369 - When Does the Podcast Money Start Rolling In?

0:05 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Friday, September 12th, 2025, and today we've got a TikTok clip that doesn't hold back when it comes to podcast advice. We'll listen, react, and then open up the room for your podcast launch tips. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via YouTube or podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here.

1:20 Good morning again, podcasting, morning chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host, Mark Ronic and on stage with me currently we have producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Faye, Nick Naulback and Sid Meadows. I'm sure we'll hear and see from or see and hear from the crew, the rest of the crew momentarily. Admittedly, I got to let you know upfront had another migraine this morning when I woke up and so I'm feeling a little Spacey right now, but I think I'll be OK. But if you hear me stumbling a little more than usual, that's probably why. And also maybe stumbling a little bit because I'm sad about my Washington commanders who lost to Nick's Green Bay Packers last night.

2:07 They looked, they being Washington looked terrible. And I know we're not a sports show, we're not going to dwell on it too much, but this is one of my big passions are the Washington Commanders and they really let me down last night. Although I got some decent fantasy production out of Debo Samuels, so I'm excited about that. OK, so with that, it's a Friday. So yes, we will of course get to our wins from this past week, but we're also going to play this short TikTok clip that I found about launching a podcast from 2 podcasters. And after we listen, I want us to share our reactions. Do we agree?

2:48 Do we disagree? Why? And then we'll open up the room for everyone's best tips on launching a podcast. So with that, I guess I should just go ahead and dig into it. Let me make sure I've got the right button. As some of you know, sometimes I'm infamous for not hitting the right button. Here we go. This is from at OK sister pod. So if you're on TikTok, you want to hear more from them after you hear this clip, it's OK. AY, sister Pod, here we go. Best tips for launching a new podcast? Don't do it for the money. Yep, Do it because you want to grow your network, Yep. And you want to build a community and you want to share a message.

3:31 Do not do it for the money. Don't do it if you aren't willing to commit every single week for at least a year and a half. Don't be discouraged when you don't see any downloads for the first. Couple months. It might just be your grandma, you, you. And then the other tip I would say, I know it's really overwhelming in the beginning because the podcast is not just like starting an Instagram. It's it's a whole production. It you have to edit and all these things that might cost money in the beginning. Whatever you got to do to to be consistent is number one. But the minute you feel ready, throw video into the mix because it will fundamentally change everything. There you go. So thank you to. OK, sister Pod, I think there are really three main things that they shared here as far as their advice for launching a podcast. Don't do it for the money.

4:18 Commit for at least a year. Add actually didn't say add video, but what they did say here was it's not like starting an Instagram, right? So, and I'm curious why they say that because I mean, yeah, sure, it's not quite like starting an Instagram, but I could argue if you're really going all in on Instagram, there's a big commitment involved in that too. I think they're trying to imply that maybe it's easier to start an Instagram. Maybe we can talk about that too. Which point of theirs stood out to you the most and why? I'm curious. Anyone here on stage with us? We'll go to Dr. and I was going to say, what about that? Don't do it for the money, but let's see what Dr. has to say. Go ahead.

5:02 What I was going to say before you ask the question, I thought, what is your? I thought you were going to ask what our suggestions were, but she kind of took my suggestion when she said, you know, make sure that you're in it for, you know, about a year. I'd say a year and a half. You know, it's really hard when you go in with all your dreams and usually people go into it first. They have the name of their podcast. They live with the name of their podcast longer than the podcast is a lot because they, you know, you ever been in a conversation where you go that would make a good name for a podcast? So they have this thing in their head for a long time and they're married to it and they finally get a podcast and they think, OK, money, OK, sponsors, let's do it, let's do it.

5:51 But that's not what happens. You have to, it's really hard to find people who are dedicated to the podcast when there's no money coming in and dedicated maybe for, you know, well over a year. Thank you, Dr. All right, let's stay on this topic, unless, Ashley, were you going to go in a different direction? I was going to comment on the whole don't do it for the money. And Dr. that's what you were just talking about, right? Don't do it for the money. Or were you talking about more of the commitment, the long lasting? No. Don't do it for the money. I think it's just the awareness that you have. Before you go in, make sure that your expectations are 100%, Yeah.

6:34 Yeah. OK. So Ashley, you want to add on to that, What are your thoughts about don't do It for the money if you're starting a podcast? Because here's The thing is that there are so many businesses out there and brands out there that are putting out podcasts. You got to think they're doing it at least somewhat for financial purposes in some way, maybe indirectly or directly. So what? What are your thoughts Ashley, as far as don't do it for the money? That really resonated with me because I tend to think of podcasting as an art form first and a marketing tool second. It could certainly be a profound marketing tool, but I think at the root of it, there's an art form to it. And I don't know why, but I think there's some kind of unspoken universal law. But if you are making art with the sole purpose of making money, then you probably won't.

