David Bain Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing David Bain
David Bain is today’s guest joining us on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots podcast.
He is a man who is at the forefront of digital marketing in the UK and has been since way back in the early 2000’s
Starting his career by gaining an MBA in business from Napier University, he worked for a series of digital marketing agencies specialising in SEO, PPC and Social.
He then moved away from the UK to Sydney Australia when offered the chance to head up the growth of the SEO department for MEC Australia.
These were all the fledgling steps into the world of entrepreneurship, helping marketers to stay up-to-date with the latest tools, tactics and technologies through his books, podcasts and digital services, helping them to cut through the noise and focus on what shifts the needle.
How The Dots Joined Up For David
Nowadays you can be working for someone on a Monday and change your title on Linkedin To Expert on a Tuesday, but our guest has done his time getting to where he is.
A digital marketing pioneer, podcast host and producer, he started his first online business back in the year 2000 and his first podcast in 2006.
Since then he’s worked with several global organisations including Google, Nespresso, PA Consulting and Farfetch, delivered dozens of digital marketing training sessions and hosted hundreds of podcasts, webinars and online summits.
David, his wife and son are based in London, UK.
So today the world is screaming “Buy from me, look at me, grab my course and book” but certainly not when he started, so why the interest back then?
And where does he see the mistakes that people make when entering into the world of online work with such eagerness today.
Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. David Bain.
Show Highlights
During today’s show we discussed such weighty subjects with David Bain
Why blending the offline and online world to get your customers attention, is such a powerful way to really boost the effectiveness of your content.
David shares why we have such little time to make an informed decision that getting noticed has become a big issue.
We discuss the process of getting a book from the content of a podcast to the real thing, and the effort involved.
and lastly…….
Why its so important to focus on servicing people who are closely linked to you and your passions. Become your own avatar.
David Bain Books
How To Connect With David Bain
Return To The Top Of David Bain
If you enjoyed this episode with David Bain, why not check out other inspirational chat with Depression, Kavit Haria, Dorie Clark, and the amazing Brad Sugars
You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy
Audio Transcription Of David Bain Interview
David Ralph [0:01]
Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He’s Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. for you. Welcome to Join Up Dots.
Intro [0:31]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be but somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:57]
Yes, hello. A good morning to you. You’re not sick of us. Now you’re still coming back for more and more. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate every single person that gives us the time because there’s so many choices out there nowadays. You could you can literally step out of your bed and trip Oprah podcaster by are everywhere. Well, today’s guest is a man who is at the forefront of digital marketing in the UK and has been since way back in the early 2000s. starting his career by gaining an MBA in business from Napier University. He worked for a series of digital marketing agency specialising in SEO pay per click and social and he been moved away from the UK to Sydney, Australia, when offered the chance to head up the growth of the SEO department for mec, Australia. Now these were all the fledgling steps into the world of entrepreneurship, helping marketeers to stay up to date with the latest tools, tactics and technologies through his books, podcasts and Digital Services, helping them cut through the noise and focus on what shifts the needle. Nowadays he can be working for someone on a Monday and then change his title to link to This isn’t our guest this is just generically change your title to a linked in expert on a Tuesday, which really winds me up but our guest has done these time getting to where he is. He’s a digital marketing pioneer podcast host and producer, and he started his first online business back in the year 2000 and his first podcast in 2006. And since then, he’s worked with several global organisations including Google Nespresso, PA Consulting and Farfetch and the leader. Thousands Yes, thousands of digital marketing training sessions and hosted hundreds of podcasts, webinars and online summits. He comes from London. Well, maybe not originally but he is now and he lives there with his wife and his son. So today The world is screaming buy for me by for me, look at me grab my course and book, but certainly not when he started. So why the interest back then and where does he see the mistakes that people make when entering into the world of offline and online work with such a goodness today? Well, let’s find out as we bring on to the show, to start Join Up Dots with the one and only Mr. David Bain
David Bain [3:04]
Morning, David, how are you? morning and thank you so much for such a wonderful introduction. And it’s great to be on with you in such an incredible show. Thanks, David
David Ralph [3:13]
is lovely to have you here. And I can tell you a podcast host because you your voice goes up and down quite sexily, you know, you know that the presenting skills all comes from the vocal cords and so can’t
Unknown Speaker [3:25]
help it. Sometimes
David Ralph [3:27]
you come back, but doesn’t wind your wife up? Did you ever go into
David Bain [3:32]
my wife up? Well, before I started really focusing in on podcasting. The thing is when you start really editing your own voice as well, and I’ve edited probably over 500 of my own shows, then you can’t help but analysing your voice and thinking I should be doing this more I should be doing this more. And it just becomes Oh, I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing, but it’s just a thing.
David Ralph [3:54]
I don’t do any editing ideas basically open my mouth and out to the world and see how it flies. Unfortunately, it’s been flying very well. Now let’s jump in with you. Let’s jump in with you. Because I remember the year 2000 very well, because I was working for a company up in London. I was 30 years old. And I thought, I’ve had enough of this. I’ve had enough, I’m going to quit. And I quit. And basically for the whole summer, it was a year ago, 2000, the football was on. I still had my train ticket up to the City of London. So I would go up every morning, basically get really, really drunk in pubs. And I had a great time. But I also remember that moment when somebody first said the word Google to me, and it’s nice. I remember exactly where I was sitting. I’d never heard of it. So you started kind of before most people you were really at the early stages of what we see as the internet now, was that something that was thrown at you, were you naturally interested in it? Were you surrounded by a peer group that were doing similar things?
