Episode 089 – Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson 0:01
People think that they’re sharing good content. But what happens when you share the content when you share it and you don’t get that kind of a response? It might mean that your content isn’t as good as you think. Because when the people show up that have really amazing content. It’s really deep. It’s different. It’s unique. They have a clear and compelling idea to share. Those people stood out and people flocked to them.

Richard Matthews 0:24
…

Welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and I am live on the line today with one of our returning guests from the past. This is Matt Johnson, the founder of MicroFamous. Matt Johnsonyou are you there?

Matt Johnson 1:40
I am. What’s up, Richard?

Richard Matthews 1:42
Awesome, so glad to have you here. And for those of you who have been following along with our journey, we are still stuck in paradise in Florida during the COVID lockdowns. I know Matt is stuck in Southern California out there enjoying your shelter and place orders. And what I wanted to talk to you a little bit about today is, because we’ve already covered have gone through your story on The Hero Show is to talk a little bit more on the tactical side about what it is you do and sort of how you see the trajectory changing, hopefully in a positive light with everything that’s sort of gone on, and how podcasting and the, the whole idea of becoming MicroFamous, which is what your brand is all about. How it’s going to be impacted in the future and sort of what’s going on. So sort of, give me an overview, what do you think’s happening? And, from a business perspective, and how do you think this is going to positively infect, not infect, well, that’s a weird slip on.

Matt Johnson 2:33
Unfortunate choice of words.

Richard Matthews 2:35
Unfortunate choice of words – are going to affect businesses positively, going forward.

Matt Johnson 2:42
Well, before we get into the podcasting side of it, there’s a big trend towards freelancing and working from home that I think was massively accelerated by this whole thing. I was talking to my head writer who’s based in Johannesburg, South Africa. They are probably a couple of decades behind the states in terms of their approach to working remotely or freelancing, right. She’s been freelancing; she’s been with me for four years or so. Her family still thinks she’s insane. And it’s just now through this crisis coming around to realize, Oh, wait a minute, your career was actually more stable than all of us that showed to work for and showed up to offices in South Africa. So, I see this happening on like a global scale. I think we’re gonna have millions of people that have now awakened to the idea that a work from home, remote freelancing type of lifestyle can actually be way more secure than showing up and working at an office for a typical company. And to me, that’s a very good thing, right? Because that’s going to be like, if you’re in this space, like you and I, Richard we’re both in the same space where we work with people who teach other entrepreneurs typically how to grow their business. Whether that’s a real estate entrepreneur, whether it’s somebody in the healthcare space, whether they’re an agency owner, whatever, and when that market gets flooded by millions of new people that want to get into that market to do that, to use their skills, that creates even more demand for coaching, consulting, speaking, writing, training, right. So to me, that all filters down into what we’re going to talk about with podcasting, but I see it as part of the larger trend towards freelancing and remote work, which I think is just a good thing for humanity, more small businesses, more decentralized, less power in the hands of the few, more power in the hands of the individual, all good things. So I love that part of the trend, and that’s the – you know, the positive –

Richard Matthews 4:42
I think part part of it too, is like there’s just going to be there’s a baseline set of skills that most people didn’t have, a couple months ago, but now they’ve been forced to have exactly learning how to use things like Zoom and other online communication tools and how to work from home if they need to, and I think you’re gonna see a lot of benefits. Even in corporate places where it’s like, maybe we don’t have to have everyone come here to the office, maybe we can have a more dispersed workforce. And that’s probably going to have a lot of positive impacts, like reducing the amount of pollution and traffic and other things. I think we’re gonna see a lot of positive impacts just from that one thing alone, which is cool.

Matt Johnson 5:15
It does, although I think there’s going to be, there’s a flip side to everything.

Richard Matthews 5:21
Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Johnson 5:22
Here’s one potential flip side, which is when you start working from home, and we’ve been in this environment for years, so we get this like, what do we get paid for? We get paid for deliverables that create results. So the ultimate goal is results. The thing the milestone along the way to results is the deliverables. Most people outside of remote working and consulting and things like that live in a completely different world where they are paid for time. They live in a time for dollars, time for dollars, and so they’re completely disconnected from the world of being paid by deliverables and results and unfortunately for some of them, they’re getting a rude awakening in that right now. The positive side of that is the people that learn quickly, okay, it’s deliverables and results. They’re going to succeed, the people that can’t make that adjustment are going to struggle. But if you can get into that mindset as quickly as possible, and this applies, even if you’re a coach or a consultant, like you’re paid for deliverables and results, “Can you get people results?” That’s all that matters.

