Podcasting 101 from 20-Year Veteran, Jeremy Grater
Podcasting has come a long way since its early days in 2004. From duct tape and wire setups to user-friendly platforms and AI-powered tools, podcasting technology has evolved dramatically over the past two decades. For businesses, podcasting offers a compelling way to reach and engage with customers.
In this episode of Stimulus Tech Talk, Nathan Whittacre, CEO of Stimulus Technologies, sits down with podcast expert Jeremy Grater who has over 20 years of experience in radio and podcasting. Grater provides valuable insider tips for creating profitable business podcasts in today’s crowded market.
Focus on Solving Listeners’ Problems
A key takeaway from Grater is that successful business podcasts focus on solving listeners' problems. As he explains, conversations with existing customers offer a goldmine of potential content ideas. Identify their pain points and questions, then create episodes that directly address those needs. Marketing your own products or services should come only after delivering value to listeners.
Streamlined Technology for Getting Started in Podcasting
On the technical side, Grater emphasizes that starting a podcast has never been easier. With user-friendly platforms like Anchor, you can record directly on your phone and have a podcast up and running instantly. For businesses willing to invest more, options like Riverside.fm allow for high-quality remote video and audio recordings with built-in tools to clip content for social media.
Leveraging AI to Upgrade Your Podcast
But the technology doesn’t stop there. Grater highlights how AI tools are revolutionizing podcast creation and distribution. From auto-generated transcripts to AI-written promotional copy, smart assistants can handle many of the production tasks that once bogged podcasters down. However, he cautions that AI still works best when augmenting human creativity rather than fully replacing it.
Monetizing Your Business Podcast
When it comes to monetizing, Grater boils it down to two options: sell your own products/services or sell ad space. While a large audience certainly helps, he notes that you can start earning income through small sponsorships long before hitting the 10,000 download mark. The key is taking action and asking potential sponsors directly for their support.
For businesses looking to boost brand awareness and connect with customers, podcasting checks many boxes. But in today's crowded market, creating a profitable podcast takes strategic planning and consistent execution. Tune in to hear more of Grater's insider tips on technology, topics, monetization and the power of being authentically you.
Want to be notified when a new episode of Stimulus Tech Talk is out? Sign up here.
Stimulus Tech Talk: Expert Tips on Podcasting for Business Growth with Special Guest Jeremy Grater transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
podcast, content, ai, audience, podcasters, technology, record, video, listen, listeners, topic, people, audio, great, work, feel, years, business, monetize, mentioned
SPEAKERS
Nathan Whittacre, Jeremy Grater, Intro
Intro 00:00
You're listening to Stimulus Tech Talk, a conversation based podcast created by stimulus technologies that covers a range of topics related to business and technology.
Nathan Whittacre 00:15
Hello, welcome to Stimulus Tech Talk. I'm Nathan Whitaker, CEO of Stimulus Technologies. And we're excited to agree to guest today, Jeremy Grater, and he is an experienced podcaster. So I feel a little bit out of my league talking to you today. But he's been podcasting since August of 2004. And has extensive experience in podcasts, podcast management, broadcast production, hosting, editing, and done 1000s of podcasts over the years. So welcome, Jeremy. Thanks for being here.
Jeremy Grater 00:46
I'm excited to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
Nathan Whittacre 00:47
My pleasure. So tell us a little bit more about your background. I gave a brief overview. But who are you? And what do you what have you done in the past? Yeah,
Jeremy Grater 00:56
I mean, professionally, I spent about 20 years in commercial radio, working mostly in news and talk. And then beginning stages of that I actually discovered podcasting and got pretty excited about it and kind of dove in headfirst. But it was always pretty much a hobby. And we can get into more of that later. But yeah, I mean, for the most part, I've been running commercial radio programs for 20 years and the last few years professionally, I've been working with podcasters trying to help them grow and monetize their podcasts. And really just make sure that when they do get lucky enough to find a listener who finds their show that what they listened to, they enjoy and stick around and tell others about it. So that's pretty much what I've been doing for the last couple of decades for a job.
Nathan Whittacre 01:34
So 2004. I've heard there wasn't many podcasts around that time.
