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black-streak · 4 years

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Little Pistols - The Killing Type

Chapter 5

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So more from Tim here. A look into how dark he's gotten, if you will. I promise, this is showing more the extremes of how far he's willing to go. Not how he is on the day to day. But, I digress. Mari will be the next chapter.

Btw, to anyone I haven't replied to on comments, I see you! I appreciate you very much, I've just lost track (and time) please know I still am very grateful to for your thoughts and support!

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~---~

The first time Tim tried his newest method of fighting crime, he felt exhilarated. Freed. Able to breathe freely and know he made an actual difference. Felt justified and right. Coming home to someone who wouldn't condemn him for it only made it better.

"How're you holding up, babybird?" Jason idly inquired as the other slid through the front door and started to kick off his shoes and shrug off a jacket.

"Fine. Better than fine, really. I think I understand now, what you meant before."

"Plan on elaborating, Timmers?" Jason quirked a brow, hands stilling on a book page, mid-turn.

"Sometimes, just scaring people isn't enough. Sometimes striking fear of repercussions or enforcing them won't stop bad people from doing bad things."

"Yeah?" He glanced up, watching Tim as he engaged the security system and picked his way over towards the armchair perpendicular to Jason where his laptop waited.

"Mm. Every now and then, some of these people need to be taken out of commision entirely. I understand that now."

"Tim, you trying to tell me you're killing now?"

He felt how Jason's look turned sceptical, but appraising.

"Yeah, total murder bunny now, wanna see my collection of decapitated heads? I got a new duffle bag to match yours" He drew out, gaze flat.

"Fuck off," Jay shook his head, mumbling to himself, "Should've known you'd never let that go," then raised his voice back again, "Okay, so if not taking them out of their rotten misery, how have you magically cured them, oh perfect one."

A vindictive little smirk lit the side of his mouth as he turned on his laptop, eyes cutting to his companion with a calculating look, "You of all people know how few of our asylum patients are actually mentally ill in a way that would justify their actions."

"Still say the insanity plea should only stand for recently mind controlled or Lazarus dipped, the poor bastards. Mental Disabilities don't equate violent people. It's such a fucking rude stigma to paint on people who actually have them. Add on that the regular patients are sharing space with actual criminals and of course no one willingly admits themselves, so the people who need the help aren't getting any. Also, if you are going to allow the plea for so many of them, then fund these damn places properly to help them, not just hold them captive until they get bored and escape," Jason went off, book forgone in preference for one of his more impassioned rants.

Tim indulged him for the moment, agreeing but having already heard twenty variations of the same speech, before cutting in towards the end, "Yes well, I figure if they're going to receive the charge anyways, I might as well help them make it more believable, right? So why not give them that little push."

That really caught the other's attention, drawing him in to properly lean over the space between them, elbows propped on knees and fingers laced in the space between as he watched Tim with a curious smile, "What'd you get up to, little bird?"

Clicking through the encrypted files he'd transferred over just tonight, he pulled up a video feed. Inside, bodies were attacking each other, another curled up in the corner, one banging its head against a wall away from the others. They weren't easily distinguishable from one another in their state. Tim felt Jason lean to the side to peak at the screen, brows rising as a whistle left his lips.

"They killed your friend, right?" He grimaced after the words but didn't apologize, for which Tim was grateful.

"Yeah. The flash rogues."

"Why are they..?"

"Psychological torture. They're afraid to leave the room, even though it's unlocked. They're afraid of each other. Of the world. What they do now is up to them. Leave the room and live on paralyzed by fear or stay there and tear themselves apart. I won't kill people. I don't have it in me. But their actions are their own. What do you think?"

Jason's eyes were kind of wide and off guard as he stared at him, "I think you might be the fucked up one here, Tim. Not to say I don't get it, but shit, that's just brutal."

"Eh, killing them seems to lack in proper punishment. It's just getting rid of the problem without making them face the consequences. No need to make a deal of it anyways, not like I put them through anything we haven't survived ourselves."

That got a bark of laughter as Jason relaxed back into the couch, reopening the book. Hm. Through the Looking Glass today. "Well in that case, if they can't handle it like we can, that's their problem," Tim grinned at his conclusion, "glad you found your own way of working. It's about damn time you decided your own morals."

Silence fell over the room, "Jay, did you forget it was your turn to make dinner?"

"... No?"

…

Okay, so it hadn't always been this way. They started off kilter and unsure and lost. Tim, an absolute mess in his grief and lack of direction, Jason freshly returned to Gotham again and wanting to help, but not knowing how with the distance between them.

He knew Jason had offered a position to him in the past, but that'd been within the violence and cruelty. With the pits still lingering and the desire to take him away from Bruce. He knew Jason saw him as an asset to his own agenda then, strictly professional. Now though, it came with personal attachments, shared space, a camaraderie that couldn't be forced. They were both replaced. Both seen as not good enough, outcasts of the family. Both broken in their own ways.

