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EP 213: Personal branding through podcasts with Jason Cercone 

Jason is a podcast branding strategist, author, voice over talent, and experienced podcaster. He helps people establish authority and become thought leaders in their niche via strategic, impactful podcast guest appearances. He is also The Voice of Evolution of Brand, a podcast featuring authentic entrepreneurs and professionals sharing brand-building strategies to help you succeed in your professional pursuits, as well as a contributing author to the best-selling PodMatch Guest Mastery book.

In this episode we talk about podcasting, the benefits of building a brand, thought leadership, why you should go on podcasts as a guest and more.

Guest Links:

Jason on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jasoncercone/featured

Jason on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasoncercone/

Jason on twitter: https://twitter.com/jasoncercone

Jason on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncercone/

Jason’s website: https://jasoncercone.com/

Evolution of Brand Podcast: https://jasoncercone.com/evolutionofbrand/

Mentioned in the podcast: 

Wylie McGraw: https://www.wyliemcgraw.com/

Gary Vaynerchuck: https://garyvaynerchuk.com/

Jens first Podcast Episode with Dennis Luijer: https://www.jensheitland.com/podcasthome/ep-1-visual-innovation-with-dennis-luijer?rq=dennis%20luijer

 Jason’s 1st Podcast Episode with Wylie McGraw: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-time-to-unf-ck-your-thinking-with-wylie-mcgraw/id1590634173?i=1000591340283

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Connect with Jens Heitland:

Sign up for my weekly Newsletter ("Connect the Dots") where I share the innovative articles, books, podcasts etc. I discovered during the week. https://www.jensheitland.com/newsletter

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My businesses Businesses:

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Jason Cercone

Hello, and welcome to the Human Innovation Podcast. Today's guest is Jason Cercone. Jason is a podcast branding strategist, author, voiceover talent, and experienced podcaster. He helps people to establish authority and become thought leaders in their niche via strategic, impactful podcast guest appearances.

He's also the voice of evolution of brand, a podcast featuring authentic entrepreneurs and professional sharing, brand building strategies to help you succeed in your professional pursuits, as well as contributing author to the best selling Pot match Guest mastery book.

 In this podcast, obviously we talk about podcasting, the benefit of building a brand thought leadership, why you should go on podcast as a guest and a lot of more things. Please welcome to the show, Jason Cercone.

Hey Jason. Welcome to the show, a fellow podcaster. It's always exciting to have someone who has done it once or twice. 

Yeah, a few times. Not exactly a rookie anymore.

Yeah. And that's also a topic I want to talk to about, but before we go into personal branding, thought leadership, podcasting, how people can use it for a business, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and how did you get to where you are today? 

I'd love to. So, um, as you said, I'm Jason Cercone and I've been in the podcasting space since 2015.

I've been, I guess, chasing entrepreneurial pursuit since I was 13 years old. Started out flipping football cards and baseball cards to my friends and at card shows and things like that and never looked back. So had a number of different career paths and career opportunities come my way over the years.

But 2015 was where podcasting landed in my lap and I grabbed hold and never let go back. In college in the early two thousands and late nineties, I had a radio show and I absolutely loved doing that and I very lightly looked into potentially pursuing radio after college and it never panned out. So never thought about it much.

But once I got back behind the microphone, I knew that's where I was meant to be. I love, I love the podcasting process right from the start, even though I didn't have a clue what I was doing and the recordings we were doing were pretty much garbage. It was. Something I still look back on with fondness because it gave me my start.

It rekindled that flame. So I started doing podcasting in a number of different fashions over the, over the next couple years from 2015 on, and then my friend and I, the show we had launched, we took it as far as we could. I started another show myself, and then in the midst of doing that, I realized that this is really where I wanted to be, but I wanted to get better at it.

So I decided to shut that show down and I just focused on studying for about a year and a half. And that was, there was no actual timeline that I was putting on it. That's just how long it ended up being. But I was listening to other podcasters. I was listening to radio and TV personalities. I really wanted to learn their communication style, how they spoke to the camera, how they were communicating, and I wanted to bring that into my own podcasting skills and at the same time, learn more about what's behind creating great content that people want to listen to.

So when I dove back in, everything was a lot more fluid and was a lot, I was a lot more successful with it. And that morphed and led into a friend of mine who was a colleague. He reached out and said, Hey, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. I'd like to pick your brain and learn what I'm in for. And I said, sure.

And I just gave him this list of everything because I didn't wanna sugar coat it. I didn't want to give him a false sense of this is all it's about and if you just do these couple things and you'll be fine. Like, no, I wanted him to understand podcasting is a lot of work and there's a lot that goes into producing a good quality show.

And by the time I got done telling him everything he was, it was over the phone. So there was just this five second pause of nothing and he. Damn, that's a lot more than I thought. And in the midst of telling him all of these items, in my head I was thinking, you're scaring him, but maybe that's good because maybe there's an opportunity here.

And I said, yeah, there is a lot and maybe you could use some help. What if we partner up and work together to produce your podcast? And he said, I love that idea. Let's talk about how we can make that happen. And that's what we did. And immediately I had a new business approach and I started talking to others that were looking to start a podcast.

And I got in on the production side helping them. And in doing that, that introduced me to the guest side of things. And I learned a lot about the value of the podcast guest, and that's where I decided to throw all of my attention over the past, I'd say the past year or so, give or take, just focusing on how people can build their personal brands, build their business.

