Podcasting as Platform

Tom Nixon (00:01.626)
Well, Curtis, if listeners and viewers remember last week, you tried to call the podcasting police on me. Remember that?

Curtis Hays (00:08.644)
I do. I do remember. It was a great episode.

Tom Nixon (00:11.696)
Yeah, I was going to say it didn’t work because we talked about podcasting the entire podcast and we’re to do the same today. So there you go.

Curtis Hays (00:18.572)
We are going to do the same today. Well, you know, it’s actually well received. Jessica brought a lot to the table, talking about advertising, but just really what’s happening in the space and of podcasting. And we’ve talked a lot about our success, but we’ve got a great story today, that I think I want Matt Luria to share. we had Matt, I was like episode four, I think you were one of our first guests on season one, Matt, and appreciated having you on. we talked a little bit about.

cybersecurity and marketing in the IT services, managed services space. And so what got me thinking the other day was, Matt, you and I sat down, or actually I had your family over to the house for dinner. And we started talking, you started asking me some questions about podcasting and how it was going. And I gave you some early insights and then you jumped both feet in.

to podcasting pretty much, I don’t know, 30, 60 days after that.

Start there. Tell me about that. What’s really sparked your interest into podcasting right there?

Matt Loria (01:29.366)
Well, I think, I recall the story more correctly, you said you have to do podcasting. So I felt it was an edict. But I would like to back up because when you talked about the podcasting police, it’s got me thinking of the cops episodes. So was Curtis in his front yard wearing a wife beater, know, maybe have pants on, not have pants on. Is that like how that worked? OK, good, good. And he was smoking again, right?

Curtis Hays (01:34.082)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (01:52.09)
Yeah. For some reason he had like a Southern draw for that episode. I don’t know why that was, but yeah, of course. Yeah. At all times.

Matt Loria (01:58.798)
Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Awesome. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, for anybody here who thinks that Curtis is the buttoned up cowboy that he appears to be on the bulls eyes and bull horns episodes, we know another version. So, but yeah, so thanks for actually pushing me into the deep end, not really giving me an option. I appreciate that. But as you’ve known me for a long time, that’s kind of how I operate is I go.

Curtis Hays (02:00.484)
Know me all too well.

Tom Nixon (02:14.448)
We do.

Matt Loria (02:28.278)
I go all in when I do something. And so that’s what I did with the, with the podcast here and not looking back, very happy to, you know, to be doing it. think it’s providing value to people around me, which is what I anticipated and what I set out to do. So yeah, we’re, keeping with it.

Curtis Hays (02:48.356)
So, Tom, before we dive in, there’s another piece of this that I want to maybe kick this back to you. You said something last week that like podcasting and shorts and, you know, just the content production, we’ve been, it’s a form of content marketing. We’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s just a different form, content marketing we’ve been doing for a long time. Blog writing and press releases and

social media activity and those types of things just happens to be podcast is in another form of that. And I remember Matt, we had breakfast like two years ago and we were talking marketing and I said, you just need a full-time content person. Like get somebody in the office that can be taking photos, filming video and creating your story and then, and talking about and educating about.

the things that Oxiom does and then just push that content out. So first, Tom, talk about that and where you’ve kind of seen content marketing evolve because you are a content marketing expert, in my opinion. And then, Matt, I’m really curious to learn like that journey and your thought process because you did end up going and hiring some people. You made a significant investment. It wasn’t kind of the small bootstrap.

way that we started out podcasting, you actually made a pretty significant investment in what I would say risk. You are an entrepreneur. I know you’re willing to take risks and they’re calculated, but I want to hear about that journey. But first, Tom, do you know, content marketing in general, talk about that evolution, set that up.

Tom Nixon (04:32.774)
Yep. Well, unfortunately I have to say I’m old enough to remember, um, because I’m old enough to have heard the term. would anyone probably about a dozen times going back to the mid nineties when I, business owner would say, why would anyone need a website? Right. So it was crazy. Do you remember those days? And then, uh, maybe around 2000, 2000 ish. Why would anyone want to blog?

Curtis Hays (04:54.66)
Yep.

Tom Nixon (05:00.39)
No one cares what I had for lunch. There was always a why would anyone be on social media? And here we are again. I would say now everyone’s on social media. Every company has a website. Most of them have blogs. To your point, this is what we’ve been doing. And now I keep hearing this resistance. Why would anyone want a podcast? Aren’t there enough podcasts out there? Right. And so I think what you’re referring to is the quip that, you know, someone said, does the world everyone says, does the world really need another podcast? And I always say, does the world need another website? You got one of those.

