Jordan Harbinger: Rebuilding a Podcast From the Ground up (#176-177)

Our Guest Today: Jordan Harbinger

Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger), once referred to as “The Larry King of podcasting,” is a Wall Street lawyer turned talk show host, social dynamics expert, and entrepreneur.

He was the host of a Top 50 iTunes podcast called The Art of Charm, which I had been listening for years and resulted in this first interview with Jordan.

In early 2018, Jordan found himself in an unexpected situation where he had to leave the show and rebuild a new podcast from the ground up.

This interview isn’t about being at the top, but how to rebuild and go back to the top.

In this episode, Jordan relentlessly shared his insights on how he did this. Within months, he saw millions of downloads for his new podcast – The Jordan Harbinger Show, where he deconstructs the playbooks of the most successful people on earth and shares their strategies, perspectives, and insights with the rest of us.

Jordan’s beliefs:

• Practice what your preach.
• Be kind. Be helpful.
• Nurture your network (especially dormant ties) — this is a topic we discussed in another recent episode with David Burkus

 

Favorite Quotes

[07:00] Thankfully I have built that network over time, and I was able to bring with me the majority of the team, but also I had so many allies…

[35:00] Half the time you are fighting, fighting, fighting and the answer you get is ‘Sorry I can’t do this’. And that’s actually totally fine. It’s not about getting a yes, it’s about getting a definitive answer. And even when you get a no. Is it a no or a not yet? It’s an interesting situation. And the problem is you have to consistently get those warm intros and constantly sell it

[40:00] I love the conversations, I love teaching the audience about networking, outreach, personal development, body language, neuroscience, tips, tricks, hacks.  I get to have conversations with great people, keep them interesting and influence people to actually improve their lives.

[42:00] We have worksheets so that the worksheets have takeaways from the guests so that the audience can listen, go get the worksheet, fill it out and get the major takeaways.

[46:00] I’m creating products that my audience wants. I’m not creating an audience for my products. I’m creating  the audience first based on what I love talking and discussing and teaching, and then I’m creating products that that audience wants and needs.

 

Here’s a key lesson I learned and continue to practice after the conversation…

“When you are a business owner, it’s very tempting to avoid outreach. You don’t know whether they might have any ROI. Try reaching out to people 20 mins a day. You will see the return on that investment. It’s such a huge win but it’s so easy to procrastinate.” – Jordan

 

Show Notes

Part 1

• [07:00] What are some of the things you learned when you moved away from a top show to start the Jordan Harbinger show?
• [09:00] How do you reach out to your network and keep it alive and active? How’s your routine today different from before?
• [14:00] What do you mean by “Gmail roulette” and your text messaging technique?
• [16:00] Fei and Jordan discussing about reaching out to people constantly and the benefits of doing it.
• [20:00] What was your process of starting a new show? Was it easy/difficult? Slow/quick?
• [23:00] How is your new show doing today?
• [25:00] What are some of the topics/guests that interest you at the moment?

Part 2

• [31:00] When do manage outreach for podcast guests? Do you do it yourself or do you have a team manage it for you?

• [35:00] Jordan discusses skills needed to conduct outreach and sales.
• [37:00] How do you strategically get people commit to be a guest on your show? What are the steps?
• [40:00] Why is it worth it for you to be a podcaster and grow your network?
• [43:00] What’s your opinion between seeking and exploiting a niche vs targeting a broader audience?
• [48:00] Can you share some advice on how to approach people via email or improving your first pitch?
• [52:00] What was the purpose and main message of the the controversial article about you, when you said that people should stop creating podcasts?
• [58:00] How could people reach out to you and get more information about your business and services?

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Transcript

Part 1

Fei Wu 0:01
Hey, hello, how are you? This is a show for everyone else. Instead of going after top one person on the world, we dedicate this podcast to celebrate the lives of the unsung heroes and self made artists.

Jordan Harbinger 0:38
Thankfully, I had built that network over time. And I was able to bring with me, not only the vast majority of the team, because most of the team had the left Art of Charm and came with me on the new venture. But also, I had so many allies. Half the time you’re fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting? And the answer you get is sorry, I can’t even do this. Sorry, I can’t do this. And that’s actually totally fine. It’s not about getting a yes, it’s getting a definitive answer. And even when you get a no, is it a no or a not yet? You know, it’s a really interesting situation. And the problem is you have to consistently get those warm intros, and then yeah, constantly sell it. I love the conversations I love teaching the audience is networking, outreach, personal development, body language, neuroscience, tips, tricks, hacks, so I get to have conversations with great people, keep them interesting, and influence people to actually improve their lives. Every interview of the Jordan Harbinger show we have worksheets and the worksheets have the takeaways from the guests so that the audience can listen in the car, they don’t have to stop and take notes, you can get the gym, you can listen to them later on, you go get the worksheet, you fill it out, or you go through it mentally. And you get the major takeaways. I’m creating products that my audience wants. I’m not creating an audience for my products. So I’m creating the audience first, based on what I love talking about doing and discussing and teaching. And then I’m creating products that that audience wants and needs.

Fei Wu 2:35
Are there this is they will and yes, this is a new episode of face world. We’re always so excited. We love all our guests equally, as well as our listeners. Today on the show. I’m joined by Jordan Harbinger. But this is going to be a second time around with Jordan because the first time when I interviewed Jordan was Gosh, a long time ago in Episode 59. That was more than 100 episodes ago. So who is Jordan Harbinger if you haven’t heard of him, he is once referred to as the Larry King of podcasting. And he is a Wall Street lawyer turned talk show host social dynamics expert and entrepreneur. Here’s what happened rather recently in 2018. Because after hosting a top 50 iTunes podcast for over a decade that enjoyed nearly 4 million downloads a month at its peak, Jordan has embarked on a new adventure, the Jordan Harbinger show which is what we’re going to talk about in this episode. On his new show, he continues to deconstruct the playbooks of the most successful people on earth and share their strategies, perspectives and the insights with the rest of us. So in between that episode, and this new one, Jordan got married. Yay, go Jordan. And his wife is lovely and incredible business partner to him. So enjoy this episode. It is very fun. And Jordan teaches us something very useful and meaningful, which is partly the transitions and reflections he has had. You know, stepping out of the previous podcast and moving on to a new one. He gives us insights as to how he ramped up the new podcast so quickly into millions of downloads within months, just months. And also most importantly, how he keeps in touch with his connections, his weak ties, so doorman ties, which you guys have recently heard about on a previous episode with David Burkus. No surprise, David burkas and Jordan Harbinger also friends and they have a lovely podcast recording together which will reference via the blog post of this episode. So please enjoy the second time around with Jordan Harbinger. And this guy is simply charming and it’s always applied sure to talk to him this. So let us know your feedback. We are at face world everywhere and our podcast is growing. We have so many new initiatives, we have a documentary in the process, I am working around the clock serving that very purpose. But check it out Feisworld has really evolved. And we’re a company and we offer many different services to people and businesses. So visit face world.com FEISW or ld.com. To learn more, without further ado, please welcome Jordan Harbinger to the Feisworld podcast.

I think what you’re doing right now, Jordan, it’s just phenomenal. I think we rather not not see the Art of Charm, kind of kind of leave without you. But what you’re doing is not only difficult, but interesting is not about staying at the top. But how can we go back to the top and you’re doing that? So phenomenally quickly? What what I’m interested in knowing is your journey. I think in the past six months or so, going from the absolutely top 50 show, you know the Art of Charm to starting something brand new on your own the Jordan Harbinger show in such a short period of time, I think what people can really learn from your experience is not only to stay at the top, but when a platform is taken away from you how you could be so resilient. To go back to the top, I want you to share some of your experience there and learnings.

Jordan Harbinger 6:44
Sure. So what I found was that it’s thank goodness, I was practicing what I preach, if I can say it like that, what I mean is, I was building relationships for the past 10 plus years, you know, practicing a lot of the concepts that I teach on the Jordan Harbinger show and it advanced human dynamics about giving without the expectation of anything in return, helping other people introducing people to each other, keeping people engaged, managing my relationships in a in a very sort of deliberate way. That stuff is it just turned out to be so key. Because when you leave when you find yourself on the outside of your company, or your organization, the only real chance that you have you bring with you your talent, if you have any, which I’m not sure that I do. You bring together your work ethic, but great, you’re starting from zero. So what are you going to do about that? And then you bring your network. And if you don’t have one, you essentially have to do everything yourself. Right? If you don’t have that, that network. And so thankfully, I had built that network over time. And I was able to bring with me, not only the vast majority of the team, because most of the team had the left Art of Charm and came with me on the new venture. But also, I had so many allies, I was able to reach out to Tom Bill, you at Impact Theory, James Altucher, Jim quick, you know, all these amazing folks. And the guys from Art of Manliness, you know, stuff like that the mind pumped guys, all these other business shows and say, Look, I’m in a pickle, would you consider helping me? And instead of going, Oh, you’re dead? To me, you don’t have a platform anymore? Or? Well, I don’t know, I’m pretty busy these days. Everyone was like, Sure. I mean, I had people almost jumping at the chance because I had been helpful to them in the past. And I had made relationships with a lot of really good people who were very nice, kind hearted and good, good folks. And that was a big deal. That’s a big deal. Because if I hadn’t made those relationships, because it’s very tempting, when you’re a business owner, you’ve got 100 things to do. You know how your social media works, you’ve got a bajillion people to manage. But the outreach, and the relationships thing is kind of a black box with that might not ever have any ROI. And return on that investment. It’s hard to go, oh, you know what I need to do, I need to reach out to people for 20 minutes a day and engage all these other people. I mean, it’s so hard to do that. But thankfully, you see the return on that investment, you see that you need to dig the well before you’re thirsty. And if you actually do it. It’s such a huge win, but it’s so easy to procrastinate.

Fei Wu 9:25
Wow, you know, I feel like that’s a reminder to me that I feel like I don’t spend enough time reaching out to people, especially, you know, people who helped me recently or a year and a half ago, and all that. So how much time do you manage that on a daily or on a weekly basis? Like what do you do now nowadays that are quite different than what you used to do?

Jordan Harbinger 9:47
Yeah, you know, what I do is, every day I will every Monday, first of all, I’m consistently I spend like an hour, hour and a half I go through Contactually which is To introduce your listeners to this, if they don’t know about it already, it’s a CRM, but it’s for relationships. And essentially you put in people’s contact information, how often you want to be in touch with them. And it reminds you Hey, you haven’t talked with a 90 days Oh, hey, you haven’t talked with Jocko Willink in 60 days, and you set up these buckets. And you keep in touch with those people through Contactually. So every Monday, I spend an hour hour and a half reaching out to the people who are in the dashboard, you know, the sort of overdue folks in Contactually. And then I also find that every will every day itself 9:10am, I do what’s called Text, reengagement, and Gmail roulette, where I’ll spend, literally five to 10 minutes, scroll all the way to the bottom of my texts each day, find people that I haven’t texted in eight, nine months, whoever’s at the bottom, you know, those are the oldest texts, and I’ll reengage those people. And I’ll say, hey, it’s been a minute. I think we met at a conference a while ago, I haven’t spoken to you and forever, we’d love a quick update, when you get a chance, no rush, no urgency on this at all. Sign Jordan Harbinger. And the reason you sign your name is so that they don’t go new phone who is this and you also say No rush, no response needed. Because people who are selling things, they build urgency, right? They’re like, contact me quick for, I have something important to tell you. And then you’re like, what, and they’re like, buy this stupid health shake, right. But if you’re like, hey, no rush, everybody’s busy. You don’t have to get back to me anytime soon, it actually increases the response rate. So I do that every day. And Gmail Roulette is the same thing. But with email, I opened up a compose window, while I’m in line at Starbucks or whatever. And I type in two letters, and I type in like a D, and it’s like, Adam Grant, and you’re like, oh, yeah, sure, you know, you pick the name, you recognize you reach out to them. Same scripts, you try to tailor everything, but same basic scripts, and then you send those along. And the reason that you do both, is because people who you have in your email, chances are, you don’t have their phone number a lot of the time, and people whose phone number you have generally it’s a more it’s a closer relationship, because they trusted you with their number at one point. So that type of thing, you if you do both, you do it to five people a day and each method, you start re engaging hundreds of people 300 or so, every month, maybe 200 Every month, that’s a lot of people, these are dormant and weak ties. And then as those conversations evolve, you can add them to Contactually. And keep in touch with them and expand the relationship even more. And so I dedicate time to this, because it’s a nice way to live to be able to introduce people to each other. And it’s also you feel good about it, you’re able to help other people out, it’s a lot of fun, you get to hear about what other people are up to and get a lot of ideas. And another thing is, frankly, you end up with a lot of opportunities. You know, people will text you back a few weeks later and say things like, hey, it was good talking to you a few weeks ago. Turns out my friends having a conference in the Bay Area, would you be interested in speaking there, their keynote just canceled? He’s kind of in a pinch, you’d be perfect for it. And I’ve gotten paid speaking gigs made a few 1000 bucks. You know, from things like that. I’ve gotten introduced to people who say, Oh, you know, I have a friend who’s in that area. He just texted me a few weeks ago, why don’t you meet up with him? And you’ll meet some CEO or business owner? Or they’ll say, What are you looking for, and I say, high profile guests for my show are always really good, interesting, people are always really good. And they go, You know what I just came across this amazing CEO, you want an introduction, you really have to play the numbers game, when it comes to this kind of thing. And so you don’t have the ability to predict who you’re going to be able to help or who’s going to be able to help you. And so you have to play the numbers game. And the way to do that is text reengagement use Contactually, and do the Gmail roulette and really spend at most honestly, two hours a week and I’m talking about in five minute blocks for most of it with the texting and everything. And that stuff. That stuff will change your life over time, especially,

Fei Wu 13:58
I’m committed. I’ve been thinking about just putting this on hold for, I think for about six months to a year now and thinking about it almost every week of reaching back out to people with podcasting. And, you know, I know I think both of us are our for our entire life. We’re very proactive in connecting with other people that at the same time, just like you, I really hate networking events. So you know, I think what I learned from that wonderful episode between you and David burkas is the idea of doing what you just described. So you mentioned Gmail roulette,

what was the app, the app that you mentioned with the text message,

Jordan Harbinger 14:35
I just use my texting app. So I just scroll all the way to the bottom of my texts, right? So on an iPhone or Android, if you’re looking at the bottom of or sorry, if you’re looking at your text, the most recent ones are always on the top. So just scroll all the way down until it won’t scroll anymore. And you’ll probably find a bunch of spam calls or like text spam, you know, or it’s like click here to get a mortgage quote, you can delete those. In fact, you should just block those callers. And what’s funny is, when I first started this, I had texts in here from like three years ago. You know, I had text in here that were super, super old. But since I started re engaging in them, they float to the top, you know, you end up with a bunch of folks in here that you haven’t talked to in a long time. And even if you you’re doing this every day, and your latest, your oldest texts are only a few months old, it’s still a really good, natural way to keep those people engaged, you know, and you’re only doing it a few times for a few minutes a day. So it’s a really, really fun and free way to stay in touch with people that you normally wouldn’t have. But ideally, you have something like Contactually, and you systemize it officially.

Fei Wu 16:05
So fascinating. I don’t know, I just I try to imagine all the conversations that will happen, or the ideas that will spark. Since I changed my phone, most people have not even text in yours. So it will be fascinating to find their number. And like you said, sign my name and just reach out to them and find out what’s going on. You know,

Jordan Harbinger 16:26
yeah, it’s important to do this. Because you have to dig the well before you’re thirsty, right? You can’t start relationships after you need them. If I started reaching out to people like Hey, I love the Art of Charm, and I’m doing the Jordan Harbinger show now, can you help me do this? I would have probably had some people say yes, but most of the people that I was talking to, it was like, Hey, I talked to you three, two to three months ago. This is what happened. They were like, Oh my gosh. So I was like calling a friend and telling them what happened. It wasn’t, hey, random stranger who doesn’t have my number saved? I have this thing that happened. You know, it was really easy for me to reach out. It wasn’t awkward. It didn’t, you know, yes, it was vulnerable, but it wasn’t awkward. And so I also recommend that people right now, if you’re not reaching out to these weaker or dormant ties, I have an exercise called layoff lifeline. So imagine you get laid off from your job today, you get fired, you get laid off your company implodes, if you’re self employed, who are the 10 or 15, people you’d contact to solicit advice on what to do next. So make that list of 10 to 15. People, you’re just getting advice. It’s not like who would you call to get some money, like, you know, it’s in, your parents don’t count or whatever, make that list, and then reach out to those people. Now, when you don’t have an agenda. And when you don’t need anything specifically, because that’s not awkward, you reach out to your college professor, you can say, hey, I realized I’ve done just a terrible job of keeping in touch with people over the years, I have you on this list of people that really made an impact on me, I’d love an update on what you’re doing, here’s what I’m doing, et cetera, et cetera. That’s a whole lot different than Hey, I haven’t talked to you, you made an impact on me in college, can I have a job at this company that you advise? Right, that’s totally, totally different. So this, this exercise gets momentum going. It ends the cycle of procrastination, because again, you have 100 things to do as a business owner or an entrepreneur or just an individual. This is one of those like, well, I don’t know exactly what I would do or say or who I’d even reach out to. This is the when you figure that out, make that list. Reach out. This is the one area of your life, or especially if your business where you can’t make up for lost time. By the time you need these relationships. It’s too late, you know, the best time to plant a tree was, what is it 100 years ago, the second best time is right now start doing that stuff. Yeah, start doing it now. And that’s one thing that I did a lot of it when I was working at the old company. And I’m so thankful that I did. And my only regret is that I didn’t start doing it earlier and that I didn’t do even more of it.

Fei Wu 18:57
This type of advice is what precisely what people need to hear so many people who now work full time, which I haven’t been doing it for the past three years now. They don’t realize the importance of that. And I almost feel like every time he says it, get a call from people who haven’t heard from me or who I haven’t heard from, it’s always about either getting a job and their source of some sort of financial situation there. And so I love where you’re going with this. I am gonna just switch gears a little bit and as I am kind of interested in hearing about the fact that now the Jordan Harbinger show, it’s, it’s just you now and it’s kind of an adventure you’re taking on. There are what I call sort of the unwritten rules for what you want it to be. And there’s an opportunity maybe for rebranding it or keeping things the same. What is that process like? You know, like, I know you had to do this very quickly, too. So what was that process like to start this new show?

Jordan Harbinger 19:57
It was actually a lot easier. then a lot of people probably think so the first thing that I did was reach out to those same people for advice. You know, I made that list, I’d already been in touch with a lot of folks. But I reached out, I did make a list, regardless of people that I wanted to reach out to for advice. And some of the people on that list, we’re like, Norm, Pat is the owner of podcast one, which is my network, I reached out to, of course, people that would give me emotional support, like good friends family, I reached out to a lot of other entrepreneurs who I expected cam Harold, who another entrepreneur, I don’t know if you know him. And I reached out to quite a few folks like that. And I said, What do you think I should do? You know, what would you do in my position, and they universally had the same or similar advice. And they said things like, look, keep going, don’t miss a beat cam helped me walk through a plan. Norm Pattis said, don’t miss a beat, you know, I’ve seen this happen before, the best thing you can do is keep moving forward. And universally, what a lot of folks said was, this is going you’re going to look back on this. And you’re going to realize this was the best thing that ever happened to you. And I was like, What are you freaking talking about? You know, how is that even? How is that even possible? And cam especially, who said, Look, I worked at this other company, I got fired after 11 years by somebody I thought was my best friends, et cetera. He goes, that was the best thing that ever happened. He’s like I was burning out. I didn’t want to be there. Which is exactly where I was with AOC, my old company. And he goes, now I do what I love, I work with people that I love, I love everything that I do, et cetera. And I thought, wow, this is incredible. Because at first I was like, great, fast forward me to the part where this is the best thing that ever happened to me and not like the crappiest situation in the world. You know, and it was, it was quite funny for me to hear that because for not even five months in right now is where we’re at. We’re literally, actually I think in a few days we might be, we might be like five months total. The five month quote unquote, anniversary or so of this, and I’m really starting to see that this probably is actually the best thing that could have happened because I would never have left the old company voluntarily. I didn’t know if I had the guts to do it, the getting was too good. The money was good. A lot of things were working. But I was really unhappy. But it was kind of like, oh, I can’t start now I can’t start over now. And then this sort of hiccup, the way things shook out, is actually great, because I was able to take the skills, the relationships, that work ethic, of course, everything that I needed. And additionally, I have all these relationships around me and rebuilding a company in the way that I actually want to rebuild, it has just been exciting. It’s I already see the potential for something greater than what I was doing before the shows growing so fast. And being able to regain that audience not going to be overnight. But in a year or two, we will definitely be further along than where I was before. And I will be happier and working with people that I really enjoy.

Fei Wu 23:06
Oh, speaking of the show picking up so quickly. What you know, I’m not really a numbers person. But what are some of the numbers that I’ve heard over the past few months, like subscribers and downloads, I think in the millions, right, so

Jordan Harbinger 23:20
yeah, I mean, you can’t tell how many subscribers there are. Thanks, Apple. But so far as of right now, I just happen to be on my stats page. I’m i By the end of today, or at least in the middle of tomorrow, we will have hit 7 million downloads for the show in the last five months, not even and the last 30 days have gotten 2.9 million downloads in the past month. So if you sort of extrapolate that the show has just grown ridiculously, you know, it’s the middle of the afternoon, I’ve 97,000 downloads for the day. It’s not even a big download day. It’s a pretty normal Tuesday. So that’s where we’re at right now. Now, look, it’s not where I was at the peak of the other show when I had it built up to the max. But it’s a completely new show with new guests and different marketing and no, you know, no discernable traffic funnel, no email list, their social started from zero. Like these are just the people that have searched and found me or heard me on other shows in the past four months, five months. So I’m quite happy with that growth curve.

Fei Wu 24:27
Wow. I mean it’s also I think in a way that there’s just feels like a controversy as well that I think people are off balance and they let your listeners obviously love you and they will for sure follow you I think people want to find out what happened at this point. Most people probably do know what happened and they’re sticking around is because the content is so good and I love where you’re going with I think one of the latest episodes I was listening to tap into relationships and and that was is kind of fascinating, you know, and even though I’m not really in this situation of what the, I guess, the the letter or the was describing, but you’re getting into some of the heavy duty stuff. So do take a kind of take myself a step back, what are some of the topics and guests that interest you that you’re going after at this moment?

Jordan Harbinger 25:21
Sure. So what I’m going after in this particular moment is, let’s see. I mean, I’ve had a lot of really interesting guests. Of course, as you know, a lot of really cool people. Barry Katz Sousa, one of the best talent. I guess you would say finders discovers in America, I discovered Dave Chappelle. Jay Mohr, when he come he’s Bill Burgess, all the top comedians Louie CK. I had Cal fuss Minh on recently to discuss it. He’s just a great interviewer storyteller. But of course, they also have social scientists and real regular scientists on to talk about things like brain science and focus, and we just have so many interesting folks coming on, including, let’s see, I’ve got Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew coming on the show pretty soon, if you remember them, Senator Barbara Boxer is coming on next week. Ehud Barak, which is random he used to be the prime minister of Israel. And he founded the Israeli Special Forces are one of the units to say air Special Forces. He’s coming on the show. So to get a, you know, former world leader on the show, who is within inches of the peace process in the Middle East is pretty cool. There’s also a at the CEO or CEO of Facebook is coming on which, and let’s see. Sure, there’s so many interesting people, General Hayden, who is the former head of the CIA and NSA is coming on. And they’re they’re really honestly is just a ton, Dennis Miller, comedian. He’s coming on the show. Jordan, Jordan Peterson, who is very controversial right now. And often in the news. He’s coming on the show. A New York Times reporter who infiltrated ISIS. She’s coming on the show. William Shatner from Star Trek Captain Kirk coming on the show. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, just next level people honestly just really crazy fun and interesting people and there’s more.

Fei Wu 27:19
Hi, there. It’s Fei. Again. Thanks so much for listening to part one of the interview. Don’t forget there is part two, and is available right now because we release two parts together every week. If you’re on your podcast app, all you have to do is go to your episodes and scroll right up. Part two should appear right above part one. And if you’re using a different app like I am, I love overcast. The way that you will find Part Two is under unplayed episodes should also be right above Part One

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Part 2

Fei Wu 0:01
Hey, hello, how are you? This is a show for everyone else. Instead of going after top one person in the world, we dedicate this podcast to celebrate the lives of the unsung heroes and self made artists.

Wow. So how do you go about you mentioned? I mean, you brought a lot of the team members, I mean, with you, and the I’m sure they reached out to you and are thrilled to continue working with you. What is that outreach process? Like? Do you do that yourself personally? Or do you have a person, the team of people doing that outreach?

Jordan Harbinger 0:45
I do the show booking myself. And the reason is because this is a it’s an aggressive, tenacious position, where if I were to hire it out, that person would probably be it would they would be well into the six figures. And I know other shoberg Booker’s that do really, really well, like Tom, Bill, you has a show Booker, who is just awesome. But he’s well compensated from what I understand. And additionally, he has the same problems that I do. You know, you rely on your network, you’ve got a lot of people turning you down all the time, it’s a full time job to go after a lot of these folks and get them booked on the show. And I just wanted to make sure that I was going after the best of the best of the best. And the way to do that is for me to go about this personally. Now, at some level at some day, when I want to outsource this. Yeah, probably. But I’m not under the impression that I can outsource this to somebody for 3050 60 grand a year. In fact, I know other podcasters and not even podcasters actual show hosts that have producers that have spent, and I won’t mention their name, another enormous podcast spent upwards of 60 grand for a three month contract with a show booking agency, and they got him to zero guests. So because I asked him, I said, How are you booking your guests? And he goes, I’m doing it myself. I said, Oh, you know, aren’t you going to outsource this your Mr. outsource everything? And he goes, I tried. Here’s what happened. And I heard that story. And he goes, Yeah, it’s just not worth it. You know, it’s just not happening. And so that kind of thing is honestly, really irritating to hear, because I would love to be able to take this off my plate. But it’s, it’s honestly, it’s impossible. It’s just, it’s just so hard.

Fei Wu 2:37
I know, I agree with you. I think the message the invitation has come through sounding like you. And when that’s the case, it pretty much has to be you and nobody will want that guest as much as you do. And for listeners who are not podcasters. It’s not just the initial email, but there’s the follow up, there’s rescheduling. There’s providing additional content sometimes. And I remember when I reached out to Krista Tippett, I just love her entire presence. And it literally took five to six times a rescheduling. And then at the time, I only had I don’t know, I, you know, was nobody and that maybe a dozen episodes. And she was absolutely lovely to talk to and my time was cut down from 60 minutes to 30 had to rearrange the structure. It was just so much work. So I admire the fact that you’re doing so much of this. And I’m so glad you know Jen has been I’m not sure if you go by Jen or Jenny. She’s such a trooper, too.

Jordan Harbinger 3:38
Yeah, she really is. She’s very tenacious, you know, and she’s, she’s good at this. But the other thing is, even though Jen is probably the only person that I could have on that would care, as much as me about getting the right kind of guests on the show. You also have to have a salesperson doing this because it’s not just reaching out to somebody and then making sure you’re keeping track of that it’s about tenaciously going after it. And using a little bit, or a lot, frankly, of you have to really sell the idea, you know, you’ll reach out to somebody if six seven times, they’ll ignore you five of the times reply twice. And you have to be able to build urgency, you have to be able to build almost like a funnel of getting that guest on the show and saying things like, Hey, here’s why this has to happen earlier or if you know, you might have a guest that continually punts and says, oh, sorry, it didn’t happen. Oh, sorry. You missed the media window. Oh, sorry. We can’t get this going. Sorry. We have to reschedule this. You have to have a sales mentality and say, Oh, I was really looking forward to putting this person next to these other three people that I have been booked on the show like in convincing that assistant in sort of charming them in a way and be getting them to like you and go okay, you know why you seem cool. I’m going to do this and Jen is good at that naturally, but it’s also a really hard They’ll set to tap into for anyone. And so it really is tough. It’s a sales skill set. And so you have to hire a salesperson, who, frankly, if they weren’t booking shows, could be selling anything, and making a lot of money. So you can’t pay someone, even 5080 grand to do it, they’re just not going to be able to do it, you have to have somebody who already has a network. And if they don’t have a network, you have to give them access to yours. And then you have to brand them as important enough to reply to and then they have to get after it. And then you better hope they don’t find a job selling cars, because they can make more than you’re paying them, you know, so you’ve got to have a six figure budget, and you have to be really good at hiring to get that off your plate. So I do that for now. And I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be able to get rid of that.

Fei Wu 5:46
So wow, you’re giving away a lot of really, really great information and tactics to now a lot of podcasters who are listening to this show, I wonder in terms of like outreach, do you? I mean, for people you don’t know personally, obviously not like James, all teacher and these guys, do you have to go to their website and send an email to info at I mean, how do you strategically go about getting to the right person with a decision makers?

Jordan Harbinger 6:12
Yeah, really, you really need to get a warm intro. And what that means is having somebody introduce them to you, basically encouraging slash, forcing them to reply. And you can’t just reach out Sure, you can get a really good relationship with a certain publicist, publisher, PR person, whatever. But you have to be able to reach out like if I reach out to, oh, man, let me find an example. If I reach out to a doctor, and they’re like, I don’t know, I’m really busy. What I want to do then is look them up on social media, okay, they know these three other doctors, oh, they’re in this other group of authors, then I know some authors from that group, I reached out to those people, and I’m like, Hey, do you know this person? Do you know that person? Do you know this particular author? Do you know that particular author Do you know this particular speaker, and then I asked for warm introductions from those people. And of course, they will only do that if I already have a good relationship with them. So you really are relying largely on your network for every single one of these things. And then by the time you get a warm intro, you don’t ask for like seven warm intros at once or anything, but you get a warm intro. And if it works, you’re good to go right you in that person will more than likely reply to that particular person because they’re friends already or they have a connection. If they don’t, then you ask for a warm intro from somebody else. And if that person gets enough warm introductions, you might hopefully find one person or so that they’re actually really interested in replying to. And at that point, at that point, you finally get a response from them. And then maybe that answer is even no, but then at least they had the courtesy to reply. Does that make sense? So half the time you’re fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting? And the answer you get is sorry, I can’t even do this. Sorry, I can’t do this. And that’s actually totally fine. It’s not about getting a yes, it’s getting a definitive answer. And even when you get to know, you have to then fine tune again, your sales skill set and say, Great, okay, so you said no, is this a no for a reason? Like you don’t do interviews at all? Or is it a no, because you’re busy this summer? And we could do this again, potentially, in, let’s say, the fall, right? You’re constantly trying, is it a no or a not yet? You know, it’s a really interesting situation. And the problem is, you have to consistently get those warm intros. And then yeah, constantly sell it.

Fei Wu 8:54
Yeah. I mean, it’s entirely true. One of the reasons why I reached out to David burkas, who was through an introduction from Stephen Shapiro, who had appeared on the show. And I think, as people expand their network, whether through podcasting, once you finally get through to that person, hopefully, hopefully, even though it’s not guaranteed, he or she will introduce you to more interesting people. I think for listeners who aren’t doing this, who aren’t content creators podcast are thinking, why is it worth it to you? I mean, but why is it worth that to you, Jordan to do all this.

Jordan Harbinger 9:27
I love the conversations. I love teaching the audience, these networking, outreach, personal development, body language, neuroscience, productivity, tips, tricks, hacks, mindsets, lifestyle, it’s really all interesting to me. So I get to have conversations with great people, keep them interesting, and influence people to actually improve their lives because most of the stuff that’s online or on TV is just a waste of time. It’s like a video game. Right? It’s entertaining but you’re not really building anything or doing anything. And so For me, it’s kind of like figuring out ways to get people to eat healthier. Right? I’m not that interested in eating healthier, but but like, for your mind, you know, this is getting people to eat healthier. It’s like, oh, this is a good show. It’s fun. The guests are interesting, oh my gosh, I learned something. That’s why every guest, every interview of the Jordan Harbinger show we have worksheets, and the worksheets have the takeaways from the guests the major takeaways anyways, from the guests, so that the audience can listen to their car, they don’t have to stop and take notes, you can get the gym, you can listen to them later on, you go get the worksheet, you fill it out, or you go through it mentally, and you get the major takeaways. So you get to both learn, and you also get to make sure that you are doing what you need to do to move forward. So that for me is super interesting, you know, over time, because when I was an attorney, I didn’t get a whole lot of letters that were like this changed my life. But this show can actually change your life. You know, that’s the idea. You learn something you learn relationship development, you learn nonverbal communication, persuasion and influence, that stuff will stack up over time and change your life. And that’s very important to me. And that’s, that’s another reason why I left my bad boy, I should say, there’s another reason why I left some of the other things I was doing before is because I really want to influence and help people. And that was that was no longer the primary goal of some of the things of the organizations that I was a part of before, it was more about making money. And so for me, look, yes, we have to make money, we have to pay everybody I get that. But there are ways to do that, that are high quality that are not just like internet marketer BS. And so I’m really a craftsman when it comes to this. And there are better ways to make money, but there’s not really much of a better way for me anyway to make an impact. And that’s what’s more important.

Fei Wu 11:41
I get this question a lot, because I also like to go after a big variety of people like people from all walks of life artists and, and doctors, I try to find and distill something that we all have in common, something that’s useful and practical for other people. How do you see that in comparison to Pat Flynn where Pat Flynn, like shows, you know, smart, passive income? It’s about a single topic, people come here, they know exactly what they’re about to get. It’s always so incredibly consistent. I guess that’s, I’m struggling with that a little bit like find, do I find a niche? Do I? Or do I make it broad?

Jordan Harbinger 12:19
Yeah, so I would say niche, for sure. But the difference is, I’ve just changed niches. So before where I was, like, I’m teaching people, personal skills, you know, or whatever it was nonverbal communication, that was sort of a more limited niche of my last endeavor. But now I’m teaching, I would say my niche now is anything that has to do with psychology, or can make you think better or perform better. So I was able to expand my niche a little bit. But again, I don’t cover health, wellness, or finance, really, I mean, I’m doing a show on like prevention of Alzheimer’s and stuff like that with a really cutting edge doctor who’s very credible. But you know, that’s kind of the limit of that. I also had Max Lucca Vir on to talk about brain health, but I really do limited kind of the brain. And that has made things that has made things quite a bit easier for me. And I think really looking at it, it’s sort of expanded the nation that way, but I still have a different niche. Right? So it’s, people will go oh, well, you have a good Barak on who’s the former Prime Minister of Israel, and then you have this scientist on any of Adam Carolla on, you’re just all over the place. But at the end of the day, you’re the knishes, you’re going to learn something from these people, you’re going to take something away, that’s going to improve who you are, what you do, how you run yourself, run your business. It’s not just like any random thing that I’m interested in. And I do occasionally go down different roads, like I did an episode on money money laundering, where this law enforcement individual who also tracks money tie tied in human trafficking, Russian arms trafficking, and drug trafficking into money laundering and cryptocurrency and that was super interesting. So that was more of like, alright, slightly off topic, but you’re gonna build this crazy awareness of this phenomenon you didn’t know existed, that still captured the imagination, and the attention of this great audience that loves learning and moving forward. It’s just that I’m not talking about how to make more money online, or I’m not and that not there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that I want to attract a broader niche of smart educated professionals. I’m not just trying to sell products and services to them. And again, I’m not saying that that’s what Pat’s doing or anything like that. But at the core, his business is, here’s a bunch of stuff that’s going to help make your podcast or business better, so it’s better for him to do that as lead gen, but for me, yes, it’s lead gen for advanced human dynamics are live courses in our networking courses, but I’m creating products that my audience wants. I’m not creating an audience for my products. So I’m creating the It’s first, based on what I love talking about doing and discussing and teaching. And then I’m creating products that that audience wants and needs. Whereas a lot of times, what I think people do is they have a product, they have an internet based business, then they create a podcast that helps generate leads for that specific course offering, then in that case, you want a stronger, tighter niche, because you’re not trying to be an interviewer. Whereas I’m, I’m an interviewer, right? I’m trying to create like a media outlet. And then I sell products and services to that audience based on the things that they tell me they want and need. So does that difference makes sense?

Fei Wu 15:39
Yeah, it makes total sense. I do see what you mentioned, as people first have a product have a brand. And then all of a sudden they have this podcast is sort of almost like a marketing engine to support just that.

What I find interesting is, you know, like I, I run a mastermind group, I belong to a couple of other groups as well. And your name came up several times, and I’m sure some of them have already reached out to you, to put you on the show. Generally speaking, to reach out to people like yourself, who I consider as tier one, tier two influencers? What do you want these podcasters to do first, like homework and how they approach you, because I know it can get so overwhelming. And sometimes it’s not always a good experience for you, or sometimes even for them. Because they don’t understand how to really approach the experience. So could you maybe give some advice on that?

Jordan Harbinger 16:57
Um, yeah, for me, it’s really, it comes down to, especially lately, it’s about relationship. But it’s also about the numbers. Because I’ve done so many appearances. You know, before I was doing a lot of different appearances, for fun, if the, if the concept sounded interesting, I would do it. But now I have to be a little more careful with my time because I’ve spent, I did the math. And it’s something like I spending something like five, six hours per week doing other people’s shows, which is like, a lot. You know, that’s a cut an entire day of productive, productivity productive work time. And I have to be really careful, because now I’ve got my live events coming up with advanced human dynamics, we’re shooting a product, the Jordan Harbinger show is really expanding, we’re releasing an app, that’s for learning, you know, so I have to bide my time a little bit or spend my time a little bit differently. But I would say the more someone is interested, see pitches that I think are terrible, are things that say, Hi, I’m the producer of this podcast, will you come on the show? That’s bad better is, Hi, I’m the producer of this podcast, we have these numbers, we’re wondering if you’d want to come on the show. That’s okay. Better than that is high on the producer of this podcast, we have these numbers, here’s why you’re a fit for the show based on things that you have said done or created. So if they’re not just carpet bombing, and trying to get quote unquote, big names on the show, that helps. Because if they think that getting guests like me is going to help increase the popularity of their show, I’m generally not that interested, because I’m not really in the business of creating other people’s shows making it popular, like it doesn’t work anyway, having a big guest on isn’t how you get a ton of new listeners, it just doesn’t matter most of the time. And so I don’t want to have somebody who’s going to quit after they find out that building a podcast audience is hard. And those are typically the people that are going after what they consider to be big names. The other thing is creating something that or being someone’s first show, I don’t want to do that, you know, so it has to have ROI for the guest. And I say that just knowing how other guests are too. It’s not just me, you know, you have to have something where it’s like, Okay, what’s going to happen is you’re gonna get exposure to this, and it’s going to be worthwhile, and he and here’s why you’re a good fit. So tailor it, do your homework, and make sure that the numbers add up and make sense and acknowledge that if they don’t make sense that you’re okay getting a no for now. Because there’s nothing more annoying than somebody who feels entitled to your time. And for those people, I just say no, and I never entertain a pitch again, even if he comes a year later. Right?

Fei Wu 19:32
There was an article I stumbled upon recently, I think was written by Ryan Holiday. And it was very controversial in a way but that’s basically what that guy is all about. Anyway, the title I mean, it left me sort of that mixed feeling the title I forgot exactly what it was, but something like for the love of God, please do now starting another podcast. So

Jordan Harbinger 19:52
yeah, based on one of our conversations, actually that I had with him. Yeah. Oh, no

Fei Wu 19:56
way. Yeah, yeah. So my point Have you and I actually discussed some of that with the mastermind group that I have for podcasters only, and definitely had very sort of mixed reviews. And, and I know it was written by him. So one of the things, for example I struggled with, and I want to hear your point of view, is that the examples that Ryan used are very much like the NPR and the tier one shows why their high quality, you know, take so much money and but maybe he misinterpreted what your what your conversation is about. So that left me feeling slightly puzzled to think that what what is the real message then that if you don’t have a kick ass show that’s already popular, and loved by everybody? Like, what’s the point of even starting that? So

Jordan Harbinger 20:50
yeah, so my message there was most people starting podcasts, they don’t actually care about having a good conversation with a guest. They want to network, which is, I guess I understand that, that makes sense, I can appreciate that. But that’s a waste of the guest time most of the time, because there’s no real audience in it. And maybe the guest doesn’t care. But let’s admit it, they’re under the impression that the conversation is going somewhere if they showed up for the interview. So most people will stretch the truth. And they’ll say, Oh, this is happening. And this is happening. And this is the traffic and this is who listens, and they don’t really know. So they’re sort of duping people into having a conversation so they can increase their network. That’s the first group and they’re not evil people or anything. It’s just, it’s sort of one of the ideas behind starting a podcast, the massive the huge group of other people wanting to start a podcast, they’re not doing it because they want to have high quality conversations with people. They’re doing it because they want to build an audience. And they want to be an internet thought leader or influencer. And again, inherently nothing really wrong with it. But podcasting is like the worst way to build a large audience quickly. It’s terrible, YouTube, Instagram, anything else is going to be easier and faster to build an audience. But most people will say, I don’t even care who listens. I don’t care. I’m just in for the conversations. I’m learning so much. I get that. But what is your audience? If any getting from this? Is your audience small? If so you’re sort of burning the guest. If your audience is not small, then you’re maybe you’re burning the audience a little bit, right. Like, it just sort of depends. And I’m not saying that about everybody, by any stretch. What I mean is that most people who say they want to start a podcast, because they want to network are not telling the truth. And most people who say they want to start a podcast, because they don’t care who listens, they just want the conversations, they’re not telling the truth, either. So really, what they’re saying is that they’re doing it, they’re willing to start this project, and in a way deliberately clutter the marketplace, mislead people, whatever you want to call it. And they harbor this secret fantasy that eventually it’s gonna work out. And I tell people this, and when I give talks about this, there’s a couple of people in the room that come up and say, I’m so glad I came to this because I’m an author. And all my friends are like, you have to have a podcast. And I really don’t want to do one. But I feel like I have to. So that article, or at least that talk, I should say my talk is geared towards those people. And then there’s another group of people that say, Look, I understand all your points, but I honestly I don’t even care. I just love talking to people I love serving my niche, my audience really is into it, those people aren’t going to stop because of what I said. And those are exactly the type of people that should be doing a podcast. So the people who are in a group like yours, probably is largely made up of people that should be podcasting that are like, I don’t care what this guy says, I like doing it. I have a diehard but small fan base or large fan base. And I don’t care that this guy doesn’t think I should do it because he thinks my creative work sucks, like, Screw him, you know, and that’s fine. Those people should do a podcast. But for all of those people, there are hundreds for each of those people, I should say there are hundreds of people that go, I’m going to start a podcast because I want to be important and an influencer. And then I’m gonna start a mastermind group. And the mastermind group is going to be bunch of people that listen to my podcast, and I tell them, I’m going to tell them how to make money online, even though I don’t make any money online. And I’m gonna teach them how to be coaches, even though I’m not you know, it’s just a frickin circle jerk. And so that’s why I don’t think people most of those people should do podcasts because a lot of them don’t care at all about the audience. They don’t care at all about the show craft. They’re just trying to build an audience for the sake of building an audience so that they can later market to that audience. It’s really all it is. It’s ego and they see money. So those folks shouldn’t do it. And they’re not most people aren’t going to do a good job. That’s the other thing. They’re not going to do a good job. They’re going to create 13 episodes statistically, they’re going to create 13 episodes, get 109 downloads and then quit. it. And why do that if you don’t really want to do a show for the right reasons, if you would do a show, even if nobody listened, go ahead and do it. But don’t be like, Yeah, but secretly, people are going to listen to mine, because I’m going to be better than no. If you do it when nobody was listening, then go ahead and do it. If you’re secretly harboring this fantasy that if you’re going to be great at this, and it’s going to make you famous or rich, you should just do something else, you should do a YouTube channel, you should do social media, you should blog, it’s so much easier, it’s easier to outsource, it’s more scalable. And that will get you where you want to go faster. So this is kind of like, people, you know, those writers that are like writing is a disease, you can’t stop doing it. Those are the people that should be writing, just like podcasting. If you really just love it, you would do it when you’re tired. You you do it with no matter who you are talking to, you know who’s listening out there, you would still do it, then you should be doing this, you’re cut out for this, but don’t do it. Don’t do it because you think you’re going to be a thought leader because chances are, you’re just going to waste your time and everyone else’s. And in the meantime, you have to deceive guests and market to all your friends. It’s like an it’s like a multilevel marketing thing. You know, it’s just you’re gonna annoy a bunch of people, and then you’re gonna quit. That’s all there is.

Fei Wu 26:14
Right? Oh, that’s a such a, you said so much better than I think what I put in the article, again, reading and listening having conversation is different. I agree. You know, they feel like, you know, Adam said the same thing. If you’re planning on going to medical school, if some one person talks you out of it, we’re you know, we’re just an article says that you shouldn’t you probably shouldn’t anyway. Fascinating. So I want if possible, I would love for you to talk about some of the new things you’re doing a course product. I think you mentioned very briefly, and and how people could learn more about that.

Jordan Harbinger 26:54
Sure. So so I’m having a live event. The first one is actually in August, but I’m gonna be having these regularly. Hopefully advanced human dynamics.com is where there will soon be more information about that. And that really is like body language, nonverbal communication, counter influence, counter manipulation, negotiation, personal branding, network infiltration, networking, and general de escalating emotional situations, a lot of different scenarios and drills and exercises along with the networking stuff that I teach that’s at advanced human dynamics.com. And that’s the live course, it’ll be in Las Vegas. And we’ll be doing those hopefully pretty regularly. And also, we have an online course that is free that is all about networking relationships and outreach, also at advanced human dynamics.com/level One or go to advanced human dynamics.com and just click on level one. And of course, you’re listening to a podcast. So if you’ve enjoyed any of the practical exercises, where you love interviews with great people, check out the Jordan Harbinger show, and I would love to count some of you as new fans.

Fei Wu 27:59
Absolutely. Hi, there, it’s me again, I want to thank you very much for listening to this episode, and I hope you were able to learn a few things. If you enjoy what you heard, it will be hugely helpful. If you could subscribe to the face world podcast. It literally takes seconds. If you’re on your mobile phone, just search for face roll podcast in the podcast app on iPhone or an Android app such as podcast addict, and click subscribe. All new episodes will be delivered to you automatically. Thanks so much for your support.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai