5-Step Process For Achieving Anything with James Swanwick
I hope you’re well, Healthpreneurs! I’ve got special guest James Swanwick on the show. He is the creator of Swannies blueblocker glasses and was an anchor for ESPN. Today, he’s going to share his journey and 5 steps to success.
James hasn’t always been confident. In fact, he started with a major fear of failure – and success! The story of how he overcame that is inspiring and sure to bring up some questions to ask yourself, too.
Tune in to hear how James moved past fear and into action. He’s also got some great insights about podcasting, video streaming, and the live streaming app Periscope. If you can relate to paralyzing fear or need a blueprint to finally accomplish your goals, this podcast is for you!
In This Episode James and I discuss:
- How he got the ESPN anchor position.
- Writing down your goals and asking “how” and “what” questions.
- Planning your action then taking it.
- Periscope as the next big thing.
- Podcasting and using video on multiple platforms.
4:30 – 13:00 – His journey and how he surpassed a fear of failure and success
13:00 – 18:00 – Writing down your goals, plan of action, and asking the right questions
18:00 – 24:00 – Taking action as the most important step
24:00 – 33:00 – Periscope and podcasting
Transcription
Hey, hey, how’s it going? Hope you’re doing great. So as you’re listening to this episode, I am probably sailing somewhere around Mykonos, I think. I’ve recorded this ahead of time as you can probably tell.
I’m on a two-week cruise with the family. We started at Barcelona, and we’re on a two-week cruise to the Greek islands, and that’s probably where I’m at right now. So I am not going to let that stop me from bringing you the goods. I’m actually heading back home in a couple of days. I’m actually bummed because check this out. As you know, I love soccer. I played professionally. The big classical Barcelona-Real Madrid is happening in two days in Barcelona. But we get back to Barcelona in three days, so I’m going to miss the match, and that would have been amazing to take the kids to.
If you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, then just ignore what I just talked about, and let’s just move on to today’s episode where I’m going to be bringing you a good buddy of mine. Someone you probably know. His name is James Swanwick. Now if that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen his glasses, the Swannies, those blue blocker glasses that look awesome. You’ve probably seen them all over the place. Everyone’s wearing them. I’ve got a pair. My kids have them. They’re amazing, but he’s more than just the Swannies. He’s more than just the glasses, and this is a true, amazing human being.
He was at Healthpreneur live with us this past year. He’s actually joining us again next year, and it was great to just catch up and see where he’s at with business and what he’s working on. Lots of great stuff coming on the pipeline from James Swanwick. If you want to learn more about what they’re up to you. The website is swanicksleep.com. S-W-A-N-W-I-C-K sleep.com. Lots of great stuff. In this interview, we’re actually going to be talking … This is going back to the archives about two years, and this was such a great interview because … In case you don’t know, what James Actually started out doing was he was an anchor for ESPN. He was one of those guys that you see on TV on ESPN.
In this interview we’re going to talk about his five steps to achieving anything because he came here from Australia. Pretty much like most people come to LA, Hollywood, broke, waiting tables, all that stuff. That was a situation, but he uses these five steps to interview and befriend people like Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, the usual suspects. You know, Kiefer Sutherland. So how did he do all that? And then how did he go from doing all that in ESPN to building Swanwick Sleep and really just rocking the world with all these amazing products?
Well, that’s what he’s going to talk about in this interview. I figured, what? Even though we did the interview two years ago in a separate context, this is so valuable that I’m going to bring it forward and help my Healthpreneur listeners with this awesomeness. So we’re going to bring James onto the show. I’m going to let you enjoy this. I’m going to head back to the crews and do my thing. Hope you enjoy this interview with James Swanwick, and without any further ado, let’s bring him onto the show.
James Swanwick: I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me, Yuri. Awesome to be here.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, I’m very excited because you have a very interesting story, and I want you to share that with our listeners as it pertains to following your dreams, overcoming the fear of failure, and for all of you guys listening, this is actually very, very cool. So maybe in the next couple minutes if you can share what that journey was, then we can tie it into some interesting lessons for our listeners.
