Your Job Security Is Creating Work For Yourself
By Cheval John
When ESPN laid off 100 on-air talent and journalist a couple days ago, people had to wonder if there are safe in their work.
One could argue ESPN is doing what any business needs to do in order to save their network.
Which ever side you choose, one thing is certain: no one is safe at their work anymore.
This is a wake up call to people that they need to build their network and communities on social media.
The ones who’s still employed with ESPN, are under tremendous pressure to raise the bar in their programming in order to help the network get back their subscribers.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ESPN, John Skipper, understands they must focus their efforts on digital because most of the audience are consuming shows, news, sporting events and entertainment on mobile devices.
“Our objective in all we do is to best serve fans and their changing consumption habits while still maintaining an unparalleled and diverse talent roster that resonates with fans across all our platforms, Skipper said in a statement. “We will continue to foster creativity and investment in the products and resources necessary to embrace the opportunities that lie ahead.”
So how can ESPN overcome their disastrous loss of subscribers in order to restore their status as the “worldwide leader in sports?”
1. They need to listen to what their audience wants
Most of the audience wants sports reporting and less noise.
2. They need to return to their roots of what made them a unique brand.
When they started out in 1979, ESPN showed sports programming that led to them being known as the worldwide leader in sports.
Now most of the shows are all talk radio and debate shows that is only fueling the noise.
3. They need to be more innovative.
As I mentioned before, most consumers are now watching their news and sports on mobile devices.
They are also watching shows on YouTube and Facebook Live that are interested to them.
So ESPN can do this one thing below:
Have a once a week question and answer on Facebook Live with their CEO interacting with their fans
This will encourage their employees to do the same.
I mean, the employees are the ones who are replaceable in the first place.
So if they are allowed to build their personal brand, they will be prepared whenever they receive the notice of losing their work.
We shall see if ESPN can reinvent themselves and rise from the ashes in the near future.
As for everyone else that is reading this post, your job security is creating work for yourself as an entrepreneur.
How I Record My Podcast Using Blue Jeans Network
by Cheval John
A couple of months ago, I had written a post about how I convert my live stream shows to a podcast.
Though it showed the step by step process of turning a live stream to a podcast, you were probably wondering how I did a two-person live stream on Facebook Live in the first place.
The video below will show how I simulcast my podcast recording, What’s The Word? using Blue Jeans Network.
I want to let you know there are other video platforms like Zoom Webinar, Wirecast, and even Crowdcast.io that allows you to simulcast to Facebook Live and YouTube.
I chose Blue Jeans Network because their platform is very simple to use and it fits me.
Without further ado, here is the video
In closing, I want to let you know that later this week will be the 300th episode of What’s The Word?
The guest of honor is Heather Havenwood, author, speaker and entrepreneur.
The episode was recorded on Blue Jeans Network and you will hear the entire interview on BlogTalkRadio
Here is a snippet of the interview with Ms. Havenwood
Yoon Cannon, Founder of Paramont Business Coach
By Cheval John
The attendees at the New York Auto Show will realize all of the newest model cars either carries the Android Auto, Apple Car Play and Blue Tooth.
The last one means that you can sync your apps to the dashboard and listen to your music.
Why I mentioned the above is because all carries some form of podcast app.
So if you are driving to work or on a road trip, you will want to listen to your favorite show.
This should inspire you to create your very own podcast this year because the market is out there.
It is true podcasting will not be for everyone.
You will not know if you don’t try to start your very own podcast.
Here are a couple more factors on why a person should start a podcast according to this year’s Edison Research:
67 million Americans listen to a podcast on a monthly basis
65% of the consumers listen to a podcast on the road
16% has an average income of $150,000 and above
15% of the listeners income is between $100,000-$150,000
14% of the audience makes between $75,000-$100,000
Yoon Cannon has appeared on many major media outlets due to her success as an entrepreneur.
She has sold three businesses during her career and launched her current business, the Paramont Business Coach.
Yoon stopped by my show, What’s The Word? and shared about how she started her first business.
