Building Legacy & Wealth Through Podcasts with Travis Albritton

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Welcome to this episode of the Affluent Entrepreneur Show. This one is a cool one. Cause I'm talking about someone that's part of my team and we're talking about the whole idea of podcasts. This show. Why is this show important? And more importantly, why a show like this could be important to you when it comes to generating income, when it comes to scaling and optimizing your profits, when it comes to building wealth, when it comes to preserving and creating a legacy, something that will last generations. And in this episode, I get to chat with my guy from Honest Podcast. Travis from Honest Podcast is on this show. You're going to enjoy our conversation because we talk about everything, about his journey from being an aerospace engineer to someone that's producing content and doing things, making differences in people's lives. So jump in, grab a pad and paper. Enjoy this episode with Travis and I. I'll see you in the episode. This is the Affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Oh, my God. Travis, thank you for joining me on the Affluent Entrepreneur Show. This is going to be cool because this is going to be a special one and everyone's going to hear about it. So welcome aboard.

Thank you so much for having me, Mel. It's nice being on this side of the camera now instead of normally, I'm on the other side taking the recordings and making magic happen. So this is exciting.

Well, that's the thing. I mean, for. For those of you, you'll hear the story a little bit, but for those of you who don't know that, but Travis Is he, He's the, the wizard behind the curtain that's running my show and, and everything. And we'll talk more about that. But, but before we do that, let's just, let's just start with, who's Travis? How did we get here? Because it certainly wasn't like you woke up and going, I think I want to do podcasts.

Sure. Well, and even 10 years ago, who even knew what a podcast was, right? So it's true. I feel like my journey will be similar to 10 years from now. People talking about how AI has totally transformed their career path. Right. Well, so my background is in aerospace engineering. That's what I got my degree in. That's what my first career was. But as is often the case, especially being in the millennial generation, so very idealistic, very purpose oriented, impact driven. I could kind of see what my career trajectory looked like after just a couple of years in that path. And it wasn't something that excited me. It wasn't something that I wanted to get up out of bed in the morning and go and conquer and, and do something. It was, man, I gotta get up on Monday and go back to this, this job that's paying the bills. But it's, it's really not lighting my fire in any way, shape or form. And, and you know, that, that dissatisfaction led me to, you know, okay, well, what else could I do with my life? How else could I provide for my family? How could I align the work that I do with the things that are important to me? And inevitably, as many people do, that that drew me towards an online business format. And I explored all kinds of different things. But in the process of trying to start a side hustle and experiment with different ways that that could look, I stumbled into podcasting as a, as a content medium in order to grow an audience from scratch because I didn't have a reputation for anything. I didn't have any existing audience to bring into this new venture. So I was starting from the ground up. And the thing that I loved about podcasting is that there were no restrictions on the kind of things you could talk about, of how long you wanted to talk about something, and compared to other mediums. And we could talk about this and how podcasting compares, but the kind of connection you have with a podcast listener is so much deeper than YouTube, social media, blogs, any other platform, because it's long form content that people are consuming almost all the way through every week. And so, so I just fell in love with the medium and the possibility of it. But I was early enough to it that I had some first, some early mover advantages, and I was able to pivot my experience doing podcasting on the side into a career change, where I then went to work for Buzzsprout, which is a podcast company, and was producing content for them and for their marketing team. And I did that for four years. And it was really cool being on the front line of helping podcasters launch, grow, monetize. You know, somebody would come with a problem, and I would figure out an answer and then create content to share the news with other people. And so it was a really great, cool pivot for me. Super cool, a great company.

But before.

Before you go further, I want to touch on something that you kind of. You kind of went over, but I think it's really important for, you know, the viewers and listeners to. To hear is this. You were struggling.

You.

You were not excited about your career. And I think often we look at, We. We seem. We seem to believe that there's this thing you gotta do called a job, you know, or a career to earn money, that's to pay the bills, and then you can go enjoy yourself. But for you, the angst was, wait a second. And this is so core to the affluence blueprint. Some of the things we teach. And the whole idea of get your legacy factor is that.

What happens, what we're doing is we're putting off the joy of the journey of life.

Because we say, we got to go get a job, and as if they can't coexist. But you sat back and said, wait a second, I got. I got to find a way to allow this to coexist. And that's kind of where you're going with this thing. So I want. I want to put it in context for people to start to realize in. In the sense of, too often we think we live in an or world. I think we live in an and world that they can coexist. You're. You're an example of it. I'm an example of it. Many of the listeners, many of the students and clients are examples of ex. So we'll get back to your story now, but I think it's important for them to understand that context well.

And once you decide that you put your mind towards something.

