Marketing As Human Connection

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Dear listeners, you know like every business wants to be seen, heard, remembered. But somewhere between intention and action the message gets diluted. The audience feels distant, and the noise drowns out what matters. I mean marketing is not a manipulation, it is a kind of connection, I'd say, and uh when it is done right, it is one of the most human things that we can do. So hey day listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of Healthy Man Healthy Life. I'm your host, Alec, and this is where we look at everyday mental health through critical conversations, practical tools, and the choices that we make when no one is watching. Yeah. You heard it correctly when no one is watching. And today we are talking about marketing in business, not as a kind of tactic, but as a mindset. A way of showing up with clarity and with me today we have a very lovely guest. Please welcome Adam Torres. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much, Adam, for being here. And uh before we uh get deep dive into the discussion, I I'd definitely love to ask you, I mean, if you can share a bit more about your journey, about you with the listeners, it'll really be great.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So my my background is in finance, but I I've been in media now, and most people know me maybe for podcasting or being an interview host. I mean, I've been doing that for the last 10 years. I'm going on 7,000 interviews, Avik. I think that means I'm getting older, man. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

I feel like that's I feel like that's what that means.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

They are the so they tell me. So uh um, you know, 10 years in the business, um, and I've I've had the privilege of speaking with almost 7,000 people coming on the show. So when I think about like just that that road and that journey, and then I've had the privilege of being on um hundreds of shows being interviewed, and and excited to be here today. So, yeah, that that's me. A little bit about me and my background.

The Biggest Marketing Misconception

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much for being here, Adam. And uh so uh I definitely want to start with a bit of kind of I'd say the misconception. Like what do you think? It's the biggest misconception like people have about marketing, especially when they are just starting starting out or trying to grow something meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I think one of the big the big challenges people have is when they're trying to find specifically, especially um in the podcast world, is when they're trying to find their voice, like who they are, what they want to talk about, like what they want the audience to to get from them. I think the the like beginning, just this the beginning part of marketing and the beginning part of creating a show or creating anything really and any anything is uh is really trying to figure out your voice and like what kind of message you're trying to get across.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

That is very, very uh true part, I would say. And uh because it is interesting, uh like how often we mistake the volume for the value.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Especially nowadays, right? With AI, volume versus values has yet to be seized sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yeah, exactly. I mean, marketing can feel like uh shouting into a crowd, but what you're saying, I mean, is is is definitely more likely you know, learning to listen first and then speaking to what actually matters the most. So that is that is really low, yeah. Yeah, and and uh you you know, like I mean, when someone realizes that, how how do they begin to shift the way they think about their message or their audience?

Start Somewhere Then Stay Flexible

SPEAKER_02 4:03

I mean, what do you say?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

So the first thing I would say is you have to have a starting point, and you're not gonna know in the beginning. Like I tell people this all the time. So I'll I'll give you an example. We just recently launched a show for uh a host. His name is Brad Kissler, he's out of Orange County, and I told him it's called the Capital Effect, and I told him, and I I co-host this show with him, but he's the main host, so he's the main one. We we're building this show for him, and uh and I told him, I said, okay, we're gonna start with a certain concept, a certain idea. This is like our best work, this is what we can do, this is what we agree on, but we have to be open-minded enough to know that if we need to change down the line, it's okay. And I and then what I and I'll give you an example of how that happened in my own company, and this is where I learned this super valuable lesson, in my opinion, is um we started this company, so it was originally the first shows and the first content put out was under the the brand of money matters top tips. And um, we thought it was going to be a 100% financial platform because that was my background, finance, right? So we thought, oh, okay, like that that that makes a lot of sense. But what we found was um, well, first what happened was I um I was interviewing somebody and they said, you know, Adam, money matters, or but mission matters too. And I mean, it was like God just hit me in the stomach. I couldn't get it out of my head. And so, um, and I I kind of told the other co-founder, and before you know it, we were um there's a whole story behind that, but before we know it, you know it, we were we changed the entire company. So we stopped basically stopped and restarted a media company that was working. And we just for some context, I'd already done over 1,500 interviews under that brand. We published books under that brand. They're still out there, people get still listen to them, but and we basically and the social media was built, all of that stuff, and we just stopped cold and pivoted to a new platform, a new name, and a new something that was more aligned to our values. Sure, we care about money, like money, money's good. I'm not saying money's not good, but that that didn't tie to myself and the other co-founders named Shirag. It didn't tie to a purpose that we felt that we could do for life or that we'd want to like be here when we're no longer here, you know what I mean? Like for next generations, and we felt mission matters, like that was the that was the gold. So I use that story to tell Brad. I said, Hey, right now we're starting this show, it's called the Capital Effect. We have the marketing, everything else, every it's all perfect. But after we get a certain amount of episodes in, you kind of always want to be reevaluating it. Like, is does this still feel good, or is there something bigger that maybe this should be? And so that's the that's the challenge, I think. Sometimes is is recognizing that. And if you see it, if you get that sign, then then actually like follow through with that change that you know you need to make instead of holding on to what you got.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

