The benefits of being micro famous with Matt Johnson

In this week’s podcast I have an interview with the very lovely Matt Johnson, who is an agency founder, podcaster and author of the book called “Micro Famous”. We talk all about not needing loads and loads of followers in order to be successful, using a niche and understanding who your customer is.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Attention spans are getting shorter – having something in your ear like a podcast whilst you are doing something else works really well.
• You don’t have to have big numbers on social media to be successful.
• Micro famous is being famously influential to the right people.
• You have to decide what you really want – is it about fame?
• More content does not equal more sales.
• The algorithms have put a barrier between content creators and customers so we have to focus on engaging content.
• The three stages of influence – Get Seen, Get Noticed, Get Known.
• The aim is to get linked to the problem you solve.
• Become known for something but only to the people you want to serve – this is easier and faster.
• Ways of finding your niche – Create a new one or speak to an existing one.
• Find what people are right from you and create content that speaks to them.
• If you don’t know how you have got somewhere, you won’t be able to go back and fix it.
• You can’t count on authenticity to grow your business but you can still show up and be authentic.
• Not all forms of visibility are congruent with your expertise.
• Podcasts are brilliant if you sell ideas because your audience can listen and engage with you for a long time.
• Podcasts are also really good if you prefer talking to writing.
• Podcasting creates demand because you can take your audience on a journey – you are their leader.
• Appearing on other podcasts helps to reach new people who are looking for solutions.
• Reach out to other podcasters and pitch yourself.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Find a podcast you can pitch yourself on and just go for it! If you have never done it before, you may be surprised how much you enjoy it and the potential growth to your business.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• An introduction to Matt Johnson 08:02
• Why Podcasting 11:35
• Micro Famous – The Book 16:02
• The Numbers Game 19:20
• How to Build Your Influence 26:05
• Finding Your Niche 29:25
• Being Authentic 32:18
• TikTok for Business 35:51
• The Power of Podcasting 42:50
• How to Get on Other Podcasts 46:30

Transcript below

Hey there and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I hate starting the podcast, honestly. Like I try and find something different to say every time and I can’t, it’s really irritating and I feel like it must be irritating for you to hear me start the same way.

So, yeah. Sorry about maybe that’s how I should start it every time. I just like saying I hate having to start the podcast. Anyway, let me go back to being professional. But it is tough. And if you do a podcast, let me know. I think it’s hard to try and think of something different to say. Anyway, I am batching episodes today.

I’ve been really bad recently, and I don’t mind admitting to you that my head has not been in like a great space in terms of getting work done, because I think we all go through this at times and there’s been so much going on in the world. And I think you have talked about it in a couple of episodes back that I was struggling a bit. But I’m giving myself a serious kick up the backside. And today I am batching three episodes all in one go because then, one I get into the flow of it. It works quicker. It happens easier and ideas do flow. When you batch contents, if you’ve never done it before, I’m sure I’ve done an episode. So I will find the episode and link to it in the show notes, but do go check it out because batching really is helpful in terms of creating content.

And sometimes we do just need to give ourselves a kick out the backside and say, get on with it enough now. So that’s what I’ve done today. And I’m on episode two of three. I’ve got one more to do after this, but this is an interview. So it doesn’t take me that long because of course I’ve already done the interview.

So today’s interview is with the very lovely Matt Johnson and he is an agency founder, podcast, and author of the book called Micro Famous. And we have a really interesting conversation about not needing loads and loads and loads of followers in order to be successful. We talk about the fact of how you can use a niche and really drill down into who your customer is that you suddenly don’t need 20,000 downloads per podcast episode, or you don’t need, you know, 5,000 people to watch a video. That actually you can make just as much money on a hundred people watching a video rather than 5,000 people watching a video.

And we have this really interesting conversation about kind of checking in with our ego. Cause do you know that sometimes? I really genuinely have to do this. I genuinely have to check in with myself because sometimes I will do things because my ego wants me to do them. So I will be invited to speak on a particular stage or a particular location, and I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, totally want to do that”.

And when I look at the business reason for it, There isn’t one. Like the audience might not be my type of audience. I might be getting to go somewhere amazing that I want to go to. But actually from a business point of view, it’s may not be the best use of my time, but it’s my ego going. “Oh, no, but wouldn’t it be amazing to go there or how amazing that these people have asked or how cool that you get to fly somewhere?

Well, how will it look on your social media?” So. This was really interesting. And I think this is such a great reality check for us all to have. When we do stuff, are we doing it for our ego or are we doing it to grow our business. Because sometimes we don’t need to do that thing to grow a business. We can still grow a really successful business without being the Instagram famous person that we think we’ve got to be, or without getting a hundred thousand downloads on a podcast, we can still be successful.

