When Should The Podcaster Sell Their Own Stuff? - The Podcast Report Episode #55

So when should the podcaster actually sell their own stuff? It's the Podcast Report, episode number 55, show notes, links, conversation and more at the podcastreport.com 55. It's the Podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. First, the big idea for e commerce from a podcast or a podcaster selling something. I mean, it's just a thought, it's a questionnaire. But if they don't like and trust you, why wouldn't they buy something from you? Hey all, it's Paul Culligan, podcaster, podcasting consultant, author, all sorts of fun stuff, but today it's all about the podcast report. And the podcast report is a podcast for podcasters, which I know is a genre. But instead of chatting about microphones and about hosting platforms and these types of things, we take podcasters a little bit deeper, a little bit further. The avatar for this show. You are a podcaster looking to make your podcast real business or do real business because of your podcast. And gosh darn it, if we're gonna chat real business, we need to chat about e commerce. I've been part of podcasting since the beginning. I love it. I've been it since day one. I've got a few things to tell, learned a few things along the way, and I'm certainly discovering a few things as well. And that's basically what this show is about. The Podcast Report is never was never designed, was never meant to be a massive play. You'll never see it on a top 100 list or anything like that, but it's a deep one. You who listen to know it, love it. We've taken you a bit farther and I'm thrilled to do so. And let's do that in today's episode. A quick Update about Patreon. Patreon.com PaulColligan we'll also put a link in the show notes. It's going interesting. I'm going to keep it going. It should be fun. It's going to get a new name after the Podcast Movement event. But yeah, we're going to keep doing this and take a look if you want. If you're coming to podcast movement 2015 and you want to join us for the meetup, definitely get in on the Patreon account. I've got a big announcement coming soon. Sorry you're not going to on this episode, but man, we're going to have some fun. I'll give you a clue. Podcast movement is definitely part of that. Well, with that said and done, let's get to the topic for today. Why this? Why selling something? Why a podcaster physically selling something from their site, from their podcast? Well, a couple of things. Number one, I'm getting ready for the presentation at Movement about podcast monetization. And, well, selling something of your own is definitely part of this. And I think the question of when a podcaster does that and takes that step is an important one. So I thought I would examine a little bit further another item, another element, and I've got a link to this book in the show Notes. It's a bit dated, but a book that really influenced me in the early days was a book called the Global Paradox and by Michael Nesbitt, same guy who did megatrends and that type of thing. Basically, the premise of the Global Paradox was the larger the world economy, the more important, the smallest players. And this idea that the more connected we are, and this was pre Internet, this was pre podcasting, this was pre all these things, but the idea that the bigger the world got, the more connected we'd be and the more important the small players would have and we wouldn't be confined anymore by a single street or a single city or a single state or even a single country. And I'm seeing that happen in podcasting. I'm seeing that happen in some really interesting ways. So that was a major influence for me. And, well, if a podcaster, you have an influence on the world and an audience that's international, why wouldn't you want to expand that and sell something to them? And I don't mean grubby, capitalist, slimy Gordon Gekko kind of way, although I love capitalism and I certainly don't begrudge anyone who's making revenue from this. But simply, if they know, like and trust you and you're building this relationship with them, that is. That is weekly or monthly or yearly, or in the case of some podcasters, decadely. That's not a term. I just made it up. Why wouldn't you want to sell something to it? Why wouldn't they want to buy something from you? One of my heroes in the podcasting space, Brian Brushwood. Brian is just, you know, not just podcasts. That's part of it. He's truly a transmedia, multicasting type of guy. But, you know, Brian has been running scamstuff.com and Brian does a show called. He does a number of shows. Perhaps his most famous one is scam school.com and it's a show that teaches you basically how to win free drinks at bar tricks and that kind of stuff and fun little scams. And he has this store scam stuff that sells products that assists in some of the hijinks and shenanigans that Mr. Brushwood brings on us. And I've got a link to that in the show notes as well. It's a great example of how all this fits together. There is no store that sells the stuff altogether the way Brian sells it and it's a great example. So I've just got. It doesn't necessarily have a flow here, isn't necessarily the