MBA1861 How I Got My First 1,000 Podcast Subscribers

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Visit Dell.com deals. Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show. Because building a business is hard. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. To help you along the way. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014. And in today's episode I'm going to share how I got my first thousand subscribers on the podcast. These are strategies you can use with anything you're trying to drive traffic to trying to build your email list, if you're trying to get more people to your blog, if you're trying to get more people to see your product. And some of these tips will be specifically around getting podcast listeners. This month we celebrated seven years of the podcast. So I thought why not share some stories, some strategies I've never shared before. I'm going to show you some of the guerrilla marketing that we did in the early days with very little capital but a lot of hustle. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Gas, snacks, tolls.

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We launched the $100 NBA show podcast in August of 2014. I remember it like it was yesterday because I felt like it was a big moment in my life. For those who don't know, we actually had a podcast before this show that actually failed. We learned a lot of hard lessons along the way about why it didn't work and retooled and launched this podcast. A lot of people have asked us what did we learn from this failed podcast. Long story short, we were not leveraging our strengths. We weren't really building a podcast, building a show around what we do best. The previous podcast was an interview podcast, more of a discussion podcast. And that was really not my strength. Still isn't. Prior to jumping into full time entrepreneurship, I was an educator. I was a teacher for 13 years in the classroom. So I'm pretty good at teaching. That's what my degree is in. That's what all my training and certificates are in. So I realized I should be teaching on the podcast. And now you hear me teach every single day on this show. I also realized that other shows were not being as practical as they needed to be. I know that when you start out in entrepreneurship you need directives, you need very specific instructions and practical advice that you can actually take on and implement immediately to see an improvement. And I felt like there was too much out there that was not covering that. But once we launched the podcast, we needed listeners. A lot of people forget that you can have a great product, you can have a great show, you can have a great blog, you can get a great website, but if nobody knows about it, it's not just going to be a success on its own. It's not. If you build it, they will come. That's just not true. It's too much of a crowded world now. People's attention is scattered and it's hard to get. So I knew when we launched the podcast as good as I thought it was going to be, I needed to market it. Now I just want to take a brief moment to say the quality of your show is really important. Why? Because if it's not good if it's not valuable, then you're going to work hard to get somebody to listen to it, and then it's going to end there. In order for you to have real growth, you need a great product. So other people, when they experience it, they say, oh, wow, so glad I found the show. And they tell other people, they share it with other people. That's how it snowballs. But if you don't have a good thing, then they're not going to tell other people about it. So, having said that, we did focus a lot on the quality of the show, making sure it's the best show possible. And we continue to try to improve it day in, day out. And we. So I want to start sharing with you some of the things that we did to market this podcast, how we got our first thousand subscribers, because we feel if we got 1,000 subscribers, those subscribers will tell other people and we'll have a critical mass. Things will start to snowball. And that's exactly what happened. First thing I did on launch day was I emailed. Personally emailed. Like, I actually wrote the email myself in Gmail. Every single person I knew, and I'm literally saying everybody I know, my business contacts, people that I met once in a conference, friends, family, distant relatives. And I literally told them, this is what I need from you. Hey, I just launched this podcast. I need you to listen to it and tell me what you think. In a rating and a review, you could be honest. You could tell me what you think doesn't have to be positive. And I showed them how to do it. Because podcasting is not super, super simple. I gave them the instructions, hey, this is how you find my show. This is how you subscribe. This is how you rate. This is how you review. And I just focus on Apple podcasts, or at the time it was called itunes. I didn't try to attack all the other platforms. I just focused on one. And that task took me, I remember, like, three full days to do because I was emailing personally. Hey, what's going on? How's so and so? How's the dog? You know, it was a personal email to every single person. And that really helped my show get a little boost in the beginning and also just get some listenership, get some feedback and get the ball rolling. It's very important to launch strong when you're launching anything because you want to get that initial momentum going. Another strategy that I implemented when I launched the podcast was prior to the launch. I actually scheduled a launch date. I believe it was August 14th. And I knew that's when I was going to release the podcast. And I'm actually going to release with five episodes so that people can listen to many episodes and really get hooked and want to give a review. In addition to