413: Consistency, Persistence, Discipline, and Creativity: Overcome Frustration, Build a Brand and a Following with Jim Sweeney

Robert Plank 0:00 Marketer of the day, number 413 consistency, persistence, discipline and creativity, overcome frustration, build a brand and a following with Jim Sweeney. Hey everyone, and thanks for listening. We're talking right now with Jim Sweeney, and Jim has crafted his digital innovation to become the first universal animated brand in sports, and his property has enjoyed an incredible start in digital media. In addition to penning 800 plus blogs, Jim has also published 40 Mike sports comic books, and his goal is to license Mike as an alter ego animated character to a major sports network. Gonna have a lot of different discussions today. Have a lot of fun. How are things? Mr. Jim,

Jim Sweeney 0:43 everything is great. Living here in Florida, you know, we dodged a big bullet with Hurricane Irma a couple of weeks ago, and I'm back to work, nose in front of the computer, creating content and loving life. Super great. It's what it's

Robert Plank 0:55 all about, living the dream, still alive, all that fun stuff. And so, I mean, what kind of content are you creating? What kind of projects do you have these days?

Jim Sweeney 1:02 I'm pretty consistent. Three times a week I post a blog through the voice of my mike, cartoon sports character, and just about every day, I'm doing research for you know, one of my future books. And I'm also, pretty much on a weekly basis looking to develop content for future animated shorts, as told through the voice of my mike cartoon character.

Robert Plank 1:25 Okay, great. And do you have some website addresses to list out for us, so that way we can maybe follow along or check out what some of these characters with some of the stuff is?

Jim Sweeney 1:34 Yeah, the best way to find me is the mike.com that's T H, E, E, M, I K e.com, T H, 2e, S, M, I K e.com, as in the long awaited microphone Messiah, the ultimate talking head on sports. I got all kinds of tag lines for my character. He's a talking head. He's a microphone by the name of Mike. I mean, how simple is that? And fortunately, when we went to trademark him. A few years ago, no one had ever thought about trademarking a very simple idea of calling a microphone Mike,

Robert Plank 2:10 nice. So, so it was just everyone thought of all the complicated ideas. You said this, this thing. It was, it's too simple. Everyone else probably thought, I'm not even gonna bother looking it up myself, because someone else, I got the thing of it, but then eventually you broke the pattern. Right?

Jim Sweeney 2:23 Exactly. So people have said to me over the last couple years, man, that's a brilliantly simple idea. I'm thinking, well, thanks for the generous compliment, but I really never thought it that way. I just thought it was something you needed to do. Trademark Mike as a microphone, and so be it. So Mike, we call him the ultimate talking head on sports, because he's a talking head on sports. Awesome.

Robert Plank 2:46 And so what like, what came? How did this idea come about? And why did you decide to have a cartoon character as opposed to just being you and and saying what you wanted to say? I've

Jim Sweeney 2:58 never envisioned my envision myself on television or sitting behind a desk, like reporting on sports in an ESPN or Fox or NBC Sports studio environment, but I've always had the idea of Mike. I felt like it was born with me. I felt like it coursed through my DNA, you know, at birth. And I've had this fascination and affinity for words, for humor, I love sports, and I love truth telling, and I feel like you can utilize a cartoon character, an animated character, in the marketplace, because people can't remain angry at a cartoon character for long. And I think a cartoon character can get away with saying things where he pushes the envelope a little without ever stepping over the line. That can get people to think, that could get people to discuss, that could get people to view a situation a little bit more different, differently, because it was told through the voice of a cartoon character that challenged you to discuss it. And cartoon characters are all about humor, and I think my mic is a funny guy. He's witty, he's clever, he looks at thing through it like an entirely different lens when he views the world of sports. So that's why I came out with the guys, because I wanted to tell say the things that I wanted to say, but I wasn't really comfortable with my being that individual with that would say those things, whether it be like a radio show or a podcast or a television series or YouTube series. I want it to go through the voice of the character who eventually can get licensed. And you know, he could be like a sponge bob or a Bart Simpson, but in sports,

