Ditching Hourly

DH ### Genevieve Hayes

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Genevieve Hayes and Value-Driven Data Science

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Jonathan Stark: Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark, and today I am joined by special guest Genevieve Hayes. Genevieve, welcome to the show.

Genevieve Hayes: Thanks, Jonathan.

Jonathan Stark: Today, we're going to talk about podcasting as a boost for an expertise-based business. But first, folks, could you tell folks who you are and what you do?

Genevieve Hayes: So I'm an actuary and statistician turned data scientist, and I've spent my entire career using those skills to help organizations improve decision-making through quantifying uncertainty, often when data is sparse. I became a soloist in early 2022, and in addition to data science consulting services, I also mentor data professionals on transforming their technical skills into strategic expertise so that they can move from tactical execution to strategic advisory roles. And shortly after going solo, I launched my podcast Value-Driven Data Science as both a learning tool for myself and others, and as a way to build my positioning in public. It's targeted at practicing data professionals, making that shift from technical to strategic, and we just reached episode 100.

Jonathan Stark: Yes, congratulations. And that was the sort of impetus for this call. You sent in an email. I saw the sort of, is it an anniversary or birthday? I'm not sure what you'd call it. But it's certainly a milestone. It's a huge milestone. I don't think most podcasts make it past, you know, 10 episodes. And it's fantastic. And you had sent in an email where you had kind of outlined some of the benefits, surprising benefits that you had gotten from starting the show. And so I just wanted to kind of, obviously, I'm a podcast fan. We're on a podcast right now, and I've done like maybe a thousand episodes, probably more. So I'm a fan, but I wanted for folks who are maybe thinking about starting a podcast to kind of hear from someone who's a little bit newer to it a little bit what you got out of it. Because I know a lot of people feel like it's a lot of work, and it's not no work, but it's, you know, I don't think it's not as labor intensive as say flying around the world and speaking at conferences. That's much harder. So maybe you could, let's start at the beginning, I guess. What caused you to even think about starting a podcast? How long were you thinking about starting it before you did?

Committing to Start a Podcast

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Genevieve Hayes: Well, I was about six months into my solo business, and I was looking for ways to increase my professional visibility. And then you advertised your five-day podcast challenge in your email newsletter. And I thought, okay, this is something I'd like to do in the future. And so I thought, so I signed up for it, and I thought, okay, I'll get this knowledge now because it's happening now. And then, you know, six, 12 months into the future, I'll do it.

Jonathan Stark: Yes.

Genevieve Hayes: So it was probably going to be something that, you know, I did the classes for and never actually did. But then that week, I didn't have much on. So I thought, okay, I'll just work through every day of the challenge as it happens. And by about Friday, I'm like, hang on, I could actually do this. This is something that sounds really cool. And I remember I found myself walking down to JB Hi-Fi, which is like your best buys, I think, and buying a microphone that was on sale there and walking back with it and thinking, yeah, I've committed to doing this now, haven't I?

Jonathan Stark: That's cool. It's a sort of physical decision, physical totem of the decision. That's cool. That's great. I mean, checks in the mail. Appreciate it for the free plug. Okay. So you were thinking about, you hadn't been thinking about it that long.

Genevieve Hayes: No.

Jonathan Stark: You saw the promo and you're like, oh, this is something I probably should do someday. Let me try it. And then like, whoops, I started a podcast.

Genevieve Hayes: Well, back when I was doing my PhD, I had listened to podcasts nonstop while I was doing all these statistical analysis that I had to do. And it just seemed like, you know, these people in those podcasts, they were like gods to me. You know, they're like your Taylor Swift or whatever to the young generation now. And I remember hearing, you know, one of the podcasts I listened to was On The Page. Pilar Alexandra does that. And she had her own custom theme song for that. And I remember thinking, I can never do, I don't even know how to get a custom theme song. Or she talked about having her studio. And I remember thinking, I can't build a studio. And so it just seemed, I didn't really think about it because it just seemed like this impossible goal for me. Part of what appealed to me about your challenge was you said, okay, you can do a podcast without having a theme song and without anything fancy. And it's like, okay, let's just check this out and see if this Stark guy is actually telling the truth about this.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. The whole first lesson is it's a giant list of things you do not have to do. They're nice, but you don't have to do them.

Genevieve Hayes: Oh yeah. I'd love to have a theme song, but I still don't have one.

Jonathan Stark: Right. Do people complain about that?

Genevieve Hayes: No, no one has ever complained about that.

Jonathan Stark: No one has ever complained.

Simple Production Is Good Enough

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Genevieve Hayes: And I record everything using Zoom. And someone once emailed me and asked me what I used to record it because it sounded so good.

Jonathan Stark: Two thumbs up. Yeah. That's the tagline of, I don't want to, I don't want to like overly promote the workshop. It's not even, it's not even available to register for right now. But yeah, I mean, that's the tagline. It's like, if you're a consultant and you're doing Zoom calls with people, like your mic is good enough for paid work, it's good enough for a free podcast. Like if you can, if you can run a, if you can run a Zoom call, you can host a podcast. And it's like, it should be that simple. And over time you can get better and add bells and whistles and things like that. But the real trick is getting started and meeting the people and getting used to the format and everything like that. So what was your experience when you, so you got home with a microphone and on the Friday, you're supposed to start inviting guests. Did you actually do that? Did you have a list of guests that you wanted to get? And what was your experience with getting guests on the show?

First Guests and Inbound Momentum

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Genevieve Hayes: So I started with a friend of mine, Amanda Aitken. I'd previously been a guest to some tutorials that she teaches. She was also teaching a actuarial data science course. And so, because I'd been a guest for her tutorials, I figured there was a high probability that she'd accept my invitation to my podcast. So she graciously was my first guest. And my second guest was a mentor and former client of mine. So they were high probability of success people. And I think for the first half dozen episodes, I just went with people who I knew. And then once I'd gotten a couple of episodes published and under my belt, I was able to start reaching out a bit more to people who maybe I knew, but not as well. And where I wasn't a hundred percent confident that they'd accept my invitation. Sure. So what, yeah, what was, were there any

Jonathan Stark: moments early on when you, I don't know, look back and were like, oh my gosh, I have like a dozen episodes or wow, you know, been doing this for six months or the 50, like, what was there a point where you're like, uh, there was a, a, a milestone where you're like, you know, for me, it was like, oh my God, I got Seth Godin on the show. I mean, that was insane to me. Like, did you have any moments like that early on where you were like, this is totally real. Like this works. For me, uh, it was when people started

Genevieve Hayes: reaching out to me and wanting to be on my show. And one of the people who I got on, who reached out to me was a former AI advisor to president Obama.

Jonathan Stark: Whoa. Yeah. And I remember

Genevieve Hayes: getting this email and it's like, would you like to interview this man? Uh, Dr. Dr. Eric Daimler on, by the way, he used to advise Obama. And it's like, yes, yes, I would like to interview him.

Jonathan Stark: That's a good, that's exactly what I was wondering. That kind of a thing. It's it's, uh, that's fantastic. Do any idea how far in it was before you got to that point? Cause I'm sure people who are thinking about starting a podcast are wondering like, how long did it take to get someone from the presidential administration on your show?

Genevieve Hayes: I don't think I'm ever going to be able to repeat that, but I'm just looking it up now. So he was episode 43, so I'd been doing it for about two years, so I did them fortnightly.

Jonathan Stark: Okay, got it.

Genevieve Hayes: Every other week.

Jonathan Stark: Wow. Geez. And you're up to 100 every other week?

Genevieve Hayes: I started doing, at the start of last year, I went to weekly. So now I do two episodes with each guest. I do a main episode and a short episode. So it's what I call, at the time I was watching King of Queens, and in Australia we have Bluey, which has 10 minute episodes. I don't watch that, but there was the King of Queens length episode and the Bluey length episode.

Jonathan Stark: That is a really cool idea. Have you ever listened to shows that did that, or you just totally invented that?

Genevieve Hayes: I'd seen some shows where, if they had a guest where the guest had a lot to say, they would split the interview in half. So I'd seen that happen before, but then I was thinking, well, when I go to the gym, I'm there for half an hour at most, so I don't have time to listen to an hour long podcast. When I listen to Ditching Hourly, it takes me two days to get through it. So I thought, why not split my podcast in half and have the one for your time at the gym and then the one for the time it takes to get your dinner ready.

