Greg Wasserman: Relationships, Strategy and Storytelling

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
Announcer, the sound off podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
This time around, I'm speaking with Greg Wasserman from rss.com he is the head of relationships@rss.com which is a great place to host your podcast. When I was at the London podcast show, Sam Sethi and James Cridland from the podcast, weekly review invited me for an opening day beverage, and I found myself speaking with Alberto and Mark from rss.com and they were telling me about a lot of the exciting things they were working on that have since been released. Greg is going to tell us about those initiatives, and don't worry if you think the discussion is going to get too deep into the weeds, because it won't. Greg has worked in advertising. He's worked for startups, and also spent some time selling radio in Los Angeles, and now Greg Wasserman joins me from Los Angeles, where we dive into the deep end with the podcast question of life. How did you get here?

Greg Wasserman  1:03  
My background is in media sales, and I've been in the podcast space for the last four years, and I can say also coming from the partnership world podcasting is just very similar to that, where it is all about, how do we help and rise each other? Having just come from Podcast Movement, having been to a bunch of podcast events, they are all about, how do we just work together? I mean, the conversations I had with a competitors B, with just others in the industry, and everyone's like, I'll just tell you how it is. I'm like, where else am I going to be having these conversations? I mean, when I was in media sales, I'd sit down with my other fellow sellers, and that would be the way we knew what buyers were doing. But if we were competitors, why would they be sharing their insights? Going like, hold on, you're just gonna go and sell your product which competes with mine to them. And that was the mindset here. It's literally, I will tell you whatever you wanna know when you think about how many podcasts, yourself included, are just open books. Let's just tell you everything there is. And that's what I love about the space. And then if we look at what do I love about podcasting, where else do you have a medium that allows you to record a conversation? And I'm a talker, so if you get me to sit there and try and write, it's not going to happen. But I don't can. I'd sit here with you, Matt, have this conversation. You can cut this up. You can turn this into blogging tunes and every little piece of content you want. Or I can give my eyes a break and start just listening to insights, information, fiction, like you, name it, my mind is able to take me places that I can give my eyes a break from. And it's

Matt Cundill  2:37  
incredible. Tell me a little bit about some of the secrecy, because I encountered that in radio as well, whether it was, you know, from the ad buying side, or even from my program director would say, you know, we're not to share secrets at the bar about what we're doing and stuff like that. I'm like, I just finished a four hour show and told everybody our secrets. So what are the secrets

Greg Wasserman  2:56  
you're taking me back here? I mean, technically, my career, I entered at radio stations, and that's where I got to see the ad sales side of things from the radio standpoint, 20 plus years ago, and that was where every rep was just hovering over like, No, you can't look at my notes, and I can't talk about this. It's just the weirdest concept. I mean, I know you're all kind of competed against the same accounts, but at the same time, shouldn't they become robbery about, you know what I'm going to call on this account? You call on that account. There's enough accounts to go around, and especially in sales, we're all not a good fit, not saying the product's not a good fit, but us individually, I may not be a good fit for calling on this car dealership, for example, right? So there was that secrecy, and then I cut my chops in podcasting, working at CBS radio now Odyssey. And that experience was, how could we have as many reps in every station calling the same buyer and I came in as an acquisition? And so that was incredibly interesting, because I'm used to this open book. I'm not used to having 20 people from the same company calling the same buyer and they're just confused. But that's how the environment was. So for me, it's always been, how do we just share, collaborate? I mean, my motto is, life is about time and relationships. I want to give, I want to support, because they know there's enough to go around.

Matt Cundill  4:22  
You mentioned the podcasting. It's been four years, and I feel like that. You're a salmon who has swum their way up through the radio and into podcasting. But what are some of the legendary call letters of radio stations that you've worked with that some of our audience might know and say, oh, yeah, I know that station.