Jeremy Grater 01:40
No, there weren't many there. There were certainly a handful. Some of them are still around today, not many. But the biggest challenge that we faced then was trying to explain what a podcast was. If you went searching for any information on how to do it better, it all came down to well, you have to explain what it is. But don't be afraid to put a video on your website that says this is how to download it. You have to go to Apple and download this. And so yeah, it was it was very much just a matter of teaching the audience how to even use it before it was a matter of is this the right content for that audience?
Nathan Whittacre 02:12
And I'm sure that the platform's have changed over time. I mean, you mentioned Apple, but they were I mean, they had some platforms, but the iPhone wasn't around yet in 2004. So what what type of platforms and how has that changed over time? And podcasts? Let's
Jeremy Grater 02:27
see, I thought the Apple I thought the iPhone was there. Because I mean, that was the whole the whole I guess it was iPod iPod came from? Yeah, it's changed a lot. I've been lucky enough. I've been with the same hosting provider since then. I remember when my brother had the idea to start this podcast I went looking for where's this going to live. And I had the brilliant idea of building a MySpace page to host it. And so I built the whole thing and put up all the logos and all the stuff. And then I got to the point where I was like, where's the audio gonna live? How does that even work? And so we had to kind of go back to the drawing board. But I found Libsyn, liberated syndication, they were this brand new podcast hosting company. And we thought, wow, let's let's give this a try. And we've been with them now for 20 years. But yeah, I mean, beyond that, the amount of pod catchers and different sites where you can get it now. And it's, it's crazy to me every time I watch a movie or hear some reference to podcasting in mainstream media, when I think back to those days of, you know, duct tape and wire and trying to, you know, stick things together to stick things together to make them work. It was it was an uphill climb for sure. Yeah,
Nathan Whittacre 03:31
it's interesting, you know, with whatever we're doing in technology, the transition even a brief period of time, 20 years, isn't that long in the history of the world, the advantage changes so fast with technology. Yeah,
Jeremy Grater 03:44
just I mean, in the last year, especially with AI and things, I mean, it's just it's moving so quickly.
Nathan Whittacre 03:49
Now, we'll certainly get into that towards the end of our conversation, because I want to know about a little bit more about AI and how it's changing it so. So in your day to day, what do you do as a podcast consultant? What does that mean?
Jeremy Grater 04:03
So that's changed a little bit. I worked professionally for riverside.fm. Now, so now I'm working more with exposing the platform to different businesses and making sure that they're optimizing it and using it for the best to the best of its abilities. Prior to that, I was a podcast coach. And so that was a lot of, you know, reviewing content, making sure that when people you know, the first 30 to 90 seconds of their show was engaging and compelling so that when someone just did discover it, they understood what was in it for them to listen. So they would put the phone back in their pocket and keep listening. It was also a matter of teaching them how to monetize them. I had clients that literally when I would ask them, have you done a call to action in your episode? Have you told anyone about your products or services and they just went? No, I haven't tried that. And so it's just like little things like that just like pointing out the sort of the obvious blind spot blind spots from my point of view that could help improve either sales or engagement or whatever, to also just helping them come up with ideas and content and crafting what the The mission of their story was that they were trying to get out in the world. And, you know, helping them be better interviews, interviewers, you know, ran the gamut of from, you know, how do I even do this? What machine? What technology? Do I need to what is the content? And how do I make it so that the audience will actually enjoy it?
Nathan Whittacre 05:16
You mentioned when you started it, you know, you're putting things together with duct tape, and I'm sure the technology side of things, you know, we're a technology focused podcast here. So I'm sure that's changed dramatically over the years. So is it easier today to start a podcast? Or is it?
Jeremy Grater 05:33
Yeah, I mean, you really don't need much. But the fact that means what we're doing right now, I had dreams of in 2004, I wish there was just a website you could go to and hit record and everybody was there. Because my show when I first started podcasting, it was me and my brother, and we live two states away from each other. So we had to figure out how do we connect remote and at that time, it was Skype. And it was like, now how do we record that? How's that captured? And I remember going into American music in Seattle and asking them, hey, I'm doing this podcast, how can I record a virtual conversation? And they just looked at me like, What are you talking about. And they sold me some device that was supposed to do it totally did not work. So eventually, we did figure out I was lucky enough to work at a radio station. And we were able to figure out some some ways through the technology we have there to make it work. But the fact that now you can send someone a link and have however many people your host site can can handle at a time. Having these super high quality video and audio recordings is unbelievable. I'm the interface I'm using right now I use the road caster, the the original one, the fact that I've got my media button so I can play wacky music and sound effects whenever I want. That was a dream in 2004. I wanted that so badly. And instead, I had to have pre recorded like mp3 is on my desktop and like double click them at the right time. And it was it always just led to Chaos and a mess. So it has really evolved a lot in 20 years.
