Transcript
Molly: Hello. Hello. Coming in hot. Another episode of Camp Content. I am, as always, very excited for our guest today. But in particular, I’m excited to introduce you to Zondra Evans. She is the founder and owner of Zondra TV. But her background is really interesting. She spent 40 years in corporate 30 plus years at Intel in California, 15 years of DaVita, and all kinds of corporate experience, but came back to Texas and formed Zondra TV, which is a super impressive media network that she has built. She is the founder and the host of Real Biz Talk, and her goal with Zondra TV is to improve and support small businesses globally. Her network has over 350 channels. It reaches half a billion homes and it gets 1.5 million views monthly through her network. Her mission is to get people on bigger stages and to reach more people. So, I am very excited to introduce you all to Zondra. Welcome to the show today. How are you?
Zondra: I’m so excited. I’m doing great. Molly, thank you so much for having me
Molly: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation because it’s always fun chatting with you. You made fun of me the first time I met you at the end of my call. And I come from a very Irish-Catholic family, so sarcasm is my love language. And I was like, Oh, I love her. And it was.
Matt: Just a neat thing to look at and talk about. Yeah. Zondra TV, Zondra TV.
Molly: It’s pretty fascinating. So yeah. Tell us a little bit more about Zondra TV. How long have you been doing this now?
Zondra: Well, I’ll tell you what. It started out seven years ago. We’re right at seven years. But I have to admit, for the first 18 months, I think I didn’t know what to do with Zondra TV at all. I guess I’m a baby boomer with millennial tendencies. So, I was like, What do you do with this thing called streaming TV? So, I had to figure some things out. So, seven years, but I can say definitely the last five years is where we’ve made our mark.
Molly: Yeah, I mean, it seems to be glowing pretty incredibly. I mean, those stats alone are really impressive. So, what is your end game for Zondra TV?
Zondra: I love it. We’ll be visiting the game. Oh, I don’t know yet. I don’t know the end game, but I should say that we’re getting ready. We just signed a deal. We just inked a deal about a week ago that we’re really excited about. That’s going to give us an additional distribution that is going to blow people’s minds about how many Roku, Apple, and Amazon channels will be on. And so, I guess what I see happening is continuing to grow this as the home of positive programming and everybody understanding that if I’m a small business entrepreneur or if I want to be an entrepreneur, go to Zondra TV and get some inspiration and motivation and some skills in order to do that effectively, That’s amazing.
Molly: You have quite a lineup of content and shows and I know you work with people personally on the program. You have about how to get a TV show. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Zondra: Yeah. You know, it’s always a story that goes with it, right? The glory is in the stories, I always say. But, you know, prior to the pandemic, people have been running up to me going, I want to have a show on your network. And I was like, I don’t have a network. I have a channel. It’s all, yeah, I have a network. And so, I was like, Wow, they just keep coming. But in August of 2019 is when, you know, sometimes you just get that instinct deep down in your belly and it’s is a little small voice that said, build the network and train them. And so, I was like, Wow, that sounds like I should be creating like a TV media incubator academy and I’m going to build this network. It seems crazy because I’m the only one on the network, but I’m going to build it. And so, in August we built it. We launched it in December, and then in 2020, you know what happened? And I have a physical studio. So, I was like, what am I going to do? So, I actually kicked off the Incubator Academy that taught small business entrepreneurs how to literally become a TV producer and then monetize their content. And so, five people joined immediately. In 30 days, I had 12. And every season of the incubator we’ve had just around 12 people. That gives us a, you know, a group of folks that are producing content north of 45 people.
