Podcasting's Move To The Mainstream With Industry Trailblazer Paul Colligan

Shannon Waller: Hi, Shannon Waller here, and welcome to Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan. And today, special guest, Paul Colligan. Paul, welcome.
 
Paul Colligan: Thank you. So cool to be here.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I suggested that we have Paul on Inside Strategic Coach. We've done it with our Podcast Payoffs with Gord. You know, a lot of people ask me how you get started with podcasting because I didn't really take to it when I first started and it was Paul working with Joe, and then gradually including me in a podcast. And I started getting used to the format and used to, you know, just being relaxed and conversational. It was so funny because when we started, Paul was here and then Shannon was here. So I started off with 10xTalk with Joe Polish, but then I got the idea we should have a lot of podcasts. And Shannon was the first one I went after. How many have we done? I don't know how many we've done. We've done a lot. And then it got completely out of hand. And I've got a podcast with about five other people. And I looked last year and Gord looked this up for me, but we did 167 podcasts. I was part of 167 podcasts during the year. Should I seek counseling, Paul? Because It all starts with you being sort of a parental influence on my podcasting career.
 
Paul Colligan: Well, I'll take that. I'll certainly get a recording of it and send it everywhere. But no, no, you shouldn't. And as a matter of fact, when people tell me I don't have time to do a podcast, I just tell them about you and all the podcasts you're handling. And then it kind of gets quiet pretty quickly. So don't go down, man. You're one of my best excuses. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, Paul, let's go back pre-podcasting. What had set you up where podcasting was sort of a natural next step for you?
 
Paul Colligan: Well, so in the year 2000, I was in a, believe it or not, a consulting firm in the World Trade Center of Portland, Oregon. I had to wear suits five days a week. There was no casual Friday at this place and I needed out. I needed out bad. And my first product was going to be an audiobook, and I was a little addicted to Audible at the time. Nobody knew who they were at the time, but I did. I was addicted. Through dumb luck, I was able to have dinner with the CEO of Audible, and he paid, which is even better. Gave me a vision for audio distributed, and it just blew my mind. I knew this was the future in 2000, and I asked him, all right, how do I get in? I want to put my book on Audible. Unfortunately, it was a half a million to get in. They got 70 percent, I would get 30, and they just signed Harry Potter to the platform, so I wasn't going to get a better deal than Harry Potter. I left with a vision, but a little disheartened. Then in 2004, when podcasting popped up, it was never to me. The obvious extension of the RSS scheme with the MP3 codec, the nerd stuff, it was, I can play Audible now. That was what I saw in it from day one, I could play Audible. And funny enough now, by the way, it takes less than five minutes to submit your podcast to Audible for free. And you are in the directory less than 10 minutes later. So boy, talk about full circle. So that's what happened. And then once it happened, the tech let me compete. And then two little companies, Apple, made it really easy to get the podcast. And all the cell phone companies made it really easy to download the podcast right to our phones as we drove to work. And man, when the biggest companies in the world team up to provide the backbone for the technology that you're going to spend the rest of your life with, thumbs up, let's do this. So that's where it all came from. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: So there is a triple play here. Oh, absolutely. The Audible experience, then Apple and the cell phones. Yeah. You were talking about your vision, but what was the vision that you saw because you were an employee and then you weren't an employee?
 
Paul Colligan: Well, the vision was I actually was doing my own entrepreneurial thing for a while and I just needed some training. And I figured, you know, why don't I get a nice little consulting paycheck while I get that training. But the day I learned there was no casual Fridays and, you know, those types of things, I started planning my escape route somewhat immediately. And this book was going to be it because this book was going to sell online 24/7 while I was working, you know, the day job. And so it all came together. It was all very strategic, but I wanted out. And this was the tool that was going to get me there. And nothing like having a, you know, hustle culture. I get the concept, but I mean, let the computers work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Take a nap, take a Free Day.
 
Dan Sullivan: So in those days, what was the vision of podcasting? Because I don't know how many podcasts there are now. The last time I checked, there's 2.5 million, but I think it's growing exponentially. So what were the early days like? Because you were sort of early days of podcasting. So you're the early radio, early television kind of with podcasting.
 
Paul Colligan: Well, my first podcast was available on the page of podcasts. There was a web page list of all the podcasts that were available at that time. So that's how early I started. And I knew it would take some time to get to where I wanted to go. It had a very rogue element to it. It had sort of a fight the man, anti-establishment, but as I was driving, 35 minutes every day, you know, to my job in the World Trade Center in Portland, I wanted something better to listen to than drive time radio. The nature of that industry is not that difficult to disrupt. And so Audible was part of that. So I was listening to great books. I was listening to great strategies. I was listening to all these things. And then I realized I could play in that game too. I could play in that field as well. So it used to be you had to do in the morning, you had to get up. You had to download the files to your computer. You had to have another program that would run that computer to your iPod. And then you would take that iPod to actually, yeah, in the early days of podcasting was the iPod. But when I was doing the Audible thing, it was the Pocket PC. Nobody remembers those. So it took three or four steps. It took three or four steps. But I'll tell you, in 2005, I was driving away, and I realized I'd forgot my iPod. I said, Lindsey, we forgot the iPod. And she goes, well, what are we going to do? Because she didn't know a world where dad wasn't in charge of the entertainment. And I said, well, we're going to listen to radio. And she goes, what's radio? Exactly. And I realized I'm going to be telling the story forever. So I thought about it for a second. And I said, radio is like the iPod, except someone else decides what we listen to. And she said, well, why would we do that? Bingo, you know, an industry was born. So it took a lot of work. I liked it. I enjoyed it. You know, I'm bilingual. I speak nerd and I speak business. And so the early stuff was very nerd. It was very intriguing and it was better than the drive time, you know, options that I had at that time. So I enjoyed it, but I knew it was going to get better. I knew it was going to get bigger. I knew the general world was going to come to it. I honestly didn't know it was going to come that fast. I mean, I've been podcasting for years before Apple even announced it. And then once the cell phone companies started going, hey, you know, unlimited data, we're going to start doing the unlimited data. I think then I knew we were there. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: I remember when I approached you, I said, Shannon, we have great talks about how Coach works and how the Program works. But I just suggested that we might have a podcast which revealed to our client base for one, and then we have a lot of other people who have grown, the audience has grown for Inside Strategic Coach. But what was your first thought about this when you first started?
 