Nathan Whittacre 06:55
So if somebody wanted to get started today, what would you recommend to them both on the technology side, and to find listeners, I mean, that's that's the two things you could just parked to the wall all day long, and nobody will listen to you. But from a technology standpoint, let's start there. What does somebody need today to get started with podcasting,
Jeremy Grater 07:14
really your phone, I mean, you really don't need more than that. And it depends on how serious you want to be about it. But if somebody just wants to sort of test the waters and see if this is something they want to do, I mean, there's plenty of sites like Ankur, that will host you for free. And you literally can just record into your phone, just a solo podcast, 510 minutes a day, 510 minutes a week, whatever, whatever you have in you, you can start with that. From there, you can totally upscale you can get the the big mixing board the interface, you can get the you know, the higher end mics that I just bumped into with my hand like a professional. There's, there's lots of things you can do. And there's plenty of free options. There's plenty of free hosting sites, like I mentioned, anchor is one I think Libsyn still has a free plan. And then you know sites like my company Riverside, you can you can use that for free to a limited degree and with watermarks and things like that. So I mean, there's, there's so many different options, it really does come down to what are you aiming to do? And maybe more importantly, is how, how much stamina, you'd have to get through it. Because most people don't make it past episode seven.
Nathan Whittacre 08:20
Yeah, we're well past that here. So that's great.
Jeremy Grater 08:23
It's good, because this is the thing everyone wants to believe. When there's you know, Doom scrolling on Instagram, that they can start a podcast and in a couple of months have money just flying in the window, because their content is so amazing. There is the occasional unicorn that can pull that off. Most people are going to slog away for months, if not years before building any kind of an audience that they can monetize. And you really have to love what you're doing and you have to love the message that you're sending them has to be super important to you. Because when you check those downloads, and you're still in single double digits for that episode, you just start to feel like I'm yelling into the wind, I can do this on Twitter, you know, you really have to believe in it and seek out strategies to grow it. I think
Nathan Whittacre 09:07
that's for us, what I've learned is all things marketing has to be scheduled. I mean, our marketing manager Sherry and I have a recurring meeting at the beginning of the week that we're you know, finalizing the plans for the, you know, the webinars and the podcasts or things that we're doing later in the week. And it's just automatically on our schedule, we know we're going to do it. We you know, work on getting gas and things like that in but it's it is it is a bit of a slog to do that. But it's you know, we're having fun with it and it takes it takes a lot of time to do it. But it finally started to get some traction with it. So, so top topics, I guess that's the next question is, again, there's you know, 10s of 1000s I don't even know the quantity, maybe hundreds of 1000s of podcasts out there. You know, if you are a business leader, which we were talking to mostly as business leaders, how do you come up with Engaging topic that would lead somebody to listen to your podcast.
Jeremy Grater 10:04
Yeah. So just quickly, I think the current number is around 400,000, something active podcasts. So it's not quite as saturated as people want you to believe. In terms of topics, especially if you do have a business and you have customers, whatever conversations you're having with them is content, whatever they tell you, whatever problems they're having, whatever solutions you have for them, always have some sort of a notepad with you and write it down. Like this isn't, this is a topic because if they're having that problem, somebody else is, too. That's it's one of the most overlooked things. I think, in podcasting. So many people think I've got this great idea, I'm gonna just start recording stuff and put it out there, and it's going to solve problems. But you haven't done the market research, you don't know if there really is a problem there to solve, you don't really know if there is an audience that's seeking that content. But if you already have a business, you're already interacting with potential listeners, they're going to be coming to you with their problems. And if you can solve them for you, for them in person, turn that around and turn it into content for other people, and then tell that customer because odds are they know somebody who's going through the same thing, they might share that episode with somebody else. And even from from the standpoint of trying to launch a podcast, get involved in Facebook groups get involved in places where people are having the conversations about the problem you're trying to solve, and discover what they want from that content and just create it for them, it's a lot easier to sell something when you know, there's already an audience that wants to buy it.
