SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

Joe Casabona: [00:00:00] it really is what can I automate so that I, I can show up better as a human being, right? I’m sure you get a lot of terrible podcast pitches that all sound like this. Hey Jeff, I just saw your latest episode with Joe Casabona. I love that you talked about single sentence AI summary of what you talked about.

Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

Joe Casabona: it reminds me of random client and then just goes in talking about how great they are. Like that you’re, that is an at scale thing, right? And it’s super obvious

Jeff Sieh: Hello folks. Welcome to Social Media News Live. I’m Jeff c and you’re not.

Conor Brown: And I’m Connor Brown, and this is a show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media and more.

Jeff Sieh: Have you ever wondered what it really takes to run a business without feeling overwhelmed? Maybe you’re looking for ways to get more done in less time without working around the clock. Or maybe you’re [00:01:00] tired of feeling buried under a never ending to-do list and want a smarter way to manage it all. If that sounds like you, than you are in for a great conversation.

Because today we’re sitting down with someone who has mastered the art of systems and automation. He has built a business that runs smoothly while still making time for what matters Most. Joe Cason will be sharing his best strategies for streamlining workflows, saving hours each week, and creating space in your business and life.

So sit back, clear your schedule, clear your mind to get ready for this week’s episode of Social Media News Live. Joe, thank you so much for being here today.

Joe Casabona: Thanks so much for having me. What a great introduction. Thank

Jeff Sieh: Oh wait, there is more. Connor Brown.

Conor Brown: There is so much more because if you don’t know who Joe is, you should. Joe is a systems and automations coach who helps overwhelmed solopreneur parents save time and create more space in their lives. With two decades of experience in web development, teaching and [00:02:00] podcasting, Joe knows how to streamline the chaos of running a business and balancing family life.

His podcasting systems have saved him 10 plus hours a week, earning 30,000 to $50,000 annually in sponsorships and reaching 60,000 monthly downloads. When he is not coaching your podcasting, Joe spends time with his family, watches Star Wars, or talks way too much about the Evil Empire. I’m sorry, I mean the New York Yankees unfortunate there, but other than that, Yankees aside, welcome to the show, Joe.

Joe Casabona: Thanks so much. you are in, Orlando. And so I, are you a raise fan or?

Conor Brown: So it gets even worse because my whole family’s from Boston, so go socks. But I will say, I will say there’s a strong possibility that those rays are gonna move to Orlando. We’ll see

Jeff Sieh: now Connor, you just need to, stick to the script. All right? Come on, quit going off script. Geez. Come on. Uh, but speaking of sponsorships, we want to give a big shout out [00:03:00] to our friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them at Ecamm dot com slash jeff. You can say 15% on your first purchase.

They just released like version 4.4 I think it is, and they’ve got some very cool stuff like, you know, motion transitions, all sorts of new things. if you haven’t checked them out, make sure you go to Ecamm dot com slash jeff. We appreciate them for sponsoring the show and speaking about amazing things and people.

We’ve got our friend showing up. We’ve got Dustin Stout actually coming in twice. I don’t know. He is, he’s just got two keyboards or something. Magi is waving high as well as Dustin himself. So. Appreciate that and our friend Gary Stockton is here too, saying Happy Friday, gents. Happy Friday to you as well, Gary, I appreciate you always stopping by and giving us some love, but we are gonna jump right into the show because I love automations.

I’m always about trying to streamline my, my tool set and efficiencies. I mean, I’m big friends with Eric Fisher who does the Beyond the To-Do List podcast. Joe has a amazing podcast [00:04:00] and we’re gonna be talking about that later, but I want to get right into it, Joe, ’cause you specialize in helping solopreneurs save time and create these workflows.

So you talk about reclaiming time through systems. So what’s the first system or process you think that every entrepreneur solopreneur should set up to make the biggest impact?

Joe Casabona: Ooh, that’s a really good question. I think it’s really gonna, depend on, the person, their skill level and how they work. Um, you mentioned Todoist and so one of my favorite things to, use Todoist for, or one of the reasons I like Todoist the best is because it is open and you can basically send tasks to it from anywhere.

You can email them in. You can set up a Zapier automation. And so, if you are looking to kind of keep tabs on a. The things that you have to do. automating easy task, and capture and management is, is probably the best way to go.

Jeff Sieh: Hmm. So you mentioned [00:05:00] Zapier and I just, that that’s one of those kind of like if this and that system automations, and we’ll probably dive into that a couple times today. Is there a reason that you, like, I know you mentioned this, the podcast Make Maker, or is it make, I can’t remember which one it was.

Make is better than Zapier and why you choose one over the other.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, that, so I like make.com better because, I mean, first of all, I think it looks prettier. but it is, feature to feature pretty similar and it’s a lot more affordable. And I, you know, I’m all for paying for tools that help you. But, but, You know, if two things basically do the same thing and one’s like 90% cheaper, I’m gonna go with that one.

now I will say for most people, I recommend starting with Zapier because the reason make is cheaper is because the learning curve is higher.

Jeff Sieh: okay.

Joe Casabona: you, you do need a little know-how, to manage, make [00:06:00] a little more than with Zapier.

Jeff Sieh: Gotcha. Gotcha.

Conor Brown: They’re both great. I use Zapier all the time. I mean, it’s just like, I wish something could do this. Guess what? It probably can with the help of, of Zapier. Again, a little bit of a learning curve, but, but it is awesome. Joe, we kind of talked about, you know, the importance of having a system where you can just put things from your head.

Into it where you can then act on it later. And I think so many entrepreneurs and creators struggle with that decision fatigue, right? They don’t know what branch to go into. They don’t know, you know, how to reduce the mental load that they have up here and, and, and make a decision. So how do you think systems just in general can help, you know, reduce mental load and overall just make business operations go much, much, much smoother?

