In this episode, host Kerry Barrett is joined by Brian Kelsey, a host, and producer with a background in the news industry. They discuss their shared experiences working with notable figures like Howard Stern and Martha Stewart, highlighting the importance of being authentic and true to oneself in hosting and creating content. They also delve into the benefits of creating your own show as a means of establishing visibility and authority in the online space.
Transcript
Kerry: Thank you for watching and joining us on this episode is Brian Kelsey. He is a host and a producer. Brian is fantastic to have you with us today. Thank you.
Brian: Great to be here Kerry, let me tell you.
Kerry: Here’s the thing, so Brian and I have a little bit of shared history. We both have worked in the news industry for quite some time. Brian has worked with some very big names.
Brian: First of all, some would argue a little bit. But let me preface by saying he’s the greatest guy. I started in radio. My goal in life was to have a late-night talk show, that’s like my ultimate goal. And so I thought starting in radio would help, and so through different stations, I ended up at K-Rock in New York.
Where I was working there as a producer and creative production director. And I started working for Howard. He just knocked on my door and was like, I love your work, would you mind doing what you do for K-Rock for me?
Kerry: And just to be clear, we’re talking about Howard…
Brian: Stern.
Kerry: Not Howie Mandel.
Brian: No. Not. No. And so I started doing work for him and got into their whole sort of chain of how they work, and I would say, hands down, I’ve worked with a lot of people. He is probably… I’ve learned the most from and is the most gracious and, it was just an open atmosphere.
Interns could suggest ideas and they often did and they often made it on the air. It was very open and very, a very positive working place. And then from there I did a bunch of different things and did some shows and I worked for Martha Stewart for a number of years. And that was the same thing, I learned so many things.
The two things in common that I learned from those two, was number one, don’t be anybody but yourself. These are the main things I got out of both of them. Don’t be anybody but yourself. If you’re going to be a host, if you’re going to have a show, if you’re going to do whatever because that is what makes you different. Nobody else is you. There’s a million shows, there’s a million whatever, but your personality needs to come out and you just need to, let that shine.
And I’ve just remembered that. So I’m looking at my stuff back that I do. I’m like, Oh God, that’s terrible. Oh, look at the size of my nose. It’s so big. Then it’s like wait, no, that’s what you got to do.
Kerry: There you go. 100%. I love it. And so the interesting thing is we connected on social media. We didn’t know each other from Newsy days together, broadcasting days. But one of the ways that really intrigued me and that we’re talking about today on the show is how you help others like business owners, brands, and personalities with establishing visibility, creating content, creating authority in the online space, and one of the ways that you suggest, one of the best ways to do that.
And I do a little bit of this myself as well, but it’s to create your own show and I haven’t created my own show. I don’t know the first thing about creating my own show. I host some other people’s shows, but 100%. That is a great way to, set the agenda, control the narrative, and put yourself out there on your own terms in the way that you want to, but oh my gosh, it sounds like a lot of legwork.
So we’re going to get to that. First of all, how do you know if a show, starting one of your own, is the right thing for you to do?
Brian: It starts you. What are you passionate about? And it could be really anything. Like some of the biggest shows on YouTube or streaming are like Knitting or Pottery. People can see through your personality when you’re doing something just because it’s a trend or it’s a niche.
It’s a very popular niche, whatever that may be now. I don’t even know. And that gets very old because it’s a lot of work. But when you’re passionate about the subject or the type of show or the type of thing you’re going to talk about, It doesn’t matter. It’s not work. I’ll do this forever.
You know what I mean? Because it’s so much fun and I get such joy out of it. And that’s really where you need to start inside and figure out what you’re really passionate about, what you could talk about forever.
Kerry: I guess what comes after that? You found your thing. Let’s say it’s, about your business or your area of expertise or whatever it is. Plumbing, who knows what happens next?
Brian: Next, you have to decide on what kind of your show format is. For example, I work with a realtor and she wanted to start a show and her reality is my thing. I love it so much and I want to grow my business with it. I want to, be able to talk to people and I said, okay, that’s great.
