Transform Your Podcast Into a High Leverage Asset with Jerry Potter’s Modcasting System

Chris Stone [00:00:00]:
Today on Dealcasters, we're joined by Jerry Potter, who's the founder of Done by Launch Entrepreneurs and the host of the social media marketing talk show. He's helped thousands of content creators slash their work hours in half while actually growing their businesses through his groundbreaking podcast system. Jerry's here to show us how we can transform your podcast from a time consuming obligation into a high leverage asset that works for you twenty four seven so you could be done by lunch and finally have times time for the things that matter most in your life. So welcome aboard, Jerry. We appreciate you joining us, man.

Jerry Potter [00:00:38]:
Hey, Chris. Jim, great to be here. I'm excited to, break all this down and talk products and the whole deal.

Chris Stone [00:00:44]:
It's awesome, man. And and, you know, I I think, what I really love to start with because it it this when I first, you know, came across you on the interwebs, this is the one that real this is the thing that really got me interested in a lot of your content was, can you please talk about sort of the, I guess, the the origin of why you decided, you know, you'd been an entrepreneur for, you know, a number of years, but why you had decided to go this route in terms of your whole system of I'm gonna call it time management, but I know that's a that that's an ugly phrase that we maybe maybe don't use. But what was the what was the turning point? What really made you decide to do what we're talking about today?

Jerry Potter [00:01:29]:
Well, yeah, we can talk about, yeah, how time management is is slightly different. But, you know, before the pandemic, I had, two young kid I still have two kids, obviously, but I had two young kids, and I don't know if they knew that I even had a job. Right? I would take them to school or day care. I would come home. And that's kinda how it was, and and I liked that. Right? I never wanted to be the dad. It's like, oh, he works all the time. I never wanted to fall into that place where we say, oh, well, I'm doing it so we can take better vacations, so I'm not gonna be there for dinner tonight or anything like that.

Jerry Potter [00:01:59]:
But when the pandemic started, we were all at home all the time, and all of a sudden, it came out. My oldest, who is now 15, said dad works all the time. And it was this, like, heartbreaking thing because I already knew that I worked way less than most people and most entrepreneurs. Now I wasn't doing the twenty to twenty five hours done by lunch thing quite yet. But for the most part, I was only working, like, a really reasonable amount of hours, you know, thirty, maybe thirty five hours a week. And so it broke my heart when he said that. And so I that was the that was the catalyst that kind of made me think, okay. How can I design this, still do what I wanna do, and not carry that? You know, I don't think there's any guilt stronger than Oh, true.

Jerry Potter [00:02:46]:
Parental guilt. It is the strongest guilt. You know, I remember when, my we were pregnant with our first, and my wife, Candy, and I were shopping and looking at car seats. And she's like, we need to get this car seat, and it's like $300. And I'm like, well, what about this one that's like a hundred and $50? And she's already getting this look like, oh, so if something happens to them because you got cheap on a car seat, you're gonna carry that. And I'm like, no. No. Buy the forget it.

Jerry Potter [00:03:10]:
Get the $500 car seat. So parental guilt is heavy, and that was the thing that kind of kicked this off for me and made me wanna figure this out for myself and for other people.

Chris Stone [00:03:20]:
So I mean, that's I mean, that is so like, I could I feel every moment of that. Like, you know, how much is your child worth? Is it is it worth an extra $50 for this chair? And then, like, not only that, but there's just a ton of different things. So I I really would love to kinda break this down, but I, you know, I before we do that too, I think a lot of people, and and not by fault of yours, but by fault of of, of predecessors, our grandfathers on YouTube. When YouTubers here work less, get more money, they immediately think there's a catch. Right? They they immediately think, why why should I trust Jerry Potter who's talking about I'm gonna be done by lunch, when I've clicked on all of these thumbnails of these guys going, oh, you know, I'm coconuts and yachts, and I've got you know, look at look at all the money I've made from just working, you know, two hours a day or working three hours three days a week or whatever the whatever the phrase is. Yeah. What, you know, what would you say to somebody who is somewhat skeptical about your system?

Jerry Potter [00:04:25]:
Well, so first, I'll say there is a catch. K? There's absolutely a catch, and I'll tell you what it is here in just a second. But to go back to that idea of time management and time freedom, I do have to admit that I lied to my clients for years. I had clients and members that would say, how do you get so much done in so little time? And I've always been kind of like an efficiency nerd. You know, I always wanna make the most of my time. And so I would say, oh, I batched my content. Here's how I arrange my calendar. I've got these times blocked off for Deep Work, like, which stuff that I did.

Jerry Potter [00:04:54]:
But time management only saves minutes or maybe hours if you do it really well. And what I'm talking about, which is, like, real time freedom, this is where we're talking about saving days, weeks, or even months over the course of the years. And the key to it is to take all of the things we do that are low leverage and replace as many of them as possible with high leverage things or what I call high leverage assets or HLAs, one of which is a podcast on YouTube, which we can talk about. So if we think about our businesses, we have three things that we need. The first thing we need is traffic. Right? Leads. We need new people to find out who we are and come into our world all the time. The second thing we need is some sort of conversion, some way to convert people into clients, customers, members, students, whatever it happens to be.

Jerry Potter [00:05:39]:
And then the third thing we need is a way to deliver whatever our offer is. Right? If it's Amazon, they're shipping stuff to your house. That's how they deliver. But if you're an online entrepreneur, you can replace a lot of those. So traffic can be replaced with a high leverage asset like YouTube or podcasting. Conversion can be replaced with high leverage assets like automatic email sequences or, evergreen webinars, things like that. And then delivery can be replaced with things like group programs, memberships, courses, digital products, different things like that. Now everybody can't do all three of those.

Jerry Potter [00:06:10]:
Right? Right. But even if you just replaced one, like the traffic with something as high leverage as YouTube, then it changes everything because now, like, it's I couldn't stop working after lunch if I was like, Oh, God, I don't have enough leads. Where am I going to get my leads? Right? It's hard to, like, give that up. So the reason that we talk about YouTube and here here's here's the catch. YouTube takes work in the beginning, but over time, and this is how I define these high leverage assets or HLAs, is they become less work over time, and the value of them goes way, way up. So if we take YouTube and podcasting as the example, in the beginning, yeah, you're gonna have to create a a a good piece of content every week. It's not as hard as I think people think it needs to be, like or think it is, but it does take work. And it's gonna be slow in the beginning.

