Speaking of Wealth #48 Successful Podcasting Techniques

In this first episode of our series on podcasting, Jason Hartman hears founder of Palladium Education, Inc, Alex Haddox’s story of how he began podcasting to enhance his business. Listen at: www.SpeakingofWealth.com. One of Alex’s favorite things to do was radio shows and was in public relations for many years. He began marketing his seminars through podcasts and building his brand. Alex currently has over 200 podcasts. He explains how he tracked downloads, noting that it takes a while to build up a listening audience. He learned how to engage the audience and to fulfill their desire for more episodes. He came up with the idea of doing a Quick Tip every other episode. As he posted these podcasts, his listening audience increased six-fold. He encourages consistency and diligence, explaining that having a passion for it, for the content, is very important for success. Alex calls podcasting a “long game.” He has his own equipment, does his own editing and uploading, and has low overhead costs. By joining a podcasting network, Alex’s audience doubled. He explains the benefits of the podcast network, i.e. the support and rapport that is built, leading to a close knit group of podcasters. All in all, Alex has experienced great success with his podcasts, having never spent money on advertising for his show, and managing the process himself.

Alex Haddox’s diverse background led him to founding Palladium Education, Inc., Workplace Violence Prevention and Crisis Intervention Training. Mr. Haddox spent nearly a decade working for Amgen, Inc., one of the world’s largest multinational biotech firms, as a Senior Business Analyst and Senior eLearning Analyst. Among his many projects, he designed instructor-led and e-learning training modules for the Global Regulatory Affairs and Safety Education and Development department. Mr. Haddox was also the Product Manager and co-founder of the Symantec AntiVirus Research Center (SARC). He was considered one of the world’s leading computer virus experts, traveled worldwide on speaking engagements, and appeared on national television programs including Good Morning America, CNBC, the Discovery Channel and Fox News Network. He has been quoted in innumerable print publications from The New York Times to USA Today and was on the Advisory Board to the industry’s leading publication, “Virus Bulletin.”

Mr. Haddox is a skilled martial artist and self-defense instructor. He has nearly two decades of combined traditional martial arts training in multiple styles including American Kenpo, Hapkido and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Mr. Haddox also holds firearms instructor credentials from the National Rifle Association.

An accomplished author, Mr. Haddox has been published in peer-reviewed journals and continues to author columns on self-protection for Tae Kwon Do Times Magazine and World Wide Dojo.com. His latest book on personal security is Practical Home Security: A Guide to Safer Urban Living. He is the creator and host of a free weekly podcast called “Practical Defense” that has over 1.4 million downloads and is heard in over 135 countries.

Introduction: Speakers, publishers, consultants, coaches and info marketers unite the Speaking of Wealth show is your roadmap to success and significance. Learn the latest tools, technologies and tactics to get more bookings, sell more products and attract more clients. If you are looking to increase your direct response sales, create a big time personal brand and become the go-to-guru. The Speaking of Wealth show is for you. Here is your host Jason Hartman.

Jason Hartman: Welcome to the Speaking of Wealth show. This is your host Jason Hartman where we discuss profit strategies for speakers, publishers, authors, consultants, coaches, info marketers, and just go over a whole bunch of exciting things that you can use to increase your business, to make your business successful and more and more passive, and more and more automated, and more and more scalable, so we will be back with a great interview be sure to visit us at speakingofwealth.com. You can take advantage of our blog, subscribe to the RSS feed and many other resources for free at speakingofwealth.com, and we will be back with a great interview for you in less than 60 seconds.

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Jason Hartman: My pleasure to welcome Alex Haddox to the show. He is the founder of Palladium Education and he had quite a good run in the world of podcasting, and that’s what we wanted to talk to him about today, but let’s also get a little background on what he does for a living, and how podcasting came about for him. Alex welcome, how are you?

Alex: I’ am doing great. Thanks for having me on.

Jason Hartman: Good, good my pleasure. And now where are you located?

Alex: I am actually located in Los Angeles.

