Fei Wu

Check out more of Fei

www.feisworld.com

http://www.feisworld.com/hello

https://www.feisworld.com/opt-in

Show Notes

Robert Peterson 0:37
Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have this conversation and just looking forward to adding value to our audience and sharing. I know we've had a YouTube and video expert as yourself. So this will this will be new for everybody.

Fei Wu 2:57
I'm so excited to be here, Robert.

Robert Peterson 3:00
Thank you. So typically I let our guests just start with their own entrepreneurial journey and what's led them to the place where they are and the impact they're trying to make.

Fei Wu 3:09
Sure I'll try to keep it brief. I think I want to some of your audience would be able to relate to me perhaps I'm an immigrant living in America, I came to this country when I was 17 went to you know, private high school than College in Boston. Fast forward, I had a decade of experience working in some of the top consulting firms and marketing agencies and I always knew that wasn't quite right. For me to be quite frank, I'm not at all good at climbing the corporate ladder. I also have very little interest. So in 2016, January 1, I decided to bounce and started my own company, which is now known as face world LLC. And the reason for that was a year and a half before that. I started my podcasts and got to know so many interesting entrepreneurs doing exactly what you're doing right now made a lot of friends was able to see what was possible. And then fast forward. Two years after I started my company, I was on the road Filming Filming my own documentary. And in 2019 Right before the pandemic, I started my YouTube channel, which really kind of changed the trajectory of my business. So really interesting all around. So today, I am a YouTube strategist for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Robert Peterson 4:24
Nice. Wow, that's that's obviously starting your podcast in 2015 set you have a pretty good course. So talk a little bit about jumping into podcasting and and what that created for you.

Fei Wu 4:39
Yeah, so we started actually, I still remember October 23 2014. And at the time, if you remember back then Robert, you turn on whatever iTunes and it was basically the same 2025 voices at the time. You know, it was Tim Ferriss and Pat Flynn, number of entrepreneur And they're doing a great job James, all teacher as well. So I was really hoping to find more female voices as well as people within the international background. So I said, you know, what the heck, I'm just gonna start my own show. And I was still working at an agency at the time, it was a little bit embarrassing, to be honest, because there wasn't such a thing as a community. It was hard for me to talk about podcasting at the time and even going to, you know, family friends get togethers, people's first question and reaction was, well, how much money are you making? What's the point of doing this then? So it was really tough. There were moments where, where when I felt really alone, I didn't know what to do. And I was really hoping that this will change. And I did, because without burying the lede, what happened was people who was interviewed by me, and they were really, they really enjoyed the process and said, Well, I really haven't had a chance to talk about my life in such a way. And by the way, I want to develop my personal brand, I need a website and either wiki wiki page, could you help me so I started developing kind of a digital services, things I was already comfortable doing because of my agency background and, and just started my business that way.

Robert Peterson 6:10
Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. So let's talk a little bit about the podcasting space and the shifts that have happened for women and for immigrants and and obviously, your own role in in making some of that happen.

Fei Wu 6:25
Yeah, I guess I can't really take too much credit that way. But I definitely have seen such a huge wave of women, international women from all sorts of backgrounds. And I forgot to mention, a woman that I always looked up to, you know, was Krista Tippett and clearly still today, and I really idolized her, I love her voice, her ability to talk about different issues. And I think that landscape has really changed. So today, for instance, you go on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, USC, a lot of female faces, talking about a variety of subjects and content and, and coaches and speakers alike. And I highly encourage, you know, not just women, and also, you know, for my show, I focus a number of episodes on the LGBT community as well bring different voices for that really makes your show a lot more interesting. And I don't know how you feel about that. Robert, I definitely see quite a number of, you know, a big variety of guests on your show as well.

Robert Peterson 7:28
Yeah, absolutely. I think I want to bring, you know, more awareness to different issues. And obviously, just, you know, everybody should have a voice and, and an opportunity to share their story and, and their journey. And so I love sharing the story, I love the journey in because I think, you know, more people hearing somebody else's journey and says, Oh, that's me, like, I could do that, or, or that's how I felt and, and that's what's holding me back. And so giving somebody the opportunity, you know, having traveled significantly around the world, and, and, of course, even here in the United States, I believe the biggest problem in the world is, is poverty. And I believe that entrepreneurship is the solution. Helping people believe that they can start a business giving them the tools to, to start a business and, and create something out of nothing, is is the solution, because the government's not going to fix it. Certainly corporations aren't going to fix it. And so we need to help people fix it for themselves. And that's really helping them develop their own businesses. And so the more voices that I can share with people, starting from nothing, bootstrapping a business, and sharing their journey, I think will empower more people in that same direction.

