Does Your Podcast Suffer From Free Hugs Syndrome - A Conversation With Ed Dale - The Podcast Report

Be honest. Does your podcast suffer from the free hugs syndrome? It's the podcast report, episode 119 show notes, links, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 119 I'm going to try to get through this part as quickly as I can. This is the podcast report. This is episode 119. This is the show for you, the podcaster looking to do real business with your podcast. And today I have an interview with old friend, Internet marketer, definitely marketer, strategist, technology evangelist, tubby nerd, great guy, Ed Dale. Ed has a show called the First Dollar Podcast, which we'll be chatting about. Ed has some ideas and some concepts and gosh darn it, Ed has a model for monetization that he's doing in his podcast that you really might want to consider in yours that is worth its weight in gold. The conversation is broad in range. We talk about the free hug syndrome. We talk about the Winter Haven method. We talk about the whole concept of would you a cookie? How that relates to podcasting. It's a fantastic conversation and I'm thrilled to have it. I think it's unique and very special to have this right after last week's interview with Dan Benjamin from Fireside. An entirely different model and an entirely different process. And boy, between these options out there, things get really, really interesting. I'm not going to do the different parts of the show because the interview is so long. So let's get to the specifics, the details, and then we'll get to the interview number one. This episode is brought to you by Dial Talk. Done. Wouldn't it be great if your podcast was as simple as Dial Talk Done? Well, it can be. Go ahead and visit dialtalkdone.com look at that. Intriguing. You definitely want to go visit that, don't you? So this is the podcast report. This is episode 119. If you head out to thepodcastreport.com 119, we'll give you the links to everything, the links to Ed's podcast and the different things he's chatting about that will be there. You can make comments there if you'd like. If you want to go to the podcastreport.com, or the podcast Report Facebook, you'll be able to hit the regular social media networks. If you haven't yet subscribed to the show, please do thepodcastreport.com iTunes, thepodcastreport.com Stitcher, Google, wherever it is that you like to consume your podcasts and subscribe to your podcast you can do that there. Ed is a fascinating guy, a true visionary, but the other thing I really like about him is what he does works. You'll listen to this, you'll wonder if it really can be that easy. I recommend that you give it a try. And then I recommend that you head out to his show, which, again, the links are@the podcastreport.com 119 and see how he does it. It's a really good model that anyone looking to do real business with their podcast should at least, at the very least consider. As I said, the interview goes long. I'm going to have nothing at the end of it. So here's Ed Dale. Enjoy. It's Ed Dale, the true thunder from down under. How are you doing, Ed?

When I'm introduced like that, fantastic. Thank you very much and it's great to be here. Paul, you and I were way back in 2005, one of the first couple of members of the podcast mailing list. You recall way, way back, 12 years ago, you stuck the journey out. I have been exiled from the promised land and then come back to the promised land and then left the promised land. And I'm back fully back in the promised land when it comes.

Yeah. But while I was messing around with various assorted things, you know, you launched a publicly traded company and ran a few hundred thousand people through the Daily Challenge. So I wouldn't necessarily say you've been slogging. That's the right term, right, for you Aussies.

Yes, that's correct.

I'll tell you, a couple days ago, you were on Facebook doing a Facebook Live and all your lettering was backwards, and I was pretty sure that was just because when you come up above the southern hemisphere. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Toilets are backwards there. The whole nine yards.

Yeah.

Ed is my Austrian doppelganger in a bunch of ways. He's far better looking and smarter in profit at times. But we've known each other for a while. The stompernet days, the podcast mailing list days, the rise and fall of many a guru, the run of the. I still get an email every week asking me when we're going to bring it back. Internet marketing this week.

Yeah. Wow.

But Ed is also a client for the Dial Talk Done service, which is something that we're slowly teasing. I'll let Ed say what he says there, but Ed has a monetization model for podcasting and I don't know where this episode's going to go today. I think it's in fascinating contrast to Dan Benjamin last week and what he said about monetization, I think it's going to be interesting. It's funny, a little behind the scenes. The Brian Kurtz interview, which I will have the week after this one, has already been recorded. And Brian gives us some amazing what direct marketers can get out of podcasting. But Ed, you've brought a bit of a homespun. You probably have the most expensive microphone of all my podcasting friends for a very specific reason. But then you have the least techie, the least integrated, the least complicated monetization strategy for your podcast. So let's chat about that. What are you doing?