As value-driven podcast guests and really leverage this medium to maximize your ROI and get everything they possibly can from it. There's a lot to be gained if you do things right. So that might be a long-winded answer to your question. Yes. But here we are 

now. I, I love it because I a hundred percent agree.

So I started podcasting end of 2019, and I, I wish I would've started in 2015 because it's so brilliant. I've learned so much. It's, I can highly recommend it to everyone who is specifically people who want to build a personal brand and or, uh, entrepreneurs, even companies inside of companies. It's, it's huge opportunity to mm-hmm.

get people interested in different things. Because right now, at least for me, we are kind of in a, in a world where everything is like super fast, it's a TikTok, it's 30 seconds, and we are not really having. Listening to long form conversations anymore except the people who are into podcasting and listening to things.

Y yes and no. I mean, I, I could not agree more that we are in a TikTok world and short form content, does play a major role in our lives, for better or for worse, but there is still. The love affair for long form content. I mean, hell, I just last week took my daughter to see Avatar, the new avatar movie that was three hours and 12 minutes, I believe was the running time on that movie.

Plus the previews, you're sitting in the theater for about four hours. That was long form content. Yeah, that's true. Blown away. So, but even to on a lesser degree, television shows, shorter movies. We still do love a good story and we love if it's captivating and it brings value into our worlds, whether it's from an educational standpoint or just from entertainment and giving us an escape for a little while.

We do still grab hold of that, but you're right. For the most part, that short form content is what people are spending the most time with. So if you can captivate them from a podcast, from any type of video that's a little bit longer for 'em, you're doing something right. Yeah. 

Before we go further, I would love to ask you, what was your first podcast episode ever about?

Ever. It was, I, I don't remember the content, and this is why I don't remember, because we were so all over the map. , and I'll, I'll, I'll set this up with the story of how this all came together. I was working in the craft beer space at the time, and I had developed a, an advocacy blog to spread the word because I'm talking, this was back in 2013, 2014, when, yes, it was peop, there were little micro breweries and, and craft breweries coming up, but it wasn't as mainstream.

And, and there just wasn't, people were still very unaware of what these breweries were doing, and I was really into the product, so I wanted to do my part to try to spread the word. And that little blog took off. So over time that the, the next incarnation of the blog was to develop an app here in Pittsburgh, pa, where I'm located, that would allow people to connect with that app and find out about events and beer releases and all these different things.

And. I got some partners from doing that, connecting with breweries, connecting with bars and bottle shops that were looking for that type of publicity. And the day that I launched the app, I had some guys start trolling me on Twitter about how terrible my idea was and how this was never going to work, and I didn't know what I was doing.

And I just looked at and I was talking with them back and forth and he was telling me all these things I was doing wrong, and I'm like, dude, do you really think I didn't think about that? But anyway, not to go too deep into it. I said, basically as I'm looking at these tweets that he sent, I'm like, what the hell does this guy do?

I went and looked and he was a craft beer. Podcast host. Ah, and, and it was just, it was funny that I read that because my friend and I had been talking about starting a podcast. We just couldn't land on what we wanted to talk about. Do we want to talk about sports? Do we wanna talk about, we were, you know, big pro wrestling fans at the time.

Do we wanna talk about that? Like, what do we really wanna do? And when I saw that, that was it. I called him and I said, I've got our, our idea. We're going to do a craft beer podcast and we're gonna do it better than that guy. Yeah. I love that. He said, okay, that's, and my friend was a big beer fan to this day, still is.

So he said, sure, let's do it. So the , the full amount of our planning was we went on Amazon, found a mic, found a mixing board. And said, well, what do you what? And and if we're talking about beard, do we just talk about beard? No, let's talk about sports too. Okay, cool. That'll be great. Yeah. And then we can talk about wrestling too.

So like we'll have all these different audiences coming in. That's how naive and just flat out dumb. We were because no, like, gotta be a lot more niche of that. And I'm sure we'll get to that here down the road. But nevertheless, that was our planning. We, I, one of the bar, the bars that I had partnered with allowed us to record.

It was on trivia night, so it was loud and noisy. It's not live for anybody to consume, but I always talk about that experience because you can learn a lot from where I messed up

And that's something I tell people, they do not start a podcast out of spite. Do not do your first episode from a noisy bar. Make sure you have a plan of attack. Like there's a lot of things that I've learned from that experience, but that's, yeah, in a nutshell, that's where it all began. It's a good story, 

right?

Yeah. Great one. Let, let's start with personal branding first. So you said you, you help people building their personal brand and doing that through podcasting. If, if we go for personal branding, how important is personal branding in your experience? And why do you focus on personal branding with your, with the people you help?

Personal branding's huge. I So many people will identify you over the brand or the product sometimes, and in many cases you think, well, the big, one of the biggest examples that I can think of is, well, there's two. Gary Vaynerchuck is one. He is the face of his brand and, and people don't say Vayner Media.

Vayner X, yeah. They're saying Gary V. He is that brand in and out, through and through, and he does his part to keep his face at the front of that, all the ti, all at all times. Another big one is Sarah Blakely. She has done so much to build that Spanx brand, but her being the ambassador and being that forward face that's in front of everyone, most people think of her first before they think of that product.

