Podcasting Impactful Stories That Make A Difference And Spread Hope With Army Veteran Scott DeLuzio Of Drive On Podcast

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors, and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital noise with the binge factor.

So let's dive a little bit more in so we can understand Scott before we get started. So Scott d' Aluisio is an army veteran who served in the Connecticut Army National Guard as an infantryman and and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. Like many soldiers who deploy to combat, that deployment changed Scott forever. His podcast, Drive On Podcast, talks about the challenges soldiers face when coming back home, reacquainting with loved ones, finding a purpose outside of the military, and the struggles that come with it all. I know you're gonna get a lot outta hearing Scott's story and how this podcast came about and things like that. Those are all gonna be a part of it. But there's some real lessons here into how we take care with our audience, how we make sure we bring them the right guests, how we vet things overall. And so I'm so glad to have such a great example as Scott d'. Aluisio. And let's talk Drive On Podcast.

God, welcome to the show. So glad to talk with you. The Drive On Podcast. I really love your logo, like your cover art icon. It's so simple and powerful in its imagery. So I just think that it just, like, sends the right message. It tells me exactly what your show is about, and I think it tells me a little bit about you. At the same time, it gets me this sense of like you're going to get right to the point. And I love that.

I love that you mentioned that. Thank you for that feedback. It's one of the things that I wanted to do is just kind of get across, like the name of the show and give you an idea of what the show is going to kind of be about. And kind of hard to do when you have, like, one little square graphic that you. You have to use to get all of that information across. So I appreciate that.

Yeah, you pack a little power in there, right?

Yeah, it's got to have a little punch. I mean, you can't just throw around what the, the message is going to be or what the show's going to be about, because people will Be scrolling by and they're going to look at it real quick. And you got five seconds to try to figure out what this show is about. And before they scroll on.

And before they scroll on. Exactly. So. So congratulations on reaching more than 200 episodes. Quite an accomplishment. You should be really, really proud of yourself. You have defied the odds of many, many podcasters out there. You are in the elite 10%.

That's awesome. Yeah. When I first started this podcast, I didn't really know how long it was going to go on for. I know a lot of podcasts, they're, I think, what most of them are, like 12 episodes or so, eight episodes, and that's it. When I started it, I didn't have a clue what I was doing as far as podcasting, as far as the technology goes. Like, what kind of microphone do I need? Do I need any special software or setup or anything like that? So I was pretty much winging it for the first few episodes and learning as I went on. And so if you go back and listen to the first few episodes, I apologize. It's probably not the most clean and polished thing out there. But as I went on, I started to get more and more comfortable behind the microphone and with the types of conversations that I was going to have with people. I started off with people that I knew, either people I served with or friends from high school or other family members and things like that, just to get used to it. And as I got into it a little bit more, I kind of found my groove. And then I just became a whole lot more comfortable talking to other people. So sometimes for the very first time, when I'm talking to him is on the podcast, and by the end of the episode, sometimes we're talking as if we've known each other for years. And so all of that, I say that because it all comes with experience. This 200 plus episodes now that I've done is, I mean, just all experience. It's just what you get over time. You just get better and better each time. So each episode is just going to continue, I hope, hopefully, to get better.

Well, you know, this is what I want to talk about. So you started this podcast now a couple of years ago, you know, you had a reason for starting it. I want you to tell everyone here what that reason was. And then really, what more have you gotten out of it that you didn't expect?

Yeah, so when I started my podcast, this was about three years ago, a little over three years ago now, and I had just as background for people who don't know me. I served in the military, deployed to Afghanistan, and came back home, dealt with my own issues, and I'm sure we can get into that if that's something of interest. But I also noticed that a lot of the people that I served with were coming back and dealing with a bunch of different issues as well. And as a matter of fact, the company that I served with overseas, we didn't lose a single soldier while we were over there in Afghanistan, and we started losing people to suicide back home when we all got back home, and I started thinking about the reality of that situation. We all survived spending time spending close to a year over in a place where people literally wanted to kill us, and we all survived that. And then we came home to a place where people wanted nothing but the best for us, and now we're starting to lose people. This just didn't connect with me. My brain, it just didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. And so I said, well, I'm not going to just sit around waiting for another phone call saying that another friend has taken their life. And at that time, I also started to realize just how widespread of an issue this was amongst the entire veteran and military communities. And this was something that I wasn't okay with just sitting around and letting happen. Said, I need to do something. I want to reach as many people as possible. And I said, well, I think a podcast would be a good way to do that. It's free for the listeners. They can just download the episodes, listen to it, and get whatever help or feedback or advice that I can offer through this podcast. And there's really no barrier to entry to as far as them to get them to listen to the episode. So I figured it can help as many people as are willing to listen to it. The only struggle was what I talked about before was I didn't know what I was doing as far as starting a podcast. And that's kind of a big issue, right?

