Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Ben Baker

Curt Anderson  00:00

Hmm Oh hey guys, how are you? Hey Damon. Happy Monday dude, how are you?

Damon Pistulka  00:08

I’m doing great. How are things today?

Curt Anderson  00:10

Oh just dandy. How was your weekend?

Damon Pistulka  00:13

Oh, incredible. We you know what summertime weather man

Curt Anderson  00:16

summertime weather in Seattle summer in Seattle. Right? Like it’s like being Sleepless in Seattle. Come on. Yeah. Nicole Donnelly. Happy Monday. I know like you’re just you have a special glow was like did you do something this weekend or what’s happening at the

Nicole Donnelly  00:29

afterglow, I took my 13 year old daughter to her first concert and we went and saw Ed Sheeran floor seats. was amazing.

Curt Anderson  00:40

Just dropped the mic. Just moment of silence right there to sing an event we should open up with an AED sign,

Damon Pistulka  00:44

you know? Yeah, I was just gonna pull it up. Just yeah. So

Curt Anderson  00:49

hey, let’s take it we have a ton to cover today. And this is a really, man, this is a special episode. Because, you know, like, you know, when you have a friend that’s pre COVID, like pre COVID. Like, like a dog years, it’s like, you know, decades ago, so this fine young man is a friend that goes pre COVID Ben Baker from Vancouver, Canada. How are you my friend?

Ben Baker  01:11

Well, I love the fact that you called me young. That’s the first time he called me young. Best friends for life.

Curt Anderson  01:19

You are like tons younger than I am. I think I’ve got you beat by like 11 months or something like that. You’re a baby compared to me. So

Ben Baker  01:27

it goes baby of the group. But

Curt Anderson  01:32

But yeah, but she’s only mature one on the stage here. So yeah. Hey, man, thank you for joining us. This is way, way, way long overdue. Shame on me. So thank you for joining us. I have a ton to go over. We’re gonna dig into podcasting. And boy, podcasting is just anywhere it is everywhere. I’m a podcast junkie, myself, and just I’ve learned a ton from you. And as a matter of fact, you and I connected through a podcast. Yeah. So this was I think there’s like five I don’t know. However, many years ago,

Ben Baker  02:06

it was at least four or five years ago, you and I connected over podcasting.

Curt Anderson  02:11

Way before COVID You ran a buddy of mine, Dennis Brown, who’s a great LinkedIn influencer. And I’m at the gym and I was just listening to the I listened to Dennis every week. And I was just captivated by your story and just at your humility, and just your your genius and your expertise. And you and I connected on LinkedIn became fast friends. And so I thank you for joining us today. So you know what to call it. Let’s hit the question. Let’s hit the question and turn it over to you. Are you ready? Yeah. And you write it down. Ben, are you right? I’m

Ben Baker  02:40

sitting down. I’m ready.

Curt Anderson  02:43

Let’s hang on. Then Baker. When you were a little guy growing up. I mean, you and you’ve had a wild career. You’re a biker. Bicyclists not biker. Oh, I was gonna say yeah, bicycle.

Ben Baker  02:55

I rode a bike. bike. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  02:58

you’re a little guy growing up. Who was your hero? You always talk about hero all the time when you guy grown up. Who was your hero?

Ben Baker  03:08

I think my one of my biggest heroes growing up was probably my Uncle Sam. Now Sam and Sheldon Allman were best friends of my parents. They were you know, Uncle by choice. Now Sheldon Allman Who here remembers the song Georgia the jungle, Georgia, Georgia, Georgia jungle. Sheldon wrote that. Oh, wow. What a look at look at Shelton’s IMDb he was in God knows how many Western movies whatever. Sam and Sheldon were the original pitchmen. These were the dog and pony guys from the old country. These are the the original if you ever watched the movie Tin Man, that was Sam and Sheldon. And I learned from them at a young age, how to take a stage how to how to how to embrace an audience how to how cadence and timing, and listening and watching and understanding when you have an audience when you don’t have an audience. What’s important, what’s not important, you know how to bring people forward how to bring people back in their seats. And I learned this from the time I was seven or eight years old, watching these people on stage and watching the things that they did. And I fell in love with it. And I fell in love with the fact not the fact that they were pitching. I mean, Who here remembers Tommy Vu from the 1980s YouTube can make a million dollars nobody down. It says Tom. These were the top two pitchman for Tommy Vu. They sold more real estate seminars for Tommy than the next 20 Guys combined. And they knew how to work an audience how to how to get people excited about something that they had no right to be excited about. And it was it was magical. And they’ll those were my heroes of my childhood. Because they taught me what was possible.

Curt Anderson  05:13

Wow, I, man Okay, that that that one’s hard to top Damon, that was a great hero. Right there. So Ben, thank you for sharing that again, guys. Happy Monday. Thank you for joining us drop a note in the comment sections. Matter of fact, speaking of I dropped Ben’s book. So Ben, you and I connect on a podcast, I immediately went out and bought your book, Fantastic book just really resonated. I just love the style, the short stories, true stories, and just it was extremely inspiring. I dropped that in the chat box structure website. We’ve got your brand marketing, you do podcast for hire, we have all sorts that we’re going to dig into Nicole. I know like you’re just burning tons of questions, and we’re, you’re coming fast and furious. Let’s

Nicole Donnelly  05:58

man. Ready? Let’s go. Ready? Are you ready? Oh, my questions. Okay. My gosh. Okay. So my first question for you is you’ve been doing podcasting for quite a while now. Like you were one of the early early adopters. What was it that kind of inspired you to want to go that route? What made you decide I want to do this? What was the catalyst for you?

