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March 11, 2016  

The Explosive Growth Of Podcasts

By Cheval John

It was during the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) National Championship matchup between Sam Houston State and North Dakota State that I had a true idea of what podcasting was all about.

I was covering the matchup for the blog of the school newspaper and a colleague who was working for the Huntsville Item at the time chatted about the beginning stages for his podcast.

Before the matchup, we did a podcast along with the sports editor of the school newspaper about the keys that both teams needed to win the national championship.

I did not think more about podcasting for a while until I saw an article by Eventual Millionaire host Jaime Masters on Social Media Examiner about why a person should start a podcast

That was when I realized that I needed to begin a podcast.

The problem was that I did not have enough money for podcast equipment.

Then when I saw about hosting your very own radio show on BlogTalkRadio with just a computer and a phone courtesy of Chelsea Krost‘s show, I knew that was where I was going to launch my podcast.

Since then I have been growing my show steadily and using blab to record my show which later appears on BlogTalkRadio.

And many entrepreneurs are now reaching potential customers via podcast.

This infographic below by CopyBlogger explains the rise of podcasts and why now is the time to have your very own podcast.

From 2003 to 2016: The Astounding Growth of Podcasting [Infographic]

Like this infographic? Get content marketing advice that works from Copyblogger.

And to finish this article, here are a couple of podcast episodes from What’s The Word? featuring guests Janette Speyer of Web Success Team and Natasha Davis of Impact Branding Consulting.

Janette Speyer

Natasha Davis

Have you thought about podcasting? If so, how has podcasting helped your business? You can leave a comment below.

March 1, 2016  

Samantha Kelly’s Gift Keeps On Giving

By Cheval John

Samantha Kelly has come a long way to be where she is at today.

Ms. Kelly, also known as “Tweeting Goddess” built her first business to profitability because she connected other Irish entrepreneurs through the #IrishBizParty twitter chat.

That twitter chat led other business owners for meetup gatherings and also led to the Dublin, Ireland native to launch her Tweeting Goddess business.

Ms. Kelly success did not come by accident.

She understood from the first day that if you were going to be successful in business, you have to help other people to achieve success.

And because of her giving mentality and her willingness to help other business owners to be successful, she has achieved great success herself in her business.

In addition, her native Ireland is now going to be even more better because they are catching up in social media.

The reason is because of the first ever Social Media Summit Ireland that began earlier today at Aviva Stadium, home of the rugby and soccer national teams in Dublin.

The conference came to being due to the vision of yours truly, Ms. Kelly.

She saw how behind Irish businesses were in social media compared to businesses in the United States and the United Kingdom.

And the fact that she saw how much it would cost her to attend social media conferences to learn from the leading experts in the social media industry gave her the idea of bringing these same experts to teach the business owners how to build their audience on social media.

The speakers themselves are truly happy to be there to share their social media expertise because they felt welcomed.

Some of these tweets below showcases the success from the social media summit ireland

So if a business is going to be successful for the better by lifting each other up, why are they still tearing each other down?

What they don’t realize is that they are contaminating the market with their selfishness and are ruining opportunity for anyone to make a living for the better.

They still subscribe to the fact that if they undercut their competition and put people down, then their business will be successful.

Thank goodness Ms. Kelly don’t subscribe to the dogma of putting people down in order to be successful with her business.

Because of her willingness to help her “competition” to be successful with their business, the entire business community and sports organizations in Ireland will now be a step further to being proficient with social media as their counterparts in the U.S. and U.K.

YouTube video courtesy of TEDX

February 24, 2016  

Everyone “Benefits” From Oil And Gas

By Cheval John

February 23rd, 2016

Photo Courtesy of Art Institute.edu

Photo Courtesy of Art Institute.edu


Houston has it advantages and disadvantages of being the energy capital of the world.

One of the advantages is being the location of 26 Fortune 500 companies behind New York City.

The other advantage is being the host of the 35th annual IHS CERA Week at the Hilton-Americas Houston hotel in downtown Houston.

The conference brings together executives, policymakers and government officials from around the world to discuss about the future of energy and the inconsistencies of the oil and gas industry.

One could say that this conference was timely because of the drop in price for oil in recent months.

Some quotes from the conference on Twitter includes:

For the ordinary consumer, this would be seem to be like great news because of the low cost of gasoline in most of the USA.

They would believe that they deserve a huge break after the years of paying high prices for gasoline.

What they fail to understand is that the recession in the oil and gas industry have an indirect effect on other industries as well.

Case in point, Houston.

The Bayou City had grown over the years due to the oil and gas industry.

Marcellius Foster, a former resident of Huntsville, Texas, became wealthy due to his investment in the discovery of oil at Spindletop and founded the Houston Chronicle in 1901.

And when the recession hit most of the country, Houston was able to offset the recession because the oil and gas was able to boost up their local economy.

And over those years, those who become millionaires due to the oil and gas industry gave the city of Houston their own respective sports teams like the Houston Astros (1962), the Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans,) the Houston Rockets (1971) and the Houston Texans (2002).

