Creating a Local Podcast

Speaker 1 (00:02)

Hello and welcome to Podcast Me Anything and ask me anything for all things podcasting. I'm your host, Ben Killoy, and I'm joined here in the studio with Matthew Passy podcast consult. Matt and I wanted to move the conversation beyond the podcasting 1 to 1 topics and move into the intermediate to advanced podcasting strategy to reach your goals, interact with the show, submit your questions to be answered live Boca Podcast with Matthew or find the notes from today's show head on over to Podcast Me Anything dot com. Welcome back to Podcast Studio three. I am here live at 192.168.1.1. Talking to Matthew Passy. Matthew Air tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:41)

Wait, we're still getting what, studio three? I thought that died last week.

Speaker 1 (00:44)

No, I wanted to hold on to Studio three, but I wanted to say, instead of, like, Rockefeller Center, because we can't say Rockefeller Center, I said the IP address, which is a standard IP address across all basic home routers. 192.168.1.

Speaker 2 (00:56)

Hi. Good to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:58)

Hey, for the record, I ask permission.

Speaker 2 (01:02)

You're not used to. I just didn't know you were going back to Studio three.

Speaker 1 (01:05)

I haven't found a reason to let it go. It has a nice ring to. It is the name of this studio. It fits. It feels good until it feels like I'm wearing it out. I'm going to hold on to it.

Speaker 2 (01:16)

All right. Well, folks, if you like Studio three Leopard now.

Speaker 1 (01:20)

Yes. Drop us a note over at Podcast Me Anything dot com or Mathew at the podcast consultant dot com Mathew. How is your world going in New Jersey?

Speaker 2 (01:31)

I would say things are pretty good right now. The weather finally got a little bit nicer today. Took the took my boy out to play t ball. Had a lot of fun. He went three for three, which, you know, in T-ball they always go three for three. So maybe overstating his accomplishment. But that was good day.

Speaker 1 (01:49)

And you we still are struggling to get into any type of version of spring. We're like hovering at 45 degree every day. Although I did day, they had a family fun run at school and I it's way of planning. I had to attend and do a one mile run for my son in the morning and go back in the afternoon and do another one mile run for my daughter. So I ran two miles a day with full dad mode activated and participating in the family fun run that they organized. So that was a good day. Unproductive work wise, but I know when I'm 50, looking back, the work won't matter. It'll matter that I was there.

Speaker 2 (02:22)

Amen to that.

Speaker 1 (02:23)

Those are the days you have looking forward to ahead of you and double duty at that even as well.

Speaker 2 (02:30)

Yeah. I mean, we're we're already starting to kind of figure out, like, you know, up until this point, pretty much everything they did, they did together. And now with him playing baseball, it's we're starting to see that separation between the two of them. So, yeah, I know we're coming up on a lot of days where mommy and daddy are going have to split responsibilities and choose who's going where and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (02:50)

Yeah, I can only imagine. Well, what we're talking about today and the reason why I hinted at New Jersey is because one of the very first things that I first learned about you when I first started connecting or what you sent me down a rabbit hole on a project to work on. Was this local New Jersey business podcast that you had? It had kind of a website crisis, and that was your first thing you had me work on. And man, were you passionate about that? And that's exactly what we're going to dove in today, which is almost like a final frontier that really is very even unnoticed in the podcast space, because I feel like everybody goes into podcasting and sees the wide world of podcasting, and that's where they think that's where they think they need to launch. But when I first met you, this was an area that's still, to this day, a very big passion of yours, of localizing, podcasting and to own the part of the first part of our podcast in the news.

Speaker 1 (03:39)

When we were preparing this episode, we realized that this has been a trend in the news over the last year localizing podcasting, being able to target an advertiser down to its local address, and being able to almost also know where our listeners at in the country. We also see the ID to tags like almost individualizing, trying to understand, protect privacy, but also help people know where their listeners, listeners are as well. So Matthew, over the last year, how have you felt about all the different changes, new products, new ideas when it connects to this one thing that's really close to your heart, which is localized podcasting?

Speaker 2 (04:16)

Well, I mean, I think the one thing is that, like you said, we're certainly starting to see more focus on it, more ideas, more platforms, more networks, more people just kind of chomping at the bit to go local. Just today, I saw on a couple of different podcast newsletters, not paid news this time, but a couple other ones that we're talking about. A maybe those Ariel Blatz blasts newsletter that came out today, a new podcast called Dead End The Story of Political Murder in New Jersey. And of course, because I'm from New Jersey, had to go check it out on the trailer is really, really cool. But WNYC is producing the show all about this very powerful political family and their the circumstances surrounding their tragic and very suspicious death. So definitely, like, that was one thing today. I was like, Ooh, that's kind of exciting. You know, I'm sure that will have mass appeal, but obviously there is a little bit of a target on New Jersey.

Speaker 2 (05:13)

Also today, we saw an article from from Radio World Hubbard, which is a big media company. They're going to do localized podcast app. So you'll be able to download like a minnesota News podcasting app, and they'll feature a whole bunch of shows from folks who are talking about Minnesota, or they'll do something very similar around the area of DC. And right, of course, that builds into the idea that I've been always trying to go to, which is like to collate and organize all local content into one location so you don't have to go and find the Minnesota app. You could just stand there and say, Show me products about what you know, show me shows about the area that I'm standing in, right? The town, the city, the region, the state, whatever. And so obviously, you know, we're making a big push into that. The whole the new studio that we're launching is Town Cast Studios with the hope of driving people in our area to start creating more content about our area.

Speaker 2 (06:08)

So we're trying to walk the walk and talk the talk a little bit on our own. And then also in the past year, there's been this city cast that's been popping up and they're also trying to create like networks of shows in various cities, hoping to create some sort of localized content network. So, I mean, I'm very encouraged and excited that so many people are seeing the opportunities and jumping into that fray. So to me, I mean, it's it's just it's very encouraging. And I think it's something that a lot of people can't a lot of people don't appreciate how low how like you can get big by going small, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (06:49)

One thing that I want to dove into before we go into like as the podcast host this area and what the news means, what are you feeling that the listeners are actually hungry for it that is kind of driving this attention towards localizing podcasting?

