How to Build an Online Business: The Essential Guide with Pat Flynn

Get off the marketing roller coaster and get on the automated fast track to digitally market your brand everywhere. Now join podcast producer Tom Hazzard and Ink columnist Tracy Hazzard as they share easy content building formulas and smart cut secrets proven to fuel hundreds of blogs, podcasts and brands with bingeable original content. Join the conversation on how to get your message out to the world. Be original, be heard, promote with power and purpose. Feed Brand.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard, your host, and today I've got something really special to share with you. I'm really excited about it, I have to say. You know, as any of you longtime listeners know, that this podcast is hosted by myself and also Tracy Hazard, or has been for a long time. And you know, Tracy and I still record episodes together here on a fairly regular basis. But sometimes I'll host episodes on my own, sometimes Tracy will. And today is going to be a very special episode where I'm bringing you a podcast crasher. And what that means is somebody who's actually the host of another show. I'm going to share with you an episode of that show here because it's very relevant. And today the podcast crasher is actually Tracy Hazard. So this isn't going to seem all that unusual. You know, in the future, a podcast crasher might not actually be one of us. It might be another host from another show. But today I want to share with you. You know, Tracy has a different show called the Binge Factor where she interviews top podcasters about what makes their show bingeable. And you know, podcasters have to have achieved a certain level of success in order for her to interview them and feature them on the Binge Factory. She doesn't just take any show, certainly doesn't take new shows. She has another format for helping highlight new shows called Giving Tuesday. And you can check that out and I'll share where in a minute. But here's the thing. Tracy had the opportunity on the Binge Factor, which is a show that really she spun off earlier this year, 2020. Some of the episodes used to be published within Feed you'd Brand because they were great episodes. But then she saw this trend and realized an opportunity and it really deserved to be its own show. So it spun off earlier this year and it is its own show, the Binge Factor. And Tracy had the fantastic opportunity to interview Pat Flynn. Now, if that name sounds familiar to you, I'm sure you're going to be very excited to listen to this episode. If that name is new to you, then I'd be a little surprised. But you know what, it happens. And you know, especially if you're a new podcaster, you may not have heard of Pat Flynn. Well, Pat Flynn is really one of the biggest, most well known podcasters in podcasting in the United States. He's been doing it longer than most and more successfully than most. And he has a podcast called Smart Passive Income. He actually has a few other shows as well. But he is viewed as not only one of the top podcasters, one of the top speakers in the podcasting industry and most successful business people in podcasting. He actually has what is referred to as a passive income podcast. And a lot of people take courses of his. Of course they subscribe to his podcast, Smart Passive Income, but they take courses and learn how to do it themselves. And so he's really one of the biggies. And Tracy had the opportunity to interview him and boy, is that a fantastic interview. And it goes way beyond just Smart passive income. It goes into all sorts of details of how to build an online business that works. And I have to tell you, I've been a fan of Pat's as well. I've seen him speak a few times on the stage at events like Podcast Movement or podfest Expo. And also I'm a huge fan of, of one of his, I would say, other businesses. He is one of the founders and owners of Fusebox, which is really the best plugin for WordPress websites. That is a podcast player and a track player and a sticky player. And we use it. All of our podcasters who at Pottitize that we produce their episodes for, we use the Fusebox player, we recommend it, we actually pay for it on behalf of our clients. So we're huge fans of it. And that is one of the things that Pat created that I thought was a brilliant entrepreneurial move and business move. Back in the days before this player existed, and I should also mention that it used to be called the Smart Podcast Player and they rebranded it earlier this year or last year to the Fusebox player, but it is the same product.

Back in the early days of Smart Passive Income, Pat's podcast, he had this player in his blog posts on his website and I thought this was the coolest thing ever. And Tracy did too. And we were trying to find where could we get that player and it didn't exist. And he was having his own people custom coded into his website and they did a beautiful job and then eventually turned it into a plugin that anybody can Buy. And we were one of the first customers to go and buy it. So, in any case, I'm huge fan of Pat Flynn's, and I think that obviously, if you're listening to this podcast, you're interested in podcasting. So I would recommend and invite you to do two specific things. One, go subscribe to the Binge Factor, Tracy's new show, if you haven't already. Now, if you've already done that, you may have heard this episode, and so this may be a repeat for you. But if you're not already subscribed to the Binge Factor and you have not heard this episode, stay tuned, because this is going to be a fantastic interview. I think you're thoroughly going to enjoy it and learn a lot from it, and I'm very excited to bring that to you today. So I'm going to stop talking, get out of the way, and let's bring on Tracy interviewing Pat Flynn on the Binge Factor.

I have probably one of my most successful podcasters on today that I've had on the show thus yet, and I.

Am really excited, and I was really a little bit nervous for a change.

And, you know, you guys know I've done thousands of interviews, but when you.

Get to interview someone who is foundational and fundamental in starting you on your path, there's kind of that little bit of excitement, energy around, like, you know, you're geeking out a little bit and you're maybe a little starstruck. And so I am interviewing Pat Flynn today, and if you have not started in the podcast industry, you may not know who he is, but you should get to know who he is, because Pat Flynn is probably one of the best teachers as to all the different things that you need, not just on the podcasting side, but on creating a whole digital, online business side of things. So he's phenomenal in that. His podcast is called the Smart Passive Income Podcast. I think he's reached well over 400 episodes. I think he's like, at 420 or so right as we're recording this. But he also has another show called Ask Pat, which has shifted into a new format. And Ask Pat is well over, I think, almost close to 1200 episodes now. Plus he's got a few others that he's dabbled in along the different years as he's testing things out. But his whole business and whole focus has always been in sort of driving that. How can I be an entrepreneur? How can I be in business for myself? How can I still be a father, a husband, an Entrepreneur and live and work the way that I want to work. And a lot of that was forced on him. So he's not going to go into his story here, but you're going to want to go check out his website, check out his podcast and hear some of the story of how he got started because he got started out of getting laid off. And many of you may be in that situation right now. Pat owns several successful online businesses. He's a professional blogger, which is why we also connected in the sense because I saw a fellow writer and that that helped me identify with him. He's a keynote speaker, He's a Wall.

Street Journal best selling author of two.

Books, although he has three books but Super Fans and Will It Fly thinking about your business and your ideas and your show. So those are some great books you're going to want to check out. And he's, as I mentioned, the host.

Of Smart Passive Income and Ask Pat.

Those you're going to want to subscribe to because of course we're going to.

Talk about some things there.

