Unique Ways To Monetize A Podcast With Luis Congdon

And welcome back to Bacon Wrap Business. I am your host. This is Brad. Not sure if you were expecting somebody else. My name is in the title. So I want to welcome you to a new year, January 16, 2020. And really excited because there's a lot of, there's a lot of changes coming down down to this podcast. I've been doing it for like five and a half years. I mentioned in the last episode I'm going to be changing up some format a little bit. I'm going to be going solo a lot more and working out some of the, some of the insights that I've had both in my business and with some of my clients and sharing those with you. And I'll be doing interviews a little bit more.

Sporadically as opposed to some of the solo casts that I'm going to be bringing you. And one of the things, one of the topics, though, I wanted to talk about, especially in this new year, I get questions about this all the time from people who ask me about the show, about why I started a podcast, about how I monetize it. Because you'll notice you never hear any sponsored ads on the show. Can't say I'll never sell sponsored ads to you folks, but people ask me all the time, how are you making money? Because I don't hear you making a lot of money offers, I don't hear, you know, advertising, etc. And one of the reasons is the way that I view my podcast. So podcast is a very powerful platform that allows you to network with some amazing people. And it is really been one of the single best, I guess you could call it hacks or strategies that I've ever used. And today I brought on a guest to talk about this in addition to some other things as well. And so his name is Luis Congdon, and Luis is a fellow digital marketing expert. He's a friend of mine. His expertise is in helping businesses leverage the Internet for increased sales. And he's got a fantastic podcast called Thriving Launch. And he's been featured and quoted and written about in really big publications from the Chicago Tribune to Forbes to Entrepreneur Magazine and many others. And he and I had been chatting about some of the misunderstood.

Aspects around why people should have a podcast. Should it just be for, you know, should it just be for, you know, is it to build an audience or does it have to be monetized immediately? And from a lot of the conversations that he and I have had, I knew this would be a really fun episodal for you guys to listen into, especially if You've either a thought about creating one in the past and just not known if you should or kind of sitting on the fence or if you've never actually thought about it, but you're open to the idea that maybe this is something you should look at. I encourage you to listen to the entire episode here as I talk to Luis. Luis, how you doing, buddy?

Hey. Excellent. I'm glad to be here and looking forward to being of help and service to the community, as well as just sharing some misconceptions around podcasting and some overlooked intangibles and metrics that oftentimes a lot of people don't know about with podcasting.

Exactly. So when did you give us a little bit of your backstory as it relates to this? Like, how long have. How long have you been publishing? Thriving launch, for instance.

Yeah. So thriving launch. Started it back in 2015.

Have gone all over the world while recording that show and doing episodes. Like, for example, one of our recordings we did in Columbia, we were interviewing Dave Asprey out of the blue. His team reached out to us, actually, and asked if we'd do an interview. And we're staying in Columbia and there's like roosters in the background and people working. And so we grabbed this mattress and all these pillows and created this kind of soundproof barricade. But, you know, the reason why I'm telling that is because podcasting is, in a way, a mobile business. And if you do it right, this mobile business doesn't have to survive on, you know, how many downloads you got or the sponsors you have or speaking gigs that you're landing because of the show. All that stuff is possible. As a matter of fact, for everybody listening, I've actually found that there's over nine ways to monetize a podcast. And one of them happens to be how many downloads you get and selling sponsorships. But that's actually one of the highest hanging fruits on the tree. And, you know, if you're a good farmer or just the lazy guy who wants results, there's lower hanging fruit that you can get from day one.

Well, that's a perfect segue then into. Let's talk about the other eight ways to monetize a podcast.

Yeah. Today, one of the ways that One of the things I'd really like to dive in with you guys is one of the ways that I look at podcasting, and a lot of people don't seem to do this, even though it's kind of like an obvious one. To me, it seems obvious, but it's in a way, kind of in the backdrop for most people. And they don't think about it until it's actually happened to them. And they're like, oh, I've been doing podcasting for a year and I didn't see this. And one of those is networking and creating a community of highly successful, highly coveted, hard to access people and using your podcast as the gateway tool to open that door or to create that conversation. So, you know, if you're in sales, you have to cold call people, and you want to get on the call with the decision maker. If you run a business, you want to create alliances and you want to network with the right people that will maybe buy your services or connect you with someone who will or just become an ally and a friend in your journey. And, you know, a lot of people say your. Your network is your net worth, and I think that's part of it. But also I think part of what a lot of people don't understand is they say, you know, it's all about who you know, right? It's about who you know. But with podcasting, you get to flip that on its head. And it's about who knows you, who knows you. And when you get to do an interview with somebody, they know you, they know who you are, they're going to have an opportunity to sit down with you for 30, 45, even 60 minutes of uninterrupted time. And not only that, during your podcast interview, you're gonna get an opportunity to do what Dale Carnegie talks about. And that is, instead of being interesting, you get to be interested in someone. And, you know, if you've read Dale Carnegie's books, you know that a lot of what he talks about is networking and creating influence. And one of the ways we do that is being interested in other people. Podcasting gives you that door. So, you know, you asked me about kind of my story and just to kind of back up for a second as I originally got into podcasting because I wanted to create a thriving coaching business in the relationship world. And I thought podcasting would be a tool for me to create marketing content, content that would get out into the world, people would listen to it, and they'd be like, oh, my God, I want to hire Luis. Like, that was an amazing interview. That was amazing content. Well, what was fascinating is, as I got into business, I started to learn that it wasn't just enough to put content out. I needed to learn how to do marketing right? And as a relationship coach, I didn't know that. I just kind of figured I'm good at my craft and if people hear how good I am, they're going to want to hire me. These interviews are going to be amazing. They're going to want to hire me. Well, that didn't happen. I didn't get a lot of listens to my show. It didn't really exactly blow up, but I was getting access to some really amazing people. And that being said, a marketer listened to my podcast. We got in a conversation. He said, how about I come on your show, we can talk a little bit about the business of coaching and how to grow a business in the coaching world. And I said, great. We did an interview. Well, after that episode, the guy reached out to me and said, hey, you've been really great at accessing hard to reach people. I'm not good at it like you are. And I would like to start a podcast. Can I pay you? You know, and he threw out a number that I was not used to hearing in my coaching business. You know, it's maybe 100, $200 for a session with couples. Well, he was willing to offer me a lot more than that. So from there I started working with him and helping him access some amazing people. And he understood that if he could access these people, then he could have conversations regarding business with them.