That's true. Wow. And and like where do you think that the disconnect comes from? Like the gap between what business thinks people want and what people are actually

Build By Listening For Demand

SPEAKER_02 7:07

looking for. I mean, let me say I I believe there'll be a lot of confusion and a lot of misunderstanding also comes in between. So I mean, what do you think on that?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, uh first off, on the product side of things, um, I I learned pretty we don't at my company we don't have too many misses. And the reason why we don't have too many misses is because we we we we create things that people want, and it's not because we're and and it's kind of so I'll give you an example. So one um one of our things that we've done for many years is we do a co-author book series, and that's where we bring together a bunch of entrepreneurs, a bunch of people together, and then they they you know they all put in a chapter in a book and it's called an anthology. Um, and then we we published that. Why did we do that? Because people were looking to publish books and they were asking us, could they help us? I wrote my first book and I published it, and I thought it was hilarious because people then started asking me to help them publish a book, and at this time I was in finance, so I wasn't I didn't have a media company or anything like that. I'm like, what are you crazy? Go to a book publisher. I don't know, I'm a financial advisor, you know? Like, you want me to help you publish a book? That's crazy. Um, but but I did it and I figured it out, and then we um, and that's kind of the well, not kind of that's the seat of where this started. Same thing with the podcast when we started launching podcast shows. Um, we did that because people were coming on the show and they just they just had an experience where they're like, Wow, how are you guys doing that, or how is this happening? How is that? And then before you know it, uh uh someone has asked us, Hey, can you help us do that? And I'm like, No. And then I thought about it, I'm like, Well, wait a minute, we can we have some staff with some bench time, we could probably do that. But just to you know, to be honest, we don't offer that service and we haven't done it for other people, we did it for ourselves, and then you know, that first those first couple of clients they understood, and there were some bumps a little bit here and there, whatever. But we learned and uh got better, and now we've launched over 250 shows. So that all came from listening, though. I didn't like start this and be like, Oh, I got this great product, like that's we it's gonna be great for the market, or I have this for that. No, I didn't do that. I'm not that creative, Avic. Some people are, I'm not. I just listen. I'm like, if enough people ask me for something, if we can deliver it and it's gonna be a quality and it's gonna be on brand for what we do in our standards, then we do it.