Ben Baker  06:21

I think the catalyst for me was I was looking for some way to tell stories. Okay. I’ve always been a storyteller. I won’t know. For 30 years, I’ve been a storyteller. For longer than 30 years, I’ve been a storyteller. And I was thinking about, okay, maybe I’ll get on the radio, maybe, maybe I’ll become a disc jockey. And then I started realizing, maybe I don’t want to do this, because what I realized is that disc jockeys last three or four years within a city, and then they’re gone. And then then all of a sudden, you’re picking up and you’re moving all over the country. And as a young single guy that would have been great with somebody with a 10 year old child. Just wasn’t the wasn’t lifestyle that I wanted. And that’s always looking for different ways of doing this. I said, Okay, what can I do as a way to tell these stories and do this? And I’ve always loved podcasting. I’ve always loved listening to podcasts. I mean, there’s people have been podcasting for 20 plus years. And I said, Why not me? And I started reaching out to some people that I knew that were in the podcasting game, I feel okay, what does it take to do this? Because I don’t I don’t want to be a statistic. I don’t want to be the person that does it. Three times gives up and walks away. By the way, that’s about 90% of the podcast podcasters in the world. Yeah. And I started talking to a bunch of people, they said, Well, why don’t you just come on our shows? Why don’t you just come on our shows, and let me show you how to do it. I can’t, I can’t teach you. But unless I show you. That’s a great way. And I started going on show after show after show after show after show and getting more comfortable at it and realizing that there’s a reason that you podcast. And the reason that your podcast is never about you. It’s about your guest, and it’s about your audience. And once I figured that out, that’s when the magic happened. It was it was understanding that the show is about how am I adding value into somebody’s life? Who are the people that listen to me on a regular basis, who are the people that that I’m trying to talk to, and talk to them specifically. And give them little tidbits of information that are going to make their lives better. And my show will grow it always did and finding guests that add value to those people. And that that’s how I that’s how I got into podcasting.

Damon Pistulka  08:54

Beautiful, you can really tell to when you’re going to go into podcasts, and it’s you know, if it’s too, about promoting themselves, you know, you’ll just some you can you can listen to a couple episodes and realize is that really something I want to do or not. And I think a lot of those people that do it for that reason, they probably flame out pretty quick. I don’t look at the numbers or anything because it’s just not there. But when you get your heart into it, I think that’s where you really see people be successful with it.

Ben Baker  09:26

Oh, absolutely. I don’t care if you’re, you know, a schlub like me or Barack Obama. You know, if you don’t care about your audience, your show’s never gonna survive.

Nicole Donnelly  09:39

Yeah, I love that. So your audience when you first started, How’s it changed? Is it just same?

Ben Baker  09:47

Grown but But the premise of the show has always been I’ve always been a b2b guy. Yeah, I’ve always been business to business. I’ve always been about mid to large sized organizations that that’s who I talked to. That’s why who have all I always talk to you for 30 years, that’s who I’ve always talked to. So that’s my audience. My audience is mid level leaders all the way up to senior management in, in b2b companies in your mid to large sized companies, all the way up to enterprise organizations. And it’s all about sit there, right? What are the challenges that these people have on a regular basis? That I can help them with? Yeah, you know, and that’s, that’s what the last 325 episodes was about. That’s what the you’re living brand shows us is how do you communicate the value of your brand, and getting getting guests on the show that can sit there and say, This is what I do. This is what I’ve done differently. This is what worked, this is what failed. It’s not about it’s not just about the glory, it’s about failures. We learn as much, if not more failures, as we do from the from the successes.

Nicole Donnelly  10:54

I love that. That’s so true. Oh, my gosh, man, this is so good. What do you think has been like I have this list of questions, and I’m getting more questions in my head. So I’m just I’m just like,

Ben Baker  11:09

I’m here. To stake I’m in.

Nicole Donnelly  11:13

Yeah. What has been most surprising to you about podcasting that you weren’t expecting? Like, when you first started doing overtime? What have been like some of some of the surprises, the good and the bad surprises? Maybe

Ben Baker  11:24

the biggest surprise is the community. It’s amazing, there is a very large group of very successful podcasters that are very open to sharing. Yeah, that are very, you know, there are people that keep their their stuff tight. And that the only those as I said, those are the ones that I tend to be all about me. And look how wonderful I am and look how marvelous I am. But the ones that truly want to be better. And the ones that truly sit there and say I’m, I’m a good podcaster I want to be a great podcaster share. And we share guests, and we share ideas, and we share questions and we share how we how we use cadence and inflection. And you know how how to research? Because

Nicole Donnelly  12:13

that’s one how to research that’s I think that’s really important. What you know, what tips or strategies do you have for podcasters? Who are, you know, for research, the research I’ll aspect of it because

Ben Baker  12:25

of research, don’t over research.

Nicole Donnelly  12:27

Yeah,

Ben Baker  12:29

I’m a big believer of you get people that sit there and they over research, and then they start leading the conversation. Well, I heard you’ll I read that in 1952. On Tuesday at two o’clock in the afternoon, you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And hello, Mr. Tim Ferriss.

Nicole Donnelly  12:47

Yeah. That is so interesting.

Ben Baker  12:51

And it’s just I just sit there go. Yeah, let the guests tell their own story.

Nicole Donnelly  12:55

You know, what’s so interesting about that? So I am, like, totally a newbie to podcasting. I just recorded my 12th episode, like. And I love it, man. And I love it just because I get to have I get to learn basically, I selfishly, I’m learning so much from these people. But I remember I had a guest on my show recently. And at the end, I was asked for feedback. And so I said, Well, you know, is there anything that I could you know, that you have feedback for? And they said to me, I love that you let me answer the question, and you didn’t stop me. And you didn’t have like, kind of like the set. You know, he’s like, sometimes I go into shows, and they’re, they have like this script, and they’re just trying to get you to stay in the script, you know. And he said, he loved that, you know, and so I think that that’s a really great point is you just kind of have to know enough. But then also be willing to kind of just roll with it. Like, so Well,

Ben Baker  13:53

sorry about that. I know, the first question, I’m going to ask somebody. And I know the last question, I’m gonna ask somebody. And between that it’s a conversation. Yeah. And I allow the guest to take me where they need to go. Yeah. And it’s, you know, you want to get certain information out of them. You know, you know, there’s certain things that are important. But if you miss one, two or three things, and you pick up one or two gems that you never even thought of, who cares?