Yeah. Well, I have to say, your motives, your. Your mission for doing this is so powerful that I think it overcomes any kind of tech challenges you might have had at the beginning, like just knowing that I would be very forgiving as a listener from the beginning of your show. And the reality is, is that whatever little tech challenges you had, and there weren't many, because I went back and listened to your first episode, it's not bad at all. Like, you are probably way more critical than it really, you know, than it really needs to be.

I'm sure that Is absolutely true. You know, we're usually our own worst critics. Whenever we do anything, we look at something and say, oh, man, that's crap. I could. I know I could do better, but.

It'S a trial and error. And as you get better and you realize, oh, that was a better way to record. Oh, this is a better microphone to use. Or wait, oh, I moved my office. And now it works even better. Like, you know, you just cover those things and you can hear it. But I think the power of your message, the power of what you're talking about just overrides any of those tech challenges. And I'm so glad you got started and didn't worry about making all of those things perfect before you got started, because it would have taken longer to get your message out. It would have taken longer to have those conversations. And if your goal was to just reach one person, you were doing that faster.

Yeah, exactly. And there's a saying. I don't know who said it, but you never want to let perfect get in the way of better. At least get started with something. You can always work towards perfection. We're never going to meet be perfect. None of us are. So why bother waiting for perfection? Because we'll be waiting forever, and we'll still never get there. So keep working towards whatever it is that you want to get started on, and just get started, and you'll get better over time, no matter what you're starting on. And so that's kind of what I thought about when I started the podcast. I wanted to just get stuff out there, get some content out there. And I started off with one episode a week, and that was pretty good cadence for me. And then at the beginning of this year, I decided to switch to two episodes a week. And I'm keeping up with that cadence as well. And I just figured, you know, the more information that we could put out there to help out the military, the veterans and their families, and people who care about them, the better off we'll all be. And so types of episodes that I have, I'm talking to veterans who have had their own struggles with, whether it's PTSD or homelessness or substance abuse or, you name it, anything under the sun that the veterans tend to deal with, we will talk about it, and then we talk about what they did to overcome those issues. And so if you think about it, when you have a listener who is out there struggling with something and they're thinking that they're all alone, no one else has ever dealt with this thing, they're Isolating themselves. They're not talking to people or whatever, and they just think, this is my problem. No one else knows what I'm going through or whatever. And they hear someone else has had something very similar happen to them, and they've experienced the same things, and they figured out how to deal with it in a healthy way, an appropriate way. Now all of a sudden, boom, there's some hope for that person who is sitting there all by themselves thinking, crap, this is my problem. And I. I can't figure out how to deal with this. So now we have hope. And we also talk to people who provide services to veterans, different alternative forms of therapy and things like that, where even job placement services and stuff, because there's all sorts of services available that aren't necessarily through the va, which a lot of veterans know about, and they. They will go to. But it's not right for everybody. It's not the perfect fit. And so it's not easy. No, it's not.

No. There's not an easy access even then. So, unfortunately, a lot of red tape.

That you got to go through just to get through the VA sometimes. And you know that obviously that process could be better. But when we start talking about these nonprofits that don't have any of this bureaucracy, it's just like, hey, we're here to help you. Let's get you the help that you need, and whatever the category is. And now these veterans are like, oh, well, crap, I didn't even know about this service that's available. Again, there's more hope now. There's something that they didn't know about. And here we are looking at more hopeful situations. So, you know, at the end of the day, it's all about giving hope to those people who might feel like all hope is lost.

