Stalking Benjamins: How to Create a Successful Podcast Brand

Larry Roberts [00:00:08]:

What has happened to everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:00:11]:

I'm Sara Lohse, and this is Branded, your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

Larry Roberts [00:00:16]:

And on this episode of the podcast, we have an amazing guest with us. Man, he comes to us from one of the top shows, actually, in the industry, and it's a amazing opportunity to spend some time with him and kinda learn from him how he built his brand and how he went from just starting out to the top of the charts. Plus there's gonna be some other really, really interesting conversations going on as well. So Joe Saul-Sehy, hi. Welcome to Branded.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:00:44]:

I I I'm here just to announce my retirement. I made it to Branded, which means that I can retire in peace I've reached the mountain

Sara Lohse [00:00:52]:

top. Congratulations. We're so happy for you.

Larry Roberts [00:00:55]:

Man, super honored with that. That's amazing. Yeah. If we're the pinnacle...

Sara Lohse [00:00:59]:

tGet your lifetime achievement award and call it a day. I really wanted to get Joe on the show because If anybody knows my story and I haven't gone too deep into it, on this show, but I accidentally got myself booked on stacking Benjamins to tell a story about a really embarrassing tattoo. And somehow Joe managed to make that experience be going from a story that I just told in a bar for laughs to a story that really defined my career. I wanted to bring him on so he could kind of tell his side of that. And first, why he would let someone come on his award winning show to talk about getting a tattoo of a penis on their arm.

Larry Roberts [00:01:44]:

Oh, you got out of the bag. I mean, we just went we went right to the climax there.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:01:48]:

We did. Spoiler, Sarah. Spoiler.

Sara Lohse [00:01:50]:

Spoiler alert. I thank you to Joe Saul-Sehy. I am the girl with the penis tattoo, and that is what will be on my tombstone someday. So thank you for that.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:02:02]:

I don't I don't know, Larry. Is that an honor to be that guy? I don't know if I

Larry Roberts [00:02:06]:

just have have it chiseled in her tomb stuff. Just have a that'd be That's amazing. No. I mean, I think it is an honor, man. It it really is an honor to have you here. I've enjoyed our conversations. Albeit, they have been brief conferences, but, I really enjoy kinda hanging out with you and learning from you. So anything you can share with us today, man, is gonna be super, super appreciated.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:02:23]:

Yeah. Well, you know, anytime I get to You know, if I'm sitting next to somebody someday and they're like, they're like, so what's your claim to fame? I'm like, you know, the penis tattoo girl? I created her.

Sara Lohse [00:02:36]:

And that will be on your

Larry Roberts [00:02:38]:

2

Sara Lohse [00:02:38]:

installments. We just have to get buried next to each other, so it all

Larry Roberts [00:02:42]:

makes sense.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:02:43]:

I'm with penis tattoo Girl. It's like just a little, like, finger.

Sara Lohse [00:02:47]:

Can I make us those shirts for, like, podcast movement or fan con?

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:02:50]:

I'm with penis tattoo Girl.

Sara Lohse [00:02:51]:

Mhmm. And then I'll just say penis tattoo

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:02:53]:

Let her be on one side. I'll be on the other.

Larry Roberts [00:02:55]:

No. because I will not be at Fincon. So do it at Fincon, please, because I I have to miss that one. So, yeah, do it there.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:03:01]:

Dude not.

Sara Lohse [00:03:02]:

It has nothing to do with this.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:03:04]:

Well, wait. Well, let me start off though very seriously by saying that, you know, what we're always looking is the same thing you guys are looking for, which is interesting radio. Right? And when you hear a story that lights you up and and cracks you up as much as that story did me, I realized that that, you know, whether we're making a podcast that is serious, whether we have a serious product, whether we have a have a fun product, whatever it is, we need to realize that we're all in the entertainment business. I mean, whether we think we're we're just, you know, laying out truths or whatever or if we're or if we truly are doing a singing dancing thing, we're all in the entertainment business first and foremost. If you don't entertain people, they're not gonna stick around to get the message. So when Sarah told me that she got this tattoo of, you know, my job as a creator then is where's the money through line? Cause our show is ostensibly about money. she spent money on this tattoo. And she thought she was getting a tattoo that was of of something completely different. Yeah. Imagine then imagine then looking down and seeing this dude, this this jerk, just put a penis on your arm and permanently. Right? And you're like, I spent this money, but how many times have we spent money? And it and it went the wrong way. It didn't go the way we wanted. So I'm like, so that was my framework but but but but hear that the right way. That was my framework. What I really wanted was the penis tattoo story because as a show that's trying to entertain people first, I want my stacker community walking around going, oh my god. You sure the story I heard on the show today about this woman who accidentally got a penis tattooed on her arm.