Nicole Donnelly  14:23

Yeah. So true.

Curt Anderson  14:26

How about the I’m sorry, David, you go ahead. I’ll follow you.

Damon Pistulka  14:29

So. So most men are memorable topic or conversation you’ve had.

Curt Anderson  14:36

That’s exactly what I was going to ask.

Damon Pistulka  14:38

I see.

Curt Anderson  14:40

Ugly, I inadvertently asked one time, like, Hey, I might have said, and I shouldn’t have said this, like, you know, best guests or I can represent our show. And that sounds like you don’t say like who’s your best guess but I like how you’re saying it. Daymond who’s the most memorable or the most memorable conversation so Ben?

Ben Baker  14:57

I think probably the most memorable conversation I had, I’ve had a lot of them was with Dr. Ivan Meisner, who started BNI. And I think we had almost as great a conversation off air as we did on air. So true. And the conversation that happened before the before the before the mic turned on. And the conversation that happened after the mic turned off, was probably as enlightening and as generous as ever I’ve had in my life. And he was an extremely generous man extremely interesting, as as interested about me as I was about him. I mean, this is the man who has 10,000 Plus BNI chapters. This is the man who just sold BNI for $600 million lives in this gorgeous house in Texas that he had just built with his wife. Unfortunate his wife died during COVID. But but just an absolutely gentleman of a man. And I think that it was those people that were as interested in me as I wasn’t them. That led to some of the greatest conversations that I had.

Nicole Donnelly  16:15

Here here, I have to say I had that same similar experience with Daymond. I came on his show faces of business last fall. And I was having a really bad day that day, I had gotten some terrible news. The night before. And I got up that morning. I was like, Oh, I have to go on two shows today. I just like on dread. Like, I’ve got to put my game face on. And we had a great conversation on the show was wonderful. But the best part was after the show ended. Damon the Zen master was like dropping all these like wisdom bombs. And it was like everything I needed to hear that day. I can’t even I don’t think you fully appreciate but like after the show ended and I had we talked for like 30 minutes afterwards. That was like a gift for me. I needed that day. And I was you know, so I love everything you’re saying. And I think that’s really cool that you know, and Damon you you have that same generous kind of spirit. You’re the same. So that’s cool. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  17:08

I have a I’m sorry, Nicole. I’ve sold the founder of BNI. And how ironic Damon we were just in Alaska a month ago. And we attended a BNI meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. How cool is that? Ben? How did you so let’s go there for a minute if you don’t mind a call. Like how did you how did you find guests? Like how did you find a gas of that stature? Like go there for a little bit? Okay, so

Ben Baker  17:31

let’s let’s talk about connecting the dots. My best guess over the years have been introduction from guests or from people that I know. I mean, you introduced me to Dorie Clark, Kurt. You know, I’ve had some phenomenal people on my thing that just sit there going, you need to get in touch with this person to have them on the show. There’s a guy by the name of Cody Bateman that started Send Out Cards and I happen to know somebody who is a major SendOutCards manufacturer she introduced me to Cody. Cody was on my show had a wonderful time. And Cody introduced me to Bob Berg from who started the Go Giver. And for some reason I saw this picture of Cody Bateman, Bob Berg and Ivan Meisner at an event together in Florida. And at the end of the the event, but Bob’s was really happy with the thing is when he says is there anything I can do for you as well. I’ve done two halves of the of the triumvirate. Could you introduce me to Dr. Meisner, he says give me 10 minutes. 10 minutes later, his secretary is calling me saying I says I hear we need Dr. Heiser needs to be on your show. When do you want to set this thing up?

Nicole Donnelly  18:51

That’s amazing. And it was it was literally

Ben Baker  18:53

that quick. And it was sometimes you just have to ask. I mean, Seth Godin was on my show, because I asked Seth Godin to be on my show. And sometimes you just have to sit there and you have to ask but you have to ask in a way that’s going to be beneficial for them. You can’t just say, I’ve got a podcast, can you can you please come up be on my podcast, I’d really like to have you as a guest. It’s you know what? I heard you talk about this topic. I thought it was really interesting. I’d like to attack it from this direction instead of that direction. I think that that would be something that would be really interesting to the audience. What do you think? And would you be interested in being on the show to talk about that? Oh, that’s really and nine times out of 10 times I’ll either get a yes. Or you know what I’d really like to talk about this instead. Okay. Do you have 15 minutes that we can sit down and talk about that so I so we can be prepared for it? Absolutely. And it’s amazing specially when you have people that are out of the lecture circuit people that are trying to be in the public eye, people that are looking for content and they’re looking for PR, if you can supply them with content that is going to be valuable for them and make them look good and make them feel important. They’re willing to accommodate. Yeah. At least the good ones are.

Damon Pistulka  20:25

Yeah, yep. Drop

Nicole Donnelly  20:27

the mic.

Curt Anderson  20:31

Good. Nicole, do you need explain about the strawberry rhubarb pie like Dude, that was probably rhubarb pie at its best rate, their best good piece, just

Nicole Donnelly  20:43

totally my BB she made the best strawberry rhubarb pie. And I’m just sharing it all right now.

Curt Anderson  20:48

We always say like, when somebody just drops like a wisdom bomb like that. Like that’s just like campfire, strawberry rhubarb pie. So dude, that was, that was brilliant. Let’s, let’s keep rolling the

Nicole Donnelly  20:56

dice. Yeah, I loved what you said there. How you ask? And like the approach that you have to just saying, hey, what do you think about addressing this specific topic in this way? Man, I think that’s brilliant advice. And again, it really shows respect to them. And like thinking outside the box, right? Because, you know, some of these people, they get asked to be on pod like hundreds of pod podcasts. And this that’s kind of like a really unique way to have like a unique spin on it. So that’s really great.

