SHOW TRANSCRIPT

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

[00:00:05] Jeff Sieh: [00:00:00] Hello, folks. Welcome to Creator News Live. I’m Jeff Sieh, and you’re not

[00:00:09] Zac Brown: And I’m Zac Brown, and this is the show that keeps you up to date on the creator economy and so much more

[00:00:14] Jeff Sieh: Have you ever built up an audience but always wondered how to turn it into something real? An event, a community, a room full of people who actually know each other? Do you pour everything into one big moment a year, a launch, or maybe an event, and then just watch the energy just fade away? And be honest, do you ever feel like you’re just shouting into a feed instead of building something people actually belong to?

[00:00:36] Jeff Sieh: If that sounds like you, well, you are in the right place

[00:00:39] Zac Brown: Our guest today is Mike Potter, the host of For Mac Eyes Only, one of the longest-running independent Apple podcasts out there, and the founder of Macs. Conference & Expo, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Congrats, Mike. Mike has spent two decades building an audience and 10 years turning it into a real in-person community, and today he is [00:01:00] sharing how he did it, how he keeps people coming back, and how to stay connected to the people all year long

[00:01:04] Jeff Sieh: So sit back, clear your schedule, clear your mind, and get ready for this week’s episode of Creator News Live Awesome, awesome, amazing Mike Potter is here. But we could not do the show without our amazing sponsors, and they are the folks over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them at, ecamm.com/jeff. You can save 15% by using code JEFF15 with your first purchase. And also, I wanted to give them a shout-out because they actually have camp coming up.

[00:01:54] Jeff Sieh: We just did MacStock Camp, last month, but, this is their big flagship event. It’s [00:02:00] three days in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. You can find out more about that at ecamm.com/ camp, and it’s limited to 100, campers, and it’s from September 28th through the 30th. I’m gonna be speaking there. Michael Hyatt will be there.

[00:02:13] Jeff Sieh: Pat Flynn will be there. Paul Gowder, who’s in here all the time, he’s gonna be there. So make sure you guys go check that out at ecamm.com/camp. And with that, it’s time for Mr. Mike Potter. Mike, thank you so much for being here with us today

[00:02:28] Mike Potter: Well, thank you so much for having me, Jeff. This is amazing. two, two questions up front though, if I may. one, what are the royalties on that song? Uh, and then two, well, this isn’t more a question but a statement, I really appreciate that you dressed me up for the thumbnail because, I’m kind of a T-shirt and hat kind of guy, and so to s- you know, to see me in an Oxford shirt is a rare thing, and I, I very much appreciate that

[00:02:51] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, it was great. It was fun. the AI stuff just keeps getting better and better, and so far no one’s, you know, sued me for using their likeness. I knew you’d be okay with [00:03:00] it, so, it was a lot of fun to put together. so let’s talk about this g- to building a community, because you have done one from MacStock, and you just wrapped up MacStock X.

[00:03:10] Jeff Sieh: It’s y- the 10th anniversary, actually, which is, that’s a long time for a conference. That’s really, really cool. But before we get into how you built it, I want you to take us back to the very first one. I believe it was in 2015. what made a podcaster decide to put people in a room, and were you terrified that nobody would show up?

[00:03:29] Mike Potter: Okay, so I’ll answer the second question first. no, I wasn’t terrified because, it had kind of just been teed up for me. It was teed up for me and, and ready to go, and I’ll explain what that means in just a moment. So I first had the idea for MacStock in mid to late 2009, something like that.

[00:03:49] Mike Potter: In fact, I looked it up just before the show. I found my original notes, all the notes that I took on what I wanted MacStock to be, and I wrote those up in January [00:04:00] 2010. they were revised in 2012 and then again in 2015 for the, the year that we actually held it. And the original idea for MacStock was to be a meetup for the listeners of my podcast.

[00:04:15] Mike Potter: That was it. That was what it was intended to be. but as I started to take notes, as I started to think about what I, what I wanted, MacStock to entail, I realized it probably was gonna be a little bit bigger than just a meetup. And, so it, a- and I also realized it, it was gonna take a little bit more planning.

[00:04:31] Mike Potter: So, I presented the idea in, in January 2010, I presented the idea to a friend of mine, Barry Folk, he said, “Oh, Mike, come on. Macworld’s still going on. That’s where everybody meets up every year. I don’t, I don’t know that you would have a whole lot of luck attracting people from all over to come to MacStock.”

[00:04:49] Mike Potter: I said, “Ah, fair enough. Okay.” But in 2012, I did a little floater. I did a little, um,floated a trial balloon, you know, to see what would happen, and so I put out the word to my audience, “Hey, let’s, [00:05:00] let’s gather in my office in Woodstock, Illinois, for MacStock and record an episode of For Mac Guys Only.

[00:05:08] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:08] Mike Potter: Let’s just do it.” And I had people show up, I had people show up. It was crazy. I had someone drive from St. Louis for, this thing. It wasn’t called MacStock. It was just, it was a, uh, For Mac Guys Only meetup

[00:05:22] Jeff Sieh: Got it

[00:05:22] Mike Potter: And, had my, various co-hosts and, and regular guests come. I, brought in my pal Gaz Maz from the UK via Skype, to join us, and then, this gentleman from St.

[00:05:35] Mike Potter: Louis showed up. So it was a small but fun group. We had a great time just kinda hanging out, recording the show, and talking Mac stuff.

[00:05:44] Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome

[00:05:45] Mike Potter: and then, and then Macworld decided in 2015 they were no longer going to have Macworld. They said, “Yep, that’s it. No more. 2014 was it.” And my friend Barry said, “You know, I, I still [00:06:00] wanna see my friends.

[00:06:00] Mike Potter: I still wanna see everybody that I, I would meet up with at Macworld every year. and talk about hubris, talk about crazy. going to have a barbecue in my backyard, and I’m going to invite all these amazing folks I know from Macworld to my backyard here in Northern Illinois for a barbecue.” And they all said, “Yeah, we’re gonna come out to this barbecue.” So people are now flying in to the Chicagoland area to attend Barry’s barbecue crazy.

[00:06:32] Jeff Sieh: So there was no barbecue this year, so what

[00:06:34] Mike Potter: No barbecue this year. Well, so when he invited me and he showed me the list of folks who are coming, I said, “Barry, remember this thing MacStock I was talking to you about?” he, “Yeah.” “You, you have this amazing list of folks flying in for your barbecue. Maybe we could kinda do a dual thing.

[00:06:54] Mike Potter: Maybe I could do MacStock and you could do your barbecue, and we could host it on the same [00:07:00] day. And by the way, could you introduce me to some of these folks on your list, and I’ll see if they’re interested in speaking?” And so we had Allison Sheridan and Chuck Joiner and Brett Terpstra and, you know, all these amazing folks that were coming to his, his backyard for a barbecue.

[00:07:15] Mike Potter: I reached out to them and said, ” Here’s what I’m thinking. Here’s what I would like to do. This would be pre-barbecue. Would you like to present?” And every single one of them said, “Oh yeah, you bet.” Well, now I had a conference I had to figure out how to put together, and I had about six weeks to do it. So, yeah, I put it all together in about six weeks.

[00:07:35] Mike Potter: I looked at what other small conferences were doing, and I, assigned every speaker a 20-minute time slot and said, “You got 20 minutes to do your presentation.” I took that from TEDx, by the way. m- 20-minute talk or 15-minute talks, I can’t remember. And I said, “All right. Well, I’ll, I’ll be generous.