Yeah, true. Thank you very much, Paul, and thank you for having me on. Sort of like a trilogy. It's like a Lord of the Rings, but I'm the Empire Strikes Back middle, so. So first of all, I have to acknowledge to our listeners out there in podcast land that I am one of these horrible marketers. I am a horrible marketer that wants to make money from the content that I put out there. Let's get those biases right out of the way. However, I think with this generation of what I'm doing with the your first dollar podcast, I think it actually has hit middle ground. So perhaps it's appropriate that I'm in the middle because you're absolutely right. It's the most low tech way of interacting with your audience and looking at ways that you can help them, serve them, make their lives better, and in return get compensation for that. That's what I've always been about, you know, slick salesy stuff that people associate very negatively with is not my style. And I don't think works in a podcast. In fact, I know for a fact doesn't work in a podcast. Yet. The contrast is of course, that we know our podcast listeners are our best fans. Like if you talk about the thousand true fans, the people who are listening to your podcast the closest, because it's the most intimate relationship you'll have with your tribe. You know that you're literally entering their ear holes as we. Who knows what you're doing right now? You could be walking the dog, driving the car, but I'm literally entering your ears. And the psychology of that is profound because your most intimate conversations, the most important conversations, the most important things that have happened in your life all have sound waves entering your ear hole and being interpreted by your brain. And that's why I think from a psychological perspective, podcasts are so important. So what is it? And I can't take any credit, Paul, for this. I really can't the process really is completely adapted from our good, good friend and colleague Dean Jackson. And I've got a actually, I've got an interesting email from Dean yesterday which I want to tell you about a bit later on. But I call it the Winter Haven Method in honor of Dean because he really created the whole thing. And it's about having a conversation with your audience. My the problem with podcasters and I have a problem with podcasts. What a great hey, loving this episode so far. Podcast listeners, right? Just going great, going to town. Here's the thing. Podcasters suffer from free hugs syndrome, okay? Every week we're giving incredible information. You are giving incredible information to your tribe. And it doesn't matter whether it's a doctor who podcast or it's a business podcast or whatever, you're giving and giving fantastic information for no compensation. You may have some ad reads in your podcast, or you may have some specific ads in your podcast, or you may have a specific call to action in your podcast. The vast majority of people don't. But this is a problem, right? And the way I describe it, Paul, just imagine everybody listening to this, okay? You've been going home to you. Your mum is a great cook and for however long you've been living, you've been going home. And if she cooks a big roast or whatever she's doing, she cooks it. And you've been going back, in my case, decades. And I go to mum, oh, mum, that, that roast chicken knocked it out the park as usual. And she goes, ed, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. You love that. That'll be $35, right? This is the, this is what's happening when you try to monetize your podcasts. That's the psychological impact, people. When the rules of the game are changed, people get super angry. It doesn't matter whether it's your little brother or sister when you play Monopoly and you reveal to them about the hotel and rent rises for the first time after you've been playing for an hour. It doesn't matter if that's the table flipping moment or when you are providing great content in your podcast. It doesn't matter that you spent thousands and thousands of dollars creating this new course on how to do underwater kickboxing for your underwater kickboxing. And you've gone traveled the world and interviewed all the best players and you've spent hundreds of hours in editing. So it's NPR level quality. Your audience doesn't care because as far as they're concerned, it's Sound waves going into your brain, there's no. They can see no difference. And you've been, for however many months, years, you've been creating an episode, you've been giving it to them for free. Free hugs. And so this is a real problem, because if you change the rules, another metaphor, another way to explain it. If you go into 711 to buy an ice cream, you. Is it ice. Yeah, it's ice cream in the US Isn't it? You get a, you know, ice cream pool.

You can get an ice cream or an ic. That's the drink with the strawberry.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Any of those things, whatever you go into a 711 to buy. When the. When the person on the register says, that'll be $1.99, thank you, you think nothing of it. You pay. Because that's the expected transaction. Right? But here's the difference. What would happen if you walked through the door of the 711 and the cashier yelled out, oh, that'll be $1.99, thanks. We're charging now for you to come into the store? You'd probably never go back, you know, and there are many, many examples. In fact, I learned about the psychology of this from a great podcast. It's the Planet Money did a incredible podcast on the whole. I won't go into the story here, but it was about how US veterans from World War II hate the red Cross. And the reason they hate the Red Cross is because for a very short time, in one place, just one place in Europe, for about three weeks, they actually started charging for donuts that the. All the soldiers have been getting for free. Right? And they did that in one place. Yet you ask any World War II veteran anywhere in the United States about the Red Cross, and they will universally say, oh, the donuts, you know, it's a scandal. The donut. Like, it's. It's phenomenal. It's a great podcast, a great example of podcasting. But here's the problem. Okay? So on one hand, we've got free hug syndrome, which most podcasters are doing, and I include. Even if you're putting ads, people. People have an expectation of ads because they've been listening to radio and television, so that's not out of the level of expectation.

So they're fine with it, you know, yeah, the guy's got to pay his bills, so he's running an ad for GoDaddy. Good enough. Now get back to the free content.

Yeah, exactly. And I'll probably skip it.

Right, Exactly.

I'll probably hit the 32nd or the 45 second jump on my podcast player.

But wait, wait a minute. Skipping. That doesn't work with host red ads, does it?

Well, yes, it does.

Oh, okay.

And actually it's funny, you know, and you just skip until you hear the topic change and you go back, it doesn't matter.

And some of the shows actually play a different music in the background, so you don't even have to listen to words to figure out what the things over.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And Marco probably will have a music filter soon where we can skip our episodes like we skipped, you know, the commercials on TiVo.

Yeah. So it's. Look, I'm not against the ad supported model. I really, truly am not. You know, it's. But it's problematic, you know, and I think there are better ways to provide value to your audience. But the problems in the past, even when people are selling T shirts or they're selling Patreon or they're doing any of these things, like they, they feel like they get blowback. And you do get blowback because effectively what has happened is that you've been giving them a free roast dinner every week. And then all the. From their perception, I know it's different. You know, it's different. Everybody's listening to this, knows it's different. But whatever product or service or cool thing that you're offering, you're changing the rules of the game. And psychologically, humans can't handle that. And that's why people get so angry. Right? And that's why people think, oh, well, you can't sell anything on a podcast because. And you know, if it's a host red ad, that's a pitch for something else, a mattress or whatever it happens to be, doesn't matter how entertaining or whatever it is, at the end of the day, that mattress company wants you to buy their mattress. It's a pitch you're pitching. Right. It doesn't matter whether it's your stuff or somebody else's stuff. You may feel better about it because it's a third party and you're feeling one step away, but it's still a pitch. Okay? I think there's a better way. I truly do, Paul. But let's contrast to the other way. Let's go hardcore. So if the hardcore person is pitching all the time, and we all know podcasts where they're created potentially by people from my fraternity, the direct marketing fraternity, which are literally barely disguised infomercial style podcasts where they're, you know, they've got their sole goal in life is to sell you stuff. Okay. And I don't know that they're too successful in the podcasting world, but hey, it's an option. So we've got this spectrum. We've got the free hug syndrome at one end and we've got the buy or die pitch fests at the other end of the spectrum.