Jason Hartman: Okay great, well that’s where I grew up at West Hawaii, small world. So tell us about Palladium education and how you came about to be a podcaster?

Alex: Well, I’ve always been interested in personal protection and security and it stems from my background and my upbringing. My father was a psychiatrist for the criminal justice system. He worked with the criminally insane in the federal prison system, so we grew up in a highly secured environment because of his patients.

Jason Hartman: Whey? They would come and look for you.

Alex: Yes we would get threatening telephone calls in the middle of the night while my duty and all sorts of different types of things, so I grew up in a very early age understanding the threat posed by the criminal element, and it was just this lifestyle you know we never let it get in our way. We were always raised to be aware and take the appropriate steps to avoid trouble, and so it kind of became my business. I really liked sharing that information with other people, helping them protect themselves.

Of course I have been martial artist since I was 10 years old grew up with military law enforcement for friends and got amazing training, and eventually just became a way of my business as well as a way of life.

Jason Hartman: So I assume your story and just correct me where I am wrong, but I assume you were in your business with Palladium, and you were doing your thing. When did you add podcasting to the mix?

Alex: I think I posted my first podcast in August of 2007. I decided to do podcasting because I had been a corporate sports person for semantic for a number of years, a lot of experience with public relations, and one of my favorite things to do was radio shows. I loved being on the radio. I don’t know what it is about the audio system, but I just, I loved it. I have been on national TV, I have been on Good Morning America, Fox News, I did press tours, but I was always drawn to radio so podcasting became about — I knew about it, and think no, I could do that, and so I started the podcasting as a way to market my seminars.

Jason Hartman: And so your seminars were they all local in the LA area?

Alex: Yeah and that was kind of an interesting thing that I discovered quite quickly is that podcasting is national and international. It doesn’t mean you have a whole lot of people in your local area that it actually come to your seminars.

Jason Hartman: So you started as a way to market your seminars, and that was your monetization strategy, but then you would obviously discovered that you probably had listeners all over the world that were interested in your content, in your education and so forth. What did you do next? Did you create new monetization strategies or –?

Alex: Actually I just started building my brand in jumping to the monetization until much later, actually years later through the use of my book. I had always planned on doing a book, in doing DVDs and selling you know creating content that people could purchase that would be available on a national level. Doing it part-time for fun, it just took a long time to get there.

Jason Hartman: Right. How many episodes do you have?

Alex: I have — I think I just put up my 214th episode.

Jason Hartman: Wow, okay you’ve got a lot. Yeah good congratulations. Can you give us some stats in terms of your listenership, and kind of how it evolved? Were you tracking downloads from the beginning of your shows?

Alex: Oh absolutely.

Jason Hartman: Okay yeah. And which system did you use feed burner or how did you do it?

Alex: The RSS feed and file host that I used is Libsyn and were a big player, and they had really good system with unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth for just a few dollars a month. Their prices have gone up since then, and they had a good tracking system so I was able to get statistics updated every hour or so on the number of downloads I had, and it was podcasting is the long game. It’s a soft sell and it takes a long time to build up. I think in the first month, I think I had a 100 downloads and probably 50 of those were me.

Jason Hartman: And in that first month I mean how many episodes was that?

Alex: Two. This kind of evolved overtime as I figured out how to really engage the audience because of everything else I was working on I was so busy, I started out hosting the show every other week twice a month. I figured you know I was gutting a lot of feedback saying hey, we would like to hear you more often, but I was like how do I do the time because its you know takes for every episode that you host the amount of time with the finished product it takes five to seven times of that in production time.

Jason Hartman: And let’s talk about that production time for just a minute if we can. So are you editing your shows, or you are doing what many podcasters do just you record the audio file, and you literally just post it, I assume you use WordPress?

Alex: No. Actually I don’t.

Jason Hartman: Oh okay.

Alex: But I do, do absolutely everything myself. I record it using Soundtrack Pro all the editing there.

Jason Hartman: So you do edit yours?

Alex: Oh absolutely.

Jason Hartman: Great, good. I like that.

