Ep. #12 - Glenn The Geek Hebert - The Horse Radio Network.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to another edition of the PBJ Spotlight

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My name is Ed Ryan content editor for the podcast Business Journal in the PBJ Spotlight today is Glenn the geek Hebert
One of the most successful podcasters on the planet
Glenn was in the investment business and an actor for ten years before he moved into the horse business
He launched the stable scoop show in 2008 and after six months of producing the show

(00:27):
He had about 12 listeners, but he kept at it and kept working hard
And he had a goal in mind of creating a network today
The horse radio network is one of the largest independent podcasting networks in the world as of January 2019
The horse radio network has produced over 7400 episodes
interviewed over 9,000 guests and has

(00:49):
listeners in 92 countries
along with 16 shows
Glenn the geek and the horse radio network are truly one of podcasting's true success stories in our interview
Glenn tells us why he stuck with it
How he grew his niche podcast and he explains his philosophy that listeners come for the content and they stay for the show

(01:10):
Here's our spotlight with Glenn the geek Hebert
How do you go from being in the investment business or being an investor to the horse business?
What's that transition you marry into it? That's it. That's it
You get a wife who's addicted and then I did burn out I burned out from investment sales

(01:30):
after about 15 years and I said I need to do something different and that's where we did a number of other things along the way and
Eventually ended up, you know doing this so before you get to the podcasting part of it. What is the horse business?
What do you mean by that?
Well, you know we we train I mean it could be anything. There's a million different horse businesses
But we we my wife trained horses. We had a big farm. We had 20 some horses at one point and

(01:56):
We had people boarding with us keeping their horses at our place and then we opened a retail business
We're actually the second ones back in the 1990s
We had a brick-and-mortar store, but we are also the second ones to ever be online selling horse products
Tack and saddles and that kind of thing. So we were early on in that game
which is how I got the name Glen the geek because we always were the geeky ones that were a little head of the curve in

(02:21):
the horse world and
That's how I was given name Glen the geek and it just always stuck
So you start out with one show when was that and what was that first original show about?
2008 it was called the stable scoop show. It was a general show
I knew if we wanted a network that we'd have to attract listeners with a general show about horses as opposed to

(02:43):
niching it down even further
Yeah, and but I always knew that we could have a you know, 30 shows niche down further in the horse world
So we started out with a general show and built the audience after six months. We had 12 listeners
And we we brag about that now because back then
Horse people are usually behind a little bit technology wise

(03:03):
So back then it was it was just really one person at a time educating him how to listen to a podcast because iTunes was new
And it was tough and that was our toughest battle for sure wasn't content
It was it was educating people. So how were you getting the original show out? How were you marketing that we?

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In person a lot of it
we were at horse shows and we would be at events and telling our friends and
You know our guests would help us for what they could because you know, Facebook really wasn't a thing back then either
So they were just telling their friends at Barnes and it really became a word of mouth
And after a year, you know, it grew a little and after the second year grew a lot and

(03:47):
It was word of mouth and after the second show started that that influenced a whole new group of horse people
That started putting the word out plus we got our sponsor in the first year to our first sponsor who's still with us by the way
and
She really put the word out to amongst her. She would she would actually
put notices in the boxes she shipped out and

(04:09):
About our show and how to listen we again we had educate people how to listen and most of the listeners back then were on
The we're on the website on their computer
And that's how they had to listen they hit play on the website
So when you're doing that first show, is it weekly? Is it daily?
Yeah, I think weekly was it I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't think any of us knew we should do anything different than weekly

(04:34):
There were a couple what there were a couple a couple daily ones at that point
But everybody was doing weekly shows and I kind of you know, the only podcasting experience I had was listening to twit
The twit network, you know, that's the podcasting with Leo and that's the only ones I had ever listened to so I kind of based
It around that you know, you know doing it weekly. So you're doing a weekly show and obviously at that point

(04:57):
You're you're still in in the horse business. You're still running happily employed somewhere else. Yes, right, right, right
So at what point along the way after the first show do you start to expand this into more shows? I had a
Woman contact me that wanted to do a second show in the horse world and we kind of took a look at it and