But there's also lots of success tips that have formed the way that I've run this business and the way that I run my shows and the things that I've decided to do and some not to do because I didn't want that type of results or I wasn't looking for that type of program. So there are lots of those. Over the course of his many, many episodes for you to choose from, he has specifically asked me if I would share with you that he's working on his YouTube strategy. So he's always testing and working out something new. So you're going to want to check out pat flynn on YouTube as well. He's earned a combined total of over 60 million downloads, multiple awards and features in publications such as the New York Times and Forbes. And he's an advisor with ConvertKit, LeadPages, Teachable and other companies in the digital marketing arena. So now you're gonna understand why I'm saying to that there's so much more than podcasting, than what he's talking about with us today. So you're going to want to check all of that out. And you know, again, bringing someone on like Pat Flynn who you know their downloads are true, you know they're very successful. It doesn't mean that there isn't aren't things to learn and there aren't things that they don't know about what their audience thinks and there aren't ways at which we can engage better. And that's What I love about him, because he's going to be totally raw, honest, share with you the things that he does know and the things that he's, you know, he's like, I'm always testing this. I'm always trying that. He's really honest, and that's one of the great features that does make him bingeable. So we'll get to that. And I'm so excited to be able to bring Pat Flynn on the show today.

Pat, I'm so excited to have you here. In fact, I was a little intimidated, had trouble sleeping last night, and that never happens to me on an interview.

That's so weird to hear. Like, why are you intimidated by me? I'm just a regular person. I'm a podcaster, just like you and your audience. Like, thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited about this. And, yeah, where do you want to go? Like, I want to help out as much as I can. I want this to be one of your most popular episodes, in fact.

I agree. I do, too. That's what kept me up, like, thinking about, like, how am I going to get that? But we're going to get that because I know, because you're so generous with all of your information. So the first thing that I always like to touch on for people is sort of that starting impetus, like, what made you start a podcast? And that for you was quite a while ago. So what is it that made you go, yeah, this is the thing I'm going to try?

Well, it was, in fact, a podcast that had essentially changed my life. And so through that, I understood how impactful a podcast could be for not just growing an audience, but actually serving that audience that I knew I always wanted to have one eventually of my own. And this story really starts with getting laid off. June 17, 2008.

Wow. That's coming up on your anniversary.

We celebrate that every year, my family and I. We call it Let Go Day. And it's a celebration because, although at the time it was very hard, that is the reason why I eventually felt found and saw these and took advantage of these opportunities that were always there, like they are for all of us. It just took that moment for me to find them and actually actively seek them out. And thankfully, after I got let go, I discovered podcasts, and I discovered one in particular called Internet Business Mastery with Jeremy and Jason, two people who, even though I never met them, I became friends with them through the airwaves, through the podcast, and eventually I met them in person, and we felt like, we were friends already because of the nature of podcasting and relationship building and the intimacy there. And eventually, they helped me build my business to teach people in the architecture space how to pass a particular exam. And when I started to build my own brand@smartpassiveincome.com to show how I started this business and answer questions and share my failures, share my wins, share my income, I vowed that I wanted to start a podcast. And actually, at the end of 2008, on smart passive Income, with a very small audience, I bought my microphone and I bought my equipment, and I was ready. I was totally ready to start a show. In fact, I even have an audio file that was the first audio file I ever put up. And it was just a test to see. It wasn't on a host or anything like that. It was just an MP3 embedded in my hosting platform through my website. And that was December of 2008. My first episode came out in July of 2010, a year and a half later.

Wow.

Yeah. You know, I was naturally just a blogger. I liked typing. I could hide behind my keyboard. Putting your voice out there is difficult. And plus, back then, the technology was a little bit harder to understand than it is now. There was just so many reasons and excuses for me to go, maybe this isn't for me. I'm going to go back to blogging. But if I could go back into time and take that DeLorean, I would tell myself, just do it. Get it out there. It's going to be bad. It'd be a disaster before you become the master. And it was a disaster. But I'm very thankful I started because since then, just amazing things have happened.

Well, you know, now all of you can hear the tie into that story. So there's this little bit of geek side of Pat Flynn that. That I personally relate to, and that was what made me believe that I could start a podcast. It was like, okay, he's got it.

He's geeky.

He likes to write. I like to write. And it's that personal connection that we make with our hosts as they share little bits and pieces of themselves over time that really makes us relate to them and say, I can tackle this. I can try this. And we start really taking in their advice. And that's why I think you and I personally, even though you don'. Know me, you just met me, but that's why we connected all those years, and you inspired me to start my show.

That's amazing. Thank you. And that reminds me of how I connected to Jeremy And Jason, because they each had young kids. I had just had a kid, and it was like I could connect with them because of that. In fact, when I started my podcast, I was very adamant about including little bits of personality into my show, even very purposefully, in fact. And what I did was I included a fun fact about me at the beginning of every. Each and every single one of my episodes. And I remember when I came up with this idea, because I knew it was a great way to connect, because that's what I connected with with others. Although the content was. I like the person because of those fun, random things like you just said. And I went to some of my mentors and friends who were in the podcasting space who were inspiring me, and I told them this idea, and they said, pat, that's, like, the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

Oh, no.

Because not only was I gonna share these facts, I was gonna pay a voiceover guy to share these facts about me too. And they're like, number one, that's a waste of money. Two, just like your listeners want the content. I kind of understood where they were coming from because there were so many other podcasts who were talking for 10 minutes before getting to what people came to the shows for. But I was like, I think a little bit of myself should show up in every episode. And now, five podc, 1500 episodes, and 65 million downloads later, those same people are coming back, and they're like, that was probably a good move. And I know it's a good move because when I meet people in person now, that one little random fact that they connected with is always the first thing they start with. Like, hey, I was in the marketing band, too. You know, it's like, it worked. It worked.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, this is the part that I think a lot of people don't realize. They stumble into it. And it works. Like, what you're. You know, you felt like this was the right thing to do, and you do it, and it works. And that's the thing is, like, sometimes we don't always look back at our show and say, wow, this is working for me. And it's obviously working for the audience, because I'm hearing things back on that. And so that's really critically important to take a look at your show and keep going with what's working. I love that. Now you had to have some big flubs in the beginning, and you probably still occasionally do. All most of us do. What are some really funny things that happened that just went completely wrong? And you thought, why am I doing this?

I mean, do we have six hours to talk about them? I mean, seriously, hopefully you can all perhaps relate to these things. I can just list them out for days. From my very first interview that I did not preparing for what a great podcast interview was supposed to be like, and listening to others and consciously trying to develop my own style, I just kind of went right into it. And I think on one hand, that's great. You know, ready, fire, aim is a strategy for sure. But it was really embarrassing. And I interviewed a person. His name is Yarrow Stark from Entrepreneur's Journey. He lives in Australia and. Or he lived in Australia at the time. And it was my first interview. And number one, I had terrible audio quality. And I eventually did another interview with him to make up for that. And I went into my closet, because closet's the place to have the best audio quality, as we all know. And then the interview just. The questions were so terrible. Tracy, like, literally like, hey, you're this amazing business owner. What's your favorite color? Like, blue. Okay, what's your favorite food? Spaghetti. And then I try to be funny. I'm like, do you like blue spaghetti? And it was just, like, really bad. I was just like, oh, no. Thankfully, that episode got lost in a hard drive fail. Eventually, we connected later.

That is a podcaster's prerogative for those of you listening out there.

Right?

Oh, oops. I don't know.

