$140,000 from One Podcast Appearance with Nathan Barry

[00:00:00] Nathan: Welcome back to the seven Free Elite podcast. I'm honored today to do something really fun, uh, kinda a real time case study with a mentor of mine, Nathan Barry. So Nathan and I got to spend some time together pretty
recently on his podcast, and it's turned into over 140,000 in revenue in the ensuing three months.
[00:00:18] Nathan: And as he and I were talking about that as like there's some really good lessons here. The audience about some of his big ideas around audience versus crowd around flywheels, around the idea of going deep with key relationships. And so I'm really honored, uh, to have Nathan Berry, CEO, founder of Kit Nathan, thanks so much, uh, for being here.
[00:00:35] Nathan: Welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:37] Dustin: Thanks for having me on. It's good to hang out. You're on my show now. I'm on yours like full circle.
[00:00:41] Nathan: Absolutely. Yeah. Not quite as fancy of a setup, uh, for, for me, as when I got to come to Boise and, uh, and be part of, of your world. But yeah, just to give people, uh, a quick setup here. So I was on Nathan's show. If you haven't heard it, you gotta go listen to it. Uh, released in May, I believe, 2025. So a few months ago as we record this.
[00:00:59] Nathan: And [00:01:00] some really cool things have happened since that episode went live. Uh, specifically, uh, we have 14 high ticket clients that have come into our program that have attributed hearing that show as the lead source. So like very real, $140,000 of real revenue. Um, a few other. Things that are starting to emerge that would kind of say these are longer tail sort of effects of this type of opportunity.
[00:01:23] Nathan: Um, I was on Alan Dibbs podcast. I'm starting to develop relationship with him. He and I, um, we're talking about some things he's doing in the publishing world, which happens to intersect with some things that Nathan's doing in a publishing world. Um, but he is the author of the One Page Marketing Plan and is working with James Clear now on some other projects.
[00:01:40] Nathan: I have had Pamela Slim on my podcast because she heard me on Nathan's show. I just did a private training two weeks ago in Justin Wels private community. As a result of the exposure from the show. So it's really just
starting and, you know, my, my experience with these things is there's a lot more to come, but one huge signal that to me [00:02:00] comes from this is like, this is an audience that is extremely in tune, resonant with the stuff that I teach, and trusting of the work that I, I shared on Nathan's show.
[00:02:10] Nathan: And frankly, it's not that big of an audience, at least, you know, I think my episode on YouTube's like short of two. Six figures in less than three months on all this amazing relationship capital. So, uh, all that to say, Nathan, like, I'd love your reflection on that. This idea of audience versus crowd. What, what do you take of all this?
[00:02:28] Dustin: Yeah. So first, if we think about. Usually people talk in terms of revenue per subscriber. That's a common thing that comes about, you know, okay, you have a hundred thousand subscribers. Hey, if you made a dollar per year per subscriber, we got a six figure business, dollar per month per subscriber. We've got a seven figure business.
[00:02:46] Dustin: Right? And then you hear some stories of like these very small audiences that convert really, really well. Like I've got friends, uh, there's someone who works in aircraft sales. Now that's a [00:03:00] category. If, if people are spending money on planes, it's, we're talking maybe half a million dollars, but probably more like three to $5 million and just everything is expensive.
[00:03:08] Dustin: So he's got this email list of 2,500 people and uh, he makes a lot of money off of that, like is a very, very high revenue for subscriber. And so you, you end up in these wild ranges. Um, and it depends on industry and, uh, pricing and so many other things. But what's interesting to me about. Your appearance on my show is we're not even talking revenue per subscriber, we're talking revenue per view.
[00:03:34] Nathan: Yeah.
[00:03:34] Dustin: And so that YouTube video is, call it 2000 views. And then, uh, the audio downloads on that are probably another 2000 or so. So we're, we're under four, well under 5,000 views total on $140,000 in revenue. And so that, like, that's why we didn't even go to subscribers first and then on from there, um. So that's the first thing that stands out to me is that that is just [00:04:00] really, really high.
[00:04:01] Dustin: And I, I think the reason comes down to this core idea of an, an audience, not a crowd. And everybody thinks about audience in terms of how
many subscribers do you have, how many followers, all this, how many people pay attention to you. And there's sort of this other like metric or dimension to it of like, how deep is that relationship?
[00:04:24] Dustin: And that's what, like, that's the idea that I've been trying to publicize is like, not all views, not all attention is equal. Like me doing TikTok dance videos, which, you know, maybe that'll be a few, a second, third career, I don't know.
[00:04:37] Nathan: I hope so. Yeah.
[00:04:39] Dustin: it's coming soon. Come to a craft and commerce closing party and uh, you might see some of that.
[00:04:45] Dustin: Um, that's just not gonna have, I could have a million views on that and it would not be worth. 2000 views on the right podcast episode. And so I, I've kind of broken it down of like, sort of the [00:05:00] difference, right? A crowd is anybody, an audience is the right people. So my definition of
audience is the right people paying attention.
[00:05:09] Dustin: And so then that, you know, brings up this question of like, who are the right people? And it depends on your goals and, and all of that. So we'll break some of that down and, you know, your goals. Who the right people are for you, and then how there happens to be this extreme overlap.
[00:05:21] Nathan: Yeah, for sure.
[00:05:23] Dustin: but then like in a crowd, like bigger is better, but in an audience, bigger might not be better at all.
[00:05:28] Dustin: It might dilute the whole thing. A lot of people talk about, um, you know, being a creator and or an influencer like is draining and you feel like you're always performing and that's, that's a signal that you have a crowd. People that I know that have an audience are like, I cannot believe that I get to show up and a thousand or 10,000 people like they wanna talk about and nerd out on the same things that I do.
[00:05:51] Dustin: Like we're friends now, our family's going on vacation together. Like all of these things, you know, it's like giving you energy.
[00:05:57] Nathan: Yep.
[00:05:58] Dustin: then, you know, there's, there's all [00:06:00] kinds of things. Like often in a crowd, people feel jealousy, right? Like, oh, I can't believe that. Dustin has this and I don't, or you know, that sort of thing.
[00:06:12] Dustin: Like, oh, good for him. Whereas like in an audience, they often like, feel like they identify with you or they're trying to pursue the thing that you have and they're trying to learn from you. And there's like empathy there. And there's often an audience, like there's a level of care about you and your goals and your life and all of that.