What industry did you say he was in?

He was in marketing. He was a marketer. Yeah. And, and one of the things that he, he said to me is, he said, you know, Luis, you should leave the coaching industry and become the podcast guy. You're really good at reaching hard to access people. I don't know how you're doing it, but you're helping me access these people. And you could create a whole business of just access, creating access for other people and, and podcasting could be one of your tools, but your business really is access. And from there my business took off. I created one of the largest Facebook groups for podcasters. Right now, has around 2,700 people in it. I used to be super active in that community, but I kind of became known as the guy for podcasting. And so then I got into Entrepreneur magazine, Forbes magazine, inc. Magazine and became known for podcasting. And a lot of that didn't have to do with me having a big show. Full transparency. At the time of these articles, at the time of accessing some of these people, like 19 time Oprah guest or multiple new New York Times best selling authors, or even working with Marianne Williamson at the time, my podcast would sometimes do 50 downloads in a day. You know, we did get it up to like 15,000 downloads in a single day. But the, the thing, the thing was, is it wasn't the size of the show. It was really the understanding that access to hard to reach people is something that a lot of people revere and it's something that a lot of people misunderstand because, you know, you get on the phone with Michael Jordan, he's only Michael Jordan, the all time NBA star of the world for 15 to 20 minutes with you, you know, you can gush about that for a little while, and then after that he's just a regular guy who has dreams and hopes and aspirations and maybe you can help. And if you get to know each other in a good way, you can create a business alliance.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. In fact, and I'll link to this in the show notes, but I wrote an article about this exact topic and it was a guest post on the digitalmarketer.com blog. And it was talking about how, I mean, in essence, that you can get an immediate return on investment for podcasting, but not in the way most people think. I was like, stop thinking about ROI as only being dollars and cents. But to look at, if you look at your ROI being access and influence, that those two, access and influence are both very powerful currencies. And the minute you get a podcast up.

There'S an interesting thing that most people, most people who are not podcasters do not know this unless they're trying to buy podcast ads from people. And once you start a podcast, you start to realize this very powerful feature that really no other social platform has, which is the invisibility of your statistics. So nobody knows how many downloads that my show gets except for me. Same as yours. Like, if you don't tell, it's not public data. Unlike if you have a YouTube channel and you're like, hey, can I interview on my YouTube channel? And I see that you've got 10 subscribers and every video gets 13 downloads or views. That's public. And it makes it really easy for people to judge whether or not they should be on your show. But because of this, it opens up the door for you to access some really big folks, especially if your show has a decent amount of episodes. It's got good artwork, decent quality. In the past five and a half years, I think I've only been asked from a potential guest how many downloads I get, kind of trying to judge if he should be on my show or not. One time and maybe five years. And in doing this, if you really do Reframe what your. That if access and influence are your. Are your currency, you can get an immediate ROI from the day you launch your show, depending upon how you launch it. And, I mean, this is. I make no secret. This is the way that I got. One of my favorite and best clients in, you know, on my show is a guy named Jesse Itzler, who is. You know, he's a billionaire. His wife is the founder of Spanx. He's one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs I've ever met. And I simply reached out to him after reading his book, asked him to be on the show. He said yes. I stayed in contact with him, and then he.

Engaged me to kind of be his strategic marketing director, for lack of a. I didn't actually have a title, but.

I never would have had that if I didn't have that channel and realize that, look, this is about the doors that I can open, even more so than the quality of the content I'm providing my listeners. I always say that I've got the most selfish podcast on itunes because I'm doing this all for me. I'm just letting them listen.

