So in podcasting, what you'll find is that, like, you're very passionate about it, but you walk this line of like, who am I as a person? How do I relate to an audience as a person? And how do I welcome them into what the topics are like the product that I'm working on? It's a nuanced and kind of difficult thing, especially in the beginning, because what people will find is that big emotions come up.
Welcome to the be real show with Travis to tell him about my social media. Well, hello, and welcome to the be real show with Travis to Talan. Huff, folks, you know, your boy is always fired up ready to bring you some way go in your days, nights, weekends, or whenever you're listening to the show today. But after the show, I think you're gonna want to think about podcasts, getting on shows, and using a professional service to get on shows because we're talking to a legend in the game, Mr. Ryan, SS. Ryan, are you ready to be real?
I'm ready to be real. Travis, thanks for that great introduction.
Let's go right to American Buddhist entrepreneur, I want to talk about that. I love that the practice of Buddhism is an incredible thing. And I'd like to hear more about that, as we're more and more of us are doing meditations and things like that. But now he's, you know, he runs an ad agency, kick caster is a podcast booking agency facilitating 1000s. of conversations, you know, obviously, and he's he's helped create this by serving 150 agency clients and gearing up to now launch their software product to where to talk about that as well. But dude, talk to me about this. Have you always been into podcasts?
Yeah, I think from the beginning, you know, I kind of got into podcasts with some like, monumental, terrible commute. This is when you had to like plug your your your iPod and you can download them, you know, back then. So I really got excited about it and was like, wow, you once you kind of open up and you realize there's podcasts about anything. So I then I started recording my own podcast, and I've done that for 12 years.
Hmm. Tell me about your show.
It's, it's actually no more
to start to get down to that busy to leave the writing. But that So you started to tell us about the show. Then when you when you when you were first starting? What was the show? What was that about? Who you bring it on?
You bet. So the first show I did was called eighth grade ball. And it was a transition I was going through I kind of I was a musician and made records and toured and had bands and stuff nice party, you know, probably,
maybe let's go let's go.
And then I had two new babies. And you know, local music is not necessarily the fulcrum of commerce, if you know what I'm saying.
So I mean, money for you or something like that you're gigging for drinks or something?
Yeah, exactly. You can't buy you know, milk with drink tickets. So what are we going to do here? Right. So, um, so I had to kind of put my music career aside, and it hurt, you know, but what I realized is that it wasn't the music as much as I missed the camaraderie with my guys, you know, so I started this podcast basically as a way to like, get them back over drinking beers or hanging out. And just talking trash. Nice. So it was a really fun podcast, and kind of eased me into this second portion of my career. So from there, I started a podcast called The Denver business podcast that became talk launch podcast, which was a founders podcast, and kind of complemented my media marketing agency. So I could, I brought in founders, CEOs, and talk to them about like, you know, what's the pain points in the business? What how do they find traction and growth? And based on their answers, you know, off off air, I was able to kind of pitch them services is kind of a, a Trojan horse into our our service. But not only not only that, though, it was absolutely transformative. And I realized that I just love talking to these guys. I love talking to founders and startup people that these were my people, you know, so this gave me an open door to have these conversations, you know, which was really the inception of K caster. So now, my podcast is kind of on permanent hiatus. Would you say we're in between seasons, right? Because I get to have these conversations all the time. Now. It's my job.
So it's changed it's changed. Yeah, it's
changed man is good.
And when did you start take caster? What did when did you start the actual business
kick caster launched officially September 2019. Bang? Yeah, we're new. And we started kind of with a pilot program about six months before that,
dude and tell me about kind of the people that you really gravitate to the kind of people that really love you know, your service keep coming back every month, because we always we always like clients, but we don't want to come just one time you know, you don't want to tell them just do one run a push shows with you. You want them to come back month after month. Like when I start my social media agency, I think back on some of my customers that have been with me for 1012 years now. Yeah, same customer every month. Yeah. Monthly, monthly, monthly, monthly. So you're doing something right when you do that. So tell me about the people that are gravitating to you that just love working with you.