Richard Matthews 6:25
And it’s one of the most interesting things I actually just had an experience recently. You know, I lost a couple of clients due to the COVID crisis. I know you’ve had some similar things happen. But I had more opportunities come just because of what I do. And a lot of people are looking at this going like, “Hey, I need some stuff to happen.” And one of the things that like I had a client come to me or a potential client, their client now but they came to me a couple weeks ago, and they were like, “Hey, I’ve got this problem. Can you help me solve it? And you were recommended to me by a friend or whatever.” And you know, I spent 10 minutes on the phone with them is like, “Yeah, I can help you solve that.” And then I solved it for him. It was like a 10-minute kind of thing. They were like, “Holy crap. I can’t believe you solved that problem for me. What do I owe you?” And I said, “Hey, first ones free come back to me when you need any other help.” Like, when you need something, like when you need to get something delivered, right? And it was like, for me, it was like a 10 minute thing, but to them, it was like something I’m struggling with for six months. And so before I moved on, and a month later that turned into a brand new retainer client, because they were like, “You obviously know how to deliver results.” And like when you work from that perspective of like, “Hey, I know how to deliver results.” People are willing to pay for that significantly more than time for dollars.

Matt Johnson 7:38
A hundred percent. So, I’m encouraged by that larger trend and I think it filters down into practical things like podcasting, which I think is going to continue to grow. Whether we see a massive explosion, I don’t know there was definitely an initial period where podcast downloads kind of took a dip during the initial freakout period. But then after that, two to three week period. I’m seeing across the board, all of our clients stats go back up, and then some that are outpacing their entire history of their show right now over the last couple of weeks. So, it’s been interesting once people settled in and realized, okay, this is part of, at least I know what’s going to happen for the next month or so. So it’s like everybody in out in entrepreneur land said, “Okay, well, we’re not dying, right?” I kind of know what the rules are for the next month. So now let’s get back to growing my business. And of course, podcast episodes, and downloads start to go back up. But the long term trend is I think people are now being stuck at home. They’re looking for more online content, and they’re going to start finding people. They’re going further down the rabbit hole, they’re finding influencers and leaders that they didn’t know existed because they’re exhausting the other content they would normally consume. If they spent two hours a week listening to podcasts, now they’ve got four and so they’re finding new people. So getting out there and being known for something and being micro famous counts even more, because people are out there looking for solutions, like people still want to grow their business. They still want to move forward, especially the ambitious people that are the most likely to have the money to pay you. They’re not taking their foot off the gas at all. I mean, even one of my clients, so I’ve got a client in the aerospace industry, and he said, “Look, we’re completely screwed. The entire industry basically shut down 4500 airplanes are sitting on the ground. A lot of those might never come back in service again.” So I said, “Well, what do you know? What are you gonna do?” He’s like, “Well, I want to put the pedal to the metal like, I want to make some, let’s refresh some things about the podcast, let’s change up some things.I’m excited to keep on doing the show. This is my chance to take market share, and take a piece of the mind off my industry.” And like those –

Richard Matthews 9:50
It’s interesting. Because like my show, The Hero Show that one we’re doing this interview for. One of the reasons I’m doing this interview now. We’ve had your back on either way, but we doubled our output for- We went from being a weekly show to a bi-weekly show during the crisis, just because we’re like, we know people are going to be around to listen. And, we were eight or nine weeks ahead on our recordings and we’re like, let’s just put the pedal to the metal. Let’s get more content out, get more interviews on and I booked another, I don’t know, 10 or 15 interviews, and we’re just gonna go pedal to the metal while we can. Well, because it’s a benefit to our audience to get more content out. Because what we do is we tell good positive stories and more people need more positive stories right now. So we’re doing a lot more of that. And, that’s just that’s just our little space. But to your point, now’s a good time to start looking at market share, because a lot of other people are scared. What is it, Warren Buffett who says, “Buy when there’s blood in the streets.” And metaphorically –

So when people are afraid, I’m greedy. And when people are greedy, I’m afraid.

So like, now’s a good time to be greedy. And if greedy for our show means produce more episodes and get more listeners, that’s what we’re doing. So that’s a good call. So, my next question for you is, how do you see just the trend of like, before we get into the trend, explain what you mean by MicroFamous, just a little refresher for people. What does that mean? And how does that sort of tie into what you’re talking about with podcasting?

