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​Russ Johns
And it's a great day at the pirate broadcast. I, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate the fact that you're here. All the gratitude in the world. And I'll look at the phone and LinkedIn because we're doing LinkedIn live. We're also doing Facebook Live, YouTube, live streaming and Periscope as well. And then also, I know we're going to be talking about podcasting, because I'm a fan. And Mark is a fan as well. So we're going to be talking about what that means and what is happening in the market today. And I really appreciate the fact that we have some people in the audience in the community that are out doing podcasting, Mark, good morning. Good day. How are you this fine afternoon? I know you're recovering from a cold

Mark Shaw
It's early afternoon here in the UK. weather is miserable as ever. So that's pretty standard for where we are

Russ Johns
so it's a normal day

Mark Shaw
Just getting over being unwell, which maybe we can talk about perhaps why I've been unwell overdoing it, and it takes its toll. You can keep doing 15 hour days, but we'll talk about that.

Russ Johns
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So let's talk about why you're in this situation right now. Because you have been in the podcasting arena, you've been in business for a while now. And you started this platform called spotaguest, which I'm a member of, and, you know, we met on LinkedIn. And then you had launched the spot a guest community, which is a phenomenal community, by the way, I brought people in, I've met people there. I'm still connecting with people there. And one of the challenges that we always see is, running a community is not necessarily as simple as just launching a website and saying, Have a nice day. Go play So, let's talk about how you thought about creating Spotaguest and what's the master plan behind it?

Mark Shaw
Okay, so, and I don't pretend the irony about all this is that I don't pretend to be a podcasting expert. I'm not. I'm a newbie, I'm a beginner. But what I am is I've been on a lot of podcasts as a guest. Loved it, it's doing fantastic things for my career, more visibility, credibility, more opportunity, collaboration. So over the years, done bucket loads. The problem I always had was how do you find a host who's looking for a podcast guest? It's very difficult, very difficult. So I wanted to do something for myself. And it's just blown up. So what did I do? I started off last September, with a very simple email list. And all I did was I who will look Forget went out went out once a week. And that was going fantastic. The problem that then started to happen, or the nice thing I suppose it then started that was where people were messaging me and say, Mark, I'd like to do more than just an email list. I'd like to chat to others, meet others, connect with others, get advice, share best practice, do a load of other things that are community related. What can we do? So I thought I'd No idea. So I looked into it. I'm not on Facebook. I'm not a fan. slack didn't really have the functionality that I needed. And someone out of the blue message told me about mighty networks. Mighty networks is a platform to allow you to build a community. Once I found that I then had a home to put this place and I created that mid December last year that probably the worst two weeks you can start anything. And I just started telling people and since then, now if you fast forward to where are we Mid Litterally the end of February, two and a half thousand members in there now. And what are they doing? They are finding hosts, finding guests, getting best practice learning, getting education, finding resources, promoting their shows, and so on. And the funny thing is, is that people think I'm involved in everything going on there. I'm not what I'm involved with, and which is what's taken its toll is just trying to grow it. It's tough. You got a market, anyone who says, you know, build it, and they come, that's a Hollywood film. That's not real life. And they don't come. They don't show up. We're not celebrities. I'm Denzel Washington. No one just turns up because we're famous. So you have to work it and work it and work it and even when you're tired, you gotta keep pushing. So I'm in the background, connecting on LinkedIn has been my primary place of doing it connecting, encouraging people to join, and I'm also the guy in there responding to everyone with replying to everyone helping everyone. There's no team is just me. I'm on it 15 hours a day it's global. I got people messaging me at 12 midnight one in the morning, I'm on the phone. I'm in supermarkets. I'm replying nonstop. Oh, it's tough. It's tough. Maybe some of that is my own fault. We have a sense now with the world. You have to respond instantly. You have to look after the customer. Otherwise, they're going to slag you off no end on social media rubbish. And you didn't reply. But the net effect of that is your health. You either have to get a team, pay people, or you have to just say, I can't do this. I can't work 14 or 15 hour days, every day. We can wait. I'm working weekends non stop with this. So it's been tough, enjoyable. Don't get me wrong. I love the community. It's got a great spirit about it, and meeting some really cool people and the most important thing people message me all the time. They are finding guests for their shows. They are finding opportunities for themselves. They are getting more listeners, more guesting opportunities and hooking up with people. So it's working. But what I will say though, it's like any other social media platform Okay, you have to put some effort in a lot of people show up and maybe this is social as well they show up they shout Hello look at me and then they disappear nothing's gonna happen nothing's gonna happen you not Oprah Winfrey people aren't gonna be waiting to phone you. Okay, so put a little bit of effort photo bio the usual suspects you know information about you, but all the people are there. Two and a half thousand he grows every day. I've got some great people in though you know, recommending others to join and hook up and come and join us. It's all free. No money for any of this. So people say where's the money in this? No idea. I have no idea. I earn like 8 pence a month off Amazon for me, okay, nothing. Nothing. Okay? So anyone who says oh affiliate you know you're going to earn a fortune you don't that's another myth

