EP 678 - Doug Sandler: How Your Podcasting Career Can Lead To Real Estate Success

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This is the no Closer show where.

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How you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives.

To support you in achieving the same.

Now, here's your host, CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson. Hey, it's Doug Sandler, host of the Nice Guys on Business podcast. The Turnkey Podcast Biz Wiz, Ford Mustang, the early wow, way too many podcasts. I'm not going to name them all, but I was doing a great job with Scott today at the no Closer Show. We were talking about the five ways to make money podcasting. If you are ready for 2022, this is the time for you to get into podcasting. The best time to do it is right now. And it all starts with this great episode with Scott. Listen to the Note Closer show right here on. Where are we? Abc? Cbs? NBC? No, it's the Note Closer Show. Welcome back.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Note Closer Show. As always, Scott Carson jacked up and excited to be here and even more excited, we've got a very special guest today that I think is going to impact many of you out there, many of you looking to up your game maybe in the new year. I mean, we've all sitting around and, you know, it's been an interesting two years since everything kicked in. But our special guest, he's an entrepreneur and podcast industry leader. His book Nice Guys Finish first is just not a dating. It's a number one rank.

Don't use it to pick up women, by the way. Don't use it to pick.

Do not take picking up advice or dating advice from Doug. Although he's done well. He's a podcast host of the Nice Guys in Business. He's interviewed people from Gary Vee to Arianna Huffington to John C. Maxwell and a ton of other celebs. But this guy is a friend of mine that I met a few years back at the New Media Summit and just he's got a big heart to help people succeed and he's done a amazing job. 1200 plus episodes of his podcast. Highly want to listen to that? But he's been downloaded over 14 million times in more than 175 countries and he's my good friend, the man, the Myth, the amazing D.J. Mr. D.J. doug Sandler. Join us today. What is going on, D.J. doug?

Hey, Scott, what's happening? So you said I have a big heart it's better than saying I have a heart on. So I appreciate you saying that, man.

Well, you got a heart on that way, you know.

Very true.

I actually did a keynote one time where I was introducing the main man at an event, and I said, you got to love Jack. He works hard for it. He sleeps hard, he wakes up hard. You know, no offense to any of our listeners out there either.

Sorry, everybody.

Sorry.

This is how it's going to be. Tune out now. If you don't want it to be this way, tune out right now.

Well, I did a episode where I made fun. You know, it's the only email I've ever written where I referred to onlyfans.com and taking bathroom selfies. Okay.

Wow.

Wow.

All right. Well, I guess it excuses me from asking Arianna Huffington, when she was on my show, she wrote a book called the Sleep Revolution. I said, so you've slept your way to the top, basically, is what I. Yeah, she thought it was funny. I'm glad there was a pregnant pause in there for a moment before she laughed. And I'm like, oh, shit, I must have really screwed the pooch on this one. But no, she has a good sense of humor, fortunately.

Well, you know what? I think one of the biggest things. I think we need more anything else in this crazy cancel culture of craziness, of going back 10 years, 20 years to something that a comic said or something we said. It was a different time for a lot of things. I think people need to laugh more. I think that's the biggest thing. I think if you can do that in your business and you can find humor and, and the little things like.

That, hell, you don't even need to go back 20 years. Just go back five minutes and you can find why you should be canceling me. I don't want to be canceled, but if you cancel me, at least let me get disability insurance. So, you know, I mean, not disability, unemployment insurance, unemployment filled for it.

There you go. But we decided we were going to talk a little bit on this episode about kind of planning, because as we're recording it and when it comes out, you know, it's coming out the time for a lot of people. A lot of businesses are starting to figure out, okay, 2021 has been an interesting year. How do I make the most out of 2022? Right. And I know that you are big about pre planning things that kind of looking ahead. I know that jj, your significant other, does a big job with that as well too. And you guys say hi to JJ for me when you see her.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Steph sends her love as well to you here. She's downstairs listening.

Thank you.

But, you know, when you're looking at kind of planning ahead, what are some of the things that you're looking at, Doug, and helping you achieve success, or what are some of the lessons you've learned from some of your guests about planning and preparing for the next year?

Well, you got to know that if you haven't figured out that more things than ever are going to be online from 2021 and 2020, when this whole craziness started, if you still have refused, hey, it's coming back. It's coming back. Even if it is coming back, let me tell you, prepare for doing business online. If you haven't started preparing for doing business online, now is the time. It's not too late, will never be too late. You know, what's the adage, you know, what's the best time to plant a tree, you know, 20 years ago? What's the second best time right now? Plan it right now, do it now. Get your business online, whatever that takes, whatever that means to you. And you know, we use podcasting as our online tool, but you can use really so many. You can use an online course, you could use an online coaching program, you could do virtual meetings, you could have meetups online. There are so many ways that you could do it. But don't ignore the fact that this could not happen again. It will potentially happen again, hopefully not in our lifetime. But look, don't ignore the fact that online is the place to be.

