Browsing articles tagged with "B2B businesses Archives - Michael D. Simmons"

Growing Your Business and Building Relationships Through Podcasting with Dr. Jeremy Weisz

May 19, 2021 // by michaeld // Podcast // No Comments

Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the Co-Founder of Rise25, a company that helps B2B businesses increase their ROI, referrals, and client list with done-for-you podcasts. Jeremy is also the Founder and CEO of InspiredInsider, where he hosts interviews with top business leaders, including the Founders of P90X, Atari, Baby Einstein, and many more.

Jeremy is a firm believer in the power of podcasting after making close friends, meeting his business partner, and gaining countless clients and referral partners out of his own podcast. Outside of building connections through podcasts, Jeremy earned his Doctor of Chiropractic, and currently runs his own chiropractic and massage facility in downtown Chicago, Chiropractical Solutions & Massage.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Dr. Jeremy Weisz describes the benefits of podcasting and his own approach to podcasting.
The different types of interviews for relationship building– and how this leads to amazing content.
What makes podcasting stand out from other forms of communication?
Jeremy’s follow-up methods after recording an interview.
How to turn relationships into sales for your business (hint: be clear about what you do).
The mindset of podcasting: you don’t have to be a big name.
How do you choose your podcast topic?
Rise25’s mission in helping podcasters share their story.
Jeremy discusses the obstacles of starting a podcast– and how to steer clear of them.
Jeremy shares his strategy to avoid one of the biggest mistakes in relationship building.
How curiosity drives an interview and tips for researching guests before you turn your mic on.
The future of podcasting and multimedia platforms.

In this episode…

How do you begin creating a podcast, and how can you make it stand out? What are the benefits of having a podcast, and how can it help you expand your business? If you’ve ever considered starting your own podcast, then this episode is for you!

According to Dr. Jeremy Weisz, every business should have a podcast; it’s as essential as having a company website. Podcasts can build relationships and help you grow your business—plus, they allow your story to live on in the digital world.

In this episode of The Michael Simmons Show, host Michael Simmons talks with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, Co-Founder of Rise25 and Founder of InspiredInsider, about the power behind podcasting. Jeremy shares his expert tips on starting a podcast, avoiding common obstacles along the way, and using your podcast to build relationships and grow your business. Stay tuned.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by my company, Seminal.

We help you create blockbuster content that rises above the noise, changes the world, and builds your business.

To learn about creating blockbuster content, read my article: Blockbuster: The #1 Mental Model For Writers Who Want To Create High-Quality, Viral Content

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to The Michael Simmons Show where we help you create blockbuster content that changes the world and builds your business. We dive deep into the habits and hacks of today’s top thought leaders. Now, here’s the show.

Michael Simmons 0:14

Today, I have the honour of introducing and interviewing one of my closest friends in the world, Jeremy Weisz, I can honestly say, I would not be here today doing this podcast. If it were not for Jeremy, were one of the clients of his company Rise25. He helps B2B companies create their dream 100 List of the clients they want. And then basically, is an easy button for you to launch that podcast and make it possible. So I’m really excited to be Jeremy’s client. But also Jeremy beyond being a very successful entrepreneur. He’s literally interviewed 1000s of entrepreneurs, from the top entrepreneurs in the world, like the founders of Einstein, Bagel, Atari, Kettle chips, the Orlando Magic, and many other company, the literally 1000s of people he’s interviewed. And so by the end of today’s podcast, you’re going to learn how to grow your own business with podcast, we’re gonna talk very specifically about podcasting strategies that are basically guaranteed to work. And then we’re going to talk about interviewing strategies, and how does Jeremy prep for the interviews and make the interviews a success? Jeremy is one of the most authentic people I know. And also just the really cares about other people, though, is also one of the most connected people I know. So without further ado, I give you Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 1:41

All right, Jeremy,

Michael Simmons 1:43

Welcome to the podcast, my friend.

Jeremy Weisz 1:46

It’s an absolute pleasure, always a pleasure to talk to you.

Michael Simmons 1:50

I’ve been excited for this because I feel like you have a very unique view on podcasts that I have literally heard no one else talk about this, as a very my mind a very proven way, high odds of being very successful as a podcast, where I think a lot of people who go into content, their expectations of success aren’t matched with what it really takes. And you’re just one of the most genuine, kind, giving, like authentic people I know. And most connected, and just anytime I get to spend with you, I just are appreciative.

Jeremy Weisz 2:26

Thank you. But that means so much coming especially from you. So I really appreciate it.

Michael Simmons 2:30

So before we jump into your story, and how you’ve gotten to producing over 1000 episodes, and having hundreds of your own episodes that you’ve done, what I want to ask you is can you tell me more about your philosophy and your unique approach to podcasting? Yeah, definitely.

Jeremy Weisz 2:47

Um, you know, Michael, we were talking about before we hit record, um, you know, the common question about podcasting is okay, how do I get downloads and subscribers? And what microphone? Do I use the technology side? And I usually tell people listen, super easy use Zoom, USB mic, Blue Yeti done, okay, your research is done. Right on that side, the Dallas of subscribers, you know, I like things that are guaranteed proven. Okay. And if you like, Well, listen, Mike, I want to be the next Joe Rogan, I want to be the next Tim Ferriss. That is a hard path to follow. You know, it’s like, less than 1% of all podcasts. And people will never accomplish that. And so, you know, for the normal human beings like me, I’m looking at what are the best ways to like, why would someone do a podcast and it’s very simple. The way I look at a podcast is, and the way I look at life, in general, is all about giving to my relationships, what are the best ways I can give to my relationships in over the past, you know, since I’ve been doing podcasts since 2008. The best way I’ve found to give to my relationships is through podcasting. Okay, it by the way, Michael, you don’t need to have someone on your podcast to give to them on your podcast, right? They just the other day, I was talking to someone, and I mentioned their book, okay, on the podcast, right? I go, um, you know, I’m a pull up, here’s my notes on and you can see this, these are my notes from the podcast if someone’s watching the video, but I write down every single person or resource that I mentioned on the podcast or the other person mentioned. And for if I have their contact information, if I don’t have their contact information, I will message them on LinkedIn and tell them hey, we mentioned you on the podcast and I will purposefully have friends books that I think everyone should check out that I admire that I will mention them on the podcast and so you know a podcast is a way for to profile people’s thought leadership. It’s also a way to mention resources and people you respect in love and spread the word, right. And so it’s a way a channel for you, for anyone, myself included to give to my relationships, okay? And that’s the way I think of a podcast and, and relationship building one relationship can be game changing for a person or a company. I have gone on with people I’ve interviewed, Michael, I have gone on family vacations with their family, John Corcoran and I met and are business partners because of podcasting, people introduced us because we bought a podcast. So there’s so many benefits. And by the way, I haven’t talked about my download numbers, subscriber numbers, if I’m ranking the top 10, of business of iTunes, I’ve been in the top, you know, 15 of business in iTunes before and by the way, it didn’t even move the needle on my business. When I wasn’t. Now I did get more people reaching out to our PR people wanting to feature their their, you know, clients, but it didn’t move the needle on my business being ranked higher. Again, I’m not, I’m not monetizing through downloads and subscribers and sponsorship. Because, you know, my business is the, you know, Rise25 where we launch and run people’s podcasts for them is my message that I get out briefly in the beginning. And that’s it. That’s all I talked about. I talked about just focus on the guest. So yeah, that’s my, yeah, there’s

Michael Simmons 6:32

a lot let me unpack this. Interesting. So number one, you’re talking about podcasting as a relational tool, versus a content tool alone, which is a very unique perspective. And I’ll be honest, I had resistance to that at first, because I’m from all my writing, I’m coming from the content first perspective. But I’ve I switched, and I still value content, but I really see the value of having both. So number one, you’re guaranteed if you have an hour an hour and have conversation with someone, you’re guaranteed to build a relationship with them and just know that much deeper. And I think it’s even deeper than let’s say, if you had met someone for coffee or something like that, you’re researching them, and there’s just a energy that happens there. That’s powerful. And so you’re guaranteed to have that. And the reality of what I know from content. And now training lots of people to create content or courses is, it’s a long term game, that it takes years for a lot of people to honestly break through and start if they if they’re really focused on getting through it. And there’s over a million podcasts right now. So you shouldn’t, for most people, you should expect that you’re going to immediately break out. And so it’s worth setting up your mastery journey, so that you get the benefits right away upfront, and you’re guaranteed to benefit. And also what I like about this approach is a lot of people have analysis paralysis, that you feel like you have the best content ever to break through. And the result is you never get started because you’re so hard on yourself. And this is an I had that I’ve been wanting to start a podcast for five years. And the reason I started and having a now it’s I’m more taking this B2B, relational view and just saying I have to get in the game and improve my skills.

