Communication, Connection, Community: The Podcasters' Podcast
Welcome To Communication, Connection, Community, The Podcasters' Podcast. We've taken two podcasts and merged them into one! Originally Speaking of Speaking, this podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting (and speaking) space exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community, with news, updates, latest trends and topics from the every evolving space. Strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride!
Communication, Connection, Community: The Podcasters' Podcast
The Power of Podcasting And How It Saved My Business, with guest Donnie Boivin
Curious about how podcasting can revolutionize your business? Tune in to learn from Donnie Boivin, a B2B networking maestro, as he recounts his remarkable journey from a top sales trainer facing financial turmoil to a thriving podcaster and entrepreneur. Discover how podcasting became his lifeline, fostering genuine connections and community support that built influential networks and turned his fortunes around.
But that's not all—our conversation extends into the realm of B2B networking with the creation of Success Champions Networking (SCN). Learn how Donnie transitioned from daily podcasting to establishing SCN, a mastermind-style networking group tailored for B2B professionals. We'll explore the unique structure of SCN meetings, the rapid expansion across North America, and their ambitious goal to reach 10,000 members.
Connect with Donnie:
Website
http://www.donnieboivin.com/
Success Champions
https://successchampionnetworking.com/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnieboivin
Listen to Growth Mode Podcast
growth-mode.captivate.fm/listen
Got a question about something you heard today? Have a great suggestion for a topic or know someone who should be a guest? Reach out to us:
askcarl@carlspeaks.ca
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Welcome to Communication Connection Community, the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride. Let's dive into today's episode.
Speaker 1:I have to tell you that we do have some great things coming up, and I'd love to spill the tea right now and tell you exactly what they are, but I think I'm going to wait a few weeks before I do that, just so I can really make some plans and solidify some events that we're working on and we're talking some fairly large events too, at least from the podcasting perspective. There are podcasting meetups and events all over the world, but one place where we don't see a lot of activity is in Canada. So we're talking to some folks about putting together our very own here in Canada, a Canadian run, canadian event for podcasters, for content creators. That's one thing, but we also have some other great things that are coming up, including some podcast co-ops. We have to really break that down for you because I think it'll be a game changer in the podcasting world. It'll certainly be a game changer when it comes to networking. So that's happening, but, again, like I said, I don't want to spill the tea right away. I want to make sure, before I do, that we have everything set up and ready, and I want to make sure that we've got all the information, as opposed to just some pipe dreams. Right so? But look for that information, probably in the next month or two, and those will be events that you'll be able to take part in as well, especially if you are a podcaster or a podcast guest or a content creator. There will be some great opportunities, not only to attend the events that we're thinking of, but then also maybe even speak at those events. So definitely stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1:Speaking of networking, networking is a huge way to expand your podcast. Are you networking? Are you getting your face and your name and your voice out there? It's also, of course, a great way to build and grow your business, right? So who better than an expert in networking, actually somebody who hates networking, at least in the contemporary sense, to chat with us about us today? And that is Donnie Boivin. Donnie has over two decades in sales and he's a pioneering spirit in B2B networking, but he's transformed his experiences into success champion networking. We'll find out more about that momentarily. He's here to empower professionals to build influential networks and businesses based on genuine connections and community support. He is a podcaster, he is a fantastic individual and we are so thrilled he's joining us today. Donnie, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Hey, bud, good to hang out with you, man. I knew this was going to be fun, so I'll try not to make fun of you too much, but I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker 1:Some gentle poking and nudging is fine. I feel this has been a long time coming, though, because you and I have been connected for a couple of years. We'll reveal how Donnie and I met. It's the remember when we met and where it was, and we'll talk about that on the show as well, but I want to dive into this first piece here. There was an article that was posted recently on LinkedIn, and I believe you posted it, but somebody else in our network shared it. The first line really jumped out at me, and I want you to tell the story, because I think it's one that needs to be heard around the world, which is why you're on the show. Podcasting saved my business. Podcasting saved my business. Tell me the story here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I launched my company back in 2017. And the day after I launched my company, I was slapped with a non-compete that I don't remember signing. So now, luckily, as we're recording this, they've done away with non-competes in the US, but back in 2017, they were a real deal. My last career. I was supposedly one of the top sales trainers in the US. I don't know what that means, other than I'm really good at flapping my gums in front of a room right, and I had full intent on launching a sales training company. And now I have 24 hours into launching my company.