Like, the computer messed it up. You know, the dog ate my homework kind of thing. But we ended up connecting later, and I got invited on his show, and that was really helpful, too. We built a relationship through those misfires, and I think that just speaks to, you know, just. You got to put yourself out there. But a little bit of prep work would go very well for you. And since then, I've studied, I've gotten coaching on just interviewing alone. I've learned so much about that, and I feel I have a lot of things to say about, you know, how to. How to create a good interview in a very compelling, engaging show. Another mistake I made was, you know, several technological mistakes, by the way, not just a hard drive fail, but I remember first time putting video on when. Because I heard that, hey, sometimes when it's video, like us right now, if you're listening to the audio, we actually have the video on, which adds a level of just flavor to the show because we can connect sort of visually. Like, if, you know, if I could see that you have something that you want to say, I can visually read Those cues. And so I was like, okay, that's pretty cool. Let me pop in my Logitech C920 during this interview. So I popped it in, I did the interview, and I listened to it later. And unfortunately, when I popped in the webcam, the audio hardware switched to the webcam audio, and it was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. And I felt bad, but I published it anyway. And funnily enough, nobody really said anything about it. I just set it up up front, like, hey, this is what happened. And I always love that. Just being and owning up to my mistakes, you know, that helps.

We could go down, I mean, forever.

So how many shows are you on now? So there's over 1100 of Aspad and over 400 or 500 or so of Smart Passive Income.

Smart Passive Income, yeah. So those are two shows. And then my son and I have a podcast, which is very seasonal, and it's been a while since he's been interested. I often go all in with wherever he wants to go all in. And so for a while, it was the podcast. And we're going to come back with season two later. But we have a podcast together. He was eight years old at the time. He's 10 now. But that show still is getting thousands of downloads a month. And parents and their kids listen to that to get inspired to have conversations that are kind of fun. And that's called all of youf Beeswax. I have a podcast that was a part of a business that I recently sold. In fact, it was Foodtrucker.com which helps people start food trucks. And I'm not a food truck owner, but I use and utilize the podcast to curate the best information from existing food truck owners. And that show became very popular and still continues to get about $3,500 to $4,000 a month from food truck owners. And I recently sold that business, which was really cool. So I'm no longer a part of that. And then me and my buddy Chris Ducker have one called One Day Business Breakthrough. My wife and I are thinking about starting one related to Disney and streaming. There's just. I'm addicted to.

I can hear that. I definitely can hear that. And you've produced a couple of books from your podcast and, you know, just inspired out of the content and the things that you talk about a lot.

Do you have.

I wanted to call it Superfly. I almost just did that. Will It Fly? And Super Fans.

Maybe the next one should be.

There's Superfly. I think that's totally it. It's like, combine it. But, you know, those books. And I love reading. I'm a reader. I'm a writer at the heart of it. And I love the process that you went through in these books and how you're laying them out in a different way than you really do on your show. Your show is, you know, in different order, but now you have something in order. Have you found that fans are, you know, translating into book sales?

Absolutely. Absolutely. With your podcast listeners, you build this incredible relationship. And if you've gotten to know somebody for so long, number one, if you provided value, when you have something to share that perhaps has a dollar amount to it, your audience is gonna step up because they're gonna want to support you. Right. And so I've had a lot of people reach out to me when I was coming up with my books. In fact, this was a very specific email that I remember from a guy named Steven. He reached out to me when I was coming out with Will it Fly? I had just mentioned that I had a book coming out. I did not mention what it was about or the name or anything. And he said, pat, I'm a big fan of your podcast. Let me know when your book comes out. I want to buy 20 copies for my friends and family. Like, I didn't even mention what the book was about. And yet he stepped up.

He was already ready.

Yeah, Right.

Which is crazy. And you know, when you can match the content of the book to the specific problems or pains or needs and wants of your and desires of your target audience, it's just a match made in heaven. Right. Especially when a person needs a little bit of know like and trust first before they transact with you. And there's no better way, in my opinion, including YouTube, to get a person to know, like and trust you than a podcast. Because the voice is just. There's so much emotion behind it. There's realness and there's connection. I love sharing with my students in my courses for podcasting that if they have a coaching program or a course, use your platform as an asset to show how you teach. Because it's almost like a Costco sized sample of the other areas by which they can interact with you more. Whether it's a book or a course or a coaching program, use your platform to showcase the success stories that your products have created and feature those as hero stories within your community. And you become sort of the Yoda that everybody wants to work with or they want to get access to your guides and your knowledge. So the books. Yeah, you know, And I love sharing and offering, even pulling out parts of the book and explaining it even more deeply.

The stories that didn't make the book.

Right, stories that didn't make the book, or even just going further into them, because podcast listeners, they might even already have the book and then appreciate the sort of behind the scenes or the other parts about that. I also love to use the podcast to essentially work in public, meaning I will share with people what I'm working on as I'm working on it. So by the time it's ready to come out, it's no surprise. And in fact, when you can get your audience involved, they will invest one more time. When they get involved, they can invest. And so I'll often call on my listeners to potentially join a book launch club or book launch party or being a founder's member of a course, for example, and they feel like they have a part in something. Right. And when you feel like you have a part in something, you want it to do well, you want to support it, you, even if you don't have any money to share, you might want to share it because you actually have a connection to that product, but because of the host. And so yeah, it's absolutely translated. Love monetization on podcasts, outside of advertising and sponsorships, there's so many opportunities for all podcasters at all levels to do that I think are often overlooked.

Oh well, let's dive into that because alternative monetization, that's what I keep calling it here, alternative monetization is one of my favorite topics here because I think it's so sorely under missed and misunderstood. All the different ways that your business benefits, that you benefit, that your authority benefits, all of that happens. And you know, for you, you'd never been on a stage before you started podcasting and then all of a sudden you're keynoting places so that authority rise happen straight out of your podcast. So but what are some other ways, what are the ways that, you know the many different venues of it that have come from your podcast?

Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean the, the idea of like now being able to command five figure earnings from keynote speeches as a result of the podcast, these are like indirect ways to utilize your platform, to build authority, to then generate an income. And I think it really all comes down to the trust and the expertise and the connections that you have in the industry that your podcast can create as well. A lot of the opportunities that I've had on stages or to write potentially for publishers have come As a result of the podcast and the connections I've made with people there. So there's a lot of indirect ways your podcast can help you just as a business in whole, as an extension of your message, as a platform to connect, as a area to display your abilities and expertise. But there's some other, just directly from the podcast ways to generate an income from. If you have your own products to sell, you can mention them on your show. Now, a very common way people do that is they often use and utilize their own products as if they were essentially sponsors of the show. So it feels very sponsor like, well.

You didn't do that. I'm going to stop you right there because I do want to mention that one of the commonalities that we also have is that you started out with your smart podcast player, which I absolutely loved the style of it, to be honest with you.

Yeah, thank you.

That's what drove me to it. But you offered it up to your listeners and I was one of them at the time on a pre promotion that we could buy it and we would get lifetime license for it. And I bought it.

I have one. I have one of your original licenses.

