Entrepreneurs Scaling Their Content: From Podcasts to Newsletters with Scott Clary and Others

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. If you look at your
win to loss ratio, you wina thousand times every day. The concist
woke up one day and I waslike a happiness happens. I'm tired as
a customer of bad experiences. I'mRichard Gearhart and I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You

(00:22):
just heard some snippets from our show. It was a great one. Stay
tuned to hear tips about how youcan start your business ramping up your business.
The time is near. You've givenit hard, Now get it in
gear. It's passage to profit.With Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard

(00:43):
Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law,a full service intellectual property law firm specializing
in patents, trademarks, and copyrights. And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an
attorney, but I do marketing forGearheart Law, and I have my own
startups and podcasts. Are you oneof the two and five Americans wanting to
start your own business or all ida business owner? Stay tuned. The
show is about starting and growing yourBusiness. Welcome to Passage to Profit,

(01:04):
the Road to entrepreneurship, where welearn why and how ordinary people just like
you started and grew their businesses.And we also talk about the intellectual property
that helps protect your innovations. Wehave Scott Cleary. He's the founder and
CEO of The Social Club, hostof the success Story podcast, investor and

(01:25):
author, and we are really lookingforward to hearing from him. And after
Scott, we have two amazing presenters. We have Simona Costantini and she has
Bolt Productions and the Happiness Happens podcastand she helps a lot of people get
their podcastered, so very cool.And then Stacy Sherman. She flies all
over the country. I can barelyget a hold of her giving presentations on

(01:48):
customer experience. So she is acustomer experience expert and everybody wants to hear
what she has to say. Butbefore we hear from our distinguished guests,
it's time to talk about your excitingnew business journey. Two and five Americans
want to start their own business.Is it time for you to start a
new business? Our guests today areall podcasters and so of course we're going

(02:08):
to ask about starting podcasts. SoI would like to ask our guests,
why did you start your podcast andwhat did you want to achieve from it.
Scott, Welcome to the show.Tell us about why you wanted to
start your podcast and what you wantedto achieve from it. It's funny.
When I first started it, itwas not just to sell a product or
a service. The goal was tobuild an audience and a community that would

(02:30):
have some longevity. I think thatwe work so hard to build our companies
as entrepreneurs, and we realized thatwe're putting all of ourselves into it.
And I've seen the other side ofentrepreneurship. After you sell a company and
then you have to start from scratch, or even in your career when you
move from job to next job andyou always feel like you're starting from scratch.

(02:50):
I feel like building an audience isthe hack to not start from scratch.
And you start to build an audienceand you build this flywheel and over
your career this great community of peoplethat know you, love you, trust
you, and that can be usedto launch products. It can be used
to get job offers, It canbe used for a variety of different things.
Just putting your name out there,putting yourself out there so that everything

(03:13):
becomes a little bit easier. Great, that's really great. So we have
with us Stacey Sherman. Stacey,welcome to the show. Tell us about
why you started your podcast and whatyou hope to get out of it.
I started as a hobby while Iwas in corporate and I was just sharing
what I was doing in the job, doing customer experience, right, and

(03:34):
then that turned into more than ahobby, a labor of love and a
way to connect with people. Iwould never have met the people that have
been on my show otherwise, andso it's a love. It's like a
baby, and I've been growing itup. That's great. Thank you for
that. Simona Constantini, welcome tothe show. Thank you, thank you
so much for having me. Sure, why did you start your podcast and

(03:57):
what did you hope to get outof it? So I have two podcasts.
The first one, Happiness Happens,I started in twenty eighteen, and
the intention behind that was actually apersonal journal and I was documenting all of
the growth that I was experiencing throughunderstanding things like fear, shame, guilt,
happiness, joy, contentment, whatdoes that all mean? And the
purpose of it and still continues todayto help one person feel less alone.

(04:19):
And so through those conversations of happiness, that's what I aim to do on
every single episode, and I getto interview thought leaders and really dig deep
into what does happiness mean to themand also why do we feel like we
don't have enough of it? Andwhat do we do to get more of
it? So that's the first one. The second one, as it relates
to podcasting, is an industry showto help creators start, grow, launch,

(04:40):
monetize their podcast. That is awesome. You know, you do get
a chance to talk with people ata very deep level when you're on a
podcast or on a radio show,and you get to share that and other
people get to experience those conversations.So it's really a very special experience.
Elizabeth, tell us about why youstarted your podcast and what you hope to
get out of it, I willRichard. Passage to Profit actually was not

(05:06):
something we went out looking for.It was brought to us by Kenya Gibbs.
I guess it kind of found us. It found us, and I
think the reason I wanted to startit was because it just seemed so exciting
and so much fun and what happenedafter we started it and started reaching out
to people to be on the showwas we just started meeting the most amazing

(05:27):
people and I started learning so muchand I love learning. And so when
you do an interview style show andyou get these amazing people on, you
always learn something new. It doesn'tmatter how much you know. And so
that's why we started it, forsomething new to do that seemed exciting,
and boy, we love it nowwe do. Kenya Gibson, our co

(05:48):
host and media maven. Can youtell us about your podcast, why you
started it, and what you hopeto get out of it. My podcast
is about motherhood and right and coveringsome of them internal disparities that are happening
in communities of color. And Ithink one of the reasons why I was
always interested in podcasts in general isI think I'm innately an educator, right,
and I like to teach people stuff. And we have a lot of