Nathan Whittacre 11:22
It kind of reminds me as you're talking about the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Napoleon Hill, you know, and he often talks in there, it's not about you, it's about them. So I think that's what you're saying, right? It's it's focusing on who your audience is, and what they want, not what you want to talk about so
Jeremy Grater 11:40
many podcasters go into it, making it about them, and what they want to say and what they want to do. And the more you make it about that potential listener, the more they're going to eat it up.
Nathan Whittacre 11:48
Great. So you have a topic you focus on who your potential customers or listeners are, kind of going back to the technology of it. Any tips or tricks on editing the podcast, you know, there's different ones that live stream where we record and then publish later? What are your feelings on different ways of editing? Should they be over edited? Should you record and post later? What are your thoughts?
Jeremy Grater 12:16
Again, it depends on the format, right? If you've got a really narrative, heavy, heavy podcast, that's going to be one where you're going to take chunks, you're going to move them around that most compelling stuff, you're going to move it to the front, you're going to add in a better question than the one you asked at that time that is going to be answered in a better way than then was recorded. The Best Editing though is done in before the record buttons ever hit. The more research you've done, the more you know about the person you're talking about or the more you know about the topic. It's gonna save you a lot of arms and ahhs and stammering around trying to figure out what the point was you're trying to make in the recording. If you're ready and you go in and you know what you're going to be talking about, it's going to be a lot easier. I have never been a big fan of the overproduced you know, heavily musical shows like I'm in it for the conversation, I want to know what am I going to learn from this person? How are they going to improve my life, improve my business, whatever it is, it's going to be. So I just like to listen, I like to be the fly on the wall, listen to a conversation. The minute I start hearing, like a lot of music and feeling like it's over produced, I feel manipulated. And then it feels like it's not like an authentic experience. It feels like it's something that's been manufactured to make me take action in a way that doesn't feel normal to me. I want to be friends with the host. I want to trust that what they're telling me is true and maybe helpful. And I want to trust that they vetted their guest that has information that's going to improve my life. So beyond that, once you start making it like to overproduced that's when I start to check out that's that's me, that's a personal preference. NPR would take a completely different take on that. But that's that's where I come from.
Nathan Whittacre 13:49
Well, that's that's an interesting point. I mean, you know, you've been on the radio side of it, and the broadcast media and then podcasting is different. What what do you what do you see the differences between the two? Are they so similar? That it's just a different way of getting the message across?
Jeremy Grater 14:06
No, I think they're pretty different. I mean, with broadcasting, it's one to many with podcasting, it's one to one. Radio couldn't still be and from the host perspective should be thought of as one to one. But with radio, you're very lucky in that it just exists and somebody's in their car scanning around trying to find something to entertain them unless they've plugged in their iPhone or whatever to give it you know, to pick whatever they want on demand. But with radio, you have to constantly reset topics you have to constantly reengage new listeners that may have come in podcasting, they read the description, they know what's there, you don't have to do a whole lot like introduce your topic, introduce who you are introduced, who your guest is and what the audience is going to get out of it. After that. Just be my friend. Just be be someone I can engage with and teach me something or improved my life or entertain me. But that's what I'm there for is their companionship like whether it's a long flight or or long car ride or I'm in the gym or whatever. I just want someone to spend the time with. I don't need it to be more than just hanging out with somebody.
Nathan Whittacre 15:08
So that actually brings on again, a little bit different topic is video versus non video. You know, YouTube is recently allowed for podcast things to be produced with video. What are your feelings on the difference? audio only? Or video? Or should podcasters do both and let whoever's listening choose?