Hmm. So personal branding can play a tremendous role because at the end of the day, you can build the most remarkable business brand in the world. And of course we're all aspiring to that in some degree, but, people do business with other people. Humans deal with humans. We have a number of different pieces of technology that will help us communicate, but it's usually a human on the other end of that communication.

Yeah. So if you are a smaller brand and you have a great deal of expertise, building your personal brand and, and putting your face out there and, and your voice out there for people to learn from, to, to gain knowledge from, to build trust with, you're gonna have that naturally extend into all of your business brand practices as well.

And for me, that personal brand, I, I look at everything I've done. Without personal brand, I probably would not have accomplished the things I have, and that's why I put emphasis on it because I want others to experience that the exact same way. 

Yeah. I can't agree more. It's so important. I myself have neglected it.

This for so many years, at least being, I always try to fit in. , um, because I was working in, in large corporate where it's like, yeah, what, what do you do? You fit in and you kind of, you post what is appropriate. If we talk about social media as an example mm-hmm. , you post what is appropriate to be posted.

Yeah. You 

should, no, you're r not wrong. Yeah. No, I mean, a lot of people will do that and I, I've talked to people that have lived in that same world and what they discovered was all of the knowledge and expertise that they were gaining along the way was valuable to a point to where they could, they could share that and it would be something that was pointing towards their company and their corporation.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The corporation should not see anything wrong with additional people having eyes on their product, eyes on what they're doing. Yeah. But when push comes to shove, maybe they decide. , it's time for me to go out on my own. Maybe I, I, I'm feeling like the schedule of an entrepreneur is more for me versus being here from nine to five or much longer as many corporate jobs are.

Yeah. They, someone may stumble upon maybe a YouTube channel that you've created. Maybe it's a podcast, something that you've taken all that expertise from your corporate life and you've put it into this personal brand. It gives you a leg up and a little bit of a jumpstart. And a headstart if you decide to strike out on your own.

So it's e no matter where you're at, having that personal branding is incredibly vital. Yeah. 

And it's f for me, it's, even if you are staying in the corporate world and you are, let's say a leader, even if you don't want to make a big career, it's still valuable. Right. Uh, I've seen it in completely different worlds.

Not just the obvious is if, if you are in the world where we are, then you know, Gary Vi. Uh, or Gary v I have never heard of him at all before December, 2020. Never ever in my whole life. No joke. 

And well, and yeah, we find people like that all, all the time though, right? Not just Gary V Exactly. You stumble upon somebody that has a, an Instagram account, a podcast, a YouTube channel.

They go, wow, I like the cut of their jib. Yeah. So you start following them and it's like, you didn't hear about 'em until you did . So, and it's big. And it, 

for, for me, if we just take him as the example, for me it was, I was, I was seeing videos of him. It's like, who is that? He's completely nuts. But then it's like, oh, no, there, there's something about him that's, that's interesting.

And I was like, watching a couple of more videos, checking out what he's doing. And then through that, I was finding, uh, finding his companies was this way, not the other way. Ron was, Hey, I, I find the company and then I'm looking into who is the person. It was at least. , and I see this as well with a lot of guests on my podcast, yourself included.

You're, you're super interesting in how you are doing things and through your story, you are getting people interested in what you're doing. And then maybe there's one or two or a couple of more hopefully we're saying, Hey, I would love to work with Jason. I would love to learn how he's doing it because I I mean specifically you because you're helping 

people to do it.

Exactly. No, there's there, there's so much value in that and what you'll learn about Gary V. The thing that when I first discovered him, and I really don't remember when I first stumbled upon Gary Vaynerchuck, but I know the thing that grabbed my attention was his authenticity. Hmm. This guy didn't care that he was dropping the FBO and swearing nonstop, and he's come out and said, I've lost 25, $30,000 keynotes.

because they said you can't swear, and he was not going to compromise his authenticity and clean it up for the payday. Now think about that. Most people, if you're offered that kind of money, yeah, nine times outta 10. And I would say I'm probably one of be like, okay, I'll bite my tongue on the swear words for a minute to get the payday.

But that's how bought into his authenticity. And he doesn't want to have that compromised in any fashion. That that's, that's pretty crazy. And in all of that, it attracts the right people and repels the wrong ones. Yeah. So you're bringing in the people into your orbit that you want to deal with. And then you'll also have the outliers that just watch because they want to be triggered.

But that's a story for 

another day. Agree. Another thing as well with others, but specifically if we, if we stay with, with Gary v. . Well, it's quite interesting what I did. Um, I looked then back into his beginnings, so I was searching the videos when he started. What's quite cool is when you have, when you start out putting yourself a little bit more out there, building a personal brand, you are graduating people into your world over time and they stay with you.

Like a lot of people at least stay with you. Even that they might, might not consume every single content of you, but they see what you're doing and they see you gradually getting better at it, taking the next step, doing something else. It's quite interesting to see that. How do you do that when, when you think about yourself, but as well when you think about the people you help?

Well, I, I will say this. It, it's funny the, the evolution of Gary v over time, that first wine library video he did, I can't take credit for this. Uh, DP K Newton, who was a guest on my podcast, he called that video. He said, it looks like a Proof of life video. It looks, it looks like something that a hostage would send to try to get a message to people to save.