I want to chat about the free hug for a second because I realized something here that explains a couple of things. The free hug syndrome is so ingrained. One of the first things I did in podcasting was I launched a tool, paid a lot of money to get this bad boy developed called Premium Podcast. And the idea was a. Just like the title is Premium Podcast, it would be a pay per play, pay per download podcast system and make sense on paper for someone who was in the, you know, premium content world. But what has happened is, is it's not just that Ed's mom is associated with the free chicken dinner, but it's that all moms everywhere are associated with free chicken dinners. And so even if your podcast never, ever, ever promised something for free, just because all the other podcasts do, the introduction of payment or the introduction of something rocks people to their core. I've got some reviews for this show that say I sell stuff. I am so light on the sales on this thing because of my awareness of the industry. But the thing is, is the free hug syndrome has affected not just your show of 20 episodes, 30 episodes where you were finding your voice, quote unquote, but it has affected the entire industry to where even if you launch from day one with a different dialogue, they're still thinking about Ed's mom's free chicken dinner, and they're not willing to look at the podcast in any other way.

That is exactly right. So here's the problem, right? This is the problem. There's one more data point that I want to introduce into this before we talk about what I believe is the solution. And so the data point is this. And again, stay with me, podcasters, because you're about to get horrible marketing data. But it is. There is a. Please trust me on this. There's an incredibly valuable lesson in this data of 100 people that we all. You've all heard. You've heard Paul say, if you've listened to any of my stuff, you'll hear me say, getting your audience's email is the raw material for our happy customer factory. Right? If you. From our perspective, in terms of creating money, my entire career has been built on the fact that I'm able to communicate directly with people via email. And that will transition to messaging and text messaging over time. Not anytime soon, but still. The raw material of any happy customer factory is an email. You need to be able to have a conversation with your market if you're going to sell something that makes sense. So here's what we know, and this is data. And there are firms and this will probably horrify you, but hey, this is the way of the world. There are firms which survey, they take email lists and then they survey those email lists at various times across a two year period to find out whether somebody actually buys something related to the list that they joined. And here's the generalized data, the right across the board general data. And this doesn't matter. Whether it's cars, a guide on underwater kickboxing, a book from Amazon, it doesn't matter. Okay, this is the generalized data and this is really important. Of the hundred people that sign up to your email list, 50 of those emails will not only not buy anything from you, they're not going to buy anything from anybody. Okay? They just simply, in a two year period, they're not going to buy a single thing related to your niche. Okay? So 50% of them aren't going to buy anything. Of the 50 that are left, 40 of them will buy something from you or somebody else in your market at some point between the next three months and 18 months. Ten of those people want to buy something pretty much straight away and will buy something within the next 60 days. They've got a problem, they're super excited, they're a fountain pen addict and they want to get into fountain pens and they're ready to buy their Nakaya fountain pen straight away. So they're going to be spending cash on fountain pens straight away. Ten of them will. Okay, what's this mean? It means if we're going to provide services and products to our particular tribe. Because I'm a huge fan of, you know, and full, you know, full, full declaration here, you know, I've spent my entire career helping people create information, products and services for their market. So if you are underwater kickboxing podcast, we're going to create a guide on how to extend your breathing, you know, very important skill in underwater kickboxing. So, and we sell that guide and my experience, my bias I should say as well, and is that over time you will make way more money selling these services, guides, products, whatever's appropriate to your particular niche. It could be a guide to Doctor who episodes, right? That's been beautifully designed. It could be Any number of things. But here's the thing. It's these products and services will make you way more money than advertising in your podcast. I know what I've just said is heresy, but can I continue? Paul, you're not going to chuck me off at this point?

No, it's a better presented alignment of data than I've done in the past. Half aren't going to buy ever and just deal with it. A batch are going to buy pretty quickly and that's the fastest path to any real cash.

That is correct. However, if you go after. And here's the dichotomy of the situation. If you go after. And again, I'm using horrible marketing terminology right now. If you go after the 10%, like the 10 of those emails, I should say that really want to buy right now, guess what you do. You isolate, annoy, and ruin the asset that you have. I don't know, I just referred to your email. This is an asset. I'm dreadfully sorry that asset is ruined because by who? Who wants to be sold at all the time? If I'm research, if I'm just getting into underwater kickboxing, I'm really super enthusiastic and somebody's, you know, sell it, trying to sell me, you know, underwater breathing exercise routines or a video course on, you know, how to breathe longer, then I'm going to be annoyed. And I'm off that email list. I'm off that podcast. So this is the world we're in. The stage is now set. And this is where this methodology, which I got from the great Dean Jackson, I wish I'd created it myself, but I certainly did not. And I've christened it the Winter Haven method in his honor, I think is revolutionary to podcasts. I really do. And so what does it mean? Okay, let me give you another scenario. If you walk into somebody's house, if we. If I'm heading to Paul's house and Paul greets me at the, at the front door and he's got a beautifully, you know, a beautiful batch of freshly baked cookies. And I. And Paul says, hey, Ed, would you like a cookie? Now, one of two interactions in normal human society is going to happen. Either I'll say, oh, Paul, yes, thanks, I'd love a cookie. Or, oh, Paul, I'm sorry, I'm just on this ketogenic diet and I can't eat cookies right now. But thanks for offering. They're the only two possible responses yet when you offer something to your podcast audience, they do the metaphorical equivalent of grabbing that tray of cookies, smashing it up in the air, screaming at you, how dare you offer me that cookie. And then trying to beat you to death with the tray of the cookie. That's what's happening right now.

