Dan: Hey, what's going on everyone. This is Dan Bennett, the antique Brunner. And this is the Antipreneur show ever since episode 50, you know, I've, uh, switched it up just a little bit and we're going a lot more with interviews now. And of course, an newer style, you know, we're interviewing people who are doing it their own way, crushing the status quo and by the looks of today's guest, rich Butler, having some fun.

Well, they're doing it. A lot of color. You get your hands on. A lot of fun things. Editor-in-chief of rage works that net founder of rage works podcast network, host of toys and tech of the trade podcast, which has over 50 episodes. If you guys want to go check it out and gobble some of those up and even just watch a really cool unboxing of a GI Joe.

Statue. I'm a sucker for an unboxing and especially one that's in like a genre I'm not in or not super familiar with because I get to absorb the passion of someone else getting their hands on something. Cool. Uh, that was a high level. We're going to dive in, but rich say hello to the people and feel free to share anything you want with this.

Richard: What's going on folks. Thanks for having me, Dan. I'm glad to actually sit down and chop it up with you. Um, as being someone in the underdog community alongside you and seeing you. Um, it's inspiring to see how much work you've put in, and I'm glad that I can sit down and share a snippet of my story with you and your audience.

Dan: Hey, I appreciate it, man. And everyone listening and or watching knows that stories at the heart of everything I do. And it's what makes I think podcasting fun, getting a glimpse into someone else's life and work. Um, so one of the first thing I'm going to tell. Well, we don't have to get too heady with it, but you get your hands in a lot of things instead of Y and I want to break down just a little bit what that's like, how you balance it all.

I've often had to tackle the question of like, you know, why, why don't you just pick something and run with it? And I'm like, cause I'm good at a lot of stuff, leave me alone. So, so, uh, yeah. How do you keep it all balanced? And does anything take precedents or what does that look like? You. You

Richard: know, it's, it's interesting because when I started on this journey, I started just as a consumer of podcasts back in 2006.

And at the time it was a new medium, it had just popped up on apple iTunes. I had, you know, the big scroll wheel iPod, I thought. Just revolutionary at the time that I can hear all these different unfiltered voices that just talked about all kinds of stuff. And I just ran through the genres, just trying to find things.

I'd be like, Um, being here in New York and enjoying talk radio, you know, you had guys like Don Imus, Howard stern, Opie, and Anthony. Um, if you listen to hip hop, you had like star and Buckwild on hot 97. So you had a semblance of talk radio, but you always knew that because of FCC and, and certain things personalities couldn't really, really come through.

I mean, Howard stern. He changed the tone of that over the years. But in general, you had to kind of be a caricatures of your true self podcasting allowed you to be completely free. And if you wanted to have blue language, if you wanted to tackle certain subjects, nothing was off limits. And that's what really got my attention.

So at the time, um, a group of guys were doing a podcast called a video game news radio out of Cleveland, and they were talking about video games, but it was in such a way that it wasn't very. Um, over the top and professional and, you know, w mired in journalism, it was just a bunch of guys sitting around doing shop, talk about video games.

And I thought it was cool. So I started consuming their content, uh, interacting with them. Next thing you know, Hey, you want to call into a show? One day, knew nothing about it, downloaded Skype. And, uh, I was on a few shows and they were like, man, you really have a knack for this. And I'm one of their listeners, I'm a Canadian fellow named Blaine.

He was like, man, I'm going to do a podcast. Would love to have you on and get a little bit of that, that New York vibe. And I was like, sure, man, you know, whatever. And, um, I did it and same thing. He's like, man, you should really do this man. You know about a bunch of stuff you play in a bunch of different sandboxes.

I think it'd be cool. So next thing you know, I'm like, Hey, let me give it a. You know, I was I'm 26. I was working a pretty decent job. I had a lot of dispensable time just because I'd come home from work and, you know, watch TV, play video games. I was like, Hey, what the hell? So start recording. Next thing you know, you know, an hour turned into two, turned into three, I'm doing podcasts, talking about, you know, things.

I was into MMA wrestling, video games, entertainment, and it just, it just became one of those things that was incredibly. Only problem was you were speaking into the void and there was no way to quantify if anybody was listening, not listening, et cetera. So I got a little burned out and in 2009, I came across a service called blog talk radio, and that changed the game for me because it was a service that allowed you to have a call-in vibe.

You'd have a call in number. You could have somebody actually screening the guests like a terrestrial radio station, and you could do a completely liable. And that changed everything because we had live chat. We had listeners calling in, we had guests on a consistent basis and it just, it just really gave me a shot in the arm.

Did that for 400 episodes, complicated my life by adding a video component as well. And the funny part was I was broadcasting from 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM. So it kind of had that late. Uh, talk radio vibe, which was fun. You know, we got to be free with what we talked about, how we spoke about things and the, but the crazy part was we would finish the show at two, I would start editing at two 30.

I'd edit till four, go to bed, wake up at seven 30, get dressed, go to work. And I was doing this once a week and over time. As my girlfriend later, my fiance was being in my house more and we were spending more time together. I'm like, you know, this, this, you know, she'd put on headphones or she'd put on earplugs and go to bed while I'd record.

And I'm like, man, this is just not it. And I said, all right, I'm going to split the show into two days instead of one day. So we did two 90 minute shows, same thing live, et cetera. But by the time I got to 400, man, I just reached a point where it just stopped being. And when it stops being fun, you gotta hang it up because people can see right through you, especially in this particular space that we're in.

People know when you're genuine and when you're phoning it, it comes out really easily. So in the midst of all this, a lot of my guys that were working with me on the site and doing stuff, they got the podcasting. And I told them, listen, I'll teach you guys how to do it. And, um, one of them, uh, Jay Santee, he was a, he was a writer.

