The Trading Post

The Long Game: Why Your Podcast Is Just Like Jeff Bezos' Early Days

• Trader Stu • Season 3 • Episode 3

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The Trading Post podcast explores how Jeff Bezos's Amazon business principles can be applied to successful podcasting strategies. Drawing parallels between Bezos's customer obsession approach and podcast audience engagement, this episode reveals how consistency, patience, and innovation drive growth in both realms.

• Comparing the evolution of SEO to the rising importance of podcasting for business promotion
• Amazon's "customer obsession" philosophy and how it translates to treating podcast listeners
• The critical importance of consistency in publishing schedule for sustainable podcast growth
• Why audio podcasting works better than video for reaching busy B2B audiences
• How trade associations function as business growth tools through bartering and networking
• Testing different podcast formats, including a seasonal approach to content organization
• Recognizing podcasting as a long-term investment with indirect business benefits beyond direct monetization
• Using podcasts to explain complex business concepts like barter and trade associations

Be sure to subscribe, leave feedback if you can, and join us next time as we continue exploring innovative business promotion strategies.


“Whistles In The West” was written, recorded, and produced by Durracell, exclusively for use with Trader Stu’s platform, always rocking the cowboy hat. The track is protected under U.S. Copyright rights to use have been granted specifically to Trader Stu for content and promotional use related to his brand and media presence.

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The thoughts and views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and do not reflect the official policy or position of Metro Trading Association. Although the host is an employee of Metro Trading, this podcast is intended to educate entrepreneurs on the benefits of professional trading, regardless of their location. Additionally, the host reviews various pieces of camping gear due to the association of trade, barter, and prepping.

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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Trading Post with Trader Stu, and I just wanted to go over a couple of things with a article that I read. I don't know if you've ever heard of Gary Jones, but I guess you probably wouldn't, because you don't really care unless you're doing podcasts, which actually that's what this is all about. It's correlating podcasting to Bezos and Amazon and using his methods into a podcast. So I'm going to give him credit, gary Jones on LinkedIn. It's just an article that he sent out and I was like man, I got to talk about this on the podcast, because this is exactly what this season is all about, which is kind of like the experience of podcasting for business promotion and growth.

Speaker 1:

Because you know, like I said, seo I've said that for a while now SEO is kind of, I guess, a dying thing a little bit, unless you're using it for AI. Ai still looks for certain keywords, I guess. But you know, like I said before, when I do searches now I'm using Copilot or Perplexity, or even if you just use Google or even Bing, just on the main, you search for something. You're not pulling up any more links to websites to get your information. You're getting the synopsis, quick shot snapshot of all the information on those and it puts it all in one paragraph, all the information on those, and it puts it all in one paragraph and usually you just read that. It's satisfying enough. You don't go any further unless you're really into the what do you call it? The, I guess information at hand and you want to dive a bit further, then maybe you might scroll down and then look through all the articles and podcasts or webpages and blogs and Reddit and LinkedIn or whatever, or websites for businesses, and maybe you'll get information that way, or SEO that way if you're shopping or doing shopping stuff. But really, from what I've heard from other people is that they are concentrating on other things now other than SEO and spending hours and hours and hours doing that. So real quick then not real quick. I guess we've got a few minutes.

Speaker 1:

So everyone, of course, jeff Bezos today. It just happened to be not planned. I just read the article this morning. Is that? I guess he launched or is launching or has launched or I don't know the first all-female crew for Jeff. What is that? Blue Horizons or Blue something or other for his rockets, anyway, for the all female crew. So kind of fitting that we're talking about this because he's always doing something different and trying different things, and I guess this is one of them. So, of course, and you all know about his success with Amazon, so I like to correlate that into podcasting, if that's a possibility, we'll see he had a long-term vision for Amazon since the beginning.

Speaker 1:

I forgot what he originally called it, but basically his boss told me it was crazy to sell books online and that was stupid and actually used books online and he started out of his garage. You know the whole story and so now you can pretty much buy anything you want on it on Amazon and he completely transformed e-commerce, uh, to get any kind of customer satisfaction, because they're looking for I hate to say this, but two day shipping or whatever. I guess there are certain areas are using drones for same day shipping or our shipping, but I gotta be honest, I'm in Metro Detroit and I used to be able to rely on that, uh, amazon prime today and it's not happening anymore Like it used to. I almost feel like it's the like. Remember ATMs when they were free? I know you got certain banks and credit unions that'll reimburse you the fee if you get charged I do at certain ATMs. My credit union does reimburse me whatever the fee is. But I remember back in the day, like geez, back in 2000, 2001 or something like that, I had spring break and destined to Florida. I think I paid 20 bucks once to get out money. So then of course you know you got to make it worth your while and pull out more than 100 because otherwise you're paying 20% to get your own money out of the ATM. It's crazy, but back in the day it was free. And now, like you're correlating that with the two-day prime and it's not happening anymore and people are starting to, I guess, accept it and honestly, my wife and I are looking at not renewing the prime and subscription because it's just not like what it used to be. We're getting this cheap like Chinese-made stuff that is like false advertisement, like the clothes are. I bought this cool jacket that looked like it was crushed leather or something like that.

