How To Build A Profitable Podcast That Generates Millions With Travis Chappell

Basically, our goal with Podcast Profit Academy is to help entrepreneurs and business owners actually make money from having a podcast. Because a lot of people, I think, and you obviously would be able to speak to this too, Eric, I think a lot of people get into podcasting thinking that it's like something that they have to do. Like it's something that everybody talks about and like the big guys, they all have one, so I may as well have one. They don't really have like a clear strategy or a clear direction of where they're headed. So they just start one and then they look back 6 months later and they're like, man, all I've done is waste time, energy, and money on this thing that doesn't generate any of those 3 things back into me or in into my business. And so that's when they quit. And, you know, 80-90% of podcasters will quit before they hit 15 episodes of their show because they don't see any real results from it. So our goal with the people that we bring into the Academy and some of our accelerator program, we just try to help people find where they can actually make money on a show sooner rather than later, enough to at least keep them going to experience the long-term benefits of podcasting. Because the benefits of podcasting, like we— like you and I've talked about before, They come long-term. They're not things that you do within the first 3, 6 months. You're going to reap the benefits more around year 3, year 4, year 5. But most people won't make it to that point because it takes so much time and energy and money to keep things going at first. So our goal is we just want to help you see that you can make money now and use this as a big tool to grow your business. You're also getting the long-term benefits if you stick with this thing and keep going for a longer period of time, because you're going to wake up in 5 years and be super, super, super thankful for yourself making the decisions you made right now. Because in 5 years from now, you'll have an audience and you'll have a future-proof, recession-proof type of a way to grow and build any business that, you know, any product launch, any software launch, anything that you're trying to accomplish. Like if you have an audience or a tribe of a bunch of loyal people who care about what you talk about, a lot easier to get some people to adopt, you know, new things that you have. on the horizon. So that's kind of the whole premise behind Podcast Profit Academy is let's help people with their podcasts, but also let's help them, like more importantly, let's help them profit from this so that they can stick with it for long-term benefit.

All right, everyone. Super excited to bring you my buddy Travis Chappell today. He's the founder of Guestio and host of the Build Your Network podcast. Today we're going to be talking about podcasting and networking, Guestio, which is another amazing tool. Especially if you're thinking about podcasting right now, you got to check it out. Uh, first and foremost, Travis, welcome to the show.

How's it going? Eric, what's up, bro? Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

Yeah. So tell us a little more. I mean, tell us a little more about kind of what your story is leading up to all the stuff you do right now.

Sure. So kind of a 30,000-foot view here. Uh, I grew up in Southern California, a little town called Lancaster that nobody really knows about and probably for good reason. Um, You do know it. Okay.

Yeah.