Speaker 2 (07:07)

Well, I think you've got a couple of different things. So one, I think part of the issue is that it's difficult to find local content because the searches in most of these podcast stores and directories are based on titles and artist and episode titles. And so if let's say you want to find something about New Jersey, right? You might type New Jersey into a podcast search. But like my buddies who do the Scarlets Spotlight podcast, all about Rutgers University, New Jersey isn't anywhere in their title. It's not in the name, it's not in the artist. It's on the episode titles often. So they would not necessarily pop up in a search for New Jersey, even though they are all about New Jersey based sports. So I think not that people are necessarily I'm not hearing this, but I think there is certainly an opportunity to clean up that ability to search for localized content, since right now the platforms aren't highly focused on that, although I hope they are. And then broadly speaking, we've obviously just seen the, you know, slow demise of local news at all levels television, print, even radio.

Speaker 2 (08:19)

You know, a lot of these entities were bought up by larger media conglomerates. They totally, you know, demolished the local newsrooms and all three of those entities. And then they fed them syndicated content or national content or they just they just gone down to the bare bones. And so I think in general are truthfully, you know, I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but truthfully, like our democracy is suffering from a lack of local news. Right? We are so politicized and we are so partizan by what we are here at the national level. But really, politics is local. And when you get down to the local level, most of us probably have some sense, some agreement on what we want to do, even if we don't always agree on how to get there. But it's hard to know what's going on because right now there's not a lot of people covering it, right. There's not a lot of beat reporters going out to the town hall meetings, the board of Ed meetings, covering the local police.

Speaker 2 (09:20)

Like, yeah, they'll rewrite a press release or they'll issue the police blotter. But it's not the same as having folks who used to really know the streets and kind of like know the pulse of your local community. So I think that's also a big, important piece that's missing and why I think this push into local could be could be fruitful and important moving forward.

Speaker 1 (09:44)

And also, I could even imagine, I thought my head of like a reporter who's been to like every town hall or city hall meeting for like the last ten years, he knows which ones are the blowhards, and most likely his writing in his newspaper articles are going to reflect like the true state of the City Council. What are they saying? What piece are they trying to push? And we don't have any of that transparency. I know, maybe, but it was well before three kids. I used to love being a daily newspaper reader. I almost treasured it because I felt really excited knowing what was going on election wise and having like spreads of different election officials. Because honestly, one of the hardest things about going to the poll on Election Day and voting and non-election like major election years is having no clue truly of any good resource to understand who these people are voting for. Local podcasts or local newspapers were their resource, and as they've declined our ability at local levels to create a more structured community government is definitely I like what you've pointed out there has definitely deteriorated and this is almost like a genesis moment or a renaissance moment for local politics.

Speaker 1 (10:52)

And I've always said and heard it said many times that if you want to change the world, vote for your school board ten times more often than you do for the president, because your school board's always going to have more impact on your community than the president. But that's not how we focus, because that's that the information that we're fed, that's not the information we're even looking for in our ears or even to feed our minds with. So I think that speaks to a ripe market and probably a still misunderstood market for what is the right are, why the right cost mechanisms and the right production value to create something that doesn't become so heavy that they can't keep it going from revenue point of view and being able to keep the employees paid as well.

Speaker 2 (11:33)

Well, I've always talked about that there are opportunities for content creators who want to focus on local, and I think we'll get into that in a little bit. But kind of going back to your last point and your last question, we've also seen the emergence of things like the next door app, right, where people are using those local literally down to the neighborhoods with, you know, discussion groups and billboards and post. Right. Like these are highly focused, highly localized conversations and they are seeing an immense traction and a lot of people are getting involved with them. And if you get yourself outside of a next door app that really like pinpoints you down to like this is what's happening around the corner for me. This is what's happening in your neighbor. This is what's happening in your town, right? If you look at Twitter, Twitter's not really organized well to find local content. Facebook. Yeah, Facebook's a little bit better because you're really talking about, you know, you're you're you kind of like isolated networks of people.

Speaker 1 (12:27)

Who are you could be in a localized group like I'm in a couple of.

Speaker 2 (12:30)

Yeah right or you could right. Like, yeah, like there's a, there's a Facebook group that I belong to, like, what's up, Cherry Hill? Right. And like, that's where people talk about local politics. But it's it's still it has to be organized by a few people and right. Like it's still kind of conducive on the algorithms and the admins and the engagement that it gets. Whereas if somebody were to take that same information and put it out there as a YouTube channel or as a podcast or, you know, even just tweet about it like that's someone who you could follow and kind of collect that information and get a little bit more organized and get a better understanding of what is happening in your community in a way that you could be absorbed, that you can easily absorb. And I'm going to take it a step further. Like you said, like not knowing what's going on in our community, how do you get information about your town? Right? How do you get information from your county?

Speaker 2 (13:22)

It either comes in the form of their website, which was built back in the nineties and right does not translate well to today or it's signing up for some maybe some terrible newsletter. We know that newsletter. Like, yeah, maybe we have more subscribers, but people don't really read it.

Speaker 1 (13:37)

Or it's a yearly tax bill that you get. That's your newsletter saying like, why am I getting screwed? And then you realize, Oh, there is something you need to pay attention to that you didn't realize. And it's that yearly tax bill that's like our primary communication method. And at that point, it's too late to know.

Speaker 2 (13:52)

Yeah. And I just think also, as you look to the next generation, the next generation, like they're not accustomed to picking up that newspaper. Right? They're not accustomed to even going to that newspaper app. And even if they do, the information they're finding there is so bland and so generic that there's no meat to it. So I think there's just a huge opportunity for people to step up, create the kind of content that is hyper focused on their community. And I think it goes at all different levels. Right. I think every mayor should be putting out a podcast weekly with here's the latest news or information that we want to share with you. And every school board should be sharing and many of them do. Right share YouTube channel, right. Share what's going on at their meetings there. Every right. Like who's covering high school sports for you these days? Maybe it's the newspaper, but look, there's no reason why you can't jump in there and and grab a microphone and grab a camera and, you know, go talk to people and share what's going on in your community.

