370: Innovating Podcast Marketing: Eric Melchor's B2B Strategies

Eric Melchor: 00:00:00

I would create a quora post for every show. And so if I had a founder, for example, that was making an application on how to pay your bills in Europe, you know, through your phone, and I would create a Quora post like, how do you pay your bills in Europe? Right. And then I would talk about the product or whatever, and then I would say, you know, if you want to go into learn more about this and hear about the founder, you can hear the interview on this episode and blah, blah, blah. And some of those core posts got like thousands of views. And, you know, some of those people were clicking to click, you know, listen to the podcast. Some of them got maybe a couple of dozen views, not so much. You never really knew which one would click. But over time, that contributed a lot to my growth in the podcast. Sa even if you can streamline a lot of the process, I feel like people want to tune into podcasts for the authenticity, and I don't think that will be replaced. I'm sure there will be some people who listen to podcasts that are AI hosted, but I think the majority of people want real, authentic conversations.

Harry Duran: 00:04:42

So. Eric Melcore, thank you for joining me on Podcast Junkies.

Eric Melchor: 00:04:46

Hey, pleasure to be here, Harry.

Harry Duran: 00:04:49

So you're dialing in as we were chatting. Pre call from Bucharest. How'd you end up there?

Eric Melchor: 00:04:55

That's right, yeah. Texan and Bucharest. I've been here almost five years and it's crazy. In 2010, I lived here for one year. I was in New York before that for about seven years. Didn't want to go back to Texas just yet. And I saw this advertisement. This recruiter reached out to me from Romania from the largest media agency. And they were looking from people from the States and from the UK to come educate their clients on online advertising. And I thought, why not? And so it was like a one year contract. And so I thought, I'm pretty adventurous. I had traveled a lot because I used to work for an airline. And I said, okay, why not? Came here. And this is where I met. I fell in love with my wife. And it was one of those things like love at first sight. But I was scheduled to come back to Houston, okay, And so I came back to Houston. But we were through instant messaging, Yahoo messenger all the time. We were on Skype all the time. I'd be driving to work and I'd have my phone in front of me on my dashboard and communicating through Skype. And I ended up coming back here to Bucharest to visit her, or we would meet in Paris or we Would meet in Barcelona and we figured out, you know, hey, how are we going to make this work? And so I convinced her to move to Houston. I told her it was like a European city, very cosmopolitan and totally made that up. One of the things I did do though is I bought a used Aprilia scooter, this Italian scooter, 200cc and I bought this cute pink polka dot helmet for her. And I bought a condo in a one bedroom condo in downtown Houston. It's like the only walkable part of the city. And so when she did move, she had the scooter, she had the condo. So it was kind of European in that sense.

Harry Duran: 00:06:39

A European in Texas?

Eric Melchor: 00:06:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, in that sense. So fast forward, you know, we got married, had two kids, Covid happens. And we had just had our daughter. And you know, unfortunately in the States, women have to go back to work after three months after giving birth. But the daycares were closed and we're working at home with a newborn plus a two year old. And it was just crazy. I mean, we're trying to work, trying to watch and raise these, you know, babies. And her mom made the suggestion, if you guys come here, I can help out with the kids. And we were like, haha, that's funny. But you know, after like a couple of days we were thinking about it and we're like, actually it kind of makes sense. I mean, she can help out with the kids, we're working remote. And there were so many other pros. I mean some of the pros were that the weather's nicer compared to Houston. There's like four seasons, there's cost of living is less, there's a lot more places to visit. I mean, you can drive and get to the beach, the ocean or the mountains in three hours. Whereas in Texas you can drive for like 15 hours and you're still in Texas. Right. You know, it's all flat.

Harry Duran: 00:07:48

I've done that drive.

Eric Melchor: 00:07:50

Oh man, it's brutal, right?

Harry Duran: 00:07:52

Brutal.

Eric Melchor: 00:07:53

And so we're like, let's try it out for a couple of years, see how it goes. And it's already been four plus years and the way things are in the states, we don't really have any. We're pretty good here right now. I think we're just staying here for a little longer.

Harry Duran: 00:08:06

Yeah, I mean, stuff's going crazy over here. It must be interesting to watch from afar, especially as an American to see what's going on.

Eric Melchor: 00:08:13

Yeah, well, a few months after we moved here, we had the January 6th Capitol riots were going, oh, my gosh. And then in Texas, there was this big freeze for like three or four days where there was no power.

Harry Duran: 00:08:23

Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:08:25

My family was calling and we, like, they were like, we don't have heat. It's like 40 degrees inside our homes. And we're looking. My wife and I are looking at each other. We're like, I think we made a good decision so far.

Harry Duran: 00:08:36

Made a good call there. Yeah, that's great. What's been the biggest adjustment for you living there?

Eric Melchor: 00:08:42

Well, work wise, the big adjustment is that I've been working remote for almost five years. Whereas previously back in Houston, obviously, I went into the office, you know, five days a week. That's been a big adjustment. The other good adjustment, I've had a chance to pursue some hobbies that have turned into businesses. And the other big adjustment is that, you know, as Americans, I feel like we're workaholics. Even when we go on vacation, we're always still checking email. We're always still working. Generally never take more than a week vacation. But here in Europe, oh, my God. I mean, you know, a week is not enough. A week is like, oh, God, that's not even. That's not even a vacation. Right.

Harry Duran: 00:09:20

Of course.