Speaker 2:After living a very expensive lifestyle for me and my wife, I went from making a lot of money to zero income. I jumped out on my own to start my own company, but at that moment it felt like I'd been fired because I had no money coming in to take care of the farm and everything that we had going. But I thought, as a sales guy, just because I couldn't talk about sales, sales management, and like I'd be able to launch business and have no problem, I thought building a business was going to be really easy, and anybody who knows or ever run a business knows running a business is one of the hardest damn things on the planet. Right About six months into building my business, my wife's Jeep got repossessed. We almost lost our farm to foreclosure. Graciously, my wife cashed in a retirement plan the US we call it a 401k but cashed in her retirement plan to get her Jeep back and save the farm. But even though she'd saved the farm, I still had no idea what the heck my business was going to be. So I started everything I could think of. I was doing graphic design, this weird coaching. You know, I was literally a business whore just saying yes to anybody who would give me money.
Speaker 2:Right Right around April of 2018, a buddy of mine reached out and asked if I come speak on a stage, and I had to tell him. I'm like look, I'm under a non-compete, they've already hit me with a couple of cease and desist and I can't talk about sales because, no, I don't want you to talk about sales. I want you to tell your story. Not a lot of people know the journey you've been through to get where you are. So it was about 200 people in the audience and I got up there and I'd never been a keynote speaker, I'd been a trainer, so I hadn't done a lot of speaking in front of large audiences. I'd done speaking in front of a lot of rooms of you know 30, 40 people, type things.
Speaker 2:And now I'm standing in front of 200 and I didn't know the rules of keynoting. Like, after your keynote you're supposed to stand out by the stage and greet people and shake hands. And man, I got done. I was so tired. I walked to the back behind the curtains and sat in a chair. No mixing and mingling, nothing. And literally this uh, all of a sudden this guy comes through the curtains back to me and said donnie, I love your energy, I love your story. Would you come tell it on my podcast? And I said what the hell's a podcast?
Speaker 2:right, so this is april of 2018, right, and uh, he, he explained to me that a podcast is like a morning talk radio show and I'm like, oh, I kind of grew up on those. I could do that. So I'm in Fort Worth, texas, I drive out to Dallas, texas, and go sit in his studio we're doing a live video type scenario and recorded. It was blast, had a lot of fun. He aired it two days later and somebody reached out and became a client of mine.
Speaker 2:Now, full disclosure, I couldn't do sales training, but I could do motivational training for about 40 of his salespeople, which is what I ended up doing. But the idea that I could go on a podcast and find clients, that was like hold my beer and watch this. So I started going on a bunch of shows, but then what really allowed me to save the business was I launched my first podcast in 2018 and then that's what really fixed and changed a lot of things for me. But I'll pause because I want to take over your show so you can ask questions if you like, and then I'll dive into that don Donnie.
Speaker 1:That in itself is a phenomenal testament to getting started in the podcasting space. And, by the way, I also said the same thing when I first heard what a podcast was. It was again after I'd lost a job and I was doing speaker training part-time. And somebody said, oh, you're doing speaker training, you should start a podcast. And I remember again keep in mind I'm in radio broadcasting, right and I said what's a podcast? And even after they explained it, I'm like, okay, so why would I, as a speaker trainer, trying to get people on live stages, why would I host a radio type thing? That's how clearly they were describing it why would I do that? No, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:It took me seven years until I was at an event in Toronto, a real estate investor expo, and the main stage speaker was Tony Robbins, but they had breakout rooms as well, and one of the breakout rooms when I say breakout rooms, the breakout rooms probably still held about 500 people, right, so fairly large breakout rooms. In the breakout room that I was in, it was a guy by the name of Sam Crowley who's started in podcasts when podcasts were in diapers, right, he's been around that long. And if you've heard a show, you know it's a very simple show. Every day is Saturday, phenomenal show. Anyways. He's basically on stage for 90 minutes saying you should start a podcast. Anyone can have a podcast. What's your show going to be about? And then he pitches you into his program.
