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Welcome to The Corporate Escapee hosted by Brett Trainor,
We are on a mission to help 10,000 GenX professionals escape the corporate confines and find freedom and balance. We focus on helping you replace your corporate income by monetizing your experience and working fewer hours.
GenX was raised without many rules and a lot of independence. We want to show you how to reclaim that freedom
We blend stories from escapees, how to episodes, subject matter experts and authors.
Subscribe to Corporate Escapee Podcast define your legacy in the world of business today.
Join us and transform your expertise into a thriving, fulfilling business outside the traditional corporate confines.
Brett Trainor (00:03.091)
Hey, John, welcome to the podcast.
John Tyreman (00:06.384)
Hi Brett, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Brett Trainor (00:09.203)
No, no, my pleasure. looking forward to this one is I'm always trying to learn, even though I'm what 300 or not 300, I wish 250 episodes deep into the podcast. It's always good talking to a guru dancer, even some of my questions and, and plus we always have good conversations when we get together.
John Tyreman (00:27.056)
Yeah, yeah, we've had a couple of conversations so far. So yeah, I'm excited to be a guest on your podcast. You were a guest on mine. So let's keep this thing rolling.
Brett Trainor (00:37.619)
Yeah, we're going to flip the tables a little bit. And as I like to do with everybody that comes on the podcast, it's going to work and break this into two parts. The first one is you're going to share a little bit about your escapee journey. I love to expose people to what's possible because still too often folks still sitting in corporate don't see how they can do it and which is just a shame. So the more exposure we can give and then two, we're going to do a deeper dive into.
podcasting for escapees, right? The how -to and why you should and spend some time in a little bit more detail on that. So we'll keep it simple, but I promise it'll be, it'll be valued.
John Tyreman (01:16.496)
Excellent, let's dive in.
Brett Trainor (01:18.323)
Alright, so let's go back in time a little bit. Let's refresh my memory because I forget where your escapee journey is, so I'm curious. What were you doing before you left? What was kind of the tipping point? And is this what you imagined when you had actually left?
John Tyreman (01:38.)
Yeah, so I full disclosure, I'm not a Gen X, but I'm on the older end of the millennial scale. And I, I worked in agencies for a little over 10 years. And, you know, I have a keen understanding of the business model, you know, not a lot of people work in agencies for that long. A lot of times people marketers will start out in agencies and then they'll find kind of an in -house.
Brett Trainor (01:45.395)
close enough.
John Tyreman (02:06.768)
place. That's typically kind of like the career trajectory of marketers who start out in agencies. But that wasn't my path. I worked in agencies for a little over 10 years and I was actually laid off in September of 22. And so at that point, what happened was, you know, I've got a wife and three kids and, you know, I need to be able to find work. So I'm out there
you know, sending job or filling out applications, trying to look for a job. And then my friend hit me up who I worked with a few years ago and he was like, Hey, we've got this opportunity. They're a bit too small of a fish for us, but they'd be perfect for you. What do you think? And so I had a conversation and that they became my first client. And I just kind of lucked into it a little bit. So I was doing that on the side to kind of pay the bills while I'm searching for a job. Well,
recruiters are notorious for ghosting folks. And I had a really, really hard time getting even just an initial conversation. And so from there, I thought, well, let me see if I can try my hand at winning some more clients for my consulting business and let's see where that goes. And that was, I will tell you, that was a hell of a lot easier to find clients than to get job interviews, which was just like, that kind of blew my mind.
Brett Trainor (03:29.619)
you
John Tyreman (03:35.216)
a little bit. And so I thought, hey, you know, this is pretty cool. Let's go and do this. And so I went out on my own as a fractional marketing director and I put all my eggs in that basket. And I lucked into a few other clients. I had a LinkedIn post that went viral, so to say, you know, it got 50 ,000 impressions. To me, that's a big deal and that landed a couple more clients. And so I had a full book of business within my first six months.
to me, I thought that was the norm, right? And later on down the line, you know, a couple clients churned and I'm like, okay, I really need to get serious about my business and if I really want to make this work. So I knew just based on working in agencies in the past and focusing on professional services that I needed to specialize. And so I niched down, I had hosted a couple podcasts for my past agencies.
Brett Trainor (04:07.571)
I'm sorry.
John Tyreman (04:34.992)
And so I niched down offering podcast marketing for experts and professional services firms. And I made that focus and I made that intention about nine months ago, I'll say in August of 23, I want to say. And so as part of that journey, what happened next was I launched two podcasts. So first is
Breaking Biz Dev, which is a buddy show that I do with Mark Wainwright, who's a fellow fractional sales consultant for professional services firms. And so we beat up and break down topics related to business development. And he and I have a fun time with that. The other show, which Brett, you were a guest on is Podcasting in Professional Services. And now that's a classic interview series where I feature successful business podcasts
show hosts to bring more awareness to how podcasting can have a positive business impact. And so I've been working on both of those two shows. Between the two, I've probably got 50 or 60 episodes published at this point. So that's what I'm working on now. And those two shows are a big part of my own marketing strategy.
