Why Now Is the Perfect Time to Start a Podcast

Welcome back to the Brand Builders Podcast. Today we're going to be covering an issue that we've covered before, but I want to go over it again because there's new stats, there's new stories, and there's new things that I want to talk about when it comes to starting a podcast. Brand Builders Podcast. Everybody, it feels like, has wanted to have a podcast over the last 3 years. It's been a trend. It's been what everybody's wanting to do. It's become so popular that I literally opened up a whole studio just to produce podcasts for our clients, and it's been going well. We produce multiple podcasts every single week for our clients, and I wanted to make this video to give you a little nudge, a little push, and help you understand here is why you should have a podcast if you have a business, and maybe some reasons that you may not need a podcast. Not everybody needs a podcast, but it can be beneficial to the ones who match the criteria. And so that's what we're talking about today. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, you don't know whether it's worth it, then this is gonna be the perfect video for you. So the first thing I wanted to go over is a few stats, a few numbers. There are now 584 million podcast listeners worldwide, and it is projected to hit 619 million by the end of 2026. So it's only going up, it's only getting more popular with the listeners. I don't know about you, but I constantly listen to podcasts every single day. Uh, in the US alone, 55% of the population, about 158 million people, listen to podcasts every month. To me, this is what radio used to be. It is now translated over into the online space via podcast format. And so this is how I need you to think about it. 40% of the US population now listen weekly, up from 34% in 2024. And so it's just growing. It is just growing. And there's massive opportunity for you to create what I call a personal brand. That's what we talk about is building a brand through content, social media, and influence. And so podcasting is one of the ways to do this. Whenever somebody wants to start a podcast, this means they're wanting to get their voice out there, get their service out there, and ultimately build trust and relationship with potential clients. In their market. Whenever some people come to me and they're like, man, I want to start a podcast, but I don't know what it looks like. I don't know how I make money. I— it's gonna take a while for us to get monetized. And I want to let you know that the first video that you ever make can be monetized, but not in the way that you think. Whenever people think monetized, they think, oh, YouTube is paying me because there's ads playing on my videos. You have to hit at least 1,000 subscribers and at least 4,000 hours of watch time. And so once you meet, meet this criteria, YouTube will actually pay you and you will get a cut of all of the ad revenue that goes on your videos. The problem with this is many business owners are in business running a business and they don't have time to become a full-time content creator, which is what it takes in order to make any significant money on ad revenue. It's a nice little bonus, especially if you have a couple of videos go viral or pop off. It's a nice bonus, but don't consider it your income. And so what do I mean whenever I say you can actually monetize your first video? Well, we can put ads sponsored by your service or your product in your own episodes, and this immediately unlocks the ability for you to monetize off of that content. Say you're selling a service to a very specific number of people. Let's just say people who fix vacuum cleaners. I know this is random, but if you have a solution, a software tool, a physical tool that can be sold to these vacuum clean or vacuum repair people, they are going to be watching your podcast because you know what you're talking about, you're an authoritative in the space, and they're interested in the vacuum world. If you have a product on the backend of that and you say, hey, by the way, I have a product that solves X, Y, and Z, Click the link below to take advantage of this one-time offer. We're giving a deal for 25% off for the next 50 people. And more than likely, if even if you have 150 views, if you get 10 of them to go through and purchase your product, you could have a huge month and monetize that video alone, even with the small number of views. Okay, let's talk about the barrier to entry and the barrier to consistency. The difference being The barrier to entry is anybody can get out their phone, open up the voice memo app, and start recording a podcast at any time, anywhere. You can be on the bus on the way home from work. You could be in the car on the way home from school. Whatever it is, you can then take that audio file and upload it directly via Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and you can have a podcast. With this being said, the whole thing is the consistency issue. The barrier to this consistency is very, very high. This is where you can really tap in. There's a stat, only about 15% of podcasts are actually active, meaning that they release an episode in the last 90 days. And so if you listen to a podcaster weekly, like I hope you listen to the Brand Builders Podcast every week, there are only 15% of the total podcast shows. So the competition goes way down after a while. 15% of them are posting, um, every 90 days or within a 90-day window, which that's huge for you because if you can stay consistent, if you can do this once a week for an entire year, this could have the potential to absolutely change your life and your business. Forever. When you start a podcast, this is going to do what ultimately is called building that personal brand that I mentioned before. And people always get confused on what the heck is a personal brand. And this is building the brand of you and who you are. In the world of AI and digital things, nothing can replace the true human connection that you have with the person that you're watching, watching or listening to. And hopefully it feels that way whenever you watch this podcast. AI cannot replace you. And so lean into this, lean into your hobbies, lean into your faith, your family, your friends, your fitness, your fashion. Those are the 5 Fs that make a personal brand and make people stick and like you. Um, people come for the information, they stick around because they enjoy hanging out with you. And so remember that just because you don't know everything, and I don't know everything, I'm still learning every single day. But just because you have the information doesn't mean people are going to stick around and buy from you. They have to get to know you on a personal level. There's a good stat by Google. It came out a couple years ago. It says somebody