In this episode of "The One Small Change" podcast, host Yvonne McCoy welcomes guest Steve Brossman, who shares his journey from a professional athlete to a successful entrepreneur, leveraging podcast guest appearances during challenging times. Steve discusses how a strategic shift to podcasting during the COVID-19 pandemic took his business from zero to six figures in North America in under ten months. He emphasizes the importance of viewing podcasts as doorways to new opportunities rather than just platforms for interviews. This episode offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs looking to expand their reach and add value through podcasting.

Guest Bio:

Steve Brossman is a seasoned entrepreneur from Australia who transitioned from a professional athletic career to delve into the fitness industry. He found success by leveraging podcast guest appearances to expand his business internationally, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this experience, Steve has developed training programs to help others utilize podcasts effectively and continues to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs worldwide.

Quote:

"It is your personality and passion, not perfection, that produces profits."

Links:

PodGuest Business Accelerator: A copy of my Back Pocket Guide How to become a 6 fig Podcast Guest. PLUS a personal call

https://stevebrossman.com/6figpod

Welcome to the one small change. I am thrilled that you're taking time out

of your week to embark on this journey of exploration and transformation.

I am your coach, Yvonne. I'm not your coach. I'm your host.

Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost thirty years of entrepreneurial

experience and a passion for discovering growth through the power of seemingly

small change. So I wanna thank you for taking time out of your schedule,

and including me on your journey of exploration. This

week, we are talking to the amazing Steve Bossman.

And Steve is gonna tell us about a small change that made a

significant difference in his business and how he does it.

So, Steve, thank you for taking time to do this.

Well, I'm going to, cut to the chase. Let everybody

know by now they've guessed with my accent that I'm from

Australia, and I'm welcoming you to a sunrise

over the beautiful Sydney Harbour. So we've left it

au naturel, and anything could happen with the sun. It could come

streaming in. I could go dark. I could go light. But, hey, it's all

in the hands of the sun. But your voice will stay the same.

Yeah. I'll stay the same. I'll I'll still be me. So Steve and

I met this year, right, in in one of the many

networking places we went. And I have to say

that first of all, I love hearing his voice. Right?

But you had some interesting things that you're doing in the way you

do your business. So tell us the the how you got to where you are.

What was the small change that helped you do your business better or steered you

in that direction? Well, I'm gonna talk about two changes.

Neither of them were fairly small. I I

never actually entrepreneurialism had sort of

always been in my blood. However, I left

school, became a professional athlete, and that was great. Now for

seven or eight years, I was just full time professional. However,

training for the Olympics, I crushed three discs in my back,

and you don't run real well with a a crook back. So

that was that career gone. And while I was going through rehab, I fell in

love with the fitness industry. And that one change

from professional athlete to falling in love with the fitness industry, I

opened up a health club, and that started that journey. So it was,

well, bang. That was a a major change. But here's something that,

a lot of your audience will now, resonate

with. That one little thing that happened during the

you know? Well, it's called COVID.

That one thing that, that happened. And the economy

in Australia was pretty stuffed. It really crashed, and a lot of

my clients were relying on welfare, well,

government subsidies, and all of those sorts of things. So I was not a

priority. Therefore, my business started going

down. I decided, well, I'm going to take my business via the Zoom

chair to North America. There's a lot more people there,

and I can resonate with them. So I I packed up,

repositioned, produced what I call a back pocket guide, went

over there, and met people like you in a networking event. I

had one event and then started podcasting,

getting on podcasts. And then one thing led to another, and I

started learning how to leverage being a podcast guest. And it

was that one thing, that little shift

on not being a good interviewee, but leveraging the

actual podcast itself and took my

business from zero to six figures in a

foreign country during COVID in less than ten months.

And I've been doing that ever since. So that one little change,

COVID and podcasting, really has made a

difference. And since then, I've been helping hundreds of people do

exactly the same. And I I think that probably one of

the one of the things sometimes when when we're starting out our business, we don't

think of our business as being global or being multi continent.

You know, that kind of thing we you know? Like, I was talking to somebody

who did did a connection call, and they were saying, I wanna do this. And

I said, well, let me ask you a question. If you do this, you know

you're constrained to just being local. Where if

you do, you know, expand the idea, you could have a much bigger

market. So that is even though it's a

shift, you were doing the thing that you were doing, but looking at

it differently is a huge thing. So so tell us more about how

that how you were able to accomplish

in ten months over Zoom building a huge

business. Yeah. It's,

generally, I've always thought big. Back in the fitness industry days, I

had one kid's club, an activities program for

15 kids. Couple of things happened, got out

to do some promotions. I I ran back to the gym and mapped out a

plan. I said to my sister, this is gonna be an international network. And

she said, yeah. Good on you. Get back to work. But in five

years, five years later, I'd actually franchised it into five countries.