So what kind of show do you want to have? Do you want to have a talk show where you are interviewing people or do you want to have just a straight sort of direct-to-camera as they call it? You talking, giving knowledge. And she said It’s a good question. And she thought about it. She’s I want to interview people because I think I can do a combination.
I said, okay, that’s great. Now we’ve put that into that bucket. That’s a different bucket. Some people might say, comedy. So what does that mean? Do you want to have a comedy just a late-night talk show, like my thing, where you like talking to somebody else?
And he said the same thing. He’s let me think about that. And he wanted to do skits like they had a comedy true. And so that was how they structured it. Now from there, the rest is easy. Then you just frame out how you want to do it. There’s a flow to shows, whether people realize it or not.
There’s pacing, and you have to be very wary of that. Some people start in, and this kind of always drives me crazy, but the show will start, and they go hi everybody, hi YouTube, whatever. As a viewer, you just want to get in there. You just want to jump in and start, because people have a short attention span.
I don’t even have any intros anymore in my YouTube, kind of video, how to start talk shows. Because I just start talking, because it drives me crazy when I see that now. And I think that’s the trend is, people used to have these big long intros on YouTube of like…
Kerry: Oh my gosh. There’s so bad.
It’s five minutes in and we still haven’t gotten to the meat.
Brian: And there’s going to be said because, on YouTube, there is a retention rate thing that you really need to keep in mind. But really people will tune out if there’s this long intro or you’re going to talk about here’s what I’m going to do.
And you talk for five minutes about what you’re going to do and you could have already said it. So there are little things like that. But really again, it starts with you figuring out, you know what sort of dynamic you’re going to have.
Kerry: Yeah, and that makes sense. I attribute or I think and make a lot of sort of correlations between what I know about, let’s say a good newscast and one that is not so good and there’s flow, there’s pacing, oftentimes it does start to direct to camera and we’re talking about issues and then we sit down with somebody and we do an interview with somebody who is a subject matter expert about that issue and we get their take on it or their analysis but the beginning is virtually the same and that is, it’s a quick intro, we’re gonna do, 30 seconds of headlines, coming up, we’re talking about this and then it’s, we’re into the show and thinking about it in that terms, what you’re saying makes absolute sense.
Give them a quick run down, on what you want to do. Is it direct to the camera? Is it Interviews? Is it a combination? You know your topic and then what?
Brian: Then you need to do structure and outline. What’s one of the biggest sorts of places people get fumbled and like just upset? It’s like I don’t even know where to start. What do I do? So you have to start completely simple. I’m talking like three bullet point outline.
Intro, guest, close. Start right there. Then you go a little bit deeper. Okay. What do I want to say in an intro? Well, say you have a guest and you need to tie into the guest. So maybe you’ll talk about something related to the guest and, maybe it’s a new story.
Maybe it’s a poll that came out where most Americans are this, that, and the other thing. And so that got me thinking, I wonder how many people do X, Y, and Z. I reached out to Mr. or Mrs. So and So, and they’re joining us in a little bit. And, whatever. You have to just bullet point.
Okay, the intro is going to be, a news article about this. Preview the guest. And then maybe, your website or, Instagram, whatever. Just to get that in that intro. And then do the same thing with guests. Okay, guest. What is their name? Like really as ridiculous as that sounds, what is your name and how is it pronounced?
Kerry: Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. I made that mistake a lot.
Brian: You know in this sort of era nobody really does unless you’re a bigger show does pre-interviews in a pre-interview It’s like you know when you ask questions beforehand and you get in sync about… So I just do it through email I’m like here’s what we’re gonna hit and it’s gonna be a conversation blah blah blah.
So you just break it out and you just can’t break it down through the bullet points you want to hit with the guests. Okay, so now you have the bullet points of the guest. Now you can start to actually, create questions from those bullet points.
The biggest one of all is don’t ask a yes or no question where someone’s going to say you’re going to ask a question. Hey, what did you have for dinner? I had pizza, it’s got to be how did you feel about having the dinner? It’s got to be a very open question.