Eric Melchor: 00:09:21

I mean, they take vacation very seriously. I mean, they don't respond.

Harry Duran: 00:09:25

They do vacations well in Europe.

Eric Melchor: 00:09:26

Yeah, yeah. And that's been a big adjustment for me. I guess you would say it's a good adjustment. I get to slow down a little bit more.

Harry Duran: 00:09:33

Yeah, yeah. The infamous Spanish siestas, right?

Eric Melchor: 00:09:37

Well, we. We don't have the siestas like they do in Spain, but it's not far off.

Harry Duran: 00:09:41

Yeah, I'm sure. So prior to getting into the podcasting space, like, what was the trajectory of your career?

Eric Melchor: 00:09:48

So in Houston, I was achieving everything that I wanted. I wanted to have. I wanted to be like a marketing director, have a budget, have a team, you know, be in the senior leadership. And I achieved that. I mean, I was marketing director at publicly traded companies, and I was really good at it. I really enjoyed it, making really good money. And when Covid happened, obviously that impacted a lot. That impacted my job. I got laid off. And so I'd always been fascinated by startups and I wanted to. For me, it was almost like, you know, what they're doing in the startup world in terms of marketing, how they go to go to market, strategy, and they're trying to get their first users and, you know, it's a very competitive landscape. I always wanted to test myself in that sense to see if I was like really good at marketing like I thought I was. And so that's what I did, is that I started working for startups here in Europe. And the way I did it, Harry, is cause I didn't have any background with SaaS or with startups or anything like that, is that I reached out to a few startups and offered to share with them like a 60 page presentation on my user experience as it relates to their product. I went through their user journey and here's everything that I want to share with them in terms of moments of friction where I felt like maybe the customer was confused, you know, other points that I felt like, you know, you can improve the engagement here or here's something else you can try. And so who, you know, for a 30 minute call, why not? You would pay thousands to get this kind of, you know, valuable feedback. And so I did that for two startups. One of them led to a consulting gig and then from there I was able to start building a network and relationships and connections over here, get some testimonials on LinkedIn and just start building my reputation. And one thing led to another and I got my first real gig at a startup called Bonjouro. They were actually based out of Australia, but they had people globally. And I got to work with Casey Hill, who's well known in the SaaS base and I learned a lot from him. I mean, wow, we were like a speedboat in terms of what we did. I mean, I had never conducted webinars before, I had never spoken to customers before. I had never really been on LinkedIn before writing content and try to build a personal brand and, and this was like three years ago before, it's very popular now. And I was just doing all those things. Every day was just something different. And I learned a great deal during my time with Bonjouro. And then after that I saw the opportunity to get into podcasting and that's what led me to create B2B pod pros.

Harry Duran: 00:12:27

So it seems like marketing has been in your blood for quite a long time.

Eric Melchor: 00:12:33

Harry Duran: 00:13:23

Are you a Mad Men fan?

Eric Melchor: 00:13:24

You know, I do like the show. I haven't seen every episode, but it's good. Especially the copywriting, you know, it's really, really good.

Harry Duran: 00:13:32

Yeah. The quality of life for people during that time was probably not the best.

Eric Melchor: 00:13:37

Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:13:37

And there were certain things that probably wouldn't hold up too well in this day and age.

Eric Melchor: 00:13:40

Very, very true.

Harry Duran: 00:13:41

But if you focus on, like, the business of it and then the marketing aspects of it, I'm sure there's a lot of takeaways. So when did podcasting come on your radar?

Eric Melchor: 00:13:49

Harry Duran: 00:14:08

And so we realized and actually just probably be helpful for people to explain what. Bonjoro is familiar with the tool.

Eric Melchor: 00:14:14

Yeah, yeah. So Bonjoro is sort of like loom. It's like a personal video tool, and you can quickly and easily send personal videos. And the great thing about that tool is that you can sync it with a lot of different platforms you use, like HubSpot, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign. And so at certain parts in the journey, maybe after you send out a proposal, you can also send out a video real quickly and you can do it with your phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we realized, okay, this is working. We're able to reach our ideal customer profile by going on these podcasts as a guest. And one of the people from the company suggested I should be a host. And the. The reason is that we would get on these calls, and we had people from all over many different countries. And until the meeting got started, while we're waiting for, like, the founder to hop on, I would ask these random questions from people like, hey, in your country, you know, what is a food dish that you don't like? But a lot of people in your country, like, you know.

Harry Duran: 00:15:10

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:15:10

And people would start sending pictures of what the dish looked like. We've got this jello and there's like these bones inside of it. And you know, you know, we're like, oh, that sounds awful. You know, and people are like, oh, no. But in my country, you know, my mother in law makes this dish and it's awful. And you know. Yeah. And you know, every week I was like asking these random questions and someone made the comment like, oh, you know, you should have a podcast where you interview like international people or something. And it stuck with me. And this was four years ago, and I thought, you know, why not? And so I'm in startups. Let me interview European startup founders and it's going to be a very casual conversation. We'll learn about their business, who they are, what they're building. But the idea is to make it casual and fun and have a good time. And so the show was called Innovators can Laugh. And so that's. That led to the idea. Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:16:02

And so is that still running?