Matt Johnson 11:26
Okay. So MicroFamous to me means being famously influential to the right people and the right people, for most of the folks in my world that are in the coaching, consulting kind of thought leadership world, the right people are their ideal clients and the people who could and should be ideal clients if they’re exposed to the right content over time. So that’s different for everyone. It could be an industry niche. It could be a really small slice of a valuable market. You could be selling to high level executives at aerospace and aviation companies like it’s different for everybody. But the level of influence that I think you want is the same, right? We don’t all need to be Tony Robbins or Gary Vaynerchuk famous. We don’t all –

Richard Matthews 12:11
We talked about that in our last episode.

Matt Johnson 12:12
I don’t want to sign autographs at the grocery store. But, I do want to sign autographs when I go to an industry event that’s full of the right people for me. A good example is if you think about your Facebook friends list, you’re capped at 5000. If you had 5000 of the right people who were good prospects for you, would you need to be famous to anyone else? And I think for most people to build a six and seven figure business, the answer’s no. I’ll give you a quick example. I’ve had two clients over the years. And the agency that I came out of which is a multi-million dollar a year agency all operates in a space where the total maximum number of potential clients for their programs is 10,000 people.

That’s awesome.

And they all serve the same audience, sometimes they even share clients, right? Because you’ve got a marketing agency and a coach. Right? So you’ve got two different seven figure businesses and a multi six figure coaching, consulting business that all operate in the same space of no more than 10,000 people. There just isn’t that many people that can afford 1000 plus a month for group coaching or a marketing service. And I think there’s a lot of people that operate in markets like that. And they think that they need to be on social media all the time, and they need to jump on Tik Tok, and that they’re looking at all these success stories of ways to reach hundreds of thousands of people. And to me, it’s just the wrong way to go about it. The idea that you build up this following of hundreds of thousands of people and that automatically within that is a smaller group of people who will automatically buy something more expensive from you. I think that’s proven to be false. By all the people that you and I both know that have big followings that can’t monetize it to save their life. And you realize that until you start having behind the scenes conversations with some of these folks, and now is a great time. They’re probably not doing very well either. Whereas both of our businesses because we have, we’re focused on the small, valuable slice of our niche. Both of our businesses are growing, because we, like our right people, are ambitious in this time, they’re not afraid.

Richard Matthews 14:16
What’s really interesting to me too, is that you mentioned the numbers, right? Like, in my business right now, we’re looking at scaling from where we got our first three or four clients that we’ve got, like test clients going, like I want to scale to 100 clients, that’s pretty much it. And the space probably has 10,000 people out at 100 clients would be a massively huge business for us, like a multi seven figure kind of business. And, it wouldn’t require a lot of fame to get to that point. So, and that’s a cool place to be in but on the other side of that, too, is you look at what you were talking about with being famous in a small room is like I had this experience personally, a couple of years ago, I was doing just sort of what would you call them, like free trainings for a Facebook group. I was just interacting in a group, maybe a couple thousand people in the group run by one of the markers we would all recognize his name for. And he put on the live event. And just because I was regularly in there, talking to them and just giving good content. When I showed up at the live event, everyone knew who I was, I got my walk away from the client without even trying with like three clients because I was, to your point MicroFamous to the right group of small people.

Matt Johnson 15:35
And that kind of stuff happens all the time. I was hanging out with a client of mine. I’ve kind of like occasionally co-hosted his podcast over the years because he’s been with me for that long. He’s in the real estate space. And we showed up to an event where both of us were speaking here a couple years back, and literally like he and I would try to hang out like in between sessions and we went out to dinner and stuff like that. We literally, every time I turned my back, and we were in between sessions and stuff. He was mopped like surrounded by 5 to 10-15 people that were all peppering him with questions. And then we did like dinner that night and ended up in like most of the rest of the people that were there for the event, kept gradually ended up gathered around our table where he and I were talking with some people, and people were peppering him with questions and gradually, the rest of the group just clumped around his table. And it’s such a great example, because people think that they’re sharing good content. But what happens when you share the content when you share it, and you don’t get that kind of a response? It might mean that your content isn’t as good as you think. Because when the people show up that have really amazing content. It’s really deep. It’s different. It’s unique. They have a clear and compelling idea to share. Those people stand out and people flock to them. So the goal for me is, like I want to be one of those people that has such great content that people flock because it’s different, it stands out. So to me, that’s the goal. I’d rather have that that kind of thing happen, than go to the grocery store and have people go, “Oh, hey, that’s that guy on Instagram.”

