Matt, thanks for joining CEOwise.
Absolute pleasure man. Thanks for getting me on your show.
Now before I get into Podcasting. You've had eight businesses. Six have failed and two you've sold.
What have the failures taught you and to get you where you are today?
On how not to make decisions. I think most business failures come from making poor decisions
and ultimately the consistent thing that ties those six failures together is just giving up.
I was being interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine for my hundredth show earlier this week and we were having the same conversation or a similar one anyway,
and it all comes down to giving up. I think it's an interesting point to land as a lot of
entrepreneurs at some point, I don't care what kind of business you're running
even you, with your show. It's painful to push through and to keep building that momentum, it's either a labour
of love or it's making money, but ultimately you have a vision. So that's what it comes down to
It's two things, one it's are you still in love with the vision so The Matt Brown show
being a brand that is synonymous to giving the best information
to communities at scale. Like that vision and being able to help communities navigate a changing world
Like whatever that vision is for you, so I'm in love with that vision,
but for a long time it wasn't making money.
and that's the other thing. But if you're in love with the vision and you are not making money that's cool
but then fix the business problem. Fix your marketing, work your network. Whatever that is for you
But if you fall out of love with the vision and you're not making money that's when you need to call it quits.
If you're in love with the vision and you're not making money yet, that's cool. Just keep pushing.
So that was the lesson that I didn't have and I'm a really big believer in experience.
You've been running your agency for sixteen years. If you could go back to yourself sixteen years
ago and say Daniel, this is what I think you should do
there's one thing, what would that be? So experience is the best teacher out there.
A few years ago you started Digital Kung Fu and that's evolved in quite a short period. Can you
give me a breakdown of what you do with Digital Kung Fu?
Digital Kung Fu was originally a disruption consultancy and innovation consultancy, but I hated it
So I did it for six months and realised I hated fixing other people's businesses and rather just fix my own.
So the whole time I was doing this I had the Digital Kung Fu show and so
at the time I was just interviewing entrepreneurs CEO's and companies,
trying to work out strategically what did you do then and talk to me about the time that you failed
Not too dissimilar from you're doing now, but doing only podcasts. It was the Digital Kung Fu show at the time
basically what happened was, over time it had nothing to do with digital and everything to do with
entrepreneurship and when I interviewed Rich Mulholland who's also been on your show,
it was my 60th show so it was a long time into it
He said to me, Matt, you need to change the name of the show
And I was like what do you mean? He says you need to call it the Matt Brown Show.
He said he's part of EO and guys were talking about their favourite shows or podcasts
and one guy stood up, it was the Digital Kung Fu show but it's got nothing to do with digital, don't worry.
And he said he needs to call it the Matt Brown Show and that's when I made the decision to change it
and since I've personal branding benefits have been massive.
A lot of the time people say purpose. What's your purpose in the Matt Brown Show?
What's its purpose? For me it comes down to two things.
One is who did you become, in this whole process. If you were on your death bed and
someone said to you, who did Daniel Newman become
he was a father, he ran CEOwise TV which really took off and became a global brand and helped develop CEO's around the world
But ultimately the question is who did you become?
the second thing is, who did you help?
I can promise you, those six businesses that failed, five of those were actually based in self interest.
They weren't based in interest of others, helping others succeed.
I promise you when the shit hits the fan, that's when your Why becomes important.
If it's not based in the service of others then 90% of the time most people will give up because
it's too tough on them, but when you make it about others, you have that capacity to push through.
And podcasting is getting bigger and bigger in South Africa and I think you play a big role in that
so how did you start podcasting?
By failing, a lot. It's an interesting one. I hated the idea of sitting down with a stranger. With respect.
It was legitimate. I'm an introvert. People wouldn't say that now, but now I'm doing events with 600 people.
It's a big media thing.
I've had to grow. For instance, in the beginning I used to prefer Skype to do an interview
because I'd prefer not to sit down with the CEO, unlike you, you know what I mean?
But over time and I used to script everything. Write down the questions, dot all the i's, cross all the t's
send all the questions to my panelists or my guests before the interview
like school boy stuff.
It's evolved into something that really means something , especially in the community of entrepreneurs
and business now. It's branching out into crypto and blockchain and all that kind of stuff.
I really believe that the only thing stops you from truly growing
things that matter in the world are your own limitations. I got lucky. I just got onto that exponential curve,
people switching off radio and moving onto digital media and that's the true story.
I know I have, I listen to podcasts almost every day. If I'm training I just put a podcast in and time goes so quickly.
I think you've got to be learning all the time. It's always on learning
Switch off the radio, stop watching TV. If you're running your own ship or steering your own ship,
being an entrepreneur, working for yourself.
you've got to do the things that 95% of the mediocrity brigade are not prepared to do.
It starts with what you put in. Because what you put into your head you get out.
You're trying to get companies around South Africa to get into Podcasting. How would podcasting benefit a company?
It's brand building. It's an interesting one because I'm still battling
to get people to understand what the concept of a podcast is,
but again that's changing, I think three years ago that was a different story, people were like what the hell
is a podcast? but now when I do a key note about my story
there will be like three hundred people in the room and I will go
how many of you listen to podcasts? and 80% of the room puts their hand up
so you know that the education job has gone from this to this.
But having said that brands have now found new ways to tell their stories
and telling your brand story on media where there is no competition.
The Matt Brown Show for instance, no one's going to compete with me on podcasts
on my channel. Also distribution-wise it's very easy. It's pre installed.
Once I have someone hit that subscribe button. If I keep giving them great
content they're not going to unsubscribe.
Also who else is going to advertise to my hundred listeners around the world or my listeners in
all those countries, who's going to advertise on that? I have a monopoly on their attention. That's the promise.
Brand story telling on new media channels like podcasting that creates a monopoly on
attention and it allows you to tell your story
in new and intuitive ways. For me the Matt Brown show is about truly becoming a global play.
I always believe start small. Digital Kung Fu,
I didn't care if there were a thousand downloads, a million downloads,
all I cared about was that there was just one one person. I just started there but as it grew,
now I'm saying why can't I become a global platform. Why not?
Because the whole world is connected. For me to create great high value content like Ted quality production
with experts, getting high value information and then distributing that at scale around the world, I can do that.
So are you getting more into the crypto currency events that you're launching, what have you got coming up?
We do monthly events. Couple of events coming up which is on the 7th of March in Joburg
and then the 12th of March in Cape Town.
We sold out six shows before we partnered with CNBC Crypto Trader to help again
create the best experience possible for the people that come to our events.
It's working really really well.