Authenticity Beats Copying Winners

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Like obviously, and there's something but but if we talk about the daily life, like how does this show up in everyday life or the everyday business life, I'd say um that tension between staying authentic and also needing to grow to be visible to sell all those things, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Once you misstep once or twice, it doesn't feel good. And if it doesn't feel good, you're probably not gonna make that same mistake again. So it's like a kid, you know, putting their their finger in a whatever the light socket or something, you know, getting electrocuted. They're probably you do that once, you touch the hot stove once, you're probably never gonna touch that hot stove again, right? So I can tell you when I first started like in this business, like I didn't know what I was doing. I remember seeing some other people in their content, and I was like, oh, this person is a financial guy, like I'm a financial guy. This person is successful creating content like this. Maybe I should make the same kind of content. And that content, it wasn't like bad or misleading or anything. It just wasn't like my the way that I do things, it wasn't the way I talk, it wasn't the way that my normal like that person was maybe a little bit more salesy, a little bit more in your face, talked a little faster, had a little bit of different style. And I thought to be successful in that space, I had to like like emulate that person or kind of like mimic them, not let not copy them, but do like, oh, this person does this, I should do that. And then I did that, and the audience didn't really respond and it didn't feel good. And when I looked at the videos or I looked at the content, I'm like, eh, that doesn't like feel like me. And so once so now, because I've made that mistake in the past, now it's pretty easy for me because I don't um I just don't do things that are off brand because I know that even if I get a little win right now, like long term, it's not it's not gonna be sustainable. Number one, and number two, it's breaking the trust with your audience. So I'll just give you an example. Um let's say, okay, you know, I was shopping this week and I bought some Legos, right? Great. I and I by the way, I like Legos, but do I am I like a Lego fanatic? No, I'm not a Lego fanatic. I don't sit there and play with Legos and build things, which no disrespect to anybody else that does, by the way. I think there's some amazing artists out there that use Legos and all sorts of stuff. But if tomorrow I was to be like, you know what, there's a big market in Legos, let's launch a Lego podcast and let's let's launch a Lego YouTube channel. You know what the worst thing ever would be, Avic is that that was successful. Because now I'm stuck doing Legos and I don't want to do Legos. So the worst thing ever would be that that is successful and that that grows faster or bigger than what I currently do, which is interview people and Mission Matters podcasts and my other shows. So if that because then what happens is that's gonna take away from everything else I do, number one, but number two, I might have created my own prison um through the success of creating something that I didn't even want to do in the first place, or I had no business doing. So there's different ways to be unsuccessful, right? Not just monetarily.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Exactly. Yeah. That is interesting. I mean, yeah, and and so so like what do I mean, what does that look like in practice? Like staying true to yourself, while you're also adapting what the market or the audience needs.