[00:07:51] Mike Potter: I’ll give them 20 minutes.” And, uh, we had 20-minute talks, a full day of amazing presentations, and then we all piled in [00:08:00] cars and drove to Barry’s for a barbecue that night. So the very first MacStock was one day, thrown together in six weeks, and I knew it was successful when at the end of it, people walked up to me and said, “When is the next one?”

[00:08:13] Zac Brown: Hmm.

[00:08:14] Mike Potter: I said, “Well, I just got through this one, but if you give me a couple weeks, I’ll figure out when the next one is.” And that’s, that’s how it came about.

[00:08:22] Jeff Sieh: I can only imagine how much work it comes to putting a conference. Our friend Lou Mongello, who does the WDW radio podcast, he puts on Momentum, which I talked to you about, and I know it, it’s a, it’s a big thing. Like, he limits his to 50, and you mentioned before that you get what’s called, what your, I think your wife calls the MacStock brain, where you, you, you…

[00:08:41] Jeff Sieh: It’s hard to, it’s hard to process things during that time. So I know it’s a lot of work, but, a- and we’re gonna get into it later, but I, I really do appreciate it. It was a very… And I see a lot of conferences, I’ve spoken at a lot, but this was very, very well put together, but not so formal that it felt stifling.

[00:08:57] Jeff Sieh: It was really, really good. And as a new [00:09:00] person, you know, a lot of times there’s cliques that happen and stuff like that. I felt very welcome, and people came up, talked to me, and included me and stuff. So kudos to you for a great, conference, this, this past, couple weeks. So thank you for that.

[00:09:11] Mike Potter: means a ton, uh, uh,especially from a first-time attendee, such as yourself, to hear that you had a good time, to feel that you weren’t excluded, to feel that, you know, folks welcomed you and, and that you felt relaxed and at home is, is exactly what I wanted it to be. And, you know, I think that’s one of the keys when you do something like this, is to put on an event that you would like to attend

[00:09:33] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I can tell. You could tell

[00:09:35] Zac Brown: Mike, do you, you know, you’ve went from going like, “I’ve got this podcast, I’ve got this community,” this pre-barbecue gathering, but what was that leap when you were like, “I host a show,” to now, “I’m running a conference”? And what would you say that you underestimated the most about that?

[00:09:51] Mike Potter: Well, once we got past that first year Which again, was put together very quickly, spur of the moment, but again, it was something [00:10:00] that, I would have wanted to attend. But once you got past that first year, just the, the sheer amount of behind-the-scenes work that goes into, running it every year.

[00:10:11] Mike Potter: Uh, you know, r- setting up the venue, attempting to, form partnerships and/or sponsorships with, uh, companies, which I’ve kind of evolved into more partnerships over the years rather than sponsorships. I found that that works a lot better because, again, we talked about going down rabbit holes here.

[00:10:29] Mike Potter: partnerships work better because they’re much more involved in the weekend than a sponsor is. Sponsors are happy to just throw a little money your way, and you promote their product, and then they move on. But a partner, someone that is invested in what you’re doing, is going to be there and be involved and want to participate themselves.

[00:10:51] Mike Potter: And so that’s why I’ve kind of evolved to that throughout the years. But still, it’s, it’s, a lot of work behind the scenes, arranging all [00:11:00] that. and, uh, just, just simple things. Simple, stupid things like the T-shirt every year is something that I have a great time designing.

[00:11:09] Mike Potter: I come up with the design every year for the T-shirt, and, and, I have a great time doing it, and I’m always excited to reveal it to people when MacStockthe swag that they get, you know, all, all the little things. All the little things I bug my wife and daughter about, “Hey, would this be good? Would this be good? What do you think about this?” and, yeah.

[00:11:27] Jeff Sieh: and it’s funny ’cause you see a lot of, you see a lot of people wearing past MacStock shirts coming to the conference, which is cool. Like, people were bragging about like, “I got this one in 2015,” or what- whatever the latest one was. So I wanna go back and, and pick on this a little bit, about the sponsorship/partnership that you’ve done.

[00:11:45] Jeff Sieh: ’cause I… There’s a lot of people, myself included, like how we do masterminds, we do some mastermind meetups. But like Paul and I, and even Zac a little, you know, we’ve talked about like, okay, what does an event look like if we ever want to do that ourselves? So how do you find [00:12:00] sponsors/partners like what you kinda did with Ecamm this year?

[00:12:03] Jeff Sieh: Does that happen organically? Do you go and like, do you just like hit up your network? Like, how do you find those people who can help sponsor your event?

[00:12:11] Jeff Sieh: You’re gonna hear me say something several times during this show, but it’s, it’s very true. I’ve been lucky. lucky and fortunate to have people who want to support my endeavor and one of the very early sponsorships that I’m, I’m very grateful for is Otherworld Computing, OWC. Uh,Mm-hmm.

[00:12:34] Mike Potter: it just so happened that one of my presenters worked there at the time, and got into a conversation with them, told them about MacStock, and they said, “Well, this is fantastic because it’s in our backyard.”

[00:12:46] Mike Potter: For those who don’t know, OWC is, their corporate headquarters is in Woodstock, Illinois, which is where is held. So, that worked out fantastically, and, they were very involved, early [00:13:00] on, and, I’m, I’m very grateful for that. And then I had other folks who, attended MacStock who had relationships with sponsors who reached out to me and said, “Hey, would you like me to introduce you to X company or Y company?”

[00:13:15] Mike Potter: So in that sense, those early sponsorships were very organic. But the latest is Ecamm. You know, you mentioned Creator Camp MacStock Edition, which we did for the very first time this year. But this partnership with Ecamm came about, simply because I was giving a talk about Ecamm Live, as it was called at the time.

[00:13:35] Mike Potter: So three years ago, I was, I was doing my own presentation on Ecamm Live because I wanted to introduce it to the MacStock audience. I love the software. I’ve been using it for a long time, and I just thought more, more people could benefit from it. We’re all Mac users, right? So, I was giving one of my 90-minute workshops on Ecamm Live, and I just so happened to reach out to marketing@ecamm.com, I think is what I [00:14:00] reached out to.

[00:14:01] Mike Potter: And the, the whole point of reaching out was just, ” Hey,not expecting anything of this. All I really wanted to do is let you know I’m giving a talk on Ecamm Live. I thought you might be interested to hear that. When all is done, I’ll have a recording of it if you want to see it.” And I got an amazingly generous email back, which is why it’s such a good partnership, because they’re, they’re also a company that, believes in community.

[00:14:24] Mike Potter: But, I got an amazingly generous email back that just said, “How can we help?” And from that point forward, it’s just grown. You know, every year it’s been a little bit more, up to the point where we could host Creator Camp MacStock Edition this year, which, expanded. By adding Creator Camp, we expanded MacStock to four days this year, which felt very overwhelming, in the days and weeks leading up to it, but, turned out to maybe not be quite enough time.

[00:14:53] Mike Potter: It always feels like not enough time when it’s over,

[00:14:55] Jeff Sieh: it was such a fun conference. I got so much done. I learned so much. and also I like when I [00:15:00] speak at the beginning of the conference, and then I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t have that dread leading, like when they put you on the last day, you’re like, “Oh man, this is gonna be a long week.”