Right? The point where I’m making tongue in cheek is that this is the, just another medium for doing something that everyone’s finally adopted, which is get the expertise out of your head, get it into some form of content and get it out into the market. And now people recognize content marketing is like a checkbox that has to be done. And all I’m saying is that this is just another way for you to get your best ideas in front of your audiences that might not want to read a 1200 word blog post that might not.

want to watch a video, but they might want to consume ideas, learn things, gain expertise on the treadmill, walking the dog on the commute to work. So podcasting and audio form, I think fits perfectly into that type of format. So over to you, Matt. So aside from being shoved into the deep end, you obviously you recognize some sort of value in this. I can’t believe you would just believe Curtis over a few cocktails and a dinner party.

What did the initial going back to kind of what Curtis was serving up to you as a question. I’ll just frame it this way. If there were a creative brief for your podcast, what would it have said? Why are we doing this? Who’s it for? What are we going to focus on?

Matt Loria (06:37.198)
Cough

Matt Loria (06:42.818)
Yeah. Okay. Well, great question. You know, I’m one of these people that I need to hear things three times. I need to get kicked in the head a few times before I actually jump in and do something. So while it might have felt like that, you know, Curtis was the the shove, there was there was a few shoves kind of before this. And so one was about a year prior. I had I had been in the offices of a friend of mine, Jake Monti, who they own the Monti companies up in northern Michigan.

And there was they had a had a video studio and it was right around, you know, Curtis and I had been talking about video and and things of that nature. And I said, what are you what are you doing with this video studio? And they said, you know, we’re all full in on this book called They Ask You Answer. And so we call it Taya around here, T-A-Y. But it’s it’s all about creating.

answering the questions that your customers are already asking, that they’re already out there Googling, that they want to know, and that you want them to know the answers to before they even really engage with you, to be quite frank. And I didn’t really know exactly how to get going with that. So that was kind of one of those touch points was reading the book, right? And hearing the story of Marcus Sheridan, the owner of the company where this whole thing was developed for them. They were a pool company.

who basically started answering all the customers’ questions via their website and through other media before the customer really even had to pick up the phone to call them. so that was kind of one big nudge there. And then, of course, seeing that a friend of mine was leveraging it appropriately really was encouraging to me. The second nudge was just kind of my overall demeanor. And for you guys, because you’ve known me for a long time, I

I do find pride in connecting people with valuable connections, not like a mega networker or something like that where it’s not welcome. I’m looking to, with everybody I meet, I’m saying, who could provide value to this person or could this person provide value to? And it’s really quite never, you’re an insurance person. I’m going to plug you into my friend who owns a business so they can buy your insurance from them.

Matt Loria (09:06.646)
a more deep connection that I’m trying to make with people. And so going into lunches or breakfasts or whatever you might say, I’m always thinking about who could I connect this person to? Who could they provide value to or vice versa? And I was at lunch one day and I’m just thinking, boy, I’m really very fortunate that I’m sitting here with this person, hearing their story. What a cool story. Why don’t I figure out how to…

scale this. And so then it was, why not hit record on this and share this with others and then kind of take that connection piece to the next level. Right. So that’s really what started it, because those conversations, they were deep. You know, they were life transformation, faith failure. know, they’re not just, you know, so what do you do for a living type of conversation? that was Genesis.

Tom Nixon (10:00.538)
I gotta ask because I love our podcast, Bullhorns and Bullseyes, I love explaining why we call it that. Tell us the name of your podcast, why that’s the name and how you came up with it.

Matt Loria (10:11.8)
Okay, so I’m a big acronym guy. And so, you know, the idea was really kind of fully baked, you know, sitting at that lunch of going, hey, I’m pretty blessed. I get to sit here with these interesting people having lunch. And so I picked the sandwich as the first part of the idea. And then I said, okay, well, I don’t necessarily eat a lot of bacon, but I’ll call it a BLTNT. A BLT, bacon,

sorry, business, life, technology, and transformations. And really the transformations are the part that I love hearing. I love hearing when somebody went low and they figured out how to, you know, you know, raise up above it or, you know, kind of took a contrarian view to something and, you know, had a success or, you know, left a steady job and was able to go out and make it happen. so,

Those transformations are really exciting to me. So I took the BLT sandwich and I put a stick of dynamite in it, called it the BLTNT and here we are.

Tom Nixon (11:16.42)
Love it. That’s great, Curtis.

Curtis Hays (11:18.178)
How many episodes have you done now, Matt?

Matt Loria (11:20.236)
I think we’re close to 50 in the can, if you will, as we say in the biz. Yeah, yeah, I use all sorts of movie terminology now. And I think we’ve got 30 some posted currently.

Tom Nixon (11:26.054)
Yes, now that you’re in the business, you could use the terminology. Yes.

Curtis Hays (11:26.436)
Ha!

Curtis Hays (11:38.181)
That’s great. You’re going to pass us up. So you went, you got some employees. I mentioned that you made a significant investment. just like, we just have Riverside. We got some microphones. You know, we spent a few hundred dollars and then we did some branding and you know, I’d say all in we may be, I don’t have a problem sharing this, you $5,000, let’s just say in cost to get our podcast going. We’ve definitely recouped that, you know, plus, but you went a level above that.