Joe Casabona: So my favorite podcast bar none is Cortex. It’s by CGP, gray and Mike Curley. It’s amazing. CGP Gray. [00:07:00] Y’all might know from, his explainer video on YouTube, but one of the things that they talk about every year is doing a yearly theme. And this year, my yearly theme is the year of being more present because I’ve just, I haven’t felt like a very present father.

I, I’ll give myself some credit and say, I think I’m more present than a lot of parents. ’cause I am, when I’m out in public, I try not to be on my phone so much. But, one of the reasons I didn’t feel very present is because I would work up until the moment that I have to go get my kids from daycare or school.

And then I would be thinking about all of, you know, what I call ’em, what others call open threads, right? Like things that I didn’t finish. And so I’d be doing something, cooking dinner or like taking the dog out or whatever, and I’d be thinking about work. Instead of being present with my family. And a way to kind of [00:08:00] brain dump is making the idea and, and thought capture as easy as possible with a good system. For me, the goal is I want to be able to shout into the ether at my virtual, well, my digital assistant, right? I won’t say any names and activate any devices, but, I wanna be able to shout, you know, I have an idea or I have open threads and capture everything I say and put it in the right spot, which is why I don’t just say like, make a new note.

I’ll say I have open threads and then it’ll put it in my, open threads section of the shutdown routine in obsidian for me. Right? So, that’s, if you’re just starting, that’s really complicated. Making a new note is fine, but for me, like the goal is make capture as easy as possible. I wanna be able to type.

I want to be able to shout, I want to be able to talk to my watch, like whatever it is, wherever I am, I need to be able to capture ideas in, in whatever context I’m [00:09:00] in.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Awesome. I love that because I think one of the things as creators that. If you look and you use kind of survey, most creators, they don’t capture thoughts down and that’s why they struggle when it’s time to put out content. It’s like, uh, but if you’re doing what you just mentioned, you know, constantly filling that bucket, I think that you, you’re way ahead of a lot of your competition.

So one of the things, and I don’t remember where you said it at exactly, is that, you wanting being there for your kids. You said that you’ve been able to take six months, six weeks off after the birth of your child without any business interruptions. That sounds like heaven to so many people who are thinking about having kids.

Can you walk us through some of those key systems that made that possible? I mentioned you mentioned like a couple of them right there, but, what allowed you to do that? I mean, did you have like a, like a big on-ramp that you were really trying to get going? ’cause you knew this timeline was coming and you had like six months you were working up to that?

Or did you just slowly start to bring in these integrations with systems?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, so I’m gonna say something that’s gonna sound [00:10:00] incredibly weird, uh, in that I got a little lucky because, 12 months, 11 months earlier, I had a panic attack. Um, it was, November, 2020 is when this happened. my wife is a nurse, and so she was working, I had two of my three children at home.

well, I had two children, the third one hadn’t come yet. and I wasn’t able to work as much as I could, and I, I’m still the primary income generator in the family. My business brings in probably like 60. It’s close, but like 60% of our income. And so one day I just, I, I start to feel my first and only panic attack come on.

And I’m sitting on the, the kitchen floor, like crying. And my oldest, who was three at the time, comes over to me with a bottle of water and says, it’s okay, daddy. Everything’s be okay. And, uh, I thought, man, that is not okay. Like, I’m supposed to be taking care of you. and so the next day I could work, I [00:11:00] made a list of everything that I do for my business and I put a line through everything I personally don’t have to do.

And I made a promise that I would delegate or automate anything I don’t have to do because in November, 2020, we, you know, this is well past the six weeks it would take for the lockdown to be over, right? and so we didn’t really know how long it was gonna be. and turns out that a couple months later we found out about my youngest Abby, she was not planned.

my younger two kids are 15 months apart. and so I had already mostly had these systems in place by the time we found out she was coming. And I just really optimize them. And so some of them are automations, right? Someone fills out a form to come on my podcast and, um, they get put into my podcast planning system.

So I could see at any time, you know, when the well of new episodes will dry up. I, had a sponsor outreach system because [00:12:00] sponsor was, sponsorship was still my primary form of income. and during the pandemic a lot of people had event budgets that they had to spend. So I had a pretty good system for doing the outreach as quickly and easily as possible while still making it personalized.

and then I had my va And so the, the biggest thing, you know, I talk about automations a lot because I think people get nervous about delegating, but the combination of automating to do task management and communication with my VA who can do all the things that automation can’t is a really potent combination.

And so when I was gone. My VA handled everything I needed her to everything that needed to happen to keep the, the wheels on the truck. Right. and so, you know, some of that is publishing the show. the sponsorship stuff I had kind of, luckily I was able to like backlog, but any content updates and things like [00:13:00] that she was able to handle.

and so those were the main systems. It was like a lot of pre-planning and then real-time reaction by my VA for anything that I couldn’t, foresee, we’ll say.

Jeff Sieh: Gotcha.

Conor Brown: I love how the, and Dustin from Madre says, delegate or automate. Love that, and, and it’s so true. Right? I jo, I loved how you talked about, you wrote out the list and you’re like. What’s the thing that I have to do versus someone else can do or automate? And you cross it out, right? You go line by line. And I think that’s a great first, first place to start for a lot of people.

But solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, they’re doing everything right. They go into their business because they’re an expert at one thing and they end up having to do all the other things too, too. So it’s, you’re the marketer, you’re the salesperson, content creator, maybe accounting, right? There’s so much other things that you now have to do.

So Joe, when someone comes to you and, and you’re helping them set up these automations, or you’re working with clients, how do you help them prioritize and, and [00:14:00] think through what are you gonna automate first?