But not just that. We then eventually went on to buy them for all of our clients as we put them onto their websites and do that. So we are one of your larger installs of your. Which is now called the Fuse Box. But that's your product. But you didn't do it in an ad, you just did it. I'm working on this. I'm really proud of it. We've been working for a year on it because you'd work for quite some time on the coding and getting it right. And I was like, I'm all in. And I immediately bought. So that's a different way to approach it than just advertising and sponsoring with your own product.

With your own product. Right. And the advertising oftentimes can just be something that just easily gets skipped over. Right. People can actually manually skip over those things. I think if you integrate it more organically into your promotion or into your podcast, it doesn't even feel like a promotion. It's just a part. It's just a conversation. Right. Especially when you're sharing the as you are building, especially if you're sharing behind the scenes, perhaps not just the good things, but the things that you're learning that you can improve on. And with the smart podcast player now known as Fusebox, because it's much bigger than just a podcast player now. And thank you, by the way, for being a Customer and for sharing it with your clients. We have big plans for it.

We're excited about those.

Yeah, thank you. You know, more on that later. But, you know, even if you have your own courses, your own coaching programs, there's so many more creative ways to use your podcast. And like I said earlier, I love to feature our customers on the show, like offering up a little bit of space to amplify their voice. And a few things happen when you do that. Number one, they're stoked on it because they don't often have that kind of opportunity. They get to share a little bit about themselves, and it almost feels like a radio show. So they're more likely to share it. It's more organic. It's something that your audience is likely to more relate to them than to you. Right. Because they are somebody who represents the rest of your audience versus if I had, for example, Tim Ferriss or Gary Vaynerchuk on my show. So those are big names and a lot of people listen to them, but a lot of people can't relate. A lot of people feel that they're in a different world and that what they're sharing or the strategies that they share are just so. Well, of course that works for you, Tim. You're Tim Ferriss, right? Versus an episode like 122 of my podcast, where I invited two teachers from Kentucky, Shane and Jocelyn, who shared their story about listening to the podcast one day, literally in the middle of mowing their lawn, stopping to start working on their business because they got inspired by an episode and now they have a multimillion dollar business. And to share that story as somebody who's also a listener, too, is just way more inspirational because they're just a few steps ahead versus somebody who's in the stratosphere. So utilizing your platform for that too.

That'S where Ask Pat, I think, probably really does that a lot. Where. Because you're doing on air coaching. And so you hear that, oh, I'm right where they are. And look at. They're getting a lot out of listening. So now they become. They listen to more of your shows, which is helpful for you. But at the same time, they're saying.

Wow, that person did it.

I can do it too, for sure.

And with Ask Pat, which is for the first thousand episodes, it was collecting voicemails through a tool called Speak Pipe and then answering their questions. We collected over a thousand answers. And I eventually found out that, first of all, that was great because now if we get a question coming in from email, we just Go. Oh, check out this Ask Pat episode. Because a lot of these questions are the same, but we started to notice that, well, we couldn't really help people as much as if we were actually to have a real conversation with them. Because a lot of times questions are just surface level problems and the actual solution lies much deeper. So after episode 1000, I switched to a 30 minute coaching call. And the sort of live coaching aspect has been incredible. Not just for helping people get results, but for the audience because they can then understand the process by which I can help find where the actual problem is and create those solutions for them. We also bring those people back on later, almost like Shark Tank where they bring the people back on later to talk about how their business is and they see the results. And that's super inspiring. And then as a byproduct of that, people get a sense of how I can work with people and how I can help them. And although I don't offer it, I don't offer one on one coaching. I have had thousands of people ask for it because they've seen what I could do for others.

Right.

That's the biggest demo right there.

Exactly. It's a demonstration. So sharing through example and sharing success stories is key for whatever products that you might have now you might consider. Well, I don't have products to sell. I guess I can't make money in any other way than advertising and sponsorships. Not true. There's two other solutions that you can offer. Number one, affiliate marketing is absolutely huge. Affiliate marketing is generating an income through the recommendation of other products that are not your own and your audience, they're already buying things. They could utilize your expertise as expert curator to understand what is worth spending money on. And these companies will reward you with a commission if you have a special link, and that's part of the challenge as a podcaster, is to how do we get people to click on things when they're not click when they're not, like at a computer? Well, have a really nice short link or I've even bought domain names just to forward through an affiliate link to make it easy for people to go through those things. Just a little side tip there, but you can match a product that already exists that you know is going to take care of your audience and is something that relates to their goals or their destinations. And you can be there to help them, number one, find it, but number two, understand it. Number three, help them make it easy for them to do and maybe even talk about experiences with it yourself. Everybody wins, right? You Win because you're getting a commission, the product company wins, they're getting a new customer, and your audience wins because they're finding a product in this giant sea of all these different recommendations coming from you, the expert curator. So when you play expert curator, you can be rewarded for that as well. The hard thing is, because it's not your own product, you have to work a little bit harder to get that audience to earn that trust from you and that product. So, again, how might you use your podcast, instead of having the space to just talk about the product and how awesome it is, invite the founder of that product on your show. First of all, they're gonna be stoked right on that. But number two, don't invite them on to go, tell me why your product's awesome. Ask them about the stories behind the product, why the product was created, what were the struggles getting into that product? How might a person best this? What are some things that people should pay attention to even if they can't afford the product? How can we still use your expertise to help people? And that then in turn helps you earn trust, not between you and the audience, but the product and the audience. And it just makes that so much easier. So, for example, I interviewed the founder of ConvertKit, which is an email service provider that I absolutely love. I'm an affiliate for it, and I've loved it so much, I've become an advisor to the company. In fact, I invited him on the show and he told this amazing story about how he dumped all of his other projects to focus full time on this, how he almost gave up on it, how he was very adamant about not taking angel investment or outside funding, but was just completely bootstrapped. It was such a fantastic story that one episode alone, because at the end I mentioned, if you were interested in ConvertKit, Go Here has accounted for over $50,000 in recurring revenue since that episode came out. And that episode continues to get listened to day after day after day, which is pretty cool. And then the other solution that might be of interest and perhaps is something that your audience is already doing, is something like Patreon, where you don't have to ask your audience to listen to an ad. You're essentially having them allow themselves to support you in whichever way they choose to do so, whether it's a five dol month thing or a $10 a month thing, which gives them more access to you or other items. Patreon is really cool. And I know a lot of podcasters, especially in the tech space, interestingly enough, who use Patreon and very successfully to earn five figures a month from their fans. And their fans are happy to do it because it's almost like pbs, you know, paid for by viewers like you, except it's.

Yeah, they don't want you to go away. Right, Exactly.

People love to show support in that way. You don't have to create anything. Well, you kind of do, but it doesn't have to be a full fledged product or program. It could just be a space for your patrons to come and receive additional things that they wouldn't if they weren't supporting.

You've done so many episodes. You've got. You're real prolific. You're always looking at a new podcast to run. How do you stay motivated? How do you avoid that, you know, high level of pod fading we have going on in this industry? I think that's anywhere between 70 and 80%, depending on which numbers you look at. So how do you avoid that?

How do you prevent that?

You know, wow, I have to do another episode today.