Eric Melchor: 00:16:03

It's still running. Every season I try to do a focus on a different country. We focused on Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, of course, the uk, the Netherlands. And right now we just wrapped up the season with England or with uk and I'm not sure which country I'll do next. But the other thing that I do, Harry, is that it's been great for traveling because now when I go to a place in Europe, I can just reach out to the people I interviewed and I got people who can show me around. That's the other benefit of doing the show.

Harry Duran: 00:16:36

And how did you, when you think about the format? Because I've been doing this show since 2014, and it's just fun to have like an open format. And it's helped me become a better interviewer, a better listener, asking better questions. But I'm always curious, you know, how you keep the blade sharpened when it comes to hosting and, you know, what inspires you, who inspires you and how do you keep motivated with your show?

Eric Melchor: 00:16:56

Yeah, well, the first two seasons I did something that I have yet to see on another podcast, and I don't do it anymore because it carries a lot of work. But what I would do is that during the show, at the very end, I would ask like these four distinct questions for each guest. Okay. And then in the next show, I would ask the podcaster, like, okay, I had so and so on the show before you. I asked her these questions and I want to see if you can get them right. And I would give them multiple choice.

Harry Duran: 00:17:25

Okay.

Eric Melchor: 00:17:25

You know, so and so's favorite thing for Valentine's Day to receive is A, cookies, you know, B, a nice dinner, C. And so they had to think of the founder, right? And they're like, okay, let me see that founder. And let me guess. And if whoever got the most points right that season would win the prize. And so that, to me, was a lot of fun. Every guest had a lot of time, a good time, but not only that, they were actually intrigued to learn more about that founder that they were trying.

Harry Duran: 00:17:53

You know, that's interesting.

Eric Melchor: 00:17:55

And so they would tune into the show to find out if the next guests were able to guess their answers. And so you had. Yeah, it's. It was very unique. I would love to bring that back. Maybe in the future I will. I really enjoy that. So I did that for a couple of seasons. And the other thing that I did for a while is I would try to speak in their language at the very beginning. And so I would hit record and like, if it was like Bulgarian, I would, hi, welcome to the show, blah, blah, blah. You know, they would just get a kick out of it because I would butcher their language. Right. You know, some people would be like, was that Dutch? You know.

Harry Duran: 00:18:35

Well, nowadays with ChatGPT and AI Google Translate, I mean, it's. It's pretty. Pretty easy. You throw the phrase in there and.

Eric Melchor: 00:18:40

Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:18:41

You know, they'll probably even help you with the pronunciation.

Eric Melchor: 00:18:43

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I did that for a while. But one of the things I try to do for all my guests, and it definitely helped a lot, was before the show, before the recording, send them a personal video, usually a day or two before, because I want them to see my face, hear my voice, kind of get the. Get to know what it's going to be like beforehand.

Harry Duran: 00:19:01

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:19:01

And then on my registration form, I have a question that asks, what is your favorite song? Okay. And so when they get into the recording studio, the date and time of the recording, when they log in, I have their favorite song playing.

Harry Duran: 00:19:16

Perfect. Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:19:17

And so when you hear your favorite song playing, it's an automatic smile, right?

Harry Duran: 00:19:21

Yeah, of course.

Eric Melchor: 00:19:22

Yeah. It puts you in a good mood. And so those two things I always did for every guest, and it put them in a good mood and lighting them up, and it just made the conversation flow, you know, just in a very relaxed state.

Harry Duran: 00:19:34

And are these. When you think about these ideas and inspiration, is it just from listening to other shows or being on other shows or this just stuff that, you know, kind of like the way your marketing brain Works. Cause I can relate to that. Like, I'm always thinking of, like, new ideas, and sometimes if I get in the flow, there's this marketing part of my brain that just gets lit up if I'm talking to the right person.

Eric Melchor: 00:19:53

Harry Duran: 00:20:38

Sure, sure.

Eric Melchor: 00:20:38

And the sign said something like, you know, if you only give once a year. Yeah. If you only give once a year, think of me, I'll be here. That's all the sign said. And within a couple of hours, that beg with a person on the street, the homeless person, you know, it already made like, a hundred dollars.

Harry Duran: 00:20:55

Wow.

Eric Melchor: 00:20:56

Yeah. And so when I heard that at the time I was working for a retail electricity company, and. And so I created. I tested an ad, and it's something like, it said something like, if you only choose an electricity plan once a year, think of us. We'll be here. You know, we'll be here next year or something. Click through. Rates open, Rates sky high. By far the best campaign, you know, that year for that product. Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:21:19

Yeah. So many ideas, so many takeaways that people can apply both to their business but to their podcast. So thank you for sharing that. So I'm always curious because, like I said, I've been doing this show going on 11 years now, actually this month. What keeps you motivated to keep podcasting? You're saying you're going to different countries, you know, because at some point, you know, people, if they're not passionate about something, it'll just fade away and they'll just feel like, oh, that was nice to do for a couple of seasons. So I'm curious, for something that seems to light you up, like, what keeps you motivated, keeps you, like, into. Because it's a Lot of work as you know, to put a show together, to schedule guests, to find the time to, you know, and whether you have a team, you're doing it solo, to produce it, to market it, to get the word out.

Eric Melchor: 00:22:00

Harry Duran: 00:24:45

Eric Melchor: 00:25:38

Harry Duran: 00:26:29

Eric Melchor: 00:26:37

Harry Duran: 00:28:14

Eric Melchor: 00:28:26

Harry Duran: 00:29:29

And so is it. Is there a fee to join B2B pod pros?