Alex: Do you know how many mistakes I made during recording it wouldn’t be funny so no I absolutely, I edit it, I clean it up, and I post the show, I upload it to Libsyn fill out the forms to putting all the metadata around it, and then it goes out to iTunes and everything else.

Jason Hartman: Well, so Libsyn isn’t an add-on service. That is your whole service that does your podcast syndication and everything huh.

Alex: Yes.

Jason Hartman: Okay great.

Alex: The RS — the file hosting, file serving statistics the whole thing.

Jason Hartman: Okay fantastic. Okay tell us more. So you were saying you posted one show every two weeks.

Alex: Right and I was getting a lot of feedback that people wanted to have it more often but which I had was time because there is not so much time involved in it so, I came up with the idea of doing a quick tip every other episode, quick five minute show, and then followed up on the — and every other week was a full long episode.

Jason Hartman: How long is long?

Alex: For me its — if I do it, if it’s just me talking it’s about 25 minutes if I have views it’s about an hour.

Jason Hartman: So you have — you do — your format is guest interviews, and just monologue so when you do it, it’s about 20 minutes, but when you do a guest its say, it’s about an hour, right?

Alex: Right.

Jason Hartman: Okay great.

Alex: The whole focus and the structure of it I have a master’s in education. The whole focus and structure of it is an education program really is about teaching people how to protect themselves, and how to maintain a safe easy consistent lifestyle without being paranoid, acting paranoid, or being too worried about things. Little things that we can change in your lifestyle that will make you significantly safer if you walk around the home, and that was significant because I saw a huge increase in the number of downloads beyond you know you think it was just double because I am doing the double amount of episodes and up by six times.

Jason Hartman: And how often were you posting it at this point when you saw the six times growth?

Alex: And that’s when I moved to once a week. I really think that’s a minimum for shows is once a week. People like for instance they won’t have to find it. The other thing I found is that it needs to be [unintelligible 0:10:51] you need to post it on Sundays or Mondays or Tuesday. Some place that they know they can go out and get it, and look for it on a regular basis. I am really busy and I miss an upload. You know my numbers are down significantly I think just a good thing just from that single episode so consistency is really, really crucial on podcasting.

Jason Hartman: Yeah you know I used to always say when I taught marketing seminars to the real estate industry years ago. They always have to think well, I want to be different I want to be unique, and my famous quote was if you want to be unique, if you want to be different just be consistent because that’s very unique. Very, very few of your competitors are consistent about things. The boring drudgery of consistency is uniqueness in and of itself.

Alex: The other thing is really you have to have at least 10 shows or may be even 20 to be considered.

Jason Hartman: A player yeah.

Alex: Because there are so many people will think oh yeah I can do that. I will buy a phone and I will go out, and I will get some free recording software for a couple of shows, and it will be easy and it will be fun, and yes its easy and fun in the beginning but after a while it becomes a task and really have to be intuitive. You really have to enjoy it in order to make it beyond those 10, 15 episodes that’s why a lot of these networks and the groups won’t even look at you unless you’ve had 15 episodes posted.

Jason Hartman: And I find that a lot of podcaster starting out their big question is what will I talk about, but then once they start, and once they get it going they come up with a million ideas for new ideas and new content, and any thoughts on that?

Alex: The good ones do. There are a lot of shows that that get beat up because people lose ideas, and they don’t know how to branch out, and how to be creative. I admit I was worried that after a year I would run out of ideas, and I am hitting five years now. I have so much content backed up that I need to do, that I just don’t have time to research and script that its crazy, and plus now that I am established I have users sending me questions and asking me to cover certain material that were offering their own stories for analysis, so it gets easier with time, but I really have to had a passion for it, and the passion for the content.

Jason Hartman: Right and I do, and I sense that you do as well in your shows, so statistics on downloads. First month a 100, you jokingly say you were 50 of them probably, and that was just two epoxies, then you increased your number of episodes. You did the quick tips, and the ratings started really, really increasing. What kind of numbers were you looking at? You know still on the beginning, but may be for several moths do you remember?