And it's, I, I laugh like hell when, I hate when he said that on my show because it's true. Yeah. But it also shows it at that time when he was first building that content, he worked with what he had. There wasn't a lot of emphasis on HD cameras and having these great connections and good audio. It was just put this on the internet and the world will consume because it's so, so new and, and such a just technological breakthrough in regards to communications.

That's all that mattered. Yeah. He was smart enough to realize he didn't have to be perfect. I think we all have to take a page from his book. In that same respect, I think about that first podcast that I did. As I said, I sucked. I knew I sucked, I listened back on it. Our audio quality was terrible. I didn't know what I was talking about.

I didn't understand cadence and dictation. So many things that I think of now, but I'm also almost a decade into this practicing. Yeah. Having conversations, being a guest, hosting my own show, helping others be on shows, helping others build their shows. It's all experience that comes over time. And I know what happens with a lot of people is they get thrown off by not being perfect from the start.

Yeah. Spoiler alert, no one is perfect from the start. . You have to get good at this and that's where the practice swings come in, and that's where I can thank a lifetime of being a golfer. My dad got me started when I was seven years old, and I'm not great, but I'm okay. I mean, now you'll never see me on the, you know, playing on Sundays at Augusta.

But I enjoy the sport. And one of the biggest things I love about it is the fact that it's challenging and you have to go out every time. You have to put in those swings. You have to try new things, and that's how you get better and that's how you learn. Maybe this won't work. I have to try something else.

Everything you do in building your personal brand is exactly the same function. It's exactly the same philosophy. You have to think about the small gradual steps each and every day to get a little bit better at what you're doing. And if you put your focus there, instead of trying to do this big grand jump all at once, you're gonna be in a much better place.

And that's typically what I will tell anybody from the start. Focus on the small, gradual steps that will compound over time, and that's gonna put you in a good place. 

Yeah, it's, it's again, Gary v . I put the link into the show notes for those who have never heard about him. Um, Put, documenting it, doing it.

And while you do it, you, you document what you're doing and then you put it out there for people to discover. And I mean, same in my, my, in my podcast. My first podcast episode was with a buddy who lives close by now here. And it was, it was not too bad. But of course, compared to hopefully to do the, today's episode, there's, it's a huge step, but it's also a couple of years in between and a couple of hundred episodes in between.

I guarantee that it is. And I think you know, anybody that you, okay, look, I'll, I'll put this challenge out to anybody. Think of your favorite podcast. I don't care what it is. I don't care how many episodes it's. Go back and listen to episode one. Yeah. And then listen to their most recent, I don't care which episode it is, it could be episode 30.

You're gonna see a difference. Huge because you're getting better along the way because you start to get more comfortable. You start to find your voice. And that's not just with podcasting, that's anything that you apply practice to. It's so simple. And this is one of the things that just burns me. We have this in the states.

Yaz, I don't know if this is a problem in, uh, on your side with kids in sports and not keeping. Yeah. Oh my God. It drives me crazy because I'm like, how do, how do they know what losing feels like? How do they know what they need to do to get better? If they're just throwing a ball in the middle of the field and you tell 'em to run around and kick it for a while, oh, we don't keep score.

Oh, I, well, my daughter played soccer and I came to her first game and I asked Where, where, who, where, where do they keep score at in their, oh, no, we don't keep score. I, I about lost my mind, , because that, again, you have to learn these things at a young age. I think back to all the competitive sports I played when I was younger, it made me understand that losing is a part of life.

It's something that's going to happen whether you want it to or not, but it's how you deal with those losses that make you a better person and make you come out the next time a little bit wiser. Yeah. So you can attack with a new plan and you can hopefully have the successful outcome that your opponents had last time.

it's such a important lesson. And if we're not teaching that at a young age, it doesn't get instilled and it becomes harder to deal with. Maybe someone got a job over you, maybe someone got a promotion over you. Yeah. Instead of saying, what do I need to do next time to do better? You say, I'm terrible. I suck.

No one values me, blah, blah, blah. You just go down this rabbit hole that could really throw you into a dangerous spot in life. And, and there's a number of things that can happen. We don't need to go into detail there, but to me, if you're not practicing those types of thoughts and, and learning these things at a young age, it can be so damaging when you get older.

Yeah. 

And there for, for me, there are a couple of things in, in, into that. One part is putting yourself out there. The other part is doing this consistently, like putting the work in which not everyone is up for as well. Mm-hmm. . Um, and then having a dream which guides you towards something. . And if it's not perfect, it doesn't matter.

It's still a dream and you get to towards something and you, you fail and you stumble and you fall flat and you, you get up and do stuff. But yeah, we are not there. I think we are right now in a phase , it's still post pandemic, um, where we are all not into that. Not, not all, but a lot of people are not, let's say like 

this.

Yeah. It it's, it's funny you bring that up cuz I had this conversation on my podcast too. You think about when we're, you're, when you're younger, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm going back to when you're a baby, an infant, no one expects you to stand up and start running around the room right outta the right, outta the womb.

No. Like you're swaddled, you're, you're handled with care. And then even. , you start pulling yourself rolling around on the floor and then you start pulling yourself up and army crawling and then all of a sudden you figure out your legs work and you fall and you get back up and you fall. And that's, and everybody expects that and looks at it and says, this is how it works.

But then we get older and we're scared to do that. Why? Yeah. It's the same mentality. We're just doing more, I don't wanna say more important things, but we're just doing other things that for whatever reason we have it built up that we can't screw this up to where I say, let me screw this up and see what it feels like.

