Interview with Peter G. Reynolds

My guest, Peter G. Reynolds, is a video producer and a children’s author. He currently has podcasts that serve to promote both endeavours. We compare notes. Lots of ideas if you're thinking of starting a podcast. Interesting conversation even if you aren't.

Watch: https://youtu.be/ipdCgVqDOYs

Unedited Transcript.

Jim Allan: With me today is video producer, children's author, podcaster, Peter G. Reynolds, welcome.

Peter G. Reynolds: Thank you for having me, glad to be here.

Jim Allan: So you've got a couple different podcasts and I wanna talk about the first one that you did, which is, remind me the title.

Peter G. Reynolds: Musings and Other Nonsense.

Jim Allan: Which is a podcast for children.

Peter G. Reynolds: That's right.

Jim Allan: And it's based on the fact that you wrote two children's books, right? That's the origin of it anyway.

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely, and the idea was for every children's book you write, there may be 10 or 15 stories that are too short, that are not quite ready. And they just sat in my hard drive, completely seen by no one.

Jim Allan: And the interesting thing about you is you've now moved on to a second podcast in the name of which is?

Peter G. Reynolds: Pros and Conversations.

Jim Allan: And it's more of a business podcast, but I figure some people watching this may have considered doing a podcast. And I thought it would be kind of fun and perhaps instructive to compare notes and that sort of thing.

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely, absolutely.

Jim Allan: You being a veteran of two podcasts now and me with my own fledgling video only podcast. So I've been doing it a while. I'm aspiring to be you when I grow up.

Peter G. Reynolds: Are you kidding me? This is an incredible setup.

Jim Allan: Again, this isn't audio. I mean, I've thought about, I could make these audio by just making MP3 files out of them. I mean, I'm a video, where I come from, in my head, I'm a video guy, so I wanna make videos. So where did you're interested in children's books come from? I assume you were a child at one point.

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah. Well, I was a child, as you said. I do enjoy reading. And I've always been someone who enjoys writing poetry and stories and these ideas. But it wasn't until my son was born that I really started, cause I'll make up stories for him on the fly, bedtime. And it really wasn't until he was born that I started to think to myself, I wanna write some stories that are for him and put some of these stories down. So I had been working on various ideas. When he asked me one day, he said, and I think he was about five or six, and he said, Dad, from the time things are lost till the time they're found, where do they go? And being a budding children's author, I naturally set a magical world that contains all lost things. And that was really the catalyst for my wife saying, you know what, this needs to be a book.

Jim Allan: This story. So you scribbled it down right away.

Peter G. Reynolds: I scribbled it down. And then basically wrote it down, showed it to a variety of family members to get their reactions. And then went on the whole sort of journey of getting it going to have it published.

Jim Allan: Another book, Stitches. So tell me, that's a very different, that's a much more longer, much heavier text in it.

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah, so what's interesting is that as my son has aged, my writing has changed because he wants a different story for me to tell him. Something that's a little bit more advanced. So I wrote the story of Stitches in Time Travel, which is a Christmas story about a young girl who is staying at her nana's house over Christmas. And she finds a magical quilt that travels through time. And the thing about this quilt is is that it will only take you back within your own family history. And she travels back in time and meets her family and gets stuck there. Now the only problem is she has her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother to help her, but they're only 10 years old as well. I'm actually working on the sequel because it's had such a great reaction from people, so we're working on a fabric of time travel, which is gonna be the sequel coming up.

Jim Allan: So you even had a podcast, Musings and Other Nonsense, which was about children's stories, poems, songs, and they're very short. They're about three or four minutes each. Were you trying to promote them or?

Peter G. Reynolds: That was, so again, it was a bit of a pandemic project and every other week you have a new episode where you read one of your poems.

Jim Allan: And your son's on it with you?

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah, so we did it as a project together, so I would write a poem. Sometimes it's appropriate for me to read it. Sometimes it's from the child's perspective, so he would write it. So it's been a wonderful project and the response has been incredible. 105 countries were in.