[00:15:08] Jeff Sieh: No, but it was, it was great doing the first. but it was a lot of, a lot of fun. Yeah.

[00:15:12] Mike Potter: Why do you think I scheduled my talks

[00:15:14] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. Exactly. Exactly. Smart man. Smart man

[00:15:18] Mike Potter: Yeah

[00:15:18] Zac Brown: And it’s your conference, you get to make the rules.

[00:15:21] Mike Potter: yeah

[00:15:21] Zac Brown:

[00:15:21] Zac Brown: for MacGeiz Only has been going on for 20 years, which is basically forever in podcast time. what has kept you at the mic that long, and how much did that show become the on-ramp for everything MacStock turned into?

[00:15:35] Mike Potter: Wow. good question What has kept me at the mic? You know, it’s the community, honestly. It’s the folks who listen to it and send me their feedback, send me their questions, tell me where I’m wrong, tell me where, where they agree with me. but the community is what keeps me going. but what also keeps me going are my co-hosts.

[00:15:57] Mike Potter: there was a time a few years ago, [00:16:00] especially aft- So I often joke, it’s easy to do a weekly podcast when you’re working for someone else because you’re on someone else’s dime, right? But when you, when, when… That’s a joke. That’s a joke. But when, when I left the ad agency I was working for for 10 years, because unfortunately they had closed, and formed my own business Escape Technologies Group, which is web development and, you know, PC and Mac support and things like that.

[00:16:30] Mike Potter: When I formed that business and I started doing the podcast on my time, on business time, it became a little bit different beast, right? And because it is a hobby. For Mac Eyes Only has been a hobby for 20 years. It hasn’t been a m- a way to, make a living. It’s been something that I do for fun,

[00:16:50] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:51] Mike Potter: and I wanted to make sure it was going to continue to be fun.

[00:16:54] Mike Potter: So for a while, I actually pulled back from, not, not only did I pull back from doing it [00:17:00] weekly, but I pulled back from doing it regularly, much to the chagrin of listeners and to, my co-hosts. And it was one of my co-hosts, Eric, who,poked me just enough to, to get me to, to get back on the horse again, as it were.

[00:17:15] Mike Potter: And we decided for both of us, because he also owns a small business, for both of us to, what, what kind of schedule would work for us? And the schedule that we came up with was twice a month, every other week. Instead of doing it weekly, we’re now doing it every other, every other week, and it has allowed us to not only just, you know, to, to record and edit and get out the show, but now we live stream the recording of the show, which was something that, we wanted to add just to give a little bit, a little bit more back to the audience so they could see what happens behind the scenes before we go live, as it were.

[00:17:56] Mike Potter: Before we start, live to tape, which we always did [00:18:00] over Skype and we always did with Call Recorder and, you know, we always did it that way, but nobody, nobody ever got to see or hear the conversations that happened before that. And now they do. And I’m not sure that they’re always great conversations, but, you know, they’re, they’re fun conversations.

[00:18:18] Mike Potter: And they’ll go down all kinds of rat holes. And, uh, then we start recording about 20 minutes in, and sometimes longer, and record the show. And then, what they don’t get are the after hours, because once we, once we end the live stream, that’s, that ends what they get. But they do get the, you know, the pre-show stuff, which is fun.

[00:18:40] Mike Potter: So yeah, the audience mainly is what keeps us going. I’m sorry, Jeff,

[00:18:43] Mike Potter: I didn’t mean

[00:18:44] Jeff Sieh: no. I was just gonna say that that’s exactly the same reason, like we do this show every week unless, like, I’m traveling or at a conference or something, is because of the people who show up, is we’ve got people in the audience today that I wanna do a shout-out to.

[00:18:56] Jeff Sieh: We’ve got, the amazing Paul Gowder. saying, “Happy birthday, Jeff.” [00:19:00] Yes, it is my birthday. And my,

[00:19:02] Zac Brown: um … Well, thank you. My … And here’s, of course, from my daughter, “Happy birthday, Dad. You’re so old,” in all caps. She’s yelling at me. Um,it’s in all caps so that you can read

[00:19:11] Zac Brown: it from a,

[00:19:12] Jeff Sieh: probably is exactly the reason. And then, Megan Powers, who’s also has a great podcast, says, “Good morning,” and also, “Happy birthday.”

[00:19:18] Jeff Sieh: So thank you, everybody, for the birthday, uh, wishes. I appreciate it from everybody. Thank you so much, Uh, but it’s a community and, and that’s what, makes this live show so much fun, every week that we do it.

[00:19:28] Jeff Sieh: But I wanna ask you kind of a question about, you know, 10 years. Like that, that’s a long time. So what is something about running an event that you had to learn the hard way? Like, the mistakes you would warn somebody like myself, a creator turned organizer, about, you know, something they need to do before they sell even a single ticket or even start promoting that, hey, we got an event coming up

[00:19:52] Mike Potter: Okay, so here’s what comes to mind. I d- I don’t know if this falls under the category of the hard way, but it [00:20:00] is a lesson that I think everybody needs to learn if you’re going to do something like this, and it’s a very important lesson in my opinion, and that is let it go.

[00:20:09] Mike Potter: Just let it go. Nothing is going to be perfect. you can’t plan for things to be perfect. It will not happen. I guarantee it. I’ve been doing this 10, 10 plus years if you include the virtual MacStocks during COVID. but, nothing is going to be perfect. Yes, you should always try to put out the best show that you can.

[00:20:31] Mike Potter: You know, don’t, don’t say, “Well, it’s not gonna be perfect so I’m not gonna try.” No, try your hardest. Do your darnedest to make sure that it’s the best show that you can. But just realize things will go wrong. Speakers will cancel. attendees won’t have registered. They’ll show up thinking they’ve registered, but they haven’t registered.

[00:20:49] Mike Potter: cameras will fail. Recordings won’t get made. you- here’s a real one. You may need to ask your dad to rush someone to the emergency room.

[00:20:57] Jeff Sieh: Oh my gosh

[00:20:58] Mike Potter: everybody’s okay. [00:21:00] Everybody’s okay. That’s the important thing. it- but I often joke with folks, but it’s true. If it can go wrong, it will, and you just have to accept that, understand that, but knowing that nothing w- look, you do a live show, right?

[00:21:19] Mike Potter: Anyone who does a live show knows that it will not be perfect. It can’t be perfect. if you wanna do perfect, pre-record it and edit it and all that. But, when, when you’re… Th- this is essentially a live stream to an in-person audience without cameras, right? You’re you’re going, you’re going live to those who are in attendance, and things will go wrong.

[00:21:42] Mike Potter: so that’s, maybe that, maybe that is the hardest lesson to learn because you want it to be perfect. You want it to be absolutely the best, most memorable thing that you can put on, but it won’t be

[00:21:53] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:21:54] Mike Potter: And it’s okay. it’s okay.

[00:21:56] Jeff Sieh: striving perfection but knowing that you’re not gonna be perfect I think is the [00:22:00] right attitude. And like I could s- I mean, there was stuff y- I can’t even go back and think. I’m sure there was something at this where there was a tech issue or s- you know, but I can’t remember it because the experience was so good.

[00:22:11] Jeff Sieh: Like, it didn’t matter, right? Like, I, I just, I’m, I’m trying to think of like, do I even remember anything that didn’t work? I, I’m sure there was, but I don’t remember it.