Jeremy Weisz 8:18

Let me talk about the content piece, because that’s is a common thing like, well, because we’ll talk about this. And I’ll talk about there’s different buckets of interviews. And we always start with strategy first, like the first several sessions we talked about with people and you know this, I don’t even talk about podcasting, I just talked about who are your best relationships, and we don’t even talk podcasting in. And by the way, people are like, well, I just want this to be the best content ever. Mike, listen, of course, of course. And it will be. And here’s why. When you think about the type of interviews you can do, okay, now you could have a thought leadership interview, which is your expertise, and you’re the thought leader on it. And then when we talk about external interviews, you could have social proof interviews, meaning like you have a awesome, amazing big gas, like you have Bill Gates, or Reed Hoffman or someone big that everyone’s heard of or company, you could have strategic partners and referral partner interviews. So these are people that you should be or are collaborating with a lot. And a lot of times you already have amazing relationships with these people. Now, here’s the thing when we talk about content, when you have your best strategic partners or for partners out there in the industry, you’re in you are interested in what they do, they’re interested in what you do. Yeah, it will create amazing content. Because of that, you know, friendship, collaboration. And so people are really you know, Michael concerned about the content and, and I already know that, of course, that’s like it’s kind of like when people talk about your company, and like if you want to scale your company, you got to Xyz and a lot of some people go listen, you have to have a good product. You have to have a good product to sell your hobby. That’s kind of like par for the course. That’s a given. Right. So, you know, there is a huge effort to get reps in as I can interview with a different skill set, and you will get reps in. But when you feature your best relationships and partners, they’re in the same industry as you. So they’ll tell cool stories. And it will lead to good content. So it will lead to good content. But the thought first is instead of content is like, who do you have on? And from there, you can think of what are the cool questions to ask and write the methodology.

Michael Simmons 10:32

First, who then what kind? Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 10:34

the methodologies that you teach and go through are, like, invaluable for people. And they can use that in writing in speaking in writing a book in a podcast in a video, they can use those across all of it. So like the foundation you are teaching, they can put into play with any medium, right? Yeah,

Michael Simmons 10:56

yeah. And what I like about it, too, is, as you know, I’m kind of using the blockbuster approach for writing where it’s been a lot of time researching something, you can create one of the best articles that I’ve ever been written on that. And so I also see how having these interviews can help. Let’s say you’re wanting to research a world expert, you just, you’re just saying, Hey, can I have half hour of your time or hour of your time totally get a small clip, it might be hard, but if it’s for a podcast, you get a piece of content that stands alone, you can even chop up when the clips and you get the content for your develop your ideas.

Jeremy Weisz 11:31

So totally, it’s a total shortcut. And when you’re like, hey, I want to just talk to you and have a virtual cup of coffee. Like, I don’t know, I’m super, super busy. Someone’s world renowned. But, you know, if I say, listen, Mike, I’m doing a series of the top direct response marketers on the planet. And I would love to include you in that and hear the other people I have already included. You’re like, sure that sounds great. Or even better. The last person I interviewed I say, Who should I have on and they suggest Michael Simmons, I go, Michael, I had so and so recommend you. And I love to have you on. So it’s not even me asking. It’s one of your colleagues who you’re best friends with, recommending you to do it. And and if I’m like, I want to really learn from the best of the best on direct response work, or whatever that topic is having those people on. It’s like you’re learning from the source, and you’re doing research. So it’s a toll shortcut.

Michael Simmons 12:29

So one thing you said that’s interesting is, that is one of the best ways to build relationships. And so when you said that, I thought, okay, there’s different ways that, you know, one is trying to get on somebody’s calendar, take them out to the coffee, another one would be go to a conference, or bringing conferences together, you’ve got in the background, Rise25.com, where you’ve brought a lot of entrepreneurs together, right before COVID. to, to do retreats and learn from each other. What makes podcasts in and out for you as kind of the highest leverage way?

Jeremy Weisz 13:03

Yeah, I love that question. Such a good question. And it lives on. And what I love about it, if you have a virtual coffee, or you go into event, it’s amazing. There’s no replacing, like, you know, in this day and age like face to face, even in you know, pressing flesh, eating, you know, you know, eating with each other, but that that 30 minute conversation, like right now and we’re talking this lives on this lives on for years, I’ve had people reach out from an interview I did eight years ago. I’m like, I love this interview. And then I go cool. Like, I reached out to the person who I did the interview with and go, I just got a message from someone saying they listened to that episode eight years ago, and they love it. So it lives on. And, you know, it’s something continuously I talked about giving, it creates this give loop. Because when someone messages me and go Jeremy, I love the interview you did in you know, someone just email the other day, I love the interview you did with so and so I emailed that person go, Hey, I got this message. It’s just a way for me to reconnect with that person in a positive way. I’m not asking for anything, I’m not looking for anything. It’s just always a positive interaction. Hey, by the way, when they did that, I posted the interview on Facebook because I like I forgot about the interview from eight years ago. And so it continuously gives to, you know, that person and it gives to other people seeking that content.

Michael Simmons 14:26

lives on Yeah, really interesting. What I’m hearing at the meta level too is that you’re connecting a lot of dots. So if somebody gives you feedback in an episode, you’re not just like, Oh, thank you, you actually send it and let it let that go back to the guest. Or you if you mentioned someone on a podcast, you say, Hey, we mentioned you on this podcast or so on or you at the end of a podcast that sounds like you asked people for who would you ask, Who would you Who else would you recommend having on and then you use that To connect with people, so I don’t even know how to describe that. But it feels like there’s like a quilt of relationships. And you’re kind of bringing it all back to supporting those relationships.

Jeremy Weisz 15:10

Yeah. And not only that, Michael, if someone’s like, Hey, you should have Michael on the podcast, I will make sure to mention that person and that person’s work on the podcast as a thank you to so it’s not just Oh, yeah, let me introduce you to someone who be awesome. That’s great. But I also want to thank that person by profiling their work in that particular interview that they recommended.

Michael Simmons 15:34

Wow, I see, I thought there’s all these dots that, you know, you wouldn’t normally think about in an interview. And so Okay, so we got the business’s unique strategy to be named strategy. I think about you’re targeting B2B, you’re thinking relational. And you’re thinking niche, rather than Okay, how do I become the top 100 podcasts in the world? And if I don’t do that, then I’m a failure.

Jeremy Weisz 15:58

Exactly, exactly.

Michael Simmons 16:01

And so people

Jeremy Weisz 16:01

go after that, Michael, I, you know, and I reached out to them four months, five months, six months down the road, they quit, they quit, because it’s not serving their goal of their business. And so it has to, it has to serve whatever their biggest goal is, and that biggest goal has to lead to something in their business or you it’s not sustainable, and they will quit, most likely at some point.

Michael Simmons 16:22

Okay, so your first thing on the first call is you get people on the phone, you help people identify those key strategic partners. And then you have the interview. What do you do after the episode to really take it to the next level and actually go from Hey, we just talked for an hour and hit it off to let’s let’s talk more.

Jeremy Weisz 16:43

Yeah, yeah. Well, you mean from like, if you want to continue to collaborate with a person? Or what do you do with the episode itself?

Michael Simmons 16:51

collaborate with the person?