(06:11):
data and statistics on why people listento podcasts in the first place, and
that is to learn right. Soit's kind of like going to find a
really good book. You find whatyou like, you find a few chapters
that speak to you. So Ifeel like that's what podcasting is, right
you creating this platform where people cankind of go pull from their favorite chapters
and download really good information. Yeah. Well, I think education is an

(06:31):
important part of any podcast, andthat's personally why I felt like Passage to
Profit was such a great idea.It was actually Kenya and Elizabeth idea.
But I do love entrepreneurism, andentrepreneurism is such a positive, strong,
potent force that it's really important forpeople to understand the power of entrepreneurism,
and I think Passage to Profit reallyhelps with that. It helps highlight entrepreneurs,

(06:56):
the challenges, the successes, andthat's why I love doing this.
And what do I hope to getout of this, I don't know.
At this point. I'm just happyto share the information and help other people,
so that's my payoff. Anyway,Now it's time to go to our
featured guest, Scott Cleary. Heis an amazing guy. I've gotten a
chance to know him over the lastcouple of days and he's really super super

(07:19):
smart. He's very articulate. Healso has this huge podcast and so y'ah,
no, it's all true. Youhave to admit it's all true.
He's an entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcaster. He's the founder and
CEO of the Social Club, ahighly vetted private members community of entrepreneurs and
investors and executives, and he alsohosts a success story podcast, the Number

(07:42):
one Podcast and Top ten business podcasts. So if you haven't had a chance
to listen to success Story, doit. You will be so inspired.
Scott interviews inspirational people. He's alsothe founder of a weekly business newsletter with
over three hundred and twenty one thousandsubscribers. That's a lot of people up.
Welcome to the show, So thankyou, Scott. What is the

(08:03):
most important thing for you in yourcareer? In my career? You know,
as I was listening to what everyonewas saying as to why they started
their podcast, there was one threadthat I think I just want to touch
on because I think it's an importantpoint for an entrepreneur who's building something.
When you build something, if yougive back to a community or an audience,
you will find a way to becomesuccessful. And I don't think I

(08:26):
always wrapped my mind around this idea, but it's proven to be true time
and time again because I put outa lot of free content. Almost everything
I put out was free. Again, I did not start a show with
a product. I started a showwhen I was still building a company completely
unrelated to the show. So allthe interviews I was doing, all that
was free content. Even the newsletter, it's free content. And I found

(08:46):
that when you take care of others, especially at scale, you live a
life dedicated to teaching and education andgiving back and helping people not have to
reinvent the wheel. Honestly, thisis what I've sort of built my show.
It's what I've built my current businessaround the social club. You mentioned
that, and the money takes careof itself. So I think that not

(09:07):
to sound too cliche, but whenyou go in and build anything, or
especially as a content creator, ifyou go in with a very selfless attitude,
an audience first attitude, and youdon't try and melk money out of
people immediately, especially as a creator, and you build this incredible community,
the money will take care of itself. You have to find a way eventually

(09:28):
to monetize this audience, which isimportant so you have some longevity. But
I think that that's probably one ofthe most important creator ideas and concepts that
I think people have to wrap theirhead around. Yeah. I mean it's
like any other relationship where you haveto build trust, and building trust takes
time and people need to know whatyou're about. Scott Clary, what were
your solutions we're getting through those reallychallenging times. I think that just sort

(09:54):
of shelving the ego aside, mayberealizing that you're not the smartest person in
the room, maybe leveraging the aplayers at you probably have hired, hopefully
to come in with solutions, keepingyourself out of it and getting out of
your own way. Yeah, andsort of having this ideal zone where you're
confident enough to make decisions and takeaction. I mean, if something went
right, I used to hit theceiling with happiness, and then I would

(10:16):
go crashing down when the opposite happens. The one thing you always did when
things went right, if there wasextra income, you always put that away
in the bank. You can reinvesta lot of it into your business,
but you should have that qushon there. Oh yeah, so that's more of
a tactical like no, your burnrate. Burn rate is the number one
most important thing in your business shouldpay attention to, and it's really how

(10:37):
much cost you have in the bankversus how much are you spending every single
month. That's really it at theend of the day, So you have
to know your numbers. Every investorgets a little percentage of your company,
right, or maybe a big percentage. Can you delute it so far that
you can't get investment money anymore?You can delute it so far that you
lose your company, which is worse. If you raise out a bad valuation,

(10:58):
you'd actually have to do something calleda round where the next round you
raise has to be at a lowervaluation because you basically screwed up the valuation
and you do not fulfill the promisesto your investors or the growth that you
were gonna you're promising your investors.Tough, sell tough. It's not good
it basically. So the point is, do not dilute yourself, Do not
undervalue your company. Try and builda company that's profitable, Try and build
a company without raising money, andthat's where you'll be the happiest as an

(11:22):
entrepreneur. That was my next pointwas like just taking a look at the
creator economy and how creators are functioning, and you know, having the ability
to monetize their platforms. What advicewould you give to someone who's like a
smaller creator kind of starting off,you want to get into a cadence of
how you can continuously produce content becausethat's your product. So find a way
to continuously produce where you're not overburdeningyourself financially in the content creation process.