Yeah, I was actually just listening to a podcast recently with Roland Frazier and Ryan Dice from the Traffic, you know, digital marketer who put on the big market of a traffic and conversion summit and they sold 6,500 in person tickets and they had maybe 25% show up. And that's one of the events that I've gone to for years. And I was there in 2019 with 8,500 people, another 6,6000 online. It was just packed to the semens. But that's the case if you're looking to, to focus your marketing on an in person event or a conference or convention, which many, many of our audience members are going to the events, you know, on a pretty regular basis. The in person, hey, that aspect of things, you've got to evolve. So you've got to get your eyes and ears out to your audience, potential investors or, you know, deal flow, whatever. You're trying to drive clients from you. Like you said, you Hit it on the nail. You gotta be online. You gotta do something.

Well, and can I add something to that, too? Because I think if. If you have a business that right now is face to face and you're doing, let's say, live events, you know, the idea behind doing a live event right now is maximizing the conversion of those live event attendees while they're sitting at your event. So an event that goes from 6,500 to 2,000 or an event that goes from 150 people down to 30 people, you better have a good relationship with those 30 people that walk in the door. I mean, these are the people that have actually raised their hand and said, come hell or high water, I'm going to travel through customs. I'm going to get through. You know, what's the. I don't even. The test, the whatever, the COVID test that you got to take, the antigen test. That's what I was looking for. And so I love podcasting for that, because when I have a podcast, I have an audience that is raising their hand and being connected to me. And they listening to me just like they listen to the no Closer show. They listen to it weekly, they listen to it daily, they listen to it monthly. Some of your audience members, I mean, how. How many episodes of your show do you have out now, Scott?

Oh, we out. We've got 675 out. We'll exceed the 700 mark with our next batch of.

You probably have some people that have been listening to you in many cases for years. How great a relationship is it when you have somebody that tunes into you, that been coming back over and over again? You have a live event and they show up. Do you think that you need to actually sell them anything? All you need to do is just show up. Be you have an offer for them that makes sense for them financially. That crosses the section, the intersection of them being ready and the relationship, and you've got a deal. You know, JJ just had a live event, and we had 40 people at the event. I think if I counted the number that are there, I'd probably say we had 33, 34 people at that event that probably could have bought. She converted over 40% of her room into a $10,000 plus program. You know, when you start doing that kind of stuff, then you realize the essential ingredient to having a relationship is you can't do it without having a relationship with those people coming into the room. So I say that as a yes. And online space is good. The face to face space is good. Yes. And have a relationship with them as they're walking into the room. Even better.

Well, that's the thing is JJ and anybody that's got a podcast, for the most part, we're building rapport. You're literally building, whether it's a podcast or YouTube videos, as long as you're consistent, like you said. Yeah. We've had people that have listened to me for beyond four years. Before I was doing a podcast, before I was doing episodes, they were all on the Monday night webinars I was doing. Or that going back 10 years ago, I had somebody who was. I was listening when you're doing a telephone conference call.

Yep, yep. Tele summits, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Back in those days. But that's. I think that's what so many people struggle with. Entrepreneurs struggle with the need to build those relationships and realizing it's not a overnight success rate. It is a process in what you're doing. It's a process and being consistent and showing up. I had a guy just recently sign up for coaching with us from our class. We just had a virtual class this last weekend, but it was live via Zoom. And people are like, oh, I'm coaching with you. I listen to you. I want to learn from you.

Right.

You know, I want to say the feet of the master, the note master. Anyways, what he said, I get it, I get it. You are. But that's the thing. And you know, that's people I think don't realize. This guy listened to me for over a year.

Yeah, that wasn't an easy sale. That was a long term relationship. Podcasting or telesummits or whatever it is online is a nurture sequence that is a marathon and not a sprint. The issue is when somebody comes to you, Scott, let's say, as when they come to me and they say, hey, I want to get into what you do and I want to get into the distress notes or I want to get into podcasting or whatever it is. And they say, but I need to make money tomorrow at it, because, look, I'm going under without it. Now, they don't say those words, but that's the vibe that you get. I need to make money from this. And those are the worst clients for me to have. If you're in somebody, if you're in Scott's audience and you want to launch a podcast and you come to me because you need money tomorrow, I would say, can you go to my competition? Because it's not that I don't want you as a client, but you're not the ideal client. The ideal client is somebody that has the capacity and the ability to nurture a relationship just like you would in networking, just like you would by going to a conference and then doing follow up. And it's no different, it's just a different medium. And for me, the best part about it is that I get to build a relationship. The people raise their hand and they say, I want to know a little bit more about you by taking my lead magnet. I want to know a little bit more about you by buying a $97 program. I want to know a little bit more about you by investing in a $997 program. And I want to know a little bit about you by involving themselves in a $15,000 mastermind. It's not like I'm just throwing a mastermind to them and saying, it's 15 grand, buy it. Nobody does that. And I would pause, I would say to somebody, your money is very green, but I do not want it. Because here's the deal. You need to take a look at all the different steps before you just say, I'm in. And I want. Excitement doesn't excite me. Your excitement about podcasting does not excite me. I want to know when you're down in the dumps about it and you're still doing it. That's the customer that I want. The one that just says, keep going, keep going. You know, the one that sees pony poop everywhere and says, you know, this can't be real. There's got to be a pony in this room somewhere. You know, the optimist says that.

