The Transcript

A Behind the Scenes Look at The Missing Link (We Bare it All)

Voiceover: This is The Missing Link, with your host the insufferable, but never boring, Sean Jackson.

Sean Jackson: Hello everyone, it is Sean Jackson once again. I am joined by the — oh how shall I say — perfectly delightful Mica Gadhia. Mica, how are you?

Mica Gadhia: I am perfectly delightful. I am. Thank you Sean. How are you doing today?

Sean Jackson: I am fantastic! Except for the fact that our executive producer Robert Bruce has just indicated to me that it s Sweeps Week. Now for those of you out there — you know what that means don’t you? It means we’ve got to get ratings. So Mica, I think it’s about time we go score some ratings.

Mica Gadhia: Okay.

Sean Jackson: I think we’re going to have to reveal it all Mica. I think we’re just going to have to bare it for the audience and tell them exactly how and why we’re putting this show together. Mica, I really think at the end of the day most of the people listening are professional marketers. They’re trying to figure it out how to do it for themselves, for their companies, etc., and LinkedIn being a big part of that.

Mica Gadhia: Right.

Sean Jackson: I think for our ninth episode it would be nice for us to talk a little bit about what we’re doing behind the scenes. And more importantly, how it applies to the whole concept of content marketing and LinkedIn marketing — just marketing in general. What do you think about that Mica, is that a good idea for the show?

Mica Gadhia: I’m ready, yes.

Sean Jackson: Okay, get ready to take it off baby.

Mica Gadhia: I’m ready. I’m ready to bare all.

Sean Jackson: Bare it all. Take off the façade I would say. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to bring on to this show today, Jon Nastor, after our break. If you’ve been following Rainmaker.FM, you’ll know that Jon is the talent behind a number of shows including the very popular Showrunner course that he does with Jerod Moore. I want to bring Jon in — in a little bit after the break. As everyone knows, we do have a lot of information about LinkedIn marketing, don’t we Mica?

Mica Gadhia: Yes, we do.

Sean Jackson: That information —

Mica Gadhia: Definitely information that we’re updating.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. In fact, Mica has been updating it today actually. Right Mica?

Mica Gadhia: Yeah, I updated the promotions with an article from Jason Miller about LinkedIn’s success. I really thought that our audience would love it. Our group members would love it.

Sean Jackson: Exactly. That’s what we’re doing over on the LinkedIn group. You may be asking yourself, if you’re listening to this for the first time, “What the heck is this LinkedIn group they’re talking about?” Well, it’s our super-secret private group that only people who listen to the show know how to get to.

The way that you can get to it is very simple. If you’re in the continental United States, pick up that telephone — that mobile device right in front of you. Go to text messaging. Send a text message to 41411 with the keyword ‘mylink,’ all one word (don’t let it auto-correct). If you’re international like many of our audience are, just send an email to missinglink@Rainmaker.FM and we will send you — whether it’s through the phone or through email — that link to that exclusive group we have on LinkedIn where we’ve got it chocked full of LinkedIn marketing content.

I think you should take the time to do it. And more importantly, our show today is going to tell you why we have been pushing the text messaging — why we are pushing this LinkedIn group. We’re going to talk about some of the behind the scene things that we are practicing and experimenting with, and also share those results with you. Mica, is this revealing enough?

Mica Gadhia: I think it is Sean. I think it is.

Sean Jackson: Well, we’re going to bare all as soon as we get back from the break with our good friend Jon Nastor. Stay tuned everybody.

Voiceover: The Missing Link is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. The complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free, 14-day test drive at Rainmaker.FM\Platform.

Sean Jackson: We are back from the break everyone and joining us is … Mica, who’s joining us?

Mica Gadhia: We have Jon Nastor today, which I’m so excited about.

Sean Jackson: Jon Nastor of Showrunner? Are you —

Mica Gadhia: Showrunner, yeah.

Sean Jackson: Oh my God, Jon are you there?

Jon Nastor: I am absolutely here. Thank you so much for having me.

Mica Gadhia: Yay, Jon!