He did our wrestling content for the website. That was my take radio dot com@thetimebeforebecomingrageworks.net. And what I ended up doing was I said, listen, Jay, you know, you're so good at this stuff. Why don't you launch a wrestling podcast? Cause he had a wrestling. In his sports podcast. I said, listen, run with the wrestling.

You're really good at it. And I'm hanging it up. So I'd love for you to, to carry the Baton. And needless to say, he ran with it. His podcast is now at about 320 episodes, uh, on our network and everybody who got the bug, I said, listen, let's form a network. I'll do all your editing. I'll do all the heavy lifting, put everything on iTunes for you.

All you gotta do is get me the content. And the rest is all yours. And I know people are going to ask, well, how's it work with money and advertising and everything else? Cause I know everybody has that question. We do it very, very simply. If you have a podcast on our network and you get an advertiser and you get the advertiser closed, the advertiser and everything in between, everything is yours.

Doesn't matter what. If we bring you the advertiser, we help close the advertiser and we're involved in securing the advertiser. Then it's usually 70, 30, or an 80 20 split, which is more than fair because I mean, apple does the same for their apps. So we do it that way. And like they pay a flat fee per month covers the hosting, keeps the lights on covers, like my basic editing.

And that's pretty much it. And we've been doing this now since 2014. And it's been great. We've had a good roster of shows. Some shows have come, some shows have gone. I thought I could hang it up and not do podcasting anymore. Here we are now doing, you know, toys and tech of the trade. I did a comic book podcast with a buddy of mine for a little bit.

You just can't stay away if you have a lot to say about stuff. So that's kind of like the short, the short form version of this.

Dan: Uh, I love it, man. Thanks for giving us an origin story. It's always fun to know how things happen, especially sequentially. Um, I mean this in the most positive way possible, you ever see one of those videos where someone's falling and trying to catch themselves and tripping and all that, but they never go all the way down.

It was almost like that. It was like you stepped on a little patch of ice and. Kept kind of finding a new way to stay up, you know? So like the discovery along the way is super cool. Um, I have similar parts of my journey where one thing led to another and it's like, Ooh, this is cool too. Ooh, I didn't know this existed.

And I love that about just being alive in general, let alone entrepreneurship, uh, because so many people do get stuck in a single thing and they hate it, but it makes money, golden handcuffs, all those things come to play. And sometimes it's cool to just be able to do what you want, man. I love that story.

Um, So in that, um, you land in a place where you're helping other podcasts, you have your own podcast. Um, I've been on the YouTube channel. So obviously the video, um, comes into play from time to time, for sure. Um, does that just look like a overall production schedule for you in each day you're doing something different, which keeps those things consistent.

I like kind of, what does that look like if you don't mind diamond and

Richard: sure. My schedule it's very interesting. So funny thing was all of this. Almost didn't happen, thanks to a chance encounter with Gary Vaynerchuk. And I think I kind of, might've mentioned that in, in one of our underdogs zooms and the reason that it almost didn't happen was because I looked at all of these endeavors as a means to an end to quit my job, do this, full-time have this pay my bills and that's fine.

But the problem was that I wasn't looking at the. Internal currency that I was earning from doing all of this, getting to go to Comicon, getting to go to toy fair, which I used to read about in toy fair magazine, as a kid, being able to talk to my favorite fighters, my favorite actors, actresses wrestlers, and I started looking at it from that bigger scale.

And it really took a lot of. Aw, man. You know, I'm not, you know, putting money in the bank off of this all the time. It, it, it lessened that substantially. And more importantly, I realized I was broke. I was leaving the space better than when I came in by creating and helping new podcasters, get their start.

Now how that ties into my schedule is that it's interesting because I was doing all of this while working a nine to five. In May, 2020. I was a remote employee after numerous, uh, reiterations of my company, my company was preparing for sale and that almost shy of 20 years. I got the call on May 1st and they're like, you're done.

And the crazy thing about that was that everything kind of just came screeching to a halt mostly because, you know, obviously I'm a, I'm a husband, I'm a father. Uh, I'm a guardian for my two sisters who, um, both have special needs. So I wear many hats already be hot off the microphone. And when that came to a screeching halt, I said, damn, what am I going to do now to not go crazy, but also kind of stay in my sandbox.

You know what I'm going to double down. Um, I'm going to make rage worse, a legitimate business, which I did back in, uh, 2021. I actually formed like rage works, LLC did all the stuff because I said time to put up or shut up. And in the midst of that, I started really just fine tuning everything I was doing.

So, uh, right now, for instance, uh, I wake up in the more. I, my wife takes my daughter to school. I put one of my sisters on the bus to go to her adult day program and usually go through emails, start my day. But all of our, all of our hosts send me shows. So I'll see you. Who's who shows her in the server start doing the editing for them?

I, if I got show notes for them, prep, the show notes, upload all of that. Get that ready to go. Start getting all my social media posts. For the week. And usually by, by the time my daughter gets out of school by two o'clock the whatever content that needs to be done from a podcast perspective is done.

There's also, you know, applying for a day job, cause I'm still doing that. And I'm trying to find one now in the podcasting space. Cause I said, listen, I invested 20 years into being a desk, jockey behind a desk, staring at Excel. I don't want to do that. If I'm going to spend one year, five years, 10 years someplace, at least let me do it doing this, which is awesome.

And it helps take the space forward. And as a result of being on the bench, you know, it's, it's crazy. Cause you go through periods of just, you know, imposter syndrome, self doubt. Uh, depression, lots of it because you know, like 2020 was rough for all of us in different ways. I'm never gonna devalue what everybody else was going through.

But the thing about it was like, here I am, I had a board and notion with all the jobs I applied for and it's like, wow, here I am. 20 jobs in applied 30 jobs and applied no callbacks 40 jobs and applied 50 jobs. And then, you know, things started coming up, uh, you know, some consulting, I got to do some teaching, which was awesome.