Jonathan Stark: This is such a good idea. People are going to start stealing this for sure, including me. That's great. I have to check that out. So okay, let's skip way fast forward and talk about some of the things that you've found now that it's been a hundred episodes. What have you learned that would have surprised you way back when you started?

Genevieve Hayes: One thing that surprised me is that you can reach out to your heroes and they will respond and they won't be rude to you or horrible. So that was great. I regularly, whenever I read a book that I love that's relevant to my podcast, I now just reach out, try and reach out to the author and more often than not, I've managed to get that author booked on my podcast, which is something that I would never have dreamt of doing beforehand.

The 100-Episode Surprises

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Jonathan Stark: Think about, for the dear listener, think how crazy that is. If you have a podcast, it's not unusual to invite authors to come on a show. So here you are reading a book, you're like, wow, this book is amazing. And since you have a show, you can just be like, I'm only, I got your book. I absolutely love it. I'm only on chapter four and it's fantastic. And you could say something like, in particular, here's this thing, it's like you're reading the book anyway. And now you have this amazing sort of like pitch invitation to send to the author who probably wants nothing more on planet earth than people to read and love the book. So here you are. You've got this book that you love written by someone who's, you obviously think is really smart and is full of great information. And now you get to talk to them for as long as you want. You know, like imagine if you called up the same, same author and said, you know, oh, I don't know, Seth Godin or Alex Hormozy or Stephen King. It's like, hey, you mind if I jump on a zoom call with you and pick your brain for an hour? They're going to say, no, I don't want to do that. If you say, hey, I've got this podcast is for people like this is about, you know, a thousand people or two thousand, whatever, 500 people listen to it. And here's some of the other guests that have been on. And I absolutely love your work. And I'd love to just talk to you about your work. Like it's such an easy yes compared to, can I just pick your, can I buy you coffee and pick your brain?

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah.

Jonathan Stark: That's great.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. Or I'll be having a LinkedIn conversation with someone like one of my guests, uh, I started talking to him on LinkedIn and, uh, this was professor Jeff cam and his LinkedIn description said he was a decision scientist. And I said, that's a really interesting career. Can you tell me a bit about what you do? And he said, well, actually I can send you this paper that I wrote comparing data science with decision science. And I read the paper and it's like, wow, this is incredible. Hey, do you want to be on my podcast to discuss this further? And I think it was less than seven days from when we had that conversation, we were recording an episode.

Jonathan Stark: It was great. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. So is, is there anything else? Yeah. Well, first, um, sometimes I talk to people and they're like, uh, I don't know if you go to conferences or speak at conferences or that sort of thing, but, uh, I've certainly had experiences, both myself and students who are almost like celebrity status at, at some, some in-person event, whether it's a conference or something like that, because people listen to the show and they're like, recognize your voice and maybe they recognize your picture. If it's a video show, they just recognize you and they come running up to you and they're like, Oh my God, I love your podcast. I listen to it every day in the gym or in the car.

Genevieve Hayes: I haven't had them come up to me cause I haven't been to that many conferences recently, but I have had them reach out to me on LinkedIn to tell me how much they love my podcast, which is amazing. And yeah, I had one gentleman email me to tell me, you know, how much, how much good I was doing, you know, how much I was helping people. And that's exactly what I wanted to hear. When you first get started, you think, am I just speaking into the void? Is anyone actually listening to this?

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Right. So have you had, has it had any, um, people always want to know like, Oh, does it make you money? Like how, has it had any measurable effect on your business other than, um, you know, like it's great that the podcast has sort of, uh, what we call it has its own momentum and it's attracting more authors and more guests and that sort of thing. And it's a good thing to, so, but you're not selling ads, right? So, you know, does it, does it, what strategic role does it play in your business if any?

Relationships Beat Direct Lead Gen

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Genevieve Hayes: Okay. So my initial goal when I started the podcast was that it would attract clients for me. So I was hoping that people would reach out and say, Hey, we heard your podcast, we'd like to engage you. But what actually ended up happening was that I ended up building the relationships with my guests and that was where, uh, opportunities started coming.

Jonathan Stark: Yes. What's, can you, is there an example you can share?

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. So one of my guests, uh, about 12 months after I had him on the show, uh, contacted me and requested a quote for a piece of work. Uh, another one of my guests has, uh, invited me to be, um, has provided me with two opportunities to speak at conferences. So one was as a, as to chair this particular webinar panel and the other one was as a speaker. Uh, um, I've also had, um, opportunities to appear on other people's podcasts because of this. So, you know, it's reciprocal, reciprocal opportunities. Um, but yeah, it's, um, it's, that's where the opportunities were coming and that surprised me a lot.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. It doesn't always happen, but it definitely does happen with a fair amount of regularity where people are, um, because you, you know, you talk to the person for however long you do, maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it's an hour. Um, but there's usually some like pre-show banter or after the show there'll be a little more talking and there's email communication back and forth in advance. So they're really aware of you. And if you have a good positioning, then they sort of know what kinds of clients you're looking for and what you're good at, like how you help people. So it just, um, I mean, in a sense it's kind of like, uh, it's a version of networking that you also turns into marketing and self, um, uh, propagating, which is really cool.

Genevieve Hayes: What I think's really interesting about it is it changes the nature of your networking with these people. So if I was to meet one of these big name data science celebrities at conference, the nature of the relationship would be them being this big luminary and me fangirling and being like Wayne and Garth in Wayne's world, you know, I am not worthy. Because my podcast is structured as a peer-to-peer conversation, the relationships that develop out of it tend to be peer-to-peer relationships. relationships, even though a lot of my guests are far more senior and prominent than me. And I think that's something you can't replicate through attending a networking event.

Pitching Guests and Building Luck Surface Area

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Jonathan Stark: Right. Yeah. And the other thing that it might not be obvious is that you've got something that they want, right? Or at least, I mean, everyone, you know, that sounded kind of transactional, but you can offer them something that they can't buy really, or they can't just automatically get. So because you've put in, or anybody running a podcast over a period of years has built up an audience and they have, it might not be huge, but it's an audience and it's like probably the exact kind of audience that the guests want to reach. So whether they want to make money or have an impact or whatever it is. So having done the work to create that almost community or audience, you know, audience is probably the better word, then that's like a gift that you can give to them. It's like, I love your ideas and I want to share them with the people who listen to this show. It's like, you're sort of like a gatekeeper for, you know, a few hundred or maybe a few thousand people. So it's, it's, that's way more valuable than like, can I buy you a coffee? Like I, the number of, you know, can I buy you a coffee or can I buy you lunch or whatever? I appreciate the sentiment, but I, I don't want to do that, you know, but if somebody has a show and they're even have like 50 people that listen to it, I'll do that for free in a second, in a second, because it's, it's going to amplify the message. It's going to reach people and that's ultimately what, what a guest wants is to like reach more people. It's the same principle behind value-based pricing. So you're arguing in all your writing around value-based pricing that you should demonstrate to your clients the value that you're providing to them and the return on investment. It's exactly the same thing when you're pitching a guest for your podcast, you're showing them, I would like you to appear on my podcast and here is the value that I can provide to you in return.

Genevieve Hayes: Right.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. So I can, I can amplify your message, right? Like any author, it sounds like you, you have a lot of authors as guests or is that, is that true?

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah.

Jonathan Stark: Any author wants their ideas to spread or they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of writing a book because writing a book is a pain and they, so they really care and they really, really want to, it's not, it's not necessarily a moneymaking endeavor. So they really care about getting whatever message it is out. And so someone who wants to help them do that is the exact thing they're looking for. Um, and there's, here's a little tip. If you, if, if you have, um, for the dear listener, for you, if you see someone who's huge, like, like a really big, somebody who are you sure you can't get, but you would really be great on the show. Next time you can tell that you can tell when they're going to have a book coming out and they'll almost definitely say yes to go on anything. They'll go to the opening of an envelope. They'll go on any show. And anyway, so that's a, that's a little tip, but it's, um, I read a book a long time ago called, uh, book yourself solid by Michael Port and he had a little tactic in there that I've never forgotten.

Genevieve Hayes: It's a good book.