Matt Loria (11:59.107)
Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (12:06.018)
You’ve got a studio, you’ve got some employees that are helping you. Tell us about that and why you felt like that was important for you to make that step into the investment side of it, right? Which just showed your willingness to make a big commitment to this too.

Matt Loria (12:22.53)
Yeah. You know, look, I just recognize that I have a certain, you know, very limited number of skills. And I know that one of the skills that I lack is being organized in a way that I could, you know, that I could do things like leveraging virtual assistants or managing third party outsourced folks to help me with these types of things. And I just knew that I couldn’t.

So I knew that I had to bring it in in-house and have, you know, somebody that was managing it. Now, that person does at times leverage outside resources, but really they’re the control point. So there was that on the employee side. I just knew that I couldn’t, I just knew that I couldn’t and wouldn’t follow through with it the same way if I didn’t.

Curtis Hays (13:14.176)
Mm-hmm. System of accountability, we talk about that a lot, Yep.

Tom Nixon (13:17.904)
That’s right. Yep. If only we had such a thing here.

Matt Loria (13:20.418)
Yeah, I’ve armed her with a cattle prod so she can just prod me with it. You know, anytime she needs me to get something done. yeah, reminders. Yeah. Microsoft reminders. Don’t don’t don’t do it, but but electrical current does a great job at reminding me.

Curtis Hays (13:25.988)
There you go, more,

Tom Nixon (13:26.03)
Now we need cattle prods branded with our logo.

Tom Nixon (13:36.026)
What better fit for our brand? So here’s another industry term, Matt. I want to throw it by you. Since you know, I’m in business podcasting insider, the whole concept, the whole concept of pod fading, which is people get into it with all this enthusiasm. Maybe they have delusions of grandeur or, know, they have their metric for whether or not this is a success is different. And then early on, we’ve been up front with this Curtis, you know, early on the sort of

Matt Loria (13:38.316)
you

Matt Loria (13:44.398)
Yeah, a lot of guys in the business, sure.

Tom Nixon (14:05.324)
signals that you’re smashing success aren’t entirely obvious because you’re not Joe Rogan. You’re not getting approached by advertisers daily and you don’t have millions of followers. How did you, how did you go into it? what were you judging success or failure by? And then what was your reaction early on? And obviously now you sustained it. So whatever it was, this is working for you. So talk to metrics, Matt.

Matt Loria (14:31.5)
Yeah, so I mean, I go and seek out experts, you know, and ask their opinions. And so I was talking to a friend of mine who I knew was building a podcast studio at the time he was he was running Imagine Theaters. And so they were they built a they built a podcast studio out at at their Birmingham location. So if anybody ever wants to use or rent one and.

or have guests like a number of guests watching as a podcast gets shot, you can actually do that at Imagine Theater. So Anthony Laverde was the CEO at the time there. And I just asked him, know, hey, what are you guys doing with this room that you’ve been telling me about? And we were chatting. He introduced me to a fella named Greg Garrett who runs a podcast called You, Me, and Your Top Three. And so I called Greg and I said, hey, you

Talk to me. Why is this working? What are you doing with it? Now, he’s an audio only podcast, but he just told me, hey, look, you got to get 20 episodes shot before before a you’re really going to prove to yourself that you’re committed to doing this. So he didn’t use that word pod fade. But, certainly I can I can see where that comes from. But but he basically said, hey, look, you’ll you’ll really find out if you’re truly committed to this and you’ll find out what your real through line is.

on all of it and get that real sense of what the show is going to become and what it really should be. that was that next kind of kick and bit of advice that helped me to get past the pod fade. That’s one part of it. The other part of it is I also knew in setting this up that this couldn’t be simply a monologue sort of me just talking sort of

I knew that I would totally crap out on that just for not being energized. I’m energized by other people. So I know that I have to hear other people and to have other people to talk with. And so in hearing their stories, so anytime that I’ve had a little moment of like, got to do one again, it really, that’s very faint and very seldom.

Matt Loria (16:51.331)
Because usually what happens is the next day I end up meeting somebody who Whether I’ve known him for a long time or just meet him. I’m like, that’s a good story to share We got to go do that. You know, it’s kind of like a calling

Tom Nixon (17:02.64)
Yeah. The conversations, Curtis are so valuable to have just even if you weren’t recording them, the connections that you make, the conversations that you have, the relationships that you ultimately either build or nurture are so valuable. But yet we wouldn’t be on this call if we weren’t hitting record, right? We wouldn’t all say, let’s take an hour out of our day and just chit chat about podcasting. Right. I mean, isn’t that some of the biggest value you found, Curtis is just meeting these people and then you meet the people that they know, et cetera.