The.

The other guy says, this just is a bunch of horseshit. I don't want the. This is a bunch of horseshit. I want the person looking for the pony. I'm here for you. Wait, I missed it. I missed it. I didn't get to hear it. It went away.

Come on now. That ain't even bullshit. That's horseshit.

Yeah, I love that. Exactly right? Yeah. It's the bullshit meter. I don't want you as a client if you need to make money tomorrow from podcasting, because it is a long game. And I'm not saying it's going to take you 18 months like it took us, because we have a system in place that it won't take you 18 months. But dammit, if you're not willing to give yourself a year or six months to do it. And I'm sure it's the same with you, Scott, don't do this and think you're going to make money overnight.

Yeah, that's what we always say too, is that this is not a get rich quick scheme. You've got to invest. And investing is something that takes time. And our average deal isn't 60 or 90 days or 30 days. It's a 12 month process because we're building a relationship with our borrowers, we're getting them back on track and really regentrifying that individual bar and deals so that it adds value in 12 months. And I think so many people fail to realize and I think we've done it to ourselves with the media, the need for that instant gratification that, oh, I'm going to go viral. I'm going to be in front of so many people. And yeah, having big followings of people online makes sense. But honestly, a lot of those people that have those big followings and engagement, they paid for this follower. There's a lot of 18 and 17 year old boys and girls over in Thailand that are following these Instagram influencers that don't have any type of barrier line.

I would argue I'd much rather have 20 people that listen to my show that are engaged than 20,000 that do jack shit. You know, for me, the 20 people that are engaged, at least I know they're engaged. They've connected with me. We have, you know, we don't have millions of listeners on any given episode like Joe Rogan or Tim Ferriss or Ron Burgundy or any of those guys, but we do have a consistent audience that queues up week after week after week. Cumulatively, we have a great audience. But every week, you know, we want the right people that are engaged to actually take action, raise their hand and say, I want it. I want a little bit more from you, Doug. And that's, and that's where we make our, that's where we make our living. And it's not because we are hogs at it. We want to provide great content. We want to be valuable to our community and we want our community to say, yeah, I've been hanging out and listening to you for now, you know, six or seven years. And now I'm ready to take my step in this podcasting thing or with this coaching stuff that you guys do.

Well, that's the thing too. Everybody has their own time frame when they're ready.

Yep.

Ready to, you know, as we like to say, pull the trigger to get things rocking and rolling.

Yeah.

But what scares most people, I think, is they don't have a thought out plan of engagement or a thought out plan of content. Or what, how they're going to make their way in this crazy, convoluted, noisy world. In a lot of cases, with attention spans being less than goldfish and numbers that scare people. I mean, what is it? There were 1.5 million podcasters out there, but they say something like 67% of them haven't recorded a new episode this year or something like that.

It is some alarming statistics, and it's amazing to me because the barrier to entry into podcasting is so low. So many people get podcasting and just as quickly as they get in, they get out. I think the stat is somewhere around pod fade happens somewhere between 10 and 12 episodes. And pod fade, for those that are in Scott's community that don't know it's where you have been inactive after that amount of time. So 10 to 12 episodes it could take. In some cases, if we're doing a full service launch, it could take 60 days to launch a podcast. So you're telling me that in less time than it took to actually launch the podcast, you've quit podcasting? How much time did you actually give it? So we really want people to understand that it is more of a long game. Very much like distress notes. It is a long game. It's not how can I turn profit tomorrow? And again, I don't want those clients. I don't want to set a false expectation for what we're going to deliver, because we're not going to deliver it. Is it predictable that you are going to make money? Totally predictable. There's five ways that you can make money podcasting, as a matter of fact, it's one of the things that we'll promote today. But you'll find one of those five that's going to work for you and we'll be there with you holding your hand every step of the way to make sure that it is. It is. So. And that's what I get excited about right now.

Before we hit those, let's go back a little bit. Take a step back as you're working with people and helping them put their podcast together, what kind of. I won't say long term game, because we've just talked about that, but kind of. And we all know we set expectations properly. But when people are trying to figure out, because the biggest thing I get is people like, well, I'm not that interesting, you know, am I? Why am I going to share a video, something? I'm working. I'm not Dennis. Gene. I don't have a big what kind of engagement or content Plan do you kind of help people outline goes beyond the first few episodes. It goes on to something that they can implement on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. But I often record.

