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Travis Makes Money
SOLO | Make Money with Podcasting: Why You Should Start (Even If You Think It’s Too Late)
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Travis
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?
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Welcome back to the show where it's just me, you and the mic. On this episode. We're talking about podcasting.
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Why should you start a podcast or
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should you start a podcast? And I think you probably are gonna know my answer to this question. It's a resounding yes, you should start a podcast. No, there aren't too many podcasts. No, it's not too saturated. No, it's not too late. No, you can't be Joe Rogan. Okay, let me. I'm just answering some of the questions that people ask me all the time. See, yes, you can make money podcasting. No, it probably won't be through sponsorships at first. Let's see, anything else? Off the top of my head, I think that covers just about everything in terms of the questions I get asked all the time. But yeah, there's this generic or general rhetoric online that talks about, you know, how podcast mics need to be taxed and everybody's got a podcast anymore and, you know, oh, so and so started a podcast, how revolutionary or whatever.
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But the facts are the facts.
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So let me give you the facts. And in fact, I'm going to actually fact check myself before I do this because I want to make sure that I'm giving you up to date stats. So last time I checked, there's about four and a half million total index podcasts and less than half a million of them are active. So I'm going to see if that's changed at all. How many total podcasts are there and how many of them are actively releasing episodes still? Just to give you, just to give you the, the layout here, the actual facts. Total podcasts, 4.5 to 4.7 million. Damn, I'm good. So that's every show that's ever been launched and indexed. Okay. That includes all of the ones that never made it past three episodes.
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Active podcasts that are still actually releasing episodes.
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Oh, look at that. I was right about that too. 400,000 to 600,000 active shows, most commonly cited range 10 to 15% of all podcasts are active, but about 450,000 are actively publishing new episodes. So if you look at that compared to the saturation of all the other platforms, there's about 2 billion Instagram users, half of which probably are posting content, the other half of which are probably not. There's billions of TikTok users, there's billions of YouTube users, there's tens of millions of YouTube channels, there are over 5 million books that came out in 2025 alone. Okay, and you're worried that podcasting is too saturated. It's not. It's not. And it's especially not because most people suck. That's just the bottom line. Most people suck at it. And it's not, it's not like it's just because they suck and they can never get better, it's just that they suck, therefore they don't ever try to get better, therefore they quit. So like 90 of podcasters never make it to episode seven. So it doesn't take that much to be us, you know, good at podcasting, because so many people who try it aren't that good at it. It's like my buddy, what my buddy Chris Van Vliet always says about it, who's got an amazing podcast. He always says the awesome thing about podcasts is that anybody can do it. And the worst thing about podcasts is, is that anybody can do it. So you're of course in any industry where there's a super low barrier to
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entry and a very high potential reward.
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You're going to have a lot of looky lose and you're going to have a lot of half assed amateurs and you're going to have a lot of starters who end up quitting because they realize how hard it is. That's true of any, any industry that requires significant amount of work in order to get the actual trade off, but doesn't actually require a lot to get started. And podcasting is one of those things. So here's my, my opinion is yes, you should have a podcast. And I don't even know who I'm talking to. I don't know if I'm talking to somebody that's listening right now who's an entrepreneur and has a business and is trying to figure out if they should start a podcast for their personal brand or if I'm Talking to a 17 year old kid just getting started and wanting to figure out what they're doing with the rest of their life. I don't care exactly what it is.
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You should have a podcast.