Speaker 1:From that point I was convinced that okay, yes, this is a great fit for me. But I still had no idea what I was doing, even though I had a little bit of background. And I think that's one of the challenges when people do get into the space is they is they're not sure what they're doing. They just know that they need to find out more about this. They, they do need a podcast. But I definitely want to ask you some, some questions, because you said that hold my beer, I got to do a dive into this. Here it is at the recording of this interview, we're spring of 2024. So here it is what, six years later and this is something that you've embraced full on you have your own show, but you've also been on other podcasts as a guest.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. Yeah, I've guested on over 500 podcasts. I believe I went in one day to ListenNotes and just put in Donnie Bovine and episodes and just started counting because I was curious about how many interviews. So if you ever wonder how many episodes you're on, go to ListenNotes, type in your name, click on episode and just start counting how many interviews you've done. No-transcript of that out there.
Speaker 2:So I just went to Google cause I didn't know what else to do typed in whatever I could think of and followed by the word podcast. So it was sales podcast, business podcast, you know, networking podcast, entrepreneur podcast, money podcast, mindset podcast, and I just started making a master Excel spreadsheet of every podcast I could find and then putting out you know, an email to each one of those. And if I could get a phone number, it was even better. For me. It was a sales guy. I'm like I'm going to call these people up number. It was even better. For me. It was a sales guy. I'm like I'm going to call these people up and literally over the next 30 days after that first interview, I was on 50 podcasts in 30 days because I was just cranking. I'm like this is how I'm going to build the business is just by guesting on shows, and so I got on a ton of shows.
Speaker 2:It was halfway through that kind of journey of how many podcasts that I can get on that I went on this gentleman's show and to this day it's still the worst interview I've ever had in my life. The guy before the show sent me a list of 20 questions and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I've never had anybody send me questions before and you know. So I read through them. They were the same questions every other show I asked, right, because you know just that same boring generic. You know things a lot of people who don't know how to interview do. And I get on this gentleman's show and he goes question number one and he reads question number one. I answer the question and he goes question two.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 2:He gets to question three. And he's question three and I'm like I'm going to help this dude out. I'm like, hey, so why did you get into podcasting? You know, tell me a little bit about your world. And he goes question four. I'm can have any success doing podcasting. I'm launching my own show and I went out to YouTube University and started figuring out what I needed to do to launch a show. And my first podcast I launched in the bedroom of my parents' log cabin, in their spare bedroom cabin. In their spare bedroom. I literally had a bed sheet with a group to make a green screen behind me. That I bet green bed sheet that I bought from walmart to make a green screen behind me. Uh and zoom and I I launched my first show. Uh, and it was absolute the biggest pile of turd of a podcast you could imagine. It was so bad, it so bad.
Speaker 1:Do you ever go back to it and listen and watch it and go oh my goodness, man, I've evolved. Or do you not go back into your?
Speaker 2:catalog. You know I never go back, mainly because I know how bad it is. I don't want to go back and see it. You know, I will point to it that it really ultimately is probably the biggest catalyst, for it really ultimately is probably the biggest catalyst for pushing my business forward. And the reason being is I had a young guy by the name of Fergus out of the UK who was listening to my show. He was in my Facebook group that I was running at the time and he reached out and we had done a Zoom prior to him reaching out the second time and he said man, I just love how you talk to people. He goes do you care if I reach out and get some people on your show? And I'm like sure, you know, finding guests has never been a problem for me. You know I didn't understand what he meant when he said people on your show within a week he goes. So patrick, bet, david, charlene johnson, neil patel, and he keeps name dropping. All would love to be a guest on your show. Right, my butthole puckered because I knew all these people and I'm like crap, I don't know what the hell I'm doing from a podcast standpoint. And now you know he's got all these known names wanting to come on my show and and I said, fergus, give me a minute to get all my ducks in a row, he goes. Well, they're coming, he goes, so you figure it out. So I said, okay, I can't have a I don't know a better way to say it without cussing. So a crap show, crap show, that's what we're looking for. A crap show of a process. I told Carl that I would clean it up for him. A crap show of a process. You know, as far as a podcast.
