AP 1154: Where Are They Now: Luis Ryan Diaz from Podcast Domination

AP 1154: Where Are They Now: Luis Ryan Diaz from Podcast Domination

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 1154 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a Where Are They Now? episode because we've already interviewed and have coached the person who's going to be coming back on the show today to give us an update on how things have been going. We recently interviewed this person back in September of 2018. That was back in episode 1033, and the title of that episode was "My Profits Are Being Eaten: How Do I Scale But Stay Profitable?" We're just going to see just how profitable Luis is today.

We're talking with none other than Luis Ryan Diaz from PodcastDomination.co. That's his agency. They help people launch and start and manage podcasts, and you can also find him at LuisRyan.com. That's LuisRyan.com. And let's catch up and see how he's doing. Here we go.

Luis, welcome back to AskPat 2.0. Thanks for coming in again.

Luis Ryan Diaz:
Pat, thanks for having me.

Pat:
I'm excited to chat and catch up. As you know, we are doing these series of Where Are They Now? videos. You are in episode 1033. We talked a little bit about scaling up but staying profitable, especially as your business continued to grow, and obviously we've all been dealing with some craziness this year. I'm just excited to hear and see how things have faired out. So I'll just ask, what's been going on? How are things going lately?

Luis:
Yeah, it's been an interesting season, Pat. But since we left off on that last episode, lots has changed. So I think the advice you gave me was really profound and really just understanding how to delegate and getting a lot of stuff off my plate, and understand it's not the how, for me, it's the who. It's like who can do it better than me and get that off my plate? So kind of a snapshot revenue wise, I would say I think we were at like $7000 or $8000 a month back then. We're doing now, $20, $21,000 a month in revenue. There was a lot of changes over that time that really helped make that shift. Like you were saying, COVID's been kind of an interesting time right now.

I think this quarter has been our most ... Q3 was our most profitable quarter ever, and our profit margins were at 45 percent. One of the things I think this year that made the switch was really installing coaching programs into our business and courses, which obviously in a service based business - what we're at primarily with our agency - there's a smaller profit margin. So adding our kind of hybrid coaching programs that we do now has really helped us become more profitable, even during this pandemic. So that's been a big change.

Pat:
I remember we talked about that, having the ability to offer more and higher tiered price items for your audience, and that's great. I'm curious, from 7K to now essentially 300 percent more, how important has delegating been in that, and what kinds of things did you delegate?

Luis:
Yeah. So one of the biggest things I think was getting on calls with clients. There's always lots of work that comes out of that. There's things to do, people to reach out to, things to follow up on. Now one of the simple things we've done is I have a team member that comes on those calls with me, and they do all the note taking and they do all the followup actions. So I'm not spending an extra 30 to 35 minutes after the call doing all the followup and all that other stuff.

Another thing has been our social media. So I have a full-time executive assistant who goes in does all my postings. Like today's my content day. So I'm going to try to make a month's worth of content, put it into a Google Doc, and then they create an email and a Facebook post, maybe even a podcast out of that. Those kind of things are the big, big needle movers for us that's helped us free up a lot of time for me personally.

Pat:
Yeah, that's awesome. Was it easy for you to hire out? Because for a lot of people who've been here on the show before and just people that I know, sometimes delegation, especially for things that you have done yourself can be very difficult because you might be worried about quality. What have you done to ensure it fits properly into your business?

Luis:
Yeah. So I mean, me, I'm a big student of mentors. I'm a product of my mentors. So I've invested heavily in my own education through masterminds, like Greg Hickman. I know you're familiar with Greg Hickman.

Pat:
Yeah, yeah.

Luis:
I've worked with Greg to help me with a lot of this stuff and helped me build out my program. I think it was taking what was already proven systems for my mentors and just using their systems and kind of refining it a bit more. Because I, like everyone else, I had problems hiring. I've had my fair share of bad hires. That's for sure.

Pat:
We all have.