Wonderful. So I'm going to do your binge factor right now. So for everyone out there who listens to your first episode, listening to the Binge factor, this is what I do. I help to cycle, analyze what Scott's binge factor is on the Drive on podcast. And in this particular case, Scott, you just touched on it right there. When you're bringing hope to a community and you provide actionable, helpful things in every single episode, I'm going to trust you with my ear. And so I'm going to go back and listen to all the episodes I didn't listen to find out what I was missing. That's why your show is truly bingeable. But more than that, I suspect that if you looked at your. Analyzed your numbers, you discover that on not only were they listening to the episodes all the way through that you probably have more than 100% listen through rate. Because if I heard something on there that I thought might be useful, I'm going to share it with someone and I might even play it for them. And so you actually might find you have 105% or 110% listen through rate where I played a segment for somebody who then becomes a listener and listens to all your shows. So you've created virality. So you're created a viral binge listening situation here of someone so excited to share that show with someone else who might need the help as well. And I think that's the beautiful thing about the show that you created. But I also want to commend you because I think podcasting is the perfect place for you to reach an audience. Too often we're like ready to go to video, or we're ready to go to TikTok, or we're ready to do these things. But you hit it on the head when you were talking about your listeners. They feel isolated and alone and they are less likely to be scrolling through social media in a positive way. They're more likely to be ruminating in this. But they might reach out and check out a podcast because that's a solo activity. So you actually hit on a perfect place to reach your audience as well.

Yeah. And when you think about the types of people who would traditionally listen to this type of podcast, the military veterans, the people who are struggling, isolating themselves and stuff, they typically are not the types of people who want to just go, reach out and get help, who want to go to counseling or whatever. And for various reasons, it's just kind of part of the military culture. Suck it up, be a man, deal with it. You know, all that kind of thing that you tend to get drilled into you from a early.

You're the solution, Right. You're so often the solution. So it makes it hard to be asked for help, Right?

Exactly, exactly. And so with the podcast, a lot of times people aren't going to want to let other people know, hey, I have this problem. But a podcast, you can listen to it. You got earbuds, you put your earbuds in, no one else knows what you listen to. You could be rocking out to some music, or you could be getting help. And that's why I think a podcast is perfect, because with a video, my stuff is also on YouTube. But you know, for people who want to consume it that way, but very Few actually do consume it on YouTube. So most of my listeners are actual listeners as opposed to viewers. And, you know, with a video, someone could see what it is that you're watching, and that may not be quite as comfortable. So when you're just listening to it and it's just you listening, no one else has to even know what you're listening to. And that's, I think, a great way to do it. It could even be on your. Your commute to work. You know, as you're driving to work, you listen to it in the car or you listen to it at the gym or whatever. And now you have this. This information. It gives you hope, and you're not risking that. I don't want to even use the word embarrassment, but that kind of idea where you might be embarrassed that you have a problem, that you need to get help, but you don't know where to turn necessarily.

And so it's very exposing. Right. And that's kind of, you know, the opposite of what the. What you're trained to do is to keep your exposure down. So it makes sense to me that, absolutely. That this is the perfect media tec for reaching your audience. And it doesn't surprise me at all that your video numbers aren't as high as your podcast numbers in any way, shape or form. I'm so glad that that's the case. Now, have you been reached out to. I mean, because you won't be able to tell by the numbers of your show and your downloads. You have no idea how many military families you're reaching versus actual veterans who've come home or whatever. You may not have any sense of that, except for they might have been reaching out to you.

And, yeah, that is a hard number to drill down on through the limited analytics that are available for podcasting. I really wish there was something that could drill down way deeper into the numbers to figure out who these people are who are listening and, you know, where they're coming from and what their demographics are and all that kind of stuff that would really help out in the marketing side of things with the. With the podcast. But I have had some people reach out, and some of them are veterans, and those are the people who primarily I want to reach them because, like, I want to go straight to the source of the problem. You know, if you're having a problem, let's just nip that in the bud and get this resolved. Right. But like I said before, sometimes the veterans are stubborn and they don't want to even admit that they have a problem that they want to get help or need to get help. They don't want to even admit those things. But someone like a spouse or a family member, a loved one, might recognize there's something going on with this person and there's something wrong, and they may feel lost themselves. They may not know what resources are even available to this person. Or there could be some things that they're doing at home that maybe are triggering the issue that they're dealing with. And maybe they could be helping out in other ways or even providing a gentle nudge. Like you were saying before, like, hey, I listened to this episode. It sounds pretty close to what you're dealing with. Why don't you give it a listen, too, and then. Or let me play it for you. And so that way we can listen to it together, and that way you can kind of understand what I'm talking about, and maybe this can help you out a little bit. And.