Got to teach some kids podcasting, which I did last year, which was, I didn't even know I would, I would enjoy that. I was like, oh, this will be kind of cool. Just, you know, talking through the motions of what I do, helping kids get started. And I was like, wow, this is outstanding. Like I came away from it.

They all emailed me periodically asking questions, Hey, I'm going to launch my show, et cetera. And it was very fulfilling. I still keep very late hours because it's just who I am as a night owl, but there's always something going on. There's either a post being written or audio being edited. The only thing that I've dropped the ball on, and I'll be honest is YouTube.

And it's because YouTube and I don't have to tell you that is a round the clock endeavor for a different. You got editing, you have set design, you have SEO key words, getting your stuff, seen the YouTube algorithm. I mean, I had, I had my channel monetized and then D monetize because obviously we're a, we're a website that covers.

Entertainment and stuff. And companies send us trailers and assets and I'm like, all right, cool. Let me put them on the channel because they're sending them next thing you know, I got an email, Hey, we're going to, we're going to flag it because you're just using somebody else's content. And I'm like, it stuff, people are sending me, like it was just incredibly aggravating.

So I went, I deleted all the. At all the trailers, everything. And now it's just like the podcast stuff we're doing with toys, things that are 100%, our content stinks because you look at, you know, IGN the verge, all of these sites, and they're putting up movie trailers, they're putting up, you know, um, press conferences from apple and everybody's just going about their business.

And then the small group. Just get hammered and hammered and sickled for, at, for every, for every little thing that they do. So YouTube has been probably my biggest misstep because I need to do more of it. And that's been like the biggest challenge with everything else, audio like this with my eyes closed video, you know, I gotta make sure my office is in order.

Cause you know, people pick out like, Hey, that book is crooked or, oh, this or that. It's it's it's. It's a really, really tough call for that. So that's kind of been the challenge thus far. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. That's uh, a lot to unpack there. Um, one of the things, uh, and I'll push this down the line a little bit, cause I always like to talk about video in a short segment before we're done one of the things about video that gets brought up a lot with my clients.

A lot of times we're kind of like starting from scratch or at the beginning of their video journey is like, Uh, where do we do this? You know, and everyone's got a different situation, different layout, different, uh, schedules and all those things. That's definitely a big part of it. Um, and then a backup a little bit, you talked about, um, getting the call from your job and launching into, uh, something you love, obviously again, Antipreneur vibes, uh, doing it your own.

Um, disclaimer, nothing wrong with having a job or searching for a new one. No, but I love that one of your first instincts was like, well, I'm going to make something happen because I think that's so important for entrepreneurs to hear that it's not always pretty, it's not always some setup where you do this work and flip a switch and all of a sudden money comes in.

Um, you got to build it, you've got to own it. You got to market it. You got to get other people as excited as you are at least close in it. Um, so like, Your transition. You're kind of launching into that with, um, You know, like a background in audio and having done many episodes and all those sorts of things.

Did you have a pretty good idea of what your like perfect podcast customer look like when you're kind of building a roster and doing this work for people? Is there something I can tell my audience now? Or you can tell my audience now that if they're thinking about doing a podcast or switching over and I'll let everyone listening know I'm even in this boat where I have a couple of podcasts clients, it's not what I do exclusively by any means.

Love helping them launch their shows. And don't like doing my own as far as like editing and putting it out there. So anyway, all that to come around to, if someone's listening and they're in, you know, kind of the zone to possibly check out what you're up to, uh, what does that look like? What's a great podcast.

Customer

Richard: look like a great podcast customer for me is someone who this is. And, and, and I'll, I'll frame it a little differently. A lot of people go into podcasts trying to be a square peg in a square. And you should never be that way. The whole point of being a podcaster is to be to your point, the same way year Antipreneur is the same way your Anti, uh, you know, terrestrial radio or the usual conventional way of doing things.

Uh, I say this because a lot of people, especially as of late, have been raking Joe Rogan over the coals for different things. And whether your ideologies align with his or don't align with his there's one constant that jumps out and it's the. Joe Rogan. Isn't being paid by anybody outside of the people that advertise on his podcast.

But what I mean is there's no agenda. There's no, Hey, I'm getting kickbacks from this entity or that entity, or, you know, I have to spend this narrative in order to secure my position in office. Like this guy it's, it's the, it's the iceberg picture that they always show like it's the top of the iceberg.

And then it's. Like this guy stand up comedy fear factor UFC. The dude ate a lot of crap to get to where he is. And you know what, whether he does a podcast with Elon Musk though, a sitting president or anybody else at the end of the day, it's all about the conversation and the value that you're getting from that person.

And for anybody who's a podcaster. That's what I like. It's like people can come to me and say, Hey, I want to do a podcast about paperclips. And my response will be. Let's do it. And one thing I like to do is since we have two feeds, we have the feed, we set up for our, our, our, our shows. And then we have a network feed.

I always tell people I'm like, listen, the market is the market. We'll put your show on the, on the network feed and you'll see what kind of numbers you get. Because the, the beauty of it is I always look at our main network feed as like a, a TV channel, one show ends and other begins. And either you stick around or you don't.

And the thing about. Is that it allows you to see what the market is. If your podcast about paperclips is awesome. And you're just awesome. Like you bring that energy about it. People are going to listen and they're either going to listen because they're checking off being educated, entertained, or enlight.

One of the three E's is coming out of it. And if you got that and you bring that to the table and more importantly, you're genuinely excited. Those are the ideal clients, because most podcasts there's hang it up. And I always tell people, most podcasts is hanging up after 10 episodes. Once you get past 10, you're usually consistently going to be in there, but you also have to be respectful to yourself.

You don't come in and say, I'm going to do a daily podcast. If you, if you can't even get on a treadmill every day, you're not going to get behind a microphone every day. It takes discipline. I always tell people you've got to take small videos. If you can do a podcast once a week, awesome. Hell start every two weeks and see if that works.