So you know exactly why most people don't know it and why I left. But anyway, I grew up there and it was kind of an interesting way to grow up because it was in LA, but it was kind of like this, our own little bubble that we had there. So I grew up kind of a religious bubble community type thing. I don't want to call it a cult because it's not technically a cult, but kind of very similar to that because I graduated kindergarten, 8th grade, high school, and college on the same 40-acre campus, which is also the campus that I went to church on. So almost literally every day of my life from the time that I was in kindergarten until I graduated college was spent somehow on this campus with sports games or friends or activities or college classes or high school classes or elementary classes or church or soul-winning. Like, somehow I was there. And so I, when I was in high school there, they don't really tell you to do anything except for ministry. So it's like you're either going into ministry or you're doing something that we don't care about, basically is kind of what the attitude is. So my thing was just, well, I'm gonna go into ministry then. So I enrolled at the college that was on the same campus. I graduated with a degree in Bible and church ministries, double majored. And by the time I graduated, I realized that I didn't want to do that. And I now had a completely useless degree because even if you use that degree for some sort of secular, you know, career path. You don't really get a great job with a Bible and Church Ministries degree. And to kind of add salt to the wound, it was unaccredited. So I had an unaccredited degree in Bible and Church Ministries, and I figured out that I didn't want to be in ministry. So at that point, I was basically trying to figure things out again, but I wasn't a 16-year-old and I wasn't able to just live on my mom's couch because I got married before I graduated college and we bought our first house. So I had a mortgage to pay and a wife to provide for and no idea what I was going to do. And so I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was door-to-door sales. That was what I did in college to make some extra money. And so I just kind of jumped full-time into door-to-door and it went pretty well in terms of money. I was working 15, 20 hours a week as a 21, 22-year-old and I was making 6 figures that first year that I was full-time door-to-door, 100% commission. But at the end of the day, I knew that when I looked into the future, like a 32-year-old or 33-year-old Travis, I knew that I didn't want to be doing that anymore. And so at that point, it was just like, well, I don't have a degree to fall back on that means anything. I don't have really any other skills except for sales. So let me try to, you know, get another job in sales or something and try to make a career out of this. And nobody would hire me, probably because I was really young and I didn't have any experience in corporate selling. Even though I was, you know, a pretty good salesperson, I think I could have outsold a lot of those people. Because if you do 100% commission door-to-door and pull 6 figures, probably sell just about anything. But for some reason, people wouldn't hire me. And so I was back against the wall, had bills to pay, all those things, but you can't half-ass 100% commission sales. You know what I mean? So once I figured out I didn't want to do that anymore, I had to figure something else out. And so for the first time in my life, I dove into personal development in a way that actually mattered to me. And that's when I came across these things called podcasts and started listening to a few podcasts. And eventually it was just like, this seems like a really cool way to make an income and it checks all my boxes. It gives me lifestyle freedom, it gives me independence, it gives me location freedom, financial freedom. I could do what I want, when I want, with who I want. That was basically what I wanted to do. And I wanted to learn a lot more about these different topics because I knew that the future of business would be online and that I was in a generation that would probably be transitioning business to online. And so I was like, I should probably be poised to actually be able to do this instead of just like, you know, watch it happen from afar and not being able to take advantage of any of it. And so that was kind of my first thing, I started a podcast and then kind of went from there. And that was a few years ago, a few hundred episodes ago. And now we're pushing forward with teaching other people how to podcast and connecting podcasters with hosts and guests and stuff like that. So that's kind of the 30,000-foot view. Yeah. So now we're getting 6-figure downloads a month, which at first was like the goal. You know what I mean? It was like, wow, if I could ever get to that, that would be amazing. So that's about where we're at right now, but it took us 3, almost 3 full years to get to that point.

You know what I mean?

Like a year ago, we were still at $30,000 a month or something like that. So now I don't know the number off the top of my head, but I would say $150,000 to $200,000, something like that a month that we're getting on the show. And it's the driver of everything that we've been able to do really. And it's been the thing that like really helped us start software and get into the education side and all those types of things.

Got it. So how does the business work? Is it just— yeah, we'll start with that for those that don't know what Cameo is.

Yeah. So it's basically a marketplace. So if you're a podcaster, you can go onto Guestio, create a free account and put all your information in there. You'll have a cool show profile that's built out that'll give data on your show. And then you see somebody that you want to book for your show in the marketplace. You can just search through guests, you can filter based on a bunch of different criteria. You can sort by a bunch of different criteria, you know, genre-based and different filters for search. Go on there, find a guest that fits perfectly for your show. And we have a free marketplace and a paid marketplace. So a lot of really high-level people are actually totally free. Like we have the founder of Comic-Con on there totally for free. We have a coach of like a high-performance coach for professional athletes, worked with Kevin Durant, people like that. He's on there totally for free. You can book him for free. So it's a great free marketplace, but there's also a paid marketplace and that's full of a bunch of people. Someone like Jordan Harbinger, who's a well-known podcaster, he's on there for like $350. And John Lee Dumas is $300. And Dan Lok's on there for a couple thousand. So we have some people on there. You can just go book them directly, pay them, and then you can schedule within the messaging that's in the application. As well. So you schedule right there, take care of the interview, and then the payment goes to the guest and then Guestio takes a percentage of that payment.

Got it. I love that. So make sure you guys go check out Guestio. Travis, this has been great. What's the best way for people to find you online?

Yeah, best way in terms of social, I probably spend the most time over on Instagram, which is just @TravisChappell, 2 Ps, 2 Ls on Travis Chappell. Anything else, just head over to my website, travischappell.com, and you can be kind of directed toward whatever you want to do from there.

Awesome. Travis, thanks so much for doing this.

Appreciate it, Eric. Thanks for having me, man.