Speaker 2 (14:46)

It it also it doesn't just have to be news. There is more to local than just news. It could be the person who wants to do restaurant reviews. It could be the person who talks about the traffic. It could be the person who talks about the weather or, you know, like the changing, you know, dynamics of your community could be truthfully a big opportunity. I've seen this actually a lot of places are realtors write real estate agents are really good at creating content about their local community because they know if you're going to move to, let's say, Cherry Hill, you do a search and all of a sudden you've got the What's Up Cherry Hill podcast you're listening to. You're like, Oh, this is very interesting content about my town. Who is it brought to you by a real estate agent? Are you going to move to Cherry Hill? Who are you going to think to ask the person who's sharing all this great content with you? So like there are peop one, there's lots of people who are doing this and I know a few of them and they do it really, really well and we could talk about them.

Speaker 2 (15:41)

But I think there is a lot of opportunity out there and we could talk about why there is such big opportunities and how to kind of capitalize on how to change your thinking about that as well to make it worthwhile. But I just think the future is local, right? Nationals are never going to go away, but local is dying and it needs a serious, serious, you know, restart.

Speaker 1 (16:06)

In entrepreneurship, there is a common piece of wisdom that circulated that. If you want to learn a new idea, go read an old book. Have you heard that Matthew before?

Speaker 2 (16:16)

I've never heard that before.

Speaker 1 (16:17)

Yeah, because often no ideas are new. They're just reinvented because we remember them from 200 years ago. And the irony in this is there was a movie as you were talking. NEWSREEL Have you seen it with Tom Hanks and Netflix now?

Speaker 2 (16:30)

But I did want to see it, but I haven't had a chance.

Speaker 1 (16:32)

It's essentially in like 1850s. His job was he traveled from like Oklahoma to Texas and for a dime he would collect everybody in a barn church and he would read the news across the country because there was no way for these people to get educated. And this one man's job was to travel and be the news and for a dime you could sit and listen to. And he would curate the stories just like a newspaper would. He would tell these heart wrenching stories like the Civil War or heart wrenching stories about people in Pennsylvania. And to me, that idea of news world and traveling and being that guy is kind of that old idea that could become new in this case, not reading a book. But sometimes the best solutions are found in the simplistic ways of how they were provided in the past.

Speaker 2 (17:19)

You know, there was a guy who I did a consult who I'd consulted with, and his whole thing was he would read Reddit threads. He had a very specific channel or thread and apologies because I'm not a big redditor. So like, I don't know all the lingo, so. Right. Just don't ask me about this stuff. But like, there was one specific channel that he was totally into and he did a daily podcast where he would basically read what was going on in that Reddit thread, and he was getting thousands and thousands and thousands of downloads, just an immense number of traction. And all he was doing was reading stuff that other people put out there. You see it with the video game streaming, right? There are people who just stream themselves playing video games and there are millions of people who are watching this kind of stuff. I think to your point, there could be an opportunity to have people who are condensing and summarizing the news to their local community and getting something out there now.

Speaker 2 (18:18)

Listen, you have to do it fairly, right? You can't just read the newspaper and think that that's legitimate. Right. The newspaper is spending money to source that work, to do the journalism. And they they deserve to make money or at least be, you know, credited for their work because of that. But I think there are more opportunities in this realm than we even think of. And I will be curious and eager to see where we go from here.

Speaker 1 (18:45)

So let's dove into it and go into I have an itch for a podcast. So we're just going to start at the very basic itch that I have, this itch to talk into a microphone in a lonely room, maybe with one other person, but I don't understand. And then I just heard this episode and we talk about local and this person's minds inspired to a lot of different ideas because it's almost harder local, because local has a lot of unique problems depending on how connected you are. Local, it can seem like a maybe over like climbing a mountain in some cases because you're like, I don't know anybody in this town. How do I start something? How do I find listenership? It seems even harder than talking into a world where 700,000 active podcast, maybe. So I'm wondering if I have an itch. And I've just now heard this episode of Thinking Local, and I'm trying to distill down this idea to get to the raw alcohol of what's going to give me the most bang. Where do you what would you consult me on and ask me questions about to really get to understanding my desire locally and to make an impact locally as well with the podcast that I don't fully understand yet, but I know I want to be local based on the inspiration you just gave us.

Speaker 2 (19:59)

Well, so here's the thing about going local that people don't give enough credit to, and that I think once you hear this, you're going to kind of be like, oh, so let's start with creating content. Right. Let's let's even go down the what is typical in the world that we work in. Right the business or the entrepreneurial podcaster who wants to, you know, interview successful business owners or interview people who are doing interesting stuff and write. You go to the podcast page and so-and-so puts out a book and the next thing you know, that person, that entrepreneur is on 50 different podcasts, right? They're being talked to out the wazoo and everybody wants to talk to them because they've got a national profile and national interest and everyone's like, Oh, and get me a piece of that. Well, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of interesting entrepreneurs, highly successful people, people who are probably really, really interesting behind the microphone, who are eager to talk about what they do and eager to share with their community, who nobody is interviewing.

Speaker 2 (21:06)

Nobody. Right. Nobody is talking to the person who owns the landscaping business in your town that you happen to see their sign on every other lawn. Right. That person has built up a business empire that is incredibly powerful and rivals probably some of the people who you see on these national podcasts. And you know what? No one's ever invited them on to a podcast because their coverage is local, right? It's maybe just a couple of towns and a couple of areas that person would probably be be eager to chat. You would be getting content that nobody else is getting because nobody's talking to them and that person because he's never had the chance to or she, I should say, because they've never had the chance to be on a big podcast or a big YouTube stream or whatever. They're going to share it with everyone because they're so excited because they were finally asked to be on a podcast. Right. So I think there is one just a huge pool of interesting people that are available to be guests on your show that nobody's taking advantage of.