Brett Trainor (05:52.755)
Yeah, so good and so much value. I do want to go back a little bit and ask you the question. When you said you locked into that first client, was it somebody that was just looking for marketing support? Was it similar to what you were doing at the agency and they just needed a little more one on? Because did you know how to price it and how to do all that type of stuff when you walked into it or was it trial by fire?
John Tyreman (05:56.88)
Please.
John Tyreman (06:17.488)
A little bit of all of the above. This was an organization, they offered coaching services for product managers and helping them kind of, these product managers kind of find jobs, help them develop their own careers, so coaching them throughout their careers. So they needed like a fractional
marketing director. They need someone who is going to put in a few hours every week and help them develop content, help them manage the website, manage social media. And so in terms of pricing and scoping, what happened was the initial engagement, I scoped it out as a project where for X amount of dollars, I'll get you X amount of blog posts. You'll get this amount of LinkedIn posts. I'll be able to update these pages on your website.
And so it was a fixed fee model. And then we moved to a retainer base where it was expanded in scope in terms of the total number of deliverables each month. And that's how I approached it because I knew that if I was to price purely based on time, that I'd be handcuffing myself and I would be essentially hurting myself.
for the total amount of hours that I'm putting in. So it doesn't work if you focus on just the price or just the hourly rate rather, but instead of pricing by deliverable, pricing by outcome, that's what I try to do with all of my engagements.
Brett Trainor (08:04.883)
Yeah, I like that. And I've actually gone back and forth. Maybe we'll go first little rabbit hole here, but because pricing and I've talked to different folks and I hated, I love the idea of the retainer for fractional, you know, 25, 30, 35 hours a month, or maybe eight to 10 hours per week. But there is that overcoming, right? Them counting the hours, right? How many hours have I done? And then, but then what the outcomes are is that
John Tyreman (08:26.672)
Right.
Brett Trainor (08:30.771)
the chance for it to scope bleed the other way where you're working more hours and not getting paid as much. And I forget who it was. I think it was maybe it was Ashley that was on the podcast or I forget, but they do still like the, you get a block of hours per month and a lot of people are actually very comfortable with that. So I'm like, huh, maybe I need to rethink.
that model and it sounds like you're more in my camp which was focused on the deliverables and if you're super efficient, it's going to take you a few hours to do it. Yeah, just curious your thought on that selling the block of hours.
John Tyreman (09:07.568)
It's funny thinking about that first contract. And then recently I'm talking with a client that I'm actually going to be starting with here in a couple of weeks, where instead of looking at it in terms of like specific deliverables, because this is a 12 month engagement that I'm going into as a fractional marketing director. And we have a strategy that we both kind of like agree on and align with. And, you know,
Brett Trainor (09:29.235)
count.
John Tyreman (09:36.528)
Obviously you don't know what you don't know and there are certain things that are going to inevitably pop up and you will need to be able to have the flexibility to move and maneuver. So are you familiar with EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System? Yeah, EOS. In EOS, I call it EOS, in EOS there's what they call quarterly rocks, right? And that quarterly rock is a project or
Brett Trainor (09:51.491)
Yes. EOS. Yeah.
John Tyreman (10:05.744)
a focus area in a given quarter that you're working towards. And at the end of that quarter, you will have completed that project, that initiative, whatever it is. And so the way that I look at it is, you know, we're gonna be working on this strategy together and we're gonna be working towards these outcomes. We're probably not gonna realize that for six to nine months.
but along the way there are these milestones that if we hit these milestones every single month, then we'll be able to show progress towards that strategy and achieving those outcomes. And every quarter, let's get together and then let's establish what the milestones are for the next three months. We can see 90 days out in the future. We know what to expect, generally what to expect. We know what we can control and accomplish within that timeframe. And then let's...
let's reconvene every 90 days to reset what that rock is, what those milestones are. And so I've kind of worked that methodology into kind of the structuring of the fractional model. And, you know, I was upfront and I told him, I said, you know, hey, this will, this will be about 15 hours a month, let's say, right? And if we're hitting those deliverables and those milestones,
down the line, if I can find some efficiencies in my workflow and get that down to maybe 10 hours a month, right? With that, I'm still delivering the same amount of value for fewer time inputs. If I was charging by my hourly rate, then that would be a disservice to me.
Brett Trainor (11:47.027)
Right, right. Now it makes sense because you're providing the value and you shouldn't be punished for being good at what you do, right? Because you get somebody who's not as good, you're going to pay them a lot more because they're going to take longer to deliverable. Yeah, it's interesting because one of the things I've been working with more individuals now is taking the wrapper off of how you work with clients. It's more of, hey, here's the problem. Like you're in case you can help them marketing strategy.