But so what are some of the. Okay, so in addition to this, what are some of the other ways that maybe you can rattle off the other. Because you mentioned you have, like, nine ways to monetize a podcast. So obviously, there's the networking, there's the sponsorships. You know, there's obvious things like affiliate marketing and course sales, et cetera. But what are some of the other less obvious ways to monetize a podcast that you've kind of come across?

Yeah, you know, talking about sponsoring, I know that it's. It's something that you're. We're kind of glossing over because it's one of the obvious ones. But to just kind of add something about that is a lot of people don't understand that their guests are potential sponsors. People who will buy sponsorship spots from your show are guests. And you don't certainly have to be in a big market. You don't certainly even have to have a show that's out live yet. So one of my clients, Nancy, has a show called the Something Boardroom. I can't remember the whole name, but it's something about Boardroom. And one of the things that she did is just two, three episodes into her podcast, so very new, you know, just barely released. She reached out to me and said, hey, I don't want to keep doing a lot of episodes and not make money off of this. You know, I've Already invested in your course. I'm investing time to learn. And, you know, she's a woman who I imagine must be in her kind of later 50s. And so she, what she did after we talked and she took, one of my suggestions is, you know, like, look at your guests, their potential monetizing kind of avenues are some of your guests. And so what she did is she reached out to her guests and said, hey, you know, would you like to buy a sponsorship spot on my, on my show? And her guests said yes. And, and then she reached back out to me and told me that she had made $8,000 from sponsors.

Now if she just started like. So she probably didn't have many downloads then, did she?

No.

But she still got the sponsor.

She did, yeah. Yeah. And the thing her, her angle was, well, it's not certainly the size of the show that we're looking at here. It's the fact that I'm after a very particular audience, that when people listen, your sponsorship spot will speak to those particular people, including my guests and including the readers of, you know, her, her email list or whatever she had. But it's all very small. It's all very new stuff that I'm referencing here. And the idea behind that, that I'm really just trying to hit home is that a podcast doesn't certainly have to be huge to be monetizable. And I think that kind of leads to segueing into who your guests are. Your guests don't certainly have to be big names for you to get the big results. In fact, I really, actually have really gotten the best results from finding kind of what you call micro influencers or niche influencers, because those people are more likely to one share the episode. They're more likely not to be as bombarded with business opportunities, so maybe they'll be more interested in doing business with you. They're more likely to email their list, share it on social media, and yet at the same time, they are also more likely to have a really engaged audience. So I've had people on my show who have had millions. I mean, like T. Harv Eker, very well known guy. I don't know what his following is in total, but he's got a good sized audience. I know that.

And guys, I'm trying to think of, you know, like Boss Root and of the UFC hall of Famer. Like, I've had these big time guests and a lot of these guys, they don't produce huge results as far as listening goes, but they're good, you know, for when you reach out to other people and they see that you've had these guests. So I don't totally want to knock. Like, you know, if you want to get Gary Vaynerchuk on your podcast, go for it. But one thing I'll say about somebody like Gary Vaynerchuk or Grant Cardone is they're not very likely to share the episode. Most likely their audience may not be super engaged because, you know, it's just one other interview that they're releasing out of dozens that they've shared that week, and maybe they're not as likely to want to do business with you. So for a lot of podcasters, I say, you know, if you can try to find those micro influencers, as far as monetizing your show, you know, one of the other ways that I've seen that I think is really interesting. It's. It's a rarity in this field, and it's kind of judged or frowned upon by a lot of podcasters. But I see people do it and they're doing it successfully is charging people to be a guest. For that to happen, you probably have to have, you know, kind of a bigger name. You have to have a show with some metrics behind it that you really show.

Don Lee Dumas does that.

Exactly. Yeah, he's. He's charging for that. Yeah.

From Entrepreneur. He's got a big audience.

And.

And I don't think it's the least bit unethical said that. I'm not saying that. You're saying that. It is one of those, like, listen, I've got a lot of people who want to be on the show, and he's probably. I know he's talked to probably anybody who really kind of wants to. So at this point, you know, in order to get, you know, get on the show, and if you're gonna get a lot of listeners pay to play. But yeah, I think that's. That's harder to do if you don't have much of an audience. Because if I've got a hundred people listening to my episode, depending on who they. Unless they're all, you know, billionaires and you're selling private jets.

You know, people aren't gonna pay just to be. To be put in front of just a very small amount of people, necessarily. That's not always true, though.

But, yeah, you're absolutely right. That is, you know, you get big enough, you can start charging for access.

