The Hard Corps Marketing Show

Michael Greenberg talks about all the elements that make up a successful B2B podcast with Casey Cheshire on the Hard Corps Marketing Show.

Casey Chesire  0:05  

Oh yes, this is The Hard Corps Marketing Show. I’m Casey Chesire, your host for this epic journey. And today’s show is sponsored by Cheshire Impact on a mission to help people maximize their use of Pardot and Salesforce,  chesireimpact.com.

And we’re live. And I’m excited about this one. I’m excited because this is going to be one of those like meta cool podcasts. We’re gonna be talking about content, gonna be talking about podcasting on a podcast. And my guest is freaking cool. He is a B2B growth strategist. He is a marketer. He is a marketing hacker and a podcast strategist, entrepreneur with a really cool way of doing things very efficiently and all of that. So right there, we’re going to geek out for a couple of hours. He is the CEO and Chief Interviewer of Call For Content. Michael Greenberg, how are you, sir?

Michael Greenberg 1:07

I’m doing great. Casey, How about yourself?

Casey Chesire  1:09

Good. I’m stoked. It’s a Thursday, at least where we’re at. And we’re gonna be talking about all my favorite subjects: content, podcasting, marketing. It’s like a marketing palooza over here. So let me pass this to you. This is Thor’s hammer. So go ahead and take that. And smash for me some kind of bogus marketing strategy, some myth that whatever drives you the crazy.

Michael Greenberg  1:36  

Starting with a blog?

Casey Chesire  1:39  

 Starting with a blog. As in, don’t do it.

Michael Greenberg  1:43  

Blogs are the worst thing of all content options that you could start with. They’re the easiest to repurpose from anything else. If you’re starting with video, transcribing that video turning into a blog is easy, and then you post the video in it, you’ve already got some frames to freeze. It all comes together.

Casey Chesire  2:05  

 Right .

Michael Greenberg  2:06  

My personal favorite.If you do one podcast with a good expert, like an interview, that could be two or three blog posts right there.

Casey Chesire  2:19  

Yeah, like you. So this could be several blog posts worth of cool content.

Michael Greenberg  2:23  

Yeah, I think we’ll have a full ebook after this.

Casey Chesire  2:26  

Oh, hell yeah, let’s do it. What do we need for an ebook? How long we have to talk about that?

Michael Greenberg  2:30  

So the rule I go by is about an hour.  That’s going to get you probably about 2000 or 3000-word ebook. So not too long. 

Casey Chesire  2:44  

That’s pretty intense. An hour though, huh?

Michael Greenberg  2:46  

Yeah, people speak at about 150 words per minute. So if you’re a fast talker, that could be 200 or 300. And when you start thinking in those terms, you’re getting 10 000 to 15,000 words potentially, in an hour of deep interview.

Casey Chesire  3:11  

That’s a lot of um’s, though, I imagine you got to strip those out.

Michael Greenberg  3:14  

Oh, yeah.  And really what I like to do is I take the transcript, and then we have an outline. And normally, we have the outline before the transcript. So we build an outline, and then we do the interview, or we do the discussion. And then that lets us really easily port over to other content formats because we already have the outline of the base content. 

Casey Chesire  3:39  

Got it? How deep do you go on that outline? 

Michael Greenberg  3:45  

Two or three levels? Generally, I’ll have topical headings, then interview questions underneath, and maybe some bullets underneath those interview questions. I like to keep the questions open-ended.

Casey Chesire  4:00  

So topical headings, questions, and then some supporting bullets for follow on questions after that. That’s cool. This is cool, too, because I can even step up my prep game because I’ve got some topical headings and every now and then I got some questions. Mostly I have bullets, so I could even restructure. But I think that the value here though is the more planning and prep you put into that first thing, the easier it is to get turned into all the other pieces of content.

Michael Greenberg  4:31  

Exactly. And you really want to have speech via video or audio as your first piece just because you get so much more in the amount of time that you’re working.

Casey Chesire  4:44  

Right.  For some people, it’s easier to do like for me, I’ll talk to you all day. Writing a formal letter to you back and forth all day, takes a little more effort, you know?

Michael Greenberg  4:54  

Yeah, yeah, it really does.

Casey Chesire  5:05 

So don’t start with a blog. Don’t you have HubSpot, and Inbound Marketing and they’re just like, blog blog blog. Buy our blog and then blog every day. 

Michael Greenberg  5:08  

That first part is pretty important.

Casey Chesire  5:14  

Is that just what it is, hey, use our system, and then you’re stuck with it versus is it the best thing for you or me. To be fair, though, prior to that, would you have just no content, or would you have the occasional white paper every nine months? 

Michael Greenberg  5:20  

Yeah, I think it goes back to technological change. Bandwidth has increased.  Audio and video are now much more widely consumed. Five years ago, that was not the case. In the same way, 10 years ago it was impossible.

Casey Chesire  5:55  

Got it, so don’t hate on HubSpot too much back then that was the tool.  You had a blog because you know, video is going to cost you a fortune and gigabytes of bandwidth.

Michael Greenberg  6:06  

Yeah. And most people weren’t even going to be able to get it. They’re not watching it on their phones like today’s mobile video is a big part of the video playbook.

Casey Chesire  6:16  

That makes sense. I mean, I’m on YouTube watching videos all day long. Not all day long, but all night long sometimes.

Michael Greenberg  6:23  

Yeah, and YouTube’s a huge audio channel too. One thing that I think a lot of people discount is much of the long-form video is currently consumed as audio. So you put on that hour-long video in the background, you do some other things, and then you switch back to it when something piques your interest.

Casey Chesire  6:48  

Like this show.

Michael Greenberg  6:49  

Exactly.

Casey Chesire  6:50  

And until I do something weird like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing behind you right now. I just listened to this thing. What’s behind Michael right now?

Michael Greenberg  7:02  

Yeah, there’s actually a painting that you can’t see.

Casey Chesire  7:08  

Really? It’s like an invisible painting, or maybe it’s covered with a Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

Michael Greenberg  7:13  

Yeah, or it’s like a foot out of your line of sight. 

Casey Chesire  7:18  

See now we’re talking about this painting people are thinking wait, I want to check this thing out. But you’re right, our shows on YouTube as well as on all the other audio channels, and that’s just for the people that want to see my fantastic radio face or see the interaction between us. It’s much more fun chatting with you when you can, you can see facial expressions and that kind of thing.

Michael Greenberg  7:41  

Yeah.

Casey Chesire  7:42  

Hmm. Okay, so don’t start with a blog. Start with a podcast.

Michael Greenberg  7:49  

I really like podcasts, obviously, I have made my whole company about them now.

Casey Chesire  7:54  

Yeah, well, I love them too, so you don’t have to twist my arm, but we are telling this to everyone. You know, mostly listening to this right now are B2B marketers in North America and some really cool realtors and some really cool parents of mine and a few people everywhere else, a couple B2C marketers and salespeople. Still, we’re telling them to start with a podcast. Where do you start with that?

Michael Greenberg  8:19  

So let’s talk B2B because that’s my favorite.  If you’re starting with a podcast and you’re starting in B2B with a podcast, the first thing to think about is your business personas, who you’re going after.  And that will help inform the decision on who you’re going to interview for the show. Because developing a show where you’re interviewing people for lead gen and prospecting versus partnerships could be a very different angle. 

Casey Chesire  8:59  

Interesting. That’s really deliberate and intentional, and something I hadn’t quite thought of. The idea of what kind of guests you even want to have on this? Or what kind of people should be listening to this? And the type of people you invite matter. As much as your audience.