David Bain [4:56]
It was thrown at me. This was probably 99. So I was actually a restaurant and pub manager back in the late 90s. I was in my early 20s. And I had a couple of mates who’d gone to uni with, or come to me and said, the internet’s the place to be, you know, this is where we can make our millions. And so we happened, obviously, to be all be working in the hospitality industry. So we came up with this idea of creating an online booking service for restaurants. And we hadn’t actually hardly been online at all ourselves beforehand. But I don’t know how we managed to do it. But we managed to build and design at least the infrastructure of this website and launch it and it did really well for a while. So that was my first foray into digital.
David Ralph [5:40]
And how did people find it? Because that is one of the things I’m very interested in. I see things that look amazing. And but when I do a little bit of background search, no one’s going over there at all.
David Bain [5:52]
So he pointed back then obviously, we hadn’t heard of SEO. It was we did a few banner swaps. But we also did offline marketing as well. So we produce the time as well. So I
David Ralph [6:04]
haven’t had that for years. You’re, you’re such an old guy, David.
David Bain [6:09]
I’ve done fax marketing as well.
David Ralph [6:13]
So Cena Sorry, I jumped in there.
David Bain [6:16]
So yeah, so for that particular business, I did a bit of offline marketing as well. So we had stickers that we put on the restaurant. So we went around to the restaurant to got them on the website and gave a sticker to them, which they had on the windows and people said that they’re on this website, and that encouraged their customers to check us out as well. And we put flyers and restaurants as well. So it really was kind of word of mouth marketing and not really digital at the time.
Unknown Speaker [6:42]
I love that. I really love that.
David Ralph [6:44]
And that’s one of the big problems that I find with so many people that I talked to. There’s a guy called Martin there’s a guy called Martin that I’ve been working with recently. And he’s created his own mobile mechanic business, and it’s an early early stages, but it’s doing very well. And he’s going down to libraries. He’s going around to supermarkets, he’s going to round to where there’s notice boards, outside bus stops, and putting up little posters and stuff, you know. And offline is so powerful, but more often than not people forget about it. Now, people forget that actually, it’s not all about Facebook ads and Instagram base and Instagram, but it’s about putting your information where people can see
David Bain [7:24]
it. I tell you, what’s really powerful is well blending offline with online. If you can somehow do that, and get the consumer to consume your content offline, and then be driven online and then from online. Find out more about you offline as well, that really cements the relationship. I tell
David Ralph [7:40]
you, who does that really, really well. Russell Brunson from Click Funnels. He keeps out these books and basically pay nothing for them and I’ve read them all and they are really good books.com expert.com secrets and all this kind of stuff. And he’s got QN
David Bain [7:59]
Yeah, he’s a he’s a Absolutely great guy knows loads of stuff about digital marketing and marketing as well and he obviously started out as a as a wrestler I remember and I must be honest with you I was put off from from from dealing with Russell I guess initially because back in probably about 2005 or so I just remember ordering one of his DVDs and thinking okay that’s a you know purchase an investment and then find out my credit card got charged month and month and month after that. I didn’t actually check it out. Oh, it was actually a subscription model. But it wasn’t that clear. I thought in the websites that made me a little bit put off but he’s done some wonderful things with Click Funnels and you know, I should certainly revisit him a little bit more. I didn’t like him for stop
David Ralph [8:46]
I’ll be honest, I’m not I just couldn’t get past him. But now I’ve got past him and I’m he’s content and information. It’s good stuff. It really is. But a lot of the time You’ve got to have been past the information for it to become good stuff. You know, I read it now and I go, Oh, that’s so spot on at the time, I probably wouldn’t have grasped it as much,
David Bain [9:11]
perhaps. But I also think that it’s easy to have preconceptions about people about the way that information is delivered. I think that initially, when I started to really study digital marketing, maybe in 2006 or so, I got all these courses from all these Americans at the time. And a lot of these online sales letters put me off as a Brit. The language that we use the calls to action that were used didn’t really appeal to me. And it almost went against my instinct to make that purchase and buy the information. I knew, logically methodically, that it was decent information, but the emotion that was associated with it didn’t really appeal to me. So I think that as human beings, you also have to learn to to get past people’s norm. traits, people’s natural traits, and just look at the information.
David Ralph [10:04]
And I think that’s very much while we’re talking about digital marketing, because that’s, of course, why we’ve got you on here. I know that at the beginning, I struggled with, were bothering people as I felt like it was sending out emails and selling my wares, and that, and I just signed up for something which is very, very good to do with video marketing. And these guys, they blast you with stuff literally every day, there’s five or six emails. Now I look at them, and I find it fascinating. And I read them and I look at what they’re doing and stuff. But at the time, I used to have a god sake, you know, you don’t need any more about has the world wizened up, are we more tolerant, or we’ve just kind of I don’t know, we get so much thrown at us. But we’ve actually stopped looking at it in the same way as an inconvenience.
David Bain [10:52]
I think we’re more tolerant, but we probably have less time available to us to consider offer. And that really is obvious in social media when you’re doing all this. You’re looking through your feed, and you spend about two seconds, and something’s got to catch your eye very, very quickly. So that’s particularly challenging. But going back to your previous point there as well, I think that it’s Sorry, I’m trying to remember exactly the previous points and what I was going to refer to what was the previous point, David? I have no idea, David. I switched up. I’ve been eating a sandwich while you’ve been talking. Now I got I got no idea.