Joe Casabona: The big thing is a mindset shift, because I think, you know, we’re solopreneurs because we like to do our entrepreneurs in general. We like to do our own thing. I know that I had to get over this, but I was bad at delegating because I. I thought that I could do it better than everybody else, and like group projects in college reinforced that idea for me.

Right? so it’s the biggest thing I try to help people with first is mindset shift. You don’t have to do everything yourself. In fact, there are people who can do most of the things you’re doing for yourself better than you can. or they’ll say like, my process is too complicated. My, my podcast publishing process has always had like four or five different publication destinations.

You know, I would, we would publish on my, audio host first. We’d grab the embed, we’d upload it to [00:15:00] YouTube, we’d put all of that into WordPress, and then on the day it comes out, we would publish it in Spotify too. When I had a membership show, we had a different process for that. All really complicated, but.

It’s still step by step instructions, right? And it’s not like we’re building IKEA furniture where it, it doesn’t make any sense and it feels like we’re missing some screws. and so my VA does that better than I do now. Like, I like when I have to do it, if she’s like away on vacation or something and I didn’t get an episode to her in time, I do it wrong the first try because I don’t check the instructions ’cause I made them.

And then I’m like, oh, right, I forgot to do this part. So, that’s the the first thing I would, I would have you consider. And then when it comes to automating, I, I would say pick some low hanging fruit, right? If you’re sending information from one app to another, that is a great candidate for automation, right?

when I, when I say, Hey, assistant, I have open threads.[00:16:00] my Apple shortcut, I. Takes what I say, breaks it into new line, treats each new line as a task, and then puts it in both obsidian because of my shutdown routine, I like to like, it’s like a daily journal for me, but it also takes those things and puts them in the inbox and Todoist because that’s where I manage my task.

So like Jeff, you said earlier content creators like sit and they don’t necessarily have ideas when they’re ready to make content. I have a content creation list with 13 ideas on it right now. So if ever I ever sit down, I’m like, what am I gonna do? Uh, let’s see. Uh, cal.com workflow to send link based on an answer.

Great. So I can make a video on how to do that,

Conor Brown: Yeah.

Jeff Sieh: So, so, I wanna go back a little bit because I know so lot of solopreneurs and it’s funny because you said you, your daughter’s named Abby and I have an Abby who started working for me, a couple months ago and she’s working for me full time. She graduated. So it’s awesome, but I’m learning, uh, how much, I have to delegate and how hard it is.

But you also mentioned [00:17:00] VAs, and I know a lot of think, oh my gosh, that would be amazing to have somebody do tasks that I don’t wanna do. I can do ’em probably faster, but I have no idea where to start. Do I hire from this company? There’s all these VA companies, there’s all these people promising that they can do all this stuff for you and it can be overwhelming.

So when somebody says, Joe, I, I know I wanna take some of your processes and I know I need a va, where do I go? Like, where do I start to, to, to at the beginning to look for one of those people?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, for sure. So, it depends on the kind of VA you want. There are different skill levels, right? My VA is based in the Philippines. English is her second language. And for me it was really like, kind of offload some of the I don’t want, busy work is not the right word, but like the things that have to get done, but don’t require cri like the critical thinking of the business.

and so, you know, those tasks are very, here are the inputs, here’s what the output should look like. I don’t wanna do this and I can’t automate this, right? Like, I can’t [00:18:00] automate the pod, the podcast publishing process, I just said, or I can’t automate a lot of it, right? Like, Spotify doesn’t let you send videos via RSS feed or something like that.

So, for me, I went to online jobs.ph. just a heads up, if you post a job there, you will get like thousands of responses. So, what I did was just kinda like scan them quickly, find the five I liked the best. And, um, give them a, a sample project, right? and again, with, with that level of va, it’s gotta be, here are the inputs, here’s what the output should be, or here’s what I’m expecting the output to be.

And I picked one based on that it worked out. ’cause I hired her in, I wanna say like December, 2020, right? One of the first things I did post panic attack. and, so that’s been working out for me. You gotta have a really good system in place and understand kind of what they’re trying to, or what they’re able to do.

Right? Because like one of the [00:19:00] tasks I gave her was Find conference for me to speak at. And that was a very nebulous task. And like, so she didn’t know what I could speak on and she found a lot of conferences that were, I. I wasn’t either, wasn’t willing to travel to or had already happened. So like, so that was a learning, learning opportunity for me.

If you are looking for something above that where like they can manage your QuickBooks account or manage your email, um, then I, I would try to find somebody,in the country where you’re operating. you know, my friend Jordan has a Canadian based company that does a lot of like higher level VA stuff, especially around marketing.

and so that’s still gonna be the same. Like we will chat, you know, I think like virtual assistants or online business manager is I think another term that’s used. and looking for folks like those who have the skillset you’re [00:20:00] looking for. I. Is your best bet there. So like, I can’t say like, go to this one place, but I can say look for like those, the combination of, virtual assistant plus marketing or, online business manager plus client relations.

That’s, that’s what I would do to find the next level up.

And we’ve got, real quick, Connor, the Rich Graham says that they’ve changed that. So applicants have a eliminate number of credits that they use to apply for jobs. The more they used to apply, the more they use, the more they’re serious. So that’s a, a great tip. Thanks, rich. Oh,

Jeff Sieh: how long did, how, how long did it take you to find the VA that you went with?

Did you have to do a lot of auditioning? I guess that would be the term.

Joe Casabona: yeah, I think, you know, I’m so, I’m impatient. I’m from New York and so I want everything to happen quickly. and so I think I did, I, I did like a round of three and three. And then, my va, her name’s Anna. her results were really good and her application was the [00:21:00] best. It was like, I think the subject was like, please hire me.