So it was always in me to think, well, think global.

And as one thing led to another in the fitness industry, I

got to speak in, 10 to 15 countries.

So I'd always thought that, and I thought, well, this thing

called Skype and Zoom was here. And at

that stage, I I did have international clients. And it's like,

well, we can use this stuff to to get to a a

bigger audience. And let me tell you, I made quite a few

mistakes, in just

getting on and doing some interviews, giving some people some good

ideas. And then it was like, well, hang on.

And this was the biggest shift. And for your audience, tune into this if they

ever want to leverage podcasts and things like that.

Yvonne, you're you're a businessperson, aren't you? Yes. I am. You got a

business. Yeah. Okay. But you also have a podcast, and you got a lot of

listeners. I'm a business person. I'm also

a guest. But, unfortunately, most

people constrain the conversations that we

have host to guest host to guest. And

then it's like, well, okay. Well, what are we gonna do here? What are we

gonna do there? Yep. Got it all set. Yep. I'm gonna be a good interviewee,

where we've already had some chats about potential other things that we could

do as a business person and a business person.

And when you swap those hats and if if guys, if

you've still if you're watching or if you're listening, grab a pen, write this

down. The podcast is the

doorway to open opportunities, not the

destination. See, most people get

on. They do a great interview.

They're very happy with the interview because I answered all those

questions well. They get a pat on the back and

they walk away, and they hope that one day somebody will

connect with them, download their whatever, their free gift, etcetera,

get on their knees, put their hands together, and look skyward.

That's not a real good marketing plan to so

the biggest thing the biggest thing that I learned was, you know, how do we

shift and have that conversation with the business owner as

a business owner, and how can we collaborate to create something

really cool and special? So so I've heard people say

what we're doing is podcasting for partners. You know,

it's not just the guesting. Right? Yeah. I think

that's and I think the other thing that people do wrong,

in my opinion, is they don't think about the

audience that they're speaking to. Yes. You have your thing. You do. But there's something

that there was a reason that I think the guests asked you

to speak. And so what is that thing, and and how do you,

how do you make it so that people in their audience are gonna wanna listen

to you? Right? We,

we do things a little different in our our training. I've got couple of

training programs, podcast profits, etcetera. And

a lot of people who want to get on podcast, they look at and they

say, well, how can I get on the big podcast? How can I get on

the podcast that's got the most listeners? And we tell people,

great. Go for the audience. Look

for the audience that you could add the most value to.

What are they listening to to help them change?

Because people are listening to your podcast not

because they've got absolutely nothing to do and they're

gonna say, what am I gonna do now? I'm gonna listen to Yvonne's podcast because

I've got nothing to do. They tune into you because

you give them fantastic value on things that

could add value to their life and or business, solve a problem, or help

them accelerate their growth. That's what you do. Why do they tune in? You give

damn good information. So

whose audience can I add value to? Who's the host of

that audience? And how can I help them

and their audience get better value from the host? So it's

how can I make the host look the hero as well as give

value to their audience? And by the way, if

we have great synergy, then we might get to work together. Whereas

other people say, well, I wanna get in front of a thousand people because I

wanna pitch what I wanna do and get

exposure. Yeah. It's it just

we do it the other way. How can I make how can I give you

and your audience awesome value, and then we're gonna

do things together? And I I I think the other thing

is that so often if it's just, you know, I'm gonna be

a guest, it's kind of a transactional thing Mhmm. As

to taking the time to build the relationship and you know? So for

instance, you know, one of the things that I always try to do with

is, you know, take the relationship a little bit further. So what else can we

do together besides this interview? But one of the things, the very

least that I do is if you're having an

event or something like that and I'm putting it in my newsletter, then I go,

if you've got time, listen to Steve's podcast. You'll find it really

interesting. Do you know? So that I'm you know, I can give you

more exposure. And by exposing you on my

podcast, you know, people are gonna come to the the podcast you know, the other

podcasts as well if they get value. Absolutely.

Look. And and we're we're both business people, and and we're looking

at what we can do to grow our business and help our audiences the

best possible way. And going down the route

of getting on massive podcast, and I always tell the story.

