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Video PPC Landing Pages and How They Work for My Local Clients in Pest Control
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Good morning, everybody.
It’s
Mike Stewart dot live. And I’m here with another Audio Video Marketing conversation, don’t have an interview this morning, but I want to document something. For my podcast, I want to document something for my YouTube channel. And the way I do it is with my dot live secrets concept. And by the way, this show is always brought to you all, by all the different links at Mike Stewart dot live, we’re definitely brought to you by domains you control and dot live secrets, basically, the ability for people to go live and repurpose, you know, my whole concept is go live and repurpose and archive it. So anyway, I’m gonna get right into what I’m gonna be talking about. I’ve got a couple of trainings that I’m working on this quarter, one of them will be virtual event template COMM And then PPC video ads.com. Now PPC video ads calm is basically what I’m going to be talking about today. It’s a process I’ve been doing for my local Pest Control customers, but you know what it applies to anybody using video conversion, and using paid advertising now, you know, one of the things you obviously can do is you can do paid advertising, and YouTube, you can do pre roll ads, you can do placement ads, there’s all kinds of things you can do with video ads in YouTube, but this is kind of a different concept. And so let me share that with you. Um, here it is. And this is kind of the little presentation that I did for my Pest Control agencies. But I want to share it with you this would apply to any group of keywords, doesn’t matter what your business is, it’s driving people to a landing page that has a video. And that page is optimized for a small number of keywords. And of course, you know, basically pay per click advertising. For those of you who don’t know, I want to document this for the folks that don’t know, pay per click advertising is buying phrases of words that people type into Google, or any search engine for that matter, Yahoo Bing, they also pay per click advertising. But you know, in other words, the creative ad is triggered by the search phrase. And there’s only a cost when people click on that ad. That’s why it’s called a pay per click, ad. In other words, they show the ad for free. But when people click on it, then you pay. And that’s why it’s called pay per click. But a landing page is where that particular unique ad goes to. And it doesn’t have to be the homepage of the website. It can be any landing page that you build, that a searcher lands on whether they’re looking on their phone or computer and mostly on phones. And you know, one of the things that when it comes to paid advertising most people put pretend them to you their homepage of their business. But this is kind of a different concept. This is setting to a landing page, you know, not the homepage of the website. But as part of the the website where the business opportunity is. And there’s a targeted headline and sales copy that only that page is optimized for. So like I said, most people when they buy pay per click advertising. They buy a whole lot of key phrases, and they send people to their homepage. And sometimes the homepage doesn’t really fit all the words that they’re buying. So their their response rate sometimes is not as high. And then more importantly, if they’re buying the obvious keywords, like in pest control, the obvious keyword is pest control or exterminator they’re very competitive. This allows you to buy what I call backdoor keyboards. So at any rate, rather than the concept of buying lots and lots of add words or lots and lots of key phrases, two and 300 phrases sometimes people buy etc to your homepage are different approach is buying clicks for small targeted key phrases. You know breaking up your business into search terms that make you money, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a coach
or
you’re selling an online course. You know how to write a book. How to overcome depression, I mean, you know you can break up the high level of your business into multiple keywords. The example is most people in pest control by Pest Control exterminator. But we get things like ant problems, bedbug problems, we break it down into the what I call backdoor keywords that are less competitive and cheaper to buy. And then of course once again we’re not sending them to a homepage, lots of times people’s beautiful high end, corporate websites, or even some of the internet marketing world’s websites are too. There’s no clarity on what’s going on to those websites. That’s why I like buying targeted keywords and sending them into this hidden landing page. So, you know, in this particular area, especially if you’re not buying national keywords, and this is something you can do with video and marketing for local businesses, because the chiefs are really, clicks are really, really cheap, because it’s targeted traffic. But whatever it is, you find all kinds of campaigns connected to landing pages. The ad is designed for the hidden landing page, the cheaper, more targeted because there’s, they could be shown locally, if you’re doing an Ashley, you’re looking for traffic that’s not as expensive and then sending them to a very optimized landing page. Now, one of the things that we found that has been real helpful in these video landing page concepts is you want to create a headline in the ad that creates curiosity, possibly with a benefit, but ask them to watch the video in the pay per click, we’re telling them up front and the headline, watch our website video, or watch our website or the video online or watch our video. Those kind of keywords are headline phrases, create curiosity, and you’ll probably get higher click through rates because people want to watch as opposed to read. They see an ad like this on their phone says, you know, states, the Curiosity headline, the benefit, and then invite to get more information, watch a video because I don’t want to read anything that can sit here and watch it on their phone or their tablet or the computer. And then this is you know, one of the things that Google AdWords asked where they said, they want you to build on any page, consider what you’re advertising, and are the most relevant page of your website. See, they’re saying that might be your homepage. But a more specific page. I mean, Google’s asking for this. So many people don’t do this. So one of the things when you’re buying Pay Per Click ads, make a dedicated landing page. But add a video to it. That’s where the video marketing comes in. And that’s what we’re doing for our Pest Control customers that we’re getting great results for. And so here’s an example. See, it’s still the website, it could have been the homepage. It’s everything you see at the homepage. But the difference is, it’s a headline to confirm the pay per click. In other words, you’re here because you were concerned about x, watch my video to learn how I can help you that I don’t care what the business is, you could do this for consulting, coaching, trainings, e commerce, you’re here because you were looking for a charcoal grill you were here because you were looking for a sofa, you were here because you were looking to get coaching on how to be a better internet marketer or how to be a better
author.
It doesn’t matter where it is, that read headline confirms that the ad brought them to the right video. And then you take a two minute make a great video that answers the question. I know you’re here because this problem. Another problem is frustrating. And then however, here’s why I’m the solution. Here’s the proof. Now take action. It’s a very simple, it’s an old Dan Kennedy, sales letter techniques problem, agitate solve, call to action. And that’s what you do in the video. And here we have a pest control owner standing in front of his truck with his phone number on his truck. You know, he’s making a relationship. And he’s just talking about and then we do another step further to make this page optimized for the Google Pay Per Click ad campaign. We trans scribe the what was said in the video. So in other words, this video and this text, and this headline makes this page optimized for the one issue in that particular even though he’s pest control, which kills any bug, you know, this is about ants. That’s That’s why the transcription, you know, talks about ants and that makes this page but completely up in us. Now, if you’re a local business and you have local testimonials, we run the Google reviews on the side if you don’t have Google reviews because your ecommerce business, you could put testimonials under the text or you know, listen to watch or read our testimonials. In other words, you want social proof that this particular page will help people convert into action. And then of course, if you build the landing pages in something like WordPress like I do, they’re responsive. They they work on cell phones and in the case of local businesses, we put a tap to call option on the page making it really easy that when people are looking at this page watching this video, landing page on their phone, they’re one finger tap away from contacting and scheduling business or spending money. And then one of the things that I do in my business is I, since it is a video, I always end the videos with a search term jangle. I’m a huge supporter, we’re using audio and video to market SERP term jangles are in planning in the market, wherever your market is into your key phrase market. Something about your business, but the words that guarantee that you get found. If you you know, if you notice my jingle that I start with, with my podcast and my live stream here, Mike Stewart dot law those four words, those four words, I’m number one in Google, I dominate Google, those are my search terms search engine results page. So every pay per click lead is left hearing the search terms even if they don’t do business, they may remember the future how to Google you and find you. And they may remember your phone number if you want to do that. So this is my video page. template that I tell my Pest Control customers think and you know, you you would substitute this, you’re selling solutions to problems. Think of many as many profitable problems you solve, whether it’s for your business or your clients business. What you know if the only problem you solve is one thing, you’re missing the backdoor keywords opportunity. That’s why we take the broad scope, key phrase of pest control we break it down into termites, rats, mice, bedbugs, Palmetto bugs, roaches, ticks, scorpions, we even talked about silverfish. That mean, there’s so many bugs that a bug guy gets rid of. So if you’re a coach, own particular consulting world, you know, what are the problems you solve, and each one of those problems can become a landing page. And here’s the template I tell my clients, welcome. My name is I know you have a problem of x. And that’s why you’re at this video. State the problem, you’re having a problem writing a book, you’re having a problem making a great podcast, you’re having a problem, whatever the problem is, and you’re frustrated, because you’re wasting time you’re wasting money and you’re not making progress that’s agitate the problem. And then you explain how your solution is worth the money and why you’re better than competition and how you guaranteed solve problem. And then you have a call to action. And it’s easy to say and call us now click the buy button below. And then of course, if you enter the coupon code, you can save 5% or tell us when you call us you saw this ad that’s a tracking mechanism. But anyway, that is my video page template. And by the way, I’ll put these slides up at Mike Stewart dot live. So if anybody wants to download these slides, you have have this template. And I could play I
could play this video, but I’m not going to I’m going to put a link to it in the podcast. But you know, what you want to do is you want to create a tracking system to measure Google AdWords has a phone tracking system that you can use for free, where you can buy a phone tracking, or course you want to use conversion tracking in Google AdWords, you know, by putting some code on your website so that you can track your conversion. But you know, always hard before you can improve something you don’t track. And then of course, what happens is, is that when you build a campaign that is this target, you can test unlimited campaigns for very little money. This is what we’re doing with all of our clients. We’re building multiple video landing pages with multiple campaigns based on different problems. And there’s no limit to how many of these you can test. And if they’re working and making money, you pour more ad word money into it or buy more ads, you place the ads in different places. But these landing pages that are optimized with video is are making huge differences. So that is a quick overview of my concept, which is going to be I’m going to build a course on it. It’s going to be at PPC video ads right now if you’ve go to that web address right now, it’s going to redirect to a mike Stewart dot live. But that is going to be the future place where I’m going to go in depth on how I build these things and and how they’re working in and the results that we’re getting for our clients. And that you know, there’s my phone number 770-826-3662 if you have any questions I invite people to call me and I’m excited about the future of paper. quick video ads. In other words, rather than running an ad as a pre roll ad, or a optimized ad and just YouTube, I am using the video plage hosting the video, and I’m driving traditional traffic through paid advertising. It could be Facebook advertising, it could be anywhere that you could draw traffic to this landing page, you can get that result. So I’m gonna go here to comments. And Vicki I’m not really sure is, is read more effective and connecting. I make read headlines, because john Reese, who is one of my mentors for many, many years ago tested different colored headlines. And he said years ago that red means stop and read. And the effectiveness of a red headline had higher response rate. And I’ve trusted that for many, many years. So that’s based on testing. Ron john Reese was a testing and traffic testing guru. I mean, john wrote the original product called Traffic Secrets effect, he sold that domain name to Russell brought up recently, who just released a product called Traffic Secrets. But john Reese, if you google john Reese, he is just a master at testing and tracking. And he said read headlines get higher response. So I’ve just always, always believe that always trusted that. Hey, Roger, glad you’re here. How about selling music? I have landing anybody use it from? You know, what are the problems with selling music? Roger, you know, since you and I know the music business so well, music is a is a pastime, music is a luxury. This really works best for people who have necessity problems, like, you know, service businesses, you know, services anywhere from, from business coaching, to haircuts to Brick Lane to construction. You know, we’re working with a company that does concrete floors, people who are looking to improve things, music is you could do this, but you know, to make it profitable is tough and music. We will have some conversation sometime about things that I think that you can do with video landing pages to, you know, that’s why the live streaming, at least live streaming doesn’t cost you anything, and you’re building fans. But yeah, you could sell music, if you build enough fans and more fans, the more profit you have. So if anybody doesn’t have any other questions, I just wanted to, you know, one of the reasons that I do this every month is I go live. But I’m mostly repurposing an archive I in fact, I didn’t even announce this particular episode to my list via email, which is one of the ways I get higher numbers on the live, it’s almost not as important to be live
as it is to just you know, make sure you go live. I mean, one of the things about going live every month, it’s forcing me to be consistent with my podcast to be consistent with my YouTube channel. It’s content marketing, and it’s it’s fun, and it’s easy. And that’s why I do it. So and I teach that at DOT live secrets. Let’s see, we might have another Okay, no problem, Roger. So, with all that being said, This is today’s episode, be sure to check out if you need if anybody ever needs domains go to domains you control. And then of course, also be on the outlook for virtual event template. Me and my partner how Coleman created a membership site called next level PCL marketing, which was for the pest control industry. But it was a virtual event. And that it’s been one of the most profitable things I’ve done. I made more money in a day than I have in years. And we’re continuing it’s kind of the profitable event that keeps on giving. We keep still having people in our target market, getting in touch with us and doing more and more things with us are getting coaching programs. They’re buying music from me, they’re buying jingles from me. So I’m really excited about these two new programs I’m going to be building this year. And of course if you’re a member, if you’re a member of the mike Stewart everything club you can find the link to that at Mike Stewart dot live you can call me at 770-826-3662 and I appreciate everybody being here today. This has been another episode of Mike Stewart dot live
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My Audio Recording Mentor & Hero Special Guest Rodney Mills!