So my mom stopped asking me what I do. and I thought that was just really funny. And so

Jeff Sieh: I need to do that to my

Joe Casabona: like humor and Yeah. Right. And I still don’t, I, my parents are like, what do you do? Like, uh, I work on the internet. and so like her, her results plus her application, made it like a pretty easy win for me.

I.

Jeff Sieh: Very cool.

Conor Brown: That’s awesome. You know, as we kind of transition into, you know, using automation to not only create more content, but also, you know, monetize it and, and get it working for you. one thing we we have to ask is, Joe, you produce, I think three podcasts and you raise three small kids. So basically you have a podcast for each kid.

That’s great. I think that that makes total sense. with so much going on with family life and business life and then also content creation on top of that, what are your core systems when it comes to creating content for [00:22:00] each of those podcasts? That just keeps everything running smoothly so you’re not also, you know, eating into family time and, and those sorts of things.

Your core systems for that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, so I’ll start with maybe least to most amount of work, I think. so. My local podcast, start Lo is called Start Local.I have two other co-hosts and the reason I want to be a part of that podcast is they are, they are much more. I am, I moved to Chester County PA a few years ago. that’s where my wife’s family lives and I don’t, I don’t have a network here.

And so one of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast was to kind of increase visibility among business owners in the area. And so really my co-hosts, Liam and Eric, do a lot of the, the day-to-day stuff for that one, right? They figure out who the guests are gonna be. they do the outreach for that and they prep the show notes.

I am [00:23:00] there as a co-host when needed, but then I also put in my system, like my underlying system to. you know, get things to my editor and my VA to do the actual publishing and stuff. And so, for that one, it’s a pr it’s a relatively light lift for me. I’ll, I’ll come on the show sometimes, but that is like, I put a, I put part of a system in place, at least for us too, to, to keep the show running smoothly.

the Middlest Show was called Podcast Workflows for a while now. It’s called Streamline Podcast. It have fall in line with my brand. and that is, the, that’s like a medium amount of work because it’s mostly solo. It’s like all solo episodes or co like, or recorded public coaching calls, right? So I’ll do like a coaching call with somebody.

I’ll ask them if I can release it on the show, and, and if they say yes, I release it. And so. Those are, again, mostly solo episodes. So it’s me taking a blog post I wrote and kind of expounding [00:24:00] upon it or expanding upon it, for audio and video purposes. And I record that in Ecamm Live and I have this really good recording setup.

So usually I am like a one take kind of guy, as far as like knowing what I’m talking about and being able to deliver it. Very light edits there. And then I, and then I push that out. and then Streamline Solopreneur, my main show. I’ve been doing more solo episodes for that. but there’s still the kind of expected quality and and format for that show that’s like nine years old at this point.

Uh, I rebranded it last year and renamed it, from what it was called, but. There is, like the whole process is in place, right? So I book something with a guest. They go into Notion, I record with them on Riverside. I move their recordings into my needs editing folder. My editor gets an email, he puts it back in the production folder, my [00:25:00] VA gets an email tracking all of the statuses, all of that happening automatically.

and then even with the solo episodes, usually I won’t need my editor for that because again, I like, I do a one shot and then I, if I need to rephrase something that’s pretty easy to edit out. but that’s still goes off to my VA for the publishing side of things. So that’s lots of systems based on my level of involvement in the show.

Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. That

Conor Brown: I had a follow up question for, for that too, because I know, Joe, you’ve talked a lot about you use Todoist and Notion. I kind of wanna know how do those two work together and, and what goes into Todoist that you wouldn’t put into notion? Because I know a lot of people are gravitating towards starting to use Notion as a task management system and like a content creation system and, and storage and all that.

So how do you differentiate the two?

Joe Casabona: I love this question. I am not an all, I used to try to be an all-in one tool kind of guy. [00:26:00] and then I thought like, I wouldn’t use a Swiss Army knife to like, screw the screws in on my deck, right? Or I wouldn’t use a Swiss Army knife to like cut my stake.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

Joe Casabona: or I, like, I wouldn’t even use like the, tweezers, right?

If I need, like, if I had the option. I would pick a better version of that tool. And so for me, I tried putting my tasks in Notion, but the notifications, you know, I don’t have a lot of notifications on my phone. I hate having notifications on my phone. And so, you know, I think like the, the Notion mobile app especially is just okay, kind of slow, especially if you have a lot of stuff in Notion, and the reminders happen, but they’re not, they’re not as persistent as I’d like them to be, or they’re not as, in my face as I’d like them to be when I need them to be.

Right. And so Todoist is purpose built for task management. Easy to get a [00:27:00] lot of, and that’s it. Like notion, like their automations just got better, but like they’re still just Okay. you know, they have that homepage where I guess you can have, like, you can pick one database for, to surface your tasks, but Todoist is much, much better for that.

Right? There are views and filters, and I have possibly hundreds of tasks in Todoist right now, but I never see hundreds of tasks. I have 107 tasks and to-dos right now. I always see at most five or six because of how I filtered everything, right? notion is great for project management for me, especially when I need to share stuff with my va.

And so I use notion to do project management and CRM stuff. Things where there are statuses and lots of information and notes and maybe I need to bring in my va, or maybe I need to share a proposal with someone in my CRM notion’s. Great for that. And then for note taking. [00:28:00] I’m working on an episode for this right now because I know people who will use Notion for task management and note taking and project management. I tried using Notion for note taking and it was really slow on my phone, like too slow on my phone, right? and so for note taking, I usually just use Apple Notes because that’s the fastest I use obsidian for PKM or personal knowledge management, right? And so usually I’m capturing things in Apple Notes and then I’m moving over to obsidian if they need action.