Jerry Potter [00:07:01]:
I never like to you know, we see all these stories, and some of them you were talking about, like, oh, I went viral, and in two months, now I make $50,000 a month and, you know, this whole thing. And I always like to tell a more realistic story, which was mine, and that is that I almost quit multiple times during my first six months on YouTube. I was, you know, chipping away, and, you know, there were many days, you know, if you if you look at your analytics, there were many days with zero views, zero new subscribers, and it's disheartening. And it took me six months to get to a hundred subscribers. And so I look back at that and I think I would have quit so many times if I didn't commit to it for a year. I told myself I can put up one video a week for a year. So I did that or else I would have quit.

Chris Stone [00:07:44]:
K.

Jerry Potter [00:07:44]:
But I got there to a hundred subscribers. A month later, I had a thousand. A year later, I had 10,000, and I had a hundred thousand views in my first twelve months. And so this is where I always like to ask people, like, serious question. If you knew you could reach a hundred thousand people searching for the thing you do Yeah. In the next twelve months, could you commit to three to six months of discomfort to get it going? Yeah. And the fact that it's hard is good, or else everybody would do it.

Chris Stone [00:08:14]:
Right. Mhmm. Yes. Excellent point. And so if we could if we could sit here for a minute and talk about that, because I think when a lot of people, they don't have the, I guess, patience. Right? But when you're powering through this stuff, your first six months, do you feel like for you, it was more about, like, getting the reps in and and developing cadences and developing the type of content and, you know, you know, structuring your videos a certain way, or maybe was it, like, trying to find what is resonating with people and and figuring out, like, okay. This is landing, so I need to I need to navigate my content that way. So, like, in that growth period, Jerry, what was, you know, what kept you going? Like like, I I know you you dedicated yourself.

Chris Stone [00:09:03]:
Right? But there had to been some moments along the way in months one through six where you said, okay. I'm this is sending me down this path, and so I'm gonna keep going down this path.

Jerry Potter [00:09:14]:
Yeah. I actually just emailed my list this morning about focusing on the right numbers. And so when it comes to podcasting, I say, you know, in the beginning, focus on uploads, not downloads. Like, are you publishing? Because that's where it has to start. When it comes to YouTube, focus on if you're a business owner, focus on leads, not views. And that was kind of what it was. So I did get discouraged a lot during that first six months, but then I realized it was because I was looking at the wrong numbers, and these are the numbers that you'll none of us will see in our YouTube analytics. But when I looked back, I realized I got my first paying client from YouTube when I had 17 subscribers.

Jerry Potter [00:09:47]:
I think I was eleven days after I published my first video. So there were moments like that that kept me going. By the time two months had passed, I think I was at 28 subscribers. Woo hoo. But I booked two paid speaking gigs. Not because I had a big channel or a lot of views, but people saw me and saw that I knew that I was what I was talking about and that I had something unique to say. And so what I always kinda tell people is don't look at your analytics. They'll drive you crazy in the beginning.

Jerry Potter [00:10:14]:
Just look at those other types of numbers. Look for those other signals. And then no matter what, you're gonna get better podcasting as well. You're gonna get better at talking about your thing. You're gonna get better at creating content. You're gonna get better at, you know, at at selling. You're gonna get better at all of these things, just by, like you said, putting in the reps. And I one more thing too.

Jerry Potter [00:10:35]:
I before I did this, I I sometimes I don't think we all realize, like, how lucky we are now. You know that Target sells, as does Amazon, obviously, but sells lighting and microphones and, you know, Stream Deck button pushers, all these different things. Right? Yeah. Before, before I got into being more of a contractor like this, I worked as a radio personality for twenty years. And I had to have oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I guess that's it's not so much in my bio anymore. But, yeah, my wife and I hosted a morning radio program.

Chris Stone [00:11:03]:
Nice.

Jerry Potter [00:11:04]:
And so we had to have a company decide to pay us. They had to have a deal with the FCC here in The US, right, the the government body that regulates transmission. They had about hundred hundred thousand watt signal. They had to go out and sell this you know, sales team had to sell ads. Like, there was all this stuff. And then when the company decided they didn't need you anymore, they could just say, bye bye. And so my wife and I, we worked together. We got let go three times in five years near the end, you know, with economic changes or format changes.

Jerry Potter [00:11:32]:
Ratings were good. We didn't do anything scandalous. They're just like, sorry. We're going in a new direction. Bye. And once we became parents, that got really scary to lose your, you know, both salaries, health insurance, like, everything. So I think back to what was required to be a content creator then. But now any of us can go on to Amazon or any or even in our local stores, get the stuff and create media just all on our own.

Jerry Potter [00:11:58]:
And it's even gotten better in the last couple of years with editing tools. Something is getting better.

Chris Stone [00:12:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. It's tough for me to hear someone complain about, you know, like, a streaming platform. Oh, like, this streaming platform. I can't believe like, it are you serious right now? Like, you know, you just told that story about being in in broadcast radio, and I can't I can't tell you how long I've spent, you know, over the years trying to record something, you know, sort of back in the day or or making music, you know, and sticking in 52 floppy disks into my into my computer and things like that. It's just like, we live in an incredible time where you can do this, this this creator economy. And sort of back to what you're talking about with YouTube, I think, do you feel like when people and you work with a lot of people, you know, in in training and coaching with with YouTube and and being involved in in their journeys as well. Do you feel like a lot of people get stuck because they're they're trying to achieve this monetization.

Chris Stone [00:12:54]:
Right? And they think that once they cross the 1,000 subscriber, 4,000 watch hour mark or whatever, that all of a sudden, you know, they're gonna see you know, the the the Brinks trucks are gonna be backing up into their driveways, and and and they're gonna be seeing this these all of this money, and that they're going that this is what they're going to do is to become sort of pro YouTubers, and that this AdSense money that that YouTube is is is going to provide them, like, a way to live. Do you feel like that's that's part of the problem is that people aren't looking at KPIs like you're talking about? Like, I'm a speaker, and this is going to get me more, you know, gigs here. I'm an author, and I'm gonna sell more books or courses or whatnot. Is that is that where things get convoluted?