David Ralph [11:34]
Let’s move on. And it will come back it like all good BS. That’s good. You will something Oh, I know what it is and we will dive into it. Okay. So if we go back into the intro, and it’s a big buck babe of mine, it really does how somebody goes over to LinkedIn and says, I’m an expert. I can help you get x y Zed, which is all sort of marketing as they’re setting their fares, but then we’ll When you go and have a look at them, which I do, you can see once again, they’re not getting any traffic, they’ve got no social media profile, they’ve got, you know, all this kind of stuff. Does it wind you up, David?
David Bain [12:11]
I think it used to wind me up more than it winds me up. Now I think consumers are a little bit more savvy. Now with regards to who to trust and who not to trust. There are many different places that you can go to, to to check people out. If you look at someone’s website, you know, some people might be savvy enough to connect that with a Facebook page or to connect that with another social profile to see how much interaction or to see how many reviews there are about that service. So the many different places that you can go and chat you can check the people open on LinkedIn, as you say. So if someone is attempting to sell something, without much experience, I think generally it tells in the language that they use, and the ways that they try and go about getting people to buy something I think explain or explain that go go. A lot of people We’re want referrals from friends nowadays, you know, you can see socially what your friends are doing. So I think people are less likely nowadays to purchase something without being aware of what other people who the trust, think about that particular product or service. And it’s and it’s easy to do that on social profiles on services out there. So I think to a certain degree, digital is becoming more about one on one relationships and and that real trust, of course, you can get that trust online by seeing what your friends and colleagues have said about that particular service. But you can probably get that trust even more by building personal relationships with people. And, and I’m really glad to say that I’ve done that. And I’m sure you find David that the relationships that you’ve built as a result of doing the podcast is absolutely incredible and opportunities of throwing themselves at you that you didn’t even consider beforehand as a result of building those relationships. So if you start off doing that, but that’s a wonderful place. To give you those opportunities that you don’t necessarily know what they might be in the future.
David Ralph [14:04]
Yes and no. And it’s interesting because I’ve been reflecting on this when I started Join Up Dots in 2014. Yes, I got lots of those opportunities because I think I was a new kid on the block. Once you’ve been around for a long time, people don’t see you in the same way. You’re just that shop that I walked past all the time. Now, I shot myself in the foot by holding myself back from building personal relationships. I think at the beginning, I very much created a radio show, and I allow people to connect with me and give them access to me, then I did, and this is totally open so that the listeners will understand better did and I got thousands and thousands of basically time wasters come through to me, who basically we’re never going to do anything. They’re never going to buy anything. They were just basically coming to me with their sob storeys, and I got sucked into Such a world, I close down the doors again. And I’ve got to do things in a different way. So I do agree with what you say. But I think the problem with what you’re saying as well, is you’re not selective enough about building and nurturing those right relationships when it’s just coming at you over time. It’s almost, you know, you stopped seeing David Bain as the person that can open the door to you, but you should develop because the next one’s coming along two seconds later. Does that make sense? It does, I tell
David Bain [15:31]
you what I’ve kind of inadvertently done it in that. I started my first serious podcast in 2014 as well. That’s when I launched digital marketing radio, as I called it a radio name as well. And you know, that’s on pause that’s actually going to be turned into new brand. But what I’ve done every year since or the end of every year, is I’ve taken every guest that I’ve interviewed and I’ve asked them to come back on an end of your recap but end of your summit and I’ve zeroed in on the games that I thought, you know, really added a lot of value. And that’s going back to them that that collation of the or the content or them appearing again with me has really cemented the relationship and maintain the relationship.
David Ralph [16:13]
I’ve been as a genius idea, but it is this like a virtual summit that people when sort of biassing Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now that the problem with photos as well is that I generally see them and you, you can throw this back at me, but I see those as the win for the host, but nobody else gets anything out of it.
David Bain [16:34]
Well, it depends, I guess what the host does with the content as well. Because if it’s just a live stream, that may be the case because it’s only a one time opportunity of the coast breaks down the content and continues to publish it and refers people to it. You know, I’ve taken that and I’ve published a book out of it as well over the last one I did, and hundred and 3034 people who participated are always featured in the book and I’m giving them a copy of the book as well. So I think that that’s a great way of thanking them and featuring them a little bit more. But I think you’re possibly right in that if it was only done once as a summit or a live stream, then it’s not quite so advantageous for the people taking part.
David Ralph [17:17]
You know, I’m going to edit that and take the word out, possibly, right. I’m just gonna have it as David, you’re right. And, you know, I don’t edit these shows. I’ve just jotted that down 17 minutes in remove the word possibly. Well, let’s play some words. Now that will lead us to the next stage of the conversation. He’s Jim Carrey.
Jim Carrey [17:34]
My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing What you love?
David Ralph [18:01]
Well, normally I delve into the Jim Carrey speech, but I’m going to get straight back to you because something interested me, but But you said only something, David, you know that. Okay that I’m going to go straight for it. You were talking about how basically you can repurpose content and you can take those podcast episodes and turn them into a book, which a lot of people seem to think, especially in the online world. It’s all about creating new content constantly, constantly, constantly, and not ever stepping back and going. How can I bring this to the world again? Tell us about that. How do you take a podcast and turn it into a book that actually does something for your business?
