How to Build a Huge Audience of Your Peers Through Viral Content

Adam Vazquez 0:06
Dr. Tony Miller is a professor as well as the assistant men’s basketball coach at Bob Jones University and the host of the popular basketball coaching podcast A Quick Timeout. Tony has been coaching and teaching for well over a decade now and as seen firsthand the power of content and building a brand, recruiting players and connecting with other professionals in his industry. In addition to his coaching and podcasting duties, Dr. Miller teaches social media sports marketing and communications as the chair of the sports management department at Bob Jones University. During this episode, we discuss how Tony turned creating content into a business, the process for identifying the appropriate channels for your content, and the exact timing and effort required to get a campaign off the ground. I always appreciate Tony’s practical insight and no, this episode will serve any business owner or marketer who knows they need to be creating digitally but aren’t sure where they should begin. Tony is a personal friend and someone I consider a mentor. And I’m grateful he decided to join us on the show. You can follow Tony’s work and check out his show in the links in the show notes below. Without further ado, let’s get to Tony Miller from A Quick Timeout.

Intro 1:14
Put that content down. Content. The close is over. What’s your name? Content. That’s my name. You know why, mister? Because you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight. I drove an $80,000 BMW. That’s my name. Content Is for Closers.

Adam Vazquez 1:35
Hey, welcome back into Content Is for Closers where each episode we talk to entrepreneurs, marketers and business owners about how they can use content to grow their businesses. I’m your host Adam Vasquez and here alongside the greatest creative director in all the land Carlton riffle, welcome to the show.

Carlton Riffel 1:52
Thank you, Adam. I must say for that intro. You’re getting pretty good at it. That’s sounding very polished.

Adam Vazquez 1:59
Thanks. If I just keep doing it for hours every day, like we have, it’ll become second nature. Your morning rituals just repeating that 10. Yeah. Sarah hates it. Certainly kids are so sick of it, but they just have to get over it. How’s your week going?

Carlton Riffel 2:13
Oh, it’s good. It’s good. We’ve got this podcast that’s making it more exciting every time we do it. So I’m doing good. How about you? Do you have any exciting things happened this week? Any exciting sports moments?

Adam Vazquez 2:28
No, I haven’t any exciting sports moments this week. But I have experienced a sports exciting sports moment that I’m excited to talk about.

Carlton Riffel 2:37
Okay, so overall in your whole life, in the whole sports history of Adam Vasquez, what’s your favorite sports moment?

Adam Vazquez 2:47
Ah, oh, I miss read this. So this isn’t as a fan. This is like me. As a fan, you can be as a fan, okay, those would be two different ones. If it was me as an athlete, it would either be in 10th grade, we like went to state championship and that was that was really fun experience for the basketball team. But it would either be that or scoring 36 points on Tim Fortney. In college, he was trying to depend on them out. I do it all the time. So it would be one of those two, but as a fan are the top sportswoman ever had was very easy. In relation to if you’re watching the YouTube this Super Bowl ticket right here. It was actually, not even in a game or definitely not part of the Super Bowl. But at the NFC Championship game in 2017. My wife Sarah and I drove to Philly overnight to get to the game bought tickets. And, and the Eagles everyone knows I’m a huge Eagles fan. We’re hosting it against the Vikings. Everyone was picking the Vikings our quarterback was hurt. Everybody was sure we had no chance. And before the game even started, we got there super early tailgating the party a lot, that whole thing. And we go into the stadium as soon as it opens before it even started. They were some of the players were stretching and warming up in the end zone. And they started playing the song dreams and nightmares by Meek Mill which the team had sort of adopted as their anthem. And the whole team just started bouncing up and down in the end zone. And those of us that were in the crowd were just freaking out. And it was two hours before kickoff, but the environment the energy was just electric. And I knew right then I was like a super host. I don’t know, I still get goosebumps thinking about is the most crazy experience so that’s my favorite sports moment.

Carlton Riffel 4:43
Somebody probably just is listening to this podcast right now. And they’re thinking I thought I subscribe to a marketing podcast. You asked and boy, it’s true. So yeah, for me, growing up in Chicago, there are some incredible sports moments that I experienced some in person even, like he did, but I gotta say, I was waiting for the Cubs to win a World Series for a long time. Like everyone else. Enjoy Chicago sports. And so I think that’s probably my highlight as a fan was seeing them win that World Series. And sure, legendary. Yeah, I mean, that was just yeah, that that made growing up with the Cubs totally worth it, finally.