You bet monthly recurring revenue is king. And so it's kind of funny that, you know, we're taking our cues from SAS models, subscription models, you know, it's a little bit different as a service product. But there's some similarities. And we certainly sell our service as a product. So the people that we serve is kind of three people, you know, funded startup founders, entrepreneurs with exits, C suite executives, people that are essentially super jazzed about what they're birthing into the world,
right. And as far as because I know, the process of just getting on shows and things like that know, my show, for instance, we have a big problem, because I only have so much time, right? So yeah, if I could podcast all day long, and I was getting paid $100 million, like Joe Rogan, I'm podcasting all day long. But for most of us, we're doing this still as a hobby slash is bringing in revenue slash, it's fun learning mentorship, so many things that have come from me in the last 10 years of doing the show, that I've learned and experienced and the show is bigger than ever, right. But my time is so jam. And when when constant inbound emails from people like kick caster and other agencies, let's just be real that, hey, you know, I need to get my guests on your show. And they're booking out in February or March right now on my show, then the the long tail process, and I've been telling people this, it's podcast is a longtail game. Yeah, it's not necessarily just Oh, immediate man I'm getting on the show. I mean, maybe you can, maybe you can't. But it's still the long tail of the show being out there forever. And the fact that sometimes when you're booking in March, you're not going to be a, you know, live until April, May. I absolutely. And so it's just part of the process to think of some of these clients maybe don't understand that in a lot of other things. It's immediate. Immediacy, like I run some Google ads, it immediately sends traffic to my website, spiked up, blah, blah, blah. In this, it's different, because it's just a longer tail process of, would you kind of how do you explain that to them?
You know, we really kind of dive into what the outcomes they want to know. Because there's, there's ways that we can facilitate the outcomes they're looking for. And then there's also unexpected outcomes that they're not even protect are expecting, you know, one of those is just like the personal development of learning how to speak to somebody for an audience, you know, it's a nuanced skill, right? You know, a lot of folks maybe they've got experience in like, public speaking, that's a lot different. It's a lot more formal, there's maybe more rehearsing, you know, you got to look a little bit better than with podcasting. Except for you. Because you beautiful, I mean, you know, so So in podcasting, what you'll find is that, like, particularly, if you're kind of, you're going to represent your brand, you're going to represent your product, you're very passionate about it, but you walk this line of like, who am I as a person? How do I relate to an audience as a person? And how do I welcome them into what the topics are? Like the the product that I'm working on? You know, it's it's a nuanced and kind of difficult thing, especially in the beginning, because what people will find is that big emotions come up. You know, Travis, you've been doing this a long time, you know, what I'm saying? So like you behind a mic is very natural in the in the commander seat, but like, you know, if you start going on the people's podcast, it'll have this novel, feeling like there's something that comes up and you're like, Whoa, you know, absolutely different,
different when you have to tell your story. It's easier still, because your boys been doing this for 10 years, it's I'm not afraid to spike it up and be a little crazy and act a little spot and then go back quiet, and do the things that I know how to do my show, because I've been doing it for so long that that's just i Even if I come on another show, but still, it's completely different. Me being the host. I got I got the format, baby. I got the format. I know the playbook. I need these things for back to back maybe on a Monday. Yeah, go on someone show. I don't know that necessarily how long we're gonna go we're talking about all sorts of things. And a lot of things come up that we weren't even planning talking about. And so telling your story is a craft. It's a skill. And it's something that this is what you part our offering to them is these opportunities to get on stages. It's some virtual, all virtual and podcasting, let's just be real, but you're still interacting, you're having this moment where you this is going to help you and your other aspects of your life and everywhere. Yes. So that's the key part. That's the other key part that these people need to remind themselves about when they're thinking about, you know, the podcast, because sometimes it is going to be immediate, and it's not it's gonna be a long tail, but most importantly, you're developing along the way.