Greg Wasserman  4:38  
I'm based in LA. So the office I was based out of, was the LA market? Well, it covered the countries, you know, K, rock, K, earth, K and X. It's a news radio. The beast was already gone at that point. Kiss FM, I think maybe, yeah, I don't know. I'm blanking on what the markets were. Now, that was seven, eight years ago,

Matt Cundill  4:57  
and were you there at the time? CBS, which became. You know, intercom. And then, honestly, was there any sort of podcast integration that you got to work with, where it would come into the building and you go, yeah, I think we can sell

Greg Wasserman  5:07  
that. So that's actually how I got into it. So I was part of an acquisition, a company that got acquired by CVS. So when you've got an existing sales team, and then our team coming on board, like, well, we're calling on the same accounts, like, what do I sell? Who do I call on? Because once again, it's the land grab, and that's where I gravitated to podcast. I'm a digital person, so podcasting became like, All right, well, this is influencer marketing in a sense. I'm used to this. And so at that time, Kevin and Bean was K Rock's Big Show. They were doing about 2 million downloads a month, and it was just a repurpose of their four hour radio show, right? And so we were able to go ahead and sell the programmatic and the ads into there. Then we had her whole slate of podcasts. We had saucy Schroeder had her show with us. So is selling that? Perez Hilton, I'm trying to remember it was a girl from the Cosby Show, not Raven, but there's someone else who was launching her podcast, and that's where you started seeing that they had a million followers on Instagram, but they weren't actually able to convert those into users, and they only had 1000 downloads on their show. And it's like because you're not promoting and so you started really seeing this was seven, eight years ago. Just because you have a fake following Instagram doesn't mean you're being able to bring a person to podcast. And so understanding, how do you create content? How do you understand where you can drive a user, but also, how do you engage with them in the platforms they want? And it may not be the million followers you got on Instagram you're gonna be able to convert onto your podcast and listen, because that's something they're interested about. But maybe you can chop up, and they weren't doing this back then. But like, how do we do little clips and chopped it up and put it on your Instagram so that at least you've got a little know how of what your show is. This was then no one was doing that. So I have

Matt Cundill  6:50  
an Instagram sort of graph in my head about what happens when you get an influencer and you give them a podcast, because I built a few over time, and especially around, you know, 2021 when, you know, they couldn't get out as much. They couldn't fly off to those destinations because of the pandemic, to, you know, to shoot on the beach, or whatever it was that they were doing. So we do the first few episodes. The first four episodes just awesome, skyrocketing, great numbers. And then the drop off. And it starts by seven, it's dropping and then you get to around episode 17, and they go, This isn't working. I think we should stop. And I'm like, Nah, you know what? Stick with it a little bit and listen, many would stop, but then around 17 to 20, the train turns the corner, and it starts to take off again. And one of the things that I had to sit down and explain to Instagrammers was, this is a new audience who are here to hear you talk, that love to listen to you. They don't really need to see you on Instagram. This is a new audience that you're developing, and that was hard to explain, and it took me. I went through about two or three creators like that before I began to see that pattern and get them settled down. And you've already touched on this earlier in our conversation. And that's I could watch it, I can listen to it, I can see it, I can feel it, I can read it. So many different ways to do it. So all that to say a very long story, to ask this question, and this is for new creators, are we spending too much time focusing on the camera and not on the microphone? And what is that balance you should do if you're starting a podcast these days?

Greg Wasserman  8:18  
So if I think about the video audio debate that's going on right now. So as of this recording sounds profitable. Just came out with a report with, I think, Signal Hill, talking about YouTube and Spotify and video consumption. And one of the core stats don't remember exact, but it's about 50% think Tom Webster said that we'll watch. So basically consume it on a video, but are only listening to it. Let's put a pin in that component right there, and then let's go to the thought of if what's amazing about podcasting is you can take a break from a screen and just listen, then have this intimate relationship where I can close my eyes and listen to your voice, and you take me on a journey, and I don't have to sit there and watch it. That is incredible. But are you? Are we as hosts, doing a good job on creating that visual? Are we thinking video first, and we're forgetting about the audio, and we're only going, you know what? I'm just going to put that audio out there. It's easy to strip away the audio and I'm just going to put it out on podcast. I'm head relationships for rss.com, so podcast hosting company. So a lot of people will think about, oh, I've got this video. I'm a video podcaster. I'll just take the audio and strip it out. What you really need to be doing is making sure that whatever you are recording and storytelling that you're doing for the audience, and the audience you're speaking to understands whatever it is that they can't see you're talking to them, which is why I always say breaking the fourth wall is a huge thing. How do I bring the audience in? And so if I were to mention that you have a green screen behind you, type, Dale, or your mic is x, way. Me if I'm not painting that picture, so that someone who's only listening to this could hear it and we're having a visual conversation. I just only needed 50% of the audience based on the data there. So I think we really have to make sure we're doing a good job on telling stories. And from a storytelling standpoint, it is the audio. It's not just the video of what people are seeing.

