We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tony Trujillo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tony, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

Ever since I can remember I always wanted to be in the entertainment industry. From an early age, I wanted to be a professional wrestler, then a film director, then an author, and then a late-night talk show host. I wanted to pursue all of these career paths, but I didn’t have any direction. When you want to do these things, you really don’t have much support. People will tell you that you are crazy and that it is like hitting the jackpot, so I just gave up and spent my twenties daydreaming about what I could accomplish. One day an old friend from high school had reached out to me. When we were kids, we would film ourselves hosting random talk shows or doing Jackass stunts etc. He remembered that I was a wild guy who always said he’d be a star. Anyway, he had this idea of doing a podcast. At first, I was a little skeptical because it wasn’t exactly what I envisioned myself doing. Along the way I learned that podcasting is pretty much everything I ever wanted to do, infused into one great big art piece. From there, I gained the confidence I needed to start my own podcast with my best friend and cohost, Austin. The rest is history. I do regret waiting till I was like 28 years old to chase this dream, and that is because a podcast is just like everything else when it comes to making it big. I’m no celebrity but I have grown quite a following. I’ve learned many new things along the way, most importantly that making a podcast work doesn’t happen overnight. We are four years in now, but imagine giving up when you start catching a flame? Had I have known that this would be a working progress, I would have definitely started sooner.

Tony, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The name is Angelo, but everyone calls me Tony. My buddy Austin and I were bored in life with our jobs and just the way things were in general. So, we started a podcast. In the beginning of this project, we were strictly about politics. My buddy and I figured, there weren’t many Conservatives out there openly discussing and debating topics, all from the hot seats of being on the right side. We were wrong. We’ve been embraced by the underground podcasting movement. Sure, we’ve faced many challenges because of our political status but just like everything else in this life, things work out. For as many listeners didn’t like us, there were even more listeners that could dig it! Overtime, our podcast sort of took on a life of its own, and we branched out from doing just politics to pop culture, sports, music, conspiracy theories, UFOs and the extraterrestrial, and so much more. People ask me what my show is about, and I get a kick out of telling them it’s just like Seinfeld, a show about nothing. We like to picture our podcast as if you were sitting with strangers and friends at a diner, where you sit and drink coffee while you talk about whatever comes to mind. It’s a great show, if you can get passed the fact that its two hosts are “right wingers” or whatever labels people love to put on each other.

Our podcast does a lot for people, I think. I couldn’t tell you how many emails I’ve received from listeners who’s said they needed a good laugh or even something to pass the time without a political lecture while learning about the material of the show. We happen to have a couple of fans that take it seriously and I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am for that. Most podcasts you can think of want to be informative and consistent, which I understand, but we love to have fun. Regardless of the topic or the content, every guest we’ve had on the show have all said the same thing. It was different, and they had fun. That is what’s most important to me, not just running my show how I see fit, but making sure our listeners and guests have a fun and relaxing experience. We want to make people feel something, even if it is just a little laugh.

At the end of the day, I just want people to know that we are a blast, even with our political status and beliefs etc. We are no different than your average podcast, just with a more garage band look and feel.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I had to learn the hard way that this journey has rules like everywhere else in life, but no matter what happens, stick to your heart. Typically, when finding guests for our show, we explore on Instagram, and it was there that I found an artist whose work I love very much, I am a big fan. Anyway, I reached out to him and basically took a shot in the dark and asked him to be on the show. I should state, due to privacy issues and such, I will not name this artist, and I did not think he’d respond. Well, he did to my surprise, and he agreed to be on the show. In the weeks leading up to the recording date, I received a call from the guy, and he stated he couldn’t do the show because the record label he was contracted under had a no-nonsense policy, specifically with political issues. Once they found those red flags, he was informed he could not be on the show. I will say this, he was doing his best to give back to a fan, but it did hurt. I was pretty let down, but not at him, just the situation. I learned then that this business has rules.

There are many lessons from this experience, but I learned this one big thing about myself. It’s not about what happens to you but It’s about how you respond that matters. Sure, I felt defeated because this could have been huge for us; he was a mainstream artist whose work I follow on an emotional level, and it really felt like I needed to change who I am and submit to the popular wave of “do’s and don’ts” in order to have someone like him on. I contemplated giving up because I saw it as, if I can’t even get a mainstream artist on the show, I’ll never reach the big leagues. But then it hit me… I shouldn’t have to comply to the rules of the “popular kid’s club”, just to show how good I am and what I can bring to the table. That’s just bullshit, and I am not going to compromise my integrity to appease people. I just won’t do it. I accepted the fact that it is going to be hard, the further I go, and it will only get harder. I sucked it up and kept moving forward. In all of this, I gained a friend out of one of my idols, and I kept at it. Life just goes on, and it can only get better when you keep moving forward. And, it has. We’ve come a long way, and we have no desire to sell ourselves short because there is always someone out there who’s drinking what you pour. I couldn’t even imagine what would have happened if I let that one moment decide my fate in this business. Out of all the bad, there’s usually an even greater good that comes with it.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I cannot stress this enough, CONSISTENCY and DICIPLINE. You have to stick with it, this isn’t something you can just make one post a day on your Facebook and then return tomorrow. You have to be damn near crazy and believe in yourself. You have to basically be psychotic enough to believe you’re that good. You need to know about the power of hashtags and promoting your brand. When I started, I had no clue how to market and promote my show. It takes more than posting, you have to hashtag the shit out of your work, and you need to be on every social media app possible, just to further your reach. The biggest thing is sticking with a new routine. I make it my goal to post at least 20 or 30 different posts on either an upcoming or past episode (This really grabs people’s attention), and then I use the proper hashtags that pertain to the content of the episode. If you can stick to this, it will be a much easier start. Another thing that is really affective for building your audience, is sharing audiences with another creator/artist. Have as many guests on your show as you can, preferably other podcast hosts or artists with a big following. Also, stay away from apps and profiles that claim to help you gain more followers. Sure, they help but how much of that is fake profiles, while disappoint you. Do it organically. It’s a slow burn but the flame only gets bigger as you continue to feed it. Have fun with it, create memes and hash tag them. This is all easier said than done, but if you want it bad, you’ll make it work. I would like to close this answer out with wise words quoted by one of my recent guests, author James Michels. when I asked him for advice on sticking with it and building his audience, he simply said, “Stay obsessed.” I live my life by those words now.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thegreatgirthpodcast.com
• Instagram: @greatgirthpodwtonyandaustin
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegreatgirth
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCJFu0anshsxjINc1FzDQ-A

Image Credits
Naresh Vissa, Flamous King, Alex Leyba, Matt Graham “Milligram”, Malachi McAlister, and Keagan Lux