Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host, and I'm excited for today's episode because I have wanted to record a podcast in my truck for well beyond the time I started Digital Podcaster. And for whatever reason, I never have my gear with me, I got my phone, but I never have the device to record it to. So if this goes well, I might record more because so many great ideas come from recording or not recording come from being in the car or the shower, and I'm not going to be recording an episode from the shower. I wouldn't be that to you. So the best thing, next best thing is the truck. So also preface this by saying this is conversation. I'm safe, everything's good. focus is on safety. All right. So today, I wanted to talk about something that I feel extremely passionate about. So I'm a upbeat, optimistic, I wouldn't say just like happy because happiness is a vague word. And I try to not you know, I don't know, like, I don't want to like say I'm like happy all the time. Because I don't think that's exactly true. I mean, I'm upbeat, and I'm content. I do a lot of content, and I'm content. And that's confusing if English is your second language. And it's confusing for me as English as my first language. But I'm a beat on EasyGO. And I'm like optimistic like 95% of the time. But if you don't know, one of the reasons why I started Digital Podcaster was years ago, I was working with a man who did podcasts. And I don't know, I mean, he still does podcast today is a podcasting company. And it bothered me how he treated me. And I saw how he treated his clients, just with like the condescending tone and like you don't know what you're talking about kind of thing. But it was done in the sense of like, he had literally zero idea who I was like, there was no, like, oh, so like, what's your background? I think it was before there was not even like a no my name before, it was just like you wouldn't understand. And I was just like, oh, so this is how he operates his business. And it bothered me, it stuck with me for years. And but I kept doing what I was doing when I was everything's good. And then one of the reasons why I started Digital Podcaster I was thinking like, what is it that is bothering me, that I want to see done better in the world. And part of that is people making better content, because there's enough noise out there that just doesn't, I don't know, there's enough fluff out there, or stuff that people just add to the noise and it's not really making anything better, or it's not helping themselves, it's just a waste of time, and help people make podcasts without it being this mystic mystical process that you just wouldn't understand. Because there's an art to it, you know, cuz that bothers me. Because I believe anybody can do it that wants to do it. And it shouldn't be like this gatekeeping approach to it. It's not like I know something that you can't know. Or you you have to spend years to figure out like, I want to distill all that information to you very simply. And yeah, so that was one of the reasons so it started out of this, like frustration or a little bit of anger. And anger has been on my mind for like last week or so. Thanks, therapy. But But yeah, so I like I'm 95% of the time and try to be not try to be I just am like I am grateful. I'm grateful. I went through, you know, a lot of emotional trauma as a kid a lot of reason to be angry, of course, or a lot of reason to not be super optimistic in some ways. But if you know, if you have a reason to not be optimistic, then there is a big reason to be optimistic, right? Like, I don't have many people left my family most of them have passed away, not to go like down a dark, deep rabbit hole. But you know, I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to be in good health. I'm grateful for everything I have been every opportunities I have, like I truly, truly am. And not even related to that. But I was I've been cruising Facebook groups lately, podcasting, Facebook groups, and I just see so much bad information for one out there of people asking for help and they get help. But the advice they're getting is really bad. It's very low quality. And that bugged me at first. I was like, okay, that's not, you know, there's just so much of it going on. Like, I just can't even hundreds and hundreds of posts every day. It's just like, I'm not going to sit there and reply to everybody. That's why I have my business to have a quality source soon. stead of me trying to like you can't really diagnose and solve someone's real big issue in one comment, or in one. Like, and their overall strategy, like there's so much you can't do and like replying to a Facebook post, not only do you not have a background on them, do you not have like any idea of any history, you're trying to take like three sentences and diagnose that it's just impossible. And so to sit there all day, and just respond to people, and think like, oh, that then they'll become clients of some sorts, like, that's not my goal. My goal is just that attract people that want to work with me, and let them come into my world. And if they want to just consume the free stuff, that's totally fine. I'm not like, you can only No, you just work with me if you want to work with me. And so yeah, so my strategy is not responding to these free Facebook posts all day. And so anyways, there's one, one of the Facebook groups and I don't go in these every day, I don't have the energy, they're a little bit of an energy