How to Monetize Your Podcast: Live Coaching with Dr. Bradley Block, Part I

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I'm your host, Dr. Umna. All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the ontremd podcast. And this is the first of its kind. I've always wanted to do this, Dr. Block. I've never. I didn't tell you, but I've always wanted to do this where just a live session where we're troubleshooting something in a business, and that's what we're gonna be doing today. I have Dr. Block here with me. Phenomenal physician, veteran podcaster, and we're gonna do a deep dive podcast and it's going to be a lot of fun. We've been trying to put this together for a while and I'm glad we get to do this today. So, Dr. Block, welcome to the show.

Brad, please. Oh, thank you. For longtime listener, first time caller. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Awesome. So I'm going to give you a moment to introduce yourself, let the listener know why I'm so excited that you're here on the show.

So my name is Brad Block. I'm a private practice otolaryngologist on Long island, and I started my podcast about five years ago that was really just to scratch a personal itch, which Was at the time, there wasn't much for physicians in terms of personal and professional development. There weren't that many podcasts out there. And the ones that were out there were really all about just personal finance, which is great. But there was a lot more I wanted to learn, and in particular, I wanted to get better at the physician patient interaction, which we learned some about. But there was. I found that there was a lot more material out there that was focused on sales and dating and all these other interactions that could translate to better physicians. Like how to get someone to like you in 60 seconds. Right, like that. That can help us to be better physicians. So I wanted to get those people on my show, but that wasn't enough for a show, or at least I didn't have access to enough of those people. So really, the topics I cover exploded into just anything that could help you be a better physician in and out of the exam room. And really, most of my. Most of the subject matter applies to all specialties and all practices, private practice, academic practice, whatever, pathology, radiology, everything. So. And at this point, I've been doing it for five years, and it's work and it's overhead, and I want to do it more, actually. I want to put out more episodes. I want to increase to twice a week, even three times a week, which it's taken a lot of my income and it's taken a lot of my time. So I want to be able to turn it into a bit of a business. Right. I want to be able to sell advertising revenue or find other ways to monetize it. So who better to ask than Dr. Oona herself, entre MD to have her help me to find ways to monetize it, because that was never. The point of. It was never to make money, but to continue doing it at the rate I want to do, really, it's gonna. I'm gonna need something financially back for it.

Okay. So I won't say that's a tall order or anything. I don't feel like I've been put on the spot. I don't feel any pressure at all. Just so you know. Okay.

So first of all, as it turns out, we're gonna conclude by the end of this. No, there's no possibility here. You're. This is it. You're done. You're doing the best you can do. Oh, no, we're.

Lots of possibilities. Lots of possibilities. So, first of all, I wanna say thank you for what you do for the physician community. And I say that because for me, it's something near and dear to my heart.

Right.

Like, I think all hands are needed on deck. And so you saw something that you couldn't find a solution to and you're like, okay, I will fix this. And you've done it for five years. And you know how the half life or the mortality rate of a podcast is pretty, pretty high. And so having done it for this many years, having hundreds of episodes is no mean feat. And I just wanna acknowledge that and say thank you.

Well, thank you, thank you. And I think some of it is the God, I forgot. Which logical fallacy is it that, like, if you've already lost money in something, then you should just like, sell it, but, like holding on to it in the hopes that it's going to increase in value again. So that's what the sunk cost fallacy. I feel like there's a little bit of sunk cost fallacy going on in my head where I'm like, well, I can't quit now. I've already been doing it for five years.

Well, it's worked for us, it's worked for the physician community. So, yeah, we'll take that. Okay, so from what I hear you saying, you did start out and the primary thing was the doctor patient interaction, things like that, but it has expanded since. And really what you're doing is helping physicians become better clinicians. Would that be. Or just helping them, helping physicians in general? I just want to clarify that a little bit.

Trying to, like to steal something from Ted Lasso, trying to help physicians be the best versions of themselves and in and out of the exam room. Like, I've got a couple of episodes coming out on parenting. Like, how do you be a better. How do you be the best parent you can be as a physician? Because we come into our lives with so much baggage from what it took to get here in our lives. Are, is that going to. How are we going to pass that on to our kids? And should we even be passing some of that on to our kids? So that has nothing to do with being a doctor, but it's still something that applies to doctors.