Sara Lohse [00:04:38]:

And it's it's still there. It's it's been covered up. It's now much more airplane than penis.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:04:44]:

They did a nice job of that, by the way, because you would never know.

Larry Roberts [00:04:47]:

Can we see the tattoo, Sarah? I mean, can you hold it up for us so that everybody watching can --

Sara Lohse [00:04:51]:

Oh, okay.

Larry Roberts [00:04:53]:

There we go. There we go.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:04:54]:

It does. It looks like an airplane.

Sara Lohse [00:04:56]:

Yes.

Larry Roberts [00:04:56]:

It looks like a jumbo p jet. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:04:59]:

Jumbo jet. Yes. listening and not watching, I and put a photo in those show notes.

Larry Roberts [00:05:04]:

Yeah. Make it the cover art for this episode. It'll be like --

Sara Lohse [00:05:07]:

If anyone wants to see the cover up tattoo, the show notes. But I've literally stopped you for 3 days. It was the first ever conference I've I've been to It was podcast movement

Larry Roberts [00:05:21]:

2021,

Sara Lohse [00:05:23]:

I wanna say.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:05:24]:

We were in Nashville. We were in Nashville. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:05:26]:

Yeah. Yep. That was

Larry Roberts [00:05:27]:

21.

Sara Lohse [00:05:28]:

Like, I don't want people to get the wrong idea when I say I stalked you. Like, I wasn't just like, oh, I wonder where he is right now, or let me go to where he speaking because I know who no. I stood at a cocktail table holding up my signed copy of John Lee Dumas' book and just peering over it. while you recorded a podcast at the Fincom booth, I don't know if you know this because now you're probably like, why am I on this podcast? I need to get a restraining order. but they're like, I was that level of I need to, like, find this guy and talk to him. And every time I try to, like, some someone else stepped in because you're you're a celebrity at these events. And if anyone has ever tried to, like, walk through a room at, like, FinCon or podcast movement with you, It's like walking around with the mayor. Everyone has to stop and talk to you, the same with, like, Larry at podcast. So I'm like, trying to get a minute to just talk to you and it does not happen. I stood next to you as soon as I went to open my mouth, you turn to talk to somebody else. Like, it just kept happening. So, like, I was stalking you, and I finally found you in a hallway. And I think I just had a stroke because I just yelled at you. that I've been stalking you for 3 days. And I'm

Larry Roberts [00:06:38]:

--

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:06:39]:

Larry, I'm walking down this hallway, and I and and I just I'm walking. I'm going from point a to point b, and I all I hear Lohse Salsi high, like, really loud. Like, it's urgent. Like, something's on fire. It was. You know? And I turn around and here's this girl who's, like, four foot 2, standing -- Yeah. Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:06:57]:

--

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:06:57]:

standing over there. And she's like, she's like, I have been trying to I don't remember what you said, Harrison.

Sara Lohse [00:07:02]:

Like, I'm -- -- casually stalking you for 3 days. I I wasn't even pretending to hide it. I outright told you. I had -- And

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:07:07]:

that's what you have to respect.

Larry Roberts [00:07:09]:

you you have to respect her brutal honesty. I mean, yeah, at least she's not hiding the fact that she can be a little creepy.

Sara Lohse [00:07:15]:

But the best part is after telling you that and saying like, if I don't get the host of the show I produce on your podcast, I will be fired. Your response wasn't, like, security, it was, here's my phone number. Let's meet tomorrow. And I'm still questioning your sanity on that, but I appreciate it.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:07:36]:

You're questioning my sanity.

Larry Roberts [00:07:40]:

Hey, Joe. At least at least you didn't start a podcast with her. Okay? I mean, I deal with this every day. So you got off light, brother.

Sara Lohse [00:07:47]:

You both are just so lucky.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:07:50]:

No. You know what's funny is that, so we started up a real estate sister show called stacking deeds. And we had this wonderful, real estate broker named Vicky Baron on recently, and she sells like $50,000,000 condos in in Manhattan on a daily basis, but she didn't start off that way. She started off as this, second daughter of a single mom, and she she just learned how to get attention and how to ask questions and to be curious. And what was cool about Sarah's approach was, a, how honest it was, b, how much it made her and I on the same team, Vicky Baron shared this with us. You know, when somebody tells her something she doesn't like, she goes, well, that makes my heart said. I'm just wondering if maybe you can help me with this and maybe think about it. Like, Sarah's approach was I'm gonna get fired if I don't get get the person I work for on your show. And immediately, then, Larry, I'm a co conspirator. Right? I'm like, well, let's not get you fired.