suck. But one of these Facebook groups, there is a, I guess, popular podcast author, like if you google how to podcast or make money with podcasting, he comes right up one of the top results. And I'm not gonna say his name or his book or anything like that, but I'll make it as close to that as possible. And he is not the same person I mentioned just a few minutes ago, when I said that there was somebody that kind of made me rather not like, it made me rather frustrated, and why I started Digital Podcaster This is not the same person. These are two different people. And I guess I see this a little bit throughout, I guess I'm realizing right now that there's a thread going on, of people that are the, you know, they have good intentions, but they just go about it in a way that is like, Okay, this is not right. And it bothers me. So anyways, this morning, I see a post done by a person looking for, actually, this was last night. Last night, I saw posts by a person looking for advice on how to monetize their podcast, because they super smart person, but they were like, I think I should do like a monthly membership charge, like$3 a month and just start to monetize, because I have listeners. And I saw it right after they posted it. And I again, I don't really respond to a lot of these because it's just, there's not enough information. So I asked a couple of questions. And he responded, a good chunk gave me some information to work with. But I responded again to him basically saying, like, you know, here's one way you could monetize, but just so you know, like there's not enough information to to make a worthy decision of what I'd recommend, or give you some type of strategy. That's, that's smart, or in good conscious, because I just don't think it would be a good idea. I don't, I don't think it's worth like putting all this time and energy into something. Unless, you know, have a really good idea. It's going to work. So anyways, there's a go back this morning, just I was like, Oh, I wonder if he replied. And he did. And then there was a bunch of other responses on there. And one of them was from this podcast author that was just mentioning, top of Amazon, pretty well known. I think, I mean, I guess, well known if you're looking for an Amazon Author who's written about podcasting. But what the advice that this author gave, I was just like, kind of taken aback by it. And it bothered me it almost like, you know, it was like trigger triggering me because I was thinking back to the other podcast person that I had worked with previously, that had really bothered me about this idea. And the the, to distill the advice that this person gave the, the author of the post was basically like, your you don't have enough listeners, you shouldn't be monetizing. Like it's already hard enough for huge podcast to monetize. And when I did research for my book, subtle nod to his book, I found that it was this this this, and, you know, basically good luck, there's no chance. And it was like so much interject or projection of this author's experience. I can tell through what they found to be true through their own podcasting endeavors, I guess, and that was just like, kind of bummed out because I'm like, one I'm not like bummed out for the author. I'm not bummed out. I don't know any of these people on this thread. But I'm just thinking like, this guy is like an authority in the space and it's bugging me how, you know, like, he's really saying like, good luck on monetizing with a small audience and this person didn't have that small have an audience they had like, I think they said maybe 1000 listeners a month or 1000 listeners to that episode or something like that. I'm like, they're already so much higher in a higher bracket. And, and I was then the person when they gave some more information, they were saying how they like, I think this person, I don't want to give too much detail because I'm not trying to make this like that but but the person was well accomplished that was asking about monetizing their podcasts, and they had great intentions, and they had a helpful thing that they were helping people with, that people would gladly pay for. So I don't know, I didn't respond to the author, a part of me immediately just wanted to go in the reaction of like, this is such not true advice of what you were saying and how monetizing would work. Because he basically the the authority, the podcast authority, responding to the posts, and he responds to so many of the posts was like, basically, you're gonna make nine bucks, good luck. And I'm thinking like, This is so not true. And the condescending tone and like, this is everything that's wrong with podcasts, experts, like that's so not true. And just to give you I guess, because I don't want to like leave it hanging on the wire, it's not true. Like, if you had 20 listeners of your podcast, and those 20 listeners were coming, depending on what your podcast is about. Like if you are solving a problem for these 20 listeners that they are not finding a solution for anywhere else. And you're solving a huge problem for them, they will pay likely, likely, depending on who your audience is, they could possibly pay a lot of money for your solution. And I'm saying this is like all good intentions, like, there's people out there who need help and pay money for that help, right? And this person said in their original post, that they have this kind of solution that they're helping people with. And then they already have, like, 