Eric Melchor: 00:29:32

There should be. No, no. I mean, there should be. And the website, I actually put for the first time recently that, you know, there's a $10 monthly charge to join. I haven't really charged anybody yet.

Harry Duran: 00:29:47

How many shows you got in there?

Eric Melchor: 00:29:49

Well, we have. I think there's 60 plus podcasts and part of the network. And so I'm pretty unnecessarily picky who I let in, but sure, you know, it's not necessarily about, hey, the network. It's really about, do you want to contribute to the community? Do you want to be a part of the group? Because a lot of the podcasters, they've gotten to know each other, They've gotten to go in each other's shows.

Harry Duran: 00:30:11

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:30:11

And it's a good time when we call in. I've gotten to know everybody, and I want to work with people who I enjoy working with.

Harry Duran: 00:30:18

Yeah, for sure. Life is too short to not do that.

Eric Melchor: 00:30:20

Right, Exactly. There's. I mean, there's actually one person I've had to. Not necessarily kick out of the community, but. Yeah, it just wasn't a good fit. Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:30:28

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I love the fact that you really hold the quality of the membership in high regard because, you know, It's a reflection of you, and it's a reflection of who else is in there. And so if there's someone that's not a fit, it's nice. It's almost like they say when you have to fire your clients because they're just like, that's always a hard thing to do because, you know, you don't want to lose that revenue. But then just like, it's not who we are, you know, it's not aligned with our mission and our values. And it sounds like that's what you're thinking when you make those decisions.

Eric Melchor: 00:30:56

Absolutely. And, you know, I love sales calls, if you want to call them that, because, you know, part of the sales call is. Is really. You're not really buying the reach. You're buying the person behind the podcast. And everybody who's part of the community I enjoy talking about. You know, I've got a slide that has information about them, but I can kind of go deeper than that. I'm like, oh, they're also found at this. And they have their own. Yeah. You know, product. And, you know, they're great on LinkedIn if you ever see their content. And that's how it is with just about everybody, you know, that's a part of this community, I imagine.

Harry Duran: 00:31:26

So it helps. It's like a nice community because you got to help each other and get visibility for the shows. But also if everyone's, like, chiming in on the LinkedIn posts as well, it doesn't hurt. It probably helps their LinkedIn visibility as well.

Eric Melchor: 00:31:38

Yeah, a lot of them engage with each other's posts, and a lot of em have been on each other's podcasts, and it's great. I mean, especially when they can refer each other for different jobs and things like that. Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:31:50

Well, I'll definitely have a look because I'm always looking for fascinating folks to come on my show. And it's just an open format, all, you know, the precursors that you've been podcasting for a while and you're passionate.

Eric Melchor: 00:31:59

Oh, man. I've got a few ideas for you already.

Harry Duran: 00:32:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So when you think about the, you know, being in the podcasting space, so naturally, I imagine there's opportunities that pop up for other things you can offer. So let's talk a little bit about podkit.

Eric Melchor: 00:32:16

Yeah. So one of the members in my community from Southern Cal, he said, eric, I'm working with this, my partner, he's in Romania like you, and I think you should meet him because he wants to build Something for podcasters. And I said, yeah, sure. All right. And send me his contact information. And I got his contact information, and I reached out, you know, yeah. And he's a kid, he's in high school. And so I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll get on a call with them. And I thought it was going to be a quick call. And I'm like, I'm doing this out of a courtesy for one of the members of the media, right?

Harry Duran: 00:32:50

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:32:51

And I get on the phone with them, and he's a nice guy, and we're talking, and he's got these wireframes of what he wants to build. And as soon as I saw the wireframes, I was like, within a millisecond, I'm like, I'm in. Because there was this online media kit for podcasters.

Harry Duran: 00:33:07

And.

Eric Melchor: 00:33:07

And the crazy thing is that here's this kid, he's not even a podcaster, but he recognized that there should be something out there that doesn't exist yet. And so when you go to Google, when you type in media kit podcasters, all the links are like, for Canva or for Adobe or how to create something, like in PDF or some Google Slides or whatever. There's nothing about an online media kit. And he's like, yeah, no, I want to create this thing where it automatically pulls the downloads information, the audience information from Spotify and Apple Podcasts and YouTube. You can also pull information instantaneously from Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn, and you can customize it how you want. You could put what your top episode is in there. Once you create it, it only takes like five minutes. You never have to worry about it again. And it just blew my mind. And so this was in November of last year, and by December, we were close to having the beta ready. And so I think we had the beta version ready. And I shared it with all the members in my community. And that's how we got, like. I think we had at least 10 or 12 people give us good feedback and made some adjustments. And by February, by close to February, we had the email automation set up. So if somebody signed up the series of emails they would get, we decided on what the paid version would look like. So there's a free version, the paid version, the freed version, you can sync up to two different platforms. But the paid version, obviously you can do more than that. And then you also get notification when somebody views your media kit with the paid version. And you can download multiple PDFs or as many as you want with A paid version. But the best thing that we're currently working on is the AI feature that automatically finds you potential sponsors based on your show.

Harry Duran: 00:34:57

Wow.

Eric Melchor: 00:34:58

So once you describe your show, AI does its work and it's like, okay, based on your show, here's 20 potential sponsors and here's who to contact at those sponsors. Right? Here's the marketing people.