So you craft the questions from those bullet points and then you do the same thing with the outro, we have okay, thank you. Where can you find more information on this guest or anything like that?
And, break it down all the way into a script if you want, like literally word for word, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I think you need bullet points and just have it, memorized and stuff like that.
Kerry: 100%. Now is there a sweet spot when it comes to the length of one of these shows? Is it 15 minutes, half an hour, and an hour and a half? Or just, it depends. You’re on your own, perhaps in skills, availability, et cetera.
Brian: First of all if you’re doing a straight podcast where there’s no video, strictly a true podcast, you’re just listening, that can be like an hour. And typically because people are listening to podcasts while they’re doing other things. So they’re driving or whatever.
If it’s visual, if it’s a pure show, what’s, like mine is, I don’t put it out as a podcast because there are a lot of Google elements. It’s gotta be on the shorter side because people are gonna be sitting and watching it. And so my show is called 10 Minutes Width and I chose 10 minutes in the beginning because it’s a manageable time for me to edit and fit all this into my life.
I’ve had a big long-hour show and I’m editing all these. And it grew from there to it’s really a 30-minute show now because I built it out. But a sweet spot really seems to be about in the 20-minute mark somewhere around there as long as it’s moving as long as it’s going about, I think, 12 to 20 minutes and it depends.
The beauty is like you can interview for a full hour as long as you want and chop it down, which is even better because now you have all this other content that’s not on the show, but you can use that all over social media.
So now you’re teasing your stuff with these great things like never before seen clips, or here’s a clip that you didn’t see from the interview. So you’ve got all this other content to use every single thing that you have.
Kerry: It’s so funny because when I record this, there’s usually some bloopers along the way or when I’m doing a solo podcast, if I don’t have a guest that day, there’s always a blooper and I’m like, save that. Let’s use that for the blooper reel. Literally, use everything and it’s okay to have a blooper reel.
Be creative. You can make people giggle and it also makes them feel comfortable with you. If you’re trying to bring on guests who maybe are not I don’t know you or don’t know your style or worried about a rat a-tat-tat type of interview, letting them see who you are and that it’s chill, man, I promise you. That’s helpful.
Brian: It’s so helpful and if it’s someone in person or even if it’s on Zoom just it’s your demeanor. Like you have a, obviously you have a great demeanor. We got on beforehand. We’re chit-chatting. It was relaxed and fun. And that’s good. Whenever the person either logs on or walks into the studio, a big smile, handshake, hug whatever it is, a glass of water or coffee. Hey, this is so fun. Just remind them how fun it is.
And that also, unless you’re doing a live stream we’re filming it. We can cut. So don’t worry about, talking too long or, what, you want to redo a question because you weren’t comfortable about it. That’s totally fine. You got to remind them of that.
Kerry: It’s part of the rapport-building process, there are lots of people that I have on my podcast who you and I have spoken to before, but we’ve never met in person, but there are lots of people who I have followed on just social media and I’ve never met them before, but I know what they’re like based on the stuff that they put out and they know what I’m like based on the stuff that I put out.
And so you have a couple of minutes in the beginning. I always, call it slop. I schedule my recording time for a little bit longer than I need. And for Slop in the beginning, that’s rapport building
Brian: Exactly like you said, especially if you’ve never met this person before, it’s your personality coming out too. And it’s not easy for a lot of people I’m sure you talk to a lot of people when you’re doing your courses.
It’s okay I want to be on camera. I want to be in front of the camera and they just freeze up or they don’t know. it’s not a normal thing for most people. And I always forget that I’m like, we’re just doing the thing. And, so I have to keep remembering that this is not, although now, of course, because of COVID, everybody is now on camera, and most people don’t know, how to do it.
Kerry: You mentioned such a good thing, which is that we do understand that all of this, and by all of this, I mean you know what the viewer and the listener can’t see the light, the camera, the microphone, the other microphone, the other light, the lens, all this other stuff, the production and the levels that I see going underneath the screen right now.
When you have a fear of maybe speaking or being on camera and now you’re adding in this sort of completely foreign, unnatural environment, and you’re supposed to be totally natural in it, the host’s ability to calm the guest down is something that can’t be overlooked or over overstated. So I appreciate you bringing that up.