Jim Allan: Which is amazing, right?

Peter G. Reynolds: It's amazing.

Jim Allan: So and you've done about 36 of them, right?

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah.

Jim Allan: And now you have a new podcast, Pros and Conversations. So what's that about?

Peter G. Reynolds: So Pros and Conversations evolved out of the video production side. And the idea was is that when you do video production, as you know very well, you're meeting people, but maybe for an hour. You meet these really interesting people from the world of business or science or the arts, but you never get a chance to talk to them at any length. And it just always in the back of my mind, I was thinking to myself, wouldn't it be fun to have a podcast or to have some venue that I could talk with these people that have always interested me. Then I, at the same time, I had joined a networking group called the Business Alliance, which is sort of a group of-

Jim Allan: In Toronto, in your neighborhood?

Peter G. Reynolds: In Toronto, yeah. And it's a variety of different businesses and we get together to sort of support each other. And we started to talk about entrepreneurship and small business and all the sort of intricacies of it. And I thought to myself, wouldn't it be, is there a way that we can sort of combine the two where I can talk to people that I find really interesting, but as opposed to just being an entertainment show, could we offer value to viewers who are entrepreneurs, small business owners, talking to people who've been there. And so that's been, so we've-

Jim Allan: So are you talking about marketing and sales? I've heard a couple of the first ones.

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So marketing and sales. Marketing and sales and- Business issues. Yeah, and investment. And we're actually just talking to a therapist who works with anxiety.

Jim Allan: That'd be useful, yes.

Peter G. Reynolds: So I think it'd be very useful.

Jim Allan: Everyone's got anxiety, so I think you're onto something there. So what have you learned about podcasting along the way that you've applied to your new project? Because everyone's interested in podcasting these days, right?

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely. And it's interesting, sometimes it bothers me as somebody who's come from the, has a background in television and whose father was in radio. And this idea of someone does a radio show and puts it on the internet and calls it a podcast. It's like, it's still a radio show. But what have I learned, you asked, to get back to that? You know, it is the number one piece of advice I would give for anybody starting a podcast is consistency. That that is the absolute key. That people get bogged down with things having to be perfect, with the guests having to be perfect. There's a certain minimum requirement when it comes to the technical side, of course, but it is better to have consistency because that's how you build an audience. And I learned that with the first podcast with Musings and Other Nonsense is that as long as I was coming out every week with an episode, people were waiting. Parents were waiting, you know? And that really made a huge difference in terms of building an audience.

Jim Allan: I've got a couple of stats for you. So most, I mean, as you know, there's a billion, okay, that's not a real stat, but a billion podcasts or seems like it, right? Most people quit after six or seven attempts. So there's your, part of your consistency is like, they just stop, right? It's not what they thought it would be or they're not getting their reaction. Also, if you have just 28 downloads, 28, that puts you in the top 50% of all podcasts, which is nuts, which is nuts. So that shows you how many there are. Given those kinds of stats, why do it? Why do you do the podcasts in the first place?

Peter G. Reynolds: Well, you know, I did for Musings, I did the podcast because, you know, unless you have an audience for your writing, you're simply the most famous writer on your hard drive.

Jim Allan: Right, you're in your house.

Peter G. Reynolds: You're in your house and, you know, the idea was let's get it out there and see, because, you know, I write something, my wife looks at it and loves it, my son looks at it and loves it, but is it any good? You know, you gotta get it out there. And very quickly, of the 35 episodes, I probably identified, you know, half of them that I was getting such an incredible reaction to them. People saying, this was amazing. My son wants to play it every single night. Thanks a lot for writing it because it's driving me crazy.

Jim Allan: So are you writing new stories or poems for each podcast?

Peter G. Reynolds: Yes, every episode is an original.

Jim Allan: You're acting it out?