David Bain [18:42]
Well, it’s certainly not something that you do very quickly and you require a lot of kind of pre thought into the whole process. So a lot of planning that goes into it. You’re probably not good to start a podcast and immediately turn it into a book. What I’d suggest is probably starting off as an audio podcast, and really finding your voice, finding your brand. And you probably change that a little bit over time. After a while you get more comfortable with doing things like appearing on video and perhaps doing video interviews, doing live streaming from that leading up to summits, and then creating a summit with the people that you’ve interviewed from your podcast episodes. So I had over 100 people appear in the last summit I did, I just gave them three minutes each actually to come up with a number one actionable tip of that time for for marketing. And then I completed that information. And I knew from previously that hosting on etoro live stream would give me enough content to fill a 60,000 word book. So that’s a real proper book there. The only challenge with the transcripts of those tips is that it it comes across as very much not a proper book, you know, as if it’s someone that’s saying something instead of something, you’re writing something so I ended up having to completely rewrite every single tip. In the format that would be right for a book, so ended up being a lot more work, or probably just as much work as a book as proper. But that’s essentially my sequence that I used a publisher
David Ralph [20:09]
that can only do I slumped at the effort, I could imagine the effort of going back and rewriting all that. So content is still relevant. Because nowadays, you get so many people to say, Oh, you know, we will transcribe your podcasts, we will do this, and we will do that. And then when you look at it, it was basically an alien has read it. It just just doesn’t make sense. How do you do that? And keep it fresh and vibrant in your own mind? Because editing, it can kill anything. I’ve heard people that have edited a podcast so much, but it just kills the life out of it. How do you do that with your content?
David Bain [20:49]
Well, I’m going to start it off with a live stream with the ATR summit could taking the content and getting it transcribed. I just use rev.com Yeah, to do the initial Transcription. Now they’re okay. I was probably between 97 99% accurate. So you had to go through that and correct things like names of software URLs that they’re generally fairly bad at that. But once all that was corrected, then it was a decent transcript that could be used with the video. So I’ve taken 10 minutes sections of the live stream and then kind of broadcast that on on LinkedIn or published it on LinkedIn and other places. But in terms of the book, you know, I had to take all the content and put it into a Word file. The next stage is categorising everything. So the only question that I asked people on the summit was actually what’s your number one actionable digital marketing tip for 2019 at the time, but it turned out to be a really, you know, great, relevant marketing tip that wasn’t necessarily just associated with this year. So that’s, that’s why I’ve changed it to marketing now rather than just digital marketing in 2019. But anyway, I was I had this word document with all the transcript there. And then I had to categorise all the different tips. So 134 different tips. I categorise them. And then I made chapters I to them from that, and then broke the chapters down into different sections happened to do to fit into I thought three nice sections and 12 nice chapters. So that was then a lot easier to draw to drive a nice thread between the conversation, and I rewrote each tip to make sure that it read well for a book. And then I provided a small paragraph of introduction at the beginning of each tip to draw a line between the previous tip and the current tip and introduce the thought that someone was sharing
David Ralph [22:44]
is that when I read about four books a week, and a lot of them are business books, which I find once I’ve gone to fourth chapter, and grasp what that books about, and I remember I had a guy on the show and he said yes, I’ve read 1000 books. A year and a fault Really? You read 1000 books a year, three books a day. How’s that possible? And then once I actually realised, yeah, it’s absolutely as possible because these books just ran the same subject, time and time again over 50 chapters when you really understand it in the first one, your book, obviously, with so much of that knowledge being personalised to the person giving you that advice. Were there any common themes that ran through every single person so I could come to your book and just read the first chapter and say, I’ve got it?
David Bain [23:36]
No, not every single person. I think they’re obviously tips that were generally fairly similar or, or provided similar types of advice, but there were from a different perspective. And when you have different people sharing things, there’s always gonna be a different angle. So it’s not repeating the same information. For example, you know, at some creative people Some technical people on there as well, for the more technical people, if they’re into SEO, they might have talked about things like voice search and featured snippets at the top of search engine results. So someone that was more technical might have talked about, you know, really how you go about coding your website to give yourself the best opportunity to appear up there. Someone that was more into the different platforms out there might have associated with Amazon, Alexa and Google Home, and how to actually turn those features snippet results into voice queries. And someone might have talked about the same subject but talked about it from a consumer perspective or a content marketing perspective to integrate it into your overall business strategy. So although they’re talking about the same things, it really is different sides. So I don’t think there’s a significant amount of repetition in there at all.
David Ralph [24:50]
No, but newbie that comes along. They’re listening to that and like, oh my god. Oh my god. I’ve got so much I’ve got so much on. Are we still at the stage? Cuz I’m still really aroused at the thought of SEO on Google is my number one, and I can’t get past the fact of, if I make it as easy as possible for people to find me that are looking for me, there’s a good chance they’re gonna find me.
David Bain [25:15]
And he’s gonna be my number one.
David Ralph [25:17]
Yeah, it’s not anymore.
David Bain [25:18]
No, it’s I mean, I’ve been your head of SEO in different places. I’ve been, you know, heavily involved in SEO, I started off really, highly involved in SEO and web at 2005, when I was ranking websites for a highly competitive terms and generating a full time income from Google AdSense. So I’ve been involved in SEO, from the early days where link swapping would work, but generally, for many businesses is hyper competitive for the kind of terms that you would really want to rank to to bring a lot of traffic. So the SEO opportunities nowadays revolve around your hyper specific terms, local SEO, voice search and things like that, but it’s still a lot of work today. Of course, it’s important to get the technical structure of your website, right and the user experience, right. But if you get that right to a certain degree, your SEO will work over the long term. So I think as long as you get that technical infrastructure, right, then you can perhaps focus more on on word of mouth and other forms of content marketing.
David Ralph [26:17]
So you’re not as aroused as me, David. Not at the moment. It’s drooping. It’s drooping. So so so what what should what’s your number one then?