(11:46):
And then the next step would bemonetizing. Understand your value as a creator.
Understand that sometimes companies take advantage ofcreators. So you want to figure
out how many impressions are you gettinga metric to track how you should charge
is CPM cost per mill That meanscost per thousand impressions, So figure out
what a good CPM is for yourtype of content. Could be five dollars
or could be fifty dollars if it'sbusiness finance conent doesn't matter. You learn

(12:11):
how to value yourself so you cango into a negotiation from position of power
and authority. And then more tactically, I mean you can either use agencies,
but also be careful that you negotiategood deals. Run campaigns. Understand
how to value yourself. Use chatchipto put together a contract you'll monetize.
You're listening to Passage to Profit withRichard and Elizabeth Gerhart. Our guest Scott

(12:33):
Cleary is here and stay tuned.We're going to be hearing Secrets of the
Entrepreneurial Mind coming up soon. Haveyou considered getting life insurance but you smoke
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four nine four oh. That's eighthundred two five five forty nine forty Now
back to passage to profit once again. Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our special
guest, Scott Clary, who hasjust done amazing things and knows so much
about business. Scott, what isyour number one tip? I know you

(14:52):
say longevity, making sure that youcan keep your podcast going. I think
another tip would be tracking your wins. Is that puts you in the right
mindset. It's not complicated, it'sjust removing the fog from where you are
now to where you want to be. I want to go back a little
bit to not only podcasting, butI want to go to YouTube. You
managed to grow your YouTube quite significantly. What do you think was the biggest

(15:15):
factor in that. If I lookand you can go into YouTube and you
can see all the analytics. IfI look at what type of content brought
the most subscribers, it's short formcontent. Short form is what all social
is now competing on. So I'mnow trying to create better short form because
I know that that's playing into thealgorithm on YouTube. How short is short
form? Under sixty seconds? TikToktype is stuff? TikTok type? Yeah,
find a way to create content thatfits into that because that will get

(15:37):
the most organic reach. In yourmind, do you need to have a
podcast on YouTube? And a podcast, an audio podcast on other sites.
Yes, I think that you needto have video. I think video needs
to be a component. I thinkit's useful for two reasons more than two.
But it creates trust with an audiencethat audio alone will have trouble doing.
It will create trust at a probablya lower rate than just video.

(16:00):
If I'm watching somebody, I knowwho they are, I see their mannerism,
see all that stuff. And thenalso it can create a lot of
derivative content that plays into other platformsalgorithms. Right, So with just audio,
that's not getting any traction on TikTok. But if I have video content,
I can repurpose that, so itreduces the amount of effort required to
go everywhere. Right, And we'retalking about podcasting. We're not talking about

(16:22):
radio because everybody has their radios onall the time, so they hear the
audio content on radio. What wouldyou say, Kenya about that? Yeah,
I would say, I mean that'sthe way we've been able to scale
our podcast network so quickly, waslike via the radio stations. Right.
But my question for you is what'sthe benefit of having a YouTube podcast versus
what I feel like everybody was kindof doing before right now. So I

(16:42):
don't care that much about a YouTubepodcast. I care about my podcast going
on YouTube that specific feature. They'renot giving it enough love. If I
felt like that dramatically increased reach,then I'd find a way to use that
better or I understand it more.Right now, I think it's an after
thoughts. I think they're competing withApple and Spotify, and they know that

(17:02):
people are uploading video already. Hm. So I think that if YouTube started
to focus on that maybe and Isaw like a five percent increase in organic
reach, maybe I'd bit more attentionto it. But I mean, my
playlist was video podcasts and then itjust turned into a YouTube podcast. That's
air quotes for YouTube podcast. Butit's the same thing, So that is
not a major growth differentiator for you. Scott Clary he's the founder and CEO

(17:26):
of The Social Club, host ofthe success Story podcast. Scott, Where
can our audience find you? Soyou can find me at scottdclaary dot com.
Main podcast is called success Story andyou can get that wherever you get
your podcasts or all the socials.Pretty simple, it's at Scott d Clary.
Well, that's great passage to Profitwith Richard, Elizabeth Gearheart, Our

(17:47):
Media, Maven Kenya Gibson. Nowit's time for IP in the News and
Elizabeth, what is on the IPin the News table today? Scarlett Johansson,
What would you do if somebody tookyour voice and didn't add with it.
Well, somebody did that to herusing artificial intelligence, using artificial intelligence,
and they said it wasn't her voice, it was just someone that sounded

(18:07):
like her. And it was likethe biggest AI company in the country that
was doing this. And this isa fear I have heard from so many
creators that people are going to useAI to steal their voice and put it
on things that they don't stand foror don't stand before, or even just
make money on it. Yeah,Scarlett Johansson, her voice apparently was.
It wasn't used directly, but itwas an AI enhanced version that was close

(18:32):
to how she sounded. And shewas on this program called sky It was
a feature of chat GPT and OpenAI tried to get her to agree to
let her use her voice or tolet them use an AI version of her
voice. She wouldn't agree. Theydid it anyway. She sent them a
cease and desist letter and they stopped, and even the president of Open AI

(18:55):
asked her and approached her directly inorder for her to do this. And
I guess that they really felt thatthis would be so impactful and important that
if she agreed to it, itwould set a precedent. And she didn't
agree to it, and I reallyappreciate that as a creator, but I
wanted to get our guest impressions ofthis. So, Stacey, what do