(05:18):
She started that second show and then we very quickly got up to five or six shows
over the next two and a half years we got up to five or six shows and
You know, I base doing a new show on the hosts. I have to find the right hosts
We may have the greatest concept in the world

(05:39):
But unless you have the right hosts in that spot your show is gonna fail
I I believe people come for the content and stay for the hosts
We have a lot of people that listen to our horses in the morning show for instance who are not horse people
But they just like us and they listen because it's funny and it's entertaining and yeah, it's about horses
But they they listen anyway because they like the hosts

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So you you have how many shows now? How many has it grown? We have 16
16 shows and and all about horses
When you say network, how are you delivering the shows?
Are they all on your website? Are they all delivered by the hosts? Is there tell us how it's how all of that?
Okay, all of that. We do have a horse radio network has all the shows we have our own app which we did several years ago

(06:27):
We had a listener. It was an app developer early on and
He said, you know, I have this app out here. I want to advertise the horse world. I'll trade you
I'll build your app and he's been our app developer ever since
We get about 25% of our traffic from our own app
So for us it's turned out to be a really good thing and again because horse people tended to be a little behind

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Technologically, it was easier to tell them how to download an app than how to download a podcast player
You know and to find our shows plus once we they downloaded the app and came to one show. These are horse people
They're addicted. So once they came to one show they would tend to look at the other shows in the app and go
I'll try that when it's right here. I can click one button and I'm listening so it made it much easier for them to

(07:13):
Listen to the other shows
So I think you know developing the app when we did four or five years ago was probably the best thing we ever did
It really did help us in and in our niche
So 25% from the app, where's the rest of the traffic coming from?
Well about 50% of the remaining about 50% from iTunes and right now about 50% from every place else

(07:34):
Right, right that's the only need a going number
Yeah, I know I used to be as as as all of ours were it used to be a hundred percent iTunes, you know
But not anymore
So if you go to the network, you're gonna be playing one show after another right? That's how you have it rolling
You have 16. No, okay. How does it work? It's still podcasting. So they just go and listen to what they want to we don't have a

(07:57):
24-hour we're not playing it like a radio online radio station. Gotcha
But but if they go to listen we figured this out the other day
We have now produced seven thousand five hundred episodes on the network
And if they go to listen, it will take almost almost a year 24 hours a day to listen to all the episodes
Wow
So what's it like now for you to be running a network as opposed to one show and working a job? I

(08:24):
Have a different job
Running the network is my job, right?
Yeah, and that you know when when I talk about networks and people ask me about networks
I warn them that the network is going to become your job hosting now becomes
Secondary to running the network and
You know, I can't say that that's what I wanted eventually. I can't say that the point I'm at now is where I wanted to be

(08:51):
Because it is it has become a job. It's a it's a hundred hour a week job
And you know that's taking care of 30 hosts and and I sell all the advertising and we have 32 sponsors right now
so I have to make sure they're all happy and
You know and we we have you have to do the things that a guy running a network has to do

(09:11):
And we do it on a very small
I mean we we put out a lot of episodes every month with a very small staff
My wife is full-time and we have we have a company that edits a lot of the shows and then we have one other
Part-time producer and we put it all out and then of course the 30 hosts
So we but you have to keep an eye on all of that

(09:33):
So most of my day is not spent thinking about the shows I host it's spent running the network
So who feeds the horses now?
Jennifer feed we only have two we're down to two. Okay, which is a nice number
We like it that way and I don't think we'll ever have we'll ever have a lot of horses again
Now the other hosts are they also are they getting paid?
Yes, we pay the host

(09:54):
We have two kinds of shows on the network one is shows that we own and then we hire the hosts and we pay them and
Then the second kind of show on the network is an affiliate show
So that's maybe a magazine or a publication or a website that comes to us and wants to start a show and we do all
The production so we produce the show we put it out in the network
They're kind of paying for the production and to be on the horse radio network

(10:16):
We just did a show for Purina Purina. Everybody knows Purina
Mm-hmm. They came to us and said we want to do a horse health show. So we produced it
we actually had one of our hosts co-host it with with their doctors that work for Purina and
That shows just come out and that's going to be like an eight episode series over a period of time. So