Speaker 2 (22:03)

So, one, there is a massive pool of people that you could be looking into that nobody else is looking into gives you a leg up because you're going to be creating unique content. Number two, if you are a business owner in the local community and you are now reaching out to some other local business owners, you are building incredible relationships with people in your community. Right. You said it yourself. You don't know anybody. Well, great. Now, I've just spoken to this person who owns this empire, and you're going to say to them, man, this is a great interview. Who else do you know that you think I should be talking to? And now you are just slowly but surely building up this network of people in your local community who now, when it comes time for them to need the kinds of services you offer, they're going to think of you, as opposed to if you try and walk in their business and put down a pamphlet or make a phone call or email them right there, you're like, I don't know this person, this you now have a warm relationship with this person because you got to talk to them.

Speaker 2 (22:54)

You got to meet them. You got to introduce yourself and show that you are passionate about what they do and be curious about what it is that you do. So it's a great way to network and build up your local networking community. The other thing is, like I said, that person who they've never been interviewed before, they're going to share it. Who's likely to see that? The people who live in the same town. Right. Their friends, their family, their peers, their colleagues, their workers. And if they're running a business that is local in nature. Right. Or a group of restaurants, you know, lawn maintenance, the guy you know, the person who, I don't know, runs the warehouse or runs trucking or whatever it is in that area, runs a bunch of auto shops or runs a bunch of car dealerships. Who's their network? They're local. They're sharing with the people around you. And all those people around you are now potentially target of your audience. It's so much easier to grow your audience because the niche that you're finding is specific to your area.

Speaker 2 (24:02)

So now if I interview another person from Cherry Hill and they share it with their friends and family who live in Cherry Hill, look at that. I'm speaking directly to my audience by talking to this person, as opposed to if I talk to some national entrepreneur who maybe is a SAS business owner and really my audience is more of a financial. Well, cool. He's going to tell all of his other SAS friends about it. That doesn't help me. That's not who my audiences. But if my audience is Cherry Hill and I'm talking to someone in Cherry Hill, sharing with other people in Cherry Hill, that's my audience to that effect. You know, talk. Speaking of marketing and growing your show, when you are launching a podcast and you are trying to reach a mass audience, right? You have to go on social media. You got to do digital marketing. You've got to get you want to try and get new and noteworthy. You want to try run Google ads and you're targeting this and doing that and hoping somebody writes a story about you.

Speaker 2 (24:51)

And yeah, maybe that stuff works. But you know what you do when you have a local show and you want to try and reach new audience, you walk out your front door. Right. Because who are the people who are in your target audience? They're the other parents that you're seeing when you take your kids to school. There are the other parents you see when you're at the T-ball game. They're the the you know, the person who owns the dry cleaning place where you drop off your clothes. They're the people at the public library. There's the person behind the counter at the convenience store, blah, blah, blah. Right. Like you don't have to you don't have to figure out where these people are. They're right there and they're all around you. It also makes it easier to market because you can use some old school guerrilla tactics, right? Like, yeah, you can try and post something to a Facebook group in the hopes that one that group allows you to self-promote your podcast and to that maybe the right people are in that group and they're going to see and they're gonna be like, Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (25:45)

You know what you do in your local, you print out business cards, you go around, you see if there's a poll, it's important to put it on there because you can because it's right there. You go to your library, you go to any businesses that have a bulletin board. You go to the the you know, maybe you've got a, you know, what's in the middle of the center of town. They have a place where people can put up fliers and put up notices. You put lawn signs, you know, when you're driving around the same way politicians do and other businesses do. Heck, you wrap your car in a sticker or a magnet and you know what? Who's going to see it? Everybody who you drive around who are in your target area, it is so much easier to touch and feel and connect with your target audience because they're right there. One of the best examples of this, by the way, I'd ever seen at like just those were some of the smartest marketing I've ever seen in my life is Chris Holler Field and Christie Holler Field.

Speaker 2 (26:39)

You do a show, I am Salt Lake, a show all about the city of Salt Lake and what they do. They interview interesting businesses, right? They interview interesting people who are doing interesting things in Salt Lake City. And what they did is they created those window decals. You know, when you go into a store for the first time and as you're walking in right next to the door, there's a sticker facing up that says, we accept Visa, MasterCard, Diner's Club, you know, a proud member of the local, you know, Business Bureau, blah, blah, blah. They created stickers that said appeared on I Am Salt Lake. Now, all of these businesses in Salt Lake City are advertising this guy's podcast for him. It's brilliant. And you know why it's so easy? Because it's right there. It is right there.

Speaker 1 (27:27)

You know, there was an illusion that the Internet creates that you just kind of smashed and blew up with some TNT and it's the Internet because you could launch and create a Facebook page in 30 seconds. That that illusion that somehow that will find automatically your audience that the Internet will the 3.5 million billion people that were on the Internet will find you somehow. And you just hope that all of these uncontrolled bulls are somehow in control of you helping. Be aware. And I was recently listening to a podcast, and he started a health store in person first, and he talked about how many lessons he learned by actually seeing customers get frustrated with the health products. And then eventually by being local first and being a brick and mortar, he was actually able to launch more of an empire and actually create his own health supplements. And because of the on the ground marketing and seeing people interact with his products, he was able to create one that knocked it out of the park. And essentially, you're kind of talking about the same thing of go to where you have the most control of the controllables, which in this world is very little.

Speaker 1 (28:32)

And in this particular moment, I mean very little. You can, one, take gas, you can get a lot of traction coverage. You can go to lunch in a lot of different places. And within one county, you can go to lunch with a lot of different people. To me, that allows you, even as a professional speaker, I've really realized this, that I don't need a contact in California. This can put me on a stage. I actually probably there's one person 30 minutes away from where I live that's willing to pay the same amount, if not more, and I get to come home at night. That illusion and entrepreneurship is almost like an optical illusion. It's like the magic trick that the Internet is a 50 state thing. So entrepreneurship is a 50 state thing, and podcasting is a global thing. But again, if you want a new idea, go read an old book. Businesses existed local long before the internet and they did make millions doing it. There was something there that we've now kind of just overlooked, and you nailed it right on the head.

