Well, hello everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success.

On this podcast, as you know, we hear from amazing leaders, influential people that are doing it out there and have unstoppable success.

They're going to share, they, they share their tips, their tricks, their insights and all the good things.

I'm your host, Jaclyn Strominger and today I get to welcome to the stage and to the podcast Adam Torres.

And let me tell you a little bit about Adam.

First of all, I'm super honored because he is a top 2% podcast host, global media executive and the, and he is the author of the number one best selling book, One Billion Podcasts the Future of All Media.

Adam has garnered over 25 million views as the Mission Matters podcast pass powerhouse host and his series is heard in 180 countries.

We're working our way there.

He is hailed by audiences as the new Larry King.

Adam is known for creating warm, engaging and insightful conversations with some of the world's most influential figures, including world leaders, se suite executives, celebrities, top athletes and industry shaping innovators.

All that great stuff.

Welcome to Unstoppable Success.

Adam.

Jaclyn, we're finally doing this.

I'm so excited to be on your show, Unstoppable Success.

Let's go.

Yeah.

So Adam, okay, first of all, what made you get into podcasting?

I, I will not say that it was a plan or that I knew that was happening.

So just for everybody listening, you know how it's easy to look at what somebody's doing to be like, oh, they had this plan or maybe they were really smart and they were strategic and all these other nice things that we like to att to people, I was none of those.

Nor was I made, nor was I made for podcasting, just FYI.

So I started out, I tell people all the time and it's actually in my most recent book, One Billion Podcasts.

I talk about it all the time.

Like I say in the book, I'm like, well, I was the world's worst podcaster when I started.

I didn't even use my own, my real name, literally.

I was so deathly afraid that people would know that I even had a show.

So true story, true story.

So and so like I tell people all the time, I'm like, like don't think where somebody's at or what they're doing.

They were necessarily built for that or that was the plan.

So I had no inclination of getting into podcasting.

The way it started was we had this book that we put out and we wanted to sell some more books, myself and the other co founder here, Chirag, and one day he says, adam, we need to start a podcast.

I don't even know that I knew what a podcast was, by the way, Jacqueline.

I don't even think I knew what it was.

And.

And I'm like, okay, of knew.

Maybe I heard.

I don't know.

And then I'm like, well, who's gonna do it?

And he's like, well, I can.

So our business relationship, you know, his side of the deal is that he.

He's busy working and.

And partnerships, bringing in deals, things like that.

He's like, well, if you want me to decrease some of my sales activity, then maybe I should host the show.

And I'm like, no, no, no, it's fine.

Like, just tell me what I gotta do.

Keep working, Chirag.

We need you doing what you do, bringing in those deals.

I was gonna say, did you rock, paper, scissors?

It's.

No, you didn't hear what I just said.

I was laughing.

I'm like, cash flow is the lesser oxygen.

No.

Sherrod, go get us some more oxygen tanks.

Okay?

Keep this business alive.

I'll talk behind the mic, whatever.

And so then he was the first interview.

And I don't even know if our first 300 episodes, Jacqueline, they weren't even edited.

They were like, you couldn't.

I don't even know if you could call it a show.

You could have called it tape recordings of Adam and his buddies and his business partner and his, like, people that he wanted to do business this with.

And we just uploaded them.

That was literally.

It not edited, nothing.

Put them up, put them out there, and we built an audience.

Absolutely unbelievable.

Yeah, well, okay, so I have to say, I tend not to edit ours because I like the authenticity of the conversation.

And I think it's.

It's fun for.

I want people to hear what's going on.

But I'm curious about when you started.

Okay.

So, you know, what was the ultimate, like, objective?

You said you wanted to sell more books.

Yeah.

So I was there.

For me, there was no objective.

I didn't even know what it was.

Like, I really did.

And Chirag just said, like, we need to do this so that we can market, so we can sell more books.

We had a book publishing company at this point.

We'd done some.

So we published books, and I published my biography, or, excuse me, I published one of my books, and it was called Money Matters.

We got some traction, and then we developed this model around that you remember the old Chicken Soup for the Soul, like that old like anthology model, Jack Canfield, Deepak Chopra, all the, you know, the greats back then.

So I thought about it and I created this model and I was like, well, let's do an anthology series, but let's make it for entrepreneurs.

And so we launched that and it became a bestseller.