Even if you're not cognizant or aware of it, your brain starts working out in the background, right? So when I first had this thought of, like, I'm not happy in my career, but I don't know what to do, I was Then aware for the first time of what other people were doing and alternative ways that other people were generating income, which was totally not even on my radar before. But it started with that thought and setting an intention towards something, you know, and the punchline, you know, it took me seven years of pursuing this before I was actually able to jump full time into entrepreneurship. And so, so it wasn't an overnight thing either. But once I set my intention and my focus and I knew that where I was wasn't where I wanted to stay, then it just became a matter of time until all the pieces fell into place. And I was willing to be patient. I was willing for it to take as long as it needed to take. Because, you know, at the end of the day, you have one life, you choose how you want to live it. And so I didn't want to live, you know, a third of my life working at a job that I didn't like. That just wasn't going to be, this wasn't going to work for me.

And I totally get it. I mean, because I, I left the big consulting firm in downtown LA, the same, same thing. I mean, it was 10 o' clock at night, I mean, literally on a Friday night, working late, looking at the skyline of downtown Los Angeles, which is beautiful at night.

And I looked at the partner that I was working for and go, oh, that's my future. I don't feel so good. He was overweight, he was stressed out, he was working seven days a week. I go, I don't, I don't want to do, I mean, I literally walked in that moment and said, I'm out now. You had the transition. You took seven years to kind of figure it out, all that. I, I, I just like threw it all up in the air and quit. And I went to Japan. You know, it was a whole nother story. But I mean, did the knowing.

That this was temporary, that you were going to find this transition make it easier for you to stay in the position?

Because you were searching for this other thing.

For sure.

So, so once I let go of.

You know, and there's this, this idea called the stocktail paradox, I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, where there's this Vietnam War veteran POW who not only survived, I think it was six or seven years at a POW camp, but was extremely resilient through it. And they did all kinds of studies on him. And he said that the thing that separated the prisoners of wars that didn't make it from those that did was if you didn't make it is because you were optimistic. You said, well, we'll be. We'll be out by Christmas. And then Christmas would come and go, and then it's, oh, we'll be out by Easter. Then Easter came and went, and it was Christmas again. And he said, they died of a broken heart. But if instead you said, we're going to make it out, I don't know when it's going to be, but we're going. We're going to figure this out. We're going to get to the other side of this, and it'll be the seminal moment of my life. Those were the. Those were the prisoners that survived and came back home and actually thrived afterwards. And so I remember that being such a powerful idea for me that if I resolutely, intentionally pursued a path and was determined to see it through no matter how long it took, then the only way I could fail is if I stopped. If I stopped moving forward. And even when failures hit, and we can talk about some of those here in a minute. It was. There was never a moment in time where I thought I should just give this up, because the why was bigger than any of the obstacles that I had to overcome. Yeah, so. So, yeah, I don't. I don't know if that's tying back to your original question or what we're talking about, but, I mean, for me, that's. That's always been huge. Just as. Cause so much of entrepreneurship is mindset.

Yeah.

Just like how you see the opportunities in front of you and how you choose to navigate them.

You want to be an entrepreneur. It is personal development on steroids. It is going to test you through and through, over and over again.

I mean, truly, 100%.

Yeah. So you went to Buzzsprout and really started to run a lot of their marketing. And I mean, you were dealing with the podcast platforms, but you were doing a lot of stuff with their. With their clients and everything, too. Right, Right.

And so, you know, and I was still doing the side hustle on the side. I was selling info products. And, uh, so that's how I got connected with our mutual friend Rick Mulready. I was in his mastermind for a little bit. Uh, but, you know, it's. It's. It's one of those things where I was pretty sure that my future looked a certain way. And then a couple key conversations totally shifted my perspective and opened up an opportunity that I hadn't seen before. You know, I was. I was talking to Rick Morety and I was like, man, I'm not really sure if the business vehicle that I'm in is really going to take me to where I want to go. And he's like, well, you have all this expertise, like teaching people how to do podcasts, and you're really good at it yourself.

Why don't you see if people want to pay you to. To produce it for them? I was like, I don't know why I haven't thought. Thought about that before. And, you know, so that I tested it and sure enough, a company was like, yeah, you're. Of course we'll pay you to produce our podcast for us. You know, and so. So it was just. And then once I saw that opportunity, it was, how quickly am I willing to let go of the. The sunk costs that I've invested in the previous business venture to pivot into this new opportunity? But once I did, then, you know, that's within a few months, I was able to scale it to the place where I could replace my income and leave my 9 to 5 to really focus on that full time.

So can we. Can I touch on something? Another thing that you said? I mean, there's these key things that just hit me because I think they're things that people may struggle with, including myself. And you mentioned something about once I was willing to let go of the sunk cost.

We all, whether it's a degree process we've gone through or an investment, like I see people in investments that you see it sliding down the hill. I mean, it's jumping off a cliff. And you said, well, I'll hold on, folks. It's going to hurt when you hit the ground either way. So maybe we let go. And I get it seems flippant to say it. It's hard.

It's hard because there's societal expectations, there's family demands, there's life demands. So I'm not saying to just throw caution to win. You did this over years, and you transitioned, you tested, you walked with a plan and a strategy, with a willingness and an openness to try and to change, to look at the opportunities versus saying no, this is the path. I mean, dogmatically we can say this is the path, but if we have no flexibility on the path, the outcome might not be ours. And. And maybe we need to have. I think it's more important to have a commitment to the outcome and a flexibility on the journey. And I think that's what you're demonstrating here.

