1622 – Selling Through the Power of Story with Podcast Cola Shaahin Cheyene

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now shaheen cheyenne shaheen you are the president and founder of podcast cola you're found on the web at podcast cola.com shaheen thank you so much for joining us josh i'm really excited to be on the thoughtful entrepreneur yeah your shaheen your personal website as well shaheen cheyenne.com to our friend that's listening to our conversation right now click around find where it says show notes or notes or links or whatever click on that we've got a direct link Shane to both of your websites and uh so anyway it's great to have you would you mind kind of because I know that obviously you know podcast cola is uh is is is huge uh and you've gotten a lot of fame from that but um you're you've got your fingers in other pies um would you mind just kind of giving us an overview of kind of the impact you have in the world right now So I can give you by way of background.

1:52I started when I was 15, left home, dropped out of school, started a company. Turns out it was one of the largest supplement companies of the 90s. Before my 21st birthday, we broke a billion dollars in revenue and I was just a kid. I had no idea what I was doing. From there, I had an exit and I went on to invent the core technology for digital vaporization. All the vape technology that you see now was born out of technology that basically we invented in the 1990s. I exited that, that company went public, and then I went into the Amazon sphere and learned about this guy, Jeff Bezos, who was doing amazing things.

2:37And I decided to put all my eggs in that basket. And fortunately, Jeff did not let us down with the platform that he built. And to this day, we're one of the leading Amazon companies. And I teach people how to sell on Amazon and create Amazon brands. And from there, my focus these last couple of years has been on exactly what you said, Podcast Cola. We are the largest podcast booking agency in the country. And what we do is we get entrepreneurs, writers, speakers, people in health and wellness, cosmetics, you name it. We get them to connect with great shows just like this one and all the way up to the top tiers and even some that are a little bit lower tiers.

3:22We get them on those shows so they can sell their product or service through the power of story. Yeah. And give us a state of the union of podcast guesting today. Well, I'd love your take on what your observations are. Why podcasting in 2023? Look, man, if you've got a product or service that you want to get out there into the world, The first thing that you need to know is that from the dawn of time, humans have been selling. So you have to master the art of sales. You have to master the art of influence. But here's the thing, and I tell people this all the time. The best way to sell is to not sell.

4:16The best way to sell is through story. Being able to tell a story that leads people to ask you, where can I get it? That is the most powerful way. It's the difference between what Seth Godin calls permission marketing, pull marketing, where you pull people to you, and the old school dead push marketing where you shove stuff down people's throats. Now, if that sounds attractive to you, that's the power of podcasting. Why? Because if I run a Facebook ad, if I run a LinkedIn ad, if I run an Insta ad, a TikTok ad, people are scrolling through that. And then some dancing girls come on and you've lost them, but you've paid for the click.

5:02Through a podcast, through podcasting, those people are committed. They're in their car. They're going on their jog. They're at the gym. They're with you for an hour. You have an opportunity through this beautiful thing called long-form podcast guesting, where you can be on a show and you can tell your story. in a way where people get to know you and they get to know your product or service, not through you selling, but just getting to hang out with you for an hour or half an hour and getting to know who you are. So at this very moment, and I suspect it's only getting better in the future, the highest ROI, return on investment that you can have in any online digital marketing effort is podcasting.

5:54I don't disagree with you, but I'm biased. You know, when also when I think about how people buy today, specifically how leaders buy today, you know, we all have different learning styles. For me, a regular part of my, If I'm going to be doing larger engagements, I like to check people out. I'm also incredibly busy. So I don't have a lot of time to read a lot of stuff online. But man, if I can squeeze in a podcast while I'm walking my dog or working in the yard or whatever, I can't tell you the number of consultants, coaches, agency owners, B2B service providers, other thought leaders, even before I buy their book, before I, certainly before I reach out and engage, I search the podcast directories.

6:55And so there are a lot of listeners may come from that podcaster and that podcaster has a devoted following. They listen to most episodes, but then there's this tremendous opportunity of discovery from people who say, I want to learn a little bit long form and Google serves up a podcast episode, or they specifically search in a podcast app in order to learn from you. So your customers are already looking for you here. And if you're not, you know, if you're, you know, like the last time you were on a podcast was a couple of years ago, I'm going to go for a newer expert first, if I I want to learn a subject.

7:39What's your experience on what I was kind of sharing here? Look, if you are in any business where you're offering a product or service or even working for a nonprofit that's trying to get people over to you, which I consider a service. Again, you want to sell through pull marketing. You want to pull people to you. But also, what sets you apart? What makes you different than the other 3 billion people doing exactly what you're doing? The answer is this, authority. How do you become an authority in your marketplace? Let me explain it to you. Josh, if I come to you and I say, Josh, my name is Shaheen.

8:22I am amazing. I am the best podcast PR agent in the world. I'm so cool. What are you thinking? What? Okay, you and everybody else. Right. I'm just talking myself up, right? And I don't have credibility. Why? Because of exactly what you said. I have a vested interest, right? Effectively, I want your money. So you can't believe anything I say. Now, I come on your show. You have authority with your audience. You may or may not have vested interest in me, not as much as I do. But now you say Shaheen is amazing. Shaheen is the best podcast booking agent. He got me on 3 million shows and he got my friends on the 50 top shows and I can't stop doing bookings now because of Shaheen.

9:17He got me addicted to podcast guesting and it's the highest ROI. In fact, I'm going out on the yacht today because we just closed an eight figure deal. How do you feel now? Yeah, I mean, facts tell, stories sell. And that is one heck of a story right there. It's orders of magnitude more impactful. That's why we tell our clients, when you're on a podcast, it doesn't matter if there's one person listening or 5 million people listening. Some of the shows we do have followings that are in the millions. What matters is that you create the best possible content out there, and then you take that content and you aggregate and promote it.

10:03It's no longer the show host's responsibility to get the show out. It's their responsibility to get it out to their audience. Because in the bigger world, it's your responsibility to promote content that you've produced. And there's many ways you can do that. And we show our clients at Podcast Cola how to do that. Anybody that's interested, I got a book coming out called Podcast Famous that teaches all of this. If you want a free copy, go to podcastcola.com, book an appointment with me, a free 15-minute call, or contact us, and I'm happy to send you a copy of the book. But my point is this, that when you are doing these shows and somebody else is vouching for you, your authority goes up orders of magnitude more.

10:52more. Not only that, not only that, you now have social proof, one of the five key elements of influence. If you've ever read Robert Cialdini's book, Professor Cialdini's book, Influence, you will know that there are five areas that you need to have. And he's recently added a sixth or, you know, in the last few years, added a sixth. And one of the most important ones is social proof. Yeah. And that is another key element that podcasts bring. Where does podcast cola fit compared to, you know, all the different ways that someone could get themselves as a guest on a podcast? Obviously, you can reach out to podcasters yourself.

11:39You can hire a VA. You can hire some overseas group that might be doing this. Where does Podcast Cola fit in terms of like, here's who we're a great fit for, and here's kind of our value proposition? Yeah, well, let me tell you. So I started out doing it myself. I actually hired a firm to book me on podcasts. And they did such a lousy job. And I realized that I was doing better just reaching out myself. So I thought, man, let me just do that. But I didn't have the time. So I hired a couple VAs. And I said, hey, let's do this. And I started learning that, hey, what if we put a company behind this?

12:22So I built, you know, my years and years being in business, I learned that, hey, you know, you got to build systems. There's an algorithm to everything. What's the algorithm to getting booked on podcasts? Well, we learned, hey, there's a certain way where you build out a deck. There's a certain way where you communicate with the shows. There's a certain way where you pull lists of the shows and follow up with the show hosts. So I systemized it. And once I had a company behind me, my bookings increased dramatically. And as our systems got better, as they got cleaner, as our reputation started increasing, I started getting hundreds of bookings and some of the biggest shows.

13:06I've done some of the top shows in the country. People started coming to me and saying, hey, man, I'm tired of using VAs. How can I do it with you? And so we said, all right, well, we weren't planning on doing it for anybody else. We were just doing it for myself. But I thought, all right, let me try for a couple other people. And we hit it out of the park for them. And since then, our business, we don't advertise. My business grows strictly through doing podcasts and word of mouth. Now, here's the thing. You ever, you live in Orlando. I mean, you talked about real estate a little earlier. I live in Los Angeles in a little enclave Venice Beach.

13:43But I used to live in Malibu. Malibu is the glitzy celebrity, you know, beachfront. Everybody knows Malibu, right? It's like Beverly Hills on the water, basically. I know people from Malibu would be upset about that description. And I remember when I lived in Malibu, houses there are arguably some of the highest priced beachfront real estate in the world. I mean, it's not unusual for a house to go for 20, 30,$40 million. And we're not talking about massive houses. We're talking about what in Orlando would be called the normal family home. Now, houses go pretty quickly there, right? It's a very liquid market.

14:21in any up down market, you know, you're up five, 10%, but your house is sell. There's a dude who was trying to sell his house and he put a sign outside that said for sale by owner. Have you ever seen these guys before? Now you drive in through an area where houses are 10 million, 20 million, 30 million. And there's a guy who's hanging out a shingle saying for sale by owner. What do you think most people think about that? Yeah, it's amateur hour. It's a false economy. He thinks he's going to save five percentage points on the deal because he's going to be doing the deal himself. Right, yeah. But most people look at that and go, what the hell's wrong with the house?

15:10What's wrong with the dude, right? Am I going to have to deal with some nutso who thinks his house is worth twice as much as it's worth? There's a value to professionals, right? Somebody told me, a good friend of mine always likes to say, a professional is expensive, but an amateur costs a fortune. Now, I'm going to caveat it with this. Podcast Cola service is actually about half the price of hiring your own full-time VA to do it. Not only that, you will get double the bookings, the backing of a company with one of the best reputations in the business, in the podcast booking business. But with that said, you don't want to be the guy in the$30 million neighborhood holding out the shingle, right?

15:57You know, Tom Cruise isn't going to the studio saying, did I get it? Did I get the audition? Right? You got to talk to his agents, his managers. So having an agency with a reputation behind them changes everything. So if you're looking to up your game, if you're looking to really get out there and get your message out there and become a leader in your field, don't be the dude with the for sale by owner sign. your website podcastcola.com uh someone that's listening to our conversation they're like yes jane i want to be on more podcasts uh what are their next steps book a time well look we do free 15 minute consultations we don't take everybody on board as a client you got to have a message you got to have a back end where you're making money if you're just an author and all you have is a book you're not going to be the right client for us there's there are other agencies that manage that.

16:53We look for people that are entrepreneurs. We look for people that are success-oriented speakers, coaches, and some nonprofits. But we look for people that have a backend, have a high-ticket course, have a coaching program, have a consulting business, have a speaking business, have a product or service that's lucrative enough so that when we get their message out there that they will see a high ROI. Yeah. And again, that website. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Podcastcola.com. I'm sorry. What was that last thing you were going to say? That was you. You're saying the last thing I was going to say. Podcastcola.com.

17:35Yeah. And if you guys want a copy of my book, Podcast Famous, reach out to me. The book's coming out in a couple of weeks. So I'd love to share that with your audience for free. It's also available on Amazon. And Amazon is an audio book probably in the first part of 2024. But if you're interested in that, I'm happy to share a free copy with any of your listeners or viewers, go to podcastcola.com and book a time. And look, I love hearing from people. So if you think you have an interesting story that should be heard on podcast, reach out to me and I'll tell you if it's any good. Yeah, we've had a lot of guests come through podcast cola through all of our shows.

18:11So Shaheen Cheyenne, again, president and founder, Podcast Cola. And again, your personal website, ShaheenCheyenne.com. Go get the book, Podcast Famous. You could do that by just grabbing a 15-minute appointment over at PodcastCola.com. Shaheen, thank you so much for joining us. Josh, it's been fun. Thank you.

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