224 – Knucklehead mistakes can make you successful: Tom interviews Stephen Colon

Episode 224 – Stephen Colon
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode two hundred and twenty four of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm on with Stephen Colon. He might be the most dangerous person in podcasting. I mean, rather than sling courses for moms in yoga pants to talk about non VAT. What is that baccy or vaping or I don't know what it is. Non-vaxing or dudes chatting about how the earth is really flat and how much they love Joe Rogan, while they're eating elk meat and wear and t shirts two sizes too small. He's he's committed to helping businesses leverage the power of their voice to bring dead leads to life. So I'll introduce him to you in a minute. All right. So I hope you didn't miss episode 223. It's one of my Monday training sessions. It was on online publicity. Every Monday, I do a session, a training session on something that's made me or saved me a lot of money. And this one was about how I've been on radio and TV all over the world and what it's meant for my business. So hope you didn't miss that episode 223, which is also my AR15 caliber. So we've got that covered too. Now grab a copy of our free automation e-book. This just one of the tips in this book saved me. Seven and a half million keystrokes, folks. And by the way, just the other day I interviewed the young geek who just sold his last company for three hundred and forty million dollars after selling another one for six million in the first one for a million and a half. And he gave me a lot of the things that were in this book back in the late 90s, and I'm still using them today. So you get them for free. So check it out at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're at it, grab a copy of our podcast app. It's in the app store and we've got complete instructions on how to use it because it'll do all kinds of cool stuff on your cell phone and tablet. So screwthecommute.com/app and you can get a copy of that. And by the way, this is episode 224. Anytime you want to go directly to an episode, which I know you will, because after you hear Stephen, you'll want to check out all his stuff. You go to screwthecommute.com and then the episode number slash 224. All right. Our sponsor's the Internet Marketing Training Center in Virginia. It's a distance learning school which teaches legitimate techniques to make a great living, either working for someone else or starting your own online business or both. And this what I teach was the genesis of how this young man I just mentioned came up through the ranks and sold his business for $340 million. So so check that out at IMTCVA.org. And if you happen to be in the military, put a slash military. We give big scholarships for military, law enforcement and first responders and we're cleared by the Department of Defense for a military spouses scholarship program, because most of them are women. But there's plenty of guys out there that are also military spouses. So check that out. IMTCVA.org/military.

[00:03:56] Let's get to the main event. Stephen Colon leverages a process for internal teams to follow and companies to use. It was built with over 13 years of professional leadership and sales development and eight plus years of small business ownership, where he worked with companies on change management, engagement and strategic alignment to their business objectives. Now he now owns and operates a podcast production agency known as Knucklehead. And I was fortunate enough to be on the flagship show, the Knucklehead podcast, because he said, Hey, I heard you're a real knucklehead. Can you come on the show? Sure. Why not? So, Stephen, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:47] I sure am. I appreciate you taking the time to set the table like that. And I don't know whether to thank you or hang up following somebody who sold their business for three hundred sixty million dollars.

[00:05:00] No. Three forty three forty. But what's a few 20 million among friends?

[00:05:05] Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, no, no. Absolutely, I'm I'm I'm ready to I'm ready to do exactly what you just said. So thanks for having me on the show.

[00:05:13] Yeah. My pleasure, man. So tell tell everybody about what you're doing now and then we'll take you back and see how you came up through the ranks.

[00:05:20] Very good. So I run a podcast production agency that's coupled with professional services. Obviously, the digital marketing disciplines that that you preach in that you talk about, we we help small businesses who essentially their subject matter experts at doing what they do and doing what they do. Well, right. So they they they want to they want to reduce their their costs by offloading a lot of the the hard to automate, hard to replicate and then hard to get to know how to do well, tasks like e-mail marketing, some social media management but more so email marketing and distribution of content to explain what it is that they do and really bring more customers to their door. We want to make it easy for folks to to know what it is that what product or service that our clients do. So there is a clear differentiator out there in the market. Typically, it's the content that's the biggest separator in today's world. But the way that things are being consumed.