Ben Baker  21:27

Is there anything sorry, let me add on to that is that if you listen to a podcast, and you really like the guest, reach out to the to the podcaster and say, Listen, I just heard this person on your show. I really liked it. Is there any way you can make an introduction because I’d really like to talk to them about this. That and make sure it’s different from what their conversation was. Nobody wants to give the same interview 15,000 times.

Nicole Donnelly  21:55

So true. So true. I just had Marcus Sheridan on the podcast a couple weeks ago, he was he’s like one of my idols. And he wrote this really great book they asked you answer. And it was so interesting. I had all these questions ready to talk about that. But he didn’t want to talk about that. He wanted to talk about his new book. And I was just like throwing it out. And I’m like, You know what, let’s just go with it. And he just started. And so I think that’s like, such great, you know, anyway, really great advice. I love that.

Damon Pistulka  22:27

And I like what you said a while ago to Ben about over preparing? Because I think that’s one of the things that you really need to do is let the guest move the conversation as it goes.

Ben Baker  22:43

Don’t ignore a gym. If a guest says something. What do you mean by that? Hang on. We hadn’t thought about that. Let’s let’s explore that for a second. There’s so many podcasters that, as you said, have a list of 10 questions. And all I want to do is get through these 10 questions in my 32 and a half minutes. And sometimes going off going off script is the best thing you can do. Because all of a sudden you’re gonna get them talking about something that a they’re passionate about, be there really knowledge about and it’s going to add value that you never would have gotten by asking the original 10 questions.

Nicole Donnelly  23:28

So good. So okay, I have a question for you about insourcing versus outsourcing. Podcasting. Yes. When do you recommend people companies? I know you work with a lot of companies like what would you recommend that they be asking themselves to know whether or not this is something they should be outsourcing or insourcing. You know, what, what are your in

Ben Baker  23:49

terms of the technology or in terms of or in terms of everything?

Nicole Donnelly  23:55

Everything?

Ben Baker  23:56

Okay, let’s talk about let’s talk about b2b podcast, let’s talk about corporate podcast. You know, in, you know, in personal podcast, you’re obviously gonna want to be the guest. On your, you’re gonna want to be the host on your own show. There’s no question about it in a company, the question is, who’s got the chops to be the podcast? And who’s got the time to be the podcaster? Because there’s a lot of CEOs that I says, I want to be the person on the mic. Well, this person travels three days a week, you know, and all of a sudden, you have a podcast that drops every 10 days every two weeks, once every three months, and all of a sudden becomes totally and absolutely ineffective, because it’s not dropping every Wednesday. You know, if the biggest thing of a podcast is consistency, yeah, consistency of product consistency of quality and consistency of time. And people want to see that consistent day was great. The new episodes coming out on Tuesday. Excellent. I’m waiting for it perfect. You know I can, I can load it, I can load it up for my walk on Wednesday. I know it comes up on Tuesdays Wednesday night, I go for a walk, great. I can listen to it on Wednesday night. But when you can’t be that person that can be sit there and say, Hey, I can’t be that person who can be in front of the mic, and assure that we have an episode every Wednesday, you’re the wrong person to be on the podcast. And I think that a lot of companies have have to look at that and sit there and say, Do we hire somebody, you know, within the company, that that’s their job? Or that’s part of their job description, you know, that, that every week, they have to make sure that an episode goes out on Wednesday? Or do you hire somebody, like our company that goes out there and becomes that that professional host for you? And I think that you have to think about it and sit there and say, what, what do you want? What do you need? And what’s your brand? You know, what is your brand if you’re a small company, having to third party hosts to host your podcast is the wrong thing to do. If you’re a multinational company, nobody’s going to know if it’s if it’s a hired person. Or if it’s some, if it’s somebody within the organization, you know, because you just just you just build it to a point where it looks internal. But you need somebody who’s knowledgeable, you need somebody who’s interesting, you need somebody that can carry a conversation, who can communicate and who can listen. Somebody who’s dynamic and somebody who’s curious. And if you don’t have somebody who’s all of those things, they’re not a good podcaster and you need to sit there and then say okay, is this gonna be in front of the video? Or is this gonna be audio? You know, you know, I got a great face for, for for audio. I really truly do. You know, I’m not the prettiest person in the world. That’s okay, I am who I am.

Curt Anderson  27:02

That’s why it comes on stage with me. But Ben, so I need to interject.

Ben Baker  27:05

Go ahead. You are

Curt Anderson  27:08

such I know you’re a humble guy. And this might make you uncomfortable. You are such a dynamic speaker. And it’s like so you know, I connected again, we go way back and just really connected right off the bat Damon, you had your you know, networking group and Ben was a big part of that. And just and we’ve we meet on a monthly every other month basis, you’re just such a compelling speaker like insight, you, you practice what you preach. You talk about the storytelling, you, you your LinkedIn posts, everything your book, everything about you is like just dynamic, healthy communication. Has that been just is that like intentional? Is that something like you’ve always worked on? Like, how have you become such a? And again, I know you’re humble. You become such a wonderful, great communicator,

Ben Baker  27:57

you work your ass off? You truly do you truly work you migrate.

Nicole Donnelly  28:04

When you say you work your ass off, what do you do to work? Like, what are you working your ass off doing?