Jonathan Stark: There's a tactic in there that I never forgot though, which was always have something to invite someone to because it's such a different frame. Like you described it instead of fangirl and luminary, it's like two peers or like, you know, uh, you're a connector or an amplifier and they have something that wants to be amplified. It's more of a, um, what's the right word? Sound, it sounds, I feel like every word I can think of here is sound makes it sound really gross.

Genevieve Hayes: I always describe it as breaking bread.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. That's, that's a good way to put it. It's like, you're just meeting, you're having a regular conversation, like two people. It just so happens you're recording it and you know, a few hundred other people are going to hear it too. So this, this is something I do talk about in the workshop, but I don't know if it lands with people. I don't think they either, uh, I'm sure they believe it, but it doesn't seem as important probably as other things. You know, people are, I think, well, you tell me, but I think people are usually thinking more like I need, this is going to promote my services to the people who listen to it. And it's a little bit more complicated than that, I think in reality.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. So when I started, that was all I was thinking, you know, how can I promote my services? But then when I started getting these incredible guests and I was getting incredible guests right from the beginning, I realized, you know, this isn't about just me trying to show off how wonderful I am. These are incredible people and I can learn a lot from them. I shouldn't be going into interviews with the former advisor to President Obama and saying, Hey everyone, I'd like to tell you how wonderful I am.

Jonathan Stark: Oh yeah. And by the way, this guy's pretty good too.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. P.S.

Jonathan Stark: Was that the cuckoo clock in the background?

Genevieve Hayes: Uh, yes, it was a cuckoo clock.

Jonathan Stark: Okay. First, podcast first, first cuckoo clock on the podcast. You have to rewind that folks. Might not have picked up on the microphone. I barely heard it. So if you listen closely, hopefully the audio doesn't, doesn't get corrected out of there. But, but yeah, it's like, um, it's more subtle and sophisticated what's actually happening in terms of growing your business. In my experience where it's like you're creating a network of people who would normally never give you the time of day, honestly. And you sort of like guilt by association. Like, well, if, if this Obama person was on Genevieve show, then like, it's like, Genevieve must be a baller. Like, that's pretty cool. And then it, and then it ends up being true because you end up with this network of people who you could reach back out to and say something like, um, I have a book coming out. It's like, you remember me? We were on the show. We talked about this thing. I have a book coming out. Would you mind, would it be possible for you to blurb the book? And anybody that does book blurbs that was a guest on your show is going to say, yeah, some people just don't do it, but that's just, and it's just one example, but it's the kind of thing where you've got this little, it's a, it's a short relationship. You've only talked to them for an hour. Maybe you went back and forth over email a couple of times, but the thing you talked about with them is something that almost no one wants to talk about in their whole life. Like in their lives, probably nobody wants to talk about, you know, this thing that they wrote an entire book on. So they love to geek out on the subject and it really bonds them to the person who they're talking to. So if you did have some ask in the future, like, I don't know, I'm looking for, you know, what, could I hire you to be, uh, to do a presentation to my community or, you know, do you do internal presentations like that? Or, um, the possibilities are endless because they're, they're going to remember you and your position so tightly in their minds and assuming that, you know, obviously I'm sure you do a great job on the show and most people listening, if they start a podcast, they'll get good at it and be professional and interested and genuinely curious. And, uh, even though it's a short amount of time that, that you're talking to each other, it a lot of times creates a surprisingly strong bond. There's a lot of trust built very quickly and yeah. And so then that can just lead to other things. And I hate to, I feel so bad talking about it like this explicitly because I don't really think of it that way in the moment, like in the moment when I'm talking to, I don't know, or, um, you know, Douglas Hubbard, it's like, I'm not thinking, what can I get out of Douglas Hubbard? I describe it more as like, I'm increasing my luck surface area by meeting all these people because now they're, they're attracting all sorts of opportunities too. And they're not going to be the best fit for the opportunities. And they might say, you know what, you know, you should talk to, uh, Genevieve or me or whatever. And it just, it's kind of, it's almost like compounding interest, interest. It's kind of just magic.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. It's, um, that that's, I mean, one of the pieces of advice I give all of my clients is have more conversations because conversations lead to good things and podcasts are all about having conversations.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. That's a, that's ideal. Perfect way to put it. Optimized for conversations. And one other thing I, I was going to say, um, one other thing I've found is people are more impressed by you having a podcast than writing, especially now with AI. Because everyone's writing with AI, albeit terribly in some cases.

Genevieve Hayes: I was reading a article on a news site yesterday and I'm pretty sure it was written by Claude because I'm so used to Claude's style now.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. But it's a lot harder to fake AI, sorry, to fake podcasts and yeah, and AI just can't do a guest podcast, I don't think.

Genevieve Hayes: When AI first started, 11 Labs and the audio stuff started coming out in that LM notebook thing that Google released, I found myself editing the podcast less. I left more mistakes in because I was like, I don't want anybody to think this is fake. So I would leave in the cuckoo clock and everything else. So it was just felt more real and authentic. I totally agree.

Jonathan Stark: You know, it's like, would you rather, I don't know, would you rather have a book that a thousand people read or a YouTube channel that a hundred thousand people are subscribed to? It's like, you know, which one's more impressive? I think the, the personal brand and the celebrity status piece of it, or I talk about asymmetric intimacy is it's hard to believe until it happens. And it's only going to happen if you do, you know, if you're putting yourself out there in audio or video format, like, well, here's a question. Have you ever gone on some sort of a sales call with someone who turned out to have been listening to your podcast?

Genevieve Hayes: Trying to think. I hope, I hope you're cutting the long pauses from this.

Jonathan Stark: No, that makes it realer. No, that's fine. So yeah, if not, that's fine.

Genevieve Hayes: I know I've had, I've had people, I've had situations where people have responded to my email mailing list, mentioned how much they liked my podcast. I've ended up in a conversation with them and then they've ended up on my podcast. So yeah, but I know that I've had people who I've sold to who have then told me how much they liked my podcast. So I guess that helps matters.

Buyers, Peers, and Referral Paths

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Jonathan Stark: Yeah, exactly. So if you had, um, if you were, if, if your audience was full of potential buyers, which may, maybe more like colleagues or who knows, I don't know. You might not even know, but if there've been plenty of times when people have gotten on the phone with me and I can see they're visibly nervous. It's like, I'm just like what, you know, just like the next person, but they, they're just like, they hear my voice and they've been listening to it. Like they fall asleep, binge listening to ditching hourly or the business of authority or something like that. And then get on a phone call and they'll just like that. You can see they're nervous. It's like, I feel like it feels like the podcast came alive or something. It's like interactive. Um, but, and the benefit of that is that people buy from people they trust. So if, if, and by being in people's ears for 40, 50, a hundred hours, and if they stick with it, obviously they're basically agreeing with your ideas or they would stop listening. So by the time you get on a sales call with them, they're just totally no. First of all, know what your whole stick is. They know your personality. They know your frameworks for thinking about things. They know they like all of it. So they're so pre-sold. It's ridiculous. Like if they, if it turns out that they have some reason to work with you, um, the level of trust is just absolutely through the roof. Like they feel like they know you. So it's for people who are creating podcasts that are intended to be listened to by potential buyers versus like colleagues or peers or something like that. And then, you know, it's sort of, um, uh, sort of bubble up the, uh, how do I describe this? Like, for example, if I wrote up one book that was for people like me, not for people that would hire me, it was just, it was like the book I wish I had when I was trying to do stuff. And, and it got purchased by a lot of people who would never hire me. They were like, you know, mid tier developer type employees. But then when the boss comes around and says, Hey, who should we, you know, who knows how to do mobile right? And they all hold up the same book. Then it's sort of like, I don't have a word for this, but it's sort of like bubbles up sort of grassroots referral from their dev team to the CTO. And then the CTO calls the person whose name is on the book. It's very, you can have a podcast that's like that where you are basically, um, uh, speaking to your colleagues and sort of teaching them about the craft and sort of one of those hangout coffee type of things. And then, um, when someone asks them for a referral, it bubbles up. So it's sort of a two step process.