Well, even if it's. I heard about this resource. Do you want me to play that little segment? I like what's available. And, you know, that might be something, right? So, yeah, no, I think this is such a smart model for you and the way that you're going through. And I think at the end of the day that you may not realize it, but I really do believe that there are probably lots of families out there seeking advice, help. And to hear it from another veteran is also really important because it's all great for us to sit back and say we want to change this when we don't really know what you're going through. And that, I think, is also really helpful. And so I love your model. I love what you're doing. This is just. And the way you approach your episodes has a nice patience about it, but there's still this energy of hope that you have in your voice. I don't know if you realize it, but you do. It sounds like you said this early on when you were just introducing, is that you worked on yourself, that you already did some of that work, so you're through a portion of it. I bet, though, if we're as we're talking, though, and as you've been talking to people on your show, you've worked through even more.

Oh, for sure. And I feel like things especially like mental health, there's some correlation there between your physical health and your mental health and where, you know, if you have an issue with your physical health, you break a bone or you have cancer or something like that, you go to the doctor and you get those Things addressed. You don't just sit around like, oh, man, my, my arm's not working because I broke my arm. And you know, oh, well, I'll just deal with it like, no, you go and do something about that. Same thing. The way I feel is with your mental health, you should go and get something checked out. When you notice that there's something wrong, I should say, you should go get that checked out. And the difference though, between your physical and mental health is that once when you go and get that broken arm fixed and healed, it's pretty much the end of it. You don't need to continue going to follow ups for years and years and years to have that broken arm checked out. But with your mental health, you might need some checkups and you might need to keep on top of things because our minds are, I don't know, they're unexplainable. There's a lot going on.

There's a lot going on, exactly.

And things change as situations change. You might lose a job, you might get out of a long term relationship, you might suffer a loss in the family, you know, loss of a loved one or something like that. And all of those things play into your mental health. You might have the opposite happen. You might have something really great happen. And that, that also plays into your, your mental health. It affects it in a positive way, obviously. But a lot of these things all contribute to the overall mental health picture. And when you're not keeping up with that, like you're saying with me, the podcast itself has honestly been a form of therapy for me because I've been able to talk to people and share stories and talk about different experiences. And yeah, it's been therapeutic for me, but for full transparency, I've also been, you know, seeking my own mental health treatments and things like that, just because there's still things that have been unresolved and stuff that I need to work on over time.

In a way, your own show is about normalizing the ability to ask for help or seek it.

Exactly.

And so you've obviously done that for yourself through the process too. This is just really beautiful, what you built here. And I really am so, so impressed by everything. And I'm impressed with a lot of podcasts. Like, I mean, there's a lot of podcasters come through me here and I'm like, there's some impressive things, but all in all, everything that you've built is conducive to meeting your ultimate outcome, your ultimate goal. And I think that that, that's really powerful. Everything Working together and it's in the right place at the right time. And that's also something. So I do want to touch on the three things that we talk about with every person here. And, and I think there's one aspect of this that I really want to really dial in. And so normally I ask people how they get great guests. And in your particular case, the angle that I want to talk about is how do you decide if the guests that you're going to come on or the organization that you might feature is worthy of being on is going to be around tomorrow? You know, we don't have a ton of time to vet thing, so how do you go about checking that out and making sure that your association with them is going to be a good one long term?