(10:36):
So we produce those that was a whole new experience to dealing with a company that was that big
Mm-hmm. That was the biggest company we ever dealt with so talk about how the advertising works
Are you you said you're selling the advertising yourself or you using ad insertion or you talking about companies talk about how it's working
We do all our own ad sales. We're in it's such a unique niche market that

(10:57):
Remember I came from the retail side. So I knew the manufacturers of these products. We had sold their products
so I had a lot of contacts in that world to begin with and
And then they knew me from that world. So and we had done pretty well in our store
Plus they knew me as the guy who brought
brought
Selling products online. We were the first on eBay and that kind of thing selling horse products

(11:20):
So, you know, they knew me from that
So when I went to them, I wasn't new to them and now I am now because you know
We're dealing with companies that were beyond my scope
You know the beyond the people I knew so yeah, I do all the sales
We we we use a flat rate. We don't charge CPM. We don't do any of that
It's but I think we're unique and we can do that because of the unique industry that we're in

(11:46):
It's a very tight closed world that we're in
Yeah, do you mind sharing what that flat rate is or is that confidential?
It depends on the show actually they all vary and it can be anywhere from like a hundred fifty dollars to four or five hundred dollars
And that's worth 30 seconds 30 seconds read or something or whatever, you know host read ads don't always come out

(12:08):
Sure. Sure. You know host read ads usually go a lot longer than
So talk about the advertising in terms of if somebody listening to this show is thinking man
I need to sell ads I need to get as I need to make some money at my show because you know
The majority of people that are doing podcasts are not making money at it
It's a hobby or they can't figure out how a lot of people don't want to make money and that's fine

(12:29):
And I admire those people sometimes let me tell you
So what's your advice to them the ones that do?
It's tough because I'm in such a niche market and this is what I tell people I have and I've I've you know
I've helped other podcasters who are starting networks in niche markets
Because I think that's easier to find advertising the way I did it
If you're coming and you're doing a very general show, that's a very general nature

(12:53):
I don't know you have to almost go through a company. I don't know how you're going to find advertising for that
Whereas I can go, you know, I know there's 50 different companies out there that are doing that
50 different companies that sell saddles. I know who to target and they want my audience
That's much different than saying I have a coaching podcast and who am I going to go to?

(13:15):
You know
So I can have much smaller numbers and they're interested in those numbers because they're the exact people they want to talk to
And you know that they know that only horse people for the most part, you know, 90 percent are horse people listening to my show
All right. So it is easier when you're in a niche. I I have a tough time helping people who aren't in a specific niche

(13:37):
Gotcha
Makes sense. So you said you send uh using an editing company
Would you mind mentioning that who that is because that we use neil galarte wild style media and
We're we're demanding because when we do a show because of the turnover we have we do so many shows
That we and we do it differently than most companies do that produce shows in that we have a producer that sits in on the call

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So if the hosts for a show are doing that show and it's an affiliate show
We don't own it. We actually are in on the call. We do all the recording. We do all the editing
We do we do everything just like a regular radio station would having a producer in the call with the hosts
And part of that is quality control part of that is making sure the ads get in
Part of that is you know, just making sure it's done

(14:25):
you know and it and it's done in the correct order and nothing's forgotten and then we send it out to neil and and
He has 48 hours to turn him around
And he you know, he never misses that I mean and we send him a lot of episodes
So, you know, we're very demanding that way and and it probably more so than most people are because we're not working ahead

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None of our shows are we have nothing in the can
We're working record it today put it out in two days
And we're doing it every day for the next two weeks
Gotcha, but you're doing a daily show yourself in addition to the network, correct?
What's your it's a morning show, right? Yeah, that's it's only a live morning show for the horse world
We do an hour and a half five days a week. It's our biggest show
It's our most popular show. We just did episode

(15:09):
2093 today
Wow, we've been we've been going for nine years. This is we're into our ninth year now
It's it's our most profitable show. It's the show that ever if a title spot comes available. We sell title sponsorships for each day
Of that show monday through friday, so you buy the day
And we haven't I mean people our sponsors for that show have been with us since the beginning the title sponsors