And then I can learn from, okay, that doesn't work. Now I can try this. Yeah. If you don't approach things in that with that mindset, you just, it's, it's, it's a shame that we develop that type of attitude and that type of mindset as we get older because we cost ourselves opportunities cuz we won't even try.

Yeah, because we don't wanna 

fail. You. You get trained in school to not do it, and then it's even worse when you're, you're in mm-hmm. , like, like myself in corporate, you're, you're valued to not do things extraordinary. You're valued to stay in your line, to do the things you're supposed to do. Don't take the risks because that's not what we do.

We have tried it 20 years ago, don't do this. That's, that's what we get trained to. And then I, I know a couple of people who, including myself, who then stepped out of that world say, okay, now I'm an entrepreneur, is like, no, that's too scary. And that's why. So one of the, the most funny things is I, I just laughed with, with someone yesterday about it.

I did to myself because I was super not comfortable on video and on audio. And I started a podcast, . So what I did, I did a, a challenge where I wanted to do at least 200 something daily. Vlog video. Super stupid. just to challenge myself. And I posted it on LinkedIn, which is scary because I wa I was, I was the corporate dude and I was just posting that I was wearing hoodie and polo shirts, , um, over a long time.

Normally I was wearing a real shirt and stuff. Mm-hmm. . And it was so beneficial for me. I learned so much. Yeah. And maybe there are two, three people who said like, who is this dude? But I don't 

care. Yeah. But you know what, you were there consistently. Your message starts to resonate with the right people, as I had mentioned before.

Exactly. And you embrace the fear so you could overcome it. I'm gonna recommend someone to everybody. His name's Wiley McGraw. He's a friend of mine. He was the very first guest of, or of, of my show, evolution of Brand. He is phenomenal. And that's one of the big, he, he, he's a radical. Acc ra, radical Performance Accelerator is what he calls himself.

He, this man does things that I've never seen anybody else. And his message is incredible in regards to how he teaches people to embrace the fear that holds them back and learn to live in it so you can learn from it and then get beyond it. Because when you don't embrace it, you're always going to have a wonder of, yeah, what's it like over there?

Why? I'm too scared to find out. But if you break through that, there's so much that you can accomplish and you truly tap into your peak potential. So he, he just released a podcast, it's called Wise Words and Whiskey, with Wiley and Wiley mcgraw.com. I'm, I'm giving them this huge plug. But I think there's a lot that, from what you just said, Ys, if people have that mentality right now, you can learn a lot from his message.

But it's absolutely something you have to do no matter where you're at. You have to. Embrace that fear and get beyond it by learning from it and actually existing in it. And I'll, I can give you an example from my last job. When I first started, I was, they, they set the table for me and they said they had a, there was a lot of things that I had to fix.

I said, fine, at least they were up front. I didn't come in and discover all these problems. Yeah. So I was in the midst of doing that and I was probably there for about six months and I was always calling for approval because I didn't want to piss people off and do something. I was scared to make a mistake.

And finally one of the managers that I was always calling you just said, well, you just own the damn job and do what you think is right. Stop calling me. and I said, okay. That was all I needed to hear to get past that. But I thought about how, what if I would've done that at the beginning, would I have been a little bit further along?

Yeah. In all this way and in the process. So you have to take some ownership in all of this. And when you do, that's when you'll start to see changes. That's when you'll start to see evolution and ya, you're the perfect example. Like you said, you did not wanna do video, you did not wanna do audio, but you put yourself out there, you got better as you went on and you learned from that whole experience.

And look where you are today hosting a successful podcast. Yeah. 

Agree. So everyone. Check back my first episodes or Jason's first episodes, we will put absolutely a link into the show notes so you can find them. . 

I, uh, welcome anybody to do that. And it's funny I've said that too because evolution of brand is the amalgam of all of my podcast experience.

So I was bringing seven years of podcast experience into that. It's already better , it's better, but you can still see a change. Yeah, because I, I've tested it myself. Go back and listen to episode one with Wiley, as I had just plugged, but then go and listen to, I think as today, episode 1 36 came out as we sit and record.

Yeah, you can go and you'll see a major difference. So here a major difference, I should say. It's audio. Yeah. Yeah. 

Awesome. So let's get into the next gear. Mm-hmm. , how do you help people to do what we just talked about? So one part is of course getting the self-confidence, getting like, okay, if someone approaches you and say hi, Jason, I want to build a personal brand.

I want to do podcasting. I want to be a guest on different shows. What are the different things? How do you help someone navigate that as a totality? 

Well, it depends on where they're at. And, and I mean, the reason I say that is because if there are people that may have never done anything to build their personal brand, they may have never cultivated their story, they've never, may, may have never really tapped into their own personal story and put it to use within the evolution of their brand.

Hmm. So what we start with is training and regardless of whether somebody is seasoned or they've never done podcasting before, that's where we start. And I, and I should, I'll, I will add this to where I'm going. My big personal branding vehicle and tool is podcast guesting. I feel there is so much to gain from this initiative that you can utilize in so many different ways.

And this is a lot of people fall short because they don't maximize what they're u, what they're getting from these podcast interviews there. There's so much to gain if you do it right. So that's where we start finding your story, finding your confidence, seeing where you're at. Do you have experience in front of crowds?