Yeah. So first off, I'll touch on the organizations that I representatives of organizations that I talk to on the podcast. I typically will look into these organizations and see, you know, are they just starting up. They just start up yesterday and they really have no background, no history, no testimonials or anything like that going on about about them. I'm going to be less likely to want to talk to them unless it's something just out of this world. Amazing. Then I'm going to be less likely to want to talk to them because, you know, there is a bit of a lead time between the time that I record and the time that the episode comes out. And if I don't know if they're even going to exist in a couple months when the episode finally is released, I kind of don't want to waste my time or their time doing that. But if I'm talking to some people, I've had people on from the American Legion and the VFW and, you know, representatives of those organizations, they've been around for quite a while and they're probably going to still be around six months from now, a year from now, even longer. And they'll probably be around longer than this podcast will be around. So I have no problem having those types of people on. Usually if someone is recommending an organization or another guest to me, I'll look at my relationship with that person. Like, you know, do I trust them? Have they recommended other guess before? And you know, how did that work out? Yeah, okay. This person seems like they know what they're talking about, they have some good background there. Then, yeah, I'll probably just accept whoever it is and go with that from there without doing too much research because like you said, time is limited. We can't be Spending all day researching into this stuff. But even with the individual veterans who I talk to, when I try to vet their stories and try to find out, I just ask them, tell me about yourself and tell me what it is that you want to talk about. What. What's going to make this a win for you and sharing your story. And with a lot of them, I tell them that your story is important. I want to get that story across to help other people. And you can tell when there's someone who just wants to sell their whatever, and they don't have any intention of contributing anything of value to the audience. They just are there as, hey, this is a sales or marketing tool. And I want to just get my name out there. I had one person who was a Navy Seal and they were also running for Senate or Congress. I forget exactly what they were running for. Some political office. I don't even remember what it was or what state it even was from. And they reached out and I asked, you know, like, what is it that you want to talk about? Can you share some information about yourself? And all of it was like, links to their political website. And I was like, well, sorry, this is just not going to.

That doesn't sound what I want to be associated with. Right. Yeah. Too pushy. Not. Not helpful enough. Yeah, well, so I think this is good. I mean, I think as long as you're honest with your audience, that you aren't really, like, seriously vetting these things. So it's not a complete endorsement and recommendation. Unless you said, I've personally used these services, then I think it's fine. It's. It's information and that. And you present it that way.

Yeah. And the thing is, everyone has their own unique stories, their own unique background, and I don't know all of these people intimately. You know, it's not like I served with all of them or anything like that. And. But they all have these different experiences. And, you know, who am I to say, no, you can't share that story or whatever, because you don't.

As long as it's going to resonate. Right. You don't know.

Right.

Exactly where your audience is at any given moment. You don't have direct connection to them, so you don't know where they are. And that might be the one thing that tips them over. And if it makes the difference and you brought hope and you brought change, then you did what you were supposed to do. You're just supposed to be the conduit for that. I think sometimes we take it too seriously here on the podcasting side, and I think our audience does understand that we're just information gatherers in a sense. And. But I always do. I mean, I suspect you want to do the best job. You have integrity, and you care about that. So you are doing a bit of vetting?

Yeah, I am doing the vetting, and I want to make sure that legit information that people are sharing. I don't want someone to come on and just say, oh, yeah, I did X, Y, and Z, and this is what helped me. And it's complete bogus nonsense. I don't want that, obviously. But someone might come on and say, hey, I did this thing. It's a little unorthodox, but, hey, it worked for me. Okay, cool. Like, let's talk about that and let's dive in. Like, why did it work for you? What have you tried before? And what. Let's go down that rabbit hole and try to figure out what all of this means. And then again, like you said, that might resonate with somebody who's listening and may not resonate with some other people, but it may help that one person who's listening. And honestly, that's, to me, what it's all about. It's just getting different points of views out there and helping out as. As many people as I can.

So we didn't talk about this before we started this interview, but you said the vfw, and it just brought back my. My Connecticut roots. So we're both. You're from Connecticut? You were. Where in Connecticut are you from?

So I'm originally from a town called Glastonbury, which is in central Connecticut, kind of just outside of Hartford.

And I'm a Danbury girl.

Danbury. Okay. So, yeah, I've lived in a few different towns in the central Connecticut area. Danbury's a little bit further out west towards. Towards New York, but it's a small enough state where all I know where Glastonbury is.