Give me an example of that.

Okay, well, it's, it's. So if in, in the, the blog community is. And, well, the podcast community, let's say you. There's a client that I had that was putting together a, A course, spent a whole bunch of time on this. This course to help this particular niche. I won't mention the niche. So to save the embarrassment. And, and I bet, I bet if you ever tried to sell something like, something that's outside the accepted norms of podcasting, be it a T shirt or even T shirts, people like I know of podcasters who have copped flack from their audience because they've tried to sell a podcasting T shirt. Right? So this is the thing. But in this case, it was a course. They put together a brilliant course, perfect for their particular niche. And they made the. The era of offering this course on their podcast and the emails they got back the angry. Who hasn't seen this in Facebook pages and comments? Or you get angry emails in your podcast or. Oh, my goodness, the reviews. Look what. See what happens to your reviews on your itunes, reviews on your podcast when you dare to try and make money from your podcast. Oh, it's outright. And of course, as human beings, we want to avoid that pain. We don't want to have that. So that's. They're. They're sorts of what. They're the. What happens. Right. It's crazy because all you're doing is offering them a cookie. Would you like the cookie? Not like the cookie.

Yes. The offering of the cookie is not in your face. The offering of the cookie is not forced. The offering of the cookie is definitely not subtle. Like, like I, I won't hide the cookies behind a curtain. And if Ed finds it, then I'll offer him the cookie. You know, I come to Ed and I offer that cookie, but. But no expectation he's going to take it. You know, marketers that, you know, the three things we have in common is, is, you know, we all love John Rhys and we all listen to podcasts and we are all playing with carbs. Like, those are the three things that.

We have in common.

And so the chance of Ed saying no to a cookie is very high. And I'm good either way. But that interchange and in society that interchangeably, fine. But on the podcast, there's this visceral violent running away to the offering, that, that just causes problems. No matter how subtle, no matter how slight you do it.

Yeah. So what is the answer? Okay, so, and there is an answer. I believe there is an answer. And you know, and, and it's these would you like a cookie? Questions. And, and so here's the deal, right? I don't sell and never promote anything on my podcast. Like, if you go to the your first dollar podcast, you will never hear me promote or sell anything. Not a conference, not a workshop, nothing. Right. I just don't do it. The only things I'll say is look at the end of the podcast, I'll say, hey, if you'd like a copy of my free book, go to YourFirst. $com. That's all I say. That's it, right? That's the word. And then during a podcast, I might say, hey, I've got a link in the show Notes. If you're interested more in this email approach, then there's a link in the Show Notes. That's it. And that's phrased as a, you know, it's an information gathering question, not a sales question. It's free information. It's, it's an information question. It's not going to raise your hackles. It's not going to buy something. So what do we do? So by offering, in my case, a book, or it could be a report or it could be any of those, those things by offering the book, guess what, the people who are those 10, those 10 people, remember we talked about Paul in the. As the 10 who are going to buy something. Now guess what? They're going to download that book. They've effectively raised their hands. Now the 80 people, if they're in the 80%, may or may not get the book. Who knows? I don't know. And how do I know if somebody's in that 10 people that are ready to buy something right now. Well, and here's it. And gosh, I hope this resonates with, with everybody listening to this. You know, in my case, I will send them an email from me personally, personally me email from me from my personal iPhone to them. Not an autoresponder, not some sort of amazing magic funnel which has 17 different things based on whether, you know, you're, you know, you've, you've, you're this sort of thing or some sort of, you know, they've profiled you based on your email and they send you different things. None of that stuff. None of that stuff. I just send them an email after They've got a book a day later. And I say simply this question, hey Paul, thanks for downloading the book. Have you chosen a market yet or are you just starting out? Question mark. That's. I send them that personally and guess what? One of two things will happen. They'll either email back to me and they'll say, yeah, no, I've got a. I want to do underwater. Keep boxing, I'm really excited about it. Or guess what? I won't hear from them if I don't hear from them. Guess what they've just told me. They're in the 40 emails or they're actually in the 50 that will never do anything, or the 40 that will eventually buy something. But they're just looking for more education. They're looking for more certainty, which I hope my podcast provides on a weekly basis. So I just let them know about the podcast each week. No selling, no anything. But by the way, I've got cookie questions in the email. I just talk about the podcast. But coming back, let's focus on the people who respond. So they'll either say, hey, do you have a, do you have a market? Or, or not. And they'll answer, yeah, I'm into unable kickboxing or oh, no, I'm, you know, I'm not doing that. And if they say no, then I've got a completely free brainstorming workshop, which I do once a week. No selling. I don't sell on that. Now people go to that expecting to be sold to because that's what they've been trained to, because that's what everybody does, but you don't do it. And this is the genius of what Dean developed. Right? And then after they've done that market, I'll, I'll say, hey, thanks for coming to the, to the brainstorming session. Do you want my help with this? Right, because we've had a conversation, we've had two or three emails from me and people have to understand this and it goes against the grain of so many people. If somebody bothers to email me, I'm going to respond. It's not that hard. It's not that like I've got a relatively biggish audience, but I'm not ever that overwhelmed that I can't respond to emails in a 24 hour period, right? It's, it's never that big a deal, right? But that personal response, because here's the thing, of the hundred people that could communicate with me, only 10 are going to send me emails. So it's not, it's not that big a deal.