Yeah, this is a great question. So I'll speak to people who are sort of at the same level of my student, those who are just starting out, because there's a different set of reasons to keep going when you're starting out versus when you've done this for years. Right. So I'm gonna speak to both sides. If you're just starting out, what's really helpful is to actually have some skin in the game. And accountability, number one, accountability to your audience and to your guests and to make sure that, you know, you're taking care of them. But number two, this is why I prefer. I don't know what your stance is on free podcasting platforms, but I like paid hosting platforms because, yeah, we're anti free.

And I mention that all the time, because free is not always free.

True. And we're not just talking about dollars free, we're talking about control. Right. So, okay, cool. So we can speak that same language. But when you pay $15 a month for something, you're more likely to use it. Right. And you were reminded every single month, I better go do that thing. And when you combine that with perhaps the consequences of not continuing, whether that's a friend holding you accountable, hey, every week you don't come out with a show like you said you would, you're gonna pay me 20 bucks. I know some people who literally do that, and that holds them accountable, or holding your audience accountable to be accountable to you. But having just a little bit of skin in the game goes a very Long way. It's very similar to. I remember when the at home fitness program P90X came out with Tony Horton. I know probably seen those infomercials. I wanted to get into that because we had just had a kid and I was putting on some weight and I made this announcement to my friends and I was like, hey, I'm gonna do P90X. Has anybody done it before? And they're like, yeah, it's great. And my friend was like, hey, let me give you the DVDs. Like, you can just use mine. And I was like, no, because I know that if you just give them to me, I'm not going to do it. I want to pay for this. I'm investing in this. And so I would encourage you to see how are you actually committing to and invest into your podcast? I'm not saying you have to spend loads of dollars. And it's not a. The more money you spend, the more successful you become. That's not the case. But a little bit of skin in the game goes a very long way.

Support is important, too. And that's the other thing. Like, you know, those that have gotten coaching from you, those that come into our program, like, those that have support, I think also because they're invested at least in that, they're moving forward as well. So they feel that sense of, oh, I got to show up, I got to do this because. Because I put some skin in the game too.

Absolutely. And connecting with other podcasters and holding each other accountable. Right. Much like how if you go to the gym and you try to do it by yourself, you're going to be excited about it for the first couple months, and then March rolls around after the New Year's resolution, and you're just, like, not motivated. Of course, because it's hard now and it's boring, but when you have a friend doing it with you, they're going to help you and you're going to help them, and everybody will succeed, more likely, as a result. To speak to the people who have been podcasting for a while. And this is for those who are just starting out, too. I think it's really important to understand that your podcast is not for you. Your podcast is for your audience, and you need to show up for them. And I've had a few experiences in my past where it was very obvious how much of an impact my show has had. In one particular case, this was at a time when I was actually considering giving up on the show because this podcasting thing is hard, and I wasn't yet quite efficient in how I was podcasting. So it was taking a lot of time. And so I was blogging three times a week. I was podcasting every other week, and yet still it was hard for me to get up on the microphone. It was hard for me to know what to podcast about next. So I was considering giving up. It had been about a year at this point, and the audience wasn't as growing as fast as my bloggy audience was at the time. Now it's sort of flipped, but I'd received an email from a person. His name is Michal from Poland. And he sent me this email. And the subject line was, please read, Pat, you saved my life. Which is a really good subject line. I'm not saying, like, just put that in your subject lines of your emails to get people to open them. But, like, I was, like, very curious, obviously. So I opened this email. It's like 20 pages worth of stuff, and I read every single word. And it completely changed my life because he talked about how he got into this accident and he was unable to serve his family. He was unable to go to work, work. And he even shared, like, X rays, and it was just terrible. And he said when he was bedridden, that's when he found my podcast. And he said that every day he listened to my podcast, got inspired by it. And in one of my podcast episodes, I talked about creating goals. And when you create a goal, create a goal that's seemingly impossible, but not completely so that you can just extend yourself as far as you can go versus creating goals that you know you can reach. So with two broken legs, he decided he was gonna, in a year and a half's time, run a marathon. And for 26.2, there was a marathon in Warsaw, Poland, that was happening. He signed up for for it. And at the bottom of this email, he showed a picture of him running through the finish line, holding up a sign. And on this sign that he cared with them the whole way, said in Polish. So he had to translate it for me. It was like, thank you, God. Thank you to his wife and kids. And right there at the end, thank you, Pat Flynn. And I was like, I will never stop my podcast ever, ever again because this had been happening for so long without my knowledge. How many more Michal's are there out there like that who maybe I will never even even hear from them, but who are struggling, who need some. Somebody. You need a voice. The interesting byproduct of the year of listening to my show is he was then Able to build a brand of his own in the personal finance space in Poland. It became the number one podcast. When he created a podcast in Poland, he's become a national bestseller in his country. And now there are moments when he's seeing people who are like literally crossing finish lines of marathons with his name on it because he's told his story now like the ripple effect, people, is a real thing. And you have the ability to be that stone that you throw that creates those ripples. Ripples. And it would behoove you not to understand how much insane ability you have to affect people's lives. That's what keeps me going. Because when I get distraught or tired or bored, I'm like, okay, am I going to let that get in the way of actually helping people? No. And then I get inspired and motivated to do.

Wow, that's so great. Do you have a strategy for though coming up with new topics and new guests and other things. So I want to tap into some of our best ways because we're going to touch on them there. So some of the best ways that you find to book. Great.

Yes.

Number one, I want to first understand that it's not about me again, it's about my audience. So I consider what would be the most helpful for them right now. I'll often even go to them on Facebook or Instagram or especially my email list. In my email list I have what's called an autoresponder series, a follow up sequence that's already pre written that people get sequentially over time after they subscribe. And because of that, every day I'm getting replies to this particular email that says, what's your number one biggest challenge right now? Hit reply. Send that to me now. I'm hearing legit from my audience, audience exactly what they want to know about. And it takes some time and I have an assistant who helps weed through those and find the patterns. But if I can find something that I can't speak to myself that my audience wants to know about, that's the signal for, okay, I want to find somebody who knows about that because I want to tap into their knowledge. That's where it starts. It doesn't start with me, but as a byproduct of that, then number one, I can show like data or even questions to that person to go, hey, I know you don't know me, but my own audience needs your help and I would love to invite you on the show because I want to share your expertise and I see you have a book out there too. This is another strategy. What's in it for them? Right? How are you able to use your podcasting platform to serve them as a guest? It's time out of their day to come on your show to even have a conversation about potentially coming on your show to schedule. It's time and energy that you want to make sure is rewarded. And even if you're a small podcaster, knowing what they're working on next is really key. So oftentimes, when I have a guest on, I might consider. Do they have a book coming out anytime soon? Do they have any programs or anything that they're interested in that I could potentially help them with, even if it's not related to the topic of the show? I might consider and see on their social streams that they might be, I don't know, going to Disneyland sometime soon, which none of us are doing right now because of the pandemic, but we wish we were. You know, perhaps they're Disney files, right? And I can, you know, perhaps start a conversation related to that because I am one as well. And that little connection can be the start of a really cool conversation. But probably the best way to get a guest on is to get an introduction from somebody who knows both of you.

