Building B2B Podcast Entrepreneurs with Elzie Flenard

 Josh Wilson
 Good day, fellow deal makers. Welcome to the deal. Scout. On this show, it's so fun because I get to talk with deal makers, hear their story here, their journey, but learn more about deals and how deals are done. Today we're going to be talking about the the the Deal Scout podcast interview growing to actually help grow businesses. I'm bringing one of my friends from the frigid north, somewhere up there. Elsie. Welcome to show. 

 Elzie
 Thank you so much for having me. Josh I'm excited to have the conversation. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, man. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right, so where are you guys located? 

 Elzie
 So technically, we're in greater Milwaukee, right? We have one studio that's in Wawa Tosa, which is basically Milwaukee. Where I'm meeting ID now is in Brookfield, Wisconsin, which is about 15 minutes west of Milwaukee. So greater Milwaukee. 

 Josh Wilson
 What is Milwaukee known for? I'm in Florida, right? I have no clue sometimes about other states. What are you guys known for up there? 

 Elzie
 All right, let me let you in on the secret. Josh wisconsin is the city of festivals. Any festival you can think of. Strawberry Festival, the biggest gig in the world, right? With Summer Fests, where musicians from all over the world descend on the great city, great state of Wisconsin and do their thing. All types of festivals. Chocolate festival. German fest. All festivals from May to October. Festival season. Wisconsin is also known for peter I don't partake as much. I'm dry for various reasons. However, my compadres, they love to partake in adult beverages. Wisconsin is also known for cheese, so those are the top three things. The home of the 2021 World Champion Milwaukee. 

 Josh Wilson
 You guys hold on to that as long as you possibly can. Hopefully, it's not another 50, so maybe you could see two in your lifetime. So, Elvis, where do you put your focus on a day to day basis? 

 Elzie
 Interestingly enough, more and more, as my company continues to grow, I'm focusing on building relationships, I'm focusing on sales. I'm focusing on things like operations, making sure that the company runs. Whether I'm here or not, we're still in the process, right? It's a process. It's iterative. More and more, that's why I'm spending my time on the financial side of the business, making sure we're healthy, we can pay our people, we can pay our bills, those types of things. Which is interesting because when I first started this company, I did everything. I went out and got the customer, I took them through the journey, I did the editing, I edited the audio, I put together all the stuff. I did all the stuff. Now, again, as we continue to grow, I am really being intentional about bringing team members on that can basically firing myself systematically is what I'm doing. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome. 

 Josh Wilson
 Min all right, so what do you do and for who, right? Who are some of your ideal clients and what do you guys do as a business? I know you have a few different business and missions, so kind of give us an idea of what they are. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Elzie
 Essentially what we do is we help people build trust, grow influence, and increase authority. We do that through audio and video podcasting. Quite simply, there's a lot of detail between those things, but on the surface, at a high level, that's what we do. We help folks build those relationships, establish themselves as authorities in their niche, build out that trust. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Elzie
 Because people buy from people that they know, like and trust. We help them create that platform so that they can leverage it to build those deeper relationships. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool. You have a podcast of your own. I think you have a few kind of give a shout out to the podcast. So, my listeners, I want you anytime one of my guests comes on the show that has a podcast, I want you to go check it out, download, subscribe, give them a raving review. Say you heard them on Josh's show, but give a shout out to some of your shows. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Elzie
 Make sure you guys give a Raving review. Like Josh said, our flagship show is Enterprise now. That's the show that kicked everything off. I like to tell people I'm a true to form podcast entrepreneur. Podcasting is my life. It is how I came into this entrepreneur world. Enterprise Now was the thing that kind of kicked it off. The show where I was at my day job, over my lunch break on my mobile recorder, doing interviews. This is the show, and we focus on B to B founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. And we approach it three angles. We talk thought leadersre, we talk personal mastery, and we talk storytelling, because those are the three elements that I believe if you do those things well, you're going to win no matter where you are. The other show is called Podcast. My brand. That's my fun show. It's where I get people on and I don't even apologize for it. 

 Elzie
 Josh I make fun of them. I love to buzz them when they get trivia questions wrong. I love to poke fun at them and just give them a really hard time. And that is my fun show. I do it. These are our peers in the industry who also have podcast. SOP s talk shop. We talk podcasting. We talk how to get better at the craft and things like that. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool. All right, you talked about three elements for a BTB brand to build trust, credibility, authority, leveraging, audio, video, media. What were those three elements? I completely couldn't write fast enough. 

 Elzie
 We talk storytelling, we talk personal mastery, and we talk personal mastery, storytelling, and thought leadership. 

 Josh Wilson
 Okay. 

 Josh Wilson
 What do some of those components need to have or not need to have? Could you have one without the other could you just be a master and just people flock to you? Why do you need all three? 

 Elzie
 Well, partly because it is very difficult to lead somebody somewhere you have never been. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right? 

 Elzie
 You cannot truly arrive at a place until you understand who you are. You cannot understand who you are until you've done the work to understand who you are. It's very difficult to help someone else build trust if you have not on that journey. Right. It's very difficult to leverage trust, to leverage authority, to leverage influence, if you don't have a good sense of who you are, why you are, where you've been, where you're going, what makes you tick, what ticks you off, those types of things, right? Then, conversely, understanding, okay, now that I've mastered me. That doesn't mean that you don't still make mistakes. That just means that you understand that you are apt to make mistakes. You can set yourself up in situations to prevent you from making said mistake. Right? I'll give you a real world example. I have a digital personality. I'm an electronics engineering background guy in a former life. 

 Elzie
 I'm recovered now, Josh, okay, but back min the day, I used to dial with ones and zeros. In digital electronics, there are only two states. It's either a one or it's a zero. It's not in between, there's no gray area. It's a one or zero. Now, the combination of those ones and zeros give you other things, but suffice to say, I'm either a one or a zero. I'm all in or I'm all out. I know that about myself. I should never be in anyone's casino because I will gamble away the mortgage, right? Okay, ian Hill, put it all on the table. I know that about me. So I don't gamble. That's why I don't drink. I can't have just one drink. If I'm going to drink, Josh, I'm going to drink. I know that about myself. The journey of personal mastery is understanding that and then putting yourself in solutions so that you win. 

 Elzie
 How is that related to business? Well, understanding yourself helps you understand others, how they perceive you, how you perceive them. The better you can do that, the better you can pick out, okay, that client would work well with me or that client. There's no way that we're getting past the first discovery call because our personalities just don't live right. That's what I mean in terms of all those things working together. Thought, leadership, understanding that. Just because Josh has a thought doesn't mean that it applies for me. Again, it goes back to personal mastery because I know me, I know myself. The person mastery, thought leadersre and storytelling piece comes in is when you can tell your story effectively. More importantly, you can listen to the stories of other people weave min who you are, what you are, where you're going, why? You're going into their what, why, how, and who? 

 Elzie
 Now you can serve them better because you understand all three of those concepts. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Out of those three, storytelling, mastery, thought, leadership, which one was the hardest for you? 

 Elzie
 Oh, personal mastery. Not even close. 

 Josh Wilson
 Explain. 

 Elzie
 Well, part of the journey is looking at yourself honestly, and it's ugly. It is not a pretty process, right. When you can look at yourself honestly and say, man, I could be a jerk. I could be hard to work with sometimes because I want what I want, how I want, when I want it. That's not always good to work with for people. I can sometimes be selfish because I get a goal in mind and I go after it, and I ignore everything else around. It is an eye opening exercise when you realize that, oh, I have flaws, right. You embrace those flaws and say, okay, this is who I am. Now, how do I take that and start to take steps to get better, start to take steps to grow and evolve into a better version of myself. So, personal mastery by far the hardest. 

 Josh Wilson
 Live. 

 Elzie
 I can tell you a story all day long, right? Who I am, where I am, why I am. Right. That's not nearly as difficult as me looking in the mirror and saying, okay, this is who you are, and this is how you're perceived. Because a lot of times, who we think we are, who we project, or sometimes who we pretend to be, is not how people perceive us. Part of that work is really understanding, here's what I think people see versus what people actually see. And that's hard work. 