Speaker 2 (29:29)

I mean, there's a there's a stat that says 70% of the US economy is small businesses. And when they say that they don't mean startups, right? They don't mean new tech startups that are creating products that eventually turn into, you know, billion dollar unicorn companies and Ubers and all these other things. What they're talking about are real small businesses, right? Every shopping center you drive by that has a nail salon, a dry cleaner, a convenience store, restaurants, has an attorney tax professional, you know, has a person who does payment processing for you as the person who's running a dance studio for kids is running soccer for your kids, is creating a daycare, right. Those are all small businesses. We really aren't as national or even global in many ways as we think like, yeah, the supply chain and there are things that we can only get overseas. But the truth is like commerce really exists locally. And if you look at the people who are supporting most of your local nonprofits, who are supporting your kids sports teams, who are, you know, propping up the schools, who are propping up probably your houses of worship, it is these local businesses.

Speaker 2 (30:49)

It's the people who started something in their town and they have grown it and maybe they've grown it to vast regions. Right? Maybe they've gone from your town to the next town to the fourth, you know, to the five towns, to the county, to the state. And now maybe they're covering three or four states, but it all started locally, right? It had to start somewhere. And I'm going to tell you something, too. What people don't realize and I'm really only starting to realize this because I've been looking at office space so much is when you go to a lot of these strip malls, a lot of them are two story now like, oh, that's weird. There's nothing really ever going on up there. It's because there's usually offices upstairs. All those offices are little small businesses. It's more financial planners. It's more lawyers. It's more accountants, it's more whatever. Right. There's weird, interesting businesses that you and I aren't even going to think of. And then you go to these office parks and you realize there's this big building and there's maybe one company has its name on the big building, but that one company probably only has one floor.

Speaker 2 (31:51)

The rest of the three floors are other businesses that they are renting space out or leasing space out to. I couldn't believe the number of places that I went to looking for office space, just the immense number of small businesses that exist. I mean, the floor that and forget the floor. Our studio is in a small suite inside this big shared office building. It's a two storey office building. It's got about I'm going to make this up and call it 60 offices, of which maybe a dozen of them, you know, have like Multi-Room offices, but are suite right to ten, which covers A through J. Every single one of those letters is a different independent business, and they are all very, very different. Right? One person does personal training. One person is a lawyer, one person is a travel expert. Right. Like who even knew that you still have travel agents out there, right? One person is a leadership coach and it's not the leadership coach that, you know, it's not Gary Vee, but it's a guy who's been doing leadership who knows what he's doing, who's building out the local community.

Speaker 2 (33:02)

There is so much more local than we give credit for. And I just think the the possibilities there could be endless.

Speaker 1 (33:12)

And you know what? There's an added bonus with podcasting. And I've noticed that with public speaking that when I go into a room because I've pretty much introduced myself as like a bunch of different things, I've introduced myself as a podcaster. Coach coach is a little confusing because people confuse it with sports. But what I've noticed, especially depending on the room, professional speaking and podcaster, you're generally a unicorn and most people have never met you. Like you're probably the only person they've ever met that will say that they do that. I was just I just ran an AK in Madison, Wisconsin, this past Saturday and talk about going to a place of just going it and it was extreme conditions. It was down pouring rain. 53 degrees are 53 degrees outside down pouring rain I'm running this by AK and I get to the end feels amazing and we go to this this the union that UW and we're sitting and have a conversation and these two couples from Rochester are they're talking to me and I tell them a professional speaker and they really didn't know what to say back.

Speaker 1 (34:10)

Like, they're like, I really got them stumped. They're like, Do I come up with a joke is like they they didn't know how to respond. And so what I'm saying in here is go to this, this idea. And locally, you don't need a plane ticket. You're not going to go to a conference where you're among a sea of podcasters or a CRM entrepreneurship. They already know what podcasting is, and you're going to be deluded down for who you are. People are going to be interested. I can't tell you how many like double takes I get. When you say you do a podcast, they're interested, they tell it, they want to know more. They usually have some. They have a question about it, like being that person is extremely valuable local and the opportunity is all over the place. This is something that it took me a long time to realize that just even this week on Thursday, I'm going to the high school. This was this was one random thing I found on Twitter locally from our high school Twitter thread.

Speaker 1 (35:02)

They were looking for people to volunteer to do four hour shifts to give feedback and advice to seniors who are doing career plans. I have no business doing that. It was open to any person in the community, so it was open and I did it. But it was interesting. I was curious about it and I'm actually really curious of who I'm going to be sitting next to because at that community table is going to be other business owners just like me that care that are willing to put 4 hours into their day there. Those moments are very random and I'm purposely doing those on purpose because I have found a lot of gold in those and I don't have a local podcast, but I find a lot of value in having local people within my network because they know more people than I do here. And those people can change your life in one snap of the fingers when they know what you're looking for, and they can't do that unless they know you. And it's so much easier to do that than Googling on the Internet for these people that are so far out of reach.

Speaker 1 (35:53)

They don't care whether you say hello or what you do for them.

Speaker 2 (35:56)

You know, as a little bit of time ago. And so maybe it's changed a little bit. But I remember when I first started doing this as a business, call it 2015, maybe even 2016. So podcast existed, but right, it's not where we are today. I somehow got connected to the Princeton Library and they were talking about, Oh, we do this great tech series and you know how you do like would you like to do a class on podcast? I'm like, sure, I'm in there. Think of like what kind of a201301 class could I do? And I came up with a good idea and I get in there. I was like, Listen, just before we get started, let's talk about what podcasting is. And I had a room of like ten or 12 people and we were expecting more. But like I said, the. Weather socked in, so people dropped out. And for this 40 minutes where I thought I was gonna spend like 5 minutes on what podcasting is, I spent about 35 minutes explaining to people what podcasting was, how to access it, how to listen to it, what is this content?