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How are you good.
Well, you know, this thing that I’m doing here, most of the folks that that come in and watch this. And we’ve got we’ve got nice little audience showing up here. I notified them that I was going to have you and and of course we I want to talk about the music business and maybe a couple of little fun stories. I know two fun stories I want to get documented here. But what most of the folks do here at my show is they record narration. And you know, for podcasts for voiceovers for YouTube videos for what we call sales videos. So talk about when you use to record voice what we’re doing little tips and tricks that you used to do to get the best quality vocal sound all the way back to the beginning. You know what what type of microphones and and what are some inexpensive microphones you know today that could be used for those
things?
Well, in the beginnings I had the opportunity when I first started really engineering and opportunity to work with Nueman microphones, and think that that was a kind of a curse to a certain extent, because I, I took for granted how, how good they sounded, because it was kind of like, they were there. When I went to work full time recording studio. Maurice will forever live forever sound in Atlanta, and he had all Telefunken 47 and four vocal mics and, and those things gonna work good no matter how bad I was. So, you know, this guy like, so? Yeah. So when you start off with something that well, you know, you I think you can’t take it for granted a little bit. So I think it was more challenging. When I when we built Studio One, I did not have all those microphones around me, but still working with vocalists and everything. It’s all according to the genre of music, how, you know, you have to take each vocalist kind of on their own, because some vocal is, that have done a lot of recording, they certainly have more mic savvy than somebody that’s never done much recording. And, and I think the people that I’ve worked with had a lot of history of singing in a recording studio, they naturally know how to get the sound of their voice sound good in their headphones and everything. And they can kind of help you out as an engineer, because they say things that really quiet. They know to lean in just a little bit and think something loud, they go back up just a little bit. So those are the people, those people I enjoy working with goes like kind of like kept me from working so hard.
So did you know we used to when I would start talking about microphones to people who are not music people. Because the majority of the people that I worked with for the last few years in the internet world, we’re doing just narration just spoken word. And, you know, I used to say, you know, to get the best quality you want a large diaphragm microphone microphone that has a big sound capture, which is the diaphragm was so that was true. And for folks that don’t know what a Norman microphone or a Telefunken those were those amazing, extremely expensive German microphones that have been around since Frank Sinatra was the first Norman Telefunken that we know what they still kind of look the same today.
Yeah, they think that I know about a friend of ours that’s passed away now Mike Clark, you know, he, he actually collected a couple of moments, I think we’re probably manufactured in the late 40s or mid in the 40s they will have model top where they called bottle top and then you actually see some of Adolf Hitler’s us speakers. And, but those, those microphones for the human for the voice for a vocal and everything where it’s spoken or Sung, or just a great sounding microphone. The fact is most of those microphones have such a great proximity effect. And the proximity effect is when you get in really close on a microphone it makes your voice sound bigger and and sometimes too big. So you but that you know as a sound that those those mics can handle real well. And you and you can you know working with a singer whether it be a singer or a decider voice over everything I think you would work with them to find that magic spot to where they’re it’s like radio guys you know the now switch they know when their voice sounds bass in relationship to the microphone. And so that’s something you work out over a period of time and I don’t think it ever got to a point where I if I had to start with one microphone it would probably be an omen ua seven and but there are certainly tons of microphones out there the sound real good. I’ve kind of stuck with those over the years not only own three microphones one of the Norman u 87. ones a Shure SM seven and the other ones like just the sure 56.
So well and for folks that don’t know the the the to shore microphones, which is spelled sh You are IE, the seven is it’s not that expensive. I think it’s three $400
it’s not that expensive and I’ve I’ve, I’ve leaned over a microphone and I’ve had to do some really tough vocals. The vocals did not sound real good. Coming through other microphones now. foreground experimented and everything and SM seven seem to be kind of a band aid that you could use in difficult situation. That’s a good all round microphone no matter what you use don’t.
So so the a lot of podcasters which are people that watch this, this live stream, the SM the short, SM seven is good for you could make a record with it. You can make a record today and it will be quality enough to for a master recording.
Absolutely. In fact, it’s got a built in windscreen and you can do rollouts or boosts on the microphone itself. It’s quite versatile in itself, addition to being able to process it through a console or something.
So are you still recording vocals there in your studio? Are you just mostly just doing processing, which you call mastering is doing these days?
Well, the majority of the work I do nowadays is mastering whereas people send me their recordings, they’re already recorded. They’re already mixed. And usually they send me a stereo file just like what whatever you make with a WAV file of the song. And I take that try to make that sound as good as I can make it sound. Good friend of mine, Jeff Galeazzi played with 38 especially. And I tried to explain it to him many years ago, and I was telling my oldest EQ, I do hear compression here and there. I play it before and after. And he says I got it. It’s like a loudness. But no, my stereo makes it sound better. I said no. Well, yeah.
I think it’s a lot more a lot better than just loud. Well,
it’s according to who, you know, sometimes the stuff I get is a is done really well. Sometimes it’s, it’s not, it’s kind of like it’s me trying to dig in there sometimes see if I can kind of help the whole process a little bit.
Well, a mastering engineer is a guy who listens to something that is a finished product. In other words, it’s it can be all the instruments of the music, all the vocals. So do you have a lot of control over fixing things and, and well, changing things?
Well, the thing that you can do, I’ve got enough stuff to really screw somebody songs. I can slowly get in there dig around in and everything inflected, as they say there’s not enough bass and there’s too much kick, then it’s trying to really kind of find these little, little areas, frequency areas that you could kind of pull up, pull down, or you need to compress this little frequency range more than others. You need to add some equalization maybe a little bit to to improve the clarity of the thing. demands kind of like mine, my I listen to stuff and I listen to it really loud. You know, it’s kind of like Wow, sounds I can hear everything but not everybody listens like totally loud. So you got to kind of get things sounded pretty good. A lower level everything so and every genre musics a little bit different. You know, it’s kind of like rock and roll sort of a different than say, hip hop, rap. And, and this. So it’s kind of like that. It’s not like totally ahead of them. You got these things pigeonhole. This is what I want to do to it because it’s this genre of music because a lot of times like, I can’t really, in my, to my ears, I can’t pick that genre, exact genre they’re in. So it’s kind of like you just adapt yourself to that music while you’re working on everything you try to get it sounds good, you can usually the best they may send it to people sometimes it’s kind of like I got my fingers crossed because I’ve changed it the way it sounds quite a bit. And a lot of time most of all the time. It’s an improvement that really appreciate what I’ve done to kind of help them with the overall process.
Well the thing in
my shoes Don’t call it
that shows.
Yeah, the main thing that that I just wanted to, you know, let folks know about is that there’s, you know, when we started recording, it was all analog tape. And there wasn’t a whole lot of computerization programming, and there was no computerized processing, that there was, you know, a piece of equipment that now has become software. So you pretty much all software controlling now or do you still not
quit not not totally, but I’m a lot more there than, than I’ve ever been made. Because we got a few pieces of gear in Atlanta. That’s a little bit too cumbersome to bring down here. But I have the equivalent of that hardware piece and software. And the two things that most of us have compared them and both they sound really close to software stuff is really close to the hardware. And whether it’s the same, I’m not, I don’t know about that. But it behaves in the same way, if I turn a knob up on the software, it does the same thing to my ear that if I forgot it’s turning the actual hardware piece, though, either boost or cut a frequency select all it is very similar.
Well, the computer stuff, you know, to my experience in my ear is just, you know, amazing what they have figured out how to plug in to computers. And and they actually I don’t know, if some of the ones you have, they actually have animations of the actual equipment. So that when you’re controlling it, you’re actually feel like you’re working with the old hardware that we were used to 30 and 40 years ago. And so So the thing is, is the equipment, the equipment, or the at least, here’s what hasn’t changed the tools and the software and the computers have all advanced, but the ears and the the the ability to know whether it’s I mean, just because you have equipment doesn’t mean it sounds good. I mean, there’s something folks you got to know about this man you’re witnessing today. And I’m so glad he’s sharing his wisdom with with you today. And you better ask him some questions in the comments area, because I don’t know if I’ll ever get him to come back.
And doing what I do and everything, Mike, I think it’s always thinking, I guess, us thinking analog terms, you know, it’s kind of like, so it makes it a little bit easier. Fortunately, most of these plugins and everything, have kind of made it kind of user friendly to people that have old enough history, they can remember what the real stuff did. But there’s some of the newer stuff too, that does things that none of the old analog gear did. So you have to kind of some of those things, I have to kind of get get them and kind of go through a process of learning how to use them the best way and sometimes in my mastering chain, they can find a place but most often they can’t go like this doesn’t really sound any better what I’m already doing. So I just kind of pasal just pick a plug in or whatever.
Well, the talent that Rodney has, and mastering engineers is they have the ears to know when it’s right. And when it’s wrong. And and that’s that’s what I mean, you know, I was I’ll be honest with you that was before this new you were coming on. I went back and listened to a bunch of old stuff that you did. And I thought my gosh, it still sounds good. I mean, I listened to most of the Winston’s album. And I mean, your 20s when you recorded that. And, and ironically, I mean, you can hear everything. Now there’s a lot of music things that a lot of the folks that watch this show don’t know about but I remember there was like a bass all the way on the one side of the speakers. I mean, it seemed like I think in the 60s and 70s it was cool to really make things stereo put.
Well, to be honest with you that you know you go back to the Winston’s was 1969. And their whole album was done on four track including the big hit single we had the name of the four track and I always tell the story know that we had recorded the basic rhythm section we’re done. So long thing then we had the boat boat was to come in, they had their own lead vocal had their own track, but we bounced this stuff and all we can do in the last track with assembled a fool a horn slash section and a string section violins, violas, etc. in live musicians in the studio as well as for background singers. And one of the background singers play tambourine behind the back because And that was all a one track one pass. Yeah. So everything had to be gotten together, everybody knew their parts, there are parts of good skills a messed up or screwed up or anything, you had to redo everybody involved in that track back back to the beginning, so to speak. on that particular big hit song we had called color and father, there was no space that you could actually punch in anywhere. There’s stuff going on all the time. So I’m somewhat amazed that we were able to do the things we did, and I don’t. And to me with my thinking nowadays, there’s no way I could reproduce that now. goes up my mind. Well, let me go there, you know, that’s what back then that’s what you had to do. You’re limited, you’re limited, but you didn’t know that.
You know, you just tried to make a good sounding recording a good sounding record. I do not make mistakes. And you know, it’s amazing. You know, there’s, if you go on YouTube right now, I don’t know if you’ve seen this. Pete there must be some software that lets you isolate tracks out of mono mixes. And I’ve listened to Beatle isolated guitar parts and bass parts and, and songs that I love. The guitars are really out of tune. But I don’t care because it’s just it’s just magic. It’s still magic to me. Well, I’m gonna I’m gonna do a little this is this is a little sponsorship. I’m going to talk about right now on February 13. This This show is brought to you by next level PCL marketing.com that is a live marketing event that I’m doing with my good friend Rodney. Did you ever hear of Milton crab Apple will bill Okay, so well how Coleman is Milton crab apple and he’s my partner in the next level PCL marketing. Well, we do online marketing. In fact, we’d love to have you as a guest I’ll send you a link to it. But anyway, go to next level p Seo marketing.com. It’s going to be a full virtual event on how to use the internet and how to use my parts how to use audio and video to market houses How to say the right words. And he still melt grab Apple, but his real world is his teaching bug guys how to improve their business. So there’s our little
a little older show. Recording without back in the day. We went to Nashville. Yeah.