 Josh Wilson
 That is hard work. When it comes to projection, this is what I want the world to see, who Josh is. Right. That's what I'm trying to do as my brand identity. When we're talking about marketing and sales and media, we're going, this is who I want the Vworldc to see. Josh is, this is my projected brand. Now, there's the perceived brand of what the world actually goes, hey, that's who Josh is. When it's done well, they should align. When it's not done well, what happens? You've worked with hundreds of B to B brands, and what have you found when you're starting to work with someone, when the projection and the perception do not align? 

 Elzie
 I think the first step is always is the listening aspect. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right? 

 Elzie
 We talked about storytelling. It's much more than being able to tell your story is being able to listen. Step one is knowing what that gap is. If I'm presenting myself as the mayor of Podcast Town, that's how I should show up. I preside I connect. I help people get what they need. If somebody needs to be connected, they called the mayor, because he is connecting people. You see what I'm saying? The reason I know that's in alignment is because I didn't give myself that nickname. Somebody else gave me that name. They said, Elsie, the way you show up right. Consistently over time, the way you help people, the way you do what you do, the passion, the focus, the zeal, right. The essence of who you are. I'm going to call you the mayor. You're the mayor of Podcast Town. And Zoom. I know that it's in alignment because that's what I put out there right. 

 Elzie
 When I'm extending my hand, it's not to get, it's to give. When you start hearing that alignment, you're on the right track. When you don't hear that alignment either, the perception is off because that's not always up to you, how people perceive you. It could be a wrong perception. The key is understanding it, embracing it, and embodying it doesn't mean that it has to match necessarily. You just need to be aware of it. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Now, you primarily work with BTB brands. What is b to b for? People listening and they have no clue what it means. What does that mean? 

 Elzie
 Well, Josh, I like to take things and make them my own. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Elzie
 That's thought leadership part. Most people will say that means business to business. I say it means brand to brand. Because whether you are a high achieving executive or you're a podcast host that's just starting out, you, my friend, are brand. Whether you like it or not. Every company picnic you show up at, if you're a podcast host, event name, you hit record, you're on that video, you are a brand. When you show up late, when you're not prepared, when you're sound and audio, all of that is contributing to your brand. B to B, for means brand to brand. A lot of our clients are brands who want to leverage the audio and video aspects of their media company because, believe it or not, when you start a podcast, you are now a media company. We help them kind of understand that and to build that brand out. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Elzie
 To answer your actual question, for me, it means brand to brand. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 I've never thought of it that way. 

 Elzie
 Right. 

 Josh Wilson
 In marketing school or when I worked in research, it was business to business and it was very transactional. I like B to B because I just seem to fit better with serving business leadersre, other investors. I spent a lot of my time not focusing on B to C, the consumer, but other businesses, I seem to get along better. New York talk about knowing your brand. The projection and the perception of the people perceiving it. Those are your people. Right. You're trying to attract the right kind of people. How do who your people are? 

 Elzie
 Again, this goes back to that personal mastery piece. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Elzie
 You have to know what brings you joy. If I know that I have a call with a potential resident. We call our clients residence, and I don't get excited about it, and it drains my energy. Then there's misalignment. I missed something in the onboarding process and the discovery process in the farming process. I'm a farmer. Something was off. We missed it. If I see your name on the calendar and I go, okay, today I get to talk to Josh. There's alignment, right? I'm big in this season of my life. I'm really big on joy. If things do not bring me joy, I do not do that period. And seasons change. This time next year, season might be different. So, again, not to be the dead horse, but going back to that personal mastery piece, I know that I have to be very intentional about realizing what season it is. 

 Elzie
 To your question, you have to have alignment, min who you are, your person, your joy, because you're only going to maximize your output when you have that joy. You really have to understand that alignment piece, and those are the people you want to attract. You want to attract joy into your life and into your business. 

 Josh Wilson
 So I spent a lot of time. This is recent. I'm 40 years old, and I'm learning who I am at a deeper level because making way through life, being a deal guy who are your ideal clients, people with money and wanting to spend it now. Right. I'm learning as I get older, this piece of energy. I used to think that was like, woohoo until I started looking at the energy that I had when I showed up around different people, right. I'm like, holy moly, there's something here I got to pay attention to. The joy that I have from working with certain people over other people. Right. Now, when did this start to become relevant to you where you said, I got to start focusing on my joy because I need to show up my greatest self. When did that start happening in your world? 

