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The Think Media Podcast
500: How to Start a Video Podcast That Actually Makes Money (5-Step Plan)
00:51:47
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- [00:00]
A
Really quick. If YouTube growth matters to you, you can't afford to keep guessing. The YouTube Growth Sprint is a free three day online event designed to give you clarity, focus and real momentum fast. You can register for free@ytsprint.com and we're also doing a bunch of cool giveaways including gear for your YouTube channel, software that'll help you get more views and subscribers and going to be a lot of fun and you're going to learn a lot. So just go to ytsprint.com to register for free. All right, let's jump into today's episode. I'm going to break down a study of someone who doesn't even edit and has built a successful podcast. Starting your video podcast is easier than you think. And you can start it this week with these five steps. Number one is brand and strategy. What are you even doing? What's the point of the podcast? Number two is recording. How are you going to capture the episodes? Number three is editing and production and this is actually optional. Number four is hosting a distribution. How do you actually get the podcast out there? And then number five is also optional and advanced, but it's repurposing zoom webcam on decent USB microphone press record. We'll be telling a story. An example of literally that being the workflow of an individual who's now making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from their podcast.
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B
Welcome to the Think Media podcast, the number one show bringing you unfiltered YouTube tips for building a profitable channel. I'm Nathan Eswine, one of the coaches here at Think Media, and today Sean and I are handing you complete video podcast launch framework. We're gonna walk you through exactly how to start your video podcast this week with simple setups that'll work for literally any budget. We've got some great case studies we're gonna go through today to prove it's possible, including someone who even built a full time business recording in a spare bedroom using just her iPhone. Sean, I'm pumped. Let's jump into this launch framework.
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A
Yeah, I mean, I'm excited because starting your video podcast is easier than you think and you can start it this week with these five. So what we're gonna do is let me quickly give you the five steps, then we'll break each one down. Then you're gonna break down a case study. I'll break down a case study and then stick around until the end because we have some details about about, like what could this cost? I mean, you can start a video podcast with free stuff that you you know, your phone, your webcam. But like, if you wanted to just invest even the low, like a very low amount of money, we'll hit that at the end. So here's the video podcast launch framework. Five steps. Every step's important and most people actually miss a few of these. Number one is brand and strategy. Like, what are you even doing? What's the point of the podcast? Number two is recording. How are you going to capture the episodes? Number three is editing and production. And this is actually optional if you don't want to edit the podcast. We have a case study of someone who has been very successful with a very simple workflow. However, if you want to clean it up, what are some of the steps you could do there? Number four is hosting a distribution. How do you actually get the podcast out there, not just on YouTube but across Apple, Spotify? What are the different ways? And then number five is also optional and advanced, but it's repurposing. What else can you do once you've finished a video podcast episode? So that's the five step video podcast framework. And let's quickly go through this so you could start your video podcast in the next week. Number one, brand and strategy. Here's the big idea. You're going to decide what your show is about, who it's for and how it's going to make money, and then also how it connects to your goals before you ever hit record. And Nathan, this is the work that a lot of people haven't done. They aren't going in really getting clear, man. What's your podcast about?
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Who.
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Who exactly is it for? How is it going to make money? What are my goals with this podcast and doing that in terms of a very strategic process, there's actually a few questions people could ask. What. What could people do to kind of get clear on this?
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B
A hundred percent. Yeah. I would say also this is a place where people definitely underthink. But this is a prime spot where I see overthinking and tinkering in twiddling and just continuing to. Oh, it's not quite what's the name? You know, like, I just. Should I have the. In my channel title? You know, it's like literally, you know, and I get it. It's that granular. I was that. I was that way too. But some good questions you can think through is what's your show name? And your topic? Again, it's not worth overthinking, but it's something that's worth considering. What? Yeah, what am I doing? What's the topic. Okay, who's your target audience? Mission critical question. This is a whole podcast episode in itself, but who are you trying to reach? You have to know that, especially in a platform like YouTube, what's your unique angle and positioning? Okay, have you done your research? Have you even thought about who else is doing this? What do I like about them? What do I not? How am I different? What makes me unique? And then what format even works best? This is a big deal, too. Am I going solo? Is it mostly interviews? Am I co host? Is there someone else who's kind of leading with me? And then thinking through how does this even serve your business or mission? Oh, boy. We could spend a lot of time here because I do this video podcast. What changes in my fill in the blank bank account impact numbers, what are you solving for? Is a pretty big deal. And then also thinking through how you monetize to fill in those gaps. So, okay, for this podcast, I envision. What do you see? Sponsorships, affiliates. It's all me, man. It's all internal. All internal. CTA is on this one. I'm going to make people aware of my products and services. So these are some good questions to think through. Minimum requirements. Sean, I would say to get at least 70% clear on all of these at step one.