And then scale backwards. Every two weeks can become weekly every week. You know, it can become every three, four days until you get to a point where you have to get the record. To get comfortable. And I think those are the best kind of clients. The people that are willing to put in the work are willing to put in the sacrifice.

And aren't just looking at the numbers with a fine tooth comb waiting for the golden ticket, like in like a Willy Wonka. It just doesn't work that way.

Dan: Yeah. It's a. It's kind of still got a wild west vibe to it. Um, I've done a little bit of direct work with Buzzsprout the podcasting host, a hosting company, and a little bit of work with Elvin, their head of marketing and gotten some data because it's hard to gather data and in the podcasting world.

And because there are hosts with so many shows hosting there, they do get some day. And everything points to, uh, it's still a very newborn baby, this podcasting world. And like you said, a lot of people don't make it to 10 and that's a hundred percent true. Yep. Um, so I, I view it. Kind of the wild west and that some things are pretty dangerous because we don't know what's going to happen.

Or, you know, it might be more difficult than you said to be consistent, things like that. And then some things are exciting because it's like, wow, this is brand new and there's space here for me. Um, so I could imagine for myself that I'm making assumptions here, but I can imagine for myself, I'm a recently past 50 episodes.

I come to you. I'm like, Hey, I don't want to do this part of it anymore. This is my vibe. This is my brand. You can go check out my other shows. This is where I want to go. And you'd have a pretty good idea of how you would help someone like me out. What does it look like for someone who's got a good idea.

And hasn't put out any episodes yet. Do you guys work with them on like branding and kind of voice and maybe music that they wanted or things like that? Do you help build kind of the brand and show? Or is it more, um, you know, if you've got something kind of rolling already come our way, we'll put it out for you.

Richard: It's it's a mixture of the two. Most of our, most of our pod-casters that are, that are part of the, of the rage works family minus two. External clients are people that I know personally, these are people whose, who I've gone to, their homes, set up their studio. Walk them through equipment, give that gave them recommendations.

They can message me at a moment's notice. Hey, I'm stuck here. I'm looking for this tool. What do you think, et cetera. And I teach along the way. Um, every person has a different approach. Some people are more hands-on and they want to kind of stumble and fall on their own and learn. And that's fine, but I always kind of give anyone who comes on board some basic, um, standards and practices.

Don't use copy-written music. Number one, it's like, if you want to set yourself up for failure, right? Use copy-written music. I guarantee you, you think you'll skate for a week, a month, a year, and then the hammer will fall in one random place and your podcast will get hammered. Don't want to do that. So like little standards and practices like that.

I always try to tell people like, you know, be respectful of your guests, you know, if you want to get. You know, one thing leading up to our podcast, there was constant engagement. Like, Hey, you're a week away. You're 10 days away. You're an hour away. Here's what's coming. You know, if you have any problems, let me know.

If you need to reschedule, you always want to keep certain practices there. And most importantly, I tell you. Nothing is more annoying than you come home. You're getting ready to watch your favorite show or the game. And it gets preempted. Nobody tells you you're pissed off. Yeah. Same thing happens with your audience.

If you tell your audience, you're going to get new episodes every Saturday, then you find a way to deliver your episodes every Saturday, if it slips up and it goes into Sunday, not a big deal, because again, it's a day. Things happen. Life gets in the way, but you have to be respectful of your audience.

Those are the people that are your currency. They're the people that, you know, the pat Flynn, a lot of people say you want to build a hundred true fans. And it's true because a hundred true fans, you put out a product, that's a dollar, a hundred fans buy, you just made a hundred dollars. People are like, oh, I only got 50 downloads this week.

Okay, cool. How many times do you talk to a room full of 50 people that Paul unanimously give a damn about what you have to say? And you have to temper these expectations. People come in, oh, I want to be the next, you know, the, the best one is, you know, Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan. I'm like, sorry, but you gotta be the best you, because at the end of the day, people need to invest in the jockey, not in the horse.

Yeah, sure. A horses win races, but it's the person that's guiding that horse. That's going to get that horse to the finish line. And that's how I look at it with the shows you have to be compelling. You have to be exciting. You have to be off. And people will be like, man, I want to know more about that person.

Like whenever I did my shows, I would temper and share personal anecdotes, personal stories, things I connected with because I knew what that was like listening to Opie and Anthony or Howard stern. And they'd talk about like their upbringing or, or things that were relevant to me. And sometimes they would dig into things that I was not a fan of.

And I didn't hop on, you know, and write an email or I didn't like your segment on this. I just changed the dial that day. You know, as somebody who's raised people with special needs, sometimes there'd be jokes about special needs people. And listen, I get it. You know, it's an easy subject to make comedic material out of, but some days it just didn't resonate with me.

I didn't get mad. I'm like, this is your job today. I'm just going to turn the dial and listen to something. And I tell people this, whenever they want to do a podcast, like listen, some days it's home runs, some days it's strikeouts and some days it's base hits and you got to respect that not every episode is going to be a banger.

Not every guest is going to be amazing. Sometimes you got to really put the squeeze on a guest to get that energy out of them. And sometimes it'd be a cakewalk from start to finish and you gotta be expecting of all of those things, because that way you can convey those things. To your audience, like, Hey man, microphone crapped out, but you know what, we're still giving you guys an episode.

I'm recording it with my phone. Sorry guys. And people respect that. They'll be like, damn, you know, he's still, still came on. Still did what he had.

Dan: Yeah, man, a lot there too. Some golden nuggets. I appreciate, um, two things that really stood out to me is, um, authenticity, authenticity, and consistency. And these words get thrown around a lot.