Fei Wu 8:49
I totally agree. I think even recently, I you know, sometimes you just never know who's on your email list. And I've been sending newsletters about once a week or even twice a week these days. And when I see replies from people, and you know, whose names I'm absolutely not familiar with at all, I have recently friends and received letters from people living in Parts and of South America and Mexico, as well, you know, different people, and they've all voiced the challenges of, you know, about the economy in general. And they really wish they can start their own business and they have families to support and to your point, instead of waiting for things to, you know, turn around at the governmental level, there's so much that you can do on your own, even if it means to start very small.

Robert Peterson 9:34
So let's, let's talk about starting very small. You know, everybody gets caught up in this idea of, oh, I need a microphone and a camera and, and all of this, all of this other equipment, but the truth is, you could start with your phone, not even necessarily having a laptop.

Fei Wu 9:51
Very true. In fact, a lot of I mean, we live in the US and we don't even think about these things, but many parts of the world are mobile phone and doesn't mean the latest iOS or anything, is the only device that people have access to. And they do everything not only recording, but even like editing complex videos and things like that I have no idea how to do. But starting small really is absolutely key. And I was just thinking about this, before I hopped on today, what is holding people back, I think we come from a culture, American culture, but also, for instance, Asian culture, you know, where we grew up and needing to feel special needing to accomplish something at a very young and early age, to a ridiculous degree, you know, we we sometimes will visit friends, families and seeing a three to four year old playing the piano with such mastery. And that is, you know, that is something that to be celebrated. But what if you feel like you're not at any sort of mastery towards the work that you're doing. So I kind of want to maybe break that down a little bit with you, Robert, to think about, you know, a regular user experience designer or a developer working in an agency, would do they have enough to say, Are they good enough? Will they ever build an audience? And I think those are some of the people perhaps that they're holding themselves back to think that it's not, you know, it's not worthy of my time, or other people's attention to hear what I have to say, but turns out that it's absolutely worth it. We all bring our own unique stories. And it's really interesting to explore it, even if it's not for anybody else. But for yourself.

Robert Peterson 11:28
Oh, absolutely. I think it's kind of like wanting to be a runner and, and deciding, well, I'm not going to run until I know I can win. Yeah. So they so they never start running, which of course means that of course they can never win because if you never start you, you never get the practice that you need. And, and the great thing about podcasting, and even on putting out a YouTube channel, nobody watches in the beginning anyway. And so yeah, start creating content for yourself, start creating the idea of of waiting until you know everything or have I think that's the the biggest misnomer, right? I think it's just start, start a YouTube channel, start a tic tock channel, start, start something, and and just start creating. And it's funny to tell people just create something every day, just just one one minute video every day is going to transform your life and business if you're consistent and persistent in doing that.

Fei Wu 12:27
Absolutely. You know, like you said earlier, people want to be able to relate to a face a voice or somebody's experience, sometimes really is true that the market does offer a lot of seven figure eight figure entrepreneur, you know these 10 Step programs and guarantee success. But the reality is, especially if you are a business owner, entrepreneur, you know that those guarantees are completely bogus, and I and you might as well start something on your own, and you don't have to be perfect, because I think the unscripted, more transparent and unprepared content is even more attractive. And I'll add one more thing is sometimes during recording, I'm not sure if you feel this way, Robert, during recording, whether it's in this format, or maybe you're you're writing something you're you're you know recording video or an Instagram reel and you think to yourself, well, that's really wasn't my best. And you're probably right. But in retrospect, when you watch it again, you realize you're not as you were not nearly as bad as you thought you were. So I think rescuing yourself in that moment, not judging yourself during the content creation process is a lesson I've learned early on, and I still continue to have to remind myself

Robert Peterson 13:37
well and recognize that it's a growth journey, you don't get to 10,000 hours, right? The the idea of Malcolm Gladwell 10 takes 10,000 hours to to be good. Well, you've got to start. And you start one minute at a time. And, and I think, you know, like you said, the authenticity. Helping people believe that first of all, all of these ads in Instagram reels and in, in Facebook talking about guaranteeing six and seven figures, you know, that you can get $1,000 A day writing reviews, all of those things, if it if it seems too, you know, unreal, it probably is. And they're, they're doing those things to get views and comments and, and, and conversations, but they're not really building a channel they're creating a following of of that's not consistent. Right. So let's talk a little bit about audience and, and helping to find your voice and, and the audience that you can serve.