 Elzie
 Relatively recently. I think there's something magical about the age 35 to 40 now that you start to realize that time, it starts to multiply. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Elzie
 I remember when my daughter, she's 15 now. I literally remember when she was small enough, I could hold her in my hand. You start to realize that, man, time literally flies, and I do not want to waste time. I have a saying that I want to live full and die empty. Every idea, every passion, everything that's in here in my heart and my soul to get out, I will get out. Going back to again, that personal mastery, I know me. I'm focused. I'm driven. If you're going in the same direction, let's go. If you're holding me up, then you got to get off the bus, buddy, because we got somewhere to go. That's how I roll, right? I was just continuing to do that work and realizing not to ignore that when I'm meeting that energy drain. When you put a good battery in the remote control with the bad battery, what's going to happen? 

 Elzie
 That bad battery is going to drain the good battery because now the good battery has to do twice as much work. I've learned to stop aligning or allowing bad batteries to align with my journey because it just drains me. Again, it's just an iterative process, right. This season is going to be different than next season. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Elzie
 Chris Cook part about it is this continuous process of discovery. 

 Josh Wilson
 You mentioned you're the mayor, which someone else gave you the title. They knighted you mayor, right, of Podcast Town. What? Podcast town. That your service provider where you help build, launch, grow podcast shows? 

 Elzie
 Yeah, exactly. All the concepts and principles right, that we've talked about to do three things build trust, increased authority, and grow authority. 

 Josh Wilson
 Copy that. 

 Elzie
 And influence. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right. 

 Josh Wilson
 Elsie, you said two years ago you had a mobile recorder and you were working on your job and on your lunch breaks or whatever the, the, the Deal Scout Podcast Interview and story. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right? 

 Josh Wilson
 Did I hear it right? 

 Elzie
 Six years. 

 Josh Wilson
 Six years, sorry. Copy that. Six years ago, you had this idea I should start a podcast show and I should do this, and it kind of boomed into you becoming a podcast entrepreneur. Let's go back to your W two. You're sitting there on your lunch breaks recording. What kind of recorder did you use back then? 

 Elzie
 I used a zoom in. You're meeting my knowledge. I forgot. 

 Josh Wilson
 If I had a buzzer, I would buzz you right now like you do flofr me. 

 Elzie
 It was a zoom recorder. I cannot remember the model. Was it this one? It was not that one, but it's similar. A little bit bigger. Probably the older model. Two channels. I had one cable into the left channel on my phone, and then the other channel was on this label type microphone. I'm sitting in my car and I'm hiding because I don't want anybody to see me doing this in the parking lot because people are nosy and they're going to tell my boss, my Heath is all the way back and I'm sitting and it's hot because you can't have the air on because that's going to get in the recording. So there I am on lunch break. I got 30 minutes to do this show, and I'm calling people up and doing my thing. Min a hot car on my lunch break in the middle of summer. 

 Josh Wilson
 That is so awesome because I've done the same thing. Because you're trying to find the best audio and you're like, if the car is running, first of all, it's going to cost me gas, and then people are going to hear the noises. Someone for sure is going to come walk and knock on my window or a car drives by and honks and then I got to do post production and all this stuff. In your evolution, that's where you got your start from a lav mic into a phone, recording conversations. And was that the Enterprise Now show. 

 Elzie
 That you it was the Enterprise Now. 

 Josh Wilson
 Show and that was your first podcast show that you ever created. It's been going strong for a long time. How many episodes have you guys done? 

 Elzie
 I believe we're at 220. 

 Josh Wilson
 What is something that one of your most favorite memorable moments in your years of podcasting? 

 Josh Wilson
 Okay. 

 Elzie
 Funny story. Josh I thought I was going to be a cool dad, right. I love to read to my kids. My daughter loved Pizza Cat and so I said it would be great. She's going to think I am the best dad ever if I can get the author of Pizza Cat on my podcast. So I reached out to his people. He has people and long story short, end up getting him on the show. We did an Internet with the author of Pizza Cat. Cool moment. She didn't care. It was huge for me because it showed me that you can do it live, just put it out there. You never know what could happen. That was one of the watershed moments where I realized, okay, not only can we do this, but we could do this at a very high level and learn a lot in the process. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Did Peter ever find all of his buttons? 