Michael Greenberg  9:17  

Well, we’re not even to the audience yet.

Casey Chesire  9:19  

Oh, no, not even there. We’re just talking about who the guest is.

Michael Greenberg  9:23  

So we’re just talking about the business, and you’re targeting within it. Because then what you want to look at is you’ve got guests, and you’ve got an audience and either or both, can be used to do lead generation. So you could have on people who were a good fit for your business and use that to initiate those relationships. That works really well with enterprise and with the middle market. Or you could be developing a show where you’re more likely to have on good potential partners. And you’re really developing the show for an audience of potential prospects.

Casey Chesire  10:29  

You have potential partners, and then your audience could be your prospects.

Michael Greenberg  10:33  

Yeah.

Casey Chesire  10:35  

And you can customize all of that and design that specifically for those purposes.

Michael Greenberg  10:40  

Exactly. And you might want multiple shows, like Call For Content. We’re putting out our first two podcasts as Call For Content this year. One of them is going to be focused on partnerships. One of them is going to be focused on lead generation. 

Casey Chesire  11:00 

Oh, you are going to do two separate podcasts with two different audiences in two different angles and approaches.

Michael Greenberg  11:09

Exactly

 Casey Chesire  11:11

 Wow, take it even deeper, making it a little more advanced level. You know, you got one podcast, how many podcasts do you have? You know, it’s like how many blogs do you have?  Initially, you have one blog and you are just happy to have one. Eventually, you have multiple ones. But in this case, start with one podcast and maybe you add on a couple of different other ones.

Michael Greenberg  11:19  

Yeah. So one of them is going to be a weekly show,  and the other ones can be seasonal.

Casey Chesire  11:27  

Really?

Michael Greenberg  11:29  

I really liked the season drop. Because you get to plan your marketing and promotion of it much more effectively. You’ve got say, 10 episodes and you’re planning your whole content arc before it drops.

Casey Chesire  11:47  

Tell me more about this, because I think I get the idea of a weekly show. That’s what this one is. But what is the seasonal show? What are these drops you’re talking about?

Michael Greenberg  11:55  

Yeah. So think of it as a new Netflix show. You’re going to get that whole bingeable season.

Casey Chesire  12:03  

You’ve got a show on Netflix now that you are watching.

Michael Greenberg  12:08  

 Yeah, I just started the second season of She’s gotta have it. It’s Spike Lee. It’s good and I enjoy it.

Casey Chesire  12:21  

 Alright, so that season has a start and a stop. Hopefully, it’s not as atrocious as the Game of Thrones ending that just occurred now and the travesty of that.

Michael Greenberg  12:30  

Yeah, that’s not the real ending. So I’ve got books, and there’s no way George RR Martin would write that.

Casey Chesire  12:40  

No, he would much rather murder everyone than to have a happy ending like that. Just be so, spoiler alert. And now you have to get the books because the HBO just totally butchered it after seven beautiful seasons. Anyways, don’t do it as HBO did. Instead, do what Netflix is doing? How many episodes would a podcast have in a season?

Michael Greenberg  13:08  

I’d go anywhere between eight and 12 for most things. I think that’s a good number. That’ll give you enough room to work. But it won’t give you so much that you’re grasping at straws to try to fill that space.

Casey Chesire  13:29  

 Let’s get on this thing and just hang out. Okay, so you have a particular plan for the show. That kinda reminds me of that podcast serial. Do you ever listen to that one?

Michael Greenberg  13:40  

Yeah, that is seasonal, but they drop seasons of shows. There’s a reason why a lot of the big networks move to that model for podcasts.  

Casey Chesire  13:50  

I guess it was different because it wasn’t a Joe Rogan where every day was a different guy or gal on the show. It was this plotted season of, we’re going to investigate this crime and did so and so do it. Next episode, we’re going to talk to his parents and see what they said, you know it was very captivating, I mean the serial took off.

Michael Greenberg  14:11  

Yeah, it has a narrative arc

Casey Chesire  14:14  

Narrative arc. Okay. Cool. Can you accomplish that in the B2B world? 

Michael Greenberg  14:20  

Oh, yeah. If you want to. I don’t want to give away everything. 

Casey Chesire  14:28  

Ah yes, the spoilers. What’s your season about?

Michael Greenberg  14:33  

So it’s about the business of podcasting.  Looking at behind the scenes, people who work in podcasting and don’t have a podcast?

Casey Chesire  14:45  

Hmm.

Michael Greenberg  14:47  

So what’s the producer at a network doing? How do they interact with their ads and sponsorship dollars?  What’s a small B2B show look like? And what’s the production company behind that doing? How is the podcasting industry taking shape? And so we can look at the little guys and the big guys, and the way we position those episodes will be able to create discussion around different concepts.  Even if people aren’t actually speaking with each other.

Casey Chesire  15:31  

Okay, because you’re, you’re kind of tying it all together,

Michael Greenberg  15:34  

Right. By planning everything before we start, we’re able to really interweave the talking points between episodes.

Casey Chesire  15:44  

Hmm. 

Michael Greenberg  15:45  

And to layer in a little technical for you. We use a very similar process when we’re doing our SEO planning to weave in SEO into the content we’re developing from podcasting. 

Casey Chesire 16:06  

Here I thought I was just getting on a thing and just chit-chatting with people, no no no,  there’s so much more layers to it. It’s like you’re kind of exposing me to behind the scenes of Disney World, no idea what’s happening.

Michael Greenberg  16:17  

To hear that from an experienced marketer warms my heart. 

Casey Chesire  16:22  

I’m here all day, I’ll just keep warming it like an Easy-Bake Oven.  So, that might be the bridge I was looking for because one of the things I was thinking about was webinars. Maybe there’s a certain number of them you want to do, and they don’t go on forever, but there’s a certain start and a stop and you don’t want to do them as a webinar. Maybe you want to do it as a podcast. Can you do it that way? And I hadn’t even thought of the idea of like a seasonal podcast, with a start and a stop. How do you tie them altogether from a big picture point of view?

Michael Greenberg  17:06  

Well, I’m a big repurposing guy.

Casey Chesire  17:11  

Yeah, sounds like it.

Michael Greenberg  17:12  

I’m building a season. There’s going to be a download associated with it. It’s probably going to be an E-book or two or three about the season. Then I’m planning the outlines for those in tandem with the outline for the season. We might have a 12-page document that goes through, what we’re looking for in number one, here’s what we’re looking for number two. Here are the pieces from different episodes and what we’re trying to pull out to do this. Then when somebody sits down to actually do the interviews, they’re armed with all that knowledge.  They know where they’re trying to take that.

Casey Chesire  17:55  

Right. Would it be a faux pas to do a screen share on a podcast? Can you do that? Or does that become a webinar? And what specifically defines a webinar versus a podcast episode? 

Michael Greenberg  18:14  

So I think for a podcast, you want to assume it’s going to be only streaming audio. 

Casey Chesire  18:20  

Really? Well, it’s true. I mean 50 people will watch this but a bazillion are going to listen to it. So I guess that’s your point, right is that most people will listen.

Michael Greenberg  18:32  

So you plan for one book and repurpose as another.

Casey Chesire  18:38  

Plan for one repurpose for another? Okay. I am talking to Yoda here. Plan for one you must repurpose after it you will. You will see your plan for one, then you repurpose from there.

Michael Greenberg  18:54  

Yeah, you should see our SOPs. There are just ellipses everywhere, like five words ellipsis, five words ellipsis.