It’s just where your priorities lies in what you’re doing with it. And how you are using that following. So I had a really, really lovely chat. He’s such a nice guy. It was really, really interesting. And we just talked about, you know, how you can become influential to the right people. And I think this is really going to resonate with lots of you, because one of the things I said on the podcast is people get really hung up on numbers and we do, we all do I do, you know, I check my podcast downloads as often as I can tell you, you know, we’re literally a daily thing often. But it’s because we’re all thinking that success comes with numbers and it doesn’t always. We just need to be really clear that that is going to lead to that success, that we don’t necessarily need to have all these millions of people following us or all these people downloading our stuff or watching our stuff or engaging in our posts in order to be successful.

And actually the truth of it is, do you know what some people are? Now I have someone asked to come on the podcast a little while back. And I looked at their social media and on the surface, it looks super successful. They had all the lovely Instagram where the photos, they had, obviously a few photo shoots.

They seem to have a few good few followers on all different platforms. And then I started to dig a bit further and actually there was no credibility behind them. Literally none. I couldn’t find what that business was. I couldn’t see who they’d helped. I couldn’t see like proper testimonials. They talked about them being a speaker.

But when I looked at their speaker stuff, there was not any pictures of them stood on stage. There was no credibility behind it. And the reason I tell you this is not to be mean about someone, obviously I’ve not told you who, so that’s fine. But the reason I tell you this is because it’s easy to, to inflate all those things.

If you want loads of followers, like you could go and buy it, them tomorrow, you know. But what use would that be to anybody? Absolutely none. On, although I wish my Instagram would grow faster than it grows. Although I know I have to work my bum off to get followers and to get people, to listen to the podcast and to get you, you guys, to recommend my podcast, which, you know, I would love it if you could. If you’ve got a friend or two that you could just say, “Hey, you want to listen to this woman. She’s all right on occasions”. And you know, in between her, uh, terrible intros, but, you know, Although I have to work really hard for that. I know that you listening. I know that when, you know, you pick up your, your earphones to listen to this podcast, that you’re totally invested in it rather than, you know, me buying a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and knowing that basically, 97,000 of them or wherever I am at the moment, might 3,000 followers. You know, a pointless. So what’s the point in that? So, like I said, I think this is a really good episode for one reminding you, you don’t need those numbers, giving you an ego check as to are you doing these things and then giving you some actual practical steps in terms of how you can become that micro famous, how you can make sure that you are famous to the right people. So I think you’re going to love this episode. I really enjoy chatting to Matt. He’s a really, really nice guy and I will obviously link up the whole, his stuff in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. And without further ado here he is. So I am really pleased to welcome Matt Johnson to the podcast.

Teresa: Welcome Matt. How you doing?

Matt: I am so good. Thanks for having me.

Teresa: Good, good. We’ve just been having a lovely chat about mapping in San Diego would be one of my favorite places and, and that’s just reminded me that we met each other last year. In San Diego, and it’s just crazy how time flies.

And who you meet when you go to these things. So it’s awesome that we’ve been able to catch up. But Matt in case my audience don’t know you enough to have done an intro, but in case they don’t know you can you just tell us who you are and how you got to doing what you’re doing now?

Matt: Yeah. So the, uh, the, the back of the nap story is I run a podcast production agency, specifically for coaches, consultants, thought leaders it’s a hundred percent done for you. Uh, and, uh, I, I essentially run it in about four hours a week. So we have an amazing team of specialists that do all the work behind the scenes. I just built the system and then make sure that the trains run on time, so to speak. Uh, but I got here, you know, five years ago.

I was just some dude. Working with somebody else’s marketing agency. I got the opportunity to start working with some influencers that were key relationships in the agency. And I started doing Google Hangouts back when that was the thing. And one of the guys that I was doing Google Hangouts with that was getting into coaching in that space called me up one day and just said, “Dude, like we have so much fun doing these Google Hangouts.

Why don’t we turn this into a podcast?” I’m like, it’s “well funny you should say that. Cause I was going to call you up like next week and pitch you on the same idea”. That was five years ago. So, um, we ended up starting a podcast that got named, like the top five in the residential real estate space. We had a blast, it’s got a million and a half downloads.

I still, I took a step back from being the main cohost on that. And so I let my partner kind of run with that. But I still, uh, I still have fun, you know, dropping in whenever I feel like it parachuting in and co-hosting that show and, you know, giving him a hard time. So yeah, that’s a, that’s kind of how I got started.

And then the more I did podcasts and the more podcast I launched as part of my kind of marketing consulting, I realized that that was actually the most effective thing I could do for business coaches and consultants. And so I just dropped all the other marketing consulting stuff and just went deep on podcasting. So now we just do that one thing for one type of person.

Teresa: And how long have you been doing it for? I’m just interested because podcasting seems to have taken a real rise in profile in the past. I dunno, 12 months here in the UK. So when, when did you start focusing purely on the podcasting better?

Matt: I started the podcast in 2015.

I probably didn’t focus on running it as an agency and told the end of 2016. Um, I was a big fan. I like I got into Adam Carolla’s podcast. Within like six months of him starting, it would have been like 2010. If I hadn’t had that foundation of being like a fan, almost a super consumer of podcasts, I wouldn’t have thought about it either. Because yeah, it wasn’t getting a lot of attention in the agency where I used to work.