His journey and how he surpassed a fear of failure and success
James Swanwick: Sure, so I’m Australian. I was born in Brisbane, Australia, and I started off as a newspaper reporter. Then I moved over to London, and I was a sports journalist, and then I moved over to Los Angeles in about 2003, and I started interviewing movie stars, like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, and I would write these interviews for magazines and newspapers around the world. But I always had this dream of being on TV and hosting a TV show, and I’d never really been able to accomplish it in 20 years of in my career. But it was like this lifelong dream here. Have you ever had a dream like that where you’re like, “One day I want to do this”?
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, for me, it was playing pro soccer, which I ended up doing in my early 20s and then realized, “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.”
James Swanwick: Right. Well, for me, it was like I want to be on a TV show. I want to host my own TV show, and there’s actually a video of me when I was 14, 15 years old. A home video of me pretending to be a news anchor, which my brother was filming with his old VHS camera back in 1990. You can see the video on my website, JamesSwanwick.com. But back in about 2010, all of a sudden an opportunity came up for me to audition to be a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN, and I had no TV experience. I’d never been in front of a camera.
But this friend of mine said, “Oh, I know this ESPN producer. Do you want me to introduce you to him?” From there it was really like, “This is an opportunity that I’d been waiting for 20 years,” and even though I have no experience, I’m going to go for it. So I did everything I could to get that job. I flew out to see the producer. I took him to lunch. I charmed him. I convinced him to give me an audition. I flew over to Bristol, Connecticut where ESPN is based. I walked in, sat down in the studio behind the desk.
They put makeup on me. They put that little earpiece in my ear, the director counted down and said, “Read this in the camera. Three, two, one,” And I had a panic attack. I absolutely freaked out because I was thinking of this moment for 20 years, and I was fearing that not only would I fail it. But what happens if I actually get this job? I had a fear of failure and a fear of success because I thought my life is going to change if I get this. It was a terrible audition, Yuri, terrible, and the producer even said so.
He looked at the tape later and said, “Yeah, it doesn’t look good. You’re too wooden. What’s with the beard? You look like Don Johnson from Miami Vice,” because I hadn’t shaved. So anyway, I said to him … He said, “Thanks for coming in, but no, it’s not going to work.” In that moment, I had a choice, and that was I’m going to go home with my tail between my legs, or I’m going to push through anyway. I said, “Can I come back tomorrow and do a second audition?” He said, “Yeah, come back tomorrow.” I came back the next day. I nailed it.
Well, I didn’t nail it, but I did a lot better job, and then two weeks later he put me on the air, and I became a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s huge. I mean, just that what you just said in the last 30 seconds, like the first take was a miserable failure. Then instead of just folding up shop, you came back the next day and gave it another crack. I think that’s such a valuable lesson for pretty much any human being, not just entrepreneurs. But I mean there’s so many … It’s a great story of triumph because, like you mentioned, the fear of failure, the fear of success. I think everybody listening can relate to that in some way, shape or form.
Was there a little voice inside of you after that first audition? Was there a moment in time where you said, “I don’t think I want to do this,” or you had that belief or something inside of you that kept you moving forward?
James Swanwick: The very second that my first audition ended, and I had to walk from one part of the studio up to the producer’s office in the other part of the studio, which was about a five-minute walk where you go through a couple of different buildings, and that walk was like going to the guillotine. It was like I was ready to go and face my fate where the producer was going to tell me exactly what he taught me, which is, “That wasn’t any good. Thanks for coming. See you later.” So for those five minutes, I was thinking, “You know what?” I’m not that good.
For 20 years, I’ve been overthinking this and thinking that I can do this, but I can’t. So after five minutes, I was like, “That’s it, I’m done.” But when I got into the office, and he showed me the tape, this thing inside me was like, “You know what James? You’ve been waiting 20 years to do this. Just Push, just push,” I was nervous asking him to come back a second time. I was really nervous. But in that moment, I just stepped up and said … You know what? The worst thing that can happen here is that he says, “No,” and I fail again, and that’s okay. It’s been 20 years. So let’s just do it anyway.
