Six mistakes that prevent podcasters from earning online business income.
Hey Pod Pals!
This newsletter was lovingly curated (without the use of any AI) in real time on Thursday morning at 7:44am CST.
I'm feeling very entrepreneurish today. I just dropped off my son at his weight training session for football and now I'm sitting in Starbucks sipping on nitro cold brew coffee and typing my newsletter for 3,700 of my closest Pod Pals!
The nitro cold brew is providing the necessary brain mojo so let's dive in!
This week's newsletter is being sponsored by ME! ⤵️
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Are you ready to get some help with:
Podcast launch/rebranding 🚀
Podcast growth 📈
Leveraging your podcast to build your online biz and get more clients 💰
Sign up for a FREE 20 minute Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call.
In this session I will:
✔️ Identify the pain point that is holding you back.
✔️ Suggest a next step strategy for solving the pain point.
👉 Then we will talk about working together to accelerate the process. 😎
*Please note that this is NOT a free coaching session.*
The Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call is for you if you are ready to be coached by a podcaster with:
🎯 10 years of podcasting experience.
🎯 Over 1,000 episodes recorded.
🎯 Over 1.1 million downloads.
🎯 Over 1 million dollars earned.
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This week we are going to talk about six mistakes that I want to help you avoid so that you can earn MEANINGFUL income as a podcaster.
I love telling podcasters about my online business journey. Here's the quick summary:
➡️ In my first three years as a podcaster (2015-2017) I made a TOTAL of $37.00 of revenue.
For those that are wondering, it was all from a mushroom coffee affiliate code...LOL!
➡️ In my most recent four years as a podcaster (2021-2024) I've leverage my podcast to generate over one million dollars in online business revenue (people paying me for my programs and services).
The big difference between my first three years of misery and my last four years of momentum is.....I had NO IDEA what the hell I was doing when I got started! LOL
But seriously....I was making some critical mistakes early on that became serious revenue roadblocks for me.
So today I'm unpacking SIX mistakes that I made early on that I want you to completely avoid:
😩 Mistake #1: Your ideal clients aren't finding your show because of the name of your show.
The name of your podcast has the most SEO and Organic Discovery power. If you don't name your show strategically you are basically saying "I have decided to make my podcast growth journey about 1,000 times more difficult! Let's do this!!!"
I suggest that you listen to episode 560 of my show and learn about my Perfect Podcast Naming Formula......just trust me on this one!
😩 Mistake #2: You are doing too many interviews!
If the majority of your episodes are interview based then your audience will view you as the person that interviews experts....they will not view you as THE expert.
Let that sink in for a moment!
Your listeners will not buy your programs and services if you never establish expert positioning.
This is why I recommend that you utilize my 2/3 Content Rule For Expert Positioning which states that at least 2/3 of your content should positioning YOU as the expert (solo and coaching episodes).
😩 Mistake #3: You are trying to sell to your audience too early.....I like to call this... Premature Monetization.
Whenever I consult on a new podcast launch I usually have to convince my sales hungry clients to play the long game.....it can be tough to do!
When I launched my first show I was pitching programs by episode six.....refer to the whole $37 story from above to see how that went!
I think it is important to establish expert positioning and build trust with your audience before you start pitching programs.
When I coach someone through a launch we have three phases of CTA's (call to action):
✅ Phase One: Just ask your audience to hit the Follow/Subscribe button.
✅ Phase Two: Use a CTA to get them on your email list so you can add additional value (and eventually SELL).
✅ Phase Three: Start leveraging a CTA for a Discovery Call and sometimes to sell things.
😩 Mistake #4: You are trying to sell directly from your show too often.
This one ties directly into mistake #3. We must remember that when people are listening to your show they are most likely multi-tasking and that means they are not likely to make a purchase.
This is why I love the podcast/newsletter combo because people ARE more likely to make a purchase from an email.