Speaker 2 (36:45)

Why is it valuable? And at the end of that, someone came up to me like, and this is a guy I'm looking at this guy in the back room thinking, this guy is in the wrong room. He's going to come up here and he's going to kick my ass or he's going to call me like, whatever. Like, I just read this dude all wrong. He came up to me. He's like, I'm working on this amazing art installation, and we, you know, listen to you. I kind of know what podcasts are, but listening to you like we should do a podcast to announce this thing. And yeah, just because I was there. Same thing. Went to a local meet up to, you know, just talk with other entrepreneurs and startups and you know, they give you an opportunity at the end to say what you do. And I said, Yeah, I'm a I'm a guy who produces podcasts if you're interested. And, you know, not more than four people came up to me afterwards, like, we've been thinking about that or not me.

Speaker 2 (37:32)

But I know a guy who, who's been asking about podcasts. It's so much easier to engage with people and to create real relationships, especially when they meet you in person and you create a real human bond and connection. But I don't want to get I want to there's a couple more points I want to make on the the power of going local that I think are going to be important, that I think people here in this going be like.

Speaker 1 (37:53)

Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (37:53)

Oh, I didn't even think of that. So one is, again, this idea of you really connect with people. So I'm a big fan of in-person events. I remember having a client, we did a a retail store, invited her to come in and do a live session of the podcast. And we're like, All right, whatever. Like they're gonna invite us and we're going to do what we do and just there's going to be a room full of people there. And I remember thinking, Yeah, maybe we'll have some of our fans there. And mostly what came were a bunch of the store's fans, right? Like the store was like, Hey, we're doing the special event. And by the way, like, if you show up or we're giving like a coupon for shopping in the store, we filled the room, all the chairs, standing room only. And most of these people didn't really know who the host was. But after being in their presence at the end, we came off like, You're amazing.

Speaker 2 (38:43)

And the fact that the host was there to shake their hand or hog or take a picture of them, like you built this like fandom, right? It's so much easier to become enamored with someone who you actually meet in person. I remember when I worked in radio, we would have a lot of politicians come through and it didn't matter if they were on my side of the issue or not. The people who I met in person who were nice to me, I became a fan of them. Even if I disagree with them, it's just it's it's there's something about it. So, one, it's a lot easier to organize a local podcasting event for your audience when your audience is in your town. Right. Rent that room at the library, rent the, you know, go to the local bar and ask what, you know, how they do on Tuesday nights. And they yeah, it's usually pretty dead in here. You know, Thursdays are big open mic night or, you know, karaoke or whatever be like, Hey, what if I rent the back of the room for $100 and I invite people in?

Speaker 2 (39:33)

Cool. What is he going to do? Complain that you're being bring more people in who are possibly going to buy drinks. Now, you can easily put together a local event and it won't take hundreds of thousands of people to make it look full. It could take 10 to 20 to make it feel and look full. And you'll have that instant connection and. All right, like, you'll just you'll be more successful because once people meet you, it's a lot easier to be a fan of it.

Speaker 1 (39:56)

And you don't have to worry about the algorithm. You don't have to worry about Instagram. You don't have to worry about content story posting. None of that.

Speaker 2 (40:03)

Yeah. You just connect with people, right? Like when you're done, you take a selfie with them. They posted looking at their advertising in their marketing for you. Oh, my God. I met so-and-so. They were amazing. Who? So-and-so. They have a podcast. Hmm. Right. Like. It just happens. The other piece and I mean, I could probably do 4 hours on this, but monetizing. How much? I know we're always talking about that. The way you advertise podcast is CPM. It's $25 CPM to get a thousand listeners and you know, you want to get these national brands, right, the the mattresses and the food deliveries and the email services and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I bet you could charge as much for a thousand listeners as you could for a hundred listeners locally. Because imagine if you're the local pizza place. I always I always tell the story. I always talk about the old pizza place where we used to live. I probably need to update it for my current one, but Giannis deserves it.

Speaker 2 (41:02)

So imagine you do the Cherry Hill podcast and you turn to the guy who owns Johnny's Pizza. Say, Hey, Johnny, listen, I don't have 20,000 listeners, but I've got 500. And so for $125, you can reach these 500 people who, by the way, they're all in Cherry Hill, right? No one in Sheboygan is listening to my podcast because what the hell do they care about Cherry Hill? Right. So we know it's the right audience. You don't trip and listen to the wrong podcast. And for $125 to reach 500 people, if Johnny can get ten of those people to become regular users of his pizza service. Right? Like once you pick your pizza place, you stick.

Speaker 1 (41:44)

With it. Like, say, as for pizza, I never really thought of it that way, but it really is like it's like a subscription.

Speaker 2 (41:49)

Let me ask, like, how often do you order pizza with family?

Speaker 1 (41:52)

Oh, quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (41:53)

Is it is it almost weekly?

Speaker 1 (41:55)

At least weekly, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:57)

Okay. So for Johnny's, if you're ordering pizza, let's say you order about $30 worth. You right there in a month has made up Johnny's investment.

Speaker 1 (42:06)

And you're most likely telling people, buy Johnny's.

Speaker 2 (42:09)

Right and listen to it once you can get people to start using these local businesses. Right. It's mostly repeat customers. Same thing with lawn care guy, right? They're going to come out every week and cut your lawn, the dry cleaners. Every time I got to go to the dry cleaners, I'm going to go use this person, the person who cuts my hair. Same thing, right? I'm not shopping around. Once I find the person I like, I'm going to go see that car mechanics laundry.

Speaker 1 (42:30)

I spent ten years living in this town looking for a good mechanic, and I absolutely hated every one, every car dealer I used, every quick oil change. And then I found this one man. It was so life changing and stress free.

Speaker 2 (42:44)

How did you find that one?

Speaker 1 (42:46)

Actually, I needed an alignment, so I actually had to call around all over the place. And I went through like six different people and this guy was booked up like a dentist six weeks out. I eventually got the alignment fixed and got that taken care of, but then I was like, There's something to a guy being booked out for six weeks. So I put my all change there just to test it out. And man, I've been hooked ever since, and I was actually there randomly for getting my old change and his dad was having a birthday party and I got invited to share famous Dave's with them for lunch, like those moments and like been calling him up and saying, Hey, what's going on here? Need to get in and get this fixed. Like it just. Taken care of.

