213 Bonnie Bruderer: Power of the Pivot

Bonnie Bruderer believes that “mindset is everything” in entrepreneurship. She shares how her willingness to scrap her original business model led her to seize the day in the fast-growing OTT television industry with Binge Networks, which now reaches hundreds of millions globally as a distribution channel for videos and podcasts like Wings Of…Inspired Business. Learn how and when to pivot, and the mindset you need to succeed.

Melinda Wittstock:         Bonnie, welcome to Wings.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Thank you. I’m so excited to be here today.

Melinda Wittstock:         I am so happy to have you on and excited about what Binge is doing in the world, in the innovation in this fast growing podcast space. Tell me a little bit about how you got going. I know often where we end up isn’t necessarily where we thought we were going to end up.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Oh my goodness. We are literally the poster child for that. We started with a very clear mission that was a thousand percent different than where we ended up today. I have a background in personal development and worked in that space for two decades. At the time, when I decided I was going to start a TV show I was working on Wall Street in house as an executive coach. I got this bright idea that I would start a cable TV show and I would use that as a platform to promote my coaching business.

Well, it turns out 900,000 other people move to New York City every single year to try to do the same goal and break into television. I didn’t know that, so I just did whatever it took to make that happen. I found the right people, the right connections, I created a pilot, again, not knowing any clue of what I was doing. I just went to television production school, assembled a team, created a pilot and started this interview show. We had a cable slot, the show to picked up on MNN network and we aired every Monday night at 8:00 pm in Manhattan. That was great, and we went along, we produced about 100 episodes. I realized how expensive it is to do media.

I realized media doesn’t make the money, aside from me coaching, you know, 25 or so clients a week to try to fund this whole rigmarole. We consulted with a few very high level mentors, one of which was Jeff Hazelet, and we had a nice about three hour dinner, and he drew out his whole media company plan on a napkin for me. Talked about distribution, and how you can do a pay for play network and all these other options. At the end of the dinner I asked him if I could have the napkin, I went home and within a couple of weeks I figured out how to take our show from one city to then four cities, and then started to go overseas to the foreign distributor and sell the shows that we created.

Basically, we operated like that for a couple of years and we were what’s called the pay per play TV show where you could pay a certain amount and then we could guarantee that you would be seen on multiple different media outlets. It’s actually quite funny. At our launch party, we had filmed 100 shows before the first one aired. Actually, I think 98. We were on our 98th show and one of the producers also worked at CBS producing The Morning Show and the CBS Sunday Morning Show. We were out, we had a big, huge launch party. Red carpet, super models on stop [inaudible 00:13:22] banner interviewing everybody and I thought at the time that I wanted to be the next Oprah. I was hell bent on getting picked up by CBS or ABC or something like that.

We had this amazing party with hundreds of people that had been part of the show. It’s around 1:30 in the morning and we were all out for a celebratory cocktail, and Peter, the producer, says, “What time is it?” I said, “It’s like 1:15.” He goes, “I got to go.” I said, “What do you have a hot date?” He goes, “No, I’m on the morning show.” I was like, “What?” He goes, “What time do you think we start?” I said, “I have no idea.” He goes, “We start at 2:00 am.” I was like, “What?” My next question was, “What time does Gail get there?” He said, “Around 4:00.” I was like, “Errr … never mind.”

In that moment I realized I did not want to do television. That just wasn’t my goal. I didn’t want to have this life where I’m getting up at 2:00 in the morning. I had to really think about the impact that I wanted to make in the world and what was possible. One thing that really struck me is with the hundreds of guests that had now been on the shows, every single person expressed wanting their own show. I realized there was a need for exposure and for people to get their message out.

Fast forward a couple of years and we had then produced 700 shows and nine spin off TV series and decided to stop our production house and to create our own multichannel network, which is a fancy word for something like Netflix or Hulu or any of the other sites we watch content on, where we could allow anyone like you, you have your own channel, to have a channel on our network and then have distribution on 50 different TV outlets because that’s where we were with our own show. That’s where we are and I can’t even call it a 180, because it’s in a bunch of circles. We’ve just gone around in circles and circles. But yeah, we now have over 250 shows that are featured on BINGE, and we have over 4,000 pieces of content and we’re not stopping anytime soon. That’s really been the journey.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, that’s wonderful. I love this story, because I think something that a lot of founders forget, is it takes so many iterations to find your, I guess, product market fit.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         You know, find your ideal customers, find that absolute opportunity in the marketplace. ‘Cause there’s so many things that are beyond your control and of course this media landscape is changing so quickly.