that, with the launch date, I scheduled 12 podcast interviews. I tried to get more, but 12 is what it ended up being, meaning I was a guest on other podcasts that had audiences that might be interested in my podcast. Now, this took a little planning. I actually scheduled these interviews and got booked on them months in advance. I had one request, though. I said, hey, thanks for having me on the show. Would it be possible if you release my episode on your show on August 14th or a day or two later? Now, why did I want to do that? Well, I wanted the day of the launch or the week of the launch to basically be a celebration of our show. I wanted us to be everywhere when we launched. I wanted people that listen on different podcasts to feel like, wow, this Omar guy is everywhere. This new podcast sounds like it's a hit. I'm going to go check it out. And it kind of made me look bigger than I was. And it just was good planning. That's all it was. It wasn't like I was some sort of celebrity. Now, the key was getting these interviews and selling myself to the podcast, saying, hey, I can add a lot of value in these areas given my business experience at the time. Once I booked those interviews and they all launched the same day or so, it really made an impact. Next, another strategy that Nicole and I did. Nicole's my partner in life and partner in business. Is a couple weeks after we launched, there was a huge podcast conference called Podcast Movement. It was actually the first podcast movement, and it was pretty big for its time. It wasn't thousands of people, but it was hundreds. And the conference was a couple of weeks after we launched the podcast. So I kind of got lucky there. But you could still kind of do something within the first few months of your podcast if there's a conference coming up. We went to the conference and through the relationships that I built over the years, and somehow I got myself a speaker spot, Nicole as well, at that conference. Through the relationships we built over the years. And I was just a moderator. I was a moderator in a panel discussion. But I got a chance to be on stage. Once I knew that, what happened? I said, I got to take advantage of the fact that I'm going to be at this conference for three days with other podcasters. I'll be mingling with other Speakers. So Nicole and I literally went to a local T shirt print printing shop and printed two T shirts. Literally two T shirts, One for her, one for me. That had the hundred RMBA podcast brand on it. I had a little funny, cartoony thing on the front to catch people's attention, and it was a lot of fun. But the point here is that, hey, I'm gonna be walking around this conference. Hundreds of people are gonna be there. I might as well support my brand and not somebody else's brand next. Let's get into the real hustle. It was a few weeks into the podcast. I really wanted to push more subscribers. We didn't hit a thousand yet. I want listeners. And I literally took the streets. I don't think I've shared the story publicly before, but Nicole and I were living in San Diego at the time. We went to the beach, Pacific beach, where it was like a main thoroughfare. People walking up and down the boardwalk constantly. Hundreds and hundreds of people every single hour. And we put up a sandwich board that said, enjoy our podcast and enjoy a cold drink. I literally stood on the boardwalk with hundreds of people walking by with this sandwich board that was like a whiteboard. I had my big Coleman cooler filled with ice and soft drinks. I literally just went to, you know, a supermarket and got a bunch of iced teas and a bunch of, you know, root beers and a bunch of colas, and I filled my cooler with ice. We went down to the beach, and people will come up to us and be like, really? I got a free cold drink? And it's like, yeah. And they're like, what's this podcast? It was like, it's called the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. Check it out. Are you into business? Are you? Do you want to start a business one day? And they're like, yeah, cool, Let me check it out. And they would. I would show them how to find it on their phone. They would subscribe right there. And that's it. They got their cold drink. Now, I know that not everybody that subscribed would be a lifelong listener, but I know a good portion of them. Will that want to check it out? I know the law of reciprocity. People will actually listen to the show because they feel obliged to, because, hey, they got a free drink on a hot day. And basically what I was doing is I was just trying to market my podcast to the masses, to the public in any little way. And it was just trying to get their attention with a free cold drink. That cold drink cost me, I don't know, 10 cents a can. And it allowed me to have a conversation with somebody and talk about business and talk about, hey, what business are you starting or what business are you doing right now? They tell me about their uncle's business and how it's struggling and they would love some help. And it gave me a chance to learn a little bit more by my audience and spread the word about the podcast. I really wanted to understand who our actual listeners would be and what the real struggles were because for me, that was like great R and D for great episode topics in the future. Plus, I had a blast meeting all these amazing people at the beach. People are in a good mood at the beach and they're opening up a nice cold drink and it was a ton of fun. Now, I don't know how much that activity that afternoon, you know, impacted our subscribers and the growth of our podcast, but I learned a ton. And sometimes I just like doing things that are a little bit hard, a little bit outside my comfort zone for the sake of what I want. And often I do not regret it. I learn a ton and I have a good time. Gas, snacks, tolls.