Speaker 1:

At any rate, jeff Bezos was originally really into the customer service. He was like customer obsession is what he called it, and it transferred that pretty well. As you can already know, he's many times over a billionaire. So the strategies I hope to align with the Trading Post podcast by helping the entrepreneurs or business owners, whatever you want to call, understand barter, networking and all the trade associations. Because, like I said, we're all over the not we, as in the company I work for, metro Trading but there's trade associations multiple per state in most cases, especially in metropolitan areas. So Bezos was quoted by his famous line. He says we see our customers as invited guests to a party and we are the hosts. So you know, of course that would transfer into a podcast because we're the host and I hope that the customers are invited to a party which is listening to a podcast. It might be beneficial for them as well. So you know, right now, with everything going on in the world AI and Internet and trade, all the trade problems that's going on, or no problems or success, I guess we'll find out Right.

Speaker 1:

But everyone's looking for more creative solutions, for example, like barter that shapes their business and even their content, depending on what they're into Selling ad space marketingants do great with barter. So that's one of the great things with doing something like a podcast or owning the business and using a podcast to leverage your restaurant or marketing is that you can be on more of a personal level, especially if you're trying to get outside of your immediate area, because people buy from people who they know like and trust right. So there's that, and if you're a podcaster, you're probably not a fly by night kind of snake oil salesman. You are going to be in it to win it because you are putting yourself out there and, uh, it's, it's time consuming and, uh, very in-depth. Uh, way of doing business or marketing yourself is to do a podcast or radio show or whatever. Uh, youtube even right, so same thing, kind of.

Speaker 1:

But and that's the other thing I was going to talk about too is that, uh, with the podcasting, everyone you know know it's a long game. So you have to be patient. Basil Steven says you have to emphasize on patience, perseverance and building Amazon, and it doesn't happen overnight and most people all they see is success and they just see like, oh yeah, jeff's a multibillionaire, but you don't know those sleepless nights and the fighting you probably had with the wife or whatever you know divorce now. So I'm sure there was. But um and uh, everyone always sees the end. You don't see that? He was told he was an idiot because he's got a real job and why would he ever want to start selling online used books. That's crazy, but you know he was like screw that, I'm going to do it anyways to see what happens, why not?

Speaker 1:

And one thing with working like burning the midnight oil, as they call it, is the consistency is key. I've noticed already. I tried an experiment last week and if you don't know about Buzzsprout but you probably do, because if you're podcasting for your business, you probably have looked into multiple RSS feeds and Buzzsprout is one of the leading ones out there because they share to every other podcast listening device, essentially. So consistency is key. And I was just starting out and I was uploading. I was trying to upload once a week, right, well, I didn't. It works sometimes and I got caught up into business and sales and you know, you know, I think, life and whatever. So.

Speaker 1:

And it has this really cool chart that shows listeners on the key thing that I always recommend to anybody in YouTube, because YouTube has the same thing that the algorithm they had anybody in YouTube, because YouTube has the same thing they have the algorithm, they have the chart, the listeners, the downloads, the likes, the comments, and they have all the engagement, all these stats. If you've never done YouTube, there's all that for you on there as well. And same thing with Buzzsprout, right. So less dynamic, but same principle applies, applies.

Speaker 1:

So I would say don't look at the actual total numbers, because when you're first starting out, you're going to have maybe like tens of listeners, right, tens, maybe dozens if you're really good, or you know, then later on you get into thousands, right. So what you want to do is not look at the number of downloads, because Buzzsprout's pretty clever in the way they do things and that they let's just say you have listeners and they're going like you have five on one day and then you have one on the other day and two on another day, right, so you got three days of listening or downloads, right so? But on their chart it looks like it's skyrocketing because by comparison of what you've had before I think that's how it does it it shows what you've had listenership on this day compared to this day, and then three days ago, I think there's seven days ago, 10 days ago and whatever goes up from there, I think, up to a month or two. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But their chart is what you want to look at. It's like a stock chart, like a graph and the whole thing. You just get in your head and not look at the numbers is. Look at, you want to make it go up, right, planes rise, profits rise. You know listenership that rises.