Adam Vazquez 5:29
Yeah, those are fun moments and I feel like the thing that people don’t think about when it comes to your spouse, your sports, fandom or even growing up playing sports is like the teaching that goes into it. And the all of the different components that a coach has to do in order to help the fundamentals and the strategy and then execute on the court. And that’s what Tony Miller obviously does during his day job. But I thought what he did a great job in this interview, was bringing some of that mentality, that teaching coaching mentality to how he does and executes his brand, A Quick Timeout and sharing that with the audience.

Carlton Riffel 6:11
Yeah, there are so many great takeaways, in this interview, he kind of starts with some of the simple easy steps you got to take when you get started with content creation. He wasn’t like a professional content creator. And he just started. And then he goes from that to finding his audience, engaging them, learning from them. And then kind of ends with aligning that work that you do as a creator with some of the things that you’re passionate about, and your actual work in your day job, so really solid interview.

Adam Vazquez 6:42
What were some of the key moments that people should pay attention to or perk up pick up when, when they hear it coming?

Carlton Riffel 6:51
Yeah, so I think specifically around audience building, there’s a lot of good things, and at the beginning of the episode about finding your audience and knowing where they are. And then throughout the interview, he talks about just simple ways to use your content and get more leverage out of it. And then especially towards the end, he talks a lot about benefiting from an audience that you’ve already built so and kind of aligning what he does as his job with the content that he creates on the side.

Adam Vazquez 7:25
Yep. Yeah, I really appreciated the interview with Tony, he’s a close friend of mine, but also was my coach at one point, and even still, even though we run the social company, and he, he runs the coaching, sometimes you’ve asked me like, what would you do if you weren’t doing this? I think I would be in sports. And I think Tony very easily could be doing what we do running, running a marketing company, and helping businesses along that way. So really appreciate him coming on. But let’s get to the interview with Tony Miller.

Coach Tony Miller here on the show. Tony, I told them a little bit about you and what you do and who you are. But we’d love to hear from you specifically about A Quick Timeout, what is it? What’s the value you all deliver? What’s the product that you’re creating revenue streams, what does the team look like, just give us a quick synopsis of kind of what you are doing.

Tony Miller 8:15
It started about two, three years ago, started with a podcast, it was actually an outgrowth of my personal Twitter account, I started probably about six or seven years ago, creating content on that platform for coaches, specifically basketball coaches, and no variety of like plays and video breakdowns. Outside of what it was specifically, it was really just kind of like an educational platform for me, and an opportunity for me to kind of share with other people connect with other coaches, obviously, on a social media platform, you get the interaction. And so from that perspective Twitter really allowed me to kind of connect with other coaches, coaches that were from around where I was, and then all the way up to, I was on multiple continents connecting with coaches. And over time, kind of the idea of starting a podcast and really my relationship with you and talking with you about things, the opportunity for me to be able to start something and that was when the anchor had just come out. So it was becoming more and more simpler for people to start a podcast. And I ended up starting that, like I said, about two and a half years ago. And I was fortunate because of the work that I had done on the Twitter account, to where I had it. I had immediate listeners because of those connections. And so the podcast kind of got rolling quicker than I expected. And over time, probably over the next really six to eight months, I kind of grew and even change formats and the way that I did the podcast, and so it was still educational, and that’s kind of the foundation you’ll probably hear me say multiple times where that’s kind of the foundation for everything else that I do. And so from that perspective, the podcast grew into then some other products and like you said it ended up being Coming additional revenue streams, it wasn’t intended to be like that at the beginning. But I think kind of it’s inevitable over time, I think people that produce content over time, like, that’s just kind of where it goes. And that’s kind of just where it went for me the opportunity as well to connect with different sponsors the basketball community itself is very tight-knit, and the products that are offered to those people are very specific. And when you get, of course, the attention, there are going to be people who are interested in connecting with you sponsors, connecting with you. And so I ended up connecting with several different sponsors that created hardware for coaches, uniforms for coaches, software for coaches, and I actually just had one reach out just two days ago. From that perspective, it was really exciting for me, because it was another opportunity for me to not just, it wasn’t just revenue that was nice, but it wasn’t just revenue, it was in addition to that, me being able to leverage their platforms to be able to get my message out and connect with even more coaches. So it really has been like a true partnership from that perspective, me being able to connect with them, then being able to connect with my audience, the revenue that comes along with it, and then just the natural kind of scaling that results when you do a partnership, right. I think you mentioned in the email, my team consists of me, one man crew which, from a scaling perspective is not ideal, but it’s what I enjoy and what I like. And so it’s not necessarily difficult for me to create that content.