Ben Baker  28:10

Let’s Let’s start. Let’s start with my LinkedIn posts. The LinkedIn posts, I write every single day, every single day I post something. I write for three different magazines on a monthly basis. I write articles and LinkedIn I you know, I, I communicate with clients. I’m constantly writing. And I’m constantly sitting there going, is there a better way to say this? Is there a more effective way to say this? Am I speaking to the right, who? Who am I writing this for? Why am I writing this? What do I want to achieve by this? And the same thing goes with to all of my communication is that when it comes to podcasting, I am a far better podcaster 10 years later than I was 10 years ago. If you listen to some of my early episodes that are embarrassing. They were the 10 questions. The first few episodes were 10 questions and trying to get through them as quickly as I could in 32 and a half minutes. If you look at it and sit there and say the more I listen, the more I talk to people, the more I interview more people, the more I listen to how they speak, the more I listen to how they communicate, the better off I become. It’s something that’s takes days, weeks, months, years to perfect. It’s not something that you know, that you’re gonna happen automatically. I look on stage and I have friends of mine, part of the keynote speaking community that I’m part of the dance circles around me. You know, as good as I am, they’re better and as good as they are. There’s people better than they are We’re always achieving for better. We’re not achieving to be like somebody else. We’re achieving to be a better version of ourselves.

Curt Anderson  30:11

That’s a moment of silence, right? They’re always achieving to be better always, you know, to be our better selves. I absolutely love that. All right. Hey, Nicole, let’s get back on your 10 points, your 10

Nicole Donnelly  30:24

I’m totally embarrassed. I’m just gonna throw this away.

Ben Baker  30:29

There’s a conversation that’s coming up so

Nicole Donnelly  30:37

that I was 10 episodes ago.

Damon Pistulka  30:39

That’s right. That’s right. Look how much better you I don’t I don’t feel so bad. Now, Ben, when you said you have the first and last question, because literally, I do a lot. I do research on the guests and things like that. But you know, really, if you go back and study the great interviewers and watching what they do, they their preparation is thorough, their preparation is, is point in, it’s ready. But the conversation that they have, when they’re there is really you said this, getting that guests talk to what they’re about what they’re passionate about, I can’t even talk about it. But like you said that first and last question, just kind of kind of gets you going into the move with him. And yeah, yeah. So it’s just it’s, it’s great when you when you get these gyms. And yet, like you said, there’s always gonna be people better but as as yourself, and you’re saying that getting better is what you got to keep doing?

Ben Baker  31:39

Absolutely.

Nicole Donnelly  31:40

I have a question for that. Like, how can you get because I think I love it when I listen to podcasts, or any shows. And you can tell that the guests just really feel so comfortable that they share some really intimate things, right? And how can you bring that like, what are your recommendations on how you can bring that out in your guests so that they feel comfortable, confident to really go to some of those places where they can get like, kind of below the surface? And not, you know, you know, what are some things that you found to be successful? Or maybe some examples of guests you’ve had, or you’ve seen that happen? And you’ve looked and said, Well, man, how did this is, you know,

Ben Baker  32:19

yeah, three things. I always have a 15 to half hour conversation with somebody a week, two weeks, five weeks ahead of the conversation. Just get to know the person. All I want to know is who are you as an individual? Put them through the process, let them know about it. Give them episodes of things that I’ve done. And the first thing I tell them is says, Look, your episode is not going to be live. If there’s something that we say within the conversation that you’re not comfortable with, let me know we’ll edit it. Yeah, if there’s something that there’s a place, you went and says, you talked about your stepmother, and you said something about her that you really shouldn’t have said, No. We could edit that out. You know, we’ve we’ve had guests, not many, but we’ve had guests over the time where we’ve where we’ve actually sat there and said, you know, what? Do we really need to go there? No, no, okay, let’s, let’s cancel that. Let’s edit that out. And as long as it didn’t detract from the overall conversation, I’m fine with that. Number two is the fact that I always have somebody on your sit there and talk to them 10 or 15 minutes before the mic goes live. Making sure their sound is good, making sure they’re comfortable in front of the mic, making sure that they know they know what the process is asking them if they have any questions, whatever. And just getting them comfortable. Just getting them comfortable. Because Nothing’s worse than showing up at a podcast. And you say when are we going live? And the person goes, well, we’ve been live for five minutes. And I’ve had that happen. I’ve literally had somebody tell me, where did we go live and says no, we’ve been live for like five minutes. I’m like, oh, morning shot over the bow would have been nice. Yeah, you know, I never hit record until my guest is comfortable. Yeah. And number three is the conversation that happens after the after the podcast. Are you comfortable with everything that happened? You know, is there anything that you want to go back? Because I’ve had somebody say, Oh, God, I forgot. I forgot to put that in and I said okay, let’s sit there and chant for five minutes. And I added an I added into the conversation. They said what I really need to say this, okay, let’s let’s just add another five minutes into the conversation. We’ll edit it in somewhere perfect. And it’s just making people feel as the more comfortable you will you can make people the easier it is for them to have a real really open and honest conversation.

Curt Anderson  34:59

So by Let’s say hey, we got a couple of comments. So Devall says, hey, great tip, Ben, we’ve got anger fellow Canadian. Yay, here and so Hey, while Ben loving this, and so Ben, let’s go Nicole for COVID this week average doing good on time, right? How that Alright, so, you know, we love our manufacturers we love singing our songs to our manufacturers speaking of Ed Sheeran earlier. So any advice you know, like the dude, this has just been a total masterclass on podcasting. This is fantastic. Let’s and Nicole, I have like you are a dynamic what a future Nicole has as a commentator wouldn’t have authority on communication. She’s got her whole new microphone there. She’s just

Damon Pistulka  35:46

ready to go.

Curt Anderson  35:50

Yeah, I’m like Uncle Curtis is so proud right now. But then let’s go here. So for manufacturers that are just starting out, can we get into like maybe a little bit of a 101? I’m like, okay, hey, that’s great for you guys that are marketers. Are you guys that are doing this that the other thing? I make widgets, I’m just I’m running a machine all day I’m manufacturing? Look, could you go there a little bit? Like let’s give some insight on like, why should they absolutely be considering this as a viable powerful source of communication in their world?