Genevieve Hayes: Well, one thing that I found, you know, initially I thought I've got to be pushing the fact that I have all this expertise whenever I can. Otherwise, you know, people will think I'm an idiot, but I've found over the years when you're having a conversation in my case about statistics or data science, just being able to keep up with some of these guests is enough to demonstrate that you actually have competence and expertise in this area. And so I think that serves as an audition to prove to people, no, you're not just some recent graduate who doesn't have the background. You can actually have a detailed conversation about reinforcement learning on the spot or whatever the topic might happen to be.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, that's wild. It's true, right? It's like sometimes asking great questions is, uh, confers more expertise than answering them. And, you know, it's a good question when the guest gives you that look, which is no one asked me that question. Thank you for asking me that question. Right. That's good. Well, what, what would you, do you think there are, so the question I almost asked was, do you think there are any kinds of businesses that wouldn't benefit from having a podcast, but that's too broad because not any kind of business owner is listening to this podcast. So people listening to this podcast are all probably exclusively service providers, probably mostly solo operators in some kind of expertise based business that traditionally would build by the hour. So software developers, but also data scientists and marketers and architects and engineers and so forth. Do you think if you were going to, if you were going to, um, if someone contacted you on LinkedIn, it was like, I heard you on the show and I was just curious, do you think I should start a podcast? What would you ask them to sort of answer that? What, what information would you want to get from them to answer that question?

Genevieve Hayes: Well, this is the advice that I've given to some of my client, my coaching clients. So they do ask me, should I start a podcast? And the answer I give them is it is a big time commitment. And so you might not necessarily be able to make that time commitment. Um, in the first instance, what you should look to do is just have conversations. Uh, and that's a good starting point. Uh, but the other piece of advice I'd give them is just give it a go. Um, start by setting a target of say half a dozen episodes. And that's what I did initially. So I think I took your five day podcast challenge, um, in June. Um, I, uh, decided to schedule the first episode for publishing in September. And fortnightly that took me to the end of the year, which was, um, seven episodes. So I thought I'll just go to the end of the year, make seven episodes. If I hate it, I can give up. If it turns out to be too hard, I'll give up. Um, but at least it allowed me to say, okay, what's this like? How do I feel about it? Um, how difficult is it? How much time does it take? And, and yeah, that's the same advice I'd give them.

Jonathan Stark: If they hate it after six episodes, walk away from it. Just call it a limited series.

Almost Quitting, Seasons, and Persistence

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Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. They might end up loving it.

Genevieve Hayes: Right. That's, that is, uh, my favorite kind of advice because as soon as you hear it, it makes perfect sense. It's like the greatest answer. It's like, you might love it. So just try it. You might hate it. Yeah.

Jonathan Stark: Then stop.

Genevieve Hayes: I almost walked away from it a couple of times. Uh, so I loved it at the end of the first year. So I kept going. Then at the end of the second year, it's like, no, one's listening to me. I want to give up. This is too difficult. And then I started getting opportunities from, then people started reaching out to me at that point. It was exactly the point where I was about to give up when people started emailing me. And then it's like, oh, I'll just do all those episodes with the people who've reached out to me. And before I knew it, I had six more months of episodes. And so it's like, okay, I could probably go to the end of this year. And then I just kept going. And then it's like, oh, I'm just, I'm not going to give up on this. I'm just going to keep going.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. So that's great. That's a great story. I love that. Um, for people, the other thing that you can do, and this is not necessarily, you know, I know, you know this, um, but it is nice to take breaks sometimes. So like any podcasts I've done that were long running, usually weekly, usually took the holidays off, but I've had at least one show. I feel like it might have been more than one, but at least one show where we did seasons and it was like, we're going to do like, I don't know, eight episodes and then take a break and then eight episodes to take a break or 10 episodes to take a break. And that, that does, um, that can be nice. That can be good. Uh, and so for people thinking about thinking about doing it and worrying about the sort of forced March to hell and like, how do I know if I should give up or not give up? It's like, just, it's, it's a podcast, you're not on, you know, David Letterman or whatever, you know, the daily show, you don't have like thousands of people waiting for you to pay their checks. So it's just, it's great advice. Try like a half dozen episodes, see what it feels like, get, get the vibe of it, see what you think. And then if you want to, you know, just do 10 more and then just do 10 more after that, if you feel like it.

Genevieve Hayes: I take off every summer. So, uh, my podcast is, um, goes live from about February to December each year. So I take off that six weeks, January and start of February. And after that, um, because I do two episodes per guest, I only have to record about 24 guests per year. That's not that many. And I tend to bunch them. So if I know I'm going away on holidays, I'll just record some extra guests and then, uh, drip feed them out after that. So no one notices that I took four weeks off podcasting somewhere in the middle of the year.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, that's great. I love the, I love the long, short episode thing. That's genius. And it allows you to, you know, you get an entire year's worth of podcast recording, you know, just 24 times. Yeah, it's cool. So what about, you know, you mentioned that it's a big time commitment. So what is, what is the time commitment for you? Just for people who are curious about maybe making the leap themselves.

Preparation, Editing, and Production Workflow

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Genevieve Hayes: Okay. So this is what's actually involved in it. Um, first of all, first of all, I have to find the guests. Sometimes they approach me and if I am really struggling, I'll walk into my back room and look at the books on my bookshelf and say, okay, whose book did I love? And then I'll reach out to them. So there is some time commitment involved in figuring that out. And then I'll write a custom pitch for that guest. So I don't spam people. I'll say, um, this is what I loved about your book, or this is why I'd like to have you on my show. Uh, this is, my show has a format of two episodes. For the main episode, I'd like to discuss this topic and then give some, some dot points. Um, for the shorter episode, I'd like to discuss this and then let them get back to me. Um, then there's of course the, um, setting up the logistics for the show. Um, so I think a pitch might take me half an hour to write and then back and forth, maybe 15 minutes. Um, the biggest time commitment for me before it is I spend about two hours before each episode, just thinking through, um, what is my position on whatever the topic is. So, um, just so that I can be clear on what I think about this topic, what I want to ask them about it. Um, what my thoughts are in response to any questions I have so that I can come up with some intelligent conversation about it. Um, so that might be about two hours. Um, the recording session, I can do two episodes in the space of one hour. So that works out well. And then, um, after that I'll edit them. Um, I, I use the script to edit my episodes. So that gets rid of ums and, um, filler words and that. Um, so after that, I'll just, you know, listen to it and cut anything that I think should be removed. Um, my rule of thumb is it takes about, um, two times the amount of recording in order to edit an episode.

Jonathan Stark: Oh, wow.

Genevieve Hayes: So one hour to edit a half hour episode. Um, and then after that, I'll just, um, offload everything. So, um, download episode transcript and then, um, create the summary, um, which AI assists in, which is very helpful for, you know, the time points. Um, and then I upload it to transistor. So, yeah.

Jonathan Stark: Okay. So if I'm, if I'm counting correctly, that's about six hours to make two episodes, a long one and a short one.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. It sounds about right. Yeah. So maybe eight hours. Yeah, that's about right.

Jonathan Stark: That's rough. It's maybe a little longer than it takes me, but I don't, I don't, the thing that I don't do is the two hours of prep. I'll do more like 15 minutes, but, um, but that's great. That's fantastic.

Genevieve Hayes: I used to think, um, spending, I'm wasting all this time by doing all this preparation, but then I realized that this is what really helps me to learn what I'm doing in my craft. So, uh, because I'm forcing myself to study this person's work for two hours, uh, it's not just passively reading a book anymore. It's about actively understanding exactly what they are talking about. So I think it makes me better at my job. So now I no longer complain about it.

Jonathan Stark: That makes perfect sense. And do you, does that then turn into like email content?

Editing as Learning and Content Fuel

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Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. And the same with editing. I spend a lot of time editing it cause I listen to the whole thing again and that gives me ideas. Uh, I learn from the guest. Um, if there's an area that I'm thinking of exploring, I'll often reach out to a guest who's an expert in that area. And then there've been some cases where I've thought, okay, this is something I'd like to do more of, uh, for my business. And then I'll listen, I'll speak to a guest about it and I'll realize actually that's not a direction I want to go in at all. So I spend eight hours, uh, discovering, oh yeah, um, no, that's a path I don't want to go down. If I'd gone down that path, it could have taken me, I don't know, eight months.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Easily. Yes. That's, that's a, um, something that people are surprised to hear cause I'm a big fan of automating things and outsourcing things that are easy to outsource. And podcast editing is very easy to outsource. It doesn't require a lot of meetings. You just get someone who's good and they're relatively inexpensive. But I still edit my own shows because it gives me so many ideas because I'm, you can listen to it in a different way than when it's live and you're actually having a conversation. Like I miss stuff that, um, for whatever reason, but when it's, when you're just listening to it, it's almost like you're hearing it like the audience would. And yeah, it gives me like, usually gives me a bunch of ideas for, you know, I write a daily newsletter, so I'm always looking for ideas for that. And it can give me like 10 just from one show. So I, I really like editing it.

