What if your next business breakthrough isn't another marketing strategy, but a microphone? Today's guest has built a powerful brand by turning stories into a thriving business. Jonah Lanto is the co-host of Midwest Murder, one of the fastest growing true crime podcasts in the country, reaching audiences around the world and expanding into television, live events, and a devoted community of fans. But this conversation isn't really about true crime. Although if Dom wasn't here, I'd be talking about John Wayne Gacy, the Gilco Beach murders, and Mackenzie Shirilla. Guess what? He's going to reel me back in. And we are going to be talking about podcasting and entrepreneurship. Jonah has mastered the art of building trust, growing an audience, and creating a business around content that people can't stop talking about. In a world where attention is the ultimate currency, he's proving that podcasting is one of the most effective ways to build influence, authority, and opportunity. Today is the day you're going to learn how to transform your voice into a brand and your content into a business. You're about to learn from one of the masters who's doing exactly that. Dom, let's welcome one of our favorite newest entrepreneurs, creators, and podcasting powerhouses, Jonah Lanto. Jonah, welcome to the club. This is a big get here, Julie, to mix the podcasting world and true crime. I think you found a star. Welcome, Jonah. Wow, thanks, guys. Julie, when you lay it down like that, is anybody prepared to hear that? Holy smokes. Am I really that guy? You're that guy. You're that guy. Because I tell people, look, I'm just a guy. But when you say all that, maybe I'm a little more. Now, you're doing it. And we want to learn from you. Today, we're going to get all kinds of podcasting tips from you later. But since Julie went down the true crime route, let's just ask a couple questions here. So what do you think about this Gilco guy getting caught from pizza crust? Is this reality? What do you think about this? That's where I am not the typical true crime person. although I research and write so many true crime stories, I've been doing it for almost six years on Midwest murder. I don't have time to be a fan. I'm not even familiar with that case. It's not one of the ones that I'm on the up and up on. So I have no frame of reference, Dom. John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, those are all Midwest murderers, if you will. Absolutely. They're all Midwest murderers. And something that we wanted to do a little differently as we progressed to Midwest murderers to bring the stories that have mostly been forgotten and are maybe a little underdone. So Dahmer and Edgain, all these guys, the BTK, they've been done by so many podcasts and documentaries and movies and daytime TV. Eventually, maybe we'll do some of them, but we like to do the ones that were forgotten on the back pages of newspapers and forgotten over time. And then that sets us apart. And it makes it interesting for fans that listen to True Crime, who are heavy, deep into True Crime, because they can come to our show and hear stories that haven't been told and retold a thousand times. So where do you get this idea? Because I know in my research, I find that you started in the basement. So where do you get this idea where you could have chased the John Wayne Gacy or the Dahmer, but you're like, no, I'm coming out of my basement and we're going to do something a little bit different here. So where do you get that idea? Coming out of my basement, Dom. I mean, that sounds like something that is setting him up to be murdered or something. I don't know. I mean, or setting me up to be somebody who escaped from a murder. I was held down in there for so long. No, look, we built it all right beneath the floor where I'm sitting now, hanging out with you guys, having this conversation. It really was my idea. It was brought to me by somebody else I had met along the way and was producing another podcast for, Don Palumbo. She was a big true crime fan and she wanted to do a true crime podcast. She hit me up. And at first I was like, yeah, no, I don't have any interest in that. And again, I wasn't listening to true crime. I didn't know the impact it could have. I didn't see my place in it. And I immediately envisioned it as two people would be having a conversation like we are only about murder. And I was like, that sounds really distasteful. But I didn't see the storytelling side. I didn't know about the research and how you could really lay it all out and put it together. And it wasn't until I interviewed true crime author CJ Wynn. She wrote a book, Wilder Intentions, about a murder that happened here in Minot, where I'm from. She was a guest on my show. I read her book, and it really changed how I viewed true crime, and it helped me see where my place would be. So if Don planted the seed, then it was that conversation with CJ that watered it. and I called Don up after that conversation, said, hey, you still wanted this true crime thing? And we decided yes. And the reason, again, we don't go for the big stories is we wanted to be able to really carve out our own place. We wanted to tell stories that people hadn't heard and share them from the perspectives that we could find through our research. So Midwest