And so, I have many thoughts in obsidian and, my most recent thoughts in Apple Notes, and that’s going to sound complicated for a lot of people, but I’m not using a monolith and I have very clear purposes for each of those things.

Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. That’s kind of what I use, notion. I use kind of my building a second brain kind of thing with, you know, Jago Forte kind of stuff. And I use Notion for that. I have Jay [00:29:00] Klaus’s templates and I also have a Thomas Franklin. So I have kind of this really weird thing that works for me. Like I have my personal brand kind of on Jay Klaus’s, kind of templates.

And then I have like my. All my clients on Thomas Franks, which probably is not the best way I know. my friend Kat Mul ville, like, and I think you know her too. She, she’d get on all over me for that. But that’s how I use it. And I think using the tools that works the best for you. I like to use notes too, as I’m out to just capture.

It’s easy, it’s seamless, and I can move it to whatever I need to. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is we’ve got the tasks we’ve talked about VAs, and we’ve got systems behind that, like putting out a podcast or, you know, creating content, but many creators struggle with like consistency.

Like do you have any tools or automation tools that you recommend for streamlining like your podcast production and publishing? I mean, you mentioned your, your, assistance, your digital assistants that you can just talk to. Are there any other things that help you become and, and can keep [00:30:00] being consistent?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I think with any sort of consistency or anything that we’re trying to kind of make a habit of, friction is the thing that prevents us from doing it right? And so like, I’m the type of guy who will say, I like to exercise, but if there is a, the tiniest of friction in getting to the gym or going for a run, I’m like, ah, well I guess it’s not like I have a walking pad behind me, like on the floor behind me, and if it gets like past two o’clock and I’m like, well, I’m gonna have to get my kids soon anyway.

I better finish up work. That’s enough friction for me to not literally turn around and walk on the treadmill that’s behind me. Like, if I take like five steps back, I’ll, I’ll trip on it. Right. So it’s not about like getting to it, it’s, it’s about what friction is preventing me from making time for it.

When it comes to content creation, I think there are a couple of big friction points for a lot of people. One [00:31:00] is ideas. We talked about that, right? you can set up a, a, a shortcut on your phone. Or just like open a new note, like, you know, there’s like a quick note button. I suspect on, definitely on iPhone, probably on Android too, where you can make idea capture as easy as possible, even if it’s just the title of the note.you’ll have a list somewhere of ideas as you think of them, right? Or get into the habit of when somebody in your audience asks you a question, screenshot it and put it somewhere, because that’s a great idea for content. once you have the ideas, it, it, it’s, it becomes a producing thing. And I think a lot of people see Jay or Justin or Kat and say, well, I can’t make content like that so I shouldn’t make content.

Right? But there’s a guy, I’m a huge baseball fan as we’ve discussed or discovered. There’s a guy on YouTube, his name is Foolish Bailey. He’s like, [00:32:00] probably like a mid 20 something or maybe early 20 something guy. his videos are shot, I’m almost certain with the built-in camera in his bedroom. You can see his bed in the frame and his videos do well because the content is great.

You know, he, he talks about like winds above replacement for pitchers or whatever, and, and then he says like, B War and F war and things that even somebody as deeply embedded in baseball as I am, like barely understand. and he understands ’em really well and he explains ’em really well. And so his videos do well. Where you start can be different from where you wanna be, right? We’re not building a skyscraper, and so we don’t need to get it perfectly right on the first try. If you look at my first video, it’s me like, I’m like looking up at the camera like this and you can see my bed and I’m like, hi, welcome to WP one month.

Right. It’s just like, it’s not, I didn’t look at the camera there ’cause it was a weird angle, but um, you know, it’s like you gotta start somewhere. You can’t get better until [00:33:00] you know where you need to get better. and so tools like Ecamm Live make video editing so much easier. Right. you know, Jeff, you’ve been doing all of this stuff.

I assume you’ve got the control panel. So you’ve been doing all of this stuff in Ecamm live in real time. I assume you probably have a Restream deck, but maybe that’s a bad assumption. Right. Okay, great. Yeah, exactly. so, you know, finding the right tools, I learned about something called Gling AI from Steven Robles and. My video editing process was already pretty fast and it is way faster with Gling. Do ai, right? It’s not like perfect and you can’t just like throw it in and say, wow, I have a finished video now. But it does a lot of the work for you and it’s really easy to undo some of the work and then like do different work. Extremely impressive, impressive

Conor Brown: Hmm.

Joe Casabona: cuts. My editing time in half and it was already pretty short.and then the same thing with podcasts, right? Like we have lots of tools now for [00:34:00] doing a video version, right? With Ecamm or some other thing. we have tools like Adobe Podcasts and to Descript that will make editing easier.

I think you need to edit your podcast, for sound quality leveling. If, I mean, this is live, right? So like if I mess up, we’re live. But if, if you’re doing something prerecorded, if the right take. With something like Adobe Podcast or Descript or Gling.ai it’s really easy to, take out the bad take. and so having the right tools and then setting aside time to actually do it, those are all things that are going to reduce friction. Everything else like publishing, getting the thumbnail right, the perfect title, you can iterate on all of that later. We are so lucky to work in a format that is so easy to iterate on.

I could never build houses. I would mess them up so bad. And like, I’m Italian, I should be able to build stuff, [00:35:00] right? But I can’t, I’d be like destitute if I was born in the fifties, or yeah, yeah, my dad was born in the fifties. My dad like actually did real work with his hands. I can’t do that.