Genevieve Hayes: My family, my family actually asked me, you know, after a podcast episode, what did you learn from that guest? And I'll say, um, I'll tell you after I've edited it because that's when I take in what they've said.

Jonathan Stark: Exactly. You're conducting, you're doing two things. You're kind of on stage and it's a performance and it's really hard to, it's like your brain is doing two things at once. Yeah. Um, keeping the conversation, moving forward and watching the clock and making sure you're being respectful of their time and making sure stuff is like the sound levels. Right. So you're, you're very distracted when you're doing it, or at least a little bit distracted. So yeah, I find that listening back to it is, is like, you can, yeah, it's exactly like you said. It's like, I'll know what we was said after I edit it. Cause then you can really listen. Yeah. More, more focused attention, which seems counterintuitive, but it's definitely my experience as well. And it feels totally rude because they tell you, you know, listen to what someone's saying when they're talking, don't think about what the next thing you're going to say is. But if you are hosting a podcast, you literally. really have to be thinking about the next thing you guys said. Yeah, yeah, it's true. You can't just be like, oh, okay, thanks. It's like, there's a certain structure to it that needs to be maintained. Yeah, so whatever the case, whatever the case, it's definitely been my experience as well. And so, so I, if somebody, you know, I have students who, who do have really good podcast editors and they send it out to be edited and we did that for the business of authority for a while. And I was just like, I just, I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm missing out on all these ideas. Like even when I do coaching calls with people where, you know, it's not like, it's not like there's the audience in the back of your mind, like there's an audience and you're trying to, you know, create valuable stuff for them more so than for yourself. Even when I go back over those after, you know, now to process the transcript and pull out bits of it. And it's like, oh, right. I forgot about that. I forgot. We talked about that, you know, little side thing about, I don't know, uh, networking or whatever the thing is. They have a quick question. There's just so many ideas buried in an hour long call and an hour long talking for an hour is about 10 or 15,000 words. And that's a massive amount of content. And you're just not going to get it all from, you're not gonna remember. I'm not, I'm too old to remember all of it by the, by the end for sure.

Genevieve Hayes: I've got a, um, I have the transistor website for my, for my podcast and I put up the transcripts on that and I'm always referring to that. It's like, I know I said something or that guest said something in this conversation. I'll just go to the transcript and use control F to find whatever they were saying. And it's a fantastic resource. And I know it backwards because I edited it still, still it's a treasure trove. Yeah. I've actually got a couple of questions for you about ditching hourly and podcasting, if you don't mind.

Jonathan Stark: Absolutely. Go for it.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. So looking back on ditching hourly, what do you know now that you wish you'd known back at episode 100?

Jonathan Stark: Oh, okay. This is a fair question. Um, don't wait to edit episodes. That's my number one nemesis. If I edit, if I let them pile up, it's a chore. It's a chore. It's, it's, well, I shouldn't put it like that. I still enjoy editing them, but it's, I dread it a little bit more. Cause I see like, Oh, I've got like, I think right now I have, let me look, I have eight podcasts on my desk. No, one of those was edited. Seven, seven recorded episodes that are not, not that new. There might be eight weeks old and now I have to like re, I have to like reconstitute the memory of everything, go through and listen to it. I can't remember if a dog barked in the middle, like if like in this, I know that there weren't any loud noises or anything. There's no egregious errors. So if I just truncate silence and shorten the gaps, it'll be fine. It's not like, you know, the dogs weren't crazy or something. But if I waited six weeks to edit this, I wouldn't know that. And I would have to sit through every minute of it on like probably on regular speed, which I usually do anyway, but I would have to. And when I have to, it feels like a little bit of a chore. So, so maybe that's a very tactical, boring piece of advice, but don't let them pile up, edit them immediately if you can, like that day, if not right after the call. Um, what's another thing, one of the things, one thing I already said, which is like, if you feel yourself getting sick of it, just take a break. You know, it's no big deal to say, just say to people, uh, whatever going on holiday, taking the summer off. Um, I know you stack up episodes, so they might not even notice, but it's totally, I think it's completely fine based on my own experience, listening, loving podcasts and listening to lots of podcasts. If someone comes like, Hey, we're going to take the summer off and go to France. Um, um, that's great. Cool. You know? And then when it comes back, it's nice to know when it's going to come back or if it's going to come back, because there are some shows that I love that just sort of stopped releasing episodes. And it's kind of like, I keep subscribed just in case someday you look nice today, it comes out with a new episode or something like that. But you know, I just, just, it's no big deal. Just record a 60 second episode and say, Hey, uh, getting really busy. I'm going to take the, take six weeks off. I'll be back in September. See you then. You know, it's, it doesn't have to be this big deal. It shouldn't, it shouldn't feel like a chore. I don't think you should feel like a chore. You don't have to force yourself to do it. People say like, can say, gotta be consistent, yada, yada, yada. But you know, if you're hating it, then stop for a little while. Um, what's another, I mean, like a lot of stuff that we already said, which is like, you don't need music. If you don't want it, you don't need ID three tags. If you don't want them, you don't need, you know, episode artwork. If you don't want it, there's, I have a list of about 20 things that everybody tells you you have to have to have a podcast. And it's like basically not true. They're all nice to have. You don't have to have them. What do you need? You need two people. You don't even need two people. You just need an audio recording period. So, um, what else?

What You Actually Need to Start

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Genevieve Hayes: The only thing I disagree with you about that list that you provided was you said you don't need to cut the arms. I just couldn't cope with that. I had to get rid of the arms.

Jonathan Stark: So here's my, when I first wrote that lesson, Descript didn't exist or I didn't know about it. So there's de-umming software now. My hardcore opinion is that you should get better at not saying ums and that pain that you just described is the thing that will make you stop saying um all the time. So I love the fact that, um, certainly if, if you, if you go through and edit them out manually, then I found with me, there goes the cuckoo clock again. Um, I found that if you go and edit them out manually and I'm hearing my own voice and I can, I can hear the um coming in just as I'm listening to my own thing, my own track, it makes me better about feeling it coming when I'm actually recording and you get way better at not doing it, which if you're also doing speaking engagements is a huge benefit because it makes you sound smarter if you just pause instead of saying, um, just like leave a little space. I do, I have some bad tics like, you know, and so anyway, I say all right all the time. Like I, but, but the ums you can really cut out here. So that's basically my, my, um, the hidden agenda there is to make you hate hearing it. So you stop doing it in real life instead of keep on doing it in real life and there's pulling them all out. But you can't control your guests. And that was what made me snap. So I actually got pretty good at controlling it, but then I, yeah.