Matt Cundill  10:24  
Yeah, I felt that way the last few podcasts that I've listened to where the creator is really interested in the camera and the pictures that are going on around them. And so, yeah, it's a whole new world out there,

Greg Wasserman  10:37  
and I think that's where I go. So got into podcasting. Talked about it from an advertising standpoint. Then I went and worked for a listing platform, so player, FM, mobile app company, we acquired them, and that's how I got into it. I literally just talked to podcasters all day and understanding, oh, it comes down to packaging. Most podcasters screw up the packaging piece, because we're not marketers in that regards. Next company I worked for was an AI content repurposing engine that really blew my mind, because and I use this story all the time. There's a podcast, courageous podcast, with Ryan Berman, and I tell Ryan All this time I don't listen to your show, I'm sorry. I don't have the 40 minutes to go ahead and dedicate to you every week, but I can't wait for his newsletter every Thursday and what's at the bottom of his newsletter The most recent episode of his podcast. And so he hooks me every Thursday with one to three minutes of reading his newsletter that I probably forward on or I've actually used as content and posted about it, because it's good stuff. So it doesn't matter if I'm not the person who's listening to his show every week. He's getting my engagement. He's getting my time. He's building the know, like and trust so that I can forward that on. So at the end of the day, he's building good content, in this case, a newsletter that I want to forward on and go, Hey, here's someone else that may find on these newsletter, but the content that he's gotten in the podcast discoverability in that regards. And so you have to think about, how are we as creators, as podcasters, thinking about where our audience is, and how do we grow that audience, not just on downloads, and we can go down the whole monetization path of downloads and part of our conversation

Matt Cundill  12:16  
as well. But I want to stick with the packaging. Because, listen, you're a member of sounds profitable. I am as well, great group together. But this is a question that has come up like two or three times, and I haven't quite formulated the response yet, and it has to do with artwork. And people are saying, Is there any data that talks about the artwork for the podcast and whether or not we should have it or not? And it's like, Well, I think the answer is yes, you should probably have artwork. And I think you pointed this out somewhere, just talking about, I can't really sort of draw a line between, you know, the nice packaging on a jar of mayonnaise, but I bought mayonnaise, and I don't know how we're going to tabulate that. So tell everybody why it's so important to have great artwork in your podcast.

Greg Wasserman  12:56  
It's packaging. If I go to the grocery store, let's go to mayonnaise. If I go to the grocery store. It all comes down to packaging, even with just think take away grocery store. Just think about how we as humans, the first thing we do is we look at a person. Are we naturally attracted to them, or what pulls us in? So the same thing can be said about the artwork. What is going to draw me in? What is going to separate you? If you think about how much attention or how many things are vying for our attention, movies, social, newsletters, everything that's out there, people, I mean, books, how am I packaging this? And you can say the quintessential don't judge a book by its cover, which we know is true, and that's where word of mouth or reviews come through. But if it's not going to be able to jump off of you from a page or drive you to want to listen, then you're going to struggle with, how do we have ultimate growth? Look at some of the largest podcasts. Their artwork is something that separates them, whether it's the brand, because the people know who this person is. Take Tim Ferriss. He's been doing this 10 plus years, right? So, and I've had a conversation with another podcast about this, he uses his titles with a number. And I tell every podcaster, that's bad etiquette. You're wasting five to seven characters with starting your podcast title with hashtag number 118, or whatever it may be. How is that going to drive a person to want to listen and click and get them attention? Same thing for the artwork? How do I get a person to actually look at that? And this sounds something of interest, or I know what this show is about, and it's not obscure. And I'm like, this is for me,

Matt Cundill  14:36  
those characters, by the way, those are unsearchable characters, because nobody is looking for episode number 364, of your podcast.