Jeremy Weisz 16:52

Okay. Yeah. I mean, you know, the funny thing is, you don’t have to wait till the episode goes live. Right. So right afterwards, I can give to that person without before even publishing the episode. So let’s say we get off. What I’ll do is I just the other day, is I you know, because I already prepared like a little bio that I read for the person. So right after the interview, I will take one thing that person said that I thought was profound. I’ll put it on social media, I’ll put it on, let’s say go to LinkedIn, put it put that one bullet, hey, I talked to Michael, he just shared the amazing how to create blockbuster content. Here’s like one thing he mentioned, you need to split test titles. Like if you’re not supposed testing titles, that’s like the 8020 of blockbuster. Just think about that. And then I’ll post your whole bio, because I’ve already prepared it on there with a link to your site. So again, it’s nothing about me. It’s all about you and what you’re doing. And I could do that five minutes after an interview. So yeah, and then tag you on it, of course. And you’re you know, like, Wow, thanks, Jeremy. Like, and I’ll go on Facebook and do the same thing. Check out what Michael’s doing on blog posts or content, you have to check out his website, tag them. And what I’ll do is typically, I’ll tag other people in there that I think should be checking out your stuff. Wow. Okay, great strategy. And so it’s again, what are the what is, I think of what is a way to give to you? And what are you? What is your biggest initiative, your biggest initiatives? Like, I want to get my blockbuster content stuff out there? Well, if I know other authors, I’m like, you need to check out Michael stuff. I’m just trying to think of put myself in your shoes and what would you want? And that’s it. And then right after the interview, Michael, yes, in collaboration, I think of those several things that I do, that allows me to collaborate on afterwards, and all of them go back to giving as much as humanly possible to someone. So it’s like, okay, Michael, from talking to you. Here’s introductions that would be helpful for you. And not just saying, Hey, I made you say this, I go, my network, your network, because if I have someone in I really admire their work, anyone I’ve had on the podcast, let me know it’d be a good intro. And I always do a double opt in intro, but I make specific suggestions. So I don’t just leave it to you. I’m like, Michael, from talking to you and doing research on you. I think you should talk to whatever like, you need to talk to Gino Wickman, I think he be or whatever, like, I’ll make specific suggestions that both of you it will be a great connection for both of you. And then I will then reach out to that person right afterwards and go Hey, Mike, I just did this the other day had a conversation with someone, I go here I know the exact person you should be talking to. Okay. And again, it’s only I relation to these people only because I had them on the podcast at one point and, and then I send them a link to the interview I did. With that person that would benefit them like you’re looking to build this type of company. This person sold their company for nine figures. I’m happy to make an introduction. here’s the here’s the link. And by the way, when they watch that they’re also you’re gaining Trust, credibility, all that stuff in there watching the interview, meet me doing an interview with that person, but it’s also benefiting them to hear what they want to build. And so I texted the person right after I go, Hey, I have a great introduction for you let me know if it’s a fit, you know, that person responded. I didn’t talk to that person in, like, a couple years, that person responded this morning, within 10 minutes, I go have a great introduction for you let me know, here’s a person’s bio. And they go, Okay, cool. And so just continuously, it links back in past interviews, current interviews. So to answer your question, offering introductions, yeah, posting on social media, and tagging people about that person. Um, and even making suggestions like I was on I had an interview, and I go, listen, I did a lot of research on you. Here’s some looking at your website. Here’s a couple improvements, I think, from my perspective on your messaging, and some of the stuff you’re doing it just gave them a nine a Meanwhile, like in a supportive, supportive way, gave them feedback on what I thought would be helpful for them. And they were totally appreciative of that. Right.

Michael Simmons 21:11

So okay, this is awesome. And so recap one thing, and then ask you a question. A somewhat cynical question.

Jeremy Weisz 21:20

Go ahead. I love the cynical questions.

Michael Simmons 21:22

So the first thing is, what I’m hearing is just the overall that really, it’s not just strategies and tactics, it’s an overall mindset of giving, and put it in valuing relationships. And so once people, you interview someone, it’s almost like they’re part of your introduction network. And they’ll, they become a resource for other people. And you can also help them as well. So it’s like they’re joining a mastermind or something. And so for me, as someone as you know, I’ve written a lot of articles on relationship building. My previous business was based on, we had one conference where we brought together university presidents, billionaire entrepreneurs, how about young entrepreneurs. And we also have done a lot of mastermind retreats. And I think I sometimes became too relational. In other words, I love relationship building so much. I’m like, Okay, I’m losing sense of, Okay, what’s our goals for the business? And I almost went too high on serendipity. And also, I didn’t have at that time the skill of asking for help, or trying to make the sale. And so I feel like sometimes, like, I don’t, I didn’t feel like overtime just got overwhelming, maybe, or maybe I burned out on some level. So I’ve changed my approach, I’m become a little bit more of a hermit and focus on a smaller network of people. But I feel like I probably went too far. So I guess my question for you is, okay, obviously, giving you have to start with giving. But let’s say you build these closer relationships, how do you turn them into actual sales in your your business? Or have you ever seen other people do it? And can you give me some examples of it?

Jeremy Weisz 23:05

Yeah. I mean, Adam Grant wrote a great book about, you know, given Give and Take in, and about the most successful people are givers and least successful are givers. Yeah. Because the least successful, you know, because they’re not thinking strategically about giving. It’s not like, when I think about giving, I don’t necessarily have expectations of getting something in return. But if you’re connecting to the right people, that will happen naturally. And you’re connecting to the wrong people that won’t happen are people who aren’t other givers. Right? So I guess, see, your question is more on making sure. How do you keep focus with so many, you know, relationships or things? Is that kind of,

Michael Simmons 23:51

yeah, I guess there’s different levels of like, one, there’s like, picking the right guests that have on that actually strategic value to your business? And then to is okay, if they’re a potential partner, how do you follow up after the podcast? It could be a little bit awkward that you you have someone in the context of, you’re interviewing them, you’re featuring them. And then now you’re like, Okay, you want to become a client or you wanna become a partner? How do you walk that line?

Jeremy Weisz 24:19

Yeah, I mean, okay, so that’s a good question. And so there’s two things there one is mood, you know, how do you move that relationship forward? That that, that interview into maybe a referral partnership or client, okay. And then it’s like, how do you get not overwhelmed and how do you focus in on what is most important? So the first the first question is more is similar I was saying before But listen, when you’re on the call, and you tell you know, you’re telling the audience Hey, like, if you on the interview, if you’re looking for creating the best blockbuster content in the world, Like, I have the methodology of the courses, Michael Simmons, like, check it out. Right? So and then you go on and you do the interview, the person already knows what you do, you don’t have to, like hit him over the head with it. Right? And so, for me, it’s more of like, okay, they know what you do. And you have to be clear about what you do to people. Right. And then that’s, that’s what a lot of, you know, people may be in I have definitely historically had this problem is not even telling people not even worried about myself and worried more about other people and not even letting people know what I do today, at least I let them know what I do. And I’m so they know, and being very clear about what I do, right. And so some people are also not so clear on what they do, to the universe to themselves to the messaging on their web page. But if you’re super clear on someone, go, Hey, this is what I do. And then just serving them, they already know what you do. And when you serve them, you don’t need to hit them over the head with it, they go, okay, they’ll think, okay, when someone wants to launch on a podcast, Jeremy seems really knowledgeable. He seems like a great person, I totally trust him. I’ll send them his way. I don’t need to, like keep hitting over the head with, hey, if you have any people who want to launch on a podcast call me like, they know they know what I do. So I feel like just one, you bring up a point, when you’re giving people like those people, when you have them on the podcast, you you have to let them know what you do. Because in the podcast realm, when we talk about it, you mentioned the very beginning here is exactly what I do. Okay. And so that becomes it, then it just becomes about giving that person and from a referral partner strategic partner standpoint, Michael, sometimes I’ll just be totally upfront, like, someone will come on and go, listen, I totally admire your work. I love your work. I love what you do. And that’s why I want to have you on and I want to collaborate with you deeper, like I want to do something with you in the future. Like, I don’t know what it is. But I’d love to collaborate, right? It could be a webinar that we do together could be maybe we just do an email for each other to our clients or for I don’t know what it is. But sometimes they’ll just say like, I love your work, I love to collaborate further. Whatever that looks like. I don’t know. And sometimes we’ll just brainstorm either like what what can we do together? What what what do we do to continue the relationship? And sometimes I don’t know the answer. And I just bring it up. And we actually have a dialogue about it. But, you know, depending on my rapport with someone, I’ll just say that, you know, just right up front.