Russ Johns
the game is getting more challenging.

Mark Shaw
trust me on this. You're lucky if you go you know, my I have a bookshop and all the books are authors who are members of spotaguest, there not my books. They put about 180 books and I've earned three pounds I think. Yeah in total. So, but I just enjoy bringing people together. I enjoy connecting that one of the interesting things is is the one everything in there is not mine. I have no courses, books, webinars training. How can I I have no credibility as an expert in podcasting? I'm still got the iPhone headset, okay. So I'm not an expert and I don't pretend to be, but what I do is I recommend people to the experts So I promote other people's courses, books, trainings, whatever,

Russ Johns
like more of an agent then

Mark Shaw
an agent a connector whatever you want to call it

Russ Johns
So yeah, I want to talk about this because it sounds like you're at a point where, you know, you've started something that scratched an itch for yourself, you know, you had an idea you had it. It's like, how do you connect A with B? There's really no marketplace for that in podcasting. You know, it's probably like the first real estate broker that decided, hey, somebody's selling a house and somebody wants to buy a house. There's some there's possibly an idea and opportunity in between, you know, so the first person in line to do something like this, like yourself is, you know, the one that gets all the arrows and you know, the has to go through all the disasters and all those challenges along with the whole process. And I know for a fact Mark based on my experience, because I'm You know, doing very similar things with with the Pirate broadcast, you know, I broadcast five days a week. And getting guests is not been my challenge. You know, it's, it's I'm booked. I think I'm almost booked completely through March five days a week. So that process is I've got that pretty well organized. And what happens though is anytime you create a large organization where you got a lot of managed people is that you have to have helpers. There are people out there that are in your community, that if you put out the the mention and saying Hey, would you like to bot volunteer to be an admin for some of these channels that are overwhelming me because we can't I can't do it alone. You know, and when you try to do something alone, it doesn't allow others the opportunity to grow. So turn It around rather than saying I have to do this to get to do this, and I want to help others get to do this,

Mark Shaw
okay so that is great advice.

Russ Johns
So that simple mindset that shift is allows you to say, Okay, let's recruit a couple of people that can actually do this with me. You know, there's, you're not making any money in there. So it's a community, it's a true community. So you're not losing any money or you're not having to pay somebody to help you along the way. The thing that you have to do as the founder and and the person that has the vision is be this, you know, the CEO, the the person that's directing where this place is going, and that way, it's a beautiful thing because the community will go where the community will go,

Mark Shaw
Well exactly and, you know, I give them all the tools that they need

Russ Johns
You have created a powerful tool

Mark Shaw
And it is a fantastic platform.