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And I'll give you this Episode of
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the show is brought to you by Wayfair. It's way day at Wayfair. From April 25th through through the 27th, you can score the best deals in home, like up to 80% off. With free shipping on everything, Wayfair makes it easy to find exactly what fits your style and needs from furniture and decor to home improvement and outdoor essentials. And it's all on sale during Wayday. Best part, everything ships fast and free during Wayday. Plus you can shop with Wayfair Verified, AKA your shortcut to the good stuff. So their team of product specialists vets everything by hand using a 10 point quality inspection so you know that you're actually getting a quality piece no matter what your budget is. Look, I we basically have redecorated our home with Wayfair in the last few months and at every time we use a site I'm always blown away by how easy it is to use the platform itself. Also to find like the craziest stuff. Like if you think for a second that there's something that's not on Wayfair that you could put inside of your home for something, just test me out on this. Go to Wayfair and search for it. I promise you you're going to find it. It's crazy whether regardless of your aesthetic, if it's mid century modern or farmhouse or contemporary or eclectic, or you're looking for outdoor furniture or home upgrades or you want to upgrade the kids room or you need a new shoe rack, whatever it is, Wayfair has it. They make it simple to narrow down to exactly what works for your style and for your budget. Plus they have great reviews, filters, visual tools to help you make sure that it's the right fit and then you know, install assembly could be available depending on what you buy. It makes the process easier. Their shipping always blows my mind because you can get some like a literal Our dining room table that we just got came from Wayfair and they shipped it to our house fast and completely for free. So they have thousands and thousands of five star reviews to help you shop with confidence and find things that fit perfectly into your home and lifestyle. Wayday is the sale to shop the best deals in home. We're talking up to 80% off with fast and free shipping shipping on everything. So head to Wayfair.com April 25th through the 27th to shop Wayday. That's Wayfair.com W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style Every home. This episode of the show is brought to you by Factor. Look, everybody who's listening to the show is busy. I get it. There's kids, there's distractions, there's businesses, there's side hustles, there's podcasts, there's everything to
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prevent you from eating good quality food all the time.
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why that maybe you haven't thought of before because it's not about the audience growth. Oh wait a second. I'm drinking this Gatorade like it's a no sugar Gatorade. It's a full sugar Gatorade. That's probably why it tastes so good. Damn it. Ah, that's so disappointing. I was like, I was literally on a fast today, but now, now I'm
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not because I just consumed like 80
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calories of sugar water. Luckily, I had a strong workout today, so at least I'm replenishing some carbs, I suppose. But wow, that. That. No wonder. That tasted so good. Okay, anyway, so for those listening, you're a little bit confused. I took a drink of my Gatorade and realized that it was a bunch of sugar in there. Anyway, back to what I was saying. So the audience is the cherry on top. The audience is obviously the holy grail of income. It's the whole reason I started podcasting to begin with. And it's something that I love the most about my podcast now to this day, because now we have enough listeners and episodes going out and content banked up and a team that's taking care of everything. And we have enough sponsorship revenue coming in to support that team and support me full time, which is cool. And it's amazing because it doesn't require me to fulfill a bunch of backend products and services like I have. I have a few ads that I'm gonna record, actually, after I'm done recording my solo shows today. I have a block of about four ad recordings that I gotta do. That's the entire fulfillment for making the money that we make on the show through sponsors. So that's awesome, but it's just the cherry on top. Okay. There are several other reasons why you should consider starting a podcast, regardless of the situation that you're in. So first off, it is a perfect learning accountability partner if you are talking about anything that interests you to any degree. Right? So even like my buddy Pat Flynn, who started a, I Believe, a Pokemon YouTube channel with his son, something that interested both of them. Now that channel is over a million subscribers. I think, last I checked, crazy amount of followers on TikTok and Instagram as well. And if it's something that interests you, then having a podcast or a content channel related to that thing is the best way to ensure that you continue working on the thing that actually interests you. You continue to get better and improve at that thing because you feel like you owe a debt to the people who are giving you the time of day in order to make it the best thing that you possibly can. So this is the reason why I've ended up reading over 200 books in the last few years.
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I'm not.
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I've never been a big reader, but I dedicate myself to continuously learning More about the thing that I talk about so I don't sound like a dumbass when I sit on here on a microphone, talk to you guys about stuff that I've learned. Right? So I feel like I owe you a debt because you're taking the time to listen to my show. Therefore, I should be willing to put in as much effort as I can to make a good quality show. So it's a great learning and accountability partner. And again, regardless of if I read a book recently from a PhD who graduated from Johns Hopkins and, you know, does a bunch of crazy graduate level research and in the medical field and understands how to do all of that from that type of depth of research,
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but at the end of the book,
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in the acknowledgment section, he literally writes about the fact that his podcast has been his number one source of education for him over the last five years. And I thought that was remarkable for somebody like that who's classically, you know, trained in academia and knows how to pour through, you know, line after line of deep research that, you know, breaks down my brain cells. He looks at that and then goes, yeah, the podcast was the number one piece of education that I've had for myself because I get to ask questions to a bunch of interesting people and I do a bunch of research to stay on the up and up. So I provide good quality information to my audience. So it works for that, but also for the 17, 18 year old coming
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outta high school or go head into
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college or something, obviously helps with continued learning beyond just the classroom. So learning is a great ancillary benefit of having a podcast. Second, ancillary benefit is communication skills. Your ability to communicate a message is directly impacted by how often you do that thing. So the more you do that thing, whether it's public speaking or it's podcasting, or it's Toastmasters or it's sales, whatever it is, the more practice you get at doing the thing, the better you are at doing the thing. So if you have no experience public speaking and it intimidates you to think about turning on a microphone and talking into a camera, like I'm doing right now, then the path to get comfortable with that requires the discomfort of not
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knowing what you're doing at first. And the good news is you will get better.