Speaker 2:And you know, at that point I was just using an Outlook calendar to schedule. I was. You know, there was no systems. I didn't have an editor, I was doing it all myself. There was no marketing there was, it was it was me doing everything. So I'm like, okay, if I was going to turn this into something that actually looked professional, what do I need to do? So I went ahead and invested in an editor. That was the number one thing I did. And then I said, okay, what's my process? From somebody being a guest on the show to then marketing and leveraging that and turning it into something? So we then created, like this operational process and sequence on a backend.
Speaker 2:So podcasting taught me a lot of things. One it taught me operations how to put a team together, how to put systems in flow in place. It taught me also how to fire people, because I hired a lot of the wrong people and usually that was always my fault. But it taught me marketing how to fire people, because I hired a lot of the wrong people and usually that was always my fault. But it taught me marketing, because guests suck right. Guests come on your show, they never promote, they never market, they never anything. So I'm like crap. So we've got to do all that for you.
Speaker 2:We learned that having big names on your show don't mean a damn thing. Right, their audience already knows their story, you know. So you might get a one pop for their episode, but very rarely are they going to stay. Um, so we're like okay. So how do we leverage the small people? Don't mean small people in a rude way, but being somebody's first podcast, second podcast is usually a pretty good thing, because they're excited, they want to share it with everybody.
Speaker 2:So it taught me sales. It taught me marketing. It taught me you know, equal business, stature and some phenomenal conversations. We ended up launching a podcast production company on the back end of that, with all these systems and me marketing. It taught me, you know equal business, stature and some phenomenal conversations. We ended up launching a podcast production company on the back end of that, with all these systems and processes, and within about nine months of running that company, we were running a half a million dollar podcast production company and we'd launched internal podcast inside of some fortune 500 companies where we were doing employee podcast. But it all stemmed because Fergus came up to me and he was like hey, can I see if I can get a couple of people on your show? And I really thought he was talking about like some regular coaches you know, not, not, not household names.
Speaker 1:That's the amazing story, man. There's so much we can unbundle there. It's just knowing what pieces to start with. Yay, fergus, for getting some top names on your show. But also kudos to you, donnie, for figuring out through trial and error that the big names don't necessarily bring you the big numbers. And I think that's one of the things I find. When people are looking at podcasting for the first time, they say, yeah, I'd love to have a show, but I need to have big numbers. I'm like, no, you don't need to have big numbers, you just need consistency and resilience and be able to do all those things that that Donnie is talking about. The big thing, I think is to is to do it, and to do it whether you don't want to do it or not. In days that you don't want to probably record an episode, donnie, that you probably and you probably have a better layout than than the you know, the old bed sheet that you had before but, maybe you still have it, though, just as a symbolism of.
Speaker 2:I have the bedsheets still. I I that that I do have. But you know, when I moved the studio to my farm, I literally took a bedroom and converted it completely into a studio, cause I'm like I don't want to go anywhere. So I run my whole company from the studio. Uh, and it's a lot of fun, uh, to do that, but, yeah, it's, it's been one hell of an evolution. I will tell you, though, I was also insane when I launched that first podcast. This is before I even ever heard the name, john Lee Dumas. I didn't know who he was. I launched a daily podcast, for 147 episodes Went straight. So every Friday I would sit down and record seven to nine episodes back-to-back one-hour shows. Oh, wow, and record seven to nine episodes back to back one hour shows and just grind through it every friday and then release those for the next seven days, and then 147 episodes in. I was like all right, and I was doing most of my own editing everything too.
Speaker 1:It was brutal did you ever see your wife when you were recording the daily?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1:I have a colleague out of Eastern Canada and his name is Mark Mawinney and he actually learned a lot about do you know Mark? Okay, fantastic guy. He learned a lot from John Lee Dumas as well, and tells a story how he did a daily podcast when he started his in 2014, 16, something like that and he said you know what, the reason why he stopped doing a daily podcast was because he realized he also was doing his batch recording Probably, I think he said, on a Saturday and all of his editing. He says I lost a girlfriend doing that so.