Molly: And the results that you’ve gotten, some people you mentioned to me some contracts that were negotiated from that. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Zondra: Absolutely. You know, we are now the evidence and so I call it it’s the evidence. We had a couple of people on one of my producer’s shows, and they end up they were going for a contract it was a substantial contract in the millions, and the actual folks that awarded the contract said that the reason why they chose this particular contractor is that the evidence was on TV and they felt like that they were a celebrity influencer. And if they’re going to get something, they want a guru that’s on TV that can help them to build out what they were doing. And so that’s one example. Then we had a nonprofit that won two nonprofit contracts, and they wrote testimonials saying, the reason why we chose you is that we could see you on TV at our house and we’re like, Yeah, that’s the right person for this job. So, I think that and there have been many others that have gone, gained a lot of things like, you know, additional interviews on major, major, major, major, major. You know, what people call major, though? You know, the four major you know, people have gotten interviews on that just because they are on this network. And then we have a celebrity historian that has coined himself as that. And now every single news media outlet from the big four is calling him in to be on TV.
Molly: That’s amazing.
Matt: As somebody with the podcast or anybody with a podcast, I would never in a million years think. And even as somebody that has this job and distributes podcasts, I’ll never be like I want if I can get this on TV or Roku or Apple TV because that’s all I have in my house, right? The Apple TVs, the Roku stick stuck, and everything. I didn’t even know about it until obviously, Molly brought you up. And then I’m looking at the email and it’s like, all right, this is just distribution is **** a month and you can get my stuff on TV. Like, how hard was that for you at the beginning? I don’t know. I guess to just be like, let me try to get this on Comcast because I feel like it would be a lot more of a pain to be like, this lady can get my stuff on Comcast and Roku and Apple. I feel like that’d be a lot more of a pain than just being like, Hey, she can do it really quick for you. All good!
Zondra: Yeah. You know, I have to tell you that when I started, I would be speaking on stage and people would be smiling, but their eyes would be saying, Listen, woman, everybody’s not going to be looking at the TV with their cell phone. And so, you need to go get a job. Well, we sure enjoyed your speech about, you know, why streaming matters. And now some of those people are knocking down my door simply because. Podcasts, if it’s audio or video, can be streamed on TV now. And so, if you’ve got good audio and video and you have a podcast, why not put it on multiple Roku, Amazon, and Apple? Because the goal is to stretch out globally so that you could become a global mogul. I mean, I have more, more international clients than I’ve ever had simply because I’m streaming in Australia and London then, you know, just around the world.
Molly: It’s really incredible. I feel like podcasting is the pirate radio of the modern day and it’s just really fascinating to me that you can reach so many people and then now that you can reach people internationally and you can reach people on their television. And that’s right. Like I live in Costa Rica, so I don’t have a TV. I have a fire stick and I have Apple TV and I have a Roku, and I toggle between all of them on my VPN and that’s how I get all of my television if you want to call it that. And so, you know, it’s such an incredible thing to be able to do that for people and get that content out there.
Zondra: Yeah it is. It is. But the industry has changed. So, you know, people are ingesting information through streaming technology. And so, you know, I’m a small business advocate. Small businesses get on streaming TV while you can because as it continues to grow, that cost is going to go exorbitantly hasher. The possibility of getting there is going to be high. But one of the things that I love is like, you know, I’m privately owned. And so, because I’m privately owned, I own the content, meaning I own the distribution and I don’t have to worry about somebody shutting me down.
Molly: That is kinda cool.
Matt: You mentioned industry and you had said a time previously that a trend that excites you is over-the-top industry. Could you kind of explain what exactly that is and boils down to?
Zondra: Yeah, over-the-top industry. It’s just really via the internet, like all over the top. It’s going to be amazing. But I think what we’re going to see in the next year or two is that we’re going to see a massive fallout on social platforms that we have been accustomed to. There are rumblings, and I know that you’ll probably read about it and heard about it. There’re rumblings. And so, you think about all of this rich content. There are some places where there’s some very rich content. What will they do? And so, they’ll need over-the-top programming. And that is what Roku, Amazon, and Apple are over-the-top programming.
Molly: Not over-the-top like out of control. That’s what I’ve heard before.
Zondra: Over the top of the internet
Molly: The Internet wasn’t it’s not a movie. You got an Internet connection. You get to go I love it. And that’s the world we live in now because everybody’s got y by, you know, even in developing countries are pushing for free Wi-Fi for everybody. So, like, that’s a game changer. And I agree. I think social media networks are. Like I was going to a lot of websites and a lot of social media profiles with, you know, clients and potential clients and stuff. And, you know, it’s comical almost how little Facebook matters. Like, every company has a Facebook page with like 43 likes on it. And, the LinkedIn page, too, for the business is mostly useless right now. On my personal LinkedIn page, I have like 5000 followers or whatever. The business is like 240. It’s like you do it just to do it. You know, you post on Facebook to check the box. People have Twitter accounts. They don’t even use them. Right? Some people are all in on Twitter. Everybody else is like, I post and you can tell they’re just using a scheduler and they’re putting hashtags on Facebook. Do you know what I mean? There’s no real return on investment with social media anymore. But it’s like you have to have it. But it’s you know, if you’re a life coach or something, you know, depending on your industry, then you might have more return from social media. But if you’re a business that works with other businesses, it’s a waste of time.
Zondra: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know about that. Molly, I think if you’re a life coach, you need to be on TV. You know what? I’m a certified coach, so I got certified at one of the grandest coaching certification programs ever. I’ll give a shout-out to IPAC today. I did that probably ten years ago and now I coach on TV. I mean, that’s a big ah, so sure you could do coaching on Zoom or you could do 1 to 1 coaching. But when you can do coaching from TV and you can tell people, go check out episode X, you’re having that problem, that just puts you in a different light and it allows you to be able to charge a little bit more in your core business of coaching because you’re a celebrity coach.
Molly: Now for sure. Well, and it’s like, you know, with posting on Facebook, like it’s not going to get seen if you’re on television. It’s definitely going to get seen. It’s going to be seen by some viewers and outside of people that you’re actively marketing to, which is, you know, it’s like YouTube will show people who aren’t following you, and Instagram and TikTok will show people content who aren’t following you, but like Facebook and LinkedIn won’t, right, depending on what it is. But television doesn’t know who’s following. You’re not. It’s just being broadcasted. So, it feels like more of an even playing field to get legitimate attention versus Facebook where you got really got to pay to play for every single bit of visibility, even people who have already agreed to follow you. So, I definitely think, you know, yeah, the television angle is kind of undisputed.
Zondra: Yeah, I agree. I agree. I’m not going to say you don’t need social at all, but I do believe that I have more power and authority when I can say, go check out my episode. And, you know, because we built a web portal, we decided when we built TV, we’re going to build a web portal so that you could have your distinct URLs stop promoting on all of these social platforms and promoting yourself. Like, go check out my episode on TV. They’ll check out my interview on TV, go check out my video directory listing, right? Drive people to where you own it and get people into your funnel.
Molly: Agreed. Yeah, because that’s the best thing about having a good website. I mean, that’s ultimately what social is, right? To drive people to someplace that you own and not just to that platform because anything can change or can get banned overnight. You never know if anything is possible.
Zondra: It happened to me.
Molly: Interesting. Well, yeah, well. And TikTok. Might not even be around. Or maybe it will. Like, no one really knows. So, it’s an interesting place to put a lot of energy into. Because it might work. It might not. What is the thing that you’re the most excited about for the next quarter in your business? I know that it’s an interesting time in the world some people are getting laid off and other people are making cuts and other people are making massive advances. So, what are you excited about?
Zondra: You know, I am totally excited about this new contract, this new contract that I signed that’s going to give us 100 more channels potential on Roku, Amazon, and Apple. I’m really excited about that. And it absolutely will then just kind of put a nail in the coffin that I’ve got the biggest distribution on streaming TV. And so, I’m excited about that. And in part two of that piece, we have been my leadership team. We’ve been working on really re-engineering and figuring out, okay, this is what we’re going to do for small business because I’m a small business advocate and I never want to leave that behind. But I think we’ve got some really great opportunities now with this additional streaming to be able to go after major companies for sponsorship and for commercial ads. And so, we’re excited about what’s getting ready to happen.
Molly: I love it. So, let’s talk a little bit more about coaches having the ability to make more money because I think that’s something that is quite the angle for sure. You know, if you have bigger distribution, better relationships, then it’s easier to negotiate sponsorships, things like that. So how have you seen that play out? Like how do you advise coaches and other business owners in that regard?
