Content-Based Networking w/ James Carbary
James is the founder of Sweet Fish Media, a podcast agency for B2B brands, and Showcase, a SaaS product for podcasters. He's also the Executive Producer of two podcasts: B2B Growth & Young Married Christian. James published Content-Based Networking to show how you can use the content production process to connect with clients, partners, mentors, and others. For example, if you want to talk to the CEO of a large corporation, you could try to call them up and ask for an hour of their time, and you might get lucky...but no, you won’t. However, if you reach out and ask to interview them for your podcast, book, or article, your chances improve dramatically.
In this episode, James talks about his author journey but also explains how authors can use content-based networking to create a better book and benefit from the book even while it’s still being written.
James' Links:
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle: Today, my guest is James Carbary. James is the founder of Sweet Fish Media, a podcast agency for B2B brands and showcase, a SaaS product for podcasters. He's also the executive producer of two podcasts, B2B Growth, and A Young Married Christian. And he's the author of Content-Based Networking. And he's super cool because he used to manage a helicopter business and his wife is a former rugby player who now trains dolphins at DisneyWorld. No joke. James welcome to the show.
James Carbary: I'm super excited to be here, Josh. This is going to be really fun.
Josh Steimle: So James and I are good friends. We go back a few years. His book, Content-Based Networking is something that I am passionate about. And so I'm excited to dive into this because not only are we going to get the story behind James’ book and how he wrote it and all that, but what's in his book is going to be super helpful for you as an entrepreneur, writing your own book, trying to grow your business. But James, tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background and how you ended up running a podcast management agency.
James Carbary: Yes. So I moved to Orlando from Oklahoma back in 2010, this crazy circumstance, my friends and I had wona sweepstakes through the old phone company, Alltel, and it was one of those, “Text football to 188alltel and you can win an all expense trip for you and ten of your friends to a professional football game of your choice.” So my buddy…
Josh Steimle: Wait, so people actually win those things?
James Carbary: Right? People actually win those things. And so my buddy’s brother-in-law won that and then invited a bunch of us to get on this private jet and go to New York City and watch the Giants Cowboys game. We get there. Barry Sanders is sitting there waiting for us in the tarmac as the plane lands. So we're like, what? It was absolutely unreal. There was a guy on that trip. He was kind of toting us around New York City on the limo bus and making sure we got everywhere where we were trying to go.
His name was Jeff and I just hit it off with Jeff, we were talking about faith, family, business and over the course of the day realized that Jeff didn't work for Alltel like I thought he did, Jeff actually owned his own company. And he was the logistics provider for Alltel that Alltel hired. And Jeff was like, “Hey, it's New York, it's a bunch of 24 year olds on this private jet that my company is chartering. I want to be there and make sure that they don't run a muck. And I really liked New York anyway.” So Jeff just happened to be there. And so he owns this logistics company that does work with massive brands like Verizon and Sprint and all these huge brands that have activations all over the world.
And so ended up staying connected with Jeff. About a year and a half later, he invited me to move to Orlando and run the helicopter division of his logistics company. So I had never even thought about entrepreneurship to that point in my life, but working for Jeff for three years in Florida, we had a big base of NASCAR clients, so we would get like Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson and team owners and race sponsors in and out of the racetrack, so they wouldn't have to mess with post race traffic. And we would just find helicopters in the local area, put them on there and it was really fun.
I got to travel all over the country. Did that for about three years. That was my first exposure to entrepreneurship. I ended up leaving that role, bounced around to a couple other things, tried getting my own software product off the ground, didn't work. That's how I had to, I figured out marketing. So I was like, okay, I got to figure out how to do marketing for this product and then segue that into. Eventually, I worked for another technology company and they had to let me go when their funding dried up and it was like, okay, I'm either going to, I don't want to go get another job. I want to do my own thing. I had just gotten engaged.
