S1E7 - Jim Banks - Reflections of a Podcaster 6 Episodes In

Jim Banks [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to bad decisions with Jim Banks. Today is a different day in terms of the format of the podcast, but also the venue of it. So I'm actually walking around the track at the Yas Marina, which is where they host the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, usually the last race of the season. And I thought today, instead of having a guest on the podcast, as I'm just about to wrap up a trip to Abu Dhabi, where I've been here for a couple of weeks, I thought, what would be better than sharing walking, which I've obviously been doing a lot of. I walked 10,000 steps last year, every single day. So I did about 4.6 million steps, I think, in total, for the, for the year I had the month of January off, didn't walk any steps at all. But I thought what I would do now is actually pick things up. And being over here in Abu Dhabi has actually helped me immensely to get to the point where I'm actually back enjoying walking now.

Jim Banks [00:01:05]:
So, yeah, I thought I would shoot an episode of bad decisions with Jim Banks and show that it's possible to record content anywhere you happen to be. So anyone that's a Formula One fan may recognize some of the track as I go round. And yes, I thought I would take the opportunity, six episodes into the podcast to actually just give a little bit of an update in terms of how it's been. So for me, obviously, doing a podcast has taken me significantly outside my comfort zone compared to running digital marketing campaigns, advertising, that sort of thing. But I've really enjoyed it. I've had six fantastic guests. I've got a lot of guests lined up to come aboard. And it's funny, when I decided to do this episode, I realized just how easy it was to just get out of camera, put a microphone on, press record, and away you go.

Jim Banks [00:02:02]:
So anyone that's thinking of setting up a podcast, I would definitely suggest if you don't have the time, I would not go down the route of having guests, because as much as I love the guests, and I'll love the guests that are coming on afterwards, having a guest on a podcast episode is hard work because you've obviously got something called the guest intake form, so people have to give you their bio pictures, and yeah, you just go from there, really. So, yes, you have the guest intake. They then have to choose a date that's convenient for you and convenient for them. A lot of my guests have been in different time zones, so it's just made life a little bit more difficult. Actually, I think I might be going the wrong way, just looking at the way everyone else seems to be coping. But anyway, I'm just going to keep going and we'll see how we get on. Obviously six episodes in, I found it a little bit challenging. I'm used to having data.

Jim Banks [00:03:00]:
I think one of the problems that you have with a podcast is because there are so many different places people can consume the content. You'll tend to find that a lot of people will use Apple podcasts. Some people will prefer Spotify, some will prefer Amazon, some will use something completely different. You need to try and have blanket coverage of your podcast. So I think when you're choosing a podcast hosting company, having the ability to get your podcast episodes out into as many places as you can can really help a lot. But then understanding how you can track the performance of your podcast that you have a download, which is different from a listen. I know if I'm going on a business trip, I might download podcast episodes to my computer or my phone so I can listen to them on the plane just in case there's no wifi. I think what tends to happen is a lot of people may download the podcast but never actually listen to it.

Jim Banks [00:04:02]:
So in some respects, I'm much more interested in how many people listen to it. And certainly from the point of view of the feedback that I've received, a lot of my industry friends, digital marketing industry friends, have said how much they've enjoyed the podcast, the format, the interviews. And again, I'm not an interviewer by nature. So for me it's been, like I said, a really steep learning curve to have to go through. But I've really enjoyed it. And I've certainly found as each episode has gone by, I found the process easier to do the interviews. The editing is still not problematic, but quite time consuming. So I'm trying to work out how I can make that better.

Jim Banks [00:04:43]:
Yeah, I mean, I'd really love, I'm going to post the episode, so I'm recording the video, but also the audio. So the video. What I'm actually doing is I'm uploading the audio podcast through the RSS feed to YouTube. But I'm also using the opportunity to use the video recordings to enable me to use opus clips. And what I can do with Opus clips is I can take that and I can create social media posts that I can then post to various places. I can post them to TikTok Instagram reels, Facebook reels, to LinkedIn YouTube shorts. So promote and amplify the content in other places, other than the actual podcast. Yeah, I think a lot of people have gone down the route of just having just have a podcast posted to Apple or Spotify.