I guess the other question that I have is how do you know what format this should be delivered in? And you mentioned a little bit whether it’s audio only or audio and video. Is it always YouTube? I won’t put words in your mouth. How do you figure that out?
Brian: It’s a big one. Now, recently, probably in the past few years, there are so many streaming services out there that are dying for content. So the field has changed, but generally, it’s YouTube. And the reason, I put my stuff on YouTube is some of this stuff you said before, which is, you have control, of what you’re putting out.
And I’ve done other shows where I’ve been the host of them and it’s so out of my control about anything, how I do, how I look, how I sound, whatever, what the edit is and all that stuff. And you really have very, little say in the whole production. So this way you have total control.
And the biggest thing is you get feedback. People, they let you know. I get tons of stuff where it’s like, hey, the audio was too loud on that, right? Ah, or I liked this or I didn’t like this.
And so you’re talking directly to your audience. And another reason I’m just, using YouTube as an example is because if you’re going to get sponsors, let’s say, cause that’s what I think a lot of people want, to try to make money from this.
Your audience size isn’t so critical because the advertisers these days are realizing that first of all, they can see, they can look at your channel and dive in and go deep and see how much interaction there is, how much, activity there is, and if they see a channel that has a thousand subscribers, but it is like chock full of people wanting to know about you, what you do and what you buy and where do you buy your this and where do you get like that dedicated people, they would rather that because they know those people are going to buy a product rather that than, 10, 000 people who are just, don’t there’s no interaction, there’s one little comment or something like that.
They really so those three things really, you know are why I do it. But you still have to keep your eye out for streaming services and the main thing is you should not be confined to one thing. You should be able to have it on YouTube. You should be able to be streaming on different streamers or what is it called? Oh TV or?
Kerry: Or maybe it’s OTT.
Brian: Yeah. And you shouldn’t be locked down to something. So that’s one of the main things when you’re searching out there for those things. But I, that’s really why I have, I’m on YouTube.
Kerry: So you mentioned like the audio and that sort of stuff. I guess there’s well, not I guess, I’m sure there’s some learning that comes along with this. If you’re going to try and do it yourself, you probably do need to know, at least some basic video editing so you can, I almost said idiot editing.
Brian: That’s me. Idiot editor, yeah.
Kerry: Video editing. Is it, basic lighting? Talk a little bit about some of the things that people may need to be prepared to understand the basics of.
Brian: Yeah. Really, it comes down to honestly, this audio and lights are where you want to start cameras. If you have good lighting and really good-sounding audio, you could use almost any camera. You could use your phone. You could do whatever.
Phones are a little tricky because it’s a pain if, I know you can put it on silence or whatever, but if a text comes up or just anything, it’s, you don’t have much control while you’re, by yourself recording.
Kerry: Yeah.
Brian: But the beauty is that there’s YouTube and if you want to know anything about everything, you can go and find how to do stuff. But I made the very basics, learning the basics of a camera and people can pick and choose a lot of people are like, I already have a camera and I’m willing to spend money on something else. And I don’t want to edit, so I’m willing to spend a little money on having somebody edit for me, that’s a big thing.
Or other people are like, I am going to pay somebody to do marketing, social media, that sort of thing, because I want to edit, or you pick and choose. If it’s all you, to me it’s easy, but it’s about pacing, and having multiple cameras helps you with editing.
If you have two cameras, you can always, you can stop and start and you have another camera to cut to or a lot of people shoot in 4K, which is a bigger aspect ratio and you can cut in and out closer. If you want to cut out edits, a lot of people don’t even cut out edits, which is fine.
That’s the thing. Just hard, hard chop, chop-chop. But it really comes down to how you’re lit and how you sound. And then the camera is, secondary. Really it’s, the camera price ranges are all over the place. But again, if you’re lit and you sound good that’s where it starts.