Larry Roberts [00:08:47]:

Instant guilt. instant guilt. Right.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:08:50]:

Woman I just met 30 seconds ago. All of a sudden, I'm trying to help. But Vicky put this a very good way, which is Lohse humans are trying to help each other. We are trying to help and just just, asking people for their help, no matter who they are, is a great approach. So Sarah asked me for her help. And, and I said I wanted to meet because I'm like, okay. What I really see here is an opportunity for me to explain to somebody who seems like a very smart, driven PR person to make them Is that how it

Sara Lohse [00:09:21]:

came across?

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:09:22]:

You did. Yes. As an ally of mine. So so what Sarah doesn't know was that my agenda when we met was to tell you what I seriously am looking for and what I'm not looking for because we get pitched seventy times a week. And what I learned is that there's 2 different approaches I can take. I can either do what the vast majority people do and just shut off these PR people and go go away and never respond to them, or I can be an educator and teach them what I want and say, hey. I don't want what you're offering, but here's what I am looking for. And I gotta tell you what's been cool. Our shows gotten better because I have a PR people like Sarah who know exactly what to pitch me, exactly what not to pitch pitch me. It doesn't waste my time, I know if Sarah's gonna pitch me something. It's gonna make the show now, Larry, because Sarah Sarah always brings it. Like, there are these PR people that bring it every time.

Larry Roberts [00:10:12]:

Yeah.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:10:12]:

And we certainly still don't take every PR pitch. We we have 2 guests a week, and I'll I'll do one from a PR person that's incoming and I still do the outgoing because I wanna have quirky get I wanna talk about not just, you know, penises on people's arm but I wanna talk to, like, we, you know, we went and got the the the the the former CEO of cirque du Soleil. That was a phenomenal thing. We got the head of United Airlines. these people don't pitch us because their stories aren't quote money stories. They're not personal finance stories. They didn't pitch us. We just went out and got them. because we thought they were interesting, and that keeps me excited, which I think keeps us in the game.

Larry Roberts [00:10:48]:

So how did you get to that level, though, Joe? Because, I mean, our show A lot of our listeners, they're building brands. They're trying to establish their presence and their space. How did you go from, you know, just starting out like most of our listeners now to being able to reach out to the former CEO of cirque Du Soleil. I mean, that's a that's a big jump. How do you

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:11:07]:

do that, man? Yeah. And it always frustrates me. I I remember being frustrated later when people would tell stories like that. So I'm glad you did. I'm like, great. Good for you. Yeah. How do I get there? Here is how you get there, and it's not the answer that people wanna hear. You make a show that you would really like. make a show that you would like and work relentlessly on reducing friction. So in any communication channel, you know, com 101 from any college Lohse. You've got center of a message and receiver a message and there's friction in the middle, and you've gotta get rid of that friction from the very beginning. So take you know, a lot of people will will hear the haters and then they will disregard them. I disregard the snark in their voice. but I don't disregard the message. I try to clean up the message and go, okay. Let's get rid of the snark that they think we suck. And instead, get behind, like, where's the truth in that message? And I'll give you an example early on. So we're a couple of of, we've got one industry insider in in personal finance and me who I used to be. I was one of twelve people at American Express that would speak on behalf of the company. So I'd gone through all kinds of PR training I know how to talk about money on TV, on radio, and print. Nobody wants to hear that show. Number 1, nobody wants to hear these 2 industry insiders go blah blah blah blah Lohse. So we we decided to put the show in mom's basement because screwing up your money and realizing that it's not gonna kill you I think is a much better approach and people do wanna hear and making it story based people wanted to hear. So so there was that aspect, but when we created the show, we we also then decided that, that the show would have a lot of humor. And the snark that we got from people was these two guys aren't as funny as they think they are. We which you know what? Was absolutely true that that at first, I was like, screw you. We are funny. Screw you. We are. And then I thought, you know, been a financial planner at that point for 20 years. I had been I'm no longer was, but I've been a financial planner for 20 years. I had never once studied comedy And so for me to think, well, I'm a funny guy, and I'm just gonna put a microphone in front of me and crack some jokes and you think about these comedians that do this every day and they're on the road and they're always honing their craft. And I'd spent zero time honing that craft. Huge, huge mistake on my part. So we went back to the drawing board, and we started taking comedy Lohse. we started taking we we every single thing we could study about comedy, we'd and the show still is not as funny as I would like it to be, and we're not as funny as I would like be where, you know, back then 10 years ago, I thought we were funny as I'll get out. And I'm like, oh, we could be so much better. Wait. So so I would say become a student of what the friction is, listen to your haters and try to clean it up, and then a good for podcasting, My favorite analogy around podcasting is a good podcast. It's like a mullet. business in the front and party in the back.