seven points or anything like that, but I've sold a lot of stuff online before. I will be selling a lot of things online in the future and I've got some ideas and some thoughts for you. So number one, obviously you're going to need a certain amount of volume. You know, if you've got 10 people listening to your show, your goal here is not to sell them something. Your goal is to get 100 people, to get a thousand people listening your show. So an E commerce play like everything else is a numbers play. Honestly, I think it might be easier to get a group of 100 people who are willing to buy something from you than a group of thousands of people who only want to listen to ads. But there is something definitely to a certain amount of volume that needs to happen. The second thing is you're going to need something to sell. I don't know if Brian and maybe I'll get him on a future show to chat about this. I don't know if day one of scam school if he realized he's opened up scam stuff. But I think we can learn from him that maybe we got to get something to sell and maybe that changes how we build things and how we do things and realize that sales doesn't just have to be a T shirt or a CD and physical does well. But sales can be digital which is something to look at. And if you ever look at a platform, make sure you find one that does that for you. People are not going to go from a show to a purchase. They're not going to hear that you've got something to sell them, jump over to your website and buy. They're going to go from a show to maybe following you on social, to maybe signing up for your email email list to maybe buying something at one point realize that the connection isn't as fast. Maybe you'd like it to be. You know, there will be those outliers who will jump, but this is a long term relationship that you build and it's like I said at the beginning, you got to know like and trust you. And that comes over time. Returns, people are going to return stuff. That's what they do. Some are going to everything from buyer's remorse to they're going to use it and pretend they didn't to a bunch of things. But returns is part of the game. You got to make that part of the numbers. Digital makes it easier to return because, well, it makes it easier return for both sides, makes it easier to return for them because they can just say, hey, I deleted it. And they don't have to go to the mailbox or anything like that. There's pros and cons to that, obviously, but you know, if you're going to sell stuff, you got to get ready for returns. You got to handle that, realize that. And a customer who buys something from you, who physically, you know, gives you their credit card number, sends you a check or something, boy, there's a trust here. There's a trust element here that is, that is tremendous. That will go further. They probably will order again and things get really, really interesting. Let's run the numbers on this. So I have my how to podcast book and I realized a couple of days ago, and that was part of why I wanted to do this episode, that I need to start selling it myself. I've appreciated Amazon selling it. I've had a great time with Amazon selling it and I will continue to sell it at Amazon. But there are some of who might want to pick it up for me and for whatever reason might want to just, just participate in that way and deal with that way. So let's run the numbers on the book. I can get the books printed for me and the book's rather long. If you have a shorter book, it's not even going to be this much, but I can have the book for about three bucks. And you know, if I sell it for the 1499 $15 it's sold at Amazon, that's a $12 profit. If I sell four of those per thousand downloads, four per thousand downloads, one out of every 250, then I'm doing better than the average ad insert. And it's a lot more fun and it's a lot cooler and it's a lot better and it adds to my bottom line in some ways. Others didn't. Obviously with a digital file, once you've set up the system and the hosting is paid for, that kind of thing is free, which brings your market up even more. One thing you want to think out, think about, think up, think, whatever. In doing all this is the world of print on demand. We've got some really interesting opportunities there. My podcast book at $3 a pop isn't anything special. It's createspace.com and I've got a link to this in the show notes, thepodcastreport.com, episode 55. CreateSpace will print books on demand and they'll print them one at a time for you. You don't have to keep a massive inventory. You don't have to keep a basement full of books or anything like that. And by the way, the price for one book is the same price as for 500. So don't keep a basement full of things. Kunaki.com I've got a link to them as well. Kunaki will do. Beautiful four color silk screen print on demand discs, video, audio, data, dvd, cd, Tyvek case, movie case, whatever for a bucky unit. Paul, are you saying I could get a CD of the greatest hits of my show for a dollar and sell it for 15 and keep the difference? Yeah, you can. And it's pretty interesting. And remember, yeah, digital is interesting. They buy the disc, they get the disc. You know how it