Speaker 1:

So when I was doing one a week or even less, it would shoot up. But then it would plane out. Right, it would level out because you quit. You only had so many listeners because you're new anyways, right, so interest, so you might get a shoot up to four. You know your first start out, or one, maybe, if you're lucky, and it'll plane out. And then you're like, okay, well, next week I'll do it again and sure enough, it spikes. And then maybe you get another bump now because you're a little bit two or three into it, and then it'll plane out and like level out, so you want to stop with the level outs. So now that I'm kind of getting going here with the podcasting is that I'm trying to do two a week, so like Mondays and Thursdays it was Tuesdays, like trade Tuesday, but it just didn't work Tuesdays. I don't know why it just didn't work.

Speaker 1:

No-transcript. I call it side come money, because it's unintentional. Unintentional money that you're getting from just doing a podcast that the original thing was was just a network and show your business Right. So it's kind of cool and that's the. It's like innovating You're, you're trying different things.

Speaker 1:

Even Amazon talks about he experimented and he had different breakthroughs, like the AWS or prime. And you know, I've been subscribed to prime for a while and you get the movies, which aren't obviously that great, but I do listen to the music a lot, and then, just like everything else we talked about earlier the ATMs, you know prime started out as awesome and then you want, oh, you want good music, like really good music, like the new stuff. Oh, okay, that's an extra three bucks a month or I think it's seven. Now I don't even pay for it, no more, because I use a YouTube music. But anyway, if you wanted actual good music on prime, you had to pay extra for above and beyond your subscription level, which I was like really, oh, okay, so just put it, just roll it in the prices up, it doesn't matter whatever.

Speaker 1:

So, uh, but, and honestly, I don't even know what AWS is. Uh, it's there's an abbreviation here, but because I just was uh taking notes to uh for the podcast, so, uh, I don't know what it is, I don't use it. So you know, actually, you know what. I'm going to Google it right now. Aws, amazon, all right, amazon Web Service oh, okay, that's cool. So they're a cloud provider, cloud Computing Services Okay, so I guess that's like what? Google, what's that laptop that Google has that uses the online servers to do all your computing power? So the laptop itself isn't all that powerful, but you're using cloud-based computing and their RAM and their. That's cool. Okay, all right, that's neat. I didn't know about that. I didn't know he did that.

Speaker 1:

There's also a lot of things in Amazon, I guess, to help small businesses or, like you know, universities. They can take free classes on, you know, and things like that. It's kind of cool, kind of like your library, you know. So there's some free things out there that I guess it's a loss leader for them because they figure, well, you're gonna get new business, hey, you're gonna remember us and buy all the things you need for the business through Amazon. Pretty genius, there you go, there you go, innovating, right, innovating.

Speaker 1:

So everyone's like, oh, you know, what you need to do is video. Do you do video? I'm like, no, I don't do video. Why not? You should do video. I'm like, okay, actually, was that the top 50 podcasts that you? You can just look this up to top 50 of them. I think I said 43 of them. Uh, do only 43 do video? So seven don't, and they're still in the top 50. Now what are the odds to get in there without it? I don't really know.

Speaker 1:

But here's what I do know is that I tried doing video podcasting and it doesn't work for me. It doesn't work because why? It's a lot of setup. You got to deal with the shadows and the lighting and your, you know, fix your hair, wear the right clothes, um, the proper background, uh, I don't know. It's harder for me, it seems like worse to be able to look down and read things, uh, for notes, when you're on video. And then there's more editing too, because now you don't want to look down all the time and read from your screen or paper to me anyway. And then you know you look up and look down, look up, look down, and to me it just seems like ugh, it's annoying. So I don't.

Speaker 1:

And also, my podcast is for B2B, right, and what do you know about business owners Busy? So the whole point, the original idea of the podcast, was to explain barter, because I'm a sales guy, right for barter, and I'm like hey, if you don't understand it, here's a link to a podcast that I made up, and then there you go, listen to it later, or while you're doing something, or while you're picking up the kids or driving, or whatever. So that was the whole point. You ain't got time to sit there and watch a video. You're busy, you got the business, maybe you got kids and you got practices to go to. You don't got time to sit there and watch a video. But maybe podcasting you do, right, because the earbuds are in and it's just easier to do something and then do that at the same time. That was the whole idea.