But when the oil bust happened in the late 80s, Houston felt the worst of that failure because the majority of their economy was in the oil and gas.
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And though Houston has diversified their economy since the oil bust, businesses will still experience the sting of the oil and gas industry indirectly.

An example would be the restaurants and coffee shops.

And when most of the employees gets laid off from most of the Fortune 500 companies due to the current recession in the oil and gas, it affects them because they cater to these same employees.

So in the long run, everyone is affected by the oil and gas industry.

And if they want to avoid the affects of the oil and gas industry, they will have to build a strong online presence by sharing valuable content through their blogs, podcasts, video etc. about their expertise in the oil and gas industry.

They will also have to be as transparent as possible and participate in group chats on social media platforms.

Because when they have a strong network that they built while they were working in the oil and gas industry and have a loyal audience through social media, they will have a 80% chance of gaining work whether as an employee or an entrepreneur when the layoffs happened to them.

February 19, 2016  

Working The Second Shift

By Cheval John

Most entrepreneurs begin their businesses while they are working full time for their respective companies.

When they finish their duties for the day as an employee, they go to work on their business for the better.

Dr. Harold Arnold describes these part-time entrepreneurs who are building their businesses in the term of working the second shift.

He came out with the book, Second Shift, and shared about how he wrote the book on “Starve The Doubts,” with host Jared Easley, where I served as one of the co-host of the show along with fellow co-host Renee Groskreutz for this episode.

Professional athletes are in a lot of ways like part-time entrepreneurs because they are competing on a daily basis compete in their respective sports.

Everyday on national media outlets like ESPN, NBC, we hear from pundits on what these athletes did or did not do to help their team win.

Their identity are immediately connected to the sports they play.

And most of these athletes are working in their second shift when they are building their very own businesses during their off season.

They understand that they have to do something different once they retire from their respective sports.

So in a lot of ways, part-time entrepreneurs can relate to professional athletes.

And there is nothing wrong with starting your business on the side while you are an employee.

As long as that businesses does not conflict with your place of work either in the sports industry, public relations industry, etc.

February 7, 2016  

Celebrating 3 Years In Podcasting

By Cheval John

Courtesy of www.hfmatretrony.org

Courtesy of www.hfmatretrony.org

As SuperBowl 50 is about to begin in about two hours, national media outlets from CBS, the NFL Network, ESPN, USA Today, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle etc. are providing a whole lot of attention and buzz around the different strategies that lead either the Carolina Panthers or the Denver Broncos to winning the championship.

A new wave of media is making the national media to take notice and even adapt to how they broadcast events like the SuperBowl.

Live streaming applications like Periscope and Blab have allowed people who are not with the official media to broadcast their expertise in entrepreneuership, social media and even sports.

In the case of blab, their application makes it easier for someone who is a podcaster to record their shows in front of a “live audience” and overtime build their fanbase for their shows.

I can say that I am one of the podcasters who have started to record my show, What’s The Word? on blab from September of 2015 and have been putting the show’s recordings on BlogTalkRadio to come out at a later time.

BlogTalkRadio was where I started my show three years ago on this very day.

I never thought I would still be podcasting even now because most podcasters don’t make it past the seventh episode because they don’t see the immediate results of getting rich from their podcasts in the same way that John Lee Dumas has become rich from his “Entrepreneur On Fire” podcast.

Dumas is the exception because he was the first to have a 7-day a week podcast and that is the reason why he is extremely successful with his podcast.

Many don’t understand that podcasting takes hard work and dedication and that you will not achieve a million downloads overnight according to this article on Libsyn’s blog.

I know that I was blessed to have begun my podcast which is an extension of Vallano Media from Huntsville, Texas, a small city which is an hour north of Houston and that the guests from the early episodes of my show were faculty and sports coaches from my alma mater, Sam Houston State University.

The very first guest for my show was Peter Roussel, former White House spokesperson and current adjunct professor in the Mass Communication Department.

Even though my first episode did not start out well, I have learned how to become a better podcaster over time.


I am still learning to this day of how to be a great podcaster for the better.

Plus, I am not going after the A-listers as much to be on my show as I did before (even though my intention was to lift them up to another level of success) because I want to treat everyone the same and not give special treatment just because they are a well-known name for the better.

Also, you will get a whole lot of value from a guest who is not a well-known celebrity and will uplift your audience and even yourself to be better people.

A couple of my favorite episodes showcases that example of not too well known guests who have uplifted me and my audience for the better.

Christin Kardos, who is now a community manager for Convince and Convert

Kelly Hungerford, Digital Strategist

Greg Walker, Author And Entrepreneur

Jackie Bernardi: Entrepreneur And Beauty Industry Business Catalyst

Tamara McCleary, Creator of RelationShift

So the most important message that you can take away from this post is to always be consistent with putting out uplifting messages on your podcasts, blogs, YouTube videos, etc. and don’t ever look for the “overnight success” because overtime, you will achieve important milestones that will make you appreciate the hard work that you put into creating quality shows for the better.

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