David Bain [26:27]
Well, I I really love podcasting. But I’ve brought that together with webinars, virtual online summits, and you’re producing podcasts. So yeah, they’re all similar kind of things. And that’s where I make my my income nowadays, I produce podcasts for other people, I host webinars and online summits for other people. But I also do it myself. And obviously, I’m an author publishing a book as well. So it’s, and I think you can link those kind of services products together, but but I’m probably more passionate about podcaster And getting the audio quality as good as possible. And using that form of communication. It excites me. I’m not actively publishing a podcast at the moment, funnily enough, yeah, I’m, I’ve put my main podcast on hold, but I plan to launch one and redirect all my existing could have URLs video feeds to the new one in January, February of next year.
David Ralph [27:25]
Now, when we talk about podcasting, and being in the online world, a lot of it seems quite sexy. I accept that from the outside. It does. But a lot of people say to me, are you still doing doing that show? They don’t even name it. They just say, are you still doing that podcast? And I go, yes. Okay. It’s my business. I can’t stop. And I go, Oh, we just wondered if you were still doing it. Now. I know, but I can’t stop doing Join Up Dots. Even if I want to stop doing Join Up Dots. My business will been dying without me doing it. So I’m created a job that I’ve got to do but basically the very rest of my life. Now fortunately, I like it because I hardly ever podcast I literally podcast a couple of days a month. And all the rest of it is just, you know, I don’t go near a microphone, I can’t be bothered to do it. Do you see that as an awareness of what it actually takes, there is a consistency, there is a performance that you’ve got to do time and time again. It’s not just, oh, let’s start a podcast. It’s not just do a bit of video marketing. That consistency is something that has to come from deep within.
David Bain [28:32]
Yeah, I think it can be that and I think you have to be a little bit careful that it doesn’t turn into something that is a beast and that you feel that you can stop it all. I wanted to, to pull back from my podcasting for many reasons you’re one of them was to, to focus more on my business model. And exactly why I was podcasting, what my podcast brand was and what I was doing with the the audience and how else I was using the opportunity. And you know, I think I’ve been Taking the time to really analyse things properly and come up with a slightly different brand you’re talking about, you can really start because it’s such a successful medium for you. But what is view is a successful content marketing channel. And you’re, you can obviously, potentially build other channels in the future. So I’m sure you’ll be able to hit to stop at some point, I guess the challenges is that the podcast is so closely related with your personal brand as well. And it’s quite challenging sometimes to to pass it over to some one else or replace it as an effective driver of traffic.
David Ralph [29:38]
Yeah, it’s not going to happen. No one is going to get there. And I have people come along quite often and say, Oh, you know, should we do it a co hosting stuff ago? No, I’m sorry. It’s just me this side of the microphone and nobody can and I feel precious about it, baby because when I started it, nobody cared. Nobody was interested. You Know, even my closest friends would love and go, Oh, what you’re doing, you’re doing that. And I remember going to a dinner party and this guy was slightly drunk sitting the other side of the table. But he was so dismissive of the effort. But now he every time I see him, he goes, I’ve had a great idea. What about if we come and I can know, it’s not going to happen? You’re not going to get your hands on my work, because this has taken me six, seven years to get there. And you see that time and time again, how do you maintain the integrity of what you’re doing, and not lose equity, which is what we’re basically saying when people start coming along and sort of trying to take parts of the business.
David Bain [30:41]
It’s a challenge certainly when it becomes your semi successful when I started getting approached by different martech brands about advertising on there, then suddenly you’ve got an opportunity to to earn some extra income, but to certain degree, you may be diluting the content. Slightly if you’re not very careful or selective about the brands that you associate your content with, also, you know, as I mentioned, I’ve hosted podcasts and webinars for other companies. And when you do that they want creative input into the content that you produce, they perhaps want a co host involved, they may be want to direct you in terms of the kind of content that you can share as well. So that can be particularly challenging as well. And if money’s involved, and you’re making decent money, then that that’s when the decision becomes very, very difficult. But I guess the solution is just to have a business model that sits outside the podcast to a certain degree, which means that ideally, the podcast could be switched on or off and you’ve still got a business. On the other side of that.
David Ralph [31:51]
I was listening to Jay Leno from the American talk show host who’s kind of retired and stuff, and he was having an interview with a couple of guys talking about About comedy specials and on Netflix, everybody’s got a comedy special out. And he’s never got one. And they said, Why have you never got one out? He said, why would I want to give away my content I’ve spent 2030 years writing where I can go to a theatre and I can perform it. And then two years later, I can come back and just tweak it slightly and, and give it away where the world sees it in 10 minutes on Netflix, and then goes, Oh, I’ve seen him do that before. And he made a valid point. But nowadays, it’s very easy to get a fraction of a percent of a listener, a fraction of a percent of something, like diluting that message with sponsorship, where if you keep control of it yourself, then that equity, that real estate on that product becomes vitally important to your continued growth. And that’s why we’ve Join Up Dots. I never advertised anybody else. And even when I was scrapping around for cash, and I thought I’ll come Yeah, I think I will do it. I think Because ultimately, at the beginning and the end of the show, if I’m going to advertise anything is going to be my own stuff. Hmm. I know, that’s where people are going wrong, isn’t it back there?
David Bain [33:10]
Well, what were most podcasters are doing are going wrong, I think, is that they don’t have a proper business model. You know, they’re treating the podcast as their business. And they’re trying to get sponsorship, or get other companies to pay for different things, when in reality, they’ve got a great audience themselves, and you haven’t thought of who that target audiences and what kind of challenges issues services that they may wish to receive from you and they possibly be quite happy to receive from you because they trust you as well.
David Ralph [33:44]
When you look at that, because what you’re saying is, I think this is what you’re saying, and we would be connected on this. It’s so much better to put a podcast onto a business bank create the podcast as the business.