Yeah, 100%. And. And it's so easy to fall in love with the ideal version of what you hope your business becomes, and that becomes the only goal worth attaining.

Instead of, you know, Mike Tyson. Right. Everyone has a plan to get punched in the mouth.

Yeah, yeah. This is the same way.

Right. Everyone has a plan about how they're going to scale to 7, 8 figures. And then guess what? The marketplace isn't interested in your idea and they don't want to give you money for it. It's all right. Back to square one. Right.

And so, but, but I think for me, going back to the why, the, the reason I pursued entrepreneurship was one, I felt like I would never earn what I was worth working for someone else. There's always going to be a ceiling when you're an employee, even if you're top level executive or vp.

Yeah.

You never have the upside that you do when you own your own business. And you know, and it was really a bet on myself that I could be a top performer in my industry and I could be the best at what I do. But then it was also the, the freedom that comes from choosing your own path and dictating the terms of the work and how you do it. You know, so for me, I have, I have a wife, I have two young kids. I want to be there for them. I want to be a part of their life. I don't want them to, to only know me Saturday and Sunday. I want them, I want to be able to pick them up from school. I want to be able to take them on vacations in the middle of the week. I want to have the freedom and the flexibility to get time with people and focus on the things that are important to me. And so building a business around the lifestyle that's meaningful to me was ultimately the end goal. And, and separating that from the thing I was doing, you know, because I would want the work certainly to be something I'm excited about because that's, that's how you become excellent at something. But, you know, know, I was willing to pivot and make that shift. One, because I, I'd kind of done everything that I could in the previous business to make it successful, and it just wasn't gaining traction. And so I was at a point in time where I was open to considering other possibilities, but seeing that this other business opportunity as it was presented could still fulfill the promise of really what I wanted, that certainly helped overcome the disappointment of, of letting go of my previous dream and replacing it with a new one.

Yeah. And, and, and so you, you started on this journey of, of helping people with podcasts, and it Just curious, because you saw podcasts.

Probably you experienced it too. You saw podcasts as something more than earbuds in an ear, listening to some audio as someone is working out or walking the dog.

Right? Yeah. So I think the power of podcasting is one, there, there's no, there's no restrictions that you would traditionally have on long form media. So TV show, you gotta keep it to 24 minutes or 48 minutes because you gotta have room for commercials. If it's a news show, you got like three minutes to make your points and there's gotta be a soundbite in there and then they're gonna cut to another segment. But even with blogs, you know, you can write a really, really great blog that holds someone's attention for two to three minutes. But, but in each of those scenarios, you're restricted by the medium itself. You're restricted by the way you can produce and distribute the content. Podcasting has none of those restrictions. And it's one of the only two media connections that I know of where you're actually not fighting an algorithm to get your content in front of people. So that would be email newsletters. When somebody opts in it, you send an email, show up in their inbox. Whether they read it or not, it's up to them, but it's there. Podcasts are the same way. When you follow a show or you subscribe to a show, every single time a new episode comes out, it shows up on your phone. There's no algorithm deciding whether you know it's going to show it to you or not, or hold your show, hostage, your audience hostage, in exchange for paying for exposure. And that's always the bargain that you make with social media, even YouTube. Yeah. Is how do, how do I get the people that want to hear from me to actually hear from me? There's a middleman that wants a cut of that. And you're renting that space, you're renting that audience with a podcast. It's a connection that you own. You can take your show from one podcast host, transfer to another one, and your audience doesn't even know because you own that connection, you have direct access to them. And so I think the fact that you don't have to negotiate with some tech company to reach your audience, and there's no restrictions on what you can talk about, how long you can talk about it, how many times you want to talk about it, and also the, the, the nature of podcasting is very niche. So most people listen to hyper niche specific shows because, you know, with Radio, you have channels that basically contain themes of kinds of content, right? So you have a country music station, classic rock station, a sports radio station, and when you tune in, you're getting a kind of experience, but you don't get to curate what you listen to.

Right?

The podcast, you can listen exactly to what you want to listen to when you want to listen to it. And that really serves the niche focus, because while I'm not a beekeeper, I have a. My cousin's an avid beekeeper. He listens to, like, five podcasts on beekeeping.

Oh, my God.

Well, who wants to listen to that? Beekeepers do. They're not going to find that on the radio. They're not going to find that on cable television. You're not even going to find on Discovery Channel. But you can find podcasts that talk about exactly what you want to talk about. And the power for businesses is then you can connect to the people that want exactly what you have to offer, and you create a platform to serve them before they become customers, as they become customers and into the future. And so, so I think that's really the power of podcasting is not only are there no, virtually no restrictions for what you can do and how you connect with people, but then also the nature of it. People will listen to 90, 95% of every episode you produce. And so you're 40 minutes of someone's time in 2023, like, that's unheard of.

It is unheard of.

So. So I think that's. That's really what makes podcasting powerful. And then it's just a matter of how do you use it for whatever your goals are.