So, there’s a lot just like finding the right tool and taking the first step.so again, it really does come back to mindset, but everything I just mentioned there will make, will make it easier and maybe hopefully get you in the mindset to be like, wow, I, can do this. It’s not gonna take me an entire day to make a 10 minute video.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Yeah. Like I, we we’re big fans of script here ’cause that’s what we, I mean, that’s just, that has changed the way I, I, I’ve been doing editing since, you know, a Adobe Premiere two. So it’s been, you know, it’s been there for a while. So it is so amazing the tools we have now.

Conor Brown: I think, you know, the importance of consistent content creation and just creating in general is, is one thing. But you know, Joe, you put an emphasis on importance and I think everyone here really wants to also make money from that, right? It, it can be a hobby and that’s fine, but if we’re doing it for our business, [00:36:00] it, it needs to generate money and, and you’ve, you know, talked about how, you know, your podcast sponsorships can, can get 30 to $50,000 annually and I think you probably have systems set up that make that a little bit easier to do.

’cause managing sponsorships is a whole nother job in and of itself. So you mentioned having a CRM system in notion and sending out deals. What kind of systems do you have in place to manage those sponsorships efficiently so that it’s not eating up all your time and you continue to actually create the thing that they’re paying you to do?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, so here’s the secret, right? A lot of these systems I put in place free up my time to use my time to get sponsors, right? I know you had Justin Moore on a few weeks ago and you know, I was getting sponsorships before Justin, but Justin has really changed the way I approached sponsorships and I’m a coach in, in his wizards guild now.

And [00:37:00] so, I’d like to say like, yeah, there’s a way to send out mass emails to a bunch of potential sponsors, but my approach to sponsorship is similar to my approach to potential clients or customers. I want them to know that I don’t just see them as a 32nd ad copy and a check. I treat them as clients and partners.

And so I do have systems in place, but they go into my CRM and I treat them like any other potential client. what are their goals? What is their budget? What are they looking to accomplish? How can I improve that? But it’s, but I can do that because I’m not publishing my podcast in five different places on Sunday night because I recorded it on Saturday and had to have, you know, had to do the editing.

Right? So like automation and delegation frees up your time, create space in your life to focus on the things that you should focus on. And for [00:38:00] me, focusing on cultivating relationships with sponsors is really important because just like with anything. If you do a good job for your sponsor and a good job doesn’t have to mean hundreds of thousands of views.

Right? I’m sure Justin talked about the types of, campaigns and different goals. Even if you don’t get a ton of views or conversions that first time, if you form the relationship and you showed that you care and you showed you’re willing to iterate on the next campaign, they’re more likely to go with you again because you’re good to work with. And that’s the important, that’s the important bit of, of, sponsorship for me. So as far as the system goes, they’re in my CRM, I send them a personalized pitch. I have a text expander like expansion, a snippet, for the stuff that is kind of fill in the blank, but a lot of it is like, Hey, I saw that you posted this on Instagram.

I also posted something like [00:39:00] this. My audience wants more. Here’s a couple of things that I could do for you.so I, I hope that helped. There’s not, I, I don’t have like a quick fix for that, but,

Jeff Sieh: I,

I think.

Joe Casabona: I think, I think that’s important.

Jeff Sieh: I think the, the thing that I see so many creators do is they just want that paycheck and then they move on and they don’t, it’s always been a relationship for me, like, you know, we’ve talked about E Cam’s, a big sponsor of this show, and I try to be in there like, Hey, what can I help? What are you promoting?

What can I do to do this? Oh, you want me to come speak creator camp? Of course I’ll do that. You know, I try to be a, like you mentioned, Joe, a partner, not just a, you know, some sort of transactional relationship. And I think if you’re a creator, switching that mindset, like you had talked about, is so important and will actually make you more money down the line.

So the next question I wanted to kind of dive into, because you know, the rise of ai, I don’t know if you saw the thumbnail I created of you, like in ai it’s just kind of a thing. It’s fun to do, but as AI continues to grow and we have more and more [00:40:00] of this AI kind of vomit that’s out there where people are just trying to press the easy button and just like generating crap.

How do you balance auto automation with personalization in that content? Creatings, like, especially when it comes to audience engagement, because I know you, some people can get so focused on like the, the automation and the sequences and getting it all done, and they lose their audience and they lose what connected to them in the first place.

So how do you balance those two things when you’re setting up these systems?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, great question. Right? And it’s, it really is what can I automate so that I, I can show up better as a human being, right? I’m sure you get a lot of terrible podcast pitches that all sound like this. Hey Jeff, I just saw your latest episode with Joe Casabona. I love that you talked about single sentence AI summary of what you talked about.

Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

Joe Casabona: it reminds me of [00:41:00] random client and then just goes in talking about how great they are. Like that you’re, that is an at scale thing, right? And it’s super obvious when I, pitch myself as a guest. again, I have a template for the things I talk about. ’cause I generally want to talk about the same sort of things, but I always say something like, it looks to me like your audience is X, Y, and Z. Here’s how I can help your audience with that understanding, right? Like, it looks like your audience is busy solopreneur parents, or it looks like your audience is new parents who are struggling to, be present at their full-time job. Here’s how I can help those people specifically. And when the person you are pitching or talking to or writing for feels seen and heard, that’s gonna make your content resonate.

If you just want a listing of facts, [00:42:00] fine, AI is great for that. But if you want something that will resonate, AI doesn’t have any lived experience. It only has what it’s learned from the content it’s consumed. So be human, tell personal stories, resonate with the people you’re talking to, and that’s how you stand out.

And that will always be true because even if AI learned every single thing I’ve ever written about up until this moment, it doesn’t know any of the things I didn’t write about and it doesn’t know what’s going to happen to me tomorrow.

Conor Brown: Right.