David Bain [33:58]
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think The only exception to that is if you’re podcasting about a passion and it’s highly likely just to be about that passion and you’ve got another source of personal income and income doesn’t really matter to you.
David Ralph [34:11]
Because I can teach people how to make a six figure business through a podcast. I’ve taken mine into a multiple six speakers. So there’s certain strategies but I know words, but more often than not, when people come to me that go the route that I did that create Join Up Dots and Ben had to create an audience and then had to find out what the audience one and then start building products based around that. I say to them is not worth it. It’s not worth it. If you’ve got a business being great, let’s put a podcast on it. We can explode your marketing. We can get people coming to you, listening to you making a decision, whether you’re an idiot, you can be trusted or whatever, and take them from the awareness to the consideration stage of buying, and then naturally move them through his window in it.
David Bain [34:56]
Yeah, I think generally, that’s the best way to do it. There is, of course an opportunity, if you’re likely to be talking about content that could be commercialised that could be possible to generate an income from at some point in the future, to do it the other way around and build an audience first, and then launch products or services that are targeted for that audience afterwards. But of course, you’ve got to support yourself during that period. And I think that, that that’s a tougher way to do it. So So ideally, you need to have a proper business model that’s not associated with a podcast to begin with. And then use content as sorry use podcasting as content channel to drive people towards your business. Yeah, I agree.
David Ralph [35:41]
I agree. And we have we got somebody coming in is is the thing about entrepreneurial life working at home. It is it’s the
David Bain [35:49]
it’s the challenging total or but the door was slammed quite quickly.
David Ralph [35:52]
For me, when they walk in and they destroy. I always want my own kids to do that, but they they stay following Way,
Unknown Speaker [36:00]
now with with that again,
David Ralph [36:03]
is it because people say to me, I say to them that I can teach you, but 90% of the iceberg, and I’m very aware Now that everything that people are selling, they’re setting the 10% that you can see. And Russell Brunson with reflecting back on him again, he said this quite well in his book. But he tried for years to get the success of other people before he realised that he was mimicking the 10% that he could see. And there was 90% going on behind the scenes that you couldn’t see until you started to get into it. Now, I say to people, I can teach you the 90%. And a lot of them think that they’ve got to have a winning personality. They’ve got to have competence. They’ve got to have a back history of subject but they’ve got to have all the dots joined up. And I say to them, no, you’ve just got to understand what your customer really wants. That’s the key thing and everything grows from that. Is that naive? Would you come from a different point of view?
David Bain [37:04]
I, I kind of agree with that. I think the challenge is sometimes you can spend too much time analysing your customers, especially if you find out that they’re wanting something that doesn’t particularly appeal to you personally, I think that you’re going to be most successful in business by yourself. If you’re focusing on servicing people that are a close match to what you are like as a person’s I either they like the same kind of products and services, they believe in the same thing. So you because you’re the avatar, basically. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Be your own persona is what I say. You know, there are loads of people around the world like you believe it or not, the world’s a big place. They built a billion people out there. So trust in the fact that there are other people out there that are passionate about the same thing. That you are passionate about you know if you research your your your your target listeners or the people that are listening to you at the moment and find out that actually they’re nothing like you You can either create products or services for them and focus on the money or you can perhaps attempt to change your listenership your your listener base by focusing more on the things that really appeal to you personally, and I prefer the latter.
David Ralph [38:25]
I prefer the latter as well but I also like making money and so there are some things that I’m quite willing to do if I think there’s a need for it and I could present it
David Bain [38:36]
I know you mean but I think that it’s possible to do both I think it takes longer to to make decent money when you’re focusing just on the things that are you’re particularly passionate about, but I’ve been focused on money before I’ve I’ve done very well with doing things like publishing web pages with Google AdSense on them and and generating automate automated doing Come through that, but it’s not really particularly motivating. For me, I ended up figuring out but yeah, I probably love producing podcasts and webinars and online summits a little bit more than other forms of digital marketing. So if I focus more in on that and maybe talking about what I’m passionate about digital marketing in general, you know, on these on these different places, then opportunities will arise and I may have done I perhaps it’s taken, you know, four or so years for people to come to me and and offer to pay pay me decent money to do did this similar kind of things for them and sponsor my shows, but I think that’s more rewarding than focusing in just on money. But obviously, you’ve got to survive.
David Ralph [39:44]
Yeah, you do. Yeah. And you have to get down and be dirty. And I did a podcast episode recently where I said, you know, you have to do the dirty stuff. Sometimes. You know, you can’t just go from A to Zed or a to z. And everything is a walk in the park. You’ve got to do stuff to Just, you know, I used to look at it. And in the early days, I used to think I’ve extended my runway by a month. And that was it. It was purely that I had done stuff that meant meant the next month, I could still pay the bills. And and then I worked again, and I was literally working at month to month to month. Some of it was my online stuff more often than not, it wasn’t. And you know, I was doing stuff in the local community. I was doing Jobs didn’t want to do it. No, yeah, did I was I desperate, but somebody who I used to work with, that saw me as an online success didn’t come around and see me fitting shelves up in a supermarket. You know, I didn’t want that. But I was still willing to do it to get to where I am.