So we take a step back from even that question, which is a great question. What's the, you know, what's the year long strategy look like? And we say to people, okay, what is your goal for podcasting? So some people, their goal for podcasting is, I want to build a big community. Others it's, I want to become the go to, you know, influencer in my space, the thought leader in my space, and a third segment of the audience. And I will raise my hand that this was me. I just wanted to make money. I didn't care about a community. I didn't necessarily even care about becoming an influencer. I just needed to pay my bills. And seven years ago, we struggled with trying to figure out how that money game is played. So what I would say is, before we design the content calendar, the question that you were originally asking, I would say to somebody, well, what is your goal for podcasting? Because based upon your goal will determine how much structure do we actually need to have for your content calendar? There's a different structure and a different strategy that we put in place. If you say, I want to make money now versus I want to be a thought leader now versus I want to build my community right now. So the entire content calendar over the course of, let's say, I wouldn't look at your content calendar any further than probably 90 days in advance, especially as a new podcaster, because what's going to happen when you start putting out your first handful of episodes or 30 days worth of episodes? Let's say you're going to have people in your audience that are going to say, hey, I love that, but could you talk about this? And then you're going to change the trajectory of your content based upon what your audience wants. Hey, look, the best way to buy is to sell something to your market is to find out what your market wants. If your market is saying, I want this from content, then you better deliver that or you're going to end up losing those people as listeners.

Yeah, that's the thing is most people want, okay, I had a conversation with a realtor today on something very similar. She's like, well, where's it going to be in six months or a year? It's like, well, I don't know. All I need you to do is worry about, go get these, make the pull this one list and then we can go from there, I can't answer your questions because I don't know what the list is going to pull or where that pivot is going to take place. I think everybody that's been in podcasting, I know I've made some left turns and right turns on it, depending on what your audience does. Yeah, it's part of the game. You know, I wish Joe Rogan would take a pivot and reduce his three hour podcast down to an hour, you know, and not read 20 minutes of AD space on the front end. But he's making $30 million a year or whatever it is on that kind of stuff. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Okay. Well, advertising and sponsorship, it is a way to make money, but not for anybody like you or me. I mean, you probably make more in advertising and sponsorship than I make for my show, but it's not an area that I tend to focus because it's like I don't want a job selling advertising or sponsorship space. I don't want to market for that. I don't want to prospect for that. It's not something that really drives me or I get excited about. Do I get excited about mailbox money? Of having an advertiser? Yes, that's great. And we probably do, I don't know, 15 to $25,000 a year in advertising, but that's only after six plus years of, you know, doing this over 1200 episodes of doing it. That's not where we start with everybody. That is one of the five, but that is not an area where I'm like, okay, let's start there because that's where you're going to make your mint. It's not happening.

Let's dive into the five so we can kind of set that straight for everybody. Because we've mentioned a couple here and what you have to realize. Everybody's starting off with a different aspect of things. And I want to bring this a lot. You've helped people start off with no audience. You've also helped people start off with audience. Having an audience is always better than no audience, but depends on your goal.

Depends on your goal. Having an audience in some cases could be trouble because having an audience means that you have to do what they want you to do. I'd rather start, let's say, if your objective is to make money podcasting, I would say I love the idea of focusing on your audience, but that is a long tail approach to monetization of your show.

Well, let's talk about some of the other ways to make money with what you're doing there. What are the five? Let's start with I know you've got it down. What are the five ways people are making money, man?

Easy stuff, man. So the first way that I would really focus, if you come to me and say, I want to make money fast using my show, I would say, excellent. I want you to prospect for your guest seat and listen to your potential guests with two ears. One ear. How can their message best serve the community that you think is going to be listening to your show? So that's one ear. The other ear is could the things that the person say potentially qualify them to be a client of yours?

Hang on a second. That's a ding, ding button there. Yes. Say that again. I want people to listen to that again. And I mean interrupt you there because that's such a powerful, powerful statement.

It's the aha moment. And this is the secret sauce to everything. That is a strategy when it comes to monetization quickly with your podcast. So I'm going to first tell you the strategy again and then I'm going to tell you what we did and how it actually made us money the first month that we were doing it without any audience and without any show. You listen to potential guests with two ears. The first ear is what message are they sharing that could best serve the community that you think you're going to have with your podcast? Because if it's a new podcast, you really don't even know because you probably have no engagement. The second ear that you're listening for is the pre qualification ear. Are the things that that person that wants to sit in the guest seat are going to tell you. Are they potentially qualified to buy the products and services that you sell? Period. The end. That is it. There's. Yes. That's the secret. Yes. Give me a Y. Give me an E. Give me. I love. He's got all these cheerleading things. This is great. When's the last time you were on the cheerleading field? Were you the flyer or were you the catcher?

I don't think anybody would want to try to fly this. I was on the field, not on the sideline.

But you are looking. You are looking good. I don't know where you. What you've dropped in terms of weight, but you are a mere portion of your premium previous self.

That's all the green screen. It's all the green screen.

Oh, all right. Well, if it's trickery, then I. Then damn it, Scott, you got to start getting. Taking it off.

It's eating less because you're working more, I guess you could say.

But well, you know what? It's, it's a little thinner up top, so just like mine, you know, less hair.

That's why I keep it short. I keep.

I know, I know. Me too. Me too.