Adam Vazquez 11:39
Yeah. And I think it speaks to the, I mean, it’s not scalable to what you’re talking about scalable is like you can’t duplicate what you’re doing, 10x times I made that. But it is scalable, in the sense that you’re one person who’s just leveraging what you have in your brain. And now you’re getting paid for that, right, like, so there’s, I guess, the pros and the cons of it, but maybe taking a step back? What is it that you’re and— I kind of lead you astray there. But what is it that you’re doing? What is A Quick Timeout? What is the value that you’re offering to your audiences specifically?

Tony Miller 12:12
The podcast itself is an interview-based podcast. And that’s where I was saying, when it started, it was really just me talking. And it was quick, it was about six to seven minutes. The feedback that I got, again, an opportunity to interact on social media, I had focus groups like right at my fingertips, and they were, they were commenting back like, Man, this is great. I wish it was longer. For me personally having to listen to myself, I don’t know how others felt about it. But the interview got moving over to the interview style kind of allowed me to connect with other coaches and learn from them. So I’ve said this even on the podcast, like jokingly, but it’s almost, I’m almost doing it selfishly at times because it allows me to connect with those coaches and learn from them. And so we talk about very particular subject matters, whether that has to do with a type of defense or offense, or whatever it is, but something very specific, specific, we talk about for 2530 minutes, and then it’s over. The whole concept is just to educate other people, it’s not really to, it’s not necessarily entertaining, or stories, or it really is kind of deep diving into topics. And that kind of goes to the point I probably talk about this later. But it kind of goes to the point of like knowing your target market, and your target audience’s needs. And that was very easy for me because I am a basketball coach. And when I started, I was a basketball coach who was several years into it. And so I knew the questions that that other coaches were asking because I was asking those or I had asked those. And so it was easy to come up with topics and come up with content. I wrote blog posts with some of those partners that I was talking with you about, I’m in row for their website, because I knew the questions. I knew it was keeping up coaches at night. And I think that’s, that’s a key point for those of us that that make content is people are always wondering how, what can I create, and everybody’s got their three ideas, but pass their three ideas. They’re like, I don’t know what to produce after this. And it really is just constantly thinking about Alright, what what do they want to know about? What, what stumping them what problems are they having, and addressing all of those. And so, again, I’ve been very fortunate to have connections because of where I’m coaching to those other coaches, there have been some ways that I’ve connected with coaches, sometimes it’s just as simple as reaching out through an email, but then that allows me again, to get their information and help educate others through them. And it grows my knowledge about the topic too. So yeah, it really is kind of, you’re kind of hacking the system when you do it that way. Because a lot of people I feel like are so afraid to start because they don’t know if either they’ll have enough content or they’ll have enough knowledge or enough Whatever it is. So to answer your question, it really is just educational. The podcast itself is interview-based, they educate through that. I take that content. There are other things that I do that I’ve diversified since then.

Adam Vazquez 15:15
I want to get to the diversification in a second, but back to we were talking about when use transit transitioned from just talking so long a podcast to now interviewing other folks, you talked about the lessons that you’re learning, but I’d imagine you had to have seen a good amount of network effect there too. Like when you started interviewing other coaches, the show I would guess, grew substantially just based on that, that those coaches bringing their audiences or there are reporters, sometimes you have on as well, bringing their audience Did you see that? Or was it something else that kind of helped grow the audience?

Tony Miller 15:51
I think anybody that follows a podcast at least understands as they produce upon a podcast, but people like to hear themselves talk, they like to, they like to go on to podcasts, especially if you have any kind of following. And I think that was the fortunate part that was talking about the beginning. I don’t want to skip over that. Because again, I don’t I want people to be successful in this. And just starting a podcast, there’s a reason why most podcasts only go seven episodes, they haven’t put in the work beforehand. And so I was fortunate, like I said, to be able to build up a following through, in this case, my Twitter and Instagram accounts, and was able to have something established to where when I went to those people and ask them, Hey, would you come on my show? They went and visited my page saw that I was actually had I had people on there. I’ll be honest with you. Like I also targeted people that I knew were kind people and generous with their time. And people that others would recognize. And I’ve gotten comments back where they’ve said to me when I reached out to a coach, and I said, he doesn’t usually do this, but he sees he saw the other people that you’ve already had on your show. And he’s happy to come on. Well, when he comes on, I immediately get the name recognition of him. Right, right. Your audience is kind of diversified here. But like, I would guess that even people listening to this that don’t really know much about sports like no, no a guy’s name like Digg Vitale. Like as soon as I got Digg Vitale on then that opened the door to other people coming on. And so, if you can land that one or two, then that allows others to see that either you’re legitimate or whatever it is. It’s not just that, but that’s that that does play a part of it. And like you said, you end up then leveraging their audience, which then kind of just amplifies it to other people. And sure, I’ve been fortunate to do it that way.