Jerry Potter [00:13:37]:
I think some, but less so for your audience and my audience of entrepreneurs and business owners. You know, one of the things I'll tell people is, oh, I wanna be a YouTuber. You know? The only time I ever refer to myself as a YouTuber is with kids because kids think it's cool. Right? Yeah. Otherwise, I never say I'm a YouTuber. Right. So for me, and the thing I like to remind all of us of is we don't have to hit a thousand subscribers. We can literally monetize in our first podcast episode, in our first video because we already have our own offers to sell.

Jerry Potter [00:14:08]:
You know, they say in podcasting, it's like, oh, as soon as you're getting 10,000 downloads per episode in the first week, you can earn a full time living. That's a lot of working for free for, like, years and years and years. So Yeah. So what I tell people, first, you can monetize, but it's not like, you know, yeah, I got my first client with 17 subscribers, but it's not like, oh, quitting my job now. Here we go. You know, it was one client, and I think I did a few hours of consulting or something like that. But the thing that I think really holds people up is just simply that the ROI is not there fast enough. And then the other thing I found from a lot of the clients that I work with is it is really scary to put ourselves out there.

Jerry Potter [00:14:46]:
Right? Mhmm. So often. And that maybe I was just oblivious or maybe because I was on the radio and had already had people complain about me for years, but I didn't even think about, oh, gosh. What am I gonna do when I get terrible comments? Now I didn't like it when it happened, and, of course, it it does happen.

Chris Stone [00:15:00]:
No one does. Yeah.

Jerry Potter [00:15:01]:
Yeah. But the thing that, you know, I always like to say, if you have a business where you can help somebody, somebody's out there and they're literally, like, waiting for your solution, whatever it might be, then we can't let our own insecurities get in the way of getting in front of those people that actually need our help. Mhmm. And then together, right, we can help them, then they can help somebody else. There's this beautiful ripple effect. But also, then you can earn a living, and you can have an online business, and you can have location freedom and time freedom and all of these other great things that come from it. So it it kind of comes down to, you know, which is worse, working seventy hours a week or getting a comment occasionally that points out that one of your eyeballs is bigger than the other one is something I learned from my YouTube audience.

Chris Stone [00:15:46]:
Now now I will never stop looking at your eyeballs.

Jerry Potter [00:15:49]:
I know. Yeah. You're gonna scare.

Jim Fuhs [00:15:51]:
So, Jerry, you bring up a really good point. Right? You're working with businesses. I've seen this in my community when I've gone to a lot of these networking events that a lot of these business owners aren't on YouTube. Right? They haven't even made that first video and they're like, well, why would I wanna be on there? And I don't know if it goes back to what Chris is talking about. Like, they think, oh, I gotta get all these subscribers and all these view hours as opposed to well, I don't know what you do. So if you educate me, right, now I start to get an idea because I'm searching for, you know, how to fix this or that. And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, this person's actually in my backyard, and they've just showed me their expertise. Do you see that a lot? You think it's that like you said, it's they'll they'll go on a Facebook, you know, post, but they don't think about this is a search engine where people are looking for what you're offering.

Jim Fuhs [00:16:41]:
What what what do you think the the disconnect becomes?

Jerry Potter [00:16:44]:
I think there's something to that, but it's also even though we talked about how, you know, we all carry HD four k video cameras in our pocket. Right? We we, like, we all have the gear. The tech is not nearly as complicated as it used to be, but it's still a higher, you know, barrier of entry than just posting on Facebook or posting on Instagram. And so what I think people do is they go for what they know. Right? That's just, oh, well, this is what I do, or this is what everybody in my industry is doing. And so the way I I like to talk about this is I go back to that high leverage, low leverage thing. So if I was to start a brand new business tomorrow, I had no audience, no email list, no YouTube channel, like, nothing, I would immediately dedicate one to two hours a week to a YouTube channel and with also with a podcast on it. And you can do it in a couple hours a week and do it really well with what we have, you know, these days.

Jerry Potter [00:17:37]:
But on the other side, I would probably still need leads faster if I was if I needed income. Right? And I was sitting there at zero. So then I would do other things to get leads that would be low leverage tasks. So I would go like, one of the things I did before YouTube was really giving me what I needed, I went into, Facebook groups, and I just helped people. Right? And then they go click on my profile, and they'd see a lead magnet, and they join my email list. I would network on LinkedIn. I would go to people you know, in person events. I would get on, you know, Zoom calls with other people and try and say something that sounded intelligent.

Jerry Potter [00:18:12]:
And those things that like, they work. They totally work, but they're really low leverage. And so what I always encourage people to do, it's like, yeah. If you need to do that right now, keep doing that. But also start building this high leverage asset because once it kicks in, I don't know. I assume it would be weird if you guys knew a lot about bamboo. I didn't know a lot about bamboo until I read this, but I call YouTube the bamboo platform. There's this some types of bamboo that in the beginning, you have to, like, water and nurture them like crazy, and then they shoot up, like, 90 feet in six weeks.

Jerry Potter [00:18:48]:
So that's how I look at YouTube. In the beginning, yep, it's gonna be more work, but, man, eventually, you're gonna have this big, tall, bamboo stuff. It's not a very good example in terms of usability. Tree is better. Right? In the beginning, you gotta plant the tree. You gotta protect it a little bit. But then eventually, you grow this big asset, and it gives you food and shade and, you know, all kinds of other stuff. As maybe branches fall off, you can build stuff.

Jerry Potter [00:19:12]:
You know? You can do a lot of things with trees, but we have to plant it. That's the thing Mhmm. From the very beginning.

Chris Stone [00:19:18]:
You said one to two hours a week, and that just feels it just inordinate like, super low to me. Like, I I when you started to say one to two hours, I was like, one to two hours a day. I'm thinking to myself, okay. That makes sense. You one to two hours a week, Jerry, that that feels like I mean, a focused one to two hours a week feels like not very much time.

Jerry Potter [00:19:42]:
So it feels like I rented a Lamborghini, and I'm just telling you I'm making

Chris Stone [00:19:45]:
a Lamborghini. Coconuts and yachts on this, Jerry?

Jerry Potter [00:19:49]:
That's fair. That's fair. You know? I recently gave a talk at, the social media marketing world conference that Jim and I were talking on the preshow that he's been many times. And the last part of the talk, which was about podcasting on YouTube, was in about an hour a week. And at the very beginning, I was like, how many of you are skeptical about this? And, you know, almost everybody's hand went up. I was like, okay, good. It's my job to show you otherwise. But there's there's two pieces to this.