Fortunately, I had a very gracious and supportive fiancee, who's now my wife, that you alluded to earlier and she was like, “Hey, I want you to be happy. I want you to do your own thing. If that's what's going to fill you up.” And so started Sweet Fish as a blog writing agency, we didn't really have a niche. We didn't have a focus. It was just, “Hey, we write blog posts for companies that know they need to be doing it, but don't have the time to do it.” So started doing that. And fast forward about nine months, realized that we had one particular customer we were getting really great results for, and they were a church plant outside of Houston, Texas. So a church in Rosenberg, Texas. So we were writing like Buzzfeed style content for this church. It was like: “8 Date Night Spots for You and Your Spouse on a Friday Night in Rosenberg”, or, you know, “7 Things to Do With Your Kids on the Weekend in Rosenberg.” And the content was performing really, really well organically, particularly on Facebook at the time. This was back in like 2015.
And so we were like, “Okay, we could rinse and repeat this model for every church, like a church in every city in America. And this is a huge market. We could really build a big business here.” So I was reflecting back and I was like, but how am I going to do that? How am I going to go about connecting with all these churches? And so I thought about a podcast that my buddy and I had done about a year prior called Inspiring Awesome. And I remember thinking, man, whoever we ask to be on this podcast says, “Yes.” Like we have no business talking to half the people we ended up talking to. But because we had a podcast, they said yes to talking to us.
So I translated that and thought, okay, I've got all these church planters that don't know me from Adam And I'm trying to build relationships so we can see if there's a way for us to work with them and do blog content for them. What if we started a podcast about church planting and I reached out and just asked them to be a guest. I did that got and got an 80% reply rate on the cold email campaign. And I thought, well, there's something to this. So ended up figuring out church planters don't have any money. And so there was no product market fit, but we ended up transitioning about a month and a half, two months later and said, “Hey, this would be insanely effective for B2B companies, particularly B2B SaaS companies.” So we shifted our model, became a podcast agency, and that's how Sweet Fish was born. And it's really the premise for Content-Based Networking what the book is about too.
Josh Steimle. Yeah, I love that your whole story fits into this content-based networking model. So you started Sweet Fish. That takes off, that's doing well. At what point did you know, “I'm going to write a book about this, about what I'm doing and how this works?”
James Carbary: It was probably a couple of years in the first couple of years, it was just like, I just got to figure out how to eat next month. And so I, being a noob to business, I didn't know how to charge for what we were doing. We weren't charging nearly enough. I, you don't know how to do anything, right? You figure this stuff out as you go. And so, but it was a couple of years in, I thought, man, what we're doing here, when we share this with potential customers, this concept is really fascinating. We should probably name it and claim it because this is surely going to be something. You know, when I would talk to other folks, they'd be like, “Oh James, you have to stop talking about this. This is like my secret thing. Like quit making this something that everybody's going to want to do, because it's going to be less effective for me. Cause I'm like over here doing it on the sly without publicly talking about it.”
And, I just thought, man, I think this can have massive ramifications on people's lives beyond business. I mean this can help regardless of whether you're starting your own business, whether you're trying to land your dream job, whether you're trying to write a book, like there's so many different applications for, I mean, cause relationships drive everything that we want to do. And so I just never heard anybody growing up talking about how do you actually develop relationships? I heard, “Your network is your net worth and relationships are everything. It's all about who, you know, not what you know.” Like you hear all these tropes. But how do you actually know, like, how do you get to know the people that you want to get to know?
And because I'd never heard anybody talking about it, I was like, “Man, I think we need to codify this. I think we need to name it.” Quite honestly, Josh, we wrote the book three years ago. Maybe two years ago. And I don't love the name. Like the word networking is, like it makes people think like computer networking. But relationships was too fluffy and people think of dating relationships when you think of relationships, because that's really the essence of what we're writing about. So I still even, two, three years after writing the book, I don't love the name we landed on. People always call it content-based marketing.
So there's lots of signs that point to we didn't name it well, but I'm still so grateful. I mean, it's driven business for us in a tangible way. It's offset the cost of what we paid to create it. It's helped us codify the message. And we use it through our sales process and our customer journey.
So, yeah even with a bad name, it's still working for us.