[00:22:19] Mike Potter: Yeah. Our job is when something goes wrong to To fix it, to repair the problem, to, smooth things over behind the scenes so that you don’t know that it happened. it will go wrong, but hopefully you don’t notice. Sometimes, sometimes folks do, but y- gosh, you know, the MacStock community is so amazingly awesome.

[00:22:42] Mike Potter: They’re, they’re so forgiving. If even e- even a, a big thing can go wrong, but they just roll with it, too. You know? They, they know that We’re doing the best we can. They understand that, and, I think that’s what makes it such a, a wonderful experience for everyone

[00:22:58] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Very, very cool

[00:22:59] Zac Brown: [00:23:00] agree. something I’m gonna ask our audience who are here live with us today, what is the community that you feel the most at home in? Is it online or off? And we’d love to know, you know, really what makes that work for you

[00:23:12] Jeff Sieh: It’s really funny when I thought about this question for myself, is because, I think I’m, um,what do they call it? Ambivert, where I, I love to speak. I love to go on stage. I love to talk with people. I love to do this show.

[00:23:24] Jeff Sieh: but I don’t get my energy from doing that. I get excited and, and I- I’m stoked to do it, but it is draining, and it was so nice to have a train trip back from MacStock from Chicago. We could take it all the way back to Longview, and it was just… It was relaxing, and it was nice. I need to decompress, right?

[00:23:40] Jeff Sieh: So, I think I feel m- most at home in at home, but I s- if I had to stay at home, I wouldn’t be able to, you know, I would go bonkers, right? So I think it’s that weird dichotomy, I think, with myself

[00:23:53] Zac Brown: the pendulum

[00:23:54] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, exactly. And we’ve got people who already answered. We’ve got some amazing people. Before we get into this next section, I wanna do a shout-out.

[00:23:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:24:00] Megan, of course, yeah, she’s a, also an event professional, so she’s really, this conversation’s right up her alley. I met Megan when she used to help, run Social Media Marketing World in San

[00:24:09] Jeff Sieh: Diego. and so she, she kept all the trains running on time, did a great job with that, and I know that’s one of her things.

[00:24:15] Jeff Sieh: And we’ve got the amazing founder, CEO, big cheese, Dustin Stout from Magai is here, shouting out. He’s also, late because technically he’s on vacation. I did see some of those vacation pics on, I believe Facebook, Dustin. It looks like you’re having a good time.

[00:24:28] Jeff Sieh: Much deserved, my friend. And Michelle says, “I love off.” So she’s talking about being offline. But the connections are made online, and then the conversation energy comes from those offline meetings. Michelle is one of our, momentum buddies that we met at Lou Mongello’s conference. I totally agree, Michelle.

[00:24:45] Jeff Sieh: And then Megan says, “It’s pretty equal, but it depends.” In person is her jam. Nothing beats face-to-face. ” I even did my master’s thesis on the topic.” Now, see, I didn’t even know that, that you were… Man, I knew she was smart, but I didn’t know she was, like, super smart. and then [00:25:00] Andrew says, “Online, I get to meet people from all over the place.”

[00:25:03] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I, the technology that I can broadcast and pull up people’s comments and have conversations, I am just blown away by. but I wanna get into this I think you called it, and I’ve heard it before, is the, the hallway track that happens at a conference. and what, why is that something, that, you know, people come back for?

[00:25:23] Jeff Sieh: you know, at MacStock, you could go to any conference, get slides and sessions, but, but you, people have come back for 10 years. Like, some people have been there every year to MacStock. And, I, I just think, like, I had con- great conversations with people, and, I know community is something that every creator is chasing right now, but nobody really talks about how to build it.

[00:25:40] Jeff Sieh: So this hallway track, the conversations that happened between the sessions, and you had, one of the things when I talked about, like, how well run it was, is I never felt rushed, and I never felt like I was missing anything either. So I think you brought in space for people to breathe and have that time.

[00:25:57] Jeff Sieh: you actually broke for dinner, and then we would come [00:26:00] back, and a lot of times there was another session. Like, you made it so it was very, had this unstructured in-between time.

[00:26:06] Jeff Sieh: but how do you design for that? How do you design for something that you don’t actually, other than seeing a space on the schedule, that you don’t actually, like, have something to do?

[00:26:15] Mike Potter: Okay, talk about lessons learned over 10 years. That is one that I, I, I won’t say the hard way, but it is a lesson that I’ve learned, and it’s often… You know, often the lessons that I’ve learned come from the feedback I get from the attendees, and one of the, the bits of feedback I received very early on and wasn’t necessarily able to adopt right away is to give them more time in between sessions.

[00:26:41] Mike Potter: So how do I design for something like that? Well, I guess I should say some- somewhat flippantly, I don’t. I don’t design for it, or I, I let the, the attendees design that time and how they want to use it. But, what I am doing now [00:27:00] is, as you rightly pointed out, I’m giving them more of that time. and I’ve learned throughout the years that that time in between sessions is so incredibly valuable to them.

[00:27:12] Mike Potter: yes, it’s valuable to me because it gives me a little bit more time to get the next presenter ready and make sure everybody’s comfortable and, oh, do you have everything you need? So the behind-the-scenes MacStock stuff gets taken care of during that time. But for the attendees, it gives them that opportunity to unwind, to stretch, to engage with each other, to, pick up conversations that they started a couple hours earlier and now they see each other again and they continue that conversation.

[00:27:37] Mike Potter: and in some cases, Chuck Joiner with Mac Voices, I would catch him out of the corner of my eye recording interviews with people in the back corner during that in-between time, which, you know, if you know Chuck Joiner, that’s, that’s what he does. so I’ve learned throughout the years to give people more of that, and that’s what I very purposely tried to do this year.

[00:27:58] Mike Potter: In fact, for the first [00:28:00] time in 10 years, lunch was 90 minutes every day. It wasn’t 60 minutes, and very early on it was 30 minutes, very early on, but it’s 90 minutes, and that really, I think, helped people a lot. It- they could, they could get away. If, if they just wanted to get away, they could get away.

[00:28:18] Mike Potter: They could go back to their room. They could spend some time on the phone with family, back home or back… you know, call the office or what have you. So that, for that purpose, it’s important, but also just walking up and hearing the conversations taking place and how folks would dip in and out of these conversations, in that available time and even bounce from table to table during lunch.

[00:28:41] Mike Potter: You know, we had those rounds in the lunchroom, and I would see people get up and move to another table to join a conversation that they overheard and, and wanted to take part in. So, giving people more time, giving them, let’s see, what do we do? We have 15 minutes between 45-minute sessions [00:29:00] and a half an hour between the 90-minute sessions.

[00:29:02] Mike Potter: And I think any more than that would be too much, and I found that less than that isn’t quite enough. So- To Zac’s question earlier, I guess that’s probably one of the lessons I learned is just give people more time, to have those organic unscripted conversations that take place in the hallway or the hallway track.

[00:29:23] Jeff Sieh: And Zac, this, before you a- I know you wanna ask this question, but I wanted to go down this, once again, rabbit hole, ’cause I love to do this. the thing that I noticed, a couple things, just so people know, understand what, what it was like. It was MacStock, you know, was, was four days, including the, the Ecamm one at the beginning, the, the MacStock edition.