Genevieve Hayes: Brings up a good point. Make your guests sound smart. That, that is a, that's a tip. That is a tip. The smarter you make your guests sound, the more likely they are to share the episode you want them to shine. You want them to, if they start something over or it doesn't have, I'm trying to think, I can't think of an example where it was like a real train wreck. I don't think I've had a real train wreck. Every once in a while I'll have a guest that's just a complete dud and I don't release the episode. They're just like not ready to be on a podcast. But generally speaking, yes, I'll be very kind to the guest, make the guest sound as smart and smooth as, as I can, which does mean cutting out ums and weird tangents that they end up fixing and sort of repeating, but in a better way. I do try and do that because, you know, first of all, it's good for the listener because it's a shorter and it's easier to listen to and the guest sounds and the guests, it's more entertaining, I suppose. But if the guest thinks, wow, I sound great, they're more likely to share, which, you know, obviously has benefits, especially if your guests have a lot of social media followers or whatever. But that's a great point. Two things I've discovered, guests are happier to appear on your show if you do tell them that you edit it. I used to think that guests would be upset if I edited them because I was taking away, you know, I might be distorting what they're saying, but they actually are happier because they want the, they want to be confident that they're not going to come across sounding stupid. Um, so now I reassure my guests, yes, I do edit it and you'll sound good. And the other thing, um, I actually once had a a guest who, when we started the recording session, apologized to me straight up because he said, you know, I can't speak as well as all your other guests, you know, I'm not a perfect speaker. And it's like, you know, you will be after I've finished. And that really helped his confidence. So yeah, letting your guests know you're going to be a perfect speaker when I've finished with you. That really helps them.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, that's been my experience too. Most people don't, they're not concerned that you're going to distort their position by over editing it. They're much more concerned about like, like, are you going to use the video is a huge question because they want to know if they need to do their makeup or hair, you know, whatever, or clean up the laundry off the couch behind them. And if they don't have to, then they really don't want to. So, but, but certainly the speaking thing, I would love it. I would love it to, I would love to just do a live podcast, no editing, just like it's just live. But I know I would get like zero guests. People don't want to do that. It's a miracle that some of the, you know, the biggest, biggest podcasts online are just live. I'm like, wow, that's, but you know, the guests they're getting are all entertainers and things like that. So I suppose, I suppose they're more comfortable in that scenario, but I would love it to just do live stream on YouTube with two people and, but people will be panicking. They would, they would get stage fright so bad.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. I, I've actually done one of those with someone and it was, I'm used to doing podcasts, but even I felt uncomfortable doing it cause I'm, I'm happy and knowing that if I stuff up, I can edit it later.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah.

Genevieve Hayes: It's a safety net.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah.

Genevieve Hayes: I can't, I wish I had more, more tips at episode 100.

Jonathan Stark: I think it's mostly stuff we covered already.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. Another question I was wondering, you know, I have a hundred conversations with world class experts in my archive. If you were in my position, what would you do with that?

Jonathan Stark: I mean, the tempting answer is to like, you know, mine it with AI for some kind of something or other. I've, I've experimented with not, it's certainly not everything that's come out, but that doesn't really create any value that I can find.

Genevieve Hayes: One thing that I've, I think I would do with the actual recordings you mean, or just with the, cause you, there's things you can do. Let's just stick with the recordings for a second.

Guest Referrals, Swaps, and Live Formats

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Jonathan Stark: With the recordings, if you didn't have them all transcribed, I would get them all transcribed. I would make them easier and more searchable. So if I was going to use AI for anything or Descript can do this, I would probably make, go back and make like highlight reels of each episode and publish those to attract, I publish them probably on YouTube primarily where, cause I think the YouTube algorithm is pretty good in terms of like related videos that are relevant. But I certainly polished independently as little clips that are, you know, like either audiograms if you don't have video or just like short clips, you know, anywhere from honestly anywhere from 30 seconds to maybe like seven minutes, but you already have short episodes. So maybe you don't need to go that high. Like two, three, three minute episodes or clips I should say, and to try and funnel people into the subscribing to the actual show. So with the recordings, I don't think, you know, using them for content ideas, we already talked about that. But yeah, making clips to promote the show, increase the audience size, attract more bigger guests, that kind of thing. But I think that the relationships is the more useful thing, you know, the networking. And so for something like, like I had one, one student who went back to a bunch of sort of luminary guests that they had on the show and they sent, they got like five or six of them and they said, Hey, I want to do this weird like interview thing. Can I send you six questions and you record yourself reading the question and then answering the question? And so he sent the same six questions to these five sort of famous people and they were like, sure. It'll only take like 10 minutes, right? So they just flip on a video camera, just do it into their phone, didn't matter. And they'd answer the, answer the, read the question, answer the question. And then he took all of those recordings and cut them together as like a bunch of individual episodes where, you know, these five or six, it was almost felt like a panel where like one question was asked and then answered by five or six like super famous people. And so you got all these different takes on it, which I thought was really cool. And then of course that would, you could share those short, short episodes to promote, you know, get people back to this, get more people on the show. Just going to interview them for things or saying, you know, blurbs for the book. Like I said before, just trying to leverage them for introductions to other guests. If they've been on other shows to get, you know, basically leveraging the network, that sort of thing. I actually find guests volunteer other guests. So they'll say, Oh, have you thought about interviewing this person? And I'll say, no, I hadn't thought about it, but it sounds fantastic. And then they say, Oh, would you like me to introduce you to them? And it's like, yes, yes, I would. That would be fantastic. Yeah. I love it. I love it. When I'm on a show, when someone at the end, I think the guests that who asked, do you know, you know, now that you've been on the show, can you think of anybody in your network who would make a good guest? And I virtually always have at least one, you know, because I know enough people that are similar enough to me that, you know, I'd say, Oh, you know, have, has Darlene Carter run on the show or is Blair Ensman in the show or, or Genevieve it's data science show. So that's great. So as a, as a host, you could just ask, you know, you could say that and, and build your network that way and then get a warm introduction from someone probably way more famous than you that is going to be more likely to get a yes from the other person.

Genevieve Hayes: I've never thought of doing that before, but now I'm going to do that all the time.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Yeah. Now that you've been on the show, can you think of anybody, you know, who would make a great guest?

Genevieve Hayes: Another piece of advice I would give because through the podcast, I've had people reaching out to me to be a guest on their podcast. If you're running a podcast and you reach out to someone and ask them to be a guest on your show and they say, yes, make sure you actually then set up a recording session because I've had it happen multiple times where I've said, yes, of course I'll be on your show. And then they never set it up.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah.

Genevieve Hayes: And it's like, I, you, you reached out to me, I wasn't reaching out to you.

Jonathan Stark: That's a good one. I probably wouldn't even, I might not even notice if that had happened because it's the kind of thing that could just fall through the cracks. But usually if somebody, if somebody invites me on a show, um, if it's on like LinkedIn or something, I immediately I'm like, let's move the conversation to email cause I'm never going to remember cause that's where I'm going to search for, Hey, I remember somebody invited me on the podcast and I searched my email and nothing comes up cause it was on LinkedIn. So I'm like, I'm always like, get the conversation to email. And then once it's an email, they resend the invite and I say, great, what's the, what's the best next step? Send me your scheduling link and I'll just book it right now. Um, but yeah, so I, I always ask for that immediately. It's like, just give me the link and we'll book a, sometimes they want to have like a pre-call which I try and avoid because I think it kind of spoils the interview itself. But um, yeah, I, I agree to try and book it immediately if somebody does invite you on a show.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. My goal is when someone says yes, I want that in my calendar within 48 hours because otherwise you might lose the guest.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, you're totally right. Yep. Um, and, and check and make sure they did it cause you can send the link and if they never like give yourself a reminder to say like, Oh, did they actually book it? I sent the link, but did they actually book it? Cause I'm, I'm guilty of that. Like somebody might send me a link and then gets buried in my inbox and maybe I didn't, you know, and then they were like, Hey, and it doesn't seem like you signed up. And I'm like, Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Genevieve Hayes: I never do more than about two at a time because I get worried that I'll end up having two people clashing or something like that.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah.

Genevieve Hayes: Or, um, what I don't want to end up with is two people back to back. So I do a podcast with someone and then an hour later I'm doing a podcast with a different guest. I think that would be very bad.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. So I entered on business of authority. Mike Michalowicz came on and he does a lot of podcasts, interviews. At the time that we did it, he was recording, he was guesting on like 10 shows that day. like Thursday is his day to guest on shows. So he gets all suited up and goes on camera, and he's got his hair all perfect, and he's ready to go, and he's got all his notes for what show he's on. But that would be overwhelming to me for sure. I wouldn't be able to do that. My record is two in one day, and one of them was an American who I did first thing in the morning, and then the other one was a European who I did at around dinner time. So that wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to do that more than once.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah. It's not great.