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It gets easier over time, but it's not going to get easier. And you're not going to get better if you don't just do something about it. And in my personal opinion, anecdotally, I think that over the next 10, 15, 20 years, as AI really gets fully integrated into the workforce, the people who will be left as the coveted positions or roles are probably going to be the people who have the best communication skills, the people who can lead effectively, persuade effectively, influence others effectively. All of those things are still going to be things that are irreplaceable, in my opinion. And maybe at some point AI is just going to get so good that maybe it can do that, I don't know. But it's not going to be for quite some time, like humans are going to want humans. Even if AI is really good at
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it, there's going to be.
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It's going to require, like, my entire generation being gone from the workforce before AI is fully replacing that type of skill set. Just because we're going to be stubborn, just like the older generation above us was stubborn with technology and social media and things like that, just like the newer generations are going to be stubborn about technology that comes out from the generation after them. It's just what happens. So even, even if AI gets really good at it, I still have a feeling that it's going to be very crucial for the next couple of decades, because these are the. These are the skills that AI has trouble with. Empath, empathy for human beings and better communication and things like that. So it helps you be a more effective communicator. Number three is that helps you with connections and relationships. And this is probably the number one reason, in my opinion, to have a podcast, just because you'll be shocked, you'll be so shocked at the people who say yes to doing a podcast interview. I just hopped off of a coaching call with a client of mine who I'm helping with her PODC podcast, and we've for the last few weeks been working through getting new guests booked and things like that. And she said she was on a call with somebody who was on her dream list, somebody that she reached out to with this training that I gave her to go out and get good quality guests. She got this person on and this person who's somebody who she looked up to, respected, admired, and wanted to get on her show for a long time. During their conversation, this person actually looked at her and goes, like, how did you get in touch with all these people? Like, how did you get this person to say yes? How did you get this person to say yes? And then, I mean, she ended up. I was grateful because she ended up telling her that she hired me as a coach and it helped her tremendously to help her get those people on, but it was also a testament to the fact that my hypothesis is correct, that if you have a podcast and you do good work on it, that if you reach out to enough people over a long enough period of time, you will get a bunch of yeses from people that you never ever thought would spend any time with you at all. It still surprises me to this day how many people will say yes to sitting down and talking with me just because I asked them to. And if you did not, if I did not have a podcast, I would have no excuse to reach out to them. I would be like, oh, that'd be cool to connect with so and so. But that would be it. That'd be the, that would be as far as the thought went. Because I was like, I don't really have business to do with them. I don't really have any reason in particular that I'm trying to reach out to them. I might be able just to say a compliment like hey, you're love your content or keep up the great work or just read your book, great stuff. But what do you do after that? There's no way to actually continue forging
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a relationship with that person. But because I have a podcast, I
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can just go, hey, why don't we do an episode about it sometime? And now I have an excuse for 90 minutes to sit down and have an in person conversation with somebody who I very much look up to, I respect, I admire and I get to ask them all of the questions running around in my brain about the thing it is that they are really good at or the thing that is that they do really well. So the connections and the relationships are probably the single most important thing that have that has come out of me having a show.
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And the. And that's honestly the thing that kept
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me doing it even during times where I couldn't really back out of the numbers part of it or I couldn't really justify the blocks on my calendar that I had to doing it. It was just like, I can't just not do it because look at all of these people that I can get in contact with that I can just text and they actually respond and they text me back. How cool is that? Then you start getting bigger, bigger and bigger names on and it actually starts increasing business and helps you with your branding and brings more deals to the table and it actually starts affecting you financially and if you do it long enough as well. So your ability to connect with people is absolutely one of the benefits of having a show. And then if I was going to throw in the last one, I would say credibility.