But going back to that, you said something in the very back part of it. That person that's on your podcast, potentially a client for the services that you offer up, I think so many people forget the fact and we've heard, you know, you and I've heard this from our buddy Steve, we've heard it from Chris, promotes other people out there is that you need to be the ideal sponsor for your podcast. You first and foremost, you need to be the sponsor, the main affiliate. If you don't have any classes to sell or any product, you can always be an affiliate for other people out there. But you need to be the biggest sponsor of your podcast first and foremost. Right?

Oh, well. And again, that would be a second way how you can make money podcasting when you don't have any products or services that you can sell and you do have a small audience because you, it's required that you have small audience to sell something to somebody. If you have a small audience having a product or service mentioned on your show or talked about on your show that doesn't compete but complements the stuff that you do or the subject matter that you're going to talk about, having a unique link that's tied back to your business. So that when somebody in your audience, even a small audience of 20, if they've queued up a couple of times and they listen to your show, chances are good that you're building some trust with them. They may take a chance and buy the stuff that you're promoting. The best part about the affiliate relationship world is, is that there's no deliverable. You know, all you're doing is sharing a unique link that is unique to you and your either coupon code or promo code or whatever you're using. And it's tied back to, it's tied back to you. As a matter of fact, that's one of the things that we're going to do today. We're going to share with how people can get this mini course 5 Ways to make money Podcasting. And yes, Scott is inviting me on a show. Yes, he's sharing with me with his community. And yes, if we sell something down the road, as a result, any sale that's made will be tied back to Scott. And what better person to get a part of the Profit than the guy that actually introduced me to the community. So all of those things, affiliate relationships, that guest to client strategy that we talked about, selling your products or services to the community that are out there. Yes, the advertising and sponsorship is a good thing too, but really an extremely lucrative way to build relationships. Joint venture partnership, that is a great way. Scott comes on my show as a guest, he's sitting in the guest seat or Scott's in my audience and I happen to be talking about it during the course of the episode or if he's in the guest seat, I'm talking to him before we hit record or during the, during the episode. And we're talking about, hey, this is a really good relationship. We kind of jive with each other. Would you be open to sharing my message with your community? And if Scott's not a podcaster, that might be through an email campaign, that might be through social media, that might be through any different series of ways to do it Again, his partnership, he's bringing the currency that he's bringing to the partnership, his list of people, and for me, that's made us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last several years of doing this. And to tell you the truth, I mean, honestly, the way we look at it is all of these five things together, the diversification of each one of these things into your profit mix is really the way to go. Because I'm not reliant upon guest to client strategy. I'm not reliant upon advertising and sponsorship or selling courses or affiliate relationships. I am relying upon all of working together. And over the last six years plus of doing the podcast, plus our business, it's been worth over a million dollars to us. And I know it works because we haven't created the system, we've just really fine tuned the strategy and perfected the way that these things are going. And we're always making tweaks and adjustments to it.

Well, the beautiful thing too is for our audience, depending on what your buying habits are of your audience and what they're actually doing. We're in real estate finance is one of the highest kind of converting and most, I guess you could say per dollar lead value in the industry of over $50 per lead. 52, 53, something like that is what I saw just recently. But it's when I think, when I'm listening, talking to my listeners, think about this, ladies and gentlemen. You have attorneys, you've got other educators, you've got servicing companies, you have software, you have other tools. And all these companies out there do Offer some sort of affiliate split or referral, a referral code or something like that. Very easy. They don't care whether you've got 100 people, 100,000. They're just glad to have people out there, I guess you could say, singing their praises and that. I think that's one of the most important things is if you're going to recommend something, don't just look like a NASCAR side of a NASCAR with every type of things, you know, stamped to your ass. You want to make sure and share actual things that you're using or products or services that you use and recommend. If you're just selling your soul to the devil to make a quick buck, your audience that can actually very quickly turn on you if you're offering something up you're not using or just selling.

Off, your audience completely agree. It's got to be something that makes sense for your audience to buy into, you know, mentally. They need to buy into it and they actually are putting down their hard earned dollar. And don't be so quick to put $1,000 program into their hands. It may require that you take several mini steps. You know, the distance between zero and a dollar, if it's 99, the distance between a dollar and $1,000 is one. I mean, it's not like $1, but it's 99% of the way is just to get them to take their credit card out and share that credit card number with you. The next step, even after a very small little. It's called a tripwire. After the small tripwire, the very next step could be a very large program. And it's not that challenging to go from a $7 program to a $500 program or a 197 program, which is pretty typical on something. I mean, $7, 197 to 1000, that's pretty typical in the pattern. There are formulas that work. Podcasting, we know is one of the ways to get people onto your list. And I can't think of a better engagement tool and a trust building tool than this space that we are both chatting in right now.