Michael Simmons 27:40

Yeah, at the end of the after you interview them? You’ll say,

Jeremy Weisz 27:43

yeah, yeah, the end ago, like one of the reason I want to have you on is I totally admire your work. I love what you do. And I’d love to find a way that we can collaborate in the future at what that looks like. I don’t know, I’m open to suggestions. And yeah, that’s it.

Michael Simmons 27:58

So what I hear you saying at some level is to make a sale, there’s, there’s multiple steps at the very basic level, you know, people should like and trust you, you know that. And number two, being clear about what you do. Because if they don’t know what you do, then they’re not going to connect the dots, and then even just broaching the idea of I like of your work, I’d love to find a way to collaborate, it makes it more of a discussion and a part A portion. And so you can kind of see how that lands, you know, somebody, some people might might be really excited, like, Yeah, let’s do that. How do we do that? though? It’s kind of like dating, you’re playing? you’re planting the seeds, and then seeing what comes back at you. It sounds like what?

Jeremy Weisz 28:39

Yeah, and I don’t have a sub plan in mind. Most times, I’m just like, there’s something, whatever that is, and sometimes the other person will have a better idea than I did. Like, I’ve had people go, Oh, yeah, I could see. And they listed three things. I’m like, that sounds great. You know, I would have never come up with that. But you know, you bring up a good point, I guarantee you might have those people in your network right now that you love. And you kind of know what they do. But you’re not exactly sure. And there’s people in my network too. They’re not like really crystal clear in communicating, let’s say let’s say they’re an executive coach, but you’re not clear on Okay, what type of companies or what type of people if they were super clear on that messaging, you would go, okay, you help women leaders who are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and you’ll know when you come across someone like that, you need to go to whoever, right. So it’s part about making sure you’re clear in your messaging, what you do and who you serve. So So makes it more referral, I think, yeah, you know, mutual friend Michael Roderick said this once. He said, like being unclear as kryptonite to a connector, you know, and if you don’t know, it’s always How are you supposed to connect them to someone else? Right, and what their biggest focus and which kind of goes to your other question, which is like, there’s all this stuff going on? How do I know what to, you know, I can be taken in so many directions. So I think having in mind what your focus is like your focus may be like for that company, it could have been getting rock star speakers or something, let’s say, well, when you go into a conversation, it’s also being clear in your messaging when you’re like, hey, how can I help you, whatever. I’m right now 100% focused on Rockstar speakers. So if you don’t have a rockstar speaker, if it’s his criteria, let me know. So it goes back to being just clear on the messaging. And I’m not asking that person to refer me I’m just saying, This is what I’m, this is my focus right now.

Michael Simmons 30:41

I really like that really like that. So you’re you’re giving, but you’re also just being clear about what you’re, what you’re focused on who you serve, and what, and then letting them connect the dots.

Jeremy Weisz 30:54

And here’s the thing, Michael, I want to point this out what my focus in is a give to someone else. So I said, My focus is right. Now let’s say I’m looking to feature top venture capitalists. Okay, I’m not saying I’m looking for clients or venture guys, I’m not looking for an introduction for you know, so it’s, it’s a gift to them to go Oh, cool. Jeremy, like, I know, two people, that’d be amazing for you. And so my ask is not a ask. It’s a gift, right? It’s featuring someone. And that’s why I love my friends who have podcasts, it makes it very easy for me to refer to them. So a podcast is makes it to your so much more referral.

Michael Simmons 31:38

That’s another really good point. I hadn’t even thought of doing that. If you’re just referring someone to catch up or have a conversation. Sometimes it’s just we’re all busy. Yeah, be like, you don’t want another one. As you play here,

Jeremy Weisz 31:49

you start qualifying. You’re like, Okay, this person is busy. I don’t want to turn in a sales call. I don’t want this. But it’s like if you know, the person they’re on is just profiling them on their platform. And you’re like, hey, talk to him, I totally trust him, he’ll profile you, he’s probably going to shout out you on LinkedIn, and Facebook and put across all the podcast channels, you will not have to qualify that person. Man, wow,

Michael Simmons 32:15

I really love this. It’s getting it’s connecting the dots for me on a few different levels.

Jeremy Weisz 32:21

So, you

Michael Simmons 32:23

know, as you know, in our seminal course, where we teach people about writing, I’ve learned a lot in that there’s challenges that people have with writing that are a lot mindset related is that it doesn’t even come down to strategies are totally that people over guess themselves. I say, oh, that person when it comes to my podcast, and one of the big challenges people have is that stops him from getting started his topic. They want their exact topic and who they’re going to serve. You don’t want to start a podcast and then realize pivot or things like that. How do you think about that for topic?

Jeremy Weisz 32:57

Yeah. Yeah, that’s such a good question. You’re, it’s so onpoint. People don’t do it. Because of the mindset. It’s purely mindset. Okay. So here’s what what clicked for me. So, you know, I was a producer of Mixergy for six years. And here’s what it clicked for me, Michael? Because it’s a mindset of like, Who am I? I’ve never done a podcast, you know, all this, all this mindset stuff. It’s all mindset stuff. I’ve had some really, who I consider big thought leaders, big business, people say the same thing. Like, who am I? To start a podcast? Who am I? Well, yeah, but here’s what clicked for me. So I was, you know, I did a lot of the pre interviews, I would spend 45 to 60 minutes prepping the guest to make sure it was the best interview for Mixergy for Andrew. And so I got on with someone who you will be considered a big name, entrepreneur. And I was, you know, we were chit chatting, and he was like, Alright, Jeremy. This is awesome. Like, when are we going to hit record and get started? I’m like, No, I’m not doing the interview. We’re just prepping for the interview with Andrew. And immediately what I realized is, he thought I was doing the interview. He didn’t really care that I was doing the interview, and nor did he know me, nor did he realize, okay, you’re going to be doing it with the host who’s been doing it for, you know, X number of years. So I realized right down like, he was happy to be profiled. He didn’t care that he was on the phone with me. And so it was an interesting light ball that clicked is like, you don’t have to be a big name. You don’t have to be known in the industry. People are really happy if you’re profiling them. But but the from a mindset piece, here’s what I say, listen, you’re not when you start, especially a podcast. You’re not starting in reaching out to the people you don’t know who are the biggest people in the industry. You’re starting with the people who know I can trust you, who are also in the industry. So you don’t have to worry about getting the whoever, like the Gary V’s and the whoever is big out there, whatever niche you’re in. So when you’re like, Listen, and people, everyone has a some circle of network that is in the industry that they know that is also influential in that industry. Maybe they’re not the, like, known by, you know, standards of worldwide or household name. But so that kind of gets people comfortable with Okay, just start with the people, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Michael Simmons 35:39

Okay, so start with the people, you know, and then what about topic though, because let’s say sometimes people, they don’t want to just do about their business, maybe it’s boring, they want to do a little bit. So it’s like, the business is a part of it. But they’re also talking about topics they’re interested in. Is that bad thing to do? Or should you know, I called mine, The Michael Simmons Show, because I’m knowing myself, I can’t predict my future self. And this guy, this that leads a pretty open. And I notice you also you kind of have a generic generic format, but then you also have series, which seems to really get hyper focus for a period of time, which I really liked that idea.