Fei Wu 14:36
I think first of all, attracting an audience is such an art. And it's not the most trivial thing, right? I think we look back to our earlier childhood or teenage years, we are surrounded by people who are more like us and you know who you hit it off with and things like that. So when I think about our audience, there's some similarities. And at the beginning, it was harder to endpoint when you blog, we're create videos who are record podcasts. And nobody's actually listening because nobody knows about this, or knows you except for your family and friends, that's, that's harder. That's not really a clear indicator. But if you consistently deliver content, you're going to start building a small audience. And from that crowd, you can actually learn a lot from those people, which I find to be really intriguing. And so here's some of the lessons I learned that it was no surprise to me that a lot of people who are part of my audience, they do have a kind of an international background, you know, they have lived in this country or somewhere else as immigrants, which was really interesting. So they're not just us based. And another aspect that I find interesting was there are, for instance, a lot of American listeners who are eager to learn about other people's cultures, not just Asian cultures, some of them do have interest in that. But they're just, they're eager. They're curious, they find that they themselves have a lot of friends who are international. And so, to me, that was really interesting. It's like we're creating this hub, being able to talk about business creativity, like creator economy. Well, we have something else in common that is not really publicly shared, if that makes sense.

Robert Peterson 16:18
Absolutely. So let's talk about the challenge in in podcasting, and still in YouTube, of creating community, and how how you can target an audience, but then create something that that pulls them into your world. And not just this one way that the podcasting started out, right. And YouTube is still, in many ways, a one way conversation, and how do you help people recognize the value of community and then and then create something that becomes two directions? Yeah, that's

Fei Wu 16:55
a really interesting question. So first of all, you know, for entrepreneurs and small businesses to build up and grow, let's say, a YouTube channel, or a podcast, it can be quite challenging, I just want to like confront that no matter how easy someone tells you follow these 10 steps, it takes a lot of time and effort to build a community. So in order for it to become a two way street, I think there's certain things you can do. For instance, let's just focus on YouTube for a moment. So whether your video is under 60 seconds, five minutes, 12 minutes or more, periodically, you can give shout outs to your community in a couple of ways. Not just asking them to like, subscribe, but ask them a question. You know, at the beginning of the video, here are some of the things I've talked about such as AI tools, which is something that I'm really kind of delving into, and I tell I ask people, well, these are my favorite AI writers, what are some of your options that I would love to learn from you, please let me know in the comments below. So that's one way. And you know, the other is to, for instance, there are many ways but the other is asking people to maybe follow you on Instagram or social media where it's not just for the sake of following you. But you have to give them a reason whether they can learn additional tips and tricks, maybe they can download something, if you want them to, you know, download a lead gen or, or a party to join part of your email list. Thirdly, if you want to talk about this as well, Robert is about starting an actual community. And there are different platforms, you can do that Facebook groups are free, but can also be quite distracting. Discord is some something that people are some people are getting into. They're also community platforms such as you know, mighty networks, and podia and others that we can talk about. So one thing I would say is, it's it's community itself, it's a lot of work, because you don't want to start the conversation and then end them. It's a two way conversation, but it doesn't happen at once. Right, people will ask you a question, you will respond to other people, or, you know, again, ask you a follow up question. And the idea is that the community started to nurture each other, nurture itself and start answering questions for each other so that you gradually slowly remove yourself from the being the only moderator and the only master in the community.

Robert Peterson 19:13
I like that a lot. I mean, it's so one step is obviously creating a two way conversation and giving your community a chance to interact with you to ask questions to have connection to you as the as the host of your shows those to your channel, but then to create opportunity for the community itself to to create community as a next step is very interesting. So that's been one of my challenges in in having the podcast and and having the show is wanting to create something more interactive and more community related. And yeah, the Facebook group creates its own little craziness. So it for me it wasn't this solution yet. And I don't know that I have the solution that that I'm satisfied with yet. So

