898: Hack and Grow Rich: Leverage More Sales From Your Podcast Storytelling and Marketing With Shaahin Cheyene

Robert Plank 0:00 Hey, welcome back to the podcast. We're here with Shaheen Shan from podcast kula.com. And we're gonna be talking about the most fun topic in the world ever, which is podcasting. We're going to talk about how to use podcasting to double your revenue to sell a product or service, how to build reliable supply chains, and so much more. So Shaheen, glad to be talking to

Unknown Speaker 0:18 you. Yeah. So nice to be on that.

Robert Plank 0:21 Yeah. I'm glad to have you. You know what, but before podcasting, I used to think that the only people that could really succeed and make it were those people that were were sociable, and have lots of friends and could go to networking events and mingle. But the good news is that now because of zoom and remoting, in you can have all these conversations all day long sales calls, podcasts, interviews, raise your profile, and so much more. So, so yeah, tell me about podcasting and what you do. What makes you stand out?

Speaker 2 0:48 Yeah, so I'm an entrepreneur, I've started multiple companies, and I kind of have this superpower, which is spotting trends. And legally, anybody who's a marketer will know that one of the most difficult things has become how to advertise and market your product or service. And I started this a while back, Facebook ads have gotten way expensive, they're getting very difficult to return ROI. Tick tock seems to be the dominant force, but nobody buys anything on there. So everyone's like, what the heck's going on there, people are still trying to figure out what is new for the time that we're in as far as how to market your product or service, which brings me to podcast. Podcasting has been around for ever. But just as of the last few months, in the last year, it's experienced a resurgence. Why? Because podcasts, unlike traditional advertising, especially long form podcasts allow you to get to know the person. So for example, if you are trying to sell your product or your service, and you run a show format, or any kind of video on Tik Tok, there's the guy scrolling through and it might be appropriate, right? And he might click on your ad and awesome. You've just paid however much money and you've got that warm or hot lead. But oh, wait a second look over there. It's an attractive female dancing in a string bikini. And he's already forgotten about. Not so with podcast, you come with me to the gym. Perhaps if you're listening to this, you're listening to it in your car, on your on your commute, you're listening to it, when you go on your walk or your run, people traveled with you so they get to know you in detail. Secondly, that ad disappears, people forget about it. But on podcasts, it lives for ever. So I started doing a podcast with my book that came out which covers the story in my life. It's called billion how I became king of crypto calm. And my goal was to get a beach book feature film deal, which very quickly I secured the book went to number one bestseller. And all these people interested and we were just this week, selected a director and it's going into production. So I'm super excited about that. But what I didn't realize is, is that podcasts are super, super powerful. And really, I think we're going to be the dominant form of media going forward.

Robert Plank 3:21 And I agree with you that when you're when you're running a paid ad, you're kind of you're trying to get someone to flip out of one motor and into another. And it's hard enough with Google ads or Facebook ads already where they're like you figure well, they're sort of in a buying mood, but it's really established. So it's expensive. And then you think well, some new platform like tick tock, well, it's cheaper. But then any kind of social platform, I'm thinking as an advertiser, like they're not even in a buying mood at all. And the attention span is so short. And then, you know, I'm sure that you've heard all the stats about how like some percentage of your podcast listenership will listen to like every single thing that you listened to, and that podcasting is finally a place for the long form to come back. Because I mean, there were those good old days of blogging, remember the good old days when you could write like a 50 page long blog post, and people would actually go to a comment form and fill in their name and their address and a big paragraph and I mean, forget it nowadays, and maybe on like social media, leave a comment or something. But it seems like those days are back with podcasting of being able to just kind of try out your content and say what you want and take your time and then like build that relationship that you're saying like kind of a know like and trust and so and you think like Okay, so this guy Shaheen he's, he's really got the personality. He's got this, this goal, he's driven, he wants to have the motion picture, but then I have these conversations. Like I was even talking with my wife yesterday, and I was trying to convince her to be on podcasting. And she's afraid of being on camera, which seems ridiculous in this day and age right social media when you're using your real name and with everyone like using the you know, the cell phone camera So what would you say to someone out there such as my wife who says, you know, I've seen people on podcasts or on video, but I just have the hang up about being on a podcast? How do people get over that?