7:25 I don't know why that is, but I've just seen it happen. And I just wanted to say I think this clip is probably one of the most realistic tellings of what it's like to start a podcast. For example, when you first start, you only get a few downloads. It could be your grandma. That is so true. Yes that that is true. It could definitely just be some of your family listening initially, especially if you don't have a good strategy with a good launch strategy. In particular Billy. I asked Billy to come up on stage because he opened up the chat room this morning by saying quote don't do it for the money. Shut this S off lol. So Billy, please explain.

8:07 I want to hear what you meant by that. I think this is the easy thing to, for podcasters and content creators to, to get into is like, well, I'm not doing it for money because it's a good, it's a good cop out. It's a good excuse not to work hard. It's a good excuse not to plan well, and it's a good excuse not to be focused. And so anytime I hear somebody say this podcast you ever listen to about podcasting, someone talks about money and they go, oh, you got to do this for three to five years and get 10 to 20,000 downloads per episode. And that's a very traditional model. And so most people get what they want, expectations not to go in this thing and make money, then they won't even long term when they can. I mean, I know a lot of people have amazing shows and could monetize when they don't because they've been told they can't. And the people who change that mindset, they do even with very small audiences.

9:06 Thank you, Billy. And so what's realistic then, let's say a new podcaster, Somebody's ready to start their podcast. They're eager, they're excited, and they do want to make money. So what's realistic for them as far as their expectations are concerned? Well, I think 1:00 they have to have a If you ever want to make money, you'd have a business plan. So it can't. Me and Greg on the couch drinking beers on Friday talking about our we get the construction site that might overtime make money, but you need to really dial in your niche and your audience and make content for people you want to listen to your show. Like when I started my fishing show, the whole thing was to make money. Like we understood there's a lot of money in that industry and there's a lot of opportunity in the podcasting space that wasn't being met.

9:56 And so we went and looked for a market that we could serve and we created content to serve it. And that podcast was making money from episode 5 and still make some money, multiple streams of revenue and made most people's salary the year the first year was going. I think those are the things you have to do. You get to think about it as a business. But I get it. I mean, if it's an art and you don't want it to be a business, it never will be. So just enjoy working really hard for for fun. Thank you, Billy. Thank you. Appreciate that. And yeah, I think that makes sense, especially the very first thing that you said that led off your response about really if you're going to approach it as don't make, don't expect to make money, that's exactly the result you'll probably receive.

10:43 If you actually have a business plan like you said, I think it's possible for anyone to make money if you, of course, you also have to execute the business plan. And I saw that, Sid, you were agreeing, at least it looked like it with Billy, which is always a rare, a rare moment on this show. So I'm curious if you wanted to expand at all? I'm sorry you're making me laugh because good morning to everybody. It is rare that I agree with my friend Billy, but in this case, I actually do agree with him. Whether your goal is to make money or not, I do think you need a plan, need a business plan around what you're going to do with your podcast. And you'd execute the plan because I mean, if you just want to build your brand and you want to use it as that to help build your brand inadvertently, that's going to bring you money because people are going to want to hire you or buy your product or service, right? So you need a plan of how this plays into what your ecosystem is.

11:37 If you're doing it just for fun, to do it for fun and have a good time with it, right? But I think most people it'd be still need a plan if you can do it for fun, by the way. But I mean, I think most people want to make money and they see a podcasting as an Ave. to make money. And you can, but to Billy's point, and you got to put in the work, podcasting is not for the faint of heart, right? I mean, you just a lot of stuff you have to do and equipment you have to buy and commitments. And so, I mean, I think you got to have a plan and you got to execute that plan 100%. So yes, today, mark it down, the 12th of September, I agreed with Billy. Let's play. Thank you. By the way, Thank you, Sid. And let's play devil's advocate for a minute.

12:17 I'm curious, why do we think they would say don't expect to make money? Because it's hard. It's hard. And why do you not expect to make money? I mean, I think that so many people go into podcasting and they don't know what their niche is. They don't know who their audience is. They don't know the problems that they're solving, right? They just see this thing of a podcast. So they'd be really cool and they just start and so and they don't really understand whose sponsors could be or what their clients want, right? So I think it's just in the beginning, it's really hard to make money. And I will admit I was in the camp of I didn't want to make money with my podcast course. I didn't know what I was doing when I started. And when this room encouraged me to get a sponsor, I was like, what? Like I don't need a sponsor because my correlation to somebody paying me money meant that they got creative control of my show.

13:11 And that was one thing that I needed to be sure that I didn't give up was creative control of my show. And when I finally got a sponsor, I remember announcing it in this room, what however many years ago that I had a sponsor. Those pay me a lot of money a month. And it it worked out really like the really great. They're my sponsor for three years, but it took me time to get over the mindset of giving up something in order to get something. What advice would you give then to somebody along those lines? You know, you that you have to and sorry, my migraine brain is kind of failing me at the moment, but to what you just said, what what kind of advice could you give somebody who's struggling with that? It's a really great question and and what I would advise to a young podcaster or a new podcaster who's looking to add revenue to their businesses.