Luis:
Yeah. So working past that stuff and really drilling down to, "Here's the system that they've used, let me plug that in and just find the right person." It's trial and error I think, really, and just taking proven systems from other people have been the biggest thing. Not trying to create my own.

Pat:
That's cool. I love that. So there's already a proven path, a blueprint that you can kind of just inject into your own business. That's smart. What has it been like to serve your audience with higher tiered price items? How did you approach that? How did you get comfortable with that? Did you do any validation, or did you kind of have an idea of what might be useful for them? Take me through your head in terms of the higher priced items, which obviously can lead to higher profits, but also if you don't approach it correctly, it could lead to a lot more stress, overwhelm, and a bunch of other things like that.

Luis:
Yeah. One of the biggest things I think that helped me was understanding, hey, it doesn't have to be perfect the first time, and you should always start with a beta program. So a beta program is like, whenever we ... launching a new program here in a couple months, and it's going to be a beta test of 10 people. That way we can test the price point out. We can test out what works and what just flat out doesn't.

I'd say the other thing too is getting on a lot of calls. A lot of free calls with people who are prospects or reviewing my old sales calls and saying, "What's the commonality, what are the things that everyone's struggling with, and can I create a product around this?" And then reach back out to them and see if they're interested in joining the beta. So yeah, a lot of call volume and a lot of beta tests.

Pat:
For higher price items as well, that call is gonna be quite necessary to just establish that relationship, build some trust, as opposed to more of a lower tiered item. Do you have any tips for anybody who wants to offer higher tier priced items who knows they probably need to get on a call but have never done like a sales call before? What's your approach for when you get on the phone with somebody who potentially could be a customer for one of your programs or a beta?

Luis:
Yeah. I think one of the things I did easy on was realizing it doesn't have to be a one-call close. It usually should be a two-call close for higher tier stuff because people just need more time to do their due diligence. They need to see some more details. They need to have more assurance and trust in the process. So for me, two-call closing and doing a two-call process and establishing that up front. Like, "Hey, we're going to figure out if you're a fit, and then I'm going to come back with details and kind of give you a really clear structure what this would look like and then we can move forward." That's helped me tremendously because trying to get all that done in one call, it's very, very ... For me, it was really challenging.

Pat:
I would imagine there's a lot of pressure too. "Oh no, at the end, I got to pitch this thing. We just got to know each other." So I love the idea of time in between for a person to sort of noodle on it a little bit. Do you do any value-providing during those calls? Do you actually coach at all, or do you kind of like, "No, you'll have to get the program to learn those things," kind of ... I'm just curious what's talked about.

Luis:
It's a great question, Pat. I think the things I've invested in heavily on those calls if I look back, they've given me some amazing feedback right there on the call, and it's kind of the reason why I bought. Yeah. Some of the biggest masterminds I've been in have been through somebody giving me great feedback and advice on the call. And then I was like, "Okay. I need to learn more about this." So the first call's always set up as almost like a consult. You're understanding the problems and giving them feedback. I'm like, "Well, here's the things I would do if I was in your shoes and here's how I'd go about it."

Then obviously they have the opportunity to go out and try and execute on their own. But it's hard to go it on your own. So that first call's always set up to be a consult and uncovering the underlying issues and problems. And then the second call is coming together and putting together like a game plan. Which is essentially the beta, but you're kind of like positioning it in their best light and their best interest.

Pat:
After the conversation, the second call, and this person's interested. They're like, "Okay. I'm in. Tell me where to go." Where do you tell them where to go after the, "Okay. You're in. Cool. Here's what happens next."

Luis:
Right.

Pat:
What happens next? I've always been curious. I've never done sales calls kind of like that before.

Luis:
Yeah. So one of the biggest mistakes I think I made early on was making a sales page for it and just realizing no, you can just kind of take it through PayPal or whatever is easiest for you and just getting them going right now. Not trying to be perfect out the gate I think is big and realizing you don't need fancy funnels or email sequences and webinars to get going.