Casey Chesire  19:01  

Really? 

Michael Greenberg  19:03  

Oh, yeah. The sales script we use literally has, listen, and count to five in it. Just as the reminder all throughout.

Casey Chesire  19:20  

 Before saying anything,

Michael Greenberg  19:21  

Yeah, whenever somebody takes a pause. Listen, count to five before a response. Because half the time somebody will just start talking again.

Casey Chesire  19:31  

That’s true. I’ve definitely experienced that. But it’s long as you’re comfortable, and I’m confident maybe to be okay with the silence. Then it’ll happen afterward. You know someone will say something.

Michael Greenberg  19:44  

Yeah. And you know from interviews, that’s one of the best ways to get a guest talking.

Casey Chesire  19:50  

Right. Maybe I’ll just start trying that on you now.

Michael Greenberg  19:53  

Just stop talking.  I’ll be forced to fill in.

Casey Chesire  20:04  

We’re just sitting here staring at each other. People in their car commuting to work are going:  what just happened right there. We shared a moment here people, a moment, but that’s cool that you got that scripted out so much. Okay, so now tying it all back into you. Where do I start with a podcast you said: start with the personas number two, then figuring out what the audience or the style of the show is?

Michael Greenberg  20:30  

Number two’s the audience

Casey Chesire  20:31  

 Number two is the audience, okay? 

Michael Greenberg  20:33  

Because the audience will then determine a style for you. A good marketer means we’re doing things based on research. Once we’ve got our audience, that’ll tell us the style. That’ll tell us the guests that we’re having on.  if we haven’t already determined that you do want to make sure you have that fit. But if you’re a good marketer, then you’re well targeted. And this shouldn’t be super difficult to plan for you. Guys, I hate to say it like that.

Casey Chesire  21:19  

But what if you’re a bad marketer and you need a little extra?

Michael Greenberg  21:23  

If you’re a bad marketer, go learn customer research. That’s the number one skill set. Know who you’re trying to sell to.

Casey Chesire  21:38  

Any favorite books on the topic?

Michael Greenberg  21:44  

 I’ve got one. The Authority Marketing Playbook callforcontent.com/amp or authoritymarketingplaybook.com, and it walks through how we do our customer research. It’s got the templates of questions that we ask people. We interview our clients’ customers directly. I found that one on one qualitative interviews works really well for building out personas, especially for content.

Casey Chesire  22:24  

Yeah, that sounds a lot like the Dell revela and buyer personas and just got to get on the phone with them. You just got to start talking. And it makes sense to you’re the chief interviewer right. So when you’re interviewing on a podcast or interview customers, you want to be out there talking to them and ask them questions. Make sense? Okay, so you know who you’re trying to target. That’s your audience. How does your audience determine your style? How do you make that jump from one to two?

Michael Greenberg  22:54  

You want to know when they’re listening. If they’re listening on commutes or when they’re working out, those have time periods associated with them, and those have tones of the show that work better for them. You don’t want a slow pace show if most of your listeners are listening when they’re on their morning jog.

Casey Chesire  23:25  

Got it

Michael Greenberg  23:27  

And you don’t want a too high pace of a show if most of your listeners are going to be in the car.

Casey Chesire  23:35  

Got it? I can imagine you know flipping those around will be devastating. Like on a morning jog, I don’t hear slow music. Just as much as I  probably don’t want to hear the slow podcast.

Michael Greenberg  23:49  

Right. And thinking about the music is a really good way because the music that’s associated with the show, on that intro, sets the tone for the rest of the show.

Casey Chesire  24:05  

Right, right.

Michael Greenberg  24:07  

And so if you try to figure out what music they’re listening to in the car, then you can try to match your show to that music.

Casey Chesire  24:17  

Right. And, you know, I’m thinking about this show, because it’s always cool to do that. While talking to Yoda, and about podcasts, it has these cool rock chords, and it’s timed in with the marching of military feet at the same time. It’s hardcore marketing. That’s how we stay on top of things. Make sure we keep it as a high tempo.

Michael Greenberg  24:44  

Yeah, that comes across in your personality. I can tell you more of a high tempo guy to begin with,

Casey Chesire  24:52  

Got it. Are we saying a high tempo, or have we gotten in the weeds because I’m just learning here.

Michael Greenberg  24:58  

I think we’ve gotten a little bit in the weeds.  But I mean, when we went down the rabbit hole of planning content with podcasts that can go on for just about ever.

Casey Chesire  25:12  

Oh, yeah, especially the seasons and whatnot. Okay, so tone. That’s really cool. I hadn’t thought about that. The tone you set. And I suppose the guests you might have might try to affect it, right? You have a super high tempo guest versus a chill guest.

Michael Greenberg  25:30  

But structure makes a big part of this now.

Casey Chesire  25:33  

Oh okay. Does structure help with the tone? Even if your guest is chill versus Elon Musk before smoking pot on that show versus after? 

Michael Greenberg  25:44  

Yeah, actually, if you’ve got something like a lightning round of questions, or you’re asking, you know, 5, 6, 7 short answers, quick back and forth questions, or really just building in those sort of segments. It can help speed up a longer show. And similarly, if you’ve got a five or 10-minute show, you want it to be pretty highly structured at that point. And so that gives you the ability to increase the pace. So you can reduce the length of the entire show or you are segmenting to simulate that reduction to keep up the show’s tempo.

Casey Chesire  26:15  

That’s very interesting. I’m gonna have to ask you later on where you learn this stuff, but this totally makes sense. 

Michael Greenberg  26:33  

Yeah. Go read books about radio show planning. There’s a blog post online somewhere, I think it’s a medium article about the unofficial gimlet reading list. And I just picked a few books off of that around  audio storytelling and around professional Radio Show production, And they’ve been doing audio for years. Now, they always want to do the high tempo stuff on the radio because of the nature of the listener base. But podcasting gave us the option to do that slow burn and extended out.

Casey Chesire  27:21  

See, I’ve always been kind of a fan of that long-form, conversation, a little bit of a loose structure. So you can get some nuggets in there. But then you can kind of have more of a connection with someone than that highly edited thing. That’s just what I’ve preferred. But you know, to your point, there’s all different kinds of styles, and then ways you can hack the long-form of different places so that it doesn’t seem so long or slow or fast.

Michael Greenberg  27:48  

Exactly. 

Casey Chesire  27:49  

Hmm. I hadn’t thought about the fact that we’ve been doing audio radio for a long time, because when you mentioned, there was a reading list. I was like there are books on this. It hasn’t been out that long, but technically all those people in radio, were kind of wondering what to do with their careers now have this resurgence in podcasting?

Michael Greenberg  28:08  

Yeah. And you see the fiction podcasts are the new big thing, right? I’ve been listening to audio dramas, and old murder mysteries and stuff that were radio play from the 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s my whole life. I mean, that’s what my dad listened to in the car most of the time. 

Casey Chesire  28:39  

Really? Not even music when you’re growing up is it all radio plays?

Michael Greenberg  28:42  

Well, there’s some Macy Gray, but a lot of those like old mysteries, Lone Ranger, that sort of thing. A lot of those early TV shows started as radio.

Casey Chesire  28:56  

Hmm, interesting. Yeah, I guess. As a kid, I remember things. Teddy Ruxpin and there’s some like recorded stories on tape and that kind of thing. And now you’re right. It’s like audible all day every day. Sometimes nonfiction, but also just the fiction on there. It’s just, you know, I guess it depends if you’re an audio person or video person reading versus hearing, do you encounter that? Or are we saying start with the audio or start with a podcast, but some people just prefer reading it?