Fei Wu 20:04
I want to comment on that also a bit, Robert, like, because I've tried to start a community and I've shut down several communities of my own as well. And there are a lot of lessons learned, I think we need to reach a critical mass in order to actually start a community, first of all, so people sometimes think well, so I think in real life, I mean, when we have five to 10, friends, that's pretty amazing. But it's hard to have, say, 50 100 listeners, for instance, this is not related to your, you know, your podcast or mind necessarily, but in general, you know, if your listenership is somewhere within, you know, 100 200 downloads, it's going to be hard to try to build a community, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't, but you can so invite people to, for instance, like, subscribe to your newsletter, send you questions and things like that, before you try to solve a problem. So for instance, if your show is about entrepreneurship, and you start a community to help other entrepreneurs and small business to grow, you know, to grow their revenue to create better videos and things like that, I realized that that can be challenging, because there's so many options to choose from. And for people to think about their user experience, if they need to log on to another platform, then you message them, and every time they have to log back in to respond back to you. I've seen a lot of route, you know, previously successful communities to crumble as a result of that. So that that is kind of interesting to me.

Robert Peterson 21:30
Oh, no, it's absolutely a challenge to Yeah, it is a challenge, I think, for podcasters, for YouTube channel, to really create opportunities for interaction. And, and, and, of course, like you said, Get to a critical mass where community itself starts to have its own, you know, I mean, I know there's creators out there whose communities have nicknames and, and they call them, you know, a certain thing and it becomes a hashtag, and it becomes, you know, a trend to be identified as one of their followers. And so it's, it's definitely an interesting space. But I think that's what takes a podcast or a YouTube channel to the next level is when you start thinking differently about how you're interacting with your audience, how you're caring for them. And, and that's when you can think about transformation in a different way. Because you're not just, you know, pumping out all this information.

Fei Wu 22:28
Mm hmm. Very true. And I think, Robert, what you and I have something in common is that we both take on, you know, one on one clients, I know, you know, our the nature of our business may be different. But we do work with people one on one, whereas lately, I have consulted, I'm so consulting for a number of clients who do have a big community. And it's really interesting to witness that, perhaps they only charge $5 $25 per event. And when I look at their revenue, after just a few promotions, sometimes none, because their followers want everything from them, we're looking at eight 910 $1,000 per event, just for an hour, for instance. And to me, that is just phenomenal, I don't have that level of success to be quite frank. And instead, what people in our situations are working with clients one on one, and that's a to me, it's interesting. Damco, a YouTube creator talks about that this is like stage one is getting started. Stage two is charging sufficient amount of money for one on one clients. And then stage three is creating a community, you know, where you can charge very little, literally is $5 for some of these Facebook groups. And those people, those entrepreneurs and some women that come to mind as well. They have 6000 people, active members in those communities, times five is $30,000, just from one of our products. So that is stage three, a lot of entrepreneurs want to get there right away. They're in stage one, but they want to start a community and they wonder why they're not successful.

Robert Peterson 24:03
You can't have those expectations. Right I think, you know, there's there are Too many people out there making those promises of, oh, you can be at seven figures in 30 days and all of these. But you've got to do the work. You've got to have a following like even, you know, I mean, I love Russell Brunson a great deal. And but the idea that, you know, when when Russell says, Well, if I had to start all over, this is what I do. But he started all over with a reputation. And so even if he started something from scratch, it's still kind of, yeah, well, you've got a reputation that you've built over this period of time. So So tell me a little bit more about obviously, you had your podcast has been running for a long time now. And having great success and getting traction, what made you jump into into YouTube and becoming a YouTube creator, starting your YouTube channel?

Fei Wu 25:52
Yeah, it was so fascinating, because I had no desire, even though a lot of my friends tried to convince me during my early podcasting days to say, oh, obviously, you should be on YouTube. And at the time, I was, I don't know, go into YouTube for some makeup tutorials or something, you know, like kind of childish, but uh, I still do today, it's so relaxing to watch other people put on makeup and do their hair. So I never really related to being a YouTuber as a serious business person. And I was clearly wrong. Because people started early in 2009 2010. A lot of those people were very successful, those early adopters. And when I released my documentary, finally on amazon prime in 2019, after just waiting production, all that stuff, for a year, I realized I was missing something that I wanted to be in front of the camera, and there's so much for me to learn. I was so I was definitely awkward and nervous, and all of that. So I started channel in 2019. But even with so many years already under my belt as a podcaster, I was completely new to videos and not sure if I liked how I looked and how I sounded. And, you know, there's so many things to pay attention to the lighting was poor. And I just decided to stick with it. My producer hermana. And I made the journey very, very simple to say, we're going to run this channel no matter what for the next six months to a year, we both knew we're going to do it for a lot longer. So when you take that pressure off of you and say, my channel needs to be monetized within the month, I need to my video, I need to have a breakthrough video of over 10,000 views. We didn't expect any of that however, you know, three months later with, with a pandemic and I was so eager to put together tutorials to help my Zumba instructors to quickly teach on Zoom, which zoom was absolutely not designed for that one video took off. And within days, we had 1000s of views. It was the top ranking zoom for Zumba video on YouTube for many, many months and our channel became monetized. And it changed everything so many brands approached me fitness platform brands and these days more of life's dream and concentration brands, even personal finance brands and AI companies started approaching me with budgets with what is that you can do and it just it changed the way that I've negotiated with with prospects and leads completely and I just kind of fell in love with it.