Yeah, that's. I mean, that's one of the ways that I see that is unique. And again, it's it's. Some people are frowning upon that. But blog talk radio, which is a large network that hosts podcasts and blog talk radio is this company. I'm not shooting them out there to promote them. As a matter of fact, I really don't think anybody should be hosting their show on there. But one of their business models, and I found this out kind of the hard way, is they'll reach out to people and say, hey, you know, we're blog talk radio or network that has X amount of listeners, and they're really compiling all the podcasts that they're hosting. We have this many listeners on our show. We're hosted on all these different places. And we've reached out to your company because we'd like to interview you. And so they reached out to me. And me, I'm kind of like willing to go on a podcasting syndicate kind of syndication kind of thing and be interviewed all over the place. So I said, sure, I'll do the interview. Well, we did about a maybe 10 minute interview, so it was pretty quick. And then afterwards, what they do is they reach out to you, they do this phone call and they say, hey, we really love the interview with you. It these are some of the stats of what it did, and we would like to invite you to be on some of our other podcasts. And these are some of their names, these are some of the sizes of the shows, and they kind of pump you up and you get excited. And, you know, I was like, great, you know, that sounds cool. Yeah, I'm happy to be on the show. And they said, well, it's gonna be $200 a month, you know, for us to keep doing this, we're gonna promote you and we're gonna put you on these shows and guarantee that you get on this many shows every, every, every month. Well, that's kind of one of their. Their things is they follow up. It kind of goes back again to accessing people. But it is one of the ways that I see companies doing that. One of the ways that I actually really liked monetizing my podcast early on was I would find events that I would want to speak at. And I. So again, it's kind of like back to, you know, who you know and who knows you and the networking piece. But it's a different kind of angle on it. If you want to be a spe and kind of do the speaking circuit is you actually reach out to event organizers and you interview them about their event and why they're putting on this event. And different pieces of that. And then afterwards, you follow up with a very soft pitch. Just wanting to throw your name in the hat to speak at their event. And I actually had some good luck with that. That was a fun. That was a fun thing to do. It can be hit and miss because you're not certainly always going to land that speaking gig. They may or may not want you to speak there, but it is putting your. Your foot in the door, so to speak, or entering that person's world. So then later you can maybe put your name in the hat as far as, like naming off some of the more unique methods. I kind of actually, I was going here on my computer to see if I could pull up this document that I created. But you name some of them too, you know, affiliate marketing. So one of the things that we did too, and again, this is with a tiny show, we had maybe 50 downloads. Just to give you an idea for this particular episode that I'm going to talk about, we had a guest come on who was putting on a live event and selling tickets for his live event. And they had this whole thing where it's like, you know, you get to come to the event free and then they make a sale at the event. Very kind of typical formula. Well, after that episode, I received a check in the mail for $800. And it was about a week later, and I looked at the stats. Only 50 downloads total for that whole episode in that time, and I made $800 off of it. A small show does not certainly mean that it isn't monetized or that it can't make money off of it. And those. Some of these examples are. I'm sharing these examples because I think that people just overlook podcasting as a tool for business. And sometimes they overlook it because they think that size is the biggest metric. And it's not. Maybe with YouTube it is, right? With YouTube, it's like to monetize a YouTube channel. Google's very specific about how many views you have, how many subscribers you have. They're very visible. You know, everybody and their mamas tuning into YouTube. But with podcasting, the audience who listens to podcasts, if you're listening right now, I would venture to say that you're probably middle class, you're probably married, you probably have a professional job and make over 60, $70,000 a year. So I'm tapping into a very specific market, and it's a very good market where YouTube is kind of comprised mostly of actually little kids. That's where the big money is in YouTube, it's children. And most of the people that watch YouTube can be anybody. Right. But with podcasting, for some reason, podcasting mostly appeals to kind of upper middle class people who have expendable income.

Exactly. Now it's a, it's a tremendous market to.

You know, to tap into whether you're an advertiser, whether you're a, you know, whether you're an advertiser or just a podcast guest. And, you know, it's still kind of the wild west out there. Things are starting to get a little.

Bit more.

What do you call it, organized and structured around podcast advertising. But there's still a lot of things that can be done, you know, for some of my. And guys, pay attention to this if you have a product or something or service you're trying to offer. But one of the things I've done with some clients in the past is suggested, you know, they didn't necessarily have a big budget to go out and.

Do.

Podcast advertising because sometimes, especially on bigger shows or even the mid sized shows, it can start to get, it can start to get kind of expensive. But one of the things that I let them know that, you know, all podcasters, all of them, with the exceptions of the biggest of the big who exposure is not a big deal. The thing that we want more than anything else is just exposure and awareness to our show. Because if we can grow our show, we can do more with it. And unless you're at a certain level, typically where you are commanding bigger dollars for sponsor dollars.

And most people are not.

They may not be selling any, you know, they may not be selling any ads. However, I told them, actually, I'm giving you a bunch of ambiguous theory here. Let me give you an actual case study. So one of my clients sold health supplements and these health supplements, he also had a very, very big newsletter.

Around the health and fitness, et cetera, in addition to this supplement. So what he did is he went out to I think like 10 of the top health and wellness podcasts and said, listen, I'd like to. No, I'm sorry, he did not go out to the top ones. He went out to kind of lower mid level ones, like pretty engaged. Like they had good shows, but they weren't commanding like thousands of dollars for podcast spots. So he said, here's what I want to do. I've got a newsletter that goes out to something like a hundred thousand people. And once a week we're featuring a thing of like what we're listening to and we're going to be featuring podcast Episodes that are, that we think are really good. And we've identified your show as something we want to share with our people. And they said, great. And now it's, you know, it kind of got their attention. But now it's like, listen, all we ask is can, you know, can we do a barter of. Can you place a spot in your, in your show featuring my products in exchange? Every time you do an episode, I'll send it out in my newsletter to all my people. And I'm only picking 10 people to do this with, so it's never going to be like 30 or 40 people are on this. So you get to be one to 10 and you're going to get weekly exposure to my group. So it's like the podcast.