Speaker 1:I realized that if I want to have a relationship, I need to firstly go to a weekly show but then also outsource, which you already did. Actually, you didn't just outsource you, you created your own production company in the process. So so you've gone from. You didn't have a podcast, you have a podcast, you're guesting on shows, you're building an, an empire, basically, and and everything is still in place. Right, you have this massive production company now and you're doing all these great things and nothing has changed since then, right? Yeah, that was facetious, because I know that there's been some changes since then 100%.
Speaker 2:And what's funny is when I hit it right around my 100th episode, somebody said, oh, you're running a show like John Lee Dumas and I said who the hell is John Lee Dumas? I had no idea Somebody else, I thought I was like the originator of the 100 daily episodes. And then I look up John Lee Dumas and at that point he's like a thousand episodes in doing daily. I'm like that guy's insane. That's beast mode. After we got the podcast production company up and going, my non-compete ended up going away in September of that same year and I had a chip on my shoulder and I was pissed because you know I couldn't do sales training which I'd set out to do. So I decided to see how much I could really confuse the marketplace by going from all right, I have a cool podcast production company, but now I'm going to launch a sales training company too because I'm pissed that I couldn't do it before. So now I'm running at the time it was about a quarter of a million dollar, you know podcast production company and then I launched a sales training company. I take the podcast production company to a half a million dollars and then the sales training company. I took it almost to seven figures and we were doing well, all virtually, because I always wanted to build a business where I could just work from home and not have to go anywhere. We were doing that all the way up and then, two and a half years into building all this, covid hits. And you know, luckily for me, my businesses were online and we were going to be okay. I mean, we lost a few deals here and there, but it wasn't going to be the massive hit that you know people who are working in offices and then having to go home were doing.
Speaker 2:At that moment I started looking at crap. How do I help as many people build, you know, get into the online space as possible Because they don't have the two and a half years it took me to really build what I felt like I was finally successful in it. They've got 30 days if they're lucky. So in my previous careers I'd run a lot of networking groups and build a lot of networks. So it was at that moment that I launched Success Champions Networking, and that was March of 20.
Speaker 2:And I didn't launch it to be a business. I launched it 100% just to help people. It wasn't a revenue play for me we were doing fine with the companies and so I launched. And, man, I had no idea for the journey I was fixing to take, launching these networking groups. Long story short, I since sold the sales training company. I gave the podcast production company to a friend and now solely run B2B networking groups all throughout North America. Never in a million years would I have guessed networking was going to be my business, changed everything and we just continue to take market share.
Speaker 1:And that's where we met, because I'm part of the SCN family, the chapter in Canada. And full disclosure and correct me if I'm wrong, but you hate networking groups. I do, I do, but SCN is not. I mean, it's networking. But how is SCN different from a lot of the other networking groups that are out there? What makes it? What makes it different?
Speaker 2:One thing we didn't know is how massive the gap was for anybody who sells business to business. Anybody who sells business consumer, like a real estate, your mortgage, your, your title, your financial advisors right, those people can go network anywhere. They can go to your chambers, they can go in your B&Is, they can go in all those places and it's great. But if you sell telecom, phone systems, IT MSPs, you sell commercial printing right, you sell anything that's business to business. You can't go network anywhere If you sell commercial printing, Podcasting services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, podcasting services right.
Speaker 2:You go into places and you get a room full of people who sell business to consumer. Sure, you can sell them, likely It'd be a one-off type deal, but most times those people are not talking to decision makers and companies. So, like back when I sold commercial printing before I launched all my companies, my average deal was $25,000. And going into a chamber of commerce hanging out with a bunch of people who sell B2C which are all great people but if you ask a real estate agent the last five homes they sold, what would the people do? And they're going to be like an engineer, a doctor, you know, a lawyer, right? Not decision makers and companies who can make purchases of $25,000 worth of printing.
Speaker 2:When we launched SEN, we decided to make it and go to business to business and wow, it was such a great move. You know, if you go B2C, BNI is there, it's a great move. You know, if you go B2C, bni is there, it's a great organization to do B2C. The chambers are there, it's a great organization to do that. But if you go B2B, there's just not many places to network. And so we found the niche of going B2B networking groups. And let's be honest, nobody wants to go to a networking group and sit around for 45 minutes, listen to people. Do these stupid. I caught myself. I almost said a dirty word. Do these stupid jingles right that nobody cares about? And run a boring meeting that nobody's into, right? You got to get in and you got to really open doors. So we set out to create an experience that not only added education but allowed people to network and open real doors for other.