How do you stay ahead of trend, just enough, so not so you’re bleeding edge, ’cause that’s a very difficult place to be, but not that you’re a me too either, right? That your somewhere right in getting that timing right. How has that been a challenge for you? Because, I can see a lot of people saying, “Yeah, okay Netflix is working, so I’m going to be a Netflix too.”

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yeah. It’s a very sophisticated mind-set, I feel. You have to be very open to scrapping everything you thought you believed in, and following the trends, as well as being able to course correct anything that may be not on point with a different media.

For us, again even when I was in France that first time at con and I was thinking, “Hey, I want to sell my show and get picked up by a big network.” I sat in these meetings with all of the heads of Disney, ABC and CBS, and heard them talk about the future of media, and what was happening, and how everyone could agree that in the next 12 to 18 months, television as we know it was going away, but no one really knew what was taking its place. The projections were that it was what’s called OTT, over the top or smart TV. That’s where you watch TV on an Apple, or a Roku.

I sat there and I listened and I was super bummed, because we had spent hundreds of thousand dollars at that point on what we were doing. Then I heard Morgan Spurlock, one of my favorite documentary filmmakers speak, and he said the same thing. He said, “It’s a all a short form content. It’s all going to Spot Genie and digital consumers.” I was like, “Okay,” a little defeated, but I had about 30 hours of plane flights, because I was going to the Bahamas for a speaking engagement and then going back the US. I literally took those whole flights and I restructured our business.

That’s really when we decided to make a move into this smart TV world and OTT industry, and to be that forerunner. We could have completely been wrong. It was a complete crap shoot.

At that time, as I said, I had invested a few hundred thousand dollars, but what I knew for sure is that … I started early days in the internet. I’d seen iterations, and I’d seen changes, and I’d seen things that we all thought … I mean like the yellow pages, people probably don’t even know what that is.

I knew that, “Look, this is the best horse in the race to bet on, and so we’re going to go 1,000 percent this direction.” Luckily it turns out that the trends were right, and we are one of the leaders in distribution in the industry.

So, yeah being open to completely admit that the plan you had isn’t working, and course correct whatever is needed.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. I love that Twitter was originally a podcasting platform. They were too early for podcasts. Nobody cared about podcasts when they launched as a podcasting platform. They went through something like seven or eight iterations, before they became Twitter.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s true for any founder. How to handle that psychologically? Because of course, so much of business success is what’s going on in our mindset, what we’re thinking as we test all these different hypothesis about where we are relative to the market, or where we should be putting our attention in terms of innovating, or even our business model.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         It can be changing all the time. How did you manage that? To keep focused, I guess on your north star, but not get distracted or start to say … Oh, I don’t know what the word is. I think as entrepreneurs sometimes we get shiny object syndrome, so we think, “Oh man, I should go here. Oh no, I should go there.” And then you end up going nowhere.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         How did you deal with that on a psychological basis?

Bonnie Bruderer:             It’s funny that you mention Twitter, because they are our neighbor. Literally we’re in a huge Bluebird right now, in our offices. The reason I share that, is to answer your question, one thing is I always constantly associate myself with people that are like that, that have accomplished the goals that I want to.

The other thing, I work very, very hard on mindset. I never take that lightly. It’s not a set it and forget it. It’s an everyday type of thing.

Even in our worst moments, when I would be out on a run and just burst out in tears and want to throw up, because we needed $10,000 more dollars by the end of the week, and I had no idea where it was going to come from, I constantly just focused on that vision. Seeing myself as a female founder, as somebody that sold a media company for millions of dollars to a larger company.

Then in a moment would step back and say, “Okay. Well what do I need to do today to make that happen? If we don’t pay this bill, the lights are turning off, so let’s get that paid, and then what do we need next, and what do we need next?”

I was a triathlete and I competed all over the world. I did Iron Man, and I learned some really powerful training skills there, where sometimes it’s not about the finish line. Sometimes it’s about how do I make it through this next quarter mile, and then how do you toggle back and forth to see that finish line, but then also to know, “Okay, what do I need? I need a glass of water. Okay, I need some power bar.” Like I’m dating myself. And learning how do you do that.