Harry Duran: 00:35:10

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:35:11

And so that's going to be rolling out pretty soon. And we went live in March, at the beginning of March, and it's called podkit. Podk.it and we were so excited. I mean, the first day we had two paying customers and I'm on Facebook communities talking about it, you know, and I'm starting to get booked myself, booked on. I'm using Alex's tool, PodMatch, and I'm getting booked on podcasts that talk about podcasting so I could talk about it. And I had this like, go to market strategy with like 25 different things I'm going to be working on over the next few months to get awareness. And like the second week he tells me like, hey, I got this. These people on X on Twitter, I kind of know a couple of them and they've built. And so, you know, companies that are podcast related before and you know, that are six figures and they want to chat with us. And I'm like, okay. And they're in California. And the kid, I call him the kid. We have a call at 6am our time and we're talking to some people in California and they liked what he was building and, you know, it was a good call. And I kind of felt, I kind of saw where it was going. And the kid tells me the next day, like, okay, they gave us three offers, you know, or three options. The first option is, you know, basically buy us out and that's it. The second option, they give us like, you know, sort of like a commission and then I go work for them.

Harry Duran: 00:36:35

Okay.

Eric Melchor: 00:36:36

And then the third option is we don't do nothing. And they hire, they have their team of engineers that are going to build something similar and within a couple of months they'll be able to go beat us in the marketing strategy.

Harry Duran: 00:36:46

Sure, sure, sure.

Eric Melchor: 00:36:47

And so, you know, I said, hey, this is mostly your product. You know, I'm a small equity owner. You do what your heart decides. And he really wanted to go work with them. He was, he's going to be head of product.

Harry Duran: 00:36:58

Oh, wow.

Eric Melchor: 00:36:58

Yeah. So I'm really happy for him. And so we're basically finalized. We finalized the details already. And, and that was the quickest startup venture I've had to date.

Harry Duran: 00:37:10

That's a great result. So it was generating revenue at the time, or they believed in the concept. They already saw what the potential was.

Eric Melchor: 00:37:18

Oh, they already saw the potential. I mean, you've already got, like, Shaquille o' Neal, Marshall Flinch using this thing already because of the connections they have in the industry. Yeah. I mean, every. All the feedback, even the initial feedback we got, we're like, this is fantastic. The design is fantastic. Easy to use. Once you create it, you never have to mess with it again. I think it's more beautiful than anything that's even remotely out there in the market. And they saw that.

Harry Duran: 00:37:44

That's great. And so when you think about other opportunities like that, is it just a matter of being open to them or it's just, you know, do you have your hands full with B2B pros and your show or what's next on. On the map for you?

Eric Melchor: 00:37:58

Yeah, well, I think it's being too open. I would say that your network matters a lot, because if I didn't have my network, I wouldn't have never gotten this opportunity or saw, you know, been invited to. To chat with Vic. So your network probably matters more than you being able to spot opportunity. Well, I don't know, but obviously a lot of the opportunities that you see are based on the connections that you have. The people who know you.

Harry Duran: 00:38:21

Of course. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:38:22

And the more people who know you and know what, you know, what you do, the more opportunities are going to come your way.

Harry Duran: 00:38:28

Eric Melchor: 00:38:58

Yeah. So we recently had Joe Casabano. Do you know Joe?

Harry Duran: 00:39:02

Oh, yeah, I know Joe. He's been on the show.

Eric Melchor: 00:39:03

Yeah, yeah. He was a special guest on our show on our meetup a couple of months ago, and the stuff he was showing us with the automations that he does, like with Zapier and some other tools out there, 99% of podcasters are not even using that kind of automation. And so I still feel like we have a long way to go. And even if you can streamline a lot of the process, I feel like people want to tune into podcasts for the authenticity, and I don't think that will be replaced. I'm sure there will be some people who listen to podcasts that are AI hosted, but I think the majority of people want real, authentic conversations. And so I still believe podcast is the strongest medium out there that provides that.

Harry Duran: 00:39:47

Yeah. What were some of the automations that he was doing? Was that like an automated show or was it automations to help with the.

Eric Melchor: 00:39:52

Production, workflow with the production, Everything from onboarding to. To accepting, you know, applicants to making sure that of a show, once it's been recorded, that it goes out to the appropriate, like the editor, the designer, everybody who's on his team. So he was showing us how he utilizes notion with Zapier and with Gmail and then also Google Drive or Box. But it was some really cool, cool stuff that he shared with the group. And we were all amazed. Cause I think he manages three different podcasts. And a lot of this automation takes care of all those, you know, stuff that takes maybe three or four minutes to do. But all those things add up.

Harry Duran: 00:40:31

Sure, yeah, of course, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:40:33

I mean, even if it saves you one or two hours a week, that adds up.

Harry Duran: 00:40:38

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, are you surprised by the pace at which things are moving in the AI world?

Eric Melchor: 00:40:43

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I still feel like we're living in a box because, you know, my parents don't even know what chat GP is.

Harry Duran: 00:40:52

Of course. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:40:53

My wife, for example, you know, she refuses to even use it. She thinks, oh, that's for people that are just lazy.

Harry Duran: 00:41:01

It's so funny because I just read an email about how this has been, like, programmed into, like, working hard is the, you know, associated with, like, if you don't work hard, you're lazy. And. And it's kind of like this old school. Like, I don't know if it comes from, like, the Prussian mindset of, like, how we were indoctrinated here to, like, work and, you know, puritan values of don't be lazy. And like, if you, God forbid, you find something that makes your job easier. Like, I think we're slowly moving out of this world of, like, you know, we're training people. And even in the education system, like, everyone's trained to work in a factory. Like, that was how the education system was built.