And just fast forwarding that, We've published over 400 authors now.

We have a good book publishing division.

And one of my claim to fames are just one of my favorite books that we've published.

No offense to anybody else, but I'm from Michigan, I'm from Detroit originally.

And we published Barry Sanders autobiography, Bye Bye Barry.

So that was just, I mean, dream come true, you know, growing up watching Barry play and then getting to publish his autobiography.

I mean absolutely dream come true on my end for a book publisher, I can't.

That was just amazing.

But I, we wanted to sell more books, so we were thinking about the marketing side.

And the good thing is Chirag came from a media background.

I didn't.

So I, he'd already built a media company, I think multiple at that point.

And myself, I was from the finance side of things.

So I was, I was in finance.

I managed a little under $200 million and I had a 14 year career in financ before getting into media.

So for me, I was just doing kind of what I was told and I, to me it was again, tape recording.

The original name of the show could have been tape recordings with Adam.

And that's it what they were.

And you speaking of not editing, here's the funny part.

So for those new podcasters out there, I like what, I like your positioning better, Jacqueline, where you want the authenticity.

But this was what I would say when people would tell me, they'd be like, because back then the editing, like you had to edit just to make the sound quality better.

Now your zoom and everything else that we're recording on now, a good mic zoom like you get, you like 80, 90% there because it's, it's such good quality.

But back then that was not the case.

So, so people would be like, I'd have friends and other people, they'd be, Adam, you know, the, the audio, I don't know, it sounds a little off or it's a crackly or this, that.

And I'm like, really?

Let me work with the editors.

Let, let's figure this out.

Let me, I, I'll work on it, I'll work on it.

And, and then the next Week be the same thing.

Adam, what's the, like, what's going on here?

Like, the edit.

I said, okay, I'm.

I think we found the.

Listen to it again.

I just wanted downloads, Jaclyn.

We weren't doing anything.

And the funny thing is when some people would be like, yeah, I think that episode was a little better.

It sounded like they fixed what I'm like, really?

Okay, listen to the next one just to make sure that they keep it consistent.

Nobody editing those.

Give me the download.

I want the download.

Right?

Yeah, right.

We want the download.

So, like, make sure people.

We want the listener zoo on all of that.

So.

So when you were talking about books, I was.

I was.

It's not just your own book publishing, so.

Yeah.

So I want to go back.

Like, how did you get into book publishing if you went.

I didn't want to do that either.

So all of these are, like, you'll notice a theme here of me not.

I don't want to do things, and.

Then people roping me into it.

And if you're listening to this right now and you have something you want me to do.

No,.

I have an idea for something.

I'm gonna talk.

No, no.

I want to start any more business.

I want just.

No.

Okay.

So this is how they wrote me into this one, Jacqueline.

And that.

That was astute.

I didn't know you were gonna go there, but.

So another thing I didn't want to do.

But, you know, in retrospect, God has other plans for you.

So we make plans so God can laugh, Right?

There goes the saying.

So he was laughing at this one, or she was laughing at this one, Whoever.

So I.

So I put out my first book, which I didn't want to do that either.

So my very first book, money Matters, I had just started my own firm, so I'd been working in finance for a long time.

And then my mentor, he says, adam, you gotta write a book.

And I'm like, I don't want to write a book.

Like.

And at this point in time, I didn't know anything about branding marketing.

I didn't even know about the benefit of sharing your story.

Complete novice.

Remember, I was completely left side of the brain.

And from the standpoint of I grew up in finance.

I started at my first firm when I was 16.

So all I thought about was.

Was, like, numbers and finance.

And I had that type of person in my life that I spent the majority of my day with.

And even conversations I had, like, through the course of business, they were always left side of the brain.

Like, that's just the way it was.

So when he says this, I'm like, man, what do I. I don't get broke.

People write books.

That's what I told him.

And he started laughing.

I'm like, why do I care about a five dollar product?

Like, this is stupid.

I move millions of dollars.

Like, broke people write books.

Why am I going to do that?

And he's like, yeah, but you hired me, and I'm telling you that this is what we need to do.

And I'm like, okay, well, that I can respect.

I do listen to my mentors.

He'd accomplish some things that I didn't, you know, that I haven't at that time.

And I'm like, okay.

So I listen.

So I go forward.

I write the book.

And we did again, self published.