Speaker 2 5:11 Yeah, so look, it takes a minute. So I'll tell you the follow up to the story is I started doing these shows. And I got really good at that I learned that I would get much more shows if I wasn't representing myself. So I actually started a company I hired a couple girls trained them on what I was doing. And I saw that the hits that I was getting bigger, better shows me more shows just exploded when I wasn't representing myself, because people take you more seriously when you're represented by a reputable agency. And then people started asking me, Hey, can you do this for us? And that's when we started podcasts cold? Now, to answer your question. Most of our clients hang on for at least a year. Why? Because what you think is interesting about you might not be what the podcast hosts think is interesting about you. And it might not be what the audience that you're targeting thinks is interesting, which is a little bit of femininity that we provide, as a podcast booking agency, is we extract that story, because we've done it for so many years, now we know exactly what the shows are looking for. We craft that soil and get it. Now here's the thing, unless you're a superstar, and you're a public speaker, and you do this for a living, and you're really good at it, I promised my wife, I would not curse on your show. So you will submit the first few weeks of the show, maybe the first couple months, even you might think you're right. But wait till your third month, wait until something clicks and you go, Oh, now I've done 1020 30 shows. And this is what they want. They might even those long form show what was like yourself and like me, we want those sandbox, we want the means that we can take and spread out over social media. So you got to have those who are sighted on what you're talking about. If you're the world's best dentist, and I've got a friend and a client who's who is the world's fittest status, when he goes one, you can see him eating up and getting excited about everything that he's smoking. Right. So if you get on the show, and you're like so what do you do? Wow, you know, to do this, and that, you know, it's gonna be so boring, that middle is gonna walk here. So it takes a while to build them. The piece the cabinets, and the best way to learn to swim is to get in the water and surfing shorts.

Robert Plank 7:49 I love it. I mean, it's Dunning Kruger right. It's like when you were a teenager, you thought you knew everything. And then all these years pass and then you realize, whoa, like not only do I do I, I didn't, I didn't know what I didn't know, I knew I was like, way worse off than I thought I was. And you always hear about how someone will like go through and like figure out a speech or like a politician will do like the speeches all around the country and figure out their best material stand up comedian, same idea, like you can try all day long to like to put out the material that you think everyone wants. But until you actually test it and you see what the feedback is, then that's a whole other different story.

Speaker 2 8:28 That's right. Have you ever noticed how newscasters speak in a certain way? Oh, WCC news, right? And nobody would ever talk like that in the real world. Right? They talk like that, because they've learned the language of news. They've learned how to present a claim so that it's properly paced, so that the majority of people will listen to that they talk like that that first day on the news. No. But they've mastered that. And so when we watch it, even though it's we haven't wacky, like it's just a wacky way of talking, if you ever look at it, it makes sense when you're watching that piece of news. Similarly, with podcasts, it's the same way. Not that you have to talk like that. But you have to be authentic, you have to be real, you have to be dynamic. And you have to be able to get your message out in a way where you're a delivery system, your message than if you want those people who you're talking to, to convert to whatever it is product or service that you're selling, to get your freemium thing to get top of funnel or whatever it is that you're doing. You need to be able to speak the language of that business and love what I'm partially but one of the best ways to do that is to bring on a professional beat of us podcast school or any other agency, but you bring on a professional who knows how to do that. But even with them, it's going to take some time for You'd have dealt, but when you do, you can just get on shows. And it just I mean, you were talking you very certainly at the beginning of the average European experiment, let's just do. So we just get our money. This is gonna be a rocket ship. I'm super excited.

Robert Plank 10:15 So I guess the answer for anyone out there that wants to do podcasting is just do it know that it will be rough around the edges until you kind of develop your your best material. And one thing that I want to kind of alert you to here is, I might have to pause for a second because I'd love to like your noise cancellation is kind of turned up too much or something. I'm kind of like losing you with audio. I'll just I'll pause real quick and we can resume. Okay, so we got got the audio fixed. And so you're talking about podcast cola. And I'm curious to know what it is because in my head, I'm thinking like, it might be like one of three things or maybe even all three of those things combined. So what is podcast cola? And then to give us an idea of what you do that makes you unique? Do you have a fun success story or case study to share with us about one of these clients of yours that you helped out a bunch?