[00:06:20] All right. So your agency. I mean, there's lots of podcast agencies. All right. Sure. Yours is different, though. I mean, when I heard you talk about what yours does, it's quite a bit different. Tell us about it.

[00:06:32] Well, we our process, I believe, is the biggest differentiator. We we we believe that people have been able to find, quite frankly, just they've been able to find products or services that they like through through either social media or some type of digital form. And that digital pathway, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel well, we just found is why don't replicate either the words, the processes, the oceans and just a similar a similar doorstep, so to speak, or actually a similar pathway on helping to replicate and helping digital leads come to your doorstep easier. So we call it bringing dead leads to life simply by allowing somebody whose human voice to tell folks the best way to do business with them. There's a podcast. You meet the podcast listening market just in the US alone is I mean, it's unbelievable how much it's grown, but the sophistication on how those tools interact and how they're being used, they're small businesses that essentially are just leaving money. They're just they're leaving money on the table by not leveraging what they're already doing on a day to day basis, recording it and putting it into a Rolodex to allow it. When I say it, Rolodex, some kind of date myself a little bit here. But I've be a digital podcast directory to allow people who already listen to podcasts who want to be agitated. And we leverage that that that just that need out there in the marketplace to to be a differentiator for for folks on the business development side.

[00:08:04] So you're actually open set it up with equipment, everything, right?

[00:08:07] Yeah. I mean, there's there is a little bit of a learning curve associated with how do you want to fine tune your audio? What's that? Do you want to have it as a controlled environment? What type of show do you want to have? What type of listener are you going after regardless of after you've built a show? What how do you analyze your audience? And then how do you how do you create a pathway for those who actually like and enjoy your show to be a what I call become an advocate for your brand and being out there talking about it, which I'm sure you have with a lot of your, you know, screw the commute folks that you've had on a podcasts before.

[00:08:38] We call them screwballs.

[00:08:40] Is that what you call them? Well, what's interesting about that is, is I'm sure folks can almost take pride in being called that they exist. Like, you know, there's a there's a great business called barstool sports where people take pride in being a stoolie. And if you go from one city to the next, I'm sure that you can as soon as you say stoolies, somebody else knows exactly what that is.

[00:09:02] You got knuckleheads.

[00:09:05] You go to a certain extent, we we we believe that the human element. It's just it's a it's a pejorative way to say that everybody's every human race screws up. And quite frankly, I just I get I get tired of listening to folks who always seem to have a always seem to have the perfect tailored solution to solve any problem that exists out there. And quite frankly, there's not one of us that's got this all figured out. Some of us probably do it a little bit better than others. So what we found is if there's already an existing pathway that your customers have, they've already found you. Then why not go back in and communicate with those existing folks and leverage the same words, similar emotions, and put it in a Rolodex and allow other folks who haven't heard of you yet. The fact that you actually have a podcast now, that's a big, bigger differentiator. But the fact that you have a custom tailored, highly produced professional podcast that's managed for you in conjunction with the equipment. All the sudden, you have a leg up over all the other podcasters that are out there. I reference, you know, moms and yoga pants talking about non vaxxers, murder, murder mysteries. You know, somebody who's got a microphone in their mom's basement talking about. Sports betting for that matter. I'm talking about a professional service, a plumber, a technician, a ward worker. In some cases, you know, health care, technology businesses, tax consultants. This the same rule applies. You can leverage your human voice and speak, you know, just pipe your message directly into the ears, of a non engaged audience and bring those leads to life.

[00:10:42] Yeah. And there's there's there's no question that I mean, literally within 30 minutes from now, you could be on the air with the podcast, but say it right on your cell phone without a microphone. But it would be crap and it wouldn't build any credibility with you. So that's the first thing. So you want to do it. If you're going to do it, do it high quality because, you know, people will put up with bad audio, but they won't put up excuse me, bad video, but they won't put up with bad audio. They can't hear it clearly. And they're used to hearing stuff like my show and all the other big shows. And in the they they want to. Your credibility will be bad if your audio is bad. So that's the first thing. Second thing is with the market you're going after with people that are in business and have products to sell. You don't have to have a hundred thousand downloads to make a fortune with this. I mean, I never you know, the people that are just going for a sponsor, which means they get maybe 12 to 15 dollars for every thousand downloads. That's just peanuts because it's not easy to get a thousand downloads for an episode. So. So it's if you have your own business and you have your own products, you don't need thousands and thousands of downloads per episodes to start turning this into a lot of money pretty quick.