Now I'm going to have to play the role of guru Internet marketer here. How does that scale? Ed, isn't the idea that you're on the beach with your four hour work week and your virtual assistant in the Philippines answers these emails for you? How does this scale?

Here's the deal right there. Look, if you are a podcaster and you want to hustle yourself into a frenzy and you want to, you know, you want to be the next unicorn and you want to make millions and millions of dollars, bless you. Bless you, bless you. You know, that's awesome for you and I fully encourage you on your efforts and I still think this will work for you. How you would expand that on your way to your mega fortune is that you would actually have human, real life, human beings answer this. You know, you, they would start to represent you. You would, you would do that. Me, however, I, I just get a feeling that if a podcast. Here's the thing, here's the thing that you got to understand with your podcast audience. Yeah. Because people think audience size is everything and it's just such rubbish, rubbish Thousand true fans theory. If you can find 1,000 people who are prepared to spend $100 with you over the course of a 12 month period, that is $100,000 a year business. Now, my tip is that most podcasters listening to this, my hunch, my hypothesis is that if you were earning $100,000 from your podcast, that changes your world, right? That changes your world and dealing with a thousand people. And if you're doing the math, if they all email you, that's you're dealing with three to four emails a day to talk with them as customers. I'm sorry, but you probably send 300 instant messages a day and you probably drop 200 Twitter comments, right? So not a lot of sympathy for me. A little less of the social media, a little more of the interacting with your tribe, you know, because here's, this is a side benefit and I apologize, I'm skipping around a little bit. If you take this approach, you're actually incredibly reducing your workload. Right? Because people think I've got to be on every platform, I've got to be doing, I've got to be doing the Twitter, I've been doing Facebook, I'm in Facebook, I've got to do Facebook lives, I've got to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, you have a cookie questions, you have your podcast. That's your weekly information delivery system which should be all about helping your Tribe get to where they want to get to. You're doing them an incredible service by informing them, educating them, keeping them up to date with what's going on, because they don't have the time to. All of those things are crucial. You are doing a crucial role. And so, you know, all you're doing is in the show notes and during the podcast, you know, you suddenly mentioned that, oh, okay. You know, and it's a natural part of the conversation. It's not subtle mentions, it's just, oh, you know, Paul, I read your book on, you know, the, your latest edition on how to get a podcast published. Fantastic. Make sure you put it in the show notes. That's not selling. Does that offend the audience? Does that. Is that really. Is that that? Of course it's not, right. But that can lead to a series of interactions where you're speaking with people. And here's the deal, Paul. You want to know my closing technique? My always be closing Glengarry Glen Ross style flipping the table steak knives approach to selling.

Yes.

Is after we've had a conversation, after we've gone backwards and forwards. And I'm genuinely trying to help them at every step of this email. At some point I'll say, hey, Paul, do you want me to help you with this? And they're going to say, yes, Ed, I'd like some help. Or no, Ed, I'm cool. I'll just go along myself. But we've had a discussion, right? We've. The terms of the engagement are not the podcast, they're an email. And guess what? People are quite happy to engage in transactions over email. And I believe messaging to go forward.

So let's walk through this. So the old model is produce the list, grab the names. It's giving me to give them a PDF of great value. You know, the lead generator, if you will. Legion, you know, So I would say, I would say, you know, if you want 26 ways to make sure your podcast launch is massively successful, visit, you know, massively successful podcastlaunch.com I have a fancy video. Our guys from Content Samurai are the ones behind the scenes there. And I get the name and email address, and then for the next 30 days, I pound you with cleverly crafted marketing messages related to the world of launching your podcast. And then I figure, in 30 days, it's over. You're not going to buy from me, and then I give up your model. Go ahead.

That's correct. You've described it exactly.

So your model now is. I say if you Visit the podcastreport.com 119 I will give you this free download if you're interested. If not, let's get back to action here. I'll take the email address for that exchange, but it won't be an autoresponder other than maybe here's your download.

Correct? Yeah. And that is an autoresponder. Say is the download is an autoresponder. That is true.

So Lindsay Johnson grabs that name or grabs the download. And I now have lindsay johnson@aol.com. so I pick up inbox on my iPhone, I email lindsay johnson aol.com and I say, hey, you got my book. Have you thought about your podcast topic yet? Half of the Lindsey Johnson's of the world would freak out, would never respond, would never do anything. That's okay because they're not going to buy. They got the book. I did the service. I gave him a cookie.

Correct.

Of a percentage of the Lindsay Johnson's. The world will politely answer, respond.

And can I pause just this, Paul, Just because this is great. Right. Of 100 people who did that download, right. Fully 90 of them won't respond. Right? Won't respond. And there are two reasons. And you have no idea of hallucinating what that reason is. And I don't care how much AI or machine learning or incredible sequences you have, you won't know some of them, 40 of them will buy at some point in the 18 months and we'll launch a podcast. 50 of them just never will. Okay, Generic numbers. So, and let's just clarify. So for the people who didn't respond. So if Lindsay Johnson didn't respond, then all you're going to do each week from now on is remind them, hey, the new episode of the podcast is here and it's going to help you with this, this, this and this.

Ah, so you're still, you're still emailing Lindsay, but it's not once a week on the show. But it's not marketing messages or these traditional marketing messages. It's here's what we've got on the podcast, here's how it's going to benefit you.

And at the bottom of the post, just in a signature, it's are you ready to plan your podcast launch? Grab this free report that's at the bottom of the email.

But they already grabbed that report. That's what got them on the email.

No, no, this is, this is a different report. Report number two. Okay, Report number two. Because that is a cookie offering in your email. And what that does is that lets you know that's how we identify. Are you in the 40 or the 50?

Okay.