Curtis Hays (17:30.647)
Yeah, well, what’s funny there, so Matt, you you know that I know Anthony Laverde, because our daughters went to school together. But then the funny story is you just dropped Greg. Greg, actually, I’ve known going back to when our kids were in kindergarten, they went to school together. Greg’s wife and I taught math pentathlon at Harlan and did that for like three or four years. And their family is really good friends with

the family that we stay with up near Traverse City. So yeah, and you would get along really well with Greg because I’m pretty sure they’re a ski family as well. I don’t know if you got to know Greg well enough to know that they’re a big time ski family. And his he has had that podcast going back probably 10 years, I sat down and had coffee with him in Birmingham when I first started out on my own. And we were talking about

Matt Loria (18:03.29)
no kidding.

Matt Loria (18:11.854)
I didn’t really get to know him. No, I didn’t realize that.

Curtis Hays (18:26.564)
know, his podcast and what he was doing and a website for that and you know, different things. But yeah, I mean, a longtime podcaster over over 10 years. Yeah. So let’s see you at US these conversations, you’re right, Tom. They I’ve said this before, the value I get a lot of times in having these conversations, just the education that I’m

Matt Loria (18:34.274)
Small world.

Curtis Hays (18:52.376)
You know, and you’re listening to podcasts, getting education all the time. Some are at a personal level. Some are, you know, business related. It’s like, why not have these conversations as well and bring in the various, you know, experts and professionals that I’ve met along the way and bring those conversations to anyone else who wants to hear about them and let those people tell those stories.

And that’s what’s cool. You’re doing the same thing, Matt, just not… Talk about your niche a little bit so that you’re tied to your name. You’re wanting people to really tell their stories and their journeys connected to transformations that they’ve had personally or within their businesses and those types of things, right?

Matt Loria (19:43.382)
Yeah. Yeah, I look at it as though the audience for our podcast is is the same audience that twofold. If you think that you would fit into a YPO or an EO or a Vistage group or a or a peer a peer executive type of group, this is for you. If you also.

are a speaker or an educator or a coach that would go speak in front of executives in those types of groups, it’s for you as well. And so that’s really what I would then call, this is for lifelong learners. It’s for people who love a good story and who love to learn from other people and are not willing to just sit back and say, I’ve got it all figured out.

That’s kind of the, you know, who it’s built for and who’s really been listening and what the metrics tell us of who’s listening and watching.

Tom Nixon (20:47.886)
If you were Matt, if you were at the dinner party where you really were at with Curtis, but there was like this out of body experience, knowing what you know now, what would you have told that Luria back then when Curtis said you have to podcast.

Matt Loria (21:00.802)
Well, Curtis does live on a farm and there are these mushrooms that he served me. So I actually had that out of, no, I’m just kidding. You know, what would I do different? I think I would.

Tom Nixon (21:03.974)
You

Curtis Hays (21:04.301)
Hey.

Tom Nixon (21:12.526)
No, what would you what would you just tell yourself maybe to like encourage yourself to do this something that you know now that you didn’t know then?

Matt Loria (21:18.098)
interesting. I think the encouragement would be you have no idea how many people this is going to impact in positive ways. And I guess I, I thought it was going to be pretty cool. Like I thought it was going to be pretty cool that, you know, I interview Curtis and Tom, and then this episode gets posted on their socials and it gets posted on mine. And maybe somebody makes that cross connection of,

that we know each other or maybe somebody gives a little bit of cache to each other, whether we build somebody else up or they build us up. I would have never really known, one, the deepening of the friendships that this would have caused with the guests, the better knowledge of myself that it would have caused.

I think those are the things for sure that I didn’t expect as that would have been great shots in the arm had I known that. But I also think that I had to go into it not knowing what it was going to be. Otherwise, I would have maybe been too focused on personal gain as opposed to the original of, hey, let’s see if we can highlight some people, share some stories.

Curtis Hays (22:39.038)
You didn’t mention that this whole time. This is what’s interesting to me, Tom, is Matt didn’t say he got into this to make more money. I think if you’re going to start a podcast with the goal of trying to make more money, you’re probably not. It’s not going to happen potentially, but you’re not aligned appropriately. Yeah.

Matt Loria (22:57.558)
I think it’s really tough. think when you went because what you said earlier, right? mean, I think Tom, think when you were teeing this off, you were like, hey, why would we want another one in the millions of I think there’s is there for I can’t remember how many millions of podcasts. There’s just millions of them. Why does it why does it need more? Well, first of all, I guess there can be value created in a variety of ways. But if but if you’re going into this thinking

I’m going to make money off of it. think that I think the competition there is so steep. Right. I I went into this specifically saying I love watching Joe Rogan. I love listening to the clips. I love how they break it up into clips. I love you know, I’ve I’ve rarely listened to an entire three hour episode, you know, unless I’m on a long road trip or something. But I’m not I’ve got no misgivings that that I’m going to start getting.

you know, a hundred million dollar offers from Spotify or that, that advertiser goes, going to want to pay to be on it. now I was pleasantly surprised when initially an advertiser did agree to, put some money towards it. so that, that was, that was a nice, a nice offset and, and some value to them. I need to expand upon that further, I think, because it is an expensive endeavor and we’re not, you know, we can’t go on forever with, without, something funding it.