Robert Plank 4:40 that's super interesting. And so, so you said in there that, like, uh, like, there's a bunch of benefits to having this character that you created, and one can be that he can wake people up and get pill, but people to think and maybe say things that you normally wouldn't say because, because, you know, if you if you were too far out there, maybe we were. There would be some blowback, or things like that. And so, I mean, what, what kind of things is this character saying that that requires a character to be made? Like, is he, like, super outrageous, over the top at times? Or, like, what kind of, what kind of, I guess, like, edgy things is this character saying?

Jim Sweeney 5:14 I guess, the edgiest that Mike has become is talking about lyrics and songs and in music. I mean, one of the things that I've personally studied over the course of the last several years is lyrics in songs written by like the rap artist Jay Z and other people that don't necessarily get shared like on mainstream TV, because it's something that would get beeped out. And I'm thinking, Come on, man, if would you want your kids listening to that kind of stuff, because a lot of it is misogynistic, racially insensitive, and things that I think could be, you know, told through the voice of my mic character to get people to talk. And one of probably the most downloaded blog that I've ever had is every Tuesday I write a blog called two cent Tuesday, and it's Mike two cent. Mike's two cents on what he sees happening in sports, and he wrote about Jay Z and the lyrics. I actually studied the lyrics of every album that he had ever published. And I just wanted people to think, to talk. Is this something that you want your kids listening to? Is this something that's mainstream or what? And I got overwhelmingly positive comments as a result of posting that blog. I had some people that said, hey, you know, it's freedom of speech. Yes, it is. And, you know, I definitely, you know, agree with anybody you know. When it comes to the freedom of speech, people have the right to say anything they want to say, but I believe they need to say it responsibly. And even in songs, I say I think some songs are very irresponsible.

Robert Plank 6:54 Well, great. And so, so you bring all these different issues to light. And you mentioned a few minutes ago that are and you mentioned a few times in here that you like to blog regularly, like you like to blog three times a week. And so do you have any sort of process there? Because I imagine that there's always a lot of news and things coming out down the pipeline, especially with sports. But then it's also seems like it's really easy to to either fall into the same things everyone else is talking about, or talk about something that's not timely. So, for example, like that, uh, that talking about the Jay Z lyrics. Like, how did something like that come about? Was it like, just something that was always on your mind or presented itself to you? Or, like, how do you come up with these, these new ideas all the time?

Jim Sweeney 7:37 Well, that blog is over. Was over a year old, but it was something that was prompted, that prompted me to write it because what I had either seen or heard in the media. And I do follow a formula each week. I want to block three times a week every Tuesday, I do a two cent Tuesday sports blog. So that's my opinion, as told through the voice of Mike, and it's to energize and engage, you know, people in conversation to talk about different things every Thursday, I'll do a throwback Thursday. And in my blog, I have my own unique comics. You know, we place we employ somebody to do sports comics that correspond with what I want to write in a throwback Thursday sports blog, and it's always about like last week, you know, Thursday fell on the same day as when the 1919 Black Sox Scandal had become unearthed in Major League Baseball. And I wrote about Shoeless Joe Jackson. I had a comment. I did my historical overview on what had happened. And, you know, I voiced my opinion in a throwback Thursday sports block. And then every Friday, I do, like a Friday sports funny, which is just something witty, maybe sometimes outrageous, having to do with something in the sports world. You know, I write about, you know, silly managers that uniforms that baseball managers wear or write about spitting in baseball, you know, stop the expectorating. You know, things like that that are funny, that are like right at the tip of your nose that you see when you watch a game or you watch TV, but you really never talk about, and my character is a witty, funny outside the box cartoon character. So, you know, two of the three blogs that I write each week, you know, have to stay in in line with what my character is. He's funny and He's witty, but then I look to get a newer audience by talking about something that is my opinion, that gets people to find me and to engage them in conversation.