Larry Roberts [00:14:01]:

Party in the back, brother. Let's go.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:14:02]:

Well, and the thing that I hate and I know you guys hate this too. You get a couple of Lohse on at the beginning of the show, and they sell their course at the beginning of the show. they blabber about the the weather. And don't get me wrong. There does have to be a little warm up about getting to know the voices and who the Lohse are and how they react each other. That stuff's fine, but people that are new to your show, they want what it says in the title. That's what they want. Right. And the people that are going to buy now I get pushed back. People go, well, Joe, you know, I've gone on Apple and I've seen, you know, there's all these places to go see your stats chartable. You can see people people just let go of your show for whatever reason. They get out of the car. They get out of the shower. Whatever it might be. They your show might have half the listeners at the end that had at the beginning. Mhmm. Still, I firmly believe those are the people they're gonna buy from you. The people at the beginning that went away halfway through the show, they were just curious to see what it was the people that love you are the ones that are gonna buy, and those people, the ones sticking around. So that's the party in the back part. You know, have community time at the end of your show, talk about Facebook group, talk about your friends, talk about the people that are the community in the show, where you're gonna do an Instagram live, whatever that's gonna be, and sell your course to those people then if you've got something to sell and your rate of success, I think it's gonna be a lot higher and you're gonna keep you're gonna turn more people into fans because you got to it at the beginning.

Larry Roberts [00:15:20]:

Man, so much there to unpacking, Sarah. I saw you move your lip. So take it from there. because if not, if I don't let her talk, she won't talk. I I I have a little my voice is a little more powerful than her, so I tend to overtalk her. So I keep out of the corner of my eye. I'm always watching the peripheral to see if I see her move, and that means she wants to speak. So please shut me up and do your thing.

Sara Lohse [00:15:42]:

One of our previous episodes, I wanna say it was the one about imposter syndrome. I actually mentioned your show and how we, like, comparing a show, like, hours that's still in the beginning where, like, a dozen episodes in, then comparing it to a show like yours, it's it's not gonna line up, and it's it's going to be almost be, like, disheartening because we're not as big as stacking benjamins. But I I think I even said, like, when I was on the show, 2 years ago, it was episode, like, 200 something. I'm pretty sure it was episode, like, 1200 something. You guys have, like, I I checked. I, like, I checked this morning. I was like, how many actually are there? You're in the thousands. Yeah.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:16:18]:

I think we just did, like, 13 96. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:16:20]:

Yeah. You guys have been around. It's I know you had your 10 year anniversary, I think it was.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:16:24]:

Yeah. We're coming close to 15. Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:16:27]:

Yeah. see, let me just jump in there because you gotta drive that home too. You know, people think they're gonna start their podcast or build their brand. And right out of the gate, they're gonna have this massive success this goes back to what Sarah's talking about are the episode that's out right now that was just released today is the is the imposter syndrome, episode, but people are looking at the Joe Rogans, the Joe Lohse Highs and all the other Joe's that are crushing it out there. And they're thinking they're gonna go into mom's basement, crank up a at Samsung microphone that they bought on eBay or whatever and plug it into their computer. Now they're gonna have this super highly successful show. So not only did you invest back into yourself and the craft of podcasting, looking at comedy, knowing how to speak, and really investing money and time and energy into making it a better show. Been around for damn near 15 years. Right.