Tom Nixon (24:23.142)
Well, let’s come back to that because it real quick. wanted to just build off that. So if, or the prior thought, if the, the explicit goal is not to quote unquote, make money off of this Curtis, but we can point to either clients that we’ve come out of the woodwork because of it, or it, there’s a case where a client is sort of did their evaluation of our agency by listening to a bunch of episodes. it’s impacted business, even though that’s not our explicit goal. So let me ask you, Curtis.

I was the one nudging you back in the day. I said, Curtis, you need to you hired me to write a case study for you. I just interviewed your one of your best clients. This is not a case study. This is a podcast. This is a story that has many story arcs. Let’s tell the story and continue to tell the story. And so you had to then evaluate crazy person, Tom. What would you have said to Curtis back then if you were in the car with you when I told you you have to have a pocket?

Curtis Hays (25:21.686)
Yeah, I was sort of anti podcast, I would say for quite a while. I definitely wasn’t at that point in time, but having worked with you already for a year or so, I started to learn the importance of just storytelling and things like authenticity and in the work that I was doing, seeing companies just create content for the sake of creating content and no substance behind it and

seeing those companies just sort of churn the wheel and never really get any sort of traction. And so I guess when I sort of, and I had blogged and created content and posted stuff on social media and those types of things and never really saw any traction, but knew I needed to do some sort of marketing. And so you sort of convinced me, but in a framework of this is storytelling, right? So I had clients who that I felt had good stories to tell.

And I wanted to share those stories. And so that was like, huh, actually, this could be something. And this is a unique way to do that without high-end video production and those types of things. And it’s not just a written case study that nobody’s going to read. Let’s actually bring those customers on the show and let them tell their stories. And people are going to believe them over there, going to believe me saying,

you know, this stuff actually works. Let’s let’s let them say that it actually works. But also, what I found through that whole process is like marketing is not a magic bullet that it’s both sides of it. And so you know, what I wanted to also bring to value is, you know, there are companies like Assisted Living Services and Mario who we brought on all the changes that they did internally, along with the changes that we did to help propel their company forward.

And then bringing on other experts like Amy Schuster and different people like that who have been able to confirm those things and talk about what they’re doing in organizations to help their sales and marketing.

Tom Nixon (27:29.51)
Yep, absolutely. Matt, your podcast is video as well as audio, right? So in something that Curtis mentioned, a case study that nobody’s going to read as a, as a writer, I still believe in the written word, obviously. And there are certain people who don’t want to, they’d rather scan a document than sit through a three hour Joe Rogan episode or whatever. So there’s still value in both, but with AI and all of the slop that’s coming out in the ability to generate written content.

Matt Loria (27:33.464)
Correct.

Tom Nixon (27:58.468)
You use the word authenticity, Curtis. So Matt, this is something that AI cannot do currently, at least authentically appear on screen and show the world the true and authentic Matt Loria. And there’s value in that. You want people to get to know you because in the B2B world, what people do business with people they like. Exactly. So tell us a little bit about your commitment to video, because that is something that Curtis actually had to

Matt Loria (28:19.128)
people that they know, like and trust.

Tom Nixon (28:28.442)
sort of plug into my vision for what his podcast could look like. But you like video.

Matt Loria (28:32.372)
Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I can tell you this I I would have never done the video part had I not well I probably would have never done it again had Curtis not given me the last nudge there but I definitely wouldn’t have done the video piece had I not seen that there was an a Simpler on ramp, know like the Riverside platform And how it how it spits out the shorts in such a way. So that was kind of like the the the real nudge, but I also just thought

I know how I am. I connect better with video in certain cases, right? If I’m sitting still, I connect better with video. I’ll fall asleep listening to an audiobook unless I’m driving. And then I still might start to get tired and have to shift back to the radio for a while, but I can listen while I’m driving. I can’t listen while I’m anywhere other than confined into a car.

So I just knew that for me, that’s how I would consume. I’m learning though also back to what your point is, is that other people learn through different ways. I don’t really know how to connect that much through the writing and I don’t feel like I get connected to people through writing, but I do feel like that can bolster it. And so I am seeing that next steps and phases of this are, I think it’s time.

now to add a newsletter or a weekly email that just says, hey, here’s who I talked to last week. Here’s some really cool things that came out. Here’s some things that I learned. Maybe some theme based episodes, things like that that might be just a little bit different than what we’re doing. I think it’s a I think again, like everything in life, whether whether it’s business or a religion or whatever, you have to meet people where they are. And so.