Josh Steimle: So I think people have picked up on what we're talking about with content- based networking, but just to make sure we're super clear about exactly what we're talking about, can you tell us like a story about how this worked and how you've implemented it and what the outcome was?
James Carbary: Yeah, so effectively or essentially, Josh, Content-Based Networking is building relationships with people by collaborating with them to create content. So if I want to know the VP of Marketing at a SaaS company that I really want to do business with, I would go and look up that VP of Marketing, figure out what are they posting about on LinkedIn? What is their team blogging about? Is there anything innovative that they're doing on their website? And I would reach out and with our podcast B2B Growth, I would say, “Hey, Mr. VP of Marketing or Mrs. VP of Marketing, I noticed XYZ, I noticed that you guys are doing something really innovative with your chat bot. I would love to have you on our podcast, B2B Growth to talk about that for the marketers that listen to our show, any interest?”
Most of the time, especially if you customize the outreach and really give them a reason why you're reaching out to them, tell them why, like you're impressed by something they've done, more often than not, they're going to say, yes. You get extra points if you make that communication happen organically on social. So like replying to one of their tweets or leaving a comment on a LinkedIn post that they wrote. Not everybody, depending on your market and who you're going after is as super active on social. So a lot of times you'll have to do it via email, but yeah. So that's in essence, that's what it is. Like how do you build relationships with the people that can like help you accomplish your goals and dreams? Whether it's growing pipeline for your sales organization or whether it's getting into your dream college or getting your dream job or whatever the case may be, collaborating with the right people, the people you want to know on a piece of content, doesn't have to be a podcast, it can be a book. You did it with a book years ago, CMOs at Work, you were building relationships with CMOs, as you were writing the book and you were building your agency at that time. So like the relationships you were building with CMOs that you were writing the book about, ended up, helping those relationships ended up bolstering MWI in a very significant way, from what I can remember in you telling me about it. So that's yeah, probably a little bit longer than you wanted to hear there, but that's in essence what content-based networking is.
Josh Steimle: And I think a lot of us do this unintentionally. I think back to when I was a kid, I grew up skateboarding and I loved skateboarding, watching the skate videos. And so I started a little skate shop when I was a teenager in high school. I didn't actually have a retail location, I was selling stuff out of my car, but I got some companies to sell stuff to me. But half the reason I did that was because I wanted cheaper stuff because it was so expensive to skateboard. The other half was, I wanted to get into the industry. I wanted to talk to these people. I wanted to meet my heroes, these pros and stuff. And so by starting that business, I was able to collaborate with these companies and that led to, “Well, hey, can I come down to your warehouse and pick up some stuff?” And then I'd go down to the warehouse and I'd meet some pro while I was there. So I met like Ken Block who started DC Shoes and now does like the GymKhana videos and stuff. Like, he was like picking t-shirts off shelves for me.
And now I'm like, yeah, I met Ken Block, like back in the day when he was just a scrappy entrepreneur and stuff. And it's like, I was doing this as a kid and then when I was in college, I was going to business school and I wanted to connect with other big business people who could mentor me, but I was like, “Well, how do I get these people to talk to me?” I mean, if I just go to some big CEO and say, “Hey, will you give me some advice?” Maybe I'll get lucky. But instead I thought, you know what, I'm going to create an online magazine and I'm going to go interview these people. I never actually launched the magazine. I just had a plan to launch the magazine, but that was enough that I sent a message to Jet Blue. And I said, “Hey, I want to interview David Neeleman for my online magazine I'm launching as a college student.” And I got a half hour with David Neeleman when he was starting Jet Blue and we chatted for a half hour and he gave me all this advice and I've never forgotten some of the tips that he gave me “Man, like this stuff really works.”
And the great thing is, it's a natural fit. Like it's not awkward and it's not like a sneaky thing. It's not like, you're like, “Oh, I'm going to get them in. And then I'm going to hook them on this thing.” It's like, no, this is just natural.