At some point, they're going to decide. Or on the podcast themselves, when you offer the book or whatever it is, they're going to let you know. And at that point, you ask that question again, and one of two things is going to happen, right? They're either ready to. Because nobody's going to buy. Here's the deal, folks. Nobody's going to buy from you if they're not prepared to have a conversation with you. Just science, right? It's just not going to happen. But unfortunately, what we've done is we've outsourced this conversation to a computer. People know it, everybody knows it. They're not fooled. So when you actually respond back to them, this is a person who has been having an intimate conversation with them in their most private moments over, who knows, months, years, weeks, and they're actually personally responding. Oh, my goodness. Right. So I digress. Let's. So, Paul, they didn't respond. Now let's continue with your example with. With Lindsey Johnson.

So if she doesn't respond, we'll go to one of two paths. Path one, she never responds ever again. I get my downloads at itunes, I stay in the charts, and I continue to serve her. No skin off my back. The distribution model for podcasting means it's not like I'm sending her anything or mailing any or any expense.

Right.

A small percentage. Lindsay Johnson's will grab the second thing.

Yes.

That is indicate. Okay, now. Now we start the conversation twice. Twice. You know, I love this quote. Nobody's going to buy from you if they're not prepared to have a conversation with you. So these two emails, these two signups and the podcast, and that second one came because the podcast, she's ready to have a conversation, so. And that. And so have it.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

Find out what the challenges. Why haven't they launched a podcast preview? Find out, because this is ma. You know, people struggle with things to put on their podcast or things to. To do. You know, on mine, I'll often get the person who sent me the email to come on the podcast to explain their situation so we can brainstorm together. Because guess what? If they're having that challenge, guess who else is having that challenge? Lots of your audience. So this is a way, you know, a lot of these theories. And if I've added any contribution to this science. And what Dean created is this, right? It's taking that agile and lean product development approach and mixing it into this. Because he's I think there's only three things that you, any of you need to know about your podcast, or three crucial things that it's your responsibility to know about your audience. You need to know their pains, what are causing them problems, what are their challenges. You need to know their gains. Where are they wanting to go? What's their dream? What's their journey that they want to. What's the destination of the journey that they want to go on with you? And you need to understand the jobs to be done. You need to understand they need to learn how to do specific things. These are three things. And if you can't answer as a podcaster, you can't answer those three questions. And you better start having some bloody conversations with your audience because honestly, you're not serving them properly. You know, you're not, you know, you're, you're preaching at them. They may as well be listening to radio, right? I'm about creating an tribe and having conversations with that tribe because in the back of my mind, I know I can make a great. We know. The research tells us that once you are earning 70,000 doll profit from your business, that in all western societies is US$70,000. That is going to give you the opportunity. You don't have to work somewhere else. You can focus fully on your tribe full time. And when you can focus fully on your tribe, guess what? Then you can expand that if you want to, or you can do what I did and prefer the lifestyle approach, right? That's why my company is called Niche Style, because I don't want to build a $10 million business, right? I do very well for myself. My kids go to a good school, we get to do good holidays. I drive a Hyundai i30, right? Nothing I don't need. Super fast cars, super fast boats. I do have a technology gear addiction, as Paul will attest, and that probably is expensive. But that's, you know, I'm thrilled. And this is what I want for podcasts so badly. I want them to make a true living. So you're not actually. Because here's the thing, advertisers come and go. Like, if I've got a product or a service that I know is going to help. And how do you build the product or the service? By, guess what, Solving their pains, delivering their gains and explaining the jobs to be done. And the best way for you to get that is actually to have a damn conversation with your audience. Send them an email. Respond to the email. Hey, what challenges are you having? Why haven't you launched your podcast Yet, Lindsay, tell me. Talk to me. Talk to our damn audience. This is the opportunity that you all have listening to this. This is the opportunity and nobody's doing it because we're on this automated. We're on this automated track or we're on this hands off. Because you're so terrified about offering your audience something because you don't want the cookie tray smashed over your head. I'd like to posit, Paul, that this approach is. The third way. Is. Is. Is the third way. And that's what you know. And it's only two years like that I've had this realization. And, you know, I just launched the youe First Dollar podcast. And with the like, I just. We've mentioned Dean Jackson a couple of times. I got this email from him just the other day. Well, first, no, actually, to be absolutely accurate, I got a message from him, Paul, and he said, oh, Ed, thanks for mailing out to your list. I wasn't expecting that. And I go, paul Zygo, Dean, I didn't mail out to your list. Sorry, I am going to, but I haven't. And he said, well, I've had 213 people arrive at my page and 127 of them opted in. And I had to think, and I really. Oh, de. I did mention your new free book on the podcast and I did put a link in the show notes. Now, as you know, Paul, because I've been using the fantastic. I'm a dial talk done beta tester. So I've been using your fantastic system. And I, you know, how many downloads are we getting an episode? Is it 5000 something? It's not. We're not blowing the world apart in terms of, you know, audience numbers right now. It's only been going for this version of the podcast. So I'm going five, six episodes.

It's nothing big.

No, Dave, I think, you know, 5,000, something like that. But it dropped. 213 people of a 5,000 person podcast actually clicked the show notes of just one me. I just mentioned that you could get this free book. I'll put it in the show notes, clicked it and 127 people opted in. That's a 60% conversion rate for any of you taking notes at home. And it actually then came down to a 49% open rate for people who opened the email. And yeah, so it's basically a 20% response rate for people having conversations. So Dean, funnily enough, does his own thing. So this is extraordinary, right? This is the opportunity. And then, you know, if, bless them if they end up buying something from Dean, then Dean will give me a percentage of the sale for a non salesy mention in a podcast. Or I just launched off the back of the podcast a six week course using this exact approach and made $30,000, which was just awesome, you know, and it was all by having conversations. No sales pages, no horrible salesy videos conversations.