Speaker 1:

So for me except for maybe marketing wise, I might get into it for marketing eventually on YouTube and, like you know, I have like cliff notes out there, because, honestly, a lot of things that I watch about um on Joe Rogan, is all from video content that they snip. You know pieces of his two or three hour podcast, and they do a minute long short, and you're like, oh, that's funny, I don't know. It doesn't get me to listen to it, though, either. I don't listen to Joe Rogan because I don't have two or three hours. I don't really care enough about many topics to dedicate two or three hours to listening to somebody else talk about it, I guess. But yeah, I do have 30, 40 minutes on the way to work.

Speaker 1:

I went back from work for longer maybe 45 minutes to an hour, as I'm going to Detroit. So going south is not as good for me as it is in the morning. So you know, I try and gear everything towards that time frame, at least 20 to 30 minutes, right, so it's enough and then go on about your day or whatever you're going to do. So I always say you know, so it's enough and then go on about your day or whatever you're going to do. So I always say, you know, try new approaches. Did you know in your business? Did you know that I saw a stat this morning that last year was a record setting year for business applications? So I don't know why they said the video I was watching actually it was a video in the morning that it's not good actually, really, because all the new businesses starting up were in low income areas and for some reason it was bad for the economy, not sure why. Again, I have like squirrel level attention span, so I skipped through it, but I just wanted to mention that. That everyone's trying businesses now because jobs are so hard to find essentially is what the whole deal was about, and that you should not should. But people are trying businesses because they can't get hired and they need money, so they're trying their bakery or pizzeria idea or whatever. All right.

Speaker 1:

So a couple of tips. I guess, of course, focus on actionable services and advice. It says here in a bullet point, for example, I would say, maximizing barter deals or barter trades, and that would be to look for things that you can use for not having to pay cash. Trade and barter associations around you not just me in Metro Detroit, but I'd love to bring you on if you are available, of course. But, like I said, we're everywhere, all the trade associations. So look for what you can do and not pay cash. Cash is like rent, insurance, of course, payroll and you got your utilities. Most everything else is available. On trade, we get calls in here every day to our office of people that were, you know, say busy enough on cash jobs that they're turning away some trade, which is the idea Once you sign up for, usually with a trade association, at least with ours. If you're busy enough with cash, then you don't have to take trade.

Speaker 1:

Trade is the whole point of filling excess time and capacity. That's literally in the sales pitch. Do you have excess time? Do you have excess capacity? Do you have excess inventory? If you do, you're a candidate for signing up for a trade association. If you don't, then you're not my guy or girl. Right, or maybe later you will Maybe sign up and then put me on hold and then I'll call in when I need more business and then you know we can play. That, you know, and that's what it's all about is filling your excess time and inventory.

Speaker 1:

And I mean, obviously, once you get rolling, we have people in there that are in the group that I work for since the 80s, and so you're kind of and I used to work here back in 2013, and now I'm back it's kind of like once trade gets in your blood, you miss it because it's like a larger version of a chamber of commerce. I guess you could say so. There's no meetings. Obviously we have one trade show a year that I work for the company I work for and you just feel like when you walk into a shop it's like you are living in a small town again, like when I used to live in Frankenmuth, michigan, I would walk in and the owner probably knew me, or I knew them, or I knew their kids and knew you know, or they knew my grandparents or my parents. So it's kind of like that one-on-one personal touch. It's just people miss that. People miss that village feeling, and so that's why I got out of tangent here with trade. But anyway, that's kind of what it's all about. I always call it the small town or big town, big city feel, with big small town appeal. So you know, you get the big city version of it, but you also get the small, the village, like one-on-one kind of sale that you miss by moving out from a small town and going to a city.

Speaker 1:

So discuss Amazon's growth is what I have here? I don't know. I think I'm going to skip this one. Becoming a global marketplace oh yeah, what else we got here? Oh yeah, one way you can scale your show is collaborate with other podcasters or anyone in your industry. So for me, I use Alignable and I'm in podcasting groups, and I'm actually in a podcasting group or two. I think it is in LinkedIn as well, which I think is where I found this article from. So you just never know, by just joining a group you know those things you might learn through an email. That's all this was was an email and just talking about an email right now. So you just never know where you get your next big idea from.