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A
Yeah. And step number two is recording your podcast. So if we're going to launch a podcast, next question. How are we capturing this thing? And here's the goal. You're going to capture your episode on video and audio. And it can be as simple as hitting record on your phone or your laptop. And so if you keep this super basic. Sean Nathan, how am I going to start my podcast this week? Your phone and a decent mic. I mean, even if you didn't have a mic, but highly recommended. I mean, and there's some mics on Amazon for 20 bucks that can connect to your phone already is going to be an improvement. You get what you pay for. You step up to like 55 and you have a decent, dynamic kind of USB or even USB C or lightning port plugs into your phone type of a mic. Let's let actually. Let's actually really challenge people. No, no, you can't just use your phone. I actually. Unless you're talking straight into your phone as a microphone in your closet because it's a sound booth and you've got clothes all around you and it really. Because that can sound decent. Yeah. This is a podcast. You are not allowed to have crappy audio. Like, I was gonna kind of let people off the hook, Nathan. I'm not letting them off the hook. It's a podcast, and. And good audio is about $50 away. Great audio is like 100 bucks away. And so here's the point, though. Webcam or phone and a decent mic. Now, you could just capture. And we'll tell some case studies. An example. You could just capture solo rounds like some of our students have done. And they are not using, like, virtual software, bringing on interview guests. But a lot of podcasts are interview shows. But even if they're solo, you could use something like Riverside. Now, this video isn't sponsored, but we are an affiliate for them, and we. They do sponsor a lot of our videos. We're in love with them, though. And I actually, my personal workflow is I sit at this desk when you're not here, and I'll record YouTube videos. Like, you know, what's the difference? Obviously, a video podcast. A video podcast is a YouTube video.
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True.
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But I mean, like, I will. I will record scripted videos in 4K to Riverside because it just speeds up my whole workflow. You know, it's. There's no SD card. There's. So bottom line is, how are you going to record. So are you going to use some kind of software for remote guests, Even solo rounds? If you're going to do in person, then it gets a little more complex. Camera, multiple cameras, a couple mics, a simple backdrop. But here's the thing. Even zoom can work to get started. And everybody knows how to use Zoom. Zoom webcam on decent usb, microphone, press record. We'll be telling a story. An example of literally that being the workflow of an individual who's now making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from their podcast. So simple is fine. Consistency beats perfection. But even though we prepared and wrote all these notes, my passion to asterisks is simple is fine, but you are not allowed to have crappy audio. It's a podcast. And then one cool resource as we get ready for the next one is we do actually have a whole other channel where break all this down. But instead of you having to, like, search around and figure out where everything is, we put everything in one place for you for free@video podcast guide.com. so it's actually free training videos and a checklist that'll walk you through things like the gear you need for every budget, how to set it up, how to structure the episodes, how to grow your video podcast. Obviously, this episode covers a lot of this, but, like, free is a great price, and you can get it atvideo podcast guy.com and we'll put that in the description down below. That will specifically help you figure out that recording piece. And step number three, editing in production. Now, this is optional, but this is your goal here is to clean up your recording and turn it into a polish episode or skip this and upload it raw. So some individuals will hit record, do their thing. We'll tell Michael Zuber story an example. He's one such an individual. And then he just uploads that file. He's actually not polishing the audio, not running it through any kind of processor, not cutting it out, ums. And he's built a very successful channel. But saying that, you know, shout out to Riverside again is when you record into a software like that, then you can do like at the push of a button, it'll take out filler words, it'll take out ums, it'll recommend things based off the transcript. It'll really clean it up. And there are other great softwares, we happen to be biased. Riverside, of course, we'll have a link to that in the description. But Descript is very popular. You can edit by transcript. It's beginner friendly. It has a thing to remove ums. Cap cut. If you're more advanced, you might be using Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. And again, you could do none of the above. And there's actually a free audio cleanup tool. It's called the Adobe Podcast Enhance tool. And that might be my exception, Nathan, is if you want to like really make your workflow a little bit more janky. I'm not saying you want to make it janky, but if you were to put your phone on a tripod at your desk, no mic, deliver 10, 15, 25 minutes of content solo, round, upload it as a podcast, distribute it everywhere. Before you upload it, put that audio file into the Adobe Podcast Enhance. We'll link that in the Description. It's free podcast.adobe.com n forward,/enhance, whatever, click the link in the description. So free tool. It's actually crazy. It'll make like low quality audio sound pretty impressive with AI, My advice for you is this. Number one, it's not about your resources, it's about your resourcefulness. Because if you put in the hustle, you could take whatever you have, like just your smartphone or lower quality audio and improve it. But my second level advice is like, it's always smarter in my opinion, to just spend a few dollars and set up a smart system. Don't even need to enhance your audio because you just got a Decent USB microphone. Figure out your system so that you're capturing to something like Riverside, so that it already is going to help you improve the audio. Cut out the ums, get your final episode ready, and it does it at the push of a button. Editing and production can be simple. And your two paths are. You could just skip it like some of our students do, or. The point here is to polish the episode before we hit number four. Nathan, any feedback, you know, so far? And I know we're going to get into your case study in a second.
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Yeah, of course. Which I'm stoked about, because I think this is going to demystify a lot of the workflow part, because I know this is what trips people up. Okay. Like, after I record the thing. Well, first off, how do I do it? Where does it go? But I think when it comes to editing and production, I just totally agree. Simple is better. And I'm actually going to double down on your challenge. I do think, hey, care about audio? Let's do it. I like it. Let's do it. And what's cool is I love that you mentioned that tool. I completely forgot about that tool. And there's more of them, by the way, too. Inside Riverside. There's an audio enhancer and everything as well, where it's like, you don't even have to go crazy with the microphone, but, like, spend enough to get a good enough microphone that a piece of software could take to the next level. That's a hack right there. So I love it. Let's hit number four. It's about hosting and distribution.
