Welcome to episode 256 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_) – two technology professionals with backgrounds in IT Operations and Sales Engineering on a mission to help others accelerate career progression and increase job satisfaction by bringing listeners the advice we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 3 of an interview with Larry Roberts, detailing Larry’s discovery of and love for podcasting as a creative outlet, thoughts on personal branding, gaining personal and professional brand influence through public speaking, and some advice for aspiring business owners and entrepreneurs.

Original Recording Date: 11-11-2023

Topics – Discovering Podcasting, Personal Branding, Expanding Influence through Public Speaking, Advice for the Would Be Entrepreneur

3:17 – Discovering Podcasting

• Larry got out of rehab in January 2014. A friend from work knew Larry looking for something (though unsure of what). This person knew Larry was into fighting and UFC and knew Joe Rogan commentated for the UFC. At first, Larry dismissed the suggestion to listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast, thinking podcasts were for nerds.
  • Larry finally ended up listening to a Joe Rogan podcast with a couple of comedians on it (Joey Diaz and Tony Hinchcliffe). It was really to get his friend to stop bugging him about it. It was the same kind of comedians who liked to push the envelope similar to those Larry grew up following in the 1980s (like Andrew Dice Clay and others).
    • Larry loved what he heard and to his surprise thought podcasts were super cool. He knew he could use the medium as a way to say whatever he wanted and not get in trouble.
  • Larry decided to start a comedy podcast with his friend Kenny’s son Jamie, who was a stand up comedian in Dallas / Fort Worth.
    • Larry bought a single Yeti Snowball microphone that they would pass back and forth while recording their first podcast episode.
  • John thinks of podcast as a medium that is really democratized radio. Larry says there are around 114 categories on Apple podcasts today, making it easy to find almost anything you want to hear.
    • “To have your own radio show, there are massive barriers, but to have you own podcast, all you needed was…that Yeti Snowball.” – John White
    • Larry merely needed the microphone, a computer, and a free software like Audacity to record the audio.
    • “Plug in a USB microphone, and you’re off to the races.” – Larry Roberts, on starting a podcast back in 2014
• What kept Larry doing the podcast after starting?
  • Larry considers himself a creative thinker more than anything. Listen to his description of his high school class ring.
  • “Art and business were always my two favorite things….So creativity was always at the forefront of my thought process, and podcasting allowed me a creative outlet. It gave me that opportunity to be as creative as I wanted in an unregulated wild, wild west type of an environment, and man, that’s where I thrive.” – Larry Roberts
  • Larry’s podcast performed amazingly. They took it from a podcast to a live stage show (also very successful) which eventually became an open mic night. This became the largest open mic in Dallas / Fort Worth outside of comedy clubs.
    • “People would drive from all over the metroplex to come to this open mic, and it all started from our podcast.” – Larry Roberts
  • Larry’s co-host Jamie used the podcast to launch a comedy career. Jamie went on a tour with Eddie Griffin, had a residency in Las Vegas, and continues to do comedy today.
    • “He’s just crushing it, and all of it came from the podcast. So that…really showed me what the power of a podcast could be.” – Larry Roberts, on the impact of the comedy podcast on his co-host’s career
• Larry continues to be surprised that he was never fired from his employer since he pushed the envelope a number of times.