Jerry Potter [00:20:16]:
K? Number one is, and I say this as a recovering perfectionist, we do have to let perfectionism go. We think like, we have this perception of what YouTube needs to look like depending partially on what we watch on YouTube. One of the one of the biggest problems with all the platforms, TikTok or anywhere else, is that we see literally when we log in the best content being produced in the entire world. Yeah. And we think we have to do that. Right? Because it's a curated feed. Here's you know, when TikTok started, here's the best dancers in the world. Right? And then it evolved and all this different stuff.

Jerry Potter [00:20:51]:
And so YouTube did a big study last year to find out what exactly made for a satisfying YouTube video experience. And they did this partially around the idea of podcasting being on YouTube. More people are watching YouTube in their living rooms now on their couches. They're watching longer form content. And they didn't just ask people, hey, are you satisfied? They actually connected sensors to people's brains as they watched YouTube videos. And one of the things that they found was that the viewer feeling an emotional connection with the thing that they were watching or the person or people in the video always trumped any sort of technical quality, fancy editing, anything like that. And that the only time that editing in a certain way improved the satisfaction of the viewer and watch time and all that other stuff was if it actually improved the emotional connection. So I'm sure there are some videos where you can add the perfect emotional song at the perfect emotional moment like moment like Hollywood does and maybe makes a difference.

Jerry Potter [00:21:52]:
But overall, we don't need that. So if you wanna do this in one to two hours a week, I mean, the I look at it as let's make one search optimized video per week, something that people are looking for that, you know, that your audience is looking for, the people you wanna attract. Literally just help them solve that problem in the video, nothing more. It can just be you talking to the camera. It doesn't need to have a lot of, fancy editing. You know, I don't mean just, like, go live and stick with that. Take a take a cool, like, transcript based editing tool that we have these days and and actually go through and and, you know, tighten it up at least. But

Chris Stone [00:22:29]:
Right.

Jerry Potter [00:22:29]:
Make that, put it out there. And I really think that that's all it takes. And that's a lot of what I was doing in the beginning, and that's literally doing one video a week. Now if you want to be even more efficient than that, and again, I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm also an overthinker, so I know all about how to take anything and make it ten hours, you know, take ten hours. But, we are, you know, we have the tech and all these other things where we can bat in such a big way. And so even if you are a solopreneur, you have nobody else on your team. Just to put you where I was when I started YouTube, I was a, I had, you know, my wife was still, you know, we have a we have a family.

Jerry Potter [00:23:09]:
We're still together now, but she worked evenings. So I was basically working full time, two young kids. I think my oldest was seven at the time, and I was in charge of everything in the evening from picking up from two different schools, getting dinner ready, cleaning up, bath time, shower, all of that, and she would come home right before bedtime. And so even with that, I found a way to put out a video every week. And and the workflow was basically, in when I had some free time after the kids went to bed, I would plan my videos. Once a quarter, I asked my wife to take the kids somewhere for a few hours on a Saturday. I didn't own any lights. I stood in front of a window and hoped it was cloudy.

Jerry Potter [00:23:49]:
We lived in Seattle at the time, so there were a lot of cloudy days. And I filmed 15 YouTube videos in a row. Wow. Then

Chris Stone [00:23:58]:
Did you change your shirt?

Jerry Potter [00:24:00]:
No. No. I even talked about that in some of the videos. I was like, look. If you are here for the fashion, you are on the wrong channel. Now it wasn't like now. Now I mostly wear superhero T shirts, which are a little more defined. At the time, it was just a gray polo.

Jerry Potter [00:24:16]:
So but I was like, look. If you're here for the fashion, this is not the place for you. And then each week I would because I was mostly making social media videos and they like to change things every ten minutes, I would edit the video usually a night or two before it came out just to make sure it was still up to date. And then I would publish every Thursday. So if if you decide it's important, then we find a way. Right? And we make it happen.

Jim Fuhs [00:24:38]:
Jerry, you you've seen a lot of changes with YouTube over time, and I guess sometimes we're seeing this, like, oh, you gotta do shorts. You know? It's all this this short attention span sort of stuff. Do you think that that's important, or do you think you should still focus on you wanna call it the longer form content? And what is that number? Is it a ten minute video? Is it a twenty minute video? Do you think there's, like, a a magic number that gets people attracted to your content?

Jerry Potter [00:25:05]:
Yeah. So let's talk about the length first because I was just looking at my numbers yesterday. And the top two videos that I've put out in the last six months, one of them is five minutes long, and one of them is twenty four minutes long. So there is no, you know, perfect length, you know, and people hate this answer, and I would hate it too. How long should my videos be? Well, as long as it needs to be to deliver the transformation or the answer that you're promising in the video. Right? That's it. So as far as Shorts go, they are they get a lot of attention, but you talk to a lot of people on TikTok. It's really hard to do lead gen on TikTok.

Jerry Potter [00:25:45]:
Mhmm. And Shorts is the same way because you're literally swiping through. And even if you may maybe you love the video, you click that like button, you comment it. Three videos later, you probably don't remember who it whose it was. Right? Shorts can be up to three minutes now. So if somebody's who's literally swiping, you know, because that's all the time they have is willing to sit sit through a video that long, maybe you can make a bigger impact. So I tell people go all in on the the long form videos. YouTube now officially calls them VODs or videos on demand.

Jerry Potter [00:26:16]:
My friend Jessica started calling them pants. So we had YouTube shorts and pants. So internally, I like to call them YouTube pants now. But that's that's where the attention is. That's where people are going and what they're watching when they can't find an answer on chat GPT. They're going to YouTube to look at this stuff.

Chris Stone [00:26:33]:
Interesting. So okay. So let let's talk a little bit about the crafting of that content. Because you're we're talking about the length of content and then, you know, not necessarily the medium, shorts, long form, you know, landscape portrait, whatever. But more like, okay, I was today years old when I when I found out that you were doing a radio a morning radio show with your wife. You know? Is is there a jingle like Jerry and wife in the morning?

Jerry Potter [00:26:58]:
Oh, yes. Oh, there were many, many jingles over the years. Amazing. Amazing.

Jim Fuhs [00:27:02]:
What,

Chris Stone [00:27:03]:
what did you what did you learn from the the maybe the psychology of radio programming? How are how are you applying that to what you're doing now? Because a lot I mean, those that have come from broadcast know that there are there are cadences and all these things, but there is there is science behind a lot of of of that stuff. Pattern interrupts and the structure of of things. What what did you learn maybe from that broadcast that you're applying to what you're doing on YouTube?