[00:06:30] Dustin: With a crowd, you know, it's like, I don't, I don't care about you, like entertain me, you know, dance monkey, like do the thing to entertain me. Um, and, and there's just a few other things like an audience is, or an audience is focused, whereas a crowd is random. Um, and then I think a crowd is like really meaningless and an audience can be really meaningful.
[00:06:52] Dustin: It's usually about what value can I deliver? Um, and so those are a few of the, the different approaches. [00:07:00] I guess to go into your episode, well, maybe we'll back out a little bit, talk about my show because
[00:07:05] Nathan: I was gonna say, I think getting. Obviously go listen to it. There's lots of people that are way, uh, way more talented than me that have been featured and even way more views on YouTube. Um, but what I would say is it's a special show. It it is, and I'm not saying this just 'cause you're on the other side of the mic, like it is legit.
[00:07:23] Nathan: My favorite podcast, um, at least in, in the recent year, um, because of the format, the types of guests, your style, and I think a lot of that nuance actually has a lot to do with why this particular. Interaction was so effective and kind of magnetizing the people that, um, are in my audience versus, you know, in a crowd.
[00:07:42] Nathan: But I, I love your, if you had to describe to people like, what's the Nathan Berry show for? Who's it for, kind of what's the style if people aren't familiar, if they just wanna hear in your words, kind of the craft that we get to see as a finished product. I, I'd love to get your idea of how you're trying to, I think, curate an audience [00:08:00] versus trying to cater to a crowd.
[00:08:02] Dustin: Yeah, so my goal is to make your favorite creator's favorite podcast, and so. In that I'm very specific about who I'm targeting. I'm targeting professional creators and so I define that like professional and very successful.
'cause professional might just mean you're earning a full-time living, which depending on where you live or your lifestyle might be anywhere from $60,000 to a few hundred thousand dollars a year.
[00:08:27] Dustin: My like floor for who I'm talking to is a quarter million a year in revenue. Totally thrilled if other people listen like all that, but I'm not making content for you. That's the cool thing about the internet. Like it's not, we're not gatekeeping it. Anyone can listen in, but people will come to me and
say, Hey, will you make a beginner episode?
[00:08:45] Dustin: Like how do we get the first thousand subscribers and you know, or how do we make the first a hundred thousand a year in revenue? And I'm just like, no, never. And it's said with love, but like I'm very clear about who my audience is [00:09:00] and 'cause like. You know, it's interesting of like, my audience is such a good fit for you and you're such a good fit for my audience because you're like, you're a professional creator earning seven figures a year.
[00:09:11] Dustin: You know, and, and so the more we stay in this wheelhouse, like the better it is for everybody. I, and so I, I make these very deliberate decisions of who to have on, who not to have on. But what I'm looking for is. The stories of like, if I go to an event, so like Alan Dibb and I met at Mastermind Talks, which is this community that I've been a part of for, oh, probably eight years now.
[00:09:39] Dustin: And everybody there is quite successful, um, but like really cares about building relationships and investing in other people. Like it's, it's not transactional at all.
[00:09:50] Nathan: Yep.
[00:09:51] Dustin: And so at that event where I met Alan. There were so many other speakers who were like, I listen [00:10:00] to your show, or like, my team sends me, you know, my general manager for my business sends me this episode.
[00:10:05] Dustin: We were just implementing that, and they're like, that episode was super impactful. And I'm like, oh yeah, what was impactful about it? And then they'll list off three things. I'm like, oh, you did actually listen. And like, these are the speakers that the event that I'm attending.
[00:10:16] Nathan: Focused on it. Yeah. And, and I think that's speaks to the quality. For one, it's, you know, it's kinda like master's level content or PhD
level content in some cases, right? This is not beginner content, like you said, on purpose. Um, it's also just, I think your personality kind of transcends it.
[00:10:33] Nathan: So even guests that I've heard interviewed in other places where they come across the little. Unapproachable kind of bro markety, uh, in your studio. You know, it, it feels like conversational, open, transparent, vulnerable. I think there's a vibe that comes from just the way that you set this whole process up.
[00:10:50] Nathan: I did a whole podcast episode about the flywheel as I observed it being in, in person in Boise and, and like the things that you do there. Um, so anyway, I think, you know. [00:11:00] Yes, your guests are an important piece of this and I don't wanna lose sight of the fact that your style of hosting and the environment that you're creating with this is really important.
[00:11:08] Nathan: So if you don't mind sharing just a little bit. About like why, and I'm sure part of it's efficiency for you, but like why in studio, um, why have a dinner the night before with some of the guests? Like what, what are some of the behind the scenes, um, things that you figured out? Because that's not how you started, right?
[00:11:23] Nathan: But like now that you've got a rhythm with this, why is it designed the way it is? And do you think that has an effect on attracting the audience in a deeper way too?
[00:11:32] Dustin: Yeah. I think I wanted to, to make a show that stood out and I wanted to make sure that was fun for me and that I was proud of like the intersection of those things. So like as we've been putting out episodes and they sit at 500 views, a thousand views, like that's pretty typical. There's an element of like, is this worth it? Because I can allocate time a bunch of different places and [00:12:00] you know, so I'm like always thinking, okay, am am I doing this in a way that's worth it? And so the kind of the first bar is like, well, am I proud of the episodes that we're putting out? Because I will keep doing it for a very long time, so long as I'm proud of it.
[00:12:15] Dustin: And so really doing in studio only was. Um, I figured it would help me make something that was more unique and then it would also have, like, it would just be more fun, like the energy and all of that. I feel like even doing virtual episodes later with someone that I've met in person, I'm like, oh, I, you know, the relationship is totally different. Um, and then I knew that I could make it stand out much more. And actually the format of my show, you know, we do two different styles of episodes. Um, I guess kind of three, uh, one
is the expert interview, like just sitting down on the side of the mic. The second one is the coaching episode where, [00:13:00] uh, someone comes in with a problem.
[00:13:02] Dustin: It's usually something like, Hey, I'm at a million in revenue. How do I scale to five or 10? And then we get up on the whiteboard, I say, whiteboard the black
[00:13:10] Nathan: Yeah. The blackboard with the white markers. Yeah.