Alex: Boy for five years ago now I remember it took me about a year to break a 1000 downloads in the first week of the show. So for example what we do is because it’s very hard to track who your subscribers are because the RSS system is not really setup for that. the rule of thumb is you are posting your show, the number of downloads you get for that show in the first week are your hard core subscribers, and it took me a year and I got about a 1000, so I was up to a 1000.

After two years I was up to 2000, and at that point, and the 1000 also was another, it was at least back in the time then things have changed a little bit for podcasting, but a 1000 is when it really started to take on us own life, and it really started to just kind of snowballing and it really started to build once I had established that number that seem to be the rollover point.

Jason Hartman: That’s what I love about podcasting is that once you get it going it’s like that flywheel of business. It starts to just snowball and really, really work with very little maintenance after a certain amount of time because you got that subscriber base, and as long as you keep providing valuable content, it’s pretty easy to maintain, and that’s what I get concerned about a new podcaster is just giving up way too early that’s true in sales. Its true in athletics, true in martial arts, I am sure, but once you get that flywheel moving, you know things really start to, you know you start to grease the kids, don’t you? And things start to happen in a much easier fashion with lower effort don’t they?

Alex: Absolutely and that’s why I say podcasting is a long game, and it’s a soft sell, and soft sells are extremely powerful, but long time to build, but once they build they are your base. Slow loyal fan base, and they really — you know all of the cost for my show are covered by listener donations.

Jason Hartman: So just for strictly donations huh —

Alex: That covers all my cost. My cost are pretty low because I think myself I don’t pay anybody to do anything. I’ve got all the skills. I could do it myself, and the cost of the website and the RSS feed and things like that, or I keep it to a minimum, but I don’t even advertise I mean I have a donate button on my podcast page and through the Gun Rights Radio Network, and I am a member of the Gun Rights Radio Network and they have a donation area. I don’t even mention on my show but people send me money.

Jason Hartman: Do you care to share how much in terms of nations?

Alex: It’s a few $100 a year.

Jason Hartman: Okay so it’s not that big amount, but again the cost is very low too, so you are covering the cost there, but then you have a whole business that is benefiting from the content you put out there, right?

Alex: Absolutely and it also helps to sell it to your spouse for little money, does it cost you anything? No, no everything is covered, doesn’t cost us anything. Okay good, sure.

Jason Hartman: And so in terms of the statistics, so second year 2000 listeners or 2000 downloads on each episode?

Alex: Yes.

Jason Hartman: And what happened after that?

Alex: That I kind of flattened out at that point. And I was equivalent to be the largest and most popular martial arts broadcast so I hit the page of just a fewer martial arts group, and then I was approached by the Gun Rights Radio Network, and I was a little weary in the beginning, and then I checked them out, and they had really good content, and really good shows, and they had a couple of huge names in the industries working with them. The biggest one being Masada Hugh so I joined their network, and within two months I had doubled my listenership.

Jason Hartman: So you were just now do you produce only one actual show?

Alex: Right now yes. I have just approved the release of second show by the end of the year.

Jason Hartman: So what you did then, let’s talk a little about that’s really interesting Alex. So you were publishing your show, you were building an audience, building a subscriber base in the following or Seth Godin would say you were a tribe, and then you were approached by a podcasting networking and you lended your show to their network. How do that work?

Alex: Yeah its — it didn’t cost me anything so there is no fees. It’s just basically a group of like-minded podcasters that collaborate and have a central location to talk about their shows, and share their shows, and cross promote their shows to broaden the audience, and they are just a fantastic group of guys. I have made some life long friends by joining the work, and when somebody has a book come out or a seminar, everyone helps promoted across the different shows.

They mention it. We guest on each other show to share information, and it’s really a mutually beneficial arrangement because everyone it allows a lot of cross pollination.

Jason Hartman: And how many different shows or hosts are in the Gun Rights Radio Network?

Alex: I think they have 15 to 20.