14:00 I mean, go back to what Billy said. You got to, you got to have your plan, you got to know your business. You got to know what your podcast does. You got to know who the audience is, who you serve, right? And you just got to have those basic foundations covered and then know who is the ideal list, who's the ideal, excuse me, sponsor for you. I mean, I think about sponsorships and I'm as I'm listening to shows, I'm when ads come on, I'm thinking, what would they make a good sponsor for my show? Because I'm looking at what, what am I planning for season 7 of my show and sponsorship getting back in sponsorships is certainly one of them, right. So I'm thinking about, OK, you know, I typically think just furniture industry only, but I want to go a little bit broader and what do, because my people listening are people like, could they benefit from an insurance company being our sponsor, right?

14:51 I mean, so I'm thinking about those kinds of things that, but I think you just have to look around your ecosystem and figure out who would make a good sponsor. What kind of relationship do you want to build with them? Or do you just want to get a 32nd ad for, you know, 8 cents, 8 cents a listen or something, Right? Crazy like that. But Mark, I also saw that Nick, Dr. and Alex had raised their pepper to have a conversation too. Thank you, Sid, And that reference raising Peppers, that's just the emoji that we flash when we want to chime in on the conversation. And I'm going to not go to Dr. 'cause I know it's kitchen time. She's cooking. So what I'll do is first actually go to Billy, because I like when Sid and Billy are chatting. There's usually something entertaining that happens and then we'll check in with Nick and Alex. So Billy, what did you want to add? I.

15:39 Would just say this, and this is for all content creators. I'm not beaten up on podcasters. It happens in every industry, video, audio, whatever. If we want to come into this thing and we go, if there's even a thought of like I may want to monetize down the road, you have to be proactive, not reactive. So many times I've talked to content creators that are like, well, I'll just do 100 episodes or 100 videos or I'll do this or I'll do that and maybe a brand is going to just magically reach out to me and that is not going to happen. I've done over 4000 brand deals in the last 36 months. Those people are not just busting in my inbox in the beginning. Now they are because I've built a reputation in the industry. But in the very beginning, I did a lot of stinking work, late nights, early mornings, thinking outside the box, not listening to every in those girls.

16:34 By the way, they don't monetize because they read the same article that everyone else has read for 10 years. Quit with the stupid articles. There's a lot of money out there. There's a lot of niches out there. We signed a $10,400 sponsorship deal with 4 episodes on a fishing show with 400 downloads. So it's possible if you have the right conversations with the right people and you have the right intentions of building something, you can. But it is work. Is it a lot easier if I can go? But, and here's my argument, I always tell people like Sir, I could have went and built a YouTube channel. It took me 10 years to get to 1,000,000 people and then I can get paid pennies for those 3:00 PM rates. I can do that with podcasting.

17:17 We all can go do that. We all have a little bit of time. Or I can just dial in super, super, super dial in what I'm doing and who I'm talking to. And then I can go find the right partnerships that make the most amount of sense and build the value around a lot more than just, well, I get 55 downloads. Like, let me give a shit about downloads. Starting met your community, starting met your people, start talking about the audience and what matters from that audience. When I sold that $10,400 sponsorship deal, I didn't go there going, hey, you got 400 downloads. That lady's niece probably had a million on TikTok doing a little dance. I went in and said, hey, I have 400 people watching and listening to my podcast that are from this area, that are from this region. Would that be helpful to you?

18:04 As a boat dealership, we're damn right it wouldn't be. And then when they close the vote deal from our podcast, they signed up forever. They're never not going to sign because that one deal paid for the next five years. Thank you, Billy. This goes back to the point you first made. You got to treat it like a business or part of one. If it's just part of us, not just if it's part of a strategy, you got to treat it like a business. You can't expect the whole if you build it, they will come philosophy. It's just, it just doesn't work the majority of the time. Can it work? I I suppose so. Got to treat it like a business. If your intention is to make money. And we're not saying you have to go into podcasting to make money.

18:48 There are definitely people out there that are podcasting because they want to get their message out there. And that's OK. We we're cool with that if that's really what your intention is. But we believe that many people are starting podcasts for that very reason, to make money or to help their business build, build its brand, which ultimately is to make money, right. They're they're building a personality around their brand using a podcast. Yeah. Because they're, they want to sustain their business. They want to build it, grow it. And ultimately that means money.

19:29 So let's not pretend that that's not ultimately a lot of people's main objective and you got to treat it like a business. OK, who? Who else wanted to chime in? Let's go to Nick, and then we'll check in with Alex. Go ahead, Nick, and screw the Packers. OK, go ahead. I think you're a little bitter about the loss. And that's why you let Billy jump ahead of me. And totally. Steal my. That's right. You're right. What? Was the game yesterday. Yeah, you didn't know that. I didn't. Realize that they lost. Yeah. And they beat the Giants last week. OK, go ahead, Nick. I was going to say very. Similar along the lines of what Billy was saying the the people like in this clip that are saying don't expect money early on.

20:14 They're also sitting back waiting for the money to come to them. If you want to make money, you have to go out and get the money and not expect it to come to you. Like that's ultimately the whole thing. Like, yes, it does happen. People put out some viral TikTok videos and then brands start reaching out to them and try to cut deals and all that. But that's very, very rare, especially in podcasting. If you want to make money with it, you have to go out. I'm with you there and by the way, everyone, Speaking of money, if you want to support Nick's GoFundMe to get a new Bluetooth headset, feel free to do No, we don't have the link for real, but we just want Nick to get a new headset.

20:59 Thank you, Nick. Appreciate that we'll be. Holding a marathon on it, sort of like a telethon. Very short for it. Yes, that's maybe we'll do a whole episode, a telethon episode for Nick's new Bluetooth headset. Actually, I have my tux ready. I'm going to be Jerry Lewis. OK? I like it. I wonder how many people still know that reference. I know I I just saw a clip on that the other day when him and Steve Steve Martin though reunited. Jerry Lewis and. Dean Martin. Dean Martin when they on the telethon and it was Frank Sinatra. You probably saw it just the other day because that telethon for muscular dystrophy used to happen Labor Day weekend.

21:40 So the, yeah, there's probably clips floating around because of that. I actually was a was a phone answerer, is that right? An operator at the local telethon years and years ago in the Washington, DC area. And yeah, spent like the whole day and night doing that. Took like 3 hours sleep and then got up again. And yeah, it was. Pretty. I've walked a few miles myself. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know, I used to tell people because the way the schools are structured nowadays, the schedules for the schools, since I'm child free, I have no idea when school time starts or anything like that. But I remember when I was a kid, I knew that I was expecting at school the day after Jerry Lewis saying you'll never walk alone in the in the telethon ended.

22:29 That's the way I knew that the next day was school. Yep, I can relate to that Dr. Absolutely. And Alex, did you want to chime in also on this, on this clip we played and I guess really what we've been talking about was this was specifically about making money. There was a breaking news that just happened. Hell froze over because Sid and Billy actually agreed on something. Seriously, it comes down to podcasters have to go back to school. When it comes to a podcast is no different than any other business. I want to shift gears for just a quick second. Go back to the question you had about brands or write a comment about brands. I think all businesses or brands should have a podcast.

23:12 And because research shows that a customer, potential customer reaches out to you, reaches out and touches you in some way up to seven times before they ever contact you. That could be website, that could be LinkedIn, that could be Facebook, right? Social media, right? Excuse me, why wouldn't you have a podcast? And they get to know you. They get to hear your voices, they get to hear what you talked about, right? It's a great marketing thing that can lead to business coming into your revenue coming into your business. And I think a great example of this is a podcast I listen to called The Landlord Diaries. It's by a company called Furnished Finders, which is a website for real estate investors who focus on the 30 day stay or what's referred to as midterm rentals. And they share insights and information to help you with your business and, and they talk about their tools along the way, but they don't sell.

24:16 They'll sell, but they share insights and information that helped me as a real estate investor. And when I get a property that qualifies as a midterm rental, you can be damn straight. I'm going straight to their website and signing up because I've learned so much about them and I have this trust level with them through their podcasts. So I think that all brands should have a podcast to help extend your reach and give people the opportunity to get know, like and trust you because seven times they're trying, they're interacting with your brand before they ever call you. And that's a really important statistic. Yeah, and thank you said, I like also what you were just sharing about how you're listening to that real estate podcast and they're giving tips and advice and they're incorporating their own tools into those tips and advice.

25:06 And it's to me that it's almost like product placement at that point, right where you're a. Couple of weeks ago, well a couple of weeks ago they did a show cause a couple of months ago now about the top five markets to invest in based on research from their site and the number one market they recommended is about 2 1/2 hours for me. Do you know what I did? Found a real estate friendly, she'd be an investor friendly real estate agent and I started looking at properties there and I have a list of properties that I'm interested in. Now I am looking to go be an investor in that market because of the information they shared based on research from their platform as to why it was a they gave all these facts about why it's a great market to invest in and I go back again when I get a property that qualifies.

25:51 The first place I'm going is to furnish finders to list my sight. Yeah, that's that's a huge win for them for sure. And by the way, wins from our week coming up shortly. Does anyone else want to chime in as far as the money stuff goes? Because I want to ask another question based on what we heard in the clip. OK, So what about this whole thing? Don't expect a lot of downloads, right? That's one of the things that they said. You might not get a lot of downloads to start with. Do you agree with that? Is that pretty much? I mean, obviously it's not. We can't say it's something everyone can expect. But do we believe for the most part, if you're starting a podcast, you have to expect that you're going to start out slow.

26:36 Your grandma might be the only one listening. I see Amanda Yoa in the chat says yes. Amanda, do you want to come up here? And would you mind expanding on that a little bit 'cause I'm. I'm curious. Here she comes. Yeah, I'm curious. What makes you say that? Amanda Yoa and good morning. Welcome back. It's been a minute since we've talked to you. Good morning. Yeah, it's great to be back. I'm glad I was able to pop on. For most, you know, unless you already have a strong following, you're going to start off slow and that's OK. You got to build that traction. I think unless you're that celebrity status or like I said, if you have already have a huge following and you can market that for yourself. For most, you're going to start out low and slow, which is OK because you're learning anyway as you go. For the most part, I would agree with that. I mean, I think there are other exceptions. For example, you know, we've been talking here about brands and businesses, right?

27:34 Those brands and businesses may have like you're saying Amanda, that established following already. So they might have a little bit of a built in audience to get started. Whereas if you're starting fresh or maybe you're an entrepreneur and you have a successful business but not this huge following, then yeah, it could be a little more slow to start. But I saw Matt Bliss who's joined us had something to say about this. Go ahead, Matt. Good morning. Good morning everybody. This week on Rethinking Podcasting, I released an episode about a live Internet theory, which is kind of a unsupported opposition to dead Internet theory, being an idea developed in 2016 that the Internet is slowly being filled with generated content and we're not interacting with humans a lot.

28:28 But my reframe on that for podcasting in general is to think not of the numbers you look at as the numbers that need to keep going up and up and up. Because what many people talk about, whether it's, you know, downloads or money, you'll never hit the point where you're happy. You always want to keep growing and growing and growing. And what I loved about a live Internet theory is that the postulation there is that there is more humans out there than you think. That behind every number there is a person for podcasting, no matter how many downloads you have, if you consider that every one of those is a human interacting with or has interacted with you, then it kind of reframes the idea of the number.

29:15 Now in saying all that, it's clearly dismissive of the question, which is do we agree or disagree that the numbers will be small or fast or that people should be patient or not patient or that only their grandmother's listening it? It's it's not. But I think the reframe at the beginning that they're trying to get to with that statement is that at the beginning it's going to be slow because they said that in the clip too. You know, it's going to be a slow time. They said a year and a half before you're happy with whatever you're doing. But that reframe in that episode I did today, which was why I was so keen to jump it to the front of my queue, was that for every that, that you're, you're interacting with people and they're interacting with you. And it kind of solves a few other problems as well. But it's the feeling.

29:59 It's, it's knowing that those 15 downloads are 15 people. And if you had 15 people in a room with you and they were sitting there listening to you, that would feel way different than looking at the number 15 across 24 hours on your analytics dashboard. So a little bit of a plug, little bit of a reframe, but I think it helps the way we think about this stuff a little bit more. Agreed, Matt. Thank you. And I was chomping at the bit. I literally wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. And then you said it out loud. The whole idea of yeah, this reminds me of that old saying, you know, if you only have, quote, UN quote, 15 people, 2550 people. And if you're that in that mindset that it's only 15 people, Yeah.

30:47 But if you could see that you were, let's say you hold an in person event once a week and you have 1520 thirty people showing up every week, I feel like that's going to feel different to you. I know it feels different to me. It's it's easy to look at numbers and just look at them as numbers. But if we're we start to humanize those numbers, all of a sudden things do feel a little bit different. And you know, looking right here, some some people, you know, right now, we probably have 20 or so people listening alive. And some people might have look at that of the perspective of, oh, this isn't worth it. I don't have many people here, although I can tell you that when I'm on Clubhouse and I see all these faces here, I know that I have live listeners that are actually human beings. And when I see your faces here and I see you reacting in the chat, it helps me humanize those numbers a bit. But even if my numbers were similar on the podcast downloads, it, Yeah, I can.

31:55 I could get stuck in that mode of, oh, it's only this. It's only that I have gotten to the point I have been able to remind myself and train myself to recognize that these are real people that are listening, that keep coming back each and every time. I love what Matthew said and kind of what you tagged onto it. And the end of the day, there's really very few people, probably less than .01% of people that have what you can call overnight success. You got to work for it. Great. Anything worth having, you got to work for it. You got to put it in. You got to have the plan, you got to have the marketing ideas and the strategies in order to drive people to the show. It's not the Field of Dreams.

32:40 If you build it, they will come, right? You mentioned that earlier, right? However, there is a group of people that have already done the work that have already put in the effort to build their brand and they have a really big following. And I think the one that comes to mind for me, Mark, is the two guys on the plane, the show that you produce, right? They have huge Instagram following before they started a podcast. So I would assume that this this conversation about low downloads for them was completely different because they had such a huge Instagram following. They'd already done the work to build their brand and this was just an adject to it. Is that accurate? It is accurate and it isn't because it's all relative right?

33:23 So they yes you're right. They have 6 figure followers on Instagram. I can't remember the exact number and I know that I'm not going to share their numbers because I don't know if that's something they're comfortable with me doing. It shouldn't be, but or should they should be comfortable with that. But I know that when they see their numbers, what you what you see as your numbers, if you saw theirs, you'd be like, wow, that's some impressive numbers. But to them, they at first, I think they've since shifted their mindset, but at first they were thinking, is this good? Because it doesn't compare to what our Instagram reels or Instagram memes are getting as far as eyeballs. So it is sometimes relative depending on who you're talking to.

34:11 But yes, they are in my opinion doing quite well with their podcast. Imagine if they started in reverse. Yeah. Imagine if they started their podcast 1st and then went to go build their Instagram page. The results will probably be dramatically different because you still have to be discovered as a content creator. Whether your first platform is podcast, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, doesn't matter. You still have to put in the work to be discovered. So if it was reversed, I'm sure they'd be going home. This is not worth it. I mean, a lot of us go through those emotions. Only got 20 downloads. But to your point, it's about thinking about I just impacted 20 people. Yeah, Thank you. And great example to thank you for mentioning 2 guys on a plane. And that is actually even a good segue to the last part of this here, which they were saying don't expect this to be like an Instagram.

35:03 And their implication was because Instagram's a lot easier to build than a podcast. I'm from my conversations with two guys on a plane who have had a lot of success growing their social media and Instagram in particular. That took hard work. That was not an overnight success, as you were saying there, Sid. Yeah, it took work, it took time, it took struggle. And they grew and, and I think that was an excellent strategy for them. I think it worked out really well because for them, they weren't sure if they even wanted to do a podcast initially, but it was once they really grew a following on social media that they decided, you know what, you know, people want more of us, so let's see if we can make this work. It worked quite well for them, again, in my opinion, and I think in theirs now too.

35:54 Like I said just in the beginning, I think they were not complaining but just questioning is the. Marcus success point is the next point, the point about consistency. Yeah, OK. Sorry, go. Ahead, it was actually twofold because the next point was about don't expect it to be like Instagram. And yeah, then they got into that commitment as far as you got to commit for at least a year or maybe they might have said a year and a half. I agree that you have to. They just talked about it in two parts in the video. I do agree that you got to be consistent with it. You got to show up on a regular basis, right? The part that I disagreed with was in the beginning is that you got to show up weekly.

36:34 You don't have to show up weekly. You don't have to do a weekly show. You don't have to do a Daily Show, but whatever you decide to do, whether it's quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, whatever, you got it are seasonal where you do 1010 episodes and over three months, then you come back two months later. Whatever it is you decide, you got to be committed to that. You got to be consistent with that. So I agree with the consistency part. I disagree with the part that you got to show up weekly. Yeah, I'm with you there. I just had a conversation with another client yesterday about that, asking because they do a show every two weeks and we had a console call just talking about how do we level up to to the next level 'cause they're doing quite well and there's always room to grow. And one of his questions was, is 2 week every two weeks hurting me?

37:25 And my answer was no. I think that maybe going weekly might help build up your following. But overall, what's most important to me as a listener is that you show up when you tell me you're going to show up. So if you say your show comes out every other Wednesday, I expect it to be there. And if it's become every other Wednesday, kinda where you miss a Wednesday here and there and maybe you come out with one Thursday or Friday, or maybe you don't at all, I'm going to start to lose interest. Not intentionally, it might not be. I might not be mad at you as the podcaster, but I might start going to look to fill that void elsewhere.

38:09 In my opinion, consistency is just about showing up when you say you will and I and that. And if you think about it, Sid, like, yeah, there are times that I haven't been able to make it because of a migraine, right? And today I had a migraine. But to me, my consistency of showing up, that's more important to me. And if I'm able to manage through and navigate through feeling a little bit, I'll, I'll call it then so be it. I'm going to try to do that because I believe that consistency is one of the most important factors. Go ahead, Sid. There's a new show in the furniture industry. They came out a couple of months ago and it's got one of five or six different corporate sponsors to it.

38:54 It's a 10 minute show and it's every Thursday, so it drops. And so they started out doing really good and then I noticed that there was an episode that I have to see at LinkedIn and they promoted an episode and I went to my podcast player and that episode they're promoting is not there. That's weird. And it's been 3 weeks since then. And so they've kind of pod faded, right? I don't know what happened. I haven't reached out to the host because I know her. But. They were doing really good and then they just went away. And so now I'm like, OK, that shows off my list because I was a regular listener and now it's and they never said anything. They never said, hey, we're taking a summer break or we're really gone for a few weeks because of whatever. There's no communication.

39:43 It just went away. I mean, I did that, right? That happened to me. I just went away. And so sticking to the consistency, if you are going to take a step back, communicate to the people that are listening so that they get excited for when you come back, right? Which we will do in a few weeks. We will announce our winter break where we take off December and January. And I'll give them a date of when the show's going to be back so that they can be expecting that, you know, February, whatever the date is, so that we'll be back with our first episode of season 7. So you got to be consistent but also communicate when you're not going to be. I love it. Thank you, Sid. And also someone who beat me to the punch. I literally wrote down communication.

40:24 Yeah, consistency and communication, I think are keys to success with the podcast. Not the only keys, but two very powerful keys to success. Thanks everybody for diving into this clip. And if you haven't noticed, we did this a couple Times Now this week, and this will be a new segment we do every so often, hopefully at least once a week. I think it just adds a different layer, a different way we can approach some of the common challenges, common pieces of advice that are shared in this industry. We'll continue to revisit it as the weeks go on.