 Elzie
 I don't think that's the concept or the idea, Josh. I think the point is he never gives up, no matter what happens. Brownsheet is my favorite story. He has a positive attitude and he keeps going. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Elzie
 I thought, wow, that is the entrepreneur theme song, right? Just no matter what happens, keep on going. 

 Josh Wilson
 What I love about this story is you had this idea that I would live to connect with someone and you leveraged a podcast show and you made it happen. Now, he's a very well known I think he right. Or someone is a very well known author who wrote the books. You had this idea that, hey, this is going to make my daughter super happy. She didn't care or whatever. For you, it was a great accomplishment because a podcast show connected you with someone that you wanted to connect with, right. Someone that was important to you. How are brands using that live leveraging podcast town and leveraging, what you do, how do people leverage that to grow their business? Give us an example. 

 Elzie
 Yeah. For me, what we try to parlay to our clients, our partners, is that same concept. Who are the people that you want to help, you want to add value to, you want to give to? We've had people come to us and they would say, well, LZ I want to be number one on Apple podcast. I immediately know I go back to all the conversation that we just had, the self mastery, the self organized. I know that's never been my Mo. Maybe to a fault. I'm not about big names and flashy stuff. I don't really care. Working with that type of person, not that there's anything wrong with it, there's no alignment there. What we focus on is building those relationships, helping our partners add value. When you do that business comes when people know that you care, when they know that you're there to help them. 

 Elzie
 When they need what you do, at some point you've made them aware of what you do, they will call you. I know that to be true in my business. That's what we help our partners do. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 The power of conversation, the power of putting people together is so amazing. Especially if you're attracting the right people. Now let's talk about this. I think a lot of brands, when they're building their brand, they're just going for anything with a heartbeat and with some dollars in their pocket, right? Live. Who do you serve? Just like I did back in the day, anybody with money. I'll tell you, it was like putting the I love your analogy. Putting a bad battery next to a good battery, it drains. I found that I also didn't get traction in my world until I started attracting the kind of people that I actually enjoyed working with. When you're working with a brand and how do for a brand? How do if there ideal customer is off and they need to adjust that? What are your experiences there? 

 Elzie
 Same deal. I ask them questions like what do you enjoy? What brings you joy when you wake up in the morning is the thing that you cannot wait to do. If you're doing that anything less than 100%, then that's where we start. Right? We really look at tons of questions about their business. How is structured, what their service offerings are, which ones have the highest margin. So we do the business side. We break it down, right. Because we want to know that our efforts are getting returned. Right? We just go through, okay, why would we spend our time here when you hate doing this and your margins are low? Let's focus on this where the margins are high. Probably because you really enjoy doing it and you're attracting people that you actually want to work with. Because we've done the personal mastery work. We understand ourselves and who we work best with. 

 Elzie
 Let's focus on these things, right. Really put our attention and focus over here. Again, I'm applying the lessons, the things that I've learned in my life and my business to our partners. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 How'd you go from reclinecy in summer in your car live, doing your first couple of episodes to becoming a full time podcast entrepreneur. That is an amazing jump, and a lot of people will never make that jump. I've spoken to veterans in the industry who've been doing it for ten years, and they're still trying to figure out how to make money doing podcasting. How'd you do that? 

 Elzie
 I listened. I listened to the market. I would have people on my show, and I would ask them questions. That gave me the answer. I'll live. You make a point. When I started Enterprise Now, Josh, I literally did not care if anybody listens. My only singular goal was to get in front of business people and learn from them. I didn't even care. I told you I interviewed an author of a children's book. What does that have about what does that have to do with business? Through my interview with him, he taught me low cost experimentation as a concept, right? Don't spend $75,000 on your business idea, because a lot of business ideas fail. Take 30 00 50 00 test it. Listen, look at the market. If you get traction, then you scale concepts. Like, that is what I learned from interviewing people on the show. 