No automated software packages.

No automated tested templates. Nope.

Now, now two types are listening to this. I know them both well. There are a number who are going like, there's exhales happening right now. This is it. I don't have to drive the Tesla either. You know, I just want to live. I want to do my podcast, I want to do this right. Here's a model. I love it. Thank you, Ed. Then there are others who are going, I do want to blow this through the roof. Ed can have his Hyundai. I want my garage of Teslas. So I want to take this model a bit further. And what's interesting here is it can go a bit further pretty easily. I ask Lindsey what her pain is and she responds, I'm having a hard time developing my format. You know, typical pain. I might respond, hey, we hit that on episode seven as well as now. We hit that on episode seven. She says, thanks. I respond back and say, hey, do you have a budget for figuring this out? You know, the key issue? She responds, yeah, I've got, you know, $58. And then I say to Lindsay, I got the book, here it is, enjoy. And she says, budgets, no matter. If I can solve the problem here, if you can meet that part of my need, I'm ready to buy. Then she becomes a client. But either way, two or three pieces of conversation and the book will still sell at Amazon and I'll still do my gigs where I'll sell the book for everybody in the room as part of it or go to an event and they put it in the bookstore and the book will still sell that way. But this conversation with Lindsay gets me someplace and maybe I have the book, maybe I have the $250 course that might be within.

Let me give, you know, because. And how do we know, right? We ask her if you notice that not only did you get that email, but you notice that you're getting 15 emails a month on this exact issue, then maybe that's an opportunity to solve that problem for people in the best way possible. It could be a webinar, it could be a course, it could be a two day workshop. I don't know what it you Know you don't. It's. This is not about how can I make money from my tribe. Right. This whole approach is servant based. So you must ask yourself this question. What's the best. Okay, here's Lindsay's problem. And gee, it turns out that this is a problem for a lot of people in my market because how do I know I'm actually getting emails? Because I'm actually deigning to have conversations with my listeners. So, okay, now given the world of my or how, what is the best possible way I could solve that problem for somebody? And that's where you start your design process from. What's the quickest best way I can least risky way I can solve this problem for people and whatever that is, guess what? That's your potential design opportunity. And then because you've been collecting email addresses rather than going to the risk of creating this course all to yourself and then hoping, hey everybody, here it is. Guess what we do? We crowdfund that sucker. Right? Let's see if they really, truly is a demand for this. So you run a crowdfunding campaign and you've got an email list which, because crowdfunding is not, it's not perceived the same. You talk about things that you can get away with on a podcast and again, sorry, horrible marketing terminology, getting away with something. But crowdfunding is one of those things where that's not deemed selling, even though it is selling really when you get down to it. But doesn't that make sense, Paul, that, you know, because you can then design products safely, because one or two things will happen, it'll get funded, you develop the product. Or two, it doesn't get funded. You need to go back to the workshop and look at your offering and look at how do I improve this? You know, what's the, what's the. It's just so exciting. It just, right now is so exciting. There's never been a better time to start a business. There's never been, never in history. You know, and it's, it's just, you know, I just want podcasters to make a living and sure, for those of you who want to blow the roof off, bless you too. You know, and there'll always be a percentage of people who blow the doors off. And that's awesome. But I want to, you know, I want to work with the, you know, and the stuff that I do is all about the let's, let's make a dollar first from our podcast because that is actually quite a significant milestone for a lot of people. And then let's, let's make $1,000 and let's get our first email address and let's get our 10 email address because one thing I know for certain, you're not going to have a million dollar success story if you don't make your first dollar first. It's impossible. Right? It's just literally impossible. So, you know, hey, let's make a living first. And then you can make some choices. You know, you can, you've got some options.

It's, it's clean. So the modeler amongst us goes, it's clean. But it also does deal with the free hug syndrome, which has not been dealt with in the space. You know, we can have a debate of how to lessen the blow, but the blow is still there, the blow still happens. And we know it's a conversation because that's why we're attracted to it. We would rather have an intimate conversation with an audience of 2000 as opposed to a radio show with the ad inserts every three minutes during drive time. Because we like that conversation. And this is just the logical extent of it. If there's fear about this taking over your life or whatnot, you could certainly have an email address just for the show. You could certainly have your Google mail, I'm on vacation, I'm not going to answer this during vacation thing. And you can certainly, if someone attempts to abuse it, treat it just like any other relationship you might have where somebody tries to abuse it. We all have those friends who call once every six years with a piece of tech advice. Then we have the friends who try to call every two or three hours with tech advice. At some point you just have to have the, hey, this, this isn't going to work. The nerds over at Best Buy will.

Do that for you or pay me enough money to make it worth my while.

That's true, that's true. And then, yeah, yeah, that, that, that is, that is absolutely true. Because, and it doesn't have to be anything explosive, it just has to be enough to. Worth my while.

