How I Grew My Podcast to 100k Downloads and $100k Monetized

This is Grow the Show. The podcast that helps you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidland and my mission is to help you the independent podcaster to grow your audience spend less time and monetize today. Some episodes will share the story of a world class podcaster and how they go about growing their show. Others will share what I'm learning about how to grow a show in real time. So if you want more listeners and to have a thriving podcast business, stick around for episode one of Grow the Show. This is episode one of the Grow the Show podcast and this episode doesn't have a guest because before I bring anybody else into the room, well I feel like you and I should get to know each other first. My name is Kevin Schmidland. I am first and foremost a podcaster so I launched my first show which is called Philly Ho. It's about my home city of Philadelphia. I launched that show in 2018 and since then have taken it past 100,000 downloads and 100,000 dollars monetized. I'm also the founder of Q9 which is a podcast production company. Our clients have included NBC Universal, I Heart Radio, Lululemon and Tom Brady's Media Company, Religion of Sports. And I'm also the founder of the Grow the Show podcast accelerator which is a 12 week intensive program that I launched this past July that helps podcasters supercharge audience growth and monetize immediately. Now all of that is definitely a mouthful. Suffice it to say that my mission is to help as many independent podcasters as possible to grow their shows into thriving businesses. So that is what I do today. But to understand how I got here, you got to go back to early 2018 when I was a software developer at a big insurance company. So I got a software degree in college, graduated, got a job at a huge company. It was really fun. I really liked the people that I was working with but I was kind of bored. Corporate life is easy. You get paid really well. You know, the work isn't all that hard and honestly, you feel pretty guilty if you want anything more especially if you're in software and you make a decent amount of money. But I was bored out of my mind. And I always had some sort of side hustle going that was going to turn me into the next Zuckerberg. So first it was geolocated digital pennatas. Yes, you heard that right. Then it was a lock box for outside of your house to get packages safely delivered when you're not home. I had a recording studio. My basement, I thought I was going to be the next music producer, all these different things. And one by one, each of them didn't work out for many different reasons. And in early 2018, my next one was to start a podcast. And you know, I had the idea while I was listening to how I built this with Guy Ross. I thought, my gosh, I'd love to start a show about my home city of Philadelphia. I could talk to amazing people, share amazing stories, maybe even become an influencer and make money doing what I loved to do, which is to create audio and to talk to people. So in early 2018, I decided to do it. I was going to start a side project called Philly Ho. It was going to be a podcast. And I was going to interview Philadelphia's most successful people. So I did what every aspiring podcaster does. I went on YouTube, Google and learned everything there was to know about how to start and launch a podcast. And as you probably are well aware, there's tons of information on the internet on how to launch a podcast, which makes sense because if you think about it, every single one of the 1.7 million podcasts that are available online successfully launched. So it makes sense that there are tons and tons of reputable sources on how to launch a podcast. And so that's what I did. I launched the show. I created a schedule. I knew that it was important to be consistent that to have a growing podcast, you must be consistent. So I said, I will release an episode every single week. I created social media content for my guests to share and took advantage of their audiences and build my audience there. And life was good. So good. In fact, that two months after I launched my first podcast, I left the corporate job. I gave my at the time, three weeks notice. And when they said, okay, what company are you going to? I said, actually, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. And I'm going to make money podcasting. Everybody was super supportive, but I definitely got some looks that were like, what? You're giving up software development and a six-figure salary to become a podcaster. I said, yeah, I'm going to do it. And so just two months after I launched Filihoo, I was out of my own. I had some savings because I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but the clock was ticking. So I kept doing what I know how to do. I was spending 10, 12 hours editing an amazing show, creating the perfect audio that would thrill people. And most of the compliments that I got about the show was about how well I edited. I said, great. I'm doing it right. I'm spending tons of time editing. My show grew largely from Instagram, right? So I would find people who had strong Instagram accounts. I'd have them on the show. I would create banger content, making them sound and look amazing. They would share it. And then their audience would flock to my show as new listeners. And it was working. It was great. I was living the dream. I was essentially spending all of my time podcasting and doing what I loved. But then it happened. What I now know is that this happens to almost every podcast, usually six, eight months in. For me, it was around a year. I hit the wall. Audience growth flatlined. I was still posting on social. I was taking advantage of my guest audience. And I even tried some Facebook ads. But nothing was working. Download numbers were staying the same. And at this point in my head, I didn't have enough listeners to monetize, right? I had maybe two, three thousand downloads per episode. And everybody knows you need 10,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 downloads per episode to monetize, right? Wrong. But I didn't know that. I didn't think I had enough listeners to monetize. My savings were running out. I had no time because I was spending six, seven, eight hours per episode editing. And then another three to four hours creating social media videos and Instagram stories and images. I tried hiring local freelancers to help out, but it was too expensive. I wasn't making any money. So how could I on earth do that? And what's worse is that I was totally burnt out because I was putting out a really highly produced episode every single week. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't making any money. The show wasn't growing. I had no time to figure this out. And my savings were about to run out. For a moment, I thought about going back to work at the big company. They had said, when I left, you'll always have a home here. And I knew that they meant that. And I can tell some people were like, you'll be back. This guy thinks he's going to make living podcasting. But the problem is I had told everyone in my life and online that I was this podcast entrepreneur now. And I don't know about you, but I don't think I could have handled the hit to my pride if I had come crawling back to the same company to get the same job after just a year of trying to be a podcast entrepreneur. So I said, OK, I have a little bit of savings left. I've been able to make some cash doing some freelance editing for other podcasts. What if I put my show on hold for a couple of weeks or even months, just to figure out what the heck is going on? What if I broke the almighty consistency rule and said, OK, for a couple of weeks, I'm not going to put out a new episode. Would my audience disappear? Or would it give me the time to actually figure out what the heck I was doing, figure out why I was doing what I was doing, and figure out how to actually take this thing into orbit so that it's paying for itself and paying me. So that's what I did. I put the show on hold. I quietly stopped releasing episodes for a few weeks and just gave myself some freaking time to think instead of constantly be just pumping out content all day every day, just to meet these deadlines that I had completely made up. What if I just took a moment? And so I did. I took a moment and I looked around the landscape and I studied what other podcasters are doing, how other podcasts are so successful, how influencers and celebrities and big media companies grow their audience, how online entrepreneurs are able to make money remotely with online digital products. I thought podcasting can't be that much different, right? It's an online business. And after a couple weeks of looking around and actually taking a good look of what I was doing and asking myself, why is my audience growing? I had an epiphany. I looked at everything that I was told to do by the internet and by podcast influencers and people who give advice and forums about how to grow a podcast. And I noticed that none of them were where I wanted to be. They hadn't created a podcast that is now not only paying for itself, but paying them and making a profit, paying for vacations, paying their mortgage or more. And I looked at the advice that they were giving and I saw and I realized, oh, all of the podcast advice on the internet is for how to launch a show. And this stuff works to a certain point, but then it hits a ceiling. I had hit that ceiling. And there really wasn't anything online that said, hey, your organic growth for your podcast is going to flatline at some point. You will have tapped out your social networks and your guests social networks and you'll have to do other things in order to grow and monetize your show. And when I realized this, a light bulb went off. I said, okay, if the problem isn't me, the problem is just that I haven't adapted what I'm doing to actually grow the show, maybe there is a way to do that. Maybe there is a way to get more podcast listeners. Maybe there is a way to monetize your show now instead of waiting till the mythical 50,000 downloads. Could it be? So I took another couple weeks. I hired an online business coach who specializes in scaling online businesses. I took a hard look at successful podcasts, successful influencers, entrepreneurs, online businesses. How are they growing their audience? I dug deep into how they do that. Podcasting can't be that much different, right? And it was through this that I discovered that pretty much everything the internet tells you about how to have a thriving podcast business is wrong. So I said, I'm going to give myself a few more months and I'm going to try this again. I'm going to take the show Philly Ho that I had launched successfully but had flatlined when it comes to growth and it hasn't really monetized quite yet. And I'm going to do the opposite of what I've been led to believe. I should do in order to grow my podcast. So what are the opposites, right? Well, let's think about the common beliefs, the beliefs that I had and the common beliefs that podcasters have. Number one, you can't monetize until you reach 50,000 downloads or 10,000 or something like that. Some mythical number. So I'm going to try and monetize right now. Number two, do everything yourself. It's cheaper to edit to learn how to use garage band. Do all the editing yourself. Do all the content generation yourself. What if I did none of that myself and learned how to affordably outsource and automate everything so that I'm just spending my time interviewing amazing people interacting with my audience and figuring out how to monetize the other belief you must grow your audience through social media and through the followings of your guests. I'm not going to stop doing that but clearly that's not working anymore. I'm posting consistently on social media but nothing's happening. What if I did the opposite and I tried other ways to get more listeners? By the way, when I took a look at my social media account, I noticed that the number of people who are following my podcast and me hadn't changed in six months. And so what does that mean? Every single time I posted something every week, multiple times per week, it was going to the same 3,000 people. And because of the Instagram algorithm, it was really only seen by about 1% of that. So all of the time that I spent grinding, creating really great