has to listen to you or watch you for 7 hours. You have to have 7 hours of content that they can consume online before they will trust you enough to buy from you. Whenever I first heard this stat, it blew my mind because I can't tell you how many people have come to me and been like, oh, Darren, podcasting isn't working, social media isn't working. I'm like, okay, well, how much have you posted? They're like, oh, well, I posted a couple times last month, it was just a couple graphics, like nothing really happened. That's not how this thing works. Do you have at least 7 hours on your YouTube channel? Do you have at least 7 hours of content on your Instagram or TikTok? The more of this that you put out, the more it's going to compound and people start seeing it. The algorithm starts seeing that you're consistent and the more it works. So 7 hours is what it takes for somebody to buy from you or trust you enough to buy your service or product. Talking about consistency again, if you have trouble or if you've tried having a podcast in the past, that's one of the reasons that I started this studio. So where I'm at right now, we produce multiple— we've produced over hundreds of episodes for our clients in the last couple years. And it's turnkey. We do it for you. Check out the link in the description or our website. Get a discovery call directly with me. We can talk about your goals, your why, and what it looks like to start a podcast with us. But it's turnkey. We do everything from start to finish. You show up and talk. And if that's something that's interesting, make sure to hit the link below. Another question that I get is, should I just do an audio podcast or should I also do a video podcast? There's a couple things here. Audio is great. For people who like to run, for people who like to listen while they drive, and that's about it. Um, or maybe while they're cleaning the house. The world is shifting towards smart TVs. You'll see that I have a smart TV right here. I could put whatever I want on it. And on these smart TVs, you get a YouTube app. And what can you do on the YouTube app? You can watch any single video on YouTube. And so Many of the stats that we have been seeing, people are transitioning from traditional TV, from cable to DirecTV, and now it is, or it went to Netflix, and then now it's even going to YouTube. YouTube is taking over the TV scene. And so whenever people binge your podcast, they're watching it like a series. People turn it on like it's a TV show. And so the use case of video podcasts has gone tremendously up. Since the rise of smart TVs coming out. A couple things that you can do with the video besides just posting it to YouTube, besides building that personal connection via video, which no other format can do, is you can actually repurpose all of this content. I'm gonna take this video, I'm gonna cut it up using a tool called Opus Clips, and I'm gonna take this long video, cut it up into short clips, and then I'll have tons of content for my Instagram, my Facebook, and my TikTok accounts so that I can constantly be top of mind across all platforms. This is a cheat code and an unlock for unlimited content. And if you haven't been doing something like this, whether it's a podcast or a vlog, implement it this week. I think Opus Clips is like $20 a month. If you don't want to use AI, hire an editor. They're pretty cheap online. And try to repurpose your content every single time that you post. It will completely change the game for you. Trust. Let's talk about trust for a second because I think this is the biggest thing when it comes to podcasting and somebody watching your content. People genuinely get to know you if they listen to you for a while, especially with podcasting. There's not a lot of edits. It's just pure conversation. On the solo episodes, I do a little bit of editing just with like the intro and music and stuff. On episodes when I have a guest, I don't do as much editing because I want it to feel raw. I want it to feel authentic. And I know personally it's a lot harder for somebody to fake an hour of a real conversation than it is a little 5-minute skit or a 30-second reel on Instagram. Therefore, the trust factor goes through the roof. Podcasting is the perfect format to build that trust. I've had so many people come up to me in public saying, oh my gosh, I watch your— I watch your podcast and it feels like I know you. And then they'll start repeating things that I'm teaching online. One of the first times this happened to me, I went to a client meeting and they were like, yeah, I want to talk about social media stuff. I'm like, okay, cool. Up to this point, I had to preface every meeting with like, okay, this is what we do. This is how we do things. This is how it would look for you guys. Whenever I showed up to this meeting, he was telling me what we did. He already knew, which we pre-sold him upfront via content. We built that relationship. So by the time he was ready to purchase, he was already ready to go and primed. So he was repeating things to me that I had said on videos and content before I even had a chance to say it in this sales meeting. And he started saying these things and I was like, where did you, where did you hear about this stuff? And he's like, oh, I watch your content every single week. And I was like, what? That's a thing? And so the power of this is absolutely huge. I had another friend text me the other day. He sent me a text message. He was like, Hey, I was just talking to one of my clients and I brought up your name and he doesn't know us personally. Me and this friend, we go to church together. He's like, yeah, my client was like, wait, are you talking about the Darren that's on Facebook all the time? So everybody knows me as the Facebook guy and the YouTube guy, but that's okay, that's what I want. And if they're watching, then hopefully they see my Howdy Media hat, brand recognition. They trust me because they're listening to me uncut for multiple hours at a time. Huge in trust building. And you get to build trust and relationships with people who come on the podcast, your guests, which I recommend if they're not celebrities, super interesting, or have great stories. I will recommend bringing on people who could be potential clients. For your business. This is another way to monetize because often business owners love to have free marketing, first of all, and they love collaboration, getting their name or their product out there. And so if you offer them that, that gets you a chance to get your foot in the door to sit with these business owners or your ideal client to talk to them, get to know them, and eventually they'll trust you whether they think you're doing this or not. You're going to be doing it intentionally with this strategy. With an intent to build that relationship and sit