41:04 So with that, I would love to start celebrating wins from the week. And I see we have a full house in the audience. Thank you, and I'm encouraging you. Please come up, come share any win from your week this week. It can be something that you might consider small. It could be something that you consider huge. Whatever it is, come up and let's just celebrate it. And it doesn't have to be podcasting. Bonus points if it is, but you don't have to reference podcasting if your win is elsewhere and forget it. For example, I will share a couple of my wins to set the tone. And thank you to Greg and Janae for coming up. And I'm going to continue to encourage those of you in the audience to come up and share as well.

41:49 So some of my wins. Riverside is partnering with the Empowered Podcasting Conference. They're going to be contributing to everyone's first round of drinks at our kickoff happy hour on September 26th along with Ironic Media. The cool thing is that means they're now promoting this happy hour to their customers located in the Charlotte area for the next two weeks. And by the way, we are two weeks away. So that in my opinion, I think will help bring us even more exposure and hopefully bring in more podcasters to the main event. That's how they're packaging this. They're packaging it as a Riverside and empowered podcasting event. This meet up happy hour.

42:38 I'm really excited about that. I think that could increase our numbers somewhat dramatically because we did this with Riverside last year prior to the event to help promote it. And we probably had 20 to 30 people come to the happy hour and then at least a handful of them ended up coming to our event as well. So we're looking forward to seeing how this all transpires. And also another win for me. We've ordered all the odds and ends for Empowered Podcasting, the signage it's on its way, team shirts, etcetera. I'm still debating whether I sell merchandise there. I just don't want to be stuck with a lot of inventory trying to guess what kind of what shirt sizes I need, how many of them, etcetera. We'll see.

43:25 And my next win is I had a great call with the hotel of the, for the, the venue that we're going to in two weeks doing a virtual walkthrough. And I'm really excited about everything that we've coordinated with them. They were extremely accommodating and I think it's it's making me even more excited for you all to see what we have in store that weekend. So there you go. There is some examples of some wins, some real life wins. And I'm going to check in with our audience members who have come up and joined us on the stage first. Amanda Yoa, would you share any wins with us from your week? Sure. I would say we win for this week would be season 6 kickoff for my podcast today.

44:11 So that is a win for me. This is my sixth season. I think it's my, I think I started 2021-2022. So we've been on the roll and evolving and growing and shifting and just having fun along along the way. So yeah, that's my win this week. Congratulations and thank you for sharing. And do you want to know, you've gone through a couple of name changes over the years, So what's the official name now of your podcast? Yes, she has. She's gone through a lot. She's gone through a lot of makeovers, but her current makeover is it's Amanda Yoa. I did a cohesive brand across the board, so it's Amanda. Yoa is the name of my show now. Awesome.

44:51 Well, congratulations on the new season launch. We will link to it if you put it in the chat. We'll link to it in the show notes as well. Greg, welcome back to the stage. Good morning to you. Would you share a win with us? So I don't get the bonus points. OK, no problem. I haven't been able losing the ability to walk for almost 6 months and now I finally went to a Walker just to get around. I had back surgery from 4 floating ruptured discs and OR toot my neck and now at this point I can walk independently maybe like an old band still but I can still do it. Greg, congratulations and I'll give you the bonus points anyway, 'cause that sounds like it was a a big challenge and you deserve the bonus points.

45:42 So congratulations to you on that. And yeah, wishing you a speedy recovery and continued success in that ability to walk. Man, that, that must have been a tough one. So congratulations to you and Janae, welcome to the stage. Would you like to share any wins? Yes, I would love to. Share a win. I'll be working alongside with EMPEMPPC and I was casting conference to capture the footage there. So we've got that finalized. So I'm excited for that footage. Audio video supporting the conference. Excited.

46:22 To see all the all the people there. And so that's my win today. Yeah. And it's a shared win. Congratulations, Janae. Because I didn't think we were going to have the ability to capture every speaker and record it and, and have it for them, have it for our attendees, have it for people who couldn't attend. So I really just didn't think it was going to happen. And Janae has really, for the past several months been working through different solutions here and there. And we finally found one that works. And he's being, he's been extremely kind to offer to help man it, help make sure it all works and that we have all the right equipment.

47:04 So thank you, Janaid, really appreciate that. And Speaking of somebody else who's helping the Empowered Podcasting Conference, not just speaking like Janaid, but also helping with the photography. And we're going to be speaking later today. Yvonne, welcome to the stage. Please share any wins that you have from your week. Good morning. Well, Amanda, congratulations on six seasons. This was also this week, also was the launch of my sixth season on Wednesday. So very excited to get going again. I took an extra long break this summer and it turns out it was just what I needed because I'm really happy to be back at it. I've already had two interviews with people that I just feel we're so strong and a pre call with somebody yesterday.

47:53 So I feel like I'm off to such a good start and if it really just feels great to be back. Congratulations, Yvonne, and that's Late Bloomer Living podcast and congratulations to you on your six Season 6 launch. Kind of a weird coincidence. And yeah, yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Again, thank you for volunteering to be one of our photographers. I'm so excited to have you there and helping in all the different ways you're going to be there. It'll be nice to finally see you in person. And let's go to Ashley and let's do this rapid fire. So Ashley, when you're done, hand it to DRDR, hand it to Sid, etcetera, etcetera. Go for it, Ashley.