There's a lady came to me and she said, Steve, I'd love you on my

podcast. My people will get great value of what you talk about. And I think

great. She said, I I really only have a

small community. I got a small people that view

my podcast. None of hers got any more than

ever a hundred views. And I looked at her and her

community, and you know what? It could add value. I said, great.

I'd love to. You never know where it leads. And then

we had our pre chat, and we teach people how to have the pre chat

so you can have those collaborations. And

she said, Steve, I've got another community that aren't

my audience. Would you like to run an event for

them? Of course. I'd love to. And looked

at her people and said, yeah. They they they're my people. They're her people.

I know that I can help them. Even if they never bought anything from me,

they'd walk away with some great value. That one

lady from that first conversation

generated over sixteen thousand dollars for me within six

months. We ran the event. We both made some money.

She was she said a lot of people missed it. Can I be an affiliate

for your next two events?

So always, if you're a if you're a guest, always

treat anybody that comes to you with absolute respect

because they could, as we say, could be the doorway

to multiple opportunities. And if all you did was give great

value to a lot of people, you never know where that will end

up. So I I just wanna highlight a couple of things that you

said because I think it's so important in terms of having

a successful business. And I think the first one is

that you always add value. It's not you're look not necessarily

looking you know, you wanna be strategic because we only have so much time. But

at the same time, you know, my value is

that you you know, if we've talked that you've gotten something of value

to you, that we always that we both leave with being better.

And, I think that's so important because

you treat everybody as kind of an equal, I think, That we we we we

can learn something from all of us. And that's why, you know, for with the

podcast and in the newsletter that I do, part of my

strategy is I can't be every everything to everybody.

And so I offer it up to the people that I think will help

my audience. I mean, I never know where you are in your life. You know?

I don't know if you're going through a divorce or whether you're building your business

or whether you you know, whatever the case may be. So I wanna

add value on a variety of fronts because I think, you know,

as an entrepreneur, you you you wanna have a successful personal life

as well. Absolutely. And because

of our current previous

relationships and, you know, you've said to me that, hey.

Listen. You've got some things coming up. I'd love to highlight them

in newsletter. Instead of just coming on, and here's something that

people always get wrong on a podcast.

They they wait till the end and they say, I have a free gift.

Now the yeah. If if you if you're listening to the audio, I am doing

my quotation marks. A

That's too bad. A a free gift. That's generally the

throwaway piece of rubbish to get somebody's email address so I can spam the hell

out of you once once it all goes by. So

we tell our people no. And because of our relationship, I've

actually added something very special. All we'll

get to it at the end, all of your audience will get a copy of

my back pocket guide, which is almost a workshop in a book, how to become

a six figure podcast guest. And I

rarely, rarely, rarely ever do this. If

they take this accelerator, pack that I put

together, they can actually have a call. So we can have a look at your

podcasting strategy, your positioning, all of those sorts of things,

and get the inside plan on how you can be a profitable podcast

guest. Now that's because of our relationship

and providing extended value beyond what

we've got here, and it it just triggered

something in my head. Those of you who are wanting

to be a podcast guest, here's

two sentences that are banned once people do our training. And

I would guarantee, Yvonne, you've been to some of the same networking places

as I have you have, you would have heard this over and over again.

I am passionate about, and I can speak on

this. Yes. Going to a host saying, I'm

passionate about this, and I can speak on this is basically saying,

sit down. Shut up. Give me a soapbox. Let me stand

on it and preach to your people.

So and that just flashed in because that's a big mistake that a lot of

people make. And hosts, like, you would

hear that over and over again, and it's like, well, if they're saying that, it's

it's basically your podcast is all about me,

and I'm gonna get up and preach.

So that was one thing. So so is that two things in one, or is

there a second thing? That was the two things in one. One was,

your free gift. Never ever

call it that. And and also pre,

preempt what's coming up, which is what we just did. So,

ideally, they'll be sticking around and making sure they get their hands on because they

don't do it very often. It's just our relationship. And the other thing

is don't preach. Here's here's the other thing,

and this is this is maybe small of me. But when

you tell me that you've done something special for me,

I mean, it just makes me go, oh, you know, this is

wonderful. I mean, you know, there's no reason you can't leave the

podcast host feeling like they're special.

So, you know, I I do appreciate that. And from my

perspective, one of the things that I'm gonna do is when I put the podcast

out, I'm gonna highlight that, Do you know?

And say, this is like an amazing opportunity. You need to jump

on this. Do you know? So I think that that

is another part of that. And then the other thing that you said that I

think is a lesson that we can learn is sometimes

it doesn't matter the size of the list. I have

people who have been affiliates, who have huge

lists, who have had 50 to

75 people sign up for a workshop, and not a

single one showed up, and not a single one bought

anything. I've had people who have personally referred two

people. They both showed up, and one of them bought.