I said, “Listen, I know it was a mess. I know it wasn’t good, but can I come back tomorrow and go a second time?” I just steeled myself, and he said, “Yes,” and then I got to host that show for two years. I got on TV. It was a wonderful experience and amazing experience. I met Magic Johnson, David Beckham, Tom Brady. I got to interview all these amazing people. I went to the ESPY Awards and walked the red carpet, and it was all because in that moment, even though I was fearful and even though I didn’t know what was going to happen, I just pushed just a little bit, just a millimeter more.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s awesome. So before the auditions, did you feel confidence in your ability to be on camera? Or was this something you just said, “I’m going to just figure this out as I go”?
James Swanwick: It was a little combination of both. I think I had an overblown sense of how good I was based on being in front of the camera with my brother back in 1990 as a 14 or 15-year-old kid. But for me, it was like, because I’d been thinking about it and dreaming about it every day for 20 years, I just decided that, “You know what? Even though I don’t have the experience, I will just figure it out. I’m just going to dive right in and see what happens.” And look, I’ll be honest with you. My first night on camera, two weeks after that audition and when I made my debut, I wasn’t that good.
If you actually just Google James Swanwick, How I Bluffed ESPN, you can actually see a photo of me doing the audition. You can also see a video of when I made my debut, and if you watch it, I’m really wooden. I’m pretty terrible. I’m like, “Hello, I’m James Swanwick. Welcome to SportsCenter. Tonight, we’re going to be … ” That’s pretty bad. But even though I knew I was pretty … I didn’t have that experience, I just say to myself, “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” and you know what? I did.
Fast-forward a couple weeks, two months after, I made my audition. I was so good. I was like, “Good evening, everyone. Welcome to SportsCenter. James Swanwick here alongside Anthony Howard, here to take you into the weekend with a smorgasbord of sports. Let’s start with the NFL.”
Yuri Elkaim: Nice. Yeah, I saw the videos. It’s really good. I mean, you would never … It’s funny because looking at the video, you would never even assume that you had gone through these trials and tribulations.
James Swanwick: Well, everyone sees the polished version. But no one sees the blood sweat and tears behind it. It’s like … I’m sure we … I mean, I look at you, Yuri, from afar, and I admire everything that you’ve done, and you look like a very polished man and polished businessman, and you got your stuff together. But I’m sure that there are times when you feel like you don’t have it all together, and that there’s things going on behind the scenes, and I don’t know the blood, sweat, and tears that you’ve put into getting into this position. But I’m sure you’ve got them, right?
Yuri Elkaim: Oh yeah, absolutely, totally. I mean, every single day there is … And I think there’s a common misconception that the more successful you get, and whatever that means for you or anyone listening, or the more money you make, things get easier. What I’ve noticed is that you just deal with bigger problems, and it’s just about becoming a bigger person to be able to deal with those, and I think … I mean, I don’t know. I mean, for you, what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned personally or just even through business, like as you’ve gone through this process of growth of going through ESPN and then afterwards and everything you’ve done since then?
Writing down your goals, plan of action, and asking the right questions
James Swanwick: Well, I’ll give you five lessons, okay?
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah.
James Swanwick: There’s five lessons I figured out, which is how I became a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN and how I’ve done anything whether it’s … I got a new product now called 30-day No Alcohol Challenge where I convince people to quit alcohol for 30 days. Just figuring that out and creating that business, I used the same five lessons. So here it is. Number one is, put simply, write down your goal and why you want to achieve it. So actually write it down. What is it? I don’t mean just have it in your head. I mean, write it down because there’s power that comes from the hand holding a pen, putting it on paper.
Why do you want it? And the more specific, the better. For me, it was become a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN and achieve my childhood dream of hosting a TV show. So that’s very-
Yuri Elkaim: Let me ask you, like what was the motivation? What was your why?
James Swanwick: My why was because that I had been dreaming of it for 20 years. It was a 20-year goal because it really invigorated me when I was a teenager thinking about it, and it just stuck with me. I just liked the idea of being in front of a camera and being able to talk to an audience. It just gave me energy. So that was my Y, plus the fact that I wanted to do this for 20 years.