Sara Lohse [00:17:16]:

How long did it take to get to that point where you're like, okay. This is really taking off. Like, this isn't I'm not going from my 69 to 70 downloads. Like, I'm going to, like, thousands of downloads an episode.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:17:29]:

two and a half years. It's it is a big old moat and and to I mean, I'll tell you that story. I was sitting with OG my co Lohse, you know, doing another show after two and a half years and he looks and we've rebranded twice during then because we realized we didn't have it right the first time. Then we realized we were still screwing up and we didn't have it right. So we rebranded again as back in vegmans. We still weren't seeing a big lift. I mean, it was growing a little bit every show, but I remember him just sitting across that card table from me going, what the and he literally said he goes, are we doing? I'm like, well, we're getting ready to record a show. He goes, no, seriously. We've been doing this two and a half years. What the hell are we doing? Like, why are we why are we doing this? I'm like, dude, because, you know, we're helping people. We're we're growing the show. He goes, this if this keeps growing at this rate, this is just not This is this is not it. And I went to a podcast movement. This one was in, was in Fort Worth, and I heard a couple great things. Roman Mars of NPR fame. the guy behind 99% visible was on stage. I was sitting next to another great podcast regarding Roger Whitney, the retirement and and, Rogers like my my conference spouse, and he he and I are taking notes. And I remember before that day, I would always look at Apple charts. I'd look at all the different charts, and I'd look at people ahead of me and I'm go, our show's better than that one. Our show's better than that one. Our show's better than that one or shows better than that one. This is BS where we are. This is total BS. And that day, Roma Mars stood on stage and he showed us what they did at 99% invisible. and what I was doing to to make the stacking vegetation show and what he was doing to make

Larry Roberts [00:19:04]:

99%

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:19:04]:

invisible were 2 totally different things. He was so much more professional about his approach. He used so much more research. He was so much more thought full about every little piece of instruction of this show than I was that I literally on my iPad, I wrote you have the ranking you deserve. which meant that, yeah, there might be the random show ahead of me where they got lucky and they did some stuff, but this guy deserves to be ahead of me because he's worked his ass off. And that day, I went home and I actually blew up the we blew up the show. We made it we made it way more accessible We made it way more like the tonight show. We made it snappier. We didn't get in the weeds as much talking about in-depth because that was the death of us whenever we keep things light and fun, and we realized our goal is, and we've we've never used this as a, a mantra or a calling card because I think kinda gets rid of the it kinda gets rid of of what stacky vegmans is about, but, you know, people on her team like to call us the gateway dry off a personal finance. And I'm like, we're not gonna be the that's not gonna be our official moniker, but it truly is meant to be a gateway. It is accessible. You can do this. It's gonna be fun. Believe it or not, personal finance could be fun. We're gonna spend way more time screwing around than we are gonna be talking about anything serious. And, hopefully, at the end of the episode through Osmosis, he went, I can do this. I actually understand what a Roth IRA is. How great is that? and I can screw it up and I'm gonna be okay. Like, that's that's awesome. So we blew up the entire show. The first thing that happened, guys, a third of our little audience at that time went bye bye. And I got hate mail. Like, I didn't get a little hate mail. I got nasty mail. this one woman, I remember Cheryl and I went on a vacation to Puerto Rico, and I love talking about, like, today how the show's made. So I write her like this 3000 word answer about where we're going with the show and how we everything I just told you, I wrote in this email. And she wrote back to me. She goes, you are the most narcissistic son of a bitch. I have ever met. You just think your way is right. And I'm like, no. I'm trying to have this back and forth about it. What now what's cool is two things happen two and a half months later after we got rid of sucking at this new world because we we, you know, you're not gonna be good at it at first. No. Two and a half months later, you could see in lipson our which is our the place that uploads our show and gives us all our stats, you could see this hockey stick. Like, all of a sudden, we knew what we were doing and we were locked. And we still weren't Roman Mars pro at it, but we were much, much better. We'd gone to a 5 week production schedule we were very thoughtful about the fabric of what our guest lineup was gonna be. The comedy was crisper, the whole thing. Tunette Bonson, this big old hockey stick, and then the awards just came out of the blue. Kipplinger, then all of a sudden called his best personal finance. Out of nowhere, you got these huge shows, these huge people, we're we're still this small show and Kiplinger goes, you're the best personal finance show. And then, Arta Manliness we're not even a show whose avatar is a man. Our avatar is a woman in her forties who's juggling a career and 2 kids and has to be a full time mom and a full time employee she doesn't wanna be yelled at by Dave Ramsey or Susie Orman. People know who they are. She wants to have fun. Right? She wants to be informed, but she still wants fun. So that's our avatar. Art of Manliness puts us on this list of 15 podcast men need to listen to. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Great. Fantastic. But you gotta make a show that that's for you, and I think you gotta be professional about it.

