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Travis Makes Money
INTERVIEW | Make Money Podcasting: How Travis Turned His Show Into a Six-Figure Business with Fractional CFO Pam Jordan
00:23:49
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you make more money today on the show. This is a new one, It's a first. We are basically going to do sort of an income breakdown for what the Travis Makes Money podcast did in revenue for all of 2025. I thought it'd be interesting, fun, unique to just share with everybody listens to the show. Like show you exactly. Pull back the curtain behind the scenes. What does a podcast business actually look like? And what type of money can you make doing something like this? And obviously not results are atypical. What we're about to talk about, this is not something that everybody does in the podcasting space, but it hopefully gives you sort of an idea, an understanding of exactly what your expenses would be, how to make money doing this, and what the potential advantages of having this as at least a portion of your business could be for you and for your business moving forward. So I asked my lovely cfo, fractional CFO Pam Jordan, to join me on the show today. What's up, Pam? Hey. Hey.
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B
How are we?
- [01:15]
A
Oh, you know, feeling nice and hydrated after sitting here with you talking about numbers and drinking the rest of my 40 ounces of water in front of me. But I'm. I appreciate you taking the time because I've been looking forward to doing this for a while. I don't know if you know this, there was a guy named John Lee Dumas who did this basically for like 10 years. And that was how I initially decided to launch a podcast was because I read JLD's income reports and was always fascinated by the different types of revenue streams that he had on the podcast. And it showed me that it was actually possible to make decent money doing a podcast. So I was like, oh, let's try this thing out. So this is our first ever sort of income report. So we are going to kick it off with what we did last year in top line revenue and then sort of break that down into where those different revenue streams came from. So, Pam, go ahead and take it away.
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B
Absolutely. So pumped to share this with you. So for 2025, Travis Makes Money podcast brought in $450,000. And there was three ways that you made money. So the first one was ads and sponsorship income, and that was actually 70% of that 450,000. So the biggest revenue driver for you was ads and spons. So this is actual dollars in the account because of ads and sponsorships. And you can speak to how popular that is and how typical you off.
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A
Yeah, that is not typical. It is very rare to make that type of money from ads and sponsorships. And frankly, I did not know if it was going to be possible for us. So. So sort of like high level view here. I've been podcasting. This is my eighth year. I'm in the middle, I'm in the middle of my 8th year podcasting over 1500 episodes. But in the past, it historically was just basically like our. For my businesses, whatever I was working on at the time, it just sort of acted as like, this is what I do for a living. And I also just always enjoyed it. So it was always fun. But at the end of 24, I knew that we were going to be selling our software business not for what I wanted to sell it for, unfortunately, but it was ended up being just a good situation just to get out and clear my head and move on to the next project. And so the question I asked myself and my team at the beginning of last year was, is it possible for us to really turn this into like a full time podcast machine, like an engine that actually pumps out revenue from. From sponsorships, from sponsorship income. Because that was the initial thing that got me interested in podcasting seven, eight years ago. I just didn't know how to do it when I started. So I started building businesses because that was the only way I knew how to make money. And I was like, I got to figure out some way to pay the bills here. So, so beginning of last year, we made a drastic change. And the very first thing that we did is that we looked at our release calendar. So essentially it was like, luckily now podcast advertisers will advertise what they call dynamic ad insertion, which means that they can, they can dynamically insert ads across your entire library of episodes in a month. So they used to only pay you based on downloads per episode within 30 days of release. Now they pay you on just total volume of downloads per month. So it is a little bit more advantageous to the podcaster. And so I was like, well, how do we increase our total downloads per month? It was like, at the time, I think we were releasing one or two episodes a week. So I was like, well, two ways to increase total downloads per month. One way is to increase individual downloads per Episode, which is more difficult or expensive. The second way is to release more episodes. So we basically immediately went from two a week to seven a week. And then I was. And it started working. We started making, you know, 10, 12, 14, 15, 20,000amonth in sponsorship revenue at an episode a day. And then I had a conversation with a buddy of mine, actually works@acquisite.com for the most for the hermosis, runs their, their workshop division. And as I was like, hey Ed, this is what I'm doing. What, you know, what are you. Do you see anything that she's like, well, if you're, if the increased volume thing worked for you, like why not just double your releases? And I was like, well that's like two a day though. He was like, yeah, all right. So we doubled our releases again. So we went in September, we started doing two, two episodes a day. And again our, our sponsorship income continued to increase with that. So Now February of 2026, we will be increasing one more time. This is the last time though, Pam. I'm done. I'm tapping out.
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B
We'll see.