social media content, was being shown to the same 300 people every single time I posted. When you look at it that way, it's no wonder your audience isn't growing. A couple other beliefs that I decided to challenge and see what would happen, be consistent no matter what. Every single influencer or content guru out there says the key to success is to be consistent. Well, consistency is good. Yes, it's important, but it's just not the end all be all. That is why there are so many podcasters out there who are saying, what the heck, I'm releasing every week or even every day and my audience isn't growing. I'm being consistent. Why isn't this working? Because consistency is a piece of the equation, but it is not the end all be all. Finally, another thing I was saying is I want to be broad. I want to interview a wide variety of people. I want my podcast to be accessible to everyone. Well, what I learned is that a podcast for everyone is a podcast for no one. In order to have a successful show, you need to niche all the way down. So this was terrifying, right? I was flying in the face of what everyone else was telling me, flying in the face of conventional wisdom, but again, none of that advice was coming from people who had figured out what I want to do, which is to have a thriving podcast business where I'm spending my time interviewing people, researching, interacting with my audience and monetizing. And that's it. None of the people I was looking for advice from had done that. So I had to rethink everything I thought I knew about podcasting and it was freaking scary. I was running out of time. I had a mortgage and a dog to feed, but I had gone this far and I was not going to go back to boring corporate life. And so after a couple, a few weeks, a couple months of just crash-corsing everything I could about audience growth, about online businesses, about monetization, about great podcasts, I put it to the test. And I returned my show, Philly Ho. Since then, I've taken that podcast beyond 100,000 listens and beyond $100,000 monetized. The show is extremely profitable and I only spend my time interviewing amazing Philly Delphians, interacting with my audience of Philly Delphians, and making money off of my show. That's it. It can be done. So as soon as I figured this out and it worked, I first thought was okay, I need to help more podcasters. There's a whole world of people out there who want to achieve this. They want their show to be making money. They want to only spend their time doing the fun parts and they want their audience to be growing. I got to get this out into the world. And so here you are. That is why I'm here. That is why I've created this podcast to share what I have learned and what I am learning about how to actually have a thriving podcast business. I'm here to tell you it is possible and it's not as difficult as you think. All we have to do is rewire a couple things in our brain and we'll get there. So now I'm going to just tell you my four steps. Because as soon as I figured this out, I called up as many independent podcasters as I could and I just asked them questions. What problems are you having? What questions do you want answered? What do you need solved? And every single podcaster said the same thing. I want to get more listeners and I'd love to monetize it someday. Now this is entrepreneurs who have coaching businesses. This is people who have full-time jobs and have a cool podcast as a hobby. This is people who work for startups and have a podcast as a part of their startup. All saying the same thing. I want to get more listeners and I'd like to monetize the show directly. So I said, holy crap, I found my calling. And so I started helping these podcasters. I said, okay, let's get together a couple of times per week. I'm going to share with you what I've learned and let's see if it works. And the results have been incredible. Just to name a few, one of my clients, Boncou, took his show from 0 to 2500 in only four episodes. Another client, Ena, decided to launch a brand new show with what she's learned. And before even launching the show, which actually by the time this comes out, it will have been launched. It's called the global phenomenon. Go check it out. But she has landed five of her dream guests before even launching the show. Another client, Joe, had a podcast that had over 5,000 downloads per episode already but hadn't monetized. And just a couple weeks after joining the program, she managed to get in front of 30 different brand advertisers that were interested in learning more about paying a premium to support her podcast. Now I am not here right now to sell you on the accelerator program. I'm just telling you that so that you know what type of results that we have been able to achieve. So what I'm going to do for you now is lay out the four step framework of how we here at Grow the Show turn our shows into thriving podcast businesses. Now I know you're probably driving or commuting or exercising or doing the dishes or something where your eyes and or hands are tied up. So don't worry about taking notes right now. You can't if you want, but don't worry about taking notes because I'm going to make this available to you elsewhere. For now, just focus on understanding these four steps and how by implementing them today, you can literally totally change your podcast and turn it into a thriving business. So I am so excited to share for you the four steps to a thriving podcast business. Now for step number one, I want to ask you a question and think about this. Do you think it is better to have a broad audience and to reach a wide variety of people or is it better to have a really specific defined audience and to reach one specific group of people? Now I ask this question all the time from podcasters and I get a variety of answers, but most of them say that they would rather reach a wide variety of people they want to have a broad audience. So I'll ask the same question for your podcast itself. Is it better to have a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics and features a wide ranging set of people or do you think it's better to have a podcast that is about one specific really well defined thing? Okay, so to