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And what are you charging them?
Well that I'd rather not I can
I would love to know that
But they have been with us literally since the beginning and and it's because it works and you know
People say how to how to what is it? What is it? How do?
Advertisers judge right whether an ad spot works

(15:53):
In our niche they know because our listeners will say this is where I heard about it
They'll put it on the order form or they'll call them on the phone. They get feedback
which is how
We know it works and how they know it works and a lot of times they see a general increase in traffic
So traffic goes up and they have nowhere to attribute it to
You so they attribute it to us because we're the only new thing they did

(16:17):
And you know whether it was us or not. I can't tell for sure either unless they use codes and things like that
But as you and I know
People are listening on the run and they don't always use those codes
So I warn my advertisers that they're probably not all going to use the codes
But you're going to see an increase in traffic and that's what happens
So you said an hour and a half for five days how many uh, how many commercials or spots or units?

(16:41):
Whatever whatever you're calling them. Are you getting in per show?
We will not put more than in five and in an hour and a half. We'll put four in an hour
Did you do some testing to realize that's as much as you want to interrupt your content or something or you just that's
As much as I want to be interrupted
So, um, what do you know that's true though as a host I feel like i'm getting tired of doing spots

(17:06):
At that point and i'm going if i'm getting tired, they're getting tired. So we really do try and weave our spots into the conversation, too
Um, some of them, you know
We try and weave them in and with us with us being horse people
It's easy to talk about a company selling horse products and what they have on special and we end up talking about how we use
The product and you know, we really can weave it into conversation, right? Right, right

(17:28):
Yeah, we do some traditional spots too
We do some with music behind it traditional radio spots
And we do that to kind of break it up so that they're not all the same
I think the audience in a 90 minute show needs a little bit of a mental break anyway
They need a break. They need to hear some music. They need a break
So it's not just talking for 90 minutes
And I think that gives them a little bit of a mental break where they're sort of half listening

(17:52):
And that's okay for us because they're going to hear it
You know, they're going to hear that company's name over the next 10 years. So
So now you mentioned you do the show today. It's up in two days is your morning show actually live or is it
Are you posting it to do it live? We do it live and then we post it within a half an hour
It's okay
Okay
No editing on the morning show because we want it to feel like it's live, right?

(18:14):
And what software or hosting company do you use when you do your show?
We used to use vlog talk. I wasn't happy
Uh with quality sound quality
So we used them when we first started because we didn't really have another option
But right now actually to do our morning show we have two hosts in different locations me and the host is out in out in oklahoma

(18:34):
And then we have a producer so we we do have a producer on that to handle the calls and all of that
um, and we use call in studio to handle our calls and our guests because
95% of our guests are on the phone. A lot of them are riding horses in the barn. They're horse people
So, you know, we're okay with them being on the phone
and we use call in studio for that to call the guests and also for listeners to be able to call in and

(18:58):
We use mixler to send out the live feed
So it takes us five computers to do the morning show. I have three it I take three. I have three on my desk
And one of them is just skype that skype is how we still get the hosts all connected
And then one of them is just playing the sound because we play it live
So all the sounds and all the commercials and everything has to be played and then the other computer is where the final feed

(19:23):
Goes to that has a recorder and then the mixler. So we're recording two places
I have a backup and then mixler goes out live and then the producer has a computer and the other host has a computer
So it really does take us five computers to do the morning show
Have you ever had a situation where it just you had a total technical breakdown?
Yeah, you know what we live in the country so usually it's the power goes out right in the middle of the show

(19:48):
Oh, wow, you know, we live in florida. We get a lot of storms here, too
So it you know it happens and it's everything that you can imagine has happened in 20 2100 episodes has happened
Talk about call in studio. I don't think i've ever heard of that and i'd like our our folks that subscribe to uh,
Our publication know exactly what that is

(20:09):
Call in studio is amazing and I found them years ago when we left blog talk
It's um, it's call in studio.com and I think it was originally and still is meant for radio stations to handle calls
So what happens there is it's a cloud-based solution just like a radio station
So you set up your show and you can say I want to have 10 lines open. I want to have up to 500 lines open