I call it My Ugly Duckling.

I keep it by my desk so other people could see it.

This should be an inspiration.

The design is so bad that I say anyone can do as very go online.

If you're watching the video, you see this is like, it's got a little bit of, like, damage over here that's in the design.

Like, it's not.

It's not professional.

But this is before we had a book publishing company, before we were in that business.

I just did it to check a box.

But the crazy thing was this.

Even though I did it to check a box for my mentor, we started.

I started getting these inbound inquiries, like on LinkedIn.

Completely cold, by the way.

And I was.

I found myself on speaking tours as far away as China.

And I'm like, what.

What is this?

These people are crazy.

I thought it was scams at first.

I'm like, what?

You're gonna wait, you're gonna pay?

But then I saw the companies, they work for, companies like Moody's Analytics, I mean, huge companies.

And I'm like, well, I'll.

You know, I'll take that check.

That's fine.

And.

And then from there, I. I thought these people were crazy.

First off, I'm like, it's amazing.

Great, whatever.

And it was accomplishing what I wanted to do, because what I did was I use it as my business card.

So I gave out tons of these books, and people started continuing to do business with me.

So what my mentor said would happen did happen.

And then what I didn't expect was that some of the people that I was now doing business with on the financial side of things, and some of my referral partners, they were like, man, Adam, I like what you did.

Book can you help me do one?

I'm like, I'm a freaking financial advisor.

No.

Are you crazy?

Like, what are you talk.

Go to a book publishing company.

What are you talking about?

Can I help you?

It's ridiculous.

So I'm like, do you know who you're asking?

Like, remember, go to the experts.

I'm definitely not the expert, but for whatever reason, my story resonate everything else.

And I said, well, if I am going to do it, I just, again, being a finance guy, I looked at all the models out there and I knew that, you know, writing a book is great.

I highly encourage people.

We publish a lot of books, but.

But when you write them by yourself, it's kind of lonely.

Like, you're by yourself.

You're by yourself promoting that book.

So the original thought process around the anthology model, which for those of you that don't know what that is, that just means a group of individuals come together.

Everybody submits a chapter or a couple chapters, you put it together, and then all of you promote the book.

So it's more like a communal feel of a book.

I was like, oh, that would work.

So then the initial group of authors, I lived in Beverly Hills.

They were a bunch of different business partners and referral partners and just people I wanted to do business with in Beverly Hills.

I, I put out the call, hey, who wants to be part of this?

People signed up and we all, we all threw in a couple thousand dollars so that we have money for marketing and to make it actually look a real book.

And that's how I got into book publishing.

In fact, my book, my, my business partner.

So Chiragu, I mentioned a couple times that's how he originally, I, I, so I, I pitched him on being in the book.

I'm like, hey, I'm gonna do this book thing.

People are asking me to.

Do you want to be part of it?

He's like, man, I don't want to be part of it.

I want to be part of the business.

And that's how that, that part of it started, too, was not a plan.

Doing stuff people don't want me.

They asked me to do, Jaclyn, that I don't want to do.

But there's a theme here, and I think this is I kind of want to pull this out a little bit.

I mean, it's, it's not just being in the right place at the right time, but it's, it's seeing an opportunity.

But at the end of the day, what you have done is you've found a Way to take something where people have asked you.

It's serving people.

You're serving to people who have asked and you've made that into a business.

And it's.

And it's.

I mean, it started out from, from what I'm hearing from you is from the heart.

Oh, how can I help?

Am I.

Is that.

Would you say that's a truth.

Truth to that?

I think that'd be giving me a little too much credit.

What I would say more.

So you're right.

Everything that you said is right.

Other than maybe the intent.

I was still in the end, still and more left brain.

So I was thinking of it more like I'm looking at a chart of a stock and I'm seeing a trend.

And so when I see this trend, all I'm like, in finance, what do I want to do?

When I, when I was actively by, by the way, for everybody listening, I haven't had licenses in many, many years, and I don't manage money anymore.

But what I was doing is you're listening for trends and you're listening for and watching for trends.

So for me and in the warmup, we were talking about like, you know, eyes, and I said, well, I don't see.

I don't see the best, but I hear very well.

That's probably what makes me a decent host.

But listening.

So what happens is there's reoccurring themes.

And I feel like all of us have people that are asking us for things, but you don't.

Everybody doesn't always see the common thread there.