down at a table and talk with them for an hour. Um, after you talk to somebody for that long, the odds are you feel more like a friend than an acquaintance, which is what you want. Okay, so you're like, Darren, I'm convinced. I'm starting a podcast this year. What does that look like? What equipment do I need to buy? What do I need to talk about? Let's talk about it. As far as the equipment goes, You don't have to have anything crazy. Honestly, if you have an iPhone and a wireless mic that plugs into the iPhone and even just a ring light off of Amazon, you can make a pretty well done podcast. This is what I would say should be the minimum to your setup. Uh, if you don't have a light, get by a window with some diffused soft light through some curtains or something. Uh, but that's really all you should need. I would say if you're gonna be doing a podcast, definitely invest in doing the video portion as well because it's going to be a, it's going to be a way higher ROI on your time because then you can repurpose that content like we talked about before. If you're like, Darren, I don't know what the heck to buy. I don't care. I just want somebody to do it for me. Let us know here at Howdy Media. We're located right here in Abilene, Texas. Check out our website, book a call, and we can help you out there. When it comes to what you should actually talk about, I want you to think about who your ideal client is and the questions that they're asking. If you've been in an industry for a little while, you have experience with your ideal client. You usually know the top 10 questions that they ask, or at least any expert does. If you don't, then go get some more time in the field before you start a podcast so you have things to talk about. But you take those questions and you can even use Claude or ChatGPT, whatever AI model you use to help you. Be like, hey, this is my ideal client. What are 10 of the top questions they're asking online right now? I'm going to do the research for you. Each one of these ideas can be a video. You can give the solution to their question. All you have to do is answer the question and provide value. Show a little personality if you want. Throw some jokes in there. Bring some guests on. However you want to do it, but that's where I would start if you're just starting a podcast in 2026. Now don't expect this model and this method to go super viral. The whole key is to build that trust and the relationships online as a business owner and putting yourself in the perspective as an authority in the space, as somebody that your ideal client can trust. That way it makes the sales process go so much easier. If it does go viral, great. Sometimes it does. You never really know with this type of content. You can be strategic about creating brand awareness through short-form content, and there's a time and place for everything. Since we're talking about podcasting, it's not always going to go viral, and that's okay. That's not what we're trying to do. The first 10 episodes, I like to say, is more of your entrance fee or your tuition to having a podcast. This is where you're going to get all the experience. You're going to learn what you like, what you like to talk about, and you're just going to get a feel of whether or not you want a podcast in the first place. If you can get past 10 episodes, then that's a pretty good sign that you can keep this going long term. If you can only get 3 episodes in and you're like, man, I have laid out my entire life, I don't know what else to talk about, then maybe hold off. Maybe go get some more experiences. Maybe go in on short form content for a little bit. And then come back a couple years later and, and try the podcast again, uh, because you don't want to be running out of substance. If you can't talk for longer than 30 minutes to an hour about your profession or whatever it is that you do, then it's more than likely not a good idea. And sometimes that means that you're not actually an expert in the field. So think about that. That's something to consider. Um, that doesn't mean Quit it and never do a podcast again. That means give it some time. Let you become the person you're supposed to become in order to deliver the messages that your ideal clients want and need to hear. So that's pretty much everything I had for you today. A quick reminder, the audience is out there. You heard the stats at the beginning of the episode. There are hundreds of millions peop— of people consuming podcasts every single day, and the platforms are hungry for content because this is how they make money. And so when you match the two, if you're giving algorithms and platforms consistent, good quality content, then they're going to push your episodes. They're going to push your content out there to the people who want to watch your videos. We are now in an age of what Gary Vee is stating, and I completely agree with him. In the age of interest media, and not social media any longer. This meaning the platforms are feeding people only what they're interested in. This is how TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, even your YouTube homepage, every time you get on the platform, it somehow reels you in. And the next thing you know, you've been watching a podcast for an hour, or you, the next thing you know, you've been watching Instagram Reels for 2 hours doomscrolling because it already knows you, it knows what you like. And so every video is interesting. And so if you are a creator and not just a consumer, you can actually leverage the algorithms in this way. And so it will find people who are interested in what you have already. The number of subscribers, the number of followers are mattering less and less and less every single month, honestly, as time goes by. So the best time to start a podcast was 2019. The second best time is actually right now. If you're watching this right now, it's 2026. We are in the month of April. If you're watching this in the future, the time is still now. Um, especially with the age of AI rapidly increasing and growing every single month, the quality and the trust and the value that your real personal brand will bring in the next few years. I don't think a lot of people understand or comprehend the amount of value it's going to bring to the world, especially people who are online, because people are already getting tired of it. People are getting tired of the AI. They call it slop. And so start now, start today, and let me know down below in the comments about your podcast idea. Have you tried starting a podcast before? If you did and you stopped, why did you stop? Are you planning on just— on starting a new one in the future? Let me know down in the comments below. Make sure to subscribe. Put out episodes like this every single week on the Brand Builders Podcast. See you in the next one. Peace.