It was like chewing on shattered glass, trying to find footing around each other.

Jay brought him back to a lesser safe house, had let him stay there. Help gather intel on his cases, play his own personal Oracle at times. The first time Tim watched the Red Hood kill from the helmet's camera, he nearly threw up.

He let him teach Tim how to shoot, the ins and outs of every gun the man had on hand. Learned exactly what each was capable of. Unfortunately for Hood, he wasn't capable of wielding them against anyone. Not really.

It took months before Red Hood tried to bring him out into the nightlife, partly due to his own hesitance to chance a run in with the new Batman and Robin. But he let himself be led out anyways. A small patrol of the Bowery and down into Crime Alley then back. When all went smoothly, Tim felt himself relax into the new routine. By the third outing, he officially took up his new title. Red Robin.

However, Tim still hadn't broke out of the moral code ingrained into him for so long.

It took really stopping, really taking the time to watch Hood as he interacted with the girls on the corner or the kids that hid in the night, just as he once had, to fully understand what motivated his partner. It took the reminder of his own loss to determine his need for a stronger method.

It was sheer dumb luck that he decided this before having tracked down the flash rogues. That it was perfectly timed for him to experiment on people he wouldn't regret ruining. That upon telling Jason that he needed to disappear for a little while, the other had agreed readily, with no argument nor lecture. Like true equals.

…

It took longer to perfect his style. How much to hold back or not depending on who they were up against. If Jason chose to kill them, he didn't stand in the way unless it was uncalled for. But if Jason chose not to, Tim decided how far they went with each rogue they encountered. They had a system and it worked. They worked. When the two of them hit the darkened world before them, they painted it with Red and Red and the true scum of the city learned a new type of fear.

#maribat #ml x dc #timinette #timari #Dark!timinette #tw: mental health #tw: psychological torture

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bluboothalassophile · 4 years

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hello, i don't know if you are doing the 76 kiss prompts too blu, but, i was thinking jayrae with #55 but, inspired by the movie Serendipity (2001), is one of the sweetest rom com movie i've ever seen, but i don't know if you have seen it before?

Hello,

Um… I have no idea what Serendipity is. I can promise you the closest to the romantic comedy genre I’ve gotten for movies is Fool’s Gold and 50 First Dates (I love her beating up Ula with a bat). I can promise everyone I don’t watch chick flick movies. So sorry, but this is the closest to JayRae I can do right now.

Returning a Soul…

True Love’s kiss was complete and utter-Bullshit. Of this he was certain. And this topic was only on his mind because of his niece who’s school book project was on Grimm Fairy Tales. And she wouldn’t stop pestering him about true love and that utter bullshit, and she kept asking him if he felt this way about Rachel, Raven, Rae, and it just wouldn’t stop. He had placated her with the fact Fairy Tales were tales created to teach lessons, not just love, and true love wasn’t real in reality.

There’s no ONE person made solely for him, there’s no one sole person made for anyone. Damn anyone who felt that he was a cynical asshole, but he had been screwed over enough times by fate and life to think differently. Oh sure if there was chemistry sex and companionship were great but to have a single person that was supposed to be with you it was a romantic con. A scam. A chemical mix up in the brain.

And the other thing, love wasn’t always neat, pretty, fluffy and happy like media insisted it be, it was a lot of fucking work, and he had enough work with just himself.

So no fucking thank you on the true love, fated lover, life companion pyramid scheme from life. He would happily remain single for eternity. Life was complicated enough with just himself.

Of fucking course though, with everything else that had happened in his life it couldn’t just work out how he wanted to just for five minutes. That would be too simple.

Jason had been amusing his many siblings, and nieces, and nephews, with the True Love bullshit. Or what he thought was utter bullshit for a long time. Jason felt that he and Raven; despite what everyone in this demented universe thought; were not an example of True Love. Evidence to back this:

He dated other women, and Raven dated other men.

He had sex with other women; exclusively not Raven.

He had never in his entire life entertained the idea of seducing or being with Raven in a romantic manner.

He was not a bastard blessed with True Love.

And that was evidence. So while he was hanging out with Mar'i and Jake while at Terry and Lian’s hockey practice he was completely relaxed. He had broken up with Jessica; or rather it was a mutual break up if such a thing existed. But they were never going to be serious, Jessica was in love with Simon Baz, she just needed to know she could be with someone without overwhelming them. He thought her methods a bit sporadic, but he was fine with it, Jessica kept him from turning around and murdering Koryak where Koryak stood. Jason wasn’t in love with Raven, but she was his best friend and he and Victor Stone agreed there was no guy good enough for her. Also, Koryak always glared at him whenever he was near Raven, which irked Jason greatly. Rachel, Raven, whatever name she went by, he had known her longer, they were best friends, they would go to the ends of the earth for the other; that trumped her boyfriend’s right to be petty and act like a territorial jackass. There were times Jason wanted to punch the idiot in the face.