So all I was doing was I listen, I'm like.

And I can't.

I can't help but see something.

After one person asked me, hey, will you help me write a book?

Then another person asked me, then another person, and I'm like, there's something here.

Like, there's a need.

And then.

And you.

If you look at the whole course of the business, I'll give you like just one other one.

Like fast forward a bit.

During COVID we weren't.

And all of our products, by the way, we rarely have Mrs. At this company.

Only from the standpoint of we only launch stuff when people are.

Continue to ask for it.

Like, literally.

So if somebody's not asking for it, we don't.

So during COVID everything shut down in terms of conferences.

And a big part of our revenue was, you know, speaking.

And I go out, speak, I do all these other things and then podcasting and all these other.

The things that I get paid to do which bring in Revenue for the company, which, you know, pay salaries.

But when everything closed down, there's no more conferences.

People started asking, hey, will you help us launch a podcast show?

And I.

At first, I'm like.

I'm like, no, that's not what we really do.

We don't bring on clients.

We do it internally.

Sure, we.

And then I'm looking at.

I'm like, well, our team does have some bench time.

So then those people that wanted us to help launch it, I was just, you know, we're very transparent.

Hey, we haven't done this for other people.

We obviously have the capability, and you understand that.

But if you're willing to be the, you know, the guinea pig beginning, we're probably better than most others because we've grown and done all the things that you want us to do, we've already done for ourselves.

But some of those processes internally may be a little clunky in the beginning because they have to be built out, you know, to an enterprise level, whether it's the project management and all the other things.

So different processes.

But the initial clients were in.

And now, to date, we've launched over 250 shows.

But that.

And as.

And as a company, we've put out over 10,000 episodes.

And then myself and myself, just for doing interviews myself, I'm approaching 7,000 interviews.

So we are, you know, arguably one of the most experienced outfits, I would argue, in podcasting.

I'm not going to say the biggest, but we're pretty.

We're pretty experienced, I would argue, but that was just listening.

So I'm just.

It's just listening to the market.

That's more so I like to think the heart in there, that's.

That's a piece of it.

But the first part is like listening and not overextending.

Can we do it?

Is this worth us figuring out?

And if it is, and if we can, then we move forward.

That's.

That's actually kind of really.

It's really great.

So that's a huge number of podcasts that you have done personally as those individual episodes of your own.

Or are those also you being on guests?

You guessed it.

No, actually, I'll answer that in two parts.

Those are individually episodes of my own.

And that also wasn't the plan in the beginning at first, when the demand started increasing to come on the show.

In the beginning, we had to, like, for all the new podcasters out there.

In the beginning, we didn't have a website.

We didn't have anything.

We had to beg people.

If you Had a pulse you were getting on the show, period.

I don't like is that put, you know, the, they got a pulse, they're breathing, put them on.

I don't know how much longer, but whatever, get them on.

So that's the early days, but then the, as the, as the demand to come on the show kept increasing.

So, for example, last year we had over 30,000 applications to come on the show.

So as the demand kept increasing, I didn't want to tell people no.

Like, I was, I just, I wanted, I felt like we were doing a great service.

I didn't have all the business side of it completely figured out, but I was like, no, this is unique.

This is something we're doing.

And then going back to God and maybe how you have, how he has plans for you that you don't know.

I was already, even though I didn't know anything about hosting because of my years in finance, I was already, I didn't, I didn't think about it, but all those years, I was in a very similar mode of training.

It's the same type of conversations, and I was having those conversations up, you know, 10, 15, 17 hours a day already.

So then to translate that to podcasting, where, you know, I, I do.

My record is 91 interviews in a week.

And, and my average for in the beginning was over 70 interviews a week.

A little over 70 a week was my average.

And right now, I like to say I'm kind of like a part timer because I only do 40 to 50 interviews a week right now, but I'll do a solid you hundred to two thousand interviews this year.

And so I was, in those early days, I, I, the finance side of things was kind of wiring me for this.

So I don't recommend anybody do what I just said, nor do I think that they need to do it.

Going back to being the world's worst podcaster, the fact that I did, sometimes people are like, man, you got 7,000 or you're approaching 7,000 interviews.

Whoa.

That's like, I'm like, yeah, and I'm still not a house, a household name.

I got to get better.

There's a problem here.

Maybe beef up that marketing.