[00:29:39] Jeff Sieh: But on the days that we broke for lunch, we actually just left the room, went over to another room, and it was set out, and it was a spread, and you had those round tables we would sit to. I’ve been at places where there’s table talks, but the way you made it so easy to go right to lunch and sit down with your friends and, and find new ones was so easy and so good.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Jeff Sieh: I really liked that. I really… Some of the bigger conferences, and I understand why they do that, ’cause it wouldn’t be feasible to do. But be able to take the, the group and move them together as a, a, a lunch group and sit down together, really, really smart, really, really cool, that you don’t get in the big conferences ’cause everybody just scatters and then they come back for the next session.

[00:30:18] Jeff Sieh: The other thing you don’t get at big conferences is I really like the one-stage track. Because it’s always that, “Oh, what am I missing? Am I gonna have to buy the recordings?” And I have it with when I speak at some of those. my friends, like Lou and I were s- gonna be, uh, against each other at…

[00:30:35] Jeff Sieh: We’re speaking at the same time, basically. so our friends, like if Zac was here, he’d have to pick who he wants to go, and of course Lou’s gonna be disappointed ’cause everybody’s gonna come to mine. But, no, that’s not how it works. But, you don’t have that decision, and, like, that’s what we do at Ecamm, too.

[00:30:48] Jeff Sieh: It’s all, it’s a single track when they do the, their creator camp. So there’s really something to be said about these smaller one-track conferences that you miss on those big conferences. And so that was, [00:31:00] I just thought was very well done. I really liked the lunches and how you did that. So sorry for the, the rabbit trail, Zac, but I just wanted to

[00:31:06] Mike Potter: Well, well, no, I’m, I’m, I’m glad you mentioned that because sometimes I forget about things that I’ve tried and abandoned, and that is one thing I tried. I completely forgot about that until you brought it up. I did at one point, as MacStock evolved, as I, I mentioned, I started out with 20-minute sessions.

[00:31:24] Mike Potter: Again, I stole that idea from TEDx, but, I’m sorry, borrowed, gently borrowed that idea from TEDx, but it didn’t work. It didn’t work. My, my presenter said, “Look, that’s just not enough time. I wanna be able to delve a little bit deeper into my topic. I wanna be able to give people more information than what the 20 minutes is affording me.”

[00:31:43] Mike Potter: So I said, “All right. Well, let’s try this. whichever speakers would like to do this, you can have 20 minutes for your session, and that’s it. You know, if you just want 20 minutes, there you go. Or you can do 20 minutes plus a deeper dive, and the deeper dive would be a 45-minute session.

[00:31:59] Mike Potter: [00:32:00] So in total, you’d have just a little over an hour for your, session. The 20 minute would be in the morning, the deeper dives would be in the afternoon And that was okay but I found that as more presenters wanted to do deeper dives, I had to counter program them and counter programming them resulted in exactly what you described.

[00:32:21] Mike Potter: People, completely unsure of where they wanted to be and whose talk they wanted to listen to, and, part of the reason the digital pass came about was because I wanted to then record everything so that folks who sat in on one deeper dive could catch the other deeper dive later. and then there are logistical and, and,other issues with doing that because now the one deeper dive is in a small room off to the side, and the other deeper dive is in the main conference center room, and now I need double the equipment to do all the recordings.

[00:32:52] Mike Potter: Ugh, such a mess. So ultimately, I ended up, going back to the single track, and that has itself evolved [00:33:00] throughout the years, but the 90-minute sessions are something that I was able to bring about because we moved to the new conference center at the Holiday Inn, and because we had the bigger rooms, and because the conference center…

[00:33:13] Mike Potter: And again, one of the, the lessons to learn is find good partners when it comes to conference centers because they, you know, they do a great job working with me to make sure that MacStock, comes off the way I want it to come off. And, by moving there, that af-afforded me the opportunity to, now offer 90-minute, what I then called workshops, and have evolved to just calling 90-minute sessions, along with the 45-minute sessions.

[00:33:39] Mike Potter: So yeah, single track, definitely the way to go for, for smaller conferences.

[00:33:44] Jeff Sieh: Loved it

[00:33:44] Zac Brown: I think so much of this comes back to community and growth, you know, individually, in groups. I mean, you were talking about the hallway track. This is genuinely how Jeff and I, you know, became connected. It was those little things, the in-between [00:34:00] that, yeah, the sessions are good, but it’s that in-between stuff.

[00:34:03] Zac Brown: And I think within those, they’re the little traditions that kind of happen year after year. You know, for you, you’ve got little traditions. You know, the T-shirt reveal, evening activities, you know, the, the people that you see. But how much of that community is those small recurring rituals, and how intentional are you about creating them versus letting them just kind of organically happen?

[00:34:24] Mike Potter: Yes.

[00:34:26] Jeff Sieh: That’s right

[00:34:28] Mike Potter: No, that’s not fair. So how much is intentional? Well, certain things are very much intentional because I just, I enjoy them. And, uh, you mentioned the T-shirt again, and the T-shirt reveal is, is something, Not only do I have a great time designing it, as I mentioned, but I also have a great time, hearing people’s reactions to it when they see it for the first time.

[00:34:48] Mike Potter: so the T-shirt reveal is very intentional. It’s something that I, I purposely do every year. And, in fact, I tease the T-shirt design on Mac Voices because, Chuck [00:35:00] Joiner does Road to MacStock every year on, on, um, Mac Voices and does such a great job with it. And he always has me on to, introduce, you know, that year’s MacStock and then to kind of wrap things up before MacStock takes place.

[00:35:12] Mike Potter: And he’s always trying to get me to reveal the T-shirt design. And so, this year, for the first time in, in several years, the mugs were ready before, MacStock. Often I’m picking them up, like, the day before. I have a, a local outfit make them for me and, and very often it’s like, “Okay, they’re ready,” and I’m rushing over there and picking them up and tooling them back over to, to MacStock.

[00:35:34] Mike Potter: But this year they were ready, and I had it in time for my wrap-up episode of, Road to MacStock, so I was able to tease Chuck with not the T-shirt design. Oh, no, it’s on the other side of the… Well, you can’t see it. You can’t see it. It’s on the other side of the mug. So he always tries to find out. But the one thing I do is his partner, Cindy, always wants to know what color the T-shirts are going to be so she can coordinate her outfits for the weekend.

[00:35:59] Mike Potter: [00:36:00] And,Cindy is an amazing volunteer for MacStock every year. And so, uh,I did tell her it was the royal blue this year

[00:36:06] Mike Potter: So

[00:36:06] Mike Potter: that she could do that. But, so the T-shirt reveal, very intentional. Very intentional. The rest of it, I would say is probably, more organic. Uh,Yeah, e- everything happens quite naturally at MacStock in terms of the rituals that, attendees go through.

[00:36:23] Mike Potter: The things that they do outside of what I plan for MacStock is, is all them. They do all the planning for that. And, the evenings out to dinner or, little side events that they put together, that’s, that’s all them.

[00:36:38] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I

[00:36:38] Mike Potter: all them, so

[00:36:39] Jeff Sieh: we got invited ’cause Jodi came with me ’cause of the train ride, and she got to just chill. but we got invited every night. I never felt like, “Oh, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” There was always an invitation for somebody, like, “Hey, we’re going out to eat. You wanna come with us?” Or, “Hey, we’re going here.”

