only have so many hours in the day.
Speaker 2:Look as a financial advisor if we're talking about an individual advisor, or even as a firm most firms, even large RIAs that have a billion dollars or more of assets under management, they only have a few hundred actual clients Now. They may have thousands of accounts they manage for those few hundred. They're not trying to necessarily reach millions of people. Having a show, having some form of regularly scheduled programming for your audience, you can have anchor pieces like the book or this is a strategy and we've articulated it in these videos or these modules, how this webinar series. We do whatever. I love the notion of having some anchor concepts, like you shared. What I like about the anchor concept is, if it's done well, you are articulating the problem you solve and for who. This is who our client is and this is the problem they likely have. We are the people who solve that. We speak your language. We talk the same way. I understand what all the nerdy tech talk is. If I serve tech professionals, If I'm dealing with people who are in marketing all my marketing agency owners and executives those are my people. I understand marketing talk or whatever. I dress like them. I don't show up in suit and tie because why they're all wearing the hip clothes and the right jeans and whatever. That's how I roll that type of stuff. If I had to rank it in terms of prioritizing your own or being a guest, you should do both, but I'd own. Get started owning an audience, because it's just so important. There is no friction between you and the people listening or watching. They're your people. Now You're becoming one of them. The other reason why I think that's important is you're going to get better. This is a tangential effect that happens. The more you spend time recording yourself or having conversations about your core topics with people, the better you get at your pitch you and I are talking about. Sometimes we get nervous when we get up on stage, like everybody does. You're still going to get nervous, but your brain will relax a little bit, going yep, the butterflies will die down once they start talking for a little while.
Speaker 2:Things I had to learn, as an example Getting comfortable, taking breaks in the middle like just breathing. I'm a fast talker. Learning to look at the camera. Where are my eyes supposed to go when I'm on video? Am I looking over here Getting comfortable? That's the fact that you are on camera, remembering to smile. As I mentioned, my first job was answering phones for mutual phone companies. They used to tell us smile before you say hello, hi there, it's Mike Langford talking, or whatever that was. You do that, it helps. These are skills you can learn that are not just exclusive to podcasts or videos. You will take them elsewhere. Now I do agree you should be on other people's podcasts 100%, because that'll teach you some other things too.
Speaker 2:It's different being asked questions versus the one asking the questions. It just is. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The one thing that I will tell everybody, because I hear this objection frequently how many people should we? How big of an audience should we expect? I don't know how small of an audience is too small. I know that sounds like a weird cop out answer, but I always use this example.
Speaker 2:Listen, I live in one of those master plan communities, those golf course communities At the mouth of our complex, down by the fountains or whatever. When you exit, there's an office park. As you leave the complex, it's got seven buildings in it. Each of them has got four or five floors each. There's hundreds and hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people, working this office complex. There's a hotel there.
Speaker 2:If I told you listen, paul, later on today I've rented out the conference room at the hotel at the mouth of the complex and there's going to be 80 people there at that conference room. Would you mind? And, by the way, they're all in your target market, they're all financial advisors and insurance folks Would you mind coming down and jumping on stage for a half an hour to just talk about your stuff? You'd be like burn in rubber to get out of your driveway to get down there. Right?
Speaker 2:The same is true for think about if you're recording a podcast and it's about financial stuff or it's about whatever, like just targeting tech people in your local community, and you look at 80 people listen. Like those weren't 80 random people, they were 80 people in your target market, in your wheelhouse. These are the influencers. As you said, you want to have these people listening to your stuff. That is amazing, right? They took time out of their day to click the play button and you're with them in their head and their AirPods in their car. You're having a one-on-one conversation with this person. It's awesome. It's a birthday 100%.
Speaker 1:A couple of questions before we wrap up today. One of the questions I often get when I talk to people about the value of a podcast is people are concerned about the time commitment. One thing I would suggest is that for most people, you don't want to go this alone. If you have a lot of tech savvy, you can consider it, but for most people you want to work with a firm, such as Mike's, to go about doing this. So, at a very practical level, when someone's working with your firm, what kind of expectations do you set when it comes to their time? How much time a week, how many episodes, how much time per week, how long? Just things of that nature, so someone can really practice it. Okay, I can budget that and set that expectation.