Did you work with the session of john Willis and? Yes, okay.
Steve, Nathan. Oh, no.
Well, you know, I did a session up here recently with john Willis and we were talking about milk crap. I when he said, I play it on all his records. He In fact, how had a record called the bird, which was a big hit for Jerry Reed. And john played on that. So I didn’t know you knew john, but that Hey,
does he play them? Everything I’ve done at Nashville.
Oh, he’s amazing. What an amazing. I’ll tell you one thing you throw a rock in the city, you had a guitar player or a singer. They’re amazing people. All right. So I figured what we do is I’d like to at least do two more things and then I’m going to respect your time. But what let me ask you another little technical question. Isn’t your audio engineer? What do you do to keep from you know, popping the microphone what do you what what did you use to recommend to people? Did you back in the day have pop filters or did you get them to stand back? What What was your toy you know,
the only pop filter I had back in the day say out of a Norman youe seven and there was a windscreen is made out of foam that you could push up over the windscreen and everything and I hated the way that sound so hated the way it sounded. So always I would not use a windscreen of any kind, I would kind of turn the microphone make try to find that place and everything so when they did it a plosive you know, like a pop You know, it would jump out at you try to find you know, even from singing alone, you know, do a live session okay? You need to turn your head just a little bit when you say that word or we just need to find that permanent position that you’ve got an angle into that microphone so you do not hit that capsule straight out. If you hit it straight on this what’s gonna call us calls that that pop real loud pop now and when I get stuff and everything I listened to vocal tracks and solo and his pops in there I can digitally go in there and kind of control those so you don’t hear lips.
Oh. But see that creates creates a whole lot of work if there’s a bunch of men there, man.
Yes. So, but but I use a windscreen now you know that’s a little bit more transparent. Then the then the whole, that big phone thing gets you stuck on the microphone icon like, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, even with that, you know, you still got to kind of somewhat times create an angle. The Best Sound of me is when you are singing straight on. But it’s just quoting who the singer is and how many pops they do. And all that stuff nowadays is kind of like I won’t travel risk, the choice of a performance, because there’s a poppet if what they perform sound real good, I’ll just remove the pop digitally and take the performance.
But that that just goes to prove that no matter you know, how good a microphone it is, and and how conscientious engineer it is, if a burst of air gets onto that capsule, it’s just going to make that loud. Pop third,
yes, you rest with the thing. With a condenser microphone thing, if you get too much more stir on that capsule, it’s going to crap out, it’s going to either stop working or start sounding distorted and everything and and I had to send away a couple of normal USA items to get recondition because they’ve gotten so much spent on so to speak over the years. But I’ve tried to warn vocalist without those things for a long time. And of course, now you got an infinite variety of windscreens that you can use will help that situation.
I want to document a couple of fun stories that have nothing to do with internet audio. They’re just, they’re just a couple of fun stories and then anything that you want to contribute. And then if we have any questions, we’ll take them. And I tried to keep the you know, we’re almost at a half an hour here. So I don’t want to take up much more your time, Ronnie, but I’m just okay, we’re good. I just I’m just so honored to have you here. So number one, you know, when you were a kid, and the Winston’s came in to Lefevre studios there in Atlanta, Georgia to cut that album. And they needed beside. They recorded the old Amen. I guess that was a spiritual I don’t even know if it was a public domain song or not.
Yeah, it was fingers public domain so you could republish it, whatever.
And it was an instrumental
come into the studio just to cut the song cover and father, which was r&b Song of the Year. That year was really so so everybody thought that was a hit song. And nobody ever thought well, we will release a single you got to a side and you got to be sad. We normally put a different song over beside so people buy the 45 they’ve got something else to listen to other than just the main Bert main version of one song. So we cut cut the track on the car and father’s And finally, you know, somebody said, we got to kind of beside so what do we got? They didn’t have any more original material. I think my manager I have when I was playing in a band. He was involved in that project. His name is Johnny B. and john abuse in the control room. He says Why don’t you guys play that instrumental thing that I heard y’all play the other night some club they were performing in. So that was the emphasis cut. Amen. Amen. Brother. And I had no idea what we were getting into, or what would become of that later on. Because I had completely forgotten that song and recording till somebody called me and said, Ronnie, you know, you recorded the biggest breakbeat in music history. I said what are they asked me said, you know the significance of the beside of color and father I said no, I don’t remember. I don’t remember what it was. And he proceeded this guy out of North Carolina, he came down and he bought a CD, there was like 51 cuts on there. That that beat, there’s eight measures of drummer playing right by himself that that was incorporated in as a sample and these 51 different songs that he played me, little pieces up. And it’s mind blowing. I had no idea
until 30 years later. So when you recorded that beside now was it already was already set up from coloring father, did you have a different session? Oh,
I don’t necessarily remember that. It was I just remember we if it had to be pretty close around there. You know, it’s kind of like I don’t know where we’ve gone through the whole process of recording and overdubbing everything on color and father. Probably a little bit of that. And the drums are usually set up in the same place in the studio. So what is the big deal? to kind of set everything back up and record that song, and basically, it was the only one or two takes of that song that we did. And it was done, you know, go, that’s pretty much live performance anyway.
You know, I bet you kids today cook that really are into hip hop, which you can see, you know, I’m not much of a hip Hopper, but yeah. But do you remember, you know, did you have a lot of microphones on the drums or because, you know, the snare drum and the bass drum are, are pretty pronounced in that drum break? Which is, which was the appeal to the, to the rappers. But do you remember how you set up the microphones that day? Basically,
do you remember where those exact microphones with the lafeber sound, whether it was recorded, there was a small choice of dynamic microphones and a large choice of condenser microphones. So So the combination of both most most everything is like, basically my, you know, like, snare, one mic on the toms, maybe, maybe two mics, one mic on the kick drum. But it was kind of an ambient situation also that there was other musicians on the bass tracks over the came time for the drummer to take that break. There was a lot of interplay from just the ambience of the room around this noun, and it’s a very distinct sound. And once you hear it in any, any song, it’s immediately identifiable. And it spawned a whole genre music over in England called jungle. And it’s all based that that genre of music is all based around those eight measures.
That drummer and you had no idea what you’re creating that day in it.
No, it’s just a something they did it but a blade, those who didn’t do anything extraordinary. It’s just, you know, the, you can hear the ride cymbal, the snare and kick really well. And it’s just, it’s almost a phenomenon. When you put it in with other instruments and add instruments around, you can still get that.
Right, right. There’s a documentary on hip hop that talks about the significance of it, and it’s just, it’s just I just wanted folks to know that you’re, you’re hearing a guy that was there the day was now I’ll tell you something else that’s that the world loves and knows that that you witnessed and and I want you to tell it tell the story of of what Ronnie Van Zandt said to you on that, you know, Ed King, who just we recently lost and he was living up here in Nashville. He was one of the writers of Sweet Home Alabama. And did he play the opening guitar licks on his Telecaster guitar?
Yes. Yes, it was Telecaster.
And the opening guitar licks to Sweet Home Alabama are just, you know, iconic.
I mean, what else could play that riff?
With the minute that comes on to be a three chord song, yes. But you hear two notes, three notes of it. You know what’s coming up? Oh, yeah. So talk about what Ronnie says and what he’s a blow Blow there. Blow people’s minds of what he was saying to you. When he was doing his vocal that day?
Well, the thing was, you know, it’s kind of like he would cut the track and I don’t remember how many overdubs we’ve done on the track of that. That that time and everything but it was time for Ryan to put a vocal track on there. And so so I had the vocal mic set up outside of the studio and I think Ronnie went out there basically put on his headphones and when the music started on the playback he said turn it up and and the meaning I got was turns his balls up a little bit more to hear real loud and that got an owl Cooper had the you know the whatever it was, you know, kept como room it’s gonna leave that on the intro the song and everything is not an iconic thing. And when you hear that it it’s twofold. You know, I know the real meaning of that. But the real you know, what is perceived as real meaning of that is rock and roll baby Turn it up.
But he was asking you to turn these
headphones bit.
Well, and there’s one other story that you told that I want you to tell right now that we’re you. You got to be the voiceover intro of an allen Tucson record. tell that story well,
Alan Tucson, the great songwriter, musician, producer, from New Orleans, and he came up he and his partner Marshall seehorn came up to a fabric sale and they kind of liked the sound they were kind of trying different studios because they were having some pretty good success. Some artists Allah was producing enough they got to Atlanta with a fiber sound that’s they decided that’s where they were going to kind of settle down. So every month or so they’d come up spend a week, low fiber sound. And so we would kind of lead Dorsey and who is a pretty, pretty big artists and everything and so so as an engineer, I made the console and it’s not like digital now where you see time in front of you can kind of instantly go to anywhere in the song back then you put it you slated the tape, which put it a low frequency tonal there, and you and you vocally slave what take it was, is like, this is everything I do from from Now don’t be funky. Thank you. And it’s kind of like so I didn’t think anything about your speaker. I just got off the turnip wagon from South Georgia. So everything I do from now which is the opposite. But I like to
eat we
go and to this day anybody listens that song? I’m still on the intro that song doing that? I don’t I never got a royalties.
So
leave doors to the artists and he had a big sitting near Macaca. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he had a couple of pretty big hits. Before that. And Alan tusshar used the instrumental band called the meters as his rhythm section. And so could a couple albums only meters and, and several different artists and Tucson also wound up producing mala forevers first first album.
Well, we have one good question here. We’re gonna wind it up. But this is from my good buddy, Jeff herring. And what do you what is the biggest audio change you see coming in technology or the way way things are recorded these days? What do you see anything on the horizon? That’s
big. I think the digital stuff will keep expanding to the point that that any, any soul music, you can, you can kind of make it happen without actually somebody sitting there performing anything, I think the the kind of, you know, using the sampling or using the loops or doing adding this or that it’s still it’s just like, the will, I think it will contain to be worth all that is improved and improved on to the point where maybe kids got less all this stuff, the bottom line is kids are going to listen to this stuff and everything. And then they don’t really know what they’re missing from the old stuff. So I think they’re, but they’re still there. You know, they’re, they’re impressed by what they hear. And I think stuff will keep on getting better and better. The fact the way we are living right now and everything during this COVID stuff, that’s a lot of people just kind of watching at home. And it’s kind of like you have all the tools in this digital format that allows you to do a lot of things. I don’t think it’s necessarily a change, just an improvement. And as we go along, I think some people actually go back and listen to some of the old stuff. And then that still has some relevance, it has relevance to me because that seems like you’re in the 70s. And we kind of got to a point where things started sounding really good analog. And I think there is still that mystique of balance less try to recapture What’s so good about that analog and not to the point that opened our eyes will go back to analog. It’s just that everybody there’s a smart people that know what, how, what how that the analog sound came into being what was the what was the process that happened to make it sound analog and make it sound good. You just got the knowledge to develop plugins and software and everything and replicate that. So I think that I don’t think we’re going to go to a point where Everything is going to start soon. It’s so good. It’s completely different than what it was in the 70s.
No, I thought I totally agree. I mean, it’s just I remember George Martin wrote a book that I read called, all you need is ears. And that’s what I think a lot of people are depending on technology and software. But they’re not developing their listening skills, their hearing skills and the comparative skills to what’s really, really good. I mean, I know one of the things that that I did when it especially when it comes to music, is I put something up on my speakers that I know was good, or at least in my opinion, and to see that then I’d compare it to how far I’ll follow. And, and that, that just made a huge difference. Huge difference. I must be watching this on Facebook, she put a link up to the amen break. So if anybody in Facebook goes to our links here, you’ll be able to see those. And, and one of the things I’m going to tell Jeff is, and I don’t know if you’ve come across it, but there’s no way that I know of the internet speeds are not fast enough to do virtual synchronization. Meaning when it comes to podcasting, we’re we can have a dialogue and record it. And we don’t know that there’s a millisecond time delay. But when it comes to having musicians playing together over the internet, I don’t know, have you come across anything that
I have not been involved with any of that. So I know that it’s possible. Some people do that, but most, most of the time is it’s not an interplay between musicians and everything, through the internet. Everything’s piecemeal.