Yoon also shared about why she decided to launch her own podcast called Fast Business Growth Made Easy, this year.
One thing I will tell you is that Yoon uses Zoom live video platform to record her podcast.
That is one of the alternatives to using skype if you are a newbie podcaster.
So I hope this post will inspire you to launch your very own podcast.
Pay Close Attention To Your Customers
By Cheval John
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to cover and work the 34th annual Houston Auto Show along with the team of In Wheel Time Radio, held at NRG Center.
What was different is that the Auto Show was moved to April instead of January due to Super Bowl 51.
The show was also happening at the same time as the Mecum Auctions show.
Though they were about 40 manufacturers there, four of them stood out to me:
Tata Motors Limited (Jaguar and Land Rover), Chevrolet, Volvo and Infinity.
I truly believed that the representatives from each of these brands were so focused on making the attendees feel welcome and also were prepared to answer all of the questions that future customers had about their vehicles.
The team from Chevrolet educated the customers about their 2017 vehicles and their new 2018 Chevrolet Equinox.
One of the product specialist let me know that they were offering a test drive of the new vehicle during the weekend of the auto show.
The attendees of the Auto Show were the first in the city of Houston to drive the Chevrolet 2018 Equinox.
If she did not let me know about the test drive of the new vehicle, I would not have traveled in the 2018 Equinox along with the attendees of the auto show.
With that being said, I will focused more on the jaguar and land rover brand in this post.
They have consistently kept their vehicles as simple as possible in order to make their customers feel appreciated.
They did not set out to be like everybody else in the automobile industry.
They pay close attention to detail in the design, the look and feel of the vehicles.
In all of the Jaguar vehicles, you will notice that the front lights looks like the eyes and face of a jaguar.
And the back lights also look like the eyes of the jaguar.
So if you see anybody driving their cars in a tunnel, you will tell right away that it is a jaguar brand.
What is more impressive, Tata Motors Limited gives them the autonomy and freedom to stay true to themselves.
It is almost like an investor from shark tank risking their own money in an entrepreneur believing that they will get double or triple the returns on their investments.
They don’t try and meddle with the designers or the leadership of the subsidaries they invested in because they truly understand what they bring to the table.
The Jaguar and Land Rover booth was very welcoming and vibrant at the Houston Auto Show (I visited their area about 13 times during the entire show).
This is the video wall that shows where the @LandRover did all of their test drives. Wow #houstonautoshow #iwt17 #VallanoMedia pic.twitter.com/Nlz81gml6t
— Cheval John (@chevd80) April 9, 2017
I got a sense that the product specialists were on a mission to make the visitors feel welcome.
They were not focused on convincing the public that they should buy the company’s vehicles.
The lady who explained to me about the 2017 F-Pace model, believed the vehicle was going to solve the problem of space in a sports sedan.
She herself is a fan of sports cars.
She truly wanted to have a type of sports car with a lot of space like a family sedan.
Another car specialist gave me a history lesson of how the jaguar started out as a race car in the late 1920s.
She also explained that all of the land rover vehicles were modeled from their original farm truck design, evolved into the defender used during World War II and of course, the rest is history.
In a lot of ways, the land rover and jaguar brand reminded me of the company Apple because the co-founder, Steve Jobs, was so focused on their brand being different from the other computer companies.
They wanted to make sure their computers was not the same as everyone else.
Michelle Van Otten is the same way because her mission is to help every business owner to succeed in their companies while staying true to their core values.
The main lesson I took away from the houston auto show (jaguar and land rover brand) is this:
We have to become customer centric and not worry too much about profits.
We have to interact on a daily basis with our prospective customers via social media channels to hear their pain points.
From there, you will be able to create a product or service that will solve their specific problems and become profitable in the process.
That is what the Jaguar and Land Rover brand did and they are more successful than ever.
Returning To Business As Usual
By Cheval John
I started my podcast What’s The Word? on BlogTalkRadio in 2013 and knew this was going to be a fun journey in interviewing successful people.