Shannon Waller: It was actually like, okay, it was pretty great. Cause I think by then I had actually started my Team Success Podcast, which was 100% inspired by you, Paul. So fortunately it wasn't completely a new, terrifying, scary thing because Paul, I got to watch you do a nine minute podcast during your 10 minute talk at Joe Polish's Genius Network, I think in 2014, could have been 2013, but around there. And then that year, I think August of that year, I started my very own podcast because I've been wanting to capture my thoughts and creativity, Dan. And, you know, I was thinking I'd write a blog, but that felt like a lot of work. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, talking is so much easier than writing. And also when I wrote Team Success Handbook, then I actually had some great content to talk about. I'd already had some articles I could riff off of, but it was very inspiring to see you do that. I'm like, oh, you just made it look so much simpler. And then Dan, the chance to hang out with you and talk about our favorite topics, you know, thinking about your thinking and all things Strategic Coach was kind of a very cool no-brainer next step, if that makes sense. So it was like, okay, cool, this will be fun. And it has been forever, long we've been doing it.
 
Dan Sullivan: The thing that really interests me, Paul, is that we have people who on their quarterly planning in Coach will say, I'm going to explore podcasting, but they never do. Okay. It's almost like writing a book. You know, we also encourage people to write books and I'm encouraging people to get intellectual property. But from your perspective, because I imagine, I don't know what your client base was over the years, But I suspect it lends itself best to entrepreneurs. Absolutely. Because it's always mindsets that stop people from doing something. So what's the mindset that has to be overcome on their part to go into podcasting?
 
Paul Colligan: The value of the content needs to be understood as greater than the packaging of the content. There are some who don't want to record because they're worried about how all the ums and the ahs are going to be taken away. And I love audio editors, and we need them sometimes, and this will be cleaned up. But the fact of the matter is, the content coming out of the mouth, I mean, number one, the best thing about podcasting over anything else is the speed of creation. When we hang up the Zoom call, we're done. And entrepreneurs love speed. And so if you can get past the imperfectionist of the format that you created, you're going to get over it. But what's funny is the second part of it is the authenticity of the end product. You know, when I read a book, you know, Dan, you're famous for, you know, the whole team that you have against your quarterly books. And now when I read it subconsciously in my mind, I'm wondering, well, was this Shannon? Was this Dan? You know, what part of the team was doing this? But whenever I listen to a podcast with you, I love the you and Peter show. I love it because it's just you and Peter connect, you flip on the line, you record the whole thing, you hang up, you're done. It was pure Dan, and it was pure Peter, and it was speedily created. You don't even have a ton of music. It's just speed of creation, authenticity of the end product. Then the last thing is just the distribution opportunities that come from that.
 
Dan Sullivan: There's what I would call the Hollywood narrative that you got to do it over and over again until, you know, it's a scripted. A lot of people think that public presentation is scripted, but that's a sure killer in the podcast world. If we found scripted.
 
Paul Colligan: And you can hear the ones that are 30 seconds into you're like, yeah, they're reading a script.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I remember we had a financial services company in Ohio. He says, can we do a podcast together? And I said, sure. You know, call so-and-so and he'll set it up for you. It wasn't Gord at that time. It was somebody else. So I'm ready and I come and I get an email from them first. And these are the questions we want you to—and of course, I don't respond well to that type of email, because the nature of podcasts is you don't know what the second question is until you've asked the first question, because then you ask a question about the answer to the first one. And then the third one appears in the course of the second answer and everything else. And that I've found to ask the question. And what they sent is a suit. They send a suit. He actually had a suit on. And he says, well, Larry doesn't like doing podcasts. So, you know, I'm going to do it. So can we start with question number one? And I said, you know, I got a feeling it would go better if you started with question ten. And we went backwards to question. He said, I'm sorry, Mr. Sullivan, that's not the way podcasts go, you know. And then I would ask him questions, but he knew nothing because he was just a stiff that they put on the other side of the phone. Then it was a disaster. It was just a complete disaster because they wanted to be in control of the experience. And you can't control the experience of a podcast.
 
Paul Colligan: Exactly. Because if you try to, you lose the authenticity of the end product. So you work harder to get a lesser result. Where else does that happen?
 
Shannon Waller: Not very entrepreneurial.
 
Dan Sullivan: No, not at all. Shannon, going back to your team podcast, because this was kind of early when you did it. I mean, it was 2014. What was the response? Because your clients here are the team members of entrepreneurs. So what was their immediate response when Shannon was in the living room with them? Shannon was in the car with them. What was their experience of that?
 
Shannon Waller: It's fabulous. And it turns out our audience is actually way broader than I thought. So it's team members, team leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners, because they're not experiencing team success and they want to. So I also found out that people were listening to me in the shower. They're like, Shannon, I listened to you every day in the shower. I'm like, oh Lordy, now I've got a visual. It was pretty funny. It was awesome. And for me, Dan, you and I are similar. We don't love small talk. At least I really don't.
 
Dan Sullivan: No, we like big talk.
 
Shannon Waller: We like big talk. And so what I love, it kind of goes to the authenticity that you're saying, and I was at connection. Like a podcast is a very personal conversation. You're listening to it on your own. You're not listening to it in a group. And so people feel like they have a personal relationship with you. So, I would find that clients would come up during a workshop and say, hey, I really liked your podcast on this one, of course, and that was a few episodes ago. So, I'm like, which one was that again? But it just allowed for this value exchange and this connection and cooperation with what would have been strangers if we didn't have that. So, I mean, it was a slow build. We just hit 500,000 listens in November, which was a cool milestone to hit. Yes. Yes. Not quite as big as Inside Strategic Coach, but still something I'm really proud of.
 
