You Could Be Bigger than HGTV in Three Months.

Or NBC Sports.

…or a bunch of other crap.

Here’s what I mean by that. Amanda and I just went and grabbed some lunch, and this was on NBC Sports.

A boat race in Clearwater, Florida. A nice enough place, but not necessarily better or worse than any other place in the gulf coast region. I’ve been there.

I can’t tell you who won.

Neither can anybody else.

You see, there was nobody on the beach. This event was on TV, and they couldn’t even get 50 non-family members to watch it live. Cause it’s a dumb sport.

TV is becoming more desperate as our streaming options get better and better, and the desperate make drastic, and ill-advised moves. I just heard a commentator tell him that one of the 24/7 news channels told him there had “been a revolution” and now people wanted long form content. So what happened?

The interviewee was told he would get 5–8 minutes.

Cable news is playing a game called “you lose.” It doesn’t matter if they go to 9 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. Because those same thought leaders find their way to podcasts and webstreams and talk for 2–3 hours..and it’s a heck of a lot more interesting.

Beautifully scripted TV is going to keep dominating Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, etc. And I suppose the reality format will stick around because any country with 300 million Americans is bound to have a few morons looking for people as dumb as them fighting.

But the rest of it has an experation date. Why would you turn to Fox News, CNN or MSNBC for an analysis of current events when people who are more interesting, unscripted and have the freedom to be completely honest are a smartphone tap away?

Why would you watch the same tired SportsCenter format when people who are true experts can provide hours of in-depth coverage? If I’m a Chicago Bulls fan (I am), I can wait to see a two minute highlight on ESPN that’s available on my phone right now, or I can check out a podcast or YouTube (or Instagram TV) that provides hours of exactly what I want (Bulls news) rather than an overview of a bunch of other stuff I probably don’t care about.

In some ways, I’m telling you something that you already know. But in others, there’s still a temptation to see a TV studio as “the big time” and to pine for three cameras to point at you behind an anchors desk. THEN your views would matter and be respected, right?

I mean, sure…you could focus on being the best horse breeder in all of America in 1905. Or, you could move to Detroit and join the hundreds of other innovators as a new path is forged. Somebody is going to win really, really big and a lot of other somebodies are going to do well by proxy.

Roughly once a week somebody hits me up about how to start a podcast or video show. I used to email them technical specs, give them my best advice. And you know what? Now I don’t do that…because not one person has ever followed through and started something.

They’re probably scared that one one will watch or listen and they’ll be embarrased.

Here’s who should be embarrased. HGTV.

Some of their shows have as little as 2500 people watching.

That’s humiliating for a “national” brand.

But not for a scrappy startup.

Whatever it is you have to say, start saying it BEFORE the critical mass has arrived at YouTube and podcasts (we’re not even close yet).

Make peace with the fact that your first 10 episodes will be bad, and only 37 people will care…and 9 of them are close relatives.

Good. It means you started. Stick with it, and you really will be bigger than anything on HGTV that doesn’t feature Chip and Joanna.

Let’s talk real numbers. My content (podcasts, videos, Medium articles, email) reaches more than 75,000 per month.

I started at zero. And you know what mattered more than talent? Consistency.

If you want to do a podcast for your business but you don’t have the talent…just book guests and ask five questions of people who know stuff your customers care about. You don’t have to be super entertaining, just be super helpful.

If you have something to say around sports, hobbies, politics…whatever, maybe you’re not good enough. Legit.

But there’s only one way to know…commit for a year, and put something out every day/week/bi-weekly.

If you don’t succeed…you’ll improve your speaking and salesmanship ability, which is something everybody needs anyway.

If you win…the long term financial and intangible perks are going to be much bigger than you can get your head around right now.

Why are you still here? Get started :)