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up, Doug. About the dollar aspect of getting somebody to pay a dollar. It's so valuable. I make the joke. And this comes back from my radio DJ days of price picks. There's people that would show up to every live remote or opt into everything to get all the free stuff. Yep, free has no value. A lot of times this is especially in the real estate space. Free events, free expos. Yeah, you'll get some people to show up, but they're all tire kickers that haven't made an investment. And investments is so in somebody who pays a dollar so much more valuable than somebody who just shows up for free every time. It's. And that's part of the reason, I think podcasting, I think for many people in real estate, that's replaced their freebies to become their free thing. Oh, if you wanted the free knowledge, go listen to my podcast. Go download and listen on anywhere you get your podcast or on YouTube or something like that.

You know, I'm doing a. I'm doing a case study, my very own right now. And just so you guys can have a look behind the curtain. And Scott, feel free to share this idea along the way, But I used to give away a free program, and when I gave away a free launch program, I would get a ton of people show up. I mean, a ton of people would sign up, but only a few people would show up. I went, instead of doing a free program, I put a $297 seat deposit on this that they will get refunded back when they launch their show. I'll tell you, I've had so much great success with the people opting into the program. We have nearly two dozen people that slightly under two dozen people that have opted into the program and they've each paid their $297. And I'll tell you, I think the level. We're just in the middle of the course now, so the success rate is yet to be seen. But I venture to guess that the success rate is going to be much higher with this group because they've actually even $297, which while it is a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, when you talk about the idea of making $100,000 from a podcast, which is relatively realistic to be able to do $297 is not a lot of money, but it is enough to motivate people to actually do the work.

And take the action. I think that's where we've seen a lot of things we used to offer up on our classes, like listen, sign up for a class, do a deal in six months and provide proof. We'll give you the 599 back. And people love that. And you know, people. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then.

Well, I didn't completely deal six months. I'm like, I'm sorry. You know, but in those that did are the ones that have been the most successful over the last few years of going out and taking action and they always come back to you. I got my training for free, but I had to do some work. I had to make an investment and work for it. And I think so many people hate that four letter word W O, R, K. I know.

Well, that's just it. People are willing to raise their hand and say, I'm willing to do it if it's free. And you still gotta sell free. It's amazing to me, of all the people that are on our list and we've, you know, we've kind of, you know, accrued a very nice list for people that are interested in the podcasting space over the years. It's amazing to me that you still have to sell free.

Good times, good times. But it's also come to the fact that we've seen many entrepreneurs, many people out there who free has its strings attached to it in a lot of cases. You know what I mean? Yeah, you mean free now, but I'm getting charged $99 a month. No, that whole girl's gone wild. See, that's how that thing worked out initially for me. You know what I mean?

I get it.

But you said something really valuable is just pouring yourself in to the people that do show up, the people that do sign up. And I've always counted, hey, if I sold, if I had an event where I talked to somebody or I sold, you know, I sold one thing. Hey, that one person is who I need to talk to, that one person who's needed to hear that message. And I'm glad to pour myself into them to help them because you never know who they're going to share with and never know what their story is.

Going to end up being, what ends up happening. Especially when you're dealing with the know like and trust factor that your podcast can build over the course of, you know, 1100 or 1250 episodes or whatever crazy number that we have out there now is that you do get a small group of people that are extremely loyal fans. I mean, we've named our fans. That group of fans are funkin fans. I mean, these are hardcore people. There's probably again about 20 of them that are in our audience. You might think, well, seven years and 20 loyal fans. I'm like, well, we have a lot of people think about you listening to podcasts. So rare. I mean, I listen to Hidden Brain. I listen to another one called the Daily, which is the New York Times. And I've never reached out to them, I've never called them, I've never been volunteered for A case study. And they always look for people. So they don't know me, but I trust them implicitly because I listen to them and I like the hosts of the show. So I think about it, I'm like, I'd like to have 20 loyal people. Imagine filling an office conference room every week, twice week, because that's how many episodes that we have out every week, twice a week, with 20 people that say, I want to hear more from the nice guys. I'm like, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cow.

Yeah, that totally is cool. And those are the people that you. That do reach out. You have to value. I mean, that's the thing. When you get a feedback or a Q and A or a response from somebody, that is such gold out there. I mean, besides just reviews. I mean, reviews, you know, writing reviews and stuff like that, I think those are kind of going away with Apple. But getting somebody to actually click on a tripwire and respond or send you an email, oh, my gosh, I love getting those. That's the best feedback I can get from people. Whether they like it or dislike something, I want to hear from my audience. Because if they're saying something, there's a whole lot of people out there that aren't saying anything.

