Exploring the Business RadioX® Journey with Lee Kantor

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Trisha Stetzel here, bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. I have the distinct honor and privilege of hosting Lee Kantor, founder of Business RadioX® on the show today. Lee, welcome to the show.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to be here.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my gosh. Long time coming. Right. I think I learned something new about you every time you connect. I’m so excited to have you on the show and really talk about, you know, the beginnings and how we got here and what you’re doing to continue to grow this amazing space, uh, that you’re in and that I’ve been, um, blessed with being a part of over the last several months. So can you take us back to the beginning? Like, what inspired you to really create Business RadioX and give a little bit of your background and how you got here?

Lee Kantor: Sure. Um, my background is I have a degree in advertising and it’s from University of Florida. And what makes the University of Florida advertising program interesting and different, maybe from other advertising programs, is that it’s based in the school of journalism. So my background has been kind of journalistic slash advertising and the kind of the melding of those two practices. So that’s really influenced how Business Radio X kind of does business and how it was born from those kind of two. They seem separate, but there is a big overlap. And in today’s social media world, the area is getting grayer and grayer when it comes to PR, advertising and journalism. So that’s really kind of the origin story begins there. But from a business side, um, the first time I did any type of this work, like podcasting, internet radio, that type of thing that started when I had a fitness center. It was called Neighborhood Fitness, and I was doing this with a friend of mine that was a fitness expert. He has a degree in exercise physiology. He’s a chiropractor, he’s trained professional athletes, and my background was advertising marketing, and he was the day to day running of the kind of boutique personal training studio. And I was the marketer behind it.

Lee Kantor: And, um, early on, we figured we had an opportunity to do an internet radio show that we called Doctor Fitness and the Fat Guy. And this was at the very beginning of that type of technology, and we started podcasting it. And the guy who was running that studio was not happy that we were podcasting. It was brand new. He had never heard of podcasting. He’s like, why are you doing this? And he was running his business kind of like a small, uh, radio station. And we saw podcasting as a way to take our content and then share it with the world, because anybody could download a podcast anywhere in the world. So we were taking every every episode. We would burn a CD of the show, I would bring it home, and I would edit out the commercials that he had placed in there, and we would then, um, put it on. Um, at the time, Apple was the only place to put podcasts, so that’s where we would put it. So and then we had a show that we were podcasting. So we were very early at the very, very beginning stages of podcasting with this show, Doctor Fitness and the fat Guy.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow, I love that. What a fantastic story. Like your background is so, um, diverse yet focused, uh, when it comes to having, you know, your superpower really being in this marketing advertising space. Um, something that I happen to know about you is, uh, you’re a bit introverted, so it’s interesting to me, Lee, that you decided to move in this in this direction. So can you talk a little bit about your behavior style? Because I know that’s something that you’re interested in and how that really led you to Business RadioX.

Lee Kantor: So what happened was so I always not always, but a lot of times I’m, I work with extroverts and I’m the introvert and they are usually kind of the face and the, you know, the public facing part of the business. And I’m the person kind of behind the scenes and I’m totally okay with that. That’s like, that’s why the business isn’t called, you know, Lee Kantor radio, it’s Business RadioX. It’s like, I’m okay with not, um, people not knowing how involved or what I do. That’s I’m not doing this for an ego reason. And because of that, um, I think I have a unique angle on why podcasting works for us and Business RadioX then it doesn’t work for the vast majority of people who try podcasting on their own, because I think they’re coming from a more look at me standpoint and not how can I best serve the people that are important to me, which I gravitate more towards that. Um, so what happened was early on with, uh, Doctor Fitness, we were doing this and, and my business partner, Doctor Fitness, named Adam Shafran. He became known as Doctor Fitness. He got offered a job in Alabama and running chiropractic centers. And now he has a successful chain of chiropractic centers in Alabama. And that was birthed because of being Doctor Fitness.

Lee Kantor: He got on TV as Doctor Fitness. He really leveraged Doctor Fitness as a way to differentiate himself. And obviously, you know, there’s lots of chiropractors out there, but there’s only there was only one Doctor Fitness. So that really helped him in positioning and growing his business as the fat guy in the equation. It didn’t help me as much. At one point I was if you googled fat Guy, it was I would show up with, um, Peter from family Guy. Those were the two top, uh, results on their fat guy for a period of time. Um, so what I learned from doing Doctor Fitness, the epiphany happened, uh, when we were looking for guests. And I sent an email out to, uh, brother and sister team in Washington. I had read about them in on the Washington Post, and they had a Trivial Pursuit game that was about fast food. And I’m like, oh, that’d be a good guest on our show, because our show is kind of silly, but we talk about fitness and business things. So I sent him a note and it said, would you like to be a guest on our show Doctor Fitness? And in less than an hour, uh, the guy said, sure. What do I have to do? And for me, having a background in advertising, I know sending a blind email to a stranger and them replying that quickly is unusual.