(19:15):
you think about the situation? Howdo you align on this issue? I
believe that there is a time andplace for AI. I believe that it
can be helpful to streamline our workprocess, but it is not to replace
humans and to be us. Simona, what do you think taking someone's voice
and putting words that are not actuallytheirs into their content and like what they're

(19:38):
creating. I think is absolutely nutsAnd it really makes me think too,
just overall, how much stuff canbe put out there that we are not
actually approving or saying that. That'sfact for us, especially in podcasting,
there's this responsibility to make sure thatthe information that you're bringing forth is actually
ethical and like honest and makes sense. Right, Scott, maybe you can't

(20:02):
use somebody's voice, but there shouldbe like a licensing process or something like
that. Like I mean, youwork in trademark, so I mean you're
gonna deal with this all the timenow. Also, I really believe that
there'll be a lot of tools thatare built with AI that will help you
decide or figure out what is AIand what isn't. Passage to Profit with
Richard Analysts, dear heart, ourspecial guest Scott Cleary, and we'll be
back and stay tuned for Secrets ofthe entrepreneurial mind. Yay, hear that

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(22:22):
four one oh fifty nine fourteen paidfor by the Healthy Shorts hotline. Passage
to Profit continues with Richard and ElizabethGearhart. Time four Power Move with Kenny
Gibson. Can you power move?Today? Is Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who
is doubling down on her viral jabagainst Representative Marjorie Taylor Green. So they

(22:42):
had a bit of an exchange onthe Congress floor a couple of days ago,
and as a result of that,there were a few clapbacks which came
out of that conversation in exchange thatshe's now has trademarked, right, So
she's creating a whole line around thecrocket clap back collection. And they were
a very congress woman like on thefloor that day, just to put that

(23:03):
out there. But who am I? Well, I don't think I've acted
like that since I was two yearsold. Even important legislators take advantage of
the trademark system. So I guessthat's the lesson for today. It is
the lesson and the power move.Do you think the Trademark Office would allow
that? Absolutely? There was aSupreme Court case involving a band called the

(23:25):
Slants, which was supposed to bea negative reflection on Asian Americans, and
the Trademark Office denied their trademark becauseit was supposedly scandalous subject matter. But
the Supreme Court said, no,freedom of speech. You can trademark that.
If I wanted to learn more abouttrademarks, where could I go?
Glad you asked? You can goto learn more about trademarks dot com and

(23:48):
you can download a free white paperEntrepreneur's Quick Guide to Trademarks, and could
also book a consultation with me RichardGerhart. So woo, this would be
an interesting trademark for you to file. Now keep me out of that.
It's not worth the money. So, Elizabeth, as you know, I've
been working on this website. Itwas for B to B. It was

(24:11):
video directory because video, of coursebreeds authenticity. It's so powerful, but
it was hard to get people togo on video and do short videos.
I'm kind of repurposing it. I'mnot going to talk about how I've really
been getting into the podcasting space.I still have my cat podcast with Danielle
Woolley, the Jersey Podcasts. We'rehaving a lot of fun with that,
kind of playing around with it,doing different thumbnails, finding that the AI

(24:33):
programs that help you with images arereally fun to play with for thumbnails,
for these kind of things. Butprobably the biggest thing I'm doing right now,
we're remodeling our podcast today. ButStacy Sherman, who is here,
and I are doing a meetup togetherfor podcasters and YouTubers and we've had four
meetings and it's just going crazy.It's just an amazing response. It's hybrid

(24:55):
between zoom and in person and wefilled the room last night. Plus we
had a ton of people on Idon't even know how many for sure,
So anyway, enough about me.Simona Constantini was amazing last night on our
panel. She's the founder of VoltProductions, host of Happiness Happens podcasts and
another podcast to tell people how todo podcasts. She knows so much I

(25:15):
can hardly wait for her to sharewith our audience allow her knowledge, So
welcome, Simona, tell us aboutwhat you do with Volt Productions. Volt
Productions is a full service, toptier podcast production agency, and we help
entrepreneurs, typically in the health,wellness, mindfulness spaces, start, launch,
grow, monetize, and market theirpodcasts. Not typically in that order,

(25:36):
but sometimes. And so yes,that's what we do day in and
day out. We get to workwith some really cool creators and some really
fun stories and ideas and we bringthose to life. So that's on like
the production side of it, andon the happiness Happens side of it.
That's a whole lifestyle brand as well. And interview. As I was saying
earlier, thought leaders in terms ofhappiness and understanding what that means to them.

(25:57):
So can people be happy? Yeah? I think so. We all
have a different definition of happiness.We all have a different vision and understanding
of what happiness is and what itmeans. And what I've learned in doing
the podcast since twenty eighteen is thathappiness is so different to each and every
person. But at the core ofhappiness, I ask my guests each episode,
what is happiness mean to you?That's how I open the show.

(26:18):
That's how I open the podcast,and that's actually something that I would recommend
to a lot of creators. Findthat anchoring question instead of you know tell
me about yourself, for example,it can be something that hooks them in
so you get a little bit deeperright off the bat. And I love
having something like that that it helpsyou get really deep into conversation first,
and then you'll go through your storyand then you'll start talking about different pieces.