Host gets to have a free ad in this person's niche related newsletter and the supplement company gets to have free product placement on his podcast. So it's a very easy barter arrangement. But a lot of folks don't realize that if podcasters want exposure really over most other things and you have the ability to bring them exposure, you can strike a really cool deal here. So for my listeners out there who may have a product or thought about doing this, and you have a bigger audience, social, email, etc. Feel free to steal that campaign. But it definitely worked really well.

Yeah, you know, to piggyback off of that, one of our guests on Thriving Launch, Erica Dunn, has a podcast and she travels all over the world hosting her show. And she has a unique bend on how she's doing that because, you know, you look at that and you're like, that's really amazing. She's staying at all these five star hotels and spas and hosting her show all over in these incredible places. And one of the things that she does is she actually reaches out to hotels and retreat sites and says, hey, this is the name of my show, this is the audience here. A little bit of the metrics about the show. And in exchange for a spot on my show, I have an offer that will cost you nothing or nearly nothing. And basically the short of it is what she does is she offers these places a sponsorship spot in exchange for a free stay at retreat site or hotel or some sort of spa. And then she does a review of the place and has a quick little sponsorship spot, just saying, hey, you know, I personally stayed there. This is what happened when I was there. It's amazing. You guys should check it out. And then she links it up on the show notes for her podcast. And that's pretty Cool. And one of the things that she told me is that whenever she's about to travel somewhere, she just sets one of these things up so that she can stay somewhere for free. So, you know, when we interviewed her, I think she was like in Bali or something like that and was like, yeah, I'm staying completely free at this incredible place and all I'm doing is I'm giving them a sponsorship spot and I get to stay here for seven days.

That's. Yeah, that's fantastic. You know what that reminds me of? It plays super well into this strategy that two of my super close friends and former guests on the show, Alex Katoni and Leanne Kallal, did. So they, years ago, like several years back, they scored 30 nights at a five star resort in the Philippines. And what they did is they said, you know, and their way of proposing this, like their entire proposal was absolute mad genius. But they said, listen, we are social media experts. These are not influencers. Like there was no big Instagram following or anything of that nature. They just said, we will work on your social, your resorts social media for two hours a day. And you know, normally we charge thousand dollars an hour for this stuff, but we'll give you two hours a day for free, plus we'll train your staff to do what we did at the end. And really all they did was kind of did a social media takeover and some basic stuff. But yeah, they got full blown access for 30 days, absolutely for free just for doing some of that. And what you're saying is actually even kind of cooler because it's like, look, I just have a podcast and now how many nights can they get for free? I don't know. But if you kind of combine those, by the way, just as a quick little shout out if you want to learn more about those. The girls, Alex and Leanne, they have an entire page describing what they do. I'll put a link in the show notes, but it's just baconrapbusiness.com five star F I V E starfreedom. And you'll see how they, how they did this. But Luis, I love that story because it is, it's another perfect way to say, listen, I've got this podcast, it's about travel destinations and all this other stuff. And once more, you know, it might depend a little bit about how big your, your audience is, but it might not. If the show looks good, if you've got like 30, 40, 50 episodes and your feet, you've got kind of really cool content on there, they, you know, These bigger companies, they might not even ask how many downloads you get. They just kind of want to be featured on there, so.

Well, also, what's the cost to them? You know, maybe they already have a vacant room. It's going to be vacant anyways. Maybe they're going to just have you come during kind of the downtime and it's something that then they can link to their website and they can throw some, a little bit of SEO behind it and it helps them. And they're really, maybe only paying by the end of the day, you know, for cleaning your room. Basically, they're gonna pay $100 or something like that. Like, I'll take free, I'll take advertising for almost the name of dollars.

Exactly. Are you able to share the name of that podcast that your friend was on?

I can look it up here on my, on my show. Yeah, Erica Dunn is her name. But I don't know, let me see if I can Google real quick. Erica's. Erica's heard the name of her show. Otherwise what I can do, what I can do is I can just send you the link of her episode.

That works.

Yeah, because I don't, I don't know what the name of her show is and it doesn't show me right here. So. One of the other things too that I recall is there was a guy who created a podcast all about incredible excursions around the world. And I forget the guy's name, but it was a cool idea. I really absolutely loved it. His show was all about reviewing amazing excursions around the world. And he used to have this picture of him like running through some sort of somewhere in Africa. It was some wild thing. I remember this image and there was like a crocodile in it and he was like in the water or something like that. What he told me is I've created this show and what I do is I review these amazing excursions and so I reach out to places and say, how would you like to have a 45 minute episode created where it's this amazing review and nicely produced content around my experience of going to your place and bringing my family. And, you know, we do this amazing thing and we have photographs and we have, you know, a whole website page dedicated to it, which you can then put on your website as well. With the episode where we talk about what we did and how much fun it was. And he started getting these free excursions to these places because they were like, yeah, that's amazing. Like, you know, some, some photography is going to be done, some notes are going to be made. And an audio 45 minutes of amazing review. Yeah, we'll definitely do it. So he got these really cool excursions all over the world doing that. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of a show. I do have some something else, though. You know, when we talk about monetizing your podcast is. And it's something that, when you look at John Lee Dumas, is actually a really good example because he's kind of one of the guys at the top of the throne in the podcasting world because he's just managed to do such a great job of him and his girlfriend. You know, I want to give her credit as well. They've done a really amazing job of monetizing their show on all the different levels. And one of the things, because I used to be part of their community and read their stuff and you know, about their course and one of the things that they talked about and I had monetized my course before I bought their stuff, but one of the things that they talked about, and it's something I was doing at the time, is they said, you know, most of our income from our podcast does not come from sponsors, does not come from the network. What it comes from is we sell our own digital course. And so when you listen to our podcast, at some point, you'll hear us talk about our course, and you'll hear us when you go to the show notes for the episode and you come to our website, where you. We're going to direct you to our course to sell our products. Sorry, so sorry.

Lost my train of thought there for a moment. So the thing that we started to do was we started to sell our own course on podcasting, and we started to create our own media spots. Right? So, like, today's show has been sponsored by. We started doing a thing, but instead of putting another company on there, we did our own company. So, you know, today's show is brought to you by thriving launch. We're the host of the show, we're the creators of the show. And if you love what you're listening to and want to learn how to make your own podcast, go to our website and we'd shoot out a URL. And a lot of people overlook that because the people that are listening to your show with guests on your show, they're not listening to your show because Luis is on there one day, and whoever else you've had on there, Brad, they're listening because Brad, they like Brad and what Brad brings to it. And the thing that is. What's that Right. Well, the thing that's consistent among every episode is what Brad is doing and who Brad brings on. And a lot of people just overlook that. And one of our first recommendations is sell your own stuff, sell your own content, but don't sell your time. Like, a lot of people will get on podcasts and say, hey, if, you know, you've tuned in, especially like people that maybe are starting, you know, you can go to this URL and get a 20 minute free coaching session. And I've seen wealthy people do this, I've seen poor people do this. I've seen people all across the board is they give away something, they give away time, because we know that if we can get on a call with somebody, we can probably convert them into a sale a lot better. But a lot of people who listen to the podcasts are just, they're too passive for that. So a lot of people don't end up doing that even, even if the offer is amazing. What we found is if we can just say, hey, we have a free podcast training course, you can go to our website. Here's the URL. Make the URL very simple and it is a 10 step method to start, produce and monetize your show. Here's the URL. It's going to be up for 10 days. We actually found a really good return on investment for that and much better than offering time or offering something that was time intensive for us. And I really recommend that to people. Somebody that has a cooking show, I remember this woman, she had like a show all about health and cooking and diet and nutrition. Every week she would offer a different recipe. And so she would say, hey, if you want to learn how to make my family's like, famous lumpia dish or some sort of dish, go to this URL. But it's only going to be around for the next four days and then after that it's a different recipe and I won't bring my recipe back. And she told me that one time she got something like 250 new subscribers from that, you know, and, and so offer things that are really time limited.

And hit people with that reminder repeatedly. Let people know, even in the middle of an interview, you could just be like, hey, you know, I know you guys are loving what Luis is saying. Just want to remind you, if you want to start a podcast and learn my method for monetizing a show, go here and then go right back into the interview.

That's awesome. Yeah, there's. You made me think of something else here.

Man. It was just on the tip of my tongue, really, kind of about the scarcity issues. I'm sure I'll think about it when I come back. So right now you actually have a. You have a course, correct. On thriving launch that you.

Yeah, we have a course on thriving launch. We have a webinar. We have three free guides that we give away to people that teach them the, like seven or nine ways that we've listed out to monetize a podcast. All really kind of pushing people to create their podcasts so that they can learn and really see how amazing this medium is for business. You know, something that's interesting is that when I was really unknown, and I would still say, like, I'm really unknown, like, I'm just the guy who lives in the woods, but I'm more known in the sense that a fair amount of people know who I am who are in various businesses and companies, and I have more access to people than I ever used to. So business a lot easier than it was when I first started. So unknown in that context. You know, I'm not Hugh Jackman or something like that. Right. But in the sense of being known as I have access to people now, unlike I used to. And when I first started with podcasting, I just. I wanted to get known. And I really overlooked that a podcast gives you access to people. But something else, too is that, like, even with 10, 20, 30, 40 downloads in a day, you can sell a course, you can grow your email list. Something else, too, that I thought about here, Brad, for podcasting, is something else that a lot of people will ask me is how did you get all these media placements without any kind of PR team helping you, without any money, without a big following, without the usual successful accolades or metrics that people are used to looking at? And that's really. Podcasting was a tool for that. And something that I wanted to bring you to was so getting featured on Inc. Magazine, that was the very first magazine I was in. INC Magazine is huge. They have a huge readership, their print magazine, and they're also a digital magazine. So they have lots of traffic and lots of eyeballs, a big base of viewership. Well, one of the first ideas I had is, you know what? I'm not going to hire a PR team. I'm not even going to get someone to help me and figure this out. I'm not going to buy a course. Instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to reach out to writers that I like on Inc. Magazine, and I'm going to Interview them. People who are covering topics that I enjoy reading about and who cover topics that maybe they would be interested in writing about me. And that's actually how I ended up getting my first feature in a magazine is I interviewed somebody and then afterwards they said, you know what? Really enjoyed that interview. I got to hear some of your story while, while we did this. And I would love to write a story about you. Would you be interested? Yeah.