Zondra: Yeah. You know, here’s a thing I teach about in the incubator. We talk about, you know, who is your avatar? People talk about avatars, but, you know, I still hear people, your people saying as I service all women. No, you don’t. Let’s give it. Let’s. Let’s narrow that thing down. Who do you really service? And so, when I say small business entrepreneurs as an example, I’m talking about entrepreneurs that have zero, which is a solopreneur to about 25 employees. That’s my sweet spot. So that’s who I’m looking for. In order to say that, you need a commercial on TV. You need to be interviewed on TV. Those are the folks that are just making that turn. And so that’s my target audience. So, what? Knowing your target audience and who you’re really looking for because those target audience becomes the people that will not only, you know, support you in your coaching practice, but they can have a commercial on your show. Wouldn’t that be amazing? So, you got to know who your avatar is so that you can go after those commercial dollars that will build your business. But at the core of your business, people pay more for people that are on TV. I don’t know. Is it something about being able to go to your house and turn on the TV and you go like, I love Zondra. You know, it just is. Okay. I want her to coach me. I mean, it’s just that celebrity thing. And so, you get to charge a little bit more in your base dollar because you are on TV.
Molly: Yeah, I mean, I love that. And then how has for the podcasts that have come onto your network, what kind of results have you seen from that?
Zondra: You know, I think it’s been good. But here’s the thing. So, you know, I have to be, I’m not just transparent and to the point. Most podcasts don’t really film for TV or commercials, I should say. And so, once they come on and they bring their content, one of the things that we do is try to help them to start to film their podcast at nine, nine, ten. What does that mean, 9 minutes? And then we take a little start, break in 9 minutes, take it or break so that we can have a break in the content to be able to put in commercial ads because that’s how you’re going to make the money through commercial ads. And so, but most people don’t come to us like that. So we distribute their, you know, a couple of seasons for them the way it is. But we want to encourage you to start filming it differently. You’re missing a revenue pass move.
Molly: That’s really good advice because, you know, with programmatic advertising now in podcasting, baked-in ads are kind of dead. So, it’s always good to leave a natural break where a different ad could be slotted in depending on what it is you’re marketing to or who’s sponsored that season or what have you. So, do you help podcasters or people with content to film commercials as well? Commercial placement. Is that something that you also do?
Zondra: We do. We have a commercial development department. And so, a lot of times essentially because you know my avatar, right, that there’s like, I don’t want to be in my old commercial. And I was like, and guess what? You don’t have to. We reduce motion graphics, we have professional voiceover specialists that actually create the wireframe for the commercial. We script the commercial for the client. They approve the script, they approve the wireframe. We do what we call a scratch track on it so they can hear how it’s going to sound, you know, with, you know, with the script. And then once they approve it, we have the professional voiceover do it. We married all together and then we stream it on Roku, Amazon, and Apple for six months, and then we turn around and give them a 30-day bonus and we stream it on Hulu by demographic.
Molly: That’s amazing. And what kind of results do you see from that?
Zondra: You know, let me tell you. I’m not going to say, oh, yeah, we’ve got people making. I don’t think it works like that, Molly. If there’s too much content out here today, what I can tell you is 15 to 17000 people will see you in 30 days. I can almost guarantee you that. But the thing about conversion, is people have to see you 20 to 25 times now before they say, you know what, I’m going to go with Zondra, and who knows better than me? I wrote a press release about me and my business every ten days for eight months so that it would be undeniable. Zondra TV and Zondra Evans, Right. I took over the Internet. Not because my name is Zondra. It’s because of what I have fed into Google. So, to me, it’s not one-and-done. You got to keep doing this thing. So, my commercial might not get to a client and I don’t know. It may get to a client. I’m not really sure, but I. I know that you have to do something to get into the digital game.
Molly: Consistency is key. That is for sure. So, wow, that’s pretty exciting stuff. And then how do people find that content on Roku? Is there a podcast channel on Roku? Like how where does it all live? Or is it on your TV channel?
Zondra: You know, it lives in the category that you choose. So, we’ve got categories just like on any other TV, right? Drama? Well, ours is a drama. We have the business. We have finance and money. We have faith and inspiration. We have entertainment. And now we have the Authors Corner. And the reason why we created the Authors Corner is so many authors are coming to us, we want to be interviewed on TV, and then they turn around and go and we like a book trailer created by your commercial department. So, we’re creating book trailers left and right for people with books. And so, we want them to be able to have a category where we can place their content on number one. But then they also get placement in, you know, in our other categories under business, under, you know, finance and money. And The proof is that we send them a link and say, hey, go to the nine-minute mark on this particular song. You’ll see one piece of evidence of your commercial being streamed on Amazon Roku.
Molly: And that’s pretty cool. So, to talk about, you know, content, content marketing, how have you seen because I see you’re very active on social media for sure. Like your LinkedIn is always pop. Your LinkedIn business page probably gets a lot more traction than mine because I post it on my personal. But you’re very active on social media and you seem to really be helping people with that messaging. So how have you used content marketing in your own business to promote what you’re doing with Zondra TV?
Zondra: I got it. Look, I believe I’m the content marketing queen, but I also think I may be the repurpose queen, too, you know, because I repurpose content. If you’ve got a video that’s three years old, you can use any, right? And so, I use a lot of videos that I’ve had for many, many years. But I think it’s back to it’s not one and done. You should be posting on social media three or four times a week just to become undeniable. The beautiful thing is now posting on social. Guess what Google set up so your videos and every video cannot be on your phone. All you have to do is it’s a professional video as well with nice lower thirds and things like that. And so that’s what I promote people to do. Hey, you got to do professional video, you got to do some selfie kind of video, too. But you also have to have a consistent message. And I believe it’s given, give and receive, not give, give, and ask. It’s given, gives, and receives. And so that’s my methodology. I want to give you some information. I want to give you some information. And then normally out of that, I receive people to come and hear more specific details about straight.
Molly: Amazing. You really got it together over there. Amazon, let me tell you, you are a wealth of knowledge. You’re probably the busiest person I’ve ever met. To you say.
Matt: Well, the amount of just like one-liners I picked up, I could quote the quotes. Yeah, my gift giver is seeing if there’s one earlier than she saw. It’s all good stuff.
Molly: It’s all great. So, we’re not.
Matt: The clip. Then we’ll make them in the socials and then boom, just follow liners out of the exact.
Molly: Yeah, we’re all going to make a bunch of content for you to market this episode. And so, we can share all of those one-liners and bits of wisdom that you’ve shared throughout the episode for sure. And so, I’m also excited as well. People that, you know, Heartcast media will be working with Zondra very soon so that we can offer these services to our podcasters and podcasters that aren’t currently with our network. Even if we’re not producing your podcast, we can certainly get you hooked up and do some cool things. So, you know, we really take pride in Heartcast media in producing, you know, professional quality video, lower thirds custom backdrops. Even if we’re on Zoom or we’re doing things virtually, we can still make the videos look good and have transitions and all of that. So, I definitely love the input on the nine, nine, and ten. That’s really good advice for anybody to learn how to communicate that way. Definitely, it’s a better method for sure. So, thank you for spending so much time with us this morning and telling us all about Zondra TV and all the work that you’re doing. If anybody is interested to learn more about you, what is the best way for them to do that?
Zondra: You know I’m simple just go to BEONZTV.com That’s BE-ON-ZTV.com
Molly: I love it. One CTA. We always tell people that just having one CTA drive them to one place is all you need. They’ll find you on social media if they want to. So. Zondra, thank you so much for taking the time today. It was an honor and a pleasure to speak with you as always, and I look forward to sending some shows your way, including this one. And so, stay tuned, people, because CAM content will be on your streaming over-the-top stations before you know it. So, thank you so much for being here and we’ll see you again real soon as.
Produced by Heartcast Media
www.heartcastmedia.com