Jason Hartman: So you are all cross promoting and helping each other out and guesting on each other shows so that’s great. Did you have to pay anything to be involved, or do they pay or is just like a coop I assume, right?

Alex: It’s like a coop. Yeah there is no payment. At some networks they charge you if you are going to be on their network and things like that. I would never do that simply because the expectations are different and it makes a business relationship whereas all the podcasters and the Gun Rights Radio Network can really consider each other friends and coops and so it’s a very fun exciting group of guys that you know when we are in town, we go and we meet together in person, and they are scattered all over the country and that the various conferences everyone gets together. It’s just a lot of fun, and it helps each other out. Everyone is very willing to help other members out.

Jason Hartman: Yeah that’s great, so the network thing is great. Now, in terms of the network in terms of what that did for you joining the network, was it strictly that your shows are now showing up on their website, and you are guesting and hosting on each others shows or was there more to it. Did they do any promotion for you or anything like that other than those things that I mentioned?

Alex: No it’s just those things. Its cross promotion. We all share a general message board where everyone shows are posted, and everyone can join the discussions in the message forums, and the joint forums, and no its just about those guys are now a member of the family and let’s help promote a show and everyone sends out messages, hey yeah I got this going on, and can you guys help me out and talk about it? Sure. Sometimes what I did when my book came out, I recorded a 30 second segment little spot for you, and then send it out to the guys and they all ran it on their shows for several weeks to help promote the book.

Jason Hartman: Yeah fantastic. So what are your — let’s fast forward to today, what are your download statistics looking like?

Alex: I don’t want to get into too much specific, but I get tens of thousands of downloads now, and —

Jason Hartman: On each episode?

Alex: Thousands of each episodes, tens of thousands on a monthly basis.

Jason Hartman: Okay, great fantastic.

Alex: And I have broken 1.4 million total downloads.

Jason Hartman: Fantastic.

Alex: And iTunes the show is generally in the top 10, and I have been as high as number two several times in the education and training section.

Jason Hartman: No, is that in that section or is it in that section under certain search terms?

Alex: It’s in that section so if you go to iTune, if you go to podcast education training, you look at the top 10 list there and usually floating around in there.

Jason Hartman: Fantastic.

Alex: Yeah, and like what’s that as been as high as number two. Number one is held by Adam something rather who is doing a — he is a TV guy comedian. He used to do apparently; he used to do construction so he is got a construction podcast, so he owns that spot. And there is no one. No amateur is going to be able to bump in out of that.

Jason Hartman: Right, so now are your all podcast all audio or have you considered video at all as well?

Alex: I have done a video a couple of times but primarily it is exclusively audio just because of the time, the setup, the editing, and production it quality goes up significantly when you move to video so because my time constraints I focus primarily on audio.

Jason Hartman: You know and frankly I have to just say I personally like audio better because I just don’t have enough time to sit at my computer, and watch videos. Audio is portable. It is such a great medium. And oddly enough like radio nowadays is just good old fashion to rest of the radio has overshadowed TV in some categories because the portability, I mean the portability is very, very significant I think for the listener, for the audience.

Alex: Oh absolutely. People listen to my show while they are driving which I’m okay with, but people also listen my show like when they are working out, or when they are hiking or walking and —

Jason Hartman: I hear that all the time on my shows. The people you know that on their gym show, and I said well gosh, I don’t think it’s a very motivating workout, but probably music would be better.

Alex: Yeah and problem though is I really don’t like people listening to my show when they are out for a walk or a hike because I really want them paying attention to their environment so I have actually done shows is if you are listening to this while you are walking turn me off you know.

Jason Hartman: Well that’s a good point, yeah because you are a safety and security guy, so that’s kind of an irony, yeah that’s true. Let me take a brief pause. We will be back in just a minute.

