Smile and Dial with the Podcast Factory's Jonathan Rivera

0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. Stick around to the end of the show; we'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

And with us right now, we've got Jonathan Rivera, Jonathan, you're the executive Podcast Producer with the Podcast Factory. You're the host of daddy's working podcast and the host of a brand new podcast called the Daily Bread project. Thanks so much for joining us. Well, thanks for having me on, Josh. I appreciate it happy. Yeah. What brought you into the world of podcasting?

0:56
It was totally by accident. I just hear it Give you the I'm going to give you the short story. short, long, short story. So I realized that this goes back to when I was a kid. But I used to, I used to get bullied and like bullied in school and, and I used to bully the bullies. Like I was the only kid that would punch a bully back and I got my butt kicked a bunch of times for doing that. But I guess I carry that into my adult life. Because the same thing got me into podcasting. Like I see a lot of people out there spewing garbage and sharing fake guru dumb and I knew some people that were doing good things, positive things, people that help me in my life, and I said, Well, how can I help these people? And it just so happened that I knew how to turn on GarageBand and record podcasts and all my friends wanted to do it and so kind of by accident, I ended up in the podcast realm.

1:52
Hmm. So it gave you it gave you a voice and a voice to sounds like you know, right the wrongs are to at least be able to, you know, correct some stuff. I agree with you and again, any fan of this podcast, you know, it's, uh, you know, the the marketing apocalypse is is all around as consumers are fed up, you know, we've all been down those rabbit holes and consumers are just patently rejecting, you know those manipulative sales funnels that are all about numbers. We don't care if you say yes or no, it's just a numbers game for us. Consumers feel that out, we know exactly what's going on. So the spammy approach and just Well, I'm just gonna dump you know, $100,000 into ads, and I'll make 110 or 120. And we'll call it good. That model I see, at least with the number of people that I've talked with, is dead and gone. It tells us that selling that sells a lot of funnel systems, but other than that, it just, it's just not working for consumers anymore, is that I would imagine that's kind of your route. realm of thinking here.

3:01
Just bringing the light baby bringing the people that I knew had results and gave me results. And I wanted to give them a bigger platform and help them help more people. So it's it's a play in just doing the right thing. Yeah.

3:15
Yeah. Awesome. All right. So then so I guess you're so your first podcast was one,

3:22
my friends. We don't want to go that far back.

3:25
My, my first podcast was crap. No, it was a

3:29
as was everybody. Yeah. You want to feel really good about yourself. Go listen to anyone's first 10 episodes. Like Pat Flynn inspired me to get into podcasting about seven years ago. And I remember going back and I'm like, I'm gonna listen to like, what you know what he sounded like when he started, but they're really bad. At one point, at one point, you hear him talking and like I had to laugh out loud, because he's podcasting is these like stumbling over himself and then he goes He just and then he kind of keeps going with it. And I'm like, you know what? I'm so glad he left that in there because that makes me feel so good. If If Pat can continue on, I can continue on.

4:10
Yeah, again, the guy's a legend now but yeah, my first podcast is way back in 2008 something I did on blogtalkradio. And it was total garbage. Wow.

4:19
Yep, that's old school 2008 that men will blog talk radio would have had the advantage of not having to hand code your own RSS feed. But yeah, usually podcasters anything below two, you know, before 2010 you got really good at hand coding RSS feeds. So you kept at it. And then Then where did you go with the with the podcast journey and kind of your own creations?

4:44
Yeah, so I really I tried to leave podcasting soon because I would get so frustrated with it. But I had like I said, I had good friends, good mentors, people that that encouraged me and believed in me, I call it borrowed belief. They believed in me when I didn't believe in my I had to borrow their belief to push on and I had a friend in 2012 we did a podcast together and we did about 30 episodes. That was marketing and productivity radio. And it just was a nightmare. We were paying for production. We were spending a bunch of money. We had no plan on how to monetize it, monetize it. I'm so burnt that to the ground and I was done with podcasting. And he told me, and this was going into 2012 2013 He's like, dude, stick with it, stick with it. Let's give it one more shot. And I listened to him he's a dude help me like I had a real estate business I still have the real estate business is flourishing right now. Because what this guy did for me, he helped me focus. He helped me get my my head straight and put on my blinders to get this thing done. And so my real estate business doing good today, and back then because of this guy, and so I felt like I owed it to him and I felt like we could help people so I gave it one more shot in 2013 July 4, two 13 we launched making agents rich, and history that was everything. Everything after that is what is the podcast factory today. It's just good people, sharing good ideas, sharing just the right mindset and the right way to be if you want to have a happy life, if you want to have success if you want to do well,

6:20
yeah, I would imagine making agents rich. As a matter of fact, I'm certain I've seen that cover art before. But that has to be, you know, if you're in real estate, most real estate professionals are just not making a whole lot of money. Some are and they're doing very, very well. And so what a perfect a would would a perfect platform to connect with the ones that are doing very, very well learn the secrets, share that with an audience that's desperate because maybe they're just not learning. You know exactly what's working from their own broker. But, you know, let's just learn from the top producers what they're doing. Basically the idea would imagine, right?

7:01
Yeah, it was, it was really around mindset. So this was the first part of my, what we call the direct response podcast framework. And it was getting people in the right mindset and getting them thinking the right way and what we call indoctrination. Because when people come in, you got to make sure that they're on the same wavelength as Yeah, we had to tell them, here's how you need to be thinking, here's what you should be looking at, here's how to look at the game. And so we got their heads, right. And that's why that podcast succeeded was because we did it right that time Finally,

7:31
and Jonathan, what happened to your own personal career when you started networking with all of these successful real estate professionals?

7:39
Yeah, I mean, all of that it, you know, back then it was a thought leadership. I don't even know if people are still using that term. But I couldn't write a blog post, but I could record a podcast and so it elevated us and my partner was already elevated. He was doing stages all over the country. He was traveling five days a week, and the reason that we put that show together for him was because he wanted to come off the road, start a family and still be able to get an audience. And so it really worked well for him because it took where he might have been seeing 300 people a week to 300 people a day, we were getting him in front of with the podcast and so right for that,

8:17
you know, and and think about it as well, from a from the platform perspective. And, you know, in today, you know, and I think it's always been this case, you know, we do peep, we do business with people that, you know, we've got a relationship with and we trust them and that sort of thing. And, you know, and that comes from proximity, it comes from time together, you know, you spend a lot of time, you know, say, you know, when you're dating and, you know, you go out on one day and then three dates and 10 dates and man, there's just something that happens when you spend that time together with someone. You really just kind of lean into that relationship together. And, you know, in today, you know how we most of us do business. It's all digitally. So we rely upon those digital platforms. And so if you can get a listener to spend 10 hours with you, you know, they will come up to you, or eventually get together with them on a zoom call, and they'll tell you, oh, my gosh, I, you know, I know you so well. And it's like, you know, that relationship has already been, you know, skyrocketed. So then it's like, well, you know, let's figure out how we could do something great together. And it's very easy, because you've already, you know, you've already invested so much on on your end into them. So it's a great platform and truly, you know, serving and connecting with that audience and the great things that can happen from that.

9:41
It's, we call it, we call it speed influence. And that's the thing is like, first of all, you're connected to their ear, like you're so close to their brain, and then they're taking you to the gym and they're taking you on to drive to work and they're taking you on the bicycle ride or while they're cleaning the house, and it's This thing where I laugh about it because it's like a pickup artists thing where they talk about moving locations with a person. So you think that you've known them longer. So you pick up a girl, I'm not a pickup artist, but I'm just using this story. You pick a

10:13
flower, here's what I would do.

10:16
So you take you go from the club, to the coffee shop to the beach, you've been to three places she thinks she knows you. And it's the same thing with podcasting, they take you to the gym, they take you to a couple other locations, they listen to you a couple weeks and speed influence, maybe it feels like they know you,

10:31
you know, I've been married also, I'll have 25 years of marriage this fall. And that's my secret years, what's, you know, what's the secret to your relationship is like, time together and like, if you genuinely like being around each other, and, you know, you kind of just feed off each other's you know, energy and, you know, support one another. I mean, that's, that's it, you know, and you know, and I'll tell you that, you know, for a lot of people who aren't used to, both my wife and I are work independently, we work from home, and so we spent A lot of time together in proximity. So I think we had to learn very early on, especially when we were in school together, you know, we had a lot of the same classes. So we just, we just kind of learned to enjoy each other's company. Whereas I think a lot of people if they're used to working two separate jobs, and all of a sudden, you know, COVID-19 and, you know, they're kind of being crammed in the house together. It's a real test, uh, you know, I think it's a it's a good battle test for what retirement might be like. So, um, so Jonathan, um, you know, can you talk a little bit more about you know, the business behind what you do like where now today obviously, you've been involved in real estate, a lot of business opportunity there. Were you actually an agent there or were you involved in investing or what what what did you do?

11:47
Yeah, so we I was an agent when I started out that was actually how I broke free of my construction worker, blue collar prison, all it but it was always with the intention to be in In an investor and so yeah, now we have rentals and just a whole new form of headaches, but we've got them full and we've got an automated system. And we use a lot of marketing a lot of internet marketing techniques like email and video sales letter and all that even a funnel, which most people would think is ludicrous. But yeah, so that, that that's one business. This is the other business and I think and and the thing that Alyssa Elisa said, that I should bring up if we didn't talk about it, is the relationship thing. And so that that's what I feel like no matter what business that we're in, is really about relationships. And so the only success that we've had here is getting people to like us. And I think that's a salesman's job is you have to get people to like yeah, I mean, and not for fake reasons. Like really, you got to bond with people and be able to help them and so that's, that's where I feel. All of this kind of fits together. It's like the real lationship I have with Darren online caused me to do better in my real estate business. And then that caused me to help him with his podcast, which then opened up the door of this podcasting thing as a business because I was in 2008, Bro, I lost everything and then some. And it was like, I don't want to do this again, I don't ever want to live like this again. And that's what you're looking at right here. What we're witnessing today is me preparing since 2008. Not to die when this all happened, right? Because we had two businesses both bringing in separate cash flows. And this is all relationships. Who do you know, who can you help? Who knows you? And so that's, that's really, if we want to talk about the success in business. It's about people. That's where the game is right now.

13:48
So Jonathan, imagine this now. So imagine you lose everything. You all you get to keep two things, what you know, and your relationships.

13:58
What do you do? This is I'm glad that you asked this because I was hoping that we would talk about this a little bit. And I would, I would smile, and dial and start picking up the phone and talking to the people who I can help who I've worked with who I know because my my firm belief is that if that happened again, which I won't let it out if it did, I have just that I have those relationships. So I can pick up the phone and do some copywriting for this guy, do some podcast editing for that guy and do some real estate writing for the other guy. It doesn't matter. I know the people, and I know I can help them and they know me. And so to me, it's like, smile and dial pick up the phone and rebuild. That's all we can do.

14:46
Yeah. And I suspect that when you're calling people, you're probably it's not about selling them on stuff. It's about finding out what

14:58
Yeah, so to me And here's the thing and this relates right now more than ever. A friend of mine told me this when I interviewed him on a daily bread project and, and he said, dig your well before you need it. And so it's not about dialing today. Yeah, right when you need it, it was about dialing all the way up until today. And so, to me, I'm always calling people, even our clients, ie, everybody, I just, I'll shoot attacks. I'll shoot a video of I'm walking in the park, I'll shoot a video say what's up to them. And so it's about always being in front of them always being of service. And so if you do have an ask when this stuff hits the fan, that they're going to pick up that call. And so this is something that we've been cultivating for years where we can pick up the phone and call just about anybody we've worked with, and they are going to answer. Hmm,

15:48
yeah. And so Jonathan, tell me about the work that you do with the podcast factory.

15:52
Yeah, I help people tell better stories. That's my work. The team takes care of the rest. So my wife and I work together in this business. She's behind me over there doing the work right now. Sell it, she delivers it. And so our goal is to help our clients tell better stories because they come in. They're good people. They're bringing the light. They're they're wonderful at what they do. And sometimes they just don't have a clear story. They're looking to leverage a lot of them sell on the phone. And they're, they're looking for easier sales calls. And so what we look at is, how can we tell a better story? How can we get these people asking the right questions, because anybody that sells on the phone knows that if you get on that call, and they're like, Who are you and what do you do, you're dead, you're not going to make that sale. Now, if they're asking the right questions like, hey, how can I work with you? How do we get started? How much does it cost? It's a much different conversation. And so our goal is to be knocking out objections through content marketing, setting up a path that people take, so when they get on the phone with you when they get into that sales situation, they are ready to ask the right questions.

16:58
Yeah, and then So we should also point out, you're you're here in Orlando. And all I tell you, Orlando is a great place. I mean, the podcast activity here, it's I think there are a few podcast hubs around the country. I'd say Nashville is one Atlanta's got a pretty good scene. San Diego has one for sure. But Orlando is absolutely a lot of podcasters live in this territory. And it's nice, because there's a lot of events of a lot of podcasting events have taken place here. You know, a lot of a lot of good influencers have been through town encouraging other people to get into the platform. And, you know, I guess, Jonathan, you just kind of finish up here, you know, for someone who is toying with the idea of starting a podcast and they say, oh, it sounds so complicated. It sounds too hard, and I don't know what to do or where to start. What would you What would you let them know?

17:58
I'll give you a gift. I haven't Write on my on the website, the podcast factory calm. It's called the six biggest podcast mistakes. And I would say, if you avoid the six biggest podcast mistakes, it won't be hard. And that's really it because that's why I quit so many times, like I made every damn mistake in the book. And I was like, I hate this. And if it wasn't for my friends telling me, dude, stick with it. I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now.

18:24
Yeah. Well, very, very cool. Your other podcasts again, we should point out so you know, if you're listening to this via podcast, or if you're on YouTube, just go into your podcast directory. The podcast factory, of course, is your website. But the two shows that you run currently, Daddy's working podcast, let me guess, is parenting the intersection of like parenting and running a business and like it is it's a struggle, like, you know, every time like, you know, my kids are a little bit older now. So they're much more independent, but especially when they were younger, you know, they come in, I'm working and then You know, I unfortunately, I feel like like shoo him out of the office and all of a sudden I hear and the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, and I'm like, Ah, great. You know, like, I'm the worst dad ever. Yeah. And still now it's like I work, you know, I work 12 hour days. And I bet because I love what I do. And I know what I do has a big impact in people's lives. But you know, it could be quite a sacrifice, but hopefully that that show you that could help me right, Jonathan? It's a and it's just that you're working and I have a six year old. He's gonna be six this month. He's running in and mom's running behind him. Don't go in there. Daddy's working. You know? Yeah, it's about that family, faith, fitness, finances. My four pillars of purpose. Wonderful, wonderful. You're also the host of brand new podcast, the Daily Bread project. So Jonathan Rivera. Now there are Lando and I think that's what we call each other Orlando wins. I'm not sure but yeah. Hey, thank you so much. Again, the podcast factory website is the PodcastFactory.com. Go get the six biggest mistakes to avoid when starting your podcasts a free pdf download, you just click and download it right now. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us,

20:15
brother. Thanks for having me on the show. It was a blast. I love it. Thank you. Yeah.

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