Robert Plank 9:44 Super interesting. And I like the idea of of bringing to light all these little everyday things that you see in sports, but then might not notice. And then once you do notice them, when they go back and watch their baseball game or whatever they're gonna be thinking about you, it's almost like. A Seinfeld thing where, like it is, might point out something like every day and Monday, and it's like saying, now I can't not see that everywhere I go. Yeah,

Jim Sweeney 10:07 and I just said that I follow a normal routine. Well, last week, I didn't, because on Saturday, September 30, was international podcast day, and I did a bunch of podcasts, several dozen podcasts years ago that were Mike podcasts where he just pontificates on different things, and my number one most downloaded podcast was called the sports bra. And Mike is a little outrageous at times. He's always G rated, maybe PG rated at its worst, but he'll never step over the line. He'll never say anything, you know, racially sensitive or sexually, you know, provocative, because I do want to license the character a major sports network, and I want to remain true to the integrity of the character. But in the sports bra, it's just this ridiculous thing that Mike says and pontificates that the sports bra needs to be for men too, because he's seen too many beefy boys jiggling at the beach. You know, it just goes on and on from there. It's very funny, very silly, and it just, once again, I think I hit it out of the park with all the downloads that I got, because there were my it was my best podcast ever. And when I looked at the lips and results the day after, it just verified the fact that it was a very successful podcast. People liked it. They enjoyed it's very brief. It's only like a minute and 30 seconds. But in the podcast world, you know, probably better than I do, you could do anything you want. You just need to get a message out there. You need to get content out there. And if it appeals to a demo, people are going to find it, they're going to like it, and they're going to come back for more. Yeah, I

Robert Plank 11:42 agree. And so just to get some clarification here, what's the format of this content? Like? Are we talking written, audio, only, video, animation? What's the format here? There's

Jim Sweeney 11:52 some, as I mentioned at several dozen podcasts that I did, they're little blurbs. They're only the max is like three minutes in length in a podcast form. I have, you know, several animated shorts, but my focus is not necessarily on animation at this time. It's I want to utilize, you know, the interest that I've built on the My character to get greater, great interest from like an ESPN or Fox or NBC or CBS or some major website to want to utilize Mike as an alter ego character on their network. So animation is a very expensive proposition, and I have chosen an alternate route to get an animated character out there, by having a blog, by writing over 800 and something blogs, by publishing over 40 sports comic books, by doing a podcast. And you know, that forces people to see the character, to see that it's a talking head, it's a microphone, that's witty, that's clever, that's funny, that's engaging, and that's how I've gotten my guy out to market.

Robert Plank 12:55 Awesome. And so you mentioned a couple of times this idea of sports comic books. And I have to kind of confess that I'm not a real huge sports guy. Like, when I was younger, I played some little league, and then at one point, I think somebody bought me, maybe for my birthday or Christmas, some sort of comic book. And it's like so many it's like at least 20 years ago, so I don't even remember very well, but, like, there was some kind of comic book when it was like the like, Nolan Ryan the pitcher, and I can't really remember exactly what it was, but can you kind of refresh my memory and fill us in and let us know what these sports comic books are? Because, like, I have this very vague, distant memory of a Nolan Ryan pitcher, baseball sort of comic book, but I'm not even sure what it was. Mine is

Jim Sweeney 13:40 a little bit different. When you're in the creative space, you should be creative, and I like to think that I'm creative that in I look at the world a little bit differently. So they're not necessarily comic books, in the true sense of comic books, like you wouldn't see me at Comic Con, but I have all of these comics. I have a library of, I think it's almost 700 individual unique comics that we paid for to have developed. And I use those comics instead of paying, like Getty Images from my own images to put in blogs or books. But I developed my own content, and I have incorporated books around these different comics that follow a formula. And in the case of Mike, everything is about Mike. It's about Mike's opinion. It's about Mike's Top 10 picks for baseball greats, or Mike's Top 10 Philadelphia sports icons. Or Case in point, my number one selling comic book always makes people scratch their head when I talk to them about it at first, and I and I say, my number one book that I sell on Amazon is called Mike's spiritual sports favorites. And people will always stop and they say, Where the heck is this guy going spiritual sports comics? And it's about Mike's take. Remember, He's witty, he's clever, he's full. Money. He sees things through a different lens, and his spiritual comics are everything having to do with a spiritual thing in sports like Reggie White, the Minister of Defense. So I got a comic about Reggie White. I write about him. It's Mike's take on pigeon heaven. It's, you know, usually, like the 300 section up in, you know, the farthest most reach of the stadium is why he's happy to be at least inside the stadium, even though he needs to use the Hubble telescope to be able to see the action at the plate. And that takes place in pigeon heaven, or things like the Hail Mary pass that was popularized by Roger Starbuck. Star Star back, I think, in the late 60s in the NFL, or the Immaculate Reception pass, or Tim Tebow, it's all these crazy things that have, like a spiritual connotation or nickname involved in sports. And I bring it to life through comics and then through the individual chapter research that I do that's associated with each comic, and people love it because it's different.

Robert Plank 16:01 And so along those lines, when you make this Amazon stuff and you come up with these ideas, for example, like the spiritual sports comic book and things like that, like when you come up with these, I guess topics of what these books will be about, is it just 100% what feels good to you? Or do you base some of that on what your audience wants? You do? You do some research, like, well, I guess what percentage is? Is it like all of just your own creativity, or is it somewhat based on the market? Like, what's the ratio there?

Jim Sweeney 16:31 I would say 100% is just my own creativity. It's my own platform. I have an opportunity. You know, I never feel like I have been intentionally irresponsible. I know I haven't been irresponsible because I work with someone that helps edit 100% of what I do when it comes to putting out a sports comic book. And our intent is to entertain. It's to educate. It's the edify, and in some cases, make people just laugh out loud about something. But you know, it's not I, I solicit or elicit audience. You know, comments, because people follow my stuff. You know, they'll write me, they'll comment and they'll say, you ever think about this? You ever think about that? And I have some nutty books that I would like to come out. I shouldn't say nutty, clever, funny, outside the box books that I had drafted. You know, they still have to work on, and they're probably six months to a year from ever being published, but it's based on what people have said. Have you ever thought about doing this? Have you ever considered this? So I do listen to people. I think you'd be foolish if you didn't, but everything that I do put out there, I wanted to be told responsibly, but in an entertaining and educational fashion, through the voice of my character, Mike. And I want, I always want, to remain true to my my character.

Robert Plank 17:51 I love it sounds like a really fun, good time. And so you're, it is, it sounds like it. So you cranking all this stuff and and then. And so I'm curious about what you're doing to market yourself like you're appearing on podcasts like this one, but I think that, you know, it's easy for me, and I can only speak for myself, but it's easy for me to sometimes be cranking out some content and then forget about going back and getting some eyeballs on it. So just out of curiosity, what sort of things are you doing to get more people to see your website, and see these Kindle books and all those things.