But here he was, Mar'i doing her school project, and Jake napping on his chest. He had already been mistaken for this brood’s dad, but B had B Jr., Matt, and Tommy today for the park, while Cat was taking care of Alina and Helena who were at dance class. Jason honestly didn’t know how the Bats managed family shit and vigilante shit but somehow it worked. He didn’t know how.

He looked up from his current read; le chevalier d’Harmental, by Dumas when Mar'i gasped and ran up the bleachers, dragging her project with her. Jason put his book down just as Dick and Zatanna walked towards him.

“We had an arrangement, Dick,” Jason warned. He didn’t want Dick and Zatanna’s relationship near Mar'i and Jake when they were just acclimating to having a father. True both kids like Raquel, but Zatanna was Dick’s girlfriend and the outbursts about that, thus far, were fiery and spectacular.

“Jay, it’s Rae,” Dick said. Jason snapped to attention looking between Zatanna and Dick. Zatanna for the first time in his knowing her, looked genuinely apprehensive about this.

“Lucifer and Mazikeen have ordered you to come, and Constantine thinks you can help her,” Zatanna supplied. “And trust me we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“Terry and Lian…” he started.

“I can watch them, I’ll take them straight home, and I’m sober, Jay.” Dick promised.

“You fuck this up I’ll skin you alive.”

“NO!” Mar'i shouted as she ran over to him as he hoisted himself upwards, she clung to his leg glaring at her father and Zatanna.

“Mar'i, Jay’s has to help Rae, and it’s really important,” Dick said.

“Mar'i can come with me, you watch Jake, Terry and Lian, and do not give them fucking snacks unless it’s apple slices or Alfred will have your head,” Jason warned picking up Mar'i’s backpack and taking her hand. Dick awkwardly held his sleeping son, but sat on the bleachers too. Jason knocked on the glass, Lian and Terry looked at him and he pointed at Dick before picking up Mar'i on his hip.

“Let’s go, witch,” he said as he followed Zatanna.

“I’m warning you, Mar'i should stay.”

“She doesn’t want to so she’ll go with me,” he stated firmly. Zatanna seemed to think her relationship with Dick was enough to parent Mar'i and Jake and it annoyed him.

Zatanna portalled them up to the Watch Tower, and he set Mar'i down. Zatanna started walking briskly away and he pulled Mar'i in front of him. “Mar'i I don’t know what’s going on, but you should go to the cafeteria, stay there until I get you, wear this,” he said putting a domino mask on her as he wore his own.

“Okay,” she nodded.

“Be right back kiddo,” he promised ruffling her hair as he followed Zatanna. He knew Mar'i would either do what was asked of her or follow him, but he was more worried about what was going on with Rae. If it was really dangerous then Mar'i would be smart and run.

They rounded the corridor and Jason was greeted by a passionate five way shouting match between Koryak, Victor, Lucifer, Constantine and Mazikeen. His patience ran out seeing Rae laying prone on the bed, she was so small, and her hair spilled around her, which had him shoving his way through everyone as he leaned over her.

“What the hell happened?” he asked looking over her chart, and looking at her. She was so small, she was always small though, but when she was awake she was indomitable.

“Sleeping curse, cast by Faust,” Constantine stated.

“Sleeping curse?”

“Like the Grimm fairy tales only worse,” Constantine stated.

“How do we wake her?” he asked looking her over, her chest was rising and falling slower and slower, she was dying. He could see that on the heart monitor.

“True love’s kiss!” Mar'i said from the doorway running into the room, clambering up on the bed. He stared at his eight year old niece.

“Tried that, it didn’t work, we need something else!” Koryak snapped.

“And I’m telling you, you couldn’t possibly be her true love! Even if she wasn’t bonded, which she is, she has always sought out Jason, I would place money on him being her True Love if such a thing exists.” Lucifer snapped furiously.

“Obviously!” Mar'i snorted.

“And demons don’t have true love!” Zatanna shouted.

“Everyone who is not Lucifer or Constantine OUT!” Jason snapped. Victor glared at him, but Jason raised a brow. He couldn’t get rid of Mar'i now, but he wouldn’t have this conversation in front of Raven’s brother.

When the door was sealed behind the arguing party he looked to Raven’s grandfather and Constantine.

“What exactly is this about?” he asked, his fingers tracing her brow and hair absently.

“She took a sleeping curse, and Faust the idiot botched it to need True Love, not an act of pure love like in the story, actual soul mate true love,” Constantine hissed in frustration with a dramatic gesture to Raven.

“And we got to the terrible, improbable conclusion of me being her true love for this nonsense how?” Jason asked. Raven was fighting, he could feel it.

“You are her bonded. Rachel, Raven, it doesn’t matter, she comes for you, she seeks you out, her soul is tied to yours, you know this. So the reasonable conclusion is in a thousand lifetimes, in a thousand years, she’ll pick you and you’ll pick her, that is about as true of love as any.”