Richard Matthews 17:07
So you said something a minute ago that I wanted to sort of pull back out ’cause I think it’s really important. You said, when you have fame in your marketplace to the right people that you’ll also, you can get people when it’s the right time for them. And I think that’s a vitally important thing that I think a lot of because like one of the spaces that I work a lot in for the last nine or 10 years has been selling like online courses and coaching and consulting stuff online. And most of the people I work with are, they’re building the quote unquote, sales funnel. And they’re running ads to the sales funnel, and then someone either buys or they don’t buy. And if they don’t buy, they get forgotten, maybe they’ve got a week’s worth of follow up, maybe they have -they’re fancy and they have held two months worth of follow up. And you know, if they’re really good, they got like six months worth of follow up, but either way, at some point, their follow up ends. And you know, that’s assuming they capture data to actually follow up very few people actually do. And the reality is something like 70% of the reason why someone doesn’t buy is because now is not the right time. It’s not because they didn’t have the problem. It’s not because they’re not interested in the solution. It’s because it’s not the right time, maybe the paint’s not good enough, right enough for them. Maybe, you know, they got distracted by a cat video on the side, or maybe like me, their toddler came in and pulled on their leg and pulled it somewhere else, they got distracted, they just didn’t get back to it, right. It’s a timing thing most of the time. And so, if you can be the person who is showing up again and again and again and again in their space, with the good content and a clear and compelling reason in the message, eventually the time is going to be right for them. And you’re going to be the one they go to. And I think that’s a really important point.

Matt Johnson 18:46
I couldn’t have said it better myself. So I’ll just add that when you are the one that’s known for solving a particular problem, then that’s what changes that to where it’s just a timing issue. Now, if you’re just one of many, then it’s timing and are you the right person? And is your service right for me? But if you’re the one who is known for solving that particular problem, then it’s done-done. Those questions pretty much become answered already. They’ve already agreed. Well, when I’m ready to solve this problem, Richard’s my guy. Now, it’s just a matter of timing. And the bottom line is like when you think about how many people are out there. We think because they have the problem, they should buy our solution right away. My background in real estate gives me a different perspective on it because I worked with a lot of people that built successful real estate teams, and they went from working with referrals to buying online leads. When you do that your lead closing time automatically jumps from like 30 to 60 days to eighteen months.

Richard Matthews 19:51
Two years.

Matt Johnson 19:53
That’s insane. And so many agents had a hard time wrapping their heads around it, but the ones that got that, they understood These are not people that are saying, “No.” These are people that I’m catching way, way earlier in the funnel. And I get a chance to build trust and destroy my competitors before they even get a chance to talk to these people. This is the best opportunity that’s ever existed. And they changed their whole model to education-based marketing. And all of a sudden, they don’t have to make calls anymore. So when I came in, I kind of came into that with that mentality that, “Look, Pete, a lot of people if they meet you online, if they didn’t see you speak at an event or meet you at networking or something like that. They’re going to take time to incubate. So you got to build the incubator. And that’s what MicroFamous is about. I think we have a unique opportunity to use things like podcasting to be an incubator for ideal clients.

Richard Matthews 20:42
So tell me a little bit about what you like, like tactically what you actually are encouraging your clients to do to become micro famous.

Matt Johnson 20:53
So four stages. So number one, get featured on podcasts as an expert guest, have something to say,something to share, right? So that’s always stage one that I recommend. Stage two is to host your own, which you’re doing. So you’re already doing both. The third and fourth stages are micro content, first of all micro content for social media. And then finally, micro content for sales. And that’s one of those very, very overlooked areas. You hit the nail on the head, which is when people come into somebody’s sales funnel, they often have a ridiculously little amount of follow up. And that’s where like that kind of sales micro content that can swing the difference between somebody signing up or not. Signing up is that fourth stage, but where does that micro content come from? And for me, it doesn’t need to come from stuff that’s created custom from scratch all the time. And that’s what we’ve been taught to do. I would say, ever since Gary Vee kind of exploded onto the scene and maybe even before that, we’ve been taught that every day, you wake up and you ask yourself, “What am I going to post on social media today to get more clients?” And to me, that’s not the right question to ask, the question to ask when you wake up in the morning is, “What podcast interview do I have coming out this week? And how can I leverage that and slice and dice that to get more clients?” That’s a much better question to ask. And then once you ask that, and you solve that problem, then you get up in the morning with no questions, because you already know what you’re doing that week. And that’s a much better place to be in. If you know what’s coming out, I already have the micro content lined up.

Richard Matthews 22:25
I was just gonna say, I’ve gotten to that point in my business where like, I wake up in the morning, the question I asked myself is, “Which kid do I want to go out and play with this morning before I get started for work.” So like yesterday, I went rollerblading with my son and we stopped, went swimming in the lake before we got home. Spent a couple hours working because we’ve already got all that stuff lined up. But that’s when you ask yourself better questions, you get better answers.