Ben Baker  36:20

People want to know how the sausage is made. There we go. is the easiest way of saying

Curt Anderson  36:31

we might have to stop the program because I don’t know if we can top that one right there. Right. Yeah. So good. Sausage. Baker, another mic drop. But please keep it going. That was fantastic. You

Ben Baker  36:42

know, what? Different companies podcast for different reasons. Yeah, manufacturers podcast, because they want to create content, that give people quick and easy understanding of what they do, how they do it, why they do it when they do it and and what they’re doing. It’s it’s giving people a window into your into your company, without having to have every single person walk through your door, and have a walk around the place. It’s like scalable, understand how you help how you help make life easier. The case studies that you can create through podcasting are incredible. By having guests on the show and talking about what was the problem they had? How did you figure it out together? What were the challenges that came up? What are the things that you need to do that made you unique and allowed you to be able to solve their problem, but other people couldn’t? What were the results? What, what did this widget ended up being? Because you end up creating a widget and this widget is a widget that might go into Mercedes Benz or it might go into an aircraft or it might go into God knows what a refrigerator. And it’s walking people through the process to sit there and say, from an extruded piece of metal, to, you know, how does this thing help an individual make their life better? And taking people through the process and saying it’s we don’t just turn a wrench, by turning a wrench we make the world better?

Nicole Donnelly  38:19

Yes. Oh, I love that so much. You know, with smaller organizations, it’s much easier for people to understand and feel like because they’re part of building it. But as your business gets bigger, there’s more of this disconnection from that greater purpose. And so I can see for manufacturers that maybe have grown to be mid level or higher, that they do right, they need to be very intentional. The leadership needs to be very intentional about how they convey that purpose that why of why they’re in business, because that’s what’s gonna keep the employees engaged and part so that they feel like what they’re doing that small, what they feel might be like, insignificant how it ties to that overall vision. Yeah. Super cool.

Ben Baker  38:59

And it’s also Yeah, it’s also having that internal purpose. You’re right. I mean, there’s, as we get bigger, as companies get bigger, we lose our purpose. We lose our culture, we lose our sense of where we’re, where we’re going, and why we’re going there. The podcast, can enable you to get there because it’s not just the podcast. It’s the conversations have happened on the shop floor because of the podcast. And the conversations happening in the training room because of the podcasts. And the conversations happened in the health and safety seminars because of the podcast. And it’s being able to drive that conversation throughout the organization and enabling everybody to not only know the story of the organization, but be able to internalize it, recall it and retell it.

Nicole Donnelly  39:48

Turn internalize it, recall it and retell it. So good.

Damon Pistulka  39:55

Yeah. So do you see got me thinking about this the eternal you know, because when you get in midsize larger companies, you see them creating podcast internally for there, really, it’s for the internal people or potential employees more than customers, anybody outside, it’s really just telling about us and why we’re here. And why we do this.

Ben Baker  40:16

It’s a big part of our business. Okay, it’s a big part of our businesses internal podcast is creating these podcasts that are behind closed doors that are private and secure, that are only accessible to employees. And what they do is they enable these organizations, especially organizations that are spread across time zones, continents, you know, states, whatever, to be able to have a better understanding what’s going on in the different plants, what’s going on in the different divisions, what’s going on in the different departments, and be able to sit there and say, okay, when I, when I am procurement by this, you know, all this sheet metal, what happens to it? You know, it goes from being this, this, you know, this raw product that I that I buy from overseas, okay, what happens to it along the way, and if I bought it this way, and I instead bought this way, or hadn’t shipped this with it by ship this way, maybe it would be more effective within the organization.

Nicole Donnelly  41:15

Yes, I could see how this could be hugely valuable in any sort of like change management situation like digital transformation, you know, you’re investing in a new e commerce project, or mergers and acquisitions. And you’ve got like two teams that are trying to like, figure out how they’re going to work together. And I think that’s something that a lot of times, I’ve seen, like, whenever I’ve been part of change management engagements, people always focus on the technical aspect of the project and the project management part of it. But they missed the people part, they miss, like the internal adoption part of it. And I’m like, thick in the middle of that right now with a client where we’ve like, did this whole project and like, oh, my gosh, we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to get everyone to adopt this new platform, and what are we? How are we going to train them on it and all those kinds of things, you know, so to help, maybe talk, I’d love to hear your perspective on how you’ve seen this being a vehicle for change management and how it’s helping from that people perspective, for these kinds of projects.

Ben Baker  42:14

My comment is humans are the X Factor. You know, when we’re when we’re leading through change, most organizations as you right, go straight to the technical. Okay, we need to move this ERP we need to there’s this merger, there’s this acquisition, whatever it has to do, sorry, it has to do with, you know, with the technology and moving the technology. But there’s a, you know, anywhere from 500 to 50,000 people that need to adopt this, in order for it to be right, if you don’t have people in your organization, onboard and rowing in the right direction, and understand why they’re rowing in the right direction. And why rowing in that direction benefits them, they want. And that’s a challenge. And we were working with an organization. And this didn’t happen because there was changing in CEOs. But we had a company where they had just bought a company that had 8000 employees. Now this parent organization was 50,000. And think about it, you have 8000 people that need to be indoctrinated into the new culture into the new way of thinking into the new sales process into the new product lines and to all the different things that go along with it. And they were just going to take these people out of the out of the out of the office, put them through a two day, you know, cultural seminar, throw them back to the wolves. So the way it goes, and it doesn’t work. What we suggested was creating a podcast that talked about the merger for over a year, and invited different people within the organization to onto the podcast and talk about what happened, what worked well, what wasn’t working well, what what were the dynamics were in the cultural changes were between the old organization, the new organization, etc. It would have saved the company $20 million to do it our way. Wow. And would have been far more effective.

Nicole Donnelly  44:10

Yeah. Because that’s so true. You need to hear that message over and over and over again, for it to really sink in. We’re human.

Damon Pistulka  44:17

Yes.

Ben Baker  44:18

And if we’re not, you know, we’re like goldfish. And think about every employee, you’re gonna is gonna cost you roughly about $100,000. To replace if you get people to walk out the door. On average, some less, some more executives are about 213% of of their of their annual salary to replace. So let’s call it $100,000 On average, if 20% of those 8000 people walked out the door, that’s $15 million. She’s Yeah, plus all the intellectual capital that goes along. Yeah, I would just she

Nicole Donnelly  44:56

writes on that like, that’s, you’re absolutely Right. Drop the mic again. How many is this now? Cow.