Speaker 2 11:03 Yeah, so Okay, with podcasts. Here's the other thing, guys. Quantity does matter. Quality is important. Quantity is important. And just staying relevant is important. So for most people who don't know, when you do a podcast that lives forever on the internet, everything that you say become searchable, especially if you're using a software like otter.io, which is a free AI software that takes all the words that you say, and and turns them into text that you can later put on your blog or your website. So it becomes searchable. Doing podcast is the number one most important thing you can do for your SEO or Search Engine Optimization. For anybody that doesn't know what that is. Now, at podcast Cola, what we do is we get people booked on shows. And how we do it is that over the course of the last several years, we had built out the algorithm, I learned the hard way what works and what doesn't work. And I use this as a funny example, I asked for a funny story. Have you ever been to like a nice neighborhood, and there's houses for sale and you see them by people buying and selling houses. And there's one house for sale? And you wonder what's wrong, why it hasn't sold until you see the scientist that's for sale by owner. And people are just like, oh, man, right. And it's always some whack job who wants too much or too little or has too many demands, who doesn't understand how the market works. Similarly, in the podcast world, you don't want to be the dude holding up the sign, please buy my house, right? There's a value to professionals. And that's what we bring a we bring relationships, we've been doing it for so long, we got relationships with 1000s of shows maybe 10s of 1000s of shows that we can say, hey, because of our reputation, go ahead and take Robert on because he's amazing. And they will just take you on for that no pitch needed. Secondly, the fact that you have a professional tied to you tells them that hey, this is somebody that's serious about what they're doing somebody who's put time, money, effort energy into what they're doing. And that we should take this person more seriously, you'll notice that a lot in the publishing world, like self publishing, although now with Amazon and print on demand has become more acceptable, generally speaking, if you're representing yourself not publishing yourself, because that's become more accepted. But if you representing yourself shows generally won't take you. And if you think about it, how many people have you seen on the news that ended up representing themselves very few, the people that represent themselves as because the people who get on those shows are people of professionals representing so whoever you choose be podcast Cola, or whoever, get a professional to represent you. It's worth it as far as the investment goes. The second point that I would tell people that's really important, is sell through story. Don't get on a show, and just sell sell it a lot of beginners make that mistake, because people will tune out. If you get on a show. And all you're doing is pitching your stuff. They're like Man, this dude just wants to sell me like what they're selling me. I'm gonna discount everything else that they say because I'm seeing it through that lens, rather come in and bring value. So just like I'm doing now I'm giving you guys several points of value that's important. And if people find value in what you say and what you do, and you're authentic, which is the third thing just be yourself. So like to your point, Robert, just frickin relax. Just relax and be yourself. Smile laugh. The person on the other end may be just as nervous as you are maybe not if they're a pro like you but in general they don't know you you don't know them. Relax and just be just be a human and that will trans relate to the audience who's watching the show. But at the end of the day, what you do is you just give value, give value five times, and if people are interested in what you're doing, they will come to you. And you can tell people how to find you. I tell people, Hey, we've got a newsletter, if you're interested in that, if you want a free consultation, if I can direct you and how to perform better on podcast, just reach out to me go to podcast cola.com and book a book a time with us, which by the way, anybody on the show is free to do, but I don't sell on shows. And it's worked miraculously, because we have more business than we know what to do with just from people saying, hey, I really enjoyed what you talked about. And the crazy thing, Robert, sometimes it's completely unrelated. I'll talk about my nine year old I'll talk about jujitsu. I'll talk about just a fun story that has nothing to do with the business. But people are like, You know what, I get you, I like you, because you are like me. And I want to work with people that are like me, people that are authentic people that have a purpose. And that's what people look for.

