MBA2132 Why Your Business Needs a Podcast + Free Ride Friday
2 Feb 2026 · 11 min
Omar Zenhom explains why business owners should start a podcast: it's less crowded than social media, builds your audience directly, and lets you monetize through your own products instead of ads. He's running a free webinar with John Lee Dumas on podcast monetization and announcing a Free Ride Friday giveaway winner.
Chapters
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Hey oh. Welcome to the $1 RMBA show Business Insights. You can't afford to miss every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. 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 today is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride Fridays, we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. We're giving away our automated webinar course. It's called the Automated Webinar challenge over@webinarninja.com AWC it retails for $300, but you can win it for free. Just leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday just like today, to see if you won. We announced this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. Look out for that. In today's episode you will learn why your business needs a podcast. Let me tell you the honest truth. This podcast that I started opened so many doors for me in business I can't even begin to explain. It's built an audience, it's helped me gain new leads, it's gotten it allowed me to learn what people want so I can Build it for them and sell it to them. It built my network. I've met so many interesting people in the world of business. It got me on stages, paid speaking gigs, partnerships, and so much more. I'm so glad I started this podcast back in 2014 because it's helped me in so many ways. And I want to show you how if you start your own podcast, it can help you as well. Regardless of how big your podcast will become, there will be so many benefits that that I'll share with you today that you should look forward to. I'm also gonna share with you how you can learn how to start, grow, and monetize your podcast for free. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.
They put hot honey sauce on the snack wrap. McDonald's outdid themselves again. The classic snack wrap we all know and love paired with the sweet heat of hot honey sauce. Just what we needed to make it even more perfect. You know the drill. So go to McDonald's and try it today.
If you're learning to grow your audience and your business and build a stronger brand, then I highly recommend you start a podcast. And I'm going to tell you why. Podcasting has an advantage over other platforms, whether you're growing your audience on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok or whatever it might be. And here's a simple truth. Podcasting is slightly harder to do than than the other ones. And because of that, it's less competitive and it's easier to stand out and build a name for yourself. Not many people are going to tell you this because they don't want to tell you that something they recommend is hard. It's a bit challenging, but it's not impossible. And I'm a big believer of following or going after blue oceans. If you're not familiar with the blue ocean strategy, which is a great book, by the way. It's a strategy that explains don't go where it's crowded, where it's competitive, where it's cutthroat. That's called a red ocean. You're making your life harder. Go to a blue ocean where people don't go to that often. Not as much there are people there, but they're deterred because there might be a few challenges that they're going to have to overcome. So they go and go the easy route and post memes on Facebook. So that's the first benefit of starting a podcast, is that in comparison to the other platforms, it's a blue ocean. It's still Very young. Number two, overall, podcasting is still a meritocracy, meaning that if you do it long enough and you get better and your content is solid and you grow your following, your podcasting journey will get better, your audience will get bigger, your show and your brand will become more significant. The algorithms behind the podcast apps, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcast or Stitcher, they're not incentivized the same way. Other platforms are, like YouTube or TikTok or Instagram, where they want certain kind of content that, that is viral, that will allow people to stay on the platform so they can sell ads. That's not how podcasting works. That's not how these apps work. So therefore, you don't have to hack the algorithm. Right. A lot of people have to jump through hoops and they change the algorithm constantly in these different platforms, and it's a huge pain in the butt. With podcasting, the cream rises to the top. It's a pure ranking based on subscribers and listeners and ratings and reviews and things like that. So the actual good players and good shows and quality content actually gets exposure. Now, the flip side of this is that those who stick it out and work hard and build a library of great content are the ones that actually make it. And this is what's so appealing to me as a business owner, is as a business owner, I'm here for the long term. I want to have a long term business that's sustainable and I want my long term commitment to pay off. And that's what podcasting does. The longer you're in it, the more content you produce, the more your podcast grows and becomes a significant player in the game. Many people know that Joe Rogan signed a contract with Spotify for $200 million for exclusive rights to his show. That was back in 2020. What people don't know, or many people don't know is that Joe Rogan started his podcast back in 2009. This is before people were listening to podcasts on their phone, they were listening on their computer. So he worked on his podcast for 11 years and did it day in and day out. And then finally, his brand started to grow, his show started to grow, he got recognition, become one of the top podcasts. And then when Spotify wanted to start doing podcasting, they said, hey, we want to get one of the top podcasters out there to start our podcasting platform. Now what can podcasting do for your business? Well, number one, I always say the easiest way to be successful in business is to have a strong audience. It doesn't matter if it's a huge audience, but as long as your audience is a strong one, meaning that you have a good connection with your audience, they resonate with you, they're responsive. And obviously, the larger the audience that is responsive, the better. And podcasting is an audience building machine because podcasters and podcast listeners love podcasts. They share it with other people, they recommend it. And often these apps like Apple podcasts like Stitcher, like Spotify, will recommend shows based on what other listeners listen to. So if enough people that listen to Joe Rogan also listen to my podcast, anytime somebody listens to Joe Rogan, Spotify might just recommend my podcast to them. So when you have a strong and large audience, basically you have carte blanche. You can do whatever you want in business. Why? Because you can learn what this audience needs, the problems that they have, and create solutions for them and sell it to them, and you can make money all day long. Okay? Because you have an audience, whether you love them or hate them. That's what the Kardashians taught us. They have an audience and therefore they are billionaires. Well, a couple of them are billionaire and the rest are millionaires. But the point here is that an audience matters. 