answer that question, I want to tell you a story. So I recently came across this podcaster and he's a comedian and one day he decided it would be fun to lodge an interview show every week because he's seen other people doing it and he would live stream it online so that he could interact with his audience more and it was just for fun. So he started doing this, he started live streaming every Wednesday night and his audience loved it and so he kept doing it. He interviewed people every week, it was super fun and he converted the show to a podcast, you know, you want to have your content everywhere. So he converted the show to a podcast so that he could, you know, reach more of his audience. Now that audience that he had was super, super niche, right? Crazy niche. It was essentially straight young adult men who liked roche humor, conspiracy theories and ultimate fighting, you know, rough around the edges type guys. And this comedian was just unapologetic in reaching this audience. It wasn't interested in reaching anybody else. And so we got a week, he interviewed people for this podcast, he made that really specific group of people really happy. And eventually the audience grew so large for his podcast that he was able to monetize. And so he got his first advertiser and because his niche was so, so, so well defined, the advertiser that he got was actually not an advertiser that is on a lot of podcasts. That advertiser was a sex toy. It's called the fleshlight. It's a sex toy for men. Again, this comedian had a really, really good understanding of his audience and got into this sponsorship deal with the fleshlight. And that deal was so successful that fleshlight actually stopped advertising with the show because they saturated the market. They literally couldn't sell any more of this sex toy because this ad was so successful on that podcast. So crazy, super niche really well defined group of people that loved buying this product. So eventually that show would grow large enough to feature more advertisers, but that comedian kept those advertisers within a specific niche. And he featured grills and razors and fitness trackers, things that young men, young straight males really, really like. And eventually his show grew so large that he reached out to a network for a distribution deal. And after a bunch of negotiations, he was successful and he was able to actually get picked up. That network is called Spotify. That deal was over $100 million. And that super niche show is called the Joe Rogan Experience. Now, for every show that is out there, every single podcast that has ever found success, like the Joe Rogan Experience, it is aimed at a really specific group of people. And as the show grows in popularity, other people tune in as well. So by making that show work for one specific group of people, Joe Rogan was able to make that group really happy. He was able to get a lot of momentum and generate buzz around the show. And then other people who aren't in that really well-defined group of people started tuning in and took that show into the stratosphere. Now, for every show, every podcast out there that is really specific and that is really just very clearly for a specific group of people, there are another 50 shows that are vague interview shows claiming to feature different perspectives and a wide ranging amount of interviews. And what almost always happens is those shows don't get any traction. And so the creators try to go more broad and appeal to more people. But that is actually the opposite of what they should do. That is a big mistake. So, step one of the thriving podcast business framework is to be more specific. More specific about what your show is, more specific about who your show is for and more specific about who your audience is. Now, I know some of you are thinking that's not true. I feature a wide variety of guests and topics and my show is doing just fine. And if that's the case, I have a question for you. What if your show could be doing better than just fine? Now, there is a client in my podcast accelerator, his name is Howard. And Howard joined. And when he joined, he had a show that was called real estate wine and more with Howard. And the first thing that we do, step one is to be more specific. And so I said Howard, how can we be more specific real estate, wine and more that those are too many different things? You know, there's might be somebody who's interested in wine, but who's definitely not interested in real estate, and you're going to lose them. And the end more is vague. That doesn't tell me anything that doesn't you know, that's not specific enough. I don't want to listen. And he said, well, I'm not really sure what should I do more? I said, no, we need to focus on one of these things. So I said, let's look back at all of your previous episodes and see which ones have performed the best, which ones have gotten the most listens. How is there any pattern here? And sure enough, Howard went back and looked at all of his 50 episodes so far and noticed that the episodes that were featuring wine, breweries, or spirits did almost double the downloads as the real estate and more episodes. So what did Howard learn? He already had a show that was super niche. He just didn't know it yet. He didn't realize that his show was appealing to people who wanted to hear about wine, beer, and spirits in his area near Washington DC. Now, despite the fact that he wasn't aware of this, these people kept tuning in. And so what he learned is that he had a wine and spirits show and just happened to be releasing episodes about real estate and more, which weren't serving him. So even though Howard's show was doing pretty well, he then adjusted his approach, got rid of the real estate and more, and changed the show to barrel tasting with Howard Fletcher. And now he is killing it because he has recognized his niche of wine, spirits, and breweries in the DC area. So the lesson there is that literally every show that has ever been successful has a niche. And I challenge you hop into our Facebook group at Grow the Show or hit me up on Instagram. And let me know if you think that there is a show, a single show that is at any success that isn't niche. And I'll