- [12:31]
A
Okay. So I want to encourage listeners. We're talking about this video podcast launch framework, and I want to encourage you to stick around because we're going to share two stories in just a second, and then, like, go through how different individuals applied this framework. And so this will really give you the playbook so you can launch your video podcast, but do it in your own way, according to your own style, your own schedule, because these are like four big steps, but they can be applied differently to you. Busy life, solo rounds, interviews. So after editing and production, which is optional, number four is hosting a distribution. That's not optional, obviously. You have to get the episode out there. So now what are you going to do? You got to upload your episode once and then let it automatically go everywhere. Listeners and viewers watch and listen to podcasts. So it's like, okay, Sean Nathan, I've recorded my video. I've also then stripped out the audio file. And so there's free software That'll help you do that. But like, the big key is that YouTube wants a video file and then the RSS feed wants an audio file. And the key on this workflow is, number one, you're going to upload it to YouTube manually. And that's your primary video home. You can check a box in YouTube and add it. You basically add it to a playlist and you designate that playlist as a podcast and that does the distribution of your video podcast on YouTube music for you. Okay, so now YouTube's handled. You have a YouTube video that's a video podcast. You've got YouTube music getting your podcast because you've set it up on the back end of YouTube. And again, you might be like, Sean, how exactly do I do that? Go to videopodcastguide.com Again, we'll get a little more technical for you there, but take advantage of our free resource@videopodcastguide.com and we'll start delivering everything to you in email. Just follow the steps. You're gonna love the resources we give you. Okay, so that's YouTube. And then you're gonna need to host it on audio, which is called an RSS feed. When you upload that, it'll push it to Apple, Spotify, Amazon automatically. Now, as far as a tool we use to do this, we've committed to them for years now and have never wanted to leave Buzzsprout. It's paid, but if you're only doing a couple hours a month, which most podcasters are, let's say four, like one one hour episode a week or eight 30 minute episodes, you know, I think it's like around 20 bucks and it's, it does a whole lot more than just distribute it for you. It just makes it super easy to upload your graphics, title it, description, get it to every place properly. But you could also do things like dynamic ads. And it's very beginner friendly. And to me that's just one of the big things, like set things up in a smart way to reduce your stress. I would rather pay 20 bucks a month for less stress and like, then try to duct tape together weak tools. However, on hosting a distribution, you can use Spotify for creators that's completely free, but. And it's only going to handle Spotify for you, but you can create an account, log in, it'll give you analytics, upload what you want. There's all kinds of features there. And I mean, I would say even at the level we're at, like, we don't even log in. That's that's like. To give you an idea of what we do, it's like we let buzzsprout handle that distribution. But you could go do it like manually. You could do it to Spotify. Transistor is another one great for growing shows. Libsyn is trusted professional grade for doing this. RSS.com, podbean, Captivate are alternatives. So you could look at all of those. But like, again, one, you know, full transparency. We're an affiliate, so if you click our link, we earn a commission. But from the very core of my being, I can recommend Buzzsprout and Riverside. We live this video podcasting thing. We've done over 500 episodes. We're obsessed with simple systems, smart workflows. And so if those are like the two tools, we'll link those in the description. Riverside for step number three, editing and production and recording, by the way, for step number two and three, recording, editing and production is like all Riverside. And then hosting a distribution is buzzsprout. There's like our simple software stack for distributing a podcast. And then lastly, Nathan, we don't even have to talk about this because I want you to get into Kayla's case study. But then there's also repurposing. So step number five is like, okay, you can stop at step number four. Your podcast is public to the world. You've uploaded it to YouTube. It's been distributed on audio. Now get ready to make your next episode. But smart video podcasters could consider repurposing. What are you doing here? Well, now you're taking the episode you've uploaded and you multiply it into clips, shorts, posts, and more. And that's where real reach can happen. So people are very familiar that you can cut a clip out of a podcast. It could be a YouTube short. There's also shorts, but clips are a little bit different. Like, every once in a while, we'll cut a clip out of like an hour long Think media podcast. It could be three minutes, it could be eight minutes. It's like a really good section. We optimize it well. We have clips that are four years old that are still getting four views per hour. So slowing down a little bit and realizing each video podcast is an asset that you can chop up and distribute. And they could be YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok. And there's tools like Opus Clip that will do this for you. That's an AI tool. You know, my big thing is we've tried Opus. We love it as well. But Riverside does the Same thing. It has the magic. Like it. You can record it there, your content is all there. And then based off AI, based off your energy, based off the transcript, it will pull you and optimize those vertical clips for you with captions at the push of a button. So, you know, descript is another tool. At one point, I think it's important to like, think less tools, not more. Pick something that has got all the features and then again, show notes and blog posts. We don't write blog posts, but we pull transcripts out to optimize our YouTube descriptions. It helps us write emails. And you could do that by taking the transcript from a video podcast you upload and running it through ChatGPT or Cloud or your favorite AI. I spin it in different ways. You could make quote cards. That's kind of an outdated thing in terms of its effectiveness, but yeah, you could pull quotes that turn into graphics that go on Instagram email newsletters. So one episode can easily become 10 plus pieces of content. If we're talking about the video podcast launch framework, repurpose is a key strategy because at some point the cool thing is just your episode on YouTube can grow because YouTube's like the number one discovery engine. But those that really want to grow a podcast and how aggressive you want to be at it, this can be the key to getting discovery and building awareness. But I want to transition because in a second I'm going to break down a study of someone who doesn't even edit and has built a successful podcast. I want to talk a little bit about the entire budget of what it could cost to do this at a beginner or advanced level. But I want to start now with we've gone through these five steps. Break down a case study. This is one of our video breaking academy students. I think she's upgraded and now has been in our coaching program as well. Been ripping with us for a couple years. Started totally from scratch and it has a video podcast. Walk us through this full story. Nathan of like how this launch framework can work in real life.