Robert Peterson 28:18
That's awesome. So let's so let's talk about the monetization obviously, YouTube monetizes itself past 1000 followers and obviously you created a very targeted instructional video tutorials for zoom on Zumba. And, and obviously the pandemic your timing was was appropriate. Right you you saw a problem in the marketplace and immediately said alright, I know a solution and offered that solution. But let's talk about monetizing the podcast and convert us into monetizing YouTube.

Fei Wu 28:55
You Yeah, oh, podcasting was way more difficult. In fact, I will mention that a lot of YouTubers today are starting their podcasts and vice versa. podcasters want to start their own YouTube channel. If I were to do it all over again, I would have started YouTube first then podcasts later. And, you know, for me, I think monetizing my podcast. To give you concrete numbers, I like to throw numbers at the beginning of 2014. A lot of our shows are getting downloads between 300 to 500. If you're starting your podcast today, you might actually expect lower numbers because there's a lot more competition today, right nine years later. In fact, a lot of people are not aware that number one, even though with over a million podcasts on say Apple podcasts only about I think a quarter or though or so are actively updated, meaning people are releasing it on a regular basis. And so to be able to monetize your show, even though it's not true that you need 100,000 downloads or more each month, you're still looking at at least 10 to 20,000 and even when you hit those Members, you can then begin the negotiation phase with these brands, many of them are willing to pay those, you know, somewhat moderate amount like small to moderate number, right budgets are often limited because they have these huge podcasters to work with. So we had received, we received a number of potential sponsors, but there were not really good matches for the show. They have nothing to do with the show. The show was about the you know, creators and the creative economy, and you constantly kept these like, I don't know, mattress companies and random jewelry, underwear companies like, like, you know, swimsuits, companies. And so I'm not talking about about big brands either. So they were not the right fit. However, the monetization for me for YouTube is to be able to connect with people, I interview their friends and listeners who learned a lot more about who I am and what I do. And then they became, they all I don't want to use the word converted, but they became clients of mine. And that was a way that in a way that I never really expected, I did not go into podcasting, thinking, this is a tool for me to convert prospects to clients. It just so happened

Robert Peterson 31:10
yet? Well, I think that's the the the idea of monetizing a book. And the idea of monetizing a podcast really has to be about promoting yourself and leveling up your expertise, using it as a business card, interviewing a targeted audience, that that is potential to be your clients. And those are all definitely ways to consider monetization besides simply sponsorship, I think you have to be more creative and thinking about, you know, you don't write a book to become an instant best seller. And to make seven figures, you write a book to become an expert and use the book as a business card. And I think you need to think about podcasting and even early YouTube channel. In a similar way. These are ways to level up your expertise to level up your people's awareness of you use your podcast in your your promotions, right? When somebody comes to you and says, Well, I'm looking for help and this and you say, Well, I've got this podcast episode and this one, go check those out. And then let's have a conversation. You're able to send people to your tutorials, and you offer free tutorials on your YouTube channel to help people get started, which of course, you know, obviously, if they relate to you, and they appreciate the materials that you share in your free tutorials, then boom. You know, obviously, it's an avenue for people to become clients. And I think that's much more effective than counting on YouTube to just pay you for the number of views you get every month.

Fei Wu 32:39
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I also want to mention the mistakes I made, quote unquote, lessons I learned as a podcast for so many years, is I walked in without thinking about video at all. I remember. Rarely there were times I probably brought up three times to different podcast guests. And they did some of them did say No, at the time, this was all before the pandemic. And so as much as I wanted to capture videos, I was not always comfortable asking or really, really knew how to actually do it, like show up with how much more equipment to be able to capture videos, we did it with our friends, African twins from Cirque du Soleil. And the camera battery died completely and it was like total disaster. So you know, with that said, look at what we're doing now stream using using stream yard. I personally use restream and some people using E cam and camera like whole bunch of combination. So I would say if I could do it all over again, if anybody watching this today is thinking about starting their podcast, definitely think about recording videos, you don't even have to use it. But then you know you have it in the bag. Another way is that I know we talked about YouTube and podcasts. And how wonderful is it to be able to be able to, you know arrive on both platforms. The video obviously is a natural extension for YouTube. And you can upload the video the audio version for your podcasting outlets. And also on top of that you can create micro content which is absolutely essential these days for people to be able to explain be a to be exposed to your podcast in much better ways, I suppose to listen to this as a 45 minute version. That's it. Now you want to get these sound bites out of these episodes and be able to share different ideas with people. So that's all you as a creator.

Robert Peterson 34:23
Well, and absolutely. If you're only podcasting and you're only putting your podcasts out on podcast channels, the best way to promote your podcast on social is those one minute clips, right your reels on Instagram, tick tock and even YouTube shorts. Our YouTube shorts are getting far more hits than than the long version content and so being able to take you know one minute clips out of every podcast episode, and so let's talk about your new tool. You mentioned AI earlier and that you're you're digging into the this AI space and and that service that you offer for podcasters to be able to automatically pull clips from every one of their episodes.

Fei Wu 35:07
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up, Robert. So the tool my, my partner, Adam Leffert. And I have been developing since the beginning of 2022 is called pod intelligence.com. So pod intelligence. And we developed this tool using AI to basically process either one or many more hours of your podcast. And we work with creators who have 50 100 episodes, or 300 Plus episodes. And we created a database using pod intelligence. And basically what you get back is a username and a login. And you'll have a basically entire database of your content. So depending on how many episodes you could see dozens, hundreds, even 1000s of clips, but we give you the filter for you to navigate based on keywords, topics, speakers, duration, and even more, we have shuffle cards as a feature where visually you get tired of looking the same clips, you can certainly shuffle as well. And to be honest, on the market today, in the past year, year and a half, there are companies who are releasing sort of similar tools, and I started exploring, but I think we have such a different approach because most of the other tools, they charge, say 20 $30 or $50 a month, there's a limitation of, you know how many minutes you can upload, and they give you just a few clips at a time, right for you to generate more, whereas the way that we look at it is really kind of outside and we want to give you everything, as someone who's being exposed to the content for the first time, and being able to narrow it down as you see fit. And we also offer a lot of training and custom, you know, customized tutorials, even customizations zation customizations of the client even episode level to ensure the spelling and everything is correct. So for that reason, I think that's why brands love working with us.

Robert Peterson 36:54
Yeah, so let's talk about the AI aspects of pod intelligence and how, how the AI tool is, is actually going in. I mean, I'll tell you how I do it manually. And, and originally, it was literally every episode, I sat there and wrote down timestamps, and in marked with a star the clips that I wanted, you know, we upgraded now I'm using the digital tablet, so

Fei Wu 37:18
So I did not many years. Yeah, so I

Robert Peterson 37:21
still I'm still handing off to my team, basically have a sheet of paper. Now it's a digital sheet of paper, so we send it electronically, but it has the timestamps on it. We we use otter to pull out all the text, and and can double check the text. And then to get those one minute clips, you know, I'm picking it out based on you know, all that, quote was really good or that statement was really good. And I can only do that, you know, once or twice for an episode. But with the power of AI, what are you guys able to do?

Fei Wu 37:57
Yeah, so for instance, on average from let's say, 60 minute recording six, zero, you're going to see roughly about 30 Really good clips, right, depending on the speaker or the episode sometime you can see upwards of like 40 all usable clips that are really interesting. Now I want to comment real quick on the script and otter, these tools surface all the time people ask us, what's the difference. So these grids is a tool that I'm a fan of I discovered in 2018. And so what it does is for instance, you drag the a piece of video, 4560 minutes, you do have to walk away for five to 10 minutes as it's processing, and grab your coffee, you come back and you get the full transcript. And from there, like you said, Robert, you're going to highlight and from there, highlight different text, and then you can export those as video clips, even audio grams. So those are really helpful. What we're doing with POD intelligence is that you get number one all the transcripts as part of the deliverable. And but you don't have to do anything manually AI is able to identify keywords based on the conversation and context. And the question is, how good is it really, so we don't build AI from scratch, right? We're running on their different, you know, AI databases and platforms that you can leverage and from Google Microsoft, and there's a number of them that you tap into, and it's a service and we build our software on top of that. So what we're able to do based on again, the individuals and brands we work with, we can help them further identify keywords that maybe AI would have missed, and that is not something that you can do within the script. Number two is that the relational information is what intrigued me the most you know, with these scripts, there's no you know, if I just want to grab a couple of clips from the script, there's absolutely no reason is spending any time any budget on developing pod intelligence. But what happens is when you run your podcast for whether three months, three years or more, there are a lot of recurring fees themes and topics and keywords that happen on your show, even yourself, when you discuss a certain topic, you may change your point of view, you may have additional information over the years. So I'm able to go back and say, I wonder what I said to 2014? When it comes to being the creator, a lot of the questions you asked me today, I want to see how I change how I evolved as a person. That's not something you can do with the script or altered and that can potentially get very, very expensive, just thinking about 300 hours of transcriptions. And then you have to manually go through them all. So yeah, we just I love exploring, and we're still growing and blogging and writing so much content about improving the product.

Robert Peterson 40:41
Well, and I just like the the use of the tool, right, the the the AI tool is able to digitally extract valuable clips based on keywords based on the things that you've you've repeated the episode that you demoed. For me, we ended up talking about baby Yoda. And your first instinct was like, well, that's got to be a mistake that the AI made. And we actually had a conversation about the baby Yoda that was over the guests shoulder and in. And of course, you know, it's a popular subject over the last couple years. Go through, I

Fei Wu 41:17
was like, this is definitely a mistake. And I was gonna flag it. And I realized that you did talk about it. But certainly there's something you can also filter, right? It's not something you want to use as a clip, you can just look right past it, you can hide it or never look at it again. There's a lot of flexibility there.

Robert Peterson 41:34
Yeah, so obviously, AI just is so powerful. And, and saving, you know, so much time like my obviously, our, our team is still manually extracting one or two minute clips, and I'm just looking at the amount of time that would that would save is like, Okay, we need to consider, you know, a next level option. If not now soon, so, so I appreciate what you've created. And I was very impressed. Oh, it was

Fei Wu 42:06
so good to hear. Thank you, anytime ask us any questions, and we just love working with creators, or a lot of people's like, we're not sure if this is for us right now. That's okay. We just love hearing questions and see what we can help creators do because reality is new. Throughout the entire conversation, we're confronting the fact that there, there's always that half a percent 1% of creators who see, you know, who kind of can build a really big audience. And it's also true that there's some luck involved. Yes, they work hard. But among the people who are really qualified, you only get to hear from a few of those. And the reason is, our time budgets are limited as smaller creators, what can we do with the limited time that we have. So I'm a firm believer, like, don't think AI will ever replace human beings, at least not at the emotional level, the way the natural ways of us creating content from zero to one is what they say that AI is good to go from one to two to three, the Zero to One is where we live. And I think it's so essential that I process your episode, for instance, Robert, and that helped me get to know you a lot more without me really listening to the entire episode for like, I think over an hour, I got to see the key points. And I got to see, you know, there's such opinion pieces that I can see that just come out and you can write blog posts about it, you can elaborate it, I can see you creating five minute 12 minute videos based on one thing, maybe you only got to cover for 45 seconds on your show, there are different opportunities strategically that you can repurpose later.

Robert Peterson 43:39
Well, and we mentioned earlier about being able to send people to a clip. But the other piece is with key words that you talked about repeating and identifying those from one episode to the next. If you know, the word millionaire comes up and you got it across 12 episodes, you could pull out 12 of those clips and make a millionaire clip that really involves 12 of your guests. And so that that idea alone was like okay, I see. I see a way to grab all 12 of those clips, and make that into into a different kind of video that we put onto YouTube. Make it a different audio that we post on to the podcast channels. Exactly promotional or educational.

Fei Wu 44:22
Yeah, exactly like compilations. I think we all like compilations when it comes to learning what are different opinions, different ways of learning something but millionaire? That could be a really interesting compilation of people who are millionaires themselves who talk about working with other millionaires. Maybe there's a general theme of being successful, you know, successful, what success means to them. And they're also I've interviewed a lot of millionaires who gave all their money away. So there's just so many different variations that you can create permutations that you can create from just a single keyword.

Robert Peterson 44:58
Yeah, I think I think obviously you've created something that's going to be really powerful. And I think it's going to be another shift in your business from this YouTube Maven to, to now something, you know, helping video creators in a completely different way. You have one other concept that that I really, really liked. And it's the conversational interview. And then being able to plug that into the same system to create clips from a conversation that a client can have with you. And you're drawing out basically, who they are, who they serve, where their heart is, some of those things that you've honed your interview skills to, to spend an hour an hour and a half with a person and then draw out incredible stuff. Obviously, the value in the interview is super cool, but then being able to create 40 clips instantaneously from from that interview. It's so powerful.

Fei Wu 46:01
Yeah, it's so powerful. And guess who had Robert I've been testing, like we all leave with assumptions sometimes more mature, more experienced, we are sometimes even I will occasionally find myself saying, Well, I know that's going to take off. I know that's gonna work. But the end of the day that you you don't, and sometimes you experience doesn't help, either. So when I published, let's say, these 3040 clips, I oftentimes find myself surprised by what takes off. What does it mean doesn't mean that your audience necessarily absolutely love these clips, or they just decided that for you? Yep, partially, probably. But there's also the other factor of let's say, YouTube, or Instagram algorithm just somehow favored those clips, based on the time of day based on who initially engaged with them. So instead of having us read too much into it, and trying to predict our future and what works, it is really not just a quality game is a quantity game. People don't want to hear that. Because somehow, we take so much pride in being perfectionist and like, even though that's a bad word these days, but like, Oh, look at this piece of content, we're so proud. But you just don't know. And so you're doing yourself a disservice by trying to create, spend a lot of money, create very, very few assets, and just sit there and wait. Right? Well done that like of listening to LinkedIn, refresh, refresh, and then realize no does publish consistently walk away and look at your analytics once a month.

Robert Peterson 47:21
Love that. So can you share just a little bit about the value of the story element in that and having those interview conversations, because those aren't necessarily creator? Content, right. This is this is a conversation with a CEO or a conversation with a mom trying to build her brand. And how those how those stories can shape their brand. And how this interview conversation with you can really draw out their story.

Fei Wu 47:52
I think story is so essential to human beings. And I am constantly surprised, even shocked by what I end up learning, not just from people I'm meeting for the first time, but even interviewing my own mother, you know, my teacher of 20 years that you find out so much more about their lives that you never knew before. So the story element is really essential, that helps you connect with them, if you happen to be a consultant, coach, speaker that really helps you connect with this person, whether you take them on as a client or otherwise. And I think podcasting in particular, and also there's a version because these days we talk about YouTube, podcasting, a lot, YouTube was pouring a lot of money, a lot of attention into podcasters is that you share the story, as opposed to a quick call to action, or like a repeated message. And getting to the point so quickly, is that a story really helps people relate and kind of ease into the journey. A lot of people don't really know the why. You know, there's so much content about the how to do something. But I think story really helps people understand the why behind it. And the next steps and actions become much more trivial and easier that way. So does that help?

Robert Peterson 49:07
No, it's fantastic. Absolutely. As a transformational coach, we deal with story. It's really the stories that people are telling themselves the stories they believe about themselves. And of course, the stories that they're willing to tell others and helping people transform those stories to empower themselves and empower their future. But it starts in that same space of you know, why they believe who they are, and, and what their heart is what's inside of them. Because that's what's going to empower them to want to get to another level to want to make those changes in their thought life and in their futures. So, so powerful. Faith, thank you so much. We end every episode with our guest sharing their words of wisdom. So entrepreneurial audience, what would you share with them regarding their word, your advice?

Fei Wu 49:57
My advice i I think you just you have to start creating something from nothing, like you said earlier, is really powerful, whatever that may be. And just start something today, even if it means 15 seconds, 15 minutes. So I love, I love when people start today to start really envision their future as opposed to I wait 20 years, I wait until my kids are in college, then I will do something like start envisioning start doing now.

Robert Peterson 50:30
So good day, thank you so much for joining me today. I sure appreciate the conversation, learned so much, and really some great ideas for my YouTube channel and, and my podcasts. So thank you.

Fei Wu 50:44
Thank you so much. Please let me know how I can be of service.