Yuri Elkaim: I ask because this is something I realized about playing soccer a lot later than I thought I would is that it wasn’t so much about the soccer that I wanted to play pro soccer for. It was really about performing, and I realize that I love to perform, and it just so happen that soccer on a pitch in front of thousands of people was my stage. Now, it’s a camera or on stage or whatever else. When I realized that, it gave me a huge amount of clarity. So anyways, I was just interested to see what your motivation was for that.
James Swanwick: That’s great. I mean, performing was part of … I mean, performing gives me energy. I like being in front of a stage. I like being able to be in front of people. That gives me energy. So, yeah, write down your goal. It might be, “Lose 10 pounds so I can wear a size 12 bikini at the beach this summer.” That’s a lot clearer than, “I want to lose 10 pounds.”
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, and it’s more honest too, right? It’s like no one wants to lose weight for losing weight. There’s usually a deeper motivation.
James Swanwick: Another example might be, “I want to study Spanish so I can confidently order a meal in a Spanish-speaking restaurant.” So be very, very specific. Number one is write down your goal and be specific. Number two is ask yourself how and why questions or … Sorry. How and what questions. Todd Herman taught me this. Todd Herman’s a mutual friend of ours, and he teaches Become a Master Questioner. When you become a master questioner, you can create the plan to achieve your goal. For example, what can I do to make this goal happen? What can I be doing differently? How would I approach this if I knew I would not fail? How will I make this happen?
James Swanwick: So for me it was when this producer introduction came up, it was, “How am I going to meet that producer in person? How am I going to convince this producer to give me an audition? What am I going to say to him?” So I asked those questions, the right questions and then the plan of action, which is step number three, the third lesson, which is write down your plan of action, started to emerge.
Yuri Elkaim: I want to jump in there for a second because what you just said, step two with those questions? For everyone listening, just take a pause for a second because that just that alone will transform your life, because what I’ve noticed, and I’m sure … I mean, Todd is obviously a very, very smart dude is when you ask a question, you start searching for answers versus just stating something, right?
James Swanwick: Right.
Yuri Elkaim: So a lot of the things that I’m … One of the exercises that I do on a regular basis now is I’ll just spend 10 minutes in the morning, and I’ll just put a question at the top of the page like, “How can I do X? Or how can I become more whatever?” Just that thought process of asking questions and seeking those answers is … You can’t even compare it to any other exercise because your brain is seeking out answers all the time. That’s awesome, and I’m so happy you brought that up. That’s great. So step three, your plan of action.
Taking action as the most important step
James Swanwick: Yeah, step three is write down your plan of action. For example, for me, it was I will fly from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, which was where the producer was when I eventually met him to convince him to give me an audition. So that was the simple plan of action. The plan of action wasn’t, “I will become a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN.” That was the goal. But the plan of action was I will fly … I will get on a JetBlue flight from Burbank Airport to Las Vegas Airport. Then I will get a taxi to the Hard Rock Cafe where I will meet this producer, and I will buy him lunch, and I will convince him to give me an audition in ESPN. That was the plan.
Then the plan changed from there. Afterwards it was, “I will fly to Bristol Connecticut, and I will do this audition.” Now, just know that your plan of action may change, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be set in stone. You’ve got to be fluid. You’ve got to be moving, but you have to write down a plan of action, so that’s the third lesson, okay? The fourth lesson, Yuri, is take action, begin. Take that first step because you can have it all written down perfectly and look at it but then never take action.
Have you ever done that, Yuri, where you’ve written down the action and then you’ve looked at it and then for whatever reason fears overtaken you and you haven’t moved forward?
Yuri Elkaim: I almost failed graduating university because of that. I actually decided not to go to swimming classes in the morning because I didn’t want to get out of bed-
James Swanwick: Wow.
Yuri Elkaim: … and I ended up having to make up 20 hours of swimming in one week and write a 20-page essay on procrastination. So, yeah, I’m pretty well experienced with that.
James Swanwick: Okay, so when the fear overcomes, you just take action, begin, take the first step. I know it’s a cliché, but I think the Chinese say this that a journey of a thousand miles or a thousand years starts with a single step. So just that momentum, you take the first step. It’s the hardest one, right? It’s the hardest one to take. But when you take it, the momentum starts to build.