2. There are so many ways you can monetize a podcast beyond just sponsorship and ads. In fact, that's actually the least lucrative way to make money on a podcast. Most business owners that have strong podcasts make most of their revenue through their products and services that people find out about when they listen to the podcast, when they look them up, when they become followers, when they become email subscribers, subscribers, and it becomes a flywheel. They listen to the podcast, they check out your products and services, they sign up, they enjoy it, they continue to listen to the podcast, they learn more about your products and services. Buy again. This is very similar to a musician. You listen to their songs on the radio. Back in the day, you'd go to their concerts, you buy their albums, they come out with another new album, you hear a new song from the album on the radio, you're like, oh, great, they have a new album. Let me pick up the cd. The CD inspires you to go and see them on tour and so on and so forth because they have an audience. The next thing that podcasting does for you is it builds your network. Most podcasts are interview shows where you bring on experts and you meet interesting people that you would normally would not meet without a podcast. You have a license, you're part of the media now to speak to very interesting people. Doing interesting things. Even if your podcast is is not an interview podcast, just being a podcaster opens up doors for you to go to podcasting conferences, speak at these conferences, meet other podcasters, meet interesting business people that are doing interesting business that maybe you can get in on, that you can invest in, that you can be a part of, that you can partner up with, and so on and so forth. It opens up so many doors because you become a mini celebrity in your niche. The next benefit is one of my favorite benefits and it's. It makes you a better communicator. I always say the mother of all skills when it comes to entrepreneurship is communication. If you can communicate your ideas clearly, then you pretty much can do anything, right? Because clear communication is sales, clear communication is marketing, clear communication is public speaking. And podcasting gives you the reps to get better at communication. Listen, the other day I listened to episode 001, the first episode of this podcast. That's over 2,100 episodes ago, and it was cringe worthy. I don't even know how I got through the episode listening to it now, but they say if you don't have cringe worthy work, you started too late and you have to start somewhere and that's okay. But I got enough reps to feel more and more comfortable with my voice and with my communication style, and it's one of the best gifts I've ever gotten through podcasting.
They put hot honey sauce on the snack wrap. McDonald's outdid themselves again. The classic snack wrap we know and love paired with the sweet heat of hot honey sauce. Just what we needed to make it even more perfect. You know the drill, so go to McDonald's and try it today.
Okay, so you're convinced you want to start a podcast or grow your business. How do you get started? Well, lucky for you, in a few days I'm co hosting a webinar a live workshop on that topic with John Lee Dumas. John Lee Dumas is the host of Entrepreneurs on Fire, which is a hit business podcast that won best of itunes the year before we did and is the number one source for podcast training with their community podcasters paradise. He's agreed to join me on a live workshop on a masterclass to teach you how to start and grow and monetize your very own podcast. If you want to sign up for free, grab your spot right now@webinarninja.com eofire sign up so you can grab your spot. Make sure you're there on time because we're going to be taking questions and you can get coached live. But even if you can't make it live, sign up so you can get access to the replay. Full Disclosure John Lee Dumas is an old friend of mine. We used to be neighbors back in San Diego. I still try to stay in touch with him. Him and his wife Kate are incredible, incredible givers of information when it comes to podcasting. So I'm really excited about this workshop we're doing together because I know it's going to help a lot of business owners that want to get into podcasting. So go ahead, sign up and I will see you at the worksh. Now to wrap up today's lesson. A lot of people get overwhelmed when it comes to podcasting thinking that oh my God, it's gonna take so long for me to get started and set up how to even start a podcast. What about the equipment? I'm not a techie. Don't worry. I started podcasting for less than a hundred dollars and it's even cheaper. Now sign up for the workshop and we'll explain everything and how to get started. But don't let that be a barrier. Don't let it be a barrier of you getting started because it's actually not that overwhelming. Once you know a few things and a few buy to get started, you'll be rocking and rolling in no time. That wraps up today's lesson, but today's episodes are over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free ride. And the winner is MrBiz13. MrBiz13 on Apple Podcast says Getting Tons of value from listening 5 stars the $100 NBA show delivers so much value that's applicable to my business and career. Bite sized chunks of actionable tactics for specific business challenges that affect many companies. With such a rich library, there are so many great insights to discover. Well, thank you Mr. Biz. You are our Free Ride Friday winner. Go ahead and email me at omar100-mba net so we can hook you up with the free ride to the Automated webinar challenge, a $330 day course. Yours for free. Because you left us a rating interview, you enter the weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts and listen on a Friday just like today to see if you won. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I forgot one thing. Podcasting is actually really fun if you can't hear from my voice. I love podcasting it's one of the things that gives me the most joy. It's what I look forward to. I get to give. I get to share. I get to help people not make the same mistakes I did. And I'm building a library and legacy that I can leave behind when I'm all done and dusted. What's not to love? Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you on Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.
They put hot honey sauce on the snack wrap. McDonald's outdid themselves again. The classic snack wrap we all know and love paired with the sweet heat of hot honey sauce. Just what we needed to make it even more perfect. You know the drill, so go to McDonald's and try it today.