And, and we'll. We'll get to that in a second. I think, I think what's important to understand for those of you that are listening is really when we talk about scaling or optimizing our income, one of the pillars of the Affluence blueprint.

One of the keys is to make sure that you're having conversations, intimate conversations with the people that matter, the people you want to serve, the people in your arena. And one of the best, most.

Controlled environments is this platform, is a podcast, is to do that because you, like you said, you're not beholden to. To other folks. The other side of it, I think that is important. Is this one of the other pillars in. In the influence bloomer is this idea of accumulate. How do you create from your income assets? Well, this becomes an asset because if all of a sudden you have, you know, tens of thousands of downloads on this Controlled platform. There are things that I know we're going to go into how this can be powerful, but there are things that you can do that someone who doesn't have a show just can't do that. To leverage your knowledge, to leverage your audience, to, to serve at a greater level, there's some things that we can do. And so I, I want you to. What I'm hoping that you do is you. You take this conversation with Travis and I and start looking at it through the eyes and of entrepreneurship through the eyes of a messenger with a message that wants to take it to a demographic, a group, a community, a society, and be able to have real conversations with them that can move a mission, can move a movement, and can move your bank account, too, while you're at it, and, and your heart and soul, because that's kind of what you see what's happening with Travis and how he ended up here. So, so let's keep going on this, this journey of the platform and, and how important it can be. And I'm going to ask a question. I think I already know the answer. But.

Who is podcasting for in the sense of not. Not the listener, because we, we know what the listener. But on the other side of that, the table, on the other side of the microphone, who should be thinking about creating a show?

So if you think about the Internet and the way that attention works, it's content driven now, it's really about who's creating the content, who's producing the content for what audiences. And so if you're trying to cultivate and build an online audience of people in a particular niche or a certain set of interests or demographics, and you have a point of view that's valuable for those people, then that's where a podcast makes sense. And are there other mediums you could use to do that same thing to accomplish that same goal? For sure, you can use TikTok to do that. But the dynamic nature of podcasting, I think, sets it apart from all those other mediums for things we've already talked about as far as direct connection with your audience, the length of time people listen to podcasts, the connection, the depth of the connection they have. And so you're able to have a greater connection with that audience and be able to influence them in a way that benefits them. And you, if it's a win, win scenario that you won't find anywhere else on the Internet, and so the scalability of having an online platform at that depth of connection, if you have a message that you're Passionate about sharing about whether you have a nonprofit or, you know, a ministry focus or, you know, something like that, or you're in a more of a legacy season of your business and you're thinking about, how do I give back all the knowledge and the expertise that you've gained over the years, then having a podcast could be a great vehicle to do that. I think another reason somebody might consider a podcast is that it's, it's really the, the new, the new best strategy that I've seen for B2B networking. So if you were in a B B2B space and you make sales and you earn money by getting FaceTime with decision makers at other companies, inviting them to be a guest on a podcast is the easiest way to get that FaceTime right. So it's not cold calling, it's not emailing the VA or the secretary and hoping you can get through. It's not direct messaging on LinkedIn. It's I would love to have a one hour conversation with you to talk about what you do best, what you know best. And oh, by the way, I think our companies could actually benefit each other. And now that you know, like, and trust me, who are you going to choose? Me and my company or a competitor? It's like a no brainer at that point. So I think there's really, there's a lot of power there. But then also just building a platform where you can then take one piece of content and distribute it and reshape it and resize it and cut it up into micro pieces and distribute it on every platform that you want to have a presence on. Starting with a podcast is the most efficient way to do that. So think about like, okay, if you want to post an Instagram reel every single day of the week, it's like you want to record seven different pieces of content. It's like, cool. Well then if you want to go to a different platform, you need new content for that. But if you start with a podcast episode, you can find those clips, you can format them correctly and distribute it on all those platforms. And so if you're also looking for an efficient way for you or your business to create content at scale, then starting with a podcast and then being able to cut that up into and to repurpose it, I think is really powerful. So those are just some, some things off the top of my head. Anything that I missed, well, I think.

Let'S just call a spade a spade. I guess, you know, back before what I was doing just in my own business is all right. I'm going to have a show. Actually, I had a show and I shut it down. Just full disclosure, I had a show. It was the way I format it that made it hard for me because I was creating pages, I was doing all kinds of stuff that I didn't need to do, so I stopped that show. And so then what I was doing was, what you were saying is, I'd wake up in the morning, go, I gotta do 12 pieces of social media content. I gotta do this and I gotta do that. And I'm like, it was tiring and. And it was draining, and it was taxing on the brain and. And all that stuff. And then I, you know, when we decided to do the show, I said, all right, we're going to do the show. And then, you know, you and I have, you know, you know, talked and chatted. And so now, now my show is that that central hub.

That we're creating all the other content off of.

To.

To allow us to magnify it and leverage it, and so created ones to distribute it multiple places.