Lee Kantor: And that is usually what we’re trying to accomplish when we’re doing any type of copywriting is to get a response in a positive manner very quickly. And I’m like, wow, that worked pretty quickly. So then I told my business partner and he’s like, you got this person in an hour. And then all of a sudden it became a competition between us of who can we get and which level of, uh, of, uh, celebrity could we get on the show? And it was happening at rapid speed. So we were getting on people. They were coming on the today show to talk about their DVD or their book, and then they were coming on our show. We were just part of the wellness and fitness, uh, kind of book tours or DVD tours at the time. Uh, early on, and because of that, we became a super highly rated podcast. And, uh, we were our guests were as good as anybody’s guest when it came to wellness and fitness. We had the who’s who. We had Jack LaLanne, if anybody remembers him. Uh, he was kind of an old school, uh, fitness expert. He came on, he sung to us his signature song. We had all the people from Biggest Loser, which was a popular TV show at the time.

Lee Kantor: We had every single one of their fitness trainers on our show. We had, um, celebrity authors and we had people that are famous today. Uh, Michael Pollan, uh, was on our show. Uh, we had, um, Denise Austin, who’s still kind of relevant even today. Um, so we had the who’s who of fitness during that window of time on our show. And, uh, it was a great experience, and it was because of this blind email that was. Would you like to be a guest on our show? And that’s really that was the epiphany for me in a local business standpoint is why do I have to? Um, why can’t I use the show to help a local person stand out locally and be kind of the micro celebrity for their niche? Um, would it work in that manner? And that’s where Business RadioX was born. That’s where the first show was called Atlanta Business Radio. That’s where that show was on, uh, born. And that show is still running today, and it’s and it’s probably the longest continuously running local business show on the planet because we were so early on in this media. I can’t believe there’s many others that are still doing it, and have been doing it continuously for probably close to 20 years now.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That is amazing. You’re such a fantastic background. So, Lee, this what I find about this platform is it really is about giving back to the community. And you have even shared some things with me about why you continue to keep this in place. So what I heard you say is that we can use this as a tool, some of us in particular industries, as a way to source leads or prospects and have a good conversation with them. And that’s one of the ways that I’m using it. But I’d really like to expand more on the idea of putting this in place to serve the community and really help others. It’s not about you. Not about Business RadioX, as you said, it’s about the community. So you’re actually bringing people together in person and have been doing that for a very long time. Describe a studio setting for me.

Lee Kantor: Sure. So our studio settings, um, they started out in a coworking space, and it was an office in a coworking space, and that was the first time we did this. And that’s how Doctor Fitness started. We we, uh, once we left that, uh, internet radio station, we moved to our own space. And so while I was doing Doctor Fitness and I’m like, I just do Doctor Fitness once a week. I have all this equipment, I have all this stuff. Is there stuff I could be using with this during the week? So I’m like, well, why don’t I start a local show, Atlanta Business Radio, and um, and just start bringing people into the space and interviewing them, uh, in that manner. And that’s how that was kind of born. So I had all the equipment, I had all I was already paying rent. So why not use, you know, just use it more often. Doing a similar activity. So that’s how Atlanta Business Radio was born. And that’s really how Business RadioX was born. So I was doing that. And then at a different executive suite company came up to us and said, I really love what you’re doing. Can you move over to our place? Because I see the value in this, and that’s where it started, kind of, um, really sinking in that, hey, this is really good for those people, too. I don’t have to pay rent necessarily, because this executive suite companies like move here and then basically gave us a free space because they saw the value on us bringing all these business people.

Lee Kantor: They were getting traffic of the right people into their space to look at it. And so that’s how that kind of came about. So all of a sudden now we were helping we were partnering with an executive suite company, and they were seeing the value they would when they would tour the location. They’d come by our studios like, oh, we have this here, this, um, internet radio stations right here in our space. And if you, you know, come on. If you sign with us, we can help you get on that show. And we saw kind of the business case and the value we were providing to that entity, and then it just grew from there. And then, um, I was going to they called it the organization was called Power Core here, but it was an offshoot of BNI. And um, it was those kind of, um, you know, them, the networking, the, uh, where you’re it’s peer to peer. You go around the room, everybody stands up and does like kind of a minute speech and they talk about, uh, their business and then they share leads amongst each other. And that’s what I was doing is just trying to get, um, you know, trying to sell shows on this new studio that I had here in Atlanta.

Speaker4: Wow.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. So I want to connect the dots because earlier you said you’re an introvert. You really built this so that you could be on the other side, right? And not out Advertising face to face and asking people for something. So tell me more about this idea of this cold email or outreach that you sent out.

Lee Kantor: No, I think that’s it’s an important step in this, uh, on the kind of evolution of the business. So I knew that this was a powerful tool, this email. Now, I was doing that in a national way because that was we were getting guests from all over the world. Really. And, um, so we were doing that virtually. Business RadioX in Atlanta, business radio specifically was all in studio. There was no call in that wasn’t even a choice. Like, we didn’t let people call in. They had to come in person. So we kind of made them come in person because we saw the value of face to face. That was the value we were providing to our clients and to myself as a way to prospect for new sponsors and show hosts. So I was doing this power core thing, and I was, um, you know, I was really leaning into it. I was taking leadership roles in the organization. I was a coach. I was showing people how to leverage it, but I internally wasn’t enjoying it. I dreaded going to the meetings. I when I had to do my seven minute long form thing, I would it would give me so much anxiety every time standing up and doing the little elevator pitch would give me anxiety. So I really didn’t enjoy it. But there was a woman in there that was really. She loved it. She was an extrovert. She kind of reminded me of you a little bit. And her name was Amy Otto, and she was selling Aflac insurance, and she was kind of new to Aflac.

Lee Kantor: And they told her, you got to join this kind of a thing, and you got to go to chamber meetings, and you have to do all this stuff. And she was kind of struggling because and she was getting frustrated because she’s super personable and everybody loves her. And she’s just a super great person. And she was not getting the traction she would have liked as quickly as she would like. And so I’m like, Amy, please be my co-host on Atlanta Business Radio. I’m not going to charge you anything. Just be the co-host and you’re already going to all these meetings instead of going to the meetings and saying, I’m Amy with Aflac. Just say you’re Amy, co-host of Atlanta Business Radio, and invite them on the show and just see if that changes anything. And so that changed everything. Now all of a sudden, she’s not the insurance lady who people were kind of avoiding. She has something of value to them. And and she started getting people who weren’t calling her back or kind of, um, you know, acknowledging her are now like, how do I get on the show? How come you had Mary on and you didn’t invite me on? And like, her positioning in the marketplace changed dramatically. And, um, I mean, I could tell you the biggest success story that I remember vividly, uh, that happened because of her is she invited the in in metro Atlanta, there was a period and it’s still going on where a lot of these unincorporated suburbs were spinning off their own city, and they were forming their own city government because they wanted to be away from Atlanta proper.

Lee Kantor: They wanted to be their own city, and they were unincorporated. And it was a huge part of the metro Atlanta area. So the first city to spin off was where I happened to live in Sandy Springs. And the second one was a city called Dunwoody, which is the suburb next to it. So the city of Dunwoody spun off and they elected a mayor and they became their own city. We did an episode that was the City of Dunwoody Special, where we invited the mayor, city council person, the city manager. It was a whole episode just about them because it was their year anniversary and they had just had their own police force. It was a big deal. So Amy invited them. They came on, they talked, and um, and it was all about them for an hour. And it was they were just so just so appreciative. At the end of the show, there was no more recording. We’re chatting after and they’re like, what can we do for you? This was great. Thank you so much for doing this for us. It’s so important to let people know what we’re doing and how we came about and all this. And Amy’s like, look, I sell Aflac. If I can get in to City of Dunwoody and just let them know how this works, that’d be great. And they’re like, well, we can’t give you any special treatment or anything, but, um, absolutely. You can come in and, you know, do a proposal.