When I did Iron Man, my first hour of the marathon, which if you guys don’t know, it’s 2.4 miles of land, 156 mile bike ride, and then a marathon.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s amazing.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Thank you. The first hour I was throwing up. I was not in good shape. But I just knew I was going to cross that finish line, and then all of a sudden there becomes a time. You have a couple more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a banana, and a little sip of Coke, and the next thing you know, you’re running and you’ve been running for three hours, and you’re like, “I feel good again.”

I think having those experiences in life to fall back on, everyone has their own Iron Man, whatever that is to you. But knowing that even in business, there’s going to be those miles where you’re puking. That’s just …

Melinda Wittstock:         Yes. Oh God. I know all about that, because it is really like an up and down, peaks and troughs, all the way through. Keeping your eye fixated on the ultimate destination, and your mission, and it’s why, but being able to take those short term course corrections and hold both of those things at the same time.

I think it’s so interesting that you were a triathlete. So many women who are very successful in business, have a competitive sports background.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         I was a national competitor, as a figure skater.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Oh my gosh. Amazing!

Melinda Wittstock:         Right? I remember learning visualization for the first time, when I was 10, trying to land my double axle. Right?

Bonnie Bruderer:             Right.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s a really difficult jump and I couldn’t do it. I kept falling, and falling, and falling, until one night in my dream, I saw myself and felt myself land that thing. The very next day, I just went on the ice first thing I did, and I just landed it.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes! It’s so true. Those techniques are so great. They apply everywhere. I think it’s so important. I took ice skating. My hat off to you. I could barely master the figure eight.

But knowing anything that you can then translate into business, is so critical, because it is the same thing. I feel like not enough people talk about that. You just see either the successes or you hear nine out of 10 businesses fail. No one really talks about that in between of the … “Oh my God. I need to talk myself off this ledge.” And then figuring out, what step do I take first, and then second, and then third? And it always ends up working out.

Melinda Wittstock:         Have you always surrounded yourself with great mentors?

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes. Well, that was a quick yes… Yes. Since my early 20s I have. I grew up in a family that was very Murphy’s Law, don’t get your hope up, you’ll just be disappointed. And I was really good at accomplishing things.

I could land a role in the play, and I could get on the soccer team, but it was for what, because I wasn’t rewarded for that. Through high school and those times, I don’t think I did. Then all of a sudden, I had a very difficult time in my life, when I was 23 I lost my mom, and thankfully had this very amazing boyfriend that was super successful, and took me to Tony Robbins.

He tried to explain to me I was like, “That’s for people like you, that are successful.” He was like, “How do you think I got here moron?” He didn’t call me a moron, but I look back and …

Then from then on, I realized, “Oh my gosh, it’s mindset. Everything is mindset. Surround yourself with successful people.” That was so powerful for me.

As a very young adult, I went through all the Robbins courses, I was exposed to some of the best minds in the world, and I ended up working for him for 10 years. Then I worked for Harvey McKay, also just a genius in business, mindset, and life really.

For me, it’s so important. I don’t waste time with people that don’t add value, or enrich, or help rise that tide, because you just can’t.

In your company, you have one bad apple and it brings everybody down. In your life, if you’re dating, one person that is not on par. I just think it’s so critical. If you don’t have those people around you, if you’re feeling isolated, which a lot of times as an entrepreneur, make them up. Go online. Get yourself a mentor. Read biographies. Start watching Ted talks.

I probably listen to three to four hours a day of content, and always enriching content. Whether it’s Gary Vee, or Oprah, or I love Jack Ma. Just listening to interviews of these people an that becomes your mentor. So it’s critical.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh. It really is. Of all the women that I’ve interviewed for my book that’s coming out next year and on this podcast, you’ve just nailed two of the things that are predictors of success.

Mindset, whether you learn all these things through your sports career. That is definitely a predictor of success, but also who you surround yourself with.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s so vital. One of the things that I’ve noticed too that women tend to fall into is, sometimes we tend to self isolate ourselves.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         There are very few people out there. You think of your friends, who are not entrepreneurs, right? They don’t necessarily really, or could they ever really understand actually what it is that you do.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yeah. Oh my gosh it’s so true. On this Friendcation. Every year 20 of our friends go on vacation together, to a different country. I’d say half are entrepreneurs and half aren’t.

The conversations were so fascinating, because I realized so people just have a job. My friends are very successful at their job. And I just thought, “Oh my God. What’s that like?” What is that like to just go in an office, and do what you’re supposed to do, and then you go home. Because being an entrepreneur is so different, and you’re so set on with that.

Melinda Wittstock:         I want to turn the corner a little bit to talk about BINGE and the context of female founders and entrepreneurs, who sometimes confuse personal branding with personal bragging. They don’t really step up and really make themselves heard, or make themselves heard effectively.

Now, it just sort of feels like everybody has a podcast. Everybody has to be really active on all the social media channels, doing Facebook lives and Instagram lives and this, and this, and that. It’s so time consuming too. Right?

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         How do you do all that, that you have to do to build your personal brand, to help your business brand, and at the same time, run your company?

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yeah. Two things. Number one, be super clear on what your brand is. I see so many people and it’s like, “Oh, I’m over here. I’m over there. Here’s me walking my dog.” You want to make sure that every single piece of content you’re putting out, aligns with your brand. Whether that’s personal, whether that’s professional, I think that’s the most important thing.

Number two, repurpose. Repurpose every single thing you do, because we all put so much work into creating a podcast, or creating a video. The truth is, it does seem I swear all of a sudden every single person has a podcast. But at the end of the day only 29% of the population I believe has every listened to a podcast. There’s still a huge market out there that are digital consumers, that are social media consumers, that are smart TV consumers, that you’re maybe not reaching.

If you’re doing a podcast, make sure you’ve got somebody, whether it’s on your team, or even you can go to fiber.com and have them slicing that up and putting visuals to that, so you can use it on all of your platforms.

That’s really the important piece, is constantly putting yourself out there, and constantly aligning, but you have to have that clarity first, otherwise people are like, “Wait, what?” It’s hard. For us, we’ve evolved into so many things.

I remember, again on this vacation, someone said, “Oh yeah, but aren’t you just a girl that makes videos on YouTube?” I was like, “What?! No YouTube is actually a competitor.” I mean, we’re total small beans, but it was really interesting, but at one point that was the vision. At one point we were the TV show, and that’s what we were doing, so it’s hard to constantly grow, and scale and get your message across and be consistent, but it’s really important. A confused mind never buys. No matter what you’re selling, no matter what you’re doing. Just be clear and repurpose and get out there as much as you possibly can.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love that about what you said. I met you at the New Media Summit, and I was there as one of 40 Icons of Influence 40 leading podcasters and you were there, obviously, as one of the speakers and an affiliate and sponsor of that event.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         There were so many women who were doing these two minute pitches, and men, to get on our podcasts. I found it kind of interesting, because a lot of them struggled, really, to really get to the point. What was their unique value or their unique thing that was going to really change the game for someone’s audience.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         Why is that so hard for people to really articulate? Is it because they don’t know, or is it because somehow, women, generally, not all women but a lot of us, still have that people pleasing thing. We want to make everybody happy in the room.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes. Yeah, it’s so interesting that you say that. Again, for people that weren’t there, you stand up in front of a room with 200 people and for two minutes have to tell your whole story. That’s one thing I really admired about you, watching you as an Icon up there, is that was the feedback you gave to a lot of people. I’m still not clear about what exactly it is you’re doing, and clarity is everything.

I mean for us, we’re so clear. We’re exposure. We sell exposure. That’s what we do. We do it through a multi-channel network and through syndication on Smart TVs but it’s exposure however you slice it. That’s what people need, and it took us a long time to get to that one word, but we worked with a really incredible branding expert that just boiled it down to the essence. He’s like, “You need one picture, one word.” I was like, “Oh, okay.”

Melinda Wittstock:         Isn’t that interesting that they take so much time and so much complexity to get to the elegantly simple.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes, absolutely. Sometimes people go, “I still don’t get it,” because we joked that you were the model that we used on our big huge banner. But we have a 10-foot banner and it’s just a paparazzi taking a picture of this beautiful woman. This is what we do. We give you exposure. This is, again, until you have that clarity and you understand, you are kind of all over the map.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, I see a lot of people though, really, really struggling on building their product, doing all the things, all the operational things to run their business, which necessarily they have to do. But if you’re not out talking to your customers, even before your product is even built or designed, or innovated, it’s too late.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Right.

Melinda Wittstock:         You need your customers. You need to recruit them to co-create a product, and I see a lot of people just focusing, head down, “Make it perfect. Make it perfect.” By the time it’s perfect in their mind, it may be perfect for them, but not necessarily for their customers.

Bonnie Bruderer:             You know, that’s such an interesting point. If I could just add one more little tidbit, is that we have tremendous growth, and we still are. We are like bursting seams, but there’s always too much to do. One thing as an entrepreneur, it’s you feel this compulsion that you want to get to a place where you’re delegating most things, and then that’s success, right? It’s, “Ah, I don’t have to do those things.” At one point, I had this epiphany, and I’m like, “Wait a minute, we’ve grown so much. We’ve set up our systems one way. How do we know it’s still working?”

I told … we had a woman named Laura that ran the office, and she ran all of our customer service, and I told her, “For one month, I’m going to handle all customer service.” I did every call, every email, everything, because I wanted to know what’s happening at the consumer level right now. It was a business shifting for us. It changed everything. People were shocked. They were like, “You answered the phone?” I’m like, “Yes, because I want to know what is actually needed and what’s going on, versus what we think, what we designed, what we blueprinted.” That really changed everything for us.

Melinda Wittstock:         This is so, so smart. As a little girl, Bonnie, did you know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Did you know what that was? Were you the kid with the lemonade stand and out selling stuff, or were you attracted to like, “Look, I want to be a TV star.” What was the thing that was motivating you as a kid?

Bonnie Bruderer:             Okay, so yes, and I have this visual of my mom pulling me inside at eight years old from my lemonade stand, and getting in a knockdown, drag out, yelling fight with her, because what I had done is, I realized that we were doing quite well with our lemonade stand, and if we added in like cookies and granola bars, we could do a lot of better. I was going into the pantry and taking all of our food and selling it at our lemonade stand. My mom was just like, “You don’t understand.” I was yelling back, “You don’t understand. I’m making three times the amount.” It was the funniest thing. I remember her taking me at the end of the day with my earnings to the grocery store and making me re-buy those items, to try to teach me how money worked. Yes, I think it’s just something that was in my DNA. The lemonade stand came because I had to shut down my dog walking business, because I was attacked by a German Shepherd. I had my little crayons flyer that I made and I was knocking on doors and I got attacked by a dog.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh my goodness.

Bonnie Bruderer:             The lemonade was a secondary business that I threw together that summer. Yes, I always had it in me to be very entrepreneurial. I always won the brownie, cookie … it’s called the [Doclan 00:35:59] Badge, every single year I was the number one top cookie salesperson.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s awesome.

Bonnie Bruderer:             I don’t know why? It was just what I thought you do. On the same token, I was always making my friends play things. Let’s play newscasters, we had a friend that had this loft so I would make them sit up there and we would do the news. For me, I think somehow whether it’s in your DNA or whatever you believe spiritually there’s knowing, there’s a calling, and then once you hit it, you might do 20, 30 different things in your life but when hit it you’re like, “Ah. I get it.” Yeah, so I think what we’re doing now is the perfect blend of all of those things.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah it’s it interesting that when you look back on your life and you see all those clues. I think Steve Jobs said it really well, you know, “There are all these things that seem like they don’t necessarily connect but you get a little bit, you get old enough, and you see that they actually do.” Like in his case computers and calligraphy.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes, I know. It’s so true.

Melinda Wittstock:         You can see so many of these things, the clues, kind of in your childhood. So many of the women that I advise in business, it’s so important to just get into alignment with your passion and your true talents, the things that you love to do when time disappears and you’re doing them.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         Or a good clue is actually, yeah, what you were doing as a kid.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         So, Bonnie, I want to fast forward a little bit into the future because this is such a fast changing space.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         How content is going to be distributed, how consumers are going to be interacting with all these new technologies and new platforms, where do you see that we’re going? Do you have a sense of where we’ll be five years from now? 10 years from now?

Bonnie Bruderer:             I do. Well, yes and no. I do. I think social media will have a shaken down. I think that are we starting to see friction just this week alone the two Founders of Instagram stepped down because there was trouble with Facebook and division and all of those things. I think that social media will obviously continue because it’s how we communicate. I think they’ll be some more absorption of maybe right now we have six or seven big platforms that we use, I think they’ll be sort of like a merge or a mesh and it will be less.