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A
Yeah, yeah, I guess we'll see. Three episodes a day is what we're going to be doing February 1st. And I don't know if we're going to commit to doing that for the full year, but we do want to see at least for a couple of months, like what will this do to our total impression count to our total advertising revenue here? And then it was also just sort of like a realization of what is possible when you just decide that you're going to do that thing. Because I always thought in the past, like one episode a day is crazy. I don't know how you could do one episode a day. And now we've been doing two episodes a day for like six months and we're moving to three episodes a day. And it's sort of just like a, a test of like, well, if something's important to you, you can figure out a way to make it work. You can figure out a way to get it done. So we're gonna do a solo show every day, a co hosted show every day, and an interview every day on the show for at least the entire month of February. And then we'll sort of take an account and see like what happened? Did we increase revenue? Was that worth the extra time that it took to release that third episode? You know, things like that. So yeah, that was, it was, it was a lot and. But it proved a really big thing to me, which is that it is possible to Turn the podcast itself into a full time, you know, income. Now it's just a matter of like, okay, now that we have this taken care of, what can we do now? So which brings me to sort of like the next piece of how we made some money, some extra money last year.
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B
Absolutely. So that leads to the second revenue stream that you have, which is podcast coaching for entrepreneurs, was 14% percent of your revenue. And so this was you spending time, one on one, helping entrepreneurs grow their business through coaching.
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A
Yep, yep. And this was. This was just like a afterthought, really, for the full year. It was just like, I was so focused on just like, how do I get into cadence to create more podcast content. I had a couple, like, side gigs coming in just to do random stuff just in case the podcast revenue thing wasn't working out. And so podcast coaching just came in as like an as needed basis. So actually Pam was one of those people. And we probably had maybe three or four others throughout the year who were just kind of who I know or warm network or they were a guest on my show or something happened and they were just like, hey, do you help other people set a podcast? And I was like, sure. So we did a little bit in the podcast coaching space, but it sort of reminded me first of all that I sort of miss it. We used to do a lot of this stuff, and I got burnt out on it at the time because I wanted to go build the software company that I ended up selling last year. But I miss the one on one coaching, Pam. I miss, like, the time that like. Like spending time with you on a weekly basis, like, actually being able to see progress happen and like, move forward. And then now it's turned into something that's actually brought in revenue for you guys, right?
- [08:07]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So when I wanted to launch a podcast, I came to you because you were a client early in 2025, and I said, how do I do this? Well, for me, it was about sharing people's stories, but also business development and having interviews with potential clients and that turning into revenue. And that's exactly what it's. We have two to three podcast episodes a week, so we're not as cool as you. I cannot do one a day because I'm still running My two to three.
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A week is crazy high, though, for most for a business owner. So congrats to you for doing that. It's a tall. Yeah.
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B
And so we started off with two a week, and we've been doing that. We've had some weeks where we do Three a week. And it definitely. It launched me into doing a podcast professionally and with intention, not just as an afterthought. And as a founder and entrepreneur, I don't have time for random ideas. So the time that I sit down and I'm focused on the podcast, I'm creating value for my audience, I'm creating value for my guest. And it also has so many other purposes because, yes, potentially I'm interviewing a potential like it's a sales call, but also it's a ton of content for me on social media. So doing that coaching with you has had multiple layers of benefits that have come from it. So the fact that that's been a big revenue contribution for you and will continue to be a revenue driver for 2026 is exciting.
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A
Yeah, that's sort of the, I guess, quasi announcement from this particular portion of the P and L. Was that because I enjoyed it? Because we got some good results and because we've always gotten good results historically, when do podcast coaching and because podcasting literally changed my life, that was sort of like the big thing that, you know, tipped the scales in the direction again. Talking to my buddy Ed, who works for Exhibition. We were at dinner one time and he was trying to convince me to get back into podcast stuff. And I was telling him all the reason why, you know, all the limiting beliefs in my head about it. And then eventually it just goes, did podcasting change your life? And I was like, yeah. And he was like, okay. Well, then there you go, you know, like, you, like, there's tell that story and, and tell other people why it changed your life. And some people, it's going to work really, really well for some people, they're not going to do the work. And that's not on you, that's on them. So get back into the space, you know, so this year we're going to be doing a lot more podcast coaching. If you are listening and you're interested in having me coach you one on one by the not like some random group coaching program or a bunch of Google Docs that I outsourced to you, it's me and you working directly with your podcast, getting it out into the world, then travischapple.com coaching can go over there and check that out. But yeah, so hopefully if we do this again next year, Pam, I think podcast coaching should be a much larger portion or percentage of the total revenue, but I guess we'll see.
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B
Awesome. Well, I will track it monthly and I'll let you know how we're doing.
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A
Perfect.
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B
So the third source of revenue was concierge growth services, which made up the remaining 16%. So explain what that means to the audience so they understand the other possibility of making money from podcasting.
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A
Yeah, so this was one that sort of stemmed from the business that ended up selling, which was guestio. So we basically would represent people, get them booked on podcasts. So this was sort of like a lagging effect of, of that business. And so we, I kept like a small team to make sure that we could still deliver on concierge services in case we had clients that still wanted to get, go get booked on podcast for, you know, book tour or whatever. But it's also like if you are somebody listening to who has your own podcast or your own content or something, or you want to get, you know, more speaking gigs or you want a better publishing deal, getting on podcasts is a really, really great way to do all of those things. It also fills up your content calendar with more authority, authority based content. It can bring you actual clients and revenue. There's a lot of good reasons to go be a guest on podcasts. And then when I started my show, that was like my main source of advertising. My show was just getting on five to ten podcasts a month, every single month, like clockwork. And then, you know, not all of them move the needle, of course. You know, for, for podcasts, it's sort of like a 1 in 50 type of a thing that is like, wow, I found the needle in the haystack. You know, like I had, I probably did 150 appearances before I did this one appearance that made me over six figures just from the one appearance by itself and quintupled my podcast audience overnight, quite literally. But I wouldn't have gotten invited to do that one if I hadn't done a hundred previously and I actually knew how to communicate effectively on a podcast. I had things that were worth sharing. I had the host of that show on my show. Cause I was a podcaster. So hint. Podcasters love interviewing other podcasters because they know they, they, they have a good microphone, they know how to communicate their message properly, they sound good, they look good, they're professional. So another reason to have a podcast is cause you could probably get booked on better podcasts. But yeah, that's essentially what that was. It was like podcast growth services. So we, we kind of wrap concierge services and then we also like buy ads for podcasters who want to grow the actual downloads of their show so they can make sponsorship income like what we do. So you Know, if we didn't. If we. If we didn't spend any money on advertising the show, then the total. Our total revenue for sponsorship income would have probably been at least half of what it was last year.
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B
Yeah. So just to review, 70% of your income from 25 came from ads and sponsorship. And asterisk. This results are not typical. Podcast coaching for entrepreneurs was 14%, and concierge growth services were 16. And we have a budget for 2026 with a clear plan of how we're going to get to your financial goals. And we'll be tracking these on a monthly basis. So I'll come on whenever you want me to, to share how we're doing. But the experiment of can you make money as a podcaster? The answer is yes. There you go. And can you make money as a business owner with a podcast? I can say, yes, you can make money. Also, let's talk about costs. Your direct. Direct costs for producing the podcast. And all of that was 30%. So 30 cents of every dollar that came in went straight to. Of the podcasts, the direct cost, all that. And then, of course, you have overhead costs, with the biggest one being your advertising. So you do advertise the podcast to get more eyeballs on it, and that costs 20%. So at the end of the day, the net operating income is 35%. And as a CFO who looks at lots of numbers, a net operating income of 35% is a really strong business.
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A
Yeah. Yeah, that was one of the things I was happiest about, probably, of the P and L from last year was just that the. The margin that we hit was like, okay, this is a. This is a healthy business that's worth building. You know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes you get into a business and you're like, okay, there's some product market fit. Like, people are buying this from me. You know what I mean? Like, people clearly, like, they. They want this to some degree, and then you start making money, and then you start having some expenses, and you hire this person, that person. Well, in order to fulfill, we need to get this person in here, and then we got to do this over here. And it's like, looking back on it, it was like when my. My, like, best year ever in revenue, you know, the business made probably less than 3% after paying me, of course. Like, if. If I add back my salary, the business probably made 10 or something like that. And, you know, we. We did like 1.5 million. So it feels good because it's like, oh, we did A million or whatever. But then, you know, what are we in this, what are we in this game for if you're not going to make any of that money for yourself or your family or whatever? So last year actually ended up like, so we, you know, the, the podcast itself made all this, you know, money, but then on the side, more like contract work and sales work and some other things like that. So last year ended up being like the most money I made in a calendar year, personally. Not for a business, because it was all my money. The majority of the stuff that I did was my money. It didn't go to, you know, paying a bunch of expenses and stuff. Which I think is one of the things about entrepreneurship, Pam, that I think is like over glorified over the last like decade, maybe two decades, is that it's like everybody only shares top line revenue numbers. Nobody actually shares their expenses or their, their profit. Which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode and just like, be totally honest and, and hear about like, hey, this is, this is what you can expect. And I've been doing this for like eight years, you know what I mean? And so it takes a long time to be able to build this type of income from doing something like this. But I think that's one of the things that's over glorified about entrepreneurship is like, you don't have, you don't have to continue to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow at all costs. And, and for some people, if you know what you want out of life and know what you want for your lifestyle, that actually probably is objectively a bad idea. I do think you should be shooting for growth because they're, I do believe that if you're, if you're not growing, you're dying. I do believe in that. So you can't just like be neutral. There's no form of being neutral. You're either getting worse or getting better. So you should always strive to be better. But then, you know, sometimes it's like you don't have to go from doing a million a year to doing a hundred million a year if it means that you're gonna pull your hair out, be bald by 35, and, and not see your kids until they're grown up. And you know what I mean? Like, there's, there's absolutely, it's all trade offs. So if you want to do those things, great, absolutely, go for those things. Go do those things. You do them. But something that I figured out recently is just more like, I, like, I don't need to. I don't need to buy a private jet. I really don't. It does not. Does not. Like, you know, like, if I could fly on one a couple times a year, sure, that'd be cool. Like, charter one, you know, take my family somewhere. Like, that'd be cool. But I don't. I don't. I don't need to be worth $350 million. You know what I mean? Like, so if that's the case for me, you know, then gotta engineer my life in a way that set up for me to enjoy my life the most. And this is one of those realizations.
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C
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- [17:58]
A
Ad where it's like, I love podcasting. I enjoy creating content. So if there's a way that I could do that, not have to work for anybody else and, you know, have higher income than the majority of the country, then that's probably not a terrible idea to just, like, see how I can continue doing more of that. And then when you pick a good vehicle, one that has infinite scalability, then it's by definition infinitely scalable. Meaning that, like, we can continue doing the podcast, but then in three years from now, we could have one episode that goes mega viral, and then all of a sudden, our sponsorship revenue goes from 300,000, 400,000 a year to 300,000 400,000amonth. You know, like the, the, the potential scalability of the media world is such that it makes sense to still spend your time doing it. So for those that are listening, sort of the takeaway here is, if you're not podcasting, why not? Because there's a lot of other. Like Pam was saying, in terms of being a business owner, there's a lot of other benefits beyond just the podcast or sponsorship revenue. In fact, that's probably that. The cherry on top. That's like, if you get lucky, you can do that. But there's so many other reasons to have one. For the content, for the communication skills, for the, for the connections and the relationships that you build with people. It's a biz dev tool. There's so many other reasons to have it. And Then if you can get to a point where you are anywhere near where I am in terms of your production costs are covered by money that you make directly from the show, then it never, ever makes sense to stop doing it. Because now, like, I don't know if I told you this, Pam, but we had over 50 million social media, social media views in the last six months of last year, and it's only growing, like, month over month. So all of that is free. I actually got paid to create that content. You know what I mean? So, like, most business owners have to go create content and it's like, it's. It costs them money and it costs them time. For me now it's like, why get paid to do all of that? That. So if I can continue to get paid to do that, then whatever business units we decided deploy against the traffic, you know, will be immediately profitable from day one. Like, we, we have more margin of error because we have profit built into the media part of the business, which is extremely valuable if you're going to scale up some other part of the business that requires higher expenses. The blended average of expenses over that business will still be closer to 30% than it will be to 10%, even if you have to hire some other people and things like that. So, yeah, it's been a great experimen, been a 20, 25 was a really cool year and I was happy to see the numbers. So, Pam, thank you for coming on and sharing some more with us. And then for people listening to who want to hear more from you about, like, how did the numbers in their business work and how can they be more on top of their P and L and how can they be more strategic about, you know, hiring moves and decisions and cash flow and all that kind of stuff. Where can they go to learn more from you?
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B
Absolutely. Just go to Pam jordan.com and you can link to my business, my podcast. Everything's right there. And I love what you said about the money because it's not what you make that matters, it's what you get.
- [20:56]
A
Keep big facts, Pam. Big facts. And the podcast is cranking. So, you know, go check out Pam's podcast. She's got a bunch of good content that she's put pumping out for business owners that need to know their numbers better, which is, frankly, all of us, if I'm being honest with you guys. So appreciate you all for tuning in. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, shoot me an email, shoot me a DM on Instagram. You know how to find me at Travis chapel or travis travischapel.com and Pam, appreciate you taking the time. Everybody else listening. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's start there. Here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.