(20:35):
So you can actually have up to 500 lines on a call on a show
And what happens is you have a host so I call in as the host
To get the show started and then the producer calls in as a call screener
And they can what we needed was the ability for them to make outgoing calls to phone numbers

(20:56):
And to take incoming calls from phone numbers off air
And because it's a cloud-based solution. We all can have call in studio open and they take the calls off air
They call the guests off air and get them ready for us
So when you listen to our show, it sounds like a radio show. There's no starting and stopping the guest is ready
And then we communicate through skype chat with all the hosts and the producer and they let us know guest is delayed

(21:19):
It's going to be another five minutes kill time
Or the guest is ready and we bring them in through call in studio. Does it sound like they're on a phone? Yes
It sounds like a radio show where people call in on the phone. We sound good
They sound like they're on the phone and that's fine for us because you know
We're not getting our people that live on a farm in the middle of nowhere
To download skype and get a microphone and do all of that

(21:41):
These are busy people that are usually out riding 10 horses in a day
So a lot of we love it if they're riding a horse and we can hear the hoof beats sure if they're that's gold for us
Right because the listeners love that too
So yeah, we don't worry about that a whole lot, but call in studio is perfect. We do a 12-hour live marathon on
Cyber monday every year. It's called our holiday radiothon

(22:04):
And we have 30 guests. We have 30 hosts. We change it every hour
And last year or this past year we had
232 calls in the 12 hours all handled through call in studio
Wow
And what's nice is when they're on hold they're listening to the sound
Sure sure so and i'm guessing there's there might be a monthly fee for that or something

(22:27):
Yeah, people should check it out. They should check it out
You know, I know we pay more because we use it more but I don't it's not that expensive. I remember it. It's like
$12 a month or something. I don't know to have the base plan
And then you pay by minute for the callers, but it does not cost us all that much got you
So you said your first year your first show you had 12 listeners. I imagine you have more than that now

(22:48):
Yeah, we have a few more. We have 30 more
More than that now. Yeah, we have a few more we have tens of thousands now. So nice, but it's taking a long time
Sure. Sure. So that's another piece of advice to folks is to be patient
I mean don't expect after your seventh or eighth show that you're going to have as many callers as glenn, right?
Right now you're not taking us 2100 episodes to get to the point where we are with the morning show

(23:10):
You know, it's it's it takes a long time now. We had the advantage of being in the niche market
So I again horse people are crazy. They're addicted
So, you know, they spend all their money on horses. That's all they think about and that gives us I think a huge advantage
in our in our listenership
in

(23:32):
Each other too. So our word of mouth is probably a little bit greater
Right. So you mentioned a couple times find your niche
And you also said they'll come for the content and stay for the host
So talk about how important it is once, you know, if you've found somebody in your niche
You better be entertaining or they're not going to be around for long
My my every keynote I give at podcasting conferences starts with don't be boring

(23:56):
Don't be boring. I came from the entertainment side. So I said, okay
I couldn't find any I couldn't find videos or anything in the horse world. That wasn't just dry training videos
So when we started I said, you know what?
We got to take what I learned from being an improvisational comedic performer on stage and bring that to our shows
It has to be fun. It has to be entertaining and oh by the way, you're going to learn something along the way and if

(24:21):
When people come and say you guys are so funny
I almost drove off the road
And then the next email comes and says you've talked about a health issue on my horse and it saved my horse
And we've gotten a lot of those
Uh, it saved my horse because I knew about it
And that makes my day because when we hear both of those things, it means we're doing our job
So are you using social media at all?