John Tyreman (11:55.568)
Exactly, yeah.
Brett Trainor (12:16.851)
And it's kind of a design the program that makes sense for the business. So it could be part MSP. It could be a service, right? Where you're doing, you know, a certain number of reports on a monthly basis or a weekly basis taking care of X, Y, and Z. There's a, you know, monthly and quarterly strategy session and you can price it as, you know, more of a program than fractional because sometimes I think people always just lead with fractional and sorry to all my fractional people, cause I do know it works.
John Tyreman (12:39.792)
Exactly.
Brett Trainor (12:45.395)
But if the business isn't familiar with that term, they're gonna almost think of it as a new hire or a lighter version of new hire, even though that's not what it is. So if you can take some of the language out of it until it becomes more mainstream and everybody's got the same definition of fractional, I think it's, because basically what you're doing is putting together a program for it with you being the expertise. And I just think that that's gonna open up more opportunities for people if they don't box themselves in into a.
Like I did like my early contracts, it was box. I'm like, this is the way we do it. If we don't do it, then it might not work when in hindsight, there was other ways to, that would have made more sense to structure it, but live and learn. And you know, that's why we go through the process, I guess.
John Tyreman (13:28.656)
Exactly.
Brett Trainor (13:30.547)
Awesome. All right. So now we go into podcasting. So when you were at the agency, were you, you mentioned a little bit that you were either working on some podcasts or helping with podcasts. How did you, you know, get into this field? Cause I think I shared on your podcast. I didn't even know what a podcast was. I was working with a book editor four plus years ago, maybe in five years ago. And she suggested doing a podcast. So when the book's ready, you'd have an audience that's built in. I'm like, what the hell is a podcast? And
I don't know if I can do that. And well, as I told you five years later, podcast is still going and the book is still close, right? So just curious how you got into the podcast and now I've actually built a business out of it. I think that'd be a great place. Then we can dig into the tactics of it.
John Tyreman (14:07.92)
Still in draft form.
John Tyreman (14:18.8)
Yeah, yeah. So I, at the time I was working at an agency called Hinge Marketing and they're based out of Reston, Virginia, which is right outside of Washington, DC. And I had a 90 minute commute to the office, 90 minute commute back when I went in. So this was, you know, in 2019.
Brett Trainor (14:36.051)
out.
John Tyreman (14:41.808)
I was working hybrid remote, hybrid in the office. So I was only in the office a few days a week. But on those days that I did go in, I had 90 minutes to kill in the car. And I burned through all my sports podcasts. And I was like, okay, well, what else is there? And so I flipped on a couple of business podcasts, B2B Growth, building a story brand, to name a couple, Two Bobs. That was a big one back then. It still is.
And so I thought to myself, man, this is really great. Like I could see how a podcast would be a great medium for the business, for the agency. And so I brought this to the marketing team at the agency and they were like, hey, yeah, this is a great idea. Go do it, John. I'm like, okay, cool, yeah, I'll do it.
Brett Trainor (15:32.403)
Hahaha
John Tyreman (15:34.544)
And, you know, I grew up playing in bands and I'm very familiar with audio editing and everything. So, you know, it was kind of natural for me. But my, my colleague, Kelly Waffle and I, we teamed up and we would interview folks about their journey becoming a visible expert. So we were all about this term visible expert and what that means and the stories behind it. And we were able to land some pretty cool interviews with folks like
Mark Schaeffer, Rand Fishkin, Michael Brenner, like big names in marketing. And so that really went on really well. And then COVID happened and everything was just kind of like up in the air. And I ended up taking a marketing director position at another agency. And then part of the strategy that I laid out was, hey, let's start a...
launch a podcast. So I launched another podcast in 2021, I want to say, called Digital Marketing Troop. And I was interviewing technical experts about marketing. And that was a fun show. And we ran that for about 60 episodes. And then came kind of like the echo effect of the COVID
you know, stimulus and all the layoffs that were happening in 22. And I was unfortunately a victim of that. And that's kind of when I went off on my own.
Brett Trainor (17:06.707)
Interesting. Can I tell you a funny story? As I was looking back through your bio on LinkedIn and I saw a hinge and then I saw a podcast. I'm like, I didn't know hinge had a podcast. I was thinking the app, not the marketing agency. I was struggling to put those two and two together, but that now it makes more sense when it was actually an agency.
John Tyreman (17:11.184)
Please.
John Tyreman (17:19.92)
yeah. No, yeah, we often got that confused. I wonder what a podcast for the Hinge Dating app would look like. It's some interesting content.