[00:12:05] I mean, it's I mean, the thought process here, Tom. It's real simple, right? I mean, you're you're sitting in you're in your office, right? You're recording got two German shepherds there. So anybody who's thinking about the bright idea of coming over, you know, thinking that they're going to get the jump on Tom. The idea here, though, is, is every product or service that exists in the marketplace, regardless of where you are, regardless of geography. The reality is the consumer market, whether they're in business or they're actually a true consumer, they've got a cell phone. They are literally carrying their remote control for their life in their pocket. So my question my question is, is what's your plan to be relevant? Now, all of a sudden, all this SEO and all the ad dollars that go towards written text automation and written text search relevancy shifts towards voice. All the infrastructure that's going to exist in just a few years. Your little business that sits there on the corner of Main and first, how are you gonna be relevant to the marketplace if right now you're not even prepared to speak into a microphone to show that you have competencies about what product or service you're selling?

[00:13:12] Yeah, we just yeah, we just had to do a separate episode. Our first episode because it was the biggest mistake people make is not knowing their keywords. So that was episode one, but episode one hundred and thirty was about voice search because things have changed. I mean we did a promotion two weeks ago Stephen and ninety six point eight percent we're on cell phones, ninety six point eight, you know. So you've got to pay attention to that. The mobile market and they're listening mostly.

[00:13:43] 100 percent. And not only that, I mean, it's not what you hear a lot of times as folks are talking about. Well, what's the conversion rate? I mean, how many how many episodes do you need in order for somebody to monetize a show? And so my my question is, unless you have a product or service, what why are you talking about monetizing a show? You don't know how to monetize yourself without a show first. Yeah, that's what I. That's what that's what I hear a lot of. So my you know, my my start was you know, I was in a former life. I used to build sales teams. And I still have aspirations, too. I enjoy mixing it up with folks and talking to people on sitting in the sales tension that exist across the desk from an executive who understands that there's a product or service that I have or I'm representing that they need. Right. And there's a pain that they're experiencing that I can provide a solution for. I love that transaction. However, there's a significant amount of legwork behind the scenes that has to get you to that table. And in a former life, that's that's what I used to do. I used to build teams around replicating that environment. And so what happens is, is is not everybody plays to. Not everybody plays in that in that same game. Sometimes they're very interested in organizing pillows or or, you know, processes administration in the back office and playing the political games. That's just not what I did as a revenue leader, as a sales leader, as a as a leader in general when it came to business. So we don't always speak the same language. HR And sales. And so I had a run in with an H.R. director where, you know, I wasn't it wasn't any fault of hers or mine. It just was happened the way that it did. She wasn't being honest. And so when I confronted her about it, I texted my wife exactly how I felt about this person, it turns out. Turns out I was texting, texting the H.R. director instead of my wife. So needless to say, needless to say, it was what I call a knucklehead moment. And and that was that was the genesis behind Knucklehead podcast. And, you know, I'm sure I'm not the only one that's out there that that feels this almost disdain towards folks that seem to kind of fall through the cracks, so to speak, they're one way in front of one person and a different way in front of somebody else. And it happens all the time in interpersonal, you know, in our office relationships. And I just I just I just got tired of it.

[00:16:16] I see it all in the professional speaking world all the time, which I've been immersed in for twenty five years. And somebody is on stage and they're all one thing. And then off the stage, they're completely different. Where me. You get the same thing if I'm standing there talking to you or standing on stage. And you know, there's a lot of lot of that goes on. Let me take you back. Were you an entrepreneurial kid?