Yeah, absolutely. So, but, you know, it reminded me when you said the vfw. My grandfathers are big VFW guys. They were always down there with their buddies. They used it as a network. They used it to advise each other and get help. And this is how those communities used to really make a difference in making sure when they came back from war and they were trying to acclimate into the business communities and find their way that they could do that. And we've. That's so distributed right now, and you're creating a hub again for that. But it also got me thinking that based on my second question that I asked everybody, which is, how do you increase listeners? Have there been organizations like VFWs and other things that have helped you expand your listener base by talking about your show or by sharing your show or doing any of these? Have you been able to tap in that as a listener growth strategy?

That is something that I need to do a better job at, is tapping into some of these organizations. I did have people from the VFW that I interviewed from like the national organization that I've talked to, and that obviously helped. And same thing with the American Legion. And I've talked to people from around that organization and that helped because they distributed it out on their social media and that helped get a nice boost in the listeners for those guests on those episodes. But yeah, definitely I need to do a better job of that in person, networking and getting to know these people and letting them know about the podcast and sharing the resource and letting them know about all of that stuff. But ultimately the biggest thing for me as far as the growth has been talking to other podcasters on my podcast and kind of just doing a swap type thing where I'd be a guest on theirs, they'd be a guest on mine. And we have similar enough podcasts that their audience would likely be interested in my show and my audience would likely be interested in their show. And so we swap audiences essentially by. By coming on each other's shows. And that helps to grow the listeners when they promote it to their audience. I just naturally get a bump up in the listeners for those episodes and been growing steadily over the years. And the longer I have the podcast, it just continues to keep bumping up like that.

Well, I'm very sure there's some organizations out there. It comes to mind that I interviewed a podcaster like really early on in the Binge Factor. I think it wasn't even called the Binge Factor at the time when I interviewed him. And he had the not Old, Better show. And I don't think he has it anymore. But the not old, Better show got picked up by AARP magazine that like the traditional print magazine and was on a list of podcasts you might want to listen to. And he went to like 50,000 downloads an episode or some crazy number, I'd say. So I'm very sure that might be actually a great strategy for you going forward. But you're right, I think podcast swapping is a great way because if there already are veterans listening to that show or if there's already a likeness in your audience, they're podcast listeners. You don't have to work to figure out how many of that have that circulation of that magazine actually would even try a podcast. Right. You don't have to think that through. It's already like to like, exactly.

That's something that we've done. There's a group of us, probably about a dozen or so of us, who all have veteran focused podcasts or YouTube channels and other things that we do. And we just kind of collaborate and we had each other as guests on our podcast. And we've also just bounced ideas off each other, like, hey, there's this opportunity. I don't know if this makes sense. Like, let's talk about it. It's almost not quite a mastermind group, but it's something similar to that where we share our expertise and our experiences with each other to help each other grow. The way I look at it is like none of these people are competitors to me. Even though we may have the exact same target audience and we may have the exact same type of podcast message. Because at the end of the day, all I really care is getting the message out to help people. And if that is through my podcast, awesome. If it's through somebody else's, cool. I'm good with that too.

Yeah. Yeah. So good. I love that that you're collaborating. This is really the way which you share what's working because you have similar audiences. When you share what, what's working for you, that's when you're going to find more listeners altogether. And one podcast is not enough for most podcast listeners. They're anxious to hear more. So it's not gonna lose you anything in the process. You're only all gonna gain. So I do love that you're working on that. Now I wanna talk about monetization. Cause that's the question that I really ask everybody. And I'm very sure that your purpose for this wasn't to make money and do all of that. I'm absolutely sure by, by conversing with you. But you do have to keep going. And so have you found any ways at which you can off offset the cost that you can make this production easier for yourself? The ways that you can keep going? Have you found some monetization strategies that are working for you or that you're thinking about trying?

Yeah. So when I first started, I had zero interest in monetizing. That was not my goal. It was really just getting the podcast out there helping people. And that to me was enough. I. I was fine with bankrolling the Hosting and all the equipment and everything like that. I was fine with that. But over the years, I started kind of realizing like, this is actually getting kind of expensive and it's not getting any cheaper as. As time goes on. About a year ago, actually calendar, about a year to the day, I released my book called Surviving sun, which, which I have here. And that book was really talking about my experiences in the military and how my deployment to Afghanistan really affected me and my family's lives. During that deployment, my younger brother was also deployed to Afghanistan. We were both there at the same time and he was tragically killed in action. And so that certainly had a huge impact on our lives. And I wanted to talk about it and share the experiences because not only is this book my story, it's also my brother's story. And I wanted to keep that story going and just keep it out there. A nice benefit to having a book is that people buy it. And so I make some money off of the sales of the book and all of that money so far that I've made has just been reinvested back into the podcast and going towards advertising, going towards the hosting and covering the cost of that type of stuff. But I have not taken a paycheck from the sale of the book personally. I've just invested all of that money right back into all of this.