Peter G. Reynolds: Yep, each one is an original poem or song. And then the pros and conversations, the, that, you know, and you ask why do I do it? And I think that there's probably, you know, twofold. You know, one is, you know, when they talk about promoting with For the Record Productions and myself, you know, sort of promoting your brand and marketing yourself, people will talk about do a blog, okay? I have tried and failed to do blogs. They don't work for me. They say do a newsletter. I know I'm not gonna do a newsletter. The just, I've tried, it's not gonna work. So how do I, you know, get my name out there? You know, get, you know, without hitting people over the head with, you know, I'm looking for your business. How do I reach out to more people? Raise my profile, raise the company's profile. And this seemed like the perfect marriage because it's something I love doing.

Jim Allan: You're one of the rare people that have actually, you're now on your second whole podcast project. And I'm on my first, it's a video only podcast, but I thought we could kind of, it might be kind of fun to compare notes and that sort of thing.

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely.

Jim Allan: So now that I've been at it a while, I've identified five parts to the process. My process. Yeah. So this is where you feel free to disagree with me.

Peter G. Reynolds: I'm ready.

Jim Allan: Okay. And because your process is different because you do something different, slightly different, right? So five areas. First area I am calling the producing. So it's almost like pre-production. So I have to, who am I gonna interview? I come up with an idea. There's Peter, he's got a children's book. Let me need to talk to Peter about the business behind. So it's the searching for and the booking of guests, which is hard because not everyone wants to do it. And it takes a lot of time. I feels like I'm dating. People are not replying to my emails or whatever. And there's some ghosting, like people just don't wanna do it. How is it for, on your new podcast, you've taken a different approach. You've got a co-host. So you don't need to worry necessarily about booking guests. For the first few anyway, you've got a co-host. Is that a permanent co-host or how's that working?

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah, so I brought, so it's interesting because you're right. For the musings and other nonsense, I write it myself. There's no guests. So the, and people have actually offered to come on and read their stories and I've actually shied away from that. I wanted to keep it just the stories that I was writing. So you're right, I don't have to deal with that. With pros and conversations, yeah, so Damon is, Damon Adachi is his name. He's a marketing consultant. And we met through the business alliance. We met through the marketing, through the networking group. And because the work of the podcast was dealing with entrepreneurs and small business, it seemed like a natural marriage. And really initially he was gonna come on for maybe just a few episodes to talk about marketing and his sort of area. But as sometimes the magic happens, there was a, we had a real great rapport. And it was nice when we would talk to a guest that I would come at it from one angle, he would come at it from another. And we seemed to be able to draw more out of our guests. And so, so far it's been a happy marriage of that. But you're 100% right. I've been kind of lucky in that the guests that I've been getting, sort of sometimes the next guest evolves out of the first one. So we'll talk to somebody and we'll have a great opportunity. And then we'll say, do you know anybody? And they'll say, oh gosh, you have to speak to so-and-so. So that's been kind of how we've been tackling at least that first challenge.

Jim Allan: Right, and I mean, are you, I mean, I get a sense that you're interviewed, is it, what's his name, Damon?

Peter G. Reynolds: Damon, yeah.

Jim Allan: You're interviewing him. So he's kind of responsible for bringing the content, is he, in this particular case?

Peter G. Reynolds: So in the case of the, so what we did was-

Jim Allan: You're a host and he, that's how I kind of perceive it, you're a host and he's bringing the content.

Peter G. Reynolds: So what happened was is that in the, so the first episode, I interviewed Damon about marketing, okay? So it was, he was on as the marketing expert to talk about the difference between marketing and branding and sales, when it came to small business and entrepreneurship. So that was really sort of the first episode. Then we interviewed, the next person we interviewed was about automation and bringing technology into your small business. But there's an element of branding and marketing in that sort of process. And I thought to myself, well, let's bring Damon on as a co-host so that he can kind of bring that perspective. So then he fell into the co-host role. And that's where he's sort of been for the last, we've recorded 10 episodes so far, three have aired. And that's where he's sort of fallen in where I'll come at it often from, sort of like the video production from the promotion side. And then he'll come at it with, how is this impacting branding? How is this impacting your marketing strategy? And so it's been a real fun experience, not, and I'll say this about your previous question when it comes to creating a podcast, not having too many rigid expectations, allowing things to evolve in your podcast. And that's what we're trying to do with pros and conversations, is kind of see how it goes. And maybe 20 episodes in, we look back and see what subject was popular and then we can narrow the focus.