Greg Wasserman  14:44  
And the biggest response people are like, well, that way I can refer to it in my podcast. If you're interested. Go back to Episode 22 where we talk about X, Y and Z. You can literally just say, here's the title of the episode, or go talk about this that's going to be searchable, as opposed to. You said episode 22 you should have those dates, but, yeah, the number reference, fine. Put that in your description that shouldn't be in your

Matt Cundill  15:07  
title. That's a good point, and that's an idea I've come up with too, and that's just make it the first numbers of your description. It's guaranteed to show inside the metadata for your podcast. So another great answer, another great solution. It's

Greg Wasserman  15:21  
interesting. Working for rss.com I continue to see the trend over the last four years is packaging and podcasters trying to figure out, how do I grow my show? And the number one thing I continue to tell them is, get your packaging right, and why is someone going to want to click why are they going to give you your attention if your description is two sentences and have no clue what this is about. If your description, let's say you're a sports show and it's, I'm from Chicago, so it's the we're going to cover the Chicago Bears daily news stories. But why do I care to listen to you? Who are you to be telling me about the Chicago Bears? Why would I go and get it from ESPN or local station. So if you're not including a relevancy of who you are, why am I paying attention? Why am I even giving you my attention? Why do you even get to say, hmm, I want to learn from this person versus anyone else out there. So packaging continues to be a thing that I continue to see people missing on. If

Matt Cundill  16:20  
you want people to listen to your Chicago Bears podcast, you lead like everybody else, and you say, Caleb Williams had a terrible day at

Greg Wasserman  16:26  
practice. Don't say that. Don't say that. One

Matt Cundill  16:30  
of the other little pieces of pushback that I get from packaging is, well, Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper don't use

Greg Wasserman  16:37  
artwork, yeah, but they're brand names, right? Like that. Goes back to my Tim Ferriss one I had the conversation with someone like I was telling him, because he was asking me, how do we grow this show? It's a good show. Why isn't it taking off? And I looked at it and your titles and descriptions are terrible. I listened to an episode like, wow, this is amazing. It should have been cut down from an hour and a half. I don't think it needed to be that long. So there's your first thing like, cut down having better storytelling makes a clearer story, which keeps a person's attention. But he was numbering each episode because he saw Tim Ferriss doing that. I'm like, I get it. It makes sense. But Tim Ferriss A is a name, even before he started podcasting. And b He's been doing it for 10 years. So he can go with hashtag episode 111, and Joe Rogan, because people know the guests that he's bringing on, and they know him. Joe Rogan, same exact thing. I always use Joe Rogan as an example, because if you're a comedian in the 80s grinding in New York, and you are Joe Rogan now. Now you can talk to me, but if every other person who hasn't done it, and so we can say Alex Cooper, like, what did she do to get her contract? From what I've gathered? We can look at it as in some regards, and no, it's going to be, don't shoot me anyone that's listening to this later on. But like, I look at it as kind of oprasque. I never enjoyed Oprah. I would watch her growing up in Chicago. I'm like, how do people like Oprah? But she understood her audience, Middle America. She made her questions simple, and from who she was as a personality, it worked. Alex could be the same exact thing, and someone took a chance. But I'll be honest, I don't know enough about Alex's backstory of what catapulted her to where she is today, compared to the hawk, to girl who just happened to say something on a viral and then was smart enough to bring that into a