Have you maybe done some public speaking? Can any of those skills translate? Tell me how you feel about the podcast. Medium. What do you know about it? Do you know what podcasters are looking to accomplish? Having a respect for the medium and what the other person is looking to accomplish will allow you to root your efforts and value.

Give them what they need so they can give you what you need. And everybody wins because you'll have synergy and that's where the great content and the great conversations come from. , when that content gets put out into the wild, people hear it. They say, wow, I learned a ton from that conversation. They share it with colleagues, they share it with friends.

They put it on their social media. They put it out into the world for you, and that's how podcasters build their audience. It's compelling content, just like anything else that you get sucked into a good television show, a great movie. It has to be compelling. It has to get you emotionally invested. Yeah, so we cover all of that before we ever turn a microphone on, and then we start looking at shows that are going to align with your objectives and philosophies, because if you're going on podcasts that make zero sense for you and your brand and what you want to achieve.

The practice is good, but it's better to get practice in the arena where you're going to potentially win the Super Bowl. Yeah. If you're in the marketing world, and you start going on bass fishing podcasts, , because they, they, they think you're interesting and they wanna bring you on. Yeah. What, what sense does that make?

Because you think about the audience for that type of show. They're tuning in to hear whatever you tune in to hear on a bass fishing podcast, . But your message isn't going to resonate with that audience because that's not what they're there for. You have to think about what your target customer and target client is listening to.

If you're in the marketing space, they're probably listening to a marketing podcast, maybe a financial podcast, maybe something about branding. And when you start to put your message in those places, that gives you more of an opportunity to get discovered. And then if you lay out the right call to action, then people can follow you and come into your world where you can continue to nurture them.

And that's so. I wanna put out there, is this a way to attract clients? Absolutely. But it's no different than anything else. It brings them into your orbit. Once they're in your orbit, then you can continue to supply value to, then they see they can trust you and they take the next step. This is not one of those instant, oh, I'm on a podcast and people are gonna hear me and then buy from me.

Yeah, that's a very common misconception. People think it's instant and it's not. And this is why I preach doing multiple interviews and putting your message out there as much as possible. Because as your presence grows, you'll see a difference in how quickly things change because you're bringing in more people into your orbit.

Takes time, takes patience. Takes consistency. Yeah. And then once these podcast interviews are concluded and you're using the platform as a networking tool, there are strategies that you can do to potentially. have the host become a client. Maybe they know people in their circle that could use your product or service.

But if I were to show up today Yenz and just be a sales guy and tell the world why they need to buy my product, more than likely you would never air this. Yeah. And because if you did your audience and be like, why is Yenz putting out a frigging infomercial today? and, and that's again, some people treat it transactionally and think that they have to be in sales mode costing themselves opportunities.

So it's having that understanding, the mutual respect has to be there, knowing what you want to accomplish, but knowing what the podcaster needs to accomplish as well. And then the file piece of the puzzle to wrap this up, what do you do with the content once it's live? Maybe the biggest miss that many podcast guests have.

They go on the show, they knock it outta the park. They give a great interview, and then they never talk to that podcaster again. Podcaster puts that information out into the world. Yeah. They don't share it. They don't do anything with it. That is a strike, my friend, because if you are not using that content to put in front of your audience in some way, shape, or form, to tell them, look, this guy, this girl had me on their podcast.

We talked about X, Y, and Z. It's more proof that they've put their trust in the right resource. You can't just rely on the audience of the podcaster. That's a big part of it, but there's also your existing audience that will continue to trust you, continue to refer new people to you if you continue to give them a reason to do so.

So these interviews can serve as the ultimate piece of social proof that you need to make your brand go from unknown to undeniable, as my tagline goes. Yeah, but you have to follow the process and you have to treat all these items. With the respect they deserve. If you try to skip things and take shortcuts, forget it.

You might as well do something else. So that's another long-winded answer, , but that's the process. Yeah. 

I lo I love it and I a hundred percent agree. Couple of things in that, what, what I have found out over now, 200 plus episodes for myself, but as well when I'm guested building a systematic way of doing it.

Not just, yeah, I, today I feel like I should post something from that podcast because I was a guest. So have having really a plan and an understanding what works, what doesn't work over time, and then utilizing that, um, with a system and a strategic approach. Like, like you said, king in everything.

Absolutely, absolutely. That content can be used in so many different ways. I mean, you could, if, if you ask the podcaster for the raw recording, you could clip that up into. so many different Yeah. TOS and YouTubes and, and and YouTube shorts and Instagram reels, and you have all this short form content that, again, it's not the long form episode, but it can be used because again, not everybody listens to podcasts.

So that's why you don't wanna just rely on that long form audio. If you can get those short form clips and put them out there, that could be enough for somebody to say, okay, I believe in you. I trust you, your message is hitting home with me. Because everybody consumes content differently. But if you're only going at it with this one dimensional approach, chances are you're gonna miss some opportunities and likely miss some people that could be major, major assets to your growth.

Yeah. And it's most, most probably every podcaster has as well a couple of tips of what you can do with that content, because they've done it a couple of times. Mm-hmm. , um, no. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. You, you will be laughing. , I have published 200, I think two or three episodes while we record this one here, and it's less than five people who have ever asked me about the raw material less than five.