Speaker 2:So the time commitment. So if you're working with a firm, an outside firm that's going to help you with your production and post-production editing and distribution type stuff, I can talk about what those things are. It really comes down to the time commitment, comes down to how much control do you want to have over content itself, the planning of the content, and what do I mean by that? When I plan a show, just as you did, you sent over a series of conversation starters and let's talk about these things. These are the questions or whatever. I'm not sure if you wrote them or if you had somebody else in your team write them or whatever, but they came over. That's planning the content. There's booking the guests. So how much control does that person want to take in that process, because that's actually somewhat time consuming.
Speaker 2:You have to think about what are we going to talk about and who are we going to talk about it with, and then what are the details of that conversation, at least high level. So a lot of our clients cede all of that to our team. They might suggest Mike, we want to have a show and we want to talk about this topic and we want to have this guest on, or could just be one of those. This topic or this get right, whatever Great, we'll have a prep call. So I always suggest there's a prep call with every guest. It only has to be like 20, 30 minutes. Let me just jump in there.
Speaker 1:So that was the experience that I had with Mike, and I mentioned this at the beginning of the show. I've done a number when I was on his podcast and I've done a number of guest podcasts this year, and most of them were mid-level in terms of the experience. Some were poor, but Mike's was exceptional. It's because you invested in the time in that prep call and so we went from strangers to creating a rapport, which then allowed, I think, for a really good conversation that we actually recorded on the podcast. We were very dialed into the topics and what value the audience would get from it. Just wanted to share that real quick but please continue.
Speaker 2:You hit on the hill. I always say the prep call is for three things. Number one conversational chemistry. Even if you know the person, let's kind of talk. I haven't talked to you in a little while. Hey Paul, let's just shoot the breeze for a few minutes. I'll tell you about the podcast. So, conversational chemistry. Then it's talk about what you're going to talk about. Just almost a pre-rehearsal. Oh yeah, they'll know you, like you trust you thing. I've already said that to you once before in the prep call. So great, it feels legit. But I've already rehearsed the tiny bit.
Speaker 2:We're not doing the full podcast, but we're just doing a quick prep call. And then, lastly, logistics. You can't take for granted or roll under the assumption that the person you're going to have on your show has the right setup. They may have done a podcast before, but they might not be doing it with the same solution that you're using. As an example, we're recording on Zoom right now. We use a solution called Riverside. Many people have never been on Riverside before. Okay, this is what Riverside looks and feels like.
Speaker 2:If you're having technical difficulties, let's talk through that. If somebody shows up and they don't have a decent quality microphone and they're in a bad situation. They've got a window behind them that's washing them out with too much light and this, and that we talk through that type of stuff just to make sure that they're going to have a good experience, because I always say I want you to have your best experience. Prep call is important. That's a half an hour, right, but there's some scheduling before that, emails and whatever Little trick. By the way, I recommend setting up a calendar for the prep call and set one up for the podcast recording session. All I have to do is say, oh, if you want to create a prep call, boom, only a few seconds. We always book an hour.
Speaker 2:We have one client who's like I love this and he's the CEO of a company and he's like you know what I love about this podcast Deal. When I have to write a blog post, it takes me hours and hours. I got to think about it, I got to write it, I got to edit it, I got to get it over the writer's block. I got a total pain in the butt. He's like this type of stuff. We say we want to talk about whatever or we want to have a guest. We have a quick prep call, I show up and you ask me a bunch of questions and then I go do my job as CEO and then we get it edited so he didn't have to do. It's actually less work to get a message.