Reps Build Skill And Confidence

SPEAKER_01 12:53

The first thing is is being realistic with yourself and your current capabilities. So in the beginning, I started out as the world's worst podcaster. Now, and you might not you might laugh and be like, Yeah, whatever, you're being humble, you're being nice. No, I was so bad in the beginning that I I didn't even use my real name. I was so scared people would find out it was me because I sounded so terrible. I didn't do my first 300 episodes, they weren't even edited. I couldn't stand to listen to them. I didn't want anybody to really hear them. I just put them out. Like, I didn't want to spend any money on this. I was like, no, whatever. My first 1500 episodes, so 1500 were audio only. Do you know why? It was because um, if you turn on a camera, put me on video, I forgot to I forgot my name, I couldn't even do an opening. Like, like so. If anybody's watching this, and if you can get on a zoom and if you can say your name and record it, hang out with your friend or whatever else, or interview somebody, then you're already 10 times better than I was in the beginning. Because in the beginning, if you put on a camera, I couldn't even say my name. I get stage fright like crazy. Then it my first three thousand after 3,000 interviews, then I did my first in-person interview where I interviewed somebody and I was so bad I forgot to do the opening. I just started talking, and then afterwards, that because the director didn't want to embarrass me in front of the like the guest, the director kind of whispered in my ear, they said, Hey Adam, are you gonna do any intros or outros or anything else? Like, I literally just started talking to him, like, record, okay, and I just started having a conversation, and I then I was like, Oh, wait a minute, yeah, we're recording episodes. I didn't do my first in-person like live in front of a live audience until after 5,000 interviews. And so, why? And and again, and here's how funny it is I forgot to do the opening again, and this time there's a live audience, so I'm over here doing the interview, everything else. Then it then the stage person comes up, like, hey Adam, are you gonna do any of your intros or this, that? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I forgot again. Shit, shoot. So I was true to myself because but I noticed this though, I didn't quit, like I pushed myself, and I and I and I always tried to get to that next level, so it wasn't that I like if I I was like when I was in the beginning, I'm like, I'm not always gonna be this bad. If I keep on doing interviews, I gotta get better at some point. Like, I mean, something. And and as I saw and I got those confidences for those other, like little by little to be able to do different things, like I got better. And I just recently, actually, July 7th was a big, big day. We did our first um uh Las Vegas live show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, which was absolutely amazing, beautiful casino, beautiful, beautiful. I did 27 interviews in one day in front of a live audience, and they were coming in and out, and it was absolutely amazing. So that that's now another level um that I just recently, and that's after I'm almost at 7,000 interviews right now, or maybe a little approaching 7,000 interviews. So that is another level. So when I when you say what does it look like true to be true to yourself day to day, you have to execute. Notice those numbers kept going, right? They kept rising and they weren't small numbers. It wasn't like, oh, I did two interviews, right? Like, no, those are big numbers, so you have to be like executing and actually doing the work, number one, and then you got to be able to push yourself a little bit, you know, to get to know that you can get better. If I was to start off with an opportunity to to perform at the Bellagio and I'm in the beginning of my career, that would have been devastating. I would have been terrible, and that would I probably would have quit, right? That would have been too much and that would have been too much opportunity too fast that I wasn't ready for.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

That's interesting, yeah, yeah. Uh also, I mean, I I I feel uh while we are talking about this.

Handling Flops And Daily Disappointment

SPEAKER_02 16:52

We should also talk about the setbacks, right? So uh the campaigns that flop, the messages that do not land, the silence after you push it.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

That's every day. That's part of the business. That every single day that happens, a campaign of this or that.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Um right now I looked at this this uh email newsletter we just sent out. So and I'm like, oh man, our open rate was below what we thought it'd be. We had it like it was it's a great newsletter. I'm like, man, did we send it an off day? Was it a holiday? Whatever, whatever. Why what you know what I mean? Like it was below what we expected. So every single day you deal with disappointment. And um, but uh the the cool part about this particular business, and I can't say this for every business, but I think it's it goes for most businesses. But specifically when you're creating content, is that you always got another shot to put out another video or to send another newsletter or to do something else. Like, so that's like that's the that's the good thing about it, and then media specifically compounds over time, so even bad interviews. I'm not saying that I'm probably mess up an interview, um I'll mess one up later on today. Who knows? I don't know, like mess up an an intro. I do a lot of live stuff too. So live is live, right? So if I butcher the introduction, if I say the person's name wrong, if I do this, that's already out there, that's live, right? So um, so you just kind of get used to failing, and you just come back to it and you just do it again, you do it again, you do it again. Like that's the key. And when I was in finance, by the way, so to relate it to a different type of business, when I was in finance, which was almost 14 years, you know, you it's it's very similar from the standpoint of you can't control just just like in um in media, you can't control public perception 100%, you can't control what people are gonna do 100%. Well, in finance, what you can't control is the market. The market, so you've if the market is crashing, if a lot of other things you could have did your you could have done your job right, you could have like had the perfect thought process, you could have had everything else, but um, like Mike Tyson says, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Exactly. There you go. So that happens, then people can get punched in the face in business all the time. And then that plan boy, whoo, doesn't feel as good as he thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Exactly, exactly. I mean uh resilience in marketing, uh, it's like resilience in life. I mean, it's it is not about being the full at roof, it is kind of being willing to learn and to strike again and again. Uh knowing that failure is obviously a part of the process and not that uh the proof that you could you I mean you should stop. But yeah, I mean that is um that is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing that.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