Okay? So, yeah, so I wanna stop you right there, because, Pat, you've got guests, like, pitching themselves at you left and right, so you have the more of the problem of, like, vetting them and making sure they're right. And then when you do have a need, going to find the right one out of the group. So that's the opposite thing. But in our case here, like, I've never been on your show. I've always wanted to be. It's gonna happen now. But I got the introduction through Matt, who is your partner because of Fusebox, because of what we were doing there. And so that's how I was able.

To get you here.

And so that, to me, is really the best strategy of what you're saying there is, that when you can personal introduction, it's going to be so much more powerful.

Right. And there's some really interesting ways that we can go about finding people and how to get those introductions. Perhaps you are a guest on another person's show and you see in their archive that there's some other amazing people that you love to connect with. So later on, hopefully you've provided value. You can go back to them and say, hey, I really enjoyed being a guest on your show. I see that also this person was on your show. Might there be a way that Perhaps we can get connected in some way. Like, no worries if that's not possible, but I would just love to potentially have an introduction because that person is connected to both of you. Right. So that's a really cool thing. Another thing I love to do is recommend going into Apple podcasts and seeing who else matches your audience. And you can go into the related tab or area of your show, both on mobile and on desktop to see. It's almost like Amazon. People who bought this also bought this. Right. So you can see people who listen to your show also listen to this show. And you can go in there and you can get lost in a little bit of a rabbit hole because you can go from creator to creator to creator and, like, see how these things align. But I often go into mine and see that there's, like, a new podcast that shows up that my audience seems to listen to. And I might not know, but I'll use that as a conversation piece to go, hey, it looks like our audience is aligned. And a lot of my audience listens. In fact, I'll also go to social and go, hey, who else listens to this show? I've never heard of it. Is it good? And then, of course, I tag them. So they go, oh, Pat Flynn, like, is talking about us. And then they see my audience go, yeah, I listen too. Now we're connected through my audience. And that becomes a really cool conversation piece because cold reach outs are very difficult. How might we warm up the conversation first before the actual ask, and then, like you said, the collaboration. Right. Like, here I am on your show, and I'm very grateful for that. And you're coming on my show. Collaborations between podcasters should happen more.

It should happen more. I think sometimes there's that fear of, like, oh, then they're gonna steal my audience. But it doesn't work like that in the podcasting industry. It just doesn't. Listeners aren't like that.

No. People are subscribed to seven shows on average. Right. You're not competing, you're complimenting. You can add to a person's playlist. You're not taking anything away from anybody.

Yeah, I love that collaborativeness, and I think anyone who espouses that, that's there. There's a show worth being on. Well, you know, incre. Now, you've had a lot of different strategies. You're always testing different things that are going out there.

But what have you found to be.

Some of the most effective ways to increase listeners?

So, number one, and this relates to a quote from Seth Godin, that was about podcasting recently, and he said podcasting is the new blogging. And I completely agree, which is really exciting because we just crossed a million podcasts, right? There's like, 500 million active blogs. Like, the future of podcasting is so bright. I'm so excited for it. But if podcasting is the new blog, then I say guest podcasting is the new guest blogging, right? And guest blogging was like the strategy to use back in the day. And I think that we need to focus on whether you have a podcast or not. How might you offer value to a podcast host and their audience? That's how you want to approach. And the cool thing about this, more than any other strategy, is when a host endorses you or you're on their show, guess what? Those people are already open with their podcast app. So it's just one step away to go and find your show. Versus, like, I have a lot of people who go, pat, like, how can I run Facebook ads to get more listeners to my show? And I'm like, like, let's think about that. You have to first interrupt somebody, they're not on social to go listen to your show. You have to capture their attention with beautiful copy, beautiful images, and then they have to click over, and you can't control what podcast app they want to listen in. So how might you navigate that? I don't know. But let's say they get there, then they have to be compelled to click play. Then they have to be compelled to subscribe. And it's coming from you as an ad, not an endorsement from somebody. It's a lot more fun friction. So I prefer to go through, again, a guest podcasting platform. Another great way to grow your show. This worked for me, and it was very surprising. Episode 96 of the SBA podcast, I was very afraid to record, and I was afraid to record and publish it because it was so specific to a very tiny space in my audience. My audience are entrepreneurs, and I could talk about all kinds of things. Entrepreneurship. This particular episode was for the entrepreneurs in my audience who were artists, painters, sculptors, like that, like, legit artists. And I was like, ah, this is. Is like pigeonholing this episode to just that small portion of my audience. I don't know. I know they need help, but, like, maybe I could talk about something that would relate to everybody. But what I eventually realized is that when you talk to everybody, you're talking to nobody.

Okay, so now that's the episode that I remember the most, because I'm a designer. By trade. Yeah. So I remember that. And it spoke to me a lot. And that's partially why I binge listened on a lot more because it was.

Specific to something that was relevant to you at that time. And I interviewed and I found again an expert to come on because I am not an artist but myself. But his name is Corey Huff and he helped artists make money online. And so I invited him on the show. And what ended up happening was this episode went viral in the art community because they found somebody who was speaking about monetization who was very relevant to them as an artist. And the more you niche down, I mean, the riches are in the niches, right? Even within your own target audience, there are sub niches that you could serve. And sure, it might not be relevant for everybody, but in addition to going viral in that space space, I found that when I shared this on social, a lot of people who weren't artists were tagging their artist friends and that was really cool byproduct. And that's part of the reason why I went viral too. So I ended up seeing links to it in forums and on Reddit and all these other places. So that was a really cool strategy. And that's a planning and niche selection strategy versus a, you know, let's get on a big platform. That's. It just speaks to the importance of really connecting with the audience and giving them something that's useful that feels like it's just for them. So those two strategies work really well.

Those are fantastic. And so the next question that I usually ask everybody is about producing in a professional way. But I want to reframe that here for you because you have a team and you have quite the professional setup and everything. But for someone who's starting out, what's.

The most important factors to producing professionally?

To me, it's the planning, it's the content calendar. For years I would hit publish and be scared. And I'd be scared because I'd have to go, okay, well what am I going to create for now, next week? And that's not a good headspace to be because you start to have this like countdown timer, right? That like every second gets more and more anxiety in your life because you're like, what am I going to create? And then you're forced to create and then you're like spending all night doing it just to get it out in time. Because a part of the podcasting process is what are you going to create episodes about? And that's a very energy draining part of the podcasting Process is the creative and the thinking and the planning. So what my team and I do. And you can do this, whether it's just yourself or you have team members, I would include the team members because the more voices, the better. But we create moments every quarter to get into a room or zoom together to plan. What episodes do we want to have come out in the future, like the next quarter after we already have this quarter planned. Now, I know that some podcast niches don't lend themselves to planning that far ahead. Right. Think sports and news and whatnot. And there are some other ways that can be done, but a lot of podcasters can plan ahead head. We just don't. So spending some time upfront to consider what do we want to come out and when, but also and more importantly, why. That's when things start to really happen as a complete and whole business. So, for example, we might know that, you know, four months down the road that we are going to be coming out with a new product. How might we then utilize this asset that we have as a podcast to create content that supports the launch of that product? And a very specific example was in July of 2017. I out came, came out with Power Up Podcasting, a course that I have, and to set that up for a month prior. And again, this was planned ahead of time. It was planned in February, March, we decided that we were gonna have podcast episodes that were all about essentially opening up the idea of a person starting a podcast. So an episode about the rapid growth in statistics behind podcasting and why I feel it's the number one platform that content creators should have. Another episode that came out that was about success stories from myself and others about what can happen when you actually have podcast. First five steps newbie podcasters should make just to kind of prove authority. And so all these episodes leading up to the launch made it clear that a podcast was worth doing. And then, boom, here's something to help you if you do want to go deeper with this.

