How to Monetize Your Podcast

Speaker 1 (00:02)

Hello and welcome to Podcasting Anything and Ask me anything for all things podcasting. I'm your host Ben CLOY, and I'm joined here in the studio with Mathew Passy, the podcast control. Matt and I wanted to move the conversation beyond the Podcasting 101 topics and move into the intermediate to advance podcasting strategy. To reach your goals, to interact with the show, submit your questions to be answered live, book a podcast audible with Matthew or find the notes from today's show. Head on over to Podcastminiething.com. We are back with another podcast. Meaning and I'm always joined by Mathew here in the studio. And today we've got some topics that were pretty exciting because I actually watched the live broadcast as well. So we've got a big launch out of Captivate and we've got some news out of Buzz Sprout. So first we'll go to the big news. What was it like for you watching Captivate launch those new features this week?

Speaker 2 (00:53)

I mean, those are always fun events to watch. Captivate come out with their new thing. Mark ask with and some of the team talking about some of the new features, the two that they enrolled yesterday. One was the kind of like their show Notes generator, right? You plug in your research, you are able to download links off Chrome browsers, you click a couple of buttons, you use their new short codes, and boom, you've got pretty good show Notes with very little work. So you still have to do the research ahead of time and kind of know what you want to talk about and prepare everything. But once you're done with your podcast, you can hit a couple of buttons and boom, right? You've got pretty good Show Notes that you're going to enjoy.

Speaker 1 (01:30)

And when I saw that for me, like as a podcaster, keeping track of ideas, interviews, and just keeping track of all that, like having a Chrome plug in that you can just grab information on the Internet that drops it into where you want. I was like, I just saw the sigh of relief because I had so many different even to this day, three years into podcasting, I don't really have a good research system. And it's always kind of maybe react towards people coming towards me of like being more reactionary than responding and being intentional with reaching out. So I'm just really excited to be able to grab things from the Internet and drop them in there and then kind of like let that be my curated feed because I've got a Google sheets, I've got it in one note and I've got a bunch of different places notes. It's just chaotic. And I love when he said we're at 90%, we challenge ourselves. Like, how can we go to 100%? So that your episode planning happens here in the system. And I think it was the first time that I fully bought into or even heard him talk about the vision that he really wants it to be a one stop ecosystem that I didn't really see that he was trying to make all these sidecars as much, but when he talked about getting it to 100%, to me that was really big because it just creates a lot of outside systems.

Speaker 1 (02:44)

And now he kind of highlighted that vision of like, we really want you to stop paying all these extra subscriptions and do it all in this one spot. So that was also really good for me to hear that vision and then get more excited down the road because that just wasn't the first thing. There was also the Monetization angle, which we're going to dive into today, of how to add tips right into the embed codes and to collect tips and get them right in your bank account without captivating any magic in the back end other than just transferring it from Boom to boom and X to Y. And that was also really exciting because we hear talked about, but you got Patreon strategies. There's so much noise when it comes to Monetization, which is why we're diving into it today. And it was just kind of nice to see a clean, crisp presentation. Here's how you can collect support from your listeners. And by the way, it's integrated and it's no extra thing.

Speaker 2 (03:35)

Yeah. I think right now it's basically just they will take your help, you get donations, help you get paid from the people who like your show. I have a feeling that they're going to once they've made that integration and once they've finessed it, you're going to see that get built out another way, possibly more membership availability. Right. They've already got private podcasting, and so they'll probably turn on some direct subscription to you models and things like that that are coming out of the woodwork. The other thing that I was really impressed by with Captivate is that it's connected through Stripe. And so any time you send money in the world, Stripe PayPal your credit card or bank transfer, like, somebody always has their hands in there. Somebody has always taken a little cut of the action. And so while Stripe is going to take a little bit of the action, it sounds like Captivate is going to basically just make it available to you and they don't need to take a cut of it, which I thought is really Noble of them and just speaks to their commitment to the independent podcaster.

Speaker 1 (04:35)

Right.

Speaker 2 (04:35)

Like, they're not in it to wrangle every dollar out of people who are using their platform. They're there to make it easier for people to be more successful with their podcasts. So as Mark said, the two biggest things that podcasters need are time and money. And yesterday they found a way to give you back more of your time and help you get more money so good on them.

Speaker 1 (04:58)

And there was two kind of like, just things I want to point out about his thinking and leadership. And these apply to podcasting as well is like I often tell myself where I also consult and I tell people this just because you can doesn't mean you should, and just because someone makes a policy for it doesn't mean it's something that needs to be enforced. So just because they can collect and take a portion of that, because business are in the business to make money doesn't mean you should. And he also then resolidified his core values and what he believes in his leadership philosophy and making sure that we really want to make sure you feel value within your first membership before we ever even think about adding these extra things or even taking money just because we can and making sure that whatever you're paying for your subscription model with them, that's where you want to get the money from and then all of their philosophies tied to that. So it also speaks to the character of the company and the people he surrounds himself with, which you don't often get a lot of insights into that, especially for a podcast company that you don't really know a lot of the back end leadership structure.

Speaker 1 (05:57)

But because he does these events, we now understand a little bit of what he thinks and people buy based on people's values like that. So that also is a good inclination going forward as well. There was also some news out of BuzzFeed changing their hosting limits.

Speaker 2 (06:11)

Blueberry.

Speaker 1 (06:12)

Blueberry, yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:13)

So apparently Blueberry, one of the legacy podcast, says opt their limits. So probably if there is a downside and it really depends on your view on the podcasting space. But if you want to call it the downside to the captivate business model is that you pay for how many downloads you get. So I think their basic plan for $19 a month or $20 a month. However, the pricing is like 13,000 downloads. Now you can launch 13,000 new shows and as long as all those only get one download a month, you are still within your limit. And if you get more than 13,000 downloads then you get kicked into a higher tier. So you know, some folks kind of see it as like being penalized for your success model. For the most part, I would say most podcasters will are lucky if they cross 13,000 downloads a month. And even when you get to the next tier, I think they're pretty generous. For $50 a month, some of the legacy podcast me anything is Lipson and Blueberry and I bring them up because apparently Libson also increased their limits, although they did so quietly earlier this year.

Speaker 2 (07:23)

But the way that Lipson and Blueberry operate is that you have a certain amount of content you can upload each month for a fixed rate. So for example, I'm just spitballing because I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head and I don't have the article in front of me. But right, for like $20 a month, you can upload call it, oh, here we go. For $20 a month, you can upload 400 megabytes to a Lipson plan. And then however many shows you can get, sorry, episodes, you can get up there under that time frame. That's what you can do. It doesn't matter how many times you download it just you can upload up to 400 megabytes. And so if you have smaller shows, shorter shows, like lower bit rate shows, lower process shows, then you can get more episodes in a month. And then come the first of the next month, boom, you've got another 400 megabytes to work with. So for Lipson, apparently back in February, it was now 540 megabytes. For $20 a month, Blueberry did the same thing. So Blueberry, which used to have very generous, like forgiveness or overage forgiveness, like, yeah, you paid for 400 megabytes a month, but if you go a little over, like, yeah, we'll help you out.

Speaker 2 (08:36)

We won't just kind of cut you off. But they decided to up their megabytes per month that you can get there too. I'd say there is definitely merits to both models that you're looking at. The one thing about the Blueberry Lipson model that is different from the captivate model. And again, it really depends on the size and scope of your show. If you want to launch a second show on Lipson or Blueberry, you would essentially have to pay for a second plan. Now, you can kind of get around that with Blueberry, especially if you're using the Power press plugin, because basically your website controls your feeds and you can attach any sort of audio to that feed. So you can kind of throw a couple of extra shows in there and run them differently. It takes a little bit of work, a little bit of hacking, and your statistics get a little bit messy. Like it's harder to see how your shows are performing against each other because it's all just one pool of data. But for the most part, every new show is a new feed and it's a new monthly cost. Whereas with the captivate, if you're not doing a ton of downloads, right, if you're launching a bunch of shows that are getting 100 downloads a month, you can watch as many shows as you want into the one plan and manage it all in one space.

Speaker 2 (09:48)

So that's the big difference. But I mean, good on the legacy players too, for being more generous, giving out more stuff, making it a little bit easier for podcasters to run their shows and give us more space to upload stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:06)

I know for me when I was using one of the legacy ones, it's just a weird feeling to have to metric your upload. Like, it's not something that's used in other software. It's not something you run into. I couldn't think of a feeling where I was like, oh, I can only upload so much. Usually you're always just kind of charged for, like, if you're using Google Drive or OneDrive or Dropbox, they really just care how much are you storing there versus, like, how much you're uploading. So it just kind of created an awkward feeling. And there was also something that when I did switch to Captivate, a new feeling kind of kept going because I also was in that, like, I want to start something new, but I don't want to double. Because if you're at the $20 Lipson, then if you double that, you're going to be at $40 very quickly. And you're like, well, this is going to get expensive really quick. And so then you're like, well, the Captivate model kind of seems like it's got some ground there, but I want to kind of give this also kind of pro tip that I learned doing this is most likely in some cases, your first podcast will not be the podcast.

Speaker 1 (11:03)

It might not be the best idea that you launch with and you're going to learn, I got a better idea, but maybe you don't want to pull the plug in the first idea because it's maybe not done growing up and you'd want to just kind of flirt with the second one. What I've really loved about Captivate is no matter how many inches I have for a podcast, I'm not penalized for it. And they can all kind of grow organically on their own, and they're not inhibiting me from starting it because I don't want an extra charge on my credit card. And I would much rather just pay that $119 fee upfront and be able to Bake a couple of different ideas to make sure I can understand which one grows. So that was something that I valued when I switched to Captivate. Was that idea of, you know what, I'm not limited by how many ideas I have, and I could start and try and see which ones stick. And now I'm a two podcast kind of guy. And I think this year I'm probably going to be a three podcast kind of guy. I probably wouldn't have had that freedom of thought if I was on one of the legacy players.

Speaker 2 (11:53)

Yeah, I'll admit I've launched a couple of podcasts in the pandemic that are not doing well, and I've shuddered very quickly. But you're right. Having that ability to just, say, launch a new show and not have to think about that additional cost does kind of give you a little bit of forgiveness is the most important part.

Speaker 1 (12:09)

Like, getting to that launch day is like, that's where you want to be. So, like, sometimes you got a serial launch.

Speaker 2 (12:14)

I'm sure there are people who are screaming at their mic, who are screaming at their speakers and their phones right now saying something like, oh, but the anchor is free. I can launch as many as I want. Yeah, fair you can. But I think Captivate is giving you way more features, way more resources, and a little bit more control over what you want to do. So listen, hosting is an important decision, but it is not necessarily a permanent 199 out of 100 hosts. If you aren't happy, you switch and you'll be fine. But watch out for those ones that don't make it easy for you to switch or don't let you switch, because then you'll be in trouble if you're not happy with what you picked.

Speaker 1 (12:57)

Yeah, and I've said this before in the podcast. The one thing that I love most about Captivate, not to just go on a rampage of how much we love Captivate, but both of us do, is I want to feel like I'm being led somewhere as a user, that they have a vision and that I can get excited about something in the future. A lot of the podcast players out there today, whether it be something that Spotify anchor itself really hasn't really changed since the beginning. And even after Spotify bought it, it still is pretty much the same thing. It hasn't kind of reinvented itself. It's not bringing a lot of extra features. So to me, I always want to be knowing more. And I remember my old It days. I was always excited when Microsoft was bringing to things like Microsoft teams because then I could be like, you know what? I could use that and bring it in board with it. So if I don't see that vision, I almost always get frustrated and be like, I want to know we're going somewhere. Because in software and as fast as the world changes, Stagnant, you can be stagnant one day and closed down for business the next day.

Speaker 2 (13:55)

Well, and I'll tell you this, I'm not sure how much I'll be allowed to say, but I actually have a call coming up with a certain podcast hosting company that's known for weighing things down. So I'll let you know if I have anything interesting to report after that.

Speaker 1 (14:12)

Well, I look forward to hearing about that as well, because I'm in the dark on that. So I'm interested to see what comes out of that as well. So moving past our headlines of the week, let's dive into our deep dive, which is Monetization, which focuses on like one of those basic building blocks for Monetization models, because there's a whole slew of different things and some of them can be pretty intimidating. And some of them I know for me and this is another kind of language thing that Captivate also uses is he always leverages the indie word, that these indie podcasters are different than people that have the clicks for the big average that they're getting like 10,000 downloads and the language is different, the mindset is different. So I'm curious, when you're either consulting on an indie or a business, when you need to go through those Monetization models, what are you kind of talking them through?

Speaker 2 (15:00)

So I actually did a presentation on this for podcast talking about how you monetize the podcast. Now, the first one, of course, is the main one that we've talked about before on the show, which is the sponsorship model. You build up an audience and you sell access to that audience for a price. It's usually negotiated on a CPM basis, cost per thousand downloads. So if you are getting 5000 downloads for an episode, you are charging $25 for a CPM. You can earn $125 per ad that you decide to run on your show. That's the main model. That's the one that most people go with and that's the one that seems to be the most popular. But there are other models. And the thing about the other models that I like a lot is that you can start using them and you can start monetizing and benefiting from them without having a big audience. So let's talk about some of the ways that you can do that. One, of course, is you can sell yourself, right? You're not using the podcast as a way. The podcast itself is not a revenue generation product. The podcast is just a lead generation product that gets people to use your other services.

Speaker 2 (16:09)

For example, maybe somebody listens to this podcast and says, Mathew kind of knows what he's talking about. Maybe I'll work with him and therefore great, I've earned a new client doing this podcast. That is a way for me to generate revenue from having it doesn't take 1000 listeners, it just takes one listener who likes what we have to say to come over and start to use our services. And I think a lot of people are using podcasts in that way. They're using it to top a sales funnel, brand recognition, just as a way to generate more business for a service, a product, a book, whatever it is that they are selling, they are using this to raise more awareness and get more people to spend money with them in other places, not from the podcast directly. Another thing you could do is you can start to sell merch. So maybe you have built up a nice following of people who like you. Maybe you're very clever, maybe your show is funny, maybe you've got a cool logo, maybe you've got a great saying that people are responding to. So you can go to a site like Tea Public or any of these other print on demand service websites, upload your logo, your design, whatever it is that you're going to be.

Speaker 2 (17:22)

And you can have a link on your store that says, hey, support the show, buy a T shirt that says Podcast me anything on it. And you can set what the prices of that shirt and the company that's making them is going to say, great. Out of the $20 you are charging for this shirt, we're going to collect our $12 that it takes to produce this. You can have the other $8 doesn't cost you anything upfront. Good luck. Sell as many shirts as you want. Pens, hats, whatever. Again, the nice thing there is that it doesn't cost you anything up front to start working on that model. And it doesn't necessarily require a huge audience to start making money. One person listening, one person clicks, one person buys your shirt. Great. Now, are the likelihoods of lots of people wanting to buy your merchandise very high? Not really. It's going to take some time. It's going to take a little bit of work. It can happen. But my point is that's a way that you can really start to make money without having a huge audience and without having to lay out any money up front.

Speaker 2 (18:29)

Another thing you can do is you can do affiliate links. And so affiliate links kind of work in the same way as advertising. And we have affiliate links as well. So you go to the Show Notes podcast, me, anything we're talking about. Captivate, we might have a link that says, hey, you want to check out captivate? Click on this link. And every time somebody clicks on that link and every time they sign up for captivate and every time they use it, captivate says, hey, Ben, Matthew, thank you for suggesting us to more people. Here's a little bit of the money that we made from them. You get to enjoy it again, cost us nothing to put affiliate links into our website, into our content, and at the same time, it cosbas captivate, nothing for us to say this message unless we are successful. Now, affiliate links are great, too, because you can use affiliate marketing as a way to talk to actual potential advertisers and say, listen, I wasn't even getting paid by this company and I was able to drive up 100 sales out of our whatever 500 downloads, which is a very impressive conversion rate.

Speaker 2 (19:33)

And that's going to be something that you can bring to an actual Advertiser that they're going to say, this isn't a large show, but it's an engaged audience. This person is a good salesperson. I can see where we can make money by supporting this show. So affiliate sales can be a great way to start your journey to earning true advertising dollars. Another one is you can use your platform to sell airspace, not for ads, but for guests and topics. Now, there is a lot of controversy. There's a lot of very strong opinions about whether or not you should sell access to your show, to guests to get in front of your audience. My feeling is it can be okay if you disclose it to your guests and if you disclose it to your audience that this is what you are doing and you've got a viable audience, that the value is there for someone to pay to get on your show. I think it's all okay. What I don't like are people who don't tell the audience this is a paid guest. They just pretend like, oh, this person is really smart. They're not smart.

Speaker 2 (20:53)

They just paid to be on here. We don't know how smart they are or worse is when I've gotten invitations to be on the show and it's like, oh, yeah, I'd love to be on your show. Great. Here's our form. And by the way, it'll be $300 to be on the show. I didn't ask to be on your show. I'm not paying you $300. That I think is a little bit nefarious, and I'm not a fan of that. So it can be okay to sell access to your show as long as I think you are upfront about it. The next thing. And this comes back to the question that this all started with, which is collecting money from your audience. This could be done as primarily what you mentioned earlier is the Patreon model, right? Hey, guys, I really love putting out this podcast. I'm not making any money doing it right now. It's taking up a lot of my time. And if you enjoy it and you want to hear more of it, could you please kick in a few dollars each month to help me out? Right. That might be in the form of recurring donations.

Speaker 2 (21:51)

It might be a one time buy me a coffee kind of a thing. But this is somebody who says, listen, I enjoy doing this. But right now it doesn't make any money. And if the time I commit to it needs to be compensated or it's just a way for your audience to say, you know what, we really like what you're doing, and we think it's worthy of supporting. So asking for donations is a way to go about it. Another way you can do this is to put out content that requires a pay for fee subscription. So maybe you're a really high quality journalist, let's say, doing in depth reporting in maybe Ukraine, of all places, right? Like you're in there, it's costing you money to go do this. It's time. It's energy, it's resources, it's a heavy production. And so you're putting out very high quality content, but you can't give it out for free. And it's not necessarily something that's like the scene on the ground in Ukraine is tragic. And now here's a word from Better Help advertising just might not feel right for what your content is. And so you might turn to your audience and say, listen, this is really good content.

Speaker 2 (23:06)

If you want to have access to it, it's going to cost you money. Netflix does it. Right. You can't access Netflix without paying for it. There's no free model. So if the content is good enough, you can simply say, here's our content. In order to access it, you have to pay for it. You could also do sort of like a mix or like a premium model, which is to say you give out content for free. But you offer extra benefits or exclusive benefits to those who are also willing to pay you some sort of monthly subscription fee. So that can be extra episodes that can be ad free episodes that can be membership to a Slack channel or some sort of like private community of listeners. I've seen one where the guy says, if you are part of the membership, like, you get discounts from folks who would normally advertise on the show, because I don't really want to take advertising dollars. Right. He has a problem with the idea of being paid to suggest something. And so to kind of eliminate that conflict of interest, he says, listen, they're not paying me anything for this.

Speaker 2 (24:22)

I happen to like their products. So I asked them to give you my paying members the steep discount. So it's kind of an interesting way to reverse psychology that but again, all sorts of things can be offered as a premium membership model for your podcast. And the funny thing is when you think about premium memberships, when you think about paid subscription and when you think about donations, they're kind of all the same thing with different branding. Right? Because you can use a lot of paid membership features in a donation model. I've got one client who he asked for small donations. And with your small donation, you get to hear your name in the credits of the show or send in questions ahead of time for a guest that's going to be on the show, which is pretty cool that they get to have their questions asked to these world class names in the space that they're interested in. But that said, it doesn't always make sense for a Fortune 500 company to say, hey, please give us some money. We need your help. Like, no, I'm not donating to a Fortune 500 company. I will pay a Fortune 500 company for an exclusive benefit.

Speaker 2 (25:34)

But I'm not donating to you. So, I mean, a lot of these are kind of the same thing, but it's in how you present it and how you brand it that is going to determine whether or not it's going to be effective and right for you. The last thing I want to say on all these models, the donations, the subscriptions, the premium membership models when it comes to monetizing your podcast is the effectiveness when you are selling an ad. We're doing the CPM model, right? We're doing $25 for every 1000 listeners, which equates to not even two and a half cents a person. If you're doing $25 CPM over 1000 people, you're earning two and a half cents per person per person. And that's if somebody wants to give you an ad, even if you take that CPM all the way up to I have people who can get $1,000 CPM. So even if you are actually a really coveted audience that's highly engaged, that's super affluent and wealthy, there's money and spending blah, blah, all these different things. So even if you're getting $1,000 CPM, at best, you are earning one dollars per person listening to your show when an Advertiser wants to support your show.