Adam Vazquez 17:37
That’s a great point, though because if you don’t have that social following, regardless if you have it or not, I think one of the things people struggle with is where should I distribute my content? Or, or what channel should I use. And if you have an audience, or you don’t have an audience, there’s somewhere where you can grow, whether it be your business, or your community or your personal brand, on the internet. So regardless of what you ended up choosing what was the process, you went through thinking through where you should end up publishing your content, which I think currently you obviously have the podcast, you do quite a bit of live streams, and then you have a newsletter, right? Is that the main—?

Tony Miller 18:18
Yeah, those are the three main sources. And I was listening to actually something just last night about this. I didn’t know it at the time. But what I was doing was content marketing. And content marketing is not a, it’s not a like short term thing. It’s something that the longer you do it really, the more you’re able to build up, and then you’re able to, again, kind of cash in on it. And they’ve done studies on this. But if you diversify too quickly, it doesn’t work. And I accidentally happened upon that. So what ended up happening was, I had the Twitter, the Twitter account that I was able to build up over time. And then over time, I was able to take that and then start the podcast, I started the podcast, it all goes back to knowing your target audience and where they’re at. And there are a ton of for me, there are a ton of coaches, on Twitter, whatever your platform is, find out where those people are, in addition to that, know how they’re consuming content on that platform. That’s what’s going to make you stick out from the other people because the next thing people are always thinking is, well, somebody else is already doing that. How am I going to differentiate myself? Right? And so I think they really the key is know where they’re at, know how to go to them. Know how to reach them know how to produce something that’s different than maybe what somebody else is doing or better or put your own spin on it. That’s the other thing too. I’ll post something on a Twitter account, and I’ll get a bunch of engagement with it. Somebody else post the same thing in the comments back to me, I don’t know how you get so much engagement. Well, if you’re putting you just kind of know how to put your spin on it and whatever you’re planning Form is know how to put your spin on it that’s unique and provide that valuable content. And the natural outgrowth will be is that people will pay attention to what you’re doing. And that will allow you to kind of separate yourself, to your point where you were just saying about the multiple platforms, those came much later, I really focused in on that, that podcast, and I focused in on AI really for about 24 months before I really tried anything else. And that’s one of those things, again, that has been tested. Most of the time, it takes most people between six to nine months, sometimes nine to 12 months. Before that they make the mistake of diversifying too quickly. Right. So I don’t want people to hear that. And to think, Okay, well, then I need to go get it, I need to start a podcast, I need to have a newsletter and I need to do live streams. Those were like next steps for me the live streams came about six to nine months after the Twitter account happened. Yeah, even that what we were talking about, I didn’t start a live stream by myself. I leveraged it with another coach who was very, he had a ton of he had a huge following on Twitter and on the web already. And so even that was strategic. And it benefited both of us. We were friends already. So from that perspective, again, I just don’t want people to be listening to this and thinking, well, if I just do this, then it’s going to work out for you.

Adam Vazquez 21:21
Right, that’s why I was asking. Your process essentially was less, I want to go start x show x channel, whatever it was more. So I know this activity is happening already people are having these conversations on Twitter, you knew, and I want to get to this in a second. But you knew that basketball, on the whole, is consumed as as podcasts and his live streams knew that. So you started with one? How long did you say you did just the podcast for?

Tony Miller 21:48
The podcast was probably for at least for eight months? It was probably longer than that.

Adam Vazquez 21:53
Okay. Yeah. And then after you’d put in eight months doing a couple episodes a week or whatever began to be ended diversify a little bit. I think that’s really important people, a lot of our customers will get through 689 months, and not have seen the return that they want. Or maybe they were expecting to be able to how come it hasn’t affected our Facebook yet, or it hasn’t affected our YouTube channel yet, or whatever. And I’m just saying what the activation is. And it’s just time in the market and allowing some of that compounding returns to get to you. I think all the other thing we should note is in addition to being a coach and a host and all that you teach social media and content, so you’re not speaking of just from personal experience, although you are but that’s where some of the statistics and the research that you’re you’re talking about come from, right?