- [19:57]
B
100%. I'm so stoked about this. So hang tight. We're going to get pretty granular here about what a week looks like for someone named Kayla who owns the YouTube channel and his word. My walk. All right, so channel stats, really quick snapshot. Okay. Where's she at? We're about 75,000 subscribers. Actually, she just hit that. Yesterday was kind of fun. And she's two years in on her YouTube journey, so already pretty cool. The momentum that's typical on her channel right now is she's getting over a quarter million views every single month. She's getting about a million impressions every single month, by the way too. And she actually got monetized in 60 days just using her iPhone. So this is how everything started for her. And that was just her iPhone. That's no joke. So how does she map to the framework? Here's how Kayla does a video podcast for each of these five steps. When it came to Brandon strategy, what's she doing? Okay, she had a very clear niche, and I'm pretty familiar with Kayla. Full disclosure, she did jump into our one on one coaching. I got to coach her for all of last year. And she is inside of the faith niche. So her strategy is actually genius. She did a daily Bible study and she's going chapter by chapter. This means because of what she's doing, the format was locked in early. She is doing five videos a week now. Hang tight. I'm not even suggesting success requires you to do five uploads a week. I'm just walking you through what she chose to do. And think about it. I mean, five days is a lot. That's like no joke. And she's held this, this consistency ever since she started, by the way. But she's just going chapter by chapter through a book of the Bible and her plan is to do everything. So five videos come out a week. She's walking through a chapter in the Bible per video, and it's a bit of a Bible study. So she's talking, she's pray, she's reading out loud. There's a little bit of prayer that's going on. And for her, in the beginning, when it came to her brand and strategy for step number one, she was very clear and she said monetization was never the starting point for her. She. She said this actually in an interview with Sean that, like, if the foot fungus guy would pay her to preach the gospel, she's all in. That just means, like, when she could turn on ads, she was monetized in 60 days, right? So, like, when she was turning on ads and she was seeing the kinds of ads that were on her video, she's like, yeah, cool, sweet. Put whatever you want on there, because I'm on a mission. So she's very mission driven. So step one for her came pretty naturally. But what's it look like for her to record, right. Five videos a week? She got a fancy setup. Not even. It's an iPhone, which, by the way, is a few generations old. It's plugged into her laptop. And she actually uses the software that's called Obs Studio, which is a free software, by the way. It is nowhere near as intuitive as a lot of other softwares that are out there right now, like a riverside, where it's really, like one click and things just happen for you. Obs is a bit more of a manual setup, but once it's set up, it's dialed in. So she plugs her phone into her laptop and she uses the back camera. So the camera that's going to have a higher quality. She's the back camera for filming. And she tries to look directly at the lens so she isn't distracted by seeing herself. So, by the way, if you're like, fear of showing up on camera, maybe you do audio podcasts and you're like, okay, the video part, yeah, Kayla understands it, too. She didn't even want to see herself. So she gets her framing set, hits record, and then she goes for it. And the gear, actually, there's no lighting setup. There's no fancy gear. It's just her. It's a microphone, to be. To be clear. Like, she took Sean's advice, right? You got a microphone, she sounds good, but it's her bible and her phone, y'. All. And if you. You can go to her channel, His Word, My Walk, click on her most recent video. It's the exact same structure as when she started. She's sitting there, she's on mission, and she's helping people. That's her recording process. Now, when it comes to production, she's evolved, but I think it's important to understand where she started. So step number three, editing and production. She edited herself for over the first year. For the first 15 months, she's doing everything. And she actually used a piece of software called Cap Cut, which we had mentioned earlier. So that helped her in the beginning because it enabled her to do one click. And she was able to export her video and her audio at the same time, which, as you can imagine, is really helpful for a video podcast workflow. So now she is batching her recordings and she'll send five videos, the weekly videos, to her editor every single week. So she's evolved. But in the very beginning, for well over a year, she's doing everything herself. She was able to bring on someone to help her with the video part. Now, so the workflow trick here, when using Capcut, like I said, she clicks export. It generates both things at the same time. That's a really big time saver for her. She has two separate files, zero Extra steps to strip the audio. But with her and her process, her authenticity, I just want to mention really quick is like a subtle power up. Okay? It's a subtle power up because when she's this, this actually goes back a step. Recording is easier, editing's easier. Production's easier when you know what the heck you're talking about and when you're on a mission. And I'm not trying to get all Hallmark card here, this is a very tactical episode. But, y', all, that's a powerful level up because you'll see it when you clicking on a video. Kayla's on mission man. Like, she is dialed in. And a creator that's dialed in is dangerous when it comes to recording because guess what? There's barely any flubs. There's not really a lot of mess ups. That means when it comes time to edit, there's really nothing to really clean up. There just it is what it is. So for her, her approach is pretty raw and it works. And she's also said too, that if. If she sneezes in the video, she'll keep it in and people will comment. Bless you in the comments. So, like, she's like, totally fine. She lets her hair down. She keeps it real. That's how she works through editing and production in the beginning and then how she does it now. Okay, step number four, I clarified with Kayla