So don't, you know, don't poo poo a small list

because if it is responsive and if the right

people are there, it can be a very powerful thing. And those

people can introduce you to other people. You know, they will if they like what

you do I mean, people I always laugh

because one one of the weird things I say is I bought something for $2

so I could get free shipping, and I threw it in a box. And when

I finally used it, I was like, oh my god. This is amazing. I can't

believe I live without this. I mean, and I told everybody. If you do

that for something that's $2, right, imagine what

you do with something of real value. And so

people, when they like things, they tell other people about it.

When they don't like it, they tell even more. Yeah.

What what I'm going to I'm gonna jump on my coaching

soapbox for about sixty seconds if that's okay.

And the success that we teach

is that there are three relationships in a

podcast. There's a relationship between you and I, and we

build a great relationship before we've got on camera. We've got that

happening. There's a relationship between me and the

audience, and three times already, I've actually spoken

directly to the audience. Get your pen out, do this, and I'm pulling them

in. Because a lot of people have an an interview

conversation with the host, and the audience feels if their backs

is turned to them. It's like, hey. We're over here. I was, oh,

okay. But when you pull them in, you're giving them a surge

of oxytocin. That that's the hug drug, the hug hormone,

the sense of belonging, and that makes them feel good.

The other one is the relationship between you, the host

and the audience. And that's, I'm here because

of you, they're here because of you. And it's my

goal to elevate and edify you in front of

your audience and to make you feel good, not just I

am doing my job hosting and reading out some questions. And I had

it. How do we have the happy hormones

floating around the podcast so that everybody is feeling

fantastic? And at the end of it, it was like, well, the lollies have

been handed out. I'm feeling really good. What's next? So the

comfort level of yeah. Sure. I'm gonna go

and get Steve's guide. You know what? I reckon I can actually spend some

time and get on a call with him because I felt good on the podcast.

I might have a call. That's it's what I

do because it's me. I love helping and interacting with people.

But on a podcast business

sense, it's what you should do to really pull

all the people in and have them leaving feeling

great, not just more knowledgeable.

Yes. Yes. Because people need to trust you. I

mean, they they they need to connect with you, and that's

part of what I treat I I teach is learning your client's journey. The

journey that you've been on that you're helping them through, you have to

acknowledge that. And and one of the worst things you can do is be

like, I have the answer. I'm perfect. I can you know? Because who wants

to put up with that? It's like, I want somebody that

makes mistakes like me. Do you know? I want them to be ahead of me,

but I wanted them to be able to show me how to avoid the potholes.

Right? And so that's when we were talking. I said to you, hey. This is

live. There's a chance my dog is gonna bark, you know, because

I'm a dog person. And, you know, things happen and and you deal with

it the best you can, which which makes you seem like you're a real

person. Right? Yeah. Let me let me tell you a real funny

story very, very quickly. Quite a number of years ago, we had our

own video studio set up at home. We did a lot of video marketing, and

there was a guy that I really wanted to meet. He was one of the

leading advertising guys, an absolute guru

in his field, but he'd left and he was running his own workshops, and I

wanted to meet him. So I emailed and said, hey. Listen,

Glenn, would you like me to do an interview for you, a

video interview to help you promote the workshop you're doing? Of

course, he said, yes. So we got together, and he gave me a

10 list of things that I had to cover in that order, and he

turned up with a white shirt and tie. And I thought, you're

from the advertising agencies or, you know,

this is not what I'm expecting. And then we started, and I do all of

my interviews in one take.

And my wife was on the camera, and we got about sixty seconds into

it. And I said, stop. I said, man, you are trying to

sell people to come and spend ten days with you.

They're not gonna finish the next ten minutes. Get the

tie off, loosen up, let's have some fun, and

let your personality out so they're buying you

and that. And that's one of the things that people sorta, well, I need to

be very professional. I know. Let them see you.

And we're gonna say in this. It is your personality and passion, not

perfection that produces profits. Write that one down.

Personality and passion, not perfection. I like that.

So so I had the same experience. I had one of my clients be

my wingman on one of my webinars. And when we finished,

she said, I don't know how to tell you this. And I was like, what?