[00:13:12] Dustin: Yeah. And we just diagram it. And there's something about being up on the board that I think just changes the whole conversation. And then the third one is the like, teach me.
[00:13:23] Dustin: So like maybe an episode. That's a good example of this is Dan Martel, where I just said, all right, you know, you've grown to millions of followers. He and I have been friends for, I don't know, 12 years or something, and I've watched him create content all the way along. And then two and a half
years ago, he was like, he got serious about it and then he, you know, went from 10,000 or 20,000 followers too.
[00:13:47] Dustin: Multiple millions, uh, you know, in two and a half years. And I could tell, like he got serious about it. And so it was like, all, all right, we have a whiteboard. I know you're good at drawing and sharing ideas and all of that. Like, teach me what did you do? And there's [00:14:00] material that he shared plenty of times before, like, it's in his book, buy Back your Time, all of that.
[00:14:04] Dustin: But there was something about being at the board and writing that out that just changed the, the format. And like Dan does. I don't know, that man probably does 10 guest podcasts a month. Like I'm constantly seeing him getting on the plane and being like, now we're in Scottsdale and you know, California and New York.
[00:14:23] Dustin: Like just all these podcast episodes. And the clip that we put at the beginning of his episode is he goes, that is the most value added podcast episode I've ever done. And it's after we finished the episode and he's like, I mean it like, and so I guess going back to those goals, like in person focused on.
[00:14:43] Dustin: Professionals, expert level, um, in a format that felt different. Like those are the things that make it really exciting for me. Now, they create a bunch of constraints or a bunch of problems. So when I started
doing this format, I, it was taking up a huge amount of my [00:15:00] time. Like I was spending half a day every week recording episodes, because you gotta put out a weekly show.
[00:15:06] Dustin: So people are flying in or I'm flying to them. We're recording these episodes. You know, and then we're hanging out, we're doing all this. And so like best case, it would take over an entire Tuesday morning to record the produced version is like 55 minutes of content, you know?
[00:15:22] Nathan: right.
[00:15:24] Dustin: And I was like, I can't do this, like this isn't working.
[00:15:27] Dustin: And I was asking people like, Hey, will you fly to Boise? And they're like, okay, but your show has like 3000 subscribers on
[00:15:33] Nathan: Yeah, I've checked the YouTube stats. There's
[00:15:36] Dustin: seven views. Yeah. And so then I was like, okay, maybe I can solve all of these problems at once. And so what we did is we said, okay, I'm gonna record once a month, not four times a week, or, sorry, not four times a month, right?
[00:15:50] Dustin: And so I said, we're gonna batch recording, we're gonna fly everyone in at the same time. So then there's this element of like, oh, I get to hang out with the other guests. [00:16:00] Uh, I can streamline this whole thing so I can switch fully from operating kit mode fully into content recording mode, and just tell my team like.
[00:16:09] Dustin: You're not gonna hear from me, like, contact Chelsea, my assistant if you need anything. But like, I'm not gonna log into Slack. And then the, the other guests can record with each other as well. 'cause we're here in Kid Studios, you know, as you know, there's five studios here, so you can, you know, teach your webinar, record an episode with John Meese, he's in town.
[00:16:30] Dustin: You know, like any of those things
[00:16:31] Nathan: Yeah. Take your pick of Taylor name themed, uh, Taylor Swift themed studios, uh, to create more content while you're there. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:16:39] Dustin: Yep. So any of those, any of those things can happen. And then we, we also just dial in every part of it. Like, um, Kara, my producer writes the intro for the episode while the episode is happening. So after we finish the episode, I just sit down and read it off a teleprompter as the guest is sitting, right?
[00:16:58] Nathan: That was one of the most impressive things I, I, [00:17:00] I took away, because I'm always like, you know, trying to fumble through my own introduction here. Even if I post record it, I mean, he has like world class copywriter who's in the room picking up the vibe, and then she does such a really cool job of capturing that, where I'm standing as Nathan's reading it, I'm just like, damn, that's good.
[00:17:17] Nathan: Like, I, I wanna watch this episode and I just did it. You know? So it was, it's, it's really good.
[00:17:21] Dustin: Yeah, so it's just been this process. I guess the last thing that you, you mentioned is, is the dinner and um, that's just something. So what we do is usually we're recorded with two guests on Monday afternoon. So we can fly on Monday morning or two on Monday afternoon, and then two on Tuesday morning. And then in between we do that dinner so everybody can hang out with each other, um, and we can get to know each other.
[00:17:46] Dustin: All of that. I often workshop ideas, things that I want to, um, you know, Hey, what should I do next with my flywheels course? Well, like, what feedback do you have for kit? You know,
[00:17:58] Nathan: We had some great conversations about [00:18:00] group coaching and the flywheels course that I'm in and fully endorse over dinner with other people that, um, had great, great feedback. So I, yeah, it's just like, so I, I'll just give you the perspective as the recipient of this, like it was totally worth two days to fly in the day before go to dinner.
[00:18:15] Nathan: My, my recording happened to be Tuesday and I flew out Tuesday night. Obviously monetarily it turned out to be great, but even if there was no sales as a result, the experience, you know, to be in proximity to Nathan with Kara, with Haley in our case that we had dinner with and any other guests like that alone.
[00:18:30] Nathan: Super cool. Then I'm in kids studios, I get that whole experience feels like a red carpet sort of production. And then, you know, I'm, I'm using that studio time that's available to me. There's so many, I, I guess to
me it captures the culture of the creator culture of Kit in a two day trip. Um, that actually.
[00:18:49] Nathan: Produces a podcast, which is like a really great, I guess, side effect, right? Um, yeah, so I, I, you're, you nailed it. And, and I've, like I said, I did a whole podcast episode sort of breaking down my [00:19:00] perspective on the nuance things like, you guys captured a testimonial from me while I'm there and I'm like, well, of course I'm gonna, hi.
[00:19:05] Nathan: Coming out of the interview, I love Kit. Everything about Flywheels is awesome. Let me do a, a really enthusiastic, uh, you know, case study video and, you know, I was already there. And, uh, it worked out. It worked out great. Kara has a really key role in this and that, you know, by the time you get in studio, it appears to me like you're pretty much queued up.