Jeremy Weisz 36:16

Exactly. Because and that’s, you know, topic wise. That’s a great question. So there’s topics like thought leadership topics that like, you have an expertise. And then there’s external interviews, like, so what kind of topics Do you cover as far as guests wise? Right. So from a thought leadership perspective, for you, what I always think of, it goes back to what your focus is, like, if your focus is the blockbuster, you know, the seminar course, or, you know, whatever that is, it should be a story. And you know, like, stories make the best content. So what is the one your favorite story from one of those focuses that you have? Okay, because people love stories. It’s also fun to tell stories, it also is informative about what you do. So if you want to stay on point and focused, but have it be great content, you can’t go wrong with a great story. You know, but it goes back to and I’m sure you know, what’s critical is most people don’t have the training that you provide in your courses in your training. So they’re, they’re well equipped in this right in the content piece. But in general, that’s how I think of like, what is the focus? And what’s the best story? You can tell? That’s kind of adjacently related to that focus. If that makes sense. It doesn’t be directly Can you give an

Michael Simmons 37:45

example of that?

Jeremy Weisz 37:46

Yeah. Um, so Okay, so, um, the other day, I have someone who we’re running their podcast,

Michael Simmons 37:56

and, and there have dozens of people that you’re managing the podcast, or Oh, more than

Jeremy Weisz 38:01

Yes, exactly. Over 100. Yeah. Over over 60.

Michael Simmons 38:06

Nice. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Jeremy Weisz 38:08

Um, so, you know, this person, their focus is they want to buy other types of businesses like them in their industry. That’s their focus.

Michael Simmons 38:19

Now, okay.

Jeremy Weisz 38:20

So when we’re talking about the thought leadership, and we get on with someone, and we’re running their podcasts, we actually interviewed them for the thought leadership so they could show up. They don’t need to worry about it, and we’ll interview them and get the get the you know, the best story out. So when we are brainstorming what episodes we want to do around that, I go, well, what’s what’s been an amazing story around you purchasing someone. So like, let’s take them through the story arc. You purchase this guy’s business, okay, let’s call Mike. He’s like, Oh, yeah, Mike, what was it like before? Like, what would you know, Mike was, uh, yeah, he resisted. He didn’t want he, like, I went to him. He was really amazing business and industry. He didn’t want to sell. And he gave all the reasons. So we take him through the story arc of he didn’t want to sell what was it like with that initial conversation? Then? What is the process look like, of you trying to acquire his business? And what was life like after acquiring it? So some, you know, this is an interesting story. People can hear the guy’s methodology of hearing when I approach someone to buy them. Here’s some stuff I’m looking for. Here’s how the conversation goes. Here’s what happened with this guy, Mike. So we walk through, you know, a hero’s journey story arc about that. And so, it’s great content. And people if they’re thinking about buying a business or they’re thinking of like doing business with this person, he could send this episode to people and say, Hey, before we talk, listen to this episode. I actually walked through the story of Mike of the before during after he answers all the questions. He Take him through his methodology, all in the story of Mike. And especially Michael, what were the objections Mike had in the beginning? Well, I didn’t want to sell my business. I didn’t think I could sell it for as much as you know, you paid for it, all those things. Well, that when someone’s listening, they’re thinking the exact same thing. So everyone has a story like that, that you could have a story of, okay, you know, Jane came, she’s, like, totally sceptical. She’s like, I’m not good enough. I can’t write blockbuster content, like all those things that are in the mindset stuff. And she came in, she was an author, she had maybe written a one book, here’s what what she did with the blockbuster content. Here’s, it took her six months before she got traction, just not like an overnight success. And so when someone listens to that, they’ll be like, okay, it’s not, I’m not coming up with expectation or one article, and boom, like, I’m famous or something. So you walk them through that in this in the form of and you already know this. Right? Right. Yeah, talking to stuff that you know, and you teach. Alright, so

Michael Simmons 41:03

this is really fascinating on a few different levels. So I think what happened is you’re talking so there’s one type of podcast where I’m interviewing other people, and for your clients, you also have a service where you interview your clients, and you pull out their story. And what you’re doing as you interview them is, you’re almost thinking about it from a sales funnel, is you know, there’s a funnel of reaching out to people. And then once you have a lead, talking to them on the phone, there’s different points in that funnel, where you could have an interview or a story. So let’s say, I just talked to someone this morning from Australia, who’s a business owner, and there’s a great conversation. But it let’s say, there’s an objection that she that she would have. If I could I could, somebody from our team could send her the interview clip and say, Hey, before you jump on, you may want to listen to this totally. So you’re 100% outside of the paradigm of like, let me blast this out and hope, you know, people discover on Apple iTunes, which you’re looking at that is, that’s great if that happens. But here, if you can have a conversation with someone where it goes from, it’s like, they don’t even know you. And it’s like, somebody’s trying to sell something to they’ve heard your story, and they like you and it’s changes the whole sales process.

Jeremy Weisz 42:23

100% like if you sent that client journey arc to that person from Australia, before we go and listen to this, they’re hearing all the objections that someone would have. They’re hearing what it was like to work with it, they were then they’re hearing the after story of what the successes were or the realistic successes, like, not like, Oh, it was an overnight success. It was like realistic, like this took a bit. And so they’re kind of in the frame of mind of with your philosophy and your mission, everything you’re doing. And by the way, this could be us interviewing someone that people have their own clients on the podcast also, and then interview them on what they’re working on. But also, you know, you put in some of the pieces of the journey. Okay, what was it like working with us? Right, and, and you can weave that into their story as well. Yeah.

Michael Simmons 43:18

So funny, it’s just a very different paradigm. And that is important to get.

Jeremy Weisz 43:25

And here’s the thing the people we work with have businesses, they are not like, I want to sell sell sponsorships. You know, that’s very difficult to get the audience base the niche, you know, all that stuff. You know, Joe see, see Joe Rogan, right? selling for whatever, you know, over $100 million to Spotify, or whatever it was, what they don’t see is, you know, or maybe what they do see, or they don’t realize he was a stand up comedian. He got recognized, from standup comedian, he would you know, announcer the UFC, built a following from that he was a talk, a reality talk host talk show host. He built up this following doing all these other things. It wasn’t like an escape. Yeah, and a skill set. It wasn’t like, Oh, I just put up a podcast and I got millions and millions of listeners like he actually, if you look at his career, like he was probably doing gigs, stand up gigs in Podunk towns for years, and years and years and years, building up a following and all these other things.

Michael Simmons 44:30

And so you’ve helped a lot of people go from not having a podcast to having a podcast now. I brought up some of the challenges that I hear when people become a thought leader about there’s, let’s say imposter syndrome, who am I to do this? Or there’s perfectionism or let’s say, not having the topic in mind that hold them up. What else are the things that stop people? Yeah, and what’s your solution to them?

Jeremy Weisz 44:54

Yeah, what stops people is like, you can mention this a little bit ego. There’s millions of podcast or whatever. And people were like there’s, and I was talking to someone the other day, really, really high level person. Okay. And I couldn’t believe I couldn’t, I couldn’t believe he said that it’s like, you know, I don’t know if he’ll give me, you know, I don’t want to mention his name, but like, rated Forbes as a number one in a certain category, like, you know, just very influential in his specific space. And he said, Well, I don’t want to be another just another podcast. I’m like, I go first, though, and I started pushing back on him. Okay, like, and I don’t know him that well. But I was like, Are you serious? I go. And I kind of went off on a tight, a little bit of a tirade. And, and I said, because he’s like, there’s so many other podcasts out there. It’s funny, he just started podcast, but his podcast was just him talking about what, you know, his thought leadership and whatever, whatever his views are. He’s like, I don’t want to be just another like, interview podcast, I go. First of all, I go, the fact that it’s you. It’s not just another, it’s like, you bring your unique if you had a conversation, if you and I had a conversation, Michael, and then you had a conversation with, you know, one of your mentors or whoever, it would be a totally different conversation, and it would go in different directions. So it’s unique to you, and and other person. So I just said, I know, like, oh, there’s, you know, whatever, 10s of millions of blogs out there. So is that gonna stop you from creating another blog? Like, no, you have your own viewpoints, you have your own, you know, vantage point your own niche and go after it. Like Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing is worried about what you’re doing. And again, like that is also in the viewpoint of downloads and subscribers. Well, there’s all these other podcasts, how do I get cut through the noise, don’t worry about that. Just worry about giving to your best relationships, don’t worry about so it kind of goes back in the mindset of worrying about what I consider more vanity metrics for a business. Like I said to someone, there saw a B2B software company. I go, if you get 10 million downloads tomorrow, does that matter for your business? I mean, maybe you can get a sponsorship. There’s like 1% of people who have an e-commerce business in that space that you can serve. So if you get $10 million tomorrow, is that gonna move the needle for businesses? Uh, yeah, you’re right. No, because you’re looking for a specific type of person or partner or relationship in that industry. But the mindset goes back to, I don’t want to do just another like everyone else. And what people have to get over is you have a unique standpoint, you have a unique vantage point, you have a unique way of asking questions or interests, and you just go in that direction. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Simmons 48:05