1000 people. So I'm like, if you've 20 people, all you need is 20 of the right people. And this person had an engaged audience. And they had been doing it since like 2018, I think. And so all that to say is like the why it's not true is there's no number of listeners that you can hit for it to be a certain number of that, that you can monetize. Like, there's no number. It's all about having the right thing to sell somebody if you are a consultant, a coach, entrepreneur, business, things like that. So if you're like wondering, like, how many people do I need to monetize? There's no number whatsoever, like you can start out before you even start your podcast? Because you could you could create it because you know the solution already if you did, or you could create it after you get feedback, which most likely you've already gotten feedback if you got some type of solution. Or how did you create the solution, right? And that's almost like, make a full circle that's almost like Digital Podcaster with what I'm doing here is like, this is i bugs, meeting people out there getting bad advice. So I make Digital Podcaster as a solution for things that I know that are to be true. And I'm not going to tell you, you can't do this, or you can't do that. And I'm never going to tell you good luck. Hey, good luck with your nine bucks, no, I'm gonna be like, let's flip that nine to 90 or 900 or 9000, or 90,000, or whatever. Because I live in a reality like a reality, not just ideas of what I've seen to be true. And that is, you can make a ton of money online, and it doesn't exactly make a difference of your audience size. Because I see a lot of people with very little followings that you would have never guessed because you look at their social media posts, and they got, you know, hardly any likes no comments, and they're making millions plus dollars of year a year. And then I see people with a million subscribers on YouTube that, you know, are struggling to pay bills. So you can't judge a book by its engagement, you know, that you see on social media and you can't there's no one size fits all for everybody. And there's strategies that can work for people that you don't know about, and to act like you know, everything is really limiting. And it says more about, you know you than what's possible. And I'm not saying I know everything when it comes to monetizing podcasts, not saying that at all, but I am saying that there's more than one way one way to monetize a podcast. And I'm not saying I even have all the answers because it's unique for everybody. Similar to like years ago, I worked as a personal trainer. Years ago, I did that and what I learned very quickly is like there is no one size fits all approach when it comes to people's you know if if someone came in the gym and was like, hey, I want to I'm a personal trainer, and then the personal trainer just started doing like an exercise with him that would be dangerous, because they don't know any things that have been hurt in the past. They don't know where they're currently at. Now, they don't know their goals, anything like that. So you could hurt somebody if you didn't take that time to understand where they're at. And the same goes true in a way for for monetizing a podcast or monetizing any content is, it's not just like a one size fits all of like, yeah, just make a program or make a course or make a this or make it that like you got to look more into it and get a little bit of a history of what's going on here. Because again, like if you just walked into a gym, and you were expecting to lift 1000 pounds on your do 1000 pounds on your benchpress. But you've never lifted weights a day in your life, but you have been moving construction and you've been moving more than that all your life, then like okay, then maybe that's possible. But if you've never done any weightlifting whatsoever, it's not realistic to do 1000 pounds. So I say all that because it again, it's not one size fits all. And I just want you to know that no matter where you're at on your own journey, or what you believe to be true, or you think that there is some type of limiting, like ceiling of what you could earn or things like that. It's not, it's not. If you think that there's a limit, it's not accurate. And because I've just seen it firsthand, time and time and time and time again, of people who have out earned their following number. And the last thing I ever want to be for you is a person in your ear. That goes good luck with your nine bucks. That is so not cool. I guess it bugs me. But I will say, to end this on a more positive note. It fuels me to make more to help more to serve more. And yeah, I guess it also fueled this episode and makes good content, but it just bugs me so much. And on the flip side, though, you know, just be careful out there with I say this as a person that gives giving advice, but be careful out there when you come in contact with someone you know, I don't know, personally, it's like, I try to look for people that helped me see a bigger vision and not one that's like there's a cap on anything, that's all say So, enough about that. I hope you are having a good day. And thanks for listening. I do appreciate it. If you resonated with this, feel free to send me a message on social media most active right now on Tiktok Instagram and Twitter, Digital Podcaster on Instagram and Tiktok forgot about that for a second and at Digital Podcaster on Twitter. So please say hi and I will talk to you soon.