Well, what people are doing is they’re sending their parts to one another, and then on their own machines, but there’s no there’s no way for musicians all over the world to hook up and, and record at the same time, like you, you and I used to do with people coming into a studio and playing. So I had a friend who is a Microsoft computer expert. And he said that it is physically and timewise impossible to synchronize. Because even if the speed of light, which is what the speed computers connect that it’s not fast enough to get everybody completely insane. So maybe, maybe somebody will figure out a way to make that thing.
There’s no substitution my past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to up Nashville several times I work in primarily I’ve worked in bourbon, anywhere from six to seven live musicians in the studio at the same time playing off each other. And that’s an experience. I would not trade for anything. Those musicians themselves. I absolutely love that also. Nowadays, it’s kind of like, you know, it’s just, you know, you play a few tracks, put it together, you pick this part from that part. Okay, that sounded good there. So let’s copy and paste it there. So, so it’s more of a how you go about making a record now as opposed to dealing with a live musician performing
well, there’s something to the magic of human beings getting together and, and feeding off the energy of each other. And listen to music and and you witnessed a lot of and engineered a lot of great music. And I’m gonna wind this up, because we’ve already gone 45 minutes. But this, you know, I could talk to you all day and and I look forward to seeing you again, my friend. And thank you for sharing your life with with this interview. And folks, I’m telling you go to Rodney mills.com. I’m telling you, I used to get people all the time, Rodney saying, Can you make this recording more intelligent to hear you know the words, they had a recording and they they wanted to eliminate the background noise and stuff. And I think maybe some things that folks need to know, go to Rodney Mills calm because you’re very reasonably priced for your talent. I’m going to tell you that,
well. I’ve kind of gotten that for my life. My poor, I’m self sufficient, almost, you know, and it’s kind of like so I don’t have to worry about escalating or competing or anything like that. I’m just maintaining.
You maintain amazingly, and I just can’t thank you enough for being here. So folks, go to Rodney mills.com. And, you know, Google Rodney Mills, check him out. Listen to some of these things. Look at the links that Mary put up. And we’ll see you in a couple of weeks with another episode of Mike Stewart dot
live
Everything audio and video for the internet. Bye bye rod.
Bye Bye Take care of my
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Nashville Realtor Meredith Smith Using Live Streaming Video To Generate Leads
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Michael Stewart
Welcome, welcome. And good morning, Mike Stewart live, Happy New Year everybody. Here it is 2021, the first show of Mike Stewart dot live the website all about audio and video marketing. I’m glad you’re here. More importantly, I want to start thinking about let’s focus on positive things for 2021. I’ll tell you what 2020 was so filled with so many things that were frustrating that even though they were frustrating, there were things that were good that came from it. But there’s a lot of things that I know have been frustrating a lot of folks. And so anyway, this show today is about positive things, setting goals. You know, one of the things that I like to talk to people about and I like to remind folks of, I don’t care what your business is, you need to work on your business, not just work in your business. That’s kind of in the message and kind of the theme that I always try to do I’ve been doing for years. But really more and more today. For 2021. Let’s work on our businesses. And one of the ways to work on your business, no matter what your business is, is mastering audio and video technologies, audio and video content marketing. I mean, that’s why I do this. I do this as a community service for my audience. I want folks to realize that if I can do this, you can do this. It’s not that hard. And I really got an exciting guest this morning, who is a local business colleague of mine. She’s a successful real estate agent here in Nashville. And she uses the very same technologies that I’m an advocate of to help generate business for her real estate business. And we’re going to hear all about that. So without any further ado, I want to introduce to you my friend and colleague, Miss Meredith Smith. Meredith.
Meredith Smith
Good morning, Mike. Happy New Year,
Michael Stewart
Happy New Year to you. I’m so glad you’re here. You know, the reason I wanted to have you as I remember, I met I met you through one strategy that I recommend for every business owner, is to go out to networking groups. And I remember the day I met you at our networking group, which by the way, I’m going to put the link up there for people that don’t know about it. It’s called networking. Today International, anti great group of local business folks, and you were there. And you caught my ear that day, you said I’m a real estate agent, but I do YouTube video marketing. And I went, Oh my gosh, I gotta get to know, the folks that know me know that video. And audio marketing has been my passion for 20 years before there was a YouTube, right? And I said, Okay, if this real estate agent didn’t talk about mortgages, or there’s markets going up or down, or I got all these listings. Now there’s all the typical things. The one thing you said the very first meeting earlier, is that you wanted to interview people, for your YouTube videos. And I thought, Okay, I gotta learn what, what is Meredith up to? This is, this is amazing. So my first question for you in this interview is, you know, we know, and my audience should know now, Meredith is a successful national real estate agent. She’s a realtor. So what doing video has done for your local business? Just tell me the story, how you got into it, and what’s going on with
Meredith Smith
it? Right, right. Well, so I, I’m entering my 18th year of real estate, and when I relocated to Nashville, it was in 2017. And I knew nobody, I had no sphere, nobody, but I know, I’m very outgoing. And I’m not shy, and I’m willing to try anything. So it was 2018. And I needed to rebrand myself in Nashville, as, you know, a real estate professional, and also needed to try to figure out, you know, I was still learning the market, how am I going to get people to know like, and trust me, and the strategy I came up with it just it’s evolved over time, was to start doing video, not just real estate videos, but start interviewing other businesses, because I’m still getting to know people. People are getting to know me. And if I can interview a business, I can serve them, I can help get their name out. But also people can get to know me while I’m interviewing so people can see, you know, how I interact with people. And you’re also you know, I’m showcasing a business. And it’s, it’s something that I completely take on and I loved it. So it was basically be can consistent interview, do a couple interviews a week and just keep pushing the content out. And then it started to evolve from there.
Michael Stewart
So you’re telling me that you are doing 200 views a week on average?
Meredith Smith
Well, not well, I was at the beginning, I was doing as many as I possibly could so I could get the content. And I’ve gotten so busy now with with real estate that I can’t do as much as I used to. So now I’ve got a slot every, every Thursday at two, I do an interview, I live stream on here on stream yard with a local business. And I also get on at two o’clock on Mondays to either interview someone or put out a real estate tip. We’re going to talk later today at two o’clock. Yeah, I’m
Michael Stewart
a guest on your show today, which I invite folks to come back, we need to, we need to know how to subscribe to your show to as well, because, um, you know, the thing that I think that is a lesson here for my audience, and I’m seeing some comments here, and we’re gonna take questions, be sure to if you got questions, right, here’s Meredith, who her expertise and her background and for years and years is making a living doing real estate. And I know you’re a professional real estate agent. But you’ve got past the learning curve. I mean, how many real estate agents even know stream yard exists? Bravo.
Meredith Smith
Yeah, I don’t know. Not many in the when I met you that first day. And I will never like going into a networking group. I ask. I don’t I don’t tell you, you know, it’s obvious I sell real estate. But I want to interview you. That’s that’s my ask. When I go to a networking group. It’s it’s let’s get together. And because of COVID, that’s why stream yard became so important because now I do interviews with my stream yard show.
Michael Stewart
Well, okay, but pre COVID. You How are you doing interviews? Tell us the process that you were making your content, what would you do
Meredith Smith
got it. So I would go to the location of the particular person, I would bring my camera and my tripod. And
Michael Stewart
that was at a phone or a camera,
Meredith Smith
I would use both. This works just fine. But I also would bring my Canon camera and with my boom mic, wow. And I that I bought to do real estate pictures, I don’t take my own pictures anymore. I hire a professional for that. So I get great use out of this camera now. So basically, I would go, we would do a couple takes, I have software called Filmora. It took me months to master and I now do my own editing. It’s so simple. But if you don’t want to deal with that, bring your iPhone and use your and you can edit it right on your phone. But I like downloading it I like being able to see it I like be able to manipulate the sound. And now that I know how to do it, you know, it used to stress me out getting all this new content because I’m like, Okay, I gotta get this edited and done. But now it’s like, boom, boom, boom. And I’m in it’s out there and I
Michael Stewart
yeah. Okay, there’s the lesson, folks. Here’s a professional real estate agent who took the time, you know, I did a course on Filmora. Because that’s a that is a good editing program for the PC. So I assume your PC?
Meredith Smith
Yes.
Michael Stewart
Okay. And and of course, if you’re Mac based, a lot of people use iMovie. And the iPhone has a free iMovie app that does anything. Yeah. And so so you were doing interviews, so you are actually getting in the car driving to somebody location, scheduling, what, that’s how important it was to your local business to get these interviews correct.
Meredith Smith
salutely. And, and what what was remarkable was the response from the business owner, that he would take the time to do this to showcase me because Mike, I would put their information, like I wouldn’t even make the call to action me, the call to action would be the business that I was interviewing that particular day. And a lot of people were like, you know, they would take the video and they put it other places. So I don’t just provide the content, I provide you the YouTube link so you can put it wherever you want. And it doesn’t have I’m not plastered throughout it. It’s all about the business owner. And I it, it was one of those, you know, I’ve gotten to know so many people by doing it. And so many people have gotten to know me, and just from me taking the time to do that interview. The whole purpose was you know, not to get business but you know, for to get that brand recognition, and doing the videos has turned into business for me and it just was something that just evolved. You know, it’s become this great thing now that I you know, I’m so proud of and i’m not i’m not gonna stop, I’m gonna keep going because I just I enjoy meeting new people. It’s a lot of fun.
Michael Stewart
Okay, so all right, here’s what I’ve heard folks. We have a non video internet video person originally because we all started out as non online video people. And you, you you got you learned how to shoot it, how to edit it, how to post it, and how and then it became a story that built relationships that I want to get into To the networking and the relationship building of how that brought you business, I want you to come in and give some examples and talk about some of the results. So where were you putting these videos, when you first started,
Meredith Smith
when I first started, they would go, I post them to my Facebook business page, I’d make the post, I would add closed captions, and then I would share it to my personal page so that my personal network could see it along with my business network, I would then put it on LinkedIn, with a with a blog. And then I would also always put it to YouTube so that I could easily share it with whomever I was interviewing. So I get it. And then I have a website that it will also go to under my blogs. So it kind of it, it goes to and I can repurpose it in other and use it, you know, over and over again if I want to. But you know, I have I have when I do an interview, when I put out new content, I have a process, that it’s always the same, I always post the same so that people can know what to expect.
Michael Stewart
Give me the good. Let’s give out your web address, because this is also my podcast. So So spell it out and spell it out. And then I’ll put it up on the screen here because we already had a question from my good friend Tom out in Portland. He wants to know what your channel is. So what is your website first?
Meredith Smith
It’s Meredith. Sell t n.com. So Meredith sells tn.com. Okay. And I, yeah, my Facebook page is pretty easy to find. You can just look Merrick Meredith sells tn. And that will be my Facebook page. I have an Instagram page. Meredith sells tn you can see there the
Michael Stewart
America sales tn.com. I hope all that good social media is linked from that website.
Meredith Smith
If I have a YouTube, I have all the links up at the top of my page. So you should find that thing. Yep.
Michael Stewart
All right. And is your YouTube channels look a link from Meredith? Okay, see, folks. You know, that’s one of the things the big things I preach and do myself and I tell everyone have a portal have a central, you know, Meredith sales, Tennessee? Oh, my gosh, if you can’t remember that, then we’ll work on it. But But the thing is that that becomes the portal. I mean, everybody knows Google is the portal to search. eBay is a portal to buy Amazon. You know, I always ask people, what is Amazon? And they say, well, it’s a store that sells everything. Yes, it is. But it’s a portal to people with credit cards already pre programmed. It’s a search engine for buyers. So it’s all how you look at but it’s still portals are very important things in the internet. So that is married is portal. So all right. So you started out with the equipment of nothing more than you had a good camera that you bought to take photos of listings?
