Thinking of ways to speak your message out and a way to let people know about what you do to expand your business? You really want to join us in this episode as we're talking about speaking and podcasting. 

We have Carl Richards as our guest today. He has spent more than 25 years behind the microphone, on radio and on stage, entertaining and influencing audiences worldwide. He’s a 3x best-selling author, TEDx Speaker and emcee, host of the Speaking of Speaking Podcast, and the founder and CEO of Podcast Solutions Made Made Simple. Carl helps entrepreneurs find their voice, launch world-class podcasts and grow thriving and profitable businesses.

Don't miss this chat as Carl speaks about podcasting as a great way to get your message out there and become known for the zone of genius that you can offer to people. Listen for great tips as Carl shares the importance of being clear in your message and how to make that happen as a way to gain success in your business. You also don't want to miss Carl's amazing partnership journey and how collaboration has played a huge role in his business. 

In this episode, Carl mentioned who he considered his mentor in his journey...

Diana Lidstone

→ Carl's book recommendation...

Return On Influence by Susan Luke Evans

→ Visit Carl's Website...

carlspeaks.ca

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Until next time, keep moving forward!

Chuck Anderson,

Affiliate Management Expert + Investor + Mentor

http://AffiliateManagementExpert.com/

I think the one thing to keep in mind is you want to be clear on what that message is, though, you know, going in with a lot of clarity with what with what you're going to be saying, I've seen it backfire where people don't know what they're going to be talking about. Or I see this in networking meetings, a number of times, people would say, Well, I didn't prepare today. So I'm just going to wing it, and hope for the best well do in school, you know, same thing in the business world, your party, whether you're podcasting, or whether you're speaking in front of a group of people on the stage or in front of a small networking group, you really need to know what your core message is. And what what the goal of that, you know, in the podcasting world, it's what's the goal of the podcast in general, but what's the goal of the episode? Where do you want to go with it? What, what overlying message are you imparting to the audience? And not what's their takeaway, but what's their call to action? What do you want them to do with that information, so you really need to be clear on all of that.

Hey, it's Chuck here, and I'm so glad that you're listening to this episode. And I just want to take this quick moment right now to let you know about our free collaborators toolkit. And this episode is all about partnership and collaboration. And our guests share many resources, tools, and things that you can use to make collaboration and partnership easier in your business. So if you're looking for better ways to grow, and scale your business, through collaborations, and strategic partnerships, this free collaborators toolkit is going to contain the best resources from our workshops, as well as contributions from our guests. And these tools could be the missing link that you've been looking for. And they're going to help you to solve everyday business challenges, and access, highly effective ideas that can help and grow your business exponentially. I know they've helped me and I know they're going to help you as well. And the best part about these tools is that they're completely free. And our gift to you for being a valued member of our community, and a subscriber to the show. So you can get access to all of the resources contained inside the collaborators toolkit today by visiting the website at WWW.collaboratorsunite.com/toolkit. That address again is www.collaboratorsunite.com/toolkit. Go ahead and register today get access to all the resources and I'm gonna see you on the inside. Now. Here's the episode.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the show today, Chuck Anderson here and I've got another amazing guest for you. And for those of you who are speakers, or have a message to share, maybe you do some podcasting, maybe you don't, but if you find yourself compelled to speak if you like that, you're gonna love today's guest, I am joined with Carl Richards today, and we're going to be talking about business success. We're gonna be talking about speaking and podcasting and broadcasting and all whatever else we feel like talking about today, Carl, welcome to the program.

Chuck, it's a pleasure to be here. Sounds like we're gonna run the gamut on this. We're going to talk about everything.

Well, at least for 30 seconds per topic, because with the limited time that we have, but hey, you know, we'll go where it goes. And maybe there'll be a part two who knows? So, so Carl, I do not like to butcher people's introductions. Okay. So so nobody's going to tell your story better than you. So I'm going to get you to do your own introduction. Introduce yourself to our audience who you are what you do, and we'll that will be our starting point for today.

Yeah, sure. Chuck thanks so much. i My name is Carl Richards Of course I spent 25 years in radio broadcasting and you know town to town up and down the dial just like those of you who remember Wk ARP in Cincinnati, it's a reality. That's literally how I spent my career at some point I I took the step into doing speaker training between between radio gigs, so it's something that I I loved I certainly loved speaking still do. I think Toastmasters for that. But somewhere along the line. I also found that I also fell in love with podcasting after not even knowing what what it was back not so many years ago, to not only falling in love with podcasting, but when the world changed in 2020, I found myself looking to help people rather than get on physical stages because we weren't allowed to get on virtual stages and a podcast was just a natural fit because you know what, at the end of the day, a podcast is another speaking opportunity. So what I do is I help coaches, consultants and other subject matter experts who are you know, they're frazzled and they're they just don't think they have the time or the technical knowledge or skill to be able to create a podcast, launch one and maintain it. So they can be seen as the subject matter expert.

Oh, fantastic. And I think that's a great lead into all of the directions that we plan to go with this thing today. And that's one thing that our audience all have in common immune, so many of them big mission entrepreneurs who have a message, they they have something to share, they have an opinion on how things should be, they have advice on how we should do it, or might make life easier for us. I'm one of those people. That's how I got into this. I am not a radio person, although I've always admired radio, people, especially just that incredible voice control. And one of the things are modeling radio people, because it's like, you can't stop talking, like when you're on air, right? You're the product, you're the product. And so like, and that was and modeling, what you guys do has been helpful, because when I do webinars, I do a q&a webinar every week, where it's only one way people type in their questions. And it's just me, right. So how do you just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk and keep that conversation going when it's only you?

Yeah, it's you know, what, it's a very interesting question. And there's, there's a reason why there's a cough button in the studio. Because when you do have to clear your throat or cough or take a quick sip of water, it's good to know you have that couple of, you know, a second or two to do that. But I keep talking as you you always know where you're going with your content, I had a program director, back when I was about five or six years into the business said, you know, you don't have to tell the audience everything. And he said, Really, it's one thought or one idea, per break. So each time you're opening the mic and talking, you don't need to tell everyone your life story and give all the information. One thing and if you can say that one thing in 30 seconds to a minute, unless you're a talk show host. And that's a totally different type of broadcasting altogether. But if you're just you know, if you're just talking between songs, or if you're talking at the end of a song break and going into commercial audience doesn't want to hear you go on for four or five minutes. And then if you do, it better be something that's Earth shatteringly phenomenal, that you have to tell the whole story, right? So that sometimes less is better, that's the bigger issue, sometimes less is better. And keep in mind, if you are doing a talk show format, or in this case, a podcast that you, you know, you, you know that your audience is probably going to need to get a refresh or some type of their attention span is going to need something that's going to distract them every three to five minutes. Not with as a thought changer, or a topic changer. But something that's slightly different. Maybe it goes from guest to host or host a guest or whatever. But something that just really shifts that but how do you keep talking? It's practice. So a lot of practice.

Well, I think, you know, I love what you shared there about that one thing, and I think it's so important with podcasting, it's not about filling 20 or 30 minutes full of audio content of what the heck did you just talked about? And, and I listened to some a list, A listers who do podcasts? And I'm like, What are you guys even talking about? I have no idea. But and I always talk to my team about having a, you know, when we're publishing the episodes, like, what was the theme of that show? And if we can figure that out, like, okay, maybe we need to work on that a little bit. But, but having that theme, having something to say but not a million things to say?

Yeah, just just one central theme. Now that central theme might have three sub sections that you're going to cover, especially if you're doing a longer form show. I mean, there are some podcasters that like, longer form content, I still think a sweet spot is about 30 minutes, but even 30 minutes gets a little bit long if you're not staying on one central theme, right? So but if you stay on that one central theme, even if you had subcategories, you can you can cover a lot without one central theme. And those sub sub headings, they just support that one thing you're talking about. And again, this is a trick I learned too, when I was learning how to stand on stages and speak. And the big thing is, I mean, the message is the difference between a 10 minute talk and a one hour long keynote, for example, you know, the difference is the amount of stories and just the amount of content not the amount of additional content, as in how many topics can we throw in it's just how much more how many more stories? How many more examples can we give that support the the the overlying theme, that's really the only difference

and staying connected with it right and really tying it in. And I think we do a reasonably good job of that show, although I am known to go off on tangents from time to time. But if we do bring it back at some point or another and I think, you know, so So two things in terms of a theme of our episode, Carl is One is, you know, we do talk about partnership and collaboration. And we want to get to that here in a moment. But I think the sub theme of our audience has a message to share, they have an idea they and speaking, and podcasts, whether it be on stages or on podcasts or whatever, is a great way to get that message out there or even just be become known for the thing that they do. So has that been our experience?

Yeah, absolutely. It's a great, it's a great platform. And a great way to do that. I think the one thing to keep in mind is you want to be clear on what that message is, though, you know, going in with a lot of clarity with what with what you're going to be saying, I've seen it backfire where people don't know what they're going to be talking about. Or I see this in networking meetings, a number of times, people would say, Well, I didn't prepare today. So I'm just going to wing it, and hope for the best well, do we in school, you know, same thing in the business world, we apply whether you're podcasting or whether you're speaking in front of a group of people on the stage or in front of a small networking group, you really need to know what your core message is. And what what the goal of that, you know, in the podcasting world, it's what's the goal of the podcast in general, but what's the goal of the episode? Where do you want to go with it? What, what overlying message are you imparting to the audience? And not what's their takeaway, but what's their call to action? What do you want them to do with that information? So you really need to be clear on all of that.

Absolutely. And you know, what we want people to do is be inspired and you know, to be bigger and bolder in their business speaking. And podcasting is part of that partnership and collaborations is another part of that and so huge. So I have to ask you, how has partnerships and collaborations played a role in your business?

Oh, my goodness, it's played a huge role. It started out with collaborating with a marketing expert who's been a coach of mine for several years, we've done a number of different collaborations together from me emceeing her events, to her emceeing some of my events, too. We've been on each other's podcasts now and collaborating, you know, marketing messages and speaking messages. But most recent collaboration that has really supported myself and another individual is I've partnered with and collaborated with somebody who is a creative writing expert. And what she does is she helps people get published, she helps people get books out there, well, you know, what the same path to writing a book, and launching a podcast and maintaining and maintaining a podcast, they're essentially the same. And we figured out that the reasons why why people don't launch podcasts and why they don't launch books, they're almost the exact same reasons. So that's been an amazing collaboration. And it feels like we're just getting started, even though we've been we, you know, we've been doing this now for six months, or it seems like almost a year but and the more we, the more we dive into it, the more we can see clients and the prospects who are starting to see it all come to fruition, for themselves. But that partnership has been amazing.

You know, it's such a big part. And no, nobody really accomplishes anything alone. And, you know, I came from people who, you know, on the farm of farm boy here, where I used to hear the phrase all the time, if you want something done, right, you have to do it yourself. And you know, that in my first couple years of entrepreneurship, I tried, man, like I was working 1416 hours a day, I was sleeping under my desk. And you know what, nobody really accomplishes anything alone. Because what got me out of that, asking for help, and also partnering with somebody with and that was that was a game changer.

That's true. It's you hit the nail on the head when I started podcast solutions made simple. I thought, oh, I can do this by myself. How many podcasts can I produce in a month I should be able to do six to 10 I quickly hired a producer assisted that process and then I hired a junior producer to assist in that process and also hired to VAs we oh one that can do all the social media stuff that I just don't want to do it but then on top as somebody that can do the the other side of virtual assistant and that VA work and that's helping with the artwork side of things and other things that I'm doing in my on my business as opposed to in my business. So having that support staff. I don't know where I'd be without it. I wouldn't be sleeping. I know that's

Been there, done that have the t shirt for sure. Um, when you identify something in your business that maybe maybe shouldn't be done by you, or you just don't have the capacity to do and you want to go out and look for either a recommendation or someone someone or something that can help you what's your go to method for? For finding what Do you need?

Yeah, that's a really good question. The first thing I do is I asked people who I already know, like and trust, I say, Do you know anyone who you know? Or do you know, a good VA, for example, and I actually knew a couple of Bas and I asked my coach, I said, just out of curiosity is your VA looking for, you're looking for more work. And at the time, this individual wasn't, she was already booked solid. But ironically enough, six months after her calendar opened up, and I'm like, That's mine, because I need that help. But I asked people who I know, now sometimes I'll get a little bold, and I'll do that, I'll do the Facebook thing. It says, who knows a good read a, put your, you know, put your comments in there. I know, I'm gonna get a lot of things that I'm going to have to weed through. But again, I I look for the people who I know. And if I can reach out to them, if I know they're already using stuff. If they already have somebody rather, on their team, all I'll ask them, I'll say, Who who's helping you with your website, who's helping you with your, you know, who's helping you with your social media posts, the podcast production piece has been an interesting one, having a background in radio has been very helpful, because I've been able to tap into people who I know. But I also know that there are lot of other underemployed or unemployed broadcasters out there, who are always looking for that next opportunity. And you know, podcasting and broadcasting, the two will vary hand in hand. So a lot of our work that we do at the agency here is not too dissimilar to what I did in radio. So, you know, knowing those go to places and not being afraid to stretch beyond and not being afraid to ask for help, I think is the big one, though.

Absolutely. And I love that that's what I do, as well, as I reach out to my network. And I think, you know, one of the side benefits of doing this show is I get to increase my connections, you and I are now connected. And and I can already tell that I want to talk to you again, after all of this. It's already been amazing. But yeah, and, and so having that network that you can put those requests out to and said, Hey, does anybody know anything? Or anyone who can do this? So So and then being bold enough to ask and receive, right?

Absolutely. The other thing I will do is I'll just not so much Facebook these days, but I'll go combing through my LinkedIn account and see, I kind of have over 3000 or 4000, LinkedIn connections. So who do I know, in a certain space? So I'll do a search that way to just see who I already know. Because there's maybe some there might be gold out there that I that I've forgotten about? Because who knows? Or who keeps track of 4000 connections? Right? I certainly don't. So it's good to go back and look at those connections and say, Oh, they're, they're perfect for this opportunity. Or, I wonder if they know someone who had been helped me. So I quite often find myself going that route too. But you definitely need to, you know, not be afraid to say, I'm looking for help in this area. Do you know anyone? It's a good way to do it.