Dan Sullivan: A couple of years ago, we were at two million. What's it now?
 
Shannon Waller: Oh, Gord would have to tell me. I don't even know, but it's definitely up there. But to go back to your question, Dan, the impact is just much greater connection, much greater relationship, lots of positive feedback. And the impact on me has been that I have a place to capture my creativity and my ideas. And talking about them first in a podcast is like the most enjoyable thing ever. Like, hey, I just had this insight from a conversation last week. Let me share it with you, is quite often how it goes. And then also I love interviewing authors. And so that's been a fun way to create a platform to have like-minded people talk about ideas that are impactful and useful to my audience, my choice, who I get to interview. And that's been a joy. So it's been such a liberating avenue for my creativity and then it's created this much broader audience that there's no way I ever could have tapped into without doing it. So clearly I'm a fan and I've been doing it for 10 years and I see no reason to stop anytime soon. It's just one of my favorite things to do in the week.
 
Paul Colligan: Well, to speak to the authenticity of the end product, I can't remember which episode it was, Shannon, but it was one of them, one of the many. Yes. I was listening to it and there was something on there that I wanted my wife to hear. So I queued it up, she comes home, I'm like, hey, honey, listen to this. So Heidi hears it and at the end she goes, oh, I just love her. And your book is good. But nobody's going to read two chapters of the book and go, oh, I just love her. Right. You know, it comes from the authenticity of the moment, you know, that leads to the other things. And so you got to be creative. You got to work these things out. You got to produce creatively. But then you also ended up people seeing who Shannon really was because it wasn't coming through a thousand filters. No.
 
Shannon Waller: And the unedited is, I mean, it's edited for ums and ahs, but this is the real you. Unlike that stilted human being who attempted to interview you, Dan. It's like when you have something of value to say, when you have a connection point, and you can express yourself that way, it is, first of all, for me, super fun, but it's genuine. It's real. People feel like, oh my gosh, I love that person. I'm so inspired. This was super useful. Whatever it is. Or you know also the ones you don't like, and then you turn them off. But it's just been this incredible way to kind of make a ripple out in the world. And then it comes back to you. It's really special.
 
Dan Sullivan: Paul, because you've had a complete view of the development over two decades, and you go to the conferences and you're plugged into the people who are innovating in the podcast universe. I really am a political junkie, but my sense is that it's had a profound impact on how politicians have to talk. I mean, if you have 2.5 million podcasts and it's reaching billions of people, downloads and everything else, I think it probably has a profound effect on people of what's real and what's not real, that they're now using the podcast standard for judging all speaking in public.
 
Paul Colligan: Yes, you're totally right. And podcasting has introduced the unfiltered. And the unfiltered is so attractive. And when I hear someone unfiltered, I want more of that. When Heidi fell in love with Shannon, it was because it was Shannon being unfiltered. And so when you hear three people unfiltered, and you hear that fourth person filtered, that fourth person just loses all significance and meaning in your life. It's jarring.
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, unfiltered 25 years ago would be jarring..
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah, the smoothing of the edges is now jarring.
 
Dan Sullivan: That's that's funny, which is really interesting, because, you know, I've been following politics since 1952. Eisenhower was the first big presidential election, and he was as stiff as a board, you know, I mean, but that was expected in those days, you know, what you rehearsed and everything else. And I think that if you look at the very famous Nixon Kennedy debate, which really put televised debates on the map, it was very clear that Jack Kennedy was more comfortable. And you had a sense that you could imagine him being in a living room with you, and he's talking to you, where Nixon was very, very scripted. I think that that was the first movement over the line into the semblance of unscripted. Jack Kennedy had a very, very good sense of humor, and he was good with quips and everything else. And Nixon was a conventional politician. Well, you know, it's in the mainstream media, it's television, it's radio and everything else. But I think that what was needed was a medium where anybody can do it and anybody could be heard.
 
Paul Colligan: Agreed.
 
Dan Sullivan: You didn't have that. I grew up my whole life. It took a lot of money and it took a lot of connections to get yourself where you could actually be interviewed or you could talk. And then they gave you all the rules and how you were supposed to present yourself and everything else.
 
Shannon Waller: And one of the things about podcasts, almost to go back to your previous point, is that when they first came out, it was like this democratization of information and knowledge, to refer to Peter Diamandis’ 6 D’s. And it's all of a sudden, all these things were available for free on your cell phone via iTunes or Audible. And it was like, whoa, this was kind of amazing. And people could have a direct connection with famous authors, not famous people that had something useful to say. You could find a relevant topic. So you're able to really niche down or niche down, depending on your country, to topics that are of interest to you. And it might be somewhat obscure and no one else in your direct geographical location knows things, but all of a sudden you've got a like-minded human somewhere else with whom you can, you know, share ideas and insights. That proliferation has been a big deal and it's so different, Dan, than the environment you're talking about.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, is this worldwide? I mean, in other languages and other cultures, are they podcasting? Because it seems to me that the English speaking world really took to it really fast. I don't know. I mean, you've got a much bigger, broader view of what's happened over the last 20 years and you're talking to people. But it seems to me that the English speaking world really took to it big time.
 
Paul Colligan: Well, right now, it's really interesting. The stats, the reporting, the numbers prove emphatically that it is only popular in countries where they have cell phones. Yeah. And, you know, because that distribution model. Where I can get what I want, when I want, where I want, how I want, is what we're used to with that cell phone. No longer plugged into the wall. No longer plugged in anything else. I remember that same kid who asked me, what would we do with radio? We went to this Oregon museum thing, and she saw our first phone plugged into the wall, which Heidi and I remember fondly. She's like, is this what Laura Ingalls Wilder did? You know, seeing it in the perspective of timing and stuff. So anybody who has a device that gives them the capacity to get what they want, when they want, how they want it, these are the ones that are plugged into podcasting. When I did that event, Shannon, where I did the 10-minute talk with a nine-minute podcast, Joe said, you know, find me some fun facts about the podcast. And one of the fun facts we found was countries that had banned YouTube, banned Facebook, well, Facebook was around at the time, you know, that banned MySpace, that had banned all these things, were getting hundreds of downloads of, you know, each episode of the podcast because it was getting through the Great Firewall. Because it was getting through all these great things. And so a country whose first entry in Google was the CIA Factbook of Human Rights Violations, you know, Joe's podcast we're going out to.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. I remember you identified that we had a growing, very faithful audience in Kazakhstan.
 
