Mountains of Arizona
Clear 64 Degrees
6:24 a.m.
Not long ago, I got an email from a client, Pat, telling me how his new podcast was going.
We had spent some time talking together about how it would work, what it would stand for, what it would lead to. Basically, I walked him through the same process that people go through in the Platform Lab. But we did it one-on-one.
Pat took the idea, ran with it, and created a podcast. But this wasn’t just any podcast. It was well designed. “Strategery” in action 🙂
If you look at a lot of the podcasts out there now, many of them end up being an interview style where you hear from the same people about the same things in the same ways over and over again.
Then, when the podcast hasn’t been properly worked into the sales system of the publisher, you start seeing the advertisements and sponsors show up.
“How else could a podcast possibly be sustainable?” they ask.
Ha! It’s time to retire the old media model where you FORCE humans to sit through things they didn’t ask for in order to subsidize things they did ask for. This is a great way to screw things up, in my opinon.
Pat did better.
He’ll be the first to admit that he wasn’t sure all of the work required to do the podcast was worth it. Where was the payoff? When was it coming?
The rub with the platform model, where you attract things to you, is that you invest first. The return on that investment comes later.
That’s the price you pay with this approach. But it’s a temporary pain. Once you build momentum, you kind of forget those days ever happened.
So few people are willing to do this, the real competition anyone has who IS willing, is virtually zero.
But you don’t get clients fast. And you don’t get clients when YOU say they should come. You get them when you’ve provided the proper environment where they grow.
Would you ever think of commanding a tomato to grow and pop out of the ground into your mouth just because YOU want to eat?
Kind of silly right?
Well, to think of doing that with a human being is even sillier.
But building a system strategically engineered to plant “tomatoes,” grow “tomatoes” and harvest “tomatoes” is not silly.
That’s what this platform model is all about: planting seeds, nurturing soil, harvesting fruit.
So what was the result with Pat? What are the hard numbers that our minds are so fixated on knowing?
Pat’s investment in his podcast returned between $750 and $1K per hour invested of his time.
And as you’ll read, the simple split test he setup (smart Pat!) showed the podcast model blew the traditional sales model out of the water.
So Pat walked away with about $40K extra dollars sold from his newest program because of his podcast.
Except he got a lot more than the money. He provided a solution to a problem for almost 433 people which will deepen the relationship he has with them AND help realize the value he brings to their lives.
And as you’ll read in his story, he also received thank you notes for it.
Just wrap your head around THAT for a moment.
This “being valuable first” approach isn’t just flowery talk designed to attract people who don’t have that “killer sales instinct” and don’t really want to go out and beat someone down until they say, “I’ll buy what you have if it will make you go away!”
If you’re in business for the long term, this approach is just plain SMARTER.
These are the people I help. The ones that recognize this and say, let’s do it. I make tools to help with this journey.
If you know that your mind is your own worst enemy, this is the place to start.
If you have ZERO systems in place for attracting clients, start here.
And if you KNOW the number of people you are talking to is not nearly enough, then this is the place to go.
You can read Pat’s full podcast story part way down this page.