Robert Plank 16:07 And so I guess the the lessons I'm getting from, from all this, that you're saying is that, number one, it's not just one shot, right? It's not just I better make this work. I'm going to go on this one podcast, you go on multiple podcasts and, and I've had so many episodes, like what you're mentioning there where me and the guests, we just kind of talked about some off topic stuff. And then we end up kind of touching on some real, real deep, like life lessons and business lessons and things like that. And you're also kind of just making me think about how important the finesse of it all is that I mean, I remember like when I was 20 years old, and I was struggling to send out emails regularly and put out content regularly. And the my problem was, I was thinking in terms of these two extremes of teaching and selling, right? Because if you sell, sell, sell, and if they're not at the point ready to buy, then they're not going to buy and if your chichi seats, then they're like, Well, why don't you buy from you, you're already teaching. And I didn't, I didn't understand the difference between teaching and you just said value just now. And value doesn't necessarily mean QID step by step value for someone might be encouragement, it might be some little tip might be sending you on your way, it might be this fun story. And I mean, you and I have can probably think of stories from 2030 years ago that someone just said, that kind of sticks in your head about something that kind of helped you to get to where you need to go. And so this is all very cool, and very helpful. And so podcast cola helps people get on podcasts, you say, don't represent yourself, because the phrase representing yourself reminds me of like being in court, right? If you representing yourself in court, you're totally screwed. And I had I mean, when you have a podcast do you get pitches all the time, and I get pitches or some from weirdos. And sometimes it's just like two little sentences. I'm like, you know, I'll take almost anyone but even if it's like two, we're like, I won't take them. But then when it comes from like a, like a booking agency such as yourself, like I know what you're talking about, where if I, if I had, they had really good guests, if they have like two or three good guests. From that point forward. I don't even look at the bio. I'm just like, they come from this source like I'm in I'll take them so I can see the value in that. And so is there anything that you wish your podcast cola clients knew before jumping in? Was there any kind of like awkwardness or learning curve or just something that you wish your future clients always knew going in?

Speaker 2 18:32 Yeah, so I think like anything, you know, there's a friend of mine camera Toski always says that professional is expensive. But an amateur costs a fortune. And it's so true. If you're really making the leap, to invest in yourself, if you're like, you know what, I'm going to do this, I'm going to get my speaking gigs together, I'm gonna get my my book out there. I want people to hear my message to buy my service or product, do it right, you got to invest in yourself. And if you don't have the money, that's another story. If you don't have the money, go get the money, and then come back when you have the money. But until then, don't do it unless you're going to do it right would be the first thing that I would tell people. The second thing is that voodoo podcast word for okay. If you have a book, and you're looking to sell books, podcasting is a terrible way to do that. Because the ROI at the end of the day from doing it right and you got to hire an agency like us and you got to get out there and craft your story and get out there and tell it is going to be low. Even if you sell 100 books a month or 1000 books a month. It's still going to be very low. Okay. What it works for is anybody that has a back end. So if you have an online course, if you're a coach, if you have a mentorship program, if you get aid, like a lot of our guests do 10s of 1000s of dollars for public speaking, then it makes sense. And you use the book as your source of authority to get into these shows, because as a book, you're like, Hey, I'm the guy that wrote the book on matcha, green tea. Get me on to talk about matcha tea. I'm the guy that wrote the book on podcasting, get me on shows about podcasting, right, or whatever it is that you do. So in in a way, you really want to make sure a that you do in a write, and be that you have a back end that's bringing revenue to you. And by the way, I deal with best selling authors, I deal with all the top publishers who bring us on to get people, sometimes, these publishers need hundreds of shows for their authors. And we do that there are very few authors around them make money just from selling their books, the majority of people have some back end where their real revenue comes in. And that's where Podcasts can be a real boon for you.

Robert Plank 21:06 And that's a great message that, that I mean, first of all, if, if someone if someone of a podcast guest comes to me, and they have a book, I'm thinking, like, that's great, because there will be material to talk about, I won't have to carry the conversation, but that's like the, that's like the big, the big concern for me there. And then, um, and yeah, and it's been, I've been amazed at kind of your answers here. Because they're, they're sound bites, I can tell that you you've practiced and refined it. And what's also kind of something that's cool is that your your positioning is you made sure to kind of build a fence around your idea and say, like, this is not for you. So like, you know, it's always kind of cool just to see how someone else does the podcast interview and kind of make make the little mental notes. And I can tell that you know what your your practice what you're preaching or what you're talking about. And you pass this on to your clients. So podcast, Colette, you say to, to do it and have your goal and have your back end and do a write and have your budget and select what's the approximate price point if someone says, okay, Shaheen says I need to have the money ready and do it right. Are we talking like $1,000 range? $10,000 range or more? What's the approximate budget for what someone needs from you?