Jim Allan: Right, right. So I'm committed to these five points.

Peter G. Reynolds: Number three.

Jim Allan: I'm only on number two. So the number two for me, again, there's producing, which is like booking the guest, right? Which feels like producing to me. That's why I call it producing. It's like not my favorite part of the process. Then when I book someone, I do research. I want it to be prepared for these interviews. And sometimes I have a couple of weeks notice. So I'll try to think of question, like I'll try to do minimal Google kind of research. Sometimes people have written a book like a mutual acquaintance, Agi Gabor. And that's a lot of preparation, frankly, because you got to read a book and there's a certain responsibility I find too. So that's research coming up with questions like what's the story, right? So that's, again, just me. Three is the interview itself. That's basically what we're doing now. So I really wanted to do it. I wanted to, again, put my middle finger up at the whole pandemic thing. I really missed, again, as I said, interviewing, but in person. I want to do them in person. You've, you're continuing to do them via some sort of a Zoom-ish thing, right?

Peter G. Reynolds: Exactly, exactly.

Jim Allan: So what's your thinking on doing your current podcast just as a Zoom thing? It's easy, I guess. You guys don't need to be in the same place.

Peter G. Reynolds: So this is an interesting story because my podcast, Pros and Conversations, really evolved from work. So I take you back to March 2020 and video production, my production, everything dropped to zero. There was nothing. And nobody was, not only were people not coming into work, you know. No events, no nothing. No events, no nothing. And the, and people were kind of just, you know, sort of holding in a holding pattern. But I realized sort of early on that they still needed to communicate with their staff, with their customers, with their clients in the community. So I started to reach out and say, why don't we record people remotely, okay? And you know, either we can record them on their cell phones, okay? And then they can transfer the file to me. The, and that was kind of a little bit of the start. We tried that. And they said, hey, let's move to Zoom, okay? And see if I can record you on Zoom. And very quickly, thank goodness, my clients totally got on board with the idea of remote recording. And it started with their executive directors just talking to their staff. Here are our COVID protocols. Here's what we're doing. That changed into actually programs and training and that they would wanna reach out to their membership and say, so it has evolved in the last two years to where, you know, 80% of the work that I'm doing is recording everything via the, I use a program called Riverside FM, which is similar to Zoom. And it's been wonderful because not only are we, are they able to turn things around very quickly, but they're able to get experts and people from all across the country. So there's no travel.

Jim Allan: Well, the technology is amazing. There's no doubt about it.

Peter G. Reynolds: And perhaps there's no going back, but there is. And that got me thinking, you know? It's like if, you know, it's a lot easier to call somebody up and say, I need a half hour of your time, then I need a half day of your time to come in and record. And do I eventually want, you know, a setup like this, of course?

Jim Allan: Of course, it may never go back to it. Because there's something about in-person interviews because imperceptibly, we're picking up each other's cues. There's subtle little, I can make little comments. You can make little comments. It's where, it's just different. And I did miss it. Some of the early people, my early interview subjects that were on the show, as I said to you yesterday, this is my first out of the, this is my first meeting in person. And it was very, very, you know, electric almost. And there is, I find also in live person to person, there is, sometimes there's a real chemistry. Because there's a show, it feels like a show. So there's some adrenaline, you hit start. And so I think some of the interviews are better in person than they would have been in that kind of disconnected kind of thing. Even though it works, it's one of those weird things. And I just wonder what, the future is unknown and unwritten, I suppose.

Peter G. Reynolds: I don't think we're ever gonna go back. Will there be a third person here that's just a monitor?

Jim Allan: You know, I mean, you could talk to someone anywhere in the world, right?

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely.

Jim Allan: Like the live streaming community, there's people, I follow people in Sweden and Portland, Oregon, they're all over the place. And the quality is so good. And the internet is so fast. And the cameras and the sound, it's amazing.