Beautiful. And so you are kind of the one stop shop, like, for physicians in a way, like the full breadth of like their lives, not just the exam room, which is really powerful. Right. Because I think being. Looking at just us as one dimension, us being the people in the exam room, doing the doctor thing is kind of what has created a lot of the problems we have now. So. So that's really fantastic. Now when you. I know in the beginning your intention was not Necessarily to monetize. But when you think about it at this moment, what are some of the things you've thought about? And you can just throw them out. We're talking ideas here you've thought about. As far as monetizing it, what ways feel authentic to you? Like, if you had your way, what would you do?

So one would be advertising. And I'm certainly going to pick and choose advertising because I don't want to have something on my show that I can't stand behind. Right. So I'm not going to take every advertiser and then that's advertising on the podcast or that's advertising advertising on the website. Something that I'm going to be doing now is I'm going to be writing blog posts to go with each episode. So I'm going to build out a blog. So that's going to be another way to monetize because the blog is going to direct, is going to have web traffic so that those eyeballs. And again, it's a physician audience. It's really not everybody that's listening is a physician. But that's who my listener, that's my avatar, that's who I'm picturing out there. That's so, so this is a high income, a high earning audience. And so this audience has more value than a general audience. And so the ones that want our eyeballs, our physician eyeballs, are going to be willing to pay a little more. So advertising in the podcast and then advertising in the website for the blog. And then another thing would be if I could somehow spin this into speaking opportunities, which I haven't done yet. I mean, I speak every week on the podcast and every day in front of my patients. And I think I'm good at it. Right. If you listen to the podcast, I would think you'd be like, wow, he can really engage with his audience. Maybe with a few too many filler words, but aside from that. So someone would hear that and go, you know what? I think it would be great to have him speak at our conference. Now I do have three little kids at home and so a weekend away from them, it's, that's going to be a high ticket item because it's going to take a lot for me to be willing to go away from them for a weekend. But I live in New York, so if it's somewhere in the New York metro area, there's a lot of, lot of people, a lot of population around here. So we're starting with something. So, so speaking gigs and then the last Thing is, I've covered a lot of episode on medical expert witness work. And the reason that I've covered it so much is it's something that I'm trying to get into. So that wouldn't be a directly way to monetize the podcast, but it would be a way to leverage the podcast into building that business.

Okay, this is good. So I have advertising and we have a number of channels for that. I have speaking, I have medical expert work, all of which will work. I'm going to have some follow up questions, but I just put it somewhere. I'll come back to it.

All right. And actually one more thing.

Yes, we could.

People could pay to be interviewed on the show.

Okay.

So it'd be another way of having advertising rather than just the normal podcast like host red ads. Another would be to have pay to be a guest.

Okay. All right. Beautiful, beautiful. So let's track some other things before I come back to follow up on how we like to monetize. But this is fun. This is really good. Now we're going to come back to your ideal client. So when we think physicians, are we thinking the physician community in general or is there a subset? It sounds like physician community in general, but is there a subsect or is just the physician community?

Because I'm mostly. Not mostly, but I'm often having guests on for questions that I have and I'm like a mid career private practice physician. That is probably the highest percentage of my audience. Okay, but that doesn't mean that's like the stuff really applies to everybody and it could even apply to trainees. But when I'm thinking about my avatar and who I'm speaking to, it's. It is attending physicians mostly.

Okay. And your current listeners are mostly private practice physicians. Like as far as you can.

I don't know how to get that information. I don't know because I can get some of their demographic information off of YouTube or I guess from Libsyn, who's my media host. But it doesn't end up being that much or that useful in terms of who they are. Nor does my audience engage with me that much. I don't get emails. I got an Instagram message from a listener a while ago and it was great. I was like. And I responded. I was like, what do you want to hear? And she gave me some suggestions. I was like, those are great. I'll get them on my show next quarter. Not individuals, but just specific topics. So that's. That was a rare engaged audience member. So I don't know even how to get that information.