Jim Banks [00:05:36]:
And what I've done is I've actually used page and pod page enables me to have a website. I've been able to put Google Analytics 4 on there, Google Tag Manager. So anyone that engages with a video, I can create a remarketing audience. If I wanted to run ads at some point in time in the future, which I may well do, and that gives me the ability to be able to do that while I'm walking around the track. I'm going to change to the front camera now so you can see where I am listening to it on audio. I'd recommend you go and watch the video. So what you can see in front of me, that's actually the W hotel. It's a pretty iconic building.

Jim Banks [00:06:14]:
Really quite important when you actually watch the grand prix. So this is the kind of the beginning of the start finish straight. So this is turn one. So any Grand Prix fans like me, you'll be able to watch this and recognize some of the landmarks that you see when people are going around at 200 miles an hour. I'm clearly not going anywhere near that fast, but yeah, that is about five and a half kilometers long. I think the kind of pace that I'm doing because I'm recording this podcast episode is probably going to take me closer to an hour. But normally I would be able to do five and a half kilometers in probably 50, 51 minutes, something like that. So I walk pretty quick.

Jim Banks [00:07:01]:
So, yeah, so this is the start finish straight that I'm walking up now. I think a car comes down here in probably six or 7 seconds. It may well take me two or three minutes to get even close to where I need to be. So, there we are. So as you can hear, I'm recording the steps through the Samsung Galaxy S 22 Ultra+, I think it's called. What that does is actually records the steps and the duration. So that particular kilometer. So I'm about a fifth of the way there.

Jim Banks [00:07:34]:
That took me just under twelve minutes. Yeah, as I said, twelve minutes times five, that would take me to 60 minutes. I'm going to pick up the pace a little bit. So, like I said, the podcast is bad decisions with Jim Banks. I've had six guests on and they've been telling me some of their bad decisions, some of the things that they did. I thought I would give you a little bit of insight into how the concept of bad decisions actually came about. So probably ten years ago, I was sitting in a bar in Las Vegas after one of my favorite shows, Pubcon bad. Just finished.

Jim Banks [00:08:09]:
I'm sitting with some friends and I'm telling stories. And a lot of people have said to me, Jim, you're so good at telling stories. And it's funny. I'm good at telling stories verbally, and I've got a drink in my hand, but when I'm trying to talk to a camera, clam up, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that. But yes, obviously telling stories for me has been something I've always done a lot of. But also, like I said, I think a lot of the decisions I was making, probably because they were alcohol infused, may not have been the smartest things. As an example, I was sitting at a casino gambling, playing blackjack with seven or eight people from Spain about 07:00 in the morning, which in and of itself is no big deal. The reality of it was I was actually sitting on a panel at 09:00 in the morning.

Jim Banks [00:09:07]:
And obviously I had to get back to my hotel, freshen up, change and all that sort of stuff. So clearly that was one of the bad decisions that I made. But yeah, I think from the point of view of making a decision like that, sometimes common sense doesn't really prevail. But I think it's important. Whenever you're trying to make a decision, you don't want to make a bad decision. The best way to do that is to evaluate all the possible outcomes that you might have. And then hopefully from there you can make a better decision. So I'm just going to switch.

Jim Banks [00:09:42]:
So up there, this is where the presentation for the trophies, usually that's where they present the winner of the person that won the Grand Prix. That's where they go. I came here in the year that we had the debacle of Lewis Hamilton. I was here when that happened. I had seats right opposite the presentation area. Big Lewis Hamilton fan. So I was obviously very disappointed when that happened. Let me just show you here.

Jim Banks [00:10:10]:
That's the finish line. So this is where the race finishes and the winner is declared at that point. As you can see, it's a beautiful venue. Normally the race takes place at this sort of time at night. I think it normally starts late afternoon and finishes just into the early evening, which is where I am now. Yeah, I can see why a lot of people like to come here, but I can also see why the Abu Dhabi government want to have the Grand Prix here and make it the last race of the season, every season. Whether they're going to be able to continue to do that, or whether it's going to move to Las Vegas, who knows? But for now, it's deemed to be the last race of the year. So, yeah, it's obviously bad decisions with Jim Banks.