(26:40):
But I believe that people can behappy, and I also think that
happiness can also be defined as innerpiece. That's how I define happiness.
When you're at peace with yourself,you are generally happier in life because even
though the hard moments happen and there'sgood and bad in every single day,
when you can come from that placeof inner peace and not let things outside
of you rock you and shake you, you can still stand in that neutrality.

(27:06):
And that's a really powerful place tobe in. When you're an entrepreneur,
it's a lifestyle, it's a wayof living, and there's always going
to be this idea and this thoughtof imbalance. But what I know for
my own self personally, I'm notreally looking for balance in my life.
I'm looking for living out purpose andliving out my mission and my passion and
what I want to do every singleday. And so yeah, sometimes that

(27:27):
balance gets a little bit skewed,and my days get a little bit taken
aback here and there. But atthe end of the day, we get
to choose how we want to liveour lives. Right when you're especially when
you're an entrepreneur, we get tochoose where our time goes. We get
to choose our responses to things thathappen, in situations that happened. And
I really think that it takes sometime to get to that place, because

(27:48):
I have things that trigger me everysingle day and I'm like, I can't
believe that just happened. I'm like, oh my God, Like I can't
believe it. But then when youcan bring yourself back down to that place
of neutrality and not let those externalthings come and shake your whole day,
and like, I get upset aboutthings, and sometimes it sticks and it
lingers for a whole day, andthen I'm like, Okay, but what
is this? How is this servingme? And this is making me more
frustrated? And so I try toremind myself and bring myself back down to

(28:11):
that grounded place, and I justtry and stay there and operate out of
there more often, but it's reallyhard. To do like. It's taken
me years to learn how to evendo that, and I don't think I've
mastered it. But I definitely thinkI'm better than I used to be.
But I operate in anxiety often.I run a business that's very busy and
takes a lot of different time andenergy and attention in different places, with

(28:32):
a lot of moving parts, youknow, anxiety will happen. I think,
at the end of the day,how much emotion do you want to
give into all of the things thatwe're doing every day? I guess,
yeah, kenya, So I guesshow can you take some of those emotions
right and then channel that into yourcreative process? Like what advice would you
give for that? I love that. So typically what I do is when
I have a really high emotion andI'm experiencing something as I'll go with anxiety

(28:53):
or something that's frustrating me. Maybe'tmore on the negative side, I love
to walk, So I actually purchaseda walking pad and I put it underneath
my desk, and anytime I feeloverwhelmed, e anytime I feel anxious,
anytime i feel like I've too manyideas swirling in my mind, I start
walking on my walking pad and Ijust type I just did this the other
day, and I wrote two emailsto my email list, and I worked

(29:15):
through so many mental blocks that Iwas experiencing just like that. So I
find that for my own self movement, while I can do something to get
the thought out of my mind,for me, it's getting the thought out
of my mind and putting it downonto paper. Once I can do that,
I'm taking it out of my energeticawareness. If you will, it
stays there otherwise, and you canjust get caught up in this time and
time and time again, and thenyou bring into like fruition into your life

(29:37):
every single day. You know,you talk about like intention and attention of
what we're doing on a daily basis. What is the purpose of doing everything
we do? What is the purposeof having your podcast and your business and
all the stuff that we get todo as entrepreneurs every day? There's that
plus language. What is the languagethat we're using to talk about the things
that we get to do every singleday. So it's these like little tiny
reframes that happen over time that Ifeel like are really powerful. So what

(30:00):
attracted you to the topic of happinessfrom being deeply unhappy. You know.
I woke up one summer in twentyeighteen and I was talking with my now
ex husband and we were we weregoing back and forth about something, and
I was just so miserable. Andit's hard. It's a hard place to
be in because when you look atme from the outside and it's like,

(30:21):
oh, she's kind of got herthings together, like good for her.
But I was so unhappy and Iwas so miserable, and I was a
gossipy person, and I was mean, and I just brought people down to
try and bring myself up. Andwe were having a conversation and he had
said to me, like, okay, so what are you going to do
about it? Well, that's areally good question. I was like,
what am I going to do?So then I started understanding where those emotions
were coming from. Why were theyin my awareness? Why was this something

(30:42):
that's happening in my life? Whatis that trigger that mirror trying to teach
me about myself? And then Iwent to therapy and then I started to
understand that we all have these differentemotions. And then it brought me to
happiness. Happiness, like the namehappiness happens just kind of dropped into my
subconscious. I woke up one dayand I was like, a happiness happen.
The first thing that I get mypodcasting clients to do is what is

(31:03):
the purpose and the mission of yourshow? What is your show about?
Who's it for? And then whyshould they care? That? Why should
they care? Piece is really importantbecause that's something that's going to anchor you
back into everything you do when itgets really hard because everyone defines happiness so
differently and everyone experiences it so differentlyday to day. And one thing that
I've tried to do to really getinto those moments and really savor it is

(31:26):
just that sit in it and tryand find like the extra bit of joy
that's in that. It helps bringyou back into your overall mission and thing
that you're experiencing. Can things makeyou happy? Because some things make me
happy. I think that both piecesinternal and external absolutely have a place in
our life. What's the point indoing anything in life if you can't enjoy