Joe Casabona: So it can’t possibly write better than me,

Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. So, speaking of writing better than myself, I, you know, just like the video that I, I can do, not do this video without our friends over at Ecamm. See how Seamless and Smooth AI couldn’t have made that transition. Would it? Would it Connor know? So, Ecamm dot com slash Jeff, you can find out, more about Ecamm there.

It’s what we’re using to do this show. Joe uses it. Connor uses it. A [00:43:00] lot of my friends, I saw that. Oh, my friend Lou Ello is in the audience too. He’s watching. And, I know he’s, uh, Ecamm a fam as well. So if you wanna find out more, go to Ecamm dot com slash jeff. Use code Jeff 15 to say 15% on your first purchase.

So, Connor, I know you had a question. I interrupted you. I’m sorry, but go right

Conor Brown: That’s all right. We’re as smooth. We are as smooth as chunky peanut butter here.

Jeff Sieh: That’s right. It sticks to your crawl.

Joe Casabona: delicious.

Conor Brown: so Joe, you know, you also do, um, coaching, but it’s an interesting style that you do it, and I think you offer both of them. But, you know, there’s often the traditional coaching, right, where it’s, it’s live calls, it’s one-on-one sessions. Maybe you have a weekly, you know, hour or something where you jump on a call and, and, and you do it face to face, but you have this on demand kind of style of coaching where, where people can go to you when they need help and you can respond when you, I guess have the time to respond.

What kind of [00:44:00] made you,develop that on demand coaching style and, and how have you seen it work? Well, not only for, for you, but for the clients that, that you’re helping to coach as well?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, so I mean, this is really something that was born out of. Understanding my audience, right? And I have three small kids and I am a very present, I try to be a very present parent and I also work from home, which means that if something happens at school, I am most likely the person to get the call.

And it sucks when you have to cancel on someone last minute. My niche is my people. And so they understand, right? Most people, one guy gave me crap and said like, good luck. And I said, we would never be a good if you can’t even understand that. I need to like cancel our meeting to go get my kid. That’s fine.

Go talk to Gary V and the other hustle bros. Like, I don’t care. Right? but by and large [00:45:00] people are really understanding. I to totally things come up Family first. Right? Family first is something I constantly say. My brothers actually have that tattooed on them. I’m not, I don’t, tattoos are not my thing.

but they have it in Italian. so with that in mind, I thought, why force, people to pay me lots of money to potentially never be able to take a call, right? Or have to have to cancel frequently. how can I give them access to my expertise and accountability without having to do it in real time?

And there are lots of great tools that help me deliver a personalized experience. They get access to me, they can ask questions when it’s convenient for them. That could be two in the morning, right? While they’re feeding their newborn. and I can answer them when it’s convenient for me, about an hour after I get home from school.

And, and the task master in me kind of calms down and the business person and me comes out. so it’s really [00:46:00] about convenience for my potential clients and the fact that they can pop in to ask questions whenever they want and trust that they’ll get an answer. I say within 48 hours, I like, I, it’s really hard for me to wait that long if I, if I have an immediate answer to a question.

and it’s great because it’s convenient for everybody and they’re getting the answers they need and they’re getting, you know, they don’t have to do the thing where I give them the Zoom call recording and then they transcribe it. They’re just, they have their answers, you know, they don’t have to keep a list, they just ask.

And then I answer when, when I can.

Jeff Sieh: So on that note, what kind of tools or automations are you, are you using like a Voxer? I mean, how are you doing? It’s, I’m assuming it’s an asynchronous kind of like platform that you can go and answer easily on. And is it video and audio or is it just text? How do you, what are the tools that you’re using?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I overthink tools so much. I thought, oh, I can use, there’s a tool called Clarity Flow by my friend Brian [00:47:00] Castle, which was originally called Zip Message and specifically made for like asynchronous coaching, but it’s kind of moved in a different direction. And so I thought, you know, is this something that I really want to pay a bunch of money for every year?

And then the learning curve is a little higher because people have to create an account and stuff like that. And so, but I also don’t want to give people my phone number, right? my phone number is mine. I have a Google Voice number if people want to text me, but. There are enough asynchronous messaging platforms out there that nobody needs my phone number.

And I just decided thanks to Kat Mulva Hill actually, to go with Zoom Team Chat.

Jeff Sieh: Okay.

Joe Casabona: Everybody already has a Zoom account, right? I mean, like, this is like, it’s near Universal thing. It’s almost like, do you have a Google account? Of course you do, right? And so they don’t have to create a new account. I invite them to a private chat in Zoom and so there’s texting, but then you can send audio messages and you can [00:48:00] send short video messages.

What I’ll usually do there is record the video in tele and upload it or embed it. ’cause you get a little longer. Well there’s like, I think a two, a one minute limit on video in Zoom Makes sense. They don’t wanna host a bunch of video without you paying for it. and so that’s generally what I’ll do.

We’ll have a Zoom chat and They can ask in the, in the format they’re most comfortable with. And I can answer in, I think whichever one makes sense. If it’s a quick answer, I’ll usually text back, or voice note it. And if it’s, um, something more nuanced, I’ll usually send a video, and then like highlight the, the key takeaways from the video.

Conor Brown: Yeah.

Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome.

Conor Brown: I love that we have some great comments around what we were just talking about too. Rich Watt says, totally agree. Not everyone who’s willing to pay you should be a client. He learned to say no when his gut tells him, and he totally agrees with with family first as well. And then Dustin Stout of Magi also says, Ooh, overthinking tools is something we are not a fan of.[00:49:00]

Life should be simpler. So I love that. I love that you can use a tool like Zoom and kind of get this up and running really, really quickly. So, Joe, do you see this as, as this on-demand coaching as something that’s gonna be become a, a bigger trend? I, I would think so. We are so busy, you know, finding,a commitment to, to put on your calendar and stuff can often be that the hardest part when it comes to these coaching things.

