Voices for Voices®

Reaching Billions Through Passion and Perseverance | Episode 188

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 188

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Reaching Billions Through Passion and Perseverance | Episode 188

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What if the path to success is paved with more setbacks than triumphs? Join me, Justin from Voices for Voices®, as I share a deeply personal journey through the emotional and financial challenges of steering a nonprofit towards an audacious mission of impacting 3 billion lives. Despite limited resources and external skepticism about our financial standing, my dedication to this cause stands firm. This episode is a heartfelt reflection on the true essence of success, emphasizing that it’s neither immediate nor solitary. I open up about the intricate process of producing and distributing our message across multiple platforms, a task that demands a level of perseverance and passion that often goes unnoticed.

As we navigate the complexities of content creation, I shed light on the seemingly endless tasks of crafting engaging titles, choosing eye-catching thumbnails, and leveraging effective hashtags to maximize audience engagement. With the aid of specialized software, we strive to hit the metrics that suggest potential interest and reach, all while facing the inevitable financial and technical challenges. The pressure of being evaluated by these metrics adds an unexpected twist to our creative journey. Strategic planning becomes our compass, guiding us through this convoluted landscape toward our ultimate goal of reaching 3 billion people, underscoring the vital importance of resilience and dedication.

We delve deep into the emotional and logistical challenges of running a nonprofit, confronting self-doubt, criticism, and the complexities of content production. This episode serves as a reminder that the journey toward impactful outreach is fraught with obstacles but remains utterly vital.

• Examining the weight of our organizational goals
• Facing criticism and its effects on motivation
• The intricacies of content creation and production
• Discussing the importance of digital engagement metrics
• Addressing the realities of limited funding and resources

Your support means everything to us. If you appreciate our work and want to contribute, please visit www.voicesforvoices.org.

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Chapter Markers 
0:00 Struggles of Running a Nonprofit

13:32 Content Creation and Optimization Challenges

-Support Voices for Voices®: https://venmo.com/u/voicesforvoices or at https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter
- Learn more about Voices for Voices®: linktr.ee/Voicesforvoices

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Justin Alan Hayes:

Hi everyone. This is Justin with Voices for Voices, gonna jump into some deep topics here tonight. We, as individuals, we know life's hard. We know life's hard. We know we shouldn't take anything for granted Any days, any times, any moments, but where I'm at right now is in a hard spot, and it's a hard spot for a lot of reasons. Some we'll get into, some we might not. Some we'll get into, some we might not.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And it makes me at this point really question everything here at Voices for Voices, as an individual who put out this humongous goal of wanting to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond and that goal is still out there. Nothing will change there on that. But when we look to different things, different people, as far as and we've talked about extensively, you know, how are we doing, what I might look at might be different than what you look at, you know, from an analytic standpoint episode really comes in, because it really just has me just questioning everything. You To me personally, we talk about the organization and how big that goal is, and we know we can't do it overnight. We can't do it alone. However, and I don't know, I'm kind of, I guess, at a loss for words to kind of talk about. You know, at what point do we as individuals, must I give up? You know from the organization-wide, and it's going to take a lot more for me to give up on the organization than where I'm at in this space right now, and so let me just bring out some things. So the things are you watch me, you listen to me, whether you know we're remote, whether we're at the studio. You know whether you're watching on video or you're listening on, you know podcast, or you're watching on TV, when we have our weekly slot to be able to air an episode each week, which is really it's a huge blessing to be able to do that, to get our feelings, our content, our thoughts, our message in front of a different audience than other shows, other organizations. And so that really brings me to the point where, again, you're watching, you're listening into the, to a mind that doesn't do this 100%. You know for their, you know living, you know I'm in this 100%. So we are a nonprofit but we are run like a business, and so everything you've seen and heard up until now that's coming out of my pocket, and that's just the long and the short of it, and so that's one metric of donations and sponsorships and the like.