Mark Shaw
And I just, you know, try and give them ideas, try and connect as many as I can. I would just love a great place with where an incredible amount of people connect, find what they're looking for guest hosts advice, information, resources, whatever that is. All in one place. That's my vision. Monetization, no clue, no clue. And to be frank with you, life's been good to me. It's not I don't have to worry about, you know, my next mortgage payment going to get paid from the Amazon affiliate stuff don't have to worry about it either. So I just do stuff with a genuine belief that I can help people. And if they just perhaps listened a bit more or took part a bit more, they'd realize that, you know, if I say to a lot of people, you know, if I could put you in a room with two and a half thousand other people all interested in the podcasting space, that might be a good day out for you. That might be a reasonable opportunity for you to talk about whatever you want to talk about. And when I find the lie that most people go, okay, you know, I can understand that. And so, like anything, you know, takes time, I'm bit impatient. I'm middle aged, I want everything yesterday. And maybe your advice is sound, I need to delegate more I need to find some people in there who I can say, you know, can you answer, you know, just the West, you know, just the timezone problem?

Russ Johns
Yeah. Solve one problem at time

Mark Shaw
10 o'clock at night and I o'clock in the morning, can someone just reply to people because I can't and I get people messaging me saying why didn't you reply? I mean, what's wrong with you?

Russ Johns
It just Could you come on the pirate broadcasting say, I'm working as fast as I can, folks.

Mark Shaw
I'm in the supermarket. I'm in the road. I can't go any quicker. This is I can't respond any quicker.

Russ Johns
So you know that the beauty of what we're doing here is that There are very few rules that tell us what we need to do. That's the whole point of the pirate broadcast is the fact that it doesn't require rules to decide what we want to do with it. And I think a couple of things I notice, from being in the group is that people are friendly. People have been courteous, they're willing to help. And, and I don't know that you have to put as much effort in there, as you have been doing. Because I think, I think when you reduce some of the things that you're putting in there, that opens up a vacuum where other people can actually contribute to that.

Mark Shaw
Okay, well, that was good advice as well because one of the one of the things I very rarely but occasionally I do is that people don't understand that when they have a private chat with someone on there. I don't see it just like LinkedIn or Facebook, I have no involvement in anything that's private. So I don't get a sense of how busy the place really could be. Because I see all the public activity.

Russ Johns
Yeah, it's an active community Mark. And, I think if you allow others and you get a couple of recruits to make sure that the comments are being moderated, and also the the conversations are continuing, and you have a couple of contributors, I'm going to have on I think on Monday, I'm going to have Yam, Yam is from zest.is and he's built a community of people that are creating content in written format, primarily. And some of that stuff, you can you can you can actually curate information and drop it in there that doesn't take a lot of time of your it doesn't require you to respond. So getting creative with this, those pieces of the puzzle are really a strategy for long term growth. This is a marathon not a sprint. You know

Mark Shaw
Well the word that I've tried to encompass sometimes well sometimes badly for 2020 is scale. I need to learn how to do things at scale better and I'm the greatest one to one guy on everything want to speak to you fine book in the calendar want to talk to you what a train you everything's one to one that's not scalable. You need to find tools and find ways of scaling one. So now for example, I I did a whole episode on I've done over the years about 240 radio interviews. My career I've been been fantastic for my career. Podcast guesting brilliant radio interviews as well. Fantastic, but I had to get on the radio. Radio is very different from podcasting is not recorded. It's live it's fly by the seat of your pants. How do you do it? What do you do? What do you say what not to say friend? I've mastered all I've done so many go to go to the BBC and Sky News and always have that. Anyway, how do I teach that at scale? So I did an audio recording, put it on Soundcloud and now anyone in the community 32 minutes you can listen to that doesn't mean Mark has to do it one to one. So I'm learning slowly. Scale is a way to go when you have a lot of people that you need to get information across to.