before filming this, so I could walk you through exactly what she does when it comes to hosting and distributing things for her. The key part of her workflow is that she starts everything in YouTube. And I asked her about this. It's like, wait, what do you mean? Like. But you have like buzzsprout. Yeah, she has buzzsprout, by the way. But she's like, no, I start everything in YouTube because YouTube holds the bulk of the views. And her growth right now because she's doing a video podcast, right? The audio podcast is still a massive asset for her because of her commuting audience. So people listen to the Bible studies on the way to work on the way home. But she uploads the audio to buzzsprout, and to save time, she just copy and pastes what she does from YouTube into Buzzsprout. So that means she starts in YouTube, she upload, uploads the video file into the YouTube platform, does the whole designated as podcast thing that Sean was mentioning, which means the episode will show up as a podcast on your podcast tab, and it will show up as a standalone video in your video section. But as she's uploading that the title, she filled out, the description, she already did the tags. She really cares about this because SEO is a really big level up for her. Obviously she's doing books of the Bible that have names, characters in the Bible, specific sections of scripture. She's very meticulous and methodical about that. And so she starts everything in YouTube and and then gets the audio over to Buzzsprout. In Buzzsprout, she's going to paste the link that she uses for the video on YouTube. That's what she designates as the episode website. So again, we're getting pretty tactical here. And I'm not trying to overwhelm you, but just walking you through this is what she does every single week. This isn't. This is just technology. This is just steps to figure out. This isn't actually moving mountains. Like this is just, oh, okay, everything's figureoutable. What is the software? What do I need to click? And you just jot it down. You do it every week, right? When it comes to audience inclusion for her in this hosting and distribution section, so she knows people are listening on the go, which is why audio is a really big deal for her. People listening in the car. So she intentionally will say this in her videos. This is a big power up. I'm praying over. The one listening or watching and praying over is just contextual to her. But the listening or watching because she knows she's getting that one bout of effort. I'm sitting down to film. This is my video and it's my podcast all in one. Video goes here, audio goes there. Multiple audiences, where are they at? She's just aware of where people are. So she calls people out so they feel seen, heard and known. And when it comes to repurposing and monetization, lead gen for her is ridiculous. And especially at this point. Two years on YouTube, five uploads a week like this is no wonder. She has quarter million views on autopilot every single month. And you know what's in most of these videos is a call to action towards some sort of resource, something she's put together. It could be a prayers guide, it could be a Bible journaling starter kit. Her email list is growing daily from both the video that's on YouTube and on the audio side because she's also strategic about who she's talking to. So that means if there's a URL, you've already heard Sean mention things here and if you're familiar with the way we do things at Think Media, like you're going to Hear us. There's all kinds of URLs. We love URLs, right? Because we know people are listening to. So she knows people are listening in the car. And if she put something together for people, she's going to actually articulate where to go, right? And she'll have a QR scope, a QR code on her actual video, but she's still saying the link and she's found conversion from people who are even listening. So, wow, okay. You're like, dude, Kayla's dialed in. Okay. Kayla is amazing, all right? She's a former elite athlete and this proves it. You know what I'm saying? She also had coaching, she also had help along the whole way about how to figure out how to do this stuff. And so for her, when it comes to monetization, she's got seven streams at this point. I'm going to kick it back to Sean here in a second so we can hear how someone else is doing this, right? What's their workflow look like? AdSense is a part of her video podcast. Revenue streams, sponsorships. She's had, like, better help reach out to her Amazon affiliates, different journaling supplies. Oh, my, it's just so much fun. She gets into it. Her email list is growing every day courses. She's a monthly membership. She actually also just published a book. It's over there sitting on my shelf. Shelf. She gave it to me. It's like crazy. She's just moving. And it's all because of this video format that's allowing her to reach people on YouTube and through audio. So here's the encouraging thing about Kayla, the big takeaway. She used her phone, a spare bedroom, and a microphone in this piece of software for her, which was obs. Okay. She published consistently and she let the community pull her forward. She got help. She didn't do this alone. She did have coaching.
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She.
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B
But for her, the tech was never the point. The mission was. And it still is, by the way. Like, it's just using the same phone. I love it. And for her, if you're interested, like, hey, what was Kayla in? Yeah, we have coaching. We offer one on one coaching and group coaching. And hey, if you think it'd be a good fit, you can go toviral video coach.com. and it's just a free strategy call where you can hop on with someone on our team to get eyes on your channel, help you strategize next steps. You know what, you could even do this if you, if you qualify, you can. You get on the call and you'd be like, I just listened to this episode about video podcasting stuff, and I just decided I don't want to do it alone. There's this girl, Kayla, like, and they're going to know what you're talking about and we can help you. All right, that's at Viral Video coach. Com. But, man, Sean, wow, we got in the weeds there. And I hope that was helpful, though, because this is what she's doing every single week. I'm going to kick it to you so we can hear about how someone else is doing this.