Okay. All right. So I think we. It will be fair to say maybe for it to niche all the way down. It'll be private practice physicians, but it does sound like it's physicians in general. Now, when you say no emails, is there a way, like on your website, for people to subscribe to your email list or newsletter or anything like that? Because we can always poll them to find out.

I just signed up for mailchimp. I don't have. I don't have an email list. I don't know even how to accumulate an email list. Rather than just going through my emails and taking all the guests that I've had and just blasting them with emails and the concept of an email, I end up on email lists unintentionally. And then as someone who doesn't read those emails, I kind of even feel bad about sending that out and monetizing that. Okay, should I not be. Should I not feel bad about filling someone's email box?

Well, this is the thing. Your people are already listening to your podcast. They're coming on there. I've read some of your reviews, reviews that were left for you on Apple and things like that. They talk about how powerful the interviews are. They talk about how great you are at interviewing. I don't know if you've seen that, but that's a theme that seems to be going on there. And so people find value in what you do. Now, when we talk about monetizing, sometimes there's this yucky feeling that comes up, like, I'm doing this thing and I'm also monetizing it. Right? But we can blend it together. The reason why you wanted to do this is you want it to be of service. You want. There's information you wanted people to get. You wanted to help them become the best version of themselves. And so if we looked at email as another channel of giving them value, if we looked at it like, wow, of course there are podcasts that I listen to that I would forget. I may not listen to them every week. But what if I got an email saying, this is who I interviewed and this is why you really want to listen to this podcast episode? Then it's not this sneaky, slimy, silly, I'm trying to manipulate you and take your money type of deal. Right? It's more so I know you're busy. I'm busy, too. And I know you may have forgotten or you may have seen this name, and you're like, why should I listen to that? Here's the answer to this question. This is why you should listen to that. You see what I mean?

The mistake that I often make is I assume that everyone is like me, that does things like me, that makes decisions like me. Like, someone had told me that they actually listen to podcasts on YouTube. They don't watch them, but they listen to them. And so then I started putting my podcast up on YouTube. I would never do that. I mean, maybe I could, but. So I was like, why? Why would I put it up on YouTube? It's a podcast. It's just meant to be listened to. And the answer is they do, just not in the way that I listen to them. So the mistake that I often make is just because I don't open those emails, that other people aren't opening these emails. And as you're saying is. No, they are. They're opening them. Not everybody, but some people. And so there is. It's just another way of you providing them with value.

Yeah. And they're. Yeah, so. So it's just something to think about. And that gives you the opportunity to nurture them. That gives you the opportunity to give value. If you're speaking somewhere, you can tell them, hey, this is where I'm going to be. If you want to host a meetup, you're like, this is where I'll be. And when you think we're going to get more into this, but when you think about building your podcast as a win win situation, which means it creates wins for your audience and it creates wins for you, then you really are looking at building an asset. Right. And your email list is part of that asset. You see what I mean? And so, yes, a really great email is you may have 50% of people opening the emails. Right. And there's still half that won't open it. And it's fine, we send it. For the half that will open, you see, the other half will do what they do. So that's fine.

For all the people that we prescribe aspirin or recommend aspirin for, the number needed to treat, I think is four. Now, this is out of my specialty. This might be old data, but it's like the number needed to treat is 14. So for every one patient that benefits, there are 13 other patients that are not benefiting, but we don't know who that one is, so we have to give it to everybody. So you send the email to everybody, and not everyone's going to, okay, I'm buying what you're selling here.

You're buying what I'm selling? Okay, now that we've linked it to aspirin, we're good. Okay, now we've linked it to aspirin, we're good. Okay, so this is good. All right, so now let's talk about. Because I know advertising has come up a number of times, right? So let's talk about the advertiser right now, for them, I want us to think of them like the client, right? Because that's who the client is. Right in this equation. Okay, so for them, why would they want to advertise on your show? What is the pain points that advertising on your show would make disappear for them?

Well, the advertisers just need. They want physician eyeballs for some reason. They want this very specific audience. And I don't. It could be for different reasons. Maybe they're trying to sell disability insurance because they feel like physicians. It's something that's really important for physicians. Maybe they're a wealth manager that wants to manage our money. Somebody who wants physicians. If they're changing jobs, they want to be reviewing their contracts to make sure that they're not being taken advantage of and getting the best that they can get from this new job. So again, this is all stuff that I can stand behind. And these are people that I've advertised. Or locum tendons is a big one. There are a bunch of locum companies out there. These are all people that want position eyeballs. So it's not that there's a pain point, per se, or the pain point is getting access.