Speaker 1:It totally is, and especially when you get into that concept of repurposing. So it's not just one and done, but it's in our case. We'll take podcasts and that can become an email that we send out to our list. That can become a newsletter that we put out on LinkedIn. That can become other content that we put out on LinkedIn, and I have my assistant do this for me. But it's essentially it's more or less that one hour conversation. That's really enjoyable. This has been thoroughly enjoyable for me as an example, and it's fun to do. And then now you turn it over to Mike's firm or if whoever you're working with an assistant and they can run with the rest of it so that it becomes so. That's where the time savings is right. Yes, there is some work, but I would argue that the benefits and the time savings can far outweigh the work and time that goes into it 100% agree.
Speaker 2:Getting back to the question of if somebody's concerned about the time and the effort and so forth, so there's no getting around, it is going to take effort. You have to be aware that you might stink at this at first. Right, you might be awesome out of the game, but just like the first time you ever if you're a financial advisor, remember the first time you sat in an office across the table from a prospect to buy yourself for the first time Probably a little nervous. You've probably gotten much better at that over the years. We all stink at something when we start. But in terms of time commitment, okay. So per episode, if you are just going to be let's call it the on-air talent, the person who's going to be recording, right, the host or the whatever an hour and a half per episode, assuming you're not also doing all the prep work in terms of creating the prep document of what are we going to talk about and scheduling, right. If you are, that's another hour to an hour and a half. Okay, per episode. You can batch these. By the way, you can do that on a week. You can have a weekly show in which you record the show every week or you can batch them. You can say I'm going to go find a bunch of people, get them on the show, or going to have a bunch of topics, we're going to do a bunch of recordings and then we're going to release them every week or whatever. Your cadence is over time. So you've got a bunch in the can, if you will, and you're dripping them out. So that's a good strategy.
Speaker 2:By the way, If you're going to be doing the editing, I tell people to expect it to take longer than you wish it would. So some people will put out a podcast and they don't care about the audio. They're less concerned about audio quality, so they'll leave in a lot of noise and a lot of people tripping over. We take a very bespoke approach, right? We use a lot of high-end tools where we strip out a lot of the ums and the ahs. We, if a guest has like a noisy fan in the background, you can hear in the microphone or whatever. We strip that type of stuff out. So we try to do a really good job. We record video for every podcast and we repurpose the video. So we do all that editing and packaging and publish it on behalf of our clients. That does take time right. I highly recommend it, unless if you're the CEO or your financial advisor, try not to do your own editing. You can find editors that are relatively affordable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll just add to that yeah, I've been doing my podcast since 2019 and if I have to do the editing and do all the steps, I stop. It's just too much, Whereas if I can essentially come on the show, have a great conversation, then it's a joy. I like to do at least one a week and produce one a week, and it's just a joy to do so. My recommendation is that you 100% want to get assistance with us and not go it alone Just in wrapping up today's episode. I know we're probably going a little bit long, so I appreciate your time. Two questions for you. I'll give them to you both right now. The first question is is there any question that we haven't talked about that you think would be of interest to our audience at this point, before we wrap up today's show? And then the second question is where? So for someone that's listening to this and they're interesting and potentially learning more about you or exploring your services, what's the best way for them to learn more or to reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Really good question. The first question is is there anything we didn't talk about that I think is very worthy of paying attention? It is check your assumptions about where people are getting information or what they do at the door. Why do I say that? I have heard many financial advisors or executives say something similar to this my clients aren't easy. They're older than I'm listening to podcasts. My clients, my peer group, they're all executives, Mike, they're not spending any time on Facebook or they're not spending time on YouTube. I assure you you're incorrect. I assure you you are wrong on those that just because you don't spend a lot of time on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, listening to podcasts, just because you don't doesn't mean your clients, your target market prospects and referral partners aren't. People spend. In fact, YouTube is the second largest search engine, also owned by Google, but, like just almost as many people go to YouTube to search for things like how to? Why does so? People are going to these places to search for information and people love video.
Speaker 1:Before you continue to just add to that, if you think about, arguably, who's the most influential person or one of the most influential people today, I would say it's Joe Rogan, and that's podcast. He has the video audio. But yeah, I would totally agree with your affluent people, which just tends to be your ideal prospect, regardless of industry and whatnot, or 100%.