Sean Jackson: You know it’d be a disservice if I tried to explain all the awesomeness that Jon is. So Jon I’m going to turn that over to you, because you just have some fascinating stories. Tell our audience who the heck you are.

Jon Nastor: Thank you. I’m a podcaster from up in Canada currently living in Vancouver for the summer with my family. And I’m the host of Hack The Entrepreneur for the past year. Brian Clark discovered me there and brought me over to the Rainmaker.FM network when it launched. Now I am the co-host of The Showrunner with Jerod Morris and I’m also the co-creator of the Showrunner Podcasting Course which is launching one week from the date of this airing.

Sean Jackson: Wow, very impressive! Explain to our audience what a Showrunner is, because it’s a fairly unique concept and I want them to understand it first before we kind of dive into it.

Determine Whether You Have the Three Critical Elements Needed to Be a Showrunner

Jon Nastor: Sure, Showrunner is — I’ve actually nailed it down to somebody who can answer affirmatively to three questions. One is, “Do you have a desire to connect with an audience?” My guess is as I’m going over these now, that it’s probably going to be somebody who also wants to connect with people on LinkedIn. It’s that same sort of mindset of content.

The second question they have to answer affirmatively would be, “Will the content you share educate, entertain, or inspire?” And then the third is, “Can you commit to creating content consistently?” If you can answer yes to all three of the those questions, then you are either a Showrunner already or you are set up with your mindset already to become a Showrunner and to start building your own audience.

Sean Jackson: As I told the audience before we got into the break, I wanted to reveal some things behind the scenes: why we’re doing this podcast, what are some of the stats we’re measuring, tracking. Because, at the end of the day, I’ve always felt that our audience is a group of marketers — probably most of which are content marketers to some extent. I want Jon to kind of align why is podcasting in the content marketing space? I think some people may be like, “Well I thought content marketing was just writing a whole bunch of blog posts.”

Jon Nastor: It used to be. But now we have this amazing technology where we can record good quality audio from almost anywhere with our laptops and with a fairly inexpensive microphone. Then we can put that content out into the world. Even the beauty of it further is blogging is still an amazing platform that you should use, but there’s a lot of people being really successful actually just turning their blogs into audio versions of a blog, which is really interesting because there are a lot of people who could be in your audience that just don’t read that much.

Maybe that s just what it is. We’re spending more and more time on trains, on planes, in cars, and sometimes it’s just hard to read. When you can just listen to somebody in your ears and make that really close intimate connection, because typically I’m right in your ear buds or right in the car with you. That’s an amazing connection to make with an audience.

Sean Jackson: I agree, and that’s one of the reasons when we were putting the Rainmaker FM network together that they came to me to run ‘The Missing Link,’ if you will. The show focused on LinkedIn — to find a different connection. Because, quite frankly, I will tell you it’s hard to get a quality blog post written every single week. Obviously I love talking, so it’s pretty easy to do the show every week.

But I think it’s more important than that. Because, you know it’s funny Jon, I think when we go through this together — I do want to start sharing with my audience, or our audience I should say, a little bit more of the thinking behind our show. I want you to put it into context for me. I’m going to tell you some of our thinking when we were putting this together. I’d like you to either critique it, expand upon it, or talk about how people can use it themselves.

Jon Nastor: Excellent.

Sean Jackson: Let me go through for our audience — when Robert Bruce came to me and said, “Let’s do this show about LinkedIn,” we came up with the name The Missing Link. One of the very first conversations we had, and it was actually a two-hour conversation, was about the tone and format of the show. Now to me, LinkedIn is awesome. But the problem is everyone thinks of LinkedIn as a very professional, wear a tie when you’re using it type of network.

I said, “No, it’s not that. It’s actually very cool. It’s very hip, and it can be very powerful.” We made the intention of the show to be very cutting edge. If you listen to any show on Rainmaker.FM, which I know you do Jon, my tone in this — and Mica and I. The double entendres, the flirtiness of it, almost the off-the-cuff aspect of it — is almost unprofessional, in one sense, which was the intention of the show. I didn’t want to be the stuffy professional guy. Take that. How does that apply to our audience for what they’re thinking about doing?