Sure. Yeah. I, I, I'm with you. I, I met one, like I said, I, as we sit and record, I just released 1 36 this morning, and I think I've been asked twice. Yeah. For the raw video. I, I ask every time, and I'll ask you the same thing, because again, and it's not that, I mean, there are some, you, you don't have to use everything, but even those additional pieces, if they, if they are aligning with your message, maybe you've got a theme for the week.

Maybe this week's content is all about X. And on these, this podcast and this podcast, you talked about X. So you can take a couple short clips, that's content that's already made for you, so you don't have to go into production again and start coming up with new material. , you've already got something that's done, clip it, post it, use it to your advantage.

That's a big part of this whole process. I mean, I've heard podcasters say dozens and dozens of times the repurposing aspects of podcasting was one of the biggest reasons they do it. Yeah, and a hundred percent I couldn't. Could not agree more because especially in the world we live in today, the majority of podcasts are recorded just like we're doing today, digitally over the computer.

Yeah. And you think about Covid and all of the bad that came from the pandemic. I think one of the silver linings is the fact that this got normalized. I believe that, I mean, I was doing this over the computer recording well before Covid, but I think it made people more comfortable in this environment.

Yeah. And it expands your reach globally versus if you were just trying to do it with people in person. You had to be at a conference, you had to be in the room with that person. It was a lot more localized. Now it's global and you get so many different versions of content. You've got the audio, you've got the video.

You can have it transcribed. So now you can get blogs, you can clip up the transcription and make social posts. You could potentially turn the content into a webinar. There's so much that can be pulled from this, and one little piece of content could give you informa or give you more content to put out for maybe a month.

If you really do it the right way, there's a lot to be done with it. So another feather in the cap of the podcast space, in the podcast 

Medium. Yeah. What, what I like as well, if you, if you do the smart you, you build a hub where you concentrate all of it so people can find it. They can. So for example, in my case, I have a block where I'm posting the podcast episodes where I was on mm-hmm.

and, and have this as well there like the whole, like I have everything on my. My podcast, which is, I, I was just saying that to, to another person the other day. The podcast is the biggest asset I have built in my whole life. Yeah. And, uh, other people say like, well that's, that's ridiculous. You have had an amazing corporate career.

I've been this global dude flying around the world and blah, blah. It's like, that's not an asset at all. Yeah. But my podcast, there's 200 something episodes with text, audio. It's huge. Mm-hmm. , because you can find this in 

10 years, 20 years. No. That, that's one of the biggest things that you just brought up.

One of the biggest reasons why I love podcasting so much, it's legacy. It's exactly this content. I, I've only, I think about in, you know, I'm a big Beatles fan. Maybe not like a Beatle maniac, but I like the Beatles music, but that was a generation before me. Hmm. My daughter, she is into it. That music has transcended.

Maybe transcendent is the wrong word. It's, it's gone from one generation to the next and is still appreciated. We are creating content that can be impactful to the next generation, to the next generation, and live long after we are gone. Yeah, and I always think about the content that I'm putting online.

It's, I guess it's the over 40 in me that thinks about that long term. Do I want some embarrassing nonsense video or podcast out there that people stumble upon and say, what was this guy doing? Or do I want something that people can listen to far after I've ventured off this earth and learn from it? Be entertained by it.

Yeah. Get some semblance of value from it. That's why I don't like being a salesperson on podcasts, and no one else should be either, because the value is in this type of conversation to where someone down the road, 300 years from now could be thinking about personal branding and they find our conversation and realize that this philosophy has stood the test of time.

Yeah. That is huge. And to, I, I'm with you there. The podcast that I'm building now, I feel it, it's become the biggest asset that I've had and it's only gonna continue to get more valuable as I add new content to it. 

Yeah, agree. And it's also, I, I always give the example, so my dad was, um, doing a couple of radio things and I still have that on cd and he passed away, uh, a couple of years ago.

But just listening to that with my daughter. Yeah. How amazing is that? Like she, she has met him still. She's now five, but she's not, of course, not remembering everything with him and so on. Sure. But if you play this, this CD and imagine. She can, she can she, if she's five now, I have 200 podcast episodes when she has kids in hopefully more than 25 years.

Oh, 20 years. Not 25. They, they, she can, she can show this day. This is what your grandad did. Yeah. Was with Jason on, on a podcast and they talked about podcasting . 

I, I, I couldn't be on more on board with that thought process. I, I, I think about that often. I think about back in the day in my little hometown of Bradford, Pennsylvania, we always went to my grandparents on Sunday night, and the conversations and the, just the, the, the fun that we had, I always think back to say, oh God, I wish I would've had a recorder.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And there was one thing that came from that timeframe that is, In it. Ha. You know, for us to remember, and I, I have to get it, I still haven't done this and I should kick myself for it. It's on a cassette tape, but my sister for her senior project did this. The, we, we have some, uh, old school mafia connections in my family going way back, and my grandfather was a part of it.

This was during prohibition, and my sister did her senior project on this, and she interviewed my grandfather to get his take on that time period, and she recorded it. What you discover about those types of things is yes, you can listen to the story that he's telling, but it brings back this flood of memories of everything else.

Yeah. That's beautiful. So someone may find a podcast that I talked about, one thing or another. Maybe they're gonna start remembering other elements of the relationship I had with them. And the podcast is what sparked it. Yeah, that's powerful stuff. 