Yeah, it's funny that you say that, because that's not our intent.

We could.

It's so interesting.

Like, even my interview style right now, I'm talking about myself.

To answer the second part of your question about guesting, I just started guesting last year.

I've been in this business going on 10 years.

I just started guesting and the reason was the idea wasn't to grow my brand or my face.

The idea was to provide a platform for other people to tell their story.

And the only reason I started guesting is my heart kind of changed on that.

And I was like.

And people were spreading so much misinformation into podcasting industry and around podcasting.

And as I started going on people's shows, the number one question that people would always say is like, well, isn't podcasting, like, oversaturated?

There's too many.

There's this or that, whatever.

And I'd be like, when somebody asked me that question, it means that no offense to the person, whether they're podcaster or otherwise, it just means they know nothing about the podcasting business.

Zero.

Because if you're asking that question, you don't know the numbers.

I'm not saying they're not great hosts.

Arguably, many of them are better hosts than me.

I'm not talking about hosting skills.

I'm talking about understanding the business of it.

And that's why I wrote that book.

One billion podcasts.

That was.

The central theme is to.

Is to teach people the business of podcasting.

And while right now is the greatest time to be starting a podcast, because there's only 4 million, roughly of them, depending on where you get your Data, it's over 150 million YouTube channels.

Podcasting hasn't even begun.

And people.

And in the book I go through why that is, I go through and I juxtapose and make a case.

It's a case study between YouTube, why YouTube grew, why podcasting did not grow at the same rate, and now why podcasting is set and primed to grow to those levels of YouTube and beyond.

Right?

Well, that's so true.

So it's so interesting because, you know, a lot of people ask about, you know, know, show outputs, whatever, you know, and all those things.

And people will say, you know, God, there's so many podcasts.

And I'm always.

And I'm like, it's a great way to get content out there.

And it's.

I'm surprised and I'm curious what you see if somebody appears on your show.

How often do you see them using the content?

Well, first off, when they put.

Somebody says, there's so many podcasts, that's an incorrect statement, right?

So you have to start at that.

If anybody says that, that means that they don't know what they're.

They're repeating information that's incorrect that they heard somewhere, but that have no idea.

Because when you look at.

And I'll give, I'll give the reason.

Just super brief on why there's 4 million versus the 100 something million in YouTube.

And I'll give it, make it really quick.

But I want, because I want people to see why if they have that thought in their mind that wow, there's so many that they're just completely, absolutely wrong, period.

And that they have to if they want to be in this business.

It's a paradigm shift.

So think about it this way.

When YouTube starts started YouTube had.

And they created, I think it was 2007, 2008.

Ish.

Roughly in those years they.

Not, not when they started but when they created their partner program.

Their partner program for everybody that's listening.

All this means is that you upload a video, you can get paid.

That's it.

Simple.

As simple as day.

You don't have to sell advertising, you don't have to do anything else.

YouTube already took care of that through their partner program through.

So it was a centralized program.

So that means if you were a small, if you were, if you were small content creator and this is the early days, everybody got paid for the most part.

Like it didn't have all these complicated hours and all these other hurdles you had to jump through to monetize.

It was like, hey, you're getting paid if we're getting paid.

So it was a very, very fair, equitable system in the beginning for podcasting.

Podcasting grew out of radio, so everything was decentralized.

There was no central platform.

So what this meant is if you were to launch a podcast in the early days, your chances of monetizing if you weren't from the radio business or if you didn't understand that type of business were basically zero.

Why?

Because who's going to advertise on a small platform or who's going to advertise when there's basically no downloads?

You're just starting.

The answer is nobody.

So what happened for that is a lot of the early creators, maybe they, they didn't, they didn't stick with it.

Like some of them did, some of them didn't, whatever, but they had like no chance of actually monetizing because there was no centralized area and there also wasn't what dynamic, the dynamic advertising concept didn't really apply to podcasting at all.

And for everybody, that just so you know what that means, high level, not getting too complicated, all that dynamic advertising means is that when you, you put it, you don't have to put the ads on, on the, on the Channel yourself.

The, the platform does it automatically.

And when the spend is done, just like you're watching tv, a new ad plays so you don't have to redo everything.

For podcasting, this didn't exist.

So what happens is it went, it was like out of, it was born out of radio.