“And if this Hail Mary doesn’t work?” he asked looking at her. She was so still, but Raven was annoyingly still by nature. Even now as she was Rachel, she was still, Rachel, Raven, they were the same and the just emanated calm.

“Then we’re back to the drawing board,” Constantine snapped. “All you have to do is kiss her, you don’t have to marry her or change your relationship!”

“That’ll work though, you love her,” Mar'i stated.

Jason said nothing.

“We’ll give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work I’ll have a little chat with Faust, in a private room,” he hissed.

“Thank You Father, we’ll give you privacy, come on tiny spawn!” Lucifer grabbed Mar'i like she was a bomb, she laughed and Constantine walked out of the room.

Jason glared at her. “If this works, this changes nothing,” he warned. He was swift in leaning over her and kissing her softly. She gasped to life and sat upright.

“It fucking worked?” he sputtered staring at her.

“Jason? What happened? Where the hell am I?”

“You’re in the Watch Tower Rae,” he said. She stared at him, and he saw the black force of a soul flowing between their hands, straight to her.

“What’s happening?” she asked. “I thought… I died?”

“Nice try but no cigar, love,” he chuckled.

“No… not with Faust,” she said as she looked at him. He grimaced.

“Yeah, you did die,” he murmured. “I killed Ryand’r, you’re back.”

“I… I’m Raven, not Rachel,” she said.

“That’s a given, I’m just happy to have you,” he admitted sitting carefully on her bed.

“It’s like a dream, a strange dream,” she whispered touching his face. “I’m alive.”

#bluboothalassophile #fanfic #one shot #hopes for a bastard #hopes for a bastard spoilers #jason todd #raven #mar'i grayson #lucifer morningstar #john constantin #koryak #victor stone #hopes for a bastard universe

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/biden-trump-campaigns-get-ready-for-debate-news-sports-jobs/

Biden, Trump campaigns get ready for debate | News, Sports, Jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ahead of the first debate between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, each campaign is promising a stark contrast in policy, personality and preparation.

Trump has decided to skip formal preparation, though he said Sunday that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former 2016 primary rival, Chris Christie, are helping him.

“We had a little debate prep before we came here,” Trump told reporters as Giuliani and Christie looked on in the press briefing room at the White House.

And while Biden’s team believes the significance of the debate may be exaggerated, the Democratic nominee has been aggressively preparing to take on the president.

Biden’s campaign has been holding mock debate sessions featuring Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser and former White House general counsel, playing the role of Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the preparations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Bauer has not actually donned a Trump costume in line with Trump stand-ins from previous years, but he is representing his style and expected strategy.

“I’m sure the president will throw everything he can at (Biden). My guess is that they’re preparing for that — bombarding him with insults and weird digressions,” said Jay Carney, a former aide to Biden and President Barack Obama.

Trump and Biden are scheduled to meet on the debate stage for the first time tonight at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The 90-minute event, moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace, is the first of three scheduled presidential debates. Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, will debate in October.

For some, the debates represent the most important moments in the 2020 campaign’s closing days, a rare opportunity for millions of voters to compare the candidates’ policies and personalities side-by-side on prime-time television. Trump trails Biden in the polls, a reality that gives the president an urgent incentive to change the direction of the contest on national television if he can.

Others, including those close to Biden’s campaign, do not expect the debates to fundamentally change the race no matter what happens, given the pandemic and the economy. They also point to high-profile debates in past elections that were thought to be game-changing moments at the time but that ultimately had little lasting effect.

Those with knowledge of Biden’s preparations suggest he will not take the fight to Trump if he can avoid it. But on Saturday, at least, he was on the attack when he discussed his strategy on MSNBC.

“I’m prepared to go out and make my case as to why I think he’s failed and why I think the answers I have to proceed will help the American people, the American economy and make us safer internationally,” Biden said, arguing that Trump won’t convince voters with broadsides because “the people know the president is a liar.”

He also compared Trump to Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, saying, “He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating, repeating, repeating, it becomes common knowledge.”

While Biden has said he will try to be a fact checker of sorts on stage, the Democrat is being advised to avoid direct confrontations and instead redirect the conversation to more familiar campaign themes of unity and issues that matter most to voters: the economy, health care and the pandemic.

“Arguing over facts, litigating whether what he’s saying is accurate, that is not winning to Biden,” said Jen Psaki, a former Obama aide who is close to Biden’s team. “This is an opportunity to speak directly to the American people. His objective should be to speak directly to them, but not be pulled in by Trump. That is hard.”

Trump aides and allies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy, said heading into the weekend that Trump had not been in formal preparations. The president offered mixed messages Sunday with his confirmation that Giuliani and Christie were prepping him, essentially combining to play the role of Biden. Yet Trump downplayed the sessions.

“Sometimes you can go too much in that stuff,” Trump said, arguing that he defeated Hillary Clinton four years ago despite her extensive debate preparation.

The president added that he takes far more questions from the White House press corps than Biden takes from the reporters covering his campaign, arguing those sessions with reporters are a form of debate prep.

Trump offered a preview of his approach when mused that Biden’s previous debate performances were influenced by medication. He’s offered no evidence. First in a tweet and later at the White House, Trump said he would demand that Biden take a drug test and that he would take one as well.

Trump’s message seemed to be an attempt at both tripping up Biden and preemptively offering an explanation to his supporters if the Democratic nominee has a strong performance.

Biden, in Delaware on Sunday, laughed and declined to comment when asked about Trump’s baseless assertions.

Privately some aides and allies are worried that Trump’s lack of formal preparation will lead him to fall into the same hubris trap as other incumbents in their first general election debate. Obama, for example, famously struggled in his first matchup against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.

But other Trump backers are confident that the president is ready to handle any tough questions or pushback from Biden.

“The debates matter,” said Lara Trump, a senior adviser to the campaign and the president’s daughter-in-law. “Donald Trump certainly did a great job on the debates (in 2016) and I think this will be no different.”

Lara Trump also seemed to simultaneously raise and lower expectations for Biden.

“Joe Biden spent a lot of time in his basement to study up. He’s been in this game for 47 years. I assume he’ll do OK,” she said. “Quite frankly, the bar has been lowered so much for Joe Biden that if he stays awake for the whole thing it’s like maybe he won.”

The mixed messages were in line with those of Trump’s allies who spent much of the year raising questions about Biden’s physical and mental strength, while in recent days trying to cast him as a strong and experienced debater facing a relative neophyte in Trump.

A former reality show star, the president is keenly aware of the power and pitfalls of live television. Aides say that he is acutely mindful of the power of “moments” to define how a debate is perceived and that he intends to make his share of them happen.

Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and onetime national Democratic chair, said Biden must fashion a succinct, debate-stage version of his message since the spring: Draw a straight line from Trump’s personal deficiencies to his handling of the pandemic, its economic fallout and the national reckoning on race and then explain why a Biden presidency would be different.

“Trump’s just looking for a Hail Mary here,” McAuliffe said. “He knows he’s in trouble.”

Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox

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#biden #campaigns #debate #ready #trump #Sports

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marrincostello · 4 years

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Growing a Following: Tips From Michael Stelzner : Social Media Examiner

Do you want to be recognized as a leader in your industry? Wondering how to build an audience that expands your reach and influence?

To explore the topic of growing a following, John Lee Dumas joins me for a special episode of the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

John is the host of Entrepreneurs on Fire, a daily podcast where he interviews entrepreneurs. John also runs the Podcasters’ Paradise community and has published three guides: The Freedom Journal, The Mastery Journal, and The Podcast Journal.

You’ll discover how to create an influential presence in any industry and how to expand your reach quicker by collaborating with others.

Listen to the Podcast Now

This article is sourced from the Social Media Marketing Podcast, a top marketing podcast. Listen or subscribe below.

Scroll to the end of the article for links to important resources mentioned in this episode.

Growing an Audience Who Knows and Shares You

As an introduction to Fire Nation, John asked me to share something interesting about myself that most people don’t know. I haven’t told many people that I created my very first business with my younger brother when I was 10 or 11 years old. We would go out in the backyard with a flashlight at night and pull these big night crawlers out of the ground, and the next morning, we would go out on the curb and sell them to fishermen.

That business lasted about a month, but it was my very first business venture, and I was hooked. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.

I created Social Media Examiner over 10 years ago so we’ve been at this for a while. We’ve seen a lot of people come and go, many of whom I have privately mentored, advised, and coached. One of the big things I’ve noticed is that everybody who becomes known seems to also become more successful.

Learn how to become the top expert in any industry with this new online course.

Now Open! Invest in yourself!

When people are ultimately thinking about a person or a company, who pops into their mind? When you’re able to establish a name and a specific niche, you start getting organic leads. People talk about you. They become your evangelists. You don’t have to pay hand-over-fist for ads on Instagram and Facebook.

When someone’s inside a Facebook group and they say, “Hey, I’m looking for somebody to help with this,” and people say, “Oh, you’ve got to go to Person Y,” even if they’ve never worked with Person Y. If you’re Person Y, that’s awesome marketing for you. What ends up happening is that all of these opportunities start falling into your lap. You’re asked to speak on stages. You’re asked to be on podcasts. Your business model grows and you can take it to the next level. That’s the promise that comes from being really well-known.

John points out that we do this at our world conference where we bring in industry experts and we highlight them on stages. We also highlight them on our YouTube channel and podcasts. Many of the people who have come in become known for what they’re doing. And as noted, they become more successful as a result. Every person you can think of who has spoken at Social Media Marketing World has done this.

Mari Smith is out there all the time talking about what’s new in the world of Facebook, and as a result, she’s the one people think of when they’re looking for a Facebook expert. She’s the one businesses partner with and want to hire. Jay Baer keeps writing books and doing podcasts, and he keeps getting keynote gigs and opportunities to moderate big stages. And he gets opportunities to build his consulting pipeline without having to pay anybody for the privilege.

Another great example is what John has done with Entrepreneurs on Fire. John was relatively unknown 7 years ago. He came out of the military and had a prior career that not a lot of people knew about. Most of his content was focused on what was in the minds of other people and a lot of that rubbed off on him. As a result of building those relationships and developing that content, he’s been able to launch all sorts of products and services that have accelerated his growth. Now he’s living the dream.

There Is Room for You

Right now, a lot of people are thinking about starting a podcast. Instead of just going to YouTube and searching some videos, their friends are telling them about John’s completely free podcasting course, freepodcastcourse.com. The intake form for John’s paid podcasting community, Podcasters’ Paradise, asks people how they first heard about the program.

Most of them say that a friend told them about the free course or a friend told them to Google John. That word of mouth is the primary way that John is getting more leads, more audience, and more revenue through enrollees in Podcasters’ Paradise.

No matter how crowded your space is, there’s always room for you to become known.

The food industry is probably one of the biggest in the world. There’s a YouTube channel called Cooking with Dog. It’s just a woman cooking with her dog—that’s her unique angle—and she’s got 1.49 million subscribers. There’s a blog called Love and Lemons, and all they do is talk about food with lemons. There’s a podcast called A Taste of the Past where they talk about old-fashioned, traditional foods.

Those are just a few examples to show you that you can find your own unique angle, no matter how crowded your niche is. So let’s get to how you can do that.

Determine Your Why

One of the most important questions to ask yourself before you get started is, “What is your why?” Why do you want to be well-known? Do you want to be well-known because you want to be famous? Fame doesn’t pay the bills. You’ve got to have a bigger reason for wanting to become well-known.

I wanted to be well-known because I wanted to make a difference in the world. I knew that if I could give away the content in my blog, on my podcast, and on our YouTube channel—things that others were basically keeping pent up inside of them and, as consultants were charging people for—I could draw an audience.

I also knew that I would only need a tiny little fragment of that huge audience to be very successful and that every person who shared that content would increase the footprint of the business. I also knew that 99% of the world that I touched would never become a customer—and I was completely OK with that because I had a bigger purpose.

Figure out what your why is. It’s OK if your why is to make money or to buy that dream house. Just have a why. But fame alone isn’t good enough.

Research the Competition

Once you know what your why is, it’s important to do a competitive analysis.

When John started his podcast, his biggest question was, “What do I love about the podcasts that I listen to?” Even more importantly, he asked himself, “What do I feel is missing from the shows that I’m listening to on a consistent basis?”

Start looking at people who might be competitors—but don’t think of them as the evil empire that you’re out to destroy. Instead, look at them as marketplace justification. They’re proof that there’s somebody out there talking, writing, and creating videos about this. Figure out what it is about them that you like and don’t like, and how you can learn from them.

You can also research people in other spaces who are not competitors and find someone whose work you really love. For me, it was a guy named Andrew Goodman, who was really big in the SEO space. I just loved everything about his business model. I wanted to take that and apply it to the social media marketing space.

Identify Your Unique Differentiator

After you research your competition, try to figure out what your unique point of differentiation is. John’s unique point of differentiation is daily podcasts. Everyone else was doing it weekly or maybe twice a week. John decided to do it daily because he knew there was an audience that was in their car or on a train every single day, and he wanted to be in front of them. He knew that he didn’t need a huge audience if he was in front of them every day.

In my case, my unique differentiation is that I ask questions on my podcast that others are thinking. If my guest says something like an acronym that my audience doesn’t know, I’m going to stop them in their tracks and ask them to explain it before they go too far down that trail.

My audience tells me that I ask the exact questions that are on their minds. So one of my unique differentiators is that I try to put myself in the position of my listener, to make sure that they get something by listening to me.

What’s your unique differentiator? Maybe you’re funny. Maybe you’re analytical. Maybe you have a unique view of your industry that nobody else has. Maybe you come from a different world: maybe you’re an attorney who’s become a chef and you can draw some parallels between the world of law and the world of cooking. Maybe there are laws of food that we haven’t even thought about. So try to figure out what your unique differentiation is.

Test Your Message

The last thing is to start testing your message. This is really important. At the core of everything we’re talking about today is the fact that to be known requires the creation of something. You need to talk on a stage or a podcast, create video, or write.

In the beginning, when you’re creating that message, you have to think of everything as a great experiment. And just like a cooking experiment, it might not be well received the very first time. So start testing your message by creating the message. Then analyze the message to try to ascertain what works and what doesn’t.

A lot of things have changed since John began Entrepreneurs on Fire. At first, he was focused on the fact that he didn’t yet have skills as a podcaster, interviewer, or host. He didn’t really know how to guide or dig deeper. So he stuck to a very structured message for 5+ years. He did around 2,000 daily episodes with essentially the same six questions. But John continued to test his message, and a year and a half ago, he made a big break.

He decided to switch from a podcast to more of an audio master class: to have the top experts in their specific industry come on and give an actual course on a specific topic. That way, he could go really deep and talk with them in a much more fluid, intense manner. That change came from continuing to test, getting feedback from his audience, and continuing to say, “Now that my strengths have grown in these areas, how can I utilize them in a better format?”

By pivoting and calling it a master class, John sends a signal to everyone who listens that they’re going to learn something. This isn’t just a conversation between two bros; this is something that’s got an intent and it’s been thought about. Hopefully, listeners will walk away richer as a result of it. That alone, just creating a different label for what he’s doing, is smart marketing.

Another important thing is to look over the horizon to see what’s next because something is always coming. John has heard so many people complain, even on Fire Nation, about missing the podcasting train. But while they were complaining about missing the podcasting train, Instagram happened. While they were complaining about missing the Instagram train, TikTok happened.

John doesn’t feel everyone should necessarily be getting on these trains. But something is always coming next. Keep your eyes toward the horizon and see how your why can fit into that next thing that’s coming. Get in on the earlier side of things and completely dominate that niche.

Social Media Examiner Testing YouTube

In the past, we had an episodic documentary called The Journey. We brought cameras into the office and sewed together a storyline over many, many episodes. After I hired a director of marketing, I decided that I wasn’t the central character of this show anymore and we couldn’t continue on.

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We decided to go all-in on YouTube in the fall of 2019. The goal here was to fly people in from all over the world to film article-quality video tutorials on almost anything you could possibly imagine. Along the way, I decided that I also wanted to get back on camera. I felt like I had a message to share with my audience about the thing we’ve been talking about today, which is how to become known.

As I alluded to earlier, I’ve coached and mentored a lot of people and most of my business model has been about getting knowledge out of other people’s brains, not necessarily my own.

We’ve been batch-filming these videos. Between scripting and filming, it takes me about 2 hours to create each one. We then send the footage to a Hollywood producer to generate these super-slick but also inspirational and tactical videos. It’s just been a blast. We’re showing the audience a different side of me and they’re loving it.

It’s also been really exciting for me to test out something new. I’m watching for certain kinds of feedback; if that feedback is really strong, then maybe there’ll be some more coming from me down the road.

Create, Maintain, and Analyze

To really know what’s working, I have a three-step process I refer to as create, maintain, and analyze.

Imagine it like a clock. You spend a little bit of time creating, you spend a lot of time maintaining, and you spend a little time analyzing. So many people just create things and maybe they maintain it. Or maybe they maintain it really well, but they don’t know whether it’s working. What we’re talking about right now is how to know if it’s working. There are some subjective metrics to look for in the very beginning, and these are the metrics that are very important.

First of all, when you create something, you want private messages. You want comments from people saying, “That was freaking amazing,” or, “This is exactly what I needed. You read my mind. This is so, so valuable.” Or you want them to share it on Facebook and say, “This is something you don’t want to miss.” When you start hearing those kinds of comments, that’s a good sign.

Maybe 10% of your audience—if you’re lucky—will ever send that signal. There’s another 90% out there who will never tell you how good this stuff is but you’re watching for those subjective signals from others. When you get those signals, you know you’re on the right track. When you don’t get those signals, then you know something’s off track.

When people in John’s podcasting community get upset that their podcasts only have 10 reviews after a few short months, he reminds them that they’ve got to extrapolate those numbers. Those 10 reviews aren’t just 10 listeners: there are 100 or even 1,000 people listening for every one person who actually goes on to leave a review.

When you get some kind of feedback, that means there are a lot more people hiding in the wings who are consuming that content. They’re still thinking about it and getting value from it. When people are communicating with you, you’ve got to hold onto that.

Try to figure out where those people come from, what they really like about it, what they don’t like about it, and most importantly, what they’re struggling with. Then you can keep creating value for them in a meaningful way—and maybe even create products, services, and communities for them.

Spotify, Apple, and YouTube all provide retention graphs. Look at those retention graphs to see whether people are skipping over sections of your podcast or video. Watch for the percentage completion rate. Some shows are going to be higher than others. Separate out the highs and the lows; look at the differences between them. Was it the substance? In other words, was it the way it was done and what was said? Was it the topic?

A lot of times, certain topics are going to outperform. Look at those signals and say, “Okay, it seems like my audience is really hot on these kinds of topics.” In my case, it’s all Instagram. I can do almost anything on Instagram and it will perform. So that’s a good signal. That shows me there’s a big appetite for that kind of content. But if I do something on Pinterest, I don’t get the same kind of response. It’s that kind of metric that you want to look for.