Jim Sweeney 18:22 Well, you could advertise, obviously, on, you know, on Facebook, on different groups that I'm a part of, you know, different Facebook groups that I've started, you know, on Twitter, and I a couple years ago, I see until I have found a niche on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an unbelievably valuable free resource. And in LinkedIn, I'm a member of 35 individual sports marketing, sports writers, sports media groups. And cumulatively, if you you know, I actually sat down once and I hand calculated all of the members in each group, and it was over two and a half million people. So every time that I post, and that's three times a week, I add my content onto all, well, maybe not 35 at a time, but 2025, LinkedIn groups, and I seem like I get my most bang for the buck there. And you know, obviously, from Twitter, from Facebook, from Google Plus. You know, you get people you that become aware of what you do. And you know, even getting back to LinkedIn, there's certain people that run their own groups. Or there I have, as I mentioned, I have 40 books, 25 I sell 15 of them, I give away for free, and some of the ones that I give away for free, I find out people that are leaders of like youth soccer teams or AAU basketball programs, and I reach out to those people, and I send them PDFs, free, PDFs of my books. And that helps, you know, I have no idea if that means. Two or three people will see what I have done, or 500 or 1000 people, but you just have to do your due diligence and always follow some disciplined manner in which, once you write your content, it doesn't miraculously appear out there in somebody's inbox. You got to work it. And I do that. Every time that I post a blog, I will follow, you know, a number of guidelines that I have. It's just my checklist that I have right next to my computer. And I do that in a regimented way. And that's how I believe that people find out about my stuff and why it's been successful. That's great.

Robert Plank 20:38 And so based on what you said there, so it sounds like you put out a blog post, and then right after that, you have your checklist that you go through. You go through the the LinkedIn groups, you reach out to people, you post on Facebook and all that stuff. And yes, do you ever set aside any extra time to do anything sort of extracurricular, like, do you ever say like, you know, every like, Saturday for an hour, I'm going to focus on traffic, anything like that

Jim Sweeney 21:01 I do when I know that there's something very topical that's happening in sports that I could align what I had just written, or one of my books based on what is trending. And I will focus sometimes I would like to do it for an hour, but I'm one of these guys that can't sit still for very long, so if it's 20 or 30 minutes, I'll just work the heck out of that hashtag, like I did this weekend on international podcast day. And I think I got a lot of new incremental traffic, because I worked, you know, at Intl podcast day, hashtag, international podcast day, and I found other sports podcasters out there, you know, tagged them, you know, directed them to what I had done and to answer your question, yes, I do that. Maybe I should do that more often, but when I do do that, I see an uptick on what I have just recently created. Always

Robert Plank 21:57 good. When that happens, right? Yeah, you're Oh, yeah. Let me try this goofy computer stuff, and then you actually get rewarded with some sort of numbers based on what you did amazing stuff, right? Yes, absolutely. And so I'm looking at the at your Amazon page, and I'm seeing that you like, you cover, like, you know, FIFA, Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL, so you cover all the major sports with this character, right? And hockey, too. I'm seeing, yes,

Jim Sweeney 22:20 I do. However, there is a science to what I do is there's a pie that breaks down, you know, the audiences, you know, by dollar, by you know, eyeballs on the major networks, and far and away, the number one sport is football, whether it's NCAA, college football or NFL, and that comprises almost, it's like 38% of the overall pie, followed by baseball, then basketball, then international soccer, then hockey. So I don't try to focus that much on hockey, even though I like hockey, because hockey is only it's less than 3% of the overall pie. And I'm not looking to be sports specific. I'm looking, I tell people, I've created a character that transcends all sports. All sports needs like officials. They need players, participants, referees, but all sports have somebody that reports on the action, and that's where my guy comes in.

Robert Plank 23:22 And so does that mean that that you know, as this brand grows and all that is it just going to stay sports only,

Jim Sweeney 23:30 I have been told in some of the conversations I had with a major sports network that I've developed a character, an entertainment character, that could be a global brand. Now, when I heard that, I thought I was going to get to deal with that network, but I didn't, because they had certain contractual obligations to with other animated characters. But, you know, I think about that periodically, and it gives me motivation and incentive to just keep on, keeping on. And, you know, knock on every door, walk through every door that opens, even though I'm starting in sports, and my love of sports, I don't ever want to just limit my character the sports world, because personally, I have a lot to say. And you know, as I mentioned at the outset of the conversation here, I don't see myself on TV. I don't necessarily see myself, you know, having a radio show, but I could see a cartoon character like my mic being able to say things that I want to say through the voice of the character, that unite, that edify, that encourage and that do not disparage, do not turn tear people down, do not excoriate individuals. And that's the type of while entertaining, and that's who I believe I've created, and I would like to see him with a an international platform one day that's much bigger than I currently have. That

Robert Plank 24:53 would be super cool. And what that reminds me of is like you watch the earnest movies, right? Yeah. I close to jail and stuff?