Like I said, we did like Google Hangouts and stuff, and webinars were still big, but yeah, podcasts, there was like, I think two or three. Podcasts in our space up until that point now there’s probably there’s somewhere between 50 and a hundred, maybe even more than that. So yeah, it’s, it’s definitely the numbers have exploded and the attention that it gets like on the national stage has exploded. But I haven’t to be a fan way before that.

Teresa: I find that really interesting recently, you know, because here in the UK we have the BBC and the BBC are really pushing podcasts, heavy. Every kind of celebrity comedian, whoever is now starting a podcast as well. And it’s like, I don’t know about you, but it’s like some jumping on our bandwagon. Like you go and stick to your TV, like leave our podcast alone.

It’s competitive enough anyway, where have you lot there we did a big production and all this sort of thing. So it’s just really interesting. I don’t know. Why do you think that is? And I know we’ve, I’ve bullied on here cause you’ve got book and I want to talk about some of the concepts around the book, but why do you think we like podcasting when we have video and live video and Instastories? I just find it fascinating.

Matt: I just, I think there’s something. Special and different about something you can listen in your ear while doing something else. I don’t know about you, but like when I’m, if I’m not hanging out with somebody, if I’m just alone, I can’t even watch a movie anymore. I can, I can do sitcoms to an extent, but, but you find yourself like, even then, like reaching for your phone, scrolling through Instagram, you know, like I can sit for a couple of hours if I’m by myself and I can go from one YouTube video to another if they’re interesting, but I think just the, the short attention spans with video.

Uh, is getting shorter. And so the idea that people are just going to sit there and watch a half hour show, unless it’s something really, really good. Uh, I think our attention spans are just getting shorter, but when we can have something in our ears and we can still be doing something else that occupies a different part of our brain, that combination actually works really well.

So like, if you dig into the numbers behind the scenes and I’m sure you’ve done this on Apple podcast, once they started tracking how much people listen to a podcast episode, You’re shocked, like people are listening to 80, 90% of a podcast episode. Like on average, we’re not talking about the super fans.

We’re just talking about the average. So it’s insane how much people will sit there and listen to 80% of you talk for 45 minutes. There’s literally no other, there’s almost no other content where people would do that. There’s definitely no other marketing medium, like good luck getting somebody’s attention for 45 minutes on a Facebook live.

I do it by the way on my real estate show. And it’s hard. It’s a really, really hard, and we don’t get any favors with Facebook anymore on live video.

Teresa: Yeah. And I think for me, you hit some exactly. It’s the fact I can learn. Do something at the same time. I hate wasting time. It’s a huge frustration to me.

So if I’ve got to drive somewhere, if I even, so every morning, I. Put this ridiculous microphone every day. It takes me a long time, but hours get ready every morning, every morning. That’s what I do. I listen to podcasts. I listen to audible because it’s this inane activity that I have to do that I don’t have to think about.

That is like second nature to me now. And it’s like, the fact that I can, I need to do that because it’s awesome on current time. But the fact that I do that, and then I can learn is just amazing. And for me doing a podcast, I like the fact that, and I’ve talked about for other podcast but someone is listening to this and I am in their ears right now.

You know, it’s so personal, it’s so, and when you do it authentically and when you do it naturally, which took me some time to find my, my space and how I felt about it and to get over the hang-up of it needs to be perfect. And I can’t say hmm and I can’t make a mistake. And whereas now I literally, I was going to say, I just put add the old rubbish, hopefully very authentic because that’s how signed if I was talking to you, if we were on the phone. And you know, whoever’s listening to this now, if, if the three of us were having a conversation, that’s how it signed. So for me, I like the authenticity and I like the personal touch a bit. Whereas like you said, on a video, I tried to watch, uh, cause we’re out of time. My daughter was here. I was doing way too much work.

As I said, we’ll do something. Let’s watch a film. She said she put a vendor’s end game on. I mean, we’re not talking a five-minute film, are we? Geez, man. And I literally find myself every 20 minutes, like, Oh, should I make a drink? Oh, do you want some popcorn. Oh, I’ll just check on someone and say, Oh, I’ll just do this.

I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t sit there. It was insane. But yeah. Anyway, so for me, I love the podcasts. I think podcasts brilliant. And the fact that you’ve been doing for such a long time, kind of crazy, cause it feels like now everyone’s doing.

Matt: I know, I felt like I was late to the game in 2015. And then you get, yeah. Then now I’m somehow magically transformed into an OG podcasting, which is like, especially in my original space and real estate.

Yeah. It’s very weird. Yeah. Cause there’s so many new podcasts that have come out since then that they look up and go, like I’ve had people come on to my podcast and go, Oh man, I started my podcast because of you. I’m like, how long have I been doing this?

Teresa: What episode do you on?

Matt: I don’t track them. I have no idea. 300 and something. Yeah. Like at one point we were doing two and three episodes a week. I’d put out so much content. It’s insane.

Teresa: I love it. I love it. And I do like that when you’re like, what if see Jordan is like a hundred and something it’s like, that is a long time, man.

Matt: I was doing...