Peter G. Reynolds: It's amazing.

Jim Allan: It's just, I guess I'm just a dinosaur. So I wanna just-

Peter G. Reynolds: You know what, it's exciting. And I think that, I think it's definitely gonna be some sort of a hybrid model. I think that the, you know, the challenge is, is I think you're 100% right that there is something intangible about interviewing somebody in person that can enrich the quality of the interview. But I think, ultimately, that's going to be overshadowed by the convenience.

Jim Allan: Yes, and it also depends on the type of interview. So I've done some that are very personal and at times very sensitive and emotional, right? And I think sometimes on the phone, you lose that because like there's, you know, let this person breathe and just get it all out kind of thing. And some of that is like a personal, it's the personal in the same space. Anyway, it's exciting. There's no doubt about it.

Peter G. Reynolds: Can you get empathy across Zoom?

Jim Allan: I think people's voices are a little different too. Like they're projecting maybe, and it's a little, I just, maybe it's just 5%, you know? Maybe it's just that 5% shaved off the top. Maybe you would have had a different interview. Again, it depends on the subject matter. So if you're talking about marketing and it's a bullet point, if it's a PowerPoint chart you're reading, maybe that's all you need. So step number four of five for me is editing. So I can't help myself. Like I will edit this, but it allows me some freedom in the interview.

Peter G. Reynolds: Just, let's just talk. Yeah.

Jim Allan: And then I'll go back later and do some editing. A lot of podcasters will talk for an hour, hour and a half or longer sometime. Like Joe Rogan might talk for three hours for better or for worse, right? I don't know. What do you think about it? Like it's post-production.

Peter G. Reynolds: So yeah.

Jim Allan:  I can't resist though, right? No. Like fixing things.

Peter G. Reynolds: I have to, I struggle. I struggle with it. One of the challenges is that-

Jim Allan: As you said, it doesn't need to be perfect though.

Peter G. Reynolds: No. But editing sends you in that direction, right? No, it doesn't need to be perfect, but yeah, it's very challenging. I actually find the video podcast, when you have a video, when you create the video and the audio comes from the video, it's much easier because when you are editing audio only, you want to take out every um, every ah. Yes. Because you hear it.

Jim Allan: I've done that. And the audience doesn't necessarily hear it, but I hear every um, every ah, every you know, and I want to lift it. I'll give you two examples. So I'm not used to being on camera. So this is, I'm getting used to it, but one interview I did and I'm just doing a lot of listening, but I'm filling in on filling, you know, you're filling in all those gaps. So I kept saying, right. So you're talking, I'm just going, right, right. And I didn't hear it until maybe the third time through and I go, then I couldn't un-hear it. So I went through and I cut out, like, cause I'm not always on camera. So it's, I can, so I cut out like 60 times where I said, right. And there's another one with a gentleman and he had a bit of a wet nose. So he was, before he talked, he sniffed in. And as soon as I heard it, I didn't hear it live. Didn't notice it live. But I, and as soon as I heard that, so I went through and cut out like 60 sniffs. Cause I think somebody, you know, it's one of those things I can't not fix it. But you're right, podcasting, part of the genius of podcasting doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be scripted necessarily.

Peter G. Reynolds: No, if the content is good, if the content is compelling, your audience will forgive a lot.

Jim Allan: Right.

Peter G. Reynolds: And that you just said, right, you see it. And I probably said you.

Jim Allan: Cause there was a pause and I didn't know what to do. So I filled the pause. I couldn't wait for you to finish your sentence.