Brett Trainor (17:31.251)
We probably do really well. Maybe you can take that on as a side project or if anybody's out there listening, contact John, he'll help you get it set up. No. And so, yeah, like I said, this is probably why we connect well. Cause I do absolutely see the power of the podcast and there's still people to this day that I run into or talk to like, you have a podcast? Cause I'm not exactly the most extroverted in the sense of
John Tyreman (17:38.32)
Yeah.
Brett Trainor (17:57.875)
Just, you know, some people you think to just chat, chat, chat, go, go, go. They don't tend to make the best podcast host because they over talk their guests. But anyway, so like I said, I'm a big fan. And then when I got into the escapee world, you know, I think we're all becoming our own media companies. And I think podcast is a great pillar or foundation for content. And as you said, so I'd love to kind of transition into this as you're talking to people either just are just.
Newbie corporate escapees are still sitting in corporate. Let's talk about how you would approach. I mean, I think we've talked, well, let's keep talking myself in the circle here. Let's go. What are the advantages? Why shouldn't escapees think about and start a podcast and then we'll get into maybe some more of the nuances of actually doing it.
John Tyreman (18:49.936)
Yeah, yeah, so why should you consider a podcast? I think that there are a few different benefits, especially for what I like to call expertise -driven businesses or expertise -based businesses, because your business is based on your expertise. And right now, it's easier than ever to fake your expertise online.
You've got chat GPT, you've got ghost writers you can get to help write the content for you on LinkedIn. So there's a lot of shortcuts that you can take. And what, in my opinion, I think what that's done is that's eroded trust in even individuals on these social platforms. Engagement groups are another big contributor to this lack of trust that I think is going on.
And a podcast is a way for you to be more human with your marketing and be more authentic with your marketing. And it's harder to fake that, right? If you're getting behind a camera, if you're getting behind a mic and you're talking about your area of expertise, that's you, right? And not only that, but I think just being able to articulate your area of expertise,
Brett Trainor (20:05.107)
you
John Tyreman (20:13.488)
is something that's really important for expertise -driven businesses because that shows your credibility. That's a way for you to show your expertise, your credibility, and build trust with your audience. So I think the whole conversation around trust, that's one big benefit. A few other ones, podcasting can absolutely lead to lead generation for expertise -driven businesses.
And you can do that in a number of different ways. In fact, I do that two different ways with my two podcasts that I have. It generates leads in two completely different ways. With Breaking Biz Dev, I've got a bumper at the end of every episode. Are you interested in launching a business podcast? Contact redcedarmarketing .com. And I've gotten a few leads that way. With podcasting and professional services, the folks that I interview,
Maybe they're not necessarily like my ideal clients because they're already established podcasters, but they could open doors and other kinds of opportunities. Sure, I've gotten business opportunities from that, but I've also unlocked doors to other opportunities like this guest interview that we're doing right now. Right. So that's another benefit. Like I mentioned earlier, you can have conversations with people that you wouldn't normally have conversations with.
Brett Trainor (21:30.323)
Right, yeah.
John Tyreman (21:40.72)
with a podcast. And so that has a major impact on your network growth and your ability to create community, much like you've done, Brett, with your escapee collective community on the back of your podcast. And then finally, I would say that one of the biggest benefits to a one -person business or a small marketing team, maybe it's a small business, a podcast enables you to create endless content, right?
You have take one podcast episode. You could turn that into a blog post. You could turn it into a newsletter. You could chop it up into video snippets. You could turn it into a talk track, a webinar. There's a number of different directions that you could go from a single podcast episode. And then over time, you create this media library that you can use and tap into and repurpose. And it's, it's a marketer's playground kind of, if you, if you really think about it. So.
Brett Trainor (22:36.915)
Yeah.
John Tyreman (22:37.072)
Those are a few of the benefits, but I'll pause there.
Brett Trainor (22:40.947)
No, I think that everyone I can't, obviously I wouldn't necessarily disagree with anyone, but I a hundred percent agree on the trust and authenticity. It's huge. I mean, maybe four years ago there weren't as many people doing podcasts. So you could get away. And I mean, I almost, I think this is playing into my advantage because I'm not an overly produced writer, overly edited.
And kind of what you see and what you hear is what you get. You know, part of the, my TikTok experience has driven that, that it's just, Hey, people like the human nature. And I think maybe we're over indexing more into the like real conversations versus was that AI? I mean, I'm starting to hear more, man, I love that response, but it looks like that may have been an AI response versus, and people don't necessarily care if it's
the right answer or not. They're now trying to figure out if it's AI driven. I think we are going to move back towards if you can authenticate that it was human or my certification that that was me on that podcast, I think is we all crave and are going to need that. So I think a hundred percent agree with you. And two, I think from learning and living this for almost five years now, content can be overwhelming.