David Bain [40:41]
I think what I’m saying then is you need to manage your time as well. And if you need to do certain things to make money, then you need to say okay, I’m going to allocate 50% of the time that I can work to making enough money so that the other 50% I can focus on the things that I really want to do, and it will enable me to be able to focus on that. for the long term,
David Ralph [41:01]
what do you think about this as well, I get people that come to me and they say, David, I’ve got this pressure. I really love camping I love you know, this is what I really want. And I want to build a business around camping. And I’ve started over the last year or so saying to them, it’s probably better to do something that gives you the lifestyle that allows you to do camping, your van you working in camping. And the last thing you want to do is actually go out and get under a tent yourself because you’re doing it all the time. I’m starting to go against the do what you really love, and think I’d rather do stuff that allows me to time to bang go off and do what I really love.
David Bain [41:43]
But I don’t want to, I think just do podcasting part time and for my full time focus, make more money doing something that I’m not so passionate about. I want to try and spend most of my working time Which is probably going to be a reasonably lengthy period in the week and focusing on something that I really want to do. But I do understand what you’re you’re saying actually reminds me a conversation that I had with Ryan Levesque, a few months ago. I was interviewing him about his new book choose. And he was saying that there are four different types of entrepreneurs. There are mission based entrepreneurs, passion based, opportunity based and undecided entrepreneurs. And it actually really kind of lit up something inside me and I I figured out okay, what I what I’ve been about is previously, I’ve been opportunity based I’ve been focusing in on Okay, where’s the financial opportunity here, but I’ve morphed into, no, I’m more passionate base. Now I’m more focused on something that I love to do. But Ryan did say, be careful because what you’re particularly passionate about, if you just rely on that, for your income, then it can actually turn into something that you’re not so passionate about. After certain amount of time,
David Ralph [43:01]
can I have to be in two camps? I think the mission and the passion I’m kind of 5050 on both.
David Bain [43:07]
Well look, if it makes you feel fulfilled, then go for it. Sometimes I guess people can find it passionate focusing on money, it all depends on your personality as well.
David Ralph [43:20]
I’m passionate. This is my absolute number one, on a buggering off and leaving everything behind that. I want to do that hundred percent of the time. I don’t know, sometimes eight said, you know, the more time I have off and I’m fortunate in Join Up Dots. Now I have quite a lot of time off. It’s a real struggle to get back in. I do and I do wonder whether I will get to the point where I actually go. I can’t be bothered anymore. You know, maybe maybe I got to the point financially that I don’t need the money or whatever. I do wonder about that.
David Bain [43:52]
Yeah, I mean, I took six months off to travel around Australia and South America and that was that was nice to be able to do that kind of thing. But it was all So nice to come back into focusing in on, I guess being a little bit more productive. I’m not sure if I would want to at this stage not have that that regular cycle of things to do. But I think an ideal life would be to take many retirements and to be able to come back and perhaps have a different different passion and focus after that, but sometimes come back comes back to money.
David Ralph [44:26]
Yeah, many retirement is our structure it all, but I do know that there’s a big slump, you know, if I take five weeks off, is about eight weeks before I get back into it. So there’s five weeks of off and three of this all just floating around I motivation now used to have,
David Bain [44:42]
it’s really important to schedule stuff. I think that’s the great thing about podcasting and interviewing people as part of podcasts. You know, when you schedule stuff, you know that you’ve got to try and be up for those interviews or those summits or whatever you’re doing. And you if you don’t schedule stuff, if you do podcasts yourself or you do some Other kind of activity that just relies on youth. And I think that can be more challenging when you’re coming back from one of these mini mini retirement.
David Ralph [45:07]
So let’s before we move you on to the Sermon on the mic, and of course here from Steve Jobs, where’s your passion going forward now, because I know that you’ve got quite a lot of businesses waiting for launch. So where’s your focus?
David Bain [45:21]
Well, I the moment it’s in the launch of my book, marketing and marketing now, which is going to happen on the 10th of December. So I’m not sure if this is going to be published before that, or after that, but I think to launch a book, you have to do certain things to try and make people aware of it now, rather than just hit Publish. So that’s going to take quite a lot of effort. I’m going to do a massive eight hour livestream with featuring about 30 different marketers as part of that as well. And then from January onwards, I’m having a few conversations with some martech companies about perhaps helping them out and doing different things for them. you’re producing podcasts for other Clients out there as well. So I’ve got quite a few things bubbling along and keeping me busy and ideas for other opportunities out there. But I guess the key thing is that I’m trying to do with just focusing on that launch just now and I think next year will take care of itself after that.
David Ralph [46:14]
And personally, obviously, you’ve got a toddler, and all these kind of things can keep you away from those some good times, you know, yeah. How do you structure that?
David Bain [46:26]
It’s challenging to structure it sometimes I’m in the moment I focus Monday to Thursday and my business. So you know, you could say that I’m not even working full time on that, you know, we’ve got decent childcare. So that’s, that’s not so much of a challenge. So that kind of structures your day to certain degree. I do end up sometimes working a little bit in the evenings but not as much as I used to. I think I think before you have kids, it’s easier to to work longer, but I think that’s probably a good thing. You’re lots of people out there will tell you great Grind to work all these hours, but I’m becoming more of the opinion that you need to use your time effectively can’t be as productive as possible when you’re just grinding all the time.
David Ralph [47:13]
Yesterday, I sat in a pub with a couple of lovely ladies in London, and a guest of the show called Rebecca and her business partner and we sat in a pub, and I had my first pint for over a year because I’ve been off it, and it went down so well, but I said, I’ll have another one. And then I had free a metaphor, that’s enough, actually, because I haven’t been drinking. So that’s Bessemer. But you know, when you come back, and you think I needed that, it wasn’t a waste of time. It was, you know, it was I needed to actually make my business better. And when you’re in that grind over time, and you’re just constantly going, the quality just becomes less and less, doesn’t it because you’re not, you’re not ready and recharged to come back and do it.