Justin Alan Hayes:

We can look at things from that standpoint only and be like, well, you know, not going, well, not doing good, yeah, maybe you should try something else. What you're doing doesn't matter, what you're doing doesn't matter. Only three people or four people watch or listen to the show. And that's a hard thing. It's a hard thing. It's a hard thing to be confronted in that manner. And so again, the show. You know it looks like, hey, well, you know voices for voices, justin, you know he's just he's filming this and he uploads it and you know it happens just like that. You know that it's this magical process and it's not. And some people want to learn a little bit about it and some people don't. And it's the people that don't that when they criticize verbally abuse In the news we hear all kinds of different types of abuse. We hear physical abuse and now we're talking about verbal abuse. What you're doing doesn't matter and you're just seeing yourself in front of a camera or on TV or on a podcast or on a podcast, and then, when the explanation starts to come, well, okay, yeah, we do have to upload these files, the audio, the video files. We do upload them, but that's not where things start or, I guess, where things end. So it's not a. You uploaded it, okay, you're done.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Move on to the next project, the next topic. We're on, as you know by now'm, over 16, 17 platforms. So what is a platform? Podcast, index, podbean, odyssey, iheart, the list goes on. So that file, the show, each specific show, doesn't get to them by magic. You know, by magic it takes some other editing to get to that point. So when we get to that point, that just means that the show is ready. That doesn't a title picked out, doesn't have a description picked out, doesn't have hashtags picked out, doesn't have keywords picked out, doesn't have different links.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So do we want people to know that we have merchandise or you are able to donate? So there's links that go into that. And whether it is an audio and a video file, it's two different things, meaning you can put the link in wwwvoicesforvoicesorg and that could show up on one particular platform and somebody can go and click that and it takes them right to voicesforvoicesorg Others. You can go in and make it a hyperlink, and so you take the same voicesforvoicesorg and you make that a hyperlink and you go in and put the voices for voices dot org so that on that platform, that individuals can go and find the information that we are sending them to, just to let them, let them know. You know, hey, if you didn't know, we do a merchandise and we are a 501c3.

Justin Alan Hayes:

We do run on donations and, uh, they're, they're basically non-existent. I mean to be to to be frank. So, know, the thought that I have heard and our team has heard is, oh, look at all the things that Voices for Voices are doing, look at all the shows that they're doing. You know they just have unlimited money. Okay, we don't.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And then, oh, by the way, all those 16 and 17 platforms to find a description. So I can just make up a description and say ABC, episode 187, or whatever number we're on. But the rank, and what do we mean by rank? That means to be given a score between 0 and 100 of how likely a person, an individual, is likely to want to potentially click on your video or the podcast. So, again, we're talking about the same thing. It shows you're getting the same content whether we're talking audio or video, but on the back end it doesn't work like that, it's different. And so when we talk about ranking, so again, I can make up a description of ABC episode 186 or whatever number in this hypothetical Well, that could rank, meaning between 0 and 100.

Justin Alan Hayes:

That description, or no, that title, pardon me may come back at a 45 out of 100, meaning, on less than one out of two individuals are going to potentially click and want to watch our show, that particular episode, or listen to that particular episode. Well, that costs money, because I don't know how to do those things in my head and I don't know many people that do so. There's software that does that, but you have to have something uploaded. So I have to come up with a description, I have to come up with a title with keywords, with hashtags, I have to come up with all those things ahead of time and then run it through a software package that costs money $300 a year to get these scores, to find out where we're ranking and how we can get closer to 100. Because, right, that's the goal we want. We want to reach, we want to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, and one of the better ways to go at that is to have more people consume our content and having a higher score closer to 100, gets us closer. In each and every episode, each and every TikTok, same thing. We run that through the same software package to try to get a well, not to try, but we do get the score out of that.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so we try to get those titles and descriptions as close to 100 as we can. Then we have what is the cover, so what you see as the cover, so we the title or words or letters, description, letters could be links, mostly letters. We talked about the links earlier in the show. So what about the cover? So what you, that photo that you or I see, you know. So we could have a great description, a great title, but if what they call a thumbnail, so a snapshot of our shows, so we pull a snapshot at a given moment during our show so that gets uploaded again.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Another process audio video. And we haven't even got to talk, we haven't even talked about posting on social media yet. So this is all prior, prior to that, and so again, title could be great, description, description could be great. But the thumbnail, the photo, the picture at that given point in time that shows up for each of our episodes, if that is ranking lower on that score, from zero to 100, because those thumbnails also get rated on a scale from 0 to 100. And so all these things are going on and we have to do one thing at a time, one thing at a time. So we hit regenerate and then three different titles and in descriptions.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You know, ai is used with the, with the package, the software package, but again it takes takes time and it again the magic is not there. We don't pull a rabbit out of a hat. That that's not how this works. So again, we talked about title, description, thumbnail, and then we've talked about oh well, what can we? What hashtags align well, with each episode. Well, again, these have to be thought of right, because each of our episodes are a little bit different on the content of the guests, what we're sharing, and so that's another thing that needs to be addressed.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so, with these software packages, we have another software package that allows us to get what this particular system thinks is the best hashtags for this particular episode. It's going off of the description and the title. Well, all that is all well and good. Good, but again we want to have hashtags and keywords that rank closer to 100, and so these can be individually, so you, so we, we could have 20 hashtags and 15 of them might have a score below 50. So we're like, well, let's try for better recommendations. And so the software package does the same thing. So it regenerates, based off of the title, the description, the thumbnail, hashtags that are ranked 0 to 100. So we want to also have our hashtags rank closer to 100. Same thing with our keywords. We want those to rank as close to 100 as we can, as we can get, uh.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so I I'm sure this is coming across a little bit confusing and like well, he's talking about, you know, technical things. Well, that's that's the idea. There are technical things that I have to do, that our organization has to do, to bring the show, the content. So all episodes have to go through this process, regardless if it's an in-studio, out-of-studio process. We have to select title, description, if we're going to add any links in there, and then the keywords, and then the hashtags, the thumbnail, you know the photo that comes up for each episode.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You know, we want to draw your attention, others' attention, to our content, right? Because we all have a lot of things going on in our lives and we know that, and I know that. So we have to be cognizant of all of that that's going on, all of all of that that's going on. So where's this all lead? So this basically takes us to the point of how are we doing? You're not doing, you're not doing very good, you're not doing good because of this number or that number, or how low this number is or how high this number is. And you know, we're constantly being judged and I can't change it, nobody can change it. I can't change other people. It's very, very, very difficult when others, whether it's somebody you know, a troll on one of our social media pages, or whether it's family, people that are the closest to us, who are sharing, sharing their displeasure with what's not happening and that's on the periphery so many, many, many people.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And until I got into this business, I didn't realize all the quirks and all the editing and the little things to worry about and to think about. Again, I came in looking at well, we're going to put a podcast and a TV show together and once it's done, we're just going to upload it and then we're going to be done until the next one, not even considering or thinking about the back work that has to go on, and so some may wonder well, why don't you just hire somebody? Why don't you just find an intern to do this? Hmm, that sounds great now, doesn't it? However, as mentioned before, very close to 100 of this organization is run by justin allen hayes, dollars that are in bank accounts and there's not much left.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So, no, I can't, our organization can't, hire an individual or a team to do that work because, yeah, that would actually make things a little bit easier, because the time as a leader that I would spend and our other team, our other board members, would spend, would be more time on the creative aspects than more time on the creative aspects, then hitting refresh button, seeing where this hashtag ranks 0 to 100, and refreshing and copying and then pasting it. Some things you can copy and paste, some things you can't. You know, the audio versus the visual uh, it's just a different animal, uh, with with the back end. So I have simplified it as much as humanly possible, from filming episodes, regardless of where they're filmed at, to getting the content to you in as few steps and as less stress, less heartache, less burnout as I can. There are, just like anything, there are things that we wish we didn't have to do. I wish I didn't have to spend that time editing and all that time on the computer. So, to the outside, so an individual or other individuals who see me, they're like man, you know you're spending a ton of time on your computer and on your phone.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Well, in order for a business, a nonprofit, to compete with other businesses that are nonprofits, to compete for dollars, I don't know what else to do except bring content, bring different topics. Some topics may be similar, but they're updated based off of experiences and where I'm at in life at a given time. Do you think that I enjoy sitting on the computer doing all this editing? No, I don't, but I don't know any other way really to do it. We don't have the funds to have a staff or even one member to pay to do this. Because I know for a fact, because I know for a fact and I've been at organizations where individuals were doing a tenth of what I'm doing and what we're doing from the digital side, the back end, content creation, descriptions, descriptions, you know everything. There are people making a lot of money, close to six figures, if not more than six figures.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So I simply in Voices for Voices. We simply don't have. We don't have the funds to be able to do that, to offload that. So if things are going to get done, I have to do it. That's just the way it is.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And then there's the website. Well, who's going to update the website? I know it's shoddy and it's a hot mess when looked at. Again, where am I going to pull that time from? What am I not going to focus on? What am I not going to do? Because, again, each of these individual pieces in and of themselves are not hard and don't take a long time individually, but when you stack and you stack and you stack, that's when it begins to be a little bit just chaotic. It just chaotic. So we're going to, we're going to come back with another episode, uh, to continue this conversation. Uh, I have just so much to say on the on, on the topic. So we'll come back and we thank you for watching and listening. We're very grateful. Moral support, any support. We'll figure our way through. So until next time, we'll see you later.

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