Yuri Elkaim: Absolutely.
James Swanwick: So then all of a sudden, you move from there.
Yuri Elkaim: So-
James Swanwick: And then-
Yuri Elkaim: Sorry. For those of us who procrastinate, is it as simple as just saying, “Hey listen. Just take the damn first step. That’s pretty much what you have to do”?
James Swanwick: Well, here’s the thing. The reason that people don’t take the first step is because their goal seems overwhelming, and it seems so far to take. So what happens is that you don’t even take the first step. I know. It’s like even this morning I had to really use all the glucose in my brain to take the first step. I mean, I have my Instagram account, @JamesSwanwick. Basically, today, I said, “I’m going to do 20 Instagram posts right now this morning and write them out ahead of time, and then that way it’s easier for me to post them over the next couple of weeks.” I knew it was like 60 minutes of me really focusing on a computer that I didn’t want to do. I just didn’t want to do it.
I woke up, and I wanted to like just laze about and do nothing. But I just said, “You know what? Just do one. Just walk over to the computer and just write one. That’s the goal. That’s it. Just one.” Then guess what happened? I went and I hit the first one, and then I did the second, and then I did the third, and then I did the fourth, and I ended up doing the 20th. Yesterday, I said, “You know what? I’m just going to take a … I wanted to go for a run, but I didn’t have much energy. I didn’t really want to do the run. I said, “You know what? Just put your gym clothes on.”
So I just put my shorts and my shirt and my shoes on and guess what happened? I walked out the door, and I went for a run. I ended up running for an hour. I went up to run in Canyon here in Los Angeles where I lived, and it was about 30 minutes longer than I was planning on running. So all you do is just take the first step. What’s the first piece of action? And then finally, Yuri, the fifth step is when the obstacles come, and they will, just keep moving forward. Don’t take no for an answer. Be willing to change course. Accept the fear will come. Move through the fear anyway.
The producer said to me, “You know what? That doesn’t work. Sorry, this is not going to work.” So what did I do? That was an obstacle. I said, “You know what? I’m just going to keep moving forward.” I asked for a second audition. He gave it to me. Michael Jordan, the famous basketball …
Yuri Elkaim: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
James Swanwick: Says, “Accept failure. If you want to double your rate of failure, double your rate … ” Sorry. “If you want to double your rate of success, double your rate of failure.” He also said, “I’ve missed … ” There’s that famous Nike TV commercial, Yuri, where he says, “I’ve missed 20,000 shots. I’ve been entrusted to take the game-winning shot 26 times, and I missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.”
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, I love that. That’s so good.
James Swanwick: So yeah, there you go. There’s five lessons. So I mean that’s a pretty tried and trued formula that works.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s amazing. So to recap, we’re looking at setting a goal with obviously the reason why, asking what and how questions. Creating a plan of action, taking action, and then just continue taking action even when those obstacles appear.
James Swanwick: Absolutely, and I’m sure that you’ve done that repeatedly yourself without maybe knowing that it was that five-step formula. I’m sure you’ve done that yourself, Yuri, right?
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, in some way, shape or form. What’s beautiful about what you’ve done is you’ve put it out into a five-step process. So for anyone listening, if you’re at any points of gold achievements, then just go through these five steps that James has mentioned. I mean, it’s so good, so good, so valuable. If you guys want a rundown of these again, go over to the blog at smartermarketerproject.com. We’ll make sure that we have these listed out along with the link to James’s blog post where he’s talking about this stuff in more detail where he’s also posting the video from one of his ESPN SportsCenter episodes, along with some other cool stuff. We’ll be sure to have that on the blog, but this is this has really been valuable, James. So thank you.
James Swanwick: Thank you for having me, Yuri. I appreciate it.
Periscope and podcasting
Yuri Elkaim: Well, before I let you go, I want to … You mentioned Instagram and how you’re spending a bit of time there. For you, like what’s an area of focus or what’s one tactical or strategic thing that our listeners can put into place now to start moving their business forward?