- [30:50]
A
Yeah. It's so inspiring to hear Kayla's story and. And it's been amazing how inspirational she is in our community. And obviously, you know, working with our coaches is a massive accelerator. But the point here is to also now share not just that story, but another story and loop through these five steps, because you're listening to this and you're thinking about, how do I launch my podcast now? Of course you could launch it. We really believe in the next week because smartphone, you know, simple mic, press, record. However, you know, the first big step of the five steps is brand and strategy. And I think it is, you know, this is going to be a podcast series here on the Think Media podcast. So definitely subscribe because we're here to help and for some of our students, in fact, a lot. And I know even in my own journey, sometimes there is like, man, start as fast as possible. And that's cool. But sometimes it's nice to sit down and really clarify your brand and strategy. And so wherever you are in that journey, stick with us here on the Think Media podcast. And I want to go through another example just to really inspire you to think about man, what could you create and how simple could it be? So another case study from one of our students and community members is Michael Zuber. He has a channel called One Rental at a Time. So he's a real estate investor turned YouTube creator. He started at age 45 back in 2018, real rough on his phone. He used the plugin White Apple headphones as his microphone as he was, like, walking to his job at the time before he, you know, started really scaling his channel. Now today, his channel's got 70,000 subscribers, 22 million views. Did not happen overnight. But you're gonna be shocked by, like, how simple his workflow is that's produced those results. So he's a solo operator. He has one part time virtual assistant now. He hasn't always had that. And that person basically handles his YouTube thumbnails and does the uploading of the podcast and audio episodes for him. He has 17 income streams, all powered from his YouTube channel and his audio podcast. And he works roughly three hours a day, five days a week, and he takes three cruises per year. So quite the lifestyle. So how's this framework work for him? Number one, brand and strategy. So he figured out a clear niche. I see a theme here. That's why sitting down and strategizing can be so helpful. His clear niche is wealth building through real estate and daily financial news. His monetization was reverse engineered from day one. He actually wrote a book in year one, and that became something he could offer his audience. And it became a very strong income stream, even when his audience was very small and just starting. And so he really also doesn't think of YouTube as like a make money first opportunity. And you'll notice that it's a constant theme you'll see on the Internet and in our community. Our community is like, impact first, mission first. Like understanding that your income is directly correlated to the amount of value you add to the marketplace. It's not a bad goal. It's an important goal. I actually think it's an essential goal. Cause if you run out of money, then you run out, period. Like, you can't. You can't sustain the mission. It just shouldn't be your number one priority. And that's really what he felt. He's like, I want to get this message out. I want to impact people. YouTube is a trust engine. It might not even be an income source. But as the years evolved, he realized, you know, to today it's 17 income streams. So he had a clear niche recording. He started with Zoom, just Zoom. Only Zoom. That might sound shocking, but literally zoom. And he would press record on Zoom and then turn it off and upload that file. You want to talk about simple workflows, press record on Zoom. Hey, welcome to today's Daily Financial News. Michael Zuber here. Let's get into it. Turn it off at the end. Didn't trim anything. Like, just uploaded to that file and. And then, you know, use simple software to turn that into an audio. It started uploading the video Daily Financial News onto audio platforms now today he has graduated to a software called streamyard. We're big fans. We actually still love streamyard as one of our favorite tools for live streaming. It's the way we do our events. Like, just because of the UI ux, the interface. He still has no crew, no studio, if you want to record and publish a podcast. We personally are bigger fans of Riverside. So many tools are great, but anyways, just what we are personally doing over the years. So for him, he's recording. He started with Zoom, now it's Streamyard. It's still no crew, it's still no studio, it's still no editing. And the daily financial news, which is his core video podcast, is 10 to 18 minutes, five days a week straight to upload. And as Nathan said, listen, you don't have to do five days. It happens to be that he does five days and so does Kayla. But by the way, they selected formats that sustain it. He has. There's always financial news. He wakes up, he studies it, drinks coffee, and then delivers the news. There's lots of chapters in the Bible, so she has a structure to say, okay, we're going through a book of the Bible. Her content calendar is actually perfectly planned. Kayla's is. So that's how he records. Still super simple. Editing production. He skips this entirely. Step number three, editing production. He just doesn't do it. Zero editing. He hasn't edited in eight years. Raw recordings go straight to YouTube. And this is how he's actually uploaded a high volume of videos. Now there is another format he does. He does the daily financial news. But what he also does is he interviews like real estate experts or financial experts. But his way of doing it, and I've been a guest on his show is still like when I went on his show, he booked me for an hour. We got on Zoom. He said, hey, there's three things I want to talk about for about 20 minutes each. I said, okay. He said, are you ready for the first one? I said, sure. He said, all right. He pressed record. We talked for about 20 minutes. He turned it off. Then he goes, hey, are you ready for the next one? Yes. Here's the big idea, here's the topic. He pressed record, kind of interview me, conversation, turned it off. And then he just uploads those, those files. So again, his editing and production is nothing. And if you look at the math, he's built a multiple six figure income stream from this video podcast. Now he's, you know, 70,000 subscribers. Of course it depends on like the niche, the format, but yo, it's working. So if you're listening to this, making excuses, the whole title is like of this episode is, you know, the fact that we can start simply like, how could the easy way to start a video podcast. Or you could start a video podcast this week. Yeah, that's how Michael did it. It's like, you know, strip all the steps out now, step four, hosting a distribution. YouTube is the primary home for video, of course. Now, at this point, a virtual assistant strips the audio and uploads to Spotify. Spotify once paid him 600 bucks out of nowhere, and he didn't even know where the money was coming from. It's like an afterthought, but that's. It's