You're definitely developing along the way. And you know, and the other thing is, too, that we really, and we help people, you know, find their story, you know, because everybody's got a pivotal moment story. Everybody has a humble beginning story. You know, even you're born a silver spoon. You're Elon Musk kids, whatever, man. Maybe you only have One scoop scoop of ice cream when you're a kid, you don't I'm saying it's hard out there, baby. Yeah. And there's, that's how people relate to you is, is being vulnerable, you know, every, you know, everybody wants to hear about your vision for the future. So, so we help them like go through kind of some of their anecdotes, you know, what works at parties, you know, what's that punch line, you've got to the story that works, we kind of organize those, you know, because people want to know, your good person, people want to know that you care about other people, people want to know that, that share, you want to make money, but there's, there's a service component behind that. So we help them do that.
Love that. So important. So you're coaching them along the way, before they even go on the outreach. And then once you are out there, you have a team that's just outreaching to podcasters, and presenting bios and interacting and kind of booking the process to them.
That's right. Absolutely. There's a they're creeping up to maybe 20 People caster, and you know, we've got to you dude, yeah, thanks, man. You know, there's two kind of quota carrying salespeople, and then the rest are, you know, three admin and the rest are agents. And that, you know, I, we take it really personally is like, you know, like, you're saying, like, we're preparing the person, we want to make sure it's a strong product, but really what we're selling is the conversation. Like, we know that if you're going to Travis, like you will, we want these points of a conversation that Travis can pick up and, and run with. So that's really what we're doing, you know, our mission is Celebrate good conversation, and just facilitating podcast interviews is an extension of that.
The beautiful thing, dude, it's a beautiful thing, dude. It's a great business model. And, and it's just scratching the surface, I think more and more people are going to take this series, founders, entrepreneurs, C suite level, and then all sorts of levels, all different levels of that, too. I mean, I think more and more people will take that seriously. And as your podcast network grows, you're able to able to service more people as as you get more podcasters, like, like the B will show and things like that under your belt, and you're able to facilitate a bigger network
to as well. Absolutely, totally. And, you know, our, our business is based on relationships and reciprocity, you know, so without folks like you and these great shows, right, and that's why we're in the, the kind of the, the vertical that we are, you know, because your show shows, like you people come to this show looking for resources, you know, what I mean, everyone subscribes to Tim Ferriss and Rogen to whoever they gotta get, you got Snoop Dogg on there, but you've been there, you're going there for entertainment, you know, I'm saying like, the business categories, entrepreneurship, marketing, all of these things, you have a lot of people that are entrepreneurs themselves, and they're looking for resources, they're looking for tools, they're looking for things that they can implement in their business and make them better, you know, so that's why, you know, the business categories are so valuable to us, because the audience are there in earnest to, to get something out of it.
And some of them might be like, you know, like, in some cases, like it's a person that runs digital marketing for Papa John's, or some big person that could literally, you know, make a big move in your business or tool if you come on to be roadshow and that's just one of the listeners is just that person, actually, the next person could be this person, it's a different kind of listener to that's listening to the shows and their decision makers a lot of times and people that are willing to make that, you know, bigger decision in a tool software, etc. And I just love this man, I love this. I love this industry, I think it's the beginning, obviously, we got the guys like Joe Rogan are setting the precedents and showing that, you know, if you deliver consistently, if you have great guests, and you're candid with your guests, and you're he's really shit with this guess what happens is a lot of people like you, and you'll be you'll build such an audience where you have a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, essentially network for yourself, you know, and, and bigger than some of the biggest networks, you know, in the world is he's has and that's why obviously, you know, Spotify made that deal is because they know, and they know it ain't going away. This is just scratching the surface if more and more people get used to it and it's a new form of radio or it's a new form of content that I would say it's very educational, or it's wherever you want to go with it. But like you said in the business category, a lot of times it's very tactical, very, you know, you can get something from it and then today make a change in your business that changes it dramatically or have a door open or the person says a sentence that just bring some light to you and your situation unlike a Joe Rogan, which is more of a conversation and some things like any pick stuff up on that one too, but like you said, it's more for the entertainment purposes you know, and and you enjoy that too. So I think the space is just getting bigger as you have more people in it as you have more money in the space funding in the space and and folks like you man in the middle helping to help them things happen, man help and things happen. So I think you're in a prosperous situation, my brother, but ya know, take you into the top 10 Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's go Apple or Android, Apple, Apple, Netflix or YouTube,
Netflix,
Netflix, Instagram or Facebook? Neither. Neither baby chicken or steak. Oh, tough call vegetarian depends.