Kerry: Now, in terms of like the production and with a workflow and an understanding, it can be very easy, but if you’re not technically oriented or you haven’t done this on the regular before, the idea of setting up a studio and doing video production can sound very overwhelming. I know that one of your recommendations is to have some sort of semi-stationary recording area if I have to set up lights and I want to shoot in a different spot.
I actually have the spots marked on my carpet behind me. So I know this is where I need to put the light. This is where I need to put the tripod and I have the tripod marks. If I’m sitting on the couch, this is how tall it needs to be. So I understand a little bit of it, but I move around.
If you’re going to set up a semi-stationary recording spot and you want to reduce the time and the effort and the inefficiencies. How do you suggest getting that together? What should they be looking for in terms of their space and how should they get it at least semi-stationary?
Brian: That is probably the biggest thing to talk about because we need to fit these. You have kids. I have kids. We all have a life. Most of us are not earning our full-time living doing this, so it has to fit into your life, which is with as little friction as possible or it’s never going to work because having to sit out from scratch every time you’re going to lose interest in burnout really quick.
And so what you ultimately do if you could have as many things set up and one spot and leave it that’s the best scenario. Mine actually is in my garage. So my garage, I can’t put a car in there, but I got a great studio. And so it’s all set up always, and there’s one switch, and everything comes on.
But really, it depends on your space, too, okay? For example, looking at you, you look great because of a lot of things, but one of the reasons is you’re very far from the background. You have you, we don’t want to be, you don’t want to be, like, back here. All the way back there.
Kerry: No hostage-style videos where you’re up against a wall and the audience can’t see your eyes.
And the mic, by the way, I’m glad you mentioned that you could hear the difference in your mic. You were quieter and it had more echo to it because there’s more room for it to bounce around.
Brian: Yep. So if your area of where we’re going to record, if you can, at least, and you can do this in a bedroom, a small bedroom used like the corner, like right here, that’s a corner. And so I specifically designed this so I’m, in a basement. This is my office and that it goes, vanishes off into a point.
So even if you’re a small corner, you need to just like least try to have something that there’s a space between you and the background. And then, like you said, if you can’t have stuff set up, leave as much, runway for you to be able to set up as you can. So maybe it is a little piece of tape on the carpet or on your tripod, a little tape.
That’s where it is. The lights, what I do for my situation here. Have I mounted everything, so I just mounted a light, this guy here to the ceiling mounted this one here, so there’s nothing on the floor, and I have one switch, and so I sit down, literally I just turn the switch, the camera comes on, lights come on, everything boom, boom, boom and it’s done, and it takes two seconds, and these lights these days are so light, not heavy, and inexpensive.
That you can put them in a wall, and even if you’re renting, it’s a small little footprint. It’s like hanging a picture, basically. And so that really helps. And again, if you have no, you can’t leave those setups, then just do your best, leave them on stands in the closet, the same height, as they always are. So it’s a five-minute setup. You pull them out, you know where to put them on the floor. The camera’s already there. And you just do some, quick checks and stuff like that. It really comes down to where you’re doing it. It’s really important to have as much setup as you can.
Kerry: Do you suggest batch-producing? And I always suggest if you’re doing short-form content yeah, just you don’t even need to change your clothes. I like to, but do it over and over again, this is a longer form type of video or audio. Do you batch produce?
Suggest it. And if you do you have suggestions for people to keep their energy up from beginning to end? Because that too can be, can be a challenge.
Brian: That wasn’t exactly what I was going to say, and it’s fine. I think batch-producing is great. Record something, and take a little break. Everything’s still set up. You change your notes, whatever, maybe change your shirt again. You don’t have to, but, do as many as you can.
The thing with me, I get burned out. I really put a lot into thought and notes and everything like that. And at the end, I’m like, I don’t even know if that was, I think that might have just sucked. I don’t
Kerry: know…
Yeah. You get your head.
Brian: Yeah. And so I really have to like, I can’t do it anymore. I got to go into the, I got to go edit it together and make sure it didn’t suck. And then by that time, I don’t want to do it again. But if you have a really good formula and you’ve got a lot of energy.
It’s the morning time, whatever it is. Again, fitting into your life, if you only have, five hours a week, one block, let’s just say that you have time to do this and that’s the best thing, and crank them out.