Speaker 2:Let's get beyond referrals In the B2B game. It's a long sale. You're not going to close a deal right then and there. So let's get into introductions. A referral is an introduction with a sales call attached. An introduction is just two good people together. Let's get as many introductions as we can and let's watch how doors really get opened. We're the fastest growing networking organization on the planet. Right now we continue to take market share. It's been a blast. I had no, no clue that we were going to do as well in this business as we are.
Speaker 1:And the proof is in the pudding, as you said, because it's growing exponentially. We've got the loan chapter right now in Canada, which I think is still going to grow beyond being one chapter. Number two, loan chapter right now in Canada, which I think is still going to grow beyond being one chapter.
Speaker 2:Number two is launching right now. Ooh okay, Jerry Lalonde is launching over in the Vancouver area.
Speaker 1:Okay, see, there's things I don't know unless. I get the grand poobah on the on the podcast but but you've got chapters all over the U? S and like you said that, and and even the meetings themselves. They don't run as networking meetings, they run more like I guess the best way to describe it would be masterminds. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mastermind, peer group, board meeting, type of things, where it's it's let's grow together, right, like. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're in a networking group and you've been there for any couple of months, I don't need you to constantly say, hey, I'm a realtor, hey, I do this, like we know right. So, so let's let's get in and learn something. Let's teach each other something. Let's let's brainstorm off of people. Let's let's get education as part of it, and it's very structured run meeting, but it's designed around. Let's grow your business. Let's get education as part of it, and it's a very structured run meeting, but it's designed around let's grow your business, let's grow you, which is an environment that I hadn't seen in networking.
Speaker 2:You know, there's a huge online community that's active as hell, a ton of additional training that people can be a part of. Yeah, it's. We fixed what everybody hated about networking, especially if you sell B2B, and we added a lot of things that people wanted in networking and so, and, and we kept the price point extremely low. So that's, it makes it fun.
Speaker 1:And, of course, as you're growing, as you're getting all of these chapters, you also, as you say, you have the online community, but you're also you. You host live events. You encourage the chapters to get together in person, at least now that we can do that. You encourage the chapters to get together at least once a month. And where do you see this going? If you can gaze into your crystal ball, because I know you have one, where do you see this going in the next, let's say, two to five years? Where do you see SEM going?
Speaker 2:We're guesstimating right now at about three years we'll be at 10,000 members across North America. We're going to stay focused on North America for a while and continue to take market share there. We already have the Badass Business Summit, which is our big annual summit down here in Texas we will have so that one's open to the public. We'll start, probably next year or the year after, a SCN only conference as well to bring people from all over to together and really showcase our members and what they can do. So the Badass Business Summit is really centered around, you know, showcasing your personal brand, because you don't build a personal brand, you already have it but you do need to showcase it. You know and let people know you're there, because you know, in every B&I chapter I'm not bashing, it's a great organization, but every B&I chapter there's two B2B people in there that are going man, there's got to be a better way to do this, and that's where we come into play.
Speaker 1:And through all of this, through not even knowing you were going to be running a business that was in the networking space, really, you still have the podcast. Talk about the podcast and how it's evolved and the shift that's that's happened with it, as you've also built out SCN, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's crazy. So this is really my second big show that I run. So the first one was called Success Champions and it went to the stratosphere with downloads. It was. It was a lot of fun, but my heart wasn't into it at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:So we launched Growth Mode, and Growth Mode really started off as how can we help as many people as possible, and it's evolved a couple of times into this final iteration where it is now, and so now it's a live show that we air on YouTube, linkedin, facebook, and we bring one of the members of Success Champions Networking in and we put them in a hot seat, which is also one of the style of meetings we run.