[00:36:52] Jeff Sieh: So, like I said, very, very welcoming group. So I wanna get kind of in the brass tacks a little bit about some of the things when you’re coming up with, putting [00:37:00] together a conference or you, you’re mulling that around in your head. I know Dustin from, Magai says, you know, he’s really torn between a single track and a multi-track conference.

[00:37:09] Jeff Sieh: Guess maybe it depends on the tracks, which I would agree with. But I wanna know, like, how do you find your speakers? ’cause, you know, I kinda came in the end around because of Ecamm. Katie knew me enough and said, “Hey, we’ll bring our own speakers, and y- can you be a part of it?”

[00:37:22] Jeff Sieh: And plus, I wanted to take a train ride, and see MacStock. but how do you find your speakers? Is there an audition process? Is there, like, a, “Hey, we’re opening the, you know, next year’s speakers call is going on right now. Submit your application,” yada, yada, yada. How do you get the people, and do you have people come back year after year?

[00:37:38] Jeff Sieh: Like, how do you manage your speakers that you bring to the stage?

[00:37:44] Mike Potter: well, I told you how I found speakers for the very first MacStock. That was off a list of people attending a barbecue. Uh, but every year… Okay, so there are a, a certain core set of speakers who do come back year after year after [00:38:00] year if, if they can make it. Not everyone’s been able to make it every year, but some have presented nearly every year of MacStock, they are folks that people want to hear.

[00:38:10] Mike Potter: So I’m always thrilled to have them back on the schedule again. But in the last few years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to introduce roughly 25 to 30% new speakers, people who have never presented for MacStock stage before. Not, not new to presenting, not new to speaking, but new to MacStock stage, let me put it that way.

[00:38:35] Mike Potter: 25% new, just to kinda keep things fresh and keep new perspectives, Not everybody comes back again, and that’s their choice. but, a lot of them have then become regular presenters themselves, some who are now two or three years into it, and maybe next year they won’t present, you know, because we’re making room for another new batch of presenters on stage.

[00:38:59] Mike Potter: [00:39:00] And I’ve already been kind of cultivating some, relationships with folks I would like to present, people who attended MacStock this year that I think would be amazing presenters, and have kinda put the bug in their ear that, “Hey, why, why don’t you consider submitting to present next year?” ” What do you want me to talk about?”

[00:39:16] Mike Potter: ” Whatever you would like to talk about.” 45 minutes, 90 minutes. the key to me is when someone is passionate about a topic, that’s when you’re gonna get the best presentations. it’s not me telling them what to present on. I come up with a theme every year. I come up with a one-word idea for what their talks might encompass.

[00:39:38] Mike Potter: Like this year’s theme was inspire, which kinda wrapped up all the previous themes of MacStock. But, I give them that, and not everybody adheres to it, which is cool, and that’s fine. but I do want them to come up with a topic that gives them a thrill. like I [00:40:00] said, those are often the best talks and, and that’s, that’s what I want. I want someone to, to come at me with a topic, not come at them with one. So anyway, how do I come up with new ones? it… You know, the last few years, it’s the, the new presenters have come out of MacStock’s own attendees.

[00:40:16] Mike Potter: they’ve built up, well, I don’t wanna say the courage. They’ve built up the, you know, maybe they were a little, a little shy about presenting. Maybe they weren’t quite sure they could be a presenter. but with a little encouragement from myself and, and other presenters and other attendees, they’ve taken a chance, submitted a talk, and, and very often that talk is accepted and, and they find themselves on stage at MacStock.

[00:40:38] Mike Potter: and I think that’s great. I think it’s fantastic to have folks come from within the community because they understand what, what MacStock community is, they understand what their interests are, and, they often knock it out of the park, to the point where people ask, purposely ask for them to, to speak again the next year.

[00:40:59] Jeff Sieh: [00:41:00] That’s awesome. So I wanna follow up with one more question,how do you come up with pricing? I think that’s something that when people start thinking about putting together a conference or even playing with the idea of like, I wanna get an event together, or even like, I wanna meet, do a meetup.

[00:41:14] Jeff Sieh: The, the problem with pricing is the hardest thing, I think, for a lot of people. And I remember when we were sitting across, after you took us on the tour of, Groundhog Day, W- Woodstock, all the, all the scenery there, that when we were sitting across from pizza, you mentioned that the only rule was that you could never lose money that you had with your wife.

[00:41:31] Jeff Sieh: That was, that was, that was the one.

[00:41:32] Jeff Sieh: So That’s right.

[00:41:34] Mike Potter: I can’t lose money with MacStock.

[00:41:36] Jeff Sieh: Do you, how do you set the pricing? ‘Cause that seems like that would be really, really hard. I mean, ’cause I mean, I’ve talked with Lou before, and how much they charge you for like an urn of coffee is bonkers. and trying to factor in all that, did you ever, like, when you first started, I mean, I, I bet the first couple years you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this is gonna be a, a balancing act, try to not to go over budget with this,” ’cause this, this thing happened.

[00:41:58] Jeff Sieh: “Oh, I gotta go out and buy these cables ’cause [00:42:00] I, the AV isn’t working right.” And I mean, all those little things, like how do you set the pricing for your tickets?

[00:42:05] Mike Potter: Okay. Can I go down a slight rabbit hole there for a moment? Because, and I will get to this, I promise. I will. In my long-winded, roundabout way, I will get to answer your question, Jeff. so literally two days ago, my wife and daughter were running around trying to find a USB-C adapter in the house, and my response was, “Every year I buy another handful of these things for MacStock.

[00:42:31] Mike Potter: Every year, because every year I’m looking for USB-C adapters to charge the cameras and run the, you know, whatever. Every year. Why can we not find one? There are boxes of MacStock stuff in the foyer of our house right now. Why can we not find a USB-C adapter?” Because I literally just bought four for MacStock.

[00:42:50] Mike Potter: And then I found the four from last year that I bought. So yes, there’s a- there’s always little things like that because you, e- especially the week before, I don’t know if this is the, [00:43:00] the right way to describe it, but I’m going through all the equipment, make sure I, I have everything, and then I’ll panic buy something like USB-C adapters.

[00:43:08] Mike Potter: You know, because I’m like, “Okay, we can’t, we can’t get there and not have a USB-C adapter. I don’t want to be running out to whatever store trying to find them, let alone find a quality one versus one that’s gonna burst into flames as soon as we plug it in at, at MacStock,” you know? So yeah, there’s that.

[00:43:24] Mike Potter: But pricing. So the key is, again, working with the conference center. how are you being charged for hosting your event at that conference center? They all work differently. Very early days, the, the community college where we hosted MacStock worked entirely differently than the way that the, the Holiday Inn Elara Conference Center works right now.

[00:43:47] Mike Potter: So first and foremost, once you sign that contract, Well, before you sign that contract, you gotta know how it’s, how it’s gonna work. How are they pricing the weekend? And- Then try to [00:44:00] estimate how many attendees you’re gonna have, and how is that going to break down per attendee just to have them walk through the door.

[00:44:07] Mike Potter: Just to have them come in, how much is it gonna cost to have, Timmy and Tommy and Jane and, Joanne and Kelly, have them all walk through the door? What is it gonna cost me if I have this many people attend, and if I have this many people attend, and what is my break-even point on just the conference center?

