Ask The Expert: Podcasters Kit, Connecting Through Story and More with Dan Morris

This is amplify you the podcast about you discovering your message and broadcasting to the world. If you're a coach, author or speaker, you'll want to tune in. If you're looking for the best return on your time investment, to get your message out to the world in a bigger way, we're giving you full access behind the scenes look of how we're running our podcasts, how our clients have found success, and what you can do to launch your podcast today. The world needs your message. I'm Michelle Abraham, the host. Join my family as we unleash your unique genius and find the connections you need to launch your venture today. Join us and let's get amplify. Hello, hello amplify your family Michelle Abraham, your hosts here today with an ask the expert interview today. I'm really excited to bring you someone that I've worked with over the last few years. And his name is Dan Morris. So Dan is Dan, how are you doing today?

I'm always good.

Good. I'm so glad. And glad that you're able to jump in here with us. It looks very nice. Where you are right now today?

Well, yeah, it's always good here too. I'm not sure how that is.

That's awesome. You live in Tennessee, right? Nashville, Nashville, awesome.

Country Music Capital of the World.

Oh, I've always wanted to go to Nashville, I can't wait to actually visit it. I'm a huge country music fan. So I'm gonna be excited to get to get there and check it out.

I actually listened to 80s music. So I rarely, unless I'm downtown, or in the airport, or in any establishment

that has. So amplify your family. Let me tell you a little bit about danza Dan and his wife, Rachel, they have a business where they have they've got a few different amazing things that are happening. But they're able to generate a full time revenue from their blog, podcasts and teaching courses. And I connected with Darrin through the podcasters kit that he does. And it's a really cool, really cool idea that you've done here, Dan, where you've collected a whole bunch of podcasting experts put them together, they give a gift, and you do it as a giveaway as a product that you sell in October of every year. So Dan, tell us a little bit about the podcasters kit to start off

Well, podcasters kit is Volume Two of our stack strategy for the year. And I must say that our overall goal is to work four months a year and make a full time income. So that's what I'm working towards. And we're close, I would say we could do it now. But we'd have the ramen noodles some of the year. So the podcast was kit being Volume Two, is is a piggybacking off the success of another product that we have in June called BC stack. And both of them the concept behind them is well, when we were traveling we traveled to we used to do these workshops all over the world. We did eight hour workshops. And when we were in New Zealand, I remember talking about Gary Vaynerchuk. And many people in the room didn't know who that was. And for me that was strange. I thought the internet was like the great equalizer. And you know, on Facebook and all these groups like how could you not know, well dawned on me on the way home that not only did they not know some of our experts, but I I really hadn't met many of their experts. So I thought, what if we made a product where we introduced our audience, to their experts in their audience to our experts, and vice versa. And then, you know, we were doing it was more than New Zealand, we were doing workshops everywhere. So so the first year we decided all right, we're gonna take a product, a real live course training product from 65 people. And then we're all going to market the product to the world. And that was going to be we call it BC stack. That was that was the concept. So then the buyer would get 65 courses about digital marketing. We did that for five years. Before I realized, you know what, if I did two of these a year, then we could probably have a relatively good stable income if I can do that every year. And so then so I was trying to figure out what would the other one be? Because I am kind of a rolling the snowball kind of guy. I like all of my efforts yesterday to pay off tomorrow. So I knew that if we did like a medical product, like I didn't, I didn't have the add the audience for that. I thought I don't I mean, I don't want to develop an entire new audience. I want to give the existing audience an opportunity for something else. So Being a podcaster. And at that time, I think we'd already had 200 episodes of our podcast, which we had, which was called amplified today. So I thought, Alright, we'll do a podcasting. Well, there isn't a ton of courses out there about podcasts. So I made a few mistakes in my assumption that it would be awesome. And my first mistake was, at the time there were not 65 experts with courses on pod. So I had to make it 45, which it is now it's 45 experts on podcasts. So that was under site number one. And then number two was, I thought it would be as big as Visa stack from an income stack. But my failure to understand exactly how visa stack worked, meant that I went into podcasters kit, with the idea that I could copy the formula. But part of that formula is with BC stack, I had 200 affiliates, who had lists of bloggers of people who blog vloggers, and some podcasts. But but when I found 45, experts in podcasting, podcasters don't really have lists, they're just not good at it. And not because they're not good marketers. But because when you're listening to a podcast, you're often at the gym, or you're in the car, or you're mowing the lawn, and you don't have a computer in front of you to join the list. So it's a little bit more difficult. So the first year, volume wise was less than I expected, because of those things that I didn't foresee. So we've overcome those challenges. And doing other things to make podcasts was kit almost as big as VCs tech at this point. And hoping to make it bigger next year. But but that's the idea, the buyers get 45 products about podcasting, the people who make the products, get a list of very targeted people who would like to learn about podcasting. And everyone who promotes including the affiliates make the money that comes from the buyers. So it's like a win win win kind of a product.

