This is my first solo episode where I take you behind the scenes of the podcast. In this podcast I talk about the history of the podcast, and some announcements that we have in the works for you right now.
Inside this episode, you’ll learn:
- The purpose of the podcast.
- This history of the podcast.
- The Protractor Creed.
- The new segment we are rolling out which answers one question each.
- The new segment we are launching which helps you with marketing.
- And how grateful we are for each of you.
Thank you so much for you ongoing support and encouragement. It means so much to me!
This podcast is now about four months old, so it’s kind of like a quarterly report. I’m not really sure that I’ll be doing that on a consistent basis. I do want to give you a little glimpse behind the scenes here, and just chat with you a little bit, kind of on a more personal, intimate level.
First thing I want to say, is thank you so much. If you’ve been with me from the beginning til now, and you are still here, still listening, sharing, and supporting this podcast, I want you to know how grateful and thankful I am for each of you. When I started this thing, it was because I had a vision, and other people were having these suggestions to bring a podcast to contractors. It would be a podcast by contractors. That’s what this is. This is a podcast by contractors for contractors, helping you use today’s technology to market and grow your business. But it’s developed into much more than that.
If you’re just joining me today, if this is one of your first, or your first episode introduction to the Protractor Podcast, I want to welcome you. I’m Martin Holsinger, I’m an author, speaker. I’m a marketing consultant, and I am also a contractor. I don’t have my license right now because I’m focused fully and wholly on helping contractors build their online presence. That’s what I do.
This podcast is yours, and it’s designed to help you guys be inspired, and educated, and motivated to go out into your communities and be all you can be. In fact, I have a definition for protractor, and what it means to be a protractor. Protractor just basically stands for, “Professional contractor.” I’ve even written up a little creed here that I think most of you, if not all of you, will resonate with this. You will agree with this. This is what a protractor can say about himself. This is what a protractor is.
This is the protractor creed.
“We are not your usual contractors. We are different. Our neighbors are our customers. We are passionate about making a difference in our communities, through the services that we provide. We use up to date technology, tools, and techniques to give our customers the best product and experience possible. We won’t settle for less than the best. We are protractors.”
That is my vision for you guys, that’s my vision for myself, and that’s my vision for this podcast, is to bring education to us in a way that’s inspiring and motivating, to be able to go out into our communities and make a difference. To use up to date apps, technology, tools, techniques, marketing, everything that a professional in business, in our communities, will be doing. That in a nutshell is what a protractor is, and that’s what this podcast is all about.
All right, let’s talk a little bit about the future of the podcast. When I got started in this, I knew that one of the struggles I would have would regular ongoing consistency and content. I made a little goal with myself, a length of time that I wanted to do this, and how many episodes I wanted to accomplish in order to see whether this podcast was a success or not, whether people liked it or not. I’m just chugging along, and things are going well. I’m getting a lot of feedback, people seem to really be appreciating it. I’ll tell you what has happened, I have saw so much more need, I’ve heard of more needs, and things like this as I’ve been going along.
I’m bringing more value and content to the podcast to make it even better for you. What I’m planning to do is to continue our regular schedule. Every Wednesday morning, bringing on a featured guest, and this will be a person who is one of these protractors, like I just defined. Someone who’s passionate about making difference in their communities, someone who is a professional contractor, who has experience, and explore their stories. We look at their backstory, we look at how they got into the business that they’re in, and some of the bumps. Some of the hard things they’ve went through, some of the exciting things, and the rewards they’ve went through. Some of the technology and tools that they’re using, and how they’re marketing and growing their business. Just trying to unearth I guess, or tap into that rich experience that they have to educate us, inspire us, and motivate us to go out and be a protractor, all right? That’s my plan, is to continue doing that every Wednesday morning.
If you happen to know of someone that fits that description, and you would like to hear their story, or hear them on the show, let me know. Send me a message, and if I don’t know them personally, I might ask you to help me with an introduction or something like that. I would love to know. If you know of someone that would be a good fit for that Wednesday morning interview. Man, by all means let me know. Send them my way, whatever.
All right, the next thing I want you to know is that I am in the process of launching a new segment to this podcast. What has happened is over time, as we’ve been going, people are sending me questions. Questions about contracting, or questions that they want me to ask contractors, you know? Stuff like that. What I’m sensing is a great need for you guys to be able to ask a contractor a specific question and get an answer. I’m launching this series called, “Ask a protractor.” It’s been in the works for a long time, and I’ve got now a backlog of these questions asked and answered, and I’m ready to launch it and start rolling them out. What it is, is they’re about 10 minutes long, 10 minute episodes. I take one question that somebody sent me, and I’m asking one protractor that question. For 10 minutes we talk about that question and his answer, or her answer, to that specific question.
What it does is it creates really rich content around that subject, to help you be the best that you can be. I’m also planning to organize my website better so that you can search and find information on different categories and subjects, as well as if you just want to listen to the ask a protractor series, then you click on that button, and there’s all of those questions, and so forth, right? It won’t just … If you go to iTunes, these, all these podcasts will just be there. On our website, we’ll have it more organized. As time goes by there will become a library of good information that you guys can search, and you guys can use, and share, and that kind of thing. It’ll be a 10 minute episode around one question.
Which brings me to the next announcement, and that’s another segment that I’m rolling out. This one comes from, well also … Yeah, it comes from you guys. You have told me in times past that you would like to hear more from me. You would like to hear some marketing tips. What am I seeing as I’m working with contractors? And what am I seeing in the industry, and stuff like that. As well as … It’s coming from that, but also even from myself internally, I’m seeing stuff. I’m seeing changes in, say, the Instagram platform, or the way that search engine optimization is working. I’m seeing all of this and I’m thinking, “Oh, I just want you guys to know this. I want you to jump on it right now. I want you guys to take action on these specific marketing things that I’m seeing.”
What this new segment will do is give me an opportunity to share that. I’m calling it, “Marketing minute.” A minute or two or three, you know? To give you guys a specific tip, and hopefully you’ll implement it that very week. That also will roll out once a week. We’ll have a nice flow as we go through the week. We have ask a protractor, we have the featured guest, which is about an hour long. Then we have the marketing minute. That’s my big news for you guys right now. Nothings going to change as far as Wednesday, you can still look forward to a featured guest every Wednesday. I’m bringing more stuff for you to consume, and hopefully implement and use in your own businesses so that you guys can be all you can be in your communities.
I’m just going to keep saying that. That to me is what this is all about, is helping you be a professional contractor making a difference in your communities, and using up to date technology, tools, and techniques. Giving your customers the best products and experience possible, and never settling for less than the best, because you’re a protractor.
All right guys, that pretty much wraps up this special report. I just wanted to take some time to say thank you for journeying with me as we go along here. I appreciate every one of your personal direct messages you’ve sent me, or emails. They mean so much to me. I ready every one of them. I try to reply to every one of them. I just appreciate it so much. I know many of you have given shout outs, or you’ve shared about this podcast. I just want you to know I appreciate that so very much. Thank you for that.
It won’t be long until you start seeing these new segments of the podcast coming out. I just can’t wait. I’m so excited that I finally get to talk about this, and share this great news with you guys. Go have a blast.
Make a difference, be a protractor.