Yeah. If your time is valuable to you, but you still want to have a presence everywhere that's meaningful, starting with the podcast is probably the best way to do it. Record the video, record the audio, and then repurpose it everywhere that you care about having a presence. I. I mean, I think the only person that shouldn't have a podcast, if you don't like talking.

Because you're gonna be doing a lot of it, right? You're gonna be talking. But if you have an expertise and you have a perspective and something to say, then. Then I think a podcast can be really powerful.

Cool. Let's. Let's see if we can make it tactical for them. If we can.

Absolutely.

Someone.

Someone who does have an expertise, someone who has a business, whether it's B2B, B2C, but they don't have a show, and they've thought about it, but everything just seems so overwhelming.

What.

What are maybe the first couple steps that they can do to. To do it in a simple way, but an effective way?

Sure. And what we'll do is I'll walk through the same framework that I do whenever I hop on a strategy call with somebody, because there's a certain ranking of priorities. Right. So I think I want a podcast. The first question is always, why? Like, what's. What's the end goal? What purpose does the podcast serve? Is this, I want to increase sales, or is it, I want brand lift and awareness, or I want to be recognized as the expert in my industry and podcasting is the new book writing. And so rather than having a book on Amazon, you have a podcast with your name attached to it. And that's how you get that expert status in your niche. And so first and foremost, identifying, like, what is the actual goal of the podcast? How will you know it's successful outside of the number of downloads that you're getting, which is really a secondary metric when you're first starting out especially.

And then once you identify like, this is actually the end goal. So let's say it's a business that they want to diversify their marketing and they want to start adding content. They don't want to just do pay per click, they don't want to just do Facebook ads. They want to start focus on content generation and become their own media company so they can then build a platform to cultivate customers. So then the subject of the podcast revolves completely around what are all the things holding people back from doing business with you. So when people are in the info gathering stage of a problem, they're like, I have a problem, I'm sure there's a solution out there, I don't know what it is. And they're searching for things online. Are you answering those kind of questions? When people interact with a company like yours, what are the common obstacles that you have to overcome in that sales conversation? Well, how do you overcome them? By providing information, educating people so that they feel like they're making an educated buying decision and they trust you because you've been the guide in that process to help them get to where they can solve that problem by doing business with you or becoming a customer or a client. And so that really frames what you call the podcast. It frames who it's for, what kind of format you go with, how long the episodes are, the things that you talk about. It all comes back to what ultimately is the best perfect end result we can imagine. And then how do we create a podcast that is perfect for the person that is, that needs to do business with you in order to make their life better? Because you don't want to just create a podcast that talks about stuff you want to, you want to curate, because everyone is choosing the podcast that's perfect for them. You want to create the perfect podcast for your ideal customer. And then once you do that and you use the podcast as a platform to meet them where they are and take them on the journey of working through this problem until they're ready to sign up for a solution, they're going to sign up for Yours, because you've been the one that's built that trust with them to help get them to a place where they feel like, okay, I finally have the answers and the information that I need to make a confident decision, and I'm going to go with this company because they've been helping me even before I gave them money. And so when you. When you show up to serve, you make more. Because people want to do business with companies that they like, that they feel have their best interests in mind, not their own. If you show up with your handout immediately on the first date, it can be really hard to get a lot of people to be excited about continuing that relationship moving forward.

Yeah, Yeah. I love this that you started with the why and then coming at it from problem solving for the audience, because.

That'S how they. One, you gain credibility, you gain traction, but you gain trust. And I think that's the big thing is. Is trust, especially in our. In our market today, you know?

Yeah. Because people are looking, you know, authenticity is the buzzword. I love when businesses ask, how can I be more authentic? It's like, you mean how. What they're really asking is, how do I transform into the version of me that you would like? Which is the opposite of authenticity. Right.

Instead of saying, okay, who are we best positioned to show up and serve in a powerful way, and how do we connect with them on a deep level without any kind of expectation that money's going to be exchanged? Right. When you. When you can show up with that mindset and that attitude that's going to naturally attract people to you because they sense that they. They can sense that you're in it to help them first and foremost. And you're coming from a position of authority and expertise because you know what you're talking about, but you're not. It's not a bait and switch. And so I think that's the powerful thing about podcasting is you have this platform that you can serve people with, and then in their own time, they're able to progress in that relationship with you as it makes sense.

Yeah, here's. Here's the thing. So I'm going to throw it out there anyways, because the name of your company is Honest Podcast.

That's right.

And I think that.

I now understand that. I understood the name, but now I understand why you've chosen the name. Because what you're really looking to try and do is bring this out with. With a soul, with a. With it, with. With that. With the whole intent is, oh, this is it, you're not coming at it with the idea of this is a marketing mechanism that I'm going to use to get my customers and build my business. Yes. But that needs to be the byproduct of building the trust, being honest, serving, creating the relationships. And I think that's really, if we summarize where you're going with this, I think that's really what we're dealing with.

Well, and if you think about the power of a podcast, it's not in the transaction of the relationship, it's in building the longevity and the authentic connection. Right. You know, because everyone's trying to create the, the money tree. Right. What's the easiest way for me to make your money? My money. And then what's the thing in the middle that we make in order to facilitate that transaction, you know, regardless of whether it's in your best interest long term or not.

