Podcasting Secrets

Most podcasters send a cold email and wait. Trish Manzo picks up a physical phone. She launched the Ride to Independence podcast about a year ago and grew it to roughly 45,000 YouTube subscribers by publishing three themed episodes a week and booking the guests she wants with old fashioned cold calls. Before podcasting she built a children's music program that served more than 450 families and ran...

Most podcasters chase downloads, sponsors, and ad revenue. Patrick Lonergan built something different. He is a tax strategist whose clients save an average of $280,000 a year, and his podcast is how they find him. The strange part is that the show has not earned a dollar directly. For two to three years he talked himself out of starting it. Now he turns away 29 of every 30 guest requests. In this...

Most podcasters chase guests, downloads, and sponsors. Mitchell Beinhaker built the opposite. He started The Accidental Entrepreneur for 75 dollars after seeing a Pat Flynn video, and 400 episodes later the show runs as a content engine for his New York and New Jersey law practice. Guests pitch to get on, booking agencies reach out, and new business arrives through referral instead of cold outreac...

Most podcasters assume they need paid ads to grow. Jaryd Krause proves the opposite. After he got banned from Facebook ads and watched a business that ran on up to $20,000 a month in ad spend fall apart, he rebuilt his business on a podcast with zero ad spend, and the clients started coming to him. In this episode of Podcasting Secrets with host Nathan Gwilliam, Jaryd Krause, founder of Buying Onl...

Most podcasters measure success by one number, downloads, and quit when that number stays small. Matt Haycox keeps a different scoreboard. The investor and host of No Bollocks with Matt Haycox went bankrupt at 28, rebuilt after losing it all, and has now recorded around 700 episodes over seven years. His take is simple. A podcast can pay off even if nobody listens. In this episode of Podcasting Se...

Most podcasters spend years chasing ad deals that never come. Tim Topham took a different path. As the founder and director of TopMusic Co and host of The TopCast, Tim built 470 episodes of a niche podcast for music teachers without ever running a single ad. Instead, every episode fed a paid membership community that replaced his full-time teaching salary, funds a full team, and has run for 10 yea...

Most podcasters think they quit because they lose motivation. The real reason is more physical than they'd expect. Michal McCracken is a transformational coach and host of the Space and Grace Podcast who helps entrepreneurs build abundant businesses without burning out, by working with the nervous system rather than against it. She built and sold a thriving pet care business, made great money, had...

Most podcasters obsess over downloads while missing the bigger opportunity sitting across the mic. Athin Cassiotis built The Business Growth Show to 290 episodes in five and a half years without missing a single week, then turned guest introductions into a multi-million-dollar partnership he never pitched. A high school dropout from Adelaide once told by his own teacher he would never succeed, Ath...

Most podcasters chase ad revenue and downloads. Jack Hoss went the other way. Over 9 years and 800+ episodes of RealDealChat, Jack has never sold a single ad. The show itself became the engine of his entire real estate business, giving him 45-minute conversations with elite operators who normally charge tens of thousands of dollars for a weekend. He calls a podcast the modern-day version of writin...

Most podcasters spread themselves too thin and wonder why nothing compounds. Ross Stockdale spent six years building 30,000 downloads across three different shows. Then he made one decision, went all in on The Thunder Stock Show, and hit nearly 400,000 downloads in nine months. A former MMA cage fighter turned fractional CMO, Ross treats podcasting the way he trained for fights: every rep builds o...

Most podcasters start a show and then wonder how to turn it into revenue. Philip Jayhawk Chan did the opposite. He looked at every marketing channel available to grow his investment firm, Lightspeed Investing, and picked podcasting because it was the one place where he could build real relationships, learn from the people he wanted to work with, and let his personality carry the conversation inste...

Gino Barbaro didn't know what a podcast was when his business partner suggested starting one in 2016. He said yes anyway. That decision led to a bestselling book, a real estate education community, and four podcasts that each serve a different purpose in his business. In this episode of Podcasting Secrets with host Nathan Gwilliam, Gino shares how a guest who sold 8 million copies told him exactly...

Most podcasters wait until everything is ready before they launch their next offer. Eileen Noyes signed 11 high-ticket coaching clients in two weeks, right before Thanksgiving, from a podcast she almost never started. A mom of eight who spent 16 years in a marriage where her voice was treated as property, Eileen rebuilt everything, launched The Unsidelined Life Podcast, and turned it into the engi...