Paul Colligan: Yep. Yep.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, it was the highlight of their week when the newest 10x talk came down.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah. You know, and it's just fantastic. And it's funny to look, any podcast hosting platform will let you see the countries you're in. And sometimes I didn't even know that country existed. But look at that. You know, I've got a fan base there and it's a ton of fun. Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: Dan, I remember when there was a new workshop, it happened to be a 10x workshop, relatively full room, and we asked where people were from and how they found out about Coach, three of them from Mumbai. And they found out about Coach through the podcast. And they didn't know each other before they were in the workshop room, which is hysterical. But yeah, the global reach is… It's free global radio.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yes. One of the things I got from you right from the beginning, Paul, was that the only thing that you need to sell is a relationship.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah. And this is the way to offer that relationship. And part of that relationship is, am I wasting your time? You know, there are podcasts where you listen to the first 30 seconds, you're like, oh my God, kill me now. And these shows don't grow well. You know, I'm a big fan of the you and Peter show. And it's so great because I never know what's going to come out. But I know when it's there, I know it's gonna be two buddies talking tech, and it's just gonna be a blast. And it's just real at its core, you know, and it's just a blast and a half. So yeah, you're selling the relationship, but you're the veneer, the shininess, the wrapper, all that stuff's gone. Is Dan speaking to me or is Dan not speaking to me? That's it. Those are the only two questions. And if Dan's not speaking to me, I got other choices.
 
Dan Sullivan: One of the things, there's a bit of a tension in our relationship. And I'm the one who recommended to Peter that we do a podcast. I said, we'll call it Exponential Wisdom. You'll provide the exponentials and I'll provide the wisdom. And I don't know if he laughed or didn't laugh, but you know, I'm a history buff and I track developments. You know, we think, you know, nothing happened in the world before Google, in the tech world. Like, there was basically no human history paying attention to before Google was on the board. I said, when Gutenberg first introduced movable type, and the years generally agreed on is 1455. Within a space of two decades, 20 years, in the northern part of Europe, there were 30,000 presses. And what they were doing is that they weren't creating books so much as pamphlets, and pamphlets in those days was a broadsheet that was folded into 16 parts, and you would read one page and then you would unfold and read another page. But it caused a revolution. It was an economic revolution because it was the part of Europe where people actually got up in the morning and worked hard all day and made a lot of money. And a lot of the printing was just economic news, and the other thing, it didn't cause, but it enabled the Protestant Revolution against the Catholic Church, because the Church wouldn't allow any presses, and it was the authorities that would control what was printed, and then people wouldn't read it on their own. They were talked to in a church. And so there's this democratization. And I'll put the question to you, Paul. Is it the technology that causes the movement, or is it the movement that causes the technology?
 
Paul Colligan: Well, that's good. I would say the movement begets the technology. You know, it was so funny because in the early days, the first podcasting event I loved because we all attended the event. We're all excited about the event. And at the end of the event, we all convened to the hotel bar. That's how big the event was. And, you know, and I kept telling everybody, we can play Audible, we can play Audible, we can play Audible. And everyone else was, no, no, no, it's the extension of the RSS schema, you know, and it's the MP3 Kodak and, you know, all these nerd things. That was fun for them. But once we started realizing what was going on, then we started doing amazing things with it. And you look at the great podcasts, those are the ones where, you know, the content was like, now I got my platform. I always had my content, now I have my platform. And those are the really exciting shows.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it's really interesting because I'm a contrarian regarding technology. You know, everybody says, well, you know, these days humanity is trying to catch up with the technology. And I said, what if it's the reverse? What if it's the technology that's trying to keep up with the humans? And I really see this in AI.
 
Paul Colligan: Yes. Continue. Keep going.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, Evan Ryan, you know Evan, yeah. He's my first client who is 50 years younger than I am. Okay, I learn a lot when I'm with him. But he came out with a great book and we put our entire team through a six-module training course he had just how to get comfortable with AI. And, you know, he dispelled a lot of the myths and the fears about AI. And basically, he gets it down to what are 10 hours that you're spending in a week that you'd rather someone or something else do? And that brings it down. What would you do with the 10 hours if you got the 10 hours back? So that was about two years ago that he came out with a book, and now he's writing a new book. And he was saying, I'm trying to get a title for this. And I said, how about Exponential Tinkering? And I think podcasts is a tinkering mediumist. Hey, if I got this person in here and I put this person together and we talked about this, what would happen?
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah, let's try it. What's it going to cost us? A little bit of time, you know, an account with one of the hosts. And now in the democratization of it all, there's a company used to be called Anchor. They got bought by Spotify, but their concept was we're going to be to podcasts what YouTube was to online video. We're going to make it free, we're going to make it easy, and that's where the explosion came. So when you hear that 2.5 million, a lot of them are one episode of somebody tapping the microphone going, does this work? Does this work? Does this work? It's the numbers you got to play with a little bit. But yeah, it's that tinkering, but they try. A couple of friends get together, they try talking about this. You told Peter, hey, let's chat about this. Let's see where it goes. You talk to Shannon, hey, let's do Inside Strategic Coach. Shannon saw, hey, Paul can do a podcast in 10 minutes. You know, I could certainly do this. And yeah, it gives us that ability to give that a try.
 
Dan Sullivan: But you're doing it in the front of witnesses.
 
Paul Colligan: You're doing it in front of witnesses that you can track and see what's going on.
 
Dan Sullivan: And they like that it's being made up. Yes, they love it. They love it.
 