And even if you don’t use it, even if shoot something and it’s like it doesn’t matter. A, you practiced and you got better no matter what, and B, maybe you could use some of that content. Maybe you could use a little piece of that for social media. So If you can batch produce, I say definitely go for it.
Kerry: I love it. It makes sense. And I’ll throw in this sort of idea that I, have learned over the course of my time as well. And you’ll see, actually, again, I’m making a news analogy. I’m not in the business anymore, but I do stalk it obsessively.
You’ll see a lot of the longer shows, the shows that are you know, 2,3,4 hours, they’ve actually transitioned their anchors from sitting in desks to having them standing up for that very reason.
Standing up helps them maintain that energy. Maybe if somebody is listening and they are thinking like, yeah, just like Brian said, I have an hour or two here, maybe it’s five and I want to knock out two or three of them. Maybe set up the studio where you can stand so that your energy is. Don’t rock back and forth, and that becomes a problem.
Brian: It’s funny, I had Craig Melvin from The Today Show on. He was great. And I was asking about that because, I know it sounds like, oh, poor baby. You gotta be in front of the camera for three hours, but, or whatever. But honestly until you do it, until you actually record yourself, even if you’re not on the Today Show, if you are in your basement being up and thinking and organizing your thoughts is exhausting.
And so you just have to remember that, and he said the same thing. He’s we have to take breaks. Like we take breaks. I go sit down. I have some coffee, water, whatever. And regroup and that’s how we did it.
Kerry: Think about, you’re on you are on. You are performing, really for lack of a better word, for the duration of that time. And if there’s an introvert watching or somebody who’s shy, think about how drained you are after you go to a networking event for half an hour, right? It’s the same concept. Yeah.
Brian: I’m exhausted right now. I’m I’ve been sitting up like this. And as soon as this camera goes off, I’m just going to slump back down because I want to talk like this and be like, ah.
So yeah, but you can’t, you’ve got to have some presentable. And it’s the same thing too, if you have a visual, if you’re, have a, like you’re having a talk show, you got to think about what people are sitting in because you don’t want somebody sitting in like a deep couch where they’re like, it’s terrible, it’s just not going to make your guests look good. It’s all about them. You want them to look great.
Kerry: Put them on a metal folding chair. Super uncomfortable. They have to sit up. They can’t lean back.
Brian: My thing is I have, and I started this and I don’t know why I keep still doing it, but the guest sits in an old-style beach chair
But I had to amend it because it’s too short. Compared to like my desk. So when I first was testing it out with my son, who’s tall, he was like down here, so I had to build, a platform about a foot high, so at least they’re up like this, so they don’t look like they’re slumped in whatever, you know?
Kerry: So you don’t look giant and they look like a teeny tiny little thing in the corner of the screen.
Brian: If you watch, and like you are with news, I am obsessed with late-night talk shows, and the whole history of it, but if you look over time, you’ll see, that the host is always a little higher. Their chairs are a little higher and I’m not exactly sure why that is. But, it seems that’s a thing.
Kerry: Power thing.
Brian: Yeah.
Kerry: Let me ask you this. So you mentioned the audience. I started to think about how you figure out, really two things. How do you figure out who your audience is so you know what you should be talking about?
And then do you have a process for finding and pitching to guests that you know, would be good for that audience?
Brian: So I’ll start with the process of getting guests. So for me, my getting guests was virtually impossible because I picked the hardest, worst thing to do, which is to try to have a well-known person, a celebrity come to my garage in Connecticut, in suburban Connecticut, come here and sit in the beach chair, and they didn’t know me from anything. So I picked that. So okay, great.
For someone famous, there’s something called IMDB, which is the Internet. Media Database. I think it’s called movies and databases. And it’s just a whole thing that shows actors and, what they’ve done, whatever. But if you pay extra, like pro-fee it unlocks their contacts.
Now, this is just public information. It’s just easier to see it there. And so I have that click on that. I go down and the one person you’re looking for is their publicist, because that’s the person that is going to be controlling their interviews, how they look, how they sound, that’s your person.