Then, I just think that we will continue to advance, for example, with cable moving to Smart TV, people don’t, we don’t have time at 8:00 p.m. to watch Grey’s Anatomy anymore but we want it when we want it and we may want to watch six episodes at a time. So I think we’ll start to see more of that where people are consuming media on Apple TV-

Melinda Wittstock:         They’re binging.

Bonnie Bruderer:             They’re binging, exactly. I think audio too. My day moves so fast sometimes I come in and I have 12, 15 appointments in a day and so audio is huge. To be able to just dictate a text really quickly to someone on my team is tremendous. To be able to say, “Hey, Alexa, buy bananas.” “Hey, Alexa set my alarm for tomorrow.” “Hey I need a 10 minute mediation time.” That saves so much time. I think audio will become more prominent, or it is prominent but I think they’ll be more options to utilize audio.

I do think that Smart TV consumption, digital and mobile consumption is where people will be getting their news. They already are today but not at the scale. We’re all probably listening more early adopters but I think that that will just be consensus, the norm for everybody.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. A really good clue is to look at kids. My kids can’t imagine, like they just don’t even understand why you would have a set time to view something?

Bonnie Bruderer:             I know.

Melinda Wittstock:         Or even a set device. They just think it should be available anywhere or whatever they feel like it, it should materialize.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well you tell them about how it used to be, they just look at you like, “Why would you do that?”

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yeah. It doesn’t, I remember being the kid going, my dad was a family business, an entrepreneur, I’d go to his office and I don’t know why my favorite thing to do was to roll up the telex tape, right? I don’t know if you guys even remember what that is? A telex and it came with this long tape with all these dots in it and I just thought that was so fun. Whereas somebody, a Millennial today, they would never even have a reference to what that is, why would you?

I think some things that we’re familiar with, whether it becomes the television set, who knows? Will just be obsolete. We’ll have different ways that we’re communicating whether it’s screens that jump from place to place or whatever the case may be.

Yeah. It’s fun, I love technology.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s awesome. Should every female founder have a video show or a podcast or both?

Bonnie Bruderer:             Absolutely. I mean, your story just the word, the F word, the founder word alone, is so impactful for people and they want to know how you did it. I feel like that is the one thing that I am so grateful for as an entrepreneur, people are very intrigued by your story. I found, even again, referencing my vacation, the men that own their own business, they want to talk about how you did it because it’s unique. People that just have a job or just have a career are a little, I think, inspired and envious of most entrepreneurs.

Tell your story, get it out there. I mean, that’s why we’re having success with Binge, people are so fascinated like how did you even start a TV show? I’m like, I don’t know, nobody told me I couldn’t so I just did. Then, this happened and then that happened. Yeah, a lot of hard work and hassle and scrappy happened along the way but that’s really exciting to a lot of people. So tell your story, document it, have video, have podcasts and put that into your marketing plan.

Melinda Wittstock:         Ah, that’s wonderful. Well, everybody, I mean check out Binge TV, it’s amazing. Go there, check it out, get some exposure. Bonnie, I know you have a special offer for our listeners today?

Bonnie Bruderer:             We do. We do. On the note of everyone should have their own show, we have, if you go to BingeChannels.com, we have a $500 off offer for all the listeners. You can choose any of our packages, they start just right around $100 per month and they’re sold by the year. Just use the code binge, B-I-N-G-E, and just select whatever exposure feels right to you and you can get $500 off any package.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s awesome. It’s so generous. Everybody, I mean, I just put Wings of Inspired Business on Binge and it was really easy to do. Bonnie, of course, you helped me do it but there was this really cool tool that allows you to repurpose your audio into video.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         Which is groundbreaking. I think just in the tech space there are going to be more and more and more of these platforms that allow you to repurpose content easily because that’s one of the things that’s so time consuming and difficult for everybody is to do that. So, thank you so much for making it easy.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Good.

Melinda Wittstock:         Everybody when you go to Binge, look for Wings of Inspired Business on Binge where you’ll see a lot of other great podcasts and videos and audios there and it’s really an amazing platform that you’re building, Bonnie.

Bonnie Bruderer:             Thank you so much and we’re so honored to have your show and just to be a part of what you’re doing. You’re such an incredible woman and I’m so happy we met through New Media Summit.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, my goodness, well thank you for everything that you’re doing in the world and putting on your wings today and flying with us.

Bonnie Bruderer:             I’m going to keep them on for the rest of the day. I hope that’s okay?

Melinda Wittstock:         You’re welcome to them. We all need them you know?