[00:44:24] Mike Potter: Okay, cool. How much is it gonna cost to feed them? You know, and when you, when you look at those kind of things and how conference centers price things, yes, there’s a per plate cost, but then there’s also the service charges on top of it, and there’s the sales tax on top of it. So, you gotta work all that into the equation.

[00:44:40] Mike Potter: How much is it gonna cost to walk in through the door? How much is it gonna cost to feed them? I’m feeding them lunch every day, boom, boom, boom. Okay, now I have this cost. How much is the T-shirt? How much is the swag that I’m gonna give you know, so there’s all these fixed costs that you have to kind of determine first before you can even

[00:44:58] Jeff Sieh: Right

[00:44:59] Mike Potter: figure out the [00:45:00] pricing.

[00:45:00] Mike Potter: Now you have this, this lump sum that represents the, in sum total, what it’s gonna cost to have Jane Smith walk through the door. Cool. from there I can then determine pricing, and one thing that was very important to me this year is to with prices going up the way they are, to try my best to keep things in line with what pricing has been the past couple years.

[00:45:27] Mike Potter: because I know that it, it’s not cheap to come to MacStock when you take into account transportation, whether by train or plane or automobile. Also filmed in Woodstock. Uh, see how I worked

[00:45:39] Jeff Sieh: yeah, it was great. That was funny

[00:45:40] Mike Potter: yeah, I know. so it, it costs money to go there. It costs money to stay at the, the hotel. You know, it costs money on the road if you are driving.

[00:45:48] Mike Potter: You know, all these things. So I take into account that. I take into account, my price increases. And this year I did have to raise prices a little bit, but I tried to keep the price [00:46:00] increase minimal, and I raised them by 50 bucks. That’s it. 50 bucks to cover really ultimately what was an increase in the cost of food.

[00:46:09] Mike Potter: That was it. It was, is the food increase, that,

[00:46:11] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:46:12] Mike Potter: that $50 covered. So yeah

[00:46:15] Jeff Sieh: Me- Megan Powers says, that, coffee, ’cause she’s done a lot of events. She goes, “Coffee is more expensive than gas or oil.”

[00:46:23] Mike Potter: It

[00:46:23] Mike Potter: is.

[00:46:23] Jeff Sieh: you, when you price

[00:46:24] Mike Potter: is

[00:46:25] Jeff Sieh: like

[00:46:25] Mike Potter: Okay, and, and, you know, if, if anybody from the Holiday Inn is listening to this, I, you know, I just wanna tell you how much I appreciate everything that they do to help make the weekend a success. But one thing that the culinary staff does, and I’ll give a shout-out to Steve, And Mario. Steve and Mario both, amazingly generous with their time and, efforts to assure a good time for all my attendees. But, yes, we do get the urns of coffee out in the morning, but then we have lunch, right? And one of the things at lunch is coffee and tea. And it has been [00:47:00] said to me, and I won’t say who said this, but they’re like, “Well, you paid for this.

[00:47:02] Mike Potter: We’re just gonna move it into the other room.” So I’ve benefited from the fact that I haven’t had to refill those urns and pay again for another, round of coffee because we have the coffee from lunch that was fresh and was otherwise gonna be dumped. And i- they said, “Hey, you know, we’ll, we’ll move it over there.”

[00:47:20] Mike Potter: And then the other thing is,desserts. The desserts from lunch, they always move them

[00:47:23] Mike Potter: over into the room.

[00:47:24] Jeff Sieh: That’s right.

[00:47:25] Mike Potter: So cookies, brownies, we’ve had cheesecake moved

[00:47:28] Mike Potter: over, and then people have something to snack on in the afternoon. So, you know, their point of view is, I’ve paid for it, so why not put it into the other room where people can continue to enjoy it?

[00:47:38] Mike Potter: And so having a c- a conference center that is willing to work with you and, give your attendees the best experience possible and, and seemingly not be out to just nickel and dime you for every single thing that you’re asking for is incredibly valuable.

[00:47:54] Jeff Sieh: you could tell the relationship that you had with, the hotel was, was awesome. and bless you [00:48:00] that you had coffee throughout the day. I hate it when they pull it, like, 15 minutes. Like, you have it, like, there, and then there’s a rush, and then it goes away. I’m, I was so thankful that I could go and get coffee all day.

[00:48:11] Jeff Sieh: So, very, very cool. We’re getting kinda close on time, but I ha- I know Zac has one more question. But I did wanna, before we, uh, move on, to make sure you guys know that we are so thankful for Ecamm, who sponsors the show. You can find out more about them at ecamm.com/jeff. Use code JEFF15 to save 15% on your first purchase.

[00:48:28] Jeff Sieh: And also, camp’s coming up in September, the big three-day, camp, and Mike’s gonna be there. Zac needs to be there. ecamm.com/camp. It’s gonna be amazing. Michael Hyatt,Pat Flynn, Paul Gowder, tons of other people, Doc Rock, Katie Fawkes, all the, all the cool people and I can come to, uh, are gonna be there.

[00:48:45] Jeff Sieh: so it’s gonna be awesome, so go check it out, ecamm.com/camp. Zac, take it away, ’cause I know we have, we’re, we’re short on time, and this was a really important question I know you wanted to ask

[00:48:54] Zac Brown: Yeah. You know, Mike, this conference, it’s one weekend a year. It’s not a lot of time, but [00:49:00] your community have to s- has to survive the other, you know, weeks throughout the year. What does keeping people warm and engaged between events actually look like for you, like practically

[00:49:11] Mike Potter: Okay. So first, don’t listen to me, right? Because

[00:49:15] Jeff Sieh: Well, it’s a little late now. It’s a little late

[00:49:18] Mike Potter: my audience, my audience, the MacStock audience, the MacStock attendees Because I assume you’re asking this question from the standpoint of someone else who might be doing this type of thing, right? Is that what you mean? Or are you strictly looking at, at it from my perspective?

[00:49:31] Mike Potter: So, all right. From my perspective, again, I’m gonna use this word lucky in that, we all have a very common interest, a common bond if you will, which is the Apple ecosystem and the Apple products and, and a strong interest in getting the most from those products and, and learning as much about them as we can.

[00:49:51] Mike Potter: And those kind of conversations that start at MacStock have organically continued in the days and weeks and [00:50:00] months after, to the point where people have formed new businesses, they’ve started podcasts. There was a podcast I learned about, I had no idea that they started this up, but two people I would not have thought would be doing a podcast together are now doing a podcast together because they had the idea at MacStock last year and decided to, go through with it.

[00:50:18] Mike Potter: So the, engagement of the MacStock audience is, to throw this word back out there again, very organic and natural. They want to stay engaged with each other, and they do. but if I had to list one thing

[00:50:34] Mike Potter: Other than that common thread that holds everything together, and I guess, I guess part of that would be me, right? I’m, I’m one– I’m the common thread that keeps the MacStock audience together throughout the year. but be true to yourself. the moment that you try to copy what’s worked for someone else, you kind of cease to be the person who started that thing that people are coming back for year after year. So, for example, if I, if I suddenly [00:51:00] started blasting out daily missives on social media, people would say, “Who did Mike hire?” Because it’s not me. I don’t do that. so folks know who I am. They know how I interact with them, and if things were to change, I think people would question it. So, I think it’s super important to engage your audience, to keep them engaged the way that you would like to be engaged.