So well commendable and thank you for your sacrifice and your service. And I am so thrilled that the book is out there because there are people who really need that message and it gives them an ability to get something more than just the podcast right. I now I'm getting to know you over the podcast now. I can find some more about your story. And maybe in that alignment of reading your story, I now find help for myself because that inspired me and you're. We have a similar background or something like that. So I think that's really great that you've put that in. I do think there's some things for you in terms of monetization opportunities, and I'm going to talk offline with you about some of those ideas. But I do think there are some ways to really make it so that you're not making money off the audience. I think that that's maybe the distasteful part for someone who's got an impact mission driven podcast is that I don't want to make money off my audience, but I do need to make sure that I can keep being there for your audience. So the audience is understanding of that, right? We accept that as a listener of a show that we don't want to go away tomorrow because we know how much value they're bringing to me and to my family and to the, you know, the changes you're making in the world. So it's not unethical in any way, shape or form for you to make money. Right? You need to keep going. But at the same time, I understand that there are more tasteful ways to do that or more ways that feel in alignment for you, and that's something worth exploring. Especially you have served. You have given 200 plus episodes to your audience. You have, I guarantee, impacted thousands of people. You don't even know it. So you earned the right to be able to do that. Now let's find a way to make that work. And that's strategically just something that needs to be thought. Thought through. And maybe finding other models out there of what I call alternative monetization, that just might work. The book is a good way, but maybe there are others out there. And so I'm thinking about some ideas and maybe we could talk about them. And if we find one that works for you, we'll come back and have you come back and talk about it. How about that?

Yeah, for sure. And, you know, the book has been great as far as monetization goes, but over time, it's gonna start to run out. You know, it's gonna run its course, and you can only sell so many copies of a book, and so there will probably need to be some other strategies. And I'd love to hear some of your thoughts offline, and I'd love to come back and share some successes with you.

That would be so wonderful. Well, 200 episodes, milestone. Now, this is a problem I find with all podcasters is that they pass the number and they go, oh, I didn't really celebrate at all. Did you celebrate? Did you, did you do any.

I did not. I celebrated with the 100 episode. I did have a bit of a celebration with that 200. I just. I took it as it's just another number.

I know this happens all the time. I had a podcaster that just to a good friend of mine who just hit 500 and I was like, what are you doing to celebrate? And I'm like, you, like, have to at least go out to dinner and do something. Like, you have to. You have to, you know, do a little dance, because it is actually a really big accomplishment. That's what I want you to hear from me as to having reviewed tons of shows in the podcasting market, is that when I Said you're in the elite 10%. The elite 10% who made it over a hundred. I don't even really know the dialing into the number that made it over 200, but there are less of those. So you really have done a major contribution and should celebrate that. So congratulations on that.

Well, thank you for that. I appreciate that and the recognition of that accomplishment. It's a lot of work to even just one episode, but when you multiply that out 200 plus times now, it's a lot that goes into it.

Well, and that's exactly to the point of why we were talking about alternative monetization. You're putting a lot of time, money and effort into things and it's not your day job. And so. So that makes a big difference as well. So we'll see what we can do to get you moving on that. But is there anything that you would like to say to others out there who are really thinking that they have a mission driven impact podcast in them and something's holding them back? Do you have any advice for them?