I feel like if it’s like, if you want to become a top 100 podcast, there might be truth. But I think what like that, just going on, and just being yourself is not going to work for the average person. But that other paradigm, right, I think it’s just, it’s interesting of each of its categories and boundaries. And so I think partially, for me, the thing is, I was thinking about I, what podcast started off s, which is mostly on Apple, there’s the I you know, you see the top 100 podcasts every day, it’s audio, that is very different than what it seems to be becoming, what I’m seeing is you create this audio content, a lot of people now do even video, either actually video actual video, or there’s these tools where it can make it just have the text of the interview going through or, and they put it on different platforms, you could put it on SoundCloud, you can use it as part of your sales funnel, you can chop it up and have social media content, you can have a LinkedIn live, you can have one thing that you were talking about beforehand, before we started, press record is you could take the archives and put those into an evergreen virtual summit.

Jeremy Weisz 49:19

Michael Simmons 49:21

it’s not no longer just this typical idea of what we think about a podcast is and once you think about it in this wider, open way, it really changes it.

Jeremy Weisz 49:31

Totally. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying about what’s the benefits and the benefits it lives on. And you can like you were just saying you can repurpose it, you are repurpose on different platforms. You can repurpose different pieces of it. But the when I think about repurposing and I’m always thinking of my relationship with a person like great I’m repurposing because I love Mike on what he’s doing. Let’s like shoot this everywhere and get his thought leadership out there. It’s less about, I want to get like 100 more followers on LinkedIn, it’s more about thinking about my relationship with you, then followers right? Now that’s like you’re saying that’s gravy, that’s a side benefit that will happen, for sure. Because but it’ll happen because you’re proud of it. And you’ll want to share it with other people. Right as a guest, I have people all the time, they’ll post the interviews on their social media, and go, Hey, this was awesome. And they’re spreading the word on what we do and the interview and the podcast. organically. Yeah.

Michael Simmons 50:40

And so this is going back to mindset again, because that’s, so much of this is a mindset thing. You’re talking a lot about relational, being relational. And, you know, you could copy the tactics, which are great. But really, what I’m hearing is you derive those topics just because those tactics, because you are so relational, you see opportunities for it. So for someone who’s not quite there yet, relational, and you’ve trained now a lot of people to be more relational, what is what’s the number one mistake people make, that they don’t understand? purely about relationship building and network building that you feel like you understand?

Jeremy Weisz 51:18

Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know, if they don’t understand. I think it’s just not Top of Mind maybe as much, you know, um, and I think the biggest thing with with the relationships and just thinking about one, we neglect the relationship, sometimes the relations that are closest to us. So what people are always chasing is the new, shiny, the big people in the industry. And what we neglect sometimes is the people we already know. And so I think it’s more just like, Who is your inner circle of people that you already know, and trust you because it almost becomes Oh, yeah, I already know that person, I want to get this person on the podcast or wherever. And what I do is, it’s very simple exercise, usually about at least once a week, take an hour, and I go through my phone, my text messages on my phone, and I see who have an eye contact in a while just to say hello. Because our closest relationships are usually in our phone. You know, people go over like, okay, I this CRM, or I’m Facebook, or I my LinkedIn connections, like your closest relationships are in your phone. So literally, just don’t neglect. I think that’s the biggest mistake is like neglecting the people who are closest to us. And focus on them first. And then it will just branch out from there. Right? So that’s it like, in the given question, Well, how do you think in a given fashion, it’s more if you just follow what I just said, like, okay, here’s a couple things you could do to give to someone like, you can introduce them to someone, you can post what they’re doing on social media, it’s very tactical things. But what it is, is just giving to someone else, so you can use those tactical things and start to to flex that muscle. Like when you flex that muscle. everyday. It’s just natural to me now. Yeah, because here’s the tactical things you could do to flex your giving muscle every single day. Okay, once a day, I’m gonna post about a friend who’s doing something not about me, here’s what they’re doing. Here’s what I love what they’re doing, or once a week, whatever your frequency is, and just flexing that giving muscle by introducing someone posting about someone else on social media, it’s super easy to do, it takes less than five minutes to do that. Right. And so it’s just flexing that muscle, I think on a daily basis. Like I make maybe 10 to 30 introductions every day.

Michael Simmons 53:53

So really 10 to 30 every day.

Jeremy Weisz 53:55

So I’m flexing that muscle a lot. I

Michael Simmons 53:57

was given almost 10,000 a year.

Jeremy Weisz 54:00

Yeah, I mean, and I mean, I use Text Expander Text Expander I save people’s BIOS and Text Expander Text Expander is like an app where you basically just type in a shortcode and it spits out like a paragraph. So I have Michael Simmons intro Michael Simmons say that my Text Expander when I introduce someone to you or you to them, I just type in. Hey, you know, both your emails intro Michael Simmons. intro, Joe Smith, boom, send it. So it takes less, you know, because if I advice, you know, if you take whatever, let’s say things five minutes or 10 minutes for an intro. That would be an hour to three hours a day, but I can do it in like 10 seconds.

Michael Simmons 54:42

Yeah, I usually use Contactually. Yeah, introductions. Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 54:47

that’s also great. But point is flexing muscle every single day in some fashion. And by the way, when you introduce people, it’s like it’s it sets up that give loop again. Like when they’re Talking. They’re like, Oh, yeah. Jeremy, how do you know Jeremy? You know, they’re talking about me. So that’s how I do it. But that is going to happen. Like, oh, Michael is amazing. I can’t believe Michael introduced us. Thank you, Mike. You know, I’m gonna have to thank them afterwards. And I even follow up Michael, on that introduction, like a month later to see hey, how’d it go? And I’ll reach out to both people. So it takes a little bit of time. Don’t get me wrong.

Michael Simmons 55:23

Do you spend per day how much is 10 to 30? introductions take?

Jeremy Weisz 55:29

Like, I mean, I’ve already done like three reach outs this morning. I mean, each of them, it may have taken 20 seconds, because I have maybe left him a voicemail like a voice text. And I was like, Hey, I think you should talk to so and so here’s why. Let me know if you want. You want me to introduce you. So I do a double opt in. So it takes even more time.

Michael Simmons 55:48

I’m just opt in intro for others who don’t know is when you get permission from both people that they want to be introduced. Yeah, just go. I had an introducing.

Jeremy Weisz 55:56

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so the each one may take take took me I look, those 24 seconds, it took me to leave that voice text to that person.