is, the opening up of the shrink wrap and the, you know, maybe there's a card inside of it from you or that type of thing. Pod Print on demand is interesting. Vistaprint's another one. Vistaprint is just really cheap things with your logos and that kind of stuff on them. And that's everything from T shirts to keychain holders to that kind of thing, interesting stuff. They're not the only ones. They're the ones that just came to me as I put together these show notes. Consider them again, links in the show notes. So when does it make sense to sell your own stuff? It might make sense to sell your own stuff before you do anything else, before you sell ads, before you sell things. You know, now I don't want to go there. If you look at some of the biggest names, they're selling stuff and they're selling that more than they're selling the ads. And you know, you have print on demand, you have E Commerce on demand. You have a lot of opportunities on demand and it's something that you should think about. I mean, maybe it makes sense to start selling from day one. Now, a couple of thoughts there. Let them know that this is how you pay for the show. I believe in podcasting that there's a. Well, I know there's an intimate relationship. I believe that there's sort of an unspoken contract. You know, Tom Webster once said that if the product is free, the product is you. And you want to tell a podcaster straight up front, you know, where the revenue comes from. Because if it comes from nowhere, then how long are they going to stay around? And yes, there's room for passion and there's all these things, but we have to pay the bills. And if you let your audience know, look, I'm paying the bills by selling T shirts or by selling CDs, or by selling ebooks or physical books, or in Brian's case, lock picking kits. That's an interesting model. And some of your audience will come with you. Some of your audience will participate that way because they know and they like and they trust you. I learned from Brian Brushwood a couple of things, and again, take a look at his website. It's phenomenal. You got to teach them how to use them sometimes, you know, if you're doing something more than a CD or a T shirt, teach him how to use them. Brian does a great job of that. And also everything I've said before in previous episodes, and we've got a lot of episodes of the podcast report here to go back to. I speak to a lot about evergreen content and the idea that something goes up forever. Well, now, if you've got an episode that sells a product and the product makes sense, evergreen, that show stands for a long time as an ad for you. And as you get more popular and as you get more downloads and over time, if it's selling something that's still around, it starts to get really, really interesting and the numbers start to get attractive. And then the episode is no longer just something that's going to last them between now and the next episode. But then the episode becomes sort of a standalone sales vehicle for a product that you're selling. And taking a look at a couple things to think about more. Should you run an affiliate program? You know, an affiliate program, Most of you know what that term is, but for those of you who don't, it is a. It's online commission sales. Basically, if I have you, you know, let's say I could have you sell my book. I could say, hey, if you sell, you know how to podcast 2015 at your podcast site, I'll give you $5. You know, I could still make a profit from that. I told you my book was three. If I gave you five, that's eight. There's still $7 in profit. Yeah, that's right. The numbers are there. You know, an affiliate program, man, if you grab an E commerce engine that has an affiliate program, then you've got the ability to have others marketing and selling your stuff for you. And man, how cool would that be if you know, I had a podcast book was sold to you by someone who knows me, but you didn't know me. I mean, think about the introduction there, think about the phenomenal opportunity there. And you know, it's interesting, it's fascinating. As you look to E commerce, definitely look to affiliates, definitely find a system and something that runs that for you. Another thing to think about, what happens once you have their credit card. First of all, there's just the legalities of having their credit card and there's the security issues of having their credit card. But once that's done and once that's managed and get that, there's a follow up opportunity in credit cards. That's really interesting. If I have your credit card on file, you can call my office and say, hey, I loved your book, I want to give 10 copies away for Christmas. And then I got your thing on file and you don't have to worry about typing it out online and you don't have to talk about doing these things again. The relationship that we begin to build is bigger is better. If somebody wants to do a monthly reoccurring, either through Patreon donation kind of thing, or maybe the CD of the month club or something like that, if you got their credit card on file, you can do that. Not all systems let you do that. If you do things like PayPal or some of the other systems out there, you know, that