I would say just get started. Just do it. Start putting stuff out there. And when you start sharing the episodes that you're putting out there, share it to anyone who you think would benefit from it. Share it on your social media, share it to your contacts, on your email, you know, share it to whoever you think will listen to it and start paying attention to the feedback that you get from those people. A lot of times, you know, if you're sharing it with your mom, it's going to be the best thing in the world, obviously, because your mom's going to think that you can do no wrong and everything is great. Right? So maybe take that one with a little bit of a grain of salt, but start listening to some of the feedback that you get from people and seeing, okay, well, maybe I hit the nail on the head with this episode, but this other episode, maybe I missed the mark and maybe I should focus more on the ones that I'm getting this positive feedback from and do more stuff like that, because that's clearly what people are looking for. And when you start doing that and you start listening to some of the feedback, people aren't necessarily going to just give you feedback. You might have to solicit that feedback, asking people, hey, what did you think of this episode? Is this a win? Did this miss the mark? What do you think? When you start asking those questions, you'll start to get some information from people and then you'll have a better idea of where to Focus your attention on the types of episodes, but at the end of the day, you're not going to know any of this stuff if you don't just get started. So I think the biggest piece of advice that I would give to people is just start.

That's really great advice. And you know what I'm so glad you said about pushing it out there because very often when we do something that might be social impact or mission driven, that kind of model of podcasting, we think, oh, our friends and our family, like our social media audience, they don't need to hear that or our business associates don't. But that's underestimating them that you don't know. They may not be the right person to be listening to your show, but they may know someone that should. And we're not giving them the opportunity if we aren't actually telling them about it. We're not being pushy.

That's exactly right. When you might, like you said, you might have a business associate who has nothing to do. Like I have business associates who are not veterans, but they have family members who are. And so I'm sure they might be willing to share that episode that just resonates with, oh yeah, my brother in law or my sister, my, whoever happens to be going through a very similar thing, let me share that with them and that maybe that's going to help them out too. So, yeah, share it out to whoever and see where that takes you and you'll start to get some traction and you'll start to see who's, you know, some people are just not going to share it at all because that's just their nature. They're just not going to. And fine, don't bug them with it because that's just kind of wasting your time. It's wasting their time. But you'll start to get some of those people who are, I think Pat Flynn calls them, super fans.

Super fans, that's right. Superfans who share it all. But it's not just that. It's like, you know, I found people who will, I give a speech or something at an event that maybe has nothing to do with podcasting, but they go in and I think this whole audience may not even be interested in listening. Like I've spoken at real estate events, may not even be interested in podcasting. And all of a sudden I find they're sharing my show and they're sharing my show because they want to thank me for the service I gave them of giving them a speech. Right. Or giving them advice. Right. And so you have an audience who would like to thank you for your service. And the best way to thank you is to share your show. That's an easy ask, actually, and so surprisingly easy.

And it makes it a win win for everyone. They feel like they've been able to help you out because you've offered them something of value. And that does help you out by sharing your show. Right.

Scott, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your service and your sacrifice and for the Drive on podcast. And you keep on podcasting. I can't wait for you to make it another hundred.

Well, thanks so much. I don't see any signs of me slowing down in the future, so I'm sure I'll make it to 300. And I bet you 500 won't be too far off either.

Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.

I mentioned at the beginning that there were going to be some big lessons here from Scott that we were going to hear about ways to vet gas and be careful with what we do because we have to take care with our audience. And it's got. It is so critically important. He can't take the risk that he's exposing his audience to more pain than they already have been in, to more stress. Like none of that can happen. So he has to take care with the guests that he has, the companies that he aligns with the organizations that he doesn't. But he can only do so much in his role. He's not being paid for this. Right. So there also has to be some grace given to us podcasters, especially those like Scott, who are really trying to fill this gap and really fill this area where information is missing and understand that there's information out there and that's what we're bringing, not endorsement. So being really careful, being, I'm going to say, outward in your and authentic and transparent in the way that you present that and who you're presenting is critically important. And too often there are lots of podcasters out there and God is not one of them at all. But there are lots of podcasters out there who are abusing the influencer system and abusing this model of it by not disclosing that they're being paid to podcast about this guest. So when you are really talk about it, make sure and when you're not, talk about that too, so that they understand that you're just presenting out information for them to consider and not expressing an explicit endorsement of something. So just wanted to share that with you as one of the great takeaways and lessons that I took, but such a great show. Drive on podcast Scott D' Aluzio check it out@thebingefactor.com and come back next time and listen to another Binge Factor and get another successful podcaster to learn from.

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