Uh, part of the whole Antipreneur vibe, it's like hating, you know, magic pills, silver bullets, trendy crap for the sake of it being trendy. But when you talk about authenticity and consistency, that's what, in my opinion, drives a great podcast. Um, like you said, give the people what you promised and be yourself.

I often have people ask me this question kind of terrifies me, but they're like, man, how are you? Like, so just, you know, yourself just authentic and all these things. I'm like, God, if you're asking how to be authentic, you're on the wrong road already. Cause you're trying to copy someone else's blueprint.

And in my world it's always the same. It's I'm so lazy. I don't have the energy to put on a persona. So you get me. Cause I got to spend that energy in other places. So, um, I'm kind of lucky in that regard. Care to, and then what comes out is a personality that people dig sometimes. So it's like, wow, that worked, you know, um, I, I often, uh, take the different mediums that exist, video audio, written, word, all the things and compare them, especially in marketing to like some sort of vehicle.

Um, and I always think of audio podcasting, audio books, things of that nature, like a street bike, like the whole. Uh, the whole highway can be locked down and, you know, bumper to bumper traffic and the street by can still get through and get off the next ramp and keep going. And I feel like audio fits into place.

It's like when you're in the shower or you're at the gym, or you're driving to your job, you know, you can fit audio in to places. And I love that too. So authenticity, consistency, and then this cool idea of, wow, I'm building something that people can absorb and consume and really cool places. Um, so like, Earlier you mentioned video.

I always do a segment on video. You have things on YouTube. So like you said, you know what it's like background in order. Uh, not only does audio matter now, but so does what's going on, on camera in the frame? Um, what are your, uh, kind of entrepreneurial viewpoints on video? Um, it kinda sounded like it might be something you'd want to do some more of, or maybe quote unquote, should do some more of, um, How do you see it kind of fitting into your plan and then just into, you know, the entrepreneurial plan in general.

Richard: So when you're doing video, you have to number one and people, people kind of want to, they want to take video and gift, wrap it around what they do. Sometimes it's sometimes you need it. Sometimes video is essential, but I got to tell your audience and people like, sometimes you don't need it. True. You don't, sometimes you don't like sometimes Instagram.

Sometimes Tik TOK is enough. Sometimes the occasional live on Facebook or whatever is enough, but you have to ask yourself is adding video to the mix, going to satisfy my itch or my audiences. And can they intersect because what happens is sometimes people have gone. Yeah, I got to do video and they go and they spend thousands of dollars and then they get in front of the camera and then they can't look at the lens.

I mean, listen, I'll be honest. Like for our conversation, I had to put the zoom on the monitor. That's behind the lens so I can stare at the lens so I can actually look at you and my eyes still wander. And mind you I've been doing this forever. And I'm still not good at that. And then I'm, I see guys like Casey Neistat wearing sunglasses and I'm like, well damn, maybe I should just wear sunglasses in every video.

So I don't even got to worry about looking at the camera because these are the things that happen, you know, there's there's, you can only be so good at something. And if you're not getting the reps in, you're not going to get good. So with video, I look at it, like I talk about toys, I talk about stuff.

Awesome. Videos are great on boxing's all this stuff, like you said, Hey, on unboxing. You know what I run into, I have a colleague of mine. He helps edit the videos and I'll be like, Hey man, I picked up this toy, blah, blah, blah thing. I'm going to do a video for it. He's like, I don't know, man. There's like 14 videos out already.

I don't know if you really want to do that. So then a part of me is like, well, damn, I guess I'm not going to do it. But then there's that other part of me that goes, yeah, but it's a video told through my lens. So sure you know, that X men toy or that, uh, you know, a Hulk statue might've came out six weeks ago, but somebody who consumes my content may be new to seeing that for the first time.

And then you got to ask yourself, okay, am I going to be timely? Or am I going to be. And that becomes the question that really is applicable when it comes to video. If your content is evergreen, it doesn't matter. Like if you're talking about business strategy in your videos, those will live forever. So rather you record something this week, this month, this year, next month, next year, if it's pertinent to what you're doing and it's ever.

Do it pull the trigger on it? Hell if it's not the most relevant thing, still pull the trigger on it, because guess what, it's coming from you. And I think that that's what matters with, with video and whether you want to integrate it into your business, is it, is it necessary? And if it is how much do you want to invest into it?

Do you want to just hold your phone and do it and kind of do running gun. Some people like that, some people might be like, oh man, this is making me dizzy. I can't look at this. You know, then maybe you gotta say to yourself, how many people complained one, I can accept 1, 5, 10, damn. Maybe I need to sit at a desk and record these videos, the market, like, you know, it's cliche, but the market is the market.

The market will tell. That your videos may or may not be, and I'm not going to say they're not good. They may just need Polish. You may need to focus someplace else. I mean, my channel is proof positive of that. It's like, I got podcast episodes. I got unboxings, I got all this stuff and yeah, I have everything in playlist, but unless people look and read and they go, wow, this is like a full content studio that does all this stuff.

They're not going to know. And people tell me all the time, like, ah, maybe you might want to put the podcast on another. I'm like, but they're part of who I am. If you don't want to watch it, don't click, don't press play. I'm not going to die. If the video gets 10 views, because at the end of the day, yes, YouTube is awesome and you can make money from it.

But if, um, but unless your videos are getting hundreds and thousands and millions of views, or you're getting paid, you know, private sponsorship money, it doesn't matter. What matters is, do you feel good about it? And more importantly, don't rely on YouTube to get your message out there. Don't rely on mark Zuckerberg to get your message out there, have a home, make sure it's yours and then use all of these other things to get the message out there tomorrow.

That's it,

Dan: I'm seeing a theme of, uh, as cliche as that may be, be yourself and run with it, and then spend that energy you would spend trying to be someone else or like someone else on other more important things. Right. Um, often in story development, I push the idea of. You know, leading with conflict. Um, there's so many like, uh, tools that are used in fictional writing and movies and comic books and video games and all that stuff that I just translate the tool over to business and it works so well for people.