murder, where do you draw the line? Like, what is it, longitude and latitude here? Or how do you actually say, this is my line? The Louisiana Purchase is off the rail. We're not doing anything. We're not doing anything. Look, we had to finally technically define it because I started off thinking that Montana was kind of part of the Midwest, but technically they're not. It's weird. There's a lot of debate. It's a heated debate over what state should be Midwest. A lot of people try to shove off the central plains, which would be the Dakotas and Kansas and Nebraska as like their own unit. But we just go by the 12 states as listed by the federal government. And don't ask me to name them all right now, but you know the ones. If we could cut out one, maybe. Maybe we'd cut out Ohio because it's the Florida of the Midwest. And I'd probably cut out Missouri because they sided with the South when things were all said and done. But hey, we go by what the government says and all of them get their fair coverage on Midwest murder. Is there a state you find there are more murders than other states? And this is so random of a question that has really nothing to do with what we're talking about. But I need to know. Illinois, Michigan, when I have an immediate reflection on the serial killers that we've covered and where the most bodies have been stacked up, Michigan and Illinois come out right away, first and foremost. I'm very competitive, and I'm from Chicago. And that's actually a really bad trophy to have on your mantle, having the most- That's a grim trophy, but it's a trophy nonetheless. less. This is fantastic already. And you'll notice that me and Julie, we have undiagnosed ADD off the charts. So when you, you are interested, you are interested. Minus diagnosed, Dom. Minus diagnosed. Oh, okay. You are interested. She's been certified. I never knew. See, we're finding things out here today. Jonah, let's get into the business of this podcasting a little bit. At what point do you say, well, I like talking about this stuff, but there's a business to be had or sharing my message via microphone is something that could be monetized. Can we get into that? Yeah, absolutely. Of course, as with any podcast, if you hit a certain number of downloads, there's going to be some instant opportunities for that regular level of monetization. So that was hitting it. And we immediately had something that I leveraged coming in. I started podcasting with a massive, like local centric, knowing that I wasn't a celebrity, knowing I'm not somebody that can, nobody in Minneapolis or anywhere further away, why should they care about Jonah Lanto, the podcaster from Minot circa 2016 when I'm nobody? So immediately preceding Midwest murder, I had really focused locally on how I can impact my community and I became visible in the community. So some of the early opportunities in Midwest murder gaining financial traction came from local businesses who were like hey can we put an ad And then we immediately it was recognized that maybe we could do this as a live recording There was a local wine bar here called Off the Vine And they said, dude, everybody loves your podcast. Why don't you guys sell tickets? We can record one live. Everybody can have drinks and it'll be a show. And I thought, yeah, Don and I thought that's pretty great. What can we do to enhance that experience? It's got to be more than just, hey, everybody dropped 30 bucks on a ticket the night of dinner and drinks just to hear a one hour story. What can we do to enhance that live experience? And then we decided, well, the most obvious thing to us was having a question and answer session where everybody in the audience could engage with us on that level. Ask us questions about the story or anything. It's an ask us anything situation. And that's evolved over the years. So with Midwest Murder, that became the most immediate way that we started producing revenue was through live shows. And then sponsorships came pretty quick after that. So, Jonah, I understand the power of podcasting. I have mentored a lot of podcasters, a lot of baby podcasters, a lot of mid-range podcasters. The problem is nobody knows how to monetize it and getting that idea. The way that you've done it, the way that you have thought of ways outside of just speaking into the mic all the time, that is fabulous. But what is that one thing that made you realize you could monetize it and get past that pod fade, get past that place where you're just throwing content into the world and aligning it with a business plan, creating a vertical in your business, and you understood it as real estate, powerful real estate in your business plan. What was that and what did that look like? I love this question. It's such a unique ask from my perspective on how it all began. And in the beginning, long before I got to the Midwest murder level, there was no certainty. My light bulb moment that you are seeking, it came, I started my podcast in the basement with a buddy of mine, and we just wanted to have really great conversations. And we felt like we had the ability to have interesting conversations because when we were out and about in public doing it, people were always pulled into the gravity of that. And then I was generally frustrated with talking heads on TV, trying to tell