be able to tell you what that niche is. So step one is we need to be more specific, right? So we have a really, really good definition of our audience and of our show's topic as specific as we can possibly be. And by the way, you're not allowed to use vague language like diverse and like wide variety and amazing and awesome stuff like that. Can't use that. Gotta be more specific to define both your show and your audience. Now step two after we really specifically have decided who it is that we are serving, who the show is for. Then step two to turn your podcast into a thriving business is this. Well, first, I'll tell you another story. I remember when I took my pause from Phillyhoo and I just took a look back to understand what it was I was doing, why I was doing it, and why it wasn't working. I started to track my time. And over the course of six months, I tracked every 30 minutes that I spent in my bullet journal, meaning literally everything I did all day long, I tracked it. And by the end of the six months, I put it all into a spreadsheet and created some graphs so I could see how I was spending my time. Now I'm not going to talk about the most egregious thing I learned, which was how much time I spent scrolling aimlessly on social media. But the biggest surprise was how much time I had spent on monetization or more accurately how much time I didn't spend on monetization. Over the course of six months that I tracked when my show wasn't growing, I couldn't find any advertisers, and I thought about giving up. I looked at how much time I spent on each thing. I had spent over 400 hours editing my podcast and creating content for social media, 400 hours in six months. That's 10 entire work weeks. I spent just editing and creating social media content. Guess how much time I spent trying to monetize my show? 4 hours. I had spent three hours creating a pitch deck and one hour writing an email to send that pitch deck to people. I think I sent it to like maybe 10 potential businesses that I had no relationship with, just called email. When I didn't hear back from any of those 10 businesses, what was the story I told myself? It's really hard to monetize. This isn't going to work. People don't like my show. I don't have enough listeners. I told myself a million stories and I believed that I had failed to monetize my show. But then once I looked at the actual time I was spending what I realized is, of course I wasn't able to monetize my show in four hours. That's like if I said wake up at 8 a.m. and by noon you better have a full income. You think you could do it? Probably not. But what I could do is stop spending all of my time editing and creating content. Those have become commodities. I could almost certainly find somebody to help me out with that, to do that affordably. Then I thought okay, can I apply that same concept to all the other work that I do for the podcast? Writing show notes, posting show notes, posting on social media, sending emails to confirm with guests, inviting guests, so many different things. Taking files, adding them here, sending files to my editor, sending them to the graphic designer, who at whatever it is? And the answer is yes. And what I discovered is that through really affordable video editing, audio editing, and content generation, and through the power of high performing virtual assistance, I was able to get literally everything off my plate except interviewing, being interviewed, aka growing my audience, and making sponsored content and keeping my sponsors happy. That was more than enough. And so I made it so that that's all I did for episode. I would tell my team who I wanted to invite. They would handle the invitations. My schedule would be set for me. A week before the interview, I would start researching the guest. Then I would do the interview myself, get to know the guest, have a great hour and a half of time with an amazing Philadelphia. Then when it was done, I would stop and my team would handle the rest. I had somebody that handled the content edit. They know exactly what I like with my episode. They even wrote my script so that I could record voiceovers at a later date. They sent me the script. I tweaked it a little bit, recorded my voiceovers, sent it back to the team, and then everything else was done for me. All the audio editing was done. All the social media content generation was done. They sent me a final version of the episode for me to listen to before it was released. I gave a listen through. It was perfect. I had no notes. They handled release in the episode. All I had to do was post on social media, tagging the guests, saying how much fun I had and thanking them for being on the show. Which by the way, they then reposted to their entire audience. That sounds pretty great, right? It is great. And you could have that too if you stop doing the audio editing, video editing, and content generation yourself and learn how to hire high performing virtual assistants and outsource your editing and content generation super, super affordably. That's step two. No more production work yourself. Every minute that you spend doing production work yourself is a minute you're not spending growing your show. Now step three is the crux to all of this. It is the biggest lesson that I learned when my audience growth completely flatlined for Philly Ho. And by learning this lesson, I have figured out exactly how to directly monetize a podcast and turn it into a thriving business. And by the way, it then translates into growing your audience otherwise. So if you have a business, if you're an entrepreneur or if you are producing a podcast for a company that you know has some other product or service that they would like to sell, this step three will help with that as well. So the moment my audience stopped growing, my Philly Ho audience, you know, about six months to 12 months in completely flatlined after amazing launch success. As soon as that happened, I was panicking because I didn't know what the heck was going on. I was posting on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter every time there was a new episode. My guests were posting two. And I knew that the show was getting a lot of really good word of mouth. And so every episode the download numbers went up until they stopped. And it completely stopped. And it felt like it was overnight. And I've seen this in other podcasts as well. It is not always a stark but it just it's a little bit of a flatline. It's a slow burn. Eventually the show stops growing even though the podcaster is being totally consistent and releasing weekly and you know sharing on social media and they're getting their guests to share. They're doing everything you're supposed to do but suddenly your audience stops growing. So that happened to me and I was totally floored. So of course I put the show on pause. I learned how much time I was spending on editing that was not helping me grow the show. But at the same time, I also looked back at what I was doing to grow the show and saying, okay, how is this thing actually getting me more listeners? And so one by one, I took a look and recognized why it wasn't working anymore. So number one, the biggest thing that happened that killed my audience growth is very specific to my situation but has an important lesson is that Instagram overnight changed their algorithm. Now this was in 2019, Instagram made an algorithm change to make it so that it was harder to reach your own audience organically and they did this because they want people to pay to boost posts and pay for social ads because Facebook had achieved essentially market saturation. Everybody was on Instagram and so there was no reason for them to give everybody really free organic exposure anymore. So they snapped their fingers and decided, okay, now even though you've built up this huge audience on Instagram, the time has come. You need to pay us if you want to reach them anymore. And that is still the case to this day ladies and gentlemen. But that happened in my growth flatlined but I couldn't just simply snap my fingers and pay Instagram and Facebook hundreds to thousands of dollars to reach the people that I had already reached totally for free. So what do I do? This completely made me unable to reach my audience in organic and by the way, it also made it so that I could no longer reach my guests audience because they were also subject to the snap of the fingers and they also could no longer reach their audience organically. So I wasn't going to post on Facebook so my thought was what am I going to do? Now the other piece of it, the other thing I was doing was word of mouth and I realized, well, okay, if word of mouth generally happens when somebody finds out about the show for the first time. So you discover a podcast, you binge it and then you say, holy crap, I need to tell my friends about this. So it's really your new listeners that are doing the most word of mouth. And if you stop getting new listeners, you stop getting word of mouth. So with that in mind, I realized that all of my audience growth was reliant on Instagram. Now there was nothing I could do to change the fact that Instagram had changed our algorithm. But I was in a position where I had only three to four weeks of runway left and I had to do something to get more listeners into reignite my audience growth. So I looked back and I said, okay, is there anything else that I had done to get more listeners in the past that has worked? And I looked at my download numbers and I noticed something interesting in October of 2018. There was a huge spike, huge spike in listenership. In fact, overnight, my listenership doubled one night in 2018. So what happened that night? I was featured in a local media outlet called Billy Penn. They did an article that was about me and it was about my story as an entrepreneur that said, here's how Phillyhoo became the most popular podcast in Philadelphia. Now all of the Instagram posting, all of the creating social media content from my guests to post, hours and hours and hours of time spent on that. And it didn't even come close to the amount of new listeners that I got from that one press piece. So I said, whoa, what if I got more of those? So I learned how to pitch. I learned how to get featured on TV and in major media outlets and how to get featured on other podcasts. And guess what? I said, okay, let's get something in the news. Now you can't just say, hey news, please do a story about my podcast. That doesn't work. There need to be an event. So I decided let's have a live event. Let's have a live recording of Phillyhoo. I'll get a really, really great guest. We'll get people to come out. They'll pay 30, 40 bucks a piece to see this interview. I'll have it at a local independent concert venue. Maybe we'll serve some food, whatever it is. Let's let's have this event. So the event itself was made to make some money, right? Sell tickets. And we did. I walked out of that event with $4,000 in my pocket for me and $1,000 to donate to feed the homeless. So that was great. But the other thought behind it was if I have a live event, then there's something for me to announce and there's a reason for me to be in the news. And so that's what we did. We put together a live event. I invited two local chefs who were celebrities to do this event. It just so happens that they had a new restaurant opening later in the year. They said, yes, absolutely. We would love to do this event. Let's do it on May 1st. And so that is what we did. We had the event on May 1st. And in March, we announced the event. Now here's the kicker. As soon as we announced that there was a new event happening, that announcement was picked up by the media. It was in the Philadelphia Enquirer. It was in a bunch of other blogs and media outlets in the city. And all of them said live episode of the Philly Who podcast coming later this year. To this day, the most heavily downloaded episode of the podcast is the podcast episode that was new that week. What does that mean? That news hit literally has outperformed every other audience growth attempt I have made overnight. So once that happened, I was addicted. How can I get featured even more? Now there are only so many media outlets and they're only going to report on you so often. So now that I knew how to pitch and how to get featured in those media outlets and how to get featured on other podcasts as well, it was time to move