 Elzie
 I would ask them all the questions at the end of the interview in the green room, if you were me, what would you be doing? Again, I had no goals. I didn't want to parlay it into a business. I didn't know what business I wanted. I've always known I wanted to be min business. No clue what I wanted to do. One day, one of my guests said, I'd ask them. I said, if you were me, what would you be doing? They said, Well, Elsie, low hanging fruit. I would help people start podcast because it's something how to do. This one seems to be pretty good. Just do that. And I thought, that's a great idea. Let me do that. That kicked off the business part of Enterprise Now. And over time, I listened. They would come to me and they would say, well, launching it is one thing, Elsie, but, man, how do you do the editing, the production, the planning, the strategy and all this stuff? 

 Elzie
 I was like, I could help you do that. I kind of have done it, because at this point, I'm learning as I go, right? I'm starting to see, okay, there's some strategies to this and ways we can build this business. Somebody came back and they said, well, production is great. The strategy, we got that down. How do you promote this thing and get the word out? I thought, I mean, I'm doing a decent job at that. I'll help you do that. One day somebody came back and said, well, all this stuff is fine and good. LZ but how do I turn listeners. Into paying customers. At this point we had done it enough times, had listened enough, had asked enough questions where were doing that as well. That's how it became this full service, full stack brand, really, just by listening. Again, your earlier question about storytelling, a lot of it is listening more so than being able to tell the stories is hearing what people are saying even when they're not saying anything, and just understanding how to put those things together. 

 Elzie
 And so that's how I did it. I listened, I iterated. I failed a whole lot of times. I got back up again, I tried it and again, I listened. I paid attention to me, I paid attention to the market. And we're continuing to build. 

 Josh Wilson
 That is such a great question to ask people. They got some time to get to know you. They got to see you in your art, which I think is super important. They got to see. And I've listened to your internet. You are really good podcaster. You really listen well and you have fun with the guests. You do a really good job at that. After you get some time, you go, if you were me, what would you focus on now? For me, it took me a long time to learn to ask, right? Even ask for help or ask for feedback. I think for me it was insecurity and ego that got in the way of me growing. I had to fall in that hole, fall on my face, and not be able to get back for a bit, a minute. How did you learn to do that? 

 Josh Wilson
 Or what did you have to overcome personally to be able to do that? 

 Elzie
 I think it was just a function of how I came up. People say, well, you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps. My response is, well, what if you don't have boots or straps? What do you do then? Right? And that's me. I was that kid, right? We couldn't afford basketball shoes to play. My basketball shoes were my school shoes. They were the same thing. I've always had to be innovative. I've always had to just be high energy and a go getter because nobody's going to save you. And that was my mentality. I still have that chip on my shoulders like, no, you have to make it happen. I think the humility piece comes from my faith and just understanding that I can't do any of this stuff if it's not forgot, right? If he doesn't guide me, if he doesn't give me at least a hint or a clue or some guidance and I'm completely lost live. 

 Elzie
 I don't even want to wake up and get out of bed. If he's not going to help, then there's no point to it all. I think that's on the humility piece is huge because I know nothing, right? I know nothing. And so I'm always curious. I'm always seeking to understand and seeking to get better. Just better than I was yesterday. Just better than I was yesterday. The big thing for me is giving as much as possible live. I'm competitive, but I'm a competitive giver. Nobody's going to outlive me in value. When I walk in the room, I want you to better because we had the interaction right. Doing that more and more, people tend to give you things. They give you ideas, they connect you with people. I don't have to be this doggy dog. I'm going to outshine the competition. No, I just have to live in the truest form of who I am, which is a giver, a farmer, and give as much value, help as many people. 

 Elzie
 And apparently doing that, good things happen. 

 Josh Wilson
 Man, that's interesting. I've got a deck of cards here that I pull out to throw a curveball into the questions. Tell me when to stop. All right, so I'm going to ask this question. What is one phrase you wish you could ban from everyone's vocabulary? Live. The sound of this phrase discourages you, burns your energy, and you're upset, and it should be gone. We're going to strike it out from the dictionary. What is that phrase? 

 Elzie
 Excuses. I can't, because I didn't because I have a saying. It's execution, no excuses. 

 Josh Wilson
 Execution, no excuses. Now you're the mayor of Podcast Town and you've built a bunch of different brands. Right. I think you guys are working on more than 20 right now. Could you give us an idea of where you guys have grown to? 