  • He tells us the name of the podcast was an innuendo, and they had merchandise for it. People at the office eventually were wearing the podcast’s merchandise. Since the name of the show was an innuendo, it was a bit inappropriate for this to happen in an office environment.
  • Larry was called into HR at one point and given a choice to either quit the show or find a new job. Since Larry didn’t want to leave his corporate pay check behind, he chose to stop the show.
    • “Either it’s you or the show, bro. One’s gotta go.” – Larry Roberts, on the choice he was presented with related to his comedy podcast
  • The open mic Larry mentioned earlier remained in place and only shut down sometime in the last year as of the date of this recording.
• “But when I had to walk away from the show, I still knew I loved podcasting. I loved that creative element of podcasting. So I end up starting a new show….” – Larry Roberts
  • Larry says he didn’t really understand how podcasting worked, how to find your audience, how to find a podcast’s niche, or how branding worked. Larry and Jamie had ended up with a successful show because it was content people enjoyed. They had guests on the show from a variety of backgrounds that made it really fun. Larry did not know how to replicate that success without staying in the same genre.
  • Larry’s next podcast was called Readily Random, which he doesn’t feel really told anyone what the show entailed. This show name came from the name of a blog Larry had back in the days of MySpace (which he says no one really read).
    • The show’s premise was Larry planned to talked to whoever he wanted and have engaging conversations.
    • With Larry being a big fan of origami, one of his guests was a MIT professor and the top origami artist in the world as an example.
    • “So that was really hard to go from a show that had a strong following and had engagement to a show that really not many people listened to. But I just enjoyed it, so I kept doing it.” – Larry Roberts
  • Eventually Larry learned how to market and grow a podcast as well as how to find an audience.
  • The show’s name changed over time (through several iterations), and its eventual name was You’re the Boss, focused on entrepreneurs and their success.
    • Larry eventually got burned out on the concept and killed the show.
    • “It didn’t feel creative. It just felt redundant.” – Larry Roberts, on the decision to stop focusing on a specific podcast
    • Larry reiterates how heavily he will focus on something until he reaches the point of burning out (once the creative aspect disappears).
• Larry says the feeling of redundancy was a result of having the same conversations over and over and feeling like he was creating infomercials.
  • Guests were coming to Larry though booking agencies in a lot of cases.
  • Larry tells is there wasn’t a real emotional involvement on his part in the show. It felt like guests were coming on the show to talk about their latest business venture, book, or podcast.
  • Larry says there wasn’t an exchange of mutual benefits when guests would come on the show. He didn’t really get anything out of it and isn’t sure guests did either.
  • “Now I have to produce the show, I have to have it edited, I have to market the show, I have to do all this fun stuff…and they’re just gone. So I started getting a little jaded in that arena and wanted to go back to just having fun podcasts.” – Larry Roberts, on recognizing his podcast wasn’t enjoyable any longer
  • Larry says he didn’t have a podcast for 9-12 months and then started a new show called Branded with Sara Lohse focused on personal branding. They are just over 20 episodes in as of the recording of this episode, and you can check out the show here.
    • This has been a fun endeavor for Larry and is usually just him and his co-host Sara sharing tips for how to create a personal brand and how to leverage that personal brand to gain attention and clients.