So a host had to physically read the ad to get paid for the most part, or they had to insert it.

But the key here was you couldn't monetize a back catalog.

Why?

Because the host already read the ad.

You couldn't take the ad, you couldn't then take the episode down and re record it.

Put it out there.

So I tell you all this just to educate you slightly on the background, the book the number one billion podcast.com completely free.

It goes further into that concept and it also gives you the numbers, the timelines, why.

But here's the big key and here's the, here's the light at the end of the tunnel.

Dynamic advertising is prevalent now in podcasting.

Those numbers are going to continue to grow.

So the same benefits that YouTube had in the beginning, podcasting now has.

So that means even small creators can be rewarded, which means that this industry is going to get way more sticky.

And the number is just one number to stick out.

80% Of revenue now in the pot depending on where you get your data from podcasting, it comes from dynamic advertising now something that didn't even exist before.

So when you think about the trends now, let's couple one more quick thing.

You now look at other countries like Africa, look other that that are being brought online and that I, I interviewed a, a CEO of this solar company maybe a month or so ago and he was talking to me about how the World bank, you know this, they have this like, it's called 300 million like initiative.

300 Million, something like that.

And essentially their goal is to bring electricity to 300 million homes.

And they've solved.

So this company alone, and I'm sure others are involved in this initiative too, have solved the concept of, of bringing electricity to these homes.

And in this particular company's case, they're doing it at less than a do dollar a month.

So now you got hundreds of millions of people that are also going to be that much more plugged in.

What are they going to go to first when it comes to creating the simplest thing ever, audio.

So now you're going to have, when I talk about 1 billion podcasts right now there's only 4 million, there's going to be 10 million, there's going to be 20 million, there's going to be 50 million, there's going to be a hundred million.

So you can right now 100% predict the trend and the future of this, which makes this the biggest media and business gold mine in, in existence, period.

You know, the trend of what's going to happen.

And so even bad shows, no offense, I'll say my show, if my show's bad, my show, whatever, it's going to benefit from the trend alone.

So I, and I, I say that just for a slight education because the part of like content, you're right, Jacqueline.

Like, it is content and it does, it lets you get out there and get your brand and all this.

But on a much, much higher.

That's, that's like table stakes.

That's like the beginning level of just what's a.

But for those that take this seriously and stick with it long term, they're going to create generational wealth from what they originally started as maybe a branding exercise or it was just fun, right?

Yeah.

So it's been interesting about that from the standpoint of, of being a host.

I am, I'm always surprised when I see, when I have guests come on.

Yeah.

And I love that they're coming on and they get to tell their story because that's.

And we're finding about what helps them be unstoppable and moving things.

But I'm always surprised how they don't all then use that to promote themselves to reuse the content on their own channels.

You know, it's, it becomes one sided and I feel like it's, I feel like the podcast and the guests, it's, it's a partnership in a way.

So somebody comes on and we're hoping that they're going to share the content too.

I'll tell you what's interesting is it's, it's changed.

I've been doing this long enough.

You're, you're correct.

Many people are still of that light.

They think that, that it's going to all just work out and do it.

It's on its own.

On one sense, they are lucky about AI so it is actually true now.

So what'll happen is over time the AI is just so good that when they put in their name or something else, what's going to happen is like my interviews, especially some of the old ones come up if you, if you Google somebo name our plat.

My platform is bigger and bigger year over year.

Assuming I, you know, I live and it's a good, I'm healthy And I can keep recording at a clip of what I'm doing.

Like the domain authority and the authority of my interviews is only going to grow year over year.

So what will happen is they're going, their, their status and even an interview they did with me five years ago is going to go up whether they shared it or not.

So that AI is working on their side, but on their, for their own selves and their own understanding of it.

It, it used to be way worse.

It would be so interesting.

So I'm going to pull out a random number.

This isn't completely accurate, but let's say that I did 10 interviews.

If we go back, you know, as little as five years ago, I did 10 interviews.

Maybe one out of that 10 would go promote that interview.

One out of 10 maybe.

And that's because they weren't even logging into LinkedIn back then.

And these are CEOs, by the way.

These are like legit, you know, people that are, that are vetted and that are brought on the show.

These aren't like slackers by any means.

But at that point it was a matter of they didn't necessarily think they needed it.

Like they're still not educated on it.