Eric Melchor: 00:41:39

Right.

Harry Duran: 00:41:39

You know, so it's like getting out of this mindset of like, hey, Maybe working easier and using these tools gives us more free time to get more done in a shorter period of time. You're still meeting the objective of what you're, you know, you've been paid to do. But this idea that we all need to just sit in front of a computer for eight hours, nine to five is, you know, having myself worked in corporate for 20 plus years is like it was a shift to get out of that mindset of like, oh, I'm supposed to be at my desk at like 9:00am, you know.

Eric Melchor: 00:42:06

Yeah, yeah, I know I use them a lot. I mean, obviously I started with ChatGPT, but now I use Lindy AI and I've got AI agents that help me with, you know, sending me an email an hour before my calls and just kind of giving me an update, like, you know, prepping me. You know, here's the communication you've had, here's what the agenda is probably going to be.

Harry Duran: 00:42:25

That's great.

Eric Melchor: 00:42:25

I've got an AI agent that automatically replies to certain emails that I get. I get a lot of requests for people to be on my show. And I have an automated email that goes out now. It recognizes certain texts and it sends the response out. I've got an AI widget that I created, you know, from my website, and it's sort of like anybody who asks questions, it references like a Google Doc and it formulates a response using AI based on what it found in the Google Doc agent. AI is another little platform that I like going to and you can find little, you know, AI agents to do maybe an SEO, you know, keyword analysis or something for your website or.

Harry Duran: 00:43:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:43:03

There's like cool little things that I play around with. Um, but I think it definitely, if you can figure out how to use it, then you're much more productive and you're much more efficient.

Harry Duran: 00:43:14

Absolutely, yeah. I just been focused on mainly ChatGPT because it's almost like its own rabbit hole and they keep changing. They've added the image feature as well. So we're playing with that for like creating thumbnails. And you have to have the discipline to learn the prompting. I think that's really where the secret sauce is to like how to speak to them. And even I was explaining to a friend of mine, we went out for dinner and again, he's brand new to this world and I was like, you can tell ChatGPT to build a prompt for you that you would then use in ChatGPT, which is like blew his mind, is like, tell me how to talk to you. Like, yeah. When ChatGPT was kind of first blew up, I was like, this is going to be the most important skill to learn how to talk to the robots.

Eric Melchor: 00:43:51

Harry Duran: 00:43:56

Oh, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:43:57

And I took a picture of this, like, flyer here at this grocery store in Romania because I was curious to what it said.

Harry Duran: 00:44:03

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:44:03

And it's. I uploaded the picture and I just said, translate this into English. And it did. And I was blown away.

Harry Duran: 00:44:08

Yeah, same thing. I was. I think the aha moment for me was when I was like, I dj. So I've got my turntables and my vinyl and I was getting casters for the wheels on the back of the bookshelf. And I was in the hardware store and I was like, oh, these casters, each one holds like 150 pounds. So I said, I went to ChatGPT, I said, I have the IKEA bookshelf, the common eight panel one, and I'm buying these casters and this is what I want to put in there. And this is how much each one holds. And you can see it doing the calculations. Okay. It knew the bookshelf because it's the popular one. It said, well, each vinyl weighs about a pound, and you can fit about 40 vinyls in each of these panels. So the total combined weight would be about £350. So you'd probably need like six casters. And I was just like, I did that in 30 seconds. And like the Home Depot and the aisle. And I was like, you know, just if you just have to be think about, you know, pushing it to this limits of what you can ask it. And like, you said you could take pictures of stuff now. And there's really like this. It's like the sky's the limit. It's almost like you just keep pushing it to say, figure this out for me. And I've had it like, go through legal documents, analyze PDFs and just. It's just amazing.

Eric Melchor: 00:45:13

Yeah, I did it for my contract with the kid because I was going to be an equity owner and. And I'm like, what should I have? So that way that my shares are protected if we go and fundraise and blah, blah. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing, you know, when it pulled out. But I think if you're interviewing right now, and I think moving forward, I think employers want to know how are you using, you know, AI or chat GPT. And if you're Not.

Harry Duran: 00:45:37

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:45:38

Why would they pick you versus another candidate that is, you know, that's going to be much more productive?

Harry Duran: 00:45:43

Yeah, yeah. Because they'll feel like they can just get more done, if you understand. And I think, yeah, it's Wild West World. And I think it's, it's interesting because there's people that have this, you know that your wife's reaction to it is. Some friends that I have their reaction to it, like, no, it's just like a toy. And I'm like, you really, like, there's a lot to look into and it could really help, you know, move us into a new era where we're like working less but just getting 10 times more stuff done.

Eric Melchor: 00:46:09

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's not like, you know, I mean, she was top of her class in her graduating class. You know, it's not like she's somebody who's lazy. I mean. Yeah, but she does feel like, oh, it's a cheat thing. And I'm not going to do that. It helps you, it makes you work.

Harry Duran: 00:46:24

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:46:24

I was actually giving a panel discussion. I was like the panel leader and I needed a good opening and it was here in Bucharest and kind of just gave a description. I'm like, give me a good, some ideas for a good story. And it gave me a great idea. I mean, it was just a great, great idea. And I was like, wow, you can literally use this thing for almost just about anything.

Harry Duran: 00:46:43

And it's the same thing. In the past you would have hired a research assistant to kind of like who knows the country. And the panel would have done research on all the panelists. It probably would have been like a week long project for them. Like go through all these people, go through the LinkedIn, look at where I'm speaking, you know, like now you get it done in a couple of minutes with the proper prompt, right?

Eric Melchor: 00:47:01

Absolutely. I mean, like, what are some good questions to ask these people? Right? You throw in, you know, do some research on them on the Internet. What are some great questions. I mean, I feel almost guilty that I'm not paying for it. I mean, I'm using the free version.

Harry Duran: 00:47:14

Oh, the free version too. Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:47:16

Yeah. I don't even know what the paid version gets you, but the free version is just. I feel guilty not even paying for it.

Harry Duran: 00:47:25

I think it's just more memory storage because I put a lot of my training courses in there. It knows a lot about, like, what I do, who I serve. So when I'm working on anything, like for a proposal, it's Just like, almost like an assistant sitting next to me. Like, I recorded a call ahead with a prospect, and it basically, I said, analyze the transcript of this call. Pull out, like, what their needs are based on what the question, how they answer the questions, and let's, like, create a proposal. It's not just like, here's what we do and here's how much it costs. It was like, this is what your pain points are. This is what you said you were struggling with. This is what. You know, I envisioned, like, 12 titles for their first 12 episodes. Like, I gave them podcast titles just based on the conversation. And it's just like, I imagine some of that will have a better impact because, you know, like you said, you have to almost start to compete at this level using these tools because other. Your peers and your competitors are doing the same thing.

Eric Melchor: 00:48:15

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Harry Duran: 00:48:18

So, Eric, we have a couple questions I like to ask as we wrap up each conversation. The first is, what is something you've changed your mind about recently?

Eric Melchor: 00:48:25

Oh, okay. I read this quote by. I think it was by Charlie Munger, and it was said something like, don't strive to be the most intelligent or the most creative. You should strive to, not just to not be stupid. I look back on my life and I feel like, God dang it, he's right.

Harry Duran: 00:48:52

I know. Yeah. And I'm doing the same thing as you say that, too.

Eric Melchor: 00:48:55

So that's a good one. So I think that's one thing. And it's. That quote really stuck with me. It's now when I think about decisions, I just think about what's the stupid decision. And let's not do that.

Harry Duran: 00:49:07

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:49:08

Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:49:08

What's the most misunderstood thing about you?

Eric Melchor: 00:49:11

Misunderstood thing here? Yeah. I don't know. I have no idea. Based on our conversation, what would you know? I think the most understood thing is that people think, okay. They associate me as being like, oh, that's Eric the podcaster. And I think that's because that's mostly what I talk about. Maybe on LinkedIn.

Harry Duran: 00:49:29

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:49:29

But, you know, by far, it's just a little piece of the pie. And it's not even the thing that probably I'm most proud of. I mean, the thing I'm most proud of is being a good dad.

Harry Duran: 00:49:38

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:49:39

I love being a dad of my kids. And the other thing that. That I'll start working on later this year is, I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but like a calling. Have you ever felt like you had a calling?

Harry Duran: 00:49:49

Yeah. Yeah. Times.

Eric Melchor: 00:49:51

Depending on the yeah. What was your calling when it first happened?

Harry Duran: 00:49:55

I think around related to like the agency and this concept. I just, I had a. I was on a podcast and I shared this story of like, I almost died when I went to a trip to Thailand. And I had this like, awake, like, aha moment years later of like, how sad it would be to die with my voice inside of me, like, not having shared my voice with the world. And that's kind of what led me, you know, eventually to the podcast and sharing my story. And now I have a newsletter I call the Life Worth Living, where I share, like the ups and downs of life. And I think as a, also as a man growing up, I'm 54, I've been doing some men's work lately and this, like, you know, there's a lot of this lone wolf mindset with men and it's like I got to do my own. I got to like, get this done and not opening up. And so I've been on a couple of retreats where when you have an experience of being with other men who are open hearted and sharing crying and sharing space together and breaking bread, you realize like, you know, it's almost like an epidemic of loneliness and people not speaking up for themselves. So I, I've tied this all, you know, kind of related to podcasting and the work we do at the agency. And I was like, I have this mission of just helping people find their voice.

Eric Melchor: 00:50:59

You. Yeah, yeah. Well, so kind of like you. I've had this calling that's been with me for about a year now. It's actually related to loneliness. And so one of the things that I feel like I'm pretty good at is bringing people together and making social connections and helping people build friendships. And I haven't been doing that the past couple of years. And it's not necessarily like a product or anything thing I'm going to build or service or anything, but I do want to start making that reality happen. So back in 2023, I think I hosted six cocktail parties with strangers I had never even met in person. And they're like, you know, 13 to 20 people. 2. If you ever read Nick Gray's. Have you ever heard of Nick Gray? He wrote the two hour cocktail party book.

Harry Duran: 00:51:48

Okay.

Eric Melchor: 00:51:49

Anyway, I heard this book on a. I heard about this book on a podcast and I'm like, this sounds interesting. And I bought it and I just, I put out a tweet about it and I'm like, oh, this sounds so cool. I'm going to try it. And Nick Gray responded and he's like, oh, if you have any questions, let me know. And he has this website, you know, for like the first hundred people who did a cocktail party, you know, anyway.

Harry Duran: 00:52:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:52:11

You know, he's a great guy. He and I have gotten a chance to get to know each other a little bit, but he's inspired so many people to go and do these cocktail parties. And he gives you the step by step playbook. Right?

Harry Duran: 00:52:23

Oh, wow.

Eric Melchor: 00:52:24

And so what I want to do is something similar to that. But I think where most people make the mistake or mess up when it comes to creating good friendships is the follow up. Because anybody can go out and meet. Yeah, right.

Harry Duran: 00:52:36

Yeah, yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:52:37

But just like in anything else, you've got to water it, you got to maintain it, because if you don't, then it'll fade away. And so that's where I feel like I can sort of like teach people. Not necessarily teach people, but show them. Like, hey, man, you know, once a week you. You got to set aside 15, 20 minutes and just send that text, make that phone call. Yeah, right. Because if you don't, you know, if you haven't, at least I think I saw this somewhere. But at least seven interactions that are at least 30 minutes long in person with somebody, then the chances of them being a good friend, very, very little.

Harry Duran: 00:53:11

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So anyway, are they co ed. Are they co ed gatherings?

Eric Melchor: 00:53:15

Yeah, coed gatherings. Really interesting people. And the way that he has it set up is, you know, everybody gets a name tag. You have a couple of icebreakers that are just very casual, but it gives everybody a chance to meet, get to know each other. And at the end of it, everybody's like, so happy because you go to these networking events or these big conferences and you don't really get to socialize or meet somebody, you know, in debt. But with these, with these cocktail parties, you have the ability to do that. The key is, well, there's a lot of different keys, but is the icebreakers. And so some of the icebreakers are really good because, you know, for example, one is like, what's something that you've read or listened to or watched in the past, you know, month that you would like to share with everybody. And so just by sharing that little insight, you're sharing a little bit of your personality of what you like, and somebody else might be in the room and be like, oh, I also enjoy that book. Or also like that podcast. So now you have those two or people. Yeah, like now connecting and now want to associate or, you know, connect with outside of this. And it's like those little chance gatherings for people to connect who, you know, otherwise would have never gotten to know each other and just, you know, be the facilitator of those events.

Harry Duran: 00:54:25

So you just find a location that's willing to host and everyone just shows up there.

Eric Melchor: 00:54:29

Ideally, you do it at your place, your house or your apartment. The first one I did was my place. And he's. I swear to God, it's the, the playbook is there, man. It's like, get rid of all the chairs because when somebody sits down, it kind of kills it. They can. So what I did is there's a co working meetup spot here in Bucharest.

Harry Duran: 00:54:48

Okay.

Eric Melchor: 00:54:48

And I work with them and I have a deal where anytime I do an event there, I'll talk about it on LinkedIn. I'm like, special thanks to, you know, this whatever on LinkedIn. Tag them, put them on my newsletter and they get that publicity and promotion and they let me host the event. And so that's worked out. That's worked out great.

Harry Duran: 00:55:07

Yeah. I've already got a space in mind that's in town here. So. Yeah, I'm gonna look at it.

Eric Melchor: 00:55:11

Yeah.

Harry Duran: 00:55:12

I'd be remiss if I didn't ask, like, how has fatherhood changed you?

Eric Melchor: 00:55:16

Oh, man. You know, fatherhood is. I'm excited and I'm so happy I had my kids when I was in my 40s because, yeah, I think, you know, already lived my life and at least that part of my life. And then now it's just all about them. It's like the greatest joy is knowing that you have the chance to be a coach, a guide, a parent to another human being and have a huge impact on the trajectory of their life.

Harry Duran: 00:55:46

Yeah.

Eric Melchor: 00:55:46

To grow up and be something that could be amazing. They don't have to be, you know, a doctor or a scientist or whatever, an astronaut, but sort of like share with them all the things that you wish you had known or you had learned at a much younger age. Because I come from two, two parents who basically were young, they weren't college educated, they had me by accident. They were 18, you know, and they didn't really know any better. I mean, come on, they were kids, you know, and they never taught me, you know, about finance. I grew up with a lot of debt. Like when I was like close to 28 or 2029, already had 12 or 13 thousand dollar debt. I mean, it was just there's so much things that I could share with them now because I'm a little bit older and wiser that they're. Ideally, when they become adults, they'll be so far ahead in the game of life than I was.

Harry Duran: 00:56:37

That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Well, thanks for this fascinating conversation. Like I said, I wasn't sure where it'd go, and I'm just always excited when it just takes its twists and turns. And it's so interesting to see, see how the arc of, like, your journey, you know, has taken you to where you live now and how you ended up in the podcasting space and the value you're adding for podcasters and the enthusiasm you have for what you do. So that comes through in this conversation. So I appreciate you sharing it. It's really inspiring.

Eric Melchor: 00:57:03

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the show, Harry.

Harry Duran: 00:57:06

Where's the best place for folks to connect with you?

Eric Melchor: 00:57:08

LinkedIn. Pretty active there. Just look for Eric Nocore.

Harry Duran: 00:57:10

Okay. And yeah, you've provided all those links to us as well, so we'll make sure those are in the show notes. Thanks again, Eric. I really appreciate it.

Eric Melchor: 00:57:16

Thank you.