Most podcasters sit on a content library worth far more than any ad deal they will ever sign. J. Kevin Tumlinson launched the Wordslinger Podcast with a $25 Fiverr theme song and a soundproofed spare closet. Today that show reaches 80,000 listeners. He spent seven years as the public face of Draft2Digital, one of the leading indie publishing platforms, and has published more than 70 novels alongsi...

Most podcasters spend hours preparing question lists. Marc Aflalo has produced more than 100 podcasts across 30 years in radio, TV, live events, and digital media. He has been doing it since before the word "podcast" existed. And his single biggest lesson is this: interviews get answers, but conversations create moments that move people to act. Marc Aflalo is the CEO of Aflalo Communications and h...

Most podcasters wait months to monetize, chasing sponsors who pay pennies per download. Tom Antion took the opposite approach and started making money from day one. He is the host of the Screw the Commute podcast with more than 1,060 episodes, an internet entrepreneur since 1994, and a lifelong entrepreneur who has never held a traditional job. In this episode of Podcasting Secrets with host Natha...

Most podcasters sit around waiting for sponsors who pay pennies per download. Danna Crawford, host of the Power Selling Podcast and known as Power Selling Mom, has been selling online since 1997 and built podcast revenue through e-commerce instead of chasing ad deals. Beanie Babies bought her a house in Florida, and she still sells across eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, Depop, and Facebook Marketplace to...

Most podcasters chase downloads and algorithms, while Richard Kaufman built 1,400 episodes and a 99% guest share rate by doing things most creators stopped doing years ago. Richard Kaufman is the host of the Vertical Momentum Resiliency Podcast 2.0, a veteran, comeback coach, and author of The Podcasting Blueprint. After a Humvee crushed his skull and left him nearly blind, he spent 18 months on h...

Most podcasters treat guests like content and wonder why the show never makes money. Andrew Chesnutt built two seven-figure companies by doing the opposite. He uses every podcast episode to build a real relationship, offers a free authority audit after recording, and lets the connection lead to business naturally, no pitch required. In this episode of Podcasting Secrets with host Nathan Gwilliam,...

Most podcasters focus on growing their audience first and figuring out money later. Josh Thomas took the opposite approach. As host of the Leverage Everything Podcast and creator of the Conversion Podcast Blueprint, Josh generated over $1 million in income from a single guest relationship that started inside his first 20 episodes, then went on to sell a $27 podcast guide that made $100,000 in its...

Most podcasters lose momentum because they rely on motivation instead of a system. Leo Young, founder of Cornell Communities and host of the Journey with Leo Young, coded his own allowance tracker app that deposits $10 for every completed podcast action and deducts $10 for every miss. His consistency system runs on immediate reinforcement, not willpower. In this episode of Podcasting Secrets with...

Most podcasters think monetization means waiting for sponsors. Jennifer Butcher never bought that idea. She built She Talks Money while running a 25-year mortgage business with her husband, owning a gym, and raising two teenagers. The strategy is straightforward: use the podcast to generate mortgage referrals, stack affiliate deals with guests who already serve your audience, and build systems tha...

Most podcasters chase downloads and revenue, while nonprofit leaders measure success differently. Michelle Saunders-Gottsch built the Altered Stories Ministry, reaching 80-plus countries and 160-plus women with God stories, focusing on kingdom impact rather than vanity metrics. Her measure of success is testimonies, faith transformations, marriage healing, and women feeling heard, not dollar signs...

Most podcasters beg for guests, while successful hosts attract high-caliber experts effortlessly. Carl J. Cox of the Measure Success Podcast, built a six month podcast waitlist with 2-3 daily guest requests by stopping selling and starting giving. His biggest mistake was trying to sell too hard, forgetting the podcast wasn't about him but about guests wanting to share their knowledge, wisdom, and...

Most podcasters quit after three episodes when download numbers disappoint, chasing vanity metrics instead of serving an audience. Mischa Zvegintzov, host of the Table Rush Talk Show, took the opposite approach. He focused on service by asking how he could be of service and what he could bring to the table, building confidence to speak anywhere despite discouraging metrics. In this episode of Podc...