Paul Colligan: Your biggest fans are the ones who are there from that really terrible episode one. You know, everybody says take down episode one. No, keep episode one. It keeps you human. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, and that's where they go back. You know, remind yourself if you're getting too polished. Exactly. It keeps you human.
 
Shannon Waller: On that point, there is one person I really enjoy listening to, and I go back to her beginning ones because they were so on point and so was her content. And then I think she thought she ran out of content. And so she starts interviewing people. It's just not as pithy and impactful and relevant and raw and interesting. So you are 100 percent right. It's keep that initial you know, kind of not knowing what you're doing, but still doing it anyway, kind of thinking, because it actually, a lot of times, especially if you're focused on your message, is the gold. That's the best stuff.
 
Dan Sullivan: I like Joe Rogan. Yeah, and it's such a lengthy thing. It's like two hours or whatever he wants it to be that day. I was on a short day, but yeah, keep going. Yeah. And he had Peter Zion on, you know, I'm a great Peter Zion fan. And I was watching Joe during that because, you know, you'd ask him, you know, is China going to take over the world? And he says, well, actually, I'm predicting that China probably won't even exist in 10 years as the country that it is now. He said, I have a feeling it's gonna break into parts. For the last 5,000 years, it's a very hard country to keep together and everything. And he said, nah, nah, he says, probably by the middle of the 22nd century, so 100 years from now, the population of the United States is gonna be bigger than China because they're dying off at a phenomenal rate and they're gonna have big famines, half the population will starve. And Joe Rogan said this, Jesus Christ, well, you know, and I could see about halfway through, it was about a two hour take. And Peter Zion is just like a jackhammer, you know, he just keeps coming at you. I mean, he's very casual spoken and everything else. But Joe Rogan says, Joe, next time you have this guy on the podcast, no smoking for two days beforehand. Because Peter Zion is just right there all the time and he's very casual about his views and he's got a very gifted way of talking in a way that's memorable. But that is just not possible 25 years ago, that type. You know, I grew up on Mike Wallace, you know, and he was a great interviewer. But boy, oh boy, it was controlled for an hour. Yeah.
 
Paul Colligan: I always said, you know, the only problem with new media is when you treat it like old media. You know, like we have all these opportunities now, let's take them. You know, if I'm going to have an exactly 30 minute scripted show with four commercial breaks, might as well be on TV. You know, and people are flocking away from TV. People are flying away from TV. You know, Dan, you haven't touched it for years.
 
Dan Sullivan: You're six. I'm not full six years, but I've not done it since 2018. Watched any not five minutes. I just haven't. I said this is a waste of my time. And they're losing badly. I mean, they're losing their ad dollars and everything. I mean, if you want television in a local market, you can get it for one hundred dollars an hour at three o'clock in the morning, you can pay $100 and get a night, because they have to fill the 24 hours, and there's some real bargains. We're kind of talking here about a sort of unpredictable podcasting, because I think the pioneers in the early days would probably be a bit dumbfounded by where it's gone over the last 20 years. But my sense is, do you see any things emerging, directions that it's going in right now? One bad and another one good.
 
Paul Colligan: Well, one really interesting thing is YouTube, for all these years, didn't know what to do about podcasting. You know, they allowed it. A bunch of stuff was on podcasting. In some countries, more people get their podcasts from YouTube than anywhere else. But in the last year, YouTube has embraced podcasting. And now you can identify your show as podcasting. But what's really interesting is the Google Podcast app dies next month. It dies next month, and it will be replaced with YouTube music. In the old days, iTunes used to be music plus books plus TV plus podcasts. It's kind of where YouTube's going. But so if you want to have your podcast on the officially sanctioned Google platform, you have to be on YouTube. Think about that. The implications of that are huge. Does YouTube know entirely what they're doing? No. But is their sheer size and veracity going to shift the market whether they like it or not? Yes. The biggest change is, I know a lot of people who get up 8-9 social media time, 9-10 podcast time, 10-11 YouTube time. It's becoming one time now. It's becoming one format and it's becoming whatever distribution we want it to be. And I think what we're going to see is that we're going to see the name losing importance. You know, it's funny talking to television. Nobody ever says, hey, remember the Seinfeld television show? Nobody ever says, you know, the 60 Minutes television show. But for some reason, we always say the Inside Strategic Coach podcast or the I Love Marketing podcast. The word podcast is going to go away. It's freely distributed, completely democratized media. And it's gonna be on YouTube, it's gonna be on the podcast apps, it's gonna be on all the social media networks. The news is gonna lose importance. What's gonna be there is that I can get Dan and Shannon when and where and how I want. And so that's the big change.
 
Dan Sullivan: It's like fish don't talk about water. Exactly.
 
Paul Colligan: That's a much fewer word way to explain that.
 
Dan Sullivan: I was the water today.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, it's fascinating because after I gave up television, I had my visual appetite that I wanted some visual and I switched over to YouTube. And I loved it because you could have hour long interviews, you could have, you know, explanations of things on your time. You know, what you have to catch up with humanity is that humanity wants it now. They want it just like the way they want it. And they want it without a lot of bother. I don't want to really, really know what your financial situation is for me to watch this, you know, and everything like that. So I think it's just humans being humans that's driving the progress.
 
Paul Colligan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And in that human being human, it's so funny because people want to have these big strategic conversations. They want to bring 50 people into the room and they want to bring the highfalutin, you know, marketing consultant. Give it to them how they want it, where they want it, when they want it. That's it. I love the conversation that comes up all the time. Should we put the whole show on YouTube or should we chop it up? No. How about both? Should I put on Spotify or Apple? How about both? This is the beauty of this and that is going to put a lot of marketing consultants out of business because the answer is just everywhere, all of it, all the time.
 
Shannon Waller: I always like to move into it like super practical. So moving ahead, and great question, Dan, as things are growing and podcast world's expanding, what's it look like? But if they've already got a podcast or they're looking at starting one, are there a few key dos, don'ts? I mean, the information about Google is valuable. Gord just told me that, yes, Inside Strategic Coach is available on YouTube via RSS. What are some key pointers that will protect people from it not going well? I do know, to your point, don't get overwhelmed by the editing or the this or the that. Focus much more on the message would be one thing I've learned. But what's your expert coaching say?
 
Paul Colligan: Clearly know why you're doing it and deliver on that expectation. Because if I tell Shannon, this is why I'm doing it, and then I do that on episode one, and then I don't do that on episode two, you're not coming back. And that why can be really easy. It can be, look, what was it you said, Dan? He delivers the technology, you deliver the… wisdom.
 
Shannon Waller: He delivers exponential. Yeah.
 
Paul Colligan: I'm going to deliver, whenever I get 30 minutes with Peter, I'm going to make a show out of it. Bam, you deliver. You know, Shannon and Dan are going to talk about what's it like to be inside Strategic Coach. You and Gord are going to talk about the intersection of technology and teamwork. Like, you know why you're doing it, and then you deliver that. Because the second you stop delivering that, it's over. You know, the second you and Shannon do an interview with the love coach, you know, on how to have better relationships, the show's over. You've lost your entire audience. So know what you're doing and deliver that expectation. And then balance, this is the key thing, balance the spontaneity afforded to the strategy that's necessary. How long should a podcast be? As long as it needs to be, just not one minute more. So balance the spontaneity afforded to the strategy that's necessary. And then the last thing, and this is where entrepreneurs get in the way, and this was one of my biggest jumps personally, is just know their Whos. Because it is so easy. There's this idea that I'll just record it, and I'll just edit it, and I'll just publish it, and I'll just write the show notes, and I'll just do this, and I'll just do this, and you know, know your Whos.
 
Shannon Waller: Thank you. I'm going to add one other one. Please. Voice quality matters. Like audio quality matters. Get a good mic, have a good connection. Like just some of those basic things, like invest in some editing would be really good.
 
Paul Colligan: Because- Yeah, know your Whos.
 
Shannon Waller: Yeah, there are some podcasts that where the people are fabulous and I personally know them and I love them and I can't handle the crappy quality of the audio. So yeah, so I would add that just from a straight quality standpoint.
 
Paul Colligan: Talk about growth, though. There's some AI right now that will make bad audio good really, really quickly, really, really easily. There's a product called Descript, D-E-S-C-R-I-P-T.com. They have one of my favorite buttons in the world. It's called the Studio button. And the Studio button is on or off. There's no toggles, there's no numbers, there's no variables. Click here if you want it to sound like it's in a studio.
 
Shannon Waller: Oh, wow.
 
Paul Colligan: And it is amazing how good it is. You know, we've seen people text a message on voice memo by SMS that is cleaned up with studio sound that becomes a commercial.
 
Shannon Waller: Wow.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah. You know. So, yes, Shannon, you're right. But here's the good thing. You don't need to spend a lot of money on it.
 
Shannon Waller: Right.
 
Paul Colligan: And if you don't have the time to click the studio button, you don't have time to podcast.
 
Shannon Waller: It reminds me of the wonderful Zoom feature called Enhance Your Appearance.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah. I've got portrait on right now.
 
Dan Sullivan: I've never had it off either.
 
Shannon Waller: And a guy is the one that told me about it. I'm like, wow, dude, you look really good. He goes, yeah, let me tell you why. And then he showed me, I'm like, you're my best bud.
 
Paul Colligan: No reason to turn that off.
 
Dan Sullivan: No reason to turn it off ever. Well, humans have had cosmetics forever because they want it. Well, Paul, I haven't touched base with you for a while, but are you moving into coaching?
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: I'll tell you why, because I think that the greatest growth industry, well, it's already number two. So I.T. is the number one growing industry in the world. Coaching of any kind is number two. OK. And they say, well, what kind of coaching? I said coaching about everything. Coaching about anything that people are interested in. You know. So what's your approach to coaching right now?
 
Paul Colligan: Boy, you're scooping me here, it's the Q2 release. But it's just going to be because the coaching could be simple things like turn on studio sound. We'll find the tech, we'll find the technology, we'll find the processes, and then we'll just coach you into it.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, and record is important too.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah, hitting record is important. The backup when we started this, I heard Zoom go, this is being recorded more than once. So clicking that button is important too. But yeah, the coaching process is going to be, here's what's to play, here's how to think about it, and here's how to apply it to what you're doing. I'm not going to say that I'm going to steal the whole idea of having a tool each month or that kind of thing, but it's necessary. It is the next step because for all of us, there are 40 different technological implementations that one could play with. But the idea of focusing on the authenticity of the end product, that we can coach to and that we can do a good place for. And then the other thing too is coaching. There will be the thought leaders who are producing the content, but then also coaching the people in the back end, letting them know about things like studio sound and letting them know about, you know, some of the things that are out there. So it's a two pronged approach.
 
Dan Sullivan: It just struck me this morning. It was right at the end of our two hour connector call, which I called on that guy, Michael Schrader. And I said, God, what a great voice. He just had this amazing voice. And I didn't say anything about it because people are self-conscious enough about it. And I'm not, you know, people say, well, of course, Dan would say that he's got a great podcast. So I didn't say it at that time, but it suddenly struck me. And I don't know why it has struck my two hour connector calls or podcasts, aren't they?
 
Paul Colligan: Yes.
 
Dan Sullivan: Have we ever used them as podcasts?
 
Paul Colligan: You should.
 
Dan Sullivan: You'd have to get a lot of permissions for this, right?
 
Shannon Waller: Yes. I mean, right now it's something that's available for our clientele and it's exclusive that they have access to you, Dan.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, that's OK. I don't have any problem with that. Yeah.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah. Mike Wandler, Ellen H. Mike, Coach Superstar. Yeah. We are doing his webinars as a podcast. And when it starts, it's like, hey, we're going to be releasing this to the world. So if you don't want to be on the episode, just don't raise your hand. Nice. Then in post-production, we record it in such a way that if somebody at the last minute emails and says, please don't use me, we can edit that person out. But very doable. You just start at the beginning, let them know it's going to be live. People love it. It's the energy, it's the buzz. When I was in college, I'm going to date myself here, but when I was in college, I knew a writer for Johnny Carson. So I could bring a date to Johnny Carson whenever I wanted to without having to wait in line outside, you know, and go through that whole mess. It was a ton of fun. Johnny Carson recorded is very different than Johnny Carson, the show we would watch every night. Because you have the standup comic, you have the people in the middle, you have the band playing. It was an entirely different show. So people will attend. the live event, Dan, of these coach events to see what happens live, to see what gets edited out, you know, see what doesn't make it live. So, yeah, it's a great podcast, but don't think that because it's a podcast, people won't show up to the live.
 
Shannon Waller: Dan, I really appreciate you saying that. It's kind of like an a-ha for me. So many things that we record, and it's so much easier to record now, right? You can actually put on an existing podcast platform, you can, or existing show, like there's so much that we do on Zoom, which has afforded us this amazing capability, that we can absolutely turn into a podcast. All of a sudden, that's a 10x idea as far as I'm concerned.
 
Paul Colligan: I got to tell this tech because if 2022 was marked by anything, 2022 was marked by me spinning and we charted about 60 hours of 2022 was me giving people Zoom alternatives for high quality video remotely recorded. Well, Paul, what happened in 2023? Well, we found out that if you have the pro level of Zoom and you email support at Zoom.com and you say, please turn on high def, they will turn on high def for you. All of a sudden, all that stuff just went away. We got to stop teaching that and that was a ton of fun. We use this universal platform that everybody's used to that Dan even wrote a book about. It's your remote recording platform and you set up a couple of things, you get all the voices on different tracks, you get the 1080p, you get it all, it's done.
 
Dan Sullivan: No, my thinking has really expanded just in the course of our talk here. Cause I mean, I do 96 hours of connector calls a year and that's in the schedule. They're all recorded. It never occurred to me that I'm doing podcasts with 40 or 50 guests.
 
Paul Colligan: It's the spontaneity. It's the speed of creation. It's the authenticity of the end product. Can I give you the thing that will really bring you over the top? Here's your opt-in. If you'd like a free PDF of the tool that we discussed on today's presentation, visit strategicpodcasts.com/breakouts and let them choose on that one. And obviously don't want to give away all the tools. But if I know now, I mean, it's the tools that brings everybody into Coach. You know, we get that first book, we sign up, we get the first tool, we go through the process. I like this. I want more. I want that connectivity. And you give away the audio version for it. And they especially want this. Frank Kern, when Frank Kern did his first episode of his podcast, 86% of the downloads opted in for the spreadsheet that he chatted about on the first episode. So you'll build a list of people who want to use these tools. So there's a gift to the world, but it's a really good marketing play too. I mean, I've done. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: I mean, this is a gift from COVID because I wasn't doing those before. So, you know, we have them halfway through. Did we start right in 2020? I don't think it really started until FreeZone.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, actually, we didn't call them that. But if you remember, when we had to pause our workshops, we offered two hour connection sessions for our clients for free right in March of 2020. So we yes, you get those off right away. And that's also how we end up doing the Scary Times Success Manual, which was actually—this was really fun, Paul. You probably know this already. But we started talking about scary times because Babs said, hey, this is a good time to bring out scary times. And if the conversation went on so long, I'm like, OK, this has got to be a two parter. Right. And then we recorded the entire book as a 12-part series. And then we wrote the book. It was just the coolest evolution. But, Dan, I think we started it in, I think you started it in March of 2020. Yeah. You tapped into it and shout out to our friend Taki Moore, who invited me to a conference in March. And I was like, breakout rooms.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. The big problem with switching over from live up until then, we didn't know Zoom had breakout rooms. Yeah. And it was a breakout room. So, of course, the breakout rooms don't get recorded. Yeah. You know, at least to my knowledge, they don't.
 
Shannon Waller: They don't, which is actually great for turning it into a podcast.
 
Dan Sullivan: You don't want those recorded because you want the reaction to the tool.
 
Shannon Waller: So now that's going on for years, Dan, that we've been doing that.
 
Dan Sullivan: I hadn't seen it before, and I'm just seeing it now. And, you know, and, you know, I never came across a new idea I didn't fall in love with. So, yeah. What do you see happening on the show so far?
 
Paul Colligan: What do I see happening on this show? Which show are you referring to?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, just, you know, you're a discerning judge of podcast interchange and podcast. What do you see happening just with the three of us? What we've been doing for the 15 minutes, I guess.
 
Paul Colligan: What I see is, you know, the method behind the madness. You know, nobody would ever say Dan's not into podcasts and nobody would ever say Dan's not into books. You know, I mean, that's a given. The question of why, you know, and that's the examination here. And if this guy can produce, and Gord's in the chat room right now, so he can tell us how many are currently live, but if this guy can produce 47 podcasts a month and produce four books a quarter plus major market books, maybe I can do my first episode. Maybe I can do my first pilot. Maybe I can try this out. And now that you know that if you email support at Zoom, you can get the HD, and you used a script to get your studio sound, that is true 80-20. I can see people going forward ahead there.
 
Shannon Waller: I think really focusing on your why you're doing it, and also who's your audience, who do you want to be a hero to for Dan, is so key. We're pretty laser beam focused. Well, we are laser beam focused, Inside Strategic Coach. I am very much so with Team Success. I know exactly who my audience is. I know the kind of message that fits. I know the kind of message that doesn't. I've learned who's a right fit, who's not. They need to be in my Coach world, because otherwise people are just weird. You learn as you go. And I think it's good to record a few episodes, like four to six, so that you've got that. But hopefully people fall in love with the process. If talking or being in conversation is a joy for you, podcasting could be your new best friend. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: I realized how ingrained this is in me because I got a request very late last night. This is from one of our Coach clients with real longevity. He started the Program in ‘91 and this is year 33. But he was at a speech where somebody made a favorable mention, more than a favorable mention, he went on and on about the book Gap and the Gain, okay? This is our friend Jim Malonis, and he sent a thing. This was actually on Wednesday night, so he heard the speech on Wednesday. He was at the speech. He said, you know, this guy, Chris, he was really raving about the Gap and the Gain book. And he says, but his birthday is Thursday, you know. We're recording on Friday. And he said it'd be really neat if you could just send him a birthday message and thank him for the shout-out for the Gap and the Gain book. But we just didn't get it ‘till last night, so this morning I did a quick Fast Filter, and… I just took the Fast Filter and I put it on the screen. I like seeing myself on the screen. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like looking at myself. Anyway, I said, Chris, I just want to thank you. Jim Malonis told you gave us a great shout out for The Gap and The Gain. And I'd just like to give you some background to how The Gap and The Gain came about. It went on for 10 minutes because I had five talking points that I put in a lot of stories and everything. Then I sent the video, Becca did it for me this morning. She recorded and she sent it off to Jim and Jim came back and says, I got an e-mail back, wow, wow, wow, thank you, thank you. He says, I've known this concept for 30 years and he says, I learned a lot on this. I said, I just created a little workshop and I was just sending it out. It really opened my thinking that I can do a lot of this, you know, little five-minute things and everything.
 
Paul Colligan: You said something that half the audience will get, and I want to make sure the other half of the audience gets. You know, you put the gun at me, Paul. What is the best chance of podcast success? Honestly, you do a Fast Filter about the episode. which is the tool to let you clearly know why you're doing it and how to deliver the expectations.
 
Dan Sullivan: This is the best result. This is the worst result. Yeah. I sent you one this morning before I got here.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah, you did. Yeah.
 
Dan Sullivan: And then five success criteria. And these are just topics you want to talk about, you know, and the camera doesn't see your sheet on the screen. Right.
 
Paul Colligan: Exactly. Cause it's right there. Yeah.
 
Shannon Waller: I want to add to this because Dan and I had a very, very, very freeform version of Inside Strategic Coach at the beginning. And finally, I'm like, there's got to be some structure here. So one of the things for the five points that I finally figured out three main topic areas. What are we talking about? So it's what, why, and how. What are we talking about? Why is it important? Which, Dan, you just segue beautifully into them and all of them, giving away my secrets here. And then the question I almost always ask at the end, how can people take action on this? What is a practical way that people can engage with this and do something about it? And that has been gold. I call it the podcast formula and I share it openly. When you're really clear on the, what are we talking about? So that means you define your topic and your issue. And then why is it critical? And then often there's stories that go along with that. And then how can people take action? It ends up just being this beautifully packaged event. And then you do the Fast Filter on that, you are golden. So just wanted to share that insight as well.
 
Paul Colligan: I've heard that also called, what, so what, now what?
 
Shannon Waller: Oh, nice. That works too.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. People do want a bit of structure. They, you know, we all do. Yeah. I mean, we're structured creatures anyway. Paul, Q2 project coaching. How do people take action? So, well, I know it's still backstage being developed and everything, but what's it going to look like your coaching program?
 
Paul Colligan: They're going to be two models. There's going to be coaching for the content producer. That's, you know, the front stage. And there's going to be coaching for, you know, the content editor. That's going to be the back stage. Now, I will produce the content for the back stage coaching that will be performed by someone else, but I'll do the front stage of that because what's interesting is we do want to be empowered and we do want to have our teams. As a result, it's nice to have a Who, but as one person once said, Paul, one must utilize the overhead that one is already paying for. It's certainly fair. That is the behind-the-scenes coaching, but it's going to be both. There are a lot of people who don't need anything other than that. You've got a whole team that's producing this kind of stuff, so that's what that is designed for. It also keeps me on my toes.
 
Dan Sullivan: I'm thinking more in reference to our clients because we have a lot of people who are actually doing podcasts.
 
Paul Colligan: Yeah, exactly.
 
Dan Sullivan: They just jumped into the pool like we did because we had your coaching right from the beginning. We're just going to scale that. That's for both. Yeah, so my set is as soon as it's available, we want to let the world know about this.
 
Paul Colligan: All right, well, we'll make it happen. We'll make sure you know. Yeah. If only there was a way I could contact you like an electronic mail kind of system or something like that.
 
Dan Sullivan: Oh, no, no, that's not possible. But Becca and Gord are, you see, I always keep smart humans between me and the technology. Best way to do it. Yeah. Anyway, I have all sorts of thoughts coming out of this podcast and I, boom, you know, my head just, well, thank you. Yeah. So it was really, really great. And that's my Positive Focus, Shannon.
 
Shannon Waller: It is always a pleasure to hang out with you, Paul, and we've known each other a long time now. And I just really appreciate your ongoing passion, interest, clarity, direction, coaching on all things podcast, but actually all things communication and ways to get your message out. And you really help to, you know, decipher some of the chaos and make it make sense. So a real pleasure to hang out with you. And like you, Dan, my brain is like, oh my gosh, we could do all these new things. So that's super exciting to leave with. How would you like to wrap up, Paul?
 
Paul Colligan: I love it when this stuff works, you know. And when people say case study, you know, one of my favorite books was a book called Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good. You know, and it was a book about how Internet One, people made a lot of money. Internet Two, people made a lot of money. But a lot of people in Internet Two made money learning from Internet One. And some people made money in Internet One, lost on Internet Two. But the ones who made it in both number one and number two, these are the guys to watch. Musk, you know, so the funny thing about you guys and podcasting is it's once you're lucky twice you're good, three times it's proven, four times—it's like I got to go to 12 for you guys. You're just a rocking reminder to me of the power of this stuff. And so it's just a blast to energize and a blast to you know interchange and yeah, it's just a ton of fun. So you remind me of why I do this.
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, that's a great compliment. Thank you.
 
Shannon Waller: Love it. Well, thank you so much, Paul. Always a pleasure. Thank you, Dan. Love your insights. And thanks everyone for listening.