Speaker 2 (43:24)

I'll tell you, we had a similar situation. We've used you know, we use the dealership. We use a couple of different mechanics. We had a problem with the car and our friend was like, Oh, you got to use Tony. That's not his name. I can remember. I was like, You got to use Tony.

Speaker 1 (43:35)

I just get me Tony in New Jersey. It's always Tony.

Speaker 2 (43:38)

In fact, it's not Tony, but that's just the name popped in my head. But seriously, like our friend said, you got to use Tony. Like, aren't I trust you? Right. Like, if you say Tony took care of you and Tony's going to take care of us. We saw Tony. Tony was amazing, right? Like Tony took care of us, and now I have a problem. Like I was going to call Tony, right? Imagine having that same power. But instead of just talking to one person at a time, you've created a product that maybe reaches a couple hundred and if you're lucky, maybe a couple thousand. Right. But it doesn't require the same mass audience growth to reach what could be sustainable revenue for a local for local content, for a local product. So, you know, I know we've been on this for a while and I can harp on this for for, you know, 12 more days.

Speaker 1 (44:24)

But I knew I was priming in Europe for a riff when I said, you know, for this because I was like, how about you got asked this question?

Speaker 2 (44:30)

And the truth is like, we are we are hyper focused on this. Right? Right now I'm out there. We'll put a link in the shownotes. If you're a local content creator, like I want to talk to you, we're doing a podcast just highlighting those kinds of shows, those kinds of people. What has worked, what hasn't worked, what has been the impact, what's been the effect? You know, because I know there are folks out there who have been doing this and doing this well, and we want to encourage more people to jump into it. If you have questions about how to do something local, like please feel free to reach out. But yeah, like, I just think this is. There is a massive opportunity in this space and there are lots and lots of people who have been forced out or put out to pasture or on the sidelines because the big media companies. Right. Have have crushed it. And I just think that it is opening up a tremendous opportunity for former ads, you know, newspaper and television and radio ads and people.

Speaker 1 (45:34)

That are in the know and how the local works but don't have a vehicle to actually drive around and provide the radio.

Speaker 2 (45:41)

The beat writer who got laid off from the paper, that person should have a YouTube channel, a podcast and whatever, and like get back their audience and get back their connection. The person who does whatever. Like, there's so many opportunities here, you know, I can't contain my excitement for it. I'm just tired tonight.

Speaker 1 (45:59)

I also can't help but feel that excitement. And I've got one big question, so I want you to imagine technically I would call it a potentiometer, but we're going to water down. We're going to call it a dial. On one side of the dial. We have super hyper niche. On the other side of the dial we have wide. If you're launching a local podcast, what should that setting be?

Speaker 2 (46:24)

I think it depends on what kind of podcasts are launching.

Speaker 1 (46:29)

What would you pitch in the locals? I know you're going to say that. So in the context of being local. How do we distinguish because what you gave there, the reason why Bryden asked that question is because it seemed that the pie is biased towards wide, like there's actually more juice, there's more ability discover because actually local you could actually niche and podcast something for a year and actually be talking to no one and being like, I'm just going to hold on. And then eventually you got a bad idea. So my instinct was like, go wide until the market tells you there's a niche that you could serve specifically like and this, you know, something specifically special about something that my instinct was the dial would be wide until you truly know how to make the impact, where the money, where the impact, where the stories are going to come, what's getting the most juice out of the squeeze of the orange? Because I feel like the liability with the local one is a little bit higher than a wide one.

Speaker 1 (47:28)

You just can't just keep going. You've got to have at least some street tread on this podcast when you start hate it running. Otherwise you're just podcasting into the and even more because you're speaking to a smaller group.

Speaker 2 (47:38)

You know? And I would actually go the exact opposite. My sense is that you should start as small as possible for several reasons. One, the more targeted you are, the easier it is to find your defined audience and to, you know, have a core focus, right? If you try to be everything to everybody, you'll be nothing to nobody. So if you could be one thing to one group and that's your local community, great. Like be hyper focused on that. And then as you find your success right, as you grow, as you build up, you can bring in more people, explore more areas, right? Like you can kind of figure out the formula there and then grow it and get bigger and whatnot. And that's true of like we said earlier with a lot of things, right? Small businesses, even large businesses and restaurants, like they don't launch something and go attack everybody. Right. They start small. You have a lot of restaurants that when they're first opening up and they want to franchise, what do they do?

Speaker 2 (48:33)

They go to Orlando because Orlando is a market that brings in people from all around the country and they see, does it work here? Great. If it works here now, we're going to expand outward, right? They don't come in and say we're opening up 8000 restaurants. We're opening up three restaurants. If it works, great, we'll build up from there. Same thing should be happening with your content. Number two, to your point about, you know, you want to, you know, kind of have a wide berth and, you know, try and get people. I think what you want to do is you want to be local because if you aren't doing it correctly, right, if you're making a ton of mistakes, if you're not comfortable, if you're awkward or whatever, right? Like I'd rather make mistakes to ten people than make mistakes to a thousand people. And then, you know, you.

Speaker 1 (49:18)

Can actually dial it up and go wide when you're ready. Actually, it's yeah, I like that because I've always say there's everybody sucks at podcasting, but you got to publish in each week to get through that sucking face. In this particular case, there's a lot of value and I was hiding in a corner of the county while you get through that phase, and then once you have it ready and fine tuned, you can sync up that frequency to what you know may be true and or make that pivot. And you land in the nearest star that's a seasoned podcaster. And they like where this overnight success come from. All I've secretly been podcasting about the history of our county for the last six months, but nobody listened.