Four years later, I achieved a milestone with the 300th episode of the show with the guest of honor Heather Havenwood last Saturday.
I went back to business as usual with yesterday’s airing of the show with guest D.J. Ramirez, social media coordinator of BMC Software.
One of the important traits of an entrepreneur is learning how to pivot your business model that serves a customers need.
I saw the importance of live streaming for podcasters in mid-2015
I would not have ever considered live streaming as an option for recording my podcast because at the time, a person could only use a smartphone.
Then I received a message about this new platform called blab.beta.
They wanted to have a group discussion about our thoughts on attending Podcast Movement which was held in Fort Worth.
At first, I did not understand the platform when it was not working on my side of the computer.
I would have given up on blab had it not been for the trio of Rachel Miller, Brian Fanzo and Christin Kardos, who had switched their #bizhour twitter chat to blab.
I was convinced about blab being a great platform to record a podcast after finding out they saved the live stream in both audio and video format.
Blab.beta changed my mind as their live streaming platform was only for computers.
So I started using blab for live streaming my podcast and it was a blessing and a curse.
The blessing part of using blab was meeting awesome live streamers like Victoria Taylor, Jennifer Hoverstad, Ross Brand, Vicki Fitch, Chris Strub and Jennifer Quinn.
And “meeting” people on video like Rebekah Radice, Kami Huyse and Kelly Hungerford from the years of chatting on social media.
The curse part of using blab was their platform was unstable and I had to worry about whether their technology would stay up during the live streams.
The executives of blab decided that developing their platform was not worth it anymore.
So they shut it down abruptly in August of 2016.
Before that, many live streamers decided to pursue other platforms because they saw the writing on the wall that blab was disappearing.
Plus, Facebook launched live video on their platform in early 2016.
As many of us were getting used to facebook live, were were wondering how we can do a two-person or more show there.
Two prominent live streamers, Mitch Jackson and Mrs. Hoverstad, mentioned about how huzza.io was a great platform.
So I decided to use huzza.io for my podcast recording because they had the capabilities to simulcast to facebook live.
A couple of months later, Blue Jeans Network launched their software “on social” feature which allows you to simulcast to facebook live with multiple people on the same platform.
As I decided to try out blue jeans network’s trial run, I continued to use huzza.io, believing they would still be around.
Then, the founders announced they sold huzza.io to kickstarter in February of this year.
I knew that blue jeans network was THE platform for me to continue recording my podcast via live streaming to facebook live.
Blue Jeans Network is so simple to use because you have the option to simulcast your “meetings” to facebook live or record the same meeting for people who could not attend.
This platform is a lot like blab with the biggest difference being they are very stable.
Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Hoverstad now uses blue jeans network to simulcast theshow.live to facebook.
In a lot of ways, blue jeans network is a perfect fit for live streaming what’s the word? to facebook live.
Plus, many people within my community on my business page on facebook, got the opportunity to see the live recording of the 300th episode of my podcast.
I was very happy that Ms. Havenwood was the guest because I found out through Winnie Sun, she uses blue jeans network as well for her podcast recordings.
As I close out this post, here are the most important lessons entrepreneurs must apply to their business:
1. They must know when to pivot their business.
The above can happen with the help of a business coach and also feedback from your customers.
2. They are many ways to skin a cat
The above saying means there are multiple options in getting your message out to your desired customer base.
Live streaming, blogging, webinars, podcasting, etc. are the mechanisms to build your potential customer base.
3. You must follow the trends that is happening in your business industry.
This is reserve for the podcasters within any sector of the market.
Just because your podcast is serving your purpose does not mean you should be closed minded to other ways to get your message out.
You can live stream your podcast recording to your followers on facebook to build a deeper bond with your loyal listeners because you will gain some new fans as well because they were apart of the recording process of your podcast.
As for me, I will continue to produce more quality shows using blue jeans network in order to take my business to the next level.
Plus, I will continue to use blogtalkradio to air those same recordings.
Both of those platforms are the parts I need to continue to build my business blog as well via podcasting.
How are you moving your business forward?
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