14:58 – Personal Branding

• Nick has never liked the combination of words “personal brand” but understands why we need it in our careers. John suggests it might be because marketing implies sales and has to do with the idea of selling yourself.
  • Larry says he felt this way near the end of his podcast “You’re the Boss.”
  • “I felt like I was on the podcast street corner and people were coming by and picking me up for a half hour and then…dropping me back off where they found me. And it…wasn’t fulfilling any more. It was more of a chore than anything else. There was no creative aspect to it. There was no fun to it. And I desperately wanted to get back to the fun of podcasting.” – Larry Roberts
  • To Larry, personal branding means getting attention. It means thinking about how you bring attention to your show, your business, your message, how to go about creating a community, and how you engage with people.
  • Larry says people look at him, see the red hat he wears, and mention his brand is very strong. But in reality it’s just a hat he started wearing by accident. Wherever he goes in the podcast space and now to some extent in the AI space, the red hat guy is his brand.
    • Larry had a speaking spot at the EO Nerve conference a few weeks before this recording, but due to an injury that put him in the hospital right before the conference he was unable to speak.
    • After getting out of the hospital with one more day left in the conference, Larry decided to go down to the conference center and have lunch. There were some people he wanted to meet. When Larry stepped off the elevator he was swarmed with people who recognized him as someone who was supposed to speak at the conference. They didn’t necessarily know his name, but they recognized his personal logo / personal brand / personal identifier (the red hat).
    • “But what people don’t understand is…this is just for people to recognize me. The personal brand is everything that you have that’s underneath this red hat. It’s the value you bring to your customers. It’s the value you bring to your community. It’s the way you bring that value to that community. It’s finding your uniqueness…. It’s not just having that red hat on your head that makes you stand out in a crowd. It’s the value proposition that’s underneath it.” – Larry Roberts
    • Larry Winget ones said “find your uniqueness, then learn how to leverage that uniqueness in the service of others.” – Larry Roberts
    • John says the red hat brand is an anchor point for people to remember what Larry brings to the conversation.
    • Larry is reading a book right now called Hook Point by Brendan Kane about grabbing attention with your brand within 3 seconds.
  • Maybe John needs to get a hat that matches the color of his employer’s brand? Larry says he is often asked by others what they can wear to make themselves stand out. It doesn’t have to be an article of clothing necessarily.
    • Larry cites Jesse Cole, owner of the Savannah Bananas, recognizable by the yellow tux he wears everywhere he goes. Cole also wrote a book called Find Your Yellow Tux. Jesse Cole created the Savannah Bananas as a brand and made baseball games family friendly experiences people look forward to attending. It’s like attending a family event that is focused on community and a memorable experience for all who attend. Many people may not understand how Cole has really taken attending a game to a whole new level.
    • As of this recording Larry is about to publish a book called Under the Red Hat: How to Stand out in a Crowded Marketplace.
  • Since we are a career oriented podcast, he wonders how we as advisors can bring the show to people trying to advance in their careers.
    • “It doesn’t have to be an article of clothing. It could be anything, but you want that thing to be memorable because you want people to know and understand what it is you’re bringing to the table…what your strengths are and the advantages they are going to have by having you around….A branding exercise is a memory exercise.” – John White, on brand recognition
    • John references the Intel Inside slogan we discussed earlier in the interview and how it is likely the first time a lot of people thought of Intel outside of the computer industry.
    • Larry refers to this as sonic branding (associating specific sounds with specific brands like the sound of Transformers).
  • From a corporate perspective it is about how people perceive you.
    • Even though people were not allowed to ask or talk about where Larry was during his time in rehab once he returned, he feels they knew where he was.
    • The brand he had at the time (an alcoholic who went to rehab) overshadowed everything.
    • “No matter what the quality of my work was, that still hung over my head like a dark cloud. And that became my brand. And it also became…an obvious stopping point for my career there. I didn’t necessarily have to leave, but I knew that if I stayed there, I wasn’t going anywhere. Any aspirations of a higher level position or a management position or any kind of leadership position, that’s toast…because I did exponential damage to my personal brand within the office.” – Larry Roberts, on his own personal brand at his employer after returning from rehab
    • Your brand in the office could be the quality of work you do, the quality of care you provide your co-workers, being a good listener, or taking something someone said into what they are asking for.
    • Establishing a personal brand within a corporate environment is not about what you see or hear. It’s about something you experience, and this is where people lose sight of establishing a personal brand within a corporate environment.
  • Maybe we need to figure out what our superpower is / the things we’re very good at and try to leave an impression on others with these.
    • Larry shares the story of someone who worked the help desk at his former employer who wasn’t the most technically savvy member of the team. Despite this, people knew every Friday at 2 PM this person would be filling up paper in their printers throughout the office.
    • Our personal brands can literally be anything.
    • Nick likes to tell his daughter people are watching her say / do ratio and whether she is known for someone who does what she committed to do. People are always watching, even when we do not think they are.