James Swanwick: Well, I’ve only just really discovering Periscope which I think is going to be the next big tool from for marketers to use. It’s only been around about three or four months, and I’ve just been experimenting it at these last few weeks, but the engagement that you get with customers is crazy. I mean, for the uninitiated, you turn on Periscope, and basically you’re doing a live stream from your cell phone. You hit record, you say, “Start a broadcast,” and then automatically people all over the world are finding you, and you start talking into the camera.
Now, this may seem like a vanity project. You know, “Why do people want to see me talk all day and et cetera, et cetera?” But it gives you a way to really connect with your customers and your followers and to show them visually how you live your life and to visually teach them certain things if you’re a marketer obviously. So for example, last night I went to dinner at Soho House in Beverly Hills, and I decided to walk home because I live about a mile and a half up the road, and it was 11:30 at night, and I just turned on Periscope. I typed in the caption, “Walking home on Sunset Boulevard.”
I think it was 85 people joined me on this live stream as I walked home at 11:30, and during that 20 minute walk I talked about my 30-day No Alcohol Challenge. I talked about how I’m walking home sober I’m not drinking. People were asking me questions about how I quit alcohol for 30 days, and then I mentioned my Instagram account. Then I woke up this morning, and I’d made three extra sales of my 30-Day No Alcohol Challenge from people who were on that Periscope livestream last night just as I was walking home on Sunset Boulevard.
So that I think is going to be the next big thing for engagement if you’re confident in front of camera and you don’t mind doing that, get onto Periscope and start engaging with your audience and showing them who you really are and talking about your life. When you do that, I think you’re able to engage in a way that maybe the written word or a blog post you’re not able to do as effectively. So I would say get onto Periscope and anything visual, Yuri.
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, that’s very cool. I mean, it’s something that I’ve heard about, and I actually had one or two people ask me about it. I was like, “What the heck is Periscope?” But yeah, I mean, that … I think what’s intelligent about what you’re doing is you’re jumping into it before it’s becoming the big thing. So you’re ahead of the curve, which is always great as opposed to you catching up. So that’s awesome. Guys, check it out, Periscope. I believe it’s an app. You can just download into your phone and just go at it from there.
James Swanwick: Yeah, absolutely. Anything visual I think is really going to take over it. I think in a year we’re going to be looking back and going, “Wow, I should have got on Periscope a year ago,” because everyone’s going to be doing it. But I’m having a lot of success with YouTube as well. I just started to build my YouTube channel at James Swanwick and Instagram at James Swanwick as well. The visual component I think is really where I’m having the most success in terms of my marketing more so than just written blog posts these days.
Yuri Elkaim: Well, it makes sense because obviously you were a sportscaster for a number of years, and you’ve always wanted to be on TV. So I think it’s a good fit for your personality and your skill set.
James Swanwick: Right, which do you prefer Yuri? What are you most comfortable doing? Audio, video, writing? What’s your-
Yuri Elkaim: Video and audio for sure. I mean, I’ve actually built my business. We’ve actually had to bring in three people into our company just because I don’t want to write as much. So they take my audio or visual stuff, and we transcribe and just clean it up. In some of their businesses, those three people would not exist because the person actually wants to do the writing. In my case, I’d rather just spend, like I mean, time on video or doing these kind of podcasts because it’s much more natural for me, but yeah.
James Swanwick: Yeah, well, it’s much more natural to me, So you speak on a podcast. You’ll have someone transcribe it. Then you’ll turn that into a blog post. Is that right?
Yuri Elkaim: Yeah, exactly, so I have an editor that I work with. In some cases, like on my health stuff, we’ll take the word-for-word transcript and clean it up on the Smarter Marketer Project blog. He’ll listen to the episode, take the meat and potatoes out of it, and actually write a couple paragraphs of the nuts and bolts instead of just getting it transcribed in general. I mean, I think it’s such a great platform to leverage as well because if you’re doing writing, if you’re writing, you can’t turn writing into video.
James Swanwick: Right.
Yuri Elkaim: I mean, you can, but it ends up becoming about Power Points. With video, you have video, but then you can transcribe it and leverage that and repurpose it into audio and all sorts of different things. So I think it is a smart play.