You know, I think it would be crazy to think that this could only be written or only be audio or only be video. think it just, I think this is what we’re realizing is that people learn in different ways. mean, we’ve known that forever, that people learn in different ways. So I think we have to just say, well, heck, got to create the content in every way.

Curtis Hays (30:43.842)
Thank

Tom Nixon (30:51.558)
Curtis, you were the one that said, let’s convert this to a newsletter, a written newsletter, right?

Curtis Hays (30:54.628)
Yeah, yeah, I get excited when Matt said that now because I don’t know if you’re I think I talked to your team about the LinkedIn newsletters. So I don’t know if they shared that with you, but

Matt Loria (31:03.628)
You did. Yeah. And actually a friend of mine, Scott Schoenenberger has a really great newsletter that he puts out and does that through LinkedIn. So yeah, he’s shown me that as well and also is following through with it. He’s much more disciplined in his taking the time to do the writing and to catalog it all.

Curtis Hays (31:31.365)
Yeah, I would just say simply to get people to subscribe. So that like friction and just getting somebody to commit to opting into something. I had the website up for over a year with a newsletter subscribe on the website, just a form for email address and got one in one year. Okay, so but we had and we did a concerted effort to get to I think 150 was that that sort of pinnacle mark.

Matt Loria (31:52.482)
Wow.

Curtis Hays (32:01.11)
inside of LinkedIn of followers on our Bullhorns and Bulls Eyes page, which then allows you to do newsletters. And in the first week of the 150 that were followers, 60 became subscribers to the newsletter when I sent the first newsletter. And I think it’s up over 100 now. So, you know, we’re talking like a fraction of a conversion rate on my website, and then

Matt Loria (32:17.443)
Hmm.

Curtis Hays (32:29.548)
You know, you get a 33 % conversion rate through the LinkedIn platform to just opt in.

Matt Loria (32:33.953)
Yeah, it’s wild. And that was the that’s the same thing that Scott had said. So Scott is up to as of today. His is called The Spark. Five hundred and thirty nine subscribers, you know, started off with with with zero. Right now. I don’t I don’t remember when it actually started. I’m seeing if I can if I can see that. But let’s see. Yep, two months ago. So in two months.

Curtis Hays (32:43.118)
Okay.

Matt Loria (33:02.062)
539 subscribers. So, I mean, look at those numbers. It’s wild.

Curtis Hays (33:03.628)
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (33:07.824)
Well, that goes back to meeting people where they are like Matt was saying. so, you know, I think people are more protective of their email inboxes than they are of other things. So the willingness to sign up for a LinkedIn newsletter does not put the chill up your spine. here we go. I’m going to get spammed and this is going to be constant and I got to hit delete and all that stuff. So that said, other people would rather aren’t even on LinkedIn, right? So how are you going to reach the people that aren’t on LinkedIn if you’re only on LinkedIn? So

The I think the moral of the story is one piece of content. I’ve said this in the past. You could record a 30 minute conversation like this and have a podcast episode. Have 10 video shorts. You could have writing up the show notes could be a blog post with the lessons learned. You put that into a newsletter and you’ve got like so many babies put it out on social media. All your bases are covered and all you have to do is have 130 minute conversation. That’s almost as fun as the one we’re having today.

Curtis Hays (34:04.068)
I have some data here. So our last episode with Jessica, just YouTube. So I manage a lot on the YouTube side. I say in the first couple days before I really put out too many shorts, we maybe had four or five views on the full video and YouTube. There were some great sound bites from that episode. Jessica.

Tom Nixon (34:04.144)
Curtis?

Curtis Hays (34:29.538)
you know, I think laid out some really good facts and had some really good things to say about what’s happening in the podcasting space. I don’t know if you caught that episode, Matt, but she’s, she’s a selling advertising. She was at clear channel and sold radio advertising, and now she’s over selling advertising for a branch of now Fox. And so that’s your Megan Kelly’s and your Tucker Carlson’s and all of them. They’ve got the, the advertising that’s happening on, those channels.

Matt Loria (34:39.117)
I didn’t.

Curtis Hays (34:58.693)
She’s selling those ads.

Tom Nixon (35:00.592)
This is the podcasting police I spoke of because her name is Jessica police. So I misunderstood.

Curtis Hays (35:03.394)
Yes, is Jessica Police. You know Dominic Police, don’t you, Matt? Do you know Dominic? Okay. He might be a De La Salle guy, but younger, you my age.

Matt Loria (35:05.312)
Okay, this is when Curtis was running across.

Matt Loria (35:15.448)
It’s still hard for me to just not picture you running across the lawn with a cigarette in your mouth and a sleeveless shirt and your underpants.

Tom Nixon (35:19.75)
You

Curtis Hays (35:21.156)
I’ve spent a lot of time in the tractor lately, so you could come over and help me move dirt. We’re moving dirt right now.

Matt Loria (35:24.588)
Okay.

No, I need you to be in some sort of domestic violence, you know, sort of altercation for a bit.