 Elzie
 It's between 20 and 30 that are ongoing. Some people will launch with us, but they'll use other people for the production side. At any given time, it's somewhere in there. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super awesome. From the car seat to this, look at how many people and brands you've impacted. What's the future look like for you? 

 Elzie
 Man, I want to dump my brain out. I want to help people go on that journey that I went on, that self discovery. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Elzie
 The thought, leadership, the personal mastery. Because I feel that if you do that well, especially as business owners, founders, it's hard, it's lonely, it's stressful, physically, mentally, spiritually, that journey and really understanding who you are, being able to share your story, share other people's story, those aspects are going to help you be a better founder, a better entrepreneur. I really want to dig deep and share that with people and give that to the world, because I feel that's paying it forward. Right. People have poured into me, people have helped me, and I want to give that to other founders. That's the thing that lights me up in this season, really paying that forward. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super interesting. Have you ever interviewed your family members or your daughter. 

 Elzie
 I have not that is an interesting idea. I have not. 

 Josh Wilson
 I interviewvalet my daughter one time, and it was one of my most favorite memories of podcasting. 

 Josh Wilson
 Whatever. 

 Josh Wilson
 She was so cute. I think she was, like, four or five when she did it. Yeah, min maybe do that and the audience will get a different perspective of who you are. Because the daughters have seen the good, bad, the ugly. They've seen angry dad and hungry dad. Right. As you're doing this, man, if you could interview anybody past, present, future well, you probably won't know who they are in the future, but past or present, live or dead, and you get an hour Internet, and you can interview anybody in the history of mankind. Who would you interview? 

 Elzie
 Just one person. 

 Josh Wilson
 Just one person. 

 Josh Wilson
 Heath. 

 Elzie
 That's a good one. I feel like the answer I want to give you would be very cliche. I'll say it, and I'll break your rule by saying to go for it. 

 Josh Wilson
 Min, it's your show. 

 Elzie
 I'm never getting invited back. I would love to sit down with Jesus and just ask him questions, but the person that comes to mind is Magic Johnson. I would love to understand his thought process, how he took his love, his passion for the graeme of basketball and parlated into this driving business career that was not by accident. I would love to kind of get behind the curtain and say, okay, what was your thought process? Mindset? What steps did you take? I've got some of that just listening to and watching some of his interviews. I would really love to dig deep into that to understand how he went about that. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Do you think you could play some one one with him? Do you think you can hang with him now? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Elzie
 He's old. 

 Josh Wilson
 Hey, that's a challenge for anybody who knows him out there. We got a one one challenge. In a post interview, what questions would you ask Jesus if you could ask him live? Three questions. He would just give you honest, very clear answers. What one or two questions would you ask him? 

 Elzie
 I would ask him, why did he come when he did? Why that point in history? Because he could have come at any point, but he decided, for whatever reason, to come when he did that precise moment. Because I happen to believe that was a very well thought out, planned, intentional time period. I would ask him that. I would ask him, what is the number one thing that he enjoys as a human? 

 Josh Wilson
 Wow. 

 Elzie
 Like, I couldn't even imagine. Jia's like, playing basketball or football live. What would he be into? That would be interesting to me. I would ask him if he could give one piece of wisdom, what would that be? 

 Josh Wilson
 That's pretty good, man. That's pretty good. 

 Josh Wilson
 What? Preston Co you think he'd ask you because he knows everything. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right? 

 Josh Wilson
 He knows what you're going to say. I know that this is a show about deals, but I love to hear the stories behind deal makers, what makes them ticked off. I like how you said that. What question do you think he would ask you? 

 Elzie
 I kind of think he would ask me, why do I hold back? If we're honest with ourselves, we don't go 100%. We like to think we do, but there's fear in there. There's all kinds of stuff that proverbs us from going 100%. I think you would want to know, why don't you go? 

 Josh Wilson
 What would your answer be? 

 Elzie
 Fear would probably be a part of it. Fear. As ironic as this sounds, again, we want to say that, oh, yeah, I trust you, but we don't. We don't. So that's part of it. It's like, you know that he got you, but we don't go 100%. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's so true. That's so true. If I did some honest self reflection, I would say fear. Fear failing again. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Josh Wilson
 I've had a lot of failures. Like that idea of, man, if I really give it my all, I won't have any energy to get back up. 