you what to think and how to think in really quick five-minute sound bites. And that's why we started podcasting. And the response was very immediately strong when we began, and a lot of locals. And that was inspiring to me on a level that told me, you need to keep doing this. I was at a transitionary point in my career already where I didn't want to continue going in the direction the company I was working with was going. And I was seeking something. I didn't necessarily know that podcasting would be it. But when that immediate response was so strong and receptive, and then things kept happening that told me I was on the right path, and I was able to identify those signs. Six months, roughly after starting Midwest Mer, or my Good Talk, the podcast, that's how we began. I was in a coffee shop talking about it, a gentleman named Josh Walski overheard my conversation and listened to the episode and called and messaged me up and said, Hey, I heard your podcast. First of all, I'm also a huge big Lebowski fan. And second of all, would you want to do what you're doing, but on a local level? And I was immediately interested. I had the gear, I had the will. And I said, I said, Hey, let's have coffee. Him and I met. And that's when we started a Good Talk Minot. And that's when I referenced earlier, my very local centric, that's where it began. Josh Walski and I started doing a weekly talk show and it became a podcast and talk show on Facebook live show. And we would air it twice weekly. And again, I'm in that transitionary phase. So I started recognizing that people wanted this and we kept going. And then we just got sponsors. In the beginning, I just found whatever thing I could grasp onto to make a little bit of money I wasn't banking anything. I certainly didn't have any financial power in those early years, but the money was trickling in and I wasn't under any pressure. So I was allowed to keep building it. And as the interest in Good Talk Minot grew, I'm networking, I'm meeting more people, I'm becoming more visible in my community. We're doing it twice weekly. Then I started branching out and making other podcasts that interest me. We had a coffee talk and we had a football talk. We developed a Game of Thrones podcast that hit the top 10 Thrones podcasts and so many other things were happening. I was just constantly creating and looking for ways to create, knowing that not all of it was going to be profitable. But I was building my skill set and there was profit along the way enough to keep me going. Jonah, me and Julie have been super focused on this idea of owning your ecosystem lately, meaning taking people off platform, taking people to live event. Now, I'm sure you have emails. You're telling us about events. When I looked on your site, I see you have merch. So you've taken people off platform. You're not dependent on one platform in any way. Can you explain that to us, that kind of process? Absolutely. As things came further along, I just became the person in Minot recognized as if you want to start a podcast or develop one, I was the go-to person. And so I started producing for other people. I started editing more and again, started getting more sponsors interested in having their brand and their name and their business associated with Good Talk Minot. So it really became a series of collaborations along the way as well, where my technical skill set hit a creative plateau. Well, then I was able to partner with somebody who had more ability in video production, Adam Dias of Dias Media. Him and I would, that's when I moved out of the basement. So in about 2019, we moved out of the basement. I mean, it was cool down there. It was an atmosphere. I do miss aspects of it. But teaming up with Adam and being able to level up the video production alongside the audio production that I was doing. And then him and I were able to produce some documentaries. We worked on some local video commercials, writing unique commercials. And then we'd ultimately go on to collaborate with a group of others to, over the course of three years, we produced a dozen late night comedy talk shows that all sold out. So we brought, again, focusing local. We made Jimmy Kimmel meets Saturday Night Live, but all with local influence, all with regional Midwest flair, things that people here would recognize versus the coastal features and the big national topics that you get on the big main stage shows. So we did that. One thing led to another. I was constantly aware of creative and collaborative opportunity. I was able to build teams of people, everybody that worked on Goodnight Minot, and that's what it was called. None of them knew each other. And again, it wasn't even my idea. A guy named Jake Thralke came to me and said, I want a late night talk show. And I think you're the guy that can help me do it. And I was like, holy shit, I am? Really? Me? And then I'm sort of, well, how would we do this? And suddenly I'm producing a late night comedy talk show with a team of writers and unique skits and characters opening monologue in front of, I think our first audience, we sold out the show was like 220 people. And I'm backstage, nervous, sweating bullets, just hoping that it doesn't suck because that's my name attached to it. And I would feel great shame if it did. It was a lot of pressure. It was crazy. So that in a nutshell is how I continue to be able to make money as an entrepreneur while podcasting. And I'm doing this alongside all of my other projects. I've done audio books in my studio. I've narrated documentaries, things like that. So just continuously seeking and identifying moments where my skillset applies. I love what you saying about collaborations as well You finding riches in the niches if you will or niches finding that niche which I always said it easier to monetize when you are more niched down or niched down, however you like to say it. Wait, do you say niche or niche, by the way, Jonah? I say niche, but I think either one flows. Riches in the niches. But it is true when you are so focused and so geocentric, it is easier to to pitch yourself and your brand to different potential sponsors or partners. Are you a full-time podcaster? That is like a huge leap to take. Just corporate to full-time doing this. Yeah, full-time podcaster, producer, and entrepreneur. And I have been since 2017. That's incredible. Can you teach some other entrepreneurs here? So we're talking to entrepreneurs and we're talking to people that want to be entrepreneurs and things like that. How could they, let's say I got a business, I'm a landscaper and I want to start a podcast. I'm a speaker and I think I'm hearing Jonah talk about podcasts. It sounds pretty good to me. What should they do, Jonah? You have to understand if you want to start a podcast that it's going to be an investment of time and there's not generally going to be any level of immediate reward. If you think I'm going to start a podcast and start making money, like with so many things, it doesn't just immediately work that way. So you got to have, I say, come up with a plan. If you want to have a podcast about landscaping, that's very broad. Can you be detailed? What kind of topics would you talk about? Who's your target audience? You really, you have to identify the questions and the things that you're going to discuss and then break it down. I think in a landscaping podcast, maybe you're doing 10 to 15 minute tidbits, these landschapings, these ongoing landscaping tips that people can easily access that make it almost instantly digestible for people like that. And so I would look for the angle and look for where your voice fits and what makes sense to you. And then again, you build that, you build the structure of it. You have your production outline. It doesn't necessarily mean everything's scripted, but you need to know where am I going with this? What's my 10 episode arc? If I'm making something about landscaping, because it's a very specific topic, what does 10 episodes look like or even 20 episodes look like? And how do I keep people engaged? And that would be some of the immediate go-to things I would lean into to find how to get started. And I think then you're getting into equipment and things after the fact, but you've got to have a plan first. And you've got to be consistent with it. The consistency is key. If you start a podcast and, oh, you drop two of them and then three weeks later, another one comes out and then two weeks after that, one comes out and there's no consistency to it. You have to know that every Monday or every Tuesday or whatever your day is, I think you need to be consistent with it, too. Those would be some of the key aspects that I would put out there. And I find that spot on, Jonah. And I actually want to ask Dom a question because Dom, I had to pull into the podcasting arena a couple of years ago. What was it for you? Because I don't know if you were hesitant, Dom, to jump on board the podcasting arena. But what was it for you that really made you see that it was a part of a wholer vision? I'm not going to put words in your mouth. Maybe Jonah and I could interview you. You could coach me as well on this because I had hosted about a hundred episodes back when it was like blog talk radio, like the 2016 times. So like early pioneers where you're like weird digital links and things like that. And I think we, my guest would call in from a phone and it connected through the computer. I don't even know what was going on. It was so long ago. So after I did that, I was like, oh, I think I'm out of it. And I didn't understand the media. The medium, I didn't get that people could listen while they were riding their bike. I didn't get that people were now listening in their cars. I didn't get that people could stream it in a little digital link through Facebook. So I was thinking of it as it was in 2016 or 15 or whenever that was. And I didn't see the evolution. I was like, well, I did it back then. I was the pioneer. That's it. So I didn't know that it grew. and so you two and Julie introduced me to a whole new world she's like what you knew isn't what it was before now I'm riding my bike listening to podcasts this is wonderful to me I'm in my car I'm listening to podcasts I don't have to listen to the 10 channels that come in anymore so I'm in so Julie I think that was my gift I we started dipping our toe into it but it wasn't really until two years ago Dom kind of was like yes I get it I get it and the definition of podcasting has changed a lot. I always am the old school in terms of audio forward podcasting. How do you define podcasting? Where do you find your most ROI? Is it audio? Is it video? Is, I mean, obviously the live community events probably blow your mind every time you do that. Where do you see the biggest ROI that has boosted your brand and business? And on a personal level, on my, on my level, it's the live shows. That's not going to be the same for most podcasts. That's amazing, by the way, that you're doing that. That's not actually a normal way, a normal vertical. Most podcasters don't do it that way, but that is actually incredible. And I think that's why- You gave me goosebumps for recognizing that. That's the goosebumps on my arm. Thank you. That's cool. That's why I think Dom and I were like, we need to know from Jonah because that's something most podcasters do not do. And maybe we want to learn from you and do it. I wish I could say it was my idea, but most ideas have already been done. You just got to find a way to make them your own. And there's a couple of things I borrowed from one of my favorite podcasts, The Dollop. If you've not heard of it, it's a comedy-based history. It's two comedians doing a history podcast and each episode of The Dollop. One of them is telling the story. The other guy is reacting. Now, theirs is a lot of banter, a lot of interrupting, but you are getting legitimate history. And then somebody who often will role play. Anyways, they're hilarious. and I what I started listening to them as somebody else's recommendation and well they then I find out well they do their podcast live I was like that's pretty cool you know and as I was going through my podcast over the years I always thought hey it would be so neat if we could get to the local coffee shop we would just record an episode maybe we pass around a tip jar at the end like like a busking musician that was kind of my more where I expected live podcasting to go for us but when When the opportunity opened up for Midwest Murder, the response was just so strong in our region, in our community. And then to immediately have a business owner saying, hey, you guys want to record it live? We'll sell tickets. And we're like, yes. And then when it worked that time, we did it again. And then it was immediately for me, I was saying, all right, Don, we need to see, let's see who else will host us. I know people in Bismarck. There's a brewery down in Dickinson. I know people in Fargo. and I said, I'm going to push the network and reach out to people and see who would do this with us. John, right here, I got to get in this. I get doing it in North Dakota. How do you get from North Dakota to Nashville? How do you know your market's strong enough to take that leap and go to a whole other side of the country? Nashville loves Midwest murder too? Go on. Yeah, five years of consistency, Dom. It didn't happen. It's no overnight success. Really, you take it from that first show, it's 48 people, you do that again, then you replicate that in cities in your state, and you just keep doing it. People keep coming. It's wild to think the journey that we've been on, some of the businesses where we began, some of the very pivotal moments of our Midwest murder career aren't open anymore. They shuttered their doors for various reasons and we can look back on that and feel it very sad to see that go but take a lot of pride in the fact that our staying power is here and our audience is growing So our national show was an intimate show by virtue of how we get into the Midwest but it was still a great show and people turned out for us So a little bit of recognition goes a long way in consistency of doing it. We didn't have a show outside of North Dakota for a while. We had Minnesota and then it just grew. South Dakota, Iowa, we've been all the way down to Omaha. We've been all the way down to Iowa, over into Montana. I'd love it if you guys would have us in Chicago. Let's make it happen. We can make it happen, my friend. We can make it happen. Something else we're going to make happen here. Tell us, Dom. Tell us, Dom. What are you going to make happen? What do you got going on? If Jonah doesn't know, this is the point of the show where the trumpets play. This is called Jules Rules. Jules is a mom of four. She's a publicist, a media strategist. She's into all things like true crime. She's a true crime junkie. But Jonah said he doesn't watch other true crime. He's not studying those other true crime things. So we're going to talk about something he is studying and that's podcasting. So today, let's just keep it simple. I thought you were going to say Led Zeppelin. Podcasting is fine. I want basic tips, boom, boom, boom, from each of you that a podcaster should think of, do, realize. And we're just going to go off the cuff. These are like basics from not having loud noises behind where you're recording. Julie, this is your segment. Trumpets are playing. You go first. What do you got? Dom, this is one of the topics I can talk about in my sleep. My poor family hears me just talking about podcasting all the time. The big thing is that when you start a podcast, first of all, it can be very isolating and you do it and you don't see any return. You have to be very strategic. Do not throw content out in the air just because. Think about how you can connect with potential partners, potential sponsors. Always think of it as a