(31:48):
the things as well? Take thetrip if you want to buy the thing
that makes you happy, go todinner with a friend. Like, what
are we living for if we're notliving to experience life in and of itself.
I think that we create happiness frominside, and then also we have
outward things that make us happy aswell. Getting on a plane, for
me, this last couple of days, getting to be here with you all
and staying at my cousin's house andseeing my family like that fills my cup

(32:10):
up in so many ways. Thatis an external thing. It requires money
to get onto a plane to gethere, so they do coincide together,
right. I'm so glad to hearyou talking like this that happiness and satisfaction
are good things and that we shouldinclude them in our life. I grew
up with parents who grew up duringthe Great Depression. My father fought in

(32:34):
World War Two, and everything forthem was just getting through the next day
and surviving and doing your duty,and happiness or good times were just never
part of the equation. And soit seems to me that our world is
changing now where people are valuing happinessand good feelings and positive energy and they're

(32:57):
talking about it, and I justthink that that's such a great direction for
us to be taking. Simona Constantini, how do people find you on my
website? It's volt Productions dot Coor on Instagram at Simona with two underscores
Costantini. All of my lengths canbe found through there as well, and
happiness happens on any podcast platform asit relates to podcasting on any podcast platform.

(33:17):
Passage to Profit with Richard Elsworth,Gearheart and Kenya Gibson our special guest
Scott Clary, and we will beright back. Do I feel like the
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not eleven A squatify for a loanerre sainings actual offer terms including APR A
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on ternament evectors no back to passageto profit once again Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
And now we have the amazing StaceySherman with doing CX right. Stacy
flies all over the country giving presentationson this. She also helped me start
the meetup pod experience. We doit together. We're co hosts and I

(34:45):
just can hardly wait to hear herwelcome Stacy, thank you so much.
Tell us about doing customer service right. I have been in corporate major brands
for over twenty five years and lastyear corporate left me. What that means
is that I got that dreaded call. Wasn't expecting it, and there was

(35:05):
a board meeting and a decision tocut from the top. Got the phone
call unexpectingly and they said, sorry, you're done. And I was grieving.
I was grieving my team. Iwas grieving the loss of my identity
in corporate. That's all I've everknown is being in a corporate box in
an ORG chart. And I wasgrieving, and then I was getting really

(35:30):
sad. Opposite of happiness happens inthat I didn't understand grieving, Like,
what do you mean I'm grieving?Nobody died, So I've learned that grieving
is not just from death, Grievingis any loss. Then fast forward a
little time, took some pause.Luckily, both my kids were just about

(35:50):
ending college. One was done,one was about to and so I saw
it as a sign that, huh, the timing of this is really interesting.
By the way, what I didn'tsay and important to the story,
is that I started a blog inaround twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, actually writing
about what I was doing in corporate, and that is how to differentiate a

(36:12):
company and create loyalty as your branddifferentiator. People buy based on how they
feel, not just based on price, and that is a good example why
I buy Starbucks. It is notbecause I like to pay triple the price.
Anyway, I started with a blog. I didn't know if anyone would
ever read it, and they did, and then I got all this feedback,

(36:36):
and so I'm doing my corporate thingand writing my blog on the side.
And then I said, well,what else could I do to share
the knowledge? Because I'm tired asa customer of bad experiences, I'm also
tired as an employee of bad experiences, and one fuels the other. You
can't have a good customer experience withouta good employee experience. Who's fueling being

(37:00):
that customer excellence? And so thenI said, well, you know what,
I'm going to go be a gueston fifty shows. That was my
mission to go share this free contentway so much free content. That's all
I was doing as a hobby isfree content. On those shows, I
got to experience what a great guestexperience looks like and what a bad one

(37:23):
looks like. And so once Ilearned that from fifty shows, then I
said, Okay, I've always beenthe guest. Now I'm going to be
the host of the party, andthen I started my own show, and
it is really funny to listen toshow one versus now at one hundred and
thirty two. So I learned alot. Now let me tell you for

(37:44):
those who are listening, best advice, take the microphone out of the box.
What do I mean? Six monthsit took me to start my show
and be the host of doing CXright because I had fear fear of the
technology. I didn't have fear speaking, I'd done that so much under a

(38:05):
corporate brand, but I had fearedthe technology. I had fear of doing
it so perfectly. And so Itell you a couple things. That is,
take the microphone out of the box. Also, start before you know
why, start the blog, startthe podcast, Start sharing your passion before
you know why. Because now thatI'm out of corporate, I have a

(38:29):
brand before I even understood what Iwas building. And so now I have
the business of speaking as a keynoteon doing customer experience right and going and
advising companies so that they can reallymeasure whether it's satisfaction, whether it's happiness,
and even the leaders who are responsiblefor the employees to be able to

(38:52):
pay it forward to the customers andhow to do that right. So,
Stacy, why did you decide atthis point not to look for another corporate
job and just to jump into entrepreneurship. Oh, such a good question.
Will truth be told? Every singleday, my hand goes to the computer
where my resume sits, and Iam about to hit the button and go

(39:15):
back again. I've taken no breaksfor over twenty five years, and every
day to this moment, I goto hit that button and submit my resume,
and then I pull my hand backbecause I am betting on myself,
which is not comfortable. I'm learningwhat that means. I've always bet on