Instead of selling directly from my show I use this secret CTA sauce instead:
👉 1. I kick off every episode with a client testimonial. This establishes expert positioning, teaches my audience what types of problems I solve, and raises awareness around what types of offers I have.
👉 2. I follow up with a CTA to my Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call right after the testimonial on about 80% of my episodes.
😩 Mistake #5: You are trying to sell offers that don't involve any direct interaction with YOU in some way.
It feels like new podcasters with online business building goals are always so hungry to scale.....but they don't realize that they just need to get some monetization going first so that they have something to scale.
I guarantee you this Pod Pals, if you have two offers and one of them involves direct coaching with you and the other one is a stand alone online course, the one with access to you will win every time.
This is actually a super power of the "small" audience podcaster. The big guru podcasters have to scale with hands off offers because their audience is so large and they have very limited time to do coaching.
As a small audience podcaster (less than 5,000 downloads per episode)...we have plenty of time to connect with our audience...so let's turn that into our ADVANTAGE over the guru big audience podcasters!
Instead of just having an online course add things like:
✔️ One on one coaching.
✔️ Weekly small group coaching.
✔️ Weekly office hours.
✔️ Voxer chat Q&A.
If you give your audience access to YOU they will BUY more often.
😩 Mistake #6: You have big BUSINESS level goals and expectations....but you are putting in HOBBY level effort.
Let me ask you a question Pod Pals: How bad to you really want to succeed as a content entrepreneur?
If you have goals of:
🎯 Making a huge impact.
🎯 Replacing your income and going full time.
🎯 Earning meaningful life-changing income.
....then you MUST put in business level effort.
What does that mean?
✔️ Have a set work schedule....even if it is just an hour per week. Block it off and schedule it.
✔️ Have specific goals you are going after. What do you actually want to achieve with your business/brand?
✔️ Invest in speeding up the process. One of the smartest things I did when I got started was investing in a $2,000 program to help me learn how to be a better online content creator back in 2015.
✔️ Be ultra consistent....for me that means a consistent and predictable content creation/release schedule every week. If you create a podcast episode "whenever you feel like it"...then you have a hobby (not a business) my friend!
OK Pod Pals....
I've covered six things that I totally screwed up when I first started out. I hope that your learning curve is shorter than the three years it took me to start building my business momentum!
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🤩 Client testimonial of the week: My client Bryce Hamilton has a show called Fat Loss Simplified.
Check out what he has to say about working with me inside of my Online Business Academy for Podcasters:
"I joined the Online Business Academy for Podcasters because I felt like I was stuck with my podcast growth, email list growth, and I haven't been able to convert podcast listeners into paying clients. By joining the academy I've been able to DOUBLE my podcast downloads in the first six weeks as well as seeing growth in my email list. I'm also starting to see listeners convert into clients as well!"
➡️ If you are ready to get some help with learning how to leverage your podcast to build your online business..... Hop on my Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call Calendar and we can talk about working together.
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New Content & Resources for this week:
🎙️ Podcasting Business School EP 573: Content marketing strategies for podcasters with special guest Joe Pulizzi.
🚀 Podcast Launch Tips EP 095: Why you should batch record your podcast episodes to avoid burnout.
💰 Podcast Monetization Tips EP 004: Attracting your ideal listeners to your podcast part ONE.
✍🏻 SuperThread Of The Week: Less than 20% of all podcasters earn ANY income from their show. Here are SEVEN strategies that will help you get clients from your podcast.
🚨 Upcoming FREE Workshop: How to create offers that your podcast listeners will want to buy from you. Get signed up for this free 90 minute workshop on June 24th.
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I hope that you are enjoying this weekly newsletter!
I've got to head back to the high school to pick up Henry and head back home...Super-Dad Mode ENGAGE!
Talk to you next week!
Your Pod Pal,
Adam
⭐️ P.S. Ready for some help with your podcast launch, growth, or with getting more clients from your podcast?⭐️
Sign up for a FREE Podcast Profit Potential Discovery Call.