(24:43):
Are you really so niche where you just you stay in that that that that worse community and that's enough
Now facebook is our big thing. Um horse people tend to be on facebook
We have we also use patreon and what we do
We do a little patreon a little bit differently in that the money that's donated through patreon
And most of that gets divided up amongst our hosts and given back to the hosts

(25:05):
so when people
You know are donating through patreon to become what we call an auditor
They um, they are really given directly to the hosts and it's nice for the hosts because they get a raise every month
You know and they get a little bit more money every month and they know it's directly coming from the listener
So I think we have around 400 now that are in our auditor group
And they have a private facebook page and it's the most active positive upbeat place

(25:29):
I've seen in the horse world
That there's 400 people in there and there's nothing negative
They help each other and they talk about their lives and they really have become a family
I know everybody that has a podcast says that
Uh, but but i'm amazed at this group how they have become a family they come to o'cala
They always stop in a visit here at the studios
It truly we went riding with some that came down from michigan with their horses last weekend

(25:53):
And so it really does become a family and and we're proud to have that core group that really becomes a focus group
I have 400 people in my focus group
So I can go in there and ask a question and get 50 to 100 answers immediately
You're you mentioned the computers talk about what your studio looks like and what kind of equipment you're using
Oh, yeah
We're laughable compared to most. Um, we use atr 2100s for the most part. Um

(26:18):
Um, my hosts tend to use I found baringer mics years ago
That came in a three pack for like 50 dollars
And when we didn't have a lot of money that was a good price and they were half decent mics
And they actually sound pretty good and most of my hosts are still using those so we'll send those out
um
But the atr 2100s are for the most part i'm using a 10 year old mixer

(26:41):
Because I and I have three or four mixers sitting here
And because I have like two mix minuses and it's very complicated setup
And I had consultants dave jackson helped me for two hours one day and we just couldn't get the new fancy mixes to work
So I went to my baringer mixer that's 10 years old and it works like a dream
To get all these computers talking to each other. It's amazing. Um, so as equipment goes

(27:05):
We don't I probably spent more on my stand-up desk than anything in the studio
Um, and then we use all I we use all pcs. I just find they're easier to use for what we're doing
Now, what is your opinion on the podcasting space and how you've seen it evolve over the years?
It took long enough to get to the point where I was hoping it would be five years ago
It's finally getting to the point where I was always hoping it would be and I was always hoping that

(27:27):
We as the horse radio network would be number one in our space when people finally figured out there were podcasts in the world
And we were and they have
So and even in the horse world now, they're starting to figure out their podcast
We didn't have any competition at all in our world. We didn't have any other podcasts
Um, and now that's starting to happen in the last two years
There have been a lot of podcasts popping up and i'm thrilled about that

(27:50):
There have been a lot of horse because we need we still need to educate people that there are podcasts about horses
And I can't tell you how many of our listeners have said I listened to this other show and then I searched because I thought there must be
others
So i'm i'm glad we're getting help and educating and i'm excited. I think you know, we
I think that what's going to happen is we're going to we're going to have this

(28:11):
Insurgence that we've had we're going to have all this technology stuff
And then I think on the other side of that, uh, those that have the tenacity to put out their shows on time
To to do the work it takes to make a good show and to keep doing it over and over and over again will win
But boy, you've got to have that can't miss episodes and you've got to not be boring

(28:35):
You've got to put out a show with good content that people love the hosts
And if you do that, we're going to end up in a whole different world
I think in three years it's going to be different than it is now and we just have to keep up with those changes
But I I for I don't feel like um
I don't I feel like for the first time
In ten years, we're at the point where?

(28:58):
I'm in the right business
I'm in a business that's that's going to make it
As opposed to having that fight we did what you know, five or six years ago where we were all going to go and we're going to make
Through this will you be at podcast movement and podfest this year? Obviously in your home state and can people come see you there?
Yep, we're doing my co-host and and actually I

(29:20):
I she owns the Florida podcast network, which I have a piece of
Jimmy Lagonia and I are doing the opening keynote at podfest. This will be our fourth year doing that
So we kind of open up the festivities. We met at podfest years ago
So that's how we've been business partners ever since and then podcast movement. Yes, it's in Orlando
I'm definitely going and for anybody that doesn't know how to get in touch with you

(29:43):
That might be a new podcaster. Where can they find you?
Orsradionetwork.com Glenn. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you
Thanks again to Glenn the geeky bird for allowing us to shine the PBJ spotlight on him
What a great story if you believe you have a great story to tell and you should be in the PBJ spotlight
Send me an email edryantheeditor at gmail.com. That's edryantheeditor at gmail.com

(30:07):
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And we'll be back soon with another edition of the podcast business journal spotlight