And the good thing with the solo business is we don't need a ton of clients for this to work and pay the bills and do well. And I love the idea. And again, I'm, I think I talked about in your podcast that I need to do a better job of leveraging all the content I have between the guests that I've had, the things that I've learned. I mean, I've had some famous, I've had some really good strategists. I've actually had good use cases of people.
John Tyreman (23:58.896)
That's right.
Brett Trainor (24:18.323)
And so I do have this library of content that I'm not leveraging. So that's, that's my goal for the latter part of this year. But all that to be said, that if you're new to the escapee world, you're building every one of us is, is it is going to be an expertise based business. We're leveraging our, our decades of that corporate, knowledge that we have that this is a perfect way to do it is to, to host the podcast and.
You know, we can get into whether solo or guest or format, those types of things. We can get there in a minute. But I think having this as your pillar just makes a lot of sense. Even if you have 10 listeners, you've got the content, you're starting to build up what you need. So now I think I hadn't thought about it the way you outlined it, but it makes perfect sense.
John Tyreman (25:08.656)
Like you said, even if you have 10 listeners, if those 10 listeners represent your ideal clients, then that is absolutely a great investment, especially for one person businesses.
Brett Trainor (25:18.003)
Yeah, and it does open doors, right? I share with folks that one of my networking tips if I hear somebody on a podcast they're a guest on somebody's podcast I'll send the LinkedIn notes that hey, I heard you on, you know John's podcast really loved what you're doing. Just a big fan I'm just starting to consume your content. I probably have a 90 to 95 percent acceptance rate of those people to connect I don't care what level they are what they were doing. So one if you're looking to network, it's a perfect way then on the flip side
that you have a podcast, it opens doors to people you didn't think you had access to. And, you know, the only one I would also add in there is I love to learn in what better way than to have a conversation with you. I've already got a page of notes and we haven't even been going that long that, you know, as the podcast hosts, you know, I figure if I'm learning something, there's got to be others that are going to learn something as well. So it's just a great tool to do it.
John Tyreman (26:14.864)
Well, and that kind of feeds into your point about you don't need to be an extrovert to be a podcast host. But if you're having great conversations and you bring a curious mindset to the conversation, then that can, you're able to peel back layers of your guests because podcast guests, a lot of times come to the table and they have...
stories that they wanna share and they have the pitch that they wanna talk about their business and everything. But as a host, if you're able to let them tell their stories, but then peel back layer by layer and kind of uncover layers deeper into their experience or other perspectives, or maybe you can even talk your guests into connecting dots that they didn't even connect before and you can see that light bulb moment happen.
Those are some of the best times and experiences and I think that provides for a great listening experience too.
Brett Trainor (27:17.331)
Yeah, I joke that I'll take me. I took you down a rabbit hole early in this podcast, but I think that's you're right. That's exactly where the value comes. And, you know, I get sometimes I get first time guests on a podcast and they're overly, I don't want to say freaked out, but a little bit, right? Are you going to send me the questions ahead time? What do I need to prepare? I'm like, no, you're, you're coming on this because you know, everything there is to know about this. And we're just going to have a conversation. I'll have.
John Tyreman (27:21.904)
Yeah
Brett Trainor (27:43.731)
You know, three, four, five, six questions ready in case the conversation needs it. But rarely is that the case, as long as you're driving towards a, an outcome or at least uncovering, you know, providing the value. I had a producer once that just was so helpful because the one tip and she gave me a ton of tips was, you know, try to provide, you know, some piece of value every minute that you're on the podcast.
And so basically that was her nice way of saying, cause I had a ton of fluffy stuff in the first three, four or five minutes of the podcast. And they're like, it's nice, but nobody cares. Right. If you establish relationship and you do that, that's fine. She's like, but maybe you just, people want to, they want knowledge as you go through this thing. So keep it real, but keep it, keep it going. I think if you just cake that as whoever you're talking to is help them showcase the value then.
You know, the podcast people will listen. It's, it's like I said, it's not rocket science. And sometimes the hardest part is just hitting record for the first time versus. Right.
John Tyreman (28:51.6)
That really is the hardest part is going from zero to one, right? And getting behind the mic and hitting record and then listening back to your own voice for the first time is, it's cringe at first and then you get used to it over time. You really do.
Brett Trainor (29:09.299)
you do, but it's still cringe worthy. And I'm going to tell you, maybe you can add this to your tricks of the trade. It wasn't until I said, I got knee deep into, to tick tock. And like I said, I do a, just about a video a day. It's two minutes, but you have to edit every one of them. Not an edit in the sense of cleaning anything out, but if you want to add the one graphic and it's just little things. So I, I'm forced to listen and watch myself every single day on this.