Right.

Like for drug reps. Not that I've ever had a medication on my show, but they often have to get lunch for physicians because the only way they're going to get that physician's attention is. Is if they do this. And so the pain point, I guess, is the access.

Okay, all right. So the pain point is that they don't have access. And your solution is. I got them. So what that means is if advertising is a route you want to take, then your product is as many ears. I was going to say eyeballs. I was like, this is a podcast, right? So as many ears as possible.

Mail and blog, as you said. So it's eyeballs, too.

Right. And so this then becomes something that is part of what you do for your podcast. What is it that I do on a regular basis to grow my. My listener base. Right, because that's your. And when I say your product, you can understand that because we're both. We're both service first. So of course, I'm not saying doctors are Reduced to ears. But in growing your. In growing your podcast, your listener base growth now becomes an important metric to check because that's what you're offering them. Does that make sense?

Probably the biggest pain point for every single podcaster out there, right? How do I grow my audience?

And we will talk about that.

I don't know.

No, we will talk about that. We got that. I just want to point it out. That's a critical part. Like the ads and that go together. And so this is something that is not on the back burner. This is something that we paid attention to at all times, because this is the business. If that.

And I think that's something that I have neglected. I just assume you keep putting out good content and the audience will find you. And that is true sometimes, but it's not true all the time. And so what I have done recently, and maybe this is where you're going with this, is I've been a guest on a bunch of podcasts in the past, and then for a long time, I just didn't even bother because each time I was a guest on someone else's podcast, I didn't really see an increase in my downloads. And I think the point you're going to get at is it needs to be a constant process. It's not something that you put your foot on the gas and then you take your foot off the gas. You need to continue and continue and continue to try to be guests on other people's podcasts. I see you're nodding your head.

I am not.

That's where. That's where you were taking this.

I am nodding now. Now, having said that, there is. So there is a place of volume and consistency, which you can say, okay, if I'm going to be a podcaster and I'm creating this business assets, right? That's kind of what a podcast is. Then I'm deciding I'm going to be on a guest. I'm going to be a guest on a podcast four times a month. Like, that's just my thing. I may do it back to back. I saw the face you made. We can start with two and work.

Our way four times a month, 30 minutes a time.

But this is the thing, right? When we start thinking business asset, and the question is, what is required for the growth of my business? You see what I'm saying? And so if this is what is required, because I've done a lot of research and I have tried many ways to find other ways to grow your podcast, that does not include being against another Podcast. And I found like the most consistent way is that and is the most long lasting way. Right. I oak, for instance, I had somebody reach out to me is like, you will not believe what happened. I'm like, of course I will. What happened? And they're like, I was a guest on your podcast a year ago and somebody listened to that podcast episode today. And this person was. This person had a service, and this person signed up for my $12,000 service from a podcast episode a year ago. Do you see what I mean? So the thing with the podcast is like, evergreen is the gift that keeps giving. There are people. There is a lady I met who sold her business but kept her podcast. Okay. So she sold her business, kept her podcast, but she was able to sell her business for so much higher because she had over a hundred episodes that had ads for that business on the podcast.

Okay, wow.

What I'm saying. So it changed the multiple. She was able to sell her business ad because she had that. So it's evergreen. Someone can listen today and become a listener, share with somebody else and all of those kind of things. So the volume is one piece, then the skill of it. Right. Because we can always get better directing people to our podcast. We can always get better at that. So it's both things working at the same time. Does that make sense?

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So growing audience is something we're going to. That's going to be a nice shift for you. Email was the first one that we pulled out. Okay, so you talked about speaking. So tell me about what you would like to talk about. Like, so if you had your top two topics that this is what you're known for. This was your signature talks. What would those be? And they don't have to be accurate. I'm just trying to get a feel.