Yeah, I love the idea of the product. And I'm glad you're we're discussing this, because I think it's a really brilliant business strategy. Because you're connecting with so many other people in this space, I have products who have services. And that allows you to build a lot of relationships, which we're all about relationship building over here. So I think that's a really great way to like build relationships. And so what people are thinking at home thinking like, you know, I'm brand new to the parenting space, how do I, how do I get into the parenting space? Or, you know, connecting with other experts that have something of value like this, I think is such a cool, it's a cool concept, would you recommend this as a way for someone to kind of start, start getting some relationships in an industry,

I would recommend a similar stretch. But maybe not this if you're just getting started. Because building a product like the stack, there's a there's a learning curve, I mean, pretty steep learning curve, there's a lot of parts involved. But if you're just getting involved, and you're interested in creating those kinds of relationships, I am a huge fan of the roundup. And Roundup is a very simple concept, especially in the parenting space. Because you know, Rachel, my wife, she writes for mothers, okay, so twice a year, we do a roundup on finding joy. And that is, I reach out to people that I want to know, in the space. Now, I don't reach out randomly because prior to having decided to do the Roundup, I've already created what I call a universe spreadsheet. So I've gone through Amazon, I've looked for every book on parenting, and I've put the author's name on the spreadsheet as authors on parenting. And then I go to LinkedIn, and I look for everybody who says they're an expert on parenting. And then I go to Twitter, and I find the people who were the experts, and then Facebook and YouTube. And you know, I scour the earth, basically, for all the people who say that they're experts in my niche. Because I know that if, if an audience member is interested in parenting, they probably have bought parenting books. So they probably have some of these people on the shelf, or they've watched a Netflix story on parenting. So I've included those people as well. So when it comes time for the Roundup, my goal is okay. And you can find this on finding joy dotnet but, you know, how would you describe motherhood, you know, in like three sentences. So I reached out to the editor of Good Housekeeping magazine. And it's not very difficult to say yes to this when I say hey, would you like to be part of this roundup and tell us what you know, in your words what motherhood is. And in return, I'm going to include you in this This blog post, I'm going to include your name, your website, your link, your bio, all that stuff about you, but but this quote, that's going to get shared by, you know, a million people, it seems like. And that is a really simple way to approach someone, if you're a beginner, say, Hey, I'm writing this thing, I'd like to feature you, would you like to just tell me, you know, a paragraph about, you know, what is your definition of this? Or what is your answer to this? Or, you know, what do you think about COVID As a parent, and people will answer you, and now all of a sudden, you've got an email relationship with someone where you've asked somebody, they said, Yes, you put them in, you sent them a link, it has their nice picture, it has their link, you've given them exposure, you know, like, it has begun. Now, the second step could easily be maybe even a smaller version of, of the stack. And some people just call them giveaways. That is where you just ask some people, Hey, do you have a product you'd like to put in, assemble it to my audience? And then you can work your way up. But But I would say starting with something like podcasters kit or the stack, it's difficult for me to recommend because shopping cart is Affiliate Software, it says a lot of moving a lot of moving pieces. So yeah, for me, it's that's a tough way to go unless you're just really gone. Oh,

yeah. I love the idea of the roundup post, though. Because it gives you that warm introduction, you're building a relationship that you can reach back out for another, something later. And that's one of the things that I love about podcasting is that you could probably do something similar in podcasting, and get a whole bunch of people reach out I know, actually, as when I know, reached out to 25 podcasters and got some a quote on like, what their thoughts were on podcasting. Now she uses that as a as an opt in which that's a brilliant idea. I could see that being used in like an interview or like in a podcast episode to actually my wheels are spinning as you were talking. It's like, that's a good idea.

So a couple of the podcasters that have asked me like, how do we start? One of them was in the health field. And I forget what his niches kind of specific in the health field. So I said, are there any conferences for this particular thing? And he's like, yeah, there's like five conferences a year. And I'm like, Well, why don't you go to the conference website, and then find all of the speakers and make them your guests. And then tell the guy that's running the conference, that you're going to interview all the speakers, and see if you'll promote your podcast, and you know, it's worked. So I've worked every time I've suggested to someone that works great. So if you're looking to get started, I mean, that's an easy way to get

started. Yeah, I love that idea. That's really cool. So then you have a podcast as well. Can you tell us a bit about your podcast?