Yeah.

Right. It's in my best interest to have more money than I did yesterday. If it's got to come from you, so be it. That's one version of Internet marketing. And so I think what we're seeing is this correction away from that kind of direct response over reliance, you know, and optimizing websites to get a 1% increase in performance at the expense of the person on the other end of it. Back towards old school business.

Yeah.

Where people did business with you because they knew you and they trusted you. It's like, why do I go to Sharon to get my haircut? Because I know Sharon and she's going to do a good job. Could somebody else cut my hair too? Yeah, but why would I go to anyone else? Like, this is the person that I trust. And I think people have started to awaken to the tactics and the strategies and the clickbait and all of that stuff. And they want to do business with companies that they feel are doing it from the right place.

Yeah.

And so it's not, it's not a gimmick. It's not a tactic or a strategy to, to be authentic and to serve people. But it's also not ignorant to know that that's what is working right now.

Yeah.

In online marketing.

So here's the other thing. I think that's important for people to understand. It's a commitment. So if it's a tactic that you're using, staying committed to the consistency it takes to produce the content to do the work.

You'Re not going to do it. It's got, there has to be, I think there has to be a level of passion for the purpose behind it, which is really the same thing for any business. There has to be a level of passion for the purpose behind the business. You know, money isn't, is a result, it's not a purpose. There has to be the purpose to do that. And I think sometimes we lose sight. What's the most effective way to, to, you know, make money? Why? What's the quickest path to cash? Mel, you know, I get that question all the time. Wait a second. I can give you maybe the quickest path to cash. You might be miserable, you know, is that, is that really worthwhile? And it's the same reason you left your job and found another, another pursuit because you said, wait a second, I'm going to make some good money, I'm going to do okay. But I'm hating every day.

And I, and I think that there is a commitment to, to doing this. I know that we're moving our show to a two episode a week show, which takes a bit more of a commitment, you know, and, and trying to schedule and do all of that. But if you were talking to someone that's starting.

You know, and they came to you, I mean, what would you say is what should they be prepared for and what should they be prepared to commit to?

Sure. So I think it all goes back to the why, like what are you hoping to accomplish? And then you can always map the strategy to the end goal. So like, I have some clients like you that are in it for why long term legacy play, building a sustainable audience that grows over time that you can leverage in any number of ways in the future. Right. So it's not necessarily the podcast is serving you just for March of 2023. Right. Recording this, it's an asset that will continue to pay dividends into the future. And you're making those small investments over time to build that up. But then I have some clients that the best play for them is we're going to create a 10 part educational series that you can use in your email marketing to help educate your, your prospects and turn them into customers. And so the commitment there is 10 episodes because that's really all that you need to accomplish the goal that you have. Right. The answer is not always do a weekly show or do interviews. So I think that's the cool thing about podcasting. You make it whatever you want it to be. And so, so I would start with, you know, what is the goal that you have? And then what's the most effective way to get to that goal? If it is committing to weekly Content. There are efficient and inefficient ways of doing that batch. Producing your episodes is a great way. You know, you sit down for an afternoon, knock out four episodes, you're done for a month. Right. And that could be a strategy that you use, or you could just take it 10 episodes at a time. So I have one client, we're about to launch a season two of their show, and it's going to be 10 episodes. And they're not sure when they're going to do the next season. Whenever they have the resources, the bandwidth to commit to it. But they do want these touch points and to build momentum, knowing you can always pivot, you can go from weekly to we're just going to do a season every once in a while, or vice versa. For my own show, it used to be every single week I would put out an episode of my podcast and then I backed it down to every other week just because I was at a season of my business where I needed to focus more on my clients and less on myself. And so the commitment level is whatever you want to put into it, but be intentional. Be intentional. Right. So it's. It's like all things. Right. The answer is nuance. There isn't one answer to. Here's the commitment level. It depends on what your goals are. It depends on how fast you want it to grow. So whether you focus just on organic, can you put more money in it to pour gasoline on the fire once you start, all of those things are person to person, business to business decisions. But ultimately, as long as you're really clear on the goal of why you're doing it, then the motivation to commit at the level you need to usually follows.

Cool. So I've even heard of people, they're doing these short series private podcasts and.

They'Re putting an opt in before it and putting people into it, which is actually turns into a. A training and a launch in and of itself and everything. So I mean, it becomes this, this asset, this tool, this mechanism to communicate, to teach, to create legacy. Like you said, everything. Can, can we talk maybe a bit about.

The monetization of it? Because I think this is something that eludes a lot of people. They think, I'm just going to talk, I'm just going to talk.

Where is.

Where can we are just a couple of things that they can do to see that there is also an ROI on it down, down, down the road here.

Right. And again, I mean, I'm gonna sound like a broken record. It all comes back to your goal. Right. So. So monetization for some people is, I just wanted to break even. I want it to cover my production costs so it's not a negative line item in our budget every month. And that could be a goal.