You're planning the setup and the bringing the audience through with you. I love that.

Absolutely. Versus. Okay, what am I going to do next week?

Let's just wing it, right?

Yeah, that's been really key. That's the CEO mindset versus the scrappy entrepreneur mindset.

I love that. Now you have a highly engaged. I mean, look, they went to Speak Pipe and sent in messages. And I'm going to be the first to admit that we. We modeled that when we started our show WTFF, which is on 3D printing, but we didn't we knew we didn't have any audience like at the beginning when we were starting it. So we modeled a day where we would answer someone's questions. We did a five day week and we made them up because like we didn't have anybody. But then we said, but here's our speak pipe and you can go and ask us questions. And eventually we did get some. But, you know, how do you get.

Them to do that? How do you encourage that and get.

Well, there's a number of ways to do it. I think that it's a very smart thing, especially if you're just starting out to show what it might be like to get a question answered by you and then just continuously opening up those channels. I think a lot of people don't want to be first either. So what you could do is utilize your network or friends to have and use them as examples of different kinds of ways. That way people aren't first. A lot of people don't want to be first for something like that, especially if it's new and different. Another way to do this is to manually, in a not very scalable way, reach out and ask people personally. And so what I love to do sometimes is use my social channels to directly connect with people through the DMs, the direct messages. This is a very great strategy that I love to share with my students for connecting with your audience and also asking them for help. And so what I often recommend to do is not ask directly. Just randomly reach out to your followers on Instagram and say, hey, can you leave a review for my show? Or hey, can you ask a question for the podcast? I like to start by having people raise their hand and go, oh yeah, I am a listener and I enjoy it. And the way that I do that is I'll post something on Instagram, for example, about a recent episode or about my podcast, perhaps, hey, this podcast came out last week. Let me know if you heard it. If you did, what was your favorite tip? So that way, the comments itself, they're very valuable for people. It announces that podcast came out in case they missed it, they can go back and they'll also see the value in that episode from the comments. So that's kind of cool in and of itself. But then what I'll do is for every person who comments who I know had listened to the show, I'll reach back out to them in a direct message with a video and I will personally thank them for listening to the show. And that is a perfect opportunity to say, by the way, if you have a quick moment, if you could leave a review on an Apple podcast, that would be massively valuable. Thank you, Tracy. I appreciate you so much. Use their name, by the way. That way they know it's personal and it gets like a 90% take rate, literally.

I bet it does, yeah.

Video. And it's so personal and it's so special for a host to take that time out to do that. It makes them feel great. And this is how you start building. Super. So in the manner of getting people to engage, to leave a question. Same thing. Hey, Tracy, Pat here. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but I have an open forum on Ask Pat, and I just love to personally ask. If you have any questions or struggles that you're having in business, like go to this webpage, you know, speakpipe.com Pat Flynn, and just leave a question there for me. I'd love to answer on the show. Oh, my gosh. Pat Flynn asked me to be on the show.

Of course I'm gonna do it.

That personal reach out is not scalable, but honestly, I just schedule time, 30 minutes every Friday in my calendar to. To have these kinds of moments with.

My audience and, you know, and you.

Talk about it and that and will it fly. And I'm assuming in super fans that it's the same number, but I, you know, I don't remember actually off the top of my head, but you talk about that. Those key thousand fans that really tip everything over.

But you could start with a key 100 or a dozen.

10.

Yeah, yeah.

And move it forward.

So, you know, that's a great suggestion. I love that. Now, we talked a bit about monetization and everything, but which one.

Which method has been the most effective for you personally? Personally and for your shows?

Affiliate marketing. To be honest, affiliate marketing still has become or is the number one and biggest slice of that pie, if you will. And it's because there are so many great products out there that can serve your audience. Products that I could never create myself, but they're absolutely in line with what my audience has said they needed help with. So again, I'm playing expert curator. And what's cool is you can do this even from episode one. No, you're probably not going to have anybody click on those links or buy any. But guess what? Podcast listeners love to go back and listen to older episodes that relate. And what happens is it's sort of like planting seeds. I love planting seeds in my episodes that can then sprout later and then you can Pick those fruit when you want. So affiliate marketing is great because now I have a bank of. Not every episode is something that includes something like an affiliate link or something like that, but many do. So I mean, I would say there's hundreds of episodes out there in the interwebs right now that at any moment in time a person can listen to, listen to without me having to lift a finger because it's already been done. They'll hear a story or see a ten step process. Where step five is you go get this product that can help you do this in less time. And so I'm helping and serving my audience through the evergreenness of a podcast with affiliate links and mentions within those episodes or mentions of my products or mentions of whatever.

And I think some of the strength.

Of your affiliate links though are these are products that you're actually use, that you're a big fan of.

You use. I would say it's like requirement. Like you don't often have to use the product in order to share it. But imagine this scenario, Tracy. You recommend a product, a person goes, that's cool, Tracy. Like, do you use this? And you go, well, no, they're out. You've even lost our trust after that point.

Exactly.

So I love to recommend products that I use because I can almost represent that company. And I want questions coming in about that product because if I can answer them, you know that they're going to be. First of all, if you're asking questions about it, you know that they're going to, they're close to buying or at least thinking about it. If you can answer those questions, they're going to see you as somebody they can trust and are likely to go through your affiliate link to pay you back for that, for that reward. Just be sure that when you're doing affiliate marketing that you're very upfront and open about the fact that it is an affiliate link that is required by ofTC in the US and probably even more stringently in Europe and other places too. So just keep that in mind. But it is by far the easiest. However, too many people are taking advantage of how easy it is. And this is why it has a bad rap, right? You can go to places that are like networks of different products that, that you could just literally pull from a catalog and get an affiliate link for and have hundreds of dollars of commission. But if they don't align with your audience and if you've never used them, you're going to lose that trust with your audience. And that's the biggest asset that you have, especially as a podcaster and with the kind of trust that you can earn. You need to nurture the trust that you've earned. First of all, you need to earn that trust, and then you need to keep it. So be careful when you do affiliate marketing. Make sure you're promoting products that you know will serve your audience and almost represent them as if they were your own.

Wonderful.

Well, before we go, and I know you've got a deadline, so we've got to get you out the door, but I want an open invitation to bring you back. But before we go, we want to talk about your binge factor, and when did you first realize your show was bingeable?

And what do you believe your binge factor is?