I'm gonna go steak steak, baby.
Let's go. Let's go the little cheat day cheat meal, laptop or smartphone. Oh, smartphone, bar phone, Spotify or Pandora, Spotify, Spotify movies or video games, movies, movies, reading books or listening to books, audio books all day audio books one I remember how Tom billion, three XP for XP
Let's go. He's a beast from the east. He's right on 5x. Now he keeps going a little higher. But yeah, even 1.5 you can get through a book faster. Some authors, if they're reading slow, you can do two acts and you can actually get through a book pretty dang quick. If the author's like slow, you know, get you down like you got to go 1.5 negative, so you can just speed it all the way down. Yeah. But that's just another life hack in life. If you're outside if you're doing things and using that time to learn outside of the business stocks or real estate to diversify. Stocks, docks, liquid oceans or lakes. If you deserve a vacation, you're up. You're leaving on the Denver Airport today, baby. We're gonna We're out here.
Rivers, bro.
Rivers, let's go. There's nothing like the flow of the water.
Fly fishing. I like those big fishing jewels that I'm talking about. Yeah.
Awesome. That's another way that you get to, you know, kind of escaping, you know, distress in some situations.
Oh, it's all I really want to do. To be honest. That's it.
There we go. So like, like, Jeff Bezos really wants to just explore space. So my dude at the end of the day is gonna be running this behemoth business so they can do more fly fishing, baby. Yeah, you go to Mars. Now Mars, I got all the fish in the stream. That's your favorite river the like the fish on? Oh,
boy. I'm tough question. Tough question. I would say the Gallatin in Montana.
The Gallatin. Ooh, that sounds that sounds like it can have some huge fish.
It was a wild It's a wild river. It's not Damn, it comes right out of Yellowstone. It's incredibly beautiful. And it's also you know, I mean, I'm in Denver. So you know it's it's a little bit of sacrifice to get to the Gallatin. But boy, it's it is good times.
It's worth it. It's worth every second. Yeah, there you go. So when you're waking up for your day, you're getting pumped, energized. Ready for the day. Why do you love being you?
What do I love being me? You know, I love my family. That makes it a lot easier.
Describe the fam describe the fam.
You bet. My wife and I've been married 17 years and I've got a freshman in high school daughter in seventh grade.
Wow. The boy and a girl. That's what I got to but they're a little younger. Yeah. Almost three year old and a six month seven month old. Oh, nice, man. We're just getting started dating. We're just getting started on the journey. I was a late bloomer. I was a late bloomer, but that's alright. That's all right. I love being a dad. It's one of the biggest blessings you could ever experience in this life. And I only can imagine the the high school age with with a daughter.
It's really exciting. She had a scrimmage this weekend. She's playing basketball. Oh, nice. You made JV as a freshman. She scored 20 points. Baller. I know all excited.
Awesome, dude. Dude. Dude, that is awesome. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of opportunity. Now more than ever, for females in the WNBA is a big thing as well as just the discipline you learn from team sports. If anything, that's the most important thing you can get out of it. I think, you know,
100% you know, girls basketball to is kind of a different game. You know, it's a much more of a team game, right? It's a lot of passing and life's good plays. You're like actually running plays. I mean, high school basketball for boys is just like, up and down. It's hard Bow Bow Bow Bow Bow Bow Bow Bow. You know, so it's really fun to watch.