Russ Johns
That's like I'm getting ready to launch a platform called the pirate syndicate. Now, what that allows people to do much like you, you shot an email out this morning about a Aluto, which is I actually own podcasts your brand I used to teach podcasting and I taught University and podcast movement and a lot A lot of people how to start, I've probably started and help produce over 1000 podcasts, right? Okay. I love live because I don't like editing. Okay, so the pirate syndicate, though, is all of the automation to scale your business. And what you need to do is show up and be the host and have that. So we build out your show, we create your entire process. And we use, like networks, like, you know, your network, like, on a spotaguest and we collaborate with people, and the people that don't have the time to do the technology. They're overwhelmed by the technology, they don't have time to do all of the graphics and the efforts and, you know, processing and posting and all of that stuff on social media. So what I

Mark Shaw
Well there's two things I think it's really important that if I've learned Okay, again, I'm not an expert. I don't pretend to be but what what I will say is this Number one, I think a lot of people make out podcasting is very complex very complicated it's not

Russ Johns
it doesn't have to be an awesome have

Mark Shaw
to be iPhone headset, you got a podcast it's as simple as that. It may not be the greatest sounding intros, outros musics guests and Baba Baba, but it's a podcast. that's point number one, get on angka. Get yourself a couple with Canva free you up and running with a podcast in a minute. So it doesn't need to be and I think a lot of people get caught up in this, you know, spending months planning and preparing and buying and they spend a fortune on equipment. don't need any of that folks, not at the beginning, unless you really want to make a very serious sound thing going on. The second thing I want to say is that the technology has moved on considerably from where it was when you started this. I mean, I've been going five minutes, okay. And the biggest factor that I couldn't do was editing. I had no clue. I lived Audacity and yeah, that's that to me like, you know, the Starship Enterprise no clue. And here's the thing, Russ don't want to have a clue. I don't want to spend two hours matching and then someone in the community recommended allatoon to me, and I tried it. And if someone like me at my age, nowhere middle age, not technical, where I can set up and have a good sounding podcast thing in five minutes. With the sound with everything done for you that that to me was the greatest thing I've ever found. Fantastic. So I just want to get across to people that it doesn't cost a lot of money doesn't have to is not complex, complicated. Yes, what I would spend your money on and this is the final thing I'll say is don't spend your money on equipment to start with. You gotta spend their money on marketing. Gotta get people to find that and listen to it. You got the greatest show, the greatest recording the greatest microphone with the boom and the sound and the Ba ba ba ba ba. But no one listens. You got to market it. That's what you need to get advice and spend your money.

Russ Johns
Yeah, I totally agree with you. Hey, I want to I want to give a shout out to everybody in the room right now. Greetings from UK Shootra. Wendy. Good morning, Wendy. Thank you so much for being here. Jennifer. Thank you so much. I love the fact that you're here. Fred Costa thank you for continuing about podcasting. You know, we've been podcasting for a long time. Mark. So Gabriel is in the room. He's starting a podcast. I had a conversation with Gabriel the other day. I'm not sure if you'reon spotaguest but if your not join spotaguest. love to have you there. Wendy, Mark Shaw who helped me find hosts that want to hear my story. So you're making an impact Mark, I just want to make sure that you know that are Thank you so much. Appreciate it and Sheri Lally. Thank you Wendy. I'm very familiar. Sherri Lally is familiar. She's an amazing individual that is always helping somebody. So Vicki O'Neill, ah, anti social Mark Shaw.

Mark Shaw
I've been on Vickie show. Fantastic. Thank you, Vicki.

Russ Johns
Yes, yes. Jennifer. Debbie, Wemyss, thank you so much for joining us. Good to hear you from Miami. And Angie, good morning. from Wisconsin, So said that yesterday to Russ. I forgot what we were saying but actually said the right people come at different times the right people will show up Mark when we need them. So that's

Mark Shaw
exactly, exactly and and you know, again, for some reason Maybe it's just the 2020 seems to be the year, every once in a while to want to start a podcast. Everybody wants to start a podcast,

Russ Johns
I don't know, there's already 800,000 podcasts.