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It's just this episode of the show is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard, it is terrifying. So much work goes into this thing that you're just not entirely sure that's going to work out. It'd be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know. When I started this podcast, when I've started several of my businesses, I just wasn't even sure what I was doing. Like, what if nobody listens to the show? What if I make a fool of myself? What if I embarrass myself? Nobody buys my stuff. Now I know that I was right in believing in myself and launching my podcast and several of my businesses despite all the fears and hesitations. But it also helps when you have an amazing partner like Shopify on your side to help. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US is using Shopify. Like this is the place that hosts all of your favorite products and services. So if you are considering this, then Shopify is a must. Especially. Especially especially if you're going to launch some sort of an E. Comm product. So get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that actually matches your brand's style. But Travis, what if I get stuck? Well, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 247 customer support, which is very very important to people like me who are still some for some reason like caught in the 1980s and I want to talk to somebody when I actually have a problem and instead of just relying on an AI system. And did I mention that the iconic purple shop pay button that's used by millions of businesses around the world, that's from Shopify. It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. Helps boost conversions, meaning less carts going abandoned and more sales for you. So it's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com TMM go to shopify.com TMM that's shopify.com TMM. This episode of the show is brought to you by Chime. Chime is not just another banking app.
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travis even if you're not getting, you know, I'm very, very blessed now to be in the position that I'm in at this point. To have had people like Shaquille o' Neal and Josh Peck and you know, the, some of the impractical jokers and then New York Times bestsellers like James Clear and Dr. Nicole Lapera, the holistic psychologist on Instagram or Mark Manson. I've even athletes Matt Barnes and Paul Pierce, guys that I watched play basketball when I was growing up. The, the, the. Even if I did not have all those people on the show, it still brings a level of credibility that other things don't bring. You just because it looks like you know what you're doing, it puts you in a position of authority regardless of if you're getting the top name people on your show. That is obviously extremely helpful for the credibility piece and speaks for itself. It speaks volumes. First, because it differentiates me from all the other people who say they're a podcaster. But just having a pot, like being a podcaster and positioning yourself in this light, allows you to take and hold a position of authority and it gives you more credibility. Not to mention, if you want more SEO juice these days, you got to put out more content, especially on like YouTube, like putting your podcast on YouTube and putting out a bunch of YouTube shorts, you know, any, any, any Google AI or any LLM that's, that's based on Google is going to be indexing all of those things and then bumping you up on search algorithms as well as telling people about you on AI platforms. In fact, the coaching client I was talking about earlier, that's how she found me. She asked AI who could help her connect with people for her podcast, and AI told her that I could do that. And she reached out to me cold DM on Instagram and then offered to pay me money to help her do this thing. So it's. Even the credibility piece even leads to more leads and more cash for you, your business, if you have one, or your freelance gig, if you want more freelance work or whatever. So these are all reasons, by the way, that I would do this even if the audience didn't come, even if I wasn't making sponsorship revenue off all this. Now, would I be doing the volume that I'm doing if I were making sponsorship income? Absolutely not. I would not be able to because it takes so much time to create the volume of content that we create now. But there's so many of the benefits to how to start a podcast. No, it's not too simple saturated. There's always room for the best. If you just get in and just decide to be better than most people. It's not that difficult to be better than most people, just the bottom line, a little bit of work over a long period of time. But our weekly content for two years, you'll be better than 95% of the podcasters who have ever started a show. So if you feel like it's tugging on you, you feel like it's calling you, or, or you feel like you don't really know what you're doing and you. And you're looking for direction, I think starting a podcast is a great way to try to figure out what that direction is. Just the people that I can talk to and ask questions about, like, well, why did you pick this thing?
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Well, what, what interested you about that?
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Or what are the pros and cons of doing this type of a business versus that type of business, or that side hustle versus this side hustle, or
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have you been able to monetize your content?
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How did you really start getting sponsors for your show? Like, it's all like, I can have a direct line of access to almost anybody I want and ask them whatever questions that I want about the things that they're really, really good at. And yeah, I can't say enough about it. It has absolutely changed my life. You've been considering it. Just do it and thank me later and then tune into the next episode that we do. Because I'm going to talk about how to actually start a podcast. The things that you should really be focused on versus the things that everybody else tells you to focus on. You know, the pros and cons, the do's and don'ts. We'll talk about that on the next episode. So that's it for this one.
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Thanks for tuning in.
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Remember, as always, at Travis Chapel on Instagram, shoot me a DM or travis travischappel.com shoot me an email. Tell me what we should be covering on the show next. And that is it for this episode of the podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time.
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