What? She said, the person that gave that webinar is not

the coach that I love, the one that I work with every

week. And I was like, oh, because I had it mapped out. I

had it structured. I mean, which is absolutely the opposite of

the way I normally work. You know? I'm kind of I'm

not by the seat of my pants, but I'm I'm kinda loosey

goosey. Mhmm. So I like to I like to take advantage of

whatever learning moments there are and you know? So if you don't have

a script, you can grab on anything you want. Right?

Okay. We we so I wanna highlight

the the the free gift, which is not just a freebie.

It's not just something that you could just throw. It is

something that has huge value. If you are thinking about

using podcasting, guesting, to be a guest on a podcast,

You have absolutely got to get this. And I know that

that Steve has been successful at it. So I know that even if you

just skim it, you're gonna come away with great value. And

if you take the if you're serious about it, you will do more than just

skim it. So, Steve, tell me

a time tell me the last time when you did something new for the first

time.

Quite often, I'm doing lots of things new for the first time.

I've been putting together back pocket

guides because I've got nine bestsellers, and then I got

lazy. I didn't wanna write another full book. What can

I do? So I started writing the short, you know, like you guys are gonna

get the back pocket guide, the art and science of becoming a 6 figure podcast

guest. It's written in a way. It's all structured so that

you can really get in, get some great value, but also,

hey, come and connect. What I hadn't

done is put it together

so I could do that for other people. So in the last

month, my son and I, who's my business partner in in work, we

said, well, why don't we package this up so other people can write

their own back pocket guide in their own niche in those sorts of

things. So we've packaged it up, we've got our first clients, and we're

doing what we're doing, we're building them under the brand. So

that's doing something new for the first time. And

it's something that we do all the time. And,

I saw a great interview with a a guy

who's been in the fitness industry. He sold over a billion dollars

from, TV at infomercials

on fitness equipment, one of the original,

celebrity personal trainers, and he was interviewed by the great Dan

Kennedy on one of his programs. And he said, well, what's

the secret to longevity? He said

constant metamorphosis, constant

change. And every time we get to

a point, it's like, well, okay. That's that. What's next? And

here's the thing that you you guys at home may wanna think about instead

of writing New Year's resolutions. As we set some

goals every six months, then you

can you can call them goals, aspirations, etcetera, New Year's resolutions,

whatever you want at the beginning of the year. But here's the thing.

We also write down who do I have to

become to achieve those. Not what do I have to

do, who do I have to become. So

personal metamorphosis is

something that doing new things and challenging and going in

different directions is something that is not new.

So doing new things is not new. But here here's the thing

that I think sometimes people forget. If you're not

growing, and growing requires that you change,

you know, make changes and evolve. If you're not growing, you're

stagnating. If you're stagnating, you're gonna be you're not gonna be relevant,

and you're gonna be left behind. And so you

I like rhyming, and here's one for you and your your

audience. And I'll put the Aussie on it. If you ain't growing,

you're slowing.

I like that. I like that. We're running out of time. I have got to

I I have got to, like, pull the the the, you know, the time range

on us. So, I thought we had twenty four hours.

Well, we do, but, you know That's okay. So

so so here's the ad. I hope that you will

subscribe and share this podcast on social media. And the

reason I do this is to help grow the community, but

to also give you some insights that you may not normally have run into

on your own, bring you people that I have found interesting that have had an

impact on me, and share them with you so that you can grow your business

and so you're not slowing. So

I hope you will join me again for the one small change and

and include me in your journey as you're you're making these tiny shifts

that are gonna yield monumental transformations. If you haven't

done it yet, you should listen to the first episode where I'm talking about the

podcast and why I'm doing it. So, Steve, you have given us a lot

of quotable things. And so

which one is gonna be your last words?

Yeah. And the the the first thing is

a lot of people wait to get things right. I I'll I'll do this when

I get this right. I'll do this when I get this. And the great

Michael Jordan had a saying that I I live by since I've ever heard

it. Just elevate, decide in the air.

Ah, good. Just you can't change direction if

you're stationary. So you can only change direction if

you're moving. So momentum is the key. So take the

first step. Is it the right one? Is it the right direction? If it's not,

change direction. But maintain momentum and

be agile. Don't stop. Just be agile.

And that's the biggest thing that I could, I could always do is

just, like, get started, take that first step, get

momentum, and then just change as you go.

I love it. I love it. Okay, guys. We're out of time. And as I

always say, remember change is simple, but it's not always easy. And

that's because it requires resilience and courage

and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone. So I hope you've got

some information to help you with that, and I hope that you will

join us on the one small change as we all continue

our journey, for bold vision and

innovative possibilities. So until the next time, stay

curious. I'm Yvonne McCoy.