on to another way to take ownership of audience growth. But I had tasted this. The fact that I could essentially grow my audience on command instead of just hoping that Instagram shows my show to people or hoping that people share a word of mouth. What happens if I take more ownership? And so I then started to think, okay, I have a really well-defined audience who definitely wants to hear Philly stories. What are they doing? Where are they going? Where are they hanging out online? And so I followed the device of a mentor of mine and I went to what we call the watering holes, right? So where online, your target audience is hanging out. That's Facebook groups, that's subreddits, maybe even in person when that's a thing again. Meetups, all that stuff. And he said, picture, you're the watering hole as a party. All the people you want to reach with your podcast are going to this party. Don't you think it's a good idea for you to be there too? I said absolutely. He said, great. What I want you to do is for the next 30 days, 15 minutes every day, just go to the party, go hang out in the watering holes. That's all you have to do. Again, the watering holes is Facebook groups, is LinkedIn groups, is subreddits, is online forums, places where your listener goes to interact with other people like them, other people who are also into whatever topic your show is about. And if you spend just 15 minutes a day going to the party, now you don't sell, you don't go to the Facebook group and say, new episode of my podcast, go listen, because we've all seen how that sucks. And we've all seen how nobody likes that. And every time you join a Facebook group, it literally makes you check a box that says, I will not be self-promotional, because everybody hates that. So you go to the party and you don't sell. You would never walk into a party and say, hello, my name is Kevin. Will you buy my product? Will you listen to my podcast? No. Nobody's going to want to be at a party with you. If you do that, what you do is that you go to the party every day and you become the life of the party. Share your thoughts, participate, make some friends, answer some questions, be helpful, add some value. Just 15 minutes a day. If you do this, just that will grow your audience 10% every month. One of my clients, Anna, in the accelerator, just posted yesterday in our Facebook group that she hasn't implemented any of the PR stuff yet. She hasn't gotten herself featured on other podcasts yet. All she's done so far to get new listeners is to start 15 minutes a day participating in the watering holes and over the course of the last month, her audience has grown by almost 10%. Just 15 minutes a day. Amazing. So once we take ownership of audience growth, right? We are pitching ourselves to be featured in media and on other podcasts. We are going out there and being the life of the party online so that people click on our profiles and say, who is this person? And then check out your podcasts. And you even do a little bit of outreach and literally reach out to people and say, hey, I made this podcast for you. Do you want to listen to it? As you do these things, you'll start to see your audience grow even though you're spending less time on the podcast. It's amazing. So instead of spending all of your time editing, which doesn't get you any new listeners and instead of spending all of your time on social media posting on Instagram, just posting outwards and trying to broadcast to nobody, which doesn't get you more listeners. And again, it's okay. Don't feel bad if this is what you're doing because this is what I did. And this is what the internet teaches us to do. It is not your fault that you're doing this and that it's not working because this is how we've been programmed to do this, but it doesn't work. The days of something going viral and blowing up on the internet are over and really I don't think they ever existed anyway. There's no such thing as an overnight success. It's a long haul. But if we start taking ownership of our audience growing, we define who they are. Really specifically say, hey, I want you. There's a reason why Uncle Sam made those posters. I want you to join the US Army. That's what you have to do with your podcast. I want you to listen to my podcast. Not, oh, it's for anybody who likes interesting stories and stories of... No, I want you to listen to my podcast because this podcast is for you. Now I'm getting I'll jacked up over here. You get really specific about who your audience is and what your show is about. You get all editing content generation admin work off of your plate affordably. It is possible. Absolutely possible. And really, it's costing you an immense amount of time, money, and listeners by doing that stuff yourself today. It's costing you to do it for free. So you get that stuff off of your plate affordably. Then you take ownership of audience growth. You say your job is to go get more listeners. That is how you spend your time on the podcast. You go participate. You'll be the life of the party online. You get yourself featured in big media and in blogs and magazines and newspapers on TV on other podcasts. Your audience starts coming to you in droves. Step four is you monetize right now. Now the biggest, biggest belief that I hear that podcasters are told that is killing podcasts is that you need 10,000 downloads per episode to monetize or you need 50,000 or worse 100,000 downloads per episode to monetize. Goodness gracious, that is so not the case. Now it's not your fault for believing this because this is what we're told on the internet that you need. But the opposite isn't true. It is not true that you need 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 downloads per episode to monetize. The truth is that you will not get to 50,000 downloads unless or until you monetize. What does that mean? Well, think about it. We have to take ownership of audience growth. That means that we have to spend our time, maybe sometimes our money, but mainly our time going out and getting new listeners and growing our audience. In order to spend that, we need to be able to pay people to actually make the show and we need to be able to pay for online services to automate