Speaker 2 (49:52)

Yeah, I mean, I think you and listen. Yeah. Everything is going to take time if you're trying to take it. And plus, truthfully, I think because of the geography of this country is so different. Right. Like, if I say I'm doing something statewide, geographically, that doesn't cover a massive area. Right. Jersey's like the and I know something like the fifth or sixth smallest state in the country. Population wise, though, we're up there in the top ten or something like that. Right. So it it's hard to. Say that I'm going to go large and to stay when that can mean so many different things, right. If I'm statewide in Wyoming, I'm covering as many people as if I was doing my county here in New Jersey, let's say. I know those are not fair. Numbers are comparisons. Again, don't ask me. I don't care. I'm just, you know, making it, speaking in hyperbole. Um, but right. Like, you can really know, you can really define something if you start small.

Speaker 2 (50:46)

So if you're in a big city, start with your neighborhood. If you're in a small town. Start with your town. Or maybe start with a couple of towns nearby. Right. Like, I love the idea of somebody doing a restaurant review show of some sort. Right. Like we're the best place. Steve in South Jersey. Or forget South Jersey where the best. There's a guy actually I just started talking to. He runs a website. 70 and 73 dot com. Like, what the hell? 70 and 73. 70 and 73 are the two big, like, commercial highways that stretch across these five towns around me. Right. Every business, every like one of those two roads is what you're taking to get to something, right? If you wanna get to the highway, the city, the shore, whatever, like you're getting on one of these two. So his coverage area are where these five towns intersect with these two highways. That's a great coverage area because, yeah, maybe I'm in Voorhees.

Speaker 2 (51:39)

If I just did Voorhees, that wouldn't cover anything I do. Most of the stuff I do is actually not in Voorhees because I'm on the border of my town and the closest shopping center is actually in Cherry Hill or my grocery store is actually in Marlton or the studio is in Mount Laurel. Right. Like. So that's like a nice defined area of people. And you can, you know, you can keep a lot of people's interest that way. So I, I suffice to say what I think is start small, make your mistakes, you know, what do they say? Um. Oh, what do they say when you're, like, first starting out of a job? Um. Something with your bones. Make your bones. Is that like, is that the expression? Some stupid like that?

Speaker 1 (52:24)

I haven't heard anything about Bones.

Speaker 2 (52:26)

Maybe that's an East Coast thing more.

Speaker 1 (52:27)

I've heard always. My. My brain is, like, fail fast or something like that.

Speaker 2 (52:33)

Fail fast. Listen, if you're a big athlete, you started high school sports and then you go to college and then you go to the nationals and maybe you got to play in the minor leagues. You don't start in the you don't start in the majors or the nationals and then work your way backwards. Same thing should go here.

Speaker 1 (52:46)

I agree. And I curse of being a podcasters coming up with random good names and random moments. And I just had one that I would like to gift any listener out there to Podcast Me Anything because this one could apply to almost everything. And now it could be a little bit technical because every person would start publishing this name, but it has kind of this at least an illusion that you could launch with a different idea. Success Leaves Clues, a voice of reason in Washington County, and your podcast essentially just interviewed the clues that are left by successful people and businesses in your county, because how many people do you know, starting two businesses. And the moment you visit those businesses, you're like, this isn't going to make it six months. What if your podcast led to clues of a place down the road that's thriving, but this guy struggling, and he now has a place where he never has to admit that he's struggling, but he has a place to listen in his ears. But that guy down the road is actually doing in his business to actually make it thrive.

Speaker 1 (53:39)

To me that like and get you connected gets you connected to well connected people, gets you connected to people that you probably don't even have any good reason to talk to. And it won't make time for you any other way unless you're at like a chamber event and it just allows you to get a nice, good baked connection to the system of your county, but then at the same time you're providing value. And like to me that success leaves clues. I think Tony Robbins says that, and I think that could be a lot of value because there's a lot of businesses that fail in each county. And one of those heart wrenching things, when I go visit a restaurant and I'm like, man, you're not going to make it, but they're not going to be able to listen because they're not in a mindset to listen because they don't like taking feedback. When you usually you get started or the businesses that are going to fail don't like taking feedback. You could be the person. This is why podcasting is so popular.

Speaker 1 (54:25)

No one knows where you're listening between your two ears. This is like a growth hack for people that don't know what podcasting is, but need it and need the clues that success is left in their town. And no one has to know and everybody wins. It really has a good ring to it of finding those clues and podcasting about it.

Speaker 2 (54:44)

Yeah. And listen, it doesn't you don't have to do this because you have a business. You can do this because you need a job. Right. Who's the hiring manager? More likely to pick up someone who they already met? Somebody if they're having interaction with. Where are you going? To make friends. Right. We're going to get opportunities. You got to meet people. He got to go out there and network. You got to go out there and communicate. And podcasting, video casting, blogging, even even having a focused social media account. Right. You don't have to put a giant media production together to get started. Do a couple of reels. Right, do a couple of quick Instagram videos or Facebook videos or live whatever you want to do. Just. I think if you could focus small, you can actually be on the road to going big.

Speaker 1 (55:28)

I agree. And hopefully if you've taken anything from this podcast away, which hopefully you've taken a lot away, but the minimum that I want you to think about is the bigger problem you're thinking about. If you have an itch to podcast or maybe you're already podcasting is this is almost like that funnel up approach, like going down and find that one person next story that you really could help and then funneling up to them and figuring out how more of those people you could help. And to me, this, like we talked about the beginning, this is a big idea that is not talked about enough. It does not get enough glamor and attention from the media because there's so many shiny objects in podcasting that make millions of dollars. And this isn't the million dollar idea, but it could be locally because there's a lot of good ideas locally that never make it national. So hopefully this episode inspired you. And I would also hopefully if you felt like called to hear more of Matthew's passion and localizing podcast, reach out the podcast, consultant, the podcast and Salon.com.

Speaker 1 (56:25)

There is a consultant call that you can get to understand your idea, sharpen it, and go from that itch to a podcast to a launch in an successful area that you could probably be the only one for years. Podcasting in your county. Like to me, that's a good that's a good place to be and a good place to start.

Speaker 2 (56:45)

And keep your keep your eyes out for town cast podcast town cast dot com or town care studios. We're coming to a local community near you.

Speaker 1 (56:57)

Well, Matthew, thank you for another episode and wrapping up here at Studio three.

Speaker 2 (57:04)

Tonight's.