So it’s a lot of that and cold emailing and 99. 999 %. Actually, 99% don’t write back. And I’m trying to do my math there, like half a percent right back and say, no.
And then but there’s one or two that will say yes and it’s all in numbers and that’s all you need. And what I do too I read the rejection letters on the show because there are so many of them and it’s just so funny and doesn’t show is not available ever. Don’t ask who are you. And, like anything it’s credibility.
Kerry: Jimmy Fallon’s mean Tweets.
Brian: Exactly. Once you get that first person, and even if it’s not a celebrity, even if it’s just a, you’re in the healthcare industry and you’re interviewing an orthopedic surgeon or something once you have one person, you have now have a demo.
Now you have something to show other guests. They don’t need to know that were your only guest or that were your first guest to know that. Oh, this looks legit. This looks good. They’re not going to embarrass me. They’re not going to do whatever. They’re very whatever.
And that’s all you need. Celebrities, that’s one thing. And that’s all again, people, and connections and stuff like that. But I always use LinkedIn for guests.
You can find anybody you want on LinkedIn. You just have to find them. There are also lots of so many Facebook groups that are I think one’s called be a guest or whatever. There are people who are offering, I do this, I love to be your guest, I am an expert on this or whatever, or just the opposite.
There are Facebook groups where it’s I’m looking for these types of guests. And so you just have to put your eyes out there, but start with, if it’s your first one, start with somebody maybe that you know. That’s what I did. I happen to know a celebrity that lived in my town and that was my… she did me a favor and I used that as my calling card to keep racking it up.
Kerry: I can sense that you’d forgotten it. That’s fine. That was super helpful. I appreciate you diving into all of those details. the second part of the question was,
how do you figure out who your audience is so you know how to talk to them?
Brian: That kind of goes back to YouTube also because the analytics are so good. I just recently, I haven’t looked at my analytics at all. And I really. I really don’t. In terms of subscribers, whatever people are going to come, people are going to go is you cannot get wrapped up in that, but you do want to see which, episodes or videos, whatever are popular and are trending in your own little, your little world.
But you can also look at the audience. So I looked at mine. This must have changed, but I saw that it was of all my subscribers, it’s skewing men. Like 45 to 65, which I had no idea about because the people who engage in the comments don’t seem to be in that. That demographic. So I’m not really sure.
But anyway, it’s a good starting point. So now I’m like thinking okay I got to think about maybe that’s who I should, and the guests that have been on my show are generally older, I would say.
So that might have something to do with it. So anyway, back to YouTube. That’s one of the things you ask people, I put out polls on YouTube. I say, what do you guys want to see? Or what do you want me to talk about? What are the things that if you want to start a talk show, what are the main problems you’re having? Or, what guests do you want to, have on me to have on or whatever? And that sort of thing. So you just ask. So many tools are that are just crazy. It’s crazy.
Kerry: Right, doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.
Brian: No.
Kerry: I’m going to use it for a good while I can because it is quite efficient in some of these sorts of data and research and the compilation tasks that we have. Let me ask sort of one final big question.
I really want to underscore and explain the importance and the benefits of creating and starting a show, regardless of where it is hosted. Let’s assume you are a business owner. What do they get? Why is this important?
Brian: That’s a great question. And the answer is you get a lot. You get instant promotion. As a business owner, whatever the business is, people pay a lot of money for videos. I do a lot of video work for companies or for people or for small businesses that want promotion and they want to show their stuff.
If you have your own show, that’s just instant promotion that you can put out that you’re just promoting yourself, with a twist, you can’t just get on and say, hey, I’m great. Come by my house or whatever.
No, you need to give value. And that’s, I think what we all know, no one’s going to know everyone wants value out of something or maybe entertainment, depending on, what the niche is.
Kerry: Or both.
Brian: Yeah. Or both. So as a business owner, you can give lots of information and engage people because. The way you’re going to make and this is one thing I’ve learned over the years of doing all this is that the way you’re gonna make sales, let’s just say if you’re selling something or whatever, is they need to get to know you.