Michael Greenberg  29:25  

Oh, yeah.Definitely. I have entire clients where we develop the podcast for content production but know that their audience is mostly C level executives. And 80% of the time, they’re only going to read the blog post associated with it.

Casey Chesire  29:48  

But it’s much more efficient to do it in podcast form first, and then turn it into the content. No one listens to that podcast. That’s okay. Because everyone’s gonna be reading it anyways afterward.

Michael Greenberg  30:02  

Yeah, it’s still cheaper for us to produce that in that process.

Casey Chesire  30:08  

Wow, what makes it cheaper to do it that way? What about making the conversation first makes it more efficient?

Michael Greenberg  30:14  

The depth when you’ve got two people talking back and forth at that 150-200 words a minute. You get so much more done in an hour. And it’s already in a pretty conversational manner. With a good interviewer, we’ve got these big blocks where one person speaks and a lot of times you can pull those out and use them almost verbatim, just a little bit of clean up into prose.

Casey Chesire  30:47  

Just a little bit of cleanup, so transcribing it gets into some um’s, but to your point, you’re gonna get a goofy output if you don’t have a structure already built into your questions right. So you’re almost doing yourself a favor by planning it out properly. Otherwise, you look at this transcript and be like, where’s that section? They talked about this. It’s like over here.

Michael Greenberg  31:11  

But the transcripts are searchable.

Casey Chesire  31:13  

That’s true, but you could save yourself some even more time by having some order to that chaos as you go through.

Michael Greenberg  31:22  

Yeah.  But that order doesn’t have to be super strict. On my personal show, I interview Colorado-based entrepreneurs, and  I’ve got the same format every episode. We’re starting with where they made the decision to become an entrepreneur, the journey to their current business. Then we use that to look forward, talk about industry trends, transition into tips and then close out the episode with specific recommendations. And then finally, a book recommendation.  And that’s a 25 to a 35-minute recording. Maybe at most going to cut five minutes from the tape.

Casey Chesire  32:10  

And you give them those questions ahead of time, so they’re ready to pop it.

Michael Greenberg  32:13  

 They know that’s the format we’re working in. And then I keep it like just a conversation.

Casey Chesire  32:21  

Got it. One man at a time. This is roughly where we’re going. But then you don’t need them like reading an answer off a script or anything.

Michael Greenberg  32:29  

Exactly. And even if we have questions, we’re unlikely to give them the questions ahead of time. 

Casey Chesire  32:36  

Aren’t you? 

Michael Greenberg  32:38 

We probably won’t.

Casey Chesire  32:40  

Just because you don’t want them to overthink the answer.

Michael Greenberg  32:43  

Yeah, we will give headings, but you don’t necessarily want to give somebody the questions.

Casey Chesire  32:54  

Because then they just think about those answers.

Michael Greenberg  32:58  

We don’t want them doing that.

Casey Chesire  33:00  

I know, but if they really think about it, you might get a better sound bite, you know a better clip for later. 

Michael Greenberg  33:08  

Yeah, I do a different process. We will share questions, will share everything if we know that the primary use cases are going to be written content. So we want it to be a little more free-flowing if we’re publishing audio first.

Casey Chesire  33:35  

Right. I was just thinking about those LinkedIn clips, so you only got 30 seconds. You gotta make it impactful. But if you’re having a conversation like this, maybe it’s a little rambly to be able to sound bite the heck out of it, you know?

Michael Greenberg  33:48  

Yeah, in an hour of conversation, and then even 30 minutes of conversation, you’ll get a sound bite or two. And that’s all you really need for promotion or something’s really wrong. 

Casey Chesire  33:59  

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. So what was the name of your show? You mentioned you are going to interview Colorado entrepreneurs.

Michael Greenberg  34:10  

So that’s Talk With The Top Colorado.

Casey Chesire  34:14  

Talk With The Top Colorado. Do you have like, top of the top? Not Colorado?

Michael Greenberg  34:22  

Yeah. I’ve got St. Louis too. I used to live in St. Louis. And then I moved to Colorado. And so St. Louis has a new host, who’s in St. Louis.

Casey Chesire  34:33  

Are you still going to St. Louis?

Michael Greenberg  34:36  

Yeah. 

Casey Chesire  34:37  

Oh, sick.

Michael Greenberg  34:38  

Yeah. And then I’m hoping to put up one more internationally this year for Talk With The Top.

Casey Chesire  34:43  

 Do you own that brand? Talk With The Top? That’s your, your thing?

Michael Greenberg  34:47  

 I’ve been using it, and nobody’s sued me. So

Casey Chesire  34:50  

That’s yours now, man.  Possessions, nine-tenths, or something? I know if that’s true or not.

Michael Greenberg  34:56  

I don’t think anybody’s going to get all fussy about a podcast just yet.

Casey Chesire  35:01  

Right, it’s not you’re calling it Coca Cola Colorado.

Michael Greenberg  35:06  

That’s a good show name now that you think about it.

Casey Chesire  35:09  

Man, I can’t wait to use that. I’ve always wanted to know what a cease and desist look like.

Michael Greenberg  35:16  

The unofficial Bobcat show gets you one too.

Casey Chesire  35:18  

Right, that would definitely. Where is that podcast, Talk With The Top Colorado. Is that on iTunes?

Michael Greenberg  35:25  

iTunes, Spotify, Google Play.

Casey Chesire  35:27  

iTunes, Spotify, Google Play.Cool, because I think for someone who wanted to hear a show with an order to the chaos,  maybe the direct contrast to what you’re listening to right now, that would be interesting to listen to and hear it much more tightly controlled. 25 minutes Get in, get out. Get all the answers. Yeah. It kind of reminds you of Tim Ferriss and his podcast, he asked these questions, people have answers. He’s going to edit the heck out of it so that if they breathe for a second they are going to cut that out. So it’s like a very compact, efficient. It’s like that runners’ gel you’re going to drink midway through your marathon just compact full of energy.

Michael Greenberg  36:15  

Yeah, there are so many different levels and styles of show production.  Those are conscious decisions that are made to make it sound more like NPR verses make it sound more informal. That’s a big choice. And it’s an expensive one.

Casey Chesire  36:39  

Well, to go NPR. It’s expensive, right?

Michael Greenberg  36:41  

Yeah. I mean, as soon as you start editing out those breaths and stuff, then you’re talking two and a half, three times the length of the episode. Maybe more to edit. That’s just time and money.

Casey Chesire  36:55  

Yeah, just to get rid of that. And you’re right. So to your point. Style. You know, maybe it’s 25 minutes, but if it’s highly edited, then it may cost us as long as a nice long conversation.  Yeah, as you mentioned, all these things about how you plan it. And the way I did mine was just what I liked listening to, and then from there, it was just well, I kind of liked the Joe Rogan’s of the world and that long conversation and kind of shooting the breeze and taking the combo, where it goes and all that and so that’s sort of naturally what I then wanted to create and have those kinds of conversations with people.

Michael Greenberg  37:39  

Right? Yeah.

Casey Chesire  37:41  

What kind of you listen to you? Do you prefer short, intense, or long?

Michael Greenberg  37:50  

I like long. I don’t listen to that many podcasts. I’ll be honest. I spend too much time working with them.  I end up reading a lot of them. And for work, I’ll listen at a time and a half or two times with the transcript up.