Pat:
If you were to send them to a sales page, I can almost imagine them talking them out of the sale perhaps because the sales page might reveal certain things that gets a person to think or just ... You want to send them right to the checkout basically at that point.

Luis:
Yeah. Yeah. The sales call for me nowadays is the ... That's the sales page. That's doing the closing and getting them reassured, and then it's like, "Okay, great. Next step's let's just get you going." Just kind of get the ball rolling with them.

Pat:
Perfect. That's super helpful. You said you had an upcoming offering that you're going to do beta for. What's this program about and just tell us a little bit about it.

Luis:
Yeah. For me, we get a lot of people who have podcasts already that want to grow, and honestly, that's a huge need in the market. I know, Pat, you help a lot of people with this as well, and there's tons of people out there who need help with it. So we're kind of focusing on using paid acquisition for growing a podcast and paid strategy because organic is great but it's a slow roll.

Pat:
It is.

Luis:
So we're really trying to focus on helping people with paid ads or paid ads to grow the podcast following. That would be the beta, but there's still a lot of testing for that that we want to do and we're excited for that.

Pat:
There maybe some people listening who might be interested in learning more about that. Where should they go or where can they get more info?

Luis:
PodcastDomination.co is probably the best place. There's plenty of ways to connect there. So that's the best place to go.

Pat:
Awesome. What are some of the current struggles, growing pains if you will, that you might be having right now? There's always sort, of once you reach a certain milestone, you're like, "Yay." And then, "Oh my gosh. There's new challenges." This happens in parenting. This happens in business. What are some of the new challenges that you're facing currently?

Luis:
Yeah. So for us definitely I think we have the agency and we have a coaching business. So trying to pull myself more out of the agency side. We've got a great team that does it now and they're rockstars. But still, I'm involved in it a little bit too much I feel in the launching of new shows, consulting. So really trying to focus on the coaching side of things and coaching my team now more too, that way they can be decision makers and not have to wait or just kind of be more proactive.

Pat:
I love that. Tell me why that's important to you to have them take some responsibility?

Luis:
Yeah. I find a lot of times in a lot of big podcast launches and things like that require ... You need to have a structure and a framework to go about, but then you need to have a driver. Someone who's thinking, "What's the next steps? What's the next steps? What are we going to need to get them ready for?" That's always been me.

So training my team underneath me to understand what are those next steps, and how can they be proactive and make sure the person we're working with is supported and they know exactly what they need to get ready for, or deliver to us, so we can create their podcast. That's a big one. So I don't have to worry about that because it's kind of like a thing in my head like, "Did they get that right? Are they thinking about that? Do they know they need to do this next?" And we've got SOPs, but it's like, I find there's always nuances. It teaches you what to do, but the SOP doesn't teach you how to think.

Pat:
Right. That's such a good quote. Speaking of SOPs, podcasting is changing all the time. It's rapidly changing. There's new platforms coming out, and I'm sure that over time and maybe even each week or each month there's new things that need to be added to the SOP. New platforms to post on whatever. How do you manage the ever-changing environment of podcasting with relation to your team and SOPs and your systems?

Luis:
Great question because you're right, it changes like every one or two months, there's a new platform or new update. So in regards to SOPs, every month we have it in place it's like, as our managers for our shows, they go in and update the SOPs. So it's part of their job to ... Because even with clients, their needs change or they want tweaks, and it has to be reflected in the SOPs. So even this morning we were on a call and we were talking about, "Hey, every month we need to make sure we're changing these and updating them."

With regards to updating, for example, like Amazon Music just came out with their new platform. Making sure everyone's on there. I usually am the one directing those changes because I'm the one on my team who's studying, who's a podcast nerd and keeps up with this stuff. So I usually direct those changes, make an SOP or a Loom video on it, and then I will give it to them to actually implement. And then we check in at the end of the week or end of the month and make sure those things have been done. So yeah. You're right. It's a big thing about podcasting, it's always changing.