Speaker 2 (27:01)

If you do a premium model, whether it's the donation, whether it's the paid subscription, whether it's the premium benefits, any one of those different things, your per person rate skyrockets because even if you're charging people as low as $5 a month, that's $5 per person instead of one dollars. And now you might say, but I run an ad four times a week, okay? So now you're getting $4 a month for that person. And that's only if you're lucky enough to get $1,000 CPM and only if you're lucky enough to get advertising. All these different things, if you can convert someone to a direct payment model to you, whether it's for exclusive benefits, for donations, just to access your content in the first place, your per person rate skyrockets. And a lot of the things that people can offer in a premium membership or in a donation model don't have to cost them anything upfront to do it. And you can start doing it with one listener. It's something you can start doing from day one. You don't have to wait to have built up an audience in order to make $125 per ad on your show.

Speaker 1 (28:18)

I have a follow up question into our question because the one question that I've struggled with because there's kind of like two thoughts that go in my mind, is there's one there's like the knowledge, like you just outlayed all the different monolization models, and then there's this second thought that's like what will work? And so today's question is, how do you know maybe even from the beginning, when maybe a private podcast or something that becomes exclusive because they all look good to understand, like, oh, that's a really interesting model. That's an interesting model. Oh, that's an interesting model. How do you understand when your idea is good enough to and I hate to hesitate, good enough, but when it's ripe for an exclusive model, because unless we have already a million followers on Instagram or some type of following where we say something and people like it no matter what. To me, like, most indie podcasters don't really make a good business model for private podcasts. But I'd love to hear where your mind goes because for me, when I've always had all these different ideas, this question has also been haunted me on when do you know your idea is good enough for those other models?

Speaker 2 (29:28)

Well, listen, I mean, I could tell you that, you know, when it's a good idea, when listen, if it's not a good idea for making money, it's probably not a good idea for a podcast in the first place. So the first thing you need to do is decide, why are you podcasting and are you podcasting for the right reasons? And are you finding a specific niche? Are you filling a void that isn't in there? Is there a target market? Are you passionate about it? Are you curious? I don't think the question of can I monetize a good idea matters as much as do you have a good idea in the first place? If you don't have a good idea in the first place, you can't monetize it anyway. And I think a lot of podcasters are not a lot. There are some podcasters who are out there who are doing this just for their pure enjoyment and fun. They don't need to monetize it. So great. Enjoy yourself. If you don't have a huge audience, that doesn't matter to you. Again, fine, I got to be with you. Have fun, enjoy podcasting. It should be fun.

Speaker 2 (30:23)

But if you are someone who is doing this and you are taking it seriously and the reason why you're doing it is because it's going to become your source of income or it's going to become your secondary source of income, or it's going to fund this or fund that. Like, if you're so serious about podcasting that you're listening to a show about podcasting like this one and thinking about the revenue structure, then you should have an idea that is good enough to even consider people supporting it in some way, shape or form. So that's the first thing. Like, do you have a good idea even to start a podcast? Okay, you might have a good enough idea then to go down one of these roads, but then the next piece of it is what is the value that you are providing? We always talk about podcasting is often free, and so you have to understand people are investing their time in you. If they are investing their time in you, what value are you providing for them? It could be knowledge, could be education. It could just be fun and distraction and entertainment and laughs.

Speaker 2 (31:29)

That is a type of value that people would like in the world, and that's what they get. The question becomes, is the companionship of a podcast worth $5 a month to me, or can I find one that's for free that does the job without it? So you have to know whether or not what you're doing is going to provide value. So back to kind of your question. When do I know that I could start doing this? When you're ready to start doing this, when you're ready to invest the time and the effort and the creative juices that it takes to put this stuff out there. Because one, you can have an idea and you know that it's valuable and put it out there and do it. But here's the other thing. How do I know when this is going to work? Sometimes you just don't know that it's going to work. Sometimes the things that on paper make the most sense to work don't work. And sometimes the things that you look at and you go, that is a stupid idea. Become massive, massive mega hits and massively successful. And so because we are talking about a lot of different strategies that don't really take a ton of money to invest in, right?

Speaker 2 (32:41)

You get a microphone, you get some hosting, you can start to collect money from people without laying out money first. The services you would use, just take a cut of that money that you would receive. You could start doing this at any point. It's just a matter of are you providing people a good enough reason to fork over their hard earned dollars to support it? And are you showing people that you value their financial commitment to you? If you aren't giving people value and you can't show people that you value their commitment to you, you are probably not going to be successful doing it. But if you can do those two things and you're in a space where the audience is looking for something and you're filling that void and you're interested, if you can check all those boxes of something that people want to do and give them the right value, I don't see why you can't be successful doing this.

Speaker 1 (33:47)

A question and a plug that I want to think about when you are asking that question was even the way I asked it, how do you know when it's a good idea? Well, almost every idea is a good idea on the surface, but it doesn't always mean it's sharp, meaning that it could be like a round rock versus like an Arrowhead that could cut something. And also just the effectiveness of hiring someone like you with the podcast consultant. By the way, if you want Matthewservice, head over to podcastconsult.com, because especially in this case where you're looking to do a private podcast, maybe from the beginning, or you're really looking to bring exclusivity to your idea and that you have an idea from the very beginning, it needs to be set up the right way. Perspective is probably the one thing that is most valuable because if you launch with what you think you know, especially in podcasting, even when you know everything, you still absolutely know nothing. And it's proven almost every day you go to a podcast conference and you see someone talk about a strategy or a new tool or a new theory about podcasting.

Speaker 1 (34:45)

So having someone like you, Matthew, I think could be really the difference between once you have a good idea for exclusivity, finding someone that can help you sharpen it, see what you can't see, give you perspective, and also give you that like, yeah, this is one of those ideas that could actually stick and work or maybe give you the feedback that you need, that like this is a good idea. But I think maybe you've got a better idea and maybe if there's some coaching that you do could help them get to that better idea and there's a lot of time. Time is the most valuable resource, and spending it on the wrong type of podcast or the wrong strategy can be extremely costly. You'll learn along the way. There is no failure unless you quit. But I could just really see the value in having a consultant for this specific type of podcast when it needs to be private.

Speaker 2 (35:28)

And I'll tell you, this isn't even just if you haven't started yet. We are still doing podcast audits and podcast coaching and consulting with existing clients. And I'll tell you, most of those coaching and consulting calls usually come down to people who have most of the basics that they need. They've just lost sight of their focus. And so if we can help you Hone in that focus, think about your focus. Come at it with a clean perspective without the emotional attachment that you've had to it because you've been working your butt off on it for months or years. It can really open your eyes and give you a chance to get yourself back on track. So don't think you have to just be someone who's thinking about launching a podcast. You could have an existing one and just need a little push back in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (36:14)

It can be a rebrand that can be thinking about your strategy or you're just sitting on a powder keg of potential with your podcast. And no one's really pointed out like, hey, you should look over here. Because right here, if you turn that little switch, things start coming on and your podcast can start because it's the little things that will make the biggest difference. And an acronym that I'm always thinking about when you said the word focus is focus also can stand for follow on course until success. And as podcasters, there's so many squirrels chasing in front of us, we can lose sight of that path that we've been on when we first launched. So getting someone back to that path, I could really see the value. And again, I had a testament. My friendship with you, Matthew, began because I first decided to get some outside perspective. And now I feel like almost two years later we're coming up and I feel like our two year friendship anniversary or Facebook hasn't reminded me of that yet. But I'm sure it's soon that this began from just our mutual discussion of how could you help my podcast military veteran dad get better.

Speaker 1 (37:10)

So if you're out there listening on the fence, jump off the fence, head over to podcastconsultant.com, because Matthewinsight podcastconsultant.com the podcastconsultant.com.

Speaker 2 (37:19)

Otherwise you're getting held with Dave Jackson. He's a great individual and Dave is amazing and is going to be very helpful. But you won't get me.

Speaker 1 (37:26)

Yeah, you won't get Mathew, the man on the podcast. So again, heading over there, because if you're on that fence, now's the time. And as you think about finishing 2022 strong, even though we're still in the beginning we're almost done with Q. One. So what are the remaining goals you have for the next three quarters and aligning? That could be the one thing that makes your 2022 with your podcast the right one. So, Matthew, that does it for it. We have rounded out three things and we are ready to close this episode out. Thank you again, as always, for joining us today and live from the podcast studio here in New Jersey and look forward to hearing it and seeing it evolve over the course of the next few months as well, sir.

Speaker 2 (38:05)

It's been a pleasure.