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Jason Hartman: Is your show Alex just growing strictly organically or have you ever tried advertising or like pushing the growth of the show at all because I have a couple of times, but I find that it’s just pretty much for me been in organic process, that’s what actually works. I would love to just be able to grow it faster by throwing some money at it, frankly but I don’t know. I don’t hear too much about podcasters doing that. It seems fairly organic to me.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely mine is been a purely organic growth which is why I think it’s been slow, but then again I’m fine with slow because it’s solid. When I released my book which is a Practical Home Security: A Guide to Safer Urban Living, people bought it although they had already heard the content they bought the books anyway just to show support for the show.

And to give out to friends and relatives, so again slow soft sell is you know creates a real loyal base. So and I have found that I have not been able to successfully pay for any advertising ever, so my selection in advertising that I spent money on out on the past is always been bad, and I have never seen a good return on it.

Jason Hartman: Right, yeah. I would have to agree with you. The podcast advertising, it’s just pretty much an organic world. It really is.

Alex: I mean you can’t make money of the podcast itself. It’s about the secondary options. It’s about the books. It’s about the seminars. It’s about speaking tours, things like that that you make the money from. You don’t make money directly from the podcasting. The only people that make money of advertising on their shows are people that have already had established radio shows or TV shows that then moved in the podcasting, but making pod I mean for the amateur, making money and getting actual advertisers to pay to be on your show, is really not going to happen.

Jason Hartman: Yeah so that’s more like the Adam Carolla type category that you are talking about there where you can really actually sell advertising and monetize directly that way but secondary monetization is very, very lucrative. So tell us what you have done, I mean you were a guy hosting these seminars in the LA area, then you started podcasting. You had a national if not a global audience after that. And what were some of your secondary products or services that you were able to gain business for on the podcast?

Alex: Well, primarily it’s been my book, and selling the book which it has — and I think it was primarily because the podcast has exceeded all of my expectations in terms of been able to monetize it. And part of the reason is, and I think this is going to be a very interesting to your audience is that if you are a writer, I think podcasting is perfect for you. Like we do seminars, I think podcasting is perfect for you because what you can do is you can recycle your content, and this is what I did, and what I will be doing from for the forgeable future.

Jason Hartman: And so tell us about recycling your content. One of the things I really believe in is create the content ones, and repurpose it as many ways as possible.

Alex: Yes. I’m not —

Jason Hartman: So that has scale to it, but how should a writer do that specifically like some of the things I do, I will just share, and may be these are the same things. I will have some of my written content voiced by professional voice over people. And I will then play that on the podcast, but you can go both directions. You can also pay to have your podcast transcribed, and turn that audio content into blogpost type content on your website which increases your search engine visibility. So you know goes both ways, doesn’t it?

Alex: Absolutely. What I have done, and what I’m doing out with the products I might have releasing from the summer on towards the end of the year was going to be my big push for having availability is that the scripts, and the research and the notes that I have taken for my podcasts, I took all that, and then I put that into a book. And because the podcast was mine, and because I self-published, I maintained control and copyright of my intellectual property.

I then also have a column in Tae Kwon Do Times Magazine. And again the same notes that I wrote in both for the podcast I recycle into a column for Tae Kwon Do Times when I negotiate my contract with Tae Kwon Do Times I maintained the copyright. So I still own everything that I produce, and so I can take that and recycle it. And again with the individual publishing, the self-publishing you know with the traditional model you give up a lot of those rights but with self-publishing you can maintain them.

Jason Hartman: Great point. There is an old cliché, and it’s a term everybody is heard, the phrases, writers blog, and for a lot of writers I think one of the other great things about podcasting is we have all heard of writers blog but we haven’t probably heard of talkers blog, have we? And so if you’ve got an idea for a book for example you know you want to write the great American novel or even better a non-fiction type of work or business or whatever it is, just start doing a podcast, and start talking about it. And as you start talking about it the best way to learn something many times is to actually teach it first.

Oddly enough as crazy as is that sounds. And once you started talking about it, the idea start to jell, they start to take on a form, they start to create new ideas, and new — you know that sort of that mind map just expands where there are so many branches to that tree. We have all seen mind maps usually. We know what a mind map is, and one of the ways to increase the size of the mind map I think is to just start talking about it.