Like you just said, well, engagement is the key to success in podcasting. It's getting that anonymous person to raise their hand and say, I want more. And it doesn't mean I want to pay something yet. It just means I want more. We took our loyal, let's say, clients, and we put them in a Facebook group that came from our show, let's say, and part of them, part of the. The key to success there is engagement. What's it called? Ace? Accountability, Community, and education. You give them accountability to the program that you have that you're putting together. Community. The Facebook group is a great community. There's 180 people or something like that in our Facebook group that are engaged in our program currently. And education, you give them a valuable tool. In our case, it's the ultimate podcast launch formula that they can actually tap into to do what they want to do for their goal. And their goal was to launch a podcast. And it's amazing to me that when podcasters start sharing their content with the world and they don't have a tool for engagement, and I'm not saying be everywhere. You don't have to be on Snapchat and on LinkedIn and on Facebook and on Twitter and everywhere else and have your podcast, find out where it is. That your community meets. I mean, my community, I have another show called Ford Mustang, the Early Years, and they don't meet anywhere other than on Instagram to show pictures of their car and on Facebook to have a conversation. I know they don't have conversations on Instagram, but boy, do they have conversations in my Facebook group, which is over nearly a thousand people now, 920 people in the group. So it's like you get to know where your community is and you nurture that community in whatever way that that community needs to be nurtured. Building the know like and trust factor, tying your content, in my case, through podcasting into that group or into the Instagram page. And it is any of those things could be huge moneymakers, depending on what your goal for your show would be.

Mm, I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. Yeah, you trying to find the. Where they're spending the time at, where you don't need to be everywhere. I mean, I joke about that. I'm not gonna be doing TikTok videos anytime.

How many of your community members are on TikTok? Probably none. You know, it's like, why would I go there? None of my community. We tried to do. What is it, the. I call it Cookie house, the Clubhouse thing. We tried to do Clubhouse. But most of my listeners in that show, Ford Mustang, the early years, are 55 to 80. They have no idea how to use Clubhouse. And many of them don't have iPhones. Many of them don't have smartphones at all. They're using their computers to tap into the Facebook group.

I think Clubhouse has turned into a dumpster fire for most people.

Oh, really? I don't know that. I don't. I don't know that because I'm never there.

I just were messing, doing around with it. And we saw some peaks and size, but when they open it up for all the different rooms, we started seeing a repeat of the same people, the same exact content, and the numbers dropping. Now, others may say other things depending on their audiences, but we've just seen a huge drop off of engagement and people actually showing up and doing some. So it's the same people saying the same things over and over again. And a lot of bad advice from people that aren't doing things on a regular basis.

You know what's interesting about all of that? And I say the same thing about Facebook and Instagram too. Look, we don't own those channels. They could change an algorithm. Clubhouse could change the way they do things. It's a like they did change the way they did things slightly or whatever. If you don't own your own content, if you don't have a platform where people can meet, if you don't have something that people can actually tie into to get more information from you. Again, my host could go down, but I could take my show somewhere else and people will still find me because I have my address, that RSS feed, which is gold to us. So there's so many things that we don't have to rely upon. I don't need an email list. I have an email list, but I don't need an email list in order to be successful at what I do. Look, I invite a guest on, I put that guest in the guest seat, listening to them with two ears. How do they best serve my community? How can they potentially be qualified for the products and services that I sell? Convert that guest to a client using a process and a system that doesn't come across as salesy. I'm not sleazy with it. I don't jump down their throat when I hear a need for what we have. I handle it just like a professional would handle it. And so if somebody has a need for what I provide, it's my obligation to provide it to them. It's not my obligation to throw it down their throat. I still have to be tactful and build a relationship with them. And look, that's the reality of business. Look, if you don't like it, if you think it's a backhanded way of getting business, well, don't do it, then you don't have to do it. This works for me and it works extremely well for me. I've worked less hours in this last two years than I've ever worked in my life. And I've made more money than I have ever made in my life using this strategy to put it together. And I'm not shy about it. And. And I'm not being egotistical about it. I'd rather work less and make more money and spend more time hanging out at my pool or spending time with my girlfriend, jj or going out to dinner or driving my car or whatever I want to do. I don't want to spend that time on that hamster wheel. Shit, I've spent my entire life on that hamster wheel. It's time to get the fuck off the hamster wheel. And that's what I've been able to do over the last couple of years with this thing.

I'm so glad you brought that up because we see that we hear that day in, day out from investors who are trying to start something. They're still working that day in, day out job hamster. That's why we've seen such a great resignation, is people have gotten tired of the hamster wheel, no matter what it is, to focus more on themselves, their value, quality of life in doing things that make an impact on them, not on somebody else's bottom line. And I'm so glad you brought that up, because I totally agree with it. It's that 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 a year. The world is your oyster, just not your zip code or your backyard or the meetup group that you go to.

The guy that was spending 80 to 90 hours a week working before the pandemic and is still spending that time now. Dude, what is ever going to change in your life? You have to begin to make changes in your life. If you enjoy it, great. I love the fact that you enjoy working that much, but wouldn't you rather not have to work so hard and still have the same reward? I mean, I don't think. My dad unfortunately passed away at a very young age. I mean, he was 65 years old when he passed away. Needlessly passed away. But one of the things that he said as he was making his transition was, you will never go to your deathbed wishing you spent another day in the office. Come on. The reality of it is, let's really start enjoying our life. And I want to teach people through this medium called podcasting, let's enjoy your life, but let's enjoy it so that you can actually spend a little less time working and a little bit more time getting out there and doing the things that you really love. What is your passion project? You know, for me, I took my passion project and I made it into a podcast. I mean, I love podcasting and I love my 65 Mustang. So for me, I've been able to do both. I don't think that. I don't feel like that's work. I don't think that it's work. There's no money in it. I'm not looking to make money from it. All I'm looking to do is nurture a community, provide valuable content through my podcast. That same tool is used to make a healthy income, and I love that. And you experience the same thing, which is so great, which is why you've stayed in the game as long as you have. You wouldn't stay in this game if you didn't think it was Valuable or made you a profit.