James Swanwick: I’ve just hired someone actually to do that for my podcast. I have a podcast in iTunes called the James Swanwick show. I’ve had it for about 15 months now, and I never did the show notes, but I’ve just hired someone to listen into my podcast and do show notes, and then I’m going to start putting them out just like you are. Here’s the other thing, Yuri, what I do. I record video now and then I put the video on my podcast, so not just the audio.
One day I woke up, and I said, “Why do I only have to put audio on a podcast? Why make a video as well?” So if you look on all of my episodes at the James Swanwick show, you’ll see that a lot of the audios also have a video component to it as well. When I look at my statistics and see who’s downloading what, a lot of times I get just as many people watching the video version as the audio version, which can actually significantly increase the number of downloads that you have and when you have more downloads, obviously, you move up the rankings on iTunes.
Then when you do that, more people are exposed to your show, and it just has this cumulative effect. So you might want to try that, Yuri. Try putting some video up on your podcast as well.
Yuri Elkaim: I actually had this debate. I was like, “Do I want to start another video components to … ” At least the Smarter Marketer stuff. I was like, “Do I want to start another YouTube channel? Do I want to do a video podcast or an audio podcast?” Because I was thinking of the logistics on the video side, and I just decided to go with the audio for this. What I am doing the video for more is for our inner circle, which is more of the … like a dance training that I do. But I’m just like … because there’s just so many things that I’m doing. I’m going to just keep it simple for now, but I do agree with you that it’s a smarter course of action to definitely do the video as well as the audio. So that’s great.
James Swanwick: Well, quickly, just before we go, here’s one thing. You and I could have done this interview as a video one, right? We could have done on the video Skype. You could have recorded it and saved it. Then therefore, you would have not only audio to upload to the podcast, but then you would have had video to upload to the YouTube channel. Then you would have had video to upload to the podcast. So plus, you could have had Periscope recording it, and you could have had it going out live to all of your audience watching. In fact, you could have recorded it with Periscope because they let you save the recordings.
James Swanwick: So it’s not extra work. It’s actually you do it one time, but you get a video, an audio, and you get a video for YouTube and video for Periscope and audio for podcast.
Yuri Elkaim: That’s good.
James Swanwick: So you’re getting three for the price of one.
Yuri Elkaim: Totally. No, no, makes sense, totally. So is Periscope … Again, I’m speaking like a complete newbie here. Does Periscope has a desktop app as well? Or is it simply on your smartphone?
James Swanwick: No, it’s only on your smartphone.
Yuri Elkaim: Okay.
James Swanwick: Yeah, it’s only smartphone. So it uses your cell phone carrier to be able to … or WiFi of course to be able to connect and live stream from your phone.
Yuri Elkaim: Awesome. Well, this has been really good. I mean, there’s been a lot of golden nuggets whether it’s your story or the five-step plan, or even just this advice on video and Periscope. So James, thank you so much for taking the time, and there we go. You heard it from the man himself, James Swanwick.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes. Lots of amazing interviews and solo rounds and between-the-ears sessions with my result coaches. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, that is the schedule for this podcast.
If you’ve enjoyed this, not only subscribe to the show, but follow me on Instagram. I’m @healthpreneur1. Take screenshots of when you’re listening to this. Share with some friends. Let’s spread the word because we got lots of great nuggets that have been shared over the past 100 and some odd episodes. We have many, many more guests and many more insights to come in the coming weeks, months, and years because I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be here till I die, 144 years. That’s my expiry date, if you will. 144. But by the time I get there who knows? Maybe it’ll be longer.
Anyways, enough about longevity and my life plan. I hope you have an amazing day. Keep on rocking, continue to go out there, be great, do great, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
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What You Missed
In the last episode, I talked about the number one thing that is KILLING your business.
What is it? Obscurity. See, if no one knows about you, how are you going to even get them through your predictable sales process in the first place? Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to have a huge following to be successful. But you must know how to play the advertising game.
Listen in to hear how to finally get from obscurity to celebrity – and drive clients to your business like never before.
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