Jim Sweeney 25:01 Yes, yeah. I can't say that I was a big fan, not that I didn't like him. I just, I mean, there's so many entertainment options out there, but, yes, yeah.

Robert Plank 25:08 But I mean, I just, I just, I bring him up, because, like, that, that dude, he got, he got his start doing car commercials. He'd just be, like, for like, some, like, one little, tiny car dealership in like, Sacramento, California or something. He like, went and did this one commercial for this little guy. And then, like, kept building, and he did some, like Thanksgiving thing, and then, like, all these movies in this TV show. But it's like, once he got noticed, once the character was noticed, it kind of took on a life of its own and went into all these different directions and so, so that that just sounds super interesting, that like once it once it takes off, it just goes to these other other places. And so speaking of that, do you have any new interesting stuff planned for the future, for this character or different like, you know, content or viral videos or things like that? I

Jim Sweeney 25:57 like to think that when we do spend the money on animation to bring or my character to life that it will go viral. Yes, there are several scripts, you know, that I would like to bring to life. Yes, there are a few more books that I would like to publish. My passion is writing. So I'll continue to write three times a week. My goal in 2018 is to get a licensing deal. And the licensing deal could be one of two ways. It could be with a major corporation through an advertising agency that would like to utilize Mike as like a GEICO Gecko or an AFLAC duck to be a company or a brand spokesperson. Or the second licensing deal was to have, would have, would would be to see Mike on an ESPN or a Fox News, or Fox Sports, or NBC Sports, where he's an alter ego character that banters back and forth with real life celebrity talent on air, and just makes The conversation that much more animated, that much more fun and that much more engaging. That's my goal. That's what I would like to see happen in 2018

Robert Plank 27:09 super great. We'll have to keep an eye on you and see if you if and when you make it and so as far as that, that big goal of, you know, getting on a ESPN and getting the brand to just get tons of exposure. Are you doing anything correctively for that? Like, you know, you mentioned that you you do the LinkedIn stuff. You get all the traffic. But have you been like reaching out to some of these places to see about these deals?

Jim Sweeney 27:30 Yes, I smile as I answer with an affirmative, yes. They get hit up so many times that you really have to be judicious, you have to go after the right department and be knowledgeable, offer them something that brings added value. Just hasn't resonated yet. They know who I am. Maybe the timing just hasn't been right, but I will persist and I will prevail. I had it's not a question of if it's just a question of when it happens for me, but to answer your question, yes, it's not like every day I'm pursuing them, because I want to be very true to developing content that resonates with everything that I've ever done since I created Mike, and I want to make sure that I'm extremely consistent. There are no skeletons in my my closet. I mean, he's always been true to the core set of values and beliefs that that we gave him when I first introduced him. So I'm very confident that when people say, hey, we want to sign them, they're going to embrace them. They'll sign them, and they'll flourish with him.

Robert Plank 28:40 That's great stuff. And as we've been talking, I just hearing a lot of like, yeah, you have all this creative all these creative ideas and things like that, but you're disciplined. You have this set schedule where you're cranking out the content you're doing, the traffic, you're doing, the things that you need to do. And that's a great kind of, like, two halves of the coin, right? On one hand, you have all instance on the other hand, then you're kind of letting letting it all fly, and letting what ideas come to the surface come out. So it's really great to kind of to hear about this process. And I mean, I don't know about you, but sometimes I get sick about hearing about websites and WordPress and apps and all that. And it's just sometimes good to kind of go to the other section and talk about this kind of case study where you have something new and interesting and different, and you're just trying to get that to market there. And so, having said all that fun stuff, have you ever had the doubt about keeping going? Or did you have like, any like uncertainty as you were getting this whole thing started?