Absolutely. And I really hope that inspires our audience to you know, put it out there and look for places for help where maybe you're struggling in your business, and maybe someone could come in and just clean that all up for you just never know, it's been a game changer for us. And I love Carl, how you shared, you know, your stories about that as well. You know, entrepreneurship is a journey. And it's one about business growth, but it's also one about self growth. And so one of the things I always like to ask my guests while I have them here is, is a little bit about that. So in that, that idea of growth, you know, who's been the leader, the thought leader, or mentor or whoever that has really inspired you, and that you've learned a lot from in your journey.

Oh, my goodness, there have been several along the way. But I think the one that that comes to mind immediately is a woman I met back in 2016. Her name is Diana Lidstone. And I'll tell you, Diana has not only been inspirational, but she's been she's kicked my butt several times to you know, you know, build my business because she's been the coach in the corner that says you can do this, you can do this, you can do this. So, hats off to Diana because if it wasn't for her, I don't think I would be as far along in my business as I am as I am today and her encouragement to just keep going even when things seem hopeless. Like that's never gonna work out. She's always like, no, keep going. You're doing the right thing. So definitely Diana Lidstone For sure.

We all need someone who can kick us in the butt once in a while and I definitely have those people in my life as well. So I so relate to that. So amazing recommendation. I've heard a lot about Diana but I've never met her and so but I've heard good things for sure. We'll make sure that we connect The dots and put her links in the in the show notes here as well. And then you know another thing I want to ask Carl is is about books. I mean, there's so many, so many great books, a lot of wisdom written in these books and they've been certainly helpful. For me I personally love audiobooks because I consume audiobooks easier than I can read them. But same same content, different package, you know, what is that book that you would recommend that all of our listeners read or listen to?

You know, I knew you were going to ask me this, I was racking my brain is getting to that. And it would have to be Return on Influence. And it's by Susan Luke Evans, Return on Influence The New Currency for Leaders. It's a fantastic read. Susan is no slouch when it comes to this. For years, as a matter of fact, her late husband, I believe, Warren, if I'm not mistaken, was the first president of the Global speakers Federation. And I'll tell you something. She's a phenomenal thought leader. She's a really great storyteller too. But definitely return on influence was has been a huge game changer for me. In the book world, yeah.

Wow, great recommendation. I have not read that book. But I'm going to add that to the must read list. And I will definitely be checking that out. So I appreciate you recommending that. Carl, I got the sense that we could talk all day, because there's so many more questions I want to ask you, but I know. Nobody wants to listen to a two hour podcast episode, but maybe we'll do a podcast series.

I'm okay with that. Yeah, let's let's take a coffee break, come back and do some more recording. But yeah, this has been great. Thanks so much, Chuck, for inviting the audience,

you know, so one of the things I want to leave people with, and I and I hope they're inspired to, you know, start putting their message out there in a podcast is a great way to do that. So Carl, tell everyone how they can get a hold of you how they can connect with you and your business? And that and how you can help them?

Yeah, absolutely. The best way currently at the recording of this podcast is Carlspeaks.ca. My Calendar link is there. Ask Carl at Carlspeaks.ca. If you want to link directly to me that way. We're doing a lot of rebranding, focusing, of course on the podcasting. So that's coming in the future. But that's the best way to add on social media. Chuck, I know we're going to connect on social media after today. LinkedIn is where I hang out a lot Facebook, Instagram as well would love to I'd love to connect with you there too.

Well, LinkedIn is definitely my thing. And not so much with the email. But I love LinkedIn. And LinkedIn has been really, really powerful. So we're definitely going to connect there and all the other places too. I mean, why not? They're there. So let's, let's do it. So Carl, thank you so much. And I do highly recommend that if you're still listening in, do connect with Carl. And all of his links and pertinent information here are in the show notes beneath the video are in the Podcast, episode shownotes. Carl, thank you so much for being on the show. If you're going to leave our audience with just one final piece of wisdom or advice, what would you say to them?

I'm going to actually tell you what I how I ended my podcast because I think it's a very powerful piece. And it's get out there, whether it be on a physical stage or a podcast stage and own that space on the platform.

Well said, hone the platform, get your message out there. So Carl, thank you so much for what you do, because I think it's important to get this message out there. And for being my special guest on this episode today. And for our listeners, thank you so much for joining in. And we want you to go out there and keep moving forward and be awesome and your pursuit of your dreams and your business and world changing idea that you have we all desperately needed. Thank you so much. And we'll see you here for the next one.