So first of all, stop there. You're the. Okay, so I love this. And it also pisses me off. And I'll tell you why I love it, because this is a strategy that I came up with. I told somebody, a client to do it, he actually didn't do it. But I was like, this is actually a genius strategy. I should totally do this.

So this is.

I love the fact that you're the only other person I've heard say this. And number two, that I hate, I'm pissed that I didn't actually follow through and do it because I was like, you know what? Like a lot of these writers from Forbes and all these other places think they're. They're not staff writers. A lot of them are. I mean, some of them are, but also some of them have columns there, but they also have like their own software company or their own company. And if you reach out, hey, I read one of your articles and I noticed you own this company. I'd love to feature you on my show. So I'm giving them exposure and then in return, there could be a good chance of building relationships with those people. And it's one of those things, like, we all have great ideas that we don't follow up on. I'm super glad that you did that and had success with that because it validates it. But now it pisses me off. It's like, alright, guys, you guys might start listening to some interviews with some writers and just know that that's what I'm doing.

Well, you know something else here, Brad, that I can piggyback on to kind of continue some of that story is that. And I love how you interrupted and kind of shared that, because there's just so many different avenues that you can take this tool. Something else that I did is I did an interview with Jack Canfield, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul and a business that now is evaluated at close to a billion dollars, if not more. One of the things that I did during that interview, and it's something that a lot of podcasters kind of miss, is that don't think of Your show as an interview where you're just kind of milking the person for information and asking them lots of questions, I think that's great. Like, if you want to be kind of like the, you know, the guys from NPR that do these amazing interviews and you don't know anything about the person who did the interview, that's fine, if that's your forte. But most likely for running a podcast, your goal is to reach people, and your goal is to impact people, and your goal is to connect with them. And during the interview with Jackson Canfield, I made sure that I didn't just become known as the guy who interviewed Jack. I did not want Jack Canfield to go, there's another interview on the docket, like, you know, and then he moves on and doesn't remember who I am. So during that interview, I made sure that there was a sense that if he shared something and I had something relevant to add, I would share more about that, you know. So during the interview, for example, Jack Canfield talked about the power of visualization and how important visualizing and telling yourself a story of your success is. And when he got done sharing a little bit about that, I told him that at one point, I was sleeping on my friend's couch. I was broke, and I even spent time sleeping in a park. And I got so fed up with that being my reality that the only escape that I had or the only choice I had was to start believing that there was something else possible. I was really down on my luck, and a relationship had ended, a job had ended, and I just kind of fell into a depression. And what I told Jack is I said, you know, sleep. While I was sleeping in a park, Green Lake park in Seattle, of all places, I was sleeping there. And I shared to Jack, I said, I woke up in my sleeping bag. It was very cold. The jogger ran by, and I woke up, and I saw this guy, and we made eye contact, and I was incredibly ashamed. And in that moment, I decided that I was no longer going to tolerate this being the reality that, at least mentally, I lived in. And so that day, I rolled sleeping bag, and I walked around the park and just imagined and felt what it would be like to make $10,000 a month and how my life would be different, what it'd be like to be in love all over again and have something, a life that I truly enjoyed. And within a year's time, I created a six figure business, found the love of my life, who I'm now married to, and I shared all this With Jack Canfield. Well, after the interview, Jack Canfield reached out to me and said, hey, I really enjoyed your story. Curious, would you be interested in writing a chapter for my upcoming book? It's almost done. Yeah, I'm going to be sending it off to the printer soon, but I need a couple more stories. And I loved your story.