Tom Nixon (35:28.326)
Sorry, I took us off track.

Curtis Hays (35:35.486)
For you, Matt, I’ll wear a wife beater on the next episode.

Matt Loria (35:38.232)
Perfect,

Tom Nixon (35:39.128)
OK, I’m not going to be on that one, but continue.

Curtis Hays (35:42.393)
So we’re at on our shorts. I showed you we started at like five views on the on the full video. Our shorts are I think I’ve launched about eight were over 5000 views on the shorts and YouTube if you combine them all. And then that’s brought our full video views to 25. Because the shorts are pulling people into the video. I haven’t done anything else to promote the full video. So the shorts have we talked about like

Matt Loria (36:04.558)
Mm.

Curtis Hays (36:07.78)
People come up to me like, hey, I watch your podcast and be like, oh, I started asking them some questions about an episode they watched and that whole thing. They just saw some of the clips. Like you were saying, Matt, it’s hard to get through a whole episode of Joe Rogan. They’re two, three hours long. There’s a couple that are like something you really want to learn about and you like that speaker and you’ll take the time on a long drive or while you’re sitting in the tractor moving dirt, you’ll listen to an entire episode.

Matt Loria (36:17.142)
Right.

Matt Loria (36:34.904)
Sure.

Curtis Hays (36:35.982)
But otherwise, yeah, you’re getting most of the clips that are posted on social media. And we’re effectively doing the same thing here. to have the metric be only, again, that’s like saying, I’m going to put a screen reader, which you can do on your website. And I’m only going to count views on this blog post for people who read the entire thing word for word.

Matt Loria (36:58.99)
Sure.

Curtis Hays (37:00.292)
It’s like, no, people skim and they’re going to look for headlines and they’re going to find the things that interest them. And that’s what they’re going to retain. And then they’re going to go and see if there’s anything else they want to learn more. And if for some reason it is really intriguing and they want to dive into the details, then go ahead and let them do that. But I think the expectation that people are going to read every single word on your blog is not likely. And it’s not likely they’re going to watch every second of every episode of your podcast either.

Matt Loria (37:28.554)
You know, something to add to that though is you will be humbled and surprised when you do find the people that do commit to that and do that. watch the whole episode. I was in Florida and a buddy of mine lives near where we were and we met up for coffee. he said, and this is a friend by the way that I see probably three, four times a year.

great, great person. But I did not think there was nothing in my mind that would have said that he’s watching all of the episodes. He says, he says, yeah, he goes, how do you like doing the podcast? I said, I really enjoy it and I hope it’s providing value for people. And I think it is. And he says, I’ve I’ve watched every one of them start to finish. And I was I was blown away. I was I couldn’t believe that. And he says, you know, there was one that I felt like I had to choke it down.

He’s like, didn’t I didn’t really love it. But but he says there was only one out of all of them. And I was like, I mean, again, first, the fact that he watched all of them was just like mind blowing. Right. I haven’t watched all of them, you know. And then and then for him to say, you know, that he only disliked one, that was I mean, I was I was so humbled. mean, it was like I couldn’t believe it.

Curtis Hays (38:53.816)
Yeah, that’s awesome.

Tom Nixon (38:56.816)
That’s great. Yeah. Real quick, cause we only have a couple of minutes left. Tell us the story about your advertiser that you acquired. We wanted to put a pin in that and come back to it.

Matt Loria (39:05.334)
Yeah, so well, my own company is one. but the one of our one of our company partners, Juniper Networks, they have a program whereby they’ll reimburse for some of the marketing and advertising that we do as long as it fits within their values. Right. And they agreed to do it. So they were the first the first one. So we still leave their name up.

on the the sponsor sheet at this point. So yeah, that was I mean, that was a nice little shot in the arm. didn’t cover, you know, it certainly didn’t cover all the costs that we have involved in this and the employees or anything like that. But it was just a, know, it was a good thing. And again, that that brand that that combining of the brand or the brand relationships, I think are important. Right. You even every time we get a guest.

that guests brand associated with the BLTNT with Matt Luria with Oxium, I think is just some great brand synergy there.

Tom Nixon (40:14.822)
Great. Well, my biggest takeaway was what you said. I’m going to use that analogy, Curtis, when you said don’t just measure the engagement rate as being full views of a video or an episode, because that’s not how people consume content in the large. But Matt, I’m going to give your chance of final word to the next Matt Loria who’s listening to this podcast. needs that final nudge to say, okay, now I’m going to do this. What would you tell that person?

Matt Loria (40:38.83)
Hmm.

Matt Loria (40:42.734)
I mean, I would say if you authentically, especially if you’re going to do an interview style podcast. So let’s just say it’s to the person who wants to do what I’m doing. If you’re authentically more interested in being interested than interesting, then this might be the thing for you. If you are looking for vanity metrics of clicks and things like that.

that’s not going to do it. just have to prioritize creating value for other people first. And that’s what works. And that the vulnerability will connect you to people more than the polish of having the best cameras or having the best sound or whatever. It’s really the true authenticity. So just be yourself. And if you really have a desire to serve others, I think that’s where this works. And I think things just come back to you.

in good ways if you put others first.