Jerry Potter [00:27:35]:
Well, first of all, you're absolutely right because there were literally you know, if we couldn't hold attention in radio, there were millions of dollars in ad revenue on the line.

Jim Fuhs [00:27:43]:
Yep.

Jerry Potter [00:27:43]:
And so maybe I shouldn't have told you we got let go three times in five years because it sounds like we weren't good at what we did. But we did we were very successful. We did fifteen years of radio. But to just give you an idea, we had to create fifteen hours of content a week. That's not counting songs and and commercials. So when, you know, when we're now thinking you know, when you say, oh, how can you create a good piece of content an hour or two week? It's like, well, because used to have to create fifteen hours worth of content. But the main thing that I took from radio is the way that we approached our content, and we didn't look at it as, you know, one big piece of content or even individual piece of content pieces of content. We looked at them as pieces that kind of worked together.

Jerry Potter [00:28:25]:
And so in on our radio show, when we plan out our show, we would have what we would call we call them modules. Sometimes on TV, you'll hear them say, in our next segment, organic, pizza snack that your tweens will love or, you know, whatever it might be. Right? But we call them modules, and each module was had a different job for the show. So, of course, it was supposed to be entertaining and have people listening, but one module's job was to get new people to listen. Right? And so that might have been, like, a big giveaway that we ran TV ads or something for. Another module might have been designed to get somebody to come back and listen later that same day. Another one to get new people engaged, another one to get people to come back and listen again two days later at the same time. So each module had a job, and then together, they became this powerful, like, overall, like, brand, more content on the air, more content online, and more content offline.

Jerry Potter [00:29:14]:
So when I decided to start podcasting for my business, you guys have probably seen that stat that, like, ninety nine percent of podcasters don't make it to episode 21, I think it is. Oh, yeah. You've seen that?

Chris Stone [00:29:26]:
Episode seven.

Jerry Potter [00:29:28]:
Well, 90% don't make it to episode four. And then, you know, so they say if you make it to episode twenty twenty one, you're in the top 1% of podcasting. And so traditional podcasting doesn't work. Like, it's there's been a lot of, and I love this industry, but there has been a lot of people that have been sold a dream, build a great show. They'll they'll come. I'm in a lot of Facebook groups about podcasting, and people will say, you know, oh, how do I, you know, what do I do? And people will say, well, until you've published a hundred episodes, just keep focusing on the quality and it all come together. But unfortunately, traditional podcasting doesn't have a discoverability piece. Right? Very few people are gonna be mentioned in Forbes or making on a new and notable chart on Apple, especially where we are now.

Jerry Potter [00:30:12]:
Right? Maybe maybe ten years ago when there weren't as many shows. So Right. So we we we just you know, my wife helped me plan the the the first kind of podcast I did for my business to be on YouTube, and we didn't look at traditional podcast. And we went back to radio, and we built a show out of modules, which we now affectionately called podcasting, which I love, that you had the word, this this made up word that means a lot on the the movie poster, whatever you wanna call it for this episode. Right? So it's called modcasting, and it's module based podcasting. It's the same premise. Each part of your show is designed to do a certain thing that creates a bigger show overall. And the quick rundown, I'll give you there's five core modules.

Jerry Potter [00:30:54]:
Is it okay if I break it down? I don't know how we're doing on time.

Chris Stone [00:30:56]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, we're absolutely fine. Got all the time in the world. Okay.

Jerry Potter [00:30:59]:
Okay. So we customize the shows. You have different modules depending on what your goals are, your objectives as a business. We primarily work work with business owners, not hobbyists. But, but the five core modules are essentially these five modules you're gonna have in every show. The first one, actually, before I tell you what they do just, is the whole idea is that they're designed so your episodes, and you could apply those to videos too, become a complete marketing funnel all by themselves. So the first module we call the confirmation module. And a lot of podcasters, the mistake they make is they assume that when somebody lands on their episode, they already know what it's about.

Jerry Potter [00:31:37]:
I don't know about you, but I add my episodes to a queue. And so sometimes I'm out hiking and a new episode comes on. Like, you gotta tell me what you're gonna talk about. But more than that, we go deeper. It's more than just a hook. The confirmation module is designed to help somebody, like, not only want to listen to the show, but, like, really lean in. Like, make it relevant for them. How is this gonna change their life? So we we don't go, in this episode, we're gonna do this, and then we jump right in.

Jerry Potter [00:32:00]:
Right? We we talk about it a little more. And this does a couple of things. One, it makes it so that they hopefully listen closer. Maybe it's the one that they stop multitasking and they listen when they can pay more more attention. But, also, if we get a little long winded in the middle or go on a tangent or it gets boring or, you know, whatever, they they might stick through that part until we get back to, you know, the thing. They'll they'll they stick through the tangent. So first is the confirmation module. Next, we call the the vibe check module.

Jerry Potter [00:32:26]:
That's basically a podcast intro. So you guys had a great one at the beginning of this, all the clips from the different shows. But a lot of podcasters tend to assume nobody's ever like like, nobody new is ever coming in.

Jim Fuhs [00:32:39]:
Right.

Jerry Potter [00:32:39]:
Which is a really negative way to look at your show. Yeah. Alright. So the idea is the confirmation module tells them, here's what this episode's about. The vibe check, and it doesn't have to be long, the vibe check shows them, like, what the overall idea of the show is. So we you know, my wife, Candy, named it that, and it's kind of like, yeah. We're gonna check the vibe. This is that's what this is about.

Jerry Potter [00:32:59]:
Next is the core content module. This is the reason they listen to the show. This is whatever your topic, your title is. That's the main thing. Then from, there, we go into the conversion module, which is the most important one for us as entrepreneurs because that's when they're going to do the thing that we want them to do. Go buy the product. Go download a freebie. Join our email list.

Jerry Potter [00:33:22]:
Join our newsletter. Go check out a livestream. You know, go check out our product list on Amazon for you guys, whatever it might be. And it's much more than just a call to action. One of the things that I learned in radio is even though we were told all the time, keep it tight. Keep it tight. If you just blab through your call to action, nobody will take it. So Yeah.

Jerry Potter [00:33:41]:
In radio, before I realized this and learned this lesson the hard way, it was just like, alright. Time to play this contest. Here's the phone number once, and hopefully you wrote that down and call them out a win. Right? And and people would call because it was free stuff. But Right. We had a consultant. She was actually a Hollywood Screenwriting Consultant they brought in to work with us on storytelling on our show, and she said, what if you slow down? What if you actually take the time to explain the contest? What if you spent twenty seconds instead of six seconds? And the next day we did that, and the phones rang for thirty minutes after the contest was already on the on the radio. People just still kept calling.

Jerry Potter [00:34:13]:
So what I always like to tell people in whatever you're doing, when you are getting your call to action, let go of this idea that everyone is going to leave if I do the call to action. K? First of all, you're probably 90% of the way through the show, and even if 90% of the people leave but the other 10% of the people actually do the thing that you want, that's a win. And the 90% aren't bad. If they made it 90% of the way through the show, they enjoyed the show. So we have to get away from this, alright. That's today's show. If you wanna work with me, check out the show notes. Right? And actually take the time to get them to do that.

Jerry Potter [00:34:50]:
But we do want people to not leave. Right? We want them to not bail. We want them to listen to it. And so that takes us to our fifth module. So we started with confirmation, the vibe check, the podcast intro, the core content, which is the main content, then the conversion module, and then the last one we call the TSL module. And that stands for one of the ratings that we had when we were in radio. First, we were rated on how many people listened, and then, we were rated on how long people listened. And so it was short for time spent listening.

Jerry Potter [00:35:16]:
So in the online content world, that would be, you know, watch time, watch hours, you know, things like that. And the TSL module does three things, and it's it's my favorite module. But what it is is it's a stand alone piece of content at the end of the show, but it's still related to what you just talked about in the episode. Because if somebody comes in and they they're listening to the episode because they want to find out about, how to start a podcast, And at the end, you're like, and by the way, if you wanna learn email marketing, I've got this other thing or here's a tip about email marketing. That's not who's there.

Jim Fuhs [00:35:52]:
Right.

Jerry Potter [00:35:52]:
Right? So so you it's a piece of content. It can stand alone. So it keeps people listening to the whole show because you tease it at the beginning. Make sure you stay until the end because I've got this bonus tip about x y z. Then you tease it again right before your conversion module, so they listen to the conversion module, also increases conversions. Nice. And then it's designed to be pulled out and be turned into a YouTube short, a TikTok, a Facebook or Instagram reel, or a LinkedIn vertical video. It's the only format on social media that actually reaches people who don't know who you are yet.

Jerry Potter [00:36:24]:
And so, again, to recap, the the title of the show obviously gets them to click, gets them to listen to the confirmation module. Confirmation module gets them to listen to deeper and listen to the core content. Core content, then is followed by the conversion module. More people listen to that because of the TSL module, which also then becomes a new piece of content that sends people back to the episode. So it becomes this funnel all by itself. And there's there's more to it than that, but that's kind of the general idea there.

Jim Fuhs [00:36:53]:
So, Jerry, so you bring up a really good I I love, first of all, the the modules. But Chris and I, and we won't name names to protect the innocent, we see people that almost feel like when they get to that part that's the TSL instead of doing the TSL, they're like, go watch my next video, and you get pissed because you just sat through however many minutes thinking that they're gonna tell you something they talked about at the beginning. Oh.

Chris Stone [00:37:20]:
And they don't actually do it.

Jerry Potter [00:37:22]:
Yeah. You just lost your trust. Yeah. That's a good way to literally destroy the most valuable thing you have with your audience is is trust, and especially a new viewer. So, yes, if you say you're gonna do something at the end of a video or an episode, do it in that episode. Now you can still tease something else afterwards. That's a very effective, you know when's the best time to get somebody to listen to another one of your episodes while they're already in their podcasting app or they're already on YouTube on your channel? But, no, don't do that because that that pisses people off big time. That that whole bringing that up, Jim.

Chris Stone [00:37:54]:
That whole modular thing is so money. And, so I so the the confirmation. Right? I I always called it, it I I learned this from Kirk Nugent, station identification. This is we're going back to broadcast television, I guess. Like, you know, when you get on a plane and, you sit down, you're gonna hear that boom boom. You know, this is flight seven seven seven. We're headed to Akron. And if you're not supposed to be headed to Akron, what do you do? Get off the plane.

Chris Stone [00:38:23]:
Right? And so, like, in the case of you, you're out for a run, and then you've got a podcast coming up. And all of a sudden, these people are talking like you already know them, and they're just hanging out talking about nothing. And you want that mental sort of, here's what we do. Here's what we're gonna, you know, provide to you, and here it comes. You know? And and and get right to it and not do the chitchat and and that whole thing. But the the TSL piece is, it for me is, like, this is you know, we when I work with clients, we talk about intentional interrupts. So, you know, we're going they're they're doing their their show, but, like, it'll be something like, if there's one thing you remember from this podcast, it's this. Or if you if you've got a pen and paper, I need you to write this down.

Chris Stone [00:39:09]:
Like, things like that are are like your your brain just goes. It's like picking up the needle on a record, you know, or or something like that. And, you know, for people like me, a video editor, I know this is boom. This is the money clip. Right? And so that TSL feels like not just that, but, like, to your point, these are people that have listened and watched all the way through to this point. Like, this is you've got them here. These are your superfans. These are the people that you're you're like, here's a hill.

Chris Stone [00:39:36]:
We're walking up it. Come on. And they're following you up a hill. I I love that whole that the thinking process through that. And that was the broadcast stuff that kinda brought you to that moment. You're just me there?

Jerry Potter [00:39:48]:
Because, you know, the radio show was more about entertainment. But that was kind of what inspired the idea. Because when we went to start, you know, my wife like I said, my wife helped me. That's why I say we. But we went to design this first show, for, you know, for entrepreneurship and for YouTube too. We designed it in that way, like, okay, how could we piece these together? And then as time has gone on and I've learned more and things like that, and now I teach this stuff, that's when we kind of realized, oh my gosh. This is a whole marketing funnel. Everyone's over there on TikTok trying to get somebody's attention for six seconds.

Jerry Potter [00:40:20]:
And we can put out these longer form pieces of content, pull a piece out of it, and get somebody to go through the whole, like, funnel in that way. And sometimes they don't I just quick story. I I have a, I had a a clip that came out of one of my episodes. I had a guest on, and we put it up on all the short form video platforms. But it went out on Instagram, and it did really well. It reached over 22,000 people. I don't have 22,000 followers on Instagram. I have, about 4,000 or something, like that.

Jerry Potter [00:40:49]:
In fact, that reel only reached 312 of my actual followers. So but this was 22,000 people who didn't know who I was yet seeing a clip of that podcast. And some of those people watched it, and then they went and listened to the full episode and kind of went into the funnel, if you will. But I had one woman who signed up for one of my programs, and she you know, I always ask, hey. Where did you hear about Jerry Potter? And she specifically said, I saw an Instagram reel with you and this other person, and such and such. And And I was like, oh, cool. That you know, it's working. Then the first time I talked to her, I said, so you, like, saw it and then went and listened to the episode and then kinda like, where'd you go from there? And she goes, oh, no offense.

Jerry Potter [00:41:31]:
I've never actually heard your podcast. I just saw the clip, went to your profile. I looked into you, and then I signed up. And so that's the story of how my podcast made a thousand dollars from someone who never even listened to it. So but if you're putting the right stuff out and you then that kind of stuff can happen, which takes us back. This is high leverage. Right? It doesn't get any more high leverage than this. These pieces of content that are out there doing what you need them to do twenty four seven.

Jerry Potter [00:41:59]:
So someone can find me, get a solution to their problem, find out how to work with me, and then sign up to work with me in that same day. And I still like to work with people at a, you know, at a high level. Like, I you know, in my community, I answer all the questions. And and, like, to me, this business is about people. I never wanted to be one of those people in the videos that you mentioned earlier, Chris, that are just like, oh, I don't talk to anybody. I'm just on a beach because I sell digital products or quilt patterns or whatever. It's always been about the people to me, but this changes everything.

Chris Stone [00:42:30]:
Well and I love the I love the point that, you know, like, this this longer form piece can be broken apart. And not just to be broken apart that you can say, hey. I'm on TikTok, and I'm also on Pinterest, and I'm also on Substack, and I'm also on. Yeah, okay. Put your real estate there, but where are you focusing? But you're putting content there that someone is finding you. Like, there is a like, they may never be on YouTube or may never maybe they're on YouTube, but their algorithm isn't feeding your content yet. And so this is a this is a great way to not bait them, you know, but, like, get your get your content in the form that they're expecting there. And, you know, you never know until you start pulling that stuff apart.

Chris Stone [00:43:12]:
So I'm curious in terms of pulling stuff apart, Jerry. Like, what you don't have to go dig deep into this process, but you organize everything very well on the front end so that, you know, you're planning this this content so that when it's recorded, you have this longer form content. So I'm assuming you know break points. You know you know how that's doing it. Like, what's your I mean, is it the script? Is it like, what how how are you doing it? Or do you have somebody else that's doing it for you, or how does that work for you?

Jerry Potter [00:43:44]:
Nobody else yet. Maybe at some point. But I I will say, first of all, you know, if you're like me, you see an ad or a video all the time where it's like, I made 282,000 years worth of content in ten minutes. You know? Find out how, you know, these AI tools and things like that. Yeah. And the thing that I always like to say, and especially when we talk about, you know, creating things in a high leverage way, is that efficient and effective are not the same thing. Right? So Yeah. If you are doing things efficiently, but they're not effective, like, if you took your long form piece of content and you turned it into all this other content, but it didn't do anything, then that's a waste of time even if a tool does most of it.

Chris Stone [00:44:26]:
Thank you for saying that.

Jerry Potter [00:44:28]:
I just I got it.

Chris Stone [00:44:30]:
You are preaching to this member of the choir for sure on that.

Jerry Potter [00:44:34]:
Well, they all keep one upping. Right? First, it was, like, 20 pieces of content in ten minutes, and then it was 500. And now it's, like, ten years worth of content in eight seconds. So

Chris Stone [00:44:42]:
Look at this big pile of mediocrity that we gave you

Jerry Potter [00:44:45]:
for subscribing to us. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So the the our my my main thing with the approach, and I stopped calling it repurposing. I've started calling it multipurposing. But the main thing is I already know, for the most part, what's going to get pulled out before I create the original piece of content. And that's the beauty with this TSL module is it's already designed to be its own piece of content before you pull it out.

Jerry Potter [00:45:11]:
Even at the end, if you wanna say, if you like that tip, make sure you follow for more. Like, that piece of verbiage works in podcasting. It works in YouTube even though YouTube is subscribers. It works on TikTok. Like, it works in all the places. And so you're you're being intentional about it. And sometimes that piece you pull out is even stronger than the original piece of content. With traditional repurposing, most of the stuff you pull out is not as good as the original piece of content.

Jerry Potter [00:45:37]:
And so that's our main approach. But, you know, you mentioned tool wise, it starts with, yes, knowing exactly what you're going to do, like, ahead of time. And then Descript is the tool that I use. I say Descript is the, like, greatest invention since the iPhone. I have a blog post about why Descript is so great at whyDescript.com, w h y Descript Com. But it is, like, they have tools in there where I can go into my podcast. I can highlight the section that I'm gonna pull out, in this case, the TSL module. I can apply what they call a layout, and I have some layouts that you they have their own, but I have some that I've built with my own brand colors.

Jerry Potter [00:46:11]:
And within three seconds, it can reformat it to be vertical with my brand color captions right in the middle and a logo in the corner if I want. So, yes, modern tech is a big part of why this has all gotten so doable now. In a way I mean, like, half the stuff I teach, I couldn't have done two years ago because it would have taken ten hours a week, just like you said.

Chris Stone [00:46:33]:
Yeah. That's incredible. And so let's talk a little bit about, you know, all of this stuff has helped you stream streamline and scale what you're doing, but you're doing it for personal freedom. So can you can you maybe you know, you don't have to you can get as personal as you wanna get on this, but you've got you're a family man. Like, what does this what does implementing this method do for someone like you?

Jerry Potter [00:46:59]:
Well, I will say, I think in the intro, you said, you know, to do things that are are meaningful. And and I kind of started off with that message, and then somebody was like, well, what if I just wanna watch binge watch, you know, Love is Blind, the reality TV show? I'm like

Chris Stone [00:47:11]:
Oh, god.

Jerry Potter [00:47:11]:
Whatever brings you joy, that's fine. You know? That's totally, totally fine. And the idea is not that you have to be done by lunch. Some people do their best work between one and 5AM or whatever it might be. But the idea is you have time for the other things in your life. And so for me, it started off just trying to change that perception of, you know, dad works all the time. The next thing that I invested in was my health. I was not, you know, as a lot of entrepreneurs do, I was not paying attention to my health very well at all.

Jerry Potter [00:47:40]:
Now I hike five days a week, lift weights a couple of days a week because I have time, and I listen to podcasts and things like that too. The you know, more time with family, we have location freedom. So, like, in 2021, we went on the road for six months while the kids were doing remote school anyway. Wow. We two summers ago, we went to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan for six weeks. Last summer, we explored, the Western United States and Canada. This summer, we're going to Europe for the first time. So those are some of the things that it's made possible Outstanding.

Jerry Potter [00:48:09]:
For me. And it's part of what makes it all worth it. But I also sort of have this personal mission behind it too. I really think, especially with the current chaos in a lot of the world right now, entrepreneurs are improving the world more than anybody. And I know there's so many people out there that have something that can help somebody else. And so I kind of want to make sure that they can do it before they burn out. And if we start building our businesses with these low leverage tactics, like going in Facebook groups and waiting for the post where they say you can promote your stuff in this thread and 250 people do or, you know, that kind of stuff, You're gonna burn out before you have the chance to help that person that really needs your help. And so that's kinda part of my mission is I wanna help entrepreneurs build in a high leverage way.

Jerry Potter [00:48:56]:
That's why over 90% of my content is free on YouTube and the podcast and stuff like that. And it's it, you know, it really makes me happy to see that happening and getting away from this this, you know, it's not that people want to hustle. I think some of that culture has died down, but they feel like they still have to. And I want people to know that they don't if they start building in a high leverage way, even if it's a couple hours a week.

Chris Stone [00:49:20]:
Yeah. And I think a lot of a lot of people don't realize it until it's too late. Right? Until, you know, they really they've got they've got, you know, like I said, health issues, you know, or or even worse, you know, they're on, you know, like, their third spouse or, you know, the you know, estranged, you know, kids or whatever. It's like, you know, if you're getting into this thing, you could do you can prevent a lot of that stuff so that you can you can live life on your terms. And, this has just been this has just been outstanding. I know, we've we've we've sort of left the left the chat in the lurch, and I certainly don't want to I don't want to do that. Florence is saying, say that again. Efficient and effective are different.

Chris Stone [00:50:02]:
Yeah. That's definitely a mic drop moment. That might make, that might make a clip, I'm thinking, maybe later. Jerry, we're gonna script.

Jerry Potter [00:50:12]:
Yes. Exactly. Tag team. Release it as a collaboration. It'll it'll reach more people.

Chris Stone [00:50:17]:
Oh, exactly. Exactly. So so, I wanna be sure that we're okay. Because there there are people here right now that, you know, they're just listening or maybe they've come in late, on the video. I wanna be sure that they have an opportunity to land where they wanna land. The the website is done by lunch.co, and, we've got that on the screen here. Look at that nice plaque, and you've got that plaque behind you as well. When did you cross that, hundred thousand mark there to get that

Jerry Potter [00:50:47]:
plaque? 2021. But I tell people all the time. Like, I have it there because it's obviously good authority and social proof, but it's not about the plaque. The plaque is mostly foam. I would give up I would give up the plaque in a second, you know, as long as I got to keep all the people that I've been able to reach and help. Now, again, I'm not I'm not like, oh, who needs a plaque? Like, it's kinda cool. Yeah. But at the same time, it is this phone thing that they send you.

Jerry Potter [00:51:12]:
And and Right. You know, the impact of YouTube is so much more than a plaque. I don't I always tell people the plaque should not be your goal. If you get there, awesome. But so many cool things are gonna happen before you get there, hopefully.

Chris Stone [00:51:23]:
That's awesome. And, of course, the podcast, ladies and gentlemen, is done by launchpodcast.com. I learned a little hack. I was I I shared this with Jerry earlier. Follow him on LinkedIn as well. He's a great follow on LinkedIn. I learned this little hack for those of you who have, podcasts and audio podcasts specifically. Episodes.fm.

Chris Stone [00:51:42]:
You put your r is this is free? Jerry went in and said, how much do I pay you? And they said nothing. You put in your RSS, feed, you know, your which everyone gets when they create a podcast, and it creates this really cool website where someone in less friction, I believe, was the was the, comment that you said. Because that is the biggest deal for podcasting right now is creating less friction and for you to say, here's my podcast. Here's the link. And then they go, and they can just be off to the races and listen and or watch. And so, podcast, episodes.fm, was the Yeah. Was the hack on that. So, Jerry, this has been awesome, man.

Chris Stone [00:52:22]:
Is there is there anything else that that we've that we've missed on this? I feel like we went in 17 different directions, but you absolutely landed the plane, on this. Is there I'll give you the last word before we sign off, sir.

Jerry Potter [00:52:35]:
Well, I two two things real quick. So one, if you wanna learn more about the whole idea of modcasting, because I kinda went through it quickly here, but, we have a what we call it, a a twenty twenty five podcasting deep dive. But we basically show you how to make a modcast. It's free. You can go to quitpodcasting.com because we think you should be modcasting. So quitpodcasting.com to check that out. And then the last thing I'll say is with any of this stuff that you're gonna pursue, don't take anything that we talked about today and go say, alright. I'm gonna throw a video on YouTube, like, next week.

Jerry Potter [00:53:08]:
I like that, and I like the I like the romantic notion of just start. But the truth is that I think all of us need to decide that it's important or decide that it's not. And if you can't decide it's important, it's probably not. And if you do believe it's important, then allot the time or invest in whatever you need to invest to learn how to do it better or whatever it might be. Because had I not decided to commit to a year of YouTube, we wouldn't probably be having this conversation right now. Right.

Chris Stone [00:53:40]:
Outstanding. Outstanding. Yeah. I've always said, like, you know, I used to for years as a podcast coach, I would be like, come on. You gotta keep you know, I gotta put in the reps. Gotta put in the reps. Then eventually, you just realize this person hates doing this. They don't love and nobody wants to hear or see someone that doesn't love what they're doing.

Chris Stone [00:53:57]:
You know? So, you know, you have to you have to find your your place in this thing. And, Jerry, this has been outstanding. Just tons of value. Thank you for making our show better today. And, for those of you who are, still watching, don't fear the gear.