James Carbary: Yeah, in a B2B setting. I say this all the time in a B2B setting, you're not tricking anybody to buying from you. People either have a need for what you do or they don't. And so a lot of, so many of the people that we've had on B2B Growth over the years, I think we're at over 2000 episodes at this point. So many of those people don't work with us at all. And then a lot of the people that end up working with us, we have a relationship with them that starts with B2B Growth, they connect with a few people from our team that they meet through the interview process on LinkedIn. But it's years later sometimes before people end up working with us. So it's a long game approach, but when you stack relationships in this way, and I just I love the story of how you did it with CMOs at Work, where you're literally, whatever business you're in, if it's B2B, especially those, each one of those relationships represent massive potential revenue for your business. And so as you're creating this asset, as you're creating this book, figure out a way to collaborate with your ideal buyers to help you create the content for it. And so by the end of the book, you've built these incredible relationships with people that you could potentially work with. And then you get to deepen that relationship through the promotion of the book now, because they're a part of it.
And so as soon as you told me what you did with CMOs at Work, this was, I guess, years ago, whenever you told me about it, I was like, “Yes, that is what I'm talking about.” I love seeing people… and you did that long before I even wrote the book, but I love seeing the strategy executed because it just works.
Josh Steimle: Yeah, it does. And it's for those of us who are uncomfortable with marketing and sales, this is a way to do it. That's not uncomfortable because if I call somebody up and I say, “Hey, I want to interview you on my podcast.” They're flattered.
James Carbary: They're flattered. That’s the game!
Josh Steimle: Even big people. Like I can't believe the people I've gotten onto this Published Author show. I mean, I've had huge bestselling authors, people who have had movies made about them. People who have TV shows and I'm like, “How did I get these people on my little rinky-dink podcast?” And it's just, when you reach out to somebody and you say, I want to interview you for a piece of content, it almost doesn't matter what it is, they're already flattered that anybody would reach out. It also doesn't matter. The people I'm interviewing, they'll say, “Oh, I'm doing 40 podcasts this week.” They're still flattered to be on one more podcast. It just, it gets them. And then you form this connection and see, the thing is, people hear this podcast, but they don't always hear what happens after we cut the end of the podcast. There's always a conversation that happens after the podcast. And sometimes I actually leave it on these recordings, but sometimes I don't and it gets cut off. And then there's like 20 minutes of talking afterwards where people are like, “So what do you do? And tell me more about your business and how does that work?” And so there are relationships that I formed that have been quite lucrative. And it happened after the show and going into the episode, I may have had no idea what that person even did or that there would be any potential. And yet those things happen because we're here, we're creating this content together and we're forming a relationship while we do it. We're really getting to know each other.
James Carbary: Yeah, I hear so many people, Josh, that are reticent to do this because they think, “Oh, well, I don't have an audience. So why on earth would anybody want to be a guest on my show because I don't have an audience?” And the reality is the number of times that people even ask us what our audience size is, is abismally low. So I don't know if it… I don't know what exactly like leads to that. I don't know if people are thinking, “Hey, this is going to be a piece of content that I can repurpose regardless of how big their audience is. I can, when this goes live, I can put this on LinkedIn. I can write a blog post about this. This is a way to get my thought leadership out there.” We've found in particular with marketers and with anybody in sales, they are typically over the moon ecstatic to be a guest on your show. So if you happen to be serving those markets, marketers or sellers, don't even have a second thought about, “Oh, I don't have an audience. Surely I can't get anybody.” I promise you, people will say yes.
Josh Steimle: Yeah. I mean, even if it's just halfway professional, I mean, I had a kid who I've been on over a hundred podcasts as a guest, and I had a kid to reach out to me from, I think, Lithuania or Romania, like one of those smaller European countries. And he invited me on his show and I knew that this, I mean, he's 17 years old. I knew that this was not a professional operation, but still I'm like, “Yeah, sure. I'll be on your show.” I never asked him how many listens he had or downloads or anything like that. I show up for the show, I'm not kidding his technology wasn't working. So he's like, “Hey, normally I just record these on my phone, but my phone broke. Can we use your zoom to record the episode? And then you send me the file afterwards?” I was like, “Sure.” So like that's how unprofessional this guy's operation was. But still, I was happy to be on his show and help him out and record this episode. And I felt like, I have no idea if that's going to benefit me ever in my life. I don't know if he ever even published that episode, but most people are that way. Most people are just like, “Yeah, I want to be on your show” It doesn't matter how big it is, how established it is. I can remember the name of the one person who's asked me how many downloads I get, because it's only been one person who's ever asked me that question.