(39:36):
my kids, and now I'm gettingthe chance to bet on myself and learn
what entrepreneurship is about. And soI'm just starting year two and I'm getting
comfortable with the uncomfortable. Yeah.I think when you're in a corporate environment,
it's the organization that is facing theworld and you're facing what's going on

(40:00):
eternally. But when you're an entrepreneur, you're facing the world. It's like
being a ship in a storm.Sometimes the wave comes from one direction,
then the other direction. You don'thave a big ship there blocking the waves.
For you. You've got to takethose on yourself. But the advantages
is you're quicker and you can learnto ride the waves. I'm learning what
that means. I've been in thecorporate box. The hardest part actually is

(40:25):
process and scalability of what I do. And so now I invested in a
platform that's actually for speakers and itactually centralizes everything from my CRM, my
email campaigns, my social media,my quick books, my booking links,

(40:45):
everything centralized. So now it's operationalizingwhat I do. I want to go
back to the customer experience stuff,because that's what you do, right,
That's what you teach people. Whatare some of the findings that you've kind
of picked upon, like throughout yourexperience with those fifty shows that you were
on, And if you had topick like two of those examples, how

(41:07):
would you maybe coach somebody to theother side of that. What I see
is that people do not intentionally mapout the customer journey. Now, customer
has different meaning in the podcast space. A customer is the audience and listeners.
The customer can be your sponsor andthat experience. Your customer can be

(41:30):
a partner in business. Your customerare the buyers, and your customers are
also your vendors and your internal peopledelivering the experience. So designing an experience,
let me explain, think about youbuying the coffee you're drinking. Well,
somebody had to literally design how you'regoing to learn about their product,

(41:54):
how are you going to buy?E commerce retail salesperson learn buy, get
us pay, And then customer serviceis the help. And I have to
say out loud that customer service andcustomer experience are not the same thing.
One customer service is a piece ofthe whole journey. And so a pet

(42:19):
peeve of mind that I educate peopleis they are not the same thing.
So you cannot say customer service isinterchangeable with customer experience because customer experience is
the whole journey and customer service iswhere you are proactively getting help because there's
a problem, and that does impactthe whole journey. Scott Clary, I
have a question for you. Youjust mentioned how the customer for a podcast

(42:43):
is a listener from a cx lens. Have you thought about how to craft
the perfect customer experience for a podcastlistener? How do we do that?
One feedback? Ask them how doyou like to consume content? What's the
content that matters to you a podcaster? I have designed literally from walking in

(43:05):
my customer audience shoes, walking inmy guest I have an interview based so
literally, before you even get onthe show, the experience of how you
will experience. Do I send youquestions? Do I follow up with you
before the day? Do I sendyou what you need before you show up?
Do I make you comfortable even onthe recording? And so feedback is

(43:30):
a gift And all you have todo in business and in content is ask
and then use it and close theloop. Yeah. I love that because
I think that a lot of peoplecreators, they're shouting their content, but
they don't realize that the audience maynot want to receive it the way that
they're broadcasting it out to the universe. And from a CX lens, you

(43:52):
realize that the audience is a customerand the product is a podcast. I
think you probably realize that more thanmost people when they start. Absolutely,
and one of the things that anycompany can do. I was in a
department of new product development, andwe had a customer experienced team that would
ask people for feedback before launch beforeyou go to market. Does this meet

(44:16):
your needs? Why or why not? And come back and work with the
product teams and actually, in anagile style, fix it before it goes
out the door. But what happensis with a lot of companies with your
new or existing because you're always puttingout new products, You launch it,
go to market, hope it sticks. Yes, you need to get feedback

(44:37):
post launch. Same thing with apodcast, get feedback before you launch,
because then you waste so much moneyand time and resources if you don't get
that upfront information. Sometimes people justdon't want to know. Oh you hit
the nail on the head. Absolutely, And that's something I go to companies

(44:59):
in se that the knowledge is power. You want to know the feedback you.
You cannot design an experience internally.It's got to be designing it with
your customer in mind, not justfrom the employ your staff. Yeah,
And I would just add to thatand say that I find a lot of
podcasters don't know their audience right,Like if I ask them, who's your

(45:20):
audience, Like how old are they? What are they like like behaviorally,
like they can't articulate that. Somy podcast, like I know for sure
I'm talking to women eighteen to fortyfour who are multicultural moms, right,
And it's very niche, but toyour point, it creates an experience because
when you know exactly who you're talkingto, then you know how to talk
to them. Scott had brought upa couple of places where you can go

(45:40):
to really get good information on whoyour podcast audience is. You can obviously
look at your analytics tools. Youcan put out a survey, use the
type form to actually get information fromyour podcast audience. But Refonic is a
good tool because it shows every singlepodcast, not just yours. It'll I
mean, like, if you wantto look at yours, you have all
yourself social platforms. You can seewhat age, what demo, what city,

(46:02):
what country, all that stuff.But rafonic also shows other podcasts,
other demographics, what shows are similarto other shows. So you can start
to see other people's analytics as well. And that's spelled r eph Oh and
I see I actually in my newsletter, I'll ask if the content resonates with
the audience, and I'll say,like, how was this podcast? Because

(46:25):
it's an easy medium to communicate,I mean, you could also put up
surveys on Twitter, and LinkedIn,but newsletter was easy, So I would
do that final word stacy, andthen we want to know where to find
you. I would say keep doingcustomer experience right if you're a business owner,
because that is a competitive advantage.And if you don't understand what that

(46:46):
means, how to do it,how to design the experience, call me,
reach out to me doing cxright,dot Com, Passage to profit,
the road to entrepreneurship with Richard andwith your heart and of course Kenya Gibson,
our media Maven and we will beright back after these messages. Have

(47:06):
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four thirty. It's Passage to Profit. Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.