Jeremy Grater 15:28
Yeah, this is the big debate right now. There's, there's so many people that despise the fact that a YouTube video is being called a podcast, it's either two different things. It's not right, they're infringing on our look, the audience is going to be where the audience is going to be. And if you look deeply at most of the research around YouTube, and podcasting, people are excited about it. Because podcast discovery has been a problem since podcasting. And when people say now they're discovering podcasts, they're saying, oh, YouTube. And so all these podcasters are losing their mind thinking, Oh, I've got to produce a high end video that's on YouTube now. No, you don't. Discovery is happening because of shorts. People are scrolling through YouTube shorts, and they're finding the Joe Rogan clip and whatever other podcasts clip they're seeing, and it's getting them to check out that podcast, not necessarily on YouTube. Don't get me wrong, like I can hear people yelling at me right now I listen to all my podcasts on YouTube, what are you talking about? Cool, some of you do. I've, I've seen plenty of shows that publish an audio only just a static image on YouTube. And it gets zero hits, or hundreds of hits or 1000s of hits, it just depends on on the show the niche, how well they're marketing, there's any number of variables that go into that. But I would say if you are a podcaster, and you don't want to do video, don't do video, if you don't have the capacity to do it, don't do it, people have more time in their day to listen to you than they do to watch you. So stick to audio, if that's what you want to do. If you have the ability through a stream yard, or Riverside or whatever, to record video, and all these platforms, I know Riverside does have tools now to make clips for you. And even if they're not great, if it's not perfect, it's close enough. And you can push push that out there as part of your marketing. And that's where people are going to discover that video and come over and check out your podcast.
Nathan Whittacre 17:15
So you mentioned getting the podcasts out there and doing these shorts. That kind of goes into editing a little bit more. So is there technologies out there that, you know, that are great for editing podcasts, you know, adding intros, creating those short videos getting the marketing done? What any recommendations for that?
Jeremy Grater 17:35
Yeah, there's a lot I mean, like I said, Riverside has a built in there's other tools like video.ai, it's vi d y o.ai. And they'll automatically create clips for you. There's Opus dot v, if there go by Opus dot Pro or dot clip, same thing automatically creating videos, there's there's one that's kind of in beta right now that I've been really excited about and using for a while it's called hyper natural. And they not only make the talking head video, but they can they can splice in through 100%, Ai, all kinds of images to make the videos more interesting. So they can be pencil drawings, or digital art or photography. And it just makes it a little bit more dynamic. And I think that you're gonna see a lot more of that in the years, probably in the next year, because I know they're on it. So I'm sure there's competitors. So that kind of thing can be really cool. There are tools like the script that will do everything, it's got B roll built into it. It's got, you know, the AI or the transcription editing. So whatever you edit in the text comes out of the audio, or the video however you're working. So yeah, so there's there's a number of tools you can use to make your editing process a lot easier.
Nathan Whittacre 18:34
So you brought up AI a bit, what do you seeing the role of AI in podcasting? Are you seeing it being used to generate potential questions or content? What about transcription, things like that? Where are you seeing AI taking podcasting?
Jeremy Grater 18:50
Oh, man, it's it's kind of unlimited. And it's kind of scary, I know of podcasts that exist that are purely like conceptualized, written, recorded and published automatically, like no human invention, no human intervention at all. And these things are getting published daily, and you it sounds like a person, you know, talking into the microphone, it's incredible. For the your average user, tons of potential. If you've got a tool that's transcribing your podcast, take that to take that transcript and you can go to any AI tool I like cloud.ai Everyone's excited about chat GPT plug it in there, have it write a blog based on that content, have it right, promotional material, have it right, all of your social media, captions, have it right tweets for you, like whatever whatever you're writing, it will write for you. The thing that I like about using a transcript or using something that you created first, is that and this Speaking for myself, I'm not a great writer, but I'm able to take my ideas and have them written in a way that is easier for someone to read. So a lot of times if I don't necessarily have an idea for a show, I'll just take a walk in the woods and talking to My voice recorder on my phone about whatever I'm feeling whatever I'm going through. And I'll take that audio, and I'll dump it into a transcript tool. And I'll work with AI, it's a, it's a content partner, you can ask it, what is the main theme of what I talked about here? What are some of the pain points I addressed. And you can really get to the heart of what could be really great content for somebody in a similar situation that you're going through. So I think as long as you're starting with your perspective first and not relying on the robot to be the generator of the idea, it's really an unlimited tool of potential.