And yeah, I uh I see it. And then for the and the people listening, and the reason why I come on shows like this, just so you know, is I want people to hear, um I want people to hear about the bad stuff so that they can realize, like, okay, if this guy can do this, if he can build a business from creating content, if he can do this, if he was so bad that he he couldn't even say his name on a show after that many interviews, like I want them to listen to this, be like, I could do that, like that's easy. Because in reality, the only thing I've done really is I might be a little bit further ahead than some other people. That's all I've been doing. I've been podcasting for for going on 10 years now. I've been in the business, and but if you look at other people, if you're just starting, if you're maybe a year in your into the journey or two years or something, if you're not getting the what you expected like out of this yet, I'm just telling you, people maybe didn't even care that I had a show until after five or six years. Because also for the for the record, they kind of shouldn't care. They gotta know that you're that you're serious, like it's worth their time. Like it, like, think about this for a moment. If somebody's listening to your show, and let's just say it's a half an hour show, right? Um, that's 30 minutes that they spent listening to your show instead of watching Netflix or maybe a movie or something, or a piece of a movie, or part of a movie that cost $100 million or billion dollars to make. Instead of that, they're listening to your show. Like that's a privilege. So if you're out there and you're listening to this and you have, you know, you're like, oh, I only got 10 downloads. Well, 10 downloads times, you know, 30 minutes, that's uh that's 300 minutes of somebody's life you have. It's amazing, it's such an amazing thing to consider.

Study The Greats And Get The Book

SPEAKER_02 21:33

So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, uh what will you give?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

I'd say when it relates to getting content or or creating content, I would say, or marketing in general, I would say to do to to follow in the steps of people that are where you want to be. Like there's a roadmap out there for everything. Like in my case, what I want to be is I want to be one of the top hosts in the world. So, what do I study and what do I what do I do? I read books on people like Johnny Carson or Larry King or Oprah or Howard Stern. Like, I read all the books on all the different entertainers, Flip Wilson, all of the people that have been behind a microphone and have entertained audiences for in Johnny Carson's case, 30 years, or in Bob Hope's case, what for like 70 or 80 years, something like that. He was doing it forever. So it that's what I do, but it but that's my particular path on based off of my chosen profession. But if you're listening to this and you're you have a social media marketing agency or you have uh whatever the company is, you're in finance, like there's other people that have done it. So you should at the very least, you know, know what they did, maybe maybe figure out how they did it so you can reverse engineer your own version of your own life that's gonna make sense for you.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Exactly. Exactly. And um, if listeners want to connect with you, how can they connect?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Super simple. Instagram, ask Adam Torres on Instagram. If you go on there, click on the link. Um, you're gonna you can download my my book completely free, the number onebillionpodcast.com. So again, it's called 1billionpodcast.com, or uh that the website, excuse me, is onebillionpodcast.com. But if you click on there, it's one billion podcasts, the future of all media. See Avic, you said what when's the last time you messed up? I just messed up just now my call to action, man. I'm over here giving websites.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I said go to Instagram, fast at them chores, click on the link, you can download the book.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Exactly, exactly. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll make your life easier. So I'll put all the links, details, everything into these show notes for your easy reference. And um I'll just say, like, you know, like um marketing is not just about being the loudest, it is all about being the clearest, the most human, the one who cares enough to listen first. Right. Um and Adam It's really great. Thank you so much for sharing this. I mean it's really really helpful. It was really fun as well having a conversation with you. I mean, it is really great, I'd say. And uh for all the listeners, like I mean, you know, like thank you so much for being here today. And um you are building something, uh growing something, or just trying to figure it out like how to show up more honestly in your work. And just remember this, like your message matters and the way you deliver it actually matters the most. And the people who need to hear it are out there already just waiting for someone who sounds like you're right. Take care of your mind, take care of your work, and uh I'll just see you in the next one. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Thank you, Avicenne.