[00:16:41] That's a good question. That's a good question. I was I was a I mean, I grew up, you know, better than a lot of kids, but I I grew up kind of a, you know, displaced kid, so to speak, at got beat. I mean, we're not going to air out of a lot of dirt. I got beat up a lot. Whatever I was growing up. But people should know. And my. There's a special place in hell for folks like that. That's that's kind of what I had to overcome and deal with. And then, you know, what I what I saw in terms of examples out there, because I wasn't necessarily finding the male role models that I was looking for. Growing up. What I found was, is there was this this kind of hero character that existed in stories that caught my attention and and then also business owners. They seemed to kind of have this larger than life presence. And so they they really left a significant impression on me. One in particular comes to mind as a. Is a really. He was. He was he was a doctor who invested in a restaurant up in Lincoln, Nebraska. And the fact that he could not be a restaurant owner full time. He was a doctor and he was making an investment in a business. You know, there I was, a young twelve, thirteen 14 year old kid trying to bus tables and bust my tail. I just wasn't enamored by the fact that he ran a business. And I you know, I went and picked fruit at the apple orchard for another buddy of mine his dad was. He sold wood to to China. It was a brand and an apple orchard. And so I had just south of Hickman, Nebraska, just north of first in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. Really. And I remember weeding weeds out of Strawberry Fields and just picking apples. And just in that that salt of the earth, the work ethic. What that led me to believe is if you're willing to work, whether you work for somebody else or you work in sales, you can make something happen. And so if you're if you're not where you want to be from a financial standpoint, then you've got to look at something there and be real honest with yourself. And that's a very difficult thing to do in today's culture, where it's very easy to be blaming and victim. And that's just not that's just not how I grew up. And I'm not saying that I've never felt that way because I certainly have been a victim. But at the same time, you have. You have a choice on whether or not you want to be a victim and continue to perpetuate that that that thought process. Or do you want to face those circumstances head on and in really swallow your pride and your ego and and just shut up and go to work. And that's really that's really what how I grew up and the examples that I that I sought after for folks that I respected. And those are the examples I tried to follow.

[00:19:23] Boy, it falls on some deaf ears now, those with people being so entitled. And, you know, you look at them funny and those they're crying and want therapy dogs.

[00:19:35] I mean, it's I understand the you know, the lack of engagement or the lack of, you know, for instance, if there's a if I was a quarterback in the NFL. Right. And I. And my name was not Tom Brady or when my name was not Drew Brees. And I'd probably get pretty butt hurt if if I wasn't elected selected the Pro Bowls. However, the idea is just because that's the standard doesn't mean that you can't crave out your own niche and go make it happen for yourself. And and I think that, you know, it gets lost on people sometimes that life's supposed to. Well, first of all, it's hard and it's not fair. And if it's hard and things aren't going your way and you don't feel like it's fair, then good. That's exactly the way it is. So that's you know, and that's and that's a difficult pill to swallow when you're responsible for for providing for not all of your family, but providing for your future and providing for your future family. And that's the greatest that's the thing that's incredible about the United States is as we have, we don't have to. We don't have to fight the same type of battles where freedom doesn't exist in other parts of the world. So that's that's one of the things I'm most thankful for, that I was that I was born here, that I get to grow up here and I get to raise a family here.

[00:20:55] And this is the best place in the world, to start a business. I mean, it's easy to do. Doesn't mean you always should if you know, you need to prepare and get knowledge and everything, but there's no barrier to what you can achieve here. So that's a beautiful thing. So. So how do people actually work with so let's say a prospect comes to you? How does it go? How does it work?

[00:21:22] Hey there's your new puppy. What's the dog's name?