[00:51:22] Mike Potter: And I kind of said that earlier, in terms of, you know, put on the conference that you want to attend, but you also want to engage people the way that you would want to engage. for example, I don’t like to be overwhelmed with information. I don’t like to have too much thrown at me. I just signed up for a new piece of software and they’re sending me two or three emails a day.

[00:51:44] Mike Potter: I’m like, I- this is just too much, you know? And that’s not the kind of thing that I enjoy. And so because I don’t enjoy it, I don’t do that to the MacStock audience. So if someone signs up for the MacStock newsletter, they’re gonna get newsletters when it’s important. They’re not [00:52:00] gonna get overwhelmed with stuff, just because I feel like staying in contact.

[00:52:04] Mike Potter: I do try to be active on Mastodon to the minimal extent that I am. But, you know, like I said, if, if, if I suddenly changed how I did things because I saw somebody else do it and because I thought that’s the way I should be doing it, people would question if I were still doing it.

[00:52:23] Jeff Sieh: Yeah

[00:52:25] Mike Potter: So be true to yourself.

[00:52:26] Mike Potter: I think that’s important. or at least in my perspective, it’s important to keep my audience engaged because they know that when they do reach out to MacStock, they’re reaching out to me. They’re talking to me. Even if they use the contact form, they very often start with, “Hi, Mike,” because they know that I’m gonna be the one who gets that message.

[00:52:45] Mike Potter: So, as long as I am… This is gonna sound corny. As long as I am me and I try to be me and I, and I stay true to who I am and what I want MacStock to be, I think that helps keep the audience engaged. But that common interest and [00:53:00] that common thread that, that holds everything together is ultimately the, the Apple ecosystem and people wanting to, continually learn and learn from each other and, and I think that’s, that’s how they kind of naturally stay engaged.

[00:53:13] Mike Potter: Wow, that was a rat hole. Did I answer your question, Zac?

[00:53:16] Jeff Sieh: I s-

[00:53:16] Zac Brown: Yes, that was amazing

[00:53:17] Jeff Sieh: I think that, the, the whole be true to yourself, ’cause I think about the conferences that I love and I will go to every year, you know, Ecamm Creator Camp, not just ’cause they sponsor the show, but because it’s like you mentioned before, the community inside of there is so good.

[00:53:30] Jeff Sieh: and then I, and, he’s here, and he’s gonna give me a hard time, but Lou Mongello’s conference,so it’s the same kind of story, Mike, is like, he, he built the podcast that he wanted to listen to. He built the conference because he would go home from a conference and have all these things, and nothing would happen, and so he created momentum to keep the momentum going throughout the year, and he does a great job with that.

[00:53:49] Jeff Sieh: So I, I’m, I totally, be who you are, and people are attracted to you for a reason, and they’re gonna be attracted to the event you put together for that same reason, so I think that’s [00:54:00] really, really key.

[00:54:00] Mike Potter: I, you just triggered a, a thought in my head, but, a friend of mine recently counseled me, over pizza actually, of a way that I can incorporate a few ideas of mine into MacStock to keep the momentum going. and it’s actually an idea I’ve had for a while, and I didn’t even think of tying it into MacStock.

[00:54:18] Mike Potter: But thanks to this a, a little bit of advice, I’m actually going to incorporate it into MacStock as a way to try to keep the community going. Initially, it’s gonna be my own effort, my own thing to put out there, and you can tell I’m kinda like beating around the bush here because I’m not ready to announce it.

[00:54:36] Mike Potter: But, it, it’s, it’s something that I’m excited about and I think will bring a little extra value to the community, and I’m hoping that other presenters, other people who, have participated heavily in MacStock will want to participate in this as well and kinda be this, this little offshoot of MacStock that kinda keeps things together throughout the rest of the [00:55:00] year.

[00:55:00] Mike Potter: So yeah, it, it is… There’s al- there’s always something rattling around in this empty skull of mine up, up here. And, you’ll find ideas that are either shared with me or I have on my own five, six years ago finally getting implemented because I have the opportunity to do it, and the workshops are one of them.

[00:55:19] Mike Potter: You know? it’s something I wanted to do for a long time and finally got the opportunity to, and I, and I did. So yeah, there, there’s, there’s stuff going on.

[00:55:28] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:55:28] Mike Potter: stuff going on

[00:55:30] Jeff Sieh: And, and I wanna encourage people too, you don’t have to like, “Hey, I’m just gonna start an event.” Like start small, do a mastermind that can lead into a meetup, that can lead in… ‘Cause if you look at Mike’s path, that’s kind of the same way. And even with Lou, he would do meetups at Walt Disney World, and then they, people wanted him to talk about Disney.

[00:55:44] Jeff Sieh: And I mean, so you see these, you know, you don’t have to go to 100 miles an hour right away. Start small. that’s what I’m planning on doing. That’s what I think a lot of my friends are star- are going to do too. So Mike, this has been amazing, you guys are interested in, MacStock for next year, make sure you sign up for the newsletter.

[00:55:59] Jeff Sieh: go [00:56:00] find Mike everywhere you can. Mike, where can people find you, by the way? You’ve mentioned podcasts, all this thing. Where can people find out more about all the things Mike Potter?

[00:56:09] Mike Potter: All the things Mike Potter, huh? Well, as I mentioned, I’m not super active on social but you will find me on Mastodon. that is, you ready for this? tooting.ninja, /MacStockexpo and, uh, tooting.ninja/forMacguysonly. I needed a, a cool fun name for my server so I, I registered tooting.ninja. And, so that’s, that’s my Mastodon profile.

[00:56:32] Mike Potter: And then of course you can find me on YouTube, youtube.com/fmeotv and, youtube.com/MacStock are where you’ll find me. And that’s about it.

[00:56:44] Jeff Sieh: Cool. Uh, we’ve got some, we even have some of your speakers showing up. Paula showed up saying, “Happy birthday, Jeff.” Thank you so

[00:56:49] Jeff Sieh: much, Paula. Yeah, she did a great job, as one of the speakers

[00:56:52] Jeff Sieh: there.

[00:56:52] Jeff Sieh: In fact, it was awesome. she’s one I got, uh, for this show coming up, and also, Mike was last week, Mike Schmitz.

[00:56:58] Jeff Sieh: he did a great job as well. [00:57:00] So, Conor Brown, I mean, not Conor Brown, Zac Brown. Sorry. Sorry. It was, uh, uh, I did the thing. Zac Brown, where can we find out more about all things Zac Brown?

[00:57:11] Zac Brown: You could find me over at Magical Kingdoms. No, I’m just kidding. you can follow me @zackbrowncreative on the socials. you can check out my podcast, The Zac Brown Show, and buy my new book, An Accidentally Education: What I’ve Learned So Far. Lots of little things going on, all all the Zac Brown stuff.

[00:57:27] Jeff Sieh: And I, and his book is worth the read, folks, so go check that out. You can get it on Kindle now as well, which is amazing. But thank you guys so much. Thank you for for all the birthday wishes. yeah, Lou’s conference is coming up, too. I think there’s still some tickets left, so a shameless plug for, Momentum, and of course Creator Camp, where you can find out, more about Ecamm at camp.

[00:57:47] Jeff Sieh: And with that, thank you guys for the amazing time, the great comments, because, you know, we always have [00:58:00] Thank you so much everybody. We will see you guys next time. Have a great weekend. God bless