And one of those again, is leading with conflict and I think sometimes the most powerful way. The I do that through like one minute media, my company, and working with people on this exact thing, trying to help them get comfortable on camera and do their thing and leverage who they are is just stating the obvious.

It's a real quick way to add contrast. And sometimes that might be, Hey, on this channel. Sometimes you see my podcast. Sometimes you see my face, that's what we do here. And ups, just letting people know what the hell's going on is so powerful sometimes. And leading with that conflict, doesn't leave them wondering why is he so scattered?

Tells them. Oh, he's got a couple of playlists. I can come for what I want. And that's so powerful. I love that. You're talking about ownership as well. Um, I don't talk about it a ton publicly and I probably should more. It's not because I'm against it. I just don't talk about it too much. But privately with my clients, I talk about it almost every single day.

Your email lists, your podcast, your website, the things you own, like you said, don't rely on Zuckerberg to get your message out, get your own out, and then use the tools that are available. So you have to amplify that message. So I love that about video, about, um, you know, podcasting about things that you can like put your stamp on and do it your way.

And sometimes it takes a little bit time, right? Like I, uh, um, like you said, 20, 20 lost everything started over. Many people had incredibly, uh, rollercoaster type journeys through that time and still are in many cases. And. I went into the woods, disappeared into the forest and came back out with like, what am I going to do now?

And one of those things was to do YouTube on purpose. And it was interesting because I had been on YouTube for about 11 years. At that point in time, had a couple of videos over a million views. Had some of my clients, videos go over a million views, all these fun and crazy things. But I always used YouTube as an archive or a place to put videos that might get in better than a website, or I just had a fun idea and put it on a channel, but the channel was never really a channel.

And so when I started over, um, October 20, 20, I was like, I'm going to do this on purpose. And it has been, um, I've had a couple of like micro, viral things that have been really good for search. And a lot of people have, um, gotten use out of them, but it's been a slow growth. It's been an exciting one, but it's been slow.

And it's so funny because like I've had a couple of things pop off in the past and it's like, that's incredible. I didn't make any money off it. Cause I wasn't monetized at the time, but it was just like, cool. And now I'm looking at it as like a structured thing. And it's a lot like business. Like you have to be ready for people to adapt to your consistency, adapt to your content types, who you are, do they like you or not, and do they want to come back for more?

And it kind of sounds like through all these, uh, they're not easy, it's hard work and be yourself and consistent because it could pop off in six months. It could be three years, but I believe as well as, you know, it seems like you do that. That's kind of the way. Get to where you want to go.

Richard: I think, I think that's the, the most consistent thing that we as creators should really strive to get out there because too many people glamorize this.

And well, let me not even glamorize, they paint it with, uh, with a broad stroke brush of. You know, if you record these videos and you do this and you know, just, you put out a video every day and it's like, everybody's videos, everybody's journey is going to be different. Maybe you do need to put out a video every day.

Maybe you don't. There are days where I don't post on Instagram for a week. And then there are days when I'll post on Instagram and you know, 40, 50, 60 likes, 70 likes, 80 likes. I stopped living for the engaging. As the necessity to show whether what I'm doing is good or not. Because the real question is, do you enjoy doing it?

Are you fulfilled doing it? You know, are you giving somebody five seconds of joy, five seconds of inspiration, five seconds of enlightenment, whatever it is, if you're doing that, you're better off than everybody else because you know what you and I can sit here, Dan and talk. Yeah. You know, what, what have we spoken for 40 minutes?

We give people all this actionable stuff, all of these gems, you give that to a room of 50 people. Maybe three of them will actually execute. And that's what people don't understand. They'll say, oh, why are you sharing all of this stuff? Why don't you sell a course? Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?

You know why I don't sell a course because. Not everyone is going to follow through. And what we were talking about before we started recording is set yourself up for the disappointment here. Here's my, here's my $50 course. Here's my 25 hell. Here's my $10 course, the price of a, of a, of a large cup of coffee and a donut in Starbucks.

Give it to a hundred people. Five people might do it. The other 95 are going to be. I couldn't get to it. I didn't have a chance. I was too busy and I th I think it's, I think it's too much money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you always got to remember that your ideal, something you said before, your ideal customer, your ideal client base is partially who you want to sell to, but also a part of it is who you want to be as that.

Do you want to be successful? Because if you're successful iron sharpens iron, you want to be around more successful people. If you want to be creative, you want to want to be about more, around more creative people. You want to be around more hustlers. You want to be around more people that share that drive.

You don't want them to co-sign every idea you have, but you want challenge. You want dialogue to help you be better. And I think that that's what happens with a lot of this stuff. People go and they'll see a tick tock video of, Hey, I'm doing retail arbitrage and I made half a million dollars on Amazon.

Awesome. But are you the person that's going to wake up at 5:00 AM and go to 47 garage sales by noon and have a truck full of stuff that you have to clean catalog, photograph bar code box up and send out if you are, then you're going to. But if your alarm clock goes off at 5:00 AM and you go am going to sleep till seven, guess what?

The guy who's the, who woke up at five is going to beat you every time. That's it?

Dan: Ah, such good stuff, man. Um, let's shift gears a little bit. Let's shift gears a little bit and, um, It's still in the, in the, uh, the vein of podcasting. But I want to ask about your experience here. So last year, very purposefully as part of my kind of, uh, awareness marketing, if you will, for myself and my company, um, I started guesting on podcasts a lot more frequently than I had before, before it was like, I like what you're doing, want to be on my show and I'd be like, yeah, that'd be fun.

And this time I was actually reaching out, making connections, getting referrals from shows I'd already been on to shows that are hosted by people they know and trust, and it's made a huge difference. I won't dive into all of it, but it's done some incredible things for me, even some things that have nothing to do with podcasting and it's been really, really cool.

