The Rotary Club of Santa Monica heard from motivational speaker and podcast enthusiast Sam Crowley at its meeting last Friday.
Crowley covered many topics, ranging from self-help philosophy taught through personal anecdotes to marketing and podcasting, which, as it turns out, are very interconnected.
“Would anyone here like to learn how to get 100,000 people to listen to you free of charge for your business and brand,” said Crowley in his inimitable booming enthusiasm. Only a couple of hands shot up from the crowd. “Alright good,” Crowley said. “I’ll keep going any way.”
The moment, in a way, sort of mirrored his podcast beginnings: putting out a message because you have to, regardless of outcome. You have to “get the music out.”
Crowley began his presentation talking about his early-life plight, beginning with the speech impediment he overcame, to the job he hated and then quit to go on to lose $300,000 in a small business, only to end up back at the job he hated making 30 percent of his former salary.
“What I learned is that you can always make more money, but you can’t make more time though,” Crowley said. “You really have to embrace every moment. And that’s what I started doing – I started living in the moment. I started being present and I stopped looking in my rearview mirror. I realized that my windshield is so much bigger than the rearview mirror, so I think as a metaphor of life I think it is a good thing in life to think about what is ahead of you because it is so much more important than what is behind you.”
This is the optimism that began his journey in the podcasting and motivational speaking world, a start that all began with a question asked by his eldest daughter.
“Matalyn was the one who asked me, on a cold November evening in 2004,” Crowley began.“I came home from my corporate job and she said,‘daddy, is tomorrow Saturday?’ she was three years old at the time. She had just gone to bed and woke up when she heard me come in the door. I said, ‘Matalyn, tomorrow isn’t Saturday. I think it is Tuesday. You ask me that all the time. Why do you continue to ask me if tomorrow is Saturday?’ She responded,‘it is the only time that I get to see you.’”
That moment struck a chord with Crowley, who swiss replica watches has used that question his daughter innocently asked on that cold November night as motivation to start a podcast, pursue something he enjoyed, and allow more time with his family.
“When I first created the show it was absolutely horrible,” Crowley said, referring to his podcast, which launched his career as a motivational speaker. “I had no idea what I was doing, had no clue what I was going to talk about. I sounded like a bad DJ with a bad hangover.”
He persevered though, gaining the fuel needed to keep going from podcast subscribers who would email him about how much they enjoyed his show. Crowley has gone on to become the longest motivational speaker on iTunes’ podcasts, serving over 100,000 people who download his show monthly.
Crowley went on to talk about the usefulness of podcasting, not only as a way to find your voice, but also as a tool for businesses that want to market to niche crowds and specific demographics.
With podcasts, people voluntarily subscribe, as Crowley points out. This is a key part to the advertising: the people listening like you and trust you, so the things advertised on a podcast will naturally interest them.