Meredith Smith
It’s a five year old camera. It’s nothing fancy
Michael Stewart
DSLR is it does video as well
Meredith Smith
as video. Yes.
Unknown Speaker
Okay. And,
Michael Stewart
you know, one of the questions I used to get years ago when I was teaching video was the number of what camera? Should I use Mike? And my answer was always one you know how to run. You know, those Canon cameras, they got a lot of settings on it, they got a lot of adjustments. So that’s what I love about, you know, cell phones here is that the cameras are amazing. They’re easy to use. And you know, you can start using it tomorrow. So nobody cares at the bank what camera you use. Now, let’s let’s let’s go on. So you’ve mastered that you’ve got all these things in place. Let’s talk about when did you discover stream yard and by the way, my affiliate link to stream yard is join stream yard.com. So I got to give that out. Because I wanted more and more people I don’t care. Look here Here is a local business entrepreneur who learned stream yard. Now what has been the experience of using stream yard since COVID?
Meredith Smith
Oh, well, I went when we went into lockdown. I was I struggled. I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t interview people anymore. I did a few videos on my own. But I’m like this isn’t working. And my friend Matt Brown at the Nashville marketer reached out to me and said, I’ve got a program that I’ve discovered. I want to interview you on it. And this is what it’s all about. So that was April. And then I then I flip the switch, and I created the show conversations with your Nashville realtor. I’m Meredith Smith. I am your national realtor. And now that’s that’s what my stream yard show is called conversations with your Nashville realtor. And ever since I learned how to log in, I’ve been using it and I think I’ll continue to do the stream yard because I think we’re going to be in this COVID situation for a bit longer. And I’d rather keep everybody safe and just interviewed this way I think. I think it’s a great program. I love it. I still have a lot to learn about it though.
Michael Stewart
Well, you know, the thing that that I’m such an advocate of it is, you know, one, we’re safe. Number one, number two, how convenient it is send a link and and most people, and you know, I’ve actually done tests and I don’t know if you know this, Meredith but when people log into stream yard on their phone, the quality is amazing.
Meredith Smith
I have had a few that have logged in on their phone for me to interview and it’s gone great. Oh,
Michael Stewart
yeah, because you’re getting, you’re getting the video and audio recorded at the same time. So if you really get proficient at live streaming, here it is. The editing time becomes nothing, you know, the interview is I mean, when I I’ll be honest with you, I’m an advocate of zero editing. I like doing a show and, and and when I get done, it’s posted and it’s ready. Well, you know what we this is the other thing. So So what equipment are you using for stream yard? What is that?
Meredith Smith
I’m using an HD webcam with a mic. And I’m using my HP laptop, and I had it plugged into a big screen here. That’s it.
Michael Stewart
So what brand of webcam? Is it?
Meredith Smith
Oh, it is?
Michael Stewart
Is it a Logitech or is it a different brain?
Meredith Smith
It’s an F HD camera? It’s I got it on Amazon for 40 bucks. It’s 40 bucks.
Michael Stewart
Alright, well, we’ll have to, I’ll have to research that. Cuz
Meredith Smith
you I also use a ring light, I have a ring light to kind of light not my office. Because the lighting isn’t great. I’m still working on the lighting. But yeah, it cost me know the equipment doesn’t cost much. You know, it’s a monthly subscription to stream yard and it’s worth its weight in gold. With what I can produce from it.
Michael Stewart
We’ll see I love that, you know, I keep trying to this is not online marketing. Now. This is this is local market brand awareness. relationship building strategies. So I tell you what we’re gonna do I want you to tell me what tell me some of the takeaways of positive. You’ve only been here in Nashville for a little over three years. Correct. Here’s what it was.
Meredith Smith
I was a licensed broker in Maine. I started in 2003.
Michael Stewart
Wow, Maine to Tennessee. Well, that that’s, that’s awesome.
Meredith Smith
Yeah. And people were like, You’re crazy. Meredith, you know, how are you going to do that? I’m like, I can do it. And it’s just you’re not being afraid. I’m not afraid to talk to someone, I’m not afraid to pick up the phone. I’d much rather be in person. That’s why I love nti, the networking group, because you can meet so many people, and they’re there for relationships. They’re not there to sell you. It’s all about serving. And that is the that’s the hallmark of my strategy. And my my brand is serve, don’t sell period.
Michael Stewart
Oh, you can’t learn a lesson from what Meredith is doing, folks. I don’t I don’t know what to tell you, other than I just I admire what you’re doing. If you can do it, if I can do it, it’s just you know, how hard is this? We just show up in our offices. And we have a friendly conversation and it creates content that could build a relationship that turns into business. So talk about some of the wins that you’ve had, since you’ve done this in just the three short years that you’ve been doing it?
Meredith Smith
Yeah, well, I didn’t really take off with the video until mid 2018. So it hasn’t been that long, a year and a half. Yeah. So it didn’t take long. I was doing a few interviews. And a particular gentleman that I interviewed, you know, he was like, what, what, what, what do you want for what am I going to have to give you to get this, I’m like, you don’t have to give me anything. Just give me your time, your content, I want your content, your story. And it that particular interview evolved into a friendship, which has evolved into several real estate transactions, and a referral to another gentleman. And it’s going to be a significant amount of revenue from one video taking the time to get to know someone to let them share their story. And they liked they liked my process. And in that process they wanted they they were like I want to do business with you. I think you’d be great. And it’s going to generate it’s going to be over the from 2020 to 2021. And it’s going to be a significant revenue source just from one video.
Michael Stewart
Well, I gotta tell folks, you said that 2020 was an amazing year for you. And out of all the negativity and craziness
Meredith Smith
in spite of COVID and all the craziness, staying creative thinking outside of the box. 2020 was my largest selling year ever in real estate,
Michael Stewart
the biggest year in a new city. Folks, if you don’t hear the message from what this lady has done, and You
Meredith Smith
know, it’s this this is what?
Michael Stewart
video and online video marketing, relationship building. It’s not just marketing, it’s content marketing is relationship that know like and trust factor is what put it over the edge. Well, I’ll tell you what we’ve been going 20 minutes. Normally I have a sponsor. Well, today’s sponsor, and then we’re going to, this is your opportunity. If you have any questions, we’ll wrap up with some questions. And any final thoughts you have, Meredith, but today’s show is brought to you by project that is a is something that is a passion for me. It is, I’m in a band called The Box Tops. And Meredith, you’re too young to remember the box top. But my buddy Gary Talon and I A Gary was a founding member of the Box Tops, they had a hit record called the letter, which was a number one record. It’s one of the biggest records in 1967. You can Google the letter and find out about the box up. And I got to be a full time member of the Box Tops last January. And we were on tour we had all kinds of tour dates, and COVID killed that, you know, I got to play five gigs. And they were really nice shows and all of our 2020 shows had been consistently being pushed out in the future. Because here’s Guess what, nobody is playing live again. Nobody. So this is my online project. You know, I want to show this little thing here. This might be interesting. But 14 years ago, my good friend
Unknown Speaker
Armand Morin, I
Michael Stewart
created a fictitious artist called Michael Lee Austin. And we took Michael Lee Austin to number one in Billboard. And may 13 2016 14 years ago, we proved that with the Internet, and I have high, very passionate fan base, that you can monetize music. So I’m doing this with Gary, we call ourselves mash Memphis, a blend of Nashville and the Memphis sound. And I’m going to have the world debut of our song, which is essentially telling people how to support music. Until we can play live again, the song is called until we can play live again. Here’s the world premiere of my Nashville memphis.com song. Well, they’re
Meredith Smith
very good.
Michael Stewart
You know why I can play a song on my show? Because it’s my show.
Meredith Smith
Literally, that’s so cool. I’m so excited to have been a part of that.
Michael Stewart
Yeah, well, I thought, this is something I’m doing for 2021. In fact, that song is basically, you know, talking about here in Nashville, we’re in Music City. And I don’t care who you are, whether you’re somebody that you know, plays down, you know, on Broadway, or like us, we have a Beatles band that plays around, we started getting some momentum before COVID and, and all that’s gone away. And so rather than hating the internet, I’m trying to tell the music world embrace it, you know, the chorus of the song says, you know how you can support us. It doesn’t cost anything, add us to your playlists, exactly. You stream our music, it supports us. And so I’m looking forward to the day we can play live again. And and that whole song was built through the internet. We did everything going back and forth. I taught Gary who’s an amazing singer and guitar player who didn’t know how to do virtual sessions. And then now we this is I’m gonna move the camera there’s my new recording studio. And we did that whole record virtually without ever having to you know endanger our lives. We don’t Oh album and it’s it’s Nash Memphis calm. So just documenting. I’m going to be semi promoting it. Now. We’ve got a couple of questions here. And thank you, Vicki. Vicki says that was awesome. And of course my message here is we’re here’s another first. There’s never been a band named a website.
Meredith Smith
I love Yeah, that’s awesome. No,
Michael Stewart
another words are the name of our band is Nashville. memphis.com. So in other words, when you say the name of a band, you are giving out our web address. So cool. That’s a marketing strategy. All right, we got some questions for you some good ones. First of all, but here’s some great comments. This is Tom Brooks. loves your comment know like and trust your right on. So what is your channel? If you want if you wanted to search the channel on YouTube, how would you search the channel?
Meredith Smith
Um, it’s just Meredith Smith Nashville realtor. Yeah,
Michael Stewart
okay, great. All right. This is my good buddy. This is a content marketing. Guru expert, wonderful friend knows his stuff. That’s a great question for you. How long are your interviews And what kind of questions do you ask?
Meredith Smith
Great question they can it can be five minutes to 25 minutes, just depends on what kind of content or what kind of questions are are. And the questions are either you give them to me, because I’m not an act like, I’m my financial advisor, I feature bi weekly. And I have a hard time coming up with a question sometimes. And he’ll we’ll discuss what what does the show look like? What do you want to talk about? So if you’ve got some hot button topics or anything like that, feed me the content because I’m not I’m the man. I know enough. But I don’t know everything. So I want to make sure that the information that’s showcased is going to be useful for the viewers.
Michael Stewart
Oh, Jeff says, I did this to a great and he said he’s not a guru. But I like saying that because it makes him mad. So but going back to Jeff’s question, what are the average shows like I try to stay at around a half an hour?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah,
Michael Stewart
we’re already at a half an hour with us. But I took
Meredith Smith
12 to 15 minutes is the average time.
Michael Stewart
Okay. And and so you let slip. But like, for instance, today, I’m the king of, of winging it. So I had, I just figured I just get with you, we’d have fun. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. But I also had kind of a mind. You know, I wanted to do two things with you today with questions wise, prove that somebody who is not an internet marketer is using these strategies. Alright, we got another great question here. This is from you’re gonna love this. Meredith. This is the owner of Grand canyon.com. He’s and you talk about a guy who has really generated leads through an amazing, an amazing domain name, you ought to check it. Go check out Grand Canyon. This is Carla. So what do you do to prepare people you interview from their iPhones or smartphones?
Meredith Smith
Honestly, um, they they’re typically I asked them to, if they can be in front of their computer. I that’s what I asked them. But as far as you know how to prepare them, just make sure they have a stable Wi Fi connection. Otherwise, we’re going to freeze up the whole time. So if they are on their iPhone, or smartphone, all they need is the link to log in. And that’s it. So just make sure you’re you’re not using not using data and that you’ve got a nice Wi Fi or you’re if you’re at home, you’ve got a strong connection.
Unknown Speaker
Okay.