This is what I need from you. Well, I wrote the chapter, sent it back to him. He really liked it, said, fantastic, we'll get this done. Well, about six months later, I wrote this post on Facebook about reuniting with my father in Colombia and the anger that I had with, you know, kind of being put into an orphanage and not knowing my father, but having him put me in an orphanage, even though I didn't know him, and being torn away from my uncle, from my mother's side, and, you know, my uncle trying to get me out. And they were like, well, his biological father signed the paperwork. And my uncle's like, well, you know, Luis doesn't even know his dad. I'm his dad. And they said, well, well, too bad you're not actually the father, you know, so you don't have rights. So I was adopted, and I go back and I meet my dad and reunite with him and have this whole journey of forgiving somebody who I'd grown up with having almost a hatred towards, right? And the story in my mind, if I meet this man, I just want to punch him and say, you know, hey, F you, dude, and then never talk to him again. Well, that was the story I had in my head. But when I met my dad, I looked at him and we both cried and he apologized. And I had the sensation of, you know, had I been in my 20s when I had my third child. And Colombia at the time, especially Medellin, had this cocaine epidemic, right? And that's what I grew up in. And I just realized, looking at my dad, like, wait, you know, that's his story and the story I've been fed about who he was or who he wasn't. Those aren't true anymore. And I forgave him. And I fostered a healthy relationship with him and even went back and got married in Colombia. And, you know, my two dads got to meet my biological and my adopted dad got to meet during my wedding. And I wrote a post about that on Facebook, and it got something like maybe 200 plus likes on it, which for me at the time was like, lot. It got maybe over 100 comments. And I really love this post. And for some reason, at 2 in the morning I felt inspired to share this with Jack Canfield because of his work and who he is to me. So I wrote him a quick email. Hey Jack, you know, I know it's like 2am and you just crossed my mind and your amazing stories have crossed my mind and I wanted to share this post with you. It'll take you 2 minutes to read it, but I think it'll make your day. Boom. Sent that off. Two days later he replies and says, hey Luis, thank you so much for sharing that wonderful post. It was a quick read but it really made my day and I would love if it would be okay with you if I can copy and paste it. And I have a whole new book that I'm creating and it's just getting started, but it's all about love and forgiveness and I would like to take your story, copy and paste it into my book and even use a photograph from your post. Would that be okay? And I'm like, yeah, of course. Please, any anytime you want to publish me with in your books, please do. And that's just something that people don't think about is that your guests can kind of become your friends and, and you can follow up with them. And it is one of the reasons why when people come on my podcast on the form where they sign up to be a guest, I don't just ask for their name and their email. I ask for name, email, phone number and I say can I get your address so I can send you a thank you or maybe something during the holidays just to appreciate you for your time. I now have the contact information for something like 4 or 500 very well known people. And at any time I can go into my Google and I can search and I have an address for them. 19 time Oprah guest Dr. Harville Hendricks, for example, just did an amazing interview with them and they said, hey, can you come and teach at one of our events with us? You know, we really like it if somebody that spoke Spanish. Somehow I inserted that into the interview that I was bilingual. Not purposefully, with no intention, but it just, it all comes back to this reminder that relationships are really the key to transformation in life or to connection to achieving your dreams and goals. We needed people, we need each other. And people that are famous aren't any different once you get to know them.

No. Yeah, I could not agree more. In fact, they say be careful. You know, you shouldn't meet your heroes because you realize how human they are. I mean, I've met a lot of my heroes and it's fun, but at the same time it kind of takes the polish off because you realize, yeah, they're humans with just saying, you know, hopes, desires, fears, dreams, sadness, things like everybody else. But that's also. It removes a lot of the intimidation away. Luis, I can't thank you enough for sharing all of these strategies. These have been great. So if, you know, we're at the end of the episode here right now, but if folks want to continue to hear the soothing sounds of Louis Compton, where do they what's the best way to go? Like just tune in on thrivinglaunch.com yep.

Thrivinglaunch.com people are also welcome if they would like a free training for podcasting and just to kind of get more insights on this is all free information, but it's paid with the number two. Paid to podcast.com paid to podcast.com is a really cool place to get a bunch of free trainings and free information like we provided here. But it comes with some guides, some videos, and of course there's going to be a soft pitch for a more full blown program and course that people can buy. But the goal isn't so much to try to sell you something that's always got to be included, right when we take time to create useful content. But really the goal and the mission for me is that everybody has a voice, everybody has a dream and a vision. And podcasting was a tool that helped me and I'd love to see hundreds of people after this episode decide, you know what, I'm going to start a podcast. Whether they just listen to this or they grab some free resources for free. Your site, my site. And they create something and it changes their life and maybe one day they'll email me and just tell me, hey, I listen to that episode and now I have a show and it's doing really well and I just wanted to thank you. Like, that to me is really cool, right? Like, I want people to have the experience that I had where I was looking for meaning and purpose in my life when I was sleeping on my friend's couch and I was in the lowest place I'd ever been. And podcasting kind of became that outlet that let me explore new realities and possibilities. So I hope that this episode's been useful to you guys and I look forward to hearing your stories.

I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show and for all of my listeners, if this is a, if this is kind of started to set off the light, light bulbs over your head, number one. Go check out the resources that Luis talked about. They'll be in the show notes as well. And if you have any other specific questions for me, whether it revolves around this exact topic or really anything else, you know where to find me. AskBradaconrappedbusiness.com that's a personal email. I read every single one. Try to respond to them all. I get a lot, so if I don't respond as soon as possible, I apologize for that because. But you can always hit me up and let me know any ideas that you're working on, thinking about or just kind of want a second opinion on. Luis, thanks again. I appreciate your time, buddy.

Of course. My pleasure. Talk soon, Brad.

Talk soon. And to everybody else, stay tuned for the next episode.