Jon Nastor: I think that you can take your audience new places. It’s sometimes hard to come across as not that stuffy LinkedIn guy on just a text format. I think that might be why — because, I mean LinkedIn obviously is all textural-based at this point — that it’s hard to not come across as that.

With an audio show your sense of humor comes through. You guys laughing, your banter, it really — if that was just written out like blog posts, your banter, you wouldn’t be able to read it, obviously. People can really get into it. And that was the first thing for me that now that you say it, it’s hilarious. I’ve always thought of LinkedIn in that same way, but since I’ve started listening to your show, I’ve started using LinkedIn. I was like, “Wow, I had no idea!”

Mica Gadhia: Wow, that’s awesome.

Jon Nastor: It’s almost like a Facebook for business, but it just doesn’t have cat pictures.

Sean Jackson: Right.

Jon Nastor: Which I’ve actually heard you say. I think I might have stolen that from you. That was such a brilliant way to explain it. That’s really hard to do, though, in most other formats. To really get that intimate sort of relationship to your topic through in a way that, as I said — but the question was it has to either educate, entertain and inspire. You guys both educate and entertain and you’re quite inspirational. You really educate and you really entertain. That’s really hard to do, I find, just on text.

That’s really hard too, especially when there’s a mindset about a topic. About LinkedIn or about a thousand — about accounting or about being a lawyer. You know what I mean? There are a lot of topics that really have an idea and a mindset around them that it’s very stuffy and very boring. Really, it’s just cool people doing these things still, and it’s just that it’s hard to get that across without audio. That’s why I think this is a perfect format for it.

Sean Jackson: I think one of the things that was really important to me early on was to understand what that format was going to be. What was going to make it different? And I think that’s the key. Obviously the barrier-to-entry to podcasting is nil, right? You’ve got a computer. You can buy a cheap mic. You’re in basically.

The reality is that you have to think about that strategy. And for us, the strategy was going to be that we were not going to be the typical professional podcast. Because we didn’t want to be. We needed to stand out from everyone else. I think in your course, if I’m correct, you guys talk about, “In an audience, you want to be unique and different.” And trust me, it’s hard to do.

Jon Nastor: It is, it really is.

Sean Jackson: The second . . .

Mica Gadhia: Also, we are us. Sean and I —

Sean Jackson: This is not pretentious or an act.

Mica Gadhia: Right. This is how we are.

Sean Jackson: Exactly.

Four Ways You Can Be Remarkable for Your Audience

Jon Nastor: That’s what you have to be to be a showrunner. Our whole course, everything we teach — either for free, via the podcast, or within the course itself — is the four elements of a remarkable podcast. Which is really the four elements of a remarkable business or a remarkable blog or anything.

Those are authenticity, which you guys are showing right now and that’s what you have to show to be a successful showrunner. Usefulness. Sustainability, which you guys are — on a calendar you have to every week come out with a new episode. It’s just the way it is. Then four is profitability. That can either be direct or indirect, which is probably also very similar to the authentic and useful work you would put onto LinkedIn. That it can be profitable at the end, but it’s going to be direct or indirect.

It’s not that you’re necessarily selling something directly. I don’t sell anything from Hack the Entrepreneur. I built up a really large audience, but I don’t directly sell anything from it. Indirectly it’s led to a real full-fledged business around it. That’s interesting right? That authenticity has to — if you guys had tried to just do a show and try and do it professional like you might not normally or authentically be acting, then it would come across.

You can listen to a thousand podcasts a day that you can tell people aren’t comfortable in their own skin yet. They’re not comfortable with their own voices. They’re not comfortable. They’re just trying to copy something that already was successful, but it was successful under that person being authentic, not under me trying to copy that authenticity.

I think that’s why your show does really well, because that authenticity shines through. It really does. It’s like sitting down for coffee with you. That’s what a podcast should be. It still has to sound good. It still has to be useful. It still has to entertain. It still has to inspire in some way, but...