Casey Chesire  38:06  

Totally.

Michael Greenberg  38:11  

I like it long, I like it in depth. And I like a single topic.

Casey Chesire  38:20  

Okay, so single topic versus multiple topics. What’s the difference? How can you tell? Why use the two?

Michael Greenberg  38:29  

I really want to listen to an interview with somebody who’s a subject matter expert and I want to listen to them talk about that. If their life comes up in part of that, that’s great, but I don’t care so much about the other things surrounding them so much as I care about their expertise that’s why I’m listening. Like Shane Parishes podcast is one that I really like. The Knowledge Project. Farnam Street is the blog. Stratechery.That’s a tech strategy podcast. From a big tech stock analyst. 

Casey Chesire  39:22  

What’s the knowledge project? 

Michael Greenberg  39:24  

The knowledge project is the Farnam Street podcast.

Casey Chesire  39:28  

 What’s so fun about that? What’s on there?

Michael Greenberg  39:30  

Interviewing really super cool experts. I don’t have a better explanation than that. 

Casey Chesire  39:43  

But that’s a cool explanation. Got me intrigued with just that.

Michael Greenberg  39:46  

Yeah, that’s a show you’ll learn something from every time.

Casey Chesire  39:52  

Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Because I know with Rogan, sometimes you’ll have a fighting campaign where they’re just watching a fight with some of his buddies, you will learn nothing. But you can kind of just veg out with a bunch of dudes watching UFC fights. Whereas another time if he’s interviewing a microbiologist, you’re gonna learn about plants and spores and all sorts of stuff. In this case, it sounds like this Knowledge project is a hit of some cool info from an expert. I totally get what you’re talking about there.  I would say right now we’re kind of in a single topic podcast, would you say?

Michael Greenberg  40:35  

I would definitely say so.

Casey Chesire  40:36  

Okay, because we’ve kept it on a topic too. So I guess we started talking about something weird or different than maybe the multi-topic. But right now,  I’m fascinated because I love the podcast, but kind of learning the background of it and how to really kind of plan it out in advance is really cool.

Michael Greenberg  40:55  

Yeah, for me it’s all about the strategy.

Casey Chesire  41:00  

All about the strategy. 

Michael Greenberg  41:02  

That’s where you start.

Casey Chesire  41:04  

Start with strategy. Very cool. Alright, so I guess at some point, then you figured out your personas, you figured out your audience. Is it just go time? You figured out what you want to talk about, who you want to have on the show, you just hit record. Is that the next step?

Michael Greenberg  41:29  

Yeah, you got it. You’re probably gonna want to get a microphone. 

Casey Chesire  41:36  

Not like your laptop sound.

Michael Greenberg  41:38  

Yeah, you’re going to want to determine if you’re recording in person, or not because you’ll want a different kit for those. But you’re probably going to be recording your podcast remotely.

Casey Chesire  41:52  

Like this one.

Michael Greenberg  41:52  

Yeah. And then you’re going to want to use a zoom or ringer to get your audio and or video,

Casey Chesire  42:04  

Is your Colorado one? Is that onsite?

Michael Greenberg  42:08  

I do both?

Casey Chesire  42:08

 Both?  Because I guess it is a big state. You may not be right next door. 

Michael Greenberg  42:14

Yeah, if they’re in Denver or they’re in Boulder, there’s a pretty good chance we’ll record in person.  Otherwise, it’s unlikely. We’ll just get on the phone or the laptop. 

Casey Chesire  42:31  

And then do you recommend the people editing themselves? 

Michael Greenberg  42:35  

No, pay someone.

Casey Chesire  42:37  

Your company does that, right?

Michael Greenberg  42:39  

Yeah, my company does it. We work with some other companies to get it done. We like the show planning, but editing is not a core function for us. So we work with partners who have better pricing than we could ever get on some of the show concepts.  And I mean, you can get a quality editing job done for as low as $40 or $50 an episode, and your transcription cost is near zero. With automated transcription prices the way they are today.

Casey Chesire  43:19  

Got it.  And what’s the name of your company again? And then what’s a good link for it? While we’re on the topic?

Michael Greenberg  43:30  

The link is callforcontent.com.

Casey Chesire  43:38  

Cool. And I suppose it isn’t just the podcast, really, to your point. It’s all that other content that comes from there. Do you help people create that as well?

Michael Greenberg  43:45  

Yeah. So we like to stay podcast first. We have packages where we do the podcast, we do the blog, we do the little videos, we manage the social, and we run the ads for that whole thing. So we have anything from doing one piece of the podcasting or content work. Well, one piece of the podcasting work, if you just say, hey, I want you to write blog posts for me, I recommend you go somewhere else.

Casey Chesire  44:17  

Right,  because it’s not where you start.  Start with the podcast. If you’re starting with a podcast, you need to listen to this episode. Realize this now where you should go first. Guess one of the objections you might get to is, Well, look, I’m not as goofy as Casey, I’m not as well-spoken as Michael is. I can’t host this thing. How good do people have to be? Do they have to be home shopping network hosts? 

Michael Greenberg  44:46  

No, if you are an executive of any sort. Most of your business is talking. By the time you’re in episode three or four, you’re going to be good to go. And we’ve got coaching processes to help people get up to speed as hosts. And we have coaches that we will bring in to help if needed, who have experienced as professional podcasters or interviewers of broadcasters.

Casey Chesire  45:17  

Geez, so you can learn from people at the same time. If you’re an executive, you’re hosting meetings anyways. You’re having hard conversations, you’re having easy conversations. And I guess it really ties back to the audience too. Being able to align with them.

Michael Greenberg  45:36  

Yeah, I mean, you want to speak their language. And so if we’re working with a company, we want somebody ideally in leadership, to be that host for the show.

Casey Chesire  45:49  

Right. Not some third party person. Have you ever hosted someone else’s show?

Michael Greenberg  45:54  

I have not, but we’ve brought in hosts to do that. And then that really only works if we’ve got a really tight show concept. And then we bring in a host who’s a subject matter expert to work there. We’ve got a few hosts who are salespeople. So that way, they can bird dog for the client if so needed. 

Casey Chesire  46:20  

What does that mean? 

Michael Greenberg  46:23  

That’s drumming up leads.

Casey Chesire  46:28  

Is the host a salesperson? 

Michael Greenberg  46:30  

Yes,  the host has sales experience, and then they’ll prospect the guest and refer them back as a lead to the company,

Casey Chesire  46:38  

Like on the podcast or as a part of the whole process?

Michael Greenberg  46:42  

As a part of the process. So we’ve got those 10 minutes before and after.

Casey Chesire  46:48  

Seriously, wow.  I don’t know if that’s cool or dark or sneaky or brilliant at the same. 

Michael Greenberg   46:57  

 It’s made a lot of Six-Figure shows. I’ll tell you that. If you’re working B2B, that’s a cost-effective way to do high-quality lead generation because you can position your show if you’ve got some audience with it. People actually want to be on it and you can reach the prospects you’re trying to reach.

Casey Chesire  47:19  

Wow. Even to have a salesperson on there. I mean, it’s one thing to prospect, as you get you to have your hunter with the spear right there hosting and asking the questions So Michael after we get off the show, I will talk to you about your Salesforce account.

Michael Greenberg  47:38  

Really? What if you asked on-air, so walk me through your sales and marketing automation process? How do those work together? What are you using?  I use Pardot.

Casey Chesire  47:50  

 Okay, how’s that going for you? Well, hey, we will talk afterward about that. 