Lee Kantor: So cut to she got that municipality and it opened up a whole bunch of municipalities for her. And it changed really the trajectory of her career there and selling insurance. And now her business has evolved dramatically from that point. But it was a game changing moment for me because I’m like, what salesperson would be able to get a mayor, a city council person, a city manager to their territory, to their office to talk in person and to have them ask, what can I do for you? Yeah, like from a sales standpoint, I’m like, this is a game changing moment for me as looking at it, because it had nothing to do with me. I was facilitating it. And, you know, my thing helped make that happen. But this was her working it in a way I couldn’t even envision. But it was so dramatic to me. I’m like, this is something that can scale. This could work in any market. If you do it in the way that she’s doing it, in the way that we kind of drew it up, where we’re here to help and support and celebrate the work of the people locally. And this is just we call them relationship building moments. We create multiple relationship building moments that separate a professional service provider from everybody else, because they’re the only people that get to do this. We are helping them do this thing that no one else can do, and then doing it in a way that’s just extremely powerful.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow, that that is an amazing story. And I’m sure that there are 10,000 others, right? Where people have been able to have conversations. And I know you’ve had a lot of conversations with folks. So, Lee, the way Business RadioX is set up now is there are licensed studio operators. Some of them are in person, as you described. Uh, typically in a chamber setting or in a space where it’s easy for people to access, right. And come in and have these conversations. Something new that Business RadioX has put out there are these virtual licensed studio operators like me, where I’m doing my interviewing from my home office. So can you talk a little bit about the not the transition, but the addition of these licensed studio operators from a virtual perspective?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So that came about. I mean, really the pandemic is what kind of birthed that where we we were really stuck. You know, because our whole business model is this is in person. You got to come in person. And now the pandemic is coming. Come on. And they’re like saying you can’t meet in person. Like that’s that’s against the law now. So how do we kind of meet people where they are. And then so immediately we transitioned to virtual all of our studio partners, you know, basically got Zoom or Google Meet or, um, Microsoft Teams. And then they started broadcasting the same thing, but just virtually. And, um, so we didn’t want to ignore that. And we the, the benefit for us from having virtual is it allows us to spin up studios pretty quickly. You don’t need rent. There’s no it’s completely flexible. You know, you can do this, um, on your own schedule, in your own house and without any, you know, real equipment or anything dramatic. Um, so it allowed us to kind of open up the doors to new people. Um, but the core business is studios in person. But this does give you a different way to access, um, the people most important to you. And that’s really at the heart of it, is we want to help our studio partners serve the people most important to them. And, um, the sweet spot for us, ideally, is if the people most important to you are in your local community and you want to, you know, meet them in person and serve them that way, we can show you an in-person studio model. But if if you’re not ready for that, um, there’s this other model that works. I don’t think it works as effectively, but it still works effectively.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. I mean, there this whole idea of bringing people together in the same room is huge, right? Uh, for me, the virtual studio makes sense because I live 90 minutes from civilization, right way out in rural South Texas, and it works for me. And and just to plug for, you know, this whole idea of the reach out and giving back and what you get in return. I shared with you in stone that I had 15 introductory phone calls, uh, for people who wanted to be on the show in one week, and it continues to be that high. And in my industry, from a business coaching perspective, that increases, you know, my leads tenfold over all of the other things that I had ever done. So for me, this is a great space for me to be in where I can give back, serve the community, but also have conversations with my ideal client, which I think is so important. Uh, one of the questions I have for you before we jump into I have a little personal question for you, but before that, can we talk just a little bit about the difference between the podcast and the radio show? Because there’s a huge difference, I believe. Uh, you mentioned it, uh, parts of it earlier, but what in your mind, what is the difference between a podcast and business radio RadioX.

Lee Kantor: I think that most people are using podcasts to kind of position themselves as an expert or a guru, and the way they’re doing this is in a very self-serving way of, look how smart I am. Oh, here’s an example of how smart I am. Hey, have you ever thought of doing this thing that I thought of that’s so smart? And we find it, um, more effective to instead of focusing in on yourself or anything really to do with you, but focus in on the niche that you serve and the community that you serve, and then use it as a way to just build better relationships with people over time in a very relationship driven way, not a transactional way. And that’s really, I think, at the heart of what makes it work for most people that are affiliated with us. Because, number one, we’re being selective in choosing people who have kind of this heart of service. If you don’t have a heart of service, if you’re looking at this as a get rich quick scheme of oh great, here’s this little hack that I can meet lots of people and I’m going to do this thing and I’m going to meet them and then spam them. Um, that that’s not really who we’re after. That’s not. It doesn’t work like that. You really have to kind of have a pure heart, in the sense of serving people and really wanting to support and celebrate the work of people important to you. And then, oh, by the way, you have a day job and you might have a service that they might be interested down the road.

Lee Kantor: That is how we do this. That’s how we approach this, and that’s the people who do it that way benefit way more, and they benefit faster and they benefit, um, their clients stay with them longer because they’re just trying to help their clients. They’re just using the platform to help their clients, and then they’re benefiting, um, in the long run. And if you don’t have the patience for that, or if you don’t have the stomach for that or the heart for that, then it’s not going to going to work. Then, you know, find another place to do this or do it yourself. I mean, podcasting nowadays, anybody can do it on their phone. And you know, with AI stuff, you don’t even need another. You can pretend to have a co-host. Like there’s lots of ways you could do it. Now, the way that we do it is very service oriented, and it really helps position the person who is the host or the studio partner, or even the client host positions them as kind of the voice for business in the niche that they serve, and they become that indispensable cog in the machine because they’re helping tell the stories of business in their niche. And then if somebody wants to come on that show, they have to go through that person, and that person hopefully is going to sell them something over time. But maybe not. And that’s okay too. You know, we cast a wide net and we want to serve the whole community.

Trisha Stetzel: Right? Absolutely. And it really is about building trust, right? It’s about building that relationship so that down the road, if it makes sense. We can do some business together. And I think that is is very, very important. So, Lee, um, you’ve been doing this for a very long time, and you likely, uh, do a lot of personal improvement. Business improvement. So who inspires you or what books do you feel like have really been a part of your growth in this space?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. The authors, um, or thought leaders that really, uh, are important to me and have really influenced how I do what I do and the why behind what I do. Um, I’d say Seth Godin. Uh, from a young age, I’ve been a super fan of him. I was part of the alt MBA program that he developed a while ago, one of the early cohorts of that. And going through that, that was a really, um, intensive experience that I learned a lot that, um, that I still use a lot of the stuff today. Another person is a guy named Rory Sutherland, who wrote a book called alchemy, and he is a behavioral design behavioral science guy that was leading an ad agency called Ogilvy and Mather in Europe, in the UK. And, um, he’s one of my favorites. He has a ton of YouTube videos. If you go to any interview of him, he’s hilarious. And he really explains, uh, behavioral science in a way that makes a lot of sense. And, and that is different than a lot of the stuff you’re going to hear about how to do marketing and advertising. Another guy is, uh, Bob Moesta, and he has a book called Demand Side Sales 101, and he has a theory, it’s called The Job to be done theory, which is that people don’t buy anything. They they buy something to solve a problem or to do a job.

Lee Kantor: And that’s, um, you got to figure out what it is, what job are you doing for somebody else, and then you can market That them accordingly. And then lastly, somebody recently that I’ve kind of come across I think is important. Doing important work is a guy named Will Guidara, and he runs a restaurant called 11 Madison Park, and it’s been named Best Restaurant in the world. Um, but he wrote a book called Unreasonable Hospitality The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than they expect. And I think that that’s important, too, is, um, you know, some people say to under-promise and overdeliver and he believes to over promise and over deliver. So, um, raise the expectations and then surpass them. So don’t be afraid to do that. And if you want to stand out and be special because that’s what it takes in today’s world. I mean, I think consumers are a lot more savvy. They’re a lot more picky. They read a lot. They, um, you know, reviews are important in today’s world. So you can’t just, uh, it’s table stakes to deliver whatever it is you’re supposed to do. You better be doing something to surprise and delight people. If you want to be memorable and you want to be talked about and you want to kind of grow.

Trisha Stetzel: So, Lee, for our listeners who may be thinking that this could be a good opportunity for them to serve their community, or maybe someone just wants to share their story, what advice would you offer to them to get them started?

Lee Kantor: Um, just go to Business RadioX. Com and then, uh, check out our page and just poke around, listen to some of the shows that we’ve done, go into any community that’s near you and listen to some of the stories that are being told there. And there’s plenty of places on that page to connect with us, to partner with us. Um, we’re just really looking to grow. Um, my big goal for the organization, which we’re nowhere near achieving yet, is to be in 1000 communities and serving 1000 thousand communities. And I came up with that because there’s about 8000 chambers of commerce in America. And if we were in the top 15% or so, that would be 1000 studios serving those top 15, you know, 20% of the marketplace in the most active chambers. So that’s what we’re shooting for and we’re nowhere near there. So if you have a heart of service and you want to differentiate yourself in your local market, please connect with us and let’s see if there’s ways we can make that happen.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Thank you Lee. And if anyone’s listening and wants personal experience on, you know, where, uh, where I’m at and how I’m using this beautiful tool in my business, I’m happy to share that as well. So lastly, Lee, uh, how can people connect with you, uh, or even learn more about becoming a licensed studio partner?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Uh, connect with me on LinkedIn. Uh Lee Kantor. L e e k a n t o r and there’s thousands of hours of me on podcasts. You can just Google me on any podcast platform. You can hear one of the shows I do. I do lots of shows and I’ve done lots of shows over the years. Um, uh, or again, the website is Business RadioX dot com. My email is li l e e at Business RadioX dot com. I’m easy to find and easy to connect with.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Lee, thank you so much for being on the show today. I appreciate the opportunity to interview you today, but I also even more so appreciate the opportunity to be a part of Business RadioX.

Lee Kantor: Thank you for all you do. Tricia, we appreciate you.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Thanks, Lee. And that’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. And until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.