Matt Johnson 22:54
It’s funny because I think that almost that exact quote, kicks off the second part of the book. The second part of the book is about how to build a new media machine in your business. And that’s exactly what it comes down to: better results come from better questions.

Richard Matthews 23:09
And it’s interesting too, because like you mentioned, the second part is getting interviewed on podcasts. And I’ve actually, just recently, we’ve started uptaking our number of podcasts, we’re getting interviewed all the way to the point where like, I even got myself, my team got me, because I didn’t do a damn thing for it. booked on a couple of local radio shows amidst the COVID crisis, because a lot of these radio shows that we couldn’t show up to physically before are now doing virtual stuff, because of the crisis. So we’re like, “Hey, opportunity to get seen on shows you wouldn’t normally get seen on.” And to your point earlier, the ones whose clients are really interested are putting their pedal to the metal right now. They’re doing more, not doing less, but they’re looking at the opportunity to say “Hey, you know what, local TV stations local radio that you’d normally have to show up in studio for now. They don’t have to so we can reach out to them and say, Hey, are you doing a virtual show? Can we get on right and so like, I get an interview –

Matt Johnson 24:01
And once that dam breaks, it may never go back.

Richard Matthews 24:04
I mean, never go back, right. So, I like I’ve got an interview for a local Washington radio show next week, right that I never would have had to go on before. But I can now, right, so stuff like that.

Matt Johnson 24:14
And you would have just had to drive your –

Richard Matthews 24:16
Like, drive to Washington. It would have been very expensive, the ROI would not be there to get the whole coach there. But it’s things like that. It’s how do you step up your game and do some of that stuff?

Matt Johnson 24:32
And it’s all virtuous, like it all works together. Like that combination of those four things, what I call the new media machine has worked wonders for me. One of the just the quick examples is – I was just on a local radio show in San Diego, but it also is syndicated to 100 plus radio stations. So their weekly number of listeners they have is like 200,000 people. Well, how do I book that? Well, because I connected with him through somebody else’s podcast that I got pitched on. We had a great conversation, I asked the same question I asked at the end of every podcast, which is, “Who can I introduce you to?” He asked me the same question I told him. He said, “Well, let me hook you up with this guy who’s in San Diego.” Great. Next thing you know, I’m on that show. So like, all those things reinforce each other. And then, he came on my show, right? So now, we have a relationship where we’ve been on each other’s shows. We know each other. We’re in the same place. And like that guy, three months from now might send me a referral to one of his coach friends. Because we had a great 45 minute conversation, as opposed to me having to go meet him at a local networking event where we chat for five minutes and then move on.

Richard Matthews 25:42
And it’s even better than just having a 45 minute conversation because you guys had a 45 minute conversation that you then shared out to your audience and got him benefit from.

Matt Johnson 25:51
Exactly

Richard Matthews 25:51
So,like it was a conversation that benefited him from creating a relationship, but also got him exposure. It’s such an interesting thing that you can do with that. I’ve seen that happen with my podcast, as well. So like, my podcast, one of the questions we ask at the end of our regular interviews is like, “Who you know, you know, our Hero Challenge, right? And you see people do that. We always get recommended to cool new people and see new stuff that’s going on there. It’s such a cool aspect of the process. But one of the things that also, that we started doing recently that I think has been, it might be verging on genius, but I’m not sure. It wasn’t my idea. It was one of my team members’ ideas, so I can’t take credit for that. You’ll be the judge of that is, as there’s a lot of YouTubers who have massive, massive audiences. But their content that they produce is not about business, right? It’s about whatever the thing that they do. But they have huge audiences and access to really cool introductions like all over the place. They’re connected well. And so, we’ve actually started reaching out to some of these podcasters. I call them podcasters. You’d have YouTube shows or podcasts or whatever. And they have big audiences. One of them was like a video game streamer. He does video game streaming, has some umpteen millions of followers, which is just insane to me. Because it takes other shows, years and years and years to get to millions of followers. And like, “Yeah, we started the show in video games, and we got to 2 million followers in six months.”

Right. That’s the power of being in an exploding market.

So we started interviewing them about like, bringing some of them on to talk about not their regular content, which is video games, but what does the business look like behind running that type of a show? And who are the people that are involved in just sort of interviewing that kind of stuff, certainly to get introduced into bigger and bigger YouTube shows? They do the same kind of thing. They’re like, “Hey, I got interviewed about the business behind our show,” and sharing it out to 2 million people. When you have an audience that big. Your people are in there somewhere. Just as an example, like my son, and I watch a couple of YouTube channels on video games, because that’s the way I connect with him. It’s something that I do with my son and like he’s interested. I don’t particularly care, but I know their names because I’m watching them with my kids and I’m in the entrepreneur space. So it’s interesting we’re starting to see some cool stuff come out from that space. But I like video gaming and makeup and I didn’t realize this but it’s really insane. Women are really into, I’m going to forget the name of it because my wife does it like bullet journal planning stuff. And I do like plan with me sessions and these ladies have millions of viewers, many of whom are running families or running businesses and things like that, who are using daily planners and drawings and other things and hand lettering and stuff and we’re starting to talk to YouTube channels to get to talk to their, – what does this business look like behind your YouTube channel for our show as a way to both grow, reach and get really interesting guests on?

Matt Johnson 28:57
It gives you some really cool opportunities. I would call it the new networking. Like, that whole world of just being able to have a platform where you can reach out to people, and either book them on your show or having a platform where you can pitch them to get onto their platform, either one. And both. Like, I think people should always be doing both. It just opens you up to so many really cool opportunities. Through one of my clients, I got the chance to meet Rick Moretti, who has a big podcast in our space. So, we’re exchanging podcast appearances over the next month, and who knows where that might lead. But, I’m getting exposed to a whole new audience, mostly because I was introduced virtually. And then, I was on one of his friends’ podcasts. We actually exchange podcast appearances with a friend of his and all that stuff, just kind of catapults, it’s snowballs. And that’s gonna lead to even more introductions to other people that, really interesting guests. And the thing about like having big, interesting guests on to your show is it builds ease. If you share it with your audience that doesn’t know who they are, or doesn’t pay attention to them necessarily it still builds your credibility. So, that’s what’s interesting. And then, sharing like if you get featured on somebody else’s platform, it gives you an interesting place to share with your audience that, there’s a sense of momentum behind you as a thought leader like you’re growing, you’re, you’re expanding. People outside of your industry are starting to take notice of you. Even if you just share that with your core audience of a few thousand people. It changes their perception of you. They get a sense of, there’s momentum behind your growth, and people want to be part of something that has something that Chris Lockett talked about in his book Play Bigger, like you want to create the feeling there’s a sense of momentum behind you.

Richard Matthews 30:48
That’s one of the interesting things about the whole talking to some of the big YouTube channels that are in different spaces. As you mentioned a second ago talking about creating micro content for social media. And a lot of our micro content is coming from the interviews that we’re doing, that I’m doing in other places. But it’s interesting because the reason we can get onto those other platforms is because of our podcast, right? Because we’re hosting our own podcast. So, they really go together, where you have a podcast, and you’re getting interviewed on other podcasts. And, we’re getting seen in lots of different spaces, right. And in different industries, and getting to talk about the things that we talked about, like branding, and building online courses and building podcasts. And to use your term micro famous, becoming micro famous, that kind of stuff. It’s really fascinating to see that happen. But I wanted to talk a little bit about timing, right? Because this is just something that I know I struggle with telling my clients how this works, but I’ve seen it for myself, and I see it happen for them. And I know you probably end up with these questions a lot, but it goes – I think a lot of people think to themselves, I’m going to start a podcast today and tomorrow I’ll be famous. Obviously, that’s an exaggeration. But the mentality is there. And I know personally, I coach all of my clients, you need to consistently build for like a year. And like, even if it takes less time than that to actually start gaining fame, like you need to have that in your mindset that you should be doing this at least that long. What are your recommendations or thoughts on how people should think about timing when it relates to making yourself micro famous in a space?

Matt Johnson 32:29
Well, I think 18 months is a good benchmark. I think it can happen sooner. But you have to have the right clear and compelling idea for the market that you’re going after. But, I do think there is generally a sense at around 18 months, that there’s a sense of momentum behind you. You’re committed, you’ve been producing content, you’re credible, you’ve probably been featured in other places in that space. And so, people even if you came literally out of nowhere, by the time you hit 18 months, people are going like “Okay, this person’s established.” Right there, they’re now a member of the space. Now, if you have a clear and compelling idea that you put into the market, you can start getting sales right away. One of the things that I tell my clients when they come on, when they start a podcast. Even before they start getting tons of downloads, I’ll tell them that, based on experience, one of the very first things that starts to happen is that the tone of your sales calls changes. And if it’s the client that takes their own sales calls, so they’ll know this otherwise as their salespeople, and they need to track this. But what happens is people start showing up to those sales calls with less of, “I’m here, and you better persuade me to sign up.” And they start showing up with more of a, “Hey, let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together. I think the timing might be good.” And then that even starts to flip to them trying to convince you to take them on as a client. Right? If you have the right content, it’s dope and you hammer that clear and compelling idea home to the market over and over and over again and to the right people. Even though you may not have a ton of downloads and publicity yet, but to the right people, you’re known for that one thing that solves a big valuable problem in their life. That starts to change your sales calls way before you even see the public accolades that start to come later. But I can tell you from experience, I’ve been in the real estate space, I came out of nowhere, I mean, my co host, and I was looking back on it the other day in my email, because I was kind of putting a list of some of the events that I’d spoken at. We launched our show in January of 2015. We didn’t even turn it into a podcast for three months after that. We were doing a sold out standing room only breakout session at an event across on the other side of the country, less than 18 months later. So it can’t, -but along the way, we got all kinds of other cool opportunities. That was just the very first big spike that I remember that really drove that point home.

Richard Matthews 34:56
One of the things that’s really interesting is like, so I’ve seen the same thing happen In all of the business ventures that I’m involved in, as a result of doing our podcast is that everything is growing. Because people recognize me more. And even to the point of when we reach out to, we reached out to the local radio station a couple weeks ago about getting on their show. They were like, “Oh, my gosh. We looked into you and your show, The Hero Show is super cool. We will be so excited to have you on our show, “kind of thing. You’re like, “That is not the response I was expecting.” And a year and a half ago, we wouldn’t have got that response.

Matt Johnson 35:36
But putting content out there that just makes you look credible. I think we’re just past the days where it’s essential to have a huge audience. It’s more important – message.

Richard Matthews 35:46
Because we don’t have a huge audience at this point. I don’t want to put numbers on it at this point. ‘Cause I don’t exactly know where we’re at right now. I’d have to go look at the stats, but it’s not huge, but we’ve consistently been putting out content every single week and occasionally. We had a stretch last year, we did twice a week for a couple months. And we’re doing it again now for, for the crisis. We’ve got like 100 episodes in a year, year and a half, a little less than a year and a half. And when someone looks me up now, they’re overwhelmed with all of the people that I’ve talked to on both sides. And they’re like, I would love to have you on our show. And the other thing that we’re starting to see too, is now that I have both interviewed and been interviewed by, it’s really easy to put together. I don’t know what the official industry term for it is. I’m gonna call this sizzle reel, right, that sizzle reel of like, your skills as an interviewer or your skills as an interviewee, and to show someone and be like, “Hey, this is actually what it’s like to have me on your show or to have me interview you.” And it’s really, really easy to get someone to say ‘yes’ now even more so than it was when we first started. Because when you start a show and you as soon as you start you ask someone on your show, they’re like, “Yeah, I’d love exposure, even if it’s minor.” But when they find out, “Hey, you’re a fantastic interviewer.” Now, it’s not just like you’re gonna, you can make me look good, right? So there’s more benefits. So it gets easier.

Matt Johnson 37:14
These things snowball over time. It gets easier the, as you start to get interviewed more, you’ll start to get more introductions and you’ll have to pitch yourself less because you have people coming to you asking if they can interview you. That same thing happens if you just host your podcast over a longer period of time. The opportunities just start to materialize. Especially, if you’re really, really clear about what your clear and compelling idea is. And you start to become known for that thing. Like Perry Marshall with Facebook Ads and Google Ads back in the day. Perry Marshall got huge for Google ads. So if you were putting together an event or a summit or any kind of thing, and you wanted somebody to talk about Google ads, like Perry Marshall, his name was right at the top of that list. So guess who gets the cream of the crop of all the opportunities, all the affiliates, all the joint ventures. Guess who gets most of the best clients in that field, is the person who is at the top of that heap. And I think we need to start paying attention because our prospects are – we need to start paying attention to where we kind of sit in the pecking order of our niche. And you may want to start carving out your own niche that you can sit at the top of that pecking order, rather than trying to dethrone somebody else. There’s all kinds of strategic ways to do it, which we’ll talk about in the book. Because the bottom line is people are going to put you into a mental bucket. The question is, are you choosing the bucket they’re putting into, are you allowing yourself to get thrown into a bucket with a bunch of other people, so you become a commodity?

Richard Matthews 38:45
Absolutely. So I sort of want to finish up here and ask a little bit about your book. Where can people find it? And you know, what, what kind of stuff do you cover in the book a little bit and what can people expect from actually going through that and following the steps and actually doing it from that. So just sort of give me a rundown of what MicroFamous is, I know you got a Facebook community, if you want to talk about that a little bit. Just I think it’s really important. I think a lot of our audience would really enjoy being a part of that community. So, pitch it a little bit.

Matt Johnson 39:21
We’ll start with the book first, and I’ll get to the community. Okay, so the book basically, it’s not just theoretical, it lays out a roadmap, a strategic roadmap for how to actually become micro famous, including just the practical stuff that we talked about podcasting and even at the tactical level. So very, very practical handbook type of thing. So, we talked about how to uncover your clear and compelling idea, how to craft a compelling point of view. What the three stages of influence are and how to hit that tipping point of influence to where you become known for your clear and compelling idea. We talked about all of that, how to specialize, how to create an incubator for ideal clients, how to build systems that take care most of that for you behind the scenes even down to how do you hire someone in your business that can be like a new media assistant that you and I both have this in our business, where you and I are not doing any of the behind the scenes work of our podcast or pitching ourselves. And so the book actually takes them through how to even bring that person into your business. So goes through all of that from start to finish. Super easy to read, has illustrations for the key points and stuff like I wanted to. I wanted the book to be able to be picked up and dip into any chapter and be read and give you something to take away. So, you can literally read it cover to cover, or you can just pull out a chapter at a time, whichever is helpful. So obviously, you can get it on Amazon. But you can also just get it for free plus shipping at http://microfamousbook.com/. So that’s where I cover the cost of the book, you cover the cost of the shipping. I don’t make a dime on anything. So, we just get the book into people’s hands from there. The Audio Book is coming this year. That’s a lot of recording. So, we’ll get to that eventually.

Richard Matthews 40:58
Are you recording that yourself or you hire someone?

Matt Johnson 41:00
I’m gonna read it myself. One of my guys in the agency he’s, he’s already

Richard Matthews 41:04
You have a soothing voice.

Matt Johnson 41:06
Well, thank you.

We’ll see. I don’t know if people want to hear eight hours of it, but why not? And then, the community so if you go to microfamousgroup.com, that’s our Facebook community for like-minded people that all have that same common goal of becoming micro famous. And it’s a great place to jump in and bounce around ideas for your courses, your programs, your coaching, consulting, training, speaking engagements, if you want help with naming things, if you want help promoting things, if you’re looking for advice from other people that are in the trenches, doing the same things that you’re doing, teaching training leading people. That’s really what that’s for. I use it myself almost like a laboratory. So, I’m in there asking questions, getting opinions from other people, helping other people get their questions answered. So, it’s just a really good community of like-minded people that all have the goal to be famously influential to the right people.

Richard Matthews 41:57
Awesome. So, Matt, thank you so much for coming back on the show, and getting talking tactics with me about what it is that you guys do and helping people become micro famous. It’s been really fascinating to sort of hear your perspective on this. So, I look forward to – actually, I have a copy of your book that I haven’t yet read. So, I need to actually get in there and read the book myself. So, next time we talk, kick me in the butt, make sure I actually read it. I need to get that down.

Matt Johnson 42:26
– right now, but we already agree on everything. So, you’re probably-

Richard Matthews 42:31
It would just be a rehash of the stuff that you and I have talked about offline. Probably a lot –

Matt Johnson 42:37
All of our organizations are mutual admiration society meetings anyway.

Richard Matthews 42:41
Absolutely. So, just like always on the last part of our show, one final question, do you have any sort of like final bits of wisdom for our audience before we hit that stop record button and say goodbye for these special tactical episodes?

Matt Johnson 42:58
Yes, I do. And it feeds directly into what you are really good at and what people should hire you for. The last chapter of the strategic section of the book is called, “Choose Tomorrow over Today.” Because if there’s anything I’ve realized about the most successful clients I’ve worked with, and all the guys that I really respect and the men and women who built really rock solid, dependable six and seven figure businesses, they’re all really good at building something for tomorrow, rather than always operating in what’s easy to do today. And systems are a big part of that. So Richard, you help people with that type of end of things. I run an extremely systematic agency business for that same reason. All the people that I know that run six and seven figure businesses don’t overwhelm their lives and they have great family lives, and they go home for dinner every night. They all run very systematic businesses because every day they choose to do something that works for tomorrow and not just for today.

Richard Matthews 43:55
Awesome. That is a wonderful piece of advice. And I could say I completely agree but you’ve mentioned that before you started. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on man. I appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai