288. Making money with your podcast

Having worked with thousands of business owners to create a podcast for their business, I’ve created The Recurring Results Roadmap for Podcasters™.

It’s a step-by-step guide to growing your business to 7+ figures using your podcast.

Importantly, it removes the guesswork so you know exactly what to focus on at all times to generate that recurring revenue.

The best part? It’s personalised, free and it lets you get started straight away.

Download The Recurring Results Roadmap for Podcasters™ here.

If this is your first time here, this is Should I Start A Podcast. I’m Ronsley Vaz. Each week you’ll hear me, and a star-studded guest lineup, dig deep into the podcasting process. We’ll bring you tactics, tips and tricks to use in your own podcasting journey. We’ll teach you how to build an audience. And we’ll show you how to keep them coming back, show after show.

So if you want to start a podcast, or expand your current audience, this is the show for you.

Coming up in this Should I Start A Podcast episode …

As business owners, our main goal is profit. And the more profit we have the more we can do with that profit. Like scale. Want to know just how to use your podcast to make profit? To scale your income without scaling your workload? Listen to this conversation with business owner podcasters that use their podcasts in various unique ways to make money in their business. 

In this episode you will:

• Learn how different business owners make money from their podcast
• Hear the misconceptions about making money from your podcast
• Take a deeper look at how to sustain the podcast creatively and financially
• Rethink how you interact with your guest before and after you interview them
• Understand what is the #1 thing I focus on after doing over 1500 interviews
• Hear us talk about the Proust questionnaire 
• Learn the advantages of using Linkedin for C-suite executives
• Think differently about doing a pre-interview before the main interview with your guest

All this and more, on this week’s episode of  Should I Start A Podcast. 

 

Psst … make sure you listen to the end … I’ll break down this episode to give you 3 small steps you can execute right now to help you take this listening experience into execution experience. Enjoy the show. 

 

After you listen to this episode I would love you to do 3 small steps that will help you make money from your podcast: 

1. If all your previous guests asked you this one question, are you prepared with an answer? “What is the 1 thing I can help you with to grow your business?” – spend 20 minutes thinking about that and write down 3-4 things you could say the next time someone asks you this.
2. Do you have a method to sell? Because if you don’t people will use their methods to buy. 
3. Make a list of 100 partners. Who are 100 people that if they were associated with your business in some way, would drastically change the opportunities you have to grow? 

These are 3 small steps that if you execute, irrespective of where you are at in your business and podcasting journey will make a huge impact on your making your podcast more profitable & more impactful. 

 

If this is the first episode you’ve listened to all the way to the end or if you are a regular, thank you … I love that you are here. Check out our back catalog on  ShouldIStartAPodcast.com, subscribe to the show and give me a review and rating, it really helps us get found more. 

 

If you are a business owner podcaster and want to join others just like you in a group where we share tactics & ideas on what’s working (or not) for us when it comes to using our podcast in the best possible way. For more on that go to wearepodcast.com/group … its free. 

 

We Are Podcast 2022 – It is happening this year. For the latest announcements on Australia’s first podcasting conference for business owners, join the free group wearepodcast.com/group

 

Stay tuned next week when we going to cover how you can create partnerships with your podcast. This includes joint ventures, sponsorships, distribution partners, credibility partners and more. So, don’t forget to subscribe to the show to get that episode as soon it gets released. Until then, much love. 

 

 

Here is the transcript of the entire episode for those who like to read …

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

podcast, people, interview, business, guests, james, questions, feel, connection, creating, monetizing, episode, audience, podcasters, relationships, product, speak, person, talk, asked

SPEAKERS

James Whittaker, Bettina, Ronsley Vaz, Rebecca Beltran, Nikita, Catharina Joubert, Holly Shannon, Anna Vocino, Nicole Christina

Ronsley Vaz  00:08

indicator one, this is launch control. Please advise when pre flight checklist is complete, that indicator light is complete. All indicators read Green.

Anna Vocino  00:20

This is should I start a podcast, a show for business owners looking for tips, tricks and ingenious hacks when it comes to growing a business using their podcast. This is your host Ronsley. He’s interviewed more than 1400 people and has been listened to over 5 million times in 133 countries, a TED speaker, author and a podcast purist who believes that we can use our voices to grow our business and our influence, you know, because every conversion in any business always happens in a conversation. And now Ronsley.

Ronsley Vaz  01:02

What I’d love to talk about today is making money from your podcast and how different people have different products or different services or different sponsorships or different ways that they go around monetizing their podcast making it sustainable, creating resources from a creating relationships. That’s my thoughts for today. Let’s get into it. Alright, let’s talk about this when this tends to happen with podcasters I’ve been in the podcasting game is and has been 1112 years. And I think what tends to happen that we see a lot is podcasters start with so much enthusiasm, and then find out that it’s not sustainable, because there’s no monetary or there’s no return on the investment that they’ve made. And the investment is different investments, whether it comes from time or energy or resources, patients, and it’s there’s so many different things, right. So I’d love for anyone to start off this topic, because let’s start off with the idea that why is it so hard for us to kind of go down the path of monetizing a podcast? Because it seems to be hard? Yes,

James Whittaker  02:04

you know, Rhonda, it’s really important for people to recognize it to monetize, you have to have a product. And if you really want to be able to scale your income without scaling your workload, need to make sure at least in some capacity, that product has a digital component to it, especially if you focus on to get back to a whole lot of people around the world. So we see so many people you and I do who don’t have a product developed. And if they do, they don’t have a digital component to that, which means they’re constantly on the brink of burnout. And I think that once you’ve got those things dialed in, making sure you allocate some time every single week on the sales and marketing side. Because as creatives, it’s very easy for us to focus on doing all the creating and filling up our entire week doing the creative stuff, rather than do those revenue generating activities that are actually going to move the needle for us and help us drive our business forward.

Anna Vocino  02:45

I agree. I think it’s even sometimes hard to devote ourselves to doing the creative week after week. If we feel like nobody’s nobody’s listening, or nobody’s watching. But I do want to say, as a consumer of podcasts, it’s interesting because I love getting excited about a topic and one of the first places I go is overcast to see if there’s something about that topic, whether if they’re podcasts about that topic, and especially, for example, launching a food brand. There’s a ton of CPG, consumer packaged goods, podcasts out there, because there’s a lot of independent food companies trying to do the same thing that I’m doing. And it’s interesting because I want to learn everything I can about this. And so what what a better way to learn about people in your industry than to hear different interviews on podcast. So as a consumer, even I get a bit crestfallen when I find a podcast that I like, and I see okay, right now, it’s what, August of 2021. And I see that they haven’t put out a new episode since maybe February. So even I am like, they’re not putting out new episodes. Even I’m putting pressure on people, but you have to put that same pressure on yourself, because it is such a thing that it has to be updated. And I guess it’s just finding that curve, jumping the curve of the bell curve where you can get to from the other side of, I’m not going to make enough episodes two, I’m going to continue to make episodes and then eventually put it all together now that we have an audience into pursuing monetization ideas. And by the way, it’s easier to monetize now, more than ever, because companies understand the benefits of podcasters as influencers paying them to do things. So back in the day, I remember writing squatty potty, like eight years ago, and after they’d advertise on Howard Stern and being like, Hey, we’re not Howard Stern by any means. But we are a podcast and we have such a loyal, devoted fan base. And they luckily wrote me back and other places wouldn’t write me back. But Squatty Potty I was able to get to write back because I feel like there are some certain brands who are kind of on the forefront of that. But you could literally just write a brand and be like, Hey, I bet 500 People who listened would buy your product. So I don’t know just putting it out there. But you do have to get past that that mental bell curve of like, putting enough content out there regularly and then feeling like Okay, it’s time to start monetizing.

Catharina Joubert  04:47

Yes, I totally agree with you on the understanding the path. So it’s not you start a podcast and you go straight into monetization. You start a podcast, you build an audience, and that’s like the first part Have your aim and goal, I find a lot of people I speak to clients, as well as from my own experience as a podcaster, kind of one of the first things you think about is okay, well, I’m going to make money out of this, how am I going to make money out of it. And a lot of the discouragement comes in from not being able to do that right off the bat and struggling with other things that you didn’t expect, like, I don’t know who said it, but feeling that you’re not being heard or seen. And then once you actually understand that, you have to build an audience first, really learn what they need their pain points, then you can develop, for example, the digital product that James was talking about. And then I think there is still a big misconception about how that whole thing actually works. And people are still thinking, Okay, I need to either get a big sponsor, and then they look at download numbers, and they get crestfallen, because they think I need millions and millions of downloads, or they think, yeah, that’s basically what they focalize on, or they go for something like buy me a coffee, buy me a pizza. And that’s literally brings in not enough to make a living off.

Nicole  06:02

I think as somebody who were probably similarly pretty driven, pretty, pretty enthusiastic, I’m trying to kind of reframe this, I’m a psychotherapist by training. And that’s my full time gig. But I’m trying to reframe this in that you never know who’s listening. And I’ve had this lovely connection with so many of my guests. And I have to believe, and maybe someone will say, you’re just living in Twilight somewhere. But I also have to believe that what other successful people are saying, and that is, it is really a long game. And I am trying to really appreciate how many downloads I have, which are, you know, they’re good, they’re respectable. They’re not millions, but they’re growing slowly. And I think for me, and maybe this is not a popular perspective. But I think my biggest challenge is to be patient and know that I’ve been at this for almost four years. And as I said, I’m so happy to be in 98 countries, I’m really trying to appreciate what I have, and also the relationships I’m making.

Ronsley Vaz  07:08

Totally understandable. I think being in that space is great. I mean, the enthusiasm is amazing. And I think that that’s what I was talking about, I believe earlier in terms of the creative part where we don’t even get the chance to do that after a while, primarily because either the enthusiasm is kind of taken away, or there’s something else that’s happened or there’s other things that happen in life that kind of like derail us a little bit. But let’s talk about that. How can we sustain our podcast because sustainability of our podcast comes from various different things, including enthusiasm. So it’s definitely it’s huge in terms of being able to love what you do and be grateful for what you have. But the sustainability part is what I’m concerned about, because I know of so many people who love nothing more than to make the podcast and then different circumstances don’t allow them to do that. Because, in my opinion, there are so many moving parts and moving plates and spinning plates that we’ve got to do from a podcast angle. There’s the creation, there’s a recording, there’s the editing, the production, the marketing, the social media, the sound checks, there’s a whole bunch of different products. We’re talking about monetization right now, sponsorships is different. There’s so many different moving parts, right? So how can we sustain a podcast better?

Nikita  08:23

Hi, everyone. I would definitely say, for sustaining podcast, you really have to come at it from what feels good for you. So understanding that what works for your podcast is not gonna work for every podcast, and what works today may not work a week from now. So being aware and being willing to shift and making the adjustment, very often willing to reflect when it’s better to go after, if it’s either or when you’re getting feedback from your listening audience, really thinking about like, where do you want to go with? How is it feeling? What do you want to change, because there are a lot of podcasts, I think that are exactly the same as they started. And that they’re not going to come in authentic. And I’m really about being in alignment and authenticity about making sure that you are staying true to yourself and your beliefs and being open. Just shifting and changing. I think one of the key to gaining and podcast. So that’s the version for me,

Rebecca Beltran  09:20

as a piggyback on Nikita. That was beautiful. Yeah, for me, sustainability comes with knowing why I do something and why it matters to me. And someone gave me really fantastic business advice years ago, they said they said your business is there to serve you not the other way around. And that was a really helpful mindset shift for me because I had gotten so stuck in the Okay, I need to do this to deliver this thing for other people that had forgotten why I was doing it myself. And that for me is always been my reminder to go back to my core like okay, why am I doing this? For me personally, I do my podcast because I have so much that I want to share with people and I want it there for posterity. I want it recorded. I want it so that I can send any random person who asked me hey, how do you do this full moon ritual for your partnership? Or, hey, how do you have better orgasms? Hey, I got an episode for you, let me send it to you. So I like to be able to give people a resource of something that is everything that I really care about, about a particular topic. And that’s why I do my show. So going back to your why, and knowing what matters to you, I think is the key to sustainability on the

James Whittaker  10:24

sustaining your podcast financially and creatively. To me, a lot of it comes back to raising your idea of what’s possible for you financially, as I think it was Catherine mentioned earlier, everyone’s so focused on doing things like buy me a coffee and, and look, I’m hoping I can just cover costs. But if you’ve got a specific monetary goal in mind, and you’re emotionally attached yourself to what that is going to allow you to create in the world, the impact that you want to have and who that’s going to help, it’s going to be so much easier for you then to put in the hard yards and figure out the plan and be resourceful enough to get the right people around you and resilient enough to continue when you have those days, like Anna said at the very start, like when you just don’t feel like turning up to the microphone. So being around a group of people who can massively raise your idea of what’s possible is such a simple but such a significant shift from the mindset required for scarcity versus abundance. And I know it’s a little bit airy fairy to say stuff like that. But I genuinely believe that’s true. And I think it’s one of the biggest mistakes people make professional versus amateurs and you feel,

Holly Shannon  11:26

I’d like to make a remark there. Because I think James to actually go a little deeper into what you said, because I really, really love what you said, I think that you need to create a tribe, if you will, aside from your listeners, but the people that are in your ecosystem, in this case, podcasting that you can buddy up with that you can talk with that you can get frustrated with that you know that glass of wine with that you can join the mastermind with I know James and Ronsley have those, I think that there’s tools out there to help you elevate your game so that you can sustain. I know that for me personally, I’m not gonna lie, I definitely have my roller coasters on it. Like I have days where I’m flying high and want to top podcast, I got this going on going on. And then there’s just some days I’m like, geez, I don’t know, I’m just not finding the right people that I want to have on here. Or I didn’t feel as though the last interview or two were up to par like I, I think there’s so many different things as a podcaster that you go through. But I think at the end of the day, finding your tribe, finding those people that you can grow with, or when you’re stuck can sort of help you figure out what you could do next, like somebody who could brainstorm like, I could call James and say, James, like I need to brainstorm, grab your wine kind of thing. Like I think that good, I might need that, actually. I mean, sometimes we just need that sometimes we just need to blow off a little bit of steam about the process, like something small can set you off. Like you could work really hard, day after day putting out your product. And then you realize, like everybody that you have on your show is just clicking the little Like button when you’re on LinkedIn and not helping to further the message or get other people to subscribe or listen to that particular episode. And so you feel frustrated, you’re like, Why did I do all this work? They didn’t even do anything with it. So I think there’s a lot of little moving parts in there.

James Whittaker  13:18

You know, there’s a word that’s come up a fair bit today. And it’s the word process. It’s like when we have those feelings and those different situations that happen in our podcast that we feel are taking away our positivity and our energy in the present. What can you do to update your process when you have a situation like that, like when you have a guest on the show, if you feel like maybe it wasn’t as valuable as it could have been? Or there was an issue there where even from a recording perspective, I thinking about what can you do to update the processes that you have? Maybe it’s checklists, maybe it’s your questions that you use as like a question back that you can use as a bit of a foundation to explore before you have guests and things on the show. Like To be totally honest, I finished almost every single one of my interviews on the podcast. And at the end of it, I feel frustrated because I feel like it wasn’t as valuable as it could have been. And I get down on myself always for like five minutes at the end of each podcast. And then inevitably, when I play it back and try and find those excerpts, which are going to be great clips for social media, I think, Hmm, wow, there’s actually some really great stuff in here. And if there was anything that I’ve noticed that I can update, or what questions led to better responses, and I can start to slowly tweak that line of questioning to add more and more value over time. So on the condition that you have those feelings, and if you are in a position to be able to make positive change, go and do that to the process you have. So even if it wasn’t the best thing in the present, you can keep moving forward with your podcast to a more valuable and more and more valuable episode. Because over time you’re gonna have a kick ass podcast.

Ronsley Vaz  14:40

This fascinating. I love the honesty there about five minutes I doubt is just five minutes James at the end of the podcast, that’s

James Whittaker  14:45

probably Yeah, you bet on that. It’s probably a lot longer i runs what about you and you’ve interviewed 1000s of people. How do you feel once you’ve had that interview done? You’re usually fairly satisfied with that because you’ve done enough like you’ve interviewed a lot more people than I have, but I’ve still interviewed, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people at this point. How do you feel at the end of it? Cast interview.

Ronsley Vaz  15:00

Yeah, James I, it’s fascinating because it’s different in different situations like, I am not necessarily as focused on the content, unfortunately, as much as that’s the right answer to say, I’m actually more focused on the conversation, and the person and, and, and the relationship. So if by the end of the conversation, I want to feel comfortable with my guests, and then the guests, I want my guest to be comfortable with me. And and usually if that doesn’t happen, then yeah, it’s like I could have asked better questions is what my thought process goes down, because I feel like my only job is, as a host is to get their story. And to get their story, I’ve got to, I’ve got to make them comfortable, and for them to be comfortable, the relationship of the chemistry or needs to be there. So I actually never broke it down to that level before therapy.

Nicole  15:47

Well, this is exactly what I talk about. In my book, I’m a therapist. And I would say that it’s an emotional experience that you’re sharing with your audience. And I think that’s very different than necessarily, I mean, I used to think, Oh, my goodness, people are like talking to me, let me sort of get every bit of information and history, I can possibly kind of milk out of it. But now what I do is really focus on the connection. And if I’m really in sync with them, if they’re feeling understood, and if they’re opening up, and it really leaves me so exhilarated, some of them are better than others, of course, and some of them better energy and all that. But mostly, I feel like I’m so excited to have spoken to someone across the world, and listen to their story and have them reveal themselves in a way that I think the audience will really resonate with.

Anna Vocino  16:42

I couldn’t agree more. And you know, what I boiboi I think I kind of came about this naturally. But I realized it became a thing because I agree on focusing on the connection with an interviewer, especially somebody who you may or may not have worked very hard to get, or someone who may or may not be fairly, I don’t wanna say high profile, but maybe they’re a good get for whatever your podcasters or whatever your industry is, or somebody whose information, you know, their time is limited. You definitely focusing on the connection is very, very important. And then what I’ve done, so this is like, now I’m aware of this, but I wasn’t aware that I was doing it at the time, focused on connection, had a great chat for an hour, and then at the end was like, Oh, my God, forgot to hit these couple of points. Would love it, if you would come back on. And we have we have another episode to do and literally get them to commit on the air. Because if they’ve had a good time, they’re gonna have no problem, I would love to come back and talk to you. And if you could sense it out, you can use your intuition. No, I would never say that to somebody who’s like, obviously, like, doesn’t want to be there, which really doesn’t happen. We have a good time with the people with the guests who come on. But I have used that kind of subconsciously and then realize that I was publicly making them commit to doing another episode at some point in the future, and then follow up, of course,

Bettina  17:49

yeah. Hi, guys. My name is Bettina. I’m talking first time on campus. So it’s exciting for me. So I wanted to talk to about storytelling is my background. I was a TV producer. Now I’m in education. And I realized that you talked about the three C’s, like the contents, not so much about the content, but context and connection. So when I teach drama, or how to create drama, I go to the interview question from Marcel Proust. And this is the questions I’m going to use for the interview guests on a podcast interview. So this has nothing to do with the extra context content, excuse me, but a certain level of excitement and curiosity with a guest. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with also maybe you want to Google those, and they are just completely out of context. So they’re really what’s your favorite color and what’s your hero in history, and that but that brings the connection to that person and so also the connection to your audience. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you, Bettina,

Ronsley Vaz  18:42

Bettina. What was that resource again?

Bettina  18:44

Yes, sorry. That is Marcel Proust. And it’s the they use it as an entertainment in the 19th century in France in the salons. And they just asked it’s 40 questions I think or there are several in the internet you can find but it actually starts with what’s your favorite color and then goes all the way down what what’s the hero in history you would have liked to be what what you what you admire most so it was your favorite writer. So it has nothing to do with the actually content you are you know, trying to sell maybe, but you can make a connection you look at the 40 questions and and look at how you make them the story arc back to what you actually want to talk your interview guests about.

Anna Vocino  19:24

That’s fantastic, Bettina. That is so great. The Proust questionnaire. It was did you guys remember inside the acting studio James Lipton used to ask that at the end of every episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio, and it was so I loved it because like you said, you kind of get to know the inner workings of people. And many drivers doing a version of that on many questions. Her podcast, she’s doing only seven questions. But I love I think it’s at the end of Tim Ferriss podcast he says he asked all of us guess what would you put on a billboard? And so things like that. I think that’s fantastic. I completely forgot about that. Because the other thing that we do to his listeners is we sit next to them in our heads how would we answer it? You know, so it engages the listener ended engaged As you get to know the person who’s being interviewed, that’s awesome. Hey, this

20:06

is Elizabeth McIntyre. I’m the CEO of think brick Australia, host of our podcast and leader of amazing humans. I’m on the inside of we are podcast members. Or as we like to call it the way, Emily, if you were thinking about growing that business using your podcast, and your online presence, come join us on the inside, I would love to meet you, James and RONZI coaches to get those recurring results in our business. If you want that roadmap, which we all follow to get those recurring results, you can download it at https://roadmap.wearepodcast.com . Now back to the show.

Ronsley Vaz  20:44

I maybe want to talk about misconceptions, because a lot of them came up in a variety of different conversations that we’ve had, I mean, here right now or the last half hour, in terms of misconceptions that people make when they come into podcasting, and especially from a sustainability standpoint, right, especially for creating a podcast that actually matters. So let’s talk about that. Like maybe there are some misconceptions that you just wish you wanted to get off your chest. Okay,

Catharina Joubert  21:10

I’m gonna jump in on this, I think there are so many misconceptions. And one of them is the actual process of recording the technical side to it. This is just because I’ve got like a background in audio editing. So it’s not that straightforward to make a really good sounding podcast. And I think just because we’ve been speaking about interviewing techniques, it’s actually hard. Like, it’s not an easy thing for everyone to just have a conversation and have that really authentic sharing of experiences, and then drawing out the most important points from that. So while you’ve got to focus on that, you also then have to edit it afterwards and get it sounding on like a level. And we’ve spoken about those that sounds professional that people can listen to without being bothered by certain audio glitches, if you like. So I think those two points just from a starting point of view, getting those right and many people thinking that you well actually did a quick video on this, like you just either use your computer’s could to record or you just plug in a mic record and go and have a chat and then put it on air. It’s not quite like that. But yeah, I thought I’d just raised those two points.

Nicole  22:23

I was gonna add to that, in terms of it’s not as easy as plug in and speak is, I think that to get a really good interview, you have to know some things about your guest that require research. And it takes time. And it’s not always that font or interesting. Or I look at people’s Twitter’s I look at obviously their websites, what they’ve done. And if they’ve done a documentary, I watched their documentary, it can be hours. So I think that there’s a misconception as Catarina said, it’s just like you do this thing you plug it in, I think maybe that separates some people who don’t survive, because the stuff isn’t that good. I think it really shows if you do your research, and if you do have some basic interviewing skills, hopefully, we all rise to the top and doing our homework. But I found that if I have like some information that may not be readily available, and I can talk to people about their lives in ways that haven’t been talked about a million times for them, it really creates a very much more unique experience, hopefully, for my audience. Thanks, Nicole, I’m done. It’s gonna

James Whittaker  23:37

say I’m really happy you brought that up, Nicole like that preparation. If you do that, it’s going to put you on the fast track to developing an actual friendship with that podcast guest who beforehand was probably a stranger. And if they are influential, and you’ve got your show coming out on even a semi regular basis, what those relationships will be able to do for you and your business will be worth the ROI of you having your podcast before anyone even hears the episode. And I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about podcasting, too.

Nicole  24:03

Thanks for saying that. James. I just had an experience with somebody who wrote a book. He said, he’s a professor at Stanford University psychologist, really interesting book about something called Life Review. And my podcast is for middle aged folks and older, so it’s really relevant. But I had this lovely talk with him. And I told him at the end, we were Off mic. I said, ultimately, I really want to be on National Public Radio in the US Public Radio. And he said, Well, I’m in contact with those people all the time. They call me all the time for commentary, and I’m going to mention your name. And you know, I almost fell off my seat. But that’s exactly the kind of thing that I sort of fostering and hoping for.

James Whittaker  24:42

So times that by 50, like with 50 guests, yet people out there who don’t understand that process of doing the preparation and establishing a friendship and having a specific ask when people say how can I help you because of all the work that you’ve obviously shown the culture or the research that you did on that guest before they came on the show how much you’ve had tell you that person’s friendship or to drive it towards the friendship, it means they’re far more willing, and in fact, will initiate the How can I help you question? And if you do that with 10 guests, 20 guests, 50 guests things absolutely take off. And it’s those relationships that I believe are the great amplifier for our podcasts for our business and everything else in our life. So I really love all that, Nicole.

Nicole  25:19

Thanks. So that’s what I’m counting on.

Holly Shannon  25:21

You know, I think there’s two sides to that, too. I have said from the very beginning, I don’t understand why more people don’t own a mic because nothing kicks the door open like a podcast. And you can do it for intrinsic value, you know, you can do it because you want to meet certain people that you admire. You want to learn about something that you’ve always found of interest, and you want to speak to the people who are experts at it. But if you approach it for business, and that’s what the title up here says is podcasting for business, if you are wanting to do this for your business, the opportunity to slide into somebody’s DM on LinkedIn that’s in the C suite. It’s amazing how quickly you get results when you’re inviting them to a podcast. I mean, bottom line you that might be the main reason why you want to podcast, it might not just be because you want to talk about, I don’t know the care of dogs or whatever. It could be, really for business purposes, and not just intrinsic.