Tony Miller 22:40
Right. Yeah. And, to that point, a lot of it was trying— you talked about the live stream. The live stream was actually a way for me to record additional podcast. So I took the audios from those live streams. Well, I found out over time, people were consuming those live streams and they weren’t going and listening to the podcasts. So I tweaked the live stream. So they were producing something different. So that they weren’t going to want to not go into the other I still wanted them to be going primarily to the podcast. so sure. The point is, try things if it doesn’t work, tweak it a little bit or whatever. We tried it now, we’re done with it because it didn’t work. That’s dabbling in content marketing. And that’s not how it works.

Adam Vazquez 23:28
Yeah, so I think for context for you, a lot of our audience, a lot of our community are people who are not dabbling but are trying to understand content for the first time, right, because they’ve built very successful businesses in a traditional way. And they’re being confronted now with, especially after last year, a new way or just being forced to communicate differently to their prospects and customers with you. It’s such a unique thing where you’re a basketball coming, your job is on the court, in the classroom, in people’s homes, helping them decide where they’re going to go to school, etc. So I think there’s like a, it’s a great example there initially, maybe be a disconnect for someone saying, why would that person who needs to be focused on the X and O’s leverage content for their brand? So how would you say this effort over the last couple of years how has that impacted your ability on the court your business, quote, unquote, and just your regular job from nine to five, because obviously, this is, this is something that you have to do, and on top of that.

Tony Miller 24:32
It really has gone both ways. For me, personally, just connecting with the additional coaches and me gaining the knowledge about the way that they do things, the way that they run their programs, the way that they drop the X’s and O’s. So I’ve been able to learn from them. On the flip side of that, I’ve been able to teach others and when I’m able to talk through things with other people, it allows me to help be a better communicator on the court with my team to refine the way that I teach and the things I say to, to my team or to others doing camps training players one on one. We held this last year or this last spring, we held a in-person coaches clinic and that allowed me to connect with other coaches. For me being a college coach. I’m getting my content out. We’ve happened just this last weekend, but our head coach and I, we go to tournaments to recruit players and the players Oh, yeah, we already know who you are, we follow you and, and the other coach, your other coach, they’re on social media already. They’re willing to send their kids to my camp because it’s not just another school that they already know, Coach Miller, like, they listen to his podcast, of course, I’m going to send a kid, and we’ve got a kid on our program this year, who’s coming in, I literally posted late spring, we need this kind of player. And within about two hours, I had a coach reach out to me and say, Hey, I got a kid on my team. Long story short, he’s a kid who’s coming to our program this next year. From my perspective, I’m recruiting players. from it, you’re somebody who’s listening to this, like you can be recruiting the next CEO that you have for your company, or the next, whatever it is for your company. Because you’re producing content, providing people and they’re becoming they’re comfortable with you, they know who you are. I’ve been in people’s ears and homes and gyms for the last two years. Like they already know, the kinds of things that I value in the things that are at my program. And so they’re willing to push a kid to me versus somewhere else, because they already know who I am. And they already know what we’re about. And I don’t have to explain, I don’t have to sell myself when I go into that that kid’s home or to go into that coach’s gym. He already knows who I am. He already knows what our schools without. So it really has, if you if you really would if I were just I could talk about this for hours. Like if you really dove into it, the value has been immeasurable.

Adam Vazquez 26:47
Yeah, it’s really cool to hear. And I think a lot of people resonate with. We’ve experienced the same thing. Some of we have two different trucking companies, believe it or not, that are Oakley Trucking and Norton transport. And both have had that exact same experience where they’re trying to recruit drivers. They’ll bring in an entire class of owner-operators to come to registration or the initial teaching session and ask how did you hear about us, and it’s through their podcast, through their YouTube channel, whatever, which in that industry is invaluable. You can’t hire drivers right now. So and same thing with you, you can’t feel the team without having players on. So I think it’s really cool. A couple of last questions here. And some of this you’ve probably already addressed. But before we wrap up, what’s next for what do you see on the horizon for A Quick Timeout, maybe it’s just doubling down on more of the same any new things that you’re considering, or just take us through the process of what you’re looking at as you’re thinking about continuing to grow this platform.