some of the editing and admin work and stuff like that. And finally, we need to pay ourselves back for the time that we're spending. You only have so much gas in the tank. So if we monetize the show now and start getting money in the door, we can build this operation from the start as a business. No business that has ever been successful, except maybe Facebook has ever said, we're going to do this for free for as long as possible and then later we're going to figure out how to make money. Actually, that is literally the venture capital business model for startups. But guess what? Those startups have literally millions of dollars to burn. You don't have that. So we need to make this a business from the start. So we monetize right away. How can you monetize right away? You say, well, guess what? Your first advertisers already know who you are. They know who you are right now. I'll tell you a little story about how I found some of my best advertisers, Shafilihoo. There was a time where Filihoo was floundering. I couldn't find enough advertisers. I wasn't making enough money. Like I said, I had to put the show on pause. And so when I did put the show on pause, I emailed some of my mentors. They actually had become patrons of the show because I tried and failed to launch a Patreon, but I did get six patrons. And so I emailed them and said, thank you so much for your support. But I have to shut the show down for now. I'm trying to find advertisers, but you know, I've reached out to Chase and Lyft and Squarespace and other advertisers that I've heard on other podcasts. And they all, most of them didn't answer me. The other one said, hey, sorry, we don't want to talk to you unless you have 50,000 downloads. And so I'm giving up. Let me know if you have any ideas. And here is the pitch deck for advertising on Filihoo, if you're interested. Send it along to anybody that you might be interested. 20 minutes later, I got an email from one of my six patrons who said, hey, we're in. We'd love to sponsor an entire season for $2,000. Who was that? Well, one of my biggest fans of the show was a local startup CEO. That startup named Crossbeam had a huge marketing budget for this year. And guess what? Do you know who they were trying to reach with that marketing budget? They wanted to reach really passionate Philadelphia fans who are either entrepreneurs or like startups. That was one of my audience definitions. So at only 2500 downloads per episode, I secured a sponsorship deal for $2,000. Just write that in there. And so what was the lesson? Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you need 50,000 dollars to monetize your podcast. If you have a thousand or even 500 downloads per episode, you can start right now. Even if you have fewer than that, there are ways to monetize that aren't advertisement that gets you started. But the thing is you have to start. You have to get practice. You have to learn what makes good advertisements. You have to learn how to do a good hostry to add. You have to learn how to start making money so that you can use that money to make your show grow even faster. And by the way, once you do that, once you learn how to grow your audience on command and take ownership of audience growth and you turn your show into a business today and learn how to monetize right now podcast networks are going to be banging down the door to try to give you money for a piece of the pie. And the beauty of it, you're not going to need them because you know how to do it yourself. So you're going to say, no, thank you. I have a thriving podcast business. I'm going to keep all the profits for myself. So there you have it. This was episode one of the Grow the Show podcast without a guest just you and me because I wanted to get this framework into your head as quickly as possible. The four steps to a thriving podcast business, you can take all four steps right now. Now if you have any questions or want help with any of these four steps, feel free to hop into my free Facebook group. It's called Grow the Show for Podcasters. You can search it on Facebook or there's a link in the show notes to our free Facebook group. Come in and say hello and let me know how you're going to implement this framework today. What are you going to do today to start turning your podcasts into a thriving business? You can do it in the Facebook group or you can find me on Instagram or Twitter, my handles are below, but let me know. Let me know. I want to know how you're going to do it today. Now this podcast is going to release weekly from here on out and every single episode of this show from here on is going to be there to help you with one of these four steps. I'm going to be talking to the best podcasters in the game. I'm going to be talking to successful online business owners to people who work for big media companies who have mastered the art of growing an audience. You name it authors podcasters specifically though every single episode is going to be here to help you turn your podcast into a thriving business. So I'm going to ask you right now to do what you want your podcast listeners to do. Go ahead and subscribe. If you liked this episode, go ahead and leave a five star rating and a review. You know how that works. You know how that's going to help this show grow and help us reach even more independent podcasters, right? So go ahead and subscribe. Leave a five star rating and head over to our Facebook group called Grow the Show for podcasters and let me know that you're a part of the community and that you're interested in growing your podcast and turning it into a thriving business. I am so so excited to be here. I'm so excited to help you grow your show and to live the podcasting life that you've always dreamed of whether you have a podcast as a hobby now and want to do podcasting full time or you're an entrepreneur and you want your podcast to be a lead generator to be a marketing device to be your top of the funnel. I am here to help you with all those things. So thank you so much for tuning in. Again, I'll see you over in the Facebook group. Grow the show for podcasters. This has been episode one of Grow the Show and we're just getting started, baby. See you real soon.