Michael Stewart
See if we got any other questions we got. We got some of my friends being smart aleck. So I won’t show those. We, you know, had some comments. Tom loved the song. Thank you, Tom. So Dan Carlin, thank you, but, but this is a chance here. If you if you got any curiosities of how a local business realtor is using online video marketing? This is your last chance to answer the question or I guess the main thing is, if you’ve got any final, final closing thoughts or comments that you’d like to say, I’m gonna put your website back up your again. Yeah,
Meredith Smith
I think to close it out, Mike, thanks for having me. I’ll never forget the first time we met because we were just drawn to each other because we were doing similar things. And I you know, I love commenting with you. I love connecting with you. And figuring out how to, you know, evolve, keep evolving this video marketing, because I still have so much to learn. But if there’s anyone out there that would like to be interviewed. Don’t be shy, please reach out. I would love to chat with you. My website is right here. My cell phone is 615-969-0406. I am a full time realtor. I work all the time. So I’m always available. So thank you so much, Mike. I love sharing my story. I have so much fun with this. It’s a great, I guess side gig. And I would love to teach people more about how to do video because it’s so easy. And if I can do it, anybody can do it.
Michael Stewart
Well, that’s great. Well, you know, we’re at the 30 minute mark, and I don’t see any other burning questions. Oh, well, I’ll tell you what, here you go. There you go. Jeff, Jeff, reached out to Meredith or I’ll make sure you get her number. Jeff is an amazing content marketer. And you guys, you know if nothing else you guys need to connect today. I can tell you stuff about Mike. Thanks, Jeff. So, with all that being said, this is Mike Stewart live. If somebody wants to tune into the two o’clock show this afternoon or go back and see some of your shows. They can find that out at Maritza sales. tn.com. Right. Is that correct?
Meredith Smith
Yes. They’re just gonna they’re gonna click on the Facebook link, because it’s going to be it’s going to stream on Facebook, and it’ll be right on my Facebook page.
Michael Stewart
All right, then. Bye. Bye, Meredith. I’ll see you today and thank you so much for being a part of Mike Stewart dot live.
Meredith Smith
Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Tom Antion, My Mentor On Podcasting and More!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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Michael Stewart
Hello, everybody, welcome. Welcome. Welcome to Mike Stewart dot live. The online TV show that’s all about q&a and, and discussions about online marketing was especially focused on audio and video. And I am so excited today to have my mentor, the guy that I have to give credit to got me started, I’ll never forget. I don’t remember how many years ago it was, it’s probably been 17 or 18 years ago, I got in touch with this guy. And he got me started in more ways than one and we’ll probably talk about that throughout the show. So I’m gonna bring him on here in a second. But his name is Tom Antion. And what’s what’s so amazing about Tom, he’s one of the most giving knowledgeable people I’ve ever met in my life. And I remember the day he said, Mike, you need to get an email list together and I go, I don’t know what to do. He says put an ebook together. And I’ll send people over to it to sign up. And it was because of Tom I got my first 50 people on my email list, and I have never forgotten man, of course. I can sit here and probably take up the whole hour telling you all the great things that Tom’s done for me, but I’m not going to do that. More importantly, I’m going to bring on my mentor, my friend, the man himself. Here is Tom Antion.
Tom Antion
Hey, Mike, how you doing?
Michael Stewart
Oh, you know what, I’m just so tickled to having you here. And I’m so tickled to talk about some things that are Audio Video Marketing. I know one of the things that you’re doing is podcasting. And I’m going to throw up
Tom Antion
throw up, man. I’m going to start talking yet
Michael Stewart
Oh, always the comedian. Oh
Tom Antion
wow, slow I am.
Folks, listen, listen. Oh, no, he’s I don’t know where his mind is at. But it’s been more than 17 years since we’ve known each other so. So he was the one that got me doing quality audio. So I’m Not gonna talk about any quality audio today. He’s the one that got me to do it but 20 years ago, he said, Tom, you got to get a compressor limiter. Well, two years ago I got a compressor limiter there 18 years. He says Tommy, you got to get an interface for your condenser mic to go into your computer. Alright, so there it is. says you got to get phantom power Okay, there’s phantom power after 18 years. Can they gotta get a condenser mic that mic you guys crappy Okay, there it is. After
all that stuff. I’m just slow. That’s all.
Michael Stewart
No, no, no, I and the thing that you did for me that was so dumb about AI and whatever year it was, I’m sorry, my memory fails me. But you said I told you and I rattled off like an audio engineer. I said you need a compressor limiter. You need some sort of USB audio mixer. You need to be sure you have some EQ, you need to be sure you have You know, a software that will make mp3 and you said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, dumb it down my. That’s not all I was dumbing it down. And you said no, I tell you what, go give me what I need and ship it to me. I said, Okay, and he says And I’ll never forget this folks, this is how generous this guy is and it just floored me. I’d never heard of people doing CES tech a couple hundred dollars on the credit card bill for yourself. And I said well, why would you pay me to just help you? He said because what your information has value I’ll never forget he said that your don’t ever devalue your information. Enemy and to me, you know, I’m a guy who back in those days was happy to get $75 playing a game for four hours to make $200 just to go shop at the music store for a buddy was like, I’m never I don’t know if you remember this. I said Are there any more people out there like the guy there You know how many years ago it was? Tom Antion. You are You are an inspiration. And that’s why I am glad to have you here on my little streaming TV show that I’m trying to build some momentum. Obviously, if you can watch this over and over again, it’ll be archived for life at Mike Stewart dot live got a whole strategy on that. But you know, a few years ago, you called me and you said you’re going to get into podcasting. Which, you know, I have been a proponent of podcasting for a long, long time, because it’s an internet audio strategy,
Tom Antion
let’s say and I poo pooed it for a long time because now that doesn’t mean I poo pooed audio. I’ve got hundreds of audio products that are good because of you and what you taught me, but I was poopoo in podcasting because it appeared to me that nobody was making any money. It was all a big ego trip. But guess what, that has changed significantly and I’ll get into that then in a minute, but
Michael Stewart
I couldn’t agree more and I think one of the problems with podcasting and I want to hear your your spin on it is that most people feel like well, I got to do like radio I got to get advertisers advertisers supported. And and and the truth is, is there are some podcasters out there that have millions of listeners. But you the the advertiser the model like traditional radio that is build a big audience and sell advertising to advertisers. It just is almost impossible with a podcast in my opinion. But
Tom Antion
here’s the problem with that. First of all, and these figures are rough, but they’re pretty accurate. A sponsor and this isn’t a sponsor, like a big brand sponsor. We’re Pepsi sponsors. This is the sponsor as it applies to podcasting. The sponsors pay between $12 and $25 per thousand downloads per episode 25 is for the big kahuna is big well known that they’re begging to get on there for you start now, it’s your lucky if you get $12 per thousand downloads, but guess what? It’s hard to get 1000 downloads per episode. So you’re gonna go months and months and months with zero income. That’s just ridiculous. So the method I teach is you are your own sponsor. You are the sponsor for each episode. So my podcast, the first episode made money because in the podcast I talked about products that I have. Now, some of you might say, Well, I don’t have any products yet and don’t get dirty here. But if you got a mouth, you got a product. Okay. You could consult and coach for topics right off the bat on something that you know if you have enough expertise to do a podcast you got an enough expertise to coach on it. So be your own sponsor is my take on it. So you can start making money right off the bat. If you do happen to hit a Grand Slam and start getting millions of downloads, then you could tap in as an extra 30 seconds, you get an extra eight or hundred or thousand dollars. Take it all right, but that ain’t gonna happen in the beginning until you really build up to enormous numbers of listeners. But you don’t have to do that if you’re your own sponsor for each episode.
Michael Stewart
All right, well, let me ask you some things about your podcast because because that was a revelation that I you know, I love podcasting because it was the use of a microphone. It was the use of music. It is radio, it is a form of on demand radio, but the radio model was broadcasting this is narrow casting. So what have been the things you’ve done, I remember when you said I’m going to create the screw the commute podcast at screw the commute.com you can You’re everywhere podcasts are the podcasts are now in Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts. And And nowadays, I don’t know, I’m sure you saw it. Amazon, Alexa, audible and amazon music are adding all podcasts 55 million new potential listeners worldwide. So the reach is there, the content has got to be, this is why I’m doing this today. You need great content, you need to consistently make great content. So tell me, I remember the day you said I’m going to start a podcast. I said, Well, good for you. And you’re going to you’re gonna laugh at my mic. I’m going to buy a good microphone and a compressor and all those things you told me years ago, I’m getting them and I’m gonna I’m gonna make a high quality high. And I’m going to be consistent now you’re tell me all the episodes you’ve done. And what’s been some of the results. What is the dedication, you know, it’s not the technical, it’s the dedication that you’ve made to a commitment to never stop doing it even when no one was listening.
Tom Antion
Yeah. All right. So a couple things. First of all, the figures on like Amazon’s echo that you just held up there is over 100 million of those now. So and there’s another 55 million Google assistance in people’s homes. These are some of the decisions of why I started the podcast. The other really big one is that new cars are being set up. So you can just talk to the dashboard and say play screw the commute podcast and it starts playing out of your dashboard. So it’s the listenership has exceeded XM Radio which you have to pay for. And people are just going crazy listening to the podcast. So that was one of the reasons why I started. And then the name of the podcast I think, is pretty important. Mine is very clear. It’s not cutesy. Where because there’s so many people starting podcasts, they can’t, you know, you don’t want to be slumped over because they couldn’t tell what it was about. They can go look at 300 other ones. So screw the commute is pretty clear. Basically In fact, I never had a job and it’s entrepreneurial. So get out of you know, get out of your job and get a start a business kind of thing. So that’s the naming is important of it. But from the results, see, you know, I have an enormous product mix, I have anything from $17 up to $58,000 of products and services that I sell. So in my school, one person joined my school and they were military. So they got a 50% scholarship that was 90 $500 just for one person. So I could go for months and months and have nobody buy anything that’s still be ahead that most most podcasters but it’s not that way pretty much every episode brings in some kind of sales, and then occasionally a really big sale and my mentor program or my school. So that’s why I just hard for people to be their own sponsor and and learn product. Creation of digital product creation is so low risk because it’s 97% profit. So you’re kind of crazy not to get your stuff into digital formats where people can buy them and download them instantly money goes into your checking account. And but it’s stimulated, the markets are stimulated through the podcast. So you have young people are listening to podcasts, male and female. You got middle aged people listening, you got elderly people, listen this, are you reaching a market way bigger than you probably have in the past?
Michael Stewart
Well, you know, this is where I think a lot of people have got to be honest with themselves. And I and a lot of people I work with, I say you’ve got to have I call a digital backhand. On other words, one of the things that you’ve always taught me You taught me and I jumped back in was digital. I could take off a few electrons.
Well, what a back end to me was a litany of things that make money online. And, and most people, you know, the only thing they have if they’re lucky, maybe is a book, you know, and a book to me has always been such a low ticket item, you got to sell a lot of books to make any significant money. But But when you have information products, and affiliate products, I mean one of my most profit generating things, and in fact, I’m gonna throw the domain name up here and I’ll tell you about it. I had I sell domains and hosting at domains, you control.com and basically, I’m just a representative for GoDaddy, but we’ve we’ve sold thousands of domains have over 11 I think about 1020 customers in there. And that’s just residual income. And because a lot of my courses require people to set up we’re either WordPress or a hosting account. So you know, everything feeds everything else, but the lead generator for me and all my businesses, is this content marketing. podcasting is a word For what Gary Vaynerchuk I don’t know if you like or follow Gary, but I think he’s pretty, pretty smart. He says, you need pillar content and then you break that pillar content into micro content and be everywhere. And you just it’s it’s not something that happens instantly. But if you you build this big audience, and you don’t have a back end of things to sell them like you do, I mean, you’ve got probably 100 things to my one but I’m still making a wonderful comfortable residual income off of what I have. And I meet with people I go, what do you what are you selling? I don’t know. Well, I don’t know. Not a good answer. Right. So so the podcast is generating leads for all the things you sales what I’m hearing, right, exactly, exactly. And
Tom Antion
and some of the things are even giveaways. Like for instance, you talk about ebooks. I wrote an ebook in four hours at on a layover at McCarran airport in Las Vegas. I vividly remember it. It’s brought in 3.6 million dollars so far. And it’s a free giveaway. And people say, Oh, that sounds like BS. Well, let me explain to you what what this is. And when Mike talked about a book being you have to sell a lot of books. Well, a book should is the is the biggest hassle, least profitable thing you’ll ever do in your life. But a book should always lead to something else that is much higher profit. So if somebody reads this book, they learn how to do something, but they can’t do it unless they purchased the tool that’s in the book. And I get a $600 a year commission, and some of them have had it 1516 years, say so that’s how the 3.6 million and it still keeps coming in anywhere from six to $15,000 a month from that for our investment. So yeah, my whole thing is work get paid pay, pay, pay pay.