And if you don’t know what to say and you think and you do have talker’s blog, and maybe then that means you shouldn’t do it in the monologue format. You should just interview like minded people, and have guest on your shows. And I don’t you think Alex that’s just a great way to start writing.

Alex: Well, absolutely but you need to be careful with the whole copyright issue. It’s different when it’s an education program which is what I do, but when you are talking about a novel, and stories you know somebody could take that, and could jump the gun on you.

Jason Hartman: Well that’s true, yeah.

Alex: It’s very different with an education program or seminars or things like that but —

Jason Hartman: Why don’t you think someone can take that and jump the gun on you? I mean what’s the difference in your eyes?

Alex: Well, the difference is credibility because with the podcast, with the books, with all the other material you are seen as the expert. So if some random Joe schmo takes that material and starts talking about it, they are not going to get the audience. They don’t have the established credibility, they are not the go-to-guy for that. And so they will probably — the loss is minimal. But when it comes to a novel somebody could take that idea that gem of the story, and then develop it on their own, and there is so much — I think there is a better opportunity for that, that idea to be stolen.

Jason Hartman: Yeah, okay good point. I see what you mean. So may be on the novel idea you know if you are a storyteller then record but don’t publish even just do that to get started talking and just — you can help Joe your ideas that way so yeah, good.

Alex: Or do book readings for free to public library or something like that some not international audience.

Jason Hartman: Right, very good point. Fair enough. Any other things that you want to mention to people Alex just to kind of in wrapping up about podcasting, and why they should do it, or how they should do it?

Alex: Oh wow, yeah there is lot more stuff, yeah. One of the strengths I think a podcasting is that you build a relationship with the audience, with your listeners, with your followers. Followers, is I don’t like to say followers, it’s probably a bad word used but I mean the people that track you and listen to you, and will buy your things because that had to be real stuffy about it. You need to be friendly because after our time if this people listen to your show a lot, it’s like listen, having lunch with an old friend.

And I get lots of emails from listeners that say you know I feel like I know you. And so some of the emails I get are little too personal and over shared in some cases, and it’s really interesting. And then when they purchase my book and they read the book, they said it was really nice because they could actually put my voice into the book as they were reading it because I hurt me for so many hours. And I have had people come to my seminars, and were like I must be in the right place I know that voice because they have never met me in person. Of course you never look like what your pictures are alive. So it really builds this personal relationship with that one. And the tie-ins with Facebook and Twitter could be pretty powerful as well.

Jason Hartman: Tell us about that?

Alex: What you can do is, it’s a way to interact directly with the users and the listeners beyond just email. I get lots of email, I don’t get a chance to actually respond to all the email, but the listeners can answer their own questions, and provide their own input. And with my subject it’s really interesting because I have listeners that are like literally 10 year old girls up to 20 year military veterans.

There is a huge swat, and so I have got a lot of law — I get emails all the time from law enforcement officers saying hey that’s a great idea, here is my experience with it. You know this really helped me. I get emails from people saying I saved their lives, and I am getting goose bumps just thinking about that.

Jason Hartman: Yeah great testimonials.

Alex: It’s just unbelievable. And so there is a lot of fulfillment with it because you get direct interaction with people, and it’s also scary in a way because you are affecting other people’s lives. So you really have to have your stuff together and inline and correct because with an education program like mine people are going out and doing what I’m saying.

And it’s a huge responsibility that I get it right so people don’t put themselves in more danger than they were in before. So there is a lot of responsibility, but with the Facebook and Twitter you can interact with them, you can adjust answers because sometimes I get emails, and people they are just completely missed the point on what I said.

So it allows me to steer them in the right direction. And Facebook is a great way of doing that. People get to share their own experiences. They have years of experiences and different opinions that are absolutely valid and important. And it’s a great place to share. But with Twitter and Facebook you have to give them a reason to come there.

And so what I do is I try and post a daily tip to Facebook and Twitter and share articles because if it’s just announcing tonight the show is up people are not going to be there. But if you have something of value in addition to the show, additional interactions, additional information additional insight it can help significantly with the show, and enhancing the dimensionality of the show.