YouTube provides some of the best metrics if you want to get really granular. It’s absolutely amazing the way YouTube works. If you imagine a funnel, YouTube will take your video and show it to a sampling of your subscribers and a sampling of your non-subscribers. They’ll track the click-through rate on the thumbnail and title of that video. They’ll also track the retention time or how long they’re watching the video.

YouTube wants people to stay on the platform. If your video contributes to longer on-platform time, then in the end, they’ll allow you to change that thumbnail so you can see whether that click-through rate goes up or down.

If you have a really good retention rate on your video—meaning people are getting through most of it—then it’s a matter of deciding how to get that click-through rate to go up. Simply changing your thumbnail and getting that click-through rate to go from 3%–5% can almost double the number of video views.

This is where mathematically, you can start doing some really fascinating calculations. We have a video that is at 17,000 views and it’s getting about 500 views a day. If we tweak it a little bit more, we anticipate that this video will be one of the big winners on our channel. We believe it will have more than 100,000 views within a year.

It’s also contributed to new subscriber growth on the channel more than any other video. So we’re putting that one right up front on our YouTube channel so that when people go there, they will see that video first. It increases the likelihood they will become a subscriber. That’s where you can get ninja crazy with your metrics.

One thing John loved about The Journey was the “loops” that we opened up in each video. When the video started, we’d open up a loop that made viewers want to stay until the end. I’d say, “By the way, don’t go anywhere because before this video ends, X, Y, or Z is going to happen.”

Think of it as a teaser when you watch television. Sometimes shows will tease you with a few clips early on of what’s going to happen later in the episode. You want to stick around to see those things because they haven’t happened yet. Reality TV shows especially do that all the time. The idea is to give someone a reason to stick around.

Most people are going to make a judgment call on your video in the first few seconds; that’s called the hook. The idea is to hook them in. After the hook comes what’s called your bumper: “Here’s what this show is about.” You want to keep that tight; in our case, it’s 3 seconds. Then you want to get into the content. Once you get into the content, say a little bit more about what they’re about to learn. Then offer the hook, “And if you stick around, there’s a bonus tip at the end.”

Another thing we’ve done is put a progress bar on some of our longer videos. Imagine a green line moving from the top to the bottom, with icons all the way along the right side of the video. As they’re watching the video, it’s like a progress report. That green line is coming down to the next icon, filling it in, and going down to the next icon. That’s just a little psychological trigger that we’re using to get people to keep watching because it shows how much progress they’ve made.

John recaps my whole process with “Hook, bumper, content, that bonus tip, and of course, a progress bar thrown in there as well.” We do have great success when it comes to collaborating with others and have done so for more than 10 years. But John wants to know how those people who are just starting out—or maybe getting a little initial momentum—can collaborate with others to accelerate their personal growth.

Collaborating With Others to Accelerate Growth

There’s a simple formula for growth from my second book, Launch. Great content, plus other people, minus marketing messages, equals growth.

We’ve talked about great content. The “plus other people” is the secret sauce. You can only go so far on your own but you can go really far when you work with others. This has been John’s secret recipe to growing his podcast but it’s not a secret anymore.

When you collaborate with others to co-create content in any form—like John and I are doing right now—the benefit of getting others involved is a huge accelerant to your content. It’s what people do on YouTube, it’s what you do any time you interview someone and write an article that features them. The key to doing that well is just to think creatively.

When I started Social Media Examiner, I hired a guy with a camera to come with me to a conference called Blog World. I interviewed 10 or 15 people on camera, asking questions, creating these little 10-minute videos. Afterward, I emailed them a copy of the video. They were blown away because nobody was doing that; nobody else was out there making them look good on camera.

That’s the kind of stuff that you can do and that’s what we do right now. I mentioned that we’re flying in people from all over the world to film videos for our YouTube channel. We’re the ones promoting this and helping to grow viewerships. The benefit of their participation is they’re getting in front of our audience; it’s a win-win. So the goal is really to find the right people, figure out how you can make it a win-win, and things can really blow up for you.

A podcast is the easy road. Just get Skype and start doing some podcast interviews. If you want to do live, you can do live as well. You can easily use tools to do live video, like Ecamm or Crowdcast. You can do a live show where you bring on guests like we do every week and talk about the news. Those guests are your remote experts; correspondents adding their opinions. If you’re a writer, you could write about something going on in the industry. Then you could reach out to a few individuals to ask them for their thoughts and sew that into the article.

For John and me, the big takeaway from our combined podcasts today is this: If you want to be more well-known, the absolute key is to create content. And that content can be stuff you do from a stage. It can be something you do in front of a camera. It can be something you do in front of a microphone. It can be something you do in front of a keyboard. The idea is to ask yourself what kind of content you can create.

Try to create the best conceivable content you can. Ideally, it needs to be a little unique for the niche that you’re in. Then people will start recognizing you. They’ll start calling your name. They’ll start giving you opportunities. And with that, you can accomplish almost anything.

Key Takeaways From This Episode:

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