[00:21:27] We have a new puppy named Texi. So Texi's out there barking. So just she's saying she's saying, hey, hold on for just one second. So you may hear some road noise in the back. I'm out back in the freezing 45 degree temperature in Dallas, Texas now. But I am telling you that the way that out so we had our process works is is relatively simple. We we conducted a discovery call. Right. And that discovery call it essentially I just want to I want to sit down and understand why you have a Web site, but you don't have a way for folks to actually consume more of you. And in most cases, somebody does not have a podcast. They have a blog. They have some competency in terms of a social media channel, but they may not necessarily have a comprehensive strategy on how all of those things are connected. And so what we do is we just conduct a real simple analysis. It doesn't take a whole lot of legwork. You just go to somebody's social media channel and you search for them online. And then once that once that essentially discovery is made, I actually invite them on to the show and I ask them to share their experiences with my largest military entrepreneurship audience with Knucklehead. And if they if they choose to, then they know that they're also going to get pitched for Knucklehead Media Group. And at the same time, it provides people an opportunity to tell their story and talk about the things they experienced, the screw ups, the mistakes, failures. And those are the things, quite frankly, that lead to the successes that we're looking for anyway, where everybody else on social media and all those other channels that I just discussed, they want talk about how great they are and also they are. I don't care about that. And here's my audience. What we care about is we care about how did the things that you screwed up and messed up and how did that lead to the success that you're looking for? Because we want to hear those stories. Those are the ones that you don't hear about all the time.

[00:23:29] And, the truth be told the most successful people have screwed up the most. That's the truth.

[00:23:36] It's the dirty little secret that it's the hairy monster that nobody wants to really talk about a whole lot. So to answer your question, that's what we do. And so we storyboard out your first initial few episodes. We don't. We don't get into the weeds in terms of descriptions, titles or themes until we actually have an opportunity to talk to some of your customers. So your customers essentially will give us the framework on how your your distribution strategy should go. And when I say should go, I'll be specific. So, you know, we had a we had a a tax specialist come to us and talk to us a little bit about the product or service using the service that they offer. They offered some some informational product type type things as well, which they still you know, they still sell on their site, which which is fantastic. But the bulk of the folks that we're most sold out to their service and that individual, really what they were trying to tell, what they were trying to tell them was we don't know how to keep the IRS as hands off our money. So we named as podcast Hands off my money. And every every every every you know, every podcast episode is a how to manage. And it's specific honed in on the niche that he's going after. So it's a it's a business development tool for him to have a sales type conversation in a podcast form, literally training material for other folks that are in that same business on how to avoid the pain that can be dealing with the IRS.

[00:25:07] Well, that's for sure that about. There's a big, big demand for that in the world.

[00:25:13] So that's that's just that's just one example. There's another example of health care technology business that we're working with here, that we're producing two new shows for them. We're one of the shows there's more of a leaderships leadership specific kind of a. A, I don't want to say lack of bureaucratic administrative process. It's just more of here's the things that we wish we would have done better. Leadership podcasts in the healthcare I.T. space. And then at the same time, we're also producing a separate show for them where somebody who's who's in the industry, they're sponsoring the show, too, to talk about. All the innovative and pains that come with innovation in the healthcare space and what they're doing is they're doing two things there. They're establishing their brands. But at the same time, they're also letting folks know who experienced those same pains that they can help solve them. So it's kind of a Trojan horse strategy in a way. And, you know, we we yeah. And we want to help make sure that those words that folks who are searching for those types of topics are relevant. And in that podcast, gets found. So that's a competency that we help consult and then we help execute and work. Soup to nuts all the way down to a type of microphone that they're using.

[00:26:28] Perfect, perfect, perfect. OK. So we've got to take a brief sponsor break and we come back. We're going to ask Stephen how the dogs are doing and then how how a typical day looks like for him. So, folks, do you know what colleges and universities are doing? I mean, according to gradeinflation.com, they're raising grade point averages to make it look like they're doing a better job of teaching when there's a mountain of evidence that they aren't. So I created a really eye opening higher education webinar. You can go to screwthecommute.com/webinars and it'll potentially save yourself or your loved ones. Or maybe you got friends or neighbors or, you know, nephews, nieces that are thinking about higher education. And you really should take the time to watch this. Now, be prepared to be mad when you watch this, because when you see the things they're doing by raising the rates and the books, costs are outrageous for no reason, then all kinds of things these universities are doing to you might not want to mortgage your house over over this. And especially when the study showed that the average student they did two thousand students in bunch of different colleges, the average student is spending eight hours a week total on preparing for class and attending class the rest of the time is eating, partying and shopping. Again, I don't know if I'd want to mortgage my house for that. So check that out. And if we can help you to get a really high demand skill in six months or less, I mean, we've got people making money after a month just being in our school. So so check it out at IMTCVA.org and I'd be glad to talk to you about your future with an online business. But watch that webinar over at screwthecommute.com/webinars.