Michael Greenberg  47:58  

Yeah, I mean, your whole show can be around that concept. And if you’re a good interviewer, you can make it interesting for those people.

Casey Chesire  48:06  

Right. And I suppose, chatting for a while helps build some rapport with someone more so than just some telephone call.

Michael Greenberg  48:15  

Yep. And asking them to come on the show and touchpoint one. And then you’ve got the Franklin effect coming into play. They’re doing something nice for you by coming to the show. You’re doing something nice for them by featuring them. Cognitive dissonance starts to kick in. And suddenly they’re like, man, I like this guy. We just chatted and had a friendly conversation for 45 minutes. 

Casey Chesire  48:41  

Or an hour 15.

Michael Greenberg  48:43  

Yeah, maybe you’ve got a pre-interview call setup weeks before because that’s just best practice for a show, to begin with. But it also lines up perfectly with a podcast based sales process.

Casey Chesire  48:58  

Geez, it’s fantastic. I guess there’s only so long a runway until everyone thinks you’re being invited in a podcast to get sold to. We got a year before that happens.

Michael Greenberg  49:07  

I think we’re getting there with some categories.

Casey Chesire  49:11  

Getting there already.

Michael Greenberg  49:15  

 You’ve got to do a really good job of making your podcast professional. To make that work. Having that pre-show call or having an assistant manage the process. All these are little things that signal I’ve got a real show. And you want a real show at the end. 

Casey Chesire  49:39  

For sure because now I’m thinking all the previous guests that I’ve talked to are gonna hear this show and tell me,  so I know what you’re trying to do. I wasn’t trying to do that. But yeah, interesting.

Michael Greenberg  49:53  

Yeah, I mean, I’ve thought about just setting up a whole sales team of those, you know, putting that out as a package Podcast Network for lead gen. You get five shows for your sales team to record episodes under the plan and get out there.

Casey Chesire  50:12  

Especially with ABM, right, like the whole idea of account-based marketing, you’re targeting your big whales, you’re targeting your big fish. You wouldn’t do that at scale with 10,000. But you might do that with your top 100.

Michael Greenberg  50:25  

Exactly. And if you’ve got that 10,000 lists, then that might be the custom audience here working along with interviewing that top 100. And that’s actually kind of the secret sauce behind our authority marketing edge strategy.  We build that list, we build the list of accounts out, and then we tie in key accounts to interviews and use that with the promotion to target an audience of sub 10,000.

Casey Chesire  51:05  

Got it. So it doesn’t have to be for the world, you do not have a million listeners, you just want your key 10,000, and maybe you’re interviewing your key 100.

Michael Greenberg  51:14  

Yeah. I mean, if you’ve got 150, 200 listeners. I’d bet that’s more than you’ve had in a room for a talk before.

Casey Chesire  51:24  

That’s true unless you’re a dream force, you probably haven’t had that many people. You know, listening.

Michael Greenberg  51:30  

Yeah. 

Casey Chesire  51:33  

Putting it like, that’s killer.

Michael Greenberg  51:34  

Thanks. That’s the thing. I’m still trying to drum into clients’ heads. Quite honestly. People come to me for guest appearances. And they say I want to show on podcasts, but I only want to go on shows with five or 10,000 downloads per episode. That’s cutting out 90% of the market. And those little 200, 300 download shows. Those 300 downloads from the executive coaches show where he’s doing his show mostly to network with people who might be potential leads. His 200 300 listeners are likely his client base, and they’re close.

Casey Chesire  52:22  

Like CEOs that are decision-makers. Exactly what you want to talk to, you don’t want to talk to 10,000 randos. Do you want to talk to those highly targeted ones? That’s another good point in terms of the size of the show. You know, like for ours, we’ve humble beginnings, but we talked to B2B marketers in North America and Finland and a couple of other cool places. I see you out there downloading on Spotify. But for the most part, a concentrated area and a certain type of person listening to it, and that’s okay. And it’s not 10,000 yet. It’s a core group of people specific to. Some people want to talk to you.

Michael Greenberg  53:02  

And as long as it’s that audience, and it’s a good audience.  That’s again going back to why I love B2B bigger numbers.

Casey Chesire  53:12  

Yeah. And then it’s worth doing now you’re not selling sneakers, you’re selling massive IT software something to that effect.

Michael Greenberg  53:19  

Yeah. If when you’re selling those,  $50,000 hundred thousand engagements and then 200 to 300 starts to sound really good.

Casey Chesire  53:29  

Yeah, 200 to 300 super qualified prospects that are listening to you on their way to work. That’s fantastic.

Michael Greenberg  53:40  

The close rate that you’ll see from people coming in through podcasts I guarantee is going to be one of your highest converting channels. 

Casey Chesire  53:48  

Really what? Just because they’ve been listening. They’ve gone through the sales cycle on their own by just listening to your show over and over and over again, I guess.

Michael Greenberg  53:57  

Yeah, they already trust you when they’re actually getting in contact, they’re already having a conversation with you. Right? The podcasts are conversations.  So they’re already in conversation with you before you speak with them.

Casey Chesire  54:12  

Right. They’re judging you, is this person cool? Can I trust them?  What kind of feelings are they sharing versus, are they advocating, cheating people, or whatnot. So they’ve already kind of made a judgment call on whether you are a good person. That’s interesting. You kind of built-in trust by the time you get to someone.

Michael Greenberg  54:30  

Yeah, Again, it reminds me of speaking engagements. That’s really my best comparison. I might not get many people coming up to me afterward saying, hey, I want to buy from you. But the ones that do get an 85% close rate on.

Casey Chesire  54:54  

You know, that’s a really good comparison because I’ve gone to some local user groups before where you maybe have a small conference room with 12 people in it, you know or  15 but I was happy to drive there and go to that event because it was the right people in the right room.

Michael Greenberg  55:10  

Yeah, only one of them needs to buy to make that a very worthwhile event.

Casey Chesire  55:14  

Pay for the gas and your time. One person purchases and you are paid for probably a whole year of doing those events if it’s a B2B type cycle.

Michael Greenberg  55:22  

Yeah. 

Casey Chesire  55:24  

This is a sick man. This is the point where I asked, who are you? And I know you don’t necessarily want to know about you, but I think the people who have just had their minds blown about podcasts are really curious because I know I am. Take us back. Little Michael, did you know you’re going to get into podcasts and business?. 

Michael Greenberg  55:46  

Business? Yes. When I  was growing up in third grade, I said:” When I grow up, I want to be a businessman.”

Casey Chesire  55:54  

Really? Did you write like a businessman with a crayon somewhere?

Michael Greenberg  55:58  

Yeah. And wearing a gray suit.

Casey Chesire  56:01  

Really? 

Michael Greenberg  56:03  

 With a briefcase, you know, classic businessman.

Casey Chesire  56:07  

Like IBM businessman kind of guy.

Michael Greenberg  56:09  

Yeah. Except maybe not a red tie.

Casey Chesire  56:12  

No red tie. Got it. You just knew that. Was there something that kind of attracted you to that at that point or?

Michael Greenberg  56:19  

Yeah, I mean, my dad was an entrepreneur and was a real estate broker. And then several generations of his family are all entrepreneurs.  And it’s a streak that runs through that whole side. My grandfather on my mom’s side was also an entrepreneur and a grandmaster plumber. He took over that business from his father. So it was also the one thing I was told that I shouldn’t do. Don’t start your own business.

Casey Chesire  56:53  

No, they said, don’t do it?

Michael Greenberg  56:54  

Right. Don’t take that risk. Go get a good corporate job. Get an education. So naturally, I did none of those things.

Casey Chesire  57:04  

Right. It’s funny how we don’t listen.  For me, all my generations were all military, and they’re like, grow your hair long. Don’t join the military, of course, you know, it’s like no one listens to that. So you didn’t listen.

Michael Greenberg  57:20  

No, never listen. Because if everyone’s telling you not to do something in your family, because they’ve all done it, there’s a reason why they’ve all done it. And it’s not just legacy. I think there’s definitely something in my family’s genes that makes us better working for ourselves than for somebody else. 

Casey Chesire  57:40  

Well, that’s important, you know, sometimes you’re like the worst employee ever, but you’re a pretty cool entrepreneur.

Michael Greenberg  57:47  

Yeah. And so, I started, you know, selling lemonade and candy bars in school. Candy bars for big business. We are making a few hundred a week off of that.

Casey Chesire  58:00  

How much did you sell the bars for?

Michael Greenberg  58:02  

Dollar 

Casey Chesire  58:03  

 Right? Would you get them for?  50 cents? I sold stuff in the Boy Scouts. The popcorn’s hard you have to come back for, but drinks are weird because you’re making them. But candy bars like boom, boom, you know.

Michael Greenberg  58:05  

50 cents  And I carry a briefcase, like a fundraising briefcase of candy bars around in High School.  So I had my advertising with me everywhere. We ended up having three guys at a school. We were doing about 800 a week in the end.

Casey Chesire  58:42  

Whoah, wait. So you were in school, and you were carrying a briefcase, and you had two other guys in that same school with you? And like anytime someone wanted, they just hit you up. Hey, man. You know, Michael, give me some Kit-Kats.

Michael Greenberg  58:54  

Yeah, well, we try to post up at the major intersections.

Casey Chesire  58:58  

Oh, sick dude.  You had to negotiate with the school so that they would let you do that or was it completely rogue.

Michael Greenberg  59:05  

This was totally rogue. I mean, they can’t stop a fundraiser.

Casey Chesire  59:09  

True. True.

Michael Greenberg  59:12  

And actually, the football coach got really angry when we started moving in on his turf because he would sell candy and chips right outside his classroom door.

Casey Chesire  59:22  

What he personally would sell him. 

Michael Greenberg  59:24  

Yeah, that was a major fundraiser.

Casey Chesire  59:27  

Kind of weird for the football coach.

Michael Greenberg  59:29  

This was right around the time when they were pulling all the junk food out of the vending machines. So it was perfect timing for us. We were the only source for a lot of this candy. We turned a tidy profit. 

Casey Chesire  59:46  

And that was in one school. How many schools are you in?

Michael Greenberg  59:48  

Two.

Casey Chesire  59:49  

 So what was it like a nearby other high school or?

Michael Greenberg  59:53  

Yeah, yeah. So there was a different district but a much larger school. We never really got in there quite as well.  I think not having me on site made a difference? Yeah, that was my first trial in expansion in sales and marketing. We ran customer loyalty programs.

Casey Chesire  1:00:16  

Like candy punch cards and stuff.

Michael Greenberg  1:00:18  

Yeah. So I’d market down on the inside by 10 and get one free. Run promotions on things that weren’t moving well. All that sort of stuff.

Casey Chesire  1:00:28  

And nobody wants the Mars bar. So you’re like, Hey, we got two for one Mars bars today.

Michael Greenberg  1:00:33  

Exactly. And you get to know your sales route. So I’m hitting the same class schedule every day or every other day. And I know different people are interested in different things. So maybe if I know this guy in physics class, he only buys deals. Then I make sure that my box always has at least one deal running.

Casey Chesire  1:00:55  

What dude, you’re like a sugar dealer.

Michael Greenberg  1:00:59  

Yeah. Some were looking back that I probably was. And I’d buy a box of King Size Twix bars once in a while. Cuz, that’s the biggest candy bar.

Casey Chesire  1:01:13  

Is it for the four-pack or something? 

Michael Greenberg  1:01:16  

Those were 75 cents a bar. So we weren’t really making a profit on them.  But people always come hitting you up. If they know you have them sometimes. Then they always want to see, Hey, you got those in stock? No, but I’ve got this other thing.

Casey Chesire  1:01:32  

That’s like what Walmart does, man. They get you in the store with a super low deal, and when you buy something else that is on the markup.

Michael Greenberg  1:01:39  

Exactly. 

Casey Chesire  1:01:40  

That’s crazy. That’s what I think more drug dealers should do, is just sell candy bars. I mean, use that entrepreneurial spirit and sell something that arguably is hazardous as well. 

Michael Greenberg  1:02:03  

I think if they’re already selling the drugs, we’re past that point.

Casey Chesire  1:02:06  

Yeah, the markup on those is a little higher than 50 cents per Snickers.

Michael Greenberg  1:02:12  

Yeah, you gotta sell whole boxes of candy.

Casey Chesire  1:02:15  

That’s a lot of candy. But that’s cool. So you are just doing that early on just kind of hustling and trying things out, and you’re really learning customer experiences and sales strategies just from trial and error.

Michael Greenberg  1:02:28  

Yeah. And then I went to college, started studying economics.

Casey Chesire  1:02:34  

So candy in college?

Michael Greenberg  1:02:36  

 No.

Casey Chesire  1:02:36  

No? 

Michael Greenberg  1:02:37  

No. Not the same business. They sold cheesecake in the lobby like you can’t compete.

Casey Chesire  1:02:45  

 Where’d you go? 

Michael Greenberg  1:02:48  

So I dropped out of school, and I started back up, so college number one was College of Western Ohio. Small liberal arts school. That’s where they had the cheesecake in the coffee shop cafe.

Casey Chesire  1:03:02  

Oh, I see there’s a whole cafe. So you weren’t in high school anymore. You would go get little coffee cheesecake. Sweet. So it’s hard. I get it. Mine had had some stuff in the lobby eventually, too. And it’s hard to compete with that.

Michael Greenberg  1:03:18  

Yeah. So that business wasn’t really there. But if you happen to have a fake ID and are the only guy in the dorm with one, then maybe you and your roommate could back up a Jeep full of alcohol. 

Casey Chesire  1:03:31  

Oh, you upgraded, you fiend.

Michael Greenberg  1:03:33  

Yeah.

Casey Chesire  1:03:37  

 Funny. You’re thinking like a business the whole time you’re at school. And it may be a class or two. If you can be bothered.

Michael Greenberg  1:03:45  

Yeah,  I’m not great at school.

Casey Chesire  1:03:48  

Same here. I’ll tell you like, Oh, this is really exciting. I’m trying all these things, doing all these business things. And it’s like, Hmm, I gotta go to class. What would you study when you first got in there?

Michael Greenberg  1:03:58  

Economics and Russian.

Casey Chesire  1:03:59  

 Russian?

Michael Greenberg  1:04:00  

Yeah. So I was planning on doing French, but I tested out of the first semester.  And I really want to learn a language. And then we had a fantastic Russian professor that was like, Man, this language is awesome. So I kept on with it. 

Casey Chesire  1:04:16  

It seems tough, though, right? Just different fonts, different letters, and everything.

Michael Greenberg  1:04:20  

Yeah, I mean, you get used to that I did Latin in high school. Started French towards the end. And so after your first language or two, it gets easier and Latins really hard.

Casey Chesire  1:04:31  

Geez. So is that something. You just kind of always had a little passion on the side for language?

Michael Greenberg  1:04:36  

Yeah, definitely. 

Casey Chesire  1:04:38  

We’ll have to retake this in a different language.

Michael Greenberg  1:04:41  

 And yeah, and just narrate over.

Casey Chesire  1:04:43  

Narrate over somewhere else. Okay, so you’re in school and eventually dropped out because it’s just having too much fun selling.

Michael Greenberg  1:04:52  

Yeah, so I started trading stock. That was fun. I  interned at Stiefel Nicholas, the middle market investment bank. And then took a semester off, went to a coding boot camp out in Mountain View California. And got hired by a startup when I was there. That’s when I dropped out of school. Spent the next about a year and a half with them raised a little over a million really got to cut my teeth in real business and high-pressure situations. I got to learn more about sales and marketing. I realized that I hated writing code. So I quickly moved away from that, and was like, man, technology-enabled operations, sales, and marketing. That’s where I’m heading.  So I started doing B2B growth strategy consulting.

Casey Chesire  1:05:50  

That’s cool, man. We share kind of a similar passing. I went to school for computer science, just because of AOL. And I liked HTML, but it was as if it took me deeper and deeper from high coding levels, like coding processes. I was like, wow, like, we’re all the people I can interact with here. I should have stuck with marketing; it was a lot more fun.

Michael Greenberg  1:06:11  

And now you understand how the ad network actually works. 

Casey Chesire  1:06:14  

That’s true. That’s true. I’m not scared by cookies. 

Michael Greenberg  1:06:19  

And I won’t hire a marketer if they can’t write a bit of code.

Casey Chesire  1:06:21  

Interesting. Like, what how much code like a little HTML or JavaScript or how hardcore?

Michael Greenberg  1:06:26  

Um, I mean, I expect you to be comfortable working with tags and cookies and all that and working with the code. If you can’t put together a basic website and Squarespace.  

Casey Chesire  1:06:42  

But do you have to be like a CSS ninja?

Michael Greenberg  1:06:45  

I hire a designer for that.

Casey Chesire  1:06:47  

Some of that’s beyond me. Like, let me find someone with sick design skills that can make it look pretty.

Michael Greenberg  1:06:54  

And I don’t expect them to write a Python script or do something or, hey, this API integration doesn’t exist. Build it.  I’m not going to tell you to do that. But if I say that I expect you to know what I’m talking about.

Casey Chesire  1:07:10  

Right. Okay. Sick. So that’s how you got into marketing was just this. I mean, you were in the hustle and bustle and  Mountain View in Silicon Valley. You’re, you’re in it.

Michael Greenberg  1:07:22  

Yeah. And then I moved to the south. 

Casey Chesire  1:07:24  

How South? Deep South?

Michael Greenberg  1:07:26  

Yeah, South Carolina. Columbia, with the startup and then Chattanooga. And I left the startup while I was in Chattanooga. And that’s when I got into podcasting. I had a growth strategy client who was a podcast network based out of Atlanta.

Casey Chesire  1:07:47  

Oh, wow. So they were doing and you just kind of started looking into it. But it must be the books you’re reading the gimlet reading list because it’s not like you just grew up in radio history. Did you just kind of expose yourself to it and dove in?

Michael Greenberg  1:08:05  

I like to think I’m pretty good at learning on my own.  And I put a lot of time until I learned about marketing and content, marketing, and SEO. And then, I got around to learning about audio content and what had happened there. And I got lucky where I grew up listening to some of those radio stories and stuff. So I knew the possibilities ahead of time, And then I learned about transcription. And I knew the cost of transcription was going down. And so I started thinking about that, maybe a year before, and then transcription went from like $1 to 10 cents to now zero.  Like 18 months. So when that cost Jump hit I was like, this is it? We’re ready. 

Casey Chesire  1:09:06  

 It’s time. Awesome, man. Yeah, that is sick.  So what’s the thing now? Like, where do you go from here? You just get more and more clients helping launch Peevy podcasts.

Michael Greenberg  1:09:20  

Yeah, so now we’re just finishing up a web redesign. Got three distinct lines of business now. Podcasting services, authority marketing for the B2B content work. And then, podcast consulting and monetization, which is focused around audience growth, sponsorship searches, and monetization strategies for shows.  And we’ve got our white label podcasting business has been going strong for a few months now. We just rolled out a new version of that program. Where I think we’re the biggest provider of white label podcasts in the world.

Casey Chesire  1:09:59  

What is a white label podcast?

Michael Greenberg  1:10:01  

So we partner with, say, an agency or a podcast production company.  And we will provide a number of our services, but under their banner, so clients pay them. They never know they’re working with Call For Content.

Casey Chesire  1:10:17  

Got it, which is great for the big agencies who want to kind of keep that client relationship.

Michael Greenberg  1:10:22  

Exactly. 

Casey Chesire  1:10:23  

That’s cool.

Michael Greenberg  1:10:24  

And so that has sort of been our secret weapon because it lets us roll stuff out. Nobody has to know about it. It’s all NDA. And it lets us test things and work on stuff where we can stay more under the radar and carve out our piece of the market in the business of podcasting.  We’re not in the podcast production business long term.

Casey Chesire  1:10:47  

Right, because it’s not about the production. I mean, there are apps out there all day every day.

Michael Greenberg  1:10:52  

Yeah, and eventually, a machine will be able to make your podcast sound good. Like a can be trained to do that,

Casey Chesire  1:10:58  

Oh, right.  That’s something that it can do. The amount of strategy coming out of your ears and mouth today has been fantastic. So I could see that’s the real value you bring.

Michael Greenberg  1:11:14  

Thanks. And yeah, that’s where we’re trying to focus.

Casey Chesire  1:11:18  

Makes sense. Where can people find you? What kind of events? Are you going to events? Or is it mostly virtual, and what kind of URLs?

Michael Greenberg  1:11:26  

Mostly virtual, if you’re at a conference about digital marketing or marketing in general, and it’s in Colorado, there’s a 50/50 shot, I’m going to be there. Same for St. Louis. But outside of that, I appear on podcasts a lot. You can always talk to me at office hours. If you’ve got a podcast, we’ve got a special community just for podcasters who are professional podcasters looking to really make money doing it and serious about it. And we have master classes there that I appear on sometimes. And then we put out content, put out a lot of content. Find me on my podcast, find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, that’s where I live because I’m a B2B marketer. That’s where I assume all B2B marketers live.

Casey Chesire  1:12:17  

On LinkedIn.Yeah, absolutely, man. Well, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on here and just sort of sharing with me and, you know, letting me sort of interrogating the hell out of you when it comes to podcasts.

Michael Greenberg  1:12:30  

Yeah. Thanks for having me on. I’m happy to do it anytime.

Casey Chesire  1:12:34  

Yeah, man. It sounds like you kind of live sleep breathe this stuff.

Michael Greenberg  1:12:38  

Yeah. I mean, I love it. I really do.

Casey Chesire  1:12:41  

 I really appreciate it. And you know, and for everyone listening if you learn something, and I know you did, because I literally have two pages front and back of notes, then share this with someone so you could be a thought leader and be sharing content yourself and get this in their hands. But Michael, I mean, thank you again for being on here I appreciate it.

Michael Greenberg  1:13:02  

Yeah. And like I said, happy to do it anytime, a lot of fun.

Casey Chesire  1:13:08  

Good stuff. Well, that is it guys, Hey, thanks for joining us for the hardcore Marketing Show. We will catch you all next time.