Catharina Joubert  26:18

Yeah, I just like to add to what Holly said, and this is even before I like officially thought I’d like to produce any content for anyone. It’s exactly that way. Like it was just by doing podcast episodes, just interviewing other podcasters. And doing all the prep beforehand, like going the extra mile in how I produced the episode and all the like kind of like pre release and release promo material that they they got back to me and said like, we’d really like to have a chat with you about how you do what you do. And that kind of got me thinking, Okay, this is how it works. It’s not necessarily just you talking about your business or new products or anything it’s through though, interviewing other people, maybe in your niche, maybe not in your niche, but then that connection you establish, there’s really nothing you can compare it to, it’s definitely not a phone call, it’s definitely not an email, it’s a really close connection. If you do it right, if you get those prep steps, and also just in the interview itself, being able to let them open up and make them comfortable, then that can lead to a lot of other possibilities and opportunities that you didn’t think was possible before.

Bettina  27:22

Thanks for sharing that Catalina. I have a question to everybody, because I’m a filmmaker. So I always film The first take and say it’s a film during rehearsal. So are you interviewing or you’re doing a pre interview before you go on interviewing

Holly Shannon  27:35

them? So Bettina? I the reason why I said yes and no, is that not everybody will take a discovery call or prep call, or whatever you want to call it, I do try to see if I can bank 10 or 15 minutes prior to the actual podcast with somebody because I really do want to highlight them well. And I really do want to try and draw out what the story is an and maybe have a conversation back and forth about what types of topics we could really dive into and do well at it, you know, really create something good look really special. I’ve had a lot of people say yes, and they’ll jump on with me. And I will say that, those are some of my better podcasts. Because I feel like, we’ve also gotten past that initial introduction of each other. It’s not like we’re just boom going into an interview to strangers. So I think it kind of accomplishes a little warmth between us, you know, just sort of making it feel like more familiar. And you learn a little bit about their cadence and how they speak, you know, some people will go on really fast. And some people will have more of a measured quality about their speaking. So I think it makes for a better podcast when I can do it. What I will say is that, you know, time is very precious to people, and very often probably better than 50% of the time, people will say, I really don’t have time to do that as well. But I would be open to emailing a few topics, we can kind of go back and forth a little bit. And then I’ll do that. And I’ll try and capture an interview they had with somebody else so that I could listen to their style. And some of the things that they spoke about that I could tell they got excited about that maybe I could lean in on myself and maybe go a little deeper. So that’s where it’s yes and no for that. I think if you can, and the other person is willing, it definitely makes for a warmer type of interview. But it still works if you can’t do that.

Ronsley Vaz  29:32

Yeah, and I also want to add to that patina because I kind of a little bit lied a little bit that I don’t do that. Because before COVID And before I’ve been grounded here in Australia, my show the psychology of entrepreneurship was interviewing people in person flying to wherever they were and doing the interview. And it would land up becoming a two three hour escapade. So it was like more of a coffee and then a conversation and then it would be an interview or they would invite me to their place, I was interviewing someone. And then I asked for them to be on my show the psychology of entrepreneurship. And I said, I do it this way. And, and they invited me to their house. And this person is like, very popular author. And I was like, Oh, wow, this that. That’s crazy. So I think that doing the pre interview in different ways is possible, I think, because now everyone’s sort of gone on to zoom, the pre interview happens on Zoom. And it’s not really that much fun. It’s more like, Oh, you’re wasting my time sort of thing. So we kind of make up for that by preparing really well and listening to other stuff that they have done, which James does an amazing job with. And Nicole does an amazing job with to prepare and listen to what they’ve done before. So that you don’t need to do that pre interview, I suppose.

Bettina  30:42

Yeah, thank you about that was really giving a bit of insight into into the journey. But just thinking if you might then think, Oh, I wish she would have said that. Or she would have said that the way they said the pre interview. So this is when you know, when I was filming, I always did shoot the very Hustler,

Ronsley Vaz  30:58

potatoes, good to hear your voice for sure. I want to quickly end this conversation on what James was talking about earlier. And it was the ask, and all the stuff that we have, you know all this relationship building or sustainability of the podcast and creating this connection and everything? The old, right? And at the end of the day, it’s all about the ask that it’s all about. When someone asks you, What can I do for you? Do you have something that you say back to them? Or do you ask your audience for stuff or the like? And I think the Ask becomes quite weird, because first of all, is scary if it’s not done, right? Secondly, it’s douchey if it’s done often, and a lot of times you waste time by asking the wrong people. So I wondered whether we could have a conversation about asking better, because I can tell you that lots of times that people have said hey Ronsley What can I do to help you and I haven’t had the best sort of response. So this is more therapy for Ronsley.