kind of cool. And then again, one piece of content, multiple platforms, no extra work for him. Which is an interesting idea that, like, if you want to keep things ultra simple, I still think it's worth investing in something like Buzzsprout and distributing everywhere, because why not? But if you just did YouTube for like the first six months or the first year, and then you get momentum going, less is more, and you can always scale up over time. A huge key. Again, an affordable virtual assistant does all these, like, little details for him later, but he didn't do that at the start. And then lastly, is repurposing is minimal. He does have a newsletter that someone else helps him write because of the transcripts and the things that come out of his content. He has a partnership there. Actually. It turned into this interesting thing with this brand called Resi Club. They write it, they actually sell ads, and then he gets 50%. But they said, we'll do the heavy lifting if you'll give us basically your intellectual part property in this partnership. We'll write it, distribute it, et cetera, based on your voice. We'll sell ads into it, and then we'll just cut you checks. He was like, all right, sounds cool. So that literally in 2024, made him $15,000. It's projected to make 30,000 or made 30,000 in 2025. And it basically is passive as an extension. And. And so, you know, let's look at some of the numbers he shared with us from doing this very simple podcast that definitely takes some sweat equity. In 2019, just AdSense paid 1500 bucks. 2020-140002-02138,000. 2022, $78,000. And that is YouTube paying him for running ads on the videos. Now he has 17 income streams, and AdSense is actually near the bottom of the list as far as that income. Now you have the benefit of being a think media podcast listener. If you're new here, I encourage you to subscribe, but we'll make sure to link in the show notes my interview with Michael Zuber, where he in detail breaks down all 17 of those episodes. So we're stacking value for you, but that will help you get educated. There but when you add up all his income streams, he's clearing 400, 500, and even years of like 700k when you add it all together. And by the way, I mean, he's a real estate investor as well. And that was sort of the original thing he was doing while he was house hacking. And his whole brand is one rental at a time. And how everyday consumers could very slowly set aside some money from their W2 job, start a real estate thing. Now, that's what he's teaching people and helping people while he still does it. So it's pretty wild. And he's developed a whole system for it as we zoom out. Nathan, I'm curious before we hit the final section, which is a proposed basic podcast budget, like, Sean, I know I could just do this with my phone and like, free tools like obs and like, really duct tape this together. But if I wanted to speed up a little bit, I do want to hit a budget. I'm curious if you see any common themes, though, between these two case studies as we continue to, like, cycle through these five steps to really help listeners understand the video podcast launch framework 100%.
- [41:00]
B
I think the word of the episode for me, Sean, is leverage. I just like, through Kayla's story, through Michael's story, it's like, these are just two people, and by the way, just a couple people of, like, so many other examples of people who are doing this each and every single week, but nonetheless, leverage. And also the attitude of, like, everything's figureoutable, right? And so thinking through, okay, what do I need? What's the software I need? How can I make this better? What is the workflow? And so the common thing that I'm thinking through is these are two people who are approaching their week. I mean, it's five uploads, which is kind of funny, but approaching their week in a way that, like, everything is set up, there's a schedule. Like, they're. They know what they're doing in advance. They're not showing up and just winging it. And there's no way you could just wing it for over a year or whatever for both these people who have done this. And so I think the big thing I'm thinking through, and I would challenge you, if you're listening, okay, you want to get into a podcast and you could actually do this next week. But I would also challenge you to think through that very first step is also important brand and strategy. Like, what are you inspired by? You're like, oh, I didn't know I could Just record in zoom. Honestly, dude, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I could just record in zoom. Freaking start. Like we have some budgets, we got some proposals for you. Yes, you go further, faster with some tools. If you're able to swing it, you should get the tools, let's be clear. But like you can just start with what you have. Kayla's using a several year old iPhone. Right. So I think the encouragement that I have, Sean, is leverage as possible. And with all the tools that are available and just to keep it real, the barrier to entry for tech, to just get something that's like good out the door every single week is so easy. So I love it. Let's hit that budget for people.
- [42:36]
A
Absolutely. So, okay, Sean, Nathan, how much is this going to cost if you had a proposed basic podcast budget? So here's what we recommend at Thick Media. These are the tools we love and use for a living. We test all kinds of tools we love. I mean, I mean I would, I'd put this out there like, you know, it's like every tool is good, you know, like these days, if it lasts, if it's lasted a couple years, if it's been getting updates, there's a lot of good tools. We've picked out our favorites. And so to run the full podcast operation from a software standpoint, we recommend Riverside and Buzzsprout. So Riverside, that's where you're going to capture your video. And it will also do editing for you. It gives you the software based, cloud based editing. It has a button to just pull out your ums, edit on the transcript. And it does like that full, it covers the recording aspect and then the editing and production aspect as well as even helping you with time codes, chapters. So even some distribution aspect. When it comes to optimizing your YouTube videos, that's going to run you about 20 to 30 bucks a month. And then Buzzsprout is the distribution tool that Kayla mentioned she was using. That's going to be about 19 to 39 dollars a month. The point of the range is like what level are you using it at? And so most listening would probably be at the lower end of even cost because you're, you're maybe not going to be doing, you know, hundreds of hours of podcasts, but like a once a week episode or something. So if you add that up, that is 500 to $1,000 per year in software. And that gives you like a professional, simplified, easy to use software system to do a world class podcast. Pretty cool. Now what about the cameras and stuff? Well, you could build a professional podcast studio for a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, depending on the gear. So if you were to get a pro webcam, and there's been some incredible webcams coming out lately for about 100 to 150 bucks. So that covers your camera. This is assuming