Yeah, we did a podcast called amplify today with 300 episodes, Rachel and I, and I killed it, even though Rachel liked it. And I killed it. Because one, I started it because I thought we needed to start a podcast. Like that was the depth of the reason there was no real harden. And while I got really good, I mean, we got ranked pretty high. We had a lot of downloads, we had a lot of fans. It was a popular culture, news podcast, and I totally got bogged down. This is something I haven't done mean, sometimes you get bogged down. But I got bogged down with the idea that, why how do I promote the episode about ello, the social media website that came and went like four years ago? How do I promote that two years from now, when it's gone? How like, like, no one's ever gone back and watch the daily news from last night. For six months. Nobody watches last week's news, right? So I got stuck in this. I just couldn't seem I was the idea of rolling the snowball and the business getting bigger. Like how do I promote these old episodes about things don't exist. So we quit. And then podcasters kit was getting bigger and BC stack was getting a little bigger. And I had a little bit of free time. And there was something I grew up with that I really, really loved. And it didn't exist for my kids. And that was this guy named Paul Hart. All Harvey was a radio newsman, maybe 40 or 50 years during the news. And he had this story and he was syndicated on more stations than any other newscaster. And his his show was seven minutes I think. And he had a segment called the the rest of the story where he would tell a story about someone famous. But he wouldn't tell you who it was till the end of the story. You'd hear this unbelievable tell tale. And then at the end he would tell you and That was President John F. Kennedy. And now you know the rest of the story. So I, I loved it. Like, if it was on, I wouldn't even I didn't care if I was late for a meeting, I was not getting out of the car. So I, I wanted to recreate that I wanted to be Paul Harvey. So while I don't have a podcast, where it tells you who it was, at the end, I tried to give you that exact same feeling as you're listening to it of all these holy crap. I had no idea those two people, like we're involved together, I had no idea that Paul Harvey was at the bombing of Pearl Harbor, like, like, I tried to find these unbelievable moments where you leave it and go, Holy crap, I had no idea that twinkle twinkle little star was the reason that we say the alphabet the way we do.

How do you come up with these episodes? Like, where do you where do you look? Right? Like this? Is Google. Right?

None of it. Can you can Google it. And the the part of the show is that as I begin it, I will tell you that none of these stories ever been told before. And that's because, I mean, I do some crazy research so far. But I've only been able to do one a month. It's so much research, right? But everything that I've every episode we've done is something that I've always been interested in, in my life. Like, right now, I'm working on an episode about apartheid in South Africa. And for me, you know, for my generation, that was a big story in the 80s, there was always talk about how the way government was oppressing the blacks, and in South Africa, and then Nelson Mandela and all this other stuff. Well, I don't know if you know this, but there's this guy named Rodriguez. And he was an American musician. 1971, he put out an album. That album didn't go anywhere, nobody cared about. So he quit music and started working in construction in Detroit. But somebody took that album to South Africa. And it went viral. Liked it left and right. And it he became more popular than Elvis in the Beatles. If anyone from South Africa who lived there in the 80s, and asked about Rodriguez, they will know exactly that. They will know how much just like Bruce Springsteen or YouTube or Elvis means to us. And he did not know until 1996 When two reporters decided they're going to find out whatever happened to this Rodriguez guy, I mean so much to South Africans. And he was living in squalor in Detroit. And they convinced him to come to South Africa. And he did five sold out shows in front of 20,000 people had no idea that he was who he was. That's crazy. This happened during apartheid, the same time that Paul Simon went there to record Graceland against everyone's wishes that he would go to South Africa. So I'm putting that story together about how the music inside of South Africa helped break down the culture of apartheid. It's all just the stuff they've always wanted to know. Yeah, like even this last month was the story behind a Charlie Brown Christmas, you know, how did they line? Like, where did that all come from? So for maybe not only tell you something about podcast, my podcast is not like yours, like I don't know. It's so I watch all I used to watch all these shows about how do you grow as a podcaster? And all like, talking about your guests? And how do you get your guests to promote? And I'm like, Man, I'm just, I'm not doing that I'm telling these stories. And am I going to tell stories until you know, the end of the earth? And like 11 people are gonna listen to them, because I don't, I don't do that they do. But what I have found is that not every path that's paved with gold is the only path to success. Sometimes you have to create your own. And so I have done that with the podcast, I have decided. I have broken apart every single episode. And I've made a list of there's probably 100 references in every EPS to a person a place or thing. And I have found those people. And I've told them about the episode. And like I did an episode where Margaret and ha Rey who wrote Curious George, they were in Paris when Hitler was arriving, and they had to flee Paris. And he built bicycles and they rode from Paris to Spain, on bicycles with the Curious George manuscript was the only thing they had. And they went to Brazil. I didn't even I finally made it to New York City and publish that book. Well, I found an audience in all of the hall customers. and they have been promoting it like crazy. Wow, that's just because it's popular culture. And it's interested in what went on with the Holocaust. So people don't. So every episode, I've been able to find someone who has a vested interest in the success of the episode helped me promote it. And unlike every guru who tells you how to grow podcast, there's another way. Yeah, I