Jonathan Stark: I think I've recorded about, I've been a guest on maybe 20 podcasts in the last few months, and it feels like you can't do them justice in terms of promoting them after they're live. You know what I mean? Because you might record, let's say you did record 10 in one day. Well, those are going to come out over the course of the next six months, because some shows are way ahead and some shows are releasing right away. So you never know when they're going to come out. When they do come out, if they don't e-mail me about it, I'm not going to see it. So they need to e-mail me, and then if you have too many of them going on, and it's just you and you don't have an assistant or something, it's a lot to really share it on social media or comment on their posts. They want you to give them a review and all of this stuff that you would want as a host. If you do too many of them, it can get pretty confusing and turn into a fair amount of work even though you're not editing the episode and not publishing it yourself. Oh, here's another one. Here's another tip. I would do more podcast swaps where you do a reverse interview or a co-interview, where I think Ed Gandia and I have done them a couple of times. I'm sure there have been a few where it's just like we just have called Fireside Chat with Ed Gandia and Jonathan Stark. Then we just both totally published the exact same thing on both shows. I've done ones where I've appeared on their podcast and then they've appeared on mine or vice versa, and that works out pretty well. Because then each of us gets to focus on whichever questions we want to ask and whichever topic we want to ask, and yeah, that works out. I've definitely done those. I like the Fireside Chats better because there's only one call instead of two. There's something funny about not being the guest or the host. There's something funny about it. It's like when both people are hosting and guesting at the same time. If you've never done it, you might want to try it. It's pretty cool. But yeah, so I would certainly do more swaps where we go on each other's shows. If you're interviewing people that have a podcast, for sure. But the podcast swap is just a little bit more efficient and has a different vibe. It's like a special episode. It feels different. The other thing that there's a tricky, there's a dark side to this though, is that people will invite you on their podcast that they just started, so that you'll invite them on your, you know, it's like, oh, you want to do a podcast swap? And it's like, not really. I don't understand what you do or how it would be of value to my audience. So no, I don't think so. So you do have to, yeah, go ahead.

Genevieve Hayes: I was going to say the other risk of appearing on a podcast that hasn't been going for very long is it might never actually go to air.

Jonathan Stark: You know what I do about that? I usually, well, I didn't need this, I'm not a guest on this one, but usually I'll record my own side locally. And if theirs never goes live, I have all of those recordings of my side. And in theory, I could go back and say like, oh, we'll turn this into, you know, just insert the obvious questions. Like AI would be great at this. It's like, here's a bunch of giant gaps where some host was asking me some question because I don't have their side. And insert whatever the questions would be for the answer that I gave. Like reverse engineer what a question would be for me to give this answer. And then turn that into, I could turn that into audiograms or YouTube mailing list content, or if there's anything unusual. Or sometimes I'll just tell an old story in a way that I'm like, wow, that was really, I really nailed it that time. So I might want to save that and like sort of not memorize it, but use it as something written, something like that.

Genevieve Hayes: Okay. I haven't thought of that. I know that when I've appeared on other podcasts, I've taken my preparation notes and then turned them into emails. So often there'll be things that I've prepared that never got asked and it's like, well, there's an email there.

Jonathan Stark: Yep. Yeah.

Genevieve Hayes: Sometimes people will send me questions in advance, which I don't, it's fine. I don't, I don't like, it takes a little bit of the spontaneity out. I feel like I sound more canned when I already knew the questions in advance. But, but what it does do, you could probably go back through my mailing list and see like, oh, it's like, oh, you know, somebody sent me over this question, these questions to be on their podcast. And, you know, it's probably not going to come up for six months. So I figured since I answered them already, I'll just send them to you here on the list. And that's pretty cool. Cause you get this sort of lightning round of 10 questions and like a two or three sentence answer to each one, which is very different from a normal email. I'm going to try these in the future. So how do you think about your podcasting work alongside your daily emails? Do your podcasts and emails serve different purposes or do they work together to achieve a common goal?

Podcasting vs. Writing for Trust

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Jonathan Stark: Together. Yeah, together. So the, the writing is how I, writing and editing and publishing is how I clarify my thinking. So it's kind of like practicing guitar or something like that. And then the podcasting is more about building connection with people who care about the kind of stuff I would talk about. So, so that when, if you do end up on a sales call, or if they do know someone who might benefit from working with me, they feel like we're friends. Like they feel like we've been hanging out and they know me and the dogs and kids and all of the background, wherever my grow lights in the background here. So tomatoes, not anything crazy. Yeah. So the, so the podcast is more of a trust builder and it, it prepares, you know, cause if, if you're doing coaching, like you're going to be working directly with something very like intensely. So you want to know if you're going to get along with the kind of, you want to know what their personality is like. And you certainly want to know what their worldview is like. And you certainly want to know what their point of view is about pricing or all of the things that you would be working on if you work together. So if somebody binge listens to my podcast and like, if I jump on a somebody applies for my coaching or something, and they mentioned that they binge listen to the podcast, I'm like, this person's gonna hire me. Like basically for sure. What the, the, the writing is way more about crystallizing new thinking and coming up with new ways to, to articulate this mushy marketing, positioning, pricing, psychology stuff, coming up with new ways to articulate that so that it lands with different kinds of people where I can give metaphors or examples from their particular domain instead of, so it's, they're definitely two different things. I don't usually feel like when I'm either hosting or, or guesting on a podcast, I almost never feel like I come up with a new idea. But with writing, I do with podcasting. It's more about sort of like using all of that crystallization idea, crystallization to kind of land for someone in a, in a format that's much higher bandwidth than writing. It's like when you can hear someone, you're getting a lot more information from them than just the cold written word. So both important, but they're different. I think they're perfect. They're perfectly complimentary. I think the three things that any solo business expertise based business owner operator will never regret getting better at is writing, speaking, and negotiating. So those three things, and I think I heard Tim Ferriss say this first, but it's totally true. If you become a better writer, you become a better speaker and you become a better negotiator. You're, you're going to be happy that you did it. If as long as you run a business, you'll never know. You'll never wish like, geez, you know what? I wish I hadn't done. I wish I hadn't become a better negotiator. That was a waste of time. So the same with speaking, same with writing for it. these kinds of businesses where solo expertise-based business. So anything that you can do, so back to the thing, should I start a podcast? The answer is almost always yes, if they're that kind of a business owner, because it'll make you a better speaker, which is critical to your job. It's a key piece of your job. So getting better at that, even if nobody ever trusts you more or hires you from your podcast, and you never sell an ad or a sponsor or anything like that, if you become a better speaker, you're going to make more money. You know, there's not very many other ways to do it. And you become less nervous talking to people, so you're going to be better in sales calls.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, right. I mean, for me, that's been a big thing that's helped. I interview CEOs. I interview published authors. It makes me less nervous around them now. And so now I've spoken to the guy who worked for Obama. I figure I can handle anything now.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. It's great practice. It's important.

Genevieve Hayes: Yeah, it's very useful. I wasn't expecting questions, but I like them. Do you have other ones? I know we're running long, but I don't care. It's free.

Jonathan Stark: Only one I have left is, you've hosted multiple podcasts over the years. What's the difference between a podcast that builds a business and one that doesn't?

Genevieve Hayes: Wow. OK.

Jonathan Stark: So there's a podcast that probably no one listening to this has ever heard called Stark Raving that I did or do. We're sort of on hiatus now with my brother Matt and various other people from my family who, and anybody else? I think it's mostly just my two brothers and a couple of brother-in-laws piling on. And it's pretty, it's politics, philosophy. It's all the stuff that I don't talk about on a business podcast. It's inappropriate. We swear a lot. It's a bunch of 50-year-old guys shaking their tiny fist at the universe. But it's, so like, is there something? That one is more like, that one's more like an excuse to get together with smart people to explore a different style of idea. So like non-business ideas. Like, when do you sit around and talk philosophy with people? I don't have that opportunity very often. So yeah, so we'll talk about stuff like that. So that's, it's more, it's kind of like a self-improvement sort of thing. Plus you're connecting with family and, you know, or if it's friends. But yeah, and speaking of friends, the very first podcast I started was one of those podcasts where it just sort of felt like you're hanging out with two people and you weren't really planning on learning anything. It wasn't about that. You're just sort of listening to two people talk shop about the kind of thing that you do. And that was called Niche, which is a word I use a lot now. But that wasn't, it wasn't why it's called that. I don't remember why it's called that, to be honest. So that was the first podcast I did. I did it with Kelly Shaver and we were, I can't remember. We must've worked together by that point, but she's a Rails developer. And I think we were on a project together. I can't remember, but we were just like, we need to start a podcast. And cause she's hilarious and I like setting her up, you know, teeing her up to be hilarious. And we would just talk about APIs and stupid stuff back in, I don't know, it was probably like 2010 or 12 or something like that. So that was basically my social life. Those two kinds of shows are basically my social life, but I'm such a weirdo that I have to record it. I don't know why we don't just have a regular Zoom call. But then the business ones, like Business of Authority had a very, very specific purpose. And it was to create a show that we could invite best-selling authors to. That was the whole point of the show. So be able to, people were writing books that we loved, business books that we loved, and picking their, having a reason for them to say yes for us to just basically pick their brain and get free advice. So that was the whole purpose of that show. And then Ditching Hourly is like, it's sort of inconsistent, there's different kinds of episodes, the production quality is all over the road. You know, it's sort of my warts and all, I don't care, I'm doing a podcast podcast, but with a business focus. So this one is more like, I don't know if I'm answering the question well, but this one is really a combination of lots of different things. It's really a Frankenstein of different kinds of episodes. So for, you know, if someone binge listens to it, like God love you, because I know it's a little bit of a yard sale at times. Some episodes where it's just me talking for 10 minutes, there are other episodes where I'm basically doing a free coaching call with someone. There are other ones like this, where I'm inadvertently kind of promoting five day podcast challenge that wasn't really the intent. I'm just a big fan of podcasting and you're very happy with your success and reaching a hundred episodes. So I'm happy, you know, I'm sure there are data scientists listening to, they probably already know about your show, but if not, they should check it out. So, you know, boosting other people's stuff, it's Ditching Hourly is just like, I don't care, I'm gonna talk about business stuff and it's not real. I mean, maybe people can tell me if they think that it's more focused than I do, but it doesn't feel super focused to me. It's just like, I'm starting a podcast, God damn it. I just wanna be able to say, Jonathan Stark host of a show called Ditching Hourly, just to get that message across, but people keep listening to it. So I guess we're doing something right.