[00:19:23] Nathan: You know exactly what we're gonna talk about. You're obviously really good at what you do in coaching. And I guess going back to my episode specifically, and then we'll move on to like flywheels, um. I originally intended our, my episode to be coaching. So like the topic is, Nathan, help me go from one to 3 million, right.
[00:19:41] Nathan: Uh, in business. And we did do that, but that was like 15, 10 or 15% of the interview. You, I think, credit back to you as a host, sort of the vibe of this thing was flowing and you're just like, yeah, teach more. Teach more. And you let, you asked me some really great questions about your own podcast guessing strategy, and I felt like coming outta that I'm [00:20:00] like.
[00:20:00] Nathan: That was way better than I expected because I was just trying to get coached by Nathan, but he gave me the mic and let me teach, and I'm sure you, that's a dynamic you have to like manage depending on how the conversation flows, but it, so it's like quote unquote scripted in a way that there's a format that's pre predestined, but then you're really good.
[00:20:18] Nathan: I feel like at. Letting the episode air the way it needs to and letting the guest, or you have more of the mic time? Yeah. Just depending on like what the audience is gonna get the most outta. So is that, does that feel fair that it's a dynamic even though it's kind of like pre-structured?
[00:20:33] Dustin: Yeah, so we. We try to plan, you know, we do our research in advance. We, and you know, as you know, we sit down before we record the episode for somewhere between 10 minutes up to an hour, and we'll talk about,
okay, what is the episode? What, what value are we hoping to deliver to the audience? Okay, no, that's a little too beginner.
[00:20:51] Dustin: Like, let's, what's the, even we'll talk about, we don't always go with this, but like, hey, what would the title and thumbnail of this video be? You know, what's the, what's the [00:21:00] promise of it? And. You know, we're still early in the, the audience growth journey, but like you can see that paying off. One thing that I'll call out, this is a little separate from the, the day to-day like recording process, but is we talk about the audience versus crowd. Almost every growth technique that people talk about for growing a podcast is good for growing a crowd. that's been the hard thing where, 'cause people are like, well these videos got great results. So do the beginner version of that
[00:21:37] Nathan: Yes, because there's a lot more beginners than there are professionals at
[00:21:40] Dustin: Yeah. So if you want views, like don't target people who are make, you know, like making a million dollars a year.
[00:21:46] Nathan: Yeah, they're not camping out on YouTube all night, like binging, uh, beginning, you know, beginning or uh, how to videos. Right? Yeah.
[00:21:53] Dustin: Right. And so our, uh, YouTube team who's fantastic, they're a company called seven [00:22:00] X Content. And uh, they do really great work, but we've had to like reign them back in in some of that 'cause they're like, this will drive more views. And I'm like, I totally agree, and it'll drive views of the people that I'm not trying to attract. And so that's been this balance and that's why I've had to set my metric on. Um, consistency and pride rather than views and basically just trust that over time we will ladder in. 'cause there's lots of times where like the, the subscriber count of the show goes up by 50 subscribers in a week on YouTube.
[00:22:33] Dustin: Like, that was pretty normal. We actually then had like a two month period actually after you came on. So, you know, correlation, causation, like, we can't say for sure, but, you know, just hit 50% growth on like, went from 8,000.
[00:22:45] Nathan: I on the side, I happen to be on the same, you know, uh, couple weeks as like Dan Martel and, uh, some, some other people
[00:22:51] Dustin: Jefferson Fisher.
[00:22:52] Nathan: but forget that it mostly Dustin.
[00:22:55] Dustin: Oh, a hundred percent. Um, have dust on your podcast. Your show will grow within 90 [00:23:00] days. That's, that's what the data says.
[00:23:02] Nathan: I'm glad you said that we we're gonna flag that, that's gonna be the new, uh, lead video on my homepage. So
[00:23:06] Dustin: I love it. So that's been the thing of like, all right, how do we be, you know, just consistent over time. So if you wanna transition, talk about flywheels.
[00:23:14] Nathan: yes, I would love to make sure we get some content on, on Flywheels from you.
[00:23:18] Dustin: Yeah, they have kind of, usually there's two main goals. Lemme back up. So there, there's three laws of a flywheel, right? And everyone uses this word, but like, I actually wanna define it and break it down.
[00:23:31] Dustin: And so the three laws are flow. So every step has to go smoothly from one to the next. And most specifically, the final step of the flywheel has to close the loop and come around to the beginning. Second is ease. So you want each rotation to get easier than the previous rotation. And then the third is growth.
[00:23:50] Dustin: So each rotation should drive more results, growth, et cetera, than the previous rotation. And the, if we [00:24:00] take the podcast recording process early on, that was a very scattered process. Like, Hey, do you wanna come to my show? Yeah, we can do that. We can schedule it at a random time, virtual in person, whatever.
[00:24:11] Dustin: Like everything is bespoke to whatever's happening there. Over time, we started to go to a linear process, and this is kind of like what professionals do, where it's like, all right, we've got our SOPs, you know, all of that. And
[00:24:24] Nathan: it's step by step, but it's not a loop and it doesn't close upon itself to build momentum. Yeah.
[00:24:29] Dustin: yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't really follow these other laws, um, that we'll get into. And so that linear process is like, Hey, we only
record in person. Here's who we're targeting with a show, that kind of thing. And that made it better. We started to have a system for how we recorded it on all of that.
[00:24:48] Dustin: But then really when we made the batch recording events, uh, that's when it turned into a flywheel. And one thing with a flywheel is you have to be really clear on what [00:25:00] the goal is because you can actually only have one goal for an effective flywheel. And our goal for the podcast is to
efficiently produce episodes that we're very proud of.
[00:25:14] Dustin: And so it's not really about growth or all of that, like it's about efficiency and pride. And so I can't just have episodes. I'm really proud of if they take 30 hours a week of my time
[00:25:25] Nathan: Yeah.
[00:25:26] Dustin: and then like the exec team was like, Hey, would you mind showing up to work at like the company that
[00:25:30] Nathan: We got this like 40 million company over here that kind of needs your attention. Yeah.