don't give you the credit card, you don't have that opportunity. Think about that. You know, man, if you can take one sale and move it to 10, one sell and move it to a hundred, a system that makes these things possible becomes interesting. You know, reoccurring revenue plus having their credit card on file for upsells, plus an affiliate program, plus testing, plus all these things, it starts to get really, really, really interesting. Another thing to think about, nothing makes you more real than something physical. That's one of the reasons why I'm really excited about the Podcast movement event. I'm going to get to meet a lot of you. Please come up and introduce yourself, mention this episode, it'll be fun. But the fact of the matter is, when we see each other shake hands, who knows, maybe hug, it becomes more real. If I hand you a physical CD of the show or a copy of my book or something like that, it becomes real. And it could be the Same with you and your audience. Physical makes things feel more real. It makes things more real. When you get a physical piece of mail from somebody, it's much more exciting than getting an email from them or something like that. You know that nothing makes you more real than something physical. And then finally, just the last thought in this world is, it's just a really interesting way to connect with your audience. If I'm just in your ear once a week, that's one thing. But if I'm being warned by you, that's something else. If I got a book that you're flipping through and underlining and marking up, that's something else. If I've got a CD that you're putting in your car, maybe giving to friends for Christmas, that's something else. It expands the relationship that we have as podcasters and is pretty exciting. So what am I going to do? Well, a couple things. Number one, I'm going to start selling the book here. Got a couple of things to fix up in mind. A future episode. For those of you listening to this. Historically, you're already laughing because not only is he selling the book, but he's selling the 2016 version of the book and he's selling the 2017 version of the book. I'm going to definitely be selling the book here@the podcastreport.com I'm going to be selling a few other things. You'll be hearing about them soon. They should be fun ways to connect, and I'll be able to share with you what worked, what didn't work, affiliate programs and couponing and that kind of stuff should be fun. What you can do a couple of things to take three minutes, piece of paper, pen, write down some things that you could sell to your audience and think outside of the box. Not just T shirts and keychains and, you know, tchotchkas and that type of thing. But what could you do? What could be different? What would separate you? The opportunity on that is pretty amazing. And boy, the numbers are better than an ad in certain, oh, the relationship is so much smoother. And, you know, it's just. It's just a different game. It's funny, you know, if you sold somebody a ad insert in an episode and, you know, a year later, that episode continues to be popular. I'll tell you this. You're not collecting the ad revenue, but if it sells a product, it keeps going. It's just interesting. So write down a few things that you could sell to your audience and then just spend five to 10 minutes. Would that change your monetization strategy. Would that change your production strategy? Just things to think about anyway. A longer episode than normal, but it's a topic near and dear to my heart that we're going to be exploring in future episodes and now you have some ideas to play with. I hope you liked it. If you listen this far, obviously there was something there. I would love your social thoughts. The PodcastReport.com Twitter the PodcastReport.com Facebook for Social Please follow like make comments, tell the world all that good stuff. The website's up. Feel free to comment away if there's something that just got you on this episode or a question or something you have again the podcastreport.com55 a bunch of links for you in this episode. I got a link to the podcast book right now at Amazon. Who knows, maybe I'll move that to me soon. The Patreon option that we spoke to, the Global paradox scam stuff, CreateSpace, VistaPrint. They're all there and you can go out and check what we were chatting about. I would love a subscribe. I would love a longer term relationship with you. This is the first time you listen. You can head out to the podcastreport.com iTunes or Stitcher, PocketCasts or TuneIn or/Spreaker, iHeartRadio or/Overcast. Whatever you choose. Please join us. Follow us Let me send you a new episode every week because we got a lot of things to do, a lot of things to accomplish. My email is the podcastreportoutlook.com if you want to leave a review. Love one at iTunes or Stitcher between now and next week, do sit down and write out Examine. Think about Ponder. Dream a couple things you could sell at your own website and examine Ponder. Figure out how it might change what it is that you're doing and make your podcast better. This is Paul Colligan. This is the podcast report@thepodcastreport.com we'll chat next week. Talk to you then. Bye.