Tony Miller 27:46
Especially in coaching. The software and the technology that’s impacting our industry, anybody that follows along with sports, like analytics, and whatnot, again, because of the things that I’ve done, and the attention that, that we’ve gotten on the podcast, I’ve had companies reach out to me, and when that happens, they provide me with their services. And I have available to me, things that really not many, if any programs at my level that I’m coaching at, have available to all of these resources, they can afford one or two of these, but they don’t have the budgets to afford all of these, I’m getting a lot of these things for free, because I’ve partnered with these companies, through the podcast and whatnot. And so continuing kind of that kind of thing it’d be, it becomes very valuable to me, I think a lot of times we think of revenue, like alright, how am I going to make this additional sale for In my case, a lot of times is how am I going to save money, and still be able to have a veil available to me, the technology, the software, the hardware that my programmer that my team needs, and we didn’t really have to pay that much if anything for it. So I think more of the same, more of the, again, just trying to for me, personally, it’s recruiting more players. We didn’t talk about this, but I oversee a master’s program, an online master’s program, well, those are all coaches that are coming to that it’s a master’s in coaching. Well, if they make I presented over the podcast or talk about it, they already know now that’s free advertising for my program, get more I didn’t even know you do that you feel the connection, and I know this isn’t possible for everybody, but like the connection for what I do, and I know a lot of people start a podcast just for fun on the side. And it’s that’s what they do after they come home from work. I’m very fortunate that my work my side job with my coaching, and my hobby of my podcasts and all we’re doing with the Quick Timeout podcast, they all overlap. And so it’s not that I go do this for this part of the day and go do this for this part of the day. It all helps the other. So I would encourage people, if possible, if you can do that (I know it’s not possible for everybody, but if it’s possible), like, how can these things support the other. And what you end up finding is the comment people always have to me is I don’t have no you how you have time for all of this, when it’s something that you love. And it’s something that it’s just part of who you are, you’re not really setting aside extra time for doing these other things. It’s just part of your natural routine. So I’m very fortunate from that perspective, I think just continuing to do the same taking advantage again, of, of maybe partnerships in the future. But a lot of the same probably for me.

Adam Vazquez 30:32
The one thing I would say, though, to that is, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but you did start it and you did put in the extra work, even when it wasn’t clear that it was going to connect to your other jobs like I mean, when you first started A Quick Timeout doing the short for coaches, etc. I think there’s like a dotted line there. But it’s not like it had a direct impact on what you’re teaching in the classroom or what you’re teaching on the court. So you did invest some time there.

Tony Miller 31:00
Yeah, for sure. And I think that’s again, one of those things that if you’re in it for the long run, your that’s going to make itself that you’re going to know how you’re going to figure out how things fit with each other. But you don’t know that unless you stick with it. So right. Yeah, to your point, starting out sometimes there can be questions with things is where is this going? What’s it going to be? But having now stuck with it for a while, I’m able to kind of merge those things together. And it’s been invaluable for one for the other.

Adam Vazquez 31:28
Cool. One more question, then you can ask me any question if you have one. We ask everyone on the show this if you had a modest budget, not a crazy budget, but a modest budget of $150,000 worth of cash that you had to spend in order to grow your show or your brand or whatever your product, how would you spend it this year?

Tony Miller 31:51
I hesitate to say this because people are gonna get the wrong idea. I would probably use it primarily on advertisements. But that’s usually where people start. That’s again because I’ve done the content marketing and put in that word probably for most people, it would be the reverse of that, stop spending your money on advertising, and put in the work, hire somebody for me, I enjoy making the graphics, I enjoy making the video clips, I enjoy doing that you and I have had conversations with this. Like that’s not something that you enjoy. And I would suggest for somebody out there, whatever it is that you don’t enjoy or the side of it that you feel like you can’t necessarily do well, like go hire somebody to go do that. So if that were the case, if you didn’t have that available, if you didn’t have the software to be able to make that content, like go purchase that. But again, I’ve been very fortunate because I have those resources available to me, I enjoy doing that.

Adam Vazquez 32:47
And you have an ability. It’s not that I don’t even enjoy it. I just my eyes don’t work that way. Like some people, some people can’t execute on that. But I’m going to push you a little bit on this, like what advertising is very broad, like where specifically were you and you don’t have to contextualize we get it you have a specific niche show, just kind of where do you think you would see the most impact based on that.