[00:25:35] Dustin: Um, and I can't just optimize for efficiency because then we turn stuff out that I'm not proud of, right? And so the intersection of those two things really is what designed this process. And so every batch recording event that we finish, um, Kara and I will sit down and we'll recap it and we will rate, uh, how proud are we of each episode after we finished it, you know, just like on a one to five scale.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Dustin: How much friction did we feel? What caused the friction? And so there would be little things in there. Like actually the uh, recording intros was a huge point of friction. 'cause what would happen is first we didn't record intros, and then our YouTube team was like, Hey, could you give us, like, we need to make like a trailer.
[00:26:20] Dustin: Like give us more.
[00:26:21] Nathan: Yeah, we
[00:26:21] Dustin: And we're really trying to find these things and cut and slice and, you know, and sort. All right, we'll do intros. And so then Kara would write an intro, like the bullet points of it and put it on her phone. We'd finish
recording and then she would give me the phone and I would look at it, kind of memorize that and then like try to deliver to camera and like bumble through it and get the pronunciation of their name wrong and everything else. And it actually like, I felt embarrassed 'cause we just did an episode that I was really proud of and then like I kind of just like screwed that up. And as a creator, I'm supposed to be good
[00:26:55] Nathan: the person standing in the room in many cases too. Your guest too. It's like, oh man. Yeah.[00:27:00]
[00:27:00] Dustin: And so then when we added a teleprompter, 'cause now these elga teleprompters are 250 bucks and you should, like, every creator should own at least one.
[00:27:10] Nathan: I bought one literally when I left, when I left your studio. I, I, I have one now. It's awesome.
[00:27:15] Dustin: Yeah. And so we put that on the, the closeup shot. That's just on me. And so now I read it off and it's, it was interesting like reflecting back on the friction. Multiple recording events, tons of friction over intros. And then we fixed that one thing and it flipped, like the friction that I felt in recording dropped significantly.
[00:27:33] Dustin: And it went from like a point of embarrassment to a point of pride because we could just make the guest, like, I felt great. The guest like, just got this killer intro and all that. And they were like, wait, how did you, what? And I was like, well, Kara wrote it and, and they're like, oh yeah, okay. I guess that
[00:27:48] Nathan: you get to witness in person. Yeah.
[00:27:50] Dustin: You know? And then we, we. Started to improve the process of, like, Kara has a custom Claude project that's just about writing intros. And so [00:28:00] she's feeding it notes throughout and she's already fed it, our show notes at the beginning, you know, and all of that. And so she's not even spending the whole episode like crafting all this intro.
[00:28:09] Dustin: She's like, no, not that. How about this? Okay, yeah. Good to go. And so there's all of these things that, because we treat it like a flywheel that we measure every, uh, single time. Then we're able to make it so much easier with each rotation. Now, if you go to growth, you know, this flywheel is not primarily about growth,
[00:28:30] Nathan: Right.
[00:28:31] Dustin: right?
[00:28:31] Dustin: That's a secondary, we do still measure it, but our, our goal is like, Hey, if we make stuff we we're proud of, for the right audience, we will grow. But we do measure that. And so then we, we do ask, Hey, what could we do to drive growth more? There's things like, you know, we'll, we'll brainstorm,
guest selection topics, packaging, you know, that's how we started writing intros was because our video team was like, this will help us so much if you would with growth, [00:29:00] if you would do this thing for us.
[00:29:02] Dustin: So we might try other things like we've been doing related episodes at the end where, you know, we will record that little snippet as well as part of the intro. So it's kinda the flywheel approach. We're, we're measuring it every single week, seeing what results are we getting, how proud are we, is the friction reducing?
[00:29:19] Dustin: Um, and all that. And now we're rounding off like pretty little things, but even then it's making the process that much sooner. Like a little thing was, Hey, did we make sure to collect lunch orders from everybody for the Tuesday afternoon recording? 'cause we're gonna wrap up and like, let's make sure that lunch is there waiting for us.
[00:29:37] Dustin: So. When the guest came in in the morning, you know, do we hand them the menu for wherever ordering lunch that day and make sure, because it's just one other little thing to have dialed in.
[00:29:47] Nathan: Yeah. And then, um. I think we don't have to get into all any more nuance, but I think an important thing for people to hear there is the three laws of the flywheel, um, you know, basically flow, [00:30:00] ease, and growth. The fact that every single, every individual flywheel should have an individual goal. 'cause you have to know what you're optimizing for.
[00:30:06] Nathan: And one flywheel can only be really optimized for one thing. It can have secondary effects. Um, and the other thing I, I heard you allude to is that. A given process or system can actually feed or have multiple flywheels associated with it, right? Like, you guys have a, a growth flywheel associated with podcasting.
[00:30:24] Nathan: You have the primary flywheel about, um, efficiently creating content you're proud of. Um, that's, but um, but then, you know, I
experienced the things there that maybe don't make the scorecard, but the, and the last thing I wanna say is you're keeping score. Like, even if it's qualitative, you're like, how easy was this?
[00:30:43] Nathan: How. Proud of my, of this, like you can still give something a one through five rating, even if it doesn't have necessarily a hard metric to it. But measuring the flywheel over time is super important 'cause that's how you optimize. Um, but like there's this nuance stuff that maybe doesn't, maybe it just [00:31:00] doesn't show up in a flywheel, which is totally fair.
[00:31:01] Nathan: But like relationship capital, like having dinner with these people that are, in some cases really established creators. Maybe in some cases you're getting to know someone for the first time. Um, the fact that you're capturing testimonials, the fact that you're, um, you know, creating secondary content from the primary, um, you know, event of having someone come in and do this stuff, even the peer-to-peer capital that you don't have to be in the room for.
[00:31:27] Nathan: But the fact that like, how can I ever not be an evangelist of Kit because I'm in this room and I met the leaders of Kit, I met these other cool people that are on the podcast. When I hear that podcast. Not only the one I'm on, but the one these other people I know now are on. Of course I'm gonna share that.
[00:31:43] Nathan: You know, and so
[00:31:43] Dustin: the thing, right?
[00:31:44] Nathan: it, it's a, it's a, it's a soft thing, but I think it's something worth talking about that it is still really important.
[00:31:50] Dustin: Yeah, so like the recording that you came out to, you know, you and John were both on it, you know him super well. Obviously your community knows him super well. [00:32:00] Um, and part of that, like scheduling, you guys are like, well, let's come to the same one. You know, like, we're both coming let's,
[00:32:04] Nathan: It just worked out. Yeah.