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Matt Cundill  19:05  
apps. So there's a documentary out there, and I recommend you watch it. It's in the show notes of this episode. For anybody who does want to catch up, I know exactly who Alex Cooper is. It's a pretty good story. I'll give it seven out of 10, slightly filtered. I don't think I got the whole story, but still a good story. There you go. So this is where you tell me a little bit about downloads. So years ago, it was the downloads was going to be the currency that the buyer and the seller would use to exchange money in ADS. And today, you've got to get me off the download. Get me off this drug called downloads, and tell me what I should be looking at to facilitate a transaction between a buyer and my podcast,

Greg Wasserman  19:44  
you have to know your audience. So it goes back to when I was selling ads to same thing. What can you tell me about this audience? Why does it command the price tag that you're deciding to put on it? So if I want to sell programmatic where you don't. Know exactly the show. You don't know you can put whatever targeting you want in it, but each layer of targeting I put on it was increasing my CVM because, hey, it cost you more if you want to be able to niche down and reach this audience. That makes sense. If I'm going I've got 100 or I've got 1000 downloads. But I know these are 1000 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Why would you be charging a $20 CPM? You're like, I know these are the decision makers. These are billionaire control budgets. Like, whatever the story may be, that's the story you have to be able to tell. So if you're just stuck on downloads and you don't know who your audience is, and it goes further than that, your audience isn't just the only one that's listening, which is why I say, hey, take your content and build your audience across all platforms, which is what I love about podcasting. We can record this. You can chop this up into little pieces that people may only take the clips that you decide to throw out there on social or wherever you want to put it. They can listen to us on wherever they want to listen to their podcast, they can go read it, if you repurpose it that way. Now you've built an audience across all these different channels. That is how you're able to package now it can go to an advertiser and say, Look, this isn't just downloads. Maybe they say, I only want downloads, and that's probably not the right buyer for you. That's one thing I always tell people, if you are only trying to sell one solution your podcast, then you're missing out on all the other audience that you're offering. And so you can go and say, I'll sell this to this person, this to this person, but that creates, then fragmentation your audience, then is confused. Well, if I open up your newsletter, I've got this. If I listen to you there, and if the person's doing both, I'm just confused. So you've got it. Goes back to storytelling. How are you telling the story for the listener? How are you telling the story for your advertiser to your listener, that it's cohesive, that it makes sense, that someone actually believes what you're trying to quote, unquote, sell. Because at the end of the day, most advertisers need some kind of conversions. They're not I mean, we're in a place right now where the brand dollars aren't really funneling into a lot. 90% of dollars are still in meta and Google. So how do we bring dollars into not only podcasting, but the ecosystem of what podcasting is able to

Matt Cundill  22:13  
do? So my very first beer that I had at the London podcast show was with Alberto from rss.com and my first question to him was, when will you be unveiling anything regarding programmatic ads? And he said, You know, it's funny, you mentioned that it should be a couple months away, and now it's out. So rss.com, has got, you know, programmatic ads, so if you're using it, you can now get involved with it. And the best part, I think I like this the most, is you don't have to have 10,000 downloads an episode to do it.

Greg Wasserman  22:44  
Yeah. So what I love about what rss.com, is doing is it's people over profits. And how do we help any podcaster ultimately make money and focus on the effort of growing their show, as opposed to, how do I spend the 30% of my time to try and go get sponsors? Because we know that's literally what my dedicated job used to be. And so now you're asking a podcaster to go ahead and do that. It's like no focus on your packaging, focus on your audio and rss.com. Now allows you to flip of a switch, get in pre roll, mid roll and post roll, and you can start with 10 downloads a month. And so now you can literally start seeing money coming in. Now it's still CPMs, so it's the education of cost per 1000 to podcasters, like, Hold on, why is this only Penny? So it's like, well, you only have x amount of downloads, so of course it's gonna be pennies, but that's still now you can focus on the growth component. And then we have pod biz, which allows you to turn any audio into video, so you can start making audience growth on YouTube in that regard. So you can be audio first. And if everyone's telling you, I need to be in video, but you don't want to be on camera, maybe you have a voice for radio, but not a face for video, right? Great. You can go ahead and do that and least know for free, we'll convert it. So you've got all these different ways that you can start making money, and that's just the start of it. Matt, where we're I'm launching a partnership soon, and then we'll just continue to evolve and provide more monetization solutions for podcasters. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  24:17  
And there's, there's lots of other growth ones out there, monetization solutions. The things I'm interested in that I like, I think the LIVE TAG and podcasting 2.0 I know every time I talk about podcasting 2.0 I can see people click off or hit fast forward and stuff like that. So tell me a little bit about what rss.com, is looking at when it comes to this. What's the company philosophy, and what do you think the future is? And actually, why should any podcasters sort of care about this for the future.