love that way. Yeah, that's super interesting. And as we're moving more into, like trends from what we teach a lot of about is transformational podcasting. So that you're inspiring the listener to like, make a transformation and make a change and do something with their life. I love that because that you're you've found a different way of connecting with people that these stories will really matter to you in the end. So I'm looking on part of my neck right now, as we're talking, and like, I've seen a huge jump in your consumption of your episodes. Is that do you think that's directly related to what you just said that strategy?

Um, it is 100%. Related to that strategy. I use a service called talkwalker. And I tell talkwalker, all of the keywords that I'm interested in, for instance, with Charlie Brown podcasts, right now, I want to know every single person on the planet that mentions a Charlie Brown Christmas. So the moment that happens, they if it's on Twitter, they get a tweet about hey, did you hear the story behind the child on Christmas? Here's the link podcast. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. So if it's a blog, there's a comment, you know, but I need to find people who have a vested interest in the subject. For me, that's basically the target market. Right? Right. And my target market in my head is seniors. I think seniors used to listen to radio, they like radio stories. I, I'm kind of a slower traditional storyteller. It's not animate. It's not lots of people joking and laughing. It's pretty much just a story. And I think that they resonate with that. So I've been getting senior centers to play them at lunch. You know, because it's old stories. We can relate to, yeah, pretty much everything in the 20th century. In fact, every story ends in the 20th century. And it's called tracing the path because I take something in the 20th century, and I, even with the Charlie Brown Christmas, I connected to Johannes Gutenberg, and the printing press, you know. So, yeah, you know, they like it. So I just have to find them. And if they're talking about something that I've got a podcast on, I let them know that they can listen to the apps.

I think that's a unique way of looking at, you know, reaching out to different kind of different kind of audience for your podcast.

At least 200 people a day that are just cold just just because they've mentioned something really,

yeah. Wow. And so this platform reaches out for you? Oh, no, no, you're actually reaching out to all of these people.

Here's the learning curve of our business. Walker helps me find them. Right. And then he clincher helps be contacted. Hmm. And then Zapier helps be connected to you. Like it's an there's a learning curve for everything that we do when you get point where you're making a full time income. So while everything seems simple, I gotta tell you, there's a lot of trial and error.

Yeah, but it seems like you've created a with VC stack and podcasters kit, you've really created some systems now that you're able to now like you mentioned, have a goal of working four months a year. I think that's, that's really, that's really awesome. That's what a lot of people are, you know, wanting to do in their life worked less spend more time living. Do you can you attribute some of that to systems

I wish that I could say that

created the systems though, after all the trial and error

though, I really like me and I am definitely a systems person, but I'm not very good at writing down what the system was last time. So that this time so it takes me about three times for each project for me to have written it down filled in the blanks and have a good template from which I can actually hire a VA or something like here's your steps, but it really takes me three times because I just suck at it. Making things happen but then recording them not so good.

Yeah, I can totally relate. Well, it's interesting because you you know we you're you're also a fellow category director of podcast magazine, you write as the professional podcaster category and gadgets and gizmos and you have a podcast you had an Another successful podcast, but you guys spend a lot of your time in a large amount of your revenue comes from a blog. So I would love to know, you spend some time in the podcasting space. Blogging is something that, you know, a lot of podcasters or people who want to podcast think that that was, you know, the yesterday's big thing was blogging, but it's very much still alive in especially in your guys's family. So can you share with us a little bit about the blog.

