AP 0984: Should I Start Out with a Podcast?

AskPat 984 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 984 of AskPat. Thanks so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions, five days a week.

We have a great question coming in today from Gayle, but before we get to that, I just want to mention, hey, you know what? If you are thinking of starting a podcast, we are closing in at the end of the year—I can help you get your show up and running before the end of the year, very simply. Hundreds of students have gone through my course, Power-Up Podcasting and it's going to open up again later in the year, and you'll have time to get it done before the turn of the new year, so you can have it ready to help build your brand. And you can even build your brand from scratch using a podcast first. If you want to sign up for the waitlist, I'd recommend doing it right now. PowerUpPodcasting.com is where you go. Again, that's PowerUpPodcasting.com.

All right, now here is Gayle.

Gayle: Hi, Pat. My name is Gayle. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my message. My question concerns different ways of connecting with an audience and I'd like to know what you think about coming out of nowhere with a podcast, and starting that way to connect to my audience if I do not have a blog set up, if no one's ever heard of me before and I'm kind of just starting out. Or, if you think there's more wisdom in starting with the written word, like a blog and going from there, or if you think it's more powerful to start with YouTube. Writing and speaking come really naturally to me. The YouTube universe is really foreign to me and I'm wondering if there's a way that I can be a successful entrepreneur ultimately, if I'm not a huge video presence online, if you think I could still be effective enough and have impactful enough, if people aren't looking at me all the time. Thank you so much. I appreciate everything you do. You're an enormous inspiration to me. Take care.

Pat Flynn: Okay, Gayle. Thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it and to answer the first question, “Can you build an audience from scratch, from zero, with a podcast?” Yes, absolutely. I have several students of mine who've taken PowerUpPodcasting.com and have actually done just that. Zero audience, zero connections, just their own friends and network through Facebook and whatnot and they've been able to build an amazing audience.

One of the most successful stories that came out of Power-Up Podcasting is Sophie Walker, who has a podcast about Australian Birth Stories. That's the name of it. She was featured on the home page of iTunes in Australia. She was also featured at the top of the rankings for several of her categories and beyond that, she has amassed, as of recently . . . She's just had her podcast for, I think, four months now. She's passed 50,000 downloads, which is just incredible. So yes, it can absolutely be done. It can be a platform that you can use as your primary source for getting exposure, finding new people and having people come into your brand, fall in love with you and then being able to offer them something more potentially down the road. You can do that on any platform. Blogging, you can do it the same way. That's how I did it. Youtube: Many people are starting on YouTube too. Can you be a successful person online without having a YouTube presence? Absolutely. There are those podcasters and bloggers who do not have a YouTube channel. You do not need to be on that channel if it is something that's not going add value, if you just don't feel comfortable on it. Honestly, when you're just starting out, I would just recommend picking one channel, focusing in and crushing that, and then moving on and branching out to the next one after you've done that first one very well.

Some people try to do all the platforms at the same time and get on all the social media channels at the same time and they just spread themselves so thin that nothing is effective. Start with—and if you feel that your voice is perfect for building this relationship and audience, which I feel like blog versus podcast, definitely I would agree with that—start with a podcast, build up your audience from there, and then you can branch out any which way you'd like. Or, just stay on the podcast and have that be your primary platform. I'd still have a website though. A website is still important even if you have a podcast, because you want to bring people back to your website, collect email addresses, that sort of thing.

There you go. Gayle, thank you so much for the question. I appreciate you and I want to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you could ask right there on that page. Thanks so much. I appreciate you and here is a quote to finish of the day by Alice O. Howell: “You can only work on yourself. Start there.” Thanks guys, take care and again, one more time, PowerUpPodcasting.com. Go there and sign up for the waitlist. All right guys, see you soon, bye.