In the first month, it was just painful. I'm like, how do I turn the volume down? But wait, I need to hear what I'm saying. Now I'm completely comfortable with it. And then it applies back into the podcast. I'm even more comfortable now with the podcast and listening for the nuance of the quirks that I wasn't, cause I don't think I listened to my first 20 episodes, right? You probably should have to learn, but I couldn't to your point. It was so cringy that I couldn't do it now. Just the repetitive. So TikTok was an added advantage.
just getting used to hearing myself and then listening for, you know, why would I say that or that type of thing? So honestly, what I'm listening for more is, is it natural, right? Did it sound like I'm reading it or if it sounded natural? So that's really what I'm listening for now, not anything, you know, ahs, ums, I mean, that's going to happen. So, like I said.
John Tyreman (30:19.152)
Yes.
John Tyreman (30:29.136)
There's an art to reading from a script, but there's also, it's also an art to be able to just have that free form, free flow conversation where you're not reading from a script and it does sound a lot more natural. Cause yet listeners can absolutely pick up when you're reading from a script, whether you, even if you think that you do a really great job, listeners can tell.
Brett Trainor (30:51.487)
Exactly. But you know what I found? And I used to tell myself, I'm like, I'm not going to do script, I'm going to do this. But what I really had to work on for me was the rambling part, right? So if I'm going off script, just keep it to the point, right? Again, it's the one thing when I started writing everything, I just wanted to include everything. And when I started doing the podcast, I would include everything. And really, it's less is more. And as long as you're focused on that still probably one of my biggest things I have to keep focusing on is
Just if I'm going off script, which is most of the time, to keep it, you know, without all the other stuff that the people aren't going to care about. I might care about it, but nobody else is that that to me has been one of the harder lessons to learn versus, but I'm with you. I can't listen to any podcast that is script generated. Just, it doesn't work for me.
John Tyreman (31:39.376)
Yeah, I suppose that's where you gotta always have like, you know, if you're recording a podcast, always think that like you've got these five like trusted listeners. I like to call them your Mount Rushmore listeners, right? You know exactly who they are. There's like four or five of them and they're on the call with you. Even though they're not really there, in the back of your mind, you gotta be thinking, these guys are gonna be listening to this podcast. Would they care what I have to say? And that might be, that's a kind of a trick, like a mental trick that I've
Brett Trainor (31:52.371)
that's good.
John Tyreman (32:08.784)
used. I don't know if maybe you've used something similar, but it's helped me stay on track.
Brett Trainor (32:14.899)
Yeah, that's good. I hadn't thought about it. I've heard people and I try to keep them in the back of my mind that you're talking to your one ideal customer. I love the idea of the Mount Rushmore of it. And I forget who I think I had Alex on the podcast and she said, who you're talking to is every time you're talking to your hell yes customers, right? It's the ones that are in there, they want to hear from you. So if you keep...
John Tyreman (32:32.176)
Yeah.
Brett Trainor (32:36.435)
Focusing on them you'll get more and more of them as you keep the verses trying to hit something for everybody I'm like, I love that the hell. Yeah, and now I've got the Mount Rushmore. Yeah Reminder to stay focused All right now John I we went down we may have to do a part two if you were glad to come back and we'll do a more of a master class on 101 podcast but because I think this was super helpful to get to the point of why we should even be doing this but
John Tyreman (32:45.648)
There you go.
Brett Trainor (33:03.827)
So let's spend just maybe a little bit more time on the strategy. So topics, and maybe you mentioned the three, the, what was it? Maybe that was off here, the strategy, the operation and the marketing. So maybe let's just talk for a few more minutes that we have left on this about the strategy, right? So almost everybody in the audience is going to have an expert based. So how do you help? Do they have to have an idea ahead of time or how do you help people ideate on what
John Tyreman (33:18.672)
Yeah.
Brett Trainor (33:33.363)
Podcasts should be about because honestly in my early days This is where I struggled and I still tweak and try to think about where I want to take it But any suggestions and recommendations and how to to start that process?
John Tyreman (33:48.4)
Yeah, there's really two questions that I like to start out with. They're prompts for you to think about. Number one, what is the podcast gonna do for the business? And then number two, what is the podcast gonna do for your listeners? And so you could think about that, you can think about it in terms of value, you could think about it in terms of...
What entertainment value is our listeners gonna get? Is it something that they tune in because they're fed up with work and they want something that's entertaining? Or do they wanna better themselves? Do they want more how -to information? What kind of value do you wanna bring to your listeners? And then what kind of value do you want the podcast to bring to your business? So for example, you might not have a really big network.
and you wanna use your podcast to grow your network. Your podcast strategy is gonna look different than if you already have an existing network and you wanna use the podcast for lead generation. So those are two different goals and your podcast might look completely different. One of the biggest factors in a podcast is the host's personality.