[00:32:06] Dustin: but, uh, there's also, you know, you're walking away with relationships with.
[00:32:13] Dustin: Two to three other professional creators who are building things well on the same scale and ambition that you are. And so the, yeah, there's all of these other little side effects. And then you're gonna go listen to their episode. 'cause you're gonna be like, you know, I, I heard the five minutes in the hallway of like, how it went, you know, but like, I, I wanna actually listen to it, which then, you know, like I might have people on the show who.
[00:32:38] Dustin: Maybe they're not like a diehard fan of the show already. Right. But they're like, well, that was good. And I do wanna listen to that episode from, you know, the random other woman that, you know, did an episode right after mine. So I listen to hers and be like, oh, this is pretty good. Which then, you know, it's this very slow flywheel, but it, it results in more things of [00:33:00] like the community feeling
[00:33:01] Nathan: Yes,
[00:33:02] Dustin: of the people on the show listen to the show.
[00:33:05] Dustin: They know that. The ins and outs, they know the messaging, the community, they know kit, like all they know each other. They'll cross cross reference shows all the time where people will say like, well, in that episode when you had so and so on, you talked about this and, and so it's just like the same process spinning over and over again, and then having people back.
[00:33:25] Dustin: Like, something that I wanna do even more of is having recurring characters on the
[00:33:29] Nathan: Yeah, I think
[00:33:30] Dustin: So anytime you wanna come back, you're absolutely welcome. Just tell me what you wanna
[00:33:33] Nathan: we got it on tape. This, this is my actual goal of having you on today. We're not releasing this anywhere. I
[00:33:37] Dustin: Yeah,
[00:33:37] Nathan: wanted to be invited
[00:33:38] Dustin: was just for that moment.
[00:33:39] Nathan: the next one 40 in the bank. No.
[00:33:42] Dustin: But like Jay Singh is coming on the podcast next week, um, he's been on before and he's going to like do this deep dive on, you know, like how creators should implement ai. He's doing this huge AI implementation project for Kit as well, and so we'll probably talk about that some and so.
[00:33:59] Dustin: I guess the thing is [00:34:00] as, as you imagine this flywheel spinning over and over again, it's getting the small group of people as tightly connected as possible, and then we'll see what magic comes from there.
[00:34:09] Nathan: I love that. Yeah. 'cause it, in reflecting on it too, a lot of the people. End up on your show, whether it's A or B happens first. They're also speakers at Craft and Commerce, right? And or they're attendees of the mastermind that happens around craft and commerce or, you know, there, it, it is a, um, deepening of the highest quality relationships in the kit community.
[00:34:30] Nathan: Um, and even something as simple as like. It me to the kid studios. So now I wanna be going to Kit Studios, I wanna bring other people. I wanna host events at maybe the Chicago Kid Studios, which is
[00:34:39] Dustin: Yep. Well
[00:34:39] Nathan: And so it just pulls me into the community ecosystem because I had to experience that to do the show that I really wanted to do.
[00:34:46] Dustin: and I think that's another good point is the. Like bringing people all at the same time. Then we're like, Hey, record with each other. Right? Because that's, that's the thing. But then the other point that you brought up is someone could be listening to this [00:35:00] and be like, well, good for Nathan. Right? He's got, he has kids studios.
[00:35:04] Dustin: You know, like most people have not dropped tens of thousands of dollars, in my case, hundreds of thousands of dollars to build out like this level of production studio. But it's like you have Kit Studios as well. Right. There's nothing stopping. And you know, we're working on building our New York, New York location, working on building Austin as well.
[00:35:23] Dustin: And so there's nothing stopping you from like flying to Chicago once a month and doing your recording event in Chicago and recreating the exact same thing. The only hard thing for you is that you know, I have a 15 minute drive to the studio. You have a mul, you know
[00:35:39] Nathan: Take a four hour train, ride or fly up to Chicago. I'm in the St. Louis area, so it's not, it's not that bad. Um,
[00:35:45] Dustin: So it's like. But again, like the exact batch recording process, like you could copy paste the entire flywheel and it would work great for you. And I would be thrilled because you'd be putting out all of his content. You'd be bringing people into studios and you'd probably be like, people would be like, [00:36:00] this is killer.
[00:36:00] Dustin: Where'd you learn this? And you'd be like, oh, I learned from Nathan. You should check out his podcast too. You know?
[00:36:05] Nathan: Well, this is, uh, I love the behind the scenes. I, I love, I mean, one of the things I think that endears people to you and the culture you've created at Kit is vulnerability, transparency, building in public, like, and these are all things that we really are doing as part of this show. I think it would be, it'll take me about 60 seconds.
[00:36:20] Nathan: Uh, I think it would be good for me to summarize. The guesting side of this flywheel and like how, how does this revenue actually get generated? You know, this is of course what we teach in our main program, but, um, I think about this as a, to use a Nathan term, like a high altitude flywheel. So kind of think of flywheels.
[00:36:36] Nathan: There's some that kind of inform the whole strategy of your business and there's, they go all the way down the super tight, like very specific processes that you can optimize that maybe lower altitude flywheel. One of the things that we do and teach is this idea that, hey, every time you're use doing a podcast guesting appearance, it's not just what most people think.
[00:36:55] Nathan: It's just like a linear, I get on, some people heard me, they opt in for my email, and I get some [00:37:00] clients. That's part of it. But there's really three audiences, the listening audience, the host, and then the other guests that are on this show. And then they're sort of the, uh. Post-production audience, I'll call it.
[00:37:11] Nathan: And so the, when I think about a flywheel, very loosely defined, uh, I think of and, and what happened with me going on Nathan's show. Email list sales host relationship, guest relationship, content repurposing and authority. And so when I, when I reflect on that, I don't even know sitting here, but I'm sure we got several hundred email opt-ins as a result of offering a good incentive to your audience to go deeper with podcast guesting.
[00:37:34] Nathan: Obviously we got sales. We've talked mostly about that today, uh, in the form of like 140,000 direct revenue in the first. Uh, 90 days. Um, I think Nathan and I have a much better relationship. I doubt he's sitting
here on my podcast if we hadn't, uh, had this, this time together, and I've gotta spend time with him in person at Craft and Commerce and hope to do a lot more of that sort of thing in the future.