But then different monetization strategies make sense for different shows. So if you are making a mass market podcast talk show on a topic that a lot of people care about, let's say you're starting an NFL podcast. What's your audience? Potentially all NFL fans. But in order for that to be successful in the traditional monetization sense, you're going to need 50,000, 100,000 downloads an episode in order to break even. That's a lot of people. Like, can you imagine filling a football stadium every single week of people listening to you talk? That's a lot of people try and get into a room every single week to listen to you talk about NFL football. Because when most people think about monetization, they think about sponsors. They think about reading ads and talking about Casper Mattress and BetterHelp and Squarespace and, you know, NordVPN and that you're going to be this really eloquent speaker that everyone loves to hear, just pontificate endlessly on whatever, and NORDVPN is going to write you a check to say, hey, you should go and sign up for this thing. Just on a really practical level, most of those sponsorships are negotiated on what's called a cpm cost per mil. I don't know why they mixed English and Latin, but MILL stands for a thousand. So they're basically saying for every thousand downloads that you get on an episode with an ad, we'll pay you a certain amount. And usually that's around $25. And so let's say that you have 10,000 downloads per episode, which would put you in the top half percent of all podcasts in the world. And somebody's willing to pay you $25 for an ad read. And let's say you do two ads per show, you will now make a grand total of $500 an episode.

For having a show that's in the top half percent in the world.

Yeah.

So 2000 download, $2,000 a month. And you gotta pay for production, you gotta pay for editing, pay for your time. Right. And so, so that monetization model typically only works once you're in the hundreds of thousands or millions of downloads. And, and, but that's not gonna be most people. Yeah, for the most part, what you wanna do is use the podcast as a way of building an audience of People that know, like, and trust you, and then creating companion products and services that serve them. So I'll. I'll use myself as an example, and we can actually talk about you as an example as well. So for my show, Honest Marketing, it's about connecting with business owners that want to fully lean into ethical marketing in their business. But the results still matter. Right. It's not a. You're not a nonprofit, you're not a charity, you're a business. But you want to go to sleep feeling really good about how you conducted yourself that day and how you did business with your customers. So then the way that that makes money is by interviewing business owners that are doing something right in their marketing, that don't have a podcast yet. That's how that show pays for itself. Will there be people that listen to it eventually purchase my services? Sure. But that's not the primary way that it's being monetized. Right. The way that it's marketing my business. Because for me, you know, the lifetime value of a client is measured in the five or six figures.

Right.

If you think about how many months or years they stick with me. So I'm not going to trade that for reading a squarespace ad for $25 for every thousand downloads.

Right.

Just the magnitude of the difference is. It's not even a question.

So the best way to monetize is to create companion products and services that serve the people that are interested in your show.

Yeah.

And so if you're smart about how you do the podcast, your business is the thing that monetizes your podcast. A podcast is another way to build a platform to drive more people to the way that you're already making money, but do so in a way that's service oriented.

Yeah, I like that. Philosophically, you know, I'm not. I. We don't run ads on our. On our show. Um, I don't know that. I don't know if we ever will, other than related to the things that my audience that, That I might be. And. And it may be just simply, you know, if you're looking for a tool or something, check this out type of a thing, because I, I see my show as a place to serve, you know, especially when we talk about the money topics and the idea of legacy and the idea of creating that life. Some of it is hard for people to talk about, and some of it is, is, you know, there's, there's obstacles there. So I want. I want it to be a safe environment where they can come, they can submit questions, they can ask questions. And I have no bias to sell them an investment or sell them an insurance product or a real estate product or any. No, I have a bias to sell them on their dreams and the possibility that that financial freedom is their birthright and how do we acclaim it? How do we do that? And I think that for me, philosophically, the only way to do that is you make the show clean in the sense of, I don't ever want to impugn or impair the perception.

To my audience.

It's the same reason that, you know, I've heard some things about people paying to be on other people's podcasts. Then I'm gonna bring people on my podcast that I believe it. No one can pay me. I mean, you can pay me, but I. It's not what I do, you know. No, but the bottom line is you can't buy a slot on my show because now I feel like tosses the. The. The integrity of who we're bringing on the show kind of in. In. Into a. A questionable situation. They still may be on the show even if they didn't pay. But I think that when you start to create something like that, it can. It might skew the perception and maybe not the reality, but the perception becomes the reality in the market's eyes.

Well, perception is totally reality. It doesn't matter. It ultimately doesn't matter what's real. It's what people think is real about you. Right. That's what reputation is. It's. What do people say about you when you're not in the room to defend yourself? Exactly. And it's very hard to build a good reputation. It's very easy to lose it. And so, you know, and as your business, you know, I don't care what strategy you're using, word of mouth is probably still the number one driver of growth that you have.

Yeah.

Do the people that are currently doing business with you tell other people they should do business with you?

Yeah.

And your reputation and your brand is at the center of that.

It truly. It truly is. I mean, one of the first things I do when I'm looking for, well, how did we get connected? Because I asked someone and someone referred me. And so it wasn't like a. When we first talked, it wasn't like a first date, like, tell me what your sign is, you know, type of a thing. But I had a context.