Curt Anderson  45:09

When can Baker’s get? It’s just way too many.

Damon Pistulka  45:13

It’s a great point, though it’s a great point isn’t, you know, in some situation like that, you know, this kind of communication ahead during after these kinds of changes is how you can make them successful where it could just fail. Yeah. Plain fail.

Ben Baker  45:29

Well, David, how many mergers and acquisitions fail because people don’t focus on the people.

Damon Pistulka  45:35

Yeah, vast majority, vast majority if they fail, it’s because they didn’t consider the culture and mixing them together. Right.

Nicole Donnelly  45:41

Why do you think that happens over and over again?

Damon Pistulka  45:46

Because the people doing it are technical. Yeah. The people doing the deals are technical. Right? financials are often Yeah.

Ben Baker  45:53

Financial Analyst. Numbers, right.

Curt Anderson  45:58

Makes sense on paper. It makes sense on paper. So then we’re gonna start winding down here, man that Oh, my God, this is pure pure gold. I absolutely love that. About what if we go here, Ben. I’m a 2030 4050. Person manufacturer. Sure. Still should consider podcasting. Can we talk to the small entrepreneurs small manufacturer? Why Why should they be considering podcasting?

Ben Baker  46:25

I think the small to mid size up to the 50 person company should look at a podcast, because it helps them build social media content, to be able to continue to tell their story. A podcast is just the first kick of the camp. Here. Here’s for example, we’re going to have 60 minutes worth of material on the show. We videotaped it. How many different sub conversations do we have? We could have 10 Five minute videos with within within this thing that we can then be able to put those out over six months. We can have audio grams, we can have, you know, we could have means we could have short, blog posts. There’s all sorts of things that can come out of a podcast episode. You’re the podcast itself is just long form content, that they enabled you to create short term font content. This is for example, my second book leading beyond a crisis a conversation about what’s next is a compilation of 16 different podcasts and interviews. We just did 16 different interviews. We compiled them we edited them down and we turned it into a book during COVID. Very cool. So all of a sudden there’s a whole bunch of thought leadership authority.

Nicole Donnelly  47:46

It’s great marketing repurposing. Man getting scrappy,

Ben Baker  47:49

gotta scrape scrape the bottom of the barrel. There’s amazing things at the bottom of

Curt Anderson  47:56

the call. What do you have any rapid fire questions left for our friend Ben?

Nicole Donnelly  48:00

Oh, rapid. Okay. What’s your spirit animal? Eagle. Eagle. He’s an Eagle. Eagle. Tell me why.

Curt Anderson  48:10

He’s got way too much air though. I don’t know what Ben’s thinking he has. Wait.

Nicole Donnelly  48:15

Why Are ya? Why are you an eagle bed bakes?

Ben Baker  48:18

It’s the elegance of being able to soar high and be able to see everything from from a pie. That you’re able to see the whole picture from from the from the top looking down.

Nicole Donnelly  48:30

Does Yep. And people need that eagle, man. You’re doing great work. Okay. Next question. What’s your favorite book?

Ben Baker  48:37

Oh, wow. There’s there’s a lot of great books out there. How to Make Friends and Influence People.

Damon Pistulka  48:45

Good. Classic.

Nicole Donnelly  48:48

My last podcast guest said the same book.

Curt Anderson  48:52

It’s a classic. Let’s you know, I want to digress once. Yeah. Good. I take your book had powerful personal brands. I have that correct. Right. Yeah. And I dropped the link and you guys you can buy it on Amazon is a it’s a great read. It’s a quick read great stories, just Sure. And I know it’s been a few years now since you wrote Yeah, just Sure. Sure. The inside of that book. And sure that

Ben Baker  49:17

book came out in 2018. And what was happening at the time as I was working, doing some volunteering and whether universities teaching third and fourth year business students how to network and how to communicate more effectively. How to interview that type of stuff. smart kids could communicate the value to save their life. They’re also the well I got this great in this course. I’m only nobody cares. They would just look at and terrified. Nobody cares the grades you got it says you know what you call the person who graduates last in medical school doctor. Yeah. They are still a doctor. Yeah, I says what we want find out is what did you learn? Yeah. And I started looking for a book on how to teach these people how to communicate more effectively. I couldn’t find one. So I wrote one, you wrote one. And it’s stories from my life. It’s lessons that I learned at the end of every chapter, I asked a question. And I have three pages of lined print for people put their own answers in there. And it’s really designed for people to think on their own to sit there and say, there is no right answer. What is your right answer? What’s your writing?

Curt Anderson  50:31

That’s so good. And I tell one story, and I, and I hope I hope I don’t put your this. There was a gentleman that was in real estate in the state of Wisconsin, maybe Milwaukee, do you remember this story, Ben and your book? And what I love so what Damon, what you and I talk about all the time is like, how do you niche down till it hurts, niche downs hurts. And if I recall correctly, this gentleman young, and I can’t remember his story situation and up in real estate. And what he did is like, he just kept niching down, where like, he came to the best realtor like on his street in his area, you know, like, and maybe started going into his BNI group, and then like, started expanding from there and built a really nice business. I really go in super, super niche. And what I love is like you would tell a story about yourself or your life, you know, from when you’re a young man, or you know, like growing up with your dad and his friends, you would share, you know, some of those stories, then you would give examples of entrepreneurs and leadership examples. And it’s just just such a great flowing book. So again, guys, I dropped it in the chat. I strongly encourage welcome anybody to grab Ben’s book. You will thank me later, Nicole. What else do you have on your Rapid Fire list?

Nicole Donnelly  51:37

Rapid fire. If you are a spy, what would your code name be Ben?

Ben Baker  51:42

What is it? Blackwater?