Sara Lohse [00:22:30]:

I really love how you host. And, I mean, like like you said, that you're very thoughtful about it, but even go I told you I sat down with you at that first podcast movement, and I told you this whole story about I got a really embarrassing tattoo. And the way you had me tell that story pulled so much value out of it. that it went from being this ridiculous story to this journey of self discovery that made me more confident in asking for what I deserve in my career and braver and led me to move across the country by myself and eventually launch a company What I launched my company to do was help other people tell their stories the way you helped me tell mine. Basically, I credit you for my entire career. So thank you for that. Bye.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:23:25]:

That is way too much credit. It's way way way too much

Larry Roberts [00:23:29]:

I just gotta say I gotta thank you for my podcast. I have to thank you for my red hat.

Sara Lohse [00:23:34]:

I'd like to thank the academy. I have

Larry Roberts [00:23:36]:

to thank you for Joe, I wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for the way you handled Sarah's penis.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:23:42]:

That too. I like the pause.

Larry Roberts [00:23:45]:

Yeah. Thanks.

Sara Lohse [00:23:48]:

what I was trying to say is there really is an art to how we tell stories and people don't realize that the stories that they tell that they want to share value from They don't have to be those headline grabbing stories. They can be those silly stories that you tell in a bar. They can be the everyday successes and the everyday failures. And I talk to so many people and I say, like, when you if you wanna go on podcasts or if you wanna speak at conferences, you need to lead with stories and they tell me that well, I don't have a story. Oh. Every single time I say my story is about getting a tattoo of a penis on my arm. Tell me again, you don't have a story, and it has been able to actually, like, be that example of, oh, okay. Hold on. There's something in like, any of my stories that has value. And being able to draw that out of people is something that I learned from you, and I don't think you realized that you did it.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:24:50]:

Well, thank you. And, Larry, I feel like I owe Sarah 20 bucks now. No. It's

Larry Roberts [00:24:56]:

--

Sara Lohse [00:24:56]:

I'll send you my Venmo after we hang up.

Larry Roberts [00:24:58]:

I I gotta tell you, I just love the way that we started off with Peanuts. We some value in the middle there. Then we brought it all home with a more penis. So this has been a a roller Lohse ride.

Sara Lohse [00:25:09]:

of From start to finish.

Larry Roberts [00:25:11]:

Yeah. Yeah. We'll just leave it

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:25:12]:

at that. Well, I think if we can talk about that for a second, because I think that's something we can all learn. because I just went on a book tour. Sorry. I'm gonna interrupt that sentence with a different one with a little ADD, but I just went on a book 2 and so I went on a bunch of podcasts. And there are so many podcasters out there who are not in the interview. They like pre craft a set of questions, which are the most boring questions ever. They never follow-up. They're not listening to hear inflection points. You gotta study the great at this much like we study comedy. I've spent a lot of time studying great people who do great interviews. So I started off, and I'm an older guy. So this guy, Larry King, I started off with. And when Larry King talked about interviewing people, he talked about he just has to be curious. He'll pick up a book and he'll go, so your book is called stacked. Why did you name it stacked? He hasn't even it's a great question. Why did you name it that? And then he goes to the inside cover, and he's like, oh, it says this and this and this on the inside cover. Why did you decide to include that? And then he just listens for queues, and then he goes down this rabbit hole He's like, I never read any of the book. I no. I read the first three chapters of the book, and I try to find stories from the first three chapters of all the books because that's all we can do in 25 minutes is is just get 2 or 3 good stories, but I also don't wanna give away the entire book. You know, I went on some shows where they're talking about stuff for the whole book, and it just it doesn't do me a service. It doesn't do the listener service. It doesn't help anybody. I studied Barbara Walters. got a great book about how to talk to practically anybody about practically anything. She's another woman who passed away recently. People might not even know she is. she was a fantastic. I listened to Howard Stern. And I'm like, how did he get that out of Roger Daltry? I remember Roger Daltry's told this amazing story about the who. And I'm thinking, how did he do that? and then you start listening for these techniques. Mark Marron, you know, great techniques.

Larry Roberts [00:27:02]:

Amazing. Yeah.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:27:03]:

Yeah. So listen to some of these people that are recognized great and then think, okay. How are they crafting this? How are they actually leading these people to watch Graham Norton clips if anybody if anybody has TikTok or Instagram, watch clips of the Graham Norton show. Yeah. They are known for these people telling these great stories. that doesn't happen organically. The the audio the audience should think it happens organically, but it doesn't. What is Graham Norton team doing to set that up and make sure it happens on every episode because the number of great clips Graham Norton gets from all these amazing guests is incredible.