Nathan Whittacre 20:35
So when you're talking about let's just rewind a second, you know, all these automatic, you know, when they're when the AI is generating the content, how does a listener distinguish between a podcast that, you know, might be a deep fake even image of somebody? You know, is there a way to distinguish and understand this is these are real people, it's real content versus AI generated? Or is there a way right now to do that, it's
Jeremy Grater 21:03
only going to get harder. Yeah, I've heard music broadcasts or you know, like, like a radio station, or virtual radio station, where there is a DJ that comes in and tells stories, and adds his opinion about whatever happened with that song and tells the backstory of that story. And it's completely AI, there's no human being involved. And it's mind blowing, and it's incredibly entertaining. And it's great. So I don't know that, that it's, well, I do know, it's not going to get easier. And, you know, unless gatekeepers at Google and everybody start, you know, implementing some system of identifying what that is, I don't know that you're going to be able to, and that's going to open up a lot of scary possibilities.
Nathan Whittacre 21:46
It's, it's interesting for me from a technology perspective, because I'm always excited about new technologies, new things that are out there. And I do, you know, there's certain things that you get scared about about technology, whether it's, you know, automated vehicle driving, or pilotless planes or, you know, deep fake videos and audio and things like that. It's there's, you know, constantly evolutions in this, I guess, we'll see, you know, what happens in the future and how we deal with it as a society is, yeah, thing, you know, all this stuff is getting generated. So. So I guess, how do we stay relevant? I mean, we're to humans, I think we're humans talking here, do we stay relevant to you know, against all this content that's being created by, you know, other people one, and then AI generated? Number two? Yeah,
Jeremy Grater 22:35
again, I think it's gonna be hard. But I think the advice I have with this is the same that I have with any podcaster, who is trying to find their niche, you are your niche, whatever you're talking about, you can talk about anything you want. And your show can be called whatever you want. But people, much like the radio, talk radio host of the 70s 80s. And 90s. People are looking for companionship, they're looking for a friend. And the more authentically human you are, the more I think the listener is going to connect to that. So if you're sharing your struggles, if you're sharing whatever you're working on trying to get better at or lessons you've learned, that's gonna, that's gonna ring true to the person who's going through the same thing. And so, I would say, I mean, this flies in the face of everything I've taught for a long time. And it's just because I just have a new perspective on it. I don't think you have to talk about one thing all of the time, and the few things that attached to it, I think you can talk about whatever you're into, because people want to connect with you the person. So the more you can show up and be authentically you, which I think is harder for a lot of people than then the industry would like you to admit. That's where you're going to connect with people, the more you can just show up and be yourself. I think that's how people are going to connect with you.
Nathan Whittacre 23:47
That's interesting. I am reading a book, I am an avid reader, and I'm reading a book by Joe Polish right now. It's what's in it for them. And, you know, that's the main theme of the book. Because I'm a bit of an introvert, you know, and so, you know, being out in the public networking, Business Network, things like that, it's sometimes difficult and you want to, for me, you want to put on this image of, you know, this great CEO is a great communicator. And sometimes that's, that's hard, right? It's hard for me. And so that's an interesting perspective of support for us to be individuals. And it'd be different people that are connect with us.
Jeremy Grater 24:22
Yeah, people, people can sense when, when you're wearing the mask. And I just know that the best connections I've made with people are the people that I feel like I showed them, the real me, and they stuck around. And so if you're trying to be something that you're not, I think people will see through it. And I think there's a trust factor there that that gets in the way. So I think it's okay to say like, Hey, I don't know a lot about this. You know, I'm new to this, whatever. Like, just share whatever your experience is, and odds are the person you're talking to maybe has the experience you need and can help you get to where you're trying to go. But if you show up trying to be something you're not, I just don't think that helps you grow up person or your network or your audience or whatever.
Nathan Whittacre 25:04
That's great advice. Great advice. So, you mentioned towards the beginning about monetizing a podcast. So how do you do that? I mean, that's I'm sure a lot of podcasters want to make money doing it? I mean, it's time out of the day and the week and how do you monetize? It? Is Are there different avenues?
