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Connect with Christoph
https://authenticstorytelling.net/going-live-book/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophtrappe/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] It's beautiful day for the #PirateBroadcast™. We got another pirate in the house. Christoph, good morning. How are you, my friend?

Christoph Trappe: [00:00:17] Good morning. Hey, thanks for having me and good to see you.

Russ Johns: [00:00:19] Likewise, I missed you here when you were in Phoenix last week and traveling around and I know it's not the same as normal; however, hopefully you made it back okay. And everything's settling in for another week of fun and adventure.

Christoph Trappe: [00:00:34] Everything is settling in for sitting in the same chair. Every once in a while, I stand up on my wonderful standup desk. Sorry I missed you, but my two kids, my wife, they got my schedule under control there. I'm just along for the ride.

Russ Johns: [00:00:47] Yeah. I want to talk a little bit because you authored a book called going live and we have a similar passion about this whole podcasting live streaming type of activity that a lot of business owners haven't really, I don't think, really understood what it could do for their business and their activity on social media. So I want to dive into a little bit of that, but how did you get involved in, get started in live podcasting and media, in general. What's your backstory?

Christoph Trappe: [00:01:22] Good question. So first of all, they were very separate and like six years ago, I started podcasting about three years ago. I started doing it more formally and then probably six or seven years ago, whenever Periscope and mere cat came about, I started doing live stream, but they were separate. I did not think of them as one and but they were one channel and that's kinda how it goes at that time. And of course today, you know your life, you're on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. Now it's much easier. We use one tool, you use StreamYard, I use restream there's others.  And basically at some point, I was promoting my, not my current book, my, my last book, content performance culture on Jason Falls podcast. And he goes, we're live. We're using switcher studio and bluff. I'm like what? That's how easy it is. And then he published his podcast, like literally an hour later. Anyway, so I started using switcher and then I started realizing, hey, I can also stream to multiple channels with Windstream. So I combined them and then I take the audio and I put it into my podcast. So I virtually do no podcasts that are not livestreamed and the reason is because you get so much more reach and it's unbelievable, and especially when you, for my podcast has been humming along now. So it's not doing too bad. But it wouldn't be doing nearly as good without all the live stream, or livestream views. So I started combining them, but that's how it all came together. So Jason says you still have to do all the work and it's true. I did. But he gave me the idea partially because he was doing what he was doing. And then, I started slowly combining the two and it's been a fantastic ride. It's been great. And first of all, It's nice to reach more people, but when you do a live stream, what else happens? You take away the power of the edit. So when I used to be a writer,  I'm still a writer, but when I like 10 years ago, when there was no live streaming, people would over edit everything. Yeah. It's crazy. Like, why do we need that change? Other than that, you're the boss. There's no reason. And on a live stream, once it said, and if you can edit it for the podcast, but let's say I got 200 views on a podcast, but I have 27,000 or whatever, I know that's not every, you're not going to get a 27,000 out of the gate, but at some point you might. Who cares if I change it? You already said it to the majority of the audience.

Russ Johns: [00:03:50] Yeah, it's really fascinating to me too, because I started out in podcasting like yourself and I produced a lot of shows for a lot of different people, edited a lot of audio and it's really one of those things that when I started live streaming, cause I used to live stream high school varsity sports. I used to use Spreaker the live streaming application and live stream.  I'd hire producers at the radio show, the radio program and have them broadcast into Spreaker live and then rebroadcast that out to the AM tower in Houston. And really that's how I got started. And it was a live streaming audio initially for radio broadcasting. And I thought I'm just going to do this for live streaming. And I got on Blab years ago and I would take the audio and then strip it out and do exactly what you're talking about, create the podcast from the video and just strip it out and add it to there and process it and boom, it was done. And that whole system, that whole process just allowed a lot more content to be created quickly and effectively. So that's what I'm doing with the #PirateSyndicate™ now is I'm doing that for business owners. All over the country. So it's pretty cool.

Christoph Trappe: [00:05:11] There's no reason not to do it. And what's interesting too, I wouldn't consider myself a life story when you just said sports. So my, because of COVID right? Like they wouldn't allow as many fans to the kids' basketball games. So one of the moms said, Oh, we'll just live stream it. And she goes, she was going to do it just with her phone. And I said no, let me I'll do it. I'll take care of it. And I did, multi-camera set up with switcher one camera on each end one under the basket, and then I'm sitting there with my iPad and I'm producing it right with the school. And it was funny because first of all, I learned a lot of people were like, thank you so much. I'm like, oh, no worries. It's awesome. I'm learning something, too. And there was a scoreboard and every once in a while, if I didn't make it, my wife would do it, but she didn't do Switcher. She just did her phone. And you could tell people totally got used to the scoreboard. They were like, what's the score? What's the score. But  it's amazing how far technology has come and what you can do, and and even like the streaming quality, these things, people told me they would watch it on their TV at home look great. And I'm streaming over data.

Russ Johns: [00:06:18] That's insane. That is it. And the reality we're living in the most amazing time for content creators and people that want to produce content. And it's interesting to me to think how people are approaching it. And businesses are still holding back. There's still a huge opportunity. Think of all of the business owners right now that are unable to go to the conferences, go out networking, go to the expos or any kind of events and activities. When in fact they could produce their own show. With business owners and their vendors and their contractors, and everybody involved in their business to highlight some of the things that are going on in their business right now, because businesses hasn't shut down. It's evolved that it's changing and it's going to continue to change. However, live streaming right now has opened the  flood gates on content creation that people can actually build authority with. And I see it all the time and you probably see it. The same way I do is that this content in this creative process is just continuing to evolve and like switcher and being able to do multiple cameras in all of the, doing live stream and live events together will be a thing, I think that people start producing a lot more of. So is that your experience and what do you see in the roadmap?

Christoph Trappe: [00:07:47] You were breaking up there just a little bit. First of all, before, I just saw here Kate saying hello. Hey Kate. Good morning. I really appreciate it. Hiett I guess that's how you say it. I don't I'm in Houston. Yes. Awesome.

Russ Johns: [00:07:59] Darleen in Florida. So morning. Morning from Twitch TV. Awesome. That's fantastic.

Christoph Trappe: [00:08:06] Awesome. So you're also streaming to Twitch. I didn't realize that. Awesome, good stuff.  So I, yes, I am seeing a trend that, first of all, it's not just me, the content marketing Institute, actually in their annual research, they already found that too, that more brands are doing live streams. Now what's interesting about saying it like that. That includes a lot. So a webinar, if it's live, technically that's a live stream, right?  Was a live stream. Showing some function or equipment is a livestream. I'll give you an example. I have a robot vacuum cleaner and I'm pretty active on Amazon life every day. This is why I was a couple of minutes late. I had to go turn it off because I had the camera on it. So I put the camera on the vacuum cleaner and the vacuum cleaner just drives around the house and it has 10,000 views a day, roughly. So people watch it, and so my point is, so I make the affiliate commission on that. And clubhouse Howard, that's a good point. I can get to that in a minute. So we'll get to that. So it just drives around the house and I make the commission fees and it's fun because I'm testing new equipment and whatever, why can't the vacuum cleaner companies make those videos, seriously, they have vacuum cleaners. So no, no reason they can't do it. So there's all kinds of potential. The other thing I do is I live stream myself working, not right now because we're live here and there's really too much going on, but I'm working or I'm editing a podcast. I'm live streaming it. If you offer podcast software, You can just live stream, somebody working who cares it's not private. So there's all these different ideas. Typically what I'm currently talking about mostly is how do I get more out of my podcasts? Because I see a lot of companies jumping in, which I think is great. But we saw that before. Russ when it came to blogging, people started blogging and then they did one time and then they stopped and then they didn't do it again. And they're like, Oh, blogging, doesn't work. Blogging works if you do it right. Same with podcasting. The average number when people stop podcasting is after seven episodes, there is no way to build your podcast channel in seven episodes. No way. Impossible.

Russ Johns: [00:10:20] Pod fade is a real thing and it's, and I've seen it over and over again. And, producing shows and podcasts for other people. It's nobody's watching, nobody's listening. Not yet. It's like learning how to play the piano and then you play it seven times and nobody buys your album. It's a long game.  And it takes effort. And I think a lot of people, there's no way around not doing the work. Content creation is not necessarily for the faint of heart. It's really a long game that we have to think about.

Christoph Trappe: [00:10:53] That's true. The thing is once you get into a rhythm and you get into what you're comfortable with, it does become easier. Now I'll be quite honest, going live, it's a lot more energy than just recording a podcast. So I actually did a podcast the other day for my travel show, which I do very rarely. And I was just recording the audio. It was like vacation. Because I wasn't on camera. I didn't have a light in my face and I didn't have to worry about a zit, all those things. So it is easier, but, Howard said, and then there is clubhouse and I'll give you my opinion on clubhouse. I am totally ignoring right now. And here's the reason why. Not saying it's not going to work for some people, but I'm on the Amazon bandwagon. I'm on the LinkedIn bandwagon and I'm riding those horses hard. And so I can't focus everywhere. So you have to pick and choose your battles where you go. So that's my approach.

Russ Johns: [00:11:47] So I want to talk about that a little bit, because I know a couple of other people that are on Amazon live and  I haven't applied yet, or I may have applied, I don't think I had enough Twitter followers or I don't know. I didn't meet the criteria that they were looking for. And so I should probably apply again because there's a lot of gear that I have here in the studio that, I could talk about and share I'm on this mission to go through. I got this tripod stand and phone stands that I use for live streaming and doing shows and content creation, all these things. And I'm always on the lookout for these things and talking about them and I'm thinking it would be really great to be able to get the affiliate commission on some of this stuff. And so it's probably an easy access to another revenue stream if you're able to get on there. Maybe you could, if people don't know about, what it takes to get on there. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that Christoph and let people know what it is.

Christoph Trappe: [00:12:48] Yeah. So basically Amazon live, it's supposed to be about shopping and but it's not defined what that actually means. So sometimes people think that means an infomercial. That's one way to do it. Youtechpia. He works out, that's all he does. He works out and you can see his equipment and you can buy the equipment, which is also really fun strategy because, he gets his workout and make some money. I show my vacuum cleaner. I also, maybe a little bit more on topic, I also live stream my podcast. So if you're on my podcast, if this was my show, we would literally just do the same thing we're doing now, except below there would be product. So the products might be this microphone, the chair. Anything you have, whatever it might be and all those things would be below. We might mention them when it's relevant, but we don't mention them just to mention them. And then people click. So that's how I do it. Another show I was on with Karen Quick, the other day, she has segments. So she has four segments: she talks to me, then she talks about a product and she shows it. She goes, look, I use this mic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then she talks to me and then she talks about a product and she does that four times. So there's different ways to do it. Now, what's interesting about your comment you didn't get in. So people ask me, how did you get approved? And I said, I don't know. I don't know why I'm even in there. So I think the actual, so here's a reason short-term memory here. I didn't apply. Anytime recently, I applied years and years ago when Amazon rolled out their influencer program. So my philosophy is every time something new rolls out I apply, or I get in, I did nothing with Amazon influencer, nothing. But now they rolled over influencer into Amazon Live so I'm already in, so when people say how much work you apply, I'm like, I don't know. It was like five years ago.

Russ Johns: [00:14:54] It's been long enough. I don't recall. That's fantastic. I love it. And a lot of people don't understand also that Amazon owns Twitch as well.

Christoph Trappe: [00:15:03] Oh, I didn't know that . I did stream to Twitch a little bit ago and I stopped doing it just because I changed my plan with restream. But yeah. I think, if you want to and can go everywhere, you can, especially when it's the same program. Why not?

Russ Johns: [00:15:17] Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about growing a podcast, let's get back to that topic. Cause that's one of the topics that people ask me a lot about how do I actually grow my audience? How do I grow my numbers? And I take a little different approach to it. I know the #PirateSyndicate™ produces shows for other people and what I always tell my clients. Is that you don't need to talk to a thousand people. You just need to talk to 10 of your ideal clients, you need to have the right conversations with the right people at the right time. And a lot of numbers, it gives you authority. It gives you some visibility across multiple networks, but it may not necessarily do... a like is not necessarily going to benefit your business. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that and expand on that topic a little bit more for people that are thinking about podcasting.

Christoph Trappe: [00:16:12] It's a great question and a fun topic, quite frankly. So the answer is it depends on your industry, right? So Ben Smith has a site for likeFolk Lore dancers and singers and musicians. And I said, Ben,  how many people do that in North America. He said maybe 50,000. Maybe. And so my point is that's a relatively limited audience, right? So if you're selling something, if you're selling some big piece of equipment machinery or whatever, there's not that many buyers, right? Like I'm not your audience. So it depends on what your audience is, how big they are. Now, the trick is it is a little bit of a numbers game. So I'll give you an example. I worked with a hospital in Dallas on an OB campaign. So probably the most local health care thing. Other than maybe emergency medicine or whatever but I'm not going to fly to Dallas to have our kid. I'm gonna go to my local doc. So they had an article that took off globally and the numbers went just through the roof and. A doctor, I think from salt Lake city at a conference said yeah. Great. But why do I care? It's local? And I said, here's why you care because when global numbers go up, I'm not saying you should make global a goal. But when that happens, the local numbers go up too. So while you certainly are getting a ton of traffic from people that will never ever have their baby in Dallas, unless they're traveling in Dallas by mistake or whatever at the time. It still correlates.  So it's just something to think about. There is a mix there's not necessarily a right or wrong answer. And the other thing is, especially in B2B, I hate to say guys, the numbers are small. I just read a study. The other day, the average blog in B2B has 282 organic visits per month. That is crazily low. But that's the industry average. So if you're over 282, you should be happy. If you're under, you've got some work to do to be average, but it's so we have to keep the numbers in mind, who are we reaching? What are we actually doing? Again, if it's something very consumer driven, that there's a lot of people, there should be more people, but if I'm selling something that very specific people only want, you're not going to get millions of views. It's, I dunno why people like to be unrealistic.

Russ Johns: [00:18:43] I think it, and what I tell people is if you're only looking at the numbers, you're talking to the ego. If you're looking at the conversations, you're talking to the business, And I think that rules, whether it's consumer or business to business, it's all relative in how many conversations can we have? How many transactions, how many conversions do we need in order to sustain our business? And I think it's really, it's unrealistic for a podcaster to get frustrated after seven podcasts and say,  I'm not in the top 100 podcasts of the world and millions of people aren't listening to me already. And  it's like practice, it's like instruments. You learn how to play. The more you practice, the better you get. The better you get, the more people want to listen. And that's the same thing with podcasting and live streaming and content creation and everything else. And it's a craft. It's a process. So just be patient with yourself and keep practicing because it, it makes a difference. It makes an impact and everybody has a gift and a message and like yourself, you've been doing this for a while and you're figuring out a few things and you accelerate and you help a lot more people. And next thing there's people that want to work with you and say, hey, Christoph, what can we do to create a show together? And then all of a sudden you're doing more things  and it just grows.  It's magic to watch for me anyway. So Howard Kaufman talked about clubhouse. What are your thoughts on clubhouse?

Christoph Trappe: [00:20:15] So I'm not focusing any time on it. And I think that's a very unpopular opinion. It seems, but, here's the thing, first of all, I'm trying to get the most out of my content as possible. So here's what that means. I use it in as many channels as possible for as long as I can. And Clubhouse doesn't currently fit any of those things and look at this, Russ, we're having a good conversation. I like to think so on here and we're not on clubhouse and we're going everywhere, even channels I didn't know about, which is awesome. Clubhouse, it's just a room of people. Okay. And you have to work on building another network. So it's the same problem that we have on podcast channels. So it's all about building new networks and it's so hard to do. So right now my opinion is, Twitter spaces is rolling out. So if the audio trend will take a pickup, and if I'm actually hopping on that bandwagon, I'm much more likely to do Twitter Spaces because I already have an audience on Twitter. I already have a community, so I'm not going to build a whole new community, by the way, most of the people I'm connecting with on clubhouse, I'm already connected with everywhere else. Like, why do we need one more app? Guy, meet me over here.  It's like we're meeting over here. Hey let's pack up, get on the bus, toilet on the bus isn't working, but we have to drive four hours to go to a new restaurant just because it's in the news. Do you know what I mean?

Russ Johns: [00:21:39] Yeah. I remember the same effect and it's very unique,  its fresh. And so everybody's going in there and it's really this effect of it's very conversational and it reminds me of Blab. And I don't know if you were on Blab in the early days. I was on there all the time and it's people coming in, people leaving. It's like this open networking event and it was really addicting and you could spend hours and not just recognize it, just be going away. And right now, at this point in time, I have things I have to accomplish for, client work and efforts in life and everything that's going on. And for me to get lost in four hours of clubhouses is really, like you said, it's a you have to watch what you do with your time and how you spend your efforts and where you grow your audience. And although I have to say, I have met a few new people on clubhouse that are not in the network.

Christoph Trappe: [00:22:36] And the other thing on clubhouse too, is so on podcasts, I'm listening to podcasts all day, depending what I'm doing. So earlier I did some writing, so I turned it all off. But then I did some keyword research and I can listen to podcasts just fine when I do keyword research. So I turn them on and then I picked it up again later. And then you and I came on and I turned it all off and you can't do it on clubhouse because it's right then and there. Like it's it's kinda let's meet at the water cooler all day and then we get no work done.

Russ Johns: [00:23:05] Yeah. Darleen says Silverfox Talks, double stream sport. #PirateBroadcast™ fantastic. And Bob, coffee in the morning. Good morning, young man. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. Hiett says, hi to Howard. The pirate community is amazing, Christoph and I just love it. Start more conversations, meet more people, love it and keep it simple. He says, the thing that I really appreciate about the content creation process and especially the journey that I've had with hundreds of episodes of the #PirateBroadcast™ is I get to have interesting conversations every single day, different people expanding the communications. And a lot of people get to meet people that they wouldn't normally meet. Because I bring him into  the session and record this live and have the conversation, and then it goes out to the podcast and I share it again and, create some social. So I hope your experience was comfortable getting on and getting involved and connecting. So it's probably a process that, a lot of people could adapt to their own platform.

Christoph Trappe: [00:24:22] Five stars, five stars for sure. Also five stars for our haircuts today are...

Russ Johns: [00:24:27] Carefree, or hair-free carefree life.

Christoph Trappe: [00:24:30] I really appreciate you making the time so bright and early. I know that's your usual time, but still bright and early.

Russ Johns: [00:24:35] Yeah. So any life skills or tips you can share with people about thinking about going live stream or podcasting or content creation, you've got an abundance of information and experience. So I'd love to be able to have you share that with the community here.

Christoph Trappe: [00:24:53] I think the biggest thing is just get started. You don't need a fancy mic. You don't need a fancy chair. You don't need a Washington Football hat, especially if you're not a fan of Washington. But my point is you just have to go. When I first started, I had my iPhone 6, seriously guys. So something to think about is just get started, then think of it as a conversation. Marcus Sheridan talks about that individual sale quite a bit, and it makes it so much easier, Russ. I know we got, who knows how many people watch him, but just based on the comments, it looks like a bunch. And but I don't think of it as a TV production. I think of it as I'm having a conversation with you. Think of it as a conversation, don't think of it like you have to be perfect. I stumble all the time. Sometimes I forget what I say. Some, whatever, like roll with it. Just go with the punches. There was a show I did the other day and my guest, I completely lost his video. I don't, we don't know why, but we're a middle of the show, so you know what I did, I just put myself full screen with the logo. And I put his name on the top. I said, voice of Ryan Carruthers. And we still continued just roll with it. Like, why would we have to cancel? We're still talking, like you can't see him and we're just talking anyways, so it's fine. But just roll with the punches. I think that's and know your options.

Russ Johns: [00:26:10] That's great advice, Christoph. It's a pleasure. I'm glad that we got to finally connect and catch up. And I know that we'll probably have future conversations taking place. And as we, as this whole thing evolves, because I think we're just on the tip of the iceberg of this live stream community and content creation is still evolving and expanding, and there are so many great things that are going on. Oh, Michael. Michael Hubicki, great combo. He has a great show called the thriving mayor and he actually helps  new mayors actually  map their vision and their execution out in the mayor's seat. And Darleen has a show. Thanks Russ, with a great convo. Angie, an awesome pirate in from Twitter or Periscope. Have a great day pirates. Thank you so much. And Christoph, again, thank you so much for being here. And how do you like people to connect with you and follow you and engage with you?

Christoph Trappe: [00:27:16] Really appreciate you making the time and the great experience, authenticstorytelling.net works if you Google my name super easy to find, honestly, Christoph Trappe you can see the spelling right there in the center. C Trappe on Twitter, LinkedIn, if you're going to connect with me on LinkedIn, make sure you tell me, you heard me on Russ'  show. I don't think you're some crazy spamy salesperson who wants to help me with all of my goals. No offense to salespeople, but they don't know my goals unless they know me.

Russ Johns: [00:27:44] Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you and everyone, thank you so much for being here on the #PirateBroadcast™. If you want to show or you want to experience something much like this, the #PirateSyndicate™ helps business owners and speakers, authors, coaches, experience to be seen, be heard and be talked about. So you can go over there and find out more. And also we're here every day to make sure that you have a little bit of information, #inspiration and #motivation. Because #kindnessiscool and  #smilesarefree and I want you to #enjoyyourday. Christoph, take care.

Christoph Trappe: [00:28:24] Have a good one.

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