I love that question. And I want to go back into your archive and listen. Do you ask this to every guest?

Every guest, yeah.

For me, my moment was, after having a podcast for about a year, podcasting only every other week, because that's all I do had to time for. I wasn't quite as efficient as I am now, and I was blogging three times a week. I went to a conference. It was called Blog World Expo. And this conference no longer exists, but I met some people who had been following me, and every conversation I had was about something that I mentioned on the podcast. Oh, I love that story you told about this. Or, oh, hey, I learned, like, this happened or no, hey, in that episode you did about this or this guest that you had on, like, tell me more. I was like, okay, but what about the blog? Like, I blog three times a week. Like, what about those? And they're like, well, that's fine, but, like, let's talk more about this story. And I was like, whoa, okay, this is how I know people are listening. And they start, like, remembering things that I forgot I said. Right? That's like, whoa, okay. That was when I eventually understood. And then. And then, you know, you get the people who are like, hey, I. You know, I just found you, and I've listened to all 100 episodes in the last three days, and I'm like, you're crazy. Why would you do that?

That's what my reaction was. It's like, you listen to me for 100 episodes. Like, you need to take action.

Like, stop. Stop consuming it. But I appreciate it, of course. And I think the big binge factor is two things. Number one, I take things that are very complicated, especially in the business world, that are helpful, and I make them much easier to consume. I'm not that smart in my Opinion. So I need to, for myself, dumb things down and make things easier, and then I just share that. Right? And I try to lead by example. The other thing I think, especially in the entrepreneurship space, is that I know that a big advantage I have is that I am not one of those entrepreneurs who is a Lambro, right? Somebody who just like, hey, guys, like, riches. Push button riches. Secret. Like, I got all the secrets for you. Here's my main mansion. Like, no, my Lamborghini is my 2012 Toyota Sienna. Right? And I can relate to the people who are in this for their families. And so this is why my family shows up. This is why I have a show with my son. This is why that shows up. And that's something that immediately connects with any parents out there. Now, I have a large audience of people who are not parents, but I step into that because that's who I am and what I'm about and why I do this. And eventually, when I started stepping into that, more people started binge listening more because they finally found somebody who was relatable. So I believe those are the big factors.

Those are the big factors. And I'm going to add my one more because, you know, sometimes it takes a binge listener to identify that. And for you in particular, it is that you simplify things and you put things in an order that's understandable and make us feel like we can do this.

And you're relatable.

But the biggest part of it is that you can't fake passion about something you're excited about. Get excited about something that's working, I believe, and I know that it must be working because you're not one of the podcasters who's just doing the interviews, following a formula, phoning it in in a way, you know, recording it in. And you're just. You're just like, oh, yeah, this is the hottest thing, you know, since sliced bread.

No, you are passionate about something because you know it's working.

And when you get excited about something, I want to go try it. And that's really, I think, the key for you.

Thank you. Yeah, I think that just speaks to just be you. Like, if you're not excited about it, then don't podcast about it. If you are, put all of you into it. And the other thing is just embracing your weird would be the final thing to. To mention I'm weird. I have these quirks. I love Back to the Future. I'm me. And my favorite thing to hear when I see people in person who listen to the show Is, hey, you're just like you are on the show, and that's how it should be, in my opinion. So just step into yourself and show up more would be my advice.

Well, Pat, thank you so much for being on the show. This is so exciting, and I've enjoyed every second of it, and I would love to have you back at any time. So anytime you're ready, you can come right back and we'll talk about more binge factors and more podcast tips and more audience matching, and I love all of that. So you have an open invitation anytime.

Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate your time.

I told you it was going to be.

Wow.

I told you he was going to have so many beautiful nuggets for us, didn't he?

Right?

I mean, there are just so many.

Different things about know, like, and trust and, you know, overcoming all of this overwhelm that we all get when we're trying to, you know, be consistent about our shows. And, of course, there's a lot of alternative monetization that he talked about today. I loved that. You know, really looking at your growth and your engagement and all of those things are so, so valuable in the process. But the. One of the things that resonated the most with me, and I've already repeated.

It, as you know, before, I've had.

An opportunity for us to record this right now and give you my clothes, is that, you know, when he was saying that, Seth Godin said podcasting is a new blogging, and he was saying that instead, he felt that guest podcasting is the new guest blogging. And I thought that's such an interesting concept. And it's already got my wheels spinning and thinking about how that applies here and why I hear it go so wrong so often with people who go.

Out there and have this, like, guest.

Strategy that's just not working for them. And a lot of it comes from, you know, a sort of traditional thinking about guesting as being like being on a radio show. Remember that podcasts and your show is different. Right. We have an intimacy with our audience. We have an obligation to being clear with our audience that we are providing them someone and something of value. So to allow guests to come on that are just, in a sense, you know, going across and doing show after show after show and not caring what show they're on or only doing shows because of the number of days downloads does it a disservice to you and your audience. So fight that from a podcaster side, and we'll change the way that industry works altogether. So I love that as we sort of shift and we saw guest blogging go really wrong at one time when it was all about backlinks and it wasn't about quality of blogs. And it's now shifted to being a much more higher quality blogging and guesting strategy, which still works to some extent. So I want to see guest podcasting.

Happen that same way.

And so that's why I love that platform. Was so free to share his criteria with you about how he looks at that, how he judges that and who he decides is going to come on his show. So now also I'm going to give a shout out because I'm on his show and it was such an honor to be on his show. So we'll definitely have links to that as they come in. So if you're listening to this and this one airs before that one airs, we'll make sure to cross link them. So be checking back over time. And as you know, there are links to everything about Pat Flynn and everything about he talked about today and any links for anything that he was talking about like ConvertKit and some of those other things. We want to make sure that they're all there for you. They'll be in the blog post for this episode, including the links to his book and especially, you know, give a shout out to checking out his YouTube channel. So, you know, you want to step away from your podcast player and just scroll right over to YouTube because I know so many of you are in there and subscribe to Pat Flynn there and check out what he's doing because it's not the same as his podcast and it's not the same as his blog. So he's testing out some new ideas and new strategies there and he's inspired me to just, you know, keep going and plugging away and changing and keep improving what we're doing and what I'm doing here on this show. So you're going to be seeing some changes coming forward that I've just gotten inspired by just listening to a few more of his episodes than I've had time for lately because I had to catch up because I wanted to be prepared for this interview. So it's got me excited about some other things that I can do better on my show as well. So always upping the game. And Pat's one of those who raises the bar for all of us. So thanks again, Pat Flynn, for being on my show and thanks all of you for listening to the Binge Factor and if you are interested in having your binge factor analyzed. You know you can reach out to me on the binge fact and we now have an application page there so you can go right in there and apply. I look forward to listening to your shows in the future and I look forward to you all reaching out to me anywhere on social media. Hebingefactor and TracyHazard and remember, that's Hazard with two z's.

You've been listening to the feed you'd brand podcast. We'd love to hear your comments on today's show, as well as suggestions for future topics and and guests. Visit us online at feedyourbrand co or on social DYourBrand. Thanks for exploring content marketing and podcast influence with us.