Michael Stewart
Well, where do you get that book? Let’s let’s give that book away to my list.
Tom Antion
You just email me at orders at Antion calm and I’ll send you a copy.
Michael Stewart
Let me roll that up on the screen
Tom Antion
orders. I’m pretty accessible folks.
Michael Stewart
That the E book on shopping carts,
Tom Antion
yes on shopping carts, so it teaches you all the things you should know about a shopping cart and a checklist. And I know I’m pushing my shopping cart, but it gives you a checklist to see what you should have in a shopping cart. Because when I first started Mike in 1994, it was 2000 bucks for a shopping cart. It would if if it actually took the order, we’d have an office party. It was just crazy. And then I bought an affiliate module 1100 dollars from another company to mess with it so I could have an affiliate program. It never worked and each company blamed the other one that why wouldn’t work so so I had 32 dollars 30 $100 tied up inside there wouldn’t even work nowadays. Your shopping is the lifeblood of my whole system. It’s it’s selling things right now while I’m talking to you, and autoresponders and all that stuff. We could do that on another episode. I mean, we,
Michael Stewart
you, you are such a library of marketing information. So let’s get back. Let’s get back to podcasting. Your podcasting is how often do you do your podcast?
Tom Antion
I have three a week. So we’re around Episode 340. Right now
Michael Stewart
you’re doing 12 shows a month 12
Tom Antion
shows a month. Usually a Monday is what you know, I don’t do anything half baked. If I tell you how to do it, I do it. And by the way, I’ve got some killer killer killer marketing tips for people on their podcast. In fact, Mike and and everybody knows you probably trust you greatly that I’m going to tell you something that the Last thing I say today is going to be one of the best marketing tips I’ve ever given out in my 44 years of business 26 on the internet it’s gonna blow people away and you know me I don’t hype stuff and then not come through no standby for that one but but yeah, I got tons of good marketing says But yeah, I do 12 episodes usually a Monday is an in depth training session on something that’s either made me a lot of money or save me a lot of money. And then Wednesdays and Fridays are normally interviews of other great entrepreneurs and you’ve been on twice and you’re gonna be on again next month. So So telling all the new stuff you’ve been doing so so that’s been I only missed one week in in the past since June of 2018. Where I was just swamped with moving my school. So I said instead of half baked now i’m gonna i’m going to you know, just take a week hiatus week off but, but anyway, it’s been continuous since then.
Michael Stewart
Well, so So here’s what I’m hearing. You made a commitment to three shows a week. The first week, you probably were just getting a ripple, you had an email list you could send and get people to, but it’s the consistency and the you know, and one of the things that people don’t think about, but it’s I call it the Netflix phenomenon. People make discover your podcast today. And they can binge listen 300 other amazing episodes,
Tom Antion
a lot of them go back to number one and start and go go straight forward. But you know what, I when I first started my I plan, here’s what’s my plan. And then here’s what actually happened. I planned on getting 20 episodes done are in the can before I launched, and I ended up with 50. So I did 50 episodes before I launched and then people said, Well, why in the heck would you do that? Well, here’s the reason. One of the best ways to market your podcast is to Be on other people’s podcast. Right? So because you know the people on the podcast listening to you know how to listen to podcasts and they like podcasts. So it’s a great way to get on. So I wanted with those 50 in the can, it gave me four months, where I could not have to worry about recording the darn thing. And I could totally concentrate on being on other people’s podcasts. And that’s what besides my email list, that’s what kicked off a lot of my early subscribers was being on other people. And today I got another tip for you. Oh, man, on how to get you’ve heard of a podcast agency, right where people pay them to get them booked on podcast.
Michael Stewart
Yeah, right.
Tom Antion
So I have a method for your listeners to get that service for free. You want to hear it?
Michael Stewart
Yeah. You better
Tom Antion
Alright. So as a podcast, producer, these agencies take you out and start pitching their clients to you, their clients have paid them a load of money to get them on podcast, right? That’s the way it works. Right? So I started, I have a little thing I cut and paste as soon as they pitch me somebody, a new agency, I send them this email back that says, We’re currently only accepting reciprocal appearances. So if one of your clients has a podcast, and it makes sense for me to be on it, we’ll make a deal and that person can be on my podcast and I get to be on their podcast. Right? That agency is now working for me for free.
Unknown Speaker
I love
Tom Antion
it. See that? So I’ve been doing that mostly lately is as soon as they pitch me, I pitch I say, Okay, here’s my credentials. If we trade that’s great. And so they go out and hustle to get me on for free.
Michael Stewart
Well, I want to recap here and then we’re going to have a word from my sponsor. Okay, but you got good equipment. That was one of the things you did. Yep. You made a dedication to do six times more shows a month and I’m and and that’s my choice. But the thing is consistency is the message there. And if Tom, who is a busy entrepreneur, he’s not a guy just sitting around twiddling his thumbs going, Oh, I got nothing to do, or do and he can shake a stick at. But he, you know, like he said, when he goes in, he goes all in. So he made a commitment to X amount of shows a month. That’s another thing people do. I’ve seen people say I want a podcast. They do two shows. And they get the hit wall and they stop. And then they say, well, it didn’t work. Yeah. You know, you were 50 shows in before if you knew anything works, right. So there’s a lesson there. So good equipment, good content. You needed somebody to get you a theme interest. took his keyboard right here and and wrote you some music, which I think you’re still running you should play the into when you get a chance to play the
Tom Antion
opening to one of my episodes. I have to
Michael Stewart
hook up all this music so we’ll have a whole music jingle search term live show and I’ll have you on it
Tom Antion
was just go to the web and play went off my website
Michael Stewart
and stream yard I should have uploaded the theme and I don’t know if I’ve got it but you want to hear the theme go to screw the commute.com go to Apple. You need to subscribe to Tom’s podcast. I’m telling you. It is a what’s that big place in Washington. In fact, fact that’s a great picture to show here. We need to show some of these pictures and we need to
Tom Antion
and that’s the last tip I show you got me invited to the White House and it’s all podcast related.
Michael Stewart
Well I want to hear that story. But but anyway Let me keep the recap going here. You consistent and now you don’t regret doing it at all. Do you
Tom Antion
know hell? No, no. When episodes making money, you know, it makes you want to do more.
Michael Stewart
Well, you know, that’s one of the things about Nashville, I have been trying to get the music community here in Nashville. That’s one of the reason I moved to Nashville. And I mean, I’ve actually had music people. So just what is a podcast? And the next objection was, well, why would I do it? And then we don’t have time. You know, you made the time. That’s the lesson here. Here’s a busy, successful, multi millionaire entrepreneur friend of mine, who I respect and trust completely, and he said, Okay, I get it. I see the path. And I’m consistent and that’s the lesson you folks need to really pay attention about. You know, if Tom Antion made this a priority, you don’t have to learn all the nuts and bolts. Have it the nuts and bolts of making this happen. That’s the easy part. The hard part is fitment and all the things that you did so we’ll be back here. We’ve got some images here that I want you to give us some information. And then if you can stay long enough, um, we I want you to the tips for you So, okay, and I got some people here some questions, and I and Tom This is let’s let’s give a shout out here. This is Wayne moss. Hey, Wayne. Wayne, let me chase him he’s a Nashville hero to me. This is the guy that played guitar on more hits. If you Google this guy you’re gonna be blown away he played lead guitar on pretty woman and oh my god. I mean this this guy is my buddy and he’s a sweetheart. And hopefully he’s feeling better. He’s had a little little bit of unweathered things going on. But when you comment let us know you’re doing okay but thanks Wayne for you know you got a you’re a legend in internet marketing Wayne. Deal. He’s one of the national played on Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan played guitar. So anyway, so nice to have you here. And oh, hey, there’s somebody in the other room.
Tom Antion
I can hear you. Okay, so
Michael Stewart
here’s a word from our sponsor. We’ll be right back, Tom. So good to have you on the show today. This is just, I don’t want you to go golly, this is just too much fun anywhere. I hope you can get that jingle out of your hand. I
Tom Antion
can’t. It’s stuck in there right now.
Michael Stewart
Do you want to talk about some of these pictures? You got some other things you want to talk about first?
Tom Antion
Yes. So yes, I want to I got some hardcore tips for people more than what we’ve talked about now. So show the podcast app.
Yeah, no, that’s not the one.
That’s the one. Yeah. So
that app would have cost me if I just developed it from scratch anywhere from two to $5,000. This is my podcast app. Now, I know Mike kinda likes blueberry as a hosting service now right Mike?
Michael Stewart
Now I use the blueberry plugin. with Amazon s3, there’s a way. Okay. Are you using libsyn
Tom Antion
Lipson? And Lipson is one of the oldest biggest, and it’s so cost effective. I mean, for 12 episodes a month, I only pay 20 bucks a month for his high quality very, you know, and it distributes it to all the other major places, you know that you can hear podcasts. But anyway, they have a service where for $99 a year, they created this podcast app for me. All I had to do was provide the graphics. So I’m sure it’s a it’s a boilerplate podcast app, but nobody knows because your graphics would look different than mine. So I have this killer podcast app. You can get it at screw the commute comm slash app and we have instructions on how to use it and everything. And you know, like if somebody calls you on the phone It’ll pause your podcast and then when the phone call hangs up, it’ll start right back up where it was and you can save your favorite episodes and it really brands you as being serious. And now what I have paid two to 5000 bucks to do it Nope. But for like 10 bucks a month you’d be crazy not to brand yourself and have this you know something this high quality and you can start with lips and I think as little as $5 a month or so for podcast hosting so so that’s that’s what I wanted to talk about a podcast app. And and your experience has been that having the podcast app is is helped you build more audience build more audience and make them more loyal and it’s, you know, the the episodes are shoved to them. I mean, there’s probably other ways that they could get to do it but but now they’re kind of tied to me with you know, there’s right on their phone every day is the screw the commute podcast. Yeah.
Michael Stewart
Well, I’m telling you right now I’m going to investigate a way to implement that with mine. Because at the time when I was teaching people to put up podcasts, I mean, you know, they were lucky that they would, you know, get a URL a domain name, right? You know, but like I said, I these I’m learning here too. So you want to show the other
Tom Antion
image here, let’s say so yeah, show the one with the speakpipe. Yeah, so this is just a little portion of the homepage of screw the commute calm. And at the bottom, you see a little thing I’ve got an expanded there with those you know, too big. It says send voicemail. This is a program called our widget called speak, pipe, SP aka p IP. And it allows people and I invite anybody listening to click on it and just send me a voice message. And I get an email that says, hey, you got a voicemail on your website. And then I can click my cell phone and send you one back. Say Hey, thanks for checking in. The screw the community Yeah, you can you can do this and the other I can answer your question all right there they have a free version. So this is totally free. So you know, you know, it’s just crazy not to do it. And it’s cool. And you know they have paid versions that give longer messages and so forth and then what you can use this for on your podcast, besides just having it on your website, it’s great. But what you can use it for on your podcast is to request that people that like your podcast to leave a testimonial on your voicemail and also they can give themselves a shout out with their website and everything. And then you can edit that into your podcast as social proof and a voice testimonial. So this is perfect for podcasters and everybody else
Michael Stewart
You know, I told you you don’t have to come back.
Tom Antion
We get into the good ones yet. We in a hurry.
Michael Stewart
You know, I tried to keep this a half an hour show, but I’m not going to do that today. We still got a good amount of people here live and I want you to use your time.