If you are an energetic, charismatic, if you do like to talk, then maybe a monologue is right. Or maybe there is someone, a colleague, maybe in an adjacent space, but you're both serving a similar audience, start a buddy show with them. So you and another person and you're having a conversation just to kind of a back and forth, that makes it easier to schedule. So you're not booking guests and going through that.
kind of back and forth all the time. So there's a number of different factors that go into it, but I think those two questions, what value does the podcast bring the business? What value does the podcast bring your listeners? That's the first place to start.
Brett Trainor (35:58.195)
Yeah, that's so good. And I think it's a good go, no go decision, right? Because early on I'm like, what's the value going to be to me, right? So the audience for the book when, you know, if and when that came. But if you don't start or include the value to the audience, it won't matter what you want out of it. If the audience isn't going to get value, you're not going to get anything out of it either because it's not there. So.
I think that's a really important point is to think about what from the audience perspective, what are they going to get out of this? And then you can figure out how to tie it back to your business needs. Again, I was way too loose with that. I really wasn't thinking about it from the business. And for the longest time, the value was the guests that came on actually got more leads from it than I did. But again, trial and error.
If I was setting up differently, I said, I'd talk to you, I'm going to start a second podcast. I'm taking a very much more methodical approach than I did the first time because I just was figuring out what I was doing. So I think that's a good point. I don't remind people enough of audience and your business value. If they don't match or both of them don't work, then reset and think of that next topic.
John Tyreman (37:18.8)
Yeah, and speaking of topics, that's another way that you can figure out what the value is to your audience. Maybe you don't know what the value is to your audience, but you know who you want to serve, right? And so then what you need to do is research. Go out and research what topics they care about. Go to Google Trends. What are topics that are trending? Look at your, I don't know if you have access to tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs, but you can look at
you know, relative keyword volume for certain topics, and then structure your content calendar around the topics that do have keyword volume or are trending or are popping up in conversations on social media or in your Slack communities that you're a part of. So that would be a great place to start.
Or I should say that is one input to that equation and to answering that question. What are the topics that your audience cares about? And that can help also help inform the kind of show that you put on and how it's positioned in the marketplace.
Brett Trainor (38:24.947)
Yeah, it's such a good point. In hindsight, when I rebranded, originally rebranded the podcast to the Corporate Escapee, which has been over a year ago, the start of last year, so 2023.
You know, I didn't do the research, right? I knew I was an escapee, but it just didn't get any traction. It wasn't reaching anybody. And by the time November came around, I was ready to rebranded it back to hardwired for growth. Cause then it had keywords and it was businesses and these types of things. But what happened was I unlocked the escapee through TikTok, but what unlocked TikTok was layoffs, ageism, all these other areas.
And as we're talking today, I'm like, man, I maybe even should include part of that as part of the podcast. Cause that's what really people were focused on was, Hey, corporate's crumbling. I'm burned out. I'm GenX. I don't want to do these types of things. So it wasn't, they weren't focused on escapee. That was what the outcome was, or that's a potential for it. And where even now, if I had the podcast, I should probably be rethinking about what the audience is really getting out of it from TikTok. And can I apply some of those same
ideas, trends, keywords back to what I'm doing with the podcast. Because I brought a lot of the folks from TikTok to the podcast, but it wasn't that organic or those types of other things. Because until that happened, it was going the wrong way.
John Tyreman (39:50.256)
But I think that that story also shows the power of finding the right discovery channel for your podcast too. And I think that that's, you know, that's a good segue into like the marketing side of things is, you know, you need a way for listeners to discover your show. Maybe you do have the right, maybe it is positioned right. And maybe you are going after the right audience, but you just don't have those folks in your network to be able to bring into the show.
So you need a way to get your podcast in front of a new audience. And so personally, I think doing guest podcasts, being a guest on other people's podcasts is a great way to build awareness for your own show because I have a theory that people who listen to podcasts, they're more likely, they already listened to another show.
they would be likely to listen to your show as well if you can get in front of them. So that's more of a long -term play, but then you also need to have the other kinds of discovery platforms like a TikTok or like a YouTube or Facebook or Instagram. Those two are probably kind of crumbling on the vine right now, but yeah, I suppose it's worth finding the right discovery channel.
Brett Trainor (41:12.147)
Yeah, that's another really good point is because not I listen to podcasts, you listen to podcasts and anybody listen to this one obviously listens to podcasts. So we think everybody does, but not everybody does yet. I don't know what percentage of Americans are actually listening to podcasts, but it's not as high as I thought it was, but I know it's increasing. Do you know?
John Tyreman (41:27.216)
I think it's.
John Tyreman (41:31.408)
It is increasing. The last I saw it was 75 % of Americans have listened to online audio within the last month. And so it's growing. And I think the majority of Americans understand what a podcast is. I think that like the understanding of that terminology is in the 70, 80 % range.