Yeah. So I actually give talks to the. So I'm near NYU Long Island. So NYU bought a hospital near me. They started a medical school. So I had reached out to the. The deans who have been an attending at the hospital for 12 years. So I've known them a long time. And I said, hey, listen, I've got this podcast. So I have a lot of material on a couple of topics if you want me to talk to the students about it. They said, great, we've got this like transition to residency program where at the end of the year we, the residents have a bunch of lectures about being a real doctor. And so I have two talks that I give. One, it's about having adverse outcomes and getting sued and Two is we call. I call it the perfect office visit from first introduction to last laugh, because we talk about being funny during. So ultimately, the perfect office visit is optimizing doctor patient communication during that visit. And what are the things that you can do to optimize the visit while also having that visit? Be efficient, because you can talk all you want about really listening to the patient and getting to know the patient and knowing who they are and where they're coming from until you're blue in the face. But. But ultimately while you're doing that, there are five other people in the waiting room whose time you're using also. So all of that needs to be done efficiently. So that's what this conversa. That's what this talk. And that's the one I think I can really probably sell the most, is having a fulfilling and efficient practice. Because there are some things that you can say that will help move it along and at the same time be fulfilling for the patient.

Okay, I like it. Okay, so question now when you think about. Because I remember you saying that this is something that you like to be a high ticket item, right? Because the opportunity cost is that you'll be away from your family maybe. Right. Especially if it's not in New York. Now, for the times that you have done this or what you've seen the potential of this being. Does it look like something that would give you the high ticket you want so that this is meaningful for you?

What do you mean by that?

So as far as what you're being paid to speak, are you asking for.

Like a number value? Like, how much would I need to be paid in order to make it worth my while or.

No, I mean for the times that you have done these talks.

Oh, I haven't.

Oh, I got it. Okay.

Yeah. I've only given it to the med students. And actually the opportunity cost is a half a day of work. So I don't see patients on that half day while I'm giving that talk to the medical students. So it's not. There is a cost to that. It's costing me. I'm not earning anything. Hopefully a couple of them download the podcast, though. I plug my show when I'm lecturing to the students.

Okay, all right, so that's something that we'll work on as well. So we have the speaking piece, we have the advertising piece. And let's see, for the people who. If the people who are listening to this show, do they. Do you know how they find you for any of them? Like people who've spoken to you and things like that.

No.

Okay.

I mean, when I've done a show, sometimes I'll see like a spike in downloads for that day. So, you know, clearly that is driving some of it. But no, I don't know where people find me.

Okay.

On your show. They're listening to me now.

They're listening to you now. And oh, my goodness. So this is your opportunity. Tell them to go to your show.

Go to my show?

Yeah. Tell them where to find.

Email you.

Tell them where to find you.

Oh, Physician's Guide to Doctoring. Sorry, I was. Oh, no, you're. Yeah. So the podcast is called Physician's Guide to Doctoring and I'm on Twitter and Instagram PhysiciansGuide. But if my website's PhysiciansGuidetodoctoring.com and that can be a jump off point for a lot of different podcast players. Or just search on your podcast player, Physician's Guide to Doctoring or Bradley Block. I'll come up either way.

You'll come up either way. And you are right here on a podcast app listening to this right now. So just search right here where you are and then go subscribe. Okay, Exactly. Go subscribe, go help.

And then leave me a five star review because you love it so much. And then also a five star review for Dr. Una.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now we're talking. All right, well, now that was the first part of the live coaching session with Dr. Brock. I hope you got a lot out of it. In fact, what I do want you to do is I want you to think about how this applies to your business, applies to you monetizing what you're doing. Maybe you saw some opportunities and things like that. So think about it and then send me an email. Dr. Una D R U N A on trendy dot com. Let me know what you got out of it and how you're gonna apply it to your own business. On the very next episode, we are going to go into the rest of the life coaching session where we go even more into the strategies that we're.

Gonna use to monetize this podcast. It a much bigger reach and take.

It to the next level. See you on the next episode.

Hey, if you love listening to the Entre MD podcast, I want to invite you to join Entre MD on Demand. It is my signature subscription program that gives you access to a library of business courses designed to help you do one thing as a physician entrepreneur, and.

That is to thrive.

Just head out to entremd.com forward/on demand and I love to have you join us. See you on the inside.