Tom Nixon (41:41.126)
Perfect. That’s almost sounds like the golden rule, which is up above your shoulder there. Oxygen. Right? All right, Curtis, it’s your chance to get one final word in.

Matt Loria (41:44.398)
Yeah, right.

Curtis Hays (41:52.685)
Well, you got I appreciate both of you. think I appreciate both of you is the ability to have meaningful conversations with people and ask good questions and those types of things. I’d say it would be very difficult for me to do a podcast by myself. So if you’re you’re someone, you know, like me and you want to do something like that, find a sidekick like like like I have with Tom is like there’s no way I would have ventured into this on my own, but your ability to

plan and ask good questions and carry on a conversation in a meaningful way, but also make it creative, I think is what’s helped us be a bit successful. And really lean into your strengths. And I see that’s what you’ve done, Matt, is just you’re taking something you’re doing already. These conversations you’re having in breakfasts and lunch, which I’ve had many of with you and some of the people who you’ve interviewed and probably will interview.

of just taking those meaningful conversations and sharing those stories with the rest of the world. And you’re doing it in the same manner that you would have done it anyway. And that’s what makes it authentic. So you’re not staging something. You’re not trying to replicate and be like Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson or somebody else. It’s like, no, I’m going to be my true self. I’m going to use this channel to do this. But it’s going to be true to me.

intruded what I’m passionate about and that’s what’s really gonna connect to a listener who’s gonna tune in and listen to every single episode. That guy listened to every single episode because he values your friendship and values you as a person. That’s, it’s probably, it has nothing to do probably with the content. It’s, it’s valuing you, right? Like you say, he had to choke, there’s at least one episode, the content didn’t fit him, but he values you and that’s why he’s tuning in.

Matt Loria (43:45.026)
Yeah, great insight.

Tom Nixon (43:47.046)
Cool. All right. Well, we’ll leave it there in, maybe we’ll see you on the BLT and T podcast sometime. We haven’t yet been invited Curtis, but I think I just dropped a very blatant.

Curtis Hays (43:57.881)
I’ve been in the studio. So if you, if you go back to an episode, there was the bonus episode last year, Matt loaned me the studio and I got to sit down and record an episode and, Jackie on Matt’s team helped me out and did the recording and got us the files and everything. It was a great experience. And, but the studios evolved. know since then, Matt, you took it on the road. Even you’ve got, you’re able to record even outside of the studio and those types of things. So.

Tom Nixon (44:04.453)
That’s right.

Curtis Hays (44:25.7)
We’ll do a recording in the yard here in front of the tractor.

Matt Loria (44:25.772)
Yeah, and we’ve got an exciting one coming.

Matt Loria (44:30.958)
Great. Well, I thought I did invite you guys and I thought it was Tom’s schedule that conflicted and didn’t allow it to happen. well, I’ll get I’ll call your social secretary and we’ll get it sorted out and we’ll make sure that you’re on here. And we do have seating for three. So all of us can be together to do it. And I would love to do that with you guys. The on the road piece, if you don’t mind me taking a moment to give a plug, we’ve got an exciting one that we’re going to do this summer.

If anybody has watched our episodes where we had Israel Hernandez, he’s one of the gentlemen that we interviewed and great life story. But one of the big life events that he had was being in the White House on 9-11 and working in the West Wing and being there when the announcement came that everybody had to leave and ladies remove your high heels and run out as fast as you can. He’s going to be on with

a gentleman, Robert Darling, who was the command of all the logistics for Air Force One on that day. And he got pulled in with with Dick Cheney into the bunker, actually dealing with 9-11 from from his perspective. And so we’re getting the three of us together for that conversation. So I’m really excited to do that. We’re going to do that one on the road. And so

You know, sometimes we mix in things that maybe don’t seem like a business oriented conversation. But I think it’ll be good for everybody. So thanks for letting me interrupt and give that plug. But yeah, we’re loving going on the road from time to time.

Curtis Hays (46:14.178)
Yeah, that was a fascinating episode actually. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I did watch part of that episode and he’s got quite the story to tell.

Matt Loria (46:21.451)
My true friends actually, they choked down all the episodes, but I appreciate you operating in the.

Tom Nixon (46:24.954)
That’s true.

Well, we will be sure to link to the BLTNT podcast and the show notes. And then, I can’t believe it would have been my schedule. Usually nothing gets in the way of me in a podcast unless it’s another podcast. So, and now I have to go record a podcast about Yacht Rock. So until then next time we will see you all at the bull horns and bulls eyes podcast.

Matt Loria (46:49.74)
Yee-haw.