[00:37:55] Nathan: The guest list is something I'm just starting to kind of get into. Um, but now, you know, if I [00:38:00] run into Dan Martel somewhere, at least I have the credibility to be like, Hey man, I was on Nathan's show. I really loved your interview. Uh, and so it kind of opens up the door to cool relationships with cool people.
[00:38:10] Nathan: Um, I experienced a lot of that at Craft and Commerce, um, this year because. My episode came out a few weeks before crafting Commerce. I'm walking around, there's this effect of like, people squinting at my name tag and be like, I feel like I know you from somewhere. Like, oh, I was on Nathan's show podcast, guesting Guide.
[00:38:24] Nathan: They're like, oh man. Yeah, I love that. Like, and so, you know, there's a lot, a lot of people that I felt like I had a, uh, a kinship with because they were listeners or fellow guests, content repurposing. I don't do a lot of this, frankly, on my guesting stuff, but this episode I've reused, uh, a lot. Like I feature it a lot because.
[00:38:44] Nathan: It's, I think it's my favorite interview I've ever done. Um, and it's obviously effective and so we're featuring this and like email signatures, we're sending out newsletters about it. I'm posting on LinkedIn, pulling out clips. Obviously it was kind of the focus of this interview that we're doing as a, as a byproduct of it.[00:39:00]
[00:39:00] Nathan: All of those things sort of taken as a whole, and this is my loop closer, loosely defined, uh, or my flywheel closer. It, it builds authority, right? Because I was on Nathan's show. I've got more relationships, bigger email lists, sales content, and now I have more authority. So that when Alan Dibb hears my show, all of a sudden I'm like, yeah, I'd like you.
[00:39:18] Nathan: He invites me on his show. I don't even have to ask. You know? And so, and I've been on some other cool shows already as a result of kind of, uh. Doing well on Nathan's show and, and having people notice that, and that's a flywheel, right? Like every time you get on a new podcast, you're
getting. It's, it should flow from one step to another like we just described.
[00:39:36] Nathan: It gets easier because people say yes a lot easier once you've done it a few times. And especially as, as you continue to grow in your authority. And then those opportunities get bigger and bigger because you're able to like ladder up the, uh, the authority that, so that was way more than the 60 seconds I said.
[00:39:51] Nathan: But that is how I view the other side of this microphone of being a guest on a really cool show. Um, like Nathan's and um, and I [00:40:00] think there's that dual. It's like a win win win relationship where I think Nathan won by having me on there In some sense, I definitely won by being on his and I hope the audience, uh, definitely won by the fact that we had a really cool,
unique conversation, grew each other's influence and authority in some way, and, uh, created really unique content that has never been and will never be replicated.
[00:40:22] Nathan: So any reflections on that, Nathan, before we wrap up and let you get to your day job?
[00:40:26] Dustin: Yeah, well, what I'd be, I, I love that because it's a fantastic flywheel and, um, you know, I talk about different loop closers and like authority increasing is definitely, you know, a loop closer because just think about every, as that authority builds, even if it's like a 1% improvement on every outbound email you send, or like.
[00:40:48] Dustin: Relationships at a conference or whatever else. Right? And so it's absolutely worth investing in. What I'd be most curious about from your side, going back to the audience versus crowd discussion at the beginning. As you teach your [00:41:00] students, how do you, what would you say to them about podcast selection in pitching, in order to find the audience?
[00:41:09] Dustin: 'cause they could spend a whole lot of time getting on a whole lot of podcasts that would not move the needle at all. 'cause to them, maybe to someone else's, an audience, but to them it's a crowd.
[00:41:18] Nathan: Yes.
[00:41:18] Dustin: So what would you say on, on that selection and what would you teach there?
[00:41:21] Nathan: Yeah. I love this question. Um, it has, uh, the answer to this would depend in some way on the level of authority they have, right?
[00:41:29] Dustin: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:30] Nathan: The reality is they're not getting on certain shows as their first, uh, step because they need to run the play a few times and get the, get the reps in and, and.
[00:41:38] Dustin: Like any show, for the first five guest appearances might be just
[00:41:42] Nathan: Yeah. Get some reps in. Don't worry too much about who's listening, you know, so I, I kind of qualify it with that. But once you're at a certain point, you've done, let's say you've had 10 interviews under your belt. You, you've got the signal figured out on like, who is the type of audience that responds well to your work and who do you like to work with?
[00:41:58] Nathan: Then you can be very [00:42:00] proactive in seeking out those audiences. Right? And so, um. We have a whole, you know, deep dive on all this, but I think one key thing would be topic selection. And so the main thing there I would say is whatever the thing you're a bonafide expert in and the thing you coach, teach, and get paid to share with others, don't try to be on a show that directly, uh, talks about that.
[00:42:25] Nathan: I'm not gonna go on. Nathan Barry show and talk about how to build an email marketing company. You know, like that doesn't make sense. Like he's the expert in that and he wants to have me on to be a subject
matter expert in something that's adjacent to that, but not replicating his expertise. That's probably like partner rule number one that people violate all the time.
[00:42:43] Nathan: So you actually wanna look upstream and downstream of that core problem. So you know, meaning what are the triggers that cause people to have that problem, and what are the results or symptoms that arise when people are experiencing this problem? That's like a really general framework for topic selection.
[00:42:58] Nathan: And then the other would be more like [00:43:00] size selection. Um, and I am really big on not worrying too much about how big the podcast is. Like, uh, you know, I was on your show and I was on Pat Flynn's, SPI podcast. They both got released
[00:43:13] Dustin: They're two very different scales of.
[00:43:15] Nathan: Yeah. And then, you know, I don't know all the download numbers, but based on YouTube and like Apple Ratings, which is a pretty good surrogate for size.
[00:43:22] Nathan: Like Nathan has like 80 ratings, mine has like 40, so I'm not, I'm not throwing shade. Um, but you know, pass has like 3,500. It's a much larger show in its reach. It's also very much catering a beginner audience. And so I got a couple clients from Pat's show. I love Pat Flynn. It was a dream of mine to connect with him in that way.
[00:43:41] Nathan: Like there's lots of reasons I wanted to do that show, but I could have predicted well in advance that being on Nathan's show is actually gonna drive way more business results than being on SPI, even though SP is much larger. I think that's a misnomer. Um, and so. This could be a very long answer and I'll, I'll stop here.