Mark Shaw
That's nothing you can YouTube and the other social platforms as half That's nothing. So it's at the very early stages. So the opportunities there for everyone with a story to share it to get it out there. So never think, who would listen to my story who wants to know about my story? Trust me, there are people who are interested so the key message really is don't have a podcast for everybody have a podcast for a specific group of people, a podcast to everybody's a podcast and nobody. Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing that I've been learning and whatever, trying to please everyone trying to have a show about everything gets, you know, listeners you need the more niche. And the same with being a guest. Yeah, I see a lot of people who try and want to be guests, which is fantastic. But they won't become a guest because they are too wooly with how they discribe themselves I'm a coach. I'm a leader, I'm an expert doesn't get you on a show. What gets you on a show is being very targeted with what you can do, what you're going to bring to the party, and most importantly, what the host listeners will get from you being all the host cares about all their listeners. And if you're bringing value to their show to their listeners, they love you on every single show on the planet around your topic of expertise. Well, if all you do is talk about yourself, your book, you're this you're this no host is interested. It doesn't add value to their listeners.

Russ Johns
Yeah, yeah. If you come on the show and pitch your stuff. That's not a very good experience for the host

Mark Shaw
and it has no value to the listeners either the the host cares about them, and you need to pitch you. What are you delivering for them? When you do more of that, and be very specific, that's when you get more guest opportunities. And once you do a good guest opportunity, guess what more hosts will contact you because you've been a great guest. It just is a revolving door go round and round.

Russ Johns
Well, Jjohn Esperian posted a great post on yesterday, I believe, or the day before about how to be a great guest on a podcast. And it was, you know, it's a lot of the things we're talking about Mark. It's the idea that you know, add value to the community of the podcast, make sure that you show up, you may make sure that you have, you know, your audio and your lighting and everything else is going on. I mean, several tips. So if you're on LinkedIn, go track down John Esperian, Vicki O'Neill, she's also shared quite a few great tips on on the podcast elements. And you don't have to make it complicated either. You know, it doesn't has to be complicated.

Mark Shaw
I've got this I've got headset, this is not, you know, most of the people you see, you know, have all the technical and they're putting it up in the windshields and it all looks like, oh my god is a Hollywood production. It doesn't have to be but of course, you're representing your brand. So the professional show up on time, be respectful of the other people's time. It's a podcast, it's sound. It needs to sound good. If you are in a noisy place with a Kangoo drill going off. ain't gonna work. sound obvious, but you'll be amazed ok alright. And likewise, listen to that. One of the tips I always tell people which I don't understand why more people don't do this, Russ is why not as a guest. record a little audio snippet. Stick it on SoundCloud. Stick it on anchor, it's all free as your demo of you, your voice, your sound your personality, and why you want to be on the show why? You want to be a guest? That does two things when the host then gets the link to that recording. They can hear you it's a podcast. I want to know what you sound like. Why does everyone fill out a form? doesn't tell me what I sound like. Okay, it's good for videos not good for audio. don't slip it. Tell them give me a human giving me a personality give them the sound of why you want to be on there sell yourself and drive the host to as amongst other things to listen to you that I think is a great way to get you out of everyone else is doing this email. Can I be on your show? I think I'll be a good match gonna be on your show. You get under those. Anything.