Speaker 2 22:17 Yeah, and you're right. It's not right for everybody. But for people who want to accelerate it is right. And I'll tell you what, so to answer your question, it's the cheapest form of advertising and marketing that you'll do. And ROI will be higher than any other type of advertising. I've got clients that are that are running $500,000 a week in Facebook ads, and we outdo them by getting booked on shows our rate. So the way we work is we're a flat model agency, we charge one flat, transparent rate, it's under $1,500 a month, it's 1497 a month, it's a year agreement. So just like a cell phone bill, so it'll be 1500 bucks a month. And the cool thing is we don't throttle you unlike other agencies. So we are unlimited, as many shows, as you can handle. And there are over 7 million podcasts out there right now. Many in your niche we booked you on. So you tell us what your schedule is like, on the minimum, you need a floating hour a week, maximum, we can just book you for hours that you have available. And for a lot of people. It's not only like a way to grow your business, but it's a lot of fun. Like, that's why guys like me, and you do it. Because it's a great way to talk and meet cool people. And I've done business with a lot of the show hosts that I've met a lot of the show hosts have called me and say, Hey, Shaheen, can you help me with my Amazon? Can you help me? Do this? Can you help me get booked on other people's shows because I want to grow my podcast, which is the other secret. If you have a podcast or thinking of having your own podcast, the quickest way to grow is by getting on other people's shows and borrowing their audience for you.

Robert Plank 24:07 It makes perfect sense. Like if you if you had if you want to build your list, want to build your audience, you have your own podcast, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to say, well, let me try to run Facebook ads to convince someone to go from Facebook to my podcast, but going chrome podcast from their podcasts or your podcast. That seems like a much more logical transition. If you're looking for podcast listeners, why not go the easy route? Why not meet them where they're at. And this sounds like an amazing offer. Because like you said, count the floating average every week or just like load up the schedule. So that way you can be the spokesperson of your business, which is like what you're supposed to do, right? That's what they are. They always say like, as an entrepreneur or business owner, you're supposed to be the ideal person and the face. And then you go out there and you get your messaging out. And then when you get the clients come in and you build your team, you build your infrastructure to do the work that way you You have this like sellable asset and you're working on your business, not in your business and all those other things people say, so everyone who's listening to this podcast if you made this this far, which it did, because you're still listening, we know Shaheen, and I know that you're interested in this, and that you need this. And they should, you should at least pursue it and go to the website and do some research and book a call or contact him and his team. So his podcast cola.com, the next logical place to go,

Speaker 2 25:26 yeah, just go to podcast cola.com. For anybody who's watching, I'll do a free 15 minute consultation with anybody with me or one of our senior publicists. And at the very least, you'll get some insight on if you're right for being on podcast and like what your strategy would be, it's no obligation. And anybody that's interested, I'm happy to do that for you.

Robert Plank 25:45 Fabulous. So podcast, cool is the next place to go. Yeah, you know, Shaheen, you said that you won't sell but I will. I will sell all day long for you on the show. I'll give him the hard sell and pack. So Podcast. cola.com is the next place to go. And as we wrap up our conversation, as you know, as a podcaster, you want to end with a bang, not a whimper. So do you have any final parting words or advice or advice you you'd heard 20 years ago or just something that in this on a real strong note what what comes to mind as far as this wrapping up our conversation? Yeah,

Speaker 2 26:14 look, if you're gonna do it, do it right. And that means you focus on, like you said, working on your business, not in your business, and do what I do. I bring on the best people in whatever fields I need to accelerate my business. So whatever you do, find out who the best is. bring them on board and do it right. And again, if you don't have the money to do it right now, wait till you do but if you do, the best bang for your buck is going to be booked on podcast. Come see us podcast cola.com PODCASTCOL a.com