Jim Sweeney 29:35 No uncertainty, no doubt. It's having to deal with the frustration that's the greatest challenge, because I believe I know exactly what I created, and I could see it. I could see, to use the sports analogy, I could already see the end zone celebration after the big touchdown catch in the closing seconds of the game, and I I know what I put into it. I know the integrity of what I've created. I know the potential for the entertainment and educational value of the character. It's happened on, you know, like a localized, regionalized basis. It hasn't happened to the degree I know it will happen someday and sometimes, when I see the opportunity and it doesn't come to fruition immediately, that frustrates me, and that's the biggest challenge, is just going through, you know, the frustration that you feel because you know you got something, but other people don't see, you know how it could help them at that point in time.

Robert Plank 30:39 That's a great attitude. So it's not like you're you're having all this failure. You're just going through the frustration of getting to where you need to be and you want to be and where you inevitably will be.

Jim Sweeney 30:51 Yeah, and this is my full time gig. I mean, I could write from anywhere I love to travel, so when I travel, if I'm all I need is my notebook computer and access to the internet. And I could post a mike blog, and, you know, we make a little bit of money out of it. And the way I look at it as money isn't everything. I enjoy what I do. I don't feel like I work a day in my life because I enjoy what I do. But my wife has told me the money will come and once it becomes successful, it will be hugely successful, and the money will come and but that's not my motivation. My motivation is to be happy, you know, to have fun what I do, to enjoy what I do, to not have to fret, to not have to be, you know, like reporting to work and being chained to my desk, metaphorically speaking, I love what I do. I want to continue doing it, and I'd like to see Mike is an international, global icon, one day. And I believe that it will happen, not if, but it's just a question of when it will happen. Awesome.

Robert Plank 31:55 I believe it too, and it sounds like you have a great attitude, and in general, this is just the best time to be alive, because we can put out the podcast, we can play with the format. We can show that this thing that we've created gets traffic on its own, and then when it comes time to get it in front of a larger audience, you say, look, here's all the data. Here's all the proof that these Kindle books I was putting out, the these podcasts, these blogs, look at the traffic. This is, this is backed not only by the audience that that you're able to create from all these new opportunities, but also by the data. So I mean great stuff and great motivation for anyone out there who is looking to do something similar. And so the E, mike.com T, H, E, E, M, i, k, e.com, is the place to be, and is that the only website for people to check out, or do you want to throw out some other stuff for people to click on

Jim Sweeney 32:43 the mic? Can you get to Amazon? From there, you could download up to 15 sports comic books for free. I'm unabashedly commercial in my free sports comic books, I tell people at every chapter, at the end of every chapter, I have a little affiliate ad from either a sports memorabilia or fanatics, or the NFL store, NBA store, NHL store. And, you know, I let people know I'm very transparent. And I said, this is the way I make my money. And if you're so led, if you want to click on this link takes you to the store. If you buy something, I say, thank you very much. You're supporting me in my business, because it is my full time gig, great

Robert Plank 33:21 stuff. So make sure that you go to the mike.com and see what Mike has on there. See how he's monetizing it, see what new things he's adding all the time. Go there. You'll be glad you did. You'll have a lot of fun. And thanks Mr. Jim, for starting by and telling us about this, this journey you've been on, and the things you've been trying and the ideas you have and the things that have been working. It's been really interesting, getting inside your head a little bit there and hearing about your thought process. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you, and thanks for stopping by

Jim Sweeney 33:47 my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Robert Plank 33:49 Have you had a chance to rate and review the show yet? If not, go right now to marketer of the day.com/itunes, click View in iTunes and click the ratings tab, we would really appreciate a five star rating or whatever you think is fair, plus a quick one sentence review to tell us how we're doing. Thank you very much. And have a wonderful day. You.