And I think that the podcast can provide a context that's deeper than just a cold connection.

If there's such. Either you're connected or you're not know that there's such a thing as a cold connection.

And, and I think everyone's vetting nowadays, right. So they discover your company, what are they going to do? They're going to go on your Instagram, go to your LinkedIn, look at your website, see what you're producing. You know, can this person, can this company do what they say that they can do? Yeah, read the Amazon reviews, all of that. So a podcast becomes the way that you can cut through the noise and start a conversation.

And, and they can develop that trust to where they're like, all right, I'm, I'm willing to go steady now. We were casually dating. Now I'm ready to commit to a relationship with you over another business for whatever it is. Right. But people want to feel good about that. They don't want to make a purchase decision and then instantly regret it or, you know, think twice about it or reconsider. Did I really make the right choice? Did I not?

The number of considered purchases you have when you have a podcast goes up exponentially.

Yeah.

Because people discover that, no, you really do know what you're talking about. And they're really confident once they do make that purchase, they made the right decision. They're with the right person.

So good. So good. Travis, we could, I could talk for days with you about, about some of this stuff and everything, but I think that.

It'S safe to say that, that I'm hoping that the listeners and the viewers are watching and saying to themselves, how can I take this and integrated not only into my business, but my life? And there's another side of it. I think that it doesn't need to be some big prod podcast that you're trying to develop. I look at it and I, and I also sit back because I'm brand new granddad for the second time and I think about it and go, this is actually something where my grandmother, great, great grandkids might be able to hear their great, great grand dad's voice, the philosophies, his perspective that they wouldn't otherwise have. And I think that, you know, my whole tagline at the end of all of my shows is that to strive to, to live a life that outlives you. And I think when we serve, when you do things with the integrity and the thing that, the things that you are about at Honest Podcast, and when we show up in the marketplace like that, no one loses, everyone wins, and it's a lasting win because lives are better and lives are different because of it. And I think That's. That's the beauty of it all.

I mean, has there ever been another time in history where you can literally create a living time capsule of your life, your priorities, your perspective on the world to share with people that you will never meet?

No.

And with family members that you'll never meet? Like, I think about the fact that my kids, when they're 30, 40 years old, are going to be able to watch videos of me on YouTube the same age that they are as they're watching it.

Yeah.

Like, how. How crazy is that? And how cool would it be, you know, if my great grandfather or my great grandfather, you know, who emigrated over had a podcast talking about why they left Europe to come to the United States?

Yeah.

Like, that would be so cool. But we. When you start thinking beyond just how can this make me more sales? And you think about lifetime impacts, like. Like a podcast just becomes such an incredible gift.

I can tell you, you know, I lost. Lost my dad. He.

This past. This past Sunday would have been his 94th birthday, but we lost him about 12 years ago, and I can't tell you how many times. I just wish I could hear his voice one more time. And I think that you create a sense of permanency in your voice, in your philosophies and your perspectives.

By using this, this platform, this medium that's been made available to us that, you know, if we ever wanted a radio spot, it used to cost billions. Now it doesn't have to cost that. And we can create something that's meaningful, that serves, that is impactful, that can also help you build your business, help you scale your revenues, help you optimize your profits to build an asset that gives you the financial freedom you want. I think it's. I think it's a wonderful place to be. So here's what I'd love to do is, is make sure that those of you out there that are thinking about it, where can they find honest podcast and you Travis, and connect with you so we make sure that they have access to you and maybe having question. If they have questions to. To see how this can fit for them and how they can use it to fulfill the. Why, that might also help them fulfill their bank accounts too.

Oh, absolutely. So the. The best way to get in touch with me is email. So hellonisspodcast.com goes directly to me. So if you have any questions as you're listening to this episode, or hey, I'm thinking about a podcast, or we've had a podcast and it didn't go great, Maybe you can help us figure out why. Totally open book. You know, there's nothing hidden behind a paywall. I'm happy to serve in any way that I can. And then, honest, podcast.com is where you can see what I do, what kind of things that I offer, services that I offer to businesses that want to have a partner to come alongside them and help produce their podcast at a high level. And, you know, sometimes I get on a strategy call and it's like, listen, you don't need to pay me. Like, you can do X, Y and Z. Execute it yourself. And then when you're at a level, when you want to take it to the next level, then let's talk again. Right. So it's not a sales call, but just an opportunity for us to sit down and look at your business and what you're trying to do and see if a podcast can really help you get to where you want to go.

So good. So good. Travis, thank you so much for not only.

For being here on the show, but for what you do for me. You're helping me get my message to the world. You're helping me to create the legacy. You're helping me to serve the people that I want to serve, to. To give them a pathway to something maybe they didn't think they could have in their life. And I don't take that lightly. And so I appreciate you being on this journey.

With me and supporting the mission that we have. And I look forward to supporting the mission that you've got.

Thanks, Mel. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

So good to have you. Thank you, buddy. Talk soon. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people, because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.