Jim Banks [00:10:51]:
At some point in time, I think I may well change the name of the podcast. That's one of the beauties of podcasts. You can change the name if you want to. It's also one of the reasons why having a website is a good thing, because then if you do change it, you're not going to be affecting any of the rankings that your pages have. If you decide to change the name of the podcast itself. The one thing I would definitely recommend anyone that is thinking of creating a podcast themselves, however much time you think it's going to take, I'd probably multiply that by 20. And that's how it's going to take for you to do that. So, yeah, that's what I would recommend.

Jim Banks [00:11:23]:
So I'm a bit, just having to be a bit careful now because there are cyclists coming at me from all angles. Because in addition to people like me walking around, there's also a lot of people who cycle around. Groups pivot. Again, this is the pit. Straight entry. Anyone listening to this on audio, you're not really getting the full benefit from this particular episode. I would definitely recommend this episode. You watch it on video and if you want to go back to listening to audio after that, then probably normal service will be resumed at that point.

Jim Banks [00:11:55]:
But I'd be very curious. On every podcast episode that I've produced so far, if you go to the website, which is podcast bdwjb.com, on every episode, you'll see that there is actually a place for Facebook comments. And at the bottom right hand side on each page there is a recorder for microphones so you can leave a voicemail. I would love to know what your favourite digital marketing podcasts are so I can try and understand what it is that's made them as popular as they are. So some of the ones that I've been following, people like Amy Porterfield, she's obviously got a huge following and really professional in terms of the way she produces the whole thing. But yeah, but I'd love to know who else you listen to and why you listen to them and what it is you like about them. So please leave me a message or leave me a comment and I promise you I'll respond to it when I'm able to. For this particular episode, it'll be podcast bdwjb.com seven.

Jim Banks [00:12:59]:
That'll be the episode number. And obviously from there all the show notes and everything else will be there. So I mentioned earlier about opus clips that will be in the show notes as well as the pod page, which is my hosting company. So yeah, so make sure you do that. Make sure you check those out as the W hotel. A little bit more up close and personal. Yeah, I've actually been there for drinks, never actually stayed there. Beautiful hotel inside, and obviously very expensive at the time that the Grand Prix itself is on.

Jim Banks [00:13:29]:
At some point in time, I may well find the opportunity to stay there. Just to give you some idea of context, the weather in Abu Dhabi at the moment is probably about 22 degrees centigrade, which I think is probably in the mid 70s. Compared to the UK where I live, it's probably five or six degrees centigrade, which is probably in the low 40s, maybe high 30s. So clearly, being here, I can walk in shorts, t shirt, and not have to worry about getting cold. And that was part of the reason of coming over here, is to enable me not to have to worry about the winters. And I made a bit of a kind of a calculated punt that once I paid for the flight to be here, got a member of my family who lives here, so I've been able to stay with them. So we've been able to not have to pay the money that we would normally pay for heating at home in the UK, and we've been able to go out for a few dinners here and that sort of thing. So it's probably like the worst math that anyone's ever done.

Jim Banks [00:14:23]:
But that was my rationale behind why I thought that would be a good thing to do. What's really interesting is that there's obviously a lot of people of different levels. That's the beauty of things like podcasting. You got people like me who are six episodes in, you've got other people who are probably hundreds and hundreds of episodes in. So they're much more likely to have success with every episode because they've done the heavy lifting at the beginning. Interestingly enough, I saw somebody post that Alex Hormosi, who's one of the most popular influencers at the moment. When he first started his podcast, about twelve months in, he only had a couple of thousand downloads. Again, I'm nowhere near that number at the moment, but I'm hoping to, with consistency, persistence, keep things going and eventually get to the point where every episode I can push out will get a couple of thousand downloads, and I can start leveraging that success into highlighting and showcasing the people who really, for me, the reason for wanting to have a pod is to give aspiring digital marketers the opportunity and the platform to be able to talk about some of the things that they've been doing and what they're looking to do in the future and use my platform to enable them to get more visibility into what it is that they're working on.

Jim Banks [00:15:36]:
Call this a mid podcast ad break, but if you are an aspiring digital marketer, and particularly if you're a female digital marketer, I would love to hear from you. Leave me a voicemail.

Jim Banks [00:15:48]:
Total 2 minutes, 40 seconds steps. 2137 steps.

Jim Banks [00:15:57]:
So there we are, 23 40 for the first 2. Think that kilometer was a little bit quicker, but still pretty slow compared to my normal walking pace. But fortunately, because of all the work that I put in last year, I'm not actually out of breath, which is good. I think had I been doing this at this time, last year might have been a different story altogether. So this corner up here, this is the corner as you come through, this is where the w, the other side of the w is, goes through, under the bridge there. So this is the corner where famously Max Verstappen overtook Lewis Hamilton to enable him to go on and become the world champion. Yeah, like I said, hugely disappointing for me as a Lewis Hamilton fan, but there we go. That is what it is.

Jim Banks [00:16:43]:
You can't complain. You can't dispute how dominant Red Bull have been since then, and I'm not going to. Yeah, so let me bring me back here. So, yeah, I think from the point of view of podcasting, I think one of the things I've realized is the whole process, start to finish, was far more elaborate than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be something as simple as, let me get a camera, let me get a couple of microphones, let me send a link out to get people on the other end of the conversation, have a few questions, talk some shit and be done. And clearly that has not been the case. It's been a lovely experience that I've really thoroughly enjoyed it. But, yeah, I think it's been a much steeper learning curve than I thought it was going to be.

Jim Banks [00:17:33]:
And yeah, I think it's one that I'm definitely going to persevere with. I've swapped my 10,000 steps a day, every day to producing content for the podcast every day, in addition to running the Facebook forum that I have for elite media buyers, and also for the agency that I have, which is called Space media, which is a growth agency where I help businesses that want to scale their business, typically from one to 5 million. The reason I chose that number, rather than something higher is I didn't really want to be working with big companies. That's not in my wheelhouse. I did an episode recently with Tim Ash where I explained the rationale behind that, why I didn't want to work with big companies, why I didn't want to grow a 50 to 100 person agency. Because if I did that, then what I'm doing now, which is being able to be in a foreign country with my wife, enjoying the sunshine, I just wouldn't be able to do that because I'd be having to go into the office to open it up, to change the toilet paper. And when we run out of coffee and tea, go to the shops to buy coffee and tea, and there'd be HR issues and things like that. And really, I've been there and I've done that.

Jim Banks [00:18:42]:
And if you like, that was probably one of my bad decisions, if you like, back in the day, was rather than bringing somebody in to look after all that sort of stuff, I thought, I'll be the person that looks after all that. And I realized just how little I enjoyed HR, how much I didn't enjoy managing people, really. It's something I've done for many years, but it's really not something I've got great enjoyment out of. I've got great enjoyment out of digital marketing, running paid ads and generating conversions for clients that I work with. And I've considered that to be my superpower, my expertise. But not doing performance reviews and stuff like that, that's just not really my sweet spot. Yeah. So I think if I can give anybody tips on how to run a business, I would find the things that you're good at and outsource everything else and just focus on the things that you're good at and trust the people that you hire to do the work that you don't like.

Jim Banks [00:19:48]:
Like I said, it's not an abdication where it's still got to be done, it's got to be done properly, but it's just, if it's done by you, it'll probably be done badly. And I think it's much better for you to focus on the things that you're good at. And as I said, just get other people to do the things that they're good at. And then as a result of that, your business should be producing great results. Like I said, I have lots of friends that are running big agencies, happy to run big agencies. I take my hat off to them. Fantastic. Good for them.

Jim Banks [00:20:25]:
Not for me, but, yeah, I think you just got to find your happy place, your comfort zone, your swim lane, if that's what you want to call it, and stay in it. And don't worry about what other people are doing in their lanes because they're not in your lane. They're doing their own thing. So, like I said, all these people that are cycling round, some of them are complete novice cyclists. They don't have bikes, they've just hired one when they got here. Other people are riding bikes that cost tons and tons of money. And ultimately what they're doing is they're all exercising, they're all doing what they think is something that's going to fill their hearts with joy, and that's all you can do. Like I said, when I started the walking, I wanted to just be healthier.

Jim Banks [00:21:11]:
And as a result of it, initially, I did lose a ton of weight. I lost five stones, 70 pounds, but I put probably 50 of that back on. So I said to my wife, when we get back to the UK, we call it getting back with the program. So that will be my focus and attention on getting that 50 pounds off again, because I'm not comfortable carrying the extra lumber. That was part of the reason why I was having hip knee problems, because I was putting more stress on the joints than I really needed to. So, yes, I think sometimes those sorts of things creep up on you can be a bit silently. You take a look in the mirror and then before you know it, you've put on 20 pounds without even blinking an eye. So, yes, I think it's something that, it's important for you to monitor it regularly.

Jim Banks [00:22:06]:
And if you need to readjust the path that you're on, it's much easier to do when you've taken a small deviation than when you've taken a big deviation. And that's something I wish I'd listened to my own advice back in the day and hadn't waited until again, I think it was one of those, I knew that I'd put the weight on, but I just chose to ignore it. So I'm not going to be ignoring it anymore. Yeah. So let me just show you where we are now, Dick. So this is not quite sure where this is, but yeah, like I said, this is a beautiful track. And I always thought it was a complete white elephant that they had this track that they had a race on and then did nothing with it. But pretty much every day they have people come out ours and they do driving experience days.

Jim Banks [00:23:00]:
So they'll come and they'll drive a performance car around the track. And obviously, all these people that are walking and cycling around here are getting the benefits of that. I don't think it actually costs any money to do it. You just need a card to be able to do that. And I think it's only open on certain days of the week. But, yeah, I think a lot of people will do that. They typically come in the evening when it starts to get a little bit cooler. Certainly Abu Dhabi as a country can get pretty warm during the day, more so in the summer.

Jim Banks [00:23:32]:
It can get up into the sort of high 90s, low hundreds consistently. And I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of people leave the Middle East UAE in the summer and go back to the UK, because it's cooler at that point when they go home. So, yes, if you were planning on coming out to somewhere like here, actually coming out here in the summer, you would think it would be expensive. In actual fact, it's probably one of the cheapest times of the year to come for that very reason, for the fact that most of the hotels are empty because it's too hot, people can't bear the heat, so they just tend not to come to be here. A little bit of a travel tip there for those of you who may be looking at somewhere to go. Funny enough, just before coming out here, a friend of mine sent me a message on slack, basically saying he was thinking of taking his wife to Dubai and Dubai. And what did I think? I was up in Dubai at the weekend with my wife. We stayed on the QE two, which is an old cruise liner which has been converted into a hotel.

Jim Banks [00:24:36]:
I think it cost $100 million to convert it into a hotel. It's quite a quirky hotel experience for anyone that kind of has that. So, yes, if you come to Dubai, you're looking for a where can I go to get a quirky experience? That is definitely one of the quirkier places that you can go to have a kind of fun experience. And funny enough, I think as a hotel, it's clearly not that lavish because it's a converted ship, but it is actually quite cheap compared to other hotels in Dubai. But that wasn't the reason that we were staying on there. It was just because we wanted to go and experience something that was a little bit different and a little bit fun. And it was definitely that. Yes, I've got obviously I'm being passed by total lots of runners.

Jim Banks [00:25:25]:
35 minutes 9 seconds step 3160 steps.

Jim Banks [00:25:31]:
So there we are, 35 minutes for 3100 steps and 3 km, which is about probably just under 2 miles. So yes, I'm going pretty slow, but as I mentioned, I'm recording this podcast episode so it was always going to be a slow walk. I thought I would try and kill two birds with 1 st bit of exercise and also make a podcast episode that I can upload and then use for the purposes of making sure there's consistency in output. And then when I get back to the UK I'll have more guests and we can go from there. So I'm going to finish off the podcast episode now. I hope you've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed talking to you on my own. Maybe at some point in time I'll maybe do the same thing again, but maybe from a different location.

Jim Banks [00:26:23]:
Yeah. And for everyone that has given me feedback on the podcast, thank you. I really appreciate your love and care and look forward to producing more content for you in the future. And for those of you who may have never heard of me before, my name is Jim Banks. I'm a digital marketer. I've been doing it for 25 years based in the UK and my whole reason for working now is to give back to the community. It's been fantastic to me in giving me so much joy and happiness since I started in it in 1999. So yeah, so I'll leave the podcast at this point and look forward to speaking to you on the next episode of Bad Decisions with Jim Banks.

Jim Banks [00:27:10]:
Peace out.