Jason Hartman: It certainly can. And one of the other great things is with Facebook and Twitter you can set it up so that your RSS feeds whenever you publish a new show they automatically upload to your page or your Twitter feed, and that’s a great thing. The other thing is listener feedback and listener questions which you had alluded to but may be didn’t say it exactly the same way I’m saying it.

We use our Facebook page a lot to get listeners to post questions there rather than emailing them one-by-one or they are sort of hard to keep track of. And you’ve got to find them all before the show that you want to record, and then you can answer them live on the show rather than having to answer them directly on the page. So you know it can save your lot of typing. And also produce content for your shows, right?

Alex: Absolutely, and the fact I had, I recently had a show, I guest on for a couple of shows. Doc Western who actually is a chemist for — he is an independent contractor but he works with the governments various agencies, and he works on Cavalier. And so we had two wonderful shows talking about Cavalier and —

Jason Hartman: Cavalier meaning body armor, right?

Alex: Yes, vests and things like that. And there was such a huge response to that. We brought him back for a third show, and we just essentially collected all the questions that had been posted to the Gun Rights Radio Network for the Facebook page, personal emails, and we spent 30 minutes just answering those questions on another show.

Jason Hartman: Fantastic, so there is just like this endless supply of content, isn’t there?

Alex: There is if you have a good topic. You need to have a fairly broad topic. If you get too narrow then you run into problem that you can’t branch out from that so you need to have something that has a fairly its focused yet you can do a lot with it.

Jason Hartman: What about preparation? I mean some podcasters, and radio show hosts I find that they prepare a lot, and some don’t prepare. They are just sort of ad libing and you know some people are really good with preparation. Some people actually sound better ad libing a bit. What are your thoughts, how do you do it?

Alex: For me I tried several different ways. I tried scripting it exactly, and reading word for word. And without proper training, without public relations training that makes it very, very difficult because it sounds, scripting sounds like somebody is reading it. And that’s not interesting to people. It’s like somebody giving a presentation, and going up and just reading their notes from a presentation rather than to speaking to the audience.

I tried shows where I just went completely off the cuff. I had a topic and I went off the cuff. And I found that I rambled quite a bit. And that when I just — I gave myself some good notes, and I went through and built an outline and I basically made a speech that I covered the exact same material in half the amount of time. And it was clear, more concise, and easier to understand. So I’m a big advocate of making notes and following a plan because you have to have a progression of thought otherwise you are just bouncing all around.

Now, some people just bounce around, and I find it distracting and annoying, and this that there is a lot of ways of time. I would like to keep my shows very concise, that’s part of my personality. My writing is very concise. The podcast is very concise, and people like that because they can go in, they can get the information and they can leave.

Jason Hartman: Its sufficient, and there are different kinds of shows on that, and oddly enough I get impatient listening to other people shows to were they just sort of rambling on and on. But some of those are popular like there is a show called No Agenda that’s pretty big. I hear it. And I tried listening to it once, and it was so long. I just didn’t have time, but you know different strokes for different folks I guess. Hey give out your website Alex, and just share any closing thoughts you have?

Alex: Sure. The business website is palladium-education.com, and a lot of people ask what that is? Its actually a statue from ancient Greece part of ancient folklore lord mythology that was the city protector of Troy and Athens. It’s the statue of Palas Athena do it’s the Palladium. There is also a mineral called Palladium which I think is found in Russia. Its sort of like platinum, but that’s not what are that’s what we had the statue of Palas Athena as our logo, and then my personal website where I do most of our seminar training is alexhaddox.com.

Jason Hartman: Fantastic and Alex we want to have you on my other show the Holistic Survival show to talk about your actual expertise in your content area, so we will do that at a future time, but thank you so much for sharing these great thoughts with fellow podcasters today, and I think that you’ve had some great advice, great experience, and congratulations on your success.

Alex: Thank you. I really appreciate being on the show.

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The Speaking of Wealth Team


Transcribed by: Renee’ Naphier