Um, do you find being on. Someone else's show as just like, ah, this is my space. There's nothing to worry about. This is cool because what I've found as being on other shows, when I put in there, by the way, I'm a podcast or I have over 50 episodes, um, you know, not saying I know it all just saying, like, you're not working with someone who's never been on a show and I know what it's like to run the back end, you know?

So anything I can do to help let me know. I find podcast hosts are like, oh, sweet. I don't have to train you. I can just bring you on. Uh, do you find any of that when you're on someone else?

Richard: I do, but you know, the funny thing is I remember Tim Ferriss said something where he said people are going to be on my show.

Sometimes don't know how to use Skype or whatever. He goes out. I send them a USB headset, cost me five bucks. And he said, the value of that is out of this world because you just took away a barrier of entry for someone who may be a potentially amazing. And I think that when it comes to being a guest on a show, there's a certain, there's a certain, um, there's a certain dynamic shift when you're a podcast or who's a guest on another show because you get to be in the driver's seat of managing the conversation, but more importantly, managing it in a way that's going to bring value to that.

Person's life. Now don't get me wrong. Sometimes people, the, the ghost, I mean the, the host to take over and you'll, you'll kind of, like I said, you'll fate. Well, you'll fade into the background a little bit. And sometimes, like I said, sometimes that's, that's the nature of the beast and you're going to have to go through a lot of that and find ways to deliver your content because you may have the whole.

You know, wants to pop in and jump in and share an anecdote and then take you back down the rabbit hole. And sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. But what you need to do is you have to be respectful of the fact that this person's been doing it for awhile. This is how they operate and their audience digs it.

If they didn't, if their audience didn't dig it, they wouldn't keep it. So you got to come in there and you kinda just gotta be like, Hey, my mic works. My headphones work. My camera works. Let's rock and roll. Okay. And again, some, some guests they'll, I'll be like, Hey, you know, send me your, your links so I can put them in my show notes.

Sometimes I don't get them two ways to handle that 14 follow. Or go to that person's website and just take the damn links off the site because, because no one, no one has that time. And you got to respect that or, Hey, is there a book you want to promote? Okay, cool. Let me get the Amazon link for the book.

Sure. Maybe they'll send it to you. Maybe they won't. Hey, make sure to send me a headshot for whatever. So. Maybe they'll send it to you. Maybe they won't, maybe you gotta be a creep and go to their Instagram and steal a photo. Maybe you got to go to their LinkedIn and steal their headshot and use that. And then when they go, Hey man, why did you, blah, blah, blah.

And you go, well, you didn't send it to me and I didn't want to bother you. And I wanted to be respectful of your time. Sometimes there'll be like, Awesome. Cause again, nobody wants to, nobody wants the email exchanges. I listen, I never understood the value of like Katelyn Lee or tidy calorie or any of that until I started being able to just answer an email with here's my schedule, pick a date and time that I have open and we'll rock.

It's removed the 17 other emails, those 1130 work for, you know, I'm, I'm busy at 1130 here. It is find me here. If that doesn't work, I'll try and accommodate you. And if I can accommodate you, then we'll pick it up.

Dan: So good. So good. Um, one last point I wanted to make before I shift over to where people can find you and what you're up to currently and all that cool stuff.

Um, we were talking about consistency earlier and how, uh, certain things can be evergreen. And it made me think of, um, one of, if not at this point, the best performing video on my YouTube. It's about a year and three or a year and four months old now. And it consistently weekly outperforms my new videos and I actually treat it like a.

You know, there's different, like racing, video games and stuff where you can like do a lap and then your ghost keeps going and you can see how you did. Right. Like, I think about it like that, like, Ooh, how do I get my new videos to perform as well as these old ones that have gotten a ton of traction. And that's a beautiful thing about it is you never know.

Like I woke up two days ago to a really genuine and nice, like a heartwarming message. I'm one of my videos. That was like, dude, you don't even understand. You just did a video about how to post for free schedule your posts for free on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I only post on Facebook and Twitter and I was getting ready to spend 50 bucks a month on one of the big software brands where you schedule your posts.

You just saved me money. And I was like, damn, like, that's huge. And I made that video a year and three months ago. And two days ago someone got a ton of value out of it. They actually. Save them a real, tangible thing in the form of money. So just that last word of encouragement to anyone listening or watching that you never know, putting yourself into something and being consistent, what it can turn into in the future as well.

All right. So I always love to leave as much space as possible here. I love promoting other people. I love when I have some overlap with people because the PI's really big and I don't care. Feel free to promote what you're up to, where you're at your preferred method of interaction and communication and take your time doing it because I want people to know where they can find you, check out your stuff and interact with you directly.

If.

Richard: All right. Um, everything is pretty much under rage works, whether it's rage works.net, which you can go to, if you want to see toy reviews, movie reviews, all the fun pop culture stuff we discuss there. And then we have our rage works podcast network, which is rage works, network.com. That's your one-stop shop for what I like to say about rants, about gaming entertainment and the works, which is what a lot of people always wonder about, uh, the name of the company.

The funny, funny story to bring that full circle is rage works. We used to always joke about the fact that when I would be on a, on doing my show, I would be annoyed about these region about this. And I, you know, one night when I was looking to rebrand after retiring my take radio, I'm like, man, what do I always do?

And I'm like, well, I talk about gaming entertainment and a bunch of other things in between. And as a new Yorker, I remember watching cartoons and hearing, Hey, let me get a pizza with the word. Just a pizza with everything on it. So rage works is rants about gaming entertainment and the works and the podcast network is the same thing because we have people that cover gaming.

We have people that cover entertainment. We have people that do self-help entrepreneurship, et cetera. So that's, that's where that comes from. So it's not any sort of anger management or crazy thing. It's, uh, it's just a funny way of taking what people always kind of associated with me at the time and turning it into something new.

