How I Made $4,000 My First Week Podcasting

If you're looking to make money with your podcast, you don't need to have a big audience, get sponsorships, do affiliate marketing, or ask for donations. In this video, I'm giving you a simple mindset shift that allowed me to make $4,000 in my first week of podcasting this way. Full disclosure, I've been podcasting for about 3 to 4 years, but I wasn't making any money from the podcast until I did what I'm about to share with you. I made $4,000 in the first week of making this shift, and And when I did it, I thought, why haven't I been doing this from the beginning? And by the way, if you do want to check out my podcast, I've linked it down in the description. I started my podcast and online business in general because I dreamed of being able to make money online. But even more than that, I wanted freedom from doing work that I genuinely enjoyed and that allowed me to show up in the world as my authentic self. In the effort of growing my podcast, I tried a lot. I did solo episodes, interviews, collaborations. I tried getting sponsorships. I even did daily episodes for a couple of months and Still, it left me staring at a big fat $0. Plus, I realized that it's really hard to grow an audience on a podcast unless you're like a celebrity or Joe Rogan. But I never gave up because I figured that it was just a matter of time for me and that if I just stayed in the game long enough, I would be successful. It wasn't until I met a guy named Josh Tapp who invited me to come on as a guest to his podcast, The Lucky Titan. On that podcast, we had a great conversation. Afterwards, we talked a bit more about podcasting. Little did I know that in this moment, I was about to get the mental shift that changed everything for me. I told Josh about my frustration with podcasting and he asked me if I ever considered interviewing my target audience. I thought, interview my target audience? He said, yeah, that's what we do and we have no shortage of clients. We use podcasting because there's no faster way to build rapport than to have a conversation together, especially when that conversation is about them. Plus, who doesn't want to be on a podcast? That was the mental shift. It's that time after the interview when you stop recording that you get what I call the golden window. That's your opportunity to ask this person, what are you working on and how can I support you? And it's asking this question with a genuine intention of helping the other person. After I had this aha moment, Josh then looked at me and said, "You just have to do a crap ton of interviews." I started by making a post inside of a Facebook group called Podcast Guest Collaboration Community. Find a guest, be a guest. Here's what I wrote in my post. I said, "Hey guys, I'm looking for some fellow creators to come onto my podcast. The goal is to put our heads together to support other creators who are starting out and building their own businesses based on their expertise. To qualify, I'm looking for people who have simply made an income online from sharing their knowledge, passions, and skills. You don't need to necessarily have made a ton of money. Sometimes it's cool to hear from people earning their first dollars, especially if the listener is just starting out. Episodes will be short, about 20 or 30 minutes, very conversational, and you must be willing to share all of your secrets and not hide the good stuff. If you're interested in being on my show, let me know down below, or you're welcome to DM me. Pumped to meet you, James. And then I just had a picture of my podcast cover art. I ended up getting flooded with messages from my target audience, which are creators coming to me because what do creators want to do? They want to create content. I'm a content creator myself, and now we get to collaborate and create something together. This meant no more cold outreach or playing the game of who's going to pitch first in the DMs. With that first set of interviews, I practiced asking my guests after we stopped recording how I can support them. If they told me that they were trying to do anything that I help people with, like build digital products, get more clients, or automate their online business, I asked them this question: Do you want some help with that? If they said yes, I would give them a strategy resource or an idea that I knew was going to help them and that I also knew would showcase my expertise and show this person that I'm legit. Now, a great question to ask in order to do this is, have you thought of blank? If they like what I shared and were inspired by it, I'd invite them to another call where I just focus on helping them reach their goals, AKA a strategy session. And it was in that first week of doing this that I made $4,000 from my podcast. After making that money, I was blown away at how easy and authentic that felt on both because it's just about connecting with your audience, building a relationship, and seeing how you can help them. But part of me also wondered, was that just a fluke? Was it just luck that I was able to do that? I decided to keep doing this for another 2 to 3 weeks, and I didn't make a dime. But I kept trying, curious at how long it would take to make another sale. You see, business is a series of experiments, and that's all I was doing here. But it wasn't just about making money. It was about working with the right people and still keeping a good reputation for my podcast. I genuinely wanted this podcast to be a killer resource for anyone looking to start and grow their own online business, regardless of what stage they're at. That's why I like to interview people who are making millions of dollars and people who are earning their first dollars online. That way there's a little something for everyone. So for a couple weeks, I wasn't making any more money from this podcast trying this strategy, but then something really cool happened. I looked at my calendar and saw a handful of strategy sessions booked from people that I had never met before. When I got on the call and asked where they found me, they said that they heard me on somebody else's podcast, loved what I was doing, and then decided to book a call with me. From that batch of calls, I ended up having an $8,000 day. The guests that I had on my show also had a similar audience, and then they were asking me to present on their podcast. And that's where this batch of people discovered me. So now when I do a podcast, I look for 3 things in a guest. First, are they going to bring value to my podcast audience? Because I do have an audience on my podcast. Second, could this person be a potential client that I could work with? And third, do they have an audience that would be interested in my message as well? If they can bring value to my audience and check off at least one of the other boxes, that's how I know it's a good guest. What I want you to think about is using your podcast as a networking tool rather than an audience building tool. You're going to be able to speak on other people's podcasts and promote your podcast simultaneously, because by doing this strategy and focusing on interviews and building these relationships after we stop recording, the amount of listeners that come to to my podcast has grown exponentially and it continues to grow. When you start getting more of an audience on your podcast by collaborating with other people in your niche, then you can start doing some more solo episodes or start doing more list building or sponsorships or affiliate marketing or anything else that you want to do with that podcast. Now, if you're thinking about trying out this strategy but you don't have your own signature coaching program to offer, you're going to want to check out this video where I break down how you can create your own step by step. If you got value from this, give it a like. And if you have any questions about how you can apply this strategy to your podcast and your coaching offer, let me know in a comment below. Take what you learn here, get out there, start interviewing, and make sure that you take advantage of that time after you stop recording. That's your window to build some awesome relationships.