Tom Antion
No, I this is you know me I give more than I bargained for. So let me get into some of the other tips I want to tell people about. One is I already told you about being your own sponsor. Next thing is, is if you’re selling any kind of products, giving a shout out on your podcast can be used as a bonus to help sell your main product. So I might say, among the middle of my podcast, hey, I want to give a shout out to my buddy Mike Stewart. He’s responsible for teaching me all this great audio stuff. He’s the internet audio guy. You gotta check his stuff out. Hey, if you heard my opening, he’s the one that did the music for my opening. You got to check Mike out at the Internet audio guy calm So there’s that’s a shout out, okay. And so that can be used as a bonus for other products that you’re selling because it’s got great value to put you in front of thousands of people. So that’s another great, great tip to use when you’re doing podcasts. Okay, any questions on that one?
Michael Stewart
Well, you know, we’re gonna put up here in the comments. We’re getting people making. In fact, I want you to see guesses here. One of your buddies.
Tom Antion
You got a mouth you got a product.
Michael Stewart
This is a good coaching client of mine have
Tom Antion
a brilliant read him around. Yeah,
Michael Stewart
yeah, he’s, he I met him at NSA probably 25 years ago, is still doing coaching with me and he is a brilliant marketer and he’s just a PhD of speaking. I mean, it’s so he’s here. And then we get I’m putting comments but I want people. Here’s Ian, he said He just showing you that we got people here live this is this is one of my marketing buddies and he’s also a bug fella bug marketer I love this Tom that jingle will be with me till next week’s show this is my sweetheart coaching client out in Sedona Arizona yeah and and and she has a podcast and she is brilliant you got to you got to check her first name no roof
Tom Antion
the roof I almost bought there’s a geodesic or not a geodesic there’s a concrete dome on the way into Sedona I almost bought that as a place to live I’m sure she knows it’s a it’s like a tourist attraction on it.
Michael Stewart
So if people know this is a chance you know Tom’s charges a lot of money. So if you if you got a question, don’t be bashful, answer a question. Otherwise, Tom’s got plenty information. In fact, to quote this other gentleman up here, I like what he said, Tom. He said, this is William Singleton. But William here has a lot of always worth the listen. Well, you better believe it. You better appreciate it. All right.
Tom Antion
So what do you want to talk about? So the next thing, a tip for podcasting is to highlight certain groups for maybe a week or a month like right now as I’m talking to you. It’s vetra pinares month on screw the commute podcast. So everybody I interview is a veteran because we love our veterans. We couldn’t be doing what we do now if they hadn’t been keeping us safe. And there’s too many idiots out there ragging on him. So it’s veteran runners month so that so besides me loving my veterans. They will take their recording and put it out and their social media and spread the word to Marcus that I would have never reached in a million years. say so. highlight certain groups each week or every month or you know once in a while and that will really expand your market to lots of other places. Okay. Now, most of the people at my level make the bulk of their money with email. So anything you can do to build your list is a good thing. I mean, people could hear you on Apple podcast but you don’t have their emails no way to reach them again. So you want to give things away and I’m going to give something away to your crowd right now. It’s my automation ebook we sell it for 27 bucks, but you get it free for listening to Mikey live and you go to screw the commute comm slash automate free screw the commute.com slash automate free and just one of the tips in this ebook saved me seven and a half million keystrokes. No kidding we figured it out ruff ruff did out and It allows me to handle up to 150,000 subscribers and 40,000 customers without pulling my hair out. And so you’re crazy if you don’t implement this stuff in this book so there’s a thing but you’re gonna go opt in to get it say so this is a list building device. Now another list building device is the transcriptions and show notes. You can require an opt in for people to get the transcription of your podcast so that’s a list building device to so so there’s a bunch of tips so you’re ready for my big finale tip.
Michael Stewart
I can hear it I am.
Tom Antion
Come on bring up the picture of the White House up there again.
Michael Stewart
Okay. Your wish is my command, sir.
Tom Antion
This tip got me invited to the White House to speak to the office of the second lady whose platform is military spouse employment. See I live in the Norfolk, Virginia in your area of Virginia Beach, and all the military spouses around here have to take lousy jobs because everybody knows they’re going to move. Yeah, you can get rid of the picture now. And so then they move to a new station, and then they got to take another crappy jobs. So this my school is really great. Because it’s portable. In fact, we’re covered by the Department of Defense, to give military spouse scholarships so that they don’t have to just suffer with pitiful jobs all the time. Alright, so that’s kind of the setup here. So I wanted to get in with more military spouses. And in the in the past,
I would have taught you to go to a Facebook group. Hey, how you doing very nice to see you. I would have taught you this is what I would would have taught you in the past and then I’m going to give you the modern method that’s gonna blow you away. So in the past, I’d have said you find a Facebook group that you want to, I don’t want to be mean and say infiltrate, but you want to get in there and get your message across. Well, you can’t go in there and just start advertising yourself, they’ll kick you out really fast, say, so you have to go in there. Get known make nice comments and, and over time people start maybe going and checking out your profile to see what you have. Well, this is a long, drawn out process that maybe they would come maybe get some business but you’d spend months doing this. All right. All right, wipe that off the plate like that out of here. If you have a podcast, you go to the admin of the group and sometimes there’s multiple admins, and you interview them on your podcast. Guess what they’re going to do with that interview? Once it’s done, they’re gonna share it. Where are they going to share it you The girl in the group that you want to get into. So you just went to the top of the list, like, oh, like that. So let me tell you what this meant for me. I don’t know if this is making too much noise. So, I did this with this veteran printers group, I interviewed the admin. He’s a Bronze Star recipients, we hit it off like crazy. We’re in the guns, self defense, and we just hit it off. So then from that, he put it in his group, and then he invited me to do a series of events for his group. He even made me an admin of this veterans group, so we have to deal with it. I do this series of events. I don’t charge him anything because I love our veterans and I just do it for free. Well, I met a military spouse, military spouse of the year at Fort Bragg. Also, she is a marine veteran. So she’s both a veteran and military. spouse, we hit it off. I had her on the podcast, she had a direct connection to the White House, the second lady’s office and got me invited there. So she took me up there and walk me right into the White House to talk to the second lady. And also, I spoke at a big military conference in DC, all within one month of interviewing the admin of that group. That’s your marketing tip that should if you know if you’re thinking person should blow you away.
Michael Stewart
Okay, I got a quick question. All right. Facebook, how did you What did you do to find that group to know you hit the search button for whatever your topic is? You just searched Facebook groups for something and you felt that
Tom Antion
connection when you do when you do a search in Facebook? You’ll get a list of stuff and if it says like that somebody is in Individual business page if it says join, that’s a group. Ryan, I just looked for groups and I said, look at that 14,000 military entrepreneurs, so not only does entrepreneur fit me, they all got, you know, spouses, many of them military spouses. And so that’s, I just hit that one and, and bam, and then I interviewed the other admin, and they promote me and put it on their social media. So that tip is one of the best ways to to reach enormous numbers of people with a warm introduction. And so that got me invited to the White House.
Michael Stewart
Well, you know, that’s kind of what I call virtual networking. Probably the most important thing for me building my business over the years is is you just can’t be a secret in your room. You have to, you have to be proactively, you can do things like to call out your old buddy, Tom Antion, and getting to be on your TV Show. Today I can do what you did with a drink. You didn’t know these people in this Facebook group. You befriended them you had you found some common ground, and you didn’t. I don’t know if you had an expectation you just knew that I just
Tom Antion
knew I could do a lot. Well, first of all, if I never made a nickel, I owe these people you owe him everybody owes them for what they sacrifice. If you saw some of the stories I’m here and adventure printers month of what they went through, and what they’re suffering with when they come home. I mean, you should live in gratitude that they’re out there sacrifice in their life, so you can have a nice life. So
Michael Stewart
I thank you for your service on many a time.
Tom Antion
Yeah, absolutely. And I even found out that sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I was asking this lady she says, Don’t expect everybody to hug you when you say that because it memories, some of it Yeah, but she said do it. But don’t expect the some of them just it’s hard for the expectations. exam. So I went and did it with no expectations at all other than, hey, I’m paying back for my ability to sit here safely. I mean, so far nobody’s writing outside yet, but I’m watching for. But, but yeah, so but anyway great things can happen to it and then you can replicate it group after group after group and another spin off of that is I asked like I did did an insurance podcast one time on business insurance so I went to major insurance groups. This is another good sidebar tip. I guess I lied about being my last word here, but, but this is another great one. So I used my speakpipe and I said, Hey, I went to the admin of a big Insurance Group. I said, Hey, I need a comment for my podcast on business insurance and you can promote yourself and your website and everything. And so I got two major insurance. Exactly. Give leaders of these groups to leave business tips on my podcast. Well guess who guess where those podcasts ended up on those groups in their Facebook groups. And they didn’t even do a whole episode. They just left like a three minute con comment with a tip on business insurance promoting themselves and then they put it in their group.
Michael Stewart
Tom, you’ve been all you’re just here the Energizer Bunny. That’s what you are. You know, my good friend here. Bill laughed and had to say this, this is what this is his comment. You can take that testimonial what an info pack show I taking careful notes and I will listen again with pannon and
Tom Antion
Good, good,
Michael Stewart
valuable folks. Go to antion.com see what this man has created. See how you can get get in his world because you know if you want to screw the commute, if you want Business. This is the guy who kick started me when I’m going, you know, I’m just a musician. I’m a guitar player, keyboard player. And and I thought I was doing good if I can make 50 bucks a night. And he taught me so much so we come back and do some more with me.
Tom Antion
Yeah, I got I got I’m just getting warmed up, man. I mean, jeez, yeah, let’s roll.
Michael Stewart
You know, I folks, do you have any burning questions? Yeah. Because I like to respect people’s time. This is just a service to my community. And I’m using the model of television. It’s brought to you by dot live secrets calm. It’s brought to you by Antion calm. The way we’re able to continue doing this is when you learn what we have. And you see that there’s a fit, then you know act upon it. But you know, givers get his thing I’ve heard for you. You No we give and when you give you receive and more importantly you need to you know you need to take action you know you can’t you can I used to we used to call it shelf help you know people wouldn’t shelf help they put it on the shelf and never you if you know the tools are there and the mentors are there and the teacher will appear when you’re ready, but you’ve got to make a commitment. And that’s why I want to keep doing these live shows to build this will live on youtube and facebook forever. It’ll live at Mike Stewart dot live forever. It’ll be distributed to all the podcast channels. So I want people that if you don’t know Tom Antion hopefully you will go check him out@antioch.com how he has been your email address and your
Tom Antion
yeah just use screw the commute that’ll lead him to everything. Yes. Now
Michael Stewart
both of them you know the screwed me so newer Antion calm A and T IO n has been around since I met you so yeah, that
Tom Antion
was 94 when I started Yeah. Oh my goodness.
Michael Stewart
I guess people don’t have any burning questions. I guess they’re just so busy writing things down. Oh, you have any any closing comments before we close?
Tom Antion
Yeah, I just, I just, you know, I live and breathe this. I’m a fanatic at this. And you know you you get a lot of tips if you’ve been doing this day and night for seven days a week for 20 What is it 26 years online, not counting those in business before that. So. So it’s a great lifestyle business. I do even talk about my school where it would be a great legacy gift for your kids or grandchildren. I really get sick of these people spending a fortune on four year colleges and the kids are learning how to protest and they get out there work, you know, competing for jobs at Starbucks so so we have a school that puts these hard school hard core skills into practice that every business needs so, so we have anybody who wants to talk about it for their kids or grandchildren, nephews or nieces get in touch with me or if you have any questions on anything that I’m qualified, I’ll be happy to do it. As a friend of mine, that’s for sure.
Michael Stewart
Well, Tom, I am definitely going to have you back. I think people really enjoyed the show today. So this is a Tom Antion from screw the commute.com and antion.com. I’m Mike Stewart and I you you hopefully are at Mike Stewart dot live. There is my cell phone 770-826-3662 I do answer my phone. And if you are serious about doing things on the internet, especially when it comes to audio and video marketing, I hope you’ll reach out to me I hope you reach out to Tom. What an amazing show. I’m gonna go back and watch this show again today. This was amazing. So into for two weeks, four days, the second Monday, first, second Monday and fourth Monday of the month is when I do Mike Stewart dot live. And we’ll have another guest in two weeks. So thanks, everybody. We’ll see you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai