How do you use your podcast to build a business you love? Or more importantly, how do you use a podcast to grow your business by making it the most effective business development tool for your business. Today we have Cliff Ravenscraft in the house and we ask him some pretty interesting questions about using your podcast as a business development tool.
In this episode you will:
- Learn from a podcast legend that has helped over 40,000 people launch a podcast
- Understand how Cliff uses Clubhouse to make connections
- Learn to use social media in a way that lets you connect with people
- Take a deeper look at being of service as opposed to being social
- We answer a question about how to detect when someone wants your services
- Rethink your limiting beliefs about selling.
- Understand the story of your past and how it gets in your way.
- Hear us talk about how to connect with just audio and no visual cues.
- Learn how the words you use tell a lot about your intentions.
- Think differently about the authentic and transparent sharing you do.
- We talk in-depth about Cliff and in particular this question – “how did you find that balance of using your podcast to not only establish yourself as a subject matter expert or professional in your niche? But how did you use that to leverage your own personal development and growth in your business?”.
All this and more, on this week’s episode of Should I Start A Podcast.
Psst … make sure you listen to the end … I’ll break down this episode to give you 3 small steps you can execute right now to help you take this listening experience into execution experience. Enjoy the show.
After you listen to this episode I would love you to do 3 small steps that will help you be more of a professional podcaster:
- Where are your people? Do an audience analysis right now. You can never do these enough. The more the better.
- Make a list of authentic & transparent topics you’d like to cover in your content. Now, next to each of them, write down how are you going to put the content out? Is it a video, a story, a reel, a podcast, or a post? A live video?
- Make a list of interesting questions in your industry that you’d like to open up conversations on.
What you pick as your strategies to grow will depend on where you are at in your business. Pick the strategy that is right for where you are at and not for where you want to be.
These are 3 small steps that if you execute, irrespective of where you are at in your business and podcasting journey will make a huge impact on your making your podcast more profitable & more impactful.
If this is the first episode you’ve listened to all the way to the end or if you are a regular, thank you … I love that you are here. Check out our back catalogue on ShouldIStartAPodcast.com, subscribe to the show and give me a review and rating, it really helps us get found more.
If you are a business owner podcaster and want to join others just like you in a group where we share tactics & ideas on what’s working (or not) for us when it comes to using our podcast in the best possible way. For more on that go to wearepodcast.com/group … it is free.
We Are Podcast 2022 – It is happening this year. For the latest announcements on Australia’s first podcasting conference for business owners, join the free group wearepodcast.com/group
Stay tuned next week when we going to cover Pitching like a podcaster. We cover lots including how to use a podcast to pitch for things. So, don’t forget to subscribe to the show to get that episode as soon it gets released. Until then, much love.
If you’ve never heard of our work before, there are 3 things that I think you would benefit from right now…
1. Listen to this playlist of How to Podcast for Business.
2. Get the the Recurring Results Roadmap (if you haven’t already).
3. Check out this video about a business builder who is closing high-ticket clients with his podcast.
Having worked with thousands of business owners to create a podcast for their business, I’ve created The Recurring Results Roadmap for Podcasters™.
It’s a step-by-step guide to growing your business to 7+ figures using your podcast.
Importantly, it removes the guesswork so you know exactly what to focus on at all times to generate that recurring revenue.
The best part? It’s personalised, free and it lets you get started straight away.
Download The Recurring Results Roadmap for Podcasters™ here.
If this is your first time here, this is Should I Start A Podcast. I’m Ronsley Vaz. Each week you’ll hear me, and a star-studded guest lineup, dig deep into the podcasting process. We’ll bring you tactics, tips and tricks to use in your own podcasting journey. We’ll teach you how to build an audience. And we’ll show you how to keep them coming back, show after show.
So if you want to start a podcast, or expand your current audience, this is the show for you.
Here is the transcript of the entire episode for those who like to read …
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, podcast, cliff, clubhouse, person, business, conversation, question, speak, hear, services, audio, serve, experience, voice, authentically, hallway conversations, room, read, conference
SPEAKERS
Ronsley Vaz, Anna Vocino, Larry, Cliff Ravenscraft, Holly Shannon, Catharina Joubert, Rebecca Beltran
Ronsley Vaz 01:03
Today’s session is a very special ask Cliff Ravenscraft sort of conversation holder on podcasting or on podcasting for business especially, it’s because of the conversation we had. And I invited him and thank you so much for accepting that, but gliss has helped 40,000 is probably more by now. But 40,000 People launch their podcast. But anyway, we’re gonna have a conversation around podcasts, I just want to give context before I get cliff to maybe introduce himself better than than I can. But Cliff has been instrumental in helping a generation of people launch their podcasts like when I think that I have just joined the ranks. I literally think that I’m so new to the game compared to a lot of the people that came before me and I want to be able to give context to Cliff and his work, really, because he’s got I think about four and a half 1000 podcast episodes out 40 shows of his own and obviously helping over 40,000 people. Cliff, how’re you? Thank you for being here.
Cliff Ravenscraft 01:58
Well, thank you so much. Ronsley, it is an honor to be here. And I promise I have nothing to do with bringing Facebook down just so more people that come here today. Well applied cliff,
Ronsley Vaz 02:06
I have a feeling that they’re upgrading to live audio. What do you think if
Cliff Ravenscraft 02:10
they’re doing something I don’t know. It’s fun to see the entire world go into a panic though. I always enjoy a little bit of chaos in the world so that we can see what people are made of?
Ronsley Vaz 02:19
How many times that when you go to Facebook and Instagram was down? Did you check your internet connection? This is a question I want to ask people because they’re not normally down. And I wonder whether people actually thought they were down when it was down. But anyway, here’s what happened. Right cliff and I was having this conversation about being on clubhouse and how effective it is. We do this room and has been doing this room every week, James and Holly, myself, Katarina and Shawn have been joining us. And we’re doing it for an hour every week. And I’m trying to find the most effective way to be and use the medium and be effective on the medium and Cliff and I were having this conversation and Cliff told me that he loves being here. And it would make sense. So I know that you love the conversations with people. And you mentioned that whether it’s one or two people, what’s been happening on clubhouse? And could you give us like a little bit of a history of you being here.
Cliff Ravenscraft 03:06
Yeah. So if I click on my profile and look down at the bottom, it tells me when I joined, I joined December 9 2020. Gosh, it’s almost been a year. And that’s crazy to think of. But one of the things that I could use clubhouse for as a replacement for what I was doing with live events, and specifically, I’m talking about connecting with other human beings at a very deep level. Oftentimes, I’ll go to a live event, whether I’m speaking or not, it’s not necessarily important to me. But every morning when I leave my hotel room, or every afternoon, when I leave my hotel room, I basically say a short little prayer, God, if there’s anybody that you feel that I should connect with today, would you give me a little nudge of discernment inside of my spirit to say, Hey, pay attention to this person. And I just look for divine appointments. And that’s what I would do at conferences. And now I will tell you that some of this is just innately who I am, I just want to serve anyone and everyone that I can. And genuinely I know that I serve best when somebody comes along my path who’s interested in being served. So whether there’s ever a business intent to that or not, does not matter to me one way or another. But then I also asked for a little bit more guidance in that prayer. Would you give me even more discernment? If I have somebody that you’ve brought into my path that might benefit from my paid coaching, or other products or services that I have? Would you just make that aware to me throughout the conversation so that I can carry that conversation deeper beyond this initial contact at the conference. And so oftentimes, while many people go to the networking parties where you lose your voice, and you can’t really have a meaningful conversation, I usually skip all of those. And I look for Hallway Conversations. And it’s not surprising to me that the room that you enter into when you open this app is called the hallway and that’s exactly what I’m looking for is I’m looking for Hallway Conversations. So I’ll go and I’ll bump into somebody, I’ll look for somebody that’s by themselves. Maybe somebody will come up to me, but I’m genuinely just looking to spark a conversation that is meaningful. I’m looking for somebody who could use a little bit of encouragement, a little bit of hope, a little bit of something, is there something from my education experience, expertise, skills, talents, and abilities that I can give freely in this moment to serve this person who’s crossed my path. That has always been my desire when I go to a conference. And as a result of this, every conference I’ve ever went to, within 12 months, I generate about 150 to $200,000 of revenue from going to that event, even if I didn’t speak at it, even if I didn’t have a booth or anything like that, I just generate that much income because of this process. So when COVID happen, obviously hosting my own events and going to live events kind of slowed down to a well, okay, screeching halt. But then when I discovered clubhouse, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, this gives me those hallway conversations. And that’s exactly how I’ve approached it. And I do exactly like what I just said, I’m like, Hey, I’m getting ready to invest a little bit of time, browsing the hallways of clubhouse, or maybe I’ll reserve a room of my own, and invite people to step on in. And I can either be teaching something, I’ve decided ahead of time, or I can open up a room on a topic and just say, asked me anything. And if I’m feeling really fruity, I might say How may I serve, you ask me anything, and then it’s just open for any topic whatsoever. But Ronsley That’s been my experience, I’ll jump into rooms with hundreds of people, I’ll jump into rooms with 10 people out, open a room and sit in a room by myself for 1520 minutes waiting for the first person around, doesn’t really matter to me, as long as I have the opportunity to really connect at a human deep spiritual soul level with another individual. That’s what clubhouse is about. For me.
Ronsley Vaz 06:45
That’s pretty baller often explanation as well. And I’m going to sort of open it up to the panel to ask Cliff questions around what he just shared. But the thing I wanted to sort of clarify again, is because we all you know, learning clubhouse we all learning live audio, and how to interact with live audio, we’re all becoming radio DJs, almost overnight. But is that your idea of being social on this app? Like when you think about being social on a social media app that has not been social media for audio before? What do you think live when it comes to like being social on this app?
Cliff Ravenscraft 07:15
Well, I don’t necessarily think of it as being social as much as I do. Being of service and being in relationship with people. That’s really for me what everything is all about. It’s about relationships, and finding out who the person that I’m talking to what’s going on in their life. And is there something that I could do to be of service to that person, because here’s one thing I know, I just believe in this thing, the law of reciprocity, that whatever you give into the world, you can’t help to have it come back to you. Some people would call it the law of karma or the law of action, or they call it by a number of other things. But one of the things that I know is that by always being in a spirit of desiring to show up and help somebody in their moment of need, I experience as a result of that, every moment of need that I ever had, there’s always resources surrounding me lining up to be of service to me. And that’s just been my experience of life. And I just want to continue the perpetuation of this cyclical experience. And, and so that’s why I do what I do. So I don’t call it being social, I don’t think about it as being social. I’m thinking about it as social media. I just think of it as man, there’s an opportunity to connect with people here. And this goes all the way back Rawnsley to my BBs days bulletin board services where I would dial in via 300 baud modem to somebody’s computer. And I would log in, and I would try not to spend more than 20 to 35 minutes, because there’s only one phone line available, I needed to log off. So somebody could go and sign in and read my message. And we could go back and forth. And what will happen in your conversation back and forth here, which has taken 12 minutes so far, this conversation up to this point would have taken two or three days at times. So I just think of it as relationships communication service
Ronsley Vaz 08:57
panel, I’m leaving it open to you if you have questions on follow up.
Catharina Joubert 09:00
Okay, I’m gonna go first then. So I’m Katerina, I joined these clubhouses regularly. And I listened intently at what he was saying. And I have a question when you mentioned like these Hallway Conversations, and I totally agree with you when those conversations are really the best ones where it’s not just a whole group of people. And it’s so difficult to focus on one specific person, what they’re about and kind of get there. What’s important to them. So in terms of these conversations you were talking about? And do you have a way to detect when someone is actually open to your services that you mentioned. And I know there’s a lot online about like negotiation skills in terms of like body language and eye contact, but from your own experience, what would you say oh,
Cliff Ravenscraft 09:48
by the way, good to meet you, Katarina. So there’s a whole discernment process that I go through when you have enough conversations to see who might be open to how you show up in this world. And I don’t want to anybody to think that I’m going into every conversation asking myself is this somebody who could pay for one of my products or services, because I genuinely have no strings attached, I just know that ultimately there are going to be if I connect with enough people, because of who I am, and the products and services that I offer, I’ll know when my ideal target customer jumps out at me. And I tend to attract that audience. So to give you guys an idea, I think the first thing to know is, who is your target audience who is it that is served well by your paid products and services. And I can tell you that mine are primarily online entrepreneurs, somebody who is either stuck in a soul sucking day job that they hate and despise and consider to be a distraction from what they really like to do in this world. While they have started a little side hobby, something or other on the side, whether it’s through a podcast or through some other social media platforms, or just a blog, or whatever the case may be, they’re trying to make ends meet financially to get that to pay for itself and to see a little return on investment. And their deepest desire is to be able to generate enough income from that passion, that thing that they would love to do all day long that they’d be willing to do it for free, they have a strong desire to turn that into a full time income, so that they could leave the day job and just go do what they feel most called to do in this world. So that encompasses a very large amount of people on this planet. A secondary thing that I know that I serve are people who have made the leap, whether that is intentionally or unintentionally, a lot of people get so sucked up into their side business, that they allowed things to really go lacking in the day job, and they might have let go a little earlier than they had anticipated or desired. And now they are fighting, do I go all in and find a way to make this thing make more money? Or do I go find another job to pay their bills, while I continue to grow this thing. And then of course, I have a very special heart for people who want to be paid professional life and transformation in business coaches, because that’s who I am. And so that’s a third audience. And now because of that, here’s what I can say, pretty much most people who are into podcasting, they’re creating a podcast, because they fit in one, if not all three of those categories. And so that, for me, was just a total thing that fell into my lap. It’s like, oh, my gosh, this is just cueing me up for exactly who I most serve, it’s been so much of my own experience I can bring to the table. So knowing my audience, knowing who I can serve, it’s just real quickly, all of a sudden, somebody comes into one of my rooms, or if I’m in a conversation in a room and somebody says, Hey, I am really struggling, because I can’t figure out this and if that happens to be something that fits exactly what I help people solve. So for example, I love it when somebody says, I just can’t see how I could make a living doing what it is that I love to do full time. And I say, Well, how much would you need to generate? And they say, well, about $10,000 a month would cover all of my expenses, and I believe the day job, well, how much are you making from it now? About three to $700 a month. And then what I will do is I’ll just ask them a couple of questions. And what happens? This is where the discernment comes in. I’ll ask them a couple of questions. Have you ever thought about doing this? Now somebody who would make a great client for me say, oh, my gosh, I never thought about that. That would? Yeah, wow, I could, oh, my gosh. And then I’ll say, Well, no, wait, have you ever thought about this? Oh, my gosh, I could do that, too. And so then that kind of tells me okay, this is somebody’s coachable. This is somebody who can hear an insight from outside of the bottle that they’re in, they can see somebody who’s reading the label from the outside. But where I get the discernment of this is not the client that I’m looking for, which is the reference to Star Wars when they go these are not the droids you’re looking for. But I get that little inner voice that says this is not the client you were looking for, is when I say Have you ever thought about doing Oh, no, that won’t work. I’m sorry, Cliff, but my audience, they don’t have any money. And I said, Well, have you ever asked one of those people to pay you money? Oh, no. And I wouldn’t ever ask them to pay you. Usually, I might have actually asked a second or a third question. But generally I know right then and there. This is somebody who is not going to be a paid client of mine. They’re already convinced in their mind that their limitations are real, and nobody can help them overcome them. And so anybody that wants to argue to keep their limitations, who am I to take them away from? So Caterina, does that help you understand? I don’t know if I clearly answered your question. But that’s what happens for me. Now, I will serve anyone, I will encourage anyone, I will even try to convince that person to give up that limiting belief in a conversation for 3040 50 minutes. But if at the end of it, I find myself my energy has been depleted, and they walk away full of energy. I know that that’s not the client for me because my clients are life giving to me. Is that helpful?
Catharina Joubert 14:46
Yes, very. I think it comes down to something I already knew. And then you just phrased it really well. It’s it’s kind of going with your gut feeling because the outside of the person like body language that all just plays in to confirm what you’re feeling about them. So yes, that answers my question. Thank you.
Cliff Ravenscraft 15:02
Wonderful. Thank you.
Holly Shannon 15:04
Cliff may ask a question, please do. So what if you do not have limiting beliefs on the potential of your business. But when you sit in a place of service on a regular basis, you have difficulty making the leap into crossing over to closing it as a sale, if you will, or transferring from a place of service to them becoming your client. I hope I articulate that. Okay.
Cliff Ravenscraft 15:34
Yeah. And I understand it more in the broader context of previous conversations that you and I have had Holly. And what I would say to this is those who don’t necessarily have problems, believing that their business has the potential to really blow up and make all their financial dreams come true. But yet are finding it challenging to make the transition from offering free services, and serving people for free to getting paid well, to do what you’re doing. I would challenge anyone in that situation, to stop doing so much for free and begin boldly asking people to pay you to do what you’ve been doing for free. What do you think one might actually come back with if you were faced with that?
Holly Shannon 16:17
So true, sometimes you just have to be bold and do that. I will say I have a history of record sales, as long as I’m selling other people’s business. And I have a hard time doing that for myself. It’s just a history, I guess.
Cliff Ravenscraft 16:33
Yeah. And that’s just what it is. It’s a history. It’s a story of your past. And I don’t want to necessarily go into a coaching conversation in this room. But here’s what I can say is that my recommendation for anybody who struggles to ask boldly for money for what it is that they’re doing, and yet feel like they must continue to serve for free over and over and over again, I would just encourage you to get into a conversation with somebody who’s been there who has struggled with it. And today who no longer has any struggle with that whatsoever. And see if you can’t have that person help you overcome the belief system that’s in the way of just knocking it out of the park financially. There’s no reason why each person in this room today couldn’t make 20 $30,000 a month every month consistently doing something they love in this world.
Anna Vocino 17:22
I love how the universe, the higher powers of the universe work because I’ve been having this conversation at length with my podcast. I was Vinnie, we’ve been podcasting for about 10 years now. And I was podcasting. For years before that I had to update XML code. There were cute plugins like there are now. And so I feel like I’ve been at this for a really long time, I’ve been very lucky to have a fun day job of voiceover. So I’ve been paid well for that. And Cliff, I love what you’re saying, because this is so resonating. I was just saying the other day about the law of reciprocity. And I’m realizing that like I’ve tried different business models that may or may not have worked for me, some things didn’t feel right. For me, it didn’t feel right. I don’t want to be a coach, or do a course that’s not what I want to do. I have launched my cookbooks and I’ve launched a food brand. And then I noticed well, then when it comes time to sell those things, I have relied on the law of reciprocity, but I have not pushed it with people at all. And now it’s I’m realizing, because I’ve make excuses. While I’m podcasting. I was on the Keto chef summit a few weeks ago, and I was I’m selling sauce, right. And I’m saying, but you don’t have to buy the sauce, I have the recipe for free up on my website, which is true. And I will always leave it for free up on my website, because you don’t have to buy the sauce. However, maybe that’s not me boldly asking for people to buy the sauce. And so getting more comfortable with going no, you should buy it because it’s amazing. And I believe in that and just hearing this is just emboldening some things. And I liked the timing of it. I just want to let you know that because sometimes you don’t know how you’re affecting people and things could be just timed. Right. So cliff, thank you for that. I just love it.
Cliff Ravenscraft 18:47
My pleasure. Thank you for sharing that. Anna.
Ronsley Vaz 18:49
I think the the way this is all phrased is really fascinating, because it is about someone doing what they love. And when it comes to the world of business, it seems like there are these two camps. There’s the one camp who only goes for ROI, and they just like I’m going to do this thing. If there’s no ROI, I’m not going to do this thing. And as the other person who is the artist and just want to make the beautiful piece of art and just don’t know how to ask to sustain that art because there’s so many people that are actually amazing artists, there is probably even a camp that applauds artists who are not sustainable or don’t have an ecosystem that goes behind it. And I want to ask Cliff about your ecosystem.
19:33
Hey, this is Elizabeth McIntyre. I’m the CEO of thinkbook, Australia, host of our podcast and leader of amazing humans. I’m on the inside of we are podcast members, or as we like to call it the way Emily if you are thinking about growing that business using your podcast and your online presence. Come join us on the inside. I would love to meet you, James and RONZI coaches to get those recurring results in our business if you want that roadmap app which we all follow to get those recurring results, you can download [email protected] are podcast.com. Now back to the show.
Ronsley Vaz 20:12
But Larry and Rebecca have joined us, I wonder whether you have any questions for cliff or any comments or the conversation?
Rebecca Beltran 20:18
Hi, Cliff. This is Rebecca. Yes, I did have a question for so I really loved your analogy of talking about clubhouse, like a hallway in a conference, because I love going to conferences. It’s been forever since I’ve been to one. I’ve never made that connection. So thinking about it that way, I realized one of the things that’s challenging for me with just audio is not having a person’s face to connect with individualizing not having the body language to help me understand what’s going on. And whether or not I want to talk with this person. I’m curious how you’ve been able to translate that into this clubhouse audio only format?
Cliff Ravenscraft 20:51
Sure. So I would love to speak to that. So first and foremost, what if instead of focusing on what’s missing, just set that aside, the fact that you can’t see their face, you can’t see the movement of the muscles in their face, you can’t see whether they’re looking up or down, you can’t see the fidgeting of their body. So for just a moment, Rebecca, just push all of that to the side of what’s missing. And then I want you just to focus on what you can notice about my voice that you wouldn’t notice if you were distracted by the body language. Do you hear the tonality of somebody’s voice? Think for just a moment, the last 510 15 conversations you’ve had on clubhouse, how fast somebody is talking how nervous someone seems to be by the stuttering in their voice, how some people feel so pressured to feel every single moment that they never take a moment to just think about what they’re going to say next, you can learn so much about the person on the other side of a clubhouse connection, through nothing more than their voice, you can actually tell how deeply they’re breathing through how they speak, you can tell whether or not they’re speaking up, and oh my gosh, I’m filled with hope. And I’m so delighted to be here. And oh my gosh, I’m so excited about this room, thank you. Or, Wow, I’m really thankful that clubhouse exists, and that you guys have this room together. And I was just browsing around you, you can tell a lot about so if all of a sudden instead of focusing on what’s not there to clue you want in on what’s going on inside of the heart and the soul of the person that you’re connecting with. Just listen for all of the clues. Listen with your heart, not your ears. But listen with your heart, what’s being communicated through this incredible audio only platform and recognize that there is a gift and not being distracted by whether or not somebody put a lot of work into looking camera ready today, or in the instance of an actual conference where somebody all of a sudden, they put hours into putting on a mask, so that they could look a certain way so that they can actually present a certain personality. Whereas Han, when you think about it’s like what can you do to cover up the mask of actually the human voice? Rebecca, does that help at all?
Rebecca Beltran 23:27
That helps a ton. Thank you. And as you were talking about the blessing of not being distracted by what’s in front of your eyes, I realized I probably need to play on clubhouse while I’m in my podcasting studio, because if I’m outside, there’s too many things to see and distract me. But in here, I can hear better. I feel more connected to my show. And yeah, thank you appreciate it.
Cliff Ravenscraft 23:48
I want to share one other thing with you. So everything that I’ve talked about so far is the voice. But there’s also something that most people overlook. It’s the words people speak. Now one of the things that I will tell you right now I use clubhouse, I have clubhouse on my phone currently. And I’m bringing that into my road caster Pro and I’m actually hearing your voice and even my voice in my headphones. But then one of the headphones, Jack’s of my road caster Pro has an audio cable going out of a headphone jack into the line input of an iPad, and that iPad actually has otter.ai running. And so far every syllable of every word spoken in this room has been transcribed for me. And so I could go back and read word for word, something you just said a few moments ago. And so when I’m actually in a deep meaningful conversation with someone, and they say, You know what, I tried that but this is what always happens to me. I always seem to fail and I get stuck and I get blah, blah blah and this is just who I am and people use this language all the time. I always I get stuck. This always happens to me This is just who I am. And wow, there’s so much they’re revealing about what’s going on in their subconscious mind the programming that’s causing them to experience life in the exact way that they are experiencing reality. Words reveal the subconscious programming and conditioning of our lifetime. And oftentimes I will say, Hey, I’d like to just respond to you not reacting to what you said. But I’d like to reflect to you what I just heard you say? And then what I’ll do is I’ll read back some of the words, the exact phrasing, it’s like, well, that’s not what I said, actually. It’s exactly what you said word for word, I just read it off of the transcript. Did I really say that? Yes. Well, I don’t believe that. I will consciously you don’t believe that. But subconsciously, you do. And your subconscious mind actually operates about 95% of your experience of reality. And so you can use your conscious act of will to go against it. But until you change that programming code inside, you will always experience this. Anyway, I just point that out to not only do you have the voice to listen to, but you can listen to words. Now before I began using otter.ai to transcribe every interaction that I’m having in a platform like this, or in a one on one coaching call on Zoom. I was feverishly taking notes. So I would never come to a clubhouse room without absolutely as soon as somebody says, hey, Cliff, can I ask you a question? And I say, Sure, just imagine my Apple Pencil at the ready, and I am jotting down and feverishly trying to transcribe within my own abilities. Everything that person is saying as far as word for word phrases, Rebecca Was that helpful as well? Yeah,
Rebecca Beltran 26:40
thanks for sharing.
Ronsley Vaz 26:41
Larry, you have a question?
Larry 26:42
Hi, Ronsley. Great to see you again, here in the clubhouse room. So I guess if I was to contributed away with a question, it’s how did you clip how did you find that balance of using your podcast to not only establish yourself as a subject matter expert or professional in your niche? But how did you use that to leverage your own personal development and growth in your business? I heard something that phrase just I think yesterday, as a matter of fact, I was talking to someone he said, entrepreneurship was a disguise for self development and personal growth. And that kind of set with me personally, I loved hearing that. And I’m wondering, how did that journey work for you?
Cliff Ravenscraft 27:22
So first of all, that’s the first time I’ve heard that. But I absolutely love what you just said their entrepreneurship is just a disguise for self development and personal growth. And I just read that, of course off of my transcript, by the way, but I love that I don’t know if it’s necessarily a clever disguise because it just is personal growth and personal development, especially if you’re a podcaster, who is authentically and transparently sharing what you’re doing in your journey. Of course, that’s been a part of my journey ever since day one. I never really got into podcasting to start a business. I got into podcasting as a hobby. My wife and I were podcasting about the TV show Lost back in the day. And through some pretty odd experiences. We had 27,000 subscribers after our third show, and it quickly grew to 60,000 subscribers. And before we knew it, here, I am a guy in Northern Kentucky who’s never had anybody outside of Northern Kentucky know who he was. Now we’re getting hundreds of emails from every corner of the globe with questions about things that we brought up in our podcasts. And my wife and I were just authentically sharing like the TV show last had all good cowboys have daddy issues? Well, my wife and I both had some daddy issues that we could resonate with the storyline. There was the 23rd Psalm, which was the faith based episode, there’s tabula rasa, which means clean slates and the whole concept of every day, if you desire or every moment of every day, we could just forget everything that’s happened up to this point and just start over with a clean slate. We don’t have to wait until Monday to start a new exercise program, for example. So we just share and talk about these things in a podcast episode. And people began asking questions, they’d say, Hey, can you fill in more of the story? I felt like there’s more to the story that you brought up there. And I’m like, Yeah, but that doesn’t fit in the last podcast. So I would actually respond to people via email. And then I would also get the same questions over and over again. So I started answering common questions in other podcasts. So I started other podcasts around other topics like family from the heart, pursuing a balanced life and gosh, business tech weekly help I got a Mac and eventually Podcast Answer Man and all these other shows. So what happened was, I was consistently putting out answers to questions that people were asking me about things that I have learned in my own journey. And of course, being the transparent and authentic person that I am. I just show up as who I am, and today, you hear my voice and I speak very fluently with a lot of ease. It sounds like man cliffs really got his communication skills on alignment and stuff like that. Well after 4500 600 episodes, sure, I can communicate this way. But back in the day, I was horrible. I was just as horrible as any brand new podcaster and not only that, but I would say probably about 20 years into a very very intense, intentional personal development journey, meaning that I have been working on improving myself. And as a result of that, what you’re experiencing today is 20 years later of investment, I was a terrible person back in the day. And when I say a terrible person, I just mean that I had lots of character flaws and lots of character defects. Matter of fact, I encourage anyone if you want a good laugh, go and look up the last podcast with Clifton Stefani, or the weekly last podcast, see if you can find the last podcast in iTunes or the Apple Podcast Directory with Clifton, Stephanie Ravenscraft. And then go look at the reviews, the written ratings and reviews. And if you’re able to do so still go sort those reviews by the most critical and read all the mean nasty, horrendous things people used to say about me in their written reviews and get this. They were all true. every last detail. They pointed out so many things, and it was it stung. As a matter of fact, I think it was episode 50 I think I broke down in tears with a piece of audio feedback. And I’m like, I’m done. I can’t handle this. And I broke while recording a live podcast. I’m like done. I’m throwing in the towel after 50 episodes. And you know what people came back says cliff, don’t let a couple people get you down. Sure. None of us are perfect. You got room for growth. But man, you can’t let what those people say Rob everyone else from what you do have to bring to the table and I’m like, Okay, I’m coming back. And man, my whole journey has been on display. Another thing that I’ve done in my podcasting journey is I have created audio journal. So back in the day I created the show called my crazy life. After 398 episodes, I rebranded it to what was called pursuing a balanced life. And then after 438 episodes of Podcast Answer Man, I rebranded pursuing a balanced life to the Cliff Ravenscraft show but then decided to move the Cliff Ravenscraft show where the Podcast Answer Man, and the Cliff Ravenscraft show has been an ongoing kind of audio journal. And then I decided because of feedback, you know what, there’s a lot of people who don’t yet know me enough to care about what’s going on in my personal and professional life, as far as my journey of what I’m experiencing. And so I decided back in November 2017, to start another podcast called the audio journal, which was later rebranded train with Cliff over at train with cliff.com. And so I have about 1000 podcast episodes, Larry, imagine, if you were to find my very personal hand written journal of all the things that I’ve experienced, since I’ve been doing my business full time back in 2008, and actually go back before that go 18 months before I launched my business back when I just had a dream of leaving my day job. Imagine you could find my written journal, except for the fact that journal was never written, it was actually spoken. In my own words, in an audio journal format, there are over 1000 hours of me sharing that journey authentically with people. So, Larry, hopefully that answers that question for you. Yeah, it
Larry 33:06
definitely gives some insight for sure. Thank you.
Cliff Ravenscraft 33:09
One thing I can say is being authentic and transparent, telling people about what’s going on. There’s a trend in podcasting to want to be seen as the person who has all the answers. We hear a lot about impostor syndrome. There’s like, Well, why would somebody want to listen to me when there’s somebody else out there? Who has more experience more education, more expertise in this area? Well, that’s always going to be true. And what I can tell you is, if you want to overcome impostor syndrome, you don’t have to actually be the person who has all the answers. All you have to do is share this is who this is who I am authentically, transparently. This is where I was, this is what I experienced in the past. Here were my hopes, dreams and plans for the future. This is where I’m currently at in that process. This is what I’m experiencing today. Here are the obstacles that I had on by the way, here’s a big huge failure that I’ve had. And I encourage you to share some of your successes along the way. And so for me how I’ve avoided this feeling of the imposter monsters. I’m just as happy to tell somebody about a big, huge $38,000 financial loss, which is what I experienced on my very first ever free the dream conference. And I’m just as happy to talk about that story. And the decisions that led up to all the things that caused me to lose $38,000 I’m just as happy to talk about that than any of the successes I’ve ever had. So just get out there and be authentic about your journey. More and more people are going to resonate with your imperfection than your perfection or having all the answers people don’t resonate with people who have all the answers because very few of us do.
Larry 34:41
It’s interesting that you say that because I just attended a mastermind dinner. About three weeks back it was three Saturdays ago. And I didn’t know anybody at this particular mastermind it was actually referred for me to go by someone that was a mutual friend of the gentleman hosting it. And as I sat there through the night, I was there by myself. I didn’t bring my wife because I didn’t know we were bringing wives at that. It was just a business type thing. But it turned out to be a larger event than what I expected. And I sat there kind of in a shell, because I didn’t know anybody. And I didn’t know what how should I act? How should I have shown up? What image Am I trying to portray here. But then it came my time to stand up and introduce myself and kind of tell a little bit about my background. And I stood up and I took the stage and I had presents that I spoke. And then I sat back down, and I was back in my shell, and I was back, just picking up my salad. And one of the ladies across the table looked over at me and she goes, you know, you have the most interesting personality, because although when you stood up and you spoke, you were very bold, you had a presence about you, you were in the room, and you are filling the room. But then when you sit back down, you’re very, very shy and very reserved. And that still resonates with me three weeks later, because I’m asking myself, Am I really being authentic? Am I really presenting the authentic side of me on my podcast, and in my business, or, as my wife likes to kick me about, when it’s my turn to speak to I open the curtains and put on the show. And then when the show’s over, close the curtains. So that balance of authenticity, and also trying to present the image that you think everyone wants to see is I have to imagine it’s not just a battle that I fight, but it’s very difficult to find that balance.
Cliff Ravenscraft 36:20
I love that Larry, one of my favorite things that rich Litvin, he’s a mentor of mine. And he has written a book called the prosperous coach, written by rich Lipton and Steve Chandler. One of the things that he does quite frequently when he opens up in an opportunity where people are there, and they kind of set him as a pedestal because he’s sold hundreds of 1000s of copies of his book, and they see him as the guru, they’re going to get so many fresh insights. And one of my favorite things he’ll do whenever he opens up one of his workshops and goes, before we begin, what I want you to know about me is, and then he opens up and shares one of his insecurities. That’s how he breaks the ice within a live setting. What I want you to know about me is that I’m nervous being here. Yeah, I’m an introvert, I prefer being alone. And being in large crowds is just not my thing. But I’m excited about being here. But yet, I never know the right words to say in a context such as that. So that’s something that actually I think what he says, What I don’t want you to know about me is this, but I’m gonna say it anyway, I just wanted to get that phrase, what I don’t want you to know about me is he’ll share a vulnerability. And then that’s his powerfully speaking himself into the room sometimes, and it’s just so antithetical to what people normally do it. It’s just something that impressed me. By the way, Larry, I just want to say this, I think there is a lot to questioning, am I truly being authentic when I am putting on a mask and projecting something, but also, I would encourage you to evaluate in that process, is there something where I have a special gift and talent, where in certain circumstances, this is authentically who I am, and in other circumstances, this is authentically who I am. So for example, I am an introvert, which means that when I am engaged with other people, my energy is leaving my body after I finish a clubhouse room such as this, and I’m totally giving of everything. When I’m finished here. I want to spend the next hour to two hours in complete and utter silence without another living being being anywhere within the vicinity of me, because I want to recharge and regain my energy being alone, being private being by myself, but you put me into a room and give me a microphone. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I like to talk. And I also like to talk with energy. I like to talk with power. I like to talk with confidence. And I am a very confident person. I am a very powerful person. I am an incredibly loving person. And when I’m going to speak to somebody, I will listen to them intensely. I will speak with passion. But boy once I’m done here, I’m going to go into my cocoon. I’m going to curl up and I’m going to recharge and that’s also me it’s such
Ronsley Vaz 39:12
a podcast great to be the introvert and it’s so cool to have such sharing and by the way, rich Litvin is a friend and I’ve been to his house in LA and we’ve had this great conversation and that’s literally how he opens up and he kind of starts off with this is what I don’t want you to know about me he’s such an interesting person and the energy around him and his family is such a beautiful one. It’s a really beautiful journey when you start a podcast and listen to what you say and and improve on it and refine your argument and a lot of times hearing ourselves out loud is probably the the thing we need and giving our thoughts and audiences a thing that is very underrated as well. I want to thank Cliff and everyone here for being here and giving so much James and I we run a business to help businesses grow using podcasts and if you want to grow map that we use to help our clients just send us a DM and we’ll make sure the team gets it too. I want to thank Cliff thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being so giving of your time and your energy. James Anna Holly Katharina, thank you so much for regularly being here, Sandy, Rebecca. And Laurie, it’s so good to see you as regularly as you joined. Please join MOF and Cliff any parting words?
Cliff Ravenscraft 40:19
Yes. And so as promised, I have released Facebook, give it just a few moments, it might take a little long, but now that the room is over, you may resume your Facebooking.
Ronsley Vaz 40:28
Well, thank you. Thank you for being here. Cliff, it was just a pleasure to hang out with you pleasure to share your energy pleasure. Why as always, thank you. Alright, so you still till the end, you found this useful, and you have a business. And, Paul, you have a podcast and a business. And you kind of want to make it work for you and grow your business using this podcast? Will. You know what, that’s something that I have helped 1000s of people do 1000s of businesses doing different forms, through an agency in a one on one fashion through a conference in a group and obviously in courses and stuff. So please, I want to be able to give you something that you can use to get recording results in your business using a podcast. We call it the recurring results roadmap. It is years of putting this in practice. It is the blueprint to get results in recurring results using our podcast if you’d like that, send me a message [email protected] I want to hear from you. I want to hear your voice or I want to hear from you. So if you’ve listened to this and you want that roadmap, please send me an email [email protected] I want to hear from you. Much love. I’ll see you in the next episode.
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