Pro Podcaster Stories - Passion Meets Podcasting with Glen Willis

May 05 2020 63 mins 3

When your passion meets podcasting you get the Full Court Press NBA Podcast and Glen Willis. Glen has always had a passion and love for the game of basketball, so he decided to launch a podcast. Glen and his brother coached basketball for many years. In their podcast Glen and Greg share the technical side of basketball from their coaching perspective. They use their deep coaching background to break the game down in a different way. Their unique experiences and perspectives offer a unique story that helps them to stand out.

Glen Willis is an avid basketball fan. He is a contributor at Peachtree Hoops. He is an inactive youth basketball coach that still looks for ways to contribute to the sport by way of helping to facilitate camps and training programs. He lives in the Seattle, Washington area with his wife Sarah. In 2016 He launched the Full Court Press NBA Podcast which he co-hosts with his twin brother Greg.

He is a fascinating guy and a really insightful and well thought out guy. We had a great conversation. We talked about basketball and podcasting, but we talked about a few other things as well including long term content creation schedules, spending time on your core competency and engagement and feedback. I think you are really going to enjoy this episode.

Show Notes:

[03:13] Glen has an NBA focused podcast.
[03:26] Glen shares how he developed such a great love for the NBA. His love for basketball began in middle school.
[05:20] Glen and his twin brother coached basketball for many years.
[06:53] His passion and love for the game never disappeared or regressed at all despite the fact that his basketball journey wasn’t quite what he would have imagined.
[08:24] He had a six-month break where he wasn’t doing a full-time job and that really helped him be able to launch the podcast.
[09:38] In order to cover the entire NBA, Glen needs to have a 12-month plan. The hardest aspect is to get familiar with all the new players coming into the league.
[11:42] They watch and focus on three teams a week. They record on those teams and share what they saw and really dive into what they are doing and trying to do.
[13:47] Glen starts his draft work in April.
[16:03] There are many NBA podcasts to help you learn more about the game.
[17:38] Glen knew they could use their deep coaching background to break it down in a different way.
[19:57] They wanted to bring a technical conversation from people that have a coaching and teaching background in the sport hoping that would not be better than everything else, but instead would contribute to what people consuming that type of content would find value in.
[21:04] Glen shares about joining a podcast network and what have been the benefits of the podcast network.
[23:41] Glen knew that he needed a team to fill in the gaps of his podcast knowledge and help him to learn even more.
[25:02] Parents were very appreciative of the time and effort Greg and Glen invested in their young people and when they launched their podcast they wanted to support and help. It helped them to get some support and visibility at the beginning.
[27:43] The podcast network they are part of (Lineups) does all the marketing, promotion, and social media.
[30:09] Any advertisers that Glen or Greg pull in themselves are completely their revenue. Any ad the podcasting network brings in is a 50/50 split.
[31:45] They are not in podcasting for the ad revenue. They are energized by the content.
[34:01] They record their episode and hand the file off to professionals that are more passionate about podcast production like Pro Podcast Solutions.
[35:01] Glen shares how they are handling the NBA shutdown and these challenging times.
[37:39] The podcast is currently on hold since the league has been on hold. They are doing a week by week assessment deciding if they feel like it is an appropriate time to start putting more content out again. They don’t want to take the attention off what is important right now.
[39:45] They are looking at having a player’s series where they actually break down an individual player’s game. They never have space at any other time.
[42:35] Success is about getting good feedback. They are very appreciative and grateful for the engagement and feedback they receive.
[44:44] They try to make their podcast technical enough that it is interesting and different, but still connect and land with listeners.
[46:20] If Glen did have a bucket list it would be to see Lebron James play in person. He would also love to go to an NBA Finals game 7.
[48:19] It is not so much getting to do something as much as it is having appreciation and gratefulness for the opportunity and absolutely getting the most out of it.
[50:33] Glen shares his experience going to a Sacramento Kings game.
[52:28] He grew up in a challenging environment.
[53:34] He hadn’t really seen a template of a successful adult man so he started reading about men that inspired him.
[58:08] Darrell's Takeaways: Glen talked about how he doesn’t get caught up in what the mainstream sports media is talking about. He focuses on things that make his podcast unique. He keys in on things that few or maybe nobody else is talking about so he is able to stand apart. He talked about his long-term content creation schedule and how important it is for him. Glen builds his work schedule around this. It is important to put in the big rocks first and then build you other things around that. He also talks about how he doesn’t spend time on things that are not his core competencies like editing, publishing, and promotions. He says he measures success through engagement and engagement can come in a variety of ways. Try to look at negative reviews with an open mind, because we can actually learn and improve from that. We need to look at reviews as an opportunity to learn from your audience and grow as a podcaster.