business. Always be strategic instead of just throwing stuff out in the air. And then, you know, have a good microphone. Check. Check one. Check. Good stuff, Julie. Jonah, what do you got for us? Yeah, I want to just piggyback real quick. Get a good mic. Spend the $150 to $300 on having the right equipment. It's so cheap and easy these days compared to how it used to be back in my day. And then I would immediately familiarize yourself with editing software. Something if you don't have money, you can use Audacity. That's where I started and that's what I still use. I love Audacity and all of the learning tools and the videos of how to make your podcast sound better than it might be are there and easy to use. So learn audacity. If you don't already have some level of familiarity with other audio editing programs, that's the best one. And there's an abundance of easy resources and videos that will show you how to do everything. I'm going to jump in this and then we're going to get one more from each of you. I think, and this is, I wanted to jump in before earlier. I think short form video is a major asset. Julie asked me earlier why I got involved. And I think disseminating of content, meaning you do a half hour episode, you do a hour episode, knowing that I can turn that into a 30 second clip, a minute clip and use it over and over and over and over to get people to listen to my show, share a link to my show with the video and stuff like that. I think doubling down on that short form content that was the long form podcast you created. That's my first, Julie, give us another one. Then we're going to Jonah. He can take it home for us. What do you got, Julie? Use your podcast as leverage, meaning you are doing something for somebody else. Ask those people that would never have a conversation with you to be on the podcast. For example, I am obsessed with true crime and cult. I pitched Dr. Christine Marie from Trust Me, The False Prophet. She has a number one Netflix documentary. She said, yes, she's going to be on my other. I have another podcast on my other podcast. take that leap. The worst thing that they can say is no, but make sure you're giving really powerful content to your audience and being strategic again. Jonah, my lifeline, my lifeline, my brother in podcasting. Yeah, my podcasting sister, I think along with that strategy comes the discipline and finding your voice in what you want to create. If you love Star Wars, for example, then you probably should not start a podcast about Harry Potter, right? So find your voice, find something that you can speak to, because most often people are coming to a podcast to learn something or because it's something that they're passionate about. And if you don't have a voice and you don't have a passion or desire to speak on these things, how can you expect your audience to do so? Find what you want to speak on, whether it's sports or it's physical fitness or it's Star Wars or it's real estate. There are any number of things. Find which one that you've got something on. And then if it's a guest-based podcast, I would reinforce what Julie said. Find the cool guests. Again, if you're doing Star Wars, find the biggest Star Wars nerd in your community or online that is just excited. Mark Mammel. I have to talk about it. Yeah, get him on there. Jonah, fabulous, man. And I don't think we can top that. So that means Julie's got to take it home for us. What do you got, Julie? The one thing I know is that I can talk about podcasting 24-7. Dom knows this about me. And if there's one thing I took away from today's conversation, it's that podcasting is not a hobby anymore. It's a frontier. Jonah Lanto, he's one part Wayne and Garth. He's one part Rod Sterling from The Twilight Zone and one part media genius. he understands something that many entrepreneurs still miss. Your voice is your asset and your podcast is more than content. It's real estate. A podcast can become a vertical in your business plan. It can open doors to sponsorships, strategic partnerships, live events, speaking opportunities, media appearances, and communities of people who know and trust you before you even step into the room. So whether you're thinking about launching a podcast or wondering how to leverage the one you already have, remember that every episode is an investment. Every conversation is an opportunity and every listener is a relationship. Thank you to Jonah Lanto. Everything about Jonah will be in our show notes. So make sure you follow him. Make sure you just eat up his podcast, Midwest Murders. It is so fantastic. and follow him everywhere in the Midwest. And until next time, I want you, if you love this podcast episode as much as Dom and I did, and I want you to make sure you share, rate, and write a review for us, that will be our biggest payment. And that will keep this podcast going and delivering you content like we did today with our new podcast bestie, Jonah Lanto. Until we meet again, keep creating. If you run a business, You know the real challenges in getting the leads. It's remembering to follow up with them before they forget who you are. That's where Keep comes in. Keep is a leading sales and marketing automation platform built for small businesses just like me and you. 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