Pat:
That's cool. And Loom is a great tool for communication within team or even your clients. Super easy to set up. What are some other tools that you use in your agency specifically that have been massively helpful to you?

Luis:
Yeah. It's a great question. So Trello is for workflow, for podcast workflow. That's what we use, we love. However, we just started using Asana for just like tasks and things that are just not workflow related but still need to get done. So we kind of separated our workflow into those two management tools. Those are two big ones. And then outside of that, I would say Loom's another big one. And then for podcast pitching, I've started using Bonjoro, which I kind of like Loom but it's more for email. To send video pitches and video introductions, I'll use Bonjoro to do that. So that's been a really cool tool we've used.

Pat:
Do you use Slack for communication or any other tools?

Luis:
I have. Slack is a little tricky because you can easily ... I got into the bad habit of giving people tasks in there, and there's no way to track tasks. It'll just get lost in the feed. And I'm like, "What happened to that thing?"

Pat:
And it's Asana ... coming in.

Luis:
Yeah, exactly. That's why we ... because I made a bad mistake with that the last couple months.

Pat:
Dude, it's all good. Man, we have to get through these mistakes to grow, and you're growing really, really well now. Congrats on the growth and the success. For those who are at the sort of four-figure mark right now, what would be the best piece of advice that you could offer, potentially you offering yourself this advice a year or two ago, what would you say?

Luis:
Yeah. I think the biggest thing I did was get in the right environments, masterminds, because that just opened me up to more opportunities, more clients, more just easy referrals. So 90 or 80 percent of your time should be focused on marketing and sales. If you can master those two skills, then it'll cover up a lot of mistakes you make along the way that you can fix later. So yeah, I'd say focusing 80 percent of your time on marketing and sales, and then the rest or a little bit more on delivery of the product is where you should focus.

Pat:
That's huge. And have your team do a lot of that for you as well of course.

Luis:
Exactly. Yeah.

Pat:
Luis, dude, this is awesome. Thank you so much for the quick update, and congrats on the growth and the continued growth, especially through these tough times that we're all having in 2020. Where can people go one more time to check out your services?

Luis:
PodcastDomination.co. Not dot com. PodcastDomination.co is probably the best place.

Pat:
Perfect. Thanks so much, man. Appreciate it.

Luis:
Thanks so much, Pat.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that update. And in fact, one thing that you can look forward to this year is that we're going to bring a Where Are They Now? episode here on the podcast every single month. Instead of you having to wait until November or December to get all of it, we're going to just keep those coming. Just like they do in the Shark Tank because to me those are some of the most inspiring things.

And my team and I, we agreed, we want to bring these things ahead and share some inspiration because we've had coaching calls with hundreds of people here. We'd love to bring those things forward to see, "Well, how is everybody doing?" And this would hopefully encourage those who we do coach in real time here the ability to understand that hey, they're going to come back most likely at some point and give us an update on how things are. So buckle up because we got a fun, fun ride here in 2021 here on AskPat.

Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already. And again, Luis, thank you so much for coming on and sharing us an update. And congrats on the revenue growth and the business. Just professionalism that's coming along with it. And of course a lot of things happen from trial and error, and you've been making massive moves. And I cannot wait to see where you go from here. So LuisRyan.com or PodcastDomination.co if you'd like to check out his agency. And well done, my friend. Well done.

Now like I said, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any more of these episodes coming your way, not just the Where Are They Now? Episodes but the coaching calls like the ones we're going to do next week and the week after that and the week after that with an entrepreneur just like you.

And hey, if you'd like to potentially get interviewed here and coached on the show from me too, all you have to do is - guess what - go to AskPat.com and you can fill out that application there. And you'll have a chance for us to reach back out to you and make things happen.

So hey, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Keep up the great work. Thank you all so much for the amazing reviews, and until next time, see you. Cheers. And as always, Team Flynn for the win.