So finally, joy.net has 800,000 fans on Facebook, and then another 200,000 On the other platforms. And really, really, what what, uh, what it boils down to is Rachel's ability to encapsulate her thoughts and put them on paper in a way that makes you say, that is exactly what I was thinking that exactly how I feel that strength that she has, has led to some of her quotes gets shared 500,000 times by 100,000 shares a million shares. She has a goal of 1000 likes in the first hour for all of her stuff, that's kind of all gold, tell her whether or not was good or not. It led to a Penguin Random House book deal a red LED to the today's show. But it's it's not the blog, it's the ability to connect and encapsulate what she's feeling as a mom, because she writes about motherhood, but not really, she really writes about the, the the woman who is the mom, and who is struggling to be more than a mom to be herself to be an entrepreneur to be a wife to be somebody who does crafts or like something outside of motherhood. So she really talks to that part of a woman. And she resonates with people with kids, because they have the same kinds of struggles, stresses, those kinds of issues. And because she has this really keen ability to connect with them at that level, that it doesn't really matter whether she's on today's show, or it's a quote or to blog. Or it's the book, they want to share with their sister, their mother, their friend, who's a mother, and that's what makes the business run. And the moment that she loses that ability, I think is the moment that business goes away. But I think that's exactly the same thing as Disney and JC Penney and blockbuster. Once blockbuster no longer understood the pulse of their consumer, they lost. And the pulse of the consumer was and still is. We're trying to go as digital as possible. We're not, we love the movies, but we love the convenience of them. Well, Blockbuster was like, Hey, we're going to be the first people to bring movies to your neighborhood. They didn't realize that the rest of us were waiting for them to come to our home. So whether you blog or podcast, vlog, or whatever it is, if that is a piece, like that's not a piece for me, right? I do talk about entrepreneurship. And I do talk about building the business. But as you can hear on this call, it's my voice. And you could mean some people probably recognize that I'm not. I'm okay with my failures and weaknesses and strengths. I still make a full time income. But and it's easy. I think it's easy for most people to resonate, because I'm not a guru says you can. All you need is click funnels, and you can make a billion dollars. That's just not the case. Great tool, but you need a whole lot more to it. But the idea that you would want to take something I said and then share it with your friends is not the same is what Rachel? So different business models for different things. And it really takes keen understanding of your own business model. What is it that truly drives because that's not only that your key to success, but it's also your biggest risk. You know, like my parents run for front porch ideas. They make six figures on google adsense, their entire business is built on Google AdSense. But if the search engine stopped delivering traffic, like it's over, so they know their biggest strength is the search engines their bigness weaknesses, the search, so you just really have to know your business and blogging could be great if you can encapsulate things and you love to write. It is a great platform.

That's awesome. And for those of you guys want to check out Rachel's blog is Finding joy.net. So make sure you check it out there. Yeah. And so what do you think the biggest risk is for podcasters?

Well, everybody has their own business risk, right? internal business risk. The biggest risk for podcasters is your own personal revenue source. If, if you need podcasts, to pay your bills, I don't think you'll make, I think you need to find another source of income. And then to give you the freedom to create really good shows, and from those shows, will come your audience and the money. But if you're chasing the money on day one, you're gonna burn out on podcasts, as many, many people do, you know, they get to like hot seven episodes, and they see, you know, 50 downloads, and they realize this is too hard. I think your biggest risk is your ability to continue, like, can you dedicate the time? Can you focus on being good show? Or are you thinking this is just going to be another way to make revenue quickly? In which case, I think it's not stop quick. It can be effective, it can be fantastic. But it's most likely not going to be on day one. That's right. So there needs to be something else in the background while you build this build the strength?

Yeah, it's a long term game. It's like that snowball. Focus, get started getting some momentum, it gets going good. Doesn't happen on day one. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dan, for joining us today. I've learned so much about your business and your ideas. And I really appreciate you sharing your vulnerability with us to have like, you know, the trials and tribulations of an entrepreneur, I think sometimes are overlooked and people have a nice, glossy, you know, sunshine and butterflies view of things. And it's nice to hear some realistic, you know, things that things happen and things are good things are not good. And it's always like a trial and error and get going on this Snowball. Snowball. appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability with us today. And I want to also for our podcasters out there, guys, if you are interested in getting started podcasting, Dan, is there a way for them to get on a waitlist for next year to for podcasters kit, because this guy's incredible. Like there anything you want to know about podcasting is in that kick. You don't need to buy anything else. And it's so inexpensive to study with money.

Yeah, it's podcast just kit.com. Perfect. And then we provide. That's pretty much the only thing we sell, we do sell. We do sell a workshop, we do put on an eight hour workshop, but a couple times a year. But otherwise, if you get on the list, we'll just tell you cool podcasts and stuff until podcasts just get comes up. Hopefully. Hopefully, that's everything you'll ever need.

Absolutely, yeah, no, that's perfect. And so if you go to podcasters kit.com, you can get on the waitlist so that when it does come out, you've got access to guys, because it only goes on sale for like three days. If you miss it you miss. True. Yeah. So then and then. Once a year mazing right. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, dang, go ahead.

Yeah, if you miss it, you're your host. Like, normally, we schedule our vacation for the week after these events. So we have little patience for the people who say, I just forgot. I'm like, Well, I'm on vacation.