Tony Miller 33:10
Again, it’s knowing who your target audiences it’s a funny thing about marketing, it’s really not that hard. It just is like refining what you’re doing. And if you know who your audience is, for me, that could be in my case, I would advertise most likely on a couple other people’s probably shows at their clinics is another big one. And I would probably up my email marketing as well. It’s so funny that all of these new opportunities through different social platforms, and for me, I have found that email is still the best because I have coaches that are checking their email every day. The open rates and are through the roof because again, I know my audience and my audience opens the emails, knowing when to when to send them, knowing what to put in them know how long to make them. Like it goes to your point that you just mentioned there, you can hire somebody to figure out how to do all that for you or you can put in the time and figure it out how to create the right kind of emails and the right kinds of things.

Adam Vazquez 34:12
And that’s not just your audience I was just looking at this recently for a customer the average ROI this year on email for every dollar spent is $42 in return which is bonkers like no nothing else. Channel wise even comes close. And then it’s something like 62% of email subscribers are willing to get more emails like they’re comfortable with getting more emails, which again, compare that to interruptive ads or social media ads or anything like that. And people hate those. But they’re opting into email. So it’s a whole different experience. Yeah, don’t sleep on email, I think is kind of the long and the short of it.

Tony Miller 34:52
Just real quick, I did, and honestly it was you. You tweeted something last during the pandemic about now’s the time for your email. Alright, fine. So I’m thinking, I got these followers, I got 1,000s of followers on Instagram, I got 1,000s of followers on Twitter, I don’t need to grow my email list. But I doubled down on the email list. And it’s individualized, it comes straight to their inbox. Yeah. And it’s been the best thing for me. And to be honest, it’s been the biggest return on my investment.

Adam Vazquez 35:24
That’s cool. All right, what’s one question you have for me, if you have one? Nothing about high school basketball or anything.

Tony Miller 35:30
Who will win a World Series first: the Atlanta Braves or the Phillies?

Adam Vazquez 35:34
Probably, almost certainly, the Braves. I mean, the Braves at least they’re just all injured and sick and whatever. But they at least have talented players, the Phillies have one good pitcher and an up and down lineup. So I would say that I would say the Braves also shout out our podcast 162 podcast, which is one of those that Tony mentioned earlier didn’t make it past its 12-episode birthday, but it’s gonna come back at some point. Don’t fall asleep on that. That’s a perfect example of, I think, which was totally me but jumping in right away without maybe doing some of the background work that that was for a lot of different reasons. But it speaks to your point of really thinking through that audience, the value proposition. And then I think even most importantly, knowing that you have the time and the energy to commit, like, an indefinite amount of time to see this thing be successful. That’s sort of the long in this short story, I feel like I have A Quick Timeout to like you knew from the jump, I’m going to figure out, I’m not sure what this is, but I’m gonna kind of figure out how it connects to the rest of the things I’m doing. I’m gonna give enough time to breathe and grow and do that. So appreciate you coming on. Thanks for sharing all this with us. And where can people check you out online?

Tony Miller 36:49
You can find me on Twitter @tonywmiller or you can find me on Instagram @coach.miller. And the website by Heard Pods: aquicktimeout.com.

Adam Vazquez 37:01
There we go. Aquicktimeout.com. Alright, check it out. Thanks for coming, Tony.

Tony Miller 37:05
Yeah, man.

Carlton Riffel 37:08
Thank you so much, Tony, for that interview. That was awesome. So, Adam, some of the things that he talked about, were super relevant to most of our audience. I’m just thinking about people that are in the weeds every day, creating content, what were some of your main takeaways for, for people listening?

Adam Vazquez 37:24
I think just the practical actions that he took to lean into his job his brand and build a community around that, like what Tony has done so well. And I’m always so impressed when I first of all if you don’t follow Tony, go follow him on Twitter, we’ll link it in the show notes. He’s almost sports. Yeah, even if you hate sports, doesn’t matter. He’s almost 10,000 followers. And so we need to get him there. But that alone, he’s almost a 10,000 followers as an assistant coach on a D3 men’s basketball team, which is great. But I mean, it’s not like, that’s a super notoriety type position. It’s just that he has built a community around other people who care about that, that niche thing. And a lot of times people get caught up in like, it’s not my full-time job. It’s not important enough or interesting enough. There’s not a committee around it. And Tony’s just done the opposite, and just done the work taking the action. If you look at his Twitter, if you look at his website, it’s all really well done. Anything he does is high quality No matter if it’s one person or 1,000 people. So yeah, I think that was the biggest takeaway for me is just like leaning into what’s in front of you.