Like, ah, social media, I don't want to do that, or LinkedIn, oh, that's, I don't need to do that, or whatever.

They didn't really respect their digital footprint, so that was a big part of it.

And that's as early as I'd say five years ago, six years ago.

Now I would argue even as big as our platform is, we reach over a million a month.

And even as big as the platform is, I'd say maybe six to seven, seven out of ten now promote, but there's still a solid three there, that, that they don't, they just leave it out there and they're, they're kind of like checking a box.

Even have amazing, amazing stories.

Not they're amazing guests, by the way, I'm not saying anything about that.

But they don't, it's just not part of.

They, they quite still don't understand.

And some of these people have larger companies and you would think that the, they'd have their PR marketing team and everybody else do their thing because they understand what, you know, they, they work so hard to get them booked on the show in the first place, then to drop the ball afterwards is kind of interesting to me.

But, but on the other side of things, for us as hosts, it doesn't, I mean this is going to sound bad, but it doesn't matter anymore.

They're part of your catalog.

And AI, if they become or if they're interesting enough for somebody to Google.

And as your show grows and everybody's show grows, that's on it.

Like, that's going to be the key.

There is the catalog.

It's original content.

AI is not making that up.

But AI is cataloging.

The cataloging is insane.

The other day we did a search and this was.

My team was looking for a.

They were looking for a series of interviews that I do for the Milken Global Conference.

So it's called, we call it our Milk and Global Conference series.

And just for a quick note, for those that don't know what the Milken Global Conference is, it's probably number one or number two conference in the world just for a ticket.

So just to attend.

It's 30, 35,000 a ticket per ticket.

Like, no, it's.

It's literally top one or two conferences in the world.

It's no joke.

And we've been covering it for years, so.

And I probably approaching, I don't know, 200, 300 interviews for that conference.

So I've been covering it for.

So my team was looking for some of the cat and I said, I don't know, like, Google it, put it in AI, whatever.

And so they put in three words, Adam Torres and Milken.

And it came up with the.

The catalog.

It said, I've been.

The years that I've been doing the series.

It said, Amtra has been covering the insane.

It can't.

Gave some key interviews from the series, all these other things.

And I'm like, wow, this is like, for those that are out there doing the work work, putting in the time and building a catalog, they're going to be big winners because you can't fake that.

That's not AI generated content.

You can't go back in time and say, hey, AI, I've been covering this conference since 2003.

Wink, wink.

No, you haven't.

It's not the days of just like, you know, putting up a pretty website and like, good branding and the fine, by the way, I'm not against branding or any of that.

We have a branding agency, so I, we do personal branding, so I'm not against any of that.

But the day of just having a great website, good headshots and things that match correctly so people can find you online, that's just like, that's just the game.

That's the, the ticket, like, fee to play in this game in business now, like, that's the Entrance fee.

But it's now it's like, okay, you have that now what?

And like what is creating content, right?

So where do you, where do you see?

I mean, I, obviously there's growth, but where do you see the biggest growth happening now?

Like in the next five years with podcast.

Podcasts, besides the monetization part.

So for one, the, the opportunity for hosts, like, the opportunity for hosts is insane and the demand is insane.

So when I look at other countries especially because now with AI, it's so easy to try to, to translate entire shows into other languages.

Like I'm blown away.

So just to give some context, when I used to, when I first started in this, let's say that.

And we're a California company, so we started in Los Angeles.

That's Rom Bay.

When I started, my interviews would be, would be primarily California.

Then it grew, then it became other states, then Texas, then all the way to New York and Miami.

And now, now every day I circle the globe at least once.

My first interview might be Singapore.

Next one might be Abu Dhabi, next one might be London, next one might be California, next one might be Florida.

And these are like business leaders from all around the world.

So what that leads me to believe is not only are the down there are opportunity for hosts, but the demand is now so international to be on shows.

And when you think about and where people are kind of a little miseducated is they think that, that they, they have to know other languages to do these shows.

Singapore, they speak English.

Like all these, all these inter.

I don't speak any Jacqueline, I don't speak any other language.

So I'm circling the globe, you know, once or twice a day, not a year, not a week a day with my interview series.

And so now when you look at how those listeners are going to bubble and bur over time, the possibility for growth, especially just for a show like obviously the huge, huge ones like your Joe Rogans and all this, who just dominate, especially in the US market, like absolutely dominate.