Larry Roberts [00:27:39]:

I wanna build on that too, because you just said organically, you know, those conversations don't happen organically, and the skill sets to generate those types of conversations don't happen organically either. So you've alluded to it multiple times throughout this episode how you've invested in learning comedy. I'm sure you've invested in learning how to speak from the stage. you mentioned before that you were trained as a professional PR person for for American Express. That's a high profile position. So you have a ton of training behind you. that's put you in the position to recognize and you said this too before your show even blew up, you'd already recognize twice that something wasn't right. that you you guys had gotten it wrong. And you wouldn't have been able to recognize that if you didn't have the skill sets in place to be able to analyze what you're doing and realize we took a wrong turn somewhere. Let's get this train back on the track. So I think that's amazing, and I think we can't reinforce that enough for people that are listening right now that you have to invest in those Lohse sets. You have to take the time to build on your individual skill sets so that it

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:28:41]:

can be reflected in the content that you create. You you know what the best thing to invest in, though, of all and I love all that, Larry, is the thing that

Larry Roberts [00:28:49]:

Larry STFU. This is really where it's at.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:28:51]:

No. No. Because I think there's one more thing. I think there is a cherry on top that you can't not have. Which which is which is this? Yeah. Larry, move aside.

Larry Roberts [00:29:02]:

God, dang it. I'm gone.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:29:03]:

Larry, if you could just move aside, let the pros talk now. No. We we, the big thing that that we haven't talked about yet is you need some alpha listeners. I think that we all need, like, a Gordon Ramsey Simon Cowell kind of person where where you know, like, at the end of the Gordon Ramsey episode where they're hugging it out, you know, after they had the yelling match. Because you realize in the beginning of the episode as a viewer, Gordon Ramsay wants this restaurant to succeed. he wants these chefs to succeed, but we're gonna have to get through, you know, we're gonna have to get through some toughness. We're gonna have to make some tough changes. I needed an alpha listener to help me do that. And I had a couple of great people who I knew were on my team. I knew they loved me. and they would just cut to the chase every episode. I remember we had an industry expert, a guy named Pat Flynn on

Larry Roberts [00:29:53]:

1,

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:29:53]:

so you guys know who Pat Flynn is. Pat Flynn for me was a fantastic guest. Our show though is about personal finance. My buddy calls me up and goes, why'd you have that guy on? I go, what are you talking about? He goes, talking about, like, internet marketing. Why are you talking about internet marketing on a personal finance show? And I'm like, you know, that's a great point. Just because Pat Flynn was important to me, didn't didn't mean that it was important to my my my family, which is my stacker community. Like, so I had to do one of 2 things. Either a, not have Flynn on or, b, have Pat Flynn on, but find a way to make it about personal finance. And Pat Flynn is, you know, people in our industry know that he left architecture to go into this other I could have talked to him about that. I didn't talk to him about that, though. I talked to him about SEO and, you know, using these tools. And he's like, what do you talk about tool? Joe, you're a tool. You need you need to do do a better job of that. So you know, for that reason, we didn't have another industry expert in our industry in a woman named Amy Porterfield. We didn't have her on forever until last year. And I was so happy to finally get to talk to Amy because I love Amy's message, but I was finally able to find a message where it fit. And I think our community got a lot more out of it having on now. But if it weren't for those alpha listeners, I think I think, Larry, everything you said is right on, but you need somebody who's on your team, who's gonna give you a no b s That sucked. That sucked, and you need to change it.

Sara Lohse [00:31:19]:

How did that alpha listener feel about my episode?

Larry Roberts [00:31:24]:

Oh, Lohse, look, uh-oh. Oh, okay. It's gonna be paranoid.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:31:28]:

Look at the time. Okay. No. I did that lawyer to make her even more paranoid.

Larry Roberts [00:31:32]:

No. It's good. I love it. I love it.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:31:34]:

Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:31:35]:

So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that your book tour that you just came off of was for a book possibly titled Stacked. Possibly. Possibly. You're not gonna work badly.

Sara Lohse [00:31:44]:

sitting right here behind me.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:31:47]:

That's some that was PR Magic right there, Larry. He looks say, as an example, Larry King was talking about my book. Yes.

Larry Roberts [00:31:54]:

Yeah. It's

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:31:55]:

fine. Slipped it, slipped it right in there.