Well, that's the biggest thing, too, is you hear. It's the people that reach out to you, say, I've been listening to you for six months or been listening to for a year, or you saved me money or you made me money. Those are the things. Or you've changed my life. Where I've been able to do this, now I have more confidence. That is the best thing. When people understand that I can do this, I can close on more deals. I do. I can raise private capital, you know, to change my life. And that's always been the number one. You know, things that stand out the most is when you. I love hearing that. And you're the same way. Doug, what's. I know we're coming up and you've got to run here in a little bit, but what is the best way for people to get ahold of you if they want to find out more about what you're offering up here? With the five different ways to make money podcasting, what's the best way for people to find out more?

Yep. So we'll provide it to them in a really easy to digest format. It's a mini course. It literally is something that you could probably go through in 30 minutes. It gives you all the secret sauce, just like the stuff that Scott and I just talked about today. And it goes into a little bit deeper detail. Best way to get ahold of that is just go to turnkeypodcast.com ncs and that's how you can get it. And Scott will be tied in with that. He's an affiliate partner of mine. But what was really interesting, Scott, at the beginning of the show, when I said, hey, I can give him a unique link, you're like, don't worry about it. And I'm like, no, I want to reward the people that help reward me. There's no extra that you pay because Scott's involved. I just would rather reward Scott. Guess what happens if I reward Scott from somebody in his community buying something from me? He'll want to have me back on the show again and promote me to his community again. And for me, yes, the course, eventually. And this is a free thing, by the way. You're not buying this. Turnkeypodcast.com NCS it just puts you into an environment where I know you have some interest in podcasting, which is great. So, Scott, thanks for including me with your community today.

Well, that's a big thing, is that we're thinking about next year and talking about things and a Lot of people, they need to start marketing more, sharing what they're doing more. It's one of the things I preach, you know, tops of the hill in my lungs. Share your journey. Everybody's journey is different. You don't have to be a Doug Doug, you don't have to be a Scott, you don't be a Gary Vee, don't be a Joe Rogan. Go be the Laura's, go be the Steve's, go be the Cody's out there and share your message out there and you'll be surprised at the audience you have, but also the engagement and then the sense of community built from people that are going through the same experiences of growth as well. I think it's one of the most valuable things that people don't realize.

Completely agree and thanks for sharing my message with your community. It may not seem to connect with those in your community. If it doesn't connect with you, these words, then just hopefully you got a little entertainment over the last 45 minutes of doing this. If you did connect with anything that I said and you just want to talk about it, just opt into the thing that we just shared. Turnkeypodcast.com NCS and then you'll get a bunch of ways that you can reach out to us. Beyond that, we will not be calling you and pressuring you to buy anything from us. It's just, it is a really cool way to start the relationship is just give you something free.

And if you're just looking for a cool ass early model Ford Mustang to take pictures in from it, Doug does rent out his Mustang for photo shoots too.

It was so funny how that happened. Just through my show, somebody, a company, it's called Hagerty DriveShare, they had an offer to like, hey, rent your classic Mustang. I'm like, I'll rent it but I'm not giving it, you know, like giving the keys to anybody. And they say, look, no, you can rent it for photo shoots. So I've done about a half a dozen of them so far and, and they're really fun. I live just south of Santa Barbara in a small town called Ojai and I've taken my car up to Santa Barbara, like the wedding capital of the world. And a bunch of people have taken. I've had a lot of really nice couples that have taken photos of my car and I get to spend a couple of hours driving the car and showing it off and polishing it and enjoying it. So yeah, it's a very cool thing.

Sharing your love and passion with others. That's always yeah.

And it will come back to reward you, too. I'm not looking for ways to make money with my show or my car, but what's funny is it has found me even in small ways. I'm like, okay, well, I'll accept. Thank you for the gift.

Thank you, God. Keep it coming. Doug, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your insight. Valuable and that amazing tool for those that are looking to really take their message to a whole new level in the new year.

So thank you, Scott.

Next time we got to get. We got to get together, have a bottle of wine, shake our dairy air a little bit and have some fun at some point, huh?

I'm ready to go. DJ Doug is in the house. He's ready to start spinning good stuff.

All right, guys, take advantage of the amazing tool that Doug offered up there. And look, start sharing your message. Start sharing your journey. If you're a fan of books, Seth Godin said, the best in tribe. We are all a part of different tribes and all of our tribes need the leadership. It might as well be you. So share your voice, share your message, and start leading your tribes. We've all a part of a variety of different ones, and you might just be surprised at who's wanting to listen to you. So go out text messaging everybody and we'll see you off the top, everybody.

Bye.