But there's a whole world out there right now.

I'm seeding interviews and I've been guesting and doing more things in Africa.

I'm like, man, I'd love to go viral over there.

And all of a sudden, like I, I mean there's just so much potential for downloads and for audience, just period.

So I like to think the international side is it us is always probably going to be, you know, number one when it comes to this piece of it.

Because where it started, that's like obviously Hollywood, everything else that's, you know, we sell our content everywhere.

But look at India, look at Africa, look at Asia, look at all the Asians.

Or look at the Middle East.

I mean, look at all the places that speak English.

I mean, there's so much opportunity world, worldwide.

Yeah, no, it's actually, it's actually quite fascinating when I look and see what countries that, that my show is in right now, it's like, I look at it and it's, and I'm like, oh my God, somebody from Israel listened to it and somebody.

Yeah, isn't that cool?

It's like the coolest thing.

It's like, and like every time it's like, you know, the, the page rank keeps going where it says, you know, now it's 24, now it's 28.

And it's like increasing by the number of countries that you're in.

I find that absolutely fascinating.

So, Adam, if you could give somebody one, one tip about podcasting, what would it be?

I would say figure out what your intent is for starting a show and just be honest with yourself.

Like that's the first thing, your intent.

And in the book.

So I talk about this, but if you're going to be a hobbyist, that's fine, be a hobbyist.

If you're going to be a professional, that's fine.

But whatever it is that you're going to be like, you got to understand your intent first.

And then, and then after you have your intent, then you have to kind of start to learn the business.

The first thing I want people to do, read my book.

It's going to save you a lot of time.

It's free.

You get it.

One billion podcast.com start with that.

It'll.

There's also a free audio version of it.

And you know, you're going to listen to it.

It's, I think it's like two hours is the audio version run of it.

But that's going to save you nine years.

That's nine years of knowledge in a two hour listen.

And there's no fluff.

It's going to educate you on how to not quit your job show.

That's the number one thing, how to not quit it, how to design the systems around it, the business opportunity of it.

And, and by the time you're done with that, you're going to know what you want to do.

It's written for two different audiences.

It's written for those that already have a podcast, but they want to grow it, they want to monetize it, and they want to understand the business of it, number one.

And then it's also written for the novice and the person that's always been kind of like podcast cur curious, but they kind of don't know if they're like, if it's the right thing for them and if it's worth their time, but they're just super curious about it.

Like those two audiences.

My aim and my goal is that for those experienced podcasters that reads it, that read it or listen to it, that they have a paradigm shift and they're like, oh, my gosh, like, I had this gold mine under me this whole time and I had no freaking idea.

This podcast is part of the rest of my life, and I'm gonna design a systems around making that possible.

And for the novice, it's like, okay, now I know what I'm getting myself into.

Yeah, I want to do it this way or I want to do it that way.

And there's no right or wrong way.

It's just understanding the game and the business and what you're doing before you put in that little bit of groundwork.

You're going to save yourself a lot of heartache and a lot of potential failure if you quit.

Because that's the only way to fail is quit.

Is to quit.

Right?

Adam, I can talk to you about this forever because I love this whole topic.

But.

But I want listeners to get more of you.

And so where can I find you?

I will put in the show notes the link to the 1 Billion podcast guys.

Get the book.

You know, I'm going to get it right now, but get the book.

But how else can people connect with you and.

And find about more what you're doing?

Or super simple.

Ask Adam Torres on Instagram.

Easiest way.

There's a link there as well, if you care to look at.

You want to listen to the show?

You want the free books?

This book.

We have other books that are completely free.

I like to say we give away more free content, any company of our size on the planet.

Don't believe me, check out that link and you will see.

But ask Adam Torres on Instagram.

That's the simplest way.

And if you have a show concept or something else you want to pitch, send me a dm.

All good.

Awesome.

So, listeners, I want you to understand something.

Unstoppable success.

If you don't have a podcast, start one and get Adam's book, because it will truly help you with that unstoppable success.

And do me the favor.

Learning listeners, besides connecting with Adam, share this podcast with people that you know, leaders, business owners, and other professionals that you will.

That you know will get something out of this, this show, because I know they will.

I'm Jaclyn Schuminger, your host.

Adam, thank you for being an amazing guest.

This is unstoppable success.

And keep on listening and keep leaping to your greatest success.