So do you see on-demand coaching becoming a bigger trend? And, and what advice would you give to people that might wanna start this on demand coaching journey?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, this is a great question. I, I really, I do scale in a way that we wouldn’t be able to with one-on-one, coaching. So it allows coaches to serve more people. I know that some people do group coaching. I like to kind of keep our, my conversations with my coaching clients private, which is why this on demand or more technical people like myself will say asynchronous.

I just changed [00:50:00] all the copy on the page to remove the word asynchronous ’cause no one knows what it means. I think that it’s a really good option, especially because of where we are, where we are now, right? Everyone is used to the tools like Zoom or doing things, on the internet in less of a.

Synchronous way, right? in less of a real time conversation way. but also like, I mean, time zones, right? I have clients in Australia and Egypt and California. And so, you know, I don’t, I don’t want them to feel like they need to be online super early or super late to get the value from my coaching program.

And so, uh, your second question, the advice part, um, talk to your audience and see what serves their needs the best. Right? If you, if I had local coaching clients, we’d probably get together in real life just ’cause I’m like an extrovert and I, and [00:51:00] I’m happy to go work at a coffee shop for a little bit and like meet somebody.

some of my clients are face to face live calls we’ll say, because. That’s how their brain works, right? They, they want the real time feedback talking through, immediately asking follow up questions. And so it really depends. And, and, and again, like I said, for me, my target audience is busy solopreneur parents.

And if they could send me a question while they’re waiting for dismissal at school, that’s incredibly convenient for them. And that’s really my goal. I want them to extract value in a way that’s convenient for them.

Jeff Sieh: Well that is, that’s, I mean, I think that you struck a nerve for a lot of people, especially solopreneur parents. I would’ve loved something like that when I was getting started and trying to figure out systems. And we’ll talk offline. But, I wanna give you this last part, um, Joe, to talk about, like your podcast, which you’re working on, your coaching that some people may want to sign up for.

And I [00:52:00] know we have it here. we put this up if you wanted to. I think this is a freebie that you were talking about that they could go to ca cason.org/automation for you guys listening, that’s C-A-S-A-B-O a.org/automation. Make sure you guys go check that out. But Joe, I want you to use these final minutes to tell everybody about you, what you got going on.

Joe Casabona: so I am, you know, I if, you’re watching and you’ve seen me look off at times, my daughter is sick upstairs and my wife is at work, so, I’m wondering if it’s a little too quiet ’cause she fell asleep or she’s just happily watching her iPad. family, family first is really important to me. and so that really seeps into everything that I do.

I have a podcast called The Streamline Solopreneur, where I talk about. You know, work life balance or man, like being a present parent while running a business or whatever you want to call it. and automations have been such a core part of that for me. I don’t know if y’all know, uh, David, Cooper, he wrote like big [00:53:00] podcast or big podcasting 1 0 1.

He’s, he’s radio guy OG for a long time. he said, when I automate it’s like playing nine d chess. because I’m just kind of always thinking in that way. I know not everybody does. And so I have created this free resource of 40 plus automation templates across Zapier make, apps like Hazel and, and shortcuts.

And the main goal, yeah, you can add them to your account, right? And just like start using them yourself. But the main goal is to show you what’s possible. Right, because it, it’s hard to visualize if you’ve never automated, so you can see exactly what I’m using. I’m not just making them for fun. I make one.

And then I thought, I think, oh, I’ll put this in the database. Right? I make one I use and I put it in the database. So, that I think is a great first step for a lot of people. And as we were just talking about, I do have on demand coaching over at casbu.org/unstuck, where, [00:54:00] you pay monthly to get access to me via a Zoom chat.

And, you can say like, Hey, I’m working on an automation, and I’ll talk you through it. Or you could say, Hey, something with my podcast is not working and I need help with that too. So, you really get access to my expertise or accountability if you need that. and I, I, I, again, my, my goal is really to serve as many people as possible and prevent people from having a panic attack.

’cause that wasn’t, it wasn’t fun, even though I described it as getting lucky earlier. It’s not a fun experience.

Jeff Sieh: I bet not. No. So thank you for being and being transparent. Thank you for being on the show. this has been amazing. Connor Brown, what is going on with the amazing vacation kingdoms that, you’re Lord over?

Conor Brown: Lord, ah, Lord of the manner. I like that a lot. the place I Lord over so much is going on, right? You’re probably doing spring break right now. It’s happening across this great nation, but you want to plan the next trip? I can help you with that. We got a new theme park coming into here to Orlando Epic Universe.

You want tickets to that? [00:55:00] You wanna book a trip to that or Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, whatever you got. Vacation kingdoms.com. And at Vacation Kingdoms just launched a new Instagram account at theme park happy hour, where I share all the best boozy drinks in the theme parks here in Orlando. Be sure to follow that on Instagram at theme park.

Happy hour.

Jeff Sieh: I saw that rich Watts is in the house and he does not need to be watching any of that ’cause I’ve, I’ve seen his posts when he is at Disney, so he just needs to get a designated driver and don’t watch Connor anymore. No, it’s a great channel. So guys, check that out. Joe, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you. ask Ralph, Gary Stockton, magi, everybody who left comments in today and questions. Uh, Jim Fuse from Fusion Marketing. thank you guys so much for being here. We wouldn’t be able to do the show without, without you guys, and thank you. Do our sponsors, Ecamm. You can find out more about them at Ecamm dot com slash jeff.

We will see you guys next week. Thank you. So for wa, thank you so much for watching. Bye everybody. Have a great one.