Greg Wasserman  24:42  
So LIVE TAG, I'll actually go a different podcast, 2.0 feature. We're big on the local and location tag because that allows you, if we think about it, and even Adam curry is talking about it, the location tag and local allows you to build a. Hyper local audience. I mean, we've always said in terms of podcasting niches and the riches. So instead of focusing, once again, on downloads, how do we build a local community? How do you build within specific location and that allows you from discoverability? So were rss.com? Is a big fan of the location tag because, let's say you were doing a recording in Podcast Movement in Dallas, you're right location. Tag could be now Dallas. Like, what am I going to learn? What's there? The travel component. But now, if you want to focus on your geographic region, you can start tagging that people can start discovering it, and you can really start getting to the granularity of a community without having to focus on the breadth of a larger audience.

Matt Cundill  25:41  
I'm so glad you mentioned that, and that's, I mentioned live, but you mentioned local. And we've hung around radio stations long enough to know that, hey, we're live and local. It's, you know, the bread and butter of a radio station. But, you know, here's podcasting coming along and trying to grab a couple of those pieces.

Greg Wasserman  25:57  
I think, I mean, some can say, you know, podcasting is kind of an evolution of radio. Think about how many broadcasters have made the move into starting a podcast. I mean, you can even look at Conan O'Brien right, like goes from TV now he's got a massive podcast. And so you've got TV local personalities who've gone down the location piece of, hey, let's start a podcast. So location is a big piece, and it allows any individual to start thinking about, how do I do that in my community, which, when I think about our community@rss.com I'm always telling them, go to live events. We think about, how do you do a live podcast? Well, if you don't want to do it, go to a local bar and say, All right, hey, how about I do a recording here? Like there's so many potential opportunities, especially location tag, that you can really try and success in podcasting with

Matt Cundill  26:49  
what do you think about the video side and RSS? Is that gonna be something that we can move towards, and maybe move our videos away from Spotify and YouTube, or at least add it into RSS?

Greg Wasserman  27:01  
There was a meeting for the podcast Standards Project at Podcast Movement, and the big topic there was about HLS, and how do we go ahead and enable that in host companies like ourselves, which rss.com, is about to do, and then how do we get the listing platforms to offer that which? There's a few that do that right now, but the big one, if we can get Apple on board, that'd be huge. A I believe they're the ones that created it. So if we can get them to implement that as the host, use the Creator, you'll have the seamless ability to listen or watch with the flip of a switch with inside the app. That would be amazing. So I think we're videos going and the fact that we're all recording, you know, over video platforms, that makes it so much easier. I'm

Matt Cundill  27:46  
not going to pretend I know everything about HLS, but the way it's been explained to me is it's going to be, you know, bite sized pieces of the video delivered to you to consume so it doesn't, you know, completely sync your data plan and make your phone go crazy, and where you get a big bill at the end of the month. Think of it as a more digestible way to consume your video content. 100%

Greg Wasserman  28:07  
I mean, from what I gather, apples had video this whole time, but it's been two different feeds. So I've been able to watch a video feed or the audio feed. If I now can have just one feed and I can switch off between those two, that'd be amazing. And that's where I think we're trying to take it.