Speaker 2:And you know they come with a business issue and they get myself Dr Stevie Dawn Carter, who's one of the top keynote speakers in the world. She'll do 90 stages this year alone, all paid and making ridiculous money from it. My brother, keith, who runs a background screening and drug testing company, also is one of our behind the scene guys for a lot of things in SCM. And Bernie DeSantis, who runs a large learning management company out of Michigan, and we'll sit across from our members, put them in a hot seat and help them work on their business live. So people can come in and watch, get advice, give advice in the chats and likes, and that entire idea has taken off. It's really, really fun watching the light bulbs going off of the people in the hot seat, but it's also fun getting the DMs from the people that are listening and watching, from the things they've learned from that. So so that's been a lot of fun as well.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it and I've been told that you want me in the hot seat.
Speaker 2:Of course I want to see you cry, so I mean.
Speaker 1:That's like making a good Canadian boy cry Right, just take a tablespoon of maple syrup. Everything will be fine After I've been in the hot seat with Donnie and company. So I feel like I could talk to you forever, donnie, or there's something for another episode down the line. But before I turn you loose on the world, I give the opportunity to just just share with folks. How can they get a hold of you? What? What would go to social media?
Speaker 2:post it say what you got out of this you know episode and tag me and Carl in it. If I see that tag, I promise you I will come comment on it, I'll come love on it, I will give you as much exposure as possible. If Carl sees it, I guarantee he'll comment on it. But if you take that screenshot and put it out there, it lets Carl know that he's putting out the episodes and content that you want to hear and there's value there. So, whether it's this episode, future episodes, past episodes, taking that screenshot means the world to him. For me. Find me on LinkedIn Donnie Bovine. So B as in boy O-I, b as in Victor I-N. Go visit one of the groups. If you sell B2B, just go to successchampionnetworkingcom, the live podcast. You can find me on YouTube, linkedin and Facebook. They're all broadcast there. But the biggest thing is take that screenshot, show Carl some love. Building an audience is one of the toughest things in the world, so if you show him a little bit of that love, it'll mean everything to him.
Speaker 1:Donnie, thank you. I need to carry you around in my back pocket everywhere I go for sure as a marketing agent to say Donnie and Church are now to help the audience.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you about Carl.
Speaker 1:We'll make sure all of the information is in the show notes for you to connect to SCN. And you know what? Donnie? He didn't say many swear words, I think he only said one. I did good. He didn't say many swear words, I think he only said one Only because he had to say badass business summit because that's what it's called which is a phenomenal, phenomenal event. So, Donnie, we'll make sure all of that is in the show notes, of course, Before I turn you loose, though, I'll give you the final thought.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing, guys. Everybody seems to get so close to finding success and then they go start over somewhere else. It's the funniest thing in the world to watch somebody go. You know what? I'm going to start a blog. I think a blog is going to be a thing that moves my company forward. They get in, they start writing. They're like man, this is a lot of work. Oh, I got to write another article. I got to do another one. You know what? It's not a blog. Let me do a book.
Speaker 2:I think a book is going to be the thing that takes my company to the next level. They start writing a book and they're like holy cow, this is a lot of content. I've got to do chapters. Oh wait, now I'm going to have to market this thing. Nah, I'm not going to do that. You know what? I'm going to be a speaker. I think a speaker is going to be the thing.
Speaker 2:So they decide I'm going to go get on stages. They my own stage. Oh crap, this is too much work. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start a podcast, because the podcast is going to be an answer. They start a podcast, they put out a few episodes and they're like oh my God, I got to edit this, I got to get guests, I got to market it. This is why you need a company like Carl's. But then they go. Man, this is too much work, holy cow, I'm not going to start learning. And in that learning they apply that learning and take another step forward. So quit starting over and when the going gets hard, realize you're in a video game and you just leveled up. And that level up. Now you're going to learn all the tools, the tricks and everything it takes to play at this level and just know when the next time it gets hard. You just hit the next level of the video game and the people who find success are those crazy enough to not throw in the towel when everybody else started over.
Speaker 1:I love it, donnie, fantastic. Thank you so much for being my guest today, my honor brother, thanks for having me on, carl, and thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production lead, dom Coriglio, our music guru, nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, stephanie Gaffour. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review, and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies.
Speaker 1:Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop us an email, askcarl at carlspeaksca. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes, and if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space because, after all, we're podcast solutions made simple. We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you.