Michael Simmons 56:04

That’s it. I never thought about the voice text version of getting the opt in. Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 56:09

So I mean, like, maybe takes 30 seconds per email or something. Maybe max. Okay. So whatever, you know, 10 to 30 times 30. So it’s not not not that long, right. And

Michael Simmons 56:24

one thing I want to talk about you switching gear, talk about with you switching gears is the actual interview itself. Because Funny enough, we actually we actually haven’t talked about that. It is this the sort of thing where just via an interview is basically two people talking to each other. That’s something we do all the time. And we’re just asking more questions. For most people, do they already have the skills to do interviews? Good enough? And they shouldn’t worry about that? Or is there a certain skill set that this is essential? Before you start? You need to be good at this? Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 57:02

It’s a great question. I think, you know, yeah, everyone’s gonna be a little bit different. As far as the conversation goes, right? It’s like, if I handed one person a basketball, someone may be more naturally inclined to be athletic, and maybe some people aren’t. Right. So, um, I think the most important thing, and I wonder if you’ll agree with me on this is curiosity. I mean, when you’re curious about someone else, then you’ll want to ask more questions. You’re interested in what they’re working on? And, you know, how do you teach curiosity? I mean, and you’re a big proponent of this, the more research you do, the more you’ll find out about the person and will spark something that you’re curious about. Right? Oh,

Michael Simmons 57:44

so you’ve done hundreds, if not over 1000 episodes of being the producer for mixergy, one of the top business podcasts in the world, where you talk to guests beforehand, you do research, and then for your own podcasts inspired Insider, you’ve done a huge amount. So I remember when we talked a few years ago, and I was crashing at your house with your family. There is about I think you were saying like seven hours per episode, like you’re really going all out on the research of people. Yeah, doing that much, or what’s the good enough there? Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 58:14

I don’t want to scare people. But like, you know, I definitely over prepare for interviews, if you think about this, Michael, like, the people you have on are your most prized relationships and people and, you know, collaboration partners, so you’re going to want to do research on them. Are you sure? Yeah. You know, so I think at a minimum, you should look at someone’s LinkedIn page in about page at a minimum, right? You know, the bare minimum, because you can like I could say, Oh, you know, so and so what i what i see the other day, I saw this person has six kids, and one of their kids had autism, or has autism. And so just right off the bat, just from looking at their LinkedIn profile, right? And I’m like, that’s really interesting. Like, I really want to ask about that, how they run their business with six. So you’ll find things that like spark your curiosity interest, then that’s just from like, 15 minutes of research, right? Going on their about page and going their LinkedIn page. I go a little bit further and also I you know, the, the disclaimer with them, I do seven or 10 hours research is I let you know, usually watch videos about them or audio. And I do listen in two to three times speed. So like 10 hours is really sometimes three hours of research.

Michael Simmons 59:39

Okay, okay. Um, so picking people that you’d want to do their research on. Exactly. So it’s not like a chore.

Jeremy Weisz 59:46

It’s a great filter. Like if you are dreading to the reason why you’ve been having him on the podcast, right? And so if it’s someone you really like, I remember Wim Hof. I think I did. I don’t know if you know, Wim Hof is but yeah People out there, I probably did 26 hours of research for that interview. equivalent, right? So if I listened to time speech, it was like 12 hours of research. I watched the videos on the BBC watchdog. I mean, it was fascinating. I ended up doing the breathing type thing. So I ended up signing up for his free course, I was something I was generally interested in doing cold showers. And I know, you know that. And in the breathing techniques, it’s something like I wanted to do like, I want to be better at health. And I thought it’d be helpful for me and also would make for great interviews, I was fascinated with him. So but at a minimum, and then at a maximum, like, if the person has a human, how many people like Jeremy, thank you for listening to my or reading my book, like it was? That was most people, they don’t even read the title they like, what do you do? So just a little bit of research goes a long way. Yeah, in researches for me just like Google their name, and their company name. And if you go to the second page of Google, like Jeremy, how did you find out about that you’ve done so much research. I’m like, I went to the second page of Google. I mean, that’s literally what I did. And they they’re like, laughing. I’m like, I’m serious. I just looked at the second page of Google, which, you know, most people aren’t going into one hand, I

Michael Simmons 1:01:18

view it as a continuum. So let’s say on one hand, there’s improvisation, let’s say an extreme. And those people who are successful they are Larry King. Joe Rogan, doesn’t really seem like they ever did. Research or preparation that much. There was episode of Joe Rogan, where he does it with Bill Maher, Bill Maher thing, right? Ma H, er. And Bill Maher was like, have you? Have you read my book? And I was like, No, I haven’t. They just came out with this book. And he’s like, have you done any research? And he’s like, no, I thought we just jump on and talk. And then Bill is laughing because he did all this research. But obviously, it works for Joe, in a way many ways to be in the moment, and improvisational with what the person is saying right there and just letting it evolve. Then on the other end of the spectrum, there’s the hardcore research to me, you know, Howard Stern would be in this category, where every episode, there’s a point where he’s interviewing someone, they’re like, wait, wait, how did you even get that? Like, seriously? Who did you talk to you to get that information, though? The end? You know, Howard Stern, I’ve heard him make fun of Larry King. I’ve just hit his interviewing skills, though. But there’s definitely success stories on both.

Jeremy Weisz 1:02:34

I’m on the obviously the continuum of the Howard Stern, like, yeah, I feel like when you do a ton of research, like it’s gonna be so much better of an interview in respect to personally they get there’s certain things you’re interested in curiosity, certain stories will come out that may not come out. And I’m not saying the other ones, you know, not great, not good. because like you said, there’s that, you know, that flow of, well, who knows what’s going to come of this and you’ll go in a different direction, because you didn’t do the research, which you never would have gone in the research. But that’s just my default is to is to do the research, you know, nerd or I don’t know if you’ll if you listen to Nardwuar, interviews, nerd or does extensive amount of research. So it’s this, you know, Canadian guy, white guy, who’s interviewing I just mentioned, why because he’s like, in the room with like, interviewing all Wu Tang Clan, this like kind of skinny, white guy, Canadian white guy in the room with Wu Tang Clan, and interviewing Snoop Dogg and interviewing Jay Z and interviewing. I mean, all types of artists. But he does an extensive amount of research. Like, he’s like, Hey, Mr. Ghostface, I listened. I watched the interview he did with Wu Tang Clan yesterday. I’ve watched it like two other times, they just I don’t know why it hooks me in. And he’s like, Hey, you know, Mr. Ghostface, or we forgot what he called him. He’s like, you know, he’ll say, you know, we were in third grade. Your teacher was Mrs. Smith, like, what was your experiences? Like? How do you even know, like his research is incredible. And I think

Michael Simmons 1:04:20

now, having done all these students, I think sometimes the amount can be intimidating to that and let me know what you think. I feel like, if the research is causing you to be intimidated and not take action, then don’t don’t do it. Just you’re going to be good enough. Just having basic research, even 30 minutes of research totally. But if you can, and you want to improve it and deepen it once you’re in the habit, then yes, take it up. And really, you agree with that?

Jeremy Weisz 1:04:51

Yes. Here’s what the way I think about it. So that’s why I always say, Hey, here’s the minimum you should do right because it scares people off if I say I typically do at least five hours of research per interview and like I don’t even have five hours, whatever it could be when I’m like washing dishes and listening to something for, you know, 20 minutes. But here’s what I look for when you’re doing the research. Let’s say minimum 15 minutes, and you’re I agree with you just get started. And let’s see, just look at their LinkedIn or about page, I look for two things. One, I look for something I’m curious about, too, I look for something that I can relate to them on. Okay, and so because a big thing about what makes a good interview is you have some rapport with the with the guest,

Michael Simmons 1:05:42

though, and when you can relate is like an uncommon commonality that yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 1:05:45

it could be like, Oh, I saw, you know, like I mentioned, the autism thing. And so I mentioned that when we are just chit chatting, and I go, my wife’s a child psychologist, and we’ve had a lot of conversations around this. It must be it’s like, it’s tough, like, what you what, you know, having a child with special needs. And we were just chit chatting about that before the interview just just as like a person a person thing. Or I may see they were from Minnesota, and I went to Madison, Wisconsin, University, Wisconsin, and there’s a lot of friends who are from Minnesota, and they go, Oh, my, this happened that day, I was talking to someone, they’re like, oh, to my kids actually went to Madison. And so we were just chatting about a commonality that we had. And so I look for the commonality. And I look for something I’m really curious about, huh, yeah, I love it. And so,

Michael Simmons 1:06:37

now you’ve done how many episodes of the Mixergy? Did you have you done? produced?

Jeremy Weisz 1:06:46

I don’t even know. I mean, definitely. I mean, I’m sure I’ve had hundreds of conversations with people.

Michael Simmons 1:06:53

Yeah. Then how many Inspired Insider?

Jeremy Weisz 1:06:55

I mean, I have done. I mean, I’ve done 1000s of interviews, 1000s, because I’ve done them for mine. But like I was saying, we will do thought leadership episodes with other podcasts that we Hi, right in. So, I mean, yesterday, I did five interviews. They were only one was for my podcast.