But point being, yeah, so much legacy can be built from this. And that's 

most probably with cd. No, nothing different in two, three years. , 

you can, no, that's. . It's the car I got. Uh, my most recent car, when I got it, I didn't even think about it, but I looked and it was, I was probably had it for like three or four weeks.

And I'm looking, I'm like, there's no CD player on this. You don't need one. You don't? No. I didn't even think, like I said, like I don't listen to it anymore, but I just hadn't seen it. And I guess, and all new cars are like that. No one's, no one's listening to CDs. And it's funny, you think back to, I dunno if this was you, but I think back to when I was a kid, like you talk, talk about distractions and driving and being on your phone.

Did you ever have to flip through a big book of CDs trying to find the CD that you wanted? Listen, yeah. It was worse to, yeah, that was even worse. . 

Yeah, I still remember that. . Oh, good old days. Oh yes. Now, now it's just my phone connected to the, to, to the audio system and listening to podcasts. At least in my case 

or audio.

That's right. Me too. Yeah. I'm the same way. A little mobile university while I'm on the. . 

Jason, I could talk to you for the next two days straight , but I know you have an appointment afterwards and I slowly need to get towards bed as well. Um, let's get into the last part, um, where I ask the guest a couple of questions that I ask every guest.

If you could work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth, what project would you work with and why? 

Does it need to be a specific project or maybe just revolving around Earth? Just what comes to mind? I would say it what for? I mean, it's not even a thought. Something that involves with improving communication.

I feel that we've reached a very critical point in the world as we sit and record here on January 12th, 2023 to our communication has just gone to hell in hand basket. Hmm. We have all of these platforms that we can utilize to communicate, but we've never been further apart. You think about the divisiveness that we have on social media, you can't even express a thought without the other side jumping in and telling you why you're wrong, and then you say, no, this is why I'm right.

And you're refusing to listen to that side. So there's disconnect at every possible level, and it doesn't allow you to welcome new perspectives into your world, and you can't grow when you're in that mindset. So for me, if I could lend my knowledge, my help, just my effort to anything, it would be to improve communication for the better.

Get people into a more welcoming environment to where they can discuss ideas. You don't have to agree with everybody. You don't have to buy into what someone's telling you, but you have to respect their viewpoint. If I could help people see that a little bit more, feel that a little bit more, not. Be in this state of mind to where they can't go onto their platforms and express their opinion because they are scared of what other people are going to say, then I feel like that would be a job well done and I'd be more than, more than happy to if, if this is a cause that exists right now, call me up.

Happy 

help. Yeah, I love that. Very cool. One next question. If you could give advice to a young innovator that's just getting started, what advice would you give to them? 

Don't be afraid to fail and stay consistent. One of the big things that we talk about in the podcast space is that you have to commit to what you're doing or it's never going to work, and so many people don't because the, the numbers don't lie.

It's something like seven or eight episodes is the average. that are out there before a podcaster quits. And I, that, that number's scary as hell. And it makes me shake my head because if you come into this with a plan and you understand that it's going to take time to get better at what you're doing, to develop an audience, to, to put content out there that grabs somebody's attention, you, you have to have a commitment to that and you have to stay consistent.

I, that, that applies to all matter of life. If you are doing anything new, whether it's picking up a golf club for the first time, maybe you're learning Frisbee, golf, whatever, you have to be consistent in your efforts to get better at it. And if you're scared of failing, you're probably not going to learn anything.

You have to embrace the fact that you're gonna fall on your face some many times. Learn from it, pick yourself up, and then the next time you come out, you can be smarter and say, okay, this is what happened yesterday and that didn't work, so now I'm gonna try this. and you may discover that that works.

Maybe you'll discover it doesn't, but you keep getting better. So the any advice that I would give is do not be afraid to fail and stay consistent with whatever you are committed to doing and see it through till you get the conclusion that you're looking for. 

Love that. Where can people find you and how can people reach out to you?

First step would be to visit enhance your authority.com. I have a free guide that I put together for everybody. It is called The Absolute Guide to Authority Enhancement, and it's really a very quick, easy to consume strategy guide for understanding why being a thought leader in your space is going to help you build your brand and your personal brand, and how you can do it through podcast guesting.

There's some tips and strategies on how you can do it yourself, but if you're looking to learn more, and talk with somebody who's been doing this for almost a decade. You can also connect to my website from that page, set up an appointment. I love to have conversations with anybody that's exploring this idea, and I'll also throw in there every Friday, I'm also doing training videos that you'll get access to only available after you pick up that guide.

So enhance your authority.com is where you get started, and I look forward to connecting with you from there. Awesome. 

Now, of course, I will put the link as well into show notes so that everyone can straightaway click to through to you and study what you're doing. And yeah, as well, highly recommend to follow Jason on all the social.

Because he's doing awesome clips. I was l liking like 20, 20 of them as preparation for for for the podcast. Jason, thank you very much. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. I have learned myself as well a lot and looking forward, forward to collaborate together with you as well after the recording.

Likewise, Jens has been a lot of fun. I had a great time talking with you today and you're doing a great show here. I'm a big fan and a quick word to your audience. Jens is doing a lot to put this content in front of you. Go drop a review and let 'em know how he's doing. Apple Podcast is the best place to do that, but those reviews are very helpful and they help us as podcasters get better at our craft.

Yes. 

Thank you, Jason.