James Whittaker  31:51

I can give an example of a of a good ask. So first of all, before any of that stuff, always make sure you focus on the give before the gift because the give ironically leads to the get that if you start off with a get, the person is not going to want to help you. So always focusing on what you can do to give give, give and really overdo the gift that you’re giving to the other people, which will then set them off to say what can I do to help you and because you’ve actually helped them, they’ll be far more likely to go ahead with the following up is a really big one once you’ve already got one. But I wanted to share a quick story about when I was at a mastermind in Austin, Texas a couple of years ago. And they went around this group of all fairly influential entrepreneurs. And it was one ask that you had for the group. Now my ask was to be speaking on stage in front of 100,000 people in that year. And it wasn’t a very good ask. And then there was someone else there who said, I am a chiropractor, and I make these pillows to help people sleep better. I know that Tony Robbins has got this thing in his neck that’s really causing him a lot of pain for many, many years, I have a pillow and something that will be able to help him if someone is in a position to be able to connect me with Tony Robbins, I promise you I can change his life. And there was someone there in the room, a guy by the name of Joe Polish, who has something called the Genius Network, who connected this doctor with Tony Robbins. And sure enough, it changed Tony Robbins his life. And now this person, the doctor has endorsements from Tony Robbins, and introductions to former presidents and anything else that you could possibly want with that level of influence. That’s a very, very specific ask. It came from a very safe space of people who wanted to help. And it was an influential room because it was also a big ask that person had built up enough social capital and had the runs on the board to be able to do that. And my ask just fell flat it just it just felt that it wasn’t a good ask. It wasn’t specific enough. And I often think about that example and having something like that, that you can genuinely do to provide support to other people. It doesn’t matter how high up the food chain they are. But it’s an it’s an interesting story. That one I hope you found that about

Ronsley Vaz  33:42

extremely extremely valuable because I think us come in so many different ways right? We asked on our show for our audience to rate and review if that’s still a thing we ask for guests to be on our show we asked for different things and if you’re starting a podcast for business probably covering stuff where you ask better and I agree with you James I think the give if you give better you get to get better, I suppose but at the end of the day, we all have to agree that we are not good at asking for help. We are not good at asking for lots of things but I think the ask is a really interesting one because I would say that a lot of very, very close people don’t know how to ask even their closest people for help or ask for something that they really want. I want to say that the that the tweetable from today’s clubhouse is from Holly nothing kicks the door open like a podcast so please everyone join us the same time Nicole please join us love to have you patina Rebecca, as always, you know really good to have you Holly Catarina, Anna James. Always just a pleasure to to hear your voices every week ladies and gentlemen, I’m Ronsley

James Whittaker  34:51

James Whitaker I have a podcast called when the day and together on tonight have a business called we are podcast where we help business owners make a lot of money and help a lot of people use their podcast.

Anna Vocino  35:00

 I am Anna Vocino, and I am a voice over talent and comic. And also guess what? I have a podcast. I co host the fitness confidential podcast with Vinnie torta rich for almost 10 years now and have turned it into a bestselling cookbooks. And now I have a food brand and I’m a huge fan of podcasting. And I’m happy to be here.

Catharina Joubert  35:19

I’m Catarina. I produce podcasts for small creative businesses. And I also host a podcast called creators abroad, where it’s everything about how to make a living as a creative, incidentally combined with navigating foreign contexts living in a foreign country and traveling.

Nicole  35:35

I’m Nicole Christina, I am the host and creator of zestful aging podcasts heard in 98 countries, including Australia, and I just published a book called not just chatting how to become a master podcast interviewer, which is, you guessed it on Amazon, and I’m happy to be here. Thanks.

Rebecca Beltran  35:53

My name is Rebecca. I’m the host of a podcast called pleasure central radio. And I like to say that we teach people how to get what they want through courage and pleasure instead of suffering and trying really hard.

Ronsley Vaz  36:13

All right. So you still till the end, you found this useful, and you have a business. And, Paul, you have a podcast and a business. And you kind of want to make it work for you and grow your business using this podcast. Well, you know what, that’s something that I have helped 1000s of people do 1000s of businesses doing different forms, through an agency in a one on one fashion through a conference in a group and obviously courses and stuff. So please, I want to be able to give you something that you can use to get recurring results in your business using a podcast. We call it the recurring results roadmap. It is years of putting this in practice. It is the blueprint to get results and recurring results using a podcast if you’d like that, send me a message ronsley@gmail.com I want to hear from you. I want to hear your voice. Or I want to hear from you. See, if you’ve listened to this and you want that roadmap. Please send me an email ronsley@gmail.com I want to hear from you. Much love. I’ll see you in the next episode.

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