Peter G. Reynolds: Well, I feel what, I feel a lot more confident now in this production because I know whatever I say, you're gonna clean it up. No, well, it'll be, it's more whatever. I'm gonna clean up whatever. Could you drop my voice by maybe just an octave? Some of those long,

Jim Allan: you have great pipes, but some of those long soliloquies I made, they'll be just, I routinely cut them out and I know it while I'm doing it. But so, again, this is my own list. And then step five, so there's one is producing, research, the interview itself, editing. Step five to me in my, is like the publishing of it, the dissemination of it. Maybe that's marketing, getting the word out. So it's kind of a, for me, it's a sort of, you get that same, I don't know, dopamine hit when you hit kind of send or publish. So it's out there. It's kind of neat. Then do people, what do you do to get the word out marketing? I see you posting a lot when you just started the new podcast. So, and I follow you, I follow your company, but I also follow you personally on a couple of different things. So I was seeing your, so it worked. I know you've got a new podcast.

Peter G. Reynolds: It definitely, I mean, that's probably the actual marketing of really any creative endeavor, in some cases is like 80% of the work. When I think of the books that I've written, that's like 5% of the work that I've put in. And then it's the daily grind of letting people know and getting it out there and trying to look for opportunities to promote it. Same thing with the podcast. Once the podcast is done, then the work really starts. And for example, something that I've done, which I think you do as well, is I will take short sections and then post those on social media, one minute, two minute sections. You can go into social media, Facebook as an example, and join Facebook groups that can benefit. So I'm on maybe 10 or 15 small business entrepreneur groups. And so what I end up doing is I will find a clip from a podcast episode that I think is beneficial and I'll post it. If you just go on and start saying, hey, listen to my podcast, your post is either gonna be taken down or it's white noise. But if you can, in promoting your podcast, if you can focus on how can I help that group, that person. Adding value. Adding value. Then a natural, hopefully, a natural benefit of that is that they will subscribe to your podcast.

Jim Allan: And how about just hashtags and things like that? Do you think about those?

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah, hashtags, absolutely. I mean, there are, you know, Instagram is probably- And Twitter.

Jim Allan: Yeah. It works.

Peter G. Reynolds: It does work, it does work. And you can add people too, right, if it's a certain organization, like a subject matter.

Peter G. Reynolds: 100%. You can try anyway. And maybe they'll retweet you.

Jim Allan: Or like, you know, that's sort of what was my kind of strategy with, certainly with LinkedIn.

So I do an interview with you and I'm hoping that you will like it, therefore, your entire network will see it.

Peter G. Reynolds: 100%, 100%.

Jim Allan: And so, you know, for people watching out there, you know, liking a video is a huge gift, in my opinion, because let's say five people like it. That's five networks. I've been disseminated to five people's networks.

Peter G. Reynolds: And sharing. Sometimes more. Not liking, but sharing. Yeah, there's different ways of doing it. Or yeah, you make your own post and share. I was just on, did this video with Jim and look at this. And so, yeah, and that happens to various degrees. And it's fascinating to watch how things behave. So across the different platforms. You said earlier about, you know, if you get 26, did you say? 28 downloads, you're in the top 50% of all podcasts. And I remember when we started the first podcast and on two days, it hit 100. And it was like this amazing, I mean, you talk about a dopamine hit.

Jim Allan: Right.

Peter G. Reynolds: And I had read somewhere that, you know, when you're looking at podcast numbers and you see a number like 50 or a number like 100, just imagine 50 people in a room.

Jim Allan: Yeah.

Peter G. Reynolds: And how many people that is. Or 100 people in a room. Because people will look at that number. That's why a lot of podcasts, you know, they do seven or eight. They only have 100 downloads. They're disappointed and they end it. To have 100 people who are listening to your podcast, that's a big deal. If you, you know, said, I'm gonna be speaking about this subject and you went to a hall and 100 people showed up. That's a big deal.