Speaker 2:It gets more dramatic in terms of numbers, the younger you get right, and most financial firms will tell you they need younger. They're going after the millennial audience now they are going after Gen Zs right Cause Gen Zs in the workforce Millennials just so. By the way, next time you're mocking millennials, hello those millennials. These days we have 40 year old millennials now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just in full disclosure, I've switched from mocking millennials to now mocking Gen Zers.
Speaker 2:You hear it in our industry occasionally it'll be oh, these millennials. Those millennials are like 40 now, some of them right Like with kids, and some of them might have kids in college. So we might want to start backing off that. But the point is, every firm we talk to is trying to get younger in terms of their clients that they're attracting and in terms of the talent they are attracting. Try to look like a modern business. Modern businesses have podcasts, they use videos right. They are using these tools right. So that would be my thing.
Speaker 2:It's like a table some of your assumptions that you may have about how people are consuming information. I assure you they are spending a lot of time on these channels, so if they're going to be there, you should be too. So that's why you should be doing this. Okay, so how do they find me? I'm basically everywhere. I am at Mike Langford, everywhere. I spend a lot of time on YouTube, as you might imagine. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. I am a podcast host, guest producer on a lot of different places. So if you go in your favorite podcast player and you type my name in, you will find me on a lot of different shows. I'm easy to find and, by the way, that's fun too.
Speaker 2:If you have a target client that you're looking for right, start searching for them. I'll leave you with this. It relates to that thing I was saying before about checking your assumptions Increasingly, and I don't think I'm alone in this. If I'm being introduced to a potential business, particularly if it's an individual person, you should go talk to this professional. I'm looking to see if I can find you online. I'm not just going to your brochure or website that has a picture of you looking like a realtor, smiling and saying we work with affluent people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right which, by the way, every other financial advisor's website says. I'm looking for something that tells me about you. Can I see what you look like and sound? Can I hear you on a podcast? Can I see a video of you on YouTube or Instagram or whatever, where I get to know a little feel for who you are? Are you the right guy or lady for me? That's actually happening way more than you think it is. People are looking to check you out before they come and visit you.
Speaker 1:It 100% is, and when I make an introduction or a referral almost always want to include a podcast interview, ideally on my show. I was just making an introduction the other day and I was trying to find some podcasts and different things that the person was on, because I'm, like, really impressed by his background. But I wasn't trying to communicate that effectively in the introduction and unfortunately I couldn't, and so of course I probably did that by immediately inviting him to be a guest on my podcast, because he's someone that I respect and I want to make introductions to in the future. But I realized that's a big deficiency is not having yourself on a podcast that can be used for introductions, for referrals. It's such a potent tool. I use it as sales conversion right.
Speaker 1:So when I'm talking to a prospect as part of the process, I'm gonna set the stage for what happens next and I'm gonna suggest a key podcast, or a couple key podcasts, depending on the relationship, so that ideally, they're consuming more content, as it relates to me, prior to the next meetings. And what are we doing there? We're essentially knowing that the biggest barrier is what I call the trust barrier. We're just finding ways to seamlessly get over it so that we can go from you have a problem, I have a solution. How can we talk about me helping you solve your problem and not get stuck in the I don't know you and who's the competition and all these different things? So I strongly believe in the power of podcasts and I appreciate your time today. This has been excellent. I know we've we went over time. That's the risk you have when you get to, I'd say, marketers in the same room. We're geeking out about stuff. It's all I want to share this. Do you want to share that?
Speaker 2:It's my pleasure and I know I can talk forever about this, but I always tell people, like, look, the great thing about podcasts you can pause, you can continue the show, they don't have to be a specific length, it's interesting, let it rip. It's been an absolute pleasure being on the show, paul. I really appreciate it. I'm happy to come on the show anytime in the future if you'd like, and, of course, I'm sure you'll be returning to our shows as well.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it All right. Thank you so much for being our guest today on the Million Dollar Producer Show. It's been a pleasure, thank you, and I'll see you in the next one.