If they don’t know you as a person, it’s really hard to try to sell them something. If you have a show and you’re putting it out there and people are seeing your personality and seeing your expertise, then they’re more willing to list their house with you or, be your dietitian or whatever it is. So if that’s really the main thing, the people get to know you and that converts definitely to sales.
Kerry: Yeah. Authority, credibility, and awareness. I’ll add one other thing that I’ve discovered. It’s like sometimes, and you mentioned this, you touched on it when you talked about the celebrity, but it’s like normally, I wouldn’t have any hope of this person, reaching out to me and maybe they won’t.
Maybe they won’t reply back or maybe they will say no, but it’s very hard to reach up without offering anything. But if you’re reaching up and you’re offering them a platform for their voice to be heard and for them to grow their own visibility, awareness, credibility, authority, giving them like a content creation. You’ve now established yourself as a media outlet but without all the gatekeepers. Right. That’s awesome.
Brian: That is great. This little flow friction. You’re right. Yeah, it really is.
Kerry: Brian, we’re in the middle of this writer’s strike and there’s a lot of original content that is not getting produced and it’s not getting put out there right now. And I read an article the other day about creating a show and why it is such a timely endeavor right now.
Can you give us what you think about that? Is there truth to it? What do you suggest?
Brian: Yeah, first of all, it’s a shame with strikes there it’s affects so many people and it’s and it goes all the way down to the crew and everything hope it gets resolved soon. And that’s tough. Now for a creator like myself, like yourself, like other people who are doing everything themselves, to me, it is a good time because there’s no content out there.
And I’m I feel like there’s a trend of producers and just a whole, the entertainment industry looking, on YouTube, on streaming services for these other content creators that are creating great programs. That cost almost nothing that cost nothing to make that has a lot of, interest and stuff like that.
And I think they’re starting to realize that and maybe this strike, although it’s terrible, maybe that something will come out of it for on our side, of getting a little bit more exposure for what’s going on underground. There are so many great shows. There’s so much talent. That I just don’t think is getting, risen to the surface. It’s a different model. So I think it might be true.
Kerry: Yeah. People are craving. They’re craving the new talent. They’re craving the new video. They’re craving the new content. They’re just, a lot of it has been hidden, frankly.
Brian, is there anything else that I have not asked you about this? Process, development, or anything in general that you think is important for people to know that we haven’t touched on.
Brian: Just that to have fun. Remember. Again, it goes back to the beginning of the conversation when we talked about passion and figuring out what you want to do. So I get caught up in like things and I’m like, oh, this or this it’s not, this is not working, whatever.
And then I stop and I’m like, don’t forget how obsessed you are with talk shows, late-night talk shows. And just remember that little spark and then that just gets me back. I’m like, oh, yeah, I’m just doing this. I love this. So don’t forget that and also again, it has to fit into your life. However, you can manage that. Because it just won’t work if you have to do all this work with it.
Kerry: Awesome. And where can people, I know that you have a program designed to help people establish and create their own shows, so tell us a little bit about that and where people can find you if they want to work with you, learn more about you, et cetera.
Brian: Yes, I am starting a class in the next, few weeks in sort of September ish which is a live class and it’s called the talk show transformation. And it’s about starting your own show and it’s just everything. It starts with again, if you’ve never done anything all the way up to, we’ll take you all the way up to wherever you want to go.
It’s a live course and I am with you all the way. And even after the course we still have, a Facebook group and you can reach out to me anytime. So it’s an ongoing thing ’cause I hate horses where you do something and then they just give it to you and then that’s it. You have a million questions.
And you can go to briankelsey.com/talkshowtransformation, and that has all the information if you want to see the show for 10 minutes just go to 10 minuteswith.com
Kerry: You’re amazing. Thank you so much for sharing, not just your time, but all of your awesome knowledge and your fantastic personality.
Brian: Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you, Kerry.
Kerry: Thank you.
Places to follow up with Brian:
- Website: briankelsey.com
- LinkedIn: Brian Kelsey
- Podcast: tenminuteswith.com/