Larry Roberts [00:31:57]:

Yes. Oh, boy, you wrap this up. Tell us all about it, Joe.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:32:00]:

Thank you, by the way. And, stacked is a book that is, was my second attempt at a book my first attempt, I handed to my alpha reader, which is my my spouse, Cheryl, and she goes, this sucks because it was like, all this Joe knows a lot about money. this is really x was what you need to know. It was horrible, and it didn't match me. It didn't match our personality. Stacked is a book that is much more comedy. It has at the end of every chapter, some of the great people we've interviewed, to reinforce the messages. And the messages, these are not chapters. I took the cub scout wolf guide, Larry, and I combined it with the Hardy Boys detective manual, which were two things in 4th grade that really spoke to me. And I thought if I could make a book for a dull that was as campy as though. So these aren't chapters. They're achievements. Every time you finish an achievement, it's not about what you know, it's what you do. So at the end of each of these achievements, there's a bunch of stuff you have to do to prove that you read the chapter and you know what you're doing with, you know, budgeting or getting out of debt or whatever it is. So do these things get your credit report, whatever it might be. And then there's a place for your mom to sign it. You get your badge in that area. So, stacked is you're super serious guide to modern money management. And, Penguin released it. We had the same editor as James Clear. I can't, you know, that's a flex right there. The guy that did, atomic habits, which is cool for me to say here, but I will say this that when you deal with the team that made that book and then they make yours, you feel like the unappreciated Cinderella because they're constantly going, oh, well, James is such a good author. You know, you could probably Joe learn this from James. Oh, James is so great. Like, you're the younger brother that never gets any

Larry Roberts [00:33:41]:

Yeah.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:33:41]:

Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. That's me.

Sara Lohse [00:33:43]:

But you also I mean, you wrote it with Emily Iberkin, and she is in the in the garage. is an amazing writer. So, you know, you you had help.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:33:51]:

Yeah. Well, and that's that's a good I mean, we could we could talk about that too, but I know we're out of time. But but that is you know, I wrote that first book by myself and then I read another book, which this person had had a book deal forever and they never did anything. Then they realized they worked at vice and they were surrounded by all these great writers. And I went, holy cow, I interviewed 2 great writers every week. Why wouldn't I go ask one of them if they'll co write this with me? They know the ropes. They know publishing. They know they know agents. So we didn't do the cover letter. We didn't do the query. I went to sources and they introduced me to their agents. We got a great agent. The agent then helped. I did the whole thing backwards. just because of our podcast. And anybody who's building a podcast, you know which authors you jibed with, your 1st 20 episodes, there's gotta be at least three of them that could probably help you with your book.

Sara Lohse [00:34:39]:

Speaking of if Austin Cleon is listening to this, I have been emailing you incessantly to get you to write the forward for my book. So let's let's make that happen.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:34:50]:

Okay. Sarah knows I have a man crush on Austin Cleon. But, Sarah, I might also be able to help you with that. This is the other thing. Ask for help. Ask for help.

Sara Lohse [00:34:59]:

Joe help.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:35:00]:

I will

Larry Roberts [00:35:00]:

--

Sara Lohse [00:35:01]:

If I don't get Austin Cleon to write the forward of my book, I will be fired.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:35:04]:

I will introduce you. Oh, oh, I

Larry Roberts [00:35:06]:

think we already played that

Sara Lohse [00:35:07]:

part, man. But it worked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:35:12]:

Let's

Larry Roberts [00:35:12]:

just go right back to the well. Let's just go right back.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:35:15]:

Does that sound familiar? Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:35:16]:

Right. Yeah. Well, Joe, I can't thank you enough for joining this morning. This has been a lot of fun, probably one of the more lighthearted episodes that we've had. So it's been great having you here. I know Sarah enjoys every opportunity she has to talk to you and relive those thrilling moments on stacking bingements when she got to tell her amazing.

Sara Lohse [00:35:34]:

I I peaked in 2021. Okay, guys? I gotta relive the Warriors.

Larry Roberts [00:35:39]:

We're we're we're gonna try to bring something back. You know, with podcast move up being next week, maybe maybe we can get some experience for her that will overwrite, the penis tattoo. I don't know. We'll see.

Joe Saul-Sehy [00:35:49]:

You guys are so awesome. Thank you so much.

Larry Roberts [00:35:52]:

Thank you so much for listening to this awesome episode, featuring Joe Saul-Sehy. If you found some value in this episode, do me a favor. Right now, smash that subscribe button. on your favorite platform so we can continue to bring you these insightful interviews. And with that, I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:36:07]:

I'm the girl with the penis tattoo, and we'll talk to you next week.