Mark Shaw
It's almost the same thing when you when you get a connection request in LinkedIn. And next message two seconds later is Hey, can I sell you something? It's likeThat's here. The That I I'm going to create a spoof video or something like that just specifically for those people about what not to do. And Mark I want a couple of things I want to I want to make sure that we cover before we we take off today is that you know, I want everybody to join me on spotaguest you know i'm i'm also you know, I'm in this for the long haul the marathon I've been doing this a lot of years, you know, I got an advertising in Eighty-Five. So, you know, marketing, advertising, technology, all of this stuff. So it's been a few days, right? And there's very few things that I haven't experienced personally and I've had some massive, amazing failures on what not to do. So and that's the only reason why I'm here to help other people do this. So I love I love having a conversation with interesting people doing interesting things and and I wanted to thank you Mark, come on board. And talk about this and I think a couple of things, you know, you don't have to do this alone. There are people out there they're willing to help if you just put if you ask the question, build a team around your goal and have board members like a mastermind group that can give you some feedback and say Mark, relax, this will take care of itself. And also allow yourself and it doesn't have to be official board you don't have to you know, you can have people on the board members. But this I think this you gotta hustle, you gotta crush it you know, all this these things are just really it's counterproductive in the long run because I see so many people start something like that. They hundred miles an hour they flame on and then they burn out and then they go away and it doesn't help anyone

Mark Shaw
Russ. I'll put a post out I think last week by basically said winning is not being in the gym at three in the morning. coming back for vegan green fruit juice, smoothie. Winning is getting up at 1130 in the morning, looking around the room again back to bed for another hour. That's winning, okay? And all these nonsense, have you got a work 91 hours a day, it's not winning yourself, you can't do it. And people are made to feel bad, because they're not doing it. They think they're failing or they're losers or whatever, you know, you just can't do that volume of stuff. And your advice is correct. I need to take more time to find the right people to find a team to do less, be more productive with my time to scale and to focus your spawn.

Russ Johns
And I love the pirate broadcast. I love the pirates. And we're we're closing in on 100 episodes. Now, Mark, and this is a this is a movement around kindness. I mean, you know, it's the whole premise. I do. things, and I wake up and I find joy in my day. You know, every day is a gift. You know, let's not kill ourselves to prove a point. Let's enjoy life and make sure that we're there tomorrow for the people that love us and care for us and around us.

Mark Shaw
and you know what, you're right. And I feel guilty if I take a day off. Guilty. If I take an hour off I'm feeling bad work, you know, Could something have happened? I didn't respond. Excuse me. I didn't feel good genuinely,

Russ Johns
We need intervention more. Call me when you're feeling bad.

Mark Shaw
I know. We need someone to just say slap on it. And it'll work its way out. It's okay.

Russ Johns
It's okay.

Mark Shaw
So typically, though, Russ the only time where we take a slow moment is when were ill and I've been ill. And so I had to take it. The last four days. I felt so much better

Russ Johns
Did Anybody lose an eye? Did anybody lose a podcast?

Mark Shaw
Nothing, nothing. Nothing, nothing. I'm getting my voice back. It's fantastic. Nothing happened.

Russ Johns
So anyway, I'm just here. I just want to share with everybody that we're a community. We got to stick together as a community, we got to help each other out. There's always going to be somebody that can actually you know, fill your soul when you need it. And say that special opportunity that message that you need to hear once in a while, just be open to hearing it. That's that's what life is all about. So

Mark Shaw
good advice.

Russ Johns
What's the one thing you want to leave with the world today? If you had if you had to share a gift today with everyone?

Mark Shaw
I think what you just said is spot on. I think more people need to just go You know what, I'm human. I can't don't need to work 19 hours a day. It's impossible. And to take it slower. As you said, it's a marathon, not a sprint. Get the right help get more people involved to help you. And don't feel you have to do all on your own I think would be great advice for anybody.

Russ Johns
Mark appreciate the fact that you're here. If you're not connected with Mark on spotaguest Go ahead, reach out Connect. And if if you're there and spotaguest connect with me. You know, I'm happy to to have a conversation with you and and offer any assistance I can. And for all the pirates out there, I know that we had a lot of them. Sean Sherry, Gabriel, Lori, AJ, all of the people that join in support the pirate broadcast all the gratitude in the world and as you know,

Russ Johns
#kindnessiscool, #Smilesarefree and you #Enjoytheday

Russ Johns
Till next time, Mark

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