Michael Simmons 1:07:18

Where do you see all of this going? You really, you’re one of the early people in podcasts. I mean, it’s really a new medium. It’s just getting started.

Jeremy Weisz 1:07:30

podcasts, you know, um, it’s interesting. I mean, I think it’s only going to is Spotify grows and the platform is grow, they’re going to attract more, you know, shows they’re gonna attract more big business doing it, but they’re also going to attract more independent people doing it too. You know, and I kind of see it like, like YouTube, in a sense. So like, and also I think people are gonna start getting discovered through these channels, and being picked up, like, if you look at, I don’t know, the exact like, Justin Bieber story, but I do remember, some agent discovered him on YouTube, just singing or whatever. And I think there’s gonna be people who are going to be discovered, and these people are just going to be running their businesses, like there’s YouTube channels that fully run their business with YouTube and subscribers, and that is going to become more common in the podcasting world as well.

Michael Simmons 1:08:33

And how do you think about it in terms of the niche part of it, the people in the B2B space, Joe Schmoe business owner 10 20 years ago, you know, Jim Collins book, Good to Great came out. And he had this idea of level five leader, a lot of these people are super humble. They don’t do any media. And now, even somebody like Elon Musk, he’s building a lifelong brand, that he applies across different companies to recruit talent to raise money to just express himself. He’s done over 11,000 tweets, which is just

Jeremy Weisz 1:09:06

crazy. Wow,

Michael Simmons 1:09:07

like, how does he find the time? And so and then he’s, there’s all these different formats. Do you think that’s the future where business owners, they should have a brand and be thought leaders or is this just a few?

Jeremy Weisz 1:09:20

What does that look like, there? I’m biased, okay. I’m biased, if you ask me, even before my guy had a service that did this. I would say if you’re a business you’d have, you should have a podcast period. Like if you think about a business, would you ever not have a website? Like that? seems ridiculous, right? You’re not even legit. If you don’t have a website, you know, like, hey, Michael, what’s your like, I don’t have one you’re like, Hmm, I don’t know about this guy. So I feel that well, it’ll happen or not, you know, but I think every business should have a podcast and getting Thought Leadership, get their team’s thought leadership, get people from the industry on. And even if it’s just their thought leadership and their team’s thought leadership, it’s valuable, right, because different types of, of episodes you can have. But that’s my, that’s my opinion, I think if you’re a business, just like you have a website, you should have a podcast and talk about your thought leadership. And, um, you know, profile people in the industry.

Michael Simmons 1:10:29

It’s almost like the 21st century front door. So if you’re a store, you know, in the in the past, you don’t have a website, it’s just before the internet, your front door people are walking by they go, and that’s your front door. Then with the beginning of version, one of the internet is, let’s say it’s just a website, a static website, then number three is just like say social media and social media profiles. And then I feel like I do feel like this for of having deeper media. So having a book having articles, that having podcasts, there’s so much more depth to it, that you really, that you build a deeper relationship versus just somebody following you on Twitter. You’re not going to get that right away. And so it’s interesting I that does, I’ve never heard it said, like you said it, but I do see that it’s a good point you make, you know,

Jeremy Weisz 1:11:17

I feel and we’ve worked with companies like to build out more of a multimedia approach. So like, let’s say, the proliferation of prolific blogs, they’re prolific articles, I’m like, why don’t we turn them into a channel. And so actually, we’ve had clients where we will interview them on their top 15 blogs of all time, and we’ll interview them in a interview style video, and we will take that video, we will put it on YouTube, we will make it into a podcast, and then we’ll get the transcription for them. And so we’ll build out that already amazing post I have, and then put a video and an audio player and a transcription on to it. And now they have a multimedia approach. Now, all those pieces are on different channel, like it’s on their website, but now it’s on YouTube. It’s also on the you know, Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and there’s a transcription, you know, SEO benefit to it. So there’s a lot of ways to build out like a multimedia approach, instead of just one channel.

Michael Simmons 1:12:28

Yeah, and packaging and repackaging. So for us with, with articles, you can combine articles into a book, and the books don’t have to be 200 pages anymore. A lot of people value shorter books that are just a few hours to read.

Jeremy Weisz 1:12:41

I just got this from Perry Marshall.

Michael Simmons 1:12:44

Yeah. It’s,

Jeremy Weisz 1:12:46

I loved it, because it’s 36 pages. Yeah, it’s a book, but it’s like a workbook. So like the people who follow you, or your program is like, you don’t have to create like a massive. So this is like, I was excited about this. Because people probably the mindset issue around and Michael’s like, oh, if it’s only like 40 pages are gonna people are gonna, I’m actually as a reader in consumer, I’m like loving this, because I get a feeling to finish something. Exactly. So anyways, Yeah, totally. It’s

Michael Simmons 1:13:18

fascinating that what you’re saying there, I actually had never Well, I’ve seen a few examples. But when I was like, I should do this more. Because one hand, you could have a podcast, that’s just audio, you could turn that to all these different platforms, you could chop it up in social media. And then the other hand, you could go from article text, to podcast and do an interview. So if you had all the different ways, then you can have tons of arrows. And the nice thing I think, is that no matter who you are, how you prefer expressing yourself, how you your voice, his style, you can find a way of expressing yourself in the world today and building that.

Jeremy Weisz 1:13:55

So okay,

Michael Simmons 1:13:57

here we are about an hour and a half and getting there. So for people who want to learn more about your service, you have a service that you work with business owners, to help them create their own podcast, where they can focus on what they do best, which is recruiting the guests that are perfect for them having an interview, and you basically do everything else. Can you tell them more about this and tell the story of it?

Jeremy Weisz 1:14:23

Yeah, I mean, if you have questions, they go to Rise25.com but essentially, what we do is we’re an easy button for people for their podcast. And so we help with the strategy and execution. We want the business owner, entrepreneur, CEO, whoever it is running their business and building the relationships, that’s it. And then we handle everything else. So we did everything else. Everything else means like one making sure the strategy is on point. So we brainstorm who are the best under like 17 different categories who are the best guests. You know, referral partner strategic partner social proof like you know, There’s there’s many different categories. we brainstorm that and from there, we brainstorm what thought leadership episodes they should be producing. And from there, everything else means like even the thought leadership, we get on with them, we record with them. If they’re doing it interviewing someone else, all they have to do is do the interview, upload that file to a folder in Google Drive, and then we put it on their website, we write the post, we actually put it across all the podcast channels, if it’s video, we take the video, we put it on YouTube, we embed it in the blog. So everything else around getting it out there distributing it, leaving connected to social media for them. So it goes on social media channels. So they just have to develop the relationship, have the conversation, and give us the file. And we want to make sure the strategies point. So we’re always checking in on making sure they have the right content, the right guests on the show.

Michael Simmons 1:15:57

And I really value that check in that we have that’s just Well, number one, it’s helped me go from talking about a podcast for six years, or however many to now actually having a podcast, we haven’t officially launched yet. But I’ve done six or seven interviews, we have everything set up to go once we get to 10 we’ll launch it, that’s just a really good feeling to go from zero to one and something.

Jeremy Weisz 1:16:19

I mean, we just baby step people through me hold their hand through the whole process, because it can be an overwhelming process, you know, so

Michael Simmons 1:16:27

and then I think the other thing is, I think a lot of what you guys provide, you know, there’s accountability on those calls. But also, it’s the mindset of just, you kind of just need to hear it over and over about the strategies and the tactics, and then you layer on more and more complexity. There’s a lot of tactics you mentioned and ways of thinking so thank you. Yeah, happy client. And also hate to say that and just appreciate you I are my one of my dear friends. And thank you for being one of the first guests on the podcast. Yeah, likewise, I am honored like I totally appreciate you Thank you. Awesome, the Rise25.com to learn more about Jeremy’s business or inspiredinsider.com to learn about his podcast. All right. Thank you, Jeremy.

Jeremy Weisz 1:17:13

Thank you.

Outro 1:17:15

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