you have a computer, you buy a USB microphone for around $75. And you mentioned Kayla doesn't even have a light. And by the way, her phone looks good. She just uses her phone as a camera. But if you get like a desk light, I have a desk light here in the recording of this video podcast, then for around 250 bucks, assuming you have a computer, you can get a very pro video podcast going with high quality audio and you could do it virtually from anywhere. So now, you know, Nathan's in Nashville, I'm in Seattle and, and we're recording this video podcast. I interview all kinds of different guests. You know that, come on, I'm using Riverside right now and I've got a camera, I've got a light, I've got a microphone, I've got a computer. And now if you start doing in person and you start getting, you know, fancier, that's I think important to note that both Michael and Kayla, this is, these are at home businesses. These are not, they're not, you know, on the road. And the Think Media podcast is interesting because we've developed expertise. We shoot podcast on the show floor of events, we set up, we have a fancier studio in Vegas with like, I mean we, we have really high end stuff as well. But here we are. Nathan, meanwhile, you know, like just because of family, kids, logistics and whatnot, like we're more based up in Seattle right now. You, you like, here we are using our home offices. So we, we're kind of, we've developed expertise in all of the different formats. So yeah, if you want to build like that, a one in purpose, you could spend five grand, 10 grand, $25,000. But if I'd say around three grand to get super crispy in person podcast quality. And so that kind of gives you a range. Now that was some overwhelming numbers. Let's synthesize and let me just recommend again our free resource. We have actually covered all different budgets, all different workflows, different softwares, et cetera. We've simplified it all. We've given you a checklist and a couple emails. You know, make sure you're getting the emails on the other side of video podcast guide.com if you've got a sec. To share your email, go to video podcast guide.com, click the link in the show notes, enter your name and email, and we'll send you just really cool resources and help you figure all this stuff out. And a few videos to walk you through the tech, how to set up the tech, and a checklist for getting your podcast started entirely free. But what's really cool, Nathan, is this is more accessible than ever, more affordable than ever. There's better tools than ever. Again, not just this video is not sponsored by anyone indirectly. Every link in the description is probably an affiliate link. So there are affiliate links. But like we wanted to do an episode because again, descript is cool. You know, you could check that out. Like it has a lot of features. We love Riverside and they do sponsor other videos. You know, I have a link down there because these days they have just made that tool so powerful that it literally does everything you need for podcasting. They just keep making it better. It'll cut clips for you. It has AI built into it. So again, don't overthink it too much, but get the right stack. It's the tool stack, it's the tech stack. And it's what Nathan just said. It's. It's a system, it's a schedule, it's a routine. You get the right habits, the right system, the right schedule, the right tools, and you get those things in place. This thing is sustainable. And then it's a final resources for you. This is a part of our video podcasting series that we're doing here on the Think Media podcast. In episode one, if you missed it, we talked about 12 Reasons why Now's a good time to start a podcast. And that is the very important episode to listen to behind this. Like Sean, why am I putting this energy out there? Why would I be investing this money? Why would I be doing this? There's a lot of benefits and a lot of reasons people don't even realize, like side benefits to starting a video podcast as well as the money making opportunity and things like that. So we'll link to the playlist and episode one in this series. You could check out video podcast guide.com and then lastly, before Nathan lands the plane, if you want help going faster, both Kayla and Michael have been a part of our coaching. They've also been a part of our in person mastermind. In fact, you know, two masterminds ago, both Kayla and Michael Zuber were there. Kayla was just at this last one. She comes to like all of them. Because when she gets in the room with other video podcasters, other YouTube creators. They just realize when you're networking, connecting with Nathan, with myself, getting to ask questions, getting inspired, and also having these unlocks. Like, I, I just remember specifically talking to Michael Zuber. You know, he sits down, he brings a journal, he's taking notes at our event and he's like, well, I just got one idea that earned me an extra five grand. That earned me an extra 25 grand. And he's now been tracking with our community for years. We've actually been a part of both of their journeys. Like, you know, everybody starts to scratch and sometimes growth can be slow at the start. But what's, what's waiting for you on the other side of not just starting, but doing it in a smart way and the scaling financial opportunities and impact opportunities. So if you are interested in talking to our team but actually joining us for a two day event, we actually have an event coming up in Vegas. It's at thinkmediamastermind.com and it's two days we talk about all this stuff. How do you get discovered? How do you. And you know, here at Think Media, we're YouTube experts and video podcasting is not the only thing, but we're pretty obsessed with it because you listen. I mean, it's just so leveraged. And so when we look at stories, so many of our students are choosing this format to master it. You want to get around other people doing it, you want to get inspired, you want some good food, good networking, good coffee from the coffee cart. It's, it's quite an experience to come out to hang out with us for two days. That's something that Michael did, it's something Kayla did and we would love to have you as well. If you want to apply and connect with us and see if you qualify, you could go to thinkmediamastermind.com and that would be a massive accelerator for you. If you're thinking about starting or wanting to grow your video podcast or your YouTube channel in general. Nathan, we've covered it a lot. Let's land the plane, man.
- [50:47]
B
I'll just say this if you're listening. What does your next week look like one week from right now? Have you published your podcast episode? And it's a video, not just audio, because you took action today. What's your next step? If you're serious about it? What are you going to do? Do you need a resource that's in the description? Do you need to head to the Mastermind link? You need to apply for some coaching decide right here, right now, whether you're watching or whether you're listening. And let us know, like, rate, share, review wherever you're watching or listening. This is the Think Media podcast. I'm Nathan Eswine, and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.