Matt Cundill  28:22  
We're both members, that sounds profitable. And the big news out of Podcast Movement was that sounds profitable, and Podcast Movement getting together, and I'll just cut to the question you're best suited to answer as a media buyer, and that's what are you looking forward to in 2026 Podcast Movement, this time being in New York City,

Greg Wasserman  28:39  
I mean, biased, I've been saying that I've wanted it back in LA, because I think that was probably the best Podcast Movement, just based in the setting. So I'm curious what New York but I think with all the companies coming together, you got the ad market that's out in New York. And so I know having New York bosses in the ad market and yelling at us here in LA like, why aren't you getting as many meetings as the New Yorkers are? I gotta drive an hour from between meetings. It's a little harder to do. So having Podcast Movement in New York you will have a lot more of those advertising dollars, hopefully being able to attend, which is a good thing, because as an industry, we're trying to bring more dollars into the industry beyond just the two billions that's been quoted, or the 7 billion overall economic impact that people have been saying. I think having in New York will be a good thing, so I'm excited about

Matt Cundill  29:31  
that. Yeah, and I think there's probably a little bit of fear that it's going to be all sessions about ads and ads money all over the place. I know for a fact that is not going to be like that. As a member of sounds profitable, I have discussions every week with them, and they're all about creators and finding different ways to connect creators to the ad money that's out there. That is not necessarily about, you know, ads and CPMs, but about partnerships

Greg Wasserman  29:52  
and rss.com I mean, that's the whole reason we launched paid in our programmatic piece, so we can start getting our creators paid where the seven. Largest hosting company, fourth largest, I believe, in terms of where shows start. So if you think about our platform, a lot of creators are starting with rss.com, so they don't have the massive downloads. So that's why I want to be able to how do I how do I get them dollars? How do I get them building an audience, not just on the downloads, but ultimately, how do they figure out, how do we monetize? And I think that's that's what excites me about this space, is, if you're a creator, there's so many ways that if you package it, have good audio, and you lean into your audience, which a lot of people don't do, that's the biggest thing you're

Matt Cundill  30:36  
on LinkedIn, quite a bit. Mondays, we got podcast recommendations. Tuesdays is give back with Greg, tell me about Mondays and Tuesdays with you on LinkedIn, and why you're finding it so vibrant.

Greg Wasserman  30:48  
So it started four years ago when I was at player FM. I'm talking to podcasters all day, and I would leave my day job, per se, do my normal workout, and then go sit on the couch, and I'm like, listening. I'm talking to all these podcasters. I should probably start listening to their content. And then, well, if they're paying me and my company to promote them, I should probably help them in organically. And that's literally where podcast money came about. I'm listening to all these podcasts. Let's start promoting them. And then it allowed me to start understanding what separates one show from another, or how many shows I struggle recommending and never make the cut because I just can't get through the sound, or it's just not a fit for me. I'll be the first to admit True Crime people, it's not my forte. Doesn't matter if it's TV or audio function. I'm just not the kind of person. Give me a movie maybe, but yeah, that's where podcast Monday is. How do I take a break from the screen? How do I sit here at 11 hours, go work out and not go sit on the couch and just veg, but I can continue to listen. So Monday, it's three different podcasts, which is really funny, Matt, I've been doing that for four years. The image that goes with it has changed a little bit, but the concept has stayed the same for four years. And at the time I always say, you have a recommendation, share, send it. I'm looking for stuff. No one really takes me up on it. So I'm constantly just looking at new ways that I can discover podcasts, which we know podcast discovery is incredibly hard, which is the other reason I decided to do that. And then Tuesdays. My ethos is, life is about time and relationships. I truly tried to have personal connections with most of the people that I'm connected with. You know, call it almost 10,000 people on LinkedIn. I tried to at least know them, because the way my brain works is, you tell me things, I probably know enough people. And so having been unemployed a couple times. It's terrible to try and find a job, or if someone's looking for talent, I got great talent in my network. Let me go and help them. So every Tuesday, how can I help someone either find a job, promote a job or promote an event, and even if they don't get a lot of views, least I know I'm able to engage with my community, my network, because that's the whole point of having one

Matt Cundill  33:02  
for all who want to connect with Greg. It's in the show notes of the episode and on the episode page at soundoff podcast.com. Greg, thank you so much. Say hi to everybody, Mark and Carlos and alberto@rss.com

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  33:14  
the sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor MacLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.