 Josh Wilson
 Right. 

 Josh Wilson
 Man, super interesting, super thoughtful. You have spent a tremendous amount of time digging deep inside avenue. 

 Elzie
 I tried to, and again, it's a daily exercise, and sometimes it's not pretty, sometimes it's not easy. I found that it's helped me become a better father, a better friend, and a better businessman. 

 Josh Wilson
 Cool. 

 Josh Wilson
 For B to B brands out there, brand to brand businesses out there who are looking to explore podcasting and see if it's a good fit or maybe to expand what they've got, or maybe that they gotten to the point in their podcast where they're ready to hand over production and focus on just putting deals together. What's a good place for people to connect with you and do a deal? 

 Elzie
 The best place is the website, podcast. Net or I'm always on my phone and available via email at mayor@podcast.net. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, super cool. During this interview, there's probably some questions that I should have asked you about podcasting or about your services that I screwed up. I did not ask you what questions should I have asked you? 

 Elzie
 I would ask me, what do I love most about podcast? 

 Josh Wilson
 Internet Band what do you love most about podcasting? 

 Elzie
 The thing that I love the most is the people, the relationship, the folks that I've had the opportunity to meet over this six and a half years. Some people have started businesses from the time we first met, and now their businesses are thriving and some people have pivoted and are doing other things. It's always great to kind of see, even on a personal level, where people were when we talked to where they are now, seeing that journey, sharing that journey with them, again. The business stuff happens. That stuff happens right, organically. When you show up authentically and you're giving value, that stuff is going to happen. The thing that I love the most is the people min and just really just taking part in their journey. 

 Josh Wilson
 Heath, I got a follow ups question. I thought that was going to be the last one, but you've launched a bunch of different podcast shows. You've done a tremendous amount of production for other people. What do you think is the biggest stumbling point for people to start a show? Start a podcast especially. Man it makes sense. It's been on their mind, it's been on their heart for a long period of time. They want to start a podcast. What's the biggest stumbling block to starting a podcast show? 

 Elzie
 I would say there's a couple. A lot of people have imposter syndrome. They don't think that anybody will listen to them or that they have anything of value to say. The other big one is the technical aspects. It's gotten easier. When I first started, it was not as easy as it is now. I hear a lot of people say that's a hang up. I would say perception and mindset will be the other thing because people think that it's crowded just because podcasting is popular now. I always tell people, if you look at how many blogs there are or how many YouTube channels there are, it's not even close. It's almost 800 to one. Don't quote me on that. But it's not saturated. The analogy that I give people is when I graduated college with the degree in electronic systems technologies, there were hundreds of thousands of other people who also had the similar or the same degree. 

 Elzie
 Not one time did it cross my mind that I would not get a job. Why? Because nobody had the life experience. Nobody was as cool as me, nobody had my story, nobody was going to approach that job like I was. I always tell people that's the same deal with your podcast. Nobody's going to have your perspective, nobody's going to have your story, nobody's going to tell your storyon like you are, nobody's going to make the connections like you are. So have that perspective. When you're launching and understand that people do want to hear what you have to say, you are worth listening to. You do have value to give to the business world. You're worth it and you can nail this thing. Some of that is coaching and just helping people get over those mental blocks. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, totally. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super awesome. Super awesome. Man one more time, where can people go to connect with you? 

 Elzie
 Website, podcasttown.net, or shoot me an email at mayor@podcasttown.net. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome. 

 Josh Wilson
 Fellow deal makers, min the audience. If you are a brand to brand business and you're thinking about launching a podcast show, head on over to podcastown. Net, fill out a quick form get in contact with Elsie and his team. Did I say that right, Net? Right. Got it, man. Boom. And connect. When you do launch your show with Elsie. Hit me back up and we'll help promote it here on this show, and we'll share your journey. I hope you guys are having an awesome day. If you're working on a deal or looking for a dial and you want to talk about it here on this show, head over the deal, scout.com, fill out a quick form, and maybe we'll get you on the show next. Till then, we'll talk to you all on the next episode. Love you guys.