[00:43:57] Nathan: But I think picking the right topic and then choosing [00:44:00] a show that you believe usually through the sort of the personality of the host and the types of topics and other guests that they interview that you feel like you could have resonance to attract an audience. Right. And because it's a quality over quantity, uh, strategy, and it's a quality over quantity platform, like you're not going to get millions of people to follow you.
[00:44:23] Nathan: From being on a podcast. I mean, maybe with like Joe Rogan or something, but probably even not then, because it's such a crowd, the the number of people are gonna resonate enough to come actually do something with you is gonna be much smaller. So I dunno if that quite answers your question,
[00:44:37] Dustin: Oh, it completely does.
[00:44:38] Nathan: Yeah.
[00:44:39] Dustin: Yeah. I, I think that's great and, and just being deliberate about that, getting the early reps under the belt, like five to 10 episodes. You're just trying to learn how to be a good guest, you know, and then be targeted. Reach out to a bunch of people. I would even like call your shot and say like, you could email someone and say, Hey, I'm not ready to come on your show yet. [00:45:00] Just so I'm a huge fan and a year from now, 18 months, like, you're gonna get an email from me and it's gonna be a full pitch of the value that I'm gonna deliver. 'cause I'm gonna tell the story of what I've done between now and then.
[00:45:11] Nathan: Yep.
[00:45:12] Dustin: Hope you're well, we'll talk soon. You know, like that kind of thing. Like you can totally do that sort of thing and just play this like long game over time and I, I think that's so important.
[00:45:21] Nathan: Absolutely. And then we, you know, there's a lot of strategies to sort of, um, I know you talk a lot about like the, the ladders of wealth. There's like ladders of relationship in the way that I, I view marketing and sort of this, this relationship based world. And I think it's great to have a Dream 100 and a Dream Five and a Dream one, and like, who, what, who do you ultimately want to be a guest on their show or have a, you know, have on your show?
[00:45:45] Nathan: If you're a podcaster, you should have that aspirational identity or I, I target, and you can very deliberately build up to it and set that intention. I love what you said because it's like, that's not only setting an intention in your own mind, but it's setting an intention [00:46:00] in this person's mind that you want to interact with.
[00:46:02] Nathan: And then, you know, there's lots of things you can do to, to kind of build up to that. Um, Nathan May or may not recall, but the first time I met him in person was two and a half years ago at Craft and Commerce 2024. I got invited into this like mastermind room. I went up, shook his hand and I said, Hey, will you be up a guest on my podcast?
[00:46:17] Nathan: And he said, maybe, uh, you know, it's happening now, but it took two and a half years. And, and you've heard about some of the stuff that happened in between and that is how life works and how relationships work. But I effectively did what you said. I said an intention. For something that's now coming to fruition and it's way better than it ever could have been then because, uh, you know, we've got a better relationship and you've evolved in some of the stuff that you talk about.
[00:46:39] Nathan: Uh, and it's a super tight fit for the stuff that I care about with, uh, building an audience, uh, as an example. So, alright, well I know, uh, we've went long. Nathan, I super appreciate your time. Super, uh, gracious of you to spend so much time here. Any final thoughts or, you know, the, the pivotal call to action moment?
[00:46:56] Nathan: Uh, and where should people go if they do wanna go deeper on some of these topics?[00:47:00]
[00:47:00] Dustin: Yeah, so, um. Final thoughts? I don't know. I, I think we covered it pretty well in the episode. I love building flywheels, so anytime someone wants to talk about that, uh, I've got a lot of material on both flywheels and audience versus crowd. So if you just search my name and flywheels or my name and then audience shortcut, you'll come across two episode or two essays there.
[00:47:21] Dustin: They go into a lot of detail. It's kind of what I do is every couple years I like try to take everything that I've learned and put it into 4,000 words with some illustrations and then hopefully that helps out. And then, uh,
this fall I'm launching another cohort of my creator flywheels, uh, community, which has been like my passion project over the last few years to just like refine all this curriculum and the disease.
[00:47:45] Dustin: So many people take like good businesses and turn them into great businesses through flywheels is just a dream come true for me.
[00:47:52] Nathan: Yeah, it's amazing. I'm, I'm grateful that you. Do both these things that could be viewed as side projects. I know they're part of a high [00:48:00] altitude flywheel that actually feeds kit as well, you know, your primary business. But, uh, as a realtime endorsement, as, as Nathan and I are recording this on a Tuesday midday, I'm leaving as soon as we're done recording to drive to Nashville.
[00:48:11] Nathan: I'm hosting a three day mastermind retreat. The required reading, and I'm not making this up for the, everyone that attends this retreat are the two essays he just mentioned. So the Creator Flywheels essay from Nathan Berry and the audience, uh, versus Crowder. It's called the Audience Shortcut. By Nathan Barry.
[00:48:26] Nathan: So if you look up Nathan Barry essays or look up those two keywords, uh, that's required reading to come into this retreat because the whole theme of our retreat, um, is simplicity scales and how do we build really simplified, scalable businesses led by creators, um, who love what they do. And I think flywheels plus focusing on audience instead of crowd is like the magic.
[00:48:47] Nathan: So that, and then, uh, I'm a proud first cohort member of Nathan's uh, flywheel course. Um, creator Flywheels course. It's a group coaching program. I highly, highly endorse it. If you've ever [00:49:00] heard me talk on this or other people's shows about flywheels, I know everything about what I know from Nathan Barry.
[00:49:06] Nathan: So I gotta give credit where it's due, uh, and I'll continue to spread this gospel 'cause I feel like this is. One of the most key concepts that all creators, but also all people, uh, should really be, uh, should be incorporating into their life. And, uh, so thank you Nathan for all, all the direct impact on me and you can kind of hear the real time ripple effect and the people that I get to influence, uh, over in my world.
[00:49:28] Nathan: So thank you for, for creating these essays and sharing the stuff that comes outta your brain.
[00:49:32] Dustin: Sounds good. Yeah. Well, thanks for, uh, spreading them further and thanks for having me on. It's been a ton of fun.
[00:49:37] Nathan: Everything I.
[00:49:39] Dustin: See.