25:24 – Expanding Influence through Public Speaking

• Larry went from podcaster to founding a business that helps others build brands through podcasting and leverages some of his technical skills from previous experience, including a focus on AI. But how?
  • Larry tells us it was many things, and he sort of stumbled into it.
  • Back when he was in the corporate world, he was leveraging the Microsoft BI (or business intelligence) suite. It had predictive analytics, and Larry had a basic understanding of how AI technologies could help businesses.
  • When ChatGPT was released, Larry felt it could streamline what people are doing in the podcast space (i.e. streamline much of the workflow).
  • Many people want to podcast but don’t realize how much work it takes to get from recording to releasing a podcast such as doing the recording, scheduling guests, making edits, and creating content for marketing.
    • During COVID, many of the creators who decided to start a podcast (Larry calls them “COVID creators”) faded within 3 episodes because they did not understand the workload involved.
  • In January 2023 Larry was chosen as a speaker at Podfest, the largest independent podcasting conference (geared toward independent podcasters).
    • There is also Podcast Movement, focused more on industry and big companies.
  • At Podfest Larry spoke about AI and was placed on the main stage, presenting to a room of around 400 people 2 days straight. The talk was focused on using ChatGPT for content creation (i.e. generating show notes, show titles, show scripts, social media posts, etc.).
    • In January 2023 ChatGPT was still text only. Larry focused on all uses of the tool for podcasting.
    • “That talk just launched so many opportunities for me.” – Larry Roberts, reflecting on his Podfest 2023 presentation
    • There were business owners in the crowd and some promoters for different organizations who approached Larry after the talk to come to their companies / organizations to discuss what AI is and how companies can use it.
    • Larry has been a regular on ABC during Good Morning Texas in the Dallas area. Check out his segments on Jobs at Risk of Being Replaced by AI and Top Artificial Intelligence Jobs.
    • These opportunities came to Larry because he understood what the impact of AI could be on the content creation industry and then sharing it with people. It’s channeling his collective experience into a new opportunity.
• How did being a podcaster, a trainer, and attending Toastmasters mesh together to make Larry a better public speaker (often times delivering a keynote)?
  • Larry says the stages have grown over time and have grown fast as of late. He finds doing this a lot of fun.
  • Larry says he would attribute this to being a good communicator and participating in Toastmasters.
  • Larry recalls a conversation with someone recently about going from the cage to the stage.
    • “Going from the cage to the stage…it’s the same level of excitement. It’s the same level of fulfillment. When I go on stage, I have the same exact butterflies. I have the same exact nerves. It’s the same fears that I had ever time before I would climb in the ring. And then after I deliver that talk and if I see that the audience really got some value and I feel like I just crushed it…it felt the same as getting my hand raised after a fight.” – Larry Roberts
  • Larry says it was all the elements coming together to be comfortable enough to step on stage and perform at a certain level.
    • “When you’re keynoting, it’s a performance. You’re putting on a show. You’re having to provide value, you’re also having to make it entertaining, and you’re having to make a genuine connection with a room full, typically a large room full, of strangers….It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to a room of deca-millionairs at Entrepreneurs Organization or I’m talking to the state board of education in San Antonio just last week. I still go on stage in the same thing.” – Larry Roberts, on keynoting and staying on brand
    • Larry is consistent in how he takes the stage no matter where he is (including wearing the red ball cap), but he has to communicate at the level of the audience in usage of language and terminology.
    • Larry believes his skillsets in understanding both how to communicate and at what level to do it have made him successful in his speaking career to date. He also admits he has a long way to go.

32:13 – Advice for the Would Be Entrepreneur

• Ensure you have a problem identified to solve.

• One thing people don’t hear enough is you have to plan for going out on your own and stepping away from corporate life.

  • Larry didn’t just wake up in January 2021 and decide to leave the corporate world. He and his wife had agreed the year before that he would leave and had adjusted their budgets. Larry says they also paid off all their debt and went down to only one car since Larry would be working from home.
  • “Our debt was minimized, our outgoing expenses were extremely minimized, and we had saved to a point where I had enough money to give us a cushion….” – Larry Roberts
  • Larry says his wife doesn’t really understand the entrepreneur in Larry, but she has become more and more supportive over the last 3 years. Now she is his biggest fan.
  • “But again, we planned for it. I didn’t just wake up and have some wild hair that now I’m going to be a podcaster and everything’s going to work out….because it didn’t. When I left January 4th I had a certain business plan., and I tried to implement that business plan for 8 months….My wife was like ‘…you had this plan. Well it’s not really working, is it?’” – Larry Roberts
  • Larry says when things were not working (see quote above), he had to make adjustments and change the model and what his ideal client would be like, for example.
  • Larry began adapting until things started to work. After making very little money the first year, he surpassed his salary in years 2 and 3 with next year looking bright as well.
  • “It’s that planning, regardless of what it is, man. Don’t just wake up one morning and go, ‘I’m out,’ because it’s probably not going to work for you.” – Larry Roberts
  • John likes the idea of de-risking the process by handling personal finance, having a supportive spouse with a consistent income, and paying down debt. Larry says his wife is good at providing reality checks and honest feedback.
    • This process of decreasing risk is likely helpful not just for the entrepreneur but for someone who wants to work for a startup for example.
    • Larry agrees, especially if you have kids. We need to take all aspects of our responsibilities into consideration when making decisions such as these. In Larry’s case, his kids were already grown.
    • Larry shares how proud he is of his kids and feels they are much more successful than he ever was.

• Larry says he’s lived a very Forest Gump like life with a wide variety of experiences.

• If you want to follow up with Larry, you can find him on…

  • The Red Hat Media website
  • On Instagram – @thelarryroberts
  • On Facebook
  • On LinkedIn

• Mentioned in the outro

  • Personal brand is the sum of our actions and words as perceived by others. Is your personal brand the same at the job you hold now compared to your previous job or even your previous employer?
    • Larry’s story is a lesson for all of us in that we can change our personal brand. It is going to take time and effort.
  • The consistency with which Larry shows up on stage helps people know what to expect from him. Would others say you are consistent in how you show up?
  • As a keynote speaker, Larry wants to make an impact on his audience. It takes a lot of preparation for this kind of presentation.
    • We as individuals should be thinking about tailoring our message in every presentation based on who the audience is (i.e. business focused or technically focused) and their level of competency in an area (i.e. advanced level, intermediate, or beginner).
    • Larry is still an effective trainer and instructor from the stage.
  • There’s a theme of creative, fluid iteration in this discussion.
    • After podcasting for some time, Larry recognized a change was needed in his show for him to find enjoyment again. Consider this when working on long-term creative projects.
    • The fluidity applies to the business owner / entrepreneur as well. After working the first 8 months of his business on that initial business plan, Larry had to make changes and adjustments to improve the results he was getting. Business owners should assume what they start with is going to continue to change over time just like Todd Cochrane shared in our discussions from Episode 250 and Episode 251.
  • For those wanting additional episodes containing stories of business owners / other entrepreneurs, check out the following recommendations (only a small sample from the catalog):o
    • Episode 13 – The Sniper Approach to Job Hunting with Tom Delicati
    • {Episode 14 – From IT Ops to Entrepreneur with Tom Delicati](https://nerd-journey.com/nerd-journey-014-from-it-ops-to-entrepreneur/)
    • Episode 96 – Sponsorship, Dreams, and the Path to Entrepreneurship with Ashley Connell
    • Episode 97 – Building Your Own Business From Idea to Operations with Ashley Connell
    • Episode 235 – The Best Bad Option with Al Elliott (1/2)
    • Episode 236 – Having the Vision, Charting the Path, Removing the Blockers with Al Elliott (2/2)
    • Episode 183 – Practice Makes Habit with Michael Levan (1/2)
    • Episode 184 – Dive Deeper and Enjoy the Process with Michael Levan (2/2)
    • Episode 119 – Tinkering into Specialty with David Klee (1/2)
    • Episode 120 – A Time to Build with David Klee (2/2)
    • Episode 216 – Experiencing a Neurodivergent Diagnosis with Kristen Carder (1/2)
    • Episode 217 – The Vulnerable Parts of ADHD with Kristen Carder (2/2)

Contact us if you need help on the journey.