Carlton Riffel 38:34
Absolutely. I feel like for this episode, we should have had actual instant replays, just all that have been good. Every time. We wanted to reference a thing. We have a little screen come up. Yeah, I interesting. Can you just add that on? Can you diagram this interview for us? Yeah. So um, we have whiteboards this could this could go somewhere. So um, yeah, I think for me, it was his discussion around audience building. So he started with really looking at his audience and saying, Where are they? Where are they existing right now? Where are they talking? He went there. We talked a little bit, a little bit about this with the cool about building community. But he injected himself in that community and started establishing his brand there, and then kind of out of that started adding more content and adding more channels. But he didn’t do it all at once. So he started there, built it. And then as he went along, he was he kept adding and providing things of value for his audience. But I really liked how he talked about content going both ways. your content can serve as a great vehicle for instruction and learning things. But it also can be a reaction. You can create content around looking at things and reviewing them and analyzing what happened. So it content is not just for giving someone instruction, it can also be entertainment and in some ways it can be It can go a lot further than just what we imagine when we think about creating content for information and education.

Adam Vazquez 40:09
Yeah, to that point. And this actually happened after we recorded the interview with Tony, but he has since started a TikTok. And it’s a perfect example of both the things you’re saying because he’s having to build a community from scratch over there. And it’s different content than really any other platform then that he was existing on. So check that out. If you’re interested in seeing it kind of happen in real time. Sometimes it’s, it’s easy to be like, Yeah, well, you can say that when you have 10,000 followers, but really just, he’s in the starting stages of that. I find it fascinating. And we’re gonna talk more about TikTok on next week’s episode as well. So be ready to skip that one.

Carlton Riffel 40:48
So is Tony is doing just dancing? Is that what he’s doing?

Adam Vazquez 40:51
You have to go check it out. I’m not gonna give it up, the dance videos.

Carlton Riffel 41:00
Have you heard? So what have you heard this week that’s of interest? Or what is your thing of the week?

Adam Vazquez 41:07
Yes. So I’m gonna lean into more stuff about Tony actually reintroduced me recently to the Social Media Marketing Podcast from Social Media Examiner. It’s one of the oldest social media platforms and podcasts that exists. But if you haven’t checked it out recently, there’s a particularly good episode. I think I talked about it last week, with Paul Howard talking about the his version or his spin of the hero’s journey. And it really breaks it down into super practical terms. So I’ll make sure we link that. But that was a helpful thing for me this week.

Carlton Riffel 41:42
Awesome. Yeah. So for me, it’s got to be my all-time favorite app on my phone, probably, I listened to a ton of podcasts. I don’t even have lost count at this point. But I listen on Overcast, not to be confused, or not to be mixed out with any of Apple’s products. This is an independent developer that produces this and highly, highly recommended. You can create playlists, you can prioritize what’s in the playlists, you can, he’s got a few unique features, like boosting the speed by taking out spaces. So it’s not just speeding up, but he’s actually removing moments of silent silence in the interview. So he’s got a lot of things that are really pretty cool about it. But another reason is just he’s an independent developer, doing it by himself isn’t a huge corporation. So by supporting it and downloading it, you’re helping someone make a living. So yeah, super impressed with just what one person has done. It’s a great app, and I highly recommend it.

Adam Vazquez 42:47
Very cool.

Carlton Riffel 42:48
Should we be charging for these? Should we be like—?

Adam Vazquez 42:50
Yeah, we say no free shoutouts and then these are all free shoutouts. So yeah, I don’t know what to do about that. We should call it just a shout-out of the week freeze. Yeah. Have you heard about these things that we were given free ads to. No, yeah, I’ve used overcast as well, I’m not quite as much of a power user as you are from being completely honest. But I do appreciate all the features of it. And I would also say it’s one of the more so you know, socially enabled or it’s easier to share. I feel like yeah, out of Overcast and then a lot of the other ones.

Carlton Riffel 43:21
You can share specific links to a specific timestamp, so that’s a neat feature as well.

Adam Vazquez 43:28
Yep. So appreciate you all listening. If you haven’t checked out our YouTube channel yet, be sure to head over there and check it out. Maybe you’re watching this right now, then you need to check out our podcast version. But yeah, share it with one other person, we are on our way to 100 reviews. And when we do I don’t know what we’ve been telling lies so far. So when you think something crazy, something great is gonna happen, get excited about it. And until then, we’ll see you next week.