Exactly right. So, you know, that's the, you know, I, I just like to think there's a third way here. And it's funny. I'll speak at a conference and somebody will come up to me afterwards and they'll be asking me tax advice on their future millions. How can I best structure my company for my future millions of tax? And I said, here's the thing, get yourself a tax problem first and then get a professional to sort it out. And here's the thing, if you have 100 people respond back in a day and let me tell you, that is an extraordinary result. Then what a great problem to have. Can you hear this? It's the smallest world's smallest violin playing the pity song for you because that's awesome, right? Yeah. If you get 100 people responding, that means you've got an engaged audience. Congratulations. Yes, you may need to get some help to respond, but what a great position to be in. Right. These are people that really want to interact, so that's a great thing. It's not a negative thing. And there's always. But here's the thing. Most people automate first and then they have no human contact. They have no chance to learn the underlying pains, gains and jobs to be done of real people getting real world information. All they're doing is looking at, you know, reports and conversion rates and CTRs and all of these sorts of things. They've got no idea what's going on in the head of their thing. They automate first and then wonder why their products don't work and wonder why they get the cookie tray slammed on their head. Here. Let's interact with the market first. And yes, once you've got. I'm awful, please. I'm not a Luddite when it comes to automation. I love automation. But let's have something worth automating first. Let's get it the right way round, you know, let's make sure we've got something that's worthwhile and then automate it as opposed to let's automate it. Spend all that money, by the way, automating it. Right. Spending all the money on the services and the big stuff. Why not? Let's have some email conversations with our audience and see what their real pains, gains and jobs to be done are.

Beautiful. Ed. I don't want to go further on this because I've given everybody enough and nothing I hate more than a pot. You've given everybody enough and nothing I hate more than a podcast that chops things up right in the middle of the conversation and tells them, you got to come back, back for the rest next week. So we might have to have you come back and revisit this. But I want to, I want to give the recording in this entirety. I can't think of anything that I'm going to edit out. I can imagine a number of you are going to be pausing and grabbing, you know, either your Apple pencil or your whatever and drawing out this, this opportunity because it's, it's, it's a unique One, it scales to a small level to the hobbies podcast of many listen to this show and I think you've done a great service to them. Thank you. But it's also a very interesting answer to this issue. And I think it's a very, very interesting way to not ignore the drunk stepchild, but to just deal with that, with the way that actually works. That makes sense. That is strategically proactive. I've always appreciated that about you. If someone wants to do this, what's the shortest batch of steps they could take? I mean, I mean, do they get it? Just get a Gmail account and then just say on their next show if you want to talk about this, Gmail me here.

Yeah. Okay, let's. Very specific is what I. Exactly what I did was. And most people will have a domain for their show. I went to G Switch, which is free for 30 days, and I created ed@yourfirstdollar.com right. So that was. That was my domain. And then I started including that in the show notes and in. And I'll mention it occasionally and say, hey, if you want more information about this, just shoot me an email to edourfirstdollar.com and I'll respond because it's me. It's going to my iPhone and that's, you know, that's the approach. And can I leave people with one thing? Because this is really important.

Yes.

I hate Hustle. I'm sorry. I know there are a lot of people listening to this who are all into the Hustle and you know, the Hustle Maddox and the Hustle Hustle themselves. I'm anti hustle. I'm sorry. So I know a lot of people advise doing all sorts of social media and being everywhere on social media. This approach actually takes so much of the pressure of that away. I'd much rather have a conversation with somebody, invest my time there than spraying out. I do Facebook Live. Don't get me wrong. I don't not love them, but I'm not wedded to them. Do you see where the difference. So if I have a responsibility to email somebody or to respond to it, I'd prefer it to be an email where I'm actually speaking one to one with a human being. And it's not about taking over your life and it's not about any of those things. I just wanted to say that caveat because, you know, I. I am, you know, you know me, Paul, you know, I'm a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, the dogs, the kids, the everything like at five o' clock. My door literally explodes open and I'm off to ballet and netball and orchestra and I know you've got swimming and horses. I've got, I've got all of that, you know, so, so this has got to be. I'm, I'm, I'm not a. I'll sleep when I'm dead type of dude, you know that, right? And, and I have no problem with people who are, you know, I was like that when I was 20 but I'm not 20 anymore and I've got kids and I've got school fees to pay and I've got, you know, all these things. I've got responsibilities and they come in part of it. So I wanted to come up and that was the whole reason behind the book youk first dollar it was to come up with a third way, a way that is sustainable, that doesn't get people all salesy. That's what I tried to do.

But you know, here's the funny thing though, or maybe the ironic thing. You might be at ballet and you might be between scenes and you might be at a point where pulling out your phone just makes sense. Instead of watching the latest cat video and we love our cat videos, you might just dash off a response to someone because it does come to your phone. You know, it didn't come to your CRM, it didn't come to your, you know, four tiered zapier Trello system and it came to your email and it's in between, you know, a school announcement and something else. And so you respond to that just like you respond, respond to everything else.

Power Tip. Power Tip. Oh, last. Really good Power Tip here. I actually use a separate email app that logs into that G Suite account. Right. So every email that comes through it's actually separates it out and I'll look at that because my good old normal old email of course gets spam, gets the school announcements, gets the everything else that's happening in my life. Just. I'm so glad you brought that up. Just a little Power Tip. I use a separate app on my phone that only logs into that account and that account only. So I know that anybody who's coming into that is somebody who wants to have a chat with me.

It's simple, it's easy, it's powerful, it's sure of a heck of a lot more profitable than a, than a $40cpm play after bargaining with someone for 20 weeks and sending them, you know, server stats and installing third party party trackers and all that stuff. And it works. Within the system. It works within the infrastructure. You continue to serve, you continue low on your audience, you continue to build that tribe. And I like it. Ed, you're gonna be hearing from people. We will definitely put links to this in the show notes. The show notes will be@the podcastreport.com 119. I'll link out to Ed's first dollar podcast. Link out to Dean Jackson, who we mentioned. Anything else they should link out to?

That seems like enough links.

Exactly. Doesn't need to be complicated. Produce that quickly and then we will go from there. Ed, thank you. The audience loves you. We're probably gonna have to have you back, my friend.

Anytime, Paul. Anytime.