(48:10):
Noah Fleischmann is our producer here atPassage to Profit, and he never stops
trying to make sense of the futureby looking at the past. After all
these years, I still can't understandlegal holidays. Take the fourth of July,
for example, it's a historical commemoration, but the establishment of the first
secular independent government of colonies probably wouldn'tbe classified as a holy day. Well,

(48:34):
that's not really important. What's importantis being able to find the time
to go to the beach and celebratewith sparklers and wine coolers, the way
the founding fathers once did. Ifthe fourth falls on a Wednesday and you're
working that week, you're dealing withall the office deadlines that are pushed up
three days early, or the onesyou can't finish four days later because no
one's going to be in the officeto give you the information to complete those
deadlines. That's because they've taken thelatter portion of that week off. Basically,

(48:58):
for one legal holiday, an entireof private industry, for the most
part, is shut down. Thoseof us who have a job to do
over that time are simply cornered withthe only workable option possible over this kind
of holiday. That's saying a goodlong prayer. Now more with Richard and
Elizabeth Passage to Profit, and nowit is time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial

(49:19):
mind. Scott. We're starting withyou. What is a secret you want
to tell our audience? So we'vegone through so many good ideas and tips
and strategies today, I think theone thing that's really worked for me is
a spin on the classic go finda mentor or surround yourself with people.
So it's a spin on that becauseeveryone here can agree. You want to
find mentors, you want to havesmart people. You don't want to be

(49:40):
the smartest person in the room.Your network is some of the five people
or whatever you surround yourself with.On the flip side of that, I
think more people need to be amentor and more people need to teach,
because it reinforces what you know andit also highlights gaps in your knowledge.
I've learned more from teaching and understandmy own limits of what I know and

(50:01):
what I don't know. When Imentor an entrepreneur and we go through what
I thought I knew, and there'salways some gaps here that I can now
brush up on. So I thinkthat teaching is more enlightening than being taught
to excellent Simona Constantini, what isyour secret? So I'm going to caveat
this by just saying I am apeople pleaser that I'm trying to not be

(50:21):
as deeply of a people pleaser.The biggest thing that I've done as an
entrepreneur as a person is really takestock and start to rewrite the stories that
people say about me to indicate whoand how I am. I live my
life very much outside of the boxin a very different way than most people
do, and a lot of peopledon't understand. But that is how you

(50:44):
live a happy life is by doingthings that light you up every single day,
so we whire are those stories.Stacy Sherman, what is your secret?
My secret is figure out your passionand go do it. Start putting
it out in the world, whetherit's a blog, whether it's a podcast,
get your voice out there. Andsometimes people say, but I don't
know my passion, And my answeris what do people come to you for?

(51:07):
What are people asking you for advice? And then go deep into that
and if it fits and it resonatesthat, start doing it and sharing it
more. Excellent. Kenya Gibson,What is your secret? Consistency? Very
simple, right, just keep doingthe same thing over and over and over
again, especially in potting, right, Like I feel like sometimes like you

(51:29):
don't see enough of that. It'svery sporadic. But anything when it comes
to content creation or anything entrepreneurial,you need to just be consistent. That's
a marketing trope, right Richard Gerhart, I'm just gonna piggyback off something that
Scott said earlier, which was payingattention to the numbers. So if you're
running a business, you got toknow how much money is coming in,

(51:52):
how much is going out, whatyou can afford to reinvest in the business
and what you take out for yourself, and you need to keep good records
for that, and you need topay attention to it. A lot of
people run businesses and they run itbased on their bank account. How much
money do I have coming in thebank account? How many checks am I
writing? But there's more to itthan just that. If you're going to

(52:12):
grow your business, you need tobe able to reinvest and that reinvestment is
either going to be in time ormoney. So if you're going to make
investments in money, are you goingto spend more for marketing or more for
an assistant. You need to makethose decisions consciously, and that's the best
way to grow your business. Somine is I love to learn new things.
That's my secret. Constantly bringing ininformation from all sorts of different places

(52:38):
to learn new things. Putting themtogether really helps me with my projects.
So sometimes every once in a whileit's like ooh, bright, new shiny
object. But I try to makethe new things I learn fit in with
what I'm already doing. That's great. Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated
radio show appearing in thirty one marketsacross the United States. Thank you to

(52:58):
the P to P team, ourproducer Noah Fleischman, and our program coordinators
Alisha Morrissey and Risicatbasari. Look forour podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts.
Our podcast is ranked in the topthree percent globally. You can also
find us on Facebook, Instagram,x and on our YouTube channel. And
remember, while the information on thisprogram is believed to be correct, never

(53:21):
take a legal step without checking withyour legal professional first. Gearheart Law is
here for your patent, trademark andcopyright needs. You can find us at
gearheartlaw dot com and contact us forfree consultation. Take care, everybody,
Thanks for listening, and we'll beback next week. The proceeding was a
paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of thispodcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products

(53:44):
offered or the ideas expressed.