Brett Trainor (41:41.299)
Okay.
Brett Trainor (41:55.955)
Okay, that makes sense.
John Tyreman (41:57.488)
Now, to be honest, I did have a conversation with a client the other day and he was like, where do podcasts live? I said, do you have an iPhone? He said, yeah. I said, look at the purple app on your phone that says podcasts. He was like, it's right there. It's so, you know, we're still in the early days of podcasting, I like to say. And so we still have a long way to go, but I think a large majority of the population understands what it is and understands how to listen to podcasts.
Brett Trainor (42:03.923)
Brett Trainor (42:27.763)
Yeah, that's so true. And it's going to grow. And again, back to what we're building, we don't need a million people for this to work. And so again, back to get your ideal. It's efficient. There's a lot of things. And you're kind enough to come to the community and talk podcasting. And it got a lot of traction from folks that are interested in it. And again, if you're professional, you can pay attention to details. You can absolutely do.
do the podcast. But yeah, so I know we're completely over time and I appreciate you spending some extra minutes with us. But yeah, so I'm definitely gonna have you back and folks out there, we're gonna do a class on how to actually get started. And, you know, we can go through some of the equipment that you use and the different ways and you know, who can you outsource certain things to? Can you do this yourself? All these, all the fun tactical stuff, but hopefully through this episode, you guys now realize that yes, I should start a podcast. It's doable.
If I can do it, you can do it for sure. And again, I'll use that if I'm on TikTok, you can be on TikTok for sure. I'm like the case study of what's possible for folks. You wouldn't think that would, would be enabled to do it. So it's crazy. So like I said, you just don't know where the next corner is, but unless you're on, you're on the platforms, you just, you'll never know. So just hit record. That's, that'll be our, our, what was the other one you had that was really good?
John Tyreman (43:34.16)
That's an incredible story.
Brett Trainor (43:52.742)
I always talk about finding your first customers easier than finding your next job. And you were talking about finding that customer is easier than finding the next interview. That's even better than finding the next job, but it's so true.
John Tyreman (44:05.04)
Yeah, that was just a painful, painful, but eye -opening experience for me. And I'm glad I went through it because otherwise, you know, I'd probably still be stuck in, you know, working for another man's ends, right, instead of my own. And it's been a liberating experience and it's just, I wouldn't change anything.
Brett Trainor (44:11.091)
Yeah.
Brett Trainor (44:24.755)
Yeah, no, agreed. We learned and maybe the learning curve would have been a little quicker on my end, but you know, it got me to this point. So I'm okay with it. So John, as always, I really, really appreciate you taking the time and folks out there. I will have him back in the not too distant future and we'll do a, I don't know, the cliche master class, if you will, but we'll, we'll break it down. You guys can take notes and you know, within two months, what do we say? Did you say 60 days? You can have a podcast up and running 30 days. What's realistic.
John Tyreman (44:52.24)
I'd say that if you were really gung -ho and you were on it on your Ps and Qs and really wanted to do that, you could get a podcast up in a month. But I'd say that 60 days is a comfortable timeline. If you're thinking about doing that, book that on your calendar and get started.
Brett Trainor (45:10.707)
Yeah, I'm 100 % with you. So excellent. Any parting thoughts, anything else we didn't cover you'd want to share before we wrap?
John Tyreman (45:19.088)
Yeah, I'd say join your slack community. You've put together an awesome community. I think it's what it's over 500 members so far. 600, yeah, lots of really great engagement in there. You do these brunch and learns. I'd say that folks that are listening to this podcast, if you're not in that slack group, you should absolutely go there.
Brett Trainor (45:28.019)
closing in at 600 now. Yeah, it's been, it's growing.
Brett Trainor (45:42.603)
Awesome. Thanks, John. Yes, and that's the just DM me or message me, find me on LinkedIn. I'll send you the link to the community. The more the merrier. Like I said, we're growing quickly and it's a it's a very much a mindset of abundance versus scarcity. And everybody's really helpful with each other. John, you're included in that process. So where can people find you if they want to reach out, work with you directly, learn more? What's the best way for them to get you?
John Tyreman (46:09.616)
Yeah, I'd say find me on LinkedIn. That's where I'm most active. You can check out my work at redcedarmarketing .com. I've got a weekly newsletter. You can access all my podcasts, all the blog posts that I write. If you're interested in podcasting, I do deep dives and all that kind of stuff. So that's where you can find me.
Brett Trainor (46:26.771)
Or if you join the community, John's in there as well. He can take the DM from you. Awesome. All right, thanks, John. We'll catch up with you soon. Take care.
John Tyreman (46:29.52)
That's right. Yeah, just send me a Slack message.
John Tyreman (46:35.6)
All right, thank you, Brett. Talk soon.