Speaker 1:

Monetizing is another thing I wanted to talk about too. Everyone always talks about oh, you must make, are you making money yet with your podcast? No, no, no, I'm not monetized. I would like to be one day. I'm kind of sponsored. I guess you want to say Am I sponsored? I don't know. I thought about changing my intro to, or having mid-rolls actually for Metro Trading Association, because I'm doing the podcast and they know it on you know the company watch, right, but it's good for them, it's good for me, it's good for everybody because their name is out there. I talk about Metro Trading all the time. It's the best thing, I think, for a business. I think every business should at least look into it and try it. Or a nonprofit, for sure, definitely nonprofits, definitely nonprofits should do a trade association For sure, definitely nonprofits, definitely nonprofits should do a trade association. So, yeah, it's a win-win and I probably should make that like a demo sponsor. I guess I don't know how that works for taxes and all that stuff. Like I said, I look it up, but it doesn't matter. I digress.

Speaker 1:

Repurposing Okay, yeah, we were talking about repurposing content, right? So Rogan has a whole team that does this. They take clips and snippets out of the show and to put it into 45 second long format and boom, put it on social media and then I guess they might get clip clicks or whatever. But uh, anyway, I, for me, it hasn't worked on me. I don't, I don't like oh, I want to tune in and watch. You know that whole the whole show, even with Trump, I didn't watch the whole thing. Or was that Neil deGrasse? He had cool things, I didn't. I didn't either. You know, it doesn't matter. So what else we can talk about here?

Speaker 1:

A couple of things before we quit. Prioritize your audience. It says, yeah, well, I mean, obviously you're going to prioritize your audience, but honestly, I think your audience will prioritize you as your audience. But honestly, I think your audience will prioritize you and that's the whole point with blogging or podcasting YouTube videos is that you are going to be in a niche and then you have marketed and then those people automatically are going to like, tune into you, right? So, and like I said before, podcasting is the long game You're going to burn out long before you're going to see any monetization or, uh, I think even maybe any benefit. Uh, in in in the podcast. So there's a natural uh thinning out of the herd, I think, for podcasts, I think it's one of those things. I'm going to try it that if you can make it happen, it's you know. You know you're going to win big, but also I won't say you'll lose big but you'll lose time. You uh, and try experimenting. I'm experimenting right now. I'm doing this thing that nobody else is doing with the seasons. I'm using seasons as a category, you know. So, uh, I'm.

Speaker 1:

Season one is all about trade. Uh, let me look here, go through, here we go. So season season one is trade, education and member spotlights, and then two is networking and networking ideas. And I'm trying this networking with kids idea where business owners, entrepreneurs, realtors, whatever, come to a networking event, bring the family, bring the kids, and we're in a kids-friendly environment. The kids can go play or they can participate in networking, like I used to with my grandpa, and then go from there. You know now you hand out business cards. You stop by on the way home from school, maybe grab a snack at the concession stand that they had there, like we're at Jungle Java, for example. Then you got to worry about dinner. That night you network, the kids played, they met new friends, bada boom, bada bing. You know, next month, rinse and repeat, right? So that's what season two is all about, which is networking chambers, alignable, uh, linkedin, my networking group that I started, uh, all of it so.

Speaker 1:

And then season three is the next category, and that's what you're listening to right now, is experiment experience, podcasting for business promotions. So I got to find better terms for this because no one's going to remember any of this stuff. But, like I said, I'm trying new things, I'm experimenting. So it's all about my I hate saying my experience of podcasting because it's almost like what do you care? But I know there's no other way to say it or do it. But people only, it seems like, are popular once they're successful. Once they're successful, I am showing you the live struggle, I guess you want to say, of doing a podcast for promoting a business or marketing so, and the ups and downs and pros and cons and mistakes, essentially right. So let's see what else we got here. So thinking like Bezos can help not just build a successful podcast but a thriving business and trade association too.

Speaker 1:

The guys who thought of the trade and barter back in the day, metro Trade was one of the first, back in the 70s, late 70s 78 actually to be specific. So you know, he does never know, and trade associations come and go, so you gotta be, I think, almost like first in. Uh, wins are one of the first right, you got the first and you got the competitor, kind of like uh, lyft followed, um, uber, you know, and are they the same? Now they wouldn't buy out the other. Yet I can't remember. It usually happens too, you know. So there's that All right. Well, that's it for now.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the trading post. Let's trade ideas and services with each other eventually, hopefully, one day, maybe. Anyway, be sure to subscribe, leave feedback if you can, if you want to, and next time we will talk about something, maybe in a different season, probably the networking thing. Actually, I don't know, we'll find out. I kind of play these. I shoot from the hip. I'm not a really good planter, so I just shoot from the hip and try it and go from there. All right, that's it. Be good or be good at it.