Jeremy Grater 25:21
Yeah, I like Dave Jackson's rule of podcast monetization, there's only two ways to do it, either sell something you make or serve or someone else's product. That's what it comes down to. And so you have to have, you have to have an audience. I mean, let's let's be real, you can't do a show that nobody listens to and sell a product to an audience that isn't there. There's lots of people that are going to tell you that you need 10,000 downloads per episode before you can even think about monetizing. It's not true, it depends on what monetization means. Are you okay, with making 20 bucks a month to cover your hosting fee, that's pretty easy to do. If you've got a few 100 listeners to your podcast, you can start reaching out to the companies that sell the kinds of things that they're interested in, and ask them for a small sponsorship fees like you don't have to make it doesn't have to replace your full time job tomorrow, right? It can be enough to pay for itself and to pay for some of the time you're putting into it. So it really just comes down to where or to what monetization means to you, and going after it. But you do have to ask for it. Right? You got to put yourself out there, you have to be a little a little vulnerable. And I would I would suggest if you have a podcast and you're trying to figure it out, listen to your competitors who's advertising on their podcasts and reach out and say, Hey, I heard you advertising on show x, would you consider adding me to the portfolio because odds are if they're advertising there, that's one of like, 100 clients that they're advertising something on. And so they've just got to find a way to move the budget from the one that maybe isn't working as well to over to yours. So there's that. Additionally, if there is some perspective you have, if you do have a course, or a book, or whatever content you have, whatever your expertise is, sell it, right, like mentioned it in the show, mentioned it early in the show, don't wait until the end, when you know, 50% of the audience has bailed mentioned it up front, not the first thing, right, give me some content, give me a reason to trust you give me reason to like you. But if you've got something that can help me, I'm probably gonna buy it. So that's another way to go. And then finally, there's always you know, a Patreon or buy me a coffee, where if you're just trying to, you know, put a little extra content out there for somebody or early access to an episode, that sort of thing. There's always benefits you can add to a platform like that to make a few, a few bucks from your audience.
Nathan Whittacre 27:28
Now, there's some people that have gotten into the like, pay to listen type podcasts, maybe news, personality, things like that, what to get to that point, what do you need to have? Or is it a number of listeners, or it's not even something that is perceivable? At this point,
Jeremy Grater 27:48
again, it comes down to the size of your audience, if it's if it's a big enough show, and there's enough demand, people will pay for that. If it's something where you your typical, your typical podcast as five 810 minutes of ads, and people know I can buy that 10 minutes back by subscribing for three bucks a month? They might do that, right? If they're if they're gonna get the ad free version. So again, let's make this about the audience. What's in it for them? Why should they subscribe? Why should they pay for access to you? Is it because you're just that good? Or can you somehow make the experience better for them? Is there something more you can give them? Can you give them more content? Can you give them early access? Can you give them some prize pack once a month, or whatever it is? Like if you can make make the make it? How do you what's the what's the line? That's escaping, but But it's something like make give them an offer that they would be stupid to say no to right? If it's four bucks a month, what are they going to get for four bucks a month that's going to blow their mind and make it just obvious that they should be paying for it?
Nathan Whittacre 28:44
Perfect. So you read a couple of podcasts. Maybe you can mention what you do and what you've how they can. Our listeners can find you.
Jeremy Grater 28:54
Yeah, so the podcast I'm currently hosting is it's called the Fit mess. And it's basically a men's mental health, mental health podcast. My co host and I are both really into just self improvement, trying to make our lives a little bit better, you know, step by step. So we just talk about our own struggles. Again, that vulnerability, being authentic, being open about not being the expert and not shouting from the mountaintops about how to improve your life. But just pointing from around the corner that hey, we found a shortcut. Let's go this way. And so we do that at the fitness.com It's a new episode every week. And yeah, we'd love to have you there. Perfect.
Nathan Whittacre 29:25
And we'll put some links at the bottom of the podcast to how to find Jeremy so I really appreciate you being on today. And it's very interesting conversations you know, as of course is stimulus has been developing this podcast this year. And it's interesting to learn a little bit more about how to do it and how to be better so hopefully our audience learned I'm sure that we have some people that are thinking about doing that as part of it and so other than the podcasts what's the best way to reach out to you is you have a website that
Jeremy Grater 29:53
I do you can go to greater good so as my last name gra t er greater good podcast.com Or I would imagine there's a lot of people listening to this on LinkedIn, you can always look me up on LinkedIn and reach out there. I'm happy to help.
Nathan Whittacre 30:05
Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Jeremy, for being on. And thank you, everybody for joining us today. And this is stimulus Tech Talk and we'll catch you next time. Thanks, everybody.