48:36 Thank you. So when for the week is I finally got an episode of Sunshine State Showcase out? I love the way it looks. Never in my life said think I go to video podcasting. It looks like we're sitting in the jungle. It's a great interview. And other one for the week is I got out and played music live three times this week. So those are my wins for the week. My win for the week is that my husband's birthday was 2 days ago. And hello Medicare. So yay for us. And on to Sid. Oh my goodness, that's our win. That's hysterical. Oh my God, is that not drop all that. So I have a couple of wins in September. You guys know I do a morning walk and telling I'm I'm old and out of breath.

49:28 I made a commitment to myself that kind of a goal, but more of a commitment to myself that I would walk for over 4 miles every day and I am whatever 12 days into that and I love it. It feels good. I keep pushing myself whenever I get to that last to cul de sacs that like I don't want to do this. I just keep going because that's my commitment to myself. But every day this month I will walk over 4 miles, so feels really good to do that. I'm going to summons my 20 seconds of courage. I talked about courage a lot and just say that I did something over the last month that I finally finished and I actually sent it to somebody, which is a huge step.

50:14 I couldn't believe I actually sent it out. I wrote another book. Nice this. Book is to accompany a speech that I'm working on. Thanks to the encouraging and my friend Stacy Sherman, I wrote a book. It's called Reframing failure. It's called Reframe, turning failure into fuel to fuel your growth and shift your mindset. It's not a very big book, but it's finished and now I'm going to be asking people to read it after I get feedback from the first person. And clearly that was like, I can't believe I hit the send button yesterday when I sent the book out. Like, oh shit, this is real. Anyways, it's a huge win and I'm going to celebrate it even though I'm like, did I really say this out loud to you guys? But here we go.

50:57 All right, Matt, do you take it away? My win for this week actually eventuated last weekend. I got a lot of good feedback on the redesign I did for my video game news podcast, which I haven't touched for a while. It's sound designed. It's sharing video game news updates in the backdrop of a cyberpunk dystopian city. I spent last weekend sketching out the story and universe and the players in that universe and all that kind of thing to get it ready to slowly reveal as the episodes go on. The idea is that it's built like a, an Arg or like a discovery adventure sort of thing where you come for the game news, but in every episode a little bit more gets revealed about the world and a little bit of narratives kind of unlocks.

51:45 It's in secrets in it's in riddles, it's in little things that'll be scattered throughout the podcast. It's it's a little bit of work, but I think it's the eventuation of about 3 1/2 years of sitting on an idea and trying to make news interesting in the video game space where it's entirely saturated. In fact, Mark, that might be a subject for some time. Podcasting in the video games category is such a full space, it is incredibly hard to find a video game podcast idea that hasn't been done yet. But mine hasn't, and that's the other thing that excites me about it as well. So yeah, that's my win.

52:25 I am fascinated by that. Matt and I saw Ashley in the chat set so some similar to like DND. Yeah, not like DND. It's a little bit hard to describe. There's actually an episode of another podcast, Digital Folklore, where I describe it a little bit across 2 episodes. And Arg is an alternate reality game attached to a video game release or inside the game itself where you do normal things that are just in front of you. But maybe there's a little secret or a message somewhere that you discover, and it leads to a treasure hunt of information that builds out a sub story, a sub narrative as part of it. And sometimes there's rewards and sometimes there isn't. So it's kind of like DND in that it's an invented narrative, but it's less about emerging story based on interactions.

53:13 It's more about there's something there. You get little bits and pieces of it, but you never get the full picture. And slowly it gets revealed over time. Matt, let's talk about that idea you had as far as maybe it's a topic for a Room 1 morning talking about the that video game podcast genre. I'm really interested in it and yeah, would love to collaborate with you and see what we can come up with. So let's let's discuss and thank you and congratulations for your win. That sounds exciting, Matt. Thank you. And Brian joined us from the audience. Good morning, Brian. Do you want to share the final win of the morning or wins? Thank you Mark, Good morning Empowered podcasting group.

53:57 My wins this week. Well, for one, I can surely say now that I'm down to 10 lbs from the heaviest that I had gotten over the past few years. And I did my show this week started to get my voice back after losing my uncle two weeks ago. Those are my wins. Thank you. You're welcome, Brian, and congratulations. I'm going to say congratulations on releasing 10 lbs. I say that I heard this somewhere once awhile back. You know, I don't like to say losing weight because it means that you might find it again. So releasing it means it's gone. It's not coming back.

54:41 So there you go. If, if that resonates with you, Brian, grab on to that. If not, that's fine too. Congratulations either way. That's really awesome. And and I'll share this a win, another win from me. I got through a whole show coming fresh off a migraine. So that I'm excited about that and I'm excited to be back with everybody again next week. Tuesday, 7:00 AM Eastern Time. And we'll do it every day after that next week. So come join us to be a part of this great community and learn a thing or two about podcasting along the way. We would love to have you back and maybe invite a friend while you're at it. We would love to have them here as well. So until Tuesday, make it a great day everybody. Take care and make it a great weekend.