Genevieve Hayes: You mentioned that your goal with the business of authority was to get bestselling authors to appear. And the episodes of Ditching, of business of authority that I remember most, Annie Duke and Seth Godin. So you obviously, you really reached that goal.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, James Clear.

Genevieve Hayes: I haven't listened to that episode. I must go back and find it. But, you know, what exactly was your strategy in order to achieve that goal? I love the Seth Godin story.

Landing Dream Guests and Wrap-Up

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Jonathan Stark: So, you know, we, okay, quick, this is gonna be long. Sorry, people, get comfortable, stay on the stair master. So Rochelle, I didn't know, but way back then I was reasonably active on Twitter and she was, her tweets would come up and I would retweet them. A lot of times she would tweet stuff that I liked. And then, so she started noticing some guy retweeting her stuff. And she was the type of person to be like, let's just jump on a phone call. Let's like just meet. And I think it was Skype. I think we did a Skype call, it was that long ago. I could be wrong. And so we had the phone call and it was anybody that's listened to that show, everybody says like, oh, the chemistry, you guys' chemistry is great. And like, that's how it felt on the Skype call. And I had already been thinking about starting a show called The Business of Authority as a solo show that I just interviewed guests, but I already had a solo show. And we got off the Skype call and I was like, Rochelle, I should ask Rochelle to be the co-host of this. And so I pitched the idea to her and she jumped on it. She was like, I've always wanted to start a podcast, but I didn't know how to do it. And it seemed overwhelming. So I was like, yeah, let's do it. And I told her, my intention was to do something that was good enough and consistent enough and professional enough, regular enough that the theme was right so that we could get best-selling authors to come on. She loved that idea. So great, let's do it. And we sent out, we both made a list of kind of like our dream guests and we just cold emailed them. And one of them, and I don't remember, if I went back and looked at the first, probably 20 episodes, there'd probably be, I'd be like, oh yeah, Adam Davidson. There were a few that we got pretty early, I think. But the Seth Godin one was hilarious because I was a huge Seth fan. He didn't know me from a hole in the wall, but I just emailed him and I was like, hey, you don't know me, but I love your work, especially this, and I'd love to have you come on this show to talk about, it's called The Business of Authority and you have a whole rant about Authority and da, da, da, da, it'd be great if you'd come on. And his reply was so classic. He goes, first of all, he replies to email like almost every time. And he replied to this one and he said, I would love to be the guest on your 100th episode. Because I said, we were just starting this show and we'd love it if someone great like him came on, it would really help kick the show off. And he was like, I would absolutely love to be the guest on your 100th episode. So 100 episodes later, two years later, I emailed him back. I replied to that message and I said, I'm sure. you're not gonna remember this, but, you know, you said, da-da-da-da, and now it's been 100, our 100th episode's coming up, and we'd love it if you were the 100th episode guest. And he replied back, a deal's a deal. And, yeah, and then I sent the Calendly link. And then, even better, I was pretty nervous about that one, because I had, and I had been collecting questions for him that no one's ever asked him that I've ever heard for a year, two years. And so I had this huge list of what I considered to be very interesting questions, because I wanted to knock him off script, because he's always got his scripted things that he does, which are great, but I've heard them before. I want something else. And I wanted that reaction of like, wow, no one's ever asked me that. So she and I, Rochelle and I are in the, I don't know if it was Zoom or where it was, but we're prepping, and we're like a half an hour early, we're prepping, what about this, is this question too edgy, da-da-da-da-da? Boom, Seth pops in 15 minutes early, just pops into the Zoom, like Seth Godin's there. And he's like, oh, I don't know if you saw my email, but I have a really busy day, can we get started now? And I was like, yeah, sure, hit record. I was totally not ready. It felt like I jumped out of an airplane with my parachute in my hand. Like I had the parachute, but it wasn't on, and I'm already falling, and so I was like, anyway. So that was very, and then after that, like he came on after, he came on for the 200th episode too, I think. But yeah, I don't know how we got on that. You were asking about how to do the outreach, is that what you, I forget what, I'm sorry, I forgot the question.

Genevieve Hayes: What was your strategy to get the best-selling authors like Seth Godin and Annie Duke?

Jonathan Stark: The key for guests, this is certainly true when somebody invites me on their podcast, the first thing I wanna know is who are the other guests. So I'm gonna go to the show, and I'm gonna scroll down, and if I don't recognize any names, I'm like, well, maybe I'll still, I'll probably still go on, but if I see one that has a bunch of really famous names, I'm definitely gonna go on. So the goal was to get a couple of ones earlier, like ones that are, you know, they've had one best-selling book, and maybe it was a couple of years ago or whatever. Like we had The Trusted Advisor, Charlie Greene. But you know, we worked the network and got some friends. We interviewed James Clear before, right before Atomic Habits came out, because we were both speaking at a conference a little bit early, you know, previously, and I knew the book was coming out, but we didn't know, nobody knew it was gonna be like the biggest best-selling business book of all time. So it's kind of like you wanna start to stack the deck with sort of as famous names as you can, so then when other authors see it, it's like, oh, well, geez, I wanna be on this list. Like, this is a list of cool people. So that's kind of the strategy, is like kind of try and trade up, sort of, you know, get someone who's not so big you can't get them, but big enough that other authors will know who they are. To celebrate my 100th episode, what I did was I made a list of every author who I thought I could never land in a million years, and I started emailing them to guests on my show, and I got them, and that's what amazed me. Yeah, I expected they would say no, and it's like, oh, I managed to get some of these authors. So yeah, I think the other thing is just don't. Don't assume the no. Yeah, don't assume a no, because if you can make a good case for why you should have a top author on your podcast, you can land them. Yeah, they wanna spread the ideas, that's why they wrote a book. Yeah. Cool, well, we should, you probably have to get on with your day, and it's almost midnight here, so this is like ditching hourly after dark for me.

Genevieve Hayes: Yes, it's lunchtime here, so I'm getting a bit hungry, so.

Jonathan Stark: Yes, yes, so, well, thanks so much for emailing, thanks so much for, to use a sethism, doing all that you do, and keeping up with the podcast, and sharing your experience with the audience here. Where should people go to find out more about what you're doing, and maybe subscribe to the show if they're a data science person?

Genevieve Hayes: Well, if you're interested in the show, you can go to value-drivendatascience.com, where you can find all 100 episodes, 101 now, probably higher by the time this goes out, and yeah, or alternatively, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Jonathan Stark: Great, excellent, I'll put all those links in the show notes. Well, thanks so much for coming on, really appreciate it.

Genevieve Hayes: Thanks for having me, Jonathan.

Jonathan Stark: All right, folks, that's it for this week, I'm Jonathan Stark, and I hope you join me again next time on Ditching Hourly. Bye.