Jim Allan: Well, and it's also the, when it comes to like, let's say LinkedIn, which was my original idea, it's the quality of those people, right? So it's a real, these are in theory business associates or people that are connected to me in some, sometimes loose way. But, and that's why I kind of called it connections because it's sort of, it's almost like that six degrees of separation kind of thing is like. And that's happened a few times. Like some, I just wanna do interesting conversations, right? And so I've done some that are more viewed than others. And sometimes, that's a really interesting conversation, but less people watch it. But, and I've started to kind of repost a couple of the older ones. Because boy, okay, it's not for everyone. It's not a business topic exactly. But one of the, and I started reposting some of the older ones. I'm not really, I don't wanna be annoying and post, post, post, post. But for instance, we went to Gabor's book launch. That's where I saw you a month or two ago. But that day before I left, I go, I did this interview six months ago. And she was talking about her new book, but it's just coming out now. So I just light bulb. Like, you know, it's the first time I'd ever even thought of reposting in honor of Aggie's book launch tonight. Here's the video again. And it got a lot of views again.

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely.

Jim Allan: And then so the light bulb goes, well, maybe I should, the point is not everyone's online all the time.

Peter G. Reynolds: Absolutely.

Jim Allan: And in LinkedIn in particular, some people go, some people are on LinkedIn once or twice a day. Some people it's once a week. My wife might go there. She's got a job. She might go once every six months. So people do sort of show up once a month and something that I posted a month ago, they're just discovering it for the first time. So it is very unusual in that way.

Peter G. Reynolds: Well, and remember that the algorithm, Facebook is particularly bad, but it will only show your post to maybe 20% of you. So you need to, if you have, you know, a thousand followers on LinkedIn, or, you know, a thousand connections on LinkedIn, you can be publishing something for months and people have never heard of it because they don't see it. Let me give you a tip, something for you to try. So you talked about the value of you do an interview with me, I share it to my network. You get that network. How many episodes have you done so far?

Jim Allan: Hard to say. I've done about 20, you're probably my 22nd interview, but that turns into like 40 or 50 videos because there's little versions.

Peter G. Reynolds: Yeah, of course. So here's something I'm gonna do with Pros and Conversations. Perhaps you can do it, we'll compare notes. And that is do a, like an end of year special, do a series of specials where you have, you know, a half hour episode, but it includes 10 different interviews. So it can be, it could be something on podcasting, it could be something on, a specific topic that everyone's touched on. The great thing is, is that then you can go back to everybody, those 10 people, and say, can you share this on your networks? And if you're doing 12 episodes in a year, or 24 episodes in a year, but four of those episodes are, like they used to do in television, they do a best of.

Jim Allan:  I just did a highlight reel that you just missed because you're one guest after the highlight reel, but I just, you know, everyone's quoted out of, it's more like the soundbites, soundbites. But if you can, I'm gonna try that. That's more promotional.

Peter G. Reynolds: Because I've noticed that, for example, we've been interviewing all these great entrepreneurs, and we've interviewed a lot of women, you know? And so I wanna do an episode closer to the end of the year about women in entrepreneurship and women's small business leaders. And I'm gonna use quotes from all the different interviews and reach out to them so that, you know, marketing, it's a game, it's a dance, you know? It's, as you said, you don't wanna be annoying, yet you still need to get it out there. I think you're doing the right thing in the sense of, you know, you're building a network.

Jim Allan: I wanna start slow too. I mean, it was hard to get people, you know, we're talking pandemic project, it was hard to get people even to come here. And then eventually they did, and then once I had two or three to show, finished productions, this is what it looks like, this is what, oh, okay, and then it was a little easier for people to come. Peter, thanks for coming. Website for your book is?

Peter G. Reynolds: Is the website for my books is storiesbypeter.com. And do you have, how do we find your podcasts? So if you go to storiesbypeter.com, the Musings and Other Nonsense podcast is there, or it's available wherever you get your podcasts, just type in Musings and Other Nonsense.

Jim Allan: Yeah, and how about for just video production?

Peter G. Reynolds: For video production, you can go to fortherecroproductions.com or videosthetmatter.ca.

Jim Allan: Right, so thanks for coming out. Appreciate it. Appreciate the time.

Peter G. Reynolds: Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute great time and I'm glad a few false starts, but we got there in the end.

Jim Allan: We're here. No one will know about the false starts, but now they will, because I can't edit that out. We should have edited that. Maybe I will, maybe I will.

Thanks for coming.

Peter G. Reynolds: Thank you for having me.