David Bain [47:58]
Exactly. Sometimes you’re actually working So hard, you don’t realise the effect that it’s having on your body. You know, I’ve done launches where I’ve been working 18 hours a day for for for multiple weeks on end and really grinding away. And then after the launch happens, suddenly you get sick. You get the flu, and you just you feel terrible. And it’s just your body’s way of telling you actually, you’ve just done a little bit too much here. You just need to take care of yourself for a while.
David Ralph [48:24]
Well, let’s hear the words from a man who probably would like to look after himself. He’s not around anymore, but his words are Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs [48:31]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow Your heart Even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference
David Ralph [49:06]
now I probably those words every day but on any kind of words that you know, your toddler should hear growing up
David Bain [49:13]
Oh definitely I love that speech here to that 2005 I can picture the the YouTube video now I’ve probably watched them multiple times as well. And it’s absolutely wonderful speech. And it’s probably an important lesson that they don’t teach you at school. I think any parents would have concerns about child being taught things just to learn things or just to pass exams rather nicely, skills that will teach them enlightenment and and really thinking about what how they can adapt to certain situations. How can they can make themselves employable or self employed in the future, no matter what will happen as well. So you have to encourage People children to, to follow things that are of interest to them that they’re passionate about. And and you will hope that it will lead them to opportunities in the future that the that won’t exist today but but maybe will exist in the future. But but it’s a challenge
David Ralph [50:20]
when I can make up their own opportunities. That’s what that excites me with my kids. Now, my son’s going through media, and you know, he wants to be a film editor. And he could basically do it himself, you know if he can get my mind.
David Bain [50:34]
But the thing is, what you studying at the moment probably won’t exist as it is at the moment in 10 years time. And that must that is scary from a parent’s perspective.
doesn’t scare me at all. I don’t care in the slightest.
Well, from from many parents perspective, certainly.
David Ralph [50:51]
Yeah, certainly not mine. I just think I’ll just get on with it as long as you’re happy and as long as you enjoy it. That’s the way forward. Well, this is the way forward to the end of the show, and is the bit that we called a sermon on the MC, where we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back in time and speak to the young David, what age would you choose? And what advice would you give him? Well, we’re going to find out because I’m going to play the music and when it fades, Europe, it’s a sermon on the mic.
David Bain [51:39]
Okay, David, age 23 things. Number one, everyone’s a grain of sand in the universe. No matter how incredibly authoritative someone seems, how important someone seems. They’re not that important to toe in the universe. There really are absolutely touch When you compare it to the size of the world with the size of other planets the size of the whole universe. So compared with what’s really important in life, don’t feel that someone that you feel was better than you is actually any better than you and you got any reason to doubt the value of the information that you want to share as well. Number two, just because someone doesn’t behave the same way that you do, doesn’t mean that they don’t feel the same way that you do. In other words, there are different personalities out there. And just because you would react in a certain way to some situation that’s happening and someone doesn’t do the same doesn’t mean that they’re not feeling the same thing. So judge people based upon what they actually say to you, rather than actually how they act physically. And thirdly, finally, as we touched upon earlier on, be your own persona. Trust that there are others out there around the world there are just like you, I don’t feel that you have to follow the money that you have to follow the focus group. design a product or service. If you are particularly passionate about something, follow your heart and design something that really resonates with you. And you’ll be a success because of it.
David Ralph [53:11]
Brilliant advice and brilliant advice for everyone listening. So David, all the listeners that have been listening, what’s the number one best way that they can connect with you
David Bain [53:19]
know, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much for inviting me on David. listener, if you’d like to go to marketing, no book.com that’s where I’m going to be doing the live stream to celebrate the launch of the book marketing now. And that will include meetings with about 30 or so of the marketers that are involved in the production of the book that includes actionable tips for 134 of the world’s leading marketing minds. You know, it’s crazy at our life live stream. I don’t like making life easy for myself.
David Ralph [53:45]
Right stuff and I hope everybody tunes in. David, thank you so much for spending time with us today. joining up those dots. Please come back again when you got more dots to join up because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is the best way to build our futures. David, thank you so much.
David Bain [54:01]
Thank you, sir. Sounds great.
David Ralph [54:05]
Miss that David Bain? Yeah, not David Blaine, the comedian I kept having to look at I think no buying buying David Bain. So, SEO Marketing? Are we making it too difficult? Should we just be repurposing content? There was a lot of good stuff in that episode. And what I like about it is become your own avatar, you know, do the thing that you really want to do. Obviously, you got to make sure that other people want it. You know, if you’re sitting there and going, Oh, yeah, I’d really like to be a serial killer. It’s going to be quite well. Actually, you probably could do that with the internet. Nowadays. There’s nothing that you can’t find and find Kindred groups that can make it happen for you. So be your own avatar. Go after the passion and enjoy yourself. And until next time, I see you again. Bye bye. Are you ready to start your own podcast and really make it work for you bringing customers and profits into your life and your business in the easiest way possible? Or perhaps you’ve already launched and aren’t getting the results you want? If so, I’m going to teach you the information that you need that makes all the difference to your success. Now, don’t be fooled into believing what others are teaching you when it comes to what makes your podcast get those results. podcasting success is not about the podcast. It has nothing to do with a recording or equipment. It has everything to do with understanding your market and making those customers come to you time and time. Again, this is raw 100% live behind the scenes podcasting mastery, not shown anywhere else. If that’s of interest, head over to Join Up Dots and book a time to speak with me to make sure that you’re a fit for our next course. This is podcasting mastery live at Join Up dots.com