And so it's just, it's not something that comes up. It's not something to worry about.
James Carbary: Nope. And the value of the relationships that you're going to get as a result are far worth the one in 300 people that you're going to get that say no, because you don't have a big enough audience. I don't know. And maybe there's over 2 million podcasts now. More people are doing this. Maybe you get a few more people than that saying, “Ah, no, like hold off until you have more episodes or until your audience is a little bit bigger.” But it's still like, there's still so many people that you can build relationships with through this medium.
And what I love so much about your story… I obviously talk about podcasts a lot, cause we're a podcast agency, but you can do this for writing a book, you can do this for YouTube videos that you're doing, you can do it for blog posts, like any type of content medium, webinars, like anybody listening to this that still does webinars. Like there's endless ways that you can leverage this approach to content creation that almost like the medium doesn't even matter. You're able to extract knowledge from somebody else that you want to know, highlight them, make them look awesome. And publish and promote their content and grow your own thought leadership while growing the influence of the people that you're trying to build relationships with.
Josh Steimle: Yeah. And a lot of people, I think also think that you have to wait for the content to be done to really benefit. But like we were talking about, before the show started, you start getting benefits as soon as you connect with that person. I mean, I interviewed 30 CMOs for my book. I was developing the relationships while I was writing the book. I was talking to them while I was writing the book. It wasn't when the book came out. Same with podcasts. I might record a podcast, and if I'm backlogged, maybe that episode doesn't come out for two months, but I already developed the relationship and built the relationship while I was recording the podcast. And so it's not like, “Hey, I'm going to invest today, but I don't reap the fruits for months or years or something.” In some cases it's right when you're talking to that person that you're getting the benefit before you've even really created the content.
James Carbary: Yep. Exactly right. And so, I mean, for us, I mean the play that has worked so well for us has been getting them on the podcast, building that relationship, connecting with them on LinkedIn. We have a rhythm of posting on LinkedIn consistently. And so it's that podcast LinkedIn combo that, like you said, their episode might not go live for a couple months, but they're seeing your content pop up in their newsfeed and LinkedIn because it's a connection request they may not have accepted otherwise, but because you literally just got off a zoom call with them and you hopefully, had a great interaction with them while you were doing the interview. Of course, they're gonna want to connect with you there. And they're going to think of you favorably whenever they see your stuff pulling up in their feed.
So I think if you're willing to play the long game, and not using this…, I've heard some people call it like a Trojan horse, which I don't really love the connotation of that. Like, it feels like a sneak attack. That's not it at all. I mean, the reality is a lot of people that you talk to through this, there's not going to be an immediate opportunity for you to do business together, but by stacking these relationships over time, it's allowed me to build a lifestyle that I never thought I would have been able to have.
Josh Steimle: Awesome. Well, James, thanks so much for being with us here on the show today. If people want to find out more about you and Sweet Fish, where do they go?
James Carbary: Yeah, so SweetFishmedia.com. You can find pretty much everything. We've got a couple of kids' books. So, I was just telling Josh about it before we hit record. I Want to Have a Podcast When I Grow Up and I Want to be a Marketer When I Grow Up are our two kids books that just came out, if you're looking for something for your kiddos. Obviously Content-Based Networking, you can find that on our website as well. And then I'd love to connect with any and everybody on LinkedIn. We're spending a lot of time there these days. So just James Carbary on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only one on there with that last name. And yeah, we'd love to connect with all your listeners.
Josh Steimle: Great. And the book is Content-Based Networking. James, thanks so much for being with us here today on the show.