[00:28:24] Let's get back to the main event. Stephen Colon's here, the guy with a Knucklehead podcast and the agency that helps people start their own podcast. So, Stephen, what's a typical day look like for you?

[00:28:37] Good question. My morning starts about 5:00, 5:30. Get up, get up. Put on the coffee pot, watch a video a long time ago about takes about eight to 10 minutes or so to brew a big cup or shoot me a big thing of coffee. And so I try to do as much stretching or mindfulness as I can during that ten minutes, because not soon after by not very far after my my two boys, eight, five, get up out of bed, tearing from one end of the house. And now we have a little puppy involved here. Texi has to go outside. And so essentially we start the morning as close as we can as a family. I want to start to develop those relationships. You know, my son, who's eight, has a has a candy business that's here in Rockwall. Talk a little bit about about, you know, go into checking his candy businesses and making sure that his candy levels in each one of those each one of those candy machines are good. Or do we need to spend some extra time on homework tonight or are we going to go to his sports practice or whatever the case may be. So we kind of orient our calendar for the evening in the morning, and then and then I you know, after I take him and drop him off to school, two things will happen. I'll go down to my. I do have to do with the commute from time to time. I actually have to go go in to my clients offices from time. I I prefer I prefer to to do it remotely. However, it you know, in today's connected community, it is what it is. Sometimes you've got to go on site. And so that is my my typical day where I will depending upon what the schedule called for the day before and what my client schedule is like, I'm either onsite at my client's producing that new shows or producing content or helping them with their helping them with execution of their strategy. Or I'm working remotely with our team on either post-production work, editing material, making sure that everything's flowing or dealing with leads prospects or being on podcasts. And then my wife who's who's in sales, she works remotely also. So I'm trying to do this the whole time without driving her crazy. So it's it's it's it's a ton of fun. I I enjoy. I enjoy what it is that I do. I enjoy talking with and talking with people on a daily basis about the things that they want to talk about. Which is which is what a podcast is just to record a conversation. And then I try to work out at least three or four times a week to keep my weight in check. I was a Marine college athlete, so I know I don't like carrying around extra extra weight one because health is a big priority. It's one of our core family values. But at the same time, I guess I'm just one of those weird guys who can't shut my brain off. So I got to go do something on a treadmill or pick heavy things up and put heavy things down, though.

[00:31:30] So how does everybody get in touch with you?

[00:31:33] That's a good question. So I am available via email. I don't always respond to emails. As Tom knows, it takes me a few days to get back in touch with with you. It's not it's not it's not intentional. But I try to respond every 24 hours to email. And to be to be perfectly frank, the best way to get in touch with me is whatever social media channel you opt out. You you you chat on, I'll get back with you relatively quickly there. Emails. It's about 24 hours or so for me to get back voicemails. I tried to return the same day. And and you can get in touch me on our Web site knuckleheadpodcast.com or our agency site is is actually going live knucklehead.agency as far as our site there. So you can go watch a video if you want to find out a little bit more about what our process is like and how to get in touch with us or Instagram knucklehead podcast, Twitter at Knuckle Pod or Facebook at Knucklehead Media Group LinkedIn Knucklehead Media Group. Those are the best ways to get in touch with us.

[00:32:34] We'll have all of them and in the show notes so they can just click on them and go right over to us to see you. All right. Well, so thanks so much for taking the time to give us a little insight into your business there, into your life. You know, you've built quite a nice lifestyle business there, and that's what we're all about here. So thanks for coming on.

[00:32:52] I appreciate it, Tom. Thank you.

[00:32:53] All right. Catch ya later.

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