That's what the definition of that is. It's like, people are like, what's a Google, you know, but I'm like, no, there's a purpose for what, what my brand is called. Um, as I said, rage works on the rage works podcast network are the two best destinations to find us. Uh, we're pretty much on every social media platform.

I mean, we're even on Pinterest, which is ridiculous. Um, and the crazy thing is the amount of traffic that Pinterest generates is out of this. If you have a good, if you have something that's visually appealing and you haven't gone into Pinterest, do it. Um, outside of that, my preferred mediums, uh, definitely I'm on Instagram quite a bit.

Uh, it's very easy to go there. I love sending a voice messages when I'm pitching a podcast. Guests, if you ever want a piece of actionable Intel. Because sometimes people don't want to read a wall of text that you can convey in a, in a 25, second or 32nd video. I mean a 32nd audio clip. Like, Hey, love your stuff.

We'd love to have you on my podcast or would love to have you on my channel or whatever. This is what I do find me here. Sometimes people like that, more personal interaction, it kind of adds a little bit of analog to. And, um, like I said, Instagram is preferred, but anything business-related I'm on LinkedIn too.

I'm pretty active on there as well. You can just look up rich Butler on LinkedIn and, um, if you want to be involved in the podcast or on the podcast network, you can reach me at rich at rage works dot.

Dan: Thanks for breaking it down, man. I, uh, I find two awesome things about the kind of work that I do. One is that I want my audience to know these things.

So there's space for any guests I have on to promote, to sell, to push, to welcome to communicate. Uh, the second is in my community. One minute media community, where I'm directly helping people look and sound great on camera. I want them. Uh, to promote their businesses because I work with entrepreneurs and startups specifically, and a lot of times they're like, oh, I'm in a community.

I can't, I don't know. And it's like, We're practicing. It's okay to promote your business. Cause that's what you're going to put on camera anyway. So I love that. I get to just welcome people and be like, share all the things because I don't have any kind of ego involved, you know, it's just like, yep. How cool is it?

How fun is it? And what can you teach people that I can't teach them? And then that's super cool. I've done hundreds and hundreds of interviews at this point in time in video in the podcasting world. Um, We used to interview a lot of bands. Cause I was in a band that toured and got to go, you know, green rooms and backstages and, and all those things.

And one of my favorite questions that I like to pose to people is pretty simple. And whether it's business life, or even the podcasting arena, what do you wish people would ask you?

Richard: I wish people would ask more about what goes into being in this space. Then how much money they can get from this space.

And the reason I ask is because there's money in everything in 2020, I, and people don't understand growing up. When you had, when you were growing up as a kid, you had to have a paper route or whatever to make. Now kids younger than 15 years old are making NFTs, selling NFTs, making hundreds and thousands of dollars.

Kids are jumping onto Robin hood, learning about ETFs, doing all of this stuff. And the scary part of all of this is we were never taught any of it in school. We never learned how to fill out a W2 in school. We never learned. I think maybe once we, we got taught to balance. Uh, you don't learn how to cook.

You don't learn how to measure or cut anything or any of that stuff. All of that stuff is life skills that you got to learn on your own and you have to level those up. And I think that people need to ask more about those life skills than asking about all of the other stuff, because YouTube Tik, TOK, Instagram, all of these things are avenues and conduits for you to learn.

If you learn about those person's stories, struggles, sacrifices, they may resonate with you more and may motivate you to actually pull the trigger on that podcast or create that video or start that business because there'll be like, well, damn, if Dan can do it. And Dan is, you know, started from ground zero and shit, I can do.

If rich can do it while doing 17 other things and being, you know, dad, brother, father, guardian, all of these to all these different people and still make time to do this stuff, then shit, I can do it too. We got the same 24 hours in a day. All of us, it's just a matter of how much you're going to put into it and how much you're going to get out of it.

Because again, you can get back a dollar, you can't get back an hour, you can always make a dollar. You can trade in some cans, you can, you know, sell some couches. You know, most of them lawns you'll get back the dollar the hour. You won't get it back.

Dan: Mic drop. Love it, man. Thank you so much for going there.

Super cool. Um, keep it in mind, everyone. Keep it in mind. Ask better questions. And one of those questions. Just how does it all work? You know, just how does it work? Well, this is going to be fun, fishing out with some gold nuggets for marketing materials. Cause man, there was a bunch of them. I appreciate you sharing where you're coming from, where you're going, a part of your origin and history.

It's been fun talking and uh, yeah. Thanks for filling some space, uh, in my world. The super cool. I'm

Richard: glad, I'm glad to have sat down with you, man. Uh, you know, being in the underdog community. I said it when I wrote up John's episode. Man. There's so many people in there that just are inspiring and just sharing those little victories reading.

Hey man, I got 50 views on a video and that's, that's outstanding to hear because you know what, the people that are around you that care about you, you know, wives, husbands, whatever it is they're always going to, they're always going to advocate for you. They're always going to be in your. But once in a while you want that you want that outside praise.

So I think that we have to take solace in a lot of those small victories to kind of help us keep going. Not like I said, not every day. Like you just said, we had technical difficulties before we jumped in and

Dan: shift and move shipped and moved by. Love it. Uh, again, thank you so much for your time. And, um, everyone listening, everyone watching go check out rich and what he's doing, especially, especially if what you do might be a little bit more on the boring side, or a little bit more analytical or data driven.

Co check out some toy talk, go check out some unboxings, go check out some pop culture, stories and articles and bring some smiles into. Your life. Uh, we all, we all got some work to do, and sometimes it's nice just to absorb some really cool content. So that's it for me. I'm Dan Bennett, the anti preneur, and this has been the anti preneur show.

Richard: Thanks for having me. .