It's very true. very tactile, baby. Let's go do you think ever retire from the game of entrepreneurship and business? Nah, forget that. We're fly fishing and working all day. You have a routine on starting your day.
Um, you know, if I'm like, really? Okay, I will say it this way. If I follow my routine two, three times a week, I feel like I'm doing a good job, you know, so that just entails getting up early and breaking a sweat where I can you know, I've been nursing an injury. So I've been doing some kettlebell stuff. Nice, little little kind of modified CrossFit stuff in the morning. But, you know, if I start my day, you know, breaking a sweat, my day is gonna be fantastic. It's
just nothing like that. Dude, there's nothing like that. You're so right. Is there a skill you're trying to master right now or get better at?
Yeah, you know, I'm jujitsu player.
Oh, watch out. Hey,
I'm a purple belt jujitsu.
guy he's tapped out the negative belt. Let's go. Let's go.
I do. I do kappa wat as well. Oh, which is another Brazilian martial arts Believe it or not,
but badass right here follow him on the fly fishing zone. No cross his line.
The bad? No, no, no, no, no. It's a discipline. It's a discipline and really what it is, it's a it's a language to interpret reality. I mean, I think one thing that was really interesting about music is that everything becomes analogy for music. So the way you're engaging with the world is with rhythm? Or are you kind of leading with a melody? Or like, are you accompanying people with a harmony like, you can start to see a metaphor of music in everywhere. And it because there's, it's, it is an infinite level of understanding and development? Well, martial arts is the very same way. You know, like, the more you train capital, whether you start to see worlds and or see the world in terms of the whole done in the song and the kicks in the strikes, and like all this, so it's really fascinated me. And plus, I just love being new at stuff. Because you know, when you start at something, let's just say you suck, getting competent at that thing, that delta is greater than any other time that you're going to experience if you go from competent to like, masterful, that takes a long time. And it's it's very small window to find mastery. But going from like, kind of sucking to being competent is a lot of terrain to cover. It's so exciting, crossing that in whatever it may be.
And it's a practice it's a practice in another discipline life.
That's right. It's something you do. It's not something you
believe, right? Love that. Let's go just do I always say just do more than you do for you, the more you can do for others, baby. Let's go do you have a favorite app or tool you use to run the business? Or do you just love love to use?
Favorite be stripe,
Stripe bank? Try get that money, get that money game? Get that money game, right? And if you could chop it up and be real and sit down with anyone in the world to a steak dinner? Who wants it done with today? Dead or alive? Doesn't matter. We've had all sorts of guests.
Doesn't matter, duck dead or alive? Um, I'd like to I'd like to sit down with the Buddha. The original Kuato Gautama Sidhartha.
Wow. Oh, yeah. I think if he thinks of the world today, I think it'd be chill. If he chose Dell, you'd be like, alright, we got this. Yeah. What you put into your mind, right? It's what you put in your mind?
Yeah, I just want to see his mannerisms. You know, saying, let's see, like, you know what happens when he stubbed his toe like wash him?
Right? When someone cuts him off in traffic?
You got all the answers, man, but I want to see this personality. You know, what happens when you run out of the seasoning for your rice and beans? Like Buddha getting pissed off? What's happening?
When I was reading it the wrong Mexican food and yeah, I got a backup in the aisle to
what didn't make the scriptures. You know what I'm saying somebody messed up and got a stain on his robes, you know, did he hit him with a with a stick? I mean, I don't know. But I think it'd be interesting. Just, you know, as far as like, particularly like religious scriptures, like, flesh out the person, you know, everything becomes deified. And in the end is if you're talking about that the density of those kinds of scriptures, but like who was a person? Humans baby humans? Yes. And souls. Yeah. And souls beautiful souls.
You got a beautiful soul my dude. Is there a book that sticks to your soul? Is there a book that has changed your life that you reread or you just kind of keep at your at your heart?
You know, there's a bunch there's, there's a whole bunch, you know, a Gino Wickman. Traction is a huge book for business for me. We'll keep it on this kind of the Buddha theme. There's a great book called The Tibetan Book of the yoga of sleep. And I love this book, because it really scared the crap out of me is amazing, because the Tibetans have like these, like great technology and techniques for kind of discovering the terrain of your mind. And they've been at this for so long, that it's very detailed, you know, and so they have all these techniques for sleep. And like different techniques you use when you're asleep. And you know, you wake up, let's say four times during the night typically, you know, oftentimes, it's so you don't even remember that you woke up you just kind of change changed positions. Yeah. Yeah. But they do some technique, and they do a little technique yet. Find kind of like, you know, lucid dreaming if you wanted to do that, and this and that. And what freaked me out so much about this book is this guy was like, he's like, Yeah, you know, I become lucid in REM sleep, which is like you're dreaming and stuff, so he could kind of have maneuverability with his dreams, but there's another, you know, there's dreamless deep sleep, which they call Turia, which is essentially just nothing. There is no dreaming happening. It's just Still, but you can develop conscious awareness in this space. And so what he does is he goes into Dreamful sleep in, finds his meditation cushion and starts meditating, goes into career and still holds meditation. And it freaked me out. Because I was like, Oh my God, there's no escape, right? Like, my brain is the this this like, you know fractal limit recipes set up just like consciousness developing on show it freaked me out, man, so I kind of quit my quit my whole practice for like a year after that, because I just was like, I shouldn't have seen
right, you just want to open the door. Yeah, let's go back.
Yeah, and since then, I've formed a little bit different relationship with that with the book and that kind of stuff. But why I liked that book so much is it's so crazy that like, you know, listening to the audiobook can have such a visceral reaction that initially for me was like fear and like a kind of an existential fear.
Right? You open your mind to like when you started learning about the universe or something like that. Yeah, but
what was the potency of this this work? You know, it's like pretty incredible you know?
It's amazing dude, I love books man nothing like a good book to change your life and sometimes it's for the 40 You know, the scared just for the better you know, so I think it's a great place can you give our listeners where your favorite place for them to learn about the businesses? castro.com back casting.com And in our Do you have any favorite places for you? Outside of you said you don't like any social media? Are you on LinkedIn or any other platforms for you personally?
Yeah, I am on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn I'm and I'm on Reddit if you could find me
there you go. On LinkedIn if you guys go type that in and definitely check out their website what you guys are doing is incredible. I think that the business is in the it's still infancy because the industry is in infancy but you guys are obviously in the driver's seat doing something right baby growing, providing that service level and we love taking your customers and clients to man you always have an open door on on the be real show. But dude, thank you so much for your time today folks, you've been hanging out with the legend of the game of podcasts of life seriously think about this life is so blessed and to be able to do things like you've been doing somewhat transition your your passion if you want to call it you were in the music game, loved being on the stage love performing love that but hey, we got to pay the bills baby. This is another form of that and get to perform you get to get your clients performance the same kind of almost experience but you're the coach or the agent you're the you know the the the conduit to this whole beautiful thing, man. So keep doing that baby keep keep the engine going. Keep fire fishing and, and I appreciate your soul man, folks, you've been hanging out with Mr. Ryan esses and Travis Teuton. Huff, we want to thank you again for your time today. And let's keep being what's another epic episode? And if you enjoyed the episode today, can you please do me a favor and subscribe to our podcast to be real show on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform. And also take a little time today if you don't mind and give your boy T Huff a review. I would really super appreciate it. And thank you so much for listening today. Do you want to get featured on podcast guys? You can be a guest and that's right. You have a story and the people the good folks at I love podcasts that's i LUV podcast.com do that every single day. This is a new company guys in the space of podcast agency and they realize a lot of the people in the space are just it's just a commodity and they don't care. And these folks care and I literally love Kenny and the team at I love podcasts and they are doing it right for their customers. So you guys can be a guest on a show. I love podcasts comments I luv podcasts.com. Let's go