This trip is draining my wallet.

Yeah, but we'll be with family.

You're in a good mood.

What's your deal?

What's my deal? I saved at Metro with no activation fees and I got one line of 5G for just $25 per month. Kept the phone I love and a 5 year price guarantee on my top.

Tuxt and data detour to Metro.

Get that more for your money feeling only at Metro by T Mobile.

Just bring your number. $30 first month and $25 after with autopay not available. If with Metro or T Mobile in the past 180 days.

I got a couple more tips I want to share with you about how we got our first thousand subscribers to our podcast. I ran a ton of webinars the first year we had our podcast because what I wanted to do is I wanted to get more subscribers and get more people engaged with my podcast. So I'd email my whole list. I'd share on social that I'm doing this webinar and on this webinar I was just doing open Q and A. I was coaching, but I would do it around a topic and usually it was a topic about the episode I just released. So it would be, hey, last week we talked about this topic on the show. If you haven't checked it out, check out the show. We'd say that on the webinar and we'd do some coaching on that topic. And then I would tease them and say, hey, next week, these are the episodes that we'll be releasing. These are the topics. So if you want to get these episodes automatically, hit subscribe. I would have slides showing them exactly how to subscribe to my show. I'd show them how to rate and review. And it was a slow, slow slog, but it actually helped a lot. You know, I would do about a webinar a week for about four or five months straight, and each webinar would have between 50 to 100 people register and about maybe 30 to 40 attend. You know, another 30 watch the replay. And slowly but surely, you know, I saw our subscribers get more and more and more. And I am passionate about these topics. I love this podcast. I love helping other entrepreneurs. So it didn't seem like work to me to do these webinars. Just felt like I was sharing more of what I love to share. One more strategy. On the podcast, you might notice that I mentioned a lot of authors, other business people, other entrepreneurs, people that do interesting things, websites. And I like to give credit where credit is due. I like to mention where I learned something. So you can go ahead and learn for yourself. You know, you can go to the source and really go in deep. And when I mention these people and these things, we would mention it on social. We say, hey, we just published an episode where we talk about XYZ. And we'd the people and at the companies, and not everybody replies or retweets, but I would say maybe 1 in every 10 tweets, somebody would retweet or share on social, on Facebook or LinkedIn. And that ratio was worth the effort, you know, because we would post, you know, two or three times a day. So we'd get like two or three shares every week. And sometimes a when somebody with a big following shares, it really helps our show get exposure. So you may want to give that a try with whatever content you're producing. All in all, it was not easy. You know, we did a lot of hard work to get to those first thousand subscribers, and then to get to 10,000, and then to get to 100,000, it was even harder. But it was worth it. I enjoyed the hustle. I enjoyed the hard work. I enjoyed the uphill climb, because that's what we do as entrepreneurs. We love the challenge. We love to see how far we can stretch ourselves. And I look fondly back at those days when we first got started. And I'm so glad that I wasn't discouraged by the fact that I had less than a thousand subscribers. I knew that, hey, this is just the beginning. These are my first steps. Let me just enjoy that process. Live in the moment, be present. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. I hope you loved today's episode. If you did, let us know and a rating and review. Pop us a review on any podcast app, whatever podcast app you like using to listen to podcasts. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Everybody starts at zero. You look at your favorite heroes in business. They have millions of email subscribers or, you know, hundreds of thousands of downloads of a podcast episode or millions ofviews on YouTube. They all started with zero subscribers. Zero views. We all start there. So you're in good company when you're first getting started. Don't worry. Focus on your craft, focus on the content and putting out something quality. But also focus on trying to share as much as possible. Do the legwork required to make it happen. Try some of these strategies I shared today. See if they work for you. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode for rewrite Friday. I'll see you then. Take care.

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