Nicole Donnelly  51:44

Blackwater. All right. All right. You thought about this one. Someone’s asked you this before? Okay. If you had to guess what is one thing people would say they most appreciate about you. In one word.

Ben Baker  52:00

Reliability.

Nicole Donnelly  52:02

Ah, all right. Okay. Do you have a business coach?

Ben Baker  52:09

At the moment? Not officially, but I have people that I that I lead on.

Nicole Donnelly  52:15

Okay. What’s your thoughts on AI? In one word? Wow,

Ben Baker  52:21

can I use two words? Sure. Getting there?

Nicole Donnelly  52:25

Getting there. Okay. All right. I think that’s true. And you and you already answered? What’s the topic for your next book? So you already answered who is your hero? So those are all my those are my rapid fire. Oh, last one. Boom. One subject you’d like to learn more about right now?

Ben Baker  52:44

Probably more about the human psyche.

Curt Anderson  52:50

So Ben, you kind of so you close out your podcasts always with? How do you want people to think of you when you leave the room? Do I have that great. When

Ben Baker  52:59

you? When you when you leave a meeting, and you get in your car? What’s the one thing you want people to think about when you’re not in the room? What’s your answer? I want people to think about how I changed their life, about how I made them think differently. And how I made them look at the world from multiple angles. And not just not just the one that they’ve been comfortable with their entire lives.

Nicole Donnelly  53:30

So good. Well, that’s definitely true about you. You absolutely I mean, you live that so well done you.

Curt Anderson  53:38

Done you so I know we’re coming into the bottom of the hour so we will start winding down Damon words of wisdom thoughts. Any last parting thoughts for our fun

Damon Pistulka  53:47

hunters soaking it in, man? soaking it in? This is awesome. Thanks, man.

Ben Baker  53:51

Hey, my pleasure, David. I love the fact that we all got together finally. It’s way too long. And it’s you know, I’ve loved you all for for for so long. And it’s great being with all you at the same time.

Curt Anderson  54:02

Well, tons of love right back at you. Yeah. Call any words of wisdom parting thoughts. Last thing, anything less words for Ben.

Nicole Donnelly  54:11

Last words for Ben. Sheesh, I mean, I’m just like Damon soaking it all in. And I think my last words for you is just I appreciate you. I appreciate how you show up and on LinkedIn for me and for your community. And I appreciate how you support you know, everyone, and how you’re always like you mentioned before that, you know, people would say that you’re reliable. And you are, you know, you show up for people. And I’ve seen that and I appreciate that. So it’s nice to be part of your community and to be able to savor the flavor of Ben Baker’s brilliance. And I think what like I love that you have this really great bird’s eye view of things and perspectives and there’s so many companies that really need that And I think that what you’re offering is really tremendous value for all of those mid level and energy enterprise businesses and manufacturers that are going through any, all of them are going through change management. So like, No, there’s not one company that isn’t changed as a given. So that’s the only God’s

Curt Anderson  55:19

outset and people hate change. That’s the only two the two

Nicole Donnelly  55:24

have to live with it every day. It’s like, Come on, have you just accepted that this is part of life.

Ben Baker  55:28

So let me just give everybody a free gift. Before I leave. If we go to your bread, marketing.com backslash ebooks. There’s several ebooks, there are some on podcasting, some on change management, some on communication, and they’re all free. There’s no paywall. Just grab them. They’re PDFs, and just use them at your will. Thank you.

Curt Anderson  55:54

I just grabbed your website. I’m going to jump in the comments section right here and drop that in there. And Ben, I want to close out and first off, thank you. And again, you know, the one word I think of what Ben if when you leave the room, my friend, and again, this was really uncommon because I was connected. I’m at the gym. I’m listening to you on my buddy’s podcasts. I’ve listened to tons of his podcast, other podcasts. And I just resonate with your story. Your integrity is the word that I think just a man of just high integrity. You and I connected. And Nicole you know what I did? I bet it I hadn’t even spoke yet. I wrote a blog post about Ben, do you remember that? Ben?

Ben Baker  56:36

Yeah, you’re by one man PR community. And my

Nicole Donnelly  56:40

current is that is a gift he has. He is He is the

Ben Baker  56:43

one man PR campaign.

Curt Anderson  56:44

I wrote up a whole I just started blogging. I just I was working on my book, and I wrote a blog about Ben Baker. And it’s still out on the World Wide Web there somewhere. It’s on my websites on b2b Tell Ben, you probably have you probably your mom’s refrigerator somewhere. You know, and you drop so many great value bombs. And again, like read your book and Damon you and I preached about this a lot when we were in Alaska, understanding your customers customer. And you know, I got from I got that from my friend Ben. And so Ben, your brilliance, your wisdom, and thank you for your friendship, appreciate your support, and just everything that you do. So hey, I got a big round of applause for

Ben Baker  57:26

Thank you. Thank you all for being such an amazing group. And, you know, whenever I could help companies with with consulting with communication with change management, it’s all about communication. And it’s all about understanding where you are first. Where are you going and building a bridge, there is no cookie cutter approach. There is no box. It’s finding out what works best for you.

Curt Anderson  57:50

That’s right. So hey, check out Ben checkout, go to Ben’s LinkedIn profile your brand marketing podcast for hire and just boy if you if you’re coming into the slate go back and hit rewind and just catch all these golden nuggets all over again. So we will close out so now you know Damon mammer Now you’re on Friday we’re taking a little holiday break. We do have now we’re flipping a script tomorrow on Facebook isn’t Are We Now scripts man if you’re a face of Jesus can you get Nicole and I have good man we’re putting demon a Nazi. Damon’s got to be the moral on his own show faces of business and so we will see you tomorrow. Six o’clock Eastern three o’clock Pacific. Can’t wait for that guys have an amazing, incredible week. God bless you. And just like Ben Baker, man, just be someone’s inspiration and we’ll all have a great day. So it’s that easy. So alright guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you